Night of the Twelfth

by Michael Gilbert

  On the map points of light were already starting to appear. Manifold saw that they formed three rough arcs. The inner arcs made a ring round Chichester seven to ten miles from it. Petersfield, Rogate, Trotton, Midhurst, Petworth, Pulborough, Storrington and Arundel. The lights were not in the villages themselves but at points near them, often at crossroads. Two of them were at level crossings and two were on bridges over the Rother.

  Anderson had broken into a flow of coded signals to Control. ‘Easy Fox two three. George two three. Item King three three owe. Check. Cancel three three owe. Three three one. Love Mike three three two.’

  The sweat was standing out in a band across his forehead as he concentrated the whole of his mind on the game of blindfold chess which he was playing across the board of the English countryside.

  Manifold had been aware for some minutes that Rew was taking a call on one of the other telephones. He saw him hesitate. Then, as though he had made his mind up, he climbed to his feet and moved quickly across. He tapped Anderson on the shoulder.

  For a moment Manifold thought Anderson was going to hit him. Then the discipline of experience took control. He even managed to smile as he said, ‘Well, David, what is it?’

  ‘Mr Moritz has just come through. He’s remembered that when he saw the car driving away that night there was some defect in the rear-light which made it flicker on and off. Just like the morse code, he said.’

  Anderson grabbed the transmitter and said, ‘All watchers. Add to description of car. The tail-light is defective. I repeat, the tail-light is defective and will be seen to flicker. Thank you, David. That should clinch it.’

  It will clinch it, thought Manifold, if we’re right about one point. That they’ve gone inland. It was a fair assumption. Inland was their customary stalking ground. It was the area they knew best. But on this occasion they weren’t looking for a victim. They had a car and a body to dispose of. Suppose they were heading in the opposite direction, south-west? There was no point in saying any of this to Anderson. He was using the only apparatus which was available to him, and using it well. But there was no burking the fact that it only covered half the ground.

  More lights were springing up. This was a second ring. Liphook, Kingsley Green, Blackdown, Balls Cross, Adversane, Ashington. Reports were coming in, too, none of them good enough for a definite identification. Anderson had a board beside him, covered with gridded paper, which reproduced the map squares in the area he was searching. As a “possible” was announced he repeated the co-ordinates to an assistant who marked the board with small, blue-headed pins. Presently a pattern started to form; a pattern of cars, moving through the dusk, watched by unseen eyes, their courses plotted.

  Anderson looked at his watch. Nearly fifteen minutes had gone since he had set the machinery in motion.

  ‘Come on,’ he said softly. ‘For Christ’s sake, come on.’

  It was a prayer, and like a prayer it was answered.

  A red light showed on the crossroads a hundred yards east of Trotton. Anderson listened, and then repeated, ‘Definite identification. A four-door dark grey saloon car, heading north, with a defective rear-light. The driver thought to be a man with white hair and glasses. Mark it in.’

  He suddenly sounded ten years younger. ‘David, get the standby car from Petersfield moving east towards Woodmansgreen, and one from Haslemere coming south through Fernhurst. Keep both cars on your net. Reports to you every three minutes, negative as well as positive.’

  Looking at the map Manifold could see that the car they were after was moving into a triangle formed by the A3, the A286 and the B272. With a line of watchers behind and in front, and two cars beating the coverts, surely, surely they couldn’t slip out now.

  Sacher and Joscelyne were sitting up in bed, staring at each other. Lucy Fairfax had arrived and gone in a flurry of foot-steps.

  Joscelyne said, ‘Why did you tell her?’

  Sacher stared at him.

  ‘Why did you tell her where he went? Couldn’t you have said he’d gone to the lavatory, or something.’

  ‘What would have been the point of it?’

  ‘It would have stalled her.’

  Sacher said, ‘After all that’s happened this term, Peter, if you still can’t see where reality breaks in, it’s time you made the effort and grew up.’

  After which pronouncement he lay down, turned over in bed, and not another word could Joscelyne get out of him through that long and horrible night.

