Hostage (23 page)

It was only a box of a building, about sixty feet long, belonging to an obscure sect called Seventh Day Baptists. At a guess some Victorian shopkeeper had been convinced, probably correctly, of the wickedness of his life and left enough money to build the thing and save the souls of Camden Town’s heathen poor.

The front was classical with a pediment and two supporting pillars which were not so imposing as they looked. They were half pillars, semi-circular in section, built out from the wall and unlikely to be carrying the weight of the pediment. Gammel had been right on one point. Reverse a lorry too fast into the Tabernacle and unless you aimed deliberately at the entrance you would hit one of the pillars. But he was wrong when he described the pillars as solid; they seemed to be no more than a decoration, built of brick and plastered to resemble stone like the rest of the exterior. There was no sign of damage. No reason why there should be. William the Builder had only to repair the hollow semicircle of brickwork, plaster over and repaint the whole front.

In my necessarily swift reconnaissance I could detect no dubious idlers along the street. There was no need, for any of the drab little houses round about could hold a Magma partisan and a new block of council flats gave an oblique view of the front of the Tabernacle. But it could be unguarded. If I myself were establishing a secret arms depot I should be inclined to put my faith in a single, reliable fanatic and allow no one else to suspect its existence.

McConnell, I take it, is using the vestry as an office for some business of his own – he sounds like an auditor – in exchange for a nominal rent and lay service to the pastor. Most of the time he is on the spot, and when he goes out he presumably locks up church and vestry. So I must get in while he is there, immobilise him and lock all doors. I shall have little time – assuming that my visit has been observed – and in that time I must not fail. One false step and up we go. Exactly the same arguments that I have against an appeal to the police apply to me.

Is it possible for Mallant and the Committee to know that I have discovered the secret? I think not. They are aware that Mick and I are in London, probably with Sir Frederick. They can draw the likely inference from Jim’s disappearance that he found out where we are living. But Jim is of little importance. They have no evidence that I have at last recognised the link between Argyll Square – load of drunks – Tabernacle – William the Builder to do the repairs.

Who the devil can William be? He must have a loyal staff and a secure yard where number plates can be changed and names repainted. That sounds like a complete, well-disciplined cell, outwardly respectable and perhaps coming under direct command with no Group Commander intervening.

And how could they be sure that William would do the repairs? One of the elders of the church might have a brother or cousin or in-law who was a jobbing builder; nor could William be sure even if he offered the lowest tender. I doubt if such a small job would be put out to tender anyway.

There is only one answer. William was in on the planning right from the beginning. It was he who suggested the plan because he was certain of being employed on the repairs. His firm was known to the pastor and to McConnell and he had only to turn up on the morning after the accident and offer to do the job for nothing as an offering to the church.

He also had McConnell in his pocket. McConnell did not of course know what that cylinder inserted into the hollow pillar contained. He could have been told that it was a new way of packing explosive or a couple of mortars all ready for the time when the Government clamped down on the paramilitary Orangemen and they imitated the IRA by transferring their campaign to England. It’s odd that they should believe the poor old Pope endangers their very dubiously immortal souls. The helicopter pilot who swallowed the story that he was landing arms for Ulstermen was probably another of William’s discoveries. Whether they feel that a campaign of arson and assassination would be more effective against IRA cadres in England than the legal, fairly effective methods of the police or whether they hope to frighten the English into obeying the demands of so-called loyalists I do not know.

Mick must get me William’s name. The telephone directory should help. William’s yard is probably in Camden Town, Islington or nearby, and he may be – for the last year or so – an enthusiastic Seventh Day Baptist. Once I have his name I can try to bluff McConnell into delivering me some arms. There must be a small stock in the cache in order to keep up the deception.

Mick returned after dark. To my cheerful question as to whether he had had any luck he replied:

‘Yes. William the Builder is under the floor.’

