The Boy Who Liked Monsters (Commander Shaw Book 19)

by Philip McCutchan

  Madame Chaumet’s voice rose in French. “Not in the bar, m’sieurs! It is not the place. Girls, if you please.”

  Madame Chaumet turned away from the bar and unlocked a cupboard into which she delved. She brought out a wash-leather bag and made her way to a side door that led into a passageway with stairs at the end. I was aware, without actually seeing, that the three men with the girls were passing the door and Madame Chaumet was collecting cash. As she came back towards the cupboard I caught her eye.

  She shrugged. “If you disapprove, M’sieur Calvert, then you must disapprove. It is life.”

  “I don’t disapprove,” I said. “It’s a perfectly natural activity – ”

  “Natural, yes, that is the word, m’sieur. Life becomes much harder for those in my profession.” The money bag was restowed in its place of safety. Madame Chaumet went on, “Today there are so many, what you call, poufs. Even, in your country, I believe they call them sailors, yes? So disgusting. A trade I deplore … however profitable it would be.”

  There were always morals around somewhere, even in the most unlikely places. I wondered briefly about Neskuke after Madame Chaumet had raised the subject. He’d not been married but that didn’t prove anything one way or the other. There’d never been any evidence of that and my thought was an idle one, the kind of thought that occurs these days whenever there’s a mystery surrounding prominent persons. It had in fact been raised at the time of his disappearance, as it also had in the cases of the other disappearances.

  At eight p.m. I left Madame Chaumet’s premises and walked through to the dock area to await the arrival of the Zonguldak. It was getting dark and there was heavy cloud around. The forts to seaward looked stark and threatening, reminders of old wars and old empires. There was a little wind and the sea was ruffled. I waited in the lee of a building close to the docks, a new one where the Hotel Tourville had once stood. I had a longish wait. It was close on nine-thirty when I saw a ship entering and in what was now full dark I recognised the outline of the Zonguldak, her decks well lit and her crew at stations for making alongside. I could make out the bulky figure of Captain Kubat in the wing of the bridge. There were shouted orders; the ropes went out and the Zonguldak was secured. Then there was another wait, at the end of which I saw men coming down the gangway and heading in a bunch for the exit gates from the docks.

  I watched them come through and walk along the road that led into the town. I had come out from my hiding-place but was keeping my distance. I had spotted Leclerc alias Jean Bois in the group. At the crossroads they all turned right for the swing bridge and the fleshpots, all except Leclerc, who called a good night, gave a wave and walked on ahead past the basin of the inner harbour where the water was turgid and thick with spilled fuel oil. I kept behind him but on the other side of the road. He seemed to have no suspicions and there was no reason why he should have, but I was well enough aware of the risk I was taking. It had to be taken even though nothing might come of it. I believed that after the recent events in Shoreham Leclerc was likely to make a quick contact, reporting through – to whom?

  That was what I had to find out.

  Ahead of me loomed an immense supermarché, the biggest I’d seen. I saw Leclerc going inside. Coming up closer, I saw very many exits and entrances and in spite of the late hour there were great crowds of people. Inside many trolleys were being pushed, crammed with foodstuffs and cans of beer and lager and bottles of wine. I found a vacant trolley and pushing it ahead of me I went inside.

  Leclerc had vanished, a needle in a vast haystack of shoppers. The quest was clearly hopeless and I couldn’t take a chance on his spotting me if I went up and down the alleyways between the displays, searching for him. We could come face to face and that would be that.

  I about-turned and left the supermarché. I watched the exits, just in case, but so far as I could tell he didn’t come out even though I waited behind a lorry until the place emptied for the night. Either he had given me the slip or he had a contact with the management and was still inside, perhaps waiting until his contact drove him somewhere, to another contact. I was still waiting when a big car did drive away from somewhere in rear of the store and came past me. But if Leclerc was inside I didn’t see him. I would have to try again: the Zonguldak would be likely to be in the port for twenty-four hours and maybe longer.

