Werewolf (Commander Shaw Book 16)

by Philip McCutchan

  Werewolf

  Philip McCutchan

  © Philip McCutchan 1982

  Philip McCutchan has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 1982 by Hodder Stoughton Ltd.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  1.

  2.

  3.

  4.

  5.

  6.

  7.

  *

  8.

  9.

  10.

  11.

  12.

  13.

  14.

  15.

  16.

  17.

  18.

  January: cold and bleak, and conditions atrocious on the Ml. There was fog for some distance north from the London entry at Staples’ Corner; the police mobiles had an almost despairing look as they did their best to wave down the maniacs in the fast lane. As the fog thinned out later on, I saw the massive pink-tinted build-up of snow clouds ahead. It was just 1500 hours by my watch; and already the day was darkening and the mood was nasty and I couldn’t wait to get off the motorway and behind the warm, friendly walls of York. As soon as the visibility improved I put my foot down and gloried in the response of power from the Volvo. I flicked right and moved into the fast lane and thereafter, within the limits of safety, I didn’t pay too much attention to the speed restriction. But I was only just beyond the first Nottingham exit when the snow flurries started and within minutes there was a minor blizzard.

  Cursing, I slowed into the middle lane; I was going to be late into York and Miss Mandrake would be worried. I was under orders from Focal House — orders from Max in person, Max being the Executive Head, 6D2 Britain — to pick Miss Mandrake up in York after an assignment in Leeds where she had been busting a drug ring with notable success, and take her over to join my own assignment which lay in the border lands and involved some Scottish Nationalists who had been exceeding their brief — or so it was believed. The Tartan Army seemed to be in action again: a handful of bridges had been blown up. It looked like being quite exciting; and so, today, was driving up the M 1 — much too exciting. I didn’t go much on the bloody great transporters that kept thundering up to pass me illegally on my left, and roared on leaving my windscreen so thick the wipers couldn’t cope. Roll on York!

  I almost missed the exit to the M18, but managed to haul over at the last second without too much hassle. The M18 was no improvement on the M1; a few years ago one always noticed the reduction in the traffic the moment one got onto it, but not since the extension to the M62 had been opened up. It was a relief to break off Onto the A1, and then the A64 for York. Still in snow, I came into the city and turned left just short of Micklegate, down between the railway station and the old battlemented walls. I wished it was April: there would have been a mass of daffodils dancing below those walls. Now the grass was white like everything else. I drove on past and turned up for the Lendal Bridge. It was late for shoppers and the office workers were starting homeward so I was able to find a parking space just short of the Minster. I parked with much relief, but the relief didn’t last long. I was rubbing at tired eyes when a tap came at my window and I saw a snow-covered blue helmet silhouetted against the lights of York and bent so that its wearer could talk to me.

  I wound down my window. “Yes?” I asked. “It’s all right to park here, surely?”

  “Yes, that’s all right, sir.” There was a cough. “Would you be Commander Shaw?”

  “That’s me,” I said.

  “And you’re meeting a Miss Felicity Mandrake?”

  I felt some stirring of alarm. “Yes,” I said. “Why?”

  The policeman said, “There’s a coincidence for you! Word’s just come through on my transceiver, and there I am standing right where you’re parking your car!”

  “So someone passed you my number,” I said rather sourly. “Can you tell me what’s up, please?”

