Orders from Berlin (26 page)

‘What’s eating you?’ he asked.

‘The loose ends in the Morrison case. I understand Bertram’s guilty, but I can’t get them out of my mind,’ Trave replied. In normal circumstances, he would have given
an eva
sive answer to his boss’s question, but the inspector
h
ad been in an extre
mely good mood ever since Bertram had
signed his confession, and Trave felt he could risk a direct response.

‘What loose ends?’ Quaid asked.

‘The old man rushing over to St James’s Park in the taxi; the weird note we found in his pocket; his friend lying about the other note that he left with the neighbour downstairs; and all of that having nothing to do with the murder, like it was some unrelated sideshow.’ Trave spoke quickly but took care not to mention Seaforth. There was no need for Quaid to know that he had disobeyed a second direct order to stay away from the office building in Broadway if his elusive quarry had decided not to renew his complaint, although Seaforth’s unexpected silence was in fact one of the ‘loose ends’ that bothered Trave most about the case.

‘Sometimes cases are like that,’ Quaid said tolerantly. ‘People’s lives are complicated, particularly nowadays. They don’t fit together like jigsaw puzzles. You have to look at the bigger picture – you’ll learn that with time,’ he added with easy-going condescension.

‘But it just seems like we should have asked more
questions
. Just to be certain, you know,’ Trave said lamely.

‘We didn’t because we didn’t need to,’ said Quaid, beginning to sound irritated. ‘Some people in government can be very sensitive about us coppers stamping about in our hobnail boots, poking our noses in where we’re not wanted, shouting their secrets from the rooftops. And frankly I can understand that. The point is we’ve got the right man. Bertram Brive has confessed to the crime and he’s guilty as charged. And that’s an end to it. You hear me?’ he asked harshly.

‘I hear you,’ said Trave. He knew he needed to put the Morrison case behind him. He had other work to do, and it was up to the court now to decide whether Bertram was guilty. And so for most of the rest of the day, he tried his best to put all thoughts of the case out of his mind, but his efforts were in vain. Eventually he gave up and tried a different tack, listing on a piece of paper all the reasons Bertram had to be guilty: the blackmail that gave him the motive; the will that gave him the opportunity; the cuff link that proved his presence at the scene of the crime; and last but not least, the confession that sealed his guilt. But still Trave’s doubts persisted. Bertram might well have confessed because of Quaid’s clever promise to make the blackmailer go away, and the cuff link could have been planted just as Bertram had claimed. And nothing explained the sideshow of unexplained evidence whose significance Quaid was so determined not to acknowledge.

Trave couldn’t sit still. His mind kept wandering and he couldn’t concentrate on the mound of paperwork that Quaid had handed him when he left for a meeting midway through the afternoon. He stuck it out valiantly until the stroke of six and then bolted for home. But halfway to the underground he changed his mind and went back. The keys to Gloucester Mansions and Albert Morrison’s flat were still there among the case exhibits, and Trave pocketed them. He’d make one last visit to the scene of the crime, not because he expected to find anything, but to try to set his mind at rest, and afterwards he’d move on. He had no choice in the matter.

He got out of the Underground at Sloane Square and began walking down Lower Sloane Street towards the river. He stopped for a moment on Chelsea Bridge, looking down at a coal barge passing underneath the parapet and then re-emerging a moment later out into the evening, chugging on downstream towards Vauxhall while the grey water lapped hungrily in its wake against the thick granite piers of the bridge. A horn blew somewhere in the distance, adding to the melancholy of the setting.

It occurred to Trave that he was probably following the route of Albert’s last journey. Had the old man been followed? Was that what had happened? Trave looked back over his shoulder, half-expecting to see a figure standing behind him in the shadows, but there was no one in sight.

It was colder now than when he had set out. A sharp breeze was blowing in off the river and Trave pushed his hands deep inside his pockets, turning his head away from the whirl of autumn leaves blowing down from the trees. He quickened his pace, anxious to get to his destination.

It was still light, but the moon had risen in the cloudless sky, hanging balefully over the towers of the power station on his left, gazing across at the absurd spectacle of two enormous barrage balloons tossing in the wind above Battersea Park like a pair of drunken elephants. Trave remembered them from the night of the murder.

