The End Game

by Michael Gilbert

  “More or less,” said Susan cautiously. “They find re-insurance for UK risks in the States and vice versa, don’t they? What did he do when he came back?”

  “He got a job with Morphews Van Nelle, the Merchant Bankers. Am I boring you?”

  “Success stories are never boring.”

  “Up to that point, what I’ve been telling you is public property. The Chronicle did a profile of him last year. ‘Captains of Industry.’ A clever piece. It made him sound like a mixture between Horatio Bottomley and Father Christmas. I don’t think Blackett liked it much, but the facts about his early life were there, all right. It’s after he left Morphews and founded his own company, Argon, that the record gets a bit elusive. There was one other director, a retired army man, Colonel Paterson. A nice-enough chap who liked to take two hours over his lunch and left all the real work to Blackett. Argon was just a medium-sized run-of-the-mill finance company until it had the good luck to pick up the shares in a property company called Blackbird.”

  “It wasn’t luck,” said Susan. “It was Harry Woolf getting cancer.”

  “Now how on earth would you know that?”

  “I was told about it by Mrs Woolf. She’s a friend of my grandmother.”

  She explained about her grandmother.

  “Then you know more about that bit than I do,” said Holmes. ‘The buzz round the City was that he’d borrowed the money to buy Woolf’s shares, on pretty steep terms, from a character called Arnie Wiseman. I always thought he had a bit of luck there.”

  “Lucky being able to borrow the money, you mean?”

  “That was lucky. But it wasn’t what I meant. The point is that Wiseman would certainly have insisted on early repayment of his loan. And the only way Blackett could get the money was by selling off a lot of the actual Blackbird properties and hanging on to the options. Which is certainly what he did in the summer and autumn of 1972. Then, in December 1972, the property bubble burst. I expect you remember it. A lot of investment companies and private banks went under. Argon was laughing. It was practically a cash company by that time. Blackett got a lot of credit for having seen the slump coming. And that sort of credit is mighty useful to a man in his position.

  And as I said, I think in that case it was nine parts luck.”

  “That’s a useful commodity, too,” said Susan. What happened to Arnie?”

  “No one knows. He must have been sitting pretty. He’d got his money back and he’d have got all the collateral benefits he’d bargained for, too. He was a director of Argon, with a good service contract, I’d guess, and a fat expense allowance. Practically he could milk the company of anything he wanted. And then he disappeared.”

  “Post hoc, but not propter hoc,” said Susan smugly.

  “So! A Latinist and an economist.”

  “Not really. It was a tag I picked up the other day. I was longing to work it off on someone.”

  “Blackett was right. You’re an unusual girl.”

  “Did he say so?”

  “He’s certainly interested in you. No doubt about that. Why do you think you’ve come up three ladders in record time? You’re being groomed for stardom.”

  “What sort of stardom?” said Susan doubtfully.

  “Sooner or later—and my guess would be sooner—you’ll find yourself working directly for Blackett.”

  “I’m not sure that I should like that.”

  “Most people would jump at it. And when I say that he’s interested in you, don’t misunderstand me. I don’t mean that he’s attracted by your appearance, although that’s quite attractive enough for any normal person. Blackett’s not a normal person. Sexually I should guess he’s a virgin. What I meant was, quite literally, that he finds you interesting. And when Blackett finds someone interesting, he likes to take them to pieces to discover what makes them tick.”

  21

  Blumfield Terrace, S.E., had some pretensions to gentility. The houses were old and mostly subdivided, but front steps were holystoned, windows were curtained and there were flowers in the tiny gardens. Number 17, which carried the plate of Dr. Ramchunderabbas, M.B., M.I.P.D., was at the far end, where the road, which had been cut off by the railway, ended in a brick wall. At this point, if you were on foot, a passageway took you down, under the railway bridge and out into Blumfield Road, parallel to Blumfield Terrace and to the south of it.

  At the open end of the Terrace there was a small, steamy cafe. Most of the work in it was done by a homesick Welsh girl of sixteen, who had no objection to David spending long hours over a single cup of tea, at a table in the window. What she made of him, apart from the fact that he was a fellow exile from the valleys, it is difficult to imagine. His clothes suggested the final step down before destitution. A flannel shirt, without a collar, a grubby windcheater, blue list trousers and gym shoes. Clearly he had no job, or he would not have been sitting about all day.

  It took David three patient days to establish the doctor’s routine. There were two normal surgeries, one between ten and twelve in the morning and the other between five and six in the evening. But he gained the impression that there was a third and rather different surgery, which started after the last regular patient had left.

  It was difficult to be certain, but he guessed that these visitors must be coming up the passage and getting into the house without showing themselves in the Terrace. The surgery, he now knew, was the room on the first floor. He caught occasional glimpses, through the window, of Dr. Ramchunderabbas, a burly figure in a white coat, and of other men as well. Men he had not seen approaching the house.