  Whilst they were waiting, Manifold used one of the outside lines to telephone the school. He said to Mr Fairfax, ‘No. Nothing definite yet, but we think we’ll be able to head them off all right. There’s something you could do, if you would.’

  It was clear that Mr Fairfax would do anything to relieve the strain of waiting.

  ‘Go down and have a word with old Mr Merriam. Ask him if the car which was kept in the shed at the bottom of the garden belonged to him.’

  ‘I seem to remember that it did,’ said Mr Fairfax. ‘He laid it up about three years ago, when he had his stroke.’

  ‘Make him write down the registration number and phone me back here, as quick as you can. Use the phone box at the end of the lane.’

  Rew said, ‘What made you think of that all of a sudden?’

  ‘I ought to have worked it out a long time ago,’ said Manifold bitterly. ‘It was so bloody obvious. That’s why they busted up the old boy’s wireless set and battery. They knew the description of the car would be broadcast sooner or later. And of course, if it was his car, he’d have recognized it.’

  ‘The number, it’ll be useful. But not as useful as that bit about the tail-light.’

  ‘God bless Mr Moritz,’ said Manifold.

  ‘Car one negative,’ said Rew. And a moment later. ‘Car two negative.’

  ‘What the hell are they up to?’ said Anderson. ‘They crossed at Trotton ten minutes ago. They must be up to the next line by now.’

  ‘If they get there,’ thought Manifold. The same thought was in everybody’s mind, but it remained unspoken. He could see the car turning down a side lane, and then into a field; the bundle at the back which was McMurtrie rolled out on to the grass.

  ‘Car one negative. Car two negative.’

  Anderson said, ‘What other cars have we got, David?’

  ‘Two at Horsham on immediate call. Two at Crawley on fifteen minutes’ notice.’

  ‘Get one of the Horsham cars into the area. Tell it to move laterally, in a slow sweep between Lickfold and Bordon. And put the Crawley cars on notice now.’

  ‘Car one negative. Car two negative.’

  Manifold knew exactly what Anderson wanted to do. He wanted to jump into his own car and drive at top speed into the countryside north of Trotton; to thrash round and search every likely corner for the car which he knew must be there. And the moment he did so, all real control would be lost. It was the same training which let him smile and talk quietly to Rew which kept him anchored to his post when all his human instincts were urging him to leave it.

  ‘Car three moving west now,’ said Rew.

  The outside telephone rang. It was Mr Fairfax. He sounded breathless. He said, ‘I’ve got the number for you. GKM 702 C.’

  Manifold wrote it down, and put the paper on the table beside Anderson, who looked at it, nodded and started passing the number into the set.

  ‘Car one negative. Car two negative.’ Pause. ‘Car three has reached search area.’

  The Assistant Commissioner for Metropolitan Police spoke on the telephone to Sir Charles McMurtrie, who had been located at a dinner at the Mansion House. Sir Charles listened in silence.

  Then he said, ‘Thank you for taking the trouble to telephone. I will make my excuses and go back to my flat. You have the number, I think? I’ll wait there for news.’

  When he had rung off, he stood for a moment, thinking. His first thought was for his wife, who was at their country cottage, and probably on the point of going to bed. Wou
ld he ring her up now, or wait for more definite news? He thought it would be kinder to wait.

  Then he thought about what Mr Fairfax had said, ‘A very well-balanced boy. One of the best we have had.’

  Alastair McMurtrie opened his eyes.

  The first thing he was conscious of was a burning pain in his throat, and then a beating of blood in his ears.

  The next thing he noticed a few inches away from his eyes, was a female ankle. Then he remembered everything, and the sweat started out all over his body.

  He was lying on the floor of a car, which was travelling quite slowly along a bumpy road. Above his head an argument was going on. He recognized both the voices. This added to the horror.

  The sleeves of his jersey had been pulled down tight over his hands and knotted together, producing the effect of a straightjacket. He could move his arms a few inches up and down, but no effort he could make was going to bring them round from behind his back.

  The car had stopped, and the conversation became more urgent. As the driver leaned back to say something McMurtrie saw that it was indeed Nigel Ware, but a parody of his everyday self. He was wearing a fluffy white wig and a pair of steel-rimmed glasses. The effect was so grotesque that it seemed to him, in a moment of wild relief, that it must be a nightmare. If only he could jerk free of it, he would wake up, and find himself back in his bed in dormitory.

