Paper Chase Read online

  “Why not?” Kevin demanded. “I mean, that explains why he made all those calls to the hospital—”

  “Thanks, Kevin.”

  “All those prescriptions must be for hormone tablets—”

  “Goodbye, Kevin.”

  Stringer put the phone down, and shook his head wearily.

  “Pillock,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  THE LAIRD WAS NOT enjoying life. After finding Captain Salvucci’s body, he had spent most of the night at the Livorno police station. The young detective in charge of the murder inquiry had no other suspects to interview, and he subjected the Laird to many hours of intensive questioning.

  With some difficulty, the Laird tried to explain the nature of his visit to the captain’s room, and why he had come to Livorno in the first place. He told the detective that he had come in search of a missing arms shipment for Southampton which in fact had not gone missing at all, but was really a cargo of fertiliser which had gone to Turkey instead. Or so the Laird thought, but he couldn’t be entirely sure because he was not convinced that the chap who arranged the shipment really knew what he had arranged, and it was quite possible that this fellow was the victim of some skulduggery by another chap who should have arranged the shipment, but apparently hadn’t.

  Not surprisingly, the detective was somewhat puzzled by all this, and matters were not helped by his shaky grasp of English. Of course, he realised it was improbable that this cantankerous old Englishman could have overpowered and throttled a strong man half his age. The Laird was built along generous lines, but most of his youthful muscle had long ago turned to lard.

  But the Laird did his own case little good by calling the detective a pea-brained cloth-eared spaghetti-eating wop fool. The detective was understandably miffed by this, and since he had nothing else to go on, he detained the Laird for over seven hours, until the pathologist announced Captain Salvucci’s time of death. The restaurant had confirmed that the Laird was half-way through his antipasto at the time in question, so the detective had no choice but to release his guest with a vague caution about keeping out of trouble in future.

  The Laird shuffled wearily back to his hotel, and wondered if Sybil’s constant strictures were not entirely groundless: he really was too old for this sort of thing, and even Clive Ogden’s sense of fun would have deserted him after a night in an Italian police station.

  But after a few hours’ sleep and several cups of espresso, the Laird began to recover his enthusiasm. After all, things had taken an intriguing new twist. People were being bumped off, presumably to ensure their silence. But silence about what? The captain had been entirely frank, but had revealed nothing remotely dangerous or incriminating. A routine delivery of agricultural goods to the other end of the Mediterranean—what was so sinister about that? And if the captain’s story was true, why should anyone wish to remove him?

  In that case, the Laird concluded, the captain must have been lying. Some part of his story had been invented—but which? The Laird was no authority on shipping matters, and he had no idea how to confirm or disprove what he had been told. But then…

  There was one thing, the Laird recalled, which could be checked fairly easily. Captain Salvucci had claimed that his cargo had been checked by the port authorities at Naples—a routine inspection, the captain had said. If so, there must be some record of the inspection, and the Laird could make certain that it really had occurred. Because if it hadn’t, it would follow that the captain had lied, and that the cargo might well have contained guns after all.

  “To Naples,” the Laird decided, and he went off to pack his luggage.

  The train journey took several hours, and was delayed by one of the regular Italian railway strikes. By the time the Laird arrived in Naples it was dark, and he had no choice but to put off his inquiry until the following morning. So he spent the rest of the day in restaurants and bars, and by the time he went to bed life did not seem quite so arduous, after all.

  The next day, the port authorities did not exactly fall over each other in the rush to assist with the Laird’s inquiries. The Laird was irritated by their lack of enthusiasm, and when they reminded him that Naples was one of the world’s great sea-ports and suggested that the activities of one small freighter were of trifling concern to them, he threw a minor tantrum in their office.

  Unfortunately, tantrums are an everyday feature of Neapolitan life, and the officials were not persuaded to change their minds. But one charitable secretary, who spoke excellent English, took pity on the excitable old man, and sat him down with a cup of coffee and an offer to do what she could.

