The Atlas Murders (10 page)

Chapter Fourteen

James Eagleton was waiting
outside the Yard at eight thirty when Henry arrived.

 "Morning Henry."

“And a fine good morning to
you, James."

Henry pulled a fold of paper
out of his pocket and handed it to James. “This is a list of the ports the ship
will be calling to and the approximate dates of arrival. She said you can allow
as much as two to three days for arrival.”

James scanned down the list
and saw where Shimizu was underlined and marked “changeover?” The port
preceding it was Albany, Australia. “You seemed to think that this port of
Shimizu in Japan would be the most likely one for the changeover? Well Henry, I
think we will have to strive hard for Albany in south west Australia. Reasons
why, firstly our men abroad might encounter some difficulties working
undercover in Japan, and would encounter no such obstacles in Australia, it
would be like working here in Britain. We already have men on the ground in
Australia and it would be a simple job for them to arrange the shift over.”

 “I understand, James, but how
will you manage to have this crewman removed?”

“It will be a very simple
affair. Our men will befriend him ashore and offer to buy him a drink in a
nearby bar Then, they’ll slip a drug into his drink which will cause abdominal
pain much like a grumbling appendix, and he will then be brought to hospital
where his condition will have to be monitored for a few days. This operation
will take place probably the day before sailing and you will have already been
to the shipping office to apply for a ship out. Our men will assure you the
place on the ship and the local police will be informed of the whole operation.
You can also assure Carlisle Brent Shipping that the crewman affected by the
drug will suffer no long-term effects and will be either flown home or shipped
out on a British ship. Also, you will have to get a good description of the two
assistant stewards, the suspect, Gary Conrad and his mate, the crewman who will
be drugged. We have to make certain there can be no mix up with these two.
Taking all into account, we have about three weeks before flying you out to Perth
and then down to Albany, so you’ll be there about four days before the earliest
possible arrival date of the Rangoon.”

“If it’s all right with you
I’ll go to Runcorn tomorrow and be back in two days. I’ll wait until I come
back to go to the shipping company and fill them in on the latest arrangements.
I’ll also get the information about the stewards then.”

James Eagleton folded the
paper. “Do you mind if I keep this and confer with the senior boys about doing
this in Australia. I think we have a fair bit done and I suggest I drive you
back to Vincent’s and let you get the evening train to Runcorn. I’ll cover here
until you get back.”

“Suits me fine James, but I’ll
get an early afternoon train.”

Henry had mixed feelings
about going back home he hadn’t heard from Denis in a while and was afraid that
any news about Katherine was not going to be good. He phoned to let them know
what time he was arriving and Katherine insisted he stay with them. To his
utter amazement she sounded just like her old self and he was buoyed with joy
as he read the paper from front to back on the somewhat monotonous journey.

It was early evening when he
arrived to Katherine’s loving welcome. He spent a pleasant evening with the
couple before retiring to his room he had a few moments with Denis.

“Denis, there seems to be a
remarkable improvement in Katherine, I just couldn’t believe I didn’t hear
Shirley’s name mentioned and I was afraid to say her name myself thinking it
might spark a reaction.”

“You see how normal she seems
tonight, well Henry, that might last for a week and then she’ll relapse into a
deep depressive mood and start talking to and about Shirley. It can become
frightening at times to hear her talking out loud as if Shirley was in the room
with her.”

“Oh Denis, I was so overjoyed
to see her so calm and chatty this evening how does she manage her normal day?”

“She goes to the shops as
normal and meets her friends and to anybody that she chats to or has coffee
with she seems quite normal. Her doctor has changed her medication again and
hopes with time she may come to some type of resignation with herself and
grief.”

“I’ll give you an address and
phone number of where I’m staying in London and you can reach me there at any
time. If I’m not available if you phone you can safely leave a message.

Denis got a note book and
took down the number.

“Keep that safe because if I
get sent on a job away I may not see you for a few months, I’ll write to you
both.”

He tossed and turned in bed realizing
he couldn’t even tell them he was joining the Rangoon, the risk would be too
great. He couldn’t even write to them from a foreign country. He would have to
send his letters to Vincent’s address and get him to post them on, and vice
versa they could write to Vincent’s and he would forward them on to the ship.
He fell into a disturbed sleep and was relieved when he saw daylight and knew
it was time to rise.

