“About what?”
“I don’t think you need to ask, do you?”
Shard said, “No, perhaps I don’t after all. You didn’t like what I was doing with Katie Farrell.”
“An understatement. It was dirty, was that. She was wanted here and in Northern Ireland — the Republic too. The British Government had no moral right … her place was here, in the British Isles, Mr Shard.”
“Which is where she’s fetched up in the end, isn’t it? I hate to confess ignorance … but wasn’t it your lot who hooked her away from me in Cherbourg?” He paused, scanning the faces. “I detected an Ulster accent. I saw no faces, but I heard voices.”
“So maybe you did.” There was an exchange of glances and a decision was arrived at. “All right, we hooked her off you, then she made monkeys of us. She took a chance … we crossed back by motor-launch and she went overboard near the English coast, in the dark. Pitch bloody dark … we didn’t get a smell of her, but word came through the grapevine afterwards that she’d made it ashore.” Fingers tightened on the spokesman’s gun. “We want to know if you’ve picked her up, Mr Shard.”
“Not I,” Shard said. His mind raced: these men struck him as amateurs and as such more tricky to deal with than professionals: so often the amateur was the more dangerous simply because he didn’t follow the rules. Meanwhile Shard could make a fair guess who these people were, or rather to what organisation they belonged. It didn’t make their actions any the more legal, and the Cherbourg police would no doubt like a word with them; and for now, much care was called for: the news of Katie’s murder was better kept hidden. “I promise you she’s not in custody. But you tell me something, gentlemen: who’s behind the threat to Porton Down? I’m beginning to get the idea it isn’t you.”
“Not us, no.”
“Then who, for God’s sake?”
The spokesman laughed. “I wish we knew that. You can be sure of one thing, Mr Shard: if we knew, we’d tell you.”
“It’s for real, then?”
“It’s for real, all right. It’s for real! I don’t think you’re in much doubt yourself, Chief Superintendent.”
“Check! But you could help. Give me some ideas — tell me who you think could be behind it, for a start. Is it the IRA, or is this the Middle Eastern boys set on another collision course with the West? I take your point that you don’t know. But you must have some theories.”
“None that you won’t have for yourself,” the man said dourly. He glanced around the table at his companions. “We could always compare notes, of course. We don’t see the hand of the Provos in this, not at all. Look at the facts: Ireland’s too close. It’s doubtful if the ports and the land frontier with Ulster could be effectively sealed, and in any case you can’t forbid access to the wind. Besides, this country’s full of Irish from the south, and even the Provos don’t go in for wholesale killing of their own people.” He lifted a hand, waved it. “You’d do better to look to the East, Chief Superintendent. I don’t think I need say more than that.”
Shard nodded: for his money too, this was Eastern, taking into account such scant leads as he had. But he pressed: “It’s a wide area of suspicion. The Middle East is a hot-bed … can’t you be precise, gentlemen?”
“No. PLO, Black September who’re still around don’t forget, even a consortium of oil producers wouldn’t be beyond suspicion. Or even one of the illegal Israeli groups —”
“Why them?”
The spokesman shrugged. “Use your imagination, Mr Shard. Pressure on the West to do more for their national aspirations, their security against their neighbours. Or revenge, perhaps, for having let them down in the past?”
“I find that hard to take seriously.”
“It’s a possibility. You asked for suggestions. I have another one to make.”
“Well?”
The man said quietly, forcefully, “Find Katie Farrell, Mr Shard. She’s the key. I believe you when you say you don’t know where she is. You were brought here to be persuaded that in the national interest she should remain in custody in Britain — well, that’s out of court for now. But get her back. It’s vital.”
*
Hedge prowled his office, eyes darting as if seeking out bugging devices everywhere. Shard had reported immediately on arrival back via the closed van and a handy tube station — Tufnel Park, after a long ride.
“You say you wouldn’t be able to find them again, Shard.”
“Wouldn’t is an embracing word. But it’s doubtful and too time-consuming. In any case, they’ll have shifted berth for my money, just to be sure. I’ll be checking through the rogues’ gallery, but they didn’t register at the time. I don’t think they knew any more, either.”
“Why the Farrell woman?”
“What d’you mean, why the Farrell woman?”
