The Empty House

by Michael Gilbert

  “Did he say why?”

  “Yes. When he’d satisfied himself that no one remotely resembling the man he was looking for was staying at the Esplanade, he accepted a quick half-pint in Rayner’s office – off duty, they’re old friends – and told him what the form was. There’s an old character who runs a taxi and spends most of his time outside the station.”

  “I’ve seen him. He’s always fast asleep.”

  “That’s the impression he gives. But he sleeps with one eye open. He’s a sort of unofficial police spy. I don’t mean they pay him. He probably does it for sheer love of nosey-parkering. There are people like that.”

  “What did he tell them?”

  “He said he’d noticed a young man, an exceptionally tall young man, arriving by train about midday, Friday. He knew he wasn’t local, therefore he was a visitor. But an odd visitor, since he only seemed to have one very small bag with him. He didn’t look like a commercial traveller. So what was he up to? If you’d hired his taxi, he would at least have known where you were staying, and that would have satisfied his curiosity. As it was, you were just a suspicious question mark.”

  “Nosey old bastard.”

  “That wasn’t all. Later that day he noticed the same suspicious character prowling back along the path which leads from the Chine.”

  “I was not prowling. I was walking.”

  “He says you were prowling. He observed you carefully in the mirror of his cab. He says you were walking as if you wished to avoid attention. The upshot of it is that the police are making inquiries at every hotel and guesthouse in the town. It’ll take them some time, but they’ll get here in the end.”

  “Yes,” said Peter, “I suppose they will.”

  “Taking the view,” said the Captain, “that since I hadn’t opened for the season, you and those friends of yours could hardly be described as guests – more unofficial lodgers, really – I haven’t asked you to sign the register. If you were gone by the time they get here, I could say, without telling a lie, that you’d been staying here but I didn’t know your address.”

  “Certainly not,” said Peter. “It’s good of you to suggest it, but I’m not going to get you into trouble. Besides, what about my car? It’s been parked in your yard since Saturday night. Are you going to tell them you didn’t even notice the number?”

  “I could say that.”

  “No,” said Peter. “Most certainly not.”

  He took out one of his professional cards. “This is who I am, and that’s my business address. If the police want it, they can have it.”

  “Once they’re after you,” said the Captain, “it’s not much use running away, I agree. Merely an idea. When you were telling me what happened last night, it sounded as if it was developing into a fair-sized battle. Why wasn’t there anything about it on the news today?”

  “Wasn’t there?”

  “Not a whisper. Nothing at all, on the morning or the midday news. Ex- moor’s a fairly empty sort of place, I agree, but it’s not a desert. There are people about. If shooting started, on any sort of scale, they must have heard something and reported it. So why haven’t we heard about it?”

  “Because it’s been suppressed.”

  “Right. But since the police weren’t involved, doesn’t it look as though the Army have got the last word in this show?”

  Peter said slowly, “I had a talking-to from a Colonel Hay. He certainly implied that the Army was involved. Not necessarily the regular Army. He didn’t say so, but I gathered that M15, or M16, or whatever the appropriate outfit might be, was involved.”

  “Do you know where Colonel Hay hangs out?”

  “All I know is that he said in his report that he was staying in a farmhouse nearby and actually saw Dr. Wolfe’s car driving up the path toward Rackthorn Point and heard it go over.”

  The Captain got out a dog-eared sheet of the Ordinance Survey and they examined it together. The Captain said, “There’s only one place it can be. There. On the other side of the River Culme. Rackthorn Farm. Give me five minutes on the telephone and I’ll find out who it belongs to. Then we can locate their telephone number.”

  “I expect we can,” agreed Peter. “And when we’ve done it, what then?”

  “Then you ring up Colonel Hay and say you want to have a talk with him. I guess he won’t say no. Tell him the whole story. If anyone can square the police, I guess it’s him.”

