The End Game (30 page)

“Perhaps you would and perhaps you wouldn’t,” said Morgan. He had come in quietly through the unlatched French windows. He looked brown and thin, but seemed cheerful. “However, it doesn’t arise. Because you won’t be in any position to carry out your threats. And the people who might have carried them out for you won’t feel inclined to do so. Not once you’re inside.”

Blackett had not taken his eyes off David from the moment he had come into the room.

“It’s all right,” said David. “This
is
me. David Rhys Morgan, the great escaper. The original india rubber man. Now, if you’ve finished trying to frighten Susan—which I assure you is almost impossible—let me put you briefly in the picture. At eleven o’clock this morning your friend Trombo started writing out a statement. I’m told that it took him a full hour, but he had a lot of ground to cover. He was dealing with the disappearance of one Arnold, or Arnie, Wiseman.”

He stopped as if inviting comment.

“Nothing to say? I’m surprised, because, according to Trombo, you instigated the whole thing and have been paying him a regular fee ever since to keep his mouth shut. For other services, too, of course. But what may be news to you is this. Before they finished Arnie off, the boys got him to make a statement in writing, explaining just how he’d manoeuvred you into an awkward corner. One imagines he made the statement in the hope of saving his own life, but it didn’t do him a mite of good, because, before the ink was dry, he was strangled and buried in Epping Forest. The police have already located the remains and are happy they’ll be able to identify them by the dental work. Arnie’s statement, coupled with the papers which I handed over early this morning—damp, but still legible—give them the whole story and so, not to put too fine a point on it, you’re for the high jump.”

Blackett said, “They wouldn’t—they couldn’t—” and then seemed to lose the grasp of what he was going to say.

David said, “Don’t fool yourself. It’s open and shut. The charge will be conspiracy to murder. Your motive is established. The star prosecution witness will be the man who carried out your orders. The only doubt is how long you’ll get. The betting at the moment is seven or fifteen, with a slight shade of odds on seven, but I shouldn’t bank on it.”

David looked at his watch.

“Some visitors will be arriving shortly. The Chief Constable, Chief Superintendent Morrissey and one or two stalwart constables. They should be here in about ten minutes. You’ll have things to arrange before they cart you off, so we’ll be on our way.”

He walked across to the window. Susan followed him. Blackett said nothing. As they crossed the lawn, the motor mower swept past them. It was driven by a boy who looked as happy as if he was taking a racing car round Brands Hatch.

As the noise died across the wide space of the lawn, Susan said, “Will he—?”

“Kill himself?” said David. “Of course he will. That’s what he’s been given ten minutes to do. Save a lot of trouble.”

“But
will
he?”

“When it’s a matter of exchanging all this”—David indicated the house and garden asleep under the autumn sun—“for a ten-foot-by-six cell with a homosexual in the bunk underneath. Being shouted at by warders and bullied by the other prisoners. They like to have a gent to take it out of, I’m told. Slopping out every morning and jam twice a week if you’re good. Of course he will. I could see him making up his mind to do it before we were out of the room.”

“Would you mind—?” said Susan.

David looked at her in alarm and got an arm round her.

“Can you hold up for about twenty yards? The car’s behind that hedge over there.”

“I’ll be all right in a moment. Stupid of me. It’s just that I’m not quite as cold-blooded as you seem to think.”

“And when I’d been building you up as the original iron lady.”

He kept his arm round her until they reached the hedge. Harald was standing beside the car. David said, “Don’t do anything you might be sorry about afterwards.”

Harald said, “Why not?” and took a light step towards them. He looked like a boxer advancing into the ring.

“Two reasons,” said David. “First, because a car load of top coppers will be here in a few minutes. Second, because you’re needed up at the house. Badly needed.”

They heard the sound, distant but unmistakable, like, but not quite like, the slamming of a door.

Harald turned and started to run back towards the house.

“Section 54,” said Abel. “I’d more than a suspicion that it might be. It was about that time the Selangor Rubber Estate case was on, so naturally it would have been in Arnie’s mind. A company giving financial assistance for the purchase of its own shares. You follow me?”

“No way,” said Morrissey.

Abel was smoothing down the four stained and battered papers on the table in front of him with loving fingers.

