A Man Condemned Read online

  ‘You’ve been very helpful indeed.’

  She said they must have another drink and she thought that for once she’d even have a second one—after all, she couldn’t come to any harm with three policemen to look after her.

  *

  Photos of the marks on the base of the 9mm cartridge case picked up outside the bank were sent to the German police, together with a note that it now appeared the gun might have been fired by a German terrorist. Could they make further checks to try to identify them?

  A telex message was received early Thursday morning. Following the advice of possible terrorist involvement, certain security bans had been lifted. The case was identified as being one of seventy rounds of Czechoslovakian 9 mm ammunition stolen from an army firing-range where Eastern bloc ammunition was evaluated by NATO experts. Such evidence as there was pointed to the fact that a German terrorist gang, as yet unidentified, had carried out the theft.

  *

  Menton listened to Fusil’s report without any obvious reactions and then said: ‘You’re assuming a very great deal.’

  ‘Not all that much. We know there’s a tie-up between Fiona Allbright and the men who carried out the wages-snatch . . .’

  ‘There’s no proof that the money paid into the bank by the estate agents contained the three listed notes.’

  Fusil gestured with his hands. Of course it was possible to pick holes in the details, but the pattern was clear.

  ‘One small but important point, you cannot even be certain that it was German the two were speaking in the flat.’

  There were two kinds of detectives: those who only moved one step at a time, no matter what the pressures, and those who raced ahead content to look back later to check on steps they had missed out. ‘We can’t be certain, no,’ agreed Fusil, managing to keep the impatience out of his voice, ‘but all the evidence suggests it was. We know she lived in Germany for quite a time and that she had a German friend with whom she was living. And one mustn’t forget that she described the man in a letter as different and dangerously exciting . . .’

  ‘I don’t think we should place any weight on that. After all, she was a woman talking about the man she was in love with at the moment.’

  ‘Fiona is a woman of considerable experience who’s had a number of men in her life. With that experience, she isn’t going to describe a man as different and dangerously exciting unless there really is something unusual about him.’

  ‘Would she become mixed up with someone she knew to be a terrorist?’

  ‘For her there’d be the attraction of the unusual, the thrill of knowing that he was dangerous, the pleasure of cocking a snook at the ordinary world.’

  Menton looked at Fusil as if surprised by the words.

  ‘The facts fit together like one of those interlocking puzzles which used to be around when we were kids,’ said Fusil, speaking faster than usual because he had to convince Menton. ‘The bank raid was carried out since the German needed stake money to finance an act of terrorism. The security guard was shot, simply because things weren’t happening quickly enough, with ammunition stolen by terrorists in southern Germany. After the raid, he shot the other two villains because then there was no fear of their betraying him and additionally he now had their share of the loot.

  ‘He’s one overriding weakness and that is he’s a very sensuous man; on top of that, he was a foreigner in a country he probably dislikes and was very lonely. So he got in touch with Fiona, ignoring the risks involved.

  ‘One of the times he was at the flat, O’Connell called to check her driving licence and insurance papers. O’Connell, purely from force of habit, took a good butchers at him but he, experiencing all the stresses of a man who knew he’s at risk, read far more into that casual visual examination than was ever warranted.

  ‘It’s ten to one he’s been engaged in several terrorist acts on the Continent, so he had to assume that a description of himself had been circulated—and inevitably he’ll have believed this was far more accurate than it’s ever likely to have been. So his big fear had to be that O’Connell, from the chance meeting, would pick up an identification . . .

  ‘His problem then became easily stated, if less easily solved. How to prevent himself being exposed before the assassination of Jazeyeri. Kill the constable in what would be made to look like an accident? A less intelligent man would have settled for that. But he’s highly intelligent—which, ironically, is a hindrance because it makes him look too far ahead. Suppose O’Connell’s suspicions had led him to make an immediate report to his superiors? If he then had an “ordinary” accident, those superiors might well begin to wonder if there could be a connection with the possible identification of a terrorist and might order a very full enquiry into the accident. But, if O’Connell died in an accident which appeared to blacken his character, then surely the police, far from investigating the case in any depth, would very hurriedly hush the matter up . . . Which is why he was forced to get drunk on stolen whisky before his car was side-swiped off the road.’

  Menton rubbed his nose. ‘You’re assuming God knows how much on top of a man who so far only just may exist.’

  ‘I’d say, must.’

  There was a long silence, which Menton finally broke. ‘How do you know Fiona Allbright had an affair with a German in Germany?’

  ‘She has a girl friend with whom she kept up a desultory correspondence. Some time back, Jane Yearling received a letter from Fiona telling her about him.’

  ‘How did you learn of the existence of Jane Yearling?’

  ‘Fiona’s father was questioned to try to discover her whereabouts. He was unable to help, but the widow with whom he’s living suggested Jane Yearling might be able to tell us something.’

  ‘Were these enquiries carried on after I ordered you to stop them for the second time?’

  ‘Yes, sir. But I considered them essential to the case.’