  “Nothing to worry about, sir, but there’s been some trouble and the lady’s in hospital — ”

  “What!” I stared back at the copper in concern. “Can you be more explicit?” He couldn’t be, he said; but Miss Mandrake was not badly hurt and wanted to see me. She was in York General Hospital, just down from Monk Bar on the Mahon Road, and he would guide me there. I knew the way, I said, but he insisted on accompanying me, so I shoved open the passenger door and he walked round and got in. He was big, as tall as me, but the Volvo absorbed us both and I backed out of the parking space and drove past the Minster for Monk Bar. I tried to pump the policeman, but either he didn’t know any more or wouldn’t say, and I passed beneath the ancient walls of the city, over the lights, then took a right turn into the hospital courtyard, worried as hell despite the copper’s initial reassurance. There was no one in reception but I waylaid a passing nurse who went obligingly into an office and consulted some lists and then told me where I would find Miss Mandrake. It was after visiting hours, but the police uniform had overcome that slight difficulty. I walked down a long corridor, highly polished but not very warm as a result of continuing spending cuts, while my policeman remained outside reception in case he could be of assistance: he was well aware of the prestige of 6D2.

  I found Miss Mandrake head-bandaged and unwillingly in bed in a crowded Nightingale ward. “Thank God you’ve come,” she said. “Now you can get me out of here.”

  “Not unless the doctors say so,” I said. I looked at her mates at either hand: one young girl lying as rigid as death but with her eyes open, seeing nothing. A drug case, perhaps. On the other side an old beldame with munching lips and a seamed face, staring hard at us. I gestured towards her and lifted an eyebrow at Felicity.

  “It’s all right,” Felicity said. “She’s as deaf as a post.”

  “Lip read?”

  Felicity said crossly, “I don’t know and for God’s sake I don’t much care. I wouldn’t call her a security risk. Come down off your perch, Commander Shaw!”

  I grinned at her and sat close to her on a hard chair with my back to the old lady. “All right,” I said, “let’s have it, Miss Mandrake.”

  So she told me all about it, keeping her voice low and never mind her expressed views on security. The story was quite brief: during the afternoon Felicity had come in from Leeds — she’d had another job to do for Max in York, which was why I was picking her up there rather than in Leeds — and had taken a taxi from the station to the hotel where we intended staying the night. The taxi had skidded into a lamp-post and bust its radiator and thereafter she had got out and walked. She had gone down a narrow alley and found herself alone but for a man coming in fast from behind: she admitted to carelessness — she hadn’t checked for a tail on the taxi and the moment the man had caught up with her she realised she should have done, since he carried a flick-knife. She had parried that, but hadn’t dodged the blow on the head that had come from a blunt instrument produced when the flick-knife had been sent sliding along the icy alley. It had been a glancing blow only and she had kept on her feet. She was pretty hot at karate as it happened, taught in the tough-up room at Focal House, and she had brought her man down. When the crowd gathered, the law had been brought in and chummy had been arrested. Felicity’s head was bleeding and there was a lump; as a precaution she had been taken straight to hospital for a head examination, and as a matter of routine they had insisted on her remaining overnight.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” I said. “You’ll have to do as they say.”

  “I want to get out. I’m perfectly fit.”

  “Patience,” I told her. “I
’m not going against medical advice and neither are you. Max would demand no less. Just make the best of it — it’s only one night.”

  She sighed; she knew I was right, but I knew she’d been looking forward to tonight, a quiet drink somewhere and a first-class meal, and after that … well, we hadn’t seen each other for quite a while. She’d been on one job, I on another. We’d both missed the companionship. I got up, bent down and kissed her on the lips and I could hear a rev-up in the munching from behind me as the crone became aware of something electric. I said, “There’ll be plenty more nights, Felicity, once we hit the borders.”

  “And tonight? What are you going to do?”

  I said, “I’m going to have a word with chummy.” I left her then, reassured myself by having a word with the staff nurse on duty, and went down to reception. My policeman was there still, and said he would guide me to the police station. I was glad enough of his help; I know York reasonably well on foot, but each time I drive there its one-way system tends to defeat me. At the station I spoke to the sergeant on duty and after producing my identification I was taken down to the cells. At my request I was shut in alone with chummy, who had given his name as William Smith which might or might not have been genuine. Either way, it had given North Yorkshire Police any amount of trouble: the computerised files contained hundreds of William Smiths and plenty of them fitted chummy’s description. Currently they awaited the result of a fingerprint check.

