Ring of Terror (25 page)

Joe thanked her, presented her with a packet of shag tobacco which he kept for such purposes and followed the line she had indicated, across the recreation ground and out into Gooseley Lane.

Here he was at a loss. There were modest two- and three-storey houses on both sides of the lane, with nothing to choose between them. If it was indeed Weil, and Nancy’s graphic description of him suggested the possibility, he might have been visiting any of the houses in the lane, or taking one of the turnings off it. The two on the right led out on to the marsh. Could he have been making for Gallions Cottages or the soap factory?

Here Joe’s inborn sense of direction came to his aid. If Weil had been making for either of those places he would have gone south when leaving the Collingwood Arms, not east. A sound, if unhelpful, conclusion.

At this point fate dealt him a card off the bottom of the pack.

The lights had been lit in the ground-floor front room of the house immediately on his left and when the owner came across to draw the curtains Joe recognised him. Luke had shown him the excellent photographs, front view and side view, which Carter Farnsworth had taken up in Newcastle months before. Now he was looking at the man himself.

Janis Silistreau, also known as Ivan Morrowitz.

Joe was under no delusions as to the value of his find. He was also sensible enough to realise that there was no step more important than to let Wensley know about it, and that as soon as possible.

He considered telephoning, but decided that a personal report was preferable. It was a choice between Leman Street and Poplar. Wensley had had a camp bed installed in both places and his wife and his two teenage sons had seen little of him during the fraught and overcrowded month just past. No helpful boy with a cart turning up, he had to rely on public transport. One tram would take him down the Barking Road to Canning Town station, and a second one along the Commercial Road to Leman Street. As he trundled along, at a regulation pace with frequent stops, he thought enviously of his seniors and the motor transport which was becoming increasingly available to them.

Leman Street police station was the second building in that street, separated from its left-hand neighbour by a narrow passage serving the back doors of both buildings. Being dark as well as narrow, the passage was a favourite place in summer for courting couples, and Joe as he went past caught a glimpse of what looked like a closely-interlocked pair. Since they broke apart abruptly it seemed that they must have noticed and resented Joe’s inspection of them.

Bit cold and damp for back-yard courting, he thought, as he pushed open the door of the police station. This led directly to the charge room.

He was surprised to find it empty.

He had left the street door open and he heard the sound of two pairs of footsteps on the pavement, followed by a pause. Moving across to the door he was in time to identify the couple whose romance his arrival had interrupted.

The man was Sergeant Gorman. The girl was Anna Katz. Stupid little bint. Couldn’t think what Luke saw in her. He caught a glimpse of her white and frightened face as she took a last look over her shoulder before disappearing round the corner, into the turmoil of the Whitechapel Road.

By this time Sergeant Gorman was back behind his desk. He looked aggrieved.

‘Sorry to interrupt love’s young dream,’ said Joe, ‘but wasn’t it a bit rash – just as a suggestion, in times like these – leaving the station empty?’

‘What I suggest,’ said the sergeant heavily, ‘is that you members of the soft-shoe brigade mind your own bloody business.’

On the word ‘business’ the world fell apart in one roaring, blinding, deafening blast, as the heavy charge of dynamite in the next room tore the building apart.

It was echoed by a clap of thunder as the storm which had been rolling up from the North Sea burst over East London and the rain came down in a solid sheet.

Luke had supped in one of the many City coffee houses, grateful for a blazing fire and for an opportunity to take the weight off his feet. On his way home he had been deceived, as were many people, by the double explosion.

He had sheltered from the immediate downpour in a doorway. It was only when he noticed that most people were going in the opposite direction to him, all hurrying, some actually running, that he realised something had happened.

He managed to stop one of the hurriers, listened to an incoherent account – explosion—bloody Russians—Leman Street – and turned about and ran, faster than any of them. By the time he got there the rescue team was already at work, the water sluicing off their black rubber coats. One benefit the storm had produced, it had killed any fire which might have followed the explosion.

The blast had brought down the outer wall of the police station and had filled the street with a carpet of brick and broken glass. Luke, picking his way over it, managed to secure the attention of one of the rescue team. When he understood who Luke was, he allowed him through what had once been a door and was now a jagged gap in the wall, into the charge room.

