Wilbur Smith's Smashing Thrillers (189 page)

"The top of the morning to you, Mr. Barry," the shopkeeper greeted him heartily. "Like as not it will stop raining, before it clears."

The man they knew as Barry grunted, and as he slipped the waterproof cape from his shoulders, swept the cluttered interior of the little general dealer's store with a quick, all, embracing glance.

He wore a rough tweed jacket over a cable-stitched jersey and brown corduroys tucked into the top of the Wellington boots.

"You finished writing on your book, have you?" Barry had told the milkman that he was writing a book about Ireland.

The Wicklow hills were a stronghold of the literary profession,
there were a dozen prominent or eccentric writers living within twenty miles, taking advantage of Ireland's tax concessions to writers and artists.

"Not yet," Barry grunted, and went across to the shelves nearest the till. He made a selection of half a dozen items and laid them on the worn counter top.

"When it's good and wrote I'm going to ask the library to keep a copy for me," the shopkeeper promised, as though that was exactly what a writer would want to hear, and began to ring up the purchases on his register.

Barry's upper lip was still unnaturally smoother and paler than the rest of his face. He had shaved away the dark droopy mustache the day before arriving in the village, and at the same time had cut the fringe of his hair that hung almost to his eyes.

The shopkeeper picked up one of the purchases and looked inquiringly at Barry, but when the dark Irish face remained impassive and he volunteered no explanation, the shopkeeper dropped his eyes self-consciously and rang up the package with the other purchases and dropped it into a paper carrier.

"That will be three pounds twenty pence," he said, and closed the cash drawer with a clang, waiting while Barry stung the cape over his shoulders and adjusted the tweed cap.

"God be with you then, Mr. Barry." There was no reply and the shopkeeper watched him set off back across the bridge before he called his wife again.

"He's a surly one, all right, he is."

"He's got him a girlfriend down there." The shopkeeper was bursting with the importance of his discovery. "He's up to a nice little bit of hanky-panky."

"How do you know that?"

"He was after buying women's things you know." He hooded a knowing eye.

"No, I don't know, "his wife insisted.

"For the curse you know. Women's things," and his wife glowed with the news, and began to untie her apron.

"You're sure now? "she demanded.

"Would I ever be lying to you?"

"I think I'll go across to Mollie for a cup pa tea," said his wife eagerly; the news would make her the woman of the hour throughout the village.

The man they knew as Barry trudged into the narrow, high-walled lane that led up to the Old Manse. It was only the heavy boots and voluminous cape that gave him a clumsy gait, for he was a lithe, lean man in prime physical condition, and under the brim of his cap the eyes were never still, hunter's eyes probing and darting from side to side.

The wall was twelve feet high, the stonework blotched with silver-grey lichen, and although it was cracked and sagging at places,
yet it was still substantial and afforded complete privacy and security to the property beyond.

At the end of the lane there was a pair of rotten and warping double doors, but the lock was a bright new brass Yale and the cracks in the wood and the gaping seams had been covered with fresh white strips of pine so that it was impossible to see into the interior of the garage.

Barry unlocked the brass Yale lock and slipped through, pulling the latch closed behind him.

There was a dark blue Austin saloon car parked facing the doors for immediate departure. It had been stolen in Ulster two weeks before, re sprayed and fitted with a roof rack to alter its appearance,
and with new licence plates.

The engine had been tuned and checked and Barry had paid nearly twice its market value.

Now he slipped behind the wheel and turned the key in the ignition. The engine fired and caught immediately. He grunted with satisfaction; seconds could mean the difference between success and failure, and in his life failure and death were synonymous. He listened to the engine beat for half a minute, checking the oil pressure and fuel gauges before switching off the engine again and going out through the rear door of the garage into the overgrown kitchen yard.

The old house had the sad unloved air of approaching dereliction.

The fruit trees in the tiny orchard were sick with fungus diseases and surrounded by weed banks.

