Operation Destruct

by Christopher Nicole

  This time Helen joined him, and before Jonathan could stop them Fergus had seized her round the waist and the pair of them were waltzing round and round the trees, singing in different keys and, so far as he could gather, somewhat different versions of the song as well, kicking clouds of snow into the air as they cavorted. He picked up the Luger Helen had dropped and regarded it sadly. In all the espionage films he had ever seen, everyone, or at least the villains, had pursued their sinister objectives in an entirely predictable and logical fashion. He suspected there was a good deal of logic, or at least a great deal of knowledge of human nature, in Anna Cantelna’s various actions. He wondered what she had made of Fergus MacLennan.

  “Oh, brother, I’m exhausted!” Helen fell to her knees in front of him. “Aren’t you going to dance?”

  “I imagine that’s the little fellow’s idea,” he said. “He must have some sort of idea.”

  “Oh, you’re a nasty, suspicious man,” Helen said. “What will we do now, Mr. MacLennan?”

  “‘Over the Sea to Skye,’” pronounced Fergus solemnly, and grinned at Jonathan. “That’s an appropriate title for a song for us to sing, wouldn’t you agree, Mr. Anders?”

  “Oh, entirely.” Jonathan got up. “But I think we can call the concert over. It’s quite light. Look, the sun’s trying to get up. So let’s get moving. I vote we go south; the wind is from the northwest, so we’ll have it behind us.”

  “Always walk toward the wind,” Fergus said pontifically. “Oh, yes. It’s an old Scottish maxim. But it won’t do you any good, Mr. Anders. There’s nobody for miles and miles and miles.”

  “Where there’s sheep there’s always people,” Jonathan said. “And that’s an old English maxim. You coming, Helen?”

  “I’m so tired. Do you think we’ll have to walk far, Jonny?”

  “Miles, if you want to know the truth,” Fergus said. “Miles and miles. And your young lady’s out on her feet, she is. You want to let her lie down, Mr. Anders.” Saying which he pushed Helen, sending her tumbling to the ground, jumped over her, and ran out of the trees.

  “Jonny!” she screamed. “He’s getting away!”

  Jonathan snatched up the gun, watched Fergus MacLennan stumbling up the slope, following his own precept of running into the wind. The snow had stopped, but it formed a light carpet of white on the sodden grass, and the little man slipped and staggered as he tried to run. Jonathan sighted along the barrel, fixed the foresight squarely between Fergus’ shoulder blades, then lowered the gun again. There did not seem any point, now. He watched Fergus MacLennan reach the top of the slope, and disappear from sight.

  “I’m glad you didn’t shoot him,” Helen said.

  He pocketed the gun. “I’ll never appreciate Scottish music again. Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “I still think we’ll do best moving with the wind.”

  “I guess that’s as good a theory as any other,” she agreed. “But I agree with Fergus. We’ve lost her now.”

  “Like hell we have!” He turned his back on the wind, hunched his shoulders, and set off down the valley.

  She hurried to catch up with him. “She must be in Glasgow, and heading north again. We’re on foot, and walking south.”

  “If my figuring’s right, she still can’t leave Barra before tomorrow night. We have twenty-four hours to catch her, Helen. We’ll do it.”

  “Brother!” They splashed through a pool of near-freezing water. She hopped on one foot, caught his shoulder. “I don’t think I’m going to be alive, tomorrow. Maybe we should sing some more.”

  “Wait!” He stopped. They were already out of sight of the trees, traversing a shallow depression between two hillocks, isolated in a sudden burst of surprisingly warm sunshine, and for the moment they were sheltered from the wind. “Listen!”

  A grinding noise came from the other side of the hill.

  “Sounds like . . . like a tractor,” Helen said.

  “It is a tractor,” Jonathan shouted. “Come on.”

  They scrambled up the slippery slope, panted over the top of the hill, found themselves facing a pasture, deserted except for a single large tractor in which were three men.

  “Hello!” Jonathan shouted. “Over here!”

  The tractor turned like a racing car, and came bouncing across the field toward them, while the two men behind the driver produced sporting rifles.

  “Jonny . . .” Helen said.

  “Hey!” Jonathan shouted. “Stop that thing. We’re friends.”

