Sky High

by Michael Gilbert

  His disappearance seemed to release a spring which set them all moving.

  ‘Don’t go after him,’ said the General. ‘Telephone Tom Pearce. They must head him off. Oh, damn, I forgot, your telephone’s out of action. There’s a box on the corner.’

  The car outside had started, and they heard it slam into top gear as it went down the drive.

  ‘Better be quick,’ said the General. ‘If he gets back to Clamboys he’ll destroy all the stuff in that secret cache of his, and then he can snap his fingers at us.’

  ‘Don’t you worry, General,’ said Jim. ‘It’s all set. That’s what I came to tell you. I didn’t know he was here. You could have knocked me down—’

  They stared at him.

  ‘Morry told it all to me. Just so soon as he was alone in the car with me, out it all came. I never heard such stuff, secret hiding places, and dynamite and burglars’ kits and jewels and such. I rang up the Inspector right away, you see. Mr. Pearce was with him.’

  ‘Did they—’

  ‘They didn’t take a lot of convincing. They almost seemed to be expecting it. They came round, and picked us both up, and Morry showed him how the thing worked – under the staircase, a real neat job. You’d hunt a month and not find it.’

  ‘So they’ll be waiting for him when he gets back.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Jim. ‘If he gets back.’ They could all hear the engine rising into top pitch, as the big car, driven by an angry man, hit the long straight stretch, west out of Brimberley, on the Clamboys road.

  In the silence Tim heard something else, too. It was a noise he knew well. The characteristic, expiring effort of the water cistern.

  Why did they make that peculiar noise? The water ran out, and the ball-cock dropped as the level fell. He had made a joke about it, as he stood outside the MacMorris cistern room – something about someone coming to steal the ball-cock – then, as the level rose, the arm carrying the great brass float rose too, shutting up the inlet value. Up, down, and up again.

  ‘My God,’ said Tim, in a voice that jerked all heads round together. ‘What bloody fools we are. No time to talk. Jim, get Rupert out of that kitchen and turn on the sink taps. JUMP TO IT.’

  Jim jumped.

  ‘General, take Liz out—right away—down the garden. Fast as you can. DON’T ARGUE.’

  Then he was gone.

  He took the steps in fours. There was no time even to try the bathroom door. He ran at it and slammed the sole of his foot hard, an inch below the china handle.

  A smacking crack as something broke and the door burst inwards.

  Sue was standing just beside the bath. She gave a very faint squeak. Tim did not even spare her a glance. He was at the basin. With two rapid movements he flicked on the taps. Then the bath taps.

  ‘Put a towel round you,’ he shouted, then swept her up and was out into the passage and skidding down the stairs.

  Sue said ‘ouch’ as a bare bit of her hit the bannisters. Then they were cascading down the hall and out into the garden.

  ‘I think I could walk now,’ she said faintly.

  Tim put her down absentmindedly and she gathered the towel round her. Fortunately it was a large one.

  At the bottom of the lawn they found the General with Liz, and Jim Hedges with Rupert pick-a-back on his shoulders.

  ‘Hadn’t we better get a bit further – or lie down—’ said the General.

  Tim let out his breath in a long, slow, sigh.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s all right now. But give it five minutes.’

  ‘I got both taps on in the kitchen,’ said Jim. ‘And I got Rupert, too.’

  ‘Not half, he didn’t,’ said Rupert. ‘He nearly broke my arm when he picked me up. I say, isn’t this fun. What happens next?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said Tim. ‘Nothing. It’s all over.’

  They stood together in the dusk, listening to the cascading of the water.

  EPILOGUE

  ‘COME, YE THANKFUL PEOPLE—’

  King:

  ‘The extreme part of time extremely forms

  All causes to the purpose of his speed

  And often, at his very loose, decides

  That which long process could not arbitrate.’

  ‘I could kick myself, now, for having been so stupid,’ said Tim, to Tom Pearce. ‘It was presented to me, on a plate, twice, and I missed it.’

