Mr. Calder & Mr. Behrens (29 page)

Visualise the people, pouring through the entrance into the building, carrying briefcases, book bags, handbags. One man had had a camera slung over his shoulder. The guard had called his attention to a notice prohibiting the taking of photographs in court. This little episode had held up the queue for a moment.

The young man behind, a barrister’s clerk Mr. Behrens guessed, had been in a hurry, and had pushed past the camera-owner. He had not been searched, because he hadn’t been carrying a case. But he had been carrying
something.
When Mr. Behrens reached this point he did, in fact, doze off, so that the solution must have reached him in his sleep.

Next morning, after breakfast, he telephoned his solicitor, catching him before he set out for the golf course. He said, “When you go into court, and have to tell the judge what another judge said in another case—”

“Quote a precedent, you mean.”

“That’s right. Well, do you take the book with you, or is it already in court?”

“Both. There’s a complete set of Reports in court. Several sets, in fact. They’re for the judges. And you bring your own with you.”

“That might mean lugging in a lot of books.”

“A trolleyful sometimes.”

“Suppose you had, say, five or six sets of Reports to carry. How would you manage?”

“I’d get my clerk to carry them.”

“All right,” said Mr. Behrens patiently; “how would he manage?”

“If it was just half a dozen books, he’s got a sort of strap affair, with a handle.”

“That’s what I thought I remembered seeing,” said Mr. Behrens. “Thank you very much.”

“I suppose you’ve got some reason for asking all these questions?”

“An excellent reason.”

His solicitor, who knew Mr. Behrens, said no more.

“We’ll get there early,” said Mr. Calder, “and park as close as we can to the south-east corner. There’s plenty of cover in the garden and we can watch both lines of cars. As soon as one of us spots LKK 91oP he tips off the others using one of these pocket radios. Quite easy, Sheilagh. Just press the button and talk. Then let it go, and listen.”

“That doesn’t sound too difficult,” said Sheilagh, “what then?”

“Then Henry gets busy.”

“Who’s Henry?”

“An old friend of mine who’ll be coming with us. His job is to unlock the boot of their car as soon as they’re clear of it. By my reckoning he’ll have ten minutes for the job, which will be nine and a half minutes more than he needs.”

The man and girl walked up Searle Street, not hurrying, but not wasting time, crossed Carey Street, climbed the five shallow steps and pushed through the swing doors and into the court building.

Mr. Behrens had got there before them. He was standing on the far side of the barrier. A little queue had already formed and he had plenty of time to observe them.

They had dressed for the occasion with ritual care. The man in a dark suit, cream shirt and dark red tie. The girl in the uniform of a female barrister, black dress, black shoes and stockings, with a single touch of colour, the collar points of a yellow shirt showing at the throat.

As he watched them edge forward to the barrier Mr. Behrens felt a prickle of superstitious dread. They may have been nervous, but they showed no sign of it. They looked serious and composed, like the young crusaders who, for the more thorough purging of the holy places, mutilated the living bodies of their pagan prisoners; like the novices who watched impassively at the
auto-da-fé
where men and women were burned to the greater glory of God.

Now they were at the barrier. The girl was carrying a book bag and a satchel. She opened them both. The search was thorough and took time. The man showed very slight signs of impatience.

Mr. Behrens thought they’ve rehearsed this very carefully.

When it came to the man’s turn he placed the six books, held together in a white strap, on the counter and opened the briefcase. The guard searched the briefcase, and nodded. The man picked up the books and the case and walked down the short length of corridor to where the girl was standing. He ignored her, turned the corner and made for Court Number Two. Although it was not yet ten o’clock, there were already a number of people in the courtroom. Two elderly barristers were standing by the front bench discussing something. Behind them a girl was arranging a pile of books and papers. The young man placed his six books, still strapped together, on the far end of the back bench, and went out as quietly as he had come in. No-one took any notice of him.

A minute later Mr. Behrens appeared, picked up the books, and left. No-one took any notice of him either.

