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‘I wanted to be sure that you are the right man,’ said Hellier seriously.
‘You’re talking in riddles,’ said Warren impatiently. He laughed. ‘Are you going to offer me a job? Technical adviser to a film, perhaps?’
‘Perhaps,’ said Hellier. ‘Let me ask you a question. You are divorced from your wife. Why?’
Warren felt outrage, surprise and shock. He was outraged at the nature of the question; surprised that the urbane Hellier should have asked it; shocked because of the intensive nature of Hellier’s investigation of him. ‘That’s my affair,’ he said coldly.
‘Undoubtedly,’ Hellier studied Warren for a moment. I’ll tell you why your wife divorced you. She didn’t like your association with drug addicts.’
Warren put his hands on the arms of the chair preparatory to rising, and Hellier said sharply, ‘Sit down, man; listen to what I’ve got to say.’
‘It had better be good,’ said Warren, relaxing. ‘I don’t take kindly to conversations of this nature.’
Hellier stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. ‘That tells me more about you than it does about your wife, whom I am not interested in. It tells me that the interests of your profession come ahead of your personal relationships. Are you aware that you are considered to be a fanatic on the subject of drugs?’
‘It has been brought to my attention,’ said Warren stiffly.
Hellier nodded. ‘As you pointed out – and as I have found in my brief study – drug addicts are not the most easy patients. They’re conceited, aggressive, deceitful, vicious, crafty and any other pejorative term you care to apply to them. And yet you persist against all the odds in trying to help them – even to the extent of losing your wife. That seems to me to show a great deal of dedication.’
Warren snorted. ‘Dedication my foot! It’s just what goes with the job. All those vices you’ve just mentioned are symptoms of the general drug syndrome. The addicts are like that because of the drugs, and you can’t just leave them to stew because you don’t like the way they behave.’ He shook his head. ‘Come to the point. I didn’t come here to be admired – especially by you.’
Hellier flushed. ‘I was making a point in my own peculiar way,’ he said. ‘But I’ll come to the nub of it. When I came to see you, you said that the problem was in stopping the inflow of illicit drugs and you said it was an international problem. You were also damned quick to say that you weren’t prepared to jump off to Iran on a crazy adventure.’ He stuck out his finger. ‘I think you know something, Dr Warren; and I think it’s something definite.’
‘My God!’ said Warren. ‘You jump to a fast conclusion.’
‘I’m used to it,’ said Hellier easily. ‘I’ve had a lot of experience – and I’m usually right. I get paid for being right and I’m highly paid. Now, why Iran? Heroin is ultimately derived from opium, and opium comes from many places. It could come from the Far East – China or Burma – but you said the problem of illegal supply begins in the Middle East. Why the Middle East? And why pick Iran in particular? It could come from any of half a dozen countries from Afghanistan to Greece, but you took a snap judgment on Iran without a second thought.’ He set down his glass with a tiny click. ‘You know something definite, Dr Warren.’
Warren stirred in his chair. ‘Why this sudden interest?’
‘Because I’ve decided to do something about it,’ said Hellier. He laughed briefly at the expression on Warren’s face. ‘No, I haven’t gone mad; neither do I have delusions of grandeur. You pointed out the problem yourself. What the devil’s the good of patching up these damned idiots if they can walk out and pick up a fresh supply on the nearest corner? Cutting off the illegal supply would make your own job a lot easier.’
‘For God’s sake!’ exploded Warren. ‘There are hundreds of policemen of all nationalities working on this. What makes you think you can do any better?’
Hellier levelled a finger at him. ‘Because you have information which for reasons of your own – quite ethical reasons, I am sure – you will not pass on to the police.’
‘And which I will pass on to you – is that it?’
‘Oh, no,’ said Hellier. ‘You can keep it to yourself if you wish.’ He stabbed a finger towards Warren again. ‘You see, you are going to do something about it.’
‘Now I know you’re crazy,’ said Warren in disgust. ‘Hellier, I think you’ve been knocked off balance; you’re set on some weird kind of expiation and you’re trying to drag me into it.’ His lips twisted. ‘It’s known as shutting the stable door after the horse has gone, and I want no part of it.’
Unperturbedly, Hellier lit another cigarette, and Warren suddenly said, ‘You smoke too much.’
