The Man Who Hated Banks & Other Mysteries

by Michael Gilbert

  “Maybe she’s hard up.”

  “She is not hard up. She has a great deal of money. I think she keeps it under her mattress.”

  “She’s stupid enough to do just that,” agreed Mercer. “But why does it worry you?”

  “I do not like these strange men. First they watch the house. Now they come and live here.”

  “What’s strange about this one?”

  Shallini considered the matter, then said, “He wears glasses.”

  “Don’t bother your sweet head about him,” said Mercer. “If he wears glasses and looks strange he’s a tax inspector. And bustle along with those scrambled eggs. I’ve got a feeling it’s going to be a busy day at the office.”

  Unless the weather was foul, Mercer liked to walk to work. It gave both him and the people who followed him some exercise. An expert himself in the art of maintaining observation, he was interested in the careful network which enfolded him. It was ably done and unless he had been watching out for it, he would probably have missed the links in the chain. A youth on a bicycle. A girl on a moped. A small closed van. A one-legged newspaper vendor. A number of less easily identifiable men and women on foot. The permutations and combinations were made skilfully and unobtrusively.

  Nothing unexpected in that. When he had taken on the number two job, Mr. Henderson had told him, “You’re on probation.” If being on probation included being under observation, that was understandable too. In this game no player trusted any other player farther than he could see him. If he ever took Mr. Henderson’s place at the top, he would watch his number two just as carefully – well, to start with, anyway.

  Mr. Henderson had defined the scope of his job with equal succinctness. “You’re a middle man. You’ll get instructions. You pass them on. And you see that they’re carried out.”

  A beautifully watertight system, with half a dozen cutouts, everything operating downward and no leads back to the man at the top.

  When Mercer got to his office in the building occupied by Arnold Rowe and Company (Ships’ Chandlers and General Marine Suppliers) in Lower Creek Street, he examined the dozen letters which had arrived with the morning post. One of them seemed to interest him. It was in a dark-blue good-quality envelope and was addressed to him by name. The word CONFIDENTIAL had been stamped in red on the top left-hand side of the envelope. The word was enclosed in a rectangular frame, which was tilted very slightly to the left.

  Before opening the envelope, Mercer took out a ruler and measured the distance between the top left-hand corner of the frame and the comer of the envelope. He seemed satisfied with the result and slit open the envelope. It contained a single sheet of dark-blue paper and a cloakroom ticket from the Main Line baggage room at Victoria. On the paper was typed the name Van der Hoek, followed by an Amsterdam telephone number. Underneath, also typed, were the words: “Bapu Ram – 5.5. Torridge – two percent additional.”

  Mercer pocketed the cloakroom ticket, memorised the telephone number, and fed both paper and envelope into an APC shredder. Then he left his office and walked along the corridor until he reached a door in the blank wall at the end, which he opened with a key on his own ring. This was a communicating door which led at first-storey level into the adjoining premises of the Maritime Employment Agency. He found Bapu Ram, a tall serious-looking Pakistani with an incongruous Groucho Marx moustache, interviewing a girl applicant for a job.

  Mercer said, “As soon as you’ve finished, would you step along for a moment to the conference room?”

  Under the previous management, a management which had terminated abruptly when its nominal head Arnold Rowe had been shot down outside his own flat, Bapu Ram had been a difficult employee and had even headed a successful strike. Mercer had managed to keep on reasonably good terms with him. He knew him to be resourceful.

  Mercer said, “We’ve got a ferrying job in hand. Amsterdam. Okay?”

  “The usual terms?”

  “Plus two percent.”

  “Very well.” Bapu Ram held out his hand and Mercer gave him the cloakroom ticket, repeating the name and telephone number and going on until he was certain Bapu had them correctly. That, for the moment, was all that he had to do.

