After Bob had interrupted just long enough to refill our glasses Jenkins continued. 'The background to it was simple con,' he said. 'The three card trick using businesses instead of cards. A company called Frascari got a massive order from a firm in Scotland - A. H. Haldane. Frascari was a small electronics outfit in Milan employing about a hundred and fifty people, and the order was so big that they had to raise the additional working capital to handle it. Seven hundred million lire worth. Difficult, but not impossible - thanks to the Italian Government who were underwriting all sorts of export business for balance of payments reasons. So once Haldane's payment had been guaranteed by the Italian ECGD, Frascari's raised their money fairly easily, and started buying the components they needed. But their biggest supplier, a German outfit called Mullers, got the wind up about lire being devalued, so they insisted on advance payment. Frascari's needed the goods desperately and the German source promised the fastest delivery, so they paid. Two hundred million lire. Follow me so far?'
I nodded and waited for him to continue.
'Next thing you know, Mullers goes out of business. Goes bust overnight. Of course Frascari screamed blue bloody murder but the money had gone and that was that. But either by luck or smart lobbying the Italian government heard about the jeopardised export contract and stepped in with a non-repayable grant to make up the loss. Frascari found another supplier, worked every hour God sent, delivered to Haldane's a month late and got paid.'
He ended with such a finality that I was left wondering what on earth it had to do with Hallsworth. 'And that's the story?' I asked.
'It would have been. But for Carlos Pinero. Pinero was industrial correspondent to La Stampa and running a campaign about the misuse of government funds. So when he heard about the grant to Frascari he followed it up - much as he investigated other stories. But I think he was also intrigued to find out how a little outfit like Frascari landed such a big order in the first place. So he flew to Glasgow to interview Haldane's Purchasing Director.'
He paused, partly to sip his drink but mainly, I sensed, to watch my reaction. And he was still staring at me when he said, 'Who turned out to be a Brigadier Hallsworth.'
I blinked; Jenkins scratched the side of his nose and watched me. After a bit he said, 'Of course, there was no real story in Glasgow, Haldane's was thoroughly sound and the Brigadier had neither heard about Frascari's troubles with the German supplier nor about the government bail-out. But Pinero's journey wasn't entirely wasted. He did discover something of interest.'
There was no mistaking his curiosity now. It became a battle of wills as he fought for the reaction I sought to deny him. And it was getting harder all the time. Especially when he said, 'Pinero found out that the man who had introduced Frascari into Haldane's was the Brigadier's own son, Mr Rupert Hallsworth.'
It was impossible to guess what Jenkins was leading up to but I kept quiet and after a long pause he continued. 'Pinero sniffed a story and back in Rome and Milan he checked up on Hallsworth junior, and found him to be a bit of a playboy - forever in the casinos and the night spots - along with his glamorous wife and their industrialist friend - Mr Bruno Fascari. Pinero figured Hallsworth got a backhander on the Haldane order and stayed close, even going to Hamburg for an interview with Mullers' liquidator. Mullers' demise hadn't caused a ripple in Germany. There was nothing to the company anyway, just a couple of rented offices, and no German businessman had lost as much as a Deutsche Mark. In fact there was only one creditors' meeting.'
I was still imagining Hallsworth at the gaming tables when Jenkins added, 'The big surprise was finding out who owned Mullers to begin with. Care to make a guess, Mr Townsend?'
There was no doubting the inference, he expected me to know.
'I suppose you're going to tell me it was Hallsworth?'
He stared, as if trying to decide whether it was a genuine question or an attempt to conceal knowledge: 'No,' he said eventually, shaking his head, a thin smile on his lips. 'Though I think Pinero was beginning to suspect it might be. But Mullers had been owned by a woman, Mr Townsend.'
Dear God it was like a maze. Ever since Friday night I had been twisting and turning to find a way out, only to meet a new nightmare around every corner. I looked at Jenkins and waited.
'Mullers had been owned by Miss Pamela Johnstone,' he said.
