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SEVEN
A lot of people came to see me in hospital, some of whom surprised me by their appearance. The police came, of course, but they were followed by a man from the Special Branch checking on Billson because of the defence work done at Franklin Engineering. My wife didn’t show up but she took the trouble to spend two minutes on the telephone ordering flowers to be sent to the hospital, which surprised me mildly.
Lord Brinton came, his hands behind his back. ‘Don’t want to drink this London water,’ he said, and put a bottle of Malvern water on the bedside table. ‘Spoils the taste of the scotch.’ A bottle of Talisker joined the Malvern water.
I smiled – a painful process at the time. ‘My doctor might not approve.’
‘Better than bringing bloody grapes.’ He pulled up a chair and sat warming his ancient and expensive bones at the wall radiator. ‘Not as good as a real fire,’ he grumbled.
‘Hospitals don’t like open fires.’
‘Well,’ he said. ‘What the hell happened, Max?’
‘I was beaten up,’ I said patiently.
‘So I see,’ he said with a straight face. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. It seems I was “poking my nose into fings wot don’t concern me”, to quote the spokesman of the assault committee. He neglected to be more specific.’
‘Mistaken identity?’
I began to shake my head and hastily decided against it for fear it should fall off. ‘He made sure he knew who I was first.’
‘What were you doing in Kensington?’
‘Following up on a case.’ I told him about Billson and what I had done. ‘Miss Aarvik will be in Canada now,’ I said.
‘Good country,’ observed Brinton. ‘I was born there.’ He said it as though the act of his being born there had conferred a distinction on Canada. ‘I don’t see how all this relates to your being beaten up.’
‘Neither do I. Neither do the police or the Special Branch.’
His eyes sharpened. ‘What’s their interest?’
‘Franklin Engineering makes bits and pieces of tanks.’
‘And they’re following up on Billson?’
‘So it seems – but they’re not pushing too hard. For all anyone can find out he hasn’t committed a crime – yet.’
‘You think he might?’
‘Who knows what a man like Billson might or might not do. He’s lived like a vegetable for fifteen years at least, and now he’s gone charging off God knows where. He could be up to anything.’
‘Well, you’re out of it,’ said Brinton. ‘By the time you get out of here Andrew McGovern will have taken over responsibility for the security of Franklin Engineering.’
‘How big a piece of the Whensley Group have you got?’ I asked.
‘About thirty per cent. Why?’
‘Then you’ll be a big enough shareholder to ask why Billson was paid three times as much as he’s worth and why there’s a mystery made of it.’
‘I’ll look into it,’ said Brinton. ‘Can’t have the shareholders diddled like that. All right, if you weren’t beaten up because of Billson, what else have you been doing recently to get you into trouble?’
‘My life has been blameless.’
Brinton grunted in his throat. ‘Don’t try to con an old sinner. Nobody’s life is blameless. You’re sure you haven’t been sleeping in any of the wrong beds?’ I just looked at him and he said, ‘Not that I’d blame you under the circumstances.’
Soon after that he went away.
Charlie Malleson came to see me. He inspected my assortment of bruises, and said, ‘Better not go out into the streets just yet. Someone from the Race Relations Board might get you for trying to cross the colour line.’
I sighed. ‘You can do better than that, Charlie. If you have to make jokes they’d better be good. How’s business?’
‘We’re coping. How long do you think you’ll be laid up?’
‘Nobody tells me anything – you know what hospitals are like. From the way I feel now it’ll be about six months, but I’ll probably be back in a couple of weeks.’
‘Take your time,’ Charlie advised. ‘Jack Ellis is trying on your shoes to see if they fit.’
‘Good – but that will teach me to prophesy.’ Charlie raised an eyebrow and I explained. ‘I told Joyce that Jack was to take some of my work load. When she queried it I said that if I got knocked down in the street he’d have to take the lot. But this wasn’t the sort of knocking down I had in mind.’ I thought about Jack Ellis, then said, ‘It’s about time we made him a director, anyway. He’s become very good and we don’t want to lose him.’
‘I agree,’ said Charlie. ‘And I think old Brinton will. Max, when did you last take a holiday?’
