by Lewis Orde
Barnhill turned triumphantly to Stimkin. “Now what have you got to say?”
“How much was it, Sid?” the editor asked.
“A lot. All fifties. A real bundle.”
“Telephone the bank. Find out —”
Barnhill was far ahead of the editor. He opened a telephone directory, looked up the bank and the branch, and dialed the number. “May I speak to the manager, please?” His voice took on a plum-in-the-mouth English stage accent. “My name is Raymond Lloyd, sales director of Blackford Printing Company.”
The manager came on the line. “We are doing some printing work for the British Patriotic League,” Barnhill explained. “Their Mr. Neville Sharpe wishes to pay by a check drawn on your bank, and as it’s for a rather large amount, we’re understandably cautious. He claims he has just made a deposit that will cover the check, and he has advised us to contact you to put our minds at rest.”
“How much is the check for?” the manager asked.
Barnhill took a deep breath and played Sid Hall’s words over in his mind. All fifties, maybe even a thousand of them . . . “Forty-eight thousand pounds.”
“You may accept Mr. Sharpe’s check with confidence, Mr. Lloyd. Fifty thousand pounds was deposited a short while ago.”
“Thank you.” Barnhill replaced the receiver and dropped the false accent. “Fifty grand, that’s what our fat boy in the picture passed to Sharpe.”
Stimkin stared thoughtfully at the photograph. “You know, for years we’ve been trying to find out where the League gets its money. This could be the first worthwhile clue.”
“If we can find out who fat boy is,” Barnhill said soberly.
Hall took a grease pencil and drew a circle around the fat man’s face. “The Sunday Eagle runs a competition during the football season — a crowd shot from one of the games, with half a dozen faces ringed like this. Whoever comes forward wins a prize. Why don’t we do something similar here, run this picture and offer a prize for anyone who can identify this man?”
“That’s not a bad idea. Let me check with upstairs and see how much of a bounty we’re willing to pay.” Stimkin rang through to Sally Roberts. After he’d explained about the picture and the hefty bank deposit, Sally told him to come up.
Accompanied by Barnhill and Hall, Stimkin rode the elevator to the executive floor. Katherine was with Sally when they entered the office. The two women had been going over budgets; computer printout covered the desk. Sally cleared a space, and Hall set out his pictures.
Stimkin jabbed a finger at the circled face. “You can see him handing over the envelopes to Sharpe, and Sid Hall here witnessed Sharpe making a bank deposit with money that was in the envelopes.”
“And you’ve since found out that the deposit was for fifty thousand pounds?” Sally asked.
“Right.” Stimkin stepped back as Katherine bent low over the picture. “How much can we offer?”
“One thousand pounds,” Sally answered immediately.
Katherine snapped her fingers. “Give it to me, then. I’m sure I know that man, or I once did.”
“What?” Sally and the three men joined Katherine in bending over the picture. “Who is he?”
Katherine could feel her heart pounding. Blood rushed to her head. She had to steady herself against the desk as solutions to a thousand riddles pounded her brain.
Her answer, when it came, contained all the vehemence she could muster. “He’s a fat bullying pig called Nigel Hawtrey.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
AT FIVE IN THE AFTERNOON, Oxford Street was awash with a tidal wave of people rushing home. Katherine elbowed her way through the crowd, looking from the piece of paper in her hand to the numbers on the buildings. At last, she spotted the one she wanted. Veering to her right, she navigated the stream of human traffic, and pushed open a heavy glass door. She crossed a small lobby to the elevator. A directory board informed her that the Chalfont Office Bureau was on the third floor.
The elevator opened into a spacious reception area. Three young women sat filling out forms to register for temporary secretarial work with the agency. At a desk facing the elevator sat another young woman wearing a blue dress with a white collar.
“Welcome to the Chalfont Office Bureau,” the receptionist greeted Katherine. Her right hand moved toward a tray full of application forms. “Have you worked with us before?”
