The Gigantic Shadow Read online

  ‘How’s Anna?’ It was a question Charlie never forgot to ask. ‘That’s a great little woman, Bill. One of these days I’m going to come along and take her away from you. In the meantime, don’t forget to kiss her foot for me, will you?’

  Chapter Three

  On that Monday night he stepped into the hotel’s revolving door, was whirled round, and then whirled round again before he got out. Inside he spoke to a commissionaire. ‘Mekles,’ he said, ‘Mr Nicholas Mekles.’

  On the commissionaire’s face there was a fine glaze of disapproval. ‘Mr Mekles is on the fourth floor, sir.’

  Are your eyes fixed so that you can’t look at me when you speak? he wanted to ask. But before he could say anything a voice called from the other side of the reception hall and he saw Jerry Wilton, sweating and anxious.

  ‘Been looking out for you, Bill. How are you?’

  ‘How should I be? Hot.’ Outside the night was hot, in here it was cool, but the air conditioning had a stifling effect. He wanted to pull his shirt collar open.

  ‘We’re all set. Less than quarter of an hour to spare.’ Jerry managed to sound reproachful. ‘I’ve been talking to Mekles. He seems a nice little chap, most co-operative. Just time for a word with him, if you’d like one.’

  ‘No, thanks.’ Jerry always wanted him to talk to the subjects, and he always refused. ‘I’d like a drink.’

  ‘A drink, yes, of course.’ Jerry’s anxiety was perceptibly increased, but he was brave about it. ‘There’s a bar round to the left. Let’s make it a quick one, you know me, just a time slave, like to be on the platform half an hour before the train goes.’

  While they drank whisky Jerry turned round a ring on his finger, tapped the counter, scratched one leg with the other, did everything but look at his watch. ‘How did the programme come along?’

  ‘Terrible. Just terrible!’

  ‘What’s that?’ Jerry looked as though he had heard a priest reading from a handbook on atheism.

  ‘I told you, terrible. We like to play with squibs and you’ve given me a stick of dynamite. You’d better hope I won’t set a match to it.’ He held out his glass for another whisky.

  Jerry stared, then laughed. ‘You aren’t serious, Bill.’

  ‘Perfectly serious.’ What makes me needle him, Hunter wondered, even though the needling is the truth, and it probably will be a terrible programme?

  When they got out of the lift at the fourth floor flexes were trailing all over the place. Two electricians were hanging about, and there was a stocky man with a cauliflower ear in the corridor.

  ‘One of Mekles’ bodyguards,’ Jerry whispered. ‘He really does have them. And do you know, Bill, he’s taken the whole bloody floor? What it is to be rich, eh?’ Admiration was blended with envy in Jerry’s voice.

  ‘What it is to come out on top in the rat race.’

  Jerry looked at him, said nothing. They turned left into the room where the telecast was to take place, and Hunter walked under the intense heat of the arcs. Three or four people began talking to him at once. Would he sit down in his special chair, raise his head, raise his hand, lean forward. He did all that. While the make-up men were working on his face, brushing his jacket, he saw Charlie Cash hovering in the background, and raised a hand.

  Charlie came over. ‘You’ve got everything?’

  ‘In here.’ Hunter tapped his head.

  ‘Got a line to work on?’

  ‘I put my trust in God.’

  ‘You believers.’ Charlie turned down the corners of his mobile comedian’s mouth, went away.

  Jerry Wilton walked over to an inner room, opened the door, spoke to somebody there, came back.

  ‘We’re on in one minute. Quiet, please.’

