*
Hedge simmered gently beneath the hot, the very hot, Paris sun. He sat on a bench overlooking the Seine, where it was cooler. Bateaux mouches lay inertly alongside the quays beneath, awaiting the night when their passengers would embark to see Paris by moonlight, or lamplight, stuffing their way through too many courses of dinner as they stared. Or gawped, since most would be Americans, the only ones who could afford the fares — the only white ones anyway. Hedge didn’t entirely consider Germans and Dutch and Belgians or even Frenchmen white, and as for Arabs … what a bunch! And everyone in Paris was currently sinister, to be suspected of evil intent, possible killers of the two most important persons in the British cabinet. Hedge felt his responsibilities keenly; but Roberts-White had blandly assured him that all was in hand, everything under full control and that he, Hedge, was far better employed in keeping his eyes and ears open around Paris rather than attempting to operate from within the Embassy. Hedge had been furious and still was; the simmer was not from the sun alone. But at the same time he had felt oddly relieved, since if there was to be any further contretemps at least he couldn’t be held responsible. And Roberts-White had been pretty decent; he had referred admiringly to the business of the dead man in the hole, saying that Hedge had done very well indeed and there was one villain the less to worry about, though perhaps it was a pity he hadn’t lived to be questioned. That thought was now very much with Hedge, worryingly so. The Head of Security might consider he’d run away rather fast, rather too precipitately, but his counter to that would be that it had been he who had been there and not the Head, and after all he wasn’t Shard. He wasn’t a fisticuffs man. Shard was. And damn it all, Hedge thought angrily by the banks of the Seine, in a sense he was doing a policeman’s job now. Keeping his eyes and ears open. Keeping obbo. It wasn’t really consistent with his dignity. Confound Shard.
However, he had dealt with Shard. With the PM in the offing, Shard was needed urgently in Paris. Hedge had been firm, very firm indeed: Roberts-White was to have Shard contacted and brought back, under FO orders, from dalliance with WDC Brett in the Ardèche. Alexander Vernodski hadn’t been the only villain; plenty of others would take his place now. If only he had more information …
*
Shard and Eve Brett had been propelled in front of Tex’s gun, away from little fat Annie to a far corner of the field. Behind Tex, Tom Tit and the skinhead Frigger had come up, and they had been given their orders: the hippies were to be kept clear. Frigger said most of them were high anyway and wouldn’t be taking notice, and that appeared to be true. The field looked like an opium den, with recumbent bodies all over, possibly dreaming of the paradise to come when the UFO’s zoomed in like big dinner-plates to take them on a different kind of trip. Reaching the secluded corner, Tex told Shard and Eve to turn round.
They did so; Tex held the gun very steady. He asked, “So what goes on between you and little fat Annie?”
“Any reason why I shouldn’t talk to her?” Shard asked.
“Well, now, I don’t know the answer to that, do I? Suppose you tell me, huh?”
“And if I don’t — if I say it’s nothing to do with you?”
Tex grinned. His face was an unpleasant one, and there was an intensity in the eyes, a curious light … he said easily, “Why, this,” and he jerked the gun closer to Shard.
“Out here in the open?”
“Why not? People die, don’t they?”
“And others ask questions.”
“Not here they don’t. There’s no check on numbers, names. Graves are easy dug. The hippies, they do what I tell them.”
Coolly Shard asked, “What’s your game, Tex? The UFO thing’s just a blind, isn’t it, cover? What for?”
Tex said, “Not your concern, feller. Just tell me about your conversation, okay?” He paused. “And another thing. What brings you here, feller? Little fat Annie?”
Shard shrugged. “I like the sun. I like the freedom.”
“And you don’t believe in the UFOs?”
“No more than you do,” Shard said evenly.
Tex moved fast. His free hand shot out like a snake, palm flat, and took Shard hard across the face, first one side then the other. Blood ran from cuts made by a heavy ring. Shard stood fast: the gun was still steady and the mad look in Tex’s eyes seemed to be hovering on the brink. Without looking round Tex said, “Where’s that faggot?”
“Here,” Tom Tit said.
“Go get little fat Annie.”
