Queen's Pawn

by Victor Canning

  It all came back to him. The gentle work out of line and then the only tactic he sensed would succeed. He’d smacked the fly down with a bang, two feet upstream of the trout, and with a jerking of the wrist had made it work, struggle on the surface, kicking like a real moth trying to escape the drag of the water film. The trout had come for it like all hell let loose, in a great rush, body arching over it, mouth drowning it and taking it down while he, still behind the tree, suddenly void of excitement or nerves, had said God Save the King slowly and then tightened, felt the hook move home, felt the trout’s power and shock pulse through the out-streaming line. Ten minutes later it was on the bank. Two pounds and a quarter. When his father had walked up, he had said to him, ‘There. I told you so.’ No more. But he had known the pride in the old man. And he had known the pride in himself. And he had learnt his lesson. If you want something from people then you must learn what it is that they want badly, wait for your moment and then give it to them, hook them in the moment of their desire and land them, often never knowing that what they had been offered was only a coloured imitation of their real want. With Belle since he needed her so much, the offer had to be of himself. All that remained was the question of timing.

  The door opened behind him and Belle came in with a shopping bag. He got up smiling, took the bag from her and began to help her out of her coat.

  Saturday, Four o’clock. Raikes had left in the station wagon two hours before. It was raining. Even through the windows Belle could hear the whining of tyres on the wet road outside. Belle sat by the telephone. She was nervous. She couldn’t help it. Not that she had much to do. But she was nervous, to her surprise, for Raikes moving now out there in the rain towards an enterprise that held danger for him. Though, God knows, she thought, he’d been casual about it, unconcerned as though he were merely going off to a commonplace appointment.

  Behind her was this other man, Berners, introduced to her a couple of days before when she had been briefed by them both. He, too, showed no anxiety, no nerves; a quiet, almost gentle man, offering her nothing but politeness and, like Raikes, completely untouched by this thing ahead. Both of them so bloody sure of themselves.

  From behind her Berners said, ‘All right. Ring now.’

  She stubbed her cigarette out, clumsily, an uncrushed ember still smoking, and picked up the phone. She began to dial a long-distance call, finished, and breathed deep as the line churred away at the far end.

  The noise stopped and a man’s voice said, ‘Yes, hullo?’ It was a flat, blurred, bored voice.

  ‘Is that the Mereworth Depot?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hold on a moment, please. This is the Ministry of Defence, Whitehall. Colonel Shrimpton wants to speak to—’

  ‘Colonel Who?’

  ‘Colonel Shrimpton.’ She made it a bit curt, nervousness gone now, as it used to go in Woolworths the moment she had made up her mind what she was going to take. She added, ‘This is the office of the Master-General of the Ordnance. I’m putting you through.’

  She scratched a fingernail across the perforated disc of the telephone mouth one or twice and, changing the tone of her voice, pleasant now in deference to authority, ‘You’re through now, Colonel.’

  She handed the phone to Berners.

  He said, ‘Mereworth Depot?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I don’t suppose Captain Kelly has arrived there yet, has he? He’s on his way down with some important supplies.’

  ‘No, sir. No officer of that name. Nobody at all in fact.’

  ‘I see. Well, look, when he arrives, give him a message will you?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Tell him that he’s to ring me at once at Whitehall 7022. He knows the extension number. Colonel Shrimpton. The moment he arrives. Is that understood?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Good. Thank you.’

  He put the phone down and smiled at her. His right hand pulled gently for a second at the lobe of his ear, and he said, ‘You did it well. That’s set it in train. Whitehall. Master-General of the Ordnance. It mesmerizes them, drives all questions from their minds. Who is the Master-General of the Ordnance, anyway?’

  He turned away, taking up his hat and gloves.

  She said, memory coming easily to her from the simple research she had done in the purple-covered tooth Edition of Whitaker’s Almanac, ‘General Sir Charles Richardson,’ then added, God save her, trying to impress him (how childishly anxious could you get?) ‘G.C.B., C.B.E., D.S.O., A.D.C.’

  Near the door, he said, ‘Your memory’s good. Now, remember—in half an hour ring again and ask for Kelly. He won’t be there. Say I’ve had to go out and give them the message for Kelly to go on to Maidstone. That will put the meringue on the pudding so they’ll swallow the whole Kelly arrival in one gulp. All right?’

  She nodded.

  He stopped with his hand on the door, and then said, ‘ There’s nothing to worry about … so far as he’s concerned, I mean. He knows how to look after himself. And, let’s face it, there’s something about, a uniform as the old song says. Goodbye.’

  He walked out as though he were leaving the office early, business slack and home comforts calling, and Belle sat there saying to herself … Men, bloody men … These two bloody men. So damned calm and sure of themselves.

  Nothing that she did or said, she saw, was going to alter them. They were going to have their way. They were going to murder Sarling as quietly, efficiently and unemotionally as they were doing this present thing.

