Cast For Death (19 page)

Patrick introduced himself and Manolakis.

‘I understand the police have already been here,’ he began, casting his fly immediately upon the water.

‘Yes – some nonsense about stolen pictures – they seem to have been dumped in a house I had near Stratford. Nothing to do with me, naturally. The house had been empty some time – the thieves must have broken in and used it as a hiding-place.’

‘You sold the house to a friend of yours, Tina Willoughby,’ Patrick said, abandoning subtlety. ‘You did know her, didn’t you?’

‘Yes. Did you?’ Joss looked at him sharply.

‘No, but I heard about her sudden death,’ said Patrick.

‘It was a terrible shock,’ Joss said at once.

‘She wasn’t depressed, or anything like that?’

‘Not at all. She was looking forward to moving,’ said Joss.

‘She knew Sam Irwin too, didn’t she?’ Patrick asked.

‘Yes—very well, he helped her. She had a problem,’ said Joss.

‘So I’d heard,’ Patrick said. ‘You don’t think it could have returned? That she did have some mental disturbance?’

‘She must have, I suppose,’ said Joss. ‘What’s your interest in all this?’

‘I knew Sam,’ said Patrick. ‘I wondered if she’d done it because of his death.’

‘I see. It’s possible, I suppose.’

‘Well, thanks for confirming that they were acquainted,’ said Patrick. ‘I’m glad I found you at home.’

‘I should be filming,’ said the actor. ‘But the police delayed me earlier today, so I rang the studio.’ He grimaced. ‘I’ve never done such a thing before. Still – there has to be a first time, they say.’

‘You’re still playing at the Fantasy?’

‘Yes –
Henry VIII;
said Joss.

‘You’re Henry, of course?’

‘Wolsey,’ said Joss.

He did not seem unduly distressed at Tina’s death, Patrick thought.

The overalled woman was hovering protectively in the hall, waiting to show them out, which she did with some enthusiasm. Patrick drove straight to the police station where he had had such an abortive interview earlier in the day.

‘Keep driving round and round,’ he said to Manolakis, handing the car over to him when he found no parking slot. ‘I’ll come out eventually.’

Eyes sparkling, the Greek slid behind the steering-wheel. What a challenge! The London traffic! He glided forward into it, and hoped he would not lose his way, circling in the area.

Patrick went straight to Sergeant Bruce.

‘Ah good, you’re here,’ he said, striding into the office. ‘Do you recognise this woman?’

He took the photograph of Tina and Joss Ruxton together in Venice out of his wallet and showed it to the policeman.

Bruce did. His reaction was unmistakable.

‘What’s this all about?’ he asked.

‘She’s dead. This woman’s dead. Suicide, allegedly, but I’m not satisfied.’

The sergeant adopted a wooden expression and said nothing.

‘You do know her. I can see that,’ Patrick said. ‘When did you meet her?’

‘If I tell you that her name is Mrs Amy Foster, does that answer your question?’ Bruce said, reluctantly.

‘It does,’ said Patrick, slipping the photograph back. ‘And if I tell you that her name was really Mrs Tina Willoughby and that she lived near Maidenhead and died of an overdose of sleeping pills very recently, does that explain why I want to know?’

‘Yes,’ said Bruce, and added, ‘forget it, sir. It’s not our business now.’

‘It’s my business,’ said Patrick grimly. ‘I’m not going to see someone set up as a stool pigeon and stand idly by,’ and he walked out.

Manolakis, meanwhile, circling around the neighbouring streets, was reflecting grimly that Patrick was now one of just a handful of people who knew that Sam Irwin was in fact alive: such knowledge could be dangerous.

The words sprang at Patrick from a newspaper placard as he walked towards Sam’s hotel:

THEATRICAL AGENT FOUND DEAD.

It meant nothing at first. He walked on. Manolakis had taken the car back to Bolton Gardens, with instructions to park it carefully near Liz’s flat. They were to meet there later. Patrick’s immediate plan was to lurk about in the hotel in case Sam left, or had any recognisable visitors. At least he would be on the spot and might have a chance to speak to Sam again.

As he went on he saw more hoardings with the same headline, but the message did not register until he read one that said:

STAR’S AGENT KILLED IN FALL.

Then he bought a paper.

