The Yellow Glass (26 page)

“How the hell did
you
get up here?”
 
Hutch asked Mr Piotrowski.

“With the greatest of ease.
 
Your security is not up to scratch,
old boy
.”

“You always were light on
your feet, A, I’ll give you that.
 
Look,
get your damned hands off me, will you?
 
You’ve had your bit of fun.”

“What, and let you press
that buzzer that I see over there, Hutchcraft?
 
Let you summon your boys and get me accused of another of your little
slip-ups, eh?
 
Add attempted rape to my
crowded biography?
 
Why, it really is
just
like old times.”

“I don’t know what you’re
talking about, man.
 
What is this senile
drivel?
 
Just get the heck off me if you
know what’s best for you.”

“Oh, I have never known
what’s best for me,” said Mr Piotrowski, “not like you, Hutchcraft.
 
If it were up to
me
, I’d advise Mrs Upshott to press charges and make a big splash
of it over the front pages.
 
I’d
certainly be willing to testify to the state I found her in.
 
We might not get anywhere, but it could put a
blot on your copybook.”

“Ha, ha,” Hutch’s laugh was
a listless effort.
 
“I think you’ll find
that Mrs Upshott has no desire to press charges.
 
Not with her history.”

There was a pause.

“Damn you, Hutchcraft!”
 
It was the first time that I’d heard the old
spy raise his voice.
 
“You’ve got
something on her, haven’t you?”

“Ha, ha.”

A tremendous, smacking noise
reverberated through the office.
 
It was
the sound of Mr Piotrowski punching Hutch smartly in the mouth, coupled with
the thwack of Hutch’s head hitting the gleaming surface of his mahogany desk.

“Out cold.”
 
Mr Piotrowski turned to look at the state of
me, rubbing his bruised knuckles as he did so.
 
“No, I have never known what is best for myself.
 
But what does it matter any more?
 
How are
you
,
Kathleen?
 
Recovered enough to run?”

“Just about.”

In truth, my legs had begun
to shake of their own accord.

“Excellent.
 
Come, my dear.
 
We shall take the little lift first, I
think,” he held the door open for me.
 
“
Then
we run.”

 
“I’ve put the witch out of action for the
journey, so you don’t need to worry about her.
 
But d’you think you can sit tight for much longer, Tamang?”
 
I whispered.

He managed a small smile,
which was pretty impressive in his position; trussed to the mainmast and
recovering from a brush with the cat.

“I can sit tight for as long
as it takes, Mr Upshott.”

“Good man, because I can’t
unbind you yet, I’m afraid.
 
There’s too
much damn daylight.”

But, how long
would
it take?
 
I was counting on at least twelve hours from
the Thames Estuary to the Port of Dover, but my estimation was on the hazy
side; the barge, after all, was fairly steaming towards the mouth of the Thames.
 
I reckoned the reason she could move so fast
was because she wasn’t carrying much cargo.
 
A barge like the Humber was able to carry tremendous loads, but not
without slowing down.
 

“Well, keep your chin
up.
 
I’ll see if I can bring you some
water and something to eat when the lights go down.”

I set off across the deck at
a scuttle, making my way towards the larger of the two sliding hatches, the one
situated in the stern (because I’m naturally inquisitive and I like to know as
much about any given situation I find myself in as I possibly can).
 
If this floating steel box
was
carrying anything, then uranium
glass was my guess and I certainly wouldn’t be diving into the hold to join
it.
 
But I wouldn’t mind crossing that
one off my list.
 
I slid past the
wheelhouse on my stomach, practically under the nose of Severs, who had donned
a muffler and jacket against the night air and was resolutely upright at the
wheel, scanning the river like a good skipper.
 
I was so close I could hear him humming a tune, wholly off key.

When I reached the hold, I
patted at my jacket pocket for my little collection of picks.
 
However, when it came to it, I found they
were unnecessary because the bolt wasn’t fully shot and the padlock was
separated from the chain, which hadn’t been the case when Tamang and I’d first
come aboard.
 
It seemed that something or
other
was
in the cargo hold, although
they couldn’t have had much time in which to load it.
 
I slid the hatch and poked my head in, but
the hold was empty.
 
It occurred to me
that whatever it was we were carrying might be stowed away through an inner
door, much like the sealed door we’d found at the bow end of the barge.
 
