Jane had telephoned to say that she was to accompany her husband on a special outing arranged by his Livery Company. Their party of members would have a private escorted tour around the castle followed by lunch in a riverside restaurant and culminating with the race meeting at the well maintained course just a mile outside the town centre nestling in a fold of the Thames. It was one of only two racecourses in England to have a figure-of-eight track. Apparently Jane’s husband was not just a member of the Livery Company but had recently become a liveryman in a ceremony dating back several centuries and was now expected, he had told her, to regularly support the annual programme of outings organised by the company for its members. Over the years Arthur had systematically distanced himself from his humble and law-breaking background, building up the impression of being a pillar of society even though he had never for a single second had the intention of turning his back on crime and its pecuniary benefits, some of which had paid for his expensive private education, that resulted from these wrongdoings. It may have been her new outlook on life but Jane was becoming increasingly irked by his attitudes which seemed to grow daily more pompous. Under a certain amount of pressure for the first time in his marriage and with a distinct feeling of trepidation Arthur had succumbed to Jane’s demand to be allowed to do a voluntary job just so long as she always ensured that she was present at his side whenever he needed her. ‘I’ll have to act the dutiful wife and be by his side most of the time but I’m sure I can find a reason to excuse myself for half an hour or so and I am yearning to see you again,’ she had told Tommy over her mobile. For his part the promise of half an hour with Jane was easily sufficient to warrant a trip to Windsor but it wouldn’t be to walk the castle’s ramparts, it would be because he had already fallen in love with Jane.
An announcement came over the loudspeaker system for the leader of the Livery Company group to ring a number. Arthur rang in and was delighted to learn that he and his partner had been invited to watch the next race from a special box in the Royal Windsor grandstand. At the time Jane was chatting sociably with the wife of one of the members and on overhearing the telephone conversation she decided that this was her golden opportunity to get away.
‘You go, Arthur, I’m not fussed about viewing from the box, and anyhow, Cynthia and I are chatting,’ she said with a sweet smile to Arthur, and with a straightening of his already straight tie he made his way to the steps leading up to the viewing areas. Jane detached herself from Cynthia as soon as she could decently do so and, fumbling in her handbag for her mobile, texted Tommy with “free now, meet at unsaddling enclosure”. Two minutes later she spotted a discreet wave from Tommy.
‘Arthur’s in a box to watch the next race so we should have half an hour together. He won’t be able to see the unsaddling enclosure from the box so we should be safe to chat but not to embrace.’
‘That’s a bugger as I’m longing to hold you in my arms,’ he responded. ‘But never mind, just being close to you is better than nothing.’
Their time passed so very quickly, most spent discussing how they could engineer another couple of days away together without causing suspicion but they parted with no bright ideas on how to achieve this goal. Jane had said they ought to say goodbye with a handshake and a quick peck on the cheek, just in case someone from the group had strayed over to the unsaddling enclosure before the end of the previous race and saw them. ‘Will you go home or stay on to watch the remainder of the races,’ Jane had asked and he had replied that he might as well stay and have a bet or two. A few moments after she was gone from sight Tommy remained leaning against the railings, kicking his heels into the dirt with frustration. He had found somebody he could love but she was married. He had let down his best, and probably only, real friend. He desperately wanted to resolve both situations but didn’t know how.
Eventually he made his way over to the bookies and placed an each-way bet on an outsider in the third race and put a tenner on the favourite in the fourth, all without any genuine enthusiasm. It was while walking up to the grandstand that he noticed Jane. She was standing amongst a gaggle of people joining in the general babble and laughter. By her side, with his hand on Jane’s elbow, stood a short man with thinning grey hair and chrome, rectangular-shaped spectacles. He was smartly dressed but a little too overweight to do his attire justice. The strap of his binoculars case kept slipping off his sloping shoulder and he was constantly adjusting it. He had an air of authority and it was this trait that caught Tommy’s attention. He’d seen it before, not too long ago. Now where was it? A nanosecond or so later Tommy clicked his fingers in recognition. Got it! It was in the Ludgate Hill office block that he’d seen him and he was Arthur as in Arthur Meares Import Export but, more importantly, he was Arthur Meares as in the husband of Jane. It flooded back to Tommy very quickly that Arthur Meares was associated with Ron Lindsey and together they had blackmailed his best friend Rolf. What a small world, Tommy murmured to himself.