  19

  The telephone was answered by a male voice which sounded young and cheerful. The voice took Peter’s name and invited him to hang on for a moment.

  The moment became a minute, and the minute grew to nearly five minutes before Colonel Hay came on. He said, rather sharply, “Where are you speaking from, Mr. Manciple?”

  “I’m at Cryde Bay.”

  “A pity. I hoped you’d have taken my advice and gone home by now.”

  “I wish I had. I’m afraid I’m in trouble. And I want your help.”

  “If you’re the tall man who arrived at Cryde Bay by train just before lunch last Friday and was later seen strolling down the station path from the direction of the Chine, I should say you’re in dead trouble.”

  “You’ve been in touch with the police.”

  “Naturally. We work together very closely. Superintendent Home gave me a character sketch of you after he’d met you at Riverton. He said you were an obstinate young bugger. Colonel Hollingum, at the Research Station, seems to have got the same impression.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Peter humbly. “I wasn’t trying to upset people. I had a job to do, that was all. Now I’d be very happy to take the advice you’ve all been giving me, and go away and stay away. But I don’t want to run off with half the police in England chasing after me. There’d be no point in it. That’s why I want to have a word with you, and tell you everything that’s happened.” He paused for a moment and added, persuasively, “Everything. Then you’ll be able to advise me.”

  “The trouble is,” said the Colonel, “that you’re rather a hot property at the moment. As I said, I’ve been working with the police, and if I start helping you behind their backs, they’ll be apt to be upset. You see my point?”

  “Then you think I ought to go straight to them?”

  “I might be able to answer that question if I knew exactly what you had been up to. On the whole, I think we had better have a talk. The trouble is Rupert and I are anchored to the telephone here. We’ve got non-stop calls coming in from all over the place about – well, about a little trouble we had last night.”

  “If the trouble was what I imagine it was, I was involved in that, too.”

  This really did produce a pause. Peter got the impression that more than one person was listening to the conversation. Rupert? The report had mentioned an Army friend who was sharing the farm.

  “I really think,” said the Colonel at last, “that the sooner we have that talk, the better. I can’t come to you, so you’ll have to come here. Have you got a map handy?”

  “I can get one. Hold on a minute . . . all right.”

  “You’ll be coming out on the main road from Cryde Bay. The normal way to reach this place is to go almost into Huntercombe. There’s a track which leads up to Rackthorn Farm, just short of the village. Are you with me?”

  “I can see a dotted line on the map.”

  “That’s the way I don’t want you to come. If you look again at the map, you’ll notice the letters P.H. opposite to where the track turns off. And that, as you no doubt learned at school, means Public House. It’s the Ram Inn. A very sociable little place. And a centre of local gossip. But there’s an alternative. About a hundred yards before your road crosses the Culme, there’s another track. It isn’t marked, because it was only made up when they opened the caravan site, but you can’t miss it. It’s exactly opposite the Bridgetown turning.”

  “If you mean the track that goes up to Rackthorn Point, I know it. I went up it to inspect the scene of the accident.”

 
; “That’s the one. I suggest you leave your car actually in the caravan car-park. Don’t start out until it’s dark, and with any luck no one will notice you at all. Or if they do notice you, they’ll think you’re a caravaner.”

  “There’s only one snag,” said Peter. “I shall be on the wrong side of the river.”

  “You won’t have to swim. Rupert will be there with the boat. Ten o’clock sharp. Goodbye.”

  Over supper Peter said to the Captain, “I’m sure it’s all right. But he made such a point of my coming that way, after dark, and telling no one – I did begin to wonder.”

  “Some sort of booby-trap or ambush?” said the Captain. “Could be. I’m glad you’re learning not to trust people. If you aren’t back by morning, I’ll raise a posse and come and look for you.”

  Feeling that the Colonel would appreciate punctuality, Peter took care to arrive at the caravan car-park at a few minutes before ten. He reached it without incident. It had been raining, on and off, for most of the afternoon, but, as often happened that provoking summer, it had stopped at dusk and the sky was now clear.

