Take-over.
Doyle was at last knocking off for the day, though it was now late evening. He was feeling very frustrated after a long stint of singularly unproductive work. He was usually fairly patient with the plodding enquiry stuff, as he knew it had to be done, but today's vain efforts had been a bit much.
All C.I.5's agents were on alert for any news of a new organization on the scene, one which was reportedly getting into a wide variety of criminal activities. One of Doyle's best informants had overheard a man talking in a pub, and thought he might be worth finding. But all he could give Doyle was a name, Stringer, and the word that he was a 'bouncer' in a Soho club, but he didn't know which one.
So Doyle had spent a frustrating evening, going to one club after another, and not getting anywhere, until finally, on his seventh attempt he had met with partial success. The man on the door had recognised the name.
"Yes, he works here," he had said, "But it's his night off."
Questioned further, he admitted that he had no idea where the man lived, or where he might be found. So Doyle had to content himself with resolving to return another night. He had warned the man currently on duty that his visit was not to be mentioned to Stringer when he came back, but he had some doubts as to whether that would be obeyed. It would be even more annoying if he came back another night, only to find that the man had taken fright and disappeared.
And that was more than likely, if word that he was being sought got onto the 'grapevine'. It could well be that the whole evening would turn out to have been totally wasted. So he was not in the best of moods as he walked along the south side of Leicester Square, towards the tube station.
He had not brought his car in this far, as he knew that parking would be a problem, and he would be quicker on foot. He had left his vehicle further out, used public transport, and was now on his way back to collect it.
As he neared the entrance to the underground, quite a few people emerged, suggesting that a train had just come in.
Foremost was a group of rather rowdy youngsters, already 'high', probably intent on a night out in nearby Chinatown. Doyle halted for a moment to let them pass him on their noisy way.
It was then that he noticed the small Chinese girl who had emerged behind them, and was now moving quietly away to her right. She crossed the road and turned into Little Newport Street. He watched her idly, mildly surprised to see she seemed to be on her own.
And then something happened which spurred him into immediate action !
As she walked quietly past a dark alleyway, two figures jumped from the shadows and grabbed her. He heard her faint shriek of protest as the men tried to pull her back into the dark passage.
In a moment he had dashed forward and was pulling the nearest man off her. Predictably, the men let go of the girl, and turned on him. But they met with more trouble than they had bargained for, as he employed all the skills his training had given him.
The first man charged in wildly, aiming fierce blows at this man who had dared to interfere. But Doyle skilfully caught his arm, twisted it mercilessly, and used the man's own impetus to throw him against the nearest wall, where he instantly slid down and lay still.
But the second man was a more dangerous opponent. He had produced an evil-looking knife, and looked as if he was well able to use it. He circled warily, looking for an opening. Doyle had had quite a lot of practice in dealing with knife combat, and blocked his every feint. But the man was extremely quick, and his next slash just caught the edge of Doyle's left hand, before the better- trained agent lashed out with a kick where it would hurt most, followed by a sharp karate chop that left his opponent sprawled on the ground.
By this time the first man was beginning to stir. Doyle turned towards him, but the girl, who had been cowering against the wall, stepped forward and grabbed his arm.
"Come quick," she gasped. "I live down here."
She started to run, pulling him after her. They had hardly gone a few yards, when a door opened further down, and two Chinese men started running towards them. Their attitude was fierce and menacing, and Doyle prepared to defend himself again, but a few swift words in Chinese from the girl changed that in a moment. She turned to Doyle.
"These are my brothers," she explained, "and they thank you for helping me."
"Then you are safe now," said Doyle. He came to a halt, prepared to leave her to their care. But she maintained hold of his arm, and pointed to his other hand where a nasty cut was bleeding profusely.
"I wish to clean that," she said. "I am a qualified nurse."
She drew him towards the door her brothers had emerged from, and led him in. The brothers, beaming now, followed as they went up a flight of stairs into a small flat above a little shop.
There was a meagre fire burning in the small grate, and close to it was an elderly Chinese gentleman, huddled in a chair, wrapped in a blanket, apparently asleep. He didn't look very well.
The girl pushed Doyle into a chair at the table in the centre of the room, and hurried over to the sink.
She snatched a handful of paper towels and brought them over to pillow Doyle's bleeding hand. As she continued with her first-aid preparations, she talked in her soft sing-song voice.
"My name is Meilin Lu, and these are my brothers Chung and Linhai. They do not have very good English. Linhai looks after the shop down below, and Chung works in a warehouse down by the docks"
"And you are a nurse," said Doyle, remembering what she had said earlier. "Which hospital ?"
"Alas, I am not nursing at the moment," she said, "I have to look after our ailing father during the day. He cannot be left alone."
