The Hoof

by Philip McCutchan

“Good heavens, I wonder why! London’s the nub —”

  “For you, dear sir. And for the City gents. Others too, no doubt. Not necessarily for the Hoof. Anyway, Plymouth it is.”

  “And you want to go there?”

  “That’s what I plan to do.”

  “You might,” Hedge said pettishly, “ask permission first.”

  “Right. I ask.”

  “Oh, all right!” Hedge snapped.

  “Thank you very much. Anything your end?”

  “Yes, possibly.” Hedge told him about the scarred American, Earl Denver Kries. He conveyed disapproval of Hesseltine’s action. By now they were coming up towards the old Admiralty building, former symbol of Britain’s might. Hedge began to look more and more uncomfortable. Shard knew why. He put Hedge out of his misery.

  He said, “We have work to do. We won’t come as far as the Athenaeum.”

  Hedge was very relieved. He said, “Oh, by the way, I almost forgot. There’s another of these wretched union conferences, Print and Paper Workers I rather think. Not Plymouth, Bath, but you may as well keep your eyes open.” Then he went off with quite a spring in his step, bringing his umbrella down from the slope-arms to twirl it in the air; and leaving Shard and Kenwood to wonder if he really knew how far Bath was from Plymouth.

  *

  When Smith had mentioned Plymouth, Shard had felt that things might be coming together: Exeter, Lydford, Plymouth. Possibly the link was almost too obvious but it would be investigated. The Workers’ League of Freedom HQ had a hopeful sound; the Hoof could be presumed to be in touch. But Shard wouldn’t go in openly and scare the Hoof off. He needed a new identity and he proceeded to acquire one with the assistance of the Head of Security. A number of discreet telephone calls were made from the Foreign Office. Full co-operation was given to turn Detective Chief Superintendent Shard into one of the army of unemployed: a phrase that could well be about to become more than mere journalese. The wheels turned fast: the wheels that were largely paper. It was all foolproof: P60 from a last employer substantiating the bearer’s income tax and national insurance deductions; a GR20 from the DHSS for his graduated pension; photographs of a mythical wife and two children, a boy of eight, a girl of three; a letter from a girl-friend in Croydon, something on the side; an Access card that would, by arrangement with the bank, be honoured if he used it, plus a Barclaybank card — these days, the unemployed were not necessarily down to the last penny, and he might need to draw funds from other than his own account, just to keep his cover intact. Other things: a letter from a building society indicating that they would be accommodating for a while in regard to his monthly mortgage repayments; they didn’t harass the unemployed, not for a while. A bill for electricity, unpaid, plus a final reminder. Ditto gas and rates and a car repair bill. A current driving licence and certificate of motor insurance plus an MOT on an elderly Austin 1100. It was pretty comprehensive and was rushed through. His name was John Henry Simon. Home was not in fact in the West Country where he was going; it was London. But there were no jobs anywhere so he wouldn’t be any the worse off down in Devon or Cornwall. John Henry Simon was quitting the big smoke where life was expensive.

  Also, he was quitting his family responsibilities.

  Even the girl-friend had been physically set up as cover: she lived and breathed. She was WDC Eve Brett of Shard’s own security section. After she’d written the letter she left London for Bodmin where she had a sister married to a bank clerk. Even the sister wouldn’t be told the truth and would have to think what she chose till the whole thing was brought to a conclusion. Next morning early, Shard followed Eve Brett down in the Austin 1100, provided from a pool of useful vehicles for clandestine operations maintained by security in a heavily cloaked compound in north London.

  His profession was somewhat indeterminate but was best described as clerk: the P60 gave his last employer as a firm of importers and exporters of general goods with offices in the City. Clerks could be militant too; and Shard didn’t fancy his chances if he’d posed as a docker or something of that sort. There were attributes of voice and education and so on that couldn’t be wholly disguised, at any rate not to keep up for a long period.

