Who Guards a Prince?

by Reginald Hill

  Well, the incredulity had been right, the delight premature. The man was indestructible. His very essence was menace, with no need of gesture. And oh, sweet Jesus! what would he be like when he learned that his daughter was dead? The anticipated horror of that moment had created enough terror in Jopley to make him readily cooperate.

  But he could salvage something of self-respect by the genuine identification of something more than just fear of McHarg in his motivation.

  His shock at working out that the Prince’s death was now purposed had been real and deep. He had neither the means nor the courage to attempt to thwart this purpose himself. But if anyone could, it was McHarg.

  So it had been easy to let himself be carried unresistingly along, with all his own thoughts and emotions retired into a kind of limbo. Time enough to let them loose again when he saw how things were turning out.

  But curiosity is not so easily switched off. The headlights penetrated only a few yards into the swirl of snow and even less was visible out of the side windows. Even though the speedometer told him that they were moving along at a suicidal rate, it was easy to relax and let the sense of speed be substituted by that sense of cosiness he had momentarily experienced just after leaving the hotel. Outside the dark, the cold, the unfriendly; inside the warm, the comfortable, the secure.

  He said: “McHarg, why are you doing this?”

  “Doing what?”

  ‘This U.S. Cavalry act which is likely to get you killed if you don’t slow down.”

  McHarg thought. “Answers,” he said. “I want answers.”

  “No, you don’t,” said Jopley. “If you just wanted answers, you’d have spent more time toasting me over a low fire to find out exactly what I know.”

  “There’ll be time for that,” said McHarg grimly. Jopley shuddered. He believed it.

  McHarg continued: “But the job comes first. Always must. Do the job. Let the answers come if they will.”

  Yes, that was it, thought Jopley enviously. That was McHarg’s strength. He took the nearest way. Doubts, uncertainties, pains, profits, all were diversions. Drive straight on. Go for the throat.

  Whereas he, Edward Granville Jopley, impeccably pedigreed in birth, education and military service, was, always had been, a parcel of evasions and deceits.

  McHarg spoke as if reading Jopley’s thoughts. The Captain was ready to believe he had.

  “And you, why’ve you done this?” he asked.

  Jopley did not need to hesitate. He had thought all this through a thousand times. And this box they were in, so remote from time and realilty, had something of the qualities of the confessional.

  “Because in openness I could see no way to potency,” he replied.

  McHarg shot him a curious glance, but asked no more. He knew when an interrogated man needed no further prompting.

  “I believe…certain things,” resumed Jopley. “Details don’t matter. I have always wanted to be influential in my beliefs. But there have been no opportunities. What I am…openly, what those who make decisions found to admire in me, was in fact limitation. I have no skill for money-making which is one way to power; no talent to rise to more than a moderate military elevation. I thought when I was invited to be the Prince’s equerry that here, at last…but I’m a social secretary, an upper-class valet, that’s all. So I let myself be recruited.”

  He broke off abruptly. Even his powers of confession were limited. In openness there is no potency. And sexually too. He could find nothing to take, nothing to give…there had been dreadful moments of shame and fiasco till he had discovered that it was through shame, through debasement, through subjugation, that he became potent…and after that, ah, the sweet agonies, the soaring depths…till they had found him out, or more likely sought him out…the Tyler with his rolls of film, another man of quiet terror, not unlike McHarg…

  “McHarg, have you killed the Tyler?” he asked abruptly.

  The silence was affirmative. Oh Jesus. His own reminiscences were preferable to that thought.

  It had seemed like simple blackmail at first, but they had asked nothing. There had been questions, probings, over a long period, till it must finally have occurred to them that here they had something better than a pressed man, they had a volunteer.

  Even then they were not content till they had grappled his soul to them with bands stronger than their threats—his own promises. And strangely, after the horror of that night in Morrison’s cottage had passed, the realization that for the first time in a life full of form and symbol he was involved with symbols and forms that actually meant something had filled him with a greater sense of strength and security than he had ever known.