At precisely that moment Amy announced supper and the diversion of moving to the dining room robbed Jenkins of the astonished reaction he had been looking for. Pamela Johnstone! I knew nothing about her except what Sue had told me. And according to her Pamela Johnstone had hated business. I was still trying to make sense of it when Jenkins finished the story at the dinner table. 'Of course Pinero didn't see the connection. Not at first. He'd got a good story about tax payers' money being used to support bad business decisions - and that's all Frascari was guilty of - nothing illegal.'
Bob mopped his mouth with a napkin. 'I'm sorry, Claude, but I don't see the connection either.'
'Miss Pamela Johnstone's other identity.'
Bob frowned and cocked his head to one side, looking from Jenkins to me in search of an answer.
'The ex-Mrs Rupert Hallsworth,' I said evenly.
'Good Lord’ Bob was suitably shocked and the silence engulfed all of us until he asked, 'What happened then?'
'La Stampa ran the story,' Jenkins said. 'And within weeks people started to disappear. Hallsworth dropped out of sight first and soon afterwards Frascari sold up and left Italy like a bat out of hell.'
'Can you.describe him? Frascari?' I asked urgently, too late realising that his feigned casualness had lulled me into a false sense of security. Now his eyebrows twitched and the cunning eyes below them screwed into slits of speculation.
'Why, Mr Townsend? Do you think you might know him?'
I squirmed. 'It's just that it might help to follow the story. If I could visualise him.' Miserably I pushed a potato to the edge of my plate, knowing what I was going to ask, had to ask, but alarmed by the prospect of Jenkins knowing too much. 'Did he look Italian?' I said. 'You know, Mediterranean. That look some Italians have, Greeks too, come to think of it.'
'Come to think of it,' Jenkins mimicked. And then he smiled. 'No, as a matter of fact he didn't, Mr Townsend. Bruno Frascari went back to the States. He was an American. Third generation Brooklyn. Came to Europe at the end of the war.'
We stared at each other. A partly formed theory collapsed in the back of my mind. He smiled and turned to Bob. 'Other people in the story just died off. Strangely, in my opinion. Pamela Johnstone, for instance. Committed suicide. Just four weeks after the poor old Brigadier had done the very same thing.'
'Ugh,' Amy pulled a face. 'What a grisly tale.'
'Isn't it,' Jenkins turned to her. 'But it didn't end there, Amy. You see I have a theory. I think they all stayed in touch. That the three of them never really split up at all.'
'The three of them?' she repeated, puzzled.
'Yes.' He looked back at me. Because there was a third man. Bruno Frascari's cousin. Now he did have the look you were describing a minute ago, Mr Townsend. You know, the look of the Mediterranean.' He mimicked me again. 'That look some Italians have, Greeks too, come to think of it.'
Even the slight tan I had acquired didn't help. I felt my face blaze as the others watched Jenkins bait me. 'What makes you think that they -' I gulped helplessly. 'That they still know each other?'
'There was a share scandal in Sydney five years ago.' His eyes were slits of suspicion as he answered. 'Again, nothing illegal. Not on the face of it. But a lot of people lost a packet of money to some speculators who moved in and out over a six-month period. A couple of Aussies were involved of course, but somewhere on the sidelines was an Englishman. And an American. And someone with the look of the Mediterranean about him.' He smiled, before asking in a suddenly crisp voice, 'How much of this did you know, Mr Townsend?'
'How much do you think I knew?'
'I wasn't sure.'
'
And now?'.
'I'm still not.'
For reasons which had a lot to do with not liking him I felt pleased.
'Will one of you tell me what's going on?' Amy asked bluntly.
'I'm sorry.' Jenkins warmed his smile up for her. 'Bad manners - my fault. I do apologise Amy, darling. This is quite delicious by the way.'
'And cut out the soft soap.' Amy was tougher than her soldier husband if the truth were known. 'There's an atmosphere and I won't have it at my dinner table. Who's needling whom and why?'
'I suppose I was,' Jenkins sounded quite unruffled. 'But I do apologise, really. Professional curiosity, I suppose, got the better of me, and-'
'There's nothing about Mike for you to be professionally curious about,' she told him.
'Oh, but there is. If you'll pardon the contradiction.'
