The Labyrinth Makers

by Anthony Price

  She was looking at him, half expectantly, half fearfully. And she was, despite her glasses, rather an attractive girl in a scraggy, angular way. Not his type, in as far as he had a type. Not at all like the unlamented Liz …

  'Have you had anything to eat?' he asked, with sudden inspiration.

  She shook her head.

  'Good. Then we'll both have something. My Mrs Clark has left me an immense piece of cold ham. Come to the kitchen and carve it for me — and bring your glass with you.'

  She followed him obediently, and the incongruity of the situation struck him. Steerforth had not even been a name to him twenty-four hours ago. He had encountered him at dawn and buried him before midday. And now he was having supper with the man's daughter.

  What made it more odd was that he really knew nothing about this girl, who was in some sense part of his work. He had been much better informed about other girls who had been permitted to slice ham and cucumber on his kitchen table, and who had certainly not been connected with important matters. And that had been due more to personal inclination than professional precaution. Not that it had helped much, he reflected. Perhaps his passion for information had ended by inhibiting other varieties of passion.

  At least such considerations did not complicate this relationship. Audley stopped with his hand halfway into the cutlery drawer as an idea welled up in his mind. He observed her out of the corner of his eye. That Steerforth face of hers was not so apparent now, but it was there all the same, undeniably there. To use her was against the rules, but in certain circumstances that face might have its uses.

  Jones wouldn't like it, but Jones didn't have to know: this was between father, real father, and daughter. And if Stocker and the others didn't like it either, they would still be mightily impressed with his unexpected expertise with young women. So to hell with all of them!

  The only drawback was that he would have to tell her at least some of his hypothesis. But then it was only a hypothesis, as yet little more than a hunch without real evidence and totally without any key information.

  He dismissed the possibility that she was not what she seemed. The time factor, the logic of her presence and his own instinct ruled it out. But he interrogated her gently throughout their kitchen table supper nevertheless–three glasses of wine had just sufficiently loosened her tongue and restored her confidence.

  At least she was satisfactorily ordinary–the very blueprint of an educated middle-class female. High school, Young Farmers' Club forsaken as she moved leftwards to Bristol University and CND. Then gently rightwards again as she worked for a diploma in education, and so to teaching at a custom-built comprehensive.

  Except that she taught physics and chemistry–he was careful not to show unemancipated surprise–and had no steady male admirers.

  'Shouldn't you be teaching now?'

  But of course they had a huge half-term at state schools, and she had compassionate leave into the bargain.

  'What were you doing at Blackwell's?'

  'Blackwell's?'

  'You bought a book on Dakotas there.'

  'I went to a commem ball there–at Oxford, I mean.'

  The ball had not been a success. 'I don't mind men making passes. But he took it for granted.'

  Audley nodded sagely. 'Wouldn't have happened at Cambridge. I mean, it wouldn't have been taken for granted.'

  She smiled at that, and Audley judged the ice to be sufficiently melted. It was time to get her interested.

  'Miss Jones, you want to know about your father–you want to know what he did, in fact. And the answer is that we really don't know. All I can do is to tell you what we think he did. Perhaps you'll be able to help us a little in return. Would you be willing to do that?'

  She looked at him uncertainly. 'I don't see how I can help you. I don't remember him–I only know what Grandmother told me.'

  'No matter. Anyway, I take it she told you what was supposed to have happened–lost at sea, and all that?'

  She nodded. That story would have lost nothing in Grandmother's retelling.

  'Well, there were certain people who were very interested in the whereabouts of your father's plane at the time. Presumably because of what it was thought to be carrying.'

  'The crew—' she began. 'The two who pestered my mother—'

  'Forget about the crew for the moment. These people weren't crew members. One of them was a Belgian and the others were Russians.'

  'Russians?'