I grinned. ‘That’s a funny-sounding word. Maybe two years ago.’
‘It’s been four years,’ he said positively. ‘You’ve been knocking yourself out. My advice is to take some time off right now while you have a good enough excuse to fool your subconscious. Take a trip to the Caribbean and soak up some sun for a couple of months.’
I looked out of the window at the slanting rain. ‘Sounds good.’
Charlie smiled. ‘The truth is I don’t want you around while Jack is finding his feet in a top job. You can be a pretty alarming bastard at times and it might be a bit inhibiting for him.’
That made sense, and the more I thought about it the better it became. Gloria and I could go away and perhaps we could paper over some of the cracks in our marriage. I knew that, when a marriage is at breaking-point, the fault is rarely solely on one side, and my drive to set up the firm had certainly been a contributing factor. Perhaps I could do something to stick things together again.
‘I’ll think about it,’ I said. ‘But I’d better see Jack. There are one or two things he ought to know before he gets his feet wet.’
Charlie’s face cracked into a pleased smile which faded as he said, ‘Who assaulted you, Max?’
We kicked the Billson case around for a while and got nowhere. So Charlie left, promising to send Jack Ellis to see me.
The really surprising visitor was Alix Aarvik.
I gaped as she came in and then said, ‘Sit down, Miss Aarvik – you’ll excuse me if I don’t stand. I thought you were in Canada.’
She sat in the leather club chair which Brinton had had installed for his own benefit. ‘I changed my mind,’ she said. ‘I turned down the job.’
‘Oh! Why?’
She inspected me. ‘I’m sorry about what happened to you, Mr Stafford.’
I laughed. By this time I was able to laugh without my ribs grinding together. ‘An occupational hazard.’
Her face was serious. ‘Was it because of your enquiries about Paul?’
‘I can’t see how it could be.’
‘The police came to see me again. And some others who … weren’t ordinary police.’
‘Special Branch. Paul did work in a defence industry.’
‘I didn’t know what to think. They were so uncommunicative.’
I nodded. ‘Their job is to ask questions, not to give answers. Besides, they revel in an aura of mystery. May I ask why you turned down the Canadian job?’
She hesitated. ‘About a quarter of an hour after you left my flat I went out to post a letter. There was an ambulance not far from the street door and you were being put into it.’ She moistened her lips. ‘I thought you were dead.’
I said slowly, ‘It must have given you a shock. I’m sorry.’
There was a rigidity about her which betrayed extreme tension. She opened her mouth and swallowed as though the words would not come, then she made another attempt and said, ‘Did you see who attacked you?’
The penny dropped. ‘It wasn’t your brother, if that’s what you mean.’
She gave a long sigh and relaxed visibly. ‘I had to know,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t leave without knowing, and the police wouldn’t tell me anything.’
I looked at her thoughtfully. ‘If you thought your brother might attack anyone homicidally you should have warned me.’
‘But I didn’t think that,’ she cried. ‘Not when we talked together. It was only afterwards, when I saw you in the ambulance, that it occurred to me.’
I said, ‘I want the truth. Have you seen Paul since he disappeared?’
‘No, I haven’t – I haven’t.’ Her face was aflame with her vehemence.
I said gently, ‘I believe you.’
She was suddenly in tears. ‘What’s happened to Paul, Mr Stafford? What is he doing?’
‘I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t know.’ It took me some time to quieten her, and lying flat on my back didn’t help. In order to divert her I said, ‘You were being transferred to Canada. Will the fact that you turned down the offer affect your present job?’
‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Sir Andrew was very good about it.’
A frisson ran down my back. ‘Sir Andrew?’
‘Sir Andrew McGovern. I’m his secretary.’
‘You do mean the Chairman of the Whensley Group?’
‘That’s right. Do you know him?’
‘I haven’t had that pleasure. How did you come to work for him, Miss Aarvik?’
‘I started work at Franklin Engineering eight years ago.’ She smiled. ‘In the typing pool. I like to think I’m good at my job – anyway I didn’t stay long in the typing pool, and four years ago I was transferred to Group Head Office in London – that’s Whensley Holdings Ltd.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘We handle the security.’ But not for long I thought.
