Paper Chase

by Bob Cook

  “Not really. According to his diary, my Lemiers was in Paris for at least two of the days when Carter was dealing with his Lemiers. But on other days, he was in Holland, Belgium and Switzerland. There’s nothing conclusive. And there’s no mention of Carter’s name or phone number in there.”

  “What about the other stuff in the diary?”

  “I’ve identified almost all of it. They’re all European chemical manufacturers who did regular business with my Lemiers’ firm. The only one I couldn’t identify was the name SEPP. The word appears several times on its own. In one place it also says PO Box 5367, but there’s no town or country. Elsewhere the words ‘2 more tons POC13’ are written beside it. I suppose SEPP is just another client—perhaps someone working for one of Lemiers’ client companies.”

  “Did any of the names in the diary match those on the Flavio’s documents?” the Laird asked. “Those delivery notes Captain Salvucci showed me and the Turkish agent’s receipt.”

  “No,” Beauchamp said. “There were two destinations at the Mersin end: Egridir Fertilisers in Turkey, and the State Organisation for Chemical Industries in Iraq. Neither of them appears in any of Lemiers’ papers.”

  “So when you examine the matter closely,” Ogden concluded, “there’s really nothing to connect Jeremy’s Lemiers with our inquiry.”

  “I knew it,” Sybil said triumphantly. “You pestered that poor widow for nothing.”

  “I didn’t pester her,” Beauchamp said indignantly. “As a matter of fact, we got on very well.”

  “What did you chat about?” the Vicar grinned. “Antiques?”

  “If you must know, yes.”

  “Oh dear,” Ogden said, with a pained smile. “Anyway, where were we? If we delete Jeremy’s Lemiers from our list, what does that leave us with? A cargo of guns that were really chemicals, sent to Turkey when they should have gone to Southampton and America. Rather baffling, eh?”

  “Time for a theory,” the Vicar suggested.

  “Fire away, Vicar.”

  “We started off on the assumption that Carter was the victim of a hoax. Let’s stick to that. The aim of the hoax was to swindle an arms dealer out of a large sum of money, and it worked. Lemiers—whoever he was—told Carter he could supply arms. Carter believed him.”

  “But why?” the Laird asked. “Lemiers had no references, no contacts—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” the Vicar said. “He may have used forged documents or something, but the fact is he did it.”

  “Quite right,” Ogden said. “Keep going, Vicar.”

  “You’ll remember,” the Vicar said, “that this was supposed to be an illegal delivery, with no end-user certificate. So Lemiers said he would put the arms on a certain ship, disguised as chemicals. Lemiers then found the name of a ship which regularly ran shipments of chemicals, and told Carter that this boat would be doing the job.

  “Furthermore, to make the story watertight, Lemiers told Carter he could even watch the chemicals being loaded onto the ship. So Carter did exactly that, not realising that the drums he saw loaded really did contain chemicals.

  “But of course the ship never came to Southampton, and by the time Carter found out, it was too late. Lemiers had vanished with Carter’s money, and was now untraceable.”

  “Not bad,” Ogden said. “But I can see some major flaws. Firstly, Lemiers didn’t originally know it was going to be an illegal job. That only came about when Colonel Kyle placed his order. If Carter had found a legitimate customer for the arms, he would have expected the guns to be shipped normally, and he could have inspected them for himself.”

  “True,” the Vicar conceded. “But then Lemiers would have found another way of diddling him.”

  The others were not convinced.

  “You’re also ignoring one thing,” the Laird said. “Captain Salvucci claimed that Carter had ordered the shipment, not Lemiers.”

  “I’ve thought about that,” the Vicar said. “The captain said that before he met Carter on that one occasion at Naples, he’d only dealt with him by phone.”

  “So what?”

  “Perhaps it wasn’t Carter who’d spoken to him. Perhaps it was someone claiming to be Carter.”

  “Surely he could tell their voices apart?”

  “Not necessarily. International phone lines can be quite bad, and the Laird says that the captain’s English wasn’t the best.”

