'I'm going to find out what I can about Wheeler,' she said. 'Don't move out of this room.'
She stuffed the rest of the money into one of those oversized bags women carry and stormed out of the room before I could say another word. I sat down bonelessly on the bed and looked at the bundle of notes, one hundred sheets thick, and the only thought in my head was the irrelevancy that she had called me by my given name for the first time.
She was away for two hours and came back with news Wheeler's yacht was on the move, heading south. She didn't know if Wheeler was on board or not.
She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket, a printed page from a book. 'I bought an old copy of Who's Who. It was a bit too big to lug around so I tore out the relevant page.'
She passed it to me and pointed out the paragraph. Charles George Wheeler, aged 46, was born in Argyrokastro, Albania. Albania! He was a Member of Parliament with three honorary doctorates, a member of this, an associate of that, a fellow of the other. A flat in London, a country house in Herefordshire; clubs so-and-so and such-and-such -- my eye skipped down the page until I was suddenly arrested by an entry -- Interests -penal reform, for God's sake!
I said, 'How does he come by the name of Charles George Wheeler?'
'He probably changed it by deed poll.'
'Do you know when he arrived in England from Albania?'
'I know nothing about him,' said Alison. 'I've had no occasion to study him.'
'And his yacht has gone south. I'd have thought he'd have gone north -- to the Baltic.'
'You're still assuming that Slade is aboard.'
'I have to,' I said grimly.
Alison frowned. 'He might be going to the Mediterranean. If so, he'll refuel somewhere in the south, perhaps Cork. I have a friend in Cork: an old lady -- an honorary aunt. We can fly to Cork from Shannon.'
'There'll be more coppers than tourists at Shannon Airport,' I said. 'I can't risk it.'
'Airports are big places. I can get you through,' Alison said confidently.
'And how will you account for me to your old aunt?'
Alison smiled. 'I could always twist Maeve O'Sullivan around my little finger.'
VI We sneaked into Shannon Airport quite easily and unobtrusively. It seemed to me that their security was lousy, but the places are so big and the perimeters so extensive that to make them leakproof would swallow all the profits. Within fifteen minutes, after a bit of radio natter, we were in the air heading for Cork while I watched Alison's expert handling of the controls. She flew the plane -- a Piper Apache-like she did everything else -- with an economy of movement and a total lack of showmanship. I wondered what it was like to have Mackintosh as a father. Some girls might have found it a traumatic experience.
Maeve O'Sullivan lived in Glanmire on the outskirts of Cork. She was very old, but still quick and sharp-eyed and shrewd as the proverbial barrel-load of monkeys. She crowed with delight as she saw Alison and gave me a glance which stripped me to the bone in two seconds. 'You've been away too long, Alison Mackintosh.'
Alison smiled. 'Smith,' she said.
'And so it is -- so it is. A sassenach name for a Celt, more's the pity.'
'This is Owen Stannard,' said Alison. 'He's working for my father.'
The wise old eyes regarded me with renewed interest. 'Is he. now? And what devil's business is that young rip up to now?'
The idea of a man as hard-bitten as Mackintosh being referred to as a young rip made me want to smile, but I manfully repressed it. Alison gave me a warning glance. 'Nothing that should concern you,' she said tartly. 'He sends you his love.' I mentally agreed with her that it would not be a kindness to tell the old lady of his condition.
'You're just in time for your tea,' said Mrs O'Sullivan, and went off in a bustle into the kitchen with Alison close behind her. I sat down in a big armchair which swallowed me in comfort, and looked at my watch. It was six-thirty -- early evening -- less than twenty-four hours had passed since Alison had punctured Taafe in the kneecap.
'Tea' proved to be an enormous meal with many dishes thrust upon us, interspersed with brisk and depreciatory comments on the poor appetites of young folk these days. When I called the old lady Mrs O'Sullivan she laughed and said. 'You call me by my name, young man, and I'll feel easier,' so I called her Maeve, but Alison called her Aunt Maeve.
"There's something I must tall you, Aunt Maeve,' said Alison. 'Owen, here, is wanted by the garda, so no one must know he's here.'
