‘On Monday he’s going to think you’ve raised half a million.’
Treasure chuckled. ‘I suppose so.’
‘Isn’t it extraordinary no one’s got anything going to save the Rudyard Trust before now? I mean the relatives of members . . .’
‘Seem to have been purposely kept in the dark. There’ve been no appeals because, being absolutely legal about it, the Trust Deed says specifically the Trustees musn’t sanction extra fund-raising from any source . . .’
‘But surely relatives . . . ?’
‘I know. They could easily have been told about the situation. Would probably have coughed up without being asked.’
‘Still would.’
Treasure nodded. ‘One of the Founder’s granddaughters wrote us some time ago saying the rules should be altered to keep the Clubs going. We should have responded a lot more enthusiastically than we did. Then more recently a group calling itself the Friends of the Rudyard Trust wrote offering all kinds of help. Well-intentioned ex-officers, I’d think. They were firmly choked off by friend Jonkins. His boss Edwards is away . . .’
‘Seems to me Mr Jonkins has been behaving neither like an officer nor a gent.’
‘Afraid you’re right. Anyway, I’ve told him he can follow up the Friends tomorrow. I think we can safely assume what you’d call a group of earnest do-gooders haven’t been kidnapping West African heirs.’
Given all the circumstances it was a reasonable assumption: or was it, he wondered.
It is more than three hundred years since Lincoln’s Inn Fields recalled more of the country than it did of the town. On the edge of the old City, it was the first of London’s great squares, with a large public garden in the centre. It is said King Charles the First came to inspect Lindsey House—in the new Palladian style—when it was completed in 1640. It still stands on the west side and Treasure had parked the Rolls beside it as arranged. If Freddy was late the time would be usefully employed contemplating the most historically significant house in London—and bathed in morning sunlight.
Freddy arrived shortly after ten in an early Range-Rover spattered in well-caked mud. He had commended the choice of rendezvous. It was far from the habitat of men from the FO—and, it transpired, almost everybody else on a Sunday morning.
The Soane Museum stood closed behind its abstract, Neo-Classic facade. The pedantic Greek portico of the Royal College of Surgeons opposite looked equally deserted and sternly less inviting. The Great Hall of Lincoln’s Inn itself dominated from over the wall on the east side, its Elizabethan elegance no less agreeable for being a Victorian simulation.
The two men had walked twice around the square while Treasure related all he knew about the kidnap.
‘I think it right not to tell the police,’ was Freddy’s first reaction.
‘We’ve no option. I’ve given Cruba my word. Our word,’ Treasure added pointedly. ‘What you’re getting is privileged information.’
‘Quite so. My lot can’t possibly object to Cruba giving half a million to a charity that can’t be a front for something subversive. Grateful to you for keeping me in the picture.’ Freddy hesitated. ‘It can’t be subversive? The charity.’
‘Well, if it is now it won’t be from Wednesday. Once the boy’s safe we’ll have all assets frozen before we do anything else. The half-million will stay part of the capital of the Rudyard Trust.’
‘You offered Cruba the chance to have the gift revoked? Duress and all that.’
‘He won’t risk it in case of some kind of reprisal.’
‘And the fifty thousand cash? Not that that matters to us.’ Even so, Freddy had asked the question.
‘Opac guesses it’s to cover expenses.’
‘You have a different theory?’
‘Could be a professional fee.’
‘What sort of profession?’
‘Charitable fund-raisers. They usually work for ten per cent of the gross. This lot are on to a new method.'
‘You’re right, of course. Fifty thousand is ten per cent . . .’
‘Of half a million. But if we’re up against a fresh style of fund-raiser, who the devil commissioned them?’
‘This Friends of the Rudyard Trust group you mentioned.’
