Return

by Brian Freemantle

  Powell completed the story and said, ‘You want to laugh at the original, see-nothing Mr Magoo go right on ahead.’

  ‘Hurt pride?’

  ‘Battered and bruised.’ Powell regarded Amy very gravely, caught by a sudden awareness. ‘I don’t know where you and I are going to lead to, but what’s happened between us makes you vulnerable, more so maybe than me. Let’s keep a lid on it.’

  ‘You serious?’ queried Amy, surprised.

  ‘As serious as it’s possible to be,’ said Powell. ‘They tried to use Beth as a weapon. Beddows is in a better position to hurt you. And he would if he knew it would hurt me.’

  The post-mortem finding was that Edith Hibbs, already suffering vascular deterioration, died of a heart attack. Virtually the entire population of Lower Norwood attended the funeral, after which she was laid in the family vault. Janet was upset by the number of press and television cameramen and grateful that Chief Superintendent Preston had anticipated it and drafted in sufficient police to prevent the service being disrupted. She didn’t expect Townsend or Basildon to attend and thanked them for doing so. She hadn’t been into the house since the night it happened and had already instructed estate agents to sell but she had to open it for the after-funeral reception. Vera Potter organized the catering and stayed behind afterwards to clear up and lock the house. Some of the journalists stayed on in the village, too, and bought drinks for Vera and George, who’d grown to enjoy their names and photographs appearing in newspapers.

  ‘She was very keen on Mr Barkworth, you know,’ confided Vera. ‘I’m sure she was in love.’

  ‘No,’ said the journalist who’d bought the last round of drinks. ‘I didn’t know.’

  Clarence Gale’s summons came halfway through the second week. Harry Beddows was already in the Director’s office, stiff faced, when Powell entered, the first time they’d physically been in the same room since the earlier corridor confrontation. Powell got the impression Beddows had been with the Director for some time: there were sheets he recognized from the case files at his feet and an empty coffee cup.

  ‘Time to resolve things with the British,’ Gale announced. ‘Although it actually looks, odd though it may seem, that Taylor’s done it for us.’

  ‘How?’ asked Powell.

  ‘Tell him, Harry.’

  Beddows’s features stiffened further and he didn’t look at Powell when he spoke. ‘Taylor has refused to make a statement – say anything – unless you’re personally there.’

  ‘Harry’s been trying to smooth out the misunderstanding, as you know,’ said the Director, coming as close as he intended to admitting he’d caused the rift by calling his immediate press conference.

  ‘No,’ said Powell, at once. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘We’ve exchanged memoranda,’ said Beddows. ‘The Director has had copies of your replies.’

  The warning bell sounded in Powell’s mind like the klaxon of an oncoming express train. ‘My understanding was that they were queries on the investigation: nothing to do with the British problem.’

  Gale frowned curiously between the two of them. ‘Something going on I don’t know about?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ said Powell. ‘Is there, Harry?’

  ‘No,’ said Beddows, replying to Gale. ‘You asked me to bring things with the British back on track. That’s what I’ve been doing.’

  ‘OK,’ said Gale, doubt still in his voice. Briskly he picked up: ‘Don’t know what it means, Taylor wanting it to be you, Wes. But it makes sense, your being the case officer. There’ll probably be some evidential difficulties: uncertainty about what can be produced about crimes committed in the jurisdiction of other countries.’

  ‘I’m at a difficult stage with the extradition,’ argued Beddows. ‘It’s complicated. I think I should continue with it.’

  The warning sounded even louder in Powell’s head. He had to tiptoe on eggshells, he realized. What was there safely to work on: try to understand? No question that Beddows would have been screwing him. No way, either, to find out how, this soon. What could he be certain about? That Beddows was desperate to get to London.

  ‘Wes can do that, too.’

  Beddows began to colour. Still keeping his attention rigidly on Clarence Gale, he said, ‘Your instructions were to restore a working relationship. That’s what I’ve been attempting to do. I feel – and I can’t stress this too strongly – that I need to be the person to go there, to cement things positively. That and to ensure we get Taylor back for trial here.’