  There was silence. Hunter could feel sweat trickling down the back of his neck. He wanted to wipe his forehead, but didn’t dare to do so. The green light showed and he heard a voice full of synthetic excitement and enthusiasm saying:

  ‘And now we bring you again our News Behind the News programme, with Personal Investigator Bill Hunter in another candid, unscripted, no-holds-barred interview with one of the most interesting personalities in London this week, with –’

  Now on more than a million television screens the announcer’s face was replaced by Hunter’s, and he began to talk: ‘–a modern mystery man, Mr Nicholas Mekles. To many of us Mr Mekles is a name. We know of him as the owner of a shipping fleet. He is lucky enough to have a fabulous villa on the Riviera and an equally fabulous yacht. He is reputed to exercise control over a dozen different organisations. Some people say he is the richest man in the world.’ Hunter paused, so that his next words should take on an emphasis that was not in his voice. ‘How has Mr Mekles reached his present position? Where did the money come from? Those are two of the intriguing questions I propose to ask this man of mystery. Mr Mekles is paying one of his occasional visits to London – he has taken the whole fourth floor of the Park Lane Grand Hotel, and it’s from a room in his suite that I am talking to you. And now, let’s meet the man of mystery.’

  The cameras followed him as he walked across the room and tapped on the inner door. This door opened and Mekles came out, a man like a very elegant lizard, olive-skinned and sweetly smiling, with small snapping dark eyes.

  The two men sat down, Hunter with his back to the cameras so that the audience looked past him at Mekles. For the rest of the programme the watchers would never see Hunter’s face. The effect had been adapted from an American programme, to give the impression of a man being judged rather than questioned. The cameras shifted occasionally to give a glimpse of Hunter’s shoulder as they looked over it, or to show the back of his head. Mekles, beyond him and in a lower chair, looked like a criminal undergoing interrogation.

  Open mildly. ‘Can you tell me, Mr Mekles, how this man-of-mystery label got attached to you?’

  The little man in the chair below him shrugged. His tongue shot out, briefly licked narrow lips. His voice was low, musical, the words perfectly comprehensible but the stress on syllables foreign. ‘I am a businessman. What is there mysterious about that? This man of mystery, you know, I think he does not exist. He has been invented by newspaper reporters looking for a story.’ His smile broadened. ‘Perhaps by television interviewers too.’

  The victim should not answer back. Hunter said sharply, ‘A businessman. What kind of business?’

  ‘Any kind that is offered. I buy things cheap, I sell them at a profit. That kind of business.’

  ‘Three years ago your name was mentioned in connection with an international report into the control of prostitution in Europe, and the shifting of prostitutes from one country to another.’ Mimicking Mekles’ accent slightly, Hunter asked, ‘That kind of business?’

  It was his belief that the only way in which the interview could take on some sort of life was by his angering Mekles. To his disappointment the little man seemed unmoved. He said carefully, ‘As you know, I am sure, I was cleared of any suggestion that I had any connection with such horrible traffic.’

  ‘You own a shipping fleet?’ Mekles inclined his head. ‘Is it a fact that several ships of that fleet sank with valuable cargo on board?’

  ‘Four ships only.’

  ‘And that the insurance companies concerned refused to pay on the ground that the ships were not seaworthy?’

  No feeling of any sort showed in the little dark eyes. ‘Not at all. One of the insurance companies paid without question. The other refused to pay, on what I could only regard as a pretext. I took the only step available to me.’

  Incautiously Hunter asked, ‘What was that?’

  ‘I bought the insurance company.’ Without raising his voice Mekles said, ‘I am quite a respectable man, I assure you, Mr Hunter. As respectable as you are, perhaps. I have big oil interests, I own a great deal of property, some of it in England. Would you like me to tell you about that?’

  The interview was going badly, creating the wrong impression. It was alm
ost as though Mekles were the interrogator and Hunter the man under questioning. And it was hot, too hot under the arc lamps. Hunter felt the heat striking at him, soaking his shirt, making his collar limp, beating at his eyes and forehead, as he went on asking questions, making wild roundhouse verbal swings which Mekles parried with almost contemptuous ease, saying that there was no mystery about his passport, it had been issued by the Greek Government, there was no mystery about his origin, he was a Greek citizen, he had come to England merely for pleasure. ‘It is a very nice country,’ he said. ‘Your policemen are wonderful. Also your television interviewers.’

