Chapter Fifteen

‘We’ve lost him for good now,’ said Benbow dejectedly. Four days after Paul Jacobs’ getaway from Cardiff, he and his sergeant sat dolefully in their office at the Yard and admitted defeat.

‘The swine may be sitting half a mile away this very minute,’ said Bray. ‘It’s fantastic really – we know who he is and we can’t pick him up.’

‘That Identikit picture you had in the papers and on the telly … how good was it?’ asked Roberts.

Benbow looked at Bray, the only one who had ever seen Golding. He shrugged non-committally.

‘I don’t know. Each feature on its own was correct – nose, eyes, chin, you know. But all put together – well, it just wasn’t him. Could have been anyone, let’s face it.’

Benbow’s hand stole towards his pencil tray. ‘If only – we’d had just one photograph,’ he said, ‘There wasn’t one bleeding snap in the whole house – he must have been canny enough to look ahead just for a situation like this.’

There was a thoughtful silence, broken only by the splintering of timber as the Admiral made a meal of another HB.

Bray sighed heavily. The youngest of the group, he was itching for action. He was ready to dash outside and begin taking London apart brick by brick until he found Jacobs.

‘Any ideas, anybody?’ said Benbow.

‘What d’you think he’ll do?’ asked Roberts. ‘Run for the continent or stick it out here?’

‘He’s got to live,’ replied Benbow. ‘He’ll probably have a stack of money on him, but he can’t get any more from his normal account under the Jacobs name. I should think he’d try to get back to the continent – he may already have done it.’

They were interrupted by the phone. Benbow answered it and within seconds, a great smile cracked his round face. He jabbered a string of thanks down the phone and delicately dropped it back into its cradle.

‘That’s something to help box the swine in the country, if he’s still here – Parry, the D.I. from Cardiff, rang to say he’s found a photo of Jacobs. He’s teleprinting it up right away and sending the original by post … Bray, as soon as it comes, get it out to the Press Officer for newspapers and the telly, and get it on handbills.’

He rubbed his hands energetically.

‘This’ll give Mr Bloody Jacobs something to worry about.’

It did make Paul Jacobs worry, but it also helped him to make up his mind about his next move.

He first saw the photograph of himself blazoned across the Saturday evening papers. A very good likeness of himself stared out of the front page, with ‘HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?’ printed in heavy capitals across the top.

The dailies had been carrying a story on the Draper murder on and off for a few days, and when the Yard let drop the escape of their prime suspect from their trap in Cardiff, the more sensational national papers had really made a meal of it. There were articles every day speculating on the whereabouts of the man who could assist the police in their inquiries and now the gratis offer of a photograph from the Yard was like manna from Heaven to Fleet Street.

Paul Jacobs stuffed the paper in his pocket, pulled his hat down a trifle and hurried back to his hotel. He packed quickly and left for Euston, where he used his left-luggage ticket to get out the American-style hat and coat. With these on and a pair of rimless glasses, he felt a little easier, especially as he already had his moustache well grown.

Sitting in the refreshment room, he looked again at the offending photograph. It was a large blow-up of a group picture and he cursed the Cardiff golf club under his breath. Though he habitually shied away from the camera, he remembered that about four years before he was unable to avoid being included in a group that had won a local championship match. He lightly cursed his friend, whoever he might be, who had public-spiritedly offered the picture to the police, but then he philosophically accepted the damage that had been done.

It decided his course of action – he must leave the country at once. The faint hope that he might fade away into London and start under a new identity was now far too risky. Any fool with the price of a newspaper might point him out to a policeman in the next week, day or even hour.

He must get abroad – and quickly. It was get out and stay out this time.

Jacobs left the restaurant and caught the tube to Whitechapel, then a bus to Poplar, near the India Docks. He found a small boarding house on the road to Millwall in the heart of Dockland. It was a cut above the usual seamen’s lodgings and catered mainly for the less exalted ship’s officers.

