The Glory Boys (23 page)

It was Norah who broke the spell,

it is you they are hunting? It was your picture on the TV that we saw?' Frightened, small voice, and his dreaming reply failed to take her fear away.

it was me. I'm the one they're looking for. They're a long way behind me, and they won't find me.'

'But you killed a girl, strangled her, that's what it said.'

'What do you want me to say? What do you want me to pretend?' He rolled over on to his stomach, and leant on one bent elbow above her, his free hand in her hair, stroking, caressing it into shapes, it has nothing to do with your life. It is something separate. I won't tell you I didn't, and you wouldn't believe me if I did. There's nothing I can say, nothing you should know.'

His hand came down from her hair, and a fingernail flicked carelessly at the plastic buttons of her blouse, held by frail cotton to the material. He saw the tears coming, the tightening of the muscles close to her eyes and the reflection from the moisture that ran beside her nose, and found a track that skirted the fullness of her cheek and then was lost on the grass. He came down to her mouth and kissed her, and there was no room for her to back away. She felt her body pressed hard against the unevenness of the ground. And his hands began to go free, and search out the places they quested for. When they had unfastened the clasp behind her back and removed the soft protective covering on her breasts, she put her arms round his neck, and, sobbing, dragged his head close down beside her. She could not account for her actions, could not justify the tenderness with which she ran her hands over the harsh bristles below the hair at the back of his neck, could not reason why she flexed her legs slowly apart in the hope that his hand would find its way. When she opened her eyes his face was very close, and he kissed the lids, closing them, and there was just the darkness and the sensation and the knowledge that the hands were moving again, demanding ownership, seeking new territory. The button slipped loose at the waist of her jeans and she wriggled as his hands eased them below her knees, and still there was the darkness and the desperate requirement for him to move on. He lingered at the scarce-formed line that led down to the gentleness of the soft hair, and she moaned his name without sound into the roughened cheek joined to her own. When he came into her there was pain, and a power she had not known before, and she writhed and tried to escape. But there was only the thrashing, pinioning weight that held her, till at last he sagged, spent and exhausted.

Norah lay on the ground unmoving, the sun playing on her skin, the wind blowing its patterns, while the man beside her slept, his face with the quietness of a child's, the smoothness of his skin broken only by the tramlines worked by the nails of Doris Lang.

From the bank where he had changed a ten-pound travellers' cheque, Famy looked for the red cubicle he now identified as a telephone box. It took him fifteen mnutes and brought him back to the railway station he had walked past when seeking the bank. The bag was heavy, and it was with relief that he dropped it down on to the floor of the box. He closed the door behind him, and felt in his pocket for a two-pence piece. He had no difficulty remembering the number, nor the extension to ask for when the switchboard operator answered. As he had expected, the figures of the extension were given remotely and above the crackle of the connection.

'It's "Mushrooom" here,' Famy said.

There was a scuffling on the line, the sound he recognized as a receiver being placed against the material of a shirt or jacket, and indistinct words spoken into a void.

Clearing the room, thought Famy.

'What is it you wish to say?' the telephone was active again.

'I wanted to know whether there were further orders, whether there were new instructions.' Was that all he had telephoned to discover, when there was no chance of further orders? His tone echoed the hollowness of his request.

'Nothing has come through.'

Famy paused, waiting, wondering what to say. He could not speak of his desolation, his fears, of the horror of seeing his picture in the newspapers.

'Nothing at all? There is no word from home?' Perhaps the man at the embassy sensed something of his feelings, recognized the helplessness of the other.

'There is nothing, but that was not to be expected. It is the style of the leadership to allow a free hand in such matters. Your arrival has been communicated.' There was a sharp click on the line, and the sound for a moment was blanked out. In less than a second it returned, and Famy was able to hear the breathing, regular and unemotional, of the man he spoke to.

'There are difficulties?'

it is so confused now. We have lost our place, because of the girl. . .'

The voice cut in, interrupting. 'There was a clicking noise on the line. We must not speak any more. Ring off, and move away. Do not stay near the telephone. Very briefly, is there anything else?'

Famy was confused. He had heard the noise, but had not interpreted it.

'The Irishman. I do not know at what stage I can trust him, whether I am better on my own. We have the guns now, but. . .'

is there nothing of importance that you have to say? If not, ring off.'

. . . it is the Irishman. He said we must separate for today .. .'

'Ring off. And get away from the telephone box. Right away from it.'

The voice was at shouting pitch, and the line went dead, returning to its continual, miasmic purr. The urgency had at last communicated.

Famy picked up the bag and ran from the station hallway.

TWELVE

With the talkative, restless Jimmy out of the office and on his way to the airport for the reception committee, Jones's room had reverted to its normal hushed calm. He was poring over the files, alternately concentrating on the growing information on McCoy and the maps and plans that covered the Professor Sokarev visit when his internal phone rang.

'Monitoring section here, Mr Jones. Your embassy number is on. Chatting away. We've routed through to intercept.. .'

He did not wait to hear any more. He ran through the open connecting door, past the desk where Helen was typing, and out into the corridor. Fifteen paces to the staircase, not bothering to wait for the lift, and down the six flights in a headlong race to get to the basement before the call terminated. He was panting when he arrived.

Inside the cubicle the big man was hunched, checking the dials for sound level as the tapes beside him spun slowly round. The spare earphones were already plugged in, and Jones jammed them lopsidedly over his head.

'They've just heard the intercept switch go. The embassy's trying to wind it up,' he was told.

He was in time to hear the reference to 'guns', then the shouts of the other voice. One more half-hearted sentence and the line was cut.

A white telephone on the table inside the cubicle rang and Jones instinctively reached and picked it up.

intercept here. The call was made from Richmond, a public telephone. Checking the location now.'