‘You’re the second doctor to tell me that within a fortnight.’ Hellier waved his hand. ‘You see, you can’t help being a doctor, even now. At our last meeting you said something else – “I’m a doctor who just makes ends meet”.’ He laughed. ‘You’re right; I know your bank balance to a penny. But suppose you had virtually unlimited funds, and suppose you coupled those funds with the information I’m certain you have and which, incidentally, you don’t deny having. What then?’
Warren spoke without thinking. ‘It’s too big for one man.’
‘Who said anything about one man? Pick your own team,’ said Hellier expansively,
Warren stared at him. ‘I believe you mean all this,’ he said in wonder.
‘I might be in the business of spinning fairy tales for other people,’ said Hellier soberly. ‘But I don’t spin them for myself. I mean every word of it.’
Warren knew he had been right; Hellier had been pushed off balance by the death of his daughter. He judged that Hellier had always been a single-minded man, and now he had veered off course and had set his sights on a new objective. And he would be a hard man to stop.
‘I don’t think you know what’s involved,’ he said.
‘I don’t care what’s involved,’ said Hellier flatly. ‘I want to hit these bastards. I want blood.’
‘Whose blood – mine?’ asked Warren cynically. ‘You’ve picked the wrong man. I don’t think the man exists, anyway. You need a combination of St George and James Bond. I’m a doctor, not a gang-buster.’
‘You’re a man with the knowledge and qualifications I need,’ said Hellier intensely. He saw he was on the edge of losing Warren, and said more calmly, ‘Don’t make a snap decision now, Doctor; just think it over.’ His voice sharpened. ‘And pay a thought to ethics.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Now what about a bite to eat?’
II
Warren left Hellier’s flat comfortable in stomach but uneasy in mind. As he walked up Jermyn Street towards Piccadilly Circus he thought of all the aspects of the odd proposition Hellier had put to him. There was no doubt that Hellier meant it, but he did not know what he was getting into – not by half; in the vicious world of the drug trade no quarter was given – the stakes were too high.
He pushed his way through the brawling crowds of Piccadilly Circus and turned off into Soho. Presently he stopped outside a pub, looked at his watch, and then went in. It was crowded but someone companionably made room for him at a corner of the bar and he ordered a Scotch and, with the glass in his hand, looked about the room. Sitting at a table on the other side were three of his boys. He looked at them speculatively and judged they had had their shots not long before; they were at ease and conversation between them flowed freely. One of them looked up and waved and he raised his hand in greeting.
In order to get to his patients, to acquire their unwilling trust, Warren had lived with them and had, at last, become accepted. It was an uphill battle to get them to use clean needles and sterile water; too many of them had not the slightest idea of medical hygiene. He lived in their half-world on the fringes of crime where even the Soho prostitutes took a high moral tone and considered that the addicts lowered the gentility of the neighbourhood. It was enough to make a man laugh – or cry.
Warren made no moral judgments. To him it was a social and medical problem. He was not immediately concerned with the fundamental instability in a man which led him to take heroin; all he knew was that when the man was hooked he was hooked for good. At that stage there was no point in recrimination because it solved nothing. There was a sick man to be helped, and Warren helped him, fighting society at large, the police and even the addict himself.
It was in this pub, and in places like it, that he had heard the three hard facts and the thousand rumours which constituted the core of the special knowledge which Hellier was trying to get from him. To mix with addicts was to mix with criminals. At first they had been close-mouthed when he was around, but later, when they discovered that his lips were equally tight, they spoke more freely. They knew who – and what – he was, but they accepted it, although to a few he was just another ‘flaming do-gooder’ who ought to keep his long nose out of other people’s affairs. But generally he had become accepted.
He turned back to the bar and contemplated his glass. Nick Warren – do-it-yourself Bond! he thought. Hellier is incredible! The trouble with Hellier was that he did not know the magnitude of what he had set out to do. Millionaire though he was, the prizes offered in the drug trade would make even Hellier appear poverty-stricken, and with money like that at stake men do not hesitate to kill.
A heavy hand smote him on the back and he choked over his drink. ‘Hello, Doc; drowning your sorrows?’
Warren turned. ‘Hello, Andy. Have a drink.’
‘Most kind,’ said Andrew Tozier. ‘But allow me.’ He pulled out a wallet and peeled a note from the fat wad.
