He took off the headset and placed it on the panel, frowning. Why had the headset been left on the floor — apparently dropped there as if someone had left in a hurry? Why a hurried departure? What were the fish for? There was a strange and possibly significant association of tidiness and disorder — the neatness of the control panel and the rubbish left beneath.
Nothing, at the moment, made sense. The fish swirled monotonously in the tank, making slurping and lapping sounds in the water but somewhere, beyond these sounds, was another, a faint sequence of noise, muffled and stifled.
Holmes listened. The noise was coming from a cupboard on the other side of the cellar. It was a small cupboard, about three or four feet high, square shaped and padlocked. Holmes went across and knelt down beside it. He put his ear to the wood. Something alive was inside. Holmes took a chisel from the workbench and wrenched off the padlock. He tore open the cupboard and stared into the eyes of Rosa Verschoyle.
She had been swathed in sacking, half covered with rubbish, her wrists had been tied to her ankles and she was lying on her side. There was blood on her head, matted in the roots of her hair; smeared over her forehead. She was covered in a film of grey dust. Holmes said something to reassure her — later he tried and could not remember the words he used — and began to cut away the gag from her face. A cloth had been forced into her mouth and a piece of sacking covered her mouth and nose. Her face was livid with the effort to breathe. First he cut the cord which held the sacking and then, piece by piece, tore off the strips of adhesive tape which held the cloth in her mouth. The cloth came away, sodden with saliva, filthy with dust, and she began to gasp for air with a deep shuddering sound. Very gently he lifted her from the cupboard. She had been tied like a parcel, plastic wire encircling her body, legs doubled up behind her, ankles tied to her wrists. It had been impossible for her to move. The noise she had made to attract attention could only have been made by her banging her head against the wooden sides of the cupboard. That, perhaps, explained the blood.
Her breathing was less tortured but she was moaning. Her legs were horribly swollen about the raw weals on her ankles. Her wrists were black, her hands and fingers red and puffy, like a pair of rubber gloves blown up and distended until they were rigid. She probably had no feeling in them. The pain there would come later. Suddenly, without warning, she was violently and uncontrollably sick.
It was probably the sickness which saved their lives. Holmes lifted her into an easier position and having got her into his arms decided that the best thing would be to take her upstairs into the fresh air. He had long passed the stage of worrying whether or not he would be discovered by someone. He was now so angry that he would have welcomed it. He was seething with anger. He grew ruthless with a baffled, unfocused rage. To focus it on somebody would have been a pleasure.
He had got her halfway up the stairs when there was a heavy puffing explosion, soft blazing substances pattered like water on the wall, and the entire cellar became incandescent. Liquid flame, drops and handfuls of it, was running down the walls. Hot air surged past them up the steps and he nearly fell. The heat of air was followed by a suffocating cloud of thick white smoke. The smoke stank. It had a peculiar choking taste. As he lurched and coughed, dragging the inert woman up the stairs with him, he recognized the smell:
Phosphorus.
He could taste it and could hear the peculiar bubbling sound of the first stage of burning phosphorus, followed by other hissing explosions, soft and muffled, one after the other. He stumbled. The yellowy-white smoke was in his lungs. Even as he choked, he was recording the facts. He had got there only just in time. The phosphorus could have been in the wood shavings under the control panel but it was more likely to have been in the cupboard. He was angry that he had been so unobservant that he had not seen it. There was probably a simple fuse and a time-switch. He might have disturbed this when opening the cupboard but whether he had set it off slightly in advance of the time was not important. It would have gone off in any case, either by a time-switch or by the movements of her body. Burning phosphorus would eat into skin and bone. It left nothing after it had finished its work. It would be difficult to trace — there had even been a body.
His lungs felt as though they were bursting. Tears were pouring from his eyes. He was stumbling and dragging himself up the stairs in a most laborious way, both arms round the body of the woman. He fell. They were in the kitchen. The smoke rolled over their heads. There was a sudden draught of fresh air.
