CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The small, hard object was a key, with a number stamped on the bow: 4317. Round it was folded a letter. But it wasn’t at all the kind of letter I’d been expecting.
12 Hardrada Road
London SE11
29 August 2000
Dear Sirs,
This is to confirm the authorization I gave you today to afford access to safe-deposit box 4317 to Mr Lancelot Bradley of 18A High Street, Glastonbury, Somerset.
Yours faithfully,
Rupert Alder
International Bank of Honshu
164–165 Cheapside
London EC4
I stared at Rupe’s immaculately word-processed, one-sentence letter as the bus trundled up Vauxhall Bridge Road. It made no sense and yet it made perfect sense. Haruko had said I might be his fail-safe and, bizarrely, it seemed I was. If he never came back – as he never would now – there’d be this, waiting to be found by the only friend likely, in the end, to look hard enough. Not the Townley letter itself, but secure means to lay hands upon it – means only I could make use of.
I got off the bus at Victoria station and took a cab to Cheapside. I had no realistic expectation that the International Bank of Honshu would be open for business on a Saturday afternoon, but still I couldn’t resist taking a hopeful peek at the place. As far as bank HQs went, it was neither modest nor grandiose, just a corporate slab of matt steel and bronze-tinted glass. The interior was all gleaming marble and clean-lined wood, with what looked like a water feature towards the rear. That was as much as I could glean from the pavement. And the pavement was as far as I was getting until 9.30 on Monday morning. A discreetly displayed statement of banking hours made that very clear.
It was beginning to get dark, not to mention wet. At St Paul’s I hopped aboard a bus bound for Oxford Circus and felt positively grateful for the slow going it made in the thickening traffic. I had some thinking to do. I couldn’t be absolutely certain the safe-deposit box contained the Townley letter, but I felt certain. The way things stood gave me an excellent chance to deliver it to Townley in circumstances where he could be confident I hadn’t read it. It was a chance I ought to grab with both hands. I’d never find out what his secret was, of course, but if I’d learned anything in the past few weeks it was the value of not knowing that particular secret. The decision, in the end, was an easy one to make.
The Hotel Polaris didn’t boast in-room telephones and the lobby payphone was no place to be making a confidential international call from, especially since I might have to leave a message and wait for a call back. That was just one of the reasons why I got off the bus before it reached Oxford Circus and walked up into the fringes of Bloomsbury. Thanks to the note Echo had given me, I thought I knew a hotel guest in the vicinity who might let me swell his phone bill.
But Mr Yamazawa was out, the friendly receptionist at the Arundel informed me, and naturally she didn’t know when he might be back. Stifling the temptation to ask if they had any spare rooms – the place being so much pleasanter than the Polaris – I wandered off towards the British Museum, reckoning the pub I remembered opposite the main gate would be as good a source as any of the mound of coins I’d need to call the States from a phone-box.
The pub was full, the bar hard to see for backs. As I squeezed through the ruck, I felt my sleeve being tugged and heard a voice I recognized saying, ‘Lance. Here, Lance.’
I turned to see Toshishige Yamazawa grinning up at me from a chair at one of the tables along the wall opposite the bar. He was wearing some kind of plastic mac over generously cut chinos and the sort of shirt I’d last seen sported by Elvis Presley in an afternoon TV showing of Blue Hawaii. On the other side of the table, also smiling at me, was a stockily built, grizzle-haired black guy of fifty or sixty, dressed smart-casually in powder-blue jeans, maroon turtleneck and tweed jacket.
‘What are you doing here, Lance?’ piped Yamazawa.
‘I could ask the same of you. And what happened to “Bradley-san”?’
‘We both have some explaining to do, for sure. As for “Bradley-san” . . .’ He shrugged. ‘I do not feel so formal out of Tokyo.’ (It didn’t look as if he felt so sober either.)
‘I’m not complaining, Toshi.’
