The Shepherd File (17 page)

‘They were more efficient than we thought,’ said Tirov. ‘Far more efficient.’

They killed Shepherd,’ said Nina Lydoevna. ‘I didn't realize it but he was doped when I met him. By the time I left he was feeling muzzy. He said so. He looked odd. I left him sitting by the bank of the river. It was a hot day. He said he felt sleepy. We arranged to meet in a week's time. I never saw him again.'

There was silence.

‘And you, Nina,’ murmured Tirov. ‘What did they do to you?'

Nina Lydoevna's face was hard. ‘I found the cellar,' she said. ‘It wasn't easy to get in. There were too many people about. But I managed it. Shepherd had taken a wax impression of the lock, and the key I had cut worked all right. But I bungled it. Someone came down the stairs, I suppose, and I didn't hear them. I didn't know anything until I woke up in that cupboard.'

‘Then who — ?' began Lamb. He looked round. ‘I mean — there was no sabotage. The troops were all right.’

‘You don't think — ' said Tirov ‘ — that we would let her work on a case like this alone?'

There was a dazed silence.

‘You mean — ?' began Lamb, staggered.

‘I will tell you later what I mean,’ said Tirov.

‘How did Miss Lydoevna return to London?' asked Morrison.

It was Holmes who answered. ‘I don’t think that was too difficult,' he said. ‘The first stop of the airliner on which she left London was at Brussels. Nina Lydoevna would leave the plane there and not return. She would be met by someone from the Russian Embassy who would hand her a new passport in the name of Rosa Verschoyle and an airline ticket to London. She would be back again within a couple of hours.'

Tirov said nothing.

‘She returned as Monique Shepherd’s sister,’ said Holmes. In the circumstances it was not difficult to persuade Monique Shepherd to agree to the impersonation.'

‘How?’ asked Lamb. ‘Why?’

They had gone too far to try and spare Lamb’s feelings.

‘Because Mrs Shepherd was angry,' said Holmes. ‘She was more than angry. She was outraged.'

‘Why?’ said Lamb.

‘You didn't promise to prove her husband innocent,' said Holmes.

Tirov looked pleased. He bowed his head and chuckled. ‘Admirable, Mr Holmes. You have followed it remarkably closely, if I may say so. Colonel Lamb may not like this, of course — '

‘Why shouldn't I?’ exclaimed the indignant Lamb.

‘Because,’ said Tirov, ‘whatever you may have said to Mrs Shepherd when you saw her about her husband's death she was convinced that your department, and therefore the British authorities, believed her husband had been guilty of an offence — of an affair, perhaps, with Nina Lydoevna, or of betraying secrets — '

‘Well, naturally, we had to ask questions.'

‘Precisely,’ said Tirov. ‘That was what Mr Holmes meant.'

‘You found the child useful in obtaining Mrs Shepherd's help?' asked Holmes of Tirov.

Tirov nodded. ‘Your acquaintance with our methods is a remarkable one,’ he said. ‘Naturally we had to see to it that the child was not endangered-He is perfectly safe — in the crèche at the nursery department of the embassy.’

‘Your forethought was admirable,’ said Holmes. Morrison stirred and stiffened ‘You made use of Mrs Shepherd?’ he asked

‘Naturally,’ said Tirov. ‘Of course. How else could we have got inside Uplands? Mrs Shepherd already had the entree. What more natural than the bereaved lady should take her sister with her?’

‘You had Mrs Shepherd under observation when she came up to London on Saturday?’

‘For her interview with Colonel Lamb — yes.’

‘You knew of her interview?’

‘Naturally. Miss Lydoevna kept us informed of all her movements.’

‘You followed her.’

‘Of course.’

‘Then those were your men who were killed on the motorway?’

Tirov nodded

‘They were drugged in the car as they waited outside the Ministry of Defence?’

‘Not in the car,’ said Tirov. ‘It was a hot day.’

‘What has that to do with it?’

