Closed Circle (41 page)

"George? No.. . Who's asking?"

"A friend of his."

"Well, if you're a friend, I'm surprised you haven't heard. George was murdered last night."

"Murdered?"

"He left the Black Swan at closing time, but never got to his lodgings. They found his body in Bow Alley this morning. Knifed to death. And robbed, seemingly. Though what anybody would want to steal from poor old George I can't '

My right hand was trembling as I reached down to cut him off. I replaced the telephone in its cradle and sat down on the edge of the bed. Duggan was dead. He had not betrayed me. In a sense "I had betrayed him. For why, after all, had they killed him? Why, after letting him live so long? Because Diana had named him as my informant and Faraday had decided his lips should be sealed for good. That was why. There could be no other reason. In my eagerness to convince Diana of her father's guilt, I had signed George Duggan's death-warrant.

And I had very nearly signed my own into the bargain. Finding my telegram in Duggan's pocket must have struck Faraday as an extraordinary stroke of luck. But in one respect at least he was wrong. My luck had not run out in Dublin. Desmond Rafferty's devious mind and the GWR's winter timetable had been my unlikely saviours. But for them, I would have walked into a trap. Instead, I still had a chance of winning. Less of one, without Duggan to help me. But a chance none the less. And I had something else as well: another name to add to the long list of those I might still be able to avenge.

"As long as they haven't caught you," I said, rising from the bed, 'you can still catch them." Then, hurrying to forestall fear and doubt, I threw on my hat and coat, grabbed the bag and rushed from the room.

"Dining with us this evening, sir?" enquired the head waiter as I passed him in the foyer.

"Yes. Book me a table for half past eight, would you? I have a spot of business to attend to first."

"Certainly, sir. Look forward to seeing you then."

He would not be seeing me, of course. Nor would Trust Houses Ltd be seeing the colour of any of my money. I was leaving the Lion Hotel for the first and last time.

I walked back to the railway station and bought a ticket to London. The next train did not leave until ten o'clock. I spent the hours between in the bar of the nearby Raven Hotel, drinking enough scotch to ensure I slept on the journey. I would need my wits about me in the morning. I would need to be more alert than I had ever been before. And, even then, I might not be alert enough. It was no good trusting to luck. From now on it was a question of nerve and judgement: my nerve and Faraday's judgement. Which, I wondered, was in better repair?

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

The overnight train from Shrewsbury was due in London at half past five on Friday morning, the thirteenth of November. It promised to be truly a Black Friday for the Concentric Alliance. Or for me, of course.

I had always told myself I was not superstitious. But I began the day as I meant to continue it: cautiously. At the last stop before Paddington, I got off. After ninety frozen minutes in the waiting-room at Reading, I caught a workmen's train to Baling, then took to the Underground, emerging at Oxford Circus into the comforting melee of a fog-bound rush hour.

I found a barber in Bond Street to make me look respectable, then walked down to Jermyn Street for breakfast at Cox's Hotel. Their telegraphic address Anonymous, London had long stuck in my mind. And this morning anonymity was what I needed. I could not think of any reason why Faraday should know where I banked, but I still made several trial passes of the entrance before going in to withdraw a substantial amount of money from my account and to lodge a Gladstone bag in one of their more commodious safe-deposit boxes. With Charnwood's documents off my hands and the gun inconspicuously stowed in the poacher's pocket of my overcoat, I was as well prepared for what lay ahead as I could be. I set off for Holborn with a degree of confidence that surprised me. It should not have, however. Lack of alternatives doth make heroes of us all.

"I've come to ask you a favour, Trojan."

"They're scarcely my stock-in-trade, Guy."

"Max is dead. Did you know?"

"I heard. Some bedroom brawl in Venice. In which you played a less than glorious part."

"I'm trying to make up for that now. Wouldn't you like to help me? For Max's sake?"

"Can't say I would. But tell me what the favour is anyway."

"I want to meet the journalist who gave you the information about George Duggan."

"Piers Caversham, you mean? Why?"

"I can't explain. It's very important, though. More important than .. . well, anything."