‘Sounds like you’ve got a lot to talk over,’ said the other bloke. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ He drained his glass and stood up. ‘I need to get back, anyhow. Phone my daughter and all.’
‘Gus and I have just got back from the Tower of London,’ Yamazawa explained (as if that explained everything.)
‘Yuh. Pleased to meet you, Lance.’
‘You too, Gus.’ I shook his hand.
‘I’ll catch you later, Toshi.’ With that Gus manoeuvred his large frame with surprising ease through the crowd to the door.
I sat down in the chair Gus had vacated and frowned at Yamazawa. ‘Well?’
‘I didn’t expect to see you, Lance.’ He broke off to wave at Gus through the window. ‘I contacted Miss Bateman on the half-chance.’
‘Yeh? Well, it’s only a half-chance I came here after drawing a blank at your hotel.’
‘Surely not. How could you be close to this pub and not come in?’
‘What have you been drinking?’
‘Old Peppered Hen. Excellent.’
‘Speckled.’
‘What?’
‘Oh, never mind. You want another?’
‘Good idea.’
‘OK. Hold on.’
I got up, struggled to the bar and returned a couple of minutes later clutching two pints of Old Speckled Hen. (Not usually my tipple but, when in Bloomsbury, do as the Japanese do.)
‘Shintaro must have told you what happened in Kyoto.’
‘Oh yes. He did. But London is a long way from San Francisco. Does this mean you have taken his advice and abandoned the ladies?’
‘No, it doesn’t. There’s good news on that front, as I’ll explain in a minute. Why don’t we start with you. Who’s Gus?’
‘Oh, Gus is from New Jersey. He is here for a holiday, staying at the Arundel. We are both alone. He suggested going to the Tower of London together. Most enjoyable. He took a photograph of me with a Beefeater.’
‘Are you on holiday as well?’
‘In a way of speaking, yes.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Well, like you know, Penberthy told the police you came to see us. I had to answer lots of questions. So did Penberthy. He complained to Charlie Hoare. He said I had embarrassed him and Eurybia. Charlie agreed. He summoned me here to explain why I had assisted you. I could not explain, of course. Very difficult. The Board were not happy. It seems I was already marked down for’ – he lowered his voice theatrically – ‘bad attitude.’
‘They didn’t sack you, did they?’
‘Yes. That is it, Lance. They sacked me. Cheers.’ He took a deep swallow of beer.
‘How many of those have you had?’
‘I don’t know. Isn’t there a saying – do not count your hens until they have hatched?’
‘I’m not sure it—’
‘Instant dismissal. I recommend the experience. Very liberating. They did not want me to work my notice, so . . .’ He grinned at me again. ‘I take a holiday. Now, what is this good news?’
Half an hour later, with Yamazawa snoring gently on his bed at the Arundel, I sat at the small desk on the other side of his room and put a call through to Stephen Townley.
His phone rang six times before the answering machine cut in, but I’d got no further into my message than saying who I was when he picked up.
‘Glad to hear from you, Lance. Where are you?’
‘London.’
‘Uhuh. What have you got for me?’
‘The key to a safe-deposit box. And authority to access it. I’ve little doubt the box contains what you want.’
‘What are you proposing – that I join you for the opening ceremony?’
‘It’s in a bank vault, which means I can’t get to it before Monday morning.’
‘OK. In that case, I will join you. Where’s the bank?’
‘Cheapside. In the City.’
‘Near St Paul’s Cathedral?’
‘Pretty near, yeh.’
‘When does the bank open?’
‘Nine-thirty.’
‘OK, Lance, I’ll meet you outside the west front of St Paul’s at nine-fifteen, Monday morning. Does that suit?’
‘Yes. I . . . suppose it does.’
‘Good.’
‘I—’ But the line was dead. Townley had hung up. Even at my expense (well, strictly speaking, Yamazawa’s), he’d chosen not to waste his words.
