The Boy Who Liked Monsters (Commander Shaw Book 19)

by Philip McCutchan

  “Yes, Plymouth,” he said. “Already I have checked that. We could enter Plymouth Sound by not long after midnight.” He paused, looking at me closely. “I have your promise, Commander Shaw, that there will not be trouble for me?”

  I took a chance and committed Max and the mandarins of Whitehall. “You have my personal assurance, Captain Kubat, so long as you can satisfy me on one point. Have you been involved, yourself, in killing? I refer to those names you mentioned during the night. What’s the story behind that?”

  Kubat was sweating again. “Those men were killed, yes. Behind that was Louis Leclerc – ”

  “Louis Leclerc? You knew this? You knew Leclerc? You lied to me when you said back in Shoreham that the photograph I showed you was Jean Bois? You lied, insofar as you knew Jean Bois was an alias.”

  Captain Kubat spread his hands wide and looked shamefaced. “I concealed the true identity, yes. I am sorry. I was scared for my life. Behind Leclerc was M’sieur Perro – ”

  “You mean,” I said, “you were being blackmailed into becoming Perro’s man?”

  “Yes, this is so. And I was forced to sign Leclerc as one of my crew, under the alias of Jean Bois.”

  I nodded. “So that explains Neskuke?”

  “Neskuke, yes,” Captain Kubat said. He was sweating more than ever and almost gibbering. It was hard to follow what he was saying; under such stress his English deteriorated badly. But I gathered that Neskuke had in effect been murdered during the voyage to Shoreham. Also that Kubat suspected Leclerc of being the killer. It would have been simple enough, Kubat said; the plain fact of being overcome by the fumes would look, as it had looked, like death by misadventure. But Leclerc, whom Kubat had since learned had brought Neskuke aboard with promises of a safe passage, would have known very well what the result would be. Hence the death was murder. Captain Kubat, with tears in his eyes now, assured me that he himself had had no knowledge at the time of the presence of a man in his funnel. He also assured me that he had never been party to any killings. I found that I believed him; he was taking a huge risk in altering his course for Britain, a risk that I believed he would never have taken had he been directly involved in the deaths of those British diplomats around the world. I had just one more question: what hold had Perro over him?

  He answered with transparent honesty. No doubt he felt protected by his wife’s total lack of English to comprehend his confession. He said, “I am a seaman, Commander Shaw. I think you will understand. In many ports there are many women. Women lead to drink – ”

  “Isn’t it usually the other way round, Captain Kubat?”

  “Perhaps sometimes, yes. Not always. Once I became very drunk, more so than usual. I took my ship to sea and her bottom became torn out by rocks. I lost my master’s certificate. M’sieur Perro came to my help afterwards, and provided me with false papers in the name of Kubat, and employment. M’sieur Perro, you see, owns this ship and many others. As Captain Kubat I was to be of service to him.”

  “Smuggling?”

  “Smuggling, yes.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Not drugs. Persons. From the Far East. The Boat People and others.”

  I told Kubat, who wasn’t Kubat, that my word stood. Though I wasn’t prepared to commit Max or anybody else on the business of smuggling displaced persons into Britain, he need have no fear as to the diplomats. At the same time I was far from happy at the thought of entering Plymouth Sound at night under the command of a man who’d lost his certificate of competency and was much addicted to the ouzo bottle.

  But in the end it didn’t come to that. Nothing quite so easy.

  *

  I made my dispositions, knowing that in diverting Kubat into Plymouth I was deserting Felicity and Marcus Bright near Montignac. I hated that thought; but I couldn’t allow any such considerations to sway me. So I got down to it; first I asked Kubat if he’d picked up the news broadcasts. He had; the BBC Overseas Service. The summary had been full of confidence about the arms reduction talks. They were going well and both Ross Mackenzie and Kulachev were getting plenty of adulation from the world’s press. The celebrations would be immense after the signing, Kubat said, not least aboard the Zonguldak. Nobody wanted war ever again, nobody wanted to be vaporised in a nuclear holocaust.

  “Right,” I said, wondering why he hadn’t thought of that before. “Now: the first thing is to confront Perro. Do you know where he is?”

  “He is in his cabin, and asleep still, I believe.”

  “Then we’ll visit him there,” I said. “After that, I’ll use your radio room. With your permission, of course.”

