by John Creasey
‘Off by heart,’ she assured him. ‘We’ll make it within ten minutes.’
She let in the clutch and the M.G. lurched forward. Kerr could understand something of Arran’s nervousness, for the girl seemed to take no notice of other traffic.
The speed, the roaring of the wind past their ears, and the din of the traffic made it impossible for them to talk. Kerr hardly knew whether he wanted to talk, but the question was answered when they were forced to pull up at a traffic-block, and he looked down at her.
‘What made you come to my rescue?’
‘I saw the smash, and saw you push past the policeman, and—well, I recognised you.’
‘That sounds like fame,’ Kerr smiled.
‘Does it?’ Her lips curved in the faintest of smiles. ‘Confound those lights—why don’t they change? Aren’t you used to being recognised?’
‘Well …’
‘As modest as always,’ said the surprising young lady with grave eyes. She laughed. ‘Until a year ago I think everyone in England would have recognised your photograph. I’ve a long memory.’
They reached the Great West Road and she trod heavily on the accelerator. Kerr leaned back in his seat, convinced of one thing: she meant to take him to the airport, and there was no need to worry about a trick.
They passed three green lights before a block came again. Kerr chuckled.
‘Interrupted conversation, I’m afraid. I was asking how you knew me?’
‘Wasn’t I telling you that most people know—or knew—Bob Kerr? You can’t fly the Atlantic east to west, and a dozen other places, without it.’
‘No. For the first time in my life I’m glad.’
‘Are you?’ She smiled at him, and then let in the clutch as the stream of traffic moved. They were at Heston Airport, outside the offices, before there was another chance of talking, and Kerr saw by the dashboard clock that she had taken exactly ten minutes from Chiswick.
‘Good going,’ he said. ‘If you’ll excuse me just a moment, I’ll make sure my bus is ready.’
He smiled as he jumped out, but he did not need to go into the office. A foreman mechanic recognised him and stopped.
‘Afternoon, sir. Your bus is all fuelled and waiting. I took the liberty of giving her a run, just to get her warm. Going far, sir?’
‘Not out of England, I hope. Right-ho, Jim, thanks.’
Kerr turned back to the M.G. The girl opened the door as he approached.
‘What part of the field?’ she asked.
‘The far corner, please. I’m tremendously grateful, Miss …?’
‘Dacre.’
‘Thanks,’ said Kerr, although he would have said other things had he known that Miss Dacre was a friend of Lady Julian Crabtree, who knew the house where Burke was a prisoner, very well. ‘If you’ll give me your address, I’ll take the opportunity later of saying it more thoroughly. At the moment I’m just in a hell-for-leather rush.’
‘I know,’ she said, and the M.G. started off. Kerr jerked back into his seat breathlessly, and told himself that she knew all there was to know about moving fast. Within two minutes they were alongside the small three-seater cabin ‘plane that Kerr always kept at Heston. Two mechanics were fussing by the engine, standing aside as Kerr approached. He smiled at Miss Dacre. She waved, made no attempt to give him her address, but sat back in her seat as he hurried to the ‘plane.
He climbed in, switched on and took off immediately. He glanced once, seeing the M.G. moving—slowly it seemed.
He climbed quickly to five thousand feet and then flattened out. Dusk was beginning to spread over the land, making it vague and misty in the distance. Kerr knew his direction off by heart, and watched the speed-indicator touching the two hundred, and …
Kerr noticed a slight break in the smooth running of the ‘plane. A momentary crak-crak-crak before the engine picked up again. A second crack, and a third.
‘And that,’ said Kerr aloud, ‘means trouble.’
8: Forced Landing
Kerr began losing height, but not too quickly. If the trouble he feared developed thoroughly he might be in a helpless position if he were going down at too steep an angle. He knew that there was just a possibility that there was a temporary blockage in the petrol-lead, or a choke in the carburettor, although he could not bring himself to believe it. On top of the effort to stop him in Chiswick, and the affairs in Surrey, it was likely to mean only one thing. Kerr preferred to look on the probable thing as the one to happen, and he inferred that someone had interfered with the engine.
