Corpse (Commander Shaw Book 15)

by Philip McCutchan

  ELEVEN

  I could be recognised, obviously, by someone put on watch; but I was not, so far as I was aware, known to Brigadier B. Either way, I didn’t much mind: things often, in my experience, get done the faster by making a magnet of oneself, always providing one is ready for what hits you as a result. I would be ready, all right. I had fixed ahead for a Dormobile to await me in Malaga, and in this I drove out for Torremolinos as the shades of evening fell and the lights of pleasure city shone out ahead. On arrival I parked and sat at a table under a palm tree outside a bar, and ordered Fundador. I observed the scene and again felt sad, for near here I had sat and drank with Miss Mandrake and the Ogmanfillers and I could only hope that deaths didn’t have to go in threes. I watched armed guardias patrolling, and priests hurrying, and tourists of most nationalities getting tight on sherry and vino. There were lots of Ogmanfillers about, and many Germans, plus plenty of British eating chips with their sherry, but I didn’t notice anyone as military-looking as a brigadier should be, though there was no knowing what Brigadier Bunnett had been a brigadier in; Madrid’s list had not indicated which regiment or corps he had belonged to in his pre-brigadier days. I ruled out only the Salvation Army Catering Corps … had my grandparents been alive today and advertising for a Cook General, they might well have been surprised at what turned up. I drank more Fundador, then decided things needed forcing: time never stands still. I took the Dormobile out on the road for Carena and the Flood Fearers’ church. En route I flipped the switch of the radio and twiddled until I got the BBC. I listened to the late news: the Prime Minister had at last got around to the expected appearance on the TV but it had been a total fiasco: the image had mouthed just a word or two, then the screen had gone blank. After some alarming crackles and streaks of coloured light, another image had shown: a man in a purple garment, with hood. No one, it seemed, had been able to obliterate him before he had got his message across in full. He had blown the lot and now the government was doing its best to calm the country and stop the panic by saying the whole thing was a hoax by persons unknown, probably the Opposition. As the man in purple had cut himself off and out, the Prime Minister had been seen briefly, badly shaken according to the parliamentary correspondent but managing to take a drink that might have been water but was, I fancied, more likely a stiff brandy. Purely as a precaution to help control ‘undesirable elements who might try to make capital out of the situation’ all army reservists would be ordered to report to their regimental headquarters for possible service. Navy and RAF also. In short, it was really general mobilisation and not before time. Selfishly, I was glad I was out of England, at any rate temporarily. I reckoned I would need to go back before the end came.

  Driving fast, I reached the church. The steeple glowed in the moonlight, all cheerful and silvery and religious. As I emerged from the Dormobile I saw light behind the church windows, faintly. From 6D2’s parochial roll I had learned that there was a handful of tarted up British-occupied cottages a mile or so the other side of the church, and it was really those I was interested in currently. However, that light beckoned and I approached the door gun in hand.

  Cautiously, I inched the door open.

  There was a woman inside, just one middle-aged woman in a hat. now rising from one of the thwarted and rowlocked pews. She stepped, or perhaps I should say disembarked, into the aisle and curtsied towards gun-damaged Noah. When she turned, she saw me. She gave a startled cry and a hand flew to her mouth. I apologised for the intrusion.

  I asked, “A parishioner, I presume?”

  “Who are you?” she demanded. The voice was brisk; she had already regained control. She hadn’t seen my gun; I had put it away before she turned, since her obeisances seemed to indicate genuine devotion rather than anything sinister. “This is a private place.”

  “The house of God is always open,” I ventured.

  “God, perhaps. This is Noah’s house.” She was very sharp. “Will you please go away?”

  “In good time,” I said. “Are you the verger, by any chance? Or doing the flowers?”

  There was a short, brisk laugh. “In Spain, in midsummer? I was worshipping, if you must know.” Suddenly she seemed to crumple a little, though she looked basically uncrumplable, a stern English gardening gentlewoman and dog-lover whom I could see, when there wasn’t a chronic water-shortage as in summer Spain, with watering-can in hand over the geraniums and lobelias. Then she said, “I lost my husband recently.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, feeling glad she hadn’t seen my gun.

  “Who are you?” she asked again. “A tourist, I suppose. Isn’t it a little late for sightseeing?”

