“He’s not, that I can state positively.”
“Surely there’s always a doubt? And once he’s seen —”
“Seen, Major? He’s blindfolded, isn’t he? Not that it makes much difference, since I’ve a feeling your secrets are very much blown already — but it’s a reasonable precaution all the same and I don’t quarrel with it. And this time there is no doubt.”
Bentley was still dubious. “Well,” he said, “on your head be it, my dear chap!”
“I have a strongish head … even if the supports feel as if they’ve been pole-axed.” Shard moved on: down once again into the basement and along the first part of the passage to the steel sealing door and its strange method of unlocking: along to the lift, and up: Dr Lavington met them as the lift doors opened. His reaction on greeting Shard was similar to Bentley’s: “I don’t like this, Mr Shard. We’ve always been so careful about admissions.”
Shard smiled. “Very right and proper. But I do know what I’m doing, Doctor.”
“One hopes so, indeed.”
“The proof of the pudding …” Shard murmured. “Where to, Doctor?”
“Along here.” Lavington moved off left, through one of the doors leading from the lobby. The procession followed him along another steel-lined passage humming with forced-draught ventilation. It was a claustrophobic place, narrower than the rest of the underground complex, with doors opening off at intervals. Lavington went right to the end and opened the last of the doors, one that in fact terminated the passage. The door opened outwards; inside it was another door, a close-sealing door of glass that when closed bedded hard against a continuous strip of heavy rubber. The room to which these doors gave access was small: no more than six feet square. It contained four articles only: a chair, a table, and on the table a bowl, like a goldfish bowl, filled with water and sealed at its top; near it, a brass hand-bell. Shard looked round at Azzam, in the grip of four of the police officers.
“In with him,” he said. “And for God’s sake … be careful!”
The Arab was brought to the entrance and pushed inside with a gun in his back. Eyeing the glass bowl, he went in without violence, then turned and faced the police guns, now all of them drawn. Shard licked at his lips. “Here you stay,” he said harshly, “until you’ve made up your mind to talk. When you have, ring the bell. It’ll be picked up by sensors and an alarm will be given. I wouldn’t advise you to hold on too long. When your friends do what I believe they’re going to do, then because of what’s in that glass bowl you’ll be the first to suffer.” He caught Lavington’s eye. “Like to explain to him, Doctor?”
Lavington, put in the picture now about the possibility of an explosion, was looking nervous and unhappy. He said, “Very well.” Turning to the Arab he went on, “The bowl — it’s more fragile than it looks. Very little is needed to shatter it. The mere reverberations of an explosion … when the liquid meets the air, it vapourises instantly. It becomes a lethal gas. It’s a nerve gas.” He looked at Shard. “Do you want me to go on?”
“Yes.”
“Oh … very well. The gas first paralyses, then destroys, the whole nervous system. Not quickly when the paralysis wears away towards the destructive element, there’s pain. Then the body juices dehydrate. The body becomes a husk.” He turned to Shard again. “That’s all.”
Shard nodded. “Shut the door,” he said. The glass door was shut firmly against its rubber and locked. Before the second door was shut, Shard caught the Arab’s eye: there was still the red fleck, still the mad look of anger, but to Shard there was something missing and that was what he would have considered a natural fear.
No-one spoke as the procession went back along towards the lift: Shard felt unpopular.
*
He had been right: Hedge was livid. “You’ve done it this time. My God, you have!”
“Not at all. He’s merely being held incommunicado — very, till he rings that bell!”
“It’s diabolical cruelty, Shard. It’s not just the security aspect that bothers me.” Hedge sat at his desk, pink and puffy, agitated in a very high degree. “It’s not good enough simply to say he’s a terrorist.”
“It’s up to him. He has only to talk and he’s out from under.” Shard grinned without humour. “No sleep — that’ll help to rattle him. If he dozes off in a chair he may fall against the table and upset the goldfish bowl. The very thought of that should act like a tonic, shouldn’t it?”
“There’ll be trouble when it gets about.”
