by Daniel Kemp
“When was this?”
“In the timescale that envelopes us three, I think it must have been the week before you last met him. He said; 'I'm having trouble with my English friend and my English family. I will deal with it next week. Then I'm to disappear.' Note the my family in there, H, and my friend, not a the, as in reference to your intelligence community. It made me take notice. Not one to use unnecessary words, my father. A very precise man. Could Harry and I have some more water, Mr Boss Man, please?” she asked, as the sweat ran down my brow.
Jimmy motioned the skinny cigar-munching agent to fetch some, taking a bottle himself this time.
“Did you bite on the…I'm to disappear, that he said?” I asked, doubting Jimmy Mercer missed that one.
“Nor was he one to pass up opportunities, Harry. Of course I did, as eagerly as those sturgeons had on the fishing line.”
I was right, he hadn't missed that detail!
“Just to clear away a small detail there, Katherine. Did your veritable wizard of an old man know that you worked for his motherland?” Mercer asked the question that I too wanted to.
“Not from me, but I can't answer for your man Alexi. He had many probing fingers that stretched far and wide. It had been Paulo's suggestion that I worked for Cable News Network back in history, so he knew I was in Brussels. I don't suppose he thought I'd stayed there for the weather.”
“Did Paulo even know that you played the same game as he did, Katherine, or was he blind to all that you did?” I asked, stupidly hoping that he didn't.
“If he didn't, Harry, then he was not the man that he was.”
Mercer had sat back and taken a cross-legged, arms folded position with a self-satisfied grin on his face.
“What did he say after you questioned the my family bit, Katherine?”
“It was heavy stuff for me to understand, Harry.” She took another cigarette from my open packet and helped herself to a light, then proceeded.
'I worked with an English Lord many years ago, Katyerena Illich Sarenova, but he died before he was ready to claim the throne. I'm not sure now that I was thinking clearly. You have an English brother who neither of us have ever seen but I came close once. Too dangerously close. That near meeting brought home memories of my aspirations towards an English knighthood. It's not all that it seems over there in that green and pleasant land that's called England. I heard a name, with a story attached to it, that made my skin crawl.'
“That's when he said it, Harry. Percy Crow.”
“Why have you kept this locked away for so long? Why not mention it before?” I asked. There was a flicker of movement from Jimmy.
“I was being asked so many questions that it just slipped my mind, Harry. Remembered it when they left me alone and housed me in some well-appointed place in Washington, D.C. Perhaps the place reminded me of you, and how well you must be living, or maybe I wanted a horse-mounted prince to rescue me from these heathens. Can you do that?” I shook my head to her request, and caught Jimmy grinning.
“In any case, I didn't think it was important.” No, I bet you didn't, Katherine, I thought.
“Did he say anything about Percy, other than his name?”
“No! Not another word. Is it a vital name? Big clue to the occupation of Mars?” She looked at Mercer who looked away, then me to get a response; I shrugged my shoulders.
“Why is it, Katherine, that although you worked for that American agent named Alexi you hate all that's American? I can't work that out?” I asked.
“That's easy, firstly, I never knew that Alexi was an American spy. He fooled me on that one! Secondly, I don't hate all of America, but I do hate this lot from the CIA though, they simply have no style. Do you know that they eat cold pizza for breakfast, Harry? Shows a lack of class and sophistication, don't you think.”
“As a point of no interest at all, Katherine, but maybe something for you to ponder upon, Jimmy Mercer's father was the overall chief-ranking officer in some hidden away department at the CIA when Alexi was running you. How about that for a coincidence? Perhaps Daddy Mercer was Alexi's control.”
“Well then, there are bastards in all the families concerned, Harry. Have you any?” she asked, as she turned away from me and I imagined I saw a tear in her eye as the door to her bedroom closed behind her.
We left Katherine waiting with her memories behind her locked apartment door, and I was left with a hollow sadness that I could not explain.
“You really must tell me what you were speaking of to Katherine before she threw out Percy, Jimmy, you really must,” I said, on the way down the stairs and our waiting car. Mercer made no reply.
Chapter Six: September Party
I arrived back in England from that first trip America late in the evening, having succeeded in certain things but failed miserably in the most important of all; I had not discovered what it was Jimmy and the CIA were questioning Katherine about that made her pull Percy Crow's name out of her hat. I had her confidence, and presumably that of Paulo, but for what reason and what lay behind it all? It was obvious that Mercer knew nothing of what Malcolm had told me before I left for New York and I never enlightened him. Neither did I mention what George had told me about the party.
Another failure of mine was with Serena. She had messaged me on countless occasions without one response from me in return. That I rectified as soon as I was through customs. My return trip was by British Airways not by the smoking-allowed American Air Force. I wanted a cigarette, wishing it was Paulo I was about to call.
We had only been apart for five days, but according to Serena the world had ended in that time and it was all my fault. Her machinist, the very best in the world apparently, had been shot in the arm by the wife of the man whose baby she was carrying. Not only could she not sew, but she was inconsolable with grief. I assumed that there was no other seamstress in the whole of Portugal as Serena had flown to Brazil to find another. Worse was to follow. Tanta had been detained on arrival in Lisbon. It was, as she explained in her text, a huge mistake as it was his brother who had the drug possession conviction and not him, but the authorities would not be persuaded to change their decision of returning Tanta to the UK.
