‘Well?’ asked Munro.
Jake shook his head.
‘No,’ he said.
Munro sighed.
‘You’re making a big mistake, Jake,’ he said. ‘We’ll get most of the books on our own, anyway. I’m offering you a great opportunity.’
‘No,’ said Jake again. ‘You’re using Lauren and me to help yourself and your clients.’
‘Not all our clients are bad people,’ countered Munro.
‘The ones with the real money are,’ said Jake.
Munro fell silent. His smile had gone.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘But, if you change your mind, you can always get hold of us.’ And he took out a small business card and passed it to Jake. ‘Remember, you owe us. We got you off that murder rap, gratis.’
‘And there’s no such thing as a free lunch,’ said Jake bitterly.
Munro nodded.
‘I believe that’s what people say,’ he said pleasantly.
Chapter 8
Exactly as Munro had promised, the car dropped Jake off outside the main entrance to the Department of Science. Jake waited until the car had pulled away, then he took out his phone and dialled the number Michelle had given him. His surprise meeting with Munro had given him even more determination to find a book and get it out into public knowledge as fast as he could. Michelle answered straight away.
‘I’ve got the list of potential Arthur sites,’ Jake told her. ‘Can we meet today? I need to talk about them with you before the weekend.’
‘OK, can you come to the office?’ asked Michelle.
‘No problem,’ said Jake. ‘Where is it?’
‘Villiers Street, just off the Strand.’
‘Fine,’ said Jake.
He took the address of the Qo offices from her, and arranged to meet her at 12.30.
They met in the foyer of the building, and they walked down to the small public gardens by the Embankment. Jake gave Michelle the list of sites at Glastonbury he’d marked, while she unpacked her lunch from a plastic box.
‘I’ve taken out all those that are on places that are too public, like the grounds of the abbey itself, or on National Trust land, or where buildings have been put up. All the others are on open land, most of them now farmland, and some of them parks that come under the local council.’
Michelle studied the list thoughtfully as she chewed her sandwich.
‘The problem is: what might happen once we start digging,’ said Jake. ‘We start doing it on public land, the council could turn up and stop us. We do it on private land and we could get caught by the landowner.’
‘That’s not a problem,’ said Michelle confidently. ‘Ignore the council-owned lands and concentrate on those where the land is owned privately. Most landowners are usually happy to let treasure hunters search their land for fifty per cent of the profit of whatever they find. Do you remember that Roman helmet they found in Cumbria recently?’
‘No,’ said Jake.
‘The farmer and the treasure hunter split the profits fifty-fifty,’ said Michelle. ‘The helmet sold for two million. Trust me, any farmer will be happy to let you dig up his land if he thinks there might be that kind of money at the end of it.’ She studied the list again. ‘We need to find out who these bits of land belong to and get in touch with them. Tell them we’re archaeological treasure hunters looking for stuff about King Arthur, and we’ll share the proceeds of anything we find.’ She frowned thoughtfully. ‘The trouble will be finding out who owns what. We need planning info, and that can take time.’
Suddenly Jake thought of Robert, Lauren’s cousin, the architect. He was always involved in planning issues.
‘I think I may know someone who can get that information,’ he said.
‘Before the weekend?’ queried Michelle.
‘Yes,’ said Jake.
He said this confidently, because he knew that Robert was almost as keen as he was to get Lauren back to England.
‘Good,’ said Michelle. She smiled. ‘We have a plan.’
Jake waited until Michelle had left to go back to her office before he phoned Robert.
‘Robert,’ he said, ‘it’s Jake.’
‘Jake! How are you?’ boomed Robert’s voice cheerfully in his ear. ‘Long time no speak!’
‘Yes, I’m sorry about that,’ Jake apologised. ‘I kept meaning to get in touch, but things seemed to keep turning up.’
‘No problem!’ said Robert. ‘We’re talking now.’
‘Yes,’ agreed Jake. ‘Actually, Robert, I wondered if we could meet up.’
Something in Jake’s tone must have alerted Robert that this wasn’t just a social call, because he hesitated before replying: ‘Yes, of course.’ Although his voice was just as cheerful as before, Jake could hear a note of caution in it, but knew that luckily Robert was smart enough not to blurt out anything over the phone. They’d already learnt that it was very easy for people to bug their phone conversations.