Blood Run East

by Philip McCutchan

  “How the hell do they know?”

  “I circulated a description, nationwide.”

  Shard nodded, feeling rising excitement. “Good work! Gimme!” Kenwood passed the handset over. “Detective Chief Superintendent Shard. Who am I talking to? I see. Yes, that’s correct. Yes … what?” He listened, eyes staring unseeingly at his detective sergeant, fingers tapping on the desk-top, face registering anxiety. “Thank you, Superintendent. Not a word to anyone else — I’ll be with you soonest possible.” He cut the call, snapped at Kenwood: “Christ! Plain car at once — no driver. I’ll go down alone.”

  “What’s happened, sir?”

  “Surrey Police apprehended a car acting suspiciously by some woods between the A-24 and A-281 — they used their loafs and called up another mobile. Then they closed. They were fired on, but a woman — Mrs Hedge — threw herself from the suspect car. The car drove off and there was more firing. The woman was hit —”

  “Dead?”

  “Just not, I gather. Time’s short. Get that car.”

  Kenwood picked up an internal phone. Shard said, “Don’t tell Hedge — not yet.”

  Kenwood looked up, surprised. “He’ll want to be with her, surely?”

  “Maybe. He can’t and I’m sorry, but I don’t want him around when I question her. I’ll need to be brutal, you see.” Shard paused. “Something unexpected has come up, something that could be too horrible for words: she was able to speak a little … and she’s mentioned Porton Down.”

  *

  Shard drove fast and dangerously: straight for the hospital and a rendezvous in the car park with the Guildford superintendent.

  “What’s the news, Mr Gotham?”

  “Holding her own, they say, but the prognosis is poor.”

  “Let’s get in there fast. I have to ask questions. Private room, of course?”

  “Of course, sir. And a man present outside.”

  “Anyone by the bed?”

  “Woman PC. The doctors aren’t going to like us going in. In fact they’ve said so already.”

  “They’ll have to lump it,” Shard said. Moving fast they entered the hospital’s lobby: a uniformed constable saluted and accompanied them to a lift. Disembarking two floors up the constable led them to the private wing, the unphased-out remnant, last castle of privilege. A sister rose guardianlike from a desk, and from nowhere a white-coated doctor materialised, wafting hospital smells before him.

  “Detective Chief Superintendent Shard. I have to see —” He checked himself: he’d been about to use the name Hedge, which in fact was how he always thought of Hedge’s wife, naturally enough. As ever, the cloak-and-dagger that meshed the Foreign Office in its coils of bull was getting round his neck. “I have to see Lady Felicity.” Hedge was plain Mister but his wife was progeny of a belted earl.

  “I’m sorry, Mr Shard —”

  “So am I. The matter’s urgent, Doctor, very urgent.”

  “I’m responsible for the patient’s life. I consider you’ll be putting it in danger.”

  “I say again, I’m sorry. I mean that, believe me.” Shard’s gaze, steady and determined, held the doctor. “I’m over-riding you because I must over-ride you. There’s no option. I have the highest sanction, Doctor.”

  “I can’t —”

  “Listen, Doctor.” Shard’s voice snapped, his fingers clenched. “If necessary I shall use my authority — which derives from Whitehall. Are you with me?”

  “With you?” The doctor stared through thick round glasses, looking uncertain in the face of undoubted authority and the set of Shard’s lips. “No, I’m not —”

  “I mean this: any refusal will be construed as obstructing the police in the execution of their duty.” Shard’s jaw came forward. “I shall arrest you.”

  There was a gasp from the doctor: stalwart at his side, the sister went deep red, outraged from crisp cap to polished shoes: even the superintendent seemed taken aback, started a remonstrance that was brutally cut off by Shard. “Which is the room?” Shard demanded.

  “The constable —”

  “Ah — of course.” Shard walked to the door, leaving the other three in a mutinous group. He nodded at the constable on room duty; the officer opened the door quietly. Shard went in, motioning the WPC to remain seated by the head of the bed. A nurse stared in concern: Lady Felicity was under intensive care though not, for security reasons, in the Intensive Care Unit.