Annoyance, then fear, then finally the smile of hope spread across Tommy’s face. Or was it a smirk? This man was not who he purported to be and but for Tommy’s chance encounter with Jane and her girlfriends at the dogs he would have remained Mr Upstanding Citizen. Any link with Ron Lindsey, however marginal, stamped him with criminality to his core like the letters running through a stick of seaside rock. So it was Arthur, Ron, Lizzie and Kevin who he was up against and possibly others he didn’t yet know about. Tommy tried to put the jigsaw pieces together. Arthur and Ron had blackmailed Rolf into hiding a pouch of suspect marbles in Rolf’s safe deposit in Switzerland. Rolf had been able to counter many years later when Tommy had discovered that Arthur and Ron worked out of the same office block in the City. Ron and Kevin knew Tommy from the market stall days. Arthur didn’t know that he had met Jane. With no knowledge of and no reason to suspect that the package he had handed to Kevin in Vaduz had not arrived at its intended destination, Tommy had to assume that the tube must be in the hands of Arthur and Ron and he knew the secret it held to be valuable as Rolf had told him so. Despite them sharing every innermost feeling since they had known one another Rolf had said that he was unable to share this particular secret with him. It must therefore be of terrific importance, Tommy concluded, wishing so much that his best friend was still around to talk over what was best to do next. His relationship with Jane made approaching Arthur via any route tricky. He didn’t want to jeopardise any future possibilities with her so he decided to concentrate on Kevin. Kevin didn’t twinkle in the night sky but he had the kind of canny sense of survival needed by all those who chose to live their lives flouting the law. He didn’t like Kevin and he hated the prospect of having to pretend he did. He would have to think of a way to extract from him what he had done with the tube without Kevin realising that he was being pumped. If that didn’t work he would have to turn to Arthur. What a lucky bastard Arthur was having Jane.
***
It was Sunday afternoon when Ella dialled Andreé’s home number. Her husband John answered and she was grateful that he didn’t ask for her name.
‘Hallo,’ said Andreé uncertainly, as if fearing it was bad news about Rolf from the hospital.
‘Andreé, it’s Ella Gadd speaking. I know I’m not welcome in your house but I wanted to say how very sorry I am about Rolf’s stroke. I know that things are difficult between our families but…’
She heard a faint but definite click.
‘Hallo, are you there Andreé?’ Ella asked.
But without a further word Andreé was gone.
***
Initially Ron had been excited about the prospect of a treasure hunt but within a few hours his mood of optimism had seeped away. In his “working” life until now he had felt in charge of his own destiny. He was a cautious man and had regularly chopped and changed his scams and money earners to stay safely more than a few steps ahead of the law. But now he was in new waters and felt uncomfortable. His partners
hip with Arthur, as Arthur liked to call it to give their activities a sanitised name, had been successful in so many ways, Arthur contributing most of the ideas and Ron working out the practicalities of achieving them. But the loss of an important part of their retirement plan together with, and possibly more importantly, the fury that it had engendered in Arthur had caused him to lose his normal sang-froid. The crazy idea of allowing Joe McKay to put the frighteners on the cyclist was rash and nothing more than an ill-considered response to a flash of temper. Ron and Lizzie had argued against such a course of action but Arthur was adamant. He didn’t say it but it was loss of face that drove the response, not hard-nosed pragmatism. Lizzie had said privately to Ron too much testosterone. He should just walk away and let it be. Some you win and some you don’t. He’s got enough dosh coming in without it. Know when to quit, had mumbled back the ever risk-averse Ron.