‘Oh! You mean you employ the men who come around and make sure I’ve destroyed the executive typewriter ribbons?’
‘Sort of. What made you start with Franklin Engineering? How did you get the job?’
‘I was with a firm which went bust,’ she said. ‘I needed another job so Paul suggested Franklin. He’d been working there for quite a while and he said it was a good firm.’
So it was – for Paul Billson. Seeing that I’d started to open the can of worms it seemed a good idea to take the top right off. For instance, was Miss Aarvik’s salary as inflated as her brother’s? ‘Do you mind telling me your present salary, Miss Aarvik?’
She looked at me with some surprise. ‘I don’t think so. I get £4200 a year – before tax.’
I sighed. That was fairly standard for a top secretary; certainly nothing out of the ordinary. And it was the most natural thing in the world to be introduced into the firm by Paul. ‘Why the Canadian transfer?’ I asked. ‘Isn’t it a bit odd for the secretary of the boss to be asked to move to another country? Or were you going with Sir Andrew?’
She shook her head. ‘The way Sir Andrew put it, I was doing him a favour. The company I was going to – Kisko Nickel – is undergoing reorganization. I was to organize the office procedures, but only on loan for a year.’
‘You must have been pleased about that. Wasn’t it a step up? From secretarial to executive?’
‘I was bucked about it,’ she admitted. ‘But then Paul …’ Her voice tailed away.
‘When were you offered the job?’
‘It came up rather suddenly – last Monday.’
I wrinkled my brow. That was the day Hoyland rang to tell me of Billson’s disappearance. There was something bloody funny going on but, for the life of me, I couldn’t see how it hung together.
I smiled at her. ‘Well, you see that I am very much alive. In the opinion of the police and of my associates at Stafford Security the attack on me had nothing to do with your brother.’
She looked at me squarely. ‘What of your opinion?’
I lied. ‘I am of the same opinion. If you want my advice you’ll go straight to Sir Andrew McGovern and tell him you’ve reconsidered and you’ll take the Canadian job after all.’
‘And Paul?’
‘There’s nothing you can do about Paul, as I said before. He’ll be found, but it’s better for you to leave it to the professionals. I’ll write to you in Canada.’
She nodded. ‘Perhaps that would be the best thing to do.’
‘One thing – I wouldn’t mention to Sir Andrew that this is my advice, or that you’ve even seen me. My firm and Sir Andrew aren’t on very good terms right now; he’s fired Stafford Security and is setting up his own security organization for the Whensley Group, so I think any mention of me would be tactless, to say the least.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Was this because of Paul?’
‘Not at all. It happened before …’ I stopped short. It hadn’t happened before I knew about Billson. Brinton had sprung it on us at the board meeting on the afternoon when I had just returned from Franklin Engineering. I picked up quickly. ‘Nothing to do with your brother at all, Miss Aarvik.’
When she had gone I stared at the ceiling for a long time. Then I opened the bedside cupboard, stripped the lead foil from Brinton’s bottle of scotch, and poured myself three fingers. Brinton may have been right about it tasting better with Malvern water, but it tasted even better neat. I suddenly really needed that drink.
EIGHT
I soon became very damned tired of that hospital and especially of the food. I had just been served a so-called lunch which began with a watery soup which looked like old dishwater and ended with an equally watery custard which resembled nothing on God’s earth when my doctor walked in, full of that synthetic bonhomie which is taught in medical schools as the bedside manner.
I thrust the tray under his nose. ‘Would you eat that?’
He inspected it, his nose wrinkling fastidiously. ‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘That wasn’t the question,’ I snarled.
His eyes twinkled. ‘Well, possibly not,’ he conceded.
‘That’s good enough for me,’ I said. ‘I’m discharging myself.’
‘But you’re not ready.’
‘And I never will be if I have to eat this slop. I’m going home to get some decent food in my belly.’ For all Gloria’s faults she wasn’t a half-way bad cook when she wanted to be.
