At the moment the well-publicised police activity was a serious handicap. If I walked out of the back door and climbed the party wall into the opposite premises the good woman was going to be alarmed, let alone the occupants of the houses through which I must go. Mick as wardrobe manager had overdone my stage costume. I was a nasty, long-haired lay-about just right to be an anarchist bomber. I could imagine the row of backyards buzzing like a wasp’s nest, with any able-bodied men who happened to be about providing the sting.
I went back to the lavatory window. Leaning far out and looking down the rank of yards I could see that my guess was correct. The black Cortina was waiting round the corner at the end of the row, invisible from the front of the house. The green car and its three occupants were out of sight, but it stood to reason that they were round the corner at the other end. It occurred to me that the police could be the kind deliverers of Julian Despard and that I might leave my hostess with a little romance in her life of letting lodgings, even perhaps with her picture in the paper and an enviable five-second appearance on the telly.
I went into the kitchen, paid for my breakfast and asked her if she would mind helping the police in a vital investigation. I had come to her house, I admitted, on false pretences. I was an agent of Special Branch, and my real reason had been to watch the street through her front window. She accepted the story without question. My personality had been pleasant, and she recognised that this new line fitted my speech and my account of myself much better than the dubious, mature student.
Would she, I asked, call the local police station for me, give her name and address and tell them that there were two suspicious cars, one at each end of the street, claiming to be police cars? I could not take action myself, but I was sure everybody would feel safer if a real police car checked their identity.
With great excitement she did what I asked, telling me that she had been thanked for her information and assured that the cars would be checked immediately.
I waited a couple of minutes and left, crossing to the other side of the street and walking slowly down it. Garbage was being collected and I was able to take cover behind the truck where I could just see the bonnet of the black Cortina. Meanwhile I talked to one of the dustmen, asking how I should apply for that rightly highly-paid work. I gathered that he didn’t think much of me as a possible colleague, and while we were talking a true police car crossed the bottom of the street and started to pull into the curb. I turned the corner, walked away unhurriedly and once out of sight ran for the first bus I saw. A pity I could not hear the conversation with the police! Probably my former associates had a plausible excuse for waiting which could, if necessary, be confirmed. That was a point impressed on all cell leaders.
So I travelled gratefully back to our basement and Sir Frederick, buying for him a pork pie, tomatoes and a quart of beer on the way. He was looking pleased with himself and told me he had been out and about. I was horrified and begged him not to take unnecessary risks. He adjusted his filthy scarf, bent his knees a little and began to hobble around the room. The white bristles on cheek and chin could have done with a further day’s growth, but in the clothes that Mick had provided he really did look a meth-soaked, revolting old man.
‘Would you recognise me?’
I admitted that I myself would not, but pointed out that he was badly wanted and dealing with expert detectives.
‘Amateur theatricals?’ I asked.
‘No, the theatricals of this life, Julian. An actor can never be a leader; he has too little self beyond the mirror. But a leader of men must be an actor. I could not have run Roke’s Tining without catching the imagination of my colony. Sometimes it was a strain when what they expected of me did not entirely correspond to reality.’
I mentioned that when I first observed him in his courtyard he was worried and grumbling to himself.
‘Very likely. A release of tension. Shallope was worrying me and I could see no reason why he should be.’
I said that I should not have thought his happy, productive Cotswold life could have given him much experience of the old and destitute slinking from one public bar to another.
‘If it had not, I should have felt too guilty to be happy. Always you remember the Anarchist and forget the Christian, Julian. No passer-by was ever refused a bed. No passer-by left Roke’s Tining, if I could help it, without new hope. Some returned often and some wrote me letters. Tramps grow mercifully fewer, and those that remain are frequently old and near death. That is how I know. I wish I could have given them my health and strength instead of imitating now their weakness and infirmities.’
An amazing companion, and right about leadership! Was there ever a successful general who was not an actor – at least to the extent that he created a commanding and attractive image of himself?
While he dealt with the pork pie and beer like a hungry youth, I asked him where he had been.
‘Not your Argyll Square, but wandering not far off. I was making myself known. I have a room in my daughter’s house, but she throws me out every morning because she says I smell and at night I go back. Smell, now,’ he added, starting on the second pint. ‘A distasteful necessity! Perhaps I can trust our present lodging to provide it. And this suit begins to exhale mementoes of its former owner.’
‘If you aren’t careful you’ll have some damned official wanting to know your daughter’s address.’
‘I am too vague for that. I just complain as the old do.’
I gave him some account of my day, telling him that I now believed Magma had put off the final decision.
‘Then we must be careful not to drive them to it,’ he said.
He had a point there. I wish Magma did not know that I and probably all three of us are in London.
Mick came to see us in the afternoon, bringing food and the evening papers. He expected to find us bored with inaction and was surprised that I was contentedly resting while I watched Gammel carving the outline of a beech, immediately recognisable, from a piece of broken wainscoting. After telling Mick of my narrow escape, I warned him that he too must be badly wanted by Magma.
