Bluebolt One (5 page)

“Yep—Scotland Yard came clean, old boy! It does look a fairly conclusive case, doesn’t it. Funny, though... it doesn’t quite add up, to me anyway. I’ve always thought I’m a fairish judge of character, and I’d have sworn that young man was as straight as a die.”

“My own view entirely, from the little I saw of him,” Shaw said. “Did you actually meet him, then?”

“Oh, I yarn with all the coloured immigrants when they apply, and get all these details out of them,” Herrick told him. “They don’t know it, but they’re being screened in a mild sort of way, and that’s one of my special jobs. We don’t want too many yobos, you know, and I try to make sure we get the pick of the bunch. Matter of fact, I particularly remember Patrick MacNamara. He struck me as a very open young fellow.”

“Any known friends—girl-friends, for instance?”

“No idea. Sorry, I can’t really be much help as »to his private life, Esmonde. . . why not call at his lodgings—I’ll give you the address—or the depot?”

Shaw grinned. “No, thanks! Scotland Yard’ll be around there doing the bloodhound act. . .

Leaving London Transport, Shaw rang through to the Ministry of Nuclear Development for an urgent appointment with the head of “P” Branch. He was told to come along at two-thirty, and after a quick lunch he was back in Whitehall and sitting alone in an office in Personnel, an office very high up in a tall building not far from the Cenotaph.

There was a tap at the door, and a thin, grey-haired man with a stoop and an apologetic manner came in carrying a thick file. He said, “It’s all here, Commander Shaw. If you wouldn’t mind just signing.” He laid a large book in front of Shaw and held out a fountain-pen. Shaw took it and scrawled his signature.

He looked up. “Thanks, Mr. Crocker. Don’t bother to wait. I may be some time.”

The man coughed. “If you’ll pardon me, Commander, the files can be handed back only to senior staff for locking up and re-sealing. But take your time. . . I shall be in my office when you’ve finished.”

“Right.” Shaw smiled, and Crocker left the room. Shaw opened up the file. These papers contained the security screening details of all the men employed at the Bluebolt control-station in Nogolia. Shaw studied them closely, memorizing as he went along every detail that seemed to him important. In point of fact, these were very few indeed. The men’s records were without exception absolutely clear, and Shaw hadn’t expected them to be anything else; but a long experience had taught him that reading between the lines could often be a profitable way of spending his time until the real action began and that a man’s background, however clear from the security angle, could often yield points of interest which sooner or later might provide a lead.

Having read through the whole lot, he turned back to the records of the senior men.

Commander Stephen Wainwright Geisler, United States Navy, had been bom in Portland, Oregon, thirty-seven years before, and had been commissioned from Annapolis in the usual way. From there on, his career had been much the same as any other naval officer’s until, having always shown an aptitude for the scientific side, he had started specializing in guided-missile control. In due course he had been appointed to study the joint navies’ armed satellite programme, and after a long and searching series of interviews he had been sent out to command the first of the control-stations. He was noted down—and this was what really interested Shaw—as being a teetotaller, which, in Shaw’s experience, was unusual in a sailor; and as being a man who on occasions was inclined to take himself a little too seriously. However, his executive ability was outstanding, he had no political affiliations or interests whatever, his private life was ordinary and happy, and he had his wife (there were no children) out in Nogolia with him.

Shaw turned to the senior civilian scientist and chief controller, Julian Hartog.

Aged forty-eight and a Dutch citizen by birth, naturalized British, Hartog had been born in Rotterdam, and while at his university had acquired a reputation for brilliance and unorthodoxy. During the War he had been interned by the Nazis, whom he had goaded at every opportunity, thus getting himself specially harsh treatment, including a move to a concentration camp inside Germany itself. When he had been released (by the Russian forces) he was only just alive, and his recovery had been very slow. He had found himself in the Russian zone when he was fit, but as soon as he got the opportunity he had slipped across the border into West Germany. His period with the Russians had apparently given him a violent hatred of Communism—or so it had appeared from close questioning during his screening; he had, in fact, never spoken of his views, or indeed of this period of his life, in the course of his work or the normal social round. Resuming his interrupted career, this time in England where he had made his home and where his wife, an Englishwoman, had already gone at the beginning of the war, he had become a brilliant man in the guided missiles field; he had later been loaned to the Admiralty by the Ministry of Nuclear Development and had joined the team working on the joint Anglo-American naval programme of Bluebolt satellite construction in the States. His loyalty and integrity were unimpeachable, but he had been noted as something of an enigma in his personality and bursts of belligerent moodiness. He was known, via Geisler, to have been drinking too much during the last few weeks, but this was not unusual in the tropics, and Geisler’s rigidly abstemious principles were well known and so not too much attention had been paid to this. Like his senior, Hartog lived in his own bungalow with his family—in this case, a wife and daughter.

