After he had gone, Kyle and his secretary worked together steadily and in silence, the woman gradually growing more composed through the monotony of the job.
'So what did they take that's any more use than loo paper?' he asked with a wink, pleased to see her relax at last.
'Your notes on the Government's plans for a safe power base in case of insurrection,' she replied, looking a little anxious again.
He shrugged. 'I've printed all that. And the notes gave away no contacts.'
'I don't think they were looking for anything,' she admitted, switching off the electric kettle and pouring them both a well-deserved cup of government issue coffee. 'They just came as frighteners.'
'They were doing what they call in their evil trade a strip-off, Marly,' he explained. 'But they could have been after my notes on our Minister of Trade.'
She looked happy. 'They'd not find them here, would they?'
He smiled back, with affection. 'No, you're a clever woman.'
She produced a packet of biscuits from her drawer and laid them with a flourish on the desk, picking up the phone before its first ring had ended. 'Mr Kyle's office...your wife.'
The columnist sighed as he took over. 'Yes.'
'I think you'd better come home, Jim,' Maggie Kyle's voice, said.
'What's wrong now?' he asked, irritably, then suddenly understood. 'Not the bloody PCD?'
'Them,' she confirmed, then paused, as though catching her breath. '...the Pigs, Clowns and Devils in person. I've only once asked you to come home before, Jim. We need you here now. Preferably with a carpenter and maybe a builder for all I know.'
He could hear the sound of hammering in the background. 'I'm on my way...' he stressed, hanging up and turning unseeing to Marly. 'Bastards!'
'Not there as well!' she exclaimed. 'Poor Maggie.' He had already collected his briefcase and coat. 'Time you went there, anyway,' she added. 'You've not been home for nearly two weeks.'
Kyle brushed a friendly hand across her hair. 'Get Dave Brett to meet me on the way. Same place as usual...' He studied her for a second, noticing the eyes over bright with tears. 'Maybe Tiny's right.'
'What?'
'Words are water pistols,' he said bitterly.
Darkly attractive, intelligent and cool, Maggie Kyle surveyed the PCD men ripping up the floorboards in her living room. The well-worn carpet had been rolled up and dumped in the garden. Jack Nichols was examining the interior of the piano with deep suspicion, as though expecting to discover a cache of grenades strapped behind its strings. Most of the books which lined the far wall, were already scattered on the floor.
'My husband would hardly keep files under the floorboards,' Kyle's wife said, coldly.
'You'd be surprised where people try to hide things. And we're after more than files,' the Chief Emigration Officer pronounced, weightily. 'Krugerrands, sovereigns, any loot they may have given him for getting illegal emigrants out.'
'And pigs may fly,' she retorted, unimpressed. 'Except your kind.'
The muscles round his jaw tightened and he systematically depressed every note on the piano, to make sure it played, before beginning, 'if we do find Krugerrands...'
'You'll have brought them,' she snapped. Then catching sight of Bevan, her twelve-year-old son, standing scared and appalled in the doorway, added with scorn, 'Do you get a deodorant allowance?'
Nichols turned his back and busied himself with the rest of the books. 'We're only doing our job, Mrs Kyle. Some persons offer us tea and toast.'
The boy ran off and Maggie contemplated the rising pile of books. 'Do you also burn them?'
'Not yet, Ma'am,' he replied, with edge; then jerked his head at one of the men, directing, 'Find his study.'
She asked, 'You will be replacing these floorboards?'
'Not necessarily, Ma'am' he answered, with a sneer. 'It depends on how helpful you are.'
The other PCD inspector had reached the door but suddenly stopped in his tracks and retreated rapidly back into the room. Kyle's son, Bevan, appeared looking white and determined and aiming a shotgun straight at him.
'Leave my mother alone and get out,' the boy ordered, grim-faced, and there was a click as he released the safety catch.
'No. Bevan. Not that.' Maggie automatically jolted forward.
But the boy swung round to aim at Nichols. 'Get these stinkers out.'
