Call for Simon Shard

by Philip McCutchan

  “Dirty bastard.”

  Vomit over, Shard looked up. “Who’re you?”

  A hard laugh: “Who’re bloody you more bloody like!”

  “Name’s Shard…I suppose you’re Mr. Gilder’s men, back from Narromine — ”

  “Too right. Come on, all you bastards.”

  They closed in, shut the ring on Shard, tight and ugly and drunkenly cruel. Shard hadn’t a cat in hell’s chance. He was picked up, thrown down, picked up again by foreman Jacko, and flung bodily at a blue-gum tree standing tall and strong behind the house. Like a new-born kitten, unwanted, being despatched country style, gut-splitting, quick, merciful — better than the slow drown. It didn’t split Shard, but it hurt him, and he dropped in a heap at the tree’s foot, eyes wide at stars real and imaginary. He was sick again and his head was splitting and he thought again of Beth, thought of her with mental tears as a widow. Up his limp body was dragged again, and again thrown to the wolves: the drunken station hands were by now almost wolfish in their abandoned sadism. Shard was kicked, punched, back-elbowed in the face: he became a bloodied mess, to be protected only by unconsciousness…

  Sadism became muted as self-concern set itself into the soberer minds.

  “Christ, look, ’e’s’ad enough, Jacko!”

  “Ah, stuff — ”

  “Don’t want to be done for murder ourselves, do we, eh? Look, Jacko, see bloody sense, will yer? ’E’s going to bloody die if you don’t watch it, ’e’s real crook.”

  Jacko’s foot swung back once again, then slowed. The pig eyes held suddenly dawning caution as reason made a chink in his drunken viciousness. The foot went down on the ground, peacefully. “Well, okay, then. Leave’im where’e is till the doc gets’ere.”

  *

  “He’ll live,” the doctor from Narromine said. “Must have a tough constitution, though.” He looked up, almost incredulous: he was young, and from Sydney. “Haven’t you stupid bastards any sense?”

  Boots scuffed: the looks were like their own stock, sheepish. Sobriety had struck now. “Seemed the best way…seeing what’e’d done, Doc.”

  “You can’t take the law in your own hands,” the doctor said wearily, only just beginning to accustom himself to the bush ways of life and death. “Look, give me a hand to get him inside and I’ll tidy him up and give him a sedative. He’s going to need hospitalisation for a day or two. Come on, get round him.”

  Shard was taken inside and laid on a sofa. The police were there, noting, with men taking flash photos. Cursorily, a sergeant in plain clothes looked at Shard.

  “The gun,” he said to Jacko. “This one. His?”

  “Yeah. That is, ’e was holding it.”

  “Not a lot of help.”

  Jacko stared. “Ah, don’t be bloody daft, he bloody used it, didn’t he?”

  The sergeant said coldly, “Not on the Gilders’e didn’t. Those bullet marks. Whoever did this…’e didn’t use any 7.65, ’e used a submachine-gun, an army job.” He looked again at Shard. “Who is’e — ever seen him before?”

  “Never.”

  The detective moved across, felt Shard’s jacket, dived a hand inside and brought out Shard’s wallet. This he opened; he extracted an oblong card. He read out, “Detective Chief Superintendent Simon Templeton Shard, Metropolitan Police.” He scanned the horrified faces of the silent station hands. “Reckon you made a bloody great mistake,” he said.

  *

  Shard was given a private room in hospital in Dubbo. He slept all next day, under sedation. Coming round in the late evening, he felt muzzy but a lot better. He could just about see through the bandages, could just about move arms and legs. He saw a girl, a nurse, and managed a smile. “Am I alive?” he asked.

  She smiled back, moved closer to his bed. “You’re all right, Mr. Shard. Just lie still and go back to sleep.”

  “Can’t. I’ve got things to do — ”

  “Not yet you haven’t.”

  “Oh. Just where am I?”

  She told him. “Mr. Kennerlee wants to talk to you when you’re fit.”

  “Who’s he?”

  “A police officer. I’ll fetch the doctor now. Just keep still, Mr. Shard.”

