Flyaway

'What were you doing in Kensington?'

'Following up on a case.' I told him about Billson and what I had done. 'Miss Aarvik will be in Canada now,' I said.

'Good country,' observed Brinton. 'I was born there.' He said it as though the act of his being born there had conferred a distinction on Canada. 'I don't see how all this relates to your being beaten up.'

'Neither do I. Neither do the police or the Special Branch.'

His eyes sharpened. 'What's their interest?'

'Franklin Engineering makes bits and pieces of tanks.'

'And they're following up on Billson?'

'So it seems — but they're not pushing too hard. For all anyone can find out he hasn't committed a crime — yet.'

'You think he might?'

'Who knows what a man like Billson might or might not do. He's lived like a vegetable for fifteen years at least, and now he's gone charging off God knows where. He could be up to anything.'

'Well, you're out of it,' said Brinton. 'By the time you get out of here Andrew McGovern will have taken over responsibility for the security of Franklin Engineering.'

'How big a piece of the Whensley Group have you got?' I asked.

'About thirty per cent Why?'

'Then you'll be a big enough shareholder to ask why Bill-son was paid three times as much as he's worth and why there's a mystery made of it.'

'I'll look into it,' said Brinton. 'Can't have the shareholders diddled like that. All right, if you weren't beaten up because of Billson, what else have you been doing recently to get you into trouble?'

'My life has been blameless.'

Brinton grunted in his throat. 'Don't try to con an old sinner. Nobody's life is blameless. You're sure you haven't been sleeping in any of the wrong beds?' I just looked at him and he said, 'Not that I'd blame you under the circumstances.'

Soon after that he went away.

Charlie Malleson came to see me. He inspected my assortment of bruises, and said, 'Better not go out into the streets just yet. Someone from the Race Relations Board might get you for trying to cross the colour line.'

I sighed. 'You can do better than that, Charlie. If you have to make jokes they'd better be good. How's business?'

'We're coping. How long do you think you'll be laid up?'

'Nobody tells me anything — you know what hospitals are like.. From the way I feel now it'll be about six months, but I'll probably be back in a couple of weeks.'

'Take your time,' Charlie advised. 'Jack Ellis is trying on your shoes to see if they fit.'

'Good — but that will teach me to prophesy.' Charlie raised an eyebrow and I explained. 'I told Joyce that Jack was to take some of my work load. When she queried it I said that if I got knocked down in the street he'd have to take the lot. But this wasn't the sort of knocking down I had in mind.' I thought about Jack Ellis, then said, 'It's about time we made him a director, anyway. He's become very good and we don't want to lose him.'

'I agree,' said Charlie. 'And I think old Brinton will. Max, when did you last take a holiday?'

I grinned. 'That's a funny-sounding word. Maybe two years ago.'

'It's been four years,' he said positively. 'You've been knocking yourself out. My advice is to take some time off right now while you have a good excuse to fool your subconscious. Take a trip to the Caribbean and soak up some sun for a couple of months.'

I looked out of the window at the slanting rain. 'Sounds good.'

Charlie smiled. 'The truth is I don't want you around while Jack is finding his feet in a top job. You can be a pretty alarming bastard at times and it might be a bit inhibiting for him.'

That made sense, and the more I thought about it the better it became. Gloria and I could go away and perhaps we could paper over some of the cracks in our marriage. I knew that, when a marriage is at breaking-point, the fault is rarely solely on one side, and my drive to set up the firm had certainly been a contributing factor. Perhaps I could do something to stick things together again.

'I'll think about it,' I said. 'But I'd better see Jack. There are one or two things he ought to know before he gets his feet wet.'

Charlie's face cracked into a pleased smile which faded as he said, 'Who assaulted you, Max?'

We kicked the Billson case around for a while and got nowhere. So Charlie left, promising to send Jack Ellis to see me.

The really surprising visitor was Alix Aarvik.

I gaped as she came in and then said, 'Sit down, Miss Aarvik — you'll excuse me if I don't stand. I thought you were in Canada.'

She sat in the leather club chair which Brinton had had installed for his own benefit. 'I changed my mind,' she said. 'I turned down the job.'

'Oh! Why?'

She inspected me. 'I'm sorry about what happened to you, Mr Stafford.'

I laughed. By this time I was able to laugh without my ribs grinding together. 'An occupational hazard.'

Her face was serious. 'Was it because of your enquiries about Paul?'

'I can't see how it could be.'

'The police came to see me again. And some others who… weren't ordinary police.'

'Special Branch. Paul did work in a defence industry.'

'I didn't know what to think. They were so uncommunicative.'

I nodded. 'Their job is to ask questions, not to give answers. Besides, they revel in an aura of mystery. May I ask why you turned down the Canadian job?'

She hesitated. 'About a quarter of an hour after you left my flat I went out to post a letter. There was an ambulance not far from the street door and you were being put into it.' She moistened her lips. 'I thought you were dead.'

I said slowly, 'It must have given you a shock. I'm sorry.'

There was a rigidity about her which betrayed extreme tension. She opened her mouth and swallowed as though the words would not come, then she made another attempt and said, 'Did you see who attacked you?'

The penny dropped. 'It wasn't your brother, if that's what you mean.'

She gave a long sigh and relaxed visibly. 'I had to know,' she said. 'I couldn't leave without knowing, and the police wouldn't tell me anything.'

I looked at her thoughtfully. 'If you thought your brother might attack anyone homicidally you should have warned me.'

'But I didn't think that,' she cried. 'Not when we talked together. It was only afterwards, when I saw you in the ambulance, that it occurred to me.'

'I said, 'I want the truth. Have you seen Paul since he disappeared?'

'No, I haven't — I haven't.' Her face was aflame with her vehemence.

I said gently, 'I believe you.'

She was suddenly in tears. 'What's happened to Paul, Mr Stafford? What is he doing?'

'I don't know. Honestly, I don't know.' It took me some 44. time to quieten her, and lying flat on my back didn't help. In order to divert her I said, 'You were being transferred to Canada. Will the fact that you turned down the offer affect your present job?'

'I don't think so,' she said. 'Sir Andrew was very good about it.'

A frisson ran down my back. 'Sir Andrew?'

'Sir Andrew McGovern. I'm his secretary.'

'You do mean the Chairman of the Whensley Group?'

'That's right. Do you know him?'

'I haven't had that pleasure. How did you come to work for him, Miss Aarvik?'

'I started work at Franklin Engineering eight years ago.' She smiled. 'In the typing pool. I like to think I'm good at my job — anyway I didn't stay long in the typing pool, and four years ago I was transferred to Group Head Office in London — that's Whensley Holdings Ltd.'

'I know,' I said. 'We handle the security.' But not for long I thought.

'Oh! You mean you employ the men who come around and make sure I'v e destroyed the executive typewriter ribbons?'

'Sort of. What made you start with Franklin Engineering? How did you get the job?'

'I was with a firm which went bust,' she said. 'I needed another job so Paul suggested Franklin. He'd been working there for quite a while and he said it was a good firm.'