He surfaced from his discomforting thoughts to hear the Inspector speaking rapidly and authoritatively into the ’phone. He was giving instructions for the utmost speed.
“Also,” he added, “stop for nothing. If you can’t go through it, go round it. And no further arrests, not even on the move. Understood?”
Even as he spoke, a small panel in the wall above his head flashed red and white.
“I said no arrests!” he screamed angrily.
Matlock surmised that someone had been spotted and swept up automatically (as he had been) just as the order was being given. The Inspector’s next words seemed to confirm this.
“All right. No. We might as well keep him now we’ve got him. Put him down. But no more! Understood? Right.”
He replaced the ’phone and turned to Matlock.
“A little respite for you, Mr. Matlock. I’m glad in a way. I was beginning to believe that you had nothing to tell me and nothing isn’t really an end to justify these means. How are your friends?”
“Friends?”
“The ones I met in Manchester. The night the old man was killed. You were wrong about that, by the way. Nothing to do with us. Our orders came from the Chief Constable and he was hardly likely to arrange to murder one of his fellow-conspirators, was he?”
“No. I don’t know. I forget about . . . him. My friends? I don’t know. I don’t know where they are. I don’t know. I don’t.”
Amazed at himself, Matlock felt a couple of large tears swell at his eyes and begin to course down his cheeks. He tried to brush them away, but his hands were held by the manacles.
“Could I ... ?” he asked, looking down.
“Of course,” said the Inspector and moved over and unfastened them, at the same time removing the wires taped to Matlock’s body.
But he hadn’t finished this when there was an interruption. The trap opened and a pair of legs appeared, not uniformed legs, but short massive limbs straining to the limits the worn yellow trousers which clothed them.
“What the hell’s this?” snapped the Inspector.
A constable’s face peered through what little remained of the gap and he said anxiously, “It’s the prisoner, sir. You said to put him down.”
“Not down here, for God’s sake!” said the Inspector violently. But it was too late. The man let go of the ladder and dropped to the floor, landing with a heavy crash but not even bending his knees.
Even without the curfew he looked villainous enough to be arrested on sight. Above the yellow trousers was a voluminous and evil looking green donkey-jacket. Above this, a vast head, its features squashed between a narrow deeply corrugated brow and a blue triple-cleft chin. The figure only stood about five feet high, but in terms of sheer volume, it was the largest in the room. The accompanying constable had dropped down after him and stood with gun drawn. But the arrested man was by far the most menacing figure present.
Matlock recognized him at once as Ossian.
“Get rid of this thing, Sergeant,” cried the Inspector. “Lock him up somewhere. We’ll interrogate later. God, this used to be an efficient unit.”
The Sergeant moved forward to Ossian who had been slowly looking round the room. His gaze had rested lightly on Matlock for a second, then moved on.
The Sergeant put his hand on his shoulder and said, “Right. You, up!”
Ossian nodded and slowly began to climb the exit ladder. The constable came close behind. As he reached the trap, Ossian jerked back one of his legs and backheeled the man beneath the chin. His neck snapped audibly and he was thrown back into the dungeon with great force. Then Ossian shook a small metal object from one of his voluminous sleeves, dropped it into the room, pulled himself up and closed the trap.
The constable lay where he had fallen, his head strangely askew, the Sergeant leapt up the ladder, the Inspector rushed across to the ’phone. Matlock saw them both stiffen almost simultaneously, the Sergeant’s hand stopped almost a foot from the rung he was grasping at, the Inspector’s three times that distance from the ’phone. Then both dropped, and Matlock almost had time to think, “nerve gas!” before he fell forward, oblivious to the pain as the tape holding the remaining wires ripped away from his skin.
But his subconscious raced on filling his sleeping head with visions of Ossian like some monstrous troll running across the world, himself over his shoulder, and all men falling dead before them.
When he awoke he thought it must have been true for he was looking down at the surface of the earth from a great height. It seemed to be revolving very quickly beneath him and he could not understand why he was not falling. Then it seemed that he was and he closed his eyes in terror waiting for the impact.
When he opened them again, he knew instantly that he was lying on the floor of a helicopter with his face pressed to the observation panel. Looking up he saw Ossian, his ugly face expressionless if you discounted what seemed its perpetual look of brutal malignancy, a pink plastic respirator thrust up over his beetle-brow like a pixie’s hat.
Beside him at the ’copter’s controls was another vaguely familiar figure. Attracted by Matlock’s movement he glanced down and the moonlight which was so clearly etching out the landscape below picked out his features in patches of shadow and brightness.
It was the man with the hole in his head.
Matlock felt he ought to say something. Perhaps ask how he got there. It could have been no mean feat for one man, even armed with nerve-gas grenades, to take over a Curfew Wagon, rescue an unconscious man and get him into a helicopter.
But he didn’t really feel interested, and only slightly grateful. He was more amused that Ossian who could have no personal love for him, indeed must bear a strong grudge against him, should have had to take such risks on his behalf.
He did wonder, however, why they were flying so low. The ground now did not look more than about fifty feet below. And they were crossing pretty hilly terrain. He shivered as he looked out of a side port and saw they were flying lower than the peaks of some of the hills.
