Len Deighton - SS-GB

‘You’ve been most helpful, Miss Barga.’ She was going out through the door when Douglas spoke again. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘do you know if he had been to some hot climate recently?’

She turned. ‘Why?’

‘Sunburned arms,’ said Douglas. ‘As if he’d gone to sleep in the hot sunshine.’

‘I only met him a couple of weeks back,’ said Barbara Barga. ‘But he might have been using a sun-lamp.’

‘That would account for it,’ said Douglas doubtfully.

Upstairs Harry Woods had been talking to Thomas’s only neighbour. He had identified the body and offered the information that Thomas had been a far from ideal neighbour. ‘There was a Luftwaffe Feldwebel…big man with spectacles – I’m not sure what the ranks are – but he was from that Quartermaster’s depot in Marylebone Road. He used to bring all kinds of stuff: tinned food, tobacco and medical stuff too. I think they were selling drugs – always having parties, and you should have seen some of the girls who came here; painted faces and smelling of drink. Sometimes they knocked at my door in mistake – horrible people. I don’t like speaking ill of the dead, mind you, but they were a horrible crowd he was in with.’

‘Do you know if Mr Thomas had a sun-lamp?’ Douglas asked.

‘I don’t know what he didn’t have, Superintendent! A regular Aladdin’s cave you’ll find when you dig into those cupboards. And don’t forget the attic.’

‘No, I won’t, thank you.’

When the man had gone, Douglas took from his pocket the metal object he’d found under the chair. It was made from curved pieces of lightweight alloy, and yet it was clumsy and heavy for its size. It was unpainted and its edge covered with a strip of light-brown leather. It was pierced by a quarter-inch hole, in line with which a screw-threaded nut had been welded. The whole thing was strengthened by a section of tube. From the shape, size and hasty workmanship Douglas guessed it was a part of one of the hundreds of false limbs provided to casualties of the recent fighting. If it was part of a false right arm the doctor might have made a remarkably accurate guess and Douglas could start looking for a left-handed ex-service sharpshooter.

Douglas put the metal construction back into his pocket as Harry came in. ‘You let the doctor go?’ said Douglas.

‘You rode him a bit hard, Doug.’

‘What else did he say?’

‘Three A.M. I think we should try to find this Luftwaffe Feldwebel.’

‘Did the doctor say anything about those sunburns on the arms?’

‘Sun-ray lamp,’ said Harry.

‘Did the doctor say that?’

‘No, I’m saying it. The doctor hummed and hawed, you know what they are like.’

Douglas said, ‘So the neighbour says he was a black-marketeer and the American girl tells us the same thing.’

‘It all fits together, doesn’t it?’

‘It fits together so well that it stinks.’

Harry said nothing.

‘Did you find a sun-ray lamp?’

‘No, but there’s still the attic.’

‘Very well, Harry, have a look in the attic. Then go over to the Feldgendarmerie and get permission to talk to the Feldwebel.’

‘How do you mean it stinks?’ said Harry.

‘The downstairs neighbour tells me everything about this damned Feldwebel short of giving me his name and number. Then this American girl turns up and asks me if I found a roll of film on the body. She tells me that this man Peter Thomas was going to get a roll of film for her last night…ugh! A girl like that would bring a gross of films with her. When she wanted more, she’d get films from a news agency, or from the American Embassy. Failing that, the German Press Bureau would give her as much as she asked for; you know what the propaganda officials will do for American newspaper people. She doesn’t have to get involved with the black market.’

‘Perhaps she wanted to get involved with the black market. Perhaps she is trying to make contact with the Resistance, in order to write a newspaper story.’

‘That’s just what I was thinking, Harry.’

‘What else is wrong?’

‘I took his keys downstairs. None of them fits any of the locks; not the street door or this door. The small keys look like the ones they use on filing cabinets and the bronze one is probably for a safe. There are no filing cabinets here, and if there is a safe, it’s uncommonly well hidden.’

‘Anything else?’ said Harry.

‘If he lives here, why buy a return ticket when he left Bringle Sands yesterday morning? And if he lives here, where are his shirts, his underclothes and his suits?’

‘He left them at Bringle Sands.’

‘And he intended to go to bed here, and then get up and use the same shirt and underclothes, you mean? Look at the body, Harry. This was a man very fussy about his clean linen.’

‘You don’t think he lived here?’

‘I don’t think anyone lived here. This place was just used as somewhere to meet.’

‘Business you mean – or lovers?’

‘You’re forgetting what Resistance people call “safe houses,” Harry. It might have been a place where they met, hid or stored things. And we can’t overlook the way he was wearing his overcoat.’

‘You told the doctor it was cold.’

‘The doctor was trying to irritate me and he succeeded. That doesn’t mean he was wrong about someone sitting here waiting for Thomas to arrive. And it doesn’t explain him keeping his hat on.’

‘I never know what you’re really thinking,’ said Harry.

‘Watch your tongue when you are over at the Feldgendarmerie, Harry.’

‘What do you think I am – stupid?’

‘Romantic,’ said Douglas. ‘Not stupid – romantic.’

‘You think he got those burns from a sun-lamp?’ said Harry.

‘I never heard of anyone going to sleep under a sun-lamp,’ said Douglas, ‘but there has to be a first time for everything. And try to think why someone has taken the light bulb out of that adjustable desk light. There was nothing wrong with the bulb.’

The beer seemed to get weaker every day and anyone who believed those stories about the fighting having destroyed the hop fields had never tasted the export brands that were selling in German soldiers’ canteens. In spite of its limitations Douglas bought a second pint and smothered the tasteless cheese sandwich with mustard before eating it. There were several other Murder Squad officers in the ‘Red Lion’ in Derby Gate. It was Scotland Yard’s own pub, more crimes had been solved in this bar than in all the offices, path labs and record offices put together, or so some of the regulars claimed, after a few drinks.

A newspaper boy came in selling the Evening Standard . Douglas bought a copy and turned to the Stop Press on the back page.

MAN FOUND DEAD IN WEST END LUXURY FLAT

Shepherd Market in Mayfair was visited by Scotland Yard officers today when the body of a man was discovered by a neighbour bringing the morning pint of milk. The dead man’s name has not yet been released by the police. It is believed that he was an antique dealer and a well-known expert in pearls. Scotland Yard are treating the death as murder, and the investigation is headed by ‘Archer of the Yard’ who solved the grisly ‘Sex-fiend murders’ last summer.

Douglas saw the hand of Harry Woods in that; he knew Douglas hated being called ‘Archer of the Yard’ and Douglas guessed that Harry had spoken over the phone and said the dead man was an ‘expert in girls’ before incredulously denying it on the read-back.

It was raining as Douglas left the ‘Red Lion’. As he looked across the road, at the oncoming traffic, he saw Sylvia, his secretary. She’d obviously been waiting for him. Douglas let a couple of buses pass and then hurried across the road. He waited again for two staff cars flying C-in-C pennants. They hit the ruts left by bomb damage and sprayed water over him. Douglas cursed but that only made it rain harder.