  The tractor slewed round in front of them, carving a great gash in the soft earth. The driver was a hatchet-faced, very young man with a great shock of curly black hair which extended down his neck. He wore a sheepskin jacket over corduroy trousers, and a flat cap. He did not look very hostile; in fact, he gave Helen a pleasant smile. But his two passengers were Scottish gamekeepers, windburned and thin-faced, whisky-nosed and apparently totally unaffected by the cold wind.

  Now they jumped down, their guns thrust forward aggressively.

  “Just take it easy,” Jonathan said. “We can explain everything.”

  “Devils,” muttered one of the gamekeepers. “That’s what they are. Devils from hell.”

  “It’s a long story,” Jonathan said.

  “Well, you can save it,” said the second gamekeeper. “You’ll be telling it to the police, soon enough. Sergeant McAndrew’s waiting for you at the house.”

  Chapter Nine

  Jonathan glanced at Helen. But she was staring at the young man as if hypnotized. “Say,” she said suddenly. “You have to be Clapper Bronson.”

  He grinned at her. “Well, what do you know.”

  “I’m Helen Bridges.” She sounded breathless.

  “You mean you know this chap?” Jonathan demanded.

  “Brother, are you square!” Helen allowed the young man to pull her aboard the tractor. “But whatever are you doing in the wilds of Scotland?”

  Clapper Bronson smoothed the wet hair away from her forehead. “Hush, sweetheart, you’ll offend the natives. As you can tell, MacNeill,” he said to the man with the gun, “she’s an American. These aren’t the wilds of Scotland, my love. You happen to be on a sheep farm. My sheep farm. That means you’re trespassing.”

  “You own all this land? But gee . . .”

  “Will somebody tell me what’s going on?” Jonathan asked.

  “Like I said, he’s square as they come.” Helen dropped her voice to a whisper. “Plays chess.”

  “Is that a fact,” said Clapper Bronson. “You’re a long way from queening this pawn, dad.”

  Helen seemed to find this amusing. “This is Clapper Bronson, Jonny. The English pop star.”

  “Not that chap who doesn’t have any music?”

  “That’s me,” Clapper Bronson acknowledged. “I clap my hands. Like this.” And he did. The rhythm was as intensive as any bongo.

  “That’s very good,” Jonathan admitted. “Hard on the fingers, though.”

  “They make me train like a karate expert,” Bronson said. “I sing too.”

  “I have all your records,” Helen said.

  “Then I’m truly happy to have pulled you out of the wet. First thing you want now is a hot bath. And for you, Mr. . . .?”

  “Jonathan Anders,” Jonathan said. “I thought there was a policeman waiting for us?”

  “There is. Give him a hand up, MacNeill.”

  The gamekeeper assisted Jonathan into the already crowded tractor. “You’ll no deny you spent the night making a terrible row down in the dell, and scaring the laird’s sheep.”

  “Who’s the laird?” Helen whispered.

  Clapper Bronson winked. “When I bought the farm and the castle, seems I bought the title as well.”

  “We were making a noise in an effort to stop ourselves from freezing,” Jonathan explained. “We’re sorry about your sheep.”

  Bronson swung the tractor in a wide circle. “There you are, MacNeill. Trouble is
, Mac heard the noise and put you down as poachers. So he called the coppers.”

  “And singing to stop themselves freezing in April is just what a sheep stealer would say, Mr. Clarence.”

  “It was snowing,” Jonathan pointed out.

  “Ah, yes, but what were you doing out in it, we’d like to know.”

  “Is your first name really Clarence?” Helen asked the young man.

  Bronson blushed. “As you’re not a reporter, I suppose it doesn’t matter.”

  “She is a reporter,” Jonathan said. “I think you’re a fraud, Clapper Bronson. You don’t even speak like a pop star. I’ll bet you don’t even smoke pot.”

  “I have talent, not a psychiatric condition,” Clarence said.

  “And I’ll bet you went to Eton,” Helen said.

  “Eton? I wouldn’t be found dead in the place. I went to Winchester.”

  “And here’s your ma,” MacNeill said. “She’ll tell us what to do.”

