Queen's Pawn

by Victor Canning

  At two o’clock he rang the doorbell of Berners’s house. Berners, wearing a dark blue blazer with silver buttons, a silver tie, fawn trousers and suede shoes, let him in.

  Reproduced from The Times by permission.

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  Chapter Eleven

  Berners was happy. It was not something he would show openly, but after an hour of talking to him Raikes realized that it was there. Any emotion he had himself had now hardened to an easily shouldered burden. They had both agreed that this thing had to be done. All right. Let it be done and finished with. But he sensed now that where he was approaching it as one more task before he could walk into the comparative freedom of the life he wanted, Berners was thinking no farther ahead than the task itself … and that not a task, but an operation he welcomed. So, he told himself, if you live long enough and work long enough with a man it is still not possible to come to the end of all discovery about him. Berners, snug in this house; endowed for life, should have been resenting the dictate which had been handed to him. But he was accepting it, calm and subdued outwardly, but eagerly and with relish inwardly.

  Raikes stood up. ‘ Well, there it all is. I suggest we think about it separately for a few days and then get in touch and compare notes. From what I’ve seen in the press the QE2 is not likely to make that April the 18th date, so we’ve plenty of time.’

  Berners nodded, and then not getting up, clearly wanting to hold Raikes to this room for a while, he said, ‘Why don’t you say openly that you’re surprised at my reaction?’

  ‘You want me to?’

  ‘Why not? We’re going to do this. The more we understand one another and ourselves the more efficiently we work together.’

  ‘You’re talking in riddles.’

  ‘No, I’m not. I’m talking freely. Why don’t we both look at the thing squarely? We did some pretty daring things together. Risky. Dangerous. But not outrageous. But we didn’t do them just to get money, did we?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You tell yourself you did. But if you really think about it you’ll have to admit—as I do—that there was something else. Some element in us which forces us to behave differently from the majority of men. It’s an element we can’t ignore. You never had any conscience over murdering Sarling, did you?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Any normal man would have done. It proves my point. He was a bigger challenge than any we’d had before—and we never questioned not killing him. Any more than we were questioning killing Miss Vickers—though that’s out of court now. It’s as simple as this. When we first met you’d found a groove, a line of country which suited us. But Sarling gave us something different to think about, something that discovered a different potential in us. Look at us now—once we murdered to protect what we have and to ensure freedom from fear. And now? We accept that for the rest of life we must learn to live without complete peace of mind, must learn to live on trust … trust that rests in the hands of other people. You know why we make that shift so easily?’

  ‘Because we have no choice. Because I’m determined to restore the status quo as near as possible to what it was before Sarling came along.’

  Berners shook his head. ‘No. Any kind of status that spelled contentment, pleasant, well-heeled routine would drive us up the wall. We are what we are, and we shall always be wanting to venture ourselves. Not resenting it even when other people force us to venture ourselves. We’re misfits.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Berners.’

  ‘We are. Face it. We don’t fit into normal society. We can make the motions and the faces—but we don’t belong. So, let’s accept it and be happy about it for as long as we can.’

  Suddenly Raikes laughed. ‘No, Berners—this is just your way of adjusting to this situation. Okay, why shouldn’t it be true, or seem true to you? I don’t question it. But I know how I feel and stand. I know what I want and what waits for me beyond this bloody QE2 thing. And I’m going to have it—come hell or high water. I’m going back to my true place. I’m going to have a wife and kids and the life I’ve always wanted. And God help anyone who tries to muck it up!’

  Berners stood up and shrugged his shoulders.

  ‘All right.’

  Raikes said, ‘You want me to leave the brochure and the notes?’

  ‘No. It’s a simple problem. The main line is clear. Once we’ve established the fundamentals it’s just a question of details. Whatever Sarling’s plan was it must have hinged on those canisters you stole. As you said, that was no boy scout exercise. You’ve got some left?’

  ‘Quite a few yet.’

  Raikes went back to London. Berners had surprised him. Misfits. Away from Berners he had begun to grow angry over it, and the angry denial was still with him, and with it an anger against the whole situation.

  When he walked into the flat Belle was standing in her bedroom door. She turned and he saw the anxiety on her face. She’d spent hours wondering where he was, wondering what he was doing … full of her stupid anxiety.… He could read it all in her now as she came towards him, arms out … Andy on her lips … and the sight of her roused a silent fury in him.

  He lifted her, stopped her silly mouth with a kiss and carried her through into the bedroom. He dropped her on the bed, hearing her giggle, his face smiling, masking his fury, and his hands, lifting her skirt and stripping her pants, were rough and eager, not with a lover’s haste for rut, but with an impatience to possess and punish and obliterate her. He took her hard and long, whipping her body with his, spending his rare fury on her, exhausting it and her and himself, and knowing that all the time she was taking for passion what was punishment, taking for love what was anger and a venting of frustration.…

  Two weeks later, now almost the end of February, Raikes drove down to Southampton and booked in at the Polygon Hotel.