‘It had everything to do with it. They had to wait some time. The driver went for a drink. There is a pub round the corner in Whitehall, opposite the Admiralty.’

‘How do you know he went for a drink?’

‘We saw,’ said Tirov.

‘You had two cars?’

‘We would have been foolish not to have had two cars.’

‘Why?’

Tirov shrugged. ‘The Brotherhood knew about us.’

‘What happened?’

‘He went for a drink. It was no doubt done while he was in the bar. It is.’ Tirov smiled at Holmes, ‘a matter which is easily arranged, is it not? A wipe of the glass. A touch of the hand round the rim. We do not know how. But it was done. These people are clever. They are highly disciplined Almost they deserved to have succeeded.’

‘Good God,’ said Morrison.

‘Incredible,’ said Lamb. He was staring at Tirov. ‘I must say you people have been damned efficient about all this.’

‘But look here,’ said Morrison. ‘You said they almost deserved to have succeeded. What do you mean by that? Do you mean there
was
an attempt to sabotage the Third Infantry Division?’

Tirov was flicking his cigar case and he stopped flicking it in his astonishment. ‘You don’t know?’ he said. His heavy-lidded eyes were wide open in his astonishment. He stared. ‘You haven’t heard? Don’t tell me that you have not heard?’

‘Heard what?’ Morrison was shouting. ‘What do you mean, man? Explain!’

‘You have not been at the Guards’ depot at Pirbright?’

‘Not personally. They were warned, of course. They carried out tests on the water supply before the troops were allowed to take off.’

‘Yes — but you have not had a report from there?’

‘Not since take-off, no. What’s the point of having a report from there if the troops have taken off? It means there was no sabotage. There can’t be any point in sabotaging the place after take-off.’

‘I am not thinking of that,’ said Tirov. He frowned. ‘Superintendent Morrison,’ he went on, ‘quite frankly, I am not happy. Something may have gone wrong.’

There was a tap at the door. The constable came in and saluted, looked round. He saw Morrison: ‘Message from Inspector Post, sir,’ he said. ‘Would you come urgently, please.’

There was a silence.

‘Inspector Post,’ said Morrison, ‘is at Pirbright.’

Tirov sat like a Roman emperor. Nina Lydoevna, sitting up in bed, was clutching the sheets round her chin. She looked frantically round from Lamb to Morrison, to Holmes, and back to Tirov. There was an appalling and quite irrational sense of climax and disaster. When Tirov spoke, he was looking at Morrison and Morrison could see the apprehension in his eyes.

‘Superintendent,’ said Tirov, solemnly, ‘if Akano is still free there will be trouble. He will be desperate.’

Morrison muttered something. He pushed past Tirov. The constable stood on one side. Morrison went past him, head down, charging down the corridor. Lamb followed.

Tirov took out the cigar from the case and uninhibitedly lit it and sat back. He was deliberately forcing himself not to move. Nina Lydoevna was lying back on her pillows exhausted. The sound of Morrison’s and Lamb’s footsteps receded down the corridor. The room seemed to have exploded and to be settling under the debris of a compulsive fear.

Nina Lydoevna moaned and sat up. She and Tirov looked at each other. Tirov made a great effort, a visible effort, as though willing her to remain silent. Then he looked at Holmes. Holmes was watching a bird on the window ledge. Then he looked at his watch. ‘You have a car?’ Holmes said to Tirov.

‘Outside.’

Nina Lydoevna moaned. ‘Hurry!’ she said. Her eyes were wild with anxiety. ‘You don’t know Akano. God knows what he’s doing. If — he is still alive he will not care what happens. Oh — if only we could have had the man on our side. If only we could have had him on our side I — ’

‘Steady, my little Nina,’ said Tirov. ‘Steady.’

