16

Braggart?

 

“Superintendent bloody West,” Barring rasped. “You didn’t expect to see me, cobber, did you?”

Roger said equably, “I hoped to, Barring.”

“Don’t give me that.”

“I hoped to,” Roger repeated. “From the moment I saw you from my window. Who told you I was at the Wentworth?”

“The birds,” jeered Barring. “They’ll take Shaw the news of your death, too.”

“Not for a long time,” Roger said.

He put his hand to his jacket pocket; Barring watched very closely. He took out a packet of cigarettes, and some matches, lit up, and put cigarettes and matches back. He felt the smooth leather of the cosh, curled round inside.

“Let me tell you something. Wu Hong told us all about your generous payment for a murder which didn’t come off. If you want hirelings to do their job properly, you ought to pay them better. You get paid enough.”

“And I’ll get a bonus for killing you.” Barring kept his hand in his pocket; he seemed to clench it there.

“Kill me, and you’ll have every policeman in Australia and England looking for you,” Roger said. “You’re in a bad enough jam as it is. Don’t make it worse.”

“You’ve got a nerve!”

“Of course I’ve got a nerve,” Roger said impatiently. “All coppers have to have. Why don’t you take the one chance you’ve got?”

Barring didn’t speak, but he looked puzzled. His eyes were a muddy brown, and he breathed through very thick lips. Together with his broad nostrils they seemed to indicate a touch of aboriginal blood. Suddenly, it flashed on Roger that this man was not unlike Lancelot Smith.

Roger took the cigarette from his mouth.

“It’s probably your last chance,” he said. “Please yourself.” He half turned.

“Don’t move!” Barring ordered.

Roger turned back.

“Get this into your thick head. I’m not going to be frightened by you and I’ll leave when I want to. If you use the knife you’ve got in your pocket you’ll sign your own death warrant.” He half expected a harsh, ‘And yours?’ but it didn’t come. “Make up your mind. You can save your neck – if you act soon enough.”

“I’ll look after my own neck,” Barring said, but he was even more puzzled. “Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind, West?”

“Make a full statement, name the people you’re working for, and give us evidence against them. It couldn’t fail to make things easy for you.”

“You think you know a lot!”

Roger said, “No one’s going to hang me.”

Barring began to scowl.

Roger shrugged.

“No one hanged your brother Paul, but he’s dead.”

Barring’s eyes blazed.

“You bloody cops made him do that!”

“No, we didn’t,” Roger said flatly. “As far as we know, he killed himself. Didn’t he know what was in that capsule he swallowed?”

“He knew,” Barring asserted as if he was quite sure. “He knew and so did I. You don’t know half as much as you think you do, copper. Let me tell you something. The Blue Flag Line finished my family. They killed my mother and damned near killed my Dad. They’re a murdering lot of thieving swine, and before I’ve finished with them they won’t have a ship left.”

“Twenty-seven is a lot of ships to sink,” Roger said.

“Twenty-seven, fifty-seven, a hundred and seven – what difference does it make? I tell you there won’t be a ship left of the Blue Flag Line.” Barring began to draw his hand out of his pocket. “And it won’t make any difference to me whether I kill you or not. If it wasn’t for you Paul would be alive, and if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be on the run. So I’m going to send you to Paul. Understand? No one gets away with killing a Barring. When the Blue Flag swine swindled the Barring Line they started something they couldn’t finish. As long as there’s a single Barring left the Blue Flag will—”

Roger half turned again, his right hand at his pocket. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Barring flash the knife, and he dropped flat on to the hard ground. Would Barring throw or stab? Barring was leaping forward, surprised by Roger’s move. Roger could see only his legs and feet, and could not tell whether the knife was being plunged downwards. He rolled over, kicking out at Barring’s legs. He caught an ankle and heard the man gasp. He pulled the cosh out of his pocket, glimpsed Barring staggering away, with the knife still in his hand.

A man roared, “What’s going on?”

Roger rolled over again, and sprang to his feet, cosh out. A big man in blue-grey uniform was running along the alley towards them, gun in hand. Barring flung the knife at him, and as he dodged, turned and raced away.

“Get him!” Roger gasped. “That’s Marcus Barring. Get him!”

The policeman hesitated, as if too startled to understand. He lost precious seconds, and Barring disappeared.

“I’m West,” Roger said, still gasping. “Go get him.”

The policeman began to run. Roger backed against a post, drawing in deep, shuddering breaths. He would never know whether the policeman had baulked him of a capture or saved his life. At least he had talked to Marcus Barring, there was a lot he knew now and more he could guess.

