Bagley, Desmond - Flyaway Read online

  Why is Max Stafford, head of Stafford Security Consultants, beaten up and in trouble in his own office?

  What is the secret of the famous 1930's aircraft FLYAWAY?

  Why has Paul Billson disappeared in North Africa!

  Desmond Bagley

  Flyaway (1978)

  Two little dicky-birds, Sitting on a wall; One named Peter, The other named Paul.

  Fly away, Peter! Fly away, Paul! Come back, Peter! Come back, Paul!

  No man can live in the desert and emerge unchanged. He will carry, however faint, the imprint of the desert, the brand which marks the nomad. Wilfred Thesiger

  CHAPTER ONE

  We live in the era of instancy. The clever chemists have invented instant coffee; demonstrating students cry in infantile voices, 'We want the world, and we want it now!' and the Staffords have contrived the instant flaming row, a violent quarrel without origin or cause.'

  Our marriage was breaking up and we both knew it. The heat engendered by friction was rapidly becoming unsupportable. On this particular Monday morning a mild enquiry into Gloria's doings over the weekend was wantonly interpreted as meddlesome interference into her private affairs. One thing led to another and I arrived at the office rather frayed at the edges.

  Joyce Godwin, my secretary, looked up as I walked in and said brightly, 'Good morning, Mr Stafford.' . 'Morning,' I said curtly, and slammed the door of my own office behind me. Once inside I felt a bit ashamed. It's a bad boss who expends his temper on the staff and Joyce didn't deserve it. I snapped down the intercom switch. 'Will you come in, Joyce?'

  She entered armed with the secretarial weapons - stenographic pad and sharpened pencil. I said, 'Sorry about that; I'm not feeling too well this morning.'

  Her lips twitched in a faint smile. 'Hangover?'

  'Something like that,' I agreed. The seven year hangover. 'What's on the boil this morning?'

  'Mr Malleson wants to see you about the board meeting this afternoon.'

  I nodded. The AGM of Stafford Security Consultants Ltd was a legal formality; three men sitting in a City penthouse cutting up the profits between them. A financial joke. 'Anything else?'

  'Mr Hoyland rang up. He wants to talk to you.'

  'Hoyland? Who's he?'

  'Chief Security Officer at Franklin Engineering in Luton.'

  There was once a time when I knew every employee by his given name; now I couldn't even remember the surnames of the line staff. It was a bad situation and would have to be rectified when I had the time. 'Why me?'

  'He wanted Mr Ellis, but he's in Manchester until Wednesday; and Mr Daniels is still away with 'flu.'

  I grinned, 'So he picked me as third choice. Was it anything important?'

  The expression on Joyce's face told me that she thought my hangover was getting the better of me. A Chief Security Officer was expected to handle his job and if he rang the boss it had better be about something bloody important. 'He said he'd ring back,' she said drily.

  'Anything else?'

  Wordlessly she pointed to my overflowing in-tray. I looked at it distastefully. 'You're a slave-driver. If Hoyland rings I'll be in Mr Malleson's office.'

  'But Mr Fergus wants the Electronomics contract signed today,' she wailed.

  'Mr Fergus is an old fuddy-duddy,' I said. 'I want to talk to Mr Malleson about it. It won't hurt Electronomics to wait another half-hour.' I picked up the Electronomics file and left, feeling Joyce's disapproving eye boring into my back.

  Charlie Malleson was evidently feeling more like work than I - his in-tray was almost half empty. I perched my rump on the edge of his desk and dropped the file in front of him. 'I don't like this one.'

  He looked up and sighed. 'What's wrong with it, Max?'

  They want guard dogs without handlers. That's against the rules.'

  He raised his eyebrows. 'I didn't catch that.'

  'Neither did Fergus and he should have. You know what I think about it. You can build defences around a factory like the Berlin Wall but some bright kid is going to get through at night just for the devil of it. Then he runs up against a dog on the loose and gets mauled - or killed.' Charlie opened the file. 'See Clause 28.'

  He checked it. 'That wasn't in the contract I vetted. It must have been slipped in at the last moment.'

  Then it gets slipped out fast or Electronomics can take their business elsewhere. You wanted to see me about the board meeting?'