  What would happen next he had learned at second and third hand – from Shallini’s friend, from casual remarks overheard, from occasional drunken indiscretions. He guessed that Bapu would collect a suitcase full of innocent truck and would find the real contents concealed in the lining or handle of the case. On this occasion, since the destination was Amsterdam, it would probably be precious stones. These he would conceal either on his person or more probably in the cabin stores which would be sent aboard the 5.5. Torridge and which would be under his control as steward.

  In Amsterdam, Bapu would complete the sale to Van der Hoek, the terms of which would already have been agreed upon. His normal take was five percent of the proceeds. In this case he would get an extra two percent. The balance he would bring back in notes, similarly hidden, which would be stowed away in Mercer’s office safe. Later, sometimes after a considerable interval, he would be given a rendezvous on the outskirts of London, would drive out, and hand the notes to a third party who would arrive in a car which had been stolen for that one trip and would then be abandoned.

  Mercer gave high marks to the planning which had gone into the scheme. The profits were represented by the difference between the paltry price an English thief would get from a receiver in this country and the much larger price which a safer foreign buyer would pay for the same goods. Even allowing for the incidental expenses and commissions, the margin must be very handsome. And suppose he had wanted to give Mr. Henderson away to the police? What evidence had he got to connect him with the operation? “Not a sausage,” said Mercer. “Clever as they come.”

  He said this to Shallini, who was busy setting the supper table. Shallini said, “He is very clever. No one sees him. We are not even supposed to know his name. It is even dangerous to mention it. Purunmal was punished for doing so.”

  “Is that the chap I saw hobbling round on crutches? I heard he’d fallen off a mobile crane when he was drunk.”

  “No. But when he was drunk, he could not control his tongue.”

  “There are people like that,” agreed Mercer.

  After supper he said, “I’m going out now. If anyone should want me, tell them I’ll be back in about an hour.

  The flat which he and Shallini were using was on the second floor. Mercer walked down the two flights of stairs, taking no particular precautions against noise. When he reached the hall he noticed that the doorway of the room Shallini had mentioned was ajar. He noticed also that the telephone, which was the only one in the building, had been moved. It now stood on a table outside that door.

  They were giving him the full treatment, Mercer thought. He wondered how much of it was psychological, intended to warn him that he was under surveillance. They could not really hope to keep tabs on him every minute; nor could they keep it up indefinitely.

  He went out into the street banging the front door behind him and proceeded at a moderate pace towards the High Street. When he reached the China Clipper he went into the saloon bar, nodded to the landlord, walked straight through and out by the door at the back, which gave onto an alley. This led, in turn, to a maze of little dockside streets. Mercer made his way through them, unhurriedly but quietly, and finally came out into the High Street 200 yards farther along.

  As he did so a west-going bus was moving away from the stop. Mercer hopped on board and took a seat which allowed him to watch the passengers getting on and off. After a while he seemed satisfied, left the bus, and immediately dived down a side street.

  Five minutes later he was ringing the bell of a flat in the Southwark area. The girl who opened the door did not seem surprised to see him. She was wearing a housecoat, had a scarf covering her hair, and a blob of whitewash on her nose. Mercer thought she looked very attractive.

  “I’m just getting things straig
ht,” she said.

  “So I can see,” said Mercer.

  “It was good of you to find me this place so quickly.”

  “It had to be quick. I gather from my friends that you’d been blown. If you hadn’t moved smartly you’d have been in for a pack of trouble. What I can’t see is why A10 didn’t pull you out altogether.”

  “I suppose they thought there was still something for me to do.”

  “You’ve done your job. You’ve given them Detective Sergeant Russ nicely tied up with a label round his neck. What more do they want?”

  “Actually, I understand Russ is to be left where he is. For the time being.”

  “For God’s sake,” said Mercer, his face going red. “What are they playing at? Russ is a bent copper. All they have to do is collect him and put him away somewhere, where he won’t do any more harm.”

  “They were very grateful for the tip you gave us.”

  “I don’t want gratitude. I want Russ out of the way. Why do they think I went to all that trouble to collect enough evidence for you to nail him?”

  “It’s a question a lot of people have been asking,” said the girl calmly.

