She about-turned and strode away ahead of him. They got into the back of a naval car and as they drove off Shaw glanced sideways at the young woman, asked: “Miss Harris, are you in Captain James’s department?”
She said, “Why yes, I am. Temporarily I’m his Number Two.” She hesitated, then went on: “There’s something I have to tell you. About Commander Foster. He’s — dead.”
She looked at him as he gave a sudden exclamation and twisted in his seat, and she said concernedly: “He was a friend of yours, wasn’t he?”
He was shocked by this sudden news. He said dazedly, “Dead… but — my God. Tommy Foster… when did this happen — how, why?”
“We don’t know why, but — well, it happened last night as far as we can tell.”
“Go on, please, Miss Harris.”
She said quietly, “He was found in a sack in the harbour. Tied up. They reckon he was dead before he went in. Fetched up by Woolloomooloo, that’s where they got him out.” She added, “London’s been informed by signal.”
He fought down the sick feeling. You had to get used to losing friends… he asked after a moment, “Did you know Tommy Foster well, Miss Harris?”
She said, “Well, of course we worked together, there were just the three of us, but I didn’t know him really well. He was a funny bloke, that way. Liked to be by himself, you know what I mean?” Shaw nodded. That was Tommy all right. “Worked a lot on his own, didn’t always say what he was on to, not till he’d got something definite to report. He had some queer friends, too.”
“Such as?”
“Well, I don’t know how you’d put it, really.” She wrinkled up her nose, and the sun, coming through the car’s windows, glinted on her spectacles, showed up the almost man-like structure of her face. “New Australians, some of them, real odd mid-European nationalities. And quite a few down-and-outs, real bums. I suppose he found things out from them, got to know what was going on.”
He asked, “Were there any Chinese among his friends?”
She shook her head. “Not that I know of.”
They didn’t talk much after that. They ran under a clear blue sky as the sun came up over the suburbs; ran into Sydney and through Woolloomooloo, and then turned into the naval area, crossing the head of the Captain Cook graving dock into Garden Island and the Naval Yard. The car pulled up outside an office block and Miss Harris led the way past a sentry and a porter and into Captain James’s office, where a small, leathery-faced man in plain clothes, a man who looked more like a jockey than a naval officer, got up to grasp Shaw’s hand. By the look of him, Shaw thought, he’d been up all night and continuously on the go, but his rather sharp features split into a wide grin as he said heartily,
“Glad to meet you at last, Commander!” He added soberly, “Sorry you had to be met with bad news.”
“Yes, sir. Tommy was a good friend of mine.”
“Same here. He was a right bloke, Tommy was. None better.” James broke off abruptly. “Well now, don’t let’s waste any time at all. I reckon you’d better tell me the whole thing for a start, eh? Sit down.”
“Thank you, sir.” Shaw sat on a hard upright chair, mentally contrasted his bare, functional room with Latymer’s sumptuous apartment in the Admiralty. He took a rather crushed cigarette from a paper packet which the Australian chucked over, and then he told James the whole story, particularly mentioning his suspicions about the note concerning Ling’s restaurant. James, who knew the place well, seemed sceptical of this — Ling, he said, was a right bloke, came from a family that had been in Australia for two generations — but apart from this he listened intently, his perky head tilted slightly to one side.
When he had finished, Shaw asked: “What about Mirskov, sir? We should be able to get something out of him when he’s arrested, and then get on Karstad’s track?”
James said, “I’m afraid that avenue’s closed, boy. After your phone call from the airfield, I took it on myself to ring the Station Commander back and ask him to send in an armed party to talk to Commandant Mirskov. I didn’t ask Canberra first, because it was odds on they wouldn’t agree, but I didn’t tell him that… anyway, when they got there, Mirskov already had a bullet in his head.”
“Dead?”
“Yep, too right! Station Commander himself saw the body. They were in too much of a panic up there to make any difficulties — in the circumstances. I’d say he either killed himself when he saw the game might be up soon, or one of his pals got him before we did. Anyway — that’s that.”
Shaw said, “Well, there’s something else we can try. There’s a man called Markham aboard the liner. He’s the man who provided Karstad’s alibi the night he killed Gresham. If we haul him in at Melbourne, he may know something. I doubt if he’d have been given much information, but it’s worth following up.”
James nodded and made a note. “I’ll have that done. Sounds as though he’ll have to be charged as an accessory anyhow.” He looked up sharply. “Now — there’s something really bad, I’m afraid. I’ve passed on your message about throwing-off the adaptors, I did that right away—”
Shaw interrupted bitterly. “Don’t tell me, I know. They didn’t believe it, did they?”
James said shortly, “They’re shaken, but they’re dithering, specially Canberra. That MAPIACCIND territory up at Bandagong, why, it’s a flaming sacred cow to them. They’re terrified of upsetting Geneva. Well, they rang me back a bit later on and I gather they’re mad at what you’ve done — the Bandagong people are trying to say you did the Commandant in, for one thing. I’m sorry about it, but I have an idea your name’s mud up in Canberra. And by that time they’d heard about my armed party from the R.A.A.F., so I stink too.” James grinned briefly. “They’ve practically apologized to the Acting Commandant on behalf of both of us!”
Shaw snapped, “They must be crazy.”
“I agree, but there it is. Reckon it’s just a question of time, but we haven’t got much of that. Anyway, I’ve not done with ’em yet. As for Latymer, well, I know he’s doing his best. He said there’s already been high-level talks on scramble lines between the various Governments concerned, but not one of them will listen to any suggestion — yet — of negativing the safeguard unless all the others, including China mark you, and Russia, agree too. Which so far they haven’t.”
“Can you beat it!” Shaw’s mouth was hard, bitter.
James shrugged. “I reckon there’s going to be precious little more we can do to change their minds in time, so it’s up to us to find this flaming transmitter and put it out of action… He frowned, added: “You know — it’s hard to argue with ’em. Look, Mirskov’s not being taken too black by some of the other Governments, let alone Canberra. They don’t know what to think, but they do know Mirskov was bloody carefully screened before he landed that job.”
“And there's the doubts about our original sources,” Shaw groaned. “Yes, I know! It’s just what my chief had to put up with… so we’re back right where we started.”
James said, “Not quite. They are taking notice now. Besides, we do know one thing for sure now, and we’d better start thinking what we’re going to do about it. You said Lubin’s set has to be pretty close to REDCAP. Well now— that’s something. It narrows the field quite a lot.”
Shaw nodded. “I suppose it narrows it down to the route from Sydney to Bandagong—”
“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, but at least we don’t have to go chasing all over Australia.”
“Yes, but Karstad said it wouldn’t be used in a town, so that cuts out Sydney and Melbourne—”