The Madeiran Double Cross

by Sally Spencer

  *

  The white-haired man’s name, according to his passport, was Arthur Blake, and his profession was listed as chartered surveyor. But the passport was a fake, and the outwardly placid respectability was only skin deep. Beneath that skin lurked Alec Guinness's Smiley – nerves of steel, ready to penetrate enemy territory. And it was only by peeling off several more skins – until you had virtually no onion left at all – that you would eventually reach Arnie the Actor.

  At least, that had been the case until five minutes earlier, until, in fact, he had recognized Gower, and then seen – with horror – that his luggage was tagged for Madeira. Now it was definitely Arnie, rather than Smiley, who was standing in the Skybar, knocking back double whiskies at a rate which impressed even the barman-who-had-seen-it-all.

  As Arnie – increasingly fuzzily – saw it, he had three choices.

  He could go home and forget the whole thing.

  He could ring Mason now, tell him what had happened, and thereby pass the buck.

  Or he could go ahead as planned.

  Disadvantages of Option A? He wouldn’t get paid – and Mason would probably kill him.

  Option B? If Mason called the operation off, he would lose the money just as surely as if he’d chickened out himself.

  Which left Option C. Gower might or might not have recognized him, but, apart from the fake passport, he had done nothing wrong. And he would be well away from the island by the time the robbery took place. Of course, with Gower there, the odds were on Mason getting caught, in which case he still wouldn’t get his money, but there was a slim possibility that Mason could pull it off, and some chance of getting his bread was better than no chance at all.

  He had made his decision. He felt it was one of which George Smiley would have been proud.

  *

  “Now remember, Frank,” Elsie said, “don’t you go booking into an …”

  “Don’t you go booking into at an expensive hotel,” Mason interrupted, imitating her voice. “Stay at some commercial place where they won’t pay much attention to you. And for God’s sake, when you’re in the hotel, try to act like a traveling salesman.”

  It was stupid of him to antagonize her at this stage, he realized.

  “Sorry, Elsie,” he said. “You know I always get edgy during the planning.”

  Elsie smiled. “That’s all right. It’s nice to see that you’re learning.”

  He looked at his watch. Arnie should already be in the air on his direct flight to Madeira; Tony and Susan would be flying there via Lisbon the next day; Nigel had left for Brighton more than a week before; Pedro’s train was careering through central France; Harry and his wife …

  Don’t think about it, he told himself – not when Elsie’s watching you.

  “Time to go,” he said aloud. “I’ll ring for a cab.”

  “No need for that,” Elsie said. “I’ll drive you down to the station.”

  Why the bloody hell was she being so helpful now?

  “I don’t want to put you to any trouble,” he said.

  “It’s no trouble at all.”

  Against all odds, Elsie managed to find a parking space near Euston – which meant that instead of just leaving him there, she was still by his side when he entered the station.

  He had allowed some leeway for getting to his flight, but he had never anticipated this. He resisted the temptation to look at his watch again.

  He bought his ticket, and Elsie walked him to the gate.

  “Now remember everything I’ve taught you, Frank,” she said, “and you’ll have no trouble in Liverpool.”

  The idea seemed to amuse her. It had been a long time since he had seen her amused. But it did not amuse him that even now she seemed reluctant to leave him, and stayed at the gate until the train pulled out.

  He got off the train at Reading and caught the first one back to London. At Euston, he took a taxi to Paddington Station, where he handed in his suitcase of clothes suitable for the north in winter at the left luggage and redeemed the case he had deposited the day before. This case was new, and so were the clothes inside it – he wasn’t going to run the risk of Elsie going through his wardrobe and wondering where his summer shirts had gone.

  He was worried about the time, and that made him a little careless. But even had he been at his sharpest, he probably wouldn’t have noticed the man who had been following him ever since he left his flat, and who was now standing by W.H. Smith’s bookshop, watching the case swap.

