Offspring

by Stan Mason

  I was relieved to hear the pressure of the assignment would end shortly, reflecting that the next task set for me by Ted Flanders would pale into insignificance against it. I would be delighted to investigate some banal story closer home to normality. ‘How soon do you think it will take you to... wrap it up?’ I prayed inwardly he would respond with an early date.

  ‘A couple of days,’ he replied. ‘There’s one big fish we have to catch yet. It’s only a matter of time. For your part, you’d better carry on until further advised.’

  A big fish! My mind wandered to the Prime Minister and raced with a dozen thoughts flashing through my head. No... it couldn’t be the Prime Minister... that would be too much! I pestered Gates for further information but he sat back with his eyes closed.

  ‘I’ll leave the rifle in the boot,’ he told me, squeezing the bulk of his body out of the door in the East End. ‘Cover it up with a rug or something. You’ll be going to the House of Commons tomorrow to submit your next report. You can let me have it then.’

  Three uncomfortable thoughts lodged at the back of my mind. Firstly, how did he know I would be visiting the House of Commons tomorrow? I didn’t know it myself. Secondly, what was the point of going there if Lieutenant-Colonel Topham and Miss Grayson were dead? Thirdly, was Gates setting me up. The rifle had been used to kill a man. If the police discovered the body and they were informed the rifle lay in the boot of my car, I would have an awful lot of explaining to do. Gates wouldn’t support me... no one would believe my story. As I dwelt on these matters, Gates disappeared into one of the alleys and I had to live on with my fears.

  I drove on to the car park of the newspaper office and then wandered into a nearby cafe to consider the affairs of the day. It had been counter to my expectations in some ways, yet successful in others. I still didn’t know the identity of Der Bankvorsteher, and he was probably located anywhere but in Denver, Colorado. Yet I had taken his photograph and his voice-print, and secured photographs of the documents in his case. There was a vain hope they were genuine although I recognised the level of operation was beginning to escalate way beyond my control. It was moving too fast and I had insufficient information to proceed with confidence. It was some time later when I entered Ted Flanders’s office to find him still incarcerated in his smoke-filled room. The stench of cigar smoke was now becoming foul and I sat facing him uncomfortably.

  ‘What have you got, Jimmy?’ he asked bluntly, looking at me with tired eyes as he flicked the ash off his cigar.

  I placed the tie-pin camera carefully on the desk and undid the miniature tape-recorder from my arm. ‘A lot... and not much, Ted,’ I told him, feeling a wave of fatigue sweep over me which may have been caused by the lack of oxygen in the room. ‘You have his photograph, the sound of his voice but, if my gut feeling is correct, the man was just as much an imposter as myself. This camera contains film of the documents he brought with him. Apart from individual letters and papers, there was a list of accounts relating to funds in various countries. If it’s genuine, we may be able to sequestrate all the Nazi funds and removed the sting from the tail of the bee.’

  The editor’s eyebrows moved up an inch at the comment and he leaned back in his chair. ‘We may have a real scoop here in that alone,’ he said excitedly.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I returned, dashing his aspirations arbitrarily. ‘If the man was an imposter, then all the documents are false. I think they want us to start asking questions and making accusations. Once that happens, they’ll be alerted to the fact I’m a fraud as well. In other words, they’re checking up on me. It was a set up... one big trap!’

  He stared up at the ceiling as if the answer lay there, puffing on the short stub of a cigar vigorously. ‘Are you telling me this was all a waste of time? That none of this is for real?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I answered candidly. ‘It looks as though I might have put my head in the lion’s mouth for nothing. We’ll need to check it out to learn the truth.’

  ‘And where do you go from here?’

  I stood up and opened the office door to release some of the pollution. ‘I hoped you might have some idea about that. I’m going to see the Prime Minister again tomorrow, to advise him of the latest developments. But I’ve been told it’s all going down shortly.’