  He was ready to obey unquestioningly and indeed even now would have obeyed with only private questionings had not McHarg appeared, deus ex machina—no not a god, and needing no machine—a force of nature…avalanche… blizzard…

  He fell asleep.

  When he awoke the snow had almost stopped and McHarg was studying the map as he drove.

  “I’m sorry,’” said Jopley. “I felt so…tired.” Relaxed, he had been going to say.

  Into the headlamps’ beam loomed a sign. It read SUMMIT pop. 522.

  McHarg slammed on the brakes and used the slushy road surface to spin the jeep round in a dozen yards.

  “We’ve overshot,” he said. “Let’s have the map.”

  It was hot in the jeep and Jopley wound down the window to get a few draughts of reviving coldness. Somewhere close he heard the familiar pulse of a helicopter’s vanes, then it was gone.

  “Back a couple of miles. A track off right,” said McHarg. “Watch for it.”

  They moved at a more sedate pace now but only till Jopley spotted the narrow track. There was a sign saying Private and a simple gate that someone had passed through and not bothered to shut. McHarg slewed the wheel over and next minute they were thundering through the trees.

  The thin patina of snow gave the surface of the track a deceptively even look but underneath it was hard and deeply rutted. The trees flew past at arm’s length. All the previous illusion of calm and immobility was completely replaced by an impression of headlong, dangerous flight which was not at all illusory. Terror of seeing made Jopley close his eyes, then greater terror of not seeing made him open them again. It was as well he did, for he spotted the slight movement first. A dark shape at the edge of the track ahead, a rotting branch perhaps, a drift of needles; but it moved!

  “McHarg!” screamed Jopley.

  The jeep lurched to a halt just short of the moving shape. McHarg killed the lights, kicked open his door and leapt out, with Jopley close behind. They had both realized simultaneously it was a man who lay before them, and now McHarg crouched low by the side of the jeep and tried to pierce the grey shades which folded all around. But Jopley went straight to the man and shone the flashlight in his face.

  “It’s Dewhurst,” he cried.

  McHarg joined him. The moist pain-filled eyes strained up at this new face which loomed over him in the penumbra of the torch, then something like a smile of recognition flickered there.

  “McHarg…” If he could have asked for any man in the world…he strained upwards and groaned more with the effort than the pain which loss of blood and the cold had almost anaesthetized.

  McHarg put his arm round his back, saw him wince and looked more closely at the right shoulder. “Nasty,” he said. “What happened?”

  “Two men,” whispered Dewhurst. “Shot me…looked for me…hidden…gave up…”

  “How long ago?”

  The eyes managed another flicker of amazement at the absurdity of expecting measures of times.

  “…seconds…minutes…hours…days…” he murmured.

  McHarg ran his hand inside Dewhurst’s coat and grunted with satisfaction. He came up with the policeman’s revolver firmly grasped in his broad fist.

  “Hold him,” he ordered Jopley.

  He went back to the jeep and reappeared with a rug a
nd half a bottle of Scotch, standard equipment almost in these climes.

  “Here,” he said. “Feed him this. Keep him warm as you can.”

  He climbed back into the jeep.

  “McHarg!” cried Jopley. “Surely we ought to take him up to the house…”

  “He’ll be safer here for the time being. You too. I want you safe, Captain Jopley, so don’t be taking any walks through the woods.”

  Jopley saw the lips stretch in a humorless smile. Then the headlights leapt forward once more and the jeep bucketed away up the track.

  Soon it was out of sight and the shadows came running back with the echoes of the fading engine.

  When everything was quite quiet again, he thought he caught the throb of the helicopter’s vanes once more, but he might have been mistaken.

  He unscrewed the whisky cap and dribbled a trickle of the warming liquor into the wounded man’s white, stretched mouth.

