Ring of Terror (16 page)

Joe said, ‘You remember that letter we took off Mother Triboff – “When you go to your workshop, watch your back”?’

‘Yes.’

‘You told Fred that the word in Russian might be a workshop, or could be a laboratory.’

Luke said, ‘Yes, it could be. Though I shouldn’t have expected to find a laboratory in the middle of Plaistow Marshes. Next time, we’ll find out, perhaps.’

‘If there is a next time,’ said Joe gloomily. He was aware that he had had a chance and had fluffed it.

On the following Monday evening Jacob Katz was in his workroom, a small apartment leading off the living-room. He was sitting at his desk. This had been positioned, like the easel of an artist, directly under a window which gave him the benefit of the northern light.

A sheet of paper of a curious blue-grey in colour was pinned to a board in front of him. The paper had printed words on it and he was now, very carefully, filling in the spaces between these words in his own handwriting. From time to time he picked up a reading glass to examine the words he had written. These seemed to satisfy him. There was a clean sheet of blotting paper on the desk. He made no attempt to use it, but sat waiting for the words to dry.

He heard the front door open and someone coming in without ringing or knocking. He assumed that it would be Anna or Dmitry. His wife, he knew, was upstairs. He drew the blotting paper over the work he was doing and was half standing up when the door burst open and Molacoff Weil erupted into the room. Jacob sank back into his chair.

‘Right,’ said Weil. ‘That’s right. Make yourself quite comfortable. I have things to say to you, old man.’

He extracted a small cigar from his top pocket and had got it well alight before he continued. ‘I hope you have no objection to me smoking. Not that it would make the least difference if you did object.’

Jacob said nothing.

‘Well, won’t you ask what it is I have come to say to you?’

‘You are, as I know, a very busy man, so it must be important.’

Jacob managed to speak in a level, conversational voice. But it was clear how much Weil’s arrival had upset him.

‘You might think so, or you might not think so.’ Weil drew on his cigar until the end glowed red. ‘What I have to say concerns a young man who has been seen visiting here on more than one occasion lately. You know who I mean. Or do you get so many visitors that you cannot recall this one?’

A belch of cigar smoke.

‘I know the man you mean. His name’s Pagan and he’s a detective constable.’

‘Correct. A simple boy, but he works for a man who is not simple. Divisional Detective Inspector Wensley. Known throughout these parts as Venzel, the Weasel. Aah! Dangerous creatures, weasels. Though it is just possible that once in a while it might encounter an animal that was even bigger and more dangerous.’ Weil’s yellow teeth showed for a moment as he lifted his lip. ‘But it is not of the old weasel that I have been sent to talk to you. I have to tell you that the time may be coming when your daughter will be given an important assignment.’ Weil had been watching Jacob as he said this and did not fail to notice his reaction. He said, ‘She will do what she is told, yes?’

Jacob, again choosing his words very carefully, said, ‘She is aware of the position.’

‘So. We come to another matter. It concerns another member of your family. Dmitry.’

‘My son.’

‘Yes. Let us call him that, by all means.’

‘What about him?’

‘Do I take it that – to use your own words – he is
not
aware of the position?’ When Jacob seemed unable to answer, he added, ‘I only ask, because I am told he has been opening his mouth rather widely of late. In our country people who open their mouths too widely sometimes end with their lips sewn together.’

During these exchanges Jacob had been aware of something else. Weil, when coining in, had left the front door open. Now someone had followed him in, also without closing the door and was moving softly in the living-room. Very softly, but Jacob’s hearing was acute and undimmed by age. He said, ‘My son is not aware of the matter you referred to.’

‘As well, perhaps, that he should remain in ignorance. The house of ignorance is sometimes more comfortable than the house of knowledge.’

Jacob had nothing to say to this. After depositing a length of cigar ash on the carpet, Weil continued, ‘Pagan and an equally young and inexperienced associate of his – I have forgotten his name, if ever I knew it—’

‘Narrabone.’

‘Is that right?’ Weil repeated the name twice. It seemed to cause him some amusement. ‘This precious pair recently paid a visit to Solomon’s establishment in Brownsong Court. I expect you know it.’

‘I know of it.’

