The Sad Variety

by Nicholas Blake

  ‘I hope you’ve enjoyed her company,’ said Petrov. ‘You won’t have it much longer.’

  ‘You’re taking her away?’ asked the woman uncertainly.

  ‘We shall all be leaving soon, for various destinations.’

  ‘I should hope so,’ muttered Paul.

  ‘Hope, Mr Cunningham, as your poet says, springs eternal in the human breast. Unfortunately, your bungling makes me alter my plans. That dead boy is going to put the idea of a substitution into some policeman’s fat head.’

  ‘We took in the local chap,’ said Paul obsequiously, ‘when he came round looking for Lucy.’

  ‘You wouldn’t take him in a second time, my dear sir—not after a description of the dead boy has gone out.’

  ‘We needn’t worry about him for a bit,’ said Annie. ‘Jim—that’s the man from the farm—told me this constable is in hospital, on the danger list.’

  ‘So. What dramatic lives you all live in these parts.’

  ‘Is the Professor really dead?’ she jerked out.

  ‘Dear me, yes. When I kill someone, he does not come to life again.’ Petrov grinned at his own joke. To Paul, it was like a crocodile’s grin. ‘Never mind, Annie, you have made no mistakes. The Party will not forget you.’ He snapped his fingers at Paul. ‘Food now. Look sharp. And plenty of black coffee.’

  When they were alone, he sat down and spoke confidentially to Annie Stott. ‘If anyone interrupts us, I am Evan’s father, come to take him home. Now, here is my plan. You will pack your things, dismantle the transmitter, put everything in the back of Cunningham’s car. The four of us will drive to where I left my own, in a wood about two miles away. We cannot afford to wait till dark: we must leave in half an hour’s time. Can the car get down the track to the village?’

  ‘Yes. The snow’s been beaten down by a tractor.’

  ‘Good. And after that the road is passable—I’ve walked along most of it—till we come to the drift where my car stuck. We drive ours as deep into the drift as we can. We walk through it, get into my own, and beat it for the main road west. I have contacts in Plymouth. If necessary, we ditch the car and take a train there.’ He rubbed his hands vigorously. ‘With a bit of luck, we can make it. What’s the matter? Have you a better plan?’

  ‘No. But we can’t bring—what do we do about Lucy, and Paul?’

  ‘Ah, but that is simple. We leave them in Paul’s car.’

  ‘But——’

  ‘I’d thought at first of leaving them in the wood, where my car is. But, walking here, I had a better idea. Just before we leave, we have a little stirrup cup, the four of us. In two of the cups you will put the knock-out drops. By the time we get to that drift, two of us are asleep. Very good. We drive the car at the drift, if necessary shovel some more snow against the exhaust pipe, and leave the engine running. Soon the fumes will put them quite to sleep. It will certainly snow again soon. The car may be entirely covered with it, and it’s a lonely road—I met nothing as I walked here.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘The beauty of this is that it will confuse the trail. You see? The missing child is found dead in a car, with the kidnapper who was trying to take her out of the district. He has a dismantled transmitter in the car, too. The police find one criminal. They do not look so hard after that for his associates…. You have doubts still, comrade?’

  Annie flushed, her eyes cast down. ‘Is it necessary to k—to liquidate them?’

  ‘Why should you worry?’ Petrov jerked his head towards the kitchen. ‘That piece of shit in there—what loss is he to anyone? His cowardice and stupidity have wrecked my plans. Have you fallen for him?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous! It’s Lucy I’m thinking of. What’s the point of killing her?’

  ‘What do you suggest we do with her? Leave her in the locked room to starve? Take her with us and hand her politely over to a cop? The child knows too much. You always knew the child was expendable.’

  How it happened, Annie Stott never knew. She was not a woman who prided herself on female sensibility or intuition, nor had she much of these qualities to pride herself on. But she suddenly felt a falseness in Petrov’s words, a flooding conviction that he had a relish for killing and would enjoy killing a small girl. She began to wonder about the Professor’s death: when everything depended upon keeping him alive to yield up his secret, it was strange that Petrov should have killed him. She watched him devour like an animal the food Paul had brought in. He’d said the Professor had laid a trap for him at the rendezvous: police presumably, perhaps soldiers too: was it conceivable that, in order to escape it, Petrov should have had to strangle Wragby—a slow business, surely, when every second counted and he had a revolver?