  For a moment it looked as though Mercer was going to do or say something violent. Then, quite suddenly, the anger left him. The girl, who was watching him closely, had noticed the same thing before. His changes of mood were as sudden and unpredictable as changes in autumn weather.

  He had sat down on the end of the bed, which was almost the only piece of furniture in the small room, and stayed there unmoving. The only sign of life in him was when the tip of his tongue came out, moved over his upper lip from left to right, and over his lower lip from right to left, and went in again.

  Then he said, “I wonder.”

  Mr. Henderson sat in the beautiful drawing room of his house in Wilfred Street. The windows were wide open and brought in the scent of the carnations and stocks from the hidden garden at the back. He looked up from the handwritten report he was studying as the boy came in. He was wearing a white housecoat and carried a tray of drinks.

  Mr. Henderson said, “Put it down, Bobby. I want to hear about Mercer. You can sit down.”

  The boy said, “Well, thanks very much,” managing to make it sound grateful and impertinent at the same time.

  “According to this report, he seems to be playing it straight down the middle.”

  “He hasn’t stepped out of line yet.”

  “There was some question about a girl.”

  “You mean Shallini?”

  “No. We know about Shallini. He’s been living with her for a long time – she came back with him when he had to leave the Middle East. There’s another one.”

  “There was a bint in the Salvation Army. Quite a good looker. Name said to be Millicent Ford.”

  “Said to be?”

  “There was a buzz that she wasn’t all she pretended to be.”

  “You’ll have to be rather more explicit,” said Mr. Henderson. “Do you mean that, although attached to that excellent institution, the Salvation Army, her morals were not all they would have wished?”

  “The buzz was that she was a copper.”

  “Really?” said Mr. Henderson. “I should have thought it was a rough part of London for a female policeman to be operating in alone.”

  “Someone else must have come to the same conclusion. She’s pulled out.”

  “And Mercer was familiar with her?”

  “It depends what you mean by familiar,” said Bobby with a grin which showed all his sharp white teeth. “If you mean, was he living with her, I couldn’t say. I wouldn’t have blamed him. The only time I saw her, I thought she was a roly-poly pudding. I could have gone for her myself.”

  “Get up.”

  At the change in Mr. Henderson’s voice the boy jerked onto his feet.

  “I have told you before, Bobby, that I don’t like that sort of talk. I should hate to have to whip you.”

  “You wouldn’t hate it as much as I should,” said Bobby earnestly. “Is that all for now, sir?”

  “That is all for the moment.”

  On the following morning Mercer said to Shallini, “If we had to clear out quick, is there anywhere you could go?”

  “I have a sister at Portsmouth. I could perhaps go to her. Why?”

  “I’ve got a feeling things may be getting a bit uncomfortable round here soon.”

  Shallini said, “You are thinking of something evil?”

  “That’s right, love,” said Mercer. “I’m having very evil thoughts indeed.”

  In fact, he was waiting for a telephone call which he knew must come sooner or later. It came at the end of three days of exceptional heat, when men worked stripped to the waist and women spent the evening gossiping outside their doorways, as an alternative to going into their oven-like houses.

  Mercer was on the point of going home when the telephone on his desk rang. A man’s voice said, “You know who I am and you know why I want a word with you.”

  “I can guess,” said Mercer.

  “Okay. Do you know a café called Ron-and-Lon? About seven miles out on the Dartford Road. It’s a pull-up for lorries. There won’t be many people there at this time of night.”

  “I can find it.”

  “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  Mercer got his car out of the yard next door and drove out into the sunbaked Kentish countryside. If there were people watching him he took no apparent notice of it, but drove slowly, tucked into the stream of home-going commuter traffic.

  Ron-and-Lon’s café was a construction of cement blocks, set back from the road behind a big lorry park which was empty except for two lorries and a single private car. Mercer parked alongside the car, but facing outward. He locked the car door and stood for a moment looking back at the way he had come. Behind him the sky was deep red, almost like a new Fire of London.

