The Executioners

by Philip McCutchan

  “It’s not fair to take yours,” Shard said.

  “It’s yours too, man. It was put into the world for us all to share. Take it. You’re old, man. You need it.”

  Shard, early thirties, younger he believed than Tex, took it and asked where it came from.

  “Heaven,” the hippie said. He seemed to mean it.

  “Tex?”

  “Right, man. Tex is the intermediary. He provides.”

  “And you don’t question it?”

  “No, man.” Dark eyes, reproving eyes, were turned on Shard. “Nor do you.”

  “Sorry I spoke,” Shard said, and took a torn-off hunk of bread. He and Eve got a sausage each plus a taste of fried tomato. Having found a friend of a sort, Shard took advantage of him. “Do you,” he asked casually, “know a girl called little fat Annie?”

  “Of course, man. Everybody knows little fat Annie. Little fat Annie’s a disciple.”

  “Of Tex?”

  “Right.”

  “How does a disciple rank, vis-à-vis the rest?”

  Chewing, the hippie stared at Shard. He said, “You’ll see, man, you’ll see.”

  “Is she here now?”

  “Yes, she’s here. She’s been away, but she’s come back. You know her, man?”

  “Friend of a friend,” Shard said briefly. When breakfast was over the lame hippie kindly said he would take Shard to meet little fat Annie. That was, he would do so if she was not having intercourse with Tex, a frequent occurrence. The hippie went a little distance away to perform his toilet and when he came back he was talkative and Shard began to get the significance of the disciples. They were the ones, mainly female, whom Tex fancied and who had the honour, whether or not they had boy friends or girl friends of their own, of ministering — as the hippie put it — to their saviour Tex. Sex, the hippie said, was the mainspring of life and Tex was entitled to his tribute. Shard asked about death.

  “That will come,” the hippie told him seriously. “As soon as the UFOs are ready, like Tex said.”

  “And you’re ready for it?”

  “Yes, man, all ready.”

  He spoke with genuine assurance. He seemed to have no doubts at all that death was best and would lead to everlasting joy on Tex lines. Tex, Shard thought, must have something, but the others had to be, as Hesseltine had said back in London, crazy. As the groups dispersed for another day of lying about in the sun and playing the interminable guitars, the hippie kept his promise and took them across to a hummock of thickly-growing grass. On the far side of it was a very fat, placid-looking girl of about twenty; obviously little fat Annie, and not currently engaged with Tex or anyone else. She was sitting by herself, humming a tune, her large body swaying and her eyes closed. Shard thought he had never seen such a fat girl. The breasts were enormous, with a tremendous sideways spread, and were held in some sort of restraint by a very stained garment like a maternity dress gathered at the neck by a length of string. The material was thin enough to show the nipples pointed like protruding eyes at Shard and Eve Brett.

  “Someone who knows you, Annie,” the hippie said, and limped off about his own business. Shard smiled down at the fat girl, who smiled back. She had a bovine look, one of being a shade simple. He said, “Hullo.”

  “English?”

  “Yes.”

  She gave a pout; her face was broad and flat, Slav-looking. She said in a good but accented English, “You I do not know. Who are you, please?”

  “The name’s Simon.”

  “Ah, Simon.”

  “I know a friend of yours. Ernestine Kolnisenko.”

  “Yes.”

  “You went to see her in London.”

  “How do you know this?” There was, Shard thought, a hint of fear.

  He squatted down beside her. “She told me — and you don’t have to worry. I’m not here to harm you, Annie. Just want some information, that’s all. About Mikhail Kolnisenko, who wants to contact his mother, the one you met.”

  “Mikhail?”

  “Yes. You know him, don’t you — in Russia?”

  Candid eyes stared from rolls of flesh. She said, “Yes, I know him. Why do you want to know?”

  “Because of his mother. She’s worried, naturally. I’m told you brought news that he’s a non-person, that though he’s alive he’s officially dead.”

  She nodded. “Yes. What do you want of me that I have not already told Mikhail’s mother?”

