Hostage (13 page)

‘We are,’ he said more warmly. ‘Yes, we are. But I assure you the police know everything – how the bomb was constructed, how it was packed. Everything!’

‘But not where it is.’

‘Why do you think I can help in that?’

‘Because my former associates are so anxious to prevent me talking to you.’

‘Then you had better put questions to me, Mr Johnston – more sympathetically than the police, I hope. I will do my best, but I am so weary of answering: “I don’t know”.’

‘Can you remember who first introduced you to Shallope?’

‘The police kept on after that. I could only tell them I had known him for years. Off and on. At the club. Never, I think, anywhere else till he turned up here with his proposal.’

When he said he had a list of members for me, I hoped to recognise one of them as belonging to Magma though I might not know his cover name. But while I was still explaining that the list could be more useful to me than the police I saw the futility of it. I should be involved in endless and dangerous watching of the club’s front door just for the unlikely coincidence of spotting one of the Action Committee such as Rex.

I was silent for a bit, thinking of what other useful questions I could put, and then remembered how weeks earlier I had wondered about the identity of the navigator from Benghazi to Paxos.

‘Have you a friend – or someone who knows all about Roke’s Tining – who is a naval officer or connected with the sea?’

‘Naturally I have in the course of a long life. Mostly retired now. And there are many visitors to Roke’s Tining whose names I regrettably forget.’

‘Look back some months! Anyone connected with the sea and interested in your experiment in communal living?’

‘Young Mallant. But he’s no good to you. I knew his father, Canon Mallant, intimately. A strong character but carrying his faith to extremes. He could not be dissuaded from speaking with tongues. The Archdeacon, I remember, commented that alcohol was more recognisable than Aramaic.’

‘His son takes after him?’

‘An original character, yes, but not the type to be a church-goer. I knew him well in his early twenties, and some months ago we lunched together. He is an ethnologist. Quite distinguished, I believe.’

‘Can you remember whether he invited you or you invited him?’

‘I invited him. He sent me a charming Christmas card, hoping that we could meet again after so many years and I asked him to lunch with me. He was most interested in our self-sufficient community.’

‘And he’s a navigator?’

‘I should think he must be. He spent some time in the Philippines studying island societies. And he has a side interest in ancient history. The migration of the Etruscans. The foundation of Greek colonies. How many men were needed? What craftsmen, cattle, women, builders? How many voyages went to make a viable settlement?’

‘I suppose he must have followed their routes.’

‘Yes, I am sure he mentioned that, though we talked mainly about his father. He also drew me out on the subject of Christian Anarchism and I fear I talked far too long about my own experiments.’

‘Can you describe him to me, Sir Frederick?’

‘Let me see, now! Black, straight hair inclined to fall over his forehead. Lank. Lank, I believe, is the word. A neat beard. Quite remarkable eyes. Tall. When I saw him stand up after lunch I thought to myself what a splendid human animal he was. A natural leader, Mr Johnson! Such a pity that men of that type do not enter politics!’

There was my tiger man described to the life. And it was no wonder that the committee wanted to keep me apart from the reverend baronet. I and I alone had been present in Paxos and at Blackmoor Gate. I had asked Rex about the navigator and been snubbed, and I see looking back at this diary – an example of its value – that I also mentioned the precision of the navigation to Clotilde who had been at once and very cleverly evasive.

I asked Sir Frederick if he knew his address. He retired from under the bed and I heard him rummaging among papers in his study.

‘There it is – some chambers in Hunter Street owned or controlled by the Museum, I think. But you surely do not believe … dear, dear me, it is just possible, just remotely, but not in any – shall we say – executive capacity. Sympathetic he might have been. Should I give his name to the police, do you think?’

I replied that if Mallant were called in for questioning there were three possibilities. He might be released with apologies for there was no evidence against him but mine. If my evidence was accepted and he was arrested, he would be set free by the blackmail of the bomb. Alternatively it might be immediately exploded if there was a chance of discovery.

