Queen's Pawn Page 18
‘Yes, I debated that. But then I thought there are times when an unexpected personal visit can be very rewarding.’
‘And was it?’
‘I think so—from a character point of view. Hers, not yours. She had no brief for the situation, but even so, she did very well indeed. Given a brief she would have been unshakeable.’
‘She had no need for a brief. Anyway, you and I are not here to talk about her. Your real concern, I guess, is business.’
‘Naturally. You came to me with a proposition, and then I heard no more from you. I’d be a poor business man if I hadn’t followed it up. After all, you might have gone to a rival, thinking you were getting better terms. Or you might have run into snags which you felt you couldn’t face—not knowing that from our side we’d always be willing to help. Did something like that happen?’
‘No. I just decided to drop my particular business plan for good.’
‘A pity. May I ask why?’
‘The risk was too great, I decided. A man should know his limits and stick within them. If he’s desperate—well, that’s another matter.’
‘This particular risk?’ Benson’s hand went back to the desk behind him and he dropped the Cunard brochure on the table in front of Raikes.
‘Yes.’
‘Too great for you? Yet you’d got to the point of contacting us? You’d have thought of all the risks by then. You had a sudden change of heart?’
Raikes smiled. ‘I don’t have sudden changes of heart. I take my time making a decision. And I’ve made it. This just wasn’t my kind of job.’
From behind Raikes a man’s voice said, ‘On the contrary, I think it’s just your kind of job.’
As Raikes turned, Benson stood up, and said, ‘This is … let us say … the Chairman of our Company, Mr Mandel.’
Standing just inside the doorway was a tall, white-haired man with a large beaked nose, shoulders a little hunched, his arms reaching flat down at the sides of his body, the whole, still pose suddenly reminding Raikes of the immobile yet intense alertness of a falcon, pine-perched, eyes hooded against the day glare, yet missing no tremor of movement below.
Angered a little by the smooth stage-managing of this other man’s appearance, and the timely interjection, Raikes said, ‘I disagree. The risks I take or don’t take I judge for myself.’
Mandel came forward, jerked his head at Benson and said, ‘Please.…’
Benson went across the room and through the door to a bedroom. Mandel sat himself squarely in an armchair across the table from Raikes and put out a hand and moved the bowl of freesias three inches to the side so that they had a clear view of one another. His right hand flowed from the movement toward the Cunard brochure and drew it to him.
He said, ‘ In normal circumstances. I would never quarrel with your last statement. But these aren’t normal circumstances, as I will explain very soon. However, let us go right to the heart of the matter before we concern ourselves with all the whys and wherefores.’ His words came without any trace of personality, instruments concerned only with the clear precision work of their meaning. ‘You are going to do this job.’
‘I am not.’
‘You are going to do this job for two reasons. Because you are capable of it. And because I am going to force you.’
Raikes was tempted to rise to his feet and walk out of the room. With many other men he might have done it, knowing that he was calling a bluff, but this man, he sensed, had long ago given up bluffing to get his way. What he said he meant, and what he meant had to be backed with reason. Just for a moment a weary wave of memory washed over him … Sarling, Belle, Mary and Alverton … all fighting against him. Schooling himself against the impulse to go, he lit a cigarette, leaned back in his chair and told himself… All right, you’re not free yet. So what? You know what you want, you know what you’re going to have—so work for it just a little longer, don’t let anyone make you impatient. Think. Keep that motto hanging on the wall of your mind.
He said easily, ‘All right, Mr Mandel. You’ve made a very positive statement. Now back it up.’
Mandel raised a finger and rubbed the bony bridge of his nose. ‘I will. Your contact with us was arranged by a Mr Sarling.’
‘Was it?’
‘Yes. Mr Sarling had used us many times for some of his unorthodox affairs. He had had the code name Applegate for years for himself and for his associates. So, you were working for Mr Sarling.’
‘Yes.’
He tapped the brochure. ‘Have you read the notes in here?’
‘No.’
