The Hoof

by Philip McCutchan

  “I didn’t think so really. Not at the time.”

  “But now, in retrospect?”

  “Perhaps, yes —”

  “Incoming calls?”

  “No …”

  “None, Mrs Zymo, absolutely none at all?”

  “Just once,” she said after some hesitation, looking down at her feet. “Just the one … a couple of years ago, his second visit. He was out somewhere and I took it.”

  “Please tell me about that.” Hedge made another note, his hand shaking a little. He had a distinct feeling gold was coming through.

  She said, “It was just a message for Earl to ring back, that’s all. I can’t remember the man’s name, but he sounded foreign. French, I would have said … I remember thinking the name was French as a matter of fact.”

  “Try to bring it back, Mrs Zymo.”

  She frowned, puzzling her brains. “It’s no use, I’m afraid.” Then she went on, as though she’d known it all the time but had just decided it was better to tell the truth, “He was ringing from Soho, he did say that, and I think that’s really why I remember it, because when Earl came back and I gave him the message, he said something about bloody little fags, and what a dump Soho was becoming — you know. Sordid.”

  “Yes, indeed. Yes, quite.” Hedge leaned forward with a pleasant, friendly smile, cheeks wobbling. “And you’ve remembered the name now, haven’t you, Mrs Zymo?”

  “Yes,” she said in a small voice. “Lacroix.”

  Hedge pushed his fat body back in his chair and gave a half inaudible sigh. Persistence always paid off, a pity some other people were not as persistent as he. But further probing failed to produce anything else: Roz had said her say and that was it. She hadn’t questioned Kries. With Kries, questions didn’t pay.

  After Roz had left the Foreign Office, being taken down by a lackey rung for by Hedge’s secretary, Hedge smirked at Harry Kenwood. “So I was right! I was right — wasn’t I, Kenwood?”

  “Yes, sir. Do you want this Lacroix found? He’s probably got form at the Yard if you —”

  “No, no. That is, not brought in — not yet. Surveillance, yes. See to that, Kenwood.”

  “It might be useful to bring him in, sir. Anyway, talk to him. I —”

  “Kenwood, your job’s to obey orders, not to argue. I said, surveillance. That’s your job. Go and do it.”

  When Kenwood had gone, Hedge rubbed his hands together, his pink face showing simple pleasure. It was very nice to be proved right. Very nice indeed.

  He picked up the telephone to tell Hesseltine so.

  12

  A car came in towards lonely Loch Fermin, a car with chains on its tyres and its cellulose covered with road film and mud. It stopped a little way short of the house, where it turned, ready again for the off. The driver opened the door and got out, stretched, slammed the door shut and crunched towards the house by the lochside. The hood of the duffel coat was up now and the hands were deep in the pockets as the Hoof went through the lying snow, big, powerful shoulders hunched against an icy wind that was starting to disperse the mist. Loch Fermin extended itself into the distance, still grey, still like a sheet of cold metal dotted with three small islands carrying leaf-bare trees. To the westward it met the distant mountains and the bleak sky. The man shivered: it was an unpropitious place for the resurgence of Britain to start. To some it might have seemed like an omen; but the Hoof didn’t believe in omens.

  He walked on towards the house.

  *

  The cellar was bitterly cold, freezing. There was no way Shard could keep warm. His roped wrists even prevented him throwing his arms about his body. With the eye of The MacSkean upon him, Kries had taken him down at gun point. Twelve stone steps, slippery with ice — the descent had ended in a slide, Shard landing in a heap on the stone floor as the door was slammed and bolted above him. He was badly bruised and there was a pain in his back when he sat up, but there was nothing broken so far as his bound wrists allowed him to feel.

  There was no light: the blank darkness was total and almost tangible. The light from above, before the door had been shut, had shown up a table and a chair; Shard re-established their presence by crashing into them as he moved about, getting his bearings, feeling round in what he recognised as a stupid attempt to find weak spots. There wouldn’t be any, not right below ground. Instinct, however, was strong, the instinct to make sure, to leave no stones unturned.

  Shard sat down on the cold flags. No point in wasting further strength. He hadn’t eaten for — how long? More than twenty-four hours. He’d been given a drink of water and that was all. Now he was thirsty again. And the cold stone seemed to eat into his backside. He got up and found the table again. Thrusting against it with his body, he decided it was in good enough condition to take his weight if he could get up onto it.