‘The food can’t be all that bad if you’re beginning to feel your oats.’ I glared at him and he shrugged. ‘All right, but the prescribed regimen is another week’s rest and then I want you back here for inspection.’
I said, ‘Where are my bloody trousers?’
So I went home by taxi and found Gloria in bed with a man. They were both naked and he was a stranger – I’d never seen him before to my knowledge but Gloria had a lot of odd friends. There weren’t any fireworks; I just jerked my thumb at the bedroom door and said, ‘Out!’ He grabbed his clothes and disappeared, looking like a skinned rabbit.
In silence I looked at the heap of tousled bedclothes into which Gloria had vanished. Presently the front door slammed and Gloria emerged, looking aggrieved and a little scared. ‘But the hospital said …’
‘Shut up!’
She was stupid enough to ignore me. She informed me at length about the kind of man I was or, rather, the kind of man I wasn’t. She embroidered her diatribe with all the shortcomings she could find in me, culled from seven years of married life, and then informed me that her bedfriend hadn’t been the first by a long shot, and whose fault was that? In short, she tried to work up the familiar instant Stafford row to the nth degree.
I didn’t argue with her – I just hit her. The first time I had ever hit a woman in my life. An open palm to the side of her jaw with plenty of muscle behind it. It knocked her clean out of bed so that she lay sprawling in a tangle of sheets by the dressing-table. She was still for a few moments and then shook her head muzzily as she pushed against the floor to raise herself up. She opened her mouth and closed it again as she caught my eye. Her fingers stroked the dull red blotch on her face and she looked at me unbelievingly.
I ignored her and walked to the wardrobe from which I took a suitcase from the top shelf and began to pack. Presently I broke the silence. ‘You’ll be hearing from my solicitor. Until then you can have the house.’
‘Where are you going?’ Her voice was soft and quiet.
‘Do you care?’
She had nothing to say to that so I picked up the suitcase and left the bedroom. I went downstairs to my study and unlocked the bureau. As I took out my passport I was aware of Gloria standing by the door. ‘You can’t leave me,’ she said desolately.
I turned my head and looked at her. ‘For God’s sake, go and put on some clothes,’ I said. ‘You’ll die of pneumonia.’
When I put the passport and a few other papers into my pocket and walked into the hall she was trudging disconsolately up the stairs. As I walked towards the front door she screamed, ‘Come back, Max!’
I shut the door gently on her shout, closing an era of my life. Sic transit Gloria mundi. A lousy pun but a true one.
NINE
I suppose if I hadn’t left Gloria I wouldn’t have gone on with the Billson case. Billson himself had ceased to be a security matter and was merely a half-way maniac gone on an ancestor-worshipping bender. He was of no concern to anyone but himself and, possibly, Alix Aarvik.
But I had left Gloria, which put me in a somewhat ambiguous position. It had already been agreed that I would take a holiday, partly for my own benefit and partly to give free rein to Jack Ellis. The trouble was that I didn’t feel like a holiday; I couldn’t see myself toasting on the sands of Montego Bay, as Charlie had suggested. And so the devil found work for idle hands.
Besides, I had been assaulted, and if nothing else demanded that something should be done, company policy did.
So I asked Jack Ellis to come and see me at my club. Ellis had joined us four years earlier – young, bright and eager to learn. He was still young, but that didn’t worry me; Napoleon was only twenty-six when he was General of the French Army in Italy and licked hell out of the Austrians. Jack Ellis was twenty-seven, something that might hinder him when negotiating with some of the stuffier chairmen of companies, but time would cure that. In the meantime he was very good and getting better.
I took him aside into the cardroom which was empty in the afternoon. For a while we talked about his job and then I brought him up-to-date on the Billson story. He was puzzled as anyone about the whole affair.
‘Jack,’ I said. ‘I want you to find Billson.’
He gave me an old-fashioned look. ‘But he’s not our pigeon any more. Apart from the fact that Whensley are running their own show now, Billson is out of it.’
I said, ‘When this firm was started certain rules were laid down. Do you remember Westlake, the security guard we had at Clennel Enterprises?’