They lay for some moments, side by side, the thick acrid smoke rolling over them, fingers of smoke stroking their bodies, but where their faces lay close to the floor they could just breathe. The air would not last long. The kitchen was already filling with smoke. Holmes began to ease himself across the floor in the direction he imagined the door to be. He felt suffocated, there was a pain across his eyes as though his forehead was being squeezed between a crusher. He inched across the floor, dragging the woman with him, putting his arm across her body and heaving her forward with a grip under her armpit. She was moaning and complaining and sobbing but helpless, in a state of collapse, and he had to pull on a deadweight. He was sweating, tears were streaming from his eyes, the fibres of his muscles felt as though they were being torn apart. The poisonous fumes, the lack of oxygen in his lungs, made each movement more and more difficult, more exhausting. He was up now, swaying on his feet, making a run for it, and he came up against the door with a bang that knocked him sideways. One hand touched the handle and it was turning, slowly, very slowly, and then it opened.
Smoke billowed out into the hall and was sucked upwards, warm air coming with it, creating a draught up the staircase. Down below in the cellar the fire had taken hold of the woodwork and the flames were beginning to roar; a deep wind-moving sound, getting louder. Holmes turned back into the smoke, shutting his eyes, groping on the floor. He caught hold of something soft and heavy and pulled. As he was pulling he was thinking of the fish in the tank in the cellar. He was confused and bewildered by the smoke, staggering under the weight of the woman, falling over and against things in the hall. Someone passed and screamed something at him. He was conscious of people and movement and shouting around him but only certain small things focused — a little old lady wearing a quilted dressing-gown, on which were embroidered raised patterns of flowers, went hurrying past with her mouth open, wizened, anxious, like a flurrying grouse, beginning to scream. He was glad that fish could not scream. The tank would be boiling, or boiled dry, cracked or split. It would be like an inferno in the cellar.
Tins, canisters, bottles, were exploding. Timber was cracking in the heat with sharp harsh noises.
Somehow he found the door to the terrace. It was open. People — he did not know who they were and they took no notice of him whatsoever — were fighting at the doorway to get out. He glimpsed the pattern of flowers on the dressing-gown. There seemed to be a continuous high-pitched screaming which again made him think of fish. He went staggering out on to the terrace. He could barely see. There was something the matter with his eyes. He was still supporting, half dragging, the limp body of Rosa Verschoyle with him but he was unaware that he was doing so until he felt the weight lifted off him and heard Morrison's voice.
Holmes was being shaken. There was a grip on his arms, urgent and demanding, and someone was shouting at him but for some time it was difficult to sort out the sound of Morrison's voice from all the other sounds that were buzzing in his head. He was busy gulping fresh air into his smoke-filled lungs. He could hear Morrison clearly but the words seemed to be of no importance, as though there was no need for them to have been said at all. ‘Holmes, are you all right … ?' Someone else was holding Rosa Verschoyle. Morrison was shouting. The terrace was full of figures, dim, smoke-wreathed, shouting and screaming moonlit figures.
Holmes shook off Morrison and turned, slipping back into the house. The hall was full of smoke. He could feel the draught, hot and dangerous, carrying glinting red sparks,
coming from the kitchen. The smoke in the kitchen was shimmering with an ominous red and orange glow. He shielded his face with his jacket, found the kitchen door and shut it. Then he leapt, half staggered to the stairs. His eyes were smarting but at least he could see, if only dimly, through the steaming, swollen lids.
Upstairs it was easier. There was less smoke and it hung in drifts, like mist patches. The corridor stank of phosphorus fumes. Some of the doors were wide open. The occupants had fled. Two remained closed. He opened one. It was the massage room. He opened the next one. Monique Shepherd was lying on the bed, clutching the pillows. He saw the small glass bottle beside her with the blue-green capsules. Holmes shook her and shouted but she only stirred, lazily, in her drugged sleep, and turned over. Footsteps hammered in the corridor. Morrison had followed him upstairs. There were two other plain-clothes men with him.
