Flyaway / Windfall (29 page)

‘You’ll never make this stick,’ he said. ‘Not after forty-two years.’

‘I believe I will, and so do you, or you wouldn’t have been so bloody worried about Paul Billson. There’s no statute of limitations on murder, Jock.’

‘Stop calling me Jock,’ he said irritably.

‘You’re an old man,’ I said. ‘Eighty years old. You’re going to die soon. Tomorrow, next year, five years, ten—you’ll be as dead as Lash. But they don’t have capital punishment now, so you’ll probably die in a prison hospital. Unless…’

He was suddenly alert, scenting a bargain, a deal. ‘Unless what?’

‘What’s the use of putting you in jail? You wouldn’t live as luxuriously as you do now but you’d get by. They’re tender-minded about murderous old men these days, and that wouldn’t satisfy me, nor would it help the people you’ve cheated all these years.’

I put my hand into my pocket, drew out a calculator, punched a few keys, then wrote the figure on a piece of paper. It made a nice sum if not a round one—£1,714,425.68. I tossed it across to him. ‘That’s a hundred thousand compounded at a nominal seven per cent for forty-two years.’

I said, ‘Even if Scotland Yard or the Director of Public Prosecutions take no action the newspapers would love it. The Insight team of the
Sunday Times
would make a meal of it. Think of all the juicy bits—Lady Brinton dying of cancer in virtual poverty while her husband lived high on the hog. Your name would stink, even in the City where they have strong stomachs. Do you think any decent or even any moderately indecent man would have anything to do with you after that?’

I stuck my finger under his nose. ‘And another thing—Paul Billson knows nothing about this. But I can prime him with it and point him at you like a gun. He’d kill you—you wouldn’t stand a flaming chance. You’d better get out your cheque book.’

He flinched but made a last try. ‘This figure is impossible. You don’t suppose I’m as fluid as all that?’

‘Don’t try to con me, you old bastard,’ I said. ‘Any bank in the City will lend you that amount if you just pick up the telephone and ask. Do it!’

He stood up. ‘You’re a hard man.’

‘I’ve had a good teacher. You make out two cheques; one to the Peter Billson Memorial Trust for a million and a half. The rest to me—that’s my twelve-and-a-half per cent commission. Expenses have been high. And I get Gloria’s
shares, and you sell out of Stafford Security. I don’t care who you sell your shares to but it mustn’t be Charlie Malleson.’

‘How do I know you won’t renege? I want all the papers you have.’

‘Not a chance in hell! Those are my insurance policies. I wouldn’t want another Lash turning up in my life.’

He sat down and wrote the cheques.

I walked the streets of London for a long time that afternoon with cheques in my pocket for more money than I had ever carried. Alix Aarvik and Paul Billson would now be all right for the rest of their lives. I had put the money into a trust because I didn’t want Paul getting his hands on it—he didn’t deserve that. But the not-too-bright son of a not-too-bright mother would be looked after.

As for me, I thought 12
¹
/
₂
% was a reasonable fee. It would enable me to buy out Charlie Malleson, a regret-table necessity because I could no longer work with him. Jack Ellis would continue to be a high flier and he’d get his stake in the firm, and we’d hire an accountant and pay him well. And Byrne would get something unexpectedly higher than the ridiculous fee he’d asked for saving lives and being shot at.

At the thought of Byrne I stopped suddenly and looked about me. I was in Piccadilly, at the Circus, and the lights and crowds were all about me in the evening dusk. And it all seemed unreal. This, the heart of the city at the heart of the world, wasn’t reality. Reality lay in Ataker, in Koudia, in the Aïr, in the Ténéré, on the Tassili.

I felt an awful sense of loss. I wanted to be with Byrne and Mokhtar and Hamiada, with the cheerful man who, because his name used to be Konti, was a murderer. I wanted to say hello again to the giraffe in Agadez, to sit
beside a small fire at an evening camp and look at the stars, to feel again the freedom of a Targui.

I stopped and pondered, there among the hurrying crowds of Londoners, and decided to give Byrne his fee in person. Besides, it would also give me the opportunity of swapping dirty limericks with Hesther Raulier.