  Annie asked Petrov about the trap. What he said, with his mouth full, was enough to confirm her suspicion. He even boasted a little about the fight, the marks of which were some of them visible on him. He wants to kill Lucy, she thought, because the anger and violence of that struggle are not exhausted. It is a piece of personal vindictiveness. Petrov is not reliable.

  Unreliability is a deadly sin in the political circles where Annie moved. That Petrov should be unreliable—she felt it absolved her from the implicit obedience with which she would normally follow a superior Party member’s instructions.

  ‘I must go and dismantle that set,’ she said abruptly. She slipped quietly upstairs and entering Lucy’s room, put a finger to her lips. ‘We’re leaving soon. Put on all the clothes you can. Before we go, we’re having a drink with our friend who’s just come.’

  ‘I saw him——!’

  ‘Ssh! Pretend to drink it, but pour it away somewhere. Soon after we drive off, pretend to go to sleep.’

  ‘Oh, am I coming with you?’

  ‘Yes. And don’t wake up till—till the car’s stopped and we’ve left you.’

  ‘But I don’t——’

  ‘Promise, Lucy! If you don’t do exactly what I say, it’ll be very dangerous for you.’

  ‘Oh, all right, I promise.’

  ‘Good girl.’ Annie bent down and gave her an awkward kiss on the top of the head.

  Petrov was at the bottom of the stairs as she came down. ‘What are you doing up there?’ he suspiciously asked.

  ‘Lav. The set’s in that cupboard down there. Won’t take me long.’

  ‘Don’t you ever pull the plug?’ Petrov took a step or two upstairs.

  ‘Look. I’m in a hurry. We’ve got to get off soon. Hadn’t you better see that Paul warms up his engine?’

  ‘I guess you’re right.’

  ‘And don’t let him out of your sight or he’ll drive off without us.’

  ‘Trust me, Comrade Stott,’ he replied jovially. …

  Half an hour before Lucy saw the figure of a man emerge from the snow-line outside her window, Nigel and his companions were sitting in Superintendent Sparkes’s office at Belcaster.

  Elena Wragby, unaware how much Sparkes had done since breakfast, was visibly fretting with impatience at his deliberation. ‘Have you found the house?’

  ‘Yes. We have also found your husband.’

  Elena’s cheeks blanched. ‘Oh, I’m glad. Is he here?’

  ‘He’s in our hospital. Very dangerously injured, but they think he’ll pull through.’

  ‘Oh, thank God! May I see him? No, that must wait. We’ve got to rescue Lucy first.’

  ‘I must remind you, Mrs Wragby, that you are under arrest. You are here to make a statement.’

  ‘Yes, yes, I will do that presently. There are things more important.’

  Sparkes was secretly tickled, impressed even, by the imperious manner of this white-haired woman, but he replied stiffly, ‘I must be the judge of that, ma’am.’

  She beat a fist on her knee. ‘Oh, this passion for legality you British have. Don’t you realise that Lucy is in dreadful danger?’

  ‘It was you who put her there in the first instance,’ said Sparkes formidably. ‘And you are responsible for your husband’s
grave condition too. He was attacked and left for dead by the enemy agent he went to meet.’

  Elena buried her head in her hands. ‘Where is this man now—this agent?’ she muttered in a choked voice.

  ‘He was last seen driving away westwards, in the direction of Longport. The house where your step-daughter was imprisoned is a few miles to the south, on a hillside above Eggarswell.’

  ‘He has gone to kill her. I know it. I feel it here.’

  Elena struck her heart in a gesture both histrionic and utterly sincere.

  ‘That is possible.’

  ‘Then why are you sitting here, doing nothing?’ she cried. ‘Do you know she is already dead?’

  ‘Calm yourself, madam. We have it in hand. I shall go myself in a few minutes.’

  ‘And I shall go with you.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible.’

  Caught by an imploring look from Elena, Nigel interposed. ‘Just a minute, Mr Sparkes. Have you got the place surrounded?’

