“You wanted to view the body. It’s available now.”
“What body?”
A quiet laugh. “Oh, come! You’re not that forgetful.”
“I have many matters to attend to, not just one. I assume you mean — the Cornwall business.”
“You assume right.” A pause. “By the way, the inquest’s fixed for tomorrow morning, 10.30. Convenient — I hope?” Hedge’s voice was cold, but there was a tremor. Damn Hesseltine. “You expect me to be there?”
“As an involved party — ”
“I am not involved!”
“I’m sorry, your telephone number is.” Hesseltine’s voice was bland. “I don’t suppose for a moment that’s anything for you to worry about, but…”
“But you want to have your pound of flesh. You’re not getting it, Hesseltine — not getting it, d’you hear me?”
“Perhaps you’d kindly explain — ”
“Yes, I’ll do that. I’m quoting the book at you, Hesseltine. I think you know the regulation I’m invoking. This has now gone beyond you, as a result of certain information received from a very reliable source. I — ”
“This is a Security involvement?”
“It is. The inquest will be held in camera — ”
“How very convenient — ”
“And I shall view the body in my own good time. In the interval, I’m giving instructions that it’s to be moved to London. I shall of course expect the fullest co-operation from all police authorities likely to be involved.” Hedge banged the phone down and realised he was trembling and sweating. Hesseltine’s tone had been…unpleasant, but Hedge had come out on top. It had been a close thing: Shard had come across with the woman’s identity only just in time. If he had not, then he, Hedge, would on the morrow have been pilloried in Bodmin, his reputation hacked to fragments by insinuations and guesswork. Hedge, sitting silent at his desk, scowled to himself. Result satisfactory to date, but he had a sad feeling he’d slightly mishandled Hesseltine’s phone call. His display of lofty ignorance at the start could have been ham-handed — had been ham-handed, in retrospect. And would no doubt have given Hesseltine the pleasant knowledge that he’d been rattled. Which, in the case of men in Hedge’s position, could be said to betray a degree of professional incompetence. This thought had barely occurred to Hedge when there was a subdued burr from one of his internal telephones: he took up the instrument, knowing who was calling.
“Sir?” Hedge was obsequious now. “Cornwall — the aspect we discussed — ”
“Yes, sir — ”
“Come and see me at once.”
The line went dead. Hedge bounced to his feet, looking pinker. Leaving his office, he walked along the corridor, not far, to an anonymous door. Inside was a greater comfort than in his own room: carpet and desk, both a shade bigger, and one more window. Behind the desk, head as smooth and shiny as a billiard ball, Hedge’s chief. Hard mouth, slightly bloodhound look about the dewlaps, half closed eyes. Hedge often thought the Chief supercilious, but made it easier for him by fawning.
He fawned now, rubbing his hands like a shopwalker of old. “Cornwall, sir?”
“Been a leak. Already. Find it — but not now.”
Hedge shrank. “A leak…?”
“Just had the Soviet Embassy on the phone. Their Security man. Mentioned the name, Gorukin. Clever little bastard, didn’t say much, but I got the message.” The Chief leaned forward: London light from the window drew queer patterns on his head. “They want the body.”
Hedge showed a degree of shock. “What the devil for, sir?”
“Don’t know! Does one ever — with the Russians? One makes guesses that are sometimes right.” He tapped the desk.
“And this time, the guess is?”
“I said I didn’t know. We’ll get to know more, never fear. What matters for now is — they want it. We don’t, not particularly…do we?”
“I’d doubt it.” There was jubilation now, but of course it didn’t show. If the woman went to Russia, scandal would go with her. Wonder of wonders! So often, one’s worst anxieties were unnecessary. “So do we let it go?”
“We do. But only in exchange for something else. Two something elses: Barclay and Elgood.”
Barclay and Elgood, British businessmen, arrested in Moscow not long before — on charges, known in London to be genuine, of drug smuggling. Hedge pursed his lips and said remindingly, “Gorukin’s body had drugs on it. They won’t part — in those circumstances. Will they?”
The Chief smiled. “If they don’t,” he said, “they don’t get Gorukin. But if they want Gorukin badly enough, and there’ll be pressure from the father for all we know…and if we get Barclay and Elgood, then we’re going to do the Home Office people a big service — aren’t we? Clean out a whole lot of unpleasantness. I know someone else who’ll be pleased: Assistant Commissioner Hesseltine.”
