The Green Flash

by Winston Graham

  Going up the stairs I met Leo Longford.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘ Shona won’t be in today. She’s gone to Paris to see her brother – something to do with her father’s death. Oh, and did you hear about your chap? What’s his name, Morris?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘He’s written off one of the firm’s delivery vans. Must have been joyriding in it, because apparently it was after hours.’

  ‘What happened? Is he all right?’

  ‘No, he’s in Hackney Hospital. I think he’s got concussion and bruises. Shona will be furious. It’s a bit thick when employees start using the firm’s delivery vehicles for their own fun and games. Fortunately his wife wasn’t with him. Maybe he was after some new bird.’

  ‘I’ll go and see him right away.’

  ‘Well, there are one or two things I want to see you about first. This chap you engaged to redo the shop has put in a claim for –’

  ‘I’ll go and see him right away,’ I said.

  IV

  ‘Accident?’ said Van from under his bandages. ‘Jees, I don’t know, he must’ve been hopped up or loony. It’s still daylight, see, and I’m off on this nice little trip into Essex. Tell you about that in a jiff, guv. This bloke, this lorry, come at me on the wrong side of the road. Couldn’t believe me winkers. Not much traffic. Big bloody van, it was, not a little lady van like ours. Near as big as one of them continental juggers. What was I to do? Hit ’im head on – that’s curtains for me as sure as sure, and little Mrs Morris a widow and old Mrs Morris losing her one and only? I went into the postbox, spoiled somebody’s pools, I reckon. When I come to I was in here.’

  ‘What do the doctors say about you?’

  Van moved a few inches and screwed up his face. ‘ Says I’m lucky. Says he reckons me head’s OK, but it’ll be three days before they let me out, just in case, like. Crikey, it’s the bruises that hurts!’

  I looked round, but the nurse had not yet come back. She’d said ten minutes at the outside.

  ‘D’you think it was laid on, Van?’

  ‘What, for me, that? Nah. Feller in the jugger was risking his life – won’t get ’em to do that. Nah, I reckon it was just a screwball weaving his way ’ome. Regardless, as you might say. Put a man like him in jug! He’s really antisocial!’

  ‘Has Coral been?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Trouble an’ strife. Still it just shows. When she thinks she might’ve lost me she’s all lovey-dovey. Human nature? You can’t beat it.’

  I said: ‘I told you not to go in anywhere without telling me. I hope you haven’t –’

  ‘Nah. Not on your Nellie. But it’s been interesting. Looked up Best Friend, found ’em where you said. All very proper, like. Coming and going. Closed at five thirty. All quiet. I just go up, snoop around, can’t get in. Alarms on the wall. Safeguard, Lifeguard, or some such. Too many just for dog food, eh? I give up. Came back next day. Nothing. Then Monday, six thirty, full daylight, look; no hands, three lorries pack up, load, leave, skive off. I follow, see. We take a little drive.’

  The nurse said: ‘Mr Abden, I think he’s had long enough.’

  ‘Of course. But please just give me three more minutes.’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Go on, Nursie,’ said Van, smiling his haggard smile.

  ‘Give us a break. He’s my boss, see? Have to keep on the right side of him.’

  She went reluctantly away. Van said: ‘Not far from Dagenham. Much bigger place. High wire fencing all round. Barred gates. In they go, all three of ’ em. Waited a while but they didn’t come out. Couldn’t see what they was about. Got out of van and strolled past. Guard at gates. Back to van. Felt I could do with a wet and a bite to eat, so drove home. Next night the same.’

  ‘You went the next night?’

  ‘Yes, just out of curiosity, like. Haven’t I told you. It was following ’em the second night I met this jugger. Tuesday it was. Yesterday. Cripes, you get lost for time when you take a slug on the head!’

  ‘So they could have recognized you from Monday – or hanging around Friday?’

  ‘Don’t think so, guv. I wasn’t born yesterday.’