  The movement which he made attracted attention.

  ‘Young master Alastair has woken up,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Shall I put him to sleep again?’

  ‘Leave him alone,’ said Nigel. He spoke in an odd high-pitched voice, quite unlike his normal tones. ‘He won’t make any trouble now.’

  Elizabeth looked down at the bundle at her feet. She said, in a cooing voice, ‘Were you planning to make trouble, young master Alastair?’

  McMurtrie tried to speak, and realized for the first time that there was a broad strip of sticking plaster sealing his mouth.

  He shook his head violently.

  ‘That’s very wise of you,’ said Elizabeth. ‘An old head, one might, say, on young shoulders. Because if you gave the slightest sign of wanting to cause any trouble, it would be terribly tempting, and really quite simple, to stop it – like this.’

  She leaned down and deliberately pinched McMurtrie’s nostrils between forefinger and thumb. After a few seconds he started to fight wildly and blindly for air. Wedged as he was in the space behind the back seat, the limit of what he could do was to arch his body and shake his head, trying to shift the hand from his face.

  Elizabeth laughed, and put one foot on his body, pressing it down, but without relaxing her hold.

  There was a bursting agony in McMurtrie’s chest, a red mist behind his eyes and a drumming of blood in his ears. Then the fingers were loosened and he started to suck air back through his nostrils, into his lungs.

  ‘That’s all right, then,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I’m sure he’ll be good.’

  The tears were streaming down the boy’s face.

  ‘Car one negative. Car two negative. Car three negative.’

  ‘Where the hell can they have got to?’ said Anderson. No one answered him. They had been waiting for twenty-five intolerable minutes for a sighting.

  Anderson said, ‘How many more cars have we got?’

  ‘One more at Horsham,’ said Rew, ‘and the two at Crawley should be ready by now.’

  ‘All right,’ said Anderson. ‘Tell them–’ He stopped. A red light had come up. He listened, and said, ‘Definite identification. Four-door dark grey saloon GKM 702 C, with defective rear light. Observed crossing A29 one hundred yards north of Adversane. Adversane! What the hell–’

  All eyes switched to the map.

  Anderson said, ‘If he crossed the B272 near Trotton, how the devil did he get there? It doesn’t make sense.’

  Manifold said, ‘It makes sense if he’s making for a definite objective.’

  ‘Come again.’

  ‘If he was just driving blindly into the countryside, looking for the first lonely wood or quarry to dump the car in, he certainly wouldn’t go to Adversane via Trotton. But if he’s making for a specific location beyond Adversane, it’s quite possible he missed his way early on. He’d be sticking to minor roads and map reading at night isn’t all that easy. When he gets to Trotton he sees from the sign post that he’s wrong and switches course due east – still keeping to small roads and tracks. That would bring him where he is now, and the timing would be right, too.’

  Anderson grunted agreement. ‘It’s bringing him damned close to us,’ he said. ‘If he keeps straight on, he could be within a couple of miles of this place in ten minutes. Switch all the cars into this area, David. Tell the Crawley pair they can start now, and drive slowly towards us.’

  It gave them all an uncanny feeling, the thought that the invisible car, which they had been pursuing with lights and signals across a map, should be driving towards them; that it might actually materialise in the street outside.

  ‘Rudgwick, Rowhook, Broadbridge Heath,’ said Anderson. ‘Specially alert, please. The notified car may be in your area any moment now.’

  ‘Crawley are moving,’ said Rew.

  It was at this point in the proceedings that Constable Toft coughed. It was the sort of cough which invited attention. Everyone looked at him. He said, ‘Chuckston Pool?’ The constable on the telephone exchange nodded vigorous agreement. They were both local men.

  ‘What about it?’ said Anderson.

  ‘It’s very deep,’ said Toft. ‘They say no one’s ever really found the bottom. Part of an old clay pit, but there’re mine galleries underneath it.’