  He wouldn’t have noticed because the man was highly trained, and very, very good at his job.

  *

  It was her first flight, the elderly woman sitting next to Gower had explained, and she was terrified. She’d sworn they’d never get her up in an airplane, but her best friend, who lived on Madeira, had just lost her husband, and she felt it was important to get to her as quickly as possible, didn’t he agree?

  Poor Madge. She and Leslie had been so looking forward to their retirement, and they’d only been there for four months when he’d passed away. You just never knew when …

  The old woman had been so wrapped up in her story and her nervousness that it had taken her some time to realize that Gower, far from being sympathetic, was being deliberately rude. Now she sat with as much of her back to him as the seating permitted, maintaining an offended and dignified silence.

  Gower’s own mood improved the closer they got to their destination. The old bag had really pissed him off with her inane chatter, but the landing in Madeira would give him his revenge.

  “Terrible cross currents here,” he said, conversationally, when the seat-belt sign came on. “Blows out from between the mountains, you know. They tell me the pilots crap themselves every time they have to do this run.”

  The old woman sniffed disdainfully, but tightened her grip on the armrest.

  “Then there’s the airstrip,” he continued. “It’s one of the shortest in the world. That’s why they’ve got to slam on the brakes as soon as they land.”

  The woman’s lips were thin and trembling.

  “They don’t always make it. A few years ago, one overshot the runway and went arse over tip into the sea. Pity you were yattering at me while the stewardess was showing us the life-jacket drill, isn’t it?” Gower continued, twisting the knife in the wound.

  The wheels bumped on to the tarmac, the reversed engines roared, the plane juddered, slowed and finally came to a halt almost at the edge of the runway. The seat-belt light went off, but Gower’s traveling companion seemed reluctant to move. He squeezed past her, bullied his way up the aisle past passengers who were struggling with baggage in the overhead lockers, and descended the steps on to the tarmac.

  The air was mild. A gentle breeze was blowing from the west, carrying with it the smell of the sea and the vegetation. Less than a hundred yards away, the terminal building was ablaze with light and activity. Gower started to walk towards it.

  He was right behind the solicitor-accountant as they went through the green customs channel. There was something wrong with the man’s walk. It wasn’t just that he was drunk – though he’d obviously had a skinful – the simple fact was that it just didn’t look natural.

  He was bloody acting! Even pissed out of his head, he was still acting – so he wasn’t being drunk as himself, he was being drunk in the way his character would have been.

  “Have you read the regulations, senhor?” a customs official asked the white-haired man.

  “Yes.”

  “And you have nothing to declare?”

  “No.”

  The official patted the counter. “Would you mind to put your suitcase up here and open it,” he said.

  The fake solicitor-accountant looked confused. “I well, I might have … I mean I …”

  “Just open your suitcase, senhor,” the customs man said, tonelessly.

  Gower moved on, out into the airport lobby.

  The voice, too, he thought. He was sure he recognized the voi
ce!

  *

  The man waiting for Gower was potbellied, hook-nosed, and had a thick black moustache which dropped at the ends, all of which made him look – even in his civilian clothes – like a comic South American dictator.

  They shook hands. There was no outward display of warmth in the greeting, and yet, if there was anyone in the whole world Gower could call a friend, it was Inspector Jose Silva of the Policia Judicial.

  It was a strange relationship, Gower thought, as Silva loaded his cases into the boot of the Peugeot 206. Since they had first met at an international police conference, Gower had visited Madeira four times, and on each occasion Silva had spent most of his free time with him. Night after night they would sit on Silva’s balcony, a bottle of whisky between them, looking down on the lights of Funchal. They said very little, but were perfectly relaxed and happy together. Yet Gower couldn’t honestly say that they liked each other.

  Perhaps they found a bond in their common experiences.