  ‘The van is distinctive.’

  ‘Yeah. But Thursday and Friday I went in me own car.’

  ‘Did it have a name on it, this factory?’

  ‘Just a plate on the gate. ‘‘BF Imports and Exports.’’ Nothing showy. You had to go up to it to read it.’

  ‘And where is it exactly?’

  ‘A mile or so past Dagenham Dock. I couldn’t thumb it on a map but I could take you there.’

  I grunted and got up. ‘I’ll explain to Mme Shona about the van, say you were acting on my orders. There isn’t any charge pending, I suppose? Careless driving or the like?’

  ‘What, for me? Not’s I know of! I didn’t hit nobody. It’ll be just the insurance claim on the van, I suppose.’

  ‘And the postbox,’ I said.

  And the postbox. And guv.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Wait till I’m up and about before you go looking for it.’

  ‘Why? I thought you said this collision was an accident.’

  ‘So it was. Bet you on that. But when it comes to putting a finger in a pie, two’s better than one.’

  Chapter Twenty-three

  I

  Yours sincerely, Helen Abden

  Could probably have done it by telephone but I went personally to the London Search Room of the Registrar of Limited Companies in City Road. Fly-by-night circuses like Moth and Benny traded without limited liability, however much they might like to put Ltd on their notepaper to make it read good. But the Best Friend people, having a permanent place to maintain, would probably find it safer to be in the registry. VAT returns and the activities of Customs and Excise had to be watched with care. Those ruthless gentlemen – if that was not a contradiction in terms – could upend your warehouse and your accounts any time they felt like it. So, as I thought, Best Friend Dog Foods was in. The directors – those whose names figured on the notepaper – read like nominees; but the shareholders were more interesting. Matthew Charles (a man I knew slightly, who’d been on the fringe of the perfumery business for some years and who at one time had worked for Roger Manpole), Frederick Maurice Laval, Surya Sitram Smith, Arthur Vincent Bickmaster. I looked up BF Imports and Exports Ltd. Charles, Laval and Bickmaster were among the six shareholders. No actual mention of Roger Manpole. The address of PG Imports and Exports was there, and while Erica was off for her weekend in Reading I drove round to look out the land.

  A fairly grubby piece of England, not far from the Thames, commercial and grey. The warehouse matched the countryside for colour, was about the size of a small plane hangar; with a few outbuildings, all surrounded by this high fence that Van had described. Being a weekend, there was no activity, but I saw a guard come out and walk round the perimeter.

  Nothing, of course, specially sinister in any of this. Large and small factories are easy meat for villains to raid, and have to have their own protection. There are firms in various parts of the country who make up perfumes to the orders of the big companies – the parent companies supplying the partly prepared ingredients – and these firms, which may make up an order for Arden one week and Revlon the next, are prime game for land pirates if they can get in. There’s nothing easier to flog on the black market than expensive perfumes; not many people in a pub can resist the temptation to take a box of Mme Rochas home to the wife, at a quarter the normal price.

  Not much, except in my suspicious soul, to tie in BF Imports and Exports Ltd to the forgery of our goods and chattels. I sat in the car in Dagenham and tried to work it out. It went like this:

  Stovolds – Hilliers – Moth and Benny Exports. Full stop. Callenders – Matthew Smith and Co. – Wellington’s Baby Food – Matthew Smith and Co. Full stop.

  Derek Jones’ chum Vince Bickmaster, once a director of the now presumably defunct Moth and Benny Exports, is a director of Best Fr
iend Dog Foods, and a director of BF Imports and Exports Ltd. Best Friend under special suspicion from me because operating in warehouse once used by Henry Gervase Ltd to turn out porn magazines, with Roger Manpole as a sort of sleeping MD. Also I had seen Maurice Laval come out of Best Friend warehouse, and he was a director of both companies. Two years ago he had lost his job with de Luxembourg. He was a perfumery expert.

