Blackmail North

by Philip McCutchan

  Goodhayes grinned. “Bad stomach, sir?”

  “Not noticeably, but that’ll do to tell the Navy. I’m going into the pub, and don’t read too much into that either.”

  Shard gave the Inspector a fractional wink and turned away. The pub, hard by the shore, looked friendly. The downstairs bar was filled with customers, mainly young and in jeans and T-shirts. There was a sprinkling of coloured youths and girls and some French students, by the look and sound of them; also German. The girls looked sexy: Shard, not for the first time, was hit by a sudden wish to shed ten years. Things had been pretty easy when he was of a similar age to these people, but permissiveness had escalated even more since and he had a sharp thrust of envy. Grinning to himself he decided he had no real need to feel that: he had Beth and there was always the consoling thought that plenty of girls preferred maturity to pimples. But duty called: the professional eye found nothing here to interest it and Shard migrated to the upstairs bar. This too was crowded, but with a mainly older set, and there were no coloureds or, so far as he could make out, foreigners either. Shard bought himself a large Haig with a dash of water and moved through the crowd for a window at the end of the room, a window that gave a good view of the North Sea so far as it impinged on Robin Hood’s Bay. When a fat women vacated a seat, Shard sat, half watching the clientele, half watching the progress of the diving boat out of the bay to the open sea. The boat, approaching a large promontory to the south, was soon out of sight. There was an increased swell running, Shard fancied as he stared from the window: he wished Inspector Goodhayes all the luck in the world and freedom from sea-sickness. He was still looking out of the window towards the diving boat’s lingering wake, and framing some pertinent questions to be put to the bartenders up here and down below, when he became aware of a girl staring intently at him from a range of less than a metre, which he still thought of as a yard.

  As he turned the girl uttered. “Don’t,” she said. “Just don’t.”

  He glared. “Don’t what?”

  “Turn away from the window. That profile. My God.”

  “Profile?”

  “Yours. It’s so sexy. More than that, though. It’s strong … which is sexy too. That chin and those cheekbones … did anyone ever tell you, mate?”

  He was about to answer, “Yes, my wife,” but decided not to. The girl wasn’t pretty; she wore large glasses, faintly rose-tinted, and a somewhat juvenile pony-tail behind a longish face, and she was dressed like a ragbag — but then so was everyone under about twenty-five and it didn’t give any clues. Not pretty, but somehow attractive. And she seemed observant; she might be worth a chat — worth, in fact, chatting up. So Shard’s answer came out differently: “Sure, plenty.”

  She smiled at him. “That’s not in character, though it could be true. You don’t look like — like —”

  “A boaster, a big-head?”

  “That’s right, mate, you don’t.”

  “I hope I’m not. I was being facetious. Which is not to say —”

  “Okay, okay, end of commercial. Just gaze strongly out of the window again … like Drake waiting for the what-was-it, Armada.”

  Shard grinned and asked. “Am I to take it you’re an artist?”

  “Good guessing,” she said, “but not all that good. I’m not an artist, believe me. I’m a radiographer — X-rays.”

  “So the interest was anatomical?”

  “Right, mate.” There was something brittle about her, something that didn’t add up. “Bone structure, purely in an orthopaedic context. That being so, you can buy me a drink.” She indicated her glass. “Empty. But don’t do yourself a mischief. It was only orange juice.”

  “Orange juice?”

  “With the emphasis on the juice, please. Not squash, not ade. There’s a difference, not appreciated by all men.”

  “I’m not surprised.” He finished his own drink, and pushed through to the bar. When he had ordered, paid and collected, he turned to find the girl right behind him and holding out her hand. He put the glass of orange juice into it. “Can’t wait, eh?” he said.

  “No.” She drank it fast. “Put yours down the hatch too, mate.”

  He looked at her curiously; there was a difference in her face now. She was on edge, trembling a little. Shard said, “I’m beginning to wonder what it is you can’t wait for, and I get the idea it isn’t the orange juice.”