‘Unlikely after they’d announced their existence.’ Even so he had been on the telephone to Jonkins an hour earlier telling him to stay clear of FORT after all. ‘There is another explanation for the whole caper, of course.’ Treasure pressed on before Freddy had time to ask what it was. ‘Can you cover Cruba when he gets to the Mall tomorrow night? I mean with Ml6 people. That Diplomatic Protection lot perhaps? You wouldn’t have to mention the kidnap. Just invent a reason for having him watched for a few hours.’
‘Oh . . . umm . . . it’s very difficult . . . arranging things like that these days without stirring things up.'
‘Come on, Freddy, this is an emergency. Involves a very important person—important to you, anyway. I thought at the very start you were giving him protection. Wasn’t it part of the deal?’
‘He refused it.’
‘I wondered about that. Seems not to trust policemen. I think you’ll Find he’s changed his tune when this is over.'
‘When it’s over,’ said the other pointedly.
‘Which may be too late. Look, he won’t have to know.’
‘He doesn’t have to deliver the money himself.’
‘Well, he thinks he has to, and what’s more he’s going to. I think he needs some kind of protection.’
‘You said he believes he’s perfectly safe till Tuesday. Till after the half-million’s cleared.’
‘If it ever is.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘That the fifty thousand cash could be the beginning and the end of the operation.’
‘That the charity bit is a blind?’
The banker nodded. ‘Which could mean we’re up against sophisticated crooks with small aspirations or an elaborate prank engineered by young Pierre Cruba himself for kicks or reasons of his own . . .’
‘Good Lord.’
‘Or else someone’s after Cruba not his money. Wants the thing to look like a kidnap . . .’
‘But why?’
Treasure shrugged. ‘What about making a political assassination look like an abduction gone wrong? It’s a long shot, that last one, and it’s not something I’d mention to anyone else. But just to indulge a whim, could you get Cruba protected tomorrow night?’
‘Yes.’ This time the answer came without hesitation. ‘Good.’ The banker smiled. They had stopped in front of the Royal College of Surgeons to let a car pass into the courtyard. ‘Never know. Might save us a post mortem,’ he concluded cheerfully.
CHAPTER 12
THE HEAT WAVE AND DRY SPELL PERSISTED over the week-end but came to a dramatic end on Monday evening. An hour before sunset an awesome darkness fell over London and the Home Counties. The distant rumblings that had been bumping around during the afternoon suddenly gave place to thunderclaps of shattering volume followed by hideous stabs of lightning. After this impressive overture the rain came just after eight—in torrents.
Had it not been peak viewing time, droves of householders might prudently have disconnected TV sets from aerials. As it was, most surrendered themselves to fate and an eleven-year-old movie about an airliner with a demented pilot and a defective undercarriage flying through fog while a time-bomb ticked away in the hold. The other channels were offering less escapist attractions.
It had been an unusually profitable Monday evening for taxi-drivers: Dusty Miller, one of the fortunates, had just dropped a fare in a quiet comer of Hereford Square.
He had been busy since the start of the rush hour. Now it was quieter. He glanced at his watch. It was 9.35: too early for theatreland. He switched on his two-way radio.
Miller was a member of an owner-drivers’ association that supported a radio control service. So far this evening there had been no point in listening, with would-be passengers at p
ractically every intersection.
‘. . . Boltons to Duke of York steps in the Mall.’
He snapped over from ‘receive’ to ‘call’. ‘Nine-Charlie-Five to Control. I’m in Hereford Square. I’ll take The Boltons. Tell ’em two minutes. Repeat the number, please. Over.’ He was already turning right out of the Square towards Old Brompton Road.
The caller who had hung on desperately for confirmation thanked the taxi service despatcher, then whistled with relief. The plan had balanced on cabs being easy to get between nine and ten on Monday evenings.
A few hundred yards from Hereford Square Benny and the Major had been waiting in their own cab parked under the trees on the east side of The Boltons, above the church. They could see very little through the steamed-up windows. The rain continued its merciless hammering on the roof.
‘Everything’s going to take longer,’ said Copper.
‘We can give it five minutes more, Roderick.’ Just after he spoke Benny heard, then dimly discerned another cab splash past.
