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I stretched out an arm for the telephone. ‘I’ll ask.’
Because some of our clients, such as Franklin Engineering, were into defence work, contact with the Special Branch was inevitable for Stafford Security. It was an uneasy relationship and we were tolerated only because we could take off them some of their work load. If, for example, we saw signs of subversion we tipped them off and were rewarded by being left alone. A strictly confidential relationship, of course; the trades unions would have raised hell had they known.
The man I rang was politely amused. ‘Billson is no concern of ours. We checked back on what you told us; we even interviewed that bloody journalist – now there’s a slimy bit of work. As far as we’re concerned, Billson is a semi-paranoiac who has gone off the rails a bit. He might interest a psychiatrist, but he doesn’t interest us.’
‘Thanks.’ I put down the telephone and said to Jack, ‘He says they aren’t interested, but would he tell me the truth?’ I frowned as I turned the pages of the report ‘Algiers! Why didn’t Billson apply for an Algerian visa?’
‘He didn’t need to. British citizens don’t need visas for Algeria.’ Jack produced another thin file. ‘About Sir Andrew McGovern. Relationship with Billson – apart from the fact that they’re remotely linked through Franklin Engineering – nil. Relationship with Alix Aarvik – nil. It’s a straight master-and-servant deal – they’re not even “just good friends”. The Kisko Nickel Corporation is undergoing an internal reorganization due to a merger which McGovern engineered. But Alix Aarvik didn’t go to Canada; she’s still operating as McGovern’s secretary.’
I shrugged. ‘As I once said to Brinton, the best thing about advice is that you needn’t take it.’ I smiled sourly. ‘It turned out that his advice was good, but that’s no reason for Alix Aarvik to take mine.’
‘Apart from that there’s not much to get hold of in McGovern,’ said Jack. ‘He does seem to live in Brinton’s pocket.’
‘Not quite,’ I said absently. ‘Brinton has been having trouble with him. That’s why we lost the Whensley account.’ I was thinking of the Sahara; of how big and empty it was.
Jack sniffed. ‘If they have quarrelled no one would notice it. McGovern entertained Brinton at his home two days ago.’
I said, ‘If Brinton pats Andrew McGovern on the back it’s just to find a good spot to stick the knife. Thanks, Jack; you’ve done a good job. I’ll take it from here.’
When he had gone I rang Whensley Holdings and asked for Miss Aarvik. When she came on the line I said, ‘Max Stafford here. So you didn’t go to Canada, after all.’
‘Sir Andrew changed his mind.’
‘Did he? Miss Aarvik, I have some information about your brother which I think you ought to know. Will you have dinner with me tonight?’
She hesitated, then said, ‘Very well. Thank you for your continued interest in my brother, Mr Stafford.’
‘I’ll call for you at your flat at seven-thirty,’ I said.
After that I went down to the club library, took down The Times Atlas, and studied a map of the Sahara for a long time. It didn’t take me as long as that to find out that the idea burgeoning in my mind was totally fantastic, utterly irresponsible and probably bloody impossible.
TEN (#ulink_c006bad2-23b3-5ffc-8714-9f803f8accdb)
I picked up Alix Aarvik that evening and took her to a French restaurant, an unpretentious place with good food. It was only after we had chosen from the menu that I opened the subject over a couple of sherries. I told her where Paul Billson was.
‘So he is trying to find the plane,’ she said. ‘But it’s totally impossible. He’s not the man to …’ She stopped suddenly. ‘How can he afford to do that?’
I sighed. Alix Aarvik was due to receive a shock. ‘He’s been holding out on you. Probably for a long time, judging by the cash he squirrelled away. He was getting £8000 a year from Franklin Engineering.’
It took a while for it to sink in, but as it did her face went pale and pink spots appeared in her cheeks. ‘He could do that!’ she whispered. ‘He could let me pay his bills and not put up a penny for Mother’s support.’
She was becoming very angry. I liked that; it was time someone got mad at Paul Billson. I wasn’t so cool about him myself. I said, ‘I’m sorry to have administered the shock, but I thought you ought to know.’
