The Doll’s House (37 page)

The service door was open. Harry whispered to him, ‘We just made it. They lock up at twelve fifteen sharp.' He looked round, listening for any footfall, any sound of someone coming through from the main building. Then, beckoning Jan, he started up the service stairs.

They came from London in their unmarked cars. No flashing lights or squealing sirens to announce them.

They were all armed except Jim Parker. He didn't know how to use a gun. The sky was turning grey in the chill pre-dawn hours; a rim of crimson came up the horizon, reminding Parker of the old adage, ‘Red sky at night, sailor's delight, red sky in the morning, sailor's warning.'

There wouldn't be any warning for Harry Oakham and the rest of his unholy allies. Daniel Ishbav had betrayed them all and turned Queen's evidence. Not that it guaranteed his life. But he could
try
and run from his own people. Parker's colleague had allayed the scruples of the Detective Chief Inspector at making such a deal.

He'd assured him that Ishbav hadn't a snowball's chance in hell once he was out of custody. Stevenson and his thugs had been picked up in the East End. They weren't talking, but they would when they were confronted by Daniel.

The one thing Daniel wouldn't talk about was money. Where were the payments made? Who was the paymaster? Hoping to live to enjoy it. Parker sneered at the idea.

They'd get that out of the Pole, if Oakham and the others proved obdurate. The Pole wouldn't stand up to being in a cell waiting to be questioned. He'd crack.

Rilke – Zarubin; Parker was thinking of them all as he drove along the deserted dual carriageway towards Ipswich, with his armed Special Branch in convoy.

Strange bedfellows, united by greed and inhumanity. Hermann Rilke, the loathsome product of perverted mother love.

The sadistic intelligence chief and the chess-playing KGB strategist, servants of a political tyranny that had crumbled with the wall which was its symbol. No place for such people now …

Perhaps we are becoming civilized at last, Parker thought, watching the sunrise and the countryside bathed in the red light. Perhaps.

It was worth hoping for, at least. They'd be there very soon.

He had refused to worry about Rosa Bennet. She'd be sleeping safely in her bed when they surrounded the place. She'd found nothing, suspected nothing. Her routine calls had established that.

An amateur dealing with supreme professionals. It would be useful experience for her. They were at the turn-off for Higham when the car phone rang. His assistant listened and then passed it back to him. ‘It's for you, sir. Routed through from London. Emergency call sign. Mrs Bennet.'

Harry watched the dawn. Jan was asleep beside him, worn out, poor devil. He hadn't liked the cramped little space and the darkness.

Harry had risked lighting the torch, and taken out two of the loose bricks so he could see a bit of sky. Jan slept on, his head pillowed on the soft bag. He'd manage; Harry'd calmed him. Only a few days lying low.

After all, he was a Papist, he shouldn't be scared of a priest's hole.

They'd been cunning, those old Catholics, building a doll's house as a front, putting some dug up bones on view to frighten off the local militia when they searched for a priest on the run for his life. The curse was a nice touch. No local yokel would be bold enough to risk being struck dead by running a pike through it. Very clever of the Lisle family.

In time, the reason behind the legend was lost; the doll's house was glassed in, preserved with its lie undiscovered. The space built into the huge chimney stack was cramped enough for one man, but he and Jan would manage. He'd found the air brick when he explored the roof, interested by the thickness of the wall and the shallow depth of the doll's house. An air brick meant exactly that. A brick that could be moved so someone could breathe fresh air. It had been cemented in by some bricklayer in the past who thought it was merely loose. Loose like the others near by, laid in the English bond pattern.

They'd all been cemented together, but the filling was old and crumbling and it hadn't been difficult for Harry to lever them out, a few at a time until he could see what was behind them.

Jan stirred uneasily and then woke. ‘Harry? Harry—'

‘I'm here,' he said quickly. ‘It's daylight outside. Look.'

Jan stared up at the little square of rose sky. He hated the confined space. It made him sweat and shake. But Harry said it wasn't for long.

A priest's hole. Good men had hidden there to escape the dreadful Tudor penalty for treason. He shouldn't be afraid, but he was.