‘Suppose so, but it’s not going to stop.’ The Major cursed himself for not bringing his umbrella after all. ‘I’ll just have to get wet. You shouldn’t be that long.’
‘We can cut out my observation time at the bottom if you want.’
‘No. A minute of reconnaissance is worth a year of something or other. Can’t remember the quotation. Fits, though. Better we stick to the plan. If you see anything suspicious you’ve got time to check.’ He pulled the piece of stocking over his head. ‘Damn. Wrong way round.’ The comment was muffled. He had made a hole for his mouth for the unconceded reason he might otherwise choke with repugnance.
The Major hated using the stocking. As for the one Pierre had provided, a used one, a bit cut off one of Mrs Cruba’s cast-off tights—he shuddered again at the thought. That morning he had bought a brand new pair of tights at the supermarket staring out the girl at the check-out as he had paid for his single purchase.
After some rearranging the large hole in the nylon now accommodated his mouth instead of his left ear, but the two small slits he had cut for his eyes kept closing. He pulled on his deer-stalker and felt in the pocket of his raincoat for the dark glasses, only to be worn in emergency.
‘Right. I’m off.’ He threw open the cab door. The handle banged against a parking meter.
‘Steady on,’ said Benny, mindful of Harry Katz’s property, but half apologetically since he wasn’t the one now standing in the rain. He started the engine. ‘See you in a bit.’ The cab pulled away from the kerb.
The Major turned about, taking the same route he would shortly be directing Cruba to follow. It was arranged he would take up position half way down the west side of The Boltons where he could watch for Benny’s return,. Then, when he was satisfied there was nothing following the cab, he was to move fast to the top of the oval again, ready to jump aboard when Benny stopped at the junction.
He was definitely not expecting the taxi to be heading towards him before he had even reached his vantage point.
The headlights were on low beam: if there was trouble Benny would have put them on high. On the other hand, he had firm instructions to drive very slowly if all was well, and here he was coming around the crescent like a scalded cat.
There was no time to look for possible pursuers. The Major wheeled about, then splashed back along the pavement as quickly as he could. He deplored Benny’s misplaced good intention to get him in out of the wet even at the cost of precipitating heart failure. He could tell without looking when the clattering cab was abreast of him. Wet and breathless, he staggered into the road, arm outstretched, to grasp the door handle.
Far from stopping, or even slowing, the cab accelerated, swinging left towards Brompton Road. The Major stood rock steady while he was showered with the several pints of well-oiled rainwater accumulated in one of the Borough’s deeper and wider pot-holes.
Dusty Miller had no reason for stopping. He had not even seen the party who darted out at him until it was too late to signal he was engaged, and he certainly could not be responsible for the fate of dim-wits who waited on wet roads without the expectancy of getting soaked.
The Major rarely swore. ‘Bloody hell!’ he cried aloud. It was only then he thought to read the number of the retreating cab—to twig it might not have been Benny’s cab. As he turned around the point was confirmed: he very nearly fell over Benny’s cab which was stopped immediately behind him.
‘Get in quick, Roderick,’ Benny shouted with a lack of caution that defied understanding and the observance of proper military discipline. How was Cruba to credit they were strangers if they addressed each other by their first names.
But Cruba was not in the cab. ‘What happened?’ demanded Copper from the back seat while starting to shed the more immediately sheddable parts of his sopping outer clothing: the stocking received the highest priority.
‘He’s in the cab in front. Saw him get in with a briefcase—the sort we expected.’
‘You don’t know him. It could have been someone else.’
‘He was black.’
‘Oh Lord.’
‘I mean he was exactly like his pictures. I was quite close. He came out of the house with the case . . .’
‘There’s been a mistake.’
‘You think he sent for his own cab, Roderick? Maybe he thought he had to send for his own cab to take him . . .’
