The man seemed disappointed.
“Can I take a statement from you?” he asked.
“If you like.”
John took a statement from Mary listing all the reasons she gave for not thinking it was the same man. The statement concluded that she was not a hundred percent positive, but she was pretty sure it wasn’t him.
He returned to the station and gave it to the sergeant.
“Anyone would think you don’t want it to be him, lad,” the sergeant said on reading it.
“As you said, sarge, I simply wrote down what she said.”
“There’s an element of doubt. Call Bedfordshire and find out the circumstances of the enquiry.”
John went off to call Bedfordshire police.
Matthew stared at the photograph of Allun Tanner on an American Computer Company website. It had been taken a couple of years ago, but in his mind there was no doubt at all that this was the supposed Russian that had stolen his sword.
He had tried so hard to work out how he had managed to do it, but having read that the man was supposed to be a computer wizard, he believed that the thing in his bag that he thought was a gun was in fact some gizmo that enabled him to hack open his sword safe.
In a strange way, Matthew admired the simple cheek and nerve of the man. He was now convinced that somehow that woman Gwen and her niece were involved and had passed him the information about the sword, but why?
Falmouth was the key, but how?
Just who was this Gwen woman?
What was the connection?
He spent a long time trolling the web. Gwen was not hiding, as she was exactly what she said she was – a local tourist advisor and amateur historian. He found nothing about her niece - Jane.
Was he being paranoid?
Then, he remembered the RP Game. He typed in Tamsyn.
He stared at the screen and read of the Tree of Falmouth.
Then, he remembered the girl called Tamsyn in the game. The niece of that woman Gwen bore a striking resemblance to the character’s avatar in the game.
This was becoming complicated, but he started to get a picture. The sword was the key, not Falmouth.
Falmouth was simply the focal point… the origin, if you like. If the legend was true, then it was simply the site of the seizure of the sword by his Saxon ancestor. This was where the Celts were defeated and the blood-line smashed. This was when the Saxons started the ascendance which would end with the Normans in 1066.
“Why did they bother stealing the sword?” he asked out loud.
Nothing in his research could tell him. The telephone rang, so he cursed it and answered it curtly.
“Yes?”
“Oh, hello Grant. What is it?”
He listened for a moment and then, simply grunted.
“Damn!” he said. The police in Falmouth had replied to state that the single witness was uncertain but was not inclined to believe that the photograph provided was the same man.
“Is there anything else from Luton Airport?”
“I’ve requested access to the CCTV off that concourse. I’ll scroll through them when I get a chance. If I can get a better picture of him, I’ll be able to send it back to Falmouth.”
Matthew had an idea.
“He must have put the sword in that music case. He didn’t have it when he came to the house. He must have left it somewhere, say a left luggage office.”
“Okay. I don’t hold out much hope, particularly now the Cornish witness is uncertain.”
Matthew knew it was the same man, but now, he knew that the police were not interested and neither were they inclined to investigate, as there were no serious offences alleged. Wasting police time could not justify expending many police hours in trying to track down someone who might or might not be a supposed suicide victim.
He was on his own.
He contemplated flying to America. There, he could perhaps persuade the widow to generate police interest in tracking her husband. However, his enquiries with the New Jersey newspapers revealed that the payout was in the region of $600,000 and that would only pay out once he was declared officially dead by a British Coroner. Then, it dawned on him that perhaps she preferred him to be dead, as the insurance money was a nice little nest-egg.
He needed to find the man first. That was the only way he could get the sword back.
The sword.
What did that girl say the inscriptions said?
The bearer of this sword be blessed by Ambisagrus and Sabrina. That while this sword remains in the hands of the True-blood, the tribe shall remain free and pure. The Sword shall bring blessings and wisdom to the True-blood, and curses to those who defile the people.”
“Cursed be he who wrests the sword from the True-blood, and the curse shall be borne by countless generations until the pure blood returns the sword to the fire that forged it.”
Was this fat American suffering from a delusion that he was a true-blood, and was he trying to return the sword to the place of origin?
From where did the sword originally come?
How the hell could anyone find out stuff like this these days?
He sat back in his chair, sighing and feeling his age.
He knew that Grant had done all he could and perhaps might even find something else that might assist in locating the fat American and his sword, but he needed more help if he was to be able to retrieve the sword. Clearly, this American had help, as there was no way he could have managed this on his own.
The more he thought about it, in his mind he built up a picture of a conspiracy of the American, the woman from Cornwall and her niece, plus perhaps even the motorcycle messenger might also be involved.
It was at that moment he realised something that had niggled him since the two females had visited his house. It was that the girl, Jane, bore an uncanny resemblance to the avatar of the girl Tamsyn from the RP Game.
Was that simply a coincidence?
Could the two be one and the same person?
He went online and researched the Tamsyn Tree and the legend behind it.
Falmouth was a link. The tree was in Falmouth. The American faked his own death in Falmouth. The two women came from Falmouth. Falmouth was the place where Brandt seized the sword after defeating the Celts.
Everything pointed to Falmouth, but then again, there was a problem. If the girl’s translation of the inscription was accurate, then it was not Falmouth to which the sword had to be taken to break any curse, but to a place that might have been Avalon.
But Avalon was a place of legends. Many sites were claimed by different people to be the original site of Avalon and the same for Camelot.
The Arthurian legends were just that, romantic stories to entertain and excite.
Or were they?
He found, to his dismay, that many sites were proposed as being the real Avalon and real Camelot. Glastonbury seemed favourite, but he felt it was too trite. Having read many pages of research, he realised that the supposed ‘findings’ of King Arthur’s body and that of his wife were in all probability publicity stunts by the clerics at that place to raise money from pilgrims for development projects.
He sat back, feeling another wave of despair. He had absolutely no idea which way to turn. Then, he had a thought and opened a drawer in his desk; he took out an old, leather-bound desk diary with address book. After thumbing through the pages, he stopped at one particular entry. He stared at the page for a moment and then, lifted his phone, punching in the number.
“Hugh? This is Matthew, Matthew Brand.”
“Yes, it has been a long time. I was wondering; the last time we spoke, you mentioned a son in the army. Is Mitch still in the SAS?”
“Okay, I see. Has he made the transition into civilian life easily?”
“If he’s free, I might have a proposition for him.”
“Not really, more freelance work. I need something recovered that was stolen from me.”