The Doomsday Carrier

by Victor Canning

  Back at Redthorn House, Rimster came into the lounge from the administrative wing where he had been called to the telephone to talk to Grandison. Jean was sitting by the open french windows reading a morning paper.

  He said, “That was my master speaking from London. If there’s no sign of Charlie by tonight the powers that be have decided to issue a press and radio release. And the police will be informed.”

  “What will they say?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “I wasn’t given the exact wording, but I’ll get a copy when it comes. Certainly it won’t be anything like the whole truth. Not within a hundred miles of it. In the meantime there’s no point in our sitting about. I’ll get the people here to put us up some lunch and we’ll take a drive around. Can’t offer to buy you a lunch anywhere—we’ve got to stay by the car in case anything comes through. Who knows, we might strike lucky and sight Charlie ourselves.”

  “What happens then?”

  “Well, we’ll have a bunch of bananas and while you charm him I’ll call up the operations centre. They’ve got a truck all fitted up to take him. You think he might give trouble?”

  “He could. If things are going as planned with him he should be . . . well, not very happy at the moment.”

  “Too bad. In that case we’ll have to get the truck party to shoot him.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t get alarmed. Not with a four-o-four nitro express bullet. Just a knock-out nembutal dart.”

  When she was gone to get ready he lit a cigarette and stood looking out of the window. The car was outside and he had ordered the picnic lunch before coming in to her. Grandison, unusual for him, had been nearing bad temper on the telephone which meant that it was one of those rare occasions when his advice had not been taken.

  Although he hadn’t told Jean so, he knew how the report for the press and police was to be worded. A chimpanzee, named Charlie, being transferred from a private collection on the East coast to a new owner in the South of England, had escaped from its travelling cage on the truck when the vehicle had been involved in a minor accident on the Winchester-Salisbury road. If Charlie were soon caught the story would hold. But if he stayed out too long some bright boy from one of the national papers might begin to poke around. June was the silly season for newspapers . . . good fill-ups were always welcome and Charlie would be a change from the Loch Ness monster. Everybody loved a good animal story, and chimps were lovable. And the press boys were no fools. They would—if Charlie stayed out—soon be poking into his background. Private collections on the East coast and wild-life parks in Dorset wouldn’t hold up for long. Whoever had overruled Grandison had to be carrying a lot of weight—and, maybe, not much imagination.

  By five o’clock that afternoon there had been no sign of Charlie or reports about him. The police were informed and the story went out as a small news item on the local television and radio channels. At ten o’clock that night Rimster had a call from the operation centre. A motor-cyclist recovering from an accident in hospital who had heard the news over the radio had reported that he was certain that the chimpanzee had been the cause of his accident on a small side road east of Salisbury.

  The Garvey family had heard neither radio nor television because Mr Garvey had taken them all for an evening drive in his car to visit Mrs Garvey’s mother on the outskirts of Southampton.

  Rimster, taking his coffee alone after dinner while Jean walked in the garden, guessed that more sightings would soon follow (even though some of them would be the product of old ladies’ imaginations and false, mischievous calls). He felt that Charlie’s days were numbered well below twenty-one. It was a pity from a professional point of view because he would like to have seen how Grandison and the big boys would have handled the ticking time bomb of public relations if Charlie had managed to run them close up to the limit.

  * * * *

  Charlie himself stayed all day on the island and most of the time in his tree. He had no desire for food, his shivering fits gradually became less frequent. He had only vomited once during the day when in the afternoon he had dropped down to drink some more water from the river. Most of the time he had rested in his bed, watching the country and castle grounds and sometimes dropping off into fitful bouts of sleep. But by the time the moon was riding well over the horizon, blurred by the rising river mist, he was feeling better and restless.

  At two o’clock in the morning he came down from the tree and waded across the shallow run to the left bank of the river and began to move downstream. A herd of young bullocks saw him and, with the curiosity of their kind, began to follow him and now and then cavorted and circled round him. Charlie, frightened by the thudding of their hooves and their movement around him, ran from them and escaped over the iron railing on to the private road by the river bridge.

