by Paul Somers
Bello:
hidden talent rediscovered!
Bello is a digital only imprint of Pan Macmillan, established to breathe life into previously published classic books.
At Bello we believe in the timeless power of the imagination, of good story, narrative and entertainment and we want to use digital technology to ensure that many more readers can enjoy these books into the future.
We publish in ebook and Print on Demand formats to bring these wonderful books to new audiences.
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Contents
Paul Somers
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Paul Somers
The Shivering Mountain
Paul Somers
Paul Somers is the pen name of Paul Winterton (1908–2001). He was born in Leicester and educated at the Hulme Grammar School, Manchester and Purley County School, Surrey, after which he took a degree in Economics at London University. He was on the staff of The Economist for four years, and then worked for fourteen years for the London News Chronicle as reporter, leader writer and foreign correspondent. He was assigned to Moscow from 1942/ 5, where he was also the correspondent of the BBC’s Overseas Service.
After the war he turned to full-time writing of detective and adventure novels and produced more than forty-five books. His work was serialized, televised, broadcast, filmed and translated into some twenty languages. He is noted for his varied and unusual backgrounds – which have included Russia, newspaper offices, the West Indies, ocean sailing, the Australian outback, politics, mountaineering and forestry – and for never repeating a plot.
Paul Somers was a founder member and first joint secretary of the Crime Writers’ Association.
Chapter One
The day the first hint of the Landon drama reached us at the Record was one of the quietest I’d ever known in Fleet Street. It was a Sunday—the thirteenth of March, to be exact. I was on the day-shift, and looking forward to the end of it. Blair, the News Editor, was more than usually on edge, having failed to find in the Sunday papers a single story worth following up. His ox-like shoulders were humped in worry over a mound of cuttings as he searched in vain for ideas. The only fresh news was of the most trivial kind. There’d been a report from Bromley that someone had taken a pot shot at a passing train and Smee had been sent to investigate. Mabel Learoyd had gone to Woking to interview a boy in hospital who was supposed to have hatched a raven’s egg under his arm. The rest of us hadn’t even made a telephone inquiry. At five o’clock, when Hatcher, the Night News Editor, took over from Blair, there was still nothing doing. The only difference was that whereas Blair merely fussed when there was no news about, Hatcher behaved like a maniac. He was a thin, grizzled man of fifty with a barrack-room manner and a conviction that News Was Made At Night and that he had a special gift for making it. Within five minutes he was barking orders all round the office—and it wasn’t long before I got mine. He suddenly came rushing out of the News Room with a wild look in his eye bellowing, “Curtis …! Fire …! Temple …!” I walked round to the Temple and after a bit of trouble I managed to trace the alleged fire to somebody’s chambers. The occupant had thrown a match into a waste-paper basket and the paper had caught alight and he’d put the fire out and that was that. I went back to the News Room and started to tell Hatcher there was no story. He shouted, “Don’t tell me about it—write it!” He was in a childish mood, even for him. I shrugged and went into the Reporters’ Room and opened my typewriter.
Smee had just returned from Bromley and was tapping out the introduction to his story. He was a heavy, slow-moving man, with an air of being much put-upon. The previous day he’d been told to get more life into his stories, and judging by the sweat that was pouring off him he was giving this one all he had. The rest of the day staff were just fooling around—rather tactlessly, I thought, considering the atmosphere in the News Room. Fred Hunt, the Chief Reporter, and Ames, the Air Correspondent, were playing cricket with a paper ball and a broken chair leg. Parker, another reporter, had borrowed the coloured inks that Smee used for working out his complicated racing system, and was putting the finishing touches to what appeared to be an illuminated address. I went and had a look. It was a carefully penned quatrain set in a scroll of purple and green and it read:
“You cannot hope to bribe or twist,
Thank God, the British journalist,
But seeing what the man will do
Unbribed, there’s no occasion to.”
Parker said, “I like a bright room to work in, don’t you? Where do you think’s the best place to hang it?”
I grinned, and went back to my typewriter and wrote a sentence about the fire that never was and slipped the copy into Hatcher’s in-tray while he was busy on the phone. After that there was peace of a kind, and I read a couple of book reviews in the Observer. Then Hatcher started shouting again and I looked up to see Smee emerging from the News Room with a homicidal look on his face. Ames said, “What’s the trouble, Smee?” and deftly tweaked a piece of copy from his hand as he passed. He started to read it aloud. Smee had certainly got life into his story this time. The first line was: “Bang! Bang! Three shots rang out!”
There was a howl of laughter. Smee, looking injured, took the copy back. “Anyone can see I left the third ‘bang’ out by mistake,” he said. “Anyone but that bastard …!”
“Must get your facts right, Smee!” Ames said. “Great national newspaper, you know—readers depend on us—Press Council watching.”
“I’ll do that bastard one of these days,” Smee said, “you see if I don’t.…” He went on his way, muttering.