  He realised that he was going to need a closer observation post, and this presented difficulties. Many of the houses in the Terrace were occupied by elderly ladies, who spent most of their time at their front windows, spying on their neighbours.

  Accordingly, when he left the cafe that evening, he made a detour, down the High Street, along Blumfield Road and up the passage from its bottom end. Just short of the top he stopped. His guess had been right. There was a doorway in the wall on the left of the passage which must lead to the back of the doctor’s house. The wall on the other side was high, but not too high for an active man. He jumped for the top and pulled himself up until his chin was level with the coping. What he could see beyond the wall was a derelict triangle of land, knee-deep in nettles and separated by a high wire fence from the railway line.

  He thought it would serve.

  On the following night he was back at the same spot at ten o’clock, carrying a small knapsack over one shoulder. A quick pull-up, and he was over the wall and down among the nettles. As he arrived a train rattled past on the line. He noted that the wire fence was close-meshed enough to mask him from casual inspection from the train. The nettles were the only drawback.

  From his knapsack he took a hammer and three short lengths of angle iron, flat at one end and cut to points at the other. Using the hammer cautiously, he drove these pegs into the brickwork of the wall. The first one went in three feet up, as a step; the other two a couple of feet higher, as a platform. When he had hoisted himself up on to them he found that he could see the length of the passageway as far down as the railway bridge and, immediately opposite him, the door into the doctor’s garden.

  On four occasions in the next hour footsteps approached up the passage, and David got into observation. The first time it was a policeman, who walked solidly past, his helmet inches from David’s nose. The next three were all patients of Dr. Ramchunderabbas. They drifted up the passage, phantom figures, making little noise and hugging the shadows, paused at the garden door, darted a quick glance to right and left, then pushed the door open and went through, closing it softly behind them. It was too dark to see faces, but David could hear that one of them was crying softly.

  The last of the visitors arrived at half past ten. When he left, the light in the first-floor window went out, and a minute later the light in the ground-floor front room came on. David clambered down stiffly from his per
ch. He had discovered what he wanted to know. He left the pegs in position, hoisted himself back over the wall and made for his bed.

  Sleep proved evasive. The nettles had uncovered gaps in his defences, and his calves and ankles were burning.

  He turned over and made a determined effort to compose himself, but he could reach no more than the borderland of sleep. It was a land of shadows, where darker shadows moved. Helpless, hopeless ghosts who turned their faces away when he tried to identify them and wandered off, sobbing. It was daylight before he dozed off.

  At eleven o’clock on the following evening he was ringing the doctor’s bell. The surgery window was dark, confirming that the last of the evening callers had gone, and there was a light on in the front room downstairs, from which he could hear the sound of music.

  For a long minute after he had rung nothing happened. He noticed that there was an optic in the door and guessed that he was under observation. Then the door swung open and Dr. Ramchunderabbas said, “The surgery’s shut. What do you want?” He was a burly figure and was standing in a way that blocked further advance.

  David said, “If you’ll allow me inside for a few minutes, I’ll tell you. I’ve got a message from your suppliers. It’s for you, mister, not for the whole street.”

  There was another long pause. What was evidently puzzling the doctor was the discrepancy between his visitor’s disreputable appearance and the authoritative way in which he spoke.

  Then he said, “You can come in, but no funny business.”

  David followed him into the front room. A cold meal was laid on the table, and a television set was humming softly. The doctor switched it off and said, “Well?”

  By this time David was feeling a lot more comfortable. If the doctor had been on the level he would have slung him out and telephoned the police.

  He said, “I understand that you’ve been experiencing some difficulty over some supplies.”

  “Supplies of what?”

  “Heroin.”

  “So?”

  “I am afraid that the difficulties are going to increase. There has been a hitch.”

  “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “If you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m wasting my time and yours.”

  David swung on his heel and made for the door.

  “Don’t let’s play games,” said the doctor. “If you’ve got something to say, come back, sit down and say it.”

  David came back, perched himself on the edge of the table and said, “The people you get your heroin from were swindled over the last consignment. They’ll have considerable difficulty in replacing it. In fact, supplies may dry up altogether, for a time.”

  “And what has that got to do with you?”

  “As it happens, I am in a position to offer you an alternative supply.”

  He put a hand into the top pocket of his windcheater and drew out a plastic packet. There was no doubt, now, about the doctor’s interest.

  Bad trouble with his patients, David diagnosed. Keep at him. You’ve got him rolling.

  “You can test it if you wish. I imagine you have the apparatus.”

  “No need for apparatus,” said the doctor. He opened the package, spilled a few grains from it on to a spoon from the table, held it up to the light and examined it closely. Then he touched a grain with his tongue.

  He said, “How much are you asking?”

  “There, now,” said David, “I like a man who knows his own mind and comes straight to the point.”