In the sitting room, he found the current issue of Lloyd’s List and looked up the German ships expected in the Port of London. He was looking for any one of several vessels, ships that he had used for his smuggling. The paper told him that the motor vessel Rudolf Haider was due on the Monday evening.

The master of this ship was an old friend of his, as ruthless and hard as Jacobs himself. He was well aware of Jacobs’ smuggling and had shared in the profits more than once. In fact, it was the Rudolf that had brought over the last consignment from Hamburg, concealed in tent frames.

Paul settled down to a couple of days waiting at Millwall. He registered in the boarding house as a Swedish fourth officer waiting for his ship. It was easy to avoid any contacts with the other guests and the Scottish landlord was a dour, incurious man who left him well alone.

He spent the weekend either in his room or at the cinema. On Monday morning, he ventured up to the City to close an account in another name, which gave him a further five hundred pounds in cash which he changed to Deutschmarks at another bank.

Jacobs learned that the Rudolf Haider was coming into Surrey Commercial Docks with timber and was due to sail for Bremen on the Thursday morning with a cargo of machinery.

Late in the afternoon, he bought a dark hair-rinse at a chemist’s near Aldgate and went back to his lodgings. He paid his bill and left Millwall, then went to a public wash-and-brush-up establishment near the Blackwall Tunnel. Here, in the privacy of yet another of the cubicles that had seen so much of Jacobs’ double life, he quickly dyed his hair in the wash-basin and darkened his eyebrows. Putting his hat on the still damp hair, he walked out past the sleepy attendant looking even less like his photograph than ever.

Crossing the river to Bermondsey, he found similar lodgings for the night. He kept out of sight for most of the following day but, as dusk fell, he began his final sprint towards his Fatherland and comparative freedom.

The mid-December night fell with a chill drizzle. About six thirty, he caught a bus and got off near the main entrance to the Surrey Commercial Docks in Lower Road. The Transport Commission policeman on the gate made no effort to challenge him, but Jacobs crossed to the little lodge and enquired in Germanic broken English the way to the Rudolf Haider.

The officer obligingly pointed down into the distant swirl of lights and fog.

‘Rudolf Haider … Albion Dock, berth four. Down there, mate, turn left.’ He fumbled for a German word. ‘Albion Dock – left – links, see … der schiffist in Albion Dock … er, berth fier … savvy, Fritz?’

Paul hurried through the wet darkness, under lonely electric bulbs fixed to wooden poles, tripping over railway lines laid across the roads, until he came to the dockside. Great stacks of timber lay everywhere, and at the water’s edge, a line of immobile cranes stood like rusty giraffes.

He stumbled on, gripping his case, until he came to a row of gaunt warehouses. On the ship moored alongside the first, he saw the name Rudolf Haider – Bremen painted across her stem.

She was a modem tramp, not the rusty tub of pre-war adventure stories. A sleek motor-ship, she was neat and fast, equipped with all the latest devices for touting around Europe for cargoes. The cargo of pine and spruce from the Baltic had been partly unloaded and the decks stood high above the quayside. A steep gangway stretched from the deserted dockside up to her midships companionway.

Paul hesitated for a moment in the shadow of a warehouse then strode boldly up, his shabby suitcase banging awkwardly against the stanchions. In spite of the deserted appearance from the quayside, a man on watch appeared as he reached the ship’s side. He was a grizzled old fellow in a blue jumper and a beret, leaning over the rail at the top of the gangway. He took a pipe from his lips, spat into the oily water twenty feet below and challenged Jacobs in broken English.

‘You want see somebody, huh?’

Paul’s manner suddenly changed. His shoulders went back, he seemed to get taller and even the fibre case in his hand suddenly seemed to get more respectable.

‘Tell your captain that I have arrived,’ he said in crisp autocratic German. It was the voice of a Prussian autocrat, not that of a down-at-heel seaman. The watchman responded at once to the authority in the tone. He jerked upright and threw a hand towards his beret.

‘Ja, mein Herr – zvieheisensie, bitte’ he asked respectfully.