  'Your father was flying regularly to Berlin, twice a week often. That was when we were just setting up the four-power allied control commission there. His squadron was on a freight run. But there was also a great deal of what you might call private enterprise on that run too. You could get just about anything in Germany in those days if you had cigarettes to trade with, and there were a lot of valuable things about with temporary owners. Your father was very well-placed to transport the merchandise.'

  'You mean he was in the–what did they call it?–the black market?' She spoke coldly, almost contemptuously.

  Audley sipped his coffee. 'You shouldn't think too badly of him for it, actually. It's a rather modern idea, not letting the winners plunder the losers blind. There were a lot of chaps doing it.'

  'My step-father didn't do it.'

  Jones was evidently on a pedestal.

  'No, I don't believe he did. But your father was in it up to the neck, and one day he seems to have picked up something extra special. Something hot.'

  'But you don't know what it was?'

  'We don't–not yet. And I don't think he really did either. Or at least he didn't understand its true value.'

  Faith Steerforth broke in: 'But whatever it was–you must have it now. If it was on the plane.'

  'There was nothing on the plane. That's the whole problem. Nothing but seven boxes of broken bricks.'

  'Somebody had taken it?'

  'We don't think so.'

  'Then he never had anything. Or maybe someone switched those boxes before he was given them.'

  She was quick enough, certainly.

  'It's possible. But we don't think it's likely. The Russians must have been satisfied about the Berlin end before they came over here. They're very thorough when they want to be–so thorough that they never forgot about the plane. In fact they already know there wasn't anything in it. But they are still interested!'

  She shivered.

  'That's what's so beastly. It's what frightened Mummy–people being interested again all these years afterwards. It must have been something terribly valuable.'

  'Not valuable in terms of money, Miss Steerforth. The Russians don't have to worry about money.'

  She stared at him. 'But he didn't have it, whatever it was. So what's all the bother about now?'

  Audley was about to answer when the grandfather clock struck in the distance–eight, nine, ten.

  'It's very late, Miss Steerforth. Isn't anyone expecting you?'

  She glanced at her watch, but shook her head.

  'I'll go to a hotel somewhere. But you must tell me why there's this trouble first. I promise I'll go then.'

  Audley thought for a moment. There were no such things as conventions these days, after all.

  'You can stay here if you like. There's a spare bed–and I'm a Cambridge man, I assure you.'

  She looked at him in surprise. Patently–and rather humiliatingly–she had not considered him in that light at all. He was still some sort of policeman, and consequently sexless.

  Then she smiled. 'That's very kind of you, Dr Audley,' she said. 'But please stop calling me "Miss Steerforth". I know it must be confusing for you, so just call me "Faith". He chose the name, anyway.'

  'Steer–your father did?'

  'Yes. It's silly really. Grandmother told me that long before I was even born he said he'd like to have three daughters, to look after him in his old age. And he'd call them Faith, Hope and Charity. It's silly, because he said he was naming them after three old aeroplanes.'
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  For the first time Steerforth came alive to Audley. No longer bones in a lake, but a man who had lived and made ordinary, everyday plans–plans for three daughters, anyway.

  'Malta,' he said. 'That was where his old planes came from. At one time in the war they had just three to defend it, and they called them Faith, Hope and Charity.'

  She looked at him. 'I'd like to stay if I may, Dr Audley.'

  He couldn't help smiling at her. It was actually rather pleasant to have some female company again after so long.

  'Very well, then–Faith. I'll tell you what all the fuss is about. It's really quite simple in outline: somehow your father picked up something valuable, and then everyone thought it was lost at sea with him. Only now we know he wasn't lost at sea and he wasn't carrying the thing when he crashed. Yet the Russians are still interested. Now doesn't that suggest anything to you?'

  He waited for her to speak, but she wouldn't be drawn.

  'Well to me–Faith–it suggests that whatever he'd got hold of was already here. If the Russians are so sure it's the only possibility left. And once you accept that, actually, the other awkward bits in the puzzle fit much better.'