  ‘But Taylor will only talk to me!’ Powell seized his chance. It was bizarre, he conceded. He didn’t know why the mad bastard was insisting – probably never would – but if he hadn’t, Beddows would probably have succeeded in screwing him.

  ‘No!’ decided the Director. ‘Wes can do it.’

  Powell wondered how difficult it would be to find out what Beddows had been up to.

  Powell’s lawyer assured him there would be no difficulty getting the hearing rescheduled but added: ‘It’ll remind the judge how liable you are to be sent away at a moment’s notice.’

  ‘Ann doesn’t even want Beth.’

  ‘You were arguing when Ann said what she did: a remark in the heat of the moment. Maybe you shouldn’t have made the threats you did.’

  And maybe, thought Powell, he wouldn’t need to implement them for personal reasons. It was far too soon to be sure but he suspected that in his desperation Beddows had done something officially culpable.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Jeri Lobonski, a fair-haired, mournful-faced man with the high Slavic cheekbones of his Polish ancestry, made the customary resident’s courtesy trip to meet him at the airport. Determinedly alert to everything – the faintest sound of breaking eggshells – Powell at once noted the total absence of the equally customary resentment of headquarters intrusion. Harry Beddows was a division head, someone who could call each and every shot. Lobonski wouldn’t even have known he was being embroiled in a survival intrigue.

  Lobonski said, ‘We’re playing catch-up here. And you’re jetlagged. You sure you still want to meet them right away?’

  Was there any hidden meaning there: an order the man was carrying out? ‘Absolutely,’ insisted Powell. ‘It’s taken long enough to get this far: too long.’

  ‘They were truly pissed off, you going public so quickly. Blamed me absolutely. Townsend openly told me to go fuck myself the day after. Called specially. It was the last time we spoke.’

  Their car joined the morning rush hour crawl on to the motorway. It all sounded convincing enough, thought Powell. He could risk the question, if it were sufficiently vague. ‘Harry Beddows been going through you?’

  Lobonski frowned across the car. ‘What’s Beddows got to do with it?’

  ‘He hasn’t worked through you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You had any contact with Townsend or Basildon?’

  ‘I only got past the switchboard to Townsend’s office now when I said it was about your arrival. And then I still had to speak to Chris Pennington.’

  He had to accept that, Powell supposed. ‘More catchup than you might imagine.’

  ‘Do I get to know what’s going on?’

  ‘You’ve been caught up in a situation that doesn’t concern you,’ said Powell, guardedly. ‘Wrong place at the wrong time. It’s too complicated to explain but I’ll make you a promise. However it hits the fan, you won’t get covered by the spray.’

  ‘If I was supposed to be reassured by that, I’m not.’

  ‘Trust me,’ said Powell. ‘Who contacted you about Taylor insisting he’d only talk if I was there?’

  ‘Wes!’ protested the other man. ‘I haven’t understood a word you said since you got off that goddamned aircraft. You are jetlagged. Why don’t we put it back, until this afternoon at least?’

  ‘You don’t know about Taylor’s insistence, either.’

  ‘The first I knew was when I got your call last night, te
lling me to set up a meeting. I thought you’d been talking direct to them. What else can I tell you!’

  ‘You’re doing well enough,’ said Powell. ‘Taylor’s refused to talk to anyone – agree a lawyer, even – unless I’m here. Otherwise it would have been Harry Beddows. The Director gave him the job of straightening things out.’

  ‘It’s getting a little clearer,’ said Lobonski, astutely. ‘Not much but a little. You want me to say it again, I will. Harry didn’t come through me.’

  ‘You want me to say it again, I will. You won’t get hurt in the fallout.’

  ‘I would have thought this was difficult enough, without making it more so ourselves,’ said the man.

  ‘It is,’ agreed Powell. ‘My problem is I don’t know precisely what additional difficulties have been created.’

  Lobonski had tried to beat the traffic by taking the Embankment detour and failed. As he finally turned up towards Victoria and New Scotland Yard he said, ‘It’s not going to take long to find out. We’re here.’