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  Shard identified himself, saw the doctor hovering with a furious face in the doorway. Ordering doctor and nurse to leave him and shut the door, he bent over the still, silent figure in the bed. The face and lips were bloodless: there was no wound to the head, apparently, and the eyes, faded blue, were open, staring at Shard, a known face. Bandaging appeared on the body above the sheets: there was a bullet near the heart and there was lung damage — this much, Shard had been told. The thread of life, the thread of Hedge’s happiness, was thin. Shard, thinking his own thoughts of Beth, was desperately sorry, but the probe had to be made in the interests of perhaps millions of people: Porton Down was the embodiment of all things lethal. Bending close to the bloodless skin he said, “You know me, don’t you? Simon Shard. I’m here to ask you to help.” He paused, searching the eyes. “Do you hear me?”

  The lips moved, framing the word yes. He said, “I’m sorry to do this, but it’s vital, absolutely vital. You were kidnapped. Who were they? Have you ever seen them before?”

  The eyes closed: a shudder disturbed the ashen, almost transparent face. For a moment Shard believed she had gone; but then the eyes opened again and he caught the faintest touch of breath from the mouth and saw a movement, once again, of the lips. “Never seen … I don’t know.”

  “Were any names mentioned?”

  “No …”

  “Please think hard.” Blood drummed through Shard’s head. “Are you quite certain you’d never, absolutely never, seen any of them? Never … even, perhaps, hanging around outside the house, that sort of thing? Please, try very hard.”

  There was a pause, then: “No … not me, never. Morton …”

  “Morton knew them?”

  “I think … he said …”

  “Try to remember.” Shard sweated: Morton was dead in any case, he could be no help, but maybe his wife — a long shot, that! Meanwhile time was passing and could be passing right to eternity. Morton, Porton. Something misheard by the rescuing police patrol? But the word ‘down’ had been used … Porton Down. Shard pressed that way. “Porton Down. You spoke of Porton Down. What was it? These men — had they said anything about Porton Down?”

  The head moved: a nod, made with a supreme effort. Now blood was flecking the lips, frothy and bright. Shard almost felt the prick of tears behind his eyelids. But he had to be a bastard, remembering all that was stored in the Chemical Defence Establishment at Porton Down … He said, “Please tell me. What did they say?”

  “They said …”

  “Yes? Go on!”

  The lips moved again; Shard bent closer till he was almost touching, feeling her breath like a butterfly’s wing on his face. It was no more than a murmur, borne to his ears on a sigh: “Bomb … blow up.”

  He felt deathly cold. “Blow up — Porton Down?”

  “Yes …”

  He stayed bent, hoping for more. He heard no door open but felt a hand on his shoulder, pulling. He looked up and saw the doctor’s savage face. “That’s enough, Mr Shard. You can arrest me if you like! This will be reported in the highest quarters.”

  “Doctor, I —”

  “If you go on, you’ll kill her. She’s almost dead now … don’t you see?”

  Shard shook off the doctor’s hand and looked down at the bed: life seemed very brittle now. The mouth hung slack, the eyes were shut. He said quietly, “Very well, doctor, I doubt if I’ll get any more. I hope she’s going to be all right.” He passed a hand across his eyes, feeling sick at heart and just about all in physi
cally: the last few minutes had drained him, and God alone knew what it had done to Hedge’s wife. He looked the doctor in the eye. “Meanwhile, you could have heard certain things. You must forget them. Do you fully understand?”

  “Really, I —”

  “Doctor, I’m quoting the Official Secrets Act at you. If there are leaks, I’ll know where to come. But there must be no leaks, and if you think about it you’ll see why.” The doctor would: a lot of what went on at Porton Down was unclassified, it had been in the newspapers. It was what might happen now that the public at large must not know about. The avoidance of panic was vital: this doctor would be able to appreciate the potential of the nerve gases, the various disease germs, the bacteriological warfare and the botulinum, a teaspoonful of which in a reservoir could wipe out all life in a town the size of Birmingham.

