Powerstone (8 page)

‘Will they do for Ms Manning?’

‘Oh yes.’ Irene looked forward,
into the brightly lit room that held the Honours of Scotland. She shivered with
apprehension, for these jewels were not just a means to her end of becoming Ms
Manning’s neophyte; they held an extra significance in her life. ‘The oldest
crown jewels in Britain, one of the oldest in Europe, worn by James IV, James V
and Mary Queen of Scots. They are a unique set of royal jewellery unmatched
anywhere in
America
.’ She nodded, ‘oh yes, Patrick, they’ll
do for Ms Manning.’

‘Let’s see them then.’ With
uncharacteristic chivalry, Patrick stepped back to allow Irene first access to
the Crown Room. She bobbed in a whimsical curtsey and negotiated the curving
stair.

Tapping the massive entrance door,
Irene pulled a face. Raised on
Hollywood
movies where muscular heroes kicked their way into apartments, she could not
imagine even Arnold Schwarzenegger bursting through four-inch thick steel. She
stepped into the darkened Crown Room and stopped.

Ms Manning’s personal collection
had been magnificent, beautiful but clinical; a collection without a soul, but
the sheer splendour of the Scottish Honours twisted something deep inside her.
Irene drew in her breath, aware of the rapid increase in her heartbeat.

The crown was central to the
display, its circlet of gold mined from Crawford Moor in the heart of the
Scottish Lowlands. The metal glowed with a soft sheen, made more valuable by
the knowledge that it had adorned the heads of royalty. Augmenting the gold,
twenty precious stones and twenty-two gemstones glinted under the subdued
lighting.

Irene pressed her nose against the
glass, striving to see everything that she could, as if she could hold the
object with her mind and mentally transport it to
New York
.

‘What do you think?’ Patrick
squeezed against her, whispering in the restrained atmosphere of the room.

‘It’s beautiful,’ Irene tried to
hide the awe from her voice. She closed her eyes momentarily, seeking some
objectivity. She was not here to admire these objects, only to use them. ‘Ms
Manning will approve.’

Patrick nodded to the crown. ‘I’ve
been counting the stones. I make it eight diamonds and over seventy pearls,
plus a bunch of semi-precious stones, and a whole lot of gold.’

Irene could nearly see the dollar
signs in his eyes. ‘I believe you,’ she said. ‘But it’s not the intrinsic value
of the thing that’s important; it’s the historical association and the
symbolism. Imagine, kings and queens have worn that crown.’

‘Have they used that too?’ Patrick
gestured to the sword. ‘It must be five feet long! How many heads has that cut
off, eh? I can see old Braveheart carrying that into battle. No wonder he won.’

Irene’s eyes caressed the long
blade of the sword. ‘What more would Ms Manning want that a present from a pope
to a king? Look at the workmanship; it’s magnificent. And the Scots hid it from
Cromwell, and again from Hitler.’

‘Yeah.’ Patrick turned his
attention from the sword to the rectangular lump of sandstone that was also
displayed. ‘What the hell’s that?’

Irene squinted to read the
description. ‘The Stone of Destiny,’ she intoned, making the words sound very
solemn. ‘It says that the kings and queens of
Scotland
sat on it to be crowned. It’s an ancient seat of power.’

‘Well imagine that. The kings sat
on an old rock.’ Patrick shook his head. ‘It’s time that somebody dragged this
country into the twenty-first century. ‘Do you think they’ve heard of
television yet?’

‘They invented it,’ Irene said
absently. She stared at the Stone, wondering at its story, at the generations
of kings that had perched on its rugged surface, and what had happened to them.
‘It’s amazing really.’

‘Yeah, really amazing that people
who keep a stone all locked up could invent a television. But what’s that?’ Patrick
nodded to the sceptre that lay at the side of the Stone. ‘That looks better.
Did the Pope give the king that too? What was it – a royal truncheon to crack
skulls?’

‘It’s a symbol of power,’ Irene
corrected. ‘Did you not read any of the stuff back there?’

‘Another symbol. Everything’s
symbolic; nothing’s for real. Is it gold though?’

