by Len Deighton
‘Yes, sir, right away, sir.’
‘Oh, and Keightley.’
‘Sir?’
‘You did right to tell me immediately, whatever the outcome.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
I buzzed my controller on the big exchange and they had a black Jaguar at the ready. I locked the IBM and the recorder, I pressed the white button that set the phone to automatic recording. Murray still hadn’t finished his drink and asked me if he could come for the ride. I don’t have fixed rules about that sort of thing so I said OK. Carswell decided to call it a day. We walked across to Tottenham Court Road and within an instant of reaching the corner the car swept us in. The driver was one of the civilians the police let us have just after the war so he needed no guidance to Shoreditch Police Station. We moved across into the New Oxford Street traffic and up Theobalds Road. I let the driver use the bell and he pulled over to the offside of Clerkenwell Road and shot the speedometer up to seventy.
We were half-way across City Road when a yellow newspaper van coming north from Moorgate realized that we weren’t stopping either. The van wheels locked as the driver hit the brake pedal. Our driver pushed the accelerator even harder, which gave the van an inch or so of clearance as it slid across behind us with white hot brakes and the driver’s face to match. The last thing I wanted at this stage was that sort of complication.
‘Careful,’ I said, in what I considered masterful restraint.
‘That’s all right, sir,’ said the driver, mistaking vexation for nervousness. ‘They’ve got rubber mudguards on those paper vans.’
I realized why the police had let us have him.
It had really begun to rain in earnest now and the streets were a kaleidoscope of reflected taillights and neon. As we drew up in front of the Police Station three policemen were standing in the doorway. I’m glad they weren’t fooling about as far as security was concerned. The driver left the car and came into the station with us. He probably thought he’d see someone he knew. Murray and I were greeted by the sergeant that Keightley had spoken to.
‘All absolutely under control, sir,’ he said proudly. ‘No sooner said than done. Your other two people are parking their car. They needn’t have troubled…’
‘Other two people?’ I said. A cold colicky pain kneaded my stomach. I knew that I needn’t have troubled either. When we got to him he was naked, horizontal and very dead. I turned the body over. He was a strong, good-looking man of about thirtyfive. He looked older close to than when I’d seen him before. We could cross Housemartin off our files. Just as Jay’s people were crossing him off theirs right now. It was 7.33. His uniform gave clues—a packet of cigarettes, some money—£3 15s 0d, a handkerchief. I sent immediately for the police constable who had pulled him in. I asked him everything that had happened.
PC Viney came in with a half-written report and a small stub of pencil. He was almost bald, a thick-set man, perhaps an ex-army athlete, a little towards the plump side, he even now would make a formidable opponent. His thin hair, white at the temples, framed his very small ears set well back; a large nose was red from the night air; and his lower jaw was carried well forward in the way that guardsmen and policemen cope with chin straps that don’t fit under the jaw. Under his open tunic he wore a badly knitted red pullover with blue braces over the top. His attitude was relaxed and shrewd, as could be expected from someone who had pulled in a man dressed as an inspector.
The sergeant behind me was leaning in the cell door saying, ‘In thirty-five years of service…’ loud enough for me to hear, and worrying himself sick about his pension.
I turned back to the constable. He told me that he had suspected Housemartin’s demeanour right from first sight, but would never have come to close enough quarters to recognize him if he hadn’t hit the traffic light. Did he think that the man had come from any of the nearby houses? He thought he might have been pulling out into traffic.
‘Now don’t worry about law court stuff, constable,’ I told him. ‘I’d sooner you told me something that’s a flimsy guess than hesitate because we can’t prove it. Now just let’s suppose that this man did pull away from the kerb and that he had come from one of the houses in that street. Think carefully of that row of houses. Do you know it well?’
‘Yes, sir, fairly well. They all have their peculiarities. Quite a few of the houses have front rooms where the curtains are never pulled back or changed, but that’s the English front room, isn’t it, sir?’
‘The sort of house I’d be interested in is one where new tenants have moved in during the last six months. A house where new people have been seen going in and out. People not of the neighbourhood, that is. Is there a house that is particularly secluded? It would have a garage and the driver might be able to enter the house direct from the garage.’