  There was no trouble. Raikes came down Wrotham Hill to the roundabout then swung left-handed on to the Gravesend road, climbing the hill, the drizzle-shrouded stretches, of Kent opening on his right. At the Vigo pub he turned left into a small lane. The Vigo, what battle was that? The navy was all around here. Rochester, Chatham, Gravesend … the Thames where, before man crammed it with his filth, the great salmon used to run so freely that London apprentices stipulated that they should be fed it only once a week. Vigo, of course. On the coast of Spain. Sacked twice by Sir Francis Drake. Oh, Drake he was a Devon man. So were his two brothers, both of them locked now in steel tombs on the seabed.

  Gilpin, in battle-dress, sergeant’s stripes, was waiting in a pull-off down the road with the Land-Rover, army numbered and signed, and in the back a grey-green painted crater stencilled with its Z/93 GF1 and War Department arrows.

  Gilpin gave him a grunt for greeting. Raikes climbed into the back and changed into his officer’s battle-dress, captain R. A., and they drove off, back to the Wrotham Hill roundabout and then down the A.20 to the turn-off to the Mereworth Depot.

  They drove into the depot and pulled up outside the office hut and the sequence of events flowed evenly, long predicted, trouble-free because trouble only came when you were unsure of yourself, when the preparation had not been done, when your confidence in the inevitable responses of other people flagged. Captain Kelly. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Don’t know anything about this crate, but then things get balled up. And, sir, a message for you from Whitehall. Just had it. Go on to Maidstone? The frown. Annoyance. Mucking his Saturday plans up. Ah, well. The short drive up to Hut Number Five, door unlocked by the office clerk. No one else much about late on a Saturday afternoon. Weekend leave, girls call, football matches—and then the gentle neckchop cutting off the chatter putting him down and out almost, three big scarves for mouth, feet and wrists, enough to hold him long enough, and one crate deposited and another crate lifted out and into the Land-Rover and Captain Kelly and his sergeant driving unhurried out of the depot, and not a word between them as they made their way back to the waiting station wagon, windscreen wipers moaning, arthritic against the drizzle, the operation over, only the credits now to come up on the screen, direction and planning by Raikes, uniforms by Berners, Land-Rover and false crate by Gilpin, extra dialogue by Miss Vickers … and not a single fingerprint on the crate at Mereworth or Land-Rover to be abandoned here because both of them had worn glove
s and—if Gilpin hadn’t taken the same precautions while he worked on crate and car at his garage then he, Raikes, had misjudged Gilpin which he knew he had not as certainly as he knew that Gilpin had not yet finished with him because Gilpin was Gilpin and had to do what was in his nature.

  In the empty lane they dismounted and Raikes went to the back of the Land-Rover to unbuckle curtains and get the crate out. Gilpin came round to help, sergeant’s stripes bright with pipe clay, blouse partly undone, showing khaki shirt, khaki tie, grease-marked on the knot—a nice touch from Berners.

  Gilpin said, ‘ Worked like a bloody charm.’ He stepped round, putting himself on the hedge side of the road, reaching up with his left hand to help with the curtain buckles and slipping his right hand into the opening of his battle-dress blouse. Raikes knew that the man had been waiting days for this moment. He turned quickly and grabbed at Gilpin’s hand as it came out of the blouse, clamping his fingers hard on the wrist and in one ferocious movement shaking the gun free.

  ‘Sod you!’

  Gilpin twisted, kicked out and caught his knee and then threw his weight at him. Raikes went down, off balance, on the wet ground, crouching, fingertips touching the soft, wet grass. Gilpin’s boot flashed out, scoring brutally across his cheek.

  Raikes, angered, disgusted that he should have given even this slight advantage, came up knowing that, if it would have served, he could murder him here and now, but knowing that the limits of need were narrower, easily maintained. He caught Gilpin across the neck with the edge of his right hand, staggered him, and whipped his knee into the bulky forward leaning body, winding, driving the man back into the hedge. He sprawled, flattening the nettles, wet leaves scattered on the battle-dress shoulders.

  Raikes picked up the gun and put it in his pocket. He could feel blood on his face, pain in his knee. Anger was gone.

  He said, ‘Don’t try anything else, or I might just kill you. Come and help.’

  Gilpin got up, coughing, half-retching at the pain in his stomach.

  They carried the crate to the car, sliding it through the back doors, across the metal runners of the floor.

  ‘Put that blanket over it.’

  Raikes stepped back, watching Gilpin drape the crate with the blanket that lay in the back of the car.

  He went back to the Land-Rover, gloved still, and checked through it. He came back with Gilpin’s small suitcase of civilian clothes and his own and tossed them into the car.

  Gilpin at his side, he drove on down the side road, bore right and went on through the lanes, the map study clear in his mind, knowing exactly at what point he would come back on to the main A.20, cross it and then by other side roads move deep into the outreaching maze of south London suburbs.

  He stopped halfway down a hill by the side of a small pond, wound down the window, and took the gun from his pocket.

  ‘Nobody can trace this to you?’

  ‘No. Think I’m daft?’

  ‘Just now and again you’re not far off it.’ He tossed the gun into the duckweed water. ‘Start changing.’

