The Black Hoard

By Carole Tempest

Remedy Rumstry never could resist a damsel in distress. He couldn’t have known that Rachel Porter was unlike any other client who had graced his office before. He soon finds that dark secrets hide behind the twitching curtains of the quiet villages buried in the English countryside. When the long lost treasure resurfaced, he knew he was in for a very bumpy ride. Unfortunately for Remedy, things get very messy when the original owners want their jewels back...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carole Tempest
• Release date: Apr 17, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311575432

Carole Tempest

My mum always said I lived in my own little world. She wasn't wrong, but now I'm starting to write it down and share it.Now though it has expanded into a whole galaxy.You can find me on Google+ atgoogle.com/+CaroleTempest

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The Black Hoard

By Carole Tempest

A Remedy Rumstry Case File

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 Carole Tempest

Other Works by Carole Tempest can be found at http://www.caroletempest.com

Dedication

To MrsB thank you for lending me Vi and for giving me a sounding board as I wrote.

To Ducky, Ditty, the crew of the Newmark and the residents of Darnell Towers, Remedy owes his existence to you.

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Day 1 - Monday

Day 2 - Tuesday

Day 3 - Wednesday

Day 4 - Thursday

Day 5 - Friday

Day 6 - Saturday

Day 7 - Sunday

Day 8 - Monday

Day 9 - Tuesday

Day 10 - Wednesday

Day 11 - Thursday

Day 12 - Friday

Day 13 - Saturday

From the Author

Day 1 – Monday

Every case starts the same way, with a new body warming the seat opposite my desk pouring out their own personal sob story. There is nothing I like more in this world than to have a mystery to solve or a problem to fix.

The worst part of my job is not finding answers. It happens sometimes. You just have to accept the fact that on occasion there is no satisfactory conclusion to be had. The hardest part is convincing the client of that fact. It’s almost impossible when the client just happens to be the local police detective.

Vi, it’s pointless! If she doesn’t want to be found, we aren’t going to find her. I was frustrated. We had been arguing for nearly an hour.

I don’t believe you.

Huh? What don’t you believe, that it’s pointless or that she doesn’t want to be found?

I don’t believe you can’t find her! Vi paced back and forth behind her desk. I sighed. Don’t you huff at me. Vi turned on me, I’ve been checking up on you Remedy. Do you know what I found? She was fuming.

I’m sure you’re going to tell me.

You grew up with the Chief. It seems you knew her better than anyone, which quite frankly stuns me because in all the years I knew her she never mentioned you. Vi stood with her hands on her hips. I looked down. I couldn’t look her in the eye.

She’s not the Chief anymore you know.

She’s my Chief! Vi shouted, Just because the brass made her resign doesn’t change that fact. She taught me everything I know about being a detective. I never believed she killed Krow.

Well that’s stating the obvious, Vi. I fought to keep my voice level. Van confessed and you still went and arrested Portia Rawbottom instead. It was a cruel dig. This was going from bad to worse.

Vi reddened at the mention of Portia. The trial had been a farce. It resulted in much embarrassment for Vi when Portia was acquitted. It was at the trial that I first met DS Bradley in person. She didn’t know me, but I knew her.

Portia lied. The evidence pointed to her. That confession was a load of garbage and you know it. She resumed pacing. You never really wanted to help me find her did you? She didn’t give me chance to answer. You just agreed to help me after the brass made me close the case, because why? Did you feel sorry for me?

I tried to tell you…

So you were just placating me? She cut me off.

Look, Vi I just don’t want you to waste your own money on this.

So now you feel bad for taking my money? Three months … three months you’ve been looking. Three months I’ve been paying you to find some trace of her. Chief Inspector Vanaheim cannot have just vanished into thin air, no matter how good you think she is.

Ex-Chief Inspector Vanaheim has more underground contacts than you or I will ever know exist. My phone beeped in my pocket. I pulled it out and silenced the alarm. I glanced down at my watch; it was one-fifty. That new body would soon be warming the seat in my own office across the other side of the village. I had to get out of the police station. I was getting a headache and we were getting nowhere. I’ve got to go Vi. I stood up to leave.

So that’s it? Vi slumped in her chair behind the desk.

I’ve got a new client coming in today.

Are you going to tell this client you’ll help and then let them down to? I deserved that. Vi was just lashing out now.

I’ll call you if I hear anything.

I left the police station and walked back to my office. As I walked I replayed everything Vi had said to me. I felt a slight pang of guilt. She was right about me and Van. We had grown up together here in Mayhem.

After Van joined the force and left the village I knew she never told anyone about the little side jobs I used to do for her.

