A Very Big Bang

by Philip McCutchan

  “Petrol,” he said. “Puckle. Puckle in petrol … poor bastard!”

  Kenwood, by the door of the flat, said, “Inside, sir.” He pointed: smoke was coming round the jamb. “We’ll need the fire brigade. Better tell the Yard.”

  “Right. In the meantime, get that door down.” Shard flicked his radio again. Bullets smashed into the lock, uselessly. There would be bolts … Kenwood and his remaining DC, plus Shard, turned into battering rams. When one of the panels gave, the result was billowing smoke, thick and acrid, no hope of getting through. Cursing, Shard left Kenwood to take over, and himself went down the stairs at the rush, out to the back of the premises, behind the well of the staircase. A door with glass panels gave exit to a small back yard. Outside, Shard looked up: fire escape. The obvious route out, and unless Kenwood’s men had been on the ball, the birds would have flown, over walls and away. Shard ran back through the house into Half Moon Street. Heads were looking out of upper windows, people were starting to fill the street, then Shard heard the police sirens. They came in screaming — patrol cars, ambulances, fire appliances, blue lights flashing like Blackpool in high summer. Shard found a uniformed Chief Inspector, briefly gave him the summary. They were bringing the bodies down when Hedge turned up, unable to remain in the Rover and never mind security.

  “Shard! My God! What happened?”

  Shard told him, moved aside as sudden stench announced the out-going Puckle. Hedge stared as the charred corpse was borne past to one of the ambulances. “What’s that, for God’s sake?”

  “A man called Puckle, porn merchant.”

  Hedge still stared as though totally fascinated, his face pouring sweat. “I don’t know how you can stand it, Shard, how you have the stomach …” The inward light in his eye said he was thinking of his own future.

  “I’m a field man, Hedge. All this … it’s the base of the triangle.”

  “Triangle?”

  “Of which you’re the summit — or just below.”

  “It’s horrible.” Hedge seemed to give himself a mental shake, stared at the crowds being held back by the police. “What about the boss woman as you called her?”

  “Flown, I’d say.” Shard turned as Detective Sergeant Kenwood came up, blackened with fire and smoke, clothes still smouldering. “Well?”

  “Flat’s empty, sir — I went in with a smoke helmet.”

  “The back — your men, your DCs?”

  Kenwood lifted his hands, let them fall again. “I’m sorry, sir. They went up the fire escape when they heard the shooting. They were gunned down … not killed, but put out of action.”

  Sweat streamed down Shard’s face. A hard knot of fury swelled inside: his fault — a botched job, and his men the sufferers from something he’d set up himself. A sour sickness rose, but he fought it down. “The car — the Jag?”

  “Still parked, sir. They must have had another available — just in case.”

  “So the trail’s dead?”

  No answer from Kenwood. Shard swung round on Hedge. “We’re doing no good here, you at any rate had better fade. And stand by for a contact.”

  “Yes.” Hedge looked ghastly in the flickering blue lights, the yellow floods of the firemen. Shard put a hand on his shoulder and walked with him to a police car. As it happened, the driver was taking a message from the Yard: recognising Shard he said, “They want a Mr Hedge, sir.”

  “That’s me,” Hedge said. “What is it?”

  “An urgent call’s come into your office, sir. There’s a Duty Officer asking for instructions.”

  “Tell the caller to ring again in ten minutes,” Hedge said. “I’m going to my office now. Shard, you’d better come with me.”

  “Better still,” Shard said. “I’ll drive you.” With Hedge he ran round the corner into Piccadilly and got into the Rover.