  In that two weeks he had seen Berners twice and between them they had arrived at a broad, overall plan of their strategy. But now the time had come to go over the actual ground on which they would be working. There were dozens of small points of detail which had to be checked and minor problems that had to be solved. The only way to do this was to go over the ship itself—and that was not easy because she was still in the hands of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders and no casual visitors were allowed aboard. One had to be working on the ship or officially connected with it. The only detailed plans of the ship Raikes had were the publicity lay-outs issued by the Cunard people. These ran from the Fifth Deck right up to the Signal Deck, but gave no lay-out of the captain’s and officers’ quarters, or of the wheelhouse. It was essential that Raikes should familiarize himself with the ship before he went aboard for the real operation because the plan he and Berners had worked out depended on the gold being stolen within sixteen hours of the ship’s leaving Southampton. In fact, some three or four hours after she had left Le Havre and when she would still be in the English Channel. When he went aboard on the ship’s first west-east passage he had to know his way around with absolute certainty in those areas where he would be operating. The ship was a floating city and it would be the easiest thing in the world to get lost in her.

  His first evening at the Polygon, he went into the bar before dinner and sat quietly at a table with his drink and an evening paper. Getting aboard the ship was a problem, but not a big one. In the bar amongst all the talk the sound of more than one Scots accent could be heard. Aboard the ship were scores of Upper Clyde workers and many of them, officials, engineers and the staff of sub-contractors, had been staying at the hotel for some time. Raikes listened, ran his eye over the crowd in the bar and decided to take his time in marking down a man. The long years behind him had taught him that nothing can be forced.

  The next morning he got himself a visitor’s pass to the docks.

  He got a taxi to just short of the main dock gate and then walked through, showing his pass to the policeman on duty.

  The Queen Elizabeth 2 was berthed alongside the Ocean Terminal. He walked the
quayside, the whole of her length, the great wall of her welded plates rising above him. Midships a gangway went aboard and its entrance was guarded by a policeman and a dock guard, both of them warming themselves at a coke brazier from a cold north-east wind which was whipping down the chasm between the ship and the Ocean Terminal. He walked past and at the far end of the quay turned into the Terminal and went to its upper floor. From here he could look across to the ship’s upper decks. Since she was still the property of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders their house flag was flying at her mast—a purple cross patée on a white ground. He stood there looking through the windows, paying particular attention to her foredeck. The main and central part of it was taken up with two big, white painted capstans from which ran the chains for the three anchors, two shipped on the deck and the third housed forward now in the bows. Forward of the two anchors was a small mast about twenty feet high. The sight of this small mast did not please him because he and Berners had decided that the only way to get the gold physically off the ship was to pick it up by helicopter lowering a cargo hoist above this deck. Apart from this mast there was plenty of room for a helicopter to hover, particularly if the ship were brought round into the wind and the speed reduced. In fact the sight of it depressed him. So much in every plan did small, unforeseeable items like this raise big problems.

  For the next two evenings Raikes sat in the bar before dinner and let his face become familiar, got on first name terms with the barman and passed the odd word or two with various people. He was in no hurry. It was going to be weeks before the ship was ready for sea and when she was she might do a cruise or two to the Mediterranean or the West Indies before she took her first regular passenger run direct across the North Atlantic to New York. He let it be known that he was from a London property company down here to look over prospective building purchases. It was a field in which he had operated spuriously before and he knew that if with odd bar acquaintances you were guarded about details it was no more than they expected because this was the nature of the business. You never gave away information which might help others to get in ahead of you. Meantime Berners, with some of their old stationery, sent him a steady flow of mail containing on the whole blank sheets of paper. But he knew the value of the legend printed on the envelopes—London Wall Commercial Properties Limited. The porters on the main desk came to know him; and the girls in the reception office gave him the bright morning and evening smile, and the restaurant waiters admitted him to their family, and the wine waiter found a first class Gevry Chambertin for him which was not marked on the wine list. He knew them all and they knew and liked him. And unobtrusively he picked their brains about the other permanent guests and marked down his man—Alfred Graham, a young Scot of about thirty from the pay office of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders who had been sent down to work in the temporary office aboard ship, where he dealt with wage sheets and pay for the workers aboard. Alfred liked his dram and was—justly—proud of the ship his firm had built and angry at the troubles that had beset her, and even angrier at the journalists who had magnified those troubles in the press. For two or three nights Raikes fed Alfred his drams in the bar after dinner and learned that on the Saturday morning he was going to spend the weekend in London. On Friday night he fed Alfred more drams than he could take and at midnight helped him up to his room and put him, snoring before his shoes were off, to bed. When Raikes left the room he had—taken from Alfred’s wallet—his pass to board the Queen Elizabeth 2.

  He went down late the next morning and—solicitous drinking friend—checked with the porter that Alfred had gone off, pale but determined—to London for his weekend. There was no photograph on the pass, just a printed square of pasteboard from the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders authorizing A. Graham to go aboard and listing his standing as Pay Clerk.