‘They are in his handwriting. Which I know because I had contacts with him on a social level and he sometimes wrote to me. He wanted you to rob the Queen Elizabeth 2.’
‘Yes.’
‘If he wanted you to do that it would only have been because he considered you capable of doing it. There is no secret in some circles about his methods. For his extra-business affairs he only used people in whom he had confidence and over whom he had some hold usually ferreted out for him by the man Wurther, who is now dead.’
‘As Sarling himself is. All right, I’ll grant you that. But when Sarling died I became a free man. No matter my capabilities as assessed by him, I was free. And I have exercised my choice, Mr Mandel.’
‘You exercised it too soon. You have no choice.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because if Sarling died a natural death you should be a very worried man. Maybe you are, but that is not the impression you give. Your own words were that you became a free man. Could that be true? Sarling was methodical. He would have records of all the people he used, their misdeeds, their secrets … all those things which he could use against them. These on his death might—at his own instruction—be destroyed without being opened. But a dead man’s wishes are not always obeyed. Some risk would remain—and you are a man who calculates risks. Would you like to make some comment on that?’
‘None at all.’
‘All right. You sit there a free man unworried. A clever man, a determined man, a man clearly who knows what he wants from life. Now, if Sarling’s was not a natural death. Let’s assume murder for instance, and you the murderer. I’m not saying you are. Frankly, I don’t know. But we will assume you are. All right. You would never have murdered him—and let’s face it the actual murder would be the simpler part of the operation—without making sure that you could get your hands on your records and the records of anyone else working with you, like Miss Vickers, for instance. Would it surprise you if I knew about his two strong rooms which could only be opened by his own left thumbprint?’
‘It not only surprises me, but it’s news to me. I knew nothing about his security arrangements.’
For the first time Mandel smiled. It was a momentary rictus that showed very even, very white false teeth.
‘You may be telling the truth. But I don’t think you are. In my business facts are clumsy, obvious things. Most of our work is by inference to begin with. What would be the obvious, the most salient fact to emerge if you had murdered. Sarling? A fact that you couldn’t hide, that would be reported in the press—and, indeed, has been? That Sarling would have been murdered in one or other of his houses so that you could have used his thumbprint to open the strong room either before or after you killed him. But more than that emerges—and this increases my admiration for: you and confirms to me that you can do this Cunard job. Sarling died in his London house, but he left his country house, late at night, only a few hours previous to his death. Two strongrooms, would you say? Two occasions on which to use his thumbprint and—by deduction, therefore—two sets of records, one in the country and one in London. My overall conclusion is that you, with Miss Vickers, and a man called Berners between you murdered Sarling.’
‘I don’t know anyone called Berners.’
‘You should have read Sarling’s notes.’ He slid a finger over the glossy cover of the Cunard brochure. ‘He is mentioned in association with you.’
You have suppositions and draw inferences from them.’ He spoke easily, giving nothing away, but in his heart he knew that, whether he liked it or not, everything had already been given away. Even so, one didn’t despair. There was always a way out. Nothing was impossible if you had a true dream, a true wish which was fire in your guts, and he had that…
‘When the inferences are strong enough I am prepared to act on them. I am a business man. You could do the QE2 job and we could make a lot of money from it. It is going to be done.’
Raikes shook his head. ‘ Then make me. Nothing you’ve said so far can make me.’
‘We come to that, now—Mr Raikes of Alverton.’
‘So, you know that?’
‘We make it our business to know as much as we can before we form an association. The Mount Street flat was watched for some time before Miss Vickers was visited. At least three times you walked to your club from there. The rest was easy. I have a son-in-law who is a member.’
‘We get all sorts even in the good clubs these days. However, I still want to know how you’re going to make me associate with you.’
‘You must have thought of it already. All it needs is a word or two to the police. Not difficult to arrange and not coming from me. The death of Sarling is worth investigating. They get your name, Miss Vickers’s and Berners’s. You and Berners might stand firm. But Miss Vickers would crack. In addition you’re a man with some kind of past, even if you have no criminal record. The police would be given that hint, too, and they would follow it up. You said you understood the limits of risk. Would you risk that?’