  This, he managed, getting his rump over the edge and then leaning backwards till he could swing round then worm himself upright, back against the wall, which was also cold but gave him a more comfortable resting place than before.

  There, he stayed. There was nothing else he could do. No use trying to climb the steps, for instance, and trying to get through a bolted door with the MacSkean waiting up top. He hadn’t been long on the table when he heard sounds from above: footfalls, heavy ones, a lot of them. A number of people were gathering in the room above. The Range Rover motorcade, perhaps, had returned.

  Shard heard voices. Scottish accents, Sassenach of various sorts, and the American of Kries. After a while there was a rapping as of a gavel, or a fist, on wood. After that, one voice. The MacSkean, holding a conference.

  &

  At the Finnart oil terminal the violence was escalating. The mob had stormed inside and had started smashing equipment. There had been a number of injuries on both sides as the mindless vandalism went on, but so far no deaths. During the fracas, unseen by the police, a man slipped away, disappearing into the night. He got into a car parked well clear of the area, started up and drove away, heading north from Finnart along the west side of Loch Lomond towards Tarbet. When he was well away he stopped the car and got out. He used a powerful VHF transmitter: his message was brief. When the transmission was finished he got back in the car and drove on. A few minutes later a motor-cyclist left a house in distant Invercannich and headed west in the general direction of Loch Alsh. He was not far off the house by Loch Fermin when he saw a police car, stopped by the roadside with its interior light on. There were two policemen in the patrol car; one seemed to be speaking on the radio transceiver. The motor-cyclist rode on past: he had the house in view now. He was in a quandary: the police would see him enter … but so what? To enter was no crime. There was unlikely to be any special reason for the police presence, it was just a coincidental thing, nothing to worry about.

  He rode up to the house and dismounted, kicking down the parking prop.

  He rang the bell. As he waited, one of the police constables got out of the car and started walking down the slope towards the house. A man opened the door; the motor-cyclist indicated the advancing policeman. Then he went into the house, and as he did so the Hoof’s heavy frame appeared in the hall.

  “What’s this?”

  “There’s a copper.”

  “Coming here?”

  “Yes, but —”

  “Out of the way.” The Hoof pushed the motor-cyclist aside roughly, and went to the door. The policeman was not far off; the Hoof turned away from the open front door, sliding to the right, out of view. Bending, he picked up an Armalite rifle, British Army issue. He motioned the motor-cyclist to go back to the door; the motor-cyclist knew what was expected of him: answer questions politely and deflect the law. Maybe they were after a sheep rustler or some such.

  As the copper reached the door, Kries came out from the room where the meeting was being held. The copper saw him; in a wall mirror at the far end of the hall, the Hoof caught the sudden look of recognition as the policeman saw the scarred face of Kries, by this ti
me well imprinted in the memories of all policemen throughout Britain. The Hoof didn’t hesitate. He swivelled round the door, fast, swinging the rifle onto the unsuspecting constable. He squeezed the trigger: the policeman’s head and face disintegrated and the body fell.

  The Hoof said, “Take him down to the loch, then clean up all round.”

  White-faced, the motor-cyclist said, “There’s a cop car up there.”

  “Which you didn’t say.” The Hoof ran out at once, a fast-moving shadow in the darkness. He saw the car, and the second policeman getting out of it. Unseen himself, he crouched and fired. The policeman spun round and fell, blood drooling from the shattered head. The Hoof went back to the house, eyes like ice. He confronted the terrified motor-cyclist. “Well? What have you come for?”

  The man delivered his message: a mob attack on the Finnart oil terminal on the Clyde, things getting out of control.

  “So someone’s jumped the gun,” the Hoof said quietly. “They’ll pay for that.” He was all but ready now. Yet he didn’t want this. To act in fragmented fashion so close to the big strike could be fatal to his plans. A broad front for a broad advance was what was wanted, not a series of skirmishes of which there had been too many already in the form of riots in the big cities. Now, the authorities would step up the oil defences and the guard on the power installations. And the Hoof didn’t like failure to report cop cars … he drew back his lips, twisted the rifle and smashed the butt into the motor-cyclist’s face, knocking out teeth, tearing the lips. About to hit out again, he saw Kries moving up the hall; Kries had his revolver out from the ankle holster.