  She went away and returned twenty minutes later with a collection of photocopied documents. These were the records of the inspection carried out by the harbour police on the SS Flavio shortly before it left on its last journey to Greece, Turkey and Cyprus.

  “About bloody time,” the Laird said, by way of thanks. “What does it say?”

  “The cargo was in order. Everything was as described on the ship’s manifest.”

  The Laird groaned in disappointment.

  “You sure about that?”

  “Of course.”

  “There were no guns, or explosives, or anything like that?”

  The secretary gazed at the Laird incredulously.

  “Guns?” she repeated.

  “Yes, guns. Bang-bang. Boom-boom. You know.”

  She smiled and held out the document.

  “See for yourself. You may keep these, if you wish.”

  “Thanks,” grunted the Laird, and he read through the list. It was little more than a list of chemicals.

  “Potassium hydrogen fluoride, two tons; phosphorus oxychloride, six tons; hydrogen fluoride, five tons…no guns.”

  “No guns,” she smiled.

  “But—but did they check the chemical drums? Did they actually look inside?”

  “These are thorough inspections. Several containers would have been picked at random and checked.”

  “I see. Well, thanks anyway.”

  “My pleasure,” the secretary smiled.

  The Laird returned to his hotel, with a heavy heart. It really did appear that the captain was telling the truth. There were no guns—at least, there were none on the SS Flavio. And it was most probable that the captain had not been lying about anything else, which made his murder seem doubly inexplicable.

  The Laird realised that there was nothing further he could do in Italy, and that it was time to go home. Perhaps it was the latest disappointment, perhaps it was the shock of the captain’s murder, but for some reason he had lost all inclination to do any sightseeing. Italy was a jolly nice place, of course, but he would enjoy it better on a more conventional holiday. With a depressing sense of failure, and a touch of indigestion brought on by all the good food, the Laird made his way to the airport.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  STRINGER WAS IN A BAD MOOD. Much of Stringer’s life was spent in this condition, though there were occasional cheerful interludes. These were becoming increasingly rare, and the bad mood was beginning to show signs of permanence. Firstly, there was all that hassle with the memoirs of that old bastard Ogden. Then there were those bastard Russians, who had decided to play along with the old bastard Ogden and produce another old bastard to verify the old bastard’s stories. And now…

  “How did it happen?” he demanded. “How could it happen?”

  “No idea, guv,” Kevin said, waving his hands helplessly. “Honestly, me and the lads are well gutted by this one—”

  “Tell me about it,” Stringer scoffed, as he lit a cigarette.

  “Fair dos, guv,” Kevin pleaded. “How could we know some bugger had switched the tap? Never happened before.”

  Stringer blew a large cloud of smoke into Kevin’s face.

  “So you said,” he nodded. “I want to know how, Kevin.”

  “Must have been an accident. Some geezer at the exchange undone the connections on the frame and… and�
��”

  “You told me that couldn’t happen,” Stringer reminded him. “You said the most likely thing would be that the tap was disconnected altogether.”

  “Yeah,” Kevin said lamely. “I did say that, didn’t I?”

  “Yes you fucking well did,” Stringer shouted. “But it wasn’t disconnected, was it? It was fucking well moved. And the chances are it was fucking well done on purpose.”

  Kevin blinked in surprise. This possibility had not occurred to him.

  “Are you saying some geezer at the exchange knew it was a tap and…”

  Stringer clapped his hands in sarcastic praise.

  “Full marks, Kevin.”

  “Well, fuck me sideways,” Kevin said, scratching his scalp. “Why’d anyone do a thing like that?”

  “I don’t know,” Stringer admitted. “But you’re going to find out.”

  Kevin grinned weakly.

  “It must have been an accident, guv. Honestly, I don’t think that—”

  “I don’t give a shit what you think,” Stringer interrupted. “Your half-arsed opinions just don’t interest me, Kevin. I asked for a tap on Blake, and what did I get?”

  He picked up the tap transcript and waved it truculently under Kevin’s nose.

  “This crap,” he spat. “Pages and pages of bullshit about some housewife with the itch. Someone’s been taking the piss out of me, Kevin, and it makes me bloody angry.”

