The Labyrinth Makers (6 page)

And it came tumbling out. The brave pilot, hero of the Arnhem drop, with a medal to prove it. Jones had been a little more guarded, or more honest, and had admitted that he hadn't really known her father. But even he had stretched a point and pretended that he believed Steerforth had stayed with the Dakota to save other people's lives. And the little girl had thought herself lucky to have two gallant pilot fathers instead of one, and had never missed the one already in heaven.

And then she had grown up and strayed into the wrong room, and overheard a conversation with a very different flavour.

'It was Mummy who started it. She always sees through people. She said: "That man asked you about Johnnie, didn't he?" And Daddy didn't want to answer at first, but she insisted. She said she had a right to know.

'And then finally he said: "The bastard was up to something big," or something like that. And he said he'd always suspected that he'd been up to no good, but it must have been even more important than he thought, because you were here asking questions.

'And Mummy asked who you were, and he said you were obviously a special sort of high-up policeman. He said you put on a good act pretending that you were doing a boring job you didn't enjoy. But underneath he thought you were hard as nails–he said you were a mailed fist in a velvet glove.'

God bless my soul! thought Audley. Jones had seen clear through him, and then had drawn the wrong conclusion because it was the logical one. How many others had made the same mistake, he wondered, from Fred downwards? It was amusing–it was even rather satisfying. But it was ridiculously wide of the mark, and this young woman had presumably seen more clearly, with less reason and more intuition.

He leaned forward and filled her glass again.

'No mailed fist. Just an ordinary hand in the glove, Miss Jones. What happened then?'

'Then it was awful, because Mummy said: "So it's all happening again." And Daddy wanted to know what was happening again. Then she started to cry–and she never cries, or almost never.'

Her voice faltered, and Audley was terrified for a moment that she was going to follow her mother's lead. But she bore up, and continued.

'She said that after he'd disappeared two of his crew had kept coming round asking about him as though he were alive. And then they'd asked her if he'd left any messages or instructions. They wouldn't leave her alone.

'Daddy was nice to her then, and said she ought to have told him. And she said he was the only one who didn't pester her with questions.'

That was one good thing, thought Audley. It put Jones in the clear beyond all doubt. If he hadn't put the key questions in so many years he certainly hadn't been looking for any answers.

'And what happened then?'

'Daddy said she didn't have to worry. He said he'd make damn sure no one pestered her again. If they did he'd get in touch with you–he'd put your address in the book.'

'So you went and looked me up.'

Faith Jones nodded.

'But why come and see me now?'

The corners of her mouth turned downwards appealingly. For a moment he could see the little girl with the two brave fathers who had suddenly and cruelly discovered that one might have feet of clay.

'I realise it was silly now. I was so mixed up–but I wanted to come and tell you, or ask you, not to bother them any more. Because they really didn't know anything about –about whatever it was he did.

'And, Dr Audley, I want to know what he did that was so awful. I mean, I ought to be told, oughtn't I?'

She looked at him as if she was screwing up her courage to say something awkward.

'When I was at college no one was ever interested in the war. We were all CND–I went on the marches. But though I've never admitted it I've always been terribly proud of my real father. When I was browsing through Blackwell's in Oxford years ago I saw a book all about his aeroplane. I bought it and I read it. It wasn't very interesting, but I read it. I — I know a lot about Dakotas.

'And now I've learnt that he wasn't very nice at all–because if my step-father says he was a bastard, I'm sure he was. Daddy doesn't often make mistakes about people.'

Audley forebore to point out that Daddy–her switching between fathers was confusing–had not been so right about the mailed fist. But she'd made her point, and he would have to produce some sort of answer out of common decency. Except that Steerforth was in some degree a classified subject.

She was looking at him, half expectantly, half fearfully. And she was, despite her glasses, rather an attractive girl in a scraggy, angular way. Not his type, in as far as he had a type. Not at all like the unlamented Liz …

'Have you had anything to eat?' he asked, with sudden inspiration.