  The doctor, when he came, seemed satisfied with progress made. The police, he told the nurse, could talk to Mr. Shard in the morning, not before. The doctor went away, and Shard, who was in fact very drowsy, slept. It was a natural sleep now, no longer a doped one, but he had weird dreams and fantasies, about Bodmin Moor, and bodies, with Beth all mixed into it somehow, making no sense at all; and there was a lot of blood around, and little children, and a smiling Yvette Gilder nee Casabon, and all around it, frustratingly, claustrophobically, was a thick thorny ring symbolic of Hedge. Shard had an idea he yelled something out in that sleep, for at one point he came half awake to hear what seemed to be the excited tones of his own voice, and he was semi-aware of a nurse, a different one and not young, bending over him and doing something soothing to his face where the bandages were not. Then he slept again, and dreamed about drugs: and saw the thing he would never forget — the dead face of his young brother, whom he’d had to identify formally after suicide. A drug-ravaged face, skeletonic, lined like a geriatric case of starvation, hardly recognisable as Paul Shard. Yes, he had things to do, all right!

  In the morning, Kennerlee from the police in Dubbo. A youngish man, fresh round face with a ginger moustache and heavy sideboards. A decent face, and keen. Kennerlee asked if Shard wanted to lay charges of assault, seemed relieved when Shard said no, it had been a fairly natural reaction from beer-filled men in the circumstances. After this Kennerlee came straight to one basic point: “What are you doing in New South, Mr. Shard?”

  “I’m sorry.” Shard made an effort, half sat up in bed. “I don’t want to seem uncooperative, but I’d prefer not to have to answer that question just yet.”

  “When will you answer it, Mr. Shard?”

  “When I’ve been to our High Commission in Canberra, and reported to my chief.” He added, “In London.”

  “Who’s your chief?”

  Shard paused for an instant, then said with his tongue in his cheek, “The Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, of course.”

  “Of course.” Kennerlee grinned. “You have his personal ear, Mr. Shard?”

  Shard grinned back, almost splitting his bruised face. “I spoke figuratively.”

  “I see. Well, we’ll leave it for now. I’d like you to tell me about the night before last, if you will.”

  “Of course I will, it’s my duty. But I’m going to leave out the reason for my visit to Gilder, if you don’t mind, and keep to the facts of what took place. All right, Mr. Kennerlee?”

  “For now, that’ll be okay. So?”

  Shard spoke about the night. It was a simple statement he had to make, for the known facts were few. He hadn’t even caught a glimpse of the gunman — and Kennerlee confirmed that no traces had been left behind, no evidence beyond the bullet holes in various places — and Shard could only guess at what had made the man fire in such a way as to kill all present: that distant sound of a car, of the return of the roistering hands from Narromine.

  “Killing all evidence?” Kennerlee asked.

  “As he thought. I suppose he didn’t wait to check. The number one consideration was a getaway.”

  “Which he did successfully, and obviously in a car parked somewhere out of sight from the house and the private roadway.”

  “Did you find any tracks?”

  Kennerlee paused, then said, “Why, yes, we did, Mr. Shard. Near a water hole, where there was a bit of mud around. Marks didn’t fit any of the Gilder vehicles, tyrewise.”

  “What could they fit?”

  “Don’t know. Your guess, it’d be as good as mine. I’d guess a Jag, maybe. Or a Merc.”

  “Class!”

  “Yes.”

  “But not such class that it’ll stand out, necessarily.”

  “No. We do have our wealthy blokes,
out here.” Kennerlee tapped a biro on his note-book. “Anything else you can tell us, Mr. Shard, we’ll be glad to hear it. Your professional eye, know what I mean — ”

  “I know. You’ve got it all in what I said.” Feeling dizzy, Shard sank back flat. “Just a query of my own now. The killer, I fancy, was after me — ”

  “We got that far. That’s why I shall want to know the reason for your visit — as soon as you can tell me.”

  “Yes, quite. Have patience! But the killer, now: he was after me, but he also wanted to silence the Gilders because of what they might tell me. What he knew they might tell me. With me?”

  “Sure — ”

  “I’ve just an idea who the gunman might be. If I’m right, the field’s narrowed. A man who was on the flight from London with me. Sharp-faced, well-dressed, looked a professional man — doctor, lawyer — you know? Medium height, stoutish build. Some five-o’clock shadow.”

  “Uh-huh. You’ve got a job on, Mr. Shard, to isolate him out of ten million Australians…not all of whom are station hands, sheep-shearers and — ”

  “Point taken. But I’ve said the field’s narrowed. With your help, Mr. Kennerlee…who knows?”