Tom Tit flounced away. Tex said, “Now we’ll see what she has to say.”
6
Little fat Annie came obediently, a big happy smile on her broad features. She was peasant-like and she was trusting. Shard liked her face; there was no guile there. He believed she could be easily led, and there was no doubt about it she fancied Tex. Physically the American was superb; tall, hefty, rippling muscles, even handsome if you could leave out the ice that from time to time replaced the weird blaze in the eyes. Or maybe that was part of the charisma that, for the hippies, he seemed to possess.
On arrival she curtseyed to him. Very olde worlde, but then he was God to these people. The curtsey did strange things to her flapping garment; when she stood up again there was a ruck. She didn’t bother to smooth it down. Shard believed she was ready now and didn’t in the least mind an audience, but Tex wasn’t in the mood, having other matters on his mind. He backed away a little so that he was covering all three — Shard, Eve, little fat Annie.
Tex smiled at the girl. She responded. He said, “Now, Annie. Just tell me what this guy’s been talking to you about, huh?”
She said, “Mikhail.”
Tex looked blank as if the name meant nothing, but Shard detected interest. “So?”
“Simon was asking about Mikhail’s mother.”
“Yeah? Anything else, Annie?”
She said, “Oh yes. About Stanislav Asipov.”
Tex didn’t like that. The ice was back in his eyes. He said, “Tell me, Annie. All about it, right?”
She did; not that there was much to say. But it was enough for Tex. He swung round on Shard, face belligerent. “Just give me the low-down on who you are,” he said savagely. “Who you are and where you fit — right?”
Shard stared back at him. “I’m no-one that would interest you,” he said, shrugging. “I’m just a —”
“Just a hippy?”
“That’s right.”
“We’ll see about that,” Tex said. He nodded at Frigger. The skinhead’s tongue came out and he licked his lips, enjoying his forthcoming role. He moved closer to Shard, giving a preliminary swing to his spiked metal ball, then jerked it hard towards Shard’s legs. Shard dodged aside and the ball just missed: it swung again, this time striking the rear of little fat Annie, who gave a shrill scream. Tex scowled across at Frigger, his attention momentarily diverted, and Shard took his chance: he flung himself bodily on the American and Tex went down flat and winded. Shard wrenched the gun from his hand, covering him as he made to get back on his feet. Then both Frigger and Tom Tit came in. Something, not the spiked ball, took Shard on the back of his head and he went out, down deep. He didn’t hear the oncoming police whistles or the ferocious barking of Alsatians as they bounded with their handlers over the recumbent hippies.
*
The local police had been in two minds when the message reached them from the Police Judicaire in Paris that they were to go in and get a man out from the hippie compound. On the one hand they were delighted to have a cast-iron order to break the place up; there had been so many complaints but nothing they could really make use of. On the other hand, the place was so appalling and they might catch all manner of diseases from the filth or even from so much as touching the inmates, all of whom were bound to have a loathsome disease in one form or another, very likely the incurable AIDS. However, once in they made a job of it. Hippies ran screaming in all directions, clutching discarded clothes. Batons were used freely, and it proved difficult f
or the dogs to be held back. So much potential meat. Little fat Annie, rooted with her sore bottom to the spot near where Shard had fallen, was captured with ease and bundled back to a waiting police van with Shard and Eve Brett. Both Shard and Eve were being treated as hippies, despite Eve’s loud protests. A number of other arrests were made; but in fact most of the commune’s inmates got away, moving with astonishing speed. Among those that got away was Tex; Tom Tit and Frigger went into the bag. Frigger would be charged with murder; he had laid about himself maniacally with his spiked ball, and four of the policemen had had their heads stove in. As a result the others were savage and in no mood to listen to explanations from Eve Brett, not until she had battered them with the name of Simon Shard. It then penetrated that the man they had been sent in to get was lying on the floor of their van, injured.
