The Second Assassin Read online

  ‘There’s always the chance that Hayes was sending us up,’ Barry offered, dropping his one small bag onto the floor of the small bedroom he and Holland would be sharing. The train’s steam whistle let out a shriek, bells rang and they began to move out of the brightly lit station and into the darkness.

  ‘He’d have to be some kind of terrible fool,’ said Holland, slumping down into one of the plush chairs by the window. He stared at his own worried reflection in the dark glass. ‘He knows we’d throw him to the dogs if we thought he was lying. And it’s just too bloody Byzantine. Connelly was on the ship, so was Ridder, and they’re both carrying that idiotic book. All of that a ruse to send us off playing hare and hounds? I really don’t think so, Barry. It just won’t wash.’

  ‘She may be an innocent in all of this. There’s a chance she has no idea she’s acting as a courier at all.’

  ‘You’ve either gone mad or been taken by the turn of the woman’s ankle.’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ Not just her ankle but every other part of the woman. He felt like a fool but some part of him was positive that she was innocent of any involvement in the whole scheme and that if she was involved it was under duress.

  ‘She’s a member of the organisation,’ Holland said flatly. ‘That’s a matter of record.’

  ‘And a hundred reasons to be one, not all of them to do with politics. Fear makes as many members of the Cause as the cause itself. They’re a ruthless bunch, as you well know.’

  ‘Good Lord, I believe you really are in love.’ Holland laughed. ‘Defending the woman as a victim of her own people.’

  ‘I thought that it was a basic tenet of English law that the accused are innocent until proven guilty.’

  ‘A law that doesn’t apply to the Irish because they don’t apply it to anyone else. Theirs is the law of the gun and the bomb, Detective, and that woman is one of them, believe you me.’

  ‘And what if there’s no exchange before we arrive in New York?’

  ‘It certainly won’t prove her innocent. We have Ridder’s office under watch as well as his home. According to the purser, the Connelly woman asked to have a room booked for her at the Hotel Taft on Seventh Avenue for three nights.’

  ‘I thought you said we barely had anyone in place in New York.’

  ‘We don’t,’ Holland answered. He took off his spectacles for a moment, pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes for a moment. ‘Two people in the passport control office.’

  ‘MI6.’

  ‘Umm.’ Holland replaced the glasses and lit a cigarette, coughing heavily as he inhaled. ‘Fellow named Paget and two or three assistants.’

  ‘Then who’s watching Ridder?’

  ‘The FBI,’ said Holland, leaning back against the banquette and yawning. ‘Apparently Mr Hoover has a particular thing against Nazis so he was glad to help. Ridder is an American citizen so the Bureau is within its jurisdiction.’ Holland closed his eyes as the train clattered onto a bridge. Through the window Barry could see the lights of the city reflecting off the broad, dark reach of a river. He suddenly felt very far from home.

  ‘So presumably we concentrate on Miss Connelly.’

  ‘You presume correctly,’ Holland murmured.

  ‘Why don’t I get the porter to make up the upper berth?’ Barry said. ‘If we keep the door ajar we can see anyone coming or going from the banquette and the other person can sleep.’ Ridder’s sleeping car was in front of them, Connelly’s behind.

  ‘Excellent idea,’ Holland said sleepily. ‘You’ll take the first shift, umm? Keep an eye out for that shapely ankle.’

  ‘Delighted,’ Barry answered with a sour smile. He rang for the porter.

  Just after seven in the morning Barry and Holland enjoyed a surprisingly good breakfast of bacon, eggs and sausage in their compartment. By prearrangement with the conductor Holland was escorted to the forward baggage car while Barry remained where he was. The train arrived at Grand Central Station at precisely 9:30 a.m. Saturday morning. As the Twentieth Century came to a full stop at the end of track thirty-four the platform instantly turned into a sea of people heading for the front of the station. Barry, clutching his one small bag, stood close to the steps leading down from his car, scanning the dense ebb and flow of the passengers, trying to pick out his quarry. Surprisingly it was the crippled Ridder who showed up first, seated in a wheelchair, his copy of The Mask of Dimitrios in his blanket-covered lap. The wheelchair was being pushed by a young man wearing a dark suit who kept his head bent, engaging Ridder in conversation. The wheelchair effectively parted the crowd in front of it. To keep them in sight Barry had to follow close behind in the vehicle’s wake. He was less than ten feet away from Ridder and his companion. Through the hollow rush of blasting steam and the echoing roar of the crowds on the platform he could just hear them in conversation – animated German that he didn’t understand at all.