She shook her head.

'Good. Then we'll both have something. My Mrs Clark has left me an immense piece of cold ham. Come to the kitchen and carve it for me — and bring your glass with you.'

She followed him obediently, and the incongruity of the situation struck him. Steerforth had not even been a name to him twenty-four hours ago. He had encountered him at dawn and buried him before midday. And now he was having supper with the man's daughter.

What made it more odd was that he really knew nothing about this girl, who was in some sense part of his work. He had been much better informed about other girls who had been permitted to slice ham and cucumber on his kitchen table, and who had certainly not been connected with important matters. And that had been due more to personal inclination than professional precaution. Not that it had helped much, he reflected. Perhaps his passion for information had ended by inhibiting other varieties of passion.

At least such considerations did not complicate this relationship. Audley stopped with his hand halfway into the cutlery drawer as an idea welled up in his mind. He observed her out of the corner of his eye. That Steerforth face of hers was not so apparent now, but it was there all the same, undeniably there. To use her was against the rules, but in certain circumstances that face might have its uses.

Jones wouldn't like it, but Jones didn't have to know: this was between father, real father, and daughter. And if Stocker and the others didn't like it either, they would still be mightily impressed with his unexpected expertise with young women. So to hell with all of them!

The only drawback was that he would have to tell her at least some of his hypothesis. But then it was only a hypothesis, as yet little more than a hunch without real evidence and totally without any key information.

He dismissed the possibility that she was not what she seemed. The time factor, the logic of her presence and his own instinct ruled it out. But he interrogated her gently throughout their kitchen table supper nevertheless–three glasses of wine had just sufficiently loosened her tongue and restored her confidence.

At least she was satisfactorily ordinary–the very blueprint of an educated middle-class female. High school, Young Farmers' Club forsaken as she moved leftwards to Bristol University and CND. Then gently rightwards again as she worked for a diploma in education, and so to teaching at a custom-built comprehensive.

Except that she taught physics and chemistry–he was careful not to show unemancipated surprise–and had no steady male admirers.

'Shouldn't you be teaching now?'

But of course they had a huge half-term at state schools, and she had compassionate leave into the bargain.

'What were you doing at Blackwell's?'

'Blackwell's?'

'You bought a book on Dakotas there.'

'I went to a commem ball there–at Oxford, I mean.'

The ball had not been a success. 'I don't mind men making passes. But he took it for granted.'

Audley nodded sagely. 'Wouldn't have happened at Cambridge. I mean, it wouldn't have been taken for granted.'

She smiled at that, and Audley judged the ice to be sufficiently melted. It was time to get her interested.

'Miss Jones, you want to know about your father–you want to know what he did, in fact. And the answer is that we really don't know. All I can do is to tell you what we think he did. Perhaps you'll be able to help us a little in return. Would you be willing to do that?'

She looked at him uncertainly. 'I don't see how I can help you. I don't remember him–I only know what Grandmother told me.'

'No matter. Anyway, I take it she told you what was supposed to have happened–lost at sea, and all that?'

She nodded. That story would have lost nothing in Grandmother's retelling.

'Well, there were certain people who were very interested in the whereabouts of your father's plane at the time. Presumably because of what it was thought to be carrying.'

'The crew—' she began. 'The two who pestered my mother—'

'Forget about the crew for the moment. These people weren't crew members. One of them was a Belgian and the others were Russians.'

'Russians?'

'Your father was flying regularly to Berlin, twice a week often. That was when we were just setting up the four-power allied control commission there. His squadron was on a freight run. But there was also a great deal of what you might call private enterprise on that run too. You could get just about anything in Germany in those days if you had cigarettes to trade with, and there were a lot of valuable things about with temporary owners. Your father was very well-placed to transport the merchandise.'

'You mean he was in the–what did they call it?–the black market?' She spoke coldly, almost contemptuously.