  *

  In Hedge’s office, they waited. Hedge sat slumped in his chair behind his desk, staring at his telephones. He had just his desk light on: the room was mostly in shadow. In the shadows Shard prowled, unable to rest, to relax, tugging hard at a cigarette. All along it had been a kind of failure: so near and yet never quite near enough, and far too many deaths. Any moment now they would steam into the final act, and tomorrow there might be wholesale slaughter in London. As for days past they were as ready as they could be: all police and troops on stand-by, the tube tunnels undergoing full night search. All reports had indicated no explosives, but Shard knew very well that this meant, in fact, no explosives found, which was a different thing. The continuing search was an obvious essential, but Shard reckoned it a waste of time and effort: the explosive potential wouldn’t be there yet, it would go down after the first trains started running, when the commuters began to flood the booking halls and the escalators and platforms. Shard, his nerve-endings reacting now, looked at his watch: it was more than ten minutes, the bastards were late, were probably holding off deliberately with intent to rattle even more — or maybe the activities of their brother vandals, the small-scale vandals, had made the finding of another call-box in working order a hard task: they wouldn’t be hanging around the one they had made the first call from.

  Hedge said, “God, this can’t go on.” His voice shook: Shard knew the hell he was going through. A few seconds after Hedge had spoken his telephone, the ordinary outside line already put through to him by the switchboard, burred, a soft sound but menacing. Shard held his breath, moved swiftly and silently towards the monitor as Hedge lifted his handset.

  Fifteen

  “This is the Foreign Office?”

  “Yes.”

  “British Security?”

  Hedge didn’t answer that. He asked, “Who’s calling?”

  “I wish to speak,” the voice, a woman’s, went on in disregard of the question, “to Mr Hedge.”

  Hedge’s face went a shade greyer and his voice grew higher. “This is Hedge speaking. Who’s that?”

  “It is not important. This is: you will, I think, know by this time that tomorrow two persons will arrive at Heathrow in transit to Kennedy …” Over the handset, the pleading eyes of Hedge vainly sought Shard’s: Shard was listening on the monitor. The theorising had been spot on and now there wasn’t long to go. The voice — and Shard had recognised it instantly as being that of Nadia Nazarrazeen — told Hedge in detail all that he knew already. “If there is any interference with the two men by either the British or the Americans,” the voice said coolly, “London will suffer — how, you know already, I think. You must not doubt that we shall do as we say, and it will not save London if you should refuse landing facilities to the VC 10 or if the Americans should cut the Heathrow call.” The eyes of Hedge and Shard met for an instant. “There is one further requirement: the flight to Maracaibo will take off from Heathrow without its passengers, travelling only with its flight-deck crew and one stewardess, and the persons from Beirut.” Just in case, Shard thought, of concealed guns carried by anonymous British or American agents. The voice went on, “Now we come to your personal part, Mr Hedge. Are you listening?”

  Hedge licked his lips, glanced again at Shard’s intent face. “I’m listening,” he said.

  “Then go out into Whitehall and walk towards the Houses of Parliament, Mr Hedge, on foot and alone.”

  “When?”

  “Now. Gross Parliament Street by the subway leading to Bridge Street. You know?”

  “Yes.”

  “There is a men’s lavatory. As you pass it, two men will come out behind you. You will walk straight on through to Bridge Street. The men will remain behind you — they will not harm you in any way if you follow your instructions carefully, Mr Hedge. You will walk along Bridge Street without looking behind you, and you will turn down left before Westminster Bridge and walk along the Embankment, keeping to the left-hand pavement.”

  “And then?”

  There was a light laugh: Shard could almost smell the perfume. “Then you will see. For now, that is all.”

  Hedge was de
sperate. “Wait —” He stopped, with a stupid look on his face: the call had been cut. He stared at Shard, his whole flabby face wobbling. He gasped like a fish. “I’ve got to have protection, Shard!”

  Shard said, “You’re on your own now, Hedge.”

  “For God’s sake … whose side are you on?”

  “I’m facing facts, so must you. Take a grip, Hedge. You have a few minutes … I’d suggest you ring the chief.”

