The Trojan boy

THIRTEEN

It was not until a London taxi driver gave them a second look that Avedissian realised how dirty and dishevelled they must seem. Up until then, their thoughts had been solely concerned with escape so it was only now, in the depths of London traffic, that they could relax a little and consider that they had really done it. They had escaped from the clutches of Finbarr Kell.

Avedissian looked at Kathleen as they waited at traffic lights and saw the pain lines round her eyes. She had not complained at all since leaving Belfast but he knew that the effects of the pain-killer he had given her must have worn off some hours ago. He asked her gently if it was bad. She smiled at him and said that she was all right, he was not to worry.

They drank whisky when they got into Avedissian's flat while they waited for an immersion heater to provide hot water. No one said anything about it only being eleven in the morning. For the moment time was unimportant; they needed a drink.

Avedissian let the O'Neills bathe first while he scavenged through the kitchen cupboards and found whatever tinned food there was to prepare a passable meal, then he dressed Kathleen's burns before cleaning himself up and settling down to eat.

'God, I feel better,' said O'Neill and they all agreed. O'Neill was all right in the clothes that Avedissian had given him but Kathleen looked like a waif from the storm in a shirt that swamped her and jeans bunched up into pleats at the waist.

Their anxiety had subsided, they had cleaned up and they had eaten. It was time to talk about what they were going to do next. All were agreed that everything had to take second place to finding out what Kell was up to and stopping him if at all possible. At the moment the best they could do would be to warn the authorities that a big IRA operation was under way in England.

'What's the way to do that?' asked Avedissian.

'We could warn them by phone,' said Kathleen.

'Would they believe us? Wouldn't they ask for some kind of identification?'

'More than that, they would want to know what the operation involved and who and what were at risk,' said O'Neill.

'And we couldn't tell them because we don't know,' added Avedissian.

'But if Martin told them who he was they might take the warning seriously,' suggested Kathleen.

'Martin O'Neill is dead as far as the authorities are concerned,' said Avedissian. 'The call would be dismissed as a hoax.'

They considered for a moment before Avedissian said, 'There is one person who would believe that we were telling the truth.'

'Who?'

'Bryant.'

Kathleen looked down at the table and fidgeted nervously. 'I couldn't bear to face that man again,' she said in a whisper.

Avedissian put a hand on her shoulder and said quietly, 'I feel the same. I've got a score to settle with that rat, but we must think rationally. Bryant has the resources to stop Kell.'

'How would you get to Bryant?' asked O'Neill.

'I've had cause to think about that a lot,’ replied Avedissian. 'Officially I have no way of reaching him but unofficially I think I can do it.'

'Go on,’ said O'Neill.

'When I was taken to see Bryant in London I had to wait in a room that looked out into a lane. It was night-time and there was a neon sign on the building opposite. It said Staplex Bindings. If I can get their address from the phone book I think I can find the building that Bryant uses.'

'That's worth a try,’ said O'Neill.

Kathleen, unable to contemplate the prospect of becoming involved with Bryant again, stayed silent.

Avedissian looked up the phone book and said, 'I've got it.'

'Do you want us to go too?' asked O'Neill.

Avedissian shook his head and said, 'It's best if I go alone. There's no time to lose. You and Kathleen can get to work on that map we took from Kell's room. Find out where that village is and what is special about it.’

'We'll get some clothes too,’ said O'Neill.

'Be careful,’ said Kathleen as Avedissian prepared to leave. He kissed her and told her there was no need to worry. He would be back soon.

Avedissian took a taxi to the Staplex works. It was a journey of about fifteen minutes but would have been shorter had it not been for heavy traffic. He crossed the road and walked past the building until he came to the entrance to the lane he remembered. He looked at the neon sign above the goods entrance and then at the building opposite. It seemed dark and featureless, just another anonymous building, but there, on the third floor, was a window with a large plant in it. It was the room where he had been asked to wait on the night he had been brought from the training school at Llangern.

Avedissian walked up one side of the lane and came back on the other, casually looking at the doors leading into the building. All were securely locked. But maybe that was all to the good, he thought. His best plan would be to wait for Bryant either to enter or leave the building. That way the element of surprise would remain with him. If he were to go in blind he would be playing a game where he was an amateur among professionals.