  “I was hoping I might find the Brigadier.”

  “Brigadier Bunnett?” Her eyebrows went up. “You wouldn’t find him at this time of night even if he was here, which he’s not. I believe he’s gone home to England, but I’m not sure. Why d’you want him, Mr — er?”

  “Jones,” I said. To get her started I told her I was a private enquiry agent and was interested in a young girl named Sandra Shingler alias La Ina, lately one of the Flood Fearers’ congregation.

  She sniffed. “That girl. No better than she should be — I dare say you know. If it hadn’t been for the Brigadier, Mr Petersen would have been sent packing at the same time. The Brigadier’s too … too — ”

  “Human?”

  “It’s not the word I’d use, Mr Jones. However, I know what you mean. It was all a most terrible scandal, but of course it was hushed up — one doesn’t talk about such things, does one? Especially when the church is involved. I shouldn’t be talking now.” She turned away and marched back to the boat-pew in which she had been worshipping. She bent and picked up a pair of gloves which she drew on with an air of finality. “I must go before I’m indiscreet. I feel very bitter about that dreadful girl, you know.”

  “Naturally. I do understand.” I paused. “Do you live near the church, Mrs — ”

  “Pumfret spelt Pontefract.”

  “Ah. And your house — ”

  “Cottage. Primitive but very charming. It’s fifteen minutes’ walk from here.”

  “You walk?” I asked. “Aren’t you worried about bandits?”

  She was very brisk again. “Good heavens, no, the Spaniards are immensely chivalrous and would never harm an English gentlewoman, Mr Jones. I’m not in the least worried, so you need not suggest escorting me and I’ll not ask you to.” Breeding stopped her adding the obvious: tongues would wag, never mind her age, and she was not of a similar persuasion to La Ina. But there were things I needed to ask, and one of them was what had happened to the Reverend Clay Petersen, pastor of this parish. I did so. Mr Petersen, she said, had been under strain due to overwork, and had had many worries over the building of the Ark. Materials and skills were expensive and there had been trade disputes in addition. Mr Petersen had taken a holiday, leaving rather suddenly, and since no one had been appointed in his place, she, Mrs Pontefract, had taken it upon herself to care for the church in his temporary absence. She referred to the visit of the ‘tourists’, which she had heard about after the event; and also told me that subsequently an official party had called with a police escort and entered the Ark’s covered slipway. This too she had heard about only afterwards, and understood that the department in Madrid responsible for the Spanish Merchant Navy had sent persons to check the Ark’s construction for general seaworthiness whilst on the stocks. It was difficult to keep a straight face when this came out.

  I asked where Mr Petersen had gone for his holiday. She didn’t know. She added that his acolytes had gone with him, and that all work on the Ark had stopped.

  “You don’t find it strange that they’ve all gone?” I asked.

  “I find it inconvenient rather than strange, Mr Jones. The clergy need holidays the same as the rest of us. Of course, it was rather sudden. I don’t deny that.”

  “And inconsiderate?”

  “Well — yes. Yes, it was. However, there we are.
It’s the will of Noah.” She pushed at her headgear.

  Noah had come out absolutely pat, and without any self-consciousness, in place of God, yet Mrs Pontefract struck me as eminently sane; it was curious. No doubt Noah, as a good practical man who had taken sensible precautions in his day, was worthy enough; but I would not have thought him worshipable nor Mrs Pontefract impressionable, but. as she had said, there we were. And time was passing … I was about to put further questions to the lady when suddenly she frowned and seemed to be considering, taking some sort of mental stock of the situation. She had stiffened her back like a soldier faced with a duty that had to be done; I sensed that in fact she had found the total desertion of the clergy somewhat strange but loyalty had prevented her admitting it to a stranger who had no right to ask questions. But now she was screwing herself up to something, and I waited.

  She said, “There was something funny. You’re a detective of a sort, I take it. Possibly you could help.”

  “Just tell me about it, Mrs Pontefract.”

