Redcap (28 page)

Shaw nodded. “Now, what about the crowds along the harbour here when the liner enters? I’ve heard about these Sydney welcomes, sir.”

“There’ll be a big crowd all right. Sydney’s going mad over the
New South Wales
.” James cocked an eye at him. “No danger to them, though?”

“No—I didn’t mean that. I was wondering, if we kept ’em away, wouldn’t it help the security men? Any suspicious character would stand out more without a crowd.”

James pursed his lips. “I don’t think that’d help, no. Anyone who tried to keep the harbour clear on Thursday would be mighty unpopular, and there’d be such a stink that it’d blow a lot of the security—bound to. And this Lubin, I’d say he wouldn’t risk actually trotting about with his set. There’s plenty of houses an’ that, believe me, within two or three miles of the harbour, and he could be using any one of them. Same applies to Melbourne, which is why I don’t take Karstad’s word as gospel.”

“He seemed pretty certain of his facts, sir,” Shaw murmured. He studied the map again. “I believe you could be right on the beam about Wilson’s Promontory, you know.”

“Could be-—if we believe Karstad.” James turned away and sat down again. Shaw followed, asked:

“Look, sir—does this business of Tommy Foster link in anywhere, d’you think?”

“That,” James said, “is what I don’t know yet. Course, he was working on this scare after we were alerted by London.”

“Did he get anywhere?”

“No. Not that he told us.”

“Have you had a look round his rooms yet?”

James nodded. “Went along with the police, said I wanted to keep a watching brief for the Navy, you know what I mean? Tommy had a flat out Cremorne way. I’ve brought all his papers and so on along here. Nothing in ’em. You can have a look if you want to, of course.”

“Yes, I’d like to do that.”

James nodded across at Miss Harris. “Dig ’em out, Mary.” She went over to a safe in the wall, swung it open and brought out a small pile of papers. Like the contents of Shaw’s own pockets, it consisted mainly of personal stuff, money and photographs and a few odd private notes of no consequence. There was nothing of any interest whatever. Shaw put the pile together again after he’d gone through it, handed it back to Mary Harris. He said thoughtfully, “I wonder. . . . Do you think I could have a look at the body, sir?”

“Don’t see why not, but what good’ll that do?”

“I’d just like to see if Karstad’s been up to his games again. If the body’s marked like Gresham’s, we’ll know Tommy’s death is directly to do with this REDCAP thing. Karstad would have had plenty of time to get down here by last night, and anything which might lead me back to him again would be a big help.”

“If it saves time, I can get the pathologist’s report.”

“I’d rather see him myself, sir, thanks all the same. I can make a closer comparison that way.”

James nodded briskly. “Right you are, I’ll fix it for you. Anything else?”

“Yes. Could I get into Tommy’s flat? It might help if I could just have a look round.”

James said, “That’s all right, though we had a good checkup and we didn’t find anything, as you saw. But I’ll have a car take you along.”

“No, sir, I’ll go on my own, if you don’t mind. It’d be less conspicuous . . . there’s just a chance other people might be interested in the flat. I suppose the police aren’t watching it or anything like that?”

“Not now they’ve done their routines on it. They’re satisfied Tommy wasn’t killed there, and I’m afraid I haven’t let on about his security work yet. He’s just a plain naval officer to them and their theory is that he may have been done in in a boozer, you know what I mean?” He added, “As I told you, I only went along to keep an eye on things for the Navy, officially. Our methods aren’t always the same as theirs, and I didn’t want too much police interference, not till you got here anyway.”

“That’s the way I’d like it to stay for a while, sir. Particularly if Bandagong’s out for my blood!” Shaw looked at his watch. “I’ll get right on to the flat now, if you’ll give me the address and the keys.”

“Sixteen, Hawks Street, Cremorne . . . here.” James reached into a drawer and brought out a street guide. He spread it out and Shaw got up and went round the desk. James traced with his finger. “Over the bridge, and along there . . . see?”

“Yes.” Shaw memorized the area. James handed him a key from a drawer and said quietly,

“Now, Shaw. The
New South Wales
is due here at noon on Thursday. Unless the MAPIACCIND Governments change their minds, and that we can’t guarantee, whatever’s going to happen is going to happen pretty soon.” He got to his feet, clapped Shaw on the shoulder. “I’m just doing the routine stuff. You’re the boy who’s going to bring this thing off. I’m leaving it largely to you, because you’ve had far more contact with these blokes and also far more experience than any of us. But call on me for any help you want—and keep in touch. Report back when you’ve seen Tommy’s flat and then I’ll tell you when you can see the body in the mortuary.”