“Yes, very true. But — is it our job?”
“It’s always our job to help where we can, isn’t it? As it happens, there’s nobody else we want out at the moment. Might be different, if we did. By the way…Shard. He’s in Australia, of course.”
“Yes, sir.”
Slowly, the Chief shook his head. “I’ve news of his wife. A nasty business…one that’s bothering me a good deal”
Hedge waited.
“A brain tumour. They want an operation — the surgeons do. I gather it’s urgent, but there’s been a difficulty about the, er, consent form and allied matters; The next-of-kin, you know — such a dangerous operation…I’m not sure he shouldn’t be recalled — ”
“No, sir!” Hedge was on the edge of his seat now. “I’d not advise that. He may be getting somewhere — ? he’s a good man. If he saw no point in staying, he’d have indicated.”
“You think so?”
“I’m sure so. I really think we must leave him alone. In fact — not even tell him at this stage.”
The Chief pursed his lips. “Well, of course, I take your point, I suppose. Upsetting — disturb his concentration? Yes. Oh, very well, then. I’ll talk to the medicos. There’s always the mother-in-law — Shard’s wife’s mother. Not officially next-of-kin, of course — ”
“But who could be closer?”
“Quite.”
Hedge breathed easy again.
*
There was the question of the other people involved: the old soldiers who had found the body, to name but one group. There was the Press. Accordingly high authority, authority higher than Hedge’s chief — authority who had naturally to approve the whole exchange plan — now made its macabre arrangements. Tanya Gorukin’s body would, as already fixed by Hedge, be brought under close escort but as secretly as possible to London for deep-freeze preservation pending negotiations with Moscow. But, with all those interested parties in mind, a formal inquest would be held on, in fact, no body. A verdict would be returned of Death by Misadventure, and a day or so later an interment would take place quietly under the auspices of the local authority, there being no relatives: an interment of a ballasted plain coffin. The person known and found as Yvette Casabon from Cherbourg would fade out, be forgotten. The excitement of the local nine-day wonder would also fade and be forgotten in the fresh day-to-day excitements of protest at motorways and reservoirs, village-wrecking juggernauts, and what-have-you. Peace would be, comparatively, in the Duchy.
All these wheels turned with a speed not normally associated with Whitehall: and the dark hours, the traffic-free hours, were the most convenient for the second stage of removal. (The first stage came during the late afternoon, when the body was, on a very official ticket from London, taken out of police custody by men from Hedge’s department wearing long mournful coats and black ties, and driven in a plain black van to a municipal mortuary in Bodmin, where it was placed in a coffin; after which the mortuary was cleared of attendants and officials and locked.) At 2300 hours the corpse of Tanya Gorukin was removed from the coffin, which was then ballasted. The body, pale, wa
xen, still beautiful, packed in ice, was crated as merchandise: Tanya Gorukin went on her grisly journey as an inanimate object, an object of value, an objet d’art: and in all three descriptions lay much truth. The crate was carried by Hedge’s bearers, now more workaday in appearance, to a plain blue van where more Security men sat on guard with guns. The police escort that joined the van as it reached the A30 for the long haul to London, and who would hand over to a special squad in the capital, were under the impression the crate was bound for the British Museum.
*
“Interested? the hippie asked, lifting an eyebrow.
“Course.”
“You smoke pot?”
“Sure.” Shard had tried all the soft drugs: part of the job, was that. You had to know, had to appreciate the reasons and the reactions, the things some of the drugs made you do. Enough to know, not to form a habit.
The hippie, the ex-student from Kabul, blew a cloud of smoke, thoughtfully.
Pot, the odour told Shard. “Not smoking now, are you?”
“Does it bloody look like it?”
The hippie smiled, slowly. “Don’t do your nut, mate. I’m sorry.” The hippie had been in the same cafe in the Cross once again: they had met almost as friends this time, two poms whose paths looked like running parallel for a while. “No money, is that it?”
“Just about.”
“Pity. A man has a right to happiness, money or not. Once, back home, they used to give the old men free tobacco, or was it cheap tobacco? I wouldn’t know. That was happiness to them. Why not pot? For the younger ones as well.”