  Menton’s anger grew. At the time, obviously, Fusil had ignored the order solely because he was stubbornly determined to prove against all the evidence that O’Connell had not stolen the whisky. But if Fusil’s theories were proved correct the fact that he had disobeyed orders yet again would be held in his favour, not against him . . . Menton was a man who never allowed his emotions to control him. To pursue the matter now, however much he longed to do so, would be a tactical mistake. But should Fusil finally be proved to be wrong . . . ‘What do you intend to do now?’ he asked crisply.

  ‘Try to find the German, but that’s a long shot if he has the sense to stay really close to earth. More promisingly, find Fiona Allbright. He may have killed her because she can identify him, but I don’t think so. No, I reckon he told her to disappear and he’d meet up with her when he could—which means after he’s killed Jazeyeri. And surely the safest place for her to disappear to is Germany . . .

  *

  A constable, in the green uniform of the Rhineland-Palatinate state police force, entered the Alte Thorschenke hotel, the last of the four hotels and five hostels he had to visit. He crossed the thickly carpeted floor to the reception desk, which was flanked with potted indoor plants that still glistened from the sponging down they had received a few moments before.

  The constable spoke to the younger of the two clerks. ‘I’m trying to find an English woman, name of Fiona Allbright. Is she staying here?’

  ‘You’ve surely had our registration slips?’ asked the clerk unhelpfully.

  ‘Names can get missed out,’ replied the constable equably.

  The elder clerk, who had been talking to an over-dressed woman whose hands were alive with the glint of jewellery, hurried down the long counter to find out what was the problem. He said he’d look at the main register.

  ‘We’ve no one of that name at present staying here, but we do have a reservation in her name for a week, commencing tomorrow night, the twentieth: a double room.’ There was a note of disapproval in his voice. Like all other hotels, the Alte Thorschenke had had to come t
o terms with the permissive age but personally it still distressed him that an unmarried couple should openly book only one room. He was of an age when the clients of a good hotel had had the breeding to be hypocritical about their styles of life.

  *

  Fusil, returned from questioning the foreman of a scrap-metal yard, was in the courtyard of the station when a PC approached and reported the message newly received from Germany.

  Fusil took the pipe from his pocket and, not bothering to fill the bowl, put it in his mouth. He fidgeted the stem with his teeth. Fiona might have met another man. But all available evidence suggested that just over three weeks before she and the German in her flat had been passionately attracted to each other. So it seemed reasonable to suppose it was he who was to share the hotel room with her. If he was to be there the next night, he must be intending to leave Britain by the next morning. But, by definition, he wasn’t going to leave the country until he’d killed Jazeyeri . . .

  Chapter Nineteen

  Fusil saw Passmore and Inspector Goatman in the superintendent’s room. ‘That’s how things stand now,’ he said, having detailed the evidence and the conclusions he’d drawn from it.

  ‘What’s to say he hasn’t brought in fellow-terrorists from Germany—or anywhere else?’ asked Passmore, seated behind his desk.

  Fusil, who had remained standing, began to pace the carpet. ‘I can’t prove it, but I’ll swear from the way he’s worked so far that in this case, at least, he’s a loner.’

  ‘Maybe. But we’ll have to act on the assumption that you’re wrong.’ Passmore turned to Goatman. ‘You know the defence of Windleton Manor like the back of your hand. Where’s their weakest point?’

  ‘There isn’t one.’

  ‘There’s always one,’ he corrected sharply.

  ‘Not here,’ replied Goatman doggedly. ‘A man can’t move anywhere in the grounds without being detected.’

  ‘Terrorists aren’t going to run just because they’ve been detected. They’ll be armed, they’ll kill without a second thought and possibly they’ll be sufficiently fanatical not to worry about their own safety . . . We’re dealing with an abnormal class of criminal and one of the biggest mistakes we can make is to react as we would towards ordinary villains. How long will it take the first police to arrive at the house after the alarm has been given?’

  ‘Cars from Ascrey Cross will be there in nine minutes in day time or early evening, five to six minutes when the roads are virtually clear at night.’

  ‘That could be too long.’ Passmore looked at Fusil. ‘What would you do, Bob?’

  ‘Have a car standing by with armed police aboard.’

  ‘I agree. But I’m going to make it two cars: one to the north, one to the south, in constant communication with each other and with Ascrey Cross.’

  *

  As was required by regulations, a chief superintendent had authorized the issue of arms. A uniformed inspector unlocked the strong-room in which they were kept and then issued them.

  ‘Tarrant, sir,’ said a PC.

  The inspector checked that the PC’s name was on the list of ‘gun trained’ officers. ‘One automatic shotgun and twelve rounds of SG.’

  The sergeant in the strong-room picked out from the rack an automatic five-shot twelve-bore. He pulled back the bolt to make certain the breech was empty, handed the shotgun out to the constable. He then collected a flak-jacket, a cartridge-belt and twelve SG-sized shot cartridges and passed those out. The inspector counted the number of cartridges. ‘Sign there.’

  The PC signed.

  ‘Next,’ said the inspector.

  *

  Being a port, as well as a large city, Fortrow never slept but by three in the morning, tired and frowzy, it had slowed right down: the docks were largely at a standstill, drink clubs had closed and even the prostitutes, muggers and dippers had given up.

