CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I left the Polaris at first light and walked all the way to St Paul’s through the damp beginnings of the day. Commuters were out in force, heading for their computer screens and office intrigues. Ordinarily, I’d have pitied them. (Although ordinarily, of course, I wouldn’t have been up and about early enough to do any such thing.) Today was different, though. Today, I’d have happily swapped places with any one of them.
It had taken me most of a sleepless night to decide what I was going to do. In the end, the decision had reduced itself to a bleak simplicity. I couldn’t do the bidding of Townley and Ledgister. I couldn’t protect Mayumi and Haruko as well as Yamazawa. All I could do was serve the lesser evil – and hope I was correct about which that was.
‘You’re on time,’ said Townley as I reached the top of the steps in front of St Paul’s. ‘I like that.’ He turned up the collar of his raincoat and pulled down the brim of his hat. ‘The weather I don’t like, though. I’d forgotten how lousy it can be here in the fall.’
‘You’ll like something else even less. Your son-in-law’s meeting me at the bank. He has the letter of authorization and the key to the safe-deposit box.’
Townley didn’t so much as bat an eyelid in surprise. He looked at me expressionlessly for a moment, then said, ‘You shouldn’t have allowed Gordon to involve himself in this, Lance. It was supposed to be between you and me.’
‘I had no choice. He’s holding a friend of mine hostage.’
‘I’ve never had any friends. Maybe now you can understand why.’
‘But you do have family.’
‘Yuh. And I thought I could trust them.’
‘I’m not saying you can’t. Gordon’s probably planning to hand the contents of the box – the letter – over to you, as agreed. He doesn’t know about our deal.’
‘He was never planning to stand by me, Lance. I can see that now. He has his own side-deal. Sensible, from his point of view. Far-sighted, even. But dangerous. I don’t care to be crossed.’
‘I’m not crossing you. I’ve done my best to honour our agreement.’
‘Honour? Let’s leave that out of it.’
‘I’m just trying to—’
‘What you’re trying to do is have your cake and eat it. Seldom possible, in my experience.’
‘There has to be a way out of this.’
‘Oh, there is. You meet Gordon at the bank. You open the box for him. You let him carry off the booty.’ Townley fixed me with his cold-eyed gaze. ‘And you leave the rest to me.’
Ledgister was relaxing in an armchair next to the water feature, perusing a complimentary copy of the Financial Times, when I entered the foyer of the International Bank of Honshu at 9.32 a.m.
‘Good morning, Lance.’ He discarded the paper and stood up. ‘They’re still arguing about the presidency, I see.’
‘What?’
‘You should interest yourself in politics, you really should. It’s the key to everything. All the connections. All the conspiracies. Plain to see, if you know what to look for.’ He smiled. ‘But I have the feeling you’d like to get straight down to business.’
‘Wouldn’t you?’
‘No merit in delay, that’s for sure. We’ve had enough of that already, I reckon. Your friend passed a comfortable night, by the way.’
‘Let’s get on with it.’
‘OK.’ He took the letter of authorization out of his pocket and handed it to me. ‘Lead on, why don’t you?’
I was required to produce my passport and driving licence by way of identification. Rupe’s letter of authorization was taken away for comparison with the bank’s records. The words ‘Pomparles Trading Company’ slipped from somebody’s lips. Ledgister and I both remained deadpan. The Pomparles affair – and how the International Bank of Honshu might fit into it – was of no interest to us.
When the back office was duly satisfied, we received the OK to go down to the vault. A punctiliously polite gentleman whose lapel badge proclaimed him to be Toru Kusakari escorted us in the lift. We emerged in an ante-room to the vault, the massively thick door to which stood open, with a security guard in attendance. I signed a form. We entered the vault.
It was a gleaming chamber of solid steel, with banks of numbered lockers along the walls. A doorway at the far end led to a small inner chamber furnished with a desk and two chairs. Kusakari located locker 4317, opened it and lifted out the shallow metal box inside.
‘Are you removing the contents or merely examining them, Mr Bradley?’ he asked.
‘Not sure,’ I replied.
‘No matter. I will leave you to it. Please.’ He handed me the box and pointed to the inner chamber, then withdrew.
I carried the box to the desk and plonked it down. Ledgister produced the key, slid it into the lock and turned. The box sprang open.