Shaw was very conscious of the fact, as he left James’s office and walked back past the graving dock into Woolloomooloo, that he had nothing to go on; but Tommy Foster had died for some good reason and it was up to him to find out what that reason was. He felt certain it must tie in somewhere.

Shortly after Shaw had left James’s office, a telephone rang in a house in Clontarf and was answered by an elderly Chinese.

The telephone inquired politely, “Dr Tien?”

“Speaking.” Tien’s voice was cultured, urbane.

“This is the unworthy Ling, honoured Dr Tien.” There was an implied obeisance in the tone which was not altogether the automatic obsequiousness of the restaurateur. “I have a message from your brother in Pekin.”

“Please give it.”

There was a pause. “Your brother expresses his devoted and honoured duty and sends you ten thousand blessings . . . for the anniversary of Chung-Hua Jen-Min Kung-Ho Kuo.”

“Thank you.”

Dr Tien rang off, glanced at a calendar in confirmation of what he already knew. The anniversary of the People’s Republic of China was—to-morrow. He felt a quickening of his pulses but his lined face was mask-like as he lifted the receiver again.

Shaw crossed the Domain and went along Macquarie Street into Martin Place and picked up a taxi, told the driver to take him over the harbour into Cremorne.

They drove out across the bridge, above sparkling blue water kicked up by a light wind into little ruffles. The Manly ferry, top-heavy looking as she started out across the harbour, pulled away from Circular Quay. The water, which seemed almost to wash the ends of Sydney’s main streets, was full of small craft with white wakes streaming out behind them, and the place was fresh and gay in the good keen air as they came into Milson’s Point and North Sydney. They turned right for Cremorne and Shaw stopped the driver some way before they got to the road where Tommy Foster had lived, paid the man off and told him not to wait. Then, getting his bearings from his mental image of James’s street guide, he walked quickly along to Hawks Street and Tommy’s flat, went up the stairs and let himself in. Tommy Foster, like Shaw, had been a bachelor and the flat had probably once had that kind of look about it—comfortable in a masculine sort of way, but bare and unimaginative.

But not any more.

The place was a shambles.

Shaw stared in dismay. The flat had been torn apart. The furniture was all upended, drawers hung out of the desk in the sitting-room, stuffing had been ripped wholesale out of chairs. Tommy’s suits, heaped near the wardrobe, had been torn into shreds. This obviously wasn’t the work of James’s department. There wouldn’t be much left now for Shaw to find, but nevertheless he went carefully through everything in the place, inch by inch, and it took him a long time to do the job properly.

And he found precisely nothing.

He was about to leave the flat when the telephone rang and he went over and answered it. Captain James came on the line, said:

“Still there—good. I rang on the chance. Save you coming back here. Look, I’ve fixed with the mortuary for you to see the body at three o’clock this afternoon. That do?”

“Yes, that’s fine—”

“You found anything meanwhile?”

“Not a thing, sir. Except a shambles—some one’s been through here like a dose of salts.” He described what he had found, and James gave a long whistle.

The Australian said, “I’m not sticking my nose in. Police job! Anyway, what are your plans now?”

Shaw hesitated. “Don’t know yet, sir.”

“Well, just let me know if there’s anything you want me to do. I can’t say much on this line, but I’m getting things organized—you know what I mean—and I’m standing by for any word from Canberra. Right?”

“Right, sir.”

“Good-oh! Well—see you here at, say, two-forty-five.” The line clicked off.

A feeling of utter hopelessness came over Shaw, the pain gripped his guts. He wasn’t going to get anywhere. . . .

And then, as he put the receiver down, he saw it.

A faint mark on the top of Tommy’s desk, near the knee-hole. It was no more than a scratch in the varnish, but. . . .

Shaw bent, examined it closely.

It seemed to be two capital letters: L I.

L I for Ling? Was this, in fact, where they’d got Tommy Foster, sitting at his desk? Held him up, unwittingly given him time to scratch that almost invisible warning with something he already had in his hand, then hustled him away to his death before he could finish it?