  “Hold it,” Kries said. There was no fear in Kries at all, just determination. “It’s not that guy’s fault, it’s yours. Should have known cops don’t walk around on their own in parts like this. Seems to me you’ve screwed things up now. Sure as hell the radio’ll have been used before you got the second cop.”

  *

  Below in the cellar Shard had heard the shooting, the first shots close, the second more distant. He had no idea of the reason, but during the session in the room above he’d heard plenty. The MacSkean had a very loud voice, accustomed perhaps to raising it over the moors and the high hills of his native land. Loud and hectoring, the sergeant-major image again. He’d had a lot on his mind, a lot to impart. He had a lot of hopes for Scotland as a result of the Hoof’s ambitions. Those ambitions were big. Shard listened in growing anxiety to certain details of the work-out. There was going to be a lot of blood around, and soon.

  Within ten minutes of the second volley from above, Kries opened up the cellar door and came down looking worried. They were moving out, he said, they’d blown it and soon the cops would be around like flies. “The Hoof, he’s not as great as he thinks he is. Do better myself.”

  Shard still acted green. “Hoof?” he asked, sounding puzzled.

  “You’ll see.”

  Shard didn’t comment further but was glad of the sour tone. When the leadership fell out — and Kries seemed to rank himself with the leadership — then security might suffer. He got down from the table. With his hands still roped, he went ahead of Kries’ gun towards the steps. Once outside, he saw that the Transit van had already been brought from the garage. There were no bodies; the cold loch brooded over its secrets, darkly. In the front of the van with the driver was a big man, bearded and bear-like: this had to be the Hoof, though Shard didn’t recognise him as the man in the dock years ago. Into the back with Shard squeezed Kries, the broken-faced motor-cyclist, The MacSkean, Ponto and five other men from the two Range Rovers and an elderly Aston Martin. The van was the only safe vehicle to use, the only one that couldn’t have been reported by the mobile’s radio since it had been in the garage until now. As they drove off, Shard thought about the parked vehicles. When the police arrived a check on the registration numbers would be made with DVLC at Swansea and a number of identities would be revealed, but presumably that didn’t matter now. The time was too close, according to what The MacSkean had been saying. They passed the police car, its driver’s door still swung open, the courtesy light still on. That didn’t master either. It was history, like the bodies in the lonely loch.

  The MacSkean didn’t like it, all the same. He said, “I did not expect Scots to die.”

  “Just the English?” Shard asked.

  “Aye. The ones who are stealing the oil, which is Scots.” Kries said, “Guess you’re all British. This thing doesn’t differentiate. It’s for the good of all, not just Scotland.”

  “Scotland is —”

  “Shut up.”

  The MacSkean bristled. “You’ll not tell me to shut up —”

  “Maybe not. This will.” Kries swung his revolver towards the Scot. “If you don’t want air in your sporran, keep your lip buttoned.” He laughed; the look on The MacSkean’s face was sheer murder. Shortly after this there was an alarm from the front. The lights of a fast-moving car had been seen ahead, picked up from above as the van went fast down a hill to a bend in the track. There was no certainty that it was a police car, but deductions were easy enough to make in the circumstances and no other vehicle was likely to be moving so fast.

  As they went into the bend, the Hoof leaned dangerously from the side window, steadying the Armalite rifle. The car was in full view as they came out; the van’s driver, at a word from the Hoof, swung a little right, taking the wrong side of the narrow road. The other driver, no doubt instinctively, braked hard and executed a similar manoeuvre.

  The Hoof fired: he was a first-class marksman. The bullets smashed the screen and the driver and as the van rushed on past wreckage that toppled slowly over the edge into bogland, the police markings were seen. The Hoof looked pleased. He turned his head and met the American’s eye. “I doubt if there’ll be another,” he said, “except perhaps behind us, coming in from the other way. We’ll have a good start on anything from there.”

