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‘I’ll have a Scotch,’ said Warren. ‘And what the devil do you mean by that crack?’
‘No harm meant,’ said Abbot, raising his hands in mock fright. ‘Just one of my feebler non-laughter-making jokes. It’s just that I’ve seen you around inhaling quite a bit of the stuff. In a pub in Soho and a couple of nights later in the Howard Club.’
‘Have you been following me?’ demanded Warren.
‘Christ, no!’ said Abbot. ‘It was just coincidental.’ He ordered the drinks. ‘All the same, you seem to move in rum company. I ask myself – what is the connection between a doctor of medicine, a professional gambler and a mercenary soldier? And you know what? I get no answer at all.’
‘One of these days that long nose of yours will get chopped off at the roots.’ Warren diluted his whisky with Malvern water.
‘Not as bad as losing face,’ said Abbot. ‘I make my reputation by asking the right questions. For instance, why should the highly respected Dr Warren have a flaming row with Johnny Follet? It was pretty obvious, you know.’
‘You know how it is,’ said Warren tiredly. ‘Some of my patients had been cutting up ructions at the Howard Club. Johnny didn’t like it.’
‘And you had to take your own private army to back you up?’ queried Abbot. ‘Tell me another fairy tale.’ The barman was looking at him expectantly so Abbot paid him, and said, ‘We’ll have another round.’ He turned back to Warren, and said, ‘It’s all right, Doctor; it’s on the expense account – I’m working.’
‘So I see,’ said Warren drily. Even now he had not made up his mind about Hellier’s proposition. All the moves he had made so far had been tentative and merely to ensure that he could assemble a team if he had to. Mike Abbot was a putative member of the team – Warren’s choice – but it seemed that he was dealing himself in, anyway.
‘I know this is a damnfool question to ask a pressman,’ he said. ‘But how far can you keep a secret?’
Abbot cocked an eyebrow. ‘Not very far. Not so far as to allow someone to beat me to a story. You know how cutthroat Fleet Street is.’
Warren nodded. ‘But how independent are you? I mean, do you have to report on your investigations to anyone on your paper? Your editor, perhaps?’
‘Usually,’ said Abbot. ‘After all, that’s where my pay cheque comes from.’ Wise in the way of interviews, he waited for Warren to make the running.
Warren refused to play the game. ‘That’s a pity,’ he said, and fell silent.
‘Oh, come now,’ said Abbot. ‘You can’t just leave it at that. What’s on your mind?’
‘I’d like you to help me – but not if it’s going to be noised about the newspaper offices. You know what a rumour factory your crowd is. You’ll know what the score is, but no one else must – or we’ll come a cropper.’
‘I can’t see my editor buying that,’ observed Abbot. ‘It’s too much like that character in the South Sea Bubble who was selling shares in a company – “but nobody to know what it is.” I suppose it’s something to do with drugs?’
‘That’s right,’ said Warren. ‘It will involve a trip to the Middle East.’
Abbot brightened. ‘That sounds interesting.’ He drummed his fingers on the counter. ‘Is there a real story in it?’
‘There’s a story. It might be a very big one indeed,’
‘And I get an exclusive?’
‘It’ll be yours,’ said Warren. ‘Full right.’
‘How long will it take?’
‘That is something I don’t know.’ Warren looked him in the eye. ‘I don’t even know if it’s going to start. There’s a lot of uncertainty. Say, three months.’
‘A hell of a long time,’ commented Abbot, and brooded for a while. Eventually he said, ‘I’ve got a holiday coming up. Supposing I talk to my editor and tell him that I’m doing a bit of private enterprise in my own time. If I think it’s good enough I’ll stay on the job when my holiday is up. He might accept that.’
‘Keep my name out of it,’ warned Warren.
‘Sure.’ Abbot drained his glass. ‘Yes, I think he’ll fall for it. The shock of my wanting to work on my holiday ought to be enough.’ He put down the glass on the counter. ‘But I’ll need convincing first.’
