Hostage (11 page)

I was stopped by uniformed police three miles from the house and told that there was no through road. After expressing indignation and insisting that I wanted to see Sir Frederick Gammel on business I was allowed to go on. I felt more confident. After all there must be quite a number of innocent callers, some of them coming to lend support to an old friend as Ian Roberts had wished.

Within sight of the millpond and the blacksmith’s shop I was stopped again. This time I was more nervous than on half a dozen more dangerous operations. I identified myself as Herbert Johnson, offered my business card and driving licence and gave Ian Roberts as a reference. They had a telephone by the wayside and called him up. Meanwhile I am pretty sure that I was secretly photographed. After Roberts had vouched for me I was asked why I was using a hired car. I explained that mine had broken down on the Evesham road. Where was it? I had to lie without a moment’s hesitation and I was afraid they might keep me waiting while Gloucester police confirmed my story. But they didn’t. I was allowed into Roke’s Tining and shown into Gammel’s study by, I think, a policewoman.

He was surprised to see me. I said at once that Mr Roberts hearing he was in trouble had asked me to go up and see if he or I could help.
News from Nowhere
was of no importance. What on earth were all the police doing?

‘I am accused of allowing Dr Shallope, whom I believe I mentioned to you, to manufacture bombs on my premises. A nuclear bomb I suspect, though my interrogators have not actually said so.’

‘He can’t have done!’

‘I believe because it is incredible, Mr Johns. I am very much afraid he did.’

‘Are you under arrest?’

‘No. I should describe it as house arrest if such a thing were known to English Law. I appear to be allowed out as far as they can see me.’

I said that it was a pity and that one of my reasons for calling had been to inspect the gearing of his waterwheel again. When I described it to an engineer friend of mine he had said that it was impossible.

Gammel only hesitated an instant.

‘We’ll go and look at it. I don’t think they can object. I wish you could see it working but everything is shut down. Fortunately Roke’s Tining has a diesel generator in reserve.’

As soon as we were safely out in the courtyard I warned him that his study might be bugged; if it was not, it ought to be. I had to explain the word which was unfamiliar to him.

‘I think you have rather more for me than Ian Roberts’ kind message,’ he said when we were in the wheel-house.

‘Not here. We mustn’t stay more than a minute or they’ll get suspicious. Stroll back with me to somewhere in the open where we can talk.’

He led me to a seat in the garden under a splendid yew where we were in full view of anyone watching us. I told him at once that I was not police or police agent or newspaperman and that I needed his help quickly.

‘Shallope did construct a nuclear bomb,’ I said. ‘It was taken away from here inside an apparent drain pipe. It is now in London.’

‘What are you?’

‘I will call myself a Libertarian Communist. That’s not unlike a Christian Anarchist but without the religion.’

‘There could be no profounder difference, Mr Johns.’

‘You may be right, Sir Frederick. It depends what one means by religion. Outwardly I am a publisher’s salesman – Herbert Johnson, not Johns. I helped to land Shallope’s fissile material without knowing what it was. If you saw his crate arrive here you will remember that it was marked Graphite. For various reasons I cannot go to the police. In any case I could only give them the names of certain people who would get long sentences but could not help them – people who don’t know anything at all about the bomb, let alone where it is. I must find out where it is hidden. What I need from you first is the name of your club, a list of members and any other information you have been able to give the police. You can tell me to go to hell or …’

‘You are already in hell, Mr Johnson.’

‘Yes.’

‘Is this urgent?’

‘I think I have only days to disarm it or let the police do so.’

‘I want your true name.’

‘Under seal of confession, Sir Frederick.’

‘This is hardly a confession,’ he replied sternly. ‘Would you consider my word of honour? For several days nobody else has.’

‘I am Julian Despard.’

‘Thank you. I enjoyed your book. I applaud your choice of objective in Blackpool, but you took human life.’

I told him how the man Grainger who died in the explosion had given his life to save others.