After that no time was lost in getting the English detective into the hands of the medics at Bourg St Andéol. Shard had come to by the time they got him to the hospital and was anxious to reach Paris, but the doctors insisted on going through their routines. After all, he had a head injury and forms in triplicate stood like a paper moat between him and free movement northwards. However, he was able to instruct WDC Brett to contact the Paris Embassy and in due course the word came from the Préfecture of Police itself: Shard was to be flown out for the capital immediately, if necessary with a doctor and nurse in attendance. Shard had been confident of nothing less; Hedge would have given orders and would never have bothered himself with any thought for Shard’s head. His own was much more important and it could be on the chopping block already. When Shard was unwillingly released, he found the local police chief in attendance. He said, “I’d like those two, the ones called Frigger and Tom Tit, to come with me. Also the girl.”
“Tom Tit yes. The girl yes. Frigger no.”
“But look —”
“Frigger no. There has been murder of my gendarmes. The man stays.”
“Paris is going to need him.”
The police chief was firm. He was very French and somewhat old-fashioned: moustachios twirled, there were overtones of Pétain, even of General Gamelin. “Frigger no. He will of course be questioned and the Préfecture in Paris will be informed, this I promise.”
Shard had to leave it at that. Tom Tit might provide some of the answers; he had seemed close enough to Tex. With a hunt in progress for the American, Shard with his WDC, Tom Tit and little fat Annie was airlifted into Paris by a military helicopter and by a late lunch time was closeted with Hedge in a pew at the back end of Notre Dame. Having earlier tended to sneer at Roberts-White for his air of cloak-and-dagger, Hedge had had second thoughts and in any case had always really rather liked cloak-and-dagger so long as he was the instigator of it. And things were getting tricky now. He told Shard about the PM’s decision to come over; Shard agreed that this toughened Security’s job. This point put over, he had to listen to a long moan from Hedge about the dreadful night he had endured but had very successfully overcome. Shard pointed out unkindly that the hole in the pavement had been purely fortuitous.
“Oh, nonsense!” Hedge snapped. “Even if it was, I made good use of it you’ll agree. You’d better make your report.”
In the light of flickering candles Shard did so, under the cover of prayer, the two of them reverently kneeling as the tourists drifted past, gawping as usual. He told Hedge that Tex had reacted to his, Shard’s, interest in Asipov. He went on, “There’s a lot more behind Tex — he more or less admitted the UFO thing was just cover and I doubt if he has any real use for the poor deluded hippies, they’re just part of the cover, of course. Or were. They’re mostly scattered now.”
Hedge gave a heavy sigh. Notre Dame he found depressing, even foreboding. Oddly perhaps, it reminded him of the French Revolution and of the fact that he was inside a land of incipient regicides and that soon now both the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary would also be there, representing monarchy. All that past terror and the streets of Paris running with blood … Hedge gave himself a shake. All that was a long time ago. He asked, “Where is this Tom Tit?”
“Police custody.”
“We’d better talk to him. Or you had. Call upon me only as a last resort — you know what I mean, don’t you, Shard? If you need more weight — but I doubt if you will. Tom Tit … he doesn’t sound to me like a very strong character from your description.”
Shard disagreed; Tom Tit, he believed, had a streak of hard steel in him and never mind the poncy bottom-waggling. But he didn’t say this to Hedge, who wouldn’t have listened in any case. Hedge went on, for no apparent reason, to say that he had had every help, or the Embassy had, from the French police and security people. It was surprising, his manner seemed to say, but it was the fact. They’d lost no time in hooking Shard away from the hippie commune, for one thing. It was very creditable and it was a relief to Hedge to know that they were taking the visit of the British VIPs so seriously. When the PM and the Foreign Secretary arrived in three days’ time, there would be almost more plain clothes men than sightseers.
“I’m worried about the Americans,” Hedge said. “The tourists, you know.”
“Why?”
“The man Tex is an American, you said.”
“Yes, true. But all Americans aren’t Tex. However, I do see your point, Hedge.”
“You’ll bear it in mind, then?”
“Oh, yes, I’ll do that.”
Hedge glared. “It’s all very well your saying that, Shard. What, precisely, are you going to do?”
“Talk to three people for a start,” Shard answered. “Tom Tit, little fat Annie, and Frigger if necessary.”