Avedissian grew tired of waiting. It had been over three hours and still no one had entered or left. He began to have visions of the building being empty. Perhaps it was only used on odd occasions, not on a regular basis at all. He had almost convinced himself that this was the case when at five-thirty, the front door opened and a woman came out. He recognised her. It was Sarah Milek, the secretary he had first met at Cambridge.

Sarah. Milek walked down the lane and turned left, with Avedissian some thirty metres behind. She turned left again into another narrow lane and approached a line of lock-up garages before pausing to search in her handbag for the key to one of the doors. Avedissian waited until she had opened it and was lifting up the door before running up behind her and hustling her inside. He clamped his hand over her mouth to stifle her scream and whispered in her ear. 'Don't panic, Miss Milek. It's an old friend. Remember me?' He took his hand away.

'You!' gasped Sarah Milek.

'Surprised? Could that be because I'm supposed to be dead, I wonder?'

'I'm glad you're not.’

'Of course you are. Where's Bryant?' snapped Avedissian.

'I see,’ said Sarah Milek, 'You've come for your revenge.'

'That was my original intention,’ agreed Avedissian. 'But circumstances have dictated that I need Bryant's help.’

'Help?' said an astonished Sarah Milek.

‘The IRA have been planning a big operation here in England. It's going to happen any day now and Kell's people are already here. It's Kell's way of paying Bryant back for trying to trick him.'

'But there hasn't been time for Kell to mount anything big,’ protested Sarah Milek.

'You're wrong,’ said Avedissian. 'Kell knew all along that there had been no royal kidnap. He started working on his own scheme right back at the beginning and just kept stringing Bryant along.'

'But he tried to raise money from bank raids.'

'Wrong again. Kell planted Kathleen O'Neill on Bryant and used her to settle an old score with the INLA and convince Bryant that she was genuine at the same time. Her brother hadn't been killed by Kell at all. He's still alive. He's here with me in London. That's how I know about Kell's plans.'

'And Kathleen O'Neill?'

'She's here too.'

'What happened to the boy?' asked Sarah Milek tentatively.

'He's dead. I buried him in a field in Illinois.'

Tm sorry… I know you can't believe that, but I am. It was the most horrible plan.'

'So why didn't you stop it?' demanded Avedissian.

'It was Bryant's doing — him and his bitter hatred of the Irish.'

'Why?'

'He thinks that being so long in the Irish section has destroyed his career. He believes that successive governments have refused to tackle the IRA head-on as he would like. He has always believed that the fight should have been taken to the enemy. Fight fire with fire, that sort of thing, but every scheme he has come up with over the years has been turned down as being either too aggressive or too politically sensitive. He has always taken the rejection of his plans personally; he has become paranoid about the "Public School Mafia" as he calls them. Sometimes I think he hates our side as much as he does the opposition.'

'And his latest scheme?'

'He saw a photograph in a newspaper of a handicapped child whose parents had been killed in a car crash and noticed that the boy bore a superficial resemblance to one of the royal children. It gave him an idea for an operation that he thought would prove to the powers that be that he should be running the section instead of playing number two.'

'Why did nobody stop him?'

‘This time Bryant was clever. He sold the idea to Sir Michael as purely a confidence trick to destroy NORAID and undermine IRA morale. There was no mention of ever using a real child, but he maintained that, for the scheme to have a chance of success, everyone would have to act and behave as if the kidnap had really happened, and Sir Michael agreed.'

'Why didn't it stay that way?'

'Bryant was obsessed with the operation. He saw this as his one big chance to show how good he was.'

'So he planned his own version all along?'

Sarah Milek nodded. 'He also diverted funds from within the section to employ some dubious operatives of his own.'

'And the boy?'

'The child was still in temporary accommodation after the crash while the social services decided what to do with him. Bryant came up with transfer forms for a children's home at the other end of the country, on the grounds that some distant relation of the boy had been located and adoption might be a possibility. The local authorities were only too happy to see their problem solved.’

'But surely Sir Michael must have suspected something was going on while Bryant was doing all this?' Avedissian protested.

'He did, but at the wrong moment his past caught up with him.’

'What do you mean?'

'One of Bryant's people came up with something on Sir Michael himself, a series of indiscretions involving young boys. Bryant virtually took over the operation and the section from then on. Sir Michael became little more than a figurehead. Bryant ran the show.'

‘That's why the old man committed suicide,’ said Avedissian, remembering the story in the papers.

'He couldn't bear the shame,’ said Sarah Milek.

'But Bryant's scheme failed,’ said Avedissian.

