For some time there had been nothing firm, nothing to cling on to. Flashes of consciousness had been followed by intervals of darkness which were too disturbed to be called sleep.
In these intervals he seemed to spend most of his time walking down the Ratcliffe Highway, a frontage of buildings with nasty, dark, dangerous little alleys between them. Every other building was a tavern. Between the taverns were shops that catered for sailors. Peering through the windows as he strolled past he could see sou’westers and pilot coats, thigh-length rubber boots, sextants and bosun’s pipes, knives and daggers. Why, you could fit out a whole ship from each shop, he said. Ship, shop. Ship, shop. Clip, clop. Hansom cab coming up behind him. Dodge before it runs you down. The effort he made to escape jerked him back to consciousness.
A man with a beard, whom he had seen before, was smiling at him. He said, ‘That’s right. Cheated the parson this time. Lucky these youngsters have got such hard heads, isn’t it, Mrs Hutchins.’ There was a woman with him who reminded him of Mrs Parham. He remembered her as one of his regular visitors, who gave him hot sweet drinks which made him sick.
On one occasion, most remarkably, it had been DDI Wensley who had stared down at him, looking like a mournful seal, and said something that sounded like ‘bloody young fool’. After that it was the motherly woman again. This time she had given him a cold and rather bitter drink which he had succeeded in keeping down.
Then he really had slept.
When he opened his eyes he saw Joe, perched on a chair beside his bed, reading a magazine. All he could see of it was the picture of a girl with beautiful legs which, very reasonably, she was making no effort to keep hidden. Wanting to see more, he hoisted himself up on to his elbows
“Ullo ‘ullo,’ said Joe. ‘The sleeping beauty has awucken. And you’re not supposed to sit up.’
‘Why on earth not?’ said Luke, sitting up.
‘Bin at death’s door, haven’t you?’
‘Nonsense,’ said Luke. ‘I’m as fit as a fiddle.’
‘Whole thing was a fiddle, if you ask me. Three days in the infirmary and Mother Hutchins clucking over you, like as if you was her long-lost son.’
‘Have I really been here for three days?’
‘Best part of. Every precaution known to science has been took.’ He was examining a chart which hung at the foot of the bed. ‘This one shows your temperacheer. And here’s a list of ticks and crosses. Nothing to say what that is. Might be the number of times you wet your bed.’
‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ said Luke. ‘Tell me. Did old Wensley come and have a look at me? It seemed like him and I thought I heard him say “bloody young fool”.’
‘Taken by and large,’ said Joe, ‘that seems to sum up the general verdick. Letting yourself be knocked on the napper by a couple of cheap Ruskies. Mind you, I’m beginning to wonder if we was quite as smart as we thought we was, getting ourselves transferred to this division. Talk about the bloody Tower of Babel. Squareheads, Polacks, Guineas, Johnnies and hundreds of thousands of Shonks. Fourteen to a room and one bed. Either they take it in turns, or some of them sleep on the floor.’
‘Uncomfortable either way,’ said Luke. ‘That’s a lovely black eye you’ve got. Been fighting someone?’
‘In this part of the world, life’s one long fight. How’d I get this shiner? I got it yesterday. Rescuing a sailor from a fate worse’n death. From death too, like as not.’
‘Tell,’ said Luke, settling himself comfortably.
‘Well, I was proceeding along Cable Street, getting dark, and mist coming up from the river, and I was thinking as how nice it would be if I was back home with my slippers on and a glass of something in my hand when I saw these three men coming along, arm in arm. Friendly types, was my first thought. When they got up to me, I saw the two on the outside was nasty-looking hunkies.’ Joe demonstrated what he meant by frowning ferociously and sticking his jaw out. This made Luke laugh.
‘Laugh away,’ said Joe. ‘It weren’t funny. Not really. The one in the middle was a sailor – not much more’n a boy – and as anyone could see, he was drunk as parson’s cat. Couldn’t hardly stand up. I said, “You leave that boy alone.”
‘”We leave him, he falls down,” said the tough character on the right. “We take him home.”