Following Arthur’s plan they flew into Geneva as the couple they were so often mistaken for. With the same surname there were no documentation hurdles to straddle. When they played at being a couple, as circumstances dictated from time to time, Lizzie had once cheekily remarked that they would never convince anybody because they got on far too well for a married pair. And there was truth in that as they were each happy in the other’s company. There had been no sibling rivalry in their youth, possibly because Ron was five years older than Lizzie and took on the role of guarding his vivacious sister from predatory male youths. She had been first to leave their parents’ home, shacking up with a succession of unsuitable men, in Ron’s opinion, but she had never married and when their parents died and they inherited the former council house Lizzie had willingly sunk her half share of the meagre estate, basically the sale price of the house, into a joint home with Ron. As well as risk-averse, Ron was somewhat dour and regimented, but the partnership worked and although Lizzie was still open to offers Ron had no plans to be anything other than a bachelor, a bachelor whose sister was sometimes his wife.
From the airport they caught the train into the city centre Gare-Cornavin where overnight accommodation had been booked in advance. The loss of an hour between BST and ET left them with insufficient time to journey to Yverdon at the southern end of the Lake of Neuchâtel in the canton of Vaud and to find the WareWork factory on its outskirts so they made the most of a splendid afternoon à la genevoise with a walk across the Pont du Mont-Blanc, a selfie with the iconic Jet as background, a large glass of one of the local white wines of the region made from the Chasselas grape which flourishes on the wine-growing terraces along the banks of the lakes of French-speaking Switzerland which they imbibed at a lakeside cafe and a discussion about how best to find the answers to the four questions Arthur had posed. Does or did the factory produce handkerchiefs? Do the rectangles fit in with anything at the factory? Does the date 1976 have any significance? And finally, what is the watchword?
The early morning train departed promptly from Geneva main station the following morning and arrived in Yverdon spot on the published arrival time. With a population of less than thirty thousand and a location in the heart of a natural setting formed by the Jura mountain range and the Lake of Neuchatel, Yverdon was a charming place to reside as well as being an important regional centre for commerce. They had to find some excuse to go inside the factory and ask questions and they had decided that getting lost was probably the most plausible one. They hired a taxi from the station and asked for an address they had chosen on a map of Europe internet site which was located a few streets away from the factory. Their plan was to pay off the taxi and walk to the factory where, if there was a reception area or an office and they guessed there would be, they would spin the story that they were visiting friends they had met the previous year while on a walking holiday in France and although they had telephoned ahead to say they were coming there was nobody in when they knocked. All too late they realised their mistake with the time, forgetting to wind their watches forward by one hour and by the time this dawned on them they supposed that their friends thought they were not coming. The taxi driver had driven off and Ron and Lizzie were now just trying to find their way back to the station, so when they saw the familiar WareWork logo and the sign for “Reception” they came in hoping that someone could speak English and either phone for a taxi or be able to direct them back to the station.
Relieved to see a sign pointing to reception, they entered to find a smartly decorated and spacious area with plush seating and a large reception desk with a counter top in smoked glass. No one was around but a bell push on the counter top with a notice stating “Sonnez s.v.p.” required no translation. Ron was about to press the switch when Lizzie whispered urgently not to do so.
‘Look,’ she said, pointing to a wall display next to the visitor seating banquette. Ron turned and looked at the light oak-framed glass display cabinet in which were housed a dozen or so handkerchiefs of various shapes, sizes and detail but all with lace trimmings. Underneath each were the two dates when production commenced and ceased.
‘Quick Ron,’ hissed Lizzie, ‘see if you can find the date 1976.’
He was scanning the dates when a voice called out ‘Puis-je vous aider Madame et Monsieur?’