Raikes stood up. He stubbed out his cigarette in the table ash tray and then picked up the Cunard brochure. He folded it in two and pushed it into his coat pocket.
He said, ‘I’ll consider it.’
‘You will do it.’
‘Not if it can’t be done.’
‘Sarling had faith in you. So have I. You can do it.’
‘And if I do—what guarantee have I of being left in peace afterwards?’
‘My word. No more. When a man enters the criminal world he forfeits forever true peace of mind, true security. It is the unavoidable result of an unorthodox way of life. Whatever you did in the past that Sarling knew about, then from that moment you could have no true peace of mind. But in our world there is trust of a kind … in many ways a high form of trust. That’s all I can offer you. Thousands of men are content with it. I am. You must be.’
It was true. Like it or not, Raikes had to acknowledge its truth; No true peace; always an element of fear. Well, a man could learn to live with fear and be happy, just as men learnt to live with want or disability and be happy.
Raikes said, ‘You think I killed Sarling?’
‘I have less doubt about it now.’
‘I might kill you.’
‘No. There are too many people behind me. Sarling stood alone. It was his one fault. He had no protection except an arrogant belief—pathetic, really, in a man of his experience—in his own self-sufficiency.’
Raikes picked up his hat. Through the window he saw the thick, grey flakes of a February snow-flurry mottling the sky.
He said, ‘Would I be obliged to use Berners?’
‘Clearly. Leave him out and when he hears of the robbery he becomes a security risk. Involve him and he is no risk. The same applies to Miss Vickers.’
Mandel stood up, the movement like the sudden lengthening of a falcon’s body, the slow shake-down of plumage.
Raikes said, ‘ Did Sarling mean anything to you personally?’.
‘Nothing. Occasionally we did business together. Always in gold. I am not interested in anything else. Now you and I are going to do business. That’s my only interest in you, and since most of the risk will be on your side, you will take seventy-five per cent and feel free to call on us for any help you want. Just deal, along the lines you already have done, with Benson. Goodbye, Mr Raikes.’
Mandel’s arm and hand came out stiffly across the table.
Raikes looked down at the man’s hand and shook his head. ‘You’re forcing me, Mandel. Forcing me hard. You’re making me change my plans, and you may even be destroying something which means everything to me—you expect me to take your hand on that? No, I promise you that if I ever touch you it will be to kill you. This I promise you.’
He went out of the room. Mandel sat down, Benson came back into the room.
‘Well?’
Mandel looked up at him and his right hand went out absently and pushed the vase of flowers back into its original spot. ‘ He is going to do it. You’ll hear from him. Give him every help he wants. Everything. And never forget for one moment the kind of man you’re dealing with. We’ve disturbed his dream.…
Deliberately he walked through the snowfall to Lower Regent Street. He knew exactly what he wanted to do, knew even that it was a form of masochism. There was no escape for him that he could immediately see; perhaps no escape for him ever. If that were so he must begin to learn to live with it, to fashion his life around it. His life here, not his life at Alverton. For the time being that had been removed. Sarling had begun the delay, Mary had lengthened it, and now this man Mandel had postponed it sine die. There was no anger in him; just a dull, solid resentment, the brute acceptance of enslavement, and the beginning of a patience which he knew would grow and sustain him for as long as he needed it… until the moment, if ever offered, when he would reward himself with the act of violence and revenge that his temperament demanded. The thought of that act, uncomposed, unframed, would for him now, through weeks, months or years if necessary, take the place of hope and feed his strength. One day, Mr Bloody Mandel … one day.
