The violent enemy, p.11
The Violent Enemy, page 11
As the car moved away, he sank back against the padded seat, no longer tired, a hollow ache of excitement in the pit of his stomach. He was as certain as he had ever been about anything, that the answer to this whole affair lay in the last place in the country he would ever have thought of looking.
At that precise moment, Soames was crouched in a clump of bushes at the side of the coast road a few yards away from the signpost indicating the way to Marsh-End.
The small green saloon he had hired from a garage in Broughton-in-Furness was parked in a clearing to the rear. The fact that he was here at all was purely accidental. He had been waiting at the side of the Ambleside road for Pope who had gone up the valley on foot to keep a prearranged appointment with Morgan, when the shooting brake containing Rogan and Hannah Costello had come down from Scardale. Soames, his cunning mind working overtime, had simply seized the opportunity.
Rogan was not expecting to be followed. His decision to make a last visit to Colum O’More had been taken at a moment’s notice, mainly because he had wanted to be alone with Hannah and in any case, he carried the keys of the cattle truck and the Morris van in his pocket.
They chose the long way round through Hawkshead, Coniston and Broughton and there was a fair amount of traffic on the road, which was greatly to Soames’ advantage.
Cautious by nature, he was anything but a violent man and he knew just when it paid to take a chance and when it did not. When the shooting brake took the turning for Marsh-End he drove by, then turned and quickly found somewhere to park. Then he moved cautiously through the trees until he came upon the farm and the brake parked in the yard. He returned to the main road at once and took up his position in the shelter of some bushes.
The rain continued to fall steadily during the hours that he waited, but finally the brake reappeared and he drew back into the bushes until the sound of its engine faded into the distance.
He left his car where it was and moved back through the trees towards the farm. There was no sign of life anywhere and he stood at the edge of the yard examining the windows for a moment, then crossed to the door.
It opened to his touch and he walked softly along the whitewashed passage. The living room door was slightly ajar and someone coughed. He pushed the door open and stepped in.
Colum O’More was sitting by the fire in the act of applying a match to the bowl of his pipe. He stared at Soames as if he had seen a ghost and a quick anger kindled in his eyes.
‘What the devil are you doing here?’
‘I thought it was time we had a little chat, Mr O’More.’
Soames moved forward, shook the rain from his hat and placed it carefully on the table.
‘I’ve nothing to say to you,’ O’More said. ‘You’ve been paid for what you’ve done, well paid and there’s an end to it.’
‘I have a friend in Dublin, Mr O’More, did you know that?’ Soames held his hands out to the fire. ‘He’s been making a few enquiries for me. Among the right people, you understand.’ He smiled gently. ‘The headquarters of your movement in Dublin, or what’s left of it, don’t seem to have heard from you in five years or more.’ He shook his head reprovingly. ‘You’ve not been telling the truth, Mr O’More. I wonder what Sean Rogan would say to that?’
14
A cold wind slanting across the square drove rain against the window with the force of lead shot as Vanbrugh stared morosely into the street. Already half-convinced that he was wrong, an abortive morning spent visiting every hotel in Kendal without finding a trace of either Soames or Pope, hadn’t improved his temper. He wondered impatiently what was keeping Dwyer.
There was a knock on the door and a young constable entered with a cup of tea. As he turned to leave, Dwyer came in.
‘You can make that two.’ He shook rain from his hat and unbuttoned his coat. ‘What a climate.’
‘Any luck?’ Vanbrugh demanded.
Dwyer shook his head. ‘We’ve visited every guest-house and boarding house in Kendal without a trace. I’ve told the men to get some lunch and report back in an hour.’
‘I didn’t do any better at the hotels.’
The young constable brought in another cup of tea and Dwyer sipped it gratefully. ‘Of course, there must be a lot of people in a place like this who take in paying guests, especially in the season.’
‘Too many,’ Vanbrugh said. ‘It would take a house-to-house search to find them all. We simply haven’t the men or the time.’
‘It would explain the bit about this bloke Grant’s address being care-of-someone else.’
