The Stone That Never Came Down Page 17

  To that Randolph merely nodded. Gifford, infuriated worse than ever because his bombshell seemed to have left them more instead of less at ease, said sharply, “What are you going on about?”

  “We just realised why Charkall-Phelps is so eager to shut us down,” Kneller said. “And was already before VC gave him the excuse. What use do you have in mind, Dr Gifford, for this site–assuming it’s habitable after the radioactivity has died away?”

  Gifford blinked rapidly several times. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said at last. “But you know what I’m talking about. You admit you abstracted a quantity of VC in its substrate from these laboratories!”

  “I admit nothing of the sort,” Kneller said promptly, and Randolph echoed him.

  “Very well, we shall have to place you under arrest, and carry out the necessary tests to determine whether you have indeed illegally ingested VC.” Gifford shouted at the door; it swung wide, and two stolid-faced men walked in, while two more waited in the corridor.

  “Warrant cards!” Kneller said.

  They were duly produced; all four were from Special Branch, the department of the Metropolitan Police concerned with political offences and subversion, which alone of all the police forces in Britain has reported direct to cabinet level since its inception, with no intermediaries.

  “You could, of course,” Gifford hinted, “avoid considerable indignity and discomfort by admitting where you hid the stolen VC …?”

  “You,” Kneller said in a calm voice, “are completely and literally insane. Don’t worry, though. Nowadays treatment for your type of paranoia is–”

  He drew back the necessary few inches to avoid a wild punch Gifford had aimed at his jaw, and glancing at Randolph shook his head sorrowfully.

  “Really, it’s almost a law of nature,” he said. “Defectives of this type find their natural home in the service where suspicious temperaments are at a premium– Oh, really, Dr Gifford!” This time evading a kick with perfect aplomb; it would have hurt like hell if it had landed. “I’m sure this is not in accordance with the regulations you operate under, is it?”

  “Heaven give me strength!” Gifford hissed.

  “Not unless they’ve been substantially altered,” Randolph said. “I was offered a contract at Hell’s Kitchen once, you know.” He meant the biological-warfare research establishment at Porton Down to which Gifford had formerly been attached. “I recall the wording of the draft clearly, and it said nothing about kicking and beating people who by retroactive decision of the Home Secretary have committed crimes that aren’t actually crimes.”

  “Precisely,” Kneller said. “Even if we did remove a quantity of VC for study away from the interference of Gifford’s henchmen, as director of this Institute I was quite entitled to do so, the VC being the property of the Institute.”

  “It isn’t your property!” Gifford flared. “It’s a national resource! It could make the difference between our being wiped out as a nation, and our dominating the world again!”

  “And,” Randolph said softly, “between you being fired for gross incompetence and sitting on the right hand of Lord Protector Charkall-Phelps when he enters into his kingdom!”

  “Take them away before I kill them!” Gifford shrieked.

  Puzzled, but obedient, the Special Branch men closed in.

  “Bob, we’re back!” called Anne Campbell. “Would you like some tea?”

  “Yes, please!” Rising from the sofa in the living-room, laying aside the newspaper which, it seemed, he had been reading at the same time as he was watching an afternoon news-bulletin on TV. And four-year-old Elspeth hurried to say hello to him, three-year-old Fiona in her wake.

  –I have to confess that when Hector said he wanted us to put up an international celebrity who’d had a breakdown … Well, I should have known better, I suppose. He’s invited lame ducks to stay before, and they all turned out to have some good reason for us paying special attention: that poet who dedicated his next book to us, that poor girl whose husband had nearly strangled her … And the children do like him so much!

  As he entered the kitchen wearing the children like a collar and a wrist-muff respectively, she greeted him cordially.

  “I ought to say how much I appreciate your hospitality,” he said as he accepted his teacup. “And tell you that I don’t propose to trespass on it any longer.”

  “Oh, it’s been no trouble at all,” Anne said. And, after a brief hesitation: “You–ah–you’re going home?”

