Game Without Rules (7 page)

“I have to announce,” said the Prime Minister to the House, on Wednesday, “the news – to me, personally, it is very sad news – that the Right Honourable Member for Burnham Heath has had to offer me his resignation as Minister for Education. He has done this on the advice of his doctors. I have not yet finally decided on a successor, but I can assure the House that there will be no change in the government’s education policy.”

An opposition back-bencher said, “While we sympathise with the Prime Minister for having lost yet another of his already depleted team, we should be interested to know exactly what the late Minister of Education was suffering from? Could it be that he was sick of the Education Bill—”

The rest was lost in a roar of government protest and opposition laughter.

On the same Wednesday, Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens both received telephone calls at home. Mr. Behrens said to his aunt, “I’ve some business in town. I’ll probably stay at the Club for a few nights.”

His aunt said, “You know that I don’t like being left here alone.”

“Why don’t you visit Millicent?”

“It’s tiresome you couldn’t have given me more notice.”

Mr. Calder got his old car out of the woodshed. To Rasselas, who was sunning himself in his favorite spot behind the woodpile, he said, “Back tonight.” The big dog sighed windily, in exactly the same way that Miss Behrens had done.

Mr. Fortescue normally operated from the Westminster branch of the London and Home Counties Bank. But he had other offices. The one which he used on official occasions was in Richmond Terrace Mews, and it was here that Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens found him.

When he had finished talking, Mr. Calder said, “Mightn’t there be some danger of getting our wires crossed over this? Most of it sounds like ordinary police work.”

“I agree that there’s a police angle to it,” said Mr. Fortescue. “Since it involves the security of ministers, it’s the Special Branch which is involved. Elfe will be in charge of that side of it. DI5 and the police. Generally speaking, however, it’s agreed that you’re to have a free hand.”

Mr. Behrens said, “I knew Gottlieb slightly. I met him in the forties, when he first came to England. I could have a word with him.”

“Then I’ll start with Nicholson,” said Mr. Calder.

“It was a pig sty,” said the detective sergeant. “They did everything filthy they could think of. Over the floor, in the beds, everywhere. We’ve cleared up as best we could, but there’s some things – well, come and have a look.”

He led the way into the living room. Someone had broken the glass in each of the half-dozen pictures on the wall and smeared filth over them. They were flower pictures, originals from Montessor’s great folio. Looking closer, Mr. Calder saw that not only had the glass been smashed. The name of each plant was inscribed in copperplate at the foot of each picture. Someone had scored these through with an indelible pencil, and printed the word, pansy.

“It’s not only the pictures,” said Hallows. “It’s the books too. Someone took a lot of trouble over this little job.”

There were a couple of hundred books in the fitted book-shelves between the windows. The back had been ripped out of each book, with a knife.

“We don’t know just what they did to his sister,” said Hallows. “She’s in a private nursing home. Maybe she’ll be able to tell us something when she gets her wits back.”

“Did they take anything?”

“Nicholson says they took some money out of the desk, but it wasn’t money they were after. It was a grudge job.”

“I agree,” said Mr. Calder. He phrased his next question delicately, aware that it might give offence. “Seeing that he was a senior cabinet minister, I wondered if any special arrangements might have been made. I know the police can’t keep a twenty-four hour watch on all these people—”

“He was guarded,” said Hallows. “A private outfit was doing the job.”

“Private?”

“That’s right. We’re so short of policemen that government departments have started using private outfits lately. As a matter of fact, some of them are ex-policemen.”

“They seem to have slipped up on this occasion.”

The doorbell rang.

Hallows said, as he went to open it, “They didn’t slip. They were ditched. I asked the head of the firm to come round. This is probably him now. He can tell you about it.”

Mr. Cotter, the managing director and founder of Cotter’s Detectives, was a thickset, red-faced man with a brigade mustache. He shook hands with Mr. Calder and said, “Bad business. I’ve had to give Romilly his cards. No alternative. I don’t know that it was one hundred percent his fault. He’s never let me down before, anyway.”

“What happened?”