Ossian touched the pilot’s arm and pointed; Matlock automatically followed his finger, looking straight into the moon which was halfway down the sky. He saw nothing at first, then thought he picked out a sudden gleam, then unmistakably saw a dark shape flash across the gleaming saucer.
“Are they looking for us?” he asked.
Ossian ignored him but the man with the hole in his head answered in his precise Scots tones.
“That’s right. If they find us, we’ve had it. But don’t worry. Down here there’s little enough chance of that. They’re too fast, too high.”
“Then we’re safe?” said Matlock seeking the repetition of reassurance.
“Oh, no,” said the man. “They’ve got helicopters too. And they’ll be waiting at the Wall.”
“The Wall?” enquired Matlock stupidly.
“Don’t say you’ve forgotten the Wall, Mr. Matlock? It was restored at your instructions. After standing for centuries as a monument to the ruthless persecution and the unquenchable spirit of a great race, you resurrected it from history and gave it its old role again. Aye, Hadrian’s wall. Pushed a bit further north in places, but the same thing. Matlock’s wall some of the lowlanders still call it.”
“What about it?”
“Well, we have to cross it. They’ll have been alerted, the guardians I mean, and it’s well fortified as you may know. We’ll have to go up to get over it safely, and up there there’s lots of the Few waiting to blow us out of the sky. If we keep too low, they’ll drop us from the Wall, or get us with their ’copters.”
“Thanks,” said Matlock.
“You’re welcome.”
In fact the Wall was easy. The great metal-plastic structure, sixty feet high throughout its length, prefabricated in a month and dropped into place section by section in less than a week, looked sinister enough as it snaked away to east and west following the roll and turn of the hills, but only one gun started up as they leap-fro
gged over at a height of several hundred feet, and that was well out of range and soon stilled.
Matlock relaxed, but soon tensed up again when he saw no signs of similar relaxation in his two companions.
“What’s the matter,” he asked finally. “The Wall’s past. We must be in Scottish air space now. What’s the trouble?”
“You don’t imagine the sovereignty of Scotland bothers the English Air Force, do you?” sneered the pilot.
“The reverse is certainly true,” rejoined Matlock.
“And lucky for you it is, Mr. Matlock. No, the Wall itself was little enough obstacle as long as a chancy shot doesn’t take you. But if I was in charge of this operation, I’d send my ’copters fifty miles or so over the Wall into Scotland, wait till my observers on the Wall had spotted us, then give the ambushers our crossing point, speed, direction, etc.”
“Dear God,” said Matlock, his mind racing now. “Then why don’t we land as soon as possible and proceed by road?”
“What a good idea,” said the pilot ironically.
He pointed ahead. At first Matlock could see nothing, then suddenly out of the darkness he picked a point of red light, then another, then two more.
“Now if we can just get down without being spotted, they can trespass up above as much as they like.”
Slowly they dropped towards the square of safety. A kilted figure appeared and began to wave them down. Others stood further back, guns at the ready. The lights were extinguished even before they touched.
“Out,” said Ossian.
Matlock realized as he tumbled out on to the long wet grass that this was the first word he had heard Ossian speak.
A small reception party approached, headed by a tall uniformed figure who saluted the man with the hole in his head, then held out his hand.
“Mr. Boswell, I’m Colonel Mackay. Glad to see you safely here, sir.”
“Thank you. Is there a car for us?”
“Aye, it’s all laid on. We’ll have you in Edinburgh within the hour.”
Boswell stiffened slightly and Matlock had an impression of a new alertness, but his voice was as soft and even as ever when he spoke.
“It was Glasgow we were to go to.”
“I know sir. A change of orders. Those are my instructions.”
“I see. Well, let’s be off.”
He half turned then said with a small gesture, “This is Mr. Matlock,” before walking briskly towards a group of vehicles just visible as dark outlines in the slight mist rising from the sodden field.
“I thought it would be,” said Mackay. “Matlock, eh? Well now.”
His tone was quite neutral, but Matlock felt glad when Ossian propelled him after Boswell with what might have been meant as a gentle push.
Rubbing his arm, he hurried away and clambered into the back seat of the awaiting car which jerked forward before Ossian, squeezing in behind him, had time to close the door. They moved slowly at first over what seemed a very rough track, if that, then began to pick up speed as the surface improved. Glancing back he was surprised to see distantly the red guidelights flicker to life again.
Boswell followed his gaze and answered his unspoken question.
“Now we’re safely out of the way, these soldiers can have their rough fun. They’re lying in the heather with their guns all ready, hoping that some of our trespassers will spot the lights and fly low to investigate.”
He laughed at Matlock’s slight flicker of distaste.
“Don’t worry too much, Mr. Matlock. Your countrymen have grown rather more cautious than they used to be about taking such bait. Our soldiers will probably just get cold and wet for nothing. But it’ll sharpen their appetites; oh yes, it will do that.”
The lights were now completely out of sight. Matlock settled back with a sigh. Then he managed a half-smile as he remembered Colonel Mackay’s insignia.