At a turn in the road, he passed the site of a bombed-out house where brambles and weeds were already pushing up through cracks in the broken masonry. Pathetically, someone had planted a tiny Union Jack flag among the ruins. It fluttered forlornly from side to side like an obscene joke, while up above, the whistling wind blew through the remains of the windows. But there was otherwise no sound. London seemed like a city of the dead; the nameless, uncounted dead. Trave thought of the rows of waxed cardboard coffins stacked up in requisitioned swimming pools and public baths all over the capital, and he remembered the mortuary he’d gone to on police business the week before – the corpses had been identified by luggage tags tied to their feet, but a bomb had taken the roof off the building and a night of rain had washed away the writing on the labels.

Suddenly he was there. The building’s name, Gloucester Mansions, was emblazoned in jet-black curlicue letters above the door, standing out against the bright white-painted portico, while up above, the tall red-brick mansion block loomed against the skyline with myriad symmetrical square windows looking out over the park opposite. Trave hesitated at the top of the entrance steps, fidgeting to fit the key in the lock. This was Albert’s key; this was where the old man would have stood at just this time of the evening, thinking he was safe when in fact he was standing on the brink
of extin
ction. Inside, the big hallway was deserted – full of shadows, with the only light coming in through the oval window above the door. There was nothing to suggest that this was where a man had met a horrible death less than two weeks before.

Trave had got halfway up the stairs when the silence was shattered by the horrible stomach-churning wail of the air-raid siren going off outside. But he carried on climbing. Now that he’d come this far, he was determined to see the inside of Albert’s flat one last time.

He paused on the second-floor landing in front of Albert’s door. There was the sound of people moving around down below. The front door of the building was open and a light had gone on in the hall. It helped him see to fit the key in the lock, and he went inside. But immediately he stopped in his tracks, flattening himself against the wall of the narrow corridor that ran the length of the flat down to the fire escape door at the far end. Someone was inside the living room. Even above the noise of the siren, he was sure he’d heard the sound of sharp movement and a door closing just as he came in, and he could see a line of artificial light glowing in the gap between the base of the closed door and the floor. Instinctively he reached inside his jacket, looking for his gun, but then realized that he wasn’t carrying it. He was off duty – he had no business in the flat, and if he got hurt, that was going to be his own bad luck.

He edged forward, keeping his back to the wall. Opposite, through the open door of Albert’s bedroom, he could see the made-up corner of the dead man’s bed. It looked as though Ava had not yet begun to dismantle the flat, unless she was the one inside the living room, going through her father’s possessions. Of course, Trave thought. That was the obvious explanation. And she would be frightened out of her wits, assuming she’d heard him come in, which seemed likely. He hadn’t made any particular effort to be quiet when he’d first entered the flat.

‘Police, this is the police. Who’s in there?’ he called out, but there was no answer, just the sound of the siren. So he tried again. ‘Is that you, Ava?’ he asked. ‘This is Detective Trave. You know me. There’s nothing to be frightened of.’

But there was still no response, just a sound of rustling; of muffled, furtive movement on the other side of the door. And the smell of smoke. As far as Trave could remember, Ava didn’t smoke, but he couldn’t be sure. Perhaps he w
as wrong; perhap
s she did.

Trave’s heart was beating fast, and he knew that if he was going to open the door and face the unknown, he needed to do it now. Any further delay and he risked losing his nerve. He took hold of the brass handle of the door, and then in one rapid movement he pulled it open and rushed inside.

Immediately he had to force himself to stop. Facing him across a carpet littered with books and papers was a
middle
-aged man. Trave recognized him straight away – it was
the same
man who had lied to him at 59 Broadway on the day after Albert’s death and had provoked the scene at
the funer
al. Alec Thorn. Trave remembered the downstairs
neighbour
, Mrs Graves, struggling to put her finger on the name when he’d talked to her on the night of the murder after everyone else had gone home.