“Questions in the House? Come off it, Hedge! Terrorism’s made the public lose its soft centre. Try to lose yours. This isn’t like you. Do I have to remind you what that man did to your wife, Hedge? Or are you simply bothered about what people will say … like old ladies living behind net curtains? Is that it?”
“You’re very impertinent sometimes, Shard.”
“Sometimes I find people trying, Hedge. This is one of them. This man has to be made to talk, and you know why!” Shard moved away from Hedge’s desk, crossed the room to one of the big windows and stood looking across St James’s Park. Crowds of ordinary people going about their business, Londoners, tourists, all nationalities, old and young, none of them aware of what might be waiting for them, what might spread inexorably up from the south coast. Hedge’s wife had been explicit even though her knowledge was limited: there was to be a bomb. In Shard’s book that and its implications over-rode all, repeat all, other considerations: terrorism had rejected its own human rights. He turned from the window, smiled acidly at Hedge’s back. Casually he said, “It’s only water, after all.”
“What?”
“Water, plain water. In the bowl. Imagination is an effective weapon, Hedge!”
Hedge gaped, mopped at his face with a linen handkerchief. He seemed relieved. Shard left him to his ponderings and went down to his own temporary office, pondering himself on certain matters: notably, that unlikely lack of fear that had been so evident in the closeted Arab’s face and bearing. Why? Beyond any doubt he would not have known the bowl’s contents were innocuous. The whole thing had been very nicely stage managed by Bentley: all the trappings of drama had been present. It must have been convincing. Dedication to a cause, often enough, lent courage and induced noble self-sacrifice; but Shard would have bet his last penny that even Joan of Arc had shown a touch of fear towards the end. Fear and courage were by no means incompatible: the courage if high enough merely overlaid the fear that human nature would not allow to be entirely subdued. Lack of fear in this case could mean two things, perhaps: bravery and dedication to the point of insensitive stupidity, or an overweening confidence that his skin was safe. Shard’s personal impression had been in favour of the latter notion: so again — why?
*
Shard felt the constrictions and the mass of detail close in on him: co-ordination involved a good deal of desk work — too much for his liking. People came and went; patient plod on detection, the exhaustive check-out on Azzam, the microscopic examination of files and dossiers, all this was interrupted constantly by the urgent ring of telephones: for much of the night and all next morning those telephones seemed never to stop. But at last in the early afternoon something came through with point, with the promise of action. The voice on the phone held a hint of the Irish: “Is that Mr Shard?”
“Speaking.”
“You’re interested in stamps, Mr Shard.”
Shard gestured at Detective Sergeant Kenwood, who understood: he took up another line, gave quiet orders for a check. To his caller Shard said, “Yes, could be. Who’s that?”
“Stanley Gibbons.”
Shard’s eyes flickered. “I see. Go on.”
“You don’t know me —”
“I have cause to know of you.”
“Sure. But that’s all.” This was true: the bomb squad had got nowhere, Shard’s office and the grenade fragments had been clear of prints. “I’d like to see you, Mr Shard.”
Shard gave a hollow laugh. “You’l
l be lucky.”
“You can’t afford to pass it up, Mr Shard.”
Shard said, “Look, you’re talking to me now. If you’ve anything to say, say it.”
“No way. I’m on a public line — call-box. I’m not risking a long conversation. You must make your choice, Mr Shard. This is important, very important.” The voice paused. “Listen, now. King’s Gross — the buffet. I’ll be there in an hour from now. I’ll know you, don’t worry. Be on your own or I’ll not show. No funny tricks if you don’t mind or a lot of people will get hurt. Goodbye now.”
The line went dead. Shard put down his receiver and looked at Kenwood. Kenwood said. “They won’t have had time to check, but I don’t suppose it would have helped.” He hesitated. “Are you going, sir?”
Shard nodded. “No choice really.”
“He tried to get you once, sir. Don’t forget that.”
“I’m not forgetting anything, Harry. But I believe this is sincere.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it. It’s a bit of a volte face, isn’t it?”
“We’ll know the answers, Harry, after I’ve met him — not before. Meanwhile, no funny tricks like the man said, but sensible precautions that won’t alarm him or lead to wholesale slaughter.”
