Shadows of the Dead

by Jim Eldridge

  ‘Did Carl ever come here on his own? Without Cavendish?’

  O’Keeffe frowned thoughtfully. ‘He did, now you come to mention it. Not that he was here for long. He just popped in. The thing was, when Cavendish was in the house, everyone knew about it. You know what I mean? That moving-picture style of slick: noisy, brash. Greeting everyone. Patting them on the back. Smiling. God, that man can smile for America. Carl was different. He could slip in and out of a room and you’d hardly have noticed he’d been there.’

  ‘Was Cavendish here a lot? I mean, without Carl.’

  ‘Was he ever!’ nodded O’Keeffe. ‘The embassy should have charged the guy rent! He was always poking around, listening, at the same time as he was glad-handing everyone. And everyone loved it because he kept using that moving-picture hooey to get in and out of rooms he shouldn’t have been allowed into. I had a word with Security about it, but they just cold-shouldered me: said he was doing good for America.’ He scowled. ‘A few of ’em are KKK supporters, if you want my opinion, and Cavendish used that.’

  ‘Which rooms?’ asked Noble.

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘The ones you said he wormed his way into when he shouldn’t.’

  ‘Well, the ambassador’s private office, for one. But the most dangerous was the wire room.’

  Where the telegrams were sent from.

  ‘I put a stop to that, though,’ said O’Keeffe. ‘I had a word with the communications chief, and he had a discreet word with Cavendish.’

  ‘When was he in there?’

  ‘I first spotted him coming out of there about two days after he arrived in England. I was going in to send a wire as he was coming out. I asked the girl in there what he’d been doing, and she said he was just talking to her about the motion picture business. She was all excited. Said he’d offered her a screen test.’ He shook his head. ‘Some people are so gullible.’

  ‘Who is this girl?’

  ‘Name’s Myrtle Evans. British.’

  ‘Been here long?’

  ‘As long as I have.’

  ‘Jerry, can you do me a favour? Can I use your office for a few moments? I’d like to talk to this Myrtle Evans.’

  ‘Think she can help you find out what happened to Carl?’

  ‘Maybe. But I won’t know till I talk to her.’

  O’Keeffe hesitated. ‘This is unofficial, right?’

  ‘You lending me your office, yes. For the rest, though, I’m an agent of the American government investigating the murder of another American agent. And here in this embassy is American territory.’

  ‘So why not use an official office? The deputy ambassador’s?’

  ‘Because I don’t know whom I can trust, except you.’

  O’Keeffe smiled. ‘I don’t know whether to be flattered or worried for my job.’

  ‘Trust me, Jerry, you won’t be brought in to it. You go out for a bit, and if anything comes back, I’ll say I hijacked your office without you knowing.’

  ‘You could always talk to her in the wire room?’

  ‘Too open to interruptions. And I need somewhere that looks official.’

  O’Keeffe hesitated, then shrugged. ‘OK,’ he said. He went to the coat stand and took down his coat. ‘I said I’d meet a friend of mine at the National Gallery. I’ll be gone for a couple of hours. As far as I was concerned, you left this office at the same time as I did.’ He winked. ‘See you, Don.’

  ‘One moment, before you go, do you know anything about a Lady Amelia Fairfax?’

  ‘The commie broad!’ O’Keeffe chuckled. ‘Hell, every press man in England knows about her.’

  ‘What do you mean, the commie broad?’

  ‘For all her title, she’s some kind of social revolutionary. Works part-time volunteering at the offices of the Communist Party at some dump of a building out in East London. Also part of the campaign for votes for women.’

  ‘I thought women had the vote here?’

  ‘Yes and no. Some do, some don’t. Then there’s property rights. Women aren’t allowed to own property in their own right – everything has to be done through a man. Then there’s …’

  ‘Yeah, OK. I get it,’ said Noble, putting up a hand to stop O’Keeffe. ‘She’s some kind of radical.’

  ‘And how,’ nodded O’Keeffe.

  ‘How radical?’ asked Noble. ‘Radical enough to bump someone off?’