  The atmosphere in Townsend’s office was glacial, the impression of ice splintering, not eggshells. There were no handshakes or insistences upon first names. Both Townsend and Basildon wore waistcoats with their immaculate single-breasted suits, Townsend’s complete with a looped gold watch chain. The support officers were hopeful clones, although the cloth and tailoring was just slightly inferior. Powell judged all four to be state-of-the-art cops able to discern a main chance through a thick fog, even blindfolded. That was hopeful.

  His approach determined in the first few seconds from that assessment, Powell said, ‘Each of us knows the personal advantages of this case.’

  ‘You certainly did,’ said Townsend.

  ‘You’ve every reason to be pissed off. So have I.’ It caught them, which he’d hoped it would.

  Basildon said, ‘What else could you have expected but suspension?’

  It was like the opening of giant doors, with floodlights beyond. ‘Who told you I was suspended?’ demanded Powell. For the first time there was what could have been a stir of uncertainty among the four hostile men. Lobonski was doing well to hide his total confusion.

  Basildon said, ‘That’s what we understood.’

  ‘From Harry?’ pressed Powell. He wanted Lobonski to hear the confirmation.

  It was Townsend whose patience gave. He said, ‘I am pissed off. And getting more so. This is all total, unnecessary bloody nonsense! It is a good case. You put it at risk.’

  Powell said, ‘I want to get our problems out of the way as much as you do: more so, perhaps. So let’s stop fucking about. Rushing in front of the cameras and into print ahead of you wasn’t a mistake or a misjudgement. It was a calculated, positive decision – not by me but by the FBI Director himself – because of the shit the Bureau had been getting, up until then. And because my Director is a media maniac. I didn’t like it – still don’t like it – but it was expedient, politically, in America. It shouldn’t have been done like that but it was. And for that reason.’

  The surprise was obvious from all four Britons, although only Pennington openly showed it, quickly clearing his expression. Townsend said, ‘That’s another version of the same event.’

  ‘What’s the one Beddows gave you?’

  ‘That you were told to inform us but that you didn’t, wanting the credit all for yourself,’ said Basildon.

  ‘Told by the Director?’ pressed Powell, wanting it all.

  ‘Yes,’ said Townsend.

  ‘In front of Beddows?’

  ‘Presumably,’ said Basildon.

  What more was there! ‘Has there been a written explanation: an apology?’

  ‘To my Commissioner,’ said Townsend.

  ‘And to my Chief Constable,’ added Basildon.

  He was on the point of winning, decided Powell. He’d expected to feel something – anything – but there was nothing: no feeling of triumph or satisfaction. It actually seemed unimportant. ‘From the FBI Director, Clarence Gale?’

  ‘In his name, by Harry Beddows,’ said Townsend.

  ‘You’ve seen it?’

  ‘My guv’nor sent me a copy, as a matter of courtesy,’ said Townsend.

  ‘You think you could further extend that courtesy: let me have a copy?’

  ‘Not until I know what this is all about,’ said Town-send. ‘And I mean all.’

  ‘There’s been a lot of internal expediency, as well as external,’ said Powell. ‘Believe me, I’m sorrier than you are that you got caught up in it. You’ve been openly lied to: so’s your Commissioner and your Chief Constable.’

  The surprise was even greater, more obvious, this time. Townsend said: ‘You sure you know what you’re saying?’

  ‘I’m positive about what I’m saying: professionally I wish I weren’t. I will do my best to see that you get another apology: a correct one from the Director himself. I’m certainly prepared to give you one now, in writing, if it helps get this whole business out of our way, so that we can start working again properly and not waste any more time on this.’

  ‘I’d certainly like to stop wasting time,’ said Townsend. He very quickly found what he was looking for in the file on the desk in front of him. ‘This is what we got from someone called Harry Beddows.’

  ‘One more thing,’ said Powell, accepting the letter. ‘What problem is there with extradition?’

  ‘Texas would have right of trial, for the Gene Johnson murder?’ queried Townsend. ‘And Texas has the death penalty, right?’

  ‘Right,’ agreed Powell.

  ‘We don’t,’ said the detective. ‘The United Kingdom won’t extradite to a country that exercises the death penalty.’