Hedge fumed. “Why did they want her, considering —”
“They didn’t. They wanted the authorities to hold her for onward transmission to Belfast, to answer for her crimes there.”
“Yes — we knew that was the original demand!” Hedge paced on, a puffy pink-faced panther. “I just don’t understand. Perhaps I’m dense. These people point the finger at the Middle East, insist that Katie Farrell is the key to safeguard Porton Down, and then say she mustn’t be handed over to — where she was going in your charge! It doesn’t make sense.”
“No, it doesn’t, Hedge.”
“Well, then!”
“I’ll be working on it, don’t worry. And don’t draw too many traditional conclusions in the meantime, Hedge. We’re not faced with the orthodox this time.”
“What does that mean?”
Shard said, “It means this: intrigue is a spider’s-web, to us a cliché. Some of the spiders have crossed their webs, interwoven them. There are so many splinter groups, Hedge, half heading one way, half the other, but internally in their halves they don’t communicate. There’s no co-ordination. They rush hither and thither.” He paused. “Do you get me?”
“No I don’t!” Hedge snapped. “Shard, why do they insist Katie Farrell is the key to safety?”
“As of this moment, I don’t know. But some other group — say an Arab one — could have plans of its own, couldn’t it?”
“Plans to do down some other Middle Eastern interest?”
Shard nodded. “Exactly. It would be perfectly consistent with what we’ve learned to expect of the Middle East, Hedge.”
Hedge groaned, put his head in his hands as he ceased pacing and thumped into a chair. “God! Where does that leave us, for heaven’s sake?”
“Up the creek.” Shard answered, sounding savage. “But I’ll be looking for the paddles.” He left Hedge to it and went down to his office, disliking the Foreign Office feel as ever, wishful for the crumminess and obscurity of Seddon’s Way where he was not so immediately available, except telephonically, to Hedge. As he went his mind was occupied with paddles: the whole thing was as yet wrapped in a blanket, thick and heavy, but there was no escaping the one thing that Hedge had failed to stress: the key was as dead as a doornail, would never again open any locks. Porton Down and its satellites of filth were on a knife-edge. When he reached his office. Hedge came on the internal line: something of Shard’s thoughts had entered his head also.
“Shard, if anybody finds out she’s dead —”
“Quite!”
“Well, make damn sure it doesn’t leak. In the meantime, I’m going to talk to the Head and recommend urgent action precaution-wise, along the lines you yourself suggested to the Cabinet. I think that’s only sensible now.” He rang off before Shard could comment. No sooner had Hedge cut his call than the outside security line burred.
Shard answered: it was Bentley, from Wiston House. “Shard, there’s been a development. I don’t know what to make of it.” Along the line the voice sounded strained, anxious. “That Arab of yours. He’s knocked the fish-bowl over — I know it’s only water, but …”
“But what, Major?”
“Well, it’s hard to say if it was accidental or if he meant to kill himself — not knowing, of course, that it was only water.”
“It wouldn’t have been accidental — or it shouldn’t have been. Damn it, he’d surely have watched his personal clumsiness! Has anyone been in to him?”
“No,” Bentley said. “Grounds of security. He knocked over his bell at the same time and the guards opened up the outer door and saw the broken bowl. They shut the door again, fast — I don’t blame them. As you know, no-one knew the facts about the water —”
“How about Lavington? He knows, doesn’t he, he set it up —”
“Yes.” There was a curious note in Bentley’s voice. “That’s the funny thing. Lavington can’t be found.”
“Can’t be found?”
“He seems to have disappeared. He’s not been seen and doesn’t answer his bleep.” Bentley was starting to flap. “What do I do, Shard? Will —”
Shard said, “Hold everything till I get there. I’m on my way. Leave Azzam right where he is.” He slammed the phone down, noting the time as just after five p.m., his mind racing over that earlier nagging thought that Azzam’s face, when he had been shut in that death chamber, had held no fear; yet only Lavington should have known the bowl held plain water.
11
SHARD CAME OUT of his car almost on the move. Driving down, speed limits hadn’t bothered him. Bentley, his face full of bad news, ran out to meet him.
“Well, Major? Now what’s up?”
Bentley’s eyes were glassy. “I’ve seen it in animals — that was bad enough. Never humans.”
“Tell me, for Christ’s sake!”
