A Sense of Loyalty Read online

  A Sense of Loyalty

  Roderic Jeffries

  © Roderic Jeffries 1983

  Roderic Jeffries has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1984 by Walker Publishing Company, Inc.

  This edition published in 2016 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 1

  The meeting, for all executive officers down to and including departmental heads, was held in the boardroom of HI Motors. It was a large, elegantly proportioned room with a moulded ceiling and open fireplace, and on the wall opposite the three south-facing windows there hung portraits of the founder of the firm, Lord Illington, and his only son, Bruce, who had died in a sports car race.

  The chairman, James Reid, who by tradition always remained seated, looked down at the folder in front of him. His expression was one of uneasiness. Nicknamed The Colonel, there was much about him which recalled the traditional regimental colonel — bluff, often to the point of rudeness, a stickler for discipline, a harsh judge of inefficiency but an even harsher one of disloyalty… A figure of mocking fun unless and until one realised that he always gave more than he demanded.

  He cleared his throat. “Most of you know why this meeting has been called. Nevertheless, and for the benefit of anyone who does not, the company has recently received information of a disturbing nature.” He opened the folder. His personal assistant, who sat on his left, said something in a low voice. He nodded. “The information is to the effect that details of our forthcoming model, code name Albatross, have been received by one of our competitors. The information is detailed and includes some of the figures gained from the recent extensive road tests. It is quite clear that we have a spy in the company who has passed on this vital information to the enemy. So we now have to study the implications of the fact.”

  A casual observer might have laughed at the reference to the enemy, seeing this as typical blimpish nonsense. But most of those who worked for the company found nothing wrong with the expression. Much of the success of the company, the reason why it had remained profitable during a recession when other companies were piling up huge losses, was that the work force felt they were part of a close-knit team.

  The silence was broken by the director of Administration. “I suppose there’s no question as to the truth of the report?”

  “Virtually none. The information has reached us from a source which has previously proved to be completely reliable.” His bitter expression now reflected his acknowledgement that he could appreciate all too clearly the irony of the situation. The news had reached them from an employee in the other company — in other words, a commercial spy. By inclination, Reid would have scorned to listen to such a man, but he would never let his personal standards interfere with the commercial wellbeing of the company.

  The director of Engineering said: “Albatross is so near production that it’ll be on the road before the opposition can make the slightest use of what they’ve learned.”

  “For that much we have to be thankful. But our concern must now be the wider issue. We have a traitor in our midst and therefore are at great risk. Gentlemen… Vulcan.”

  There was a brief hum of sound as people spoke in undertones.

  “I don’t suppose,” said Reid, “that I need to elaborate on the damage which would be caused were details of Vulcan to be leaked?”

  “My God, no!” exclaimed the director of Engineering loudly.

  Four years of experiment and research lay behind them and a conservative estimate suggested that at least two more lay ahead of them before the new engine, with its revolutionary system of stratified induction, could be put into production. A rival and much larger company, learning important details of the engine, could, with their far greater research and production capabilities, find a way round the patents and move forward into production before those two years were up.

  Reid turned over a page, read, then looked up once more. “It is essential that we identify the spy who passed on details of Albatross and dismiss him before he gets the chance to betray details of Vulcan. To this effect, I have been in touch with the police…” He stopped. He remained silent for several seconds, his expression now one of perplexity. “I think that at this stage we should hear from Mr Deblane… Alex, will you please tell us the legal position in this matter?”

  Deblane stood. He spoke in a sombre, modulated voice. “The incidence of industrial espionage is increasing every year and is causing growing concern. Since it strikes directly at the financial health of a country, one might imagine that the law concerning it would be direct and prepared to be draconian. In the United States of America, we find that this is so. But here, in the United Kingdom, industrial espionage is not even a criminal offence.”

  “That’s got to be poppycock!” said the director of Design, a man not given to tact.

  Deblane was far too self-satisfied to be upset by such an inferred slur on his professional capabilities. He continued pedantically: “No matter how important, or how valuable, the stolen information is, or potentially may become, the thief has committed no offence known to British — perhaps I should say English: I cannot speak as to Scottish — law. Of course, if he receives money for such information, then he becomes guilty of corruptly accepting that money, but the penalties for this offence are relatively small.” He looked round the table, then down at the paper. “Now, to move from a general enunciation of the law to a specific study of how this company is affected. Since we cannot show that national security is threatened, the police are unable to take any action in the matter. Despite the strongest representations I and the chairman could make, they have made it perfectly clear that they cannot undertake any investigation into the identity of the spy.”

  “God Almighty!” said the director of Engineering in disgust.

  “However,” said Deblane, “the inspector to whom I spoke was able to give certain advice. He turned. “I think perhaps the chairman might like to deal with what that advice was?” Reid nodded. Deblane carefully sat.

