‘I’ll ask the questions, sir.’ Paul’s laughter had somewhat shaken Dealer’s theory, but he was not going to give in yet. ‘You both state that the man was insane, so let’s have some evidence for it. Try and tell me everything that passed between you; every tiny detail you can remember. You first, Mr Gordon.’ Dealer watched their faces like a terrier at a rat hole while Paul talked, looking for the least sign of deception but seeing none. When Paul had finished he was almost convinced they were clean.
‘Anything you can add to that, Miss Fane? For instance did Baylis make any reference to somebody with the initials S.M. mentioned on his memo pad?’
‘He didn’t refer to anyone by name, as far as I can remember.’ Janet shook her head and then frowned. ‘No, not by an actual name or initials. But could S.M. stand for a person known as the “Sailorman”? Baylis mentioned that name and then broke off rather abruptly when Mr Gordon asked who he meant.’
‘What? What was that?’ For a moment Dealer appeared completely flabbergasted. ‘Can you confirm that statement, Gordon? He used the term “Sailorman”, not sailor or seaman or seafarer?’
‘Sailorman is correct, Major.’ Paul nodded.
‘Thank you.’ Dealer’s manner was an odd mixture of frustration and elation. The terrier had lost his rat, but suddenly scented a bitch on heat. ‘Sergeant Jones, go and find the Chief Constable. Tell him I want a conference with him and his top brass, double quick. Then get on to H.Q,. and ask them to rush us all the material they have on the G.T.S.’ He watched Jones hurry off and then stared hard at Paul and Janet.
‘Now, try and remember a few more details. Did our friend make any other reference to sailors or shipping or the sea; anything at all? Think carefully, because this could be important.’
‘Not in words, but I did notice that he had a ship’s anchor tattooed on his wrist; the left wrist, I think.’
‘Fair enough, Miss Fane.’ Dealer produced a cigarette case and offered it to them. ‘Against my better judgment, I’m going to put you in the picture. Unless all this is pure coincidence, or you’re two clever and extremely well-informed liars, we’ve misjudged the eccentric Dr James Baylis. He’s not a defecter and he’s not a harmless nut case. He’s one of a group of very dangerous people indeed.’ He struck a match and lit their cigarettes.
‘If we’re talking about the same “Sailorman”, Baylis’s wind of terror exists all right, and Mallory Heights could be blown to smithereens while we’re sitting here.’
‘Aye, it’s grand, Jack, really grand.’ Hilda Baxter smiled around the new flat. ‘You can’t say they haven’t done us proud.’
She spoke the complete truth, because the first tenants of Mallory Heights had been greatly favoured. As a goodwill gesture the Council of Churches and the Rotary Club had raised subscriptions, and local stores had offered their wares at trade terms. With the exception of one or two treasured possessions they had brought with them, every stick of furniture in the place was brand new and had not cost them a penny.
‘While they was making all those speeches, I kept looking at the tower and wondering if I could ever get used to living so high up. I thought I’d miss the old place, dump that it was, but now I honestly believe we’ll be happy here.’ Hilda flicked a speck of dust from the mantelshelf. Though the flats were supplied with both gas and electricity, Mallory believed that a living-room should always have a focal point, and plastic logs lay in the fireplace ready to glow at the flick of a switch.
‘ ’Course we’re going to be happy, Hilda, and I want no more silly worries out of you.’ They had only been in the flat an hour, but already Jack was beginning to feel a pride of possession. ‘Whenever you think your nerves are coming on, just remember how we sat watching the television news and have a right good laugh. There’s nowt but an atom bomb could shift Mallory Heights.’
‘Not even the Skulda, Jack?’
‘The Skulda?’ He frowned at her. ‘What the hell’s that, luv?’
‘It’s a sort of legend, and I’d forgotten about it till just now. When I was a bairn living out at Leddorsford my gran’ used to scare the living daylights out of me with tales of the Skulda, and you know how you can put unpleasant memories out of your mind.