  With a wry smile, Bradshaw said, “I don’t quite feel up to that for a while, to be honest. Since I’m on this side of the Atlantic, I thought I’d wander around Europe for a few weeks first. Go to Italy, perhaps.”

  “You think it’s safe to go there at the moment?” Anne countered. “I mean, this military take-over they’ve had …”

  “All the more reason,” Bradshaw said.

  “I don’t quite see why.”

  “Well, the only other visits I’ve made to Europe have been on business, you know. To make personal appearances, or to attend movie festivals–that kind of thing. But there are a few places I’ve always wanted to see. Rome, for instance. Venice. Naples. If I don’t go now, there–well, there may not be anything to see next year.”

  “Do you really believe the crisis is that serious?” Anne whispered, after glancing to make sure that the children had wandered out of the room again. “Hector was asking whether I wanted to emigrate, you know. To Canada or New Zealand.”

  “I saw an article in the paper I was just reading which says that emigration levels are at an all-time high,” Bradshaw said with a nod.

  “Do you think …?” Her voice failed her.

  “Do you think you should?” he countered.

  “I–no. I don’t see why I have to! Oh, it may be sensible, but… It’s the kind of giant upheaval in my life that I want to decide about myself, not have imposed on me!”

  “I think the vast majority of people would agree with you. Something’s very wrong, isn’t it, when you get a forced movement of population owing to something other than natural causes, like earthquakes, or floods?”

  “Yes, terribly wrong!”

  “And it’s started already …” He gazed past her, unseeing, towards the window; beyond it, there were shrubs whose branches carried the last greyish remnants of the recent snow. And beyond them again, houses where people could be seen going placidly about their normal business.

  “Well … All hope is not lost,” he said, and drained his cup. At the same moment the front doorbell rang, and he rose promptly.

  “That’ll be for me. I hope you don’t mind–I made some phone-calls while you were out, and I’ve booked a night flight.”

  “But …” Anne had been going to say that he had no luggage for a continental trip; on reflection, it seemed like a very stupid comment, possibly insulting, and anyhow Fiona was eating something she oughtn’t to and required instant salvation.

  “Was it a problem?” Bradshaw asked as he accepted what the man at the door had held out to him.

  “Not in the least.” With a crooked grin. “If I can spring a villain from the toughest remand centre in Britain and see him safely away with a wife and four kids, I can pull almost any trick in the book. A forged American passport is nothing compared to what I’ve done already.”

  He added a second item to the first. “And here’s your–ah–ration,” he went on. “Those capsules are identical with the commonest anti-diarrhoea remedy currently on sale here. I gave Harry the same thing. Nothing’s more likely to be taken for granted wherever you go.”

  “Thanks. Anything else?”

  “Best wishes.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Cis, are you okay?”

  She had put her hands to her head and swayed giddily while reading a story-book to Toussaint. Valentine was busy mixing up substrate for VC in precise accordance with the instructions he had received from Kneller via Malcolm, pausing now and then t
o glance at the TV. A current-affairs programme was on, the usual ragbag mixture, and French troops had been shown mobilising along the Italian border.

  –It’s going to be a close thing. If the French and Germans have really agreed to issue an ultimatum …

  After a long moment and with infinite effort she said, “Val, I think I’ve been awarded the VC like you said I might.”

  “Oh!” At once he abandoned his task; it wouldn’t suffer from the interruption. “Tous’ boy, bedtime–sorry! Cissy isn’t feeling too well. No fuss, hear?”

  And there was none. Amazingly.

  –Nor has there been, come to think of it, since Cissy arrived. There’s a problem here we shall have to sort out. Cis spent half her childhood raising younger kids; she got the knack by soaking it through her pores. When there are hardly any children, which has got to happen or well eat ourselves out of house and home on this planet, will we be able to …? Shit, of course we shall. Just to watch it happening once will be enough for a lifetime. I keep overlooking what VC can do, even though it’s happening right inside my head. And hers too, now.

