I said, ‘Neither Giorgio nor I came to the surface before you capsized.’ No one spoke. I eased the leather book from under my harness. A rivulet of water hit the floor. ‘Besuchsliste’, it said. I’d found the U-boat’s visitors’ book. It was not the log book. I threw it across the room with a clatter.
It took me ten minutes to dry off and change. I mixed black coffee and brandy in equal parts and poured it into my throat. I told Singleton and the old man to fetch Giorgio’s body from the beach, strip it of its gear and put it on the balcony. Then I climbed into the car.
I jangled the bell at da Cunha’s heavily and continuously until da Cunha himself came to answer it. He was fully dressed.
‘I’ll come in,’ I said, and entered. Da Cunha made no protest. I said, ‘One of my friends is dead.’
‘Really,’ said da Cunha calmly, but the oil lamp he was holding gave a little jump.
‘Died under water,’ I said.
‘Drowned,’ said da Cunha.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said, ‘but I would settle for that on the death certificate if it means a quiet funeral.’ Da Cunha nodded but made no move.
‘You are asking me to help you in some way?’
‘I’m telling you to help, in
He said, ‘That attitude won’t get you very far.’ He sounded just like Dawlish.
I said, ‘I’ve got a piece of paper in my pocket. Inside it is a lock of Senhor Fernandes Tomas’s hair.’
Da Cunha hadn’t flinched.
‘When London put it under a microscope, they will find that Fernie’s black hair is ginger hair that has been dyed. Because ginger hair and blue eyes is about as English as you can get and far too conspicuous on a Portuguese. My subsequent orders might well concern you. Meanwhile a murdered corpse can cause you as much trouble as it can cause me, and I don’t think Mr Smith can help you.’
‘You are right,’ he said. ‘I shall arrange for a death certificate immediately. Do you wish to bring it … him … er … here?’
‘Why not?’ I said. ‘You have an unused empty grave.’ Da Cunha moved his mouth around and finally said, ‘Very well.’
31 From a friend
I came into London with my flaps well down. Giorgio had been murdered under the water. Joe had been blown to shreds. I had been only a few yards away at each event. Not that I thought that either had been unsuccessful attempts to finger me, but diligence brings more agents to pensionable age than bravery ever did. I decided to make a few inquiries on my own private grapevine, even if it did mean ignoring all the department’s rules of procedure.
The icy wind carved up the Cromwell Road faster than the stockbrokers’ Jags, and a cosmonaut on a 600-c.c. motor cycle came roaring past seeking cooperation in an act of suicide. I checked into one of those hotels near the West London air terminal. It was all chintz and dusty flowers. I wrote the name of Howard Craske into the register. The desk man asked for my passport.
‘Did I cross the frontier?’ I asked.
He took me up to a room on the third floor back. It had an antique gas-meter that looked hungry. I fed it some one-franc pieces. It liked them. The gas fire gave a sibilant hiss. I put on dry socks, raised my body temperature enough to get me back amongst the living, then went round the corner to the phone box. I had already decided to let a few hours pass before contacting Dawlish. I dialled a Bayswater number. The phone made the noises associated with making a phone call in England. It buzzed, clicked and purred; it had more tones than a chromatic scale. After two or three tries it even rang at the other end.
‘Can I speak to Mr Davenport?’ I said. He was my first ear to the ground.
‘This phone is hot,’ said the voice at the other end, ‘and you are even hotter. Leave town.’ He hung up. He wasn’t a laconic man, but a tapped phone[23] affects some people that way. I rang another man who had an ear to the ground. This time I was a little more circumspect. I waited for Austin Butterworth to speak first. He spoke, then I said, ‘Hello, Austin.’
‘I recognize the voice of my old mate …’ said Austin.
‘You do,’ I said before he could blab it across the phone.
‘Are you in trouble?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know, Austin; am I?’ I heard him laugh like an engaged tone.
‘Don’t let’s talk over this,’ he said. He knew a thing or two about telephones.
‘What about Leds in half an hour?’
‘O.K.,’ I said.
Leds is a dark-brown cafe near Old Compton Street. To enter it, you fight your way through Continental newspapers and movie magazines. Inside it’s like an Aldermaston March mixing with the Chelsea Arts Ball. I heard someone saying ‘… and thank you for a really lovely party.’ It was mid-afternoon.
‘Small black,’ I said. Austin’s skull shone through his thinning hair over a copy of
‘Hello, Ossie,’ I said. He didn’t look up. The girl behind the counter gave me the coffee and I bought some cigarettes and matches. She gave me my change; only then did Ossie murmur, ‘Bring a tail?’
‘Of course not,’ I said. I had forgotten Ossie’s mania. His years in prison had left him with a skilful technique in rolling cigarettes thinner than matchsticks, a mania about being followed and a lifelong aversion to porridge.
‘Come right to the back so I can see who comes in.’ We moved towards the rear and sat down at one of the glass-topped tables.
‘Did you go round the block a couple of times to make sure?’
‘Relax, Ossie.’
‘You have to have rules,’ said Ossie, ‘only the mugs don’t have rules and they get caught.’
‘Rules,’ I said, ‘I didn’t know that you were an advocate of rules.’
‘Yes,’ said Ossie, ‘rules, you have got to know what to do in any situation, so that you can do it before you even think about it.’
‘Sounds like something the chief screw at the Scrubs told you. What sort of rules, Ossie?’
‘Depends. Like always jump off the high side of a sinking ship. That’s a good rule, if you need it.’
I said, ‘But I’m not expecting to be on a sinking ship in the near future.’
‘Oh no?’ said Ossie. He leaned forward. ‘Well, I wouldn’t be too sure about that, my old mate.’ He gave me a Gilbert and Sullivan conspiratorial wink.
‘What are you hearing then, Ossie?’ I always found it difficult to believe that Ossie was a man who could keep a secret. He was such a transparent old rogue. But he had as many secrets as any man in London.[24] Ossie was the archetype professional burglar.
I ordered another small black for Ossie and myself.
‘What am I hearing?’ said Ossie, repeating my question. ‘Well, I keep hearing about you all over.’
‘Where, for instance?’
‘Well, I am not free to reveal the source of my information as they say at the Yard, but I am able to state without no fear of contradiction that you are a hot potato as far as a certain gent is concerned.’
He paused, and I didn’t press him as he is a man who hates to be hurried. I waited. He said, ‘Little birdies ’ave it that you are hard on the track of a big bundle of a certain sort of merchandise as you and me once took a free sample of out of a high quality Chubb in Zurich.’
It’s important to know when to be cagey and when to admit the truth. I nodded. Ossie was pleased to be right. He went on, ‘If you was a gent making banging machinery for the government, machinery of all shapes and sizes, from the little ones that start the hundred yards free-style at Wembley to the big sort that features on the artwork of Civil Defence recruiting literature …’ He looked at me quizzically.
‘Yes,’ I said doubtfully.
‘And if you signed yourself a nice banging-machine contract that was big enough to give Birmingham City