"You sound as if you've turned religious. You haven't, have you?"

"I've certainly had my eyes opened. And I need to talk to a journalist about what I've seen."

"Piers doesn't stray beyond the Square Mile for subject matter. He'd only be interested if '

"Money's at the heart of it, Trojan. He will be interested."

"Well... I suppose I could see if he's free for lunch. You'll be paying, I take it?"

"I was hoping we could meet at your club. The venue needs to be ... discreet."

"So, I'll be paying?"

"If you can persuade Caversham to come, I'll give you whatever you think the bill will amount to in cash here and now."

"You have turned religious. See a bright light on the road to Dover, did you?"

"Not exactly. Are you going to 'phone Caversham?"

"Yes, yes. I'm going to 'phone him. But there's no need to hurry. I've never known Piers refuse a meal."

"Maybe not. But believe me, Trojan, I do need to hurry."

As predicted, Piers Caversham rose readily to the bait of a free lunch. Three hours later, I made his acquaintance in the bar of Trojan's club in Pall Mall. He was a lean languid bright-eyed fellow, whose mixture of cynicism and perceptiveness immediately raised my hopes. We adjourned to the dining-room and discussed journalism, politics, Winchester and his own alma mater,

Charterhouse, over roast beef and burgundy. Eventually, when I was sure those occupants of nearby tables who were not deaf as posts were at least drunk as lords, I mentioned the war. Caversham had served several years of it in Flanders and admitted, under pressure from Trojan, to earning an MC. But even brandy could not warm his memory of the Trenches. "An awful time," he muttered into his glass. "Bloody awful."

At which point, apparently as a flight of speculative fancy, I suggested the entire conflict could have been engineered by an international cartel of business-men. Caversham found the theory entertaining and listened while I explained what they might have done and why. I could sense him thinking at one point it could almost be true. And then, when Trojan's notorious bladder obliged him to leave us for a few minutes, I told him it was. True and at testable

"But I thought.. . Surely you were just... flying a kite."

"I have documentary evidence of their responsibility for Franz Ferdinand's assassination. What I want to know is: would your newspaper publish it?"

"You're joking."

"No. I can prove every word of what I've said. And, more than that, I can identify the guilty men. They sit on the boards of the most reputable companies, here and abroad. They're powerful, influential and highly respected. Every door is open to them. They're bowed to and waited on wherever they go. They rule the roost in half a dozen countries. Including this one."

"I don't believe it."

"I don't blame you. Neither did I. Until I saw the proof."

"Proof you have and want to see published?"

"Yes."

"And the names?"

"Especially the names."

"But '

"What about this story you had for Piers, Guy?" roared Trojan as he rejoined us. "Leaving it a bit late, aren't you?"

"I've just told him all about it."

"While I was splashing my boots? I call that damned unsociable."

"You didn't miss much," said Caversham, looking across at me. "It was something and nothing."

"I might have guessed." Trojan fell into his chair and grinned in my direction. "As a partnership, Horton and Wingate always had a reputation for not coming up with the goods."

"Wingate?" queried Caversham. "Haven't I heard of him in connection with '

"The Charnwood murder," growled Trojan.

"Ah, yes. Of course. Charnwood. That's the name. Or should I say one of them?"

"Perhaps you should," I murmured.

"What?" bellowed Trojan.

"I'm afraid I must be going," said Caversham abruptly, rising to his feet. "Dead-lines and all that." He smiled. "Thanks for lunch, Trojan. We must do it again soon. At my club." His restraining hand ended Trojan's token effort to stand up. "Sit there and finish your brandy, old chap. Horton will see me out."

We set off east along Pall Mall, neither of us remarking on the fact that I had not turned back at the doorway of the club. At first, Caversham seemed lost in thought. Then, after a few paces, he said: "Do you know, I was as drunk as Trojan until you said your story was true. Now, I've never felt more sober."

"It is true."

"And Charnwood was one of them?"

"Their leader."

"Murdered by your friend Wingate?"

"No. Not by Max. By them. To prevent his documents falling into my possession."

"But fall they did?"