  “Yes,” Hedge said quickly: there was a look that said he might be given a last-minute reprieve if he rang the chief. “Yes, that’s a good idea.” His fingers shook as he took up his closed line and called the home of the Head of Security. A pause, a drumming of fingers, Hedge whitening fast around the gills …

  “Hedge, sir. Yes. I’m sorry — it’s vital.” Briefly, he passed the gist of the recent call, then listened, going whiter still. The inference was obvious enough to Shard: no reprieve. Hedge scarcely kept his polite obsequiousness: he almost slammed the instrument down. “I have to go,” he said to Shard. “I have to follow instructions precisely and to the letter.” His tone was hopeless, defeated, a bitter echo of the inner knowledge that he was but one life against London’s millions, but one life against the forces of international terrorism. It was a grotesquely hard order, vicious in its possible intent: these people just might be satisfied with Hedge alone, who by that token would stand a chance of saving London by his personal sacrifice. Shard, recognising this, also recognised that Hedge’s long knowledge of the security services, longer by far than Shard’s, told him that expediency was all and that at the ultimate summit crouched the ultimate in bastardy …

  Shard dropped him a thin line of hope. He said. “Not too precisely, Hedge.”

  “What?”

  “The instructions — not a blind follow. They said, alone. All right, you’ll be alone. But you’ll have a tail: me.”

  “But the chief said —”

  “Never mind the chief, Hedge. I’ll be behind you.” Shard looked at his watch: time had passed, the hands showed one thirty-five — D Day now, with something around sixteen hours to go. Shard thought, with a shaft of pain, of Beth: no time to ring now, he’d call later if and when the chance came during what was going to be a busy day. “Whatever the woman said, they’ll expect a tail, Hedge — the fact there is one, if they cotton on, won’t make it any worse for you —”

  “But if they intercept —”

  “That’ll be just too bad, but I’m not inexperienced, Hedge.”

  “No, no, of course not.” Hedge mopped a cold sweat from his face, looked much relieved that he wasn’t being totally cast to the lions yet. “Thank you very much, Shard. I appreciate what you’re doing.”

  Shard grinned, forebore to say that what he was doing would be in the national, rather than the Hedge interest. He glanced meaningly at Hedge’s pansy French clock, and Hedge took the hint. Quaking, he moved to a cupboard and brought out bowler hat and umbrella and thus decently equipped went to the door. He looked back with a silly expression on his face, as though taking a last maudlin leave of something he would never see again. Before moving into the corridor he thought of something else, and paused.

  “Shard, my wife.”

  “Well?”

  “She’ll have to know …”

  Shard said, “Hedge, you’re not going out incognito. They’re obviously going to use you as a bargaining counter, aren’t they, so —”

  “Shard, Shard — she doesn’t know I’m Hedge!”

  Shard felt a little foolish. “Point taken — I’m sorry. So what d’you want me to do? Blow your security to her?”

  “No, no.” Hedge looked terribly irresolute, almost in tears of worry and indecision and an increasing fearfulness. “Really, I don’t know what … I suppose you could ring her, Shard, and say I’ve been called away at short notice — Scotland or Northern Ireland — anywhere you like. Yes, I think that would do it.” He looked at Shard like a pleading pink dog. “You will, won’t you?”

  Shard had a moment of cruelty, but it passed. Beth had had no such consideration shown in her fancied widowhood, but perhaps that was no reason to out-Hedge Hedge. He nodded. “All right, leave it with me. Now you’d better get going.”

  “And you, Shard?”

  “I’ll go out by another door and kind of outflank the gents. I’ll be seeing you, Hedge!”

  “I hope so,” Hedge said fervently.