Shard nodded, reflected on his own addiction: cigarettes, ordinary ones: a habit difficult to discard, like any other, like heroin, like marijuana. Like drink. Who, when all was said and done, were the drug takers, where did an honestly objective man draw the line? Shard drew it on the hard boundary. In the meantime, since chance had once again thrown him into the hippie’s unfragrant company, he ought to make the most of it.
He said, “Never mind the philosophising. Without money, how do I get hold of some?”
The hippie grinned. Across the dirty table-top, he leaned forward, hair swaying over a coffee cup. He put a hand on Shard’s shoulder. He said, “There’s always work, man.”
“You have to be joking.”
“Oh, I am, don’t worry. Me, I’m not one of the world’s workers. I’m not a success, not in the world’s terms…if the world’s terms matter. To me, they don’t. I’m happy. What keeps me happy?” He spread his arms wide. “Pot! You poor bastard.”
“Don’t keep on about it. Know where I can get it, do you?”
“For no money? No, I don’t.”
“As a favour?”
The hippie shook his head. “I think you’re a mean bastard, man, not a poor one. Look. I hang around the Cross…I like it, it suits me, it’s my spiritual home. I like the people.” He glanced around: they were his sort all right, no fooling, the cafe’s clientele. “I see things.”
“Such as?”
“You…coming out of Ma Poupopoulos’s flea pit, looking like you live there.” Shard nodded. He said casually, “That’s right enough. So?”
“Money, man, money!” The hippie rubbed thumb and forefinger together. “You don’t doss without money.”
“No. But who says I’ve paid the old cow a bloody cent, eh?”
“You haven’t?”
“I haven’t. What’s more, I can’t.”
“She know that?”
“No. And I don’t want her told.”
“No deposit, nothing in advance?”
Could be checked on. Assuming a sullen, dragged-out-of-him kind of look, Shard admitted it. “Oh, I paid half a week and that cleaned me out.”
“Liar, aren’t you, mate?”
“How come, liar?”
“Said you hadn’t paid a cent.”
“All right, so that wasn’t true, now forget it, will you? I don’t have any money now, that’s what counts.”
“That’s right. Too bloody right! Tell you what: you and me, we could be mates. I’ll give you something.”
“Give me what, a smoke?”
“No. Piece of Christmas cake.”
Shard knew about Christmas cake. Back in Britain, youngsters had for quite a while baked cannabis into rather special Christmas cakes, not for normal circulation. Mistakes happened: all part and parcel of the current Yuletide scene, no distinguishing marks, mix-ups took place. An aunt of Shard’s had eaten some once. It had made her sick. So now it had reached Australia. Shard said, “Sooner have a smoke.”
“You haven’t got one and I’ve none to spare. The cake, it fills the gap. So have some and shut up. It’s free.”
Shard shrank inside: but knew he was committed. The pot addict didn’t refuse pot, not when he’d said he wanted some. Reaching a dirty-nailed hand into a dirtier pocket, the hippie brought out a fragment of food wrapped in a piece of tissue. “With compliments,” he said. “Not quite Christmas, but we don’t bloody mind that, do we?”
Cold sweat broke out on Shard’s face. He took the offering, forced it into his mouth, and munched. The hippie watched, with simple pleasure in his own generosity. Shard washed the cake down with dregs of coffee and began to feel strange. A dizziness, a swaying, something odd happening to his eyes. Minutes passed: his stomach rose a little. He did his best to appear normal — pot normal, and happy. It was no good: a hideous feeling came to him, one no determination, however iron, could control. He gasped. He managed to say, “Got to find the toilet…”
He staggered to his feet and followed the arrow-sign to the gents. He made it, and brought up. Sick, sick, sick. The sounds were loud, more than enough to be heard in the cafe. It took some time, and when he came out the hippie had gone. Shard went too, watched by silent staring eyes of other hippies, hairy men, solemn and bug-eyed with their inhalations — vacuous as they stared at Shard, a fellow hippie’s leavings.
The hippie was in a phone booth. “Just a feeling,” he said. “Come over me the first time we met. Kind of confirmed today.” He spoke of Christmas cake to the alert man at the other end. “Spewed his guts up like a bloody fountain, loud and clear. Not used to it — but said he was. You know what? I reckon he could be a pig…just snuffling around the Cross.”