‘I wouldn’t think of it,’ said Warren drily. ‘You’re still unemployed.’ He caught the eye of the barman and ordered two whiskies.
‘Aye,’ said Tozier, putting away his wallet. ‘The world’s becoming too bloody quiet for my liking.’
‘You can’t be reading the newspapers,’ observed Warren. ‘The Russians are acting up again and Vietnam was still going full blast the last I heard.’
‘But those are the big boys,’ said Tozier. ‘There’s no room for a small-scale enterprise like mine. It’s the same everywhere – the big firms put the squeeze on us little chaps.’ He lifted his glass. ‘Cheers!’
Warren regarded him with sudden interest. Major Andrew Tozier; profession – mercenary soldier. A killer for hire. Andy would not shoot anyone indiscriminately – that would be murder. But he was quite prepared to be employed by a new government to whip into line a regiment of half-trained black soldiers and lead them into action. He was a walking symptom of a schizophrenic world.
‘Cheers!’ said Warren absently. His mind was racing with mad thoughts.
Tozier jerked his head towards the door. ‘Your consulting-room is filling up, Doc.’ Warren looked over and saw four young men just entering; three were his patients but the fourth he did not know. ‘I don’t know how you stand those cheap bastards,’ said Tozier.
‘Someone has to look after them,’ said Warren. ‘Who’s the new boy?’
Tozier shrugged. ‘Another damned soul on the way to hell,’ he said macabrely. ‘You’ll probably meet up with him when he wants a fix.’
Warren nodded. ‘So there’s still no action in your line.’
‘Not a glimmer.’
‘Maybe your rates are too high. I suppose it’s a case of supply and demand like everything else.’
‘The rates are never too high,’ said Tozier, a little bleakly. ‘What price would you put on your skin, Doc?’
‘I’ve just been asked that question – in an oblique way,’ said Warren, thinking of Hellier. ‘What is the going rate, anyway?’
‘Five hundred a month plus a hell of a big bonus on completion.’ Tozier smiled. ‘Thinking of starting a war?’
Warren looked him in the eye. ‘I just might be.’
The smile faded from Tozier’s lips. He looked at Warren closely, impressed by the way he had spoken. ‘By God!’ he said. ‘I think you’re serious. Who are you thinking of tackling? The Metropolitan Police?’ The smile returned and grew broader.
Warren said, ‘You’ve never gone in for really private enterprise, have you? I mean a private war as opposed to a public war.’
Tozier shook his head. ‘I’ve always stayed legal or, at any rate, political. Anyway, there are precious few people financing private brawls. I take it you don’t mean carrying a gun for some jumped-up Soho “businessman” busily engaged in carving out a private empire? Or bodyguarding?’
‘Nothing like that,’ said Warren. He was thinking of what he knew of Andrew Tozier. The man had values of a sort. Not long before, Warren had asked why he had not taken advantage of a conflict that was going on in a South American country.
Tozier had been scathingly contemptuous. ‘Good Christ! That’s a power game going on between two gangs of top-class cut-throats. I have no desire to mow down the poor sons of bitches of peasants who happen to get caught in the middle.’ He had looked hard at Warren. ‘I choose my fights,’ he said.
Warren thought that if he did pick up Hellier’s ridiculous challenge then Andy Tozier would be a good man to have around. Not that there was any likelihood of it happening.
Tozier was waving to the barman, and held up two fingers. He turned to Warren, and said, ‘You have something on your mind, Doctor. Is someone putting the pressure on?’
‘In a way,’ said Warren wryly. He thought Hellier had not really started yet; the next thing to come would be the moral blackmail.
‘Give me his name,’ said Tozier. ‘I’ll lean on him a bit. He won’t trouble you any more.’
Warren smiled. ‘Thanks, Andy; it’s not that sort of pressure.’
Tozier looked relieved. ‘That’s all right, then. I thought some of your mainliners might have been ganging up on you. I’d soon sort them out.’ He put a pound note on the counter and accepted the change. ‘Here’s mud in your eye.’
‘Supposing I needed bodyguarding,’ said Warren carefully. ‘Would you take on the job – at your usual rates?’
