‘I suppose,’ said Holmes, ‘if the government asked for British troops to be sent in to restore law and order we would send them,’ he dutifully reported his conversation to Downing Street where his memo was put in the Cabinet Office files. Copies of it were received by the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office, where it was generally felt that Holmes had gone too far.
The heatwave from which London was suffering during that fortnight increased in its intensity, which was one reason why Holmes, after his lunch mid-day with the Sudanese, in a very hot room at the embassy overlooking St James’s, decided to walk home that evening. He worked at Downing Street until nearly nine and then walked out through the back entrance, over Horse Guards’ Parade. It was a very pleasant beginning to a walk home. The buildings on three sides of the parade ground were in exquisite proportion and on the fourth gleamed the ornamental waters of St James’s Park. Apart from the bulk of the Citadel, on the far side, it was a scene which had been more or less unchanged since Nelson had sat in his room at the Admiralty, and Pitt in the house built by Sir George Downing.
More or less unchanged since the days of Cecil Rhodes.
The thought came back unpleasantly in the midst of a vague and idle reverie; unpleasantly, not because of Rhodes but because it was the private army he could command which had made the changes in what the man at Lusaka had called the soul of Africa. It was force which mattered; and the build-up of force in Africa was becoming more and more ominous.
Holmes came to the Horse Guards’ arch and as he turned the corner he looked back and stopped in the archway to admire the view from another aspect. He took in the buildings, the park, the lake glistening silver beyond the trees, the Guards’ memorial. A man crossing the vast expanse of the square changed direction. He noticed this in the same way that he took in the movement of other people, part of the pattern of the scene in front of him. He turned and went through the arch, across the cobbles, through the ornamental gates, into Whitehall. He crossed over a little farther up the road, near Trafalgar Square. As he turned to look out for traffic the man he had seen change direction had just come out of Horse Guards’ arch and was looking up Whitehall. Holmes crossed over and stayed by the window of a bookshop, apparently engrossed in the display of books and magazines. He watched the man come up Whitehall, hesitate, cross the road where Holmes had crossed and walk past him. The man did not look at him. He walked on, round the corner, out of sight. He was an African.
‘You’re imagining things,’ said Holmes severely to himself and hailed a passing taxi to take him to his flat.
Floral Street was nearly empty, a dark ravine of an eighteenth-century street alongside Covent Garden. Holmes let himself in through the street door, closed it behind him, switched on the light in the narrow hall, and ascended the stairs to his flat. His flat door had its peculiarities. It had two locks. They had been installed for him by a gentleman known as Fred Smith who worked for the MI5 technical branch and was as near a genius as they made them. Inside the door was a panel of six light signals let into the wall. This was Fred Smith’s panel and one of the lights was on.
Holmes frowned and went out through the door and examined it on the outside. There was nothing to be seen. He looked at the panelling where the scanner was which had operated the light signal but there was nothing to be seen there either; no marks, no scratches.
He went inside again and considered the message of the lights. Three different coloured lights meant that there was somebody inside the flat; a single red light an attempt to enter by the door and a single green an attempt by the windows. The light that was on was red.
The attempt to enter had been made but had not succeeded. Someone might have tried to use a skeleton key. Holmes smiled at the thought of how frustrating it must have been. Or they might have been trying to take a wax impression of the lock. That was a possibility.
He was glad he had been persuaded to allow Fred Smith to put up the electronic curtain, as Fred called it. Not only would ray barriers inside the flat ring an alarm in the main CID room at Bow Street police station but automatic cameras would be brought into action to take photographs of the intruders ready for the police when they arrived. The ray barriers, however, were still inactive. No one had entered. But nevertheless an automatic camera by the door had worked because when Holmes went into his sitting-room there was a small light on in the console by the bookcase.
Holmes went back to the front door and slipped a miniature polaroid camera from its housing in the wall. It had taken only one picture. Holmes took it out.