‘I must come with you,’ she said, throwing back the clothes. ‘I must come even if you have to carry me out to the car. Look what those devils did to my legs I — ’

Akano

Nina Lydoevna sat between Tirov and Holmes in the back of the car, a travelling rug over her legs, talking of Akano. She had talked of him constantly between Reading and Wokingham and again, after a silence, as they were crossing Bagshot Heath and Bisley, and now — coming down through the pinewoods past Uplands — she spoke urgently and passionately of him again. Always it was the same. He was a man who should have been on their side, on the side of the enlightened ones, on the side of the liberators. Holmes was fascinated by her. She spoke of Africa and the Africans like most women would speak of home and lovers. To her the future of Africa was as real and vivid and important as her own. Holmes wondered if it might not be more important. She seemed to have no personal life, no lover, no husband, only Africa and the tragedy of a genius who had been betrayed.

‘Stop the car,’ said Tirov and the chauffeur drew in by the side of the road. Holmes, looking out, saw the police car beyond the fringe of pines.

‘Down there,’ said Tirov, ‘are the Guards’ barracks — built, I believe, Mr Holmes, after the expedition against Russia in the Crimea.’ On a slope beyond the pinewoods, across the expanse of gorse and heathland with its sandy stretches, were glimpses of ugly red-brick single-storey buildings. ‘They are very old buildings,’ said Tirov, ‘and I believe very uncomfortable in which to live.’

‘Over there,’ continued Tirov, indicating a pinewood on a slope, ‘is an enclosure. On the other side is a valley. In the valley is a lake known as Brooklakes. It is the army’s reservoir. It provides Pirbright with all its drinking water. Brooklakes was planned by Redvers Buller, and formally opened by Queen Victoria in 1899.’

‘The army,’ continued Colonel Tirov, ‘has always been jealous of its reservoir. It is strictly preserved and stocked with trout. It is used for fly-fishing by the officers' fishing club. It is restocked annually. The filter beds and the pumping station are under the control of a detachment of engineers. The reservoir is about a quarter of a mile wide and a mile long. It is fairly well sheltered in the woods. It is prohibited of access to the general public and protected from intruders by a wire fence of three strands of barbed wire five feet high.'

It sounds,’ murmured the ironic Holmes, ‘impregnable.’ The trout stock at Brooklakes reservoir,’ said Nina Lydoevna, ‘came from Somerset. The arrangements were fairly casual. The contractor would bring fish in tanks by road during the early months of the year for the stocking, but if sport was bad or if some of the stock fish died they would bring other fish during the year. The men on duty at the gate knew the fish lorry very well by sight.’

The key to the operation,’ said Tirov, ‘lay in the theft of the fish tank lorry by Akano’s men from its depot at a place called Rickford in Somerset. I have had that depot under observation for eight months. The lorry was stolen three days ago — on Friday night. When that happened we knew that the operation was about to begin. Mrs Shepherd and Nina were sent to Uplands. They had a standing invitation to go there — as you know. Nina was to attempt to sabotage the plan at Uplands. They kept the drug there.’

‘She failed,’ continued Tirov. ‘But we allowed for failure. I had two men by the reservoir. They had instructions that if the Brotherhood started to put the drug in the water they were to be stopped at all costs.’

‘Then they were to come back to help me at Uplands,’ said Nina, ‘if I got into trouble. But they never came back.’ Out on the open heathland a flock of birds swept over a ridge, swooping and rising in successive parabolas of flight. A hawk hovered and dropped.

‘Two men were hardly enough,’ said Holmes.

Tirov nodded. ‘I know.’ His face was grim. ‘It was all I could do. We had lost our two best men on the motorway. Both are crack shots. They had the element of surprise.’

‘It would need a good man,’ said Nina, ‘to take Akano by surprise.’

There was activity round the police car. Two policemen emerged from it. One was armed with a rifle. He was lengthening the strap before putting it over his shoulder. The car must have received orders on its radio. Things were about to happen.

The two policemen walked casually off the road, through the bracken. Holmes could see the bracken tops waving about their thighs like a green lake. They were heading for the hill.

