Authors: Robert Goddard
"What did he do about it?" I asked, as Jarvis came to a halt and propped himself against the back of a lakeside bench.
"I'm not sure. That's where this whole matter becomes so confoundedly delicate."
"You're going to have to tell us what that means."
"Have to? I think not. But I will tell you, none the less. I met Mr. Alder on thirtieth August to review progress on the case." (Over breakfast, I'd studied Echo's kitchen-wall calendar and worked out that Rupe had visited Tilbury Docks on 29 August. So, it was the very next day that he'd pow wowed with Jarvis.) "Considering the little I had to report, he was surprisingly cheerful. He took it as certain that Mrs. Townley and/or her children knew where Townley was and he gave me to understand that he had procured from your sister, Mr. Hashimoto, the means to force them to disclose Townley's whereabouts to him."
"He did not procure," said Hashimoto. "He stole."
"Really? I confess I am not greatly surprised. A letter, he said it was, the nature and contents of which he did not care to reveal."
"That is right," said Hashimoto. "I do not know what is in it myself."
There was the slightest sceptical twitch of Jarvis's right eyebrow, then he went serenely on. "Mr. Alder left me in no doubt that he intended to use the letter to flush Townley out of his hiding-place. I have neither seen nor heard from Mr. Alder since."
Nobody said anything for a longish moment, so I asked the obvious question. "What do you think happened?"
"I think he succeeded, either directly or indirectly, in contacting Townley. In fact, I'm sure of it."
"How can you be?"
"Because, within a matter of weeks of that meeting, our offices were broken into and correspondence and computer disks relating to the Townley inquiry stolen. We invest a great deal of time and money in security, gentlemen. The break-in was highly professional. It had to be. It was also precisely targeted. More or less simultaneously, an anonymous message was passed to us at the very highest level, via a legal practice that often acts for us."
"What was the message?"
"Drop the case."
"Simple as that?"
"Not quite. Certain .. . penalties .. . were mentioned in the event of non-compliance. Financial penalties, I mean. It was all very .. . kid-gloved. But it was clear that the sender of the message wielded sufficient influence to ruin us if he needed to."
"Ruin the company?"
"Quite so."
"How could he do that?"
"Myerscough Udal is big and successful. But there's always someone bigger and more successful. I believe our directors were firmly persuaded that our most valuable clients would be taken from us if we persisted. We did not persist."
"You caved in?"
"We had no choice."
"And you think.. . Townley did this?"
"Who else?"
"But he's just one man, for God's sake."
"Of whom we know nothing. A state of affairs he's clearly determined to maintain."
"If you ... caved in," said Hashimoto slowly, 'why are you here, talking to us?"
"An astute question, Mr. Hashimoto. Why indeed?" Jarvis looked warily to right and left and lowered his voice still further. "Officially, this meeting is not taking place. If you visit or telephone me at our offices, I will decline to speak to you and deny that we have ever met. Myerscough Udal does not like to be pushed, apparent though it is that we can be pushed. We are seriously unhappy about it, gentlemen, yet unable to strike back in any way. We are fearful for the welfare of a client, yet in no position to aid him. We are hamstrung." He smiled. "But you are not."
"What are you getting at?" I asked.
"I tell you things, Mr. Bradley. I give you information. What you do with it is up to you. And what I hope you do with it is probably irrelevant. Save to say that I sincerely hope you will ... do something."
"Such as?"
"That really must be up to you. What I can say is this. The
QA
Townleys had two children Eric, born nineteen fifty-five; Barbara, born nineteen fifty-seven. Barbara lives in Houston, Texas. She's married to an oil executive, Gordon Ledgister. They have one child a son, Clyde, born nineteen eighty, currently a student at Stanford University. Eric meanwhile lives with his mother in Berlin. She went back there after the Wall came down. Eric now styles himself Erich. He's gay, by the way. Rosa Townley is sixty-five. She and Erich share an apartment on Yorckstrasse. Number eighty-five. You may be interested to know that airline records show a Mr. R. Alder flew from Heathrow to Berlin on third September. There's no record of a return flight. And now' he pushed himself suddenly upright "I must be going. Good morning to you both."
