Here Comes Charlie M cm-2

by Brian Freemantle

  ‘Try the desk.’

  That was easier and it was there that Snare found the listing for Charlie.

  ‘Conceited bastard,’ he said, again a private remark. ‘The conceited bastard.’

  ‘What?’

  Things were very different tonight, decided Johnny. Odd, in fact. It was making him feel uncomfortable.

  ‘Nothing,’ said Snare. As he had at the Savoy, Charlie had opened an account under his own name.

  To get into the safety deposit vault, Johnny drilled out the lock on the protective gate and then filled three holes bored around the safe handle with P-4 to blow a hole big enough to reach inside and manually bring the time clock forward twelve hours, to open the door.

  Inside the deposit room, Johnny worked with his steel wire, fashioning the skeleton keys as he worked, giving a little laugh at his own cleverness every time a tray snapped clear and came out on its runners.

  ‘Lot of documents,’ complained the crook.

  ‘Perhaps that’s why they don’t bother too much with alarms.’

  Snare allowed twelve boxes to be opened before he said, ‘Now 48.’

  Obediently Johnny hunched over the container, probing and poking. As the lock clicked back, Snare announced, ‘I’ll do this one.’

  Johnny stepped aside, frowning. Definitely unsure of himself, judged Johnny again. He’d built up a conviction about the other man’s infallibility, like a child believing the perfection of a sand sculpture. Now the tide was coming in and Johnny didn’t like to see his imagery crumbling.

  Snare was standing up in front of the box, staring down fixedly at a single piece of paper he’d taken from the tray.

  ‘Any good?’ enquired Johnny.

  The other man looked at him unseeingly.

  ‘Any good?’ repeated the safebreaker.

  Snare blinked, like a man awakening.

  ‘Let’s get out,’ he said.

  Johnny stared at him, his own doubts hardening.

  ‘But we’ve only just begun … there’s dozens more … thousands of pounds …’

  ‘Finished,’ ruled Snare, abrupt now but completely recovered. ‘We’ve got enough.’

  He mirrored Johnny’s look, challengingly.

  The safebreaker moved from foot to foot, unsure whether to argue. Finally he spread his hands, overly dismissive.

  ‘Whatever you say,’ he agreed. Stupid to spoil the arrangement by appearing greedy. They still hadn’t agreed a price with the insurers yet on the Russian stuff and he didn’t want to risk that.

  Snare went first through the hole, leading back into the antique shop.

  ‘You know what?’ said Johnny, trying to reduce the strain and at the same time build up the relationship he was sure he could establish.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t know where your information comes from,’ said Johnny. ‘Don’t want to, not necessarily. But I don’t reckon we can ever lose. No way.’

  Snare’s apprehensive anger at everything spilled over and he rounded on the safebreaker, face tight so that the scar was etched out vividly.

  ‘Sometimes,’ he said, ‘you piss me off.’

  ‘What?’ tried Johnny, backing away from the assault.

  ‘Because you’re full of piss,’ shouted Snare wildly, finding release in the role of the bully. ‘Full of piss.’

  ‘You’re fucking mad,’ said Johnny, trying to match the obscenity. ‘Absolutely fucking mad.’

  Snare stopped the attack, taking the other man’s words.

  ‘You could be right,’ he said, quietly now. ‘That’s the trouble; you could well be right.’

  ‘Wanker,’ said Johnny, made miserable by the collapse of yet another relationship.

  Charlie, to whom the isolation of detail was automatic, had recognised Snare from his walk the moment the man had left the car and made his way towards the rear of the antique shop. And there he was again, he saw, as Snare left the rear of the building and approached the carefully parked station-wagon. Still the same shoulder-jogging lilt he’d had when he’d strode away in East Berlin, to set the tripwire for the ambush.

  ‘Like a duck with a frozen bum,’ Charlie told himself, inside the darkened car. The cold had occupied Charlie’s mind for the last two nights. It was going to be a bad winter, he had decided.

  Unspeaking, the two men entered Snare’s car. There was a momentary pause and in the darkness Charlie could see Snare putting on his safety belt. Probably too late for that, thought Charlie. Snare’s presence had surprised him.