  He stalked into the café, jerked the door open, and banged it shut behind him. A group of four lorry drivers looked up and then went on with their game of nap. The only other occupant of the room, sitting at a table in the far corner, was Detective Sergeant Russ.

  Mercer stopped at the counter to pick up and pay for a cup of tea, carried it across to the far table, and set it down with a thump which spilled a lot of the tea into the saucer. Then he said, “Well? What is it? What do you want?”

  Russ looked at Mercer in surprise. He had never seen him in this mood before. He said, forcing some truculence into his own voice, “I don’t know what you’ve got to beef about. I’m the one who’s complaining.”

  Mercer said, “And what the hell have you got to complain about?”

  He hadn’t troubled to lower his voice. Russ looked at the lorry drivers and then said, speaking quietly, “You know damn well what it’s about, Mercer. I had an arrangement with your old boss, Arnold Rowe. He made a payment every quarter to the company that’s got a mortgage on my house. Right?”

  Mercer said nothing.

  “The payment was due last week. It hasn’t been made. I want to know why.”

  “Then I’ll tell you why.” Mercer was smiling, but there was nothing pleasant in the smile. “When you’re dealing with a bent copper, you like him to be bent in one direction only.”

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  “You’ve been blown, boyo. A10 uncovered your mortgage fiddle and one or two other little fiddles as well. They had you on the end of a string, Russ. But they didn’t pull it tight. I wondered why. And now I’ve found out. They thought they could use a little fish like you to catch a bigger fish. Two nights ago you saw old man Morrissey and don’t pretend you don’t know who I mean. You’re so bloody stupid you didn’t even know you were being followed. You were chatting to him for half an hour, I heard, in his car in a layby in the Lewisham Bypass. What sort of bargain did he make with you?”

  Russ had climbed slowly to his feet. His face was white and he was breathing through his nose.

  He said, “I we
nt because Morrissey’s one of the top brass, and he sent for me. He chose the spot, not me. As for the rest of it, it’s just a load of bull.”

  “You calling me a liar?” Mercer picked up his cup and jerked the hot tea at Russ. Most of it went down the front of his shirt. Russ grunted, pushed the table aside, and came for Mercer, who kicked him, without fuss, on the left kneecap. As Russ heeled over, Mercer picked a plate off the table and broke it over Russ’s head.

  He said, “That’s just for starters. It’ll seem like soft music to what Mr. Henderson’s going to do to you when he hears.”

  He made for the door. The proprietor said, “Hey! What’s all this about?”

  Mercer pointed to Russ, who was squatting on the floor, nursing his knee. There were splinters of china on his bald scalp and blood was running down his face. Mercer said, “He’ll pay for the damage.”

  The proprietor was about to say something, but saw the expression on Mercer’s face and refrained. The lorry drivers seemed to be concentrating on their card game. Mercer went out and drove slowly back towards London. When he reached home he sat down at the telephone table in the hall and started to dial a number. The door of the room next to the telephone was shut, but he had no doubt that an extension had been led through into the room. When he had finished dialling, the telephone at the other end went on ringing for some time. Mercer waited patiently. There was a click and a tired voice said, “Oo is it?”

  “Mercer here. Would you pass a message, please. I want a contact and I want it quick. I’ll wait here till you ring back.”

  The voice said, “Okay,” and the telephone went dead.

  Mercer sat on, unmoving. An occasional car went past in the street outside. Ten minutes later the telephone rang. Mercer lifted the receiver.

  The same voice said, “Westcomb Park Road. The Maze Hill end. An hour from now.”

  Mercer reached the rendezvous with time to spare and sat in his car smoking. A big car, using side lights only, drew up behind him. Bobby got out, climbed into Mercer’s car. and wriggled down into the seat beside him. He looked very smart in his chauffeur’s uniform of dark-blue with silver buttons. He said, “What’s the crisis, daddy? Someone been horrid to you? Tell Bobby all about it.”