V

A VISIT TO STEPNEY

THE EIGHT BELLS seemed to be one of those pubs that do most of their trade in the late evenings, for at seven o’clock the saloon bar was deserted. I got there first, ordered a Scotch, and opened the evening paper that I’d bought on the way. The main news was about home-going commuters being delayed by a lightning railway strike. They had my sympathy, but I could not be greatly interested. I looked as if I was reading the paper, but my mind was going over the events at Ingard house, and the curious discrepancy in the stories about Andrew Stavanger. Lennis had stressed the emptiness of his life in having a daughter who had little to do with him, an account apparently borne out by the daughter herself in her interview with the banker. Then she had said that she and her father were not particularly close to one another. Miss Macdonald, who had known the Stavanger family for most of her life, said that Andrew was devoted to his daughter and would do anything for her. There was discrepancy, too, in the stories about drink. Lennis, again apparently confirmed by Mrs Carolan, had suggested that much of Andrew’s present trouble, whatever it was, was brought about by drink. Miss Macdonald insisted that he was the most temperate of men. There need not, I reflected, be much in this, for Miss Macdonald was patently the soul of loyalty, and in her eyes no Stavanger – no male Stavanger, at any rate – could do anything wrong. But the difference of opinion – more than a difference of opinion, for it was a sharp conflict in statements of fact – about his relations with his daughter was certainly puzzling.

My mind had found no solution to the puzzle when Seddon came in. The bar was still empty, and we found a table in a corner where we could talk without much risk of being overheard. The pub offered snacks at the bar, and as my lunch had been a sandwich I was quite hungry. Seddon wasn’t, saying that he had had a late tea. I got myself a couple of sausages on sticks, a hunk of crusty bread, and another Scotch, and I took over a pint of bitter for Seddon.

‘I’ve got a bit of news for you,’ he said. ‘Your pal at the shipping office wasn’t hard to check on, because he’s been in our hands – no charge in the end, but he was detained for twenty-four hours while inquiries were made. It was a few years back. He certainly had an air-freight business, but he was suspected of freighting illegal immigrants from Belgium into Britain. I think he was certainly mixed up in the beastly business of getting into England some of those unhappy Asians who pay through the nose either because they’re desperate to join relatives, or because they think they can find work here. We suspect that he was flying in light aircraft to lonely fields in Essex or Suffolk, but the time he was nearly caught his passengers got away and we couldn’t prove anything. He had a story of engine trouble to explain his own unauthorised landing, and we had to let him go. We went on keeping a watch on his activities, but not for long, because he went out of business. He got into trouble in Holland for exporting arms to a bunch of rebels in one of the new African states, and that seems to have been the end of his freight business. He was living either in Holland or in Belgium then, and we lost touch with him. Your chap sounds like the same man. Funny he didn’t give himself a new name, but maybe he felt there was no reason why he should. He was never convicted of anything in this country. Part of his freight business was probably reputable enough, and maybe he needed to trade on that to get a job.’

‘Could be,’ I said. ‘He’s a smooth customer, and he seems to have worked his way pretty effectively into Andrew Stavanger’s job. Where the hell Andrew Stavanger is, I’m no nearer finding out. I think it was you who said it was “like digging in treacle”. That’s why I think it’s time we had a look at his flat.’

‘I’m inclined to agree with you – anyway, I’ve got a search warrant. If we find everything in order, there’s no harm done. To make sure that he hasn’t just come home I telephoned twice this afternoon, and again just before I left to come here. There was no reply any time. The phone rings, though, so it looks as if somebody pays the phone bills. Well, Peter, are you fit? We’d better be getting along.’

Yardarm Street was a turning off Commercial Road and the pub was near the Commercial Road corner. Away from that pulsing artery of East London it suddenly became quiet. The street ran between rows of dingy terraced houses, not yet ‘gentrified’, as the planners say. Then it met a Wren church and entered Yardarm Square. Here the social reagents of post-war London life had got to work. Along one side of the square, more or less blown to pieces in the blitz, were neat blocks of council flats. The remaining three sides of the square still had their original superior tradesmen’s villas, built around 1840. One or two were down at heel, eroded by the tides of later nineteenth century London life. The rest were bright with new paint over their worn stucco, gleaming where the light from a street lamp fell on it.