To J
AN
H
EMSING
and an unknown number of Kenyan cats

It is difficult to know when this business began. Certainly it was not with Ben Hardin. But possibly it began when Jomo Kenyatta instructed the Kenyan delegation to the United Nations to lead a move to expel South Africa from the UN. That was on the 25th of October, 1974, and it was probably soon thereafter that the South Africans decided they had to do something about it.

Max Stafford himself dated his involvement to the first day back at the London office after an exhaustive, and exhausting, trip around Europe—Paris, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Milan. Three years earlier he had decided that since his clients were multinational he, perforce, would also have to go multinational. It had been a hard slog setting up the European offices but now Stafford Security Consultants, as well as sporting the tag ‘Ltd’ after the company name, had added ‘SA’, ‘GmbH’, ‘SpA’ and a couple of other assortments of initials. Stafford was now looking with a speculative eye across the Atlantic in the hope of adding ‘Inc’.

He paused in the ante-room of his office. ‘Is Mr Ellis around?’

Joyce, his secretary, said, ‘I saw him five minutes ago. Did you have a good trip?’

‘Wearing, but good.’ He put a small package on her desk. ‘Your favourite man-bait from Paris; Canal
something-or-other. I’ll be in Mr Ellis’s office until further notice.’

Joyce squeaked. ‘Thanks, Mr Stafford.’

Jack Ellis ran the United Kingdom operation. He was young, but coming along nicely, and ran a taut ship. Stafford had promoted him to the position when he had made the decision to move into Europe. It had been risky using so young a man in a top post where he would have to negotiate with some of the stuffier and elderly Chairmen of companies, but it had worked out and Stafford had never regretted it.

They talked for a while about the European trip and then Ellis looked at his watch. ‘Bernstein will be here any minute.’ He gestured to a side table on which lay several fat files. ‘Have you read the reports?’

Stafford grimaced. ‘Not in detail.’ Having determined to expand he had gone the whole hog and commissioned an independent company to do a world-wide investigation into possibilities. It was costing a lot but he thought it would be worthwhile in the long run. However, he liked to deal with people rather than paper and he wanted to match the man against the words he had written. He said, ‘We’ll go over it once lightly with Bernstein.’

Two hours later he was satisfied. Bernstein, an American, was acute and sensible; he had both feet firmly planted on the ground and was not a man to indulge in impossible blue sky speculation. Stafford thought he could trust his written reports.

Bernstein tossed a file aside. ‘So much for Australasia. Now we come to Africa.’ He picked up another file. ‘The problem in general with Africa is political instability.’

Stafford said, ‘Stick to the English-speaking countries. We’re not ready to go into francophone Africa.’ He paused. ‘Not yet.’

Bernstein nodded. ‘That means the ex-British colonies. South Africa, of course, is the big one.’ They discussed
South Africa for some time and Bernstein made some interesting suggestions. Then he said, ‘Next is Zimbabwe. It’s just attained independence with a black government. Nobody knows which way it’s going to go right now and I wouldn’t recommend it for you. Tanzania is out; the country is virtually bankrupt and there’s no free enterprise. The same goes for Uganda. Now, Kenya is different.’

‘How?’ asked Ellis.

Bernstein turned several pages. ‘It has a mixed economy, very much like Britain. The government is moderate and there is less corruption than is usual in Africa. The Western banks think highly of Kenya and there’s a lot of money going into the country to build up the infrastructure—modernization of the road system, for instance.’ He looked up. ‘Of course, you’d have competition—Securicor is already established there.’

Securicor was Stafford’s biggest competitor in Britain. He smiled and said, ‘I can get along with that.’ Then he frowned. ‘But is Kenya really stable? What about that Mau—Mau business some years ago?’

‘That was quite a while ago,’ said Bernstein. ‘When the British were still there. Anyway, there are a lot of misconceptions about the Mau-Mau insurrection. It was blown up in the Western press as a rebellion against the British and even the black Kenyans have done some rewriting of history because they like to think of that period as when they got rid of the British oppressor. The fact remains that in the seven years of the Mau-Mau rebellion only thirty-eight whites were killed. If it was a rebellion against the British it was goddamn inefficient.’