  Hunter discovered in himself a dislike, almost hatred, for the little man sitting opposite him. He remembered suddenly a note made by Charlie Cash. ‘Mekles is supposed to be here to get in touch with Melville Bond, ex-MP, businessman, director Bellwinder Tool Co. Some sort of shady deal proposed, Mekles boss, Bond carrying out instructions. Like the furniture factory I told you about.’ Underneath came Charlie’s comment: ‘Unconfirmed. Don’t know what it’s all about. Just info., not to use.’

  Sometimes a shot in the dark could be successful. It had happened before, it could happen again. He said, ‘So you are here purely for pleasure?’

  ‘Purely. I find all sorts of things pleasant. Even an interview like this one when I am being – what do you call it? – grilled.’

  ‘Business absolutely doesn’t enter into it?’

  Sharply Mekles said, ‘It does not.’

  Hunter leaned forward. The camera, looking down, showed his broad shoulders, the back of his head. ‘Do you know a man named Melville Bond?’

  There was a flicker of hesitation, no more. ‘No.’

  ‘You haven’t been in touch with him?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘You have done no business with him?’

  ‘None whatever.’

  There was something here. Hunter could feel it. He said encouragingly, ‘Perhaps you used another name for the purpose? Or approached him through an agent? In an important business deal you might well not wish to appear personally.’

  ‘I have no knowledge whatever of Mr Bond.’ Mekles drew back in the chair, put out his tongue again, and Hunter was suddenly aware of danger, of a transformation from lizard to snake. ‘And on the question of using false names you have personal knowledge, I think.’

  The attack was so sudden that Hunter was jolted by it, committed again the mistake of allowing Mekles the initiative. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that your name is not Hunter but O’Brien. You have spent several years in prison for a crime which I will be friendly enough not to name. I cannot admit that you have any right to ask me such questions as you have done. I must ask you to excuse me.’

  All this the viewers in suburban semis delightedly heard and saw; saw, too, the bulk of the interviewer as Hunter stepped down from his chair and moved towards Mekles, arms swinging. Then the transmission was cut off and replaced by an urbane announcer, apologising.

  In the room, Hunter barely grazed Mekles’ jaw with a right swing. He heard Jerry and Charlie Cash both crying out, and turned just in time to take a blow on the side of the face from the man with the cauliflower ear. He slipped sideways, tripped over one of the trailing wires, was conscious of thunderous bangs and crashes all about him, and then knew nothing more.

  Chapter Four

  Two people bent over, smiling at him. The smiles on their faces were upside down. His head ached. He put up a hand to it, and felt bandages. He closed his eyes and opened them again and the people were right way up, Charlie Cash and Anna. He was lying on the sofa in the living room of the flat which he shared with Anna. With that fact established, he closed his eyes again.

  Anna’s voice, soft as melted toffee, said, ‘Bill, darling, are you awake?’

  Charlie’s sharp Cockney voice said, ‘You’ve got those bandages on because you tripped and brought one of the cameras down on the side of your head. No serious damage. If you can open your eyes and talk, you’d better.’

  It was Charlie’s voice he answered, opening his eyes. Anna knelt by the sofa, her soft pudgy face inches from his. ‘Are you sure you can talk?’

  ‘I can talk.’ He swung his legs to the ground and groaned at the pain in his head. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘The interview was rotten. Then you asked some questions about Bond. Mekles came back with some stuff about your name being O’Brien. You took a poke at him.’ Charlie paused. With no change of tone he added, ‘That all went out. Anna here saw it. A million people saw it.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, yes.’ You can’t get away from the past, he thought, you can’t get away from the kind of person you are – or were, if the tense held any significance.

  ‘Then they cut us off. Your poke at Mekles just grazed him, worse luck. One of his thugs caught you on the face. You fell over, brought down the camera, and it hit your head. Exit one personal investigator, brought home by research assistant to his ever-loving mistress, who bandaged the head. Exit also TV technicians, in confusion.’

  ‘And Mekles?’

  ‘Also exit Mekles, but not as quickly as he expected. He was leaving England tomorrow, changed his mind and wanted to leave tonight, but police questioning kept him till three this morning.’

  ‘Police questioning?’ His head was aching badly.

  ‘He can’t talk,’ Anna said. ‘He doesn’t feel like talking. I won’t have him worried.’

