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III

Sir Robert Hellier also had a bad night.

He went back to his flat in St James’s and was almost totally unaware of how he got there. His chauffeur noted the tight lips and lowering expression and took the precaution of ringing the flat from the garage before he put away the car. ‘The old bastard’s in a mood, Harry,’ he said to Hellier’s man, Hutchins. ‘Better keep clear of him and walk on eggs.’

So it was that when Hellier walked into his penthouse flat Hutchins put out the whisky and made himself scarce. Hellier ignored both the presence of the whisky and the absence of Hutchins and sank his bulk into a luxurious armchair, where he brooded deep in thought.

Inside he writhed with guilt. It had been many more years than he could remember since anyone had had the guts to hold up a mirror wherein he could see himself, and the experience was harrowing. He hated himself and, perhaps, he hated Warren even more for rubbing his nose into his shortcomings. Yet he was basically honest and he recognized that his final remarks and abrupt exit from Warren’s rooms had been the sudden crystallization of his desire to crack Warren’s armour of ethics – to find the feet of clay and to pull Warren down to his own miserable level.

And what about June? Where did she come into all this? He thought of his daughter as he had once known her – gay, light-hearted, carefree. There was nothing he had not been prepared to give her, from the best schools to good clothes by fashionable designers, parties, continental holidays and all the rest of the good life.

Everything, except myself, he thought remorsefully.

And then, unnoticed in the interstices of his busy life, a change had come. June developed an insatiable appetite for money; not, apparently, for the things money can buy, but for money itself. Hellier was a self-made man, brought up in a hard school, and he believed that the young should earn their independence. What started out to be calm discussions with June turned into a series of flaming rows and, in the end, he lost his temper and then came the break. It was true what Warren had said; he had thrown out his daughter without making an attempt to find the root cause of the change in her.

The theft of the silver from his home had only confirmed his impression that she had gone bad, and his main worry had been to keep the matter quiet and out of the press. He suddenly realized, to his shame, that the bad press he was likely to get because of the inquest had been uppermost in his mind ever since he had seen Inspector Stephens.

How had all this happened? How had he come to lose first a wife and then a daughter?

He had worked – by God, how he had worked! The clapperclawing to the top in an industry where knives are wielded with the greatest efficiency; the wheeling and dealing with millions at stake. The American trip, for instance – he had got on top of those damned sharp Yanks – but at what cost? An ulcer, a higher blood pressure than his doctor liked and a nervous three packets of cigarettes a day as inheritance of those six months.

And a dead daughter.

He looked around the flat, at the light-as-air Renoir on the facing wall, at the blue period Picasso at the end of the room. The symbols of success. He suddenly hated them and moved to another chair where they were at his back and where he could look out over London towards the Tudor crenellations of St James’s Palace.

Why had he worked so hard? At first it had been for Helen and young June and for the other children that were to come. But Helen had not wanted children and so June was the only one. Was it about then that the work became a habit, or perhaps an anodyne? He had thrown himself whole-heartedly into the curious world of the film studios where it is a toss-up which is the more important, money or artistry; and not a scrap of his heart had he left for his wife.

Perhaps it was his neglect that had forced Helen to look elsewhere – at first surreptitiously and later blatantly – until he had got tired of the innuendoes and had forced the divorce.

But where, in God’s name, had June come into all this? The work was there by then, and had to be done; decisions had to be taken – by him and by no one else – and each damned decision led to another and then another, filling his time and his life until there was no room for anything but the work.

He held out his hands and looked at them. Nothing but a machine, he thought despondently. A mind for making the right decisions and hands for signing the right cheques.

And somewhere in all this, June, his daughter, had been lost. He was suddenly filled with a terrible shame at the thought of the letter Warren had told him about. He remembered the occasion now. It had been a bad week; he was preparing to carry a fight to America, and everything had gone wrong so he was rushed off his feet. He remembered being waylaid by Miss Walden, his secretary, in a corridor between offices.

‘I’ve a letter for you from Miss Hellier, Sir Robert. She would like to see you on Friday.’

He had stopped, somewhat surprised, and rubbed his chin in desperation, wanting to get on but still wanting to see June. ‘Oh, damn; I have that meeting with Matchet on Friday morning – and that means lunch as well. What do I have after lunch, Miss Walden?’