  An hour later as he moved across a sedgy patch of ground a hundred yards away from the river he disturbed a late-sitting semi-wild muscovy duck from her nest in the reeds at the side of a small ditch. There were seven eggs in the nest and Charlie ate six of them before he moved on. A little later, feeling stronger, even now and then making contented hoo-hooing noises to himself, he crossed from the left bank to the right bank of the river by a narrow iron bridge. Below the bridge a long run of redbrick farm buildings and a concrete-built milking parlour stood back from the Avon, well above flood level. One of the buildings had an open front. A farm tractor stood inside under a half-loft which was piled with a few bales of old straw. Charlie climbed on to the tractor, reached up and swung himself up to the loft. He pulled straw from the bales, gathered more loose straw from the floor and made himself a bed. As he lay down and curled himself up a shivering fit, far less intense than any of the others he had had, began to move through him.

  He lay there, his teeth chattering gently, and slowly, as the fit passed, he drifted off to sleep. After a while the few rats who lived in the loft came out from their hiding places and began to move around. From the nearby river came the sound of an occasional fish rising and now and again the calling of a pair of tawny owls as they hunted the river fields. A rat, emboldened by Charlie’s stillness, and smelling the eggs he had eaten, came to his right hand and nibbled at the dried yolk remains which matted the hairs above his wrist. Charlie felt it in his sleep, flicked his hand and the rat scurried away. Charlie slept until the first light of his fourth day of freedom woke him, aided by the chattering and quarrelling of sparrows on the roof of the building.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  EARLY THE NEXT morning the Garvey family were all having breakfast together and listening, as they always did, to the radio. Andrew was only half-listening to it, the heavy aftermath of sleep still with him, as it always was when the morning promised only the prospect of going to school. At the weekends it was different. He would be up before anyone else and as bright as a button. Mrs Garvey was shuttling between the kitchen and the living room with food. When they were all away she would settle down and have a quiet breakfast by herself. Judy ate in much the same kind of half-daze as her brother, but wishing that her father would hurry up and finish with the newspaper. She wanted to read her horoscope for the day. Sometimes, of course, it was really daft, but then again it was sometimes just spot on . . . Today is one for caution in business affairs, but brings unexpected romantic possibilities. That was the day, three weeks ago, when she had had her purse stolen from the cloakroom and had met Teddy, her current boy friend. Teddy’s charms were quickly beginning to wear thin. It was time something new popped over the horizon. Mr Garvey, eyes on the sports page, read, ate and listened to the radio and, although it was no good for his trade, wished that they might have just one day of really belting rain to freshen up things in his allotment patch where lettuces and spinach were bolting into seed heads unless you stood by to catch the right moment to cut them.

  In the kitchen Mrs Garvey dropped a plate and broke it. Father, son and daughter looked up and into the sudden spell of their alert attention came the voice of the rad
io announcer.

  “. . . the animal escaped from its truck as the result of a minor accident on the Winchester-Salisbury road. Charlie is a seven-year old chimpanzee and, while not dangerous, anyone seeing it should keep away from it and report the sighting at once to the police. Charlie is believed to be somewhere in the Salisbury area. Here is the telephone number to call if—”

  The rest was lost as Andrew banged both his fists on the table and shouted, “There you are! I did see him! A chimpanzee. Charlie the chimpanzee—he came fishing with me!”

  Judy grinning said, “He told you his name was Charlie, did he?”

  Mr Garvey rose. “Come along, lad. The call box at the end of the road.”

  Andrew was out of the room before his father, his sister calling after him, “Don’t forget to tell them how he caught that grayling.”

  But Andrew was away with his father, laughing, following, and there was only one thought in Andrew’s mind. The police would want to know everything, take ages that would, maybe he’d be driven off in a patrol car to show them where it was and all that . . . and with any luck he wouldn’t see school today. Good old Charlie.

