Captain Stevens, one of the pilots ordered to the wood, came to it from the westward side. Before he began to lose height he had the whole area of the wood spread out below him. He saw that it was in shape a crude, curving S, rather like a clumsy drawing of a green, rearing seahorse, and was about two miles in breadth at its widest point. It was cut by overgrown rides and paths and lying off it at intervals around its edges were isolated spinneys and copses. If Charlie was in there still it would take all day to beat the place properly and flush him out and unless there were men at twenty-yard intervals all around the wood he could easily come out unnoticed. From up here, of course, it was easier but still by no means a certainty that he would be spotted. The pilot flying the other helicopter he knew held day ten in the sweepstake. He grinned to himself. If Charlie did make a break for it they would both be under the temptation of turning a blind eye. He dropped to searching height at the south end of the wood—marked on his map as Collingbourne Wood—and began to move along his patrol course up the western side of the mass of trees.
* * * *
At Westacott Bottom Duncan Sparrow had no trouble from the press when they arrived a good hour after the dog handlers had left and the police and other cars had driven off.
They were disappointed that Charlie had gone but they photographed the yard and the barn and the stall where Charlie had slept and also the hole in the roof through which Charlie had escaped. They then—there were three of them, a driver, a reporter and a photographer—adjourned to his kitchen for coffee and what was left of his brandy and had a long talk with him about all that had happened. Apart from the direct questions they asked him, they were good-naturedly interested in his opinions and speculations about the whole Charlie business. Before they left they paid him well, more than he had expected considering they had not been able to photograph Charlie. Still it was, if not enough for a couple of weeks by the briny in company, more than enough for an extended weekend with ditto, he told himself as he poured himself another glass of brandy from a reserve store he had wisely resisted all temptation to broach in their company.
Driving off in the car the reporter said to the photographer, “What do you think?”
The other shrugged his shoulders. “That’s your job. But for my money and the pricking in my thumbs something fishy this way comes.”
“You’re dead right. It’s not like the police to take a backseat to anyone. Nor the Army for that matter. I wonder who the two civilians were?”
“Well, he said the woman was called Miss Blackwell—she’s got to rank somewhere. We’ve got a local bloke in Salisbury, get him on to it.”
“Okay. We’ll stop at the next call-box and I’ll ring him. There’s something in all this. Charlie’s somebody’s darling and the old man will want to know whose. The story’s no good without a hook to hang it on.” He belched suddenly. “God, that was pretty cheap brandy . . .”
“Well, he was a pretty cheap type. What a dump—no wonder Charlie skipped it.”
* * * *
George Freeman tie let himself into Jean’s flat. He had over the last few days, whenever he had time or was in the neighbourhood, taken to going to the flat in the hope of finding her there. That she, or somebody else, visited the flat he was certain because the mail which he often found in the flat was always gone on his next visit. He picked up now two letters from inside the door and carried them into the sitting room; both of them looked like bills. The determination to find her and have a straight talk with her was still strong in him. Boyson had refused to take any more letters for her and it had not been difficult to see that somebody had given the man a directive he could not dare to ignore.
Well, to hell with them, he thought. As the old song or proverb said, love would always find a way. And love it was—if only he could get a chance to see her and prove it to her. She was the woman he wanted, the woman he loved and he was going to have her.
As he put the letters down on her desk the idea came to him that it would be the easiest thing in the world to write a letter and leave it with the rest of the mail to be collected. You’re slipping, Georgie boy, he told himself. Should have thought of that days ago. He took paper and envelope from her desk and sat down to write. It would be difficult to write what it would have been easy to say to her face . . . watching her face and eyes he would have been able to pick up the slightest change in her feelings, see an opening and take it. He sighed as he set to the bleak task of composition. Women, they thought love was all up there in the clouds, rosy stuff. They never seemed to understand that, while a man would cut off a hand for them, work himself to the bone, give them the earth on a silver plate, and really mean until death us do part, against all that, the odd half hour when the old Adam in you trapped you with your trousers down was of no more importance than one drink too many. But how the hell did you get that down on paper? How the devil did he start? On the few occasions he had written to her before it was usually My lovely lass, or Honey pot. Didn’t seem right somehow now. My darling? My dearest Jean?
He groaned. The door bell rang and with a sudden spurt of hope he got up quickly and went to it.
A middle-aged man in a crumpled fawn linen suit stood outside. He had a large, bland reddish face, sloe-dark eyes and a long, loosely assembled body.
He said, “Sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for a Miss Blackwell.”
“So am I.”
“Oh . . . Well, I’m not sure that the one who lives here is the one. She’s —” He broke off, eyed George up and down and then went on, “You’re not the press are you?”
“No, I’m not. Are you?”
“Yes—Craister’s the name. I’ve drawn three blanks so far. The one I want is thirtyish, tallish, dark-haired, good-looking and has something to do with this Charlie the chimp that’s missing. You’ve heard about that?”
“Yes, I have. Come in. We may be able to help one another.”
“Ta.”