The man indicated an inner wall, which had almost ceased to exist and said, ‘We think the stuff was in there.’

‘Dynamite?’

‘Must have been. Very strong blast. Took out everything above it.’ Luke could see clean up to the roof, where the rain was dribbling through a hole. ‘It’s thrown a heap of stuff into the street. Injured three people who were passing by. One of them badly. The side blast, into this room, picked up the desk sergeant – don’t know his name – crushed him against the wall and put his desk on top of him.’

‘Sergeant Gorman,’ said Luke. ‘Did it kill him?’

‘He was alive when we picked the bits of the desk off him. Died before we could get him into the ambulance. The other one was luckier – well, a bit luckier.’

‘The other one?’

‘Young detective. Name of Narrowbone. Something like that. I said he was lucky. The explosion sent the door of that inner room right across this one. Must have come like a shell out of a gun. Knocked the youngster flat, but fell across him. That saved him from the really dangerous stuff – lumps of brick that were coming down all round him.’

‘Which hospital?’ said Luke urgently.

‘Stepney. That’s where most of the casualties—’

But Luke had gone.

As the storm passed the rain had eased, but the streets through which Luke ran were empty. He could visualise men and women huddled in their houses, cowed by the double assault from the Almighty and from the enemy. And Joe? The man had said that he had been a bit luckier. What did he mean by that?

At the hospital the grey-haired doctor, who had been talking to the rescuers, was sympathetic. ‘Friend of yours, was he? Oh, a colleague. Well, you’ll be glad to hear that he’s not on the danger list.’

‘Then could I possibly have a word with him?’

‘Out of the question. He’s already been anaesthetised and prepared for the operation.’

‘Operation?’

‘I’m afraid we had no option. That door that fell on him protected most of his body, but part of his left leg must have been outside it. It was crushed so badly by the stuff that fell on it that it will have to come off.’

Seeing Luke’s face he added, ‘Only below the knee.’

‘Only below the knee,’ repeated Luke blankly.

Joe on crutches. Joe, whose pride had been his strength and his ability.

‘Might have been worse,’ said the doctor. ‘A lot worse, when you think that a man a few feet away from him was killed. And I assure you – speaking from cases I’ve dealt with myself – that the days of sailors stumping round on a peg leg are long past. The artificial limbs they make nowadays are excellent. We’ll fit him out with one of the latest types and he’ll soon be hopping round like a sparrow.’

But not in the police, thought Luke. There was nothing more to be said and he was about to go when the doctor stopped him.

‘You wouldn’t be Luke Pagan, by any chance?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I’ve got a message for you. Two messages in fact. I didn’t understand them, but I expect you will. He said we were to tell you that Bill Trotter had got the papers. The second was something he said later. He was getting very shaky by then and wasn’t easy to hear. It sounded like, “It was Anna who got the sergeant to leave the charge room empty.”’

‘Yes. I understand that, too,’ said Luke. He scribbled his address on a piece of paper. ‘Please let me know as soon as I can see him. And when he comes round, tell him I’ll deal with the papers – and the other thing.’

The doctor promised to pass those messages as soon as his patient was able to appreciate them. Luke walked home slowly, with his thoughts.

He neither noted nor worried about the fact that he was under observation from the moment he crossed the East India Dock Road. If he had had a thought to spare for it he might have realised that as soon as Wensley shifted his headquarters from Leman Street to Poplar, the network of eyes would have moved south.

When he got back he found Bill Trotter waiting for him. He said, ‘I’m terribly sorry.’ For a moment Luke thought he was talking about Joe, who had been, he knew, a close friend. But apparently it was something else. ‘He looked all right. I mean, he could have been off one of the ships. Something like that.’

‘Who
could have been?’

‘Why, the man you sent round with a message. At least, that was what he said. He was to wait till you got back. I never thought—well, come up and take a dekko.’

