The Partridge Kite

by Michael Nicholson

  Tom was a spectator. He lowered himself, sliding his back down the wall, and crouched. He watched as the driver was helped from the radiator by men who forced themselves to look away from the gore. They sat him down within a couple of feet of Tom and covered him with overcoats. His face and chest were now covered in vomit. He made no effort to wipe it away.

  There was commotion all around. Tom was looking only at the driver now but he could hear the din, the shouts and horns from motorists further down the street, impatient at the sudden jam, unknowing of the sudden horror.

  ‘It was murder! I saw him pushed. . . I saw it in front of me. . .’ It was the bus driver.

  ‘It was an accident,’ Tom said, partly to comfort the man, hoping to make him say more.

  ‘It was murder,’ he mumbled through the mess in his mouth. ‘He was on the pavement, he wasn’t going to cross. He was dragged down . . . I saw him pulled down with a stick. . .’

  ‘Did you see who did it?’ Tom asked as gently as he could.

  But the bus driver would never remember. Shock erases. He would, over the next days, repeat his short story a dozen times to the police. And they would record in precise English the horror of one man’s recurring nightmare. Shock would take away the man’s sleep, creating again and again in the sweat of his pillow the football of gore that became a face and then a football again until his wife reached across him to the bedside table for the Valium.

  And anyway, even as Tom had asked his question, the man with the umbrella - the umbrella that had dragged its victim by the neck to his death - was already in a taxi going south, to his favourite wine bar under the railway arches of London Bridge Station. There was always good cheese and draught sherry there.

  Kellick had finished his buttered bun and was rearranging the various files News-Information had given him. Fry was preparing the list of British Heritage Trust Committee members for the computers. The Department’s programmers had already been alerted for a punctual eight o’clock start on the following morning’s shift.

  The telephone rang at Kellick’s right elbow. Without looking he picked up the receiver and listened. For half a minute he said nothing.

  Then he spoke, slowly lowering the receiver as he did, so that Fry could not be sure the caller heard all Kellick was saying.

  ‘No, nothing for the time being. . . I’ll call you when I’ve decided.’ Kellick spoke in a monotone and it alerted Fry, who stopped what he was doing.

  ‘That was the Duty Day Officer. The man he had tailing McCullin has just died in a road accident - the Charing Cross Road. Bus ran over him. Driver insists he saw the man pushed.’

  The two men caught each other’s gaze. Fry felt a twinge of embarrassment but it went quickly as he sensed Kellick’s sudden fear.

  ‘It must mean,’ Fry said, ‘that they really are on to us.’

  ‘It means,’ Kellick replied, still looking directly into Fry’s eyes and in the same strained monotone, ‘it means that they want us to know it, too.’

  Rules Restaurant would almost certainly have been demolished if there had been enough money to do it. Not only Rules, a pleasant, expensive place, but almost the entire Covent Garden and the streets surrounding it.

  The demolition men at County Hall had wanted to clear the area - acres of it - for redevelopment. So when the Vegetable Market moved out to Nine Elms on the other side of the Thames, the planners moved in. They in turn were followed by the Conservationists.

  There was much protest.

  But it was money, or rather the lack of it, that eventually won the day. Redevelopment would have to wait. In the meantime the family grocer, the shoemaker, the theatrical costumier, the hardware shop, the pubs and the dining rooms with their steamed steak and kidney puddings carried on with their daily chores, grateful for the reprieve.

  The clock in Rules restaurant showed twenty minutes past twelve midday, early for lunch by anyone’s standards. But the two men were important. More important than being important, they were also ‘well known’. So the headwaiter was not too put out at being asked for prosciutto, oysters and Sauvignon so soon in the day.

  The tall man, aged about forty-five, was wearing thin gold- rimmed spectacles. He was impeccably dressed in various shades of blue; dark blue pinstripe single-breasted suit, light blue soft-collar Oxford shirt, a silk knitted tie in a blue that blended shirt and suit.

  He was a financial adviser . . . an expert on money, the cost of it, things that were used in place of it; people it could buy. He was a director of seventeen different companies and was on the board of one of the City’s most famous merchant banks.

  He had become ‘well known’, a public figure, when he’d chaired a Royal Commission on Penal Reform following the long series of outrages by the IRA and the sudden but prolonged spate of urban guerrilla warfare that spread across Europe during the late seventies.

  His appointment, as a man not of the ‘Silk’, upset the Law profession. The findings of the Commission, named after him as is the custom, shocked the Government who had ordered it and the Left Wing and the Liberals who’d expected great things of it. For the Curran-Price Commission was accused of turning the clock back half a century with its recommendations for the reintroduction of the death penalty for acts of terrorism and certain murders if premeditation could be proven.

  John Curran-Price became a celebrity overnight and after a series of television, radio and press interviews following his Report’s publication he also became very popular in the country. This more than anything else disarmed and angered his opponents.

  The second man at the table was chairman of one of Britain’s nationalised industries. He was also a Knight of the Order of the British Empire. He’d been given it, it was said, as reward for reducing his industry’s output by half, doubling the price of its products and multiplying five times over its losses.