“A company minute, appointing Arnie Wiseman a director of Argon. A service contract for Arnie, on pretty generous terms. A contract under which Arnie loans Blackett one hundred thousand pounds to be used in buying out Harry Woolf. And here”—Abel held up the document in triumph like a surgeon who has just fished out a difficult appendix—“is the key to the whole thing. A charge on all the assets of Blackbird to secure the loan. You appreciate that under Section 54—”

“No,” said Morrissey. “Don’t explain it. He’d done something he didn’t ought to have done. Right? So what was the penalty?”

“That’s just it. It’s the only section of the Act which carries criminal sanctions. If you commit a deliberate breach of Section 54 you can be sent to prison. Even if it only meant a heavy fine and a ticking off by the judge, it would have finished Blackett in the City.”

“And that gave Arnie a handle to squeeze him.”

“Certainly.”

“So Blackett got hold of his old acquaintance from Jap prison-camp days and said, ‘Throw a scare into Arnie.’ Instead of which Trombo first winkled a written statement out of him and then finished him off. Thus putting Blackett in
his
pocket.”

“All he’d done,” said Abel, “was change paymasters.”

“And now that Blackett’s dead, we’ve got Mr Trombo where we want him.”

Abel looked at him in some surprise. He said, “If you try to use that confession, won’t he say you got it out of him by promising him an indemnity?”

“Certainly.”

“Well, then—”

“No need to use his confession. He’s not going to be charged with killing Arnie Wiseman. The charge is the murder of Dennis Moule. We don’t need any confessions for that. We’ve got enough witnesses to prove it six times over.”

“But I thought you promised him—”

“People sometimes don’t listen careful enough to what’s being said to them. Particularly when they’re scared. The only promise I gave Trombo was that I’d give him an indemnity for any part he took in removing Wiseman. I didn’t say nothing about Moule.”

Abel took some time to think this out. Then he said, as though he had suddenly seen the light, “Then it
was
Trombo you were after all the time, not Blackett.”

“Wrong,” said Morrissey. “I was after both of ‘em.”

“Good God. David!” said Gerald Hopkirk. “What are you doing here?”

“Just dropped in to look up my old friends,” said David.

It was five o’clock, and the offices of Martindale, Mantegna and Lyon were beginning the business of closing down for the night.

“Nice to see you, anyway.”

“I hear Sam’s in trouble.”

“He’s not exactly in trouble. He’s up at Scotland Yard with his solicitor, protesting against their efforts to get their hands on Blackett’s private papers. He says that Blackett was never actually charged with anything, and suicide isn’t a crime, anyway.”

“If I was Sam, I wouldn’t bother,” said David. “Blackett’s dead. His empire’s disintegrating. He wasn’t a very worthy citizen.”

“I don’t know,” said Gerald. “Private enterprise and all that. England needs a few Blacketts, in my view. I didn’t know him well, of course, but he asked me down to his house last week, and I thought him nice enough. Did you ever meet him?”

“Once,” said David. “Very briefly. Come and have a drink. I’ve found a lovely little place, just off Cornhill.”

“Well—”

“Then we can go back and have dinner at my place. Susan was saying only this morning that she’d like to see you again.”

“You’re back with each other, then?”

“Certainly. Like I told you. These things never last long. After a bit we both realise what we’re missing. An armistice is declared. Until next time.”

“Well, then—”

“A celebration is called for. We’ll get Fred to come along, too. And look who’s here! Would you care to join us for a drink?”

Miss Crawley gave him a look of loathing and scuttled off.

“On the whole, just as well,” said David. “I have a feeling she wouldn’t have added to the gaiety of the occasion.”

Published by House of Stratus

After The Fine Weather When Laura Hart travels to Austria to visit her brother, vice-consul of Lienz in the Tyrol, she briefly meets an American who warns her of the mounting political tension. Neo-Nazis are stirring trouble in the province, and xenophobia is rife between the Austrians who control the area and the Italian locals. Then Laura experiences the troubles first-hand, a shocking incident that suggests Hofrat Humbold, leader of the Lienz government is using some heavy-handed tactics. Somewhat unsurprisingly, he is unwilling to let one little English girl destroy his plans for the largest Nazi move since the war, and Laura makes a dangerous enemy.