The Green Flash

  Pakis are usually law-abiding because they’re ingenious and industrious enough to make money legally; and he played ball at once. Only four names. The second one was Matthew Smith and Co., Webster Park Road, Ealing. We went.

  ‘This is the same as what happened to me last time,’ said Van, who had a trying habit of establishing a telling sentence and then repeating it.

  The Matthew Smith shop was empty. It had been taken on a short lease, the owner said; the lease had still a month to run but the firm had moved. No forwarding address.

  I said to Shona: ‘They’ll slip up sooner or later. They’ll get careless, or somebody will talk.’

  ‘In the meantime …’

  ‘Oh yes, I know. But the boxes are such good copies that it’s hard for the reps to see any difference without opening the bottles and sniffing.’

  ‘You still think this is a small operation,’ she said. ‘I have a feeling it is large. Rochas, Lancôme, Chanel have all been complaining.’

  Erica being hock-deep in her fencing left me at a loose end most evenings, so I began to drift over to the Cellini Club. This was really an excuse because it was the early evening when she fenced and the late evening when I gambled; but in fact marriage had put my habits out of joint. I hadn’t seen Derek for months, and twice recently I’d rung him but no reply, so I thought I might catch up with him at the Cellini. I didn’t for a moment suppose him to be linked with the forgeries, but in his funny airy way he knew a lot of shady things about a lot of shady people, and I thought he might help to point my nose in the right direction.

  This, I told myself, was why I was going to the Cellini, but the reasons were fairly complex. Waiting for him to turn up, I began playing poker and lost £2,500 in no time at all. I switched to bridge and began to recoup.

  In the second week he was there. He said: ‘No help from me, darling. I’ve never passed a bad cheque in my life, let alone a bad bottle of stink. I’ve figured the angles and it doesn’t pay.’

  ‘Know anybody who might see it differently?’

  ‘What? D’you mean do that sort of caper? Pass off copies as the real thing? Search me.’

  ‘D’you see much of Roger now?’

  ‘I see him. He’s more than ever busy these days, become rather a drone, collecting honey for the Queen Bee. His new mistress, Lady Beatrice Something-or-other. She’s leading him a fine dance and spending his money like water. And his last wife’s threatening divorce. I often think how lucky I am not to have to live a life with tedious legal complications. How’s yours, by the way?’

  ‘My legal complication? We’ll be happier when the Olympics are over.’

  ‘I adore Erica, you know. But sometimes I wonder if she really is the girl for you.’

  ‘I’m sure you sometimes wonder if any girl is the girl for me.’

  ‘Too true, matey. Too true.’

  We talked and drank for a few minutes and then he said: ‘ Roger’s very thick with this Laval fellow these days.’

  ‘What, Maurice Laval? The ex de Luxembourg man?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose that’s him. It would be.’

  Laval had been managing director of de Luxembourg in England until he had lost his job a couple of years ago. He was the most brilliant innovator of his time, but had got thrown out on his ear and no one in the perfumery business had offered him a job since. When I’d been sacked in those early days and Shona had been looking round for a replacement, she had probably had her beady eye on him more than anyone else.

  ‘I haven’t seen him for a couple of years. What’s he doing now?’

  ‘Something with Roger, obviously.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Me?’ he grinned. ‘Oh, I get along. Been into one or two little things with Vince and Gerry.’

  ‘Who are they?’

  ‘Gerry Baker? Vince Bickmaster? You must know them. They’re both members here. Look, David …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mind, it’s none of my business; I keep on the right side of the Bill, as you know. But what’s pushing you, what’s pressurizing you to do the bloodhound act? All the difference in the world between keeping clear of the rozzers and doing the rozzers’ work for ’em. Is it Madame?’

  ‘Not specially.’

  ‘Because now you’ve married money you don’t need to let Shona trample on you any more.’

  ‘She never did.’

