The New Eastgate Swing

by Chris Nickson

  ‘We’re not the only ones doing it,’ Hill had told Baker. ‘Every company does. The Yanks brought out Nazis to work on rockets, you know that, don’t you?’

  ***

  ‘That all sounds legal,’ Markham said.

  ‘As far as it goes,’ Baker agreed. ‘But when I was doing my checking on him yesterday I turned up a few interesting things. His work means he’s still involved with the spies. Fair enough. MI5 doesn’t want these men they’ve brought over working for the Russians.’ Markham began to speak but Baker cut him off. ‘Turns out that during the summer Hill bought a new house. Moved from Ireland Wood out to Alwoodley. Detached, and you know they don’t come cheap.’

  ‘Beyond his salary?’ Hill was an executive; he’d receive a monthly salary, not a workman’s weekly wage. ‘And what would he be making from MI5?’

  ‘It’s still a lot more than he can afford. He wasn’t too happy that I knew. Kept looking around – we were out in the street, any of the snooty neighbours could have been watching.’ He smiled.

  ‘What did he have to say?’

  ‘Once he’d gone through all the bluffing, it was like a gust of wind hitting a house of cards. Someone had come to see him back in June.’

  ‘Someone?’ Markham asked sharply.

  ‘That’s all he wanted to say at first. A man came to see him and asked about the people from East Germany. Wanted to know the new names they’d been given, where they were living. Put a fat brown envelope on the desk.’

  ‘How much was in it?’

  ‘Two thousand.’

  It was a fortune. Certainly enough for a strong down payment on a house in Alwoodley.

  ‘He took it?’

  ‘He opened it and took a look. That was enough. His visitor showed him a little camera and said he’d just been filming him. If he didn’t pass on the information the footage would find its way back to MI5. Hill would look like a traitor. He didn’t have much choice. At first he thought I was one of the spies, come to arrest him.’

  ‘Did you set him right?’

  ‘I didn’t go into details.’ Baker stared at him. ‘I did get the name of the man who came to see him, though. Simon Harker. It’s probably false, but it’s something. And a description. Blond, but with dark brown eyes, ordinary looking. About six feet tall, maybe thirty years old.’

  Dark eyes. The killer. His attacker. He’d put money on it.

  ‘So Hill’s a double agent?’ Markham asked.

  ‘Of sorts. A reluctant one.’

  ‘We’re treading on dangerous ground now.’

  ‘We always were, Dan. This way we might find a path through. We might even find Mrs Fox alive.’

  ‘If she still is,’ he said. ‘Would another body really matter?’

  ‘She’s English and she’s female,’ Baker said without emotion. ‘All the difference in the world and you know it.’

  Maybe. Maybe not. But the man was right about something. They were the best chance Amanda Fox had of survival.

  ‘Right,’ Markham agreed firmly. ‘Where do we go from here?’

  ***

  Baker called in another favour or two from the police. Surprisingly, soon they had an address for a Simon Harker. Out in Whitkirk, past Temple Newsam.

  Markham didn’t know the area; he’d only been out there a couple of times in his life. Plenty of newer housing, streets of neat semi-detached houses. The place they wanted was just past St Mary’s Church, close to the Brown Cow, an ugly clump of a pub.

  ‘Down that road.’ From the passenger seat Baker pointed to a street that ran next to the graveyard.

  He parked twenty yards beyond a house that seemed ripe for demolition. The windows and doors were still intact, but the old stone was crumbling and the roof looked as if a strong breath might send it flying away.

  ‘Do you think anyone living here has a couple of thousand to spend?’ Markham said as he stared at the place.

  ‘I think anyone living in that place needs their head examining. And I’ll bet you we don’t find Simon Harker here.’

  They didn’t; there was no answer. Talking to the neighbours they discovered that no one had lived there since the end of September.

  ‘He was very ordinary,’ an older woman told them. As she spoke she kept sucking a set of false teeth into her wrinkled mouth. ‘You’d never have even known he was there most of the time.’

  ‘Most of the time?’ Markham asked.

