By Robert
Ferguson
Turkish
coffee
Eleanor
straightened her back to enjoy a moment of relaxation. She moved her feet
carefully in the mud. So easy to slip and fall into the edge of the river, or to
kick over the bucket in which she had carefully gathered the poor frogs she had
spent the last hour collecting.
“Are
they running?” the voice asked from the other side of the river. She jerked
around and almost lost her footing, then relaxed. He didn’t seem to be a threat,
and anyway, they were separated by the river.
“They
have been. There seems to be a pause, for a few minutes at least, but they’re on
their way,” she said.
“How
long have you been here?” he asked, in a pleasant voice. Sophisticated, but
gentle, with a touch of the local vowel-sounds underlying his standard English
accent.
“Since
about 5.30,” she answered, moving carefully out of the river and up the slippery
bank on her side.
“Can
I join you?” he asked politely.
“Sure,”
she said. “You can take this bucketful over the bridge, if you like, and set
them loose on the other side opposite their crossing point, so they can get on
their way.”
He
waved one hand, and set off to her left towards the timber bridge a hundred
yards up the river. He wasn’t tall, just a few inches taller than her five-feet
four, with carelessly cut but neat, slightly sandy hair, and “country clothes”,
rubber boots, jeans and a plaid woollen shirt open at the neck. He walked well,
too, she saw, a straight back, head up, and relaxed, but with a pace that
covered the ground economically. He was soon with her, and took her plastic
bucket, smiled at her gently, and set off again for the bridge, as she reached
for her second bucket in readiness for the next run.
By
nine o’clock, they had probably helped a hundred frogs across the river,
watching them hop off on their journeys back to their summer spawning lakes
below Endham Wood.
“That’s
all I can manage this morning,” Eleanor said. He had said almost nothing in the
two hours they had worked together, just got on with the walk backwards and
forwards over the bridge, carrying her buckets. He was certainly a change from
most men who met a girl in the middle of nowhere and felt they had to impress
her, and begin the social hunt.
“Tomorrow
morning?” he asked, un-preditarily.
“Probably,”
she said. “You?”
That
had slipped out before she had thought to stop it. She hoped he wouldn’t take it
as a sign of interest, much less an invitation.
“I
could be, I guess,” he replied, “if that’s ok with you.”
“Sure,”
she said, tone as flat as she could get it. ”Whatever.”
Picking
up her emptied buckets, she walked off down the riverside path. We’ll see, she
thought, we’ll see. But it has been nice to have somebody else here this
morning.
*
* *
Almost
back to where he’d parked the car, he sent the required text. “Contact”, it
said. Nothing more. He deleted the message from the call-log, and dumped the
‘phone in the parking area rubbish bin. He’d get another one in town later that
morning.
*
* *
The
knock on the door had been quiet but firm.
“Come
in,” the Chief Inspector called.
“Detective
Sergeant Manthorpe, Sir,” the young man said.
“Hm,”
said the Chief Inspector. “Sit down, Son. Welcome back to the homeland, eh?”
“Thank you, Sir,” said the other, sitting in the upright chair in front of the
DCI’s desk.
“Know
what this is all about?” the Chief Inspector asked.
“No,
Sir.”
“Well,
that‘s good thing, anyway,” said the Chief Inspector. “Done rural undercover
before, have you?” knowing that the young man had not, but wanting to see the
level of confidence – or cockiness – the Sergeant would show.
“No,
Sir, but I was brought up down here, and haven’t completely forgotten about
country ways.”
“People
notice strangers, round here,” the DCI ruminated, reaching down to pull his pipe
out of his top desk-drawer so as to have something to fiddle with, even though
he was no longer allowed to smoke it in the office.
“Yes,
Sir,” the young man responded. “Any undercover job will need a slow start down
here, and a good strong legend for a stranger.”
“No-one
to remember you from your childhood?” the Chief Inspector
asked.
“Unlikely
in the South of the County, Sir, after all these years. Virtually certain not to
be in the North.”
“Well,
it’s to the North you’ll be going, to begin with, at least.”
The
Chief Inspector had made up his mind.
“OK,
Son,” he said, “take the file” – he pulled it out from beneath the one he had
been reading – “not to go out of the building, of course, but read it and come
back tomorrow, nine o’clock sharp, and tell me your entrance strategy, and
foreseeable snags. If we’re both happy, you can draw cash and comms., and get
started tomorrow afternoon.”
*
* *
Despite
Eleanor’s growing interest, it was ten days before the riverside relationship
stepped forward – if it was going to be a relationship. He was so nice! Polite,
respectful, powerful in his reticence, and clearly reliable. He turned up where
and when he said he would do. The run by the bridge had dried up after a couple
more days, so she had suggested they moved on to the one at Hanger Lane. “Sure,”
he said. “Whatever.” Did he ever say much more than that?
At
the end of another day at Hanger Lane, he finally told her his name.
“Michael,
by the way,” he said as they parted.
“Eleanor,”
she responded,
and
they walked off separately and silently to their respective breakfasts. But all
the way home, all she could think was, “Michael, Michael,
Michael.”