He halted in front of the large right-hand window of the Cunard Building and the world came back. Poised in the middle, of the window was a model of the new Queen Elizabeth 2. The snow mantling his shoulders, he looked at the model, at the long rake of the dark grey hull, the broad red footing above the water line, looking down on her as though he were seeing her from the air, blue water shining in the lido pools aft, the neatly slung lifeboats, the stubby ears of the wheelhouse wings, the strange, untraditional funnel born of a thousand wind tunnel tests, wind scoop at its base to throw a current of air upwards to carry away smut and smoke, the mast which was no mast at all but an exhaust pipe for the kitchens and a hatrack for communication devices, aerials, radar scanners, fog horns and a photoelectric cell connected to another in one of the restaurants to adjust the lighting with every variation of the daylight outside, the smooth step down of boatdeck, quarterdeck and foredeck … looking at the model, Raikes told himself without emotion that in the past Sarling had stood here, unaware of the people who passed, full of his dream.
He turned away abruptly and signalled a taxi. He caught the 12.28 p.m. train to Brighton from Victoria. In the train he pulled out Sarling’s Cunard brochure. Clipped inside were two pieces of quarto notepaper covered in Sarling’s handwriting. They had been torn in half and carefully joined together with transparent tape.
SOME NOTES FOR FRAMPTON AND BERNERS
At the moment the first regular run of the QE2 is scheduled as follows—Leave Southampton 1200 hrs. 18th April, 1969. Arrive. Le Havre 1900 hrs. Depart Le Havre 2100 hrs. Arrive New York afternoon 23rd April. (At the moment, because of the present turbine troubles of the QE2 and alteration of schedules, this first run is likely to be postponed to a later date.)
The intention is to rob the QE2 of the bullion from her Specie Room on this first westwards North Atlantic run from Southampton to New York.
The whole operation is to be carried out with not more than two operators aboard, and should not take more than forty minutes to an hour. Duress will be used, but no violence and no more than a minimum amount of disturbance, to passengers. In fact there is no reason why the course of the operation should be known to anyone except certain ship’s officers and crew.
The operation will take place during the midnight-0400 hrs. watch. In the wheelhouse at that time will be a First and Third Officer, a Quartermaster, and a boy. The Specie Room is on No. 8 Deck. There is a large service lift opposite the Specie Room which runs all the way up to One Deck. The keys to the Specie Room are held in the safe in the Captain’s quarters.
Nearer the date the actual shipments of bullion to go aboard can be checked from City sources. With the old Queens it was not unusual to have ten tons aboard—gold and silver. A minimum shipment of two tons could be expected.
Disposal of bullion through the Applegate connection. This connection would, when the time comes, be prepared to give outside assistance in the operation. But at no time would more than two operators be aboard.
Think it over and let me have your plan. I shall be interested to see how nearly it matches, or even improves on, my own.
Raikes put the brochure in his pocket and leaned back, closing his eyes. Just at that moment Sarling was alive again, very much alive in his mind. What on earth had ever put this idea into his head. Had he at some time gone into the shipping world and had his fingers burnt? So much so that there was a need in him to deface the symbol of his failure? Or had it been the idle challenge of a puzzle which in some bored moment had come into his mind? How do you take gold bullion from a ship without any fuss and using only two people aboard—and those two people, obviously, when it was all done, to remain secure and untouchable and untraceable? Physically two people couldn’t do it by themselves. They couldn’t lift and transport any large weight of gold without taking hours of time—and all this on a ship alive with three thousand souls. Well, the simple answer was that, since they couldn’t do it, they had to get others to do it for them—authoritatively, quietly and without fuss. That’s what Sarling meant by duress, but no violence. Despite himself, the challenge of the puzzle held him. How did you put under duress, suborn, intimidate and command a ship’s company, or certain key individuals of it to do exactly what you wanted and without question? (Quite apart from the problem of getting the stuff off the boat at sea using—he saw this only too clearly—the outside assistance Sarling mentioned.) On a ship there was only one man who could command and be unquestioned. That was the captain. A ship at sea was a world of its own and one man ruled it. Christ, he couldn’t imagine any captain calmly handing over his bullion cargo. But that was how it would have to be. Then, how the hell did you go about creating that condition, making it impossible for the captain to do anything else? That question stayed with him all the way to Brighton.