“Got him!” said Midge. I looked through the crack in the van door and saw Stan walking towards us from the road end. He would walk past us, then do an about turn to block off Wilson’s escape. Cyril would be tailing our man. Midge and I pulled on the dark balaclavas and tugged them down over our faces.
“Remember, say nothing. Not a word,” I ordered. Midge raised his thumb.
I peered out the crack. Stan was nearly level but no sign of Wilson. Then suddenly a bulky figure appeared round the corner. Stan passed our van and kept walking. At the far end of the street another big figure appeared. Cyril. It was all in the timing. The two men paced down the leafy street, Cyril a careful twenty yards behind Wilson.
Now I could hear them, almost as if they were trying to keep in step. Wilson was within five yards of our van when Midge shoved his door open so that it suddenly blocked half the pavement.
“Oi! You nearly hit me, you idiot,” shouted Wilson. His flushed face peered in to the cabin to remonstrate with Midge just as I heard running feet from both ends of the street. There was shuffling, and the footsteps stopped.
“Don’t move, copper. This is a gun and I’ll use it. Now stand up slowly,” said a panting Cyril. Wilson’s face vanished backwards. I hoped Stan and Cyril had remembered to pull their balaclavas over their faces. The rear door was tugged open and Wilson stood there, his face a mask of shock and anger. He had the sense to put his hands in the air.
“In!” commanded Cyril. I eased back in the van to let Wilson kneel and crawl forward. He pulled his legs in and sat with his back against the wall. I noticed him adjust his jacket; didn’t want his nice new suit crushed. I sensed Stan get in the front alongside Midge.
“Do you know who I am?” Wilson managed with some of his old bluster. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
“Shut it,” ordered Cyril, who by this stage had hauled himself opposite Wilson.
Cyril pulled the door shut but kept the gun trained on Wilson. I said nothing from my corner, just handed Wilson a thick strip of blackout material. Cyril cracked his knee with his gun.
“Put it on. Nice and tight, now.”
Wilson needed a further nudge with the gun barrel till he wrapped the blindfold round his eyes and tied it. Cyril checked for daylight then nodded at me. The doors at the front banged. Stan and Midge were in place. The engine started and we were off. I touched Stan on the shoulder and pointed at his mask. He and Midge got the message and took them off. Didn’t want to draw attention to a van driven by two masked men.
Wilson made another plea. “Look, this is madness. You’ve got the wrong man. I’m a senior policeman. This will go badly for you. Just stop and let me out and we’ll say no more about it. I’ll forget this ever happened.” It sounded very reasonable. But I knew none of the lads was seduced.
“Shut it!” said Cyril, pressing the barrel against his knee. Wilson slumped and was silent the rest of the journey across London.
The yard gate was chained. I got out and used the big key on the padlock.
Gambatti had kept his word. I pulled the gates wide and the van drew in. Midge and Stan pulled their black woollen masks down again. While I closed the gates and relocked them, Cyril and Midge hauled Wilson into the building.
By the time I got inside they had him stripped to his vest and pants. He was strapped to a chair with a rope round his body and his legs. He still wore the blindfold and I could see by the rapid rise and fall of his chest that his sense of outrage had been properly replaced by fear. I walked round him. Tufts of thick dark hair grew across his shoulders and back as well as his chest. He looked suddenly smaller, but I felt no mercy. Not after what he’d put Eve and me through. Cyril stepped forward at my nod, and ripped off the blindfold. Wilson looked like a startled deer. He could see the four of us standing, fully dressed, wearing our masks.
“Who are you?” came his strangled words. “What do you want? Just ask me.
Anything. I’ll tell you. I promise.”
This was too easy, if it was true. I nodded to Cyril.
“You took a friend of ours two days ago. Where is she?”
“Who? Who is it?”
“Ava Kaplan,” said Cyril.
Wilson’s body tensed. “Who? Who are you?”
Cyril reached over and gave him a smack. Wilson’s face flared.
