The Boy Who Liked Monsters (Commander Shaw Book 19)

by Philip McCutchan

  “A very dedicated communist indeed,” I murmured. “You make a strange bedfellow for Louis Leclerc, who I understand is a fascist, or anyway a member of the National Front in France – ”

  “I am no bedfellow for Louis Leclerc.” There was sharpness in the man’s tone now, and I thought again of the likelihood that Perro’s father had been victimised by Leclerc, whose part in current events seemed more and more to be peripheral. And I thought too of what old Gallepe had said about the emigration to New Zealand of the son. Perhaps France hadn’t treated Perro junior very well, and he was motivated to some extent by revenge. All that, however, was conjecture; I wanted facts, and Perro was prepared to offer them, so I let him talk without interruption thereafter, except for an occasional question where necessary. To my surprise I learned that Ross Mackenzie had already been informed of the kidnap. He had at the same time been informed that if he wished the child to live he was not to make any report to the administration or indeed speak of the matter to anyone at all. It had been pointed out to him that if he blew the beans, then whatever his own thoughts on the kidnap and the demand, he would be for ever cut off from conceding those demands. In face of the world’s press and public the question of concession could obviously never arise and the child would die. Neither was he to resign; that would also equal the death warrant. He had to stay at his post and act behind the scenes for the anti-Kulachevs. Perro believed firmly that he would: Ross Mackenzie was known to be devoted to the orphaned boy. He could play his part, so long as nothing whatsoever was known, with personal dignity. Just a digging-in of toes, a brick wall presented to the Russian delegation over some basic point of principle that he could present as something that the USA would never agree to. It would be up to him to find that means. He would know all the answers, know precisely how to handle it, know how to handle the President and the administration. How, in short, to throw a spanner into the works.

  When failed Kulachev packed his bags for home and a hostile reception, when the jackals were released, then the boy also would be released unharmed.

  I asked how the actual kidnap had been managed, without anything breaking in the press or anywhere else, no knowledge of it anywhere other than the dying words of Alphonse Freyard. Perro said it had been easy; the boy had been on holiday in France, so conveniently. The CIA agent supposedly guarding the boy had been in Russian pay and he had collaborated. The nanny had resisted. Perro confirmed that she was British. She had had to be killed; Perro reminded me that I had seen the body.

  That was when he asked me a leading question: how was it that I had known about the kidnap?

  I gave him a truthful answer. “A Frenchman named Alphonse Freyard from the motor vessel Zonguldak. You’re with me?”

  He was; he knew of the Zonguldak and he knew of Freyard’s friendship with Louis Leclerc. “Persons of no account,” he said, waving a hand.

  “But Freyard knew of the kidnap. He was involved in a gun battle with the police. He was fatally wounded. Before he died, he spoke of a kidnap.”

  “And this was reported to your authorities?”

  I nodded. “Of course. So it’s no longer such a secret, is it?”

  “But nothing has been said. I know this – I have persons who report to me from many places, so unsuspected by the western governments and agencies. So it would seem that your people are also keeping their secrecy for their own reasons.”

  I said, “I know nothing of reasons. I’m just the held man. I obey orders, and risk my neck.”

  Perro didn’t make any comment. I knew Max had arranged for a muzzle on the press and other media. I did not propose to tell Perro that, in fact, none of the authorities really knew a damn thing, that to everyone except, now, myself and Marcus and Felicity, it was all conjecture. But I felt, in time, the cops might come after all, since Max had taken a copy of that rough map and might react to silence on my part. But currently only old Gallepe in Clermont-Ferrand, who had been tortured by the Gestapo in this very house so many years ago, knew exactly where it was and only Marcus Bright had known of Gallepe’s existence.

  I asked, “Has Ross Mackenzie reacted? To you, I mean? Any response?”

  “So far, no. But that means little. There is much time yet. He will contact us when he feels ready to do so. He knows he must. He has been told of the avenues, naturally. And now we come to you, Commander Shaw, and your part yet to be played.”

