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

Ferguson murdered? It was insane—incomprehensible. But then again, the last two days had been exactly that.

His mother shouted through the earpiece. “Michael? What’s happened, what’s going on?”

He put the phone to his ear. “I’ll call you back, mother,” he replied.

Michael hung up the phone over Lillian’s filtered protests and it began to ring almost immediately. Ignoring it, he headed for the bedroom.

The condition of the bedroom was no better than the sitting room had been. His bed had been tossed, and his dresser drawers pulled out and overturned. Clothes and other personal items lay scattered all over the floor.

Cursing silently, he moved to the nightstand. The drawer hung halfway out, the contents a jumble of nose sprays, tissues, and old manicure sets. He pawed through the mess; his mouth set in grim determination. He smiled when his hands closed around a familiar shape. He pulled it out and glanced briefly at the British coat of arms embossed on the leather passport case. And then he frowned. Something wasn’t right. It was too light.

He tore it open and snarled, tossing it aside. “Blast!” he said, standing up and kicking his overturned mattress. “Fucking bastards!”

“What’s wrong?” Erika called out.

He stalked back into the other room and headed for the bar. “They stole my bloody passport.”

Throwing open one of the cabinets, he grabbed the Courvoisier, twisted off the cap and drank right from the bottle. Erika joined him, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“It’s bad enough that I’m having my life turned upside-down. But what really gets me is the feeling that I’m being manipulated like some bloody puppet.”

He took another slug of brandy and began coughing.

“I—I’m sorry.”

“Please, stop saying that,” Michael said, annoyed. “It’s no more your fault than mine. And if I had it to do all over again, I’d do the same damn thing. The one good thing about this whole mess is you.”

Erika smiled, her eyes tinged with a curious sadness.

“What about your passport?” she asked.

Michael scowled. “Take it from a bureaucrat who knows. It’ll take weeks to get a new one. We haven’t anywhere near that long. We’re finished.”

He took another drink, recapped the bottle and replaced it in the cabinet, slamming the door.

Erika squeezed his hand, her eyes shining with purpose. “Maybe we’re not,” she said. “I know some people who can help.”

“Who?”

She shook her head and kissed him on the mouth. “Do you trust me?”

Michael nodded, a puzzled look on his face.

“Good. Then don’t ask,” she said, moving toward the phone.

An hour later, Erika nosed the Toyota to the curb in front of a crumbling terraced house in Whitechapel. When they climbed out, Michael scanned the area, his eyes darting to the alleys, as if he half-expected an army of muggers to descend on them. It was silly, he knew, but a lifetime of hearing about the horrors of Whitechapel could not be overcome by mere logic.

Situated near the docks in East London, Whitechapel was still the home of the poorer classes, as it had been for two hundred years. And even though Jack the Ripper was almost a hundred years in his grave, his specter still haunted this borough of winding streets and decaying, tightly packed edifices. Street lighting was poor, and shadows dominated. As for the immediate neighborhood where Michael and Erika stood, it was populated primarily by Indians and Pakistanis, as evidenced by the plethora of Hindi signage and the smell of curry in the air.

“I don’t know why I let you talk me into this,” he said, locking the passenger door. “And just how does the spoiled rich daughter of a German industrialist know where to find a passport forger in Whitechapel?”

Erika came around the car and joined him, slipping her arm through his. “We spoiled rich girls have to be resourceful at times, especially in fending off the fortune hunters and gigolos.” She grinned at her little joke. “Besides, Jalil is an old art school chum who fell on hard times. He was a mediocre painter but turned out to be a master forger. Now, come on, we don’t want to be late.”

Shaking his head in both admiration and exasperation, he let Erika lead him into the building, neither of them aware of the silver-gray Jaguar that had parked across the street.

Inside the hallway of the terraced house, the smell of curry and dried urine increased to nauseating proportions. Michael wrinkled his nose when he stepped over a battered plastic tricycle that had one of its wheels missing, marveling that people could stand to live this way. Erika led the way up the stairs and Michael heard a cacophony of sounds when they passed each door: loud Indian music, a couple arguing, a baby squalling, a television tuned to a war movie.

Erika stopped at a door at the end of the hall. A small sticker was adjacent to the knocker: Artists do it with style! it said in bright splashy colors.

“Typical Jalil,” she laughed.

Erika extended her arm and rapped sharply on the door. Somewhere inside the apartment, they heard footsteps pounding down a hallway, and then a high-pitched voice. “Who is it?”

“Your favorite Kraut.”

A second later the door flew open and there stood a gnomish man with dark chocolate skin and pop-eyes wearing a white turban, a tie-dyed t-shirt featuring a picture of Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar, and a pair of stonewashed jeans covered with brightly colored patches. When he caught sight of Erika, he cracked a smile that split his face from ear to ear.

“Rika! My goodness gracious! You are too good looking for humble words!”

Erika giggled, then remembered why they came. “I need a favor, Jalil,” she said, turning serious. “My friend has lost