  “The inspector,” said Reid, “advised us to consult one of the firms of private investigators who specialise in matters such as this. He refused to recommend any one firm, saying it was not within his province to pass judgement on their relative levels of professional experience and efficiency, but he did provide us with a list of names. From this we have chosen a firm which has been operating in the field for many years. I have spoken to their general manager and discussed the situation. In consequence, a small team of investigators will be starting work here on Monday.”

  There was a rising buzz of conversation which stopped when Reid called for silence. He spoke very abruptly. “Although it is totally inconceivable that anyone in this room is the traitor, we must realise that until his identity is uncovered we are all equally under suspicion in so far as the investigators are concerned. I therefore expect every one of you to offer them your full and complete cooperation, as I shall.” He coughed, embarrassed. “Furthermore, it may happen that at some stage of the investigations one of
us will make the unwelcome discovery that he thinks he knows the identity of the traitor. Friendship demands loyalty. But in this instance the loyalty he owes the company must outweigh even the loyalty he owes a friend. He must pass on his suspicions to the investigators.”

  The honour of the regiment came first.

  Chapter 2

  Mike Sterling put an egg into boiling water and set the timer for four minutes. He remembered when he’d always put in two eggs. Recently, he’d read an article on bereavement and the theme of this had been that time healed. Perhaps. But how much time was needed? Sheila had been dead for quite a while now, yet the pain was no less: indeed, some little incident, recalling a moment when they’d been together, could even make the pain more intense. Perhaps the trouble was, they’d been so happy. Yet all that happiness had ended in just a few seconds. He’d returned home from work and had been waiting for Sheila to drive back from her parents, with whom she’d spent the day, when a constable had walked up the drive, knocked on the front door, and said: “Mr Sterling? …I’m very sorry to have to tell you that there’s been a car accident in which your wife’s been seriously injured.” Sheila had, mercifully, died in the crash. Maybe the constable hadn’t been told that. Maybe the police were never ready to make the news quite as stark as it really was…

  The timer rang and he picked up the spoon to lift out the egg, realised he hadn’t prepared an eggcup and moved over to the china cupboard as the toaster started to smoke. He reached the toaster as the two slices of toast, edges burned, popped up. The clock in the sitting room struck and since it was a couple of minutes slow that meant he’d missed the news headlines which he’d wanted to hear because there was the chance of a national engineering strike. He hurried over to the transistor set and switched it on. From the stove came the hiss of water bubbling over and he remembered the egg: he hated hardboiled eggs. He returned to the stove as the kettle began to whistle with ear-ringing pitch. His definition of cooking: a series of disasters, linked by crises.

  He ate at the small table in the far corner of the kitchen, half listening to the news, half skimming through the Daily Telegraph. Eye and ear were assailed by troubles, some man-made, some sent from the gods, but at least it seemed that the danger of an engineering strike had receded. Distant troubles were always so much easier to accept than nearby ones.

  As he finished his second cup of coffee he heard the muffled clonk of the letterbox flap. He went through to the hall, opened the box, and brought out two letters. One was for him, one was addressed to Sheila and contained advertising material. He crumpled up the second letter as he returned to the kitchen, then opened his to find it was a bill.

  He stacked the dirty crockery and cutlery on the draining board for the daily to wash up, picked up a mackintosh and briefcase from a chair, and went through into the integral garage, where he opened the single up-and-over outside door before climbing into the brick-red HI 2000. He switched it on and the engine started immediately. He backed out until the front wheels were clear, got out and closed the garage. Elliott, who lived next door, was walking round to his garage and the Marina parked outside it and he waved: he looked at the HI with unconcealed envy. In the front doorway stood his wife, tousle-haired, pert-nosed, dressed in slacks and a gaily coloured blouse. Sterling briefly looked at her with an envy in which lust played no part. When Elliott returned that evening, it would not be to an empty house.

  Sterling drove off, his back momentarily pressing into the seat under the sharp acceleration. ‘Own an HI and live with a cheetah.’ Even by advertising standards, that was banal, yet for a reason not understood it had turned out to be one of their most successful selling blurbs. For a time, it had even become a catch phrase on some TV programmes. There was no accounting for tastes.

  *

  The HI Motor Company had been founded by Henry Illington, a man of passionate dedication with so much self-centred confidence that it never once occurred to him that the Great Depression might sweep away his newly formed company, as it had so many others.