'The garda, is it?' cried Maeve. 'It'll not be dishonest, I know; but is this Alec's doing?'
'In a way,' said Alison. 'It is important.'
'I've held my tongue about more things than you've ever spoken in your life, girl,' said Maeve. 'You don't know what it was like here in the old days, and now the crazy men are at it again in the North.' She looked up with sharp black-button eyes. 'It's nothing to do with that, is it, now?'
'No,' I said. 'Nothing to do with Ireland at all, really.'
'Then I'll keep my peace,' she said. 'You are welcome ii» this house, Owen Stannard.'
After tea we washed up and Maeve said, 'I'm an old woman and I'm wanting my bed. Make yourselves easy, the pair of you.'
'I'd like to use the telephone,' said Alison.
'It's there when you want it. Put your sixpences in the box -I'm saving up for my old age.' Maeve shouted with laughter.
'It'll be more than sixpences, Aunt Maeve,' said Alison. 'I'll be telephoning to England and more than once.'
'Rest easy, girl. If you talk to Alec, ask him why he never comes to Ireland these days.'
'He's a busy man, Aunt Maeve.'
'Aye,' said Maeve. 'And when men like Alec Mackintosh get busy it's time for normal folk to find a deep hole. But give him my love, and tell him he doesn't deserve it.'
She went off and I said, 'She's quite a character.'
'I could tell you stories about Maeve O'Sullivan that would make your hair curl,' said Alison. 'She was very active during the Troubles.' She picked up the telephone. 'Let's hear what the Harbourmaster has to say.'
The Harbourmaster was most obliging. Yes, Artina was expected. Mr Wheeler had arranged for refuelling. No, he didn't really know when she would arrive but if previous visits by Mr Wheeler were anything to go by then Artina would be staying in Cork for a couple of days.
As Alison put down the telephone I said, 'Now I have to think of a way of getting aboard. I wish I knew more about Wheeler's craft.'
'Give me a few hours and I'll have all you need to know,' said Alison. 'The telephone is a wonderful invention. But first I must ring the hospital.'
It was a time for rejoicing because Alec Mackintosh was fighting his way through to life again. Alison was radiant.
'He's better! The doctor said he was better! His condition has improved and they think there's a chance now."
'Is he conscious? Is he able to speak?'
'No, he's still unconscious.'
I thought back. If Mackintosh had been unconscious all this time it would be quite a while before the doctors let him speak to anyone, even if he was able and willing. I'd have given a lot to be able to hear what he'd said to Wheeler the day before the hit-and-run.
'I'm glad he's better,' I said sincerely.
Alison picked up the telephone again, suddenly all businesslike. 'And now to work.'
I left her to it, only answering her questions from time to time. I was busily engaged in developing my hypothesis which was beginning to blossom into a very strange shape indeed. If I was right then Wheeler was a most odd fish and a very dangerous man -- more dangerous to state security, even, than Slade.
I was deep in thought when Alison said, 'I've done all I can now; the rest will have to wait for morning.'
She flipped open the notebook which was full of shorthand notes, page after page. 'What do you want first -- Wheeler or the yacht?'
'Let's have the yacht."
She leafed through the pages. 'Here we are. Name -- Artina: designed by Par
ker, built by Clelands on the Tyneside; she was two years old when Wheeler bought her. She's a standard design known as a Parker-Clelands which is important for reasons I'll come to later. Overall length -- 111 feet, beam -- 22 feet, cruising speed-12 knots, speed flat out-13 knots. She has two Rolls-Royce diesel engines of 350 horse-power each. Is this the sort of stuff you want?'
'Just right.' I could begin to build up a picture. 'What's her range?"
'I haven't got that yet, but it's coming. A crew of seven -skipper, engineer, cook, steward and three seamen. Accommodation for a maximum of eight passengers."
'How is the accommodation arranged?'
'That will be coming tomorrow. The plans of her sister ship were published a few years ago. They're being photographed and sent by wire to the Cork Examiner where we can pick them up tomorrow, together with some photographs of the ship.'