Harry had guided him up on the roof and taken out the bricks one by one till there was a space big enough for them to wriggle through.

Harry had talked him out of panic, made a hole that he could focus on, and told him the story of how he'd found the hiding place. And provisioned it with tins of food and drink and a torch in case history repeated itself … Harry thought of everything.

‘You think they'll come today?' Jan whispered.

‘I'd bet on it,' Harry answered. ‘Any minute. They'll look for evidence, take statements, and all they'll know is we left in a car with a busted exhaust pipe to catch a train. They won't buy the train theory, but they've nothing else to go on. And when they go to Croft Lodge, that'll concentrate their minds.'

‘What about her – does she know anything?'

‘No,' Harry said. ‘No, nothing. I didn't ask her to lie for me, Jan. It wouldn't have been right. And she wouldn't have done it. She's very honest. That's one of the things that made her special.'

In the gloom he looked at his old friend and he managed to smile. ‘A few days, that's all. Till they've gone. Then we'll slip out during the night. We've got passports, money … We'll get the ferry to Ireland. Fishguard to Rosslare. It's a filthy sea crossing if it's rough. But you're a good sailor … Look, the sun's coming up. We'll make it. Don't worry.'

‘I don't need a medical check-up,' Rosa protested. ‘I'm all right!'

‘You let me be the judge of that,' Jim Parker stood up. ‘I'm sending you down to Branksome by car. The quacks will give you a proper examination.' He always called doctors quacks. His father used the term because the medical profession tended to condescend to dentists in his time.

‘When they give you a clean bill of health I'll send someone down to debrief you. I'll be busy trying to sort out this mess here for a few days. Then I'll come myself.'

He took out a packet of cigarettes. ‘Could you manage one of these?'

She shook her head. ‘No – no thanks.' The idea made her feel sick. She was a dreadful colour, with huge black pits under the eyes. She'd had a rough time, very rough. He put the cigarette back in the packet. He'd come back from Croft Lodge.

The room on the top floor bore witness to her ordeal. The chair turned his stomach. The dead bodies had no effect upon him.

A broken neck. That was Oakham's hallmark, but loosing off half a dozen bullets into a man already dying was someone different. The Pole, Jan Ploekewski. Found his courage and lost his head.

Oakham had changed sides. To save Rosa Bennet. That was what she'd told him, and he believed her. And he and the Pole had got clear away from the hotel in the aftermath.

She was looking a little better than when he first saw her but not much. She couldn't stand up to questioning in depth. That would come later, when she was pronounced fit enough. Someone else would do it. ‘I don't want to go to Branksome,' she insisted. Her head was thudding with a headache that resisted aspirins and the weak tea she'd been given. One of Parker's men had brought it up to her with some dry biscuits. The hotel was in limbo.

The staff and the guests were being questioned in relays; the flat and the house occupied by the manager and his assistant were being taken apart by a team of experts.

‘Be a good girl,' Parker said kindly, ‘and don't argue. I'm still your boss and I'm not taking any chances with you after last night's little episode. You need rest and peace of mind, and Branksome's the ideal place.'

‘It's a debriefing centre,' she said wearily. ‘I did my course there. I know it.'

‘It's also for convalescence,' he said. ‘Just a week at the most, people to look after you, a total break from this …' he gestured with one hand. ‘Get it out of your system.'

He smiled at her and leaning forward, gave her hand a little squeeze. ‘You were bloody brave,' he said. ‘And I'm really sorry it got so rough. I want to make it up to you.' She didn't answer.

She couldn't fight him, she was too weak. If he said she was going to Branksome, that's where she would be taken.

After a while he got up. ‘Well,' he said. ‘I suppose we must be thankful it's over. One dead Saudi's bad enough; God knows what they'd have pulled off next. And you never suspected, did you, Rosa?'

‘No,' she said, ‘I didn't. I was completely fooled.'

‘And you can't think of anything else, any clue where they might have gone?' He asked it casually in a gentle tone.

‘I told you. He said something about the car. That's all.'