'It's true that he didn't get the money, but the INLA was wiped out in Belfast and Bryant got the credit for that. He also set up the ambush that killed Kevin O'Donnell. His record says that he will be made head of section in the near future in spite of any opposition from high places.'

'Why doesn't somebody tell the truth about him? You, for instance?' asked Avedissian.

'I only know what Sir Michael told me before he died and even then I suspect that there are bits of the story I don't know. I don't really know much about what he was using the outsiders for.'

'He used them to wire bombs to cars,’ said Avedissian quietly.

'What?'

'It doesn't matter. You know enough,’ accused Avedissian.

'Knowing something and proving it are two different things.'

'There must be someone you could go to?'

'I'm not that brave, Doctor. Bryant is a powerful man. He's above the law, whatever politicians might say, and, quite frankly, he scares me. You don't cross a man like Bryant and get away with it.'

Avedissian closed his eyes and whispered, 'Now where have I heard that before?'

'Pardon?'

Avedissian ignored the question and said, 'I have to talk to Bryant. Where is he?'

'He's at a meeting. He's one of the advisers on security matters for the royal birthday party,’ said Sarah Milek. When Avedissian looked blank she added, 'There's to be a specially televised birthday party tomorrow. The Blue Peter programme is hosting a party for handicapped young people from all over the country. Members of the Royal Family will attend.'

Avedissian remembered reading about it, but now that he knew that Bryant was involved he saw it in a different light and alarm bells started to ring inside his head. 'Where is it to be held?' he asked.

'That is being kept secret,’ said Sarah Milek.

'God, that could be it!' gasped Avedissian.

'Could be what?'

'Kell! He's going to hit the party!'

'But…’

'That's what he meant by the "last thing anyone would think of in the circumstances'" A hit on the very child he was supposed to be negotiating for on the other side of the Atlantic!'

'But how? Security is always tight on these occasions.'

'I don't know, but I'm almost sure that must be it. Can Bryant be contacted?'

'Yes if it's urgent.'

'It's urgent.'

'Come back to the office.'

Avedissian waited impatiently while Sarah Milek telephoned Bryant. He heard her say why she was calling but could not hear Bryant's response when she told him who was with her. He took the phone and put it to his ear.

'Well, Doctor, this is a surprise,’ said the voice that Avedissian remembered.

‘I’ll bet.’ said Avedissian evenly. 'But the boy and Paul Jarvis won't be coming back to embarrass you. They are both dead.’

'I'm sorry. War can be very unpleasant, Doctor, and that's what it is, a war.'

'And being "a war" excuses everything? How comfortable. Do you think the child understood it was "a war" when his skull was caved in? You make me sick to my stomach.'

'Whingeing sentimentality doesn't do a lot for my constitution either, Doctor. Don't you realise what was at stake? A chance to wipe out NORAID, cut off that running sore for good, and you expect me to listen to your maudlin crap about one orphan boy who would probably have grown up to be another street sweeper in Luton!'

'You bastard!'

'Of course I'm a bastard, Doctor. If it wasn't for bastards like me then fifty-odd million people in this country could not sit comfortably on their arses watching Dallas and pretending that they are not the sort of people who could ever do what I do. It's called hypocrisy, Doctor, but, being in the profession you're in, there's no need to tell you that, or are you going to pretend that all you nice, middle-class fellows really are interested in athlete's foot and lorry drivers' piles?'

'You need psychiatric help, Bryant. You're sick.'

'If we're going to start talking about psychiatry, Doctor, then you are really batting on my wicket.’

'Don't you care about anything, Bryant?'

'Winning, Doctor. I care about winning.'

'Just like Kell.'

'What do you mean?'

'Kell knew all along that you were trying to set him up. He's been planning to pay you back and I think I know how.'

'Goon.'

'He is going to hit the royal birthday party tomorrow.'

'I suppose he wrote and told you all this,' sneered Bryant.

Avedissian told him how he and Kathleen had come to be captured by Kell after attempting to free her brother.

'Her brother!' exclaimed Bryant. 'You're resurrecting her brother? Really, Doctor, this is too much. I appreciate how badly you would like to play the Lone Ranger and hunt me down but surely you don't expect me to believe all this twaddle?'

'It's true, I swear it. The O'Neills are here with me in London. I suggest we meet and…'

'Oh come on, this is Boy Scout stuff. If you will take my advice, Doctor, cash in your chips while you're ahead. Find a nice little job somewhere and try to make the best of things.'