  “How much?”

  “If you weigh the packet you will find that it contains exactly twenty grams of top-grade heroin. The open-market price, I understand, is twelve thousand pounds a kilo. By my calculation that makes this lot worth two thousand, four hundred.”

  “You’re talking kerbside prices. I don’t deal in that market. First, I shall have to have the powder converted into regulation hypodermic tablets. That is an expensive process.”

  David knew that this was true. A doctor would have a small legitimate supply. But it would be in tablet form. If he dispensed the drug in powder form and it was traced back to him, he would be in bad trouble.

  “I’ll give you eight hundred pounds. Not a penny more.”

  “That wasn’t the sort of price I had in mind.”

  “If you don’t like it you can take the stuff somewhere else.”

  “What I proposed,” said David placidly, “was to give you the packet.”

  The doctor stared at him.

  “In exchange for some information. And a little help.”

  “So?”

  “I will go further than that. If the information you give me proves correct and your help is effective, I will present you with a similar packet, also for free.”

  The doctor, who had been standing, sat down in the chair at the head of the table and closed his eyes.

  Just as if he was going to say grace, thought David. “For what we are about to receive—”

  After a long pause, the doctor said, “You are prepared to pay so handsomely for this information that it makes me wonder what it is and why you want it.”

  “Then let me explain.” He extracted a snapshot from his wallet and laid it on the table. “I’ve every reason to believe that this is a photograph of one of your patients. It was taken some years ago, and the man will have changed a lot by now. But I think, if you look at it carefully—”

  The doctor examined the photograph for a long minute. Then he said, “Perhaps.”

  “You do know him?”

  “If it is a man who looks like a tramp and speaks like a gentleman.”

  “Yes, indeed,” said David softly. “That will be the man.”

  “What do you want with him?”

  “I’ve come a long way to find him.” David put the photograph back in his wallet. “And I want you to help me.”

  “How?”

  “Very simply. I have observed that you have regular days and times for the patients who visit you in the evenings.”

  “Certainly.”

  “Then you know when this man will come here next.”

  “He comes once a month. He has some allowance, I believe, from a family trust. He collects it in cash and comes here that same day. I sell him a month’s supply in tablets.”

  “Which is how much?”

  “All he can afford. Sixty tablets of one sixth of a grain each. He will be here next”—the doctor consulted a black covered book on the table—“on October fifteenth. That is in just a fortnight’s time.”

  “You’re quite certain?”

  “Unless he dies in the meantime,” said the doctor, “which is quite possible. Or if, by chance, he happened to get his hands on some other money, he might try for an earlier appointment, but I think that is unlikely. In the last two years that has happened only once.”

  “What is the routine for your patients? I’m sure you are very careful.”

  “Very,” said the doctor, with rather a grim smile. “Each patient has a name. Not his real name, of course. A name by which he is known to me and to me only. He speaks it into the answer-phone at the back door, and I can release the door lock from here.”

  “Then, as soon as my man speaks his name, turn off your surgery light, keep it off for five seconds and turn it on again.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Not quite. When he comes in you will explain to him that there has been a hitch in your supplies. You are having to ration all your patients. You can spare him only forty tablets.”

  “There’ll be trouble. You don’t know these people.”

  “It’s the sort of trouble I expect you can deal with,” said David. “Anyway, that’s the proposition. And let me tell you one thing more. If you take my stuff and don’t keep your side of the bargain, there will be another sort of trouble. My suppliers are hard men.”

  The doctor thought about it. Then he said, “I have told you that I cannot absolutely guarantee that he will be her
e on that date. It is a ninety-five per cent probability only.”

  “In the changes and chances of this mortal life,” said David, “how can one hope for more than ninety-five per cent?”

  In the fortnight that followed, a close observer would have noted the tiny successive steps in David’s descent from poverty to destitution. The hair growing longer and greasier, the ruinous overcoat which he donned as the weather sharpened, the trousers collapsing at the bottom over boots which had started worn and now sported holes, stuffed with paper, in both toes.

  In that fortnight, David explored the kingdom of the tramps. He came to know their enemies and their friends. The police who bullied them, the societies who afflicted them with tracts and prayer and the householders who were good for a cup of tea and an occasional small gift of money. He discovered that certain seats in parks and public places were their preserve and that the routes between them were preordained. When you went from Byland Street to Porthead Road you took the circular route, west of Rotherhithe Park, never the more direct route to the east of the park. Why? No one knew. The procession of the tramps was as immutable as the procession of the planets.

  He also discovered, in time, some of their favoured sleeping places. These were closely guarded secrets and were referred to only by indecipherable code names. The Villa, the Blink, Up-and-Under, Calcutta, Rats’ Castle. As dusk fell the waiflike figures would melt into the shadows, moving first slowly and with caution and then very quickly, to reach their secret lying-up places.