Call for Simon Shard

by Philip McCutchan

  “Yes — ”

  “That’s all right, then, Mr. Tuball. I’d be glad if you’d not leave London just for a while.”

  *

  Hedge was angry. “I think you’ve been a damn fool, Shard. I think you’ve stuck your neck out. I don’t know that I can protect it.”

  “I don’t know that I’m asking you to, Hedge, thanks all the same. I don’t think it’s all that far out anyway — and I know I’m not far out!”

  “In that case — why no charge?”

  Shard smiled with tolerance. “No evidence — yet. And a great many more things to be discovered, including the link with Tanya Gorukin if it exists, and for my money, it does — somewhere.” He added, “Talking of her, how about the Russians?”

  “They’re being stalled.”

  “Impatiently?”

  “Very. Shard, for God’s sake get a move on! What’re your plans?”

  “One moment, Hedge. I’m going to ask you not to despatch Gorukin’s body to Russia till I’m ready. She’s vital to my — ” Hedge waved frantic arms. “And has, my dear Shard, yet to be found.”

  “Quite. I’m hoping Tuball will assist there. I’ve put a gale of wind up him, that’s for sure — ”

  “Bull at a gate!”

  “It was the only way, considering the rush — the rush that you’re still adding to yourself, Hedge. Get a move on — you said it yourself. Oh, I could be wrong, I admit — ”

  “I’m glad to hear it, Shard — ”

  “But I don’t think I am. I think my tactics were not only inevitable — in the rush — but also sound enough. Soon, very soon, Tuball’s going to react to my gale of wind — ”

  “And lead you to the body?”

  Shard smiled. “Could be, who knows?”

  “You have him adequately covered?” Hedge saw Shard’s expression, and waved a hand irritably. “Yes, yes, I know you know your job — ”

  “Thank you, Hedge, I do. He’s very well covered. He won’t even post a letter without my knowing. The cover includes cars — plain cars but equipped with radio, manned by plain-clothes men whom I’ve hand picked — cars that are changed at intervals of between one and two hours variable, and differently parked, cars that he wouldn’t smell two yards off. Police mobiles are on instant alert, ready when required in any part of London and handy for the main arterial roads out. I say again, Hedge, he can’t move unseen — and I know he’ll run sooner or later. He’s scared — Christ, Hedge, I acted with intent — ”

  “But he’ll — ”

  “Hedge, running is what frightened men always do in the end. They run and hope.

  Hope they can still dodge. If they can’t dodge, they hope to make a last stand. Hope lives on, but panic leads to stupid actions. Believe me, Hedge, I know.”

  “It’s dangerous, Shard — ”

  “And that, too, I know.” Shard’s voice was cold. “I realise the dangers — dangers to police life, to my life. But for you, Hedge — for you, it’s going to be all okay.” He gave a savage grin. “Isn’t that what counts?”

  Hedge bristled. “I’m not sure I like that. Shard, suppose Gorukin’s body is in that West Kensington house. What then? He won’t run then!”

  “This I realise. I’m giving him twenty-four hours, Hedge. After that, I’m asking for a search warrant. But I doubt if the body’s there — call it a sixth sense. I’ve been in the house, remember. Now: to go back to the body’s ultimate disposal: please do as I say, and hold off till I’m ready — once I’ve found it. All right, Hedge?”

  “But Gorukin’s the whole point of this — ”

  “My concern is also with drugs, Hedge. You know that, it’s been agreed. I’m going to crack this thing. I may need Gorukin to do it. I’m sorry, but there it is. The two aspects link — don’t you see?”

  “But damn it all, Shard, there’s me to consider. I want that body out of the country, fast!”

  Shard grinned, but it was an icy grin. “Because of Assistant Commissioner Hesseltine?”

  “Yes!”

  “Just don’t let him needle you.”

  “His insinuations — ”

  “Hedge,” Shard said solemnly, “you must never allow your private affairs to interfere with the vital security of the nation…must you?”

  Hedge wriggled angrily. “Oh, damn you, why do you have to use the word affair?”

