Flyaway

FIVE

I went down to Fleet Street to look for Michael English, the journalist who had written the article on Peter Billson. His office thought he was at the Press Club, the Press Club invited me to try El Vino’s. I finally ran him to ground in a pub off the Strand.

He was a tall, willowy, fair-haired man whom I disliked on sight, although what he had written about Billson might have influenced my feelings. He was playing poker dice with a couple of other journalists and looked at me doubtfully when I gave him one of my business cards to prick his curiosity.

‘Security!’ he said. There was a shade of nervousness.

I smiled reassuringly. ‘I’d like to talk to you about Billson.’

‘That little twit! What’s he put you on to me for?’ Apprehension surrounded English like a fog.

‘You’ve seen him recently?’

‘Of course I have. He came to the office making trouble. He threatened a law suit.’ English snorted with unhumorous laughter. ‘Our lawyer saw him off smartly on that one.’

I was deliberately obtuse. ‘I’m surprised he bothered you. If your article was correct he stands a good chance of a jail sentence—although his grey hairs might save him, I suppose.’

English looked at me in surprise. ‘It wasn’t the old man. It was someone who claimed to be his son—said he was Paul Billson. He made quite a scene.’

I looked around and saw an empty corner table. ‘I’d like to talk to you about it. Over there where it’s quiet. What will you have?’

English hesitated, then shrugged. ‘I don’t mind. Make it a double scotch.’

As I ordered the drinks he said, ‘I suppose you’re investigating for the insurance company.’ I made an ambiguous murmur, and he said, ‘I thought they gave up years ago. Isn’t there a time limitation on a crime like that?’

I smiled at him as he splashed water perfunctorily in his glass. ‘The file is still open.’

English had been called into his editor’s office the day after the article had appeared—the day before Billson went missing. He found the editor trying to cope with an angry and agitated man who was making incoherent threats. The editor, Gaydon, said in a loud voice, ‘This is Mr English who wrote the article. Sit down, Mike, and let’s see if we can sort this out.’ He flicked a switch on the intercom. ‘Ask Mr Harcourt if he can come to my office.’

English saw trouble looming ahead. Harcourt was the resident lawyer and his presence presaged no good. He cleared his throat and said, ‘What’s the trouble?’

Gaydon said, ‘This is Mr Paul Billson. He appears to be disturbed about the article on his father which appeared in yesterday’s issue.’

English looked at Billson and saw a rather nondescript man who, at that moment, was extremely agitated. His face was white and dull red spots burned in his cheeks as he said in a high voice, ‘It was nothing but outright libel. I demand a retraction and a public apology.’

Gaydon said in a calming voice, ‘I’m sure that Mr English wrote the truth as he saw it. What do you say, Mike?’

‘Of course, you’re right,’ said English. ‘Every matter of fact was checked against the original court records and the contemporary newspaper reports.’

‘I’m not complaining about the facts,’ said Billson. ‘It’s the damned inferences about my father. I’ve never read anything so scurrilous in my life. If I don’t get a public apology I shall sue.’

Gaydon glanced at English, then said smoothly, ‘It shouldn’t come to that, Mr Billson. I’m certain we can come to some arrangement or agreement satisfactory to all parties.’ He looked up as Harcourt entered the office and said with a slight air of relief, ‘This is Mr Harcourt of our legal department.’

Rapidly he explained the point at issue, and Harcourt said, ‘Do you have a copy of the article?’

He settled down to read the supplement which Gaydon produced and the office was uneasily quiet until he had finished. Gaydon tapped restlessly with his forefinger; English sat quite still, hoping that the film of sweat on his forehead didn’t show; Billson squirmed in his seat as the pressure within him built higher.

After what seemed an interminable period Harcourt laid down the magazine. ‘What exactly are you complaining about, Mr Billson?’

‘Isn’t it evident?’ Billson demanded. ‘My father has been blackguarded in print. I demand an immediate apology or I sue.’ His finger stabbed at English. ‘I sue him and the newspaper.’

‘I see,’ said Harcourt thoughtfully. He leaned forward. ‘What do you believe happened to your father?’

‘His plane crashed,’ said Billson. ‘He was killed—that’s what I believe.’ He slammed his hand on the magazine. ‘This is just plain libel.’

