Beware This Boy (37 page)

“One of them was.”

“How?”

“The Big Bad Wolf dropped a trinket in Little Red Riding Hood’s basket. Made the pots all shaky.” Another chuckle. “They blew themselves up. What a bloody joke, getting Endie’s own workers to do the job for us. Bet nobody’ll catch it.”

“Damn,” muttered Kaplan. More loudly he said, “Do you believe in God, Donny? Because if you do, now’s the time to clear your conscience. At the meeting we talked about a new act of sabotage. Spectacular, you called it. Is there something planned, Donny? Is there?”

“Course there is. A big one.”

“When?” Lev asked.

“Today.” The word came drifting up to them.

Tyler began to make wild signs to Kaplan that he wanted to speak, but the other man forestalled him.

“If you tell me the plan you can save a lot of lives. They’re innocent girls, Donny. They don’t deserve this. Please, I beg of you, tell me what’s supposed to happen.”

There was a silence, and Tyler seized his chance to shove Kaplan out of the way. He leaned over the narrow crack in the floorboards.

“Donny Jarvis? This is Inspector Tyler talking to you. Can you hear me?”

He was afraid for a minute that Donny had already slipped into unconsciousness. Then, in a much fainter voice than
before, the boy spoke. “I might have known the fucking frogs would gather.”

“For once you got something right, Donny. And let me tell you this. Mr. Kaplan here is a good bloke and he’s being nice to you. I’m not. But out of the goodness of my heart, and seeing as how you’re not feeling too comfy, I’ll make a deal with you. If we do get you out alive, you won’t go to the clink as long as you co-operate. If you don’t and you die anyway, I’ll make sure your entire family is put in jail as accessories to major crimes and I’ll throw away the keys. Do you understand me, Donny?”

Kaplan was shaking his head and mouthing,
It won’t work
.

But Tyler knew his subject. “It’s a promise either way, Donny.”

The voice was almost inaudible by now. “Is me mum here?”

Tyler looked over his shoulder. A woman, thin and scrawny in a shabby navy coat, was standing at the front of the crowd, watching. Behind her was a man, equally poorly dressed, with the red, puffy face of a habitual drunk. He seemed sober at the moment but wasn’t moving.

“Yes, she’s here. If you answer my question I’ll let you talk to her.”

“Fuck that. Mum won’t have anything to say anyway. No trade-off, copper.”

Tyler heard retching from the trapped boy.

“Shite. I’ve been sick all down myself.”

“Donny, who, then? Do you want to talk to your father?”

“What for? The old bastard won’t do me any good, never has. Is me mum crying?”

Without even looking, Tyler knew the answer. This family didn’t cry. “Of course she is.”

“Crap. You can go fuck yourself. I want to talk to the Yank.”

Kaplan had heard this and there was no choice. Tyler changed places, shuffling back in the rubble so he could still hear.

“Donny, it’s Hitchcock here.”

“Good. Listen. I don’t trust that copper, but there’s something I want you to do for me.”

“Okay.”

“There’s a girl name of Thelma. She’s just a kid but I think I knocked her up. If you promise you’ll look in on her I’ll tell you what you want to know.”

“I promise.”

“Is that a Yank promise?”

“No, it’s a Jewish promise. They’re solid.”

Another silence, then the faint voice. “What time is it?”

Lev checked his watch. “It’s almost a quarter past seven.”

“You’re going to have to get a move on … bombs in the factory … going to go off at half-past …”

“Where are they?”

“Mm … men’s change room … We were planning to lift the payroll … Good scheme … Mine.”

“Are there others?”

“Boiler room … My idea again.”

Lev yelled, not caring if the onlookers could hear him. “Donny, who’s the head man? Who’s Comrade Patrick?”

The whisper floated up to him. “Go fuck yourself, Yank … I don’t know … wouldn’t tell if I did.”

There was a choking rattle of breath, then silence.

Tyler jumped to his feet. “For Christ’s sake, let’s get over there.”

They scrambled back under the barrier. Tyler grabbed the constable. “Get the alarm out right away. There’ve been bombs planted in the Endicott factory. We’ve got to get the workers evacuated immediately. We’ve only got minutes.”

The constable pulled out his whistle and blew several long blasts.

Mrs. Jarvis shouted out to them. “How’s Donny? Why aren’t you getting him out?”

“Is the young man still alive, sir?” the constable asked.

“No, he’s not.” Unexpectedly, Tyler felt a pang of pity for the miserable end that Donny Jarvis had faced.

Kaplan clearly didn’t share that emotion. “He’s probably being welcomed into Hell at this moment.”

Tyler caught hold of Kaplan’s arm. “Come on, we’ll take the ambulance.”

Chopin looked at the big clock on the wall. Twenty minutes past seven. Four more hours to go. Placing the bomb had been easy. It was in a wicker lunch box, identical to the one he usually carried. There was a label on the top that read
THIS IS THE PROPERTY OF DMITRI WOLF
. Carrying the duplicate box, he had gone down to the boiler room. Nobody went down there, and if they did, they would assume he was coming back for his sandwiches, a habit he had already established. The bomb had fit comfortably into the lunch box. Once in the boiler room he had simply removed the wrapped package carefully, placed it in the bottom of the bucket, and added the tightly sealed false bottom. Comrade Patrick had already visited him and assured him everything was ready to go. He mustn’t tamper with it.

The ticking of the timer was audible but muffled by the seal.

The plan was to place both mop and bucket against the boiler and leave them there. Patrick had been insistent about that. “We don’t want anybody to suspect you. You’re too valuable to us.”