So busy were they looking at the display that they hadn’t noticed a young woman, presumably the receptionist, return to her desk. Slipping into the smooth patter they had practised on the train, Lizzie asked if she spoke English, which elicited the hesitant response of “just a little” but as soon as Lizzie launched into their excuse there was a flapping of the receptionist’s arms indicating she didn’t understand, followed by a few words in broken English suggesting she would call someone who spoke it fluently. Within seconds a young man in his early thirties arrived and asked if he could help and Lizzie re-launched her tale. He said it was too far to walk to the station so he would ring for a taxi. Whilst waiting for it to arrive they engaged the young man in conversation, saying how interesting they found the handkerchief display. Ron asked if they were still producing them but the young man shook his head, saying that production had ceased in the mid-80s. In a brief history he told them that handkerchiefs had been manufactured on site since late 1940 when the original factory was built but over the years demand had fallen with the rise of the paper tissue. He further added that when the new general manager, Rolf Berghoff, the son of one of the founders of WareWork, had revamped the factory buildings in 1976, adding news wings to the original building, the lace-making machinery had been consigned to the scrap heap and from then until when all handkerchief production ceased only plain utility-style ones were manufactured.
‘So are we standing in one of the new wings?’ asked Ron, adding, ‘It looks pretty up to date to me.’
‘Yes,’ replied the young man. ‘This was one of the wings added in 1976.’
The receptionist had another go at English and called out that the taxi had arrived. After thanking them profusely for their help they departed in the taxi and couldn’t resist a restrained high five. Two questions answered and a clue to resolving the third obtained.
Arthur collected the jiffy bag from P.O. Box 3238. It was normally a job for a subordinate but Rolf and Lizzie were in Switzerland and he didn’t wish to waste any time. Back in the Ludgate Hill building he went quickly down the flight of stairs to the basement half landing and let himself into Ron’s suite via the door marked “Private”. Sitting alone at the small round table, he laid the unopened jiffy bag on its grainy surface. Normally he would have swiftly torn it open but today he just felt he needed a few moments of reflection. There was something bothering him, something about Jane but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was: a look, an enigmatic smile, an expression. Was it her new role as a charity worker hoping to climb the dizzy heights at some stage to become a treasurer? She had so far been faithful to her promise that she would always be there when he required her as she had done throughout their married life. It must be the job and the bit of status that comes with i
t. He couldn’t think of anything else! He would have to adjust to her new attitude and he mustn’t fret or be anxious as it had contributed to his recent decisions which he realised now bordered on the brainless. He took a few moments to compose himself, to become less ruffled and when he felt calmer he opened the packet. But he wasn’t calm for long. When he read the note inside the jiffy bag his calmness was replaced with fury.
***
The work ethic in the Walker household had always been strong and had, if anything, intensified since Rolf’s stroke. John Walker was its epitome, leaving home before eight in the mornings and rarely back before seven in the evenings. Now a robust sixty-year-old, he was still working for the company he joined after leaving school. He had risen up the company echelons with the passage of time to a level one beyond his total competency. A good-humoured, urbane man with a feminine side, he was totally dominated at home by his wife Andreé, a state of being with which he seemed perfectly happy. Andreé had synced his leisure diary with hers and John was told what, when, where and how he would spend his free time. It was only her restricted colour vision which allowed him the privilege of swapping tie, shirt or socks when she put out on the bed daily what she considered to be the appropriate ensemble for that particular day. But like so many quiet and gentle men there was beneath the outer, apparently soft carapace, a strong and solid man, happy in his own skin. While he had been the apple of his mother’s eye, a term they used frequently to somehow not let Andreé’s condition get the better of them, Daniel was the biggest, juiciest and tastiest apple in the whole orchard in his father’s eye. At thirty-two Daniel had never had a single argument with his father and barely a raised voice had been heard. With good humour and innate gentleness John had guided the spirited teenager through some turbulent times but without any hint of lasting conflict. It was only when he made his mother very angry on one particular occasion that his father went up to his bedroom, shut the door, sat on the end of his bed and confronted him with his bad behaviour that the steel core within John shone through and his suggestion that Daniel apologise to his mother forthwith was accepted without further ado. As Daniel was later to explain to his mother, ‘Dad was sitting on my bed swinging his reading specs in an arc back and forth and looking so daft that I simply had to agree!’
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