I glanced at the clock. There was only a quarter of an hour to go till seven and then I’d be off duty. I’d no plans for the evening except to get away from Hatcher—but that was beginning to seem pretty important. I shut my desk and went along to wash. When I got back, Thomas, one of the office boys, was looking for me. “Mr. Hatcher says will you go out on this,” he said, and gave me a grubby piece of paper with a message on it that he’d obviously taken down himself on the phone. It was from a porter at the Uxford Cross Hospital, who usually tipped us off if anyone interesting was brought in. This time it was something different. The message said that a Mrs. Ward had been called to the hospital by someone who’d phoned to tell her her father had been in a car smash and was asking for her, and when she’d got there she’d found it wasn’t true. It was a nasty but commonplace sort of hoax—certainly not worth going out on.
I went into Hatcher, fuming.
“Well?” he snarled.
“I’m off at seven,” I said.
“That’s what you think! We’re short-staffed tonight.”
It was a thundering lie but I knew there was no point in arguing about that. I said, “This call was obviously made by someone with a kink.”
“How do you know? Go and see the woman—you’ve got the address. Call in on your way home.”
The address was Palmers Road, Maida Vale—nearly in Kilburn. Hatcher knew very well that I lived in Chance
ry Lane, a stone’s throw from the office. He knew as well as I did that there’d be no story. He was being deliberately bloody-minded. I looked at Blair, who was still technically in charge and could have overruled him. But Blair, his ears pink, was sorting his papers and pretending not to notice. I decided that with Hatcher in that mood it would be less wearing to go than to have a row. I collected my hat and coat, got my Riley from the office garage, and drove to Maida Vale.
Palmers Road was a street of terraced, two-storied, two-roomed houses that had gone up in the world since they were workmen’s cottages, but not much. The district was a sort of poor man’s Chelsea, with a few colour-washed walls and brightly painted front doors and window-boxes, and a lot of drabness in between. The night was overcast and very dark and I had to use a torch to find Mrs. Ward’s number—forty-two. There was a small Ford car standing outside the house. The curtains were closely drawn across the downstairs window but a faint light showed through. At least Mrs. Ward was home again—which meant I shouldn’t have to hang about. It looked as though she’d reported the hoax, because there was a police radio car parked a few yards away on the opposite side of the road. There were two men in it, watching me. As I approached the door, one of them left the car and crossed over to me. He was in plain clothes. “Good evening, sir,” he said. “Do you want somebody at 42?”
I paused with my hand on the knocker. “Yes—Mrs. Ward.”
“Ward?” The policeman gave me a searching look. “Who are you?”
“Hugh Curtis, of the Record,” I told him.
He seemed surprised. “What’s your business?”
I said, “We understand Mrs. Ward was called to the Uxford Cross Hospital this evening by a hoax message—something about her father having had an accident. When she got there she found it wasn’t true. I’d like a couple of words with her, that’s all.… Is there any objection?”
For a moment the policeman just stared at me. Then, to my astonishment, he turned and began to bang loudly on the door. No one came. There was no sound at all from inside. The second man got out of the radio car and started to come over. The plain clothes man suddenly said, “Lend a shoulder, will you?” and heaved his weight against the door. I added my twelve stone. At the second combined heave the lock burst and the door flew open and I went in with the two men.
The entry had been so abrupt and dramatic that I wouldn’t have been surprised at anything I’d found inside—even a body on the floor. In fact, the place seemed to be empty. The plain clothes man shouted “Landon!” in a voice rough with anxiety, bounded up the stairs to the bedroom and bathroom, rushed down again, and plunged into the bijou kitchen, switching on the light there. The kitchen was empty, too. It smelled strongly of onions. There was a crackle of broken glass under foot as the men moved to the back door, and I saw that a pane had been broken out jaggedly from the glazed top half of the door, just above the lock. On the floor there was a tell-tale mess of treacled brown paper and splintered glass. The door was closed, but not locked. The plain clothes man jerked it open and we shone our torches out. There was a tiny garden, the width of the house, with a six-foot brick wall round it and a solid wooden gate at the end, opening on to a narrow paved path that ran all along the back of the terrace. The wooden gate had been left ajar. I looked at the plain clothes man, and he was whiter than any cop I’d ever seen.
He turned and made for the radio car at the double. The uniformed policeman was poking about in the garden—looking, I imagined, for whatever had been used to smash the glass. I hadn’t a clue what it was all about, but I thought I’d better look around while the going was good. Apart from the broken glass in the kitchen, there was no sign of any disturbance. The table in the sitting-room was laid for an evening meal for two. There was an assortment of delicatessen food, attractively arranged on a large plate. A bottle of cheap red wine stood in front of an electric fire, as though it had been put there to warm. The fire had been switched off. In the kitchen there was a half-chopped onion on the draining board, with a knife beside it, and some lettuce in a salad shaker. The kitchen looked pretty untidy, with several dirty saucepans and some crockery left over from lunch or breakfast. In one of the cupboards there were five empty gin bottles. I went upstairs and had a look in the bedroom. That was untidy, too, with clothes flung higgledy-piggledy over a chair back and face powder spilled on the dressing-table and several glossy magazines scattered around the floor. The clothes were good, and so was the furniture but the general air of the place was distinctly sluttish.