  Both were without women; it was nearly thirty years since Gower’s wife had run off with the milkman, and Silva had been a widower for almost as long. But it was not a sense of loss that they shared, rather it was the absence of such a sense. Gower suspected that Silva, like himself, had very little interest in sex – but the subject was one of the many things they did not talk about.

  They set off along the narrow, twisting coastal road that led to Funchal. Silva, like most Madeirans, drove with a casual ease which bordered on recklessness, apparently oblivious to the fact that there was a sheer rock face on one side, and a drop down to the sea on the other.

  Maybe the real basis of their friendship rested – as most friendships did – on self-interest, Gower pondered. Silva liked to be associated with a big-city policeman, and Gower himself got a feeling of superiority from this parochial cop’s silent respect. Or perhaps they stuck together like lepers, because no one else was comfortable having them around.

  That’s the whole bloody trouble with holidays, he told himself angrily – they give you too much bastard time to think.

  He wished he were back in London, giving some really hard-case criminal a working over.

  *

  “The regulations clearly state one bottle of spirits, senhor,” the customs official said to Arnie. “You want to pay me one thousand escudos or you want me to take the whisky?”

  Arnie wondered which would create less comment —paying or not paying. He was regretting the Smiley decision – made under the influence – that he had taken in London, because now that he had sobered up somewhat, he realized there was a much bigger charge than holding a fake passport which they could get him on.

  Conspiracy!

  Conspiracy to commit a robbery!

  Conspiracy to commit murder, if Frank's gang wasted anybody!

  “You pay or I take it?”

  “I’ll pay.”

  He handed over the money and waited while the officer wrote out a receipt.

  Arnie walked towards the courtesy bus for the Casino Park Hotel. His hair was dyed white and he was wearing glasses, he told himself. He was in disguise. If Gower had penetrated that disguise, he’d have said something immediately. Given the sort of copper he was, he’d probably have arrested him at Heathrow, even if it had meant missing his holiday.

  So, at worst, Gower had suspicions, and as long as he could keep out of the bastard’s way until the job was done, they’d never grow into anything else. But if he did see him again, something just might click in the Chief Superintendent’s brain.

  He stopped some distance from the courtesy bus for the Casino Park Hotel. If Gower was on it, he promised himself, he’d take the next flight out, whatever the consequences when Mason finally caught up with him.

  There were a dozen people waiting impatiently inside the bus – three couples, a family with children and two old ladies. Of the toad-like policeman there was no sign.

  It was going to be all right!

  Confidence restored, Arnie headed for the bus.

  *

  The road down the hill was decorated with hanging lights arranged in elaborate patterns, the trees in the park were festooned with countless coloured bulbs. Funchal was dressed up for Christmas.

  Silva drove along the front, past the old ship which had once been one of the island’s vital links with the mainland, and which now, in its new incarnation, was a fashionable bar. Young men in short-sleeved shirts walked hand-in-hand with girls in brightly coloured dresses; older couples sat at pavement cafés, sipping wine and watching the sea. Gower found himself making a mental review of his caseload.

  As they passed the marina – masts bobbing gently up and down, rigging fluttering in the breeze – Silva turned to him.

  “You didn’t say which hotel you chose this time.”

  Every year, Silva suggested that Gower should stay with him, Gower demurred, Silva insisted, until finally, to their mutual relief, it was agreed that maybe next year Gower would be Silva’s houseguest.

  Every year, too, Gower stay would stay in a different hotel, for the simple reason that the atmosphere that existed between him and the staff after his two-week stay was usually sufficient to ensure that, whilst they would accept a future booking from him, he would not be welcomed.

  Gower told Silva where to go and the Inspector whistled.

  “You have treated yourself well this year,” he said. “Five star!” Well, why not? What else did he have to spend his money on?

  They took the Avenida do Infante, passing the Parque de Santa Caterina, as brightly lit with decorations as the rest of the town. At the top of the hill, by the casino, Silva indicated left, and turned into the driveway of the Casino Park Hotel.

