Paper Chase Page 16

“True,” Ogden nodded, as he peeled the sticky mess off his face. “Though some of it’s got into my hair. Blast.”

  “One has to suffer for one’s art,” the Laird sympathised. “Pity Jeremy wasn’t here to see it.”

  “Where is he?” Ogden inquired.

  “Heaven knows,” the Laird shrugged. “He told me he was going away for a couple of days, but he wouldn’t say where.”

  “Really?” the Vicar said curiously. “It’s not like Jeremy to be so secretive.”

  “Must have caught the bug from Sybil,” Ogden said. “She’s been pretty cagey, of late. Any idea what your scrumptious wife’s been up to, Vicar?”

  “None,” the Vicar admitted. “But I’m not complaining. It’s been jolly peaceful here for the last few days.”

  “Perhaps she’s got a lover,” the Laird suggested.

  The Vicar grimaced in disgust.

  “I hardly think so,” he said. “What sort of chap would want to—you know, with Sybil? Seems rather farfetched.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Ogden mused. “There are lots of men who are jolly keen on discipline. The head-shrinkers say it’s all a throwback to school: cold showers, regular floggings, and all that.”

  The Vicar gave a perplexed shrug.

  “No accounting for taste, I suppose.”

  “I’ve got it,” Ogden grinned. “She’s run off with Jeremy, and they’re going to set up a love-nest in the Outer Hebrides, flogging antiques to the sheep-farmers.”

  “Interesting theory,” the Vicar nodded. “I’d miss Jeremy, though.”

  “Well, wherever he is, I hope he’s back by next week,” the Laird said. “He really ought to be here for the launching of the book.”

  “Absolutely,” Ogden agreed. “I mean, it’s not every book that’s banned before it’s written, much less published.”

  The book in question was, of course, the collected memoirs of Clive Ogden, which were to be published in the United States under the title The Ogden Papers. As expected, the Government had banned their sale in the United Kingdom. But the American publishers had received so many advance mail-orders from Britain that the book was guaranteed to be the country’s first illicit number-one bestseller.

  Of course, Ogden & Co. had not stopped writing the memoirs. The Baltimore Bugle was still running fresh instalments each week, and would continue to do so until international interest had subsided. There was even talk of a second volume of The Ogden Papers, or “Son of Ogden”, as the Laird put it.

  Given the excitement surrounding the new publication, the inquiry into the missing arms-shipment had taken a back seat recently, though Ogden and his friends were not giving up on it. As expected, Mr Blake was not satisfied with the Vicar’s theory about what had happened, and he was keen that the matter be pursued further.

  “It’s all a question of finding a fresh angle,” Ogden said. “I keep thinking I’ve overlooked something. In fact, I had that feeling before I came home from the States. Something obvious I haven’t thought of. Perhaps—”

  He was interrupted by a ring of the telephone. The Vicar went over to answer it.

  “Hello? Godfrey Croft speaking.”

  The man at the other end spoke in a low hiss: “He who walks in integrity walks securely. But he who perverts his ways will be found out.”

  The Vicar held out the phone receiver.

  “I think it’s for you, Clive.”

  “Really?” Ogden said. “Who is it?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  Ogden shrugged and took the phone.

  “Hello?”

  “There shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt,” the voice said, “both in vessels of wood and vessels of stone.”

  “You don’t say?” Ogden replied calmly. “Thanks for the tip. But there’s nothing to worry about: I wasn’t planning to take a holiday there. Who’s speaking, by the way?”

  Whatever reaction the other man expected from Ogden, this was certainly not it. The man snorted, and complained: “As the psalm says, ‘Fools, when will you be wise?’”

  “Probably never, in my case,” Ogden admitted. “What exactly were you after, old man?”

  “Avenge the people of Israel on the Midianites, sayeth the Lord. Execute the Lord’s vengeance on Midian.”

  Ogden blinked curiously. Then he snapped his fingers and grinned.