  Ten

  It was really quite simple, at any rate the first stage was: Perro, as was confirmed to me as the bulky man’s name when the woman Tanya spoke to him, had sophisticated means of communication. Radio and TV transmitters and receivers, an ability to monitor the world’s wavelengths, and so on. But for a start only the simple telephone was required; and I was to use it to call Focal House, which Perro seemed to know all about.

  “You will call your chief, Commander Shaw.” He paused, looking at me searchingly. “What is his name?”

  I said, “We call him John.”

  “Yes? He is the democratic sort?”

  I said he was.

  “John.”

  “Yes.”

  There was a short laugh. “No. He is known to you as Max.”

  “Oh,” I said. That was one long shot gone for a burton: addressed as John, Max would have smelt a rather big rat, but it was not to be. “Well, you know best. Let’s settle for Max, then. But I’m not putting through any calls to him, M’sieur Perro.”

  “I believe you will,” Perro said with confidence. I glanced round at Felicity, the obvious means of ensuring my compliance. Her face was whiter than ever but she was an experienced field person who’d faced this sort of thing before, many times. But of course it was me who would be expected to break when the squeeze was put on Felicity. I, too, was experienced; but there does come a time when you can’t sit back and watch suffering. However, this time it wasn’t to be Felicity at all.

  Perro spoke in an aside to the woman Tanya, and she left the room. We remained, standing in silence. Out of sight, a clock ticked. I looked through the windows, across the garden towards the cypresses in the cemetery. I wondered if that cemetery had been one of the places where the Gestapo of so many years ago had buried the French dead after torture. But most likely the victims would have been conveyed alive elsewhere in sealed vans, by road or rail, to the gas chambers or the cremation furnaces, a cleaner and easier disposal. Whether or not there were torture victims buried there, the cemetery had a haunted look, and there was a sense of utter desolation as the shades of evening began to come down, and Perro switched on an overhead light.

  Within a couple of minutes Tanya came back and she had brought the boy with her.

  Perro said, “This is James Jervolino.”

  I said, “Hullo, James.”

  He didn’t answer, standing there with the woman’s grip on his shoulder, tongue-tied and dead scared. His eyes were red and puffy and he had a sniff. Basically they were dark eyes, Italian eyes. He was a sturdy little boy physically, with dark, curly hair. In his left hand he carried a teddy bear; it was wearing a kilt in what I recognised as the Mackenzie tartan. I said, “So teddy’s a Scot, is he?”

  He nodded. He still didn’t speak; he just stared at me as if expecting help, as if perhaps we were the cops, English variety if not the Americans he’d have thought would come.

  There was a silence, then not without difficulty owing to the handcuffs, Felicity squatted in front of the boy and said teddy looked nice in that kilt. She asked if he ate haggis, and the boy looked puzzled. But he had a tongue in his head after all.

  He said, “Course not. Teddies don’t eat.”

  “Sorry,” Felicity said. “Ask a silly question … how old are you, James?”

  “Six and a quarter.”

  Perro came in on that, looking impatient. “He wishes to be seven. You understand, I think?”

  Felicity straightened. Her eyes were cold, hard as diamonds. She said, “I understand, yes. How could any man be such a bastard?” />
  Perro laughed, and gestured at the woman. She wrenched the boy around and slapped at his face, twice each side. He cried, face like a small beetroot, angry weals showing. Perro said, “Now you understand more. If you are not co-operative, then it is the boy who suffers. The same applies, of course, to you, Commander Shaw.”

  That was just the start. In the end I made that telephone call to Focal House, to Max in person. I made it because, in the place we were taken to, some distance from the house and by way of an underground tunnel that led out of the steel-lined compartment and past the body of the English nanny, the boy being made to look at her as he passed, the pressure came on by way of little James Jervolino. We were taken into a brick-lined room opening off the tunnel. In the room there was a desk and a telephone and a mass of radio equipment. While the tall man with the black beard from my earlier experience held a gun on me, my handcuffs were removed and I was told to sit at the telephone, which I did. Then the woman took the boy’s right hand and laid it on the desk, fingers spread out. She held the wrist tight; the boy’s body squirmed and she hit him with her free hand. Then Perro brought out a knife from a pocket, a small knife with a saw-edged blade. This he laid on one of the boy’s fingers.

