Kiss the Hare's Foot

by Janet Wakley

  Pain gripped their throats as they panted and gasped, but the empty shoreline was interminable; their escape hopeless.

  Like a giant mosquito, the sudden arrival of the helicopter arose from behind the cliffs and swept across the beach with an eruption of noise, dipping low over the fleeing couple. Kurt raised his right arm and shot wildly into the air at the aircraft, but continued to chase after his targets, gaining on their stumbling gait with every stride. Momentarily he halted and raising his arm a second time, aligning his arm towards them. Two cracks rang out in rapid succession. As the helicopter turned and swung back towards the cliff face, the beach was suddenly alive with a profusion of armed police officers, racing down the shingle, their feet sliding uncontrollably on the shifting pebbles.

  A confusion of emotions chased through Mel’s mind as she stood now motionless, still clinging onto Clive, unable to comprehend the unexpected turn of fortune. Looking back, the body of their predator lay fifty yards behind them, mocked now by the slap of the waves as the tide tormented his lifeless corpse. Clive sank to his knees, overwhelmed by pain and exhaustion. Stupefied, Mel looked towards the tall, uniformed officer and his blonde-haired female companion as they purposefully strode towards them.

  “Melissa Stacey?” he asked gently.

  She nodded, too traumatised to reply.

  “I’m Sergeant Goves and this is P.C. Jacky Lomas from Suffolk Constabulary. Looks like we’ve caught up with you just in time.”

  As uncontrolled tears of relief streamed down her face, Jacky stepped forwards and enveloped her compassionately in a spontaneous hug.

  “And would you be Mr. Silas Maxwell, the surgeon from Bristol?” Goves reached out to assist the doctor to his feet.

  “No. I am Doctor Clive Roberts. I was taken hostage from my hospital in Oxford last Tuesday. Mr. Maxwell is no longer with us.”

  27

  Mel awoke with a start, confused at first by unfamiliar sounds and smells. Apart from her bed, the small, square magnolia coloured room comprised only a compact locker, an adjustable bedside table and one high-backed arm chair. A second door opened into an en-suite bathroom, fitted with handrails pull-cords for patient use. The window, which she estimated to be on the third floor of the hospital, looked out over a large car park and beyond to roofs and streets of a town now stirring to the distant chimes of church bells. It was Sunday.

  As reality flooded back into her mind, from her bed she could just see the outstretched lower legs and large black boots of a policeman seated outside her room. She wondered if he was the same officer who had been posted outside her room when she was admitted the previous evening. Did they really think she would run away?

  The clock on the wall showed 10.15. She had slept for fifteen hours. Despite the warmth of the room Mel shivered and pulled the duvet up to her chin, feeling uncomfortable and insecure in her skimpy hospital gown, tied around her by thin cotton tapes. There was, she noticed, no sign of the jumper and jeans in which she had escaped from the old priory. A jug of water and an upturned glass had been placed on the top of the locker. It did nothing to alleviate the sparseness of the private room. A prison cell would probably be just as impersonal, she thought glumly.

  “Good morning.” A cheerful young staff nurse in a striped blue uniform, with a dark bob hair cut and turned-up nose, entered the room. “I’m Chloe. I will be looking after you today. Have you slept well?”

  With the confident efficiency of her profession, she laid a small tray containing a syringe and ampoule on the bedside table and proceeded to check Mel’s wristband against a yellow drug chart. “Just one more dose of the antibiotics for you and then I think the doctors will be happy to discharge you later today. All your test results from yesterday have come back clear and hopefully the antibiotics will have protected you from the bacteria in the water you swallowed. That’s good, isn’t it?” She smiled reassuringly.

  Home or prison wondered Mel, but responded to the nurse with, “thank you, I’m feeling much better now,” adding, “I really need to contact my parents. May I use a telephone?”

