The Year of the Dragon

By Stephen Hayes

The year is 1988.

For 40 years the world has been in the grip of the Cold War, and South Africa has been in the grip of apartheid. For 71 years Russia has been under Bolshevik tyranny. Though few suspect it, this is about to change for ever.

On a farm in the picturesque southern Drakensberg of South Africa a woman dies, and a young lawyer, Richard Rutherford, and his friend Denis Walters combine business with a pleasure weekend in the mountains. They will visit the farm to take the first steps in settling the estate. They soon discover that others also have an interest in the estate, or at least some items in it, and that they are prepared to kill for them.

The contentious items seem to be some old Russian ikons, but how they got to a remote farm and why others are so anxious to get hold of them is a mystery. The search for answers leads them to a strange hermit and an even stranger priest, and a drive of a thousand miles in search of King Lobengula’s legendary treasure.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Hayes
• Release date: Nov 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463733158

Stephen Hayes

Proved to be 'of a cavalier attitude' to life, the author failed his entry to be an R.A.F. pilot. Armed with five GCE 'O' Levels and no real community spirit he was urged on by his father to join Manchester City Police. His father, an ex-commando, having gone through five years of hell was a great believer in 'bottle'. Our languishing hero was an easy target to prove he had plenty. He later enjoyed the years of fighting, preventing and detecting crime as the GMP motto still proclaims, by now, with total abandon and little accuracy. Identified as a naturaI he moved through the Plain Clothes Department, The Drug Squad, the CID city centre, then the CID Didsbury and finally the Regional Crime Squad before resigning, being totally disillusioned at the 'wokeism' which was affecting his black arts of criminal detection. Be in no doubt he is qualified, has credentials and experience to ably compare the charlatans posing as leaders of Greater Manchester Police with real success. Become engrossed in the alarming detail "you'll hear fat dripping off a chip".

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The Year of the Dragon

Copyright 2018 Stephen Hayes

Published by Stephen Hayes at Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your enjoyment only, then please return to Smashwords.com or your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 – A Difficult Bequest

Chapter 2 – Denis goes to church

Chapter 3 – The Hermit

Chapter 4 – Prester John

Chapter 5 – The Traditores

Chapter 6 – Detained

Chapter 7 – The sea saw that, and fled

Chapter 8 – In pursuit of a legend

Chapter 9 – The Day of the Dragon

Afterword

About the Author

Other books by this Author

Connect with Stephen Hayes

Acknowledgements

To my son Simon Hayes, who designed the front cover, and to Charles Williams, who pioneered the genre.

Chapter 1 -- A difficult bequest

'Check to see if there's a more recent will,' Donald Peabody told Richard Rutherford that morning, when asking him to handle the winding up of the estate of Irene Sanderson, a widow who had lived in the foothills of the Drakensberg. Irene Sanderson's will, dated nearly 30 years earlier, in 1960, named Donald Peabody's father as executor. It had been brought to the office by her nephew, Ivan Morton, who had found it among her papers after her death.

No one in the firm could remember Irene Sanderson, and her nephew did not know much about her. She was a bit of a recluse, he had said. He lived in Durban, and though he had visited the farm as a child once or twice, he barely remembered her in life. It was one of the neighbours who had identified her body after death; he himself would not have been able to do so. He would be going back to the farm to try to sort out her effects.

Richard, facing a dull weekend, thought a trip to the Berg might be interesting, and he could kill two birds with one stone by dropping by the farm and taking a preliminary inventory, which would be needed when he went to register the deceased estate with the Master of the Supreme Court.

After work he met his friend Denis Walters at a bar for a drink to celebrate the end of the working week. 'What are you doing for the weekend?' Richard asked.

'Nothing much,' said Denis. 'Thought I might go canoeing, but it will probably be too hot.'

'Do you fancy a trip to the Berg? I've got a bit of work to do there, check up on some old bird's estate, but that shouldn't take much time, and we can enjoy the mountain air. There might even be a bit of business in it for you.'

Denis, a member of a firm of auctioneers, could help to value the property, which might need to be sold off if the heirs did not want to take over the farm.

'Sounds good,' replied Denis Walters. 'My car or yours?'

'I'll pick you up about eight-thirty,' said Richard.

On Saturday morning Richard and Denis set off. It was a fine sunny morning in early summer, and they were in no hurry. They stopped at Bulwer for tea on the hotel veranda, and drove on towards Underberg on the tarred road. There were several gravel roads off to the right that might have taken them to their destination by a shorter route, but the discomforts of dust and a bumpy ride could be put off till they were nearer the mountains.

They drove through the village of Underberg, and the nearby village of Himeville, which seemed to consist of one main street, and a few houses scattered among the trees. The road turned to gravel, and after a while they came to the smaller village of Pineville. It too seemed to have only one main street, with a hotel, a garage, and a 'supermarket'. They headed for the hotel, which offered a 'family suite', and a small rondavel in the yard.

'Let's toss for it,' said Richard, pulling a coin from his pocket.