“You bastard! You don’t know who I am! You’ll be sorry!”
“Where is she?”
“Never heard of her. You’ve got the wrong man.”
Stan stepped away and I wondered what he was up to. He was back in a trice with a painter’s blowlamp. Wilson’s face was a picture. I almost stopped Stan but thought I’d see what came of it. Stan pumped at the handle to get the paraffin up the spout. He took out his match and lit the wick. He pumped it again and adjusted the flame. A jet of blue heat shot out and roared nicely in the quiet warehouse. I could feel the heat from four feet away. Stan stepped forward and Wilson’s head jerked back.
Cyril asked him again. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know!” he gasped, his head as far back as he could get it. Stan did a quick pass with the flame. A mound of black hair on Wilson’s shoulder frizzled and burnt. Wilson shrieked. The smell of singed hair hung on the air. Stan moved the blowlamp down towards his groin. Wilson yelped and flung himself back. His chair tipped and he crashed to the ground. Midge and Cyril got him back on an even keel. Wilson was weeping and snivelling now. His vest had tucked up. A livid scar scrawled across his stomach and up to his chest; a reminder of his self-impalement on a chair leg the night he attacked me.
“So you remember who she is, then?” asked Cyril.
“Yes, yes. But I don’t know where she is. We didn’t take her.”
“Who did?”
“I don’t know.”
Stan did a neat sweep with the torch across his bare hairy legs. Wilson shrieked and the smell of burnt hair filled my nostrils again. It was time to put a stop to this, if only to stop the foul stink. Besides, Stan was enjoying it too much.
“It was the Americans! They wanted her out of the way.” He looked over at me.
“McRae? Is it you?”
Stan pumped his torch again. I raised my hand and shook my head.
“McRae? It’s you, isn’t it? I didn’t touch her. I swear. Let me go and I’ll say nothing about this. I promise.”
I had had enough of this masked ball. I ripped my hood off. “Keep yours on, lads.” I walked round his trembling body.
“You didn’t touch her, eh? What did you do to her in prison? I remember how gentle you were with me in a cell. Still up to your old tricks?”
“I swear, McRae. I didn’t touch her.”
“But you watched while they did! There are other ways of hurting a person. And by Christ, you hurt her!”
“McRae, I really don’t know where she is. As God’s my judge. It wasn’t my doing.”
“Is she alive?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” He was whimpering now. I could see blisters forming on his shoulder and leg. I tried a change of tack.
“Why are the Yanks so pissed off at her?”
“She was screwing up their network. She killed their top man in Berlin.”
“Why did you let her go, then. Why did you let her out?”
“Can you imagine the trial?”
“And besides, you knew the Yanks would take care of her once she was out.”
He was silent.
“Didn’t you?” I nodded to Stan who leaned forward with his flame.
“Can you blame them? This was the second agent she killed.”
“What? What are you talking about?”
“The Angel pub in Rotherhithe. The man you met.”
I froze. “He was American? Central Intelligence?” I remembered his one word to me – McRae? – and how it sounded Irish. It was. Boston Irish.
“That’s why they were after her.”
“She wasn’t there. She wasn’t there, I te
ll you.”
“But her Jewish pals were. She set them on him.”
“Why did he agree to meet me?”
“They’d lost track of her. Didn’t know what she was up to. They thought you could help track her down.”
“Why the hell would I do that?”
“Because you wanted her back. You’d had a fight. She dropped you.”
Why should I believe this man? He’d lied so often to me.
“And knowing all that, Wilson, you set her up in that flat. A sacrificial offering for your Yankee pals. Is that it?”
His silence was deafening. I’d had enough. I was past caring, one way or the other. The likelihood was that Eve was dead. And this man had put her in front of the firing squad. If I’d had a gun in my hand I would have shot him like a dog and left him to die. I was barely aware of the rattle of locks and the door opening behind me. The lads jumped and were quick to get into defence mode. Had the police tailed us after all? Then I smelled the cigar.
