The New Eastgate Swing (7 page)

Markham lowered the paper slowly.

‘You already know how I feel about coincidences,' Baker said.

‘I think I'd better go and have another word with Amanda Fox.'

‘I'll get started on these other names.' He sighed. ‘While they're still alive.'

***

‘That's impossible,' Amanda Fox told him. She was seated behind her desk, her face showing her disbelief.

Markham sat opposite her and hitched up the knees on his trousers.

‘It's happened,' he said. ‘That's the problem. My partner's checking on the others. But I think I need to know what's going on here.' He lit a Craven A and blew smoke towards the high ceiling.

She stared at him.

‘I've told you what I can. I'd need to talk to Mark before I can say anything more.'

‘Then you'd better have a word with him soon. Whatever it is, things are getting out of control.'

She was silent for a few moments, biting her bottom lip.

‘I'll get him back here,' she said.

‘How well does he know the men he's brought over?'

‘Well enough,' Mrs Fox said. It was an ambiguous, neutral answer. He wasn't going to pursue it for now. And he wasn't going to ask who might want these men dead. Not yet. He wasn't even sure he wanted to know. With a quick nod of his head he said goodbye.

***

Baker was checking into all three remaining names. That would keep him busy for the day. Markham returned to the office and sat reading the
Manchester Guardian
. There was a picture of the Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, on the front page, with his long, basset face. Never had it so good, the man had said earlier that year. Perhaps he was right. There were plenty of signs of prosperity. More motor cars on the roads. People crowded into the shops to buy washing machines and televisions on hire purchase.

The days of rationing and all the deprivation seemed like a bad memory now. Leeds had certainly recovered from the war and the austere years that followed. The new affluence was here. Advertisements for everything under the sun.

At noon he strolled over to the Milkmaid on Commercial Street. A cheese sandwich and a cup of milky tea. It was bland, but it would fill him for now.

By the time he returned, a couple was waiting outside the door. As soon as they saw him they looked embarrassed, as if they'd been caught doing something wrong. Divorce, he decided immediately.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting,' he said, extending his hand. ‘I had to pop out for a moment. I'm Dan Markham.'

He ushered them in and sat them down. In their late thirties, he guessed. The woman seemed uncomfortable, gazing down and playing with her wedding ring, turning it round and round on her finger.

‘I'm John Duncan,' the man began hesitantly. He wore his suit and tie easily, crossing one leg over the other. The first signs of grey in his hair and a carefully clipped moustache. ‘This is my wife, Diana. We've …' The words seemed to fail him.

‘Divorce?'

‘Yes,' Duncan agreed sombrely. ‘That's it. We married very young, before the war. The children are grown now and, well …'

He'd heard the story so often he could have told it himself. Marriage had become a stale habit, without joy. Maybe one of them had met someone else – from the blush on Diana Duncan's face, it could have been her. So now they were doing the civilised thing. No rows, no fury. Just letting it all die quietly and legally.

‘I understand,' Markham said. ‘It's actually quite simple.'

He explained how it worked. Tawdry, but it was a way around the law, and the courts accepted it.

‘It does come down to some proof of adultery. But it only has to look that way,' he added to assure the man.

‘We've discussed it,' Duncan told him. ‘I'd be willing to, you know …'

‘Have you seen a solicitor yet?'

‘Yes.' Diana Duncan raised her head and spoke for the first time. She sounded nervous. ‘We've put in the papers.'

‘Good.' Markham smiled at them. ‘Then we can get cracking.'

He took all their details and two five-pound notes as a down payment.

‘I'll make all the arrangements and give you as much notice as I can. But it shouldn't be more than a few days. After that I'll give your solicitor my statement and the photographs.'

There was a bed and breakfast place off Harehills Lane, close to Potternewton Park, that appreciated the extra business. And a prostitute who liked a few quid without having to perform. Money for old rope, she called it, but she still didn't lower her rates.