'Until you find me?'

'I no longer have any interest in you, Doctor. You can't hurt me. Who would believe the ramblings of a struck-off doctor sliding towards alcoholism? You wouldn't even make an amusing pub bore with a story like yours.'

Avedissian controlled himself and said as evenly as he could, 'What I have told you is true! Kell is already here in England. If you won't work with me and the O'Neills and you won't call off the party, then at least tighten security. Put more men in the field!'

'Security is already tight, Doctor. There is no possibility of an attack succeeding. The entire estate will be cordoned off. You couldn't get a tank through even if you knew where the place was.'

Avedissian thought he saw how he could convince Bryant to take him seriously. He said, 'Kell already knows where the party is being held.'

Bryant fell silent for a moment before saying quietly, 'I'm all ears.'

'It's to be in Valham,' announced Avedissian.

'Never heard of it,’ said Bryant.

'Then nearby.'

‘There is no place called Valham, or whatever it was, within a fifty-mile radius of this estate,' said Bryant finally.

Avedissian was utterly deflated. It had to be the party Kell was interested in, or was he letting his own arrogance blind him? Could there be another target? 'I don't know for certain that it's the party Kell is going to hit,' he conceded. 'Only that it's something very big.'

‘Take my advice, Doctor,' said Bryant. 'Quit while you're ahead.' The phone went dead.

'He didn't believe you?' asked Sarah Milek, although she already knew the answer.

Avedissian shook his head. 'Arrogant fool,' he muttered. He turned to Sarah Milek and asked, 'What does Valham mean to you?'

'Nothing.'

'I don't want to know any secrets. Just tell me if it seems like a valid target for Kell to be interested in.'

'I wasn't lying,' said Sarah Milek. 'I genuinely have never heard of it. But we can look it up if you like.' She brought down a book of road maps from the bookshelf and looked up the index before flicking through the pages. ‘There,' she announced. 'It's a village in Norfolk.'

'Bryant said that it was nowhere near where the royal party is being held… Did he just say that to keep me away from there or was he telling the truth?'

Sarah Milek looked at him suspiciously.

'I am not trying to find out how to get at Bryant, I promise you,' said Avedissian.

'Bryant wasn't lying. The party is not even in the same county.'

Avedissian felt a sense of hopelessness and of time running out. He asked Sarah Milek for a phone number so that he could make contact if he came up with anything else.

'You can have mine,' she replied. 'I can't give you Bryant's.'

Avedissian looked at his watch and made a face. Too late,' he murmured.

'For what?'

‘To rent a car.'

Sarah Milek considered for a moment before holding out her hand and dropping her car keys into Avedissian's palm.

'But you…'

'I can get a taxi. Bring it back when you've finished.'

Avedissian was taken aback. He stood there with a puzzled expression on his face while Sarah Milek walked away. She turned and said, 'Call it conscience.'

Avedissian returned to the flat and told Kathleen and her brother of his failure to convince Bryant of an imminent IRA strike.

'At least you warned him,' said Kathleen. 'Surely he'll tighten security anyway?'

'Maybe,' whispered Avedissian, pacing up and down in frustration. 'It's just that I can't get it out of my mind that it's the royal birthday party that Kell's going to hit.'

'Royal birthday party?'

Avedissian told them about the Blue Peter party and how it seemed to fit in with what Kell had said.

'I agree,' said O'Neill.

The trouble is that the party is to be nowhere near Valham, not even in the same county.'

'We found out that Valham is a village in Norfolk,' said Kathleen.

'Me too. Anything else?'

Kathleen shook her head and said, 'No, it seems to be a small village, nothing else.'

'So why would Kell keep a map of a Norfolk village?'

Silence fell on the room.

‘Time is running out. I think we should go there,' said Avedissian. 'Sarah Milek loaned me her car.'

'It's better than just sitting around,' said O'Neill.

'And there's always the chance that we might see the reason for Kell's interest as soon as we get there,' added Kathleen.

'When do we leave?'

'First light,’ said Avedissian, looking out the window at the rain that had started to fall.

They set off from the flat at five-thirty. The rain of the previous evening had passed and it was a beautifully clear morning with the air so still that the sound of milk bottles being delivered seemed uncommonly loud. They headed north on the M1 and made good time, sitting in the outside lane for most of the way until they reached Cambridge, where they stopped to snatch a quick breakfast. They then veered north-west into Norfolk.

