Cat and Mouse

by Vicary, Tim

  Perhaps it was a little too complicated an excuse, but at least it was enough to overcome the time while Simon opened the front door and installed Tom in the passenger seat. Then Simon sprang round quickly to the front, cranked the handle, and leapt in beside him. They were away.

  As they reached the end of the lane the rain came down. A few large pregnant drops on the windscreen at first, then floods of it, thundering off the canvas roof, swooshing across the windscreen, bouncing off the bonnet in hundreds of tiny fountains. Simon turned up his coat collar to shield himself against a stream trickling through the roof. If it doesn't stop the engine this could be a bonus, he thought. At least no one will hear us arrive in a downpour like this.

  Beside him on the seat, Tom shivered in the sudden chill caused by the rain. Simon grinned to himself. You'll be a lot colder than this before the night is over, my boy, he thought. That stiff upper lip of yours might get frozen solid!

  He smiled to himself at his joke, and felt no pity at all . . .

  On the way back to Glenfee Tom said little. Once, when the rain had slackened and they could hear themselves speak, he tried to ask about his mother, but Simon did not encourage conversation.

  ‘I wasn't there. I didn't see it myself,’ he said. ‘You'll find out soon enough when we get you home.’

  As planned, Werner was waiting for them in Dundonald. He had a black bag in his hand and was standing outside the hospital. When he got into the back seat of the car, Simon said: ‘This is Dr Marcus, a specialist in head injuries. Dr Robinson has called him in for a second opinion, and your father asked me to pick him up here on the way back.’

  Tom said little then, either. He seemed cold and stunned more than anything else. Shivering, with his arms folded across his chest for warmth and his wide dark eyes staring earnestly forward through the rain as though to will them onwards. Not until they came to the walls around the park at Glenfee and turned right instead of continuing straight on along the side of the Lough, did he turn to Simon in alarm.

  ‘Where are you going? This is the wrong way!’

  Simon had an answer for that too. ‘There's a tree down in the drive. We have to get in round the back.’

  It was an unlikely answer, because there had been no wind, only rain, and anyway, the road to the back of the estate would still leave them with a ten minute's walk across sodden grass to get to the house, but it kept Tom quiet for another couple of minutes until they turned left along a muddy track that led into the woods at the top of the hill.

  Then he said: ‘But this is stupid!’

  Simon drove round a bend out of sight of the road, stopped the car, leaned over, and seized Tom's arms, pressing them against his sides so that he couldn't move. At the same time Werner reached from behind with a damp sponge which h pressed over the boy's nose and mouth. For a few moments Tom struggled, wriggling and kicking frantically, but it was no use.

  The squeaking under the sponge faded, and the little body in Simon's hands relaxed. The reek of chloroform filled the car. For a few moments longer Werner held the sponge in place, then slowly, cautiously, he took it off. Tom's body flopped feebly to one side on the front seat, head lolling. He lay there, eyes closed, breathing quietly and slowly.

  Simon put the car in gear, and drove on slowly up the muddy track into the woods.

  For a long time Werner had been unable to work out what it was that annoyed him about English country houses.

  After all, there were plenty of fine castles in Germany, providing a similar lifestyle. Werner himself had spent part of his youth in one. They were the birthplaces of the aristocracy - the von Moltkes, the Falkenhayns, the leaders of the Empire. Despite their occasional stupidity they had a place in the world — there were very few of them, and they were born to lead. He accepted their way of life as odd, but natural. He was impressed by his visits to the homes of his father's friends, and enjoyed them.

  So why did their English and Irish counterparts annoy him so much? He had visited several as a boy, when his father was planning to send him to Eton; and many more since he had returned to the country, to work as a newspaper man.

  It had taken him several years to realise that they annoyed him precisely because they were not counterparts of the German schlosses. There were far more of them, for a start — nearly everyone he had met at Eton seemed to have a country house. And then, when he went to them in anticipation, they were so much scruffier than he expected. Many of them stank of cats and dogs; they would have a few decent rooms and the rest would be cold and draughty, with thunderous plumbing and stuffed lion's heads presiding over faded wallpaper and peeling paint. Shamefully neglected, in fact.