“I’m afraid I’m not looking for a job. I’d like to see Deidre Chalfont.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“No. But if you tell her Katherine Kassler is here, I think you’ll find that she’ll be willing to see me.”
The receptionist dialed an internal number. “Ask Miss Chalfont if she’ll see a Katherine Kassler.” A pause was followed by “She will? I’ll send her along.” Replacing the receiver, she looked at Katherine. “Go to the end of the corridor and turn right. Miss Chalfont’s personal assistant will be waiting for you.”
“Thank you.” Katherine followed the directions. On the walls she passed were blown-up advertisements for the bureau. She remembered seeing them in newspapers and in trains. Until now she had never connected the name.
“Mrs. Kassler?” A redhead in a plum trouser suit was waiting. “Miss Chalfont’s waiting for you.” She opened a door behind her desk. “Please go in.”
Deidre Chalfont was as Katherine remembered her from election night in 1979. Slender, smartly dressed in a red skirt, a double-breasted blue-on-blue striped blazer, and a white silk blouse. Thick dark hair was waved around her face to soften the firmness of her jaw.
“I’ve been waiting four years for this moment,” Deidre said. “Ever since that night in the Spaniards.”
“Your wait’s over.”
“Please sit down.” She waved toward a couch against the wall. Katherine dropped onto it. Deidre pulled up a chair. “Four years ago, you thought I was a bitter, jealous bitch, didn’t you?” Seeing the embarrassment on Katherine’s face, Deidre smiled. “You were tactful enough not to come right out and say it, but it was obvious that you were thinking it. So why have you come to see me now?”
Katherine was not about to share her blackest doubts with Deidre. They were too horrible to be true, yet the more she considered them, the stronger they became. She was so horrified that she had not even confided in her colleagues and friends at the Eagle. After her outburst earlier that afternoon on recognizing Nigel Hawtrey, she’d put a clamp on her tongue. Sid Hall, certainly, remembered who Hawtrey was — the villain of Cadmus Court, when poor old Archie Waters and his grandson had been victimized. Sally must remember him, too. But neither had recognized the ominous significance that had leaped in front of Katherine’s eyes.
Katherine did not even let on to Deidre that she and Saxon were no longer together. “You suggested four years ago that I ask John how he came to employ William Brown. I did. He told me that he’d caught William trying to steal his car. John took pity on him, because he was penniless and starving. Instead of calling the police — which is what you wanted him to do — he offered William a job. Is that how it really happened?” Katherine was counting on Deidre’s loathing of her former husband being as strong as it ever was. She was hoping that the woman would not even need a solid reason to spew hatred about John Saxon, and she was not disappointed.
“You’re making him sound like a damned philanthropist, darling. He caught William trying to steal his car, all right. But he didn’t take pity on him. He gave William a choice: do a nasty little chore for John, or be turned over to the police.”
“What kind of chore?”
“John had an old friend with whom he’d fallen out over some trifling business affair. From there, it had gone completely out of hand. The ex-friend’s pride and joy was an absolutely irreplaceable vintage Rolls Royce, which he drove every Sunday morning to a public house a couple of miles away. So all the lesser mortals could admire it, I suppose. Anyway, William’s chore was to steal the Roller from outside the pub, and wreck it. W
hich he did. He jumped out at the top of a hill, and let the car smash itself to pieces at the bottom. John was so thrilled that he gave William a bonus of one hundred pounds, a lot of money in those days. Then, when they realized how suited they were to each other, he offered William full-time employment.”
“What other dirty work did William do for John?”
“While I was in the picture?” Deidre closed her eyes as she tried to remember, and Katherine could see that Saxon’s former wife was enjoying the opportunity to wash the dirty linen in public. “A couple of times, John had business deals going sour on him, like someone else offering more money for a piece of property than he was prepared to pay. William had a lot of friends on the seamy side of the street, and if there was any dirt to be learned about these business rivals, anything worth blackmailing them over, William’s friends could come up with it pretty quickly.”
“I’d never have guessed that John could have been involved in anything so shady.”
“You should have been more attentive to me four years ago.”