‘I believe that you will be unable to sue,’ said Harcourt. ‘You can sue only if your own reputation is at stake. You see, it’s an established principle of law that a dead man cannot be libelled.’

There was a moment of silence before Billson said incredulously, ‘But this man says my father is not dead.’

‘But you believe he is dead, and you would be bringing the case to court. It wouldn’t work, Mr Billson. You needn’t take my word for it, of course; you can ask your own solicitor. In fact, I strongly advise it.’

‘Are you telling me that any cheap journalist can drag my father’s name through the mud and get away with it?’ Billson was shaking with rage.

Harcourt said gravely, ‘I should watch your words, Mr Billson, or the shoe may be on the other foot. Such intemperate language could lead you into trouble.’

Billson knocked over his chair in getting to his feet. ‘I shall certainly take legal advice,’ he shouted, and glared at English. ‘I’ll have your hide, damn you!’

The door slammed behind him.

Harcourt picked up the magazine and flipped it to English’s article. He avoided looking directly at English, and said to Gaydon, ‘I suggest that if you intend to publish work of this nature in future you check with the legal department before publication and not after.’

‘Are we in the clear?’ asked Gaydon.

‘Legally—quite,’ said Harcourt, and added distastefully, ‘It’s not within my province to judge the moral aspect.’ He paused. ‘If the widow takes action it will be different, of course. There is a clear implication here that she joined with her husband in cheating the insurance company. How else could Peter Billson profit other than with his wife’s connivance?’

Gaydon turned to English. ‘What about the widow?’

‘It’s okay,’ said English. ‘She died a little over a year ago. Helen Billson married a Norwegian during the war and changed her name to Aarvik. It was when I stumbled over that fact that I decided to write up the story of Billson.’

Harcourt snorted and left, and Gaydon grinned at English. ‘That was a bit close, Mike.’ He picked up a pen. ‘Be a good chap and pick up that chair before you leave.’

I bought English another drink. ‘So Paul Billson didn’t have a leg to stand on.’

English laughed. ‘Not a hope. I didn’t attack his reputation, you see. Christ, I’d forgotten the man existed.’

I said mendaciously, ‘I’m not really interested in Paul Billson. Do you really think that Peter Billson faked his death to defraud the insurance company?’

‘He could have,’ said English. ‘It makes a good story.’

‘But do you believe it?’

‘Does it matter what I believe?’ He drank some scotch. ‘No, of course I don’t believe it. I think Billson was killed, all right.’

‘So you were pretty safe in issuing that challenge to come forth.’

‘I like to bet on certainties,’ said English. He grinned. ‘If he did defraud the insurance company he wasn’t likely to rise to the bait, was he? I was on sure ground until his son popped up.’

I said, ‘About that insurance. £100,000 is a hell of a lot of money. The premium must have been devilish high.’

‘Not really. You must remember that by 1936 aeroplanes were no longer the unsafe string-and-sealing wax contraptions of the ‘twenties. There wasn’t a great deal of doubt that an aircraft would get to where it was going—the question was how fast. And this was at the time of a newspaper war; the dailies were cutting each other’s throats to buy readers. Any premium would be a drop in the bucket compared with what they were spending elsewhere, and £100,000 is a nice headline-filling sum.’

‘Did Billson stand a chance in the race?’

‘Sure—he was a hot favourite. Flyaway—that Northrop of his—was one of the best aircraft of its time, and he was a good pilot.’

‘Who won the race?’

‘A German called Helmut Steiner. I think Billson would have won had he survived. Steiner only won because he took a hell of a lot of chances.’

‘Oh! What sort of chances?’

English shrugged. ‘I don’t remember the times personally—I’m not that old—but I’ve read up on it. This was in the times of the Nazis. The Berlin Olympics were on and the Master Race was busy proving its case. German racing cars were winning on all the circuits because the Auto-Union was State subsidized; German mountaineers were doing damnfool things on every Alpine cliff—I believe some of them dropped off the Eiger at the time. It didn’t prove they were good climbers; only that they were good Nazis. Germany had to beat everybody at everything, regardless of cost.’

‘And Steiner?’

‘Subsidized by the Hitler regime, of course; given a stripped military plane and a crackerjack support team seconded from the Luftwaffe. He was good, all right, but I think he knew Billson was better, so he took chances and they came off. He pressed his machine to the limit and the engine blew up on him as he landed in Cape Town. He was lucky it didn’t happen sooner.’

