Death in the City, page 22
‘Stavanger had a tough war, and he’d kept himself fit – the stories about his heavy drinking are all poppycock. He doesn’t know exactly what he did, but he squirmed and struck upwards with his fist. Lemming had already started to deliver his blow, but somehow Stavanger diverted it, and the knife struck the table. For what it’s worth as evidence, I’ve seen the table, and there’s certainly a deep knife-cut in it.
‘Lemming came at him again. They’d had a bottle of wine at dinner, and there was another, which they hadn’t opened, beside it. Stavanger grabbed the full bottle and hit as hard as he could. Lemming got it on the head, and it must have been a tremendous blow, for it finished him. The bottle didn’t break, and there was no blood. Stavanger can’t remember exactly, but he thinks there may have been a napkin round the bottom of the bottle, which would account for the medical view that something like a heavy sandbag had been used to kill the man.
‘At first Stavanger was appalled, and his instinct was to shout for help. Then he thought that the whole business of his being brought on board the ship could have been intended to provide an opportunity for murdering him, and that the other men on board might be in the plot. In fact, they probably weren’t – the murder was to be a one-man job – but Stavanger couldn’t know that at the time. He was satisfied that Lemming was dead – he’d seen death often enough in the war – and he decided to stay where he was, while he worked out what to do about the body. There had been very little noise during the struggle, and no one came near the bridge deck. It was dark, and he thought of throwing the body overboard, but was frightened of attracting attention by the splash. There was no wound on Lemming except for the bruise on his head, and Stavanger next had the ingenious idea of putting the body in the bath, in the hope that when it was found it might look as if he’d slipped and hit his head while having a bath. Stavanger himself would then go ashore in the launch – he could say that he’d gone off after dinner leaving Lemming on board, and that he’d had to take the launch himself because after the steward’s departure the other men on board seemed to have turned in.
‘There was a small bathroom opening from the master’s sleeping cabin, and Stavanger filled the bath, undressed the body and put it in. While the body was being undressed a wallet and a couple of letters fell out of one of the pockets.
‘Stavanger – or so he says, and for myself I’m prepared to believe him – had no particular thought of snooping at the time: he just wanted to get the body in the bath, and go away. But he thought it would look more natural if the letters and wallet went back in the pocket. When he was putting back the letters, he noticed that neither was addressed to Captain Lemming, and that both were for Felix Varsov. This made him think again, and think hard. He had, of course, heard of Varsov and Varsov International, because the agreement about attempting to start an oyster farm at Winter Marsh had come up at several board meetings, Ingard painting the scheme in glowing colours. I have the letters here.
‘You can imagine Stavanger’s feelings when he read them. Both are from Lennis. The first says briefly, “Everything about your taking over as Captain Lemming is now fixed up. It’s foolproof, and nothing can go wrong. There was a real Captain Lemming, but he went East, worked for a small Hong Kong shipping company, and apparently died of drink last year. I’ve got hold of all his documents, and they’re safely in my file. I must say, it’s a great relief to know that the Agnes will be under you for this important voyage, and as it also suits you, so much the better.”
‘The second is a much longer document, Lennis’s confidential instructions for the voyage.
‘The Agnes was to go first to Antwerp, to load cases of machine parts for North Africa. But she would also take on a consignment of small-arms and ammunition – quite respectably, for the Belgian Ordnance people had what looked like an official order from the Ministry of Defence, instructing the consignment to go by the Agnes. Once at sea the crates of machine parts were to be opened, the contents – concrete rubble – thrown overboard, and the crates refilled with arms. These were to be delivered, ostensibly as machine parts, to various consignees in North and West Africa. Then she was to go back to Antwerp for another cargo of arms, and also a certain amount of general cargo for Santander and Lisbon. The legitimate cargo was to be delivered, and she would also pick up small amounts of ordinary commercial cargo for the UK. This would ultimately be brought to Tilbury, but there’d be a quick secret call at Winter Marsh on the way. She would not be coming directly from Antwerp to Winter Marsh, and the arms, of course, would not show on her manifest, so that to all intents she was a normal small freighter going about her business.