According to Patrick, the timer was set to go off at a half past eleven, when the workers on the first shift were having their tea break. The factory was not at full strength yet, so there weren’t likely to be casualties. The aim, Patrick said, was
always to disrupt production, not to destroy their workers. Wolf didn’t really care. He’d lost his own will to live more than a year ago, in the concentration camp. He cared about revenge, and that was it. Casualties were to be expected in a war. The glorious end was freedom from all capitalist oppression, and this justified the means.

Taffy too had followed his instructions to the letter. He had placed his lunch box in his locker.

Tyler’s experience of driving on rutted country roads stood him in good stead. He had switched on the ambulance alarm, but even if they wanted to, the few cars on the road could hardly move out of the way. For what seemed like endless minutes they were stopped behind a fire truck, the firefighters all trying to subdue a blazing shop front. Lev was about to get out and run to the factory, but Tyler inched around the truck, bouncing over the hoses, and sped along the centre of the street. Endicott’s wasn’t far, and although it seemed a terribly long time, they were soon there.

On the frantic ride, Lev had filled in Tyler. Two saboteurs that he knew of, Wolfsiewicz and Taffy Evans.

“The caretaker and the man who works in the canteen?”

“That’s them. Good cover, I must say.”

“But you don’t know who’s the brains behind all of this?”

“No. Wish I did.”

“You said his
nom de guerre
is Patrick. Is he
IRA?”

“Possibly. Or that could be just a red herring. I’m not even positive he works at the factory, although that is likely.”

“And you’re with the Security Service?” Tyler asked.

“That’s right. I’ve been what we call infiltrating.”

“Haven’t been very effective, have you,” said Tyler, speaking out of fear. He regretted his words when he saw Kaplan’s expression. The American didn’t need his reproach. He was excoriating himself.

Lev gasped with relief when they pulled up in front of the gates. They could see a stream of workers hurrying from the building. The message had got through in time. They were being evacuated.

Suddenly Lev opened his door and yelled out, “Stop that man. He’s a saboteur. Get him!”

Tyler saw that he was pointing at Taffy Evans, who was exiting with a group of women. Sizing up the situation immediately, the Welshman turned and started to run back through the crowd into the building.

Constable Eagleton was escorting the workers out of the factory. Tyler shouted to him, “Eager, go after him!”

Eagleton understood and set off in pursuit. Both men disappeared through the entrance doors. Kaplan jumped down from the ambulance and did his best to shove through the crowd after them. He was hindered by the panic infecting the women, who began to scatter, discipline forgotten, but he got through, and he too vanished into the factory.

Tyler started to shout, “Clear the area. Clear the area as fast as you can.”

Nobody seemed to be listening, but at that moment two other officers arrived on bicycles. “Move everybody as far away from this building as you can,” commanded Tyler. “Now! We’ve got an unexploded bomb in there.”

One of the men blew his whistle and the other started to move towards the women, his arms outstretched as if he were herding sheep.

Tyler saw some familiar faces. June Lipton and Pat O’Callaghan were in the crowd. Lily Johnson and Phil Riley were behind
them, both being guided out by Mick Smith, the dillie man.

Tyler ran over. “Have any of you seen the caretaker?”

“Wolf? He was heading downstairs to the boiler room last I saw him,” answered Pat.

“What’s going on?” asked Smith. “Do you need some help?”

Tyler waved him off and turned and ran to the entrance, now empty of people. Once inside the hall, he paused long enough to take stock. Eagleton, Kaplan, and Taffy were nowhere to be seen or heard.

He looked up at the clock with its large black hands. He had three minutes.

It was one of the few times in his career that he wished he was armed. He headed straight for the boiler room. He half slid, half tumbled down the stairs.

The room was deserted except for one man. Dmitri Wolfsiewicz, alias Comrade Chopin. For a split second Tyler thought the man had lost his senses – he seemed to be mopping the floor. Then, even as Tyler burst in, he saw the cleaner lift a package out of his bucket and place it on the ground close to the massive boiler, which squatted in the centre of the room.

He yelled out, “Wolf. Wolf, stop.”

Wolfsiewicz turned around in surprise. The rubberized linoleum had obscured the sound of Tyler’s footsteps.

Tyler forced himself to slow down, to breathe. He didn’t want to frighten the man into some kind of precipitous action. He stopped a few feet away from him.

“Comrade, plans have changed.”

Chopin frowned. “How do you know?”

“Comrade Bolton has been killed in an air raid. I was there. Before he died he told me everything. I know you’re going to plant a bomb. You can’t go ahead. It’s not right to involve innocent people.”

“Tell that to Hitler and Churchill,” answered Wolf with a
grimace. “Tell that to landlords who have exploited us for centuries.”

Tyler took a step forward. “It’s you, mate, who are being exploited. You might not know it, but the bombs are due to go off in exactly two minutes.”

The other man shrugged. “So what? Important thing is factory will shut down completely.”

“Don’t be an idiot. Do you think Comrade Patrick gives a shit about the revolution? He was planning your death and the Welshman’s. Bolton’s dead, but he confessed they were intending to steal the payroll. That is the whole point of the explosion. They have no loyalty to anything except money.”

“All revolutions need money. I knew that was plan.”

“Don’t you care that your comrades were intending to kill you?”

“It does not matter now.”

Without warning, Wolf grabbed the handle of the bucket with both hands and swung it violently, aiming for Tyler’s head. Tyler got his arm up in time to deflect the blow, but the rim split his wrist to the bone. Immediately Wolf swung again and connected with Tyler’s jaw. He spun away but was able to catch hold of the bottom of the bucket with both hands. Using it like a battering ram, Tyler knocked the other man to the ground. Wolf staggered backwards, frantically trying to regain his footing.