‘Yes, well,' he buttoned his jacket, pulled it straight. ‘His car's gone. We've a full description. I don't think they'll get far. We've got the country sealed up tight, airports, ports, everything. But don't you think about it. You did your best. I'll send someone to give you a hand getting dressed and packing your things. Try and sleep.' He went out, closing the door quietly.

Outside he lit the cigarette. Oakham had called a doctor. She hadn't told him the truth. Food poisoning. She'd lied. She could have asked him to call Parker, but she hadn't. She'd waited till morning, till Oakham had taken off. He knew the very man to send down to Branksome to ask her why.

14

He was a quiet-spoken man. About forty, dressed in tweeds, with a slight Scots burr in his voice. He could have been a country solicitor, an estate agent, anything but what she knew he really was.

He'd introduced himself after she'd been at Branksome for five days. Peter Mackay. They'd shaken hands and he'd said how glad he was to get the medical reports. She'd recovered remarkably well from the terrible ordeal. He congratulated her on the psychiatric assessment. She had come out of it without any traumas. Rosa thanked him, and said, yes, she was still fairly shaky but she would soon be back to normal, and was quite ready to go home.

He offered her a strong mint, which she refused. He had taken to them while giving up smoking. Now
they'd
become a habit, and he smiled at his own weakness as he put the packet in his pocket.

He was a man who dealt in pauses. He had stayed quiet after talking about his addiction to mints for a long time, as if he was thinking about it. And then he looked up and said, ‘Of course, the reason you got off so lightly was because Oakham interrupted the torture session. Isn't that right?'

‘Yes,' Rosa answered. ‘I suppose so.'

‘I think you said he was trying to stop the chair using his own body weight.'

‘I know he slowed it down, but I don't know what he was doing … it was pitch dark and I was completely disorientated. I just knew he was trying to help me.'

‘Of course, he was a very strong man,' Peter Mackay remarked. ‘Even so, it was remarkable that he managed to do what he did. It certainly avoided permanent damage to the balancing mechanism of your brain. Of course, it's a fact that extreme emotion can double physical strength. An angry man is far stronger than a calm one. So is someone who's desperate. And he was desperate to stop you being tortured. You did a good job, you know.'

‘I failed completely,' Rosa said slowly. ‘I found out nothing; I don't know why you say that.'

‘Because it's true. It was a very difficult task for someone without experience. Of course, you made mistakes – like making Zarubin suspicious. And leaving your camera in such an obvious hiding place. That was a bad lapse,' he conceded. ‘It could have been fatal.'

Rosa thought, He's needling me. What is this …?

‘Now he was the odd man out, you know. Zarubin. He didn't quite fit in with people like Rilke and Ishbav, for instance. We've been tipped off he was a KGB plant. We've a friend in their embassy. They wanted someone in Oakham's team to keep an eye on Soviet interests. Frustrate any plan that might not suit their policies. And killing a pro-American Saudi who was in line to be King, would have been good news from their point of view. So he went along with it. Helped, in fact, from what the Israeli tells us. Would you like a cup of tea or something, Mrs Bennet? You're looking a bit tired.'

‘No thank you, I'm fine.'

‘So it looks as if that particular leopard hasn't changed too many spots. Of course your real success was identifying those Irish terrorists. Did Jim Parker mention that? Oh, no, well I expect he will, but I'd like to congratulate you on my own behalf. I've had a lot to do with that problem.

‘We picked them up, thanks to your photographs. Trailed them through to an isolated cottage in Armagh. The security forces surrounded the place and they were all arrested. Plenty of evidence, detonators, Semtex, small arms buried in the garden. A room with a dentist's chair. Is this upsetting you?'

He looked concerned. ‘Then let's change the subject. Sir Peter Jefford was very complimentary about you. In fact, looking on the bright side, you've done your career prospects a power of good.'

‘If you say so,' Rosa answered. She thought suddenly, If he takes another mint out and starts eating it, I'm going to scream …

‘You'll be going to Brussels, I believe, as soon as you're ready. It's a lovely city. It'll be most interesting. Tell me, how long after you arrived at the hotel did you and Oakham become lovers?'