  ‘Lucky you didn’t quite miss it the second time,’ said Pearce, ‘or we should have had a real old mystery on our hands.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Inspector Luck, resentfully, ‘that I understand it now.’

  ‘It was the water in the main cold water cistern,’ said Tim. ‘However many other tanks you have, if you use any water in the house anywhere it must, ultimately, empty that tank – which fills again from the main. The whole thing is regulated by a valve, which opens and shuts by means of an arm, with a floating ball on the end. The ball goes down, the valve opens wide, the water rushes in. As the water level comes up, the ball comes up too, and shuts the valve. It’s the last dying jerks of the arm letting in little spurts of water that cause the extremely odd noises most tanks make when they’re almost full.’

  ‘But—’ said Luck.

  ‘The point is,’ said Tim, ‘that unless some water has been run recently the tank won’t make any noise at all. It isn’t a living organism. You’ve got to do something to set it going – pull a lavatory plug or run a basin of water. So why should the MacMorris tank have been gurgling at me when he and I were searching the house. I’d already been in the house at least half an hour – probably more. And MacMorris hadn’t been out of my sight.’

  ‘He might have just finished a bath the moment you came.’

  ‘All right. So he might. I don’t think he had, but it was just possible. But how could anything like that have happened in our house when I got back after the choir outing? It was Anna’s day off. The house was – or should have been – empty since before lunch. Yet the tank was active. Meaning that someone had drawn off some water – and recently.’

  ‘I still don’t see,’ said Luck. ‘Where did Gattie put the explosive?’

  ‘You’re not trying,’ said Tim. ‘He put it in the tank, of course. A little water doesn’t hurt a good modern explosive. You can immerse it for weeks. I think the sequence was this. First empty out enough water from the tank. There’s usually a runaway tap up in the loft. He could use that. Tie back the valve arm so that no more runs in. Fix your detonating mechanism – a three-way switch – to the valve arm. Then untie the valve arm so that the water could run back to its proper level. That was all you had to do. The victim himself would do the rest, next time he drew off any water. If it was just a basinful, to wash his hands – which I think was all MacMorris did before he went to bed – then the tank would refill quickly and the explosion would be quick. If you emptied the tank for a smacking great hot bath, like Sue, bless her, then it would take much longer for the arm to come right up again and set the thing off.’

  ‘And so long as you kept some water running the tank would never quite refill, and you’d be safe.’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Tim. ‘And if you never washed at all, you’d be safer still. Cleanliness furthest from Godliness really.’

  ‘I see,’ said Tom Pearce, ‘I’ll remember it next time I have a bath. That letter – I take it MacMorris probably did write that to himself.’

  ‘I should think so, yes. Something made him suspicious. He felt they were moving in on him. Perhaps Gattie came into the house to reconnoitre and he heard him. Something like that. I think, too, though it’s of no importance now, that it was MacMorris who destroyed that photograph. He wouldn’t want it in evidence if the police were going to come nosing round. Too direct a lead back to his past. He was going to destroy that note about Brasseys when the explosion caught him. He already had destroyed the photograph. Probably burned it.’

  ‘Wonder he kept it at all,’ said Luck.

&nb
sp; ‘He was proud of it,’ said Tim. The Regiment is a bigger thing than you.’

  II

  ‘Apparently,’ said the General, ‘when he got back to Clamboys he spotted Luck’s car – careless of Luck, that. So he turned straight round, and went back down the drive fast. Don’t know what was in his mind. I expect he’d got one or two safe deposits and that sort of thing. May have hoped to skip the country. Came out into the road too fast and went straight under a ten-tonne lorry.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Liz. She sounded neither vindictive nor upset. ‘Tom Pearce missed a chance there. As soon as I heard about it I suggested he took Gattie out and put him in the car beside Bob. That would have solved all their troubles.’

  ‘He couldn’t do that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Most irregular. You could never hush it up. Bound to come out about Bob.’

