Call for Simon Shard

by Philip McCutchan

  “I am absolutely certain. Positive. This is Tanya Gorukin. Mr. Shard, why did she take my name?”

  He shrugged. “We don’t know that yet. We don’t know if there’s any connexion — I fancy there’s not — beyond the fact she’d known you. You’d be surprised how difficult it can be to dream up a name from cold. A ready-made one has its attractions if also its dangers. Did she know you’d gone to Australia, and were married?”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Shard. I dare say she could have found out, yes. But I still do not understand, why me. I was not the only Frenchwoman she knew, if she wished to appear French — ”

  “If my theory’s right, Mrs. Gilder, it had to be someone. It was sheer chance it was you.”

  She nodded, and asked. “Why did she die, Mr. Shard? Why did she go out in the mist, and climb?”

  “That’s something else we don’t know.”

  “You have considered suicide, Mr. Shard?”

  He said, “Yes. If that’s the case…”

  “There is still the question, why?”

  “Indeed there is.” Shard paused. “Mrs. Gilder, is there anything you can tell me about Tanya Gorukin, anything at all — her other friends, her outlook, her politics, her relationship with authority — her attitudes in that direction. I’m particularly interested in the fact she was from Russia, and it follows from that that I’m interested in why she studied in France. I’d appreciate any help you can give.”

  Yvette Gilder frowned in thought, clasping her husband’s hand as he sat on the arm of her chair. “I have said, we were not intimate. I knew very little of her…except perhaps this, that she was always able to attract any men she wanted. Always that came so easily to her!” She gave a small introspective sigh.

  Shard smiled. “You were jealous? I wouldn’t have thought you needed to be.” There was a supporting growl from Gilder, who, clearly, also saw no necessity.

  Yvette glanced up at him, the violet eyes melting. But she said frankly, “Oh, yes, of course I was often jealous…she had a magnetism, it was very strange — rare, perhaps, for Russian women. Yes, I was jealous…but I had not met Pat then, you see!”

  “Quite. Sex?”

  “You mean — ?”

  “Yes. Had she? Did she?”

  “I would say so, yes, I think so. Is that important?”

  Shard said, “I don’t know. Probably not, but we have to have a full picture. Another part of the picture is drugs.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Was she ever concerned with drugs, Mrs. Gilder?”

  The answer came after a pause. “I think she had experimented perhaps, as so many do.”

  “They do indeed. Soft stuff?”

  “Cannabis, perhaps.” There was a touch of caution. “I do not know.”

  “Nothing hard?”

  “Again I do not know, but I think I would doubt this very much.”

  “Ah-ha.” Shard frowned, thinking his own thoughts. He was deeply involved, involved in a personal sense, with the drug traffic. He hated it, detested it, detested the pushers, the men and women who made money out of misery. His young brother had been trapped into hard drugs whilst at university. Result: suicide. That had hit Shard cruelly. He now had a thing about hard drugs — shouldn’t have and knew it, but he had. Very much so. Yet, in spite of this, he was not one of those who heavy-handed the use of cannabis. He didn’t like it, but he knew that plenty of respectable, responsible persons, and not only the young, took cannabis and managed to take it sensibly. It didn’t have to be habit forming. In Shard’s personal view, an intense police drive against cannabis and other soft drugs tended to cloud the real issues and to disperse and diffuse the effort against the real villains of the piece — the hard drugs. He could be wrong, but there it was. Nevertheless, right now he was a cop and he knew that people didn’t like talking to cops about drugs and that Mrs. Gilder was no exception; maybe out of loyalty to a dead friend from the past, she was, he felt, being cagey on the point. She may have known this Tanya Gorukin as an addict to one or other of the drugs and had no wish to commit herself. Or there could be something more serious, more germane to Shard’s enquiry: she could have known the Russian girl as a pusher. In point of fact, Shard had already satisfied himself, back in Cornwall, that the body had contained no residue of heroin, so pushing was more likely to be the answer…

  He frowned again; remembering that when he had first asked Yvette Gilder if she could think of anyone who might use her identity, she had seemed to react though not to pronounce. He faced her with this now. He said, leaning forward a little, “Mrs. Gilder…I formed the impression you did in fact feel that someone might be capable of using your name. I could have been wrong. If I’m not — could it have been Tanya Gorukin…and if so, why?”