  “I’ve got it,” he said. “You’re selling double-glazing, aren’t you? Or is it fitted kitchens? You chaps are always thinking up new ways of flogging your products. Quite a good idea, really: target the religious types. Well, I’m sorry to say—”

  “It is written in the Book of Deuteronomy: ‘you shall be driven mad by the sight your eyes shall see.’”

  “I’m sure I would,” Ogden chuckled. “I bet it’s a real humdinger of a fitted kitchen. But the fact is, old chap, I don’t actually need one at the moment.”

  The man at the other end was growing restless. This conversation was not going the way he had planned.

  “‘You shall break them with a rod of iron,’ sayeth the Lord,” he screamed, “‘and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.’”

  “My word,” Ogden exclaimed. “The hard sell, what?”

  “Watch, therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.”

  “I’ll do that,” Ogden promised. “What did you say your name was? Deuteronomy Double-Glazing? Jeremiah Fitted Kitchens? Hello? Hello? Oh dear, he’s rung off.”

  “Who was it?” the Laird asked.

  “A salesman, I think. Has a hilarious new way of hawking his goods: plenty of Old Testament blood and thunder.”

  “What was he selling?”

  “Not too sure,” Ogden said. “It’s an interesting sales technique, but it needs a little refinement. Anyway, what was I saying…?”

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  “I’M SORRY I’M LATE,” Sybil said. “The man at the newspaper-cutting agency took longer than I expected.”

  “That’s all right,” Dr Wainwright said. “Meet Professor Heinz Erler.”

  Sybil shook hands with a shrivelled old man who had no hair, no eyebrows, and no discernible sense of humour.

  “Charmed,” he said gloomily.

  “Heinz is an old friend of mine,” Dr Wainwright explained. “He thinks he knows what those chemicals were for, don’t you Heinz?”

  The professor nodded unhappily.

  “Oh yes,” he said. “I have seen this combination of precursors before. Dr Wainwright did not tell me where you found them, but I can guess.”

  “Can you?” Sybil asked, in surprise.

  “Oh yes. There are vast rewards to be made from human misery. I presume you have found one more company whose shareholders are thriving on the profits of pain and death.”

  Sybil glanced uneasily at Dr Wainwright. The Vicar’s wife disliked frivolity, and she approved of people with a sober, unsmiling approach to life. But even Sybil had her limits, and Professor Erler was perhaps a little too mournful to be taken entirely seriously.

  “Do you know anything at all about this subject, Mrs Croft?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid not,” Sybil admitted.

  “So,” the Professor said. “I will explain. Sit and listen.”

  They sat down on Dr Wainwright’s prayer rugs, and Professor Erler began his story.

  “As you will know, the first chemical weapon was mustard gas. This was used in the First World War, yes?”

  “I know,” Sybil said. “My father was struck down by it. He never fully recovered.”

  “Just so. It is a simple thing to manufacture: you take thiodiglycol and add spirits of salt. The results are terrible.”

  One of the professor’s eyes screwed half-shut, and he tilted his head back slightly.

  “Terrible,” he repeated. “When it first touches the skin, it feels like cold water, and smells awful. It creates large, agonising blisters. If breathed in, it attacks the respiratory system. Then it attacks the bone marrow, and produce
s anaemia, yes? This usually leads to death. A horrible, slow, lingering death.”

  There was a faint note of morbid satisfaction in the professor’s tone, and he almost smiled. Then he raised one skeletal finger in a gesture of caution.

  “But death cannot be guaranteed.”

  “Can’t it?” Sybil stammered.

  “Oh no. So mustard gas is primarily used as an incapacitating agent, yes? It is a crude weapon. In the history of chemical warfare, mustard gas belongs with the bows and the arrows.”

  “I see,” Sybil nodded.

  “So,” the professor continued, “after the First World War, the great powers began to look for better weapons. And the Nazis found them. They discovered—nerve agents!”

  He paused for dramatic effect.

  “What are they?” Sybil asked.