What a waste of training, thought Doyle as he watched her deft ministrations to his injured hand.
"The boys do not earn much," she continued, "So to help pay the rent, my uncle gave me an evening job in his restaurant. He takes care of me there, and usually he brings me home, but tonight he was suddenly called away with a message to say his wife had been rushed into hospital. I could not contact my brothers, for we have no phone. I risked coming home alone. It was a mistake. This is a very rough area, and so I am very grateful to you for coming to my rescue."
Her brothers evidently had enough English to understand this, and beamed widely at him with nodding heads.
By this time, Meilin had inspected his injury and dealt with it. It was a nasty long cut across the heel of his hand, but fortunately not very deep. She had bathed it carefully, applied a dressing, and finished it off with some very skilled neat bandaging.
"Now keep that clean and dry," she ordered, "and let your doctor check it in a couple of days."
Doyle wasn't too keen on the second bit of that. If he went to their own medical man, Cowley would automatically receive a report, and he wouldn't be too pleased if Doyle's work was hampered by an injury received 'off-duty'.
"Thank you for your care," he said as he stood up. "Now I must go. I have to take the tube to where I left my car."
Chung stood also. He was the bigger of the two. "I will go with you," he said, "In case anyone is out there."
He walked with Doyle to the tube entrance, repeating his thanks for helping his sister, but they encountered no trouble.
Doyle got the next tube going in the right direction, and as he went, thought of the trio he had just met. He knew from his police days that there were many Chinese in London, some up to no good, but there were also many decent hard-working people too, like this family. He wondered idly whether he would ever meet up with any of them again.
He collected his car and went home to his flat, to a well-earned rest. It had been a rather too eventful night.
Thanks to Meilin's deft ministrations, Doyle's injury healed cleanly and quickly. He didn't have to involve the doctor, and, in fact, the only one who even noticed was Bodie. He demanded to know what had happened. So Doyle told him about his encounter. Bodie was very interested.
"This Meilin," he asked. "Is she attractive ? Are you going to see her again ?"
"No, I'm not," said Doyle firmly. "She's a quiet respectable girl, working hard to care for a sick ageing father, and she has brothers and other relatives, who are very protective. And she's not your type either," he added decisively.
Next evening, Doyle drove straight to the club he had found, but quickly discovered that Stringer had not turned up to his job. He wasn't really surprised. The man had probably heard that he was being looked for, and as Doyle had shown his I.D., he knew by whom. Those with something to hide feared C.I.5's interest. Stringer had evidently decided not to be available.
As he left, he took a detour down Little Newport Street, but there was nothing moving there at all. He saw the little shop, and registered that it sold Chinese medicines. A very ancient art, he thought to himself.
Fortunately, rumours were coming from other quarters, so there were several different leads for agents to follow. But little success had been reported as yet.
A day or so later, Bodie and Doyle were in Cowley's office, reading the latest reports before setting out again on their own enquiries.
"By the way, Doyle," said Cowley, "That man Stringer that you were looking for has turned up."
"Good," said Doyle. "Has he been brought in for questioning ?"
"Unfortunately, no," replied his boss, "He turned up dead, in the river."
Doyle ignored the suppressed snort from Bodie. "Perhaps he did know something, then," he said thoughtfully. "Enough to be got rid of."
"Probably," agreed Cowley.
Later that week, Doyle was walking back to his car after speaking to an informant, when a girl hurried past him. He recognised her as a mild addict, and caught her arm, detaining her. As he swung her round to face him, he was surprised to see she was sporting a nasty black eye,
"Hi Bessie," he said amiably, "You've been in the wars, haven't you ? Who did this ? Not Joe, surely ?"
Joe was her supplier, but he was a mild little man, who worked very hard at not attracting notice.
"No, Mr. Doyle, it wasn't Joe," she said quickly, and tried to pull away from his restraining hand on her arm, avoiding eye contact.
"Who then, Bessie ?," he said sternly. She was a rather simple girl, foolish to be into drugs, but there was no harm in her. And she didn't deserve to be treated so badly.
"I can't tell you, really I can't, Mr. Doyle," she said agitatedly. "They'll kill me."
She snatched her arm away, and ran off at top speed. Doyle considered pursuing her and demanding the truth. But he was already late for a meet-up with Bodie. In any case, he knew where to find her. He might do something about it another time. So he continued on his way thoughtfully.
Bodie and Doyle had been working all morning on similar enquiries in adjoining areas, and had arranged to meet at lunchtime to compare notes. Reaching the appointed rendezvous, Doyle parked his car neatly behind his partner's, and moved round to slip into the passenger seat beside him.
Bodie was just demolishing the last bits of a hamburger. Doyle scowled at him.