‘Schulman – Franz Schulman.’ He used the name which was on the passport he travelled on from Munich last time.

The sailor hurried forward and Paul followed him more leisurely. He passed several lighted portholes, the clink of glasses and loud laughter coming from one. Beyond these, the deck was deserted. A few lights gleamed from behind thick glasses screwed to the bulkheads, but the whole effect was dank, chilly, and eerie. The dockside looked like a graveyard and the ship smelt of wet wood and diesel oil.

The watchman’s boots clattered up a ladder ahead of him and Jacobs followed up to the boat deck. A row of doors faced him as well as the dark aperture of an open companionway. The man had vanished and Paul stood uncertainly, waiting in the gloom. Then the nearest door burst open and a short, fat figure stood silhouetted in the bright opening.

The captain came forwards with hand outstretched.

‘Schulman … what are you doing here?’ He had a harsh voice, but it had a welcome note of sincerity.

Jacobs turned his face so that the direct light from the cabin did not fall on it. The old seaman was standing alongside the captain and Jacobs made a significant nod towards him. Herzog swung around and dismissed the man back to his watch with a few curt words.

‘Come in – come in,’ he said to Paul, with a curious look at his suitcase. ‘Here to stay, eh?’

The captain led the way into his cabin and soon Jacobs was settled with a glass of Swedish schnapps. He explained to Herzog that he was on the run from the British police and wanted to get back to Germany on the Rudolf. He said nothing about the murder charges, but said that he was wanted for the narcotic offences. Herzog was not particular about mere dope smuggling but Paul knew that he might shy away from being involved with abetting a murderer, especially when one of them took place in Germany itself.

‘So I’ve got to clear out back to the old country, Otto – make a fresh start and work up the trade back there. I’ve got all my suppliers intact in Munich and contacts in Brussels and Marseilles. I can’t touch England for a few years – too risky. Perhaps I’ll try the States when I’ve worked up some more capital.’

The mention of money brought a gleam to Herzog’s eyes. ‘It’s a great risk taking you back, Franz … we’re going to be lying here for another day and a half … then there’s the Bremen immigration to deal with. I’m the only one to help you – my officers these days are too damned honest.’

Paul saw only too well what he was driving at and slid a hand into his side pocket. He dropped a thin wad of West German banknotes onto the table in front of the captain.

‘There’s fifteen hundred marks – I’ll give you another fifteen hundred in any bar you care to name – as long as it’s in Bremen … outside the dock gates!’

Herzog slowly picked up the notes and flicked through them thoughtfully.

‘It’s not much – considering the risk.’

Paul gestured his inability to do better.

‘It’s all I’ve got.’

Herzog shrugged resignedly. ‘OK – but only for old time’s sake. You’ll have to keep out of the way. Most of this crew is new, I can’t pull the wool over their eyes as I did with the old lot.’

They talked for an hour, Paul weaving some satisfactory story to account for his flight from the British police. He hoped Herzog would not come to learn the truth about the murder before the ship reached Bremen. There was no television aboard and the captain read little English by choice, sticking to cargo manifests rather than newspapers.

‘Where can I stay,’ he asked Herzog, after a lot of talk and too much schnapps.

The captain rubbed his chin. Like the rest of his face and his whole body, it was round and pink. He looked at Paul from his little black eyes. ‘I can’t actually hide you now – that watchman has seen you and he’s as loose-mouthed as a hungry python.’

He saw Jacobs’ worried frown and reassured him.

‘It’ll work out. You’ll have to be a relative of mine getting a cheap trip home. I’ll put the word around at breakfast, before that garrulous old swine on watch makes a mystery out of it.’

‘Where can I sleep?’

‘There’s a spare cabin down at the after end of the boat deck accommodation.’ Otto thumbed vaguely over his shoulder. ‘Kept for a fourth officer when we have one.’

‘What about eating?’

‘Yes, a problem. We don’t want you too prominent, there are shore people hanging around all the time we are in port.’