It
was a few days later that he finally asked her out.
“Drink
tonight, maybe,” he said, with his gentle smile, “if you’re free and would like
to?”
“Thank
you,” she said, almost gulping over the words.
After
that, they spent increasing amounts of time together. When the frogs’ seasonal
migration had passed, they no longer met in the early mornings. Mostly, they
went walking and bird watching around the country in the evenings, when their
respective days’ work was done – whatever his was. He remained vague about that.
“I’m
a wages clerk,” was all he said, and
she assumed he worked in one of the factories in the nearby city.
It
was a couple of months before she mentioned him to the Group.
“I’ve
met a possible recruit,” she said, slightly shyly. “He seems all right, and
perhaps useful to us. He knows the countryside, loves the birds and animals.
He’s strong, and he’s quiet. Won’t be gabbing all over the
place.”
“We’ll
need to vet him, of course,” said Paul, their almost self-appointed leader.
“Stay on for a minute after the meeting and fill me in, will you? You haven’t
mentioned the Group to him, have you?”
“No,
of course not!” said Eleanor, firmly. ”I do know better than
that!”
The
meeting broke up half an hour later, and Eleanor’s orderly mind was ready to
tell Paul everything she knew about her Michael.
“Well,
that’s not a lot, is it?“ Paul said, when she had finished. “Where’s he come
from, where’s he work – precisely? Where’d he work before that? Are you soft on
him, and, if so, how soft? If necessary, would you give him up for the Group?”
Eleanor
put every nerve and muscle into not reacting at the mention of this possibility.
“Of
course,” she said. “Our work is more important to me than anything else. You
know that, Paul, after these last four years.”
“OK,
leave it with me,” Paul said, eventually. “Don’t mention him again, to anyone,
not even in the Group.”
“Fine,”
she said.
She
seemed to have been saying nothing else all evening, but it was fine. The
Group’s work was indeed her priority. She supposed.
*
* *
His
second report caused more of a flurry of attention than the first one had done.
“Tailed,” it said. Again, the message was deleted and the ‘phone thrown away
immediately after it had been used. The sender drove pensively back to his
recently rented apartment, taking care not to lose his tail, even by accident,
in the going-home evening traffic.
*
* *
At
the meeting of the Group three months later, Paul congratulated them on the
success of their recent operation, introduced their new member, Michael, and
told them that, for a while, they’d be sticking to demos,
“Until
the fuss about our last operation has died down. So, in three week’s time, we
need a full attendance outside the pig farm beside the A578. Meet the vans on
Hershaw Street at eight a.m. Drivers will be John and Nick. Michael, do you have
a vehicle we can use?”
“Yes,
I can get eight in my van,” Michael said, “as long as there isn’t too much gear
to get in as well.”
“OK,”
said Paul, “I’ll brief drivers and allocate passengers here, the evening before.
Anyone else got anything else?”
Michael
and Eleanor walked back together to Michael’s Land Rover after the meeting.
Neither spoke, but Eleanor was the happiest girl in the world with his strong
arm around her in the dark.
At
the beginning of March, Paul finally told them that the next operation was
ready.
“Right.
This is the big one,” he said.” We’re going to hit an unregistered dog-breeder
out towards Cadister. We’ll release the dogs and burn out the pens so it will
cost them too much to get back into business too quickly.” There were subdued
hurrahs from the Group. “Unregistered the breeders may be, and they do sell pups
to homes, but most of the little so-and-so’s go to the laboratories at the
teaching hospital in the city, and to that skyscraper of Great Pharma in
Milchester. A couple of us have followed their van on deliveries, packed to the
gunnels with dogs. I’ll tell you the layout and the tactical plan, here, on
Friday week. Usual time. That’s it, for now, then. Many
thanks.”
*
* *
At
last, the text said, “Target”, Finally, the ‘phone, wrapped in plastic and
buried in the garden, could be unearthed. Hiring a car at the other end of the
city, the sender drove out to receive the message which would tell him when,
where and how to report the details.
*
* *
The
Chief Inspector was greatly relieved to get the message. To receive his
Sergeant’s report, the DCI made a special trip into the next-door county, and
booked into a busy seaside hotel, taking his wife for cover.
“You
go shopping, dear, and don’t come back before three this afternoon. Have a nice
bit of lunch in the town,” he told his wife, pushing a bundle of notes into her
handbag.
She
knew that meant that they weren’t here just for a mid-week break. But this
wasn’t the first such trip they had made since he was promoted to DCI, so she
knew better than to express anything more than gratitude for the meals she
hadn’t had to cook for a couple of days.
The
code was tapped on the DCI’s hotel-room door.
“All
right, Son?”, the DCI greeted him. “Let’s get down to it.”
Within
the hour, it was clear that they would need a lot of officers for this
operation. They’d also need as many vans as possible, to cart the silly kids off
securely to the station. They’d need armed officers on call as well, of course,
even though there was no sign as yet that the Group had access to weapons. But
you never knew.