For a moment, he thought that Thorn would go for a gun. But he did nothing, just stood with his back to the blacked-out window, his eyes flicking between Trave and the open door behind Trave’s back. He looked taut – defiant and anxious and curious all at the same time. A half-smoked cigarette burned uselessly in an ashtray on the desk in the corner.

‘Why didn’t you say who you were when I asked?’ Trave demanded breathlessly. He realized with surprise that he was angry. Very angry, in fact. But that made sense, he realized. It had required a lot of nerve to burst unarmed through the door. He’d felt he was taking his life in his hands, and Thorn could have saved him the trouble.

‘I’m sorry. You didn’t give me any time,’ said Thorn, looking Trave steadily in the eye. Trave had that same sense he’d had at 59 Broadway that Thorn was assessing him, working out his next moves as they spoke.

‘Okay,’ he said, mollified by the apology. ‘So what are you doing here? Perhaps you wouldn’t mind telling me that.’

‘Saying goodbye to an old friend. Albert and I go back a long way,’ said Thorn, choosing his words carefully.

‘I’m afraid you’ll have to do better than that,’ Trave said severely. ‘You lied to me before about why you came here, and I don’t need you to do it again. I’m sure you know who the most likely candidate is for returning to the scene of a crime.’

‘A murderer, you mean,’ said Thorn with a thin smile. ‘I can assure you I’m not that. The old lady downstairs let me in an hour ago. Murderers don’t knock on doors, or at least not in my experience, and I’m here looking for clues, not trying to destroy them.’

‘Clues? Clues to what?’

‘To who killed Albert, of course. I don’t think it was Bertram, whatever the newspapers say, and I don’t think you do, either, or you wouldn’t be here.’

‘All right, who, then? If you know something I don’t, you’d better tell me. I think your old friend at least has the right to expect that out of you.’ Trave sensed that Thorn was trying to play him, turning his questions back on him so as to take control of the conversation, and he was determined not to let that happen.

‘Tell me,’ he repeated when Thorn didn’t answer. But still Thorn stayed silent. He looked troubled, as if he couldn’t make up his mind about what to do. Behind his knitted brows, years of training in the ways of silence and concealment were competing with his longing for a confidant – someone, anyone, who might share his view of what had happened. Eventually he went over to the desk and picked up the still smoking cigarette from the ashtray; he inhaled deeply, and as he blew out the smoke, he seemed to come to a decision.

‘I think Charles Seaforth killed Albert,’ he said gravely. ‘He works with me – for me, in theory, although that’s been a fiction for some time now.’

‘I know who he is,’ said Trave.

‘How?’ asked Thorn, looking surprised.

‘I’ve been following him around London, or trying to,’ Trave said with a wry smile. ‘But that’s another story. Finish what you were going to tell me.’

‘All right,’ said Thorn, eyeing Trave with renewed interest. ‘I believe he intercepted Albert outside the building where we work, the one where you came to visit me; gave him some excuse about everyone having gone home; and then followed him back here and pushed him over the banister out there because he knew too much.’

‘About what?’ asked Trave.

‘About a plot of some kind that’s being hatched in Germany—’

‘By someone called C?’ asked Trave, interrupting.

‘Yes. How do you know that?’ asked Thorn sharply, looking shocked. It wasn’t the question he’d been expecting.

‘It was in a note we found in Albert’s pocket. Here, read it if you like,’ said Trave, taking his wallet out from inside his jacket and extracting a folded-up piece of paper that he handed to Thorn. ‘Don’t worry – it’s not the original. It’s just a copy I made for my own use.’

‘Why didn’t you show this to me before – when you came to see me?’ asked Thorn, looking up.

‘Because you lied about why you came over here and about the note you left for Albert. How was I supposed to trust you after that?’ said Trave, sounding exasperated.

‘It was my duty to lie,’ said Thorn. ‘I didn’t feel I had a choice.’

‘Because you’re a spy,’ said Trave. ‘That’s right, isn’t it?’

Thorn shrugged. ‘I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. I wish I had now, but there’s no point crying about it,’ he said shortly, and then went back to studying the note Trave had given him. It was very short – ‘Provide detailed written report. What are the chances of success? C.’ – and on the line below, the name HAYRICK, transcribed by Trave in capital letters, followed by a question mark.