  Van Morris, following lorries from Hackney, had had a nasty accident and was lucky to be alive.

  Did this add up to anything? To me, a lot. But supposing I went to the Essex police and told them all I knew, would they have enough to apply for a search warrant? Fat chance. The Henry Gervase operation had been specially clever at hiding everything away in ninety seconds flat if someone unwelcome should tap on the door. If Van had in fact been seen and his Shona vehicle noticed, wasn’t it likely that the warehouse in Hackney would have been cleared of anything likely to merit the attention of the gendarmerie?

  This place in Dagenham looked too big for that sort of thing; but supposing only a very small part of the whole operation was illegal? It could well be. Anybody can put out a copy of a well-known perfume for the Arab market so long as it is clearly marked as a copy. They could be manufacturing that and dog foods and God knows what else all in a normal legal way of business.

  I went home.

  Erica arrived back on Sunday evening looking as snagged as a piece of silk caught on a thorn bush.

  She said: ‘I had a long talk with Francis on Friday before I left. And I’ve talked it over at home. I’m going on fencing but dropping activities by about half for a year or so. Francis says there’s always the Los Angeles Olympics to look forward to in 1984.’

  ‘Christ!’ I said.

  ‘I don’t think fencing was invented in his day. Let’s try a bout, shall we?’

  ‘What, now!

  ‘Yes, now.’

  I was a fool to humour her, but I went into the kitchen and put on the protective gear and we did fifteen minutes of épée. It was mildly satisfactory to see when she took her mask off that her face had some colour again.

  She said: ‘How’s the forgery frolic?’

  So she could remember that far back! Recovery must be stirring. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘And all wrong.’ I told her.

  She said: ‘So what are you going to do, if anything?’

  ‘Sit on it for a week or so. If there’s been an alarm in the enemy camp, give it time to simmer down.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then I don’t know.’

  ‘Is Derek involved in any of this, d’you think?’

  ‘In the forgeries? On the whole I’d think not.’

  ‘Otherwise you might not pursue it with such vigour?’

  ‘Wrong again. So there.’

  ‘I just wondered.’

  ‘It’s up to him to look after himself … Let’s go out somewhere. I’m hungry.’

  We went out and ate mainly in a silence which was not really companionable yet.

  She said: ‘I forgot to tell you. He rang on Friday.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Derek.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘Didn’t say. Presumably to make some amorous appointment with you.’

  ‘I don’t make amorous appointments with Derek.’

  ‘What, have you fallen out?’

  ‘I never fell in.’

  ‘Oh, go on, you lived with him for a time.’

  ‘I was on my beam ends. He offered me a pad. End of story.’

  She considered me. ‘But you’ve always been AC/DC, haven’t you? I’ve always thought so.’

  ‘What, on the strength of my friendship with Derek?’

  ‘That and other things. You’re not the most famous lover, are you?’

  ‘Am I not?’

  ‘Well … sometimes brilliant. Sometimes poor.’

  ‘It’s quite difficult to be on top form when your other half assumes a chastity belt to further her chances for the Olympics.’

  ‘But before that. Well before that.’

  ‘Life blows hot, blows cold,’ I said. ‘You’re not always the most engaging person yourself.’

  ‘Thanks. At least we haven’t any illusions about each other.’

  ‘You must have some about me if you think I’m turning my eyes on Derek.’

  There was a look in her eyes that was challenging, ready to have a go; but it faded.

  She said: ‘Have you written to Mr Matsuko?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Daddy was wondering.’

  ‘Tell Daddy no.’

  ‘Does that mean you’re not going to apply?’

  I considered the restaurant with its sham Chinese decorations. And I considered my own emotions, in which there was also an element of sham.

  ‘Until this forgery thing is out of the way I’m not ready to commit myself.’

  ‘Does Shona know?’

  ‘About the forgery? … Oh, about Mr Matsuko. No. There’s no point.’

  ‘I thought you might have asked her advice.’

