And there had been no clues as to who ‘they’ were, the despicable villains who had kidnapped him. Shard had been no help over that either. As Hedge banged about in his kitchen, looking for food and saucepans — he could have gone out for a meal, of course, but that would have been risky, such dreadful things happened these days and he might be got at — he reflected that Shard was a horrible man.
*
Across London, Mrs Micklem thought the same. She had never liked her son-in-law, who on occasions had been formidable, just as though she was the interfering sort; he had told her off and she hadn’t liked it, but something had kept her back from hasty retorts. Simon Shard let it be known that he was master in his own house and she knew she had to watch her step thereafter.
Sitting before the gas fire she said, “Christmas on our own, Beth. Or so it seems.”
“Yes, it does.”
“Of course you’ll miss Simon. But it’s nice to be like old times, isn’t it? Only of course without your father now.”
Beth nodded, staring into the fire. Simon had helped to put up the Christmas decorations, holly and ivy — brought up in the country as a child, he always insisted on ivy — and all the rest. Now, it all looked rather despondent. Mrs Micklem went on, “It’s such a shame for Stevie. People are very thoughtless.”
“It’s not exactly Simon’s fault, mother.”
Mrs Micklem’s voice was patient. “No, dear. I never said it was. I was thinking of the people who — who sent him away at this time of the year.” She paused, looking critically at her daughter. “You know, Beth dear, I often think you’re rather too defensive. You don’t like things being said … you jump to conclusions. It’s as though you think I’m —”
“All right, mother.”
“There you go again, don’t you see? All I —”
Beth got to her feet. “Let’s leave it, mother, shall we?”
Mrs Micklem noted the way her daughter’s hands were clenched into fists, noted the anger in her face. “All right, dear,” she said peaceably, “there’s no need to fly off the handle with your mother. We only live once, you know, and it’s Christmas.” She bent and picked Stephen off the rug, where he’d been playing happily with some Lego. “Come and give granny a nice, big kiss, darling,” she said. “If you haven’t got your daddy, there’s always granny.” She added sharply, “Don’t struggle so. You hurt granny.”
Legs and arms flew in her lap. “I’d rather have daddy than you. I don’t like you.”
Mrs Micklem flushed. “Well I never, there’s gratitude for you.” Beth had gone out of the room now. Mrs Micklem took the opportunity of giving the boy a smack.
*
Shard had rung for a taxi from Trudi Palmer’s house. While he waited for its arrival, Trudi used the telephone herself, speaking to someone in Hanover. There would be a seat for Shard, she said, on the Lufthansa flight leaving Hanover airport at 1630 for Berlin. Shard had seen no point in remaining in Hanover, trying to pick up leads that were probably not there. In Hanover he’d had hopes of positive information from Trudi Palmer. Now he had to move on, get close up behind Logan before worse happened. Or possibly before Hedge in London made some sort of cock-up that would leave his field man dangerously exposed. Such had happened in the past and Shard was always wary that it might happen again.
On arrival he checked into a West Berlin hotel, then called at the British Consulate-General, by appointment made on the telephone from Trudi Palmer’s house. He had an interview with a second secretary on secondment from the Bonn Embassy, asking for certain assurances while he was in East Germany.
He asked if there was any knowledge of Logan in West Berlin.
There was not. “Of course, we’re in possession of the known facts, Mr Shard — that this man Logan has surfaced. And really that’s all we do know. Also that he appears to be in Magdeburg.”
“You’ve had no instructions?”
The second secretary shook his head. “Not a thing, no. We understand it’s being left to you.”
“Yes. You don’t know of any associates of Logan’s?”
“No, I’m sorry, we don’t.”
“Yet the original report came from your people in Bonn.”
“Well, yes, it did. I agree. It came to us anonymously as I believe was reported to Whitehall. A telephone call, but naturally it had to be acted upon.”
“How,” Shard asked sardonically, “did you act on it? By informing Whitehall — just that?”
“Yes. There was nothing else to be done, was there, Mr Shard?”
Shard thought: perhaps not. When dead, Logan hadn’t even had a grave that might otherwise have borne investigation. According to the stored and retrieved information, he’d suffered a particularly nasty kind of death: going round a steelworks in West Germany, a place where his principals had a financial interest and as a result so had he, he had managed to fall headlong into a vat or tub or whatever of molten metal and that had been that. There had been nothing left, or nothing that had been getatable when the metal had cooled. Obviously the man who’d fallen in couldn’t have been Logan, and that was another mystery in itself. Unless his resurrection was all eyewash. Shard would have come to the conclusion that it was indeed eyewash if it hadn’t been for the undoubted fact of the kidnapping and threatening of Hedge.
When Shard got back to his hotel room he found he’d had a visitor.
*
One of the day’s disturbing events that had so upset Hedge had been his summons early that afternoon to the presence of the assistant under-secretary of state, a man ranking in the FO hierarchy, the permanent Civil Service hierarchy, only one degree below God. Hedge had practically genuflected when bidden to sit down.
“I’m not pleased, my dear Hedge. Far from it. Time’s been wasted, you must realise that.”