  ‘No, well, you know best about that. But if you start snooping along the lines you’ve told me, who knows what hornets’ nest you may stick your nose in?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Darling boy, I’m generalizing. Maybe it’s all a thousand miles from here. But characters indulging in a forgery lark could take it amiss to see a bright young chap like you digging up the dirt about them.’

  ‘Never thought of it that way,’ I said without blinking. ‘ Why should I do any bloodhounding? You’re quite right. Let somebody else do it.’

  II

  I’d seen Laval only two or three times in my life – at trade shows and the like – but I hung around the Cellini for a few nights in the hope of seeing him again. I wanted to check certain recollections of what he looked like. Derek told me he was a compulsive gambler, and that fitted with my memory of how he’d come to leave de Luxembourg; there’d been some trouble over the accounts – money was missing.

  I’d no intention whatever, of course, of taking Derek’s well-meant advice. Can’t think why, I’ve never suffered from moral righteousness, and what did it really matter if some rich firms had their overpriced products forged? Maybe it was the hunt for the hunt’s sake.

  I never did see Laval but I met Derek’s two new friends, Gerry and Vince. I remembered Vince now, he’d been around in the club once or twice when I’d been leading on one of my Scottish friends. A big hefty chap, running to fat even in his middle thirties, a squash fanatic, something in the City, Derek said. But here was a compulsive gambler if ever there was one, never mind Laval.

  Being a sucker myself for some things, it interested me watching other suckers get their little fly feet caught in the sticky webs. Roulette is fun if you’ve £500 to spare and you don’t so much mind whether it flies away or comes home with more. It’s no fun if it gets tied up with greed and ego and avarice and the urgency to win and the terror of running out of chips. Still less is it a joyride if you fancy yourself as a mathematical whizz-kid who by following your own system and watching the drop of the little ball can beat the bank and make a fortune. Vince Bickmaster was one such. He kept careful notes and had odd bits of paper and scribbled on them, and chewed the skin round his left thumb every time the wheel set off. Sometimes he won but more often he lost, but this didn’t at all shake his conviction. It all had to come right in the end.

  After playing bridge most of the evening I’d spend twenty minutes losing my winnings at roulette; but I always got up then and called it a day. Sometimes I’d stand behind and overlook the others. Rosy-minded idealists who argue that human nature is really rather sweet if given a chance would do well to watch roulette players. Almost all the seven deadly sins, except perhaps lust, are on view at the table – every night and all.

  One night by mischance I almost bumped into Roger Manpole. It was the nearest to physical contact we’d ever made, and he brushed the sleeve of his jacket distastefully. He had a tall dark girl with him who was a stunning looker but had an expression as if she didn’t care for the natives.

  ‘Well, David, what a stranger! I thought perhaps you’d left England.’

  He was fatter, no other change. No attempt to introduce me to the dark girl.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘It occurred to me you might have wanted to emigrate after that last disaster.’

  ‘What disaster was that?’

  ‘Well – are there so many you lose count? I mean the total flop of Semaphore.’

  ‘It’ll come again,’ I said.

  ‘I wonder. Shona must have lost a hundred thousand, didn’t she
? She wouldn’t like that.’

  ‘Charisma is making up for it.’

  ‘I wonder at that too. I hear it’s going to be dropped from your American range.’

  ‘You hear a-wrong.’

  ‘Coming, darling,’ he said over his shoulder to the girl, who’d wandered on. ‘You know, old chap, men just won’t wear scent. It gives the wrong impression.’

  ‘You ought to know,’ I said.

  ‘Ah.’ He laughed. ‘I have unimpeachable references. It’s knowing where one belongs in the sexual world … Talking of such things, how is the old lady now you’ve thrown her out? Or was it the other way round?’

  ‘Run after your girl, Roger,’ I said. ‘Otherwise you might get into trouble.’

  ‘From Lady Beatrice? Hardly. She eats out of my hand. By the way, I hear old John Carreros is very sick. Did you know? Got the big C.’