The thatch roof was rotten-green with moss, and the windows were blindman's eyes, unseeing and uncaring.

Barry let himself in through the kitchen door and dropped his cape and cap on the scullery floor and set the carrier on the draining board of the sink. Then he reached into the cutlery drawer and brought out a pistol. It was a British officer's service pistol, had in fact been taken during a raid on a British Army arsenal in Ulster three years previously.

Barry checked the handgun with the expertise of a long.

familiarity and then thrust it into his belt. He had felt naked and vulnerable for the short time that he was without the weapon but he had reluctantly decided not to risk carrying it in the village.

Now he tapped water into the kettle, and at the sound a voice called through from the dim interior.

"Is that you?"

"None other," Barry answered drily, and the other man came through and stood in the doorway to the kitchen.

He was a thin, stooped man in his fifties with the swollen inflamed face of the very heavy drinker.

"Did you get it?" His voice was husky and rough with whiskey, and he had a seedy run-down air, a day's stubble of grey hairs that grew at angles on the blotchy skin.

Barry indicated the package on the sink.

"It's all there, doctor."

"Don't call me that, I'm not a doctor any more," the man snapped irritably.

"Oh, but you are a damned fine one. Ask the girls who dropped their bundles-"

"Leave me alone, damn you." Yes, he had been a damn fine doctor. Long ago, before the whiskey, now however it was the abortions and the gunshot wounds of fugitives, and jobs like this one.

He did not like to think about this one. He crossed to the sink and sorted through the packages.

"I asked you for adhesive tape, "he said.

"They had none. I brought the bandage."

"I cannot-" the man began, but Barry whirled on him savagely, his face darkening with angry blood.

"I've had a gutsful of your whining. You should have brought what you needed, not sent me to get it for you."

"I did not expect the wound-"

"You didn't expect anything but another dram of Jamesons, man.

There is no adhesive tape. Now get on with it and tie the bitch's hand up with the bandage." The older man backed away swiftly, picked up the packages and shuffled through into the other room.

Barry made the tea and poured it into the thick china mug, spooned in four spoons of sugar and stirred noisily, staring out of the smeared panes. It was raining again. He thought that the rain and the waiting would drive him mad.

The doctor came back into the kitchen, carrying a bundle of linen soiled with blood and the yellow ooze of sepsis.

"She is sick he said. "She needs drugs, antibiotics. The finger-"

"Forget it, "said Barry.

From the other room there was a long-drawn-out whimper, followed by the incoherent gabble of a young girl deep in the delirium induced by fever and hypnotic drugs.

"If she is not taken to proper care, I won't be responsible."

"You'll be responsible," Barry told him heavily. "I'll see to that."

The doctor dropped the bundle of linen into the sink and let the water run over it.

"Can I have a drink now?" he asked.

Barry made a sadistic display of consulting his watch.

"No. Not yet, "he decided.

The doctor poured soap flakes into the sink.

"I don't think I can do the hand," he whispered, shaking his head.

"The finger was bad enough but I can't do the hand."

"You'll do the hand" said Barry. "Do you hear me, you whiskey-guzzling old wreck?

You'll do the hand, and anything else I tell you to do." Sir Steven

Stride offered a reward of fifty thousand pounds to anyone giving information that led to the recovery of his niece, and the offer was widely reported on television and in the press with reprints of the identikit portrait. It led to a revival of the flagging public interest in the case.

Inspector Richards had been able to reduce his telephone answering staff to one the last few days, but with the renewed spate of informers and speculators, he had to ask for the other policewoman to return to the third floor, and he had two sergeants processing the material that flowed in.

"I feel like Littlewoods," he growled to Peter. "Everybody taking a ticket on the pools, or getting his three-pence worth of advertising." He picked up another message slip.

"Here is another claim for responsibility the Democratic
People's Party for the Liberation of Hong Kong Have we ever heard of them before?"

"No, sir." The senior sergeant looked up from his lists.