Yamazawa woke up for long enough to assure me he’d phone his brother in the morning and let him know what I was planning. I could have phoned him myself there and then, but 3.30 a.m., as it was in Japan, struck me as no time to be calling anyone, even a Yakuza. So, leaving the old fox to sleep off his hens, I walked round to an Italian restaurant I remembered at the top of Shaftesbury Avenue and forked down some pasta, then wandered back to the Polaris via a couple of pubs in Marylebone. With each drink, the prospect looked brighter. Townley had promised me my life back and there’d be no reason after Monday morning for him not to keep his promise. Things were definitely looking up.
They didn’t look so bright the following morning, but I put that down to a hangover, the squalid ambience of the Polaris and my genetically programmed aversion to Sundays. It was also raining.
Jet lag was still gumming up my body clock into the bargain, so going back to sleep for a few hours seemed like a good idea. It was a lot later than I’d intended when I called Yamazawa from a payphone at Paddington station and I wasn’t very surprised to be told he was out. He’d mentioned he was thinking of visiting Hampton Court and had even suggested I go along with him – and Gus, presumably. I’d declined the invitation. Now, though, I almost wished I’d taken him up on it.
Phoning my parents at that point was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I owed them a call all right. In fact, a call was well overdue, if only to reassure them that their less than dutiful son was alive and well. As they knew, he was also in a lot of trouble. But I reckoned I could afford to hint that he might soon be on his way out of it.
The phone rang longer than I’d expected without being answered. But I let it go on ringing, simply because the idea that they might be out on a Sunday morning struck me as so improbable. I knew their routines too well to think otherwise. Sure enough, the phone was eventually picked up.
‘Who is it?’ My father’s voice was even more peremptorily pitched than usual.
‘It’s Lance, Dad.’
‘Lance? My God. After the worry we’ve been through. You certainly pick your moments.’
‘What’s wrong with the moment?’
‘It’s eleven o’clock.’
‘So?’
‘Remembrance Sunday, Lance. Some of us like to observe the two minutes’ silence.’
‘Oh, sorry.’ (There were times – and this was one – when I doubted if my father had his priorities right.)
‘Where are you?’
‘London. Look, do you think you could—’
‘Phone you back? Yes, all right. What’s the number?’
I gave it to him and hung up. Ten seconds or so later, we were speaking again.
‘We’ve had the police on to us, Lance. You do realize that, don’t you? We’ve stuck by you, but it hasn’t been easy. Your mother’s been sick with worry. What the hell’s going on? The police mentioned . . . murder.’
‘It’s all one big misunderstanding. You don’t seriously think I’m capable of murder, do you?’
‘Of course not. But—’
‘I need a few days to put myself in the clear, Dad. Then I’ll go to the police and explain the whole thing.’
‘Perhaps you’d like to explain to us while you’re about it.’
‘Of course. Soon, I promise. In the meantime, I thought you’d like to know I’m all right.’
‘Well, naturally—’
‘You didn’t mention the Alders to the police, did you, Dad?’
‘The Alders?’ He dropped his voice, as if not wanting Mum to hear what he was saying. ‘No, son, I didn’t. We said we knew nothing about what you might be up to. It seemed . . . best.’
‘It was, believe me.’
‘Maybe so. But it goes against the grain, let me tell you.’
‘I’m grateful, Dad. Honestly.’
‘So you should be. We’ve had Winifred round here twice, asking if we’ve heard from you. I don’t like having to cover for you. But I do it. So does your mother. And we’re not the only ones. What about poor Miss Bateman? Have you spoken to her?’
‘Yes. Echo’s fine.’
‘She didn’t sound fine.’
‘I saw her yesterday.’
‘I’m talking about this morning.’
‘This morning?’
‘Yes. She phoned while we were having breakfast, asking if we’d heard from you and, if so, how she could contact you.’ (I hadn’t told her where I was staying, of course, reckoning it was safer for her not to know.) ‘She made no mention of seeing you yesterday. Just said she needed to speak to you. Urgently.’
