Cloak of Darkness (2 page)

Gilman looked at the American’s quiet face. Nothing there to show any worry or alarm: thoughtful grey eyes, brown hair slightly greying at the temples, even features, a pleasant mouth relaxing into one of his reassuring smiles. Yet Renwick’s voice had been too casual, always a small storm signal. “Something interesting?”

“I don’t know. It’s the damnedest thing.” Renwick began pacing the room, no larger than his own and just as sparingly furnished. “I had a call—my green line—” He halted, frowning at the floor, and began an accurate but brief account of that strange conversation.

Gilman was a good listener, silent, expressionless, but as Renwick ended, he said quite flatly, “I don’t like it, Bob. It could be a trap.”

“It could also be important.”

“The man knows you?”

“Seemingly. He certainly knows my phone number. How did he get that? And where did he meet Erik? He didn’t just
see
Erik. He met him. Exact word.”

“Three weeks ago...” Gilman’s glasses were off, his hair— blond, thinning on top—was ruffled and smoothed and ruffled again. “Erik will have moved on by this time.”

“At least we get a direction. We don’t know, now, whether Erik left India, or travelled east or north or west.”

“Certainly not south,” Gilman said, “unless he was taking a header into the Indian Ocean.” Then he looked at his watch, began gathering the pages in front of him. “You go ahead. I’ll take my car and join you in the Red Lion.”

“I hoped you would. Just as well for two of us to see this man.”

“He had no objection to someone meeting you?”

“No. Only to being followed.”

From the pub or from the street, Gilman remembered. “He didn’t mention anything about being followed at Paddington, did he?”

“No.” Renwick raised an eyebrow.

“Start moving, old boy.” Gilman locked up the three agents’ reports, “I’ll see you at six.”

Renwick left, still speculating. Why should Ron choose to delay, then take his car instead of walking the short distance to the Red Lion? Renwick could guess the answer, and felt the better for it. Gilman would now be on the phone to Claudel. And Renwick wouldn’t be heading out on a train, as yet unknown, to some benighted part of the country without someone nearby as a backup. Of course, if Gilman’s first objections were true, then he could be trapped. A train, to quote the man on the phone, might be a good place for a serious talk, but it was also a useful place for throwing out a body.

Renwick stopped, hurried back to his office, unlocked its door. Quickly, he opened the filing cabinet, found his Biretta and its lightweight holster. Almost two years of marriage and the sweet life had turned him—what? Soft? Careless? Not altogether, he decided as he made sure the Biretta was loaded and slipped it into the holster, now under his tweed jacket. Cigarette case and lighter were in his pocket. All set. He left, using the rear staircase and avoiding the main-floor offices of J.P. Merriman & Co., whose full-time surveyors and practical engineering advice brought in, and legitimately, the profits that kept Interintell expanding.

It was raining hard.

Twelve minutes at a smart pace brought Renwick in good time to the lower end of Bridle Lane. It stretched northward for a hundred yards, even less, close-packed on either side by low-storied buildings, before it was obliterated by the blare and bustle of Fleet Street. Up there, as in all the main arteries this evening, the roadway would be jammed with traffic and bad tempers, the sidewalks filled with umbrellas and sodden raincoats. The calendar might say June; today’s onslaught of cold wind and rain made it feel like March. But there was no need to approach the Red Lion by an overcrowded highway; there were shortcuts if you knew this part of the city, a loose haphazard web of short and narrow streets that merged and separated and changed their names as unexpectedly as their direction. And Renwick knew this area.

Each day after lunch, usually a sandwich in his office, he seized half an hour for a couple of miles in various directions and got the tension of too much desk-sitting out of his shoulder muscles. This evening he could even take a brief detour once he left Merriman’s by its inconspicuous rear exit, and still have six minutes to spare when he reached the pint-sized square where Bridle Lane began. So he slowed his step, making note of everything around him: no one loitering, no one following—the footsteps behind him hurried on, drew ahead, passed into the lane, kept hurrying. The shops and businesses, all small-scale, were closed, and if people lived up above them, then this was a night to stay indoors. The café at the corner of the square had its usual enticing suggestions on the hand-printed card displayed in its window, chief among them “Hot Peas and Vinegar”. That possibly explained the empty taxi, desolate and abandoned, that had been parked in front of the café while its driver enjoyed some sausages and mash. But it also reminded Renwick that taxis were scarce on a wet evening like this, and he wondered how—in this place, at this time of day—he would find a cab to take him to Paddington. That was one detail forgotten, perhaps not even imagined, by the man who had telephoned with such precise instructions. It was a revealing omission. The man might know the name and location of the Red Lion, but he didn’t know this district. So how did he get the address? From someone who had met Renwick there? Someone who also had access to Renwick’s private number? If so, decided Renwick, that narrowed down the field: few of his contacts possessed both pieces of information, very few. In grim mood, he entered the Red Lion.