It was a photograph of the African who had followed him up Whitehall. Holmes turned the print over. On the back was the time check. It had been taken that afternoon, about six hours previously.
Holmes recharged and replaced the camera and put it back into its housing. There was a click as the panel closed. It appeared to be wood but was hard steel and could only be opened now by activating a switch on the console in the sitting-room. On the panel, painted the same colour, looking like a knot in the wood, was the micro-lens.
The sitting-room was warm and comfortable. Holmes put on one of his Piaf records, poured a sherry, and put his feet up. He studied the photograph while he drank his sherry and listened to Piaf. The husky, yearning voice of the singer seemed to add a particular poignancy to the face of the African that lay under his fingers.
This man knew where Holmes worked, he knew where his flat was, and it was not unlikely that he knew a great deal more. It was safe to assume he had known Nina Lydoevna and probably Shepherd. This was the link with Africa.
It was not difficult to guess how he had got on to Holmes: the hired Rolls, the visit to Uplands, the signature in the visitors’ book. At least there was now something tangible to be done. Holmes rang up Morrison when the Piaf record had finished and Morrison was round in ten minutes slightly alarmed, gulping a sherry in an absent-minded way as he stared at the photograph. Morrison had been contemptuous of MI5’s ‘gadgets,’ as he called them, when Fred Smith had spent two months wiring the flat. He was now full of admiration. He added: ‘It’s not a bad picture, either.’
It was in fact a very good picture of a fine African head; heavily built, high cheekbones, a high forehead. The face had distinction in spite of the man being caught in an awkward position, straining at something, his features contorted with physical effort. ‘But it’s a pity,’ said Morrison, ‘that your machine can't take fingerprints.’
They had a man round from Bow Street and he went over the door carefully but the only prints on it belonged to Holmes. The African had worn gloves.
‘We'll have a look in the files,' said Morrison. ‘It's not a bad likeness. We may have a record of him.' But he sounded a little doubtful and Holmes was not really surprised the next day when Morrison telephoned to say that the African was not known to the Yard. ‘We'll try the embassies, the high commissioners’ offices, the universities and colleges, the overseas clubs,' said Morrison. ‘There's not all that number of Africans in London. I expect he's known to somebody. But I'm afraid it'll take time.'
Holmes was afraid so too.
‘And of course,' said Morrison, ‘he could be snooping. What will we do? — attempted breaking and entering or being found on enclosed premises?'
‘We don't charge him with anything.'
‘No?'
‘We have a talk.'
‘What about?'
‘Uplands.'
‘You think he comes from there?'
‘I think he may know something of what is happening there.'
‘What is?'
‘You tell me.'
‘Would you like the place searched?’
‘We've got nothing against it,' murmured Holmes.
‘We could do it unofficially.’
‘We could,’ said Holmes. He looked in his diary. A smile spread over Morrison’s face as he watched. Holmes took some time to consider the entries in his diary, so much time in fact that it was doubtful if any week’s e
ngagements would have required it.
‘It’s a question,’ Holmes said, ‘of strategy, or tactics, both, possibly. It would take a little while to get one of Lamb’s men inside: say two or three days. I suspect I could beat that. I’ve already seen Mrs Wrythe.’
‘But somebody knows about you.’
‘They know where I work.’
‘That’s the same.’
‘You might as well say,’ quoted Holmes, ‘that I eat what I like is the same as I like what I eat.’
‘Isn’t it?’
‘There is nothing against me having indigestion.’
‘You mean you’re going.’
‘I told you, Joe, it’s also a question of strategy. Am I best deployed down there or am I going to waste my time in a rigid and disciplined course of carrot eating and colonic irrigation? Talking of irrigation, one wonders where the water supply of Uplands comes from: it can’t be good enough for Mrs Wrythe out of the tap.’
‘I daresay,’ grumbled Morrison, ‘they spread out tarpaulins to catch the rain.’
‘It would be worth finding out,’ said Holmes and Morrison could see he was not joking, as Morrison had thought. But the slightly academic argument as to whether Holmes was going to Uplands or whether it would be a man from MI5 came to an end when Morrison had a phone call from the Yard.