  I started off with the simple question: “Why?”

  There was a shrug, but no answer. Chummy’s small red eyes, like those of a pig, stared at me angrily for a while, then dropped.

  “Did you know the lady?”

  Still no answer. It could have been a chance attack, of course, a straightforward mugging, but the sergeant had thought not and so did I. William Smith looked a thug but not really a mugger — lie would scarcely need to be, judging from his suit, which was an expensive hand-tailored one, and his watch, which was an Omega; I’d seen the latter among his removed possessions, possessions that hadn’t included any clues as to his identity. No credit cards, no driving licence, though the wallet was a very good one … I reckoned the file-chase for William Smith had been a sheer waste of time and effort, and as I went on with mv questioning I was not surprised when the cell door opened and the sergeant came in and slid a piece of paper in front of me. Fingerprint check negative, it read. I nodded and the sergeant removed the piece of paper. Chummy hadn’t transgressed before, or hadn’t been caught anyway. As for me, I felt I too was wasting mv time; William Smith wasn’t going to say anything, the moment might come, but for now he had clammed up.

  I followed the sergeant out of the cell and said I’d finished and no result. Chummy was locked in and I went up the stairs to the front office. I said, “Could be part of the drug business. Revenge.”

  “That’s what I think, sir. Did you put that to him?”

  “Yes. No answer.”

  “Co-operative hugger!”

  I grinned. “He has his defence to consider, no doubt. Keep me posted, will you?”

  “I will, Commander Shaw. Where are you staying?”

  “Viking Hotel in North Street.” I turned to go, then turned hack. “By the way, has he asked for a solicitor?”

  “No, sir, he hasn’t, not yet.”

  “Odder and odder,” I said. “Quite determined not to reveal his identity, isn’t he?”

  *

  I became aware of a tail soon after leaving the nick: a big man wearing a black leather jacket and jeans and closely cropped hair: a skinhead. He looked dangerous. I decided to bring him out into the open. I left the Volvo parked and led the man by easy stages towards a pub I knew that fronted the river. In summer there would be tables outside so you could drink right alongside the Ouse and watch the boat traffic. In winter, such as now, it was cosy inside. I felt in need of a drink anyway. Snow was falling again, and York was lying white and more or less empty. The few people around were muffled to the eyeballs, bent against the driving snowflakes, hands deep in pockets. Cars proceeded with caution and there weren’t many of them at that. God, it was cold!

  I turned left for the river, and the pub. The river lay like a sheet of blank metal, dark between the white. Even the pub was all but deserted: an old man was hunched on a stool at the bar, engrossed in a Guinness. A young couple sat at a table by the windows, engrossed in each other. I asked for a large Dewar’s, and carried it to a table in a corner. I waited for the skinhead to show.

  He didn’t.

  I took stock of the pub: there were three ways out, I remembered. My tail, if he was one, was chancing it a little. I waited, taking my time over the whisky. Two more men came in and asked for Sam Smith’s. They drank it noisily, chatting with the barman. Still no skinhead. I could have been wrong. I finished the whisky; it was time to go. I went out by the opposite door, along the bar from the one I’d come in by. Outside, the snow had thinned but the river looked as metallic as before. There was a man hanging around, but he wasn’t the skinhead. Apart from him and me there was no-one. I walked up the road, sliding a hand inside my coat, ready for my shoulder holster. I didn’t like the set-up: I heard no footsteps on the lying snow but I knew the second man was behind me. I stopped, stepped aside and slewed round, all very fast. The man was close and now he had the skinhead with him. I saw the upraised arm, and the cosh in the hand. I went to grab the wrist and I slipped on the snow and went down flat. As I fell I heard one of the men give a piercing whistle and on the heels of it a Daimler Jag moved out from a side street and came down towards us. That was just about all I saw, since the moment I fell the skinhead took the cosh from his mate and as I tried to bring out my automatic the cosh slammed into my head and I went out like a light.