  The claws were showing again.

  ‘Her advice, I’m sure, would be to try to better myself. But, Erica, you have to know sooner or later that you are married to a man who hasn’t much interest in bettering himself. I like doing what I like doing, and I’m not sure that I really want to change a Russian master for a Japanese.’

  ‘Russian mistress, you mean.’

  ‘Well, at one time yes, as we all know. But can’t we swap the subject to something fractionally more pleasant?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I’m thinking of changing my car.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘A Ferrari 400, five litre.’

  ‘Did I see you in one the other day?’

  ‘Could be. They came and I had a test drive.’

  ‘I had a boyfriend once who had a Ferrari, and he said he always kept a spare set of plugs cooking in the oven to change when the weather was damp, otherwise it wouldn’t start.’

  ‘This is newer and better.’

  ‘And faster?’

  ‘Probably. Though I think there’s a limit to what a production car can do on modern roads.’

  ‘I’m interested to hear it.’ She looked at me slant-eyed. ‘I sometimes think you don’t care about living, do you?’

  ‘Oh yes. On the whole. Yes, I just drive fast, not rashly. Speed kills sometimes, I know, but incompetence more often.’

  ‘It might be a pity if I became a widow before all the shine had worn off.’

  ‘You were threatening me with a knife not long ago.’

  ‘Metaphorical one.’

  ‘They can wound.’

  She said: ‘You’ll never take that job, will you? You know that.’

  ‘What job?’

  She sipped her wine. ‘You’re a born loser, David … No, that’s not it. You’re a loser from choice. That’s about the truth.’

  ‘I won you,’ I said.

  II

  We sat in Van’s little Morris.

  I said: ‘You’ve seen the place. Now we’ve seen it together. Could you get in?’

  ‘Course. A piece of cake.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Cut the wire. Or over the top with a rope ladder.’

  ‘There are lights.’

  ‘Not all round. You can see where they don’t reach.’

  ‘And the building?’

  ‘One way or another. Windows break easy and quiet. But I’d like a go at the door. That’s more my line. Can’t see what sort of lock it is even with the binocs. But I doubt if they’d have it on a chain.’

  ‘Any sign of alarms?’

  ‘Nothink I can spot.’

  ‘Or dogs?’

  ‘Nah. Wouldn’t want to be too conspicuous, would they?’

  I said: ‘We’ve got to keep it in our tiny minds that this is not a break-in in search of plunder. All we want is information and maybe a sample or two of what we’ve found.’
>
  ‘I get.’

  ‘Does Coral know what you’re up to?’

  ‘She knows I’m helping you.’

  ‘I suppose you realize it wouldn’t look too good if a couple of old lags like you and me were caught breaking and entering.’

  ‘I’d lay a flyer you’d talk your way out of it.’

  ‘Don’t rely on that. You’ve been on the narrow for a good many years now, and it would be a pity to spoil the record, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Same applies to you, guv.’

  ‘I know. But it’s different for me.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Can’t explain.’ I thought of Erica’s challenge to me. Was I a born loser? Was I a loser from choice? Or a sham? Did I care about my own life? Intermittently, yes. I said: ‘Look, it may be enough to shine a light through the windows, if we can spot something incriminating. That would suit me best because we might even do the job then without letting anyone know we’ve been in.’

  ‘Not with me and the wire clippers, guv.’

  ‘Then let’s go over the top.’

  ‘OK.’

  I thought for a minute. ‘In any event they may suppose we’re just land pirates looking for a quick touch and scared off before taking much. Sure the fence isn’t wired up?’

  ‘Not sure, but fairly sure. I’d a good look when I bent to tie me shoelace at the gates.’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to take the chance. Are you all right now? Head all right?’

  ‘Gawd yes. Right as I’ll ever be.’

  ‘It was a full moon last week. By Thursday there’ll be nothing but a sliver rising late. It should be as good a time as any.’

  ‘Suits me.’

  III