by John Creasey
“Yes. Raring to go.”
“Get busy on this job between you, and make sure you have a couple of typists from the pool ready to type anything out at a moment’s notice.” Now Roger felt that he was beginning to see the investigation in its right perspective, and it built excitement up in him. “We want to get information from all major capitals about diamond thefts, especially packets of industrial diamonds, or missing consignments. Then we need information from all airlines which run South African services, telling us what consignments have been reported stolen or suspected stolen from their aircraft. Next, we want all insurance companies who’ve paid out claims checked – here and abroad. You get the drift? Draw up a plan of campaign with McKay.”
“Yes, sir!” Klemm sounded delighted. After all, it was the kind of job which any Chief Inspector would love to get his teeth into. Klemm and McKay doubtless saw this as a major stepping-stone towards promotion to superintendency, and if they helped to crack the case, they would deserve it.
“Anything else?” Roger asked.
“There is one thing.” Klemm said that in a tone which suggested that he wished there wasn’t. “The story’s leaked. Once the news of the shooting in Cannon Row got out – a couple of Reuter’s men were in the pub at the time, and they knew about it within a few minutes – we couldn’t hold it back. The fact that Lewis is really Van der Lunn is known, too. The Back-Room Inspector is being besieged by Fleet Street men, and I gather that South Africa House also has its hands full. Nothing we can do to stem that tide.”
Roger said thoughtfully, “It might help in the long run. What’s our official statement?”
“Hardy – the AC I mean – wants to know what you think.”
“Three things in a hurry,” Roger said. “First, describe that scooter – the driver as well as you can, and the killer fully. Two, ask for anyone who knows David Bradshaw to come forward. Three, put out a description of Van der Lunn and ask anyone who saw him at the airfield or afterwards, and anyone who might have seen that taxi deliver him to the Common View Hotel, to come forward. All clear?”
“Got th“Spread it around fast – it can be given to all the Press, television, and radio. Ask for full co-operation—oh, and build the thing up as a huge diamond-smuggling conspiracy.”
“Will do,” replied Klemm, and he sounded as if he couldn’t wait to hang up and start carrying out these instructions. No one could doubt that he would put everything he had got into this; if there was a danger, it was that he would be over-eager, and perhaps miss something obvious because he tried to do too much too quickly.
“I’ll see you,” Roger said, and rang off.
As he did so, he became conscious of being watched. Until the moment of ringing off, he hadn’t been aware of it, but now he knew that someone standing above him had been listening. He did not look up. Whoever it was must have moved and made a slight sound which had been noticeable as soon as he stopped talking. Roger stepped very slowly towards the foot of the stairs. Soon Rebecca Bradshaw appeared on the half-landing, making no attempt to hide or to pretend she hadn’t been listening. It passed through Roger’s mind that Rebecca’s husband often seemed to be the one to look after Elizabeth, and he wondered why. He moved back from the stairs and watched Rebecca coming down. He thought something had happened to change her attitude; certainly there was now nothing like the previous venom there had been in her expression or in the way she spoke.
“You don’t lose much time, do you?” she remarked.
“There isn’t much to lose. How is Mrs Bradshaw?”
“Asleep, thank God.” Rebecca smoothed that very flat hair down with her right hand; she had small, pale hands, quite as delicate looking as her feet. Rough hotel work seemed the last thing she should do. “I suppose we ought to be grateful because you made her break down; she might be better after this. It’s about all we ever shall be grateful to you for.”
Roger said, “Mrs Bradshaw, there are some aspects of my job which I dislike as much as you do, but it doesn’t alter the fact that I have to do it. You heard me ask for all friends of David to come forward. I’ve got to piece together a complete picture of his life in the past year, say – I’ve got to know all the people he knew, everything there, is to know about him. You and his brother can help more than anyone, if only you will. And the quicker we see this picture, the quicker the whole bad business will be over.”
She said, “I daresay.”
“Will you and your husband be sensible, and give us all the help you can?”
“What about your well-known threat that if we don’t we’ll probably come under suspicion?”
“You’re already under suspicion,” Roger retorted. “The only way to help yourself is to tell the whole story. First I want to ask you a lot of questions, then I want to ask the same questions of your husband. If you’re both telling the truth, the statements will be identical on all important matters, won’t they?”
After a long pause, Rebecca said ungraciously, “All right, let’s have the questions.”
She answered him briskly and briefly, and apparently without any evasions, but if she in fact was telling the truth, she knew very little about her brother-in-law. He had spent much of his off-duty time here at Common View, but for all she knew he might have spent a lot of time elsewhere in London or anywhere in England without his wife or relations knowing. Whenever he had left the hotel they had assumed it was for the airport, but they had no proof.
“As a matter of fact, Josh and I have always wondered if he had a little bit of fluff on the side,” Rebecca said. “He’s like a sailor, got every chance of leading a double life. Not that there was ever any evidence, and God knows that Beth worshipped the very ground he trod on, as they say. If it ever came out that he did have a floosie tucked away it would break her right up.”
Roger said slowly, “Maybe she isn’t so fragile as you think.”
