Paper Chase

by Bob Cook

  “Christ,” Ogden said. “That’s—that’s awful.”

  “The murderer wasn’t found,” Blake said. “The police said there were no clues worth mentioning, but I don’t think they were particularly interested.”

  “And what did you do?” the Laird asked.

  Blake sighed.

  “The best I could,” he said, “which wasn’t much. I discharged myself from hospital and began my own inquiries. I was too ill to travel, so I hired a private investigator—a man called Hopkins—to find out what the hell was going on. Hopkins flew to Larnaca, and got nowhere. So he tried to find Lemiers, to see if he knew anything. It turned out that Lemiers’ Paris office was just an empty apartment, and the phone line was disconnected. Hopkins asked around to see if anyone had heard of Lemiers, and it transpired that he was a complete unknown in the arms world. It was as if he had never existed.”

  “What about the Israelis? They had sold Lemiers the arms in the first place, hadn’t they?”

  “They denied all knowledge of him,” Blake said. “And they were adamant that they hadn’t sold any arms of the kind we described.”

  “Maybe they were lying,” Beauchamp suggested.

  “I don’t think so. There was no reason to lie to me—we were a reputable firm, and the alleged transaction with Lemiers was perfectly in order. No, I think they were telling the truth: wherever the arms came from, it wasn’t Israel.”

  “What happened next?”

  “Things got even worse,” Blake said. “Hopkins went quiet for a week, and I began to get worried. His last call was from Paris, and when I contacted the police there, I found that he too had been murdered, and dumped in the Seine.”

  Ogden and his friends gazed at each other uneasily.

  “It’s a nasty little tale, isn’t it?” the Vicar observed.

  Blake looked down at the ground.

  “I tried to get in touch with Colonel Kyle. His company has ceased trading, and nobody knows where he is. My last clue was Brigadier Symes, and he’s unavailable. No one will say where he is.”

  “For heaven’s sake, why?”

  “I don’t know. But I think our authorities know a lot more about all this than they’re prepared to admit. The Foreign Office claims to be looking into this business, but they certainly haven’t made it their top priority. At first I thought they just regarded me as a nuisance. Now I suspect it’s more serious than that.”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “I’m almost certain that my phone’s being tapped,” Blake said. “Several times in my inquiries, I’ve phoned people for help. At first they were happy to see me, and we’d fix appointments. But minutes later they’d get back to me and cancel, for no proper reason. Not hours later, mind, but minutes.”

  “You think they were got at?”

  “I’m sure of it. And that means the authorities are keeping an eye on me. Why? What the hell is going on?”

  “Is that why you phoned me from a call-box, without giving your name?” Ogden said.

  “Yes. You see, Gerald fixed the shipment through an old Intelligence contact—Symes. Now the Intelligence people are tapping my phone, or so I suspect. It seems to me that the only people who could get to the bottom of this are other Intelligence people. I’ve tried contacting all the ex-colleagues Gerald mentioned to me. All of them have refused to have anything to do with me, for the reasons I’ve explained.

  “You were the only one left, and I didn’t know how to reach you. Then I heard about your memoirs, and I found Mr Croft’s name in the directory.”

  “I see,” Ogden said. “So what would you like us to do for you?”

  “Firstly,” Blake said, “you could find out if my phone really is being tapped. If it isn’t, and I’m just being paranoid, that’s the end of the matter. But if I’m right, it will mean the authorities are involved, and you might be able to discover why.”

  The friends glanced at each other again, but Ogden now looked doubtful.

  “I’d love to help,” he said. “But I’m not sure how we could find out if you’re being tapped. We’re not exactly flavour of the month in MI5, you know…”

  “To be more accurate,” said the Laird, “our name is mud, and they’d sooner entrust us with the Crown Jewels than their precious tapping list.”

  “We’re probably on it ourselves,” Beauchamp grinned.

  “We don’t need it,” the Vicar said. “There are other ways.”

  “Ah,” Ogden grinned. “There speaks the expert. The Vicar used to work in telecom interception, Mr Blake, so listen carefully.”

