Best Kept Secret (The Clifton Chronicles 3)

'Not exactly the same, but similar, I suspect. Every gallery or collector will have their own opinion on how it should be displayed. We chose a simple oak base that we felt would be harmonious with its surroundings.'

'And how is the base attached to the statue?'

'For a bronze of this size, there would usually be four small steel lips moulded on to the inside of the bottom of the statue. Each will have had a hole drilled in it, through which a bolt and a bevelled rod can be lowered. Then all you have to do is drill four holes through the base, and attach it to the bottom of the statue with what are called butterfly screws. Any decent carpenter could do the job.'

'So if you wanted to remove the base, all you would have to do is unscrew the butterfly bolts and it would become detached from the statue?'

'Yes, I suppose so,' said Sir John. 'But why would anyone want to do that?'

'Why indeed,' said the cabinet secretary, allowing himself the suggestion of a smile. He now knew not only where Martinez had hidden the money, but how he intended to smuggle it into Britain. And, far more important, how he planned to be reunited with his £8 million in counterfeit five-pound notes without anyone becoming aware of what he was up to.

'Clever man,' he said as he gave the hollow bronze one final tap.

'A genius,' said the director.

'Well, I wouldn't go that far,' said Sir Alan. But to be fair, they were talking about two different people.

41

THE DRIVER OF the white Bedford van drew up outside Green Park tube station on Piccadilly. He left his engine running and flashed his headlights twice.

Three men, who were never late, emerged from the underground carrying the tools of their trade and walked quickly to the back of the van, which they knew would be unlocked. Between them, they placed a small brazier, a petrol can, a bag of tools, a ladder, a thick coil of rope and a box of Swan Vesta matches in the back before joining their commanding officer.

If anyone had given them a second look, and no one did at six o'clock on a Sunday morning, they would have assumed that they were just tradesmen and, indeed, that is what they had been before they joined the SAS. Corporal Crann had been a carpenter, Sergeant Roberts a foundry worker and Captain Hartley a structural engineer.

'Good morning, gentlemen,' Colonel Scott-Hopkins said as the three of them climbed into the van.

'Good morning, colonel,' they replied in unison as their commanding officer pushed the gear lever into first, and the Bedford van set out on the journey to Southampton.

Sebastian had already been on deck for a couple of hours before the Queen Mary lowered its passenger ramp. He was among the first to disembark, and quickly made his way across to the customs office. He presented the cargo manifest to a young officer, who inspected it briefly before giving Sebastian a closer look.

'Please wait there,' he said, and disappeared into a back office. A few moments later, an older man appeared, with three silver stripes on the cuffs of his uniform. He asked to see Sebastian's passport, and once he'd checked the photograph, he immediately signed the clearance order.

'My colleague will accompany you, Mr Clifton, to where the crate will be unloaded.'

Sebastian and the young officer walked out of the customs shed to see a crane lowering its hoist into the Queen Mary's hold. Twenty minutes later, the first piece to appear was a massive wooden crate Sebastian had never seen before. It was lowered slowly on to the dockside, coming to rest at loading bay six.

A group of dockers removed the hoist and chains from around the crate, so the crane could swing back and gather up its next piece of cargo, while the crate was transferred by a waiting forklift truck into shed No. 40. The whole process had taken forty-three minutes. The young officer asked Sebastian to return to the office, as there was some paperwork to be completed.

The police car turned on its siren, overtook the Sotheby's van on the road from London to Southampton and indicated to the driver that he should pull into the nearest layby.

Once the van had come to a halt, two officers stepped out of the police car. The first approached the front of the van, while his colleague made his way to the rear. The second officer took a Swiss army knife from his pocket, opened it and thrust the blade firmly into the back left-hand tyre. Once he heard a hissing sound, he returned to the police car.

The van driver wound down his window and gave the officer a quizzical look. 'I don't think I was breaking the speed limit, officer.'

'No you were not, sir. But I thought you should know you have a puncture in your left-hand rear tyre.'

The driver got out, walked to the back of the van and stared in disbelief at the flat tyre.

'You know officer, I never felt a thing.'

'It's always the same with slow punctures,' said the officer, as a white Bedford van drove past them. He saluted, said, 'Happy to have been of assistance, sir,' then joined his colleague in the patrol car and drove off.

If the Sotheby's driver had asked to see the policeman's warrant card, he would have discovered that he was attached to the Metropolitan Police in Rochester Row, and was therefore miles outside his jurisdiction. But then, as Sir Alan had discovered, not many officers who'd served under him in the SAS were currently working for the Hampshire police force, and were also available at short notice on a Sunday morning.

Don Pedro and Diego were driven to Ministro Pistarini international airport. Their six large suitcases went through customs without being checked, and they later boarded a BOAC aircraft bound for London.

'I always prefer to travel on a British carrier,' Don Pedro told the purser as they were shown to their seats in first class.

The Boeing Stratocruiser took off at 5.43 p.m., just a few minutes behind schedule.

The driver of the white Bedford van swung on to the dock-side and headed straight for shed No. 40 at the far end of the docks. No one in the van was at all surprised that Colonel Scott-Hopkins knew exactly where he was going. After all, he'd carried out a recce forty-eight hours before. The colonel was a details man; never left anything to chance.

When the van came to a halt, he handed a key to Captain Hartley. His second-in-command got out and unlocked the shed's double doors. The colonel drove the van into the vast building. In front of them, in the middle of the floor, stood a massive wooden crate.

While the engineer locked the door, the other three went to the back of the van and removed their equipment.

The carpenter placed the ladder up against the crate, climbed up and began to remove the nails that kept the lid in place with a claw hammer. While he went about his work, the colonel walked to the far end of the shed and climbed into the cab of a small crane that had been left there overnight, then drove it across to the crate.

The engineer removed the heavy coil of rope from the back of the van, then made a noose at one end before throwing it over his shoulder. He stood back and waited to perform the hangman's duties. It took the carpenter eight minutes to remove all the nails from the thick lid on the top of the packing case, and when he'd completed the task he climbed back down the ladder and placed the lid on the floor. The engineer took his place on the ladder, the coil of rope still hanging over his left shoulder. When he reached the top step, he bent down, lowered himself into the box and passed the thick rope securely under each arm of The Thinker. He would have preferred to use a chain, but the colonel had stressed that the sculpture was in no circumstances to be damaged.