She was silent for a while, looking down into her glass and aimlessly rotating the stem between her fingers. At last she said, ‘I just don’t understand him.’
‘It seems he didn’t abandon his boyhood dream. He saved up his money to fulfil it.’
‘At my expense,’ she snapped. She gave a shaky laugh. ‘But you must be wrong, Mr Stafford. I know what Paul was doing at Franklin Engineering. They wouldn’t pay him that much.’
‘That’s another mystery. It seems they did. Your brother had damn near £60,000 to his name when he pushed off – and he turned it all into hard cash. If he’s taken it with him to Algiers he’s put a hell of a crimp into the currency regulations. I think Paul is now a law-breaker.’
‘But this is ridiculous.’
‘I agree – but it’s also true; Paul has gone to look for his father’s plane. I can’t think of any other reason why he should shoot off to Algiers with a Land-Rover. He’s looking for a plane which crashed over forty years ago and that’s a hell of a long time. I was looking at a map this afternoon. Do you know how big the Sahara is?’ She shook her head and I said grimly, ‘Three million square miles – just about the same size as the United States but a hell of a lot emptier. It’ll be like searching the proverbial haystack for the needle, with the difference that the needle might not be there.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Suppose Hendrik van Niekirk really did see Peter Billson in Durban after he was supposed to have crashed. You can lay ten to one that Billson wouldn’t have left that plane lying around for anyone to find. If he was a faker after that insurance money my guess is that he’d ditch off-shore in the Mediterranean. He’d row himself ashore in a collapsible dinghy – they had those in 1936, I’ve checked – and get himself lost. So Paul might be looking for something in the desert that’s not there.’
‘I don’t like that,’ she said coldly. ‘You’re implying that my mother was party to a fraud.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I don’t like it much myself, but it’s a possibility that has to be considered. I do it all the time in my business, Miss Aarvik.’
A waiter interrupted us by bringing the first course. Over the onion soup I said, ‘Anyway, that’s where your brother is – somewhere in Algeria if he isn’t already in Niger or Chad or somewhere else as improbable.’
‘He must be brought back,’ she said. ‘Mr Stafford, I don’t have much money, but is it at all possible for your detective agency to look for him?’
‘I don’t run a detective agency,’ I said. ‘I run a security organization. Lots of people get the two confused. Frankly, I don’t see why you want him back. You’ve just heard of how he’s been deceiving you for years. I think you’re better off without him.’
‘He’s my brother,’ she said simply. ‘He’s the only family I have in the world.’
She looked so woebegone that I took pity on her. I suppose it was then the decision was made. Of course I hedged it about with ‘ifs’ and ‘maybes’ as a sop to my conscience should I renege, but the decision was made.
I said carefully, ‘There’s a possibility – just a possibility, mind you – that I may be going to North Africa in the near future. If I do, I’ll ask around to see if I can find him.’
She lit up as though I’d given her the key to the Bank of England. ‘That’s very good of you,’ she said warmly.
‘Don’t go overboard about it,’ I warned. ‘Even if I do find him your troubles aren’t over. Supposing he doesn’t want to come back – what am I supposed to do? Kidnap him? He’s a free agent, you know.’
‘If you find him send me a cable and I’ll fly out. If I can talk to Paul I can get him to come back.’
‘No doubt you can, but the first problem is to find him. But we have some things going for us. Firstly, there are large areas of the Sahara where he will not look for the aircraft.’ I paused and then said acidly, ‘Not if he has any sense, that is, which I beg leave to doubt’
‘Oh! Which areas?’
‘The inhabited bits – the Sahara is not all blasted wilderness. Then there’s the course Peter Billson intended to fly – that should give us a rough indication of where the plane is likely to be. Is there anyone who’d know such an odd item of information after forty years?’
She shook her head despondently, then said slowly, ‘There’s a man in the Aeronautical Section of the Science Museum – Paul used to talk to him a lot. He’s some sort of aeronautical historian, he has all sorts of details in his records. I don’t remember his name, though.’