"You'll kill yourself," he observed. "Living on that junk food all the time."
Bodie pulled a face at him, and licked the last traces of sauce from his fingers.
"Did you get any results from your enquiries ?," he asked. "I didn't get anything useful."
"Neither did I," replied Doyle. "A really wasted morning."
They exchange rueful looks. Cowley would not be too pleased with their reports.
"There was one thing," said Doyle, and told his partner about his encounter with Bessie.
"Now, there's a co-incidence," said Bodie, with a surprised look. "When I popped in for my burger, I spotted Joe in the supermarket next door. He was working, collecting trolleys, and he was limping badly. I went over to talk to him, called his name, but he made out he wasn't hearing me. He threw me one look, and then scuttled away round the back somewhere."
"Very odd," agreed Doyle.
But they didn't give it much further thought. Minor pushers and addicts weren't C.I.5's business. They were the province of the police and the Drugs Squad. And they seemed to have a policy of turning a blind eye to these small fry as they tried to build up evidence against the bigger fish, the dealers, and especially the importers who dealt in large quantities of their deadly products, and exchanged huge sums of money.
But a few days later, something brought the incidents back to mind.
Reporting to Cowley one morning, they were handed the daily police reports to read. One item caught Doyle's eye.
"What's this about 'changes in the drug scene, sir ?," he enquired.
"Yes, I noticed that," replied Cowley. "So I asked about it. Apparently a young policeman in Putney, a college man, noticed something odd, and asked permission to do some special research."
"And what did he find ?," asked Doyle eagerly.
"He discovered," continued his boss, "that in lots of areas in London, small time pushers were disappearing, either leaving the area or taking other jobs, and their places were taken by new men, nearly all of them foreign."
Bodie and Doyle exchanged looks, as they both recalled their encounters with Bessie and Joe.
Doyle spoke excitedly "Could this be just what we're looking for ?," he suggested. "It could be just the 'tip of the iceberg' in a huge scheme to take over the whole drug scene. Small un-cooperative men persuaded to go, to be replaced by their own men, and this could be going on similarly further up, with some new organization infiltrating its men into every branch of the scene."
And he went on to tell his boss about Bessie and Joe, stories which now had much greater significance.
"I think we need to have a word with Joe," said Doyle
Cowley nodded approval of this suggestion as the next step, and the pair left quickly.
"You do remember which supermarket it was, don't you ?." queried Doyle as they hurried down the stairs.
"'Course I do," replied Bodie, though for the life of him he couldn't recall its name. "The big one in Brixton."
They both piled into his car, which was just as well, as he did know where to go, and they made good time.
On Doyle's suggestion, they didn't drive into the store's car-park, but parked in a side street, and walked the few extra yards. Bodie had noted how nervous Joe had been, and they didn't want him running away again.
So Bodie stopped for a moment by the entrance, half-concealed behind a wall, while Doyle slipped in quietly and disappeared round the back of the building.
Bodie scanned the car-park, trying to locate Joe, and picked him out over on the far side, collecting trolleys that people had been too lazy to return to the designated areas. He moved in, using the parked cars as cover.
Joe came back with two trolleys, and added them to the long row of ones he'd already collected, securing them with a long strap. He began pushing them back towards the doorway of the store. He added them to the rows already there and unloosed the strap.
Then Bodie stepped up to him, and tapped him on the shoulder. He swung round, let out a startled gasp, then bolted past him, making for the corner of the building.
He charged round it, only to be brought up short as he cannoned forcibly into Doyle, who was waiting for him. Doyle steadied the little man, but maintained a firm grip on his shoulders.
"A little word with you, Joe," he said amiably, as Bodie followed round the corner to join them.
"I can't say anything, Mr. Doyle," gasped Joe. He looked scared out of his wits. "They'll kill me !."
Doyle drew the terrified man back into the shadows of the alleyway. "If you talk to us now," he said mildly, "they won't know, will they ? But if we march you across the car-park openly, and take you in for questioning ….."
And they would do that, to get the answers they needed, Joe knew. So he capitulated, and began reluctantly to do what they wanted.
"I can't tell you much," he said. "They gave me an alternative. Either I quit and let their man take over, or I worked for them, on their terms. I protested and got this for my pains." He touched his injured leg. "They had baseball bats."
"So you left," said Bodie, and Joe nodded.
"What did they look like ?," asked Doyle.
"One was white," said Joe, "but he had a funny accent. The other was a coloured man, _ not black though."
Doyle could see that they would get nothing more out of the scared little man. He let go of him and patted him down gently, trying to calm him.
"Now," he said, "You walk out there, Joe, and get on with collecting your trolleys, and we'll slip away quietly so we're not noticed."
