Closed Circle

by Robert Goddard

  But their trust in Charnwood’s astuteness grew into a vulnerable complacency. And his astuteness began to fail. Nothing so simple as an assassination could cure the Great Depression. From October 1929 until they petered out in August 1931, the accounts told a consistent story of vanishing capital and diminishing assets. The scale and speed of the losses were as breathtaking as those of the profits. How much Charnwood’s clients knew of this was unclear. His letters and reports to meetings reflected only a blithe optimism which he cannot have felt. Why he allowed matters to deteriorate so rapidly was equally obscure. What of his fabled foresight, his legion of expert contacts? It was not as if nobody warned him how questionable his investments had become. The failure of the Credit-Anstalt, for instance, had been predicted more than a month before in a letter from a senior official in the Austrian Ministry of Finance. But Charnwood’s only response was to increase his deposits with the bank. He seemed determined to turn a crisis into a catastrophe, a perverse and self-destructive inversion of what he had done in 1914.

  No wonder the members of the Concentric Alliance found his posthumous insolvency so hard to believe. Where had all the money gone? Some into the funds he meant to draw on after fabricating his own death, presumably. But the rest? Surely there was too much for poor judgement alone to have devoured. Yet seemingly it had. I had no way of judging the state of these people’s finances beyond Charnwood’s orbit, but nobody, however rich, could be indifferent to such staggering losses. And they were rich. Rich and powerful. I had heard of most of them. I had read about them over the years – their honours and appointments, their good works and grand reputations.

  And now I knew on what foundations their glittering careers had been built. Falsehood and fraud were only to be expected. They were the lingua franca Charnwood’s clients had spoken and understood. They were the current in which I had also swum. But the war – the commissioning of one murder and the precipitation often million others – was something else. The war was too high a price to pay. I had paid less than most of its victims, yet still the resentment seethed within me as I studied their records and gaped at their profits. They were all as guilty as each other. And I held the proof of their guilt in my hands. Charnwood had given me the means to destroy them. So destroy them I would.

  The engine had stopped. How long ago the Leitrim Lassie had ceased to press forward through the high wind and heaving sea I could not tell, but now, certainly, she had abandoned the struggle. Above the creaking of her timbers and the roaring of the waves, I could hear Rafferty moving about on deck. Then there came a rumble of ratcheting metal. He was lowering the anchor. Shading my eyes from the glare of the hurricane-lamp, I peered out through the port-hole. There were a few flickering lights ahead. Could we be off Pwllheli already? I glanced at my watch. It was nearly half past seven. More than three hours had passed since our departure from Wicklow. But storm-tossed though they had presumably been, I could recollect nothing of them. For all that time, I had dwelt in a world apart – the hidden world of the Concentric Alliance. I looked down at the documents detailing their every secret, sliding back and forth across the chart table, and I knew I had gleaned enough. Re-tying the string about them, I bundled them back into the bag.

  Almost at the same moment, Rafferty lurched through the door, breathing heavily, with water streaming off him. ‘Holy Mother of God,’ he declared, staring at me. ‘You’re a calm one and no mistake. I expected to find you sick as a dog and scared out of your skin, not fastening your bag like some doctor who’s just called on a wealthy patient.’

  ‘Are we there?’ I demanded.

  ‘We’re off the Welsh coast, sure enough.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘About fifteen miles west of Pwllheli.’ He smiled weakly. ‘I’ve anchored in Aberdaron Bay.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because there’s a gale blowing, in case you hadn’t noticed. And because the engine’s losing power. Water in the fuel-line, I shouldn’t wonder. What with that and a strong tide, we were lucky to clear Bardsey Sound.’

  ‘But we did clear it. So, why not carry on?’

  ‘Eager to meet your maker, are you? Look at this.’ He pulled a bundle of charts out of a locker, spread one of them across the table and pointed to the outline of the Welsh coast. ‘We’re south of the Lleyn Peninsula in a stiff westerly. Between Aberdaron Bay and Pwllheli is this hungry customer.’ His finger traced the shape of a wide inlet between two sharply defined headlands to the east of us. ‘Hell’s Mouth, they call it. And it wouldn’t mind gobbling us for supper, believe you me.’

