by Daniel Kemp
A New Life
Unlike other branches of the criminal investigative departments within the Metropolitan police, C11 did not have a central office at Scotland Yard. There were many scattered around London and beyond its perimeters, all trying to keep their anonymity. Trenchard had an office to himself just off the Haymarket in Suffolk Street in an otherwise unused four-storeyed terrace house. My orders were to write a report on what happened with Jack and leave it on his desk first thing Saturday morning on my way to Kilburn and my car salesman role. To have left that position so soon after the bungled security van robbery would have raised suspicions, thereby endangering future operations for me, and the front.
I wrote my report in long-hand, paying heed to Jack's warning of careful appraisal of the information he had disclosed, before leaving my flat at around eight that morning. My omission of the Prime Minister's name was not done through any sense of loyalty to him or his position, more in a way as self-protection. If Jack had been wrong then I would have looked a complete fool in reporting a rumour and if he'd been right, then I figured that my life would have been over in one way or another. There were a couple of things I had to do before I got to Suffolk Street, but as I was in no hurry I played Jack's game of shaking off any would-be followers by occasionally doubling back on myself before retracing my route. As I crested the Duke of York's steps, turning to see if anyone else was climbing them and then stopping to light a cigarette when there were none, a young scrawny boy no older than fourteen thrust a sealed envelope at me, saying, “This is for you.”
At that he ran off in the direction of Carlton Gardens, leaving me speechless. For some inexplicable reason I never opened it; I waited until I was inside Trenchard's building.
If you're after sun, sea and sex then do nothing about this note, but as I know you're after much more than that be at No 74 The Albany, Piccadilly by nine. Amy sends his regards!
It would be easy to say that I abandoned the significance I previously placed on morality by an iniquitous value I suddenly placed on prestige, but that was not strictly true. I never believed that virtue would give me power in the first place and it was the lure of power that had me in its grasp. Not for one second did I question the authenticity of this note coming from anyone other than Jack. Ethics are fine in idealism, but dishonesty and pragmatism are the only tools that will sustain power once it's been achieved. Every sinew in my body ached for the excitement that could be supplied by Jack Price. He held the power that I craved and I wanted to snatch it from his clenched fist. It had taken me about a minute to decide what to do with the information that Jack had given me about the Garage club and Miller's conspiracy; it took less time to decide about this invitation. Had I taken more time to make a considered choice then maybe my future might have been different, that's if I ever had a say over my future at all.
In order to start a new life the old one has not only to die but be buried safely away from view and interference. That may appear to be an obvious statement; however, never having had the need to change, it was not one I considered. As far as I was concerned the suitcase I carried was light on relevant history books or files of past achievements, and what there were could easily be hidden on the bottom layer, but there were others who carried not only a key to that case, but the pen that was writing my life story day by very day.
In less than five minutes after opening that note I was knocking on the designated door in the private, exclusive courtyard of The Albany. It was promptly opened by a colossus of a man with deeply scarred tissue on the left side of his face with the blackest of deep-set eyes I'd ever seen. I don't know why, but I thought the scarring had been caused by an explosion of some sort.
“Put those clothes over there on and be quick about it, young sir. There's a cab to catch and a new life to begin.” He pointed at a brown long-haired wig, a pair of false spectacles, a blue jacket and black shoes with built-up heels that made me look two inches taller. Without a single question or utterance I obeyed. The only sound in that room was the scraping noise of one set of clothes being shoved into a plastic carrier bag whilst another set was put on.
* * *
“Did you have someone at the rear entrance of The Albany?”
“We did, sir! We had two men trailing West this morning and as soon as he entered the courtyard one them was around the back to that innocuous-looking rear exit. We've used that building ourselves once or twice. Great short cut if you know it's there. They jumped into a cab, but the cab they used is not registered at the Public Carriage Office nor is the number plate assigned to any vehicle according at the Ministry of Transport. We've lost him!”
“What about Price? Is he still at that place of his in Soho?”
“Left DC West in Soho Square a little after ten o'clock last night, returning straight home. We tried his door this morning at eleven, but after getting no reply we forced it to gain entry. There was a step-ladder in the rear bedroom leading to a trapdoor into the loft. From there he had access to the roof area. He could have gone anywhere from up there, sir! The man who met West this morning was easy to recognise. The head porter knew he wasn't a resident. Said he'd come to deliver a package to Sir Horace Butler. He insisted on taking it himself. Flashed a wallet at him with what the porter said was a police warrant card. Added he had the key and was expected to enter if Butler wasn't there. Our man at the back in Burlington Gardens copped him straight off. West was disguised, but it was him all right. The man with him was Job, sir. No mistake with that one. Pointing his camera at everything, he was. Probably got our chap in one photo at least.”
“What has this Sir Horace Butler to do with any of it?”
“I doubt he has anything, as we can't trace anyone of that name.”
“Blank wall then?”
“Seems that way, sir, yes!”
“I wonder where West will surface and for what purpose?”