Half an hour later he saw them out, hearing their footsteps clatter down the linoleum on the stairs. They seemed a little happier. Or perhaps it was relief. It was still a long road to a decree absolute but they'd taken the first steps.

He made two telephone calls, setting everything up for Friday afternoon, then wrote a quick note to Mr Duncan.

Markham was putting on his coat, ready to go to the post box, when the phone rang.

‘Are you in the middle of something?' Baker asked.

‘Not really.'

‘I'm up in Moortown, on the parade. Could you come up?'

‘What's happened?' Another mysterious summons. He hoped it didn't mean another body.

‘Nothing too bad. Maybe just something you should see, that's all.'

‘All right,' he agreed slowly. ‘I'll be there in a little while.'

***

The Anglia stalled twice on the journey, once at the top of Chapeltown Road, the next time outside the Kingsway cinema. He needed to take it in. Maybe the garage had something he could use in the meantime.

He spotted Baker leaning against the phone box, reading his newspaper. A north wind bit down from Harrogate and the Dales.

‘So what do you want me to see?' he asked.

‘We might as well get in your motor. It's along Street Lane.'

A good mile along Street Lane, as it turned out, down in the Romans, on a street of neat three-storey terraced houses that had probably been villas at the beginning of the century. They still had an air of solidity and permanence.

He turned off the engine, hearing the soft clicks as it began to cool.

‘Right,' Markham said, ‘what do you want me to see?'

‘Second house from the end.' He pointed with a stubby finger. ‘Morten Blum's lodgings. He's supposed to have come from Denmark.'

‘Go on.'

‘We know he's from East Germany,' Baker continued. ‘His real name's Manfred Blum; close enough, isn't it? I had a chat with his landlady. She let me have a look around his room.' He opened the door of the Anglia. ‘Come on, I'll show you. Let me do the talking, all right?'

The woman smiled when she opened the door, happy to see Baker once more.

‘I'm sorry to bother you again, luv,' he said, ‘but this is my colleague. I was thinking a bit and I'd like to have him see everything, too. Is that fine?'

‘Of course it is.' She was a thin woman, like a tall stick covered with a heavy cardigan. Her dark hair was gathered in a bun, her eyes hidden behind a pair of thick glasses. She took a key off the table in the hall. ‘You know where it is.'

Baker leaned close to her.

‘Like before, not a word.' He tapped the side of his nose with a finger.

‘Don't you worry.' She seemed to simper.

***

The room was upstairs, at the end of the hall. The key turned soundlessly in the lock. It was a large room containing a double bed covered with a burgundy candlewick, a small dressing table, easy chair, table and bookcase without seeming crowded.

‘What did you tell her?' Markham asked.

‘I might have mentioned the police.' Baker's eyes were twinkling. ‘Didn't say I was one, mind. She just chose to think so. Very happy to help the boys in blue, is Mrs Thompson. That's why I said you should let me talk.'

He went over to the bookcase and picked out a book.
Roget's Thesaurus
. Common in so many English households. He had a copy in the flat.

‘Take a glance through that and tell me what you see,' the man continued.

He looked, paying attention as he leafed slowly through the pages. After about twenty seconds he began to notice something. Tiny pinpricks under letters. As soon as he knew what to look for, he kept opening the book at random. Some pages had nothing, others had two or three. It wasn't an accident. There was some method behind it.

‘You did well to spot this,' Markham said.

‘It was an accident, really, but I thought there was something to it. Any idea what it means?'

‘It's a code pad of some sort, from the look of things. They taught us a little bit about it in military intelligence. All beyond me, though.'

‘The question is why an engineer who's been brought out of West Germany would have something like this,' Baker said.

‘There's only one reason anyone would need it.'

Baker took it from his hands and replaced it carefully in the bookcase.

‘That's what I thought, too. Something for you to pass on to that Fox woman. You understand why I wanted you to see it?'

Morten Blum, or whatever his real name might be, was spying for the East Germans. That meant the Russians. What the hell were they getting mixed up with? Two dead men and now this.