  Rupert was waiting for him. He said, “I hope you’re not afraid of boats. It’s not quite as frail as it looks. It belongs to the farm, and since we can’t stop the kids pinching the oars and the boathook, we have to make do.”

  It was an old-fashioned tub dinghy, and Peter looked at it with love. He said, “I’m not afraid of any river boat ever built. I was brought up in them and on them and off them. If you haven’t got any oars or a boathook, what do you do? Paddle it with your hands?”

  “We improvise.” Rupert lifted the flat board which formed one footrest for the rower, invited Peter on board, loosed the rope, and took them across with half a dozen easy sweeps.

  “They’re sweet boats,” said Peter. “I had one of my own when I was young. You can row them all day without feeling tired, and they turn on a penny.”

  “I could see you were a river man, from the way you stepped on and off the boat,” said Rupert. “Last week I had to ferry a brigadier across, and he actually stepped on the gunwale. Can you believe it?”

  “I hope he didn’t get too wet,” said Peter.

  “There’s a special providence looks after brigadiers,” said Rupert. “Mind the step.”

  As he opened the door, the light fell on his face and Peter recognised him. He had seen him less than twenty-four hours before, jumping out of the front seat of an Army truck.

  Colonel Hay was sitting on one side of a cheerful log fire. He got up as Peter came in, waved him to the chair on the other side of the fireplace, and poured out two generous tots from a bottle on the sideboard.

  “It’s a highland malt from the Isle of Skye,” he said. “You can insult it with water or soda if you must, but I promise you it’ll be much happier if you don’t.”

  Peter agreed not to do anything which might make the light coloured, innocent-looking liquid in his glass unhappy. It had a smoky taste, and went down sweetly.

  “All right,” said the Colonel, “let’s have it. Everything you’ve been up to, from the beginning to the end, with nothing left out.”

  It was a history which covered ten days and the minute hand had gone once right around the grandfather clock in the corner and halfway around again before Peter had finished. He had, as he realised afterward, left out one detail, but it was not a conscious omission.

  The Colonel punctuated his account with occasional grunted questions. He seemed more interested in times than in places. When had he first told Anna of his suspicions that Dr. Wolfe was not dead? When had he first translated the number on Roland Highsmith’s pad into an address at Cryde Bay? Could that particular telephone call have been intercepted? (Peter thought it most unlikely. Why should anyone have wished, or been able, to intercept messages to a hotel in Riverton? The Colonel agreed that it was improbable.) When had he reached Cryde Bay himself and located the man whom he thought to be Dr. Wolfe? When had he passed this news on to Anna?

  He was interrupted twice. On the first occasion, the telephone started ringing. Since the Colonel ignored it and it soon stopped, Peter guessed that the call was being dealt with somewhere else in the house.

  Five minutes later Rupert came in. He said, “Sorry to interrupt. That was Western Command. They want you at a conference. They’re sending a chopper.”

  The Colonel said, “You’ll have to represent me. You know as much about it as I do. More, really.”

  Rupert looked doubtful, but said, “I’ll try to keep them happy,” and went out.

  When Peter had reached the end of his story, the Colonel got up and switched off the tape recorder which had been purring away on the table between them. He then poured out a second drink for both of them and sat down.

  “That’s that,” said Peter. He felt the ease of the post-confessional. “I think the least you can do in return is to bring me up to date.”

  “Fair enough,” said the Colonel. “I expect you realise that what you saw last night was the final stage of an operation which we’ve been preparing for very carefully. And, as far as these things ever do go, it went according to plan. The Israeli hit team and the Palestinians locked horns. It was brief and bloody. When we felt they’d done enough damage to each other, we stepped in and picked up the bits. The final score was two dead on each side. Five wounded – two Israelis, three Palestinians. Three prisoners in good condition. Oh, and one of our chaps got so excited he put a bullet through his own foot. That was the only casualty on our side. Very satisfactory, really.”