“I’m sorry, Under-Secretary. If only my chief had been available when needed …”
“I’ve not brought you along to listen to excuses, Hedge. You’re not some junior clerk. There are occasions when you have to use your own initiative. This was one of them. You failed to approach the mark expected of you.” The assistant under-secretary was a tall man with the face and voice of authority. Had he chosen another career he might have been an admiral or a general. Hedge quaked but tried not to show it. He protested that he had done his best in the circumstances but had not found much support; he had Shard in mind when he said that, but was not given the chance to elaborate. The assistant under-secretary gave a grunt and said that obviously his best was not good enough.
And then Hedge was subjected to an interrogation.
A very full exposition of the telephone call to his home had been demanded and there were questions pertinently asked about Mrs Reilly-Jacobs. Hedge was closely questioned as to why he had not made an immediate report and his mumbled explanations about risks and the good name of a lady hadn’t been satisfactorily received and Hedge had the nasty feeling that the name of the lady had been noted for reference in the future. He told the whole story of St James’s Park and the unknown house and about Todd or Tod. And F 39 UCK came up once again, causing the assistant under-secretary to utter a loud snort of derision.
Logan, the cause of the whole thing, was not gone into in much detail at that stage; but when Hedge had been dismissed from the presence the closed telephone lines became almost red-hot. Home Office, Ministry of Defence, Treasury, Cabinet Office, Department of the Environment, even the Ag and Fish. Francis Edward Moncrieff Logan had had many contacts in high places. Hedge hadn’t been the only one. By tea-time that day, when the various personal secretaries were filling the ministerial cups, there was a very great deal of concern about Logan and his whereabouts, and much bated breath as Whitehall awaited the next move.
*
The evidence that awaited Shard in his hotel bedroom was pretty clear. To him, at any rate. Small things had been shifted in the drawers into which he had unpacked his grip. Nothing much; but enough. The hotel bedroom staff could be
presumed not to ferret around in residents’ drawers, unless of course with evil intent. Other things: a picture on one wall that he had very slightly tilted was now tilted the other way, as though someone had been, perhaps, looking for a concealed wall safe. Shard, who had a photographic mind, always made a point of noting the position of everything in a hotel bedroom. And in the past that had paid off. This time he noted something else: perfume, rather stronger than would be permitted to a chambermaid.
The someone who had been in his room was a woman. She was unlikely to call again, he believed.
Shard turned in after a final drink from the bedroom’s well-stocked bar. Falling asleep quickly, he dreamed of home. Ealing, the neat house and garden, the large mortgage, Beth, Stephen and mother-in-law.
Also Hedge.
*
It was not nightmares about Mrs Micklem or Hedge that brought him awake suddenly, awake and watchful but silent and motionless. There had been a click, very faint, as of the door to the corridor shutting behind an intruder. But the room was very dark and he saw no-one. He heard nothing further; but a sixth sense told him that someone was there. The someone was keeping very still, no doubt assuring himself that Shard was asleep still.
After a while he smelled the perfume. There was the faint creak of a floorboard. By this time Shard had slid a hand beneath his pillow and had his automatic ready.
With his free hand he reached out and flicked the bedside light on.
He saw the woman, young, little more than a girl; registered that she was pretty. She stood petrified, staring back at him, not speaking. He was covering her with the automatic, and was looking as if he might use it.
He asked a question.
“Who are you, and what do you want?”
She was trembling. She didn’t look like any sneak thief or any undercover woman. No-one, Shard thought, would ever have employed her as such. She was, he believed, freelancing; but what at?
“Out with it,” he said brusquely. “I may use this.” He gave the automatic a jerk. “What’s a young woman like you doing bursting into hotel bedrooms at night, h’m?”
She licked at her lips. When she spoke it was in English, halting and heavily accented. She was German presumably. She said, “I am sorry. It is the wrong room.” She apologised again, and moved for the door.
“Just a minute,” Shard said. Swiftly he was out of bed, putting himself between the girl and the door. “Something tells me it’s the right room. I think you’ve been here earlier this evening. Right?”
“Oh no, no —”
“I beg to differ, young lady. People don’t normally sneak in dead quiet, and move around the way you just did, trying to make no sound — not if they come in thinking at first the room’s the right one. So I think you’d better start telling the truth. Unless you want me to ring for the management.”
She didn’t like that. “No,” she said breathlessly. “Please, no.”
“All right. Start talking. To begin with, what’s your name? I’m assuming you know mine?”
She didn’t answer that. She said, “I am Gerda Schmidt. You know?”
He shook his head. “No. Should I?”
“It was possible.”
“I see,” Shard said. He didn’t at all. “Now kindly answer my second question: do you know my name?”
“Oh yes,” she said. “It is Herr Shard.”
He grinned tightly, still standing over her with the automatic. “Right room after all. Now I think we’re going to have a more comfortable talk. Move over towards the window, Fräulein Schmidt. There’s a chair. Sit in it.” He reached behind himself and locked the door.
*
The Hanover police, having reacted to the alarm ringing from the house of Trudi Palmer, now very dead, had at once informed Bonn. The result of their report reached London and drew Hedge, just an hour after the killing, from his bed. His telephone, the security line, brought the voice of the assistant under-secretary.