“You’re right, I should have.” Katherine gave Deidre an apologetic smile, and segued into the real reason for her visit. William had just been a preamble to loosen Deidre up. “Did he meet Nigel Hawtrey the same way?”
Deidre shuddered. “That one! He must have been born on Halloween, with a vulture for a father and a snake for a mother. That swine deserves a place of honor in the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest rogue who never went to jail.”
Elated by the reaction, Katherine asked, “What did he do?”
“He was John’s silent partner. You see, in the early days, John was involved in two distinctly different types of property. There were the expensive office buildings that he moved around with such razzle-dazzle, but there was also some very cheap and nasty property that he kept close to his chest. John would buy houses in poor areas that he thought would improve. That way, he’d get growth. And for quick income, he rented them out and gouged the tenants.”
“John was a slumlord?”
“Through Nigel Hawtrey he was. Nigel ran that side of the business for John. Ran it very efficiently, and kept it well insulated from the main company. More than once, when John got into financial difficulty with the main business, the steady income from Nigel kept the boat from sinking. Then Nigel got bigger ideas. Instead of buying more houses, he persuaded John to buy up blocks of flats in improving areas. The plan was to get rid of the sitting tenants, decorate the flats, and sell the building for a good profit. One of Nigel’s jobs, of course, was persuading the tenants to leave. They even formed a company called Cadmus Property Company, but by then my marriage to John was on the rocks, and I was on the way out. I seem to remember that John was forced to get rid of Nigel some six or seven years ago — some scandal over Nigel’s methods of getting tenants to leave. But I doubt very much if he really severed the cord. Nigel was too valuable a rogue to lose so easily.”
“So the brigadier did know what every corporal in the brigade was up to,” Katherine murmured.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Just thinking aloud.” Katherine made a show of glancing at the clock on the wall. “Five-thirty already! I have to fly. Thank you for the information.” She rushed out before Deidre could remember the exact circumstances in which Saxon had been forced to get rid of Nigel Hawtrey, because then she might start asking questions of her own.
Outside, surrounded by the swirling rush of Oxford Street, Katherine paused long enough to gather her thoughts. Although Deidre Chalfont had just dropped a few more pegs into the proper holes, Katherine still had little more than hearsay to go on. Hearsay, circumstantial evidence, and her own gut feeling. No court of law would accept that. More was required. She needed some corroborating testimony, the gospel from someone who’d been involved. She rang home to tell Edna that she would be working late. After that, she returned to the Eagle.
Seven years earlier, when writing the Cadmus Court story, Katherine had learned Nigel Hawtrey’s unlisted home number by bribing an Eagle contact at the Post Office. This time, she did not have to go to those lengths. No longer in the business of property management, Hawtrey let himself be listed. Katherine found him in the directory, with an address in Kensington.
Next, she went looking for Raymond Barnhill and Sid Hall. They were both about to leave for the night. After telling them to wait, she sought Lawrie Stimkin. He was in a discussion with the Eagle’s political editor. Apologizing, Katherine pulled him to one side. “Lawrie, I want Raymond and Sid for an assignment which could involve some serious flirting with the law.”
“Does it have anything to do with that fat man whose picture Sid took at the Oval?” When Katherine said yes, Stimkin nodded. “You’re the editorial director–designate; why are you even bothering to ask me?”
“Because you, Lawrie dear, are the editor.”
Stimkin, his ego tickled, smiled. “Take them, but do me a favor and keep them out of jail. We’ll need everyone for the final run-up to the election.”
First, Katherine bought both men dinner. Over the meal, she said, “I’ve got a special job. It doesn’t require you to bring a camera, Sid. And Raymond, you won’t need a notebook or a pen. You might have to babysit someone all night, though.”
They listened as Katherine outlined her plan. When she finished, the only comment came from Barnhill. “This sounds like another of your schemes to get an exclusive story for yourself.”
