Hostage (17 page)

During the morning I sat behind what was left of a first floor wall where I could see the edge of the hills above the cottage and the strip of woodland, whispering with the flight of birds, along the Churn below. Nobody passed but a good woman with a basket looking for the first blackberries. She did not come up as far as the cottage though there were already black beads among the crimson clusters on the surrounding brambles. Evidently young Frederick’s ghost story had passed down the years intact.

He turned up himself at midday with the news that the group of police and scientists had at last left Roke’s Tining. No charge had been made against him but he had been requested not to reopen his colony for the present. In case his trust in me was shaken – a week’s absence can make a big difference – I told him at once that I had written anonymously to his Assistant Commissioner Farquhar informing him with convincing details where I suspected the bomb was hidden. Police and Army had then turned streets and drains inside out with no success.

Gammel replied that he had heard of the search from the now friendly Superintendent. His bosses had been sure that their informant was reliable and were completely beaten. They had even consulted a clairvoyant who on occasions had given them a lead, or rather – so the sceptical Superintendent had said – a chance to pack up their preconceived ideas and use some imagination. The clairvoyant produced a whole rigmarole of nonsense which fitted neither drains nor Argyll Square, but insisted on the importance of ‘flying’ or ‘fly’. If the bomb was to be dropped on London they could do little about it beyond tightening up the air traffic-controls.

With that out of the way, I put Sir Frederick in the picture, explaining that I had grabbed one of Magma’s most valuable leaders and left evidence that she had been arrested. To my mind it was certain that they would delay the explosion in order to use the threat of it to get her back. Meanwhile they had no reason to fear discovery.

‘The poor woman is down below?’ he asked.

This unexpected pity had to be diverted. I gave him some account of what had happened and how she had tried to execute me.

‘She will be badly hurt. I must have a look at her, Julian. I am not without experience.’

Foolishly I saw no reason why he should not. My attitude to Clotilde was coldly utilitarian. I had not yet decided how or where I intended to return her, if at all; but she could be no use to me desperately ill or dead.

I took him down to the well cellar, replaced the hatch and lit a lamp. As well as the scarred and swollen face, Clotilde’s hair and clothes were matted with blood. Sir Frederick took off into the nineteenth century.

‘Will you allow me to examine you, dear lady? I am, I assure you, a Clerk in Holy Orders, though for the moment not habited as such.’

He formally sent me upstairs. I was not unsympathetic, but Clotilde was Clotilde. I quietly showed her that her .32 was in my pocket.

Gammel came up very worried, telling me that the collar bone was broken, that she had lost a molar and that he suspected a fracture of the jaw.

‘She cannot remain here in the cold,’ he said.

‘She has to.’

‘Julian, I will not permit you to treat a woman in that way whatever she has done.’

‘Sex discrimination, Sir Frederick?’

‘Very well, sir! You find chivalry outdated. But Christianity remains. If I can help the suffering, I must do so.’

I saw that I was up against the romantic ideals of both the baronet and the priest – a powerful combination. But I flatly refused to let her go.

‘I am not demanding that you let her go. I require that she be put in my care, be warmed, fed and healed so far as is in my power. From the little you have said I gather that you vaguely perceive a duty towards God, but you are too self-centred to be aware of duty to the neighbour.’

I asked him angrily what the hell else I was doing.

‘Yes, you are prepared to sacrifice yourself, but now as formerly you have little pity for the individual. Whether you wish it or not, I shall take this unfortunate girl into my house.’

I was dependent on him and could see no way out. Roke’s Tining was empty. The policewomen who had attended to domestic chores had gone, and neither colonists nor staff had returned. I protested that even a Good Samaritan might draw the line at a wounded lioness.

‘There is no such line, Julian, and lions on the road to Jericho are improbable. I think you mean Androcles. But I agree that you should provide a guard since we cannot count on grateful paws in the arena.’