Shaw slammed the file shut and rubbed his eyes. He stretched, glanced at the clock. He thought, as he carefully tied the red tape back on the file and got to his feet: Hartog’s been in Russian hands and he doesn’t talk about it much. . . now, couldn’t that be just a little interesting?

Shaw caught a train to Barons Court, and just after he got into the flat the phone went. It was the Admiralty extension.

He said, “Shaw here.”

“Ah—Shaw.” The voice came harsh and metallic—Latymer himself. “Glad I caught you. Now—a tip. D’you remember a man called Jiddle?”

Shaw frowned at the instrument. “Jiddle . . . the name sounds familiar. . . .”

“Cast your mind back a few years. Scapa, and a court-martial. . .

Shaw gasped. “Jiddle—of course! Do I not remember him! Didn’t know you knew about that, sir?”

“Well, I do. You may be surprised to hear he’s not currently in prison, though I believe he’s well acquainted with most of our larger establishments. Listen. If you can make it convenient to be in a public house called The Hertford in Carson Street, Notting Hill, at 9.30 to-night, I think Mr Jiddle will be there. He’ll make contact in his own way—but I don’t want him to know your N.I.D. connexions, Shaw, or to go to your flat. For his part, he’s somewhat thinly balanced between the law on the one hand and the Paddington gangs on the other, and he has to be careful.”

“I bet he has!”

“Well, he may be some help to you or he may not. I make no definite promises. Point is, he knows his way around London’s coloured quarters probably better than anyone else, and he also knows the West Coast. Good-bye now.”

Latymer rang off.

Shaw had barely put down the private line when his other telephone rang, and it was Debonnair.

She said, “Esmonde, darling, I’ve just seen an early evening paper. What have you been up to?”

“Nothing much, Deb. I just happen to like night strolls along Tube tunnels, that’s all!”

He knew by the sharp intake of breath that she’d taken the hint. She said quietly, “Oh. So it’s like that, is it. Well— just so long as you’re all right. That’s all I wanted to know, darling. I’ve phoned several times already.”

“I’m fine, old thing. See you soon. . . I’ll get in touch when I can.”

“All right, I’ll leave it to you—like I always do!” There was a small catch in her voice as she went on, “Esmonde, keep it that way, won’t you—I mean, be sure you’re all right. Always. Promise?”

He said gravely, “Promise, Deb.”

She gave a rather anxious little sigh and then rang off. Why—he thought—why is it we poor so-and-sos in the Outfit never feel easy, can’t even have a normal conversation with our friends without feeling what we say to each other may be taken down in writing and given in evidence? God, it’s a rotten feeling and it’s a rotten fife too. If anybody wants to change jobs they can have this one... he shook himself out of it. He wasn’t the only one. It was just as bad for Debonnair and for all the other women unlucky enough to fall in love with an undercover man, a man whose way of life was too dangerous, whose expectation of life was too short and fragile, to permit of homemaking.

At 8.45 Shaw, dressed in a zipped windcheater, open-necked shirt, and old grey slacks, was walking along the Portobello Road, going north from Notting Hill Gate. There didn’t seem to be very many people about, but of those who were the coloured population seemed to be in the majority, going around in small groups. The odd gang of narrow-trousered youths drifted along noisily, but no one was starting anything. Children played in the doorways opening on to side-streets, dirty side-streets; occasional prostitutes leaned from brightly lit windows, safe from a puritanical law up there.