  ‘It looks harmless enough.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘What would you know?’

  ‘I know you agreed to take me to Pwllheli.’

  ‘And so I will, when the tide turns and the wind eases.’

  ‘When will that be?’

  ‘A few hours, no more. Better late in this world than early in the next, as my sainted mother used to say.’

  ‘I have to be in Pwllheli by half past five tomorrow morning.’

  ‘And you will be, sir. Trust Desmond Rafferty to set your feet safely ashore well before then. Why, you can dock my wages if I don’t. Can I say fairer than that?’

  I wondered for a moment if I should ask to be put ashore straightaway. But I had no idea how to get to Pwllheli from Aberdaron on a wet and windy night. It promised to be substantially more difficult than trusting to Rafferty’s seamanship. ‘Very well,’ I said. ‘Have it your way.’

  ‘And to ease your impatience, I have a bottle of Bush-mills aboard. Why don’t we ride out the storm over a few drams?’ He glanced curiously at the bag I was still holding tightly in my hand. ‘I’m thinking you needn’t be afeared of those brothers bobbing up in Aberdaron Bay. If it’s them you are afeared of.’

  The lure of good whiskey was strong at that moment. I needed something to burn away the horrors of the day – the horrors of all I had done and learned. I dropped the bag and pushed it under the table with my foot, then summoned a casual smile. ‘What else should I be frightened of?’

  ‘Nothing, sir.’ Rafferty grinned. ‘Not even shipwreck – when I’m here to ease your passage.’

  And so, as the boat pitched and rolled at anchor while the gale blew itself out beyond the shelter of the bay, Rafferty and I sat on narrow bunks either side of the cabin and made steady inroads into his Bushmills. Rafferty reminisced about the days of sail and his wartime experiences in the Royal Navy. These had ended with his being picked up by the Germans after abandoning a sinking destroyer during the Battle of Jutland. ‘Two and a half years in a POW camp in Bavaria, sir, then home to find the IRA and the Black and Tans going at each other like fighting cocks, leaving the likes of me to play piggy-in-the-middle. Don’t talk to me about the good old days.’ Even the carefree Desmond Rafferty, it seemed, had had his life altered by a war of other men’s making. Was there anyone it had not touched? I wondered. Was there anyone not entitled to the revenge I had it in my power to wreak?

  I lay back on the bunk and slipped irresistibly into a dream-laden sleep. Diana was waiting for me, warm and pliant, tempting and treacherous. But Klaus was also waiting. He sat up as I stooped over him in the road, grinned crazily and reached out to close his hands around my throat. And then came velvety oblivion, like a hood over a condemned man’s face.

  I woke in broad daylight, a pallid sun winking at me through the port-hole. The boat was apparently still at anchor, stirring only gently. The storm had passed. I propped myself up, aware of a leaden ache in my head and looked instinctively at my watch. It was half past eleven. I stared at the hands disbelievingly. Half past eleven in the morning! I had slept for more than fifteen hours. It was impossible. And yet it was true. As true as it was potentially disastrous.

  ‘Good morning to you, sir,’ said Rafferty from the cabin doorway. ‘Strong tea to start the day?’ He held out a chipped enamel mug.

  ‘Why the devil didn’t you wake me earlier?’ I snapped, jumping to my feet
.

  ‘It would have been easier to wake the dead.’

  ‘You knew I had to be in Pwllheli by half past five.’

  ‘And so you were, sir, so you were.’ He set the mug down and shook his head. ‘I owe you an apology, though. Your whiskey last night. I slipped something into it to make you sleep like a log.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I bought an Evening Herald before we left Wicklow. There was a report in it of a shoot-out in Phoenix Park early yesterday morning. Three men killed. And a well-dressed fellow seen running away with a Gladstone bag in his hand.’