The altimeter showed him that he was at three thousand feet when the engine stopped completely.
Kerr could see the circle of the propeller moving sluggishly. The ‘plane hardly shifted from the straight, however, and there was a stiffish head-wind blowing. That was something to be thankful for.
Kerr thought of nothing but the task ahead of him. He knew that he might have been in a much stickier spot, but it was never a cake-walk to get down without an engine.
He was going down slowly, using the rudder-bar more now, for the Bristol was swaying a little from side to side.
Kerr was too used to trouble in the air to feel worried. He had been in many a worse spot, although he knew that comparatively mild jams often caused more trouble than a good and hearty crash. Blast the man who’d done this!
The Bristol was swaying much more now, for the wind was dropping as he reached the ground.
Slowly, agonisingly, the ‘plane straightened out again. He had lost another hundred feet, but he hated to think of what would have happened had he been travelling faster and unable to get on an even keel.
At five hundred feet the land had looked dangerously near. Now it looked a hellish long way off, and he could do nothing to save himself. He was falling. In a flurry of different colours and shadows the earth and the trees came up, and then …
Crash!
The ‘plane seemed to leap upwards, the tail reared high in the air, Kerr was flung against the controls, jabbing his right hand against the throttle and tearing a couple of inches of skin. He felt no pain. He felt a jolt and then an odd silence and stillness, as the Bristol stuck there, nose first.
Kerr drew a deep breath.
It had been near, and it was not over yet by any means. Gingerly, he reached for the left-side door. The lock had not jammed. He opened the door just as gingerly, feeling the ‘plane quiver and lean over as he went. He eased himself through, blessing the fact that he was not so tall that he had to duck a lot, felt the quivering again and then jumped.
As he went flying through the air he felt the ‘plane coming, heard the wing crash against the ground, felt something jab out of the gloom and bite painfully into his shoulder. He touched the ground once with his right foot and was leaping forward again like a kangaroo. He lost his balance, sprawled forward, and as he did so the ‘plane toppled just behind him, a broken piece of metal pushing his leg forward and upwards so that his knee scraped along the ground. And then, after the din of the second collapse, that precious silence came again.
Kerr waited, breathless, for thirty seconds. Then he crawled forward out of reach of the debris.
There was something in front of him—a hurdle, he saw, and he leaned against it wearily, the breath shivering through his body. Then, sharp through the silence of the dusk, came a high-pitched voice.
‘I can’t see no one—poor devil, ’e’s inside!’
‘I never did trust them things.’ A deeper, slower voice came, that of an older man. The first speaker was a youth, Kerr reckoned. He eased himself away from the hurdle while the two strangers rushed round a clump of bushes.
‘I’m—all right.’
His voice was a croak, for the two men stopped dead still, then swung round. The older man recovered himself first.
‘Bless me! You did give ’ee a turn! You say ye’re all right, sir?’
‘A bit dizzy,’ Kerr said. ‘I’ve a brandy-flask in my hip pocket. Would you mind tak
ing it out?’
The youngster, a pawky-faced youth of twenty or so, hurried forward, found the flask and lifted it to Kerr’s lips. He had sense, thank heavens. Kerr took a swallow and the spirit did him a world of good. Almost as much as the gasp from the youngster.
‘Gaw! All right, are yer? Blimey, yer all blood!’
‘It’ll wash off,’ Kerr said, and for the first time he was able to think of the job in hand, and not the immediate danger. ‘Where’s the nearest house?’
‘My cottage be just along the road, sir.’ The older man spoke, and gave Kerr a hand. ‘Steady, now, steady.’
‘Shall we kerry yer?’ demanded the pawky one.
‘Thanks, but I’ll do fine,’ said Kerr, with a smile that looked ghastly. He had split the skin across his forehead, and the blood was still dripping down his eyes, his cheeks, and into his mouth. There was some justification for the youngster’s startled exclamation, but Kerr, after testing his leg for a few yards, knew that the damage was more superficial than anything else. A cold-water compress would do it good, but it would be a devil of a time before he could get to Bradford-on-Avon, near Bath.
