‘Ring him,’ said Sir Charles.
‘It’s ringing,’ said the Eavesdropper. ‘He’s telling Jack to answer it. I think Jack is hurt. He’s giving Jack instructions. “You tell the Englishman … tell him … tell him if I don’t get what I want, I’m going to blow your brains out. In the name of the Holy Virgin Mary I’m not joking. Tell them about the explosives. If I want to I can blow the Monument. I’m not scared to die for the cause. Answer it. If you don’t you’ll know what you’ll get.” He’s shouting, sir. “Answer it! Answer it! Damn you.” Jack, I think it’s Jack, is screaming. Someone is being hit. The other boy … George, I think it’s George, is shouting, “Stop it! Stop it!” The Irishman is repeating his demand. A revolver is being cocked. “If you put the gun down I’ll do what you want.” I think Jack is going to answer.’
At this point Sir Charles picked up a spare pair of headphones pre-jacked into the Eavesdropper’s receiver. He closed his eyes and listened on one headphone.
‘To whom am I talking?’ said the Negotiator.
‘Jack.’
‘Go ahead, Jack, I am listening.’
‘The man who is holding me and George prisoner has told me what to say.’
‘Can you tell me his name?’
‘I don’t know his name. He says if you do not give him what he wants he will blow my brains out.’
‘Do you believe him?’
‘Yes. He says he can blow up the Monument.’
‘What does he want?’
‘I want food and water,’ said a man’s voice, a rough voice, a voice full of bravado, a bully’s voice, ‘and a car … a car with a chauffeur to take me and the boys … the boys with a gun to their heads, to Woolsington Aerodrome. Will you be understanding what I’m saying? You will fly me to Dublin. If you want the boys to live you will fly me to Dublin … if you want them to live that’s what you’ll do. It seems to me that you and me … both of us are in a corner … what’s your name?’
‘William.’
‘King Billy, eh? Trust the English to jump in with both feet. Your bosses should have picked someone with a good Irish name or told you to lie. If I’d been talking to a “Seamus”, I might have dropped my guard. One up to myself, I’m thinking. Are you still there?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’ve not gone off to make a cup of tea?’
‘No. Do you have a name? It’s easier to talk to someone when you know their name.’
‘You can call me Mr Ireland and don’t forget the ‘mister’. It would never do for you and me to get too friendly, now, would it?’
‘I would like to be your friend.’
‘Real friends don’t want to put their friends in jail … that’s what you’d like to do to me, William … you’d like to put me in a dark, damp cell and leave me there to rot. Have you the gallows ready for me? What’s your rank?’
‘Negotiator.’
‘Army or civilian?’
‘Army.’
‘Pips or stripes?’
‘Pips but they are honorary. I don’t have to have my hair cut short.’
‘Special forces? Surveillance?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Oxford or Cambridge?’
‘Both actually and yourself, IRA?’
‘Maybe … but you wear a soldier’s uniform?’
‘Yes, and I part my hair down the middle.’
‘William, if I met you on a dark night in Dublin wearing that uniform, I’d kill you … do you understand? I’d kill you. I’m a soldier and you, King Billy, are my enemy.’
‘I understand your point of view, Mr Ireland, I really do. You said before that in your opinion both of us were in, and I quote, “tight spots”. What did you mean by that? I don’t feel like that.’
‘Jack and George are in “tight spots”. Would you like to swap places with them? Soldiers I execute with a bullet ... I make them kneel, get them to look down, that’s the best way … the quickest way. Now, William, I hope you are listening … are you listening, William?’
‘I’m listening.’
‘I’m going to explain to you why you are in a “tight spot”. Your “tight spot”, William, is finding out if I’m bluffing when I say, if I don’t get what I want I will kill the boys. You see I know who they are. They didn’t want to tell me, but I persuaded them … you want to know how I persuaded them?’
‘Only if you want to tell me.’