  “Of course. There’s a police officer coming to talk to you but I‘ve asked him to wait until you’ve had something to eat. You were too exhausted to manage anything last night so you must be starving by now after your experience.”

  After the medication and a belated breakfast of scrambled egg on toast, a banana and mug of tea, Mel headed once more for the shower, her third since her admission the day before. Would she ever feel properly clean again? But at last she felt sufficiently refreshed and ready to face the interrogation about to come. There was no reply from her two attempts to phone her parents and she had reluctantly been forced to leave a short and awkward message on the answering machine.

  When at last the senior police officer arrived, she noticed that he dismissed the guard from outside her door before entering. He was a tall, thin man in his mid-thirties with a youthful easy smile and a shock of thick black hair that defied a formal hair style. Casually dressed in an open-necked blue shirt, black slacks and a camel-coloured leather jacket, he immediately focussed on Mel with sharp dark eyes.

  “Melissa Stacey? I am Detective Inspector Ben Aster and I’m from the Metropolitan police. Are you feeling up to a few questions?” Without waiting for confirmation, he drew the armchair forward and made himself comfortable facing Mel before extracting a black notebook and pen from his pocket. “Mind if I take my jacket off? - it’s warm in here.”

  “I really need to get hold of my parents, though. They’ll be frantic with worry,” blurted Mel.

  “No need. An officer went to see them at your home last night and they are making their way up here right now and bringing with them some clothes so they can take you home. However, if you feel up to it, I really need to hear what happened to you.”

  “Go home? I can really go home? You’re not going to arrest me?”

  “Why would I want to do that?” he smiled, “You’ve been a very unfortunate victim in all this and from what I hear from Dr. Roberts, a very brave one. Now tell me, from the very beginning, everything that happened.”

  Despite the detective’s sympathetic approach, she felt at times that the onus of guilt still lay with her; that her passivity to resistance had frustrated the detection and arrest of violent criminals. She had only wanted to survive the ordeal. Cross-examination of each detail and description interminably prolonged the interview and subjected her not only to re-living the facts but the emotions and stresses of the experience until she felt drained and numb. It was a relief when the nurse Chloe interrupted the interview to bring in a tray of coffee.

  “The man who was shot in the hospital - did he die?” Mel hardly dared to ask.

  “My turn now, then,” Aster acknowledged with a smile. “No, a nasty wound, but he’s had surgery and is doing quite well. He was very lucky. He was shot at very close range. I understand he’ll be off work for quite a few weeks.”

  “How did you know that I wasn’t responsible for the shooting and how did you manage to find us?”

  “Hey, slow down. One question at a time,” he laughed, and then more seriously added, “We realised you had been abducted thanks to your nursing colleague Tina, who reported coffee spilt over the department kitchen and your clothes still in your locker. The witnessed simultaneous abduction of Mr. Maxwell at knifepoint from his hospital in Bristol, seemed too much of a coincidence, but we were initially not convinced that Dr. Roberts was also involved, since his car was found abandoned in a quiet lay-by near the M40 in Oxfordshire. However, nothing was found in a search of the area and it seemed likely he had also been taken hostage. It was only when no ransom demand was made that we became suspicious that there may be a quite different reason for taking three medical personnel from separate places of work.” He rose from his chair and wandered casually to the window, gazing out towards the distant church.
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br />   Just as Mel began to believe he was not going to speak further, he continued, “I must admit it was both a shock and a help when you were caught on CCTV in a hospital two hundred miles away from the place where you had been taken and to be involved in a raid with Kurt Schoeller. Schoeller is a man well-known to us. He’s a member of the Moorcroft gang, which is why I have become involved from the Metropolitan police and not the local constabulary. You see, we’ve been watching them for quite some time. I’m only sorry we couldn’t get you out of there earlier. But at least Schoeller is now out of the picture.”