The cottage possessed no electric light, and the oil-lamps were smelly and dim, but Kerr was grateful for them. The man and youth were father and son, he discovered, and the woman there was middle-aged and capable. After the first shock she proved calm enough.
She put a kettle on the fire, found towels and insisted on bathing the knee before Kerr’s face. Kerr was grateful. He stretched full length on a settee, confounding the thing that had happened and yet realising he had come out of it well. He found his mind clearing and suddenly started up.
‘Easy, please,’ said the woman, lifting a wet towel. ‘You’ll only hurt yourself.’
‘I know, thanks,’ said Kerr. ‘But I must get a message to a friend. Is there a telephone near here?’
‘Well, there be one in the village——’
‘Can your son get there quickly?’
‘Why, sure,’ said the pawky one. ‘I’ll be there in a jiff on me bike. Where do I ‘phone to?’
‘London,’ said Kerr, tapping his trousers pocket. ‘There’s some change in there, if you’ll get it out. Telephone Whitehall one-two-one-two-one—don’t forget the extra one—and just say: “Kerr has had a smash.” Is that clear?’
‘Kerse ’ad a smash,’ repeated the lad, taking some silver that his mother took from the airman’s pocket. ‘I’ll do it, sir; I won’t be ten minutes.’
Kerr grinned. Ten minutes was a popular period in this part of the world. He thought of the girl with the grave grey eyes, and wondered what she would think if she knew what had happened. Queer, but if she hadn’t rushed him to Heston he might have been stranded all night in the fields. For he probably would not have been quite so far from Heston when the engine stalled. It was odd how minutes meant the difference between life and death.
Who was that girl?
The woman washed his face gently, talking to herself as she did so, and ordering the old man about all the time. In twenty minutes Kerr was reasonably clean, and glad that apart from a graze or two, the swollen right knee and the cut across his forehead, he was all right. He could drink, and enjoy, the strong tea that the old couple made between them.
The pawky lad was gone twenty minutes. He came back full of importance, with a message from Craigie, who had been at Whitehall 12121.
‘Says he’s sendin’ someone, sir. Arst me ’ow you was an’ I said you was bleedin’ bloomin’ awful but you c’d walk. How is he, Mum?’
‘As right as ninepence,’ said the friendly woman, smiling at Kerr. ‘Lucky you didn’t lose your life, sir, you are.’
‘And as lucky that I found you,’ said Kerr much more cheerfully. ‘Now I wonder whether your son can drive a car?’
‘Now, why——’ began the woman, but her son cut her short. He could drive a car; he often drove Farmer Miles’ lorry to market.
Kerr took his wallet from his pocket and took out a wad of one-pound notes that brought gasps from all three of the cottagers. He handed it to the startled youngster.
‘If you’ll go into the village and hire a car—a fast one, it you can—I’ll get you to drive me somewhere. It might be an all-night job, though.’
‘Strewth! Not arf!’
‘Bert,’ said the motherly woman quickly, ‘you be careful. You lost your last job when you didn’t turn up one morning.’
‘I’ll guarantee he doesn’t lose anything,’ Kerr said, and he touched the wallet. The woman looked doubtful, but nodded. The old man told his son to hurry, and Kerr heard the bike moving off over the rough yard.
It was half an hour before the youngster returned, driving a battered Morris which he swore could do seventy. Kerr was waiting by the door. He felt rested. The woman was right when she said disapprovingly that he should go to bed and not go gadding about. But she was silenced by the five pounds Kerr put into her hands, and she stood staring after the Morris as it disappeared, headlights showing a ghostly white along the road ahead. And then:
‘Alf, that there were Providence, I tell you. There ain’t never bin a time when we could do with the money like now, and—but I hopes Bert don’t drive too fast.’
• • • • •
Gordon Craigie had instituted Department Z at Whitehall ten years before, and in those ten years he had several times felt that his efforts to avert trouble would fail. Once or twice he had failed, although the worst disasters had been avoided.
But never had he started a game with as little prospect of success as this.
There had usually been some definite thing to aim at, someone to work against. In this affair he had drawn blanks all along the line. The one piece of luck had been the finding of Mueller’s body, and that, Craigie believed, would lead to the first real break.