George showed Craister into the sitting room and waved him to a seat. He dropped into it, took out a handkerchief and wiped his face, saying, “Bloody hot, isn’t it? Thirsty weather, too. Not that I’m suggesting anything. Here’s my card.”
George took it and glanced at it as he made his way to the kitchen. Press all right. Area representative Press Association so on and so on. What the hell was all this about? Charlie the chimpanzee and Jean? Well? Could be, of course. The Lord only knew what went on up at Fadledean.
He came back with glasses and four cans of lager. As Craister drank, George said, “This flat belongs to a Miss Jean Blackwell. She’s also my fiancee. She also fits the description you’ve given. And that’s all I’m saying until you’ve spoken your piece.”
“Fair enough. But you did say you were looking for her?”
“Yes.”
“Since when?”
“Six days odd. And that’s all you get, old man, until I know what makes you interested in her.”
“Fair enough.”
They talked, which was thirsty work, and finished six cans of lager between them.
* * * *
Just before dinner that evening as Jean was sitting on the terrace Rimster came out to her and handed her the letters which one of the orderlies had been detailed to collect each day. He strolled away down the terrace while she read them. Two of them were bills, he guessed, but the other was unstamped. George Freemantle, he knew now, was the only other person with a key to her flat. George had been a little slow in realizing how easily he could communicate with her. Slow, but sure maybe. Perhaps in the end he would get the girl. The way life went turned on too many small things. Because of George Charlie had escaped—and he was here doing a job which, significantly, for the first time in his career, was right out of his line. A rare spasm of anger flared through him. There was nothing to get his teeth into, nothing he could do to push things forward. He just had to sit and let other people do things. He was beginning to suspect, for all the men and machines the army had, they weren’t mak
ing a very efficient job of things. The simplest and most effective way of scotching Charlie would have been to put out a public warning that he could be dangerous and offer a reward for him . . . a hundred pounds dead or alive. That way he wouldn’t have lasted three days and Fadledean could have got another chimpanzee and started their experiment all over again and with much tighter security precautions. But clearly someone, somewhere on the Olympian heights of Whitehall, had vetoed that.
Jean read George’s letter after she had opened the two bills. It read—
My darling Girl,
Like the Irishman said if you don’t receive this please write and let me know. Not that I feel flippant, just frustrated because it’s hopeless to try and put things on paper. I’ve got to be talking to you—so please leave a note in your flat saying when and where. A little bird tells me that probably you’re tied down because of this Charlie the chimp business. I say no more because I know how you are over Fadledean stuff. But there’s nothing to stop you dropping me a note, and I know how to be patient. YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE FOR ME AND I CAN PROVE IT.
All my love and yours always—
George
P.S. I don’t mind Charlie coming between us if that’s urgent business—but nobody else.
Despite herself Jean smiled. George would promise anything to get what he wanted. However, he was successful in business because he backed his promises with performance. How many women, she wondered, were married to Georges and had learned to live with them happily?
Rimster came back and said, “George?”
“Yes.” She held up the letter.
He shook his head. “You don’t have to.”
“I know. But I have to with this one. It concerns you.” Rimster read the letter and then handed it back.
“How could he possibly have connected you with Charlie?”
“I can’t think. I never discussed my work with him and certainly never mentioned Charlie.”
“Then I’d better find out.”
He drove down to Salisbury by himself. There was no reply to the bell of George’s flat. In the lobby he asked the hall porter about him.
The man said, “He left about four in his car. Had his big case with him. Probably means he’s away for a few days. His works will know if you give them a ring tomorrow morning. You can leave a note here for him if you like, sir.”
“No, thanks.”
Rimster went back to Redthorn House and rang his office. Grandison was not there but he left a message for him. If George had coupled Charlie’s escape with Jean’s work at Fadledean then he had not snatched the idea out of the blue. Somebody had told him or suggested it to him. He could think of a dozen possibilities and of one more likely than any other. That stupid Colonel had used Jean’s name in front of Duncan Sparrow and the man had been clearly lying when he said he had made no approach to the press—and there had been nothing he could do about it. That was the kind of stupid job this was. The odds were that when Grandison saw the papers tomorrow morning there would be fireworks because the over-anxious men above him had refused right from the beginning to couple Charlie’s name with Fadledean.
He went in and joined Jean, who had already started dinner.
“You spoke to him?”
“No. The hall porter says he’s gone away for a few days. Do you think George could just have made a wild guess?”
“I don’t think so. He doesn’t have that kind of imagination.”
“Well, somebody has. Damn that stupid Sparrow man.” Jean said nothing. For the first time since she had known him he was openly showing frustration. Even granite over the years slowly rotted away.
* * * *
Charlie slept most of the afternoon in the northern part of Collingbourne Wood. He had made a nest high up in the top branches of a beech tree. He slept fitfully, waking now and then to the noise of a helicopter and once to hear the voices of searching patrols beating northwards through the trees and undergrowth, the sound of their sticks thudding at tree trunks and bushes twice passing quite close to his beech. Normally he might have been excited by this and have moved from his tree, but the unaccustomed pig meat which he had eaten had made him feel lethargic and ill. He just lay, holding his arms close around himself to ease the disturbance in his stomach.