The roads narrowed with the passing of the miles and the hedgerows grew ever more anxious to encroach upon their right of way.

'Are you sure this is the right road?' asked Kathleen, as they were forced to slow to a crawl on what seemed like little more than a farm track.

'It's about a mile and a half along here,' said O'Neill, his finger tracing their route on Kell's map.

'If you say so,' said Kathleen, unconvinced.

Avedissian stopped the car as they came to a rotting wooden sign-board that was almost totally obscured by foliage. 'What does that say?' he asked O'Neill, who was in a better position to see.

'Valham,' replied O'Neill.

The lane opened out to reveal a picture post-card scene, a cluster of cottages that looked as if they had been there since the beginning of time, but there was a small church at the end of the cluster whose crumbling tower proclaimed its Norman origins.

'One shop,' said Kathleen as they crawled past.

'And a pub,' added O'Neill as they came to an inn beneath the trees called the Mouse and Spade.

'Everything you need,' said Avedissian.

'It's beautiful,' said Kathleen.

'So what did Kell see in it?'

'Let's ask questions,' said Avedissian. 'It's too early for the pub. Martin, you try the shop. We'll try the church.'

'What are we looking for?'

'Anything that Kell might see as a target. Play it by ear.'

Avedissian and Kathleen walked towards the church and entered its precincts through a small iron gate. Their feet scrunched on the gravel and they had to duck down to clear the lower branches of a yew tree that possibly pre-dated the building itself. Gravestones competed in a losing battle with weeds and moss. They had been forced to retreat in disarray to the shadow of the church itself,

Avedissian turned the black handle on the church door and pushed it open. They went inside to be met with the smell of dusty hymn books and threadbare hassocks. Dust in the air was highlighted by sunlight coming in through a window high above the altar.

'Good morning,' said a voice from the gloom at the far end.

They waited while a figure, clad in black, emerged from the shadows and turned in to the centre aisle after bowing to the altar. He came towards them. 'I'm the vicar, Simon Welsby. Can I help you or are you just looking?'

'Actually we're lost,' said Avedissian on the spur of the moment. 'We were making for the base but somehow ended up in Valham.'

'The base? What base would that be?' asked Welsby.

'The military establishment,' tried Avedissian.

'My dear chap, there's no military establishment near Valham.'

'Not so much military, more scientific Civil Service really.'

'Oh I see, research and all that?'

'Exactly.'

'In this area you say… and I didn't know.’

Avedissian and Kathleen wished Welsby good-morning and returned to the car where they found O'Neill waiting. 'Nothing,’ he said.

'Nothing,’ they agreed.

'One good thing,’ said O'Neill.

Avedissian and Kathleen both turned towards him.

‘The pub's open.'

They had to wait outside while the landlord cleared away a number of full crates of lemonade from the doorway. He seemed ill tempered and keen to voice his displeasure. 'I dunno,’ he grumbled. 'Some folks has queer ideas.'

'Problems?' asked Avedissian.

The man paused to mop his brow and straighten his back. 'They order six crates for their trip and I humps them all out for them. Then they don't even bother to pick them up! I dunno.’

'Sign of the times,’ sympathised Avedissian.

The man finished clearing the passage and said, 'Right then, come away in. What'll it be?'

They took their drinks out to the back garden of the inn and nursed them in a general air of pessimism.

'I don't see what else we can do,’ said Kathleen and O'Neill agreed.

'There must be some kind of manor house that goes with a village this old,’ said Avedissian, thinking out loud.

'We can ask,’ said Kathleen.

The landlord's wife had arrived in the bar to be regaled with complaints from her husband about the uncollected lemonade and the sound drifted out into the garden where silence now reigned. 'Maybe they will come for it later, dear,’ soothed the woman.

'Don't be stupid, woman, they've already gone. I phoned the school.'

'Must have forgotten in the excitement, dear.’

'Downright thoughtlessness I call it,’ grumbled the man.

'Yes, dear,’ said the woman with a conspiratorial shrug to Avedissian and the others as she came out into the garden to collect glasses. 'Men!' she whispered in mock collusion. ‘Talk about us women moaning!'

Avedissian took the opportunity to ask the woman about a manor house and she covered her mouth before saying in an exaggerated whisper, 'Just as well you didn't ask Will about that. He might have gone through the roof! Our manor house, Trelford, was turned into a residential school some years ago. It was the school that ordered the lemonade!'

