The Vengeance Man (18 page)

The Strand 

I’d never thought of myself as a stamp collector.

But true to his word, Michael was waiting for me at lunch time the next day. I took the money round in my battered old briefcase, and in return he gave me a glass of superb Alsace, a trophy from his last trip abroad to some stamp auction in Zurich, a short lecture on the bizarre economics of the stamp
business and a block
of six ancient dusty-orange stamps from South Africa. Apparently they were the real McCoy. To me they were just stamps, but, if that’s what turns rich anoraks on, that’s their business.

Then he gave me a near illegible receipt for £75,000 and an address off Covent Garden. I tromped through the packed Strand to the address, the envelope with its stamps in my inside pocket, not knowing quite what to expect, to be greeted by an avuncular character as unlike Michael as I could imagine.

Whereas Michael was fortyish, trendy and dressed like an Italian male model down to his expensive silk socks, Mr Owen, on the other hand was very tall, bald, bespectacled and looked as if he could have taken the part of the absent-minded professor in
one of those old black and white
Ealing comed
ies
.  I tried - unsuccessfully - to visualize him discussing business with Michael.

"Ah, yes," he said, peering benignly over his round 1940s glasses. "Mr Ah .. um .. yes. Well, how nice."  He pushed his glasses onto the polished dome of his head and peered carefully at the stamps through a large magnifying glass for what seemed like three minutes in total silence.  I was very conscious of the TV security camera sitting above his head, its black glass eye gazing unwinking at me. Mr
Owens’s
eyebrows wiggled up and down like a pair of demented shrimps. He was a dead ringer for Alastair Sim in one of those old films, I reckoned.

"Yes .. well. Very nice indeed, Mr .. Ahum .. exactly what I would ... well ... " He lowered his glasses back onto the eagle nose and favoured me with a leathery, wrinkled beam. "Very nice," he repeated. Then, with an air of something approaching decision, added, "Yes. Very nice. That is, Mr .. ah.. um if you .. ah .. agree .. um?  Eighty five thousand, I think seems, well .. ah .. reasonable?"

I tried not to smile. "Yes," I confirmed. "Eighty five seems about right, Mr Owen; and most reasonable."

"Good, good ... Would a cheque be acceptable?"

“Most acceptable,” I found myself saying. Mr Owen was one of those courteous old boys you find yourself almost mimicking. He solemnly wrote out a Coutts cheque in an antique copperplate using a dull green fountain pen that would have been at home in a theme park museum for the fountain pen. "Shall I make it out to you personally, Mr .. ah .. um? Or should I make it to .. ah .. cash, if you feel that is more appropriate?"

"No. Could you make it out to 'Mrs Barbara Backhouse', please?

His shrimps wriggled their long tails in surprise as he carefully blotted the cheque and handed it to me with a ceremonious flourish, and something not unlike a grin. Despite myself I grinned back. It was impossible not to warm to Mr Owen, with his extraordinary brown tweed suit and donnish vagueness. To survive in this business, I thought, I'll bet he has a mind like a trap.

"Thank you, Mr Owen."

"No, not at all ; thank you, Mr Ahum .. ah ..."  He showed me to the door with old world courtesy, and shook me by the hand.  A bony finger pressed a switch and the door clicked unlocked, leaving me out on the street with a cheque for £85,000 in my pocket.     "Nice stamps, by the way," said Mr Owen. "Did Michael .. er .. explain exactly what they were?" His eyebrows quizzed me.

I shook my head.. "He did say .. ah .. they were special.  He said they would be good."

"Remarkable.  They are.  I didn't know he had
those.
   Well, well…   Anyway, Mr .. ah .. um .. thank you, again. So kind. Goodbye."    With a chuckle the demented shrimps danced farewell. He closed the door, leaving me puzzled.   But pleased.

