by Ted Bell
“Me? Hell, I feel like a million bucks. Old Confederate bills, buried six feet underground.”
“Haven’t lost your sense of humor,” Prestwicke said with a smile.
“Mind if I smoke?” Hawke asked, his tobacco-cured vocal cords rasping in this small, bleached, sunlit doctor’s office. He shook a fresh one from his pack and stuck it in the corner of his mouth.
“Mind? Of course I mind. Those things will kill you, Alex.”
“In that case, thanks awfully, don’t mind if I do,” he said with a smile, lighting up. He had the old hand’s ability to talk with a cigarette between his lips. “Lovely. I think of them as a sort of disinfectant, if you know what I mean.”
“Any health issues I should know about, Alex?”
“I’m quite sure you, being the expert, would know those things far better than I,” Hawke said, taking another puff, throwing his head back and exhaling toward the ceiling. “Otherwise, why in God’s holy name would I be here instead of out there? Wherever there is, but certainly preferable to here at any rate.”
It was clear the man had been drinking, and it was only two o’clock in the afternoon.
Prestwicke sat back and regarded his patient carefully. He had always known Hawke to be a gentleman, unfailingly polite, in that slightly mannered way of a bygone era that one associated with capes and walking sticks. This, sadly, was an Alex Hawke he had never seen before; he had the eyes of a man trapped in a torture chamber who longs for the tomb.
Hawke knew he was acting every bit the ass, but his mood was black and he’d never had much tolerance for doctors or hospitals anyway. Hospital was where one went to get sick these days, as far as he was concerned. Filthy places inhabited by dunces. Go in with a minor scratch, come out with a major staph infection had been his experience. Absolute bollocks, the lot of them, these bloody doctors and their nasty, disease-ridden hospitals. A nurse had told him once most doctors never washed their hands between patients unless shamed into it by their nurses.
Dr. Prestwicke, ever the gent, smiled and extracted a flimsy sheaf of papers from a blue folder with Hawke’s name on it. “Let’s get right to it then, shall we? The results of your physical examination? Your blood work?”
Hawke answered yes with an impatient circular wave of his noxiously fuming cigarette.
“How is the drinking, Alex?”
“Fabulous. Never better, in fact.”
“Not according to these results. Alex, your triglycerides are through the roof. You’ve already begun to develop severely impaired liver function. I am telling you now that you simply have to stop. And stop now. Or face very serious consequences.”
“I don’t want to stop.” Alex took another puff and turned his gaze toward the window, transfixed, it seemed, by lightning flashes of iridescent green, a tiny songbird darting about the white bougainvillea branches, brushing against Dr. Prestwicke’s windowpane. “And frankly I don’t intend to stop.”
“Why is that, may I ask?” Prestwicke asked, all the false bonhomie flown from his countenance now. Replaced by God knew what. Concern? Duty? Professional responsibility? Fear of the wrath of Sir David Trulove? All of the above? “Why is that, Alex?”
“You want to know something, Doc? Diana Mars took me to some shrink over in Hamilton. This, this Freudian or whatever had the cheek to ask me what I thought the secret of life was. Care to know my response?”
“Indeed.”
“I said, ‘Simple, Doc. Learn young about hard work and good manners—and you’ll be through the whole bloody mess and nicely dead before you even know it.”
Alex stubbed out his cigarette and leaned forward across the desk, looking the man in the eye. Hawke’s glacial eyes could still, at such times, assume the steel-blue glint of a loaded gun.
“Listen closely: I don’t want to be here anymore, Dr. Prestwicke.”
“Now, Alex—”
“Do you understand what I’m saying? I don’t like it here. The bloody bottle is the only way out for me. And I do want out. There is something irreparably broken in the works—my will, perhaps. And that’s the bloody end of it.”
“It will be the end of your life if you don’t heed my advice.”
“Your point being?”
Prestwicke leaned forward over his desk, made a temple of his fingers, and rested his chin upon it.
“Do you feel suicidal, Alex?”
“I don’t feel anything. That’s the whole idea, isn’t it?”