She did not consult an appointment book because she was not that kind of secretary, which was why he employed her. ‘Your plane leaves at three-thirty – you might have to leave your lunch early.’

‘Oh! Well, do me a favour, Miss Walden. Write to my daughter explaining the situation. Tell her I’ll write from the States as soon as I can.’

And he had gone on into an office and from there to another office and yet another until the day was done – the 18-hour working day. And in two more days it was Friday with the conference with Matchet and the expensive lunch that was necessary to keep Matchet sweet. Then the quick drive to Heathrow – and New York in no time at all – to be confronted by Hewling and Morrin with their offers and propositions, all booby-trapped.

The sudden necessity to fly to Los Angeles and to beat the Hollywood moguls on their own ground. Then back to New York to be inveigled by Morrin to go on that trip to Miami and the Bahamas, an unsubtle attempt at corruption by hospitality. But he had beaten them all and had returned to England with the fruits of victory and at the high point of his career, only to be confronted by the devil of a mess because no one had been strong enough to control Matchet.

In all that time he had never once thought of his daughter.

The dimming light concealed the greyness of his face as he contemplated that odious fact. He sought to find excuses and found none. And he knew that this was not the worst – he knew that he had never given June the opportunity of communicating with him on the simple level of one human being to another. She had been something in the background of his life, and the knowledge hurt him that she had been something and not someone.

Hellier got up and paced the room restlessly, thinking of all the things Warren had said. Warren had seemed to take drug addiction as a matter of course, a normal fact of life to be coped with somehow. Although he had not said so outright, he had implied it was his task to clear up the mess left by the negligence of people like himself.

But surely someone else was to blame. What about the profit-makers? The pushers of drugs?

Hellier paused as he felt a spark of anger flash into being, an anger which, for the first time, was not directed against himself. His was a sin of omission, although not to be minimized on that account. But the sin of commission, the deliberate act of giving drugs to the young for profit, was monstrous. He had been thoughtless, but the drug pedlars were evil.

The anger within him grew until he thought he would burst with the sheer agony of it, but he deliberately checked himself in order to think constructively. Just as he had not allowed his emotions to impede his negotiations with Matchet, Hewling and Morrin,, so he brought his not inconsiderable intellect to bear unclouded on this new problem. Hellier, as an efficient machine, began to swing smoothly into action.

He first thought of Warren who, with his special knowledge, was undoubtedly the key. Hellier was accustomed to studying closely the men with whom he dealt because their points of strength and weakness showed in subtle ways. He went over in his mind everything Warren had said and the way in which he had said it, and seized upon two points. He was certain Warren knew something important.

But he had to make sure that his chosen key would not break in his hand. Decisively he picked up the telephone and dialled a number. A moment later he said, ‘Yes, I know it’s late. Do we have that firm of investigators still on our books? They helped us on the Lowrey case … Good! I want them to investigate Dr Nicholas Warren MD. Repeat that. It must be done discreetly. Everything there is to know about him, damn it! As fast as possible … a report in three days … oh, damn the expense! … charge it to my private account.’

Absently he picked up the decanter of whisky. ‘And another thing. Get the Research Department to find out all they can about drug smuggling – the drug racket in general. Again, a report in three days … Yes, I’m serious … it might make a good film.’ He paused. ‘Just one thing more; the Research Department mustn’t go near Dr Warren … Yes, they’re quite likely to, but they must steer clear of him – is that understood? Good!’

He put down the telephone and looked at the decanter in some surprise. He laid it down gently and went into his bedroom. For the first time in many years he ignored his normal meticulous procedure of hanging up his clothes and left them strewn about the floor.

Once in bed the tensions left him and his body relaxed. It was only then that the physical expression of his grief came to him and he broke down. Waves of shudders racked his body and this man of fifty-five wet the pillow with his tears.

TWO

Warren was – and was not – surprised to hear from Hellier again. In the forefront of his mind he wondered what Hellier was after and was almost inclined to refuse to see him. In his experience prolonged post-mortems with the survivors did no one any good in the long run; they merely served to turn guilt into acceptance and, as a moral man, he believed that the guilty should be punished and that self-punishment was the most severe form.

