Blood Run East

by Philip McCutchan

  Back in the Director’s office, loud sounds from the sky announced Hedge, helicoptering in. Shard went out to meet the party: Katie Farrell, looking pale and tired, was under armed military escort. There was no sign of Hedge’s wife. One member of the party Shard was glad enough to see: Detective Sergeant Kenwood.

  “Well done, Harry,” he said. He lifted his eyebrows in a question, with a jerk of the head towards Katie Farrell: the answer was a shake. No coughs — yet. Shard turned to Hedge, who was being welcomed by the Director. Catching his eye he asked, “Mrs Hedge?”

  Annoyance flickered across Hedge’s face. “A contretemps.” He approached Shard, took his arm conspiratorially and spoke close to his ear. “The hospital she was in. The damn porters run the show these days. Some sort of strike — they refused to service the private wing. She’s convalescing now and she insisted on going to her brother near Plymouth. Damn fool came up and got her and never mind what I said!”

  “What did you say, Hedge?”

  “As much as I could,” Hedge snapped, reddening.

  “And you came down to say it all again?”

  Hedge glared and turned his back. Talking again to Wendlestock, he marched inside the admin building. He hadn’t said a word about Katie Farrell or about Mrs Morton. Presumably, and reckonably, Mrs Morton had had nothing more to offer. Behind Hedge’s back. Shard caught the eye of Detective Sergeant Kenwood. “We’ll let him cool. With any luck, he’ll be off to Plymouth shortly. Tell me about Katie Farrell.”

  Kenwood said, “Not much to tell, sir. I tailed her to Marseilles —”

  “And her companions?”

  “Yes, sir. One man, one woman, both Arabic by the look of them. At Marseilles, the French police moved in. This Arab pair drew guns and there was a shoot-up. They were both killed. I kept tabs on Miss Farrell. The French police flew us back to Paris and we flew out again from Orly in an RAF jet Fixed by Hedge. That’s all, sir.”

  “Did you interrogate?”

  “Yes. Nil result.” Kenwood paused, glancing across to where Katie Farrell was being held by her escort, her thin dress blowing in the wind off the sea. Kenwood had something more on his mind. He said, “Nil result in what she said, or wouldn’t say, sir. All the same. I fancied I got a reaction when I mentioned Dr Lavington.”

  Shard’s face tightened. “What did you say about him, Harry?”

  “Nothing security-wise, sir. Only to say we’d been in touch with him.”

  “I see. All right, Harry. This reaction: what was it?”

  Kenwood frowned, pursed his lips. “Hard to say really. Just a flicker of interest … a heightened interest all of a sudden. Enough to make me begin to see a link. It was as though she cared, kind of. Just then I didn’t probe.”

  “Why not?”

  “Seemed too tenuous, sir. And I thought you’d prefer to do it yourself anyway.”

  Shard clapped him on the shoulder. “Good man, Harry, you did right. Anything else?”

  “Could be, sir, could be. Again it’s no more than a feeling, but I got the impression she knew Porton. You see, I didn’t so much interrogate as — well, chat, sir. You know how it is when you chat to someone, things emerge accidentally. She was covering, fending off — but that was what I felt, that she’d been in that part of the county and knew it pretty well.”

  There was a gleam in Shard’s eye. “I’ll be bearing it all in mind, Harry, when I start the grill cooking,” he said.

  *

  Smith-Lyneham provided secure accommodation for the grill. Shard set it up personally and with care: a hard chair for Katie, facing a bare table, and himself behind a bright light beamed straight into the girl’s face, a spotlight that brought her up stark and left the remainder of the small room in darkness. With their backs to the door stood the military escort, wearing steel helmets and camouflaged uniforms and carrying quick-fire heavy automatic rifles held across their bodies. This escort consisted of a Guards detachment, a corporal and two guardsmen.

  When Katie was brought in and seated. Shard’s first question was over her head to the shadowy figures in combat dress behind.

