The Shadow of Treason (3 page)

Adam had been studying the pages closely. ‘This is in code. You can see sequences recurring, as in ordinary writing. Was Mark interested in codes?’

‘Not that I know of. He just wrote ordinary stuff.’

‘This is intriguing,’ said Adam. ‘There’s a chap at the research centre who’s good on codes – it’s his hobby. D’you mind if I take this and show it to him?’

‘Go ahead,’ said Jane. ‘I’d be grateful for anything that might tell us more about poor Mark.’

Adam returned the notebook to its envelope, and slid it into his side pocket. ‘Well, I think that’s all we can do. What time are you up in the morning?’

‘About 9.30. On working days, Mum does me some breakfast. Then I catch the 10.45. First show starts at one.’

Adam grinned ruefully. ‘I’m in the wrong business. I’m up before six and out before seven. So I shan’t see you. I’ll take Mark’s holdall to my room, and get rid of the stuff tomorrow.’

Jane smiled and moved closer to him. ‘Adam, you’re a saint. I’m very grateful. I really hated the thought of doing this job on my own.’

‘Most things are better when there’s two of you.’

‘Yes, I guess they are. Now if you’d like to come down to the kitchen, I’ll make us some hot drinks.’

The men came at one in the morning.

They’d worked out that Jefferson’s home was the most likely place to find the notebook. It hadn’t been on his body when they searched it. And they’d unsuccessfully scoured the surrounding area. Then the short man had noticed the pillar box and guessed that, somehow, the fleeing man had posted it: probably to himself. But of course, until the inquest, they hadn’t known the address, or even the real name, of the man they’d known as George Nixon. Now they knew both and, thanks to Clark’s visit, they knew the location of his room and how to get into it. They used the drainpipe Clark had spotted at the back of the building. For professionals, the climb across two ledges was no problem: nor was the window of number six. Cregan and Clark were extremely professional.

Their entry was swift and totally silent. Once in the room, they closed the blackout curtains, put the light on and began their search. It was annoying that drawers and cupboards had already been emptied. The landlady had seemed to say it would wait for the weekend. But they were interested in more devious hiding places. Obviously, Jefferson wouldn’t have been there to conceal the book, but an associate might have done. Quickly and methodically they got down to the business of raising carpets and ripping open pillows.

Where money was concerned, Maurice Cooper didn’t give up easily. Through many years of living on his wits he’d found that eavesdropping on quiet conversations and peering through half-closed doors could often lead to the acquisition of cash, or the means to raise it. And one sighting of Mark Jefferson had stayed with him for weeks. It was a glimpse of Jefferson stuffing a large wad of five-pound notes into an envelope, and hastily pushing it under his mattress as the chambermaid came in. 

It hadn’t been under the mattress when Cooper searched earlier. But he was undeterred. There’d been something
mysterious
about Jefferson. Cooper had seen him with a fistful of notes on other occasions. He could well have hidden money in places where Webber and the girl wouldn’t have looked. Now, at 1.15 in the morning, Cooper was ready to try again. The house was quiet and in darkness, and Cooper still had the key to number six. He’d borrowed it at teatime and, by carefully avoiding Mrs Hart, he’d been able to escape returning it.

He moved silently down a flight of stairs and along the landing to the end room. A little moonlight came in through the staircase window, but Cooper knew his way by heart.

A floorboard creaked as he approached number six, and Cooper froze for a moment. But there was no reaction anywhere in the building, and he resumed his stealthy approach. Reaching the door, he used both hands to guide the key
noiselessly
into the lock, and gently turned it.

The creaking floorboard had been enough to alert the intruders. By the time Cooper entered the room, the light was off and the two men flattened against the wall on either side of the door.

Cooper closed the door behind him and switched on the light. As he did so, a large hand came from behind him and covered his mouth. Clark spoke quietly but clearly in his ear. ‘If you make a sound, you’re dead! Understand? If you’ve got that, put your hands up.’

Cooper raised trembling arms above his head, and the hand was removed from his mouth. His terrified eyes took in two men in balaclava masks and dark clothing. One was pointing a hand-gun. The other, having withdrawn his hand, stood back to look at the new arrival. He reacted with surprise.

‘Gawd, it’s Creeper Cooper! The sod who sold us that dodgy Scotch!’

‘Shut it!’ said Cregan. ‘You’re talking too much.’ He snarled at Cooper. ‘You live here, do you?’

