13

Charndon Lane, Barons Court, runs south from Margravine Gardens. There are only six houses in it, all built about a hundred years ago; small and unpretentious, but with a sort of period charm. Estate Agents, with justification, describe the area as ‘select and sought after’. It is certainly quiet and very peaceful.

Some alarm had been experienced by the other five householders when the sixth property changed hands and they read the brass plate which appeared beside the front door: ‘Albert Featherstone – Music Teacher’; but their fears were set at rest. Mr. Featherstone was considerate of his neighbours’ feelings. The practice room at the back of the house, he explained, would be sound-proofed as far as possible and in any event there would be no playing before ten o’clock in the morning or after six o’clock at night. Moreover he kept his word, even when his popularity, growing steadily in the three years he had been there, was making it difficult to fit in pupils.

Mostly they were of the female sex, of all ages from schoolgirls to middle-aged matrons. This is not to suggest that Mr. Featherstone was a Don Juan. There was nothing of the romantic music master about Albert. He was fat, middle-aged and jolly. When he laughed, which he did frequently, his small black eyes twinkled. He had a faint, but attractive, Irish brogue which he attributed, when anyone noticed it, to his grandmother, a colleen from Connemara.

What people remarked on, more than his brogue, was his versatility. He seemed to be a master of all instruments from the decorous piano and violin, which the ladies preferred, to the saxophone, the drums and the electric guitars of the young male learners. If a stranger was seen approaching the house the likely question in an observer’s mind was, what new instrument now?

“I tell them,” said Mr. Featherstone, one of whose many other names was Sean, “that the only instrument I haven’t tried is the bagpipes. And if my grandmother, bless her old heart, had been a Scotswoman I might have added that to my repertoire.”

“You’re too old,” said Liam, “and too fat. You need more puff for bagpipes than for blowing up balloons for a children’s party.”

“You heard about that, did you?” Mr. Featherstone chuckled. The previous Christmas he had given a party for the local children in the YMCA hut, supplying the decorations and food out of his own pocket. This had increased his growing popularity and had, incidentally, brought him four new pupils.

“You’re a great lad,” said Liam. “No doubt about that.” They were sitting in the sound-proof practice room and he saw no reason to lower his voice. “Does it keep you awake at night to think that the children you were playing host to might be out shopping this Christmas and get blown higher than any of your balloons?”

“The only thing that keeps me awake at night,” said Mr. Featherstone, “is wondering whether you’re going to be able to deliver. For if you don’t,” and his black eyes twinkled, “it may be you we’ll be counting the pieces of, my darling boy.”

“Nothing is certain in this life except death,” said Liam. “And the only reason I’m still alive is that I’m more careful than the people who want to kill me. This time I’m doubling my precautions and the only thing that worries me is that both lots turn on one man.”

“That’s the Arthur Drayling you’ve spoken of?”

“Correct. And he’s a right study for a psychiatrist, I can tell you. To start with he’s a—what’s the name? Not a sadist, the other thing.”

“A masochist.”

“That’s the very word. I spotted it as soon as I met him. Mind you, I expected he might be. It’s the opposite side of the coin to his games with little boys.”

“Does that make it easier for you?”

“Certainly. To start with I thought I was going to have to rely on that photograph I got hold of. And that might have been dangerous. Threats wear thin after a time. A level-headed man starts counting the cost and sometimes the sum doesn’t come out as you’d wish it to. Not so with my Arthur. He’s in such a state now that he’s panting for orders. He’d crawl across the carpet with a dog-collar and lead in his mouth if I told him to.”

“Your knowledge of the underside of human nature is a perpetual source of amazement to me. Incidentally, I have to warn you that the postal route is off.”

“Why, did something go wrong?”

Mr. Featherstone went across to a filing cabinet in the corner of the room, unlocked it and brought out two neatly wrapped and taped packages, each of them the size of a pound slab of chocolate. They were addressed to Alfred Taylor at 301A Brazil Street, marked, ‘To await collection’.