'What then?' she demanded ahead of me, colour rising like a tide up the column of her throat.
'Because, though not for publication, Mr Townsend is in business with a man I believe to be at least guilty of fraud. If not something worse.'
Bob's gasp and Amy's flame-red cheeks were evidence enough of their embarrassment. Jean started to say something but spilled her wine in her agitation and her words ended as a muffled cry of dismay. Only Jenkins and I appeared to be in control of ourselves.
'Care to comment?' he drawled. 'As I said - not for publication.'
I had had enough of Jenkins. 'Yes, I'll comment. And you can publish and be damned. Everything you've told us tonight is second or third hand, even first hand it's nothing but speculation. There's not a scrap of proof, there has never been any prosecution, no official action of any kind has ever been brought against Hallsworth. But I'll give you some facts, Mr Jenkins. Something which ought to interest you as a newspaperman. I've been involved with Hallsworth for over a year now, and during that time our business transactions have been not only perfectly legal but totally ethical in every respect. And I warn you - publish anything damaging to Townsend and Partner and I'll bring proceedings against you to leave you penniless. Do I make myself clear?'
If anyone had dropped a pin it would have deafened us. Eventually Jenkins broke the long silence. 'Perfectly,' he said, his face empty of colour but his expression holding the ghost of a smile. 'And I've behaved badly. I can only hope that you'll thank me one day.' He turned to Amy. 'And that my hostess will forgive me.'
It was an odd kind of apology but I took it as such, and everyone set about repairing the damage of a wrecked evening. But we never effectively salvaged it, and Jean and I left as soon as we decently could.
'What an objectionable man,' was her verdict on the way back to Fulham. 'But you put him down beautifully, darling. I almost cheered.'
'The trouble is I said bleakly, 'I think he was trying to warn me.'
'About Hallsworth?'
'About being set up - used - screwed,- however you want to put it.'
'But you've done nothing wrong, darling, even that thing with Pepalasis. Mike, you've got nothing to worry about.'
'That's probably what the Brigadier thought.'
She was quiet for a moment, and then she said: 'Poor man.' She shuddered. 'And - and Pamela Johnstone. What a terrible death.'
But I was already nursing an even more terrible thought.
'If it was Pamela Johnstone,' I said, 'in that car.'
Seven
I was half way to Fulham before I decided. Hell, I wasn't going to be able to sleep anyway. I swung on the wheel and changed direction, causing a cabbie behind me to brake hurriedly and Jean to ask where we were going.
'Hill Street. We've got work to do.'
I knew she was tired. Dammit, so was I. But in a sense I had slept too long. Much more of it would finish me.
'Then you believe Claude Jenkins?' she asked softly.
'How can we not believe him? Except that all he's got is a string of assumptions. We got more hard facts at the Dragon's Lair. Add what we know to what he suspects and it's terrifying.'
'I still can't accept it.' She stared in front of her, out into the night. 'Rupert Hallsworth. I mean, he's such a nice man.'
'Yeah,' I sneered bitterly. 'And Sue Ballantyne's such a nice girl.'
'Oh, well, her. She's different.'
'And Jolly Old Pepalasis. He's bloody Father Christmas, isn't he?'
'Mike, there's no need to -'
'And Frascari? Bruno Frascari. WHO is Bruno Frascari? WHERE is Bruno Frascari? Will the real Bruno Frascari please stand up?'
'You're driving too fast. Mike, please, slow down.'
I suppose I slowed down. No one booked me anyway. At Hill Street the first thing I did was to pour myself a double brandy while Jean made coffee. She thought I was behaving badly. Not that she said anything. I think she was frightened of the way I had been driving, frightened of the situation, frightened of me. And I was too worried, too tensed up, too full of my own fears to spend time soothing her. I was angry too. God, I was angry. It swamped through me so that my hands shook and my teeth clamped and I couldn't sit still for a minute at a time. I hated them. I would have denied the capacity to hate before that night. To really hate. But it burned me up that they had used me, that they were still damn well using me, that they planned to go on using me. And for what? What was the deal? Hallsworth was making a fortune as an honest businessman. Where was a deal big enough to warrant this? This charade - this expensive, elaborate farce they had made of my life for more than a year.