  The chopper pilot’s mouth was also white and stretched with the tension of the past hour. The heavy pistol barrel resting on the back of his seat had never wavered, but enough was enough and fifteen minutes earlier he had been ready to call the old bastard’s bluff when suddenly the weather had started to ease. It still wasn’t good, but at least there was a chance of seeing something. His eyes moved to the fuel gauge. Low but still leaving a bit of a margin. Not that that worried him too much. Once he put this thing down, he was setting off out of range of that pocket cannon strictly under his own power.

  He had been flying blind on several occasions and was no longer certain of his position. Coming low to get a visual fix was a dangerous business in this high country but it had to be done. He swung from east to west in a short arc and almost at once picked up the road, then equally quickly lost it again. Another swing and there it was once more, its narrow line running through a small settlement, whose lights twinkled against the early evening gloom.

  “Hold it,” said Conal. “Is that Summit?”

  The old man glanced down.

  “That’s it,” he said.

  Patch wished he could feel so positive. One road looked much like another, and one huddle of buildings too, from up here. But obediently he flew on, seeking for the track which ran up to the Lodge. This was even more difficult in the murk, for the trees closed in across the forest tracks and even the clearing in which the Lodge stood was easy to miss if you didn’t get right above it.

  “There! Is that it?” demanded Conal. “Look, where the lights are.”

  Momentarily Patch glimpsed what looked like the headlights of a car swimming fast beneath the ocean of green. Then they stopped moving and suddenly disappeared.

  He swung the chopper round in a tight circle, eyes straining. For a while, nothing.

  “Look! There again!” cried Conal.

  He saw them, away back and to the right.

  Christ, he thought as he watched the light cascading through the pines, surely no one would be travelling that fast down there?

  But unless it was a will-o’-the-wisp, someone was. He laid in an interception course and dropped down to follow.

  Ember heard the helicopter as he stood shivering in the clearing. Goldmann heard it too but he neither paused nor accelerated in his meticulous binding of the Prince to the chosen tree. It wasn’t like cutting the girl’s hair, he got no perverse pleasure out of it, except in the simple sense of the word in that it pleased him to make Ember impatient. All this fucking rigmarole was none of Goldmann’s choosing. But if Ember wanted a performance, OK, that’s what he would get.

  “Move it, will you?” demanded Ember. The noise of the chopper had made him uneasy. He knew that they were common enough up here—forest rangers, fire-watchers, they all had them. But this one sounded close. Would they be able to make out what was happening if they flew right overhead? He doubted it. The branches of the pine spread out wide and thick a few feet above the Prince’s head. A little further in a minute when he shortened it, he thought with an uncharacteristic flash of macabre humor.

  Christ, he’d been on this job too long. If he wasn’t careful, he’d end up like Goldmann getting kicks from it.

  “Why are you doing this?” Arthur asked in a clear, calm voice.

  Ember looked at him in surprise. He’d thought the poor bastard was half conscious and in a state of shock, but the head was upright now, the eyes clear and steady.

  “You’re no more Irish than I am,” Arthur continued. “So why? If you’re being paid, I think I can top their best offer. A prince’s ransom is still pretty handsome.”

  This was the English royals just like in the movies, thought Ember. All guts and a bit of comedy. He met the man’s gaze. He saw there intelligence and genuine curiosity. The poor bastard really wanted to know what it was all about! He almost wished he could have told him.

  What Arthur saw in return was a brief flash of something that might have been pity, then confirmation of his death.

  He nodded.

  “Dree—the girl—is she to be killed too?” he asked.

  “No,” said Ember, after some thought.

  “Thank you,” said the Prince warmly.

  This guy was something else! thought Ember.

  Goldmann said, “Finished. Let me do the honors.” He raised his gun to the bound man’s head.

  “No!” said Ember with sudden ferocity. “I’ll do it.”

  Goldmann looked at him in surprise, shrugged and began to walk away. Time for one more look at the naked girl perhaps.

  The noise of the helicopter was louder now. He paused and looked up, trying to spot it against the low dark sky.

  Ember raised his gun. Arthur didn’t close his eyes.

  The clearing was full of noise. And it wasn’t just the chopper.

