Raikes closed the file. ‘There’s no need. You’ve made your point, So what?’
‘So now we can come to an understanding. Let me make two things clear, Mr Raikes. First, I have an enormous respect and appreciation of your powers, your industry and your intelligence—but above all of your ability to organize not only people but affairs.’ He nodded at the file. ‘That record must be unique. Any other man, any other brilliant man, would never have had half the run you’ve had. That is why I need you. And, secondly, let me assure you, I mean you no harm. But you must know this already, otherwise it would have been the police who visited you and not my Miss Vickers.’ He smiled and the face was grotesque, but there was a warmth, almost a kindness, in the cloudy brown eyes. ‘As a matter of interest—because of the Bank Act I couldn’t check it of course—how much have you made over the last fourteen or fifteen years?’
Raikes smiled, too, the professional smile, the first move to some relationship which was going to serve him better than Sarling. There was no alarm in him, no anxiety. All that remained was the handling of the situation—and that must go only one way, to his own advantage. There was a lot he wanted to know before he could frame the first positive move.
He said, ‘Somewhere around three hundred thousand pounds.’
‘How much did you give for Alverton Manor?’
‘Thirty-five thousand.’
Sarling nodded at the file. ‘ That’s what most of that was about, wasn’t it?’
‘Most of it. My father trusted his friends, particularly his City friends. He believed what they said, because he thought that was how friendship was. Even in disaster he accepted their explanations and their solutions for recouping his losses. In the end he lost everything, even the house where the family had lived for over four hundred years. I’m not sentimental about it. It’s a fact. He lost everything, and then he died. What did he have to live for? I just told myself that I would get it all back from the kind of people who had taken it from him. I didn’t reason or argue with it. I just saw it as the thing I had to do before I could take up the kind of life which I really wanted.’
‘Which was?’
‘To be a rich man, to live again in the house which was ours, to enjoy simple things but to know that I could have the luxuries which might now and then appeal to me. I believe in continuity, Mr Sarling. A very different thing from survival.’
‘Did it never occur to you that you’ve done all this for different reasons? That you’ve done it simply because you are the kind of man who could have no satisfaction from life unless he lived dangerously? Have you ever considered that?’
‘I’ve considered it.’
‘And?’
‘I want exactly what I’ve said I want. To go back to Alverton and live my way. Why else do you think I took so much trouble with all this?’ He tapped the file. ‘If the police had come to me, I would have killed myself. Now, perhaps you’ll answer some questions of mine.’
‘So far as I can.’
‘What was it that led you to all this? What mistake did Berners or I make?’
‘In a sense there was no mistake. Only the result of two manias—yours and another man’s. He died six months ago. But he compiled your file, that of Berners, and those of quite a few other people. People who have something to hide, people who have never been touched by the police, never been suspected by the police … people, some of whom I have used, some I will use and some, quite a few perhaps, who will never be used, and never even know they could have been used. You see, Mr Raikes, I collect certain sorts of people in the way other wealthy men collect paintings, sculptures, rare books, what-you-will. I’ve found it very profitable. The man who investigated you for me was in my regular employ. He was a German. His name Wurther. He came here after the war. During the war he worked for the Gestapo. He had a mania for detail. Set him a problem and he was in torment until he had solved it, and when he had solved it he was in torment until he had a new one to solve. He was fifty-four when he died, burnt out. You remember, of course, Silverton Suppliers?’
‘Of course.’ Raikes got up and went to the small table to get himself another drink. He didn’t ask; he knew that already their relationship had moved fast, beyond small preliminary courtesies.
‘You sold it—and a brilliant, shameless fraud it was, cooked books, false receipts and contracts and a warehouse stock which was three hundred per cent overvalued—to the Astoria Wine Company. They were expanding fast and in a hurry to grab small outfits before their rivals got to them. Greed makes most men careless. Well, the Astoria Wine Company was a subsidiary of a large holding concern of which I was chairman. When the fraud was discovered I put Wurther on to an examination of Silverton Suppliers. Not an official one. My own personal one. You remember your small office in Duke Street?’
He remembered it well. A good address and all the solid, expensive office furnishings on hire-purchase, but sold with the business as assets. A warehouse in Camberwell and seventy-five per cent of the stock rubbish. He and Berners had worked a solid seventy-two hour stretch to set up the stock display.
He came back with his drink. ‘We made a mistake?’
‘Not that the official investigation revealed. But in one of the desk drawers, amongst all the fraudulent, faked official correspondence and so on, there was a copy of that year’s Anglers’ Catalogue from the House of Hardy. I don’t think you would have left it there knowingly. It must have got hidden between the other stuff. The catalogue had been handled quite a bit. Wurther loved nothing better than such a trivial detail to start from. There was only one mark in the catalogue, and that was a small red ballpoint dot against a rod. A man who makes a mark against an item like that probably wants it, probably will get it. Hardy’s is in Pall Mall, five minutes from Duke Street. All he had to do was to get a list of everyone that year who had purchased such a rod and then begin to sort through and investigate twenty, maybe fifty names. It was the kind of work he loved, the kind he fed on.’
