Simon Tolkien - Orders from Berlin

It was obviously a bad time of day to call. Nobody Trave spoke to seemed to know where Alec Thorn was or what was happening to him. Eventually he gave up, banging the receiver against the wall several times to vent his irritation as he realized that his only option was to go to the hospital and find Thorn for himself. But when he finally got to Fulham Road almost an hour later, he learnt that Thorn had insisted on discharging himself. It didn’t help to be told that they’d missed each other by no more than a few minutes.

Trave cursed his bad luck, wondering where to go next. Perhaps Thorn had gone home, but if so, Trave couldn’t follow him there. There was no listing in the hospital’s telephone directory for an Alec Thorn, and a call to the operator provided Trave with no further information. Frustrated, Trave followed the last lead left to him and took the Underground to St James’s Park, hoping against hope that he might find Thorn at 59 Broadway.

The caretaker, Jarvis, opened the door, wearing the same grey overall as on Trave’s last visit and looking even more unhelpful than he had then.

‘You remember me,’ said Trave. ‘Detective Trave — I was here before.’

Jarvis gave no indication about whether he remembered Trave or not. He just stood in the doorway, waiting to hear what was coming next.

‘I’m looking for Alec Thorn,’ said Trave, dispensing with further preliminaries. ‘Is he here?’

‘No,’ said Jarvis, pronouncing his favourite one-syllable word with relish.

‘I was at the hospital,’ said Trave, refusing to be put off. ‘They said he’s been discharged and so I wondered if he’d come here or if you’d heard from him?’

‘No,’ Jarvis said with finality this time, and was about to close the door when a voice forestalled him, coming from behind Jarvis’s shoulder.

‘Wait, Mr Jarvis. Let’s not be quite so hasty, shall we?’

Trave didn’t recognize the voice, but he immediately recognized its owner when he appeared behind Jarvis in the doorway. It was Seaforth, wearing an expensive tailor-made suit that made him look like some kind of Hollywood film star.

‘’E was ’ere before; ’e talked to Thorn. Said ’e was a policeman,’ said Jarvis, taking a step backwards and addressing his remarks to Seaforth as if Trave weren’t there. ‘Now ’e says Thorn’s been discharged. I told you ’e would be.’

‘So you did, Mr Jarvis. So you did,’ said Seaforth, clapping the caretaker lightly on his bony shoulder. ‘And I’m sure we’re very glad to hear that Alec is back in the land of the living,’ he added, which seemed to Trave to be an entirely truthful statement at least as far as Seaforth was concerned, although Jarvis seemed less enthusiastic. Seaforth in fact looked delighted at the news, which puzzled Trave, knowing as he did from Thorn that they were sworn enemies.

Seaforth smiled at Trave over Jarvis’s shoulder as he spoke to the caretaker, as if inviting the visitor to join in a conspiracy of shared amusement about Jarvis’s rudeness and dropped aitches. Yet Trave had also picked up on a warmth, almost a deference, in the way the surly old janitor spoke to Seaforth that had been entirely lacking in his interaction with Thorn when Trave had last been at 59 Broadway.

‘Thank you, Mr Jarvis. I can take this from here,’ said Seaforth. The caretaker gave a last baleful look at Trave and retreated back into the interior of the building.

‘I’m Charles Seaforth. Maybe I can help you?’ said Seaforth as soon as he and Trave were on their own. He held out his hand to Trave in a friendly way, as if meeting him for the first time, even though Trave was sure this was a charade. He would have been willing to bet his meagre savings that Seaforth remembered the face of everyone he’d followed or had been followed by since he’d begun his career as a secret agent — whenever that may have been.

‘No, I’m afraid not. It’s Alec Thorn I need to see,’ said Trave, shaking Seaforth’s hand but avoiding his eyes. He remembered the contemptuous ease with which Seaforth had given him the slip in the Underground station on the day of Bertram’s arrest and sensed instinctively that Seaforth would get the better of him again if he was forced into a conversation.

‘May I ask what about?’ asked Seaforth, refusing to take no for an answer.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t tell you that. It’s a police matter,’ said Trave, turning to go.

‘Relating to the murder of our late lamented colleague Albert Morrison?’ asked Seaforth.

‘Yes,’ said Trave, caught off guard.

‘I thought so,’ said Seaforth, smiling. ‘So you must be Detective Trave?’

Trave nodded. He had no choice.

‘You may wonder how I know who you are. It was your superior, Inspector …’ Seaforth made a show of trying to remember the name, even though Trave was sure that he knew it already, and then came up with it: ‘Quaid — that’s it — who told me about you when he telephoned us to discuss the case following your visit to Mr Thorn. If you don’t mind me asking, are you here on Inspector Quaid’s instructions?’

‘Like I said, it’s a police matter,’ said Trave. ‘I can’t really discuss it.’

‘So you won’t mind if I call Inspector Quaid and tell him about your visit here?’ asked Seaforth with a smile.

‘You do whatever you have to do,’ Trave said defiantly, and then regretted his words. Seaforth was toying with him, testing his reactions, and he had reacted like an angry bull at the first provocation. Still, it was hardly surprising that his nerves were frayed, Trave reflected. Seaforth held all the cards. All he had to do was pick up the telephone and call Quaid and Trave would find himself on the next train north, and this time without a return ticket.

But Seaforth had not finished with him yet. He reacted to Trave’s outburst with a return to his initial friendliness. ‘I expect that Alec has just gone home to wash up and get changed,’ he said. ‘It sounds like he’s been through quite an ordeal.’

‘Yes. I expect you’re right,’ Trave said guardedly.

‘I’m sure he’ll be here before too long if you’d like to wait.’

‘No, I’ll come back later,’ said Trave, backing away. He knew what Seaforth had in mind — a call to Quaid while Trave sat in the poky waiting room where he’d talked to Thorn on the day after the murder, and the inspector would be round in an instant to remove his rogue assistant from 59 Broadway once and for all.

‘As you wish,’ said Seaforth, watching the retreating policeman with the same look of scornful amusement he’d bestowed on Trave from the departing Underground train five days before.

Trave walked aimlessly through the streets, trying to get his thoughts under control and work out what to do next. He cursed himself for having gone to 59 Broadway, yet he knew he’d had no choice. He didn’t know Thorn’s home address and he had no way of finding it out, so the spy headquarters had been the only place he could go to look for him. He’d had to take a chance, and it was just bad luck that he’d run into Seaforth instead. But there was a price to pay for bad luck. Trave felt sure that Seaforth had already put in his call to Quaid and that the inspector would soon have people out looking for him. The net was tightening around him, not Seaforth, and he needed to get out of the area.

But where to? He was on his own now, he had to face that. He had a warrant card and a revolver with six rounds of ammunition, but otherwise he was a policeman without resources. He’d burnt his boats with Scotland Yard by going to 59 Broadway, and the only way back was if he could find out what Seaforth was plotting and foil his plan before it was too late.

Seaforth — he was the key, Trave suddenly realized, not Thorn. Trave had no idea where Thorn was, he had no way of finding out, and he couldn’t wait around for him to show up. But perhaps none of that mattered. Because he did know where Seaforth was. If Seaforth was at 59 Broadway, then he couldn’t be at home in his apartment, and maybe there would be something there that would provide a breakthrough or at least a lead that might take the investigation forward.