Chapter Thirty-One
Thirty-One
“Last bloody time I do thee a favor, lad. That’s for certain.
” Garner glowered at him in the washroom mirror as he scrubbed his hands with a miserly remnant of carbolic soap.
The water that came off into the basin was the color of dried blood.
“Eight bloody days cooped up in there, food tha wunner give to a Yorkshireman, and Hardy’s thugs worked me over when I kicked.
And now I’m bloody constipated, too. Bloody Yorkshire—who needs it? ”
“I don’t think Hardy’s from around here,” Duncan said dryly.
“Aye, well his bully boys in blue are. Thick-as-pig-shit locals to a man.” Garner rubbed a pair of now-cleansed fingers around his gums, pressing on his teeth. “Looks like they didn’t do any permanent damage, though. So there’s that. How’s thy lass?”
“I don’t know,” Duncan admitted.
He’d sent Niamh with an increasingly agitated Crammond—we’ve been here nearly half a fuckin’ hour, Duncan, there’s nae time fir this shite—back to the parked former ambulance and away.
He didn’t want to think about what she’d been subjected to, and he certainly wasn’t going to start quizzing her in front of an audience.
Fever burned hot flushed spots on her cheeks, she had to stifle her coughing at least half a dozen times.
Whatever she had, the internment had turned up the dial on it all.
He masked his disquiet, held her gently, cupped her cheek, told her to go with the others to safety, he’d follow later.
Garner, fresh out of his cell and simmering with undischarged rage, was adamant that he’d stay for the fireworks.
Arthur wanted to stay, too, but was persuaded that he was far more vital as an escort for Niamh.
Duncan watched the three of them slip away into the early hours gloom on Maunston’s deserted streets. Part of him wanted to be leaving with them, but it was a small part, and not the part that needed to be fed.
He closed and locked the station door, checked on the cuffed prisoners, and went to find Garner, who had apparently just finished in the crapper.
“You are sure about this?” he asked one more time.
Garner splashed water on his face, rubbed at his eyes, and slapped himself lightly on each cheek. He reached for a grubby towel hung on a rail beside the basin.
“Aye, I’m certain.” Wiping his face dry. “Tha think I don’t know I only made it out of the Forest in one piece last week because of thee?”
“You only went in because of me as well.”
Garner grunted. “That…is true. And tha sent me to Hardy, too. But I’d be a small man to hold that against thee.”
“I will get you paid,” Duncan said awkwardly.
“All in good time, lad. There’s more to consider for now. These bloody bastards, for a start, and what they did to thy lass.” Tossing the towel into the basin. “Did tha get Miriam Rush back to her mother after all?”
“I got her out of the Forest. And then Hardy took her.”
“Well, that makes no bloody sense at all.” He saw Garner eyeing the scar on his skull where it peeked out from under his cap. “Tha know they told me tha were dead.”
The scar itched and sparked along its length, as if something in the healed tissue had heard. “I think I might have been, for a while. It was a close call, anyway. The skogsra brought me back.”
Garner looked at him for a long moment. He nodded slowly, as if grasping some until-now tenuous understanding.
“Read much mythology, lad?”
Duncan shrugged. “Aye, the usual. Greek stuff at school.”
“Norse? The Edda, the sagas?”
“Not so much.”
At Cadogan’s, they’d covered both, but he’d shied away from the Viking myth base.
The Huldu were in there, of course, albeit distorted, and he wanted no part of that.
By contrast, the Greek myths felt safe—mannered, arid tales and heroic deeds from hot, bright lands far, far away, the polar opposite of the damp, dark nightmare memories he carried from his time in the Forest.
“But tha know who Odin is?”
“Course.”
“Well, they say Odin hung dead and pierced with his own spear on Yggdrasil—that’s the world tree—for nine days and nights, all to learn and bring back runes of power.
When he was done, he came back from the dead with those runes, brought back power and wisdom both.
Tha have to wonder—I always wondered—back in the times it comes from, if that’s not a tale about skogsra healing. ”
“I’m still working on the wisdom part.”
“Probably so is that one-eyed bastard.” Garner stirred from his thoughts, clapped Duncan on the shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go bait this trap of yours.”
In the office space where Bennett had been on watch, the two prisoners were handcuffed either side of a big cast iron radiator.
Duncan took the telephone off the desk, freed up some cable, and brought the device over near the two men.