‘Personally I should not let him go and I should choose for him a London prison,’ Gammel said stoutly.

‘It’s not a question of his guilt, Sir Frederick, but of what he must know. I can only get a line on that if he is free to move.’

I might have added that the odds were strongly against my being alive to get it but I did not wish to alarm him. I underestimated him there. He had worked it out for himself.

‘I think you have not yet appreciated that in some circumstances an old man can be a useful ally, Mr Johnson. It does not matter to him whether he lives on for five days or five years. Time runs so swiftly.’

A rare point of view. I imagine it owed more to the reverend than the baronet. Both sides of him appeared more formidable every minute.

‘If you should need me I shall be at the club next Wednesday,’ he went on. ‘The police have no objection. Indeed they cannot have, since I have not yet been charged with anything.’

He did not fully realise that whether innocent or guilty he was the only clue the police had. It was probable, I told him, that he would find in the club porter’s box a temporary assistant whose true duty would be known only to the secretary and Special Branch. He could assume that his telephone calls, if any, would be monitored, that his outgoing mail would be intercepted and letters received would be read. Quite apart from these attentions, his club was sure to be watched by a Magma cell in the hope that I might visit him there. I gave him my Ealing address and the name I was using and explained that he could safely write to me provided he was not seen to post the letter.

‘You mean a special collection might be made just because I was seen to post a letter in the box?’

He was no longer indignant, only disconcerted by his own importance. He asked me again if he should not give Mallant’s name to the police and I repeated that it was far too dangerous unless we could also give them the precise location of the bomb.

‘Who is in charge here at Roke’s Tining?’

‘A Chief Superintendent of what they call Special Branch. He has questioned me at very great length together with an Assistant Commissioner named Farquhar – a very courteous gentleman but persistent. I believe him to be a Presbyterian.’

I longed to ask why and what difference it made, but it was now time to consider how I was to leave the house. Could he suggest any better route?

‘I have been busy since you called this morning and have been able to arrange it with our cabinet maker. He has nearly completed a dining-room suite and I obtain permission for him to take it away and finish it. The sideboard is a massive piece and will hold you. I have instructed him to load it last, to make no comment on the weight and to see the doors face the back of the van.’

‘But can he be trusted?’

‘The whole of my community, Mr Johnson, is founded upon mutual trust. Without it there can be no society of this or any other kind.’

‘How am I to get to the carpenter’s shop?’

‘That I worked out this evening. The courtyard is lit but not guarded. Now if you would be good enough to follow me quietly to my bathroom …

Mutual trust was fine, but I doubted whether Sir Frederick had sufficient experience of criminality. I still underrated him.

‘You must remember,’ he said, ‘that for the last few days I have been living in what is practically a police station. I know their movements.’

The passage outside his study was lit but safe enough so long as nobody suddenly appeared from any of the doors. The bathroom – evidently converted from a small but stately private boudoir – had a double casement window. He left the light on long enough to avoid suspicion, then switched it off and showed me that the window opened on to a shadowed corner of the courtyard.

‘We will wait till the outside patrol has passed between the wings. You can then go through and enter the third door on the right which is open.’

‘And if I am seen walking there?’

‘Step out with confidence, Mr Johnson, and it will not matter. I have so many guests. Should you be glimpsed by a plain clothes officer off duty – which is unlikely since their rooms face the road – he will take you for one of the scientists and vice versa.’

To my surprise – then and now – my exit from Roke’s Tining was as private as my arrival. The sideboard was commodious. In the morning I felt it lifted and loaded. Twenty minutes later we stopped at a red light with no traffic behind. I slipped over the tail board and found myself on the outskirts of Cirencester. Six hours later, by bus and train, I was back in Ealing and at peace. Well, peace I will not say; but given a definite objective, however unattainable, one can rest temporarily instead of fretting with frustration.