  “The telephone, Commander. You will simply reassure Max that all is well with you.”

  I looked at him: his face was implacable. He said, “Thirty seconds, then I start to saw off the finger.”

  I knew beyond all doubt that he would. I heard a stifled cry from Felicity, heard the boy’s desperate wail, saw his efforts to get free. He began calling despairingly, so uselessly, for his grandparents.

  I took up the handset and dialled the international code. I got Mrs Dodge, Max’s secretary. I asked for Max and he came on the line without delay.

  Shaw, I’ve been expecting you. What’s the score?”

  From the corner of my eye I saw the saw-edge press; but by now Tanya had her other hand over the boy’s mouth, with a piece of heavy cloth as a gag. There was no sound. Into the telephone I said, “All under control, Max – ”

  “Where are you?”

  “France – ”

  “Have you found that house?”

  “No,” I said. “I haven’t, not yet. Give me some more time. I was dead scared that Max would say something over the line, give away happenings at his end, something that Perro would pick up on his monitors. But Max didn’t do that. He cut in on me impatiently but not to give any positive information.

  He said, “It’s a brick wall, Shaw. No progress anywhere. You’ve nothing to report? I can’t contact our man in Barfleur, what’s-his-name. No answer.”

  “He’s here with me,” I said. “I’ve nothing else to report.”

  “Keep in touch,” Max said, and cut the call. I found my fingers shaking as I put the handset down. Perro took the knife away from the child’s hand and stowed it back in his pocket. The boy was crying still, though the tears were tending to fall away in sobs that shook the small body. I was glad the grandfather couldn’t see him, see his terrible distress, the look in the hurt eyes saying that he’d been deserted. We all left the room, the handcuffs back in place again, going back the way we had come. Going back, I saw something that I hadn’t noticed on the way in: a place, high in the tunnel, almost overhead, where the brickwork had crumbled and there was earth and the roots of vegetation. There was something else as well, that I saw clearly: a grinning skull, wedged in the bricks’ crumble, grinning and toothless and horrible.

  We were beneath the cemetery. I was thankful to be out from under as we once again passed that pathetic body in its steel-lined temporary tomb, the English nanny who’d done her duty and more than her duty to the end.

  “What now?” I asked as we reached the head of the stone steps and stood in the hall.

  “Nothing more as yet,” Perro said. “A wait, but not perhaps for long.”

  After that we were put back, Felicity and I and Marcus Bright, in the cellar where I’d been held originally. The boy was taken elsewhere, with the woman and the black-bearded man. I was aware of Felicity slumping to the wet, foul floor beside me. She put her mouth against my ear: we had to be wary of bugs. She whispered, “It’s the world against that poor little brat, isn’t it?”

  I knew just what she meant: one small orphan boy, and the world held to ransom. If the matter reached the press, it might be a different story, or it ought to be. There would be a total outrage, but that wouldn’t save James Jervolino, and the end result would in any case negate the talks. You don’t deal against that sort of background. So, because those talks were so vital, the wraps had to be kept on, that was the dirty part. I, locked into a dungeon and with handcuffs securely fastened, was helpless. And the likeliness of the house being found was remote enough. Once the seventy-two hours were up, the official brass might go into action but they had only that sketch map to go on, no precise location for the underground – or under cemetery – set-up, the communications capability. Thinking of that, I saw it as unlikely Perro would shift berth. He wouldn’t, I thought, be leaving his wherewithal behind. My imagination showed me a possible scenario, Perro in direct communication with Ross Mackenzie as the last minutes ticked away, exhorting him to produce that brick wall that would end the talks and send Kulachev home to face the music in the Kremlin, the man whose glasnost tactics had failed.