“Your dear friend Chief Inspector Congreve was in to see me the other day. Terribly concerned. As is his fiancée, Lady Mars. I’ll be honest with you. They’re going back to London shortly to make preparations for their impending wedding. But they’ve asked me to organize an intervention.”
“Ah, yes, the rubber room. Good luck.”
“Meaning?”
“You’ll never take me alive. I’m quite serious.”
“Alex, please listen a moment. I know you’ve suffered a shock, a profoundly terrible shock. One that few men could survive intact. The death of your first wife. And now the death of the woman you loved. Carrying your unborn child. I can only imagine how you must be feeling—”
Hawke stopped listening to these platitudes, feeling he’d heard them all somewhere before. When he could stand no more, he interrupted.
“You have no bloody idea how I’m feeling, Prestwicke. Look here. I don’t mean to be rude. But the last thing I need right now is your tea and sympathy and more amateur psychiatry. I know damn well what’s wrong with me. It’s hardly an original story. I’ve lost everything I’ve ever loved in my life. My parents were murdered before my eyes when I was seven years old. I met a wonderful woman, the first I’d ever wanted to marry. She died in my arms on the steps of the chapel where we’d just been wed. And then, Dr. Prestwicke, the truly unbelievable happened. I fell in love again. We were to be married. She was carrying my…my child—and then—”
Hawke sat back and puffed furiously on his cigarette, struggling for control in the presence of this stranger. He had never once let even his closest friends get this close, and now—this, this what, this bloody doctor—
“Alex, please. Don’t do this to yourself. The tragedy in Sweden wasn’t your fault, for heaven’s sake. Everyone knows that.”
“It wasn’t my fault? Is that what you said? I killed her! Good God, man, I did it myself! Killed the woman I loved and killed my son. My own son! She’d had a sonogram just that morning and so we already knew the child’s sex—I just can’t…I just can’t stick it any longer…”
Hawke, his eyes welling with tears, knew he was dangerously close to losing it. He took a deep breath, willed himself back to composure, and cast his eyes toward the window in a vain search for the little green bird, unable to face the physician.
A long silence ensued as Hawke quietly gathered himself up and Prestwicke allowed him time to do so. Finally, Hawke looked back at the doctor, shrugging his shoulders. He had no more to say. He was empty.
“Alex, please, let me give you something to calm you down. You need sleep. Perhaps you should stay here at King Edward’s a few days. Get yourself some bed rest and—”
Hawke leaned forward in his chair and, inhaling deeply, finished his cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray Prestwicke had fished out of a drawer for him. Composed now, Alex maintained eye contact with the doctor as he spoke.
“Forgive me. I’m terribly sorry. You’ve been very kind and patient with me. But I have to leave now. I won’t trouble you any further. Thanks for your time. I’m sure you’re quite good at what you do. And give my regards to Sir David, will you? That old devil. He’s always been like—oh, hell—a father to me. Sorry.”
Hawke stood up and turned for the door. He was about to start for it, but he paused a moment and looked back at Prestwicke.
“Whatever happens, please remember this. It was not your fault.”
“Alex, please let me try to help you to—”
“The handwriting is a
lready on the wall, Prestwicke. You simply haven’t read it yet.”
He vanished.
THREE
HAD TO BE THE MIDDLE of the night, but Hawke awoke with no memory of falling asleep. Pelham must have put him to bed again. Given him a blue pill. He cracked a wary eye. Pale blue moon-beams streamed through the seaward windows onto his bedcovers. Odd. There seemed to be a persistent knocking at his door. At this hour? He could hear the sea below, boiling and hissing on the rocks. More knocking. Real knocking, or a dream?
A dream, he decided, but, clawing for the surface, he called out anyway, “Yes? Who is it?”
“Pelham, m’lord. A call for you, sir.”
“Call? At this hour of the night? You must be joking. Christ in heaven. Well, then, do come in.”
His old friend pushed into the small bedroom and came to stand at Hawke’s bedside where he turned on the table lamp. There was a half-empty bottle of Gosling’s Black Seal 151 rum standing there, guilty, on the table. No glass, no ice, no water. Just the bottle. No dream, just more awful bloody reality.