  “The ultimate chemical weapon, Mrs Croft,” the professor said. “Nerve agents are ten times more lethal than mustard gas. And thickened nerve agents are better still. They are clear, colourless, like glue. They cling to the skin, yes? Minute amounts are needed to kill. Minute amounts, Mrs Croft.”

  “Is—is that so?”

  “Oh yes,” the professor nodded. “One tiny drop—a sugar-lump dose—will kill three thousand people. It will kill them immediately upon contact with the skin. And it will kill them horribly.”

  His head tilted back, and his eye screwed shut once more.

  “Their limbs vibrate uncontrollably,” he said. “There is copious vomiting and defaecation. Finally, Mrs Croft, there is suffocation.”

  Dr Wainwright grinned feebly.

  “How jolly,” she said.

  “As I say, the Nazis first found them. There were two kinds: Tabun and Sarin. But the formulas were simple. So childishly simple that they assumed their enemies must also have them, yes? This is why they were never used.”

  “Did we have them?” Sybil asked.

  “Oh no,” Professor Erler said. “But the Nazis never found out, God be thanked. Then, after the war, the formulas were patented. They were freely available in journals everywhere. Now, any idiot can make them.”

  Sybil pointed to her list.

  “And that’s what those chemicals were for?”

  “It is quite possible,” the professor nodded. “These precursors can be used harmlessly, of course. But taken together, it is another matter: the thionyl chloride, the potassium hydrogen fluoride, the sodium cyanide, the hydrogen fluoride, the phosphor and the alcohol: with these one can make Sarin. And with the phosphorus oxychloride, one can also make Tabun.”

  Sybil wrote this down.

  “What about the processing equipment?” she asked. “Is that very elaborate?”

  “Oh no. Very simple, Mrs Croft. Some reactor vessels, piping and centrifuges. They must be made of a special alloy, because these chemicals are highly corrosive, yes? But it is all easily available.”

  “Aren’t chemical weapons illegal?” Dr Wainwright said.

  Professor Erler shook his head.

  “There is only one international agreement,” he said. “The Geneva Protocol of 1925. But do people observe this? I think not. And officially, only three countries have these weapons: the United States, the Soviet Union and France. They all claim their chemicals would only be used in retaliation, but who can be sure? And many other countries are known to have them also: Syria, Korea, Burma, Taiwan, Libya, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, China, Chile—these are just a few, yes?”

  “But aren’t there any controls?”

  “Oh yes,” the professor said. “The United States and the EEC countries have banned the export of key precursors to certain countries, for this reason. There is watch-list of certain nations who are known to make nerve gases and nerve agents. There are fines and other penalties for those who export to these nations.”

  “How well is all this enforced?” Sybil asked.

  The professor spread his hands apart.

  “They do what they can, yes? People have been fined. But how do you police an industry so large, Mrs Croft? There are over nine thousand different chemicals. The world trade is worth one hundred and fifty billion US dollars every year, yes?”

  “Which countries are on the watch-list you mentioned?”

  “All the ones I named,” the professor replied. “Many of them have responded by manufacturing their own precursors. It is not difficult to do. But they will always welcome ready-made precursors from Europe and the United States, yes?”

  Sybil put away her note-book and smiled.

  “Well, I think that’s all I needed to know,” she said. “Thank you very much, Professor.”

  “Pleasure,” he replied miserably. “I hope this is of use to whatever work you are engaged upon.”

  “It is,” Sybil said. “In fact, I think a big question has just been answered.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Dr Wainwright said. “Now, let’s talk about something less gloomy, shall we? I’ve just been reading the most marvellous book on Tibetan burial rites…”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  “IT’S OGDEN,” STRINGER SAID. “It has to be.”

  “Can you prove it?” asked the D-G.

  “Of course I can,” Stringer grinned. “How many old men do you know who chew bubble-gum?”

  “Not many,” the D-G admitted. “But—”

  “And the other one had a limp. I’ve checked Godfrey Croft’s file: he had a hip replacement recently.”

  “Indeed. But—”

  “Croft worked in ‘A’ Directorate. He knows all about phone-taps, bugs, you name it. It was his speciality.”

