The Hoof

by Philip McCutchan

  “Well, it’s your lookout,” Hedge said. He had no wish to wait to argue.

  “Aye. What are you going to do? Are you staying?”

  Hedge said, “No. I shall be better employed across the square. A better view, you know.”

  “Aye,” Sid Lofts said, tongue in cheek. “I reckon that’s so.” He also reckoned Hedge had cold feet. Sid Lofts hadn’t. Just the same, what was left of his appetite deserted him now.

  *

  At ten minutes past two the Hoof had left an unobtrusive car parked well outside the perimeter of the tight-security area around Smith Square. With Angela Locci and Ponto, he transferred to a yellow Telecom van waiting handy in a side turning off the Vauxhall Bridge Road. A man in policeman’s uniform sat beside the driver; the Hoof, Ponto and the child went into the back. The van drove off, making towards Smith Square. The Hoof opened a black bag and began assembling a collapsible rifle fitted with telescopic sights; such long-range aids were unlikely to be necessary in fact, but were a sensible precaution. Near Smith Square the Telecom van was stopped by a uniformed sergeant, waved ahead when the phoney in the front told him that the van was standing by as back-up to the police and army radio equipment. During this exchange the Hoof’s hand was clamped tight over Angela Locci’s mouth.

  The van moved into the security area, and stopped opposite the entrance to Transport House. A few minutes earlier a black limousine fitted with bullet-proof windows had left New Palace Yard with the Prime Minister and had driven towards Smith Square, escorted by police outriders on motor-cycles. Nothing stronger: even at this stage it had been considered advisable not to overdo the overt security, not to let the Hoof know for sure that his plans had leaked. There was just one addition to the Prime Minister’s small personal entourage and that was Shard. He sat in the back alongside the Prime Minister, displacing the PPS. Shard’s mind ran over the dispositions made, the plain clothes men dotted about in force, mingling with the passing workaday crowds on the perimeter of the closed area and in Smith Square itself; other plain clothes men were in position behind the windows in the overlooking buildings, more were inside Transport House, watching from the windows or ready for the main doorway. The black car moved on smoothly behind its escort down St Margaret’s Street and along Millbank, past Victoria Tower Gardens to turn right into Dean Stanley Street.

  It slid to a halt outside Transport House. The time was a little short of two-twenty-five as a man came forward from TGWU HQ in welcome, and the detective up front beside the chauffeur got out to open the car door.

  The rear doors of the yellow Telecom van edged open, almost imperceptibly. As they widened, the snout of a rifle came through: just an inch of it, lining up to fire through the side windows of the limousine. Just in time a plain clothes man saw it and opened fire. The bullet hit the rifle barrel just as the Hoof went into action, in the same split second. The Hoof’s rifle was fractionally thrown off, and the bullet took the detective as he opened the door. Inside the car, Shard threw the Prime Minister flat on the floor. Then he jerked open the offside door and came out, moving like lightning across Smith Square for the van.

  He stopped when he saw the Hoof. The Hoof was no longer holding the rifle. He held something much more lethal: the child, Angela Locci, white-faced and crying, utterly terrified. The Hoof had his doors half open. He called out, “Stand back the lot of you. Any trouble, the child gets it. Fire at me and you kill the kid.”

  He moved back inside the van and pulled the rear doors shut behind him. Then the van got on the move. There was a curious stillness over Smith Square, a cessation of all other movement as the Telecom van headed towards Lord North Street. Then, with tremendous viciousness, from above and behind Shard, the explosion came. There was a blast of heated air and the whole square seemed to rock. From Transport House segments of stone flew and windows fell out. There was pandemonium; shouts and cries came from inside the building. Smoke and flame billowed.

  The Telecom van disappeared into Lord North Street.

  With the child inside, there was nothing anyone could do.

  Trying to keep the van in view, Shard ran forward. A uniformed chief superintendent joined him. The van turned the corner into Great Peter Street. Behind Shard and the uniformed officer from the Yard a police car came up. Shard waved it down and got in. He said, “Just follow.” The police car moved on. The van was increasing speed now. Suddenly one of the rear windows shattered and the Hoof’s gun came through. There was a flash and a puff of smoke and as the police car’s windscreen went opaque the driver slumped sideways, his head pouring blood. The car slewed left, mounted the pavement and hit a lamp standard. Water drained from its radiator, steaming into the winter cold. Shard got out, his face bloody where it had slammed into the side window on impact. The Telecom van had once again disappeared; but it wouldn’t be long before it was picked up. By now its registration number would have gone by radio to every police mobile in the Met area. The Hoof was on a loser for sure — if it hadn’t been for Angela Locci.