  They were unlikely lunch companions. But the fat knight had much to say, much know-how to impart; information that would be essential should the running of the country be taken on by other men.

  The other man, sipping his wine, gazing over the top of his expensive spectacles, had much to gain. Curran-Price was CORDON Director for London Area Seven. He was also on the Committee of the British Heritage Trust and godfather to the son of its Chairman, General Sir George Iain Renfrew Meredith.

  Curran-Price had courted the bulky knight for several months now. Not for the purpose of recruiting - nothing was less likely - but to learn how it was governed, its relationship with Government, its associations with private companies, and the character, background and inclinations of those who sat on the governing board.

  CORDON had nominated Curran-Price as the Minister responsible for transport, road, rail, sea and air, a totally integrated Ministry, once the takeover was under way. Curran-Price, an odd choice perhaps with his intimate knowledge of finance and his dabbling in Law, nominated Transport Minister. But he could guess at their reasoning and was well satisfied.

  The two men were drinking their coffee and cognac when the table waiter came holding a telephone. Would Mr Curran-Price take a call at the table? The white receiver was plugged into a socket hidden by the draped tablecloth.

  Curran-Price introduced himself to the caller but said no more. The caller replied with a number followed by three letters and the four words ‘CORDON London Area One’.

  Curran-Price smiled across to the knight who was busying himself with a Rules Havana, and turned his chair and his back to him.

  ‘Go ahead. I’m listening.’

  The voice spoke evenly, quickly and quietly. There’s been a computer program on all members of the British Heritage Trust. It’s been very thorough. . . there have been four run-outs on you alone and I haven’t seen it all yet. We’re still waiting for the final. But there are some very obvious knock-ons . . . you and Meredith. . . Meredith and Tendale. . . and . . . you can see where i
t’s leading. . .?’

  The voice continued. ‘When the data has been scanned properly it’s to be forwarded to an outside agent working to Kellick. . . a man called Tom McCullin. . . that’s M, small c, capital C, for further checking door to door.’

  ‘You’ve done well - very prompt of you.’ Curran-Price kept up his cheerful voice. ‘Ring me when you have more. I’ll be going home from here to finish off a few things, so call me when you can. Goodbye.’

  His pleasant, unaffected voice gave nothing away, attracted no attention in the now full restaurant.

  At half-past three, with the help of the doorman, Curran- Price bundled the knight into a taxi, pushed three pound notes into the driver’s hand, shouted an address, and within fifteen minutes the man was asleep on the leather couch in a room off his office at the industry’s headquarters in the Euston Road. It would have comforted his staff to know that it would be the last drunken lunch their chairman would have with the man from the City. The snoring bundle on the couch had passed on all he knew. He’d now outlunched his utility.

  Curran-Price walked the sixty yards along Maiden Lane from Rules down to the Strand, crossed over, dodging the traffic - and into the courtyard of the Savoy Hotel. He passed into the foyer, smiling in return at the nod of recognition from the doorman. He changed a ten-pound note at the cashier’s and then walked to the public telephone booths. He dialled and waited.

  No voice answered, merely a low-pitched hum, like the sound of a bassoon.

  He spoke: ‘CORDON Director Area 7 . . . Alert!’

  There was a pause; he heard a click and then a voice said, ‘Go ahead. Area 7.’

  ‘SSO have begun a computer search on the British Heritage Trust which should finish printing within the next few hours. They’re going right back, it seems. . . all associations. They’ve got an outside man, named Tom McCullin, must be one of their contract men, to do the checkouts. He’ll want to see me of course. I’d have thought I’d be one of the first. What instructions do you have?’

  ‘Area 7,’ the distant voice came back, ‘postpone appointment with him as long as possible. You will receive our recommendations within the next twenty-four hours.’

  The line went dead. But Curran-Price was not put out. He had thought too long, too often of this moment, the moment when he would suddenly be suspect. He felt safe; he was confident of CORDON and the direction and protection it offered.

  He left the Savoy and caught a taxi to his London home in Eaton Square. There was a reception at the Mansion House that evening at eight. Tonight he was taking his wife to meet the Lord Mayor of London.

  Six hundred miles north in a rambling black granite house the man sat still. There was no movement in the room nor any to be heard outside. The room was in darkness except for a single spotlight that shone on to the wall over the large stone fireplace. It was a circle of light, so bright that it dazzled . . . But as the eye adjusted, inside the circle could be seen six gold letters which made up the word CORDON.

  The man rose from the chair by the telephone and walked to a round marble table in the far comer of the room. As he moved he began coughing very softly, the sound coming low from his stomach, every third or fourth step.

  He stopped and his foot pressed a rubber button on the floor. Another spotlight shone down emphasising the perfect white circle of the tabletop. He opened a leather folder and ran his finger down a short column of handwritten names. From the binding of the folder he pulled out a solid red wax marker and ringed a name halfway down the list. . . John Curran-Price.