And they were as good as their word. They slipped into the store by the back entrance, strolled around the aisles for a bit, then emerged separately, and went back to the car.
As they got in, Bodie posed a question. "Any good talking to Bessie ?" he said.
"Shouldn't think so," replied Doyle, "She's not very bright at the best of times, and when she's high…."
Bodie nodded. "She probably argued with the new man, and that's what earned her the black eye."
"Maybe he put the prices up," suggested Doyle. "Sounds like the kind of thing they'd do."
They returned to Headquarters to report to Cowley. Their boss had already been busy preparing a memo to be sent out to all his agents, telling them to take a closer look at the drug scene in their area, not just pushers and addicts, but higher up the chain to dealers, to see if there were any changes going on there.
And as the days went past, and the reports came in steadily, it became clear that they were now very much on the right track. There were lots of changes taking place.
Agents reported stories they had followed up from hints given them by informants. One was about a dealer who lived in Hounslow, who had suddenly sold his house (for a lot less than it was worth), and gone off to live in Spain.
Another was about a man who was in hospital with multiple injuries, which he steadfastly declared were the result of a fall down the stairs. He stuck to that claim in spite of the doubts expressed by the doctors treating him.
One of Doyle's contacts had given him the name of a man, who was also in hospital, allegedly on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
"I'm going to see a man in Vale Hospital," Doyle told his partner, as they met up for lunch.
"Shall I come along ?," asked Bodie.
"No, better not," replied Doyle. "Apparently he's in a very disturbed state, and two of us might scare him even more."
He turned up at the hospital, spoke to the doctor who was in charge of the man's case, explaining who he was, and asked to see his patient for a moment.
"I will let you see him," agreed the doctor, "but I don't think it will help you. He's getting worse, hates visitors, and half the time he's not even rational."
He was right. Doyle made every effort to talk quietly to the man, but was met with blank stares. The man was very restless, pacing round the little room they'd placed him in, and looking everywhere but at his questioner.
Eventually Doyle gave up, and stood up to leave. The man suddenly swung round and stared at him.
"Why don't you stop him ?," he demanded angrily. "He's taking over everywhere, he and his men."
"Who ?," asked Doyle, hoping this might be a breakthrough.
"Why, Omar Hakim, of course," snapped the man. But then he started to mutter to himself, and resumed his pacing up and down,
Doyle left quickly. He had a name, a name he hadn't come across before. He must follow that up as quickly as he could. He thanked the doctor, returned to his car, and shot off back to Headquarters. He went straight to Records, and began searching them eagerly. But to his great disappointment he found nothing. The name, unusual as it was, was not there. He tried the records from Interpol, but drew a blank there also.
He began to wonder. Did such a person really exist ? Or had the incoherent man he'd spoken to made it up? But the man had been so vehement about it. Surely it must mean something. It was hardly the kind of name one would invent, surely ?
It was now getting quite late, so he decided to call it a day. He'd have an early night. He would make an early start tomorrow by going straight to the Computer Centre to see if they could come up with anything.
Bodie parked his car neatly in the yard at Headquarters, and made for the entrance door. As he went he glanced idly at the cars he was passing, looking for his partner's vehicle. It wasn't there. He felt an irrational surge of satisfaction that for once he was earlier than his mate.
He mounted the stairs, entered the rest room, and consulted the duty board. It said, as it often did, report to Cowley's office. So he walked along the corridor, tapped on the door and was called in.
Cowley was seated at his desk, wading through a pile of reports. With a scowl on his face, he handed a few of them to Bodie.
"We're not making much progress," he grumbled. "Read these and see if there's anything of value."
For a while there was silence as both men studied one report after another.
Suddenly, Cowley lifted his head. "Doyle not in yet ?," he queried.
"He is a bit late, isn't he ?," replied Bodie. "His car wasn't there when I came in. But I haven't heard from him."
Just then the phone on Cowley's desk rang. He picked up the receiver. "Yes," he said brusquely, annoyed at being interrupted.
His expression changed as he listened intently. It must be something important, thought Bodie as he carried on with his reading, only vaguely hearing the one-sided conversation.
"When ?," said Cowley, and then "Where ?." He put the receiver down and turned to Bodie.
"That was the police," he said. "Doyle's had an accident, - crashed his car."
Bodie was all attention now, his reading forgotten. "How bad is he ?," he asked anxiously.
"He didn't say," returned his boss tersely. "That's your job. He's been taken to St. Richards Hospital. Get there, find out and report back."
Bodie was on his feet and making for the door, even before Cowley finished his instructions. He made very fast time to the hospital, and was lucky enough to find a parking-space close to the entrance, slipping in neatly as another car pulled out and left.