  Snare started the car and moved away slowly and almost immediately Charlie pulled out, holding back until they came out alongside the Playboy Club and two cars had intruded themselves between him and the station-wagon, a barrier of protection.

  ‘As Wilberforce might say, the hunted becomes the hunter,’ he muttered, trying to mock the man’s speech. ‘Now all you’ve got to do is to catch the bloody fox.’

  ‘They’ve been very smart,’ said Berenkov, admiringly.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Kalenin. ‘Very smart indeed.’

  He smiled across the table at Valentina.

  ‘After meals like that, I know I’m a fool to have remained a bachelor,’ he praised her.

  The plump woman flushed at the compliment and continued clearing the table.

  ‘What can you do?’

  Kalenin jerked his shoulders.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘To make anything more than diplomatic protests would show them we’ve discovered Charlie’s association with one of the insurers and allow the satisfaction of knowing we won’t be laughing at them any more.’

  ‘They’ll know that anyway,’ argued Berenkov. ‘That’s what it’s all about.’

  ‘We still can’t admit it,’ said Kalenin.

  ‘What about Charlie?’

  Again the K.G.B. chief moved uncertainly.

  ‘Wouldn’t it be marvellous if Charlie were to win?’ suggested Berenkov, expansively.

  ‘Marvellous,’ agreed Kalenin, wondering at the amount of wine his friend had consumed. ‘But quite unlikely.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  Charlie drove quite relaxed, allowing another vehicle to come between him and the car he was pursuing, so that when it turned unexpectedly to go down Constitution Hill he was able to follow quite naturally, without any sudden braking which might have sounded to attract the attention of Snare.

  Only after they had gone around the Victoria monument in front of Buckingham Palace did Charlie close up, not wanting to be left behind at the traffic lights in Parliament Square. The second set were red. Through the glass of the one separating car, Charlie could see Snare and the other man stiffly upright and apparently not talking.

  ‘Always an unfriendly sod,’ remembered Charlie.

  They went across Westminster Bridge and entered the one-way system. The sudden turn beneath the railway arch, to go into Waterloo station, almost took Charlie by surprise. He only just managed to swerve without tyre squeal, continuing slowly up the long approach and trying to keep a taxi between them. He stopped before the corner, for more taxis to overtake and provide a barrier, so that when he drove into the better-lighted part of the concourse, Snare was already moving off.

  Charlie didn’t hurry, wanting to see the car to which the second man went. Parked as it was, the vehicle was obviously not stolen but belonged to him. So he could get the man’s name from the registration.

  He went slowly by, memorising the number as he passed, finally speeding up to get into position behind Snare again.

  Snare was driving very precisely, Charlie saw, giving every signal and keeping within the speed limit. Rules and regulations, recalled Charlie; the dictum of Snare’s life. Without guidelines to keep within and precedents to follow, Snare had always been uncomfortable. Robbing banks, an open criminal activity, would have been difficult for him, even with the back-up and assistance provided by the department. On the occasions when he’d had to do it, he’d rather enjoyed it, thought Charlie. It was
like playing roulette and knowing the ball would always fall on your number. But Snare would have hated it. The word stayed in Charlie’s mind; the emotion that would have provided the necessary incentive, he supposed.

  ‘He really can’t have liked me very much,’ Charlie smiled to himself. The expression left his face. There couldn’t have been anything very amusing about Snare’s Moscow imprisonment, admitted Charlie. Immediately he balanced the self-criticism. Just as there wasn’t anything amusing at being chosen for assassination at a border crossing; he had no reason to feel guilt over the man in front. Snare’s inability to adjust to the unexpected intruded into his mind. It made the outcome of tonight’s journey almost predictable, he thought; Snare was an advantage he hadn’t expected.

  They went around Parliament Square but Snare kept to the south side of Buckingham Palace this time, heading into Pimlico. Traffic thinned as they entered the residential area and Charlie pulled back, losing his cover.

  He stopped completely when he saw the tail-lights in front disappear to the left, into an enclosed square. He walked unhurriedly to the side road. The car was halfway along, neatly positioned in its residents’ parking area, the permit prominently displayed. Snare was the sort of man to keep a cinema ticket in his pocket, in case he was challenged coming back from a pee during the interval, thought Charlie.