  *

  Shard contacted a minor diplomat on duty and used his own rank and appointment: for anonymity’s sake he took over the diplomat’s car, a dark green Triumph, and personally wrenched off the CD plates with the assistance of the diplomat’s bag of car tools. He drove out of Downing Street, past the police on guard at Number 10 where lights were burning in a line of upstairs windows, turned left along Whitehall. Looking right as he turned, he failed to see Hedge: no doubt by this time he had already made the gents in the subway. Before Trafalgar Square Shard took a right turn into Whitehall Place, past the Ministry of Defence where more lights were burning: as he drove past, some military brass was being decanted from staff cars: the chief had been busy, no doubt, after the call from Hedge. For all Shard could tell, though Hedge hadn’t indicated he was wanted, his security line would be burring away beneath Elsie and her easy virtue in Seddon’s Way, though not loudly enough to put her customers off their stroke. Or — a sinking thought — Beth would be answering the home line and getting herself in a panic to be exacerbated by Mrs Micklam … Shard forced home from his mind with an effort the intensity of which told him he was becoming a worse cop than ever, and drove slow into the bottom end of Northumberland Avenue. He turned left onto the Embankment, drove on for fifty yards, then drifted in to the kerb and stopped. There was no one around, not even a policeman, not even a dropout, meths-filled, looking for a night’s shakedown. A wind blew along the silent Thames, cold around Cleopatra’s Needle ahead of him, gently rustling the spring leaves on the trees. Shard watched out in his rear-view mirror: after a while something came into sight, a couple, almost wrapped around each other. Then something else, something being pushed. He swivelled, taking a direct and confirmatory look: a brace of London’s night workers, street sweepers pushing a mobile dust-bin, a small hand-cart of rubbish. They crossed the road towards the river and began pushing their long-handled brooms along the gutter, dead slow, lethargic, unsupervised. A few minutes later the expected procession came into view, not positively identifiable at that distance, but likely enough: one man with two more behind, around a dozen yards astern.

  Shard backed past the end of Northumberland Avenue, turned left into it and then right past Charing Cross underground and into Villiers Street. Parking the Triumph, he slipped silently, shadow-like, into Victoria Embankment Gardens. From the cover of evergreens he watched as the trio came nearer, moving along the pavement on the side away from the river. Closer identification was made: bowler hat and umbrella assisted. Hedge moved past, looking dead scared, no more than six feet away. Behind him the two characters, ex-gents: a decidedly Middle Eastern look, but Shard didn’t recognise them as anyone he had encountered in the earlier phases. They all went past peacefully, like a bishop with his attendant acolytes. But they wouldn’t, Shard fancied, walk for ever: somewhere, there had to be a vehicle, which meant he had for his part to retain contact with the Triumph. He slid back from the bushes, through the gardens, into the driving seat, turned in Villiers Street and drove back under the railway arch into Northumberland Avenue to left-turn again for the Embankment, the intention being to drive innocently fast towards Waterloo Bridge and then wait once more farther along. But, not for the first time, intent was frustrated by present fact: now you see him, now you don’t, Shard thought grimly.

  Hey presto and Hedge had gone, vanished. So had the two men from the lavatory. So had the mutually wrapped lovers. Ahead up the road, a tattered figure crossed to lean over and gaze upon the London river. A cop car cruised gently past. On the off-chance, Shard stopped it: res
ult nil. Nothing seen. On the river side the two street sweepers swept mournfully, removing filth from the purlieus of the rich, now and again opening up the hatch in the mobile dustbin to throw in the garnerings.

  Shard cursed. On the off-chance he drove ahead, vainly looking left. He retraced past the brush-pushing sweepers, drove up into the Strand, combed the river-leading side streets, knowing he was too bloody late and there was nothing he could do but wait upon events, upon the expected brandishing of Hedge, consoling himself as best he could with the thought that Hedge had had in any case to be left with his captors and things hadn’t in fact been made any the worse. It had been a chance that hadn’t come off and that was all.

  *

  Seddon’s Way had become a nerve centre: the rest of the night was passed between the telephone and another personal visit to the bowels of the earth, where still no explosive device had been found: all was mystery still. With zero hour now sufficiently positive, the anti-measures were stepped up: from the time the underground stations opened, a full muster of police and troops in plain clothes would be on duty in every station on the network, and along the platforms, mingling with the crowds, observing, noting, ready to apprehend anyone who appeared to be acting in the least suspiciously. Shard, knowing it had to be done, groaned inwardly: if things went wrong, and so far there was no indication that they would go right, a lot of police and soldiers from out of town were going to die with London’s commuters by sunset.

  *

  And those telephone calls:

  Head of Security to Shard: “All stops out now, Chief Superintendent. Is there anything further you want?”

  “Yes, sir. I ask again, closure of the system.”

  “I’m in agreement with that and I’ve pressed it. I’m awaiting something positive from Downing Street. I’ve put the point that there’s no further need for secrecy, seeing our friends have shown their hand. I’ll be in touch again.”