‘Come on,’ said Holmes, and got out of the car. Tirov followed. Nina Lydoevna remained. The sun was hot. The scent of pinewoods and bracken was intoxicating.

‘Poor Nina,’ said Tirov by Holmes’ side. ‘She is an idealist. She has had a bad time.’

Holmes said nothing. He would have liked to have comforted Nina Lydoevna, the expert on African affairs, but it would be no good and he knew it. The bitter hardness of life was something which each of them had to nurse for themselves inside themselves.

They went down a slope and up the other side. They were out of the woods now and on the open hill. One of the policemen saw them and waved his hand at them to indicate that they should keep clear and go back. When he saw them take no notice, he had a hasty consultation with his companion and came running across, shouting.

Holmes felt for his pass. The policeman struggled through the bracken towards them, red faced, angry at the unwarranted disturbance by two civilians of an operation in which the police were discovered to be armed. As he came towards them they could see his red face streaming with sweat. He was followed by a cloud of flies.

Holmes held up his pass and waited for the man to join them. The man had stopped shouting. He was saving breath. He took breath as he came up the slope towards them and Holmes held out the pass. The policeman looked at it, brushing away the flies. He handed it back and saluted. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘Didn’t know who you were. Inspector Post is over on the other side of the hill.’

‘What’s happening?’

The policeman’s face was greasy with sweat. He did not know, he said. He had been told on the radio to reinforce police who were cooperating with the army on the other side of the hill.

‘Go ahead.’

The policeman saluted and trudged away towards his companion who was waiting breast high in the bracken, a blue midget in the vast slope of green. They continued in the direction of the hill. Parallel to them, Holmes and Tirov ploughed a difficult course over sand, grass and heather, struggling through the drifts of bracken if they could not find a way round. Neither spoke. There was nothing to say.

A quarter of an hour later when they were halfway up the hill there was a grinding angry noise ahead of them and a helicopter came up over the screen of trees and began to hover about a hundred feet above the tops of the pines. Then another joined it and remained for a moment as though it was in consultation with the first machine and then swung away, but they could still hear it somewhere out of sight on the reverse slope. The first machine stayed where it was. The sun glinted like a sword on its blades. It hung so steadily in the air that it appeared as though it had been pinned against the sky and could not move from the magnet of the treetops which held a balance of forces underneath its body. It swayed, very gently, to and fro.

Under the pines, on the crest, was Inspector Post.

Holmes hardly recognized him. Post was a changed man. He had lost his jacket and was in shirt sleeves. His forearms were torn and scratched — bramble and thorn marks covered them — his face had been burned a deep brick red and was running in sweat and grimed with sandy brown dust. His trousers were filthy with mud and sopping wet from the knees down as though he had been wading.

‘For God’s sake, keep down,’ shouted Post, as Holmes and Tirov came over the crest. The urgency of his voice and gestures rather than the words caused them to scramble in an undignified manner on hands and knees to his side, where he was taking cover under a screen of bell heather. Above the heather fluttered a red admiral butterfly. Beyond this was the distant valley, the calm blue lake with its green shores, the hills on the far side.

‘He’s up there,’ said Inspector Post. ‘He’s had two of us already. The army are sending men up the other side to cut him off. The tall pine with the yellow patch halfway up. There’s a rock to the right. He’s there.’

Seven hundred yards away there was a pine with a yellow patch and a rock and a tumble of grass and heather and something that fluttered up and down over the heather. Red admiral butterflies. But nothing else moved, either on the hill crest, on the sloping heather and bracken-covered sides of the hill, or in the valley. The blue surface of the reservoir was like a mirror, reflecting the bright mirror of the sky. Crouching in the dust, under the hot sun, Holmes heard the story of what had happened to Post and his men during the past twelve hectic hours.