  ‘He had a motorbike. He’d work on it Saturday mornings.’ She shook his head at the recollection. ‘Made a right noise, that thing did. Tried it on a Sunday when he first moved in, but folk complained because it was interrupting the service.’ She nodded across to the church.

  ‘Do you know where he went, luv?’ Baker asked her with a smile.

  She shook her head and sucked on her teeth again. ‘Not a clue. Just upped and left.’

  ‘Who owns the place and rents it out?’

  ‘Don Barnes, I suppose.’ She scratched at her thin grey hair. ‘It’s been in his family since the year dot, any road.’

  Baker recited the description of Harker that Hill had given him.

  ‘Does that sound like him?’

  ‘I suppose,’ she answered slowly. ‘Like enough, anyway, although I’d have said his hair was more brown than fair. And he seemed taller.’ She laughed. ‘But I’m only little.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Baker told her and as they walked away he muttered, ‘Witnesses. There’s not two of them ever bloody agree.’

  ‘Close enough, though.’

  ‘Probably. I can stop in at Millgarth and track down this Barnes character and see what I can find on the motorbike Harker owns. Just as well we’re an agency with good police contacts, eh?’ He chuckled and winked. ‘They’ll be thinking I still work there.’

  ‘As long as you don’t run out of goodwill.’

  ‘I’m safe enough. They’ll be happy to leave this with us for now. They don’t want to get their teeth into something just to be warned off by the spies again. Can you blame them?’

  ‘And no sign of MI5.’

  ‘I know. So it’s up to us, lad. Every hour we take is another hour this Harker has Amanda Fox. Best remember that.’

  ***

  He stopped and bought a cheese sandwich and wandered down to the Central Library, looking at the reflections in shop windows to make sure no one was following him.

  At least it felt like they were doing something and making some progress. Maybe one small step closer to finding Amanda.

  And after they found her? He didn’t care. Let the spies from both countries go hunting each other.

  In the reference section he did a little research on 4 Commando. It seemed they’d paid a heavy price in the war. Lofoten Island, Dieppe, holding the flank at D-Day with fifty per cent casualties, then on to Walcheren. It was hard to reconcile the Stephen Baker he knew with someone who’d gone through all that.

  Finally Markham made his way up the Headrow and down Lands Lane back to Albion Place. Baker was a tough man, no doubt about it, and he’d seen his share of death. Add to that his stretch as a copper and he had a fuller picture of the man.

  The phone started to ring as he unlocked the door. He sprang for it, automatically reciting, ‘Markham and Baker.’

  ‘Are you sure you’re ready?’

  No hello, no how are you. No name, but he knew exactly who it was. Carla being Carla. He took a deep breath.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered and realised he was smiling as if nothing terrible had happened.

  ‘I’m glad, Dan. I really am.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Look, I need to come down this weekend and start looking for a flat.’

  ‘I can drive you around,’ he offered. As long as the case didn’t intrude.

  ‘That would be wonderful.’ He could hear the relief in her voice. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t mind?’

  ‘As long as you don’t need me to look at places with you. I took a bit of a beating a few days ago. I’m not exactly a prett
y sight at the moment.’

  ‘My God, are you all right?’

  ‘It’s just surface, that’s all. I’m healing, it’s nothing too bad.’

  He knew all the bad memories would be flooding back to her. All the pain and the fear. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive,’ he assured her. ‘Honestly.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Yes.’ And he prayed he was right.

  ‘Good, then,’ she said. There was a brief hesitation. ‘Can I stay at your place? Would you mind?’

  ‘You know there’s only one bed.’

  ‘I remember.’ The words were half-invitation, half-hope. ‘But if we’re really going to do this, Dan, we might as well do it properly.’

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘We should.’

  ‘I’ll ring you once I know when I’m arriving on Friday.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And look after yourself. Please.’

  He didn’t know if Carla simplified his life or made it more complicated. Maybe it didn’t matter. All he knew was that seeing her, hearing her, had rekindled that fire inside him, the one that had never died completely. He had a chance and he was going to take it.

