The Ways of the World Page 31
‘Lemmer?’ Brigham’s eyes widened in an impressive show of surprise. ‘You surely haven’t crossed his path.’
‘You know who he is?’
‘The Secret Service do brief us from time to time, albeit reluctantly. Yes, I know who Lemmer is – and what he used to be – though I’ve always suspected his importance was overestimated.’
‘Pa posed a threat to Lemmer. I believe that’s why he was killed. And I believe it’s why my life is in danger.’
‘You think it is? I assumed you were just … in the firing line … when Ennis was shot.’
‘I need help, Brigham. Your help.’
‘Well, if there’s anything I can do …’
‘How do I get Lemmer off my back?’
‘Perhaps, if you leave him alone, he’ll leave you alone.’
‘I’m afraid I may have got too close to him already for him to take that line. I think I have to send him some kind of message if I’m to persuade him to call off the dogs.’
‘How do you propose to do that?’
‘You know a lot of people, Brigham. I remember you told me I lacked connections. And you were right. But you have connections, don’t you, built up over the years?’
‘A good many, yes.’
‘So, could you use them to communicate with Lemmer on my behalf?’
‘With Lemmer?’
‘Yes.’
Brigham sat back in his chair and frowned. ‘You know what they say he did for the Kaiser. You know how he’s supposed to operate. And now, as I understand it, he’s on the run. You can’t seriously suppose I have any way of approaching him.’
‘Not even if my life depends on it?’
The frown deepened. ‘I’d have to find someone who was – or knows someone who was – one of Lemmer’s spies.’
‘Or still is.’
‘Exactly. Which is something no one in their right mind would admit, or even encourage another to infer. Good God, it’s what Appleby more or less accused me of being on the basis of that Russian girl’s crazy allegations.’
‘I wouldn’t ask how you managed it, Brigham. I’d simply be grateful. I just want Lemmer to understand I’m not a threat to him, as I’d be prepared to demonstrate in any way he asked.’
Brigham cocked his head in a show of perplexity. ‘What do you mean by that, my boy?’
‘I’m not sure. You probably know how these things work better than I do. It’s just that I’ve begun to see the wisdom of the old saying: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.’
‘You surely wouldn’t want to join Lemmer’s operation.’
‘Not as such, no. But it’s effectively defunct, isn’t it, with the Kaiser in exile? Lemmer’s in no position to damage British interests, so doing him some small service would harm no one. You catch my drift?’
‘I couldn’t possibly advise you to strike terms with a man like Lemmer, James. The war may be over, but he’s still an enemy of this country.’
‘Friends and enemies can be a little hard to tell apart in the situation I find myself in.’
‘I appreciate that, but—’
‘Is there really nothing you can do for me? I don’t know where else to turn.’
Surely Brigham would give ground now. Surely he could not ignore such an appeal. Max gazed pleadingly into the eyes of the man who so badly wanted to believe he was his father. And something shifted in Brigham’s gaze. ‘I suppose there are … avenues I could explore.’
‘You’d be willing to do that for me?’
‘Yes. But this is a delicate business.’ Brigham craned forward and dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘If we’re to discuss it further, I’d prefer we did so in a more private setting.’
There was no one within earshot. Most of the other tables had emptied long since. But Max was not about to challenge Brigham’s logic. A more private setting would suit him very well. ‘We could go to my place in town. It’s in Mount Street.’
‘I believe I may have been there.’
When and why Brigham had been there he was unlikely to say and Max had no wish to ask. The flat had originally been bought by Sir Henry as a pied-à-terre within easy reach of the Foreign Office. During his many long absences abroad, Lady Maxted had used it for visits to London to shop or see a play or … otherwise amuse herself. Max could have guessed that Brigham would have found his way there at some point, but he could not afford to indulge the distaste he felt at the thought.
‘Listen, James, I ought to put in an appearance at the office this afternoon.’ Brigham glanced at his watch. ‘What’s left of the afternoon, anyway. I’ll call on you at the flat at, say, six o’clock. By then I’ll have been able to give some thought to your problem. I want to help you, I really do. And I will if I possibly can.’
