Death in the City, page 10
‘The only incident we know about that may relate to the rest of the set-up is your performance at Winter Marsh. And the connection is pretty slim.’
‘Yes and no. The Ingard group owns Winter Marsh – if it’s paid for it. At any rate it’s in possession.’
‘Could whatever is going to be delivered be some sort of equipment for an oyster farm? Could a ship of any size – I mean, a ship capable of being in Bilbao now – get to the place?’
I considered this. ‘At the right state of tide, probably yes,’ I said. ‘There’s quite a good wooden quay, and I should imagine the army used to have heavy stores sent by water sometimes – certainly in the earlier days of the training establishment, before the motor lorry was as big as it is now. You’d have to know the pilotage, and be very careful about taking in a vessel of any size. But yes, I think it could be done.’
‘We can go on watching the place – obviously we’ve got to. I wish we knew more about it, though.’
‘We’ve got a week – a hell of a lot can happen in a week.’
‘If it’s oyster farm equipment nothing will happen. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t have stuff sent by sea.’
‘I don’t believe it. Yes, there are oysters in the Crouch, and yes, as Ingard said, the Romans knew and ate them. Most of their oysters, though, came from the Colne, round Mersea Island, and they were supplied to the big Roman garrison at Colchester. Oyster farming is certainly possible, and it’s been done successfully in a number of places. But I didn’t see any sign of it at Winter Marsh – the place just looked down-at-heel. Besides, assume that the plans for oyster farming are all above board – do you go, or send your secretary, at eight o’clock in the evening to an unoccupied flat to make a telephone call about it? And do you need codenames to establish your identity?’
‘Might be trying to dodge Customs . . . but no, Peter, I agree it doesn’t make sense. But nothing seems to make sense.’
‘Who on earth is the woman, do you suppose?’
‘Great pity we couldn’t even get a glimpse of her. I’d recognise her voice, I think. Fat lot of use that is, though.’
‘Might be important. She had a fairly distinctive voice – certainly none of the women I met around the office today. But I’ve only been there one day – half a day, really, since I took a good bit of time off this afternoon to talk to you. It’s early days yet, Paul. Maybe we’ll have some brilliant ideas in the morning.’
‘Well, you may, Peter. Can’t say I feel brilliant. The only thing I can do is straightforward police work.’
‘Pays dividends ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Can you get someone to keep an eye on the flat?’
‘Of course. And I’ll have a word with the powers that be about monitoring the telephone. They don’t much like it – unfair to the criminal, or something. But they can be persuaded. Pusey can probably help here.’
‘I’m sure he will. Well, Paul, as a respectable married man it’s high time you went home. Don’t know what our police are coming to – gallivanting with unknown women in unoccupied flats! Have another brandy.’
‘A very small one, then. I suppose I can get a cab home.’
‘I’ll ring down and tell them to get one for you.’
*
It was lateish when Paul Seddon had gone, nearly eleven o’clock, but I wanted to have a word with Miss Macdonald. It was too late to go round to her flat, but not quite too late for a telephone call. I rang the number she’d given me and she answered almost at once – whether she was up and reading, or whether the phone was beside her bed I didn’t know.
‘Peter Mottram here. I’m awfully sorry to bother you so late,’ I began.
‘Oh, Mr Mottram, how kind of you!’ She seemed to purr into the telephone. ‘Have you got any news?’
I hated to disappoint her, but I had to say I hadn’t. ‘On the other hand,’ I went on, ‘I have come across something that may lead to some news of Mr Stavanger. It might be difficult to talk to you in your office – that’s why I’m ringing now. Have you any means of finding out whether any T and T line ships are likely to be in Bilbao over the next few days?’