  “And you’re dead right.” She came close, lips and breath fanning his ear, tickling it. “You’re a dick, Mr Shard, and I’ve been looking for you. I asked the fuzz outside, the uniformed fuzz. I saw you with them before you came in here.”

  He said blankly, “I’m sorry, I don’t get it.”

  “Come outside with me, then.”

  “And right into the trap?”

  “No trap. You haven’t asked my name. Not that it’ll convey much. I’m Aurora Lindeman. My sister’s Sheila Branscombe. Remember?”

  He gave a low whistle. “Works for Knackers Bunnigan!”

  “Worked for Knackers Bunnigan. I used the wrong tense, mate. I should have said my sister was Sheila Branscombe.” The face was white now, and the lips trembled. The brittle surface was cracking fast. “Bunnigan’s office was booby-trapped. A bomb was triggered when he opened a drawer in his desk. They’re both dead.”

  He was shocked. “And you?” he asked.

  “Me, I’m here, aren’t I? The fuzz came and told me … I work in Stokesley. Someone from your office had told them it might help if I contacted you, and the fuzz said you were on your way here. So I came.”

  He put an arm around her shoulder and led her outside.

  Eight

  “QUESTIONS,” SHARD SAID. “A lot of questions. Ready?”

  She nodded. “I gathered you’d ask questions, but I doubt if I can help. Your office seemed to think I might.”

  “In regard to your sister?”

  “Yes. But we weren’t close, even though our parents are both dead.” They were moving up the long hill: she’d said she had a Mini parked at the top. She looked sideways at him. “You’d heard nothing about the blow up?”

  “Not a thing. I’d arranged for a police watch … someone’s going to answer for that. When did it happen?”

  “Just this afternoon early — when they got back from lunch probably. Soon as I was told I rang a friend who runs a boutique in the same block, ground floor. She’d seen the bodies carried out — what was left of them.”

  “Are you,” he asked, “going down to London?”

  She shook her head, bit her lip. “No, I’m not. Not yet. I don’t think I could take … seeing things, you know? Besides, there wouldn’t be any point. Fizz Fairfax, that’s the girl from the boutique, she was a friend of Sheila’s too. And of Bunnigan’s. She got Sheila the job. She said she’d see to all that had to be seen to. I’d sooner leave it to her. Opt out, if you like.” She gave him a quick glance. “That shock you, mate?”

  He said evenly, “It’s your affair, not mine. Now — just think back, will you? Is there anything at all you can tell me that might help, any leads to who might have done this, any enemies — of Bunnigan’s in particular?”

  “I told you, I was never that close. To me, Bunnigan’s just a name.” She looked at him curiously. “You said you’d put a police watch on. That says you know more about enemies than I do. Can’t you tell me what it’s all about, why it had to go and happen?”

  “Sorry,” he said. “At this moment I can’t tell you anything.”

  They walked on. Shard didn’t ask any more questions. The girl herself didn’t fit into the picture but there could be things she knew, things she might have heard perhaps via this Fizz Fairfax, that could possibly be of help — but not for now. Reaction, and never mind a lack of close relationship, was setting in and tears were not far away. They reached the top of the hill. Shard halted, and looked out to sea. Distantly from the hill’s height he saw the diving boat, silent and motionless on a sea turning from blue to purple. He swung
back to the girl. “Care to drive me down to Malton?” he asked. “I have a bone to pick.”

  “In Malton?”

  “In London, from Malton. Okay?”

  “Okay,” she said, and led the way to a tomato-coloured Mini, the fair pony-tailed hair shining in the lowering rays of the sun. They left the car park and turned out of Robin Hood’s Bay along the same route the coffin and its occupant who was not Mackintosh had taken earlier. The girl drove fast but capably; Shard, who normally disliked being driven, felt at ease. They didn’t talk much and Shard still didn’t try to force anything. In Malton they went to the police station and Shard left her in the interview room with coffee and sandwiches ordered from the canteen. The news awaited him officially: he was handed the report from the FO of the deaths of Bunnigan and Sheila Branscombe; this should have reached him earlier but there had been a cock-up between Scotland Yard, the Foreign Office, the police authority on Teesside, and Malton itself, the sort of cock-up that made Shard wish devoutly for a nationally co-ordinated and commanded police force. He spoke to the duty officer in the nick, then called his section in the FO. He got Harry Kenwood; Kenwood said it had been he who had asked for Miss Lindeman to make contact.