Why can't you do something about it, Harry, and where the bloody hell are you hiding? From that message I guessed she was none too pleased. The next two confirmed my theory:
You're bloody useless in a crisis, Harry! Where the effing hell are you?
What's the point of being a lord if you can't do anything more than grow cows? I'm phoning Father for help!
I had not dared to think what the messages to her father had been like. When I had finished scrolling through the other similar messages, and eventually called her, I learned that she was now on the way to Milan to meet the great Franco.
“Harry, thank God and the Santa Maria sailing ship. We have fourteen coats in Tanta's colour of crimple, the poor chap, with the great and wonderful Franco begging at my feet to cast his eyes over them. They are stunners, H. Real blasts! Now to find the right models, but Milan is where everything, simply everything goes on, am I right, or am I plainly brilliantly right? You okay, by the way? Have you dumped the woman you ran off to meet? You better had, or it's a bullet in the head for you, Harry Paterson, and I'm an ace shot, remember!”
It had been on a wild boar shoot with her father, Nicolás, in the Cucugnan region of southern France some eight or ten years before, when we had first met and I struck up a friendship-only relationship with his teenage daughter. I knew precisely just how good with a gun, and tenacious by nature, she could be. Boars are difficult animals to hunt but not as difficult as Percy Crow, and the reasons behind Katherine's surprise mention.
Back at Eton Square, Mrs Squires had found the guest list on which Percy's name appeared. It was dated the fifteenth of September, 1981. George had been partially correct in his assumption that it was a theatrical party as the director, along with the leading lady, of a play that had opened at the Aldwych Theatre the
previous night, were on the list, but so were others from widely different occupations. The only thing I could come up with was perhaps they, along with Maudlin, had money invested in its production. Percy Crow could have been the in-house photographer, I guessed. There was another name I recognised, but chose to keep that knowledge secret. Something odd was playing with my mind, but I couldn't put a finger on it. Could it be simply chance, or was there much more going on inside Paulo's intellect in connection with the man that I knew of?
* * *
The Fleet Street jewellery shop had proved productive for both George and myself. His reward to Mrs Squires for her loyalty and dedication, of a matching emerald bracelet, earrings and necklace, had coerced her into becoming his personal investigative assistant. She had discovered Wikipedia, and loved it! They were approximately two-thirds of the way through the list, with two peculiarities already showing up. Maudlin had a distinct abhorrence of all things Irish, having had a bad experience over there during the Irish war, yet two from that island had been invited. Both had just been elected to the relatively new government as members of the opposition Sinn Féin party. Maudlin would not have been aware of the second peculiarity as the accusing whispers surrounding that theatre productions director had not started until he worked for the BBC. It was not discovered until many years later that he was one of the most prolific sex offenders this country had ever known.
A fourth man was the leader of a provincial orchestra, leading a routinely uninteresting life. The one remaining guest, who had been checked out so far, would have been well known to Phillip, as they had served together in the Life Guards regiment. Apart from Percy and the director, who came accompanied by his leading actress, all the others had attended with their wives. There were two names that needed no investigation, both having the prefix of Miss. Although both Maudlin and Phillip were married, their intractable womanising lifestyles were no secret at Harrogate, as it had not been with my late father; knowing that, the three of us decided that the two young ladies were private guests of the two hosts. I asked for as much information as possible on the new members to the Irish parliament.
* * *
The girl in The Flag had been right about Malcolm knowing things about everyone. One thing about nosey people is their willingness to share what they know with anyone who gives them the time of day. Malcolm, also known as Frank the beaver, was true to form in this respect as I became a kindred spirit to his gossip as he trimmed away at my hair, and then again on the Sunday morning at his home in Alwyne Villas, Canonbury, North London, within walking distance of Percy's Islington home address.
It was his crystal clear words that were in my mind as I gazed at Mrs Squires's guest list.
“Was a dresser, was Percy, on the flamboyant side, mind you.” Malcolm was in full flow as the cut began. “A bow tie and cape man. Sometimes even used a walking cane, not just for the effect. Said he got shot before being captured by the Russians in some place unpronounceable to me. He told me he lost his hearing when a prisoner of war as well. Deaf as a bat in one ear, he was. Always an elegant and well-dressed man was Percy, not like some I would add.” His accurate observation aimed at my own scruffiness was not lost on me
“I was young and he liked me. He had the scruffiest hair I'd ever seen, thick, grey and bushy. I was a trainee in those days. It was my dad who owned the saloon. But as he sat down in my chair for the first time, I used an old stock in trade saying. I said; don't worry, sir. I can change chicken shit into chicken soup by just using my scissors as a whisk. He started to come in regular like, after that. Used to boast of the famous people who had engaged him as their photographer. Percy loved boasting. Dad couldn't stand him. Said the limp was just a put on to impress. Later on, as we got to know each other better, he would brag of the ease with which he got those celebrities to pose for their portraits, by settling them down and taking him into their confidence. 'Tell me the funniest story you have ever heard, or, better still, tell me the funniest thing you have ever done. I promise I won't tell, if you promise not to tell of mine.' That was his chat-up line. He got very close to some of them. Or, so he said. Went abroad with a few of those pins, that was his word for his clients; pins. Toured Europe and America at their expense with a couple of them. Strange that, I thought, for a backstreet cameraman. I'm not sure if he was just trying to make out that he was more important than he really was, but one night, after we'd had a few bevvies, said he killed some people and had it all covered up. Never told me the names of those involved, if that's your next question. I know he knew someone very high up though.” He stopped speaking to take a furtive look around to check that we were alone.