  But it was the inhabitants that really annoyed him. Even the poorest of them acted as though his rural slum really was a castle, and he himself entitled to rule the world from it. As, indeed, the wretched people did. While Germany was penned into the centre of Europe, the confounded English went out from these country houses of theirs, full of icy draughts and dogs and sjambok heads and photos of cricket teams at Allahabad, and ruled an empire on which the sun never set.

  If it ever rose, that is, Werner thought. His thick Ulster coat had become thoroughly sodden waiting for Simon outside the hospital in Dundonald, and the car itself, the new Daimler that he had bought earlier this week, had leaked in half a dozen places so that he wondered how long it would be before mould and mushrooms started to grow in it. As he drove up the long drive between the dripping trees he tried to imagine what mental aberration could possibly have persuaded Charles Cavendish to return from India and the Sudan to fight to keep control of such a miserable place as this.

  He wondered if Charles Cavendish would remember him. If he did not he would find out soon enough.

  Through the rain and evening gloom he could make out that Glenfee was a moderately large three-storey building with an imposing pillared porch, and what looked like a stable block and several coach houses around the back. There were lights shining dimly through the rain from several of the downstairs rooms, none of which appeared to have curtains drawn. He parked his car on the drive at the front of the house, and hurried up the steps to the front door.

  After a pause, a butler opened it. ‘Yes, sir?’

  ‘I have come to see Colonel Cavendish.’

  ‘Indeed, sir. Then you had better come in.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Werner stepped gratefully into the hall, his coat dripping on the floor. He noticed that the hall was, as he had expected, large, dimly lit from some hissing oil lamps in the corners, and featured several vast oil paintings of ancestors on the walls.

  ‘Is the Colonel expecting you, sir?’

  Werner grinned, the pale blue eyes in the thin wolfish face laughing at the man. ‘No, but what I have to say is very important to him. It's a message about the UVF. He will see me, I'm sure.’

  ‘No doubt, sir. Do you have a card?’

  ‘Of course.’ Werner fumbled in the pockets of his coat. Damn the English and their wretched formality, he thought. At least in Prussia we have something worth being formal about! He produced the card and was left to stand dripping in the hall. He heard a piano somewhere to his left, and a woman singing softly. After a moment the butler returned.

  ‘If you would follow me, sir. And perhaps I could take your coat?’

  A trace more warmth, perhaps? If so, why? Had Charles recognised the name on the card he had sent in? If so, what did he feel? Guilt, after all these years? Or amusement, that a man he had abused as a child should care enough to seek him out? Werner followed the butler along a narrow, dark corridor to a door at the end. The man stood back, showed him in.

  ‘Mr von Weichsaker, sir.’

  It was a small room, about twenty feet long by about ten square. There were ledgers and box files on shelves all along one wall, and two filing cabinets in a corner next to a typewriter on a table. A few pictures here and there — of Carson, addressing a rally under a huge Union Flag, and another of some young men in regimen
tal uniform in a hot country — India perhaps. To Werner's relief there was a warm coal fire blazing in the grate, but there were no curtains in the window, and rain rattled against the glass out of the blackness of the night. Most of the floorboards were bare, but there was a thin, worn rug in front of the fire. At the far end of the room, near the window, Charles Cavendish sat at a desk facing the wall under a lamp, reading.

  It's as drab as his study at Eton, Werner thought suddenly. In all these years he hasn't changed at all.

  As Werner came in Charles looked up. The face was the same — thin, sharp, with that proud hooked nose and thin firm mouth. Older, that was all. With receding temples and hair that was greying rather than black. And an air of natural authority that had increased, if anything, since he was head of house at school. Not a man to be trifled with.

  And what about me? Werner wondered. Do I look the same to him?

  Apparently he did not. No recognition flashed in the cool grey eyes. Just a frown, a polite puzzled glance. Charles stood up, held out his hand.