‘The dates in the document were all provisional, and we know that the call at Winter Marsh was in fact put back for a week, while she was diverted to Bilbao. It looks as though she was originally due at Winter Marsh a couple of days after my first visit – which would explain the highly suspicious attitude of the guards towards me.
‘Having read this document, Stavanger had another idea. Varsov was a new skipper, and there was to be largely a new crew. Some of the crew – possibly all of them – were doubtless in the plot, but there was no reason to suppose that they knew Varsov personally. Why shouldn’t he, Stavanger, take over? He was entirely capable of skippering the ship. He’d have to deliver the African consignments to avoid raising suspicions, but at least he could make sure that arms destined for Britain never got there.
‘There were several problems: he had to dispose of the body, he had to get back to his flat to collect some uniform, and he badly wanted to call at the office to have a look at the papers relating to Captain Lemming in the crew list file.’
‘I thought Felix Varsov was a financier,’ Pusey interrupted.
‘He was, but he was a good many other things besides,’ said Seddon. ‘Peter’s story makes sense. Various countries have been after him through Interpol, and we’ve a considerable dossier on him. Whether he was born in the United States or somewhere in Europe is unclear, but he seems to have gone to sea in his early years, and served his time in some Greek shipping line. He is, or was, a qualified master mariner all right, and in a number of his shadier enterprises later he ran his own ships under a variety of flags. To get hold of the papers of a dead British ship’s captain would have suited him well. And one can see his value to the Ingard outfit.’
Sir Edmund nodded, and I went on, ‘To get back to Stavanger’s story, the obvious place for the body was the river, but he didn’t want it to go in at Gallions Reach – if it was found, and he couldn’t count on its not being found, he wanted it somewhere where it couldn’t possibly have come from the Agnes. And he wanted it to remain unidentified for as long as possible.
‘He took everything out of the pockets, and cut off all maker’s labels from the clothes.
‘Stavanger decided that the best way to get to his flat at Stepney was by river. It wasn’t all that far – about ten miles – and he could do it comfortably in the launch. He made a quick recce of the ship, and all was quiet. In spite of the tension he was under he was quite shocked to find that nobody was bothering to keep an anchor watch – old standards of discipline die hard. Half of Stavanger wanted to rouse the couple of men on board and give them a rocket, but the saner half of him was profoundly thankful. He had the ship virtually to himself – as Varsov would have done had things gone the other way.
‘Stavanger had a hell of a job getting Varsov to the launch. He dressed the body again, and he had to carry it upright, so that if anyone did chance to see them it might look as if he was helping a companion who had had too much to drink. Fortunately he was starting from the bridge deck so he had only to go downwards – even so, it was a heavy, horrible job.
‘In the launch he had no particular problems. He propped up the body so that it seemed to be sitting normally, and went upriver to Stepney. He contemplated dumping the body off Stepney, but decided against it, partly because it might be carried down too near Gallions Reach, partly because he himself lived at Stepney, and if the body caught on something and was found near Stepney he was afraid that somebody might relate it to him. This was pretty unlikely in the circumstances, but you can understand it, I think.
‘He knew some steps between two blocks of warehouses at Stepney, and he took the launch in there. Then his troubles began again. The steps were fairly secluded, but he couldn’t be sure that nobody would come along while he was getting to his flat, and he was afraid that someone might see the man sitting in the boat and, perhaps, call out to him. So he decided to put the body in the river, where it would be out of sight, securing it to the launch with a line. But that didn’t work very well at first, because the body wouldn’t sink properly. To make sure that it stayed under water and out of sight, he had to weight it in some way.