  “That’s an interesting point,” Ogden said.

  “That’s utter rubbish,” Sybil said. “Pure speculation.”

  “Not really,” the Vicar said. “How else do you account for the fact that Carter sent the ship to Turkey and then waited for it in Southampton?”

  “But haven’t you contradicted yourself?” Beauchamp said. “Firstly you suggested that Lemiers merely found out about somebody else’s chemical shipment. Now you’re saying he arranged it. Which is it to be?”

  “The first,” the Vicar said. “But there’s no contradiction: Lemiers found out about a shipment from company X to the SS Flavio, all right? Then he phoned the Flavio’s captain and claimed to be a director of company X. He asked a few routine questions, like ‘what time will you be loading the stuff on board?’, and said he’d be there to see it off. Provided there were no hitches with the delivery, there was no reason for Captain Salvucci to phone company X and ask to speak to a Mr Carter.”

  “Fair enough,” the Laird said, “but wasn’t Lemiers taking a big risk? He invited Carter to watch the stuff being loaded: what if Carter chatted to the captain about their phone call? What if he said ‘see you in Southampton’?”

  The Vicar smiled gleefully.

  “But he didn’t, did he? Carter just said ‘see you at the other end’. Then he sat on the dock, and didn’t say another word, and Lemiers jolly well knew he wouldn’t. Remember, this was an illegal shipment, and Carter wasn’t going to take any risks. He was far too nervous.”

  The others fell silent, and weighed up the pros and cons of the Vicar’s theory. It wasn’t perfect, but it was the best thing on offer.

  “This is all very well,” Ogden said, “but it fails to explain one important thing. Why have several people connected with this swindle been murdered? There’s Carter, the investigator, and now Captain Salvucci.”

  “Not to mention Jeremy’s Lemiers,” the Laird said.

  “He doesn’t count,” Ogden said. “We’ve ruled him out, and his death isn’t a coincidence. Remember, Jeremy heard about him from a policeman, precisely because he’d been murdered. But there’s nothing about his murder to link him with the others.”

  “Quite the reverse,” Beauchamp said. “Lemiers was the only one who was shot. The others were all killed by other means.”

  “Exactly,” Ogden said. “But how does the Vicar’s theory explain the other three?”

  “Carter was swindled,” the Vicar said, “but the only loser was his client, Colonel Kyle.”

  “Are you saying Kyle’s taking revenge?”

  “Why not?”

  “Seems most improbable,” Ogden said. “After all, by ordinary standards, Magnum Inc. lost a lot of money. But by CIA standards, it was nothing. Petty cash. And if this is all revenge, it’s pretty cack-handed. Carter wasn’t guilty of anything—”

  “The Americans might not have seen it that way,” the Vicar said.

  “But why murder the private investigator, Hopkins, or Captain Salvucci? What had they done to upset the Americans?”

  “Nothing,” the Vicar conceded. “All right, so it wasn’t revenge. But whatever the real reason is, I bet it fits in with my theory.”

  Sybil’s patience finally ran out.

  “Godfrey,” she said, “your so-called theory is the most ridiculous piece of tripe I have ever heard.”

  “Yes, dear,” the Vicar sighed.

  “It’s utter piffle, and you know it.”

  “If you say so, dear.”

  “Now finish your meal before it gets cold.”

  “Yes, dear.�
��

  “Murders by the CIA, indeed!” Sybil scoffed. “Why, you’ll next be telling me that this colonel’s going to come here and murder us all in our beds. Really!”

  Chapter Thirty-one

  COLONEL BRUTUS KYLE looked around the reception of his hotel. It was one of the more opulent establishments in Mayfair, but that did not mean anything to him. To judge from the expression on the colonel’s face, London was not to his taste.

  “Why hast thou made us come up out of Egypt, to bring us to this evil place?” he muttered. “It is no place for grain, or figs, or vines, or pomegranates.”

  “If you’d just sign here,” the receptionist said, pointing to a line in the guest book.