  The Jag was moving dangerously fast when I came round. I was very muzzy and my head ached and I felt like vomiting. I saw that I was in the hack with the skinhead, with two more men in front. To be moving so fast on those snow-covered roads, the driver had to be mad. When the skinhead saw that I was stirring, he pressed a sharp knife into my side and held it there.

  “Don’t move,” he said, “or in it goes. Right through the rib cage to the lungs and heart. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I said, knowing that even an involuntary shift of position would bring that blade to penetration so long as he held it rigid, which he would. I looked out of the windows at the appalling night as the headlights brought the road up cleat and stark and white. God help the shepherds of the dales in weather like this, and we seemed to be heading for the dales ourselves as I assessed a little later: not far out of York I picked up a road sign in red, an army sign indicating 322 Engineer Park to the left. I remembered it. I was on the A59 for Knaresborough and Harrogate, which latter town advertised itself as the Gateway to the Dales. But in Green Hammerton the Jag forsook the Harrogate road and headed for Boroughbridge and Ripon which also led ultimately to the current snows of Wensleydale. Then a little before Boroughbridge the driver took a sharp right-hand turn into the little village of Aldborough, a place I knew well. Past a hanging sign advertising the Museum Tea Rooms, past a forlorn maypole on the village green, we turned right again and headed south. There seemed to be a certain amount of back-tracking, possibly to throw off any pursuit and generally confuse the issue, though I could see little current point in that since there was manifestly no pursuit; in any case, the very fact that no-one was attempting to confuse me with curtains over the windows, or a blindfold, told me that I was not intended to come out of this alive. After Aldborough we took a number of turns left and right and it became clear that we were heading not into the dales but into the desolation of the North Yorkshire Moors that lay between Helmsley, Stokesley and the cold North Sea. When we came to Sutton under Whitestone Cliffe the driver was forced to slow for the tricky climb up Sutton Bank, gradient one in 3.9 and twisty. We made it with difficulty, the wheels spinning from time to time; but the snow was slushy and not frozen and we reached the summit in one
piece. On we went through Helmsley and then took the road past Rievaulx Abbey’s ruins, the road for Stokesley ; but we didn’t go that far. After a while we turned off left onto a minor road, a very minor toad too insignificant to have a sign. The Jag strained its guts through piled snow and finally ground to a halt.

  “That’s it,” the driver said, speaking for the first time.

  “Meaning?” the skinhead asked in a sour tone. “Meaning she won’t go any further. We’ll have to walk up to the house. About a couple of miles.”

  “Christ. Leave the car here?”

  “What else?” The driver gave a hard laugh. “Nature’s nature, Plug. Even you can’t argue.”

  The skinhead called Plug didn’t like his current situation. He said, “It’s not on. It’s too bloody risky.”

  “All we can do.” The driver sat, bulking against the surrounding white. His voice was patient. “Like I said — ” The skinhead said savagely, “The boss’ll do his nut if the fuzz starts poking around and finds the Jag.”

  The driver shrugged. “Think up something else.”

  Plug muttered to himself for a while, racking his brains presumably, but not for a moment relaxing his knife’s vigilance. That knife had kept on digging, had kept on digging all the way as the car’s motion rolled me against it, and I had felt the seep of wet blood. Plug said, “All right. Do it here, then. Safer!”

  “Make it fast, then,” the driver said. “Soon we’re going to be snowed right up and we won’t even get out arse first.” He paused. “What about afterwards, eh?”

  “No bother. He’ll go in the hoot.”

  “Sure. But the disposal.”

  “That’s okay. Plenty of potholes over in the dales, right? Good as the bloody well. Better.”

  They were talking about me: I’d been intended for dropping down the well belonging to the house that we couldn’t reach. As ideas I didn’t like either of them, and I didn’t mean them to be put into effect. Meanwhile the knife dug in harder and the skinhead said, “Right, you. Start talking.”