  *

  Back in Seddon’s Way Shard worked out some theories on his sergeant, Alan Hill, who had been relieved from watch duty by another man from the department. He said, lying back in his chair with his feet on his desk, “Seems to me it goes this way. Petersen or Bunt, probably Petersen, did the actual killing up at Narromine, but it was on Tuball’s orders, which makes him the real bastard of the piece. Petersen and Bunt were killed, also on Tuball’s orders, as a simple act of revenge for failure — or an act of pour encourager les autres, perhaps. At the same time, of course, the effect was to remove the evidence that could one day have shopped Tuball on the Gilder charge. All that is fairly simple — given that Tuball’s our man.”

  “You really think he is, Mr. Shard?” Shard said forcefully, “I’m certain of it. At first it was an act of faith — ”

  “Mean a hunch?”

  “Why not?” Shard laughed. “It paid off, Alan. That man’s guilty as hell, I read it plain. It’s Tanya Gorukin who’s the enigma still.”

  “Any ideas?”

  “Vaguish ones. She could have crossed Tuball’s path and been done in as a business rival. Or she could have been one of his own pushers. Again, she could be an innocent victim.”

  “How come?”

  Shard said, “Well, she’d been in prison and escaped…she could have learned a lesson and wanted out. She may have been blackmailed back into the trade — or the stuff could have been planted. Give a dog a bad name — you know?”

  “Yes, I suppose many theories could fit, Mr. Shard.” Hill sounded perplexed. “Why knock off the body, though? To remove the evidence — like this Petersen and Bunt?”

  “I doubt that, somehow.” He repeated what he’d originally suggested to Hedge: “It’s just that somebody doesn’t want Barclay and Elgood back where they can spill the beans.”

  “Tuball?”

  “I wouldn’t be surprised,” Shard said, “I wouldn’t be surprised at all!”

  “Surprises me the Russians want it.”

  “Nothing surprises me about the Russians, Alan. It could be just parental love. If so,. then I can go some way towards understanding it.” Suddenly, Shard’s tone was different, held a curious note, for he was thinking of Beth. “They say, don’t they, the body doesn’t matter after death. The person’s gone, the body’s just the shell. But it’s the shell we knew, Alan, the shell we loved, just as much as the spirit, the personality. Yes, I can understand — if that’s what the girl’s parents want. The father’s big enough to press it, so’s the grandfather. I’d like to think they’ll get their wish — in the end. I — ” He broke off: there was a subdued bleeping sound from the inside pocket of his jacket. He reached in and brought out a small transceiver, a long-range beauty of advanced Japanese make. He moved a switch, spoke quietly: “Control, over.”

  A small disembodied tinny voice said: “Action Two. Snake entering Elbow Twenty. Now moving for BP 168 PE. Orders please, over.”

  “Stay and follow. Coming in now. Report as necessary. Over, out.” A pulse began beating in Shard’s forehead: this looked like being the showdown. He flicked the switch off, stuffed the set back in his pocket, swung his legs down and stood up, then brought a plain-covered, slim book from a safe and rifled the pages. Elbow Twenty he knew to be a car, a Rover two-litre. The street reference, even though he was well enough aware of the area, needed checking: direction, the North End Road. He looked at his sergeant. “This is it,” he said. “We’re moving out.”

  CHAPTER XII

  They inched through rush-hour streets, exasperated in the melee of cars and taxis, buses, vans, long c
ontainer vehicles. Light gleamed everywhere, reflecting from rain in pools and glistening from plastic. London was a mess. Reports continued from Shard’s transceiver, now passed to Detective Sergeant Hill, who was interpreting and navigating while Shard drove. From the North End Road, Snake in Elbow Twenty, with Action Two tailing, had moved east along Kensington High Street, up towards Knightsbridge, then across the park into the Bays water Road. At Marble Arch it turned along the Edgware Road.

  “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Shard asked.

  “North Circular?”

  “Right — and after that, M1.”

  “Or A1.”

  “Maybe. Just a theory. We’ll be finding out, soon.”

  Stop, start, stop, traffic lights, pedestrian crossings, pedestrians not on crossings, bloody fool drivers, a dog. The rain for general depressive and obliterative purposes. Shard ached for the open road and a good fast chase, getting somewhere. The next message from Action Two ahead brought alarm and despondency though in current conditions it couldn’t have been considered totally unexpected: “Lost sight of object at junction with A406.”

