Apr 15

Apr 15 What Happened In Vienna, Jack

What Happened In Vienna, Jack - book excerpt

Friday In London

Chapter One - Models

The doorway was set back in an alcove between a world-renowned French restaurant and a newly opened Chinese one that had crispy roasted ducks hanging from a rail in a steamed-up window. There was only one bell push that did not have the word ‘Model’ added above it with their country of origin; just the name of Jack Price. I pushed it. Moments later a buzzer sounded and I was climbing the bare wooden staircase to the third floor. The corridor leading to his black-painted apartment door was narrow, lined by peeling garishly wallpapered walls and crumbling ceiling plaster, the same state of disrepair I’d seen on the staircase. The place reeked of damp, garlic and cooking oil.

I was twenty-three and attached to the criminal intelligence section of Scotland Yard, or C11 as it was known when I first came to meet Jack. He was thirty years my senior. He had been in the wrong place at a time when my department was executing an operation against an organised gang of robbers under the command of a known Irish Republican Army member on a cash-carrying security van in Charing Cross Road one day previous to this meeting. I had shot dead the Irish brigade commander, and another armed robber was wounded as Jack looked on from across the street. The year was 1972. However, seldom are things quite as they appear in life and this was true in this case. Although I had followed the standing orders of the day I was naive and to some extent gullible. If those are faults, then I plead guilty!

“Are you sure that warrant card is not a forgery, young man, as you don’t look old enough to be out of short trousers let alone a gun-carrying, hot-shot police officer,” he said on answering my knock after unfastening three locks, then as I entered he added, “But there you go, all you lot look young to me nowadays. A sure sign of getting old, or so they say.”

The apartment was spartanly furnished. No television but a radio instead with a copy of the Radio Times lying open on the occasional table it occupied beside an odd looking hard-backed triangular, wedged shaped chair, newly upholstered in a yellow leather lookalike material. There was a single, soft, red velvet armchair almost on top of a five bar electric fire. On the wall opposite the double bay windows stood a cheap imitation light oak sideboard, on which were three mixed size glasses and an open bottle of what appeared to be whisky.

“I would offer you one but I don’t want to encourage the young to drink. From experience I know that’s a bad habit to get into at an early age,” on catching my gaze he declared.

The red, well-trodden, patterned carpet clashed with the heavy dark blue curtains which were closed, even though it was only the afternoon on a moderately hot July day with no sun shining on the windows behind. A yellow shaded chrome standard light and two similarly shaded table ones enhanced the natural light in the room. On the mantelpiece over that electric fire was a grey chiming slate clock, beside which were two wooden framed photographs. The one on the left, in black and white, a young woman arm in arm with, I presumed, a young Jack and the other, in colour, of two children; a boy and girl.

“Your family, Mr Price?” I asked.

He picked up the first of the photographs, held it in his left hand and stared at it.

“That was my wife, Mary. She died six years ago from the loneliness I caused, I think. I was never around much in those days.” He kept it close for a second then carefully replaced it in its exact spot as he turned from the fire, walking the few paces towards the sideboard.

“The other one is of my children; George and Mildred, both living in Canada. They upped and left soon after Mary had gone. No love lost between us there. Do you want a drink while you tell me why you’re here, Detective Constable West?”

He had an impassive, well-worn, chiselled face, not hard and cold, but one where no emotion or feeling for the past lived. More pragmatic than sentimental. He was just under six foot tall, weighed slightly less than his height suggested and although his complexion was more waxen than florid there were no signs of health issues that I could see.

“I will, Jack, thank you,” I replied, about to sit in that hard chair thinking that the soft one was his to relax in. I was wrong!

“No, wrong chair, my friend. That one is mine. Have the one I keep for visitors. Hardly used nowadays, far more comfortable than that old thing,” he said.

“You never lived here when married then, Jack?”

“Pretty obvious, that, I would have thought, unless Mary had little taste for the finer things in life like me, which she didn’t. Could never quite work out why she married me, as I’ve always been a bit of a slob around the place. Never one for an Ideal Home Exhibition show house. Now I live as the mood takes me, with no one around to moan. Live on your own, Patrick, or is there a Missus West? Take water, or as it comes?”

I didn’t bother to answer the first question.

“Have you any ice?” I asked.

“No, neither does the water come all the way from a pure Scottish glen. Good old murky Thames tap stuff. Take it as it comes, will you?” he asked, somewhat impatiently.

“You’ve sold it to me, Jack, pour away.”

Although I considered myself well-crafted in the insight of a person’s personality by the fundamental materiel things in life that they owned or spoke of, nothing held my attention more than that odd shaped chair. I could not avert my gaze away from it.

“I wouldn’t think that you’re here to discuss my choice of interior colour nor to taste my whisky, so why are you, Patrick? I have made my statement. By the way, hope you don’t mind the familiarity of me using your first name, young man?”