  Almost on cue Sheila Connelly stepped down from her car, turning against the oncoming rush of people just as Ridder grew close to her. She took a single step forward, scanning the crowd as though looking for someone, and Barry suddenly knew exactly what was going to happen.

  The left front of the wheelchair clipped her just above the knee and she went down, letting out a small screech of fear, her handbag and her copy of the Ambler novel flying out of her hands. The young man raced forward to retrieve the book and the fallen handbag while Ridder himself leaned forward, solicitously trying to help Connelly to her feet. In the process he managed to give her his copy of the book from his lap while his companion handed her the handbag, but retained her book, dropping it into Ridder’s lap as he adjusted the wheelchair. The entire exchange took only a few seconds and, amateurs or not, it was extremely well done. Barry felt his heart sink at the clear evidence of her culpability. His conversation with Holland the night before came back to him like sour bile.

  Barry continued to follow the wheelchair, keeping well back. As they reached the gate at the end of the platform he saw Holland talking angrily to a middle-aged man wearing a severely cut dark blue suit and carrying a bowler hat in one gloved hand. English certainly and possibly a diplomat. Connelly went through the gate first, followed a few seconds later by Ridder. The wheelchair went through the gate and continued on, squeezing in behind Holland and his companion, then headed up the ramp to the main concourse of the station.

  Barry slowed, uncertain what to do. Looking over the shoulder of the man carrying the bowler, Holland gave the Scotland Yard man a quick warning look. It must have alerted the man with the bowler because he half turned and looked down the platform but by then Barry had continued on. Clearly Holland had encountered some kind of bureaucratic difficulty, since the man with the bowler was almost certainly from the consul’s office. Just as clearly, Holland wanted Barry to keep on with their surveillance. Since the FBI was keeping a watch on Ridder, Barry decided to concentrate on Connelly, especially now that the book had been switched.

  The Scotland Yard detective strode up the slightly rising tunnel to the main concourse, passing Ridder, his eyes on Connelly, who was now wearing a three-quarter-length Burberry travel coat with a matching suit and a bright green scarf around her neck. She wore no hat. Reaching the top of the tunnel they came out into the immense main concourse, and for a brief moment Barry found himself lost in the architectural drama of the cathedral-size space, great streams of light flooding down from the immense curved windows high above. He blinked hard, bringing himself back to earth, and spotted Connelly going down a set of stairs to the station’s lower level. He followed her down to the lower concourse shops and into a Rudley’s restaurant, where she spent the next hour at a table eating a leisurely breakfast and reading a copy of the Daily News while Barry drank coffee after coffee at the counter. At ten thirty the IRA courier paid her bill, returned to the main level and went across to the baggage room.

  Barry followed, then paused at the octagonal information booth in the centre of the concourse and pretende
d to examine a brochure about the Super Chief, trying to remember enough of his geography to visualise just where Los Angeles and Chicago would be on a map of the United States. When the Irish woman simply stayed waiting at the baggage counter Barry went to one of the long wooden benches and sat down, his eyes half on the brochure and half on the baggage claim area.

  Finally Barry saw a shirt-sleeved baggage attendant return from the rear of the large, cluttered room and place Connelly’s two suitcases on the low, zinc-covered counter. A brief conversation between Connelly and the luggage man ensued, ending with a pair of orange tags being tied to the suitcases and a piece of paper money changing hands. The only thing Connelly kept was the copy of The Mask of Dimitrios and her pocketbook. It looked less and less likely that the woman intended on a stay at the Taft.

