The Executioners

by Philip McCutchan

  Hedge was flummoxed and angry: he was concerned with Asipov, not with this wretched woman and her non-person son; they failed to interest him and he resented being used as some kind of means of re-establishment, or resurrection, of the undead. That was not his brief. In any case, half British wasn’t good enough for the FO to raise any questions with the Russians, who would naturally claim the wretched boy as their own, and never mind what the fellow ‘probably expected’. What could he do? He temporised. He asked, “Would your son consider asking to be allowed to join you in Britain, Mrs Kolnisenko?”

  “He can’t ask, Mr Hedge! They wouldn’t listen. He doesn’t exist. If you don’t exist you can’t emigrate, can you?”

  “I suppose not.” Hedge drummed his fingers on his desk and puffed out his cheeks. He brought the conversation back to Stanislav Asipov by asking, “Do you believe Asipov would help — if he was back in Russia, that is — is that it?”

  “Is he going back to Russia? From that scene —”

  “I can’t comment on that,” Hedge said hastily. “I’d be obliged if you’d answer my question, Mrs Kolnisenko.”

  She said, “Yes, he might.”

  Hedge was surprised; his question had been directed towards prising out some information, if any was to be had, about Asipov, something that might prove useful in the interrogation of the defector. Now, he found two things astonishing: one, that the help of a discredited defector should be seen as likely to be of use to anyone; and two, that the woman should think help might be forthcoming from the very source that had been responsible for laying false information against Mikhail’s father. He asked curiously, “Why should you think that, Mrs Kolnisenko?”

  “I don’t see why not. In the circumstances.”

  “The circumstances?”

  “Yes.” The bony face was slightly flushed now and there was a defensive look. Shard had a strong feeling that some underlying pearl of truth was about to emerge and he also had a suspicion what that pearl might be, and he was right. Ernestine Kolnisenko didn’t quite belong to the permissive society but twenty odd years ago, as it turned out in the next few minutes, she had been permissive with Stanislav Asipov, her husband’s boss, and Mikhail was the fruit of the liaison. And it had not been jealousy of the sort initially postulated by Ernestine that had led to the false charge against Ivan Kolnisenko. Ivan had brooded over a strong likeness between Mikhail and Stanislav Asipov and there had in any case been other reasons for his developing suspicion. One day, beside himself, he had gone to Asipov and had threatened to kill him. Asipov had got out from under and had thereafter acted in self defence, had shopped Kolnisenko on that false information, and Kolnisenko’s protestations of cuckoldry had been disregarded by the prosecution at the trial, held in secret. Mikhail had no idea that he was the son of Stanislav Asipov.

  “Are you quite certain he is Asipov’s son?” Hedge asked.

  “Well, I should be, Mr Hedge. It was Stanislav who —”

  “Yes, yes, quite. I understand that. But your husband. Presumably he — er —”

  “No,” she said very firmly. “Ivan couldn’t get it up, hadn’t been able to for years. He always knew Mikhail wasn’t his.”

  Hedge was scarlet.

  *

  Hesseltine had kept silent throughout, but after the woman had gone he gave Hedge and Shard the details of the hippie commune in the Ardèche department of France. They were all crazy, the ACC said, bonkers. Drugs were largely responsible, according to little fat Annie via Ernestine Kolnisenko, for what Hesseltine called the hippies’ suspension of disbelief. It was a religious thing — of a sort, anyway. Behind it all there was not, as might have been expected, some maharishi from distant India — the brain was American, from Texas. Some ten-gallon-hatted Texan cowboy whom they all called just Tex … Hesseltine suspected that investigation of Tex would reveal a history of mental instability, or perhaps he had just recognised a good racket. In brief — again according to little fat Annie — the commune hippies were ready for death. Literally.

  “How literally?” Shard asked.

  “Very. I gather there’s no date fixed, but at some time in the fairly near future they’re all to die. They can’t wait. Once dead, they’re to be airlifted by a UFO to await reincarnation in a better world, a hippie world presided over by a hippie God, all drugs and sex and lying about in the sun. A world where they’ll all be hippies with no fuzz to offer harassment.”