“Not at all! Patrick is on the warrant card, after all. It was my governor's decision, not mine. He wants me to go through that statement of yours and see if my description can be; I’ll use his words, ‘erased,’ Jack. As though I wasn’t there, you understand.”

“You have nothing to be ashamed of. The man had a gun, and, in my opinion, looked capable and dangerously close to using it. I did say that in my statement. I can’t see how you had a choice.”

“That’s not the problem! The ‘Job’ has had its own internal enquiry and there’s no question over the need or legality of my actions, it’s just your wording that we would prefer to alter slightly if that’s possible.”

“We? I thought you said it was your governor’s wish?”

“Always that pedantic, Jack? Had a need to be precise in a previous life, have you?”

He stood, tasting his drink before he spoke again.

“Precision can and often does save lives, but it can also cost lives when it confuses the enigmatic and ambivalent of this life leaving them lost to understand the rationality of thought. Your governor a rational thinker, is he? What’s his rank?”

“I’ve always found rationality to be a subjective thing, Jack, best left to the believer, so I can’t answer that. My direct governor is DI Fisher, that’s Detective Inspector Fisher, but we all answer to the high Commander of ‘C’ department; Commander Trenchard. He’s got something that you have, a precious thing at that.”

“What has Mr Trenchard got that I have, Patrick?” straight-faced he asked.

“You both have the George Medal. He got his one a lot later than you got yours, though. I believe you were one of the first recipients of that honour, Jack. 1942 you got it, was it not?”

“It was, yes! Research that on your own initiative, did you, or your revered ‘C’ gently nudge you into doing the shovel work?”

I was sure I saw the glint of a smile in those hard, hazel-coloured eyes below his high forehead and receding hairline as he placed my glass in my hand and his on top of the Radio Times, moving the full glass ashtray aside to make room. His dilapidated surroundings were not improved by his clothes; striped pyjamas under a dark blue stained dressing gown and neither socks nor shoes. He had not shaved for days. From Trenchard’s description I had expected a man of means, well-appointed and well positioned in life, but on the surface, he was none of that, lonely, down on his luck and living a shabby life in one of the most squalid areas of London. A place frequented by transient visitors seeking temporary pleasures; Soho.

“If you don’t mind me saying, Jack, this is not the sort of place I thought someone of your past would be living out his final days.” I tasted the Scotch, finding it raw and stinging on the throat. “That’s a bit fierce,” I added.

“Tesco’s own brand. I think they have a still in the back of the shop,” he laughed and I almost believed him. “Are you a connoisseur of Scotch whisky as well as being very self-opinionated and presumptuous? Disturbing for someone your age. For all you know I might have a place in the South of France and a yacht on the Med, this being my London pied-à-terre when I have the misfortune to visit London town. As for living out my final days, have you inside information on that too?”

“Not of that rank yet, Jack. Maybe someday, though! It would be nice to think along the lines of a place in France, feet up, sipping the local wine, watching the French girls go by, but this is all you’ve got. You’re right, though, it is none of my business how you live on the government pension you receive on the twenty-third of each month. I found it to be a tidy sum for a retired minor home office official.”

I was not sure if I’d rattled him as I hoped, but there was a change in tone to his next question.

“You will eventually come to the point of this visit, won’t you, officer?”

“Ah, touched a delicate spot, have I? Sorry if I have. It was not meant to offend. The enthusiasm of youth added to a poor background in diplomacy, I guess. I think it comes from those hard-nut instructors of mine. One knocked me out for being indelicate in the way I put my supposition as to his birth, but he never went on to teach me how to call a superior officer a bastard without causing offence.”

“You should always add the word ‘sir’ after the insult, Patrick. I always found that helped.”

“That would explain a lot, especially if you forgot to take your own advice. A short period of service in the secret mob but no explanation as to why they dumped you that I could find, and I had clearance from way up high, Jack.”

“The obdurate Mr Trenchard, I presume.”

“Got it in one. You two go back a long way, I understand. I had the impression that he doesn’t much care for you. Said he saw your name on the witness statement then recognised that distinctive signature of yours with the capital P and R of Price. Added rather brusquely that he hadn’t seen it for many years, and that observation was not followed up with any words of admiration or effervescent compliments. He was very silent after that, not usually so monosyllabic, my commander, but I gathered that you must have worked together at some point.”

“Are you always so insightful, Patrick? I do hope that you are. Wise head on young shoulders comes to mind. How is old Barrington nowadays?” he asked as he rose to refill our glasses.

I didn’t answer his question, instead I asked one of my own. “Care to enlighten me as to why the extra capital letter in that surname of yours, Jack?”

“Stands for Police Reject, Patrick. Thought of applying once before a better offer fell into my lap. I realise that it was only conjecture on my part about being rejected, but it seemed to fit at the time, so I kept using it.”