Len Deighton - XPD

‘Oh, now I get it,’ said Billy Stein. ‘You’re one of the Brits talking to my dad about his papers. You know all about that stuff.’

‘I know about the papers,’ said Stuart. ‘What I didn’t know is the lengths that you and your dad would go to hang on to them What did you use, Billy? A hacksaw, was it, or a chopper?’

‘You don’t talk to me like that, you bastard,’ said Billy. ‘I didn’t kill those people-kids you say they were; I don’t know if they were kids or what-I was set up… ’

‘Set up? Set up how, and by whom? You fly into London -first class with all the trimmings-and check into this flashy hotel. You leave here this morning and go directly to an address in King’s Cross-not a regular call on the average tourist itinerary, you’ll agree-and stay inside about twenty minutes. Is that about the time you required to do the deed, Stein? Set up? What in hell are you talking about?’

‘This is your territory. I’m out of place here; I’m vulnerable. OK. But I didn’t kill those people up there in that stinking little place. I swear to God, I didn’t.’

‘So who did kill them, you little creep?’ Stein moved. ‘Keep still, or I’ll blow your head off.’

Stein laboriously described his father’s arrest by the highway patrol, and the phone call from Paul Bock which was waiting for him when eventually he returned to his home in Cresta Ridge Drive. Stuart knew that the slow recital of events was calculated to provide Stein with a chance to collect his wits and talk his way out of his predicament, but he did nothing to hurry him or interrupt. He just waited until Stein ran out of steam and when Stein looked up at him for his reaction, Stuart was standing, gun in hand, smiling politely.

‘What’s so funny?’ said Stein.

‘Am I getting this right?’ said Stuart. ‘You’re telling me that a man phoned your father in Los Angeles, a man you’ve never heard of before, and on the strength of one phone call you leapt aboard a plane and came to London? Pull the other leg, Stein, it’s got bells on.’

‘He said it was about the documents.’

‘Oh, he said it was about the documents,’ said Stuart mockingly. ‘Well, that explains everything. Naturally if someone phones up and says… ’

‘The hell with you,’ said Stein. Now he had heard Stuart deride his explanation, he realized how improbable it would sound to the jury.

‘Shall I tell you what they do with people who go into the homes of law-abiding inhabitants of north London and hack their heads and hands off? They put them into the lock-up for altogether too long. Did you ever see an English prison, Stein? Or, more pertinently, did you ever smell one? Did you ever smell one first thing in the morning, when they are slopping out? No flushing toilets there, my friend. You won’t be sitting in the lounge watching colour TV, like they do in those nice California state prisons. We’re more primitive over here. This morning’s headlines make it seem you’ll beat the hangman, Billy. But you’ll spend the rest of your natural life in some dirty, smelly, old Victorian slum that looks like an illustration to a Charles Dickens novel.’

Billy Stein hammered a fist against the carpet, ‘I didn’t kill anyone.’

‘What did they do? Steal some of your Nazi documents? I noticed that the shop was filled with Nazi swords and daggers and that kind of junk. Is that what they did?’

‘If you are going to book me, book me.’

Stuart stepped over to the dressing table and fingered quickly through Stein’s US passport, airline tickets, keys and coins, and a wallet containing paper money, California driving licence, social security card and credit cards. ‘Ask yourself what kind of position you’re in,’ Stuart suggested.

Billy said nothing.

‘You’ve left your dabs all over that house in King’s Cross. The police still take fingerprints, Stein. I know that these whizz kids in the private-eye movies say it’s all out of date, but the cops get a lot of convictions every year on fingerprint evidence.’ Stuart lifted a Samsonite two-suiter on to the bed. ‘Fingerprints are computerized nowadays. Stein. No more time wasted while some civilian clerk compares arches, loops and whorls-all done in a flash nowadays.’ He opened the catches and rummaged quickly through the clothes inside. ‘And even if you are innocent, who’s going to believe it?’

‘You won’t find the Hitler documents in there, buddy.’

‘Won’t I? Well, that’s too bad, but I get an A for effort, right?’ Stuart waved the pistol at him. ‘Keep still until I tell you to move.’

‘Do you know what I really think? I think you killed those two people. Or, if you didn’t do it personally, someone employed by the goddamned British spy service did it. Then you put that phone message on my tape and staked out the house to watch me walk into your trap. It’s a frame-up, as sure as I ever saw one. And one day I’ll get even with you, if it takes me a million years.’

‘Never mind the histrionics,’ said Stuart, ‘You lean forward and put your hands behind you so that I can fit the handcuffs on you. Try to grab my gun and I’ll have to hit you over the head with the butt of it-you understand?’

‘OK,’ said Billy. ‘You’re charging me, are you?’

‘Like in the Hitchcock films, you mean?’ He got one cuff on to Stein’s wrist and struggled with the other until it finally clicked. It pinched Billy’s skin and he gave a grunt of pain. ‘No, you’ll be charged by a nice police inspector, in full dress uniform. You get an inspector for a murder charge, Stein, no lesser rank may do it. It will be something to write to your dad about. I just came along to collect you. We’re going out the back way. Cut up rough and you’ll go out feet first. Got it?’

‘Yep.’

Stuart had arranged everything with great care. He used two young probationary trainees from the Foreign Office to help him with the car and pacify the hotel staff. They hustled Stein out through the baggage door, and put him into a black Rover saloon which had been passed off more than once as a police vehicle.

They put Billy Stein into a safe house in Pentonville Road. A man named Benson, dressed up as a police inspector, went through all the formalities with Stein, and certainly the cells in the basement were convincing enough. They had been built in May 1945 to hold high-ranking Nazis brought to London for interrogation. Since then they had been used to store stationery, except when charades like this one necessitated moving all the boxes of paper upstairs.

‘It went all right,’ said one of the trainees. It was exactly the sort of task they had looked forward to when first selected for assignment to MI6.

‘Let’s wait until we’re sure that no one took the licence number of that Rover and finds it’s registered in the name of old Tom Morris in the accounting department. Did you put the fear of God into the hotel staff? We don’t want anyone phoning the Evening Standard news desk.’

‘I did just what you told me, sir,’ said one trainee obsequiously.

‘You’ll go a long way, Parsons,’ said Stuart. ‘Paid his bill, and checked his room carefully?’

‘Just the way they showed us to do it at the training school.’

Stuart pulled a face. ‘No one’s perfect,’ he said. ‘I’m going home now. You can give him some gentle interrogation for the next two hours. I’ll take over when I return.’

‘What is the prime objective?’ asked the first trainee.

Stuart recognized the terminology. They had been talking about primary and secondary interrogation objectives decades ago when he had first passed through the school. ‘Just ask him questions,’ said Stuart. ‘Any questions. Don’t try to solve the murders-just keep him awake for me. I want him tired and worried by the time I take over.’