Inside, resting extravagantly on green baize, was a single white envelope, with my name printed on it. Ledgister snatched it up and ripped open the flap, then stepped back so I wouldn’t be able to read the letter inside.
But it was immediately obvious from his expression that what I was missing wasn’t good news. ‘Fuck,’ he muttered, then glared at me. ‘Devious, your friend, Rupe, wasn’t he?’
‘Was he?’
‘Take a look.’
The letter was on Pomparles Trading Company stationery, quoting office addresses in Tokyo and London. The London address was in Mulberry Business Park, SE16. The date shown was the same as on the other letter. This one was signed by Rupe in his capacity as managing director of the company. It was addressed to Colin Dibley at Tilbury Freeport.
Dear Colin,
By the time you receive this you will be well aware of my company’s ownership of a consignment of aluminium due to be delivered to Tilbury by Eurybia Shipping (whose employment I will by then have left) on 14 September.
Notwithstanding any legal restraints that may be placed on onward movement of the cargo, I should remind you that this company remains owner of first title pending the resolution of any and all counter-claims and must be afforded access to the cargo for inspection purposes.
This letter authorizes my associate, Mr Lancelot Bradley of 18A High Street, Glastonbury, Somerset, to exercise such right of access at any reasonable time.
Thank you for assisting him in this regard.
Yours ever,
Rupe
‘It’s in the container,’ I murmured, my words lagging behind my thoughts. Of course. That’s what the whole Pomparles fraud had been about. Not aluminium. Not money at all. But a means of keeping a small item safe and secure, camouflaged by a big cargo that was in turn immobilized by a transnational legal dogfight. Safe, while Rupe carried a mere copy with him on his hazardous tilt at the Townleys. Secure, until he went to fetch it. Or I did, in his place.
‘That’s certainly how I read it,’ said Ledgister. ‘Concealed in the impounded cargo of aluminum.’
‘It has to be.’
‘Yuh. And you have to be there to get it. Seems you and I need to take a ride to the coast, Lance. Right now.’
I tried not to look around for Townley when we left the bank and headed east along Cheapside. Ledgister had a car parked nearby. If Townley had come on foot or by Tube, he wouldn’t be able to follow us to Tilbury. In fact, he’d have no idea where we were going. What could he do then?
‘You seem kind of preoccupied,’ said Ledgister, as we turned down a side-street.
‘Oh, I was just, er, wondering why Rupe took such . . . elaborate . . . precautions.’
‘You’d take some pretty goddam elaborate precautions if you’d been carrying what he was.’
‘Would I?’
‘Yuh. Believe me. I should have figured he wouldn’t want to carry it with him when he left Japan. This way he knew where it was all the time without the risk of being caught with it in his possession. I really should have thought of the container before now.’ Ledgister seemed genuinely annoyed with himself. ‘Here’s the car.’
It was an anonymous white saloon, not unlike the one he’d hired (in my name) in Japan. He walked round to the driver’s side and tripped the locks. As I went to get in on the passenger’s side, I suddenly saw his face change expression. He froze, the driver’s door half open, his eyes fixed on something behind me.
‘Stephen,’ he said slowly. ‘What are you doing here?’
I turned and looked at Townley, feigning surprise as best I could. From the expression on his face the most gifted physiognomist could probably have deduced . . . absolutely nothing.
‘Looks like a case of great minds, Gordon. You reckoned Lance was the key to this. So did I. Hasn’t he told you about our deal?’
‘No,’ said Ledgister. ‘That he hasn’t.’
‘I’d heard nothing from you since Kyoto. I didn’t have much option but to put together a fall-back position.’
‘I’m sorry not to have been in touch, Stephen. There was a lot of heat on me in Japan. I figured it was safer for you if I stayed underground until I could deliver the goods.’
‘And can you deliver them?’
‘Reckon so. Jump in and I’ll explain as we go.’
I couldn’t help admiring the way Townley and Ledgister both rewrote their own recent pasts to reflect a perfect if unspoken accord. I knew Townley doubted every word his son-in-law said, but it was impossible to tell that from any inflexion in his voice. As for Ledgister, what he really thought I couldn’t judge, but it was apparent that both men were doing their considerable best to convince each other that their alliance was as strong as ever. Which left me like a spectator at a game of stud poker who knows all the cards on the table, not just the ones with their faces showing.