  She didn’t answer at once; not until her husband prompted her. “Come on, Evie. Tell’im if’e’s right, why not?”

  She gave herself a shake. She said, “Why, yes, I did think this, without really believing it could be. Do you understand that, Mr. Shard? It was…it was just that I had this feeling. Tanya…she used to ask me many questions, very many questions, while saying so little about herself. I think she came to know much about me. I used to wonder, even in those days — ”

  “Wonder what?”

  “Wonder why. Then when you said…it came back to me that of all the people I used to know, it could perhaps have been her if anybody.”

  “Getting to know her facts, researching…preparing for the future?”

  She gave a little shiver and said, “This is being wise after the event, I think, but yes, it is possible. But — ”

  She broke off: interruption had come. A sound of sheer terror in the quiet of the Australian night: a short, sharp burst of automatic gunfire, followed by a piercing scream from the sitting-room behind the veranda; and as Pat Gilder ran towards the sound they all saw the old aboriginal servant, Tommy, fall through the door from the hall to bounce in a death agony on the floor. The old man gave one more scream and then there was a silence, broken almost at once by more sounds: crying from upstairs, and then a rush of children’s footsteps as they came down to their parents.

  Gilder, who had started to bend over the abo’s body, ran for the hall. Shard found the light switch, jerked it off and released the safety catch of his 7.65 mm automatic.

  CHAPTER V

  Gilder stumbled back in with Hughie and Karen. Shard called to them to clear the doorway and take cover behind the chairs: already he had pulled Yvette Gilder down behind a big sofa, drawn across a corner of the room. Curiously, there had been no more gunfire, and no sign of the intruder, no sound now beyond the children’s half-stifled sobs and heavy breathing from Gilder. Moonlight stole down, flooding the veranda, seeping into the room, clear and cool.

  Gilder started speaking, edgily: “You brought this down on us, you — ”

  “Shut up, for God’s sake — ”

  “Some bastard’s out to get you. Should have known you was tailed — ”

  “I know I wasn’t tailed. Now shut up, Gilder. For everyone’s sake, shut up till I get across there to you.”

  Gilder shut up; and Shard, after reassuring Yvette, slid out from behind the sofa, on his stomach. This way, he crossed the floor, fetching up in the lee of a fat armchair with Gilder and the two children. He said, “Keep your voice down from now on out. I’m in the dark as much as you, and that’s not intended to be funny, Gilder. I repeat I wasn’t tailed — ”

  “Then how come this bastard turned up, eh?”

  “I’d say that points to someone else beside your wife knowing the connexion with Tanya Gorukin.”

  “And knowing you’d come to see Yvette?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Looks like you killed old Tommy, too.”

  “Don’t start shouting the odds, Gilder, if you do it’s likely to kill us all.” Shard’s whispering voice was a threat in itself. “And remember police officers have their duty. Mine was to come here. I’m sorry
about your man.” He added, “Where’s the rest of your hands? I presume you have some to work the station?”

  “Yeah. It’s just my luck.” Gilder sounded bitter. “They’ve all gone into Narromine. There’s a dance on. That means a booze-up.”

  “All?”

  “All. Except Tommy, poor old bastard.”

  “When’ll they be back?”

  Gilder said, “God knows. Late, very.”

  “And all with a skinful?”

  “Full to bloody bursting. So what do we do, eh? You’re the bloody copper.” Shard said, “For now, we display a masterly inactivity. We — ”

  “How about the kids?”

  “Given the situation as it is, they’re as safe here as anywhere — safer. Our gunman’s still around somewhere outside, you can bet on that.”

  “Aren’t you going to chase him, then?” Shard said, “I’d sooner he showed himself to us, rather than us to him. Or me to him, if you want to put it that way.”

  “Oh, no offence…”

  “Then be careful what you let show in your voice, Gilder. We play this my way, understand?”