Jones dialled the special number that had been assigned to the Scotland Yard operations room that was concerned exclusively with the hunt for McCoy and the unknown Arab. He spoke briefly, passing on the relevant material.

No more, and rang off. Time to get out of their hair, leave them a chance to get moving. Best break we've had, thought Jones. Something real to bite on for a change.

They played him back the tape, which he heard through four more times.

When he walked into Fairclough's office Jones said, 'The nerves are fraying a bit in the team. The Arab on to the embassy, doubting McCoy. Says he's been left on his ownsome, and doesn't like it. Sounded depressed, miserable, not having a happy time, wanting instructions from home. But he says they've retrieved the guns, which confirms that stuff from the hills we had in last night. But he sounded unhappy, really miserable.'

'Did he say whether or not they were still going to have a go at it?'

'Nothing about that. Said McCoy had told him they must separate for today.'

'Well, that's clear enough then. And not bad thinking.

They're more vulnerable like that, together. They'll resume harness tonight. I suggest they're still operational.'

Jones made a slow way to his own office. He knew what he had to do when he reached its quietness and sanctuary

- had to understand them, had to find a way into their thought processes, had to make the men who were just pictures and closely-typed words into human beings. That was the way, the only way, you could anticipate their next decision and action. But they were so remote, and he so out of touch with their world, that he evaluated his chances as minimal. That was why he was not hurrying.

In the town on the outskirts of London police radios had begun to chatter instructions, locations, descriptions, facial features, clothes. Men were hauled from traffic duties, serving summonses, investigating larceny and vandalism.

The Chief Superintendent who controlled the local police station concentrated deploying his men in three directions. First, he blocked all major roads leading out of the area; that was his major and initial priority. Second, a van-load of police took over the hallway of the station that served British Rail Southern Region and London Transport District Line Underground. Third, he concentrated cars not involved in the road blocks in the centre of the town, cruising and observing the hundreds who swarmed on the pavements and around the shops. Revolvers were issued to car crews leaving the station, the required and formal paperwork left till the end of the day.

When he was satisfied that the town was sealed as well as possible in the time, he came on the radio net himself to issue a clear and uncompromising instruction.

'The man we are searching for is dangerous, is probably armed, and should not be approached by any police officer who is unarmed. If you see him call in; we'll have the reinforcements you need.'

That was the message that first excited the radio ham who sat in his terraced house whiling away the time till his night shift began at the Hawker Siddeley factory down the road in Kingston. He ignored the stringent code set down by the Wireless Telegraphy Act that forbade any member of the public to listen to police messages and make use of them, and left his set tuned in to the area police frequency.

He had turned the set up when he had noticed the rapid upsurge in traffic, and was in time to hear in full the words of the Chief Superintendent. He had a list of the numbers of the news desks of the Fleet Street papers, and being a conscientious man, had taken a note of their edition times.

The
Daily Express
were traditionally the best payers for news tips, and there was no need to explain from where the information originated.

As the net was closing around the town, Famy was paying his money underneath the glass grille at the cash desk of the cinema. James Bond was in town - double feature.

'You've nothing to fear. Just do as we say, don't hesitate, whatever it is, and everything will be fine. The British have a big force out. Our own people from the embassy will be close by. But do as Elkin and I say with no questions.'

Those were the last words Mackowicz said to Sokarev on the flight itself. Then the plane finished its long taxi, and the doors to the stiflingly hot cabin were at last opened. Other passengers were already in the aisle waiting to leave when the chief steward and the man that Sokarev knew as El Al security transposed themselves across the corridor, leaving the route to the steps clear for Mackowicz to lead, followed by Sokarev and Elkin. The scientist saw the resentment etched in the faces of those delayed, and wondered why people always looked so hurt and embit-tered when they have just successfully negotiated an air flight. What have they to face, he thought, that justifies their puckered and peevish stares, and all because they must wait another seventy-five seconds before following down the steps?

It was a comfortable, gentle heat, not aggressive like that in Israel, that greeted them on the tarmac. And there were the Special Branch men. Six of them forming up, three on each side of Sokarev and walking with him, faces turned outward, toward the black Mercedes of the embassy that waited close to the steps. The security attache spoke briefly to Mackowicz, shook his hand and then came, alongside the professor.

'There are people to welcome you, sir. They are in the lounge at the terminal building.'

Sokarev started to speak of his baggage.

'Just give me the tag, sir. On your ticket. It will all be taken care of while you are in the terminal.'

As the car started up Sokarev could see two heavily-laden unmarked vehicles take up position in convoy behind. He sat in the back seat squashed between the attache and Mackowicz. Elkin was in the front with the driver, and between them another man who was middle-aged and had a faded, autumn look in his features, a man to whom nothing had the freshness of surprise. From the window Sokarev looked into the expressionless faces of uniformed policemen who waved and gestured the car across the traffic lights. There were dog handlers in the background, and men who stood in civilian clothes but with their right hands resting on the top buttons of their coats. More policemen were at the entrance to the VIP

suite, tall men in their serge-blue uniforms, who discussed his progress from the car to the doorway via handheld radios, and who failed to meet the almost apologetic smile that he gave as he walked by them.

They sat him down in an easy, low-slung settee in the suite, choosing one far from the door, and a lady in black with a white apron brought him tea with a china cup and saucer and offered him with her other hand a plate of biscuits. She at least returned his smile, muttered the word

'love' to him and was gone through a doorway, not to be seen again. The man who sat in the front of the Mercedes was moving across the room toward him. Sokarev could see that his suit was old and uncared for, there was a nick of blood on his collar, his tie was sufficiently loosened to reveal the top button of his shirt, and his shoes had been cleaned but in haste and without thoroughness.