I regarded Alison with admiration. 'Wow! Now that's something I wouldn't have thought of doing.'
"The newspaper is a very efficient information gatherer and transmitter. I told you I could pull strings.'
'What about Wheeler?'
There's a detailed account coming to the Examiner on the telex, but this is the meat of it. He fought the Italians when they moved into Albania before the war.' She looked up. 'He'd be about 14 years old then. He fled with his family into Jugoslavia and again fought against the Italians and the Germans during the war both in Jugoslavia and Albania towards the end of the war. He left Albania in 1946 when he was somewhere in his early twenties and settled in England. Was naturalized in 1950. Started to deal in property just about that time and that was the beginning of his fortune.'
'What kind of property?'
'Offices. That was about the time they first began to put up the big office blocks.' She wrinkled her brow. 'I talked to a financial editor; he said there was something funny about the first deals Wheeler made.'
That's interesting,' I said. Tell me more.'
'According to this editor it wasn't easy to see how Wheeler had made a profit. He evidently had made a profit because he suddenly had the money to go bigger and better, and he never looked back right from the early days.'
'I wonder how he paid his taxes,' I said. 'It's a pity we can't subpoena his tax inspector. I'm beginning to see the light. Tell me, when he was fighting in the war -- did he fight for the Cetniks or the Partisans? The Nationalists or the Communists?'
'I don't have that here,' said Alison. 'It will be coming by telex, if it's known at all.'
'When did he enter politics?'
She consulted her notes. 'He fought a by-election in 1962 and lost. He fought in the general election of 1964 and got in by a fair margin.'
'And I suppose he lashed out generously for party funds,' I said. 'He'd do that, of course. Any known connections at present with Albania.'
'Nothing known.'
'Russia? Any communist country?'
Alison shook her head. 'He's a dinkum capitalist, mate. I don't see it, Owen. He's always popping off with anti-communist speeches in the House.'
'He's also against prisoners escaping from gaol, if you remember. What about this prison reform bit?'
'He used to be a prison visitor, but I suppose he's got too big for that now. He's generous in his subscription to various prison reform societies, and he's a member of a House Committee studying prison reform.'
'My God, that would come in useful,' I said. 'Did he visit prisons in that capacity?'
'I suppose he might.' She put down the notebook. 'Owen, you're building up quite a structure on a weak foundation.'
'I know.' I stood up and paced the room restlessly. 'But I'll add another layer on my hypothesis. I once talked to a multimillionaire, one of the South African variety; he told me that the first quarter-million is the hardest. It took him fifteen years to make £250,000, three years to bring it up to the round million, and in the next six years he reached the five million mark. The mathematicians would say he was riding an exponential curve.'
Alison was getting a little impatient. 'So what?5 The first quarter-million is hardest because our potential millionaire has to make all his own decisions and has to do his own research, but once he has money he can afford to hire regiments of accountants and platoons of lawyers and that makes decision making a lot easier. It's the starting of the process that's the snag. Go back to your financial editor -- the one who smelled something funny in Wheeler's first deals.'
Alison picked up her notes again. 'I haven't anything more than I've already told you.'
'Let's take our man X,' I said. 'He's not a Russian -- let's call him an Albanian -- but he still favours the Russians. He comes to England in 1946 and is naturalized in 1950. About that time he starts dealing in property and makes money at it, but at least one man can't see how he did it. Let's assume the money was fed to him from outside -- perhaps as much as half a million. X is a sharp boy -- as sharp as any other potential millionaire -- and money makes money. So he begins to roll in the time-honoured capitalistic way. I swung around. 'In 1964 he entered politics and got himself a seat in the Commons where he's now an enthusiastic and keen back-bencher. He's forty-six years old and still has another twenty-five years of political life in him.'
I stared at Alison. 'What would happen if he were to attain high position in the Government? Say, Chancellor or Minister of Defence -- or even Prime Minister -- in 1984, which seems to me to be an appropriate date? The boys in the Kremlin would be laughing their heads off!'