Cooper tried to sound calm. ‘Yeah. I’ve got a room upstairs.’

‘Friend of that bastard Jefferson, were you?’

‘No, no. Not a friend. I hated him.’

‘So what are you doing in here in the middle of the night?’

Cooper moved a dry tongue across parched lips.

‘Jefferson always had a lot of cash. I reckon he might have kept some hidden away.’ He glanced at a ripped mattress and torn pillows. ‘Looks like you boys had the same idea.’

‘Why did you leave it till now? Jefferson snuffed it weeks ago.’

‘The room was locked. They wouldn’t let anyone in here till today. I only just got the key.’

‘And why did you wait till one in the morning?’

‘I was here earlier, but this couple came in. They wanted to do their own search. And this bloke was bigger than me. Younger too, so I cleared out.’

‘A bloke was here searching? With a bird?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Did you know the bloke?’

Into Cooper’s mean little mind came an unexpected chance of revenge. Clearly these men were hostile to Jefferson and
therefore
, probably, to his associates. ‘Yeah. His name’s Webber. Adam Webber. Room ten on the top floor. He was a mate of Jefferson’s. Very close, they were.’

‘Webber. Room ten. What’s he look like?’

‘Tall. Fair hair. About twenty. Cocky.’

‘What does he do?’

‘I think he works on Southend Pier. Marine Research, someone said.’

‘And the girl. D’you know her?’

‘Yeah. She lives here too. Landlady’s daughter. Dancer at the Windmill. Stuck-up bitch, throws her weight about. But quite a glamour-puss.’ Cooper looked round the room. ‘Those two took a lot of stuff from here.’

‘How d’you know?’

‘I saw them.’

‘You said they threw you out.’

‘Yeah, but I was watching from upstairs, wasn’t I? I saw them come out of here an hour later. He had a holdall, she had a carrier bag.’

Cregan stared hard at Cooper. ‘Listen, Creeper, you’d better get this right. You were searching this room before those two got here, OK?’

‘Yeah. I hadn’t got very far. Just done a few drawers. Nothing worth lifting.’

‘Think hard. Did you see a blue notebook anywhere?’

Cooper responded eagerly: he’d been given a chance to get on the right side of these hard men. ‘Yeah. I did. In one of the drawers. A blue notebook. Hard covers. Sort of like a logbook.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yeah. I remember, cos it was a big disappointment. It was in an envelope, see, and I thought it might be cash. But when I opened it, there was just this bleeding notebook. I left it there.’

‘Well, it wasn’t there when we looked. So those two chancers nicked it.’

‘I reckon they nicked a lot of stuff.’

‘Which is what you were aiming to do. Right, Creeper. This bloke scared you off, so they could clear the place.’

‘Like I said, he was bigger than me.’

‘OK. But now you’ve come back. Why?’

‘I could tell those two weren’t pros. I reckoned they wouldn’t know all the smart places to look for money. Loose floorboards and that. I thought there might still be something here for me. I thought I’d look again.’

While Dave Clark listened to this interrogation, he’d been recalling the foul taste of Cooper’s bootleg whisky. As Cregan paused, he felt he was entitled to intervene. ‘That was a bad idea, Cooper. We don’t like slimy bastards who flog us bad booze for good money.’

Cooper had started to relax. He thought he’d convinced them they were all on the same side. Now the fear came flooding back. ‘Look, if I flogged you some dodgy Scotch, it was a mistake.’

‘You bet it was.’

‘I mean, it wasn’t my fault. I’ve been having to use a new supplier. A Yank. Says he gets it from army stores.’

‘You lying toe-rag! You told us you had a mate in a Scottish distillery! Quality stuff, you said. And it turned out to be cat’s piss!’

‘I must have got confused. Look, I’ll give you your money back.’ And then Cooper made his big mistake. With a rancid smile and an attempt at mateyness, he added, ‘You must be the two blokes I met at the Bull.’

For a moment there was silence.

Then Cregan sighed, and growled at Clark. ‘See? I told you to keep your mouth shut. Now we got to croak him.’ Changing his grip on the revolver, he smashed the butt viciously into Cooper’s head.

Jane had gone back to sleep, when a worried Adam returned to her room. He bent over and kissed her, and then shook her shoulder gently.

‘Darling! Jane! Sorry to wake you. Something weird’s happened.’

Jane opened bewildered eyes. ‘What? Weird? What d’you mean?’

