by D A Kent
Inspiration struck Louis just before the taxi reached Queen Anne’s Gate.
‘Would you mind waiting a minute?’ he asked the driver ‘And then taking me down to the Kent coast? And back?’
The taxi driver’s eyes opened wide.
‘No problem, guv,’ he responded.
Louis rushed into Edward’s office and, searching deep in the cabinet, pulled out an old deposit box marked ‘Fordred Will Trust.’ What he needed was safely inside, along with the address. Time was of the essence. Edward, who had been to see a client in hospital, met him on the stairs.
‘Off to a conference with Counsel,’ Louis explained.
‘Have fun, old boy,’ came the response.
Louis hurled himself into the taxi. He heaved a sigh of relief as they crossed Westminster Bridge. This was probably the safest place of all for the files. Nobody, probably not even Sylvia, knew it existed. While Edward had been out of the office and busy with the funeral, he had undertaken a complete review of all George’s cases. There seemed to have been a combination of plundering and total neglect.
Sylvia’s family trust, after George’s depredations, consisted of a mixture of shares (fortunately blue chip, which should have held their own quite nicely), monies in the bank (what was left now needed proper investment) and a cottage in the Kent countryside. It had once been in the family. It had a tenant; it was on agricultural land, but the house, and others nearby, had been requisitioned by the army in World War 2, when the country was on alert for an invasion from across the Channel. After the war, the army had returned the keys. The tenant had gone elsewhere and the house had been securely locked up ever since. A condition survey had been done; the army had looked after it well.
He would have to talk to Edward about the trust at some stage. That was Edward’s field; his own speciality was litigation. Sylvia would be within her rights to sue the firm. For now, the house would do as a hiding place, until the Israeli authorities collected the files. He sat back to examine the rest of the contents of the box and soon became enthralled by a story that Charles Dickens would have killed for. What a family!
The taxi driver cleared his throat. ‘We’re here, guv.’ Louis looked up, startled. That was quick. They were outside a pub on a bend in the road going out towards the Romney Marsh.
‘Wait here for me please,’ said Louis, watching the driver go inside.
Once the driver was out of sight, he trudged back, with his cases, towards a small detached cottage they had driven past. It was all locked up. Several sheep watched him inquisitively. Making sure there was nobody around, Louis slid the rusty key into the front door. It opened straight away.
Putting the post into his coat pocket, he made his way up the rickety stairs, a little unsure about the condition of the floorboards, and emptied the contents of the suitcases into an old oak chest. He locked it, pocketed the key, locked the house again and was back at the pub in five minutes, in time to join the driver for a pint.
‘Just so you know,’ Louis told the driver, putting a second pint on the bar for him ‘Nobody gets to find out you have been here. Do you understand me? You will be hunted down and killed in a most unpleasant fashion if you so much as breathe a word.’
‘Not a word, guv,’ gasped the driver.
At Queen Anne’s Gate, as Edward made his way up the stairs, a hand grabbed him.
‘Where are the files?’ asked a sinister voice.
‘Fuck off, Juncker,’ Edward whisked round. ‘Why are you wearing that ridiculous disguise? I know it’s you.’
‘Where’s Louis?’ asked Juncker in his normal voice, beginning to feel slightly foolish.
‘None of your business. What the hell are you doing here anyway? I don’t know anything about any files. Get out before I kick you out. And close the door after you. ‘
Edward, since his beating by Gunn, had decided to become more assertive. He felt rather proud of himself. He stood by the door, watched Juncker walk through it, then returned upstairs. Juncker was furious at being spoken to like this by Cumberland’s idiot son. He simply couldn’t allow that to happen. That Pole could have gone anywhere with those blasted files. After a moment, he crept back into the building.
Edward did not look up at first, until he felt the touch of cold, brushed steel at his temple.
‘You should have learnt some manners at your father’s knee,’ snarled Juncker. ‘Now, where is Louis?’
‘No idea.’
Juncker smacked him across the knuckles with the flat of the pistol. Edward’s knuckles cracked under the strain.