  He had been a perfectionist who disliked accountants, especially cost accountants, and when profits began to drop he had refused to cut quality. As he repeatedly said, he was in the business of building sports saloons, not mass-produced junk. Believing that the race track was the only place where a car could be truly tested, he’d raced a team of HIs — to the further despair of his accountants — and he’d liked nothing better than to work in the pits, alongside the mechanics, shirtsleeves rolled up, oil on his hands, face, and clothes, swearing with imagination when anything went wrong. In the middle thirties, at a general meeting, a shareholder had stood up and criticised the amount of money spent on racing in the past year. Illington had immediately delivered a passionate defence of racing, citing the many benefits it brought to the production cars. After several minutes, the shareholder had not only withdrawn his objection but had gone on to ask whether it wouldn’t be a good idea to expand the racing programme.

  The fast, low-slung, racy sports saloons — for some reason, now forgotten, Illington had never sanctioned the production of an open sports car — cost a lot of money and therefore their market was a very limited one: ironically, it was this limitation which ensured that the company remained in production. Only the rich could afford an HI, so anyone who drove an HI must be rich.

  Illington was granted his peerage the same year his son died. Bruce went over the top at Brooklands, in an attempt to avoid the crash which had just taken place immediately ahead. For the father, his barony meant not personal, but company glory: his son’s death meant bitter and lasting tragedy. He became a virtual recluse and although he continued to take a very sharp interest in every aspect of the company, as some people, believing he no longer cared, found to their cost, he seldom visited the factory and never again went to a race. He died in 1939, two months after the declaration of war.

  During the war the factory had made tanks and armoured cars built with the same careful pride that the cars had been. Throughout, there was a constant demand for higher production and by 1945 the factory space had been quadrupled. A conservative estimate suggested the production of HIs could be stepped up six-fold on pre-war figures, provided only that there was some compromise in standards. Several of the directors, visualising the company as rivalling the big five, had voted for the expansion. But by a majority of one, taken at a board meeting which was to engender an ill will which lasted for years, it was decided not to enter the mass market. Lord Illington’s famous dictum would continue to be observed. “Quality before quantity, excellence before expediency, pride before profit.”

  Ambitious men were attracted to the larger motor manufacturers, prideful men to HI. Rolls-Royce often claimed to build the finest car in the world. Those who worked at HI smiled at this. Rolls made the second-best car in the world.

  The company’s standards were old-fashioned, yet their cars possessed the timeless beauty of craftsmanship which made them contemporary whatever the prevailing fashions. And old-fashioned did not signify out-of-date engineering. There were men in the research department of radical perceptions and it was they who had designed Vulcan, which was going to revolutionise all petrol-driven engines.

  *

  Sterling parked his car, walked into the administrative building after a quick Good-morning to the doorman, and took the lift up to the third floor and his office. Anne was not at her desk, at the door end of the room. By her own admission, she burned the candle at both ends and she was often late. But she was an efficient secretary — when present — and always filled with bubbling good humour and there’d been times in the past few months when her good humour had been far more important to him than anything else.

  He hung his mackintosh on one of the hooks of the mahogany stand, crossed to his desk, and sat. There was a reminder in Anne’s spidery handwriting that he was to call Knut Bakke in Oslo and confirm preliminary details of the visit of Norwegian journalists later in the year. The journalists might be expec
ted to eat and drink too much, since they weren’t paying, and to walk round the factory with their minds misted by boredom, but when they returned home they would probably honour their unspoken bargain and write articles which would remind the Norwegian public that HI Motors were still making the cars by which all others were judged.

  Anne hurried into the room, “Morning, Mike. You’re early, aren’t you?”

  “There is an alternative explanation.”

  “Get along with you! I know I’m not late, even if I didn’t wake up until just after eight.”

  “So where were you last night?”

  “That would be telling.” She giggled. She had the kind of giggle that made others start to chuckle. She hung up her plastic mac, crossed to Sterling’s desk, and put a small bundle of letters down on it. “Did you see my note?”

  “I’ll get on to Knut at midday.”

  “Is he a Viking?”

  “A what?” asked Sterling, surprised.

  “You know, six feet tall, broad shoulders, blue eyes, blond hair, and really terrific.”

  “He’s middle-aged, harassed by a large family, going bald, and he suffers from a duodenal ulcer.”

  “You’re pulling my leg! …Did I tell you Mr Jarman rang yesterday afternoon? It wasn’t important and he’ll ring again today. I think he wants to borrow a car again.”

  “The answer’s no. The last time there was over two hundred pounds’ worth of damage to the bodywork and a luminously stale salmon sandwich in the glove locker.” She was half way to her desk when there was knock on the door. Before either of them could call out, a man entered. “Mr Sterling? I’m Roy Nockton.” He was in his early fifties, beginning to bald, and he had an oval, pleasant-featured face.

  Sterling stood and came round the desk to shake hands with the man from the private investigation firm, and thought that the other’s easy friendliness almost, but not quite, concealed the shrewd hardness underneath. “D’you want to question me on my own or can my secretary stay?”