Here Comes Charlie M

NINETEEN

The lunch with Willoughby was as open as that of the previous day, but kept to a much tighter schedule. For that reason they ate at the Ritz, because the bank Charlie had carefully chosen was a private one less than five hundred yards away in Mayfair and he wanted to begin on foot.

They left at three o’clock. Charlie paused outside, handing Willoughby the document case while he struggled into a Burberry, turning the collar up under the dark brown trilby hat.

‘You look rather odd,’ said Willoughby.

‘Glad to hear it,’ said Charlie. ‘Let’s hope others think so too.’

‘I’d hate to think we’re wasting our time,’ said the underwriter.

‘We’re not,’ Charlie assured him. ‘Believe me, we’re not.’

I hope, he thought.

He led the way through the traffic stop-starting along Piccadilly and up Stratton Street.

An assistant manager was waiting for the appointment that Charlie had made by telephone, one of several calls he had made after speaking to Edith. The formalities were very brief, but Charlie lingered all alone in the safe deposit vault, keeping strictly to the timing that had been rehearsed with the others in Willoughby’s office. Edith would have already decided her route and timetable, thought Charlie, sighing. Maybe even packed. She always liked doing things well in advance.

He and Willoughby left the bank at three-fifty, turning up Curzon Street towards Park Lane.

‘We’re running to the minute,’ said Charlie.

‘Are you sure we’re being followed?’ asked Willoughby.

‘Stake my life on it,’ said Charlie, smiling at the unintended irony. ‘In fact, I am,’ he added.

‘I feel rather ridiculous,’ said Willoughby.

‘You’re supposed to feel scared,’ said Charlie.

Four o’clock was striking as they emerged in front of the park. For several seconds they remained on the pavement, looking either way, as if seeking a taxi.

‘Here we go,’ said Charlie, seeing a break in the traffic stream and hurrying across towards the underground car park. The limousine came up the ramp as they reached the exit and the chauffeur hardly braked as Charlie and Willoughby entered. It slotted easily into the stream of vehicles, heading north towards Marble Arch.

‘Now I feel scared,’ confessed Willoughby.

‘There’s nothing illegal,’ Charlie said.

The halt outside the Marble Arch underground station was purposely sudden, causing a protest of brakes from the line of cars behind, but before the first horn blast Charlie and Willoughby were descending the stairs. They caught the train immediately, an unexpected advantage. As he sat down, Charlie looked at his watch. They were two minutes ahead of schedule, he saw.

‘Only another ten minutes and we’ll see the beginning of the rush hour,’ he said.

Willoughby nodded, without replying. He was staring straight ahead, tight-lipped. The man was scared, Charlie realised.

They jerked away from the train at Oxford Circus almost as the doors were closing, going up the escalator on the left and walking swiftly. The car pulled smoothly into the kerb as they emerged, turned quickly left through the one-way system into Soho and then regained Regent Street.

‘I wish we could go faster,’ muttered Willoughby.

‘Speed isn’t important,’ said Charlie.

There was no need for the braking manoeuvre at Piccadilly station because there was a traffic jam. Charlie led again, bustling down the stairs. This time they sat without speaking until they reached Green Park. As they came up beneath the shadow of the hotel in which they’d eaten, one of Willoughby’s clerks, wearing a Burberry, trilby and carrying a document case fell into step with them and the three of them entered the vehicle.

‘There’s still a car with us,’ volunteered the driver, taking a traffic light at amber and accelerating into the underpass on the way to Knightsbridge.

They got out at Knightsbridge station and as they descended the stairway a second clerk, dressed identically to the first and also carrying a matching case, joined the group. They travelled only as far as South Kensington, but when they emerged for the car this time, one of the raincoated men turned away, walking quickly into Gloucester Road. There was another clerk at Victoria and this time they went on for two stations, getting off at the height of the rush hour at Embankment. The throng of people covered the delay of the car reaching them. They travelled north again, to Leicester Square, and when they got out this time, the man who had left them in Kensington was waiting, joining without any greeting until Holborn. They crowded into the car, sped down Southampton Row and then boarded a District Line train at Temple. The car turned, going back along the Strand, circling Trafalgar Square, then pulled in for petrol in St Martin’s Lane.