  “You’ve served in Northern Ireland, Corporal, I believe?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “All of you?”

  “That’s correct, sir.”

  “You’ll have heard of Miss Farrell, I’m sure.”

  The answer was bitter. “We have that, sir.”

  “Personal experience. Corporal?”

  “Not personal, sir, no. Nor the regiment. But lads we knew … brigaded with us, sir. Infantry and sappers — Royal Engineers, sir.”

  “Bomb squads?”

  “That’s right, sir.”

  Shard nodded. “Thank you. Corporal. All that being so, I doubt if any of you are squeamish. You’ll have seen interrogations in Belfast — or rather, the results of them. I’m referring to certain unofficial gentry, if you get me, not the proper authorities. Right?”

  There was a laugh. “Right, sir!”

  Shard reached out and angled the spotlight a little more: Katie Farrell’s eyes reflected back, diamond hard and bright. Shard studied the face, remaining silent for some while: Katie was growing restive. Shard, though acutely conscious of time passing, time running out too fast, kept all haste out of his voice when he spoke at last, sounding relaxed and easy. He said, “I want your help, Katie. If you give it … well, there may be things I can do to help you.”

  “I’m not asking your help,” she said, and shrugged.

  “No? You may change your mind. The alternative to my help is not pleasant. You heard what I said to the escort.”

  “You’re threatening me, are you?”

  He smiled, coldly. “Yes, Katie. I’m threatening you, all right! Don’t make any mistake about that. Once, I was a copper in the Met. They knew me as Iron Shard —”

  “Coppers don’t threaten. So they say.”

  “And they say true, Katie. They don’t threaten. I’m not an ordinary copper any more. That makes a big, big difference, as you may be finding out.” Shard’s tone hardened as he leaned forward, keeping in shadow still. “I want to know the names of your associates. I want to know exactly where you yourself link in with what’s currently being threatened against this country. I want to know why a body was planted, made up to look like yours.” He paused. “I want to know what your own connexion is, or was, with the Porton Down area.”

  The spotlight showed the flicker, the wary look coming into the eyes: something had sunk home. She said, “I haven’t any connexion there, none at all.”

  “Sure, Katie?”

  “Quite sure. Try something else, copper.”

  “All right,” he said easily. “I will.” He paused, giving the girl time to reflect a little, to weigh the alternatives in her mind. He was about to put the next question when there was a knock on the door — loud, urgent. Shard cursed under his breath but gave the order to the corporal to open up. The NCO went outside, came back in and reported, “Major Smith-Lyneham, sir. He’d like a word. It’s important.”

  Shard nodded and got up from behind the light. “Watch the prisoner,” he said. He went outside. Smith-Lyneham was pacing up and down, biting again at a finger-nail. “Well, Major, what is it? I’m —”

  “It’s your man Lavington. He’s been sighted —”

  “Where?”

  “Bodmin Moor. South-east of Camelford … between there and Rough Tor. The police have him under distant surveillance and they don’t think he’s seen them. Have you any orders, Mr Shard?”

  Shard said, “Yes. Tell them to keep it that way and tell them I’m coming in. And tell my Detective Sergeant to join me at the helicopter, will you — and see that my boss is informed. I’ll be airborne, hopefully, inside two minutes.” Smith-Lyneham turned away and made off fast along the passage; Shard went back into the interrogation room. About to tell the escort to hold Katie Farrell secure, he changed his mind: true, left in Nancekuke, she might well cough when she saw the hands o
f her watch ticking away towards her death. But Shard had a theory, born of Harry Kenwood’s words earlier; and his hunch was that she could be persuaded to cough with much more point if she was present in person at the hunting down of Lavington.

  17

  As SHARD REACHED the helicopter with Katie Farrell and her military accompaniment, he saw Hedge come flying out from the admin building.

  “Shard!” Hedge shouted.

  “What is it?” ‘

  “I’m coming with you.”

