Hostage (19 page)

The car was in the courtyard. Elise turned it to face the arched entrance and left the engine running. I said that Mick was to sit alongside her because he knew the way.

‘Where are you taking me?’ Clotilde asked.

‘Back to the cottage. You’ll have to walk a little way from the track.’

The only plan I could think of was that Mick and I should go up, shut her down in the cellar and tell the other two we would be back for her later. The chances were that we never would go back and she would die before she was found, but there was nothing else for it.

We helped Clotilde into the back. Then, with three doors open and the three of us about to get in, Elise made the only clear-cut decision of the last ten minutes. She was off with a racing start, leaving me sprawled on the cobbles and Mick hanging on to the nearside door until he was in danger of being scraped off by the wall of the arch.

Could I have suspected it? Not then, but now I see Elise’s motive. My mention of the cottage did it. She knew nothing about the cottage except that it was some sinister ruin where I had tortured Clotilde. She guessed that we had considered leaving Clotilde behind, who, no doubt, had whispered: ‘help me to escape!’ The rest Mick and I had done, without time, without plan and forced by the idiosyncrasies of our companions into muddle.

They had gone straight up the valley lane to the Gloucester road. I said they were bound to run into the cops.

‘So what?’ Mick replied. ‘Elise is unknown and Gloucester police aren’t looking for Clotilde. They won’t be stopped if Elise lends her a coat. Just Brunhilda and her girl friend doing a tour of the Cotswolds!’

I could only pray that he would be proved wrong. If Clotilde reached Rex and Rex reached Mallant, she would tell them that Gil knew too much and that any more delay was dangerous.

We decided that it was pointless to take refuge in the cottage and that our best chance was to reach the estate car on foot; so we followed the stream down the valley, concentrating on avoiding any human eyes rather than speed and led by Gammel who knew every house, contour and footpath. We had covered less than a mile when two police cars, weaving fast up the road to Roke’s Tining, shattered the green quiet of the evening.

That was the route we should have followed if we had got away in Elise’s car, taking it for granted that the police would start from Gloucester. In fact Special Branch must have been on their way to us from London while local police were interviewing Ian Roberts. Elise and Clotilde, against all the odds, were clear away.

Chance evens out. After our bad luck, incompetence or both, the rest was mercifully smooth. Mick and I retrieved his car from Chedworth, picked up Sir Frederick from the cover where we had hidden him and tucked him up on the floor. He was the wanted man and a conspicuous, unmistakable figure – though, thank God, not clerically dressed – whereas we two were not expected. The police would find immediate evidence that Gammel and two women had departed very suddenly, but only more exhaustive investigation could reveal the presence of two other men.

I thought it unlikely that they would be on to my Ealing hide-out as yet. It would take a day or two to connect the transient occupier of that shabby room with Herbert Johnson. When we reached London Mick called at the house to ask for me and detected no interest or suspicion; so I returned to collect my bag with the diary and other minor possessions – the bill had been paid in advance – and we were away again.

Away, yes. But still only half an hour ahead of disaster. The final edition of the evening papers carried a description of the terrorist Herbert Johnson. It was not very flattering, dramatically speaking of a lurching gait (springy would have been the right word, Mick assured me) and the piercing, blue eyes of a killer. They had a meaningless Photofit of my present face but no photograph. I had always been careful that none should exist.

Before we left Roke’s Tining Mick had mentioned that he knew of a possible place for us. He now went off to inspect it while Gammel and I wandered about separately, arranging to meet him on the dark towpath near Kew Bridge. When he returned to collect us he told us that all was in order and he had the right clothes for us together with two bed rolls which would be our only furniture.

We changed quickly under the trees. For Sir Frederick there was a foul suit of worn tweeds. One could swear that he was spending his old age pension on methylated spirits and sleeping rough. For me Mick’s inspiration was jeans and a tee-shirt and – brilliant! – a wig of shoulder-length hair which he rolled in a handy garbage can and partially combed.