This is deadly. The climax is on us. Only this morning I wrote that Jim’s disappearance would convince them that he had found out where we were living and nothing more. But I never dreamed who Jim Ridge was. The killing or kidnapping of Magma’s key man, William the Builder, can only mean that I am in possession of every detail and can put my hand – or very nearly – on the bomb itself. No more delay, however desirable politically. Tonight or tomorrow they act.

Mick had entered the first yard within a reasonable distance of the Tabernacle and told the boss that he believed his firm had done the repairs after a car knocked a hole in the front. He was interested, he said, in the plaster work. No, they hadn’t done the job but they remembered the accident because police and insurance company had made inquiries at the time from local yards and transport offices trying to identify the truck which had done the damage.

At the second yard Mick visited he pretended to be a private investigator acting for a northern insurance company. The manager of this yard said they hadn’t done the repairs but knew who had. The chapel lot, whatever they called themselves, always kept business in the hands of chapel-goers. A firm called Foursquare Builders Ltd in Kilburn had been employed.

Mick went down to Foursquare Builders and approached the place with caution. They did not have much of a yard but did have an old disused warehouse where their trucks and stores were under cover and protected from all observation. The gate was locked. There was no sound of any activities and nobody in sight.

The office was in a small square house opening on the street. He rang the bell, curious to see who answered it if anyone and ready to run should there be voices and the clicking of a typewriter. A charwoman opened the door and seemed glad to have the chance of complaining to someone.

She had let herself in as usual after office hours and started to clean. But there wasn’t nobody still there what there always was and nothink in the waste baskets and no nasty mess in them ash trays – Mick couldn’t resist imitating her – and the whole lot of ’em must ’ave been and gone and taken a day off.

‘They must have forgotten to tell you,’ Mick said.

‘That’s it,’ she agreed. ‘Mr Jim ’asn’t been in for a couple of days. They thought as how ’e ’ad told me, but ’e ’adn’t.’

‘Jim who?’

‘The boss. Mr Jim Ridge. Was it ’im as you wanted to see?’

So there it is. The cell running Foursquare Builders has been evacuated. The London cells, which seemed to have been drifting back, will have gone with them.

While I was discussing the position with Mick, Elise came in. She has been ordered to leave Argyll Square and report at once to a rendezvous in Watford. What sort of a rendezvous, I asked her. A wine cellar.

Sir Frederick has also shambled in with evening papers, drawing himself up to his full height as soon as he is with us in the basement. Then one forgets what he is wearing. He’d even look well as a winged and ageless St Michael about to take off. Such a man will be needed if he survives.

All the papers are special editions, publishing Magma’s manifesto as they did when Clotilde was supposedly arrested. The Cabinet and editors who are in the know dare not refuse. It’s also possible that Rex himself is in a position to publish and obtained government permission. Then the rest had to follow suit.

I don’t think much of the manifesto. Too woolly. But even I could not have explained the substance and objectivity of the New Revolution in three hundred words. For the record, if I am alive and ever want to attack it, here it is:

You have approved the courage of your Government in refusing to deliver to us Miss Alexandra Baratov whatever the threat. Gallantly you, the public, have accepted such heroism at your expense. Has it not occurred to you that Parliament is not sitting and you unfortunately are?

But was it heroism? Let us tell you the truth. Alexandra is safely in our hands. At no time was she held by the police. You have been fed lies. You pride yourselves on your democracy but you are fed as many lies as your comrades under the heel of communism. Remember that in the days to come! You will be the first to suffer and must be the first to lead. Remember it when all Europe becomes a police state without mercy or justice. Remember it when after the bloodshed you take power. And then think long and carefully of the future of mankind.

Ask yourselves what are your needs and whether the delusion of wealth can supply them. Ask yourselves what difference there is between the slaves who built the useless Pyramids and the slaves who work in objectless factory lines. Security of employment was common to both. Both were adequately housed and fed. But what of life? What of its quality? All your truest needs are subordinate to the requirements of profitable production.

