Mistress Murder (21 page)

There was a fifty minute wait at the station before the next London express came in and he had a niggling fear that the Morris might be spotted, if luck was against him. But it was an hour after the train left before Parry's men found the place where he had hired the car and another six hours before a local constable spotted its number plate in the Bridgend car park.

By this time, Jacobs was in London. With his usual caution, he had locked himself in the toilet when the train stopped at Cardiff and, in case Paddington was being watched, he left the train at Reading and caught a bus the rest of the way. While the detectives in South Wales were fuming over his repeated vanishing trick, he was booking in at a small hotel in Victoria.

He had a good meal and went to bed to consider his next move. It was only too clear that this was the end of an era for him. He had lost heavily. He was down but not beaten. Drawing on his peculiar divided personality, he was able to look on the loss of his home, his wife, and a way of life with dispassionate regret. There was certainly regret. He was very fond of Barbara – it seemed unlikely that he would ever see her again. She had had no inkling of his other life and he sincerely regretted the trouble that she would be drawn into now that the truth was out.

Yet in the middle of this disaster, the greatest since the Nazi war machine had collapsed and thrown him adrift, he was already plotting for the future. He had to get out of Britain – that was the first necessity. Once abroad, he could set about rebuilding his empire. He had thousands of pounds salted away in various banks on the continent and he knew many contacts who would help him return to the drug trade.

Before he turned over to sleep, he comforted himself with the thought that there would be more Ritas and Elsas on the continent. There might not be another Barbara, but he'd had a good run these last fifteen years.

Paul Jacobs, alias Golding, alias Schrempp, was far from beaten.

Chapter Fifteen

‘We've lost him for good now,' said Benbow dejectedly. Four days after Paul Jacobs' getaway from Cardiff, he and his sergeant sat dolefully in their office at the Yard and admitted defeat.

‘The swine may be sitting half a mile away this very minute,' said Bray. ‘It's fantastic really – we know who he is and we can't pick him up.'

‘That Identikit picture you had in the papers and on the telly … how good was it?' asked Roberts.

Benbow looked at Bray, the only one who had ever seen Golding. He shrugged non-committally.

‘I don't know. Each feature on its own was correct – nose, eyes, chin, you know. But all put together – well, it just wasn't him. Could have been anyone, let's face it.'

Benbow's hand stole towards his pencil tray. ‘If only – we'd had just one photograph,' he said, ‘There wasn't one bleeding snap in the whole house – he must have been canny enough to look ahead just for a situation like this.'

There was a thoughtful silence, broken only by the splintering of timber as the Admiral made a meal of another HB.

Bray sighed heavily. The youngest of the group, he was itching for action. He was ready to dash outside and begin taking London apart brick by brick until he found Jacobs.

‘Any ideas, anybody?' said Benbow.

‘What d'you think he'll do?' asked Roberts. ‘Run for the continent or stick it out here?'

‘He's got to live,' replied Benbow. ‘He'll probably have a stack of money on him, but he can't get any more from his normal account under the Jacobs name. I should think he'd try to get back to the continent – he may already have done it.'

They were interrupted by the phone. Benbow answered it and within seconds, a great smile cracked his round face. He jabbered a string of thanks down the phone and delicately dropped it back into its cradle.

‘That's something to help box the swine in the country, if he's still here – Parry, the D.I. from Cardiff, rang to say he's found a photo of Jacobs. He's teleprinting it up right away and sending the original by post … Bray, as soon as it comes, get it out to the Press Officer for newspapers and the telly, and get it on handbills.'

He rubbed his hands energetically.

‘This'll give Mr Bloody Jacobs something to worry about.'

It did make Paul Jacobs worry, but it also helped him to make up his mind about his next move.

He first saw the photograph of himself blazoned across the Saturday evening papers. A very good likeness of himself stared out of the front page, with ‘HAVE YOU SEEN THIS MAN?' printed in heavy capitals across the top.