After breakfast, Denis went
to work and Katherine left the house to go to the shops. This was his chance to
search for some old photos of himself.

He felt like a burglar
rooting through drawers for the old family albums, when his mother passed away
Katherine got all the family heirlooms and old photographs were among her most
precious possessions now. He eventually found them tucked away in the bottom drawer
of the big old linen chest. He knew the picture he wanted, it was the one taken
at the police training school, he was eighteen and a half but it would do
nicely he thought. He went back down to the kitchen and was sipping a mug of
coffee when Katherine arrived back.

She sounded cheerful as she
unpacked the shopping. Maybe if I could stay here and spend more time with her,
it would it help her to recover from this terrible depression,
he thought.
However, quickly dismissing the notion; he knew he had a job to do and catching
the killer would be his way of helping his sister come to terms with her loss.

Henry stood and packed his
few bits and pieces into his overnight bag. “Now pet, I’ll have to be on my
way. I’ll be in touch; I’ll ring and let you know all.”

 “Please do Henry, and be
back soon.” He hugged her and kissed her on the cheek.

“Love you Kathy take care of
yourself.

Chapter Fifteen

Back in London, Vincent was
half way through his evening meal when Henry arrived into the kitchen. The aroma
of fried bacon sausage and eggs was mouth-watering. “Vincent don’t stir I
couldn’t disturb a man from a feed so delicious.”

“You know I’m not supposed to
be eating this sort of food, with my weight this is strictly off the menu.
Herself is away to her sister’s for a few days so I’m bending the rules a bit.
Help yourself there’s plenty in the fridge and the pan is hot.”

“Thanks Vincent, I’m famished
with the hunger and a big fry up is just what the doctor ordered.”

“James said to ring him when
you got back and he’d collect you as usual in the morning. Any developments at
the home end?”

“I didn’t tell anyone, even
family, of my intentions of going to sea, but I gave them your address and told
them to write here. Will you post on their mail and I’ll send my mail to you
and will you forward it onto them? I’m asking a lot of you Vincent.”

“My dear fellow you are
asking nothing, I’ll be only too happy to look after all that.”

When he had finished his
food, Henry phoned James to tell him collect him in the morning. After a long
day’s travel he was soon off to bed for an early night.

At seven o’clock sharp, the
thin tone of a Ford Anglia’s horn sounded outside the house. Henry gulped a last
mouthful of tea, picked up a brown manila envelope and ran out to the waiting
pride of nineteen fifties British motoring.

 “Good morning Henry, how did
your visit go, are the parents coping any better?”

“Sadly not. I think my sister
is slipping into a world she has created for herself.”

Oh, I am so sorry to hear
that.”

“She’s on quite a lot of
medication and hopefully, it might keep her stable long enough to give her time
to come to some kind of terms with her loss. I feel a bit guilty going away
when she could do with me being around her, I feel I might be a comfort to her.”

 “It’s a big decision for you
as you could be gone a year or more, but it’s not too late to hand this over to
someone else if you feel your need to be at home is paramount”

Henry was silent as they parked
the car and walked to the office.

 Henry pulled the envelope
from his inside pocket. “Here’s a photo of yours truly as a teenager and a couple
of recently taken ones for the passport.”

 “So you’ll definitely go
ahead, you’re sure you can make the commitment?”

“Regardless of the
consequences, if I didn’t do this I couldn’t live with myself for the rest of
my life, so they’ll be no turning back now.”

“Great Henry, it’s full steam
ahead then. I’ll look after the paperwork. I’ve also made an appointment for
you to get your vaccinations, you have to have these. You can come with me to
the doctor tomorrow there’s one for smallpox and a couple of others, but they
have to be back dated. You know you’re supposed to be on a ship somewhere out
in the Pacific right now. We haven’t decided which ship yet. Our men will get
the list of ships due to arrive in Albany during the next three weeks. You will
be on one of those and will be hospitalized with a fictitious illness. But
don’t worry, you’ll be ‘recovered’ when the Rangoon arrives and the assistant
steward is sent ashore.