  “It all depends,” said the Vicar. “Mr Blake, do you know if your local telephone exchange has been modernised? They’re all going over to the new digital System X nowadays, you see, but they tell the clients when they’ve done it. Have you had notification of that? It usually comes with your phone bill.”

  “No,” Blake said. “I don’t recall anything like that. I live in a rural part of Kent, you see…”

  “Good, good,” said the Vicar. “In that case, we’re in with a chance. Give us a week, and we’ll tell you if you’re being tapped.”

  “Can you do it that soon?”

  “Oh yes,” the Vicar said confidently. “We’ll need some money, I’m afraid.”

  “I haven’t much,” Blake admitted. “A few thousand, at most.”

  “Oh, we don’t need that much,” the Vicar smiled. “A few hundred will do, and you’ll get most of it back. It’s a relatively simple job.”

  “If you say so, Vicar,” Ogden frowned. “But—”

  “I do say so,” the Vicar nodded. “You’ll be amazed by the simplicity and elegance of my plan. Oh look, he’s out! Well bowled, that man! Well bowled!”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “ARE YOU ABSOLUTELY SURE about this?” Ogden said.

  “Of course I’m sure,” the Vicar replied. “In fact, it’s one of the few areas where I can be one hundred per cent certain.”

  He took another sip of his tea and smiled benevolently.

  “I did enjoy that cricket match,” he added. “You should have joined us, Sybil. They had a demon bowler who reminded me of old Tubby Beeston in ‘F’ Directorate: you know, those innocuous run-ups, followed by the most devastating—”

  “Godfrey, I don’t like this,” Sybil broke in. “It’s dangerous.”

  “Nonsense,” chuckled the Vicar. “Safe as houses.”

  “It’s illegal,” Sybil said. “You could go to prison.”

  “Well, it’s funny you should say that. Legally speaking, it’s a very grey area. You see, if the phone-tap is unlawful—and it almost certainly is—I doubt if we’d be doing anything wrong.”

  “You can’t be sure of that,” Sybil persisted. “Godfrey, I beg you not to do this.”

  Sybil was genuinely worried. Her hands were clasped tightly together, and she sat nervously on the edge of her armchair. Matters were not helped by the expression of cheery complacency on her husband’s face. But Sybil was not the only one who had doubts: even Ogden had shed some of his customary schoolboy recklessness. He blew a large purple gum-bubble, burst it, and said, “Look, Vicar, I know you’re the expert, and all that—”

  “I certainly am,” the Vicar agreed.

  “But surely every phone-tap is backed up by a warrant signed by the Home Secretary.”

  “Not true, Clive. Half the taps in this country are illegal, and even when they’ve been OK’d by the Home Office, the warrant is only produced in the case of police taps. MI5 warrants are never seen by anybody.”

  “Including the Telecom people?”

  “Especially the Telecom people. They do exactly what they’re told. All you need is one of these.”

  He opened his wallet and took out an identity card, which he passed over to Ogden and the others.

  “This expired six years ago,” the Laird observed.

  “I’ll cross it out and write in a new date,” the Vicar said. “They won’t notice.”
/>   “But surely the cards are changed every so often to avoid this kind of thing: a new format, different colours—”

  “Oh, of course,” the Vicar nodded. “I’m sure the new cards don’t look anything like this.”

  “But—but in that case—?”

  “Look,” the Vicar said heavily, “we aren’t dealing with a tap in central London. It’s a remote place, staffed by yokels, and all we need to do is casually wave the card at them. Trust me.”

  “If you say so,” Ogden shrugged.

  “I do,” said the Vicar, and with a mischievous grin, he added, “Really, Clive, I never thought you’d be the one to get cold feet.”

  Ogden frowned indignantly at the Vicar.

  “Now steady on,” he said truculently. “There’s no question of cold feet here. Just plain common sense.”

  “Good,” said the Vicar. “So it’s settled, then?”

  “It certainly is,” Ogden snapped. “Anyone here dissent?”

  “Not me,” Beauchamp said.

  “Well,” the Laird shrugged, “if the Vicar doesn’t know about phone-taps, who does? Let’s give it a shot. It sounds like fun, anyway.”

