Red Crystal (35 page)

A few seconds later Peter came on the line. Helen’s heart sank. She could tell from his tone that he was busy. Although she already knew the answer because he’d told her that morning, she asked what time he expected to be home. He was abrupt; she’d obviously chosen a really bad time. Quickly she mentioned the parcel. Was he expecting anything? Did he want her to open it? There was silence for a moment. No, he wasn’t expecting anything. Unless it was something to do with his wine club. Or maybe it was that golfing book Harry Sidley had promised to send him. Yes, why didn’t she open it. He asked after her, as he always did, and rang off.

He was a good husband, Helen decided. She really mustn’t complain.

With a sense of pleasant anticipation, she got the kitchen scissors out of the drawer and approached the parcel.

What a treat. Not a book. Too big. Wine perhaps.

She snipped the string and pulled at the Sellotape fastening one end. She removed the brown paper with care so that it could be reused. The parcel was certainly well wrapped. There was a thick layer of corrugated cardboard and under that another piece of brown paper.

Wine, almost certainly.

Impatient now, she cut quickly into the corrugated cardboard.

Alison Miller shouted at her son, Matthew, to come back immediately. But the three-year-old had no intention of being denied a run and scampered off across the lawn. Alison put her load of shopping down by the front door and ran after him. She caught him and, unlocking the door, carried him into the kitchen. She popped him down beside the sink while she undid his windcheater.

As she pulled off one arm of the jacket, there was an enormously loud noise.

She felt herself lifted up and thrown backwards through the air. She opened her mouth to cry out, but the wind had been knocked out of her.

She found herself lying on the floor with a small weight against her chest. Matthew.
Safe
. She thought: Thank God! She grasped him to her.

Panting, she regained her breath. Matthew started to scream and, sitting up, she saw that the back of his head was bleeding. She had a moment of utter panic, then saw that the cuts to his head were superficial. Glass. It was everywhere.

Still holding the child, she stood up and staggered uncertainly to the window, which had been completely shattered. Finding a tea-towel she put it to Matthew’s head. Then, realizing the towel would be covered in glass, she looked for another in the cupboard.

As she wrapped it round the child’s head she looked out of the shattered window. She stared blankly at the McCabes’ next door, trying to comprehend what she was seeing. There was a great empty space in the side of the house where the kitchen had been.

For a moment she gaped. Then she reached for the wall phone and, shaking so much she could hardly get her finger in the dial, called 999.

She tried to speak slowly and clearly, and she managed very well until she happened to look back towards the McCabes’ garden and saw a piece of meat-red flesh with a hand attached to it hanging from a tree.

Then she screamed.

Two minutes later the first police car arrived.

By chance the newsmen got their first whiff of the story almost immediately and before Scotland Yard could even think of puting an embargo on it, an item went out on the radio news at one o’clock, saying that there had been an explosion at a house in Putney.

Half an hour after that a taxi drew up outside the offices of
The Times
in Gray’s Inn Road, and the cabby delivered a letter to the reception desk.

There was a stunned hush in the incident room. Nobody could think of the appropriate thing to say. Kershaw and his team had rushed off to Putney and those who remained were manning the telephones.

Nick paused only long enough to discover that there was no fresh news before dashing up to his own office. Conway was already there, looking ashen-faced.

‘Christ,’ he said. ‘
Who?
’

Nick shook his head. But he had a feeling. It was Wheatfield’s friends. It had to be.

He went to Records and, collecting the files on all Wheatfield’s known associates, took them down to the incident room.

The phone call from
The Times
came through five minutes later. A sergeant took the message down in longhand. Then the room burst into activity. A car was sent to
The Times
for the original communiqué, a message was transmitted to Kershaw in Putney, and the sergeant’s handwritten jottings were photocopied.

Everyone read the communiqué. Then they looked at Nick. They were expecting him to have an answer.

He read it fast, then again more slowly:

The Crystal Faction. Nick had never heard the name before, he was sure of that. He shook his head so that those watching would realize that he didn’t have any quick and easy answers.