I got back to the sitting-room just as the plain clothes man came in from the car. He still looked like death, and if he felt any gratitude because I’d helped him break open the door he didn’t show it. He just jerked his thumb towards the street and said “Out!” I started to ask him what was happening but he gave me a shove through the door and banged it behind me. I’d never been much good with policemen, but to-night looked like being an all-time low.
I was just debating whether to phone the office or stick around for a while when another police car arrived. Almost immediately afterwards a taxi drew up and a girl got out—a striking brunette, very pale. I caught no more than a glimpse of her, but there was something about her face that seemed vaguely familiar. Before I could get near her, the police had hustled her indoors.
It was very annoying. Something pretty unusual had happened, to judge by the fuss, and so far I had the story to myself. But I wouldn’t have for long—and anyway, what was the story? I mentally went over what I knew, trying to piece the bits together. The householder, Mrs. Ward, had been expecting someone to dinner. Then she’d suddenly abandoned her preparations and gone out. That, presumably, had been when she’d got the bogus phone call about her father. In her absence, the house had been forcibly entered from the rear. That suggested that the bogus call had been made to get her out of the way. The police in the car had seemed to be watching the house when I arrived. They’d been quite unperturbed then. My story about the bogus call had been news to them—bad news. I’d had the impression they’d thought Mrs. Ward was still in the house. They’d certainly thought someone named “Landon” was in the house, and all hell had broken loose when they’d discovered he wasn’t. I hadn’t an inkling who Landon was, but he obviously mattered. It was all most intriguing, but so far it didn’t make a lot of sense to me.
By now, of course, the neighbours had begun to take notice, and several doors stood open. A man was looking out of Number 43, next door to Mrs. Ward’s, and I went to talk to him. At least the police couldn’t stop me doing that. He was a greying, elderly man, with a forehead etched into quadrilaterals like the mud in a dried-up pond, and a very deep voice. He was as curious as I was about what was going on. I told him what I knew and then started to pump him about Mrs. Ward. The first thing I learned was that I’d got the name wrong—it was “Waugh,” not “Ward,” which no doubt accounted for the odd look I’d got from the policeman. Someone, probably Thomas, hadn’t troubled to check the spelling. Mrs. Waugh was the brunette who’d just got out of the taxi. She was something in the theatrical world, the man said. There was no Mr. Waugh around—the girl was divorced, and lived alone. Her first name was Clara. Clara Waugh! Suddenly I thought I knew why her face had seemed familiar. I said, “Hasn’t she been in the newspapers lately?” “That’s right,” the man said, “over the Angel murder—she and her fiancé heard the shots fired and called the police.” This was interesting. Clara was obviously incident-prone. I asked the man if he remembered the fiancé’s name, which I’d forgotten, and he said, yes, it was Ronald Barr. I asked him if the name “Landon” meant anything to him, and he said it didn’t. I asked him if the Ford car belonged to Clara; and his wife, who’d joined him at the door, said “No,” it belonged to a middle-aged man who’d visited Clara several times lately. They’d noticed him because on each occasion a police car had come with him. I assumed this must be Landon. They said he’d arrived that evening at about half-past six. They hadn’t seen Clara go ou
t, but now that I mentioned it they remembered hearing her telephone ringing at about six. I asked them if they’d heard any disturbance during the evening, any sound of breaking glass, but they hadn’t.
I thanked them, and made a note of their name, which was Gregson, and moved round to the other side of 42. There was no one in at 41, but at 40 I had a bit more luck. A girl in bright green slacks and a yellow pullover said she’d understood the middle-aged man in the Ford was Clara Waugh’s father—but she couldn’t tell me anything much about him. I walked round the Ford and tried to take a look inside, but a policeman told me to move on. I made a note of the car’s registration number and went off to phone the office. I dictated a cautious piece to a telephonist and afterwards I was put through to Hatcher on the Desk.
He said, “What do you want?” He was the rudest man I’d ever known. He seemed quite to have forgotten that he’d sent me out on a story. It was galling to have to admit that my unpromising errand had paid off, but there was no help for it, and I could sense his bad temper ebbing away as I talked. I said the police were around in shoals, and that I thought something pretty big was in the wind. I said Landon was obviously the key to the whole thing, and considering the surveillance and the police shut-down on news it looked as though there might be a security angle. I gave him the registration number of the Ford and suggested that Clara Waugh’s fiancé might be able to tell us something about Landon if the office could get hold of him.
“We’ll have a try,” Hatcher said. “Excellent, Curtis—excellent.… By the way, aren’t you off at seven?”
I said I had been!
“Right—hang on for a bit and I’ll send someone to relieve you. Good night.”
I walked back to Number 42. By now the road was stiff with official-looking cars, and more V.I.P.s were still arriving. A whale of a conference must be going on inside the house. There were several other reporters on the job now but I pretended to know as little as they did and kept out of their way.