  *

  The girl standing at the British Airways check-in at Gatwick looked up to see not the ticket she had expected, but a police warrant card, held under her nose.

  “Get yourself relieved for the next five minutes,” Sergeant Scott said. “We need to talk.”

  Behind him, waiting passengers complained loudly. Well, as Gower would say, sod them!

  Relief was soon supplied and Scott led the girl away to a quieter part of the terminal.

  “That man and woman who just checked in,” he said, “what name were they using?”

  “Mason. Why? Isn’t it their real name?”

  “No, as a matter of fact, it is their real name,” Scott answered, surprised. “Well, it’s his, anyway. Where were they going?”

  “Spain.”

  Scott felt a pang of disappointment. He had thought he was on to something when he’d started following Frank that afternoon, especially after the tricky train change at Reading. But now it looked as if Mason was merely giving his missus the slip and nipping off for a dirty weekend.

  “Alicante, I suppose,” he said glumly.

  “No, Madrid.”

  Now, why the hell should Frank want to go to Madrid? Especially if he was taking Linda, who was strictly one of the bare boobs on the beach brigade, if he was any judge.

  Except … Spain was right next to Portugal, Frank was supposed to be setting up a job with Portuguese Pedro, Madrid had an international airport. It was all fitting neatly together.

  He looked at his watch. The flight was due to take off in half an hour, another two and a half hours in the air, thirty more minutes while they collected their baggage and cleared passport control – if he put a call through to Madrid now, there could be a discreet reception committee waiting for Frank when he arrived.

  NINE

  There were two of them standing at the barrier outside Customs and Excise, one in a fawn overcoat, the other wearing a leather jacket.

  Their expressions showed neither the expectation of people waiting for relatives already four hours late, nor the couldn’t-care-less attitude of couriers who, holding up their cardboard signs, feel they have already done enough. Instead, there was only deep concentration as they tried to match up the description they had been given with one of the emer
ging passengers.

  “Give me a fag,” Mason said to Linda.

  “I thought you’d given up.”

  “Just do it.”

  Linda shrugged, and flipped open her packet of Benson and Hedges. Mason took one and concealed it in the palm of his hand.

  “Hang on,” Linda said, fumbling in her handbag, “I’ve got my lighter somewhere.”

  But Mason was already walking towards the two men at the barrier.

  “Got a light?” he asked the one in the overcoat.

  “No hablamos ingles, señor,” the policeman said.

  We don’t speak English.

  The other man, already reaching into the pocket of his leather jacket, looked shamefaced and let his hand drop back.

  No worked-out common cover, then.

  Beginners!

  Mason produced the cigarette and mimed a light. If the situation hadn’t been so serious, it would have been comical to see the look of mock-realization on their faces.

  “Thanks,” Mason said, smiling at them as he sucked on the cigarette, then he turned and walked back to Linda.

  Shit, shit, shit!

  *

  He thought it had to be the Renault 19, but on the motorway, in the darkness, he couldn’t be sure. Even when it was still on the taxi’s tail as they drove along the Calle de Alcala, it could have been no more than coincidence.

  “Drive around,” Mason told the cabbie.

  “Que?”

  “Drive around.” He made a circling motion with one finger then held up two together. “Small streets.”

  “Not railway station?”

  “Not railway station,” Mason agreed.

  “Why are we doing this?” Linda demanded.

  “It’s just a precaution, darlin’. I always take precautions.”

  The cabbie drove up the Gran Via and then signalled right. They were plunged into a maze of side streets, full of early morning cafés serving grumpy, half-asleep workmen with coffees and cognacs. The cabbie twisted and turned the wheel, hooting his horn at pedestrians forced to walk in the street because so many cars had been parked on the pavement.

  It was a slow, intricate journey and when, after passing the Infantas Cinema three times, the Renault 19 was still behind them, Mason took the train tickets for the Lusitania Express to Lisbon out of his pocket and slowly, deliberately, tore them up.