On the underground, the group changed at Monument station, caught a Northern line train and disembarked unhurriedly at Bank. According to the prearranged plan, they waited outside the underwriter’s office for the car. It took five minutes to arrive.

‘Let’s go inside, shall we?’ said Willoughby, to the three clerks.

‘So where’s the Faberge collection?’ quietly complained one of the three men. ‘Lot of stupid bloody rubbish.’

He’d missed the 6.30 to Sevenoaks and now his wife would be late for her pottery classes.

‘You got a new raincoat out of it,’ reminded the man next to him.

‘Bought one last week,’ said the clerk. ‘Sod it.’

To the others in the room, it seemed like blind, irrational rage, but Wilberforce’s emotion was really fear, matched almost equally with self-pity. Now the Director sat hunched forward at his desk, even the pipes temporarily forgotten.

‘How could it have happened?’ he demanded, wearily. ‘How the hell could it have possibly happened?’

A sob jerked his voice and he coughed quickly, to disguise it from the others in the room.

‘We never considered he would be able to get that much help,’ said Snare. ‘We just couldn’t adjust quickly enough.’

‘It was a brilliant manoeuvre,’ added Cuthbertson.

‘We should do something to Willoughby,’ said Snare vehemently.

‘What?’ demanded Wilberforce. ‘There’s no law against playing silly buggers on an underground train. And we’ve already ensured his firm is going to lose money.’

‘Frighten him, at least,’ maintained Snare.

‘Aren’t there more important things to worry about?’ asked Cuthbertson.

‘Christ,’ moaned Wilberforce, in another surge of self-pity. ‘Oh, Christ.’

A secretary tried to announce the arrival of the Americans, but Smith and Ruttgers followed her almost immediately into the room. Braley’s entry was more apologetic.

‘Lost him!’ challenged the American Director. It was a prepared accusation, the outrage too false.

‘And what happened to your men?’ retorted Wilberforce instantly.

Smith hesitated, disconcerted that his separate operation had been discovered.

‘Just a precaution,’ he tried to recover.

‘Which didn’t work. So it was a stupid waste of time and effort,’ said Wilberforce, refusing to be intimidated. ‘We’ve both made a mess of it and squabbling among ourselves isn’t going to help. Recovery is all that matters now.’

‘How, for God’s sake?’ asked Smith. ‘By now Charlie Muffin could be a million miles away.’

‘I had men at every port and airport within an hour,’ said Wilberforce, anxious to disclose some degree of expertise. ‘He’s still here, somewhere.’

‘But just where, exactly?’ asked Cuthbertson. The other man hadn’t offered any sympathy after the Vienna debacle, remembered the ex-soldier. At one enquiry he’d even sat openly smiling.

Wilberforce shook his head, impatient with the older man’s enjoyment of what was happening.

‘He’s shown us how,’ said Wilberforce, quietly. They could still recover, he determined. Recover and win.

‘You surely don’t mean …’ Snare began to protest, but the Director spoke over him.

‘He went into the bank with a document case,’ said Wilberforce. ‘And we know he opened a safe deposit because we’ve already checked.’

‘No,’ tried Snare again, anticipating his superior’s thoughts.

‘We haven’t got anything else,’ said the British Director.

‘We’ve carried out two robberies!’ protested Snare, looking to the others in the room for support. ‘We can’t risk another one. It’s ludicrous. We’re practically turning ourselves into a crime factory.’

‘What risk?’ argued Wilberforce. ‘You’ve gone in knowing the details of every alarm system and with every architect’s drawing. There’s never been any danger.’

‘We’re breaking the law … over and over again.’