“Someone telephoned the night porter, said he was Nicholson’s secretary. The Minister had been detained at a meeting out at Finchley. Could Romilly pick up his car from the forecourt of the House, drive it out to Finchley, pick the old man up and bring him back to Westminster. It was plausible. After all, his main job’s to look after the Minister.”

“When this man telephoned,” said Mr. Calder, “did he actually say
Romilly?”

Mr. Cotter thought for a moment, and then said, “Yes. I think he did. Why?”

“It would argue a pretty close knowledge of your setup if he knew the name of the man on duty at any given time. How many men do you have on a job like this?”

“It’s a team of three. They do ten-hour stretches. That gives them a sort of dogwatch.”

“Who are the other two?”

Mr. Cotter shot a glance at Sergeant Hallows, who said, “That’s all right. Mr. Calder is from the Security Executive. He’s helping us.”

“I see,” said Mr. Cotter. “My other two men on this assignment were Angel and Lawrie.” He added stiffly, “They’re both reliable men.”

“Frank Angel,” said Mr. Calder. “Small, dark, thick and Welsh?”

“That’s him. Do you know him?”

“I worked with him on one or two jobs at Blenheim,” said Mr. Calder. The atmosphere seemed to have become easier.

Mr. Behrens knew the Head of Records personally, and was thus able to get in to see this most closely guarded of all Home Office and Ministry of Defence officials. He said, “I want your full record on Gottlieb. The X
and
the Y file, please.”

“You know as well as I do,” said the Head of Records, “that you can’t see the Y file without Cabinet authority.”

Mr. Behrens laid his authority on the desk. The Head of Records read it through carefully and made a telephone call.

To the plump, serious young man with the middle-aged face who arrived in answer to it, he said, “This is Mr. Behrens, Smythe. Will you show him the X
and
Y files on Professor Julius Gottlieb.”

Smythe said, in the manner of Jeeves, “If you would kindly step this way, sir,” and conducted Mr. Behrens to the room in the basement of the building which contained, in numbered filing cabinets, enough high explosive to blow up both sides of Whitehall. He unlocked one of the cabinets, drew out two folders, one thick and one thin, placed a table and chair and said, “I’ll leave you to it, sir.”

As Mr. Behrens leafed through the folders, he was smiling to himself. He was aware of the principles upon which this particular room was constructed, and he knew that anyone having access to a Y file was not only watched but normally photographed as well.

When he had finished he touched the bell. As he did so, he smiled again. He knew that all he had to do was to say, without raising his voice, “Oh, Smythe—” and the guardian of the papers would have reappeared. By doing this he would have demonstrated that he knew that not only was every one of his movements being watched, but the room was wired for sound as well.

Mr. Behrens did no such thing. He had long outgrown any desire to give pointless exhibitions of his own expertise.

After a decent interval, Mr. Smythe reappeared.

“A lot of this Y file,” said Mr. Behrens, “is in summary and precis. I imagine that the original documents – verbatim records of interrogations, and so on – were too bulky to file. Where would they be kept?”

“If they
were
kept,” said Smythe, “I imagine they’d be at Brooklands. Or perhaps at Staines.”

Mr. Behrens thanked him. Since it was then a quarter to one, he thought he would have lunch before tackling Gottlieb.

The girl who opened the door of the flat in Northumberland Court was, as Mr. Behrens saw even in the poor light of the front hall, pretty. When she had shown him into the drawing room, he changed his mind. Pretty was all wrong. A stupid word in any human context. She was attractive, with the attractions of dark hair, bright eyes, a good figure and youth.

She chased a dachshund off the sofa. “We call all our dachshunds Fritz,” she said. “After the dog in that strip they used to have in the
Daily Mirror.
Do you remember? This one is Fritz the Third. He’s the nicest and naughtiest of the lot. Daddy’s mad about him.”

She departed to summon her father. Mr. Behrens was not himself a susceptible man, but he made a mental note of the charm of Miss Gottlieb, since an attractive girl could be a relevant factor in any equation.

Professor Gottlieb, who came in at that moment, turned out to be a small man, with a suggestion of a humpback, a brown face and a mop of snowy white hair. He, like his daughter, was friendly. But it was clear to Mr. Behrens that he was on the defensive.