  “Ember!” yelled Goldmann. “We got company!”

  The headlights of the jeep came slicing through the trees. Ember turned his head. The muzzle of his gun was pressed against the Prince’s temple, his finger was white upon the trigger.

  And now Arthur did close his eyes, thought a little prayer which was surprisingly ecumenical for one whose family led the Established Church, and kneed Ember in the balls. As the man doubled up, the gun at his temple exploded.

  Goldmann had his automatic out and with a two-handed hold was pumping slugs through the windscreen of the fast-approaching jeep. No driver was visible but the vehicle held its unremitting course. The killer did the right thing, kept his finger on the trigger till the magazine was empty and held his ground till it was too late for the jeep to follow his evasionary leap. But the snow-covered grass and his thin city shoes betrayed him. Instead of leaping he slipped. And the front right wheel of the heavy jeep ran a groove across his pelvis which provided just enough resistance to turn the steering so that the rear right wheel crushed his chest and neck.

  For the jeep was travelling unattended.

  As the first bullets crazed the windscreen McHarg had hit the accelerator and left. It was many years since he’d done a parachute drop, but he hit the ground with his body curved and rolling and would have been amused if he’d ever realized that his left hand still swung hard against his chest to hit a nonexistent release catch.

  In his right hand, he held Dewhurst’s gun. He had taken in the scene instinctively as the jeep emerged from the trees but now he was momentarily disoriented, and besides the light had gone. The jeep had continued its mad career across the clearing and there was a tremendous crash as it struck one of the cars parked outside the Lodge. The headlights shattered. Black night poured in from the forest. Only the snow seemed to offer any source of illumination.

  Then suddenly, as the fuel line broken by Goldmann’s final bullets spilt petrol on to the ruptured battery leads, they shorted and the tangled vehicles blossomed into flame. At almost the same instant, the helicopter’s floodlights hit the center of the clearing as Patch, estimating that the gun at his head was closer to going off than ever before, obeyed Old Pat’s injunction to land.

  Embe
r and McHarg faced each other only a few yards apart. The pain in Ember’s crotch was still excruciating but he raised his gun unwaveringly and took aim. He got his shot off first and it might have finished McHarg had not the violent down-draught of the chopper’s vanes rocked him with its force. His bullet flew wide and McHarg, who had once spent his days falling out of gun-ships and assuming the firing position as if on an indoor range, showed the uncertainties of age by putting a second shot into Ember’s chest when his first had already exploded the man’s heart like a fairground balloon.

  Now he rose and sprinted to the man bound to the tree, ignoring the helicopter whose passengers were spilling out of it almost before it touched the ground.

  The Prince hung slack in his bonds. The bark above his head was splintered by Ember’s bullet and the air was full of the acrid smell of burnt hair.

  For a second McHarg thought it had all been too late. Then the Prince stirred and groaned.

  It took McHarg a long minute to untie Goldmann’s cunningly contrived knots. Arthur slid down the tree and stretched himself out on the ground like a fatigued man ready for a long sleep. McHarg examined the groove in the thick fair hair. The bullet had scorched the scalp but not actually broken it as far as he could see. He plastered it with handfuls of snow and the Prince’s eyes opened.

  “Mr McHarg,” he said faintly but without surprise. “I’ve missed you.”

  “Yes, sir,” said McHarg, checking him for other wounds. Apart from a nasty bruise at the base of the neck, there seemed to be nothing.

  “That fellow, the one I kicked in the goolies, what happened to him?” croaked Arthur.

  “You’re lying on him,” said McHarg flatly.

  The Prince pushed himself upright and looked down at the crumpled body he had pillowed himself upon.

  “Oh God. I didn’t kick him that hard.”

  Then his eyes took in the helicopter with its still slowly rotating blades, the burning jeep, the Lodge beyond, and he cried out, “Dree!”

  He rose to his feet, staggered, but pushed McHarg away when he tried to help and set off at a drunken run towards the building.