Descendant

In Pursuit

George Goodhew arrived just as I was leaving the house. His gray Rover was closely followed by three other cars and a plain navy-blue van. A dozen young men in suits climbed out of the cars, and two Home Office pathologists climbed out of the van.

“I think that Duca’s trying to get out of the country,” I said. “It forced Terence to make a booking for it on the Queen Elizabeth.”

“Yes, but hold on. Duca hasn’t got a passport, has he — or it, I mean. They won’t let it on board without a passport.”

“It won’t need a passport, George. It can move so fast they won’t even see it. It can slide through a gap that’s half an inch wide.”

“All the same, I can alert the police and customs at Southampton. And we can hold the sailing if necessary.”

“Well, OK. But tell the police, don’t try to detain it. It can rip them apart as soon as look at them, and we don’t want any more casualties. I have to get down there, with my Kit.”

“I’ll drive you.”

“That’s great, thanks.”

Tim came up, with Keston trotting behind him on his leash. “How is he?” I asked him. “That Queen Elizabeth’s a hell of a big boat. I could really use a good dog.”

“I’m sorry sir. I don’t think he’s going to be up to it.”

I looked down at Keston and I had to admit to myself that I had never seen a dog look so cowed. His head was lowered and he couldn’t stop trembling, as if he was suffering from hypothermia. “All right, Tim,” I told him. “I’ll just have to find another man-trailer, that’s all.”

I picked up my Kit and put it on the backseat of George’s Rover. We left Terence’s mother’s house just as the Home Office pathologists were walking in with their brown overalls and their cameras and their forensic equipment, and headed south through Croydon town center. George managed to change gear and smoke and talk on his radio-telephone all at the same time, blasting his horn impatiently at anybody who slowed him down.

“Cunard won’t postpone the sailing,” he said, as we came closer to Purley. “Charles Frith doesn’t want to postpone it, either. It’ll attract too much publicity. The Foreign Secretary’s on board, as well as Loretta Young, and some Russian bigwigs, too.”

“In that case, we’ll have to make sure we get to Southampton before she sails.”

I directed him to the Foxleys’ house. He parked in the driveway with the engine running while I went to the front door and rang the doorbell.

Mya Foxley answered, almost at once. Her hair was fraying and she looked as if she hadn’t slept.

“Mrs. Foxley, I know Jill isn’t feeling too good, but I really have to talk to her.”

“I’m sorry, she isn’t here.”

“she’s not here? She hasn’t had to go to hospital?”

“No, no. A man came round to call for her, about two hours ago. She said that he was something to do with the police, and she would have to go with him. She even packed an overnight bag.”

At that moment, Bullet appeared, his crimson tongue hanging out in the heat. He looked up at me and wuffed.

“Jill was on police business and she didn’t take Bullet? That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I don’t know. She asked me to take care of him, that’s all.”

“This man who called for her. what did he look like?”

Mya Foxley frowned. “He was very tall, with his hair brushed back.”

“Did you notice the color of his eyes?”

She shook her head.

“Would you say that he was good-looking? Handsome?”

“Oh, yes. He would stand out in a crowd. And very well dressed, too. A dark suit, and a dark silk tie.”

“Mrs. Foxley — Mya — this man had nothing to do with the police. If he’s the man I think he is, he’s taken Jill against her will. He’s abducted her.”

“But I don’t understand. She seemed quite happy to go with him. He didn’t say anything to threaten her.”

“That’s what makes him so dangerous. Listen — do you think that Bullet might come with me, and help me find her?”

Mrs. Foxley looked down at Bullet dubiously. “I don’t know — you’ve seen for yourself that he is a dog who obeys only his owner. That was the way he had to be trained.”

I bent over and held my hand out. Bullet sniffed at my fingertips, and growled in the back of his throat.

“Bullet,” I said, “we have to go find Jill. Do you understand that, boy? We have to go find Jill.”

Bullet barked, and his tail slapped wildly from side to side.

“Mrs. Foxley, would you bring me Bullet’s leash, please? I think he realizes what I want him to do.”

Mya Foxley went inside, and while she did so I tugged Bullet’s ears and rubbed his throat and he didn’t seem to mind at all. At least he didn’t try to take another chunk of flesh out of my thumb.

“Let’s go find Jill, boy, yes? Let’s go find that mistress of yours!”

Bullet grew more and more excited, and when I clipped his leash on his collar, he immediately ran out across the driveway, dragging me after him. He was a hell of a lot stronger than I had anticipated, and he seemed to be even more determined to find Jill than I was.

“I’ll call you!” I shouted back to Mya Foxley.

As we turned on to the main London to Brighton road, I had a sudden thought.

“George — can you take me to Dr. Watkins’s house?”

“We’re going to be pretty pushed for time, old man.”

“How long will it take us to reach Southampton?”

“It’s about sixty-five miles. If I really step on it, we should make it in an hour.”

“OK. but I really need to go the Laurels first.”

I directed him to Pampisford Road, and he slewed to a halt on the grass verge outside the Laurels. The two bobbies on duty recognized me, and they saluted and said “Morning, sir!” and let me through without any trouble. Inside the house, I went directly to Dr. Watkins’s surgery and opened up his fridge.