As we drove east through Aldgate and out along the Commercial Road, Ledgister told some twisted tale that might or mightn’t have been the truth about how he’d got out of Japan and headed for London because that was where he’d figured I’d end up. He’d strung Carl Madron along with money and a promise of more to come from a story the media would die for and grabbed Yamazawa to force me to co-operate after Carl’s cash-oriented blandishments had failed. Townley for his part reported half of our agreement accurately enough – the letter in exchange for an undertaking to let Mayumi and Haruko live in safety. Naturally, he made no mention of the other half – letting good old Gordon take the rap for a trio of murders. And naturally also, neither did I. Where it was all going to end – other than Tilbury – I couldn’t seem to summon the mental rigour to imagine. The clearest thought that came into my head was that I badly needed a drink.
A cosy chat at opening time in an East End gin palace wasn’t on the agenda, however. Somewhere along the way Ledgister tossed me his mobile phone and told me to call Dibley. ‘Negotiate an entrée for us, Lance. A wrangle at the gate we don’t need.’
I had to agree with him there. But how Dibley would react to my improbable transformation into Rupe’s business partner I didn’t like to ask myself. Perhaps it was just as well, therefore, that Dibley was in Felixstowe for the day, leaving his assistant, a mild-sounding bloke called Reynolds, to mind the shop.
‘Certainly I know the container you’re referring to, Mr, er . . .’
‘Bradley.’
‘Mr Bradley. Yes. You’re a properly accredited company representative?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Well then, I suppose there can’t, er, really be any . . .’
‘Objection?’
‘No. Quite. Look, are you sure this can’t wait until tomorrow? Mr Dibley will be back then and I’d be happier if—’
‘I’m afraid my colleagues and I are on a very tight schedule.’
‘I see. Well, in that case . . . I would have to bring in Customs on this, you understand.’
‘Fine.’
‘All right, then, Mr Bradley. I’ll, er . . . see what I can do.’
‘We’ll be there within the hour.’
‘As soon as that?’
‘Yes. Thanks a lot, Mr Reynolds. We’ll see you shortly.’
I ended the call and handed the phone back to Ledgister. ‘That sounded good, Lance. Yuh, very good. But I reckon we need a little insurance.’ He flicked the indicator and veered off the dual carriageway up a slip-road.
‘Where are we going?’
‘There’s some kind of hardware store over there,’ he said, gesturing with his thumb. ‘We need to be able to open the container if Customs try to block us. Heavy-duty bolt-cutters should do the trick. And a high-power torch won’t do any harm.’
Ledgister left Townley and me in the car while he went to buy his ‘insurance’ (with Rupe’s letter in his pocket, I noticed). As soon as he was out of sight, Townley leaned forward in the rear seat and said, in little more than a whisper, ‘So far so good, Lance. You’re doing well. Keep it up.’
‘Do you think he believes you?’
‘I would, in his position.’
‘And what is his position?’
‘More fragile than he thinks. The real test will come when we find the letter. If he’s done a deal to deliver it to someone else, it’ll show.’
‘What will you do then?’
‘Don’t worry about it. That’s my problem.’
‘And our agreement?’
‘Still in effect.’
‘It’s just that I don’t see—’
‘You soon will.’ He sat back. ‘We all will.’
We reached the main gate of Tilbury Docks a little over half an hour later, with a pair of brand-new XL bolt-cutters lodged discreetly in the boot (where I for one fervently hoped they’d stay). Reynolds had booked us in and we were sent on through with directions to the admin block, where he was expecting us.
Townley and Ledgister stayed in the car while I went up to Dibley’s office, where Reynolds was presiding for the day. He was as blandly accommodating in the flesh as he’d sounded on the phone. We chewed over some polite nothings and he perused Rupe’s letter. Then he telephoned the Customs House and spoke to someone called Dave. While they talked, I looked out of the window and spotted Townley and Ledgister standing next to the car down on the stretch of tarmac between the office block and a phalanx of stored containers. They too were talking. And I could well imagine what about. But as to exactly what they were saying, notably about me . . .
‘Dave Harris will meet you at the container,’ Reynolds announced, putting the phone down. ‘I, er, assume you know where it is.’
‘Yes,’ I said, forcing a smile. ‘As a matter of fact, I do.’