‘”I know just where you’re taking him,” I said. “Somewhere you can finish emptying his pockets. And then empty him into the river. Not tonight, though. This ain’t your lucky night.”
‘He didn’t seem anxious to let go of the boy, which handicapped him somewhat, so I hit him.’ Joe smiled at the thought. ‘A four o’clock one. Right on his snozzle. He let go the boy then and come for me. So I kicks him in the goolies.’
‘Wasn’t that a bit rough?’
‘I had to protect myself, didn’t I? Then I got me old whistle out and blew it. Always creates a good effect. The other man took one look at his friend lying on the ground trying to be sick and cut off smartish down one of the side streets. The only one who didn’t seem to appreciate my efforts was the boy. He said, “You’ve hurt my friend. Only friend I’ve got,” and blow me down if he didn’t square up and belt me in the eye. It was what you might call a parting effort, because as he did it his knees gave way and if I hadn’t grabbed him he’d have finished flat on his face. I got him up over my shoulder and left the field of battle as the crowd started to gather. One of the men knew me and gave me a hand with our gallant tar and we got him into the church refuge just round the corner. When we got him there he fell flat once more and this time, just to show how comfortable he was, he started to snore. It didn’t seem to worry the refugers.’
‘I expect they’re used to that sort of thing. What did they do with him?’
‘They said they’d put him to bed. He’d be all right in the morning. I wasn’t too sure about that, so I went round next morning and had a word with the boy. He was called Bill Trotter and he was off the brig Alice. The usual story. Came on shore with a friend from another ship. Both of them with their pay in their pockets. Friend went off with a girl, leaving young Bill on his tod. Easy meat for the squareheads. Seeing he was still a bit shaky I went back with him to his ship.’
‘The Alice you said.’
‘Right. One of the “A” line – Alice, Annabel, Audrey and Amelie. They call them brigs, but really they’re brig-rigged schooners. They do most of the east coast work, up to Scotland. The “B” line – Betsy, Belinda, Beatrice, that lot – they’re more enterprising. Sometimes compete with the “A”s, but mostly they push out across the sea, heading for Copenhagen and Gothenburg. Now—’ Joe wagged a schoolmasterly finger at the invalid, ‘I’m not telling you all this just to give you a lesson in geography. I had an idea when I was talking to young Trotter and his mates and sampling some of the Highland dew they’d brought back from one of their trips to Edinburgh. Lovely stuff. I’d’ve brought some round for you, only I remembered what you’d said about alcohol being bad for concussion.’ Observing the look in Luke’s eye he hurried on. ‘My idea was that these boats wasn’t only cargo boats. They’ve got accommodation – limited but comfortable was how they described it – for one or two passengers. Businessmen who like to take things easy, people like that. So what about you asking for a couple of weeks’ convalescent leave and getting a bit of sea air into your lungs?’
‘Attractive,’ agreed Luke. ‘How long should I have to be away?’
‘That’s what I asked Bill. The Amelie’s due to leave for Newcastle on Saturday. How long the trip takes depends on the weather – sometimes they have to beat about for days – and how long they’re held up at the other end, that depends on the cargo. They’ll be carrying cement in bags and timber. Clean stuff and easy to unload. Coming back it’ll likely be iron-ore for smelting. They could be tied up at the other end for a week or more. Shouldn’t be more than ten days, though. If it was going to be more’n that, they’d come back empty. Can’t hang around. That’s losing money.’
As Joe had been speaking the idea had been growing in attraction. Fishing trips out of the Orwell or the Stour, with a night at sea and return on the morning tide, had been almost his only relaxation during the years of his Russian study and the North Sea no longer had the power to upset him. Calculating dates and times he said, ‘It looks as though I’d have to put in for fifteen days. Saturday to Monday fortnight.’
‘The skipper wouldn’t say no to that. You’re his white-headed boy. When he heard you’d been hurt, the tears were streaming down his face.’
Having nothing handy to throw at Joe, Luke said, ‘Then you think he’d agree?’
‘It wouldn’t be his say-so. Not entirely. He’d have to fix it up with Josh.’
