‘No,’ I said, ‘and I didn’t know you’d read that report.’
‘Yes, Alice gave it to me to read last night. There were some mentions in a Norwegian medical journal which I translated for her.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘that’s all right then.’
‘Alice said you’d say that.’ Before I could say anything, Jean continued, ‘This brain-washing…’
‘Say “thought reform”. No one says “brainwashing” nowadays.’
‘This thought reform,’ said Jean, ‘is it…?’
‘Enough of thought reform,’ I said, ‘what are you doing tonight?’
Jean fingered the lone gold ear-ring, and looked at me from low down under her eyelids. ‘I thought perhaps I should give you a chance of making your ear-ring into a pair,’ she said. It was suddenly very quiet and Jean picked up a copy of the
The newspapers were playing it down but London murders always found an audience. ‘London Club Murder’ it said, and there was a lot of stuff about the police going through the membership books at the ‘Tin-Tack Club’ where Charlie was a part-time barman.
‘Murray said he was a close friend of yours,’ said Jean.
I told her that he had warned me when I was in danger, but I didn’t tell her that anyone else had.
‘But why would anyone want to kill him? For helping you?’
‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘It was more tragic than that. He’d lent me some clothes, including a light-blue raincoat. I gave Charlie his raincoat back at Fortes, and he wore it when he left me and returned home. It was a simple case of mistaken identity.’
‘Who arranged it?’ asked Jean.
‘A hoodlum that worked for Jay’s network. We’ll pick him up,’ I said.
‘Not Jay himself?’
‘No, certainly not. On the contrary. As soon as he got wind of Charlie’s connection with C-SICH he rushed down to talk to Dalby, which is where I came in.’
‘He hoped Dalby could black it out?’ Jean said.
‘Yes, but Dalby hadn’t a chance with C-SICH. It’s got too many direct government connections via industry, as well as the combined services side of it.’
‘They must have had a fit when you arrived,’ said Jean.
‘Well, Jay hadn’t arrived then, but Dalby knew he was coming. His infra-red detectors gave him a few minutes to get ready for me. I would have left it there if this private eye that I had with me hadn’t mentioned a Chinese. It was a long shot, but I took it, and it paid off. Murray, passing Dalby’s study, heard the detectors buzzing and switched them off before coming to find me. After Murray found me in the garden he was worried that I would spoil the whole thing by precipitate action.’
‘How could he think that?’ asked Jean.
‘That’s what I thought, but anyway, he knew I had little to lose, so he phoned Ross.’
‘After he came conscious?’ said Jean.
‘After he came conscious.’
‘Murray is exclusively Ross’s man?’
‘Not normally, but for the IPCRESS business he was. After talking to Ross he turned around, went back into the house and arrested Dalby. The Chinese man…’
‘Who really is Lithuanian, dear,’ said Jean.
‘So I hear,’ I said. ‘That was what Murray just phoned in about. He picked him up near Liphook. I don’t know the story.’
‘Ross must have acted quickly after Murray phoned.’
‘Well, he certainly did, but don’t forget that he’d had the Home Secretary prepared for days. They knew it would come suddenly when it came.’
‘Why did Jay give up so easily when Ross arrived?’ Jean asked. ‘It’s not like him, somehow.’
‘I’m not sure about that. Either because he thought Dalby would pull him out of the fire, in spite of the struggle for power that was obviously going on between them.’
‘Or?’ said Jean.
‘Or it’s something to do with the phone call from someone named Henry. Time will tell.’
‘More questions,’ said Jean.
‘Very well,’ I said.
‘Why did Jay let you find Raven in that club the day you were nearly arrested?’
‘Simple. Jay and Dalby had the “thought reform” going well by then, but they needed a neat punctuation mark to account for the series of kidnappings. If they could find a scapegoat, there the matter would end, and they could happily go forward with their new plan.’
‘Until they quarrelled.’
‘Perhaps, but they might not have quarrelled. Anyway, Dalby and Jay set me up to be found alongside Raven, with a hypodermic in my pocket, police raid and all.’
‘But,’ said Jean.
‘But instead of waiting a few more minutes, when I would have been organized into the gaming room, I got impatient…’
‘Extraordinary,’ said Jean. ‘So out of character. The man from US Naval Intelligence was only trying to help, then?’
‘I’m afraid so,’ I said.
‘We must get back,’ said Jean, ‘or Alice will grumble.’
‘The devil with Alice,’ I said. ‘I’m the boss, aren’t I?’
‘Not when Alice gives the orders,’ Jean said.
‘You know, there’s something different about that office lately,’ I said, and we both returned to it, although I was still thinking about the ear-ring.
Chapter 32
[
Back at the office the cables were beginning to flood in from Washington and Calcutta and Hong Kong. Alice was coping very well, and only a few required a decision from me. Murray flew up to a little country town near Grantham and brought Chico back in an army helicopter. He looked very ill when I saw him at the Millbank Military Hospital. Ross put a couple of men on a twenty-four-hour watch at Chico’s bedside, but they got nothing from him, except that he’d seen a friend of his cousin in the piece of film he’d seen at the WO. Instead of telling Ross, he went to visit the man. Needless to say he was in the IPCRESS network, and Chico was at Millbank, and his friend in Ross’s bag.
Painter, the thin-faced tall fellow who’d been with us on the Lebanon job, turned out to be a psychiatrist of some standing who had brought our captive Raven, who was half-way ‘brainwashed’, back to something approaching normalcy. I gave him a room with Carswell on the top floor at Charlotte Street. If we couldn’t break Jay down everything would depend on those two.
By Thursday I was able to take a full night’s sleep. Until then I’d kept going mainly on coffee and cigarettes and an aspirin sandwich, but Thursday I took some sleeping pills Painter gave me and didn’t wake until midday. I swore off coffee for a couple of days and stepped into a cold shower. I put on Irish tweed with Veldtshoen, cotton shirt, and wool tie. At three o’clock I was summoned to the presence of an exalted military personage at the WO.
I was a minute or so late and Ross and Alice were both there before me. Ross was in a very stiff new uniform with crown and pip on the shoulder. His Sam Browne was as shiny as the doorman’s head and he had his