With that he was off, spring-heeled and striding, back the way we'd come. I wanted to shout after him. But shout what? He'd said everything he had to say. And it was as clear as daylight that he'd say no more. Myerscough Udal had dropped the case. And Jarvis had washed his hands of us. He hurried on. But Hashimoto and I stayed exactly where we were.
It was eleven o'clock by the time we got back to the Hilton -good news for someone as badly in need of a drink as I felt. Hashimoto hadn't said much since Jarvis had dumped us. I reckoned I could see a lot of not very productive thinking going on behind his placid face, though, so I prescribed a drink in his case too and piloted him round the corner to a cosy little boozer in Shepherd Market.
Halfway through my second Carlsberg Special and his first Glenfiddich, Hashimoto seemed to come to some kind of decision. He solemnly lit a Marlboro cigarette, stared into the first plume of its smoke and announced, "We must go to Berlin."
"Don't I get a vote on that, Kiyo?"
He looked at me oddly. Maybe my Carlsberg-inspired invention of an abbreviated name for him hadn't gone down well. But, if so, he didn't dwell on it. "I must find the Townley letter. And you must find your friend."
"I'm not sure about that. You said yourself he'd strayed into a dark place. Could be a dangerous one too, if Townley's as powerful as Jarvis seems to think."
"It is true. Mr. Jarvis invites us to put our heads into the tiger's mouth. To see if the tiger will bite."
"I'm sure my mother told me once never to put my head in a tiger's mouth."
Hashimoto nodded solemnly. "A mother would."
"Besides, I have to go home next week. A trip to Berlin's not on."
"Why must you go home?"
"Oh, this and that." (A fortnightly date with the dole office was the beginning and end of my commitments, but I wasn't about to admit it.)
"We may not need to be gone for long. And I will pay all your expenses."
"Would that include a funeral?"
"Calm yourself, Lance. Subtlety is everything in such matters. What do you lose by accompanying me to Berlin?"
"Depends what happens when we get there."
"Nothing will happen without your consent. You have my word on that. We will judge and agree each step before we take it."
"What if I don't agree any steps?"
"We will take none."
"I still can't go."
"Why not?"
"I've left my passport at home."
"How far is your home?"
"A hundred and fifty miles or so."
"Then we will go and get it. I have the use of a car. It is in the Hilton garage."
"When did you plan to set off?"
"For your passport? Now. For Berlin?" He gave the question a moment's thought, then shrugged. Tomorrow."
"So soon?"
There has been enough delay. Why add to it?"
"Well.. ."
I never did come up with much of an answer. Which is why, apprehension dulled by several more Carlsberg Specials, I found myself being high-speed chauffeured along the M4 and down the M5 in a courtesy BMW through the midday murk. I didn't doubt Hashimoto's declared motivation: he reckoned he could best protect his sister and niece by retrieving what Rupe had stolen from them. Nor did Hashimoto seem to question my desire to help a friend in distress. There was even some implication that he thought me honour-bound to undo the damage my friend had done. That didn't slice any slush with me, of course. Yet I was, apparently, going to Berlin. The truth was that I was excited by the mystery Rupe had unwittingly dragged me into. And excitement was something my life had been distinctly short of for a long long time. I'd been well and truly suckered by the thrill of the chase.
We made it to Glastonbury in a shade over two hours. Hashimoto wasn't a dawdler behind the wheel. I thought of suggesting a diversion to my parents' so that I could ask Dad to tap Don Forrester for information. But I decided to phone Dad later instead, thereby dodging having to explain to him what I was up to. I even thought of proposing a visit to Penfrith. But I nixed that as well. Too much to tell; too much to ask. With luck, Rosa and Erich Townley would answer all our questions. There might still be an innocent explanation for everything.
(Who did I think I was kidding?)
We stopped at Heathrow on the way back and Hashimoto booked us aboard a Sunday lunchtime flight to Berlin. (Club class, no less.) Then he drove me to Kennington. It was agreed he'd pick me up at ten o'clock the following morning. We were all set.
We were also mad, according to Echo. "You have absolutely no idea what you're getting into." (A fair point.) "I thought you said you were a natural quitter."
"I am."
Then why aren't you quitting?"
