Hartinger's Mouse (Commander Shaw Book 12)

by Philip McCutchan

  She threw back her hair, with very much her brother’s gesture. They seemed almost to be twins. “Dominic’s all right. Claire’s gone down with it. Oh, Jay!”

  She was crying; he comforted her. “Beth, I’m terribly sorry. Try not to worry, though. We’re doing all we can. Commander Shaw’s the man on the job, as a matter of fact. It couldn’t be in better hands.”

  At any other time I’d have kidded Jagger about that remark, because in point of fact we hardly ever saw eye to eye when our paths crossed and it had always been obvious he considered himself the best bet. But just now, of course, I couldn’t say a thing. I felt awkward and superfluous and I murmured something about going out to wait in the car, but Jagger put a hand on my arm to restrain me. He asked his sister what the doctor had said, knowing what the answer would be: the doctor hadn’t the least idea what the disease was and all he could recommend in the way of treatment was gentle swabbing with lint and boracic, and he had given Beth a prescription for that good old medical stand-by, penicillin. When you don’t know what the heck to do, prescribe penicillin, it cures everything.

  I could sense the girl’s sheer frustration, because she knew that as well as I did.

  “Can we see her?” Jagger asked.

  Beth said, “Of course you can. She’d love to see you, Jay. Only … be careful.”

  He knew what she meant and he squeezed her arm. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll come up, sailor?”

  I said, “I don’t want to intrude. I’m sure your sister —”

  “Claire loves visitors, Commander Shaw. She’s always liked to see people when she’s been ill,” Beth said.

  Jagger said, again in an odd tone, “I think you ought to, sailor.”

  “Then I will, of course,” I said. We followed Beth up the stairs. It was a nice house, big, and beautifully furnished. We went into a room off a short corridor leading from the landing. It was a bright room, decorated in pink — pink carpet, nice and thick, pink curtains, pink motif on the expensive wallpaper, pink sheets and blankets on the bed. In the bed, to my utter horror, violent staring red. A six-year-old girl, pretty, with very flushed cheeks and terrible red sores all the way up both arms.

  It really shook me and it shook Jagger too. He caught his breath, tried to keep the horror out of his face and voice as he said gently, “Hullo there, Claire.”

  “Hullo, Uncle Jay. Don’t come too close. I’ve got something horrid.”

  “It’ll soon go,” Jagger said. “Just like measles or chicken pox.” Beth went to the head of the bed and smoothed the child’s forehead. I looked at little Claire again; it seemed to me that the redness in the cheeks wasn’t just from a high temperature. It had the same sort of look as my finger had had. With me it had passed off quickly enough and there had been no after-effects at all, but in this child it would lead to further sores, as on the arms. It could be that the strain of the virus — or whatever it was — was strengthening. If so, it wasn’t a slow grower. God alone knew what we might be in for. And as for little Claire, for my money she wasn’t going to last. She had the look of death on her. I think Jagger saw that too.

  When we had left the house and were heading to join the M1 at Watford and come off it again at the Toddington exit, Jagger blasphemed for a full sixty seconds without a pause. His face was white and there was a bad shake in his fingers. There was no comfort I could offer. He ended up by saying, “You’ve seen for yourself what we’re up against. We’ve got to lick this thing.”

  “We’re going to,” I said, and once again I wondered: how?

  *

  Passing through Cambridge I caught sight of the newspaper placards. SCHOOLS CLOSED IN WORST HIT AREAS. So that was out. HOSPITALS FACING CRISIS. MORE DEATHS. STRIKES THREATENED. There would be! I hoped that wouldn’t be more than just a threat, because if strikes were added to the national anxiety — if essential services should be disrupted — we were in for worse and worse trouble. But I could hardly blame the workers if they didn’t want to rub shoulders with catastrophe. Factories, shops and offices, tubes and buses, would spread the filthy thing like lightning, probably. Farther along I saw something that made my flesh crawl: a number of new coffins being unloaded in an undertaker’s yard. Trust somebody to cash in on the situation, was my first unthinking reaction. But of course these things had to be done and sensible precautions were better than improvident shortages later.