‘He looked round the launch to see what he could find, and at first he couldn’t find anything that would serve. Then, rummaging in one of the after-lockers, he came across a heavy box – and found it full of ammunition. Presumably the launch had been used some time to help in getting arm and ammunition ashore – anyway, there it was. Using his handkerchief to handle the cartridges – thinking back he was puzzled at how coolly his mind seemed to work, and he remembers that he didn’t want fingerprints on the cartridges – he stuffed the pockets with ammo and put the body over the side. He hurried off to his flat – Yardarm Square is quite close to the river – changed into his skipper’s uniform, collected a few clothes, and remembered to pick up Volume III of the North Sea Pilot, giving pilotage directions for the Crouch – Stavanger is a sane seaman, and although he knows the Thames Estuary like the back of his hand he’d not so far taken a seagoing ship through the creeks of Winter Marsh. He also picked up his old sextant, but remembered in time that it had been a presentation to him by one of his wartime crews, and had his name inscribed on a silver plate. So he put it down again. When he got back to the launch he was thankful to find everything unchanged, and the body still in the water beside the boat.
‘He’d done all right in getting to Stepney by river, and he reckoned that the best way of getting to the offices in Upper Thames Street was to go on by water. He had to take the body with him, but that was all right because he wanted it to go upstream – the higher up it finally went in, the better. In getting the body back on board one of its shoes came off. He decided that the other might as well follow it, and threw it in the river.
‘All went well through the Pool and he made good time to London Bridge. He could have got ashore there, or by the bridge running into Cannon Street railway station, but he reckoned that some steps near Southwark Bridge would be nearer to the office. He put in there, but this time he couldn’t hide the body in the water because of the tide – it was now so low that there wasn’t enough water at the foot of the steps to cover it properly. So he had to leave the body sitting up in the boat.
‘It was only a few minutes to Ingard House. He had his own keys, and found the crew list file quickly. It didn’t give him much, but he got the number of Captain Lemming’s master mariner’s ticket, and some brief details of his career, including the names of various ships he’d sailed in. He also got the names of the other officers in the new crew. He hadn’t time for any more research, but at least he’d collected a few useful facts to equip himself for his new job.
‘Things were still undisturbed when he got back, but it was beginning to get light, and he decided that he’d got to get rid of the body as soon as possible. But he was now afraid that somebody might see him tipping it in. He saw some lighters moored off the other bank, and thought he might do the job screened by those. He took the launch across to them, but just as he was getting ready to tip in the body, he saw some early morning workers on the Southwark bank, and lost his nerve. Then he decided to use one of the lighters. He was born and bred by the river, remember, and he reckoned he could still scull one all right. He got the body in the water between the launch and the lighter, trusting that no one would notice what he was doing. But he didn’t want to risk its being snagged, so he kept a line round the body with a hitch that he could release while sculling, put the launch on the lighter’s mooring, and unmoored the lighter. The body was still weighted, so it stayed under water. He sculled across the river, let go the body near the other bank, took the lighter back, recovered the launch and went off down river back to Gallions Reach. He was in uniform now, took the launch first to the jetty so that it looked as if he’d come from there, and motored out to the Agnes just about breakfast time. Since the steward had gone off he got no breakfast, but he had too much on his mind to be bothered about that. He tidied up everything, found and went through the ship’s papers, and was ready to berth the ship when the crew turned up. She wasn’t due to stay at the jetty long – only for final orders, and the other bits of paper that have to be dealt with before a ship’s departure. She sailed that afternoon for Antwerp.
‘To his relief, Stavanger-Varsov-Lemming found himself completely accepted. There was no reason why he shouldn’t be, for none of the new crew had met the new skipper. But I think he was a bit lucky there. For the first week or so he lived in terror of the radio. There was a brief report in one of the news bulletins of the finding of a man’s body by Southwark Bridge, but it didn’t attract all that much attention, and it didn’t seem to be followed up. No signal came inquiring about either Captain Lemming or Andrew Stavanger. After a bit he got less nervous, and began to enjoy being back at sea.
‘The signal ordering him to Bilbao and the delay there puzzled him, but he couldn’t know what was happening at the other end, and he just assumed that things weren’t quite ready at Winter Marsh.
