by John Gardner
‘What the hell’s it ...’
‘Got to do with us? I told you, Boysie, you know as much as I do. The SB play it right off the tits. Alerted the Chief some time ago and said they had reason to believe the opposition were in on it.’
‘Had reason to believe. Pompous sods.’
‘Agreed, old fruit. But if Redland have got a finger in the pie then that part of the world could be warmish and you wouldn’t want us to send you out without any warning, would you?’
Boysie looked disgruntled.
‘Tell you what,’ said Mostyn, ‘The Chief merely wants you to keep your peepers open for any of the flown birds. We may also ask you to bring back some of the girl’s belongings.’
‘She’s got damn all poor kid. Dress, pair of drawers, a bra and a bracelet.’
‘Ah yes, but it would make a nice little cover for the local authorities wouldn’t it? Reason for you being there at all. This is only a possible side issue. Your job’s to get friend Penton. Go get ‘im, boy.’ Mostyn sounded calm. Inside he knew that sending Boysie into a warm zone was like popping an aerosol can into a lighted oven. You were bound to get some reaction. ‘Just be prepared. Proper boy scout stuff, eh?’
‘Can I go now?’ Boysie was still fretting about Griffin and Elizabeth.
‘You’re in a terrible hurry tonight. Nest getting cold or something?’
‘Now look here.’
‘Sir.’ A razor blade through balsa. Boysie deflated. With Mostyn you just could not win.
‘I think,’ said Mostyn, thirty seconds later, ‘that you’d better sit down and commit the young ladies’ physogs to memory. Be on the safe side.’ He got up and began to walk slowly towards the door. ‘Turn the light out when you’re finished and hand in the file to little asp-arse in Reception. I’ll tell her you’ll be an hour or so. After tonight you’ll be a walking mine of information won’t you? Our expert on the Swiss area and the au pair scandal. Go to it, Boysie.’ He shut the door. It opened again a second later. ‘Have a good trip, Boysie,’ said Mostyn without a smile, ‘fix ‘im up, won’t you. Nice and peaceful. And beware of the girls—
Fifteen au pair girls out courting
One took the final plunge
And then there were fourteen.
Rather good what? Bye, bye.’
Boysie, a man who hated violence, could have killed cheerfully.
*
It was ten minutes past midnight when Boysie started his second circuit of Waterloo Bridge, heading south. Griffin was ambling idly along the pavement, walking against the traffic. He got into the passenger seat with a lot of grimaces and a certain amount of pain noises, and Boysie headed the car towards Waterloo Station and the all night buffet.
They drank their murky sweet tea in silence, giving each other sly glances across the plastic-topped table which they were forced to share with a middle-aged couple who had ceased speaking, on a day’s shopping, at about five in the afternoon. Griffin looked more prosperous than Boysie remembered him.
His clothes were fresher and he seemed to have given up the hideous painted ties. The couple eventually left.
‘It’s been a long time, Mr Griffin,’ said Boysie.
‘Yes, guv’nor, ad I shoubent be ‘ere dow by rights. God a filthy cold id de head.’
Boysie felt as though he was falling through the chair, though he could not put his finger on the reason.
‘Seasonable,’ he said brightly.
‘Ah,’ said Griffin without much pleasure. ‘Whad cad I do for you den, Mr Oakes? Bust ward you first dad de price is ub. Whad wid be overheads and all.’
‘Oh that’ll be all right,’ said Boysie with some relief. ‘They say that southern Switzerland is very pleasant at this time of year.’
Griffin perked up and began to look happy. The deal was obviously going to be on.
Boysie got back to the flat around 1.30. There was a note on the bedside table. I hate goodbyes. Call me when you get back. All love and thanks. Elizabeth.
CHAPTER FOUR
BROWN DWARF: BASLE
AFTER the nightmare of flying from London to Basle, Boysie was unprepared for the body-blow waiting for him on Track 10 of the SBB Station at Basle.
He was not actually sick on the aircraft, but there was that same old feeling of moral, physical and mental disintegration as the two grumbling Pratt and Whitneys increased the airscrew revolutions, and the fat Convair Metropolitan sloped off down runway seven, finally shaking the ground from its wheels to go throbbing into the air.