  He moved on before I could speak again. Resisting a temptation to spit, I turned back into the roulette room, stared unseeing at the wheel for a bit, then moved behind Vince Bickmaster out of curiosity to know what possible calculations he could be putting down. When he felt someone was actually trying to see them, he reacted like a snail that comes upon a foreign body. Nothing was to be seen but the shell of his clenched fists.

  I didn’t mind. I didn’t suppose his system was going to solve the riddle of the universe. What I did see – though, Lord knows, with Roger’s jibes in my mind I’d hardly been looking or caring – was that he had been scribbling his sums on the front of an envelope. It was an unused window envelope. And in the left-hand top corner was the printed name MOTH AND BENNY EXPORTS.

  III

  I went to see Mr Matsuko in his suite at the Savoy. Either he was among the higher aristocracy or it was a Japanese custom, for all his subordinates bowed low every time they came into the room and left.

  He was very civilized, very grave, scrupulously polite, but discreet conversation brought out the fact that Erica had rather jumped the gun. It was true that Nihon Kuni and Co. had bought Globe Differentials, but it was not true that they had made any firm decision about new factories in Wales and Lancashire. They were considering it. They were in negotiation with Austin Rover, with the government, with several local councils. It was all rather airy-fairy, well meant, sincerely intentioned, soberly considered. If or when this full expansion took place they would want a new man to oversee it. They were not at all averse to considering me as an immediate possibility to represent their present interests in England. But whether the position offered real scope – and really big money – depended on decisions yet to be made.

  When I told Erica this, she was furious that I’d not grabbed the half-chance that had offered itself. She had heard, her father had heard, it was only a matter of time, perhaps only a few months, before the big deals went through. Then there would be others with far wider experience clamouring for the job. This was the time to take it, at the outset, before anyone else was in the running.

  I said I’d keep it very much in mind. Just what I’d told Mr Matsuko. For a while she wouldn’t speak to me.

  But just at the moment Erica was on teeters about everything as the Olympics drew nearer. She’d collected the necessary number of points; there were five or six others who had, but she was second in total, so selection was pretty much of a sure thing. But that was only the first step before Moscow. She hadn’t, she said, a hope of a gold or a silver – there were two outstanding women who’d fight it out between them – but she fancied herself for a bronze. There was a very good Rumanian she’d never seen, and a West German she knew well and was sure she could beat. It was a matter of luck and fitness on the day.

  From now on, she told me one night, she was going to remain a virgin.

  ‘I thought it might be a relaxation,’ I said. ‘All work and no play makes Jill …’

  ‘You think sex only tires a man? Think again.’

  ‘I’ve never been husband to a female athlete before. I wonder how tennis players do. Hardly worth marrying, I’d think. Or do they say, ‘‘I’ve only got old so-and-so to play tomorrow: it’s all right tonight, John’’?’

  As it happened the withdrawal of sleeping facilities didn’t upset me too much. Things hadn’t been too happy between us for several weeks. It was as if I was losing the taste – or this particular taste. No doubt it would come back, because she was an attractive girl.

  I told Shona what I had learned and seen in the Cellini, and she at once wanted to bring in the Serious Crimes Squad from Scotland Yard; but I said no, give me a week or two more. There wasn’t much to go on yet but it was more than we’d had before. I consulted Van Morris and we found there was only one Vince Bickmaster in the book and he lived in Maida Vale.

  No idea of his personal life at all, and I couldn’t ask Derek for fear of rousing suspicion. Van went up to watch. Seemed, he reported after a few nights, that Vince lived by himself, second-floor flat, no buzzer device on the door and the lock would be a doddle.

  I hesitated at this moment, wondering whether to involve Van Morris further. For some years he’d been following the fount whence honour springs, beating out a modest living and married to a respectable frigg. What would old Essie think if we got copped for something and I’d let him into it – even with the best of intentions? What was worse, he was clearly enjoying it.