We drove the short distance to the infamous container, still held in its own concreted patch of limbo. Some weeds I couldn’t remember from my previous visit had sprouted around its base. Dave Harris, a big man made to look bigger still by an outsize canary-yellow anorak, was waiting for us, clipboard in hand.
There were some desultory introductions and I was required to sign a form in three places. ‘As you can see, gentlemen,’ said Harris, ‘nothing’s been done since the cargo arrived, aside from our inspection of the contents. Eighteen tons of high-grade aluminium, as per the original consignment. You’ll find everything’s in order.’ He ventured a smile, but didn’t get one from any of us in return. Then he fetched a pair of official Customs and Excise bolt-cutters from his car, snapped the official Customs and Excise seals, slipped the bolts and swung the doors open.
Inside, looking rather like so many silver loaves of bread, ingots of Russian aluminium sat neatly stacked on pallets, waiting patiently to be turned into fizzy drink cans and wheel trims. I supposed a letter could be stuck to the underside of any one of them. Looking along the lines of pallets that stretched away to the shadowy rear of the container, I reckoned we were going to test Customs and Excise’s tolerance severely unless we got lucky.
On the way over, Ledgister had said he’d look after Harris while Townley and I searched for the letter. It was no surprise to me, therefore, that he immediately struck up a conversation with him. ‘I surely hope Pomparles’ cashflow problem hasn’t given you fellows too many headaches,’ he said, slyly manoeuvring so that, to talk to him, Harris had to turn his back on the container. ‘Now Lance here has brought my colleague and me on board, we aim to set things straight real soon.’
More of the same followed, merging seamlessly into sympathetic questions about the travails of a Customs and Excise officer. All this proceeded while Townley and I tracked slowly along the sides of the pallets, looking up and down the stacks of aluminium in search of a clue to where Rupe might have lodged the letter, exchanging shakes of the head between the stacks as we drew progressive blanks.
I had the torch, and soon needed it, as visibility deteriorated the further we went. We were about two-thirds of the way along when I saw what I suppose I’d subconsciously been looking for: a strip of red-and-white caving tape wrapped round the strut of a pallet. I crouched down and shone the torch in and around the area beneath the pallet. There didn’t seem to be anything there. I lay on my side for a closer look. And then I saw it.
A square of brown thick-gauge plastic was parcel-taped to the underside of the pallet. I stretched my hand in and peeled off one length of the tape, then pulled the rest away. The plastic square was in fact a sealed packet. I could feel a slim, flimsy object inside it. Standing up, I leaned back against the stack of ingots, forced a hole in the plastic with my finger and tore it open.
There was a letter inside. This one wasn’t addressed to me. It was the letter. I didn’t have a doubt of it. For some reason, the memory of Rupe as Simon Yardley had seen him, grinning from ear to ear as he walked towards London Bridge, flashed into my mind as the torchbeam fell across the face of the airmail envelope. Mayumi Hashimoto, Golden Rickshaw, 2–10–5 Nihombashi, Chuo–ku, Tokyo, Japan, was written in a scratchy, looping hand, with old-fashioned Rs and Ns. There were two US five-cent stamps on the envelope. My eye tracked from them across to the postmark: DALLAS, TX, 22 NOV 1963.
I think I knew it all then. As if I’d entered a darkened room and the light had suddenly come on, revealing the cobwebs, thick as a forest, that hung around me. There was fear, like a clutch at the throat. And fascination, like a beckoning finger. I turned the envelope over in my hand. It hadn’t been slit open, but the flap was no longer stuck down. I hesitated, then lifted the flap.
‘Don’t do it, Lance.’ Townley’s voice, so close to my ear, made me jump with surprise. I whirled round and saw him, face in shadow, standing less than a foot away. ‘I really do advise you not to.’ He held out his hand. ‘Give the letter to me.’
What else could I do? I passed it to him and watched as he slipped the single sheet of paper out of the envelope and held it up to the light behind him. He didn’t need to read it, of course. He knew what it contained.
‘Good,’ he said softly, sliding it back into the envelope. ‘Secure at last.’
‘I’d like it back, please.’
There was a faint widening of his eyes as he stared at me. ‘Pardon me?’
‘The letter. I want it back.’
‘You do, huh?’
‘Until I see Yamazawa alive and well. That’s when I’ll hand it over for keeps.’
‘If I refuse?’
‘I reckon I can kick up enough of a fuss to have you stopped at the gate. I’m sure you don’t want that to happen.’