  “Like hell you are, Hedge.”

  Hedge panted up. “Don’t be impertinent, Shard. I’ve said I’m coming and I’m coming.”

  So there, Shard thought to himself. He was furiously angry; Hedge would be an unparallelled encumbrance in the field — the literal field, sheep droppings and all. Bodmin Moor was no picnic and they would in all probability still be there after dark. Hedge scuttled up inside the helicopter’s belly, pursued by Shard’s question: “Why, for God’s sake?”

  “It’s my duty, Shard.”

  “Oh, balls,” Shard said rudely: then apologised. It was a fait accompli: Hedge was already seated and could hardly be ordered out. The rest got in: it was a tight fit but they hadn’t far to go, and would survive if the machine could lift off with Shard as an extra to the inward flight. Lift-off was in fact achieved without fuss and the pilot headed out north-east across a wind that, as forecast, was starting to back round to the west. Below, Nancekuke dwindled: beyond it, the sea was turbulent. A nasty night was coming up, nasty for sailors out at sea, for landsmen out on Bodmin Moor. But not so nasty as what might happen to Nancekuke and its staff. Which, of course, was the reason Hedge was currently airborne. Hedge was perhaps not quite a coward, but he was never noticeably swift in coming forward when physical danger threatened: to give him his due, it wasn’t exactly expected of a man in his particular position. But undoubtedly, had he not joined the task force in flight, he would have been expected to stand by at Nancekuke rather than load the air traffic with squeals for another helicopter to ferry him to safety. Bodmin Moor, at any rate for Hedge, would look like a safer bet from all points of view.

  Shard, sitting behind Katie Farrell, leaned forward and shouted into her ear against the racket of the helicopter. “Dr Lavington,” he said.

  “What about him?”

  “We’re going in to get him.”

  She looked round, eyes wide and scared. Shard grinned, a tight stretch of lips against teeth. The look in the girl’s eyes seemed like confirmation. He spoke again: “He’s probably going to die. If I were you, I’d think about that.”

  For the present, he said no more.

  *

  It was only late afternoon — a little under four hours yet to go; but the day had darkened with the heralds of a coming storm: no mist now, but an increasing wind and a nasty lash of rain to meet them as the helicopter touched down to Shard’s order a little way short of St Teath on the A-39. Not wanting Lavington worried by any incoming helicopters, he had radioed ahead to the police in Camelford for mobiles to await them by the St Teath turn. No hitches: the transfer to the cars was made, one of them taking Hedge and Kenwood. The police drivers headed in fast for Camelford. Shard, in the other car with Katie Farrell and the escort, was thankful he had not currently to listen to Hedge’s moans. Only one response would have sufficed, and that wouldn’t have helped harmony. It was tough on Harry Kenwood, but was good training for promotion. Nearing Camelford, they met a police motor-cyclist: Shard had him stopped, then leaned through his wound-down window. “Detective Chief Superintendent Shard. Anything fresh?”

  The PC saluted. “No, sir. The man’s under distant surveillance and won’t get away now, though when I left the post he was temporarily out of sight. They think he’s lying up behind some boulders on the lower slopes of the tor, sir.”

  “He’s not suspicious?”

  “We think not, sir.” The constable grinned briefly. “You’ll have a job to find our lads yourself, sir.”

  Shard smiled back. “All right, I’ll not detain you.” They drove on again. Shard found himself gripped by a looseness of his guts: it was all so much touch-and-go and his whole assessment could be way out. If it was, his head would be on the chopping-block and deservedly so, only there wouldn’t be any chopping-blocks operative. Lavington had to be the key, the key had to be broken off smartly, right in the lock … savagely now, he swivelled in his seat and looked back at Katie Farrell sandwiched between the escort.

  “I told you to think,” he said through set teeth. “Have you?”

  “Get stuffed,” she said.

