The DI said, “He knows! Is that in accordance with —”
“With my wishes — yes. It’s not a bad handle, as handles go, and we haven’t many yet.” Shard stood up. “May I talk to him?”
“Well, that’s why you’ve come, isn’t it? You may, but …”
“But what, Inspector?”
“What, exactly, are you going to do, Mr Shard?”
Briefly, Shard grinned. “No coughing — now, that condition needs a starter! I’m going to give the bastard a sore throat. Oh, it’s your patch, Inspector, and I’ve no quarrel with that. But I have the authority to say this: just while I’m in that charge room with Mr Larger, it’s going to be a little piece of York that’s forever London — or anyway, Whitehall.”
*
“Well now, Mr Larger.”
“Well now what?” Brave words, truculently said, but the face was a give-away: Larger was rattled.
Shard signed to the uniformed constable standing back against the door, hands behind his rump. The PC left, clicking the door to. Shard, sitting at a plain table facing the porn merchant, smiled. “Now I’ll tell you well now what! We’ve met, we both know that —”
“Why bother to say it, then?”
Shard smiled on. “Just a lead-in. You’ve been contacted by some villains in Twickenham, of course, but I take it you still don’t know who I am. Do you?” He shot the question, bullet-like, the smile snapping off blank. He repeated it: “Do you, Mr Larger?”
Larger licked his lips. “A bloody jack.”
“Good guess. Let me fill you in. A bloody jack by the name of Shard, Detective Chief Superintendent. In the Metro, Mr Larger, they still speak of me as Iron Shard.”
“Do they?” Sharp eyes glittered from the pasty face, a face that shone just a little with fresh sweat.
“Oh, they do indeed,” Shard said ruminatively, rocking back on the rear legs of his chair. He came down fast, hands flat on the table. “And with reason. There’s a reason for everything, isn’t there, Mr Larger?”
“If you say so.”
“I say so. There’s even a reason for you. A reason for you to be here. Right?”
“Course. Why waste time? They nicked me and that’s it.”
“For porn.”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s talk about porn, Mr Larger.”
Larger shrugged. “If you want.” He gave a snigger, a salacious noise. “If you want a thrill, look at the stock.”
“It doesn’t really thrill me.”
“No? There’s all sorts, all tastes catered for, heteros, homos, lesbians, gang bangs —”
“Shut up,” Shard said. “You make a man vomit.”
“I thought the fuzz enjoyed the pickings. All spread out on the front office counter … WPCs and all —”
“Think again, then. It’s a laugh, that’s all — a bitter one, sometimes, thinking of all the dirty money involved. All the same, I want to talk about porn, so we’ll talk about it, all right?” Larger shrugged his disinterest, but the eyes had narrowed and the pasty cheeks had a suspicion of a wobble. “We said, we’d met. You haven’t come to talk about porn. Not really.”
“No?” Shard rose to his feet, stood for a moment looking down at Larger, running his eyes slowly over the whole man, face, thick square body, the bison’s shoulders, back again to the shiny baldness of the head. After this, he took a turn around the charge room, round the table, round behind Larger, beneath the metal-barred window, past the paintwork of police green. He stopped behind Larger, bent over the strong shoulders. “I have, you know!”
“No need to shout,” Larger said.
“All right, I won’t. Porn — it’s a nasty business, shouldn’t be shouted aloud, I quite agree. Very nasty, and you’re in deep. It isn’t the first charge … I checked, so don’t waste breath. The police have known you for years, Larger, and just lately they’ve been keeping you on ice — for which I’m truly thankful. This time, you’re going inside so fast —”
“On a porn charge?”
“On a porn charge — you know the law as well as I do —”
“You’ll need the Attorney-General’s —”
“Don’t worry about him, I don’t. There are other charges too: living off immoral earnings, procuring, just to name two. You’re dirty, Larger. Just think about prison: think hard, and come to some conclusions, right?”
“Like what?”