I thought about that. ‘Any possibility of Billson being sabotaged?’

English stared at me. ‘No one has come up with that idea before. That really is a lulu.’

‘What about it?’

‘My God, the lengths to which insurance companies will go! What will you do if Billson was sabotaged? Sue the German government for £100,000? I doubt if Bonn would fall for that one.’ He shrugged. ‘Billson’s plane was never found. You haven’t a hope.’

I drained my glass. There wasn’t much more I could get out of English and I prepared a sharp knife to stick into him. ‘So you don’t think you’ll have any trouble from Paul Billson.’

‘Not a chance,’ he scoffed. ‘Harcourt may be pious and sanctimonious but he tied Billson into knots. You can’t libel a dead man—and Billson swears his father is dead.’

I smiled gently. ‘A man called Wright once wrote about William Ewart Gladstone imputing that he was a hypocrite, particularly in sexual matters. This was in 1927 and Gladstone was long dead. But his son, the then Lord Gladstone, took umbrage and also legal advice. Like Paul Billson, he was told that the dead cannot be libelled, but he nailed Wright to the cross all the same.’

English gave me a wet-eyed look. ‘What did he do?’

‘He libelled Wright at every opportunity. He called Wright a liar, a fool and a poltroon in public. He had Wright thrown out of his club. In the end Wright had to bring Gladstone to court to protect his reputation. Gladstone had Norman Birkett appear for him, and Birkett flayed Wright in open court. When the case was finished so was Wright; his professional reputation was smashed.’ I slid the knife home. ‘It could happen to you.’

English shook his head. ‘Billson won’t do that—he’s not the man for it.’

‘He might,’ I said. ‘With help.’ I twisted the knife. ‘And it will give me great pleasure to appear for him and to swear that you told me that you thought his father to be dead, in spite of what you wrote in your dirty little article.’

I rose and left him. At the door of the pub I stopped and looked back. He was sitting in the corner, looking as though someone had kicked him in the belly, knocking the wind out of him.

SIX

I had an early lunch and then belatedly thought to ring Paul Billson’s half-sister. I had expected to find her absent from home in the middle of the working day but the telephone was picked up on the third ring and a pleasant voice said, ‘Alix Aarvik here.’

I told her who and what I was, then said, ‘I take it you haven’t heard from your brother, Miss Aarvik.’

‘No, I haven’t, Mr Stafford.’ ‘I’d like to talk to you about him. May I come round?’

‘Now?’ There was uncertainty in her voice.

‘Time is of the essence in these matters, Miss Aarvik.’ A platitude, but I find they tend to soothe people.

‘Very well,’ she said. ‘I’ll be expecting you.’

‘Within the half-hour.’ I rang off and took a taxi to Kensington.

With a name like hers I had envisaged a big, tow-headed Scandinavian, but she was short and dark and looked in her early thirties. Her flat was comfortable, if sparsely furnished, and I was interested to see that she was apparently moving out. Two suitcases stood in the hall and another on a table was open and half-packed.

She saw me looking around and said, ‘You’ve caught me in the middle of packing.’

I smiled. ‘Found another flat?’

She shook her head. ‘I’m leaving for Canada. My firm has asked me to go. I’m flying tomorrow afternoon.’ She made a gesture which was pathetically helpless. ‘I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing with Paul still missing, but I have my job to consider.’

‘I see,’ I said, not seeing a hell of a lot. Her mother had come into a windfall of £100,000 but there was precious little sign of it around, either sticking to Paul Billson or Alix Aarvik. I made a little small talk while I studied her. She was not too well dressed but managed to make the most of what she had, and she didn’t overdo the make-up. You could see thousands like her in the streets; a typical specimen of Stenographica londiniensis—the London typist.

When I married Gloria I had not a bean to spare and, during my rise to the giddy heights of success, I had become aware of all the subtle variations in women’s knickknackery from the cheap off-the-peg frock to the one-off Paris creation. Not that Gloria had spent much time in the lower reaches of the clothing spectrum—she developed a talent for spending money faster than I earned it, which was one of the points at issue between us. But I knew enough to know that Alix Aarvik was not dressing like an heiress.