I read my last entry with disgust. I see a ruthless killer and paranoiac puffed up with self-satisfaction because he was trained to move cautiously in woodland – no more a matter for pride than if he were trained to programme a computer. And now this paragon of action is so helpless, so unenterprising that he sits safe on his bottom in his Ealing boarding house when he should be out and resolute.

Mood! Mood! How many contradictory pictures of himself can a man survey through the view-finder of self-esteem? If I could see my way ahead I should call this inactivity patience and give myself a pat on the back. I sympathise with the Prime Minister. He is certain that somewhere in London is an exceptionally dirty A bomb, and cannot find out where. He does not know – and nor do I – whether it will be used for blackmail or coldly, without any pretext at all, to trigger the destruction of the hateful consumer society. All he can do is to sit, to wait for police reports and to lie.

I too wait for my police report in the shape of Mick who now knows where he can find me. A calculated risk, but I cannot work alone. In fact I am even surer of him than in old days. Disillusion has left him empty and only loyalty to me can fill the gap. His story was accepted but they are worried that the expert from the terror bank has never returned. He is known as Vladimir and should have been flown back to Germany.

I have set Mick on the trail of Mallant. It should be easy to shadow that distinguished ethnologist who is confident that he is unsuspected. To judge by what Shallope told me, I think he is responsible to the International Committee for this weapon and its use.

Tomorrow is Wednesday and my reverend baronet will be in London. The day after I may have some word from him. I don’t really need him at the moment except for personal morale. He is so enviably sure of the difference between right and wrong.

At last news and more news. How is it that a period of blank, blind days is so often succeeded by a whole spate of events? Is there some minor and divine executive in charge of this world who takes a week off and then deals with the backlog, inspiring one of his servants like the reverend baronet to issue an order? And an order it is! Here is what I get this morning:

‘I fear Roke’s Tining has more than ever become an annexe of Scotland Yard. A fox and subsequently our resident population of carrion crows have revealed a body most foully murdered. I have been asked if I can identify it which I am unable to do. I understand from one of the more friendly of my visitors that he is believed to be a foreigner and that on the night of the 22nd lights were seen in and among the beeches above the house.

‘I find myself in something of a quandary and must demand your immediate advice. I shall expect you the day after tomorrow in the mid-afternoon. You may rest assured that I have devoted earnest thought to the question of a rendezvous. You will ascend Pen Hill, and when I see you there I will indicate your subsequent movements. I am still permitted to take mild exercise unobserved.’

I don’t like it, but I must obey. Gammel is probably right in claiming that mild exercise is not supervised. By this time Special Branch must surely have summed him up. Eccentric certainly, but a man abhorring violence. I shall have to tell him the truth and hope that under the circumstances murder will appear to him no more or less permissible than in war.

When I left the stale neutrality of my boarding house for lunch I observed that Mick was following me at a discreet distance and led him into Gunnersbury Park where we could talk at leisure. He has spotted an oddity in Mallant’s morning movements.

He leaves his Hunter Street flat at about nine o’clock for the British Museum. The obvious and quickest way of getting from one to the other is to walk, but he doesn’t. He takes the Underground at King’s Cross and alights at the next station, Russell Square. Now the distance from Hunter Street to King’s Cross is about the same as Hunter Street to the Museum. So why take the Underground? He would gain nothing even if it was pouring with rain.

Had Mick noticed anything unnatural about his route? No, it was fairly direct. Mallant might take the first or second turning after leaving his flat but he always went through Argyll Square.

I used to know Argyll Square when I was attending a post-graduate course at London University. Its architecture suggested that it was there before the great railway stations of the capital, but the Georgian fronts had become vulgarised by the crowded signs of useful little hotels with pleasant bedrooms, a minimum of bathrooms and unspeakable food for any traveller taking more than bed and breakfast.

It then had the remains of a pleasant garden in the centre. I asked Mick what it was like now, for it might be that Mallant preferred to start his day with a few trees and flowers.