'Heads,' called Denis.

Heads it was, and Denis had the family suite, with its five beds and bathroom, while Richard had the rondavel with a double bed, and a walk across the yard to the bathroom. His consolation was that it was half the price.

There was still an hour before lunch, so after unpacking Richard and Denis went for a walk down the street, back the way they had come. There was not much to see. Beyond the garage and the shop there were some houses, and beyond them a small stone church. Pinned to the peeling paint of the main door was a faded notice, written with a felt-tipped pen, announcing an Anglican service on the second Sunday of the month at 8:30, and a Methodist one on the fourth Sunday at 10:30.

'Seems we picked the wrong Sunday,' said Denis. 'Well, maybe next time, if there is a next time.'

Around the church was a graveyard, with some old stones near the church, and further away some newer ones. There was one recent grave, with a few fading wreaths on it. Richard looked at the label on one. 'Irene Sanderson. From the Pineville Farmer's Association. With sincere sympathy'.

They walked back, and went into the bar for a beer. There were a few farmers wearing shorts, with legs like tree-trunks, and the main topic of conversation seemed to be an interprovincial rugby match due to take place that afternoon, one of the last of the season. They asked the barman, an Indian, the way to Eersteling, Mrs Sanderson's farm.

'Mr Harvey will tell you, he lives out that way,' said the barman, and one of the farmers looked around. He greeted them rather curtly, and gave them directions.

'About ten kays out on the Loteni Road, you'll see a district road off to the left. Take it and drive up towards the mountains. You'll see the sign, you can't miss it,' he said, and turned back to the rugby discussion.

After lunch they drove out along the road, and following the directions came to Eersteling farm. The driveway led round to a kitchen door, and outside was parked a new-looking BMW.

'Looks like the nephew's fairly well-off,' said Denis.

The nephew appeared at the door, a dark-haired man in his late thirties or early forties, with a slightly florid complexion. After introductions they went in and sat at the kitchen table.

'I'm glad to see you,' he said, and hope you can help me to sort this business out. 'It's a hell of a job, I can tell you. Luckily the servants are still around, and they've fed the animals and milked the cows. I wouldn't even know where to begin with that kind of thing. She died on Tuesday, I came up on Wednesday, the funeral was on Thursday, and I had a quick look through her papers, and found a will, which I took to your office.'

He looked at Richard. 'I got home for a few hours, then came back and brought my son with me for company – he's fishing in the dam now, it's a nice place for a kid. The wife didn't want to come, though. Said it was too morbid.'

'We'll need your help, Mr Morton,' said Richard. 'The will you found is rather old. Your aunt appears to have made it soon after her husband's death, nearly 30 years ago. We'll need to track down the beneficiaries. We also need to get her family details for the death notice, and we need to make a preliminary inventory. Denis here can help with that, he's an auctioneer. Who were her parents?'

'Well, that would be my grandfather, William Morton. My grandmother died when I was a little kid, hardly knew her. I think her name was Eileen. My mother would know.'

'OK, we can get the details later. Is your father Leslie Morton? Is he still alive?'

'No, he died about ten years ago.'

'Well that's one reason we need to look for a more recent will; she seems to have left most of her movable property to him. The farm itself she seems to have left to someone in her husband's family. Perhaps it originally belonged to them.'

'Won't the things she left to my father come to me now?'

'No, that would depend on his will, we'll need to have a look at that too. I'll see if I can track it down on Monday. In the mean time, let's get started on the inventory. The first one is just a rough one. Again, we can get the details later, and we'll need sworn valuations for the farm and machinery and animals, but for the moment we need to list the main items. First, the farm itself. Have you found the title deeds?'

Ivan indicated a pile of papers in an armchair. 'Those are the ones that seemed important. I was going to take them home with me after the weekend. I didn't see another will, though.'

'Any idea how big the farm is?' asked Denis.

'Haven't a clue. As I said, we haven't really been in touch much.'

'Let's say five hundred thousand,' said Denis, writing it down on an official looking form. They went on through the animals, farm equipment and other similar items, going outside to check in the sheds, and with the foreman, a black man called Jacob, who gave them the numbers of cows and horses, and Denis pencilled in rough estimates of their value on the form.

'What about personal jewellery, and similar valuables?'

'I think I'd better show you something,' said Ivan, picking up a torch.

He led them out of the kitchen door down a rather dark passage, and opened a cupboard about halfway down. It looked like a conventional linen cupboard, and indeed on a couple of shelves there were sheets and folded towels. But on another shelf, at eye level, there was a flash of gold, and they saw about twenty or thirty pictures, painted on wooden boards, showing various figures on gold backgrounds. Ivan shone the torch on them, and there was another flash of gold.

'Can we take them to the kitchen?' asked Denis. 'I'd like to see them in the light.'

The pictures seemed to be arranged in a pattern, with the smaller ones in a large semicircle, and the larger ones in a smaller semicircle in the middle. They each picked up a couple of the larger ones, and took them to the kitchen.

'They're ikons,' said Denis.