‘Gilded silver.’

Patrick grunted his
disappointment. ‘Hey, though, is that a diamond on top?’

‘No.’ Irene shook her head. ‘Rock
crystal, the same as fortune tellers use in fairgrounds.’

‘Jesus. That good eh?’ Patrick
stood up. ‘We should have stayed with the
real
crown jewels. We’ve flown
all this way to look at a fairground trinket.’

‘That fairground trinket is worth
countless millions,’ Irene said quietly, ‘and it carries the soul of a nation.
We’d be making Ms Manning a royal gift.’

‘And she’d be giving you her queendom.’
Patrick suddenly grinned. ‘Where did all this poetry come from, Irene? Hey
there, we’ve seen the damned things, let’s go away and plan.’

‘
Edinburgh
is a city of many layers. Surrounding the castle, the
mediaeval
Old
Town
of narrow streets, wynds and closes has a history of
riot, secret vice and blood soaked into its weary stones. Beyond the
Old
Town
is the New, a masterpiece of Georgian and Regency
planning, a place of Classical architecture, of crescents and terraces, of
formal gardens and sophistication. Beyond that again spreads the Victorian city
of tenements and tall-spired churches, dominated by students, artisans and
clerks, and yet further out is a peripheral ring of trim bungalows and
municipal housing schemes interspersed with some of the most expensive
dwellings in Scotland.’

Putting down the guidebook, Irene
sighed. She had no intention of venturing beyond the town centre, and had found
sanctuary from the chill in a small and busy pub a musket shot from the castle.
The interior was dark but cosy and she smiled her way to the bar to order pie
and chips and two pints of Scottish beer.

Patrick screwed up his face at the
taste and colour. ‘Don’t they have American beer, here? This stuff is dark.’

‘Drink up and don’t draw any more
attention to yourself.’ Irene opened up the notes that she had made. ‘We have a
lot of work ahead of us. First we have to decide exactly what we want, then how
to get it.’

‘We want the crown,’ Patrick said
at once. ‘The rest is just garbage. Big swords, hunks of rock and gilt sticks
with crystal balls.’

‘We want the full Honours,’ Irene
said, ignoring his outburst, ‘but not the Stone of Destiny.’ Some instinct told
her not to touch the Stone; while the Queen claimed the Honours, she guessed
that the people placed more value on that undistinguished chunk of sandstone.
It would be better not to disturb tranquil waters, for who knew what Caledonian
monster lurked beneath. Besides, King James V had worn that crown, and she
wanted it badly. ‘We want the full honours,’ she repeated.

‘Why?’

‘A full set is always worth more
than the sum of its parts,’ Irene said. ‘Don’t argue.’ Her smile was intended to
remove any sting from the rebuke.

Patrick did not argue. ‘If that’s
what you want.’ He took a sip of his beer and screwed up his face.

Irene looked around her.
Dominating the back wall of the pub, a large painting showed a scene from the
Battle of Waterloo, where British cavalrymen hacked at a mob of French
soldiers. One of the British also held a tricolour standard. ‘They like their
history, don’t they?’

‘It’s all they’ve got,’ Patrick
said. He drank some more of his beer. ‘We have four problems then. We have to
break into a castle, remove the stuff, get away again and carry everything into
the States.’

‘We’ll take them one at a time,’
Irene decided. ‘One: breaking in. We don’t have to. The castle doors are open,
so we go in as ordinary tourists, just as we did today. There must be somewhere
that we can hide in a place that size. That’s been done before; I’ve seen it in
loads of movies.’

‘That plan’s so simple it must
work,’ Patrick grinned. ‘Imagine allowing unarmed stewards to guard a queen’s
treasure in a place full of dark corners. So we’ll do as you say. Breaking the
stuff out might be more difficult.’

‘I agree.’ Irene looked at him
across the littered table. ‘The only way into that room is up a narrow curving
staircase and through the steel door. There are no windows in the Crown Room,
the walls are at least two feet thick and it’s up three flights of stairs; I
saw electronic surveillance equipment too. I hoped you could think of
something.’