“Like: certain people, certain other people unconnected with porn, aren’t going to be happy with you. Even our high security prisons can’t be sure of protecting nice, prime targets like you. You —”
“We’re getting there, aren’t we? You know some of it. All right, I won’t deny what I can’t deny. But I’m not saying anything more and you won’t make me by your sort of tactics.” Larger waved a hand, loftily. “These people you spoke of. They won’t try to get me — why should they? Not if I don’t cough! Don’t come to me for help, Mr Shard, because I’m not grass green.”
“I didn’t think you were,” Shard said. “And I wasn’t talking about your explosive friends, who I presume have made promises, however worthless, to keep you in comfort when you come out, just so long as you haven’t given them away —”
“Right.”
Shard laughed, and sat down again facing Larger. “If you believe that,” he said, “you’re greener than any grass I’ve ever seen. When you come out, they aren’t going to be around any more!”
“Their backers are, Mr Shard.”
“And they’re — who?”
Larger’s mouth clamped down hard, lips together in a thin and meaningful line. Shard said carelessly, “Never mind, we can make a good guess. Perhaps you’d like to know who the people are you should start worrying about.”
“Try me.”
Shard said, “Your fellow cons. You’re going down for a long time — that’s for certain sure, and even you don’t doubt it. Even clever bent lawyers won’t get you out of that, and for my part I don’t doubt you have some tame ones lined up ready.” He paused, staring into Larger’s half-shut eyes. “Inside, you’re going to suffer. I’m going to see to it that you live through bloody hell, and that no complaint you ever make is listened to by the screws or the Governor. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t bluff. These things I can do —”
“You’re a bastard,” Larger said flatly.
“But clearly a believable bastard. Yes, I’m a bastard when I have to be, when it’s in a good cause. You know how big this thing is, don’t you?”
Larger didn’t answer that.
“A lot of people will die if it’s allowed to happen.” Shard paused, then added, “By drowning, some of them. Right, Larger?”
There was no reaction, no flicker.
“Wise men see the red light in time, Larger. Your time is running out. I know your involvement — and you know I know. You can stop this happening — or help to stop it — by talking. Cast your so-called friends from your mind, Larger. When it suits them, they’ll cast you quick enough. In the meantime, you’ll be in custody waiting trial on the porn charge, I shall see to that. Then you’ll go down — and the cons you meet inside will know the truth. I’ll see that they know it, Larger. Now, it’s a fair bet that some of them are going to have friends or relatives, even wives and children, who’ll have been killed by your friends, killed by something in which you’ll have been involved, something you could have stopped and didn’t. London’s a big place, Larger. Fourteen million possibilities. There’s a thing called the law of averages — remember?”
Still no reaction, beyond a look that had grown slightly more wary. Shard got to his feet, stood looking down at the seated man. “Cons … men helpless in high security prisons. A mother or father — a wife, a child as I said — is killed by senseless terrorism while they’re held inside prison walls. Then you turn up among them. You’re the man, the physical embodiment of what happened — never mind that you didn’t set the charges! And even screws are human. I’d think abo
ut it, Larger.”
He turned away, opened the door, beckoned the constable. “Lock the swine up,” he said. “Two men, and handcuffs — I’ll be having another word with your DI.” He glanced back at Larger. “Don’t forget your wife. All my remarks apply equally to her.”
At last, a reaction: “Ethel’s not in this, they didn’t bring her in even.”
“Not the porn — they didn’t bother. I’ll be seeing her, Larger.”
Larger’s face was white. “You know something? You won’t … not at home.”
Shard felt rocked: the tick-over had been fast but late. Of course! He said, “You mean —”
“You know what I mean, Mr Shard. Can’t you see, that’s why I can’t talk — or one of the reasons?” He lifted his arms, let them drop again. “What would happen to Ethel, Mr Shard?”
*
“We slipped,” Shard said savagely, feeling personal about it. “Not your fault, Inspector — I should have been in touch right away. In a sense, this is an impasse so far as Larger’s concerned.”