“That Arab. He’s dead now, all burned up. It wasn’t water, Shard!”
Shard stared, flesh crawling. “When did this happen? That stuff’s supposed to be almost instantaneous, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I thought I should go up and take a look after I’d rung you. When I called again, you’d already left.” Bentley was shaking, almost babbling.
“Lavington?”
“Clean gone. Not at home. His wife hasn’t seen him since he left for work this morning.”
“So much,” Shard said in a hard, flat voice, “for our security checks!”
“What?”
“Didn’t you ever suspect anything?”
Bentley stared. “Lavington? Absolutely not! Are you saying —”
“You know what I’m saying, Major —”
“He’s a first-class man in his field — the fact I didn’t like him makes no odds — he was very highly thought of at the Ministry and at Porton Down. He’d spent almost all his working life there till he came to Wiston House, from the immediate post-war years —”
“All at Porton?”
“And the Ministry, as I said. He was never at Nancekuke, just Porton. I don’t see why you’re quite so definite about him, Shard.”
“He had charge of that fish-bowl — he meant to stop Azzam talking after he’d scarpered. The word that Azzam was being brought in could have sent him over the top, panicked him. Take me up, will you, Major?”
Bentley nodded and led the way inside. When they were in the first section of the entry tunnel he asked, sniffing and twitching, “If you’re right, how did Lavington get him to knock the bowl over?”
“Another bloody mystery!” Shard said. “He didn’t go inside — Lavington, I mean?”
“Not according to the security guards.”
They walked on fast, through the check system, up in the lift, along the passage to the double-doored room at the end. The outer steel door was open and the security men were white around the gills: one had thrown up. The result lay spread from wall to wall: Shard stepped over it and looked through the glass. His own stomach revolted, but he held back on rising bile. Of the Arab there was virtually nothing left: just a husk, even the bone structure, the skeleton, blackened and twisted into the rough shape of a sphere. It was utterly horrible, utterly appalling. Shard forced his mind off the implications for the whole country if this thing should be breached and spread. Without a word he turned away, followed by Bentley, who asked in an unnatural-sounding voice, “What do you want done?”
“With that?” Shard jerked his head backwards. “I suggest we leave it. Just leave it sealed — that’s all! No risks with personnel, however remote.”
Bentley nodded, seeming relieved. They went back, down in the lift and along the tunnel. Shard said, “That’s my lead gone — as Lavington wanted, I suppose! I’ve been too damn clever … and hoist with my own petard!”
Bentley coughed. “I suppose it’s going to take some explaining.”
“That can wait. There’s more vital things now. First is Lavington.”
“Are you going to put out a call?”
“Nationwide, yes. I’ll use your line to the FO, if I may. Then some questioning, right here and now. Everyone in the place.”
“I’ll lay it on,” Bentley said.
*
After passing through his call for a search nationwide with all the stops right out, Shard spoke to Hedge and asked for immediate implementation of the precautionary programme: Lavington, he said, could have vanished with some of his stock, and it didn’t take a lot. Hedge gave a sound like a whinny and promised the earth: Shard thought of him haring for the medicine-chest and the First Aid. In a high voice Hedge asked, “Why Lavington? What’s in it for him?”
“Money or power — he could have begun to see himself like God, with all that death in his hands. We’ll be finding out.” Shard rang off. After that, the local questioning: it took much time and yielded nothing that seemed of immediate value. Lavington was something of a solitary, a dedicated man immersed in his work, and his personal contacts had been few. Not many of the staff had been to his home in Steyning, where he had recently moved into rented accommodation on secondment from Porton Down. Nobody doubted his loyalty: not surprisingly, since the security check itself had produced no doubts either! The consensus of opinion was in fact the opposite: that he was an unusually patriotic man for the day and age in which he lived, with almost a mission to work for Britain — making it, Shard thought wryly, great again via death. Shard went to talk to the wife, Violet Lavington, alone in the small bungalow: no children, just her. She was pale and upset and frightened. She was also. Shard noted, sexless, maybe, married to a dedicated death-dealer, she had to be. No-one else would have stuck it, for Lavington had not, in the statements of his colleagues, come across as a man with much blood in his veins. Violet Lavington was not of much help, although, staring red-eyed at Shard from above a breastless bosom and from behind thick glasses, she gave her opinion as to where he might have gone: his mother, a widow, lived in Croydon; there was a sister in Halifax in Yorkshire. Lavington himself, said his wife, had always loved walking in the Yorkshire Dales, going off by himself to air his mind as he used to put it, and centring himself on Leyburn on the fringe of Wensleydale. Would he have gone off now, without telling her? Not like him, she said, not like him at all …
Shard considered she had just given him the three places where Lavington was most likely not to be found; but nevertheless, on returning to Wist on House, passed the word through for routine check-out. In his office Bentley produced whisky: Shard took his neat, in urgent need of it every time he thought about that burned-up corpse deep below Chanctonbury. While he drank, a report came in for Bentley: all stocks had been checked and there was nothing missing.