  “Lovely!” Shard said. “Right, left or straight on? Bloody which?”

  “Not left, Mr. Shard. He wouldn’t have come all this way, just to go left from the Edgware Road. For my money, it’s right and he’s heading north out of the London area.”

  “Suppose he wanted the A30…”

  “A30? But that’s just after Kew Bridge. If he’d wanted that, he’d have turned left way back, into the Hammersmith Road.” Hill looked sideways at Shard. “Bodmin Moor in mind, sir?”

  Shard nodded.

  “Doubtful, is that. Back on her tracks — the Russian woman, know what I mean? Anyway — Snake’s off course like I said,

  Mr. Shard…though I do get the feeling he’s making out of town.”

  Shard said, “So do I. Okay, we go right at the intersection, Alan. Inform Action Two, please.”

  “Orders for them?”

  “Yes. Continue over the lights on spec…as far as the A410 intersection at Stone Grove. If no result, return and rejoin. Keep in touch.”

  They were held by the lights: Shard and Hill both kept a sharp watch for Snake. Along the route further coded particulars had come: Elbow Twenty was maroon in colour and the registration was PZY 901M. But none of this could they see as, when the lights changed, Shard moved ahead and waited to cross the oncoming river of traffic.

  *

  “Action Two rejoining, result negative.”

  “Okay,” Shard said. “I hope that means we’re on the right track!”

  “I — ”

  “In point of fact, he could have turned off anywhere. I’ve half a mind to call base.”

  “For what, Mr. Shard?”

  “Get the factory to put out a general call and report whereabouts of Elbow bloody Twenty!” Shard sounded savage, eyes glued to the tail and stop lights of a road tanker hissing air brakes at him right ahead. “I know it’d go out in clear, but it could be a better risk than this.” He added in a more thoughtful tone, “Maybe not. No point in scaring him off. There’ll be another day, I suppose.”

  “Today’s not over yet, Mr. Shard.” Shard was scornful. “In this? We’re stuck solid.”

  “So’s Snake, probably…somewhere.” A laugh: “That does help, doesn’t it! Get out and walk?”

  “But not follow on foot! You’ve got something there, Mr. Shard.”

  “Have I?” Shard sounded blank and looked it. His eyes hurt: he loathed driving in London traffic, considered twice-daily car commuters stark staring mad.

  “Just hang on a moment, I’ll be back.”

  “What the — ”

  Detective Sergeant Hill was already out of the car and had slammed the door. Shard swore fearfully: then cut himself off. Damn it all, the man was dead right! In this, you were all stuck: it was the beat men who got places while the Pandas and the mobiles flashed their blue lights to no purpose at all. With the best will in the world, they couldn’t be let through, nor could the ambulances with their cargoes of sick and dying. Talk about crazy, London was the proof of human idiocy. Shard slouched in his seat, one hand ready to let go the handbrake, the other hand groping for a cigarette. He could see nothing but that tanker ahead, inching and hissing and stopping on the rain-slashed road. No sight, no sound of Hill, Snake or Action Two.

  On again, just a few yards, slam the brakes, into neutral, on handbrake, police training held. You didn’t sit with the clutch out. Though you did often sit dreaming and thinking; and worrying yourself sick about things over which you couldn’t help, like Beth and her fight for life. When would she be able to recognise him again? When would she know he was back home, ready when wanted, that his thoughts were with her even to the detriment of his job?

  A hoot, a blast from behind: a grim glance in the mirror revealed an impatient Jaguar. Ahead;, a gap: Shard caught the tanker up and braked again. Soon Detective Sergeant Hill appeared in the front passenger window, grinning.

  Hill got in.

  “Fifteen cars ahead — and just entered the slip for Mill Hill.”

  Shard nodded happy thanks. “So it does look like north.”

  “Yes. Shall I inform Action Two?”

  “Do that.”

  They moved on, a better move this time. Flick left for Mill Hill. Still too much traffic, but a more certain mind. Farther on, the opportunity to overtake. In a wicked burst of speed, Shard did just that, and tucked in two cars behind Elbow Twenty, maroon, PZY 901M, carrying Snake. Who, in due course, eschewed the motorway and took the A1, the Great North Road, for Stamford and the North.

