^ It went on, day after day as Sullivan worked his way north up the west Atlantic coast, driving from port to port, prowling the bars and the brothels night after night, asking the same questions, getting the same negative answers. But not always. There were several occasions when seamen said they might know something, said it in low tones as they glanced carefully round.
^ A meeting would be arranged, usually in daylight on the following morning, and for a quite different rendezvous. This suggestion was quite routine for Sullivan – informants did not like to tell him things which other ears might register. What was ^ ^ not routine was the outcome. No one ever kept the appointment.
^ Bordeaux… La Rochelle… Brest… Le Havre… Ostend… Antwerp.
^ They followed his progress all the way up the coast, tracked it on a map of western Europe torn from a school atlas which they had pinned to the wall of the Left Bank apartment in Paris. A phone call came in. Bordeaux. 'An Anglais… Sullivan. Asking about Harper Tankships…'
^ The forty-four year old Andre Dupont, the man who had helped Winter disable the Italian Syndicate motor-cruiser by throwing a thermite bomb, relayed the message to the older man who was short and wide-shouldered, whose cruel, moustached face was only a shadow in the dimly lit room – Paris was enduring yet another voltage reduction. LeCat took the phone.
^ 'Next time, do not mention the firm's name – you do not wish to end up in an alley with a red half-moon where your throat should be? Follow him…'
^ The names were circled on the atlas map and the dates of Sullivan's visits to each port were carefully recorded. 'He will go home from Belgium,' LeCat predicted. 'He will give up and catch the Ostend ferry. He has found out nothing.'
"… more. Winter said it was inevitable. Why do you think we are paying out all this money to keep loose mouths shut? I would handle it more cheaply – with a knife. But you know Winter…'
^
^ 'He is not going home,' Andre said. 'For a man who has had no answers to his questions he is very persistent. What if he goes to Hamburg?'
^ Mr Arnold Ross, managing director of Ross Tankers Ltd, registered in Bermuda, was an impressive figure. Over six feet tall, thin, bowler-hatted, he was faultlessly dressed in a dark business suit which looked as though it had just been collected from Savile Row. His black shoes positively glowed, his gold cufflinks showed discreetly as he shot his cuffs after taking off an overcoat which could not have cost less than three hundred guineas. Certainly he impressed Mr Paul Hahnemann, construction director of the Hamburg shipbuilding firm of Wilhelm Voss.
^ 'A fifty thousand ton tanker we would be interested to build in our yard,' he assured Mr Ross.
^ 'Cost, time of delivery – the key factors as usual,' Ross replied, staring out of a large picture window overlooking the yard. 'You do understand that this enquiry is very tentative; also that it is quite secret at this stage?'
^ 'Of course, Mr Ross. We shall use our discretion. You can give us some details of the vessel you have in mind?'
^ 'Something very like a ship you built for Harper Tankships – the ^ Chieftain…'
^ Everyone at Wilhelm Voss was impressed by Arnold Ross, the most typical of Englishmen when he spoke in his clipped voice, when he absent-mindedly pulled at his neat, dark moustache. The ^ Chieftain, ^ it appeared, was very similar indeed to the ship Ross had in mind. Blueprints of the tanker were produced, spread out on a drawing table, and Ross spent a lot of time studying them, asking questions about ^ Chieftain's ^ design and structure.
^ ^ morning and was lucky to drive home to Altona by nine in the evening, understood the reason for secrecy. Ross had implied the reason. 'For ten years we have built in Japan. The chairman thinks we should continue this policy. I want a complete scheme worked out before I tell him what I have in mind…'
^ Ross thawed a little over lunch, talked about his home in Yorkshire, about the place he kept in Belgravia for weekdays, his love of shooting. It all fitted in with Hahnemann's conception of how a certain sort of wealthy Englishman lived.
^ During the afternoon a call came through from London, from the headquarters of Ross Tankers. Again discretion was preserved: the caller merely gave her name as Miss Sharpe. Hahnemann handed the receiver to Ross who was bent over yet another blueprint of the ^ Chieftain. ^ Ross took the phone, listened, said yes and no several times, then goodbye. 'Always a crisis while I'm away,' he remarked, and went back to his blueprint.
^ He left the yard at six in the evening to go back to the Hotel Atlantic, the most expensive hostelry in Hamburg. 'I want to think about what you have told me alone,' he told Hahnemann when the director suggested a night on the town. 'Make a few notes. I'm not a great night-clubber…' It all fitted in with the image Hahnemann was filing away of a rather austere Englishman who travelled the world but was only really at home on his Yorkshire estate.
^ 'And no estimates yet,' Ross repeated as they shook hands. 'I don't want any communication from you until I see my way ahead. When I'm ready, I'll need estimates fast…'
^ 'You give us the time limit.' Hahnemann grinned. 'Lots of night work and strong black coffee. Incidentally, we did build a twin ship to the ^ Chieftain ^ for Harper, a tanker called the ^ Challenger.. ^ .'
^ 'You may hear from me – inside two or three months.' Ross was stepping into his waiting car. He did not wave or look back, and the last view Hahnemann had of the elegant Englishman was of the back of his head as the car swept away through the gates.
^ Paul Hahnemann was not a gullible man. He had been intrigued when Ross first phoned him from London, warning him that on no account must Hahnemann try and get in touch with him: the matter was highly confidential. It was not too unusual, the discreet enquiry, but Hahnemann was a careful man. He checked just before Ross's arrival at his office.
^ He put in a call to Ross Tankers in London and asked to speak to Mr Arnold Ross. Miss Sharpe, Ross's personal assistant, took the call. Mr Ross was away abroad, she explained. Could she help? Who was speaking? Hahnemann said no, the call was personal, and put down the phone. Of course Mr Ross was abroad -he was in Hamburg, just leaving the Hotel Atlantic on his way to the Wilhelm Voss shipyard.
^ Judy Brown replaced the phone after making the Hamburg call and studied her nail varnish critically. She would have to make another application before she went out with Des this evening. She looked round the Maida Vale flat critically; what a dull creep this man Ross was; everything ordinary, dull. The furniture, the decoration. Soulless. She even wondered whether it was one of those flats you could hire by the week for fun with the girl friend while the wife was away. And who the hell was Miss Sharpe?
^ The job was a bit odd, but Judy Brown had her own ideas about that. As a temporary secretary she was used to funny jobs, funny people, and this was definitely one of the funnier ones. She looked again at the typed sheet of questions she had relayed over the phone, questions Ross had dictated to her. Something to do with a ship called the ^ Mimosa ^ proceeding from Latakia and bound for Milford Haven, wherever that might be.
^ She'd had to ask the questions when she phoned Hamburg, wait for Ross to answer, then ask the next question. And call herself Miss Sharpe. Daft. A kid could have done it. But the pay was good.
^ Ross had hired her from an agency and then promised her an extra twenty pounds if she did exactly as he asked. The money would arrive by post tomorrow, Friday, if she did the job properly.
^ 'You come here each day at 9.30 and leave at 4.30 for the whole week,' Ross had told her. 'There may be some phone calls – make a note of them and leave it on the table. If my wife comes she may have some dictation for you.'
^ Ross, tall and thin, stooped and wearing thick pebble spectacles, had hesitated. 'Don't let my wife know about my trip to Hamburg. She doesn't know I'll be there.' He had snickered. 'Business. You know?'