The house, he said, was in Islington. A derelict street, due to be pulled down, had been taken over by squatters while the Council argued whether to spend money it hadn’t got on a tower block which nobody wanted or to make the impossible again habitable. According to Mick some of the houses could be repaired; some of them, of which ours was one, were too filthy and ruinous. Three squatters had lived there – two youngish men and an amphetamine-swallowing girl friend of one or both. They belonged to some minor breakaway sect of Trotskyists and had been of use for diverting the attention of the police from Magma. The cell leader, with whom Mick had collaborated during evacuation, had removed them, marking them down for gaol fodder when it was needed.

‘It’s empty, dark and stinks,’ Mick said. ‘Keep away from any bedding they have abandoned and watch out for baby shit in the corners! She let it lie.’

We have moved in. Mick did not exaggerate except in the matter of baby shit. It was in a saucepan.

A curious place. The front door has been solidly nailed up. Access is through the basement where the lock has been smashed. Rotten stairs, decorated with imbecile slogans, lead to two floors above. The curtainless windows of the upper rooms open on to the street so that there we have no privacy; but we are safe from observation as long as we remain in the basement. Any visitor must come down a dozen stone steps before he can get a clear view through the window. There is no electricity, a cracked sink with water and a lavatory with none. I think Sir Frederick can safely stay here while I spend days and nights at large in a pointless search.

Assuming that they now have Clotilde, I see no reason why the Committee should delay the explosion any longer. If there is such a reason I must be found and liquidated at all costs, using any of Magma’s manpower that is available. They’ll know as much as the police. Rex’s editor must be in a position to work with Scotland Yard and to have all relevant inside information.

The reverend baronet has just asked me what I have been writing.

‘The confession of Julian Despard,’ I told him. ‘If it still exists and is acceptable as evidence, see that your lawyer has it!’

‘You have no hope for yourself, Julian?’

‘Have you?’

‘I shall do my duty as conscience demands. Hope does not concern me or it.’

I suppose I can say the same. If the rest die, I die. And if they do not, I somehow don’t see myself getting a vote of thanks.

Before falling into deep sleep this morning – and dreaming of sea and shore which always means that inwardly I am at peace with myself – I went over in memory my last futile attempt at questioning Clotilde. She spat at me the words: ‘all you know is that it is in a drain pipe.’ Now by then she was pretty sure that I had not found out the location of the bomb and that I was trying to provoke her into another slip like that of William the Builder. So it is highly probable that the bomb is not in a drain pipe at all.

A pipe was useful for packing, for removal to the Hoxton site and from Hoxton to the present site. It could also be a clever device to deceive the police who were intended to learn of the packing when the murder of Shallope and the investigation of Roke’s Tining had proved the bomb’s existence. Still another gain occurs to me. Any search for it in drains was bound to cause clashes in the streets, panic in the Cabinet and the maximum inconvenience to a public already loathing the pretensions of its government.

When William the Builder prepared the cache for the bomb he was not working on drains at all; he was repairing or demolishing something. Failing anything better, I may have a faint clue in Clotilde’s assertion that I tortured her to gain information about a secret arms depot. That could be what William thought he was doing.

I have little else. It’s now certain that police and army were never near enough to cause much alarm to the committee. On the other hand the mention of Argyll Square produced Clotilde’s exclamation of William the Builder. A wild guess is that she knew of the cache prepared by this builder some time back and suddenly realised that the bomb was likely to be there. But what has it to do with Argyll Square?

And the hell of a lot of good all that speculation seemed to me when I left my sleeping bag! I never expected to live out the day. Magma had got back Clotilde, which dispelled any reason for further delay. As for the Government, their intentions must be a fog of guess work. Clotilde was possibly – perhaps already proved to be – one of the women who escaped from Roke’s Tining, in which case Julian Despard had her and there was no further point in trying to bargain. Yet there was evidence that Despard and Clotilde were engaged in some sort of violent action and that she was hurt. Are two rival organisations trying to get possession of her? Just a hope – enough hope to wait for a final offer from Magma. They won’t get it.