  She put the other half of her orange baggage tags into the pocketbook, shook the baggage man’s hand, then turned away, heading to a long line of ticket windows that lined one entire south wall of the station. She went to the closest one, consulted briefly with a clerk and purchased a ticket, slipping it into her pocketbook. She then turned and made her way up the stairs to the main level of the terminal, leaving the building at the Vanderbilt Avenue exit.

  Barry’s heart sank when he spotted the long row of cream-and-green taxicabs parked along Vanderbilt. He quickly looked both ways and saw she had walked only a few feet farther on to the corner and crossed Forty-second Street. Barry followed her, still carrying his own small suitcase, and watched as she paused under the broad marquee of the Embassy movie theater to examine the posters. According to the marquee the Embassy was playing Union Pacific, starring Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck. Barry wasn’t much for pictures but he had seen Stanwyck in Stella Dallas a couple of years back and quite enjoyed it. As Barry reached the corner and stepped up onto the sidewalk he saw Connelly purchase a ticket for the first showing at eleven thirty. She disappeared into the theater and a few moments later Barry followed suit, fumbling a little with the unfamiliar coinage. By the time he reached the concession stand his quarry had already gone into the auditorium. Barry gave the popcorn girl a quarter to mind his suitcase with the promise of another when he returned to fetch it, then went into the theater himself, standing just inside the doors to let his eyes adjust to the gloom. There was a cartoon showing before the feature that concerned the misadventures of a criminally minded flop-eared rabbit named Bugs and his bumbling arch-enemy, a hunter named Fudd.

  Barry’s vision cleared. It wasn’t too difficult to spot Connelly since there appeared to be fewer than a score of people in the theater. There were also two fire exits, one on each side of the screen. Barry stood and watched until the cartoon finished and several trailers for coming attractions appeared. He didn’t like leaving Connelly alone but eventually he decided the risk was necessary. He went back into the lobby, found the public telephone booth in an alcove beside the men’s toilet and spent several minutes trying to figure out the mechanism, eventually realising that the money had to be inserted before a connection could be established, the reverse of the British system. Eventually he managed to connect with an operator, who in turn connected him to the British consul’s office. Remembering Holland’s conversation from the night before he asked for Mr Paget in passport control, was informed that it was actually ‘Sir’ as well as ‘Captain’ James Paget, R.N., and he was duly connected. After almost ten minutes spent establishing his bona fides to someone named Bell in Paget’s office, Barry heard Holland come on the line.

  ‘Where the bloody hell are you?’

  ‘A movie theater called the Embassy. Right next to the train terminal.’

  ‘The Connelly woman?’

  ‘Watching the film.’

  ‘Was there an exchange?’

  Barry paused, his breath a long sigh. ‘Yes. On the platform. She has Ridder’s book now.’

  ‘What did I tell you?’

  ‘She may have reasons for what she’s done.’

  ‘You’re beating a dead horse, Barry, even if it’s a very pretty one. What I want to know is why she hasn’t gone to the Taft.’

  ‘Would you like me to go into the theater and ask her that?’ Barry wedged the telephone between his shoulder and jaw and lit a cigarette. ‘I don’t think she has any intention of going to a hotel. She’s kept her luggage at the station and she’s bought another train ticket.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Why didn’t you ask the man who sold it to her?’

  ‘I would have lost her.’ There was a pause as Holland digested the information and Barry intruded on the silence with a question of his own. ‘What happened at the train station?’

  ‘The man you saw me with was one of Paget’s associates. According to Paget orders have come down from on high that I am to return to England forthwith.’

  ‘Any explanation?’

  ‘Apparently my health is none too good,’ Holland answered dryly. ‘Under the circumstances I really can’t say much more than that.’

  In other words, Paget or the man in the bowler hat was in the room with him. ‘You’re not alone?’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘Is the entire case being dropped?’

  ‘I wouldn’t go that far.’

  ‘This has something to do with Sean Russell.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Barry blew smoke out through his nostrils and stitched it together for himself. Russell had high-ranking friends in America, including a couple of congressmen and at least one senator. Tread too hard on his toes and there were likely to be repercussions back in England – an escalation from bombing toilets to exploding mailboxes perhaps. ‘Was this Douglas-Home’s idea?’