Towards sunset the noise of the helicopters moved away and there were no more disturbances by the searching patrols which had moved to the southern part of the wood. As the day’s fierce heat slowly leached away Charlie’s stomach began to settle. Just before sunset thirst grew in him and he dropped down from the tree and began to search for water. He found it a quarter of a mile away near the top end of the wood where a spring broke through the floor of an old stone working and formed a small pool fringed with reeds and a tangle of alder growths. Charlie drank his fill and, feeling more comfortable every minute, began to explore the edges of the pool and found a moorhen’s nest with a late clutch of eggs. He gathered four or five of them in the crook of one arm and carried them into a patch of tall willow herbs. Pulling leaves from the willow herbs he chewed them into a thick wad and then began to eat the eggs by putting them whole into his mouth and crunching them so that their savouriness mixed with the mess of leaves. He sat for half an hour contentedly mouthing on his egg and leaf wads, grunting and softly hooing to himself and enjoying the cooling evening air as the daylight faded to dusk. On the far side of the pool he now and then caught the agitated flick of a moorhen’s white tail as the bird moved nervously among the reeds, too scared to return to her nest while Charlie was in sight. A tawny owl floated silently through the trees and banked softly away as it saw Charlie. Distantly there were the sounds of traffic on a road and once a jet fighter flew low over the wood, the sudden roar of its passing making Charlie jump to his feet and scream with fright.
Disturbed by the jet he left the pool and wandered aimlessly through the trees until he reached the edge of the wood. He climbed one of the outlying trees and made himself a bed. He twisted and turned on it for a while until the bent and broken branches were to his liking and then lay back on it and, long eased of all stomach discomfort, watched the darkening slope of the open rough land which ran down from the edge of the wood.
Two hundred yards away a light showed from the window of a small cottage and farther away Charlie saw the headlights of cars passing along a road. At the cottage a dog began to bark intermittently and was only stilled when a man shouted at it. The stars brightened in the moonless sky as the night darkened. Charlie lay, watching the erratic flight of bats hawking above the trees, and finally slept. During the night the fox which had found the remains of the piglet and buried it came through the trees and winded Charlie’s scent. It circled his tree, looking upwards, and then moved on out of the wood, passing the cottage and setting the dog barking again briefly.
At first light the next morning a gamekeeper, who lived alone in the cottage, came out, carrying a shotgun. He released the dog from its shed and the pair moved away down the side of the wood.
Charlie, who had been awake some time, watched them go and then dropped down from his tree and ambled on all fours down to the cottage garden where he breakfasted on young pea pods for a while and then pulled the netting from a row of strawberries and ate his fill of the fruit while above him the larks filled the dawn sky with song as the daylight slowly strengthened on the seventh day of Charlie’s freedom.
CHAPTER SEVEN
ALL THE NATIONAL daily papers carried the Charlie story that morning with photographs of the barn and the hole in the roof, and some with photographs of Duncan Sparrow to mark the interview with him. Without exception all of them wanted to know the truth about Charlie. Why were troops and helicopters being employed in the search for him—at the public’s expense? Was his mysterious, unrevealed private owner going to foot the bill for the search? Or was he really privately owned? If so, why was a distinguished micro-biologist from the Fadledean Research Station, a Miss Jean Blackwell—not available for interview—taking
a prominent part in the search? Had Charlie escaped while on his way to Fadledean? Or had he escaped from Fadledean? The public was entitled to know since a great deal of their money was being spent on the search for him; a search which did not appear to be particularly competent since Charlie had now been free for almost a week. Many of the newspaper cartoonists, glad to forget political and international subjects, featured Charlie.
Grandison, standing in the window bay of the Minister’s room while the Minister spoke on the telephone at his desk, knew that before the day was out all the radio and television networks would be hard at work on the story and Charlie would be a national figure. So long as there was an element of mystery, or a chance to embarrass officialdom, the media would not let go.
He turned as he heard the telephone replaced. The day’s newspapers were spread over the great desk and the Minister sat behind them, a small, brisk, neat man with a thin, tired face, his top teeth working nervously on his lower lip. A rabbit, thought Grandison. They were all rabbits, though not all of them looked like them.
The Minister said, “I’m seeing the P.M. in an hour’s time. What do you suggest?”
Grandison let the monocle drop from his eye to clink against his coat buttons. Always this way, he thought. What do you suggest, as though they had no minds of their own. Politicians in office never went out on the ice until they had pushed others forward first to test it.
“What I suggested originally. Go as near the damned truth as you can. People these days know all about Chemical and Biological Warfare establishments. Fadledean, Porton, Fort Detrick in the States, and the Suffield Proving Grounds in Canada. . . every country has them. The public know they have to be but don’t want to think about them. If we’d made a simple statement at the beginning saying Charlie had escaped from Fadledean where he was the subject of, say, animal behaviour research or some such guff—then there would have been no trouble except for the cries of a few cranks who would have been ignored by the press because that kind of protest isn’t news.”
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