'What's that?' asked Ivan.

'Religious paintings used by the Eastern Orthodox Church.'

'Are they valuable?'

'Some are. We won't know until they've been examined by an expert. Was your aunt a collector? She doesn't seem to have much other art?'

'I don't know if she collected them, or where they came from. I just opened the cupboard and there they were.'

'They probably come from Russia or Eastern Europe. Before the Russian Revolution, there were thousands of churches all over Russia, each one with hundreds of ikons. The communists closed most of the churches, and most of the ikons were chopped up for firewood, except for a few which people hid in their homes. Over the years there has been a steady trickle of some of these to the West, where they fetch high prices among collectors. Indeed, in recent years there have been a fair number of Russian collectors as well. Many people have forgotten their religious significance, but see their value as part of the history of Russian art and culture.'

Richard stared at him. 'How do you know all this?'

'We pick it up in the trade, you know. Not much of this sort of stuff comes our way, but we do read about it in trade journals and so on. And there's been a fair amount of similar stuff coming from Ethiopia, looted there in the various civil wars. It doesn't fetch such high prices as good Russian ikons, but you can pick up quite a bit in flea markets if you know where to look. You're less likely to find it in a collector's gallery, it's regarded more as folk art, but you're quite likely to find a couple of Ethiopian ikons as conversation pieces in some yuppie's living room.'

They turned to look at the ikons on the table, which were of various sizes, and seemed to be painted in different styles.

'That looks like Saint George and the Dragon,' said Richard, looking at the biggest one. It showed a military figure, on a white horse, pinning a large reptile to the ground with a lance. 'I always thought he was English. Why would the Russians paint him?'

'You've got me there,' said Denis. That's one of the things we'll need to ask an expert, if we can find one.'

They looked back at the picture, and saw that it was surrounded by smaller pictures. Richard looked at the figure of the saint more closely. He was wearing a golden cloak that seemed to be flying up above him like a wing. It looked like nothing so much as the wing of a hang glider. Did they have hang gliders in those days, he wondered? He was holding his lance at an impossible angle, his right hand high above his head in a kind of heraldic gesture. It could not have been much use for applying force through the tip of the lance. His eye followed the lance down to the dragon, writhing on the ground, and as he looked it really did seem to be writhing. The hair on his neck rose, and he felt a cold chill. He turned around quickly, to see what was behind him, but all he saw was the kitchen window, with some wilted plants on the windowsill, and the sun shining through on to the kitchen floor.

'May we take these ones with us,' he asked Ivan. 'I'd like to see if we can find anyone who can give us some idea of their value.'

'Take those papers too, while you're about it,' said Ivan, pointing to the ones on the chair that he had thought of as important. He rummaged among the other piles, and came up with a few padded envelopes of various sizes, into which they put the ikons, and a box for the papers, which they stowed in Richard's car, and drove back to the hotel.

That evening Richard sat at a table in the rondavel, and looked through some of the papers. Ivan had been right. There was no new will. There were, however, a couple of letters, dated 1962 and 1963, referring to some items that the sender would be sending to Irene Sanderson for safekeeping. There was no address on them to indicate where the sender lived, just a date, and the signature, Svyetlana. The name looked Russian. Could the ikons in fact have come from Russia, from this Svyetlana? He tried to think back. What had happened in 1963? It was the year he had been born, and so he had no first-hand memories of it at all. It was, he knew, the year that President Kennedy of the USA had been assassinated. What about Russia? He vaguely remembered something about Russian missiles in Cuba, but that had been when President Kennedy was still alive, hadn't it?

And if the ikons had been sent to Irene Sanderson for safekeeping, then they were not really hers, and so did not form part of her estate. So part of his job would be to find out who they did belong to, but where could he begin?

In the morning they had a leisurely breakfast in the hotel, and the proprietress was supervising things, and seemed chatty. She asked if they were on holiday, and if they were staying in the area long.

'We're just here for the weekend,' said Richard, 'mixing business with pleasure. My firm is dealing with the will of Mrs Sanderson, and so we came up to have a look at the property, and have a look at the countryside while we're here. We thought of driving up to the foot of the Sani Pass, and going back via Nottingham Road.'

'Oh, that's a nice drive,' she said. 'You'll enjoy that. But you can't go up the pass without a four-wheel drive.'

'So I've heard,' said Richard. 'We'll just go part of the way. Did you know Mrs Sanderson?'

'Just about everyone knew her by sight, and to say hello in the streets or in the shops. But not many knew her better than that. She didn't go out much, and she didn't have many visitors, except for children she took in for the holidays sometimes. Never had any children of her own, you see. She was a regular churchgoer, but even there hardly ever stopped to chat after the service.'

'Would the priest have known her?' asked Denis

'Not the one we have now, he's new. And not even the one before that, I don't think. And before that I can't tell you, because we've only been here ten years. Came and took over the hotel when my husband retired.'

Richard was disappointed, but asked, without much hope of more information, 'Did Mrs Sanderson have any