  From behind Shard, Hedge came panting up like a sweating barrel of lard. “What do we do now, for God’s sake?” he demanded in a high voice.

  “Play it cool, Hedge.”

  “But look here —”

  “For the child’s sake.”

  “How’s she to be protected now? He’ll kill her the moment he’s chased into a corner, won’t he?”

  Shard said, “I doubt it. He’ll maximise her usefulness. You don’t usually kill hostages so long as you think you can still get away with it.”

  “But when he sees that he can’t!”

  “He hasn’t got to see that. Hesseltine will know what to do.”

  “It isn’t Hesseltine’s job, Shard.”

  “At this stage, it is. There’s nothing we can do now. It’s out in the open and it’s a police job. What’s it like in Transport House, Hedge?”

  Hedge mopped at his streaming face. Sirens were going on the far side of Smith Square, police, ambulances, fire appliances. Hedge said, “I gather the committee room, the one the TUC was to have used, is totally wrecked. No-one would have lived through it. As it is, the TUC’s intact, no casualties.”

  “The army — the bomb disposal men?”

  Hedge threw up his arms. “All dead. A few other casualties as well, Transport House staff. Not too many. It could have been a lot worse, you know.” Hedge sounded quite satisfied: the bomb scare was over and the Hoof had been flushed out; it was just a question of time and the child was being a confounded nuisance really. She had of course to be considered; Security’s public image was very important. It wasn’t like the old days when Security was always under cover and could do as it liked. The damn press … Shard was well able to sense all this going through the mould-set mind of Hedge.

  Then a uniformed sergeant came up. “Mr Shard, sir?”

  “Yes?”

  “Radio message from the Yard. The van’s been picked up in a side street between Francis Street and Rochester Row. No-one in it.”

  Shard swore. “And no-one in the vicinity saw a thing, I suppose?”

  “No, sir.”

  Hedge said, cheeks shaking, “We can assume the police will be tooth-combing the area, Shard.”

  “Yes,” Shard said through his teeth. “Me, too. I’m going in as well.”

  “I thought you said —”

  “Never mind what I said, Hedge.” Shard turned to the sergeant. “Get me a car, an unmarked one, pronto.”

  *

  The car had a police driver and a good one. He drove fast, avoiding death by inches as he screamed the unmarked vehicle through the traffic, taking no notice of one-way systems. He turned left out of Great Peter Street into Horseferry Road, along Elverton Street into Vincent Square and into the Vauxhall Bridge Road. And it was in the Vauxhall Bridge Road that Shard saw Kries with murder in his eyes, plainly on the lookout for game. Shard told his driver to take the next left turn; the plain car screamed round, stopped to Shard’s order. Shard r
an back into the Vauxhall Bridge Road, mingled with the crowds, cautiously approaching the doorway that hid Kries. Immediately opposite Kries, across the road, was a turning off, a side street with meter parking. The nearest parked car was a fast one, a Volvo. As Shard made his recce, Kries moved. Shard saw him emerge from the shop doorway and step out into the road. Under a coat on his arm showed a machine-pistol snout.

  That was when Shard saw the Hoof and Ponto. The Hoof was carrying Angela Locci, carrying her like a shield across his thick body, and all three were making for the Volvo. By this time Kries had crossed the road: the Hoof saw him. Shard, coming up behind Kries now, saw the change of expression on the Hoof’s face. The Hoof dropped the child and brought out a heavy revolver. There were two shots, so simultaneous that they sounded like a single discharge. Each found its mark. Both men crashed to the pavement. Shard ran forward and gathered the desperately running child into his arms.

  Bravely, Hedge came panting up from behind, having forsaken the security of the plain car: the man in charge must not hang back too far, too long. The Hoof lay with his head shattered, half in the gutter, half on the pavement. Kries, equally dead, lay slumped almost under the wheels of the Volvo. Ponto had vanished. Hedge blew out his breath. “What a business, Shard! It looks as though I was right, doesn’t it? About Kries being sent over with very definite orders?”

  “Could be, Hedge.”

  Hedge reached out and patted Angela Locci’s head. “There, there, don’t cry.” Then he turned back to Shard. “No time to lose, my dear fellow. There may be trouble at the oil terminals in Scotland, you know. Messages must be sent to the army and police to have no mercy. In any case, once the mobs know there’s been total failure, why, they’ll all melt away. Just melt away! It’s all ended very well, I think. Don’t you?”

  “I doubt if the bomb squad thinks so,” Shard said.

  “A simple matter of duty, don’t you know.” Hedge had scarcely registered; he was too flushed with victory. Downing Street was going to be very, very pleased. He’d done splendidly.

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