Tozier laughed loudly. ‘You couldn’t afford me. I’d do it for free, though, if it isn’t too long a job.’ A frown creased his forehead. ‘Something really is biting you, Doc. I think you’d better tell me what it is.’
‘No,’ said Warren sharply. If – and it was a damned big ‘if’ – he went deeper into this then he could not trust anyone, not even Andy Tozier who seemed straight enough. He said slowly, ‘If it ever happens it will take, perhaps, a few months, and it will be in the Middle East. You’d get paid your five hundred a month plus a bonus.’
Tozier put down his glass gently. ‘And it’s not political?’
‘As far as I know, it isn’t,’ said Warren thoughtfully.
‘And I bodyguard you?’ Tozier seemed bewildered.
Warren grinned. ‘Perhaps there’d be a bit of fetching and carrying in a fierce sort of way.’
‘Middle East and not political – maybe,’ mused Tozier. He shook his head. ‘I usually like to know more about what I’m getting into.’ He shot Warren a piercing glance. ‘But you I trust. If you want me – just shout.’
‘It may never happen,’ warned Warren. ‘There’s no firm commitment.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Tozier. ‘Let’s just say you have a free option on my services.’ He finished his drink with a flourish and bumped down the glass, looking at Warren expectantly. ‘Your round. Anyone who can afford my rates can afford to buy me drinks.’
Warren went home and spent a long time just sitting in a chair and gazing into space. In an indefinable way he somehow felt committed, despite what he had said to Andy Tozier. The mere act of meeting the man had put ideas into his head, ideas that were crazy mad but becoming more real and solid with every tick of the clock. At one point he got up restlessly and paced the room.
‘Damn Hellier!’ he said aloud.
He went to his desk, drew out a sheet of paper, and began writing busily. At the end of half an hour he had, perhaps, twenty names scribbled down. Thoughtfully he scanned his list and began to eliminate and in another fifteen minutes the list was reduced to five names,
ANDREW TOZIER
JOHN FOLLET
DAN PARKER
BEN BRYAN
MICHAEL ABBOT
III
Number 23, Acacia Road, was a neat, semi-detached house, indistinguishable from the hundreds around it. Warren pushed open the wooden gate, walked the few steps necessary to get to the front door and past the postage-stamp-sized front garden, and rang the bell. The door was opened by a trim, middle-aged woman who greeted him with pleasure.
‘Why, Dr Warren; we haven’t seen you for a long time.’ Alarm chased across her face. ‘It’s not Jimmy again, is it? He hasn’t been getting into any more trouble?’
Warren smiled reassuringly. ‘Not that I know of, Mrs Parker.’
He almost felt her relief. ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘Well, that’s all right, then. Do you want to see Jimmy? He’s not in now – he went down to the youth club.’
‘I came to see Dan,’ said Warren. ‘Just for a friendly chat.’
‘What am I thinking of,’ said Mrs Parker. ‘Keeping you on the doorstep like this. Come in, Doctor. Dan just got home – he’s upstairs washing.’
Warren was quite aware that Dan Parker had just reached home. He had not wanted to see Parker at the garage where he worked so he had waited in his car and followed him home. Mrs Parker ushered him into the front room. ‘I’ll tell him you’re here,’ she said.
Warren looked about the small room; at the three pottery ducks on the wall, at the photographs of the children on the sideboard and the other photograph of a much younger Dan Parker in uniform. He did not have to wait long. Parker came into the room and held out his hand. ‘This is a pleasure we didn’t expect, Doctor.’ Warren, grasping the hand, felt the hardness of callouses. ‘I was only sayin’ to Sally the other day that it’s a pity we don’t see more of you.’
‘Perhaps it’s just as well,’ said Warren ruefully. ‘I’m afraid I put the breeze up Mrs Parker just now.’
‘Aye,’ said Parker soberly. ‘I know what you mean. But we’d still like to see you, sociable like.’ The warm tones of the Lancastrian were still heard, although Parker had lived in London for many years. ‘Sit down, Doctor; Sally’ll be bringing in tea any minute.’
‘I’ve come to see you on … a matter of business.’
‘Oh, aye,’ said Parker comfortably. ‘We’ll get down to it after tea, then, shall we? Sally has to go out, anyway; her younger sister’s a bit under the weather, so Sally’s doin’ a bit o’ baby-sitting.’