  He waited until he saw the ground-floor lights go on, then returned to the car. He drove into the side road, but continued past Snare’s home, going almost around the tiny park upon which the tall Regency buildings fronted. He stopped opposite Snare’s house, but with the park between them, knowing he was completely concealed.

  ‘How long?’ wondered Charlie aloud.

  It was nearly an hour. Charlie was beginning to fear he had miscalculated Snare’s reaction when the light at which he was staring fixedly suddenly went out and then, seconds later, the door of the house opened. There was the delay while Snare fixed the safety belt and then the car moved off, circling behind to pass within feet of where Charlie waited. He gazed openly through the shaded glass, knowing he would be invisible to the other man. Snare drove bent slightly forward, away from the seat. His back would ache after long journeys, decided Charlie, allowing the man to turn out on to the main road before restarting the engine and pulling out to follow. Even in the darkened car, he had been able to see the scar disfiguring Snare’s face. Charlie wondered how it had happened.

  They went directly south, crossing the river over Chelsea Bridge and then, gradually, began taking the roads that would give them a route eastwards.

  ‘So it is Wilberforce,’ said Charlie. ‘And he still lives at Tenterden.’

  He had been to the man’s country home once, Charlie remembered. It had been within a month of Cuthbertson’s appointment and Wilberforce, ass-hole crawling as always, had thrown a party. His role had been that of the jester, recalled Charlie, paraded as a reminder of the stupid anachronisms that Cuthbertson and his team of bright young university-educated, army-trained recruits were going to revitalise. He’d got drunk and told Wilberforce’s wife an obscene story about a short-sighted showgirl and a donkey, expecting her to be shocked. Instead she had started to squeeze his hand and kept asking him to open bottles of a rather inferior Piesporter Goldtropfchen for her, in the kitchen. Should have given her a quick knee-trembler, over the draining board, decided Charlie, in belated regret. She’d worn corsets, though, with little dangly things to support her stockings. And Wilberforce had kept appearing, as if he’d realised the danger.

  Even on an open road and as confused as Charlie expected him to be, Snare wasn’t exceeding fifty miles an hour. A fact to remember, decided Charlie. Timing the other man was going to be important tonight.

  Because Snare was establishing the speed, it took them almost two hours to reach the Kent village. Impatient now and quite sure of the other man’s destination, Charlie didn’t bother to see him actually enter the drive of Wilberforce’s house.

  Instead he made a wide loop at the crossroads, hurrying through the gears to pick up speed and rejoin the road to London.

  Three hours to achieve what he wanted, Charlie estimated, smiling at the burbling of the widened exhaust. Sounded like Cuthbertson, he thought, just before one of those filthy coughs he was always making. Charlie laughed aloud, extending the thought. Christ, how Cuthbertson would have choked if he had been in a position to know what was going to happen.

  Ruttgers sprawled full length on the coverlet of the hotel bedroom, telephone cupped loosely to his ear, enjoying the admission from the man who had replaced him.

  ‘Quite obvious,’ Onslow Smith repeated. ‘A meeting between them can be the only point.’

  ‘And we’re handling it this time,’ Ruttgers reminded him. ‘No more foul-ups by the British.’

  He’d made a dirty mark on the counterpane, he saw; he should have taken his shoes off.

  ‘I’m thinking of discussing the whole thing with the Secretary of State,’ announced Smith.

  ‘He won’t like it.’

  ‘He’ll like it less if something happens and he’s not been warned.’

  ‘Why not wait? We could have the whole thing buttoned up in a day or two.’

  ‘Maybe,’ conceded Smith. Thank God he had his own people in Ruttger’s support team, to warn him the moment there was any sign of Charlie Muffin. Increasingly Smith was coming to think that Ruttgers saw the whole thing as a personal vendetta, like some Western shoot-out at high noon. He suspected the man didn’t give a damn about the Agency any more.

  ‘I want you to be careful, Garson,’ he warned. ‘Very careful indeed.’