“If we can get to her —”
“Which we can’t, until we get the whole bunch. That’s the point!” Shard smashed a fist into his palm. “We’ve lost our lead to them or what might have been a lead! After it’s over … it’ll be too bloody late, won’t it? Oh, I put it to Larger that his wife’s best hope was to be found before anything could happen, but he —”
“Doesn’t have much faith in the police?” The Inspector laughed, hollowly. “What villain has? They all know their own kind, stands to reason. So what’s next, Mr Shard?”
Shard didn’t answer directly. He turned away, stared out of a window, seeing nothing that registered, occupied with milling thoughts and anxieties, seeing the red horror pressing out and up below London, the Thames itself erupting in a great atomic blast, and then the rushing thunderous waters, trapping, cutting off, smashing bodies in its torrent … he saw the faces of fear, faces swept away, torn from the platforms to be hurled willy-nilly into the bursting tunnels. Sweat broke out. The DI cut into his thoughts.
“Suppose we let Larger go, sir?”
Shard turned. “A tail? Too risky, too obvious all round. Too many snags.”
“I think, if we leaked it that he’d been released, these people would show.”
“I say again, too risky. While we have him, there’s always a chance he’ll cough. For my money, that’s a better risk. I’d say a show on their part is doubtful now — too obviously expected.”
“We’re not dealing with professionals, Mr Shard. They won’t have normal villain reactions. Amateurs tend to rush in — we all know that. I believe they’d show, and we’d have a chance of copping the whole bang shoot.”
“Well, we’ll keep it in mind,” Shard said. “In the meantime, keep up the pressure I began, and don’t kid-glove the bastard.”
The DI nodded. “Will do. And you, sir?”
“Back to London like a yo-yo. My job’s supposed to be security pure and simple and I reckon we may not have much longer. I’ll leave you to the trail up here while I concentrate on prevention in the south. Keep in touch, Inspector.”
*
Telephones, telephones, telephones: this time, within two seconds of reaching home, and it was the inevitable Hedge.
“Shard, really! I’ve been ringing —”
“I’ve been in a train. This, you know very well.”
“All right, all right. You’re wanted, and you’re wanted now. I —”
“Where and why, Hedge?”
“My place. Please don’t delay.” There was a pause. “The back door.” Hedge rang off, not having answered the question why, but Shard was willing to admit that could have been a silly question. He glowered at the phone: back door, indeed! Hedge cloak-and-daggering, or the slight of the tradesmen’s entrance? He went over to his wife, bent and kissed her. “Sorry, darling —”
“But you have to go out again.”
“Yes.”
“How long this time?”
He said, “I can’t say.” He stood up, looked down at the top of her head, at the source of the long fair hair, long like that of Nadia Nazarrazeen … something welled up in Shard as he stood there looking at his wife: he wanted, and wanted desperately, to tell her the facts of a desperate situation. Ealing … oh, it wasn’t central London, not by a long chalk, but Beth didn’t confine herself to Ealing or parts adjacent. She liked the West End shops and a cup of tea in one of the big stores. When the crunch came, London’s very foundations could be shaken — and Beth travelled around by tube mostly.
She watched his face, frowning a little. “What’s the matter, Simon?”
“Why d’you ask that?”
“You look … sort of funny.”
He grinned. “Do I? I don’t feel it. For a dead man —” He broke off: that was not funny. “Sorry, darling. Sorry if I look funny, too. But a policeman’s lot …” He avoided her eyes, looked away across the room, comfortably furnished, with a lived-in look and at the moment domestic: Mrs Micklam was sewing, surrounded by reels of cotton spilling from a work bag on the sofa, eyes down, pretending to the young people that she wasn’t there. Shard considered her balefully. She was not the most discreet of women. Even a vague warning, a suggestion that for a while the West End might with profit be avoided, wasn’t on: when Detective Chief Superintendents, like the Captains of H.M. ships in wartime, gave vague warnings, intrigued minds grew too busy. Then it came to him, and remembering the waiting Hedge, he lost no more time.
“You look tired, Beth. You’ve had too much worry the last few days — my fault, was that. Why not have a week or so away? Get out of town?” He added the rest with a touch of reluctance he couldn’t quench: “Stay with your mother. How about that, Beth?”