Henry was looking more than a
little fazed. “There’s a lot more to this than I’d ever have realized. Imagining
I’m supposed to be sailing around the Pacific right now, sort of gives me the
creeps.”

 “When we decide what ship
you should be sailing on, you will only have a couple of weeks before you leave
for Perth.”

 “I hope I don’t get seasick.
It’s so long since I actually sailed with the Royal Navy reserve fleet.”

 “Don’t worry about that;
Nelson was reputed to have gotten seasick every time he went to sea! I’ll go
with these photos and I’ll be back later to let you go to the shipping offices
to get the information on the man you’re going to replace.”

 “Sorry James, I can’t be
seen there, Miss Twist warned me off for security reasons. I’ll phone and
arrange to meet her away from the office in a few days’ time.”

 “Right Henry, I’ll leave that
to you. I’ll be back after lunch.”

When she picked up the phone,
Vera was overjoyed to hear from him and told him she would have as much
information about the assistant steward as she could get. He told her he would
explain the procedure of making the transfer when he met her, and that she need
not be overly concerned. He also told her he would phone again in two days and
make arrangements to meet her at her home that same evening. He realized how
much he missed her, and then felt guilty, thinking that maybe their trysts were
purely sexual. When he told her how he was longing to see her, he could hear
her breathing become louder. “Oh Henry, I can’t wait,” was her emphatic reply.

 James Eagleton breezed into
the office to find Henry poring over his precious atlas again.

“Well old chap, it’s nice to
see you engaged in serious research.”

 “I’ll never make a
convincing seaman without a good grasp of where the ports of call are and the
distances between each. I’ve even been calculating roughly how long it will
take to sail from one port to another.”

 “That’s splendid Henry. I’ve
been talking to some of our boys at lunch. I’ve got a bit of news. These boys
of ours are active all the time, and to give them their fair due, they are
making this a priority. You’ll get plenty of support and backup when you are
away.”

“That’s great to know, and
what is the latest news?”

“The shipping list from
Albany for the next four weeks puts you as a crewman on an Irish ship called ‘The
Irish Plane’. She’ll have left Albany about two weeks before the Rangoon
arrives, so it should fit in with our planned operation. You will have a
discharge in your seaman’s book as having sailed as second steward on the
ship.”

 “I have been busy too. I
phoned Miss Twist and she’ll have the name and description of the crewman who’s
going to leave the Rangoon.”

“We will want his home
address as well, if the description is not sufficient our men will make
inquiries around his home area, they can’t leave anything to chance they have
to make certain they remove the right man. Now that a date is set we will have
to move in accordance and make sure everything is one hundred percent
watertight. And you must do what good actors do. You need to become Henry John
Tyler in your own mind. Take on the role, as it were.”

“You’re so right James, and I
should keep repeating that name to myself so it sinks in.”

“You will be called only by
your surname by the captain and officers on board ship, so I will help by
calling you Tyler from now on, instead of Henry. Tyler will be what you’ll
hear, or just plain steward. Your own shipmates will refer to you as Henry, and
you’ll be on first name terms with most of them. You know ‘Tyler’, you’ve
captured the imagination of the lads at the Yard who are handling your preparation,
and they’ll be following your progress right throughout this whole operation.
We have yet to work out communications but by the time you’re ready to go we’ll
have something in place. I’m sure there will be telephone facilities in some of
the bigger ports. The only thing is I’d have to book calls twenty four hours in
advance. I think that could pose more of a problem than a help. Perhaps they will
come up with something more reliable - we’ll just leave it to them.”

“Right Eagleton,” exclaimed
Henry with a laugh.

“Yes Tyler allow me,” and
curtsied slightly as he walked out of the office ahead of Henry. “I’ve made the
appointment for your vaccinations at eight thirty tonight. We can go direct
from here.”

“Yes that’s fine I’ve nothing
on. We might go for a pint after, what do you say James?”

“Sounds like a great idea.”

There was only a small
scratch where he got the smallpox vaccination, but the doctor told him it would
get very sore and also he would get a temperature and might have to go to bed
for a day or so. He also got a jab for yellow fever, which the doctor assured
him probably wouldn’t show much adverse effects. ”While you’re here now I might
as well give you the once over.” Henry reluctantly agreed, but afterwards when
he was assured he was perfectly healthy he was grateful to the caring
physician. Now he could take on the wide world with added confidence.