  ‘Never?’ pressed Powell.

  ‘Only if there is agreement that it won’t be imposed, even if there’s a finding of guilt …’ He shrugged, impatiently. ‘I’m not sure why we’re having this conversation. I know it’s all been explained already by our Home Office, to your Attorney-General’s department.’

  Powell sighed, deeply. ‘There’ve been a lot of crossed wires. Now there aren’t.’

  The initial reaction of both Powell and Lobonski was shock, although not at Harold Taylor himself. In an American jail they would have been separated from an accused multiple murderer by reinforced glass, communicating through microphones, with Taylor’s wrist and ankle manacles even then tethered to a waist chain, immobilizing the man far more effectively than he’d immobilized Edith and Janet Hibbs.

  There was no protective separation between them and the man was not restrained in any way. He was sitting at a central table to one side of which recording apparatus was installed. Until their arrival Taylor had been guarded by just one, unarmed prison warder.

  The moment Taylor saw Powell he said, ‘The gang’s all here, including the FBI’s Superman himself! Not as impressive as you looked on CNN.’

  There was nothing immediately outstanding, special, about the man but at the same time Powell wasn’t unimpressive, conceded Taylor, studying the man intently. There was a confidence, as if he were sufficiently self-assured not to need to draw attention to himself with any outward effort. Someone to treat with caution, perhaps. Or was he? Maybe it was time for another game, involving all of them. He’d become bored, so long by himself.

  Performance time, Powell recognized, studying the killer just as intently. Maybe a mistake, too, for them all to have come together: pandering to the man’s need always for superior control. Why not? If they got a statement – anything that helped – it was justified. From the scientific analysis of the freeze frame photographs he knew everything about Harold Taylor’s size and build but it still didn’t look right. Too slim, bland face, totally unremarkable: mousy hair, mousy figured, mousy man. But what should murderers – mass murderers – look like? Pointy toothed, slavering, talons for fingers?

  Taylor said, ‘I’m innocent, until proven guilty. Get all the papers, have a television in my cell. I’ve seen all your public appearances.’
/>   ‘I’ve seen the result of a lot of yours,’ said Powell.

  ‘It was a challenge, your being personally identified, wasn’t it,’ said Taylor. ‘You really think you could have got me to respond?’

  ‘You’re arrogant enough.’

  ‘But too clever. Far cleverer than you.’ The man was quick though, noted Taylor. Picked up on the game: picked it up but didn’t properly know how to play it.

  ‘And you’re in a cell, charged with murder, manslaughter and kidnapping and before I go today I’m going formally to charge you with four more killings,’ said Powell. ‘I’d say that makes me – all of us here – cleverer than you, wouldn’t you?’ Not quite unremarkable, thought Powell, correcting his earlier impression. There was about Taylor a demeanour Powell had never before encountered, a tightly wound attitude that at any minute might snap or uncoil, an unsteady spring.

  He was good, Taylor conceded. Not good enough, of course, but adequate to make it interesting. He said, ‘You really think you’ve won?’

  ‘It looks like it to me.’

  ‘Silly man! You don’t know – understand – anything yet.’

  ‘So tell us,’ said Powell.

  Instead of answering, Taylor smirked at the two British police chiefs alongside the American. ‘So it really is true, what they say on television and in the papers? He’s in charge – does all the talking – and you carry the bags?’

  ‘We take it in turns,’ said Henry Basildon, refusing to be goaded.

  ‘Tweedledum and Tweedledee,’ mocked Taylor. ‘You don’t deserve to be made famous by me.’

  ‘We’ll recognize when you get too frightened,’ said Townsend, seeking to mock in return.

  The eyes momentarily flicked. ‘I’ll remember that: remember to ask some time who ended up more frightened.’

  ‘I’m not frightened, I’m flattered that you wouldn’t start without me,’ prodded Powell.

  ‘That’s most important,’ said Taylor, abruptly – surprisingly – serious. ‘I always need to know who my enemies are, for when I come back.’ He looked steadily at each of the men grouped around him. ‘And now I do. I’ve got you all marked.’