‘I can’t tell you what a relief it is to hear you say that.’ What a consummate liar Max was becoming. He quite appalled himself.
‘Don’t worry, my boy. There’s a way out of everything if you look hard enough.’
‘I hope you’re right.’ And so another lie tripped from Max’s lips. For there would be no way out of the trap he was setting for Brigham. He would see to that.
A SURPRISE AWAITED Sam in the repair bay of the garage at the Majestic that morning: a black Daimler, registration number HX 4344, with Hegg, one of the keener if not necessarily most proficient mechanics, at work on its clutch. Since, as far as Sam knew, Brigham had left Paris twenty-four hours earlier, the car’s arrival was a puzzle he immediately set about solving.
‘When did this come in, Billy?’ he asked, joining Hegg by the open bonnet.
‘Last night, just after you’d gone, Mr Twentyman. The gears are slippin’ somethin’ awful. But I’ll fix that.’
‘It’s not one of our fleet cars.’
‘No. The owner must’ve brought it with him from London. Decent bloke. None of that shoutin’ and stampin’ you get from some of—’
‘You met him?’
‘Yeah. Last night, like I say.’
‘You met the owner? Here? Last night?’
Hegg scratched his bristly head. ‘Yeah. Mr Norris. What’s the problem?’
Sam had never heard of Norris. He spent several minutes in the relative privacy of his cubby-hole of an office trying to decide what to make of the development. Norris, he concluded, was probably a friend Brigham had asked to take the car in for repair in his absence. He would naturally have given Hegg the impression he was the owner, probably without even meaning to. Yes. That was it. That was the only logical explanation.
After satisfying himself that there were no urgent matters requiring his attention in the garage – and with the minor mystery of Norris’s stewardship of Brigham’s Daimler pushed to the back of his mind – Sam slipped out to pay a call on Max’s solicitor at his hotel, a short step away on the other side of the Champs-Elysées.
He found Mellish consuming breakfast in a gloomy corner of the hotel’s dining-room, introduced himself and reported Max’s sudden departure. ‘He asked me to say how sorry he was he couldn’t let you know, sir.’
‘Is he really well enough to travel, Mr Twentyman?’
‘He thinks he is.’
‘And is he coming back here? Or should I follow him? I need to take his instructions regarding his father’s estate.’
‘Oh, he’ll be back.’
‘When?’
‘Ah well, that’s the question.’ Sam shrugged.
And Mellish sighed. ‘I see.’
Sam was tempted to press on to Little Russia and pay a call on Nadia, but he did not like to be away from his post for long. He had only just started the job, after all, and could not afford to have his reliability called into question.
As chief mechanic, however, he was blessed with a telephone. It was not difficult to find a slack moment during the morning to call Nadia at the bookshop. But there was no answer. It occurred to him then that she had probably closed the shop for a period of mourning. He would have to contact her later.
‘Max has left the Hôtel Dieu, Sam. They do not know where he is. What is happening?’
‘He felt well enough to leave, so he did. He’s had to go to London.’
‘London? Why?’
‘Could we meet later? I could explain then.’
‘Yes. That would be good. You are busy until when?’
‘Six o’clock or so.’
‘Come to the shop then.’
‘All right, I’ll be there. How are you … bearing up?’
‘It is not easy, Sam. But I must not keep you from your work. Da—’
‘Before you go …’ Sam cut in.
‘Yes?’
‘Have you heard of a man called Norris?’
‘Norrees?’
‘Yes. A member of the British delegation. A friend of Brigham’s. Norris.’
‘I … do not think so.’
‘Well, never mind. It was—’
‘Why are you asking?’
‘It’s probably nothing.’
‘But possibly something?’
‘Exactly. Don’t worry. I’ll sort it out.’