‘I’ll check,’ I said. ‘The other point in our favour is that in a relatively empty land a stranger tends to stand out. If Paul is buzzing about remote areas in a Land-Rover he’ll leave a pretty well-defined trail.’
She smiled at me. ‘You’re making me feel better already.’
‘Don’t raise your hopes too high. When … if I go to North Africa I’ll send you an address where you can contact me.’
She nodded briefly and we got on with the meal.
I took her home quite early and then went back to the club to bump into Charlie Malleson who was just coming out. ‘I thought I’d missed you,’ he said. ‘I was just passing and I thought I’d pop in to see you.’
I glanced at my watch. ‘The bar’s still open. What about a drink?’
‘Fine.’
We took our drinks to an isolated table and Charlie said, ‘I rang you at home but no one was in, so I took a chance on finding you here.’ I merely nodded, and he cleared his throat uncomfortably. ‘Is it true what I hear about you and Gloria?’
‘Depends what you’ve heard, but I can guess what it is. Bad news gets around fast. It’s true enough. Where did you hear it?’
‘Brinton was saying something yesterday. Gloria’s been talking to him.’
‘Getting her version in first, no doubt. She won’t impress Brinton.’
‘Well, I’m truly sorry it happened this way. Are you starting a divorce action?’
‘It’s in the hands of my solicitor now.’
‘I see,’ he said slowly. I don’t know what he saw and I didn’t really care. ‘How are you feeling otherwise?’ he asked. ‘You’re not long out of hospital.’
I looked at him over the edge of my glass. ‘Have you ever been beaten up, Charlie? Given a thorough going-over by experts?’
‘I can’t say that I have.’
‘It’s the most degrading thing that can happen to a man,’ I said flatly. ‘It isn’t so much what they do to the body; that can stand a lot of punishment. It’s the feeling of utter helplessness. You’re no longer your own man – you’re in the hands of others who can do with you what they like. And you ask me how I feel.’
‘You’re bitter about it, aren’t you, Max? You know, I didn’t expect that of you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Well, you have the reputation of being a pretty cold fish, you know. You run your end of the business like a computer.’
‘There’s nothing wrong with being logical and acting logically,’ I said.
‘No.’ There was a pause before Charlie said, ‘I suppose the divorce will keep you in England.’
I drained my glass. ‘I don’t see why it should. I’m thinking of taking your advice to soak up some sun. I’ll be glad to get away from London for a while.’
Charlie looked pleased. ‘It’ll do you good; you’ll come back like a new man.’
‘How is Jack Ellis settling in?’
‘Very well. I’m glad you said what you did to him about the job; it’s cleared the air and makes things easier all round. How long do you expect to be away?’
‘I don’t really know. Hold the fort, double the profits and bank the proceeds. Expect me when you see me.’
We talked idly for a few more minutes and then Charlie took his leave. I had an obscure feeling that he had not ‘dropped by in passing’ but had come for a reason, to get some question answered. About the divorce? About my health? I went over the conversation and wondered if he had got his answer.
I had an uneasy night. I thought of myself as seen by others – Max Stafford, the cold fish. I hadn’t known Charlie had thought of me in that way. We had always been personal friends as well as getting on well with each other in the business. To get a flash of illumination on oneself through the eyes of another can sometimes come as a shock.
I slept and woke again after having bad dreams of vaguely impending doom. I lay with open eyes for a long time and then, finding sleep impossible, I turned on the bedside light and lit a cigarette.
I prided myself on thinking and acting logically, but where in hell was the logic of goose-chasing to Algiers? The sexual bounce, maybe, from Gloria to Alix Aarvik? The desire to be the parfit, gentil knight on a white charger going on a quest to impress the maiden? I rejected that. Alix Aarvik was a nice enough girl but there was certainly no sexual attraction. Maybe Max Stafford was a cold fish, after all.
What, then?