  Colonel Kyle took a pen and wrote something down. The receptionist glanced at the entry, and said, “Thank you very much Mr…er, Mr Word. Is that your name: Mr Word?”

  “Then I saw heaven opened,” the colonel quoted, “and behold, a white horse! He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True, and the name by which he is called is the Word of God.”

  “I see,” the receptionist said calmly. “Well, thank you, Mr Word. I hope you enjoy your stay in London. Philip here will show you to your room.”

  The bell-boy took Colonel Kyle’s bag and escorted him to the lift.

  “Are you here on business or pleasure, sir?” he inquired, as they got out on the fourth floor. “You don’t look like a tourist, if I may say so.”

  “Tourist?” the colonel repeated. “Ha! Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity and a striving after wind.”

  The bell-boy nodded laconically.

  “Didn’t think you were a tourist. Here’s your room.”

  He opened the door and they went inside. Colonel Kyle did not bother to look around to see if things were to his liking. He went to the window and gazed down at the traffic.

  “Everything okay then, sir?” the bell-boy inquired.

  The colonel did not reply.

  “If there’s anything you want…”

  Like most of his type, the bell-boy expected to be tipped. Indeed, he prided himself on never leaving a guest’s room without first receiving some gratuity, however small.

  “First time in London, sir?” he asked. “If you’ve any time to spare, I can tell you of a few places to spend it. Clubs, bars. Something a bit daring, perhaps? The sort of places you businessmen like to unwind in…”

  The colonel continued to gaze through the window.

  “You didn’t say what your business here was, sir,” the bellboy observed. “Perhaps I could…”

  Colonel Kyle turned round and stared down at the boy.

  “My business?” he repeated.

  “Yes. Why you’ve come to London.”

  “As the psalm says, ‘insolent men have risen against me,’” the colonel explained. “‘A band of ruthless men seek my life.’”

  “Crikey! Have you told the police?”

  The colonel laughed disdainfully, as if the police were the last people who could help him.

  “So what are you going to do?” the bell-boy said.

  “Harass the Midianites and smite them,” the colonel said, “for they have harassed me with their wiles.”

  “You don’t say? Do you know where they are?”

  The colonel shook his head ruefully.

  “But every one who asks, receives,” he said. “And he who seeks, finds.”

  “I like your confidence,” the bell-boy grinned. “Now, if that’ll be all…”

  He held out his hand. Colonel Kyle misunderstood the gesture: he took the boy’s hand and shook it firmly.

  “Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees,” was the colonel’s parting advice.

  “Right!” the bell-boy gasped. “I’ll—I’ll bear that in mind, sir.”

  He abandoned any hope of a tip, and hurriedly left the room.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  SYBIL ROLLED OVER and turned on her bedside lamp. With a disconsolate snort, she put on her glasses and blinked sleepily at the alarm clock. It was four in the morning. In the last five hours she had accrued a total of fifty minutes’ sleep.

  It must have been something she had eaten at the Chinese restaurant. Every few seconds her abdomen emitted a low, cavernous rumble, accompanied by random creaks and a chorus of high-pitched squeals.

  After five hours of this visceral cacophony, Sybil gave up. There was no point in trying to sleep through such a ferocious intestinal blitzkrieg, particularly when it was accompanied by the sound-effects from her husband’s bedroom. It was over twenty years since the Vicar’s fine baritone snore had caused him to be banished from the matrimonial suite, but the sound was still powerful enough to penetrate the walls of Sybil’s boudoir. Tonight she found it doubly exasperating, since it showed that the Chinese meal was having no ill-effects on her spouse. It was jolly unfair, Sybil decided.

  She got out of bed, put on her gown, and went downstairs to the kitchen. There she took out several rusty old tins containing the remnants of various brands of stomach-powder, all of which had long ago been taken off the market. Sybil swore by these brands, and was convinced that the only reason they were no longer on sale was because they tasted unpleasant, and people expected to be mollycoddled nowadays. Sybil belonged to a generation with strong views on the subject of medicine: all good remedies were either horribly painful, foul-smelling, or left a vile taste in the mouth. The best ones left the patient half-dead.