  *

  It was late afternoon when Shard drove into Bodmin. The old 1100 had borne up well and he’d had no difficulty in pushing it up to seventy at times, but on the whole it didn’t like more than around fifty and he hadn’t wanted to risk a breakdown. He was a little late on his ETA and as he drove up the hill towards the old barracks, once the regimental depot of the Duke of Cornwall’s Light Infantry, now the regimental museum, he saw WDC Brett waiting on the left of the road opposite the war memorial.

  He pulled in alongside her and pushed his front passenger door open and she got in, smoothing down her skirt. He said, “Sorry I’m late, love.”

  Eve Brett was well trained and experienced and she didn’t bat an eyelid at familiarity from a very senior officer, but she became a shade stiff when he said, “Kiss. Orders.”

  They embraced. Shard enjoyed it; so did she after the first hesitancy. She’d always fancied her chief. Shard grinned and said, “You’re looking very glamorous, Eve. And I like the scent.”

  She dimpled a little. She was a good-looker, tall and graceful in her movements when she walked. “Thank you,” she said.

  “John’s the name. Remember that. Practise it.”

  “Yes, John,” she said.

  Shard grinned again and touched her knee. “Fine. Settled in at your sister’s?”

  She nodded. “Yes, I think so. They’re both a little … formal about it — Eddie, my brother-in-law, and Anne. I said you’d be down, you see.”

  “Quite right, and here I am to prove it. They don’t like it?”

  She laughed. “With a married man? No. One thing, they won’t give you house room. Eddie’s terribly stiff about that sort of thing.”

  “It comes with banks. Not to worry. I have a pied-à-terre that I meant to use anyway. Outskirts of Tavistock … friend of my brother’s, ex-copper himself.” He paused. “I presume you’ve nothing to report, Eve?”

  “Sorry. I haven’t.” She added. “What do we do now?”

  He said, “Act naturally.”

  “Oh. Yes … of course.”

  Shard smiled at her tone; there was just a touch of primness. He said, “For a start, you shift berth, Eve my dear — to Tavistock.”

  “But —”

  “Now look. We came down to be together, right? The family, your family, don’t go much on the idea. So you come with me. That, I call natural. My brother’s friend is broad-minded. Also, I say again, he’s an ex-copper. So?”

  She asked, “Is this orders too?”

  “Very much so,” he answered. “Where’s your sister’s house?”

  “Walking distance from the town centre.”

  “Right!” Shard started up, came past the old barrack gate and turned to head down the hill again. “I’ll be in the town centre car park. I’ll drop you on the opposite corner if that’s about right?”

  “That’ll be fine. I’ll be as quick as I can.” As, a few minutes later, she reached for the door handle, she said, smiling, “They think I’m about to chuck a good career, all for you. I won’t be sorry to get out. Last night was hell.”

  “And good cover,” Shard said, “if anybody ever thinks of checking. My congratulations on being a good policewoman. It’s not easy to fool the family.”

  He watched her walk away up a street to the left, going fast; then he swung the 1100 round and into the car park. He had a long wait: he assumed family pressures were at work. When after more than an hour she came back with a zipped canvas bag she confirmed this. Driving out of Bodmin for Tavistock a curious feeling came down upon Shard. It had become just like a real elopement and he wondered if Beth would ever understand …

  *

  First thing in the morning, Shard drove into Plymouth with WDC Brett. They didn’t talk much. The 1100 had a radio and Shard picked u
p the BBC news bulletin. There was a report of another death: Arthur Hannington of the Print and Paper Workers whose Bath conference Hedge had mentioned as an afterthought. Hannington had had a room with a balcony on the eighth floor of his hotel and his body had been found on the concrete car park below. Prior to this it had been stabbed. It must have been closely planned; it had happened while the police guard had been relieving himself, reading between the polite BBC lines. The bulletin carried something else that had become a familiar part of the recent scene, following each union killing: there had been trouble, on this occasion outside the gates of the naval base in Devonport when the dockyard mateys had gone in for work. A crowd of yobs had gathered and screamed filth and general insults before the customary bricks and petrol bombs had been thrown. An anti-union and anti-immigrant mob. The coloureds in the workforce had been hustled inside the gates by their mates — or some had. In some cases the workers had apparently sided with the demonstrators. The thing was spreading. The police had coped well enough, coming in in strength, but the authorities were dead worried, the more so in view of the earlier reports from other parts of the country.