The room looked as though a small typhoon had been through it. Things were scattered everywhere. Bedclothes on the floor; both mattresses ripped up; chairs upended and their cushion seats sliced across. All the cupboard doors were hanging open and where these had contained suits the pockets had been turned inside out and the jackets and trousers added to the pile on the floor.

Luke stared at the chaos. In the light of what had happened to Joe, it registered only as a minor irritation. He said, ‘We’d better tidy things up a bit.’

‘I’m reckoned to be a good hand with a needle,’ said Bill. ‘I’ll soon tack up those mattresses and cushions.’

‘That would be kind of you.’

By the time Bill came back a semblance of order had been restored. Bill, seating himself cross-legged like a professional tailor, set about repairing the rents in the mattresses. Whilst he was doing so, Luke told him about Joe.

Bill paused for a moment, said, ‘That’s bad,’ and went on with his work. After a moment he added, ‘He once did me a good turn. Did he tell you?’

‘Yes, he told me.’

A further interval of silence. Then, ‘That man who made all this mess. Was he a Russian?’

‘I guess he must have been.’

‘Didn’t sound like one. More like a squarehead. Do you know what he was looking for?’

‘Yes. He was looking for a packet of papers. The ones Joe asked you to look after.’

‘I thought it must be that. Get them now if you like.’

‘No hurry,’ said Luke. ‘Please finish what you’re doing. You’re making an excellent job of it.’

The papers had seemed important once. Now they were nothing more than a routine job. Something to keep his mind off what had happened. Useful because he didn’t think he’d sleep much that night.

As midnight was sounding he was sitting on his bed in the restored and tidied room, trying to make out what it was in Jacob Katz’s desk that had caused such violent reactions.

First he had had to put the papers into some sort of order. Into one pile went the public notices of Russian and other
émigré
events. Into another, the miscellaneous jobs that Jacob had undertaken for other people. Notices of private functions, menus, raffle tickets, fixture lists for local football clubs. When these had been put on one side a more interesting residue remained.

First, there was a list of supposed supporters of the terrorists – some of them surprised Luke considerably. Finally, and he had left them to the last on purpose, there were four double sheets of paper clipped together.

The first two, when spread out, appeared to be a draft of the opening pages of a passport. The main headings – Number of Passport; Name of Bearer; National Status – were in what Luke assumed to be Danish, a language of which he was almost entirely ignorant, but were duplicated, fortunately, in French.

Under
‘Nom de Titulaire’
he noted, with growing excitement,
‘Harald Knud Eberhardt. Profession: Officier d’Artillerie’.
In the other,
‘Hartvig Kildebond. Professeur de I’Université d’Arhus’.
It was clear that these papers had been in front of Jacob Katz whilst he was printing the relevant pages in the forged passports which had allowed Katakin and Heilman to slip out of the country.

Why in the world had he kept them? Stupidity, forgetfulness, or some long-range idea of bargaining with his employers, who would hate to see them coming to light. Whatever the reason, their production would put Jacob behind bars for a long time. He felt no compunction about this. His views on the Katz family had been blown sky-high by the explosion at Leman Street and had come down in twisted and hateful fragments.

The second pair were even more interesting. They followed the same lines as the first pair, but in this case the headings were in Polish, of which Luke had picked up a fair smattering from his Russian tutor, and the duplicate entries were in German.

The holders of these passports, Adam Fredro Krasiki and Juliusz Korgenewski, were both in the Church. Krasiki a priest,
‘Geistliche’,
Korgenewski an abbot,
‘Abate’.
In both cases the national status was given as Polish. The place of birth in one case was Lodz, in the other, Poznan. From the dates of birth it seemed that both were in their early middle age.

Luke looked at the second pair of documents, while the minutes of the long night ticked away. Clearly the vital question was whether they related to something which had already taken place – Peter the Painter and Max Smoller? – or whether they had been prepared against future contingencies.

Both before and after the Houndsditch and Sidney Street outrages, quite a few wanted Russians, Letts and other Eastern Europeans had vanished from the country. It had been so easy. A mask of soot over the face, a trip down river in the
Black Stinker,
a change of clothing, a new passport, a short paddle in the dinghy, up the dock steps and away.