Michael’s illegible receipt went scrunched up into the first litter bin I passed. My next stop was special little safe deposit in Knightsbridge. I kept a few odds and ends in there. Stuff you wouldn’t have been happy flashing round at a cocktail party.
An
embarrassing little Skorpion machine pistol from Makarios’s secret armoury when the Greeks flogged it off – well, you don’t want well-armed Archbishops, do you? – plus a couple of passports and other useful things that I’d acquired or had gone missing along the way.  You know how it is. Well, the Bearer Bonds, whatever the hell they were, went in there. To be honest, I hadn’t the faintest idea how to dispose of the things but they were obviously worth money. I’d save those for a rainy day.

*
             
*
             
*

I telephoned Barbara from the office when I got back. She was in the throes of selling the house and harrassed rather than tearful. I told her that I had just sold some stamps and had made some money. Would she like some?

"I never knew you collected stamps." She was wary, suspicious.

"I don't. I bought them a long time
ago as an investment.  So
I sold them. Put it like this, it beats copper, little sister."

"All right, all right," she muttered. "Don't remind me. You can't blame me for thinking it's all a bit odd though, after what happened to that man; you know. The one I told you about. Varley."

"Varley?  Your fake copper king? What did happen to him?" I asked innocently. "I'm a bit out of touch."

"Yes. Well, when I told you I wanted you to do something about him that night, and then he was murdered - well, I mean can you blame me?"

"Murdered?" I sounded shocked. “Varley was murdered?”

"Yes, it was in the papers yesterday. He was stabbed, apparently. The papers said that it was some Scots gang or other."

My ears sang.    I took a big breath.  "Well, it was nothing to do with me, so relax. But talk about poetic justice, eh?  Well, well, well.. Mind you, I just thought you meant me to let the air out of tyres or something. Anyway, I've been too busy trying to raise the money to bother about your Mr bloody Varley. Sounds like he got what he deserved.  Maybe he upset the wrong people. Not just you. Blokes like that must be up to their neck in all kinds of dodgy stuff. Now look, when can you collect this money?"

"How much did you manage to raise, then?"

"Eight five thousand pounds."

"What?" she shrieked. "Eighty five ... I don't believe it." Then she calmed down. "I can't, it's too much. We couldn't possibly accept it."

"Look, Barbara, the stamps are sold. I went to a dealer called Owen today, sold the collection and raised the money. So you've got to take it. I’ve even had the cheque made out to you by name."

She was beside herself. "Oh, you're wonderful!   I can't believe it! I didn't know you were interested in stamps.  You really got all that money for selling
stamps
?"

"Yes. Yes. Really. It's a collection I bought as an investment once." Which was true. Well, sort of.  "From a very reputable stamp dealer, too. If you want to check, it's all honest and above board. Call him if you like.  The cheque is made out to you, on his account at Coutts."

But she wasn't listening. She was yammering to Eric who was obviously showing a prospective buyer round the house. I heard her shrieking that I had sold some stamps and they wouldn't have to sell the house now as I'd given  her eighty thousand pounds and that I was a wonderful brother .
.
. "  She raved on to her unseen listener. 'Eighty thousand?' I mused. Then I laughed. Barbara was obviously going to buy some new furniture for the nursery or something. I'd always remembered her as a very calculating little madam since she'd dropped me in it with mum at the age of eight.

I took the cheque round that evening. It was all so fulsome and embarrassing that I left as soon as I could. But not before we'd cleaned out what was left of Eric's dusty whisky bottle.

The only sour note was when we discussed Varley and his demise. Eric showed me the article in the newspaper which added little to what I had already read, but discussed the revenge theory in greater detail. Now that he was dead, the papers could speculate openly about Varley's swindles and near criminal activities. They hadn't stinted themselves, either. So many ex-MPs were on the take nowadays that they had reached the stage of being past a joke. Greedy politicians and their wives were a popular target for the media.
Especially since the big scandal about their expenses. If Varley had been alive, his lawyers would have made a fortune from libel suits. I wondered what Mrs Varley was making of it all and if I could some of the get the insurance policies back to her.  From the sound of it she needed someone in her corner.