We were talking too long and earnestly and this was all wasted time. Before I could start questioning him we were interrupted by the policewoman who said he was wanted in the dining-room. Housekeeper, staff and colonists had all been cleared out in case one of them should guess or overhear the true reason for the invasion of experts from Scotland Yard and Atomic Establishments. Policewomen were providing what was practically hotel service.

Gammel accompanied me to my car. The woman and more distant colleagues watched but did not interfere. His expression was cheerful and easy. I imitated it as well as I could. No one could have guessed the urgency of our conversation.

‘Can you return for a longer talk?’ he asked.

‘Not openly.’

‘I see. Yes. You must be in more dangers than one. But I presume that with your experience it is not impossible for you to approach the house at night?’

I said that I could not know till I had tried, and that if I were caught he would be hopelessly compromised.

‘You could say you intended to kidnap or blackmail me. Quite believable once you are identified as J.D.’

‘I will do that.’

‘Mr Johnson, the wiring of this house is far from modern. I can fuse my study and bedroom lights whenever I wish and often when I don’t.’

‘Police flood lights?’

‘On the road, not in the house. And my study window will be open. There’s that owl again!’

We had our backs to the car. Opposite to us, pale wings silently sweeping the lower slopes of the valley, was a fine barn owl.

‘Often out in the late afternoon,’ Sir Frederick said. I’m sure he’s woken up by his own snoring.’

His eyes and pointing hand followed the flight of the owl – up to a point. The police were also fascinated by it.

‘Across the stream in the shadows of the poplar. Up that hedge to the garden. Behind the roses into the herbaceous border. Lie there and watch for patrol, if any. Then to the study window – the one with the wisteria over it. Tap on it and the lights go out. About 11.30. Goodbye, goodbye, Mr Johnson.’

I left Roke’s Tining in a rush, thankful to pass the police posts without any further inquiry about my non-existent car broken down on the Evesham road. When I returned the hired car it appeared that the garage had in fact received an inquiry. I told them that my own car had been towed away earlier than I expected, without mentioning by whom. There was no reason why the police should start a long and exhaustive inquiry to find out whether that was true or not.

In the evening I took a bus and got off it on the Northleach road. I was intensely relieved to be on foot again: a mere nameless, numberless dot on the rolling Cotswold upland. Approach to Roke’s Tining had to be from the east. The west side of its valley would be ruled out at once by the most amateur of trespassers, for after negotiating a slope of dense, second-growth woodland – a difficult and noisy job – one would arrive in the lane opposite a long stretch of high garden wall. Then access to the house had to be through the front gate or the courtyard.

The east side was far more hopeful, where beech woods ran down to a narrow strip of pasture separated from the garden only by a stream. Keeping well away from the upper line of beeches I explored the long fields above the valley and came across a desolate knot of newspaper reporters who had tried to get at least a view of Roke’s Tining and failed. I could have told them that even if one of them obtained an accurate story it would only be filed on unexplained instructions from the proprietor or editor-in-chief.

They cleared off at dusk. I had passed two or three of their cars scattered about the lanes and assumed at the time that plain clothes police had left them there. The presence of the press complicated my approach. I could not tell if any, more enterprising than the rest, had drifted into the woods unseen by me. I did not want to find myself stalking a newspaperman and ignoring genuine danger. One can calculate purposeful movement but random movement is muddling.

In the last of the light I slipped over the dry-stone wall which separated fields from woodland and found that I was up to my knees in beech leaves which the south-west winds of many winters had piled nearly to the top of the wall. Leaves and leaf mould were underfoot. Silently I moved down through the bare Egyptian pillars of the beeches until I was somewhere above the outlet from the millpond and then followed the edge of the wood to a point opposite the house.