I had done lots of them for her over the years, those times when she wanted information, or just a little extra digging that she wanted to keep off the books and out of the official reports. It was the kind of thing most officers use a confidential informant for.

Sometimes she had me do unofficial background checks on people and Vi had been one of those little jobs, years ago, before she ever joined the force herself.

I liked Vi. I knew her anger at me was a cover.

Vi’s brief affair with Shirley ‘Krow’ Cankrow, Daily Mayhem owner and ace reporter and ex-husband of Ms Vanaheim, had been hot and heavy. She was devastated by his death and inconsolable at the thought of Van being his killer. She wanted answers. Answers I knew I couldn’t give her.

I hung my hat and coat on the stand by the door. Dolly was sat behind her desk typing on the computer. She looked up and me and nodded at the door to my office.

New client, Rachel Porter she arrived five minutes ago. How did it go with DS Bradley?

I shrugged, I’ll give it a few days and try again.

I opened the door to my office and there was the new body warming the seat opposite my desk.

***

I forced a smile onto my face and tried to ignore the throb in my temple. The woman was in her late twenties, she stood up as I entered the room.

She was wearing one of those tight skirt suits that models and porn stars wear when they are trying to look like a secretary. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun and she even had the horn-rimmed glasses.

I didn’t think real people actually dressed like that and I had to stop myself from staring. She held out her hand and I shook it.

Remedy Rumstry.

Rachel Porter; your secretary said you would be able to help me. She clutched her bag to her chest as if it might go off. I’ve seen the pose before, it smacked of desperation, though that could just have easily been the tremor in her throaty drawl.

Please sit down and tell me what you think I can do for you?

She sat back down like she had a pole up her back. I sat in my chair behind the desk and tented my fingers so I could study her from behind my hands.

She stared back at me, defiant, but I could tell it was all just an act. She was about half a no away from turning on the waterworks.

I need you to find a treasure. I had to suppress a smile, but I think my eye twitched because I could see the dam about to break.

Any particular treasure? I should not have said it, but I couldn’t help myself.

Priam’s Treasure. She held tighter to the bag in her lap and stared even harder.

Ahh, well that shouldn’t be a problem. It’s in the Pushkin Museum in Russia. Her eyes widened in surprise, she hadn’t expected me to know that.

You are well informed, Mr Rumstry. Do you know the history of that collection? I had to give it to her; she was holding herself together by a thread.

Just what I read in the paper, a German found the site of Troy and then dug up the treasure. The Russians took it from Germany during the Second World War and now the Germans want it back.

That’s right, but not all experts agree on its authenticity.

Didn’t I read something about it being too old to have been from the Trojan War?

That’s right, it is generally accepted that the find Schliemann made was from an earlier Troy.

So it’s Troy’s Treasure, but not Priam’s Treasure?

That’s right.

And there is another treasure out there that did belong to Priam?

Yes.

And that’s the one you want me to find?

Yes.

What makes you think it’s out there?

I’ve seen it.

Oh well … simple then … where did you see it? I got the distinct feeling I was missing something here, or perhaps I was just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

In a cottage on the Isle of Wight. Clang. I fought not to burst into a guffaw. I only saw a few pieces there, but I saw a picture of the rest. She dug into her bag and pulled out a sheaf of photographs and gave them to me. I flicked through them.

So these ones of the jewellery you actually saw and held?

Yes.

And these others are pictures of a photo? The last few looked like pictures of a museum.

Yes.

And this is the treasure you want me to find? How difficult could it be to find the museum in the photos? This all seemed like a joke. Did she really just want me to find some random museum that had a Bronze Age collection of artefacts? Have you any clues as to where this museum is?

It’s not a museum. It’s a private collection. That made a bit more sense. All I know is it’s in the country somewhere. The man I met lied to me, about everything, and now I can’t find him.

So there’s a man who knows where all this is? I take it that’s who was in the cottage on the Isle of Wight?

Yes, I met him on the Lymington ferry and he took me to the cottage and showed me the jewellery and the pictures.

Why?

It was a chance meeting; he had the bracelet with him as he said he’d just been to the mainland to get it valued. When I first saw it I thought it looked like an important piece. I worked for a London museum at the time and I know what I’m talking about. He had no idea what he had. When I told him he asked me to look at the other pieces he had.

So you went with him to his cottage and you looked at these pieces of jewellery? I waved the pictures.

Yes, she twisted her hands in her lap. I knew straight away they were exceptional pieces. The workmanship and the quality of the gold and the lapis inlaid into some of the pieces were distinctive. When I saw the pictures of the rest of the collection I felt sure I was looking at something from 3500 years ago, right around the time of the Trojan War. The style was similar to the Schliemann find and it was consistent with Hittite, Sumerian and Egyptian art of the period.

