Red Crystal (36 page)

Gabriele pushed the curtain aside and looked out into the night. The mews was empty. No one. Nothing.

Restless, she turned away. The newspaper stared up at her from the sofa. She turned it over, so that the screeching words of the headline were hidden face down.

Stupid woman. Why had she opened the parcel? What sort of a marriage was it when the wife opened something addressed to the husband? Extraordinary.

Stupid woman. It was all her own fault.

But the bomb had worked. Very well. Gabriele permitted herself some satisfaction. It was a professional job. That was the way to think of it. Professional.

She must close her mind to negative thoughts, close her mind to thoughts of the woman. Already one part of her mind was becoming separated and frozen, the part that thought of the woman, blown to pieces. The suppression of the mind must be complete, just as her training had taught her. It was a matter of determination, that was all.

There was a sound and Gabriele stiffened. A key turned in the front door. Giorgio and Max came in at last.

She said immediately, ‘Were you followed? Did you check?’

Max replied, ‘There’s no one. It’s all right.’

‘And where are you living? Is it safe?’

He nodded. ‘A bedsitter in Paddington. People come and go. They don’t notice me.’

They sat down. Max picked up the newspaper and stared doggedly at the front page. Gabriele could see that he was unhappy.

To pre-empt any discussion she demanded, ‘Well, Max? Did you find out about Reardon?’

‘He’s coming up at Bow Street on Monday. For remand.’

‘That’s it, then. That’s what we’ll go for.’ She turned to Giorgio. ‘Where’s the stuff?’

‘In the van.’ He indicated that it was outside in the mews.

The van mustn’t stay there. She probably shouldn’t have let Giorgio bring it at all. But events were moving so fast and she hadn’t had time to find another service flat.

‘We’ll take out what we need now,’ she said. ‘And keep the rest in the van. Until we find another place. Then we’ll empty the van and get rid of it.’ She gave Giorgio a sharp look. ‘And then you can finish with that girl.’

Giorgio picked at his fingers with deliberate indifference. Then he grinned, ‘Maybe. But she has special friends, this girl.’

Gabriele didn’t like guessing games. She said impatiently, ‘Yes?’

‘She is a special friend of a government minister. His name is Northcliff. He is the Attorney, the Attorney of the government.’

Gabriele frowned. ‘What do you mean she’s a
special
friend?’

‘A family friend. She speaks to the wife on the telephone.’

Gabriele absorbed the information greedily. Northcliff. Attorney. The Attorney-General. He was on her list. He was one of the names. The one directly responsible for Stephie’s prosecution. The information was bound to be useful, though she wasn’t yet sure how.

She smiled at Giorgio. ‘Well, aren’t you a clever one?’ She went across and sat beside him. She stroked his hair, aware that she felt nothing for him but a dull worn-out familiarity. ‘That’s different, then, isn’t it? You must stay with the girl.’

Giorgio sighed. ‘It’s hard. She is boring. And not pretty.’

Gabriele thought: But I bet that didn’t stop you. She prompted, ‘But you can keep her interested.’

He shrugged.

‘You must. Just for a while longer. Just for a while.’

He looked doubtful, but she knew he would do it, because she had asked him to and because he knew it was important.

She stood up. ‘I have some more money for you.’ She picked up two piles of notes off a side table and handed the men one each.

‘But there’re some new notes here,’ Max said.

‘This time, yes.’

‘I won’t use them—’

‘It’ll be perfectly safe as long as you use them in different places, where nobody knows you.’

He stared at the money for a while, then, shaking his head, repeated, ‘I won’t use them.’

Gabriele suppressed the urge to argue with him and said calmly, ‘Okay. But hang on to it, just in case.’

He nodded and, separating the money, slipped the old notes into his wallet and the new ones into an inner pocket.