I decided to start my last, futile reconnaissance with another look at that house of small flats, 71 Argyll Square. I was very anxious – what a word! I had to force myself to go out – lest my disguise should not be sufficient. In case I was searched by the police I left my knife and Clotilde’s .32 at home – a home even more revolting in daylight than at night and no place for clean metal.

Mick had told me not to worry about looking too old for my tee-shirt, jeans and long hair, and impressed on me that I was a mature student who could not find work during the long vacation and had drifted down to London. With this always in mind I loafed from betting shop to sleazy café – squalor as mindless as that of a suburban Country Club – and passed unremarked. Eventually I found a younger and equally footloose companion who offered me a place to sleep if I hadn’t got one – squalor at once dissolved by – human kindness – and was inclined to stroll with me to nowhere. Taking advantage of this invaluable reinforcement of disguise I led him along Gray’s Inn Road and into Argyll Square on the excuse of seeing what a mess the fuzz had made. We walked right past No. 71 and I glimpsed only the occupants of the basement – a cheerful young couple who had succeeded in growing a few flowers to surround Baby’s pram, and could be ruled out at sight.

When I parted from my companion, feeling naked without him, I walked at random through several side streets and noticed that the same dark green car passed me twice – a questionable coincidence. The man alongside the driver looked through me and past me, but looked. I thought they were police, circling to get a closer view, so I struck across the Pentonville Road, mingled with the drift on the pavement and entered a pin-table arcade where I played some absurd and lonely game and meanwhile memorised the faces and clothes of five idlers who had entered the place after me.

Having won some sort of jackpot – to pay no attention to what one is doing must be the right method – I left this joint, stopped at a fruiterer’s and bought three bananas which I ate strolling onwards. One of the five players from the arcade was across the road and following me at a distance. The bananas, as I intended, gave him the impression that I was completely at ease, and he was not as good at fading into his background as I should expect a C.I.D. man to be. That was not surprising, for the over-extended police were bound to be using recruits, special constables and any half-trained personnel they could lay their hands on.

Still, he was sticking to my heels. If he was in communication by walkie-talkie with the green car, it could bring up reinforcements at any moment to stop and question me. It was plain that I was only under suspicion as a possible Julian Despard, not definitely identified.

I considered what orders I myself would give to a partisan on the trail of a suspect. Watch his contacts. At all costs avoid putting him on his guard. Note where he goes and whether he is confident. When he enters a house, report immediately. Well, assuming they worked on those lines, I’d give them something to get their teeth into. If I entered a house, not a pub, not a shop, but a place where I could be living, that would arouse real excitement but no precipitate action. There was a chance of rounding up not only Despard but some of his gang who could be made to talk.

Trapped in the house I might be but there were many ways out of a trap: roofs, backyards, bluff. If however, I ran, jumped on a bus or made any sudden move, they’d be after me with cars, house to house searches and cordons. Put in military terms, by entering what might be my lodgings I forced the enemy to call in his patrols and concentrate.

Turning away into Camden Town I came across a simple terrace house with a sign in the window of Bed and Breakfast. The front door was a few inches open so I could go straight in without hesitating or ringing the bell. I walked down a short, shabby passage into the kitchen, saying that I could not make anybody hear. The landlady was a bit nervous about that. I put her at ease with my tale of educating myself and being stranded in London. I also apologised for my appearance, explaining that I liked to conform to the dress of my fellow students which had the added advantage of being cheap.

She had no room free and said she could give me one next day. To waste time I had a look at it and agreed that it would do very well. That, however, did not take long. The smell of bacon from the kitchen reminded me that I had had no breakfast. It seemed an excellent excuse for remaining and exploring the premises so far as I could, so I told her that I would gladly pay for a good breakfast then and there if she would allow it.

She did not hesitate, for by this time we were on good terms. I remained in the front room till after eleven, pretending to read the paper with which she kindly supplied me and keeping steady watch through the white nylon-curtained window while she was upstairs making beds and cleaning rooms. I saw nothing but normal movement in the street. My follower did not reappear.