‘Hello?’ It was a woman’s voice, but not Echo’s.
‘Is Echo there?’
‘Who’s calling?’
I had to take a deep breath before answering that one. ‘Lance Bradley.’
‘Ah. She said you might call. I’m Karen. She’s been lodging with me.’
‘Right. Can I speak to her?’
‘No. You see . . . Well, when I got back and found the state she was in, I—’
‘What state?’
‘I gather you know the bastard who did this to her.’
A sickening guess sprang into my mind. ‘Carl Madron.’
‘So she said.’
‘What did he do?’
‘It could have been worse, I suppose, but—’
‘What did he do?’
The A and E Unit at St Thomas’s Hospital was the usual scrum of walking wounded. After a certain amount of wrangling with the receptionist, I got a message passed to Echo and a message came promptly back that I could go through.
She was in a curtained cubicle in an assessment ward, fully dressed but lying on a bed, propped up by several pillows, her face distorted by a black eye and a swollen bruise to the jaw. Whether she could have smiled at me if she’d wanted to I don’t know, because she didn’t try, although she did look relieved to see me.
‘Are you all right, Lance?’ she lisped.
‘Am I all right? What about you?’
‘It’s just what you can see, plus a loose tooth and some blurred vision. That’s what they’re most concerned about, actually. Concussion’s been mentioned, though I don’t remember blacking out. They’re keeping me in for observation. I’m just waiting to be admitted.’
‘What happened?’ I sat down on the chair next to the bed. ‘This was Carl, right?’
‘Oh yeh. It was Carl. But keep your voice down. I’m saying I was mugged by a total stranger. A very nice policeman was here half an hour ago.’
‘For God’s sake, Echo. Why didn’t you tell them who did it?’ (Not to mention whose fault it really was, of course – mine.)
‘Because if they took Carl in, he’d blow your cover, wouldn’t he? He’d be bound to.’
‘Let me worry about that.’
‘You don’t understand, Lance. I’ve made things worse for you.’
‘No. It’s the other way round. I had a run-in with Carl yesterday and I should have realized he might take it out on you. All this is down to yours truly and I’m sorrier than I can possibly say.’ (But sorrow was only half the story. Looking at her bruised face, what I also felt was very, very angry.)
‘You still don’t understand. There were two of them. They’re after you. And I’ve made it easier for them to find you.’
‘Two of them?’
‘They must have been waiting for Karen to go out. She jogs every morning. When I answered the door, they burst straight in. Carl . . . and this other guy.’
‘What did the other guy look like?’
‘American. Thinning fair hair and a ’tache. Middle-aged but muscular.’ She must have seen my jaw drop.
‘You know him?’
‘Yeh. I know him. But . . . he was with Carl?’
‘He was. And pulling the strings, as far as I could tell.’
‘This doesn’t make any sense.’ (Ledgister, in London, and in cahoots with Carl. What it did make, failing sense, was my flesh creep with fear and disbelief.)
‘I thought they were going to kill me, Lance. Seriously, I did. Carl hitting me was one thing. But the American had a knife. And he was deadly serious. He threatened to slit my throat if I didn’t tell them where you were. The blade was this far from my neck.’ She raised her hand, thumb and forefinger an inch apart.
I noticed for the first time then that her hand was shaking. I reached out and closed mine around it. Maybe it was the tenderness of the gesture – or the memory of Ledgister’s threat – that brought tears suddenly to her eyes.
‘Sorry. God, this keeps happening. Could you . . .’ She pointed to a box of tissues on the foot of the bed. I passed the box to her and she dried her eyes. ‘Delayed shock. To be expected, apparently.’ She blew her nose. ‘Sorry.’
‘Please stop saying that. I’m the one who should be apologizing for landing you in this.’
‘Yeh, well, maybe. And maybe we should both be apologizing to Mr Yamazawa.’