‘If I told you, you’d be sick … if you were sick you might stop listening, so I won’t tell you … except they didn’t enjoy it. They were too well dressed to be anything but toffs … live at The Hall, don’t they? And George, well, he’s a VIP, isn’t he? Grandson of some English milord called Sir Charles, isn’t he? Couldn’t shut the cripple up about his ancestors … probably has relatives with a big house in the Pale, an Anglo-Irish family with blood on their hands. Are you hearing the bitterness in my voice? I hope so. You see, I wasn’t bluffing when I said I knew who my hostages are … get it into your arrogant English skull that I’m not a bluffer, that I mean what I say. And next time I ring you’ll be answering straight away … don’t be playing silly buggers with me. Jack will be the first to die … one bullet, bang! George, what a very English name … after your king? But not my king … George, I’ll keep to last. He’s important, isn’t he? I’ll be looking out for the victuals. No funny stuff. No poison. George and Jack will be eating first.’
‘He’s rung off, sir,’ said the Negotiator.
Sir Charles nodded. The inside of the Monument echoed sound. He kept listening because he wanted to hear his grandson’s voice. He heard sniffles, sighs, the shuffling noises people make when they are uncomfortable, for example when they are stuck in a seat in an overcrowded railway carriage and want to move but are unable to do so. Then … a scream, an animal cry from the Irishman. The only other time Sir Charles had heard such a poignant bellow had been from a condemned man, a private soldier, in the hours before he’d been shot at dawn, for lack of moral fibre. The Irishman knew he was in serious trouble, no doubt about that. Sir Charles pressed the headphone to his ear. The Eavesdropper signed to everyone to be quiet. The Irishman was talking to George and Jack. ‘I have a son in Ireland. He’s close enough the same age as you lads … I don’t want to but, I’ll kill you if I have to. I will make you famous. Would you like to be famous? You will go down in history as martyrs. They gave their lives that all the people of Ireland might have their liberty. He lives with his mother in Belfast … my little Sean. His mother’s English … me, of all people, marrying an English colleen but she looks Irish … black hair and blue eyes, dark as blue sky reflected in bog water … I’ll kill you if I have to. No Englishman is going to put a noose round my neck. I’ll die for the cause … you see if I’m not prepared to … damn you, why did you have to … what was that?’
What had frightened the fellow? Sir Charles looked towards the Monument; all was still and quiet. Perhaps the Irishman’s imagination was beginning to get the better of him. Perhaps a shaft of light had made a shadow on a wall that looked like a noose. Perhaps Jack had been playing shadow puppets. It was the sort of thing he’d do.
The Irishman’s soliloquy had provided Sir Charles and his team with valuable information. He had a son called Sean, did he? A family home in Belfast. In the meantime, arrangements were put in place to give the fellow the victuals he’d demanded. The aeroplane he’d asked for was another matter; nevertheless, preliminary steps were taken to make one available.
33
‘Sergeant Small,’ said Sir Charles.
‘Sir?’
‘Grateful if you will tell the constable over yonder to let that soldier into the cordon sanitaire. The one with the bicycle. By the looks of him he’s a despatch rider … might have something important for me.’
‘At the double, sir.’
The despatch rider a
pproached the tramcar pushing a red bicycle of the sort used by employees of the GPO for delivering telegrams.
‘I don’t think you need a crash helmet and goggles to ride a push bike, son,’ said Sergeant Small; ‘you taking the piss?’
The despatch rider was very young, very thin and not very tall. Sergeant Small knew the type well. He sighed. He was dealing with a Tyneside Cork.
‘What’s your name, soldier?’ said Sir Charles.
‘Bell, sir.’
‘What’s the problem, Bell?’
‘The policeman, him over there, the fat one, doesn’t believe I borrowed it.’ He looked at the bike. ‘As if me, an army despatch rider would steal a pedal bike. I ask you, sir, would a millionaire bend his back to pick up a penny? Course he wouldn’t. It just wouldn’t happen, sir, would it?’
‘Sergeant Small?’
‘A matter of opinion, sir.’
‘How long have you been in the army, Bell?’
‘Three weeks, sir.’
‘You want to do your bit, eh?’
‘I like riding motorbikes, sir.’
‘Is that why you joined?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And the army has given you a pedal bike?’