Holmes had only a vague recollection of what happened. There was a shaking and his feet and legs felt limp, as though turning liquid. He could see blue stars flashing and exploding in front of his eyes, like an anti-aircraft barrage of miniature shells, exploding with tiny blue flashes. A number of people were shouting in his ears but he shrugged them off. He was being lifted. He was aware of heat and cold. There was a sudden and infinitely sweet sensation of fresh air. He was able to breathe. The windows were broken. Monique Shepherd was being lifted. The stairs were burning. He heard Morrison’s voice again but it was so mixed with the other voices that, for the moment, he could not tell who was speaking. That must have been an oil tank … probably the central heating … give me a hand with the girl … ’ Something singed his hair. There was a smell of hot metal, hot gas, burning wood, like the smell of a furnace, and the heat seemed to sweep over him in a great wind, a thrumming wind-roaring surge. They got outside on the terrace just before the staircase became a roaring incandescence.
There were dozens of police cars and hundreds of policemen — or so it seemed to Holmes, recovering his wind, wrapped in a blanket and being liberally dosed with whisky from Morrison’s hip flask. The number of policemen somehow irritated him. He felt that they should be doing something more useful than standing staring at the blazing house. The fire brigade had arrived but there seemed little they could do except to look after groups of refugees dotted over the lawn or taking shelter in the summerhouse under the cedar. There were other people too, who had nothing to do with the clinic or the police. Colonel Lamb and Pendlebury. Voices were becoming blurred. Things were going out of focus. The blue anti-aircraft shells were bursting behind the eyelids. He could hear a high and querulous voice saying: ‘Perhaps we might even be in a position to have an explanation and a barrage of blue shells exploded in his face.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Tirov Elaborates
‘Exhaustion,’ said the doctor. ‘Couple of days in bed. Lots of fresh air. Nothing wrong with you. Too much smoke in your lungs. That’s all,’ he gave a cheerful nod and swept out to the next patient. The nurse gave a dimpling smile in Holmes’ direction and followed.
Lamb came in. He looked brisk and businesslike in his grey suit. He laid his bowler hat and umbrella across the foot of Holmes’ bed. In Westminster and St James’s he would have passed without notice. Here, in a hospital, he seemed elaborately over-dressed.
‘Morning,’ said Lamb. ‘Nice morning. You’re looking well. All fit? Eh? What do they say about you?’
Holmes moved idly in bed. He was pleased to see Lamb. ‘They say,’ he replied, ‘I’ve been smoking too much.’
‘Haw!’ said Lamb. ‘Very good. Filthy stuff, wasn’t it? Smelt abominable. Had to go home and change my clothes. Drenched in smoke, I was.’ Holmes was amused for some reason at the thought of Lamb going home to change. Lamb was undoing a paper parcel. ‘Hope you didn’t mind,’ he said. ‘Saw the state your clothes were in. Got some nasty burn holes. Thought I’d bring one of your suits. Couldn’t get in your flat, of course. Got one of my men in to burgle it. Fred Smith. The lock defeated him. What do you make of that, eh? He had to cut round the wood. Then the burglar alarm went off. Had half of Bow Street round in twenty seconds. Most embarrassing. Lots of explanations. Eventually got a suit and a shirt and tie and socks and things.’ Holmes was touched. Lamb must have gone to considerable trouble. Holmes said so and Lamb looked pleased and embarrassed and went slightly pink. ‘No trouble at all, m’dear fella! No trouble at all!’ He was quite overcome by being thanked. ‘Only too delighted. Any time. Next time let me have one of your keys,’ he laid out the clothes on the locker. Then he folded the paper and string and looked round for a place to put them. Not seeing one he put the paper under his arm, folded like a newspaper, and the string in his pocket.
‘About the troops — ‘ began Holmes.
Lamb, caught playing with the paper, blushed. Holmes had never seen him so embarrassed. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘The troops. Well — all is well. The Third Infantry Divison took off from Lyneham shortly after midnight. Nothing wrong. We sent Inspector Post and a couple of men to the barracks. Not heard from Post yet, by the way. Otherwise — all is well.’
There was other news. Mrs Wrythe had been taken to Reading police station for what Lamb described as ‘a long talk’. It was assumed, and Holmes agreed with the assumption, that Mrs Wrythe knew little or nothing of what had been going on.
Monique Shepherd had been taken back to her home wrapped in blankets and put to bed. ‘She wasn’t hurt,’ said Lamb. ‘There didn’t seem much sense in bringing her to hospital. Morrison wasn’t certain about charging her until he’d had a word with you. So he put her back at home with a nurse and a couple of plain-clothes men to look after her.’