“Sir?”
“He’s Irish, Harry. It’s likely he has a bomb in his briefcase … and King’s Cross buffet is a crowded place. So we use caution. I’ll want six DCs, picked men and armed. They’re not to be seen with me, they’re to go independently and mingle in the crowd — four inside, one on each door. All right?”
“Yes, sir. Do I come along?”
Shard shook his head. “No. He knows me, he just may know you. No risks. And Harry … warn Assistant Commissioner Hesseltine — bomb squad and ambulances on stand-by to come in pronto if required.” He brought out his automatic, checked the slide, pushed the weapon back into his shoulder holster, and got to his feet. “Wish me luck,” he said as he went for the door. Before he shut it behind him, he looked back: Kenwood was staring as though taking his last glimpse. It wasn’t reassuring.
10
UP FROM THE underground into the gloomy cavern of King’s Cross station: there were milling crowds, diesel fumes, trains waiting to pull out for Edinburgh and the north, others coming in. Noise and smell, people and baggage everywhere, a bomber’s paradise. Shard looked at his watch: ten minutes to go. He headed for the buffet, recognised the DC hanging around the door from the platform side, long hair, cigarette dangling, electric guitar in a case at his feet. Disregarding him. Shard moved in and went to the self-service counter, queuing for a cup of coffee. Without appearing to do so, he watched closely. He had Elsie’s description in his mind but it was unhelpful, too vague. There was small point in watching out for a blue anorak, for instance. Progressing in his queue, Shard bought his coffee, glancing again at his watch as he paid. The time was now. He moved away from the pay desk, aware of another of his DCs, also with coffee cup, at a table shared with a soldier in uniform, a middle-aged man in a business suit reading a newspaper, and a young mother with two small children try ing stickily to climb onto the DC’s knees: impediments to swift action but the DC, with a fixed grin, was doing his best …
Shard felt slight pressure on his right arm: he looked round and down. A small man with sandy hair and a chubby face — cherubic, almost. Blue eyes and a happy smile. Terrorism came in many guises and he knew instinctively that this was the ubiquitous Stanley Gibbons.
“Bang on time,” the small man said. “That’s nice. There’s a shelf by the windows over there.” He pointed. “Let’s stand, shall we?”
“As you like.” Shard looked down again. The man wasn’t carrying anything: in that fact lay some earnest of safety after all. They pushed through to the shelf and deposited their cups: Stanley Gibbons had chosen tea. They stood together, with the small man’s head on a level with Shard’s shoulder. Shard started the conversational ball. “The other day … that wasn’t friendly.”
“Wasn’t meant to be, Mr Shard. The idea was to kill you.” He smiled up, cheerily. “I failed — we can’t all be perfect all the time. Now, I’m glad.”
Shard said, “Check. So am I.” His eyes wandered: another DC had closed in, casually, munching a chocolate biscuit, was now two men, three women and a child distant. It seemed weird to be talking so openly about attempted murder, but no-one had noticed a thing. Shard said, “Tell me why you’re glad.”
“Sure. Times have changed.”
“In a matter of forty-eight hours, little more?”
“That’s right. Rome wasn’t built in a day, was it, Mr Shard, but a hell of a lot can be destroyed in less. Destruction and building, they’re different.”
Shard drank coffee. “Am I getting there?”
“Could be, Mr Shard. Getting down to it … if you get my meaning.”
“Yes, I get it. Tell me more.”
“I will, Mr Shard. But not here, oh no.”
“No? Then why the rendezvous?”
The small man shrugged. “Seeing it from your viewpoint, Mr Shard, it sounded safe. A public place …” He waved a hand around. “Nothing much could happen, could it?”
“A trap?”
“Not a trap, oh no. Bait, if you like. Not a trap. I want to help. I don’t like nastiness.”
“Nastiness that could spread … across the sea to Ireland?”
“Something like that. Now, you’ll want to know more. If you come with me, I’ll tell you.”
Shard said coldly, “Get lost. I’m not shifting.”
“Speak now,” the man said, smiling, “or for ever hold my peace?”