‘Have you been to any of the others?' He was driving along Princes Avenue, through the broad expanse of Soldiers Field.

‘One. He seemed clean enough. One more to go.'

‘Where's he?'

‘Down by Potternewton Park.'

‘I'll drop you off.'

***

Back in town Markham wandered over to the Kardomah for a coffee and a chance to think. He'd write up the report for Amanda Fox, put the cheque in the bank, and that would be the end of it. Baker could poke around more into Vreiten's life if he wanted. There wasn't going to be much for him to discover about it in Leeds, that was certain.

As he came back out on to Briggate he heard the sound. Trumpet, trombone and more, playing some Dixieland. He had to stop to be certain he hadn't imagined it. Then he walked up the street, moving between people, following the noise. What the hell was it?

***

Standing at the corner of the Headrow everything became clearer. A procession, like the New Orleans funerals he'd read about. The jazz funerals, they were called, music sombre and dark on the way to the graveyard, joyful as the musicians made their way home.

He waited as they passed. A group of students, looking like this was the most fun they'd had in their lives. The young man out in front had a stick like a regimental sergeant major leading a parade. Behind him, a cornet and a saxophone, someone with a trombone, a banjo player, and finally a man playing a tuba, feet splaying from a pram as someone pushed him along. A girl walking beside them was handing out sheets of paper. Markham took one as she passed. It was badly mimeographed, faint and blurred, the music and lyrics for a song.
The New Eastgate Swing
, the title read. He smiled and pushed it down into his pocket.

The whole spectacle was unlikely. It was impossible. But it was there. Traffic had stopped, people were gawping in disbelief. There'd certainly been nothing like it in Leeds before. A beautiful, strange joke. The music was ragtag, the players struggling, but that didn't matter. He followed them down the Headrow and on to Eastgate. The leader moved his stick faster, like a baton, and the tune sped up to double-time, turning into a raucous, enthusiastic version of ‘When The Saints Go Marchin' In'.

If he hadn't seen it, Markham wouldn't have believed it. He wished he'd had a camera to capture it all. Eastgate swung. For the first time and very likely the last.

It had brightened his day. The wonderful unexpected. He made his way back to the office with a smile on his face; all the worries about dead Germans vanished from his mind for a few minutes.

Baker arrived a little after five, shrugging off his mackintosh and hanging up his hat with a long sigh.

‘Did you find anything on the last one?' Markham asked.

‘Nothing in his room. He's the other one who works at Cokely's. He feels clean enough to me.'

A copper's hunch. It was probably good enough.

‘Just write a few lines. I'll take it over to Fox before I go home.'

‘I had a word with a couple of neighbours and the local shops. Nothing unusual.'

‘We'll pass that on.'

***

Amanda Fox read the reports, staring briefly at him before she looked at the sheet on Morten Blum again, going slowly over everything.

‘Are you sure?' she asked after a long silence. ‘He's a spy?'

‘I think it's very likely.' Markham chose his words carefully. ‘That's two dead and one spy. The other two seem clean. It's all in there.'

‘I'll have to ring people in London,' she said.

‘You haven't before?'

‘When I talked to Mark he said to leave it until he was back. But with this … if Blum's a spy …'

‘When do you expect your husband?'

‘He'll be back here tomorrow. The day after at the latest.' She crossed her legs and the soft, crackling sound of nylon filled the air for a moment. ‘He's going to ring you as soon as he's here.' She reached into a drawer and took out a chequebook. ‘One hundred pounds. That's what we agreed.'

He waited quietly. For a woman who looked so seductive – lemon yellow silk today, with just the hint of cleavage, hair held down by an Alice band – she was precise in her actions. Carefully blotting the ink, tearing out the cheque with small, intent moves.

Markham folded it and placed it in his wallet without even checking the amount.

‘I look forward to meeting Mr Fox.'

Six. The banks had been closed for over two hours; he'd deposit the money in the morning. As he made his way back to Albion Place, Leeds seemed empty, only the people heading for a meal or the cinema out and about.