Inside, there were dozens of bottles of various vaccines — smallpox, diphtheria, yellow fever. On the middle shelf, on the right-hand side, there were a dozen bottles of Salk anti-poliomyelitis vaccine, with their distinctive red caps. I grabbed a handful and put them in my coat pocket. Then I went to the stainless-steel trolley beside the examination couch and took two 5cc syringes.

Bullet barked excitedly as I returned to the car, and we pulled away from the Laurels with the Rover’s rear end sliding sideways in the grass.

I checked my watch. It was ten minutes of eleven already.

“Don’t worry,” said George. “If I keep my foot flat on the floor, we should get there in time.”

“OK, then,” I told him. “Try not to kill us, that’s all I ask.”

The sky began to grow increasingly thundery as we sped southwestward through Surrey and Hampshire. The clouds rolled in so quickly they looked like a speeded-up film, and by the time we reached the town of Havant, huge warm drops of rain had begun to patter on to the windshield of George’s Rover.

I had never been frightened by anybody’s driving before, not even during World War Two, when I was driven in a Jeep between Brussels and Nijmegen by a stogie-chewing marine sergeant who had drunk a bottle and a half of Napoleon brandy. But George drove so furiously that I found myself gripping the door handle to keep myself from sliding from one side of my seat to the other, and constantly jamming my foot on an imaginary brake pedal.

He hardly ever dropped below 50 mph. He drove the wrong way along dual carriageways. He even drove right over the middle of a traffic circle, leaving parallel tire-tracks in the grass. He ran countless red lights and blasted his horn at anybody who looked as if they might slow him down. All this time he smoked one cigarette after another, lighting a fresh one from the burned-down butt of the last.

“Do you know who I admire the most?” he asked me, as we slewed around the corner into Havant High Street. “Fangio. What a driver. The last lap of the German Grand Prix, he averaged ninety-one-point-seven miles an hour. Averaged.”

We reached the outskirts of Southampton at three minutes of twelve. It was raining hard and the Rover’s windshield wipers were having difficulty in coping, so that George had to drive more slowly. But as we approached the docks, I could see the Queen Elizabeth’s two red funnels over the rooftops, and as we turned the corner to the Cunard Terminal, and the sheer black wall of the liner’s sides came into view, it was clear that she wasn’t yet ready to sail.

George parked by the railings at the terminal entrance. A policeman in a raincape came up and knocked on the window.

“Can’t leave it here, mate.”

George produced his identity card. “I think you’ll find that I can,” he said, with public-school self-assurance. “Look after it for me, will you, constable?”

“Yes, sir,” said the policeman, grudgingly. “You’ll be wanting Chief Inspector Holloway, sir. He’s inside the terminal, at the information desk.”

We climbed out of the car. I turned my coat-collar up against the rain, which was hammering down all across the docks. “Come on, Bullet,” I urged him. “Let’s find Jill, shall we? Come on, boy.”

We crossed the wet, reflective asphalt. Close up, the Queen Elizabeth was enormous, over a thousand feet long and nearly two hundred feet high, its sides streaked with runnels of rain. Passengers were looking down on us from the upper decks and waving, even though the ship’s gangways were still down, and the dock was still cluttered with vans and trucks and luggage. The air smelled strongly of brine and diesel.

We went through the swing doors into the reception area, which was still noisy and crowded with passengers and relatives. We found Chief Inspector Holloway next to one of the stainless-steel counters, surrounded by detective constables and at least fifteen uniformed officers. Chief Inspector Holloway was very tall and lugubrious-looking, with a thin sallow face and a nose like a fire axe. His brown trilby hat was soaked with rain and the lapels of his flappy brown double-breasted suit were curled up.

“I don’t know why Hampshire Constabulary can’t be trusted to deal with this,” he said to George, even before George had introduced himself.

“It’s what you might call a specialist operation,” I put in.

“You’re American,” said Chief Inspector Holloway.

“That’s correct, sir. Captain James Falcon, seconded to MI6.”

“This is all very irregular.”

“Yes, sir. You’re right. It is irregular. Have you checked the passenger manifest?”

One of the detectives held out a clipboard. “Mr. Terence Mitchell made a telephone reservation early this morning and booked a middle-class cabin, M64. He hasn’t checked in yet. Cunard have promised to let us know as soon as he does.”

I said, “OK, officer, thanks.” Then I turned to George. “I need to get on board now. Duca’s here already, I can feel it.”

“But he hasn’t checked in yet.”

“It won’t. It doesn’t have to. It can get on board without anybody seeing it. Christ — it could climb straight up the side of the ship if it needed to. All it needs is a cabin for itself and Jill while it crosses the Atlantic.”

I looked down at Bullet. I think Bullet had picked up the scent, too. He was quivering, and staring toward the doorway which led out to the pier.

“Come on, boy,” I told him. “There’s one little thing we have to do before we go on board.”

I asked one of the uniformed girls behind the Cunard counter if there was a spare office I could use. Then I led Bullet into the back, and opened up my Kit. I took out two pots of white and black paint, and a paintbrush.

“What on earth are you doing?” asked George.

“Hold Bullet’s head still, would you? I’m giving him an extra pair of eyes.”