For over two hours, Boysie sat (refusing the breakfast of coffee, rolls, jam and foil-wrapped Gruyere) with hearing stretched to the full limit, listening for the slightest change in pitch or timing of the motors. Even the most minute air-pocket bumps were registered, by his body, with a surging fear. At one point—shortly after take-off—as an act of bravado, he opened the Daily Express only to find himself staring at a half-page advertisement for BOAC’s VC 10 service. A knowing blonde sultered from the page. Beneath, the caption read There’s always time for a new experience.
‘Oh gawd,’ groaned Boysie, ‘do me a favour.’ He closed his eyes, opening them again to view something more to his fancy. Across the aisle a slim girl was stretched lazily in her seat, the hemline of her white and lime Courreges suit riding high and hopefully up a pair of long, provocative legs. One elbow was poised on the arm-rest, a hand cupping her chin, fingers lying smoothly up what looked to be a fine jaw line. The profile was bold, almost classic—not beautiful, for the nostrils flared too much, and the eyes were a shade large to give complete balance to the features. Her eyebrows were plucked and shaped in a professional dark curve, contrasting with rust-coloured hair falling full to the nape of the neck, groomed with a casual elegance. She also refused the breakfast, but in a vague, distant manner which betokened one surrounded by an aura of preoccupation.
The cautionary tocsin began to boom away in Boysie’s skull. Something about her. One by one, his brain thumbed through the photographs of the fourteen au pair girls. Negative. The rusty-haired girl was reaching into her handbag for cigarettes. Automatically, like a sharp waiter, Boysie had his lighter—the silver Windmaster engraved with the ad-like BO initials—gripped between thumb and first two fingers. He reached out across the aisle, pushing down the plunger. She drew on the cigarette and half-smiled thanks. The large dark eyes looked full into his, but he knew they saw nothing. Behind them, Boysie sensed grief—some spaniel quality. The handbag was still open on her lap, one corner of a passport peeping from the debris of feminine requisites. British. She was certainly not one of the au pairs. The opposition file? Boysie carefully thought back to the previous evening. The Swiss file had contained only two women. No possible resemblance. Yet there was something about the girl. Connected with the present situation. The problem weaved around for the remainder of the journey—the warp in the weft of terror 30,000 feet above the earth at a steady 289 m.p.h.
The landing pattern at Mulhouse–Basle Airport—is intricate. Incoming aircraft lock-on to the Mulhouse Locator Beacon at 25,000 feet—the beacon pulsing out its call sign MN on 335.5 Kc/s—and fly a long oval ‘race-course’ pattern, reducing height, when cleared, until the final circuit is made and the aircraft whistles down on to the mile and a half stretch of main runway. There was a lot of cloud. The let-down—with its continual turns at the opposite ends of the race-course—was bumpy. Boysie, always at his worst when flying in cloud, was a damp rag of sweat by the time the Metropolitan’s wheels juddered on to the concrete. Customs were courteous, the short bus ride into Basle uneventful. At last, Boysie walked out of the air terminal building and dumped the old tan Revelation on the pavement. His ears were bombarded by the clank and ting of Basle’s legendary trams which swarm around the Centralbahn-platz.
Boysie looked about him, taking in the conservative Schweizerhof nestling next to a Torquay-style Royal Victoria National. It was noon and traffic swamped the square. The girl disappeared into the crowd with a porter wra
pped round her luggage. Boysie felt a twitch of regret. He loathed being alone —out on a limb. And this limb could turn out to be very unshapely. In the old days he had always got the assignments over as quickly as possible, and when he was on the courier work he invariably tried to make some temporary friend—not hard when you had the looks and bearing of Boysie. He shrugged. The train was due out in forty minutes. Picking up the suitcase he ambled into the dark cavern of the SSB Bahnof, heading for his first really big shock of the day.
The 12.41 was waiting in Track 10, a spotless giant which would whisk them across Switzerland, through the great St Gotthard and down to the shores of Lake Maggiore—a vast, mountain-fringed pool bisected by the Italian frontier. Standard 2nd Class coaches on Swiss Federal Railways are built on an open plan system. Leather covered bench seats, for two, run back to back on either side of a narrow aisle, making six small compartments—accommodating four people facing each other in pairs—on each side of the car. Boysie chose a car well forward containing only half-a-dozen passengers. The two open compartments to left and right just inside the sliding door—which connected with the narrow entrance lobby and lavatory—were empty. Boysie stowed his suitcase on the rack, went into the lobby and climbed down on to the platform, intent on watching the changing hubbub which marks the departure of any long-distance Continental express. There was a smell of coffee in the air. Boysie was beginning to feel hungry—the nervous exhaustion caused by flying was beginning to wear off. He lit a cigarette—the seventh since landing—and was contemplating a stroll down to the diesel locomotive when the jolt came. Glancing up the train he saw Kadjawaji.