But in the remote recesses of his mind still lurked the nagging doubt which had been injected by Hellier’s final words and so, somewhat to his surprise, he found himself accepting Hellier’s invitation to meet him in the St James’s flat. This time, oddly enough, he was not averse to meeting Hellier on his own ground – that battle had already been won.

Hellier greeted him with a conventional, ‘It’s very good of you to come, Doctor,’ and led him into a large and softly luxurious room where he was waved courteously to a chair. ‘Drink?’ asked Hellier. ‘Or don’t you?’

Warren smiled. ‘I have all the normal vices. I’d like a Scotch.’

He found himself sipping a whisky so good that it was almost criminal to dilute it with water, and holding one of Hellier’s monogrammed cigarettes. ‘We’re a picturesque lot, we film people,’ said Hellier wryly. ‘Self-advertisement is one of our worst faults.’

Warren looked at the intertwined R H stamped in gold on the handmade cigarette, and suspected that it was not Hellier’s normal style and that he went about it coldbloodedly in what was a conformist industry. He said nothing and waited for Hellier to toss a more reasonable conversational ball.

‘First, I must apologize for the scene I made in your rooms,’ said Hellier.

‘You have already done so,’ said Warren gravely. ‘And in any case, no apology is necessary.’

Hellier settled in a chair facing Warren and put his glass on a low table. ‘I find you are very well thought of in your profession.’

Warren twitched an eyebrow. ‘Indeed!’

‘I’ve been finding out things about the drug racket – I think I have it pretty well taped.’

‘In three days?’ said Warren ironically.

‘In the film industry, by its very nature, there must be an enormous fund of general knowledge. My Research Department is very nearly as good as, say, a newspaper office. If you put enough staff on to a problem you can do a lot in three days.’

Warren let that go and merely nodded.

‘My research staff found that in nearly one-third of their enquiries they were advised to consult you as a leading member of the profession.’

‘They didn’t,’ said Warren succinctly.

Hellier smiled. ‘No, I told them not to. As you said the other day, you’re a very busy man. I didn’t want to disturb you.’

‘I suppose I should thank you,’ said Warren with a straight face.

Hellier squared his shoulders. ‘Dr Warren, let us not fence with each other. I’m putting all my cards on the table. I also had you independently investigated.’

Warren sipped whisky and kept steady eyes on Hellier over the glass. ‘That’s a damned liberty,’ he observed mildly. ‘I suppose I should ask you what you found.’

Hellier held up his hand. ‘Nothing but good, Doctor. You have an enviable reputation both as a man and as a physician, besides being outstanding in the field of drug addiction.’

Warren said satirically, ‘I should like to read that dossier some time – it would be like reading one’s obituary, a chance which comes to few of us.’ He put down his glass. ‘And to what end is all this … this effort on your part?’

‘I wanted to be sure that you are the right man,’ said Hellier seriously.

‘You’re talking in riddles,’ said Warren impatiently. He laughed. ‘Are you going to offer me a job? Technical adviser to a film, perhaps?’

‘Perhaps,’ said Hellier. ‘Let me ask you a question. You are divorced from your wife. Why?’

Warren felt outrage, surprise and shock. He was outraged at the nature of the question; surprised that the urbane Hellier should have asked it; shocked because of the intensive nature of Hellier’s investigation of him. ‘That’s my affair,’ he said coldly.

‘Undoubtedly,’ Hellier studied Warren for a moment. I’ll tell you why your wife divorced you. She didn’t like your association with drug addicts.’

Warren put his hands on the arms of the chair preparatory to rising, and Hellier said sharply, ‘Sit down, man; listen to what I’ve got to say.’

‘It had better be good,’ said Warren, relaxing. ‘I don’t take kindly to conversations of this nature.’

Hellier stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. ‘That tells me more about you than it does about your wife, whom I am not interested in. It tells me that the interests of your profession come ahead of your personal relationships. Are you aware that you are considered to be a fanatic on the subject of drugs?’

‘It has been brought to my attention,’ said Warren stiffly.

Hellier nodded. ‘As you pointed out – and as I have found in my brief study – drug addicts are not the most easy patients. They’re conceited, aggressive, deceitful, vicious, crafty and any other pejorative term you care to apply to them. And yet you persist against all the odds in trying to help them – even to the extent of losing your wife. That seems to me to show a great deal of dedication.’