‘I’d prefer a quiet exit.’
‘And you can have one. If I get to carry the letter.’
‘There are two of us, Lance. We can overpower you any time we like.’
‘And I can tell Gordon about our deal any time I like. Can you be certain he won’t believe me?’
Townley thought about that for a second, then nodded. ‘OK.’ He handed the letter back to me. ‘Put it in your pocket and leave it there until we pick up Yamazawa.’
‘Right.’
‘Now, let’s go.’
Our departure, once Townley had signalled to Ledgister with a nod that we had what we’d come for, was swift – swifter than a clearly bewildered Harris had expected. We left him to re-seal the container, got into the car and drove away.
‘You’re sure it’s the original?’ said Ledgister.
‘I’d stake my life on it,’ Townley calmly replied.
‘That’s what you are doing, Stephen. Me too.’
‘Lance is keeping it for us until you reunite him with his Japanese friend. But he hasn’t read it, I can assure you.’
‘Good. Better still for him.’
‘And he’s not going to ask us any of the questions the date and place it was mailed are bound to have planted in his mind. Are you, Lance?’
‘I have no questions,’ I said levelly.
‘Smart of you.’ Ledgister glanced across at me as we neared the gate, where the barrier on the exit lane was obligingly raised. ‘Real smart.’
I had plenty of questions, of course – dozens of them, swarming inside my head. Dallas, Texas, 22 November 1963. One of the most famous dates of the century. The ultimate hit. The grand tragedy. The corkscrewing conspiracy. And the day I was born.
Who had Mayumi known in Dallas? Why was he writing to her – that day of all days? The answer was there, nestling in my pocket. Maybe the answer to all the questions.
I remembered the photograph from Rupe’s briefcase of Townley, Loudon and a third man drinking at the Golden Rickshaw – the photograph that was waiting for me in my bag at the Polaris. I remembered it so clearly I could almost have been staring at it. Staring closely. At the third man. At the side of his face. A face that would never turn to meet my stare. Because, if it did . . .
We hit the main road and headed for London. Ledgister drove fast and in silence, his normal garrulousness stifled. Townley too said nothing. There was nothing to say. Nothing safe, anyway. I wanted out more than I wanted the truth. That was the only truth that mattered. I wanted it to stop. And maybe, as long as I didn’t think too hard, it would.
‘Make the call.’
We were on the dual carriageway slicing through Dagenham Motor Works when Townley broke the silence in his quiet but commanding voice. Ledgister didn’t say anything in response. He pulled his mobile out of his pocket and jabbed at some numbers with his thumb. The call was answered almost immediately.
‘It’s me,’ Ledgister growled into the phone. ‘Yuh, I know . . . It hasn’t been straightforward, but it’s OK now . . . Shut up, for Christ’s sake, and listen. It’s all set. We’ll be there within a half-hour. Have everything ready. OK? . . . Good.’ With that, he rang off. ‘That was Carl, Lance. He’s looking forward to our arrival. Not as much as Yamazawa is, though, I’ll bet. It’ll be a sweet parting for all of us. Quiet and civilized. A straight swap. OK by you?’
‘Just fine.’
‘Great.’
We covered more wordless miles through the grey sprawl of East London.
What would I learn if I pulled the envelope out of my pocket and read the letter? What would I understand about Townley that made him more dangerous than ever? I remembered a night out with Rupe and Simon Yardley at Durham to celebrate my twentieth birthday, back in November 1983. It had been the twentieth anniversary of the Kennedy assassination as well, of course. I remembered arguing with Simon about the hoary old $64,000 question: did Oswald do it, or was it a conspiracy? Simon had favoured the lone nut theory, naturally. Even as a student, he’d been an establishment man. I’d gone for conspiracy, just to annoy him. The truth was that I’d never bothered to study the evidence. But Rupe had. Oh yes. Even then, Rupe had known what he was talking about. ‘There can’t be any serious doubt there was a conspiracy,’ he said, reeling off an army of facts about ballistics and forensics and doppelgänger Oswalds and dead witnesses and God knows what. (I’d been too stoned to take much of it in.) ‘The only question that really counts is: who were the conspirators?’
I glanced over my shoulder at Townley and realized he was already looking at me. Neither of us spoke. Then I looked back at the road.