From the outside, it didn’t look particularly inviting: it could have used some paint and polish. If that was its method of discouraging tourists in their search for quaint old London pubs, it was highly successful. It had its own clientele, some regular, some—like Renwick—occasional. And that was another point to remember: his visits here had no fixed routine, formed no pattern. Even constant surveillance—and he hadn’t seen or sensed any such thing—wouldn’t have marked the Red Lion as a special meeting place. No, that information had come from someone who had been here with Renwick. A mole in our group, a real professional sent to infiltrate? Or someone greedy for money, or open to blackmail? Or just a blabbermouth, overflown with wine and insolence?

Renwick resisted a searching look around the long room, seemed to be paying all attention to shaking out his raincoat and the old, narrow-brimmed felt hat he kept for bad weather. As yet, the place was only half filled—it opened at five thirty— but that would soon be remedied, and the smell of tobacco smoke would be added to the smell of ale that impregnated the dark woodwork of walls and tables. Casually, he noted two groups of men standing near the bar—no high stools here, no chrome or neon lighting, either—and three more groups at the central tables. He chose a high-backed wooden booth, one of a row on the opposite side of the room from the stretch of highly polished counter, hung coat and hat on a nearby hook, and sat down to face the back of the room. It was from somewhere there that the man must come in order to pass this table on his way to the door. I’ll make sure of a good look at his face, Renwick thought as he ordered a beer and tried to look totally relaxed, but he felt a tightening in his diaphragm, an expectation of something unexpected, something over which he would have no control. Not a pleasant prospect.

Even before his beer was brought by a pink-cheeked, red-haired barmaid, the room was beginning to fill: journalists in tweeds, conservatively clothed civil servants interspersed with exactingly dressed barristers, music students in leather jackets, and business-men in three-piece suits. Renwick smoked a cigarette, seemed normally interested in the growing crowd, wondered if his man was in the group gathered around a dartboard at the far end of the bar.

“Sorry,” Ronald Gilman said, ridding himself of coat and umbrella, taking a seat opposite Renwick. “I’m late—this weather.” He smoothed down his hair, asked, “Seen any likely prospect?”

“No. But he’s here.” Renwick could feel he had been observed and studied for the last few minutes. “Where did you park your car?” Gilman hadn’t walked—his raincoat was dry, his umbrella rolled.

“I didn’t. Claudel dropped me at the door and then drove on.”

“Oh?”

Gilman only nodded and ordered a double whisky with water, no ice. “I’m more nervous than you are, Bob. You know, you needn’t follow this blighter out. If you have the least doubt—”

“Here’s someone now,” Renwick warned. The man didn’t pause to light a cigarette. “False alarm,” Renwick said with a small laugh.

“Have you managed to place his voice?”

“I’ve heard it before. I think. I could be wrong.” But a telephone did accentuate the characteristics of a voice—its tone, its inflections.

“Strange that he didn’t disguise it. Muffle it. He didn’t?”

“No. He wants to be identified, I guess. Hence the double play. There was no need to meet twice, first here and then at Paddington.” Another man, could be a student from the school of music near Magpie Alley, passed their table. This one was lighting a cigarette. But no red lighter.

“One meeting with proper signals would be enough,” Gilman agreed. “An odd bird. Perhaps—” He heard footsteps slowing down behind his left shoulder, barely turned his head to glimpse the man who was about to light a cigarette, went on speaking. “Perhaps this foul weather will be over before the Wimbledon finals.”