Leila Waters had been found dead early that morning on the pavement beneath her flat.

Patrick felt a sick shock.

Surely Sam would see this news and wonder what had happened? First the man with red hair; then Tina; now Leila Waters.

People were sacrificed in spy operations.

Was this one, and if it was, were these deaths justified? Deaths, as far as he could judge, all in the interests of winning over a possible defector. Surely such a person need only ask for asylum? Other people did not have to be slaughtered to achieve such a result.

At the hotel, Patrick sat in the lounge reading the newspaper item again; it was thought that Leila had slipped while opening the window, which was rather stiff. Well, she might have done, but she must have been used to her own windows.

Patrick turned the facts over in his mind. Leila had, it seemed, willingly helped in the deception over Sam’s supposed death; she had suggested him to impersonate the ailing man, and Sam had said she had done such things before. She could be an agent working for Special Branch: or a double-agent. Which was the right answer?

Patrick went to one of the telephones supplied for the use of guests, and asked to be connected with suite 538.

‘The suite is empty, sir,’ he was told. ‘The party checked out this morning.’

The telephonist would not disclose where Sam, in his assumed identity, had gone, and nor would the porter or the desk clerk. They said they did not know.

Patrick swung out of the hotel and went down the road looking for an ordinary telephone box, for he did not want the hotel to overhear him ringing the polColin, at Scotland Yard, was out, so he rang Sergeant Bruce.

‘Do you still say we must leave it to Special Branch?’ Patrick demanded. ‘Who’ll be next?’

‘I’m sure Special Branch knows what it’s doing,’ said Bruce in an official sort of voice.

‘Well, I’m not,’ said Patrick flatly.

He remembered something a policeman had once told him: any corpse found as Sam’s supposed body had been, would have been automatically finger-printed. Its identification could have been proved, if the police had wanted to do it. Had they?

Manolakis was not back at Bolton Gardens when Patrick returned there, so he could not get in. He paced the kerb outside, until someone came out of the building and he managed to pass through the front door before it fell to and was locked again. He sat on the stairs outside Liz’s door, wondering if the Greek had smashed up the MGB.

It seemed a very long time before Manolakis came bounding up the stairs, carrying a large bunch of spring flowers.

‘Ah, you have been waiting, my friend,’ he said. ‘I am sorry. I have been to buy these for Elizabeth.’

‘Oh,’ said Patrick sourly.

‘Your car is safe,’ said Manolakis. ‘I made mistakes in the road, once, twice, but it was nothing. It is nearby.’

‘Good,’ said Patrick.

‘You seem sad, my friend,’ said Manolakis. ‘Perhaps you need food? We eat British bacon and eggs.’

He opened Liz’s front door and gestured to Patrick to enter.

Probably the sinking sensation in his stomach was merely due to lack of food, Patrick told himself.

‘You like British bacon and eggs?’ he asked, as once again the Greek took charge of the
cuisine.

‘Very much, he pleases me,’ said Manolakis.

Patrick spared time to marvel at how swiftly Liz had domesticated him; at home, he sat back like a pasha while his wife bustled round.

‘We must proceed to think laterally,’ he said, as the smell of sizzling bacon filled the air.

‘Please?’ asked Manolakis.

‘We need to turn our thoughts outwards,’ said Patrick. ‘Propound a counter-argument. Sam took on this job thinking it vital. But is that reasonable? Unless the sick man is dying – and Sam says he isn’t, even if he was in a critical state – a bedside meeting could have been arranged. It would have been poignant as a publicity stunt. So either the man really is dying, or he isn’t ill at all. Perhaps he’s already dead. Or perhaps there’s another reason for the impersonation, but either way Sam is being deceived.’

Concentrating mightily on both the frying pan and Patrick’s words, Manolakis managed to follow most of this.

‘Suppose it’s Sam, in his disguise, who defects, or appears to,’ said Patrick. ‘The other way round – behind the iron curtain.’

‘If that happened, the real man would step forward and say “Look, here I am.”’

‘If he’s dead, he couldn’t,’ said Patrick. ‘Suppose Special Branch knows that he’s dead – been killed, perhaps, to enable all this to be set up – Sam’s impersonation couldn’t be proved. If he, in his disguise, goes over to the east the truth will never be known. The whole world will be deceived.’