‘And Mrs Verschoyle?’
Lamb jerked his head next door. ‘Morrison is with her now. She hasn’t come round yet. He’s hoping to get a lead on what happened when she does.’
‘Is she badly hurt?’
Lamb shrugged. ‘I think you got her out just in time.’
‘And the small boy?’
Lamb looked surprised. ‘Mrs Shepherd’s boy? I don’t know. Isn’t he with relatives?’
Holmes got out of bed. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not those kind of relatives.’ He began slowly and painfully to get dressed.
Lamb stared.
‘Heard from Colonel Tirov?’ asked Holmes.
‘No.’ Lamb was surprised. ‘Should we?’
‘Soon,’ said Holmes. ‘Pretty soon, I expect. Let’s go and see our friend Mrs Verschoyle.’
He led the bewildered Lamb from the room to the small ward next door. Morrison was seated by the bed. He nodded as Holmes came in but did not move, beckoning to Holmes to enter. Holmes went across to look at Mrs Verschoyle. She was sleeping peacefully.
Holmes’ first question was the one which had surprised Lamb so much.
‘Colonel Tirov arrived yet?’
‘Tirov?’ said Morrison. He was indignant. ‘Are you expecting him? Have you asked him?’
‘No,’ said Holmes. ‘I haven’t asked him.’
‘I should have thought this would have been the last place to expect Tirov.’
‘You would?’
‘Of course I would. The Russians don’t come into this. This is a matter of internal security. Nothing to do with them.’
‘The world is one,’ murmured Holmes, vaguely. He sat down in the chair, unaware that they were staring at him. He closed his eyes. He was still very tired. He felt that he could no longer be bothered with explanations. ‘The Russians,’ he said, ‘for once, are on our side.’
‘I don’t know what the devil you’re talking about,’ said Morrison. ‘The Russians, in any case, don’t know where we are. Tirov wouldn’t stick his nose into a British security investigation. This is our affair. He’d leave it to us.’
‘Of course he would,’ exclaimed Holmes cheerfully. He was seized with a mad vindictiveness. ‘Tell de Supreme Soviet,’ he said, ‘dot ve leaf id to de Bridish secred servid.’
‘You should be in bed,’ said Lamb.
>
A constable came in at the door and hesitated. He was nervous. Morrison’s reputation was known even to the local constabulary. The constable was only a boy and he was out of his depth. He stared miserably and saluted.
‘Come on,’ said Morrison. ‘What is it?’
‘There’s a car outside, sir,’ said the constable. ‘From the Russian Embassy.’
Lamb and Morrison looked at each other and then at Holmes, Lamb raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders at Morrison. Morrison was exasperated. He turned on Holmes. ‘Look here — ‘ he exclaimed ‘ — you knew he was coming, didn’t you?’
‘I was expecting him,’ said Holmes, unperturbed. ‘I said so. But I didn’t know.’
‘That’s a likely tale,’ said the irritated Morrison. ‘Damn it, I suppose we’ll have to see him now he’s got here. All right,’ he said, ‘send him in.’
Tirov seemed even larger, the heavy face, lined and grooved like a Roman emperor’s, more impressive. He saw Holmes and bowed his head slightly; then he bowed to Morrison, announcing his name: ‘Tirov.’
Morrison was embarrassed. He could visualize the face of the Chief Commissioner reading the report of a meeting between the head of the Special Branch and the head of Russian intelligence.
‘Well?’ said Morrison coldly. ‘What can we do for you?’
Tirov smiled. ‘Mr Holmes has not explained?’
‘Mr Holmes has not explained anything.’
‘He is a secretive man,’ said Tirov. ‘May I sit down?’ He looked round for a chair. Colonel Lamb seemed to come alive and made a convulsive movement. ‘Allow me.’ Lamb went out into the corridor and returned with a steel and canvas chair which he placed at the foot of the bed, so that Holmes, Morrison and Tirov formed a triangle round the patient. ‘Do sit down,’ said Lamb.
The Shepherd File Page 14