“He’s still in Bourg St Andéol, isn’t he? I’d sooner you didn’t leave Paris again, Shard. Paris is where the trouble is going to come.” Hedge shifted about on his knees, easing first one then the other. The Notre Dame hassocks were far from comfortable after a while. They had had quite a long pray and if they overdid it they would attract attention if only from a prowling priest who might feel it his duty to urge them into a confession box. Hedge muttered that he was going back to the Embassy, where he could be contacted if necessary and never mind Roberts-White. Then he got stiffly to his feet and sidled out of the pew. Shard gave it a few more minutes and then left himself, coming from the gloom of the cathedral into the bright sunshine of late afternoon. A boat on the Seine beckoned, a peaceful trip with Eve Brett beneath an awning and the ripple of the river on either hand. Dismissing useless urgings, Shard headed for police HQ, where he encountered WDC Brett who had had a preliminary talk with little fat Annie.
“Useful?” Shard asked.
“Not particularly, sir.” Formality was back now, hippiedom except for dress a thing of the past, at least for the time being. It was obvious that WDC Brett preferred it that way; she knew where she stood and there was a chasm between their ranks even though Shard always put her at her ease. “She told me she’d met Mikhail Kolnisenko, or Asipov, in Paris on her way back from London —”
“Had she indeed,” Shard said. “Met him? In Paris? So he did get out of Russia … maybe that is why he wanted to contact his mother, as she suggested.”
Eve said, “Our information is that he’d sort of rejected her, sir.”
Shard nodded. “Right, it is. But he did want to get in touch, didn’t he? However. So little fat Annie met Mikhail. Was this a chance encounter?”
“Apparently. She was very surprised — or so she said. Somehow she didn’t quite convince me.” WDC Brett paused. “She said she fell for him this time round. He’d grown up a lot … she found him very attractive.”
“She’s man mad, is little fat Annie. I thought Tex was the source of her sunlight. What about the boy friend who went with her to London?”
“No account, sir. Just a meal ticket for the journey.” Shard nodded again. “You’ve done well to get that much,” he said. “I’ll be seeing what a little pressure will do. But I’ll start on Tom Tit. We’ll let little fat Annie stew f
or a while.”
*
Tom Tit was not in an interrogation room; he was in a cell. He had, in English terms, resisted arrest after offering combat against the police. Also, he could be an accessory to the fact of Frigger’s killing of police officers. He was not popular; to prove this he carried an egg-shaped, discoloured lump on his forehead. Before entering the cell, Shard viewed him through the spy-hole in the door. Tom Tit was sitting on a hard wooden plank fitted into the brickwork, his head in his hands, eyes staring at the floor. The thin lips were curved downwards and they were trembling as though he was about to burst into tears. Maybe the steel wasn’t so well tempered, could be on the verge of metal fatigue, but time would tell.
The door was opened up and Shard went in alone. The door was shut behind him, and locked. Outside, two policemen stood guard. Tom Tit’s head came up. Shard said, “You may have gathered already, I’m no hippie. I’m a detective chief superintendent, of the Metropolitan Police basically. I —”
“I’m a British subject,” Tom Tit said. “These French bastards, they’ve got no right to hold me —”
“They have every right. Don’t look to me to help you out. I saw what Frigger did to little fat Annie, remember? And you’re part of the set-up. Number Two, you said. For my money, you’ve got form back home.”
“I never.”
“Well, we’ll soon see. Your prints have gone to the Yard, Tom Tit. That’ll take time. Meanwhile I’m in a hurry. If you come clean it could go in your favour. I think you know what I mean. Your past record and connexions could be useful, but it’s Tex I’m interested in.”
Tom Tit said viciously, “Get stuffed.” He almost spat the words at Shard.
Shard shrugged. “It’s up to you,” he said. “I’m offering to smooth your path.You’re in for a rough ride, you know that. Accessory to murder … the French are going to throw the book at you. If you’re prepared to talk about certain things that I believe may happen through the agency of your friend Tex, well, then the French might be persuaded to go a little easy. There are bigger fish than you currently about to give them a headache, one they don’t want. At any price. Get me, Tom Tit?”
The Executioners Page 7