It took Jean an hour to calm me down. I don't know how she did it. Let me rant and rave, and curse and swear, and pace up and down. Agreeing with me, never too quickly or too openly, but pretending to give everything I said due thought and consideration before accepting the wisdom of it: making coffee, lighting cigarettes, and just being there. Thank God for her being there.
Then I went to work. By that time it was two in the morning. I searched Hallsworth's office first. Everything. His desk, filing cabinet, wardrobe, drinks cupboard, the whole bloody lot. It was uncanny but not one scrap of personal identity was to be found anywhere. My own room was a jumble of personal bric-a-brac, every drawer containing something identifiable as mine, bills, receipts, club memberships, all the impedimenta of everyday living, whereas Hallsworth's office could have been a hotel room prepared for an incoming guest.
Back in the flat I listed every investment and transaction entered into as a result of a recommendation from Hallsworth. There weren't many so it didn't take long. Then I analysed them, looking for some discrepancy, some anomaly, something which might provide a clue about what was going on. But it was a waste of time and at four o'clock we went to bed, as tired and worried as ever; only to face the whole wretched business all over again in the morning.
Jean went home first thing, to change into something more suitable for the office, while I slumped behind my desk and pretended to work. But it was no good, my mind was gripped by the discoveries of the weekend and couldn't settle on anything else. So after messing about for half an hour I went off to find Hallsworth, uncertain of what to say to him when I found him.
The export shipping date had apparently been finalised because when I poked my head into Seckleman's office the scene was one of almost feverish activity. The whole place had been transformed into a fair copy of a war-time operations room, with Seckleman and his two clerks hopping from phones to wall charts, updating information with a series of red ticks and blue crosses. And amidst it all sat Hallsworth, juggling telephones and barking instructions at two secretaries who scribbled away furiously. Despite everything I couldn't repress a twinge of admiration. Hallsworth had put a thirty million pound export order together in this room - with just the help of Seckleman, a couple of clerks, and two part-time secretaries.
'Hi, Mike.' He caught my eye. 'Nothing urgent I hope? I'm a bit, er - engrossed.'
I shook my head and left him to it, half planning a word later and still unsure of what I would say. Back at my desk I telephoned Poignton at Durbeville's to tell him t
hat I would be over later, and I was just about to make another call when Hallsworth came in.
'Phew!' He slumped into a chair. 'I need a breather - it's a madhouse up there.' He did a quick double take at my face. 'You look fit. Get away to the sun this weekend?'
I grabbed the opening. 'Malta as a matter of fact.'
'Really?' He sounded interested, but not in the least concerned. And for a crazy moment I found myself wondering if I had got it all wrong.
'Went to see Jean's parents,' I said. 'We're getting married.'
His face shone with goodwill, but his congratulations lacked the spontaneity of surprise I had expected. Until I realised that a little bird had probably passed that snippet of information on to him already.
'Thanks,' I said when he had finished. 'Nice place, Malta. Do you know it at all?'
Despite my pretended casualness it was the most important question I had ever put to him. I tensed while I waited for his answer. He shook his head. 'Can't think why. Never been there on a holiday. And never had to go on business.'
A provable lie! All weekend I had searched for a provable lie. And here it was. Somehow I stifled the automatic contradiction and said. 'It's worth a visit. Of course, Jean's parents know it well. All the right places, that sort of thing. Took us out to dinner on Saturday. Place called the Dragon's Lair. It's an hotel. If you ever go I'd recommend it as the place to stay.'
He didn't as much as bat an eyelid. 'I'll remember,' he said.
For a moment we just stared at each other. There was something so confiding in his manner that I wondered about telling him everything, confronting him with it, straight out. He even helped me by saying: 'Look, I just called down to find out what you wanted? Can't stop long. The shipment goes out this weekend and it's panic stations till then.'
I don't know whether I lost my nerve or changed my mind. Whichever, something told me that the time wasn't right. So I said: 'Oh, nothing really. Just to tell you about Jean and me, that's all.'
The Money Stones Page 19