‘I had a motorbike until a few hours ago, sir. I was delivering top secret documents to this posh place called The Hall … had to use a map to find it. No good using the signposts, they’re all pointing the wrong way … that’s in case we’re invaded, it’s to confuse the enemy. I’ll tell you this, sir, it confused me.’
‘What did you make of this place … what did you say it was called?’
‘The Hall, sir … lovely gardens, sir. The posh geezer what owns it grows melons.’
‘Who told you that? Never mind,’ said Sir Charles. ‘Were you made welcome?’
‘Oh aye, Cook give’s a mug of tea and a pasty and a bloke with a broken nose give’s a clip round the ear ‘cos I didn’t call him sir.’
‘Was he the Lord of the Manor?’
‘Nar, one of the flunkies … said he’d been in the army and that I should keep my bad manners for the Germans and my good manners for God fearing Englishmen like himself. Then, when I did call him sir, he said I was saying it the wrong way. “You say sar! In the army,” he said.’
‘I still do not understand what this has to do with you losing your motorbike.’
‘I didn’t lose it, sir, it was taken off me by an officer. I was obeying orders, sir. It was just after I’d left The Hall, he flagged me down. If I hadn’t stopped I’d have killed him. Despatch riders don’t hang about, sir. I was on full throttle. When I stopped I took a lot of rubber off my back tyre. He said he was commandeering my motorbike because he needed it to chase Nazis. I asked him if Hitler had landed paratroopers. He said the Nazi he was after was riding a bicycle and was a member of the Hitler Youth. He ordered me to take him to this army place called the Vicarage. He rode pillion. He was very proper about his commandeering, sir. At the Vicarage he got me a travel warrant to get the train back to Newcastle.’
‘The officer who commandeered your motorbike, did he have a name?’
‘An officer at the Vicarage, sir, called him CB. When I gets back to my barracks in Newcastle, sir, there’s a flap on. I’m told to take this despatch to Grey’s Monument, something about a siege. It’s two miles away. Nobody would listen when I said my motorbike had been commandeered. What am I supposed to do? Walk. “Is it urgent?” I asks. “Too bloody true it is,” I was told. So, that’s when I did a deal with the telegraph lad. The way I look at it, sir, is, we both work for the government, only difference is, his enemies are dogs while mine might soon be the whole bloody German army. Do you think it will come to war, sir?’
‘Yes.’
‘Bloody hell, sir, I didn’t think you’d say that.’
‘What have you got for me that’s so urgent?’
He handed Sir Charles a pouch.
‘Thank you and, by the by, I think it would be a good idea if you returned the bicycle to its owner. He’s over there, if I’m not mistaken, waving a golf club. He looks angry. I do believe if it wasn’t for the policeman restraining him he’d be over here doing goodness knows what damage to your good self.’
‘Threatening a member of His Majesty’s Armed Forces I’d call that, sir. You’re a policeman, sergeant, you should lock him up … the Wild Animals Act of 1823. He’s looked in the golf bag, that’s why he’s angry. “While I borrow your bike,” I told him, “you play with the golf clubs.” That was the deal.’
‘Are you a golfer?’
‘Used to caddy for the toffs, sir.’
‘But you have, from what you have just said, a set of clubs.’
‘Found them, sir, didn’t I? Strangest thing I ever saw, apart that is from the chicken with two heads at the Town Moor Fair last year … cost me a penny to get in. The showman said, “That’s cheap, laddie, it’s only half-pence a head.” I didn’t laugh … showmen can talk, can’t they? They’ve got the gift of the gab, haven’t they? I was walking to the railway station, looking at my travel warrant as if it wasn’t real. It’s not far on a motorbike but a long way on Shank’s Pony. It was hot. I needed a rest. I’m young and fit but I’m not in-de-fat-ig-able.’
‘And you didn’t want to get back to your barracks too early?’ said Mike.