‘Their excuse for doing so must have been the fact that your son and daughter both work there. Now I am told that Solomon has closed one of his two workshops. He may soon be closing down altogether. This would be a good moment for your children to cease their association with the place. See that they do so.’

As he said this, Weil stood up, moving as though he was on springs, and made his way out of the room, across the room next door and out through the hall, slamming the front door behind him. Jacob judged that whoever it was that had been in the living-room had managed to conceal themselves. He did not resume his work. He knew who the person next door must have been. There was no hurry. He sat down and waited. Sure enough, it was Dmitry. He came in, shutting the door behind him, and said in a voice choked with the fury that was pumping the words up, ‘Has that—that person gone?’

‘Yes,’ said Jacob. ‘That person has gone. I am to suppose that you heard what he said.’

‘Yes, yes, yes.’ Dmitry’s face was scarlet. ‘I heard him. I heard him bullying you as though you were one of his serfs, cringing before a threat of the knout.’

‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ said Jacob. He was almost as angry now as Dmitry. ‘And don’t exaggerate.’

‘Exaggerating, is it? If I’d looked in, I imagine I’d have seen you crawling on the floor and licking his feet. For God’s sake, what’s this hold that he’s got over you that makes you cringe, instead of sending him about his business.’

Jacob, older and more experienced than the sixteen-year-old boy, regained control of himself first. He said, ‘You’d better go to bed. I’ll talk to you in the morning.’

Dmitry hesitated. He had been resolving, for some time, to provoke a showdown and he disliked putting it off. He said, ‘Tell me this. From what I heard, Weil clearly knows that I’m not your son.’

‘Yes. That’s clear.’

‘Does he know about Peter?’

‘Peter is in Tver, working in the rolling-stock sheds and leading a quiet and useful life. If he knows that, he knows all there is to know about him.’

‘Have you heard from him lately?’

‘As you well know, I hear from him once a month, thanking me for the money I have managed to send him.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘He sends news about his family.’

‘And he is in no sort of trouble?’

‘None,’ said Jacob. He said it firmly.

Dmitry looked as though he would have liked to take the matter further, but could think of no way of doing so. As he looked at Jacob’s grey face much of the anger drained out of him. He said, ‘Whatever the trouble is, you might find it lighter if you were able to share it.’

Jacob sighed and said, ‘Go to bed.’

On that same Monday evening Joe had disposed of two irritating jobs that Joscelyne had found for him, was tidying up the dockets of papers on his desk and was preparing to go home when he heard a footstep that he recognised on the stairs outside. It was Wensley, plodding up to his old office.

Joe judged, from the manner of his walk, that his chief had had an exceptionally trying day. He knew, having twice tried to get hold of him, that he had been locked in conference with the lawyers, shifting through the evidence in the Clapham Common murder case. There were more than thirty witnesses for the prosecution and their statements had been checked and rechecked by Richard Muir, the formidable and painstaking Crown Prosecutor. And great care was necessary. The case was not going to be a walkover. The accused was being represented by Edward Abinger, a paladin of the criminal bar, with a junior, Roland Oliver, who was destined to become more famous than his leader. The newspapers of the left had started to describe the accused as a martyr.

Joe hesitated before following his chief upstairs. But he thought that what he had to tell him might at least divert his mind from his immediate worries.

When he went in, Wensley pushed aside the heap of depositions on his desk and listened patiently. Then he said, ‘Next time, take field glasses with you. Don’t try to follow Treschau directly. Circle round, moving only when he does. And keep out of sight. You were a country boy. You understand about field craft.’

Joe agreed that he would find Plaistow Marshes and the East Ham Level a more congenial area for stalking a quarry than the streets of Stepney and Limehouse.

‘When Treschau reaches whatever seems to be his destination, pick some spot from which you can watch it. Then you and Pagan can keep it under observation. Continuous observation is the secret of all good police work.’

Joe agreed, but insincerely. In his view the secret of success in police work was energetic action.

Sensing that he was not carrying his audience with him, Wensley said, ‘Later, when you’re sure you haven’t been seen, you can close in. Step at a time. For the moment, what I want to know is what a famous chemist is doing creeping about the marshes with a packet of meat scraps. When we know the answer to that we might be able to take some effective action.’