‘You surprise me,’ said Ellis. ‘Then what was it all about?’

Bernstein tented his fingers. ‘Everyone knew the British would be giving up jurisdiction over Kenya—the tide of history was running against the British Empire.
The Mau-Mau insurrection was a private fight among black Kenyans, mainly along tribal lines, to figure out who’d be on top when the British abdicated. A lot of people died and the few whites were killed mainly because they happened to be caught in the middle—in the wrong place at the wrong time. When it was all over, the British knew who was going to hold the reins of government. Jomo Kenyatta was intelligent, educated and had all the qualifications to be the leader of a country, including the prime qualification.’

‘What was that?’ asked Ellis.

Bernstein smiled. ‘He’d served time in a British jail,’ he said dryly. ‘Kenyatta proved to be surprisingly moderate. He didn’t go hog-wild like some of the other African leaders. He encouraged the whites to stay because he knew he needed their skills, and he built up the trade of the country. A while ago there was considerable speculation as to what would happen when he died. People expected another civil war on the lines of the Mau-Mau but, surprisingly, the transition was orderly in the democratic manner and Moi became President. Tribalism is officially discouraged and, yes, I’d say Kenya is a stable country.’ He flicked the pages he held. ‘It’s all here in detail.’

‘All right,’ said Stafford. ‘What’s next?’

‘Now we turn to Nigeria.’

The discussion continued for another hour and then Stafford checked the time. ‘We’ll have to call a halt now. I have a luncheon appointment.’ He looked with some distaste at the foot-thick stack of papers on the desk. ‘It’ll take some time to get through that lot. Thanks for your help, Mr Bernstein; you’ve been very efficient.’

‘Anything you can’t figure out, come right back at me,’ said Bernstein.

‘I think we’ll give Africa a miss,’ said Stafford thoughtfully. ‘My inclination is to set up in the States and then,
perhaps, in Australia. But I’m lunching with a South African. Perhaps he’ll change my mind.’

Stafford’s appointment was with Alix and Dirk Hendriks. He had met Alix a few years earlier when she had been Alix Aarvik, the daughter of an English mother and a Norwegian father who had been killed during the war. It was in the course of a professional investigation and, one thing leading to another, he had gone to North Africa to return to Britain with a bullet wound in the shoulder and a sizeable fortune for Alix Aarvik. His divorce was ratified about that time and he had contemplated marrying Alix, but there was not that spark between them and he had not pursued the idea although they remained good friends.

Since then she had married Dirk Hendriks. Stafford did not think a great deal of Hendriks. He distrusted the super—ficial veneer of charm and suspected that Hendriks had married Alix for her money. Certainly Hendriks did not appear to be gainfully employed. Still, Stafford was honest enough to admit to himself that his dislike of Hendriks might be motivated by an all-too-human dog in the manger attitude. Alix was expecting a baby.

Over lunch Alix complained that she did not see enough of him. ‘You suddenly dropped out of my life.’

‘For men must work,’ said Stafford lightly, not worrying too much that his remark was a direct dig at Dirk Hendriks. ‘I’ve been scurrying around Europe, making the fortunes of a couple of airlines.’

‘Still intent on expansion, I see.’

‘As long as people have secrets to protect there’ll be work for people like me. I’m thinking of moving into the States.’ He leaned back to let a waiter remove a plate. ‘A chap this morning recommended that we expand our activities into South Africa. What do you think about that, Dirk?’

Hendriks laughed. ‘Plenty of secrets in South Africa. It’s not a bad idea.’

Stafford shook his head. ‘I’ve decided to keep out of Africa altogether. There’s plenty of scope in other directions and the Dark Continent doesn’t appeal to me.’

He was to remember that remark with bitterness in the not too distant future.

Three thousand miles away Ben Hardin knew nothing about Max Stafford and Kenya was the last thing on his mind. And he was in total ignorance of the fact that, in more senses than one, he was the man in the middle. True, he had been in Kenya back in 1974, but it was in another job and in quite a different connection. Yet he was the unwitting key which unlocked the door to reveal the whole damn mess.

It was one of those hot, sticky days in late July when New York fries. Hardin had taken time off to visit his favourite bar to sink a couple of welcome cold beers and, when he got back to the office, Jack Richardson at the next desk said, ‘Gunnarsson has been asking for you.’