  Inspector Aster resumed his seat and leaned forward as though to impart confidential information out of the hearing of others. “You see, this particular gang is known to be smuggling arms out of the country to Iraq and other volatile parts of the world, but they are only a small element of a very much larger organisation. In order to get the real big boys, we have to be patient and observe their movements until they reveal who they are supplying and how their system works. How Charlie Moorcroft was injured we don’t really know but his incapacity really put their modus operandi on hold, so we were forced to await the outcome of your surgical efforts.”

  “You mean you knew all the time where we were and what they were expecting of us? How? Why didn’t you try to rescue us?” Mel found his explanation both shocking and incredulous.

  Aster fidgeted, looking uncomfortable and cast his eyes down towards the floor, striving to find the right words of explanation. “You see, when we knew that Charlie Moorcroft had died, it created a whole new problem for us. We knew then that your safety was bound to be at risk and we had to move in quickly.

  “But how could you leave us in that awful place with those thugs? They were armed with guns!” she spat the words angrily.

  “It wasn’t quite like that,” he said slowly. “Our man was not able to communicate with us from the old priory as there wasn’t a phone signal, so there were sometimes lengthy periods when we didn’t know quite what was going on.”

  “Your man? What, an undercover policeman?” Mel could hardly believe her ears. “Are you telling me that all the time we were imprisoned in that squalor, in fear of our lives, there was a policeman pretending to be in the gang? I don’t believe it! Why didn’t he help us escape? You have no idea how awful it was..” Mel almost yelled at the officer. “Who was it? Who?” Mel was stunned, unable to comprehend this revelation. Anger rose in her like a volcano about to erupt at the calm, matter-of-fact attitude of the officer.

  “Normally I wouldn’t be prepared to tell you, but I think in the circumstances I owe you a full explanation. “Perhaps it will help you to understand though if I explain that it takes a long time and is an enormous risk to the safety of the officer to infiltrate such a gang known to be involved in the arms trade and prone to extreme violence. The stakes are very high. It is imperative that at all times he proves his loyalty to the gang in order that they trust him. So they have to be left in no doubt that he is just as committed to the success of their activities as the rest of them. Any doubt and it could have cost him his life.”

  Mel swallowed hard. “But at least you’ve arrested them all now.”

  “Well, no. Charlie Moorcroft and Kurt Schoeller, the German, are both dead, as you know, but it was not in the interest of securing the bigger organisation to stop this gang at this time. We couldn’t risk compromising the intelligence gathered so far with our European colleagues and scupper the greater prize. But in case you think you may have been at risk from them while you’re in this hospital, I have had one of my officers outside yours and Dr. Robert’s rooms all night.”

  Mel couldn’t think of what to say, so said nothing.

  “The man, though, your under-cover policeman, which member of the gang was he? Can I at least know which one he was?”

  The Inspector paused. “His name is Henry Odlam, known in the gang as Hood.”

  “Hood! Hood! You mean the man who broke into the hospital and abducted me was actually a policeman?”

  “When you broke out of the vet’s surgery,” Aster continued, “you ran straight into him at the back of the building, just as he was trying to get a message out to us to let us know they were shortly expecting to return to the priory.”

  No wonder Hood hadn’t shot her when she tried to escape. Suddenly Mel felt strangely humbled by the dangerous situation that the man whom she had so hated and believed to be anticipating the opportunity to kill all three of the hostages was himself willingly subjected to such dangers. She waited quietly for the officer to continue with his explanation of events.

  “Then there was almost an unfortunate confrontation between the gang and the local police when a member of the public reported his suspicions that squatters may have broken into the empty vet’s. It seems that he lived close by and had permission from the owner to occasionally park his car in the car park at night. He saw a broken window at the rear where the clinical rooms are located. Apparently, his wife persuaded him to phone the local police station. The patrol car arrived at the vet’s place just after you and the gang had left. They just kissed the hare’s foot, you might say.”

  “Pardon?”