  *

  Not entirely unexpectedly, Captain Kubat was in Madame Chaumet’s bar next day, not long before his departure as I gathered. I saw him from my private viewing-point; he didn’t see me. He was imbibing vino and had his heavy arm around a young girl. The fat woman who’d been in his cabin in Shoreham was not present. Kubat was bemoaning his lot as master of a ship in this day and age. His command of French was as good as his command of English. It probably needed to be, since Cherbourg was a frequent port of call. I heard the name Jean Bois mentioned, loudly and angrily. It appeared that Jean Bois had returned aboard the ship that morning and had then gone ashore again. After he had gone, Kubat’s bosun had reported that all his gear had been removed. The intention seemed to be not to come back.

  “Deserters!” Captain Kubat stormed. “Ship-jumpers! Rats.”

  Madame Chaumet asked if the gendarmerie had been informed.

  “Oui, Madame.” Captain Kubat indicated that he didn’t expect any success in regard to Bois’ apprehension prior to sailing. Present-day seamen, he said, were a bunch of damned layabouts with no sense of duty. He squeezed the girl tight; there were always compensations.

  I found the news interesting.

  *

  I spoke later to Madame Chaumet, asking her if she happened to know the man of whom the captain had spoken. She said the name meant nothing though he could have been a customer. Her hotel and bar were a favourite with seamen from the visiting ships, she reminded me. Her clientele was in its way worldwide, she had had even Chinese and Russians.

  She asked, “You are interested in this man, M’sieur Calvert?”

  “It’s possible,” I said.

  She nodded. “Perhaps I find out. Perhaps I ask questions in certain quarters.”

  “I’d be very grateful.”

  She gave me a searching look. “This is perhaps a police matter?”

  “They could come into it,” I said.

  She nodded again. “I shall see,” she said. She looked at the ornate clock in her parlour. It was a cuckoo-clock, and the cuckoo had just made its appearance for one a.m. There was still a girl in the bar but no customers. The girl, not an attractive one, looked dead tired and had straight lank hair hanging over a heavily powdered face, a kind of orange. Girl was an euphemism; I guessed she was the wrong side of forty. Madame Chaumet looked through the hatch and asked if there was anything else I wanted. I thanked her but said no. I went up to bed on my own, my mind busy, too busy for early sleep. So much time wasted, even if inevitably. But I wasn’t faced with any deadlines. Not so far as I knew, anyway. Not so far as I knew … but everything depended really on why Neskuke had risked stowing away in a ship’s funnel. There could be urgency. If Neskuke was looking down on me now from some other-worldly vantage-point he could be mutely urging me into action, desperate at the apparent waste of time. If only the dead could talk.

  I drifted off to sleep, into nightmares again, dirty harbour water and conger-eels twisting, twisting, the trauma of the inquest yet to come and the facing of the family, even more traumatic.

  I awoke suddenly. Very suddenly: the cold rim of an automatic was pressed against my forehead and a voice was warning me not to utter, not to move.

  Four

  It had been a deep sleep I’d fallen into. I hadn’t heard a sound. My first reaction was instinctive. My own automatic was in my safe at the London flat; travelling incognito by ferry, I hadn’t been willing to risk a gun being found on me in the customs check. But Marcus Bright in Barfleur had provided me with a Sauer & Sohn 6.35mm automatic, easily concealable if not as heavy as I liked. This was beneath my pillow and I slid a hand
towards it. Unfortunately the man holding the gun flicked on a torch as I moved, and light streamed, blinding me for a moment, and then I was just about aware of a sickening blow from heavy metal and I lost consciousness. I knew nothing for quite a while but when I came to I was no longer in Madame Chaumet’s establishment. I was in the back of a car, on the floor, with feet resting on me. The car was travelling very fast and it was still dark outside. I caught the backglow of the headlights, reflected off what I thought were trees.