  ‘Good evening, Mr … von Weichsaker, is it not?’

  ‘Yes, that's my name.’ Deliberately, Werner peeled back the glove from his crippled right hand before holding it out. All the time he watched Charles's face. The look of cool, polite disinterest persisted for longer than he had expected, almost, in fact, to the point where Charles was about to take the hand and shake it. But then, he froze. Looked down at the hand, then up, searchingly, into Werner's face.

  ‘Good Lord! So it is you?'

  ‘Yes, Charles. It is me.’

  Werner had been prepared, to an extent, to feel anger, but not this sudden wave of red fury. Perhaps it was the callous, calm voice in which Charles announced his surprise, as though it was a matter of minor interest which need not detain him long. Perhaps it was the arrogance, the untouchable sense of superiority which cocooned the man even in this old, damp house at the end of the world. Or perhaps it was the way Charles avoided his hand as though it was diseased . . . He stepped back, as though now he had decided Werner was not a gentleman, not even a person to be welcomed into the house at all.

  If I could knock him down and shove a red-hot poker up his arse, Werner thought, I would.

  But there's no need. Whatever he says or does I can take my time. I've got something to say which will hurt him far far worse than that.

  ‘Well.’ To do him credit Charles had at least paled slightly. ‘After all these years. Whatever brings you to Glenfee out of this dark, rainy night?’

  ‘I wanted to see you, Charles. I have something important to say.’

  ‘Indeed? Well, you've chosen a damned inconvenient time for it. But now you're here you'd better sit down.’ He indicated a shabby leather sofa. ‘Can I offer you a drink?’

  ‘Yes, please. Whisky, if you have it.’

  Charles opened a cupboard and poured a small amount into two cut-glass tumblers. ‘I'm afraid I don't have ice, water, that sort of thing. Neat do you?’

  ‘Certainly.’ Werner took the glass and drained half of it in one go. The warmth spread gloriously through his veins.

  Charles sat in the chair by his desk and smiled awkwardly. ‘I hope I don't seem too rude. It's a bit of a shock to get used to, seeing you as a fully grown man after all this time. What do you do for a living?’

  ‘As it says on my card. I'm a journalist.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, what do you want from me? Inside knowledge about the UVF, I suppose. If so, I warn you it's no go. The reason we're such a tight effective organisation is that we know how to keep a few secrets.’

  Werner smiled. ‘Yes, I know that. As a matter of fact I happen to know one or two of your secrets as well.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  Werner took a deep breath. That was silly, he thought. This was where it would all begin. The important thing was to handle it calmly, so that Charles did not lose his temper completely and do something foolish.

  ‘Forgive me. Perhaps I exaggerate. But I regret to say that . . . I have a rather difficult request to make of you. It is of the utmost importance that you listen to me carefully, and think before you react. If you do not, something terrible may happen which you will regret for the rest of your life.’

  Charles put his whisky glass down carefully on the desk. ‘I'm not sure I understand you.’

  ‘Of course not. Not yet. Let us take it step by step. It is very simple, really. I think you should read this letter.’

  As he took the letter out of his pocket, Werner could not stop his hand shaking slightly. He stood up before he gave it to Charles, and then stepped back slightly to be a little out of Charles's reach, near the door. It was rather like passing over a piece of dynamite, in its way. He put his left hand back in his pocket, where the automatic pistol was.

  The letter was in a crumpled white envelope. There was nothing written on the outside. Charles picked up a paperknife and slit it open.

  Inside was a single sheet of lined paper, apparently torn from a child's exercise book. On it was some writing in grubby pencil. The letters were shaky, not always the same size, smudged in places.

  Father,

  These men have caught me and shut me in where you can never find. Please do what they say or they will kill me. I am sorry.

  Tom.

  Charles did not take it in at first. When he did, needles of rage pierced his brain. He sprang to his feet, pushed back his chair, turned upon Werner ...

  ‘Stand still!’

