‘I’ll travel back with you to the Majestic. Say you’re sick and take to your room. Stay there until I call for you later.’
‘All day in my room?’ Sam looked genuinely sick at the prospect.
‘You’re next on Tomura’s list, Sam. Out of sight is out of danger. Shall we go?’
MAX WAS ONE
of a handful of passengers who disembarked at Eltham Park station that morning. The residential streets were disquietingly empty and he found himself glancing over his shoulder as he went, though there was no reason whatever to think he had been followed from London Bridge.
Number 64 Balcaskie Road was a substantial semi-detached Edwardian villa, a red-bricked, bay-windowed statement of conformity and rectitude. The woman who answered the door looked like, and soon identified herself as, the housekeeper. Mrs Jeavons, she reported, was not at home.
Max was still debating how to talk his way in to wait for Mrs Jeavons when the housekeeper looked past him and said, ‘Oh, here she is now.’ Then she called, ‘This gentleman’s looking for you, Mrs Jeavons.’
Cora Jeavons was a stout woman of sixty or so, smartly turned out in a quiet sort of way. There was a definite facial resemblance to Appleby, though her smile was notably warmer. ‘What can I do for you, young man?’ she asked.
‘I’m a friend of your brother, Mrs Jeavons. My name—’
‘You’re Max, aren’t you?’
‘Yes. How did—’
‘Never mind. Show him in, Mrs Wise. We’ll have tea in the drawing-room.’
Mrs Wise pointed the way for Max, took her mistress’s coat and then bustled off. Cora followed Max into the drawing-room, a haven of ticking clocks, potted palms and burnished woodwork.
‘Horace talked about you when he was last here and you are, I have to say, exactly as he described you. A pilot, he said.’
‘I flew in the war.’
‘I can see that.’
Max let the strangeness of the remark pass. He took out his passport. ‘You should satisfy yourself about my identity, Mrs Jeavons. This is no time to take anyone on trust.’
She glanced at his photograph and nodded. ‘It’s you.’
‘Did you get a letter from Horace this morning?’
‘Yes.’
‘Were you surprised by the nature of the letter?’
‘I know what Horace’s work involves, Max. I may call you Max, mayn’t I? It’s your work too, of course. He said he might recruit you. Actually, he said he might need to.’
‘He said that?’
‘Yes.’
‘I have a note from him for you.’ Max handed it over.
While Cora was reading the note, Mrs Wise arrived with the tea.
After she had left, Cora went to the bureau, took out the letter she had received and brought it back with her to the sofa. ‘Do sit down, Max.’
Max sat. Cora poured tea for them both. ‘Biscuit?’ There were shortbreads on a plate. Max swiftly devoured one. ‘Have another.’
‘Thanks. They’re very nice.’
‘And you’re hungry. I could ask Mrs Wise to prepare something more substantial.’
‘I don’t have a lot of time, Mrs Jeavons. Neither does Horace. That’s why I came without him.’
‘“Something’s brewing, Cora,” he said on his last visit. “I don’t know how it’s going to turn out.” Does he know now?’
‘No.’
‘But these negatives he sent me are central to it?’
‘They’re everything to it.’
‘Well, there they are.’ She handed Max the letter. ‘I confess I didn’t expect them to be collected so soon.’
‘I need prints made as quickly as possible. Horace mentioned a photographer you know.’
‘Oh dear. Am I going to have to impose on poor Sydney’s goodwill? Horace knows full well I don’t want to encourage him. His first proposal was embarrassing enough. I don’t want to risk a second. But I suppose you’re going to say the security of the realm is at stake.’
‘As a matter of fact, it is.’
Cora sighed. ‘Then I must do my duty, mustn’t I?’
The second telephone call of the day to Gresscombe Place from the Deputy Chief Constable came less than an hour after Winifred’s departure. Ashley took the call, though Lydia sat close by, trying to infer the meaning of the conversation from his side of it.
‘What’s happened?’ she asked as he rang off. ‘Has Uncle George been set free?’
‘Yes.’ Ashley looked relieved as well as surprised. ‘Early this morning. He’s in hospital: battered and bruised, evidently, but not seriously injured.’
‘Thank God. So, he wasn’t kidnapped for ransom?’
‘No. The motives of the kidnappers are a little murky, according to the Paris police. But happily ransom didn’t come into it.’
‘It’s a pity we didn’t learn this before your mother left. She might have agreed not to go if she’d known Uncle George was safe.’
‘I doubt it. She seems to feel responsible for what happened to him. I’ll send a telegram to her hotel giving her the good news. There’s not much else we can do.’