‘Oh; what does he want?’

Richardson shrugged. ‘He didn’t say.’

Hardin paused in the act of taking off his jacket and put it back on. ‘When does he want to see me?’

‘Yesterday,’ said Richardson dryly. ‘He sounded mad.’

‘Then I guess I’d better see the old bastard,’ said Hardin sourly.

Gunnarsson greeted him with, ‘Where the hell have you been?’

‘Checking a contact on the Myerson case,’ said Hardin inventively, making a mental note to record the visit in the Myerson file. Gunnarsson sometimes checked back.

Gunnarsson put his hands flat on the desk and glowered at him. He was a burly, square man who looked as though he had been hacked out of a block of granite and in spite of the heat he wore his coat. Rumour had it that Gunnarsson lacked sweat glands. He said, ‘You can forget that, Ben; I’m taking you off the case. I have something else for you.’

‘Okay,’ said Hardin.

Gunnarsson tossed a thin file across the desk. ‘Let’s get this straight. You clear this one and you get a bonus. You crap on it and you get canned. We’ve been carrying you long enough.’

Hardin looked at him levelly. ‘You make yourself clear. How important is this one?’

Gunnarsson flapped his hand. ‘I wouldn’t know. A Limey lawyer wants an answer. You’re to find out what happened to a South African called Adriaan Hendriks who came to the States some time in the 1930s. Find out all about him, especially whether he married and had kids. Find them too.’

‘That’s going to take some legwork,’ said Hardin thoughtfully. ‘Who can I use?’

‘No one; you use your own damn legs.’ Gunnarsson was blunt, if you can’t clear us a pisswilly job like this then I’ll know you’re no use to Gunnarsson Associates. Now you’ll do it this way. You take your car and you go on the road and you find what happened to this guy. And you do it yourself. If you have to leave New York I don’t want you going near any of the regional offices.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because that’s the way I want it. And I’m the boss. Now get going.’

So Hardin went away and, as he laid the file on his desk, he thought glumly that he had just received an ultimatum. He sat down, opened the file, and found the reason for its lack of bulk. It contained a single sheet of computer print-out which told him nothing that Gunnarsson had not already told him; that a man called Adriaan Hendriks was
believed to have entered the United States in the late thirties. The port of entry was not even recorded.

‘Jesus wept!’ said Hardin.

Ben Hardin wished, for perhaps the thousandth time, or it could have been the ten thousandth, that he was in another line of work. Every morning when he woke up in whatever crummy motel room it happened to be it was the thought that came into his mind: ‘I wish I was doing something else.’ And that was followed by the automatic: ‘Goddamn that bastard, Gunnarsson,’ and by the equally automatic first cigarette of the day which made him cough.

And every morning when he was confronted by breakfast, invariably the junk food of the interstate highways, the same thought came into his mind. And when he knocked on a door, any door, to ask the questions, the thought was fleetingly at the back of his mind. As with the Frenchman who said that everything reminded him of sex so everything reminded Hardin of the cruel condition of his life, and it had made him an irritable and cynical man.

On the occasion of the latest reiteration of his wish he was beset by water. The rain poured from the sky, not in drops but in a steady sheet. It swirled along the gutters a foot or more deep because the drains were unable to cope, and Hardin had the impression that his car was in imminent danger of being swept away. Trapped in the metal box of the car he could only wait until the downpour ceased. He was certainly not going to get out because he would be soaked to the skin and damn near drowned in ten seconds flat.

And this was happening in California—in Los Angeles, the City of the Angels. No more angels, he thought; the birds will all have drowned. He visualized a crowd of angels sitting on a dark cloud, their wings bedraggled, and managed a tired grin. They said that what California did today New York would do tomorrow. If that was true someone in
New York should be building a goddamn Ark. He wondered if there was a Mr Noah in the New York telephone book.

While he waited he looked back on the last few weeks. The first and obvious step had been to check with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. He found that the 1930s had been a lean decade for immigrants—there were a mere 528,431 fortunate people admitted into the country. McDowell, the immigration officer he checked with, observed dryly that Hardin was lucky—in the 1920s the crop had been over four million. Hardin doubted his luck.