  'His Lordship will be at home at four this afternoon.'

  His Lordship was Lord Brinton who owned twenty-five per cent of Stafford Security Consultants Ltd. I got up and went to the window and stared at the tower of the Inter-City Building - Brinton's lair. From the penthouse he overlooked the City, emerging from time to time to gobble up a coma pany here and arrange a profitable merger there. 'Four o'clock is all right; I'll tell Joyce. Is everything in order?'

  'As smooth as silk.' Charlie eyed me appraisingly. 'You don't look too good. Got a touch of 'flu coming on?'

  'A touch of something. I was told the name of a man this morning and I didn't know he worked for us. That's bad.'

  He smiled. 'This business is getting bigger than both of us. The penalty of success.'

  I nodded. 'I'm chained to my damned desk seven hours out of eight. Sometimes I wish we. were back in the bad old days when we did our own legwork. Now I'm shuffling too many bloody papers around.'

  'And a lot of those are crisp, crackling fivers.' Charlie waved at the view - the City of London in all its majesty. 'Don't knock success on this hallowed ground - it's immoral.' The telephone rang and he picked it up, then held it out to me.

  It was Joyce. 'Mr Hoyland wants to speak to you.'

  'Put him on.' I covered the mouthpiece and said to Charlie, 'You might like to listen to this one. It's about time you administrative types knew what goes on at the sharp end of the business.'

  The telephone clicked and clattered. 'Mr Stafford?'

  'Max Stafford here.'

  'This is Hoyland from ...'

  'I know who you are, Mr Hoyland,' I said, feeling like a con man. 'What's your trouble?'

  'I've come up against a funny one, sir,' he said. 'A man called Billson vanished a week ago and I've run into a blank wall.'

  'How critical is Billson?'

  'He's not on the technical side; he's in the accounts office. But. ..'

  'Have you checked the books?'

  They balance to a penny,' said Hoyland. 'It's not that, sir; it's the attitude of the company. I'm getting no cooperation at all.'

  'Expand on that.'

  'Well, Billson is a bit of a dumb bunny and he's getting paid a lot more than he's worth. He's on £8000 a year and doing the work of an office boy. When I asked Isaacson why, I got a bloody dusty answer. He said the salary structure is no concern of security.'

  Hoyland was annoyed, and rightly so. I was annoyed myself because when we took on a contract it was stipulated that everything was the concern of security. 'He said that, did he? Who is Isaacson?'

  'Chief Accountant,' said Hoyland. 'Can you get on the blower and straighten him out? He's not taking much notice of me.'

  'He'll get straightened out,' I said grimly. 'Let's get back to Billson - what do you mean when you say he's vanished?'

  'He didn't turn up last week and he sent in no word. When we made enquiries we found he'd left his digs without explanation.' Hoyland paused. 'That's no crime, Mr Stafford.'

  'Not unless he took something with him. You say he isn't critical?'

  'Definitely not. He's been a fixture in the accounting department for fifteen years. No access to anything that matters.'

  'Not that we know of.' I thought about it for a few moments. 'All right, Mr Hoyland; I'll have a word with
Isaacson. In the meantime check back on Billson; you never know what you might find.'

  'I'll do that, Mr Stafford.' Hoyland seemed relieved. Bucking top management was something he'd rather not do himself.

  I put down the telephone and grinned at Charlie. 'See what I mean. How would you handle a thing like that?'

  'Franklin Engineering,' he said reflectively. 'Defence contractors, aren't they?'

  'They do a bit for the army. Suspension systems for tanks - nothing serious.'

  'What are you going to do about it?'

  'I'm going to blow hell out of this joker, Isaacson. No money-pusher is going to tell one of my security officers what concerns security and what doesn't.'

  Charlie tilted back his chair and regarded me speculatively. 'Why don't you do it personally - face to face? You've been complaining about being tied to your desk, so why don't you pop over to Luton and do some legwork? You can easily get back in time for the board meeting. Get out of the office, Max; it might take that sour look off your face.'

