by Frank Lean
‘Firing squads at Old Trafford . . .’ I murmured. ‘Bit drastic, wasn’t it? I thought you were in the CID anyway?’
‘It was expected that some of the most dangerous subversives would make themselves scarce as soon as things began to look sticky. That was where the CID came in. I was one of the senior officers let into the secret.’
‘Bloody important, weren’t you!’ King sneered. ‘But you weren’t able to protect your big secret well enough. Brandon Carlyle must have heard a whisper, not that he was a communist or anything. Far from it! But he was sensitive, what with his dad and his uncle having had such a bad time in the last lot. It was him who had the idea of nicking the list. They gave me a tape to replace it with, a reel about a foot in diameter in a case with clear plastic sides and a plastic housing round the rim to keep it from unravelling. I crept out from my hidey hole with it. Bloody noisy place it was; air-conditioning roaring away like the clappers, printers chattering, tape decks whirring. Nobody saw me switch the tapes. Then I slapped this big red button on the wall. I thought it was a fire alarm but it powered down all the computers. Talk about pandemonium! Nobody noticed me getting back in my hole.’
‘As a matter of interest, how did you get out?’ Paddy asked in a bored voice.
‘I hid for a whole day. Had me sandwiches with me, didn’t I? Come four a.m. there was only a technician on duty. He went to the loo and left the outer door open. I walked right out, free as a bird.’
‘And who did you give the tape to?’
‘That would be telling, wouldn’t it?’
It was at that precise moment that the first billow of smoke gushed up the stairs and into the bedroom.
‘Hell-fire and damnation!’ Paddy shouted at Eileen. ‘Have you left the chip pan on, woman?’
‘Of course not,’ she snapped back.
I stood at the top of the circular metal stairway. The room below was filled with dense black smoke.
‘This way,’ Paddy bellowed, leaping from his death-bed as nimbly as a teenager.
It was lucky that he did because the words were hardly out of his mouth before a pillar of flame like the jet from a blast furnace shot up from the stairwell. It bounced off the ceiling on to the bed and where we’d been sitting. If we’d still been there, we’d have been dead. Like scorched rabbits coming out of a hole with a ferret behind them, we scrambled through the large bedroom window and out onto the roof. Grey smoke was already puffing up between the tiles and we’d barely escaped from the inferno in the bedroom before black smoke with the consistency of treacle poured out of the house windows.
‘This way! Follow me,’ Paddy yelled and he led us off the side roof of the house onto the garage roof and then down to the ground. My mother’s face was completely blackened with soot and she was struggling for breath. I wasn’t feeling too boisterous myself. Paddy organised us. He got us to a safe distance and then told Cullen to use his mobile for the fire brigade, not that they’d be able to do much. People poured out of neighbouring cottages to help, even Jake Carless arrived with a filthy horse blanket which he proceeded to drape over Paddy’s bony shoulders.
‘What is it? Your Calor gas gone up then?’ Jake asked with glee.
‘Has it, hell! This was deliberate,’ Paddy snarled, desperate at being caught at a disadvantage by his chief tormentor. ‘Look sharp, man, or that bloody ramshackle barn of yours will go up as well.’
Jake’s jaw dropped. Even as we watched the wind was driving showers of sparks towards the old hay barn that adjoined Carless’s farm. He dashed off screaming for help, and some of the able-bodied men did make a move in his direction but with such marked reluctance that the barn caught fire before they could do anything, and then all the rest of the rambling farm buildings went up.
‘I’ve been expecting this for years with the slovenly way that man takes care of his farm,’ Paddy said, not without a trace of satisfaction, ‘but for it to start at my cottage!’
The fire brigade and police arrived at the upper road, their sirens helping to further madden the cattle and sheep struggling to escape from the stricken farm. Access for the fire engines was impossible. The steep track resembled an Alpine ski slope, but the brigade made their way down on foot.
‘Casualties?’ they asked. ‘Anyone still in the buildings?’
Heads were shaken all round, but then Bren came over to me.