  They both changed into their civilian clothes behind some bushes on the far side of the pond, Gilpin finishing with a fidget of his fingers at a blue-and-white-spotted bow tie. Raikes made him go ten yards into a field, tear a soft wound into the side of a this year’s haystack, push the uniforms in and then seal the wound. He came back, mud squelching under his boots.

  Driving on, Raikes said, ‘Killing me would have done you no good. Little fleas have bigger fleas upon their backs to bite ’em. You’ll have signed your own warrant. Didn’t you know that?’

  ‘All I know is it would have been good to do it.’

  Raikes dabbed his face with his handkerchief. ‘You’ve got a nice business. The life you want. Nobody’s going to come and disturb you.’

  ‘Well.…’ Then, the accolade clear in his voice, ungrudging admiration: ‘ How the hell did you know?’

  ‘You’ve been flying all the signals. I’m letting you out at Camberwell.’ He smiled, forgiveness not offered but insisted upon. ‘What alibi did you fix with your wife?’

  ‘I’m meeting her at the Chandos, corner of Saint Martin’s Lane. We’ve been to the cinema. Then dinner at a Jo Lyons and home. Watertight.’

  Before he let him out at Camberwell, Raikes said, ‘ Your money’s in the pocket in front of you.’

  Gilpin opened the dash pocket and took out the thick envelope. Without opening it, he said, ‘Five hundred, plus the charge for the Land-Rover and odds and ends?’

  ‘Nine hundred altogether. Enough?’

  ‘Yes. I got the Land-Rover at a car auction, Leicester way. No one could trace it.’

  ‘I never worried. That was your neck.’

  When he let him out in a side street, the drizzle gold-beaded now from street lights, Gilpin leaned through the window, half offered a hand, then withdrew it, and said, ‘Sorry for the nonsense, guv. You’re all right.’

  He went, tugging up raincoat collar, down the pavement, paused at a corner, turned, raised a hand, then disappeared, plunging into memory.

  Thirty-five minutes later Raikes drove the car into the garage off the Edgware Road. He shut and locked the door and manhandled the crate out of the back of the car. Already with Gilpin he had, been surprised how light it was. He lowered the trap ladder, then taking the crate by one of the rope handles at the end he pulled it up the outer ladder runners to the loft. The lid was held by two big knock-away spring clasps at each end. He hit them free and opened the crate. The thing was packed with sawdust. He scraped some away, then groped with his hands inside. It came up with a small brown plastic canister that fitted neatly into the hand. He felt around. There were more of them, all the same. He put one in his pocket, then closed the lid on the others.

  In the Edgware Road he caught a taxi and rode it as far as Berkeley Square. From there he walked to the flat.

  Belle wasn’t in. He knew she wouldn’t be. He had passed her on the corner of the street as he had turned down to the garage. She would be in there now with a cloth, polishing, cleaning the interior of the car free of all prints. By now, gloved, she could even be driving it back to the car hire firm which stayed open until midnight on a Saturday—cutting off that section of life, false hire name and address, nothing to trace the car back to them even if some wet afternoon country stroller had happened to notice it in

  conjunction with the Land-Rover and had memorized the number. He locked the canister in the safe, then mixed himself a whisky

  and soda. He sat for half an hour, drinking. Then he went into the

  bathroom, stripped and lay soaking. The cut on his face had dried

  up, but the steam and water started the bleeding again.

  He heard her come in and move around the room outside.

  He called, ‘ Belle?’ It was a hell of a name, but he gave it warmth.

  This was how it had to be. Feel it, not act it. It was a good name,

  Belle. Beautiful, full of promise.

  She said, ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes. No hitch. Did you get rid of the car?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose you’d like me to get another—tomorrow or

  Monday?’

  Suppose nothing. Stop supposing.

  ‘Monday. Have a drink. I’m two ahead of you.’ He lay, picturing

  her at the sideboard. Belle was beautiful. Her body, all of her; the

  long Burne-Jones face and the stupid hair, the supposes and the

  nervousness. They were all beautiful, desirable, because he had to

  have her.

  He stepped out of the bath, and began to towel himself. The

  blood from his face stained the towel. Still half wet he searched

  the cabinet for sticking plaster and couldn’t find any.

  He called, ‘Belle.’

  She came into the bedroom.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Could you find some sticking plaster? I’ve cut my face.’

&
nbsp; She didn’t answer but he heard her move away and after a

  moment or two she was back.

  ‘You want it in there?’

  ‘Please. You can fix it for me.’

  The door opened and she came in.

  He sat on the bath stool, the towel draped across his thighs.

  She stood there, in her black dress, the pearls she had worn the

  first time he saw her tight about her throat, immobile, one hand holding up a tin of Band-Aid as though it were a cross, a holy, unbreakable guard between her and evil.

  He cocked his head sideways so that she could see the cut.

  ‘Be an angel and fix it for me.’

  She came over and avoided his eyes as she opened the tin and selected a plaster. She put the tin down on the side of the bath.