‘What about the threat of legal action from this Canadian?’
‘Ah, well, as to that, I shall see Mellish and have him institute some proper negotiations. Lawyer to lawyer. Uncle George has made a predictable hash of the business.’ Ashley sighed. ‘It will need to be managed more professionally from now on. Let’s hope Mother allows it to be.’
‘We must do more than hope.’ Lydia gave Ashley a spine-stiffening look. ‘We must insist.’
The display window of Sydney Heyhoe’s photographic studio in Eltham High Street contained the standard assortment of grinning newly-weds and infants fondling baubles. Max’s requirements were far from standard, however, and he had the impression Heyhoe – a nervous, fussy little man – might have baulked at them had Cora not been on hand. It was an opportunity to impress her that he was evidently determined not to waste.
‘Yes, yes, it can be done immediately, if it’s a matter of overriding urgency, Mrs Jeavons.’
‘It is, Mr Heyhoe.’
‘Then I’ll see to it, of course. You know you can rely on me.’
‘I do. And I’m very grateful.’
‘This is first-rate work.’ Heyhoe held one of the negatives up to the light. ‘Very sharp. Very distinct. The words are . . . German, aren’t they?’
‘Can you read German, Mr Heyhoe?’ Max asked.
‘Er, no.’ Seeming to detect a hint of a rebuke in Max’s question, Heyhoe moved to the door and turned the sign on it round to
CLOSED
. ‘Well, this won’t take long. Please wait here.’ With that, he headed for his dark-room.
‘Tell me, Max,’ said Cora as soon as they were alone, ‘why is Horace resorting to these . . . unorthodox arrangements?’
‘Are they so unorthodox?’
‘Yes. As I’m sure you’re aware.’
‘Well . . . I can’t say.’
‘Can’t or won’t?’
‘I’m sure Horace would want me to tell you as little as possible.’
‘Yes.’ Cora nodded. ‘I’m sure of that too. But I do worry about my brother.’
‘Naturally.’
‘I thought he’d be able to lead a safer life – retire, perhaps – once the war had ended. I put that to him when he was last here.’
‘What did he say?’
‘That it hadn’t really ended.’ She smiled fondly. ‘And that he was too young to retire.’
Veronica Underwood did not work at the first solicitor’s practice Appleby visited in Harrow-on-the Hill. As it happened, however, she was known to them. ‘Mrs Underwood? Oh yes. You’ll find her at Sanderson’s. Just round the corner in West Street.’
Appleby followed the directions he had been given, rehearsing as he went the arguments he would use to persuade the former Miss Edwards to help him.
His confidence that Lemmer could not have anticipated he would turn to her proved his undoing. He spotted a turning ahead signposted West Street as he passed the mouth of a narrow alley. In the same instant, he felt the jab of a gun barrel against his ribs as a man closed in suddenly on his shoulder.
‘I’ve orders to shoot if you resist, Horace,’ said Maurice Fairbrother, known to Appleby as one of the safest pairs of hands in this kind of business. ‘Don’t make me do it.’
‘Whose orders are you acting on?’
‘Political’s.’ Fairbrother waved to the driver of a car parked on the other side of the road. As it pulled across to them, Appleby recognized the driver as Parks. Young Davison was sitting beside him.
‘How did you find me?’ Appleby asked, genuinely baffled.
‘Political arranged for someone to be listening in on your secretary’s phone line in Paris. We were sent to wait for you here. Veronica doesn’t know you’re on your way to see her. And she never will now.’
‘Political’s a traitor to the Service, Maurice. I’m telling you that because it’s the God’s honest truth.’
The gun was jabbed into his ribs again. ‘Get in the car, Horace. You can tell him that yourself. To his face.’
SAM WALKED OUT
of the Hôtel Dieu with Morahan into the deceptive tranquillity of the Place du Parvis-Notre-Dame. There were fewer beggars and idlers in front of the cathedral than usual. The threat of riots had lured them elsewhere.
‘Billy’s waiting for me round the corner,’ said Sam.
‘Let’s go and find him, then,’ said Morahan.
They walked along one side of the square and turned left into Rue d’Arcole. The car was parked at the side of the road, directly ahead. Hegg waved to them from the driving seat and gestured with his thumb to a car parked immediately behind him.
Out of it, as Sam and Morahan approached, stepped an elegantly overcoated young man of Asian appearance. He said something to his driver before striding forward to meet them. Sam noticed the other occupants of the car were older, bulkier men of passive but somehow threatening demeanour.