“Tantum tempus narrabo, sir.”
“Indeed it will!”
* * *
Once I was dressed, the man who had met me ushered me along a curved covered veranda to a doorway opening onto Burlington Gardens then, after producing a heavy camera from the holdall he carried, started to snap away at everything at ground and rooftop level. A black London cab drew alongside us almost immediately and we were in, turning left at Regent Street towards Oxford Circus. We turned left again, and as we reached the Bentley car showroom at Berkeley Square my fellow passenger alighted, and stood on the corner photographing every vehicle with occupants that had followed us along Bruton Street. No one at this stage had spoken a word to me since leaving The Albany. That did not change until Scarface was back in the cab again.
“It's clear behind. Waterloo next stop! There was one I recognised who made us as we came out the back, but that was to be expected,” he said directly to me.
He had a quiet, deliberate voice which coupled to his size was reassuring in a manner that I had not anticipated. There was the trace of an accent to his speech that I could not put my finger on, but if I had to take a guess then Afrikaans would have been my choice. I was shaking, but not uncomfortably through fear. It was the adrenaline of excitement pumping through my veins. I sat patiently waiting for an explanation which never adequately came.
“In the inside pocket of that jacket you're wearing is a rail ticket and twenty-two pounds in assorted coins and notes. I want you to check it now and then sign this receipt.”
“Where am I going?” I asked.
“Tells you on the ticket. I'm not your nursemaid. You are expected to do something yourself.” With neither a soft voice nor a bad-tempered one he told me, he just said it. I followed his instructions and whilst I was counting the money he passed me a slim wallet with an opened envelope.
“There's a driving licence in here under the name of Phillip Marks. The envelope is addressed to you under that name with a letter from your fictional boss inside. You won't end up with the name of Marks, nor that address, but it will do if you fall over, injuring yourself
and need police or ambulance assistance until all of this is sorted out. It's best that neither of us know much about each other. Jack wanted me to pass on a message, said you'd understand that it came from him and no one else. Said Twickenham was in the right direction for Guildford.”
The imagination I'd locked away inside now had its chance to be explored, but if it was an illustrious fanfare I had expected to be playing on my acceptance within Jack's nefarious world then I was disappointed. However, that focused regret over a prosaic welcome was misguided. I should have had shown more recognition to the abandonment of my innocence than the unquestioned approval I tacitly gave him.
“Will Jack be meeting me at Twickenham station?”
“Can't say for sure but I doubt it. Mr Price doesn't care too fondly for the daylight hours.”
I looked directly into those shadowy eyes, finding nothing remotely excitable in them, just a professional doing a job of work. He was roughly forty years of age, smartly dressed with hands and feet that matched his enormity. For some reason I found it odd that he was clean-shaven, as a beard would have covered those hideous scars of his. Fingernails that were immaculately manicured, but the skin on the back and palms of his hands was coarse and gnarled as though well used to manual tasks. The holdall at his feet looked of military issue which fitted how I saw him. I could not make out the driver's face as his interior mirror was tilted upwards towards the roof of the cab, but from the little I could see of his silhouette there was nothing distinguishing about him. Younger than my companion by a few years with the same colour hair; black. A hooked nose but apart from that, nothing. My agitation had captured Scarface's attention.
“The first time into action is always the hardest. The realisation that the unknown waits around the corner is the making or the breaking of a man's spirit. You either bottle it or make it into something. You've been selected for something big, young man, be happy that it's you Jack wants.”
“I wasn't aware that I was being recruited and I'm certain that I don't know why some ex-undercover spy would want me. You, yes, but me! What do I have that's in demand?”
“Perhaps it's your innocence. We all had that once.”
“Where did yours get left behind?” I asked with rising confidence.
“Vietnam, when I got out!”
“I didn't know we had a military presence in that war.”
“We didn't, but some over here had an interest in what was happening over there, so they sent me along with some others. We all came home, Phillip. Don't you worry about a thing. Jack is a very precise and careful man.”
“Am I to become anonymous like the department that you work for?”
“No, Phillip! Anonymity means that there's no name. You will be given a name to suit the circumstances you're needed for. People like me have no need of a name.”
“Was Jack in charge of your venture into Vietnam then?” I asked, but he gave no answer, just stared straight ahead.
* * *
“Why is Job his name? Do you think it was mixed up with a job sometime in the past and his name was just wrongly interpreted?”
“Would that be important if it had?”
“I guess not, but it could be!”
Chapter Seven
No One Is More Important Than Each
The house was a small, red-bricked terraced affair with a well-cared-for short, front garden in a dead end, tree-lined street no more than five minutes ride from the station. The twenty-minute train journey had passed uneventfully with only a few passengers travelling southwards at that time of morning and even fewer alighting at Twickenham. I was met by a medium-built man, dressed head to foot in black leathers on a motorcycle who, apart from asking my name, spoke not another single word as he passed me a blue helmet then took it from me when we arrived outside number 14 Merton Road. It had been raining hard on the journey from London and the trees were still shedding water in the wind. Jack Price stood sheltering in the open doorway!