‘They’ve had a catch,’ said Morrison. ‘I’d better go.’
Holmes nodded and got up to accompany him. A catch was old Soho slang, meaning that something had been found, something had been caught in the net. In this particular case it turned out to be a monitored telephone conversation between Mrs Wrythe and Monique Shepherd.
‘Shepherd’s widow!’ exclaimed Morrison, when he heard. ‘What the devil is she pushing her nose into this for?’
Mrs Shepherd had telephoned Mrs Wrythe, had said she was unable to sleep and was taking drugs since her husband died and could anything be done for her, as, like her husband, she had not much faith in doctors.
Morrison listened incredulously. ‘Then why take drugs in the first place?’ he growled. ‘What’s she after?’
Mrs Wrythe had been sympathetic. Perhaps Mrs Shepherd would call and see her and discuss things. Perhaps she did not need a doctor as much as rest and quiet.
‘Old charlatan,’ grunted Morrison, ‘she baits it well. What do they charge for peace and quiet — forty guineas a week?’
There was very little more on the recording. The conversation was a perfectly normal one with no overtones of meaning in it that would suggest it was not what it appeared to be.
‘No mention of her sister,’ said Holmes.
‘Or of the boy.’
‘Perhaps the sister is going to look after the child while Mrs Shepherd goes in for her rest cure?’
‘Could be.’
‘Are we checking up on her sister?’
They checked. Rosa Verschoyle had arrived at London Airport. No one had met her. Her papers had been in order. She had come from Brussels. She had hired a car and driven down to the Shepherd bungalow at Bray.
‘Seems all right to me,’ said Morrison. ‘After all, why shouldn’t her sister visit her? Why shouldn’t she have a rest cure? All that I think is odd is that she is going to the place where her husband went. You would have thought she would have kept away.’
‘She wasn’t interested in nature cure,’ said Holmes. ‘She told me so.’
‘Then what’s she after?’
Checking up on the place where her husband was last seen alive?’
‘Could be,’ said Morrison. ‘Could be,’ he stared at Holmes. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I don’t like it.’
‘Another reason,’ Holmes said, ‘for getting somebody inside Uplands.’
‘Somebody?’
‘Not me,’ said Holmes. ‘At least, not yet. Later,’ he referred to his diary. ‘Mrs Shepherd,’ he said, ‘is due to come up to London in a couple of days to see Lamb about her widow’s pension. She won’t be going to Uplands until after that. I want to be with her when she meets Lamb. I think,’ he said, ‘it could be interesting.’
CHAPTER SIX
Lamb’s Den
The air conditioning hummed subduedly, like the sound of far distant planes murmuring in the ventilation ducts. The sun blazed in horizontal strips through the slats of the drawn window blinds. Lamb sat at a large desk, whose surface was almost empty except for a telephone and intercom. The room was insulated. The blinds and the air conditioning protected it from the heat. The thick carpet blotted out noise.
‘Let us be frank,’ Lamb said. ‘The Foreign Office handled him badly. Whatever they did, they handled him badly.’
‘They queried his expenses.’
‘It is a question,’ said Lamb, ‘of how to handle men. When you are out in the middle of the Libyan desert, not knowing who is your friend and who is your enemy, you don’t expect to be treated as a small-time civil servant sending reports in triplicate.’
‘Did they ask for reports in triplicate?’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘I’m trying to be fair.’
‘I’m trying to defend my staff.’
‘Do you defend everything he did?’
Lamb leant back in his chair. His eyes travelled round the room as if seeking inspiration for a reply. There was no reply. He stroked his moustache. His moustache had a jaunty air; it filled the empty space under his nose and added decorative qualities to his upper lip. When he smiled, as he did now, his moustache helped to radiate a kind of charm which would not otherwise have been there.