The Chief Emigration Officer looked hastily over his shoulder at his three subordinates, who had backed as one man to the furthest end of the room. Their eyes confessed a desire to be brave, but pensions were at stake.
'Don't be foolish, son,' he turned on an unconvincing smile and held out his hand.
'I'm not your son,' the boy shouted back. 'Out.'
The shotgun jerked and Nichols' outstretched hand flew protectively to his face, as he cringed for an instant.
'Now, son,' he pleaded, nervously.
'Out!'
The official thought he would try exerting authority. 'Hand it over before you get into real trouble, boy,' he demanded, loudly.
The shotgun was raised higher and aimed with care. 'Out!!'
'Let me have it, Bevan,' his mother's firm voice intervened.
He shook his head, vehemently, but she moved between him and his target. One of the watching men seeing the chance, flung himself to grab her from behind. Bevan dropped the shotgun and rushed to her side. A second inspector seized his arm, twisting it up his back, so that the boy howled in pain. The man caught him round the throat and the child's face changed colour, turning red and puffy, his eyes protruding as he began to choke under the pressure of a vicious armlock.
'Leave him!' The Chief Officer instructed, after a deliberately sadistic hesitation.
Bevan lurched coughing and spluttering to his mother, who took him in her arms.
Furious at having been made to look publicly idiotic, Jack Nichols picked up the weapon and glared at it with narrowed eyes. 'Big gun for a little boy...His father's?'
Maggie Kyle nodded.
'...And no licence.'
'Wrong.'
'Let's see it.'
'I've no idea where it is.'
'We don't dish out gun licences to people like your husband,' he asserted.
'Check with your Department,' she replied, uncaring. 'He helps them sometimes. God knows why. And they reciprocate.'
'I see.' He obviously did not believe her. 'And what does he want a gun for? Shooting sub-editors?'
'Vermin.'
'He got any?'
Maggie Kyle gave him a penetrating stare before answering with feeling, 'Not yet.'
Nichols turned to Evans. 'Check with Centre if he has a licence...'
'Try one of your Deputy Controllers. Miss Lomas,' Maggie Kyle said, coolly.
The man stopped dead. No-one quoted that name without being sure of the facts.
'I'll check it myself,' the Chief Emigration Officer muttered, feebly, knowing he was beaten. Then, twisting away from this slim woman, who refused to be intimidated, he began to take it out on the boy. 'I could have you removed and locked up a long time for what you've done...' It was like looking, into the mother's eyes, the same colour, the same contempt. 'You'd not see your mother and father...' he bullied.
'Don't try to frighten him,' Maggie Kyle put in, with venom.
The PCD Emigration Chief gave her a calculating glance. 'He could be a menace to society.' This was the whip hand. She would crawl now.
'I said don't bully him! You'll not always have it your way.'
They stared at each other. She was not going to cringe.
'Isn't it past your bedtime?' Nichols pinched the child's ear, spitefully, as he addressed him. Bevan wanted to spit at him, but his mother said, quietly, 'Go and look after Jamie.' And the PCD men watched as he trailed, reluctantly, from the room.
Their boss turned on them. 'Come on, it's not lunch break yet.'
Stoically picking up their hammers, they resumed the search, wrenching out the skirting boards
and sweeping the contents of the cupboards onto the floor. A pink china elephant fell with a crash. Maggie picked up the pieces and left the room.
She walked slowly up the stairs to her bedroom and sat by the window, looking out onto the quiet, suburban street. One or two people she recognised went past. They did not see her, but the PCD van was as conspicuous as a Black Maria and they gave it startled glances before hurrying on. She felt branded. There had to be something constructive she could do, better than sitting around in despair.
A few minutes later, she returned downstairs. The men were on the hall floor now and the house resounded with the noise. Jack Nichols barely looked up as she approached.
'I could help a little,' she offered, hesitantly, ignoring the hostility. 'If you put the floorboards back.' The pieces of the broken ornament chinked in her hands. 'I'd like my husband here more. His job keeps him away and I don't like that.'