  “Very well, then. Come with me.” She turned about and marched towards the looming figure of Noah upon his green plastic-foam waters. She stopped by the altar, which was covered with a green embroidered cloth, and bent, and ferreted about beneath the cloth. When she stood up, she had a shoe in her hand, a woman’s shoe with a heavy wedge sole. There were bloodstains on the fabric. Unnecessarily, for I had recognised it at once, she said, “It’s not that girl’s. It’s too small, she had big feet and in any case always wore sandals when she wore anything at all.”

  “How did you find it?” I asked.

  “I came in to say a prayer alter Mr Petersen left. Before the police came. I found the altar cloth had been half pulled away and under it was this shoe. As you can see, there was some blood. I was shocked, as you can imagine. I put everything straight and pushed the shoe out of sight. It seemed the only thing to do. What do you imagine happened, Mr Jones?”

  I shrugged, tried to keep my cool and not grab. I said, “It’s hard to say … but it looks as though Mr Petersen found another girl, don’t you think?”

  “Yes,” she said tonelessly, “I do. It’s dreadful, horrible.”

  “Have you told anyone else?”

  She shook her head. “No. Because, you see, I don’t know. Mr Petersen must be given the benefit of the doubt until we do know. It’s all so dreadful for the reputation of our church.”

  “Yes,” I said. “May I examine the shoe, please?”

  She passed it over. Miss Mandrake’s shoe: I held it tenderly. A struggle by the altar, below the brooding form of Noah and his naked wife? I slid my fingers in, I don’t know why, and I found something: a segment of cloth had been pushed up into the toe. I pulled it out. It was white cotton, and Felicitv had been wearing a white cotton shirt. There was more blood: shaky lettering, a message. Written in her own blood with some instrument unknown but of a finer point than a finger, the just discernible words, Sendar Maru. It was a hell of a pity the Spanish police hadn’t found it much earlier.

  *

  I kept the piece of cloth, with the blessing of Mrs Pontefract, while the shoe itself was replaced below the altar. I said there was something funny going on, and whoever was responsible for it might come back looking for the shoe and would be suspicious if it were missing. She was not, I said, to breathe a word about the piece of cloth or about me. She promised not to, and looked sternly British. I took a risk because I was convinced of her patriotism and dropped a hint about the British Government, and her back straightened even more, as I knew it would. She would be a good soldier to the end. At the church entrance I looked back at Noah; some trick of the light before Mrs Pontefract switched off gave him the appearance of winking, or anyway leering. He wasn’t a bad old so-and-so and his altar had been very productive this evening. Before leaving I dropped a British fifty pence piece into an alms box. It seemed the least I could do and I think Mrs Pontefract was grateful.

  I drove back into Torremolinos, fast. It was a beautiful night, with a mass of stars and a moon riding high to bring silver to a brown land, the same moon that would be shining down upon the Sendar Maru and her lethal cargo. What had happened was very clear: Felicity, on being removed from that nether cell below the Ark, had overhead talk, and by her subterfuge had left behind the information as to where she was being taken. Either that, or the word that the Sendar Maru was now to be the operating base of CORPSE. Or both. In any case, my movements were positively decided: the Sendar Maru had to be boarded and disarmed, and I intended to be there present when the Navy went into action. Things looked like coming to a head and with luck we might just about have time. All I needed now was a telephone. Driving into Torremolinos, I made for a public call box. I bypassed Madrid: STD got me London direct within a couple of minutes and I spoke to Max’s Number Two: Max was sleeping. The reaction that met my message was not reassuring: an investigatory boarding-party had been put aboard the Sendar Maru earlier from one of the shadowing frigates and nothing further had been heard of them. Signals from the frigate had been met with a massive silence, threats had been disregarded, and Defence Ministry, who were flummoxed, were stalling. Certainly, the Sendar Maru could be blasted from the seas by the frigate’s rocket launchers, but would this be wise? The question sounded bloody silly, but the answer was no, it wouldn’t, for very obvious reasons.

  I said into the phone. I’m returning by the first available flight, and if necessary I’ll board the Sendar Maru myself.”

  I rang off: as I turned I became aware that the door was open. A voice said, “That is very true. Commander Shaw, I presume?” The voice was British and hearty and held an authoritative military ring. I stared back at a tubby man wearing a walrus moustache and a white silk jacket, very well cut, above dark trousers.

  I said, “Brigadier Bunnett, no doubt?”