“Yes, Under-Secretary?”
There was trouble in Hanover. “I presume you’re familiar with the name of Trudi Palmer, German widow of —”
“Yes, Under-Secretary —”
“Good. She’s been murdered.” Details were gone into. “Something else: Shard had called on her in the early afternoon — yesterday afternoon now. I see a connection with Logan/Schreuder. Shard’ll have to be informed and you’ll have to pull out all the stops now. I’m on my way to the FO. I’ll expect you to get there before me.”
“Oh, dear — yes, Under-Secretary, of course.”
The call was cut. Hedge, muttering to himself, lumbered out of bed, retrieved his teeth from a tumbler by his bedside, thrust them into his mouth, had a hasty wash, got dressed and went down for his car. He detested driving at night; headlights coming towards him blinded him and threw him totally off balance, but duty was duty and everyone, of course, knew what the assistant under-secretary of state was like. But driving through the snowy night for the Foreign Office, Hedge wondered what on God’s earth he was expected to do about a murder in West Germany. In all conscience, he’d scarcely recovered from his own kidnapping. And as for pulling out all the stops … Shard, already in the field and on the job, was just about the only stop available to him so far as he could see. He certainly didn’t intend to go into the field himself.
The assistant under-secretary permitting, that was.
Any suggestion along those particular lines would have to be fought off. Somehow.
4
“Now,” Shard said. “You’d better talk, Fräulein Schmidt. I know you’ve been in this room. How about starting by telling me what you were looking for?”
The girl was crying now. Shard blew out a long breath and asked, “Do you know why I’ve come to Germany, Fräulein?”
She nodded. “That is why I came to your room, Herr Shard.”
“Go on.”
There was no hesitation now. It seemed to come in a rush. “I wished to — to find out things, you know? I wished to find out what you knew, and I searched for documents, anything that you might have brought that would help me. I knew you were here in West Berlin —”
“How did you know that?” he asked.
“I was told.”
“By whom?”
She didn’t answer straight away. Then, with reluctance, she said, “A friend in the office of the British Consul-General.”
“Is that so?” This, Shard did not like. “Is this friend British, Fräulein, or German?”
“German,” she said. “A West German —”
“Of course. What else did this friend tell you?”
“That you had come to look for my grandfather, whose name is Schreuder.”
*
“In there,” the man with the gun had said two days earlier in the hallway of a house on the fringe of countryside close to Magdeburg. Nudging his captive in the back with the gun barrel, he urged him towards a doorway at the end of the hall. Reaching past the elderly man, he pushed the door open. Steep stone steps loomed in the backglow of an electric light that had come on as the door was pushed open. The gun nudged again, and the man went down. As he reached the bottom the man with the gun spoke again. “Our friends in Moscow will come for you shortly. I do not know when. Here you will be safe.” There was a harsh laugh, then the door was banged shut. There was the sound of bolts being drawn across, then, after retreating footsteps from above, silence.
The man, whose name was Schreuder alias Logan, felt his way around the cellar in the pitch darkness, his breath, the breath of a terrible fear, coming in short gasps. He stumbled into something and went headlong, hurting his knee as he fell, and gashing a hand on a sliver of wood.
Getting to his feet, he found that he had stumbled over a raised plank — three planks that formed a seat or a bed. On this, he sat, putting his head in his hands. The last two days had been a time of nightmare. The snatch had been very professionally done. He had known that the Kremlin wanted him, had known this for some ye
ars past. But he had felt safe; safe after the sudden spread of freedom and after the fortuitous accident, which had not been precisely an accident at all, had resulted in his being presumed dead. That had cost him a lot of money; the fact that it had also cost a man’s life was not important to Logan. His own safety, his own anonymity, was. But in the end they had got him, using his grand-daughter as the bait. Logan, not a man given to love of his fellow men, was devoted to his grand-daughter, Gerda Schmidt.
He had had the message; the message that she needed him, that she was sick in her shared flat in West Berlin. The message had come by telephone, from her co-tenant; or so it had said. Logan had found no reason to doubt its authenticity. He had started on the journey, leaving, or so he had intended, for Berlin via the Hanover airport. But at Hanover he had been apprehended by three men and hustled into a car and driven away. After leaving the concourse, blinds had been drawn over the car’s windows and Logan himself had been forced down onto the floor in the back of the car. He could guess where he was being taken. The drive was a long one. A very long one, taken very fast. Logan, in the totally altered political climate, knew there would be little difficulty with frontiers.
Logan knew other things: he knew exactly why he was wanted, why he had been wanted for so long, in the Kremlin.
It was for what lay in his mind, the secrets of the past years, both British and German. In the war and since. The past lingered, it did not die, and many of its secrets had a relevance to the present day. But there was another consideration as well. An old man now, a disillusioned one, one who had for many years considered himself hard done by, a bitter man, Logan had one last big job lined up. A massive threat to Britain and all Europe, a threat that when it came to fruition would spread fast. And the time, the time of fruition, was about to come. The Soviets had been a little late in that respect.
The Logan File Page 4