Rebecca put her head on one side in response to that, but made no comment. Roger took a picture of Nightingale of The Globe from his pocket and handed it to her, regarding it as no more than routine.
“Do you know this man?”
Her eyes rounded, and even before she uttered a word it was obvious that the answer would be yes.
“Do I! He’s a man named Knight, a commercial traveller. He’s often stayed here lately. He and David got quite chummy – their nights often coincided. What’s he been up to?”
It was one of the days when Hardy didn’t go out to lunch. He was putting on weight, so he cut down on his eating whenever it wasn’t too much of an effort.
He listened to Roger, nodded, and said, “So here’s something else to get your teeth into. Keep at it, Handsome, but don’t expect miracles. This job’s been going on for too long to be solved in a day.”
Roger said half unthinkingly, “From here, anyhow.”
“What’s that?”
“If we’re right and there’s a worldwide organisation there’s also a heart to it, and that’s probably in South Africa,” Roger said. “If it’s going to be stopped quickly it may have to be from there.”
“Is that a hint?” Hardy was half smiling, half frowning.
“Hint? I meant it as a simple statement of opinion.”
“I thought you were hinting that you ought to go to South Africa and sort it out from there,” said Hardy, drily. “By the way, I’ve a conference this afternoon at the Home Office and I expect it will go on very late. Tomorrow I’ve got the Police Conference. I’ll be available in emergency, but handle everything without me if you can.”
“I’ll try to,” Roger promised.
He went out, thinking, ‘Was I hinting?’
He went down to the canteen for a hamburger and some coffee, remembering what Janet had said: it was amazing how often she was right. None of the people immediately concerned with the investigation was pr
esent. A few superintendents asked odd questions, there was a lot of evidence of the grim determination of the Yard to find the man who had attacked a policeman in order to kill David Bradshaw. Yet Roger fancied that he detected a note almost of resignation; everyone knew that this particular killer was going to be very difficult to find.
He was at his office at five to two. Two minutes later, it was crowded, with Klemm, Jameson, Gorlay, and McKay. McKay was as Scottish as he looked, with sandy hair which curled a lot, but was spread thin over his egg-shaped head, a gangling figure vaguely like that of the Bradshaws, a Scottish accent on which twenty years in the Metropolitan Police had made little impression; Roger was so used to it that he hardly realised that McKay had an accent.
Gorlay brought in two extra chairs, and they drew close to the table. Klemm had drawn a rough graph, showing the air routes from the Jan Smuts airfield, the main international airport of South Africa which served both Johannesburg and Pretoria, and lists of the companies involved. There were BOAC, South African Airways, Air France, Alitalia, KLM, Lufthansa, and several others.
Jameson, who had been to South Africa House for briefing, came back with more detailed information about the operation of the Jan Smuts airfield. A plan of campaign built up quickly. Klemm and McKay had snatched the opportunity like drowning men at a straw. Roger made a few suggestions but wanted to alter nothing.
“All right,” he said, at three o’clock. “The next thing is a draft of a letter to be sent to all the airlines, another letter to be sent to all the police, preferably with a questionnaire – questionnaires get the information if the questions are lucid enough. Get all three drafted. Get envelopes ready for immediate posting – we want to post these tonight, even if it’s midnight. We’d better put some photographs in – of Nightingale, Lewis alias Van der Lunn, and David Bradshaw. We’ll need to enclose a description of the Cannon Row murderer, too.”
Roger noticed Klemm about to interrupt and then think better of it. He grinned.
“All right, you make up a packet of enclosures. I’ll go through them when I come back from The Globe.”
Jameson also looked as if he would like to say something, but couldn’t pluck up courage.
“Anyone any bright ideas before I talk to The Globe?” Roger asked.
“There is one thing which might be worth doing,” said Jameson.
All of them turned towards him, as if knowing that whatever he suggested would be worth listening to. Diffidently, he went on, “First, we have an outline map of the world showing the airlines which serve the world’s capitals from South Africa.”
He pointed to one of the documents which had already been prepared.
“Attached to each we have the schedules of all flights made from Johannesburg to these world capitals. We surely need to obtain details of the crews of all the aircraft, and this is one of the items of information we shall obtain from the airline head offices. However, there is one thing which I learned at South Africa House. They can now tell us on which flights and to which capitals Mr Van der Lunn has flown in the last six months. These are, I fear, very extensive. I think perhaps it would be wise to find out if this newspaper reporter, Nightingale, has been to any of them about the same time.”
13
MORE COINCIDENCE?
Nothing had changed at The Globe offices; there were the same doormen, messenger boys, and lift attendant. When Roger entered the outer editorial office, Faith Soames smiled at him and stood up, looking delighted to see him. She had the ability to make him feel that her interest was exclusively in him, and he wondered whether she had that effect on all men. As she opened the door of her uncle’s office and stood aside for Roger to pass through, he suspected that she deliberately stood where she did so that their bodies would have to touch – as she had once before. Her complexion was flawless; her smile had a touch of rare intimacy.
She closed the door on Roger, quietly.