  The French clock on the mantelpiece said five minutes past six. He had slept, then, most of the night.

  ‘He needn’t talk, but he’d better listen.’ There was an edge to Charlie’s voice. ‘I’ve had the telephone cut off, but you’re an object of interest at the moment. To newspapermen. And the police. We stalled them last night, but they’ll be round this morning.’

  He felt utterly confused. ‘Because of – ?’

  ‘We started transmitting at nine-thirty last night, right? You asked Mekles questions about this and that, and then asked him about a man named Bond. You implied that Mekles had come over here to do business with him, right? Where did you get the dope on that?’

  ‘From your research notes.’ The question held little reality for him. The past had him, gripped him like a pair of pincers.

  ‘But I told you it was background stuff. I told you not to use it,’ Charlie cried in exasperation. He took out a toothpick, put it in his mouth, bit through it, threw it away and took another.

  Imprisoned in his dream of the past he said idly, ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘This much.’ Charlie rolled the toothpick quickly to the corner of his mouth. ‘You quizzed Mekles about Bond in the programme. Rather more than three hours earlier – just after six o’clock to be precise – Bond jumped out of the window of his flat. He lived in a block near Marble Arch. You didn’t know that?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘He was dead when he hit the ground. It was in the late evening papers, a paragraph.’

  Anna watched him anxiously. His mental processes were sluggish, he could only think about the past. ‘And so?’

  ‘So it looked as though you knew about Bond’s death and were accusing Mekles of being implicated in it. Naturally he was riled. But the point is this, Bill. I hoped you might have some good reason for mentioning Bond, beside the guff in my notes. But you hadn’t? Nothing at all?’ Charlie threw up his hands. ‘Then we’re up the creek.’

  The doorbell rang.

  Chapter Five

  No doubt they were up the creek, as Charlie had said, but they were hardly up equal distances. It was nice of Charlie to make the disaster inclusive, but really for him it was no more than a matter of losing one pretty well-paid research job out of a dozen. For Hunter it was another thing, although not one which he could yet take seriously. To the policeman who talked to him he patiently but rather absently repeated that he had no basis for making the remark about Bond other than the research notes of his assistant, Mr Cash.

&nb
sp; This policeman was a slick young man, who had the brisk, confiding air of an insurance or even a vacuum cleaner salesman. When he spoke it was with a slightly apologetic air, as though he were trying to sell you something, and knew that it was an article of inferior quality, because unfortunately he did not work for the very best firm. He had this air now as he read the note on Bond made by Charlie Cash.

  ‘These notes were not much more than gossip, as Mr Cash has admitted. You agree about that?’

  ‘Yes. The interview was not going well. I was trying to get some reaction from Mekles.’

  The police inspector, whose name was Crambo, shook his head in apparent puzzlement. ‘They call me Dumb Crambo at the Yard, and I’m not surprised. I would never have suspected that you’d ask a question in that way, just on a basis of gossip.’

  ‘Well, I did,’ Hunter said wearily.

  ‘If it had been someone like me, now, someone stupid, I should have been afraid of slander. But I suppose you put the questions very cunningly, eh?’

  ‘I don’t know that I worried about that. The question itself was harmless, just a suggestion that Mekles was doing business with Bond. I was surprised by the way he reacted.’

  ‘Harmless,’ Crambo said meditatively. ‘That’s assuming you didn’t know that this chap Bond had dived out of his window earlier that evening.’

  ‘I didn’t know it. I hadn’t seen a paper.’

  ‘But Mr Mekles had seen a paper, he told me so himself, and he didn’t like it at all. Natural that he shouldn’t like it, don’t you agree.’

  ‘I suppose it was.’

  ‘All quite natural, you might say. Your innocent question and his feeling that you were needling him, you might say.’ He said suddenly, ‘When did you first meet Bond?’

  ‘I didn’t know him from Adam.’

  ‘I expect you’d have known him from Eve,’ Crambo said, and looked shamefaced. ‘You’ll have to pardon me. My sense of humour gets the better of me at times. Then Mr Mekles makes this nasty remark about you.’