  'Is it as bad as that?' But the idea was attractive, all the same. 'All right, Charlie; to hell with the desk!' I rang Joyce. 'Get on to Hoyland at Franklin Engineering - tell him I'm on my way to Luton and to hold himself available.' I cut off her wail of protest. 'Yes, I know the state of the in-tray it'll get done tomorrow.'

  As I put down the telephone, Charlie said, 'I don't suppose it is really important.'

  'I shouldn't think so. The man's either gone on a toot or been knocked down by a car or something like that. No, Charlie; this is a day's holiday, expenses paid by the firm.'

  CHAPTER TWO

  I should have remembered Hoyland's name because I remembered his competent, square face when I saw it. He was a reliable type and an ex-copper like so many of our security officers. He was surprised to see me; it wasn't often that the top brass of Stafford Security appeared in the front line, more's the pity.

  His surprise was mingled with nervousness as he tried to assess why I had come personally. 'Nothing to worry about,' I assured him. 'Only too glad to get away from the desk. Tell me about Billson.'

  Hoyland rubbed his chin. 'I don't know much about him. You know I've only been here three months; I was transferred here when Laird retired.'

  I didn't know - there was too damned much about my own firm I didn't know. It had grown too big and depersonalized. 'Yes,' I said.

  'I took over Laird's files and checked his gradings. Billson came well into the green scale - as safe as houses. He was at the bottom of my priorities.'

  'But you've rechecked since he disappeared?'

  Hoyland nodded. 'Forty-four years old, worked here fifteen years. As much personality as a castrated rabbit. Lodges with a Mrs Harrison in the town. She's a widow.'

  'Anything between him and Mrs Harrison?'

  Hoyland grinned. 'She's seventy.'

  That didn't mean much; Ninon de L'Enclos was a whore at eighty. 'What about girl-friends?'

  'Not Billson - the girls didn't go for him from what I've heard.'

  'All right - boy-friends?'

  'Not that, either. I don't think he was the type.'

  'He doesn't seem much of anything,' I said caustically.

  'And that's a fact,' said Hoyland. 'He's so insignificant he hardly exists. You'd walk past him and not know he was there.'

  'The original invisible man,' I commented. 'All the qualifications for a sleeper.'

  'Isn't fifteen years too long?' queried Hoyland. 'Besides,' he left everything in order.'

  'As far as we know, that's all. Do the Special Branch boys know about this?'

  'They've been poking around and come to the same conclusion as me.'

  'Yes,' I said. 'Billson is probably in some hospital, having lost his means of identification. But there is a mystery; why was he overpaid and why is management being coy about it?'

  Hoyland nodded. 'I talked to Stewart about it first - he's Billson's immediate boss - and he pushed me on to Isaacson. I got nowhere with him.'

  I'll see what I can do,' I said, and went to find Stewart, who proved to be a sandy Scotsman, one of the new breed of bookkeepers. No dusty ledgers for him; figures were something which danced electronically in the guts of a computer.

  No, he had no idea where Billson might have gone. In fact, he knew nothing about Billson, full stop.

  'Isn't that a little odd for a department head? Surely you know something about your subordinates?'

  'He's a very strange man,' said Stewart. 'Reserved most of the time but capable of the most frantic outbursts occasionally. Sometimes he can be very difficult.'

  'In what way?'

  Stewart shrugged. 'He goes on about injustice; about people not being given the proper credit for achievement. He's very bitter about it.'

  'Meaning himself?'

  'No; it was always about others being repressed or cheated.'

  'Any political implications?'

  'Not at all,' said Stewart positively. 'Politics mean nothing to him.'

  'Did he do his work well?'

  Stewart offered me a wary look and said over-carefully, 'He did the work we asked of him to our satisfaction.'

  'Would you say he was an achiever himself?' I smiled. 'Was he in line for promotion, or anything like that?'

  'Nothing like that.' Stewart seemed aware that he had spoken too quickly and emphatically. 'He's not a dynamic man.'

  'I said, 'When did you join the firm, Mr Stewart?'

  'Four years ago. I was brought down from Glasgow when the office was computerized.'

  'At that time did you make any attempt to have Billson fired or transferred to another department?'