Manolakis slid their fried eggs expertly on to two plates.

‘Tonight is the big concert when the two Russians are playing their music,’ he said. ‘Liz has much wanted to go. She has tickets.’ He arranged bacon rashers artistically round the eggs. ‘The Russian Embassy will send people, will they not? As a publicity stint?’

‘Stunt,’ corrected Patrick absently. ‘God – you’re right, Dimitri – that’s where it will be done. In the full eye of the public.’

Even now, Sam would be being coached for his part in it, unaware that he was cast as victim.

‘We eat,’ said Manolakis prosaically. ‘You must go with Liz to the concert. I remain away.’

‘But it’s you she wants to take,’ said Patrick, masochistically.

Manolakis snapped his fingers.

‘I am not so fond of music that I must be there,’ he said.

‘I have the good idea. I take Liz to a Greek restaurant – we come back here afterwards. You go to the concert, with Colin. If Sam is there, you can name him truly. But be careful, my friend. The others who knew also that it is Sam, they are dead.’

Colin was unavailable, when Patrick tried to get hold of him on the telephone. Frustrated, he rang Humphrey to find out what was happening about the pictures, and learned that Gulliver had been arrested, with his wife and another man who had been at the gallery when the police called, but it was feared some of the larger fry might get away. Tessa Frayne had not, so far, been involved; Humphrey had boldly telephoned her and had arranged to take her out to dinner. At any minute he would be leaving for their appointment.

‘I’m not letting young Vernon have it all his own way,’ said Humphrey, with rare belligerence.

Patrick, amazed but approving, wished him well, and then, for want of a better idea, telephoned Sergeant Bruce, who, much against his better judgement, agreed that they should meet when he went off duty.

Manolakis then rang Liz at her office and without any trouble at all persuaded her to let Patrick have the concert tickets. On her instructions, he took them from a drawer in her desk and handed them over. Patrick’s feelings were ambivalent as he listened to the one-sided conversation.

‘Won’t you miss Liz when you go home?’ he said nastily.

‘Very much,’ said Manolakis. ‘It has been a nice experience.’

Liz might very likely miss Manolakis too, thought Patrick.

‘We are good friends,’ said the Greek sunnily.

So now he was in some
taverna
with his good friend, and Patrick was in a pub near Charing Cross drinking beer with Sergeant Bruce.

‘You can’t believe that all those deaths were accidents,’ said Patrick.

‘Off the record, no,’ said Bruce, who knew he should not be here at all, much less discussing such a confidential matter.

If only Patrick himself had looked more closely at the body when it was dragged from the river at the beginning of all this: if it had not been identified as Sam’s, the other deaths might not have followed.

‘Tina identified that first body. She must have been waiting there on the South Bank, for it to be found, so it can only have been dumped a short while before. It hadn’t been in the water long – the beard growth would have been arrested faster if it had, and it showed no signs of prolonged immersion. It might have been brought down in a boat from higher up the river, and slipped out when it got dark. It was tied, perhaps, to something, weighted, and towed.’ That might account for the rope marks on the wrists. A diver could have freed it – many things were possible.

‘Maybe the murderers planned to fake some sort of accident – some other sort – but the victim dying as he did forced their hand.’ Patrick continued to think aloud. ‘Now – let’s look at it from the other side. Someone from behind the iron curtain wants to defect. He has to wait for an opportunity until he is allowed out of the country on legitimate business. Once that happens, it isn’t difficult, is it?’

‘Theoretically, no,’ said Bruce. ‘But if anyone suspected his intentions, he might be forcibly prevented – taken home quickly – at least kept under strict surveillance.’

‘Suppose he was a waverer?’

‘He’d much better go home if he isn’t certain,’ said Bruce.

‘But suppose he was valuable to us? Suppose if he were persuaded, it would be to our advantage? That might account for Special Branch seeming to condone all this. They could have set the whole thing up.’

Bruce said nothing.

‘Tina and Leila both knew that Sam wasn’t really dead, so both were working for whoever planned the deception. Both of them knew that a man had, in fact died, although it wasn’t Sam. What was important enough for both of them to give false evidence? Something being done in the name of freedom? That must have been the explanation Sam was given. If he accepts it, why shouldn’t they? That being so, why are they dead now? And what are Sam’s chances?’