We agreed that in future both of us were forced to keep clear of Argyll Square, yet we were up against a blank wall unless we could get the names and occupations of the tenants of No. 71.
‘Would not the police have them?’ Sir Frederick asked.
I pointed out that if Mick asked the police – he was the only one who could – he would have far too many questions to answer. Who was he? Why did he want to know? Whatever he replied, they would have him sitting in front of a table for hours while they checked his past and present.
‘I am aware of that,’ Sir Frederick said. ‘I was implying that if the police had all their names and could get no further, nor could we.’
Probably true, though I was not wholly convinced.
‘We do have another line,’ Mick reminded me. ‘Clotilde’s builder. You and I have a chance of tracking him down if we use our heads.’
I went over with him again the very little that I knew, only amounting to the fact that Clotilde, when Group Commander, had done something or been in on something which concerned both Argyll Square and William the Builder. She might have helped to negotiate a secret arms depot which later became the cache for the bomb. When I claimed to know where it was because I had been needed for some duty after the bomb had been moved from Hoxton, she accepted it.
‘You never told me that,’ Mick said.
‘It wasn’t important. After she had had time to think it over she knew it was a lie.’
‘Anything else you know about Hoxton?’
I said that one of my cells had been hotting up the strike at the Hoxton Redevelopment site working through International Marxists. When I came under suspicion of showing too much interest in Shallope, my partisans were called off by Clotilde who was able to do it because the cell leader had taken her orders for so long.
‘The bomb was lifted from Roke’s Tining to Hoxton?’
‘Yes. And the police were allowed to know it.’
‘Lord help the little International Marxists! All run in, were they?’
‘I don’t know. The strike was called off. When the papers played up the search of the site for explosives, public opinion was all for lynching the lot of them.’
Mick reminded me that he used to be an International Marxist himself.
‘I might find an old comrade at Hoxton. It’s worth a try. Do you think it’s safe, Gil?’
‘Nothing is safe. But I doubt if the committee has any more interest in Hoxton.’
‘If I go now, I’ll catch them coming out. See you tomorrow if there’s anything to report!’
He said they’d be a thirsty bunch of buggers when they knocked off, so I gave him ample funds for beer. I still have enough to finance our cell of three and our escape, but I don’t see a possible life ahead and I don’t think there will be three. As the reverend baronet put it, I shall do my duty where conscience leads.
September 12th
It had to be. Under the circumstances conscience apparently approves of murder. We have managed to hide the body from Gammel but I don’t know what to do with it. If we are here long, not all the scents of Araby will perfume this little room. Can I put it down – accurately – to a dead rat?
Sir Frederick was mercifully out establishing an identity among the dregs and in his absence I had written up yesterday’s entry in the diary when Mick tumbled down the stairs into our basement, panting that they were after him.
‘How many?’
‘Just one.’
‘Did he see you come in here?’
‘I don’t think so. But he’ll know it was somewhere this side of the street.’
I asked him to tell me quickly what had happened without details.
‘A bloke called Jim offered us both a lift. Kevin knew him and said he was O.K. He dropped Kevin off in Whitechapel to take the Underground to Kilburn Park and then he started up and dam’ near hit a lamp post. So he mops his face and asks me if I can drive him home because he’s feeling a bit off. I drove him home to Carrington Street, put the car away in his garage and told him I had an easy bus ride home. “Well then you needn’t clear off yet,” he said. “We’ll go upstairs and have another for luck.” I was on to something, Gil, and I wanted more. …’
I interrupted him. His news could wait. The man in the street was an urgent problem.
‘Well, Jim pulled down the garage shutter and we went up a couple of steps through a door into the flat. He slumped on to a sofa and said he’d be all right in a minute. Now, I’ve argued with enough blokes in bars to know when a man’s drunk and all the ways it can take him. I just felt there was something wrong. Couldn’t say what exactly. So I watched him when he got up to pour us a couple and I didn’t miss that there was a little something in the bottom of my glass when he took it out of the cupboard. “Do you mind if I have a pee?” I asked and he showed me where. I tried the front door. Locked on the inside. So I sneaked down into the garage and began to lift the shutter. It was out of plumb and you never heard such a racket. Down he came. Told me to stand still or he’d fire. He did too. But I ducked under the jammed shutter and he missed me.
‘I ran. So did he. Not more than twenty yards between us. Then we both broke into a walk, for people were about and staring. You can’t run in these days without the public taking a hand. I couldn’t shake him off. He was too close. And I didn’t want to call in the police.’
I said that he could have turned into a pub or any shop that was open.
‘I did, and then so did he. Once we were face to face and all the time his hand was in his pocket. He got on my nerves, I tell you! I kept to where there were people and made for you here. No quiet back alleys for me. When I got to the street at the bottom I ran round the corner like hell and slipped down before he could see me.’
Mick was not trained to violence. He was an inspired and reliable agitator. Among militant shop stewards he was more decisive and logical than any of them and a red-hot orator if he had to appeal directly to the men, always convincing in putting across what he didn’t believe for the sake of what he did. But one could not expect him to know the tricks of an urban guerrilla.