‘My room. Someone’s been in there. It’s a shambles! Everything’s ripped apart … drawers pulled out … it’s chaos!’

‘Good God! Anything valuable gone?’

‘I haven’t got anything valuable. And I don’t think anything’s missing.’

‘Thank God for that.’

‘It’s unbelievable! Why would anyone want to burgle my place?’

‘We’ll have to call the police.’

‘But that’s a problem! They’re going to ask why I wasn’t in my room.’

‘Oh my God!’ Jane was wide awake now, and sitting bolt upright.

‘Exactly. We don’t really want your mum to know I spent the night with you, do we?’

‘Too right we don’t!’

‘I mean, it’s OK for me. The worst she can do is chuck me out. It’s you I’m worried about.’

‘We won’t tell her.’

‘Then how do I explain my mattress and pillows ripped open? And two drawers smashed? Mark’s holdall’s all pulled apart, by the way. Someone must have been looking for
something
– God knows what!’

Jane was trembling. Mrs Hart belonged to a generation with very strict views. Jane loved her mother dearly, and was appalled at the impending embarrassment. ‘What the hell are we going to do?’

‘It’ll have to look like it happened this morning. After I’d gone to work.’

‘Would anyone believe that? What’s the time?’

‘Six o’clock, and still dark. I’ll get out quick and catch the 6.40 train. But I’ll say I got the 5.15. This house sleeps till seven. That’s three hours when the break-in could have happened.’

‘The police can check what time you got to work.’

‘They won’t bother. The police won’t be interested in a burgled room, with nothing taken. Your mum must report it, of course, to get her insurance. But no one’s going to follow it up.’

‘So what do I do?’

‘Nothing. Just act normally. Get up and go to work at your regular time, everything as usual. I’ll find my room’s been wrecked when I return tonight.’

‘D’you think this’ll work?’

‘Who’s going to argue? No one’s likely to think I wrecked my own room. And, whatever happens, you’re not involved. You haven’t seen me since we cleared Mark’s room last night. You won’t know anything about this till you get home from the theatre. Now go back to sleep.’

‘Not much chance of that.’

‘Then read a book or something. You mustn’t get up any earlier
than usual. Don’t do anything different. Now the sooner I get out, the better. I’ll see you when you get back from your show tonight.’

Adam went swiftly, leaving Jane staring uneasily into the darkness.

‘You killed a man at the boarding house?’ The short man spoke with controlled fury.

‘We had to, guv,’ said the man with the scar. ‘He knew who we were.’

‘Don’t “guv” me, Cregan!’ The short man’s eyes bored into Cregan’s face. ‘It’s “sir” to you. Always.’

‘Yeah. Sorry, sir.’

‘You were wearing masks?’

‘Yeah, of course … sir.’

‘So how did he know who you were?’

Clark’s stomach churned. But his accomplice didn’t let him down.

‘I reckon it was our voices. We done a lot of business with this sod, couple of months ago. Shifting Scotch and stuff.’

‘Well, you can’t make this one look like a road accident.’

Clark felt it was his turn to speak. ‘It’s all right, sir, we’re in the clear. We was wearing gloves. Frank finished him off with his cosh, and we’ve scrubbed that clean. No one saw us go in or out. They won’t trace us.’

‘They’d better not. And then you went to this other man’s room?’

Cregan was spokesman again. ‘Yeah. This bloke Webber that Creeper told us about. We took his room apart. But there was no notebook there either.’

‘But you still believe he had it?’

‘According to Creeper. And he was too scared to lie. He saw it in a drawer early on. When we looked it was gone.’

‘So Webber must have took it,’ Clark added helpfully.

‘God knows how it got to the Cavendish,’ said Cregan. ‘But it was there!’

‘I told you, the man could have posted it. Or maybe his friend
Webber was waiting outside when Jefferson took it. Either way, they must have been working together.’

‘Creeper said they was best mates.’

‘What do you know about this Webber?’

‘He works on Southend Pier. Marine Research or something.’

‘You said he had a girl with him?’

‘Landlady’s daughter, according to Creeper. Dancer at the Windmill.’ Cregan grinned. ‘You want us to grab her, persuade her to talk?’

‘Don’t be flippant!’ snapped the short man. ‘You go after this man Webber.’

The gleam remained in Cregan’s eyes. ‘We go down to Southend Pier and sort him out, right?’