  Through a red mist of rage Charles saw the round, black muzzle of a pistol pointing unwaveringly at his face. Werner stood with his back to the door, two yards away, out of reach, with the gun at the end of his fully extended left arm. Behind the gun were two ice-blue intense eyes freezing him into stillness.

  ‘Sit down. Please.’

  Charles stood, his hands clenched into fists, shaking with the sudden rush of fury. Surely this German was no marksman, would not dare . . .

  ‘Do what I say. Now, please. If anything happens to me your son will die as well. Sit!’

  Slowly, never taking his eyes off Werner for a second, Charles backed towards his chair, reached behind him with his hands, sat.

  ‘You unutterable bastard!’

  ‘Say what you like.’ Werner lowered the pistol slightly, but did not move away from the door. ‘But when you have finished, listen to me. If you love your son at all it is important to do that.’

  ‘Love him at all? What do you know of it, you slug? Where is he?’

  ‘You read the note. Safely guarded, where you cannot find him. But, unlike you, I do not make a habit of abusing small boys. If you listen to me and do exactly as I say, then by tomorrow night I will return him here. Safe. Completely unharmed.’

  ‘And if I don't?’

  ‘You will, if you love him. Be warned, Charles Cavendish. I am not a monster as you seem to think, but the man who is guarding Tom is. His orders are to kill the boy if I do not return – and I am perfectly sure he will do it. So do not even try to disobey.’

  There was a silence. The rain rattled on the window and the coal spluttered in the fire. Far away, faintly, Charles could hear the sound of Deborah playing the piano and singing. As though this place had become a home again, he thought, uselessly.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  That's better, Werner thought. The first sign of a return to reason. Still standing out of reach by the door, he began to explain. He spoke very slowly and clearly, aware that he was dealing with a man whose judgement might be clouded by emotion, who might be overcome by rage at any moment and forget what he said.

  ‘It is very simple, really. At nine-thirty tomorrow morning you are due to pick up Sir Edward Carson at Craigavon and transport him in your car to Mount Stewart. Is that correct?’

  ‘How the devil do you know?’

  ‘I asked if it was correct. Is it, or isn't it?’

  Slowly, painfully, Charles nodded. ‘It may be.’

  ‘Good.
I also believe that you intend to leave this house, Glenfee, at seven o'clock tomorrow morning in your car with your chauffeur. You will then pick up an armed escort of three UVF soldiers in the village three miles down the road and proceed to Craigavon. Is this correct also?’

  ‘Someone has told you.’

  ‘Of course. Now, it is a good plan but I wish you to change it slightly. You may still leave this house at seven o'clock tomorrow morning, but your chauffeur and the men from the village will not be in it. Instead, I will accompany you with an armed escort of three men of my own. At the same time as we leave, you will send your chauffeur to the village with a written order cancelling the duties of your escort. Do you understand?’

  Charles stared at him, with loathing. ‘But why?’

  I've seen a rabbit stare like that at a snake, Werner thought, with satisfaction. He smiled at Charles, enjoying the sense of power. ‘Ah. Well now, that is the interesting part. You see, we will all go in the car to Craigavon to pick up Sir Edward Carson as arranged. You will play the role of the officer in charge, as though I and my men are your soldiers. You will be very careful not to betray us in any way, because if you do, your son will die. Is that clear too?’

  ‘Everything is clear, you monster, except what you hope to gain by doing this.’

  ‘What I hope to gain is a little acceleration in the course of history, no more. You and Sir Edward will not, of course, arrive at Mount Stewart after you leave Craigavon. Instead I have arranged a little holiday for you in the country. A rumour will spread that Sir Edward has been arrested by the British Army and is being held in Holywood Barracks. If you want to know why we are doing this, think about your colleagues in the UVF for a moment. What are they likely to do, when they hear such a rumour — and find Sir Edward is missing?’

  Charles did not answer. He remembered some of the fiery conferences he had attended only last week at Craigavon. Again and again, a number of junior officers had urged an immediate pre-emptive strike on all the military barracks and stores in Ulster, so as to make the UVF's threat of controlling the province a fait accompli.