It was a surprise when we left the A13 at Canning Town and pulled into the empty taxi rank in front of the Tube station. This couldn’t be the handover point, I reasoned. It was too public.
‘Stephen and I need to have a private word, Lance,’ said Ledgister. ‘Why don’t you step out for a moment?’
‘That would probably be best,’ agreed Townley.
‘But don’t go far, hey? Stay where we can see you.’
‘OK.’ I got out, slammed the door behind me and took an aimless stroll often yards or so ahead. When I looked back, Townley was leaning forward between the front seats, watching me and listening as Ledgister spoke. Ledgister was doing most of the talking and their private word lasted no more than a couple of minutes (during which I wished I’d enrolled for lip-reading classes last time Strode College had pushed out their adult education prospectus). Then Townley got out of the car and came to meet me.
‘Gordon feels – and I agree – that it would be . . . inadvisable . . . for me to be seen by either Madron or Yamazawa. Best for me to maintain a low profile. So, I’ll go on from here by subway and meet up with him later.’ Nothing in Townley’s expression remotely hinted at what he must have known I’d be thinking: Ledgister had shown his hand.
‘What about the letter?’
‘Surrender it to Gordon when Yamazawa’s free. As agreed.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Everything’s under control, Lance. Get back in the car.’ I almost believed a smile was flickering at the edges of his mouth, but his beard meant I couldn’t be sure. ‘You can trust my son-in-law.’
‘But—’
‘Get back in the car.’
I got back in. And watched Townley vanish into the Tube station entrance as we drove away. Events were gathering momentum. And I wasn’t in control of them. Townley had apparently consented to an arrangement that would let Ledgister walk away with the letter. He shouldn’t have done. But he had. It made no sense. Yet I knew that, somehow, it must.
‘Not far now,’ said Ledgister as we headed down the approach to the Blackwall Tunnel. ‘Our business will soon be concluded.’
‘Good.’
‘And don’t worry. It’d be crazy – even if kind of satisfying – to kill you and Yamazawa once I’ve got the letter. I aim to leave London without a trace of a sign I’ve ever been here.’
‘Don’t you mean “Once we’ve got the letter”?’
‘“We’ve” as in my father-in-law and I? Yuh. Of course. That goes without saying.’ Ledgister chuckled. ‘Not trying to come between us, are you, Lance? That’s a bad habit of yours.’ We plunged into the dark mouth of the tunnel. ‘Just as well I soon won’t need to worry about your habits any more.’
Ledgister took the first turning off after the tunnel and followed a winding route into the industrial wasteland of North Greenwich. Away to the east I glimpsed the roof of the Millennium Dome (a Wheatsheaf coach trip to which I’d eagerly opted out of earlier in the year). I could have sworn someone had told me the Dome had revitalized the whole area, but revitalization I didn’t see, just a dismal sprawl of disused warehouses and derelict chemical works.
We drove along an alley between the rotting flanks of a couple of such premises towards the westward meander of the Thames, beyond which soared the teeming spires of Docklands. Then we turned through a seemingly purpose-cut gap in a security fence into the pot-holed, weed-pocked loading yard of an abandoned depot. Ledgister cut the engine and opened his window to the dank, ammonia-tinged air.
‘It had to be select accommodation, Lance, seeing as Yamazawa’s a friend of yours. Time for him to move on, though, I reckon, don’t you?’
‘Where is he?’
‘Patience, patience.’ Ledgister gave the horn three short blares. ‘We’ll soon have you back together. See?’
A figure appeared out of the shadows on the loading platform of the ruinous warehouse ahead of us. It was Carl Madron. He raised a hand in acknowledgement, then scuttled back into the shadows.
‘Let’s get out,’ said Ledgister. ‘He won’t be long.’
We got out of the car and walked slowly round in front of it. A few second passed. Then Carl reappeared, this time with Yamazawa beside him. Toshi looked tired, unshaven and overdue for a bath, but otherwise none the worse for his experience. He blinked in the daylight (what there was of it) and waved at me, almost cheerily. The Blue Hawaii shirt would clearly never be the same again, but I reminded myself (which took some doing) that every cloud has a silver lining.
Yamazawa hurried down the steps from the loading platform and started across the yard towards us, Carl following. ‘I’ll take the letter now, Lance,’ said Ledgister. ‘If you please.’
I took the letter out of my pocket, glanced one last time at the handwriting and postmark, then handed it over.
