The End of the Web

by George Sims

  ‘Just a very small one. I want to pop in on a girl friend who lives in Bentinck Street, then I must get back to Beatrice and tell her you’re established here. Do you feel funny about living in this flat?’

  ‘Not really. Bee seemed to want me to. That’s all that matters. Besides, it’s silly to leave a place like this unused.’

  ‘Very sensible. What I was saying about Leo—I mean, he seemed to have everything but—do you know that song –

  Don’t it always seem to go that

  You don’t know what

  You’ve got till it’s gone?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”. Stella, that American girl on Samos, brainwashed me with American folk singers—Joan Baez, Harry Nilsson, Buffy Sainte-Marie. I ended up nearly converted.’

  ‘All of Leo’s records are of the thirties and forties. I suppose really he wanted to go back to that period.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’ Buchanan’s chest had begun to ache and he felt that he needed a swig of the Captain Bligh rum. He had enjoyed the evening spent with Beatrice and Katie at the latter’s flat in Seymour Street. Katie had dished up a perfect pizza and green salad, and they had drunk two bottles of Beaujolais. He had found it very easy to talk to both of them and had probably talked too much, but suddenly it seemed to have been a long day. Twelve hours after being punched by the bruiser in the wig, he was beginning to realize how heavy the blows had been. He had always found alcohol an effective pain-killer. He poured rum into two tumblers.

  As she took one, Katie said, ‘Do you think you’ll have any trouble seeing Machin?’

  ‘I don’t think so. How much it will achieve is another matter. I can see Bee’s point of view, of course, but Bumper may not think it’s got much to do with the case he has to solve. It’s a strange coincidence about Chard, but it may be just that.’

  ‘Perhaps, but Nora Chard’s attitude has been so very odd. After all, Leo was quite a friend and he used to make a fuss of their son Clive—yet she hasn’t phoned or written to Bee. And the girl I know who works for Sid told me Nora is in a terrible state, quite shaky with nerves, doesn’t ever leave her flat although she always used to be out. Most peculiar.’

  ‘Bumper couldn’t do anything about Mrs Chard—not if she hasn’t gone to the police about her husband being missing…’

  ‘I’m sure she hasn’t. My friend says Nora pretends that everything is okay and yet seems scared stiff. Oh—there was one other thing—Bee and I remembered it when you were in Holborn—another business friend of Leo’s, a man called Harry Freedson, phoned Bee twice—and they were rather weird calls. One was just after Leo died. Bee took the call thinking he was phoning just to say how upset he was about Leo, but Freedson went on to ask if there was anything he could do to help. It was strange because Bee didn’t know him at all well. Then he phoned a week ago, from Amsterdam, and again asked if there was anything Bee wanted him to do. She thanked him for calling and said no. She was puzzled, said it was like taking a call in code to which she didn’t have the key.’

  ‘No wonder Bee is bewildered by everything.’

  Katie finished off her rum. ‘You won’t find much of Leo’s stuff here. I collected most of it. Some records are still around, and the record-player, and there’s an old mac somewhere. That’s about it. The wardrobe and chest-of-drawers are empty. Well, I’ll say good-bye.’

  ‘Can I see you round to Bentinck Street?’

  ‘Not worth it, thanks, it’s only a minute from here. ’Bye Ed. See you tomorrow.’

  ‘Good-bye Katie.’ Buchanan held her arm lightly as they went downstairs. There was a friendly intimacy between them that had sprung up easily and he found it very pleasant. He hoped it might grow into a lasting relationship. He did not want another affair like his last one that had flared up in a sexual passion but had nothing else to support it.

  Immediately he had returned upstairs Buchanan picked up the Trimphone and dialled the number of the Swan Walk flat, letting it ring for a long time. His sore chest and cheek were going to ensure that one day Philip Tureck would hear a rat-tat on his red front door and have to answer some straight questions. Buchanan did not go out looking for trouble, but when it came he believed in retribution on the Old Testament scale. He poured another glass of rum and had a couple of swigs before beginning to put his groceries and clothes away.