  ‘I wasn’t worrying about Bob,’ said Liz. ‘He did it because he enjoyed it. I told him as much. He was an Elizabethan. Piracy. Throat cutting. Love making. I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t write sonnets as well. No. All the regrets I’ve got are for Gattie. Thank God he wasn’t married, but his mother’s still living. I’ve spoken to her. She’s a nice old girl, and she’s going to get hurt by this. Rupert, too.’

  ‘What are you doing about Rupert?’

  ‘He’s staying with me,’ said Liz. ‘He ought to go to school right away.’

  ‘You can count me in on that,’ said the General.

  ‘We’ll finance him jointly. He’ll be a credit to us yet.’

  III

  ‘If only you’d explained,’ said Sue.

  ‘Well, it seemed so silly,’ said Tim. ‘There I was, with everyone assuming I was in the Secret Service, and all the time I was holding down a respectable job as an estate agent.’

  ‘Was that how you knew all about Belton Park?’

  ‘That’s right. I’d inspected it the week before. I used to run round a lot of properties in the home counties. The firm lent me the car. It was rather fun.’

  ‘Why do you say “was”? You’re not giving it up, are you?’

  ‘Well—’

  ‘I’d much rather marry an estate agent than someone in the Secret Service.’

  ‘That’s all right then,’ said Tim. He kissed her absent-mindedly. He felt no difficulty about that sort of thing now. There was a lot to be said for starting your engagement by carrying the girl, mother naked, down a flight of stairs and dumping her on the lawn.

  Broke the ice, so to speak.

  IV

  ‘You do seem to have bad luck with your tenors,’ said Mrs. Um, signalling for her bill. ‘First that nice Major, and then the police sergeant.’

  ‘I expect Tim will do the solo very nicely,’ said Lucy Mallory.

  ‘I hope so,’ said Sue.

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ said Liz. ‘I’ve had a last-minute offer—rather unexpected—I can’t tell you definitely yet—’

  V

  Florimond had said yes. Of course he would. It would be the greatest pleasure in the world. It must be done unofficially, of course. Not a word to anyone.

  Liz agreed.

  Florimond no doubt meant what he said too.

  But he had not calculated with his publicity man, who had no use for lights if they were hidden under bushels, and saw no reason that such a chivalrous gesture should be entirely wasted.

  Nothing vulgar like newspaper publicity, of course. But if you know how to use them there are faster and better ways of spreading news than the printed word.

  At midday the first of the cars started to arrive. By one o’clock the parking problem was becoming acute; and a hastily assembled fatigue party was clearing the south gallery which had not been used since it had been condemned as unsafe before the turn of the century. At two o’clock chairs from the Institute were rushed up in Jim Hedges’ lorry and set outside the open west doors.

  Fortunately the weather remained perfect.

  The Vicar fussed round, getting in everyone’s way, torn between horror at the mounting problem of accommodation and gratification at the probable size of the collection.

  At two-thirty the choir squeezed their way through the extra benches in the transept and took their places.

  The only perfectly composed people were Florimond himself – after some preliminary difficulty over cassocks it had been discovered that by fortunate chance, he and Liz were exactly the same size – and Rupert.

  Rupert fingered from time to time a piece of paper in the breast pocket of his flannel jacket. It was the prospectus of St. Oswald’s school for boys. He had no need to look at it, for he had most of it by heart. ‘A fully equipped gymnasium with a whole time physical training instructor,’ who also ‘instructed in small-bore shooting on the 25 and 50 yard ranges.’ Rupert had paced out twenty-five yards in Liz’s garden that morning. He reckoned that if he could hit a moving cat at that range a stationary target should be easy meat. ‘Rugby football is played in both winter terms.’

  Both winter terms. If he went in January that meant he could start right in.

  ‘We will commence,’ said the Reverend Hallibone, ‘with a prayer of thankfulness for the harvest.’

  A strange harvest, he could not help reflecting as he glanced at the row upon row of the packed and fashionable audience. Well, never mind. Was there not a saying about spoiling the Egyptians?

  ‘Come, ye thankful people, come.’