  “Nothing much. Nothing for you to be afraid of, Annie. Just tell me about him … how he manages to live, where he’s living, whether he has any chance of getting out of Russia, perhaps to join his mother in England.”

  “That is all, you ask only because of his mother?”

  Shard said, “I ask because I want to know, more precisely, why Mikhail wanted you to contact his mother, Annie. Can you tell me that?”

  “It was a simple message,” little fat Annie answered, shrugging. Shard didn’t press; he asked instead if Mikhail or his mother had ever mentioned a man called Asipov. “Stanislav Asipov. Think, Annie. It’s important, or may be.”

  “Asipov,” she repeated. “He was Mikhail’s …” Her voice trailed away and Shard saw that she was no longer with him, no longer paying any attention. She was staring past him and Eve Brett and there was a weird expression on her face, a transformation, a spread of rapture, of devotion — of discipledom. Knowing who he would see, Shard turned. Tex.

  Shard got to his feet, slowly, watching the American as he came closer. Tex looked down at little fat Annie. “Okay,” he said softly.“You stay put for now. You two, move out ahead of me — and watch it.”

  Tex had brought a 9mm Stechkin APS from beneath the purple cassock.

  5

  Hedge had been suffering, both mentally and physically. He had done appalling things, the more appalling to him now because he had enjoyed them, by and large. It had been the most incredible night of his life. His experiences in the course of it had been totally different from what circumstances had told him married life was like. Totally different and very exhausting, and afterwards very worrying indeed. Of course, the French women were said to be clean, they were properly licensed, but terrible diseases could still lurk, diseases that were unmentionable in Foreign Office circles and certainly never to be caught by anyone in Whitehall — the disgrace!

  It had been three a.m. when Hedge had torn himself away from the eager and expensive embrace of a young woman of amazing energy and persistence and a good deal of what Hedge considered invention. Much money had changed hands, indeed Hedge was now penniless and would remain so until he reached his hotel — and when he had emerged from the den of sin the coach party had gone.

  Oh dear, oh dear!

  Where was he, where was the hotel?

  He paused on the threshold of the establishment, trying to collect his tormented wits. What the Head of Security would say didn’t bear thinking about, and as for the Foreign Secretary … there were ways in which things could come out and he could be blackmailed. And here he was, responsible — up to a point — for the Foreign Secretary’s safety whilst the great man was in Paris. All Shard’s fault.

  Shaking in every limb and utterly lost, Hedge left the brothel and set off along the filthy alley in which he had found himself. It was dark, which didn’t help, no street lights anywhere that he could see. Certainly no friendly policeman on the beat. And it was beginning to rain.

  Hedge pattered along and he hadn’t gone far when he heard the footsteps behind him. He didn’t dare look round. A footpad after his non-existent cash — someone who might take his credit cards and by some nefarious process connect the name on them with Hedge of the Foreign Office, the feared blackmailer come true?

  Oh, what a fool he’d been!

  Never, never again. He put on speed; so did the footsteps. In a matter of moments they had overtaken him and a hand had reached out and grabbed his shoulder, swinging him round, close to an unshaven, threatening face.

  “Let me g
o, you — you blackguard!” Hedge said in a high voice.

  There was a grin and the teeth showed, very white in the fearsome darkness, the darkness where, in Paris, so much danger lurked. “No. I have long, long wait. I see you enter, and wait. I not let you go. I know who you are.”

  The accent, Hedge was convinced, was Russian. He shook with fear. He said with an attempt at dignified bravery, “Rubbish. You can’t know who I am. I’m not important.”

  “You are Hedge,” the man said, grinning again. “I know. I follow from your British Embassy … you board the coach of sex. I know where this goes, and I wait. Now you come with me.”

  “No! Leave me alone. I’ve never heard of anyone called Hedge, you’ve got the wrong man.”