It was like being hit suddenly, and low. Boysie felt a nasty elevator sensation in his guts. Kadjawaji’s name had not been on the Swiss file, but his photograph and description appeared on all the Department’s Classified ‘Danger’ lists. Boysie had never seen him in the flesh, but recognition was easy. For one thing Kadjawaji had been born in Java—brown skin the colour of three-quarter black coffee—for another, Kadjawaji was a dwarf. He was also one of the opposition’s front line weapons, rarely used but always lethal. A shrewd and ruthless operator, Kadjawaji had originally been an officer under the legendary Tan Malakka and, in spite of his size, proved so effective that the authorities had brought him to Moscow for special training. Since then the record was impressive. He worked—in a circus—in West Germany for four years without being detected, and subversive activity by him had accounted for the disruption of four network controls. In East Berlin he was known to have personally murdered ten senior operatives. Now, too easily identified in the West, his work was confined to very quick sorties, usually the organisation of subversive groups or—Boysie had to face it—the same kind of job which he was supposed to carry out.
Kadjawaji came bustling down the platform. The neat grey suit, grey shirt and blue silk tie would have looked smart on a fourth-form schoolboy. The short legs moved rapidly, as though his stature dictated the use of greater energy; his head, grotesquely out of proportion nodding from side to side in rhythm with the chubby protruding buttocks. The face set in a permanent snarl—as though he regarded all his fellow men with contempt. Yet it was a face marked by determination—the mania of a deformed and tiny man to be all powerful. He looked, and was, vicious.
The sudden appearance of Kadjawaji, his reputation, and the possible repercussions made Boysie shudder. He was back up the steps and into his seat—one hand held slyly across his face—with the agility of a mountain goat. Boysie was terrified. One of the nightmares which took hold of him at regular intervals was based on circumstances like this—being alone in the field and meeting one of Redland’s top boys. For Boysie knew, to his cost, that the opposition, however misguidedly, believed him to be one of Special Security’s supermen. He waited, heart going like a set of bongos and a nasty taste filtering into the back of his mouth. His free hand slid to the hip pocket of his slacks. The Neuhausen had been left, locked away in a drawer at the Chesham Place flat—Griffin was doing the work so what would Boysie do with a dirty great pistol? But it was a comfort to feel the butt of his small unofficial weapon (‘a toy’ Mostyn would have called it) the Sauer & Sohn 1A adapted for .22 ammunition which lay firm in the patent holster above the right cheek of his bottom. Boysie was facing down the car. The sliding door to his right was half-open and he could now hear someone being helped up into the lobby behind him. Footsteps, and Kadjawaji passed slowly between the seats without a glance in Boysie’s direction. The dwarf moved right down to the far end of the car. A passenger spoke in German.
‘Shall I put your case on the rack?’
Danke.’ Disgruntled and uncivil. A piping voice which would easily grate on the nerves. Boysie’s nerves were already more than grated. Triple shredded. He tried to rationalise the situation. There was always the chance that the sub-sized killer would not even recognise him. Boysie glumly accepted that this was unlikely. Kadjawaji was Moscow-trained. The situation was ridiculous. Two of the major powers’ top trigger men both in the same coach of a Swiss express with practically five hours’ travelling ahead. Presumably the dwarf would use the lavatory at his end of the car, but the restaurant car lay in Boysie’s direction. Perhaps he had brought sandwiches. Little cucumber sandwiches, thought Boysie. Oh hell, it was all Mostyn’s fault anyway. Even if he managed to escape any action by Kadjawaji he would have to report the dwarf’s presence. In those circumstances Mostyn would expect him to move in with a quick kill, then get out again—fast. But Griffin could not possibly arrive in Locarno until late evening. It would take until tomorrow night at the earliest. And what the hell was this wretched midget doing heading down to Locarno anyway? The au pair girls? Perhaps he was going to organise a variety show, Coal Black and the fourteen dollies.