  His eyebrows shot up again. ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘Someone called Gates, of State Security. He killed Lieutenant-Colonel Topham this afternoon with a rifle he left in the back of my car. We drove back to London together.’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ he blasphemed. ‘Gates of State Security? That’s the organisation which doesn’t exist.’

  ‘The very same. he reckons that after I meet with the Prime Minister tomorrow certain things will start to happen. There’s a big fish they want to catch yet.’

  ‘Who’s that?’

  I could see the excitement mounting in his eyes as another scoop loomed on the horizon. If he could only be in at the kill, the newspaper would carry a large photograph and a giant headline exposing the story to the world. Ted would cover himself with glory! ‘I don’t know,’ I said simply.

  ‘You don’t know much, do you?’ he snapped. ‘How the hell can I run a newspaper if you can’t get me the facts? I send you out on assignment which most reporters would give their right arm for, and what do you do? You come back with a weird tale of a man who isn’t what he’s supposed to be, photographs which are probably useless, and nothing for me to get into print. I could get a copy boy to do your job and get better results!’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Ted!’ I shouted, surprised at my own vehemence. The man was beginning to get on my nerves and I reacted accordingly. ‘I’ve been shot at by a rifle, nearly mown down by a car. I risked my neck here there and everywhere... what more do you want?’ I was so angry I couldn’t talk to him any more, so I stormed out of the office and sat at my own desk to sulk.

  After a while, I heard a movement from his office before a plastic cup filled with coffee was placed on the desk beside my arm. I looked up to see the smiling face of Ted Flanders. He stared at me with the expression that butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth. ‘You mustn’t get upset, Jimmy,’ he told me, in the form of an apology. ‘This is a rough business and we often give people a piece of our mind through the pressure causing us all that frustration. But there’s never any harm in what we say to each other. Once it’s off our chest, it’s forgotten. Come on, drink your coffee and let’s have an end to it. There’s no point in holding a grudge.’

  I stared up at him and relented reluctantly. ‘You’ve no idea what it’s been like this past week,’ I told him. ‘Apart from the attempts on my life, people all around me have been killed, and my nerves are frayed like bare electric wires. Gates told me Miss Grayson was arrested this afternoon. I don’t know what for. She was the grand-daughter of a German officer called Willy Graz. Apparently, she committed suicide by biting on a cyanide capsule lodged in the cavity of one of her teeth. Can you imagine what courage and dedication is required to do that rather than give information on a cause to the authorities? Tania was killed in my flat because she was a newspaper reporter and they found out...’

  ‘A newspaper reporter!’ he echoed, with a note of horror in his voice at the possibility of losing the scoop. ‘Don’t tell me someone else has this assignment! Someone from another newspaper!’

  ‘Not any longer,’ I growled. ‘The police took her body to the morgue this morning They had to contact the House of Commons to get me off the hook or I may have been charged with her murder.’

  ‘That’s all very well,’ he stormed, ‘but what if she kept her editor fully informed? Feeding off your information! What then? We’ll find ourselves reading all about it in someone else’s editions!’

  I stared at him as though he had just crawled out from under a stone. ‘You miserable creep!’ I snarled, sweeping my arm across the t
able to send the cup of coffee speeding towards the far wall where it disgorged its contents. ‘Don’t you have any feelings at all? A newspaper reporter is dead... killed in pursuit of an assignment... and all you do is to gripe you might lose the scoop. Well let me tell you this straight, Flanders! To hell with the story and to hell with you!’ I stood up and walked to the other side of the room, striking my hand against the wall fiercely without feeling any pain. ‘Tania was a young... pretty... lively person, and I had strong feelings for her! Those bastards broke her ribs and forced her to swallow a cyanide tablet... and she couldn’t do anything about it. Why, dammit, why? Because she stole a case which was important to her newspaper!’ I paused as I thought about the book and the artefacts in the case. The volume bore the initials P.C. and the photographs reminded me of someone... but I still couldn’t fathom whom it might be. The filing index in my brain had failed to come up with a solution!