‘Noburo Tomura,’ murmured Morahan. ‘Leave the talking to me.’
Sam was happy to do that. He did his best not to flinch as Tomura cast him a raking, contemptuous glance in which several generations of arrogance had been distilled to a poisonous essence.
‘Mr Morahan,’ said Tomura. ‘I see you have succeeded.’
‘Not sure what you mean,’ Morahan responded as they came to a halt.
‘You have the man I wanted to speak to. Twentyman.’
‘What d’you want with him?’
‘Nothing. If he has already told you what I want to know.’
‘He doesn’t know where le Singe is, if that’s what you mean.’
‘Perhaps you have not asked him . . . forcefully enough.’
‘You should have waited for Travis and me to find out what we could, Noburo. Killing Soutine and kidnapping Clissold has got you nowhere. And it’s made our job much more difficult.’
Tomura smiled faintly. ‘I know nothing of killing or kidnapping.’
‘Is that so? Why your interest in Sam here, then?’
‘He is James Maxted’s servant. And James Maxted is close to le Singe. Therefore . . .’
‘Well, as I’ve just told you, he can’t help you.’
‘I prefer to question him myself.’
‘Don’t you trust me, Noburo?’
‘No, Mr Morahan, I do not.’
‘That’s a sad thing to hear.’
‘I think Mr Ireton will agree with you when I tell him you have obstructed the search for le Singe.’
‘Tell him what you like.’
Tomura’s gaze narrowed. ‘Oh, I will.’
‘Now, you’ll have to excuse us, I’m afraid.’
Tomura took a sidestep, blocking their path to the car. ‘Twentyman comes with me, Mr Morahan,’ he said softly.
‘No,’ said Morahan, looking Tomura in the eye. ‘He doesn’t.’
‘You are outnumbered. I only have to raise my hand and you will
both
come with us.’
‘Do that and you’ll be dead before your thugs’ feet hit the pavement. I have a gun, Noburo, and I’m prepared to use it. I might wind up dead myself, but you won’t be around to find out. I promise you that.’
Something changed in Tomura’s expression. Sam could see it. Some vital portion of his confidence drained away. He believed Morahan. And so did Sam. ‘You have made yourself my enemy, Mr Morahan.’
‘It appears I have.’
‘You will regret it.’
‘Maybe. Maybe you will too.’
Tomura did not move as they walked past him to the car. But he did not raise his hand either.
‘Get in the back, Sam,’ Morahan said. Then, to Hegg: ‘It’s Billy, right?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Move over. I’ll drive.’
‘Well, er . . .’
‘Do as he says, Billy,’ Sam cut in as he clambered into the rear. ‘He’s the boss.’
‘Right you are, Mr Twentyman.’
Hegg made way. The engine was already idling. Morahan slammed the car into gear and accelerated away.
Looking back, Sam saw Tomura scrambling into his own car. It lurched forward and set off after them. ‘They’re following us, Mr Morahan.’
‘They’re allowed to, Sam. We’ll soon know if that’s all they want to do.’
Morahan swerved round a van turning onto the Pont au Double and they sped across the bridge. Tomura’s car stuck with them. Both cars took sharp rights onto the Quai de Montebello.
‘We’re not losing them,’ Sam reported. ‘Give her some more juice.’
‘It’s a straight run along the quays from here, sir,’ put in Hegg. ‘No need to hold back.’
‘Oh, but there is,’ said Morahan.
Tomura’s car appeared alongside them, in the middle of the road. The driver steered in, crashing into their bonnet and forcing them off course. Sam glimpsed Tomura’s scowling face, separated from him by only a few feet of air and some glass.
The car crashed into them again and this time did not veer away. Steel squealed against steel as they were pushed towards the edge of the road. Passers-by looked up in alarm. Place St-Michel, thick with traffic, was approaching fast. Sam braced himself for impact.
Then, suddenly, Morahan slammed on the brakes. The other car tore clear of them, carried forward by its momentum. Sam realized what Morahan had planned in the same second as the Japanese driver. He braked as well, but too late, his instinctive wrench of the wheel inducing a skid that carried the vehicle up onto the pavement and straight into one of the bookstalls lining the riverside wall.
The stall was closed. The shutters gave way as the bonnet of the car struck them. The speed and weight of the vehicle carried it all the way through the stall to the wall behind it. There was a sound of crumpling metal and an explosion of steam from the fractured radiator.
Morahan accelerated and drove past them without a backward glance. But Sam looked back and saw Tomura and his men spilling out of the crashed car.