The Chief Emigration Officer was basically a respectable citizen. He did not approve of 'goings on' and, in his limited imagination, pictured people such as journalists, actors, musicians and the like living highly immoral and promiscuous lives. The woman seemed to be saying something which confirmed this.
'I have a family, Mrs Kyle,' he replied. 'I enjoy them. You have my sympathy.'
'This is in confidence, of course,' she appealed.
'Your husband, you mean?''
'There's a well down the garden.' Her voice dropped almost to a whisper. 'You must know about it.'
'Yes,' he admitted, beginning to look interested.
'About half way down there's somewhere he keeps things. I know he has to move two stones or bricks.'
All at once, Jack Nichols' day returned to its former brightness. Calling his men, he went bounding out through the small French windows and across the lawn.
Dave Brett had picked up Kyle in his ostentatious car outside Edgware Road tube station. As always, people had turned to watch the streamlined limousine roar away and now they hit the motorway.
Kyle said little. He had thought himself accustomed to taking risks and living with danger, but the attack had come so unexpectedly. Had there been a tip-off? Or were they bluffing? Or perhaps the whole affair was a cover for something else altogether. What? Always able to face the possibility of ending up in the PCD clutches, it was the implication of Marly first and then his family which had really jolted him.
'I should spend more time with Maggie and the kids,' he muttered.
'That's what I think,' Brett agreed. 'Don't let the bloody PCD get you down, though. I'll talk you out of anything whatever they find.'
'They'll find nothing there,' the journalist assured him.
'And you the word-merchant!'
'I trade in facts,' Kyle insisted.
Brett grinned. 'And me?'
Kyle managed a faint smile. 'When nearly everybody had a car, Dave, there were second-hand dealers, remember? You'd have been the best, wriggling round the Trade Descriptions Act like an articulate rattlesnake.'
Dave Brett chuckled. 'Nice to be admired.'
'I hope the pigs are still there,' the newsman worried.
'I'm doing the ton,' replied the agent.
'Maggie will know how to delay 'em,' Kyle said, almost to himself, conscious of her dependability and disliking himself.
They drew up soon behind Nichols' staff car and the PCD van. The road was empty and no noise carried from Kyle's house.
'You go in,' Brett said, eyeing the two parked vehicles. 'I'll be with you in a tick.' Taking a small metal object from his pocket, he squatted down beside the van.
Kyle stepped quietly over the exposed joists in the hall and listened to the voices in the living room.
'There's not a single loose brick down that well,' Nichols was saying in strangled tones.
'It can't be easy to find.' Maggie sounded meek.
'There isn't one,' the Emigration boss yelled.
Kyle entered, taking in the damage and chaos at a glance, before crossing to kiss his wife and turning to the official delinquents. All four men were covered in slime and the room was filled with the stench of stagnant water. For one hysterical second, he almost lost control and burst out laughing, then felt Maggie's hand on his arm.
Looking round the room again with slow deliberation he snarled at Jack Nichols, 'How do you spend your holidays? Trampling on kids' sand castles and crunching their fingers?'
'We've a right to be here,' the man aswered, defensively, and looking embarrassed.
'Get those boards back,' Kyle ordered.
The Chief Emigration Officer regarded his wet and reeking work force standing miserably in the corner, and drew himself up. 'We restore only at our discretion. And your wife had lied to waste our time,' his voice rose to a squeak of indignation. 'And your son threatened me with a gun. And you know what that could mean for him.'
Kyle picked up the phone.
'I'm authorised by the Controller himself,' the man burst out.
The phone was replaced. 'Overtime searching for nothing,' the journalist commented.
'And dirty job bonus...' said Nichols, with rancour, indicating his inspectors.
'You merit that anyway.' The columnist had to grin.
'Every time,' Dave Brett agreed behind him.
Nichols aggressively demanded to know who he was and the PCD men moved forward. Dave Brett smirked and flipped open his ID card. 'A-Class Citizen. Import-export agent,' he drawled, mocking as Nichols checked the watermark against the light. 'It's genuine. We bring in the dollars, marks and yen that keep you cosy in your feather beds. Without us, Emperor Dan the Miners' Man would be shivering in the Home Secretary's office, minus heat and pension.'