  “Pass back to Action Two, alternate the tail, changing on my signal. Try to keep a car between where possible.” Shard settled down for some open-road driving, hard driving: Elbow Twenty wasn’t lingering now.

  Past Welwyn Garden City, past Stevenage on the motorway section, turn off for Baldock. Rain sliced down across the headlight beams, a lot of rain, a river on the windscreen only just within the capability of the wipers. Shard, alternating with Action Two, allowed a little more distance once they were off the Ai. Royston: a one-way system that took them behind Elbow Twenty onto the A14 for Huntingdon. From time to time Shard doused his lights, melting into the obscurity of the night, giving the impression he’d turned off along a side road. Knees worth, Arrington, Caxton Gibbet, over the roundabout for Papworth Everard. Through Godmanchester; in Huntingdon, the road to St. Ives: past the north head of St. Ives, on towards Earith, Ely, Littleport. But before Earith a sudden right turn, in the village of Needingworth.

  Coming up behind, Shard looked down the turn: a very minor road.

  He carried on ahead for a little way, then made a U-turn, coming back to the side road. As he turned into it, he switched off his lights. Behind him on the turn came Action Two: in his mirror Shard saw the second car’s lights also go off. There was no sign now of Elbow Twenty. Shard said, “I think this is it, Alan.”

  “Journey’s end?”

  “I rather think so. I’m pretty sure this road doesn’t lead anywhere to speak of.” He slowed, stopped. “From here on foot.” He sniffed through the wound-down window. Much rain, and an extra smell of damp, of river water. “We’re close to the Ouse, I fancy.”

  He got out, feeling automatically for his gun. Here the road was only a track, not made up. Behind him, Action Two had pulled in. Two men got out, two more Detective Sergeants, Gear and Willoughby. They moved through mud towards Shard.

  “What’s next, sir?”

  Shard gestured ahead, sweeping his arm. “Find him, of course. Come on. I doubt if he’s far. Something tells me we’re coming to the river.”

  “Bridge?”

  “I fancy not. Not to take a car. This kind of track doesn’t lead to that kind of bridge.” Without saying more Shard strode ahead in the darkness. It was very, very dark: no street lighting here, just the odd curtained gleam from ancient cottage windows. Thatch and whitewash, mud, and
that strong river smell: this was on the fringe of real fenland, Hereward the Wake country, remote, mysterious, withdrawn, ingrowing. In such parts, Shard’s reading had told him, incest had once been a common factor of village life. He could believe it: these were the nineteen-seventies, what could it have been like, say, seventy or a hundred years ago? He had a feeling the place hadn’t physically changed a lot: just some infilling, some brick-built houses, fairly hideous and out of character, some bungalows, the odd executive-type house. But overpoweringly this was history and it belonged to the fenmen. Shard was conscious of a prickle running along his spine: Tuball and his boys used some weird backdrops: Bodmin Moor, and this. That was, if Shard’s conjectures were on target.

  A slop and slither through more mud, the road degenerating more and more. No-one, but no-one, about: no sound either, beyond a self-suggestion of a river, sliding fairly fast through the night. And, distantly, the curious quacking cry of some marsh bird.

  Past an inn, lonely, seeming deserted, with but one window lit behind red curtains. Tyre marks; and in front of the inn, to the right of the track they were on, low ground visible in a quick burst of light from Shard’s torch. Marsh, by the look of it; and beside it the river, the Ouse, winding down from the Wash through the Bedford South Level that took off some of the floodwater.

  Well past the inn a number of tyre marks continued, clear in Shard’s torch beams. These they followed. They came to a sign, black-painted on white: SPINNEYS, and an arrow pointing. Then a gate, a big wide gate, and a drive winding, and tyre marks entering.

  “Stay here,” Shard said. “Keep out of sight. There’s a hedge, the country sort. Use it.”

  They dispersed into the hedge, risking thorns. Shard went through the gate, swift as was consistent with prudence, very quiet. No torch now. Just touch and such lore as a country-interested townsman could hope to possess. There was silence all around still, and a thick, thick blanket of dark. When his eyes became more accustomed to this unrelieved dark Shard believed he could make out a car parked in front of a pillared porch, but he couldn’t be certain. To make sure, he moved in closer.