  She poured the powders into a glass, and watched in satisfaction as the water turned a menacing, stagnant-pond khaki. She drank it in one gulp, and at once she felt gratifyingly bilious. After five minutes the nausea subsided, and the Chinese meal was hors de combat.

  Unfortunately, Sybil no longer felt particularly sleepy. She decided to move to the drawing-room and read a book for a little while. She was half-way through a large tome by an obscure Edwardian novelist: the story was absurd and the characters were incredible, but the world described was a better one than Sybil inhabited, and it reminded her of a time—not so very long ago—when people were sensible, and did precisely what was expected of them.

  But as she opened the book, she could not help noticing the documents left behind by the Vicar’s friends. The papers lay in an untidy heap on the coffee-table: photocopies, handwritten notes, and strange diagrams.

  They really are an overgrown bunch of boy scouts, Sybil thought. It was quite improper for a group of retired gentlemen to go snooping around like a firm of seedy private investigators. Respectable people minded their own business. It was all that man Ogden’s fault, and Sybil wished fervently that her husband’s friend would be struck down by a minor heart attack, or a chronic bout of arthritis, or something equally crippling. Nothing lethal, of course—Sybil was not malicious—but debilitating enough to put a stop to his puerile activities. The man was far too healthy for his own good.

  It wasn’t as if the men were particularly competent at what they were doing. Sybil knew that she could make a far better job of investigating the missing armaments and the subsequent murders—assuming that she wanted to, of course, and Sybil had no such inclination. But it was clear that the men did not know how to interpret the information they had amassed. The work needed a clear head and lots of common sense. The men lacked both these qualities, but Sybil had them in abundance.

  Without doubt, Ogden & Co. had overlooked some important clues. Sybil could not remember what, exactly, but she knew they had ignored a point of interest. It was something Jeremy Beauchamp had said—but what, exactly?

  Sybil shook her head. She had no choice but to look at the papers. After a few moments of rummaging, she found the reminder. It was a note in the Laird’s handwriting which contained the destination of the Flavio’s chemical shipment. Some of it was going to Egridir Fertilisers in Turkey, and the rest was going to the State Organisation for Chemical Industries in Baghdad. The men had taken this information for granted, but Sybil remembere
d that it had struck a chord in her. But why? It really was too late at night…

  That was it! The Turkish shipment meant nothing to her, but the other destination—Baghdad—was quite interesting. It reminded her of a newspaper article she had read. Or was it a television programme? Anyway, it was worth looking into. It could be another red herring, of course, but she could check it easily and at no expense. And that was more than could be said for the extravagant jaunts Ogden & Co. had taken recently.

  Of course, all this assumed that Sybil was prepared to do the men’s work for them. Her first instinct was to forget all about the matter.

  But, she reflected, there were other considerations. The sooner this business was resolved, the sooner she and her husband could return to the business of being a normal, retired couple. If Ogden & Co. were left to their own devices, the saga might drag on for ever. At the end of their meal, the men had decided to present their findings to Mr Blake. If he was unsatisfied with the Vicar’s theory, they would press on with the inquiry. And there was no doubt that Mr Blake would be unsatisfied: the man wanted to know why his partner had been killed, and the Vicar’s theory had yet to account for that little enigma. So the whole sorry affair would plague Sybil for months to come—years, perhaps—unless she stepped in and sorted it out with the aid of her powerful, no-nonsense intellect.

  Besides, Sybil would derive grim satisfaction from out-sleuthing these amateur sleuths. It would prove once and for all that she was a person to be taken seriously. Oh yes, Sybil knew what the men said behind her back. It was quite clear from the impertinent twinkle in Clive Ogden’s eyes that she was a figure of fun to him. Well, she would jolly well show him.

  She looked up at the clock over the mantelpiece. It was now a quarter to five. She no longer felt sleepy—indeed, her latest decision seemed to have instilled new energy into her. She picked up the papers from the coffee-table once more, put a pad of paper on her lap, and began to take tidy, methodical notes.