‘I’ve been in touch with the local Postmaster about that,’ Vanbrugh said. ‘I know it’s a long shot that a postman might remember something like that. I know from past experience that most of these fellows get to know their round very well.’
‘Any joy?’
‘Not yet. Most of the men are still due-in from the lunchtime delivery. He’s going to see them all before they go off duty and give me a ring.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Two o’clock. That gives us half an hour.’
‘There’s a pub just round the corner,’ Dwyer said. ‘We could probably get some sandwiches or a pork pie or something.’
‘Something like a pint, you mean?’
‘It’s been a hard morning, sir.’
Vanbrugh grinned and took down his coat from behind the door. ‘Well, if you’re paying, Sergeant …’
Looking over Hannah’s shoulders through the flooded windscreen, Rogan could see Paddy Costello several hundred yards ahead, standing at the side of the road. The small man clambered into the passenger seat and closed the door with a curse.
‘Christ Jesus, but I’m soaked to the bloody skin. It cuts into you like razor blades, that stuff.’
‘Everything go off all right?’ Rogan said.
‘I parked it at the back of that ruined barn. Sure and there won’t be a soul about on a day like this.’
Rogan eased back against the side of the van and lit a cigarette. He tossed the packet across to Fletcher who sat opposite, strangely formal in his navy blue uniform. The big man extracted a cigarette with hands that shook slightly.
‘What’s wrong with you?’ Morgan demanded. ‘Wetting yourself?’
‘Why don’t you get stuffed?’ Fletcher leaned back and blew out a cloud of smoke with evident satisfaction. ‘It’s going to be all right, I can tell.’
‘What did you do, write to Gypsy Rose?’ Morgan asked sarcastically.
Fletcher turned, one gnarled fist balling and Rogan cut in sharply, ‘Knock it off. You can cut pieces out of each other from tomorrow on as far as I’m concerned. Until then, I’m in charge.’
A few minutes later, they started to move through Kendal and he glanced at his watch. ‘A quarter of an hour.’
He could see beads of sweat lining the folds of skin that draped over the back of Costello’s collar and the old man pulled down his cap with a hand that shook slightly. Fletcher showed no apparent emotion and Morgan grinned.
‘Nothing quite like it, is there?’
Rogan didn’t reply, but he knew exactly what the man was getting at. The hollowness in the stomach, the tightness in the chest, the difficulty in breathing properly. It wasn’t fear exactly, but something rather more subtle. A strange mixture of excitement and apprehension. A feeling he had known many times before that lasted until the exact moment that you made your first decisive move. After that, there was never time to think of anything but the job in hand.
The van moved along the narrow lane between high hedges and then, quite suddenly, they were turning into the parking space outside Rigg Station. Hannah braked to a halt, and reversed in one smooth motion until the back of the van was no more than a foot from the loading bay. Rogan opened the door, stepped out and moved into the booking hall.
A silk scarf was already knotted at the back of his neck and he pulled it over the lower half of his face and jerked down the peak of his old tweed cap. He opened the door of the stationmaster’s office and stepped inside.
Briggs stood at the fireplace, one hand reaching for the kettle, a pint pot in the other. He started to turn and Rogan took the Colt automatic from his pocket.
The old man’s face was a study in bewilderment. He opened his mouth as if to speak and his jaw went slack as the shock of what was happening hit him with the force of a physical blow.
Paddy Costello moved inside quickly, opened the other door and passed into the baggage hall. As Rogan heard the outer doors open, he said to Briggs, ‘Do as you’re told and you won’t get hurt. Take off your cap, jacket and waistcoat and put them on the desk.’
The old man stood there staring at him, frozen by fear, his mouth open. Rogan stepped forward in one quick movement and touched him between the eyes with the cold barrel of the automatic.
‘Now, not tomorrow.’