Warren ordered two more drinks. ‘Let’s sit at a table, and I’ll tell you enough to whet your appetite.’
VI
The shop was in Dean Street and the neatly gold-lettered sign read: SOHO THERAPY CENTRE. Apart from that there was nothing to say what was done on the premises; it looked like any Dean Street shop with the difference that the windows were painted over in a pleasant shade of green so that it was impossible to see inside.
Warren opened the door, found no one in sight, and walked through into a back room which had been turned into an office. He found a dishevelled young man sitting at a desk and going through the drawers, pulling everything out and piling the papers into an untidy heap on top of the desk. As Warren walked in, he said, ‘Where have you been, Nick? I’ve been trying to get hold of you.’
Warren surveyed the desk. ‘What’s the trouble, Ben?’
‘You’d never believe it if I told you,’ said Ben Bryan. He scrabbled about in the papers, ‘I’ll have to show you. Where the devil is it?’
Warren dumped a pile of books off a chair and sat down. ‘Take it easy,’ he advised. ‘More haste, less speed.’
‘Take it easy? Just wait until you see this. You won’t be taking it as easy as you are now.’ Bryan rummaged some more and papers scattered.
‘Perhaps you’d better just tell me,’ suggested Warren.
‘All right … no, here it is. Just read that.’
Warren unfolded the single sheet of paper. What was written on it was short and brutally to the point. ‘He’s throwing you out?’ Warren felt a rage growing within him. ‘He’s throwing us out!’ He looked up. ‘Can he break the lease like that?’
‘He can – and he will,’ said Bryan. ‘There’s a line of fine print our solicitor didn’t catch, damn him.’
Warren was angrier than he had ever been in his life. In a choked voice he said, ‘There’s a telephone under all that junk – dig it out.’
‘It’s no good,’ said Bryan. ‘I’ve talked to him. He said he didn’t realize the place would be used by drug addicts; he says his other tenants are complaining – they say it lowers the tone of the neighbourhood.’
‘God Almighty!’ yelled Warren. ‘One’s a strip joint and the other sells pornography. What the hell have they to complain of? What stinking hypocrisy!’
‘We’re going to lose our boys, Nick. If they don’t have a place to come to, we’ll lose the lot.’
Ben Bryan was a psychologist working in the field of drug addiction. Together with Warren and a couple of medical students he had set up the Soho Therapy Centre as a means of getting at the addicts. Here the addicts could talk to people who understood the problem and many had been referred to Warren’s clinic. It was a place off the streets where they could relax, a hygienic place where they could take their shots using sterile water and aseptic syringes.
‘They’ll be out on the streets again,’ said Bryan. ‘They’ll be taking their shots in the Piccadilly lavatories, and the cops will chase them all over the West End.’
Warren nodded. ‘And the next thing will be another outbreak of hepatitis. Good God, that’s the last thing we want.’
‘I’ve been trying to find another place,’ said Bryan. ‘I was on the telephone all day yesterday. Nobody wants to know our troubles. The word’s got around, and I think we’re blacklisted. It must be in this area – you know that.’
Something exploded within Warren. ‘It will be,’ he said with decision. ‘Ben, how would you like a really good place here in Soho? Completely equipped, regardless of expense, down to hot and cold running footmen?’
‘I’d settle for what we have now,’ said Bryan.
Warren found an excitement rising within him. ‘And, Ben – that idea you had – the one about a group therapy unit as a self-governing community on the line of that Californian outfit. What about that?’
‘Have you gone off your little rocker?’ asked Bryan. ‘We’d need a country house for that. Where would we get the funds?’
‘We’ll get the funds,’ said Warren with confidence. ‘Excavate that telephone.’
His decision was made and all qualms gone. He was tired of fighting the stupidity of the public, of which the queasiness of this narrow-gutted landlord was only a single example. If the only way to run his job was to turn into a synthetic James Bond, then a James Bond he’d be.
But it was going to cost Hellier an awful lot of money.