‘Aye, maybe, sir, but I was knackered. Anyways, there I was sat under this tree, a nice shady spot, Garden of Eden, you might say, when this car stops. Bloke, gentleman, I mean, sir, gets out … he didn’t see me but I saw him … starts to act shifty, like to make sure no one’s watching what he’s up to … opens the car’s boot and pulls out a golf bag with a little hat on its top to stop the clubs falling out. I knew he was up to no good because he wasn’t on a golf course, was he? He keeps looking round … his neck didn’t need oiling, I’ll tell you that. I flatten meself into the ground, ‘cos I’m curious what he’s up to. Then, what’s he go and do? He goes and flings the golf bag … full of clubs as well, mind, not empty, over a hedge, jumps back into the car and off he goes, leaving me scratching my head like when I had baby eczema. I had a helluva job climbing the hedge, but I remembered that story about Robert the Bruce and the spider, so I didn’t give up. When I got the bag I thought, finders, keepers. I carried it all the way to the railway station. How a camel manages to carry its humps, I don’t know. Station Master … didn’t like him, don’t know why, kept touching the bag; “hands off,” I said. Couldn’t keep his hands off it. I thought if he’s like that with a golf bag, heaven help his missus. Then I got to thinking, funny, I thought, one bloke wants to get rid of the golf bag and, now, this geezer is all interested in it. He’d have taken it off me, if I’d let him. I told him straight, “This belongs to an officer, it’s more than my life’s worth to let it out of my sight.” I don’t think he believed me but then the Newcastle train came in and I was off. It was back in the barracks that I found out what the telegram lad’s found out.’
‘And what might that be?’ said Sir Charles.
‘The clubs in the bag are for midgets, aren’t they? Or kids? No good for playing golf. The heads on them are the right size but their handles have been sawn off, making them half size … vandalism as bad as when me dad painted the netty seat and didn’t tell me mother afore she’d sat down.’
‘Where is the golf bag now?’ said Sir Charles.
‘With the telegram lad. He’s over there. He’s a good runner, I’ll give him that, and me, pedalling hard all the way.’
‘Describe the man who threw the golf bag over the hedge.’
‘Tall, white hair, a toff, begging your pardon, sir … well to do, dark suit, collar and tie and, he was wearing white leather gloves … driving gloves, maybe. He might have been a doctor.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘There was a sticker on the car’s windscreen … Do
ctor on Call.’
‘What sort of car was it?’
‘A Bentley … I told you he was posh.’
Sir Charles took from his wallet a creased black and white photograph. It showed a group standing in front of the village’s Cottage Hospital. Sir Charles was in its middle, smiling. His operation for haemorrhoids had been successful. He was being discharged.
‘Do you recognise him?’
‘That’s him.’
‘He threw the golf bag over the hedge?’
‘No, he’s the one what commandeered my motorbike.’
Sir Charles had forgotten that CB had muscled his way into the group photograph. The bandage made his hand look enormous. He’d been having warts removed.
‘Do you recognise anyone else?’
‘Course I do … that’s him there.’
‘He threw the golf bag over the hedge?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you sure … it is very important that you are certain?’
‘The army doc said I’ve twenty-twenty vision. “You should have wings”, he told me “and a curved beak for a nose … you can see as good as an eagle, you can” … of course I’m certain.’
‘Bell, if you’d been the telegram boy I’d have given you a ten-bob note but, as you are in uniform, and so am I, I can’t.’
‘Oh.’
‘However, your good work will not go unrewarded. Mike, go with Bell, and get the golf bag. Bell, I want you to take the bag to the Vicarage. If the boffins there can’t unravel its mysteries, no one can. Sergeant Small, the police have motorcycles; get Private Bell one.’
34
The despatch rider’s pouch contained photographs taken by the photographer in the redoubt. All but one were images of George collecting the field telephone. The odd one out was an enlargement of a small area. Its magnification made it fuzzy. It showed a side view of the Irishman’s head. The image was good enough to hint at an ear with a deformity.
When Bell took the golf bag to the Vicarage he could take this photograph to The Hall, show it to Marigold. If she identified the grainy image as Doyle then they would have a positive identification of the man with whom they were dealing. Some fast motorbike riding would be called for.
Spies on Bikes Page 28