Hawke said, blinking up at the Pelham phantasm hovering just beyond the light, “Take a number, please, Pelham. Tell them I’ll ring back in the morning. First thing. There’s a good fellow.” He rolled over and buried his face in his pillow.
Pelham sat on the edge of the bed. He put his hand on Hawke’s shoulder and squeezed it gently.
“I really do think you should take this call, sir. I wouldn’t dream of disturbing you otherwise.”
“I really don’t want to talk to anyone. Leave me alone. I’m asleep.”
“You want to take this call, sir. I promise you. He’s waiting on the line.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Pelham. Who in God’s name is it?”
“The Prince, sir.”
“The prince? The prince of bloody what?”
“His Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, sir.”
“Charles?”
“Indeed, sir. His Royal Highness is on the phone right now. Very insistent on speaking with you. I told him you were…indisposed.”
“I bloody well am indisposed. Waiting, is he? On the phone?”
“I believe I mentioned that,” Pelham said, giving it Hawke’s exact intonation.
“Well, why didn’t you say so? Charles, you say? Christ in heaven.”
Pelham hurried toward the door, wrapping his thin woolen robe round his frail body, his leather bed slippers slap-slapping the floor. “I’ll tell His Royal Highness you’ll be with him momentarily, sir. Meanwhile, perhaps a pot of coffee?”
“Yes, yes, black coffee. Where the hell did I put that blasted terry robe of mine?”
“You don’t own a terry robe, sir.”
“I don’t? My rugby shirt, then. The good one with the hole in it.”
“Hanging on the bedstead, sir. Here, I’ll give you a hand with it.”
Hawke shouldered into the crappy old thing and trailed Pelham down the hall and into the main room. Teakettle Cottage had but one ancient telephone, an old black Bakelite model that sat on the monkey-wood bar where Flynn and Niven, Fleming and Hemingway once reigned.
Hawke plunked down on one of the tall wicker bar stools, picked up the receiver, covered the mouthpiece with his hand, coughed once or twice, and then, as cheerfully parched as he could manage, said, “Charles?”
“Alex? Is that you on the line?”
“It is, indeed, sir. Lovely to hear from you.”
“Sorry about the dreadful hour.”
“I was just turning out the light, sir. Reading Trollope. Heavy sledding.”
“Are you quite all right, Alex? I understand you’ve been not at all well.”
“All the better for hearing your voice, sir. Seems an age since we’ve spoken.”
“All my fault, I’m afraid. I’m brutally terrible at keeping up with old friends. I was so completely devastated to hear about your dreadful loss in Stockholm last year. Heartbreaking news. I do hope you got my note.”
“I did. Thank you for that.”
“Any rate, marvelous to hear your voice again.”
“And yours as well, sir.”
“Alex, look here, I am so awfully sorry to be disturbing you at this ungodly hour, but I’m afraid I need your help. Need it quite badly in point of fact. You’re the only one I can turn to now.”
Pelham had handed Hawke a mug of steaming coffee and he’d downed it in one draught and raised the mug for a refill.
“Anything at all, sir. You know that. What can I do for you?”
“I need you back here in England.”
“What on earth is the matter, Charles?”
“I’m afraid my boys, perhaps even my mother, are in danger. Mortal danger, in fact. Of course, Scotland Yard, MI5, MI6, all are ramping up to speed as best they can. But it may not be enough. It’s a sense I have. A deep foreboding that someone is brutally determined to murder the entire Royal Family. They simply must be stopped.”
“Are the police watching anyone? Any suspects?”
“Of course.”
“But it’s not enough.”
“Precisely.”
“Of course I’ll be there, Charles. You might have to give me a week or so to pull myself together. I’m a bit of a wreck lately, to be honest.”
“You’re going through a rough patch, Alex, I know. I’ve talked to Sir David only this morning. Take whatever time you need to get your strength up, but do come as quickly as possible. Time is not on our side, I fear.”
Hawke paused a moment, trying to assemble what was left of his wits. It was a ragtag scattering, and it took every last ounce of his mental energy.
“Charles, one thing. You must have some sense of where this threat is coming from?”