‘I could be ill – probably will be once we leave dock,’ he added with a touch of grim humour.

Herzog took him down a passage that crossed from side to side of the boat deck, between the cabins. At right angles to this was a second passage which formed a T with the first, running fore and aft.

He was given a small cabin at the after end on the port side. A steward brought some bed linen, made up the bunk, then brought a tray of supper. Jacobs lay on the bunk, looking as listless and ill as he could manage, though he cleared the tray of food. The steward, a stolid Westphalian, took little notice of him.

Herzog looked in late at night.

‘Everything all right?’

‘Yes, as long as you don’t ask any Scotland Yard men on board.’

‘You’re on German soil now.’

Jacobs avoided telling him that after the affair on the Brudermühlbrücke, that was not the slightest consolation to him. The Captain left and Jacobs slept until the noise of cranes and winches woke him next morning.

It was still dark, but unloading was going on by the lights fixed in the rigging of the Rudolf. When the steward came again with breakfast, Paul muttered something about influenza coming on. Without a word the man left and came back with half a bottle of brandy and a box of aspirins.

The day dragged and he sat thinking about his wife, for a long time. His affection for her was deep and genuine, quite different from the steel-like casing around his moral sense when it came to murder, mistresses, and drug running. Already, plans formed vaguely for reunion with Barbara at some place abroad. Once in Germany, he intended writing to her, getting someone like Herzog to mail the letter in Britain.

But all this was in the future.

Shaking off these nebulous schemes, he left his bunk and went to the porthole. It was late afternoon and the rain had cleared off. He stared through the thick glass at a red watery sun as it reached the cranes on the far side of the Albion Dock. For a few moments, his face was lit up by the orange glare, framed in the circle of the porthole.

Outside on the boat deck, a passing officer glanced up. He saw the face shining in the glare of the setting sun – and almost fell on the deck with shock.

Radio Officer Adolf Busch sat in his cabin two doors away from the passenger and pressed the bell for the steward. He had just thrown back a double gin but was still white about the face.

Baumann, the morose steward, tapped the door and came in. He stood mutely waiting for orders. The radio operator rarely called from his cabin. Busch said nothing, just sat there with an empty glass in his fingers, staring at the writing table before him.

‘Ja?’ prompted the steward.

Busch jerked his head up. He looked ill – sick to death.

‘Baumann … who is that man in the spare cabin?’

The radio officer was looking at Baumann’s face, but his eyes were looking right through him to a vision twenty years old.

‘You know his name?’ he asked tonelessly.

‘Herr Schulman, the captain called him – Franz Schulman.’

The radio man made no reply, and the steward got restless.

‘Anything you want?’

Suddenly Busch came to life. He jumped up and grasped the older man by the shoulder.

‘You take him his meals, Baumann,’ he gabbled feverishly, ‘I want to see him close up – the next meal, give me your jacket. I’ll take the tray to him.’

The steward, shaken out of his usual impassiveness, drew back from Busch and goggled at him as if he’d gone berserk.

‘Why … what are you doing?’

The radio operator calmed himself with an effort.

‘Look, don’t worry … just tell me when his next meal is due. Why don’t he eat in the saloon with the rest of us?’

‘He’s sick. Got a bad chill. He eats well enough though. I’m due to take him his supper at six thirty.’

‘I’ll take it – call in here with the tray.’

The steward reluctantly agreed and left for his pantry. Busch sat for a long time on his bunk, his face set and drawn. He stared at the opposite bulkhead, his mind far away in space and time.

The radio operator spent the night without a wink of sleep. After his brief visit to the cabin along the passage, he was a mental wreck. The long night passed with agonising slowness, his clock seeming more like a calendar.

At six in the morning, he could stand it no longer. It was the day they were due to sail – the previous evening, the ship had shifted her berth to the Pool of London to take on a few tons of special cargo. She was going back to Germany very light this trip. The small consignment of machinery would be swung aboard in the London River during the morning and by afternoon she would be battened down and ready to sail on the evening tide.