‘Have you seen Vince King?’ he enquired.
57
‘THEY’VE SEARCHED THE ruins,’ Brendan Cullen said later that evening when we were all gathered back at Thornleigh Court. ‘There’s no obvious trace of any human remains but the fire investigation officer said that the blaze was so fierce that a body could have been totally consumed.’
‘I’m telling you, he pushed past me when I was getting Eileen out,’ Paddy said angrily.
‘I didn’t see him,’ Brendan said.
‘You were looking after yourself. It’s only natural. It was hard to get your footing on that roof. Luckily Eileen and I had it off pat as part of my fire drill.’
Cullen looked at Paddy with an expression of wonder on his face. I could sense the comment coming but he suppressed it.
‘Was it arson?’ Paddy asked forlornly.
‘They can’t tell yet. You did have a lot of paint and DIY material lying about, didn’t you?’
‘Oh,’ Paddy said, and then stared at me as if to say it was my fault. I hung my head. Everyone I knew seemed to come to grief.
‘Listen, lad,’ Paddy said quietly, ‘I’ve always known it was dangerous . . . knowing about the Round Up list, that is. It’s not your fault really. I’ve had this hanging over me for years. That’s why I knew no good could come of you getting involved with Vince King and the Carlyles.’
‘Why didn’t you explain?’ I asked bitterly.
‘I couldn’t. I did take an oath of secrecy, after all.’
‘But Dad, there’ve been two serious attempts to kill me besides what happened today and I didn’t have a clue what it was all about.’
‘I’ll tell you what I know,’ he said grimly, ‘but there isn’t much more than I’ve already told you. That toe-rag King stole a top secret list which Carlyle’s been fattening on ever since.’
‘But Mr Cunane, why would that lead to someone trying to kill us?’ Bren asked.
‘I can only guess at that,’ Paddy said, glaring at me. ‘There’s sleeping dogs that are best let lie, but some people don’t know that.’
‘Gee, thanks, Dad!’ I said.
‘I’ve told you often enough,’ he said firmly.
‘Er, can we get back to why someone wants us dead?’ Bren asked mildly. From the way his eyebrows were struggling to nest on top of his scalp I could see he didn’t believe a word.
‘Right, the first thing is this: that robbery that Vince King described – him hiding under the computers and everything – officially, that never happened.’
‘Yeah, it’s a new one on me,’ Bren said coolly.
‘Yes, that’s right. Us four and King and Brandon Carlyle are the only ones who know that the theft of those Round Up tapes was an ordinary robbery. Presumably the late Mick Jones also knew, if it was him who helped King.’
‘Tapes? King said there was only one,’ I interjected.
‘King’s a born liar. He wouldn’t tell you the right time of day unless he knew you had your own clock . . . There were two, one as back-up.’
‘Was the rest of what he said lies?’ Bren asked. His eyebrows had drooped, but his tone suggested that he could think of more interesting ways to spend a Sunday evening.
‘No, he’s vain is King,’ Paddy said confidently. ‘I’m sure it happened much as he said . . . It was the worst moment in my career when they found that the tapes had gone. As one of the few in the know at the Manchester end they had me down as the prime suspect. I’ll never forget them asking me if I’d ever been to Moscow on my holidays.’
‘Apparently they cleared you,’ I said. I wasn’t feeling sy
mpathetic.
‘Those MI5 men were mostly public school and university types. Their minds were completely focused on the USSR. I mentioned the possibility of a local thief and they laughed their socks off. Luckily for me they decided that it had to be some super-spook in London who’d done the switch.’
‘This still doesn’t tell us why someone tried to knock us off this afternoon,’ Bren said wearily.
‘It does. There was no suspicion of Carlyle at the time – small-time local villain, he was. Crafty with it, but small-time. What’s happened since then? Brandon Carlyle’s become very, very rich. Seventh richest man in the country if you believe what you read in the papers – and how’s he done that? Because he’s blackmailed men in PLCs and banks whose names were on the list to tell him when to buy and when to sell. That’s attracted attention all right – inside information. How did he get all those shares in Alhambra TV – bought well before it was announced that they were getting the franchise? A lucky gamble like he said, or did he know?’