"Yes."

"Complete with all their names?"

"Every one."

"And will I have heard of ... every one?"

"Most of them, certainly."

"Tell me, then. Tell me the names I'll know."

So I did, as we descended by Carlton House Terrace to The Mall and circled slowly round the Admiralty into Whitehall. From there we walked south, guided by instinct, towards the Cenotaph, on which the Remembrance Day wreaths still lay, blood-red beacons in the murk. I had finished long before we reached them.

Caversham made no immediate reply. He turned down Horse Guards Avenue and I followed. There, between the blind flank of the War Office and the heedless facade of the Board of Trade, he stopped to light a cigarette. Then he looked at me with the sort of shocked intensity he might last have experienced in Flanders and said: "You can prove these people were involved?"

"Yes. And I can deliver the proof to your editor before the day is out."

"You mean it, don't you? You really mean it."

"Of course. It's them or me."

His eyes narrowed. "You feel .. . threatened?"

"I'm a hunted man, Caversham. And the hunt can only end when they recover those documents or the world receives them."

Through the columns of my newspaper?"

"Exactly."

We started walking again. "You were the friend of Trojan's who wanted to know what had become of George Duggan, weren't you?"

"Yes."

"Did you get some of this .. . proof .. . from him?"

"He pointed me in the right direction, certainly."

"I see." Caversham paused, then said: Trojan told me you were once mixed up with Horatio Bottomley. Is that true?"

"You shouldn't believe everything Trojan says. Especially in his cups."

"Only they let Bottomley out of prison a few years ago. We see quite a lot of him in Fleet Street. He's always trying to peddle some bizarre story. Usually about him being the victim of a high-level political conspiracy. It's nonsense, of course. He's a broken man in body and mind."

"Are you trying to tell me you think I've imagined all this?"

"I might have done. But for a strange item I picked up on the wire yesterday. The Alnwick Advertiser seemed to think former colleagues might want to be informed of the sudden demise of one of their employees." Caversham turned to face me. "George Duggan has been murdered."

I shrugged. "Apparently so."

That's why you said "them or me", wasn't it?"

"Yes."

"Only now, it would be them or us, wouldn't it?"

"Not once the news was out. It would be too late for them to do anything about it then."

Too late? Yes. It certainly would be."

We reached the end of Horse Guards Avenue and crossed over to the Embankment. There I stopped to gaze down at the fast-flowing Thames. Caversham looked south, towards the fog-wreathed bulk of Parliament. But the clock-face of Big Ben was invisible. The time was out of sight.

"You're a lucky, man, Horton. I might have been in their pay. If so, I'd have promised to arrange a meeting with my editor. As it is .. ."

"Yes?"

"I'm a husband and a father and a relatively contented man. Ten years ago, I might have helped you take them on."

"But not now?"

"Now, I've more sense than to try. You're fighting against hopeless odds. If you can prove what you've told me and I don't doubt you can then you can prove more than our cosy scheme of things could possibly bear. It would tear too much apart. Don't you see? Even the innocent won't let that happen."

"Are you refusing to help me?"

"I'm refusing your offer of a suicide pact, yes. I had enough of self-sacrifice in the war. Enough to last me for the rest of my life, which I hope will be long and uneventful."

"I'll find another paper to take the story if you don't want it."

"You won't. You won't find anyone to touch it. Even if you did, this .. . alliance, as you call it... is influential enough to ensure the story could never be published. The people you've named control half the commercial life of this city. Together they're un challengeable And we know from George Duggan's example what happens to those who are crazy enough to defy them." He flicked the remains of his cigarette into the river. "Goodbye, Horton. I'll do my best to forget everything you've said. I suggest you do the same."

As he moved past me, I grabbed at his elbow. "Caversham! For God's sake '

"Let go of me!" He shook my hand off and I saw he was trembling. He glanced from side to side, as if worried we were being watched. "Leave me alone, dammit. I don't want to hear any more. Do you understand?"

"Oh yes. I understand. You're afraid of them."

"Yes. I am. And so should you be. You can't destroy such people. Nobody can."