The Shepherd File (19 page)

Holmes got up and began to walk. The bracken was thinner here and he could see where he was and where he was going. He had come a considerable way. On a ridge ahead, five hundred yards distant, was a strip of pines and underneath them ran the road. Slightly to the right was the police car and two hundred yards behind to its left was Tirov’s car. Holmes could see the chauffeur and Nina Lydoevna standing in front of the bonnet, watching. Even from this distance he was aware of the tenseness of their attitude. There was a figure in blue by the police car — the driver who had been left behind — and he too was standing watching the slope below.

Holmes began to walk more rapidly. It was easier going now. The helicopter rose and swung away, passing close over Holmes’ head. A figure in the cockpit waved frantically. It was again difficult to understand the gestures. The observer was jerking one hand vigorously upwards, fist closed, and the gesture obscured the raised thumb. Holmes was watching Nina Lydoevna and the chauffeur. Both of them began to move off the ridge, coming towards him. Nina Lydoevna was coming first, the chauffeur holding her arm over the rough ground. They were about three hundred yards away now. Holmes was coming out of the bracken and up to the ridge to meet them. He still could not see the fugitive. Then, suddenly, he saw him.

The man had his back to Holmes, facing the road. He was walking drunkenly, swaying from side to side, stumbling, half falling, recovering himself, swaying from weakness, stumbling on, upwards, ever upwards. One arm hung helpless, the other was raised, the hand clutching at his neck. Nina Lydoevna was running down the hillside towards the fugitive. She had her hands outstretched wide, palms open, fingers outstretched, in an infinite gesture of grief, a flying compassionate figure swooping down towards the stricken man. As she reached him he fell and stumbled on his knees and her arms went round him and held him to her in a pitiful clasp and as the man’s hand came away from his neck and the blood spurted like a thin scarlet fountain into the bright sun, Holmes heard the woman’s grief-stricken voice echo across the sudden silence of the valley.

‘Akano!’

The
Nature
Cure

At Dar-es-Salaam, at Lanet, at barracks and in the palm-fringed arsenals, in the capital and the coastal towns of East Africa, the mutineers had been disarmed, the troops stood by. It made a week’s headlines, the sudden flight of the British paratroops, an aircraft carrier landing marines on the coast, but there was no fighting and no bloodshed. From that moment on, though few people realized it at the time, it was the turn of the tide.

A government fell, officers in leading posts in two armies were replaced by others, a new and vigorous regime started a purge and the fingers of reform groped into dark places. The corruption which led to the mutinies was blazoned across the newspapers. A feeling of shame spread among the African people and there was a clamour for a new deal. The intervention of foreign troops, called in to prevent mutinies, was taken as a mark of shame, a mark of weakness among the people and their governments, and the intervention became the spur to a new life. No longer did the native troops and police go hungry, no longer did the taxes line the pockets of the corrupt few. A new spirit and a new determination was born out of the weakness and nepotism of the old and tottering regimes. It did not start at once. It did not begin everywhere. But gradually, here and there, the movement spread, and a new spirit, slowly and laboriously, was born. The British paratroopers stayed for a week in one place, for ten days in another, then, gradually, without formalities, without ceremony, they were withdrawn, and the African troops, strengthened and purged, took over again, watched anxiously at first and then with a growing confidence. The leaders of the Brotherhood who were left felt the new spirit among themselves. Many of the evils which they had been fighting had been removed in the purges and, at long last, numbers of them had the feeling that the great idealism of the new Africa could be harnessed to peaceful and constructive use. Such were the beginnings.

Holmes only learned of these things later, gradually, over a period of time, yet from sixth sense he was aware of the potential for change, knew of the turning point that could come, as he stood there on the edge of the bracken with the sun blazing down, the flies buzzing round his head, dizzy with weakness and remorse. He heard Morrison's voice and Tirov's. They were congratulating him. Someone patted him on the back. To someone else he handed the rifle as though he was handing over an intolerable burden. He walked past the body with a dazed fixed expression, not looking down at the blood and flies and the still dark form of the African who was a military genius and who had been shot like an animal. Holmes climbed the slope alone and found someone coming with him: Tirov's chauffeur. The chauffeur, without speaking, took Holmes' arm, guided him to the car, helped him inside, into the cool darkness, away from the glare of the sun. Holmes felt sick and dirty and closed his eyes and the blood thumped in his forehead like a hammer. He lay limp, without moving.