‘Still . . .’ I said sceptically.
‘You don’t know how these security outfits work, secret services and what not. It’s all done on computers these days. They do research on people like Carlyle. By now there’s someone sitting in Moscow or Tel Aviv or Washington – or even, God help us, Baghdad! – who has a fair idea how Brandon Carlyle got rich. There’ve been enough questions about him in this country. Maybe Carlyle convinced them that he destroyed his tape, or maybe he did a deal with them to share it, but now they think that Dave’s muscled in on the act and that he’s got the other tape, the one Carlyle’s partner, Sam Levy, must have had.’
‘You haven’t mentioned the British Government. Surely if they’d had an inkling that Carlyle had secret information they’d have arrested him,’ I said.
‘Can you imagine the row if thousands of prominent people found that their names were on an official death list?’
‘OK, I’ll give you that,’ I said, ‘but why hasn’t anything leaked out about all this before?’
‘Because for months after King’s little exploit MI5 was walking on eggs, frightened that there’d be a press conference in Moscow,’ Paddy said. ‘The Government had to be in a position to deny everything. They destroyed all copies of the tapes and wiped out all references to the plan. People like me were warned to keep our mouths shut.’
‘They could have killed Carlyle,’ I argued.
‘They didn’t know about him. He must have played his cards very carefully, and he went after information, not money. Contrary to what you might think, a lot of the names on that list were rich quislings who wanted to be sure they were backing the right horse in case the Russians took over.’
‘Were there any coppers on it?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know. I was only told in general terms what to expect.’
‘What about Vince King?’
‘Work it out . . . you’re quick enough with your theories most of the time. Carlyle, Levy and Jones discover what they’ve got – the biggest pile of blackmail material anyone could ever imagine – and thanks to Jones they know they’re in the clear. Think of the names there must have been on that list: civil servants, legal officials, businessmen and industrialists, wealthy people, even ordinary people who were just scheming for a Soviet takeover. Everybody’s forgotten about it now, but back then there were lots of people who really did believe that life was better under the Soviet system. Christ! They must have been mad. I remember seeing this piece on the news. There were all these people in this Russian butcher’s shop, queuing like zombies they were, and then this policeman arrives, he dumps a pile of sausages down on the counter, horsemeat sausages and that’s their ration for the week – one sausage each . . .’
‘Always did like your steak, didn’t you, dear? And no queuing either,’ Eileen interjected.
‘Stick to the topic of Vince King,’ I said. ‘The Soviet Union’s history now.’
‘No thanks to some of the people whose names were on that list. It stands to reason that Carlyle and co. must have seen Vince as the weak link. He was a pro criminal, liable to get arrested on his next job. They must have thought that he’d blab.’
‘But he wouldn’t, you heard what he said – he’d never grass.’
‘We know that now but they didn’t. He’d never been arrested before. Back in the seventies you had all those “super grasses” in London falling over themselves to shop their mates. It was natural for them to try to kill King. My best guess is that Jones knocked King out first and then he was arranging the best method of executing King and Musgrave so that it looked like there’d been some kind of argument between them.
‘Fullalove was a keen young officer. I think Jones had told him to stay in the car but he didn’t. He was just too curious to see what was going on. He crept into that room just after Jones had shot Musgrave in cold blood. He protested. Perhaps he went to the phone, so Jones shot him as well. Then he heard other officers arriving so he just had time to shove the gun into King’s hand before they arrived.
‘They must have conned King before the trial saying that he’d get the best defence money could buy arranged by Brandon’s own solicitor, and then they saw that Vince wasn’t going to grass after all. So they let him go down for the one crime that he hadn’t committed.’