  The Backs along the Cam were as beautiful as ever as we drove past for the Ely road, the trees heavy and green beneath the film of summer dust, and people strolling on the grass. There wasn’t quite the atmosphere of Pinner here, but I fancied I saw strain in the passing faces all the same, and the insistent siren of an ambulance as it came up from behind us had a more sinister sound than usual.

  We left Cambridge behind and headed north along the A10, turning off to the left a little way short of Ely. Off this road, left again, we entered Fenlavington. The village was just a straggle of roadside cottages and I couldn’t find Horsted Cottage until, just beyond the village, we came upon a turning, little more than a cart track, with a hand-painted wooden sign reading Horsted Cottage and an arrow pointing down the track. When we reached the cottage, Fesse was fairly obviously out. The garage stood open and empty. It was a nice old property, thatched, with white walls, and very well restored. I’d say it had been three cottages originally, and now knocked into one. It had quite the air of a gentleman’s residence, with a well-kept gravel sweep in front and shrubs growing in green-painted tubs beside the front door, and good outbuildings behind.

  I rang the bell, in case there should be some sort of a domestic, but there was no reply. After a few minutes we wandered around to the back. Everything was well locked up, everything except the garage. There was a brick-built outhouse that looked as though it had once been an outside privy, there was a place with cobwebby windows that looked like a kind of workshop, and there was another building, new construction this time, also with cobwebby windows; the door of this place was not only heavily padlocked but also had a Chubb lock in it. And it was a very strong door, really massive.

  Jagger asked, “Well, what now? Do we wait around for Fesse to get back from work, or what? He could be away, couldn’t he?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “Everything else is so well locked up that I’d have thought he’d lock the garage as well if he meant to be away long.”

  “That’s true.”

  We paced the courtyard. Jagger was looking very edgy. I said, “I’ve half a mind to break in and take a look around on our own.”

  “Too risky. Much too risky.”

  I shrugged. “I can get in without leaving the evidence, Jagger.”

  “Perhaps you can. He could come back in the middle, couldn’t he? What do we say then?”

  “Quote the Home Office.”

  “Oh, yes!” Some of Jagger’s old indignation came back to him. “Don’t be damn silly, sailor. I don’t want to get thrown out on my ear — I’ve got quite a nice job. Don’t forget, you’ve said yourself you haven’t anything on Fesse.”

  I nodded without answering and drifted back towards the Chubbed and padlocked outbuilding. I peered through the dusty windows, and through an old keyhole from a no-longer-existent plain lock, but I could see damn all. I was still peering when I heard the sound of a car and at the same moment Jagger said, “Someone coming.”

  I turned around. A car was coming along the track, slowly. It was a Mercedes. It turned into the gravelled drive and stopped in front of the garage as Jagger and I came round from the back. Two hard dark eyes stared through the windscreen, heavy black brows lifted in arcs above them. A short man got out and slammed the door — a man short and thick and excessively hairy, with a tanned face, almost no neck, and immensely strong shoulders like a wrestler. The face was strong also and the whole effect was of much authority and drive. The accent, when he spoke, was harsh and guttural. Konrad Fesse.

  “Good evening, gentlemen,” he said. His eyes were wary,
though his manner was easy enough. “What can I do for you?”

  I said, “You’re Professor Fesse?”

  “Yes, I am Fesse. And you, who are you, may I ask?”

  As ever in such circumstances, honesty was the best policy; besides, I had to keep on remembering that I had nothing on Fesse — rationally, the man was every bit as innocent as a baby and had no connexion with current events beyond what could have been a wholly fortuitously timed visit to the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston. So I smiled at Fesse and said, “The name’s Shaw. I’m from the Home Office.” That was something of a stretch, but it didn’t matter. “This is my assistant, Mr Jagger.”

  Jagger made a curious noise in his throat, but accepted his new role meekly enough.

  Fesse asked, looking puzzled, but smiling a little, “What do you want, then, Mr Shaw?”

  “Just a word with you, if I may, Professor.”

  “But on what subject? Have I transgressed the laws in some way?” He lifted his arms; I saw the beautiful ripple of muscle under the well-cut coat. “Do you wish to deport me, gentlemen, is that it?”