  I kept very still and quiet. I felt the weight of four feet. The two men were talking in French and I could follow well enough but nothing interesting emerged. They talked of women, and a recent night in Montmartre. There was laughter from time to time: they spoke of an exhibition in a night club, an act they had both seen and enjoyed, very explicit, involving a girl and a bottle of vino.

  From the snatches of other conversation, I formed the impression that they were not seamen, but the connection with the Zonguldak was obvious enough. Or anyway, with the ship’s crew and that meant Leclerc. Leclerc, however, was not mentioned by his own name or that of Jean Bois.

  They shifted their feet; a shoe took me in the mouth. I still kept silent but after a while I knew that one of them was taking a closer look at me. I felt breath on my face as he bent down and I smelled garlic, strong. I felt my face seized in a soft hand, clammy and fish-cold, and my head was shaken.

  I opened my eyes.

  “He is coming round.”

  “Correct,” I said. I felt deadly sick and my head banged like a drum. I felt very weak. There was caked blood, and more blood that had soaked into the collar of the coat that one of the men must have thrown around my shoulders. I was also wearing trousers and shoes. Presumably they wouldn’t have risked carrying a naked body from the hotel to the car. More or less clad, I could have been passed off as a drunk, a seaman being borne back to his ship, if anyone had been around to be curious.

  Not expecting any answer, I asked, “Who are you?”

  “Never mind that, Commander Shaw.”

  Well, obviously they’d have known who they were kidnapping, but it’s never good news to have the confirmation. I asked where the car was heading.

  “That, you will find out.” There was a laugh. “One day.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  The answer was another laugh. I said, “If you want to keep me alive, give me something to drink.” I was as parched as a desert. They said they had no drink with them and I must put up with my condition. After that I went off into another spell of unconsciousness. I don’t know how long it lasted and I had no idea how long we were on the road, but I had come round again by the time we stopped, which was in a garage, the door of which was shut behind us before I was dragged out and set on my feet. There was a sickening smell of exhaust fumes and petrol that made me retch.

  I was taken through another door, one that connected with a house. It looked like a biggish house, with a wide square hall. Waiting in the hall I saw a man and a woman. A tall man with a black beard, wearing jeans and a light blue anorak with red stripes down the sleeves from the collar. It was padded and he looked like the Michelin Man. He was, at a guess, mid-thirties. The woman was younger and thinner and would have been pretty had it not been for a livid scar, the result I thought of a knife slash, running from the corner of her right eye down below her nose to the left-hand corner of her mouth.

  The eyes were green, and as hard as steel.

  The tall man asked in laboured French if I had given any trouble.

  “No. He asks for drink.”

  “He shall have it.” The man was of dark complexion; he was clearly not French but I couldn’t place his nationality – he could have been Turkish but that thought could simply have been a mental link with the Zonguldak. For all I knew, he could just as well have been Egyptian or from any of the other Middle Eastern countries. He went away while I stood there being coolly surveyed by the woman, with my escort – four men all told – close behind me. No one spoke. The atmosphere was curious, threatening, evil. The man came back with an earthenware jug.

  “Drink,” he said, holding the jug out. I took it and drank. I felt a lot better after I’d drunk almost all of it. I passed the jug back and the tall man said abruptly, “Now come with me, Commander Shaw.”

  He turned away and I followed ahead of two men from the escort. Leaving the hall we went through another door, along a passage with a door at the end. This door was pushed open: it was very heavy, bound with metal and with big, secure-looking hinges. Light from the passage showed me stone steps leading downward into thick black gloom. A cellar. The smell of damp came up, damp and decay and something else – drains, I fancied, or the effluent from a septic tank, probably the latter if we were any distance from a town which was likely enough in the circumstances.

  I was told to go down. I hesitated, although of course there was no current alternative. While I hesitated I heard something very unexpected but unmistakable: a child’s cry, a sound of terror and desperation, coming from not far away. The tall man said something in his own language, not French, and I turned round to see the woman going back along the passage, fast. That was all I was allowed to see and hear. I was given a sudden, violent shove in the back and I went headlong down the stone steps, landing in a bruised heap at the bottom, quite a long way down, feeling a slop of water around my body. Once again I passed out, having I imagine done my head no good in that rushed descent. When I came to, the stench seemed to grip me by the throat, to strangle me. Each breath was a torture until gradually I grew more or less used to it. There was no chink of light whatsoever, and no sound other than such as I made myself when I pulled myself together and groped around the walls, horribly slimy as though a million snails had passed by.