'Oh I see,’ said Avedissian, but his heart was not in it. Their last chance of finding something that Kell might be interested in Valham seemed to have gone. They got up to leave.

As they walked slowly back to the car Avedissian took a detour to look over a stone bridge at the village stream and Kathleen joined him. She saw the troubled look on his face and said, 'You've done all you can. You know you have.’

There has to be something,’ said Avedissian. 'It's just that we can't see it.’

Instead of turning the car, Avedissian drove out the other end of the village, hoping to loop round and re-join the main road. The road on this side of the village seemed even narrower than the one they had come in on and twisted hither and thither as if tracing the bed of some long-forgotten stream. Above them tall trees stretched out to intermingle their branches in a canopy that blocked out the sun.

Half a mile from the village they came to a pair of stone entrance pillars that had been deprived of the gates they once held. A modern-looking board was fixed to one of them, incongruous with its local authority writing. Trelford House School, it said. They glanced up the drive as they passed but could not see anything for the trees.

They drove on but suddenly Avedissian applied the brakes so hard that Kathleen, sitting in the back, was flung violently forward. 'What on earth?' she exclaimed.

'The school! It was the school!' said Avedissian excitedly.

'What about it? It was the one the landlord's wife told us about,' said Kathleen, exchanging puzzled looks with her brother.

'Don't you see? It was the school that Kell was interested in!'

'But why would Kell care about a school?'-asked Kathleen.

'Because of the kind of school it is! The signboard! It said Trelford House School… for Handicapped Young People".'

Kathleen and O'Neill still looked blank, completely unable to share Avedissian's excitement.

'Trelford must be one of the places to receive an invitation to the royal party! The landlord said that they were going on a trip today but they didn't pick up their lemonade! It's my guess that Kell is running the trip now. Kell doesn't need a tank to get through security. He has an official invitation!'

'My God, he'll be waved straight through!' said Kathleen.

‘The question is, how do we stop him?' said Avedissian.

'Kell must have left men at the house. They wouldn't all go,’ said O'Neill.

'We'll check it out. Make sure we're not barking up the wrong tree,' said Avedissian. He and O'Neill went back to take a look at the house while Kathleen found somewhere more suitable to park the car.

There was plenty of good ground cover up to about thirty metres from the house itself, where the trees stopped at the edge of a lawn. Avedissian and O'Neill crouched in the bushes where they could see the front of the house. There was no sign of anything being amiss. It seemed still and quiet.

After a few moments they heard a child cry out. It did not sound like a baby, more like a child of ten or eleven with a speech impediment. A deaf child perhaps. A woman moved across in front of one of the windows; she was followed by a man. O'Neill caught his breath and said, 'You were right. He's one of Kell's men.'

Avedissian took little pleasure in being proved right for time was weighing heavily against them. It was already after mid-day and the chances of finding out where the party was being held and getting there on time seemed remote, particularly if, as Bryant had said, it was not even being held in Norfolk. Their one chance of finding out anything seemed to lie within the house but that left them with the problem of how two unarmed men, one with only one arm, could take control of Trelford House. Avedissian suggested they find out more about the IRA presence in the school and O'Neill agreed. It was decided that O'Neill would remain hidden in the bushes and signal to Avedissian when it was clear for him to cross the front of the house.

Avedissian skirted through the shrubbery and emerged to look back for O'Neill's signal. A few seconds later O'Neill stood up to wave him across with a gesture of his hand. Their eyes only met for an instant but it was long enough for Avedissian to realise where he had seen that gesture before. He sprinted into the shadow of the wall but his mind was on other things. It had been O'Neill in the farmyard all those years ago.

Avedissian worked his way along the wall, listening under each window in turn. The front rooms seemed to be unoccupied. He started on the side, but it was not until he had rounded the back corner of the house that he could hear sounds coming from within. He managed to get a look through one of the windows and saw that some fifteen to twenty children were in a large back room being looked after by three women wearing nurses' uniforms. Two men were also present, one sat by the door with a gun in his lap, the other paced up and down.

The nurses were obviously under strain but the children, all badly handicapped, showed little sign of knowing what was going on. Victims of cerebral palsy moved as if controlled by unseen strings, others seemed totally preoccupied by what they were or were not doing. Some stared into space. Some stared at the floor.