  “It’s a local saying in Norfolk, I understand. It means to be just too late. Mind you, if they had arrived in time, there would very probably have been a shoot-out and someone would have got hurt. Also, it would have blown our surveillance right out of the water.”

  “You haven’t mentioned Silas. Was he really involved with them?”

  “No, not in the way you might think. Being the first husband of Maddie Moorcroft and being a general surgeon, he was an ideal candidate for the necessary medical intervention. They knew they could put pressure on him to perform the operation. I think he had his own agenda when he allowed Charlie to die following the surgery and of course he couldn’t allow you two to report that. He would have been prosecuted for murder and his whole reputation would have been ruined. I understand he was a proud man and couldn’t have coped with that.”

  “How is Clive?” she asked at last. “I feel terrible that I doubted him. I honestly thought he was involved with the gang, especially when I heard him speak to Hood at the vet’s. I’d like to visit him before I leave, if he’s well enough.”

  “I rather think he’s hoping you will. He spoke very highly of your courage and support. He’s in ward 7A and I understand he’ll be in for a couple more days before he can return home.”

  For long after Inspector Aster’s departure, Mel considered the strange turn of events. More than ever she yearned to go home and it was an emotional reunion when her parents eventually arrived.

  Comfortable once more in her own grey slacks and blue sweater, she left her parents relaxing with a pot of tea and scones while she went off in search of Ward 7A.

  She found Clive in the side room of the male surgical ward. Lying propped up against his pillows, his eyes closed, she watched him for a few moments from the doorway. He looked pale; smaller somehow as he lay resting in the bed. A white cotton sling held his left arm across his upper chest and his other hand sported an infusion of fluids and antibiotics. Not wanting to disturb him she reluctantly turned to leave.

  “Hi,” he called after her. “I was wondering where you’d got to. I pretend to be asleep to keep unwanted policemen away,” he grinned at her.

  “How are you?” Mel entered the room and sat down on the edge of the bed, with a backward glance to ensure that none of the nursing staff could see the infringement of cross-infection protocol and contrary to her training.

  Clive fidgeted and wriggled to sit higher in the bed so that he could see her more clearly. “Happy, relieved, uncomfortable, angry, deflated, scared... Shall I go on?”

  “Why are you still scared?” she was mystified.

  “I overheard the police talking. They didn’t capture the rest of the gang. They’re still out t
here somewhere. It looks as though when we escaped and our captors came rushing out to find us, the police turned up to find the old building empty. Sickening, isn’t it?” he grinned. Then more seriously, added, “I suppose I just feel a bit vulnerable that they might not want us to be able to give evidence against them or something. They might not like to leave loose ends.”

  Mel stared back at him, her confidence draining with her colour. She hadn’t considered such a complication to their freedom.

  “Don’t look so glum. It’s over.” He stretched his neck back against the pillows. “Here’s something to amuse you - they thought I was Silas Maxwell. When I disappeared from Oxford they concluded that I might have been depressed from over-work and had gone off to end it all. They don’t know what real stress is, do they?” They laughed together. “Actually, they haven’t interviewed me formally yet. I’ve met Inspector Aster and had a brief chat. He seems a nice chap. Otherwise the surgical team have so far managed to fend off formal questioning, saying I need time to recover from the anaesthetic - that’s ironic isn’t it,” he laughed again. “I suppose they will come back later today though.” Quietly, he added, “I’ve yet to explain about killing Silas. They’ll only have my word for it.”

  “And mine,” retorted Mel. “I’ve already given the inspector a blow by blow account of all that.”

  “And what about what happened in the church?” He studied Mel’s face now, his anxiety obvious. “I’m so sorry I put you through that but I couldn’t let you leave. Knowing about Silas’s connection with Charlie, I really didn’t trust him. Also, I couldn’t say as much, but Hood promised me that if we hid in the old church he would see that we’d be safe. I’m also ashamed to say that because you insisted on freeing him from the cellar you just might have been in cohorts with him. I guess I should have known better.”