  Shard said, “You did say they were bonkers, sir.”

  “That’s right. All the same — if I may suggest this, Hedge — I believe they’re worth investigating.”

  Hedge sniffed. “Up your street, no doubt.”

  “Not mine. Extra territorial.”

  “Interpol —”

  “No.” The ACC was firm. “Not them either. No crime is being committed — so far, anyway. I gather there is a financial angle insofar as those who have any money or possessions are to sign them over to Tex before the death date, but little fat Annie says nothing’s been made over yet —”

  “Have they any possessions?” Hedge asked sourly. “I thought hippies just stood about in their own stench.”

  Hesseltine said, “Mainly they do, of course. But quite a lot are from good families as we all know, and some of those families listen to appeals for money and cough up — stupid, but there it is. Parental guilt feelings, perhaps. Anyway, to get back to my suggestion: there’s an obvious link with Asipov through the son, and that has become known via the commune.” He got to his feet, glancing at his watch. “I’ll leave you with the thought, Hedge. It’d broaden your mind, to join a hippie commune.”

  Hedge looked murderous. When Hesseltine had gone, Shard said, “He has a point, you know.”

  “Yes,” Hedge snapped. “A ridiculous one. Damn it all, Shard, affairs of state aren’t to be decided by persons called, what was it, little fat Annie!”

  “Come off it, Hedge. Don’t be so pompous. You know as well as I do, information can come from all sorts of unlikely sources. If Asipov’s interrogation gets us nowhere, then I reckon little fat Annie might prove quite interesting. And don’t forget — we haven’t got all that long. When the time runs out, we may have to hand Asipov back. That won’t be in our hands to decide.”

  Hedge glowered. “Are you suggesting you should go across to this wretched commune?”

  “That’s right, I am.”

  “Then the answer’s no. I still haven’t made up my mind about the Foreign Secretary’s protection. In any case, your idea — it’s nothing but a wild-goose chase, Shard. I feel convinced Asipov will talk once he’s properly interrogated. Really, that’s all we’re concerned with. I’m not in the least concerned with Mrs whatsername and her past indiscretions — or with her son. Frankly, I think Hesseltine’s been wasting his time and mine. It’s so like the Yard. They think as policemen. We’re above that in the Foreign Office as you’d do well to remember, Shard.”

  “Sometimes,” Shard said heavily, “I think we’re so far above ordinary mortals — or you are, Hedge — that we don’t see what’s under our feet. If Asipov doesn’t come up with anything within the next few hours, I’m bloody well going to visit that commune and you can stuff your orders up your jumper!”

  Hedge sat speechless. Shard banged out of the room; Hedge shook with rage. Policemen were impossible; so common, so loud. Trenchard had had the right idea back before the war, in the thirties. Create an officer class, send them to a police college and turn out gentleman inspectors, with the hoi polloi confined to the lower ranks. Hedge thought purple thoughts about bribery and corruption and planted evidence, all the things that gentlemen never did. And damn Shard. Hedge was totally unprepared for disaster when the call came through from a very high place, so high that he automatically sat to attention as he listened, jaw sagging. There had been a raid on the Westminster Hospital, an armed raid. Never had there been anything like it. Guns in the wards, the nurses having hysterics …

  The two FO interrogation
experts were dead; so were the four plain clothes security officers. So was Stanislav Asipov, who would never talk now. The gunmen, dressed apparently as doctors complete with white coats and dangling stethoscopes, had simply walked in and no-one had challenged them. They had opened fire, a real execution squad with silencers fitted to the guns, and had then walked out again, as calmly as they had walked in.

  It didn’t sound like an Embassy job, though with the Russians you could never be sure. And it had been the Prime Minister on the line, in person — most unusual! That boded no good at all. No-one’s job was safe these days when a balls-up happened and a redundant Hedge would obviously find a restricted labour market … His earlier thoughts about the police now submerged in the onset of panic, Hedge seized his internal line and shouted urgently for Shard.