  O’Keeffe looked quizzically at Noble. ‘You thinking of her late husband? If so, in my opinion you’re barking up the wrong tree there. Apart from the fact that she’s some kind of Bolshevik, I’ve only heard good things about her. Decent. A straight shooter.’ He grinned. ‘Then again, she’s a redhead. Who knows what redheads can do if you rub ’em up the wrong way.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  As Stark walked into the house, he was startled to see Sarah on the telephone.

  ‘Thank you. We’ll be there,’ she said.

  She rushed to grab her coat. ‘The hospital just telephoned. Your dad’s taken a turn for the worse. They think we ought to be there.’

  Stark snatched up the telephone.

  ‘You take Stephen next door. I’ll get us a taxi.’

  ‘Can’t I come with you?’ asked Stephen.

  ‘Not today,’ said Stark.

  Myrtle Evans was Welsh, in her twenties and attractive – and she knew it, although at this moment she looked very uneasy. The man sitting opposite her across the desk wasn’t smiling at her, as most men did. In fact, he was looking at her with outright hostility, something she wasn’t used to. Especially not here at the American Embassy. Yes, sometimes she got cold looks from some of the other women, but she knew that was because they were jealous of her. But the men were always nice to her. It was because she was nice to them. Flattery always works with men – that’s what her mum had told her. And she was hoping it would work here at the embassy for her. Land a nice American man who’d marry her and take her to America with him. Because that’s where she wanted to be: America, the Land of Opportunity. She’d seen the picture in the magazines. Great fashions. Wonderful outfits. Fantastic cities. She could be something there. But this man sitting opposite her, with his grim, almost hate-filled eyes, unsettled her. Had she done something wrong? His manner been very curt when he opened the door of this office to her and just pointed at the chair, not even invited her to sit down politely like a gentleman should.

  ‘My name is Special Agent Noble, with the American Bureau of Investigation,’ he said as he sat down. No ‘Thank you for coming’ or any other pleasantries. Instead, he looked at her with that unfriendly glare and demanded, ‘Edgar Cavendish. You know him?’

  Myrtle wondered if this was a test. ‘Yes,’ she nodded. And she gave the man a smile to try to soften him. ‘He’s a film producer and really nice.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Kind.’ She hesitated, and added almost nervously, ‘He said I’d got the perfect face for moving pictures.’

  ‘Did he?’ snapped Noble, his voice harsh, unimpressed, his face still unsmiling.

  ‘Yes. In fact, he said he’d arrange a screen test for me.’ There, she thought. That ought to soften him up, when he realizes he’s talking to someone who’s going to be a star!

  ‘A screen test,’ repeated Noble.

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded, smiling more now, eager to impress on him how important she was going to be. ‘First here in London, at some studio, and then in America!’

  ‘So, because of that, you told him about the wire you sent?’

  She looked at him, stunned, then tried to look blank. ‘What wire?’ she asked.

  ‘Edgar Cavendish asked you about a telegraphic wire that Carl Adams sent to Washington. And you told him what it contained.’

  ‘No …’

  ‘Yes!’ snarled Noble, and he crashed his fist on to the surface of the desk, making her jump. ‘You told him!’

  ‘It … it wasn’t a secret …’

  ‘It was a secret,’ Noble corrected her
firmly. ‘All wire communications in and out of this embassy are secret.’

  ‘But Mr Cavendish worked here. He was an American.’

  ‘He did not work here,’ snapped Noble. ‘He visited. That’s all. And when it was discovered that he had made unauthorized visits to the wire room, he was barred from doing it. So he asked you to keep him informed of any wires that Carl Adams sent. And you did. That is treason, which is a capital offence, punishable by death.’

  ‘But I’m not an American!’ burst out Evans, obviously close to tears.

  ‘This embassy is American territory. Anything happening here that is reckoned to be against the interests of the United States of America is treason. I can have you extradited to the States and put on trial there, and hanged.’

  ‘No!’ she moaned.

  ‘Yes,’ said Noble curtly.

  ‘But Edgar …’

  ‘Despite what he appears to be, Edgar Cavendish is a person of interest to the Bureau of Investigation,’ interrupted Noble.