  Gilder said with reluctance. “Yeah, well, okay.” No apology: Australians didn’t apologise. One thing was clear to Shard: Gilder was no chicken. He’d taken this, and it must have been a cruel shock, in his stride. Gilder could be relied on, however tight the situation. After that, they kept silent: just waiting. From time to time the children whimpered, but Gilder coped and shushed them down nicely. Shard, as he waited for someone to show, knowing that given time someone would for sure, did some thinking. He thought along the lines of the sharp-faced man in the airliner from London. For his money, that man was concerned in this. So, maybe, were the hire car people — that figured all right. Some collusion. Maybe he’d handled this all wrong: with his feeling about that man, perhaps he should have left the Gilders for the time being and made himself into a temporary tail. He had a feeling that was what Hedge would say; but past experience had taught Shard that it could be a dead waste of precious time to try to tail your tail, which in a sense was what the sharpfaced man had been, even if he’d dropped it on arrival at Sydney airport. So maybe Shard had been right, though it was a shame about the abo. Shard was well aware that he wasn’t foolproof: it was only the non-villainous laity who seemed to think Detective Chief Superintendents from the Met were God’s own manifestation of infallibility. Even their wives were inclined to support that view, oddly enough — but not, Shard thought with a grin that turned to a frown, their mothers-in-law…

  A click, a very slight sound in the hall, so slight it could have been a fancy.

  No fancy.

  With immense dignity, a yellow cat strode into the pool of moonlight. Whilst not exactly stamping its feet, on the way in it must have touched against something unknown.

  The gunman, cat-startled into some small movement?

  Shard listened to Gilder’s breathing, to sounds from the children, quickly stifled by Gilder, when they saw the cat. The cat was sitting now, head bent and busy, one leg held up rigidly, licking and licking. Then suddenly it stopped, became alert, head still, ears flat, and then moved again, towards the heap that had been old Tommy the abo. It moved partly out of the moonlight, but Shard could still see it, the tail, waving in puzzlement and enquiry. It was a weird sight. The cat stayed there some time, motionless but for the waving tail, body held in a downswept straight line, like a golden arrow pointing at old Tommy.

  Another movement — over in the doorway?

  A faint shadow, an extra shadow, like a head moving dead slow around the doorpost: imagination? If not — if real — a decoy?

  Shard sweated.

  Time plodded by, slow, heavy. The children were restive now, whimpering almost continually, a sound that scraped at nerve-endings and almost tore a shout from adult throats, however much they understood and sympathised. Shard worried about the gunman, whose nerves must be as raw as their own, and who held the means whereby to ease his suffering

  Then another movement, very faint, not possible to say just what it was. And then another sound: distantly, a motor. Soon singing — drunken bawling: the hands! Shard caressed his gun, softly. A moment later came the faintest possible creak of a floorboard, a suspicion, no more than that, that the door was coming a little farther open. Shard began to move, slowly, dead quiet, uncoiling his body to a crouch instead of a sit, moving up towards the door, all ready to pounce and grab and to shoot if necessary, though not to kill unless it was to save innocent life, for he had a strong need of the gunman’s tongue.

  But there was no time.

  The world cracked open, horribly.

  *

  It was a very old, very decrepit station wagon, used mainly for carrying small store items and also for the hands when they went for a spree in Narromine or Nymagee or even Dubbo — it could make it that far, just about, without needing oil and water. Tonight it carried a very far-gone load, only the driver having remained sober — just enough to drive, anyway.

  It’s engine could be heard some way off as it entered the Gilder property; the ribald singing went ahead even of the engine. Fairly conventional singing: drunks scorned pop, went for the round-the-piano stuff, good Australian style. A bawdy noise: but it didn’t wake the dead, however loud. When the station wagon stopped in the stockyard, stopped because, with a sound of cracking timber, it had glanced off a gatepost, the hands tumbled out, singing still and yelling to one another — yelling, too, for old Tommy the abo.

  No lights on in the house, no Tommy. The soberest man crossed the empty veranda, kicking into a table and chairs, calling unceremoniously into the house.

  “Mr. Gilder, you there, are you? Mrs. Gilder? Hey, Tommy. Reckon we’re back, as if you didn’t bloody hear.”