As he spoke, Wensley had moved across to the window and was staring out over the wharves and buildings to where the Thames ran sparkling under the late February sun. He said, ‘Sometimes I find it hard to believe that it was twenty-five years ago that I came up from Somerset. In all that time, I haven’t seen a meadow with its wildflowers out, and most of the cattle I’ve seen have been cut up and hanging in butchers’ shops. I’ve sometimes thought I’d like to give it all up and go back. And if I did, very likely I’d be bored silly inside a week. Better to keep it as a lovely dream. Off you go, and remember, keep out of trouble. Because if you get into trouble it will cause me trouble to get you out of it. Understood?’

Joe said that he understood. He didn’t take the warning very seriously. He had an infinite belief in his capacity for looking after himself.

That same evening he and Luke had a visitor.

Dmitry had waited until Jacob was busy in his study and Anna had gone up to her own room. He had left the house by the back door, closing it quietly behind him. He was aware of the efficiency of Molacoff Weil’s corps of unofficial helpers and he chose a roundabout and zig-zag route, pausing at each corner to look and listen. Helped by the blackness of the night, which had closed down over London like a blanket, he was confident that he could reach his destination unseen and unfollowed.

“Ullo, ‘ullo,’ said Joe. ‘See who’s here.’ He and Luke were polishing off the remains of the beer that had accompanied their supper. ‘If we ‘ad a spare glass, we could’ve given ‘im a drop.’

‘He certainly looks as if he could do with it,’ said Luke. Dmitry’s face was white and wet with a mixture of rain and sweat. ‘There’s a glass in the bathroom.’

‘I’ll get it,’ said Joe. ‘And I’ll see if I can raise another bottle of beer from Bill. I saw him come in just now and he owes me one.’

When he got back he had something better than beer. It was a bottle of schnapps, part of the fruit of some enterprising smuggling when the
Beatrice
was last at Esbjerg. When Dmitry had downed half a tumbler of this, his face had recovered some of its colour.

He said abruptly, ‘I’ve got something I must tell you. And a favour to ask.’

He said this in English, no doubt out of consideration for Joe.

But Luke had noticed before that his English was, in fact, more fluent than his Russian; not unnaturally when one remembered the age at which he had arrived in London and the life he had lived.

‘I have to tell you, first of all, that I am not Jacob’s son.’

This did not surprise Luke, who had suspected it when he first saw the family together.

He said, ‘But Anna – she’s his daughter, is she not?’

‘Yes. She is his daughter. I am his nephew. The son of his elder brother, Ivan. My father was shot by the police. Not for any offence. Just because he was rash enough to be out in the street when a pogrom was taking place. After that happened, I was taken care of by Uncle Jacob. When he finally succeeded in leaving Russia, I was only six and he declared me as his son. Anna was seven and he was allowed to bring both of us with him. His own son, Peter, was fifteen and was held to be too old to be allowed to leave. Boys of that age, you understand, were wanted as workmen and soldiers. Peter was developing some skill as an engineer and was apprentice to a railway construction company. This was fortunate. It saved him from being called up.’

As Luke listened to Dmitry, a number of things which he had suspected became clear and began to fit together.

He said, ‘Let me guess. The Ochrana have arrested Peter, on some trumped-up charge, no doubt, and are holding him as surety for Jacob’s help and co-operation.’

‘That must be so. He is not a coward. That must be why he crawls to Weil.’

‘Does Anna know about it?’

Seeing the look on Dmitry’s face, he was sorry he had asked this.

‘Yes,’ said Dmitry. ‘I think she must have been told. I believe that my uncle has already given her messages to deliver and small jobs to do connected with the anarchist ring. He would only do this if he was sure of her.’

‘Because of her love for Peter.’

‘No,’ said Dmitry with a twisted smile. ‘She can only have known him as a much older brother and such memories as she has will have faded by now. It is love for her father. She knows that if anything happened to Peter it would be the end of the world for Jacob. Perhaps you will understand if I tell you that when we first came here and had almost no money, a part of what ought to have been spent on food was being sent to his son. Any that was left went, I’m sure, first on food for his wife and us children. For himself, he was prepared to starve if it meant that a few more roubles could go through the Ghetto Bank to Peter.’