  Shard said, “We’ll deviate.”

  “To the naval base?”

  “ Yes. Just take a look. It’ll probably be all over, but you never know who might show.”

  Eve looked sideways, studying his face. “Kries or the Hoof? Somehow I don’t think so.”

  “It could still be interesting.”

  When they got there, it wasn’t, except perhaps in a ghoulish sort of way. As Shard had expected, it was mostly over. But knots of men and women still stood about, throwing the odd jeer towards the Ministry of Defence policemen on the gate, and looking belligerent. The men looking lethal in studded leather. Some, rockers in full denims covered with oil, grease and badges, and with long, dirty hair, were astride motor bikes and revving loudly to show their — what?

  “Animals,” Eve said. “Like animals, they have to roar. Only they do it by proxy because that’s all they have. Just look at those girls!”

  Shard looked. They seemed barely human. Spiky hair, all colours of the spectrum — punks, with safety pins through their ears and elsewhere. Painted clowns’ faces — paint on flour was the appearance. Weird clothing: skirts over jeans thrust into what looked like leather seaboots adorned two of them. Most were covered in plastic. The men were just as odd. Shard caught sight of one wearing a kilt over trews, his shoulders enfolded in a tartan plaid. These were very possibly members of the Workers’ League of Freedom; if so, Shard was overdressed in his jersey and anorak but reckoned he could still pass. All the membership would scarcely be like this bunch.

  He drove away from the dockyard area, into Plymouth, down towards the Hoe. Thoughts of Sir Francis Drake all those centuries ago … what would Drake have made of it all today?

  “Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore,

  Strike et when your powder’s runnin’ low;

  If the Dons sight Devon, I’ll quit the port o’ Heaven,

  An’ drum them up the Channel as we drumm’d them long ago.”

  He didn’t drive right along to the Hoe; according to Smith, the Workers’ League of Freedom had its premises down by the Cattewater, another part of history, the departure point of the Mayflower for America and the founding of the New World. He didn’t take the car right down there either: past memories warned him of parking difficulties and he would be more flexible on foot. So he parked the 1100 clear of the Barbican area and left Eve Brett with it. “Give me an hour from now,” he said. “If I’m not back then, make a recce.”

  “And after that?”

  “Play it by ear. You’ll know what to do, you’re not green.”

  “Look after yourself,” she said impulsively. “I wouldn’t want to go back and report to Hedge I’d lost you —”

  “If Hedge,” Shard broke in solemnly, “heard his august name mentioned down here he’d have kittens. So watch it, right?” He gave her a wink and got out of the car. She watched his tall, rather bony frame moving away to vanish into a downward-sloping street leading to the Barbican that fronted the Cattewater. There was a curious feeling inside her, which in retrospect she came to recognise as premonition.

  9

  Kries had reached Plymouth from London a little earlier than Shard, using a succession of cars that he had found unlocked and with the ignition keys in place. The British were a stupid lot; look long enough and you always, but always, found an unlocked automobile with the keys left in. Kries had become well used to being tailed and had never failed yet to recognise one. This time there had been nothing; he was dead sure about that. So there was no hesitation about Kries as he approached the anonymously-facaded office of the Workers’ League of Freedom, which he knew all about from contacts back home in the States. He knew something else as well: the Hoof wouldn’t be there. But, Lacroix having been no help, Plymouth might produce some clues. Maybe he’d been wasting his efforts in London but London was handy for Roz and there had been no great rush.

  From the moment Kries entered the League’s somewhat sleazy premises he took charge. The staff were underlings, ordinary crap. That, he’d known in advance. When he went in there was just the one there: a little guy called Ponto who could have been Portuguese or Spanish, even French from the Mediterranean seaboard. Ponto had big hands, very big for a small man, the sort that would find strangling came naturally. Kries wasn’t worried. He told Ponto he was a buddy of the Hoof’s; Ponto knew the name Kries already and was cooperative. He led Kries up some stairs to an office, meagrely furnished: some hard chairs, a table that did duty for a desk, and on it a telephone. The place looked a mere transit accommodation. Kries said, “We watch it, okay? There’s a little faggot in Soho who’s gotten in touch with the cops. He doesn’t know about this set-up, not so far as I know, but we don’t take chances, right?”