  Markham was staring out of the window and smoking another cigarette when Baker returned, his face set.

  ‘Get your coat on. We going to see Simon Harker.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Harehills. Gathorne Terrace. I’ll drive.’

  The Wolseley’s powerful engine ate up the ground along North Street, through Sheepscar and past the grimy, tired buildings that lined the bottom end of Roundhay Road. He indicated the left turn on to Gathorne Terrace and slowed.

  It still teetered on the edge of respectability. The bricks of the houses were black with years of soot from all the factories, but the windows were clean, net curtains hiding the families inside. Baker parked outside number fifty-three.

  ‘Harker lives at number twenty-seven. Looks like he’s home, there’s a motorbike outside.’ An old BSA M20 motorcycle was the only other vehicle on the street. ‘You go to the ginnel round the back in case he tries to run.’

  Markham counted down from the end of the block and stood just outside the tall back gate. The stone wall was his height, impossible to see over. He fitted leather gloves tightly over his hands. This time he was going to be ready for the man.

  It only took a minute until he heard the back door fly open and footsteps run across the flagstones in the yard. By the time the gate was thrown back he was waiting, ready, fists clenched.

  For a short moment the man looked surprised. He was somewhere between the descriptions they had: large, sandy hair, broad shoulders, wearing a sleeveless V-neck jumper over a white shirt with an open neck, baggy trousers and a pair of brown brogues. The dark, empty eyes he remembered from the night outside his flat. The face, ugly from the bruising it had received, broken nose still swollen.

  Markham stepped forward.

  Harker raised his hand. He was holding a pistol, an automatic. Jesus, he thought. He’d got Carla back and now he was going to die in a ginnel in Harehills. Markham started to back away, raising his arms.

  But Harker didn’t shoot. He gestured, moving Markham away until there was almost ten feet between them. Then he began to run, the pounding of his soles echoing off the walls and the cobbles.

  Markham didn’t give chase. He didn’t even move until Harker had turned the corner and vanished into a tangle of streets. At the other end of the ginnel he saw Baker. The man was panting and red-faced.

  ‘Why didn’t you bloody stop him?’

  ‘He had a gun.’ That was enough to silence the big man. ‘I thought he was going to pull the trigger. Did you see his nose?’

  ‘Broken.’

  ‘It’s him. I remember the eyes.’ He shook the memory from his head. ‘We’d better get back to the car. He’ll have circled the block and started his bike.’

  ‘No he won’t.’ Baker smiled and brought a hand from his pocket. He was holding a rubber-coated wire. ‘That thing won’t be going anywhere. But there’s no sense going after someone who’s tooled-up.’

  ‘Ring the police?’

  Baker shook his head and tipped the brim of his hat back.

  ‘They’ll spend four hours asking us questions before they even start to look for him.’

  Markham glanced thoughtfully at the house.

  ‘I think we’ve earned the right to look inside, don’t you?’

  They entered through the back door, into the scullery. A wash was drying on the clothes airer hanging near the ceiling – shirts, underwear, socks. A loaf in the bread bin, cans, vegetables, and jars in the larder. Pots, pans, plates, cutlery. Everything very ordinary.

  The parlour held a worn three-piece suite, everything facing a television in the corner. A small bookcase with some battered hardbacks and a few Penguin paperbacks. Markham rifled through them, looking for telltale pinpricks to indicate a code pad. Nothing.

  He could hear Baker moving heavily around upstairs, shifting furniture. They spent a full hour searching, checking the floorboards and the skirting boards, taking up the rugs and going through the clothes in the wardrobe.

  In the end all they found was a British passport in the name of Simon Terence Harker and a passbook for the Post Office Savings Bank with twenty-two pounds, eleven shillings and ninepence in the account. Not a fortune. Ordinary, like everything else, at least on the surface. Not someone likely to have two thousand pounds to hand out.

  ‘Not much, is it?’ Baker asked. ‘There’s got to be more.’

  Markham stood for a moment. A lesson from his training came back.