The Stavanger house was on the south side of the square, nearest the river, and an alleyway beside the house probably led down to the docks. There were three bells at the front door – the top marked Stavanger. We rang and waited a few minutes, but no one came. The door was unlocked, so we opened it and went in. It led to a hallway, with stairs going up on the left. To the right was the door to the ground-floor flat. The hallway was repeated on the first floor, with the entrance to the next flat, and the stairs went on, to stop at a narrow landing, with another door opening from it. This had a brass plate labelled ‘Stavanger’, and was locked. We knocked, but there was no sound of movement inside the flat.

Seddon produced a bunch of skeleton keys. ‘Unless it’s bolted on the inside we ought to be able to get in with these,’ he said. He fiddled for a moment or two, listening to the tumblers in the lock. Then he had it open, and we went in.

I don’t know what I’d expected to find. What we did find was – nothing. ‘Funny,’ Seddon said. ‘If a flat’s been unoccupied for some time, you’d expect a pile of letters inside the door.’

He had a torch, and shone it round the little entrance hall. There was a light switch by the door. Closing the door quietly, he tried the switch. The light came on.

There were three doors opening from the little hall. None was locked. One opened to the kitchen, one to a sitting room, and the third to a bedroom. The sitting room was a big room, with bookcases all along one wall. A door in the opposite wall led to the kitchen, and in the window on this side of the room was a dining table. Opening from the bedroom was a bathroom and lavatory – the flat was entirely self-contained.

‘Draw the curtains before we turn on the lights,’ Seddon said.

We started with the bedroom, which was neat and scrupulously tidy. The bed was made, but didn’t seem to have been slept in for some time, although there was a folded pair of pyjamas under the pillow. There was a fitted wardrobe, with a row of suits hanging in it, and drawers containing shirts, pyjamas, socks, handkerchiefs and underclothes – everything clean and ready, but giving a curious impression of not being in use. The adjoining bathroom was equally clean and ready for use, with towels on a rail, and razor and shaving brush on a shelf over the basin.

Next we had a look at the kitchen, a good sized room, with fitted cupboards, a gas stove, a big refrigerator, and a sink unit under the window. Over the sink was a small hatch. ‘Leads to an attic, I suppose,’ Seddon said. There was a stool nearby, and, climbing on this, Seddon got onto the firm edge of the sink where it met the draining board and reached up to the hatch. The square hatch cover could be pushed up simply. He could see inside by standing on his toes, and he shone his torch round the place. ‘Small storage attic,’ he said. ‘Couple of trunks and suitcases, all quite tidy. Nothing that seems of much interest.’

He got down, and we had a quick look round the kitchen. There were a few tins in one of the cupboards, a glass jar of rice, and some jars of preserves, but no vegetables, and no perishable foods. He opened the refrigerator – it was empty.

Then we glanced round the sitting room. In a way, it was two rooms, an eating half – but less than half the room, perhaps about one-third – next to the kitchen, and the sitting part. This had two deep leather armchairs, a big desk with a telephone on it, and books. I looked at the books. They seemed to be mostly marine literature, and a fine collection. Near the desk was a whole shelf of Admiralty Pilots, covering all the coasts of the United Kingdom, and of the Near Continent. The shelf was full, except for a small gap, where it looked as if a book had been taken out. Volume I of the North Sea Pilot – dealing with the Faeroes, Shetlands and Orkneys – was there, and next to it Volume II, covering Cape Wrath to Berwick. Volume III was missing.

Then we heard someone on the stairs.

‘Quick,’ Seddon said, ‘the attic! But first the lights and the curtains.’ I switched off the lights and Seddon hurriedly drew back the curtains. Then we slipped into the kitchen, got up on the sink, and hauled ourselves into the little attic. As we closed the hatch after us we heard a key turning in the lock of the door to the flat.

It was pitch dark inside the attic. By moving the hatch a fraction of an inch we could hear what went on below, but we could see nothing. Someone came into the kitchen from the door to the hallway, switched on the light, apparently glanced round, and then went into the sitting room, leaving the door to the kitchen open. Mercifully we had shut the refrigerator and the cupboards after looking in them, and there was nothing to indicate that the visitor had noticed anything amiss.

There was no sound of a light’s being switched on in the sitting room, but we might not have been able to hear it. I think, though, that the visitor didn’t turn on the light, for there was no sound of drawing the sitting room curtains. Presumably that was why the kitchen door had been left open – to get enough light from the kitchen. The sitting room overlooked the square, where lighted windows might be noticed, whereas the kitchen was at the back of the house.