So I turned round and climbed down the steel
ladder, closing the steel hatch over my head.
 
I’d nearly reached the bottom when a hand grabbed my ankle.

He yanked me from the ladder
and I stumbled on the floor, righting myself almost instantly; although not
quickly enough to dash the gun from his gloved hand.
 
Actually, it took a second to regain my
savoir faire, but that may have been the daunting effect of the padded
radiation suit, hood and mask.
 
Anyhow, I
had my hands in the air straight away because he’d pushed the barrel of his gun
against my forehead before I had time to think.
 
He indicated that I should head back up the ladder, which gave me a
moment to get my bearings.
 
I turned
tail, as if to go, but ducked instead, kicking backwards with one foot.
 
His suit slowed him down, and I twisted my
torso round, hooked a leg behind his and sent him crashing to the ground.
 
The gun skidded out of his hand and across
the floor and I dived after it.
 
At
which, he began to make strenuous efforts to get up, so I promptly whipped his
hood off and bashed him over the skull with the hilt of the gun, rather hard.

This was a development that
I should have foreseen; the presence of another member of crew, I mean.
 
After all, a barge the size of the Humber
would normally have had a couple of men working her and, if one was steering
the thing, then the other was more than likely to be down in the hold.
 
What’s more, if the hold contained valuable
cargo, then the likelihood was that crew member number two would be guarding it
(and this hold evidently contained extremely valuable - if toxic – cargo).
 

However, every cloud has a
silver lining and the radiation suit was very good news, indeed, (and the
discovery of a spare suit and second pair of boots, even better).
 
I tugged my attacker out of his padding and
put his suit on over my clothes.
 
Then I
stepped into his heavy boots and laced them up.
 
It was a little hot, but night was drawing in fast and the glorious spring
day would soon be turning chilly.
 
Joe
Bloggs, or whoever he was, had been sweating in the padded suit in the full
glare of day and had taken the precaution of divesting himself of most of his
clothes, save for a pair of cotton shorts and a string vest.
 
I examined him, thoughtfully.
 
He wasn’t much more than a lad, with dark
brown hair shaved close at the neck, as if he’d been in the army.
 
Actually, he looked vaguely familiar,
although I couldn’t think why that should be.
 
Sadly, I was forced to humiliate him further - because he wouldn’t
remain unconscious for long - and I tied his arms behind his back with his
string vest, overhand-knotting it to the foot of the ladder and stuffed his
shorts into his mouth.
 
I hoped he didn’t
have a cold.

Then I went to take a look
at the goods.
 
I sprung open the bolt on
the inner door and gave it a sharp push. What I saw inside surprised me.
 
The Humber was carrying one, solitary, piece
of cargo.
 
It sat in the dark, a few feet
away from the door, shining silver in the light from the open door.
 
It was a good-sized, metal box, nailed shut,
with some foreign words stamped in red at the upper edge;
This Way Up
in Finnish, was my guess.
 
No wonder her cargo hadn’t weighed her down
and we’d been able to travel so swiftly.
 
One box, however . . just
what
was in that box that necessitated its own, personal, armed guard?
 
I had to take a look; I didn’t want to, but
there was no way around it.
 
I stepped
outside for a moment, retrieved my picks from my jacket and returned, shutting
the reinforced metal door behind me.

My picks all dangled from
the one ring, to which I’d also attached a tiny torch and a
 
miniscule screwdriver.
 
I selected the screwdriver and got to
work.
 
It was a clumsy job and I very
nearly made a hash of it; the lid of the box was a deadweight and I was
drenched with sweat by the time I’d undone the final screw and lifted it
off.
 
It was so heavy that I actually
staggered with it in my arms and had some trouble getting it onto the floor
without dropping it on my toes.
 
I shone
the torch inside, encountering a good deal of white, protective wadding, which
I burrowed through, gingerly, until my gloved hand hit upon the edge of
something sharp.
 

I’d been quite wrong, for
there was
no
glass inside that
box.
 
What I found were bundles of steel
rods.
 
I withdrew my hand, instantly.
 
I’d a shrewd idea what those rods were for
and it put a different complexion on everything.
 
Who the hell was supplying Reg Arkonnen with
the materials to make a nuclear reactor?
 
