The Yellow Glass (7 page)

“Come, Mr Upshott.
 
I won’t keep you any longer than necessary.
 
The longer that we talk in the corridor, the
longer Mrs Upshott will have to wait.”

I sighed and traipsed after him, down the basement
stairs and into the innards of the beast that was HQ.
 
Here were the technical bods’ desks and the
labs, where the overhead fluorescent strips might have been switched off for
the night, but lights flashed on and off wherever one looked, and monitors
beeped and chirruped at one another.
 
An
arcane, world-wide, conversation was in mid-sentence; a gathering and
dissemination of vital information that must never be allowed to cease.
 
It meant
 
precisely nothing to a layman like myself, of course, but it was the
necessary conversation of nations that flowed back and forth beneath the
specious babble of newspapers and radio and television.
 
And, when a nation like the Soviet Union
refused to talk . . well . . we listened, anyway.

“I hear the Stone girl broke my glass,” Tamang
commented, leading the way around other staff desks to his den.

“It was an accident but, yes, it’s rather blown our
cover for the time being.”

“She didn’t touch any of theirs’, I hope.”

“She had orders not to, Tamang.”

He nodded.

“It is always best to know what one is dealing with,
so I’ve been working on a little device for you, Mr Upshott.
 
It’s here somewhere . .”
 

Professor Monkington (‘The Monk’ to all and sundry)
was the head scientific honcho at HQ, but it hadn’t taken the great man long to
recognise Tamang’s extraordinary ability and he’d given the boy a corner of
floor space all to himself in which to play.
 
There, Tamang had accumulated enough technical hardware to fill a large
warehouse and one took one’s life in one’s hands venturing anywhere near it, it
was piled so high with God only knew what.
 
A heavy spanner had once toppled off a six foot high stack of rolled
wire and very nearly brained another boffin; if forced to approach Tamang’s
lair, most people tiptoed with extreme care and some even removed their
shoes.
 
I stood well back while he rooted
around.

“It’s not a watch, is it?
 
There are only so many watches one can
wear.
 
Or a cigarette lighter; so easy to
lose and then one feels so bloody guilty.”

He laughed in the affable way he had:

“I wasn’t able to miniaturise to quite
that
extent.
 
Ah, here it is.
 
Please take it, Mr Upshott.”

Tamang handed me a brown fedora hat with a narrow
brim.
 
I turned it over in my hands and
looked inside.
 
It was an up-market
model, with white silk lining and leather stitched around the underside of the
band.
 
I’d have said it was a fraction
heavier than the norm but, apart from that, appeared to be a perfectly ordinary
gentleman’s hat for a perfectly ordinary gentleman.

“I’d have preferred charcoal grey, personally.”

“Apologies.
 
Any
ideas?”

“At a wild guess, I’d suggest there was something in
the band.
 
Something flexible, like a
plastic ruler.
 
Will I be undercover
measuring, Tamang?”

“You are not as wide of the mark as you might think,
Mr Upshott!”
 
The boy looked
delighted.
 
“It is, indeed, in the
hatband, but it’s no ordinary ruler.
 
See
. . .”
 
He slipped the long, rectangular
object out of one end of the leather band.
 

I put my ear to it; now that it was released, I could
detect an audible ticking coming from the thing.

“Tell me it’s not a bomb, Tamang.
 
I’d really rather not have one of those wound
around my brain.”

“It is an instrument for detecting the emission of
nuclear radiation!”
 
He exclaimed.

“A Geiger counter, you mean?”

“Not exactly.
 
It counts nuclear particles, but, technically, it’s more of an ion
chamber because it can measure the highest ranges of beta and gamma radiation,
which a Geiger is unable to do.
 
If such
levels are present when you are wearing the hat, you will be able to sense a
sharp increase in those clicks against your forehead; there will be no need to
remove the hat or to extrude the device.
 
What’s more, the clicking will be completely silent to those around
you.”