The comings and goings of members of the British and Dominions delegations were, as Shuttleworth had warned Sam when appointing him, usually but not always predictable. Monday had gone smoothly and calmly, as had half of Tuesday. From noon onwards, however, there was a sudden surge of demand for cars to shuttle important (and some not so important) personages between the Majestic, the Quai d’Orsay, the Crillon, the Edward VII (headquarters of the Italians) and the Place des États-Unis (home from home of President Wilson). The Council of Four, reliable rumour had it, had resolved to despatch a peace mission to Budapest in an attempt to bring the new Bolshevik government in Hungary to heel. The emissaries were to leave that evening, so a procession of cars to the Gare de l’Est was bound to follow. Ensuring enough roadworthy vehicles would be available became Sam’s sole preoccupation for the next few hours and drove apparent trivialities such as Norris’s claim to Brigham’s Daimler far from his thoughts.
In London, Max had to rest on a bench in St James’s Square, and another in Berkeley Square, on his way back to the flat. Lunch with Brigham, and the mental manoeuvrings his plan had committed him to, had drained his limited resources. He reckoned it was just as well he had several hours in which to prepare himself for the second round. His wound was not paining him, but he remained well below par, with all manner of disquieting symptoms to remind him of the fact. Bizarrely, he seemed to have lost his taste for tobacco, as several unsatisfactory attempts at smoking had demonstrated. But he felt certain persistence would cure that.
Entering the flat, Max was momentarily convinced someone had been there in his absence. The memory of le Singe’s singular talents for covert entry prompted him to check every window. There was nothing amiss, far less ajar, yet certainty that all was well eluded him. He could not convince himself one way or the other that the doors of the various rooms were or were not as he had left them. He went down to the porter and questioned him, accomplishing nothing but to leave the poor man worried about Max’s state of mind. He returned to the flat and checked the exit from the kitchen on to the service stairs. Nothing seemed wrong. Yet nothing seemed quite right either. After starting at his own reflection, glimpsed in the bathroom mirror as he walked past the open doorway of the room, he forcefully told himself enough was enough. He lay down on his bed and tried to sleep, convinced he would not be able to. But he was wrong. Sleep came soon enough, pouncing as if from nowhere.
Sam had reconciled himself to being late for his visit to Nadia. It was well past six o’clock when he finally left the garage, with most of the cars back and no problems reported. He had squeezed in a wash and brush-up earlier, so there was nothing to detain him. It was only as he was on his way out that he remembered the Norris puzzle, which he had intended to mention to Appleby. He diverted to Appleby’s office in order to do so, but found it empty. He scrawled a note and propped it against the ashtray on the desk:
Mr A: I meant to tell you HX 4344 is in the garage. It was brought in last night by Mr Norris. Not important, I suppose?
Twentyman
It was a cold evening. But the thought of seeing Nadia again warmed Sam as he hurried round Place de l’Etoile and turned up Avenue Hoche. He was not worried. He did not think Mr Norris, whoever he might be, was important in any way at all.
MAX WAS WOKEN by the ringing of the doorbell. His first reaction was surprise that he had slept so long. Squinting at the bedside clock, he saw that it was a few minutes past six. Obviously Brigham had arrived and been sent up to the flat by the porter. The doorbell rang a second time.
It was as Max pushed himself up that he realized something was wrong. A weight dragged on his right wrist. He could not at first believe what he saw when he looked towards it. He was handcuffed to the bedpost. He stared at the short stretch of chain between the cuffs in sheer astonishment. Was he dreaming? He tugged at the chain. No. He was not.
‘James?’ Brigham’s voice carried from the hall. He was inside the flat. But how? ‘James? Where are you?’
‘Brigham,’ Max shouted. ‘How did you get in?’
‘The door was ajar. When you didn’t answer the bell … Where are you?’
‘In the bedroom.’
‘Are you unwell?’ Max heard Brigham’s footfalls in the passage as he hurried towards him.
‘Be careful. There may be someone else here.’
‘Someone else? Who?’
‘I don’t know. But—’
Brigham reached the open door of the bedroom and stared in, amazed. ‘What the devil’s going on?’
‘I’m not sure.’ Max rubbed his forehead with his free hand. It was true. He was not sure of anything. ‘I woke … to find myself like this.’
Brigham entered the room and moved to the bedpost. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘What do you mean? How could this have happened?’