‘I can tell you now, I have it all in my head,’ she answered unexpectedly. ‘I keep the position-register for all our ships – it’s about the only thing I’m allowed to do nowadays, since all the secretarial work goes to Mr Lennis’s bright young things. But keeping the position-register needs experience. I’ve done it for years, and if I may say it of myself, I’m quite good at it. Bilbao did you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then it will be the Agnes T. She loaded dates in North Africa, and she is on her way to Tilbury. But I sent a signal to her master today telling him to put into Bilbao for orders – those were Mr Lennis’s instructions, of course.’
‘Do you know the master of the Agnes?’
‘No, he’s one of the new men. And she’s been away a long time for one of our ships – ever since June. Our ships may be small, Mr Mottram, but in the old days they were liners – that is, they made regular, scheduled runs from various ports on the Continent to the United Kingdom. Now Mr Lennis is turning them into tramps, sending them all over the place wherever he can pick up a cargo. I suppose it’s modern and efficient – but I don’t like it. The Stavangers always managed to run the ships as liners, and I don’t see why Mr Lennis can’t. But you don’t want an old woman’s gossip. The Agnes has been picking up various cargoes from North African and some West African ports. As I say, she was on her way home, but what she will do after calling at Bilbao, I don’t know.’
‘No other T line ships in Bilbao?’
‘No, and there haven’t been for some time.’
‘Well, thank you very much indeed, Miss Macdonald. I’ll keep in touch with you by ringing you at home, if I may.’
‘If you can give me any news of Mr Andrew, please ring at four o’clock in the morning. I’d be only too thankful to answer the phone.’
Poor loyal old soul, I thought. There might indeed be news of her beloved Mr Andrew, but it might not be good news.
*
Where the hell was Andrew Stavanger? I went to bed, but my mind was far too occupied to sleep. In so far as the flat told us anything at all, it told two conflicting stories. It had not been lived in recently – it had none of that slight warmth of humanity you find in a dwelling whose inhabitant has gone out for the day. But it was not deserted. The empty refrigerator and the absence of perishable food like bread or milk suggested that Stavanger had left expecting to be away for some time, but that conflicted with the pyjamas under the pillow in the bedroom, and the razor in the bathroom. Of course, a man may have more than one razor, and in tidying up for departure he may forget that he has left pyjamas under his pillow, but the impression of the bedroom and the bathroom conflicted with the kitchen. And if Stavanger had left intending to be away for months he had taken remarkably little with him in the way of clothes.
And if he had been away ever since he last turned up in the office, who was dealing with his post, and paying the quarterly bills? Conceivably, letters were being forwarded to him and he was paying bills by post, but, if so, who had put receipts in the drawer of his desk? It was as if the flat was meant to satisfy inquiries provoked by Stavanger’s long absence by suggesting that even if he was not living there, he was still around and capable of dealing with his affairs. That would cover the period of his letter to the bank about the £300,000 cheque.
But letters could be dealt with and bills paid by anyone who had access to the flat, and we knew that at least one other person had a key. Who she was, and how often she went there, we didn’t know, but that she did go, if only to use the telephone, we had incontestable proof. That led to another line of thought. You don’t let yourself into someone else’s flat to use the telephone unless you are quite certain that he won’t be coming back while you’re there, and that means that you know he is far enough away for you to be safe. If the flat was used to telephone, could it not also be used for receiving letters? Could the person who was dealing with Stavanger’s post be using the address also for himself – or herself? Could this be with Stavanger’s knowledge?
Well, yes, of course it could, but it seemed an odd way of going about things. People do act out of character, but not often wholly out of character – and everything we knew about Stavanger suggested that he was considerate, responsible, and with a shipmaster’s sense of discipline and orderliness. Why had he left without a word to Miss Macdonald? It was unclear to what extent he had told his daughter anything about his movements. Apparently she knew enough to tell other people not to worry, but that might mean no more than that she was trying to put a brave face on things.