*
*
*
Overall,
the operation went well for the police, though there were a few hairy moments.
The Group debussed a mile West of the target and crept up on it, mostly
silently, through the woods, with minimal disturbance of the game. Praise be,
too, they managed it without stepping on any of the police officers lying
increasingly damply in the long grass and under the bushes between the trees. At
the outer chain-link fence, there was inevitably a little noise as the
bolt-cutters did their work, but the severed fences were prevented from
springing back noisily by the Group-members allocated to those tasks. The
direction of the attack had been chosen carefully, so that such wind as there
was would blow into the faces of the Group, and ensure that their scent would
not reach the dogs inside the compound until the last possible moment. So far so
good for both sides, as the policemen behind the attackers silently got to their
feet and flexed the muscles cramped by their day-long
wait.
Then
everything speeded up, suddenly. As the attackers’ bolt-cutters chopped open the
padlocks on the dog-filled inner compounds, the dogs set up a deafening chaos of
sound from within, and the backdoor of the farmhouse was opened from inside by a
man carrying a shotgun. Dogs poured out of the compounds into the countryside,
the DCI called the word. Lights filled the woodland behind the
attackers like the rising of a blindingly low sun. The man in the doorway raised
his gun, and someone among the attackers swung a canister of fire at the
kitchen-window of the house. “Armed police”, shouted the DCI, a cry every
officer in the field took up whether it was the truth or not, as they knotted
their identifying white cotton strips around their left arms. The shotgun must
not be discharged. The shouts worked, and the gun was thrown down promptly. But
there was a fire raging inside the farmhouse kitchen.
Figures
were running every which way across the white lights.
“My
wife, my wife,” bawled the man at the backdoor, “she’s in there!”
“No,
she ain’t,” came a female voice from the corner of the house. “I come out the
front with the other gun, and I’ll ‘ave one of they varmints if I get ‘alf a
chance.”
The
DCI went forward at a quick, authoritative, walk, shouting his police
identification, and gently took the weapon from the woman’s hands before she
could add to the danger that already existed in the
situation.
Three
officers went into the kitchen, and quickly doused the fire. Gradually, fewer
and fewer figures could be seen darting across the lights. Within twenty
minutes, the uniformed inspector in charge of the cordons came to tell the DCI
that, as far as he could tell, his officers had captured as many members of the
Group as they were going to get that night.
“Too
early, my Son,” was the DCI’s response. “There’ll be a couple of the clever
dicks lying doggo in the bushes waiting for us to go home. I want your boys to
stay here, and to stay awake,” the last word spoken emphatically, “until an hour
after sunup, if you please. Half on, half off, two hours at a time. First
off-watch can go down to the station and bring back tea and scoff.”
“Sir,”
said the Inspector obediently.
The
men wouldn’t like it, but nonetheless he could see it had to be
done.
However,
it was only possible to tally up the number of Group members who had been
arrested when they were brought out from the police vans behind the secured
gates of the station yard. In his office, the DCI and his undercover sergeant
were watching a CCTV split-screen which showed the scenes in the yard and in the
Custody Suite.
“How
many are we supposed to have, Son?” the DCI asked.
“Fourteen
of us went on the operation, Sir, including myself,” the sergeant replied.
“Well, we’ve missed two of them,” said the DCI, “and I’ll bet my pension they’re
the
most
dangerous of the lot. Who flung the Molotov cocktail bucket, do you suppose?”
“That
would have been Paul, the leader, Sir, I’d guess. He was carrying it when he got
out of the van and set off into the woods. But that’s not evidence that he threw
it, of course. I didn’t see him after they left the vehicles and went into the
trees, and I haven’t seen him here, either. We’ll need to break down a couple of
the Group, and get definitive statements, in order to be sure for ourselves, and
for the Crown Prosecution Service, that it was Paul. If he ever turns up again.”
The
DCI grunted disconsolately. It hadn’t been a bad night, but it could still have
been much, much better.
Eleanor
was no longer Eleanor. She was a damp, grizzling mess curled up on the floor in
the corner of a police cell. She had been deteriorating into that condition ever
since she saw the bucket of fire fly through the farmhouse window. She had been
horrified. That wasn’t what she had foreseen when she joined the Group. Then the
lights had gone on, she was knocked down violently, picked up and carried, and
literally thrown onto the floor of a van. And now, for the first time in her
life, she was in a police station cell. Under interrogation, she had at first
obeyed Paul’s standing instruction to say no more than, “No comment” to whatever
she was asked. Soon, however, between bouts of sniffling, she gave them as much
information as she had.
But
where was Michael? Where was his calmness? Where was hope? There was none
without Michael. As she realised this, she collapsed further and further beyond
the reality of the world to become no more than a quivering, occasionally
sobbing, muddy, barely-conscious blob, curled up half-under the hard,
unforgiving, concrete bench.
About the author
Robert Ferguson
has published a
collection of poetry (“Late Starter”, available through www.latestarterpoems.com), contributions
to quarterly anthologies, and several short stories on CafeLit. He has recently
completed the first draft of a novel.