  “Well guessed, my dear chap.” I looked at him sourly. He would have been too short for the Guards and too fat to fit into a tank, and his voice didn’t sound corps type: he had to be infantry of the line. Here was no Cook General but a tough fighter. He had no weapon but he had friends, whom he indicated outside the call-box: six men, very British like himself though not all with a military air, and two formidable gentlewomen in the current climatic equivalent of English country tweeds. My guess, not difficult to make, was Flood Fearers. Mrs Pontefract must have been a dropout, there purely for Noah’s sake. They all looked dedicated and all of them had their right hands in position for bringing out guns. So, for that matter, had I. But, as Brigadier Bunnett pointed out politely, no one was going to use a gun, not even me. There were members of the guardia around — I could see several of them — and they would react to shooting.

  “They don’t like it, old boy. Bad for tourism! You’ll be in a Spanish goal before you can say jackrabbit, and Spanish gaols are filthy. You’d better just walk out smiling, that’s my best advice.”

  I took a deep breath and looked around: Torremolinos, late though it was, was busy yet. Shooting would bring panic, and priests would rise and flutter like crows. But I wasn’t scared of arrest: 6D2 would have me out in a flash. I brought out my gun: Brigadier Bunnett was fast, much too fast for a man of his girth. A bunch of fingers like steel wire hawsers wrapped themselves round my wrist and my nerves seemed to twist in a knot. I dropped the gun and glared out at a ring of smiling faces, now come closer in. Brigadier Bunnett picked up the gun and stowed it away. Then, smiling still, he brought a knee up and smashed it into my groin and used a beefy fist a second later on my jaw. I didn’t see what happened next, but later assumed that the Flood Fearers had closed in as good friends to carry home the dear old pal, the dead drunk fellow Briton, before he made an exhibition of himself. When I came round I was vomiting and feeling like death, with a blinding headache and great pain in the lower regions. And I was swaying about, which made the sickness worse. There was a hell of a lot of noise going on around me and when I opened my eyes I saw Brigadier Bunnett and his troops, the six men a
nd the two ladies, and some glass through which I could see stars, real heavenly ones. I was in a helicopter, and dawn was not far oil because the stars soon began to fade. There was not much room; one of the ladies was almost sitting on my face and I heard her voice booming out over the engine racket, something about Ascot. Later, a long while later I believe, Bunnett’s voice rang out.

  “There she is, and the frigates.”

  Bodies heaved around me to take a look and soon the machine tilted and went lower. I caught a glimpse of a vast ship and two small grey frigates lying off, heaving in the deep-sea swell, bows pointed towards the Rising Sun of Japan that floated over the Sendar Maru, which was one of the quarter-million tonners by the look of her, riding light in the water. The ordinary sun of God streamed down, making a glorious cloud-free morning of the last day for Britain. Lower and lower for touchdown on the ship’s landing platform, while the frigate crews looked on helplessly. Brigadier Bunnett cocked a snook at them, laughingly. My frustrations almost choked me; there was the Navy, close at hand and well-armed and able to cope, but without orders to do so. No one at home was going to risk it, but if I’d been the Senior Officer of the interception task force I reckoned I would have chanced it on my own. The Sendar Maru could quite possibly be destroyed before CORPSE could send out their signals … but possibly, of course, was the word that would be causing the fatal hesitation: the frigates’ rockets would need to strike in the right spot first time, for the explosive-device-tripping signal could presumably be made in not more than seconds, and would go out the moment the rockets opened.

  We touched down and I was hoisted to my feet and taken out to the deck under guard. The first person to welcome me aboard was the man in purple, still hooded and exuding confidence. I was marched aft, into the superstructure and down a series of ladders. On one deck was a large notice bearing Japanese characters and the English translation: BRITISH INTERIM GOVERNMENT CABINET ROOM, and an arrow. The ship seemed packed with personnel: toothy Japanese seamen, all armed, and a number of important-looking British subjects, or anyway Europeans, some in plain clothes, others in dark green shirts with ties, and insignia on the collars, and black trousers, and knee-boots. The corps of gauleiters or the new police, maybe, all ready to take up duty within the next few hours, or as soon as the Sendar Maru could make a nuclear-free British port after the signal had been sent.