*
One inconclusive thought led to another, and I found myself wondering about Miss Macdonald’s story of the office cleaner. It was an odd coincidence that a man should be found dead in the Thames near Stavanger’s office on the day that Stavanger had apparently disappeared, but that was now over four months ago, and in any case the police knew all about it, because the office cleaner had called the police. The body had not been identified as Stavanger’s – though, when I came to think of it, there was no reason why it should be, because he had not been reported missing. It didn’t seem at all likely that it could have anything to do with Stavanger, and corpses in the Thames, alas, are not all that infrequent. Still, it would be easy enough to find out what the police had done about it, and it would be tidier to do so.
*
Another thought came into my mind about the flat, but I dozed off without identifying clearly what it was.
VI
MISS MACDONALD’S STORY
THE MORNING PAPERS were full of Vivian Carolan’s latest speech. I’d never met him, but I’d heard him speak once, and there was no doubt that he could move people. Whether he moved them healthily or unhealthily is another matter. His theme was the fairly standard one for left-wing politicians of the need to abolish capital in private hands, but he added a strange brand of the narrowest form of nationalism, urging ‘Socialism for England now’. He didn’t approve of Celtic influence on what he called ‘the pure springs of Anglo-Saxon democracy’, holding that most of what had gone wrong with Britain over the past thousand years or so was the fault of ‘Celtic individualism’. He was all for England’s democracy and against any form of union with Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man, for which he seemed to have a particular dislike as ‘a nucleus of Celtic imagery’. His extreme Little-Englandism, however, was linked to World Socialism, and he argued that a truly Socialist independent England would lead the way to a truly Socialist world, independent alike of capitalism and Celtic individualism. Since he disapproved of any English links with Europe as much as he disapproved of links with Wales or Scotland, his world view seemed somewhat restricted. But woolly as his arguments were, they went down well with discontented people, and particularly with certain sections of the unemployed. That was what gave him his undoubted power in politics, and his loose organisation called the ‘Left is Right Group’ – kept carefully informal so that it could not be proscribed by any of the major parties – commanded the allegiance of a handful of MPs capable of being a thorn in the flesh to the Coalition Government if they were not placated. Obviously there was not much that any Government concerned in governing the United Kingdom could do to meet the wilder demands of the ‘Left is Right Group’, but, since it was never clear whether these were immediate demands or merely long-term hopes, Cabinet office for Carolan and Under-Secretaryships for one or two of his more articulate followers contrived to keep the group within the Parliamentary fold. Carolan’s appointment as Minister for Fine Arts was considered a good one, diverting his energies to extolling the peculiar merits of English painting, and to bringing ‘Pictures to the People’ in the form of travelling exhibitions. These were extremely well managed and arranged, for Carolan knew his subject, and if his reading of English political history was weird his enthusiasm for English painting was real.
Nevertheless, there had been some ugly incidents. Opening his travelling exhibitions gave Carolan plenty of opportunities to speak, and the ‘Left is Right Group’ ensured that he spoke to enthusiastic audiences of his followers. They wore no uniform, of course, but maintained a corps of stewards who could be exceedingly rough to anyone who dared to voice dissent at one of Carolan’s meetings. And the stewards did not perform only when Carolan was speaking. Parties of twenty or thirty of them were liable to turn up at any political gathering of which they disapproved, and their chant of ‘Left–is–Right’, added to their readiness to fight anyone who tried to restore order, broke up meeting after meeting.
Once or twice Carolan himself had hinted at the moral justification of force to secure the people’s just demands, but he was careful to remain within the law, and when challenged in Parliament would observe loftily that he spoke philosophically, and that he could trust the good sense of the English people to interpret his views correctly.
His latest speech seemed to go further than he had ever gone before in advocating force to achieve the kind of England he wanted. ‘A day may come – I do not say it will come, but that it may – when bands of Englishmen from the Tweed to the Tamar, sickened by the prevarifications of the capitalists and by the continued infiltration of Celtic elements into English life, will arise with guns in their hands. And should that day come – bear in mind that I say “should it come”, not “when it comes” – who shall blame them? A disciplined band of anti-capitalist men in every town, animated by the faith of Cromwell’s soldiers, could sweep away the rottenness that besets our country. So I say “Beware!” Patience is not inexhaustible, and the clean gun may yet need to be brought in to redress the corruption of our so-called democratic system.’