Next we heard a slight ‘ting’ as the receiver of the telephone was lifted, and the whirring sound of someone dialling. There was a pause – presumably the phone was ringing at the other end. Then a woman’s voice at the telephone in the flat. ‘Was it hot in Rome?’ Then what sounded like a queer sort of telephone number. ‘One–x–nine–two–four.’ Another pause, then ‘OK Rome, go ahead.’

There was a longish silence, probably while the woman was listening to whoever it was at the other end. Then she spoke again. ‘Are you sure that nothing has happened since the weekend? Well, he seems to have been a bad lot, and maybe nobody will miss him, but I don’t like it. We’re postponing things for a week. Tomorrow’s big delivery will now be tomorrow week, that is, on Wednesday next week. Yes, she’ll be loaded now, but we can hold her in Bilbao. I don’t want to come here too often, but I’ll expect messages from you in the usual way. Yes, anything – you must report anything at all out of the ordinary at once. In a real emergency you know what to do, but don’t use it unless it is a real emergency. I repeat, one–x–nine–two–four.’

There was a ‘ting’ as she put down the receiver. Almost at once she came back into the kitchen, turned out the light, and left the flat. We heard the lock of the front door click as she shut it behind her.

We waited a full five minutes without saying a word. There was no further sound from the flat, and at last Seddon said, ‘Seems to be all clear now. We’ll have a quick look through the drawers in the desk, and then I reckon we’d better go.’

It was unlikely that there was anything of importance in the desk, for none of the drawers was locked. And there wasn’t much in them. One had writing paper and envelopes, and one three tins of pipe tobacco and an unopened pack of a dozen boxes of matches. The others held a mixed collection of the minor paperwork of life, some library tickets, the catalogue of a sale of marine painting that had taken place a year ago, the election address of his son-in-law, Vivian Carolan, at the last election, and a few letters, none very recent. One was from a retired ship’s captain, now living at Fowey in Cornwall, giving news of his house and garden; the others were impersonal, acknowledgments of subscriptions to various charities, and some business letters from the estate agent who dealt with the letting of the two other flats. In the bottom drawer was a folder of receipted bills, the uppermost being for gas, electricity and the telephone, all paid within the past month. Everything was tidy and shipshape. Mr Stavanger was clearly a man with an orderly mind.

We both wanted to get out of the place. The flat was certainly unoccupied, but, equally certainly, it was not unvisited, and we had no idea who might come in next. After a quick look round to make sure that we’d left no obvious signs of our own visit, we left. We waited on the top-floor landing for a minute or two, but there seemed no coming or going from the other flats. We slipped downstairs quickly and quietly. There was the sound of a TV programme as we passed the entrance to the first-floor flat; on the ground floor all was quiet. We walked out into the square and on towards Yardarm Street and Commercial Road without looking back.

*

I wanted a drink, but I didn’t want to go to a pub at that time of the evening, when the rush would be on, and the serious drinkers getting down to it. I also wanted to talk to Seddon, but I couldn’t hope to talk in a pub now. An empty taxi came along soon after we’d turned into the Commercial Road. I stopped it, and asked the man to take us to Peel Square. ‘It’s a service place, and we can get a meal and a drink sent up,’ I said to Seddon. ‘Besides, you ought to see the luxury the department lets me live in now. And it’s more or less on the way to your place at Kew.’

My sausages hadn’t been all that satisfying, and I was feeling hungry again. Seddon was now ready for a meal, too. Room service at Peel Square offered a variety of suppers, and we settled for lamb chops followed by a nice piece of Stilton. When the waiter took away the supper I ordered a quarter bottle of cognac.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I don’t know that thought helps digestion, but we’ve certainly got a hell of a lot to think about.’

‘She couldn’t have been talking to Rome,’ Seddon said. ‘I could hear the dialling pretty well, and there weren’t enough digits for a Continental call.’

‘No, and it was an odd beginning to a conversation. I remember it clearly – “Was it hot in Rome?” That must have been some key phrase to establish identity. And the thing that sounded like a telephone number – I wrote it down as soon as we got out of the attic – “One–x–nine–two–four”. I think that, too, must have been part of an identity check, particularly as she repeated it again at the end.’

‘I’m with you there – Rome as such doesn’t make much sense. But something is going to be delivered somewhere – that could be Rome, I suppose.’