Maybe it was because I thought I was being manipulated. I thought of Andrew McGovern. He had tried to send Alix to Canada. Why? In the event he didn’t send her. Why? Was it because I had been a bit too quick and caught her and talked to her the day before she was supposed to leave? If the damage had been done there would be no reason to send her away. I had been beaten up immediately after I had seen her. If McGovern had been responsible for that I’d have to think up some new and novel punishment for him.
Was McGovern deliberately putting pressure on me through Brinton? Brinton, on the day of the board meeting, had said he was under pressure from McGovern. What sort of a hold could McGovern have over a shark like Brinton? And if McGovern was doing the squeezing, why was he doing it?
Then there was Paul Billson. Before he entered my life I had been moderately happy, but from the moment Hoyland rang me up to have his hand held there had been nothing but trouble. Everything seemed to revolve around Paul, a man obsessed.
Logic! If everything revolved around Paul Billson, maybe he was the person to talk to. Maybe going to Algiers wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.
I put out the light and slept.
Three days later I flew to Algiers.
ELEVEN (#ulink_c261c5ea-a69a-5824-950b-2f924f3922bc)
Algiers is the only city I know where the main post office looks like a mosque and the chief mosque looks like a post office. Not that I spent much time in the mosque but I thought I had made a major error when I entered the post office for the first time to collect letters from poste restante. I gazed in wonder at that vast hushed hall with its fretted screens and arabesques and came to the conclusion that it was an Eastern attempt to emulate the reverential and cathedral-like atmosphere affected by the major British banks. I got to know the post office quite well.
Getting to know the whereabouts of Paul Billson was not as easy. Although my French was good, my Arabic was non-existent, which made it no easier to fight my way through the Byzantine complexities of Algerian bureaucracy, an amorphous structure obeying Parkinson’s Law to the nth degree.
The track of my wanderings over Algiers, if recorded on a map, would have resembled the meanderings of a demented spider. At the twentieth office where my passport was given the routine fifteen-minute inspection by a suspicion-haunted official for the twentieth time my patience was nearly at snapping point. The trouble was that I was not on my own ground and the Algerians worked to different rules.
My hotel was in Hamma, in the centre of town near the National Museum, and when I returned, early one evening, I was dispirited. After a week in Algiers I had got nowhere, and if I couldn’t track Billson in a city what hope would I have in the desert? It seemed that my cutting edge had blunted from lack of practice.
As I walked across the foyer to collect my room key I was accosted by a tall Arab wearing the ubiquitous djellaba. ‘M’sieur Stafford?’
‘Yes, I’m Stafford.’
Wordlessly he handed me an envelope inscribed with my surname and nothing else. I looked at him curiously as I opened it and he returned my gaze with unblinking brown eyes. Inside the envelope was a single sheet of paper, unheaded and with but two typewritten lines:
I believe you are looking for Paul Billson.
Why don’t you come to see me?
There was a signature underneath but it was an indecipherable scrawl.
I glanced at the Arab. ‘Who sent this?’
He answered with a gesture towards the hotel entrance. ‘This way.’
I pondered for a moment and nodded, then followed him from the hotel where he opened the rear door of a big Mercedes. I sat down and he slammed the door smartly and got behind the wheel. As he started the engine I said, ‘Where are we going?’
‘Bouzarea.’ After that he concentrated on his driving and refused to answer questions. I gave up, leaned back in cushioned luxury, and watched Algiers flow by.
The road to Bouzarea climbed steeply out of the city and I twisted to look through the back window and saw Algiers spread below with the Mediterranean beyond, darkening towards the east as the sun set. Already strings of lights were appearing in the streets.
I turned back as the car swung around a corner and pulled up against a long wall, blank except for a small door. The Arab got out and opened the car door and indicated the door in the wall which was already swinging open. I walked through into a large walled garden which appeared to be slightly smaller than Windsor Great Park, but not much. In the middle distance was a low-slung, flat-roofed house which rambled inconsequently over the better part of an acre. The place stank of money.