  Kries nodded but didn’t comment. The headlong speed was kept up, enormous risks being taken; but the driver knew his job. They kept on the track in spite of a couple of near misses when the van went into skids. There was no other traffic: few people used these tracks at night, not many more during the day. It was not long before they reached a main road, the A887 according to The MacSkean, which joined the A87 past Loch Garry and then the A82 down Loch Lochy for Fort William. Before the daylight came the Hoof had transferred himself into the back of the van for greater anonymity and his place had been taken by The MacSkean whose highland bonnet should give the vehicle an air of respectability. In spite of his nationalistic truculence, The MacSkean had a very honest face. And as it happened, not unexpectedly the call had gone out for a car, registration number not known, rather than a van. Sensible persons on the run in diabolical territory didn’t leave Range Rovers, Volvos or Aston Martins behind them, not unless they had something else just as fast. Some way beyond Loch Leven, in the snowy wilds of Rannoch Moor, certain matters became pressing. The van stopped and the men took turns at guarding Shard; and when his own turn came to get down under escort his hands were freed and afterwards, due to some haste to get moving when a police car was sighted some way off, the rope was not replaced. The cop car didn’t bother them as it happened and, free of all pursuit, the van ultimately entered the outskirts of Glasgow in the late afternoon and was driven through the snow-filled dusk into a derelict close between towering grey tenements, also derelict or nearly so. Some dozen flats were still occupied; lights glowed behind torn curtains. But no-one beyond a number of lean-looking cats took any notice of the van as it drove in.

  They all got out except the driver. Led by the Hoof, they made for a dark doorway in one of the tenement buildings; and as they did so the van drove away again. Ahead of Kries and his gun, Shard moved along a dark passage that smelled of damp and decay. It was as cold as ice. They all went into a room at the end. The Hoof, using a torch held low and shaded by his hand, went across and drew some curtains across a window. Then he told Kries to switch the
light on. An unshaded bulb glowed, dangling from the ceiling. The room looked terrible. There was no carpet, just bare boards. There was a deal table and two chairs and there was a small sideboard with a cupboard door hanging half off its hinges. Over all lay the dust and accumulated dirt of ages. In a corner was a pile of filthy rotting garbage, as though a tramp had camped out in the room and left his rubbish behind. There was an overpowering stench, one that was unidentifiable. From somewhere in the tenement music played, tinned music, thin and reedy, and there was a cackle of female laughter, raucous, drunken.

  “Well, Jesus,” Kries said, sounding ill. “Some hideout!”

  “It won’t be for long, you know that.”

  “Any long’s too long.” Kries moved across the horrible apartment. As he did so there was a small sound from overhead and the electric bulb went out. “Jesus,” Kries said again. Cursing, the Hoof flicked on his torch. In the lesser glow another light was now seen outside, a powerful beam playing on the glass. There was a silence in the room. The torch moved up and down and sideways, then the beam disappeared.

  The silence was broken by the Hoof, passing orders to The MacSkean who moved up alongside Shard, grabbed him and held a big hand over his mouth. The Hoof said softly, “An interfering bloody copper.”

  After an interval slow and ponderous footsteps were heard along the passage and light shone round the jamb of the door. There was a knock; then another. Gesturing to Kries, the Hoof padded towards the door, which began to open. As the Hoof had suspected, it was a police constable. “What’s all this, then?” the PC demanded. “This flat’s supposed to be —”

  Shard moved in the same instant as the Hoof. As The Hoof’s hand shot out to take the policeman’s throat, Shard twisted in The MacSkean’s grip, wrenched the hand from his mouth, and flung the clan chief bodily towards the Hoof. The torch fell to the floor, its light remaining on and the beam flickering off milling legs. By this time the policeman was in the room, half strangled with the Hoof’s grip still tight around his throat. As Kries used his gun-muzzle in a vicious swipe at the copper’s head, The MacSkean came back into the action together with Ponto and the other men from Loch Ferminside; Shard, trying to fight his way through towards the policeman, hadn’t a chance. In seconds he was flat on the filthy floor, face down, trying to spit out dust and muck gritty on his lips and tongue. Blood pounded in his head. He heard a muffled scream from the policeman, then the door was banged shut and someone retrieved the torch. The beam was shone down on Shard. The Hoof gave an order and he was hoisted to his feet. In the backglow from the torch the Hoof’s face was vicious, contorted.