His action had exactly the psychological effect that he had hoped, Briggs put his pint pot on the mantelpiece and hurriedly took off his jacket. When Costello came back into the office, Briggs was standing by the fireplace, his shirt sleeves rolled above the elbow, one arm only half the thickness of the other, badly disfigured by the jagged distinctive scars of old shrapnel wounds.
‘Where did you pick that lot up?’ Rogan asked.
Briggs seemed to come to life a little and his head went back. ‘The Somme, 1916.’
‘If you got through that bloody lot, you’ll survive anything. Lie on the floor and close your eyes.’
He nodded to Costello who moved forward quickly, a coil of rope in his hands. Rogan went into the baggage hall. Outside, the wheels of the old Morris van skidded on the loose gravel as Hannah drove away. Fletcher dragged in the fourth mailbag and Morgan closed the door.
He turned to Rogan, the skin drawn tightly across his cheekbones, eyes very bright. ‘Everything okay?’
Rogan nodded and glanced at his watch. ‘Five minutes, maybe sooner.’
Costello had knotted a scarf around the old man’s eyes and gagged him with a piece of sticking plaster. He was tying his wrists behind him as Rogan went back into the office and the Irishman nudged him with the toe of his shoe.
‘I’ll finish that, you get changed.’
As Costello hurriedly took off his raincoat and pulled on the uniform waistcoat, Rogan dropped to one knee and lashed the old man’s wrists together, securely, but not too tightly.
He patted Briggs on the shoulder. ‘I’m putting you out of harm’s way for a little while. Don’t try anything silly and you’ll be all right. Understand?’
The old man nodded and Rogan opened the door to the washroom, picked him up and carried him inside. He laid him on the floor, went back into the office and closed the door.
Costello buttoned his jacket and put on the cap. He examined himself in the cracked mirror over the fire, turned and laughed nervously. ‘Will I do?’
‘Perfect!’ Rogan said. ‘Now get out on that platform and look busy.’
He stood at the narrow window watching Costello go to work with his broom, then went back into the baggage hall. Morgan had one of the double doors open slightly and was looking outside. He made a sudden, cutting gesture with one hand as Fletcher started to speak and, through the heavy rain, they heard the sound of an engine approaching.
Rogan moved beside him. As he peered through the narrow crack, the van turned off the road on to the parking space. It seemed strangely ordinary, its coachwork painted dark blue with no distinguishing characteristics except for the circular aerial on the roof.
It rolled to a halt a few yards away, giving him a clear view of the two occupants. The driver looked like an ex-Guards N.C.O., dark moustache bristling beneath the gold-rimmed peaked cap. The guard was a younger man with a hard, bony face and a scar bisecting one cheek.
Rogan saw him yawn and pick up the radio telephone receiver. A moment later he started to speak. He replaced the receiver, put a cigarette in his mouth and reached across to the watch held out to him by the driver.
The door leading to the platform opened and Costello hurried in.
‘It’s coming.’
‘All right. Get outside and give them a nod,’ Rogan said.
Costello hesitated and Morgan kicked him viciously on the leg. ‘Get moving, damn you!’
Costello opened the door, leaned out and raised a hand. The driver of the van nodded, turned in a half-circle and started to reverse.
Rogan could hear the train beginning to slow on the run in to the station and he gave Costello a shove across the baggage hall. ‘On the platform and stay by the door.’
Rogan stepped back into the office leaving the other two waiting in the baggage hall. Morgan stood in one corner by the double doors, Fletcher in the other, each of them with a rubber truncheon ready in his right hand.
Then everything seemed to be happening at once. As the noise of the train filled the building, the double doors were pushed open, hiding Fletcher and Morgan from view. The driver came in first, a receipt book in one hand, dragging a mailbag behind him. The guard followed with another, cigarette still dangling from one corner of his mouth.
The doors swung back and Morgan and Fletcher moved in together, truncheons flailing down expertly. The driver dropped like a sack, unconscious from the first devastating blow. The younger man managed to turn, dropping his mailbag and reached for his own truncheon. His mouth opened in a soundless cry, drowned by the noise of the engine and Fletcher slashed him across the edge of the neck.