Ellis’s face was grave. ‘I remember. It happened just after I joined the firm. Shot in the leg during a pay-roll snatch. He had to have it amputated.’
‘But do you remember what happened to the man who shot him? We got to him before the coppers did. We handed him to the law intact, although I’d have dearly loved to break his leg. We also made sure that the story got around. And that’s the rule, Jack – we look after our own. If any gun-happy bandit hurts one of our men he knows he has to cope with the police and our boys. And to coin a phrase – ”we try harder”. Got the picture?’
He smiled faintly and nodded. ‘In this business it makes sense,’ he acknowledged.
‘The top-ranking coppers aren’t too happy about it,’ I said, ‘because they don’t like private armies. But we rub along with the middle level very nicely. Anyway, a member of Stafford Security Consultants Ltd has been assaulted, and the fact it was the boss makes no difference to the principle. I’m not on a personal vendetta but I want those boys nailed.’
‘Okay – but Billson!’
‘He’s got to be connected somehow, so dig into him. The police aren’t doing much because it’s no crime to leave a job. They’ve got him on a list and if they come across him they’ll ask him a few polite questions. I can’t wait that long. All the villains in London know I’ve been done over, and they’re laughing their heads off.’
‘We should be able to get a line on Billson,’ said Jack. ‘It’s not easy for a man to disappear into thin air.’
‘Another thing; no one is to know any of this except me, you and the man you put on the job.’
‘Not even Charlie Malleson?’
‘Not even him. I suspect jiggery-pokery at high levels.’ I saw the expression on Ellis’s face, and said irascibly, ‘Not Charlie, for God’s sake! But I want to cut out even the possibility of a leak. Some of our top industrialists are doing some queer things – Sir Andrew McGovern for one. Now, I want a thorough rundown on him; particularly a survey of any relationship he might have had with Paul Billson and with his secretary, Alix Aarvik.’
‘Okay,’ said Jack. ‘I’ll get it started right away.’
I pondered for a moment. ‘Open a routine file on this. Your clients are Michelmore, Veasey and Templeton; send them the bills in the normal way.’ As he raised his eyebrows I said shortly, ‘They’re my solicitors.’
‘Right.’
‘And good luck with the new job.’ It wouldn’t be fair to Jack if he got the idea that when I came back everything would be as it was before, so I said, ‘If you don’t drop too many clangers it’s yours for good. I’m destined for higher things, such as busting into Europe.’
He went away a very happy man.
It’s not easy for a man to disappear into thin air.
Those praiseworthy citizens who form and join societies dedicated to the preservation of civil liberties are quite right in their concern about the ‘data bank’ society. At Stafford Security we weren’t a whit concerned about civil liberties; what we were doing was preserving the industrial secrecy of our clients, which doesn’t amount to the same thing at all. As a corollary, because we protected against snooping we understood it, and were well equipped to do some snooping ourselves should the mood take us.
The bloodhounds were turned on to Paul Billson. No man living in a so-called civilized society can escape documentation. His name, and sometimes a number attached to his name, is listed on forms without end – driving licence, radio and TV licence, dog licence, income tax return, insurance applications, telephone accounts, gas and electricity accounts, passport applications, visa applications, hire purchase agreements, birth certificate, marriage certificate, death certificate. It seems that half the population is pushing around pieces of paper concerning the other half – and vice versa.
It takes a trained man with a hazy sense of ethics to ferret out another man’s life from the confusion but it can be done, given the time and the money – the less time the more money it takes, that’s all. Jack Ellis hoisted Michelmore, Veasey and Templeton’s bill a few notches and the information started to come in.
Paul Billson applied for a passport the day after he disappeared, appearing in person at the London Passport Office to fill in the form. The same day he applied for an international driving licence. The following day he bought a Land-Rover off the shelf at the main London showroom, paid cash on the barrel and drove it away.
We lost him for a couple of weeks until he picked up his passport, then a quick tour of the consulates by a smooth operator revealed that he had applied for and been granted visas for Niger, Mali, Chad and Libya. That led to the question of what he was doing with the Land-Rover. He had got his green insurance card for foreign travel but a run around the shipping companies found nothing at all. Then our man at Heathrow turned up an invoice which told that a Mr Billson had air-freighted a Land-Rover to Algiers.
