D-Notice by Bill Walker (big ebook reader txt) 📗

“I’m Halbert Ripley, so glad to meet you,” he said, in a reedy voice. It sounded as if he’d been breathing helium. Michael just managed to keep a straight face as he took the man’s hand.

“Michael Thorley, and this is my friend, Erika Rainer.”

Ripley’s flaccid hand felt like a dead fish. He cracked a wan smile and pushed the thick black frames of his glasses back up the bridge of his pudgy nose. “Well, then, how may I help you?”

“Perhaps we should go round to your office,” Michael said.

Ripley nodded sharply. “Of course. Follow me.”

They walked past the reception desk and Michael couldn’t resist giving the old girl a wink.

Ripley led them through a maze of offices to a stairwell that took them down into the basement past rows and rows of files. At the end of the stacks, they came upon a door that Ripley held open for them. Inside was an eight-foot-square room lined with filing cabinets and a prim desk more at home in a schoolroom. Ripley, motioned for Michael and Erika to take the two straight-backed chairs facing the desk, then took his own seat behind it. Michael noticed the top of the man’s desk was perfectly neat, with pens and papers at perfect right angles to each other.

Ripley made a show of shuffling papers and then smiled, folding his hands on the desktop. “So, what can I do for you, Mr. Thorley.”

“I’m here to pick up something my late father left in your firm’s care.”

“Ahh, I see,” Ripley said, his glasses slipping down his nose again. “Of course, I’m happy to oblige, but you see, Mr. Thorley, I’ve only just started my employment here, and I’m really not quite up to speed, so to speak.”

He shrugged and attempted another smile. Michael noticed that the man’s hands twitched nervously, as if he wasn’t comfortable with them unless they were occupied. A moment later they began shuffling more papers, and Michael began a slow burn. The receptionist had deliberately handed them off to the most incompetent fool she could muster. Surely there was a circle in hell just for the likes of her.

Michael sat forward in his chair. “I can appreciate that, Mr. Ripley. But what we’re looking for would have been kept under Mr. Cadwallader’s personal care. Surely those records are handy.”

Ripley brightened, his hands ceasing their busy work for the moment. “Oh, yes, quite handy, indeed. Those records are even now being gone through and collated by my assistant for microfilming, you see.”

“Good, then what we seek is more than likely stored in whatever boxes are marked 1941.”

Ripley’s practiced smile faltered. “Oh, dear me. Did you say, 1941?”

“Yes,” Michael said, not liking the man’s tone one iota.

“Those records were destroyed in 1944. A stray buzz bomb, I’m told. Nasty business. Everything from the firm’s founding up until that time. All gone. Nearly unraveled the firm altogether, I might add.”

Michael collapsed back into the chair, feeling as if someone had kicked him in the gut. The room seemed to tilt on some unseen axis, nauseating him.

Erika, seeing his distress, broke in. “The woman upstairs said that Mr. Cadwallader had retired some years ago. Is he still alive?”

“Last I heard,” Ripley replied.

“Then perhaps you can tell us where we can find him. It’s very important.”

Erika smiled at him and Ripley blushed a deep shade of crimson. Reaching into his desk, he pulled out a notepad and scribbled on it with one of his ubiquitous pens, tore it off, and handed it to Erika.

“You’ll find him at that address. Although, I’m not at all sure he’ll be of much help to you.”

“You see anything?” Michael asked.

Their car was parked outside the East Grinstead Convalescent and Retirement Home, a sprawling two-story brick building occupying two manicured acres at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac. Its nearest neighbors were blocks of dreary low-income housing that resembled concrete bunkers.

Erika scanned the road leading to the mouth of the cul-de-sac and shook her head. “No, nothing.”

Michael watched a group of elderly residents arrayed on the home’s front lawn. They slouched in lawn chairs, each consumed with their own thoughts, or lack thereof.

He faced her and nodded. “Let’s go.”

Exiting the car, they hurried across the street. Ever since they’d left London, Michael had eyed the rearview mirror, looking for the Lotus, or any other car that stayed with them too long. Of course, whoever was interested in them might have managed to remain undetected despite his vigilance, a thought that renewed his sense of unease.

When they reached the glassed-in entrance, Michael gave the street one last look, then motioned for Erika to go inside.

The Nikon’s motor drive wheezed as the camera snapped off several excellent shots of Michael and Erika through the car window when they entered the Home. The photographer, a burly man with a bullet-shaped head and mean piggish eyes, lowered the camera and stared at the building, his jaw working methodically on a piece of gum. His companion, the driver, tapped the steering wheel impatiently, his ferretlike eyes darting between the building and the entrance to the cul-de-sac. He didn’t like being in a place without at least two ways to get out of it. Here, if something happened, they were trapped. He didn’t like it one bit; it wasn’t professional. Still, what choice did they have? They did what they were told. And they’d been told to wait until young Thorley and the girl showed up. If they did, then they were to act accordingly. Unfortunately, they’d had to wait nearly four hours.

“You get them, Karl?” he said, in German.

The photographer nodded, and put the camera away, lovingly wiping the large telephoto lens with lens