Gammel looking out from a lit window might have thought everything was dark. Far from it! Flood lights were at both ends of the road. Ground floor windows were uncurtained and there was a glow over the courtyard. The strip of open pasture and the stream, both of which I had to cross, were damnably naked under the moon and a clear sky. I could clearly see two police patrolling my side of the stream over which was a footbridge mercilessly lit up. At the northern end of their beat they were very close, and at the southern near enough to spot me crossing the open.

I tried to follow the edge of the wood and reach a point beyond their regular beat, but there the thick growth of ash and hazel which I had easily managed in daylight could no longer be tackled soundlessly. The police were right not to bother with it. So I had to stay among the more open beeches where at least I was invisible. Settled into a cradle of roots I timed and watched the movements of the patrol. Half an hour’s patience produced no solution. I should have no trouble in escaping if seen in the open, but to try to reach Gammel’s study window was asking for trouble.

It seemed to me that I now heard a second patrol coming down obliquely from the wall. Listening to faint and distant shufflings I concluded that there was only one man; he might be one of the news hawks hoping for a scoop but whatever he was I had to be sure.

I waited just off the line of the cautious footsteps, glimpsing first a moving darkness and then getting a clearer view of the man as he slipped across a moonlit clearing instead of going round it. Dear Mick, he still had a lot to learn!

Of course they had chosen him because we had worked so long together in the cell which he had taken over from me; he would recognise me anywhere and in any light. I let him go on until he came to the thicker undergrowth which would stop him and meanwhile gave some thought to a situation which I had considered very unlikely though taking reasonable precautions.

It had never occurred to them that Herbert Johnson had driven boldly in, risking awkward questions and identification as Julian Despard; they reckoned that if I intended to stick my nose into Roke’s Tining I would arrive from the east in some such way as I had. However, that was only an intelligent deduction from my known tastes and training, quite insufficient to launch the operation against me unless I was actually seen. I must have been. It could be that Rex had a partisan posted among those roving reporters or in an apparently empty car which I had approached too carelessly. Also it was probable that, once I had crossed the wall, someone would be posted to stop me breaking out if I scented danger. I was bound to leave the wood at the top rather than risk the lights and the police in the valley.

Why they believed I would come to Roke’s Tining at all was uncertain. Gammel could tell me nothing which I did not already know. Or could he? Or did they think I had something of vital importance to tell the police? But in that case I would surely report at some secret interview in London, not here.

For the moment answers to those questions could wait. The essential was to guess what Mick’s orders were. I doubted whether he would ever agree to kill me even if assured that his Group Commander had defected and was dangerous. That suggested that there must be someone else with him to do the job which had to be finished crisply without firing a shot or giving me time to yell. A professional was needed. He could hardly get near enough for the thuggery which killed Shallope or the syringe. Arrow loosed at short range? Blow pipe? All the methods expounded during training, even the use of the long spear from cover, ran through my mind. But before any action Mick must identify me and report. If I allowed him to do so he could lead me to his companion.

To judge from their behaviour neither of them realised that they might become the hunted rather than the hunters, confident that I would not attract police by a shot, confident too that I was unarmed if running true to form. My cell knew that on principle I never carried a gun and were divided between admiration and disapproval; but I had never let any of them detect that a soft-sheathed gaucho knife was under my left shoulder on all occasions when it might be needed. My choice of weapon is deliberate. I cherish it and sometimes test the blade by shaving with it. It makes aggression at a distance impossible and yet assures efficient personal defence if attacked or too casually arrested.

I sat down on the edge of the moonlit clearing to wait for Mick’s return from the impossible bit of thicket and to allow him a clear view of me, backing my hunch that he must have been ordered not to disturb the silence and that he would not be chosen as the actual assassin. A third comforting thought was that anyway he was a lousy shot. But I admit that I did not enjoy sitting there and offering him a sight of my head.

As soon as he was sure he turned away from the clearing and up the hill, now very slowly and taking the utmost care. I doubt if his footsteps would have been audible if I had not been expecting them. I followed him at a safe distance, stopping when he stopped, until the bank of leaves which shrouded the wall was faintly in sight.