‘It’s come back to me now though, Jack.’ She frowned at him and shook her head. ‘There’s a dragon sleeping out at sea and every so often he wakes up and sends a great wind rushing over Billon Tor and Pontop Pike. Tears the roofs from houses and blows down trees and barns, it does.’
‘That’s a daft old wives’ tale, if ever there was one, Hilda.’ Jack chuckled and puffed at his pipe. ‘Blows down barns, you say. Well, this ain’t no barn, luv. Because of the height of the towers, Sir George Strand didn’t merely accept the Met. Office data, he had a captive balloon tethered over the site to check the wind velocity for himself. No dragon’s going to blow off our roof.’
‘You’re right of course, Jack.’ She smiled at the formal black suit he had put on for the opening ceremony. ‘Now you knock out your pipe and go and change into your old togs. Looking like that you make me think we’re off to a funeral.’
Yes, it really is nice, Hilda thought when he left her: so big, so light and so quiet. No more racket or cooking smells from those blasted Virgils. If only it wasn’t so high up. She considered making a pot of tea, and then turned towards the door of the balcony. That was the one part of the flat she had not examined, but she had to do so now. If she was to feel really secure she had to get that over.
Like an explorer driven into the unknown by lack of supplies, Hilda opened the door and stepped forward. Thick cloud lay directly overhead obscuring the top of the opposite tower, but the view below was fantastic; the city and the valley were spread out like a view from an aircraft, and the sea was visible beyond the curve of the cliffs.
Lonely though – terribly lonely. The parapet was a long slanting panel of copper-coloured alloy set in slotted stanchions, and it felt frail beneath her grasp. But she forced herself to look down, seeing the vast bulk of the building stretching endlessly away and appearing slightly top-heavy with its jutting balconies. Her heart-beats increased as she stood there, and her recent sense of security started to dwindle. When the building was fully occupied in a day or two it might be different, but so far there were only nine other families in this block and all of them on different floors. Apart from the tiny ant-like figures in the streets she was quite alone.
No, a little way below her and only a hundred yards distant, there was a human being; a neighbour. A woman standing nervously on a balcony, just as she was doing; Mrs Virgil, the bane of her life in Shelley Street. How the woman’s cooking smells had sickened her, how the floor had shuddered when she and her husband danced, how their children had screamed and shouted on the stairs.
But that was all in the past. Already the demolition workers were starting to tear down Shelley Street and, with that huge drop below her, hatred had become inappropriate. She was about to wave her hand in greeting when the doorbell rang and she turned to answer it.
‘All right, all right, I’m coming.’ The caller was certainly impatient, not only keeping his finger on the bell push but hammering on the knocker.
‘Keep your hair on.’ She hurried across the lounge, but Jack had already forestalled her and was pulling open the door.
‘Just the two of you here?’ A uniformed constable stood before them. He was breathing heavily and his next words were short and to the point. ‘Get out and quick about it, then.’
8
‘If you two are leading us up the garden path, I’ll see that you regret it till your dying day.’ Commander Roger Rawlinson, Chief Constable of Randelwyck, was an irascible gentleman at the best of times, whom his subordinates regarded with a mixture of affection and sheer terror. At the moment he was fuming. The forthcoming demonstration against Fentor Park had been causing him deep anxiety, and Dealer’s summons had interrupted an important conference on crowd control.
‘Fo
r the last time, Gordon, is what you said the exact truth?’ Rawlinson had lost a leg in the war and its metal replacement made a heavy clanking sound while he paced the office floor. ‘Baylis did threaten to damage the Heights?’
‘He made no definite threat, sir, but he certainly had a compulsive and insane hatred against the building.’ Paul was still completely bewildered by the effect that Janet’s mention of the name ‘Sailorman’ had created. Before then Dealer had obviously viewed them with deep suspicion, but from that moment his manner had changed and he had almost spoken as though he felt that they were valued allies.
‘All right. We’ll accept the fact that Baylis is a maniac.’ Rawlinson came to a crashing halt in front of Dealer. ‘There must be over eighty people in the Heights. No, far more than that; I’d forgotten the janitors and the decorators who are still there. Yes, I’ll accept that an emergency exists, Major.