Did you tell the man this?

I told him how old I believed they were. I told him they were museum grade pieces and that they were very valuable.

How did he react to that?

He was shocked. He had no idea what he had.

I looked down at my notes, something was nagging at me, didn’t you say he had just been to get the bracelet valued? Miss Porter reddened.

Yes, that’s what he had told me on the ferry. She dropped her gaze to her hands, I was so excited, I didn’t even ask what the valuer had said. All I could think about was what a find like this would mean for my career.

So what happened then?

I had to leave, I had to catch the evening ferry back to Lymington where I was staying. The man gave me his card. She pulled her purse out of her bag and opened it. She handed me a standard business card, the type you can get printed off at any motorway service station.

I looked at the name, Robert Parker. If you worked in London why where you in the New Forest?

I was on holiday. I couldn’t believe my luck. I had just decided to go the Isle of Wight on a whim. One of the girls working at the hotel suggested I visit Osborne House.

So you went back to your hotel. Had you arranged to meet this Robert Parker again?

Yes, he said he would take me to see the rest of the collection in a few days. But when I got back to my room I was too excited, I couldn’t wait. I did some research online and checked other pieces from the time and the more I looked into it the more I was convinced the set was from Priam’s time. I wrote an article and published it on my blog with the pictures of the jewellery. I heard a slight catch in her voice. I suspected what might come next, but I waited. She would tell me in her own time.

I got up from behind my desk and fetched a glass which I filled from the water-cooler in the corner of the room. I placed it on the desk in front of Miss Porter. She looked up and murmured a thank you and took a sip. She kept the glass, cradled in her hands. When I sat back down with my own glass of water she carried on.

"My boss saw the article. He was quite excited about the find and he asked me a million questions over the phone, technical details about the links and feel and weight of the pieces. To be honest I think he was making sure I had not made a mistake in the authentication.

Two days after I’d seen the jewellery my boss came down to the new forest and we went across to the Isle of Wight together. I tried to ring Mr Parker to make an appointment, but the phone kept going to voicemail, so we decided to just turn up.

When we got to the cottage it was empty. My suspicions were confirmed. My boss was furious. We saw one of the neighbours out tending her garden so we asked if she knew when Mr Parker or his mother would be home. She said she didn’t know any Mr Parker but the young gentleman who had been staying at the cottage had gone home, he was alone, and she had never seen a mother. She said she remembered seeing me, she thought I was his girlfriend. I told her it was a chance meeting that I’d just met him but I needed to get in touch with him.

She told us the people who owned the cottage lived in Reading, they only came to the island once maybe twice a year and the rest of the time they rented it out to holiday makers. She said they would have his information. We left the Island with the name of the owners and nothing else. My Boss was already suspicious. He went straight back to London and told me to forget it, it was a hoax or a prank.

I had held those pieces in my hands, I had studied them and I was convinced of their quality. Perhaps if I’d just left it there and forgotten about it I’d still have my job and my reputation. Like my Boss said at the time, ‘chalk it up to experience’. That’s what I should have done. Ms Porter paused from telling her tale and sat back in her seat. I didn’t feel the need to fill the silence. I tried to find Robert Parker, or any trace of him. His phone was dead, the owners of the cottage said he rented it for just the one week and the only contact information they had was the same as that which I had. He paid in cash, there just seemed to be no trail to follow.

I sent copies of the photographs and put the word out to the major auction houses asking them to contact me if they had anyone come in with a set of Bronze Age jewellery. They were the only places I could think of that could handle such valuable pieces. Word got back to the museum director and he hauled me into his office and told me I was making a fool of myself and the museum. He ordered me to take the blog post down and to leave it. But it was already too late. A reporter saw the blog post after one of the auction houses contacted him. At first they thought we were trying to create a buzz for a new collection. The director told the reporter it was all a con and that I had fallen for the oldest trick in the book. When the piece was published the reporter took me apart."

Miss Porter faltered and lifted the glass to her mouth. She was struggling to hold herself together. I wondered how many times she had repeated this tale. She had already said she didn’t have a job at the museum now. The rest came as no surprise when she finished her story.

The reporter called me a modern day Mellaart, falling for the charms of a handsome rogue. My boss said he had no choice but to fire me because I had brought the museum into disrepute. I couldn’t get another job. Everyone in my field knew what had happened. All I could do was try and find Robert Parker and the jewellery and clear my name.

But you couldn’t find anyone to take your case? She had made it