What has the State to offer you? War, tyranny under the name of democracy and unnecessary law. Law after law frustrates you and each demands a thousand petty despots to administer it. Why should you pay them? Why should your labour feed them? Love and co-operate with each other, everyone in work where his or her personal happiness is to be found.

The right wing papers are not wholly contemptuous; the left of course are. None of the editorials write in so many words of the nuclear weapon, but it can be read between the lines that they fear something more deadly than a concentrated campaign of bombing.

They print the Government’s reply. It is pitiable. Mere whistling in the dark. No suggestion of evacuation. We may have complete trust, we are told, in the ability of the State to destroy this nest of psychopathic anarchists. The leaders are known and their activities countered. What nonsense! Julian Despard and Sir Frederick Gammel are the only ones known and if their activities are countered it won’t be by the police.

There is nothing left but to meet the bomb and salute it, for one of us is about to die. That Tabernacle, as I wrote earlier, is no place for the police even if more expert than I in bomb disposal. But I see no reason why Mick and his dear Elise should not escape. He is no use to me. His courage and loyalty are infinite, but his speciality is not violence.

I told him that it was now hopeless, persuading him that the bomb would be fired electronically – which I doubt – as soon as any of us were seen to approach the Tabernacle. We should leave our basement at once, going separately so as not to draw attention to a party of four.

‘And where shall we meet, Gil?’ he asked.

I gave him the Roke’s Tining cottage as a rendezvous and said good-bye to them both. A pretty child! The cottage is the last place I intend to visit but I shall be there in spirit.

‘That was merciful, Julian,’ Sir Frederick said when they had gone.

‘No. Simple common sense.’

‘But you have no intention whatever of giving up.’

I agreed that I had not, and he insisted on accompanying me. I had to explain to him that whatever happened in the Tabernacle might be brisk and bloody.

‘I don’t want to have to protect you as well as myself. Stay here at the base. I shall need you later.’

‘Then you should have taken Mick with you.’

‘Inexperienced. An added responsibility like you. Yes, he might distract attention from me. But what’s the good of that when he could be draped over a pew and kicking his last? And I hope that only diplomacy may be needed. In that case McConnell will be less suspicious of one man than two.’

‘McConnell will have been sent to safety.’

‘I am quite sure he won’t. After all they do not want him any more.’

I do not know myself. I am empty of mercy and fear. Nothing is left but a body carrying disjointed thought about it. Yet who is writing this? There must be an observer who takes a futile interest in the body and some super-observer who watches the observer. Donne, I remember, demanded an infinite regress of observers. That is intolerable. Somewhere all must end in a unity. But no such unity has yet been found for the atom and only the guesswork of religions can pretend to find it for us.

McConnell was the obvious point of attack. I hoped that two minutes in his vestry office – if I had two minutes – would be enough for me to get a line on whatever business he carried on. Sir Frederick’s dog collar, though a childish disguise, ought to ensure an interview with him.

I had to give McConnell time to reach his office. The delay appalled me, but to be caught breaking in was worse. Soon after nine this morning I took a taxi to the Tabernacle, made the driver pull up at the vestry door in the side street, paid him while I was still in the cab and made a dash for it. The door was not locked, and I found McConnell inside with two open ledgers on his desk and some files of receipts. The affairs of the chapel were unlikely to require such meticulous auditing. My guess that he could be a free-lance accountant, possibly for other denominations, turned out to be right. I wished him good morning and said that I had had some trouble in finding his office, which allowed for casual conversation in which to sum him up. I then told him that I had been recommended to him by a Mr Hunnybun, one of the Charity Commissioners.

He looked a little surprised at this, as well he might if he had never had anything to do with that particular bunch of apparatchiks, and I went on to say that my dear flock was organising a flag day for the assistance of Northern Irish Protestants who had suffered from bombing and murder. I wished to be sure that receipts and expenses would be audited in accordance with the law.