  ‘I’d say that’s a reasonable guess.’

  ‘He’s trying to stop us, isn’t he?’

  ‘Possibly.’

  ‘At least slow down the investigation of Russell.’

  ‘Probably. Almost certainly that much.’

  ‘And you’re out of it completely?’

  ‘So it would seem.’

  ‘What about me?’

  ‘You’re Scotland Yard. That’s Home Office, not my bailiwick.’

  ‘Fucking hell!’ Barry seethed. He leaned down and pushed the stub of his cigarette into the sand-filled canister beside the telephone.

  ‘Yes, I’d say that sums it all up quite neatly.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do with the Connelly woman?’

  ‘We bring her in for interrogation, forthwith. I want to ask her a few questions of my own before I head back to Merry Old England.’

  ‘And if she doesn’t want to come?’

  ‘What Miss Connelly wants, wishes or expects is irrelevant at this point. She’ll be taken by force if necessary. All you have to do for now is play Bill the Minder. Sir James has enlisted the aid of one Percy Foxworth of the FBI and several of his minions. Give them twenty minutes or so and we should have the joint surrounded, as the saying goes.’

  ‘She’s in the eighth row, five seats in from the centre aisle.’

  ‘Good man. Now go and enjoy the movie. We’ll sort the rest of this out later.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Saturday, April 29, 1939

  New York City

  After a visit with her sister at the hospital on Welfare Island, Jane made her way back to Manhattan for a prearranged meeting with Dan Hennessy. It was late afternoon by the time she reached Reuben’s on Madison Avenue. She found the police detective seated in a relatively quiet booth in the back, working his way through a stacked pastrami on sour rye, washing it down with a bottle of Knickerbocker. There were three other bottles on the table other than the one the cop was drinking. Jane slipped into the booth, snagged a cigarette out of the crumpled pack of Skeets on the table in front of her friend and lit up.

  Hennessy chewed, swallowed then took a sip of beer. ‘Visiting your sister?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Nice that you do that. Lot of p
eople wouldn’t.’

  ‘She’s the only family I have.’

  ‘Still.’ Hennessy waved a hand in front of his plate. ‘You should eat something.’ He lifted his bottle and took a belt. ‘Drink something too.’

  Jane shrugged. ‘Maybe later.’ She took a drag on the cigarette and leaned back against the worn leather of the booth. ‘You find out anything about the car?’

  ‘Sure,’ Hennessy said. ‘I found out the plate was taken off a ’34 Dodge owned by an old bird named Hector Weakes who runs a hardware store in some little burg up the Hudson. A maroon Lincoln turned up on a hot sheet in one of the Brooklyn precincts.’

  ‘Gabbie Vigorito,’ said Jane.

  ‘You got it.’

  Gabriel Vigorito, otherwise known as Bla-Bla for his talkativeness or the Black Man for his dark Mediterranean colouring, had controlled an interstate auto-theft empire from his Greenpoint headquarters until a conviction in 1934 earned him a ten-year spot up the river in Ossining. He’d done five years at Sing-Sing and had been released for good behaviour two months previously. The word was he’d gone right back to his old ways, now operating as something called Boro Hall Auto Exchange. Rumour also had it that he’d bought himself a hundred copies of J. Edgar Hoover’s Persons in Hiding, which had a whole chapter in it devoted to his exploits.

  ‘I guess it’s a dead end then.’

  ‘Maybe not.’ Hennessy finished his sandwich, then pushed the plate away and lit a cigarette of his own. It was early evening and Reuben’s was filling up. The air was filled with aromatic steam, the clatter of dishes and orders being called out for Clark Gables, Carol Lombards and FDRs with ketchup. More than once Hennessy had said he’d die a happy man if they named a sandwich after him at Reuben’s.

  ‘Spill,’ said Jane.

  Hennessy leaned back, relaxing. ‘We picked up the car on a tip from Henry Franzo.’ Once upon a time Franzo had been the Black Man’s brother-in-law and also a master at changing the registration numbers on stolen cars. ‘Henry said some Harvard guy approached him, said he needed a car.’