The Old Vengeful

dropped everything else, because I'd got this lucky feeling then.' He sipped his port and almost winked at her, she thought.

'Whitechapel tube station, that's where he was let off, an'

picked up an hour later each time. And there's only three directions you can go from there—like, back where you came from, or on into deepest Essex . . . Barking, Upminster, Ongar ... or you take the line through to New Cross Gate, under the river—which is the oldest tunnel under the Thames, built by Isambard Kingdom Brunei— Rother'ithe, dummy3

Surrey Docks ... all my old stamping grounds when I was a kid, but not the sort of place your dad'd go to, except maybe further on to Greenwich and the Royal Naval College . . . But he wouldn't go that way, see?'

'But that's where he went?' said Paul.

'Sssh!' said Audley.

'An' that's where I really started to get lucky—lucky it was me, an' not someone who didn't know the area—but lucky first because his driver used to worry about him . . . nice old gentleman limping along alone, with his stick, down into that tube station, with his little brief-case—'

'Heavy little brief-case,' murmured Paul, looking at Elizabeth.

'So one evening he was late back, an' the driver went and inquired in the station . . . and he was told that there'd been a breakdown at Shadwell, which is the back-end of the East End, just before Wapping, where the tube dives under the river, an' comes up in South London at Rother'ithe. Which meant, of course, that he was doubling back across the river, just as a routine precaution, because he didn't want anyone to know where he was going— clever, but amateur, like you'd expect. But I knew I was on to him then, an' not wasting my time . . . Apart from being lucky, that is.'

Elizabeth observed the rapt expression on David Audley's face, half admiring, half smug, and knew that Chief Inspector Andrew hadn't been lucky at all; or, if he had been lucky, it dummy3

had been the deserved luck of the clever man who takes the right path at each intersection out of that rare blend of intelligence and experience and instinct which passed for luck among lesser mortals.

'So ... to cut a long story short... I ended up at the Jolly Caulkers pub right opposite Surrey Docks station, on the edge of all that rundown docks area, where there's a bloke behind the bar I used to be at school with. An' they know I'm a dick, of course, though I've been mostly up Bermondsey, Peckham way, out of Catford divisional nick . . . but I'm still nearly one of them, all the same. An' because this is a rush job, I flashed your father's picture around. An' someone says for old times' sake 'Yeah—I saw 'im with Lippy once', an' I said 'Lippy who?', and he says 'Harry Lippman, what used to fence gear out of Redriff Road—but 'e's dead now'. . . Which was the only reason why he'd even said that much, of course—

Redriff Road's just nearby, little 1920s council flats, just square boxes with iron railings in front— because Lippy was where I couldn't touch him.'

Sip. 'So because it's still a rush job I went straight to Deptford nick, where I'm known, an' up to my old mates on the first floor. An' they knew Lippy all right—'Harry Lippman, fence'—but they say the guys who really knew him are at Tower Bridge nick ... So I went all the way back to Tower Bridge nick, on the edge of the bridge. And there's a guy there ... he says Harry Lippman was the kind of fence they never really wanted to catch. They knew what he was dummy3

doing— jewellery was his speciality, an' the more antique the better, but he'd handle any gear that wasn't too hot. . .only he wasn't tough or rough, he didn't upset people or hurt people—

he was of the old school... If he'd have been an obvious nick, they'd have nicked him, but as he was careful an' they had a lot of worse villains, they didn't bother with him.' Del smiled suddenly, and looked round the table. 'Besides which there was his war service, anyway, in his favour.'

'His war service?' Mitchell leaned sideways towards Del.

'That's right. Leading Radar Mechanic Lippman, RNVR, with a Mention in Despatches too.' Del turned to Elizabeth.

'And that was in the same despatch your father figured in for his medal—Leading Radar Mechanic Lippman of HMS

Vengeful, that's who Lippy was . . . before he went back into the family business and became Harry Lippman— disposer of stolen property. Or 'Retired general dealer', as his death certificate puts it.'

'What did he die of?' said Paul quickly.

'Arterio-sclerosis. In hospital—as natural as you like.' Del shook his head. 'It was the next thing I checked— got half the staff out of bed . . . Nothing for us there. And it was about five, six months gone by.' Back to Elizabeth. 'Lippy handled your father's business right enough—would have been honoured to, by all accounts . . . very proud of his war service he was—British Legion treasurer, Old Comrades' Association

—picture of his ship and his captain in the sitting room, above his medals in their case . . . Doing your dad a favour or dummy3

two would have been right up his street—he had all the contacts, for money or gear, and he was recognised as an honest crook, so no one double-crossed him. In fact, right to the end, if anyone got done down or hurt in Rother'ithe, Lippy had a way of dealing with it . . . 'Fact, I reckon they miss him in Tower Bridge nick, the way things are down there now.'

Paul turned to Audley. 'Not the man to give Novikov the time of day, David.'

'Too right!' Del gave a snort. 'Maybe now they've got some weirdos on that patch today—young Trotskyites and Revolutionary Workers from outside, where it always used to be dockers who were rock-solid Labour—Ernie- Bevin-Labour . . . But Novikov would have stood about as much chance as a snowball in hell in the Jolly Caulkers in Lippy's heyday—he'd have ended up under a barge in the river, most likely. Lippy was on the Murmansk run in '44, and he didn't take a shine to what he saw at the other end, from all accounts.'

'So where does Danny Kahn come in?' said Elizabeth.

'Ah . . . now Danny Kahn doesn't come in with Lippy,' Del shook his head. 'Lippy wouldn't have given Danny the time of day on a wet Sunday afternoon, not if he'd have come to him on bended knees . . Danny