Busch had no duties until then and by eight thirty, he was washed, shaved, and in his best uniform. He caught a taxi and by nine o’clock was waiting on the steps of the West German Embassy in the West End.

At four fifteen that afternoon, a distinguished member of the Diplomatic Corps of the Federal German Republic was ushered into the presence of Superintendent Gleeson at New Scotland Yard.

Gleeson was one of the Special Branch officers and his particular pigeon was liaising with the Aliens Department – keeping tabs on the members of other nations whose presence in Britain was suspect.

Gleeson, another large calm man of the type that abounds in the senior ranks of the British police forces, rose to greet his top-brass visitor.

He shook hands and pulled out a chair.

‘A pleasure to meet you again, Herr von Grauber. How can I help you this time?’

Von Grauber, a caricaturist’s dream of a Prussian aristocrat, sat down gracefully and spoke in English conspicuous only by its perfection.

‘I think perhaps it may be the other way round, Superintendent – it is a matter of considerable urgency, so I shall not waste words.’ He opened an elegant briefcase and took out a thin folder. ‘This morning, the radio operator of a West German vessel berthed in London came to see me.’ He opened the file and glanced at the top sheet. ‘This man was very agitated and frightened. The crux of the matter was this. The previous evening he caught a glimpse of a man being given a passage back to Germany on this ship. He thought he recognised him and, by a pretext, managed to get a closer look. I should say that the conditions under which this passenger is housed seem furtive, to say the least. The radio man was convinced, by this second look, that the mystery man was a former SS officer wanted in Germany for certain war crimes.’

He turned over another page in the folder.

‘This ship’s officer, Busch, was a signals corporal in the Wehrmacht in nineteen-forty-five. The battalion to which he was attached had a most gruelling time at the front during the Allied invasion and was withdrawn only in time to save the whole morale from crumbling. The day following their return from the front, there was a major Allied offensive on the Rhine and they were ordered back into battle. They went to pieces completely and though they did not get to the point of actual mutiny, a detachment of SS was sent to deal with them.’

The Prussian’s face was set and hard. He was talking of this to one of the enemy, however far in the past it had happened.

‘The details are best forgotten, but the outcome was that more than twenty soldiers were shot and many more dealt with in a barbaric fashion. The SS colonel responsible was tried at Nuremburg and hanged. Other officers were also punished, but one, Oberleutenant Schrempp, was never traced.’

He paused for a moment

‘Last night, this ex-corporal Busch recognised Schrempp as the man hidden on board the vessel Rudolf Haider in your Surrey Docks.’

Gleeson nodded politely, but still wondered where all this was getting them. He had a hell of a lot of work to do and he had had his fill of the German Army in the Western Desert many years ago.

Von Grauber went on before the detective could intervene. ‘The ship sails in a few hours. To make sure that we were not making fools of ourselves, the Embassy phoned the War Crimes Commission in Frankfurt this morning and got them to wire a photograph and the main points from his dossier.’

The German paused to give his punchline its best effect.

He swivelled the folder around to Gleeson and flipped a page over so that a photograph of a face was presented to the Yard man’s view.

‘That is the man … the radio officer confirmed it … and I think many thousands of people in Britain would recognise him as well.’

Gleeson stared blankly at the photo. In his specialised branch he had little contact with ordinary crime, but then the penny dropped.

‘Good God! That’s the chap they’ve been flashing over the TV and papers – the Cardiff killer!’

He looked up in amazement at von Grauber. The implications were startling enough to shake even his impassive nature. The Embassy man smiled with modest pride and saluted with a Prussian jerk of his head.

‘I thought it might interest you – as far as I remember from newspaper reports, this man is wanted for serious crimes both here and in Bavaria.’

Gleeson was already reaching for his phone.

‘I think our need for him is greater than yours, Herr von Grauber … hello, get me Chief Inspector Benbow, please.’

Within minutes, Archie Benbow had joined them, having hurled his rotund body along the corridors of the Yard at a speed never equalled since he left the beat. Gleeson rapidly got him up to date and showed him the photograph of Golding. The Admiral beamed and rubbed his podgy hands together.