‘Not good enough. Try again.’
‘He’s out.’
Juncker went to bring down the flat of the pistol again.
‘All right,’ said Edward. ‘He’s at a conference with Counsel. Lincoln’s Inn, I believe. But he won’t be back until this evening; they never start until the barrister gets out of Court. What is all this about, anyway?’
‘Family loyalty,’ replied Juncker. ‘Think about it. Now, I am going back to St Anne’s Court. I suggest we have a further chat tomorrow, when you’ve had a chance to speak to Louis.’
Edward locked the door behind Juncker. He didn’t want any more unwelcome visitors. Security in this place had deteriorated markedly since Joan’s defection. He sat down in the reception area. First his father had bullied him, now Mummy. And he was going to have to marry that hideous creature. Actually, loyalty and duty had availed him nothing since the war. In fact, family loyalty meant nothing to him now.
He sketched out some calculations on a scrap of paper. He had around £150 in ready cash in the bank. The office safe contained around £75 in petty cash and sundries. Perhaps it was time to pocket what he had, stroll on and let the rest of the world go hang. He could get a flying job somewhere, perhaps fly through wind, sand and stars delivering post and other essentials across North Africa, out of Algiers or Tripoli. He could get himself a little house, work hard and play hard, the latter being something he had left to others. Sylvia might even find him attractive then.
He was meant to be going to Caroline’s parents tonight, to sort out wedding arrangements. His mother was going too. He knew she was at the hairdresser’s this afternoon. He had a small window of opportunity. He scrawled a note to Louis, the only person he felt the remotest compunction about. Within half an hour, he was at Chepstow Villas, packing a holdall. He put in his pilot’s log book and his passport, and, after some reflection, his teddy bear. With a great feeling of liberation, he closed the door and was walking briskly down the path when a bony hand seized him by the scruff of his neck.
‘Where do you think you’re going?’
‘Mummy,’ he thought, with a sense of dread. He would be in for it now. Pulling himself together just in time, he broke free, pushing her roughly head first into a bed of winter pansies.
‘I’m going away,’ he told her. ‘And you can’t stop me and you won’t ever find me.’
Ignoring her outraged shrieking, he jumped aboard the number 11 towards Victoria Station and his new life, just as Louis was wending his way towards Queen Anne’s Gate across St James Park, the deposit box under his arm. He had got the taxi driver to drop him by the Ritz, leaving him with an unusually generous tip and a repeat of his earlier warning.
Louis frowned. It was a strange time for the office to be locked up and in darkness. He let himself in with his key, put the deposit box back in the cabinet and locked the outer door. With a sense of foreboding, he sat at his desk, reading Edward’s note. He could understand about the new life; he would have felt the same in those circumstances. It was the bit about Juncker that concerned him, nearly breaking Edward’s knuckles and wandering around in disguise. He would have to be careful. Nobody would ever find the files, but he would have to find a way of getting them into the right hands.
The telephone rang, breaking into his thoughts.
‘Gunn? Sylvia? How are you? Is everything all right? Yes, I’m fine. Edward? Oh well, his fiancée is
pregnant and he’s run away to North Africa with the office petty cash but otherwise he is in fine fettle. No, I’m not joking. The funeral? Oh, that was the other day, all went fine. Listen, it’s a long story but Juncker has become very agitated about the files. So, I’ve hidden them in a house your family owns, Sylvia, on the Kent coast.’
Sylvia and Gunn were listening to him together, in the bar in Chartrettes. They had left Sol having a look round the house, while they went for cigarettes and to make a few calls.
‘Not another sodding house, Sylv,’ Gunn groaned.
‘Oh, a house at the seaside; I like the sound of that,’ she teased him. ‘I do remember an ancient relative in Hythe. Funny little house, if it’s the same one. Near the canal. Daddy’s family had a farm down there. Perfect place for the files. Well done, Louis.’
‘I was in Hythe the other day, before I picked you up,’ Gunn told her. ‘Dad’s family were from that neck of the woods too. That’s a coincidence.’
