I said, “Property recovery. He had certain things nicked from him in a night club, and he doesn’t want any publicity. Recovery is a speciality of mine.”
“Oh, yes. They told me that, too.”
“He’s from Cologne. Staying at Brown’s. Has a fancy line in cards.”
I flicked Stebelson’s card across to him and he caught it as it skimmed through the air.
His eyes on the card, he said, “It wouldn’t be ethical to ask you what the property was?”
“No.”
“What has Katerina Saxmann got to do with it?” His eyes were up and on me, going right through to the back of my head.
“She was,” I lied, “a girl he met in the club. He was none too sure that he’d got her name right. Bit tight at the time. Any more? If there is, you can come and help me scramble the eggs, and we’ll open a very cheap bottle of Spanish white wine.”
He shook his head. “Some other time. No, there’s no more, except—”
I waited and then gave him his cue. “Except what?”
“Except that you won’t mind if I call and have the occasional chat? Just to keep in touch. Nothing official. Just informal.”
“Do. I’m a great one for informality.”
“Fine.”
He stood up and moved to the door. When he put his fingers on the handle and half turned to me I knew he was going to do a Wilkins.
“They tell me,” he said, “that they gave you a chance to come in once. Why’d you refuse?”
“I like being alone and making my own working hours. You know, take the odd day off to go fishing.”
He nodded. “I should watch the fishing. You could end up in the river.” He winked and then was gone.
I opened the door after him and heard him go down the stairs. From the window I checked him across the street. He turned the corner without looking back and that was fair enough because if they were going to watch me somebody else would take over from there.
Five minutes later Wilkins called.
She said, “You owe me five pounds.”
“Take it out of the petty cash and charge it to Stebelson. Expenses.”
I cleared the line and then called Miggs.
I said, “I want something posh. Tonight at seven. Sloane Square.”
He grumbled, which with Miggs is a lot of bad language, but promised. After that I scrambled some eggs and drank a glass of milk with them. Then I pulled my sitting-room curtains almost over and switched on the light. I packed a case and went into the bathroom, leaving the sitting-room light on. I dropped the case through the window and followed it. It wasn’t the garden of my house. It was the garden next door and their front door opened round the corner of the street. I walked in through the kitchen, where Mrs Meld was cooking kippers for her husband’s supper. He was hunched in a stupor on a hard chair watching television, completely transfixed.
Mrs Meld said, “Evening, Mr Carver. Off somewhere?”
“A whiff of sea air, Mrs Meld,” I said. “The fancy just took me.”
“And why not, seeing as you’re single and fancy free? Have a kipper first?”
“Not tonight.”
She took the pound note I handed to her, winked at me and, as I passed through, called, “It’s always nice to see you, Mr Carver, even when we ain’t supposed to.” She said it every time and her laugh followed me out of the front door.
A taxi dropped me in Sloane Square. A few minutes later I was crossing the river on my way to Brighton. Miggs had got me a cream-coloured Jaguar. Very posh. Brighton lay ahead. If only I’d known then that I would have been a happier man if I’d stayed and shared Mr Meld’s kippers....
CHAPTER TWO
GIRL ON THE PIER
I was up at six o’clock the next morning, sitting at my window in the Albion, watching the entrance to the pier. There were few people about. By nine o’clock I hadn’t seen any girl go on to the pier by herself, or a girl who might fit the description I had of Katerina Saxmann.
During the morning I telephoned Wilkins.
I said, “Anything interesting turned up yet?”
“They,” she said, “phoned and asked for you. Wanted to know where you are.”
“And you said?”
“That you’d probably gone racing for the day.”
“Good.”
“Is it?”
“I’ve a feeling – yes. Why should a man hand over a hundred pounds for a simple job like that? Where there’s a hundred, there’s more. Remember the bank manager.”
“You’re too naïve about money and men.”
I could not think of an answer to that one so I hung up and went for a walk along the front, and tried three or four coffee-bars. Then I spent half an hour in the Aquarium before lunch and had a few minutes’ staring match with a gigantic conger eel. I slept after lunch and frittered the rest of the day away. I can sleep and fritter the best of days away. It’s one of the qualifications for my profession and it saves the feet.
She was there at half-past eight the following morning. She came along the promenade from the direction of Hove. It was a fresh morning, the wind coming up Channel, the tide well in, and the waves gargling along the long line of pebble beach. She was bare-headed, her long blonde hair falling loose about her neck. She had her hands in the pockets of an open coat. I kept my glasses on her until she went through the pier turnstile, and then I went out after her.
I was sharply dressed for the part, young man on holiday, well-heeled and looking for company.
I found her at the far end of the pier, behind the pavilion where the early-morning anglers had