Mrs Micklam’s sewing finger slowed. Beth glanced across at her, then at Shard. There was pleasure in her eyes: a few days on the south coast would be nice. She said, “That’s good of you, Simon. I’ll talk it over with Mummy.”
He left her to do that, feeling that very probably she wouldn’t: she was a good wife, was Beth, and knew that busy top coppers hadn’t the time or the inclination to do for themselves. Maybe he would have to be a little more insistent when he got back: to have her in the clear would greatly relieve his mind and he would find it convenient enough to snatch pub meals as and when he could. Proceeding Hedgeward by underground, he felt the loss of his car: Hedge’s kind offer of replacement might now be accepted. He left the underground at Victoria and walked fast to Eaton Square, which had the honour of containing Hedge’s flat: a flat it was, though Hedge always referred to it as “my house” or “my place” because in fact his family had once owned and inhabited it as a complete house, back in the spacious days, the days when the family had had almost as many indoor servants as their latter-day scion had policemen. Obeying orders, Shard slunk round the back, up a service alley and across the garden to the back door: more like a cat burglar than an honest tradesman really, for the tradesmen’s entrance was actually in the front area. He was admitted by Hedge’s manservant, Morton.
“Good evening, sir.” His face was familiar to Morton, infrequent though house visits were. “The master is in the study —”
“Right, Morton, I’ll find my own way, thanks.” Shard went through the nether regions, through a green baize door, into the hall, into Hedge’s study, a comfortable room lined with books in massive mahogany bookcases. Hedge was standing with his back to the fireplace, below a portrait of an earlier and splendidly uniformed Hedge. Alongside him was Hesseltine and sitting in a worn leather armchair was Partington of London Transport.
“Ah, Shard.”
“Good evening, Hedge.” Shard nodded at the other two.
“Any luck in York?” Hedge asked.
“Not yet. I have hopes.”
“Enough to bank on?”
“I wouldn’t say quite that.”
Hesseltine glanced at Hedge, who was fingering pink facial flesh and looking anx
ious. Hesseltine said, “As a matter of fact, Simon, I’ve been in touch with York since you left them. Larger’s been taken ill.”
“Oh, God! Bad?”
Hesseltine nodded. “Heart, they tell me. A sudden collapse. He’s been moved to the intensive care unit in the local hospital. There’s a DC on watch, but of course he’s not allowed any contact. It’s a sod … but there it is. If we had a bank, it’s closed its doors, for the time being anyway. In the meantime, we have other matters to think about.”
“What matters in particular?”
Hesseltine pointed a cigar at Partington. “Your idea of a fractured under-river tunnel, Simon.”
“Well, sir?”
“We rather think it could be on. That is — we don’t rule it out. Mr Partington?”
Partington spoke to Shard, his chin resting on the tips of his fingers, held parsonwise. “After you rang, I did some homework. Those four sections you mentioned — they’re deep, all but one. That one’s the Rotherhithe to Wapping on the Metropolitan, the East London as we call it. It’s near enough to the surface to have fairly constant seepage even without an explosion, Mr Shard, but —”
“But it wouldn’t be very significant?”
“Significant?”
Shard elaborated: “Not as busy a line as the others, not so central — not so casualty-prone on the wider scale. Not enough potential — it’s sub-surface, isn’t it, not deep level?”
“Yes, that’s true, but the others — they’re really deep, Mr Shard —”
“How deep?”
“It varies. Between 25 and 45 feet below the river bed. The bed’s solid. It’s a lot of earth to blow.”
“But you don’t, I gather, rule it out.” Shard looked towards Hedge. “I made a certain report to you earlier, Hedge, about the explosion potential. Has Mr Partington … ?”
Hedge nodded. “Yes, he knows.”
Shard said, “In that case … Mr Partington, when I telephoned you, you said it all depended on size. Well?”
The London Transport man was grey-faced with anxiety, seemed almost unable to utter the words of truth. “If it’s to be nuclear, Mr Shard, I believe it can be done. In fact I’d say … certainly it can be done. Again size must come into it, and the availability —”
A Very Big Bang Page 10