"I want her back, son," said Loomis, "and so do you. Got any ideas?"
"I thought she'd have tried to contact me anyway."
"Maybe she can't," Loomis said. "She's got Sherif with her. And even if she's free, where does she start looking? You're not in the telephone book—and even if she went to the police—they wouldn't help her. They can't. Only Special Branch knows we exist, and they aren't allowed to tell where we are. If she did get that far they'd hold on to her of course, but it's dicey, son. And anyway, the only coppers she knows are the ones in Zaarb. And they arrested her. She just might not fancy the police."
"East End?" said Craig. "That where the tube went?"
Loomis nodded. "Down by the docks. Know anybody
there?"
"It's possible," Craig said. "If he's still in business. Chap I met years ago, as a matter of fact. Versatile sort of fellow but a little bit shy. Not at all keen on policemen. They'd like to arrest him, you see. He's a criminal."
"I don't care if he writes rude words in ladies' toilets," said Loomis. "All I want him to do is find Selina."
Craig unlocked the bedroom door, and went in.
When he came out he wore a coat and tie, and the gun was no longer visible. Loomis came out of his chair like a rhino leaving a mudbath, and they went down to his car.
The sign outside the door said: "Arthur Candlish, Boats." It was an elegant handmade sign of teak, with neat, precise lettering. It looked considerably more valuable than the building it adorned. Loomis stared at the sagging door, the low, grimy wall of unpainted brick.
"You sure this feller's any good?" he asked.
"I'm sure," said Craig, and pulled on a rusty bell chain. It screamed its lack of oil, extended a foot and a half, then contracted back to normal in a series of convulsive jerks as its bell clattered. Loomis liked it. A man in a white apron opened the door. In his hand was a chisel. He looked at Craig, and the chisel's cutting edge no longer faced them.
"John," he said. "Nice to see you. Arthur will be pleased—he's in the office."
He led the way along an alley of worn brick, moving down to a workshed filled with boats of every kind: punts, canoes, outriggers, skiffs, prams, and sailboats, too, including the most beautiful cutter Loomis had ever seen. The men who worked on them were slow yet sure in their movements, and Loomis could sense at once the pleasure their work gave them.
At the bottom of the shed a tiny slipway led to a dock, and beyond that was the river. Near the slipway was a glass cage of an office, and here Craig led the way.
The man inside wore a blue-serge suit and a bowler hat of antique cut that Loomis found endearing. He was a lean, big-boned man of fifty, who remained unimpressed by Loomis, who was piqued, and addressed Craig in a dialect Loomis found unintelligible.
"Arthur's a Geordie," Craig explained, then began making similar noises himself. Candlish produced rum from an unlabeled bottle, and poured three generous tots.
"You want a girl?" he said to Loomis, and Craig snorted. "Got a picture?"
"You'll get one tonight," said Loomis.
"Arab. Not many Arabs round here. Not like back home." He winked at Craig. "Still, we'll do what we can. I'll ask around. Put the lads on to it. We do a lot of work round the river."
T believe you," said Loomis, and looked at the unlabeled bottle.
"I'm a Free Trader," said Candlish. "Always have been. Voted Liberal all me life."
Craig wrote a telephone number on a piece of paper.
"Ring me here if you get anything," he said.
Candlish mouthed the letters and numbers slowly, then burnt the piece of paper.
"You got a good lad here," he said to Loomis. "I used to go fishing with his da. You ever want anything, just come and ask. I'm not cheap, but I'm reliable."
"I'm obliged to you," said Loomis, and finished his rum. It was a hundred proof.
"You're welcome," said Candlish, and finished his.
Craig said: "We'd better be off then."
Loomis didn't move.
"This is confidential," he said.
"John and I have done business before now. It's always been confidential," said Candlish. Loomis stood up then.
* Chapter 20 *
They needed money. Sherif had looked for Craig in the phone book. There were many Craigs, including seven Johns and twelve J's. Sherif had rung them all, and by midnight all had answered. He had addressed each one in Arabic, but none had understood, none was the Craig she sought. Then they had talked of the police, but Selina remembered Zaarb, and was wary. Sherif was afraid that Schiebel might hear of him. He thought at last of an advertisement in a newspaper, and she agreed to that. It was why they needed money. They took turns to sleep and watch, and next morning, Sherif went out to change some of the coins.
In a sense, Sherif died of bad luck. Schiebel had gone through Selina's luggage, and found that the necklace was missing. He had asked questions at the tube station too, and the clerk had remembered Selina, and the tickets to Wapping. Schiebel sent men there to watch jewelers' and pawnbrokers', and to ask questions. One of them saw Sherif as he came out of a pawnbroker's, and Sherif saw him. To Sherif, there was only one chance of escape. The watcher must be overpowered, knocked out until Sherif could disappear. He attacked at once, and a small crowd of connoisseurs watched, and hoped there wouldn't be any coppers along to spoil it. They hadn't seen two Arabs fight before.
Sherif fought hard, making up in determination what he lacked in skill, and the watcher, surprised, struck out as he had been taught, feeling his knuckle jar as his hand clenched round a solid plug of lead. Sherif fell toward him, and the watcher lashed out again, two appalling blows, one to the head, the other to the heart; then Sherif fell, and the watcher turned and ran, and the way he ran was as dangerous as his fighting. No one tried to stop him. Sherif had been murdered—that was obvious to the crowd. A broken rib had pierced his heart and he was dead, fifty pounds spilling from his pocket.
* « *
Craig spent a lot of time talking about Selina, describing her, commenting on each feature while Grierson listened and sometimes contradicted, and the artist Loomis conjured up, sketched and threw away, sketched and threw away again. At last he put down his charcoal and said firmly to Craig: "I'm not Graham Sutherland doing the Maugham portrait, you know. Not at the rates your department pays me. All we want is a recognizable likeness."
Craig started again, and this time he tried to forget how much he had liked Selina, her courage, her beauty, her bewildering honesty. The artist, who was bearded and fat and skillful, drew on and on, and first her nose came right, then her chin, her mouth, her eyes, and the charcoal lovingly confined them in a perfect oval, blocked in the darkness of her hair. It was his eighty-seventh sketch, and it was Selina.
"He's better than an Identikit," Loomis had said. "He puts some life into his stuff." Loomis was right.
He came in and looked at what the artist had done, and leered at Craig.
"Being sentimental has its compensations," he said. "Try and find her before Schiebel does."
"What about you, sir?" Grierson asked.
I'm going back to the nursing home," said Loomis. "Got to keep an eye on Mrs. Naxos. You stay here and help poor Craig. Too many girl friends—that's his trouble."
He leered again and left them, and Grierson said: "Where do we start?"
"There's only one way," Craig said. "We get our pictures and we go out and ask questions."
Grierson sighed. "I'm afraid you're right," he said. "We'll probably have to walk about a great deal."
Loomis came back in again.
"You'll be on your own for a bit," he said. T want Craig to take Swyven to see his mommy."