"Because that's the thing with quitting, Echo: you have to choose your moment."
"And this isn't it?"
I had to think about that for several moments. In the end, all I could say was, "Apparently not."
QO
BERLIN
CHAPTER SEVEN
Following Rupe to Berlin had its ironical side, since I'd followed him there once before, when we were inter-railing round Europe in the long, hot, sweaty summer of 1984. Berlin had definitely been Rupe's idea. He'd always had more of a sense of history than me. I'd not shared his curiosity about life behind the Iron Curtain and the dismal train journey across East Germany to reach West Berlin had only strengthened my view that we'd have been better off going almost anywhere else. We'd made the standard tourist foray into East Berlin, but I hadn't exactly been in a receptive frame of mind. Tacky commercialism on one side of the Wall and drab uniformity on the other were about the only memories I'd taken away.
Arriving by plane in a smartened-up, unified capital city with too many complimentary drinks inside me was a vastly different experience, of course. So different that I had some doubts about whether it really was the same place. The taxi from Tegel Airport to our hotel sped through an autumn ally golden Tiergarten with no Wall looming ahead, crossed the vanished border and whooshed beneath the Brandenburg Gate into Unter den Linden. Hashimoto had booked us into the Adlon, which he'd been told was the best hotel in Berlin. It looked to me as we were ushered across the vast and sparkling lobby that he'd been well informed. What with club-class travel and grande luxe accommodation, I was beginning to think that escort to Kiyofumi Hashimoto was a job I could be persuaded to take on a long-term contract.
High altitude imbibing had left me needing a serious kip. I suggested we meet up in the bar at seven o'clock and Hashimoto seemed happy with that. So, leaving the unpacking (all five minutes of it) till later, I stretched out on the enormous double bed in my lavishly appointed room and let the distant murmur of traffic on Unter den Linden lull me to sleep.
It was dark outside when I woke, woozily identifying the persistent warbling in my ear as the telephone ringing on the bedside table. I couldn't read the time on my watch, but reckoned the caller had to be Hashimoto.
It was. "Lance. You must come quickly."
"Start without me, Kiyo. I'll be down in a minute."
"I am not in the hotel. I am in a call-box on Mehringdamm."
"Oh yeh?"
"Near the Townleys' apartment."
"For Christ's sake. Couldn't that have waited?"
"You must come here now. I have an idea."
"What sort of idea?" (Crazy was my bet.)
"I have no coins left. I will wait for you outside Mehringdamm U-Bahn station. Get here as soon as you can."
"Yeh, but The line went dead. I allowed myself a heartfelt sigh. "Great." (It was, of course, anything but.)
As soon as I made it into a vertical position, a dehydration headache announced itself with several mule-kicks inside my skull. And this mule was a powerful critter, unappeased by a pint of Berlin tap water. I left the hotel in something short of tiptop condition.
The taxi drive was a short and fast run south along broad and empty streets. At some point we passed the site of Checkpoint Charlie and returned to what had been West Berlin. Peering at the map I'd cadged from the hotel receptionist, I could see the Mehringdamm U-Bahn station was just round the corner from Yorckstrasse. I found myself wondering if Rosa Townley's family had always lived in the area. Checkpoint Charlie, after all, had been the gateway to the American sector.
Not that I had much time to do a lot of wondering. We were soon at the station. Hashimoto emerged from the shadows round the entrance to greet me as I stumbled out of the taxi. "Are you OK, Lance?" he asked, squinting at me through the lamplight.
"How do I look?"
"Not particularly good."
"You amaze me."
"There is a cafe at the next corner. We will talk there."
"We could have talked in the bar at the Adlon."
"But there is more to do than talk. Come."
He steered me across the road and down to the next junction. The turning to the right was Yorckstrasse. Hashimoto caught my glance at the sign, but didn't explain until we were huddled round a table in the cafe, with tea and beer ordered. (The tea wasn't for me.)
"I decided to see where the Townleys live. It is a little way along Yorckstrasse." He nodded in the general direction. "An apartment block. Expensive, I would say. The main door opened when I turned the handle, so I '
"You went in? You mad impulsive devil, you."
"The Townleys are in flat four. I thought I would ..." He shrugged. "I don't know."