Shard cocked an eye at Bentley. “Mean much?”
“Not necessarily. Lavington could have produced some excess of his own.”
“What I was thinking.” Shard put his glass down. “That would be subject to check too, though, wouldn’t it? Basic quantities — you know what I mean — signatures and that?”
Bentley nodded. “True, but to a man in Lavington’s position it wouldn’t be hard to get around.”
“What could he have taken?”
Bentley shrugged. “Almost anything. I
t’d be safe for him, barring accidents. Sealed glass containers … but maybe we’re worrying unnecessarily, you know. The big bang’s the thing — isn’t it? He may not bother, pending that!” He smiled bleakly. “Cold comfort, I realise! What’s your next step, Shard?”
“Back to London. There’s nothing more I can do here.” Coming back from Steyning, Shard had already passed through a cordon of troops: Hedge had been as good as his word, and Aldershot had been put on a red alert. Infantry had been lifted in pronto by helicopters and at a road block Shard was told that Royal Marine Commandos were on their way from Portsmouth to back up the army in their task of sealing off all the germ stowages in the South Downs area.
“What do you want me to do?” Bentley asked.
“Just be on your guard. Major, and keep in touch with me at the FO.” Shard left Bentley’s office and went out to his car. He had got in and was about to drive off when Bentley came out of the front door at the rush, waving his arms and calling. Shard switched off his engine. “What is it?”
“Police at Steyning …” Bentley was out of breath and panting. “They have a report … persons dead in the street.”
“Dead?”
“Swollen bodies.”
Shard felt cold. “The bloating sickness?”
“It sounds like it. Shard.”
“Where?”
Bentley gestured towards the south. “Findon valley. Outskirts of Worthing.”
“What sort of area?”
“Bungalows, shops. Fairly closely populated. There’s going to be a bloody panic now! What do we do, Shard?”
Shard switched on again. “Your job’s still the security of Wiston House. I’m going to have a word with the police.”
“Steyning?”
“No. I’ll go into Worthing, talk to the brass.”
“Then I suggest you miss out Findon. There’s another way in. Turn right out of here, through Steyning and over the Downs. It’s all signposted.”
Shard nodded. “Thanks, Major.” He decided to take Bentley’s advice: it was sound enough. As the co-ordinator he had no right to take undue risks. He turned out of the drive for Steyning, moving fast, came into the village. It was approaching dark now, and not too many people about. Lights showed in the public houses and there were cars parked. A police car came up ahead and Shard slowed: there was not time now for talking himself out of a cop for speeding. He found the turn to take him over the Downs, and increased speed again, making a long climb out of Steyning. Up on the heights, on a narrow road, he looked back at the clusters of lit windows, people going to bed all unsuspecting of what was loose in the area. Later, reaching the seaward side of the Downs, he came past a school — a boarding school which, like all close communities, would be particularly at risk in the developing situation. Just past the school, a church: Shard gave a shiver. Soon, the parson was going to be a very busy man … what would be done about the bodies? Worthing had its crematorium, but it would never cope, maybe shouldn’t be asked to. Of course, it was a Department of Health decision — not his; but he recalled, as he turned right onto a dual carriageway for the centre of Worthing, a job that had once taken him to North Africa in the middle of a typhus epidemic. The death rate amongst the village dwellers and in the poorer quarters of the cities, the kasbahs, had been immense: driving from Bizerta to Tunis he had seen huge stacks of corpses, stacks of up to twenty feet in height, all burning and producing the most nauseating smell. That had left a lasting impression: he didn’t want to see it again, in England.
Blood Run East Page 12