"Well," said Eric, "I didn't wish him dead, but we weren't the only ones who got hurt, not by a long shot. And they don't all have brothers-in-law to give them £85,000 to help them out."  Eric had read the cheque. “But he was obviously a right so-and-so.  I mean, look at the stories in the paper. He was up to his neck in all kinds of fiddles. So one day it caught up with him and he got murdered. He was a crook," he added, a touch sanctimoniously.

"Well, I don't care," said Barbara. We both looked at her in surprise.

"Whatever happened to the caring sex?" I queried sarcastically. Barbara looked squarely back at me.

"I mean it. I don't care.  I'm sorry for his wife and kids, but he got what was coming to him and he's been punished.  How many others has he done it to?  It's his own fault.   So there." She looked up defiantly.

"Yes. But killing's a bit drastic," started Eric.

"Is it? Is it really?” She rounded on him “Look at your paper, love. It's full for them. Bloody rapists, thugs, murderers, muggers. Asian gangs running white girls. You name them. Drunks, burglars, whatever. And what happens? Nothing. The police don’t give a damn. They get a slap on the wrist or an ASBO thing…  All that happens is that some slimy minister comes on the telly and tells us that everything’s fine and crime’s going down, when the meanest brain can see that it’s not – worse than ever. Sometimes I’m scared to go out at night.  Look at that case yesterday; in the paper.  Those three yobboes who threatened to pour bleach into   a baby's face and gang raped that  girl. Well, what should happen to ... to
things
like that, eh? And one of them is too young for the police to do anything.  Go on, Eric,  what do you think?"

She drew breath and didn't wait for an answer.

"I'll tell you what - they should be seen to, sorted out. 'Cos the police are useless. They can't find them and even if they do, what happens? Nothing." She spat
out
venomously
.
"Nothing' A pat on the head, 'Be a good boy', and two hours attendance at a detention centre on a Saturday afternoon and a caution. Do you know, I read in the paper that one kid in Newcastle or somewhere got seventy two cautions, and was
still
terrorising people. He couldn't be punished. Well, I'd bloody well punish them, I can tell you. And if the law won't, or can't do it, then I'll back someone who will, like that Scots gang that fixed Varley. I reckon they did a public service."

She stopped for breath and looked defiantly at our surprised faces.  I don't think I'd ever heard Barbara in full flood since she was a teenager. "Well, who else is going to do it, nowadays?   Anyway, that's what I think," she snapped finally and held out a glass to Eric. "And I will have that other drink now, thank you."  Pink spots burned in her cheeks

"What about the baby? Theo? Won't it affect your milk?"

"To hell with that. Anyway, it'll help us both to sleep." She giggled, as Wet Eric filled her glass. He glanced up at me and raised his eyebrows in mock surprise. I shrugged in the universal gesture of men that means 'Women!'

But Barbara's words had struck a primitive chord. Listening to her rant, I didn't feel so bad about Varley's demise. She was right, of course. The newspapers were full of cries for help that the law couldn't or wouldn't - do anything about. Well, I had.

"What we need, of course, is some kind of real vengeance man.”

"What did you say?" said Eric; I hadn't realised that I'd spoken aloud.

I went on, thinking aloud.     "Oh ... I was just thinking about what Barbara said just now. What she's talking about is some kind of private vigilante group. Or some kind of a vengeance man. Someone prepared to sort out people with problems that the law can’t deal with. Do society's dirty work for it."

Eric looked thoughtful. He was a slow, careful thinker and his glasses gleamed as the thought emerged. "You mean for
us
.  We're all society, aren't we?"  he corrected me absently.

I agreed, hastily. Barbara grinned at me and sat back.

"Yes." Eric was definite, now the thought had hatched.  "Something like the Saint.  Or the old Edgar Wallace stories. A kind of secret revenge figure." He looked up at us. "He was always writing about that kind of stuff, you know."  He snorted. "Very romantic, but impracticable, I'm afraid."

Barbara and I exchanged glances. I had trouble holding back a laugh.  The idea of the respectable, suburban Wet Eric as an authority on the books of Edgar Wallace was a surprise to us both, I suspect. Maybe he should go on TV’s Mastermind with it as his special subject. Barbara spoke up.