THREE (#ulink_ec1fb798-3421-523d-947f-e204c99857f5)
Warren was ushered into Hellier’s office in Wardour Street after passing successfully a hierarchy of secretaries, each more svelte than the last. When he finally penetrated into the inner sanctum, Hellier said, ‘I really didn’t expect to see you, Doctor. I expected I’d have to chase you. Sit down.’
Warren came to the point abruptly. ‘You mentioned unlimited funds, but I take that to be a figure of speech. How unlimited?’
‘I’m pretty well breeched,’ said Hellier with a smile. ‘How much do you want?’
‘We’ll come to that. I’d better outline the problem so that you can get an idea of its magnitude. When you’ve absorbed that you might decide you can’t afford it.’
‘Well see,’ said Hellier. His smile broadened.
Warren laid down a folder. ‘You were right when you said I had particular knowledge, but I warn you I don’t have much – two names and a place – and all the rest is rumour.’ He smiled sourly. ‘It isn’t ethics that has kept me from going to the police – it’s the sheer lack of hard facts.’
‘Leaving aside your three facts, what about the rumour? I’ve made some damned important decisions on nothing but rumour, and I’ve told you I get paid for making the right decisions.’
Warren shrugged. ‘It’s all a bit misty – just stuff I’ve picked up in Soho. I spend a lot of time in Soho – in the West End generally – it’s where most of my patients hang out. It’s convenient for the all-night chemist in Piccadilly,’ he said sardonically.
‘I’ve seen them lining up,’ said Hellier.
‘In 1968 a drug ring was smashed in France – a big one. You must realize that the heroin coming into Britain is just a small leakage from the more profitable American trade. This particular gang was smuggling to the States in large quantities, but when the ring was smashed we felt the effects here. The boys were running around like chickens with their heads chopped off – the illegal supply had stopped dead.’
‘Wait a minute,’ said Hellier. ‘Are you implying that to stop the trade into Britain it would be necessary to do the same for the States?’
‘That’s virtually the position if you attack it at the source, which would be the best way. One automatically implies the other. I told you the problem was big.’
‘The ramifications are more extensive than I thought,’ admitted Hellier. He shrugged. ‘Not that I’m chauvinistic about it; as you say, it’s an international problem.’
Hellier still did not seem to be disturbed about the probable cost to his pocket, so Warren went on: ‘I think the best way of outlining the current rumours is to look at the problem backwards, so to speak – beginning at the American end. A typical addict in New York will buy his shot from a pusher as a “sixteenth” – meaning a sixteenth of an ounce. He must buy it from a pusher because he can’t get it legally, as in England. That jerks up the price, and his sixteenth will cost him somewhere between six and seven dollars. His average need will be two shots a day.’
Hellier’s mind jerked into gear almost visibly. After a moment he said, ‘There must be a devil of a lot of heroin going into the States.’
‘Not much,’ said Warren. ‘Not in absolute bulk. I daresay the illegal intake is somewhere between two and three tons a year. You see, the heroin as sold to the addict is diluted with an inert soluble filler, usually lactose – milk sugar. Depending on whether he’s being cheated – and he usually is – the percentage of heroin will range from one-half to two per cent. I think you could take a general average of one per cent.’
Hellier was figuring again. He drew forward a sheet of paper and began to calculate. ‘If there’s a sixteen-hundredth of an ounce of pure heroin in a shot, and the addict pays, say, $6.50 …’ He stopped short. ‘Hell, that’s over $10,000 an ounce!’
‘Very profitable,’ agreed Warren. ‘It’s big business over there. A pound of heroin at the point of consumption is worth about $170,000. Of course, that’s not all profit – the problem is to get it to the consumer. Heroin is ultimately derived from the opium poppy, papaver somniferum, which is not grown in the States for obvious reasons. There’s a chain of production – from the growing of the poppy to raw opium; from the opium to morphine; from morphine to heroin.’
‘What’s the actual cost of production?’ asked Hellier.
‘Not much,’ said Warren. ‘But that’s not the issue. At the point of consumption in the States a pound of heroin is worth $170,000; at the point of the wholesaler inside the States it’s worth $50,000; at any point outside the States it’s worth $20,000. And if you go right back along the chain you can buy illicit raw opium in the Middle East for $50 a pound.’