It could be. Shaw’s mouth hardened.

The lead to Ling was still pretty vague, but sometimes the vague leads paid off. This time it was all he’d got, so he had to follow it up. And if he didn’t get anywhere, then maybe he would have to ask for police help and accept all the consequent red-tape delays and infuriating official routines.

Shaw glanced at his watch. It was getting on for an early lunch-time anyway . . . he decided to get over to the Cross and take a look at Ling’s.

From a telephone box Shaw rang James’s office, spoke to Mary Harris, and told her what he was doing. Coming out again into King’s Cross he found the streets gay, noisy, colourful, crammed with little eating-places and snack bars and coffee bars, crowded with youngsters in jeans and a handful of arty-looking men and women. Juke boxes blared out from seedy dives. The atmosphere was cosmopolitan, and down-at-heel in an attractive kind of way. As Major Francis had said, the comparison was with London’s Soho. Shaw asked a man howto get to Ling’s and he soon found the place; he studied the menu casually, where it hung in a frame behind the steamed-up glass front. Ling’s, he saw, didn’t serve afternoon tea . . .
Ling’s
4:30 . . . Australians were early diners, yes—but not that early. He walked in.

The place was crowded. Too few Chinese waiters in white coats and black trousers squeezed in and out of the over-closely packed tables. Although it was middle day the place was dim, lit with small, coloured wall-lights in brackets, and it was noisy and rather too warm.

With the assistance of a waiter, Shaw ordered.

While he waited, and later as he ate the Chinese food, Shaw watched his surroundings carefully. He noticed that there were no Chinese among the customers. It was all very innocuous, and there were none of the sort of people that Mary Harris had said Tommy had contacts among—and none of the sort who’d be a girl-friend of that body up on the Bandagong track either. As he watched, Shaw’s mind flew momentarily across the five hundred and seventy-six sea-miles to Melbourne. Soon now—to-morrow in fact—the
New South Wales
would be waiting for the tugs to take her off the berth, off from Station Pier, Port Melbourne. Sir Donald Mackinnon would be climbing to his navigating bridge and the
New South Wales
would move out past Gellibrand, and then out along the forty-mile stretch of land-locked water to Port Phillip Heads, and so to the Bass Strait—and Wilson’s Promontory. In less than twenty-four hours from there, she would berth at Pyrmont, here in Sydney.

Was Wilson’s Promontory, he wondered, to be the place?

Anyhow, according to Karstad, the point of danger to the world would come at any time after the liner cleared from Melbourne. At any time after to-morrow morning. He had to act fast now, not waste one precious minute. He ate quickly, finishing his meal so as not to arouse premature suspicion, and then, feeling for the comforting pressure of the revolver in his armpit, he signalled his waiter, lit a cigarette and paid his bill.

Then he asked casually, “I wonder if Mr Ling is free? I’d like to have a word with him. . . ."

Shaw was taken behind the counter and led down a long, dark passage into a back room which looked out on to a dirty yard littered with packing-cases and broken crates. The waiter went away and Shaw looked quickly round the room. In a minute or so a Chinese came in, a short, stout man with an over-large head and broad forehead, wiping his moist-looking hands on a white apron.

He said, “I am Ling. You wish to speak to me?”

Shaw nodded easily. “I think you may be able to help me.” He paused, looking straight into the man’s slit eyes. Then he asked directly, “Do you know a man called Lubin?”

The eyes shifted a little and there was a sudden tenseness. “Lubin? No. I know of no one called that. I have never heard of him. May I ask—”

Shaw cut in, “But you have heard of Commander Foster?”

“No.”

“I rather think you have, you know.” Shaw’s hand came away from his jacket; he pointed the revolver at Ling’s heart. The man didn’t move, his expression didn’t alter. Shaw said, “You’ll come back with me to naval headquarters, Ling, and when you’re there I believe you’ll talk fast enough. If you don’t, there’s ways of making you. You see, Ling, we know a lot about you already.”

He was watching Ling very closely, and he fancied he could see a sudden flicker in the man’s eye, a change of expression at last in the parchment-like features. But Ling said quite calmly and unemotionally, “You may take me to your naval base. I have nothing to say, no knowledge of what you are speaking of—therefore you will be disappointed.”