“Why, thank you, Tamang.”
 

I could see that the hat might prove extremely handy and
I was just so relieved he hadn’t given me another cigarette lighter.

“It was nothing,” he bowed his head, all modesty.
 
“Just,
please
don’t get it wet.
 
I’ve taken a lot of
trouble to set it correctly, you see.
 
Too low and no pulsing, too high and the discharges cascade.
 
Moisture will completely de-stabilize it and
undo all of my hard work.”

“I promise.
 
Scout’s honour.”
 
(Not that my
time with the scout’s had been one of my finest hours.)
 
“No more jumping in the Thames for me.”

“You have been jumping in the Thames?”
 

Jay Tamang adored to hear about the gung-ho aspects of
the job, buried, as he was, in the fathomless depths of HQ.

“Mmm, but that’s another story.
 
Christ, is that the time?”
 

I’d glanced at my watch and discovered that it was
eleven-thirty at night.
 
If I was going
to redeem myself, I must get a move on.

 
I found Kathleen in the garages, as I’d
thought I might.
 
They had some
interesting vehicles there (that I wasn’t sure she should be looking at), but
she’d managed to get the night-shift mechanic wound around her little finger,
and was being given a full-blown tour.
 
He’d even rustled her up a cup of tea.

“Tristram!
 
Take
a look at this Aston Martin, darling.
 
How come you’ve never been given one of these?”

It was a lovely, pale blue number and I had an idea
who it belonged to
[13]
.

“I’d hate to think what one would have to do to earn
that, Kathleen.”

She looked like whatever it was would be well worth
it, peering in to look at the dials and the upholstery, sighing over the car as
if it were a child.

“It’s never out of the workshop, this one,” remarked
the mechanic.
 
“Who knows what ‘e finds
to do with it.”
   

“Come on Kathleen, I think I’d better get you
home.”
 
I turned to address the man, “Has
my wife’s car been given the thumbs up, or have you something else we could
drive?”

“Back window’s a write-off and some damage to the
front fender.
 
What’s more, none of the
papers’ been signed.
 
This should do
you.
 
Over here.
 
Not so much to look at, but she’s a great
little mover.”

The great little mover in question was a two-tone
Hillman Minx in shades of shrew.
 

Kathleen sighed.
 
“That’s a bit of a come-down.
 
I
don’t think you can have been working hard enough, Tristram.
 
Still . . I hear they corner well.”

“Oh no you don’t!
 
I’m driving us home and I don’t want any arguments, so let’s get
cracking.”

I took possession of the keys and signed the car off,
which - like a whole raft of new procedures at HQ - seemed to take an
interminable amount of time.
 

It was while I was tossing Tamang’s hat onto the back
seat that the idea first occurred to me.

“How’s the slide, these days?”
 
I asked the mechanic.

Let me elaborate.
 
The slide is a tunnel that lies fifty feet beneath HQ which has, on the
odd occasion, been used as a secret exit.
 
I believe it’s part of the network of underground tunnels and shelters
that were used during the war: parts of it having been built at that time of
maximum civilian danger, on top of other parts which were already in existence,
either from when they built the Tube, or from when Bazelgette
[14]
built the sewers back in the mid-nineteenth century.
 
The slide will get an operative to Borough
High Street, with an exit just before London Bridge - should he wish to leave
there - or it will carry on, burrowing lower, until it reaches the deep-shelter
beneath Chancery Lane tube station, which is 130 feet down.
 
That’s one of the second-wave of
deep-shelters originally built for Londoners after the Blitz, you remember . .
those shelters nobody wanted to use because they were just too far down and
people didn’t fancy being buried alive.
 
It’s my understanding that Chancery Lane became a bolt-hole for a
top-secret branch of HQ
[15]
,
instead, which is why the slide lands up there.
 
However, on this occasion I fancied that Borough High Street would do
the job.