“Hello, Danny.” Pauli Gambatti stepped over the threshold followed by three of his men. They were all carrying guns.
“Hello, Pauli. Fancy meeting you here. We were just tidying up.”
“I can see.”
He walked over and stood alongside me, gazing at Wilson’s shaking body.
“Got what you wanted, Danny?”
“As much as I think I’ll get.”
“Then we’ll take over. You can leave him with us.” Stan handed over his blowlamp to one of the musclemen. The man grinned in anticipation.
“That wasn’t the deal, Pauli.”
“I gave you the premises. I didn’t say nothing about your guest. I owe this one.”
“What for?”
“We used to have some deals going. Him and me. Must have paid him a couple of grand in backhanders. For turning a blind eye. Ain’t that right, Bertie boy?”
Wilson’s wide eyes said it all. Gambatti continued. “Set you up too, Danny.”
“What?”
“He heard you was looking for me. And after our little rendezvous here, he called me. I told him we’d had words. He asked me to arrange the meeting at the Angel for you. Depending what you knew, they were going to kill you.”
I thought of the man’s knife dropping from his dead hand. “You bastard!” I said to Pauli, but it covered both of them.
Pauli shrugged. “Business. Shit-head here was holding my cousin and good friend Alberto. He said he’d fix things with the judge.”
“Let me guess…”
“Oh, he fixed it all right. Alberto is rotting in Dartmoor now. Twenty years, wasn’t it, Bertie boy?”
“I tried, Pauli! I tried. For god’s sake man, I can’t buy all the judges,” pleaded Wilson.
“We had a deal. You broke it. It’s payback time. You can go, Danny. And let me know your answer ’bout the other thing, won’t you?”
I looked at Wilson. I looked at Pauli. I knew my answer. I’d sooner rot in Dartmoor with his cousin than join forces with this hoodlum. Instead, I smiled.
“I’ll be in touch, Pauli. Go easy on him.”
Wilson thrashed in his ropes. “Don’t leave me, McRae! Don’t go. They’ll kill me!
I’ll help you find her. They’ll listen to me. Don’t go…!”
I led my lads from the warehouse, and never looked back. Even when I heard the screams. There was nothing I could do for Wilson. Not against three guns. Even if I wanted to.
TWENTY SEVEN
Two months passed. Eve had vanished without even a mention on the inside pages.
No one noticed, no one cared. Though I took comfort from the fact that they hadn’t reported finding a body. I clung – stupidly – to the idea that the Yanks would let her go eventually. In the meantime, the only evidence of her existence was her notebook. I’d worked through every coded phrase and deciphered every word to see if I could pin down this butterfly that had flitted through my life.
Given the notebook’s importance to her I wondered why she’d left it behind. I would have loved to bounce the matter around with Prof Haggarty, but he’d signed me off a month ago. Still, it was worth a phone call to the lovely, tight-hipped Vivienne.
“Hi, Viv, it’s Danny McRae. Are you doing anything on Saturday? Fancy the Palais? I bet you’re a great dancer.”
“Certainly not!”
“In that case, I’d like a word with your lord and master.”
I could almost see her cheeks sucking in as she fought for her dignity. “That’s quite impossible. The Professor is in consultation all morning. Besides, you are no longer one of his patients.”
“Viv, it’s not impossible. Not for a girl like you. Leave a message for the Prof and ask him to call me, there’s a good girl. And if you change your mind about Saturday…?”
“Hmphh.” She cut me off.
Haggarty called me within the hour. “You’ve been upsetting my lovely receptionist again, Danny. She’s going to be a bag of thorns all day.”
“Sorry about that, Professor. It’s hard to resist. She needs to loosen up a bit.”
“I do the analysis around here, thank you. I thought I’d cast you adrift? You’re not having a relapse? Need a dream deciphered? Your bumps read?”