  The fourth night I went up with him in an old Austin he owned – this being a lot less conspicuous than my big thing – and we parked a few cars down from Vince’s flat on the other side of the road. We chatted and listened to the cricket close-of-play scores, and Van told me some of the problems of his married life. Coral was a queen, ace-high and the rest, kept everything nice and tidy, careful with money, always there to welcome him home; only trouble was she couldn’t stand his mother. If he went to see Mum there was always a row when he got home. Jealous as fire. Couldn’t understand it: he never objected to her going to see her mum. Women are peculiar that way –

  ‘Here he comes,’ I said.

  Vince Bickmaster walked down the steps and got into a flashy Mitsubishi parked nearby.

  We watched him drive away. We sat in silence. Van lit the stub end of a cigarette and smoked it till there was nothing but a few flakes and a bit of rice paper sticking to his lip.

  ‘How about it, guv?’

  ‘What would Coral say?’

  ‘Won’t know, will she?’

  ‘Not if we’re quick, I suppose.’

  ‘Then let’s be quick.’

  We went in and up the stairs to the second floor. Van’d been up before and knew the way. The lock took him, I suppose, ninety seconds. Then we were in.

  What neither of us expected was a yapping dog.

  It was a long-haired dachshund. But these furry things can nip. It came towards us in a ecstasy of annoyance and hostility yet half ready to be servile. Not a guard dog in the proper sense of the word, but the racket sounded like a burglar alarm. Did the neighbours underneath complain?

  Taking a chance, Van stretched down a hand, and the object rolled over on its back expecting to be tickled.

  To the accompaniment of dog noise urging us on, we began to go through the flat. Four rooms, all sizeable, set out in art-deco style. I did the living-room while Van tried the bedroom, rooting for scraps of paper, old letters, notebooks, visiting cards which might be in his suits.

  I went over to the desk and began to go through the drawers. You’d think a damned dog would get a sore throat, but this one didn’t. There was no guarantee how long the owner would be away from the flat.

  Van came in with a wad of £20 notes he’d found in an envelope under the mattress.

  ‘Nothing else,’ he said. ‘Keeps all his pockets nice and clean.’

  ‘Put them back,’ I said.

  ‘Seems a pity, guv.’

  ‘It’s black money somehow and he’d never dare to complain; but I don’t want him to know anybody has been here.’ I was staring at a little Beretta automatic pistol in one of
the drawers. Not quite the City gent picture. Just as well maybe if he came back unexpectedly that he wouldn’t be carrying this.

  Van was looking through the curtains, watching a car parking near by.

  ‘For God’s sake can you do something to that dog?’ I said. ‘Anything short of strangling it!’

  I pulled out another drawer. Under the file were some girlie magazines, under the magazines more letters. One, without address, but dated April, said:

  Dear Vince,

  Now the stuff has all come in I’m more or less a freelance again, so shall be trying out one or two of your new ideas. When I saw Roger last he was cagey about getting tied in to it all personally. I rang you a couple of times at the old address in EC, but the telephone people said the number had been disconnected. Hope you get this.

  There are many Maurices in the world but it isn’t the most common of Christian names. Under the letter were half a dozen pieces of printed paper with the Moth and Benny Exports heading, an address in East Croydon. Apart from that not much. Nothing new. I wanted something to lead on, not lead back. The dog had stopped barking. The sudden silence scared me. Van, as I knew, did have strong hands.

  Another drawer and a file. Bills of lading, receipts, cheque stubs, letters. Would take a week even to skim this lot.

  Van was back. ‘I’ll have a mouse around the bathroom. Some folk keep odd things in bathrooms.’

  ‘What have you done to the hound?’

  ‘Given him something to eat, guv. Seemed the best thing!’

  As he loped off I looked at my watch. We’d been in twenty minutes. Half an hour ought to be the maximum. Unlikely Bickmaster would take his car if he was intending to be back sooner than that.

  The living-room didn’t have any other drawers apart from this desk, and precious few pieces of furniture that looked likely to give me any information to help. Try the kitchen.

  No windows in the kitchen, so I put on the light. Dachshund was in a corner slurping up some sort of food Van had found. Must remember to clear it up when we left.