  “You have the permission,” he said. He knew what I had to do. Once I’d done it, the world could look forward with confidence to the triumph to come in Washington. Just a brief signal to Focal House, where a listening watch was maintained around the clock, seven days a week, fifty-two weeks a year, Christmas Day included. That was all that was needed now.

  I said, “Perro’s cabin, then.” I pulled Kubat’s revolver out from beneath the bunk mattress. “I’d like your wife to stay here with the boy.”

  “Yes, I will tell her.” He did so and she nodded vigorously; she seemed to have fallen for James. I had a word with James, telling him Mrs Kubat would look after him well and I would be back pretty soon. He seemed satisfied; Mrs Kubat encircled him, vest and all, clasping him tightly to her breasts. He had a submerged look, but not a fearful one, instinctively recognising kindness. As we left the cabin Mrs Kubat was rocking him to and fro making crooning noises. James, a man of six years, put up with it splendidly.

  *

  Perro was not in his cabin.

  That was the first frustration: I would have preferred to tackle him in some privacy. I could not be sure, and more importantly neither could Captain Kubat, of the allegiances of the ship’s crew. Perro, that man of many parts, no doubt had his plants everywhere. It might not have been just Louis Leclerc, alias Jean Bois, or Alphonse Freyard. We had to step carefully. Kubat said his third officer had the bridge watch and he believed he could be trusted; he was a young man, as yet untainted, or so Kubat hoped, by the intrigues of men such as Perro.

  Kubat said he could call the bridge by voice-pipe and order the alteration of course for Plymouth Sound. I said the time for that hadn’t quite come yet. We would go first to the radio room. We did.

  Kubat led the way. I kept close behind him, with his revolver ready. Even Kubat could change his mind; I didn’t believe he would, not now, but it’s best to keep the upper hand. We went along an alleyway that ended in the radio-room door and before Kubat could open it, it came open from inside and Perro came out. His thick body filled the entry; he registered that the two of us were together and he couldn’t fail to hoist in the implications. His reactions were fast, very fast. In spite of the past days’ privations he was still immensely strong. He picked Kubat up, lifted him in the air, and threw him bodily on top of me. Kubat’s weight sent me staggering, almost broke my neck. From the deck of the alleyway I fired Kubat’s revolver. The bullet nicked Perro’s left ear and then ricocheted from the bulkheads with the sound of an angry bee. As I scrambled to my feet I heard Kubat moaning from his position on the deck and saw Perro coming for me like a maddened bison, a very fast bison. He hurled himself through the air and landed on me: there was no room to dodge in that narrow, steel-lined alleyway and I went flat again, winded and badly bruised by Perro’s sheer weight. Kubat’s revolver whizzed along the deck, out of my reach. Before I could get up, Perro had moved towards it, sliding on his stomach.

  He got hold of it, panting, eyes narrowed, a look of fury in them. There were five rounds left in the chamber. By this time Kubat was starting to climb to his feet, scrabbling at the bulkhead, all the fight gone from him, a useless ally now. Not that the point was important: Perro squeezed the trigger and Kubat, giving a sharp cry, slumped back to the deck. Perro emptied two more rounds into the quivering, jelly-like body. The rest, he said, were for me.
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br />   “If you try anything, Commander Shaw,” he said.

  I had half a mind to play at heroics, and rush the bastard, but sanity stepped in. I wouldn’t have a hope, and I didn’t want to leave James Jervolino friendless aboard the Zonguldak. When Mrs Kubat heard that her husband was dead, she would be no more use as comforter.

  *

  The ship continued towards Bordeaux.

  I was not allowed back to my cabin. Another item was provided aboard merchant ships for the use of the master when necessary for restraint: a pair of handcuffs. These were used to shackle me to an iron ring-bolt set in the deckhead of the ship’s forepeak – the paint store to be exact, a smelly place, damp with condensation. Once again, things had taken a nasty turn and I worried about James. Not for his life as yet, since Perro still had that use for him, but there would most likely be ill-treatment and for his part the boy would be worried sick when I failed to show up. Also, he would probably have heard the shooting. As to that killing of the man who wasn’t Kubat, I made a guess that Perro would probably have fired in the heat of the moment, not looking farther ahead than the act itself.