“Do you ever get off duty? Can I buy you a beer? I mean drop the patient-doctor thing? Now I’m not on your list?”
“Why not? A quick one, mind. After work tonight. There’s a pub round the corner here. Marylebone High Street. The Cambrai.”
His first Guinness hardly touched the side. He was a big man and I could see that he planned to get bigger. We batted the breeze for a while and then I got down to it, at his urging.
“This girl I was seeing.”
“The reporter lassie?” He started on his second pint.
“That’s the one. Turns out she was a spy.”
“All women are.”
I laughed. “A real spy. A German spy, as it turns out.”
“Sounds like a good story. A four pint story. I’ll line them up.”
Over the barrier of brimming black glasses I told him about her. Told him of Berlin and how I tracked her down with her notebook.
“That was the strange thing, Prof…”
“You don’t drink with me and call me Professor. It’s Mairtin.”
“Mairtin, then. It was precious to her. She never went anywhere without it. Why did she leave it for me to find?”
“Maybe you’ve just answered that.”
“She could have done it to make it look good. The kidnapping.”
Haggarty was shaking his grizzled head. “No need, if I understand your story.
No, I think she left it for you to find. She wanted you to come after her.
Whether she knew it or not.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re just puppets, Danny, and it’s our subconscious that pulls the strings.
Partly we’re in thrall to the habits we picked up as kids. But mainly we just follow the groove of our nature. Free will is a grand notion.” He went quiet.
“But I think it’s a bit of a con, so it is.”
I must have looked sceptical.
“Take a look at yourself. How did you react when you found she’d gone to Berlin?”
“I went after her. I loved her, Mairtin.”
“One man in ten, or a hundred, might have done what you did. Most would have stayed at home and pined. Not you. She probably knew that’s how you’d react. She was counting on it.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t want to go, I guess. Her heart wasn’t in it. Or maybe she was just plain scared and needed to know you were going to ride in on your white horse, Sir Galahad. It’s like suicides. Some, anyway. They make sure they take an overdose just before their loved one comes home. Or they jump off a bridge into the river and find their arms making swimming motions involuntarily.”
I took these thoughts home with me and nursed them to me as evidence that this affair hadn’t been so one-sided a
fter all. Whether she realised it or not. Of course in some ways it made things worse. I missed her funny face. I could only picture her in the early days, when she was full of challenge and fun. And love.
While Eve’s vanishing act had failed to cause a public ripple, Wilson’s disappearance had generated plenty of column inches, often on the front page. It began slowly but then grew to a crescendo of speculation about a brave policeman missing in gangland. There was one cautionary call from Cassells just before I was raided and interrogated for eight hours at Charing Cross nick. But they had nothing to pin on me, not a shred other than a chance meeting the day before he disappeared. Why had I met him? What did we talk about? Did I still have a grudge over the Caldwell business? What was the link between me and the spy Ava Kaplan? And so on. But once I started to ask them about her, the whole apparatus closed down. I was ejected into the street and left alone after that.
Then things went quiet. The press were off chasing the latest accusations of corruption at the Board of Trade. Then Cassells called me and asked to meet.
I sat on the bench in St James’s Park watching the ripples on the grey water.
Summer had long gone and the trees were melting back into the earth. Their gold and yellow finery lay mouldering round their bases, and a cold wind probed my overcoat. I checked my watch. It was time to go. I left my park bench and walked round to the ale house. It was the same tawdry atmosphere. The same lack of customers. Cassells was nursing what looked like a shandy.
“What happened to the pub idea?” I asked.
“What?”
“You were going to buy a pub. Fill it with big-breasted serving wenches. Drink yourself to a happy retirement.”
I swear he blushed. “A chap has dreams.”
“So why are you still here?”
“I get a good pension. Just another ten years. Then I’m out.”
“Despite the Americans?”
He shrugged. He drew patterns on his glass. “I also believe in it. There’s wickedness out there. We may not eradicate it. We may not even make a dent in it. But would you have me stop trying?”
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