  “No. I know. You are in Paris for your Foreign Minister. Come.” The grip tightened on Hedge’s shoulder. In utter panic now, Hedge reacted in a way that normally he would never have believed possible: he brought his knee up sharply and hurt the man where it hurt most. There was a gasp of pain, the grip fell away as the man doubled up, and Hedge was off down the alley as though the devil himself were behind him. He heard a phutting sound and a bullet sped past his left ear to smack into a building on a corner ahead. Hedge rushed on, heart thudding loudly and painfully, swerved round the corner, saw a nasty dark hole immediately in front of him, gave a whinney of terror and leapt clean over it. The man behind him was not so lucky: Hedge heard a yell, a smothered one, and the footsteps stopped. There was a crashing sound. Presumably the man had gone down into a cellar, the lid of which had been foolishly and dangerously left open.

  No backward looks: Hedge ran on like the wind, puffing hard. Before long his heartbeats forced him to slow down: he could have a seizure if he wasn’t careful, he wasn’t as young as he was, and especially after such a night … but he still walked fast and, having done some twisting and turning after the man had gone down the hole, he felt he had got away with it. He should be safe in his hotel, at least during the daylight hours. No-one, supposing the man knew — which most probably he did — where he was staying, would attack in broad daylight. If only he wasn’t lost; but all things come to an end and by six o’clock Hedge had picked up his bearings and people were beginning to appear on the streets. And then he had a stroke of luck: he found a fifty-franc note blowing along the street. It fetched up by a used contraceptive, but never mind. Finders keepers … Hedge picked it up. When he found a tobacconist’s shop, he went in and bought a book of Metro tickets and went down into the nearest station. He got out at Saint-Placide and scuttled along the Rue de Vaugirard and took the risk of using the telephone to call the Embassy.

  After some delay he got Roberts-White. The First Secretary sounded cold. He said, “Good heavens, I know it’s early but I’ve been trying to get in touch. Where’ve you been?”

  “Never mind that,” Hedge snapped, going red at the telephone. “I must see you urgently, but I’m not coming to the Embassy.” Instinctively he lowered his voice. “My life’s been threatened. I’ve been shot at. When can we meet?”

  “Soon as possible. Coq d’Or in the Champs Elysées — say in half an hour.”

  “That’s —” Hedge pulled the receiver from his ear and glared at it angrily. Roberts-White had rung off, which was rude and impertinent. He, Hedge, took rank and precedence above First Secretaries. He went up in the lift to his room and called room service for a continental breakfast. Whilst doing this he noticed that his window was ajar, and he remembered positively closing it before leaving the evening before. Some careless servant … but then he saw that a pane had been broken.

  Goodness gracious.

  His things. And somebody, if there had been a somebody, had had a monumental job of cat burglary — fifth floor! Hedge quickly examined his things. He believed they had been gone through — they definitely had, his pants were not as he had so meticulously laid them in a drawer, and a shirt looked as though it had been disturbed. But his money was intact. No cash motive there. No doubt there was some connection with the man who had followed him; there might have been an accomplice. Now Hedge stood in more danger; attack could come from any quarter. But there was an amateurish quality about it all so far. The man outside the brothel — Hedge shuddered at the word — had seemed unprofessional in his approach, all those running footsteps, and then to plunge down a hole in the pavement! And the searcher of his things had been, to say the least, careless. A properly conducted search should never be so immediately obvious to the victim. They did things much better in the Foreign Office, but then of course they were British. Finally, to break a window was ludicrous, very ham-handed indeed.

  Hedge, the professional, felt better about it.