‘Silencer on his gun?’ I asked.
‘Well, it had a thick thing and made a bloody noise in the garage anyway. Christ, he could have killed me in the flat whenever he liked! I don’t see why he didn’t.’
‘Because you’re wanted for questioning.’
‘He’ll set the lot of them on us if he finds me.’
‘Has he had time to telephone since he started following you?’
‘No. No, he always kept me in sight.’
We went out and peered over the edge of the pavement. There was still plenty of movement – squatters sitting in the porches, groups strolling around in twos and threes. The man had not actually entered our street, and remained a shadowy figure at the corner. Things were no longer easy for him. He could not know whether Mick had gone home or taken refuge with a friend, and he did not want to draw attention to himself by asking questions.
I asked Mick if the fellow would know his real name. Mick confirmed that he did.
‘And when he was with you in the pub or wherever it was did he leave you to telephone?’
‘Yes.’
Of course it was then that Jim got his orders. The Group Commander or whoever was in charge of the hunt would know that the name was Mick’s. What orders? First, to find out where he lived in case I was there too. He must have given that up as impossible when Mick refused to be driven home. Second, to kill him rather than lose track of him.
He had run his quarry to earth, but he had to be careful. If Mick’s body were found, as it eventually must be, people in the street could identify the probable murderer. And this Kevin with his mates could give evidence that he had driven Mick home.
Would he risk that? I thought he might be tempted. He must have been assured that nobody would make any inquiries if Mick simply disappeared. And so the chances were that he would go down after Mick once he knew in which rabbit hole he was, and play the rest by ear. That suited me, for the only place to deal with him was the privacy of our basement. We could not let him slip off for a moment to reach a telephone.
I told Mick to go into the foul back room that had been half kitchen, half lavatory, and come out only when I called. Then I went up the steps and into the street when the watcher was looking away. I could not carry any weapon under my tee shirt, so I hid my knife and Clotilde’s .32 in the dark corner between steps and pavement ready to hand when I returned.
Movement in the street was thinning as the squatters and their visitors retired to bed. I, too, would appear to be on my way home – a long-haired lay-about of no conceivable danger to anyone. I passed the watcher and said good-evening. He was not a foreigner as I expected, but a nondescript sort of chap with short hair and short beard whom I would have taken for a skilled hand earning good money. There were cells under the direct control of the Committee for special assignments and it seemed more likely that he was a member of one of those rather than a hired killer.
He stopped me, as I intended he should, and asked me if I knew a Geordie named F. … It is unnecessary for me to give Mick’s real name.
‘Yes. Lives in a basement down under No. 6.’
‘Shares a room, does he?’
‘No, all alone. But you won’t find him there. He’s been away on a job.’
He thanked me and I walked on. As soon as he had turned into the squattery I stalked him in the shadow of the porches and saw him walk straight down the steps into our basement. I gave him a minute’s grace – dangerous for Mick but the fellow might be watching to see if he was followed – and then went softly after him recovering Clotilde’s present on the way. I would have preferred the silent knife but doubted if he would let me get near enough to use it.
He heard me opening the door – a noisy proceeding for it was half r
otten – and had time to sit down and look like a casual caller. When he saw who it was and realised that he had been trapped he raised the gun which he was half sitting on. I was a trifle quicker, and the bullet took him at the base of the neck full front. I had hoped to give him a chance to talk. Thank God he didn’t let me, for I should have had to execute him in cold blood at the end.
I called to Mick to come out and help me carry the body into the lavatory in case someone recognised the shot for what it was in spite of the muffling walls below ground level. Before we had time somebody did, knocking on the door to ask if we were all right.
‘O.K., mate,’ Mick replied, putting his head round the door. ‘Bloody cupboard fell in the sink. Christ, what a home sweet home!’
‘God Almighty, you must have been fast!’ he said to me, staring at the arm and gun stretched out on the floor.
I replied that I was not, that his late friend was inexperienced and that I’d like to know whether I had really acted for the sake of this worthless city.
‘I think you did.’
‘Well, tell me later! Gammel may be back any minute. We must clean up somehow.’
There was no doubt what to do because there was no other solution. The floor boards were rotten. We levered three of them up, put him inside and nailed them back again. I left his gun with him. I had no use for a second and it could be awkward evidence. Then we set to work to scrub and mop the whole floor – cleanliness being next to godliness – and shifted my sleeping bag and suitcase to cover the worst of the stain.
While we were on hands and knees, Mick gave me the missing details of his story. Sure enough he had found among the men leaving the Hoxton site a former friend from the north-east named Kevin. They went off to the nearest pub where the second pint got Kevin started on the saga of his life and strikes. Like Mick, he had had enough of International Marxists and was left with no creed at all except a determination to raise hell for whatever boss employed him. A bricklayer by trade, it pleased him when working on office blocks to use every trick he knew to weaken a wall and deceive the gaffer. He swore he wouldn’t dream of it on a housing estate for honest wage slaves. A practical anarchist with his own standards of revolt.
Hostage Page 16