  *

  In the hospital the cut on Shard’s head had been stitched and properly bandaged; now he was sitting beside the Guildford police chief in a mobile. The pick-up spot was not all that far: off the A-281 Guildford-Horsham road a right-hand turn onto a side road brought them through woodland, nicely off the main tracks. Some half-mile beyond the second turn the superintendent pointed out the spot, and the driver slowed and stopped. Shard and the superintendent got out: there had been rain, and the roadside and undergrowth were damp. Shard asked, “Was it raining at the pick-up. Superintendent?”

  “No, that’s come since.”

  Shard walked off the road and into the woods. Men were busy searching; the suspect car had been seen stopped ahead of the first mobile, just after 1030 hours. Unseen themselves, the mobile had pulled off into cover: suspicions had been aroused partly as a result of experience and of hunches that paid off, partly by the fact of Kenwood’s nationwide kidnap alert, and partly because there had been some sort of altercation in progress and the car contained an inordinately large number of passengers, currently disembarked … after the close-in, after the shooting, after the attempted murder of the woman, the culprit car had made a clean getaway: both police cars had had their tyres shot up, for one thing. The moment the report had gone in a search had been put in hand over a wide area, plus road blocks. So far, result negative — like the current search. In the woods, there were no clues.

  “They won’t get away,” the Superintendent said.

  Shard smiled tiredly. “Your net’s secure?”

  “Yes.”

  “You hopee, Mr Gotham — you hope!” Without hope himself, he stared up and down the road. “You’ll keep me informed, won’t you? About Mrs Hedge as well.”

  “I will, sir. Are you going to inform the husband now?”

  “As soon as I get back to London, and I’d like to have some good news to tell him. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ll get back to Guildford and my car.”

  *

  “I don’t know how you could do it, Shard. I really don’t!”

  “I’ve said I’m sorry. I am, Hedge, truly. But it was vital. You must see that.” Shard added, “Anyway, she’s none the worse.” Thankfully, that news had come from Guildford before he’d left the Foreign Office for Eaton Square: Mrs Hedge had rallied.

  “But why didn’t you tell me, give me the chance to come with you?”

  “I think you know the answer to that, Hedge.”

  “But of all people … it’s I who could have got her to talk, and more gently, Shard.”

  Shard didn’t respond to that: in the past, he had noticed that Hedge’s wife seemed to be, not afraid exactly, but wary of Hedge as though at any moment she might put a verbal foot wrong. That had been very germane to his decision. He said, “Why not go down and see her now?”

  “I’m going to.” Suddenly Hedge seemed to remember that he had a job to do. “I suppose you didn’t get any leads to the Farrell woman, did you?”

  “I wasn’t after that, not directly. No, no leads to her.”

  “Just Porton Down?”

  “Just Porton Down!” Shard gave a grim laugh. “Hedge, you do realise the implications, don’t you?”

  Hedge was getting ready to leave for Guildford. He said, “Of course I do, but I can’t believe they’ll do it. I don’t see the point. For one thing, it’s a two-edged weapon —”

  “Not once they’re out of the country.”

  “I still don’t see why.”

  Shard said bitterly, “I dare say we’ll learn, Hedge. In the meantime, what do we do?”

  Hedge sat down with a thump, looking ill. Shard could appreciate his feelings, his anxiety: for the moment, Hedge was not functioning well. “I’m not minimising this, Shard. Far from it. I’ll talk to the Head of Department when I get back. But in the meantime, I’d suggest you have a very private word with Henry Carver in the Ministry of Defence.” Hedge added, “He’s a friend of mine and he’s the soul of discretion.”

  Shard, accompanying Hedge to the front door, knew what was meant by the soul of discretion when it came from Hedge: Hedge was mortally scared of the Press. And this time, not unusually for that matter, Shard was right with him: this was something the man in the street just had not to know about, full stop. Not even after it was all over. Back in Guildford he’d made use of the fact that a lot of what went on in Porton Down was public knowledge: the Press again! They’d been much too forthcoming in the past, for present comfort. And just the smallest whisper that the murderous contents of the Chemical Defence Establishment were under threat of bombing and wholesale scattering, and never again would anyone in Britain sleep soundly in their beds or go to work without the backward look over their shoulders, seeking out the contamination … Shard, as he parted company with Hedge and made for Whitehall, was thinking principally of Beth.