  ‘Did you look in the cistern?’

  ‘No.’

  The house was new enough to have indoor plumbing. He stripped off his coat and jacket and rolled up his sleeves before standing on the toilet lid.

  The cistern was high on the wall, flushed by a chain that hung down. Markham lowered his arm into the cold water, moving it around slowly, fingers spread. At first he thought there was nothing to find, then he touched something.

  He grabbed at it, lifting quickly. In the bathroom he looked at it as he towelled himself dry. A package, small, square, wrapped in oilcloth and carefully sealed. He carried it downstairs.

  ‘Shall we wait until we’re back at the office?’ Baker raised an eyebrow.

  Markham nodded. ‘We’ll take everything else, too. See how well he survives without it all.’

  ‘There’s one good thing.’

  ‘What?’ He couldn’t think of any.

  ‘If he didn’t kill you there, you’re probably safe enough for now.’

  Maybe. But he wasn’t ready to stake his life on it.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Markham placed the package on the card table and took out his penknife. One slice with the sharp blade, then a second and he peeled back the oilcloth. Inside was an automatic pistol with an extra clip of ammunition, a knife in a sheath, and an address book.

  ‘Is that a Walther?’ Baker asked.

  ‘Yes. A PPK.’ Like the James Bond character had in the books, but that was just fiction. This was all too real. He’d seen enough of these during his National Service to know where they belonged. Back then, when he was in Germany, everyone who owned a weapon was trying to sell it for a packet of cigarettes or some scraps of food.

  Still wearing his gloves, he picked up the weapon carefully. It was small enough to fit comfortably in his hand. This one looked brand new.

  Baker looked at the pistol and the blade then started going through the address book.

  ‘There are only two names in here and I know one of them.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Gus Howard. I tried to have him up for murder more than once when I was on the force. I know he did them, but no one would talk and there wasn’t enough evidence. It doesn’t look good. Not if Harker’s dealing with him.’

  ‘Why would Harker need someone like that if he kills people himself?’

&n
bsp; ‘I don’t know. But it worries me.’

  ‘Who’s the other name?’

  ‘Someone called Trevor Peel.’

  ‘Clever Trevor?’ Markham asked in astonishment. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘That’s what it says here. Why, do you know him?’

  ‘It can’t be him. Trevor wouldn’t hurt anyone. He doesn’t have the brawn, never mind the brains.’

  ‘Maybe it’s a different one, then.’ Baker stared at him. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Just a lad who works at Cokely’s.’ Even as he said the name of the company he knew it had to be more than coincidence.

  ‘Cokely’s eh?’

  ‘It looks like we have a couple of visits to make,’ Markham said.

  Baker picked up the knife and slid it in his pocket.

  ‘If we’re going to see Gus Howard I’m taking this.’ His smile was dark. ‘Always did prefer a knife to a gun, anyway. Silent.’ He paused. ‘I’d grab that gun if I were you.’

  ‘I don’t like them.’

  ‘Good. I’d wonder about you if you did. But I’ll worry about you less if you pick the bloody thing up. When we run into Harker again it’ll even things up.’

  Reluctantly, he did, feeling the hard plastic of the grip and the cold metal of the barrel, then slipping it into his overcoat pocket. He felt as if it made a bulge, something everyone would see.

  ‘Let’s go and see Trevor first,’ Markham decided. ‘What’s his address?’

  Baker opened the address book. ‘Kirkstall.’

  ***

  It was in sight of the old abbey. But no one was walking in the grounds around the ruins. The sky was grey, the wind whipping through the tall trees and making the river flow fast in the distance.

  They walked up a street of back-to-back houses, the weary remnants of an industrial age.

  ‘I’ll handle this one,’ Markham said.

  The door must have just been painted that summer, the finish still glossy, the colour bright. He waited and heard footsteps shuffling inside.

  The woman wore a scarf around her head and a long tabard apron.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Peel, I’m looking for Trevor. Is he at home?’

  ‘No, luv, he’s at work.’ She looked from Markham to Baker. ‘What are you, coppers?’