  “That’s very good,” the D-G conceded. “But I’m not sure if it’s enough.”

  “There’s no need to speculate,” Stringer said. “Let’s hand this stuff over to the legal department, and see what they think.”

  “If you like,” the D-G nodded. “But I’ll be surprised if they disagree with me.”

  “Why?” Stringer demanded.

  “If it were an ordinary prosecution, your evidence would probably be good enough to secure a conviction. But under these circumstances, we’d almost certainly lose. Ogden’s too famous now, and everybody knows we’re out to punish him for those memoirs.”

  “But the old bastard’s broken the law,” Stringer protested.

  “Says who?” the D-G smiled. “Ogden’s lawyer would claim we fabricated the evidence. It was our tap, wasn’t it? He’ll say we switched it on purpose.”

  Stringer slumped back in his chair.

  “For Christ’s sake,” he complained. “What do I have to do to nick that bastard? Sleep with him, or something? If we can’t arrest Ogden on the evidence I’ve got, then we might as well pack up and piss off home.”

  “Relax,” the D-G advised. “We just need one more piece of evidence, but it must be of the right kind.”

  “Yeah,” Stringer said bitterly. “Written in fucking tablets of stone. And there’s no such thing, is there?”

  “It must be something that has no connection with us, so we can’t be accused of rigging the evidence. Ogden and his friends must be implicated by something they have said or done.”

  “Apart from the tap, you mean?”

  “Exactly. After all, they couldn’t have carried out the switch without advance preparation.”

  “Don’t be too sure,” Stringer said. “From what that guy Kevin tells me, a five year old could change the wiring on the frame. All you need is a screwdriver.”

  “Are you telling me they did it on the spur of the moment?” the D-G said incredulously. “They just strolled into the exchange and—”

  “I wouldn’t put it past them. You know what Ogden’s like: he probably had a couple of drinks, and decided it would be a real giggle to mess around with one of our taps. Crazy old twat.”

  “I can’t believe it,” the D-G said. “There must have been some planning. What about the ID card Croft waved at the engineer?”

  “It was probably his pension book,” Stringer said. �
�Goodhart didn’t bother to read it.”

  “Oh really,” the D-G winced.

  “I know, I know,” Stringer sighed. “I chewed the guy’s ear off about it, for all the good that’ll do. You know what the stupid berk said to me? He knew they were kosher because they drove up in the right kind of van. Of all the dumb, shit-brained—wait a minute…”

  “A van, you say?”

  “Yeah,” Stringer nodded eagerly. “That’s what he said. They came in one of the Reserve vans, just like the previous lot. That’s it!”

  “Locate that van,” the D-G said, “and we’ll have our evidence.”

  “They couldn’t talk their way out of that one,” Stringer agreed. “In fact, we’d have them by the short and curlies.”

  “Find that van,” the D-G commanded.

  “Definitely. I’ll need Special Branch help, of course.”

  The D-G grimaced.

  “How much help?”

  “I can’t be sure,” Stringer said. “Have you any idea how many old Telecom vans are sold second-hand? It must run to thousands. And if Ogden’s been smart, he’ll have bought his from someone well outside the Greater London area. It’ll need a lot of manpower to trace it.”

  The D-G frowned uneasily. Matters of economy were never far from his thoughts.

  “Never mind,” he decided. “Get whatever the job needs. If we’re going to make an example of Ogden, we’d better do things properly.”

  Stringer beamed in satisfaction.

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” he said.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  “JEREMY!” THE VICAR SAID, with mild surprise. “Where are you phoning from?”

  “Holland.”

  “Good heavens. What are you doing there?”

  “Never mind,” Beauchamp said. “I’ve unearthed something important. Mrs Lemiers was looking through her husband’s things, and she found a small book in the breast-pocket of one of his jackets. It’s full of phone numbers. One of them was for a man called Pete Michener—”

  “Never heard of him,” the Vicar said.

  “I know you haven’t,” Beauchamp said irritably. “I checked his number: it’s the same one as Magnum Incorporated’s.”