Page 103 of Traitors Gate

‘And if we don’t?’ Paul chipped in helpfully. ‘Booth Watson will reveal exactly where the real crown is. But by then, it will be too late for us to do anything about it.’

‘Except resign,’ said the Hawk. ‘Which is exactly what he had planned for us in the first place. Let’s start with you, Jackie. Did you pick up anything useful from the staff you interviewed at the Tower immediately following the robbery?’

‘Not a great deal,’ admitted Jackie. ‘And it wasn’t made anyeasier by the fact I couldn’t let anyone know the real reason we were interviewing them.’

‘Any recent recruits who could have been planted by Faulkner to assist him on the day?’ asked William.

‘Two former Green Jackets, both with honourable discharges, have recently been signed up as Yeomen,’ said Paul, turning to another file. ‘We’ve checked them both out, but as they’d only just returned from serving a two-year spell in Northern Ireland, they couldn’t possibly have been involved.’

‘But that doesn’t apply to Penny Cummins,’ said Rebecca, ‘the young woman who’s been working part time in the ticket office and admitted texting the words “Colonel Blood” to an unknown contact – undoubtedly Faulkner or Lamont. But she wouldn’t have known that, not being a member of the inner team.’

‘But how did she find out the password in the first place?’ demanded the Hawk.

‘The Governor’s wife,’ said Rebecca. ‘When she was stopped at the West Gate and asked by Cummins if she knew the password, one of the children blurted it out.’

‘If he hadn’t,’ said William with some considerable feeling, ‘Faulkner couldn’t have risked going ahead with the whole operation.’

‘Where was Faulkner at the time?’ demanded the Hawk.

‘As far as it’s been possible to trace his exact movements, while I was at the palace picking up the Lord Chamberlain, Faulkner was at the Old Bailey chatting to my father.’

‘Your father?’ repeated the Hawk.

‘All part of an elaborate alibi that would prove he couldn’t possibly have been in the Tower when the crown was stolen.’

‘And after that?’

‘He walked to the House of Lords, dropping in at the Savoyto book a table in the Grill for lunch, adding several more eyewitnesses to prove he couldn’t have been in two places at once.’

‘Well, he won’t be having lunch at the Savoy today,’ said the Hawk, ‘because he’s locked up in solitary. And we shouldn’t be wasting any more of our time on Faulkner, but concentrating on his foot soldiers who appear to have been in on the operation from the start. You can be sure whenever Faulkner’s involved, Booth Watson, Lamont and Collins won’t be far behind.’

‘Although I suspect Harris was the key component in the operation,’ said William, ‘as he was clearly their inside man. If he hadn’t been sitting behind the wheel of the Jaguar, they could never have made it past the East Gate, although what I can’t work out is how he and Faulkner ever met.’

‘Harris was up to his eyes in debt until about six months ago,’ Jackie said while opening another of her files, ‘when suddenly his monthly alimony and mortgage payments are paid up to date, and his bank account is no longer in the red. I also found out that Harris was in debt to a leg-breaking bookie, so clearly felt the risk was the better of two evils. I think we can assume his paymaster was Faulkner, and he must have received a large down payment to keep him on side.’

‘But while we know where Faulkner, Lamont and Collins are,’ said William, ‘we still haven’t been able to track down Harris.’

‘Didn’t he leave a paper trail of any sort?’ asked the Hawk. ‘Plane, boat or train bookings, anything?’

‘Not in his name,’ came back William, ‘but let’s face it, that’s something else Faulkner could have taken care of, and once Harris had played his part, he wouldn’t have hung about. He’d have been only too aware he was the one person whocould have been identified by those who work at the Tower so would have had to make a quick get-away while he had the chance.’

‘My bet,’ continued Paul, ‘is having dumped the Jag in the churchyard only minutes after leaving the Tower, he bolted, knowing that within a couple of hours, half the police forces in Europe would be looking for him.’

‘But where’s he bolted to?’ asked Jackie. ‘Because—’

‘Somewhere where there’s no extradition—’

‘I don’t give a damn where he is,’ snapped William, taking them all by surprise. ‘Harris is the least of our problems. He won’t have any idea where Faulkner’s hidden the crown. That wasn’t his role in this operation.’

The Hawk had never seen William so rattled, and quickly intervened before it got out of hand. ‘But that doesn’t apply to Lamont,’ he said calmly, ‘who could well have been the Chief Superintendent sitting on the back seat of the Land Rover probably wearing his own uniform.’

‘He even promoted himself,’ said Jackie, ‘but as he only got out of the car once and kept his distance, we have no way of proving he was even there.’

‘Where does he claim he was at the time?’

‘At home with his wife all morning. Says he never left the house, which she confirmed when we interviewed her.’

‘Of course she did,’ said William.

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