He charged through the swing doors, and up to the reception desk. But just as he got there, he was met by their friend Dr. Fenton, who was his usual jovial self.
"Steady down, Bodie," he said catching his arm, "No need to panic. He's not too bad."
He led Bodie towards the lift which would take them up to the wards above, and enlightened him as they went. "Various cuts and bruises," he said, "But the worst injury is to his right foot and leg. I'll have to do a bit of repair work on that, and he'll be stuck in bed for a while, I'm afraid."
"He won't like that," said Bodie, his relief making him respond to the doctor's light-hearted manner.
"No, he won't," agreed Fenton. "I'll have to find him some pretty nurses to keep him busy." He and Bodie exchanged grins.
"It could have been much worse though," he said, "According to the police it was a pretty nasty smash."
He led Bodie into a small side room, where he found his mate ensconced in bed, propped up on a pile of pillows. He looked rather pale and tired, but very much alive. He was sporting a dressing on the side of his neck, bandages round his lower left arm, and a large bruise on his chin. But most noticeable was the domed shape where a guard was keeping the weight of the covers off his right leg.
But he was very pleased to see Bodie enter and smiled a greeting.
"Don't keep him talking too long," advised Fenton. "He needs to rest." He gave them both a friendly grin, and left them to it.
"Well, you're a bright one, aren't you ?," said Bodie cheerfully. "How did you come to crash your car ?."
"I didn't," Doyle interrupted him. "When our men come to examine it, I think they'll find traces of two bullets, one in the windscreen and one in a tyre."
He touched his hand towards the dressing on his neck, remembering how close that one had come to taking him out completely.
Bodie was instantly alert, his cheerful mood dissipated. "So it wasn't an accident ?," he snapped.
"No way," said Doyle, "Someone wanted me out of the way."
"Why ?," demanded Bodie, "Have you found out something ?"
"I think I might have," replied his partner, and proceeded to tell him about his visit to the man, James Walsh, in the other hospital.
"He gave me a name," he said, as he finished his story. "I tried to find it in Records, but there's nothing there."
He looked seriously at his mate. "You'll have to take over, Bodie," he said, "now that I'm tied here for a while. I was going to take it to the Computer Centre this morning,"
"Tell me, and I'll do that," said Bodie, very much back in working mode now. "After I've brought Cowley up to date."
So Doyle told him the name he'd been given, Omar Hakim.
Bodie pulled a face as he heard it. "That's not English," he commented. "I wonder where it's from."
He left quickly, promising to be back as soon as he could, to keep Doyle up to date on what was found.
Doyle relaxed back on his pillows. He felt decidedly disappointed. He'd had a break-through, and had been keen to follow it up. Now he'd been forced to let Bodie take over. Still, we are a team, he thought to himself, as he rested wearily, and it's the result that matters, not who gets it.
And then something happened which changed his mood entirely. The door opened and Dr. Fenton entered. Pleased as he was to see his friend's cheerful face, it was the slight figure following him in, that produced his astonished gasp.
"Meilin," he exclaimed.
Now it was Dr. Fenton's turn to be astonished. "You know our little treasure ?," he said. "How ?,"
Doyle only smiled and vouchsafed no reply, so the doctor turned to the uniformed figure at his side.
"So you know this rascal, do you ?," he enquired. "How did that happen ?"
"He rescued me when I was attacked near my home," she replied, and smiled shyly at Doyle.
"Knight Errant Doyle, eh ?," said Fenton. "Sounds like him." He turned back to Doyle. "Miss Lu has only just joined us," he said, "and she's so good I've annexed her to treat my special patients."
He smiled at Meilin and went on. "I warn you he's not a very patient customer," he said, enjoying the situation immensely.
"I will take good care of him, sir," said Meilin. "I'm sure he will behave for me."
"Right," said the doctor. "I'll leave you to settle him down. He should sleep for a while before lunchtime."
He left, and Meilin set about implementing his instructions. She deftly removed the extra pillows, and helped Doyle to lie down, easing him into the most comfortable position. Then she partially closed the blinds at the window to darken the room.
"How is it you are back nursing ?," Doyle asked curiously.
"My father died," she said quietly.
"I'm sorry," said Doyle.
"It was his time," she replied, with the fatalistic attitude of many of her race. She went on with her job, straightening the covers and tidying the side table. "I will be back to help you sit up for lunch," she said. "Don't try to do it yourself – you'll strain your leg. Sleep now."
Doyle smiled to himself after she had gone, and settled down. It might not be such a tedious stay after all, if he had Meilin's ministrations every day.
He didn't see Bodie at all the next day, for halfway through the morning he was whisked away to the operating theatre, where Dr. Fenton did what he was wont to call his 'repair work'. This was very successfully completed to his great satisfaction.
