A blizzard rages across a desolate landscape, thunder rolls, wolves howl. Away in the distance there is movement. Gradually as the swirling snow parts the viewer sees that it's a horse, no, three horses, pulling a sleigh. And as it gets nearer the passengers became visible, a man and a woman and two children, and they are all smiling, and as the din of the raging storm dies to be replaced by the swelling strains of Prokofiev's 'Troika' music, the viewpoint swings round to show over the horses' tossing heads the turrets and towers of what looks like a small city emerging from the white plain, above which arcs with a brilliance like the Northern Lights the word ESTOTILAND.
'Christmas starts in Estotiland,' intones a voice like the voice of a transatlantic God. 'Here in Estotiland you'll get so much fun out of shopping you'll never think of dropping. And don't forget, Estotiland is open from eight a.m. to ten p.m., and all day Sunday. So all you kids, git your mom and pop to hitch up the pony to the sleigh and head out here first thing tomorrow. But be careful. You may never want to go home again!'
Music climaxes as the sleigh, which is now seen to be the point of a broad arrow of many other sleighs, leads them all into the shining city.
'What a load of crap’ observed Andy Dalziel from his sitting-room door.
'Andy. Didn't hear you come in.'
'Not surprised, with that din on. Do I get a kiss or will that make you miss your favourite commercial?'
He leaned over the sofa and pressed what a less welcoming and resilient recipient than Cap Marvell might have felt as a blow rather than a buss on her lips.
The advertising break was ending and the presenter of Ebor TV's early evening show was revealed half-engulfed in a deeply yielding armchair.
'Welcome back,' he said. 'Just to remind you, my guest tonight is that man of many hats, lawyer, campaigner, charity worker and historian, Marcus Belchamber.'
The picture changed to a shot of a man of early middle age, wearing a dinner jacket of immaculate cut, who was sitting in a sister chair to the presenter's, but with no threat to his steadiness of posture or alertness of mien. Steady grey eyes looked out of the head of an idealized Roman senator topped by lightly greying locks so immaculately groomed that they might indeed have been set there by a maestro's chisel rather than a barber's craft. This was a gentleman in whom you could place an absolute trust.
Dalziel made a farting noise with his lips.
'Mind if I watch this item, love?' said Cap.
'I'll get us a drink,' said the Fat Man, heading for the kitchen.
He and Cap Marvell didn't cohabit, but as their relationship matured, they'd exchanged keys, and now one of the delights of returning home for Dalziel was the possibility of finding a light on, a fire burning and Cap sitting on his sofa, or sleeping in his bed. She assured him that she felt the same, though he'd exercised his privilege of entry to her flat with great care after the occasion on which he'd been woken, stark naked on her hearth rug, by the scream of a campaigning nun who was her house guest.
From the sitting room he could hear the presenter's voice.
'Before we talk more about the Round Table Disadvantaged Children's Christmas Party which you're in charge of this year, Marcus, I'd like to have a word with you about another treat for both adults and kids which you've helped make available for us over the next few weeks. This is the chance, possibly for most of us the last chance, to see the Elsecar Hoard. For anyone out there that doesn't know it, I should say that under one of his many hats, Marcus is President of the Mid-Yorkshire Archaeological Society and is acknowledged nationally, indeed I might say internationally, as one of the country's foremost experts on Yorkshire during the Roman occupation.'
'You're too kind,' said Belchamber in that rich timbred voice which some had compared not unfavourably with that of the late Richard Burton.
'Perhaps you'd give us a bit of background just in case there's anyone left in the county who hasn't been following the saga?'
'Certainly. The Elsecar Hoard is perhaps Yorkshire's most precious historical treasure, though strictly – and herein lies the nub of the problem which emerged about a year ago – it doesn't belong to Yorkshire but to the Elsecar family. The first Baron Elsecar emerged as a power in the county at the end of the Wars of the Roses and the family flourished for the next three centuries, but a natural conservatism, with a small c, left them ill-prepared for the industrial revolution and by midway through Victoria's reign they had fallen on hard times. The greater part of their land, much of which later proved to be rich in minerals and coal, was sold at depressed agricultural prices to pay off their debts.
'In 1872, the eighth baron was draining a boggy section of one of the few remaining estates, in what any competent geologist could have told him was a vain hope of finding coal, when his workers hauled up a bronze chest.
'When opened, it proved to contain a large quantity of Roman coinage mainly of the fourth century, plus, more importantly, numerous ornaments of widely varied provenance, ranging from native Celtic designs to Mediterranean and Oriental. Particularly striking was a golden coronet formed of two intertwining snakes -'
'Ah yes’ interrupted the presenter, who had the TV personality's terror that if left out of shot long enough he would cease to exist. 'This is what's known as the serpent crown, right? Isn't it supposed to have belonged to some brigand queen?'
'A queen of the Brigantes, which is not quite the same thing’ murmured Belchamber courteously. 'This was Cartimandua, who handed over Caractacus to the Romans, but her connection with the crown is tenuous and owes more, I believe, to Victorian sentimental horror at the betrayal than any historical research. Snakes in our Christian society have come to be linked with treachery and falsehood. But, as you know, in the symbolism of Celtic art they have quite a different significance
'Yes, of course’ said the presenter. 'Quite different. Right. But this Hoard, where did it actually come from? And was it simply a question of finders keepers?'
'In law, there is no such thing as a simple question’ said Belchamber, smiling.
'You can say that again, you bastard’ muttered Dalziel in the kitchen.
'Scholars theorized that the Hoard was probably the collection of an important and well-travelled Roman official who found himself, either through choice or accident, isolated in Britain when the Roman rule broke down early in the fifth century. The big legal question was whether the chest had been deliberately hidden by its owner, thinking it prudent to conceal his treasure till quieter times came, in which case it would have been treasure trove and the property of the Crown; or whether it had simply been lost or abandoned, in which case it was the property of the land-owner. Fortunately for the Elsecars, the matter was settled in their favour when further drainage revealed the remains of a wheeled vehicle, suggesting the chest was being transported somewhere when accident or ambush had caused the carriage to overturn and sink in the swamp.'
'So it was theirs, no question? Why didn't they sell it straight away if they were so hard up?' asked the presenter.
'Because good things like bad often come in bundles, and at just about the same time the heir apparent to the baronetcy caught himself a rich American heiress, so they stowed the Hoard in the bank vault against a rainy day
'Which has now arrived’ interrupted the presenter, seeing his producer making for-God's-sake-hurry-this-along signals from the control room.
Dalziel clearly felt much the same. He'd returned with drinks and was sitting next to Cap on the sofa, glowering at the screen with an intensity of hatred which he usually only saved for winning Welsh rugby teams.