  “What help d’you want, then?”

  “For a start,” Shard said, “my warrant doesn’t extend to your patch. Can you get me a nominal list of the passengers on my British Airways flight from London?”

  “Reckon I could, yes.”

  “Sooner the better, then.”

  Kennerlee went off. A nurse came and asked Shard if he was okay. He said he was and could he get up? He couldn’t; one more day and then maybe the doctor would give the word. Lying in bed Shard cursed all Australian station hands, all Australian beer, and all the bars in Narromine. And thought about the sharpfaced man: it didn’t have to be him, but he was the most likely chance. Him or his nominee, his private tough. But, if this was the case, when you got the sharp-faced man it wouldn’t be long before you got the tough as well. This, Shard much wanted to do. The Gilders, all of them, had been good people. A small and happy family. Shard felt he personally had plenty to answer for, and not in regard to the Gilders alone: a whole outfit of station hands might need to look for new jobs now.

  *

  “Glad to see you’re fit, Mr. Shard,” Kennerlee said next afternoon when Shard walked into his office. “When did they let you go?”

  “Just now. You’re my first port of call.” Shard, at Kennerlee’s bidding, sat. “That list of passengers. Got it?”

  “Here.” The Australian chucked across three sheets of A4, clipped together. “Names and addresses.”

  “Pre-embarkation or destination?” Shard caught the sheets.

  “Both — but the destinations aren’t all that helpful. I got occupations and professions too. Have a look.”

  Shard did. The Hotel Australia in Sydney, and other temporary addresses, figured large. “Thanks all the same, it’s a big help. I’ll be getting cracking.” Kennerlee pointed a finger and warned, “Don’t overstep limits, Mr. Shard. “You’re a bigger noise than I am, and I’m not teaching my grandmother, but — ”

  “But it’s still not my patch,” Shard broke in, grinning. “All right, I’ll have it well in mind. Now, any objection if I hit Sydney?”

  “Do you want to?”

  “Why not? My man won’t be lingering around here.”

  “Might be, Mr. Shard. Those hands, they’ll have talked even though I told’em not to. That joker, he’ll know he didn’t finish you off.”

  “And he’ll try again?”

  “Put yourself in his place, Mr. Shard.” Shard said, “Oh, I have. And me, I wouldn’t stay around to listen to gossip. I’d try again later — somewhere else. In more propitious circumstances. Which is what he’ll do.”

  Kennerlee looked at him closely. “So you go on acting as the magnet, eh?”

  “That’s my forte.” Shard said, grinning. “Attracting moving objects!”

  “Well, I wish you luck.” Kennerlee pushed papers about on his desk. “Mr. Shard, here I go again, but this is my case. I want to finish it. Get me?”

  Shard nodded. “I’ll respect your wish so far as I can. But I have to tell you this: there could be over-riding considerations and I intend to feel free to act as those considerations may — just may — dictate.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I can’t be more precise. When I’ve contacted the High Commission — I’ll be calling in at Canberra en route for Sydney, and yes, my geography tells me that’s some deviation — well, after that, things’ll clarify. And I promise I’ll not forget your interest in the case. How’s that, Mr. Kennerlee?”

  “Lousy. But I won’t try to fog you up. Got bitten once before, when I was a sergeant in Sydney, and some other bas — some other bloke from the Yard was on a case.” Kennerlee sounded rueful but not bitter; and now he gave a big grin. “So go on your way, Mr. Shard. There’ll be an internal flight from the airport here for Canberra, then on from there to Sydney, no trouble. I’ll give you a car out.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate that.” Shard hesitated. “Look, Mr. Kennerlee — ”

  “Call me Don. Reckon we know each other by now.”

  “Right, Don it is. I’m Simon. Pommie but with-it, the name I mean. My parents were in advance of their time, you see — ”

  “No need to apologise!”

  “Australia,” Shard said, “has that effect. However: I’m going to tell you a little, and ask something more. There’s a basis of drug trafficking in this thing or I’m a Dutchman. Heroin — ”

  “Nasty!”

  “Very. I may be able to get at the truth via drugs. And you said you’ve been a copper in Sydney, and Sydney’s a closed book to me — or almost,” Shard added, remembering his verbose seat companion on the flight. “I’d like some tips.”