  3

  All kinds of police had attended, naturally: fingerprints, forensic, diplomatic protection, homicide … but there were no leads at all. The officers who might have used their observation to better effect than the medics were all dead, and the rest of it had been panic. No faces memorised in any useful detail, hardly enough to make up an identikit caricature. In any hospital, men in white coats are never questioned and the getaway had been perfect. Not so much as a car number had been taken. As might have been expected, the Russian Embassy denied all knowledge; and the official feeling was that they had told the simple truth. Diplomats don’t go in for such blunt methods.

  What stood out was that someone had a good reason for the killing. Both the someone and the reason had to be found. And in the meantime the Russian Embassy was making trouble: the British were not going to get away with it. To allow such a thing to happen to an accredited trade delegate from Moscow was sheerly criminal. In fact, the tone of the Embassy’s communications suggested beyond doubt that they believed the British to have been responsible, sending in their strong-arm men to do their dirty work for them. That way was easier than holding onto a Russian subject in face of Soviet opposition.

  Hedge was still beside himself. “It probably has to do with the man who telephoned,” he said to Shard. “If he rings again … but he probably won’t.”

  “Doubtful, Hedge. That time limit he spoke of doesn’t matter any more now.”

  “If only we knew why Asipov was killed!”

  “Obviously, before he talked —”

  “Yes, yes, Shard, but what about? That’s what we have to find out, isn’t it?” Hedge almost collapsed into the swivel chair behind his desk. “God alone knows how. You’ll have to dig hard.”

  Shard nodded. “In the absence of anything else, there’s still little fat Annie.”

  “Those damn hippies!”

  “All we’ve got,” Shard said briefly. “We do know little fat Annie was in contact with the son in Moscow — Asipov’s son as it turns out —”

  “The non-person, Shard. What use is a non-person likely to be?”

  “I don’t know. Possibly none. But I repeat, it’s all we have. We have to plug it. What’s the Head’s view?”

  “I’ve not had a chance to talk to him about that yet,” Hedge said irritably.

  “In that case, I suggest you do it now.”

  *

  That night Hedge went home very late and in a foul mood. The Head of Security had been fool enough to see it Shard’s way; the hippie commune had to be investigated. He suggested an infiltration rather than what might be called a frontal assault. The hippies wouldn’t be likely to respond to the long arm of the Foreign Office, seeing in that a threat to their happy existence, and in any case they were apparently not all British. Little fat Annie, H of S said, sounded interesting, a comment received by Hedge in affronted silence since it repeated what Shard himself had said earlier.

  Hedge argued, but the orders were issued: Shard was to go to France and see what he could pick up and he was to be quick about it and get results before the diplomatic storm widened into a hurricane.

  “And the Foreign Secretary’s visit to Paris?” Hedge asked.

  “What about Shard’s DI?”

  “Sick fist,” Hedge said. “A long business.” He gave H of S the details, adding that there was no-one else available. H of S stared back at him, a glimmer of something like humour in his eye. They could, he said, always ask the Yard. Hesseltine might fix someone from the Diplomatic Protection Squad. Hedge, furious at any suggestion that Hesseltine might be asked a favour, stepped right into it. He said, “They’ll be there anyway. We need one of our own men … seeing it’s the Foreign Secretary —”

  “Yes, you’re quite right, of course. As a matter of fact I’d like you to go, Hedge.”

  “Me?” Hedge sat bolt upright, shaken to the core.

  H of S smiled. “Not exactly as a personal guard. I don’t mean that. To be in overall charge, and very much under cover. Just keep handy really, that’s all — as much to maintain contact with Shard as with the Foreign Secretary. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it, though Paris in August does tend to be a shade hot …”

  Back at his home in Chelsea, Hedge thumped angrily into bed. He had a headache and he didn’t sleep at all well. In the morning he felt terrible and was faced with a very early start: H of S had wanted him to be in Paris well in advance of the Foreign Secretary’s arrival, which would be by air from Heathrow the day after. In the interest of security Hedge was to leave England as a tourist, travelling by sea from Newhaven to Dieppe, a perfectly ghastly performance in Hedge’s view, and he was to catch the ferry leaving Newhaven at 1000 hours. That meant leaving for Victoria at some frightful hour which, when Hedge glared sleeplessly at his watch, was almost upon him.