  Stewart jerked. 'I... er ... I did something like that, yes. It was decided to keep him on.'

  'By Mr Isaacson, I take it.'

  'Yes. You'll have to ask him about that,' he said with an air of relief.

  So I did. Isaacson was a more rarefied breed of accountant than Stewart. Stewart knew how to make figures jump through hoops; Isaacson selected the hoops they jumped through. He was an expert on company law, especially that affecting taxation.

  'Billson!' he said, and smiled. 'There's a word in Yiddish which describes a man like Billson. He's a nebbish.'

  'What's that?'

  'A person of less than no account. Let me put it this way; if a man walks out of a room and it feels as though someone has just come in, then he's a nebbish.'

  I leaned back in my chair and stared at Isaacson. 'So here we have a nebbish who draws £8000 for a job worth £2000, if that. How do you account for it?'

  'I don't have to,' he said easily. 'You can take that up with our managing director, Mr Grayson.'

  'And where will I find Mr Grayson?'

  'I regret that will be difficult,' said Isaacson in a most UN-REGRETFUL manner. 'He's in Switzerland for the skiing.'

  He looked so damned smug that I wanted to hit him, but I kept my temper and said deliberately, 'Mr Isaacson, my firm is solely responsible for security at Franklin Engineering. A man has disappeared and I find this lack of co-operation very strange. Don't you find it odd yourself?'

  He spread his hands. 'I repeat, Mr Stafford, that any questions concerning Mr Billson can be answered only by my managing director.'

  'Who is sliding down hills on a couple of planks.' I held Isaacson's eye. 'Stewart wanted to fire Billson but you vetoed it. Why?'

  'I didn't Mr Grayson did. He said Billson must stay.'

  'Surely you asked his reasons.'

  'Of course.' Isaacson shook his head. 'He gave none.' He paused. 'I know nothing of Billson, Mr Stafford, other than that he was ... protected, shall we say.'

  I thought about that. Why should Grayson be Billson's fairy godfather? 'Did you know that Billson was "protected" when Stewart wanted to fire him?'

  'Oh yes.' Isaacson smiled a little sadly. 'I wanted to fire him myself ten years ago. When Stewart brought up the suggestion I thought I'd test it again with Mr Grayson.' He shrugged. 'But the situation was st
ill the same.'

  I said, 'Maybe I'd better take this up at a higher level; perhaps with your Chairman.'

  'As you wish,' said Isaacson in a cold voice.

  I decided to lower the temperature myself. 'Just one more thing, Mr Isaacson. When Mr Hoyland asks you for information you do not - repeat not - tell him that what he wants to know is no concern of security. You give him all the information you have, as you have given it to me. I hope I make myself clear?'

  'Very clear.' Isaacson's lips had gone very thin.

  'Very well; you will allow Mr Hoyland access to everything concerning Billson, especially his salary record. I'll have a word with him before I leave.' I stood up. 'Good morning, Mr Isaacson.'

  I checked back with Hoyland and told him what I wanted, then went in search of the Widow Harrison and found her to be a comfortable motherly old soul, supplementing her old age pension by taking in a lodger. According to her, Billson was a very nice gentleman who was no trouble about the house and who caused her no heart-searching about fancy women. She had no idea why he had left and was perturbed about what she was going to do about Billson's room which still contained a lot of his possessions.

  'After all, I have a living to make,' she said. 'The pension doesn't go far these days.'

  I paid her a month in advance for the room and marked it up to the Franklin Engineering account. If Isaacson queried it he'd get a mouthful from me.

  She had not noticed anything unusual about Billson before he walked out. 'No, he wasn't any different. Of course, there were times he could get very angry, but that was just his way. I let him go on and didn't take much notice.'

  'He was supposed to go to work last Monday, but he didn't. When did you see him last, Mrs Harrison?'

  'It was Monday night. I thought he'd been to work as usual. He didn't say he hadn't.'

  'Was he in any way angry then?'

  'A bit. He was talking about there being no justice, not even in the law. He said rich newspapers could afford expensive lawyers so that poor men like him didn't stand a chance.' She laughed. 'He was that upset he overturned the glue-pot. But it was just his way, Mr Stafford.'