He set it down on the floor in front of the man he’d broken. Drew his Webley again.
“Here’s how this is going to work,” he said quietly.
“You’re going to call Boyle and tell him there’s an emergency.
Then you’ll give the phone to me. You’ll say nothing else.
You don’t try to warn him, and you’ll both live.
You have my word. We’ll cuff you downstairs, and the day shift will find you in good health.
You do anything else, you fuck things up for me in any way at all, and I will shoot both you and your friend here dead. Is that clear?”
The man nodded, hypnotized with fear. Duncan looked at his companion on the other end of the radiator. He was already nodding in time with his comrade.
“Good.” Duncan lifted the receiver. “Then dial.”
He watched as the man dialed the number with a trembling hand. He listened as the phone rang, heard it picked up at the other end, and held it to his prisoner’s ear. A clipped voice snapping down the line, expletives and a question.
The man cleared his throat. “Yes, I know sir, I know. But we have an emergency here, sir.”
Crackle and snap.
“It’s, uh, it’s better if you just see for yourself, sir.”
Duncan took back the receiver, put it to his ear. Put on his best officer’s voice. “Detective Inspector Boyle?”
“That’s right. And who the bloody hell are you?”
“I’m from Hardy. Captain John Craigart, late of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. Directorate of Military Intelligence now. Section J.”
He felt down the line how the name set a stir in the other man. There was a pause. Boyle came back measured, outrage quelled.
“It’s almost three in the morning, Captain. Do you mind telling me what Section J is doing in Maunston at this hour?”
“I’m afraid, Inspector, that’s largely classified.
I can give you some information when you get here, but it will be limited to what you need to know in order to help me clear this mess up.
Now, I’m loath to involve Colonel Hardy at this point.
He certainly won’t thank me for dumping it in his lap, and as I’m sure you know, he doesn’t suffer fools or failures gladly.
I’m told by Constable Bennett that you were responsible for the young Irishwoman’s interrogation. ”
“Myself and Bennett, yes.” Stiffly. “That is correct.”
“Then you and I definitely need to have words, Inspector. In private. Now, please. Be as quick as you can.”
Duncan hung up on Boyle’s protestations.
—
With Garner’s help, he transferred the prisoners one at a time to the cells downstairs.
There, in separate cells, he cuffed them again to a convenient radiator pipe and told them not to make any noise.
He closed the door on each cell. Back upstairs, he installed Garner in the office and gave him instructions.
When he heard a car pull up in the street outside, he closed the office door to a crack and went to the front door to open up.
A ruffled-looking man in his fifties stood on the step in a crumpled raincoat, unshaven, battered fedora crammed on his head.
There was a stubby Hillman tourer parked behind him, canvas cover up, one front wheel bumped recklessly on the pavement.
A similar restless lack of kilter in the way the man stood. No attempt at pleasantries.
“Boyle. You’re Craigart?”
“I am.” Duncan gave him a genial officer-class smile. “Excuse the mufti, we try not to draw attention to ourselves in the Directorate. Please come through.”
Boyle followed him in, peering around. “It’s just you?”
“My sergeant is in the office, trying to sort out medical support.” Duncan gestured at the cracked-open office door, through which Garner could be heard, busily talking down the phone to himself in tones carefully shorn of Lancastrian countryman brogue.
I don’t really care about that; how soon can you have him here; yes, it’s bloody urgent—I see—all right, I’ll hold while you ask.
Duncan pulled an apologetic face—awkward business this. ”
“Where’s Bennett?” Boyle asked warily.
“He’s downstairs with the others. Please.” Duncan waved him ahead, toward the opened gate and stairwell beyond. “I’d ask you not to blame Constable Bennett too much, any more than you’d blame yourself. I find it’s not productive to—”
Boyle turned back at the top step, gave him a hard look. “Blame?”
“Yes,” Duncan said precisely. “Blame.”
The Special Branch detective flushed. “Listen, all we did was rough this Fenian bitch up a bit. Nothing excessive. You know how it is—a few backhanders and slaps, a few hands where she didn’t want them to go.
Throw a scare into her, shake her up, make her think about what worse we could do. Standard operating procedure.”
“Oh, I’m sure.” Duncan lifted his hands, placating. “It is not my intention, Inspector, to criticize your methods. But, as you’ll see, we do have a problem now.”
“Yes, so you keep saying. What problem, exactly?”