The dailies had been carrying a story on the Draper murder on and off for a few days, and when the Yard let drop the escape of their prime suspect from their trap in Cardiff, the more sensational national papers had really made a meal of it. There were articles every day speculating on the whereabouts of the man who could assist the police in their inquiries and now the gratis offer of a photograph from the Yard was like manna from Heaven to Fleet Street.

Paul Jacobs stuffed the paper in his pocket, pulled his hat down a trifle and hurried back to his hotel. He packed quickly and left for Euston, where he used his left-luggage ticket to get out the American-style hat and coat. With these on and a pair of rimless glasses, he felt a little easier, especially as he already had his moustache well grown.

Sitting in the refreshment room, he looked again at the offending photograph. It was a large blow-up of a group picture and he cursed the Cardiff golf club under his breath. Though he habitually shied away from the camera, he remembered that about four years before he was unable to avoid being included in a group that had won a local championship match. He lightly cursed his friend, whoever he might be, who had public-spiritedly offered the picture to the police, but then he philosophically accepted the damage that had been done.

It decided his course of action – he must leave the country at once. The faint hope that he might fade away into London and start under a new identity was now far too risky. Any fool with the price of a newspaper might point him out to a policeman in the next week, day or even hour.

He must get abroad – and quickly. It was get out and stay out this time.

Jacobs left the restaurant and caught the tube to Whitechapel, then a bus to Poplar, near the India Docks. He found a small boarding house on the road to Millwall in the heart of Dockland. It was a cut above the usual seamen's lodgings and catered mainly for the less exalted ship's officers.

In the sitting room, he found the current issue of
Lloyd's List
and looked up the German ships expected in the Port of London. He was looking for any one of several vessels, ships that he had used for his smuggling. The paper told him that the motor vessel
Rudolf Haider
was due on the Monday evening.

The master of this ship was an old friend of his, as ruthless and hard as Jacobs himself. He was well aware of Jacobs' smuggling and had shared in the profits more than once. In fact, it was the
Rudolf
that had brought over the last consignment from Hamburg, concealed in tent frames.

Paul settled down to a couple of days waiting at Millwall. He registered in the boarding house as a Swedish fourth officer waiting for his ship. It was easy to avoid any contacts with the other guests and the Scottish landlord was a dour, incurious man who left him well alone.

He spent the weekend either in his room or at the cinema. On Monday morning, he ventured up to the City to close an account in another name, which gave him a further five hundred pounds in cash which he changed to Deutschmarks at another bank.

Jacobs learned that the
Rudolf Haider
was coming into Surrey Commercial Docks with timber and was due to sail for Bremen on the Thursday morning with a cargo of machinery.

Late in the afternoon, he bought a dark hair-rinse at a chemist's near Aldgate and went back to his lodgings. He paid his bill and left Millwall, then went to a public wash-and-brush-up establishment near the Blackwall Tunnel. Here, in the privacy of yet another of the cubicles that had seen so much of Jacobs' double life, he quickly dyed his hair in the wash-basin and darkened his eyebrows. Putting his hat on the still damp hair, he walked out past the sleepy attendant looking even less like his photograph than ever.

Crossing the river to Bermondsey, he found similar lodgings for the night. He kept out of sight for most of the following day but, as dusk fell, he began his final sprint towards his Fatherland and comparative freedom.

The mid-December night fell with a chill drizzle. About six thirty, he caught a bus and got off near the main entrance to the Surrey Commercial Docks in Lower Road. The Transport Commission policeman on the gate made no effort to challenge him, but Jacobs crossed to the little lodge and enquired in Germanic broken English the way to the
Rudolf Haider
.

The officer obligingly pointed down into the distant swirl of lights and fog.

‘
Rudolf Haider
… Albion Dock, berth four. Down there, mate, turn left.' He fumbled for a German word. ‘Albion Dock – left –
links
, see … der schiffist in Albion Dock … er, berth fier … savvy, Fritz?'

Paul hurried through the wet darkness, under lonely electric bulbs fixed to wooden poles, tripping over railway lines laid across the roads, until he came to the dockside. Great stacks of timber lay everywhere, and at the water's edge, a line of immobile cranes stood like rusty giraffes.