‘To the Duke of York steps. That’s where we go,’ ordered the other, irritated to find the lining of his raincoat was wetter than the outer part and perplexed over the reason. Benny set the cab in motion.
In the rain and confusion neither Copper nor Gold immediately noticed the Rolls-Royce halted some distance behind. The chauffeur, Henry Pink, had delayed on instructions before pulling out to follow the first cab—and for too long: a second cab had insinuated itself between him and his quarry at the critical moment. Now the interloper was effectively blocking the narrow road by stopping in the middle of it to take on trade.
‘It’s all right, he’s moving,’ said Treasure from the back of the Rolls. ‘If we’ve lost our chap, head for the Mall. Fast as you can, Henry.’
All direct routes from Kensington to the Mall finish by passing Buckingham Palace. From there the broad, straight processional way sweeps down to Admiralty Arch: the Duke of York steps are on the left near the end.
Each of the three drivers had his own variation on what constituted the most direct route to the Palace and they were none of them in sight of each other after they left The Boltons. Henry Pink had no interest—or thought he hadn’t—in Benny Green who, as it happened, took an earlier turn eastwards than the chauffeur chose. Dusty Miller was too far ahead of the field to be picked up by either of the others—some luck at the first set of traffic lights saw to that, though the still blanketing rain and the busier streets in the central area would have made serious pursuit nearly impossible.
The vehicles arrived at their common destination in the same order in which they had left. Miller made the best time, Gold was a good second, and Pink nowhere—ten minutes behind Benny due to a traffic diversion set up only seconds ahead of him at Hyde Park Corner where an underpass had flooded.
François Cruba paid off his driver, turned up his coat collar and walked deliberately across the wide approach to the steps which are staged in three broad flights of ten steps each. Above them towers the Column to the Grand Old Duke, dissecting Carlton House Terrace to left and right, with Waterloo Place behind. At the Mall level the long Terrace basements feature as elegant flanking wings to the grandiose Column approach.
As Cruba began his ascent seventy-three members of the North Kent Art Society, mostly female, mainly coatless and wholly resolute, began to disgorge from the lighted portal of the ICA Gallery a few yards to the right.’ The special Private View of a new exhibition was over, the lecture digested, the refreshments consumed, the Society’s hired coaches, parked in Waterloo Place, ready to depart. The members had waited some time fo
r the rain to ease. When it did so a little an optimist at the front had cried, ‘Come on everybody, it’s nearly stopped,’ and everybody had believed her.
Only half-seeing, for the steps are badly illuminated, the art lovers fresh from the brightly lit gallery attacked the climb with all the British group enthusiasm engendered by rain, Cyprus sherry, ruining dresses, flattening back-combing and a stimulating sense of adversity.
‘Are you all right, Marjorie?’
‘Chins up, Doris.’
‘Take my arm, dear.’
‘Like the Black Hole of Calcutta.’
‘Talk about glorious May.’
‘Must be easier going down . . . Look out, girls, there’s a bull loose.’
‘Cheeky monkey, shoving like that . . .’
‘Take care, there’s another one going up. Do you mind . . . ?’
‘Some people . . . There, somebody’s fallen . . .’
‘Is it Gertrude?’
‘Careful, everybody . . . careful . . .’
‘There’s two down.’
The agonized bellow from the centre of the steps momentarily froze the chatter.
‘Oh my Lord.’
‘Are you hurt, dear?’
‘Stand clear. Somebody’s ill.’
‘It’s the man underneath.’
‘Treacherous in the wet. There ought to be more light.’
‘He’s not moving.’
‘Could somebody send for an ambulance quickly?’ asked Major Copper. He had caught Cruba’s body from behind as the figure between them had darted away. He had not had the strength to do more than lower the other, face downwards, into the wet. He had already been winded himself after taking the climb too quickly. It must have seemed they had collapsed together. ‘An ambulance,’ he repeated loudly.
‘On my way,’ volunteered a Mr Edgar, one of the few male members of the group. He was already half way up the remaining flight of steps.
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