The sound of my own panicked breathing nearly deafened me inside the
padded hood.
 
This game was
not
the game I thought I’d been
playing.
 
I replaced the wadding and the
screws with great care, and left the hold as fast as my boots would take me.

A sudden, sharp rap came from
above.
 

“Keep an eye on the wheel,
will you, mate?”
 
It was Mr Severs,
knocking on the sliding hatch to get his crew’s attention.
 
 
“I’m
just nippin’ to the carsy.”

“Right,” I shouted back,
only it came out as muffled as one would expect.

I climbed back up the ladder
and lumbered over to the wheelhouse, glad of the hood and mask.
 
It was a good ten minutes before Severs
re-appeared from the bows and, when he did, he was carrying a tray with two
mugs of tea and the damned fruitcake.

“They’re all asleep down
there, would you believe?
 
Mrs A’s passed
out on the tea table after her exertions.”
 
He lowered his voice and took his mug from the tray.
 
“Lucky you didn’t see that, mate.
 
Ugly
,
it was.”
 
He shook his head, clearly on
the horns of a moral dilemma.
 
“Still . .
pays the wages.
 
Here, you hold this, if
you’d be so kind and I’ll cut us a bit of cake.
 
Keep us goin’ for a bit, eh?”
 
He
handed me the tray.
 
“Then you can take
your hat off, mate; no need to stand on ceremony on my barge, ha ha!
 
It may not be what you’re used to, roughing
it on the river, but the only thing’ll gas you up here is good old London fog!”

Unfortunately, I had to put
an end to Severs’ hilarious repartee by pretending to stumble over my big boots
and up-ending the tray and its contents into the river.
 
It was rather a shame, because I could have
done with a cup of tea, but the cake and Severs had to be kept well apart if we
were going to reach Arkonnen’s Dover hideaway.

“What?!”
 
Severs protested and I waited for a ticking
off but, strangely, none came.

He simply turned to watch
the cake sink into the waters of the Thames and sighed.

“I’ll get us a sandwich
later, how about that?
 
You’ll have to
make your own tea, mate, if you want another one.
 
I’ve got to get back to work.”

I bowed my hooded head to
ask forgiveness, mumbled a bit and headed back into the hold.
 
As I climbed down the ladder, I stopped to
look at Joe Bloggs, who was still out for the count.

“Who
are
you?”
 
I wondered.

Because my attacker was no
ordinary crew member, or hired muscle, that much was obvious.
 
By the way Severs spoke, it was clear that
Joe Bloggs was no ordinary Joe.

 
Time passed, during
which I sat on an uncomfortable chair and kept Joe company, not wishing to
intrude any further into the inner cargo hold.
 
If I was uncomfortable, I was acutely conscious that Jay Tamang was a
hundred times more so.
 
But I couldn’t
hurry it.
 
I was waiting for nightfall,
for Joe to stir and, most of all, for a plan.
 
And, in time, all three came to pass.

Joe mumbled and lifted his
head.
 
Before he had a chance to open his
eyes I walloped him again.
 

“Sorry Joe.”

Then I took off the
radiation suit I was wearing - it was far too cumbersome for my purposes and stood
out considerably more than the dark grey Saville Row job that I had on
underneath - and I climbed up the ladder, slid the hatch and crept up on
deck.
 
I could hear Severs singing
tunelessly above the chug of the motor, in a world of his own.
 
The deck was now completely dark, with pinprick-small
electric lights by the holds and nothing more.
 
I kept my head well down and scuttled back to Tamang.
 
Then I grabbed the end of the rope that bound
him and loosened it from the cleat.
 
He lifted
his head.

“Ssh!” I whispered.
 
“Follow me and keep well to the ground.”

I unwound the tremendous coil
of rope; round and round it went, and it struck me that the aunt from hell had
wound so much hemp around his small frame that she’d actually done a good job
of protecting him from the whiplash.
 
He collapsed
onto the deck, stifling a moan and I let him lie there for a minute, while I
wound the rope back around the mast, roughly creating the impression that he
was still there.

“Come, Jay”

He took a deep breath and
scrambled after me, across the deck and down the hatch, where our two sleeping
beauties were still doing their stuff in the dark.
 

“Sorry about the delay,” I
said.
 

I found a lamp by the bunks
and switched it on, turning it so that it faced away from my secretary.