  “Seeing she worked nearby, I thought you might find her helpful, sir —”

  “Sure. Now I want some explanations, Harry, Maybe you’ll guess what about.”

  “Yes, sir.” There was a pause. “I’m sorry about the lack of communication —”

  “All right, I’ve been told. There’s other things I’ve not been told — so let’s have it, Harry.”

  “The police watch,” Kenwood said heavily, “was withdrawn this morning —”

  “Christ. On whose god-damn orders?” A name hit Shard like a bullet in the guts. “Or can I guess?”

  “I reckon you can, sir,” Kenwood added, “The order went to the Yard just after you’d left for Teesside. There was nothing Inspector Linton could do, sir.”

  “That I realise and understand.” Breath hissed through Shard’s teeth. “Get me Hedge, Harry. Just get me Hedge.”

  “Not in his room, sir.”

  “His home number, then. Just a moment, though: first, the facts. What was his given reason?”

  “He didn’t want to scare the villains off, sir.”

  “How bloody stupid can you get!”

  “I agree, sir. But it’s possible Hedge could have been pressured from above, people who don’t fully understand … you know, sir? If I may talk out of turn, my advice would be, cool it Hedgewise, sir — just for now. It’s in the past.”

  “Thank you for nothing!” Shard snapped, his face set. In a temper, he banged the handset down, feeling the shake of fury and frustration in his hands as he did so. Bugger Hedge. The man had no right to countermand his orders … or if he had, and in actual fact he had, then he shouldn’t do it without proper consultation with the man who had instituted the watch: Shard could have been contacted in minutes via a police station and the mobile’s radio — at least, assuming no cock-ups. And what about Hesseltine? Over-ruled, presumably, by Hedge speaking from the gilded grandeur of Foreign Office security, the bastard. Well — the result of Hedge’s interference had been two unnecessary deaths and Hedge was going to answer for that. Shard turned away from the telephone, met the curious stare of the sergeant on duty, and bared his teeth in a mirthless grin. Harry Kenwood, a man of sensibility, had been dead right: he wasn’t in the proper mood to speak to Hedge, he’d have been out on his ear as soon as he’d opened his mouth. But it grated: Hedge, probably in his massage parlour, would be smugly complacent and Shard wanted very badly to shatter that happy state of mind.

  “Ever wanted to kill someone?” he asked the Duty Officer. “Don’t bother to answer, I’m sure you have.”

  “Well —”

  “Because that’s what I want to do. Of course, I’m not going to.” Shard lifted his hands and stared at them, as if assessing their strangulation potential. “Or am I? Look, sergeant, have you ever worked for a stupid, arrogant, slimy, ignorant, lying bastard who pulls rank on every possible and impossible occasion and always, but always, manages to wriggle out from under the consequences of his bloody ineptitude like a worm crawling out of a rotten apple? Have you?”

  The sergeant smiled. “We all have, sir. All that, it describes what we all feel at times about the boss. Doesn’t mean to say we’re right!”

  Shard glared. “You’re a diplomat. That’s a dirty word to me — nothing personal to you.”

  “Well,” the sergeant said cheerfully, “I reckon you feel better now, sir, and that’s all to the good.”

  “Oh, sure!” Shard paused: in point of fact, his outburst had reduced the pressure a little. “Can you recommend a hotel, somewhere I can spend the night?”

  “Green Man, sir, two-star, comfortable, or —”

  “The Green Man’ll do me. I’d be grateful if you’d get someone to book me a room. If anything comes through from the divers, I’d like to know right away.”