Max had no answer to give. But one came, nonetheless, delivered in a low, husky voice. ‘I did it.’
Max looked up. Brigham turned round. A man was standing in the doorway: short, thin and dressed in the trousers and waistcoat of a black suit, with a dark shirt and a black bow-tie. He was narrow-faced and virtually chinless, with a beaked nose and a prominent brow that cast his eyes in shadow. His dark, receding hair was short and lacquered. Altogether, he should have looked unimposingly bank-clerkish, but the way he held himself and the arrogance of his stare would have created a far from unimposing impression, even without the gun he was holding.
‘What the devil …?’ Brigham began, taking half a step forward.
‘Stop,’ said the newcomer, raising the gun slightly and pointing it at Brigham. Brigham stopped. ‘Move when I tell you only. Or I will shoot you.’ He sounded deadly serious. His accent and syntax were not English, though what his nationality was Max could not have said with any certainty. The gun looked strangely familiar, though. It was either the same model as the revolver Appleby had supplied – or the very same revolver.
‘What do you want?’ Brigham demanded.
‘Information.’
‘We’ll, er, help you if we can.’ Brigham glanced back at Max and winked, hoping, it seemed, to reassure him that they could talk their way out of this. ‘Won’t we?’
Max rose to his feet, sliding the handcuff up the bedpost until it was stopped by the cross-rail at the top. He looked straight at the man with the gun, determined to give him no ground. ‘You’re Tarn, aren’t you?’
The man’s reaction – or lack of it – confirmed Max was right. This was Tarn, the hired assassin, Kuroda’s ‘hunting tiger’. ‘Sit down, Mr Maxted. Please. Or I shoot Mr Brigham. With your gun.’ He was wearing fine back leather gloves, Max noticed. He would leave no fingerprints.
‘The noise of a gunshot will carry though the building,’ Max coun
tered. ‘The police will be called.’
‘Too late for Mr Brigham. And for you.’ Tarn pointed the gun at Brigham’s head. ‘Please. Sit down.’
‘Do as he asks, Max,’ said Brigham. ‘For God’s sake.’
‘All right.’ Max sat down.
‘What do you want to know?’ Brigham asked, his voice cracking with anxiety.
‘Where is Lemmer?’ Tarn asked calmly.
‘Who?’
‘Lemmer. Please. You work for him, Mr Brigham. You know where he is. Have you told Mr Maxted?’
‘No. That is, I don’t work for anyone called Lemmer. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘What will I do to make you tell me, Mr Brigham? You have an idea of that, maybe?’
‘I don’t work for Lemmer. I’m a British diplomat, for heaven’s sake. You have no right to threaten us like this.’ Brigham looked round at Max. ‘You know this man, Max?’
‘He’s the assassin, Brigham. Do I really need to tell you? He killed my father. And Raffaele Spataro. Walter Ennis, too.’
Tarn spat dismissively. ‘Ennis was not me.’
‘But the others?’
‘Mr Brigham knows about the others. He hired me.’
‘I did no such thing,’ Brigham blustered. ‘This is outrageous. I’ve never met you before in my life.’
‘You sent your man to me. You paid the fee.’
‘What “man”?’
‘Where is Lemmer? You will tell me, please. The Japonais pay bigger than you. For them I end Lemmer. Where is he?’
‘I don’t work for Lemmer. I don’t know where he is.’
‘Tell him, Brigham,’ said Max. ‘He’ll kill you if you don’t.’
‘I can’t tell him what I don’t know.’ Brigham stared imploringly at Max. ‘You surely don’t believe I hired this, this … creature … to kill Henry?’
Brigham was angry as well as frightened. And somewhere beneath both of those emotions, written starkly on his face, Max glimpsed a truth he would never otherwise have credited. Brigham did not work for Lemmer. He had not hired Tarn.
‘Enough,’ Tarn cut in. ‘You will tell me where Lemmer is, Mr Brigham. You will tell me everything. I will make you tell me. Come this way.’ He stepped back and signalled with the gun for Brigham to leave the room.