When the young man came out, he had joined the girl and they moved off together. Having come in by the back entrance it was evidently their intention to leave by the front. They had gone about ten paces when a man stopped them. He said,” Excuse me, but have you got your cards?”

“Cards?” said the young man. He seemed unconcerned.

“We’re issuing personal identity cards to all barristers using the court. Your clerk should have told you. If you’d come with me, I’ll give you yours.”

The girl looked at the man, who nodded slightly, and they set off after their guide. He led the way down a long, empty passage towards the western annexe to the courts.

The young man closed up behind him. He put his hand into a side pocket, pulled out a leather cosh, moved a step closer, and hit the man on the head. Their guide went forward onto his knees and rolled over onto his face.

The young man and the girl had swung round and were moving back the way they had come.

“Walk, don’t run,” said the young man.

They turned a corner, and went down a spiral staircase which led to the main hall and the front entrance.

When they were outside, and circling the court building, the girl said, “That man. Did you notice?”

“Notice what?”

“When you hit him. He was expecting it.”

“What do you mean?”

“He started to fall forward just before you hit him. It must have taken most of the force out of the blow.”

Without checking his pace, the young man said, “Do you think he was a plant? Holding us up so they could get to the car ahead of us?”

“I thought it might be.”

The young man put one hand on the shoulder-holster inside his coat, and said, “If that’s right, you’ll see some fireworks.”

There was no-one waiting by the car. The nearest person to it was a small man, with a face like a friendly monkey, who was sitting on a bench inside the garden reading the
Daily Mirror.

No-one tried to stop them as they drove out of Lincoln’s Inn Fields and turned south towards the Embankment. “Twenty past ten,” said the young man, “good timing.” They were five miles short of Dover, on the bare escarpment above Bridge, before he spoke again. He said, “Twelve o’clock. Any time now.”

Either his watch was fast or the timing mechanism was slow. It was fully five minutes later when their car went up in a searing sheet of white flame.

When Mr. Behrens had got into it, it had been an underground train, and full of people. Now, emerging into the pale sunlight of a late January afternoon, shedding passengers at every stop, it was pottering unhurried and almost empty through the flat countryside of the Thames delta; past stations whose names ended romantically in Tree and Wood and Park, but which exhibited an unbroken vista of bricks and mortar; past back gardens, past allotments and small derelict factories; out to the furthest tip of the most recently constructed tentacle of the London Transport system, Wallingford Bridge, a brand new station built to accommodate the brand new University of Middlesex.

The overhead street lamps were glowing orange in the dusk, and there was a powdering of snow on the pavement as Mr. Behrens carried his battered suitcase out of the station, up the long slope which led to the High Street. As he reached it, he became conscious that something was happening.

A group of people was marching down the middle of the road. Most of them were singing or shouting. A lot of traffic had piled up behind them. As they approached, Mr. Behrens was able to make out some of the words. The battle cry was’’ Stoo-dent-Rep- res-en-TAY-shun”. One group of hirsute singers was giving a rendering of “John Brown’s body”, with a chorus of “We won’t shave until we get it.” A second, rather larger group, was putting over “We’ll hang Jack Harraway on a sour apple tree.” The only people neither singing nor shouting were the policemen marching beside the leaders.

There were three people in the front rank, and Mr. Behrens was able to see them clearly as they walked past. In the middle strode a thickset, red-faced young bull. Sixteen stone of muscle and intolerance. On his right, a thin, coffee-coloured youth with black hair, a hairline black moustache and an appearance of serious gravity. On his left, and thus closest to where Mr. Behrens was standing, a girl with a white face and a head of copper curls. Even under the neon lighting, which was being unkind to her colour scheme, she made a striking figure.

Mr. Behrens stood watching, until the noise and shouting had faded into the distance, and the last frustrated motorist had ground past. Then he continued on his way. It had started to snow again.

Anyone, he thought, to whom the word university still conjured up visions of mellowed stone, creeper-covered walls and smooth lawns would have been in for a shock when confronted with the University of Middlesex. Particularly if the confrontation took place at dusk under a lowering sky. The buildings were not only raw, but seemed to have been designed on an over-ambitious plan, modified from motives of economy, and re-planned in a hurry. The general effect was something between a council estate and an army cantonment.