  Angry at my own stupidity as much as Rafferty’s hang-dog air of mockery, I grabbed him by the collar of his oilskins and pushed him back against the door-post. ‘What have you done, you interfering bloody fool?’

  ‘I’ve been an interfering bloody fool, as you say, sir. I reckoned there must be money in the bag. A falling-out among thieves. Something like that. So, I told you we had engine trouble, anchored in Aberdaron Bay and slipped you a Mickey Finn. Then I took a look in the bag. I’d planned to put you ashore at Abersoch while you were still drowsy and head home with a sight more than fifteen guineas to show for my trouble. But … my plans changed when I found out what you had.’

  ‘You’ve seen the documents?’

  ‘Every last one, sir.’

  ‘And you realize what they are?’

  ‘I’ve a fair idea, sir. It’s only because of them I didn’t drop you at Abersoch. They … set me thinking.’

  ‘I have to get them to London. I have to make sure the world learns what they contain.’

  ‘Is that why you killed those fellows in Phoenix Park?’

  ‘I didn’t kill all of them. But one of those who died was Fabian Charnwood.’

  ‘They’re after you, then? They’re hot on your trail?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think you’ll be needing these, sir.’ He reached into his pocket and pulled out five bullets. ‘I took them out of your gun in case you turned nasty.’ I let go of him and, with a crumpled smile, he dropped the bullets into my hand. ‘I don’t exactly know what all this is about, but I can read and understand as well as the next man. It’s the war, isn’t it? You’re after hanging all that dead meat round those grand people’s necks.’

  ‘I am, yes.’

  ‘Then good luck to you.’

  ‘I’ll need it, won’t I, now you’ve delayed me?’

  ‘You’ll only be a few hours late reaching London.’

  ‘Yes. A few hours. When every second counts.’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. But I wasn’t to know, was I?’

  ‘Get out of my way.’ I pushed past him onto the deck. The Leitrim Lassie was moored between two other boats of similar size in a neat enclosed harbour. Gulls were wheeling and shrieking overhead, with sunlight flickering on the water and warming the huddled house-fronts of Pwllheli. Ahead, silhouetted against the sky on an embankment bordering the harbour, I could see the statue of a soldier in helmet and battle-dress. Even tiny Pwllheli had its fallen to remember.

  ‘The railway station’s just across the way, sir,’ said Rafferty. ‘I’ll give you a hand up. You’ll not be forgetting this, will you?’ To my astonishment, I saw he was holding the bag. I grabbed it from him with a scowl, then opened it and began to leaf through the contents. ‘It’s all there, sir. I promise.’

  ‘It had better be.’

  ‘Sure, what would I be wanting with it? Worse than carrying dynamite in your hip pocket.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘I think it’ll never see the light of day. But if it does … I’ll be proud to have helped.’

  ‘Hindered, more like.’ Satisfied on the point, I closed the bag and looked straight at him. ‘You haven’t asked for your fifteen guineas yet.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure you’d think I’d earned it, sir.’

  ‘I don’t reckon you have.’ But something in his eyes softened me. He could have dropped me at Abersoch while I was still insensible. He could have pushed me and the records of the Concentric Alliance overboard. He could even have handed me over to the police. Instead, he had done his best to make amends. ‘But have it anyway,’ I said, reaching for my wallet.

  ‘You’re a gentleman, sir. A real gentleman.’

  I might have been considerably less of a gentleman had I appreciated the dire consequences of Rafferty’s intervention. But they did not dawn on me until I reached the railway station booking office.

  ‘The next train’s at twelve forty-five, sir,’ the clerk informed me. ‘For London, change at Barmouth and Ruabon.’

  ‘When will I arrive?’

  ‘The connecting train for Ruabon is the four o’clock from Liverpool, due into Paddington at … a quarter to midnight.’

  I stared at him in stupefaction. ‘A quarter to midnight? That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘Ridiculous or not, sir, it’s the best the Great Western Railway can do for you at this time of the year. Do you want a ticket?’