After leaving the doctors, they
spent the remainder of the night in a local pub, swapping frivolous chat and sinking
pints of bitter before merrily making their way to a nearby fish and chip shop
for a fish supper.

Nursing a bit of a hangover
next day, Henry remembered today was the day to phone Vera. It took her a while
to answer the phone. “Henry, I’m very busy and can’t talk now, one of our ships
has docked this morning and it’s always hectic when a ship is paying off. Can
you be at my house at nine this evening?”

“Aye, Aye Madam, I will be
there.”

That evening he felt like a
teenager going on a date; all spit and polish.
 Vincent remarked as he left the house. “If I didn’t know better I’d say you
were romantically involved with our Miss Twist.”

 “She’s just that little bit
mature for me,” he lied. “But I suppose there was often a good tune played on
an old fiddle, so I might not be back too late, depending on my virtuoso.”

As he walked away from the
house he thought how disappointed Vera would feel if she heard him compare her
to an old violin. He began to regret his show of male bravado.

He was a little early but she
was in readiness, hair immaculately coiffure, a hint of beauty enhancer on her
cheeks, gentle shaded eyes and pouting red rosy lips. She wore a figure-hugging
taffeta dress of burnt orange. Henry stared at this revelation of beauty as she
stood under the soft hallway lighting.

She reached out her hand to
him. “Come in don’t just stand staring, you’re making me feel self-conscious.”

“Vera you’re so
breathtakingly beautiful, Leonardo da Vinci couldn’t do you justice with his
brushes.”

 “You are the charmer.”

She stood on tip toes and
gave him a light peck on the cheek. “That’s all for now or you’ll spoil my fake
beauty!”

“Now, I have some information
for you first.”

They went straight into the
study and Vera bade him sit at the table. She sat alongside him and opened a
large envelope. “Here is the name of the assistant steward you are going to
replace. He’s Denis Troy, lives at Dewey Road, Islington, London - number
eighty-six. He’s twenty-six years old and single, about five feet ten inches
tall and fair complexion with red hair, stocky build. Distinguishing features
beside the shock of red hair; he has tattooed on the knuckles of his right hand
the letters L.O.V.E., so he shouldn’t be too hard to pick out.”

“That’s great that he will be
so easy to spot.”

“Now, there’s been a change
in the plans. The ship is not going to Japan after loading grain at Albany. She’s
going to some port on the west coast of India - probably Bombay. Also, the
latest news is there’s a shortage of shipping around the Far East and we a have
a few lucrative charter prospects. This means if the Rangoon goes on charter
she more than likely will not be back in a British port until the end of her
twelve month charter period. The Japanese are looking to charter a couple of
hundred thousand tons of shipping, so it’s very probable the Rangoon will go on
charter to them. It looks like you are going to be ‘shanghaied’ for over a
year. However, if you are quick in bringing this monster to justice, it goes
without saying you’ll be home much sooner.”

“That’s true. The sooner I
can solve this, the sooner I’m off that ship. The team has already decided to
make the switch at Albany. They have assured me that no harm will come to our
man Denis Troy - except a little discomfort in the form of stomach cramps which
will ease as the effects of the drug wear off. The cramps will look like the
symptoms of an appendix so he will have to be kept in hospital for observation.
Then I will be on hand to take up my position as assistant steward.”

“Vera, can you write this
name down so you won’t forget it and I will be expecting a letter in every
port. My new name is Henry John Tyler.”

Vera scribbled the name on a
pad and put the small sheet of paper into a drawer and locked it, taking the
key and dropping it into her handbag.

“I will hide the key later. All
your letters to me will have to be locked away so you can write explicitly
knowing it will be for my eyes only and the warmth of my bosom.”

“That’s reassuring Vera, and
I will have to be careful with my mail as I’ll be sharing a cabin with one of
our suspects - Gary Conrad.”

“My God Henry, you will have
to be extra careful if I should give you any incriminatory information in my
letters, you better had burn them immediately after reading.”

“You have no idea how careful
I will have to be, keeping my cover is going to be my main priority.”