He located the Rector’s Lodge at the far end of this conglomeration and was welcomed by the Rector, Dr. Harraway, a plump, white-haired man with a professionally ready smile. He said, “Come in, in come. You look frozen. You had to walk? This shortage of taxis is a scandal. An absolute scandal. It’s Behrens, isn’t it? I’m so glad you’ve been able to join the faculty as a temporary member. At such short notice, too. You’ll be covering Modern European Social and Economic History. When the Minister recommended you to us – a very warm, personal recommendation, incidentally – he mentioned that you were a linguist as well?”

Mr. Behrens said, “I have a smattering of most European languages.”

“That should be very useful. Many of the leading authorities in your field are in German. As, of course, you will be aware. Is it too much to hope that you might be considering joining us permanently?”

“That will depend on how I get along with your students. I passed a number of them when I was on my way here. An army with banners.”

“They do demonstrate rather a lot,” said Dr. Harraway. “What was it about this time?”

“The only slogan I could actually make out was ‘Hang Jack Harraway.’”

The Rector laughed delightedly. “High spirits. They mean no harm. I must have been hanged in effigy a dozen times since I took over at the beginning of last year. It doesn’t worry me a scrap.”

“Just so long as they continue to do it in effigy, Rector,” said Mr. Behrens, and took his leave.

It was two days later that he faced his first class. He was interested to find in it all three of the leaders of the demonstration. He had already discovered something about them. The girl was Alison Varney, daughter of Samuel Varney, the property millionaire. The big Irishman was Patrick Meaghan. His grandfather had helped to hold the Dublin Post-Office on Easter Day 1916 and had died in its ruins. The thin boy, as he already knew, was Ahmed bin Akbar bin Suleiman, heir apparent to the Ruler of Ras-al-Daar.

On the supposition that what interested him might also interest his students, Mr. Behrens had chosen to discourse about conditions in Germany between the wars. He had dealt with Kurt Eisner and with the provisional government of Hoffman and was starting on Bela Kun’s Communist regime when the flame-haired Alison interrupted him. She did it politely enough, holding up her hand, and saying, “Do you mind us interrupting you when we want to ask something?”

“Certainly not,” said Mr. Behrens. “Why?”

“Oh, some of the lecturers get very shirty if we do.”

“I can assure you,” said Mr. Behrens smoothly, “that an amateur lecturer like myself, and one who is rather out of practice at that, positively welcomes interruptions. It not only gives him a breathing space but ensures that the notes he has prepared will last out the hour.”

The laugh that greeted this sally was good-natured.

“It was just this,” said Alison, “the period you’ve been describing. It must have been pretty ghastly. But we know what it was followed by, and that was Hitler. Do you think that Hitler’s sort of rule was better, on balance, than what went before?”

“I think,” said Mr. Behrens slowly, “that Hitler was an unqualified disaster. For Germany and for the whole Western world.”

“Isn’t that a judgment you’re making from post-war books?” said Ahmed.

“If you mean, is it a judgment I’m making only from books, the answer is no. I can speak from personal experience also.”

“You met him?”

“Twice.”

“But those would be formal meetings. You could make no judgment from them.”

“One was formal. One was informal,” said Mr. Behrens, evasively. “I saw no occasion on either of them to question the verdict of history. Which brings us back to the point. Anarchy and political chaos are usually followed by dictatorship.”

“Is that an invariable rule?” said Ahmed. He sounded interested.

“Not invariable. There are exceptions. In Ireland, for instance, political chaos is normally followed by political chaos.”

This roused Patrick Meaghan, as, indeed, it had been intended to do. The rest of the hour passed pleasantly enough.

“Who is this man?” asked Meaghan, yawning prodigiously. The three of them were in Alison’s cell-like room, Ahmed and Alison sitting on the bed and Pat Meaghan overflowing the only chair.