Doyle slept the rest of the day away, heavily sedated to combat the pain the surgery had engendered. Although he was completely unaware of her attentions, Meilin monitored him carefully until the night nurse took over.
By the next morning he was feeling a lot better. His leg was still painful, but straight forward pain-killers were sufficient to deal with that.
He had a good breakfast, and spent a restful morning reading the newspapers that Meilin had got for him. So when Bodie turned up in the afternoon, Doyle was alert and keen to hear what his partner had found out. And Bodie did have some news for him.
"That name," he began, "We found out that it's a common Egyptian name. So we ran it through the computer and it found us a man."
"Great," said Doyle. "Tell me about him."
"Well," said Bodie, "He's a small scale importer. He has some storage space in one of the warehouses by the docks, and brings in tourist-type goods from Egypt. - models of the Pyramids or the Sphinx, pictures of the Tutankhamen death mask, and Egyptian cats in porcelain or bronze. He sells them in the posh London shops like Harrods's or John Lewis."
"Sounds like a good cover," commented Doyle, "if he's up to something else."
"That's what we thought," said Bodie, "So he's under constant surveillance now. We'll have to see what that reveals."
He went on to bring Doyle up to date on other matters. "They've brought your car in to be examined," he said. "I've seen it. You made a right mess of that, mate," he added teasingly.
"It very nearly made a right mess of me," retorted Doyle.
Doyle had another quiet day, only relieved by occasional brief chats with Meilin as she came in to attend to his needs. So he was impatient to hear again from his partner. But when Bodie came in, he was far from optimistic.
"He hasn't put a foot wrong," he reported. "He's just done what we expected. Several trips to his storage area to collect stock and then deliveries to the big shops. He went to Selfridges today, and an arty place in Regent Street. Then he went home, he lives in Putney, and he didn't leave there all evening or during the night. Nothing untoward at all."
He fiddled in the folder he had brought with him. "We've got some pictures," he said. He pulled out a handful and passed them over to Doyle. He studied them carefully. Then he handed them back with a frown on his expressive face.
"He doesn't look much like a 'mastermind' villain, does he ?," he commented thoughtfully.
"I agree," said Bodie, "But you can't always tell, can you ?."
Doyle had a sudden thought. "I suppose we've got the right man," he said. "You said Omar Hakim was a common Egyptian name."
"It was the only one in the computer," said Bodie, as he thought about it.
"Maybe it isn't him at all," said Doyle, "Just someone else, who's using the name."
"And we've been wasting time and resources !," exclaimed Bodie. "Cowley isn't going to take kindly to that idea."
There was an uncomfortable silence as they both considered the possible situation.
Then Doyle had an idea. "I know what I'd do next," he exclaimed. "You'll have to do it for me, Bodie."
"What have you thought of ?," enquired Bodie eagerly. His mate very often came up with inspired ideas.
"Take these pictures to the man, James Walsh, who I spoke to in Vale Hospital," he suggested. "See if you get a re-action."
Bodie shot off immediately and was fortunate enough to get straight to the doctor Doyle had seen. He quickly explained who he was and asked to see Mr. Walsh.
"You should do better than your colleague," said the doctor. "Mr. Walsh is much better. His sister came over from Ireland, and she calmed him down. She's trying to arrange to take him back with her as soon as he's fit. He's still a bit edgy, but he's more rational."
Bodie was shown into the room, where he found Walsh calmly reading the newspaper. He showed him the pictures he'd brought, prepared for a nervous response. To his surprise he didn't get it. Walsh looked at the pictures and showed no sign of recognition.
"Who is it ?," he asked. "I don't know him."
"It's Omar Hakim," replied Bodie.
"No, it isn't," declared Walsh. "Nothing like him !"
"That is his name," insisted Bodie. "An Egyptian, who imports souvenirs for the big shops."
"Well it isn't the man I met," said Walsh. "He was a much bigger man, and he had a small dark beard."
He began to show signs of getting upset, so Bodie spoke quickly. "We do seem to have made a mistake," he said, "But, Mr. Walsh, you do want to help us catch the right man, don't you ?."
"Of course I do," said Walsh. "He's evil. He threatened to kill me unless I got out and let his man take over. He really frightened me. That's what made me so ill."
"Then if I send in an artist with identity equipment,"suggested Bodie, "Do you think you could help us build up an accurate picture of him."
Walsh nodded and looked interested. "I'd like to try," he said.
"Right, I'll get that arranged," said Bodie and left, well pleased with his success. He went straight back to Headquarters, and told all he had learned to Cowley, who confirmed his request for an identity artist.