Footsteps came clattering. Suddenly the sharp bark of a revolver shot sounded, loud and clear. So there was a chance that Barring would be caught. Roger heard shouts and more footsteps, and thought he heard a splash. If Barring dived into the harbour surely he wouldn’t have a chance to get away.

Another policeman came hurrying. Roger straightened up, saw recognition dawn, and knew he would have no problem.

“Are you Superintendent West?”

“Yes. Show me what’s going on, will you?”

“Trouble down by the Blue Flag Wharf,” the policeman said. “This way, sir.”

They hurried, the policeman always a few paces ahead, until they reached the point from which they could see a large expanse of harbour, dozens of ships alongside, hundreds of small craft.

Ten minutes later, he learned that Barring had got away.

 

“You know what I’d call you if I let myself go, don’t you?” Luke Shaw, looking as near angry as he was ever likely to be, was in his big, airy office. Roger sat opposite him. “I’m not sure I shouldn’t let myself go, either.”

“Save your breath until the conference,” Roger said.

“Never mind the conference. If anything happens to you while you’re in Australia, we’d never live it down.”

“I’ll try to leave a parting message absolving you,” Roger said. “Promote that policeman who heard me talking to Barring. He saved your reputation as well as my life.”

“Why the hell didn’t you give me a call?”

“I thought you might have Barring followed.”

“I’d have sent a dozen men—” Shaw broke off, and his voice quietened. “There must have been some reason in that bird-brain of yours. What was it?”

“I wanted to give Barring a chance to turn Queen’s Evidence.”

“Against his brother?”

Roger said quietly, “No, his employers. He may have a personal stake in this, but he’s being paid, and so was his brother.”

“What is going on in your mind?” Shaw demanded.

“The same as in yours, or you wouldn’t want all twenty-seven Blue Flag ships warned.”

Shaw put his head on one side, and began to smile.

“I ought to have known better than to try to fool you, didn’t I? Of course it can’t be the Barring brothers after the BF’s blood. One ship, even two ships – but it’s too big for a family like the Barrings.”

Roger nodded.

“Any ideas about who is behind it?” Shaw asked.

“Nothing worth calling an idea, except that this is costing a fortune. So it’s a big money interest. And there’s a measure of desperation in it – kill at all costs, whatever the risk. Family vengeance doesn’t operate that way. A few murdered among top Blue Flag Line men, stabs in the dark, that kind of thing, yes. But something happened to trigger off the minders of the Kookaburra passengers, something sudden, unexpected, urgent. That doesn’t fit in with a family feud.”

Shaw raised both hands.

“I surrender,” he said. “Too right it doesn’t. I told you this was too complicated to pass on over the telephone and in reports. But don’t make any mistake, Handsome. The Barrings hate the Blue Flag Line. They’ll take any risks to get back at it. They may be in someone’s pay but they’re more than hired killers, they’re doing this because they want to. When Marcus Barring says they’ll gun for Blue Flag Line ships while there’s one of them left, he means it.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Suppose? It’s a dead cert!”

“I had a feeling that when I offered him a chance to turn Queen’s Evidence he thought about it,” Roger declared. “If we can find a way of offering him the chance again he might take it. Luke, what do you think is behind it?”

“Someone wants to break the Blue Flag Line,” Shaw said. “If we rule out the revenge motive, what have we got?”

“Tell me.”

“A take-over,” Shaw said flatly. “Don’t raise your voice, I know what you’re going to say! Take-over boys will do any dirty trick to bring down share values before moving in, provided it’s legal. They don’t go in for wholesale murder.”

“Go on,” said Roger.

“There’ve been some queer rumours about some Australian-owned shipping lines,” Shaw told him. “Rumours that Red China would like to buy control. Chinese ships can’t trade freely, there are a lot of ports they can’t go into, and a lot of cargo they can’t carry. There isn’t much ship-building going on in Chinese yards – it’s mostly small stuff. The rumours say that the Chinese would like financial control of some shipping which doesn’t carry its flag. They’ve gone into a lot of mining business in Ceylon and in the Far East, bought their way into a lot of unexpected places, too. We aren’t certain, but we think one or two small Australian lines with associations with Hong Kong are Red-controlled. The Blue Flag Line is financed by about sixty per cent Australian – the Flags only – and forty per cent Hong Kong Chinese financiers. There is a lot of Communist infiltration into Hong Kong business and financial life. Fred Hodges gave me some dope on that. I told you he’s busy trying to find out more about the Blue Flag Line office in Hong Kong, and he’ll dig up plenty. Follow me, Handsome?”

Roger said slowly, “I do indeed.”

“You don’t sound very convinced.”

“Give me time,” Roger said. “Red China being so ruthless in getting what she wants, she would be prepared to kill a lot of people to get control. Is that the argument?”