  He might regret that later.

  *

  I listened to the beat of the engines, felt the slight judder of the screw taking us in towards the Bordeaux arrival. There was only a gentle rise and fall of the bows.

  The ship was in easy weather now, the recent storms well past. Perro would be walking the bridge, perhaps, under clear blue skies and good fresh air. The Zonguldak’s chief officer would be well capable of taking the ship into port; there would be no navigational or seamanship worries for Perro this time, and my own services would not be required. No way out that way. That was, so long as the chief officer co-operated with Perro. That, I thought, he would do; Perro was the owner, and jobs could be lost quick enough. So could lives.

  I thought about Captain Kubat: in death the swarthy face had paled, the whole gross body had seemed to have deflated, as if Perro’s bullets had let out the air. It had been a sorry sight; poor Kubat had been more sinned against than sinning, had been a very human person. I assumed the corpse would have gone overboard, and later Perro confirmed this.

  There would be trouble at Bordeaux but I doubted if it would come immediately. Kubat had told me he had come only from Cherbourg and Brest, though he had taken his ship well out westerly so as to avoid being caught in coastal waters by the storm: he had, I expect, abiding memories of what rocks and lee shores could do to a ship. But having voyaged only from French ports to another French port, the Zonguldak’s arrival was highly unlikely to be subject to much formality. The French were the French: any excuse not to have to stretch themselves. Perro would initially be safe.

  I could see him getting away with it, at any rate for long enough.

  The time was very short now, and Montignac was not all that far from Bordeaux in a fast car. Probably Kubat had been told to use his radio to fix the hire car ahead of the ship’s arrival.

  I wondered again about young James. The boy would be in despair by this time. He would be sure to know what had happened to Kubat. Mrs Kubat’s lamentations would be echoing through the bulkhead, just as her exertions of the night before had done. James would probably be missing her, her sudden withdrawal – which I assumed would have happened, for Perro would have had a need to talk to her about her future silence – that sudden disappearance from the cabin would have seemed like a further abandonment.

  *

  The beat of the engines, hours later, changed; the Zonguldak was easing her speed. I heard feet on the fo’c’sle above, and the clank of metal. Soon after this there was a banging from the navel pipe down which the anchor cable went into the cable locker beneath. An anchor was being eased down the hawsepipe, no doubt to lie at the waterline, ready for letting go if required, a prudent safety precaution when entering port. I heard voices from the deck, orders being passed. Later, the engines stopped and there was a gentle bump as if against a catamaran or a fender on the dock wall, then more footsteps and orders as the lines went out to the shore.

  We had berthed.

  No time wasted now: within the next five minutes Perro came down and unclipped the door. Kubat’s revolver was in his hand.

  “Fully loaded again,’’ he said. There was a man with him, one of the deckhands that I’d seen about the ship when being taken to the paint store. “You will leave the ship with me,” Perro went on.

  “And the boy?”

  “Of course, the boy.” Perro sounded impatient. “You will do exactly as you are told, Commander Shaw, or the boy will suffer. Remember this at all times.”

  He gestured at the other man, who came towards me and unlocked the handcuffs, passing them to Perro who put them in a pocket of a vast greatcoat that had probably been Kubat’s. My arms were numb, and when I brought them down the returning blood hurt badly. They would be useless for a while. Again Perro gestured, this time to me, ordering me out. I went into the alleyway with Perro’s gun in my back. Moving aft with the seaman, whom Perro addressed as Gander, we climbed a ladder and emerged onto the deck. I saw that it was night; the lights of Bordeaux reflected from the scummy water, and I inhaled the stench of any French port in my experience: fuel oil, fish, mud, drains.

  Perro said, “A car is waiting.”

  I looked down at the dockside. A big Citroen was by the gangway. The docks seemed deserted except for a stray cat, scratching itself behind the car. The car itself was empty; and apart from Gander I saw none of the Zonguldak’s crew, though there were lights in the officers’ ports aft. At first there was no sign of James; but a moment later a door in the superstructure opened and another man came through, carrying the boy, holding him tightly to his chest while arms and legs flew in all directions. A hand was clamped across the boy’s mouth. As he was brought towards us, Perro spoke to me.