“Why am I here, Jack?” I asked as he stretched out a welcoming hand.
“Because you wanted to come, Patrick, it's your dream job,” he added as I accepted his greeting.
“Did I make that choice when I was asleep and before you changed my name?” I asked as he smiled in that condescending fashion I was beginning to know.
“Your name is to be Shaun Redden but we'll come to that in time, and yes, you made a choice the minute you met me. I note that you decided not to mention Edward Heath being in Alhambra's club when you reported to Suffolk Street. It was a lie of course, but you never knew that. You did the right thing without thinking too deeply. Firstly we survive and secondly we think of ourselves. Do you follow that?”
“Not at all! One follows the other. One cannot survive without thinking of oneself first. How did you know that I never mentioned Heath in the report I handed in this morning?”
“I had it read, of course. You don't think I'd let something like that go forward without my approval, did you? By the way did you spot those two men following you, or, were just allowing them to believe you hadn't?”
“Truth is, Jack, I never saw a soul.”
“Hmm, although I always appreciate the truth I was hoping that you had spotted them. You don't have to beat yourself up too much, though; they were good. Quite professional.”
“I didn't warrant the very good then?” He chose not to answer that question.
“No one is more important than each, Shaun. You will learn that. That's what we do! We look after those who need looking after that nobody else wants to touch,” he declared, making no further comment on my report.
“You never answered my question about being turned back in Vienna. Shall we start there, Jack?” He closed the door behind me without answering that question either. Although I was irritated by his reluctance to respond to my queries, it wasn't simple petulance. It was because I imagined there still to be a choice available to join him or not, but if there had been a choice, I was never strong enough to exercise it.
“Leave the paperwork you were given on the stand in the hallway, Shaun. It's time for a new beginning. Come through.”
I slavishly followed him along a lighted narrow corridor lined with torpid, hanging boating prints on sleepy, white painted walls into a double lounge with a casement window to the front and two other such, but smaller, windows to the rear overlooking a grassed garden with a high wooden fence. All three windows had curtains that were drawn back. In the centre of a speckled linoleum-covered floor was a square dining table surrounded by four, red padded upright chairs. There was one other piece of furniture in this part of the room; a sideboard, on which were two packets of unopened cigarettes and a half full metal ashtray. A yellow settee, with two matching yellow armchairs, an oblong occasional table and a television set were in the other half of the lounge.
“Tea or coffee, Shaun?”
“You mean to say that there's a kitchen to add to the opulence of this house, Jack? Are there many more rooms full of surprises?”
“It's not much is it, but it does for what's required. There's a kitchen along with three functional bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs with all the necessary facilities. Enough practicality for the short time you'll be here. We prefer to move around quite frequently.”
“By 'we' you mean there's more than just you and the three I've met so far then?”
“More than you'd imagine, but not too many to clog the system.”
“Does Trenchard know that I'm here?”
“Nobody knows exactly where you are other than me, Shaun. But that's not the question you should be asking.”
“What is then?”
“Why did Trenchard select you in the first place?”
“You invited me here, Jack.”
“True, but it was he who dropped you in my lap. I can't imagine him having the brains or balls to do that alone. I had a tip-off to be in Charing Cross Road from an entirely different source unconnected to you or him and what's more, I never made a
statement to any copper. You didn't think of checking that, did you?”
I was struck dumb, having believed everything Trenchard had told me, even the signature.
“I've told you how I knew about the timing of the robbery. How about C11? How did Trenchard know?” he asked.
“That's easy! I told him, Jack. The car front where I work took the cars in as part exchange on the Wednesday and as always they were parked in the company's lock-up yard half a mile away from the showrooms in Iverson Road. The keys were left behind the sun visors with the yard locked. That night I gave Murry a copy of the gate keys I'd already made. The yard was not going to be used that Thursday as both mechanics, who were brothers, were going to their mum's funeral. Neither car was missed until Friday morning, by which time they had been impounded. The local uniform made enquiries on Friday but it was written up as incompetence by someone from the garage or the showroom. I was never questioned about it.”
“Well, you're here now, Shaun, so let's leave the full reasons for why till another time. Is it the tea or the coffee you want?”
As I answered 'tea' I heard a water tap begin to run and then, seconds after, a kettle start to boil. Next came a woman's voice with a heavy Irish inflection asking, “Will you be taking sugar in that tea, Shaun?”
Taking the chair at the end of the table that looked directly at the closed kitchen door, I answered, “No, thank you, but if there's any whisky a drop would not come amiss,” then turning my attention back towards Jack I continued, “perhaps, the whisky might help me make sense of all this.”
“I think it might take more than one measure in your tea, Shaun. Think on this whilst you're waiting; why did Trenchard want you and me in the same place, do you think? He's obviously getting instructions from outside offices and I reckon they have been running you since your days at Oxford, but every cloud has a pewter lining as they say. At least you're at the same place both they and you want.”