  ‘I didn’t know!’ Evans appealed. ‘He was nice! And he was American!’

  She sat there, then her head dropped down and she began to cry. Noble sat and watched her. You hard-hearted bastard, he told himself. She was just a dupe.

  But a dupe that got Carl killed.

  He let her cry for a few more minutes, then he said, ‘Miss Evans. There might be a way out of this.’

  She sat upright, her make-up streaked with tears, her mouth open. ‘How?’ she asked in a strangled whisper.

  ‘You told Cavendish about the wire that Carl Adams sent to me in Washington,’ he said. He didn’t say it as a question. ‘By then he’d been barred from the wire room. So how did he know it had been sent? Did you tell him?’

  Evans’ head dropped again, and her hands went to her face.

  ‘Miss Evans, listen to me. This is your chance to get out of this. How did you tell him?’

  She mumbled something in a voice too low for Noble to hear.

  ‘I can’t hear you,’ snapped Noble.

  ‘He … gave me a telephone number.’ She looked appealingly at Noble again. ‘I didn’t know I was doing anything wrong! He told me it was about business!’

  ‘Business?’

  ‘He said that there were lots of rival companies trying to muscle in the film business. He said they were dangerous, so he needed to know what they were up to. He said … he said he suspected that the other man with him, Mr Adams, was trying to undercut him for a rival. Mr Adams was in the same business, moving pictures. So he asked me to let him know if Mr Adams sent any telegraphic wires to anyone.’

  ‘So when Mr Adams sent a wire, you telephoned Cavendish and told him who the wire was to, and what it said.’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted in a low and tear-stained voice.

  ‘How many wires did Mr Adams send?’

  ‘Just the one.’

  ‘To me. In Washington.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK. Then this is how we get you out of what you’ve done. I’m going to draft a wire for you to send to the Bureau of Investigation. Once you’ve sent it, I want you to telephone Mr Cavendish and tell him about my wire, and what it said.’

  ‘But … but won’t that still be treason?’ she asked nervously.

  ‘No,’ said Noble. ‘Because you’re doing it on the direct orders of an agent with the Bureau. You will not – and I repeat not – tell Mr Cavendish about this meeting. If he asks why you’re telling him about this wire, you can tell him you noticed it was going to the same telegraphic address as the one that Mr Adams sent. You got that?’

  She nodded. ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘OK,’ said Noble. ‘This is the message. “Scot Yard arrest of EC for murder imminent. Signed, Donald Noble.” Send it to Hal Peters, Bureau of Investigation in Washington.’

  When they arrived at UCH, Stark and Sarah headed for the lift, but were stopped by an orderly.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir. Public visiting hours aren’t until seven.’

  ‘We’ve been called in by the medical staff treating my father.’

  ‘Then you’ll have to report to reception,’ said the orderly.

  ‘No,’ grated Stark, doing his best to control his temper. ‘You check with reception. We are going up. And if you try to stop us’ – he produced his warrant card – ‘I will arrest you for obstructing the police.’

  With that, Stark led Sarah past the stunned orderly to the lifts.

  ‘There was no need for that,’ complained his mother. ‘He was only doing his job.’

  ‘No, he was enjoying using petty power against people he thought wouldn’t kick back,’ grunted Stark.

  They headed out of the lift to Ward 10, and found Dr Meek waiting for them. One look at the doctor’s face told Stark it was too late.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Dr Meek.

  Stark felt his mother sag beside him and almost fall, but he caught her. Sarah recovered her balance, but leant against Stark for support.

  ‘When did it happen?’ she asked.

  ‘Five minutes ago.’

  He couldn’t hang on for another five minutes, Stark raged angrily to himself.

  ‘Can I see him?’

  ‘The nurses are just … organizing him,’ said Meek. ‘If we can give them a few minutes. Please, come to my office.’

  They followed him along the corridor to an office, where the doctor sat them down. Stark looked in concern at his mother. She was still dry-eyed, but he could tell by the tightness of her clenched jaw that she was only just holding herself together.