“I do. Some weeks ago, I was here in my library at Highgrove, randomly paging through some old books left me by Uncle Dickie, my godfather, Lord Mountbatten.”
“Yes.”
“Something fell from the pages of one of the books as I opened it, a book by an Irish author he admired. A History of the Troubles. These volumes had been among those in his library at Classiebawn Castle. You remember it, his summer home in Northern Ireland. I think you visited with me more than a few times as a child.”
“On Mullaghmore Head. Of course, I remember.”
“Where he was assassinated, that IRA operation. After the investigation, two men were arrested, Francis McGirl and Thomas McMahon. Professional bomb makers for the Provisional IRA. McGirl was cleared, reasonable doubt. McMahon was sentenced to life imprisonment. However, at the time of the explosion he was seventy miles away—in police custody, no less. He’s out now, by the way, Alex. Early release.”
“Obviously a suspect.”
“One of many.”
“Why in God’s name was McGirl freed?”
“Good question. Lack of evidence. We need to find out who was behind that.”
“What did you find in Uncle Dickie’s book, Charles?”
“A handwritten note, some mad scrawl. I have it in my hand. I’ll read it.
“‘Your family bled us white, our blood is eternally on your hands. You cut us to pieces. You will all die. If it takes forever. Revenge is best savoured slowly.’”
Hawke drew a sharp breath, gathering his wits about him. For the first time in months he could actually feel his blood coursing through the veins again. When he spoke, his voice was surprisingly strong.
“Good Lord, Charles. Was the thing signed?”
“Indeed. Two words. ‘THE PAWN.’ Written in a deliberately childish scrawl—or, with the left hand, perhaps.”
“So. Pawn. We either have an IRA revenge murder to attract worldwide attention. Or, possibly, a deranged individual acting alone. Someone who perhaps lost his son, or his entire family, fighting against British troops. Made to feel powerless, a mere pawn in the game.”
Charles said, “Eye for an eye. Some lone madman threatening, thirty-odd years ago, the commencement of a vendetta against my
entire family.”
“But, ‘bled us white’ and ‘cut us to pieces.’ Both clear political references to the Irish partition, the forced creation of Northern Ireland in 1921. Which points to the original suspects, the IRA. They certainly claimed credit within hours of the murders.”
“Yes.”
“It’s been a very long time since this ‘Pawn’ has made another move. After all, Lord Mountbatten was murdered in 1979, Charles.”
“Alex, consider. How do we know what this man, or some IRA splinter group, has, or has not been, responsible for in the ensuing decades? Our family have had more than our share of tragedy since Uncle Dickie’s murder in 1979.”
“Point well taken.”
“Another thing, Alex, the event that triggered this call. Just last evening I received another anonymous threat. But here’s the staggering thing. The note was signed with the identical words ‘THE PAWN.’ Same childish scrawl as the first threat.”
“Good Lord. What did the note say?”
“Pawn takes kings.”
“Pawn takes kings. Small clue, there. Some intelligence, educated, not a mere thug. A chess player, obviously.”
“Yes, but ‘kings,’ Alex. Plural. Meaning me, of course, but all heirs to the throne. My boys, Wills and Harry, as well.”
“Signed ‘The Pawn’? Handwriting?”
“I’m no expert. But the signature would appear identical to the first one. I’ve already turned it over to the MI5 cryptology section for handwriting analysis.”
“Charles, I will be back in England as quickly as humanly possible. Hell or high water.”
“Thank you, Alex. You are the only one on earth I honestly feel I can count on in something this…deeply surreptitious. Because I know in my heart you’ll take it—personally, if that’s not too presumptuous a word…considering your feelings for my family, I mean.”
“It’s exactly the right word, sir. Personally. See you soon then. Try not to worry. We’ll find him, and we’ll stop him. Please rest assured.”
“I’ve another favor to ask, sorry to say.”
“Not at all.”
“Your brilliant friend, former Chief Inspector Ambrose Congreve of Scotland Yard. Retired, I hear, to Bermuda. Now back in London for a while. I know the two of you have worked together with extraordinary success in the past. If you could see your way to asking for his help, he could be invaluable in this case.”