James - Snatched

Table of Contents

DOUBLE JEOPARDY

FORGET IT

FULL OF MONEY

HEAR ME TALKING TO YOU

KINGS FRIENDS

THE LAST ENEMY

LETTERS FROM CARTHAGE

MAKING STUFF UP

NOOSE

OFF-STREET PARKING

THE SIXTH MAN and other stories

SNATCHED

TIP TOP

WORLD WAR TWO WILL NOT TAKE PLACE

The Harpur and Iles Series

VACUUM

UNDERCOVER

PLAY DEAD

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First published in Great Britain and the USA 2014 by
SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of
19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

eBook edition first published in 2014 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

Copyright 2014 by Bill James.

The right of Bill James to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

James, Bill, 1929- author.

Snatched.

1. MuseumsFiction. 2. Black humor.

I. Title

823.914-dc23

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8379-7 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-511-7 (trade paper)

ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-529-1 (ePub)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

In the chair as Director, George Lepage considered this weekly session of the museums management board to be getting along unusually well: some argument, yes, some insults, but nothing actually barbaric or even inhumane. And then, as if to kick Lepages guarded smugness to death, the door was shoved hard open and, from the corridor outside, Keith Jervis stuck his head and short, thick, blondish pigtail a few inches into the Octagon Room. Alarmed, Lepage saw what appeared to be a broad streak of blood across his brow and more of it staining the lapels of his azure uniform jacket.

In a throaty, not quite panic-driven voice, Jervis, one of the economy-measure, hourly paid, part-time porters, said: Ladies and gentlemen officers of the Hulliborn Regional Museum and Gallery, we got what could be designated in my opinion a fucking riot at the Folk Department, pardon the demotic. Well, starting at the Folk. Ongoing. Now its reached Coins, Badges, Medals and Smaller Artefacts. What Im reporting for here, now, is to be given orders, really. This kind of incident outside my parameters, especially not being promoted to established, salaried staff, despite representations. Ill accept lip from visitors and even assault, up to a point, but thereafter through channels such as this door into the Octagon, yes thereafter, through channels, reference must be made to my superiors, to the policy makers, as it were. Thats only fair. Noblesse-o-what-they-call.

A disturbance in the Folk Hall spreading to Coins? Lepage said. He stood.

Its nasty, no getting away from it, Jervis said. We was outnumbered. Withdrawal seemed the only feasible. Regrouping is the term, I believe. Its chaos, though. In the rush I stumble and knock against a glass showcase of specie, and suffer the wound. He pointed to his forehead but didnt touch it, so as not to get his hand bloody. They got dangerous edges, some of them display stands. The public safety authorities wouldnt like them. But, then again, I got to admit there wouldnt normally be someone, such as self, falling over in the museum owing to a galloping fracas.

Quite, Lepage said, but youve done admirably, and Im distressed to see youre hurt. Jervis had come a few steps into the room now. Please give us the details, Keith.

Whats that terrible noise? Pirie asked, very tense.

Lepage had heard it, too. From behind Jervis through the open door came the distant sound of an angry, possibly violent, crowd. The word baying entered Georges head to describe the din, but this he quashed at once: crowds in the museum was a difficult enough idea, but a baying crowd? We must go there at once, Lepage said. He was in charge.

Some might ask how come he was in charge. Possibly, theyd consider him too young for his post as Director of a major museum, like the Hulliborn, especially at a time when museums and their finances had begun to suffer increasingly unpleasant problems. Perhaps the last time they heard of George he was only head of a department here (Archaeology), among a barrelful of other department heads. However, George had moved up on the death of Flounce last September, Flounce being the unaffectionately used nickname of Sir Eric Butler-Minton, former Director.

Anyway, now here was George Lepage, kingpin of the Hulliborn. He did look reasonably, though not outrageously, young: that is reasonably, not outrageously, young for such a job forty-eight. He kept himself decently spry. Or in that area. His face was long and bony, though not cadaverous, in his judgement. He had good fair skin and was clean shaven very efficiently clean-shaven: no missed stubble nests. His hair was straight mousy to straw and, to date, as full as it had ever been, with an impertinent, boyish cowlick that needed pushing back off his forehead now and then, but not so far that it didnt fall into position again soon. His brown eyes were keen and lively, not absolutely unsly but not ruthless or egomaniac, either: nobody could run a museum without at least a sliver of slyness.

Just before Jerviss incursion George had been wondering whether he could award himself some credit for the prevailing, moderately polite, generally civilized atmosphere of the management meetings, following his replacement of Flounce. Possibly. The orderliness of todays proceedings had pleased but also scared George. Wasnt it eerie to look down the big, leather-padded, mahogany table and see for a long stretch of consecutive seconds definite smiles and contentment on these customarily contempt-filled, arid, avid faces? This afternoon, no voice had employed yet that high-pitched, enraged snottiness, dubbed throughout the trade curators retch, in which so much major business was traditionally done in premier division museums, here and overseas.

Lepage returned to the notion that perhaps some of his colleagues apparent happiness derived from seeing him, George Lepage, actually there in the Directors chair, sturdy, unarguable evidence that Flounce really had been screwed down in that long, fake-oak box, garnished with a pair of foxgloves and burned at the crem: no question of a vigorous, slavering return, in one of his unbelievable Dominican Republic suits, to slag them off as cock-sucking subscribers to the Independent.

This didnt mean everything was peachy. The Hulliborn had enemies. Which museum worth its grant didnt? Sadly, several of Hulliborns had previously been distinguished members of the staff, but now nursed festering psychological injuries after being flung out in the recent cutback programme implemented by Butler-Minton as one of his last duties, though enforced from Downing Street. For some, the Hulliborns vast halls of preserved death and the past had been life. Deprived of them, they grew evil. Some went mad.