  He replaced the marker and closed the folder. The light went out. He walked slowly towards the side door, still coughing, into the next room to join the other members of the board of CORDON. They rose as their Chairman entered. He seemed unusually pleased, they all thought, with his telephone call.

  Outside they could hear the beginnings of a wind, the sudden rush of air, a silence and then the rush again. The barometer was dropping fast, so was the temperature. It would snow tonight - the first this season. By morning the greys and reds, the greens and the browns of this remote comer of Inverness-shire Forest would be covered white and would stay that way until the spring of next year.

  The death under a London Transport bus of the Department’s tail, whose name was Brown - which made his anonymity complete - did serve one immediately useful purpose. It jolted Kellick out of what had until then been rather casual researches. It confirmed in his mind the existence of CORDON as described by Francis Sanderson. He had yet to test its strength or gauge accurately the number of people involved.

  Kellick had several more interviews with Sanderson but the defector would say no more. His own taped interview was played back to him in his prison room at the top of the closely-guarded house in Holland Park in West London. But it neither encouraged him to expand nor did it remind him of anything he might have forgotten.

  It was, Kellick had said afterwards, as if he had been primed to say so much and no more. It was a reasonable suspicion. Fry thought, so reasonable that he tucked it away

  in his memory for future reference.

  Again for the second time in three days he reminded Kellick that McCullin was still being deliberately kept in the dark, working for a non-existent Swedish security firm, getting instructions third-hand over the telephone; still ignorant of the real motives of the people he was being asked to investigate, unaware of their objective.

  ‘It’s an absurd charade the Prime Minister has got us to agree to,’ he said. ‘A man was murdered this afternoon within yards of McCullin, a man paid by us to follow and protect him and as far as McCullin is concerned it was an accident to a total stranger. CORDON knows about us, what we’re doing, what we’re asking McCullin to do and still we go on with this silly routine of recording messages. Let’s make direct contact. Let him meet Sanderson!’

  ‘No, Fry, the Prime Minister’s instructions were absolutely firm; no trace-back should things go wrong.’

  ‘But there’ll be no Prime Minister if CORDON takes over!’

  ‘I’ve said “No”. I can’t change my mind.’ But there was none of the usual hostility in Kellick’s voice. It was almost as if he was consoling himself. ‘If they really do know the setup there’s nothing we can do about it. But if we change our planning now it will be because they have made us do it - which may be precisely what they want. I don’t pretend to know what’s happening yet. Fry, but I will and then I’ll see whether we must drop the playacting.’

  The feeling of panic was returning to the pit of his stomach. He had a momentary vision of dirty dishes in a sink of cold greasy washing-up water. He recognised his own kitchen.

  How much in control of events was CORDON? Who was chasing who? Sanderson had defected to help destroy it but maybe he had left it too late - maybe the process was already under way? Had the date of the attempted coup already been set?

  Kellick sat staring at the small red leather travelling clock on his desk. His gaze shifted a few inches right to the calendar propped up against the angle-lamp. There, had he known it, was the answer.

  The date of the takeover was already clearly ringed for quite another reason: December 25th . . . Christmas Day!

  The Department’s computers gave their information on the twenty-two members of the British Heritage Trust a little before six o’clock that evening just as John Curran-Price had warned his Chairman they would do.

  Of the twenty-two, eleven were cleared by the machines, as having no other compromising interests in affairs concerning the State. Five more were judged to be marginals; the remaining six had very definite involvements; they listed what the six had subscribed to, what they had done, what they had written, what they had said, what they may have been overheard to say.

  Kellick gave the five marginals back to Fry for reprogramming using different parameters and kept the six to himself. He would assess them, adding any biographi
cal detail he thought relevant and then hand them on that evening to McCullin via the recording machine so that his search and (possible) destroy contract proper could begin. The midday call routine would already have to be dropped. Fry’s Mr Hampton would have to telephone McCullin. They could not afford to wait until tomorrow with the new information.

  Tom took down the names slowly, telephone in one hand, pen in the other, pad resting on his knee, as the recording machine in Kellick’s office annexe spelt them out letter by letter. Six names; all men, all of them known to Tom, known at least in the way that any newspaper reader or television viewer knows the public faces that circulate in British society.

  Other than their association with the British Heritage Trust they all shared one other thing, a common denominator. They all belonged to what Tom called the English Mafia, that select band of people who by reason of their preparatory and public schools, by reason of the professions they followed, the clubs they shared, the country mansions they met at for weekend shoots, the marriages they negotiated, the complicated and closely-guarded network they had over a hundred and more years established for the protection of all their members . . . all this had guaranteed the certain survival of the British upper class.

  ‘So there they are,’ Tom muttered to himself, as he went back over the list, ‘the bloody vanguards of neo-Fascism.’

  A picture of each of the six began to form in his mind, the names becoming a face, a voice, an accent, a stance. Right- Wingers. Nationalists, Patriots. All active in a Trust established to protect the British ‘way of life’, its countryside, its customs, language; influential reactionaries, some extraordinarily wealthy, each wielding very real power within his own sphere, and with enormous potential power should they act together.