CHAPTER EIGHT
I slept badly that night. In the dark hours my hypothesis began to seem damned silly and more and more unlikely. A millionaire and an MP could not possibly be associated with the Russians -- it was a contradiction in terms. Certainly Alison found she could not accept it. And yet Wheeler was associated with the Scarperers, unless the whole series of assumed links was pure coincidence -- and that possibility could not be eliminated. I had seen too many cases of apparent cause and effect which turned out to be coincidence.
I turned over restlessly in bed. Yet assume it was so -- that Wheeler actually was controlling the Scarperers. Why would he do it? Certainly not to make money; he had plenty of that. The answer came out again that it was political, which again led to Wheeler as a Member of Parliament and the dangers inherent in that situation.
I fell asleep and had dire dreams full of looming menace.
At breakfast I was still tired and a shade bad-tempered. My temper worsened rapidly when' Alison made the first phone call of the day and was told by the Harbourmaster that Artina had arrived during the night, refuelled quickly, and left for Gibraltar in the early hours.
'We've lost the bastard again,' I said.
'We know where he is,' said A lison consolingly. 'And we know where he'll be in four days."
There are too many things wrong with that,' I said glumly. 'Just because he has clearance for Gibraltar doesn't mean he's going there, for one thing. For another, what's to prevent him from transferring Slade to a Russian trawler heading the other way through the Baltic? He could do it easily once he's over the horizon. And we don't even know if Slade is aboard Artina. We're just guessing.'
After breakfast Alison went out to collect the stuff from the Examiner. I didn't go with her; I wasn't going anywhere near a newspaper office -- those reporters had filled up their columns with too much about Rearden and too many photographs. A sharp-eyed reporter was the last person I wanted to encounter.
So I stayed in the house while Maeve tactfully busied herself with the housework and left me alone to brood. Alison was away for an hour and a half, and she brought back a large envelope. 'Photographs and telex sheets,' she said, as she plopped the envelope in front of me.
I looked at the photographs first. There were three of Wheeler, one an official photograph for publicity use and the others news shots of him caught with his mouth open as the news photographers like to catch politicians. In one of them he looked like a predatory shark and I'd bet some editor had chortled over that
one.
He was a big man, broad-shouldered and tall, with fair hair. The photographs were black-and-white so it was difficult to judge, but I'd say his hair was ash-blond. His nose was prominent and had a twist in it as though it had been thumped' at some time or other, and the cartoonists would have no trouble taking the mickey if he ever attained a position of eminence. I put the photographs of Wheeler aside -- I would recognize him if I saw him.
The other photographs were of the Artina, and one was a reproduction of the plans of her sister ship. 'Sean O'Donovan bad exaggerated -- she was not nearly as big as the royal yacht, but she was a fair size for all that, and it would take a millionaire to buy her and to ran her. There was an owner's double cabin forward of the engine room and aft were three double cabins for six guests. The crew lived forward, excepting the skipper who had the master's cabin just behind the wheelhouse.
I studied that plan until I had memorized every passage and door. If I had to board her I would want to know my way around and to know the best places to hide. I checked off the aft peak and the room which held the air conditioning equipment as likely places for a stowaway.
Alison was immersed in reading the telex sheets. 'Any joy there?'
She looked up. 'There's not much more than I told you last night. It's expanded a bit, that's all. Wheeler fought for the Partisans in Jugoslavia.'
The communists,' I said. 'Another strand in the web.'
I began to read and found that Alison was right; there wasn't much more solid information. The picture was of a bright young man who became a tycoon by the usual clapperclawing methods and who now had a solid base in society built up by saying the right things at the right times and by contributing largely to the right causes. The picture of a successful man now looking for new worlds to conquer -- hence the politics.
'He's not married,' I said. 'He must be the most eligible bachelor in England.'
Alison smiled wryly. 'I've heard a couple of rumours. He runs a mistress who is changed regularly, and the story goes that he's bisexual. But no one in his right mind would put that on the telex -- that would be publishing a libel.'
Bagley, Desmond - The Freedom Trap Page 17