  He reached the Champs Elysées via the Metro from Saint-Placide, peering about for a tail. He didn’t identify one, though he had a bad moment when a dreadful-looking, swarthy Frenchman who had boarded the same train as himself also got off at the Champs Elysées, but the man went off in a different direction. Hedge asked a woman where the Coq d’Or was. When he reached it — it was a pavement café — Roberts-White was there already with a cognac in front of him. He was reading some French newspaper; he glanced at Hedge over the top of it but gave no sign of recognition. He meant to be hole-in-corner; Hedge, no fool, took the hint but angrily. He had a lot to impart. He sat down and ordered café au lait. Roberts-White drank his cognac slowly. Hedge’s order came; he had nearly finished the café au lait when Roberts-White got to his feet and sauntered away towards the Arc de Triomphe. Hedge gave him a start then got under way behind him. Roberts-White halted to look in a shop window. Hedge did likewise, feeling suddenly foolish. If anyone was watching he or she would know very well who they both were and the play-acting was superfluous. Roberts-White was being extra careful simply because he was dealing with Hedge, the security man from Whitehall in person. No feet would be put wrong. Commendable but a blasted nuisance. Hedge’s irritation increased and he snapped, “Really, none of this is necessary, Roberts-White.” The First Secretary seemed quite relieved. He said, “Oh, well, yes. I’m inclined to agree, but —”

  “We shall walk,” Hedge said, pompously. They did; they went on towards the Arc de Triomphe, pushing through bands of tourists, largely American. Ice-cream was everywhere, so were the purveyors of it, in stalls and mobile dispensaries, and the dusty so-called pavement was a mass of thrown-away paper and chewing-gum. The Champs Elysées had declined in elegance, like Princes Street in Edinburgh and the Burlington Arcade in London. So many common people about, the sort who in pre-war days would have kept to the back streets … what a bane trade unionism and tourism were. Hedge gave a bowdlerised account of his night’s activities, skirting round the brothel rather quickly. Roberts-White didn’t, luckily, prove inquisitive; but when Hedge came to the hole in the pavement he got a surprise.

  Roberts-White said, “I know.”

  “You do? May one ask how?”

  “By all means. Your man was found, having made quite a din in his descent. He was dead. Neck broken.”

  “The police —”

  “Yes, they were called.”

  “But they didn’t call you, I assume.”

  “Oh, no. You know how it is.” Hedge did, of course; the man clearly hadn’t been British so the police wouldn’t have connected, but the ears of diplomacy were long-range and, like spiders’ webs, caught things. But Hedge was forced to ask, “Why did you connect it with me?”

  “I didn’t until just now — not all that many people fall down holes, you know. Another point: the man who did was special.”

  Hedge glanced sideways. “He’s been identified, has he?”

  “Yes. Alexander Vernodski — remember what I told you?”

  Hedge did: Vernodski had been the half brother of Stanislav Asipov. Things were coming together, but how? Hedge said accusingly, “You assured me he wasn’t in France, Roberts-White.”

  “No, I didn’t. I did say it was unlikely … we’re all human, you know. Slips can occur. It seems on
e has, but that’s not my fault. Nor yours either,” Roberts-White added magnanimously. “Blame the French police.”

  “These French,” Hedge said witheringly. He pondered; they walked on, two British rocks in a sudden whirlpool eruption of French schoolchildren surging towards the Arc de Triomphe with three teachers presumably doing a holiday task on French martial glory. Hedge, fighting for breath as he was buffeted about, remembered, from a previous visit to Paris, walking from the Eiffel Tower to the French Military Academy and finding a great sign proclaiming that the latter was the home of the world’s finest army, or words to that effect. Impertinent rubbish, he’d considered that — it had probably been instigated by de Gaulle and had lingered on. Anyway, the French had now been guilty of what Roberts-White would no doubt call a balls-up. Alexander Vernodski had meant trouble and should never have been allowed to worm his way into France. Hedge preened for a moment; he had dealt with that! The Foreign Secretary should be grateful, probably would be. Hedge asked, “Do you think there’s a connection, Roberts-White?”

  “With what?”

  “Oh, the Foreign Secretary!” Hedge snapped. “His visit!”

  “I’m beginning to think there might be. And there’s something else. Word came through during the night. The PM’s coming. The visit’s been delayed three days on that account — you can imagine the hoo-ha. The French aren’t pleased at all, all the preparations, you know. But Whitehall’s adamant, for various reasons —”

  “So now the Prime Minister’s at risk!”

  “I’m afraid it’s possible. It’s all rather a panic.”

  “Panic!” Hedge avoided an ice-cream cone, held aloft by a French child. “All we need now is the Queen …”