“That’s an accommodation address we’ve used once or twice before. Our man picked up these two. Luckily he’s got eyes in the back of his head. The next time he went, there were two cars parked in the street which hadn’t been there before. He walked straight past the shop and was glad he’d done so. There were Flying Squad men in both cars.”

“I always thought the postal route was too dangerous,” said Liam. “It leads straight back to the sender of the parcel, which is bad. And straight on to the receiver, which is worse. Anyway, to bring in the quantities we’re dealing in would need hundreds of parcels. None the less—” he opened the violin case he had been carrying, “some of this may come in very handy.”

“I suppose it’s no use me asking what you’ve got in mind?”

“No secrets between friends. I’m thinking of a surprise for Colonel Every.”

“The SAS man?”

“That’s the one I was speaking of. Do you know him?”

“I don’t know him,” said Mr. Featherstone slowly, “but I heard something about him. Through our friends in Belgium. You remember when the Cuckmere Haven landing went wrong?”

“Yes,” said Liam. He said it flatly, but there was an edge to his voice which warned his listener that he was probing a sore spot.

“And you remember the man you put the finger on. The one who called himself Dirk?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who he was?”

“I know he was working for either French or British Intelligence. Our Belgian friends didn’t think it necessary to enquire into his family history before they killed him.”

“They should have done. They’d have found out that he was Every’s stepson.”

“Is that a fact?”

Whilst Mr. Featherstone was talking, Liam had got to his feet and now he stood quite still. There was an odd change in his eyes; a smoky film had spread over them, almost as though he had put on misted contact lenses. Mr. Featherstone was not a man who was easily alarmed, but the change disturbed him. He said, “You were talking just now about being careful. I think this is a case in which you’ll have to be very careful indeed, in view of what I’ve told you.”

“Makes it a bit personal, doesn’t it?” said Liam.

Michaelson had come up to Great Peter Street by arrangement, to call on Bearstead. Bad news, he thought, was better delivered personally. He found the Chief Superintendent in his office with Commander Salwyn, whom he had never met, but knew as head of the Anti-Terrorist Squad. He said, “Please don’t go, sir. This affects you, too. It’s about the arrangements we were hoping to make to have six points on the river watched.”

Salwyn said, “I’ve been told about that. It seems a sound plan.”

“Three of them are on the north bank, in ‘K’ District. Rowlands offered straight away to co-operate. Tancred didn’t feel able to do that without referring the matter to Area, who ducked it and passed it up to Central. We’ve now had categorical instructions that neither of the Districts is to use more than two men per site. They can do an eight hour spell each, but this leaves the period from eight p.m. to four a.m. unwatched. And the permission is only given for one week. After that the matter will be reconsidered.”

Bearstead said, “And this came from the Assistant Commissioner?”

“Not in his name, but clearly on his authority.”

There was a moment of silence, broken by Salwyn who said, picking his words carefully, “If there is a massive outbreak of IRA activity this winter the chief blame will fall on me. When I took on my present job, I realised the risks entailed and was prepared to accept them, provided they were reasonable. But this seems to me to be unreasonable. You are asking the Met to employ thirty-six men for a few weeks. Possibly less. They offer you twelve men for one week.”

There was a further silence.

Salwyn continued, in the same level voice, “I haven’t followed all the arguments, but it does seem to me that a properly mounted guard, particularly on the three south bank points of entry, might prevent this explosive coming into the country and catch the IRA operatives involved. Perhaps even some of the more important ones now in this country, whose cover we have been unable to penetrate. It would be an important intelligence breakthrough. If the Met feel unable to oblige us, could we tackle it in another way? It would be a strain on our limited resources, but I could offer the services of say ten men. What about you, Bruno?”

Bearstead, who had evidently been thinking on the same lines and making mental calculations, said, “I can match that and improve on it. For a limited period I could find sixteen – maybe eighteen men.”