  Half-way through this chore he walked through to the bedroom and examined the records in the chromium rack. There were a number of Nat King Cole L.P.s and others by Astaire, Crosby, Glen Miller, and Sinatra. Apart from the Benny Goodman and Tommy Dorsey discs it was not his kind of music. Again he wondered about Katie’s knowledge of the flat. Had she come by it simply in clearing the place up for Beatrice, or had she in fact at some time lain on that bed staring up at the skylight? He did not like entertaining these pawky thoughts about Katie—her relationship with Leo was none of his concern, and such brooding was not his usual style. Probably it had to do with being in the dead man’s flat, which seemed to retain something of the stifling atmosphere of a love-nest rather than a home.

  Buchanan walked into the bathroom to wash and clean his teeth. After doing this and switching on the electric heater he was at a loss to know how to pass the time till the water would be hot enough for a bath. He had left his few paperbacks in Samos and there did not seem to be a radio. He refilled his glass with rum and went back to the bedroom, taking out the Tommy Dorsey disc and glancing through the titles of the tunes. Then he put on a Bunny Berigan single, ‘I Can’t Get Started’, and idly opened a small corner cupboard to see if he could stow his bags there. It was empty apart from a macintosh and an umbrella hanging on hooks. The umbrella had not been rolled before being put away and Buchanan could see a scrap of blue writing-paper had fallen into the folds. He took out a much creased piece of paper. There was writing on both sides in Leo Selver’s hand. Buchanan sat down on the bed and turned on a small lamp so that he could study it.

  On one side there was a list of eleven names under the heading ‘Eendracht maakt Macht’ which he could roughly translate as ‘Unity makes strength’:

  Court-Card

  General Sir Claude Everard

  Lord Gleneale—dead

  Lord Robert Montfaucon—dead

  Lord Walmersley—dead

  Sir Oscar Molyneux

  William d’Arfey, M.P.—dead

  Henry Cuyp, M.P.

  Sir Anthony Beddoes—dead

  Brigadier Jack Fitzroy—dead

  Major Hugh Meynell—dead

  At the bottom of the list Selver had written: ‘Of this bunch eight are dead. Henry Cuyp alive, no longer an M.P. but the head of the Arkadie International Corp. Fate of Everard and Molyneux uncertain. Court-Card as much of a mystery today as he was then.’

  Buchanan stared at this list unable to make any sense of it—he could not remember ever having heard of any of the names. At the top of the other side of the paper Selver had drawn a spider’s web. Below it he had written out a quotation:

  Montaigne—

  Death is a remedy against all evils: It is a most assured haven, never to be feared, and often to be sought: All comes to one period, whether man makes an end of himself, or whether he endure it; whether he run before his day or whether he expects it: whence soever it come, it is ever his owne, where ever the thread be broken, it is all there, it’s the end of the web…

  Chapter XV

  ‘…so declare that I will truly serve our Sovereign Lady, The Queen…without favour or affection, malice or ill-will…and, while I continue to hold the said office, I will, to the best of my skill and knowledge, discharge of the duties thereof faithfully to the Law; so help me God.’

  As Buchanan walked over the rustic bridge by the west end of the boating lake in Regent’s Park he was going over the Police Oath in his mind. When criticisms had been made of his ‘not being a good team man’, and his tenden
cy to ‘bend instructions’, he had bridled. Now he felt more detached and able to see that what had been said was true. He lacked his father’s steadiness and willingness to obey orders even when they seemed stupid—it boiled down to that in the end.

  The morning’s mist still lay thickly over the lake so that he could hear the quacking of ducks but not see them. There was a pale blue sky and it was going to be the kind of temperate late summer day, with mellow sunlight, that he had sometimes missed during months of unvarying heat on Samos. He glanced at his watch and saw that he was a few minutes early for his meeting with Machin, 9.05 a.m. on Friday 14 September. The previous day had been passed very pleasantly in Katie’s company, even though some of it had been in the alien world of antiques. In the morning he had accompanied her to an auction at the Harrods’ rooms in Hammersmith, and found he was interested in the dealers’ varying reactions to the sale. They had spent most of the afternoon moving the items she had bought in a self-drive van, and then he had dashed out to Oxford Street to do all his shopping for clothes in half an hour. He intended having the weekend as a holiday and to start looking for a job properly on the Monday.