“It’s probably too far back for you to recall, Mr. Boswell, but when I was a young lad in the late sixties, I can remember seeing posters and stickers on car windows which said, ‘Save The Argylls’. I suppose in a way I did.”
There was no reply and the rest of the journey went by in silence.
Dawn was breaking as they ran smoothly through the silent suburbs of Edinburgh. As they turned into the long steep street that led up to the dark bulk of the castle, Boswell let the window down and on the sharp-edged breeze that blew in Matlock smelt the sea.
11
If he had expected quick answers to the hundreds of questions crowding his mind, he was soon disappointed.
He had heard the ancient cannon, which still boomed out the hour at one o’clock each day, twice startle the birds roosting on the ramparts. And still there was no indication of what their purpose with him might be.
He was surprised to find he had the beginnings of a cold. It was a quarter of a century since he had had a cold and he had thought his resistance had been permanently built up. But evidently the course of injections he had undergone did not cater for men of nearly seventy wading along rivers and not changing out of their damp clothes for several hours thereafter.
He was inclined, however, to blame his present quarters as much as his ducking. The apartment they had given him was sumptuously furnished and bright and airy. Too airy. He had forgotten that rooms as draughty as this could exist for people to live in. It was bad as the ancient halls his meetings had only half filled. And the sumptuousness of the furniture was appreciable aesthetically rather than ergonomically. It was all several hundred years old and the whole room reminded him of the ‘public’ apartments of the old stately homes, open for a season and an admission fee to the gawping mob. In fact, the room had exactly the same faintly dank smell as these places, the same aura of unlived-in-ness. He would not have been too surprised to wake up and find himself being observed from behind a rope of red velvet by a group of bored sightseers.
This sense of archaism did not end outside his room. He found that he was able to stroll quite freely around the battlements of the castle, though he was always aware of being overlooked. The city which lay spread out beneath him seemed incredibly old fashioned. He could look out across the New Town (New!) to the distant pale scar which was the Forth, and see almost the same view as the French prisoners held in the castle during the Napoleonic wars.
Even the shops of Princes Street, seemed still to belong firmly to the twentieth rather than the twenty-first century, while the gardens below looked as well-tended and attractive as ever.
“I see they never finished this side of the street,” he said to a soldier who had come up beside him (to stop me jumping over? he wondered). He knew this was an old Glasgow jibe at the pretensions of Edinburgh to be the nation’s capital, but was surprised to see the hostility which flared briefly in the man’s eyes.
“Just a joke,” he said, and returned to his staring.
That evening after finishing his lonely meal in his room he spoke to the orderly who came to clear it away.
“Please tell whoever is in charge here that I must speak to him.”
The man did not reply and after he had left, Matlock settled down to his reading of the only book he had been able to unearth in the room, the Complete Poems of Robert Burns. He had not read very far when there was a gentle knock at the door.
“Come in please,” he said.
The door opened to reveal Colonel Mackay.
“You wished to speak to me.”
Again the neutrality which frightened more than hate.
“To you, Colonel, or to anyone who can convey a message for me.”
“I am no errand boy, Mr. Matlock.”
“As you will, Colonel. But here’s the message all the same. I would like Mr. Boswell to be reminded that it is my seventieth birthday the day after tomorrow. Tell him I hope he will be coming to the party.”
The Colonel left without a word. Matlock wondered whether he would make any effort to deliver the message, then shrugged and returned to his book, surprised and h
alf pleased by his own feeling of complete indifference. But his sleep that night was troubled and uneasy.
He awoke with a start and sat up. For a moment he thought that his idle imaginings had come true and a party of tourists was being shown around the room. Standing round the bed were half a dozen men all peering down at him.
The only one he recognized was Boswell.
“Thank you for your message, but you need not have bothered. You were not forgotten. Indeed quite the contrary. You have been in the very forefront of our minds day and night. Please come now.”
He started to dress but Boswell prevented him.
“It is not necessary. Just put on your dressing gown.”
Slightly uneasy, Matlock slipped his robe over his shoulders and allowed himself to be escorted from the room. They moved swiftly along bare stone corridors. No one spoke, but Boswell noticed Matlock shiver as they turned a comer and walked into a keen-edged draught, and he increased the pace still further. Matlock was reminded of his wanderings through the echoing passages of Fountains and shivered again at the strangeness of it all.
“In here, please.”
The door was held open for him and he politely muttered his thanks as he passed through. No one came after him. He heard the door close. He was in an operating theatre.
Four white-clothed, gauze-masked figures stood round the operation table, forming a tableau of terrifying hygiene.
“Take off your clothes please, Mr. Matlock, and step over here, won’t you?”
It was a pleasant, reassuring voice and Matlock began to undress without hesitation, unaffected by the dispassionate professional eyes that watched him. But as he moved over to the table he sensed that at least one pair of eyes was anything but dispassionate and professional. The amount of emotion which can be registered by the two inch strip of face below the hairline and above the nose is obviously limited. It was equally unidentifiable, but Matlock felt there was something familiar about those eyes. Their owner stood behind the other three as though she were an onlooker rather than a participant in whatever was going to happen.
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