Warren snorted. ‘Dedication my foot! It’s just what goes with the job. All those vices you’ve just mentioned are symptoms of the general drug syndrome. The addicts are like that because of the drugs, and you can’t just leave them to stew because you don’t like the way they behave.’ He shook his head. ‘Come to the point. I didn’t come here to be admired – especially by you.’

Hellier flushed. ‘I was making a point in my own peculiar way,’ he said. ‘But I’ll come to the nub of it. When I came to see you, you said that the problem was in stopping the inflow of illicit drugs and you said it was an international problem. You were also damned quick to say that you weren’t prepared to jump off to Iran on a crazy adventure.’ He stuck out his finger. ‘I think you know something, Dr Warren; and I think it’s something definite.’

‘My God!’ said Warren. ‘You jump to a fast conclusion.’

‘I’m used to it,’ said Hellier easily. ‘I’ve had a lot of experience – and I’m usually right. I get paid for being right and I’m highly paid. Now, why Iran? Heroin is ultimately derived from opium, and opium comes from many places. It could come from the Far East – China or Burma – but you said the problem of illegal supply begins in the Middle East. Why the Middle East? And why pick Iran in particular? It could come from any of half a dozen countries from Afghanistan to Greece, but you took a snap judgment on Iran without a second thought.’ He set down his glass with a tiny click. ‘You know something definite, Dr Warren.’

Warren stirred in his chair. ‘Why this sudden interest?’

‘Because I’ve decided to do something about it,’ said Hellier. He laughed briefly at the expression on Warren’s face. ‘No, I haven’t gone mad; neither do I have delusions of grandeur. You pointed out the problem yourself. What the devil’s the good of patching up these damned idiots if they can walk out and pick up a fresh supply on the nearest corner? Cutting off the illegal supply would make your own job a lot easier.’

‘For God’s sake!’ exploded Warren. ‘There are hundreds of policemen of all nationalities working on this. What makes you think you can do any better?’

Hellier levelled a finger at him. ‘Because you have information which for reasons of your own – quite ethical reasons, I am sure – you will not pass on to the police.’

‘And which I will pass on to you – is that it?’

‘Oh, no,’ said Hellier. ‘You can keep it to yourself if you wish.’ He stabbed a finger towards Warren again. ‘You see, you are going to do something about it.’

‘Now I know you’re crazy,’ said Warren in disgust. ‘Hellier, I think you’ve been knocked off balance; you’re set on some weird kind of expiation and you’re trying to drag me into it.’ His lips twisted. ‘It’s known as shutting the stable door after the horse has gone, and I want no part of it.’

Unperturbedly, Hellier lit another cigarette, and Warren suddenly said, ‘You smoke too much.’

‘You’re the second doctor to tell me that within a fortnight.’ Hellier waved his hand. ‘You see, you can’t help being a doctor, even now. At our last meeting you said something else – “I’m a doctor who just makes ends meet”.’ He laughed. ‘You’re right; I know your bank balance to a penny. But suppose you had virtually unlimited funds, and suppose you coupled those funds with the information I’m certain you have and which, incidentally, you don’t deny having. What then?’

Warren spoke without thinking. ‘It’s too big for one man.’

‘Who said anything about one man? Pick your own team,’ said Hellier expansively,

Warren stared at him. ‘I believe you mean all this,’ he said in wonder.

‘I might be in the business of spinning fairy tales for other people,’ said Hellier soberly. ‘But I don’t spin them for myself. I mean every word of it.’

Warren knew he had been right; Hellier had been pushed off balance by the death of his daughter. He judged that Hellier had always been a single-minded man, and now he had veered off course and had set his sights on a new objective. And he would be a hard man to stop.

‘I don’t think you know what’s involved,’ he said.

‘I don’t care what’s involved,’ said Hellier flatly. ‘I want to hit these bastards. I want blood.’

‘Whose blood – mine?’ asked Warren cynically. ‘You’ve picked the wrong man. I don’t think the man exists, anyway. You need a combination of St George and James Bond. I’m a doctor, not a gang-buster.’

‘You’re a man with the knowledge and qualifications I need,’ said Hellier intensely. He saw he was on the edge of losing Warren, and said more calmly, ‘Don’t make a snap decision now, Doctor; just think it over.’ His voice sharpened. ‘And pay a thought to ethics.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Now what about a bite to eat?’