‘Inspector Renton, see that the building and all the surrounding area is evacuated immediately, and order the fire brigade and ambulance service to stand by. But first tell the gas board to cut off their supplies.’
‘That will take a little time, sir.’ Paul interrupted as the Inspector reached for the telephone. ‘Because of last winter’s failure, Mallory Heights has been provided with its own pressurized storage tanks. The gas people will have to open the emergency release valves and empty them back into the mains.’
‘Well, get them to do that, Inspector.’ Rawlinson glowered at Paul. ‘Regular box of tricks that bloody building of yours. We’ll have to go through each floor with a fine tooth comb, Superintendent Kerr.’ He had turned to a second minion. ‘Assemble two companies of fifty men each. You will take charge at the northern tower and I’ll deal with the southern. Explain the situation to the lads and issue them with guns.
‘Just obey your orders, Super, and leave the bloody politicians to me.’ Rawlinson barked aside the inquiry. ‘We’re not taking unarmed men into that building, and I don’t give a damn if the Home Secretary has kittens.
‘Yes, identification is a good point, Major Dealer. We’ve no time to issue photographs of the bastard, so you two will have to co-operate. You can join the Superintendent’s party, Gordon, and I’ll take you with me, Miss Fane. If you get killed, you’ll only have yourselves to blame. Why the hell didn’t you report Baylis’s behaviour to us days ago?’
‘Why should we?’ Janet flared back at him. Though Baylis was obviously an important person, they had been told nothing about him or why the emergency existed. ‘The man appeared neurotic, but quite harmless, and I still don’t know what you imagine he intends to do. Knock the towers down with a pick and shovel, perhaps?’
‘Can’t you make a guess, Miss Fane?’ Dealer smiled up from a blue-print of the building spread out on Rawlinson’s desk.
‘James Baylis was a physicist employed at Fentor Park research station; hence my interest. After he was reported missing, a strongroom to which he had access was opened and sixty-four ounces of an experimental substance known as Terradyte K, which many governments would pay good money to analyse, appears to have gone with him. That’s why we considered he had defected and I very much hope we were right.’ Dealer looked down at the plans again.
‘Four pounds of Terradyte could bring Mallory Heights down like a house of cards.’
The twenty-third floor: soon the search for Baylis would be over. Rawlinson’s plan had been simple and thorough. Half his squad had taken lifts to the top of the tower and were working their way down to meet those who had started at ground level. So far nothing had been reported amiss, but Janet still felt convinced that James Baylis was in the building.
‘Sergeant Petton reporting, sir.’ A uniformed constable had been listening to his intercom. ‘All the flats in this section are empty and the bridge directly above us is being checked now.’
‘Thank you.’ The Chief Constable nodded. A broad-brimmed hat and a heavy revolver bulging out of his pocket gave him the air of a Wild West sheriff. ‘I’m getting more and more certain we’re going to draw blank as far as Baylis himself is concerned. He may be mad, but there’s no reason to believe he has suicidal tendencies.’ He turned to a man at his side; one of Baylis’s colleagues from Fentor Park, a tall, gangling person who looked in the last stages of nervous exhaustion. ‘Could a timing or remote-control device set off this stuff, Dr Fenwick?’
‘I’ve told you that already, Chief Constable. Apart from its power, Terradyte K is a most versatile explosive. While under moderate pressure it can be activated by a detonator, by acid, even by an electric spark.’ Fenwick’s face was greyish-white and he was sweating freely. ‘See that your men search carefully, but don’t handle any container they find. That’s a job for me to do.’
‘They’ll be careful enough, Doctor. The trouble is that we don’t even know what we’re looking for. You say any fairly strong object would serve as a pressure cylinder – an ordinary domestic tin, or even a bottle, and he might have planted more than one!
‘That the last of them, Sergeant?’ Rawlinson’s steel foot clanked along the corridor which smelled strongly of paint, fresh plaster and new electrical insulation.
‘Yes, sir. It’s a right good job there was only furniture in ten flats.’ The sergeant held an axe with which he had smashed open a locked door. ‘We’d have had our work cut out otherwise.’