"But that makes one hundred and forty-eight confessions or claims for responsibility so far."

"And "Enry the Eighth was on again half an hour ago." One of the girls at the switchboard turned and smiled around her mouthpiece. "Hasn't missed a day."

"Enry the Eighth was a sixty-eight-year-old pensioner who lived in a council estate in South
London. His hobby was confessing to the latest spectacular crime from rape to bank robbery, and he had called regularly every morning.

"Come and get me," he challenged each time. "But I warn you I
won't come peaceful like. -" When the local constable had made a courtesy call, while on his regular beat, "Enry the Eighth had his suitcase packed and ready to go. His disappointment was heart-rending when the bobby tactfully explained that they weren't going to arrest him, but when the bobby assured him that they would be keeping him under close surveillance as the Commissioner considered him a very dangerous man,
he brightened up considerably and offered the constable a cup of tea.

"The trouble is we dare not dismiss any of it, even the real loonies, it all has to be checked out," Richards sighed, and motioned
Peter to go through to the inner office.

"Still nothing?" Richards asked. It was an unnecessary question.

They had a tap on his telephone, at the hotel and at Thor Headquarters,
to record any contact from the kidnappers.

"No, nothing," Peter lied, but the lie had become easy now just as he had learned to accept whatever else was necessary for
Melissa-Jane's release.

"I don't like it, General. I really don't like the fact that there has been no attempt to contact you. I don't want to be despondent, but every day of silence makes it look more like an act of vengeance, " Richards broke off and covered his embarrassment by lighting a cigarette. "Yesterday the Deputy-Commissioner telephoned me. He wanted my opinion as to how much longer I thought it necessary to maintain this special unit."

"What did you tell him?" Peter asked.

"I told him that if we did not have some firm evidence within ten days, at least some sort of demand from the kidnappers then I would have to believe that your daughter was no longer alive."

"I see." Peter felt a fatalistic calm. He knew. He was the only one who knew. There were four days to Caliph's deadline, he had worked out his timetable.

Tomorrow morning he would request his urgent meeting with Kingston
Parker. He expected it would take less than twelve hours to arrange it, he would make it too attractive for Parker to refuse.

Parker would have to come, but against the remote possibility that he did not, Peter had left himself three clear days before the deadline in which to put into action his alternative plan. This would mean going to Kingston Parker.

The first plan was the better, the more certain but if it failed, Peter would accept any risk.

Now he realized that he had been standing in the centre of
Richards's office, staring vacantly at the wall above the little inspector's head. He started as he realized that Richards was staring at him with a mingling of pity and concern.

"I am sorry, General. I understand how you feel but I cannot keep this unit functioning indefinitely. We just do not have enough people-"

"I understand." Peter nodded jerkily, and wiped his face with an open hand. It was a weary, defeated gesture.

"General, I think you should see your doctor. I really do."

Richards's voice was surprisingly gentle.

"That won't be necessary I'm just a little tired."

"A man can take just so much."

"I think that's what these bastards are relying on," Peter agreed. "But I'll be all right." From the next door office there was the almost constant tinkle of telephone bells, and the murmur of female voices as the two policewomen answered the incoming stream of calls. It had become a steady background effect, so that when the call for which they had prayed and pleaded and waited finally came, neither of the two men was aware of it, and there was no excitement on the switchboard. in front of The two girls sat side by side on swivel stools the temporary switchboard. The blonde girl was in her middle twenties, she was pretty and pert, with big round breasts buttoned primly under her blue uniform jacket. The blonde hair was twisted into a bun at the back of her neck to free her ears, but the headset made her appear older and businesslike.

The bell pinged and a panel lit in front of her; she plugged in the switch and spoke into the headset, "Good morning. This is the
Police Special Information Unit-" She had a pleasant middle-class accent, but was unable to keep the trace of boredom out of it. She had been on this job for twelve days now. There was the warning tone of a public telephone and then the click of small change fed into the slot.