They went to the van and, prising up the floor with a crowbar, removed a number of containers and took them into the house. Then Gabriele settled down to make the device. It took an hour. She used an acid delay fuse. The timing was not as accurate as a clock and battery, but it was simpler. Sulphuric acid was placed in a small serum bottle and a contraceptive stretched over its neck. When the bottle was upturned the acid burnt through the rubber on to a mixture of sugar and potassium permanganate, which exploded with a sheet of hot flame. The hot flame then ignited the detonator and thence the main explosive.

The nice thing about using an acid fuse was that there was less chance of it going off accidentally. Even if you were stupid enough to upturn the bottle of acid at the wrong moment there was plenty of time to reverse it. To keep the finished bomb inactive you merely kept it the right way up and upturned it once you arrived at the target, knowing you had plenty of time to get away – roughly forty minutes per contraceptive.

When she was finished, she put the bomb in a holdall, packed plenty of newspaper round it, then gave it to Max to take back to his room in Paddington.

‘Now, there’s one last thing,’ Gabriele said. ‘We need a car. In time for Sunday night.’

‘We could hire one,’ said Max.

Gabriele shook her head. ‘Too much trouble. And too risky. No – there’s a much better way. And it won’t involve any risk at all.’

N
ICK WOKE EARLY
, cold and stiff. He tried to stretch his legs, but his feet came up against a chair arm. Then he remembered where he was: on a lumpy sofa at the house in Tulip Street. He listened hard, but the house was silent. Nobody was up yet. But then it was a Saturday morning and people would sleep in.

He had arrived at eight the previous night. Bet had been out, but another girl living at the house had let him in. He’d gone to the Castle in the Portobello Road and waited until ten-thirty, but Wheatfield hadn’t been there. He wasn’t entirely surprised: it would have been too much to hope for.

At eleven he’d returned to the house and waited for the others to drift in. He’d chatted to those in the mood to talk – only two – then he’d gone to bed. If Bet had returned he hadn’t heard her.

Now he got up and, pulling on a sweater, padded through into the kitchen and made himself a cup of coffee. There was still no sound from upstairs. Time for a quick look round. He started in the hall where various coats and bags were slung over an old table, and went swiftly through them. Nothing. The living-room was full of books, magazines and piles of papers and looked more promising, but after half an hour it too had yielded nothing apart from a few copies of
Time Out
and
Black Dwarf
, a library of political writings, and some Ban the Bomb literature.

Later, if he had the chance, he might try some of the bedrooms. But it would be more out of habit than expectation. The lead to Wheatfield would not come from the house itself but from Bet or one of her friends. And that lead was flimsy enough, God only knew. It could be a complete dead end – he might hang around this place for weeks without hearing a whisper of Wheatfield. The thought was exceedingly depressing.

In the meantime he could search. He’d scooped up a few of the more fashionable New Left books from his flat the previous evening. Now he picked one up and, lying on the sofa, began to read. What was he looking for? He wasn’t sure. But a clue, anyway, something to do with crystal perhaps. It was all very tenuous. But it was
something
at least.

Half an hour later he heard a door opening upstairs, then another. One by one the occupants of the house began to clatter downstairs. Nick strolled into the kitchen and chatted with them over coffee. Two hours later he had drunk a lot of coffee and discovered that Bet was at her boyfriend’s and wouldn’t be back until Sunday. At one point he mentioned that he was looking for Max Wheatfield. One of the girls knew him all right, but hadn’t a clue where he was living. Nick didn’t dare force it, and the conversation moved on. Gradually the occupants drifted off on various errands until he was alone in the house.

Keeping an ear open for the front door, he went quickly through the bedrooms. The search revealed nothing.

At midday he went off to visit a few pubs in the area. He returned at two-thirty to find the house empty. He thought: This is a complete waste of time.

He had two options: to wait and hope something would turn up, or to make the rounds of his contacts. But would people like Nugent know anything? He doubted it, or they’d have told him before now. No: this place was still his best bet.