  Flanders stared at me, seemingly at a loss for words. ‘What you say is perfectly true, Jimmy,’ he said confidentially, revealing part of his innate nature. ‘I don’t relate to human emotions any more. I don’t know how to show sympathy or to distinguish between sorrow or happiness. It all looks alike to me.’ He seemed genuinely sad and, ostensibly, it hurt him to reveal his innermost feelings. ‘After my wife died, and my daughter was killed in that tragic car accident, I buried myself in my work here at the newspaper. Do you know how many stories I’ve read throughout the past twenty years alone. Thousands. Thousands! About life, about death, on perverts and pimps, on the brilliant and the stupid, on corruption, sex, crime... you name it, someone’s done it in this rotten stinking world. I’ve read them all but they mean nothing to me. A person can be in the middle of the biggest city in the world and still find himself alone in more senses than one. Perhaps I’ve seen too much of it. Maybe I’ve had it! I ought to give it all up and hand the reins over to someone else with wider vision, more drive, and youth on their side!’

  His change of attitude evoked empathy in me and I shrugged my shoulders disconsolately. ‘I didn’t know your daughter was killed in a car accident,’ I returned, with hallowed tones as a token of respect for his loss. ‘And as far as resigning, that would be stupid. You have your ways, but the newspaper holds your judgement in high esteem. We need you here, Ted! I hate to be the one to say it, but we do need you here.’

  ‘Jimmy,’ he ventured solemnly. ‘If I’m ever reincarnated and have to come back to this world again, I don’t want to return as a newspaperman. I want to be a cat. Then I can just sit on the window-ledge in the sun all day long, get fed regularly by someone who keeps talking to me as though I don’t understand a word, and have nothing more productive to do than purr away on her lap. By the way, I’ve got the copies of that microfilm for you on my desk. Which reminds me, I must get the copyboy to take the other film you gave me to the photolab.’

  He wandered off to his office leaving me nursing my thoughts. Poor Ted was over-conditioned to the profession and a very lonely man. There were many people widowed, but to lose a daughter as well was sad. I regretted having released all my frustration on him in that bitter interlude, and then I screwed up my face in a grimace as I realised what he had done. Ted Flanders didn’t have a daughter! He made it up to win my sympathy! And he would never resign from the newspaper... not in a million years! It would take wild horses to remove him from that nauseating, smoke-filled, office. He had upset me and didn’t know how to get round me, so he concocted a story to turn the tables. And like a fool, I fell for it. He must have thought me to be an outright idiot! I picked up the telephone and contacted Maitland. He was ready with the information I needed. Apparently, the Prime Minister had asked about my health and requested I should join him for tea on the terrace at the House of Commons at three o’clock the next day. I sat in my chair feeling extremely fatigued. I was feeling worn out but I couldn’t sleep. Ted Flanders came over and prodded me in the ribs to start a new discussion.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about the Russian you saw in Germany. The one who might be after my hide. His name was...’ He snapped his fingers a few times to jog his memory. ‘Strog something or other! Do you think he might come here to threaten me... or do something worse? Only you know what these fanatics are like. They’d no more look at you than shoot you!’