  Dr Meek opened a desk drawer and took out a bottle. ‘I don’t normally do this, but if a brandy would help …’

  Sarah shook her head, and Stark also gently declined. The doctor put the bottle back.

  ‘I’m afraid the strain his body had been under was too much for his heart,’ said Meek. He talked them through the complications that occurred when bronchitis was worsened by the addition of pleurisy and pneumonia.

  ‘Could anything else have been done, Doctor?’ asked Stark.

  ‘No,’ said Meek. ‘I got your message, Mr Stark, about private treatment. But with the best will in the world, we don’t yet have a way to deal effectively with these of ailments. I believe there are science laboratories, predominantly in France, working to try to come up with some way of combating viruses and bacteria, but so far nothing that works.’

  There was a tap at the door, and a nurse appeared. ‘He’s ready, Doctor,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you, Nurse.’ Meek got to his feet. ‘Please, if you’d come with me. And, once again, I’m so sorry.’

  The curtains had been pulled around the bed, giving some privacy. Henry lay on his back on freshly laundered sheets and pillows, the blankets pulled up almost to his chin, his arms and hands lying crossed on his chest on top of the covers. His eyes were closed and he could have been sleeping peacefully. The nursing staff had done a good job of making him presentable. Having seen his father struggling for life on the blood-soaked bedding at home, Stark was almost glad that they’d just missed the moment of death, which would surely have been as gory and painful. At least, for Sarah’s sake. But he was being unfair to her. She’d seen Henry in all states of health, from his best to his worst. And she’d had the chance to say goodbye to him, sitting beside his bed these last few days.

  I should have come back and seen him this afternoon, Stark told himself angrily. It had been Henry’s last day on earth. No police investigation was worth missing that. And what had he learned today that he hadn’t already known? Nothing. The interview with Herbert Jolly had just reinforced his suspicions about the BUP’s involvement in the murder case and the attack on Danvers.

  Sarah sat down and reached out to touch Henry’s hands. Then her head sank forward on to the blankets and she began to cry.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  As their taxi pulled up, Stark was surprised to find a car parked outside their house. A smartly dressed man got out, expensive overcoat
and bow tie, a smile of welcome on his face and a notebook in his hand. A reporter, guessed Stark.

  ‘Chief Inspector! Harry Turner from the Daily Target. I hope you don’t mind my calling on you at home …’

  ‘Yes I do,’ snapped Stark. ‘I mind it very much. Please leave.’

  ‘I only want a minute of your time—’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to him,’ said his mother.

  ‘You don’t have to,’ said Stark. ‘Go in. I’ll be there in a moment.’

  ‘I’ve got to pick up Stephen.’

  ‘We’ll get him in a minute.’

  Stark guided Sarah to the door, followed by Turner.

  ‘Is this a bad time?’ asked Turner, his expression one of earnest sympathy. ‘I was talking to your neighbour while I waited, and she said your dad’s in hospital …’

  Stark waited until the door had closed on Sarah before turning to face Turner. ‘You will leave now,’ he snapped. ‘You have no business here.’

  ‘That’s not strictly true, Inspector. I’m only doing my job, and it’s a free country.’ He put on his hopeful, appealing smile again. ‘Your sergeant was attacked and badly injured, nearly killed, last night. We want to get those who were responsible for the attack. Don’t you care enough about your own colleague to want to put those who did it behind bars?’

  ‘That is a police matter, and we are dealing with it.’

  ‘We can help. The power of the press. People talk to us.’

  ‘I don’t. Now go.’

  Turner shook his head, his smile now replaced by an expression of baffled concern. Another act, Stark felt angrily. ‘I don’t see what your problem is, Mr Stark.’

  ‘My problem is with the Daily Target.’

  ‘We’re a patriotic paper. I’d have thought you’d have shared those views. You fought in the war. Decorated. Promoted in the field. And not so long ago you put your life on the line to stop the King from being assassinated. In my book, it doesn’t come more patriotic than that.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Turner, I am a patriot. But that doesn’t mean I hate everyone who isn’t British or may have different political views to me.’