Mostyn had told him to move like an overdose of cascara if he spotted any heavy opposition on the ground. He felt as though he had already taken a large glassful of the stuff anyway. The train gave a jolt. They were sliding out of the station. Off to sunny Ticino. A white-coated steward passed down the car banging a little triangle to call diners to the first lunch. The other three seats in Boysie’s section were still empty. At least his luck was holding there. He shifted across to the opposite seat so that his back would be towards the dwarf should the little fellow decide to eat. Boysie picked up his now crumpled and grubby copy of the Express, opened it, and pretended to become immersed in a somewhat spectacular divorce case. Three men and a woman went by, heading for the chow waggon. Then Isosceles with his triangle. Last, the unmistakable short footsteps of the dwarf. The door slid shut and Boysie relaxed. Kadjawaji would be in the restaurant car for at least an hour. It would be best to move forward. But first, nature had to be appeased. He got up and opened the door, stepping through and closing it behind him. Looking down the short, narrow passage and across the lobby he noticed that the other connecting door was also closed. It was as he put his arm forward towards the lavatory door that he realised something was wrong —the rushing noise of air and the strong draught. The outer door, to his left, was open, swung inwards and resting against the wall. The train gathered speed and began to sway. The open door would be a danger to passengers passing through. Boysie stepped across, feeling boy scoutish, and put his left hand on the edge of the door to swing it shut. Suddenly he experienced that terrible crawling of the skin which comes a second before danger strikes. He half-turned, but his warning had been too late. The dwarf sprang forward from the other side of the lobby. The tiny hands fastened themselves around Boysie’s right ankle. He tried to kick, but the force of the pull was so sharp and unexpected that all sense of balance went. Boysie caught a glimpse of green, a wooden building, white, a signal gantry—all flicking past the open door. Then he was sprawling outwards still clutching at the door’s edge. In a second his momentum would carry him right through the opening, pulling the door with him in a curve. His hands would be crushed between door and jamb, and he would go shrieking away, whipped from the train like a chocolat
e wrapping thrown by a child. The automatic action of self preservation took charge. The wind was already banging at his legs, pulling his body out of the doorway. Boysie let go of the door and grabbed outwards. His arms made contact with the long curved handrail which ran down the outside of the coach. Boysie hung on. His body swung outwards and thudded painfully against the side of the coach. He could hardly breathe and the roar of air was like the rush of some hideous whirlwind. He pulled desperately against the heavy weight of air which pressed him against the coach. His arms were slowly being wrenched from their sockets. Another pull and he was able to move his body forward, his right foot finding a hold on the step. As it did so, the dwarf appeared in the doorway, clinging unsteadily to the inside, smiling and looking back along the train in the hope of seeing Boysie’s body splayed out on the track. The smile turned to a leer of surprise. He shouted something and reached clumsily into his inside pocket. Boysie heaved again. The foothold was strong. Kadjawaji lifted his right hand, still hanging on to the inside of the door with his left. The right hand held what looked to be an air pistol. Boysie made a final effort and pulled himself up straight beside the doorway, feet on the top step and arms hugging the handrail. The train began to take a left-hand bend, there was the sound of its hee-haw klaxon and then an increased swaying outwards. Boysie had to cling tighter to maintain his position. The dwarf, insecure on the edge of the step, faltered. His right hand, still clutching the weapon, moved across to save himself. The tiny fingers of the left hand scrabbled against the door frame, but all hold had gone. The body arched outwards, then began to turn towards Boysie. Boysie felt Kadjawaji’s shoulder bump heavily against his side and saw the face contorted with fear. He turned his head to watch the child-like figure spin and crash into the grass bank a good twelve feet away. It seemed to bounce, roll into a small human ball and bump down the further side of the slope. For a second, Boysie had the strange impression that he had been through all this before. Then he realised that he was thinking of an old movie. This was for real. He pulled himself painfully back into the lobby—still deafened by the rush of air, aching and shaking like a man on his first day off heroin. He closed the door and headed for the lavatory. It was a good half-hour before Boysie could even begin to think normally. The dwarf must have spotted him from the very beginning. ‘The black bastard,’ said Boysie to the wash basin. ‘The little black bastard.’ The depression set in. He had not even coped with the midget. It had been pure chance, luck, that had sent Kadjawaji flying off the train. ‘Please somebody,’ said Boysie quietly, ‘please take me home. I’m not up to it. I’m really not up to it.’