“Pom did yer say?”
“Very. Hasn’t been around before…not till the last couple of days.” The hippie paused. “Just thought you might want to know. May be nothing in it, the Cross isn’t short of bloody fuzz on the snoop, never was, but…”
“But you thought it worth a call?”
“Just a feeling.”
“Describe this feeling, can you?”
“Difficult.”
“A good try…”
The hippie scowled out at the street and said, “Something out of the ordinary, that’s all. No plain fuzz. One thing — they don’t have poms fart-arsing round the Cross, fuzz poms. Now do they?”
“That’s a fact. Thanks, mate. Make yourself vanish. We’ll move in for a look-see.”
The line clicked off. At its other end, the recipient thought for a moment then dialled another number. He left a message; it was passed on. The words, the suspicions of the hippie down the Cross, escalated. They escalated to a late-open office in Pitt Street; across the night-lit harbour to a bungalow out Balmoral way; down again to a room in Mosman; back across Port Jackson to a Balmain knock-shop where a baby lay neglected as mother engaged herself with a client and father took the call, enshrouded, as it had been ever since the hippie had originated it, in fuzz-fooling euphemisms that told a story only to the initiated. From Balmain the message was conveyed in person, in a private power boat across the harbour once more, swifter than the ferry. The messenger fetched up in an expensive penthouse flat overlooking Manly Beach, silver beneath the Pacific stars.
Here the message stuck for action.
The man with whom it stuck was the sharp-faced, well-dressed man named Tuball. The caller from Balmain, ha
ving passed the message, added an opinion: “Could be him, I reckon, Mr. Tuball.”
“Could be…turning up more or less as and where expected. Too pat? We’ll see! Get Petersen. Get him as fast as possible, outside Circular Quay. Tell him, he’ll need Bunt.”
CHAPTER VIII
Petersen brought his paunch out of an elderly Mercedes and crossed the road towards a Jaguar. Petersen was big, built like a bison, almost no neck. The lack of a hat showed thick black hair, the short sleeves of the red patterned shirt showed a wealth of forearm hair and muscle. Thick, over-ripe lips folded softly around a cigar.
Petersen bent to the Jag’s driving window.
“Yeah?” he asked.
“Orders, Petersen. The man from London — Shard. He’s been seen in the Cross — or what sounds as if it might be him. Here’s the address.” Reading from a slip of paper, Tuball passed Mrs. Poupopoulos’s address: then charred the paper fragment in his lighter flame. “Calls himself Big Tee. Investigate.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
“How d’yer mean, investigate?”
“I mean bring him in. Alive, Petersen. I have to find things out — you know that. All right, Petersen?”
The cigar shifted. “If it’s not him, then what?”
“Bring him in anyway. From what I hear, he’s better in than out, or could be, whoever he is. No chances, Petersen, you know the form.” Tuball paused, looking closely into Petersen’s face: light, street light, reflected from his eyes, making him look really dangerous, really nasty. “One more thing for your constant remembrance, Petersen: this time, no mistakes. If there are…well, I needn’t go into that, I’m sure. Follow?”
Petersen flinched, nodded.
“Right. You’re on your own for now. Get to it.”
Petersen straightened his thick body, left the Jag and crossed the street back to his own car. The Jag moved away at once and vanished into the city lights. Petersen sat for a while, thinking things out, but not for long. His Job was the brawn end, the muscle, and that was straightforward — or should be. Petersen scowled, thinking of the Gilder job. He glanced at his watch: 10.30 p.m., just after. Give this Shard, this pommie dick, a little more time to get to bed, just to be sure. Petersen started up and drove around a little, aimlessly, along the lit-up Sydney streets. Better than the bloody bush, was this: in the bush, no birds sang! Petersen, moving as slowly as the traffic permitted, eyed legs and sexily undulating rumps. No time now, though: business before pleasure. Shard shouldn’t take too long. Petersen hummed a tune, tonelessly, out through his teeth, round the cigar. At 11 o’clock he stopped outside a cafe and gave a thumbs up to a lean tall man slouched back against the plate glass, looking weary. This was Bunt. Bunt came forward and got in, flopped down in the passenger seat like close death, and Petersen got moving again and headed down for the Cross, still not hurrying.
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