“That’s a bit irregular, Mr Upshott,” the mechanic scratched
his head.
 
“I don’t know that I can help
you there . .”

 
“I know, I know
. .” I sighed, “I’d have to get permission and sign some more bits of paper and
so on and so on.
 
The Services are
dwindling to desk jobs for the shifting of ever more bits of paper.”
 

It was damn frustrating, especially as I knew that the
only executive left in the building was Hutch and Hutch would never agree to a
night ride down the slide.
 
Not unless
World War Three had been declared.

“What
is
the
slide?” Asked Kathleen.
 
“It sounds like
fun.”

 
The idea was growing on me.
 
We had to get out of HQ without a tail and
what better way?
 
Getting Kathleen back
to our house in Chelsea in one piece was the number one priority.
 
I was sure that Rosa had never mentioned my
full name to Magnus Arkonnen and that he hadn’t seen Kathleen’s famous face; it
was unlikely that Arko’s gang knew who I was, or where I lived.
 
Not yet, anyhow.
 
Tomorrow I would find a safe house for her,
but she could sleep in her own bed that night.
 
I was more and more determined to use the slide.
 
If I could only find somebody with the
know-how to get us through the door and into the tunnel, Hutch need never find
out.
 
What was required was a bod with a
technical head on their shoulders.

The small figure of Tamang sat all alone in his gloomy
citadel, guarded by his towers of bric-a-brac.
 
He was at his desk with a salt-beef sandwich in front of him - gherkins,
mustard, the whole shebang.

“All alone, Tamang?
 
The Monk left you in charge, has he?”
 

“Mr Upshott!
 
What brings you back so soon?”

“I need your help.”
 
I played my trump card.
 
“
We
need your help.”
 
I stepped aside to reveal my wife.

He stood up, slowly, brushing crumbs from his mouth
and lap.

“Good evening,” said Kathleen.
 
“I love your office.
 
What on earth do you get up to down here?”

Tamang appeared mesmerized.
 
His black eyes widened and he opened his
mouth to reply.
 
I cut him short; it was
unwise to ask Tamang anything at all about what he’d been up to down there
because he was liable to tell you.

“Tamang is one of the masterminds behind all the
technical gubbins, Kathleen.
 
Sorry, let
me introduce you two.
 
Jay Tamang, this
is my wife Kathleen.
 
Kathy Smith to her
fans, of course.
 
Now, as I said, we need
your help.”

“Apparently we have to go down a slide,” Kathleen
added.

He was taken aback.
 

“
The
slide?”

“Yes,” I replied.
 
“There are eyes out and about and we need to avoid them.
 
The slide seems the obvious solution.
 
We just want to get it operational and then
we can slip out and nobody will be any the wiser.”

Tamang smiled, “You mean, you haven’t got permission
from upstairs, Mr Upshott?”

“Not as such, no.”

“The Stone girl smashes my glass and now this .
.”
 

“Rosa smashed some glass?”
 
Kathleen asked.
 
“Can’t you just glue it back together again?”

“Never mind that,” I interjected, keen to change the
subject, “there’s been one hell of a blowback and we’ve already had tails
behind us with shooters several times tonight . .”

“
Several
times?
 
Not when Rosa was with you?
 
Tristram?”
 
Kathleen broke in.

“ . . and it’s vital we go to ground safely.
 
If you could just get it operational, Tamang,
I’ll take any flak that comes our way, tomorrow.
 
What do you say?”

Tamang looked dubious, then shook his head,
vigorously.
 
It wasn’t encouraging.
 
Frankly, he was my last hope; if the boy
couldn’t help then I didn’t see how I was going to get the idea off the
ground.
 
That is . . until my wife piped
up.

“Oh, come on Mr Tamang,” she said, “we can’t hang
about here all night.
 
Whatever this
slide is, why don’t you come down it,
too
?
 
You’d be doing me a favour.
 