I took the chair she offered, and said, ‘Now tell me about Paul.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘You can start by telling me of his relationship with his father.’

She gave me a startled look. ‘You’ve got that far already?’

‘It wasn’t difficult.’

‘He hero-worshipped his father,’ she said. ‘Not that he ever knew him to remember. Peter Billson died when Paul was two years old. You know about the air crash?’

‘There seems to be a little doubt about that,’ I said.

Pain showed in her eyes. ‘You, too?’ She shook her head. ‘It was that uncertainty which preyed on Paul’s mind. He wanted his father to be dead—rather a dead hero than a living fraud. Do you understand what that means, Mr Stafford?’

‘You tell me.’

‘I arranged for Paul to have psychiatric treatment. The psychiatrist told me that it was this that was breaking Paul in two. It’s a dreadful thing to hero-worship a man—your father—and to wish him dead simultaneously.’

‘So he had a neurosis. What form did it take?’

‘Generally, he raged against injustice; the smart-aleck kind of injustice such as when someone takes credit for another’s achievement. He collected injustices. Wasn’t there a book called The Injustice Collector? That’s Paul.’

‘You say generally—how about specifically?’

‘As it related to his father, he thought Peter Billson had been treated unjustly—maligned in death. You know about the court case?’ I nodded, and she said, ‘He wanted to clear his father’s name.’

I said carefully, ‘Why do you talk about Paul in the past tense?’

Again she looked startled and turned pale. ‘I…I didn’t know…’ She intertwined her fingers and whispered, ‘I suppose I think he’s dead.’

‘Why should you think that?’

‘I don’t know. But I can’t think of any reason why he should disappear, either.’

‘This neurosis about injustice—did he apply it to himself? Did he think that he was treated unjustly?’

She looked straight at me and said firmly, ‘Never! He was always concerned about others. Look, Mr Stafford; I’ll come right out and say that Paul wasn’t—’ she caught herself—‘isn’t too bright. Now you’re in security at Franklin Engineering and I’ll tell you that Paul isn’t a thief or anything like that. He may not be an entirely balanced man, but he’s honest.’

‘I have no doubt about it, Miss Aarvik,’ I said. ‘My enquiries are as much on behalf of Paul as they are for Franklin Engineering. The management of Franklin are very much concerned about what happens to their employees.’

That was pious piffle which I hoped she’d swallow. Neither Stewart nor Isaacson had shown a whit of concern.

She said, ‘Paul knew…knows he’ll never make his way in the world, but he never showed resentment. I knew he found it hard to make out on only two hundred a month, but he never complained.’

I opened my mouth to contradict her and then closed it firmly. I waited the space of ten heart beats before I said, ‘Is that all he got?’

‘£2400 a year—it was all he was worth,’ she said a little sadly. ‘But you must have checked.’

‘Yes,’ I said bemusedly. ‘The exact figure had slipped my memory.’

So Paul had been cheating on his sister. He had told her he earned £2400 a year when he got over three times as much, although according to Hoyland, and now his sister, that was probably as much as he was worth. You think you have a man taped, his life spread before you like a butterfly pinned in a showcase, and he surprises you with an inconsistency.

I said, ‘Did you ever help him financially?’

She hesitated. ‘Not directly.’

Slowly I coaxed the story from her. She had been supporting their mother in her last illness. Mrs Aarvik had been dying of cancer painfully and protractedly. Alix paid for a nurse and private hospital treatment and, towards the end, for the services of a specialist—all beyond the stark necessities of the National Health Service. It was very expensive and her savings ran out.

‘Then Paul needed treatment,’ she said. ‘The psychiatrist I told you about.’

The psychiatrist was also in private practice and also expensive. Miss Aarvik had an understanding bank manager who allowed her a sizeable overdraft in spite of the prevailing credit squeeze. ‘I’m paying it off as quickly as I can.’ She smiled ruefully. ‘That’s why I’m pleased about the Canadian job; it’s at a much higher salary.’

Paul Billson contributed nothing.

‘I knew he couldn’t save,’ she said. ‘So what else could I do?’