  ‘Not yet. But the village is under observation.’

  The Superintendent pointed a pencil at the large-scale map spread on his desk. ‘Here’s the village. The house—it’s called Smugglers’ Cottage—is up here. There’s the farm Lucy mentioned. If the man who attacked Professor Wragby is trying to get to the cottage, he’ll drive along this road and be intercepted by a patrol car on the edge of the village.’

  ‘And suppose he gets out and walks across country?’

  ‘I can’t cover every eventuality. I haven’t got an army at my disposal,’ said Sparkes huffily. ‘The sergeant in the patrol car has put one of his men in Thwaite’s farm here to keep an eye on the cottage.’

  ‘That’s fine. The last thing we want is for the kidnappers to realise we’re on to them, till we can move in. The point is, this X is a killer. If he goes to the cottage and then finds he’s hemmed in there, his instinct will be to kill Lucy and shoot his way out with the others.’

  ‘He’d not get far.’

  ‘Probably not. But——’

  ‘Look. To drive from Eggarswell to one of the two main roads you’d have to travel north or south. When I’ve got through to the village, I’m having snow-ploughs get to work on those two roads, just short of the main ones. Here and here.’

  ‘To clear a path for the fugitives?’

  ‘To push snow on to the roads—artificial drifts. It’s a better block than any patrol cars could make, and the men in my car aren’t armed.’

  ‘Who says our police aren’t resourceful? But the problem is, getting into Smugglers’ Cottage and nabbing X and his accomplices before they kill their hostage. We need a surprise tactic.’

  ‘It’s not possible.’

  ‘Oh yes it is. There’s one person they wouldn’t suspect.’

  ‘I’m not with you.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Elena. ‘You mean me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But Mrs Wragby is under arrest. It’s out of the question.’

  ‘To hell with the formalities, my dear chap. Let her walk up to the cottage alone, and try to divert their attention—hold them long enough for us to make our dispositions and move in.’

  ‘Well, it’s an idea,’ said Sparkes doubtfully. ‘But how is she to account for her arrival there without rousing suspicion?’

  ‘I shall show them what Lucy wrote—tell them it reached me this morning and I came right over. I shall pretend I am still on their side, and have come to warn them.’

  ‘I think you should let her do it, Mrs Sparkes,’ said Clare. ‘She wants to make some reparation, don’t you see?’

  Sparkes pondered for a few moments, then rose to his feet decisively. ‘Very well,’ he said.

  CHAPTER 13

  * * *

  Paid on All Sides

  JANUARY 1

  CLARE MASSINGER WAS at the wheel of the Citroën, following the two cars of armed police. On the back seat, Elena bit her nails and Sergeant Deacon offered up silent prayers as Clare executed hair-raising but controlled skids round the corners of the snowy road. Beside her, Nigel studied a large-scale map. Eggarswell was now four miles away. They were to approach it from the south—the opposite point from which Petrov had driven towards the village. To their left, as they rushed along the switch-backing coast road, lay the sea. The police cars ahead stopped for a moment while Sparkes had a word with the driver of a yellow snow-plough. Then they turned off this road, due north, into the minor one which led to the village. When the three cars had passed, the plough began making its snow-block.

  Nigel studied the map. Smugglers’ Cottage, ringed in red ink, was half-way up the contour lines above Eggarswell to the east. A winding dotted line represented the track which connected the cottage and adjacent farm with the village: Nigel was trying to calculate from the contours how far they could drive up this track and still be in dead ground, invisible to any watcher from the cottage. Three or four hundred yards, he estimated. Not enough.

  ‘How did the Super get on to this place?’ he asked, turning round to the sergeant.

  ‘Easy, sir. I was born in Eggarswell. Recognised the cottage at once from the description you telephoned. Those pointed windows on the first floor the little girl mentioned. And there’s the conical hill with a tree clump on it—see? We’ll skirt round that in a minute. My God!’ he ejaculated as the car sidled and slewed under them, hitting a deeper patch of snow.

  Clare stamped on the accelerator, and the car clawed its way through and straightened up.

  ‘Who owns it?’