He stumbled on, gripping his case, until he came to a row of gaunt warehouses. On the ship moored alongside the first, he saw the name
Rudolf Haider
–
Bremen
painted across her stem.

She was a modem tramp, not the rusty tub of pre-war adventure stories. A sleek motor-ship, she was neat and fast, equipped with all the latest devices for touting around Europe for cargoes. The cargo of pine and spruce from the Baltic had been partly unloaded and the decks stood high above the quayside. A steep gangway stretched from the deserted dockside up to her midships companionway.

Paul hesitated for a moment in the shadow of a warehouse then strode boldly up, his shabby suitcase banging awkwardly against the stanchions. In spite of the deserted appearance from the quayside, a man on watch appeared as he reached the ship's side. He was a grizzled old fellow in a blue jumper and a beret, leaning over the rail at the top of the gangway. He took a pipe from his lips, spat into the oily water twenty feet below and challenged Jacobs in broken English.

‘You want see somebody, huh?'

Paul's manner suddenly changed. His shoulders went back, he seemed to get taller and even the fibre case in his hand suddenly seemed to get more respectable.

‘Tell your captain that I have arrived,' he said in crisp autocratic German. It was the voice of a Prussian autocrat, not that of a down-at-heel seaman. The watchman responded at once to the authority in the tone. He jerked upright and threw a hand towards his beret.

‘Ja, mein Herr – zvieheisensie, bitte' he asked respectfully.

‘Schulman – Franz Schulman.' He used the name which was on the passport he travelled on from Munich last time.

The sailor hurried forward and Paul followed him more leisurely. He passed several lighted portholes, the clink of glasses and loud laughter coming from one. Beyond these, the deck was deserted. A few lights gleamed from behind thick glasses screwed to the bulkheads, but the whole effect was dank, chilly, and eerie. The dockside looked like a graveyard and the ship smelt of wet wood and diesel oil.

The watchman's boots clattered up a ladder ahead of him and Jacobs followed up to the boat deck. A row of doors faced him as well as the dark aperture of an open companionway. The man had vanished and Paul stood uncertainly, waiting in the gloom. Then the nearest door burst open and a short, fat figure stood silhouetted in the bright opening.

The captain came forwards with hand outstretched.

‘Schulman … what are you doing here?' He had a harsh voice, but it had a welcome note of sincerity.

Jacobs turned his face so that the direct light from the cabin did not fall on it. The old seaman was standing alongside the captain and Jacobs made a significant nod towards him. Herzog swung around and dismissed the man back to his watch with a few curt words.

‘Come in – come in,' he said to Paul, with a curious look at his suitcase. ‘Here to stay, eh?'

The captain led the way into his cabin and soon Jacobs was settled with a glass of Swedish schnapps. He explained to Herzog that he was on the run from the British police and wanted to get back to Germany on the
Rudolf
. He said nothing about the murder charges, but said that he was wanted for the narcotic offences. Herzog was not particular about mere dope smuggling but Paul knew that he might shy away from being involved with abetting a murderer, especially when one of them took place in Germany itself.

‘So I've got to clear out back to the old country, Otto – make a fresh start and work up the trade back there. I've got all my suppliers intact in Munich and contacts in Brussels and Marseilles. I can't touch England for a few years – too risky. Perhaps I'll try the States when I've worked up some more capital.'

The mention of money brought a gleam to Herzog's eyes. ‘It's a great risk taking you back, Franz … we're going to be lying here for another day and a half … then there's the Bremen immigration to deal with. I'm the only one to help you – my officers these days are too damned honest.'

Paul saw only too well what he was driving at and slid a hand into his side pocket. He dropped a thin wad of West German banknotes onto the table in front of the captain.

‘There's fifteen hundred marks – I'll give you another fifteen hundred in any bar you care to name – as long as it's in Bremen … outside the dock gates!'

Herzog slowly picked up the notes and flicked through them thoughtfully.