“Then if we concentrated on what you call the four probables we’d be able, between us, to put a full team of six on to each. With perhaps a few men to spare to keep an eye on the possibles.”

“And do the whole thing,” said Michaelson, “without troubling Central at all.”

“I’m afraid not,” said Salwyn. “As matters stand at the moment I couldn’t use any of my men without the sanction of the Assistant Commissioner.”

The three men looked at each other.

“I suppose you could always ask him,” said Bearstead at last.

Anthony Leone had been elected to the Social Club in Camlet Road. In the end it had not been Drummer who had proposed him, as he once offered to do, but Mr. Nabbs who knew him from frequent encounters in the Magistrates’ Court. Crispin Locke had agreed to second him. Drummer had considered opposing Anthony’s candidature. Latterly he had not found him sympathetic about the troubles of his son. But in the end discretion had prevailed. He might not like the Probation Officer, but there was no point in demonstrating open hostility.

So Anthony had paid his entrance fee and his first year’s subscription and had been admitted to the freemasonry of the club bar. He had not found the conversation sparkling, but some of the personalities had interested him. In France, he reflected, they would have been dismissed, offensively by the intellectuals, derisively by the working class, as petit bourgeois. Here they had no such clear label or status. Some were old enough to have fought in the war and preferred to foregather with others of the same vintage and discuss a conflict which was fading rapidly into the past.

“Chiefly,” said Nabbs, “because their children won’t allow them to talk about it at home.”

Drummer would normally have taken up the cudgels on behalf of the soldiers. Now he had something more exciting to discuss.

“I got on to them through Arthur Drayling,” he said. “They’re extremely rare and very valuable.”

“What are?” said Locke.

“Carassius Auratus Leoninus Indicus,” said Drummer proudly. “You’re a scholar. You’ll understand what that means.”

“Not too difficult. Lion-heads from India, I take it.”

“Right. Although in fact they don’t come from India. Only from the north of Pakistan, as perhaps you knew.”

“The only thing I know about goldfish,” said Mr. Biffen, a thin sad mortician, “is that my children buy them and they die two weeks later.”

“That’s because you don’t look after them properly, Biff. It’s no good keeping them in a bowl. You need a tank with a constant flow of fresh water coming through it.”

“How are you going to get them over from Pakistan then? Difficult job to keep a tank full of fresh water in an aeroplane I should have thought.”

“Arthur explained that. They come over in a special refrigerator – fish can live for months inside a block of ice.”

In a company in which little escaped comment it was noticed that Drummer, who had previously always referred to ‘Mr. Drayling’, now called him Arthur. Their association must have ripened.

“You’ll have to pay for the fish and the freight in advance, I imagine,” said Nabbs. “I hope the chap who is supplying them is reliable.”

“Perfectly reliable. He’s a well-known accountant in the City. It’s one of his clients in Pakistan who is selling the fish.”

Anything, Bearstead had said. Anything at all however far-fetched or trivial.

Here was a well-known accountant who had, apparently, some connection with Pakistan and now some connection with Arthur Drayling. The thread was thin. Ludicrously thin. But he had given his word. The worst that could happen would be that he would be laughed at.

There was a telephone kiosk tucked away down the lane behind the club. Better than using the club telephone, he thought, which was in the hall and very much under the public eye and ear.

He dialled the number he had been given and a courteous voice said, simply, “Yes?”

“I’m Anthony Leone, from Plumstead.”

“Yes?”

How can I put it, he thought, without sounding too stupid? “Chief Superintendent Bearstead asked me to let you know if I heard of any possible connection between a man here called Drayling and two gangs of boys. It isn’t the boys, actually, but the father of two of them, a man called Abel Drummer. Drayling has clearly become friendly lately with Drummer and another man who has been described as a well-known City accountant.” He explained about the goldfish. By the time he had finished, it sounded sillier than it had before.

The voice said, “Thank you, Mr. Leone. I will pass your message on.”

