very hesitantly.
‘If I recall from what I read on the train, the tuck shop should be down here.’ He strode around the front of the building, Forrester following. At the far end of the south wing there was a curious gabled building adjoining the main elevation. It looked like a chapel. De Savary stopped.
Forrester gazed at the red-and-black design of the impressive doors: a motif of winged metal lions. ‘What’s that?’
‘This is the Nineveh Porch. It has a profound association with Iraq and Sumeria. Shall we see if our guys were down this end?
Forrester nodded.
De Savary prodded the metal door and it swung open easily. Inside, apart from some peculiar stained glass windows, it looked like a normal tuckshop for a rich school. There was a Pepsi machine. A till. And boxes of snacks and crisps chaotically scattered on the floor. But the boxes were scattered too randomly. The unlit room had been ransacked. On closer examination, the wooden panelling along one wall had been ripped away; a window was broken. Someone had been in here, vigorously searching for something. Whether they had taken anything was a different matter. De Savary guessed they hadn’t. The scattering of items in the tuck shop looked angry: frustrated and thwarted.
They stepped out into the peaceful sunshine and walked along the pathway. Pollen drifted languidly on the mild sunny air as De Savary told the tale of the Nineveh Porch. ‘The porch was ordered by Lady Charlotte Guest and her husband Sir John around 1850. It was built after a design by the architect Charles Barry, better known as the creator of—’
‘The Houses of Parliament,’ said Forrester. And he smiled shyly. ‘Architecture is a private hobby.’
‘Quite so! The Houses of Parliament. Anyway the Nineveh Porch was a private loggia, built expressly for the purpose of housing some famous Assyrian reliefs gathered from Victorian explorations of Mesopotamia. Hence the rather unusual doors, with the Assyrian lions.’
‘Right.’
‘These reliefs, housed in the porch, had been excavated by Austen Henry Layard, a cousin of Lady Charlotte Guest. The reliefs were significant and substantial. Each weighed several tons. They had originally adorned important thresholds in Nimrud.’
‘And Layard and Barry put them here?’
‘Yes. And together with a number of other reliefs they remained here, in the Nineveh Porch, until shortly after the First World War. Then the whole collection was offered for sale.’
‘So there’s nothing left?’
‘Hold on! The antiquities in the porch were replaced by humble casts. In 1923 Canford Hall itself was sold by the Guest family and it became a boys’ school. At that point, the Nineveh Porch, now robbed of its ancient treasures, was turned into a tuck shop. Selling sandwiches and Snickers bars.’
‘So our guys must have known this? That nothing was left. Why come here again?’
‘There is a slightly odd denouement to the story. In 1992 two academics came here. Both experts in Assyriology. They were on their way to a conference in Bournemouth but they had some time, so they decided to make a quick pilgrimage to this place so important in their discipline. They didn’t expect to find anything. But they looked at the stained glass windows, with their pictures of Sumeria, and they admired the vaguely Assyrian detailing of the architecture. And then they looked behind the Pepsi machine-and they found an original relief.’
‘You’re joking.’
‘No. Only the casts were supposed to be left. But lo and behold! One more piece remained. It was recognized as the real thing, although covered by layers of white vinyl emulsion. The relief was taken down and sent to London, where it was offered for sale at auction by Christie’s. It was bought by a Japanese dealer, apparently acting on behalf of a religious sect. The price was, I think, around eight million pounds. The highest amount ever paid for an antiquity anywhere in the world. Et voilà.’
They had reached the riverbank. The rushing River Stour was before them; sunlight dappled across the waters, spangled by the arch of leaves above.
‘I still don’t get it,’ said Forrester. He picked up a stick and threw it into the river. ‘What links this with the Hellfire stuff?’
‘You remember what I told you on the phone the other day?’
‘About the Yezidi and the Black Book? How that might be what they are seeking?
‘Precisely. Austen Henry Layard, you see, was one of the first ever westerners to meet the Yezidi, in 1847. He was excavating in northern Iraq, in Ur and Nineveh. The early years of modern archaeology. Then he heard