“Are you denying it?”

“Not that it’s possible,” Roger agreed quickly. “I need a lot of convincing that they’d do it while there’s any chance of it being traced back to them.”

“They don’t think there is,” Shaw argued. “If the Barrings have been caught by the Communist bug, that would explain a lot. Why Paul Barring and Lancelot Smith killed themselves rather than be caught, for instance. They didn’t trust themselves not to talk, and the cause was greater than themselves.” He paused, but Roger did not speak. Shaw continued, “What do you think, Handsome?”

“Convinced of all this?” Roger demanded.

Shaw grinned.

“No, but it looks the likeliest theory to me. See any rational argument against it as a theory?”

“No.”

“We’re going to get along,” Shaw said, in his half-mocking, half-jocular way. “See why I want every ship warned? Practically all of them – correction – all of the ships have Chinese crews, most of them are a hundred per cent Chinese below officer rank. If there’s going to be another loss like the Koala, it might be any one of the ships. The most obvious thing would be for a member of the crew to blow the vessel up.”

“And himself?” Roger objected.

“You don’t have much to do with Johnny Chinaman,” Shaw declared. “A lot of them are absolute fatalists. They like to think their families are all looked after, but death doesn’t worry them. They live too close to it all their lives. Add political fanaticism, and there’s your answer.”

Roger said, “It certainly could be. You’ve sold me on one thing, anyhow.”

“What’s that?”

“Any one of the Blue Flag Line ships could be in danger, anywhere in the world.”

Shaw’s eyes lit up.

“You’ll support me when I ask for all ships to be warned.”

“Yes.”

“I knew it was right to have you down under.” Shaw clapped his hands together with a loud bang. “Good on you, Handsome!”

After a moment he went on, “Wouldn’t like to have a word with the Commissioner now, would you?”

“Let’s see if the Blue Flag directors will co-operate first,” Roger said.

“Have it your own way,” conceded Shaw. He opened a file on his desk. “Now lemme see – ah, here it is. The Kookaburra took on the Great Barrier Reef pilot at Thursday Island at six o’clock this morning. They’ll be four days coming down to Sydney. All’s well on board – the pilot was briefed by the Queensland chaps to do a bit of checking. All the passengers are fit, including the Parrishes.”

Roger conceded, “That’s something.”

“There’s a cable in from your chap Kebble, too.”

Roger sat up.

“Samuel Hackett has given notice of marriage to a woman named Therese Donet in Tours, France.”

“Well I’m damned!”

“Doesn’t leave him in the clear,” Shaw said almost smugly. “But it gave me an idea, Handsome.”

“About what?”

“The murders in London and Hong Kong.”

“Go on.”

“All the passengers known to be coming back to Australia were killed – except the Parrishes. Could that be part of the motive – to kill ‘em so as to make sure they couldn’t get back here?”

Roger said softly, “It certainly could. I’d missed it.”

“It puts the Parrishes on the spot,” Shaw said.

“It also puts Doreen Morrison on the spot,” Roger said. “It ought to put Limm on it, too.”

He leaned forward intently.

“Anything known about Limm yet?”

“He seems to be what he says he is,” answered Shaw, opening a letter. “A sheep farmer from Cowra. Born there, inherited the farm, never been out of Australia before.”

He pushed a sheet of paper across the desk.

“That’s a description sent from Cowra. They haven’t located a photograph yet but they hope to get it here before the day’s out – they’ll fly it here if necessary. Judging from that description there isn’t much doubt Limm’s really Limm, is there?”

“Just enough though,” Roger argued.

“The photo will put it beyond any doubt,” Shaw said confidently. “The Morrison girls are certainly what they said. So are the Parrishes, although we can’t trace Jack Parrish farther back than five years. He settled in Northern Queensland, saying he’d come from South Australia, but no one knows where – yet. Old Sam Hackett came from Western Australia, up near Broome – lost his wife about ten years ago, and turned up in Perth to live on his own. We haven’t been able to trace him farther back – yet,” repeated Shaw. “He hasn’t any relations, and he told his neighbours that all his friends had died, that was why he went south. We’re busy on it, and the Western Australia fellows are always on the ball. Sheldon was what he claimed to be, though – insurance agent, unmarried. He had one sister living, no other close relatives. Nothing in his business life to make us suspicious. He put his few belongings into storage – nothing among them to suggest he wasn’t what he said he was. He was in shipping and general insurance – worked for a broker in a good way of business. They carried some of the Koala loss – but so did dozens of others.”

Roger said, “So it’s narrowing down.”

“So is our time for that conference,” Shaw said. “Let’s go and have a steak, and then get moving.”