  The walls were very solid, so far as I could reach and feel. But there was a gurgle of water from somewhere, a sound I didn’t care for. However, so far as I could judge after a while, the seepage on the stone floor didn’t seem to have deepened. I had been left with my wrist-watch, which I always wear at night, and this had a luminous dial: it read three-fifteen, but I had no real idea of whether it was a.m. or p.m. or even what day it was, not knowing how far we had come from Cherbourg, not knowing how long the periods of unconsciousness had lasted. All I knew was that I spent two hours and a few minutes from the reading of my watch alone in that cell before I heard the door being opened and light came down.

  The woman was at the top of the steps, with two armed men.

  “You will come up,” she said, and I went.

  *

  The interrogation started. They evidently thought I’d have been softened up nicely by the spell in that hell-hole. The questioning took place in a room with shuttered windows, a well-furnished room with good antiques, a bureau-cum-bookcase, a specimen table, worn leather armchairs, a walnut occasional table, oil paintings on the walls – seascapes mostly, though not by Marcus Bright. They were a lot older than him, the masters who had painted those pictures, which were in heavy gilt frames with a lot of gingerbread work. It was a curiously civilised room: no television, for one thing. A grand piano across one corner, a Steinway. The tall man was sitting in of the armchairs and he held a dog on his knee, a Pekinese with a querulous expression. This dog yapped at my entry, and was shushed by the tall man, who stroked its silky hair. It preened itself back against his hand, opening its mouth to show nasty little teeth and a pink tongue.

  “Now, Commander Shaw.” I was not asked to sit down. I stood there under the man’s gaze, with the guards behind me, and the woman watching from across the room by the piano, arms crossed in front of small breasts.

  The tall man started. To begin with it was all very low-key, even polite. The man asked casually, “Do you know who we are, Commander Shaw?”

  No point in making guesses: I had no base from which to make a guess anyway, except that the Zonguldak and events back in Shoreham had to come into it. This, I said.

  “Yes, so m
uch is obvious, of course. You would not believe too much in coincidence.”

  “No,” I said.

  “But you do not know who we represent?”

  “No. And I imagine that you aren’t going to tell me.” The man smiled. It was not a nice smile; it was more of a grimace, and it showed some gold fillings in the front of his mouth. “Not yet,” he said. “First, I wish you to tell me something.”

  I said, shrugging, “No harm in asking.”

  “But plenty of harm, my dear fellow, in not answering. You understand?”

  I nodded. I’d been around, I said. I was no novice.

  “I know that. And that is partly what I wish to know. I wish to know why you of all people have been sent to Cherbourg, Commander Shaw. We know your organisation – 6D2. We know your reputation, your personal reputation. We know you are one of the top men. So why have you come?”

  I hadn’t been sent. I’d come of my own decision. I told them this and referred again to the Zonguldak. And specifically to the undoubted fact that an attempt had been made on my life and that a woman had died in Shoreham harbour. And that suspicion had fallen on a member of the Zonguldak’s crew.

  “That’s why,” I said. “It’s personal.” I saw the woman looking at me hard, a kind of human lie detector, but what I had said, though it may not have been the whole truth, was true so far as it went. The tall man accepted this.

  He said, “I wish to know what else.”

  “Nothing else. I’m chasing a killer.” I wasn’t going to mention Neskuke or Leclerc. I went on to tell him what he must know already. “After the shooting, a man deserted from the ship, in Shoreham. A French national, named Alphonse Freyard.”

  “A police matter – ”

  “But very personal to me, I repeat.”

  “Yes, yes. Of course. Then you believe this man has come to France?”