‘South Africa,’ said McDowell. ‘That won’t be too bad. Not many South Africans emigrate.’

A check through the files proved him right—but there was no one called Adriaan Hendriks.

‘They change their names,’ said McDowell some time later. ‘Sometimes to Americanize the spelling. There’s a guy here called Adrian Hendrix…’ He spelled it out. ‘Would that be the guy you want? He entered the country in New Orleans.’

‘That’s my man,’ said Hardin with satisfaction.

The search so far had taken two weeks.

Further searches revealed that Hendrix had taken out naturalization papers eight years later in Clarksville, Tennessee. More to the point he had married there. Establishing these simple facts took another three weeks and a fair amount of mileage.

Adrian Hendrix had married the daughter of a grain and feed merchant and seemed in a fair way to prosper had it not been for his one fault. On the death of his father-in-law in 1950 he proceeded to drink away the profits of the business he had inherited and died therefrom but not before he sired a son, Henry Hendrix.

Hardin looked at his notebook bleakly. The substitution of the son for the father had not made his task any easier.
He had reported to Gunnarsson only to be told abruptly to find young Hendrix and to stop belly-aching, and there followed further weeks of searching because Henry Hendrix had become a drop-out—an undocumented man—after leaving high school, but a combination of legwork, persistence and luck had brought Hardin to the San Fernando Valley in California where he was marooned in his car.

It was nearly three-quarters of an hour before the rain eased off and he decided to take a chance and get out. He swore as he put his foot into six inches of water and then squelched across the street towards the neat white house. He sheltered on the porch, shaking the wetness from his coat, then pressed the bell and heard chimes.

Presently the door opened cautiously, held by a chain, and an eye and a nose appeared at the narrow opening. ‘I’m looking for Henry Hendrix,’ Hardin said, and flipped open a notebook. ‘I’m told he lives here.’

‘No one by that name here.’ The door began to close.

Hardin said quickly, ‘This
is
82, Thorndale?’

‘Yeah, but my name’s Parker. No one called Hendrix here.’

‘How long have you lived here, Mr Parker?’

‘Who wants to know?’

‘I’m sorry.’ Hardin extracted a card from his wallet and poked it at the three-inch crack in the doorway. ‘My name is Hardin.’

The card was taken in two fingers and vanished. Parker said, ‘Gunnarsson Associates. You a private dick?’

‘I guess you could call me that,’ said Hardin tiredly.

‘This Hendrix in trouble?’

‘Not that I know of, Mr Parker. Could be the other way round, from what I hear. Could be good news for Hendrix.’

‘Well, I’ll tell you,’ said Parker. ‘We’ve lived here eight months.’

‘Who did you buy the house from?’

‘Didn’t buy,’ said Parker. ‘We rent. The owner’s an old biddy who lives in Pasadena.’

‘And you don’t know the name of the previous tenant? He left no forwarding address?’ There was not much hope in Hardin’s voice.

‘Nope.’ Parker paused. ‘Course, my wife might know. She did all the renting business.’

‘Would it be possible to ask her?’

‘I guess so. Wait a minute.’ The door closed leaving Hardin looking at a peeling wooden panel. He heard a murmur of voices from inside the house and presently the door opened again and a woman peered at him then disappeared. He heard her say, ‘Take the chain off the door, Pete.’

‘Hell, Milly; you know what they told us about LA.’

‘Take the chain off,’ said Milly firmly. ‘What kind of a life is it living behind bolts and bars?’

The door closed, there was a rattle, and then it opened wide. ‘Come on in,’ said Mrs Parker. ‘It ain’t fit for a dog being out today.’

Thankfully Hardin stepped over the threshold. Parker was a burly man of about forty-five with a closed, tight face, but Milly Parker smiled at Hardin. ‘You want to know about the Hendersons, Mr Hardin?’

Hardin repressed the sinking feeling. ‘Hendrix, Mrs Parker.’

‘Could have sworn it was Henderson. But come into the living room and sit down.’

Hardin shook his head. ‘I’m wet; don’t want to mess up your furniture. Besides, I won’t take up too much of your time. You think the previous tenant was called Henderson?’