“Did you get tickets?” Renwick looked down at his watch. The man continued towards the door. A red lighter, a heavy signet ring... And a face that was deeply tanned, fine wrinkles at the side of the brown eyes glancing briefly in Renwick’s direction; hard features, thick black hair. His suit was well cut, fitted his broad shoulders, but its fabric was too light in weight for London. Passing through? Certainly the opaque plastic raincoat over one arm was easily packable.

Gilman, with a good view of the man’s departure, dropped his voice. “Straight spine, strong back, about six feet tall. Did you get a full view of his face?”

Renwick’s voice was now at a murmur, too. “His name is Moore. Albert, Alfred—no, Alvin Moore. He was one of the drivers at NATO—his second enlistment. First one was in Vietnam, saw a lot of action, good record. But in Belgium he got involved with a couple of sergeants who were caught selling stolen supplies to a dealer in Brussels—they drew seven years each. There was no real evidence against Moore. They used his car, that was all. He had a mania for automobiles and speeds of ninety miles an hour.” Renwick kept an eye on his watch.

“Did he drive for you?” That couldn’t have been very often. Renwick liked to drive himself.

“Occasionally—when I had a meeting and had to be in uniform. Staff car, driver, that kind of thing.”

“Then how did you remember him?”

“When he was brought up on charges, he needed me as a character witness.”

“And you appeared?”

“He was honest—as far as I knew. One time I carried a briefcase, some sealed folders, an armful of maps. I had a clip of dollars—emergency cash—in my trouser pocket. Belgian francs were in my wallet. The dollar bills slipped out. I didn’t notice, didn’t even remember where I had lost them. Corporal Moore was my driver that day. He returned the bills intact. Found them slipped down in the back seat of the car.”

“Did your testimony clear him?”

“Every little bit helps, doesn’t it? But he was transferred stateside, discharged. Joined something more to his taste—the Green Berets, I heard.” Renwick glanced at his watch once more. “That was about seven years ago.”

“He’s the type who needs action, I think.”

Renwick agreed. “His trouble at NATO was boredom.” Then his voice changed. “On the phone he addressed me as colonel. Just once. Yet I was a captain when he knew me.”

“Where did he get that information?” Gilman asked quickly. Renwick’s promotion had been kept very quiet indeed; he never used his rank, just as the others in the Interintell group didn’t use theirs. Civilians for the duration and the preservation of peace, it was to be hoped.

“That,” said Renwick, “needs finding out.” There were too many damned questions needing answers. His eyes left his watch. “Time to start trying. It’s five minutes to the second.” He rose, unhooked his coat and hat. In a voice back to a normal level, he said, “Sorry I have to leave. Be seeing you.”

“See you, old boy.” Gilman’s eyes were troubled, but he gave one of his rare smiles, warm and real. Just hope that Bob has been keeping up his karate sessions, he thought as he watched Renwick pull on his Burberry and jam his rain hat well down on his brow before he stepped out into the cold world of Bridle Lane.

***

For a moment, Renwick hesitated on the sidewalk. Walk to Fleet Street, try to find a cab there? Or would that taxi parked outside the café still be waiting? He started down Bridle Lane toward the square, then halted. Luck was with him: the driver had finished his sausages and mash, or was it hot peas and vinegar? The taxi was coming this way. He signalled, and it stopped. He opened the door. A man raised himself from the back seat, held out an arm covered with a thin raincoat. Renwick saw the business-like nose of a revolver just showing from under the coat’s folds. “Hop in. I’ll give you a lift,” said Alvin Moore.

Renwick got in. “Unnecessary,” he said, looking at the pistol. The driver hadn’t even noticed; he had had his instructions, for the cab started forward with not a minute lost. A red-necked man, well fed, too, he was only intent on entering Fleet Street and gauging the traffic flow. “And much too noisy,” Renwick went on, controlling his anger. Moore was looking back at Bridle Lane.

“Not so noisy.” Moore lifted the raincoat’s fold to show a silencer was attached. “And not unnecessary. What guarantee did I have that you wouldn’t use a gun to make me redirect the cabbie to your office?” He kept looking back.

“No one was there to follow us. As promised.” Renwick was watching the direction the taxi was taking. So far, it seemed normal—allowing for one-way streets. They were now out of Fleet Street, driving north and then swinging west. They could be heading for Paddington Station.