Then he sat with his head in his hands, thinking his way through it.

Faction equalled dissenting group equalled splinter group – equalled
new
group? New group.

Crystal. Glass? Yes, but … what did the word actually
mean
? A substance that was hard and clear. Clear. This group was seeking to clarify things? Or to harden existing attitudes.

It all added up to – nothing. A new revolutionary group.

Crystal … Crystal …

It rang no bells.

Start again.

He thought for a long time, jotting words down as they came into his head. He put the word crystal in the centre of the page with a sunburst of connecting words round it. Crystal – hard – clear – transparent – glass – crystalline – sweet – crystallize …

He paused. A tiny memory nagged at his mind.

But which word had prompted it?

He went through them again. Crystalline … crystallize …

He closed his eyes, trying to see the word in his memory.

Then at long last he had it. Yes.

Jumping up, he raced back to his office and grabbed the facsimile
Strike Back!
pamphlet from his tray. On the last page: ‘Pulverize, Energize, Polarize! Fabricate crystal splinters!’

He walked back down to the incident room, trying to work out what if anything he’d gained. A connection.

Between a single word and a bomb-making guide.

A connection. Which led nowhere.

It was possible that the authors of the pamphlet had direct connections with the makers of the bomb; it was possible that the authors were themselves the bomb-makers.

But it was equally possible that Wheatfield’s friends had no direct connection with the people behind the pamphlet. Influenced by the call to action, they might simply have set themselves up in isolation.

The incident room was busy now. Someone had seen a motorcyclist call at the Commissioner’s house about an hour before the explosion. The witness thought it might have been a delivery boy. All the phones were manned as every delivery firm in London was checked.

Half an hour later, just as Commander Kershaw returned from Putney, they got the lead. A company by the name of Cardinal Couriers had delivered a parcel to the McCabe address that morning. The receipt had the sender’s name: Crystal Designs, 3 Margaret Street. It took only fifteen minutes to establish that there was no company of that name in Margaret Street nor at any other address. Companies with similar names were checked but, not surprisingly, had no knowledge of any parcel. Two men were sent round to the courier company to get a description of the person who had left the parcel.

Apparently it was a woman. Long blonde hair. Dark glasses. Tallish. Attractive. But the description of the woman’s face was vague, due to the dark glasses.

A grim-faced Kershaw summoned Nick. Straughan was there, looking grey and worried.

‘Well?’ Kershaw said in his quiet voice. ‘Do we have anything?’

‘Nothing concrete,’ Nick said truthfully. ‘Only a possible link between the communiqué and this
Strike Back!
pamphlet.’ He explained the crystal connection. ‘But I think we could waste a lot of time and energy trying to go into that link, sir. We’ve a better chance if we go straight for the motive.’

‘Yes?’

‘Now, this first “crime” mentioned in the communiqué – the crime of “encouraging and protecting the fascist bombers” – it suggests that the bomb this morning was in direct retaliation for the letter bombs yesterday. Well – that’s rubbish, sir. First, we know that the supposed “fascists” who sent the letter bombs were in fact Far-Lefters trying to stir it up. Second, it’s highly unlikely that any group would have had time to hear about the letter bombs, get hold of the explosives, make the bomb and leave it with the delivery firm, all in the space of a few hours.’

‘So?’

‘So it was all pre-planned.’

‘By the one group?’

‘Yes. Wheatfield’s friends.’

Kershaw nodded and said slowly, ‘Yes, that’s the way I see it too.’ He picked up the communiqué again. ‘What about the second “crime”? Of gross oppression against the opponents of capitalism?’

‘That’s what they’re really about. Bringing the system down. Revenge.’

‘For what?’

Nick drew a deep breath. ‘There could be a link back to the Linden House Hotel affair. Through Reardon – the one charged with assault at the Russell Square demonstration. Now he did six months last year for the Linden House affair. He was probably a friend of Stephie Kitson, who’s still serving time for assault and actual bodily. Now
both
of them were –
are
– friends of Wheatfield.’