  “Definitely,” the Vicar giggled.

  Sybil said nothing, and left the room, as the men discussed the fine details of the Vicar’s plan. After a few minutes, Ogden was summoned by a call of nature, and he excused himself. Out in the hallway he was accosted by Sybil, who grabbed his sleeve with surprising force.

  “This is all your fault,” she hissed. “I won’t forget it, you know.”

  “Oh really, Sybil,” Ogden said. “It’s the Vicar’s idea. You heard him.”

  “Yes, but who started it all? You and your wretched memoirs—why couldn’t you leave us all in peace? Why did you have to cause all this trouble?”

  She burst into tears and rushed off to the kitchen, leaving Ogden to scratch his head in bewilderment.

  “Women,” he sighed. “Never could make ’em out.”

  He blew another gum-bubble, and went upstairs to the lavatory.

  The next day, Ogden & Co. drove over to Tooting, and visited a car dealer called Tony Blewitt, who specialised in selling second-hand commercial vehicles. Mr Blewitt was a youngish man with a large beer-belly and a permanent smile. Nothing, it seemed, was a problem for him.

  “Used van?” he said. “No problem. Got dozens.”

  “Preferably ex-British Telecom,” the Vicar added.

  “No problem,” Mr Blewitt beamed. “Take your pick, gen’lmen.”

  He led them out into his yard, where around twenty yellow light vans stood in various stages of dilapidation.

  “Starts at five hundred quid, gen’lmen,” Mr Blewitt explained. “The best one’s fifteen hundred. All MOT’d—no problem.”

  The Vicar looked over two or three vans, and finally settled for a rusty old T-registration model.

  “How much is this one?” he asked.

  “Five-eighty,” Mr Blewitt said.

  “You’re joking, of course,” Beauchamp said. “This is over nine years old.”

  “Very good nick, though,” Mr Blewitt countered. “No rust. Well, not much.”

  “Four hundred,” Ogden offered, and he exhaled a pink ball of gum.

  “Now you’re joking,” Mr Blewitt grinned. “I mean to say—”

  “You are prepared to negotiate, aren’t you?” the Laird said, waving his pipe-stem solemnly.

  “Well, yeah,” Mr Blewitt said uneasily. “No problem. But I was thinking more like five-fifty.”

  “A born comedian,” Beauchamp said appreciatively. “You should be on the stage.”

  “Did he say four-fifty?” the Vicar asked.

  “Sounded like it,” Ogden said.

  “Five-thirty,” Mr Blewitt offered.

  “Slip of the tongue,” the Laird suggested. “You meant four-sixty, didn’t you?”

  “Five-ten,” Mr Blewitt said desperately. “I mean to say—”

  “You mean to say four-seventy,” Beauchamp corrected him.

  “Four-ninety,” Mr Blewitt shouted. “Four-ninety, and if you don’t like it, you can—”

  “Four-ninety it is,” Ogden nodded.

  “Provided you throw in a can of spray paint,” the Vicar added.

  “Spray paint?” Mr Blewitt repeated. “What do you want that for? The van’s just been re-sprayed—”

  “It’s for my car at home,” the Vicar explained. “A nice royal blue, if you have it.”

  “Yeah, all right,” Mr Blewitt sighed.

  “Good man,” Ogden said, and he patted Mr Blewitt on the back.

  “A gentleman,” Beauchamp said.

  “A scholar,” said the Laird.

  “A fucking prat,” Mr Blewitt said mournfully.

  Having paid up, Ogden & Co. returned to the Vicar’s home, and hurriedly drove the van into his garage.

  “There’s no one about,” Ogden said, casting a quick glance up the street.

  “Glad to hear it,” said the Vicar, as he closed the garage door. “They’re all frightful gossips around here.”

  “What happens now?” Beauchamp asked.

  “It’s quite simple,” said the Vicar. “Mr Blewitt hasn’t completely re-sprayed the van: he’s just painted over the British-Telecom logos on the outside. If you look carefully at the surface, you can still see the raised markings. I’m going to colour them in once more with the spray paint. I’ll also add the letter ‘R’ to the old van code—that will indicate that the van belongs to Telecom’s Reserve fleet. The tappers always use Reserve vans, you see—”

  “All right, all right,” Beauchamp said. “And how long will all this take?”