  “You’re not going to contact the police in Sydney?”

  Shard winked. “Do you want me to, Don?”

  Face straight: “Not all that much, no.”

  “Then…?”

  Kennerlee shook his head dubiously. “Drugs are all over — you know that. All sections, all age groups. But since I’m asked…well, I reckon I’d say the Cross.”

  “King’s Cross?”

  “That’s right. Sort of Soho. All sorts there, including the drop-outs. Worth combing.”

  “Thanks again.” Shard got to his feet. “How you going about it, Simon?”

  Shard said, “Oh, I think a touch of disguise, and a temporary disappearance from the best circles!”

  *

  Immediately on arrival in Canberra, Shard went to the offices of the British High Commission. Here, after a minimal delay, his card took him through the official formalities to an interview with a First Secretary. Shard reported the occurrences at the Gilder property, briefly indicated his own position, and asked for the facility of a security line to Whitehall. This caused some frowning demur and a word with the High Commissioner himself; but was finally given the top level approval.

  Surprisingly quickly, Shard was speaking to Hedge at the Foreign Office. In London it was around 10 a.m. when the call was connected and Hedge had just got in. Hedge sounded in a tizzy.

  “Shard, good God, is this wise?”

  “It has to be, Hedge. I’ll make it brief.

  First, there’s been a killing.” Shard passed the stark outline. “Do I have authority to act? I know I haven't, but — ”

  “You mean can I fix it with the authorities out there.” The line suddenly seemed to deteriorate. Through buzzes and crackles Hedge’s voice demanded: “Why, Shard? Tell me why!”

  “I may need to act.” God, the line was vile.

  “I need facts, Shard, facts.”

  Snap, crackle, pop. “I’m going to try to apprehend the killer, who is obviously germane to you-know-what — ”

  “What was that?”

  Shard repeated. He said, “I’m sorry, it’s a bad line.” But Hedge seemed to have got it now; Shard went on
, “I may need to use very positive measures. If I do, I want protection, Hedge.” Buzzing supervened again. “Protection. Can you fix?”

  A human splutter: “Oh, damn you, Shard. Very well — I’ll try.”

  “Please succeed. Now — point two: I need a full rundown on a woman, a Russian, by name Tanya Gorukin…oh, Christ. T-A-N-Y-A G-O-R-U-K-I-N, got that, Hedge?”

  Very distantly Hedge’s voice came: “Yes — ”

  “Cable it to me in Cipher care of the High Commission. Yes, that’s right. Soonest possible, please, Hedge — ”

  “This woman, is she known to Security?” Shard said, “Really, I’ve no idea, but there’s a chance. If not, then it’s going to be a hell of a long job. And she’s the body on the moor. So please, Hedge — quickly.” When he had cut the call, Shard reflected that poor Hedge had sounded like blowing a gasket. With more than the one dead body now resulting from a single suggested affair, maybe he had good reason for worry: the Australian press was no doubt just as sensation-minded as the British. In the meantime Shard, as he left the High Commission’s offices, having fixed a daily contact to pass Hedge-initiated messages to him in the Domain in Sydney, had more pressing reflexions to ponder on. And pondering them, coming to conclusions, he went not direct for Sydney but first to a second-hand clothing shop, an establishment recommended by the First Secretary as being suitable for the purchase not so much of clothes as of gear. After this visit, complete with purchases of T-shirt, sandals and washed-out jeans, Shard took himself into a cubicle in a public lavatory, stripped, and bundled his own clothing behind the pan (whence it would be retrieved by a man from the High Commission currently hanging around the urinals with a zipped canvas bag and praying he wouldn’t get picked up as a hopeful pouf). He emerged some ten minutes later as a passably unkempt drop-out whose hair, on the long side already, would shortly grow to an acceptable length.

  Then the flight to Sydney.

  CHAPTER VI

  Sydney was largely a clean new city of skyscraper blocks: gone was old Sydney Town, as the shellbacks, the old square-rigged mariners, used to know it. Yet high-rise buildings, antiseptically set along the wondrous shores of Port Jackson, still hid sores and vermin: like any other great metropolis, Sydney had its underground net. Pimps and prostitutes, muggers and meths drinkers, robbers and raiders, protection men and pushers.