This reference to Superintendent Joscelyne, the head of ‘H’ Division, gave both of them pause. Although the Superintendent did not control the day-by day working of the plain-clothes branch, all administrative decisions stemmed from him. He was not positively unfriendly, as Garforth had been, but had maintained, so far, a massive neutrality in his dealings with those two young hopefuls, Detective Pagan and Detective Narrabone. So far as he was concerned, they were on probation.
‘There’s just one thing,’ said Joe. ‘It mightn’t be a good moment to bother the skipper. He’s got a lot on his plate. I’ve noticed, if there’s any sort of nonsense anywhere and a Russian or a Yid’s involved – which there usually is – then it doesn’t matter which division it happens in, it’s “Send for Wensley”.’
‘That must be good for him, career-wise. Surely he’s heading for the top.’
‘He may be heading for it, but it won’t do him much good if he dies of overwork before he gets there. Last time I saw him he was looking like death warmed up.’
‘Surely not as bad as that,’ said Wensley.
He was noted for walking softly. When on the beat, he was reputed to have tacked strips of bicycle tyre to the soles of his regulation boots.
Joe, unperturbed, said, ‘I don’t know how much of that you heard, sir. But I was proposing a sea voyage for this young tearaway’s health.’
‘Yes. I heard that bit. Not a bad idea. But I’ve had a better one. We’ll sell it to the Superintendent as one week’s convalescence and one week’s work. If you feel you’re up to it.’
‘I’m all right now, sir, really,’ said Luke. ‘Two or three days at sea and I’ll be on the top line.’
Wensley examined the temperature chart, stroked his splendid moustache and said, ‘All right. Here’s how it goes. I’ve got friends in most of the east coast ports, up as far as Edinburgh. They keep an eye on arrivals, and if they think they are going to interest me, they telephone me, or drop me a line. That way I’ve had some very useful tip-offs. My contact in Newcastle is a man called Farnsworth. Carter Farnsworth. He’s well placed, you see, because he’s head of the Water Guard and combines that with being deputy head of Customs. Any suspicious characters who arrive, the docks police send them along to him. Well, about a week ago this Russian turned up on a boat from Libau, which was interesting, because anyone who wants to slip out of Russia is liable to make first for Poland, which isn’t a difficult border crossing. Then they try Danzig for a ship and if they can’t find one next choice is Libau or Riga. When the police wheeled him in, Farnsworth had him stripped naked and searched. A proceeding which he resented, violently. First thing they found was that he’d got two passports. One which he produced, in the name of Ivan Morrowitz. The other, tucked away in a very secret pocket, in the name of Janis Silistreau. That one had his picture on it, so it may have been his real name.’
‘Do they all have two names?’ said Luke.
‘Two’s a poor score. One man I’ve been dealing with recently used six. And none of them turned out to be his real name. Anyway, as well as a second passport, Farnsworth found a number of papers in Russian handwriting. This didn’t mean a lot to him, as neither he nor anyone in his office could deal with Russian current script. He wasn’t very happy about putting them in the post to me, but if you found them interesting I’m sure he’d lend them to you and you could bring them back with you for our Home Office friends to look at. Right?’
‘Right,’ said Luke, delighted that at last some practical use was to be made of his knowledge of Russian.
‘Next point, if this Morrowitz-Silistreau character is heading for London, as I’ve no doubt he is, it’ll be useful to know what train he’s on, so that we can have him followed when he arrives. And last, and most important, don’t overstay your leave. If the Amelie is really hung up waiting for a return cargo, you’ll have to miss your return sea trip and come back by train. We’re not overstaffed and things are beginning to heat up down here. Normally, I wouldn’t be sorry about that, because’—Wensley’s fingers opened and shut—’when things heat up is when we get results. But just at this moment, everything’s moving a bit fast, in different directions, so don’t hang about too long admiring the Northumbrian scenery.’
‘Or the Northumbrian lasses,’ said Joe.
Luke promised to bear these instructions in mind. He, too, liked it when things started moving.
On the Friday morning Joe walked down with him to the docks. The quayside was crowded. There were three ships anchored in tandem alongside and two more in midstream awaiting attention.