Patrick shook his head slowly.
‘Maybe we can’t sneak in and lift the crown then. Listen, the stewards don’t
carry guns, so how about we do it the old fashioned way. You’ve got a million
dollars to play with. Hire a few hit men from the States and hold the place up.
Smash the glass and run. Sure there’ll be alarms ringing, but the limeys won’t
know what to do; they live in the past.’

‘And you live in
Hollywood
.’ Irene glanced up. A party of
soldiers had entered the pub, led by the sergeant who had winked at her in the
castle. Each man armed himself with a pint of beer before filing to a table
that miraculously emptied at their advance. The sergeant grinned to Irene.

‘Hello there,’ he said, ‘did you
enjoy your visit to the castle?’ His accent was very Scottish.

‘It was very interesting,’ Irene
told him. The sergeant was not tall, perhaps an inch shorter than her five
eight, but he was broad shouldered and fit. Multicoloured medal ribbons
decorated his breast.

‘You spent a lot of time in the
Crown Room,’ the sergeant observed. He nodded to Patrick, eyes narrow, sizing
him up. ‘American are you?’

‘
New York City
,’ Irene said proudly.

‘The Big Apple eh? Nice place.’
The sergeant approved. Light gleamed on the badge on his Glengarry. ‘My wife
goes shopping there sometimes. She flies over for the weekend,’ he glanced
across to his men, who were talking forcibly about football. ‘Well, enjoy your
stay in
Scotland
.’

‘We will,’ Irene said, and then on
an impulse, she leaned closer. ‘Tell me, are you based permanently in the
castle? Like a sort of guard? Or do you get out to other places?’

The sergeant crouched down at her
side, obviously willing to talk. ‘We get around,’ he said. ‘The redcaps, that’s
the Royal Military Police, are always in the castle, but you don’t want to see
them.’ He shook his head. ‘But they’ll see you all right. Eyes in their arse,
these boys. The headquarters of 52 Infantry brigade is also in the castle, the
clerks and staff and so on.’ He shrugged, ‘we’re only there temporarily. We’re
just back from a tour of
Iraq
, so it’s good to get some peace.’
He sank about half his pint in a single draught. ‘Why do you ask? Are you from
a military background?’ He glanced at Patrick, eyes still challenging, ‘or do
you want to change your boyfriend for a squaddie?’

Irene gave the crinkle-eyed laugh
that men always loved. She leaned closer to Patrick and patted his arm
reassuringly. ‘Not at all, I’ll keep him for a bit longer. No, sergeant, I just
wondered how much of the castle is for real and how much for tourists like me.’

Stepping across to his men, the sergeant
requisitioned a chair from a disgruntled private soldier and dragged it across.
‘About half and half,’ he said. ‘It’s still a working military base.’

Releasing Patrick, Irene smiled
into the sergeant’s eyes. ‘With all the terrorist threats, should you really be
telling me all this military information?’

‘If it was a secret,’ the sergeant
said, grinning, ‘I would never get to know about it.’ He glanced over to his
men before returning his attention to her. ‘Anyway, it’s all on the Internet,
if you can be bothered to search. Is it
Edinburgh
Castle
you are interested in, or just
castles in general?
Scotland
’s got plenty to choose from.’

‘Only
Edinburgh
.’ Irene’s smile had charmed
scores of men in her career, but the sergeant seemed immune. She got the
disturbing impression that he was assessing her even as she asked the
questions. ‘We really loved your crown jewels,’ she said breathlessly, ‘does
the Queen wear them when she comes to
Scotland
?’

‘Not any more,’ the sergeant said.
His smile seemed to have disappeared as he moved his attention from Irene to
Patrick. ‘She likes them to stay in the castle so that everybody can see how
rich she is.’

‘Come on, Sarge!’ one of the
privates shouted across the room. ‘Stop chatting up that woman before I tell
your wife.’ There was a series of catcalls and whistles that caught the
attention of the barmen. ‘Bring her over here instead!’

The smile was back on the
sergeant’s face. ‘You’re in demand. Come on over and meet the Jocks.’