‘Why?’
‘I didn’t know where you were. If I had known, I’d have told them. That’s the truth. But I had to tell them something. Otherwise . . .’ She sniffed and took a deep breath. ‘I had no choice, Lance. I’ve never been so frightened in my life.’
‘You told them about Yamazawa?’
‘Yeh. I said he knew where you were.’ She took another deep breath. ‘And they went looking for him.’
The nearest phones were outside the A and E waiting room. They were all in use, but one of the callers was just signing off when I arrived. I grabbed the handset while it was still rocking in its cradle.
‘Arundel Hotel. Miranda speaking. How may I help you?’
‘I need to speak to one of your guests urgently. Mr Yamazawa.’
‘Hold on.’ There was a pause of several seconds, then she was back. ‘I’m afraid Mr Yamazawa’s out. Who’s calling?’
‘My name’s Bradley.’
‘Mr Lance Bradley?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah. Mr Yamazawa phoned earlier, saying you might call. He left a number where you can contact him.’
‘That you, Lance?’ The voice was Carl’s, somehow sounding even more sarcastic on the telephone than he did in the flesh.
‘Where’s Yamazawa?’
‘Right here. Why don’t I put him on?’
‘Hello, Lance.’ It was Yamazawa. ‘I never got to Hampton Court.’
‘Are you OK?’
‘They have not harmed me.’
‘Yet,’ put in Carl, coming back on the line. ‘That’s the operative word.’
‘You bastard.’
‘Shut the fuck up, Lance, and listen. I reckon you know who else is here. He wants the letter. Meet him on Hungerford Bridge one hour from now. Have the letter with you. If you don’t hand it over, your chum Yamazawa commits involuntary harry-karry. Get it?’
I got it.
An hour later I was walking north over Hungerford Bridge beneath a gunmetal sky from which the light was already fading. The Thames was a brown, rain-swollen surge, the cityscape grey and dank. To my left, trains rumbled sluggishly into and out of Charing Cross. Ahead, a figure was leaning against the railings where the footpath widened into a semicircle, smoking a cigarette and gazing downstream as if genuinely interested in the view.
‘Hi, Lance,’ Ledgister said as I approached, though as far as I could tell he couldn’t have seen me coming. (Metaphorically, of course, he undoubtedly had.)
‘You must be desperate to go into partnership with someone like Carl,’ I said, resting my elbow on the railings a foot or so away from him.
‘I’d surely have to be. But I doubt even he thinks of it as a partnership.’ Ledgister turned to face me. ‘Now, much as I’d like to stand here all afternoon swapping travellers’ tales, I suggest we get straight down to business. Toshishige Yamazawa’s the brother of that Yakuza asshole who got in my way last time we met. It’d be no hardship for me to even the score by despatching him into the Shinto afterlife, so I advise you not to strain my legendary tolerance. To wrap it up for you, Lance, where’s the fucking letter?’
‘Here.’ I took the envelope out of my coat and handed it to him.
‘You’ve read it?’
‘Yeh.’
‘Unwise, my friend, very unwise. That means you know what my trigger-happy father-in-law was mixed up in.’
‘Something a lot bigger than a train robbery.’ (I couldn’t stop myself pushing the subject as far as it would go, now that Ledgister thought I knew all about it.)
‘The biggest, I reckon you could say, don’t you?’
‘Guess so.’
‘It’s every man for himself when you stray into this particular serpent-pit. I aim to be one of the few to come out alive.’ He slid the letter out of the envelope. ‘I’m sure you can appreciate I won’t get to do that without—’
Ledgister stopped as his gaze ran down the sheet of paper in front of him. Then, gritting his teeth, he smiled. But the smile hadn’t got anywhere near his eyes when he looked at me.
‘You’ll be the death of me, Lance, you know that? Such a funny guy, aren’t you? Such a fucking funny guy.’
‘It’s not what I expected either.’