Ship-building might have gone north to the Clyde and the Mersey, but ship-handling was still the prerogative of the London docks.
The Amelie sailed at dusk. With the wind behind them, they were soon out into the mouth of the river. Luke, on deck and inhaling the cold air in grateful gulps, felt health and strength building up fast. Which was as well, since before long the wind had swung from the south-west to the south-east and had freshened. By Sunday evening it was coming straight out of Russia and the sea had got so ugly that they pulled into the Wash and spent the night in the lee of Boston Stump. Luke began to fear that they might lie there for days, but they ventured out, on Monday morning, into a sea that was moderating as the sun rose.
‘I’ve often noticed it,’ said the skipper, an Ulsterman, who was inclined to be friendly to Luke on the grounds that a normal passenger would have been incapacitated by that time. ‘The sun kills the wind.’
Good progress from there on saw them safely round South Shields Point and by four o’clock on the Tuesday, they were gliding sedately up the Tyne with the tide behind them. When they reached the main disembarkation point on the famous mile-long quay, Carter Farnsworth, a short red Northumbrian, was there to meet Luke as he stepped ashore.
After a friendly greeting, coupled with enquiries about his old friend the Weasel, he led Luke into his office and got down to business.
‘That’s the man who calls himself Ivan Morrowitz,’ he said, pushing three photographs across. ‘That was the name in the passport he produced. The photograph in the passport was so messy that it was useless. So I had these new ones done. A remarkable face, don’t you think?’
The forehead and eyes of an intellectual were contradicted by the mouth and jaw of a fighter. Luke looked at them for a long moment, then said, ‘A thinker and a soldier. That’s a dangerous combination.’
‘When we searched him we found a second passport hidden on him. The name on that one was Janis Silistreau. It rang a bell and I had one of my boys look him up in the public library. He found him, too. In which section do you think?’
‘Soldiers, economists, politicians?’
‘None of those. He found him in the literature section, under “Poets”. Originally from Simferopol, in the Crimea. Came up to Moscow and made a name for himself there. Seems he’s written a lot of stuff and been published in Russia, Poland and Germany.’
‘And in England?’
‘Not yet. That may be coming next. He certainly speaks our language well enough. Now, about those papers.’ He showed Luke a sheaf of papers which had clearly been rolled up tightly. ‘Had ‘em inside the leg of his trousers. We’ve smoothed ‘em out and cleaned ‘em up a bit, but I couldn’t find anyone in my office to translate ‘em. I could have sent ‘em to the university, but that would have meant spreading things further than I wanted, just at present.’
As he was speaking Luke was slowly deciphering the first of the documents. Although written was basically the same as printed Russian, there were inevitable shortenings and elisions in the script. The document seemed to be a report, though it was not clear from whom or to whom, describing the different groups of Russians, Poles and Latvians currently to be found in London. There were one or two names and addresses which must, he thought, refer to leading characters in the groups. ‘Casimir Treschau’ occurred more than once.
‘If all the papers are like this,’ he said, ‘they’ll be manna in the wilderness for Wensley.’
‘I thought they might be important,’ said Farnsworth. ‘And that’s why I’m keeping them safe until you go.’ As he spoke he was stowing them back in his briefcase. ‘Our friend has settled in with a gang of Russian immigrants who work in the docks. Good workers, too. The locals don’t like ‘em much, but I prefer to have ‘em together, under our eye. We could pull this man in for further questioning if you liked. Speaking their lingo, as you do, you might be able to get something out of him.’
Luke said, ‘I don’t think I’d get anything more than you have. What I would like to know is the moment he shows any signs of leaving here and heading south.’
‘Understood. Now, what are your plans? I gather you’re here part on sick leave, part on business. Having disposed of the business, let’s think about the next bit. Have you any ideas?’
‘First I must find a hotel for the night. Then I thought I’d start off tomorrow on a walking tour.’
‘Your second idea’s a good one. You’ll find a lot of lovely country behind this grey old town of ours. The Amelie won’t start loading until after the weekend and I doubt she’ll start back much before the end of next week. That gives you at least eight days. In that time you could walk right along the Roman Wall from Haddon to Carlisle and back again.’