  He grinned. “That’s crude. You’ve not been that before. Suggestive, perhaps, when on route for Cherbourg — but not crude. Am I getting through at last?”

  No reply.

  Shard said, “I can be just as crude, Katie. Has Lavington?”

  “Has Lavington what?”

  “Done some stuffing,” he said. “It’s you I have in mind.”

  She flared up at him, reaching forward until the soldiers’ hands forced her arms down painfully. “You bastard,” she said. “What’s it to do with you what I do?”

  “That,” Shard murmured, “doesn’t sound quite like a denial, somehow. Anyway, it’s your funeral. And Lavington’s.”

  There was a snap in the eyes but no further speech from Katie. Shard felt his theory was holding up and, given time and a good view, might yet crack Katie and at the same time, with luck, crack Lavington as well. Shard was thinking back to Steyning and his visit to Lavington’s wife Violet. He had found her sexless, utterly cold, utterly unresponsive to him as a member of the male sex. There was, he knew, nothing egotistic in the thought: women who were not sexless always responded in their eyes, their manner, their whole reaction; not just him — any man brought it on: it was not a case of forwardness, it was just something glimpsed, something inexplicable, the electric rapport between man and woman. All this had been lacking in Violet Lavington: he recalled that when meeting her he had had the thought that, since she was married to Lavington, this was just as well; his view of Lavington had been that he was just as cold a fish. But in man, as opposed to woman, that could be no more than an exterior: it was possible for passion to be concealed under ice. On occasions this was essential, was part of man’s defences in various compartments of his life: jobwise, just to mention one aspect. Kinkiness? That was pure conjecture, but Lavington could have all manner of desires that were better kept under a cloak. Harry Kenwood had spoken of two things: mention of Lavington had brought out a reaction in Katie Farrell and she had appeared familiar with the Porton district. She could have spent time there prior to her arrest. She could have been the release for Lavington’s urges. Maybe it was a long shot to imagine Lavington turning an attractive woman on, but it was better than nothing and might be worth keeping in the forefront of his mind.

  They entered the small moorland town of Camelford on the Camel River, drove down an almost empty street, past public houses and cafés to a car park on the north-eastern outskirts just beyond the river: here they found a mobile command post, a radio-equipped van with a Chief Inspector and staff. With the Chief Inspector was a Major of the Royal Artillery.

  Shard glanced at the Major. “Not thinking of using Field guns, I hope?”

  “Hardly! My battery’s assisting your chaps, that’s all —”

  “Where is he now — Lavington?”

  “Still out there so far as we know.” The gunner waved a hand south-eastward, out across the rain-swilled moor.

  “As far as you know?”

  “He hasn’t moved out from cover.”

  “You’re sure he’s still there?”

  The Chief Inspector came in on that. “We’re pretty sure, sir. We have men screening on an extended perimeter and no movement’s been seen —”

  “And he hasn’t seen any of your people, or the troops?”

  The police officer shrugged. “If he has, it can’t be helped at this stage, sir.
They’re using camouflage, the visibility’s foul, the ground’s rough and they’re keeping on their stomachs. And keeping their distance. It’s all we can do, sir.”

  “If he hasn’t seen anyone, why’s he in hiding?”

  “Waiting his time, most likely, sir.”

  Shard nodded. “That’s possible enough, I suppose. I’d like to look at your maps, Mr Welsh.”

  “Right here, sir.” The Chief Inspector turned to a table behind him. The wind was freshening fast; the van rocked to a heavy westerly gust as Shard pushed past towards the table and its outspread Ordnance Survey maps.

  “Show me where.”

  A pencil-tip came down on a spot a little over three kilometres from Camelford and on a south-easterly bearing: Shard did a quick sum; he wasn’t fully metricated yet. He arrived at two miles. He scanned the area in the vicinity of Lavington’s hiding-place: the 1,312 feet of Rough Tor lofted another couple of kilometres beyond Lavington. “Rough Tor,” he said thoughtfully.