"Is the man safe ?," queried Cowley. "I've just had confirmation that Doyle's car was hit by bullets. If they went after him, they would be likely to be after Walsh too."
"Yes, he's all right for the moment," said Bodie. "Because of the state he was in when he was admitted, he was put in a secure section. Although he's better now, he hasn't been shifted. His only contacts have been the doctor and his staff, and his sister. But I've sent a man down there anyway, just in case."
"Good," Cowley approved, "We're making progress at last."
"Thanks to Doyle's idea," interposed Bodie, anxious to give his partner the deserved credit this time. He had some sympathy for him, stuck on the sidelines for a while.
He had not yet encountered Meilin, so he did not know that Doyle did have something to divert him. And Doyle had purposely not told him.
She was not one for dallying to gossip, as some of the other nurses would have done given half a chance, especially if the patient were young and good-looking. But as she got on with the various tasks she had to complete, she answered his questions freely, and he learned quite a lot about her and her brothers, of whom she was very proud.
Doyle's leg was improving rapidly, though as yet he was not permitted to get out of bed. But Dr. Fenton was very pleased with his progress. He visited daily and teased Doyle unmercifully about his 'little Chinese bird'.
Doyle didn't take offence at his friend's teasing, but he protested firmly that she was not his girl-friend, though he liked her a lot.
Suddenly C.I.5 began to make progress. The picture that Walsh was assisted to produce was rushed into Records to be checked. It was found very quickly in the Interpol information.
The man wasn't Egyptian, but came from nearby Algeria, and his real name was Youssef Hamidou. He was notorious all along the North African coast as a prolific drug smuggler, and was known to command a small and ruthless band of had disappeared from the scene six months ago, when police in Morocco had at last put together enough evidence to issue a warrant for his arrest. He was wanted in connection with several vicious murders, one of which he was known to have committed personally. He had been traced westwards through Morocco, and into Spain via Gibraltar, but then the trail had gone cold. There had been a possible sighting of some of his gang in Barcelona, but nothing more.
Pictures of the man were quickly put into circulation, and the reports began to come in, to be checked and analysed carefully.
Cowley instigated extensive enquiries. It wasn't clear how or when Hamidou had entered Britain. It certainly wasn't under his own name. He seemed to use aliases very freely, and no doubt had false papers for all of them.
But he was now confident that it was only a matter of time before his men located this much-wanted man and took him into custody.
Elated by the organization's progress, Bodie went to the hospital next afternoon to see how his mate was progressing and to bring him up to date on the latest news.
He entered the big main doors and took the lift up to the right floor. Turning a corner, he was astounded to see Doyle, clad in bright blue hospital pyjamas, swinging nimbly along the corridor on a pair of crutches.
But what astonished him even more, was the small neat figure hovering close to her patient, watching his every step.
She looked up and saw Bodie standing there, staring curiously. "Your friend has come, Mr. Doyle," she said, "So I think that's enough for one day. Let's get you back to bed." She shepherded her patient back to his room, and helped him return to bed.
Bodie followed them, saying nothing yet, but fascinated by the neat efficient moves of the slim Chinese girl. She settled her charge against a pile of pillows, stacked his crutches neatly in a corner of the room, and left quietly.
Only then did Bodie burst into excited speech. "Raymond Doyle !," he exclaimed. "You sly dog, - you've been holding out on me."
Doyle only grinned back at him. "I told you she wasn't your type," he said.
"That's Meilin, the girl you met ?, " said Bodie, quickly catching on.
"Yes," admitted his friend. "Her father died, so she's back nursing, and very good at it too."
"And you've got her looking after you, lucky sod !," said Bodie. He waited eagerly for her to return, but she didn't. So he had to content himself with talking to Doyle. He learned that his partner was making pleasing progress.
He brought him up to date on all they had learned about this villain that had tried to infiltrate and take over the drug scene. "It's only a matter of time," he said confidently, "before we run him to earth and move in to pick him up."
"And I'm stuck here, missing all the action," commented Doyle ruefully.
"Can't do much about that, old son," retorted his partner. "But I'll come in and tell you about it."
Neither of them could have predicted what a strange narrative it would turn out to be.
Late one evening, Bodie, Barton, plus two other less senior men, were creeping stealthily into a house in Bermondsey. They had been given information, reliable information, from an agent who had been 'tailing' them all day, that Hamidou and one other man were in the flat upstairs.
It wasn't a violent entry, for a little judicious fiddling with skeleton keys, had let them open the front door silently. After establishing that there was no other way out of the upstairs flat, (there should have been a fire-escape, but there wasn't), they moved quietly as possible up the stairs.