‘That’s what I thought. I could have been wrong.’ She laughed merrily, ‘I often am.’

‘Was there a forwarding address?’

‘I guess so; there was a piece of paper,’ she said vaguely. ‘I’ll look in the bureau.’ She went away.

Hardin looked at Parker and tried to make light conversation. ‘Get this kind of weather often?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ said Parker briefly. ‘Haven’t been here long.’

Hardin heard drawers open in the next room and there was the rustle of papers. ‘The way I hear it this is supposed to be the Sunshine State. Or is that Florida?’

Parker grunted. ‘Rains both places; but you wouldn’t know to hear the Chambers of Commerce tell it.’

Mrs Parker came back. ‘Can’t find it,’ she announced, ‘It was just a little bitty piece of paper.’ She frowned. ‘Seems I recollect an address. I know it was off Ventura Boulevard; perhaps in Sherman Oaks or, maybe, Encino.’

Hardin winced; Ventura Boulevard was a hundred miles long. Parker said abruptly, ‘Didn’t you give the paper to that other guy?’

‘What other guy?’ asked Hardin.

‘Why, yes; I think I did,’ said Mrs Parker. ‘Now I think of it. A nice young man. He was looking for Henderson, too.’

Hardin sighed. ‘Hendrix,’ he said. ‘Who was this young man?’

‘Didn’t bother to ask,’ said Parker. ‘But he was a foreigner—not American. He had a funny accent like I’ve never heard before.’

Hardin questioned them further but got nothing more, then said, ‘Well, could I have the address of the owner of the house. She might know.’ He got the address and also the address of the local realtor who had negotiated the rental. He looked at his watch and found it was late. ‘Looks like the day’s shot. Know of a good motel around here?’

‘Why, yes,’ she said. ‘Go south until you hit Riverside, then turn west. There are a couple along there before you hit the turning to Laurel Canyon.’

He thanked them and left, hearing the door slam behind him and the rattle of the chain. It was still raining; not so
hard as before but still enough to drench him before he reached the shelter of his car. He was wet and gloomy as he drove away.

His motel room was standard issue and dry. He took off his wet suit and hung it over the bath, regarded it critically, and decided it needed pressing. He wondered if Gunnarsson would stand for that on the expense account. Then he took off his shirt, hung it next to the suit, and padded into the bedroom in his underwear. He sat at the table, opened his briefcase, and took out a sheaf of papers which he spread out and regarded dispiritedly. His shoulders sagged and he looked exactly what he was—a failure. A man pushing fifty-five-with a pot belly, his once muscular body now running to fat, his brains turning to mush, and the damned dandruff was making his hair fall out. Every time he looked at his comb he was disgusted.

Ben Hardin once had such high hopes. He had majored in languages at the University of Illinois and when he had been approached by the recruiter he had been flattered. Although the approach had been subtle he was not fooled; the campus was rife with rumours about the recruiters and everyone knew what they were recruiting for. And so he had fallen for the flattery and responded to the appeals to his patriotism because this was the height of the Cold War and everyone knew the Reds were the enemy.

So they had taken him and taught him to shoot—handgun, rifle, machine-gun—taught him unarmed combat, how to hold his liquor and how to make others drunk. They told him of drops and cut-outs, of codes and cyphers, how to operate a radio and many other more esoteric things. Then he had reported to Langley as a fully fledged member of the CIA only to be told bluntly that he knew nothing and was the lowest of the low on the totem pole.

In the years that followed he gained in experience. He worked in Australia, England, Germany and East Africa. Sometimes he found himself working inside his own country which he found strange because the continental United States was supposed to be the stamping ground of the FBI and off-limits to the CIA. But he obeyed orders and did what he was told and eventually found that more than half his work was in the United States.

Then came Watergate and everything broke loose. The Company sprang more holes than a sieve and everyone rushed to plug up the leaks, but there seemed to be more informers than loyal Company men. Newspaper pages looked like extracts from the CIA files, and the shit began to fly. There were violent upheavals as the top brass defended themselves against the politicians, director followed director, each one publicly dedicated to cleaning house, and heads duly rolled, Hardin’s among them.