Across the table, in Hall’s view, Katherine’s reply was all sweetness. “Sally retires in a little over four weeks, and I move into her office. Would you begrudge me one final exclusive?” Beneath the table, where the photographer’s eyes could not follow, she kicked Barnhill in the ankle. He trapped her foot between his legs, grinning widely as she struggled to free herself.
At eight-thirty, they drove to Kensington, Katherine leading the way in the white Lotus, with Barnhill and Hall following in a company car. The address in the telephone directory turned out to be a new apartment block called the Terrace Tower. In the lobby, buttons and mailboxes were lined up along one wall. Next to Nigel Hawtrey’s name on the directory board was the number 410. Katherine pressed the corresponding button.
After thirty seconds, a loud voice yelled, “Who is it?”
“Mr. Hawtrey?” Katherine asked.
“Yes.”
“Neville Sharpe sent me. He said you gave him two hundred and fifty pounds too much, and I’m returning it.”
“Come up.”
The security door clicked, and Katherine led the way into the building. In the elevator, she noticed a sign stating that the building was owned and managed by Saxon Holdings. Now why, she asked herself, shouldn’t that surprise her? They got out at the fourth floor and walked along a wide, carpeted hall. At 410, Katherine motioned for Barnhill and Hall to stand off to one side, then she gave the door buzzer three sharp jabs.
“All right, all right!” a voice yelled from inside the apartment. “I’m coming!” Katherine felt herself being inspected through the peephole. She pulled five fifty-pound notes from her bag and waved them.
The door swung back. Hawtrey stood there, a bright red silk robe over his shirt and trousers. The instant he saw the two men, he stepped back and tried to slam the door. Hall was far too quick. He jammed his foot into the opening, and smashed through with his shoulder. The door flew back into Hawtrey’s face. The three intruders piled into the apartment and closed the door.
“We want to talk to you, Mr. Hawtrey,” Hall said. He grabbed Hawtrey by the shoulders and shoved him into the living room, pushing him down into an imitation leather recliner.
“I know you!” Hawtrey pointed a finger at Katherine, and began to get up. “You’re that bitch —”
The words were cut off by Hall’s beefy hand slapping Hawtrey across the mouth. His head snapped around and his glasses went flying onto the carpet. Barnhill picked them up and stuck them back on Hawtrey’s face.
Katherine took Hall�
��s photographs from her handbag. “This is you, Mr. Hawtrey, isn’t it? You giving fifty thousand pounds to Neville Sharpe of the British Patriotic League.”
“Are you asking me, or are you telling me?”
This time Hall waited for Hawtrey to finish the sentence before hitting him. A sharp, clubbing blow with the side of the hand against the back of the neck sent Hawtrey flying forward.
Katherine waited for him to recover. In a level voice, she said, “Mr. Hawtrey, please listen to me. We need some answers, and you are going to supply them. How you do so is up to you. We would prefer you gave them to us willingly, but if you want us to force them out of you, we’ll do so.”
Hawtrey stared up into Katherine’s face. Her lips were compressed into a thin line, and her blue eyes had all the warmth of an Arctic blizzard. “I gave Neville Sharpe fifty thousand.”
“Thank you.” As hard as she’d made herself sound, Katherine had to fight down nausea as she forced herself to look at Hawtrey. Blood trickled from his mouth, and his eyes were misty from the rabbit punch. “What was the fifty thousand pounds for?”
“Campaign expenses.”
“Why was it cash, not a check?”
“It was always cash. That way there was no chance of its origin being traced.”
“On whose instructions did you give the money to Sharpe? Was it on John Saxon’s instructions?”
Hawtrey let out a deep breath with agonizing slowness. Betrayal was a painful process, even when there seemed little left to betray. “Yes, John instructed me to do it.”
“Seven years ago,” Katherine said, “John Saxon, in order to protect his own reputation, dismissed you over the Cadmus Court scandal. He pretended, and we all believed him, that you alone had been responsible for the disgraceful events at Cadmus Court. How did you go from there to the British Patriotic League?”
Hawtrey found the courage to answer the question with one of his own. “What do I get out of helping you?”