They didn't stand on ceremony with the door here. On Bodie's signal, several concentrated kicks demolished the lock and they charged in, and along the hallway to the room at the end.
Hamidou and his companion were taken completely by surprise. Both were grabbed and disarmed in seconds.
"We've been looking for you, Mr. Hamidou," said Bodie exultantly.
Hamidou snarled something unintelligible in a foreign language.
"Tut, tut, temper," quipped Bodie. He didn't know what the man had said, but guessed it wasn't complimentary.
They snapped hand-cuffs on the two men. Then, holstering their weapons, they began to hustle them out of the flat. Cowley would be pleased with their success, and no doubt would be eager to interrogate their prisoners.
But as they stepped out onto the landing, they received a sudden shock. Confronting them, were half a dozen men in Arab dress, the ends of their keffiyehs tucked across their faces so that only their eyes showed.
Sharp piercing eyes but less noticeable than the automatic weapons each held, pointing relentlessly at them.
"Back inside," ordered the one who appeared to be the leader, and feeling totally sick, Bodie and the others obeyed. This was a turn-up, thought Bodie to himself. No sooner had they taken the man than his gang had turned up to rescue him !
But as they entered the room, he caught sight of Hamidou's face. The man didn't look at all pleased. In fact, he looked almost scared.
The leader of the group dropped his keffiyeh, revealing a lean aquiline face, sharp-eyed, alert and intelligent.
"You are police ?," he queried, and his English was perfect, with no trace of an accent.
"C.I.5," replied Bodie tersely, thoroughly disgusted at the way things had turned out.
"Oh, special police," rejoined the man. Although his voice was firm and hard, his manner was not unfriendly. His next words were a great surprise.
"We have no quarrel with you," he said. "Indeed, we thank you for helping us to find this man." He indicated Hamidou, who only scowled at him. "We have been searching for a long time. He is evil, and needs to be called to account."
"We took him first," protested Bodie. "Our courts will deal with him." He had the sudden feeling that Hamidou faced an uncertain future at the hands of these men.
"No doubt they would," agreed the man amiably. "But, no, he returns with us to Morocco. Our justice will be firmer and quicker."
He gestured to one of his men who stepped forward with a large bag. "You will put your weapons and communication devices in this bag," he ordered in a tone which suggested that he would brook no argument.. Faced by the array of guns trained on them, the C.I.5 men had no option but to comply.
Then the Arab leader took one of the younger agents by the arm, handed him the bag, and drew him back into the hands of the men behind him.
"He will come with us," he explained. "We will give him the key to this room, and drop him off a mile or so away. The rest of you will sit down and wait. By the time he gets back to release you, we will be long gone."
He turned to the other man cowering beside Hamidou." "We will release you also. You will go round all the members of your group, and strongly advise them to disappear, or face the consequences."
And that was how things went. Bodie, Barton and the other man were made to sit down on the rather rickety sofa, as the rest of the group slowly backed out of the room.
They heard the click as the door was locked from the outside. And so they waited, each with their own thoughts. It seemed ages, though in actual fact their man must have run all the way back, for it wasn't that long before they heard the click of the lock again, and he entered, complete with the weighty bag with their confiscated equipment.
Bodie immediately called in to Headquarters, contacted his boss, and relayed to him what had happened. Cowley was astounded, and not exactly pleased. "Get back here," he ordered, "And be ready to give me every detail."
Then he set about giving orders to close down on all ports and airports. But all the efforts that were swiftly put in place had no success. The group of Arabs, if Arabs they were, seemed to have disappeared totally, and Hamidou with them.
As time went on with no trace of any of them, Cowley came to the conclusion that they must have had some very swift and secret plans of escape. If they had returned to Morocco as the man had said, they must have slipped in by some devious means for there was no trace of that either
As for Hamidou, he was never seen or heard of again, so one could only speculate what his fate had been.
Bodie went to see Doyle, and spent the afternoon regaling him with the story.
"Oh, well," commented Doyle as he finished. "It's probably all to the good. It has saved the British taxpayer a lot of money. Bringing him to trial would have been a long difficult job, and very expensive, wouldn't it ?"
Though they didn't know it yet, the affair did have quite a good long-term effect. Many of the dealers and pushers who had been ousted by Hamidou's men never went back onto the drugs scene, when the men in those places took the warning they had been given and went away.
"Well, after all that," said Bodie. "How are you doing ?."
"Fine," replied Doyle. "They are going to try me out next week with a soft boot and one stick. If I manage that all right, they'll discharge me to finish the last stages at home."
He flashed a cheeky grin at his partner. "So I'll be looking for a chauffeur for a while," he said.
Secretly delighted by this promising news, Bodie kept a straight face, as he replied. "Now I wonder who that will be ?," he said blandly.