What else, indeed? I thought of the £12,000 tucked away in Paul’s deposit account and marvelled at the curious quirks of mankind. Here was a man whom everybody agreed to be a nonentity—a spineless, faceless creature hardly distinguishable from a jellyfish—and he was proving to be human, after all, just like the rest of us. Human enough to have an eye for the main chance and to batten mercilessly on his sister. Which may only go to show that my view of humanity is jaundiced, to say the least of it.

Anyway, it accounted for Miss Aarvik’s sparsely furnished flat and for her neat but somewhat aged dress. If she was paying off a big overdraft she wouldn’t be spending on luxurious fripperies. Which was a pity—she deserved better.

I said, ‘Did the treatment do Paul any good?’

‘I think so. He’s been much quieter of late, until…’

Until English wrote his poisonous article and Paul blew up, nerved himself to tackle a newspaper editor, and then vanished.

‘Think carefully,’ I said. ‘You probably know your brother better than anyone else. If he went off the rails for any reason, what would he be likely to do?’

‘I can’t think of anything. Unless…’ She shook her head. ‘No, that’s silly.’

‘It may not be,’ I said encouragingly.

‘Well, when he was a boy he used to dream of clearing his father’s name by finding the aeroplane; actually going out to Africa and looking for it. It was never found, you know. Not a very practicable dream, I’m afraid; but Paul was never a practicable man.’

I thought about it. Somewhere south of the Mediterranean and north of the Congo. The Sahara. Not at all practicable.

‘Of course, he gave up the idea long ago,’ she said. ‘Even Paul realized it was futile. It would need a lot of money, you see, and he never had the money.’

To tell her that her brother had his pockets stuffed with boodle would have been needlessly cruel. But now I had a lead, for what it was worth. ‘1936 is a long time ago,’ I said. ‘I doubt if there’d be anything to find now. What did your parents think of Paul’s obsession?’

‘My mother always said he’d grow out of it, but he never did. She lived with me and didn’t see very much of him. She didn’t like him talking so much about his father; she thought it was unhealthy. I suppose it was. He never knew his father, you see.’

‘And your father—what did he think?’

She gave a wry smile. ‘You must think we’re an odd family. I never knew my father, either. He died before I was born. My mother married him during the war and he was killed in action. He was Norwegian, you know.’

‘Your mother had a tough life,’ I said. Two husbands killed leaving small children to bring up wasn’t my idea of a bed of roses.

‘Oh, she was always cheerful—right up to the end.’

‘One thing puzzles me,’ I said. ‘Your mother was awarded £100,000 by the court. What happened to it? There must have been something left to keep her more comfortable in her old age.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Miss Aarvik sombrely. ‘I’ve wondered about that myself, but Mother never talked about it. You must realize that I only knew about it years afterwards when I was about thirteen. It didn’t mean much then; children don’t think of things that happened before they were born—the present is much more exciting.’

‘But later—didn’t you ask her?’

‘I tried, but she would never talk about it.’ She looked at me squarely. ‘I think I take after my father, Torstein Aarvik; I never knew him, of course, so I can’t be certain. But Paul took after Mother; they’re alike in so many ways. She could be very silly and thoughtless at times. Not wilfully, you understand; but she did things without thinking too far ahead. Perhaps something happened that she was ashamed to talk about. She wasn’t very bright, but I loved her very much.’

So Paul was the not too bright son of a not too bright mother. That didn’t get me far. I stood up. ‘Well, thank you, Miss Aarvik, for all the information. You’ve been very frank.’

She rose with me. ‘I must thank you for your interest, Mr Stafford.’ She smiled wanly. ‘You’ve certainly been more thorough in your inquiries than the police. Do you think you can find Paul?’

That put me in a moral dilemma. As far as Franklin Engineering was concerned the case was finished; Billson hadn’t embezzled the petty cash nor had he breached security as far as I knew and I couldn’t load further investigation costs on to the Franklin account. Nor could I load the costs on to Stafford Security Consultants Ltd—that wouldn’t be fair to Charlie Malleson or Brinton who weren’t in business for charity.

Neither was I. As far as I was concerned, Paul Billson was an unbalanced man whom I had discovered to be of an unscrupulous disposition and, as far as I could see, Alix Aarvik was better off without him. I decided to give what I had to the police and call it a day.

I said diplomatically, ‘Your information will make it more likely.’

‘If I give you a Canadian address will you write to me?’ she asked. ‘I’ve been wondering whether I should go at all while Paul is still missing.’