He had still not realised how alone I was, presuming that I could lay my hands on some devoted remnant of partisans. I had only Mick. Not much for the fantastic Trotsky figure which had given Clotilde something to think about! And Mick I could not spare. Elise then? Her former medical studies must be quite enough to deal with bruises and minor fractures.

I told Sir Frederick that he could have Clotilde at Roke’s Tining provided I could arrange the guard. He was to prepare a secure room and come back at dusk. We could only dare to shift Clotilde after dark.

Mick when he arrived in the afternoon was of course overjoyed at the prospect of getting Elise out of London. To keep her on in her hotel room must have been a severe test of his loyalty – to me or to conscience or to what? He believed that she would not question my orders and that it was unnecessary to tell her all the truth till we were very sure that she would not consider the corpses of London a just revenge for the corpses of Africa. Meanwhile explanation was easy; we had only to swop the facts around. Clotilde was suspected of disloyalty. I had been ordered to detain her. She knew of Clotilde’s secret negotiations with Shallope. She knew of Shallope’s assassination. We had merely to say that Clotilde had no right to take a line of her own.

I determined to return to London myself, leaving Mick in charge of Clotilde and – perhaps the harder task – of Sir Frederick. The risk of showing myself in Argyll Square was considerable but had to be taken. William the Builder was haunting me and could not be ignored. On the spot I might discover or learn through casual questions how and where he had delivered his load.

So here I am back at my Ealing boarding house. The transfer of Clotilde from cellar to house was without incident and all should be well until I can return with Elise and release Mick. He and Sir Frederick were soon on easy terms, each recognising the essential simplicity of the other. What nonsense! To my way of thinking, both of them are highly complicated characters. Yet I shouldn’t wonder if that impulsive bit of insight is right.

It has worked. The Action Committee has ordered the Government to release Clotilde immediately. They have come out of the shadows and used the name of Magma, never publicised till now, without any attempt to divert attention to Irish, Palestinians or Trotskyists. A copy of the ultimatum has apparently gone to all the principal morning papers with a demand that the Government’s reply also be transmitted through the press. What arrogance and authority!

Miss Alexandra Baratov, now again in police custody, will be immediately released. If you refuse, the campaign of destruction of which you have already been warned will be carried out. You will reply by public announcement in the press that you accept. We will then instruct you privately how and when to release her.

The ultimatum still does not state the nature of the destruction. Evidently Magma is reluctant as yet to provoke the terror and the mass exodus. The Committee has, I think, still another objective: to ensure that the prevarications of the Cabinet and all the lies of mistaken identity at the time of Clotilde’s real arrest five weeks ago will be remembered, thus inflaming the hatred and contempt of those citizens left alive.

It’s a bold and ingenious idea to publicise the threat and so avoid any clue to the organisation and leaders of Magma. Since we insist on a public reply, the demand must also be printed, though I doubt if it would be if Editors-in-Chief were not in the secret of the bomb and in hourly touch with the authorities.

I wonder what on earth the Cabinet will reply. My guess has always been that they will crawl and whine and swear quite truthfully that they have not got Clotilde. Neither Magma nor the public will believe it, but for three or more days of negotiation London is reprieved. I, I alone, have done this. Triumph is overwhelmed by the futility of it. How am I to profit by my gain of days? I am like a man who has put off his execution and wonders why he bothered.

But let me use the gain, such as it is, and continue with my routine of recording events in case a chink of light shows through the prison wall. William the Builder?

This morning I cautiously made my way to Elise’s hotel after the hour when I knew Mallant – or Rex standing in for him – would have passed. It was pretty certain that Magma would have followed our usual practice – I still cannot help this ‘our’ – of not putting out observers who are as likely to attract the attention of police as to give warning against them. To post partisans in and around Argyll Square would be particularly dangerous. All the same, I did my best not to conform to the probable description of me. I dressed in Herbert Johnson’s most imposing suit, carried a brief case and wore a hat, which normally I never do.