  “Commander Shaw, you will tell the boy it is in his own interest to keep his cries to himself.” There was steel in Perro’s voice and I feared for the boy. I talked to him, telling him that to cry or yell now would do no good whatsoever. It would only make things worse. I put all I had into stressing that and because he trusted me he nodded his head when I asked him if he would keep quiet when the man removed his hand.

  “Good boy,” I said.

  The man didn’t remove his hand until James was down the gangway and in the car. He was put in the front seat alongside the driver, who was to be the man Gantier. When the hand came away James said miserably, “I thought you weren’t ever coming back, Mr Shaw.”

  I said, “I came as soon as I could, James. You’ll behave like a big man now, won’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  I had put my head through the window to talk to him. Perro, again impatient, prodded with his gun. I was told to get into the back. As I turned, Gantier seized my still half-numb arms and held them behind my back while Perro locked the cuffs into place again. Then I was pushed in for what was going to be a highly uncomfortable ride. Perro went round and got in on my right. Gantier got behind the wheel and off we went, through the docks and out of the gate without let or hindrance.

  For Perro, it couldn’t have been easier.

  *

  We drove through the night, fast, not taking long to clear Bordeaux on the road north-easterly. James was silent in the front, realising he would get no answers to his questions if he asked them. I couldn’t see him in the lee of the big seat and the head restraint; he may have fallen asleep to dream of home and grandfather. Perro addressed the odd remark to Gantier, who replied equally monosyllabically. At one point I asked Perro about the Zonguldak, whether he’d got the whole crew in his grip, how the chief officer was going ultimately to account for the death of his captain. Lost overboard had been the story on arrival, Perro said, when unsteady on his feet from the effects of ouzo. But I couldn’t see that holding for long. Someone, some crew member, would talk when in his cups ashore.

  “So what?” I asked. “What happens?”

 
Perro gave a grim laugh and said time would tell. When time did tell, it would no longer matter. He would not be returning to Bordeaux and the talks would have broken up, disintegrated into mutual recriminations, and he would be on his way to the Soviet Union.

  After we’d been driving for an hour and a half by the car’s clock in the console, Perro reached into a pocket of Kubat’s greatcoat and brought out a packet of sandwiches which he shared with Gantier; and a flask of some sort of drink which he didn’t share. I wondered if it was Kubat’s ouzo, but a little later I smelled brandy on his breath.

  He was easy and confident as ever, and he hummed a tune. It was the ‘Marseillaise’ … a patriotic tune from a traitor, but of course the ‘Marseillaise’ had been bred in revolution so it was perhaps appropriate in its way.

  The night was cool, almost cold, and Gantier kept his driving window open, so the air was fresh, better than the paint store had been. After a while I saw the boy’s head peering round the side of the front seat.

  I said, “All right, James?”

  “Yes.”

  I risked a pertinent question. I asked him about Mrs Kubat.

  “They made her cry,” he said in a miserable voice. “They killed Captain Kubat. She couldn’t speak … then she cried. She cried a lot, Mr Shaw. I told her I was very sorry. She held me tight, then they took her away.”

  I felt cold at the thought of a boy of James’ age having to talk about a man being killed, of having to see the breakdown of a woman widowed by murder. I spoke to Perro. “What did you do with her?” I asked. I regretted the question immediately; the boy had heard enough already. But Perro said simply that she had followed her husband’s body.

  It was well before the dawn that we entered Montignac and crossed the Vezere towards the lonely house and its contiguous disused cemetery. I heard the hoot of an owl as Gantier, on Perro’s orders, pulled the car off the road and into the lee of thick-growing trees and undergrowth, still some distance from the house. Perro spoke briefly to Gantier, telling him to go and reconnoitre the area close to the house. Gantier went off; Perro and I and James waited in the car, not speaking. Perro drank again from his flask, and lit a cigarette. The owl continued to hoot. The dawn was a cold one, and there was a breeze that ruffled the leaves on the trees, and I thought of the so-far invisible cypresses waving over the bleak cemetery, and of the bony skull-face that had leered down on me in the underground passageway, and I thought of Felicity Mandrake and Marcus Bright still shut in that filthy dungeon. There was no sign of any police presence and after about thirty minutes Gantier came back to the car to report that all was well. He had contacted Perro’s men in the house; our approach would be safe, no explosive would be triggered.