Soames was sitting right back in his big chair, one hand bunched on the desk, the knuckles lumpy with swelling joints. He might almost have been sitting there all the time since Roger had last seen him. He made the same gesture to get up and shake hands, and dropped back into his chair with a grunt which he tried to pretend was a cough.
“I’ll tell you one thing, before you start in with your questions,” he said. “My secretary is a kind of natural sex symbol, and she recognises a challenging symbol in you. Most men she keeps at a distance, can’t even bear to let them touch her. Be careful, she’s a minx with advanced views.”
Roger said drily, “With a broad minded uncle, I gather.”
“What’s being broad minded?” asked Soames. “She’s an attractive young female, you’re a handsome male. Do I have to be broad minded to acknowledge the fact that male and female are mate-worthy? But you didn’t come here to talk about Faith. Have you found Nightingale?”
“No,” said Roger. “But a man who was by way of being a friend of his was murdered today.”
Soames did not speak, but his big lips parted, and then closed very tightly together. They were silent for what seemed a long time, before he said, “Unless my staff’s slipping, there’s only been one murder in England today. David Bradshaw?”
“Yes.”
“Nightingale doesn’t make friends easily.”
“Unless he cultivated friendship deliberately,” Roger said. “Mr Soames, one of two things seems to be certain. Either Nightingale was associated with David Bradshaw over the smuggling, and pretended to be a commercial traveller and went to Common View Hotel to meet Bradshaw as an associate, or else he suspected Bradshaw and made a point of going to the hotel whenever Bradshaw was there. It would be easy for him to find out what crews were on the aircraft coming in to London.”
Soames reflected, and then said, “My money is on the probability that he suspected Bradshaw and scraped an acquaintance in order to obtain evidence about the case. He told me he was getting close. If he believed Bradshaw was a diamond thief or smuggler, then he was- very close to the fringe, but not to the heart of the conspiracy.”
“My money’s not on one or the other,” Roger replied. “But I hope you’re right. I’d hate a top Fleet Street man to be involved in this.”
“Don’t believe it’s even possible, especially with Nightingale,” Soames declared. “Any other evidence involving him?”
“You might have some. I want to know where he’s been overseas in the past six months. You told me that he could go wherever he liked, and had instructions to break this case no matter where it took him. Where did it take him?”
“You must have some reason for asking that.”
“When I know the answers I’ll tell you what I can,” Roger said.
Soames grunted, leaned forward and flicked up the switch on the interoffice talking-box. Without waiting for Faith to say anything, and while staring straight into Roger’s eyes, he said, “The good Superintendent wants to know where Jim Nightingale has been in the last six months – especially when he’s been out of the country. You should have that information handy, and what you haven’t got, get quick. I’ve the editorial group session for the next hour, so give Mr West all the help he needs and all the information he asks for. Also give him some tea and try to worm some information out of him – I think he’s holding out on us.”
He paused and grinned.
Then, “Come in here as soon as you’ve got the files,” he ordered.
Immediately he flicked the little handle down, and then began his cumbersome movements, out of his chair and on to his feet, followed by the painful walk to the communicating door, with the thick stick in his hand. He pushed the door open just as he had on the previous occasion, and this time spoke to someone who was in the boardroom. The door swung to. Roger heard a murmur of voices, but could not distinguish the words. He waited for a long time, half amused by what Soames had s
aid about his niece; it was almost as if he had deliberately intended to make Roger aware of the girl’s quite exceptional attractiveness.
Suddenly she came in, carrying tea and six cakes, oozing with cream, on a silver tray. Cups rattled pleasantly as she put the tray down on a corner of the littered desk, and pulled up a chair.
“These are my uncle’s favourites,” she said. “Cream slices and chocolate éclairs – at least he doesn’t have to worry about his diet. It must be miserable to have to watch your weight.”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Roger.
“Milk and sugar?”
“Just milk.”
“And you don’t watch your weight,” Faith scoffed. She was as natural as if she were his own daughter, and it passed through Roger’s mind that if she were ten years younger, perhaps even five years younger, she would be exactly the kind of girl he would like Martin or Richard to fall in love with. She poured out. “Do you like to relax over tea, or do you mix business with pleasure?”
“I do all my relaxing at home,” Roger said mildly.
“And faithful, too!” She handed him his cup and pushed the cakes towards him, then sat back in a small armchair, stretching out her long, slim legs; there was something feline about her manner and her movements. “Well, let us proceed.”
She picked up a sheet of paper and began to read, “Our special correspondent James Nightingale was assigned to the mystery of the smuggled diamonds on March 27th, which means that he has been engaged exclusively on this case for six months. In that time he had made flights to the following countries: South Africa, twice, the United States (New York) twice, the Argentine (Buenos Aires) once—”
“Do you know the dates?”
“Do you need them now?”
“Please.”
She began to recite them, giving the impression that she expected him to challenge her, but he did not. His greatest difficulty was to keep a poker face, for the dates coincided, one after another, with those on which Van der Lunn had visited the same cities, although the South African had made many other visits. Van der Lunn had always been based in Johannesburg and Nightingale in London, but it was surprising how often they had been in the same places at the same time; he might have missed one or two, Roger knew, but he estimated nine such coincidences.