  “Does it?” Kevin gasped. “I mean—yeah, I suppose it would.”

  “I want to know who’s been taking the piss, Kevin. I want to know fast. Get me?”

  “Fair enough,” Kevin nodded. “But…”

  “But what?”

  “Could take a while to find out. I mean, we’ve got to talk to the day and night staff at the exchange—”

  “Do it.”

  “Yeah, but that might mean the police get to hear—”

  “Do it,” Stringer repeated. “Interference with phone lines is a criminal offence.”

  “True, but we don’t want the publicity, guv. You know how we work: it’s all on the q.t. If this gets public—”

  “That’s your problem,” Stringer said simply.

  Kevin sagged in despair.

  “Oh, leave it out, guv. If the newspapers hear about this, we’ll all be in the brown and sticky, know what I mean?”

  “Speak for yourself,” Stringer said nastily.

  “You too, guv,” Kevin insisted. “Because if my boss asks me why there’s a newspaper article about government phone-taps being switched around, I’m going to tell him—”

  “Tell him whatever you like,” Stringer offered. “His bollocks are on the line as well. You said it yourself, Kevin: these things just don’t happen. And if I make a big smell about this in my boss’s office, a lot of people are going to wind up singing falsetto in the church choir. Get it?”

  At once, Kevin’s face turned several shades paler.

  “You couldn’t,” he choked. “I mean, that would be fucking dire.”

  The thought of a formal complaint to the Director-General of MI5 about a major surveillance fiasco made Kevin feel decidedly ill.

  “Do me a favour, guv,” Kevin said imploringly. “Have you any idea what kind of aggravation we’d suffer if—”

  “I couldn’t give a monkey’s,” Stringer said. “Just find out who did it.”

  Kevin took a deep breath. All his instincts told him that such disasters were best put down to experience, and then quietly forgotten. An investigation of the kind Stringer was proposing would only lead to trouble, and Kevin wanted a quiet life.

  “All right, guv,” he said. “But think about this: if you’re right, and the tap was switched on purpose—”

  “Which it was.”

  “Then whoever done it probably had something to do with the target of the tap—wassisname, Blake—right?”

  Stringer said nothing.

  “And if that’s true,” Kevin reasoned, “then you’re more likely to suss out who done it than we are. I mean, you know all about this geezer Blake, don’t you? You’ve got all the gen on him.”

  Stringer nodded thoughtfully. Kevin had a point: the job had almost certainly been carried out by a professional, but it may have been someone in Mr Blake’s employ. In which case, it was to Mr Blake’s file that an investigator should go.

  “Fair enough, Kevin,” Stringer said quietly. “But even if the switch was done by somebody from outside the exchange—”

  “Must have been,” Kevin said.

  “—they must still have been let into the exchange by one of the staff.”

  “I suppose so,” Kevin said reluctantly.

  “So you can find out who let them in and why. Once you’ve done that, leave it with me.”

  “All right. But it could take a week or two—”

  “It won’t,” Stringer said firmly. “You’ve got one week.”

  “One week!” Kevin howled. “Jesus Christ, guv, that’s well out of order. Be reasonable…”

  “I’m being fucking reasonable,” Stringer snarled. “And if you don’t think so, just wait and see what happens when I’m unreasonable. I can be a real bastard, Kevin.”

  Kevin was not inclined to argue this point.

  “Okay, guv,” he sighed. “One week. But I’m not promising nothing.”

  Stringer put out his cigarette.

  “Yes you are, Kevin,” he said calmly. “You’re promising me that you’ll find the person who let our guy into the exchange. And if I don’t hear that person’s name inside one week—well, just think about that church choir, eh?”

  Chapter Thirty

  “TRY THESE PORK THINGIES,” Ogden suggested. “They’re in a very good whatsit sauce—”

  “A black bean sauce,” Sybil said.

  “That’s the one,” Ogden agreed. “Jolly tasty.”