‘Wonder who Juncker is taking his orders from now?’ he mused, as they walked back, hand in hand. ‘The same person Sol was describing?’
‘Maybe. But I have a feeling there are more involved, at a higher level.’ A frisson ran over her. ‘Can you believe that about Edward?’
‘Mummy will be going frantic. He won’t be back for tea time,’ Gunn chuckled. ‘Whoever would have thought he would do anything like that?’
Chapter 23
Edward had caught the boat train to Dover. He was a long way south now. He did not care for Paris or Lyon or, indeed, anything much right now, other than putting the miles between himself and Mummy. He had his tickets, he had what he needed, and for only the second time in his life he felt free. The irony of feeling free during wartime had never quite escaped him and had probably informed his dealings with his parents and Caroline.
Caroline was an issue. She was pregnant. His name would be mud in all the right social circles. He had never especially enjoyed those circles; that did not bother him. He would wire her money on a monthly basis for the next eighteen years or until she married, which, with a sour humour, he estimated would be within six weeks. Her family would see to that.
He pulled a hip flask from his travelling bag. A few miles south of Lyon, as the sun was coming up, he raised it in salute.
‘To wind, sand and stars.’
Winifred Cumberland pulled herself out of the flower bed, praying that none of the neighbours had seen the altercation between herself and Edward, just as Juncker slid round the corner into Chepstow Villas. She recognised him instantly; he had come to the house a few times after that awful business on the Isle of Man. Dreadful little man, she thought. Lothar, as she would always think of her late husband, had never really liked him. He looked different - He had lost his whiskers.
‘Can I help you, Mrs Cumberland?’ he asked obsequiously. ‘You seem to be in a bit of a predicament.’
Juncker offered her his arm and they went inside the house. She would never have invited him in under normal circumstances but her head was spinning. She poured him a glass of whisky, struggling to follow what he was saying about her husband, Edward, Louis and incriminating files.
Juncker had staked out Queen Anne’s Gate for a while but there was nothing doing, so he had decided to have another go at Edward. He listened incredulously as Winifred poured out a tale of Edward having got his fiancée pregnant and how he had left earlier on the bus, after pushing her into the flower bed.
‘Needs a damn good thrashing,’ she said, vindictively.
Juncker agreed. Winifred turned to him.
‘I want him found. Immediately. Bring him straight back here. Then I might help you with your files.’
Having finally managed to push Juncker out of the door, Winifred embarked on a difficult telephone call to the Andrews with a feeble excuse as to why she and Edward would be unable to join them for supper that evening. She went upstairs and lay down in his room, looking up at the stars on his ceiling. Why had life panned out like this, she wondered? Her mind drifted back to that glorious summer, just before the Great War, when she had given herself to Tom Fordred in a funny little cottage his family owned at the coast. They weren’t supposed to be there at all; it was being renovated to house an elderly maiden aunt who had found herself without lodgings. Tom, just down from University, was meant to be supervising the renovations. She could still picture the white walls inside, the rough floorboards and the coolness of the kitchen; their eyes had adjusted after a while from the brightness outside. They had rushed along the canal bank on the baked earth, stopping for kisses and watching the kingfishers.
The war had changed Tom and not in a good way. He had married Amelie, a nurse he met at the front. Half French. His family had withdrawn all his allowances. Winifred, half mad with grief, had married Lothar on the rebound (he had somehow inveigled his way into Tom’s crowd). Looking back, Lothar had probably realised he was second best, and had taken out his frustrations on Edward. Winifred had been overjoyed when, some years later, Tom had rented the house next door, with a small daughter in tow, after Amelie had run off with the man from the cognac house. She had been cruelly disappointed to find that Tom did not want to carry on where they had left off. She supposed she had rather taken it out on Sylvia. No more than she deserved; Sylvia was probably the reason for Edward’s present bizarre behaviour. Perhaps she should mention her to Juncker; no immediate rush; she would wait and see what he came up with.