‘It could, but it’s going to be something delivered by ship. That doesn’t sound like Rome. And the ship is either in, or going to, Bilbao. If it’s a T and T line ship, we might be able to find out who she is.’

‘If . . . we haven’t any evidence to relate to the shipping company.’

‘Well, it is, or was, Stavanger’s own company, and it was Stavanger’s flat. We can work on the assumption, anyway, and I’ll make discreet inquiries when I get to the office tomorrow. What on earth do you think she meant by the incident she didn’t like at the weekend?’

‘The only incident we know about that may relate to the rest of the set-up is your performance at Winter Marsh. And the connection is pretty slim.’

‘Yes and no. The Ingard group owns Winter Marsh – if it’s paid for it. At any rate it’s in possession.’

‘Could whatever is going to be delivered be some sort of equipment for an oyster farm? Could a ship of any size – I mean, a ship capable of being in Bilbao now – get to the place?’

I considered this. ‘At the right state of tide, probably yes,’ I said. ‘There’s quite a good wooden quay, and I should imagine the army used to have heavy stores sent by water sometimes – certainly in the earlier days of the training establishment, before the motor lorry was as big as it is now. You’d have to know the pilotage, and be very careful about taking in a vessel of any size. But yes, I think it could be done.’

‘We can go on watching the place – obviously we’ve got to. I wish we knew more about it, though.’

‘We’ve got a week – a hell of a lot can happen in a week.’

‘If it’s oyster farm equipment nothing will happen. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t have stuff sent by sea.’

‘I don’t believe it. Yes, there are oysters in the Crouch, and yes, as Ingard said, the Romans knew and ate them. Most of their oysters, though, came from the Colne, round Mersea Island, and they were supplied to the big Roman garrison at Colchester. Oyster farming is certainly possible, and it’s been done successfully in a number of places. But I didn’t see any sign of it at Winter Marsh – the place just looked down-at-heel. Besides, assume that the plans for oyster farming are all above board – do you go, or send your secretary, at eight o’clock in the evening to an unoccupied flat to make a telephone call about it? And do you need codenames to establish your identity?’

‘Might be trying to dodge Customs . . . but no, Peter, I agree it doesn’t make sense. But nothing seems to make sense.’

‘Who on earth is the woman, do you suppose?’

‘Great pity we couldn’t even get a glimpse of her. I’d recognise her voice, I think. Fat lot of use that is, though.’

‘Might be important. She had a fairly distinctive voice – certainly none of the women I met around the office today. But I’ve only been there one day – half a day, really, since I took a good bit of time off this afternoon to talk to you. It’s early days yet, Paul. Maybe we’ll have some brilliant ideas in the morning.’

‘Well, you may, Peter. Can’t say I feel brilliant. The only thing I can do is straightforward police work.’

‘Pays dividends ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Can you get someone to keep an eye on the flat?’

‘Of course. And I’ll have a word with the powers that be about monitoring the telephone. They don’t much like it – unfair to the criminal, or something. But they can be persuaded. Pusey can probably help here.’

‘I’m sure he will. Well, Paul, as a respectable married man it’s high time you went home. Don’t know what our police are coming to – gallivanting with unknown women in unoccupied flats! Have another brandy.’

‘A very small one, then. I suppose I can get a cab home.’

‘I’ll ring down and tell them to get one for you.’

*

It was lateish when Paul Seddon had gone, nearly eleven o’clock, but I wanted to have a word with Miss Macdonald. It was too late to go round to her flat, but not quite too late for a telephone call. I rang the number she’d given me and she answered almost at once – whether she was up and reading, or whether the phone was beside her bed I didn’t know.

‘Peter Mottram here. I’m awfully sorry to bother you so late,’ I began.

‘Oh, Mr Mottram, how kind of you!’ She seemed to purr into the telephone. ‘Have you got any news?’

I hated to disappoint her, but I had to say I hadn’t. ‘On the other hand,’ I went on, ‘I have come across something that may lead to some news of Mr Stavanger. It might be difficult to talk to you in your office – that’s why I’m ringing now. Have you any means of finding out whether any T and T line ships are likely to be in Bilbao over the next few days?’