  ‘Yes,’ I replied levelly. ‘But tell me, where will I be at six o’clock?’

  ‘Six o’clock? Let’s see.’ He ran his thumb down a timetable column. ‘Approaching Shrewsbury, sir. You’re due there at twelve minutes past.’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ I said through gritted teeth.

  ‘Not at all, sir. Is it to be a single or a return?’

  ‘Single.’ I could not now hope to reach the Rose and Crown until after midnight. By then, Duggan would have given me up for lost. Somehow, I had to prevent that happening. Somehow, I had to speak to him before his patience ran out. ‘First class. To Shrewsbury.’

  ‘Shrewsbury, sir? Not London?’

  ‘No. Not London. I’ve changed my mind.’

  A man in a hurry finds dawdling even more agonizing than standing still. So it was for me as ramshackle trains hauled by labouring locomotives took me slowly round the north-east corner of Cardigan Bay, then up across the Cambrian mountains and down the Dee Valley to Ruabon. There were precious few travelling the same route, so I was left alone in my compartment to chafe at the lack of progress and search through the bundle of newspapers I had bought at Pwllheli.

  Reports of the shootings in Phoenix Park and descriptions of the man seen running away were what interested me. But there were none to be found. The British press evidently regarded gunfights in Dublin as commonplace. And for their insularity I was duly grateful. They were welcome to keep their blinkers on until I chose the moment to remove them. Meanwhile, the less attention paid to a lone wayfarer with a Gladstone bag the better.

  Many times, none the less, as the train steamed and stuttered through the wastes of Merionethshire, I relived in my mind those fleeting moments of violence. I saw the gun once more in O’Reilly’s hand, heard again the twin reports and watched anew as Charnwood toppled slowly to the ground. And I remembered also my dream of Klaus’s eyes opening and his hands encircling my throat. I shuddered and looked nervously round to be sure I was still alone. As I always was – except in my thoughts.

  For there Diana’s taunting smile of triumph could not be evaded. She had punished me as well as her father. I should have realized she could never be out-deceived. A truce with her was a pact with the Devil. She would never stop lying, never stop manoeuvring for her own advantage. She would never fail to be at least one step ahead. I fingered the letter for her Charnwood had entrusted to me and considered opening it. But something stopped me. Respect for what had turned out to be a dying man’s last wish? Perhaps. Or perhaps it was the prospect of handing it to her one day with the seal unbroken, of taunting her in the only way I could.

  But Diana, I told myself, no longer really mattered. My quarrel was with the Concentric Alliance. Mine and Max’s and Felix’s – and all our generation. There was something more than the desire to avenge them driving me on, of course. There was the realization that I knew too much to strike any kind of deal. Faraday and the people he served would kill me if they could. My only hope wa
s to render killing me pointless – by shouting Charnwood’s secrets from the roof-tops. I was on the side of truth and justice because I had no alternative. They had become the key to my survival.

  My survival also depended on George Duggan, the only other outsider who understood what the Concentric Alliance was all about. If I could deliver their records to him, he would know how best to broadcast them to the world. But first I had to contact him. Thanks to Rafferty and the Great Western Railway, that did not promise to be easy. Yet it was not impossible.

  The London train left Ruabon at half past five and reached Shrewsbury forty minutes later. I got off, hurried out to the taxi rank and instructed a cabby to take me to the best hotel in town. This, according to him, was the Lion, an old coaching inn turned Trust House where my every want would be catered for.

  My only want, in fact, was a room with a private telephone and the services of the hotel operator to put a call through to the Rose and Crown, Warwick Street, London. Within ten minutes, she had found the number and connected me. It was not yet a quarter to seven and I was confident Duggan would still be waiting for me.

  ‘Rose n’ Crown,’ answered a gruff male voice.

  ‘Good evening. I wonder if I might speak to one of your customers.’

  ‘That depends, dunnit? Which one?’

  ‘George Duggan.’

  ‘Never ’eard of ’im.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s there. Would you mind asking? It’s very important.’