  They were well together, thought Liz. The presence of Florimond and the pressure of the crowd were combining to raise them above themselves. It was going to be all right. It was going to be terrific. It was going to be a triumph. How Mrs. Um was going to hate her. How satisfactory everything was.

  Rupert and Maurice and the other children. Tim and Sue. Lucy Mallory. Big Jim Hedges. Florimond himself, his face composed to a look of highly artificial piety.

  ‘All is safely gathered in—’ Roll on winter.

  Michael Gilbert Titles in order of first publication

  All Series titles can be read in order, or randomly as standalone novels

  Inspector Hazlerigg

  Close Quarters (1947)

  They Never Looked Inside (alt: He Didn’t Mind Danger) (1948)

  The Doors Open (1949)

  Smallbone Deceased (1950)

  Death has Deep Roots (1951)

  Fear To Tread (in part) (1953)

  The Young Petrella (included) (short stories)(1988)

  The Man Who Hated Banks and Other Mysteries (included) (short stories) (1997)

  Patrick Petrella

  Blood and Judgement (1959)

  Amateur in Violence (included) (short stories) (1973)

  Petrella at Q (short stories) (1977)

  The Young Petrella (short stories) (1988)

  Roller Coaster (1993)

  The Man Who Hated Banks and Other Mysteries (included) (short stories) (1997)

  Luke Pagan

  Ring of Terror (1995)

  Into Battle (1997)

  Over and Out (1998)

  Calder & Behrens

  Game Without Rules (short stories) (1967)

  Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens (short stories) (1982)

  Non-Series

  Death in Captivity (alt: The Danger Within) (1952)

  Sky High (alt: The Country House Burglar) (1955)

  Be Shot for Sixpence (1956)

  After the Fine Weather (1963)

  The Crack in the Teacup (1966)

  The Dust and the Heat (alt: Overdrive) (1967)

  The Etruscan Net (alt: The Family Tomb) (1969)

  Stay of Execution and Other Stories (short stories) (1971)

  The Body of a Girl (1972)

  The Ninety-Second Tiger (1973)

  Flash Point (1974)

  The Night of the Twelfth (1976)

  The Empty House (1979)

  The Killing of Katie Steelstock (alt: Death of a Favourite Girl) (1980)

  The Final Throw (alt: End Game) (1982)

&nbs
p; The Black Seraphim (1984)

  The Long Journey Home (1985)

  Trouble (1987)

  Paint, Gold, and Blood (1989)

  Anything for a Quiet Life (short stories) (1990)

  The Queen against Karl Mullen (1992)

  Synopses (Both Series & ‘Stand-alone’ Titles)

  Published by House of Stratus

  After The Fine Weather

  When Laura Hart travels to Austria to visit her brother, vice-consul of Lienz in the Tyrol, she briefly meets an American who warns her of the mounting political tension. Neo-Nazis are stirring trouble in the province, and xenophobia is rife between the Austrians who control the area and the Italian locals. Then Laura experiences the troubles first-hand, a shocking incident that suggests Hofrat Humbold, leader of the Lienz government is using some heavy-handed tactics. Somewhat unsurprisingly, he is unwilling to let one little English girl destroy his plans for the largest Nazi move since the war, and Laura makes a dangerous enemy.

  Anything For A Quiet Life

  Jonas Pickett, lawyer and commissioner of oaths is nearing retirement, but still has lots of energy. However, he leaves the pressure of a London practice behind to set up a new modest office in a quiet seaside resort. He soon finds that he is overwhelmed with clients and some of them involve him in very odd and sometimes dangerous cases. This collection of inter-linked stories tells how these are brought to a conclusion; ranging from an incredible courtroom drama involving a gipsy queen to terrorist thugs who make their demands at gunpoint.

  Be Shot For Sixpence

  A gripping spy thriller with a deserved reputation. Philip sees an announcement in The Times from an old school friend who has instructed the newspaper to publish only if they don’t hear from him. This sets a trail running through Europe, with much of the action taking place on the Austro-Hungarian border. The Kremlin, defectors, agitators and the People’s Court set the background to a very realistic story that could well have happened …