“Close to an actual member of the Royal Family. How did I know? He showed me a photograph of an old man with a very young girl having it away. She was tied up, hands and feet and looked in a great deal of pain. It was a sideways snap, with only half of the man's head and body showing but I'd seen that face in a family shot of the Royals on holiday. I vaguely recall the headlines about the lot of them being in Ireland for some jamboree or something during World War One. It was in a socialist newspaper, a lot of years after, but typical of them! Us plebs dying all over the bloody world and they're off partying! He showed me that photo only a few years before his death, but the newspaper I saw it in was an old one. King George V was in it, bang in the centre! Said that he normally kept that snapshot locked safely away, taking it out when he was down in the dumps, but never elaborated on that. Never knew the girl, and he never told me the chap's name, did Percy. He must have been in his late stages of life though, saggy and fat, old fella with a big beard. I was amazed at how he got it up, if you follow me. If Percy had told me the name it would have gone completely over my head as I can't stomach any of them, nor them in the House of Lords. Should all be abolished, just a load of parasites, the whole lot. Oops, sorry, forgot you're one of them!” I never argued with his assessment.
Extortion, bribery, even murder would not have been unknown to Paulo, they were commonplace in the world he travelled, as was sex in all its variances, so what was it that rankled him into saying that his skin crawled? Could it be just regret of an institution that once he had so admired being tarnished by deviant, abhorrent sex? A Royal could account for some of it, but not to go to these lengths, surely! The following day was the day I left for America, leaving George the task of researching all the names on the list, other than Percy's. I had also delegated him to visit the letting agents of Number 12 Pilgrim Street, London EC4 and try to find out all he could about Percy's rent record, overdue or up to date etc. Mrs Squires, I put in charge of Maudlin's vast photography collection which was kept in the basement, and armed with the newspaper clipping she left George and me in conversation.
Probyn & Fellow, the Patersons' solicitors of Lincoln's Inn, London, were next on my own log of what to do. The need for delving into every aspect of Crow's life would be made easier if there had been a will. A living beneficiary would be even better, but to find either could be an extensive job which an expert could expedite far quicker than any of us. After George and I had concluded our conversation, I left a message with them and retired to bed.
The following day I visited Gibson Square, Islington, to view the area once lived in by my mysterious quarry. It was a gloriously sunny day but even that could not lift the gloom of London from my shoulders. The taxi ride took forever, but the open widows only let foul smelling air in, there was no freshness anywhere to be found for me in London. Percy lived and died at Number 17, a five-storeyed red brick Victorian terrace property with ornate columns around the front entrance, valued in today's market at over two million pounds, and according to the electoral role in the Upper Street Town Hall, occupied by a married couple by the name of Blithe, with no dependants. Just over thirty years had passed since Percy lived in this highly popular residential district, far before it became as affluent as was now. Then it was just another suburb housing itinerant traders of all descriptions. I chanced my arm and k
nocked on the blue-painted door of Number 19. It was opened by a short lady, advanced in her years, with pink curlers in her hair, and a rounded sallow, sunken face and nothing on her feet.
“Good day, madam, I'm from the Guardian newspaper researching your one time neighbour, a Mr Percy Crow. I wonder if you knew him and if so, could tell me something of him?”
“Oh I knew him all right. Too bloody well. I'll tell you exactly the same as I told the police, I know sweet FA!” She then went to slam the door in my face.
“The paper will pay you for your time,” I quickly shouted.
“That's different! Come in,” she said, holding the door wide open.
Chapter Seven: Big White Rat
The floors were completely bare, lacking any covering. Dark stone for the long, dank, narrow, hallway and wood for the square kitchen, in the corner of which, on the floor, next to a coal burning stove, was a large bird-type metal cage with a spinning hamster wheel inside. The trouble was there was no hamster in there. Instead there was a big, white, ugly rat on top of the wheel! It must have been him that I smelled on entering.
“Make great pets, you know,” she said when I looked somewhat shocked, to which all I could do was reply, “really.”
“I made a huge mistake sixty-eight years ago, in marrying a man who was a no good lazy drunken rat. When he died I decided to keep them as pets so I could imagine him running around in circles chasing his own arse. Gave ratty there, I call him Freddie, a nice piece of raw beef on the anniversary a little while back, as we celebrated together. Cooked the rest for myself! Do you want a cup of tea?” she offered.
“That's very kind. Milk, no sugar, please.”