  ‘You put that car into Chuckston Pool,’ said the second constable, ‘you’d never see it again. Never. There’s a scour at the bottom. Carry it along.’

  ‘Point it out,’ said Anderson.

  Toft put his finger on a small blue circle on the map. As he did so a red light came up. It was almost exactly half way between the second red light and the pool.

  ‘Coneyhurst Common. Definite identification. I think you’re right, Toft. I’m going to back your hunch, anyway. Three cars concentrate on that point, David. When they get close, they’re to run on side-lights only. The Crawley contingent can act as backstop. You take charge. I’m going out. Toft, come with me to show my driver the way.’

  Manifold said, ‘Room for me?’

  Anderson nodded. They piled into the car and swung off down the street.

  ‘Turn left here,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Quite a small lane, and it’s pretty steep. You’ll need bottom gear. That’s it. There used to be a gate at the top, but it isn’t always shut.’

  The gate was open, and the car drove out on to a stretch of springy turf. Ahead of them a white-painted post and rail fence showed in their headlights.

  Nigel swung the car so that it pointed back towards the gate, switched off all the lights, and they were in the glimmering dusk of a summer night.

  They had come out on to a grassy plateau. All round them, in the middle distance, they could see the scattered lights of houses, and in the far distance a stream of headlights on the A29. Where they were it was quiet and private.

  When Nigel spoke, his voice sounded as if it was being forced out of him under pressure. He said, ‘And what do you suggest we do now?’

  ‘Plenty of time,’ said Elizabeth lazily. ‘It’ll take us less than half an hour to walk to Billingshurst. No risk of losing the last train. Pull the boy out.’

  Nigel lifted McMurtrie out and laid him down on the turf. He had taken his glasses off, and his wig had slipped to one side. He stared down blankly at McMurtrie and McMurtrie stared back at him. There was a long silence.

  Elizabeth said, ‘Well, well. When does the show start?’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ said Nigel. ‘We put him back in the car, and push it over the edge. That’s all.’

  ‘No show, no sweets,’ said Elizabeth.

  She was sitting on the back seat of the ca
r, with the door wide open. She looked like a little girl at the pantomime perched on the edge of her seat waiting for the curtain to go up.

  It was at that moment, and without warning, that she moved. She slipped round into the driver’s seat, pulled the car door shut, started the car and drove straight through the gate.

  Nigel stood for a moment, staring at the winking rear-light of the car as it bucketed down the lane. Then he saw what Elizabeth had seen a few seconds earlier. Two cars, showing side-lights only, were coming up the road they had followed. He could see something else. A third car, previously hidden, was coming from the opposite direction.

  As Elizabeth reached the road, she swung left, and accelerated. It was only when she rounded the curve in the road that she saw the car ahead of her. It was far too late to stop. The cars met, head on, in a splintering explosion of sound.

  Anderson’s car was first up the track, and Manifold had tumbled out before it stopped.

  Nigel had crouched down, on his knees, beside McMurtrie. Anderson shouted something, and Manifold said, ‘The boy’s all right.’ He fumbled for a moment with the knotted sleeves, and then lost patience and ripped the jersey right off, over McMurtrie’s head, and pulled it down clear of his arms.

  The second car had arrived and there were half a dozen men on the scene. They were crowded round the kneeling Nigel, but seemed uncertain what to do.

  Anderson said, ‘Get a rug round the boy. We don’t want him dying of cold.’ And nodding down at Nigel, ‘Put that thing into the car.’

  When the first hands touched him, Nigel started to scream, on a thin, high-pitched note, like a child in agony. His body had gone completely rigid.

  One of the men said, ‘He isn’t co-operating, sir.’

  ‘Lift him and sling him in.’

  Two men picked Nigel up, still in a kneeling position and still screaming, and put him in the back of the car.

  McMurtrie was on his feet by now. One of the policeman had put a rug round his shoulders, and he was trying to control his shivering.

  Anderson said, ‘Take that thing to Horsham. I’ll be there myself as soon as I’ve found out what the damage was down there. You’d better take care of the boy, Ken. You can use the second car. If you think he ought to go to hospital – I’ll leave that to you.’