  Within an hour Raikes was at the gangway. From two-half hour periods of observation from the Ocean Terminal windows above, he had already seen that only about once in ten times did the gangway guard actually take the proffered pass and examine it. Just the wave of the card was enough.

  On this Saturday morning the guard took the pass, looked at the front briefly and then turned it over and examined the blank back as though he expected to find written there some happy message or keen insult and then handed it back.

  Raikes went aboard into the maze of alleyways and corridors, public rooms, grill room, coffee room, juke box room, libraries, theatre, stairways, promenade decks, boatdeck, first- and second-class lidos, a vast tunnelled anthill inhabited now by worker ants swarming everywhere to complete the cabins and fittings of the ship. Once aboard there was no further check on passes and he was free to wander without question. That he wandered with no pretence of working made no difference because half the workmen seemed to be doing the same. None of the lifts were working so he had to slog up and down the stairways, checking his way as he went from the guide boards on each deck landing and everywhere he went his memory recorded each lay-out, each twist and turn, angle and corner faithfully. For the most part he stayed forward of midships because he knew that this was the part of the ship which would concern him most and, in this area, he concentrated most on the fore part of the boatdeck. It was here that the blue-painted A Stairway came to an end. He walked the length of this deck along the glassed-in promenade down the port side, then back through the tiered Double Room, along the alleyway of shops, stepping over cables, dodging round stepladders where electricians worked on the light fittings, through the Juke Box Room, with a sideways look through the door of the Theatre, along to the Coffee Shop and then forward through the 736 Room to A Stairway landing. From here forward were the captain’s and officers quarters and the entrance to the wheelhouse beyond them. Forward from here was the brain of the ship. One day he was going to control that brain. A few yards from here he knew that he was going to spend an hour of his life which could lead to disaster unless he were complete and confident master of everything he said and did. And he had to admit to himself as he stood there now that far from the prospect overwhelming him, it was a challenge which for a moment or two he could feel impatient to meet. For an hour at least he was going to be master of this ship. But to be that he must know this part of her as well as he knew his way around Alverton … must know everything, every door and every alleyway, every exit and entrance, every detail from the notices saying Post de Canot de Sauvetage to the number of glass showcases that lined the starboard side of the landing, know that below him on the next deck was another landing that gave access to the Britannia Restaurant with its coloured figure-head of Britannia dominating the entrance, and forward of it the big Look-Out Room with tall windows looking out to the bows, giving a view over quarterdeck and foredeck to where one day a helicopter would hover at night in the soft glow of the deck lights … know all this, and know that one day, too, Belle would stand in that room and—checked half an hour ago—would pull back the canvas blinds (drawn at night to avoid glare being thrown up to confuse the watch in the wheelhouse) a little and watch the gold being lifted from the deck.

  And now, Saturday, knowing from bar talk at the Polygon that the Captain and a few officers slept and kept duties aboard, he decided not to go blundering into the officers’ quarters, ready with apologies and charm, and no opportunity to be missed to improve on ten seconds’ acquaintance, but to keep that for the next day when it would be Sunday and there would probably be even fewer officers there and the Captain, with luck, ashore for lunch or away for the weekend. So, he turned and went back down the blue-carpeted A Stairway and applied himself to the task of selecting a cabin for Belle; a single, first-class cabin for, after the robbery, she would have to go all the way to America, anonymous, unknown, her part in the affair never to be revealed. It had to be a cabin as remote as possible from all others and well forward on the port side so that he could get easily and quickly to A Stairway and so up to the boatdeck. Already he had picked it from the cabin accommodation plans supplied to Belle at Cunard House and learned that every
cabin number began with the number of the deck on which it was situated and all those on the port side ended in an even number and all those on the starboard side in an odd number. There were not many single, first-class cabins. When the time came Benson or Mandel would have to use some of his hidden influence to get them Cabin 4004.

  He went down now to Four Deck, walked across the landing and swung right into the long alleyway stretching down the inside of the cabins on the port side. He went ten or twelve yards forward to the end of the cabin run. A little side alleyway to the left led first to. Cabin 4002 and then to Cabin 4004 beyond it. Hidden by the short turning from the main alleyway there was no one to see him. The door of the cabin was unlocked and he went in. There was a single bed to his left running the length of the wall. On the wall running at an angle to it was the dressing table and a mirror with a blue fabric surround. Under the mirror was a console for lights, radio, and services. Beyond it in the same wall close to the porthole was a wardrobe cupboard and opposite it a partitioned section which held washbasin, toilet and shower. He shut the door and checked the room, knowing that before he came to know it personally he had to know it theoretically because there might be something about it which could in some small way shape the plan which had yet to be perfected. He came out with one important piece of information. There were no bolts on the inside of the main door or the shower room door. They could be locked but not bolted. He would have to check whether passengers carried their own cabin key, but he felt it unlikely. But what was significant was that no passenger could bolt himself in, and a Steward with his pass-key could always get into a cabin if there was ever any question of a cabin search.