“Right!”
“I think not,” the man said. He looked at his watch. “You have just under two minutes, Mr Shard. It’s not long, is it?”
“What do you mean?” Shard stared, feeling like ice.
“By the door there’s a case which I don’t propose to describe — it’s one of many. The public never learns, does it? There’s a small device in it, jelly based, and an alarm clock. You’ll maybe have heard the old jingle, Mr Shard … the IRA man who was sent to Dartmoor back in 1939: I’d long ago have left the place if only I had got Me couple o’ sticks o’ gelignite and me ould alarm clock. Well, now? One minute, Mr Shard. We’ll be all right over here. A word from you and everyone’ll be all right.”
Shard’s breath hissed out: over by the door two of his DCs would get it, as would the small kids at that table — and so many others. Again, he had no choice. He said, “All right, damn you! Let’s move.” He led the way, fast, aware of yet another danger: his DCs, who might move if they should get the idea he was under duress; or might follow. He had a strong urge to be followed but felt that it could militate against any genuine help from the small man, who had for a while longer to be given the benefit of the doubt. Even if Stanley Gibbons hadn’t smelled out the DCs already, he would surely be fly enough to spot an actual tail. Shard, catching the eye of the DC at the table with the children, gave his head a fractional shake and saw the reaction with some relief. He made all speed for the door after that, feeling deathly cold as he passed upwards of a dozen assorted cases just inside the door against the wall. The small man kept close and made no attempt to open any of the cases, but urged Shard on through the door.
Shard stopped. “You said —”
“I know, I know. I’ve a man there. Two minutes was a little bit of a lie. We need a little more margin yet. Walk straight ahead, Mr Shard, where we can still be seen from the buffet. You’ll see what I mean in a moment.” He paused. “Quick, now.”
Shard moved on. He did as he was told, going straight ahead past the line of ticket barriers. Near a sweet-and-cigarette kiosk were six men. Casually, they moved in: Shard knew them at once for what they were. Before the banning of uniforms they would have been in dark glasses and black berets. They had the grim, silent look that went with all that. The men surrounded Shard and the small man, at the same time merging with the crowds. The small man
said, “Look back now, Mr Shard.” Shard did so: the small man lifted a hand and waved: from by the door of the buffet another man waved back, then went inside. “All safe now, Mr Shard,” the small man said. Safe for the people in the vicinity, unsafe for Shard: he felt the hard pressure of revolver-muzzles in his side. They moved in a body out of King’s Cross station. You were never so much alone as you were in a crowd, Shard thought bitterly. He was right out on a limb now.
*
There had been a van waiting; the small man and three others had got in with him, the rest had walked on, still looking as if they were shouldering a coffin, grim and silent. The van was a closed one, and Shard had no idea where they drove, except that it was a longish way though experience told him that they could for reasons of extra cover have been circling. When he was brought out he was in a yard, brick walled and anonymous. He was hustled through a back door into a passage, thence up some stairs and into a kitchen, bright with tiles and laminated plastic working surfaces; and currently with electric light — the window was obliterated with a closed slatted blind. There was a table in the middle of the room, with chairs.
Shard was told to sit. The others also sat, keeping their guns handy. One of them, a man who seemed to be deferred to by the others, leaned across the tabic, his arms folded but fingers not far from his gun-butt. “You’ll want to know who we are. I shall not tell you. I shall only tell you who we are not. We are not the IRA.” He smiled, not an unfriendly smile. “That surprises you, I see.”
“It does. That bomb at King’s Cross —”
“There wasn’t one. We don’t ape the Provos all along the line, Mr Shard.”
“I’m glad to hear it!” Shard stared acidly at what he took to be the forces of reaction, of back-lash against the Provos and their supporters; then waved a hand towards Stanley Gibbons. “In that case, why did chummy here try to blow me up?”
“He didn’t”
“He said he did.”
“I know.” With a trace of weariness, the spokesman smiled again. “He wasn’t authorised to say this. I am. The bomb was set to go off as the door opened. That put you in the clear. It was a warning, that’s all.”
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