Viney said, ‘All the houses there stand back from the street, but one in particular is secluded because the owner has bought the undeveloped site on each side of the house. Of course, the houses either side of it are also secluded, but only on one side. Number 40 is one side, that’s all flats—young married couples mostly. Mrs Grant owns that. On the other side 44 is a very low building; the husband there is a waiter in the West End. I see him about two to two-thirty on the night beat. I know that Mr Edwards at the Car Mart made an offer for one of the sites. We kept pinching him for obstruction. He left his cars in the road. After we’d had him every day nearly for about a week, he came up to see the sergeant. I think really he told us about buying the site to show he was trying. But anyway, they wouldn’t sell. When I think of it, that’s the only house that I can’t remember any of the occupiers from. They had a lot of building done. Conversion into flats I imagine. About February. But there are no “to let” signs up. Not that you need ’em, word of mouth is enough.’
‘You’ve hit it, constable. I’ll buy your big secluded house with alterations.’
Keightley had phoned up the station and got them all in a rare state when he heard what had happened. Murray had heard Keightley’s highpitched little voice saying, ‘Murder? Murder? Murder in a police station?’ Coming as Keightley’s voice did from CRO it worried them far more than anything I might say.
I had them do all the unit checks for fingerprints and Identikit descriptions of the two men—but knowing Jay’s set-up it was unlikely they would have a record of any sort, or leave prints. The constable recognizing Housemartin from a photo he’d seen once at CRO* was the sort of fluke that happens only very rarely. I turned to PC Viney who had brought me a cup of tea from the canteen. He stood, his uniform jacket undone, waiting and appraising my next action. I said to him, ‘Show me on the map, would you? And then I will want to use a phone in private—a scrambled line if possible.’
The information room at Scotland Yard came through in seconds. ‘Shoreditch Police Station. I want to speak with an officer of 3H Security Clearance or above; my authority is WOOC(P).’
‘Hold the line, sir.’
The unshaded light made bright reflections in the shiny-cream paintwork. Faintly through the closed door I could hear the canteen radio singing ‘There’s a Small Hotel’. My tea sat on the worn desk and I fiddled nervously with an old shell case made into a pen-and-ink stand. Finally the phone made clicking sounds and the information room came back on the line.
‘Chief Inspector Banbury, CID here.’
Luckily I knew ‘Cuff-links’ Banbury from the old days. It saved a lot of preliminary checking with code words. Or rather it would have done, except that ‘Cuff-links’ insisted on going through it all. I wanted thirty officers, at least five of them armed, and four vehicles without police identification.
‘All the plain-finish vehicles are in the Richmond garage,’ Cuff-links said.
‘Then borrow private cars from your coppers. Try West End Central, they’ve got big cars there.’ My sarcasm was lost on Cuff-links; he just carried on being smooth and efficient. ‘I want one car to have radio link. I shall be briefing them en route. Inclu
de a couple of hook ladders and a jemmy. Tell your press office that I want “complete blackout”, and put someone on the radio link that won’t shoot his mouth. That’s all, chief. Phone me back when they are on the road—say thirty minutes.’
‘No, about an hour.’
‘No good, chief, this is a 3H Security. If you can’t do better than that I’ll get authority to use my soldiers.’
‘Well, I’ll try for forty minutes.’
‘Thanks, chief. See you.’ It was 7.58.
I went upstairs. Murray was leaning over a big scrubbed table with the elderly constable, a sergeant and an inspector with a neatly trimmed moustache. I asked the sergeant who the inspector was. It didn’t make any of them madly happy, but ‘twice bitten could get to be a habit’. Murray had worked out a sensible way of hitting 42 Acacia Drive. He had dug out a photo of the street and had drawn a diagram showing heights of garden walls and deploying twenty-five men. Murray had also implied by unknown subtle means that his rank was considerably higher than sergeant. The inspector was deferring to his suggestions and the police sergeant was saying, ‘Yes sir, good sir, very good, sir.’ I told the policemen that they could come along if they wished, but explained that since I had put ‘complete blackout’ on the operation, any leakage would be actionable under the Official Secrets Act.