  ‘Strogoff!’ I reminded him, smiling inwardly. It was my vengeful way of achieving mild revenge. He was getting the jitters about someone who didn’t even know he existed. I wondered how Flanders would have fared had he been in the front line over the past week. The words of Romeo in Shakespeare’s play came to mind in relation to the editor: “He jests at scars that never felt a wound!” I reckoned the Bard had summed it up in a nutshell. ‘Don’t worry, Ted,’ I told him quietly. If anything happens to you, we’ll see you get a decent burial. Interred with the latest editions of the newspaper, cigars, and all!’ I burst into laughter but he didn’t see the humour and returned to his office to brood over the problem. After that, I settled down to doze off in an uncomfortable pose. I awoke sharply at three o’clock in the morning with a sudden start. No one else was in the office; the place was completely silent. It was the index file in my brain which had summoned me to wake. Of course, the initials P.C. emblazoned on the case stolen by Tania belonged to Sir Peter Cavenham... or was that too much to accept. It was full of Nazi regalia! I thought about the photographs and made comparisons in my mind regarding the likeness of the boy. There was no doubt about it. Sir Peter was a man of ambition who sought greater power beyond his present role. He was an important man in International Three Thousand... a high-ranking officer in the Fascist regime designed to annihilate the government to whom he had pledged his loyalty and allegiance. I remembered the actual phrase he had used at the first meeting in the House of Commons when I complained about my abduction. “Life doesn’t always fit into little square boxes, you know,” he had fired at me. Well I would make sure he fitted into one of them when I met the Prime Minister! He could count on that! I could stomach many things in life but personal violence and treason were abominations!

  I managed to doze off again and woke up with the hustle and bustle of newspaper people carrying out their regular routines. As I sat up to shake the sleep from my head, Ted Flanders came over to me with a cup of coffee in his hand.

  I hope you’re not going to throw this one all over the wall and carpet,’ he ventured as a greeting.

  I sat up rubbing my eyes, brushing my hand through my hair. I was feeling very tired following a restless night and I took the cup, grimacing at the awful taste as I sipped the liquid.

  ‘You did very well yesterday,’ he complimented, and I could only presume he had taken credit for the breakthrough at an early meeting with the Chief editor. ‘The photographs of the man you met came out well, and the information on those documents looks interesting. When you’re ready, come to my office and we’ll talk about it. I want confirmation of a comment you made last night... the one where you thought an enquiry would set off an alarm.’

  He left me trying to shrug off the mantle of sleep as I recalled the incident in the night when I realised the initials P.C. related to Sir Peter Cavenham. As I shook my weary head, a further thought struck a chord in my mind and I went to the bookshelf to examine a copy of the latest edition of Who’s Who. “Sir Peter Cavenham, son of Brigadier Peter Cavenham and Joan Elizabeth Cavenham (nee Kenyon) Educated at Winchester College and Trinity College, Cambridge. Married Vanessa Holmes. One son and two daughters. Joined Accountancy firm Archibald Selley & Co, and then Petrey Velos and Co. Special Consultant to the Treasury. Consultant on Prices and Consumer Protection. Assistant Chairman, the Committee on Invisible Exports. Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Treasury. Home Office...... ” The entries ran on but they were of no interest to me. When a person was knighted, the editor of the publication Who’s Who sent a form to the new knight to be completed. It covered the whole compass of a person’s curriculum vitae. The
recipient could enter anything they cared to on the form if it suited their purpose. Son of Brigadier Peter Cavenham... a likely story! I had seen the volume of text and photographs to prove the truth to be quite different. Yet the son had been awarded a knighthood. It led me to believe that other Nazis located in eminent places in Britain were looking after their own. The rest of the data was likely to hold true. An accountant with two fairly large firms, and a number of posts connected with the Treasury and large-scale financial funds. Even the Committee on Invisible Exports related to international banking, insurance, tourism, shipping and air transport. What a fantastic discovery I had made! I was searching high and low to determine the true identity of Der Bankvorsteher and he had been staring at me in the face. It was still only a hunch. I might be way off beam but in my bones I considered I had found the man at last!

  I dwelt on the matter facing the mirror in the washroom. Suddenly, I was beginning to look older, with odd creases appearing under my eyes and at the edges of my mouth. My career in the newspaper profession had started to age me, especially with someone like Ted Flanders pushing from behind all the time. After a while, I ventured into the editor’s office and sat down holding yet another cup of bitter coffee in my hand. The room was clear of cigar smoke at this time of the morning but the undeniable stench clung relentlessly to the walls, curtains and the furniture.