‘That tells me two things,’ said Hellier thoughtfully. ‘There are high profits to be made at each stage – and the cost at any point is directly related to the risks involved in smuggling.’
‘That’s it,’ said Warren. ‘So far the trade has been fragmented, but rumour has it that a change is on the way. When the French gang was busted it left a vacuum and someone else is moving in – and moving in with a difference. The idea seems to be that this organization will cut out the middlemen – they’ll start with the growing of the poppy and end up with delivery inside the States of small lots in amy given city. A guaranteed delivery on that basis should net them $50,000 a pound after expenses have been met. That last stage – getting the stuff into the States – is a high risk job.’
‘Vertical integration,’ said Hellier solemnly. ‘These people are taking hints from big business. Complete control of the product.’
‘If this comes off, and they can sew up the States, we can expect an accelerated inflow into Britain. The profits are much less, but they’re still there, and the boys won’t neglect the opportunity.’ Warren gestured with his hand. ‘But this is all rumour. I’ve put it together from a hundred whispers on the grapevine.’
Hellier laid his hands flat on the desk. ‘So now we come to your facts,’ he said intently.
‘I don’t know if you could dignify them by that name,’ said Warren tiredly. ‘Two names and a place. George Speering is a pharmaceutical chemist with a lousy reputation. He got into trouble last year in a drug case, and the Pharmaceutical Society hammered him. He was lucky to escape a jail sentence.’
‘They … er … unfrocked him?’
‘That’s right. This crowd will need a chemist and I heard his name mentioned. He’s still in England and I’m keeping an eye on him as well as I can, but I expect him to go abroad soon.’
‘Why soon? And how soon?’
Warren tapped the desk calendar. ‘The opium crop isn’t in yet, and it won’t be for a month. But morphine is best extracted from fresh opium, so as soon as this gang have enough of the stuff to work on then Speering will get busy.’
‘Perhaps we should keep a closer watch on Speering.’
Warren nodded. ‘He still seems to be taking it pretty easy at the moment. And he’s in funds, so he’s probably on a retainer. I agree he should be watched.’
‘And the other name?’ enquired Hellier.
‘Jeanette Delorme. I’ve never heard of her before. She sounds as though she could be French, but that doesn’t mean much in the Middle East, if that’s where she hangs out. But I don’t even know that. I don’t know anything about her at all. It was just a name that came up in connection with Speering.’
Hellier scribbled on a piece of paper. ‘Jeanette Delorme.’ He looked up. ‘And the place?’
‘Iran,’ said Warren briefly.
Hellier looked disappointed. ‘Well, that’s not much.’
‘I never said it was,’ said Warren irritatedly. ‘I thought of giving it to the police but, after all, what had I to give them?’
‘They could pass it on to Interpol. Maybe they could do something.’
‘You’ve been making too many television pictures,’ said Warren abrasively. ‘And believing them, at that! Interpol is merely an information centre and doesn’t initiate any executive work. Supposing the word was passed to the Iranian police. No police force is incorruptible, and I wouldn’t take any bets at all on the cops in the Middle East – although I hear the Iranians are better than most.’
‘I appreciate your point.’ Hellier was silent for a moment. ‘Our best bet would appear to be this man, Speering.’
‘Then you’re willing to go on with it on the basis of the little information I have?’
Hellier was surprised. ‘Of course!’
Warren took some papers from his file. ‘You might change your mind when you see these. It’s going to cost you a packet. You said I could pick a team. I’ve been making commitments on your behalf which you’ll have to honour.’ He pushed two sheets across the desk. ‘You’ll find the details there – who the men are, what they’ll cost, and some brief biographical details.’
Hellier scanned the papers rapidly and said abruptly, ‘I agree to these rates of pay. I also agree to the bonus of £5,000 paid to each man on the successful completion of the venture.’ He looked up. ‘No success – no bonus. Fair enough?’