Shaw came to Carson Street and turned along it. It was a lengthy road, stretching away into blank darkness relieved only spasmodically by widely spaced street lamps and a sprinkling of uncurtained windows. The dirt of years grimed the walls of shops and dwellings, there was cracked and broken brickwork above his head, shabby fascia boards of grimy little shops, some of whom had long strips of handwritten advertisement cards hanging inside their glass doors, with here and there a furtive-looking man studying them in the light of a torch, guiltily. A cat crossed his path, arched its back into a doorway, shot out again spitting as a man shouted abuse. Across the road, a tired policeman, bound for the Portobello Road, looked at his watch, moved back into the sheltering recess of a shop front, yawned hugely and flexed his knees, glancing without interest at Shaw.

He walked on, faster now.

Some way ahead there was a drab pool of yellow light thrown across the pavement which was now spotted with a light rain. The brassy jangle of a juke-box hit the night. Above, a sign hung, dimly lit by lights shining on to it from either side.

The Hertford.

The pub was one of those late Victorian monstrosities which, garish though they are, have a certain and undeniable nostalgic charm for the Londoner. It was all faded plush and fly-spotted, patterned glass, with screens dividing the saloon bar into semi-private cubicles. A stuffed parrot gathered moth in a dusty cage above the bar, there was a tank of depressed-looking goldfish swimming about behind a patina of green slime at one end of the mahogany counter, and just inside the door a huge, green china frog stood with its mouth open to receive the walking-sticks and umbrellas of a departed generation. The saloon bar was empty, as Shaw could see through the windows.

Pushing open the swing-door of the public bar, he walked in. The place had a bare, unwelcoming look. The juke-box deafened him; a group of Teddy boys looked round as he entered. The atmosphere was close, somehow unclean. A handful of older men and women, tarty-looking women mostly, lounged at the bar or sat at beery marble-topped tables. The room was thick, cloudy with tobacco smoke, stinking of spilt beer and sweat and foul breath and the closeness of a stuffy London night.

The landlord of The Hertford came along the bar slowly, wiping a hand across his mouth.

He said, “Yur?”

Shaw asked for a pint of mild, brought out a two-shilling piece from his scruffy slacks, and slapped it on the bar. The dark liquid spilled into the glass straight from the wood, flatly, almost as though unwilling to leave the cosy friendliness of the cask. Shaw carried the beer over to a table, sipped, looked around. There was a hum of conversation, briefly audible between the changing jangles from the jukebox. Shaw studied the clientele over the rim of his glass; they all looked as though they had impressive records tucked away in police files, but they were all strangers to him.

All except the sunburnt man sitting at a table by himself.

This was a slightly built man, a man who looked rather more prosperous than the others, a man with a scrawny, lined neck and a long, horse-shaped face, a face with a humorous and defiant twist to the mouth.

Jiddle.

A few years older and tougher, but still—Jiddle. Jiddle who obviously didn’t want to be recognized yet.

The juke-box screamed to a stop, as though pain had won the day and it had died. Its stopping left a tangible silence in which the smallest sound—the chink of a coin in a pocket, the rasp of a match, the top coming off a bottle of light ale—stood out like gunfire. One of the greasy sideboarded youths lounged away from the bar, picking at a tooth, and inserted a coin into the demoniac machine. It blared out again, full belt, a deafening and raucous din that hit the ears like a physical blow.

Shaw groaned inwardly, moved in sudden irritation, nerves on edge and rasping at him. Then he caught Jiddle’s eye, saw the sudden gleam that came into it. There was the suggestion of a wink, a signal, and then Jiddle set down his glass on the table and got to his feet. He lurched past Shaw’s table, hit it, said, “Sorry, mate.” Just before he moved on he added very softly, “First right up towards Portobello... five minutes’ time.” Then he left the bar.

Five minutes later Shaw left The Hertford casually and without attracting any attention. He walked up towards the Portobello Road.

Jiddle was standing by a parked Humber just inside the first turning, dragging at a cigarette. He held the car door open and jerked his head towards it. Shaw climbed in. Jiddle settled himself behind the wheel and said, “Couldn’t talk in the boozer after all. That Teddy mob, they know me, see. Didn’t think they’d be there to-night.” He slipped in his gears, pulled the Humber round to the left at the end of the street, and roared away across the Portobello Road, making in the general direction of Paddington, as it seemed to Shaw, through a maze of back streets; but a little later he went off to the right, hit the Bayswater Road, and headed up for Marble Arch. He didn’t speak, kept his eyes skinned ahead.