‘Sounds perfect,’ said Luke.
‘Right. Now as to your first idea, that’s ruled out. You’re not staying in a hotel, you’re staying with me.’
The way it was spoken, it sounded more like an order than a suggestion. Luke agreed to it gratefully.
‘We’ll go in my automobile,’ said Farnsworth. ‘I call it an automobile because to call it a motor car would insult it.’ It was a splendid vehicle, powered by steam. Once heated up, it moved away from the quayside with regal deliberation and sailed off up the Scotswood Road to the Farnsworth residence, where he was welcomed by Emmeline Farnsworth, who was the same size and colour as her husband and just as friendly. Here he spent a dreamless night and started out next morning powered by a Northumbrian breakfast.
Eight days later, in the early evening, he arrived back at the house feeling as fit and as happy as he could ever remember. Much of his happiness evaporated when Mrs Farnsworth opened the door and he saw the look on her face.
‘What is it?’ he said. ‘Has something happened?’
‘Yes,’ said Mrs Famsworth flatly, ‘something’s happened. Go in. Carter’s there. He’ll tell you about it.’
Wondering what could have upset her he went through into the living-room where he found Farnsworth sitting in front of the fire smoking his pipe. He seemed to be unworried.
‘You mustn’t listen to my wife,’ he said. ‘Women take these things too seriously.’
‘Women have got more sense than men,’ said Mrs Farnsworth, who had followed Luke into the room. ‘If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a dozen times. You’ve got to clear them Russians out. Right out.’
‘They’re hard workers.’
‘They’re murderers.’
‘We’ve got no proof of that. And now Silistreau-Morrowitz has taken himself off I’m not looking for any more trouble.’
‘What happened?’ said Luke.
‘What happened was that I was stupid. Twice over. Those papers, you remember I said I’d keep them safe in my briefcase? Of course, I ought to have lodged them in the bank. That was my first mistake. My second was sticking to my usual routine. Every evening, around five o’clock, I’d walk down from my office to the Customs shed at the end of the quay to pick up any items they might have for me. Every evening.’ He brought his fist down on the arm of the chair with a force that nearly cracked the wood. Luke could see that he was not quite as relaxed as he was pretending to be.
He said, ‘I suppose the Russians jumped you and got your briefcase.’
‘Guess again. If they’d tried anything like that, I’d have given them something to think about. No. What happened was I was passing the iron-ore loading bay. They’d been using an outsize scoop on a swivel arm. They’d swing it out over the hold of ship and could put in a couple of hundredweight or more at a time.’
‘I saw them doing it,’ said Luke. ‘It seemed a quick and sensible way of loading the ships.’
‘Very sensible.’ Farnsworth gave a laugh, but there was not much humour in it. ‘They’d been working at it when I went past. Now they’d knocked off for the night and normally the scoop would be swung back alongside the building. I happened to notice that, for once, they’d left it out, over the quayside. Maybe that sounded a warning. I don’t know. But as I was going to step under it, I glanced up and I saw the scoop starting to open. I did the only thing possible. I jumped for it.’
‘Jumped where?’
‘Into the water,’ said Farnsworth with a grin. ‘I heard the solid thump as a hundredweight or so of ore came down on the place I’d been standing a split second before. A few lumps hit the water with me, but they didn’t bother me. I was underwater and swimming hard. When I surfaced I realised I’d dropped my briefcase. Too late to do anything about that. There was a strong tide running and it must have been halfway to the North Sea. Not that I was worrying just then about the papers. I was thinking first about getting back on to dry land, which I did, via a ladder two hundred yards downstream. Next thing I was worrying about was how the thing could have been rigged. As soon as I’d changed into some dry clothes I tackled the man who was running the loading operation. He said it was two of the Russians who handled the crane. Reliable men, he said, who’d never failed to swing the scoop back alongside the building when they knocked off. Must have been intruders. Boys, perhaps, playing with the machinery. Panicked when they saw what they’d done and run off. It sounded thin to me, but difficult to prove anything.’