  Standing in a patch of sunlight, he watched the patterns made by a breeze on the surface of the lake and the darting and hovering flight of a dragonfly. The sound of children’s laughter tempted him further along the path to a point where he could watch them on the slide and swings in the playground, and see the first young customers taking their seats in small motor-boats.

  No sooner had he found a bench in the sun and turned to the page of personal adverts in The Times than he heard a familiar voice call out: ‘Well—if it isn’t Mr Hardnose hissel.’

  He looked up to see Machin strolling along with a pretty little dark-haired girl. Machin stopped at the gate of the playground, waited till the girl had run across to the swings, then walked over and sat down beside Buchanan.

  ‘Hey up, Ed! What’s wi’ the man-tan and bleached hair? Eeh, our Marje should see you now!’

  ‘How is she? Still blooming?’

  ‘Aye, she is. Finds it bit ’ard stretching the few pound I gi’ her. Any road, you look on your bike again.’

  ‘Yes, I’m all right. Is this your day off?’

  ‘Not to worry. Two birds wi’ one stone. Our little lad’s come doon wi’ flu and young Jackie is just ower it—so I’m treating her to a day oot ’fore she goes back t’school. Half an hour here, then it’s ower t’planetarium, fish and chips and an ice-cream sundae ’boot a foot high, Madame Tussaud’s, home.’

  A woman who had been pushing a pram sat down on their bench. After a few moments of silence they exchanged glances and got up to walk along the path again. Machin wore a hounds-tooth check suit, a white shirt with a black and blue tie, and a white mac that appeared brand new. He moved forward in a slightly hunched way, looking down at his feet as if he were playing soccer again and waiting for the kick-off. There was an air of sombreness and tension about him that did not accord with his good looks and immaculate clothes.

  ‘I wanted to see you about Leo Selver. The man found dead in the Stephen Street flat.’

  Machin stopped walking and looked round directly into Buchanan’s face. His expression was plainly derisory. ‘Private-eye stuff noo eh! Happen you’ll be on to more clout nor pudden on that one I reckon.’

  ‘Not a chance. Just personal. The Selvers used to be my parents’ next-door neighbours. Beatrice Selver…’

  ‘I’m wi’ ye. Nice woman that. Liked her—but t’facts won’t change.’

  ‘I’ve got a bit of information you might be able to use.’

  ‘Well let’s have it then, lad. You know us—we never close.’

  Buchanan was thinking that Machin had changed a good deal since his early days with the Met. He could remember the time when Bumper’s Geordie accent was so thick that some phrases had to be translated—‘Howwaydoon tuthe chippy?’ meant ‘Fancy a late snack?’ and ‘Areyegannin doonbye?’ was ‘Are you going down?’ Now his accent was much less difficult to understand, with just the occasional homely phrase. The bumptiousness of the youthful soccer star had gone too, replaced by a serious brooding personality which could appear menacing.

  ‘Just that one of Selver’s friends, a furniture dealer named Sidney Chard—seems as if he scarpered the same day that Leo died. Hasn’t been seen in a month.’

  Machin’s shoulders moved uneasily. ‘S’nothing to do wi’ case, I’ll be bound. Mrs Selver’s been on t’ me with this kind of stoof. She can’t face t’facts…’

  ‘Chard’s going off is a fact, Bumper. We checked again yesterday by phoning his assistant at the shop.’

  ‘All reet.’ Machin took out a notebook and a tiny silver pencil. ‘Address?’

  ‘S. Chard, Camden Passage. He’s in the phone-book with that address and also his flat in Bloomsbury. Mrs Selver’s also had a couple of strange phone-calls from a man called Harry Freedson.’

  Machin shrugged. ‘This sort of stoof…anyone dies…dig around in their lives…you come up with stoof you can’t explain. You know me, I’m impatient, I like to get a good cough, have everything tied oop reet. But some pieces belong t’noother jigsaw altogether.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. I just said that I’d pass it on.’

  ‘’Course, Ed. You’ll understand I can say nowt.’