Kershaw rubbed a hand over his face. ‘So we’re saying Wheatfield’s behind all this?’

‘No … I think there must be others who …’ He paused, trying to clarify the suspicions in his mind. ‘Who are trained,
practised
.’

‘Good God!’ exclaimed Kershaw, glancing at Straughan. ‘Are you suggesting a red
plot
?’

Nick shook his head. ‘Not exactly. Just that … They’re so
good
, so
polished
, they must have had experience elsewhere.’

Looking unhappy, Kershaw nodded his agreement. There was a strained silence.

Eventually Straughan said, ‘Have we got anything else, Ryder?’ But he knew the answer even before Nick shook his head.

Kershaw said grimly, ‘So, where do we go from here? The explosives report is still to come, of course. But – what we don’t have is a lead on Wheatfield, and
that
’s what we want.’

Straughan looked as if he could shoot himself. It was he who had called the watch off Wheatfield.

Kershaw mused, ‘We
could
issue a warrant and plaster his face all over the papers … But it might just send him to earth. At the moment he probably doesn’t realize we’re on to him. That might be the only advantage we have.’

‘Give me a few days,’ Nick said.

The two men looked at him with sudden interest.

‘It may lead absolutely nowhere,’ Nick added hastily. He didn’t want false hopes raised. ‘But it’s just possible I might be able to find him again.’

Kershaw said immediately, ‘Do it.’

‘I might not be in touch for some time.’

‘Agreed.’

‘I might have to go right under cover.’

‘Agreed.’

‘It’ll only work if Wheatfield has no idea we’re looking for him.’

Kershaw nodded. ‘Agreed. Do whatever you have to do. I don’t care what it is. Just
do
it.’

Henry Northcliff had thirty seconds to get from the House of Commons to Number Ten for a meeting with the Prime Minister. It was impossible, of course, but with a bit of luck he would be no more than three minutes late.

Picking up his briefcase, he went into the outer office with the idea of rushing straight through and downstairs to his car. But his secretary had a look on her face that suggested he wasn’t going to get away that easily. She said, ‘Sir Henry, there’s an officer from Special Branch here …’

The officer, who looked quite senior, stood waiting with that air of stubborn patience that all policemen seemed to possess. Henry could see there would be no escape. He said, ‘Join me in the car, would you, and we’ll talk there.’

Henry’s car was waiting at the Members’ Entrance and they got in. As the driver nosed into the traffic around Parliament Square the officer identified himself as Inspector Smith of Special Branch Protection Group. Henry knew this group: they guarded the Prime Minister.

The inspector said, ‘Following the tragic bombing of the Commissioner’s home today, sir, we are extending police protection to all those members of the government directly concerned with law and order.’

‘Oh?’ Henry had a nasty suspicion of what was coming.

‘That will include yourself, of course, sir, as well as the Home Secretary and certain other Cabinet Ministers.’

Henry frowned. ‘This protection – will it be fulltime?’

‘Most certainly, sir. Round the clock.’

Henry considered the implications. It would be comforting to have a policeman outside the house at night, he had to admit, but the thought of having someone hanging around the whole time – on Sundays and on private evenings out – was rather odious.

‘It’s absolutely necessary, is it?’ he asked.

‘We think so, sir,’ said the inspector with an air of finality.

Henry thought: Well, there’s no arguing with
that
.

The car completed the near-circuit of Parliament Square and turned into Whitehall. The entrance to Downing Street was just ahead.

Henry said, ‘Very well, inspector. I’ll try to make your men’s job as easy as possible. When do they start?’

‘Immediately, sir. You’ll find a Constable Hunter waiting for you after your meeting. He will be with you until midnight.’

The car drew up outside Number Ten and they both got out. Henry shook hands with the inspector and went in through the famous black door. The protection would be a temporary measure, he was certain. After all, violence had never been a part of the British way of life. He couldn’t see why it should suddenly become so now.