He knew nothing of the rest of the day. He woke up once, that night, just before midnight, saw the stars shining through the windows of his room, turned over and sighed and went to sleep. He woke gradually with the coming of daylight, saw the light grow and fill the room, and lay on his pillows, rested and thoughtful, aware of the change and of the turning point which was not only a turning point for Africa but for himself. He felt sick of turning points. While the nurses washed him and brought him breakfast and while he drank his tea and ate the toast and butter, he could see and hear all the time in his mind the dark figure of the African tottering up the slope of stones with the blood spurting through the fingers on his neck and the wild flying figure of Nina Lydoevna, arms outstretched, and her anguished cry of ‘Akano!’ The sound of her voice haunted him.

After breakfast there was Morrison, arriving hearty, with an armful of newspapers carrying details of the success in Africa. Holmes, unable to bear Morrison’s cheerfulness, remained monosyllabic, almost rude, and Morrison, who was an unimaginative man in some things, put it down to exhaustion and the efforts of two days and two nights without rest. The best of his news he kept until last.

The previous afternoon, while Holmes was being put to bed, there had been a meeting of the security committee of the Cabinet at which Morrison had put in a full report. His report and his recommendations had been accepted. There was to be no enquiry. Nothing further would be done. The illegal re-entry of Nina Lydoevna after her deportation would be overlooked. A civil list pension would be granted to the widow of Peter Shepherd in view of his invaluable services to the nation. It was the only posthumous recognition that could be awarded.

‘It’s nice to know,’ said Holmes. He spoke with such bitterness that Morrison was uneasy.

Holmes would have found it difficult, if not impossible, to explain. Morrison would not understand that he was sick of the shabby stratagems which had become so much a part of their lives. It was a malaise of their civilization and no one seemed to care or even realize the malaise existed. He counted the deaths one by one, from Shepherd to Akano, and tried to balance them by the lives that had been saved, the lives of thousands of British paratroopers and African soldiers, but the balance in their favour was no comfort; not in his present mood. Shepherd still choked in the water of the Thames in a dream of hallucinogen and the blood still spouted from Akano’s neck. It was all a miserable trade and he would be well out of it if he resigned, which was what he intended. He had had these moods before and grown out of them, but not this time.

Morrison assured Holmes he would feel better after a rest, said how much the Yard had appreciated his services, and departed, leaving the bed covered with newspapers. Holmes glanced at the headlines and pushed them on one side. He was unable to read. He lay in bed, staring at the wall, watching a corner of the bright sky from his window. Then he had his surprise.

Tirov called.

Holmes had come to like Tirov — that was one of the things that nagged at him — but he had not expected to see him again because the Russians always observed a strict sense of decorum. After this incident there was little doubt Tirov would be withdrawn from London and sent elsewhere. He would be regarded as having become too familiar with the intelligence departments of the other side, of having made too many personal contacts and these would be considered as having put an end to his usefulness. Moreover, Tirov had lost four men. His future would be highly uncertain. Holmes hardly knew what to say.

Tirov came in and shook hands and sat down. He, also, was embarrassed. He spoke of the weather, asked after Holmes’ health, made conversation, made a conventional joke about the Foreign Office having had a quiet weekend. At length he said, ‘I have just escorted a lady under the passport of Rosa Verschoyle to London Airport.’

Is she well?’

Tirov nodded and sighed. ‘Poor Nina,’ he said. ‘It has been a great shock to her. She has been working hard. She needs a rest.’

‘Let us hope that she gets one.’

‘She wishes to be posted to Africa.’

‘Is that possible?’

Tirov shrugged. ‘Who knows?’ he said, philosophically. He sighed again and stood up and shook hands. He fumbled in his pocket and produced an envelope, sealed but unaddressed, which he handed to Holmes as he took his departure. He looked embarrassed.

‘She asked me to give you this.’

Holmes held the letter in his hand for a long time after Tirov had gone. Then he read it.

The opening — ‘Dear Mr Holmes’ — and the ending — ‘Yours sincerely, Nina Lydoevna’ — were written in ink but the rest of the letter had been typewritten. She had probably dictated it. It was on embassy notepaper.