Whatever had happened to Paul had blown him wide open. After a lifetime of inactive griping about injustice, of cold internal anger, of ineffectual mumblings, he had suddenly erupted and was spending money as though he had a private mint. Air freight isn’t cheap.
What Jack had dug up about Billson’s finances was fantastic. The £12,000 in Paul’s deposit account was but the tip of an iceberg, and he had nearly £65,000 to play around with. ‘I don’t know where the hell he got it,’ said Jack.
‘I do,’ I said. ‘He saved it. When he vanished he was on £8000 a year and spending about £2500. You do that for enough years and are careful with your investments and you’ll soon rack up £65,000.’
Jack said, ‘I’ll tell you something, Max; someone else is looking for Billson. We’ve been crossing their tracks.’
‘The police?’
‘I don’t think so. Not their style.’
‘The Special Branch, then?’
‘Could be. They move in mysterious ways their wonders to perform.’
I stretched out an arm for the telephone. ‘I’ll ask.’
Because some of our clients, such as Franklin Engineering, were into defence work, contact with the Special Branch was inevitable for Stafford Security. It was an uneasy relationship and we were tolerated only because we could take off them some of their work load. If, for example, we saw signs of subversion we tipped them off and were rewarded by being left alone. A strictly confidential relationship, of course; the trades unions would have raised hell had they known.
The man I rang was politely amused. ‘Billson is no concern of ours. We checked back on what you told us; we even interviewed that bloody journalist – now there’s a slimy bit of work. As far as we’re concerned, Billson is a semi-paranoiac who has gone off the rails a bit. He might interest a psychiatrist, but he doesn’t interest us.’
‘Thanks.’ I put down the telephone and said to Jack, ‘He says they aren’t interested, but would he tell me the truth?’ I frowned as I turned the pages of the report ‘Algiers! Why didn’t Billson apply for an Algerian visa?’
‘He didn’t need to. British citizens don’t need visas for Algeria.’ Jack produced another thin file. ‘About Sir Andrew McGovern. Relationship with Billson – apart from the fact that they’re remotely linked through Franklin Engineering – nil. Relationship with Alix Aarvik – nil. It’s a straight master-and-servant deal – they’re not even “just good friends”. The Kisko Nickel Corporation is undergoing an internal reorganization due to a merger which McGovern engineered. But Alix Aarvik didn’t go to Canada; she’s still operating as McGovern’s secretary.’
I shrugged. ‘As I once said to Brinton, the best thing about advice is that you needn’t take it.’ I smiled sourly. ‘It turned out that his advice was good, but that’s no reason for Alix Aarvik to take mine.’
‘Apart from that there’s not much to get hold of in McGovern,’ said Jack. ‘He does seem to live in Brinton’s pocket.’
‘Not quite,’ I said absently. ‘Brinton has been having trouble with him. That’s why we lost the Whensley account.’ I was thinking of the Sahara; of how big and empty it was.
Jack sniffed. ‘If they have quarrelled no one would notice it. McGovern entertained Brinton at his home two days ago.’
I said, ‘If Brinton pats Andrew McGovern on the back it’s just to find a good spot to stick the knife. Thanks, Jack; you’ve done a good job. I’ll take it from here.’
When he had gone I rang Whensley Holdings and asked for Miss Aarvik. When she came on the line I said, ‘Max Stafford here. So you didn’t go to Canada, after all.’
‘Sir Andrew changed his mind.’
‘Did he? Miss Aarvik, I have some information about your brother which I think you ought to know. Will you have dinner with me tonight?’
She hesitated, then said, ‘Very well. Thank you for your continued interest in my brother, Mr Stafford.’
‘I’ll call for you at your flat at seven-thirty,’ I said.
After that I went down to the club library, took down The Times Atlas, and studied a map of the Sahara for a long time. It didn’t take me as long as that to find out that the idea burgeoning in my mind was totally fantastic, utterly irresponsible and probably bloody impossible.
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