  They had crossed the meadow, and once again the land dipped, this time to a dirt road, along which there now came a Land Rover, driven by a determined-looking and extraordinarily large woman, whose hatchet-like features indicated that she was a close relative of Clarence’s. She also wore a sheepskin jacket, in her case over a tweed skirt, and her head was wrapped in a leopard skin scarf. Clarence allowed the tractor to slither down the embankment and come to rest at the side of the road, and the Land Rover braked beside them in a flurry of mud and snow and water.

  “Well done, Clarrie!” shouted Mrs. Bronson, with a noise rather as if one of the shotguns had exploded. “You got them, then.”

  “What about you?”

  “We found the other one, all right.”

  Fergus MacLennan pushed his head out from beneath the canvas flap in the back of the Land Rover; he also had a gillie in close attendance, also armed.

  “That’s them,” he shouted. “Criminals, they are. Murderers on the run. The man has a gun.”

  Clarence glanced at Jonathan. “Do you have a gun?”

  “As a matter of fact . . .”

  “Hand it over,” MacNeill snapped.

  Jonathan gave him the pistol.

  “That’s a Luger,” Clarence pointed out. “You weren’t shooting birds.”

  “He’s a murderer,” Fergus said. “On the run from the police. Oh, yes. And his young lady.”

  Clarence smiled at Helen. “You don’t look much like a murderess to me. Which one of my numbers do you like best?”

  “Oh, ‘The Highland Beat,’ every time. That really sends me.”

  Mrs. Bronson got out of the Land Rover. “When you’ve finished billing and cooing, Clarrie, this girl is wanted by the police.”

  “Because that chap says so, Ma? If Anders is really on the run, would he have handed over his pistol just because I asked him for it?”

  “It’s some scheme he has,” Fergus said darkly. “Oh, yes. Only just managed to get away from them, I did. Held me prisoner all night.”

  “I think we had better let Sergeant MacAndrew sort out this one,” Mrs. Bronson decided.

  “I think we should get Helen into a warm bath,” Clarence said. “Or she’ll be down with pneumonia. She only has one shoe.”

  “She should have thought of that before she started traipsing across country,” said Mrs. Bronson. “The girl’s obviously nothing better than a tramp.”

  “Well,” Helen said. “Of all the . . .”

  “Hold your tongue,” said Mrs. Bronson.

  “Oh, yes,” said Fergus MacLennan. “She’s a tramp, all right. I could see it at a glance.”

  “You be quiet,” suggested Clarence. “Or I’ll push your teeth right down your throat.”

  “That’s nice,” Fergus said, and retired behind the canvas screen.

  “Listen,” Jonathan said. “I know this whole thing looks very bad, Mr. Bronson, but if Helen and I could have a word with you in private, we might be able to explain. It really is most terribly urgent.”

  “Are you a fan of mine too?”

  “Absolutely,” Jonathan promised. “I think ‘The Highland Swing’ is the best thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “It’s ‘The Highland Beat,’ stupid,” Helen whispered.

  Clarence grinned. “Confusing, isn’t it, dad?”

  MacNeill pointed down the road, along which there now came a motorbike. “The sergeant’s got tired of hanging about the castle, Mr. Clarence.”

  “Murdoch, tell that MacLennan character that if he so much as breathes while the sergeant is here you’ll wring his neck.”

  “Oh, aye, Mr. Clarence,” Murdoch said. “I’ll tell him that, all right.”

  “And the rest of you leave the talking to me.” Clarence put the tractor into gear and turned it along the road to face the approaching motorbike. “You shouldn’t have bothered to come out, sergeant.”

  Sergeant MacAndrew pulled in beside the tractor, peered at Helen and then at Jonathan. “Are these the people who were attempting to steal your sheep, Mr. Bronson?”

  Clarence gave a convincing peal of laughter. “Good heavens, no. Did you ever see sheep rustlers looking like this? Helen and Jon are friends of mine, coming up here for a holiday. But they got lost over on the other side of the moor, and ran out of petrol. So they tried to walk the rest of the way, and were caught in that blizzard.”

  The sergeant took off his cap, and inspected the lining, as if seeking inspiration. “And the terrible noise MacNeill reported?”