  'Other bits?'

  'There were those seven boxes of bricks, which shouldn't have been on board. All four survivors saw them. Your stepfather and the navigator couldn't describe them very clearly. But the other two were very helpful.'

  'The two who—'

  'Those two, yes. Warrant Officer Tierney and Flight Sergt Morrison. They should have conveniently forgotten the boxes if they were valuable, but instead they remembered. And by remembering they put everyone off the scent. Which is exactly what they intended. Because what's lost at sea doesn't have to be accounted for, does it?'

  'But that would mean—' she squared up to the implication '—that he meant to crash!'

  'That's exactly what it means, yes.'

  'You can't mean he crashed in that lake deliberately.'

  'I don't mean that. That was a real crash–and it wasn't meant to happen. What was meant to happen was the story Tierney and Morrison actually told.'

  'But my step-father wouldn't have stood for anything like that. He would have spoken up–I know he would!'

  'He was just a passenger. He did as he was told, and he didn't really know what was happening. In fact it was just the same as the boxes: two vague stories, and two detailed ones–much too detailed.'

  She regarded him thoughtfully. 'All right, I take your point,' she said slowly. 'But I don't see how you make it fit what's happening now.'

  'Where doesn't it fit?'

  'Well, if the real boxes were already in,' she paused. 'And if my father was dead … then Tierney and the other one got everything long ago. You're twenty years too late, and so are the Russians–you're just wasting your time.'

  'Maybe I am–but the Russians aren't.'

  Not Panin. Of all people, not Panin. That had to be an article of faith.

  'So they're infallible, are they?'

  'Not infallible, but not stupid. Besides, there is an alternative, you know. In fact you as good as suggested it yourself.'

  She frowned at him. 'When did I?'

  'You told me that Tierney and Morrison pestered your mother. The Belgian and the Russians were only interested in the plane. But those two were desperate to find your father. Even our people noticed that at the time.'

  'They were his friends.'

  'So they hounded his widow? No, Faith. He hid it and he didn't tell them where. And then he disappeared–and there wasn't a thing they could do about it.'

  There was no point in adding that what had probably hit the surviving conspirators hardest was the growing suspicion that they had been double-crossed by Steerforth, just as the Belgian had been double-crossed.

  Faith Steerforth looked past him, into the darkness outside.

  'Then it's still where he put it,' she said softly, half to herself.

  'It's the only explanation that makes sense of what's happening now, Faith,' said Audley. 'The Russians must have come to the same conclusion, too. And they think it can be found.'

  IV

  Audley set his cup of vile coffee down on the plastic tabletop and glowered into it. Meetings with Jake Shapiro, with the exception of their standing Wednesday lunch, were always in places of Jake's choosing and always in uniformly horrible places.

  And the vision of Faith Jones poking around the old house in his absence didn't appeal to him either, even though her behaviour as an unsolicited guest had been unexceptionable: she had neither messed up the bathroom nor talked at him during breakfast.

  But there was no other course of action open to him. He had to meet Roskill this morning, and he had to keep the girl to hand now that he had decided to make use of her. It was no good consulting the resident Kremlinologists; he had recognised Tom Latimer's hand in the Panin file, and if Latimer was still undecided about the man then no one else would be of use. And that left only his own sources.

  The kitchen swing-doors banged at the back of the narrow coffee bar as Jake barged through them. He slapped the waiter on the back, whispered in his ear, lifted a cup of coffee out of his hands and swept on past him without stopping. He slid the cup along the tabletop and eased himself along the bench opposite Audley.

  'David, my not-so-long-lost friend! It's good to see you again so soon–but not on a Saturday. I thought it was always the day when you stayed home and cut those rolling lawns of yours–and for me it is the Sabbath! So you have me worried on two counts!'

  Jake's humour had been degenerating for nearly twenty years from its original abysmal Cambridge level, and Audley's only defence was to sink unwillingly to that level.