  *

  I don’t know how long we were left in the cellar; all our watches had been removed now. We knew neither night nor day. At intervals the bear-like man who had dropped the gold medallion came down, well guarded, with food and water. Bread and water to be precise, though once there was some meat wedged into sandwiches, as tough as rubber. Twice I was taken, alone each time, to make my contact with Max. They had the boy there, and again the saw was produced. Each time I made a nil report; on the second occasion I’d decided to take a chance and try to slip something past Perro, something that would tell Max all was not as it should be. I intended to say something out of character, such as asking him to get Mrs Dodge to check my expense account, and I’d begun by saying “By the way – ” but that was all I was allowed before Perro reacted. He gave the contacts a series of jiggles, then cut the call. Bad line, Max would be saying irritably, typical French. The boy suffered for that, too; the saw edge slid across a finger, drawing blood. Max, however, had passed some information before I could stop him, and of course Perro had got it on tape, which he re-ran for my benefit.

  I heard Max’s voice again, saying the seventy-two hours were up. That gave me my first fix on how long we’d been in the cellar. He went on to say that the facts were still being withheld from the media but he couldn’t hold the government agencies in the NATO countries. There would now be a full-scale search.

  Perro questioned me about that. What would the law be doing?

  “Searching,” I said. “What else?”

  “That is not an answer, Commander Shaw.”

  I shrugged. “Sorry I can’t help in detail. Here in this house, I’m not part of the scene.”

  Perro said, “Never mind. I have my sources, as once I told you. I shall be kept informed. I am not worried.”

  I was taken back to the dungeon and pushed down the stone steps. I stumbled, but just about kept my balance. I groped around for Felicity and she guided me towards her. I sat down close, and told her what had gone on. She asked, like Perro, what I thought would happen. I said she knew just as much as I did. But I added that Max knew we had been making for the Clermont-Ferrand area, and that would narrow the field somewhat. Marcus Bright, on my other side, whispered that it was unlikely old Gallepe would be dug out from his hovel and I agreed. On the other hand, there would be other Frenchmen around who’d been in the maquis and who might have been imprisoned in the house when it was the Gestapo HQ. On yet another hand that was a long, long time ago and there would be no reason why anyone should prognosticate a new and even nastier HQ in the home of a respectable retired civil servant, so that was scarcely a starter either.


  *

  I was sent for again, I don’t know how much later. I’d fallen into an uneasy sleep as I’d done several times before, Felicity and I leaning against each other in as much comfort as we could manage. I woke with a start when they came for me and I was taken back beneath the cemetery to the communications centre and then into an adjoining compartment where there was a lot more equipment with control panels filled with banks of dials and coloured lights. There was the hum of dynamos coming from somewhere, no doubt Perro’s own power supply. The boy James was sitting under guard of the woman once again. He was bearing up like a man but the strain was only too obvious. He perked up a little when he saw me; I was an ally if a currently useless one. I gave him a grin but wasn’t allowed any conversation. I knew he would suffer if I tried, so I didn’t.

  Perro said, “We are about to contact the grandfather, Commander Shaw.”

  “By telephone?”

  “Radio telephone.” There would be an aerial somewhere above ground, of course. Camouflaged on the roof, maybe. “The boy will speak to him,” Perro said.

  “You will say nothing yourself until I tell you to, and then you will say only what I wish you to.”

  I asked, “Is Mackenzie expecting this call?”

  Perro nodded. “The message has been passed. He will be alone in his room in Washington.” He paused, running a hand over his dark cheeks. “You will say, no doubt, that the call will be intercepted. I agree that it will – no person, however highly placed, is immune from telephone taps in America.”

  “So?”

  Perro smiled. “The information will be suppressed.”

  “You know this?”

  “I know it. I am not alone, I am backed, as I have said, by strong men inside Russia and in the Soviet Embassy in Washington, and they have disaffected persons in their pay – I think I need say no more about that.”