  ‘An Oxford gentleman; doesn’t use it very often now, I believe. A week or two in the summer perhaps. Lends it to friends, or rents it. Lonely sort of place. Not my idea of a holiday. Used by smugglers once, they say: two hundred years ago maybe. They brought the stuff in from the sea on carts and stored it in a cellar there till the coast was clear to distribute it.’

  ‘The cottage was well-placed strategically for that, I suppose.’

  ‘That’s right, sir. Good field of fire from it, if needs be, though I never did hear there was any battles went on.’

  ‘Could one approach it from the hill at the back?’

  ‘On foot, yes. Depends how deep the snow is lying. The Super’s going to send a couple of chaps round that way if he can, just in case they try to escape up the hillside. Bloody fools if they do—begging your pardon, madam.’

  ‘Oh, hurry! please hurry!’ muttered Elena, twisting her long fingers together. They had passed the conical hill and were driving through broken, choppy country, with patches of snow-covered scrub, copses, bramble-bushes to their left and rough pasture-land mounting gradually on the other side.

  ‘That’s Tom Blodgett’s stack. Only a mile now. Jesus!’

  Rounding a corner, Clare saw the back of a police car stationary thirty yards ahead. If she braked hard she would infallibly skid or collide. In the narrow lane there was no chance of passing. She did a racing change down and let the accelerator up, braking gently: the Citroën slowed as if it had run into a wall of feathers. Clare changed down again, came to a stop six feet behind the police car, from which men were now jumping.

  Nigel got out and ran forward. The road in front of the Super’s car was blocked by a heavy van, with whose driver Sparkes was having a heated altercation.

  ‘Who the hell d’you think you are? Stirling Moss?’ yelled the driver from his cab.

  ‘None of your lip. Get out of our way. We’re on an urgent call.’

  ‘You expect me to back this bloody thing for a mile? Use your loaf.’

  ‘That’s just what you are going to do, my lad. After we’ve searched it. Open up the rear door, and look sharp about it.’

  The driver got down, grumbling, and unlocked the back of the van. Sparkes climbed in.

  ‘What’cher looking for? Stolen goods?’

  ‘Yes,’ shouted Sparkes from inside.

  ‘That’s defamation of character, that is,’ remarked the driver with misguided relish. ‘You
wait till my boss hears about it.’

  ‘All right,’ said Sparkes, jumping out. ‘Now back this bloody object till we can get past.’

  ‘Pig’s arse,’ muttered the man, climbing into the driver’s seat.

  It was one of those tall vans, with no view to the rear unless the driver held the door open and craned his head out. This one took his time about it. First, his rear wheels revolving rapidly got no grip and merely beat the snow into a harder, more slippery surface. It took eight policemen, shoving like demons, to get the heavy van off this ice-patch. The driver reversed, slowly as a maimed snail, for some thirty yards. Here, there was another sharp bend in the road. And at this bend, whether from bloody-mindedness or the awkward configuration of the road, keeping too far from the ditch on his left and unable to see the one on his right, the driver put a rear wheel into the latter. There was a sullen crack. The van canted over, its ancient back axle broken. The road to Eggarswell was irremediably blocked now. …

  In the garage at Smugglers’ Cottage, Petrov fumed while Paul Cunningham tried to start his car. He had placed the luggage in the boot five minutes ago. But the self-starter ground away, and there was no spark of life from the engine—not even an apologetic cough.

  ‘When did you run this goddammed heap last?’ Petrov angrily inquired.

  ‘Oh, a day or two ago. It was all right then.’

  ‘Didn’t you have orders to warm up the engine every day?’

  His words were lost in another clanking outburst from the starter. He got into the driver’s seat, thrusting Paul aside. ‘Look, you’ve over-choked it, you stupid bastard.’

  ‘All right, start the bloody thing yourself,’ Paul muttered sulkily.

  ‘Don’t you talk to me like that. Open up the bonnet: you’ll have to clean the plugs.’

  ‘I don’t know how to do that,’ Paul faltered.

  ‘You don’t seem to know anything but how to screw your boy-friends.’

  ‘Look here! I——’

  ‘Shut up, and show me where your tool-kit is. I suppose you’ve got a box-spanner, or did you lose that as well as your head?’