  6

  SHARD WAS A persuasive man and his voice held authority: a telephone call from the Foreign Office secured him an immediate appointment with Henry Carver, who was one of the Assistant Under-Secretaries of State. Carver was a precise and severe-looking man with a stiff white collar and gold-rimmed spectacles: like an American banker, austere, bloodless. He listened in silence, and with careful and courteous attention, to Shard’s summary of events, elbows resting on his desk and his fingers held parsonwise, steeple-shaped in front of his square face. The eyes showed shock at what Shard told him, an immediate awareness of all the implications, but the training of a civil servant kept all traces of alarm from his manner. He said, “You’ve come to me because of the apparent Porton Down involvement, of course.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “How far are you in the picture about Porton?”

  “Only a general idea of the potential.”

  Carver nodded. “I see. Then you’re not aware it’s been largely decentralised?”

  “No, sir?”

  The Assistant Under-Secretary opened a drawer in his desk and brought out a buff-coloured file with a red classification sticker. “It’s all here, but I’ll summarise.” Briefly he scanned a sheet of paper. “Over the last three to four weeks, stocks have been shifted by road transporter, under an exceptional security cloak I need hardly add, to various points in West Sussex.” Carver looked at Shard over the tops of his spectacles. “Do you suppose your adversaries know of this?”

  “At this moment, I just don’t know. Mrs Hedge may be able to help us more later, but that’s doubtful apart from a description of the kidnappers.”

  “And Katie Farrell?”

  “She may be involved, or she may not.”

  “H’m.” Carver pursed his lips. “That’s your job, of course, but if I may be permitted a guess, I’d say she’s involved up to the hilt!” He went back to his file. “These dispersal points: they’re all in the South Downs, behind Worthing …” A glimmer of humour appeared in Carver’s eye. “What the medical profession call the Costa Geriatrica, Mr Shard. Full of octogenarians.”

  Shard nodded. “I know.” He had a relative there, and he mentioned the fact.

  “What relationship, may I ask?”

  “A great aunt-in-law.”

&nb
sp; “Remotish,” Carver murmured. “No real personal involvement?”

  “Sir?”

  “This must not leak, Mr Shard. Not even by inference. That is to say, your great aunt-in-law must stay put. You understand?”

  Shard said, “I know my job, sir.”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Carver said quickly, pacifically. “It had to be said, though. You realise I’m taking this very seriously?”

  “I’m glad to hear that, sir.”

  Carver looked at him shrewdly. “Hedge? Do I gather —”

  “He’s preoccupied at the moment.”

  “Yes, of course he is.” Carver nodded sympathetically. “Now, you’ll want to know more about the dispersal points —”

  “May I ask one thing first, sir: why was the dispersal ordered?”

  Carver smiled. “Yes, a good question in the circumstances. It wasn’t due to any lack of storage capacity at Porton Down, I can tell you that. It was thought wiser, in the current climate of world terrorism, which looks like becoming a permanent way of life, to clear Porton out. You can’t disguise the Chemical Defence Establishment, Mr Shard! It’s big, it’s obvious, and no secret has ever been made of what it’s there for or what it contains. The dispersal, on the other hand, has been secret, as I said. That is, we hope it has.”

  “So you’ve had just this current threat in mind?”

  “Well, something similar — yes. The new stowages should not become known for what they are so long as our security holds up. They’re all either underground or semi-underground. Basically they’ve been there in situ for a good many years, and the local people have all kinds of theories about them: water reservoirs, which indeed some of them are — or have been — bunkers for use as radio stations, Regional Seats of Government ready for use in the event of all-out nuclear attack, or simply deep air-raid shelters for the general population. Naturally they’re all in country sites somewhat off the beaten track, and all they show to the casual walker or motorist is a grass-covered hummock, square or oblong-shaped, in some cases with air vents protruding, in some cases with radio masts visible. In all cases except, I think, one midway up the slopes of Chanctonbury Ring, they’re surrounded with barbed metal stockades and padlocked gates. I repeat, they’ve been a source of interest and speculation … but in themselves innocuous. Now they’re lethal. I suggest you pay them a visit, Mr Shard.”