‘I don’t know why not. You and Rupe obviously shared an acute sense of humour.’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘You mean aside from chucking you off this bridge?’
‘I wouldn’t recommend it. I’m your open sesame.’
‘So you are.’ He peered into the envelope. ‘I see we have a key as well. Rupe thought of everything, didn’t he?’
‘Nothing’s really changed except the timescale. I can empty the safe-deposit box as soon as the bank opens tomorrow morning and deliver the contents to you in exchange for Yamazawa.’
‘That’s how you see it working, is it?’
‘A straight swap. Yeh.’ (Actually, how I saw it working wasn’t so much obscure to me as invisible, but there seemed nothing else for it but to string Ledgister along in the faint hope that I’d think of some way to play him and Townley off against each other.)
‘Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but straight isn’t how I operate. I’ll keep this.’ He slid the letter back into the envelope. ‘We’ll reunite you and the authorization at the bank tomorrow morning. But I’ll be there to relieve you of the contents of the box just as soon as you open it.’
‘What about Yamazawa?’
‘When I’m satisfied Rupe has no more posthumous tricks to pull, I’ll call Carl and have him set Tokyo Joe loose.’
‘How can I be sure you’ll do that?’
‘You can’t. But you can be sure what I’ll do to him if you don’t turn up at the bank. What time do they open up?’
‘Nine-thirty.’
‘Nine-thirty it is, then. I’ll meet you there.’
‘One thing, though.’
‘What?’
‘About Carl. He told me yesterday he has a journalist interested in buying the back-story to all this. I can’t imagine you’d want that to hit the front pages.’
‘And warning me about it is just a goodwill gesture on your part, right? Nothing to do with sowing distrust between me and my new buddy.’ Ledgister chuckled. ‘You can’t take away what isn’t there to start with, Lance. I don’t trust the little sonofabitch in any way, shape or form. But then I don’t need to. Whereas you do need to trust me. And you can. I’ll give Yamazawa the same sort of burial Rupe got if you fail to keep our date tomorrow morning. That’s a promise.’
‘I’ll be there.’
‘Yuh. I reckon you will.’ With that he moved away from the railing and started walking, tossing back a ‘See you then’ over his shoulder as he went.
I stayed where I was, watching as he strode on along the bridge towards Charing Cross. This was bad. This was very bad. In point of simple fact, it couldn’t be worse. Ledgister thought he had me where he wanted me. So did Townley. And they were both right. But they couldn’t both win. Tomorrow morning, they were going to find that out. And, whatever happened, I was going to lose.
Which would have been bad enough, but for the fact that several other people stood to lose with me.
I walked up to the Arundel through the leaden afternoon, a ramshackle sort of idea forming in my head. If I could glean some clue to where they were holding Yamazawa, it might give me a slender advantage. It had struck me that Gus just might know something.
The receptionist identified him from my description as Gus Parminter. But Mr Parminter, apparently, had signed up for an all-day coach trip to Salisbury and Stonehenge. He’d left early and would be returning late. He clearly hadn’t been planning to accompany Yamazawa to Hampton Court. He wasn’t going to be able to tell me anything.
When I got back to St Thomas’s, I found Echo installed in a general ward, looking slightly better – and seeing better, apparently.
‘There’s only one of you now, Lance. Although you’re still a bit blurred.’
‘I feel blurred.’
‘How’s Mr Yamazawa?’
‘Don’t ask. I’m in a bit of a tight spot. And he’s in it with me.’
‘I take it that’s a huge understatement?’
‘Yeh.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I don’t know. But I know what I’d like you to do. When do you reckon you’ll get out of here?’
‘Tomorrow. I’d probably be out now if it wasn’t Sunday.’
‘OK. Could you do me a favour when you’ve been discharged?’
‘What is it?’
I leaned towards her and lowered my voice. ‘Go to the police and change your story. Tell them about Carl. In fact . . .’
‘What?’
‘Tell them everything.’