Audley sipped his coffee. 'You shouldn't think too badly of him for it, actually. It's a rather modern idea, not letting the winners plunder the losers blind. There were a lot of chaps doing it.'

'My step-father didn't do it.'

Jones was evidently on a pedestal.

'No, I don't believe he did. But your father was in it up to the neck, and one day he seems to have picked up something extra special. Something hot.'

'But you don't know what it was?'

'We don't–not yet. And I don't think he really did either. Or at least he didn't understand its true value.'

Faith Steerforth broke in: 'But whatever it was–you must have it now. If it was on the plane.'

'There was nothing on the plane. That's the whole problem. Nothing but seven boxes of broken bricks.'

'Somebody had taken it?'

'We don't think so.'

'Then he never had anything. Or maybe someone switched those boxes before he was given them.'

She was quick enough, certainly.

'It's possible. But we don't think it's likely. The Russians must have been satisfied about the Berlin end before they came over here. They're very thorough when they want to be–so thorough that they never forgot about the plane. In fact they already know there wasn't anything in it. But they are still interested!'

She shivered.

'That's what's so beastly. It's what frightened Mummy–people being interested again all these years afterwards. It must have been something terribly valuable.'

'Not valuable in terms of money, Miss Steerforth. The Russians don't have to worry about money.'

She stared at him. 'But he didn't have it, whatever it was. So what's all the bother about now?'

Audley was about to answer when the grandfather clock struck in the distance–eight, nine, ten.

'It's very late, Miss Steerforth. Isn't anyone expecting you?'

She glanced at her watch, but shook her head.

'I'll go to a hotel somewhere. But you must tell me why there's this trouble first. I promise I'll go then.'

Audley thought for a moment. There were no such things as conventions these days, after all.

'You can stay here if you like. There's a spare bed–and I'm a Cambridge man, I assure you.'

She looked at him in surprise. Patently–and rather humiliatingly–she had not considered him in that light at all. He was still some sort of policeman, and consequently sexless.

Then she smiled. 'That's very kind of you, Dr Audley,' she said. 'But please stop calling me "Miss Steerforth". I know it must be confusing for you, so just call me "Faith".
He
chose the name, anyway.'

'Steer–your father did?'

'Yes. It's silly really. Grandmother told me that long before I was even born he said he'd like to have three daughters, to look after him in his old age. And he'd call them Faith, Hope and Charity. It's silly, because he said he was naming them after three old aeroplanes.'

For the first time Steerforth came alive to Audley. No longer bones in a lake, but a man who had lived and made ordinary, everyday plans–plans for three daughters, anyway.

'Malta,' he said. 'That was where his old planes came from. At one time in the war they had just three to defend it, and they called them Faith, Hope and Charity.'

She looked at him. 'I'd like to stay if I may, Dr Audley.'

He couldn't help smiling at her. It was actually rather pleasant to have some female company again after so long.

'Very well, then–Faith. I'll tell you what all the fuss is about. It's really quite simple in outline: somehow your father picked up something valuable, and then everyone thought it was lost at sea with him. Only now we know he wasn't lost at sea and he wasn't carrying the thing when he crashed. Yet the Russians are still interested. Now doesn't that suggest anything to you?'

He waited for her to speak, but she wouldn't be drawn.

'Well to me–Faith–it suggests that whatever he'd got hold of was already here. If the Russians are so sure it's the only possibility left. And once you accept that, actually, the other awkward bits in the puzzle fit much better.'

'Other bits?'

'There were those seven boxes of bricks, which shouldn't have been on board. All four survivors saw them. Your stepfather and the navigator couldn't describe them very clearly. But the other two were very helpful.'

'The two who—'

'Those two, yes. Warrant Officer Tierney and Flight Sergt Morrison. They should have conveniently forgotten the boxes if they were valuable, but instead they remembered. And by remembering they put everyone off the scent. Which is exactly what they intended. Because what's lost at sea doesn't have to be accounted for, does it?'