‘For a justifiable reason,’ said Wilberforce, disconcerted by the strength of the other man’s argument.

‘I think it’s unnecessarily dangerous,’ said Snare, aware he had no support in the room. ‘What Charlie did was nothing more than an exercise to lose us … a trick to get us interested, like staying overnight in the Savoy — nothing more than that.’

‘But we’ve got to know,’ insisted Wilberforce.

‘Why can’t somebody else do it?’ asked Snare, truculently, looking at the Americans. He’d taken all the chances, he realised. It was somebody else’s turn.

‘How can it be someone else?’ replied Smith, impatiently. ‘You’re the only one who can operate with Packer.’

‘Too dangerous,’ repeated Snare, defeated.

‘It’s not the only lead,’ Ruttgers said quietly.

Everyone turned to him, waiting.

‘You’ve forgotten the wife,’ continued the former Director. ‘Eventually he’ll establish contact with her … she’s the key.’

Both Directors nodded. Cuthbertson shuffled through some papers, finally holding up that morning’s report from the Savoy Hotel.

‘There was a thirty-five minute telephone call to Zurich,’ he said.

‘To a number on the main exchange … a number upon which we could not have installed any device,’ enlarged Ruttgers.

Wilberforce’s smile broadened and he reached out for an unfortunate pipe.

‘It’s getting better,’ he said.

‘I’ll go,’ said Ruttgers, quickly. ‘I went before … know the apartment and the woman.’

He looked up, alert for any opposition.

‘All right,’ agreed Wilberforce immediately. He couldn’t remain in complete control any longer, he decided. Didn’t want to, either. Finding Charlie Muffin again was the only consideration now. That and spreading some of the blame if anything went wrong.

‘Yes,’ accepted Smith, doubtfully. It was going to be a difficult tightrope, he thought. So it was right that someone of Ruttger’s seniority should be in charge.

The American Director looked back to Snare.

‘It’s still vital to find out what’s in that bank,’ he said. ‘Even though the idea of a third entry offends me as much as it does you.’

‘I’ve already got men obtaining detailed drawings of the houses on either side from the architects involved and all the protection systems from the insurance companies,’ said Wilberforce.

So it had been a pointless objection anyway, Snare realised. They were bastards, all of them.

‘Could we be ready tomorrow night?’ asked Smith.

‘It would mean hurrying,’ said Wilberforce.

The American looked at him, letting the criticism register.

‘Isn’t that exactly what it does mean?’ he said.

When it became completely dark in the office garage, Charlie eased himself up gratefully from the floor, stretching out more comfortably on the back seat of the car. He catnapped for three hours, aware he would need the rest later, then finally got out, easing the cramp from his shoulders and legs. His chest hurt from being wedged so long over the transmission tunnel, he realised. And his new raincoat had become very creased. It seemed more comfortable that way.

Using the key that Willoughby had given him that morning, he let himself cautiously out of the garage side door, standing for a long time in the deep shadows, seeking any movement. The city slept its midnight sleep.

He walked quickly through the side-streets, always keeping near the buildings, where the concealment was better. He’d used the cover like this in the Friedrichstrasse and Leipzigerstrasse all those years ago, he remembered, when they’d tried to kill him before. They’d failed that time, too.

The mini, with its smoked windows, was parked where Willoughby had guaranteed the chauffeur would leave it.

The heater was operating by the time Charlie drove up the Strand. Gradually he ceased shivering. It was 12.15 when Charlie positioned the car in the alley which made the private bank so attractive to his purpose, aware before he checked that it would be completely invisible to anyone in the main thoroughfare.

Quietly he re-entered the vehicle, glad of its warmth. It probably wouldn’t be tonight, he accepted. But the watch was necessary. Would they be stupid? he wondered.

‘If they are, then it’ll be your game, Charlie,’ he said, quietly. ‘So be careful you don’t fuck it up, like you have everything else so far.’