  At that moment Charlie, who had awoken early feeling hungry and much more himself, had long left his loft and was moving idly back up the river towards Longford Castle. But instead of crossing the iron bridge he had kept to the right bank, following a narrow fishing path. He stopped once to drink from the river and then pulled a few leaves from an overhanging willow branch and chewed them into a wad. Half a mile above the bridge the river swung round in a great curve, widening into a long, deep pool which was the haunt of large pike and an occasional salmon. Sand martins flew low over the water patterning it with small rings as their breasts flicked it, rings that matched those made by the trout which were rising to an early morning hatch of fly. Reed warblers fluted among the rushes and sedges bordering the river, and distantly a solitary cuckoo called brokenly.

  From the top end of the pool came the sound of heavy splashing. Made curious by this noise Charlie walked half-way round the curve of the pool and saw over the high, fringing reeds the bald head and naked shoulders of an elderly man swimming slowly but clumsily against the gentle current. Clarence Bedew, a retired civil servant, a bachelor who lived in a small cottage just off the Ringwood road, three-quarters of a mile away across the fields to the west, was taking, as he always did when the weather was fine and the season right, his early morning swim. He was a puffy, noisy and not very strong swimmer, but he was enjoying himself and relishing the calm and peace of the early morning. He was a good-natured man, but also hasty-tempered. At the moment, sure of his solitude, he was quoting poetry aloud to himself. . . What was he doing, the great god Pan, Down in the reeds by the river? His feet touched gravel and he stood up and massaged his bald head and then his shoulders. Splashing and paddling with hoofs of a goat. . . He did a little dance, relishing the buoyancy that took his body. And breaking the golden lilies afloat with the dragon-fly on the river . . .

  Charlie moved up the bank towards Mr Bedew but stopped when he came across the man’s clothes piled on the grass by a break in the mace reeds and bullrusties. He sat down, the reeds hiding him from sight, and began to turn over the clothes and hunger for a while gave way to his instinct for play. There was something about cloth which always excited him. He liked to chew and suck it and he liked to throw it about. Chattering and pouting his lips with pleasure, he draped a shirt over his shoulders, stretched a sock between his hands and then threw it into the water. A few seconds later he sent an immaculately polished brown shoe after it. He turned over Mr Bedew’s trousers and reaching into a pocket found a key-ring and a penknife. He dropped the keys to the grass, scratched himself behind his right ear with the penknife and then put it in his mouth and sucked at it while he picked up the man’s jacket. Although his. sense of smell was not as keen as his sight or hearing he picked up at once two smells familiar to him, one was tobacco and the other was chocolate. Rooting in the pockets he pulled a tobacco pouch from one and a half-eaten bar of chocolate, loosely wrapped, from the other. In his time Charlie had had a keeper who, discovering his passion for tobacco, had occasionally given him a cigarette to chew. Charlie, tearing the loose paper from the chocolate, put the half bar into his mouth and added to it a generous helping of loose pipe tobacco.

  Shaking his head as flies buzzed around his ears, his dark, lustrous eyes shining with pleasure, Charlie rolled the wad around his mouth and now and again gave a soft pant-hoot of contentment. He picked up Mr Bedew’s well-worn panama hat and flicked it into the river. It landed crown up and floated away, gently spinning on the current.

  A few seconds later Mr Bedew, who always finished his bathe with a little swim under water, surfaced in the gap in the run of reeds and stood up, waist deep, water rolling from his body. Short-sighted, and the water in his eyes not helping him, he saw Charlie as a very blurred shape. In fact what he saw, as sudden rage rose in him, was some darkly dressed gypsy boy sitting there with his . . . his! . . . clothes scattered all around and calmly wearing his shirt around his neck like a scarf.