They talked a little about the war. The professor had left Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1940 and had reached England in the autumn of that year by a round-about route, through Greece and Turkey. After being screened, he had been allowed to work on deep penetration bombs where his theoretical knowledge of electronics had been valuable. He had also done some work on DZ fuses, and, at the end of the war, on guided missiles.

“It is curious when you come to think of it,” said the professor. “For the first twelve or fifteen years of my professional life, I worked on planning projects – in my own country, in Sweden and Denmark and America. I was hoping to contrive new and better towns for people to live in. Then for six whole years I worked at destruction. I helped to knock down whole cities – I was sorry for the people in them, of course. But even while I was doing it – yes, even when the bombs were falling on me in London – I could not help saying to myself, we are clearing the way for a gigantic reconstruction, a reconstruction such as the world has never seen before.”

For a moment, the professor’s eyes were alight with an old enthusiasm. The glow died down. “The chance has been missed,” he said. “And it will never come again.”

“If it is missed,” said Mr. Behrens, “it won’t be your fault. When your paper is published—”

“Ah, my paper,” said the professor, “I am afraid that too much reliance has been placed on that. You cannot change human nature with a piece of paper.”

“You can’t if it isn’t published.”

The professor looked up sharply. “I trust,” he said, “that you are not going to turn what has been a very pleasant conversation into the channels of politics.”

“I’m not a politician,” said Mr. Behrens. “I’m a policeman. Of a sort. I can show you my credentials if you like.”

“Don’t bother,” said the professor. “I was warned that you might be coming. It was not made clear to me how you could help, though.”

“I can only help,” he said, “if you tell me what’s been happening.”

“Silly things. Stupid things. Things one hardly wants to talk about.” He hesitated. “Letters. Telephone calls. We had a word for it in my country. Nadelstich. You would translate it as pin-prickery.”

“When did it start?”

“About six months ago.”

“Did you report it at once?”

“Not until it became—unpleasant. Not until it started to involve my family as well as me. Paula, my daughter, was sent these one morning. They made her sick.”

The professor, as he was speaking, had moved across and unlocked a drawer in his desk. Now he handed Mr. Behrens a postcard-sized folder. On the outside was printed: “A present for a nice girl.” It opened out into a string of connected photographs. They were so revolting that even Mr. Behrens’ lips wrinkled.

He said, “Have the police tried to trace the origin of these?”

“I have shown them to no one. Paula forbade it. The thought of having to give evidence—”

“It wouldn’t be nice,” agreed Mr. Behrens. “Can I keep them for the moment?”

“Please,” said the professor. “I never wish to see them again.”

Mr. Behrens paused before framing his next question. He said, “These letters and messages. Have they been just general stuff? Or has there been anything specific?”

“The police have the letters. I cannot remember what was said on the telephone.”

“Of course not. But what line did they take? Pure xenophobia? ‘Go home Czechoslovak.’ That sort of thing.” He paused invitingly.

“It was that sort of thing,” agreed the professor.

He’s lying, thought Mr. Behrens. And he’s going to go right on lying. Because he’s been frightened. I shan’t get anything more out of him at the moment.

He said, “I’ll leave you this telephone number. It’s on the London code. Someone there will be able to contact me at once if I should be wanted.”

He took his leave . . .

Richard Redmayne finished his whisky, accepted a second one, and said to Mr. Calder, “It’s a bloody shame. The old man’s the best prospect as Minister of Education this country has had this century. You think I’m prejudiced because I’m his secretary. Perhaps I am. But I can tell you this. Without Nicholson we’re never going to get this bill through.”

“The PM said he had an able deputy, who would carry on with the same policy.”

“Able deputy, my foot. Morris is an old woman.”

They were in a public house near St. James’ Park underground station, much patronised by the junior staffs from Whitehall.

Mr. Calder said, “I suppose there’s no chance he’ll change his mind.”

“None at all. He’s made all his plans. As soon as his sister’s fit to move, they’re both going out to Canada.”

“Why Canada?”

“That’s where his family came from. He says they’ve got a really efficient Security Service out there, too. If
they
say they’re going to look after you, they do it.”