Rogan moved in fast, grabbed the driver’s feet and dragged him into the office. As he dropped him behind the desk out of sight from the window, Fletcher followed with the other guard.
Rogan moved back into the baggage hall and Morgan came in from the ramp, the driver’s gold peaked cap slanting across his eyes. ‘The bloody van’s empty. Only the two bags.’
So Colum O’More had been wrong for once, but there was no time to worry about that now. Rogan was already on one knee beside the two mailbags, a pair of pliers in his hand. Each bag was fastened by heavy wire, an official lead seal inscribed with several code words and a number. He snipped the wire and quickly laced it through the metal eyelet holes of one of the dummy bags which Fletcher dragged forward. He joined the broken ends of the wire as neatly as possible, twisting them together, then pushed the join out of sight through one of the eyelet holes in the mouth of the bag.
As he repeated the operation on the other, Morgan dropped to one knee beside him. ‘Let’s hope they don’t check those too carefully.’
‘Why should they?’ Rogan said calmly and got to his feet. ‘Out you go.’
The young guard’s cap was a size too small for Fletcher, but he tilted it forward over his eyes and lifted up a mailbag. Morgan picked up the receipt book and the other bag and moved to the end of the baggage hall. He hesitated, opened the door and moved out. Rogan held his breath and waited.
It was strangely quiet on the platform, the muffled rumble of the diesel engines the only sound. Paddy Costello leaned on his broom by the door, making a great show of examining his watch, and the sliding door of the mail van stood open.
Morgan moved forward and an attendant leaned out and grinned. ‘Aren’t you beggars ever late?’
‘Don’t ask me,’ Morgan said. ‘First time we’ve done this run.’
He heaved his mailbag into the van and Fletcher followed suit. The attendant produced a pen and held out his hand. ‘Let’s have it.’
Morgan opened the receipt book and handed it to him. The attendant signed the top copy, tore it off and handed the book back. ‘That’s it then.’
He started to draw back and Morgan said, ‘Christ, I was forgetting. Do me a favour, mate. I gave the radio a bit of a bash getting out of the cab and it’s on the blink. Give ’em a ring at headquarters, will you, and tell ’em we’re on our way in?’
‘Anything to oblige.’
It was as simple as that. The sliding door closed and Costello raised a hand to the guard who leaned out of his window at the rear of the train. A whistle sounded faintly and, in a moment, the great diesel engines picked up and the train slid away.
As the rear of the train disappeared into the heavy rain, the three men crowded into the baggage hall excitedly. ‘We made it, by Christ! We made it!’ Fletcher said.
‘A long way to go yet,’ Rogan told him. ‘Get those two mailbags into the van and don’t forget the dummies. Don’t leave them anything they might be able to trace.’ He turned to Morgan. ‘You help me in here.’
The van driver and his guard still lay unconscious by the desk and Rogan examined them. There was a trickle of blood at the back of the driver’s ear and he looked up at Morgan grimly.
‘You don’t pull your punches.’
Morgan shrugged. ‘I could never see the point.’
Rogan produced a couple of lengths of thin cord from his pocket and they quickly tied the wrists of the two unconscious men behind them.
‘Right, into the van and get that engine started,’ Rogan said. ‘I’ll be out in a minute.’
He opened the washroom door and dropped to one knee beside Briggs. The old man was breathing heavily through the nose and Rogan pulled the sticking plaster away from his mouth. Briggs sucked in a lungful of air gratefully and Rogan patted him on the shoulder.
‘You’ll be all right, Dad. That goods train should arrive in exactly twenty-five minutes.’
The old man turned his head blindly towards him. ‘God help you, lad, because you’ll never get away with this.’
‘You take a chance every day of your life.’ Rogan hurried out through the baggage hall. The rear door of the van stood open, Costello peering out. Rogan stepped inside and closed the door and Morgan turned from the small armoured glass window and gunned the motor.
As the van moved at high speed along the narrow lane between the hedges, Rogan flicked the switch of the intercommunication system.