  *

  In the interview room, Shard talked to the girl, trying to draw her out now, gently, while she drank another cup of canteen coffee. He’d have liked to give her a good dinner, but didn’t want to put her at risk if she was seen in his company, which just could happen though in fact he was confident there had been no tail from Robin Hood’s Bay. He let her have her head but nothing of any value emerged while she talked. The coffee finished, she seemed reluctant to leave: it was as though she’d found a friend in Shard, an unexpected link with the sister that she didn’t want to jettison. She seemed to Shard hungry for something, and it could have been sex even if just to have someone to hold close, to hold on to, to take her mind away from tragedy for the brevity of a night. She looked lonely and forlorn when she got into the tomato Mini and drove away towards Stokesley, a long night drive across the moors alone, with a final wave at Shard. Shard walked thoughtfully through to the recommended Green Man and went into the bar and drank whisky on his tod. Aurora was intriguing; he could have had her, he was certain; but it would in a sense have been taking advantage, and also that kind of emotional involvement on a job was taboo — Shard had to keep reminding himself that he was a senior detective by rank if not by age, often a difficult process. If it hadn’t been for Beth … Shard finished the whisky and left the bar, heading for a night of sheer frustration. But he was tired from a busy day, tired too by the reaction from his bitter fury against Hedge, now subdued by whisky; and he was soon asleep. It felt like no time at all but was in fact just after six a.m. when the knock came at his door and he was awake at once and reaching by instinctive reflex action for the revolver beneath his pillow.

  He called out, “Who is it?”

  “Police, sir.”

  “Right, come in.”

  A uniformed constable entered. “The Inspector didn’t want to use the phone, sir. There’s a report from the diving team, delivered in person.”

  “All right, let’s have it.”

  “Yes, sir. The aircraft’s been found. The pilot was by appearance an Arab, sir —”

  “Dead, of course?”

  “Yes, sir, very. Neck broken on impact. His route orders have been recovered, sir, and his destination indicated as Murzuq in Libya.”

  “Not unexpected,” Shard murmured. This seemed to clinch Uthman’s involvement: Uthman had intended delivering the body right to Voice of the Arab Nations who would then believe they had been deprived of their trump card while Uthman himself used Mackintosh to his own ends: diagnosis confirmed! “Anything else?”

  “Prints, sir, being checked out now with CRO in London. And the plane had a full load of aviation spirit, sir. We’ve checked reports of sightings and radar tracking. It’s thought to have taken off from somewhere up here, maybe North Yorkshire itself.”

  “Yorkshire!”

  “That’s right, sir. And there’s another thing, sir.” The constable was important with unimparted news: he was young, was keeping the punch line to th
e last. Shard, having once been a constable himself, forebore to snap. “Another body in the plane, sir. A white male, sir.”

  Shard stiffened. “Who?”

  “Not known yet, sir.”

  “Description?”

  “I wasn’t told it, sir. The Inspector wants you round at the station right away.”

  “Tell him I’ve already started.”

  “Yes, sir.” The constable, awkward with his helmet beneath his left arm, moved for the door. Shard washed, shaved and dressed at maximum speed. Fifteen minutes from the time the constable had left he was in the Chief Inspector’s office. The white man, still unidentified, was with the coloured man’s body in the mortuary.

  Death, said the Chief Inspector, had been due to shooting: there were bullet holes in head and stomach, bullets, fired at close range, that had passed right through, and severe burning had been left by the close discharge. Shard went with the Chief Inspector to the mortuary. The chill struck him, both physically and mentally. Two bodies were side by side, each beneath a white covering sheet; feet protruded from the ends, one set black, the other white. The sheet was drawn back from the white corpse by a constable and Shard looked down on a chest hairy like an ape’s: Jamie, for whom something had gone very wrong indeed.

  *

  Shard wanted time to think before confronting Hedge: eschewing aircraft, he was driven in to York where he caught the London train from Edinburgh. Sitting in first-class Inter-City comfort over a late breakfast, the one speculation that came to him as likely to prove accurate was this: if Jamie had met his death at the hands of Uthman’s mob, then Fiona Mackintosh would have changed hands when Jamie had been taken. But there was much piecing together yet to be done. When Shard reached the security section in the Foreign Office Harry Kenwood told him Hedge was in his room and had been asking for him.