  I smiled. “Hardly, Professor Fesse. I understand you’re a naturalized British subject.”

  “This is so, yes. I am still in the dark, however.”

  I said, “Professor Fesse, you’ll be aware, of course, that the country has been hit by an unknown disease that is causing a great deal of distress. I’m trying to find out more about the disease, so that we can combat it.”

  “You are a doctor of medicine?”

  “No. I’m on the … investigation side.”

  “I see.” Fesse was standing very still and his eyes were watchful. “So you come to me, to find out what you want to know.”

  “That’s it.”

  He lifted his shoulders. “How can I help you? I do not know the answer. If I had known, you can be sure I would have told somebody by now! I do not like to see people suffer, if I can prevent it.”

  I had the odd but definite feeling that this man was in fact totally impervious to suffering. I don’t know why I had that impression; maybe it was something in his eyes which, though dark, were curiously cold, with the coldness you normally only expect to find in light-eyed persons. Also it was his manner, his watchfulness, his very stillness. I didn’t like the look of Fesse and I thought of Jason Jagger’s niece, young Claire, dying beneath that horrible sore rash in Pinner. But all I said was, “I quite appreciate that, of course, Professor. I don’t really expect you to produce the cure — just like that. I —”

  “What do you expect, Mr Shaw?”

  I said, “If you’ll simply answer a few questions, we may be able to piece something together.”

  “I do not understand. How do you piece together a cure, may I ask, how do you succour the sick by asking questions which I would gather from what you have said are not to be purely medical?”

  I smiled, rather coldly. “How did you gather that, Professor?” I asked him.

  He took that in his stride, all right. He said with a touch of arrogance, “Because, my dear fellow, you have told me you are not a doctor of medicine.”

  “That’s true,” I said, shrugging. “Whereas you are — aren’t you? That being so, I think it’s your duty to help in any way you can. I’m particularly interested in the fact that you’ve been involved in aeromedics —”

  “How do you know this?”

  “How shouldn’t I? You’re a well-known person in your field, Professor. I also know that you’re interested in space medicine insofar as possible extra-terrestrial diseases are concerned —”

  “You think — your people think — that the skin-loss is symptomatic of a disease from the moon?”

  I caught Jagger’s eye; I’d said nothing about the moon to Fesse, though that didn’t have to prove much — Fesse would obviously have been discussing the disease with his colleagues in Cambridge and someone would almost certainly have come up with the moon theory. I nodded and said, “It’s a possibility, at least.”

  “Is there anything else you know about me, Mr Shaw?” There was a sneer in his voice. As he spoke he glanced expressionlessly at the ground, lifted his foot and brought it down on a large fat garden spider that had been hurrying home across the path. It was an unnecessary action and it helped to confirm the feeling I’d had that Fesse was as cold-blooded a man as you could find. Answering his question I said, “Yes, as a matter of fact there is. I happen to know you visited the Lunar Receiving Laboratory in Houston, Texas, recently — and I know what kind of experiment Dr Hartinger was working on at that time. Well, Hartinger’s dead but you’re not, Professor. Don’t you think you might have something helpful to offer us?”

  *

  When we drove away, which was within the next two minutes, Jagger said complainingly, “You didn’t stand up to him much, sailor.”

  “True,” I said. It was. Fesse had blazed into a sudden temper, shouted that he didn’t know anything that would help us, and that he was not obliged to answer any questions. And that, too, was true. I’d had to keep my temper and admit defeat for the time being and do what I could to lull Fesse back into a nice, happy feeling of confidence. I still had nothing concrete against him; nothing concrete, but I did have a smell. I didn’t want Fesse to know about that. I said to Jagger, “Something stinks about Horsted Cottage, and I mean that literally.”

  “I don’t follow.”

  “That outhouse,” I said. “The one with the Chubb and padlock. When I bent down to the keyhole I smelt a smell.”

  “Go on.”

  “Mice. Pretty strong. I’ve smelt it plenty of times before in my life, but the last occasion happened to be in Houston, Texas. Jagger, we’re paying another call on Konrad Fesse tonight — after dark.”