  Vengefully, he heaved himself out of bed.

  *

  Shard had not gone home at all: there was much to do. He rang Beth and said casually that he’d be away for a few days and she wasn’t to worry. He knew that, wife-like, she would; Beth was the world’s worst worrier, but she knew better than to ask questions about duty. Shard sent a kiss down the line and turned his mind to work. He was to be accompanied to France by WDC Brett. Eve Brett … she’d done undercover work with him before and he knew her to be thoroughly reliable. Good cover, two hippies, a man and a girl, and he would enjoy her company.

  During the night Shard and WDC Brett turned themselves into hippies. Physically it wasn’t difficult: dirt was the main ingredient, the rest being jeans, T-shirts, beads and bangles, and some hair dye, plus sandals. Each of them was equipped with a handbag that dangled from a leather strap and a radio for blaring out along the street. False passports had been provided by the experts: names, Simon Shelley, occupation writer — he was too mature to pass as a student — and Eve Breedon, art student. The personal possessions each would take would be minimal.

  “The test, the first test,” Shard said with a dead-pan expression, “will come early.”

  “How’s that, sir?”

  He wagged a finger at her. “Sir’s out from now, right?”

  “Right,” she answered. “And the test?”

  “We’re catching the same ferry as Hedge.”

  She gave an involuntary giggle. “Does he know?”

  “He does not. I’ve just made the decision.”

  “Risky, surely?”

  He shook his head. “No.” Hippies didn’t use airline tickets in any case, so it had to be a ferry, followed by a series of hitches. “If we survive Hedge we’ll survive anything — not that he’ll approach closely. We’re too dirty, or soon will be. Fancy a ring through your nose, Eve?”

  She shuddered. “No, thanks!”

  “I’ll spare you that, then.”

  They left as soon as they were ready. The transformation had been made, not at the FO security section, but at Shard’s cover establishment in Seddon’s Way off the Charing Cross Road where ostensibly he operated as a commercial philatelist, a handy job for making all kinds of underground contacts who hadn’t to know his connection with the Foreign Office. The trip to France had to look authentic all the way, so he intended to
start as he meant to go on, and that meant a hitch to Newhaven. They went down the stairs and out into dark streets, night-silent of traffic with patches of light coming from the strip joints and massage parlours. The odd prostitute drifted, defying the law but watching out for fuzz. Shard wished them the best of luck: the law was so often an ass. The prozzies performed a useful public service and if they’d been allowed to make themselves more obvious and available the sex-crime rate could have been cut by half. And there were better things for policemen to do than harass the women of the streets and prevent men getting what nature urged them to seek. Britain was fuller of dottiness every year … With Eve Brett, Shard started on the long drag out of London, making in the general direction of the M23 for Brighton. Luck was with them: they had just reached the Vauxhall Bridge Road with Shard’s thumb stuck out like a flag when an artic stopped at some lights.

  Shard approached the cab, looked in at the beefy-faced man with a mop of black hair that gave him a troll-like appearance. “Where for, mate?”

  “Lewes.”

  “Great. Take us, will you?”

  The troll said, “Sure, hop in.”

  They got aboard just as the lights changed. The artic pulled away. The troll didn’t stop talking after asking where they were going. He said they would easily find a lift down from Lewes to Newhaven. France, he said, great place. Pity they weren’t going to Paris: the Place Pigalle had all a man could want, so long as he didn’t have his bird with him, he said with a grin at WDC Brett. Women, cor! Food was crap, not enough chips. But — once again — women, cor. He’d had a holiday there once, with the missus which took the shine off, but he’d been back since on long haul continental road transporters and it had been great. And yes, he knew the Ardeech. Heard about the hippie commune, too. What a lark. Pretty dirty by all accounts, piss where you stood, and then there were the entertainments. “All of them, having a f — know what I mean-all in the open. Not many of ’em bother to dress at all, not when the weather’s right. Just like Stonehenge in July.” He cleared his throat noisily and spat from the cab window. “Well, kiss my arse, good luck to the buggers.”