‘Bloody marvellous – this character is as full of tricks as a cartful of monkeys … but with a bit of luck, we’ve got him now.’

He turned to von Grauber. ‘I’m afraid, sir, that we’d like first crack at him if we’re going to catch the beggar. We want him for two murders and a long string of narcotics offences. I don’t know if we can get him hanged on it – it was murder with a firearm, capital murder under the fifty-seven Act – but it was done abroad … what d’you think, Superintendent?’

Gleeson shrugged. ‘I don’t know, Archie … he’s committed two murders on separate occasions – that’s a capital offence, as well, unless the one abroad doesn’t count.’

Benbow’s smile persisted.

‘In any case, Herr von Grauber, we’ll get a life sentence at very least – then we’ll turn him over to your people for hanging!’

The German looked pointedly at his wristwatch.

‘I suggest that unless you do something quite soon, neither of us will have the opportunity. The ship moved from the Surrey Commercial Docks to the Pool of London on this morning’s tide to finish loading and is due to sail for Bremen on this evening’s tide … it is now four-forty-five.’

Benbow stood up quickly. ‘What time is high water?’

Gleeson reached to a shelf behind him and picked up a newspaper. He crackled the pages with agonising slowness until he found what he wanted.

‘London Bridge – six-twenty-two. Another hour and three quarters.’

Benbow was halfway to the door.

‘I’m on my way … don’t want to cut it too fine.’

He rushed back to his office and sent Bray for a car and a couple of detective constables. He rang Information Room and asked for the assistance of a patrol car, which was to meet him at Billingsgate.

Within a few minutes, Archie Benbow was crammed into a black Wolseley with the three other detectives and a driver, swearing their way slowly through the rush hour traffic.

The driver did his best down the Embankment but, even with the gong ringing, they made very poor time to Blackfriars. As they sat fretting in a solid jam at the end of the bridge, Benbow leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder.

‘Knock off the bell and the flasher when we get into Lower Thames Street – we don’t want to scare the pants off this chap … he’s given us the slip too often in the past.’

As an afterthought, he prodded the other man in the front seat.

‘Call Information Room … tell them to find out from the P.L.A. where the ship is berthed in the Pool. And tell them to buzz the other patrol car to make sure that they don’t go clanging their way up to the gang plank.’

Cursing the one-way systems, the driver squeezed his way up Queen Victoria Street, Cannon Street, and eventually reached Lower Thames Street, which runs along the upper side of the Pool of London, the highest reach of the river which can be used by big vessels through Tower Bridge.

‘Better stop here … the other car should be around the comer,’ commanded Benbow. This was the territory of the City Police Force, independent of the Metropolitan, but in a case like this, there was no argument about priorities.

They nosed into a side turning and saw the cranes and warehouses of the Pool a few yards ahead. It was now twenty-past-five. The offices were turning out and the pavements were crowded with people hurrying to buses and tubes.

Benbow and Bray got out into the dusk and walked to the quayside. They stood under a crane and looked out at the mass of lights that was the Pool and the opposite bank of the river. There were three ships moored out in midstream, lit like Christmas trees, and many more lined the banks of the river.

Benbow glared in frustration at the confusing array of vessels.

‘This is bleeding useless … let’s get back to the radio and stir the Yard up – they should have contacted the P.L.A. by now.’

They hurried back to the car and the driver contacted the Information Room again. They stood grouped around the nearside window waiting for a reply. Passers-by gave them curious stares and a couple of inevitable busybodies loafed around waiting for something to happen.

The other patrol car glided up and parked behind them, the mobile men in their soft hats and leggings coming up to join their group at the window. In a few moments, the message came crackling through the static.

‘Green-Alpha-Four … re your message of seventeen twenty-seven. Port of London Authority contacted as requested … advised motor vessel Rudolf Haider sailed from Pool at sixteen forty-five … repeat sixteen forty-five.’