  Buchanan nodded. He knew enough of police work to understand what it must be like to be in Machin’s position, up to his elbows every day of his life in the kind of messes that most people would never encounter. He could imagine the police view of the Selver case. The discovery of the macabre bedroom scene by a police constable summoned by a perceptive milkman; the unpleasant details of the two corpses, perhaps strangely discoloured or fouled with excrement; then the intensive work in the flat by the investigating officers and the forensic pathologist. Machin had twelve years’ service with the Met., seven of them with the C.I.D.; he was an expert in murder and violent death, knew that seemingly ordinary people under stress were capable of extraordinary acts such as tearing off a woman’s face with fingernails or doggedly trying several different painful methods of suicide.

  ‘Well’—Machin fingered his nose thoughtfully—‘leastways tell Mrs Selver I’d say nowt. But I’ll tell you one thing, and that is I’m very interested in that Judy Latimer. I can say this as one of the papers got on to it—she was all packed and ready for off. Three suitcases, two bags, three wine-cartons. In fact, everything she owned ’part from the bedroom furniture could have been moved oot of that house in five minutes by taxi. And she had an airline ticket for t’States.’

  ‘Christ, I nearly forgot!’ Buchanan exclaimed. ‘There was something else. A bloke called Blencowe who runs an art gallery in Homer Street. It seems he saw Judy Latimer with a young chap, early twenties, trendily dressed. Male model type.’

  Machin took out his notebook again. ‘Now you’re talking, lad. As the Chief Super says, info regarding that lassie is in short supply. Fact is she’s a mystery in herself, like someone picked oot to disappear without trace. An orphan, ye see. Brought up by foster parents in Leicester and it seems they wrote her off years back.’

  Chapter XVI

  The end of the summer is a sobering period for anyone in Ed Buchanan’s position. He had passed carefree months doing a job he enjoyed without giving any thought to the future. He had been intoxicated with the sun and sea, and the pleasures of the simple life on Samos. Now he was sobering up, and his hangover took the form of the dreary business of self-evaluation. He felt like the grasshopper in the fable about the industrious ant. He was thirty-one and had failed at two careers, and could not see where he might fit into the scheme of things. He realized that the day-dream of finding another opportunity like the one on Samos was foolish, and he had no wish to spend his whole life navvying. When Stella and Nick had finished their building operations they would have to settle down to the mundane b
usiness of running a small guest-house and taverna. What kind of work could he settle down to, not for a few months, but with the resolve to make it into a career?

  Buchanan had lunched well at a French restaurant in Connaught Street with Ken Hughes, the owner of Bathwick Mews Performance Cars. The lunch had been on Hughes and he was always a generous host, particularly with wine, but Buchanan was lucky in that he did not suffer from alcoholic hangovers. It was Hughes’s matter-of-fact attitude to Buchanan’s prospects that had had a depressing effect. Put simply, Hughes’s argument was that Buchanan was well fitted to work for and eventually manage the Bathwick Mews business and was not really equipped for anything else. This was probably true, but Buchanan found it hard to accept. As he walked from Paddington to his meeting with Katie Tollard at Royal Oak station he was trying to think of some form of escape from a lifetime of performance cars.

  Hughes had two irritating habits: one was saying ‘I know what you’re thinking’; the other was often being right in his mind-reading act. Hughes had been a much more successful racing-driver than Buchanan, and had taken his winnings and invested them in a business he knew from A to Z. He had a charming wife, three nice kids, a pleasant home in Notting Hill Gate. He never seemed to make a mistake. In one way it would be foolish to turn down his offer.

  Walking slowly along Gloucester Terrace, Buchanan mentally listed his own abilities: he was a first-class car mechanic and driver; he could speak a little German and Italian; his French was fluent; he was energetic and not afraid of work. That seemed to be the grand total of things he had to offer in the marketplace of employment. He owed his attainments as a racing-driver to his ability to see in slow motion things that were happening at speed, and a capacity to control all his faculties when the unexpected happened, like a cat’s ability to fall on its feet or to jump on to an unseen foothold. It was the kind of thing that had enabled him to lose adhesion of the rear wheels of his Porsche Spyder at 140 miles per hour on the Thillois hairpin bend at Rheims, do six revolutions before coming to rest, and be ready to continue the race. Such assets had no commercial value outside the world of motor-racing.