‘When you run my kind of department,’ said Lamb, ‘you do not rely on the disciplines of the civil service. They’re all handpicked, Holmes, every one of them. I pick them myself. I rely on them and they rely on me. I’ve never been let down.’
‘Space for trumpet call,’ said Holmes. He was not often unkind. Lamb had sterling qualities. His character was admirable. He was staunchly devoted to his men.
‘Trumpet call?’ said Lamb. ‘You mean he wasn’t patriotic? Perhaps not. Something must have cracked. Something went wrong. But who knows how much he suffered out there in the desert? Who knows how much a stiff and unimaginative attitude on the part of the Foreign Office was to blame?’
Holmes changed the subject. ‘How did you get on,’ he asked, ‘with Mrs Shepherd?’
Lamb looked aggrieved. ‘I met her when she came,’ he said. ‘I was very cordial. Naturally.’
‘Why shouldn’t you be?’
‘Naturally,’ said Lamb. ‘We’ve nothing against her, you know, Holmes. Not a thing. One must be fair. But, the fact is, and the fact must be faced, that Shepherd was perfectly all right before his marriage to her. Of course, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong — ’
‘She is not aware of your views?’
‘Bless me, no!’ exclaimed Lamb. ‘Good heavens. Dash it. That would be unkind, wouldn’t it?’
‘It would,’ said Holmes, gently. ‘It would be very unkind. I hope she wasn’t able to guess what you thought about her?’
‘Certainly not,’ said Lamb, firmly.
‘And where is Mrs Shepherd now?’
‘One of the staff is dealing with her,’ said Lamb. ‘Quite frankly, I don’t like the woman.’
‘You surprise me.’
‘I don’t like Belgians,’ said Lamb. ‘Not that I’m holding that against her.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘Of course not. She’ll be looked after. They’re discussing the pension now. It won’t be lavish but it’ll be enough. We shall also offer her a job. A small thing, but useful. Translation work. Part-time, so she can look after her boy.’
‘Who is looking after him while she’s here this morning?’
‘Her sister,’ said Lamb. ‘He’s being taken to see the Tower of London, or something.’
‘It’s arranged I can drive her home?’
Lamb nodded. ‘Yes. There’s a car outside for you. What exactly are you after?’
‘I want to chat about this and that,’ murmured Holmes vaguely.
‘I can tell you everything you want to know about her.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘You got something on her?’
‘I don’t think there is anything on her,’ said Holmes solemnly, ‘but somebody might be seeing her who would give us a line. I don’t want to take chances.’
‘Very right and proper,’ said Lamb. ‘You’re quite right. Take no chances. I agree. I thought for a moment you had something on her.’
‘Not a thing,’ said Holmes and as he spoke the new suspicion rose in him like a dark cloud. ‘She was a dancer, wasn’t she?’
‘Brussels nightlife,’ said Lamb, ‘is worse than Paris.’ He was unhappy. ‘We checked on her. It’s all in the file. She was never active politically. She was the youngest of a family of seven. The father suffered from ill-health. She left school at fifteen and went into an office in Liege. From an early age she seems to have been attractive to men and had a number of affairs. At seventeen she became involved with a married man in her office and ran away to avoid the scandal.’
‘That’s when she went to Brussels?’
‘She seems to have been respectable,’ said Lamb, doubtfully. ‘More or less,’ he added. ‘She did a strip turn at first but they found she was intelligent and could talk well so they made her a hostess. The hostesses at the Au Poids de l’Or stand by the bar or go round the tables and sell drinks on commission. Sometimes they will go to bed with the customers and sometimes they won’t. It depends. She seems to have been among those who didn’t. One of the girls with her said she disliked men, she didn’t trust them.’
‘The result of her early experience?’
‘Probably. She seems to have fallen hard for Shepherd, though. It was, I should think, the first time she was really in love. He was good looking — she liked Englishmen — and within a matter of days they were going out together. They got married within a month.’
‘Happily?’
‘He was devoted to her.’
‘She wanted him to give up his job.’
The Shepherd File Page 6