The army had been unhelpful. There had been complete chaos among the men of the Third Infantry Division. Some had been at Lyneham. Some were on their way. Others had still been in the barracks. The orders they had received to have medical checks and to change the contents of their water-bottles and containers sounded to the commanding officer as though someone at headquarters had gone out of his mind. Inspector Post and two flying squad cars, arriving after the checks had been accomplished, came in for the full blast of the army’s indignation. Fortunately by then the men of the Reserve had all left for Lyneham. But the remaining depot staff had been furious, physically exhausted by all the extra work, and almost deliberately obstructive.

It had taken several urgent phone calls to the Ministry of Defence to obtain permission for Post to carry out his orders to search the lake.

At first Post himself had been depressed and irritable, without any belief whatsoever in his mission. He had deployed his men along the lakeside with torches, under the scornful and contemptuous eyes of an adjutant and two staff officers, and had set his little line of men wavering off into the darkness without any hope of finding anything. Progress had been slow. By midnight they had hardly covered more than a few hundred yards. They had been torn by brambles and wire, had fallen into ditches and got bogged and bitten by gnats.

Post had seen the blaze of Uplands over the hills and had wondered what it was. It was about that time they discovered their first body. They did not know who it was and they lugged it back through the darkness to the barracks and got out the officer of the guard and found a makeshift mortuary. By then the army were beginning to take things seriously. A dead body was an argument they understood. In addition to this they had also had several messages from the Chief of Defence Staff about cooperation with the police. When Post went back to his search, about a hundred sleepy but excited troopers went with him. In all, by daybreak, they had found five more bodies. Three of them were Africans. The other two men were Tirov’s. Post did not know who they were at the time as they carried nothing to identify them.

‘It looked to me,’ said Post, speaking urgently, in a whisper, ‘as though there had been a battle.’

He had been able to piece together the sequence of events with an admirable precision. It had started with the arrival of the fish tank lorry the previous afternoon. Only one man, the driver, an African, had been visible on the lorry, so that presumably the other Africans had been waiting in the woods. Post, with the aid of advice later from Pendlebury, had reckoned that they were allowing six hours for the permeation of the reservoir and the first drawing off of the contaminated water through the main feed past the pumping station. In a larger reservoir supplying a city the time would have been anything between eighteen to forty-eight hours. Brooklakes was easier to calculate as there was only one feed pipe and one main source of distribution. Six hours would have coincided with the last few hours at the barracks of the men of the Third Infantry Division before they left for the airfield. The timing had been right. They would draw fresh water before leaving. On that basis, the water supplies carried by the fourteen hundred paratroopers en route for East Africa would have contained the LSD in solution drawn directly from the contaminated reservoir.

On the lorry were five forty-gallon tanks, each containing fifty trout. The LSD capsules were intended to be attached by small clips to the dorsal fin of each fish. As the fish were released and moved off into the lake the LSD capsules would begin to dissolve.

The fish were never released. The five forty-gallon tanks filled with trout were still on the lorry up in the woods. The LSD capsules had never been attached to their fins. They were still in sealed cardboard boxes in the driving cab of the lorry. The driver of the lorry was dead and the window of the cab shattered and the cardboard boxes lay stuck hard in a pool of congealed blood.

Inspector Post told the tale in whispers urgently, breathlessly, as he stared without any slacking of attention through the heather at the pine on the hillside seven hundred yards away. ‘As I worked it out," he said, ‘there was one African drove the lorry in through the gates. He drove it up by the lake. There he was joined by two other Africans. They were about to get the tanks off the lorry, when they were ambushed.’

An outburst of firing came from the reverse slopes of the hill. Inspector Post bedded his rifle further down on the heather in front of him and waited. The helicopter swung slightly in the air. It was over the trees behind them but the men in it could see what was going on seven hundred yards away by the pine tree. If there was any movement they would report it on the radio receiver which lay by Inspector Post’s elbow. Meanwhile the helicopter was staying out of range. The man under the tree could take pot shots at it if he wanted but he would be wasting ammunition without much purpose. That was, if he was still there and if he wanted to shoot at the helicopter.