‘You can say that again, Smith. But make sure none of the panelling has been tampered with, check the radiators and the ovens and so forth when we start to go down and make the comprehensive search for a time bomb. But my guess is that we’re on a wild goose chase.’ He paused at the foot of the emergency stairs. ‘If we are, Miss Fane, I can only repeat “God help you.” ’ He snorted and led the way up to the next floor.
With the exception of Fenwick, who knew the power of the thing they might be facing, and Rawlinson, who would have to accept responsibility for the evacuation and the damage being caused, the men’s attitude had changed as one storey after another was declared clear. At first the tension had resembled a physical gas, a smell of human fear merging with the odours of the building. The terror of knowing that at every second, at every step, the world might end without their even hearing the roar of its explosion. But now there were smiles on some faces and, like Rawlinson, the majority were obviously starting believe they were on a fool’s errand and in no danger.
Floor 24. The upper squad had made good time and were already at work when Rawlinson’s group topped the stairs. Several doors were open, and through an archway Janet saw that the Superintendent’s party had checked the central bridge and were moving back into the north tower.
‘Ah, there you are, Renton.’ Rawlinson greeted the Inspector in charge of the upper section. ‘You’ve found nothing, of course, and I’m pretty damned sure we’ll draw a blank. All a waste of time and money, and I’ll have some explaining to do. Thanks to you, young woman.’
To escape his anger Janet turned and walked out through the arch. The bridge was intended to provide a children’s playground and a tiny park. Its southern section was screened with wire netting and contained swings and see-saws and a sand pit, while beyond a central fence, benches surrounded an ornamental fountain.
‘A fool’s errand’, ‘a wild goose chase’, ‘up the garden path’. Those had been the phrases used, but somehow Janet knew that Baylis was close at hand. She could remember his exact words, and how determined his face had looked when he left her flat. She also knew that if they found him he would explode the Terradyte.
When Janet was four years old her parents lived in London and their house had been demolished by a flying bomb. She could not recall any details of how she had lain buried in the wreckage, but enclosed places troubled her at times, and the corridors of the tower had certainly done so. If Baylis was about to let off his bomb, she would rather meet death in the open. Mist was rising from the river and cutting down the visibility, but she had a great sense of relief while walking through the sodden air
surrounding the bridge.
Swings and see-saws which might never be used, she thought. A children’s climbing device that might never be climbed. A fountain that might never play. Behind her axes were crashing into timber, and Janet halted beside the fountain. Its centre piece was modernistic in the extreme, and consisted of a group of grotesque human figures clustered around a granite obelisk; she had often wondered why George Strand had permitted such a monstrosity to shame his building. She stood frowning at the thing, and then her mouth dropped open and she stifled a scream. The statue facing her had moved.
‘Don’t say a word, Miss Fane. Don’t give any sign that you know I am here: just listen.’ Surrounded by mist, James Baylis looked as misshapen as the stone figures.
‘I have no quarrel with you or the police and you must help me to save their lives and your own. Say nothing and they will all go away and leave me to do what God has ordained.’ There came a sound of metal scaping on rock and Janet saw that a metal cylinder was clenched in his hand.
‘Yes, I have the means to do it, Miss Fane. To blow this abomination – this foul breeding-ground of corruption and filth – to rubble. You are looking at a Terradyte cartridge, my dear. Though home-made, it will work all right and all I have to do is to press a switch and the detonator will be released. Do I have your promise, Miss Fane?’
‘I promise.’ Janet edged forward. ‘But why do you have to destroy the building, Mr Baylis? First you said a wind would blow it down and now you have come here with explosives. Why?’ Baylis did not look a strong man and if she could grasp the cylinder she might be able to pull it away from him. In any case she must keep him talking.
‘Because they lied to me about the wind, of course. You and Paul Gordon persuaded me that it might never come: that the Sailorman could be wrong.’ There was a stammer in his voice and Janet saw that he was weeping. She moved another foot towards him and braced herself to spring. If she failed, a great many people including herself would die, but she had to take a chance.
Blow the House Down Page 8