‘Thank you kindly.’ Ledgister prised the letter open inside the envelope and peered down at it, as if checking I hadn’t removed it earlier in some piece of legerdemain I certainly wasn’t capable of. He nodded in satisfaction. ‘That’s it all right.’
‘I am OK, Lance,’ said Yamazawa. ‘But I am glad to see you, for sure.’
‘Get in the car, Carl,’ said Ledgister. ‘We’ve got what we wanted.’ He held up the letter like a trophy. ‘Time to go time.’
Carl kept his distance as he moved past me. He had a bruised jaw to remember our last encounter by and it was Echo who’d suffered for that. We had nothing to say to each other. What sort of deal he’d struck with Ledgister I didn’t know, but I doubted there was much of a chance Ledgister would honour it. That, though, was something I was content to let Carl find out for himself. I had another deal to think about – mine with Townley – and how, if at all, it could survive this turn of events.
Carl got into the passenger seat of the car and slammed the door. That was the cue for Ledgister to pocket the letter and treat us to an ironical smile. ‘Good day, gentlemen. It’s been a pleasure doing business with you.’ He ambled to the car, got in, started up, reversed across the yard, then drove straight past us and out through the gap in the fence.
‘I am in your debt, Lance,’ said Yamazawa, smiling wanly at me. ‘Thank you for doing whatever you had to do to free me.’
‘No problem, Toshi,’ I said, watching the car pick up speed until it vanished round the corner of the warehouse. ‘It was a doddle.’
‘Really?’
‘No. Not really. But—’
My voice was drowned in a sudden, deafening, buffeting roar. Instinctively, I crouched down, squeezing my eyes shut. When I opened them a couple of seconds later, I saw a vast plume of smoke rising beyond the warehouse roof. Fragments of metal and other debris were raining down onto it. Seagulls, scattered from their wharfside perches, filled the sky, their screeches of alarm slowly drowning the fading roar.
‘What was that?’ said Yamazawa, his voice slurred with shock.
‘It sounded like a bomb.’
‘To me also.’
I ran towards the fence, Yamazawa following. Once through the gap, I had a clear view down the alley beside the warehouse Ledgister and I had driven along a few minutes earlier. It was also the route he and Carl had driven away by.
There wasn’t much left of the car beyond its wheels. The rest was twisted metal, shattered glass and black smoke fed by hungry flames. A second explosion – of the petrol tank, I guessed – went off as we watched. The fire roared more angrily than ever. Somewhere close to the heart of it I could see two dark shapes that might have been the driver and his passenger. Might once have been, anyway. They were just melting flesh and charring bone now. And the letter in Ledgister’s pocket . . . was ash on the breeze.
‘Townley,’ I shouted. ‘Where are you? Show yourself.’
‘What are you saying, Lance?’ Yamazawa stared at me, clearly in some doubt about my sanity.
‘Isn’t it obvious? We’ve been driving around all morning with a bomb on board. Townley must have followed us from Canning Town somehow and waited until he could get Gordon and Carl in one hit before setting it off. Which means he must be close by. ‘Townley,’ I shouted again. ‘Come out here where I can see you.’
I watched and waited. The gulls wheeled and swooped above us. The wreck of the car blazed on. But Townley didn’t step obligingly into view. Maybe, I thought, he was already making his escape. Or maybe he was preparing his move against us. But no. He didn’t need to take any more risks. Ledgister was dead and the letter destroyed. Townley had finished the job. And now he’d slipped back into the shadows Rupe had stupidly tried to flush him out of.
‘If we stay here, Lance,’ said Yamazawa, ‘the police will find us. Other people will have heard the explosion. They will come soon, I think.’
He was right. We couldn’t afford to linger. We had to go.
We could already hear the wail of approaching sirens away to the east when we reached the riverside path and struck south towards Greenwich. The Naval College and the park behind it were visible ahead of us. I tried to give Yamazawa a coherent account of what had happened, holding nothing back except the chilling suspicion I couldn’t rid myself of about the author of the letter I’d had so briefly in my possession. He didn’t need to know that. What use was the suspicion, anyway, now the letter was gone for ever? What use, come to that, was my agreement with Townley, now he’d wreaked a sharper and swifter vengeance on Ledgister than setting him up on three murder charges would have amounted to?
The answer, in both cases, was none at all.