‘But they forgot about Marti,’ I said. ‘She was the one thing that King really loved. When Social Services brought Marti to see Vince in jail he must have flipped. He phoned Carlyle and told him he’d be singing like a canary if they didn’t do something for Marti, and so the very next day Brandon Carlyle practically adopts her. She’d be a useful piece of security for him to make sure Vince kept quiet. They kept her in the family all those years and even let her marry Charlie . . .’
‘King’s a natural survivor, or at least he was. It’s poetic justice if he’s gone up in smoke, now.’
‘But if he’s not, where does that leave Marti?’ Brendan Cullen asked. ‘She must have been the one he was waiting to get in touch with when it was safe, and God knows what the pair of them are plotting to do to Brandon and Charlie.’
‘Don’t worry about them,’ Paddy said confidently. ‘The devil looks after his own.’
‘I wish I could be that confident,’ Bren replied.
I looked at Paddy. Although emaciated, he’d lost the frightening death’s-door pallor that he’d had in the afternoon. I think he looked on the opportunity to rebuild his ruined cottage as a challenge.
‘How do we know that we’re not still targets?’ I asked. ‘I mean, if this renegade secret service group or foreign intelligence or whatever is still out there, what’s to stop them targeting us?’
‘Take a look out of the window, Dave,’ Brendan offered laconically.
I did. The Press were encamped in force outside Thornleigh Court. Two uniformed policemen were holding them back from the entrance. We’d already seen the headlines on Sky News: ‘FREED EX-CON VANISHES FROM EX-TOP COP’S BLAZING HOME’. The story had all the ingredients to keep the Press outside for days.
‘They’re hardly likely to try something with them there, and the Press are also the reason I’m being forced to play nursery maid now,’ Bren said wearily. ‘We’ll have to come up with some convincing story that throws them off the scent . . . something on the lines of how King met a tragic accident while visiting an old friend.’
‘Thanks, but forget the old friend bit,’ Paddy said. ‘King was in for killing a copper, you know.’
‘We’ll have to come up with something.’
‘Forget the Press. They can only tell lies about us. These secret buggers can kill us all very dead,’ I said.
‘That’s you all over, Dave,’ Paddy said. ‘Throw a damper on the proceedings like you always do! Suppose they were looking for the actual list itself, that tape in the plastic box. I mean, if someone was going to break things in the Press – perhaps a nosey private detective with a girlfriend who was always on the lookout for a big story – that pers
on would need the list itself as proof, wouldn’t he? They must know it’s gone up in smoke. You’re quite safe now.’
With that optimistic thought Paddy went to join Eileen in the guest bedroom. There was something unnatural about Paddy. He seemed to flourish in adversity whereas I felt sick, and not just through smoke inhalation.
‘Cheery old sod, in’t he?’ Bren said, when my father had shut the door. ‘Considering . . . How did you stick it, growing up with him? He’s such a “take charge” bugger. God, he had us out of that bedroom like shit through a goose. Just as well though, eh?’
‘I wish I could feel as safe as he makes out.’
‘You are. Your South African friend was probably hired by one of your business rivals and she won’t be trying again.’ I looked at him. He had that friendly but enigmatic smile that didn’t give a clue about what he was thinking. Had I imagined the visit from Marti and her warning? I didn’t think this was a good moment to tell him about that.
‘Bren, are you certain King’s dead? That bit Paddy said about him being a natural survivor, I mean . . .’
‘King died in the fire.’
‘Bren,’ I muttered. ‘You know the snow was melting all round the house?’
He nodded. The heat had been intense.
‘When you told me that Vince King was missing I walked round looking for him. Before the snow melted I saw a single set of tracks heading across the field towards that hill opposite the house, not on a path or anything, just across the field.’
‘What’s in that direction?’
‘Nothing really, just the quarries at Egerton.’
‘I see,’ he said quietly. ‘Highly significant, Dave. The old geezer just walks into a quarry and helps himself to a pile of explosives and detonators, yeah? Sorry, but it doesn’t happen like that. Quarries use emulsion explosives these days and they come in ruddy big tankers. King’s curled his toes up.’