  ‘I will be.’

  It was too quick, judged Smith. Dismissive almost.

  ‘I mean it,’ insisted the Director. ‘There must be no chance of our being identified.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Ruttgers.

  ‘I do worry,’ said Smith. ‘This whole thing is coming unglued.’

  ‘I’ll keep in touch,’ promised Ruttgers, swinging his legs off the bed to search for a replacement cigarette. ‘Nothing will go wrong.’

  ‘That’s what Wilberforce was saying, a week ago.’

  ‘What was in the private bank, by the way?’ enquired Ruttgers, locating a fresh pack of cigarettes.

  ‘Snare only went in tonight,’ Smith replied. ‘I haven’t heard yet.’

  Wilberforce’s dressing gown was very long and full-skirted and made swishing sounds as he strode about the study. Snare sat uneasily on the edge of the chair by the desk, eager for some guidance from his superior.

  ‘I thought you should see it, right away,’ he said, almost in apology.

  ‘Quite right,’ said Wilberforce absently. ‘Quite right.’

  He paused before a small side table on which drinks were arranged, then appeared to change his mind, returning to the desk.

  ‘What does it mean?’ asked Snare.

  Wilberforce picked up a piece of paper that Snare had taken from the Mayfair safe deposit box and stared down at it, shaking his head.

  ‘God knows,’ he said. Concern was marked in his voice.

  He threw it aside, and Snare retrieved it, examining it with the same intensity as the other man. ‘… “Clap hands, here comes Charlie”’ he recited. He looked back to Wilberforce.

  ‘It’s like some sort of challenge, isn’t it?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Wilberforce miserably, ‘it’s a challenge.’

  At that moment, fifty miles farther north, Charlie Muffin eased a plastic credit card through a basement window, prodded the catch up and two minutes later was standing in the darkened kitchen of Snare’s Pimlico home. Funny, decided Charlie, after all that Snare had been up to in the last few weeks and there wasn’t the slightest attempt at security in his own house. Still, he reflected, the attitude was typical. People always expected misfortune to occur to someone else, never themselves. Carefully he refastened the window and began walking towards the stairs leading upwards. He sniffed, apprecia
tively. Remains of the last meal still smelt good. Curry, he decided. He wouldn’t have imagined Snare had had time to cook. Probably out of a packet. Remarkable, the value available in supermarkets these days.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Charlie worked expertly and very quickly. He had been diligently trained by a housebreaker who earned the wartime amnesty for past misdeeds by being parachuted on three separate occasions into Nazi-occupied France and Holland and then stayed on Home Office attachment in peacetime, lecturing on the finer points of his craft to police forces throughout the country.

  On the ground floor he moved immediately to the rear, ‘where a door opened on to a small, paved patio and the darkened garden beyond. He opened it, testing to ensure it would not close by its own weight. Satisfied that he had an escape route if the need suddenly arose, he went back into the house, swiftly checking each room in turn, then slowly climbed the stairs, listening for any faint sound of occupation and more carefully now examined the bedrooms. Each was empty. From his examination of the outside, while he had been waiting for Snare earlier in the evening, he knew there was a third storey. He located the stairway at the back of the house and carried out the same precautions in the rooms there. Empty again.

  ‘Charlie,’ he said, ‘the stars shine upon you.’

  And it was about bloody time, he thought.

  On the ground floor he began making a detailed search of every room. It was a neat, antiseptically clean house, the furniture and pictures and ornaments arranged more as if for a photograph in a good housekeeping magazine than for living amongst and enjoying. Making constant reference to the time and alert for any sound outside the house that might warn of Snare’s return, Charlie still handled everything cautiously, returning every picture and the contents of every drawer or cupboard to exactly the position he had found it, so his entry would not be instantly apparent.

  The study was at the back of the house, overlooking the patio, and Charlie checked all the pictures or wall-covering pieces of furniture intently, seeking the safe. After fifteen minutes, he perched contemplatively on the edge of the desk, frowning. Surely Snare would have a safe? Perhaps the stars weren’t as bright as he had imagined. He rechecked, still found nothing, and even probed beneath the carpet, in case it were floor mounted.