  His hand scuffed along the wall, seeking the light switch in the sitting-room. Light went up. Death lay revealed.

  “Je — sus!” The man stared, put his hands over his face. “Oh, God, no!” His mouth gaping, legs wobbling, he turned away, went back to the veranda.

  “Hey! Come here, all you bastards. Stop the bloody singing fer Christ’s sake. There’s been…bloody slaughter!”

  The singing fell away and stopped. There was silence, then a rush forward. Sweating men peered through beer fumes, aghast, nearly paralytic with drink but shocked back to life, to face the horrible reality of death.

  Tommy. Gilder. Mrs. Gilder…the kids!

  And a stranger, a long-faced bastard, thin, dressed like a pommie.

  “Bloody muckin’ bloody bastard hell.”

  “Get a bloody doc.”

  They crowded, still staring. Someone shouted again: “Get the bloody doc,” and a man detached, stumbled across the veranda and went through the stockyard’s dust towards the station wagon. The others stayed and looked more closely at slaughter: the Gilders, all of them, were obviously dead. The room seemed soaked in blood, it had even spurted up the curtains and slashed across the walls. Bullet marks were everywhere: furniture, walls.

  “This bastard’s breathing.”

  “Gotta gun, too.” Shard’s fingers still held the butt of his automatic. A foot lifted, a heavily booted foot, and removed the gun with a kick. It spun away across the floor, fetched up in a corner. In another corner, a man was suddenly sick. There was much retching, then a stinking beery gush.

  “Oh, fer God’s sake — ”

  “Don’t worry about Stan, what about this bastard?”

  “Eh?”

  “Look, ’e’ad a gun — right? He did it, don’t you bloody see?” The speaker was trembling. “Reckon’e must a done.”

  “How did’e get clobbered, then?”

  “The boss, I reckon.”

  One of the hands searched the area around their dead boss. “Didn’t’ave’is gun here,” he said.

  “Don’t’ave to mean much, mate.” The man who had spoken, large and dark and hairy, Gilder’s foreman, was well stewed. “This bastard, ’e may’ave’eard us coming, see?
And tried to blow’is bloody brains out…”

  “Reckon that’s it, do you?”

  “Just bloody said so.” The foreman wiped the back of a hand across his lips. “Look. Water. Go and bloody get some. Slosh it over the bastard. What we’re going to do to’im…’e’s gotta be awake for.”

  The man went off. The others stayed, eyes flickering around the room. The foreman wasn’t allowing anything to be touched now: though drunk enough still, he knew that was the province of the police. The doctor, when he heard what had happened, would contact the police in Narromine and maybe they would come out with him. In the interval, which would be quite long enough, the boss and the wife and kids were going to be revenged, too bloody right they were. The foreman’s eyes, small piglike eyes, gleamed with blood-lust: Narromine, that night, had been in a sense tame: there had been beer and women but no fight. All the fighting, it seemed, had been right here at base.

  Water came, cold and fresh, two brimming buckets to be flung at Shard, but only after he’d been dragged from the room, across the veranda, and chucked on the dusty ground outside. Coming round — he’d been knocked out, no more, by a glancing bullet — he felt the painful movement but, held by four pairs of hands, hadn’t been able to resist. He felt the sudden shock as his body was flung down, then the water came. The water was a shock too, a shock that cleared the mists and brought blinding headache in the clearing. If this was what Beth was suffering…but there was no time to think about Beth now. A blow took him on the side of the head, a boot: out he went again. The foreman went mad at the boot boy: “Stupid bastard. I said, I wanted him to feel. Get more water.”

  “Better be careful, Jacko.”

  “Careful, why? Seen what he done — ”

  “Sure.” The voice was slurred. “But the law — ”

  “Sod the law, mate. Gilder, ’e was a good boss as bosses go. And them kids!”

  “Yes jacko.”

  “So!” The extra water came and was dropped on Shard. This time, no rush: he was watched by the ring of men, in the light streaming from the silent, empty house — watched as he opened his eyes, watched as he stared around sickly, watched as he propped himself on an elbow, watched as he sank back again and, like the station hand earlier, was sick.