Avedissian heard one of the nurses say loudly, as if arguing with a guard, 'I will have to change him. He's soiled himself!'

The nurse won the argument and wheeled out the boy, who lolled in the chair as if his bones had been removed. The sound of running water came from a room further along the wall of the house and Avedissian realised that this might be the chance he had been looking for. If he could speak to that nurse before she returned then maybe she could tell him what he needed to know.

He crept along the back wall till he was underneath the window with the frosted panes; it was slightly open at the foot. Avedissian put his hands on the bars that fronted the window and tried to attract the woman's attention. She seemed to be completely engrossed in what she was doing. She spoke to the boy as she cleaned him up, keeping up a trivial one-sided conversation but there was affection in her voice and that was all that mattered.

'Pssstt' Avedissian tried again during a brief lull in the words and this time he was heard. The woman came to kneel down by the gap. 'Have you come to rescue us?' she asked excitedly, with a quick glance over her shoulder at the bathroom door. 'You must stop them! You must stop the minibus!'

'There's, not much time,' whispered Avedissian. 'Please just answer my questions.'

The woman calmed down and nodded.

'Where is the" royal party being held?'

'Crookham House. It's in Leicestershire.'

'How many children have gone from here?'

'Twelve. They are in the school minibus.'

'How many men?'

‘Three, including the horrible little one in the pram.'

'Did they take any of the staff?'

'Two. Miss Sanders and Miss Crispin.'

'Help will be with you soon. I promise. Just keep calm and everything will be all right.'

Avedissian crawled along the base of the wall to the front corner of the house and waited till O'Neill waved him across. They crept back through the bushes together to the gate and ran along the road to join Kathleen. 'A phone! We must get to a phone!' said Avedissian. Kathleen, who was still in the driving seat, drove off along the winding road at breakneck speed. She screeched to a halt outside a call box and Avedissian, searching for coins in his pocket, dashed out to make the call.

He called the number that Sarah Milek had given him and shifted his feet impatiently while he waited for an answer. Impatience became despair as he realised that there was not going to be any answer. Sarah Milek wasn't there! As a last resort he made an anonymous call to the police and raised the alarm about Trelford School, urging caution with a warning that the IRA would be armed. Could the police get a warning to the security people at the royal birthday party?

The police operator who took the call was obviously of the opinion that he had a lunatic on the line and behaved accordingly, at once trying to humour and calm Avedissian and persuade him that he needed some kind of help. 'I'm serious!' insisted Avedissian.

'Of course, sir,' said the patronising voice. 'Perhaps we could start with your name and address…'

Avedissian slammed down the phone and rushed out to the car. He looked at his watch and said, Three hours! We've got three hours! It's just possible!'

Kathleen made to get out of the driving seat but Avedissian told her to stay where she was. 'You're a better driver,’ he said. 'Head east to Leicestershire!'

Avedissian and O'Neill searched through road maps in the car for Crookham but had no success until they found it listed in the National Trust book. They agreed on the best way to get to it when they came off the main road while Kathleen concentrated on the immediate problem of getting free of the winding Norfolk lanes that held them like a net.

Once on the main road they picked up speed but time was still running against them. They passed a mileage indicator sign with depressingly high figures on it. Kathleen pressed her foot harder to the floor but there was no place left for it to go. Avedissian felt the knots tighten in his stomach.

After thirty minutes O'Neill passed the National Trust book over to Avedissian saying, 'You'd better have this. You can give Kathleen directions when the time comes.'

Avedissian took it and said to O'Neill, 'We’ve met before.'

O'Neill looked at him strangely and waited for an explanation.

'We met in a farmyard once. I was wearing a uniform at the time and there was a child between us.'

O'Neill stared at Avedissian. 'It was you?' he whispered.

Avedissian nodded and both of them relived the moment.

'I owe you my life,’ said Avedissian.

'It was worth saving,’ said O'Neill.

'What was that?' asked Kathleen above the noise of the engine.

'Some other time,’ said Avedissian.

Roadworks outside Peterborough slowed their progress to an agonising crawl for nearly three miles and even when they had cleared them Kathleen was left with a long chain of commercial traffic to leap-frog past before they could make any real headway again. More than once blaring horns and blazing headlights signalled displeasure as Kathleen forced the issue. It was four p.m. when Avedissian said, ‘Turn left at the next junction,’ and they were on the road for Crookham.