Murray used a propelling pencil with changeable coloured leads to mark in the extra five men; then we stood around drinking another cup of sweet tea. By now the canteen was organized for the top brass. I had a swallow-pattern cup with a saucer to match and a spoon. Murray decided that this was a good time to ask about his living-out allowance. It was nearly three months behind. I said I’d do what I could.
At 8.21, after a knock at the door, a constable said a military police vehicle had just driven into the courtyard, the driver asking for ‘Mr’ Murray. Murray said he thought a Champ vehicle with radio equipment ‘might be useful’. He’d asked for it to drive in instead of parking conspicuously. Murray and I went downstairs to see if the radio could get the Scotland Yard wavelength. He told me that by having a Provost vehicle we automatically got a revolver and ammunition and what he described as ‘other useful things’. Murray was proving so unlike what I imagined that I decided to recheck his security clearance the next day.
* * *
*Criminal Records Office.
Chapter 12
Acacia Drive was a wide wet street in one of those districts where the suburbs creep stealthily in towards Central London. The soot-caked hedges loomed almost as high as the puny trees encased in their iron cages. Here and there a dirty net curtain let a glimmer from a 40-watt bulb escape to join the feeble street lighting.
We waited while the last two men got into position. A door opened somewhere down the street, firing a yellow shaft of light into the gloom. A man in a cloth cap pulled a silver fabric cover from a shrouded car. It proved to be not the one he was looking for. He lifted the silver skirt of the next car. The third one had the right number plate. He drove it off down the street which now became a dark and silent car mortuary once more.
No. 42 had two gates joined by a semicircular driveway of crunchy gravel. On the top floor one very small window showed a light. The Champ vehicle was nearer to the house than any of the private cars the police had used. In the back seat the military policeman was listening to the radio sets of the plainclothes men positioning themselves in the back garden. He gave us the high sign with thumb touching forefinger. Murray and I decided to force a window at the side of the house. The MP was to talk out a description of signals we gave him by torch. Murray had the jemmy and I had a sheet of brown paper covered with police canteen golden syrup.
The gravel crunched underfoot and an aeroplane winking coloured lights vibrated against the cloud. It had almost stopped raining, but the house shone wetly. The grounds were extensive and once across the path we plunged into the kitchen garden that lay alongside the house. The soles of my feet began to squelch as the soaked long grass sprinkled my legs, trousers and socks. We paused alongside the greenhouse through which the moon played shadow games, making mythical monsters of pots and beans and flowers. Every few seconds the house changed character, at one time menacing and sinister, and again the innocent abode of lawabiding citizens about to be attacked by my private army. The luminous watch said 9.11. Over the far side of the grounds I saw a movement by one of the policemen. The wind had dropped and now the aircraft had passed over it seemed very quiet and still. In the distance I heard a train. I stood there unhappily, my feet were wet and made little sucking sounds. I felt Murray touch my elbow with the cold metal jemmy. Looking round I found him pretending it was an accident. I took the hint. The side window was higher than it had looked from the road. Reaching up with the sticky brown paper I smoothed it across the glass and a little syrup ran down my wrist. Murray stuck the jemmy into the woodwork, but it was locked right enough. The window to the left was barred, so he hit the brown-paper-covered pane with the iron. A muffled syrupy crunch and then the broken glass fell inwards hinged on the brown paper. Murray was groping for the fastenings as we did a Charleston in slow motion on the flower-bed. The window swung open and Murray dived head first through. I saw the soles of his hand-made shoes (eighteen guineas) with a small sticky rectangular price tab still affixed under the instep. I passed the army pistol into his hand and followed.
The moonlight poked a finger into a small lounge; the furniture old and comfortable; the fireplace held an electric fire with plastic logs; and scattered across the sofa was some clothing. Suddenly a clock chimed loudly. Murray was out in the hallway. Down the staircase someone had dropped sheets of blue lined writing paper. I knew that the house was empty, but we continued to creep around until 9.28.