  He was shivering a little as he rejoined her, from awe.

  “I’m okay, Val honey,” she said in a dull voice. “I just wish, though, you weren’t going away tomorrow.”

  “Baby, I have to,” he murmured. “It’s important.”

  “Sure, I know. But it’s going to be tough without you. I can stand remembering everything I know, but it makes me realise how many things I don’t know.”

  He waited.

  “Like–like why that buckra devil carved you. I don’t get it. Don’t see why he wanted to just ’cause you black. Not like the way I felt when we set out to even the score, you with me? Then I felt I got a purpose, a target I could reach. Even that wasn’t worth it, though. Because … Hell, he probably didn’t know why he treated us so bad, did he? We gave him his own back, and what’s come out of it is more hate. When we need less!”

  She looked up at him with huge beautiful dark eyes full of hurt.

  “Val, taking that box of candy to Lady Washgrave–did it do any more good than fixing that goddamned shopkeeper?”

  “A whole lot,” Valentine said softly. “You saw the news. She’s in hospital, in a coma. Same as I was. Same as Malcolm. Same as Dr Post should have been, except he didn’t go sleep it off in time. Too high, maybe. Too sure the initial dose he’d already inhaled was cushioning him against–”

  “Val!” she cried suddenly, putting her hands to her head again. “Half of me knows what you mean and half of me doesn’t, and the half that doesn’t is more–more me!”

  Stroking her crisp hair comfortingly, he said, “Honey, you and a hell of a lot of other people. A hell of a lot. In the end, the whole damned world. I hope it’s soon.”

  XXI

  The phone said, “Malcolm?”

  “Yes, David?”

  “Get out, fast, and preferably out of the country.”

  “What? Why?”

  “Arthur and Wilfred were arrested by Special Branch this afternoon on Gifford’s orders.”

  A score of alternative plans flashed through Malcolm’s mind as he looked along his hallway, imagining the quantities of VC breeding in his kitchenette.

  “Very well. Valentine has his, you have yours, Bob has his and is probably on his way by now. Ruth speaks German.”

  “You speak French?”

  “Yes. Thank you. I’ll miss the house, though, I must say … Still, all being well it’ll be here when we come back. ’Bye!”

  The news was of the joint ultimatum issued by the other signatories to the Treaty of Rome, demanding that Italy resume adherence to it within twenty-one days. So far there had been no response.

  Bradshaw woke from an uneasy doze as the train, which had been grunting up the northerly inclines of Italy, slowed to a halt. He was alone in his compartment; it was clear that even though this was normally a popular resort area the whole year round few people felt inclined to risk heading for it now the crisis was intensifying to the point where the possibility of actual fighting was being openly debated.

  He slid up the window-blind, to find grey dawn-light beyond. Half-hidden by mist, mountains white with snow loomed in the distance. And, on a twisting road which at this point the railway overlooked …

  –Troop-carriers! Half-tracks!

  A whole convoy of them, reassigned from duties farther south to judge by the olive-drab of their paint, conspicuous against the off-white piles of snow flung aside from the road. But the men they carried were properly clad for winter in the mountains, wearing all-white insulated clothing and with anti-glare goggles loose around their necks.

  The train moved on. Beyond the next curve was another line of military vehicles, this time trucks with snow-chains around their tyres, passing through a small village where a man with bright fluorescent batons was directing them which route to take at an intersection. Early-rising locals were staring in amazement as the tinny bell of the church announced the first mass of the day. It was Sunday.

  Bradshaw glanced up at the one lightweight travel-bag he had brought with him, containing something far more important than clothes or shoes or money. His thoughts were grim.

  –Still … A twenty-one day ultimatum is far better than we were hoping for. Do the meteorologists expect the weather to have broken by then? Right now fighting over this kind of terrain would be as bad as the Russian front in winter 1941.

  Not that it would be the same kind of fighting.