Back in his shop in St Anne’s Court, Juncker sat with the blinds half way down. He liked the dark. It allowed his mind to wander and cleanse itself. He patted Galland and poured his insistent feline a saucer of the finest. Leaning back in his chair, he began to wonder how to play things. He had started to dismiss Edward other than someone who could be used and then dropped; Louis was the real means of accessing the files. If he could somehow take Winifred along with him, and make her think he was close to finding Edward, then perhaps she could help. Her husband and son had been partners in the firm. Now they were gone, where did that leave her financially? Might she be susceptible to a ‘sweetener’ from his paymasters? He resolved to let the dust settle for a few days before calling on her again.
In a hunting lodge in Bavaria a few hours later, Dieter Fischer walked in on a telephone conversation. Wirth was finding it hard to suppress his fury; his voice was cold and hard.
‘I am at a loss,’ said Wirth, ‘to know why I should have to deal with retarded people like you. Your orders were to catch that stupid Pole, get the files and kill him. Now you say he is alive but you don’t know where the files are? Where is Cumberland? What do you mean, he has disappeared too? Sort this goddam mess out sofort. Otherwise, I will arrange a very gruesome death for you. I should probably have done it already.’
‘Excuse me, my young friend,’ he said to Dieter. ‘I didn’t see you there. An idiot in London, I’m afraid. Some rather incriminating files are on the loose there. Compiled by Cumberland. Remember I told you about him? They are, shall we say, dynamite.’
Dieter was keen to make himself useful, or to be seen to be doing so.
‘Cumberland was a solicitor, you say. Did he have a family?’
‘Yes, an English wife and a son he referred to as ‘the idiot.’ Ex Spitfire pilot. Why?’
‘And he was the heir to the Bad Kaltenbrun estate?’
‘Well, yes, I suppose so, but he hasn’t been able to visit for years.’
‘Maybe – in a while - an approach to the family from me would help, as a Munich solicitor?’
‘Let’s go through and have some coffee,’ said Wirth, clapping him on the back. ‘I like your thinking. I have a feeling these files are safely hidden now. They can probably stay where they are a little longer, but I shan’t tell that imbecile tailor that. First things first; we have some cargo that needs moving; been in situ for too long.’
Part of the ‘cargo’ to which Wirth referred was sitting in a café in Madrid, as he had every single morning for the p
revious month. He drank a coffee or two, but no more than two, and nibbled on bread dipped in olive oil. He paid and left and wandered the streets, keeping his head down and his brim way down low. He was waiting. He had been ready to leave but this was taking too long, and he was worried. He would leave it another forty-eight hours, he resolved, then he would leave Madrid and head for somewhere like Tarifa on the south coast. A long way from anywhere and where nobody would pay him the slightest heed.
In the event, he would not have much longer to wait. Over coffee in the hunting lodge, Wirth was giving Dieter details of Father Alfonso Hoechst, who ministered to a German community which was beginning to form around a beach near Cadiz. Being half Spanish, Father Hoechst was able to come and go as he pleased. ‘What we call hiding in plain sight, my young friend. I expect they told you about that in the military.’
Dieter nodded.
‘Beautiful part of the world, if you are ever down that way,’ Wirth continued. ‘The asset we need to spring is in Madrid at the moment. There are lots of people after him so we decided, while we got things operational again, to keep him away from any centres of population, if you catch my drift, and to use someone we could trust implicitly. Hoechst will be saying Mass at the moment; best time to catch him will be this afternoon. Ring him from here, after lunch. Then he can make his way up to Madrid to pick our chap up. I can listen in, and it’s a good opportunity to introduce yourself. Now, how about a chat with your new colleagues and a look round our museum?’
Dieter thought to himself how much Wirth reminded him, superficially, of some of his university professors. Of course, that was exactly what he had been. There the resemblance ended. He had seen a different side to him several times now. He tried to focus on the money he was going to earn, rather than what it was that he was doing, and who was being assisted, as he followed Wirth out of the lodge and into the grounds of a castle straight out of a tale by the Brothers Grimm.