‘According to the radio,’ the barman of the first pub we came to in Greenwich helpfully informed us, ‘a bomb’s gone off near the Dome.’
‘That a fact?’
‘It’ll be that IRA splinter group, I guess.’
‘Probably.’
‘Well, let’s face it, mate, who else could it be?’
Who else indeed? Yamazawa and I shambled wearily away to a quiet table by the window and drank in silence for several soothing minutes. Then Yamazawa went up to the bar and bought another round. When he came back, he said simply, ‘What happens now, Lance?’
‘I was afraid you’d ask me that.’
‘Is it over?’
‘For Townley it is. He’s neatly disposed of a treacherous son-in-law and an incriminating letter. He’s in the clear. Which means Mayumi and Haruko are in the clear too. He won’t go after them now.’
‘What about you?’
‘I’d rather not think about that subject, if it’s all the same to you.’
‘But you must think.’
‘Yeh. Just not yet, though.’
We caught a bus heading for Russell Square and sat in the front seat on the top deck as it trundled west through Deptford and Rotherhithe beneath leaden, spitting skies. Yamazawa recounted how he’d been abducted – grabbed and bundled into the boot of a car by two men he now knew to be Gordon Ledgister and Carl Madron as he wandered down Kingsway late on Sunday morning, bound for Waterloo and his afternoon at Hampton Court. They’d kept him chained to a pillar in a derelict warehouse he now knew was in North Greenwich. After the phone call they’d forced him to make to the Arundel, he’d been gagged most of the time – and convinced that they meant to kill him.
‘It was strangely calming, Lance, to know that, if it was going to happen, there was nothing I could do to prevent it. But not knowing why – that I did not like. I asked them, when the gag was off, but they told me nothing. One time I listened to them talking, though, when they were outside, by the car. They must have thought I would not be able to hear. I remember Carl said, “You promise me this letter is the key to everything?” And Ledgister replied, “The key to more than you can possibly imagine.” Do you know what he meant by that, Lance?’
‘Maybe.’
Yamazawa waited for me to continue, then realized I wasn’t about to. ‘What, then?’
‘Are you sure you want me to tell you?’
‘Of course.’
‘OK.’ I leaned towards him and whispered into his ear. ‘The Kennedy assassination.’
His eyes widened. He turned in the seat and stared at me. ‘Truly?’
‘I think so, yeh.’ I looked ahead. ‘For what that’s worth now.’
‘Do me a favour when you get back to the Arundel, Toshi, will you?’ I asked as the bus started across Waterloo Bridge.
‘Sure. What is it?’
‘Phone your brother. Ask him to tell Mayumi the letter’s been destroyed and everything’s all right. She and Haruko are safe. They can go back to Tokyo and live in peace.’
‘And maybe take on a redundant shipping executive as a washer-up at the Golden Rickshaw?’
‘They could do worse.’
‘What should Shintaro tell them about you?’
‘Tell him to say I’m fine.’
‘Fine?’
‘Yeh.’
‘That is not exactly true, is it, Lance?’
‘No.’ I shrugged. ‘But there’s no sense them worrying about it, is there?’
We parted at the bus stop in Russell Square. Yamazawa was planning to head straight for the Arundel and entertain Gus with a convoluted tale of misadventure based on falling into bad company in a pub in Thames Ditton. He reckoned Gus for one would be highly entertained by it.
‘When will you go back to Japan?’
‘Soon, I think.’
‘I probably won’t see you again before you leave.’
‘I still do not know what you are going to do, Lance.’
‘Maybe that’s because I don’t know either.’
‘Would it help if I wished you luck?’
‘It wouldn’t do any harm.’
‘Good luck then, my friend.’
Another bus took me from Russell Square to the Polaris, where I devoted all of five minutes to packing and checking out, then walked across to Paddington station. On the way, I passed a newspaper stall and couldn’t help noticing the headline on the late edition of the Evening Standard: CAR BOMB NEAR DOME KILLS TWO. Adhering to the principle that newspaper reports of an incident always seem inaccurate to those with personal experience of it, I decided against buying a copy.
I got to the station just in time to catch a train for the West Country. Flooding on Sedgemoor meant it wouldn’t be going via Castle Cary. I’d have to take a bus from Taunton to finish my journey. It might be late – it might be very late – when I got where I was going. Not that it really mattered. Because, in so many other ways, it was already far too late.