  In a small, sleazy room, Ertl opened his suitcase and brought from it a small, leather case which contained what at first sight looked like a water pistol. Made in East Germany, to Russian design, it fired by means of compressed air three charges of a nerve-gas which was a derivative of soman: this gas was classified as killing instantaneously. He laid the gas-gun on the bed.

  He changed into the white shirt and navy-blue trousers of the uniform worn by the guards at Windleton Manor, strapped on a shoulder-harness and into the holster snugged his Walther automatic.

  He carefully tied the black tie, pulled on the uniform coat and did up the bottom three buttons leaving the top one open for easy access to the holster. He set the peak cap at a jaunty angle on his head and crossed the room to check in the long, cracked mirror that his general appearance was all right. He returned to the bed and picked up the gas-pistol, slipped this into his right-hand coat pocket.

  He put his papers—passport, air ticket and wallet—on top of the clothes in the suitcase and closed this. He left.

  *

  Fusil’s head jerked and he awoke with a start. He stared bleary-eyed at his desk, then raised his left wrist and looked at his watch. Three-fifteen. He felt as if he’d slept in his clothes for the past month.

  He stood, shivering despite the fact that the electric fire had been on all night, and left the room to go downstairs to the canteen. He bought a mug of coffee from the vending machine and sat at one of the tables. As he spooned sugar into the plastic mug, he listened to two PCs at the next table laughing: life could still be fun when one was young, even at three-thirty in the morning. He searched his pockets for his pipe and discovered he’d left it upstairs, called across: ‘Have either of you got a fag to spare?’

  One of them came across to offer a pack. ‘Thanks,’ he said. He smoked. Passmore had been right—there had been no point in his hanging on at the station. To begin with, security at Windleton Manor was ultimately the uniform branch’s responsibility, not CID’s, and in any case if he were needed he could be contacted nearly as quickly at home. A few hours’ sleep in bed would have left him more alert, both mentally and physically . . . His head was aching. He went over to the slot machine by the side of the coffee-vendor and bought a packet of aspirins.

  He swallowed two aspirins and drank the coffee. The defences at Windleton Manor had been designed and installed by experts who were positive that there was no way anyone could broach them without sounding the alarms. But something which Passmore had said recently worried him. There was always a weak point.

  Where was the weak point here—armed policemen on the spot and an alarm system which would inevitably pick up anyone who entered the park illegally . . .

  Quite suddenly, he began to wonder why the German had needed the hundred and twenty-five thousand pounds from the bank robbery? Obviously, a terrorist always wanted money, if not immediately then in the near future, but there had been a considerable risk attached to a wages-snatch outside a bank. A smaller job would have meant less risk and from any logical point of view wouldn’t a foreigner have aimed to take the least possible risk? So was the terrorist a greedy man, an ordinary criminal as well as a terrorist? But such a man would surely never attempt the ‘impossible’ task of assassinating Parviz Jazeyeri? . . . Could the size of that wages-snatch suggest where lay the weak point in the defence? Could it be underlining the fact that equipment had to be manned and that men could be bribed . . .

  Chapter Twenty

  Ertl came to the edge of the woods which bordered the winding lane. From his right came the blaring sound of a bulling cow calling, from ahead the seemingly anguished cry of a vixen, from his left the distant hum of the sparse traffic on the main London road: nothing more. Satisfied, he left the trees and crossed the lane. Beyond this was a grass verge and the wall which surrounded the park. He reached into his pocket and switched on the small identificator.

  He gripped the top of the wall and pulled himself up, waited a moment to make certain everything remained quiet, and then let himself down on the far side. The silence and the darkness continued. He knew a sharp
sense of relief. There had always had to be the possibility that the guard had sold him a faulty identificator, either treacherously or by mistake.

  Using an old army compass, he walked due south-east, moving very carefully because the night was dark enough to make it difficult to pick out the trees.

  The guard had told him that between one and five in the morning the ground floor of the house was not patrolled nearly as regularly as it should have been: there was little chance of any of the guard’s superiors turning up and in any case since the house was wired to alarms the chances of anyone breaking in undetected were zero. So he’d have no trouble in entering and making his way up to the first floor—once there he’d be completely safe because except in an emergency no guard was allowed upstairs. The bedroom next to the one in which Jazeyeri slept was unoccupied. Outside the two windows there ran a balcony, just as there did outside the master bedroom, and the distance between the two balconies was less than a couple of feet so that a man could very easily climb from one to the other . . . This was the one part of the assassination which terrified him since he had suffered from extreme altophobia for as long as he could remember; because it terrified him he had not considered working out an alternative plan—a man must force himself to overcome his fears . . .

  The bulk of the house began to loom black against the clouded night sky which reflected the lights of Fortrow.

  *

  Passmore drove just as quickly as Fusil would have done, but with far more consideration for road conditions and the few other travellers they met. They reached the gate-house at three forty-nine.

  A sergeant stepped out of the police car which had been parked there and came across. ‘Everything’s quiet, sir, and it’s been that way since we came on duty.’

  ‘Get on the phone to the house to say two police cars are coming through and we need to enter the house. Switch on all floodlights.’