  'I thought you'd like to know that there's a jobbing machine shop down in Gosport which makes spare parts for all those grounded Mirage IIICs of yours, Jake.'

  Jake slapped his thigh in delight.

  'Just what we've been looking for! Now we shall not have to buy them from the South Africans — the way they've been getting through their spares must be baffling the French. Or if not baffling them, amusing them. But seriously old friend, what is this business of Saturday working? It's not good, you know. And besides, I have a date with my El-Al stewardess this morning, so spit it out.'

  Now for the moment of truth. If Jake had heard a whisper that he'd been shifted from the Middle East he wouldn't give much, even for old times' sake. Jake was an honest horse-trader, but only when the trading prospects were reasonable.

  'Nikolai Panin, Jake. What can you tell me about Nikolai Panin?'

  The grin faded from Jake's face–too quickly for a genuine grin. He brushed his moustache thoughtfully.

  'Panin's not a Middle Eastern man.'

  'No, he isn't. I'm just doing a little job for a friend, and I need to catch up on him.'

  Jake raised his eyebrows.

  'Little job? Don't let them snow you, old friend. Panin's a hot number these days–are you in trouble?'

  As ever, Jake was quick to sense changes in the wind. Much too quick.

  'My only trouble is I'm too good by half. Don't worry about me. Just tell me about Panin.'

  Jake pursed his lips, and then nodded.

  'You might be the right man for Panin at that! You're both secretive sods.'

  'Both?'

  The Israeli gave a short laugh. 'Don't tell me you don't know, David. If you asked me to I could pretty soon number off the Central Committee, left, right and centre. The ones that matter, anyway. But not Comrade Panin–nobody knows who pulls his strings. And if we did we'd know quite a lot more about some other people!'

  He drank his coffee thirstily.

  'You know about Tashkent?' he continued. 'That's what really put him on the map in a big way. Up to that time he'd always been an internal man, as far as I know.'

  'What does he really do?'

  'What does he do? Bugger me, David, if I really knew exactly who does what in that goddamned Byzantine set-up do you think I'd be sweatin
g out my time on this little island, trying to screw tanks out of you?'

  'Is he KGB?'

  'That's another million dollar question. If you ask me they're all KGB, right down to the children and the nursemaids. Particularly the nursemaids. But your Panin, I just don't know. He's a fixer, a smoother-out.'

  'Tell me something he's fixed.'

  'Well, since you ask me, I think he had a hand–or maybe I should say a foot — in kicking out Kruschev. But I couldn't prove it. Then again, he's always kept well in with the military. Very proud of his war record, too. He was a fighter, not a commissar. Joined up with the 62nd Army on the Volga, came through Stalingrad, slogged it all the way to Berlin. Came out as a staff major with the 8th Guards–one of Khalturin's little lambs. I wouldn't have liked to have been a German squaddie in a house they'd decided to take.'

  'For a gullible lad sent straight from the kibbutz to buy our tanks, Jake, you're quite well posted on him.'

  Shapiro grinned. 'I do my homework, unlike some who are more celebrated for it. Besides, I've met the famous Panin.'

  'You've met him? Where?'

  'Embassy party at Delhi, just after Tashkent–I was doing a little research on whose tanks had lasted longer in the Rann of Kutch. And there he was–and he talked to me in excellent English, too.'

  'What was he like?'

  'Like? He's got the face of a rather sad clown–nose broken in the war and set badly. Or maybe not set at all. But he knew me, because he immediately started to talk about the Masada dig, which I'd just visited. He was too bloody clued-up by half. And I didn't know him from Adam. So I went straight off and tried to find out about him, and came straight up against a brick wall, more or less.

  'In fact I've been studying him off and on ever since–as I've no doubt lots of western layabouts have been. And with precious little success, because you've now got the sum total of my studies. In return for which I expect to get the sum total of yours in due course, my dear David.'