Except for a couple to look after the house, the policemen had all been packed off in the cars. The gambling party, we told them, had been cancelled at the last minute. Murray and I went down the road for a cup of ‘coffee’ in one of the Espresso palaces—rubber plants and buns to match. A sourfaced young waitress flung a smelly dishcloth around the table, said ‘Two cappercheeny,’ then went back to the three young men in black imitation-leather jackets and jeans, with genuine rivets, for a conversation about motor cycles.
Chapter 13
[Aquarius (Jan 20-Feb 19) Pay special attention to insurance arrangements. Romance may be expected to delay social commitments.]
I talked to Murray about everything except the job. Murray was a tall and large-muscled man who, had he been a few years younger, would have made a John Osborne hero. His face was large, square and bony, and it would be equally easy to imagine him as an RSM or the leader of a wildcat strike.
He was efficient and responsive to orders in a way that more than faintly criticized his superiors by its very efficacy. It reminded me of those NCOs who drilled officer cadets. His hair was tightly arranged across his lumpy skull. His eyes, thin slits, as though he constantly peered into brightness, would wrinkle and smile without provocation. Unlike Chico, Murray’s smile wasn’t motivated by a desire to join other men—it separated him quite deliberately from them. We talked about Bertold Brecht and the 1937 Firearms Act, and it amused Murray that I was probing around amongst his acquisition of knowledge. He’d not liked the peacetime army and it was understandable, there was no place in it for a man with a paperback edition of Kierkegaard in his pocket. The sergeants tried to talk like officers and the officers like gentlemen, he said. The mess was full of men who’d sit in a cinema all the weekend and come back with stories about house-parties on the river.
‘Georgian houses,’ Murray said, and he had a great love for beautiful buildings. ‘The only Georgian houses they’d ever been to were George the Fifth ones along the by-pass.’
By the time we had got back to 42 the fingerprint men and photographers had done their stuff and Chico and Ross had arrived. Ross resented my sudden rise to power and had got his department into the act probably via Keightley. Chico was wearing his short tweed overcoat
with the gigantic pattern and looking like a bookies’ clerk. I noticed his chin had got those pimples again that I called ‘caviare rash’. He and Ross were poking about in the greenhouse when we arrived. I heard Ross say, ‘Mine aren’t coming on at all, I think it was the early frost.’ Chico countered this with a quote from his gardener, then we all started on 42.
You couldn’t find a house more normal than that one, as far as the rooms on the ground floor and first floor were concerned. Old wounded furniture, balding carpets and sullen wallpaper. The ultra-modern kitchen was well stocked with food, both fresh and tinned, and a machine that minced up waste and sluiced it away. The bathroom upstairs was unusually well-fitted for England—shower, scales, pink mirror and extensive indirect lighting. One room on the ground floor was equipped as an office and had in one corner a wooden phone-booth with glass panels and a little gadget that fitted into the phone dial which, when locked, prevented it being used.
A few books remained on the shelves, a Roget, a business directory, a thick blue-bound volume, the French edition of Plans of the Great Cities of the World showing Principal Roads and Exits, the AA Road Book, ABC Railway Guide, and a Chambers’s Dictionary.
The filing cases were so new that the paint squeaked. A couple of hundred blank file cards lay inside. I walked into the rose-wallpapered hall and upstairs. The staircase between the first and second floor had been removed. A cheap, unpainted wooden ladder poked its top into a dimly lit rectangle in the ceiling. Murray and Chico deferred to me in the matter of ascending. Ross was downstairs still checking the phone books for underlinings, finger-marks and page removals. I climbed the splintery ladder. As my head rose past the second-floor level I saw what the police cameraman had been talking about. The light from several unshaded 25-watt bulbs fell across the uneven wooden floor. Here and there plaster walls had been badly damaged and revealed brickwork inadequately distempered over. I hoisted my fourteen stone through the hatchway and augmented the dull glow with my torch. I looked into each of the little wooden rooms. Some of them had windows facing down into the cobbled centre courtyard—the central feature of the house built as a hollow square. The outward-facing windows were completely bricked up. Chico came up to me, bright-eyed; he’d found a pair of plimsolls, blue and white, size ten, in one room, and had a theory about the whole thing.