*
The leader writers and political correspondents went to town on this. Some of them said that Carolan was a kind of licensed political buffoon, not to be taken seriously, and that in some ways his wild oratory was a useful escape valve in a complex society. Others argued, however, that the man was straining political toleration too far, and that his nominal adherence to the Government was becoming absurd. ‘Is there no law that can disband a private army before it gets into uniform?’ one leader writer thundered.
*
All this made interesting reading over breakfast, but it didn’t seem to advance the hunt for Andrew Stavanger. There was a connection of sorts – Carolan was Stavanger’s son-in-law, but fathers are not responsible for the political views of the husbands of their daughters, and there was no evidence – apart from the election address in his desk – that Stavanger took much interest in the political life of the Carolans. How did Kate fit into the picture? She and Carolan had no children, but that was neither here nor there as an indication of matrimonial harmony nowadays. The Carolans were subject to much exposure in the press, and as far as I knew there had never been any newspaper gossip which even hinted at any sort of rift between them. Yet it seemed an odd relationship. Kate did not seem to play a great part in her husband’s political life: she appeared on platforms with him from time to time, but she was by no means an automatic member of his entourage. Carolan could hardly approve of the Ingard empire, and of her father’s involvement in it. According to Miss Macdonald it was at Kate’s insistence that her father had become involved with Ingard – but Miss Macdonald’s views on Kate were not necessarily accurate. I didn’t know enough about any of the personalities concerned to form any views of my own. Andrew Stavanger was beginning to emerge in my mind with a shadowy personality – as the best sort of successor to a family business, with a high sense of responsibility reinforced by his disciplined training at sea. Everything that I had so far learned about him – except the conflicting stories of his drinking habits – seemed diametrically opposed to the slick business morality of Ingard and his associates and to the way-out politics of his daughter’s husband. Perhaps drink was the true explanation of his so far inexplicable behaviour. It was certainly the simplest.
I couldn’t go on speculating on the might-have-beens of Stavanger’s life, for there was work to do. I had to show up again at Ingard House, and I also wanted to tidy up the loose ends of Miss Macdonald’s story of the dead man in the Thames. I rang Seddon at home before he left for New Scotland Yard and asked him to find out for me the names of the officers who had dealt with the Southwark Bridge case. He said he could do that in a few minutes after getting to his office, and I arranged to ring him later in the morning.
I got to Ingard House promptly at nine thirty, to find Henniker and his clerks already at work. ‘I don’t think I need to stay here much longer,’ Henniker said. ‘I’ve seen enough to convince me that the only recommendation I can make to the bank is that they should withdraw all financial facilities to the Ingard group forthwith. The accounts are in an appalling state.’
‘Your report will mean an immediate crisis on the Stock Exchange,’ I said.
‘I can’t help that. I am an accountant, I have been called in by the bank, and my duty is to the bank. Speaking personally, my own view is that reputable City institutions are far too ready to temper the wind to slick operators like Ingard. They really do present “the unacceptable face of capitalism”. But this is a personal view. What the bank does when I present my report is, of course, the bank’s business.’
‘The bank will act on it – there can be no doubt about that. And, also speaking personally, I agree with your view. But, as I think Sir Geoffrey Gillington explained, there are other matters concerning the Ingard empire which we haven’t yet got to the bottom of. I’ll have a word with Sir Geoffrey this morning. I’d like, if I may, to report your provisional findings, and to ask him to delay action on them for a week. It would help if, perhaps, you could take a few days longer to prepare a considered report.’
‘I could certainly do that – in any set of accounts as involved as these there is masses of formal work that could be undertaken. My doubt is whether any further delay is fair to the bank. As I see it, my duty is to report the state of things at once.’