‘I can tell you now, I have it all in my head,’ she answered unexpectedly. ‘I keep the position-register for all our ships – it’s about the only thing I’m allowed to do nowadays, since all the secretarial work goes to Mr Lennis’s bright young things. But keeping the position-register needs experience. I’ve done it for years, and if I may say it of myself, I’m quite good at it. Bilbao did you say?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then it will be the Agnes T. She loaded dates in North Africa, and she is on her way to Tilbury. But I sent a signal to her master today telling him to put into Bilbao for orders – those were Mr Lennis’s instructions, of course.’

‘Do you know the master of the Agnes?’

‘No, he’s one of the new men. And she’s been away a long time for one of our ships – ever since June. Our ships may be small, Mr Mottram, but in the old days they were liners – that is, they made regular, scheduled runs from various ports on the Continent to the United Kingdom. Now Mr Lennis is turning them into tramps, sending them all over the place wherever he can pick up a cargo. I suppose it’s modern and efficient – but I don’t like it. The Stavangers always managed to run the ships as liners, and I don’t see why Mr Lennis can’t. But you don’t want an old woman’s gossip. The Agnes has been picking up various cargoes from North African and some West African ports. As I say, she was on her way home, but what she will do after calling at Bilbao, I don’t know.’

‘No other T line ships in Bilbao?’

‘No, and there haven’t been for some time.’

‘Well, thank you very much indeed, Miss Macdonald. I’ll keep in touch with you by ringing you at home, if I may.’

‘If you can give me any news of Mr Andrew, please ring at four o’clock in the morning. I’d be only too thankful to answer the phone.’

Poor loyal old soul, I thought. There might indeed be news of her beloved Mr Andrew, but it might not be good news.

*

Where the hell was Andrew Stavanger? I went to bed, but my mind was far too occupied to sleep. In so far as the flat told us anything at all, it told two conflicting stories. It had not been lived in recently – it had none of that slight warmth of humanity you find in a dwelling whose inhabitant has gone out for the day. But it was not deserted. The empty refrigerator and the absence of perishable food like bread or milk suggested that Stavanger had left expecting to be away for some time, but that conflicted with the pyjamas under the pillow in the bedroom, and the razor in the bathroom. Of course, a man may have more than one razor, and in tidying up for departure he may forget that he has left pyjamas under his pillow, but the impression of the bedroom and the bathroom conflicted with the kitchen. And if Stavanger had left intending to be away for months he had taken remarkably little with him in the way of clothes.

And if he had been away ever since he last turned up in the office, who was dealing with his post, and paying the quarterly bills? Conceivably, letters were being forwarded to him and he was paying bills by post, but, if so, who had put receipts in the drawer of his desk? It was as if the flat was meant to satisfy inquiries provoked by Stavanger’s long absence by suggesting that even if he was not living there, he was still around and capable of dealing with his affairs. That would cover the period of his letter to the bank about the £300,000 cheque.

But letters could be dealt with and bills paid by anyone who had access to the flat, and we knew that at least one other person had a key. Who she was, and how often she went there, we didn’t know, but that she did go, if only to use the telephone, we had incontestable proof. That led to another line of thought. You don’t let yourself into someone else’s flat to use the telephone unless you are quite certain that he won’t be coming back while you’re there, and that means that you know he is far enough away for you to be safe. If the flat was used to telephone, could it not also be used for receiving letters? Could the person who was dealing with Stavanger’s post be using the address also for himself – or herself? Could this be with Stavanger’s knowledge?

Well, yes, of course it could, but it seemed an odd way of going about things. People do act out of character, but not often wholly out of character – and everything we knew about Stavanger suggested that he was considerate, responsible, and with a shipmaster’s sense of discipline and orderliness. Why had he left without a word to Miss Macdonald? It was unclear to what extent he had told his daughter anything about his movements. Apparently she knew enough to tell other people not to worry, but that might mean no more than that she was trying to put a brave face on things.

*

One inconclusive thought led to another, and I found myself wondering about Miss Macdonald’s story of the office cleaner. It was an odd coincidence that a man should be found dead in the Thames near Stavanger’s office on the day that Stavanger had apparently disappeared, but that was now over four months ago, and in any case the police knew all about it, because the office cleaner had called the police. The body had not been identified as Stavanger’s – though, when I came to think of it, there was no reason why it should be, because he had not been reported missing. It didn’t seem at all likely that it could have anything to do with Stavanger, and corpses in the Thames, alas, are not all that infrequent. Still, it would be easy enough to find out what the police had done about it, and it would be tidier to do so.

*

Another thought came into my mind about the flat, but I dozed off without identifying clearly what it was.