‘On the last leg of what had been a longish voyage – the passage from Bilbao to Winter Marsh – he had the hardest of all his decisions to make. He was determined that the arms and ammunition would not be landed in England. He thought of making for Plymouth, anchoring in the Sound, and hoisting a signal saying that he required immediate assistance, but he didn’t trust his crew. For the same reason he rejected the idea of sending out a radio request for help. In the end he decided that the only thing to do was to wreck the ship. The weather helped him here. He was far and away the best navigator on board, and it was reasonable enough for him to take over the navigation himself after going through the Strait of Dover. Nobody questioned his judgment when he laid a course for the Ray Sand channel instead of the Whitaker, even if anyone else realised just what he was doing. For the last half hour he was standing by the helmsman giving him minute by minute instructions, and he just put the ship hard and fast on the Buxey bank. When the lifeboat came he helped to get the crew off, then cut away the cable from the breeches buoy and stayed on board. He had intended to go over the side himself. I stopped him – I said it wasn’t necessary any longer – and he told me the whole story instead.’
*
‘What a man!’ Seddon said. ‘I agree with you that no court would convict him of Varsov’s murder. But that case has got to be tidied up.’
‘I think that he’ll probably have to be charged,’ Pusey said, ‘but when he appears in court the Crown can offer no evidence, which will mean his immediate release. There are a lot of technicalities, though, and I’ll have to see the DPP. But that can wait. What about the crew? Can Stavanger say how many of them were involved in the arms business? Gun-running into England to support an armed rebellion, even if it was a pretty crazy rebellion, is damned serious.’
‘The crew are all being held at Clacton,’ I said. ‘One of them is in hospital, the others are being looked after by the police. Stavanger’s view is that the Chief Engineer, the First Mate and a couple of deckhands, are real villains. The others, he thinks, are just a bit corrupt – offered money for not noticing what went on, and prepared to keep their eyes shut.’
‘They’ll all have to be arrested and charged,’ Pusey said. ‘There are a variety of charges, some serious, some less so, they can be held on. It’s more a matter for the Special Branch and the established counter-espionage people than for us, now. I’ve been in touch with the Commander of the Special Branch, of course, and he’s dealing with the MI people and all the rest of it. It’s rather a good thing they’re in Clacton and not in London. The Cabinet is meeting now to decide what to do. The last thing they want is any sort of mass trial.’
‘There’s one thing that particularly interests me, and that’s the position of Irwin Osnafeld,’ Seddon said. ‘You’ll remember I told you that we’ve tried to get him for a number of financial frauds, but he’s always slipped out of the net. What was he being paid all that money for? If you approve, I’d like to set some wheels in motion there.’
‘Fine,’ Pusey said. He glanced at his watch. ‘There’s a news bulletin on the radio in about half a minute. I wonder if the Stock Exchange balloon has gone up?’
It had. He switched on the radio on his desk and we heard a calm voice – I think the BBC would announce the end of the world with impeccable lack of excitement – saying, ‘The extraordinary events at Winter Marsh early this morning have affected the City. All dealings in the shares of the Ingard Group – among the biggest property companies in Britain – have been suspended by the Stock Exchange. Two officials of the group are understood to be helping the police with their inquiries . . .’
Later that day, Irwin Osnafeld was arrested at London Airport, and charged with complicity in smuggling arms into Britain. He was about to board a plane for South America, but the police were waiting for him.
*
While the national press was having a nine days wonder of sensation, and the police were getting pats on the back from the Prime Minister and even from leader writers of the most diverse political hue, only a weekly paper in Southend reported a case in which the police were rapped over the knuckles. This was the matter of the young man who had been arrested for the alleged theft of a car from Winter Marsh. On his third appearance before the magistrates the police, instead of asking for his commital for trial, apologetically withdrew all charges against him, saying they were now satisfied that there had been a grave error of identification, and the young man couldn’t possibly have committed the offence. Remarking that it was high time there were more satisfactory procedures for identification, the chairman of the bench awarded the young man costs against the police, and £10 for himself out of the poor box.