  “Two hours,” the Vicar replied. “Then we’ll be ready to go.”

  “Splendid,” Ogden said. “While you’re doing that, Vicar, I think we shall cadge a pot of tea from your delectable wife.”

  “By all means. But—er, easy does it, chaps.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Sybil’s not on form at the moment. Handle with care.”

  Ogden saluted smartly.

  “Message received and understood.”

  By nine o’clock that evening, the van was ready, and the Vicar had made the last of his preparations.

  “I’ve phoned the exchange,” he said, “and told them two special engineers would be in tonight.”

  “They bought that?” Ogden said.

  “Gladly,” the Vicar nodded. “That tends to suggest that they know who we are.”

  “Implying that they’ve had a similar visit recently,” the Laird reasoned.

  “So Mr Blake’s probably right,” Beauchamp said. “They have fitted a tap to his phone.”

  “Possibly,” the Vicar said. “But we can’t be sure. After all, they might have been tapping someone else. No, Clive and I will still have to see for ourselves.”

  “Are you sure only one of us can come with you?” asked the Laird.

  “Positive,” said the Vicar. “They normally work in pairs. And besides, I have only two sets of overalls.”

  He pulled two crumpled Telecom uniforms out of an old carrier-bag.

  “Try one on,” he said to Ogden.

  “This is going to look a bit silly,” Ogden observed, and he was right: the sleeves stopped just below his elbow.

  “Roll them up,” the Laird suggested.

  “Why don’t you forget the idea?” Sybil said desperately. “There’s still time. You can phone Mr Blake, and—”

  “No, dearest,” the Vicar said firmly. “We’re going tonight. That’s fine, Clive: nobody will notice. I’ll just check my tool-kit once more, and we’ll be off.”

  Having satisfied himself that everything was in order, the Vicar led his friends out to the garage.

  “If you don’t hear from us by tomorrow lunch-time,” Ogden said, “send for the cavalry.”

  “Good luck,” Beauchamp said.

  “Send us a postcard,” the Laird suggested.

  The jo
urney was wholly uneventful. At that time of night the traffic was fairly light, and they were out of Greater London within an hour. But the journey through Kent was slow: the Vicar wished to avoid major routes, so most of the trip was spent on narrow B-roads that wound through fields and small villages. After three hours, they arrived at the Telecom exchange which served Mr Blake’s phone. It was a medium-sized building just outside a tiny hamlet near Canterbury.

  “Pull up at the front,” the Vicar commanded.

  “Are you sure?” Ogden said. “Isn’t discretion the order of the day?”

  “Not at all. The style is brusque and businesslike. Just watch me.”

  The exchange’s night staff consisted of one sleepy individual called Jack, who sat in the office reading a copy of Penthouse. He showed the two old men in and offered them a coffee, which they accepted gratefully.

  “I was expecting the same blokes who come here last time,” Jack said.

  “They’re on another job,” the Vicar explained.

  “I was sorry about what happened,” Jack said. “I mean, the rules say all visiting staff have to sign the visitors’ book.”

  “All except us,” said the Vicar.

  “Yeah, but no one told me, did they?”

  “What happened?” Ogden said.

  “They got a bit stroppy,” Jack said ruefully. “Pulled rank on me, shouted, told me I could be nicked for obstructing them—basically, the works.”

  “Don’t worry,” the Vicar said. “We’re nicer than they are. If you keep out of our way, we won’t make trouble.”

  “Fair enough,” Jack nodded, and he gave each of his guests a mug of coffee. “If you don’t mind my saying so—”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, aren’t you a bit old for this caper? I mean, no offence or anything, but the last blokes were a lot younger than you.”

  “They’re juniors,” the Vicar said.

  “Oh,” Jack said.

  “And we’re seniors,” Ogden added.

  “I—I see.”

  “Anyway,” said the Vicar. “Enough chit-chat. We’ve a job to do.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “Well, it’s this way.”

  He led them into the exchange, and explained its layout. Then he returned to his office.