‘I’m sure a firm like Hardy’s wouldn’t have given you access to their books.’ He knew the rod all right. It had been a Hardy-Wanless spinning rod. He could see the details on the page now with a photograph alongside it of a ten-pound Spey Springer caught by … J. L. Hardy it must have been. A red ballpoint dot, and a ferreting man called Wurther.
‘No. He didn’t even ask them. Wurther likes things to be difficult. His Gestapo training had taught him that there were always ways and means. He once broke into a stockbroker’s office for me three nights running and got photocopies of a month’s dealings which I wished to have. No one in the office even knew that there had been a break-in. In your case it took him five months to get what he wanted—and I never knew how he did it. But he got the list of names—and then he checked every name, and photographed each person, unknown to them of course. We had four descriptions of you, not all agreeing. Wurther eliminated the list down to about six possibles. You were amongst them. To a man like Wurther, it was from then on just a matter of time before he isolated you. Would you call the red ballpen mark a mistake on your part? I suppose you would. For his own amusement Wurther went back into some of your past operations. Making up the file on Berners was a comparatively simple matter after all that.’
‘Have you got hold of Berners, too?’
‘No. I’m leaving that to you. But I need you both.’
‘Can’t you leave him out of it?’
‘No. I want you both.’
‘For what?’
‘At the moment I don’t propose to tell you. Let me make it clear that this is one operation only. After it is done you will both be free to go back to the lives you want to lead and never be troubled by me again. Also, you’ll be paid handsomely. You may need other help. For that you can draw on the people who are on my files.’
‘This is some illegal operation?’
‘Naturally.’
Raikes slewed round in his seat and sipped at his drink. Through the window he could see a fold of pa
rkland with sheep grazing and beyond that a long run of red brick boundary wall. He put his glass down on top of his file and said quietly, ‘You’ve Berners’ file in your brief case. I’ve got mine here. I don’t care a damn about the rest. Why shouldn’t I kill you now as you sit there, then go back and kill Miss Vickers, burn the files and disappear?’ He took his right hand from his jacket pocket and laid an automatic on the table top.
Sarling ran one hand over the disfigured, patched-up face, flexing his mouth to tauten the skin over his chin. He said, ‘You would do it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have you ever killed anyone before?’
‘No.’
‘Yet you know you can do it?’
‘Yes. It would be no more to me than tapping a trout on the head with a priest.’
‘Good. Well, to put your mind at rest—I have photostatic copies of all the files. They are in an envelope addressed to my lawyers with a message stating that in the event of my death by violence or in ambiguous circumstances the envelope is to be opened. If I die naturally the envelope and contents are to be burned unopened. So you see I am well covered.’
‘Just one job, but for the rest of our lives we will be in your hands?’
‘Except that you will know what we have done together, so I shall be placing myself in your hands, too. Surely that’s an equitable arrangement?’
‘Is it?’
‘You have reservations about it?’
‘You know I have. What is more, you don’t need me to name them.’
‘You must take my word for it. I am the exception that proves the rule.’ He stood up. ‘I think that’s all we need to say to one another at the moment. I shall be in touch with you very soon.’ He went to the side table.
From, behind him, Raikes said, ‘How much does Miss Vickers know of me?’
‘Nothing of what is in the file.’
‘Or what it is you want us to do?’
‘No.’ Sarling came back to him. ‘Berners’ real name is Aubrey Catwell. He lives at No. 3 Princess Terrace, Brighton. You’d better get in touch with him. Here.’ He held out the brown paper parcel which Raikes had seen on the small table.
‘What is it?’
‘A present. Something I thought you would like. Don’t bother to open it now.’
He went out of the summer house ahead of Raikes and, without turning or saying goodbye, walked away from the top of the waterfall, taking a small path that disappeared into a yew walk. Raikes watched him out of sight and then went back to the car.
Belle Vickers was behind the wheel, waiting.
‘Straight back?’
‘Straight back.’
She drove off. After a while, she said, ‘It’s a curious thing about his face. After a time you don’t notice it.’
Suddenly angry, he said, ‘So far as I’m concerned it’s going to be clearly in my mind until the day I see him dead. And you needn’t bother to tell him because he knows!’
They were back by five o’clock. She left him at the bottom of the drive.
In the house was a message from Mrs Hamilton that Miss Warburton had telephoned. He didn’t care who had telephoned. He was in a rare mood of real anger and he knew that there was nothing to do but to wear through it before he could think straight.
He opened the present from Sarling. It was a copy of Dame Juliana Berner’s Treatise of Fishing with the Angle—the first book on fishing in the English language, and also the first book on fly fishing. This was a facsimile of the 1496 edition, published in 1880. Inside it on a separate piece of paper was a note in Sarling’s handwriting. It read—Please collect your instructions on Monday next (27th) at Flat 10, Galway House, Mount Street, W.1.
The ugly-faced bastard could just as easily have told him this during his visit. He poured himself a large glass of whisky and the anger roared on inside him. Until this day he had been his own man. Now he was somebody else’s and it hurt. He jerked a copy of Who’s Who out of the bookshelf and slammed it open, ripping the pages over until he found him. All right, all right, he told himself, ride with it for a while, get it out of your system now, here in this house, and finish with it, and then begin to think.