  Ogden & Co. were having dinner in a Chinese restaurant, to celebrate everybody’s safe return from their trips abroad. As Ogden said, the food was “jolly tasty”, and they were all piling in vigorously, save for the Vicar, who had not yet mastered the use of chopsticks.

  “Can’t get the hang of them,” he said, as they dropped into the sweet-and-sour for the umpteenth time.

  “It’s perfectly simple, Godfrey,” Sybil said. “Even you can do it. Watch me.”

  The Vicar studied his wife as her chopsticks darted backwards and forwards among the bowls of food.

  “It’s no good,” he sighed. “I’ll have to get a knife and fork. Waiter…”

  “Did you enjoy America, Clive?” the Laird asked.

  “Terrific,” Ogden said. “Loved every bit of it. You know, American bubble-gum is far better than anything you can buy here: amazing multi-coloured goo that forms the most extraordinary patterns when you blow. I bought another suitcase so I could bring home half a ton of the stuff.”

  “What about the sights?” Beauchamp inquired. “Or were you too busy in the sweet-shops to notice?”

  “On the contrary, I did a great deal of sightseeing. Disneyland was fabulous, though I’m told that Disney World is even better. But that’s in Florida, which wasn’t on my route, so next time I’m going to make a point of—”

  “Are you saying you spent all your trip visiting children’s amusement parks?” Sybil asked incredulously.

  “Unfortunately, no,” Ogden admitted. “I had to waste a great deal of time speaking to newspapers and television people. Shame, really; if it hadn’t been for those characters, I might have had time to nip down to Florida. Still, all play and no work makes Jack a credit risk, what?”

  “D’you hear about Akhmatov?” the Laird said.

  “Of course,” Ogden grinned. “Wasn’t that hilarious? Some American TV company showed me a video recording of the interview. I’m fairly sure that was the real Akhmatov, you know. That emaciated, pasty face looked just like the chap I remembered. I wonder what our old friend Stringer thought when he heard about it.”

  “I bet he blew a gas
ket,” the Vicar said. “There were questions in Parliament about it, and it was pretty obvious that someone was due for a carpeting.”

  “Well, let’s hope it’s Stringer,” Beauchamp said. “Couldn’t happen to a nicer fellow.”

  “Hear, hear,” cried the Laird.

  “Death to all footballers,” the Vicar murmured.

  “Anyway,” Ogden said, “let’s recap on everything we’ve learned, and see what we can make, of it. Firstly, I’ve discovered that Magnum Inc. is a CIA front which is no longer running, and whose owner has buggered off.

  “Secondly, the Laird has discovered that the SS Flavio never ran arms, but shipped agricultural chemicals instead. We know this because the boat was inspected in Naples. Furthermore, the boat was never destined for Southampton, but went instead to Greece and Turkey. The job was apparently ordered by Carter, and not Lemiers as was originally thought. Furthermore, the captain has been murdered for no clear reason.

  “Thirdly, Jeremy has found a Pieter Lemiers, but not necessarily the Lemiers. Jeremy’s Lemiers dealt in chemicals, travelled a lot, and was also murdered for no apparent reason. Right, chaps, what do we make of all this?”

  “The first question,” Beauchamp said, “is whether or not my Lemiers is our man. At first, it seemed that he was. We had one point of connection—the Flavio’s cargo was ordered by a Lemiers who would send it in chemical drums. My Lemiers could certainly have done that. But unfortunately, the Laird’s blown a hole in that.”

  “Lemiers didn’t order the cargo,” the Laird nodded. “Carter did.”

  “Exactly,” Ogden said. “And even if Lemiers did put chemicals on the Flavio, that’s no bloody help to us. After all, the goods were supposed to be arms, not chemicals. Carter dealt in arms, and so did the Americans. They wanted guns and bombs, not fly-spray and artificial manure.”

  “And they wanted it in Southampton, not Turkey,” the Vicar observed. “But the captain said Carter sent the boat to Mersin. What do you make of that?”

  “Nothing, at present,” Ogden admitted. “Let’s stick to Lemiers, for the time being. It seems he didn’t order the boat—is there anything which might tie him in with this, Jeremy?”