  “Ah, well,” MacNeill admitted, taking his cue from his employer. “The poor people were singing to keep themselves from freezing, Mr. MacAndrew.”

  The sergeant gazed at Jonathan for several moments, then turned his attention to Helen. “Oh, aye,” he said at last. “They’re London people, all right. Not sheep stealers at all. And you say their car’s away over on the other side of the moor? Now that’s strange, but I don’t remember a road over there. Only a railroad track. I’ll go and have a look.”

  “I wouldn’t bother, sergeant,” Mrs. Bronson said. “They lost the road, you see. That’s why they bogged down. But the car’s on our land, and MacNeill will go over with the tractor and pull it out.”

  “Aye,” said the sergeant thoughtfully. “You’d best be doing that, MacNeill, or it’ll disappear altogether, I shouldn’t wonder. Well, I’ll be away to my breakfast, then, Mr. Bronson.”

  “I’m sorry to have troubled you,” Clarence said.

  Sergeant MacAndrew looked at Helen for one last time. “No trouble, Mr. Bronson,” he said. “No trouble at all.”

  “Man, you’ve made a bad mistake, getting on the wrong side of the police,” Fergus said, watching the motorbike retreating down the road. “You’ll all be accessories after the fact.”

  “I must say, I hope you know what you’re doing, Clarence,” remarked his mother. “I agree it’s good publicity for a pop singer to go to jail, but not on a murder charge. And what Irene is going to say . . .”

  “You leave Irene to me,” Clarence said. “For the time being we’re backing Helen. And Anders, of course. But MacAndrew will be back. He’s a good copper and he was sizing you two up. The police wouldn’t have a photo of you, would they?”

  “Man, do you not listen to the radio?” Fergus demanded. “They’re wanted in Guernsey, for murder, and for assaulting the police in the execution of their duty.”

  “There was something like that on the television last night, Mr. Clarence,” MacNeill said. “They gave descriptions, too. And besides that it said there were three of them.”

  “Oh, I’m not with them,” Fergus declared. “Oh, no, sir. I was trying to stop them, I was.”

  “We’ll sort it out at the castle,” Clarence decided. He threw the tractor into gear, and they bounced down the road, swung hard right, and through an enormous pair of wrought-iron gates.

  “Oh, boy,” Helen cried. “Is that the castle?”

  “Castle Bronson,” Clarence said proudly.

  Castle Bronson
stood foursquare and massive, a perfect example of the old border stronghold. The walls rose thirty feet out of the earth, and were surmounted by a sloping stone roof, accentuating the barn-like appearance of the building. But that it had once been used for a rather grimmer purpose than the storage of grain was shown by the narrow window slits and the massive oaken doors; these stood open to allow the tractor and the Land Rover to rumble into a small, roofed courtyard. A manservant stood by to close them again behind the two vehicles; the crash echoed through the ancient building, and it occurred to Jonathan that Clapper Bronson was taking no risks in bringing them here; they would not get out again without permission.

  Another, smaller oaken door opened in the wall to their right, and a bespectacled young woman stood there, wearing slacks and a sweater, hands on hips. She was both short and thin, her face pugnacious rather than pretty, and her red hair had not been brushed this morning, or yesterday morning either, Jonathan thought—it tangled in every direction. To his surprise, both Clarence and Mrs. Bronson seemed to lose some of their confidence under her glare.

  “Clarence Bronson!” she said with a pronounced West Coast accent. “Are you out of your ever-loving mind? Do you know what a jaunt like that into a blizzard could do to your throat? And you’ve that concert in New York next week. What Harrison is going to say . . .”

  “He’s not here, is he?” Clarence sounded alarmed.

  “He’s on his way. He telephoned from some place down south, Manchester, I think it was. Seems visibility closed in, and when he put down to take on fuel he couldn’t get off again. He’s hopping mad already. Says he’ll be here as soon as there’s a break in the weather.”

  “Well, then, he needn’t ever know a thing about it.” Clarence jumped down and gave her a kiss. “Anyway, the blizzard’s gone south. Straight for his nibs.”

  “It’s still freezing cold.” The young woman freed herself and looked distastefully at Helen. “Something the cat left behind?”