I tell you, the way I’m feeling at the
moment, if I’m left alone with my husband, I’m liable to commit murder.”

God knows how, but Kathleen had instinctively found a
way to get through to him.
 
I supposed it
was working in a job where all the excitement happened to other people that did
it.
 
(I mean, if
you
were left in a dark corner to re-wire sprockets, or whatever it
was he did, and - even when you’d re-wired your sprockets and invented some
ingenious bit of kit - you knew that you’d never actually get to see any of it
in action, well, wouldn’t
you
jump at
the chance to speed along the slide at midnight with a glamorous blonde in
tow?)
 

Young Jay Tamang’s dark face lit up:

“I shouldn’t be doing this, Mr Upshott.
 
I’m sure Professor Monkington would
not
be pleased, but . . give me a minute
and I’ll be right with you.”

He dived into a shrouded area of his den and began to
toss things about.

“Well done, Kathleen,” I thought I’d give her her due.

However, now that we were alone, she appeared to be
hyperventilating.
 

“Rosa got shot at?
 
And now Rosa’s disappeared?”
 
She
hissed at me, like a goose.
 
“I cannot
believe
how you could’ve been such an
arrogant sod as to’ve involved her in this, Tristram!”

I did my best to ignore her.
 
There was plenty of time for all that
later.
 
We had to get cracking.

“Hurry up,” I urged Tamang.
 
“What’s taking so long in there?
 
Can’t you just find the switches and levers
for us?”

Tamang reappeared bearing a small, rectangular
object.
 
He was beaming from ear to ear,
so I was surprised by his reply.

“I’m sorry, I cannot do that for you.
 
I have no idea where the switches and levers
are.”
  

Well, that seemed to be that.
 
(However, the fact that he was pulling on his
duffle coat and stuffing the remains of his supper into a pocket suggested it
might
not
be that.)

“But I
do
have this little device, Mr Upshott and I would be most interested to have the
chance to test it out.
 
That is, if you
and Mrs Upshott have no objections?”
 

He didn’t wait for a reply, but dashed towards the
basement stairs.
 

“Come!”
 
He
grinned at us.
 
“I’m presuming we have a
car?”

 
Even the sight of the shrew-coloured Hillman
Minx didn’t dampen Tamang’s enthusiasm.

“I hope you don’t mind sitting in the back, Mrs
Upshott?”
 

He held the door open for Kathleen, before he jumped in
next to me and began to fiddle about with his little box of tricks.
 
After which, he gave us a short description
of what the box did (well, as short as Tamang could
ever
make it, which wasn’t terribly short at all), before rolling
down his window and leaning forward in his seat, little box to the fore.
 
He looked like a small boy on Christmas
morning.
 
I switched the engine on and
began to glide towards the rear garage wall, to where I was reasonably sure the
entrance to the slide was hidden; a ventilation duct the only clue as to its
whereabouts.
 
We drove past the Aston
Martin and then past a jacked-up Land Rover and then straight past the exit to
the anonymous Waterloo backstreet where HQ was located.

“Oy!”
 
The
mechanic had seen us and spurted out of his cubby hole.
 
“Where d’you think you’re going?”

“Christ, I hope that thing works, Tamang,” I said,
between gritted teeth, “because we’re heading right into the bloody wall.”

And we were; we drove straight at the wall, like a
drill into mortar.
 
Kathleen stifled a scream,
ineffectively.
 
Then, just when it seemed
like we were about to get our heads smashed in, Tamang pointed his box and
pressed his thumb down, hard and . . .
 
‘Open Sesame’!
   
The wall swung
open, proving to be a steel door behind a single layer of bricks, and we shot
through into a dim, narrow tunnel.
 
Tamang turned around to aim his box through the rear window and the door
promptly swung shut again.
 
I screeched
the car to a standstill.
 
For a moment we
sat in complete and utter darkness, before I switched on the interior
light.
 
Somewhere, water dripped on
stone.