Here it was. John Eustace Sarling. His master. And all because of a red dot in a catalogue. Leaving the catalogue had been his mistake. The only one in over fifteen years. He had the rod still. The first time he had used it he had taken a six-pound sea-trout, fresh run over Colleton Weir, on the Fox and Hounds water. Betrayed by the thing you loved best. Irony in that. Well, there had to be something that Sarling, John Eustace, born 21st December, 1908, had to have, too. Something he loved, something that would betray him, something that would let him get his hands on the files and the photostatic copies and then put a bullet through the skin-grafted forehead. Nothing about where he was born, no parents mentioned, no education, no sons, no daughters, no wife, no trivia listed, just a straight jump from birth to Chairman: Sarling Holdings; Stanforth Shipbuilding Co. Ltd.; Suburban & North Investments Ltd.; Overseas Mercantile Bank Ltd.; a great string of companies, running through to Is also Director of a number of public companies engaged in commercial and industrial enterprises. Address: Downham House, Park Street. Maybe that was where the photostats were kept, or perhaps they were at Meon Park, Wiltshire which was his country address.
He put the book away and sat down, staring straight ahead of him.
He heard the front door open and footsteps down the hall. Mrs Hamilton put her face round the door.
‘So you’re back.’ She looked at the glass in his hand. ‘Isn’t it a bit early for that?’
Suddenly he felt sane and calm. ‘ Don’t you start bullying me.’
‘That’ll be the day. You rung Miss Mary yet?’
‘No.’
‘Then do it.’
‘I will.’
She went through to the kitchen, leaving all the doors open and he heard her begin to clatter about. She was sixty-five and her black hair showed few traces of white. When he had been seven years old and she the cook at Alverton she had taken his trousers down and leathered his backside because in a moment of rage he had called her a ‘ bloody old bugger’; and old Hamilton, her husband, had carried him home the first time he had ever got drunk on cider, harvesting.
He reached out for the phone and called Mary. The following evening he took her out to dinner in Exeter and told her that from the beginning of the week he would be in London for a while. He gave her no details, offered no explanation. He never had with her. When he had been away before on his various projects with Berners he had merely been in London on business where it was understood that he had a large number of property interests. She showed no curiosity about his London life largely because she came from the kind of family in which the menfolk seldom discussed their business affairs with the women. In the past, too, whenever he had been staying in London, although he used hotels, he also booked a room at his club and stayed there the odd night and always looked in during the day to see if there were any messages for him. If he wanted to speak to her he always called her from the club.
In the train going up to Paddington on Monday morning everything was settled in his mind. Sarling had to go, and after Sarling, Belle Vickers had to go. There would be no peace or security for him or Berners until they were both dead. But first a way had to be found of getting the files and the photostats.
He took a taxi to the Connaught Hotel and then walked slowly up Mount Street. Galway House was almost opposite Scott’s Restaurant. He went in and walked the plum-carpeted stairs to the second floor. Number 10 was at the end of the right-hand corridor and on its right-hand side. Before he went in he knew that its main windows would overlook Mount Street. On the entrance door was a small brass card-holder. The pasteboard slip in it read—Mr and Mrs Vickers.
He rang the bell and the door was opened by Belle Vickers. The sight of her made him feel belligerent and ungracious.
She said, ‘I thought you might get here about now. I
looked up the Taunton train times.’
She went ahead of him and showed him round the flat. It was like a hundred others, a hallway, cloakroom, a large lounge with a small dining recess at a far window that overlooked the street, two bedrooms with a bathroom and toilet between, and a small kitchen. To anyone who knew their, way around and had the money it could have been completely furnished in an hour’s visit to Harrods. He came back from his inspection and began to make a drink at the sideboard in the lounge.
She said, ‘I’ll have a gin and tonic. I’ve fixed some cold meat and salad if you feel hungry.’
‘Thank you.’
He gave her her drink and made himself a brandy and ginger ale. The brandy was Hines and it was sacrilege to put ginger ale in it, but there was no other. Only the best for Mr Sarling’s colleague.
Looking round the room, cataloguing it, docketing everything away, he said, ‘Rented, furnished?’
‘Yes.’
‘For how long?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘In your name?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell Sarling when you see him, that I want full details of the agreement.’
She said, ‘It’s going to be difficult if you’re going to go on being angry.’
He shook his head. ‘ It’s a luxury I’m allowing myself until I know what I’m expected to do—and be.’
He walked over to the far wall. There was a picture on it snowing a stampede of white horses against a flat, marsh-like, Camargue backgrounds. He straightened it the half-inch that it was out of true and said, ‘What’s behind it?’
‘The safe.’
She began to fumble in her handbag for the key.
‘Don’t bother. You can give it to me later.’ He walked to the telephone and looked at the subscriber’s number in the centre of the dial. Turning, he said, ‘When does Sarling arrive?’
‘So far as I know he doesn’t.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘There’s a sealed letter from him in the safe. You’ll have to give me the usual receipt. After that, if there’s anything you want then you have to ask me.’
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