  6

  I DROVE back into Cambridge with Jagger and we had a drink and a good dinner at the Red Lion in Petty Cury and after that we filled in time until after full darkness had shut down on East Anglia. Then we drove back towards Ely and the road off which Fenlavington lay and I pulled the car into such cover as I could find, which was about the only roadside clump of scrubby trees in the whole of the area so far as I could make out. The Isle of Ely is bleak, too bleak for me. I said, “We walk from here, Jagger.”

  He moaned a little about that; Jagger was never the energetic sort. “When?” he asked.

  “Give it an hour at least.”

  “I’ll get a little sleep, then.”

  “Do. Good idea.”

  I kept wide awake myself and as it turned out it was just as well I did. We had been in hiding for around half an hour when I heard a car coming up fast from the Fenlavington direction and as it blinded past I saw enough of it to be fairly certain it was a Mercedes. I couldn’t be sure it was Fesse’s or that Fesse was driving it if it was; but it seemed a reasonable assumption that it was Fesse’s — Fenlavington hadn’t struck me as the sort of place in which you would find more than one Mercedes. I woke Jagger and told him what I’d seen. I said, “Fesse may have got rattled. Enough to send him off into hiding.”

  “I suppose that’s possible. What do we do now, sailor?”

  I said, “There’s no change in the plan, except that it goes into action right now. Out you get, Jagger.”

  We got out. It was a dry night, thank God, and warm, but there wasn’t any moon showing through the overcast. We went fast along the road and, once again, hit Fenlavington. We made our way through the village, hoping we wouldn’t come across the village constable on graveyard-hour beat; we didn’t — there was nothing moving anywhere. We approached Fesse’s cottage circumspectly, however, and found it in darkness and utter silence as we crept around past the empty garage — once again the doors were standing open — to the back. I went straight for the outhouse door. The padlock wouldn’t have taken any time to deal with, but the Chubb was a different proposition so I went for the glass of the window. I had a very efficient cutter and it took me little time to remove a segment and reach for the catch. I was in
side, with Jagger on guard outside, within five minutes of our arrival. I looked around in the light of my torch. There was a strong smell of mouse and there were several cages but they were all empty. There were two big cupboards but these were empty too; there was a sink with taps and there was some primitive equipment around — test-tubes, a clapped-out old Bunsen burner and so on. I sniffed at the test-tubes; they were clean. There was nothing to go on here. It looked too old-worldish, too old-maidish a set-up for dealing with space problems. Frustration set in, a feeling of hopelessness with so many blanks around. I was wondering whether it would be worth while taking a look inside the cottage when I heard a scared hissing sound from Jagger which I took to be a warning. I went to the window. Jagger’s face loomed up at me. “Someone’s unlocking the back door,” he said.

  “Get round the back of this place,” I snapped. “Quick!” I scrambled through the window and followed behind him and we had just got round the corner when I heard a phut-phut sound and bullets smacked into the wall of the outhouse. There were voices — there was more than one man, evidently. Sounds of excitement, of anger, came when they found the open window with the piece cut out. I hissed at Jagger, “Beat it while they’re busy looking round inside. There’s a field at the back.”

  Jagger was gone in a flash and I wasn’t far behind and we had only just got into the cover of a ditch when two men came round the sides of the outhouse — one on each side. They came in a crouching run, which gave me a hunted feeling. A moment after, two more men joined them. I had my gun, of course, but I didn’t believe I would get far against four men and it was more important that we should get away intact so I could alert Max. I whispered to Jagger and we moved along that ditch with extreme care, keeping low till we reached a hedge and an adjoining field. We hadn’t been seen. The men were still hunting around nearer Fesse’s property and I could hear them yelling to one another. At the hedge we surfaced and battled through it and then ran like hares through the darkness towards my car, keeping in the fields rather than the road. The chase came in our direction as we beat it but by now it was a little too late. We made the car safely. Jagger was panting so much he couldn’t speak for a while. I started up and headed back for the main road, fast. Nothing came behind us; Fesse had the transport and his thugs were having to foot it. Gasping still, Jagger managed to say, “Well, that didn’t pay off, did it? They’ll know someone’s after them all right now!”