  No coward, Mr Bedew charged forward through the water and roared, “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing? You damned rascal!” Grabbing his walking stick from the grass he swung it angrily at the gypsy lad and cracked him across the shoulder.

  Charlie, startled and hurt by the stinging cane blow, gave a loud scream of pain. He rolled over backwards, twisted to all fours, and galloped away up the river path as fast as he could go, Mr Bedew’s shirt falling from his shoulders as he went.

  For a little while Mr Bedew went after him but when he reached his shirt he realized he could never catch the small dark figure. He picked up his shirt and went back to the rest of his clothes. When he found his glasses in the top pocket of his jacket and put them on and saw what had happened, his mounting anger drove all the pleasure of the glorious June morning from him and banished all poetry from his mind.

  Charlie kept going until a turn in the river put him out of sight of Mr Bedew and, as the smart of the cane blow died, he slackened his pace to an amble. Turning away from the river, he climbed over a field gate and made his way towards a clump of tall birch trees which overhung a narrow side road which led to the main Salisbury-Ringwood road a quarter of a mile away. Keeping on the field side of the birches, Charlie followed the line of the hedge towards the main road.

  A hundred yards off the main road a canvas-topped lorry was parked on the grass verge of the side road. The driver, who had been travelling since before daybreak from the West Country with a load of vegetables and fruit, was in his cab taking a short nap after finishing his breakfast. Before him he had the long run to the London markets.

  Coming abreast of the lorry on the other side of the hedge the warm morning breeze wafted towards Charlie the faint smell of early strawberries, gooseberries and vegetables. He stood upright and saw the lorry. He climbed through the hedge and went to the back of the lorry. Two canvas flaps covered the rear end of the vehicle above the raised tailboard. The sides of the flaps were held together loosely by cording through eyelets in the canvas. The smell of food moving him strongly, Charlie climbed up on to the tailboard and pushed hard at the canvas. It bulged inwards, leaving a narrow gap through which Charlie squeezed himself downwards and under the canvas into the lorry. Light came through the loose cording of the canvas join. Charlie sat down on a netted sack, ripped part of the mesh with a tug of his strong fingers, and pulled out a handful of young carrots. With a low grunt of pleasure he began to eat.

  * * * *

  Rimster came through the open french windows of the lounge and down the brick-paved path between the terrace rose beds. He wore an open-necked green shirt with a paisley foulard at his throat and immaculately creased light cord trousers. He looked clean, hard-chiselled and impossible to ruffle. It was the first time Jean had seen him this morning. He had breakfasted before her. She guessed that he had been in the administrative w
ing. In the short time they had been together she had realized that he considered it no part of his duties to keep her company—not that she wanted his company or anyone else’s for that matter. Sometimes he ate with her and sometimes not. When they drove around together he was pleasant enough but clearly had no wish to move beyond some clearly marked line of social conduct. At first she had been untouched and indifferent at his polite remoteness, but now she found it beginning to irritate her and to provoke m her speculation as to how he was with people who could make a claim to his friendship. . . or, maybe, his love. Perhaps there were no such people.

  He came up to her and held out a letter, saying, “Good morning.” His eyes flickered momentarily skyward. “Glass is still high. Flaming June. This came for you.”

  “Good morning. Thank you.” Jean took the letter and glanced at the handwriting. It was somehow familiar but she could not place it.

  She opened her handbag and was putting the letter in when he said, “Would you open it, please. I’d like to know who wrote it.”

  “Why?” The sudden annoyance in her came over clearly.

  “Because only a few people are supposed to know you are here. And don’t look so offended. I could have opened it myself and you would never have known it had been tampered with. Sorry, but I must know.”

  She shrugged her shoulders and opened the letter. Inside was another letter, the envelope folded in two, and a sheet of note-paper with a few lines from Boyson which read: George came round insisting that he had to get in touch with you. Pm not allowed to say where you are—damned if I know why—but I said I would see you got the enclosed. Harold.