Depressed, he settled down to read some Vaneigem. But he couldn’t concentrate on the obtuse and convoluted thinking, and found he had read the same page three times without understanding it. He put the book down. Was there a better way than ploughing through books? Who might be able to throw light on the crystal connection? Conway was already trying a tame professor at the LSE, and inquiries were being made abroad through the intelligence services.

Part of the conversation floated into his mind. He tried to remember the circumstances.

Of course
.

Gabriella. Yes. He should have thought of her before. She certainly knew her theory. It would definitely be worth a try. But
when
, that was the question. He couldn’t spend a whole evening, let alone a night, away from Tulip Street. Perhaps he could meet her for a drink. Yes: he would phone her a little later and suggest it.

The afternoon dragged on. At five Nick was so restless that he went for a short walk. He made a plan for the evening. If Bet’s friends couldn’t suggest where he might find Wheatfield, then he would make one more round of the pubs which Wheatfield was known to visit. At some point he would meet Gabriella if she was free.

At five-thirty he let himself back into the house. He called out, ‘Hi!’ in case anyone had returned.

There was silence.

He went into the kitchen and put on a kettle. Taking a spoon out of a drawer, he scooped some coffee into a mug. There was a battered transistor radio standing on the side and he turned it on. It was dead. He picked it up and fiddled with the knobs.

Suddenly a floorboard creaked.

There was someone else in the room.

Surprised, he turned, ready to say a casual hello.

He stared, unbelieving.

Wheatfield
.

Nick recovered as best he could, keeping his face in a mask of indifference. ‘Well, hi. How goes it?’

Wheatfield’s expression was unreadable under the still-bruised face. He advanced into the room and leaned against a cupboard.

With an effort, Nick turned back to the boiling kettle and poured his coffee. He asked, ‘Want one?’

Wheatfield gave the briefest of nods.

‘Well, how’s the face?’ Nick continued, pouring another cup.

‘Okay.’ He shrugged as if it were totally unimportant.

Nick handed him the coffee. ‘My head’s mended,’ he said conversationally. ‘At least it doesn’t ache any more.’

Wheatfield grunted a response. Nick thought rapidly. Wheatfield wasn’t exactly the warm outgoing type, yet Nick had to establish some sort of friendship with him. But
how
?

He sat on a chair and said, ‘You’re – er – not being hassled by the cops any more?’

Wheatfield shot him a sharp glance and for a moment Nick thought: That was a mistake.

Then Wheatfield relaxed. ‘No. After those pictures in all the papers, they wouldn’t dare.’

‘That girl photographer certainly did you a favour.’

‘Ya, lucky she was there.’

There was a silence. Wheatfield was certainly heavy going. Nick racked his brains for something to say.

‘A pity she didn’t get a shot of
me
being bashed. Still …’

He was aware of Wheatfield watching him critically, and thought ‘He suspects something. But then Wheat-field was pulling out a chair and sitting down at the table beside him and saying, ‘Look, I was wondering if you could do me a favour …’

Nick gave it a second. He mustn’t seem too keen. ‘Ya?’

‘I need a car – er – borrowed.’

‘Mmm.’ He looked a little doubtful.

Wheatfield responded, ‘For Sunday night. Something ordinary, a Ford or Vauxhall or something.’

Nick pretended to consider the idea. ‘What’s it for?’

‘A demonstration. A big one. Against the fascists.’

‘Ah. So a good cause?’

‘Absolutely.’

As if making up his mind, Nick nodded. ‘Sure. Be glad to do it.’

‘It’ll be easy, will it? I mean, there won’t be a problem?’

Nick remembered what he’d told Wheatfield in the hospital, about having got into trouble for pinching cars. He said quickly, ‘No, no. It only takes a minute. I’ve done it many times before. There’s never a problem.’

Wheatfield was getting up to go.

‘You off?’ Nick asked in surprise. ‘What about a drink?’

‘No. Gotta go.’

Nick followed him towards the door. ‘Tomorrow then? I was going to go to the Castle at one.’