‘You were lucky to get away with nothing worse than a ducking.’
‘Agreed. Pity about the papers, though.’
Emmeline Farnsworth, who had been listening with growing impatience, said, ‘The way you keep on about those papers. What do they matter? Don’t you realise that but for the grace of God, you’d have been under a heap of stones, squashed as flat as a black beetle?’
‘Well, I wasn’t,’ said Farnsworth. He shook his head, as though clearing such ideas out of it. ‘But one thing did make me think that Silistreau was behind it. My deputy, who came round that evening to find out how I was, told me that Morrowitz – as he called him – had packed up and pushed off on the train that very same afternoon. As you may imagine, I grabbed the telephone and left word for Fred Wensley. The four o’clock train stops at York for an hour and doesn’t reach London till half past ten, so he’d have had time to get the arrival platform covered.’
Mrs Farnsworth, who was as little interested in trains as she was in papers, muttered something uncomplimentary about a husband who couldn’t look after himself and if he didn’t clear those Russians out she didn’t know what would happen next.
‘They’ll be no trouble now the big man’s gone,’ said Farnsworth. ‘And I’ve got some news for you, young Luke. The Amelie’s nearly finished loading and with any luck she’ll be away on the evening tide tomorrow. Better get a good night’s rest. Might be another rough trip.’
In fact, the sea was as calm as the North Sea ever condescends to be in winter. Luke, standing by the stern rail and watching the roofs and towers of Newcastle disappearing into the evening mist, was thinking about Mrs Farnsworth’s expression, ‘squashed flat as a black beetle’. It was an exaggeration, of course. The contents of the skip would have knocked Farnsworth on to his face and would certainly have dazed him. Long enough for Silistreau lurking in one of the nearby entrances to dart out and pick up the briefcase, and perhaps kick Farnsworth’s head in for good measure. What was really worrying him was not the damage Farnsworth had escaped by his prompt action, or the loss of the papers. It was a growing appreciation of the sort of man they were up against: a man of influence among his fellow emigrants; a man clever enough to devise and organise in the short time he had been there, such an elaborate and nearly successful ambush.
As Luke turned to go he glanced out to sea. What he saw was a cloud, so black and heavy that it looked solid. The skipper, behind him, said, ‘Yon’s a present from Russia.’
‘Stormy weather, is it?’
‘Not so much a blow as a dowsing. There’s a bucket of rain in it, aye, and sleet and maybe snow. ‘Twon’t be much pleasure for anyone to be up here while they’re hosing that little lot over us.’
Certainly, in the next few days the deck was no place for anyone not properly protected by oilskins against the wet and by thick clothing against the bitter cold. Luke spent most of the journey in the cuddy talking to members of the crew as they were allowed down, one after the other, to get some warmth into their bodies.
The skipper had to spend a lot of his time aloft and when he did come below was in no mood for talk. On one occasion, observing Luke’s depression as he huddled over the stove, he said, with a grim smile, ‘Cheer up, lad. Nothing lasts forever.’
Luke said, ‘I was born and brought up on the Suffolk flats and I thought the North Sea had no more surprises for me.’
“Tisn’t from the sea, this little lot. It’s from the land behind the sea. There’s a powerful devil lives there, did you know? Slings a bucketful of hate at us from time to time. Just to let us know as he hasn’t forgotten us.’
Having said which, he stumped off to get a few hours’ sleep, leaving Luke alone with his thoughts.
So there was a devil in the north-east. A devil who rolled out a great black cloud to show that he was there; to show that he hated them.
The stove had burned low and he was shivering. He piled on more wood before creeping off to his own bunk. ‘Nothing lasts forever,’ he said to himself and tried to get to sleep with that small grain of comfort.
It was not until the last hours of the trip that the weather relented. At four o’clock, on the evening of January 3rd, as the Amelie swung out of the river and edged into Shadwell Basin and the East Dock, a pale sun looked out from the clouds. Luke, who was standing on deck watching the operation of docking, raised his eyes.
To the north, less than a mile away, a thick column of smoke stood up against the evening sky.