“Bumf,” said Colonel Every. “That’s what soldiering is about today. Nothing but bumf.”

His desk was covered with his morning mail, official-looking envelopes, most of them marked OHMS, none of them promising any excitement. He had not yet tackled them as there was a more important matter to be dealt with.

Captain Musgrave, standing in front of his desk, had been explaining that Sergeant Whitaker and Lance Corporal Abrahams had been in trouble. Ever since his unhappy encounter with Liam, Whitaker had been in an odd mood: gloomy some of the time; over-excited at others. Musgrave, who kept a fatherly eye on all of his men, sensed what the trouble was. Sergeant Whitaker was spoiling for a fight.

It had not been difficult to find one. Soldiers who wore the beige beret and the coveted winged dagger were apt to be picked on by self-appointed champions from other units. A procedure had been evolved to deal with this. SAS men tended to stick to their own bars and to go there together. Good-humoured banter and the weight of numbers could usually defuse the situation. The trouble was that when an SAS man fought he could not forget the techniques he had been taught. On this occasion, provoked by a gunner with two tough-looking friends, Whitaker had sailed straight in. Abrahams had gone in to help him. The result had been one gunner with a broken jaw, one with suspected rupture of the spleen and the third unscathed only because he had taken evasive action. He had bolted from the bar and had run into a military police patrol.

“Damn,” said Every. “Damn and damn. This’ll have to go up to Brigade.”

“I don’t think Abrahams was really to blame, sir. It was three to one. He had to go in to help.”

“I’ve no doubt Whitaker was the one who started it. He’s been asking for trouble for some time.”

“If they get insulted in a pub, you can’t expect them to walk off and ignore it.”

“I expect them to behave like adults, not like schoolboys. And I don’t expect them to half kill drunken squaddies. All right, David, I’ll take it from here. Don’t go. There’s probably something in all this bumf that I can unload on to you.”

He started ripping open the envelopes, with a running commentary on their contents.

“Army Council Instruction 1804/86. Something to do with not wearing gumboots in the street. You can have that one. Returning of damaged items to store. That should have gone to ‘Q’. Why the hell is everything, however stupid and unimportant, always marked ‘Urgent’ and always sent to me?”

“You’ve been in the Army long enough to know the answer to that,” said Musgrave soothingly. “However, I admit it does seem odd—” he had picked up a bulky envelope and was examining it, “if this collection of documents really is urgent – that it would appear, unless I am reading the postmark incorrectly, to have been posted two months ago.”

“Put it down, very carefully please,” said Every. “Right. Now slide it across the desk.” He made a path for it by sweeping the other papers aside. As he did this, Musgrave noticed the missing fingers of his right hand. He said, “Do you think—?”

“We’ll find out,” said Every. He chose an envelope of the same size and filled it with papers until it was the same shape as the other. Then he put them both, in turn, on to the letter scales.

“Four ounces heavier,” he said. “Lucky you spotted the postmark, David. Our friend must have got hold of this old envelope somehow. He faked the address, but he couldn’t change the postmark. Or hoped it wouldn’t be spotted.” He pulled the telephone across and started to dial.

“Then you know who sent it?”

“I’ve a fair idea. Home Office Explosives? Could I speak to Professor Meiklejohn? Thank you. Yes, I’ll hang on.”

“When you look at it closely you can see that the original label’s been removed. Probably steamed off. And a new one stuck on.”

“He’s an ingenious beast. Oh, Ian? Colonel Every here. I hope I haven’t interrupted some vital experiment.”

“Ludo. Nice to hear from you. What you’ve interrupted is something I’ve been working on for a fortnight and have just decided is totally pointless. Tell me what I can do for you.”

“I’ve a suspect packet here. Arrived this morning. I imagine it’s quite safe until you start to open it, but on the whole I think I’d better bring it up myself. Be with you in about an hour and a half.”

“I’ll count the minutes,” said the Professor politely.