'Thank you, Mr Brett.' The Head of Emigration Control was carefully courteous now as he handed back the card.
'So what did you unearth?' the agent probed. 'A couple of escaped hamsters and a bit of woodworm?'
'They are the woodworm,' Kyle observed, maliciously, as his son, Bevan appeared in the doorway.
Jack Nichols dipped into his pocket and produced a leather pouch. 'One of my men found this...' He poured out a handful of Krugerrands. 'It's an offence to hold gold Krugerrands, Kyle. And we have reason to believe they were in payment for services to illegal emigrants.'
'Rubbish!' Brett interrupted, instantly. 'I gave him those. He gave me contacts in two foreign embassies, and I flogged twenty-five million quids' worth of machine parts. Strong stuff, exports, Nichols. Touch me and your bosses will be down on you so hard you'll not hear your skull crack...'
The official looked uncertain, his hand tightening over the coins.
'Give 'em back,' Brett instructed, standing with hands on hips as the man slid the money back into the pouch,
'They smashed this, Jim.' Maggie handed the pieces of the pink china elephant to Kyle. It had been a present from him to her in younger, happier days, when they had holidayed once by the sea in Devon.
Stung, he heckled Nichols, 'What does it say on your ID card? Public Vandal Number One?'
'That was an accident, Kyle. You can claim on Form J237.' The reply was pompous and without regret.
'It's your family that'll be claiming unless you get out,' the journalist surged forward, threateningly.
'And put that loot back where you found it,' commanded Brett. 'If I stop getting export orders for this country because you go knocking off my back-handers you'll soon be an ex-Inspector with a ticket for suitable treatment in Cumberland.'
Nichols was now completely out of his depth. Somehow, the plant had backfired. Thoroughly alarmed at the prospect of losing PCD gold, he moved swiftly to the door. 'I'm just going to radio the office.'
Brett stepped in front of him. 'You're going to put that down first.'
The out-manoeuvred official reluctantly placed the bulging pouch on the coffee table. Young Bevan was standing truculently by the door, obviously determined to kick him as he passed.
'All right, Bevan,' his father said, gently. 'You've lots of
time, son. Nichols!' he added. The man turned. 'If ever our country climbs out of this dark age and the lynch mob comes for you, I promise you this - I'll not notice a thing.'
The man slunk off leaving the three inspectors huddled together, lost without their leader. They were shivering with cold as water still dripped from them onto what was left of the floor.
'Well, make yourselves useful, lads,' Dave Brett instructed, briskly, waving his arm at the stacked floorboards. Do you all have warrants? Or just the boss man?'
They shuffled and did not reply.
'Only I'd like to see them.' He glanced at his friend, who was now staring into space, numbed by the attack on his home. 'Wouldn't we, Kyle?'
The agent's voice prodded the newsman into life again and he turned, fuming, on the invaders, picking up the shotgun, taking off the safety catch and aiming.
The first inspector fumbled fearfully for his warrant card and his companions followed suit.
Brett checked the documents. 'Authentic. Would you coco?'
Kyle slowly lowered the shotgun with a wry, smile. 'Put your eyes back in. Just testing.'
Jack Nichols had closed the front garden gate and was scuttling towards the PCD van, absently registering that it seemed low on the road. Then his face went taut and he stopped to examine the wheels. Every tyre was slashed.
Behind, its crouching position told him that the gleaming official car had not escaped either.
CHAPTER TWELVE
By the time they had replaced the ripped-up floorboards, called for special transport and crawled back to headquarters, it was dark. They were still damp and malodorous and they had eaten nothing all day.
The inquest on the fiasco continued into the night, Lomas, Tasker and Skardon bickering over who was to blame.
'And the first I hear about it is when he's already being stripped off.' Delly was angrily accusing.
'Perhaps it was felt you were getting too close to him.' Skardon wriggled, uneasily.
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