  Abruptly the door from the corridor was flung open and an officer in a greatcoat and an armed private were demanding, “I sui documenti!”

  He produced his forged passport and leaned back in his seat unconcernedly. While staying with Hector and Anne he had let his beard grow, then trimmed it neatly into a shape he had never worn in any rôle for movies or TV.

  “Ah, you’re American, Mr Barton,” the officer said as he leafed through the passport. His English was impeccable. “What brings you here?”

  –I wonder whether acting will disappear in the Age of VC. When everybody can do it perfectly … No, of course not. It will remain a talent, a greater concern for some people than others. But I never dreamed I could outface suspicious officials so easily. He no more recognises me as Bradshaw than did the immigration people at Milan airport

  “A sentimental journey,” he said with a shrug. “My mother’s family was Italian. Her name was Gramiani, and her father was born in Piedmont. But he died before I was born.”

  “I see. Where exactly are you going at present?”

  “To a little town which has surprised me by suddenly becoming famous. Arcovado.”

  –No point in lying about that. But what’s the betting he will now search me, and my bag?

  The reason for its sudden notoriety was simple. It was the ancestral home of Marshal Dalessandro; his family owned large estates in the neighbourhood. Moreover, he was due to come back to it next weekend, assured of a rapturous welcome.

  –But well guarded against assassins, no doubt!

  The search followed, as predicted. On finding his travelling medicine-kit, the officer inquired what each item was or carefully read the label. For diarrhoea; indigestion; headache; earache; cuts and bruises …

  It was clear the officer thought him a thorough hypochondriac. However, he replaced everything and shut the case with a shrug.

  “Tell me, Mr Barton,” he said musingly, “what do you think of–ah–recent developments here in Italy?”

  “Oh, I think a foreigner should defer judgement,” Bradshaw answered easily. “Though of course if law and order can be restored and the country regain its prosperity, I’ll be one of the first to applaud.”

  “Good. Thank you, and apologies for putting you to all this trouble.” The officer returned his passport and then, struck by an abrupt thought, reached past and slid down the window-blind again.

  “Take my advice, and leave it that way for another half-hour,” he said with
a wry smile. “It may enable you to relax a little more during your vacation.”

  The news was of reinforcements joining the American Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, and of the Austrians following the example of the Swiss and issuing preliminary mobilisation notices to twenty thousand reservists.

  So far this morning all had been quiet around the perimeter of the embattled strikers’ no-go zone. Having made a complete circuit of the area he was responsible for, Lieutenant Cordery returned to his sergeant at the headquarters radio vehicle.

  “I saw a tea-van in the next street,” he said. “I think you might as well let the men take ten minutes’ break by twos. And–ah–you might get someone to collect a cuppa and a roll of some sort for me, would you?”

  “Right, sir!” the sergeant said smartly, and after glancing around pointed at two of the nearest of the shivering soldiers. The snow was lasting much longer here than in the south; there had been a fresh fall last night and the air continued to wear its knife-cruel edge. “You two! Ten minutes for chah and wads. There’s a tea-wagon in the next street. And bring some rations back for Mr Cordery.”

  “Here’s fifty pence,” Cordery said. “That ought to be enough.”

  “Okay, sir,” the man who took it said, and moved off gratefully. He was out of earshot when he said to his companion, “Well, hell. Never thought the day would come when I’d be glad to see a blackie!”

  But Valentine Crawford heard him, and wryly countered inside his head as he put on his best Uncle Tom grin and leaned past the wisp of steam escaping from his big urns.

  –Never thought I’d be glad to see a buckra soldier with a gun, baby! But it all adds to the day’s business, doesn’t it?

  Aloud, he merely said, “Yes, gents? Tea, buns, sausage-rolls, ham-rolls, cheese sandwiches–all here and waiting!”

  “Hah!” one of the soldiers said, looking at the neat piles of food under their scratched plastic domes. “Not doing much trade, are you?”

  “Only just started for the day, sir. Thought you ought to have first call!” Broadening his grin still further.