Craigie wished Jim Burke had not come back into the game. He always disliked using married men, for he did not see how a man could give his mind, heart and soul to the Department when he was married. Particularly when he was married to Patricia Burke. But that would work out, and at least Burke had given them the Bradford-on-Avon clue.
Then came the message from the youth near Staines. Craigie had been temporarily hopeless after that, for he had not expected trouble before Kerr reached Bradford-on-Avon. But he lost no time in sending another agent to the Wiltshire town, a Mr. Jeremy Lucas, a sunny-tempered acquaintance of Bob Kerr’s who preferred life risky to life sober. Lucas had a string of motor-racing trophies in his bag, and had jumped at the chance of working for the Department. He had been in Shovia for the past two weeks, but had reported to London that day. There was no information out of Shovia.
Lucas, shorter than Kerr and not so broad, but with a heavy face and a pair of sparkling blue eyes, took the orders cheerfully. He had been at Craigie’s office when the call had come from Staines.
‘I’ll fix it,’ he promised. ‘Just a question of finding who posted these letters.’
‘And what address he comes from, if possible,’ Craigie said. ‘Go steadily, because it’s ordinary police work and the police mustn’t come into this affair yet.’
‘Right-ho,’ said the cheerful Lucas. Craigie had not told him about Mueller. Only Kerr, Carruthers, Arran, and Davidson knew what the big trouble was.
The next half-hour nearly made Craigie explode.
Winhart, as worried as ever, telephoned from Downing Street; Sir Ralph Campion, the irritable Secretary for Foreign affairs, called at the office in person and demanded to know why Craigie had not yet succeeded in finding the missing Ambassador. The fact that Mueller was missing, was of course, being screeched from all the placards and the headlines, and there were suggestions, nicely veiled, that Mueller had found a blonde supremely exciting.
Campion was a good sort and a useful man, but he raised Craigie’s ire as few others could. Craigie wondered what the man’s reaction would have been had he been told that Mueller was dead and that Secret Service agents had the b
ody. Instead:
‘I’m doing all I can, I assure you.’
‘What’s the use of that?’ demanded Campion, a tall slender, white-haired man with an apoplectic temper. ‘The police tell me the same—damned lot of nonsense. We must find Mueller. We had the Shovian Foreign Secretary on the telephone earlier. I tell you the situation’s dangerous, Craigie.’
‘The situation’s been dangerous for months, Campion. I’m doing everything possible, but it’s as much police work as mine.’
‘Bah!’ snorted Campion. ‘I’ve just seen Fellowes.* Tells me there’s some report about a body seen near Guildford this morning. Report about a body seen!’
Craigie’s temper eased. So the caretaker’s story had been taken seriously, and Fellowes had already connected that reported murder with Mueller. It was time to talk to Fellowes, and it was a pity that Kerr had not thought of hiding the body before he had allowed the yellow-haired Sam to go to the Guildford police.
The Chief Commissioner, as it happened, rang through to the office a few minutes after Campion had gone. He spoke guardedly, and Craigie felt the relief of talking to a man with sense.
‘Yes, Campion’s just been in, and he mentioned the Guildford affair. Bill, the less said about that the better. Does the Press know?’
* Sir William Fellowes, the then Chief Commissioner at Scotland Yard.
‘ ‘Fraid so. They’re all going mad on this show, of course.’
‘H’m. Any reports on the headlines yet?’
‘No, there’s hardly been time. I didn’t learn of it until an hour ago.’
‘Well—see if you can keep the Press closed down on it. As a personal favour. Tell them it’s not connected with the Mueller affair——’
‘I’ll tell ’em,’ said Sir William Fellowes bluffly. ‘And then I’m coming over to see you. There’s more in this development than meets the eye, Gordon. Where’s Kerr?’
‘He crashed, but he’s still going all right. We’ve several angles on hand.’
‘Humph!’ said Sir William Fellowes, and rang down.
Craigie pushed the telephone aside, but his hand had hardly left it before it burred again. He picked the receiver up wearily, to hear Fellowes’s voice again.