Elise, following her orders exactly, was in her room. She had had some trouble in explaining why she never left it except for meals, letting it be known that she was writing an urgent report on the Saharan disasters. She had backed her story by leaving sheets of manuscript around together with a collection of books on malnutrition and tropical diseases. Dutifully she did not press me for any explanation, assuming that Magma was planning some stroke of sabotage more daring than usual and needed to know all movements on the ground.

She had nothing to report except the continual activity of plain-clothes detectives. The identities of everyone in the hotel and presumably in all other hotels had been checked. Two of the kitchen staff had been taken away for questioning – one a Portuguese believed to be a communist, the other a Chinaman without an immigration permit. Some of the more nervous guests had left after the formidable search of the drains. The less imaginative were of opinion that if there had ever been a bomb the police and army would have discovered it, so they were safer where they were than anywhere else. She had cultivated the proprietress of the hotel, a talkative lady, as well informed about the doings of the neighbourhood as any village postmistress, in fact the perfect minor agent. All the questions asked by the police of landladies and householders and all scares and suspicions which had sent them rushing to the telephones had been passed on to Elise. There had been near panic when some dear old lady – or Magma? – had flooded the district with a rumour that any pulling of plugs or running of water might set off a bomb.

It was pointless to ask her if she had noticed any stationary builders’ trucks, for she had arrived after the bomb was in position and there was no reason why Groads’ Construction Company should have returned. When I asked her to find out if any private houses or hotels had recently been converted or rebuilt, she replied that the police had not overlooked that point and had checked all recent repairs, paying particular attention to porticos, basements and even chimney stacks as well as drains.

Her response to the threat in the morning papers was one of pride and triumph, making it impossible for me to carry out the plan, which Mick and I had agreed, of persuading her that Clotilde was a traitor. Not at all! We had been ordered to rescue her, had done so and were keeping her safe in the country.

Elise was dewy-eyed – the pretty thing – over Clotilde, the glorious martyr, and her gallant Group Commander. G.G.C. was in no mood to respond and told her what a wonderful chap Mick was, lonely, loving and of superb courage. Quite apart from seeing that Mick got his deserts, I felt that the closer they were the more I could trust them to work in harmony.

I described Clotilde’s injuries and told Elise to pack whatever she was likely to need for provisional treatment and the relief of pain. She was to take her own car – a second would be useful – stop at Andoversford and telephone Sir Frederick Gammel saying that she had been sent by Gil’s Agency to apply for the post of housekeeper but was unable to find Roke’s Tining. That would sound reasonable and innocent if the telephone were tapped and would bring out Mick who would decide what to do with her car.

I myself stayed on in London, still with the wild hope of seeing, hearing or feeling in my bones something that Special Branch had missed. I had a long look across the rubble of Arygyll Square where the dahlias had been. The most likely spot where, by watching for a face or a signal, Mallant could have assured himself that the weapon was in order and undiscovered appeared to be a house numbered 71 divided into small flats on the opposite side of the square. That had also occurred to Elise, who led her useful proprietress to talk about the tenants – with no positive result beyond the assurance that the police had mercilessly put them all through the laundry.

But it was too dangerous to hang about to pass down any street more than once. As Elise had said, the district crawled with plain-clothes police, two of whom, fairly obvious to a practised eye, got into conversation with me in the saloon bars of pubs. So in the dust I returned to Ealing, glad to be in my temporary home with time to think, though I only go round and round in circles.

Just a breakfast time note on the news before I leave for Roke’s Tining. The Cabinet has shown some intelligence and replied, publicly as demanded, that Alexandra Baratov is being held under the Terrorist Act, that this country and its freely elected government do not surrender to blackmail and that the Law will follow its normal course.

Cunning rather than desperate courage, I think. They’d decided that if they denied any knowledge of Clotilde no basis for negotiations would be left, but by stating that they have got her they hope – much as I did – to gain a few days. In fact they have been more successful than they can imagine. I doubt if government or police have any exact picture of the long-term objectives and ruthlessness of Magma, or dream that if it were not for the Committee’s resolve to save Clotilde from incineration the bomb would have gone off already and will go off as soon as they have her back.