‘I should have liked to have said goodbye to you myself,’ the letter began, ‘but it was felt it would be more tactful if I were to leave at once in case of difficulties with the Foreign Office. So you will understand I cannot say good-bye in person and thank you deeply and from my heart for saving my life. I am told you were injured in your efforts to get me from that terrible cellar and I do hope that you will soon be recovered. You have behaved throughout this affair with the utmost kindness and consideration. I know that my colleague, Colonel Tirov, has a great admiration for you, especially for your courage in calling upon him. Before, I can assure you he had little admiration for you English. Now this has changed. He himself is ashamed that he gave you the drink which he did at the embassy because there was no reason for this except his sense of humour and his feeling of vindictiveness. He wanted to get his own back. Now he is ashamed of this and has told me so but has too much pride to tell you personally. So I have written this in order that you may know of it and not judge him too harshly. We may belong to very different worlds but we have a common humanity which we all too rarely see or understand. I was aware of this yesterday. I knew how loathsome was your duty when I saw you there in the sunshine at the edge of the road, looking sick and unhappy, and believe me I feel for you deeply, and understand. Please burn this letter and say nothing.’

It was weakness, of course, and sentiment, but he lay there and indulged in a rush of emotion which he could neither control nor abate. He turned his face to the pillows and allowed the tears to seep out from under his closed eyes. He could feel them hot on his cheeks. It was a relief to cry. It was, as he convinced himself when the sister came in to give him an injection, simply weakness.

He got up and sat in a chair for most of the afternoon.

He demanded writing paper and a pencil and wrote several letters of resignation, each of which he tore up into little pieces to put in the wastepaper basket. He read the newspapers and slept and ate tea and dinner and felt better.

He was discharged the next morning. The hospital doctor gave him half a dozen sleeping tablets in a plastic box. ‘You've been overdoing things,’ he said in a benevolent and omnipotent voice. ‘If you don't take it easy and give those nerves of yours a rest you'll get ulcers.’

There was a car to take him home to his flat in Floral Street, but the sight of his familiar surroundings brought no comfort. He began to pack a bag. He put on an old pair of flannel trousers and a check shirt and sweater. He went to his study and took out his fishing rods and golf clubs. He piled these on his bag and telephoned the garage round the corner and asked them to bring the car round. The man kept the car engine running outside the front door while he stowed his bag and clubs and rods in the boot and then he took the wheel. He drove westwards out into the country.

He drank half a pint of beer in a pub and bought some sandwiches to eat on the road. Farther along he drove off along a side turning and parked and ate his sandwiches. There was a bird in the hedge which he recognized, or thought he recognized, as a yellow-hammer. He remembered, from some long lost memory of his boyhood on the Somerset hills, that the name yellow-hammer was a corruption of the German — the word hammer was really
ammer
which was the German word for bunting. The yellow-hammer was the yellow-bunting. By the time he remembered this the bird had flown off leaving him wondering if by any chance it could have been a goldfinch. He puzzled over this for some time. The word bunting reminded him of the nursery rhyme about the baby bunting whose father had gone a-hunting, and the thought of babies reminded him about the Shepherd baby, the small boy, the sandpit outside the bungalow at Bray. This determined his next move. He would call on Mrs Shepherd.

It might well be that she had gone back to Belgium or was staying with friends. He could have telephoned to find out, but there was no telephone box in sight and he had no change. He drove on. There was a signpost to Reading and not very far along was another signpost to Bray. It was late afternoon by the time he drove up the estate road over the carpet of pine needles and stopped the car by the yellow gate.

He went round the side entrance. The sandpit was empty and he felt momentarily disappointed. Then he heard a child’s voice and a small boy in a white sun hat, bare-footed, ran out on to the terrace, stared at him and ran back into the house, calling. Holmes waited. He felt an unusual tension. Monique Shepherd came through the open door, out on to the terrace, and stopped.

She had thought of him as she had lain awake during the night, wondering why her normal dose of sleeping tablets had not kept her under until daybreak, and for an hour or so had turned over and over in her mind the struggle at Uplands, feeling the anguish. Now he was here. In some way which she could not at first perceive he looked different. She saw the nail marks on his cheek. She shook with shame and weakness and tiredness at the sight of him and yet at the same time to see him standing there was calming and reassuring. Her legs were weak. She did not know what to say or do. It was Holmes who spoke first:

‘I came to see if the child was all right.’

There was a pause. She said: ‘They looked after him very well. He is perfectly all right.’

‘You must have been worried.’

She was wearing a light print sleeveless dress with a wide neck, her legs and feet were bare. She was suddenly conscious of her hair and tried to smooth it with both hands, running her fingers through her hair as though they were a comb. The child was hanging on to her dress and in her confusion she bent and rubbed his head and patted him, murmuring an endearment. ‘Go and play now.’ She looked up at Holmes. ‘Perhaps you would like tea?’

‘Thank you.’