  The final score. It sounded, thought Peter, as though the Colonel was reporting the result of a rough game of rugby.

  “Was Petros there?”

  “The Professor? No, that crafty old character was safely tucked up in bed at the hotel. When we saw him this morning, you can’t think how surprised and horrified he was. To think that he had been cherishing such a nest of vipers! Stephen had recruited them. He had told Petros they were Middle East students on vacation. Pleasant, hardworking boys. He’ll be lucky if he gets away with it. I don’t think the Home Office is very happy about the Professor.”

  “Is anyone going to be very happy about what happened last night?”

  “I don’t see any reason why anyone should know anything about it at all.”

  “Four dead. Five wounded.”

  “The dead will be buried. The wounded and the prisoners will be looked after in one of the private establishments we run for that purpose.”

  “I see,” said Peter. The question had to be asked. The Colonel knew it as well as he did, and had been waiting for it.

  “Did anyone get away?”

  “Two people, as far as we know.”

  “Was—?”

  “Yes. One was the girl. She’ll be trying to make contact with her back-up party. They’re operating from a private yacht at Plymouth. If she knows what’s good for her, she’ll get out of the country, and get out quick.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because the other one who got away was Stefan. Or Stephen, as he’s been calling himself lately.”

  “Why should she be particularly afraid of Stephen?”

  “If I was in her shoes, I should be afraid of him. Ramon was his brother.”

  “But he doesn’t know Anna killed him.”

  “He’ll have a pretty shrewd idea. He knows Kevin was got away before the attack came in, and the most likely person to have done that was Anna. He may not be certain about it, but it’s the sort of conclusion he’ll find it very easy to jump to.”

  “I hope—” said Peter, and stopped. What did he hope? That she was safe with her friends? That they would get her back to Israel? That he would never see her again?

  “Remarkable girl,” said the Colonel. “She led you on a bit, didn’t she?”

  “Yes,” said Peter. “She led me on.” He caught a sardonic flash from the Colonel’s bulbous eyes and added defiantly, “She was very cooperative.”

  “Some
people have all the luck,” said the Colonel. “I thought at one time she was going to try to seduce Rupert. Evidently she didn’t consider him worth powder and shot. Disappointing for him. He’s very seducible, that boy.” He added, “Of course, there’s always a chance her friends will get Stephen before he gets her. They’ve been after him for a long time. He had a very narrow escape in Stockholm last year.”

  Peter didn’t want to think about Anna just then. He said, “I suppose last night finished the job, as far as you were concerned.”

  “Finished?” said the Colonel. “Certainly not. It’s only just begun. It won’t be finished until Wolfe is dead. Perhaps not even then. It all depends.”

  “Depends on what?”

  “On how much of what’s in his head has been put into those notes he took away in his briefcase. And how much anyone else could make of those notes without his help.”

  “Not very much, I imagine,” said Peter, remembering what Dr. Bishwas had told him. “I gather they’re in a sort of scientific shorthand. You’d have to be almost as far on as Dr. Wolfe was in that particular line to understand them at all.”

  “If that’s right,” said the Colonel, “he’s a dead man as soon as anyone catches up with him. Not just the Israeli or Palestinian extremists who’ve been in the field so far. Anyone.”

  “You don’t, I suppose,” said Peter, “include the British government?”

  The Colonel took out a clean white handkerchief from his pocket, unfolded it, blew his nose, replaced the handkerchief, and said, “You haven’t really begun to grasp what this is about, have you? Let me lay it on the line for you. As long as Dr. Wolfe was working for us, his work belonged to us and we could control its use. Also, he was under our protection. As soon as he moved out, he became an outlaw.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, at that point, the information in his head and the notes in his briefcase stopped belonging to us and became the price he was prepared to pay for sanctuary somewhere else.”