  Ponto agreed with that, nodding vigorously. Kries made some casual enquiries about the Hoof, but was parried by Ponto. Kries didn’t press; Ponto could be scared for his life if he revealed the Hoof’s whereabouts even to a friend, but Kries would find out before long. Kries was still casually probing when the doorbell rang and Ponto went down to answer it and came back up with Shard.

  Kries saw that the visitor, whom he didn’t know, had reacted to the scar on his face. Just a look in the eye, quickly blotted out, but enough to put Kries on his guard. He listened to the man’s story, his own eyes unwavering and hand ready to dive for his gun. Shard told it well. He was dead sick of the dole queues, of the no-hope feeling. He’d picked up rumours, up in the smoke. He’d listened to opinions. A lot of people were up against the big unions and their all-powerful bosses, the men who held the block votes in their pockets. The idea of hitting back had made and was making a strong appeal to John Henry Simon, unemployed through no fault of his own. He’d picked up a word or two about the League; he had not known, when he was in London, that the League’s offices were in Plymouth. That was sheer chance, a casual acquaintance in a pub in Tavistock. He’d taken the tip and come. Kries listened. He asked questions. Why had Mr Simon come to the West Country? A girl, Shard said. He was cutting adrift from his past. Kries, enjoying himself and the spider-and-fly aspect, wanted to know all about that past. Shard produced his credentials, his P60 and the rest. Kries looked at them. Then he reached down to his ankle holster and brought out his gun.

  “I can smell a dick a mile away, you know that?” Kries said. “Also I can smell Lacroix.” His eyes had narrowed to slits. He spoke from the corner of his mouth to Ponto. “The cops are on to this joint. It’ll have to be closed down.”

  “But —”

  “No buts. I’m taking over. What I said, that’s an order. I guess there’s somewhere else to go — right?”

  Looking dead scared, Ponto nodded. “Sure there is.” He jerked a hand towards Shard. “And him?”

  “This,” Kries said. He moved like a rattlesnake. Shard dodged but not quite fast enough. The muzzle of
the gun took him on the temple, hard, and a fist slugged him on the point of the jaw a moment later. A knee took him in the gut and he went down, blood running from his head. Kries looked down, stirred at the limp body with a foot. He said, “He’ll be out some while. In the meantime, get a gag and a rope on him. Then we get out, but fast.”

  Ponto took up the telephone on the table and made one call, brief and snappy. Then he went for the rope.

  *

  The time had passed like a life-span. WDC Brett sat in the 1100, not worried to begin with, but anxiety grew like a cancer as the time ran out. Shard had said an hour; right on the dot she locked the car and walked fast towards the Barbican and the Cattewater. There were plenty of people around now, including fish merchants in the fish market by the dockside. The whole place smelled of fish. WDC Brett identified the League office: there was nothing to say what it was but there was a window, green-painted to half-way up, above an empty shop, and that fitted the description given her by Shard, who’d got it in Leeds.

  WDC Brett took the bull by the horns. She was John Simon’s girl friend and they had things to do in the town. He was taking his time. She went forward and rang the bell, which was situated in a doorway to the left of the empty shop, a bell-push without any identification.

  She waited, feeling more and more uneasy.

  There was no answer. Twice more she rang and still nothing. Then footsteps were heard approaching from behind the door. It opened, after a rattle of bolts and a key. An old crone stood there, dressed in black from head to foot, her face seamed and wrinkled, the hair wispy white.

  “Yes, dearie?”

  WDC Brett said, “I’m looking for my boy friend.”

  There was a chuckle, deep, throaty, filled with the rumble of phlegm. “You won’t find ’im ’ere, dearie. We’re all looking for our young men, some longer’n others. Where did yours go, eh? Mine, ’e went up in the Good ’Ope. HMS Good ’Ope. Under that Admiral Cradock. Coronel.” The old crone coughed for a long time after that.