Seventy-Seven Clocks

∨ Seventy-Seven Clocks ∧

50

Glorious Sacrifice

One of the constables was holding him down on the grass when they arrived. The young Asian man was wearing a standard police-issue navy-blue raincoat and cap, and had been stationed alone at the side of the house.

PC Bimsley, clearly elated by his newfound respect as a useful member of the force, had spotted the bogus officer reaching into his jacket as he crouched beside the parlour window, studying the family through the curtains.

“It was his shoes, Sir,” said Bimsley, panting. “Black plimsolls.”

“Well done, Bimsley,” said Land. “You can take your foot off his throat now.” Together he and Bryant helped the silent figure to his feet, and the detective superintendent pulled him close to get a good look.

“Look at his eyes, Raymond.”

“My God.” Land took a sharp step back. Their captive’s eyes had an opaque, filmy appearance, as if they had been boiled dry.

“The poor bugger’s blind, and he still turned up to fulfill his duty,” said Bryant. “When you take him to the van, be careful with him, Bimsley. He may try to harm himself.”

The constable tried to move his prisoner, but the man refused to budge. Suddenly it was as if a plug had been disconnected, for the assassin dropped silently to his knees and fell forward onto his face in the grass.

“He’s in a trance state.” Bryant was fascinated. “It’s a complex Eastern ritual based on a combination of scientific and occult principles involving hypnosis, local medicines, and invocations. I’ve read a lot about it, but never actually seen it in action.”

“Christ Almighty, Bryant, this isn’t Open University,” fumed Land. “We’ll have to take your word for it. I’m a pragmatic man. I like my explanations clear-cut. This – ” He pressed the toe of his boot against the prostrate prisoner’s shoulder, disgusted. “This doesn’t fit in anywhere. There are no rules in this kind of situation. How the hell are we supposed to know when we’ve caught them all? Take him away, Bimsley, for God’s sake.”

“Sir, there’s a call for you in the car,” said Sergeant Longbright, who had just arrived from the hospital. Bryant walked briskly around to her vehicle, slid into the passenger seat, and pulled the handset free. “Bryant.”

“Sir, this is Mr Rand at the guild.”

“Has the tontine device burned itself out?”

“Yes, Sir. The damage is shameful. After all these years…” The old Indian sounded disappointed that the astrolabe had been shut down. Even though he was merely a maintenance engineer, Rand possessed the true spirit of the guild craftsmen. “I have been trying to decode the final set of transmissions. The calls went to North London, seven of them in all. I think I can get the addresses of the recipients.”

“Give them to an officer after you’ve finished talking to me,” said Bryant. “What about the targets?”

“That’s why I called you, Sir. It’s all of them.”

“What do you mean? The whole Whitstable family?”

“That’s right, Sir, every single one.”

Bryant thought fast. The machine’s final command had fallen on the alliance’s anniversary. In its attempt to clear away its enemies in one broad sweep, the misaligned device had targeted the wrong group.

“Thanks for the warning, Mr Rand. There’s something I wanted to ask you earlier.” It had bothered him when he’d first seen Rand’s office, but the question had been pushed from his mind by more urgent matters. “When you need supplies for the maintenance room, who approves the orders?”

“Mr Tomlins, Sir. I report only to him.”

Bryant had been convinced of the guild secretary’s involvement at some level. Tomlins had tried to obstruct the investigation right from the start.

“Do you have a way of contacting him at home?”

As Rand was giving him the address, Bryant kept the front of the house in view through the rain-smeared windscreen of the car. There was a sudden flash of movement as someone darted between the bushes. Leaving Rand holding on the line, Bryant ducked out of the vehicle and began to run back to the house.

“You there, look out!”

The constable turned in time to deflect the blow but could not avoid it altogether. He slipped backwards and fell into the grass, his attacker landing squarely on top of him. Before Bryant could reach the fighting pair, Longbright ran forward. She swiped the assassin a hefty blow across the back of the head with her torch.

“Duracell batteries,” she said, rolling the inert body off the squashed constable. “Very dependable.”

“Seven assassins,” said Bryant, fighting to regain his breath. “Of course, it has to be seven. The Stewards.”

“Don’t put this man anywhere near the other one,” he told the sergeant. “You’d better call for another secure van. We’re going to need it.” He left them and walked off along the side of the house, shining his torch into the bushes. The rain was growing heavier once more, and the beam’s visibility was reducing to a tunnel of grey mist. Bryant wanted to check that May was all right inside the house. There were still five more assassins to be located.

At first, he assumed that the figure walking briskly towards him across the lawn was another officer. Then his torch picked up a streak of steel in the figure’s left hand, and he realized that he had located the third assassin. This one was bull-necked, younger, fresher.

He looked back at the side of the house, but the remaining officers had moved to the front where they were presumably helping Sergeant Longbright with her prisoner.

Bryant had no weapon on him of any kind. He was alone.

He felt a cold prickling behind his knees and at the back of his neck as he realized the recklessness of the situation in which he had placed himself. He had done the exact thing he had warned others against. The assassin was almost upon him as the detective backed up against the brickwork and shone the torch at his assailant’s eyes. For a moment the man faltered, blinded.

Bryant rolled away from the wall and ran up on to the lawn.

The wetness of the grass had greased the slope. His foot slipped beneath him and over he went, painfully on to his knees and then his back, helplessly spread before his attacker. The assassin stood over him, swaying slightly in the rain. Then he dropped forward, the knife raised at his waist. Bryant felt the cold hand of death seize his heart.

Suddenly there were two of them, one clinging to the back of the other. Longbright had seized her chance and was attempting to haul the assassin over on the garden steps. “Run, Mr Bryant!” she shouted as their protagonist’s left arm flew up and his blade slashed the air, striking at Longbright’s chest.

The sergeant cried out as Bryant staggered to his feet and called for help. Officers were pouring into the rainswept garden. Two of them pulled Longbright free, grabbing the assailant by his wrists and forcing him to release the knife, which spiraled harmlessly into the turf. Bryant caught Longbright as she slipped back, the front of her sou’wester slashed apart. He tore open the raincoat and examined the wound. The flesh of her chest had been cut, but not deeply. The heavy material had absorbed the brunt of the attack.

“Thank God I wear an upholstered brassiere,” she told him breathlessly, somewhat amazed by her escape.

“You’re going to have a small, intriguing scar,” he said, tousling the sergeant’s wet hair. “Aren’t you glad I made you wrap up warm?”

Shocked by her brush with death, Longbright looked back at the anguished young Asian twisting in his captors’ arms.

“There are four more on the loose,” Bryant said urgently. “I think one’s already inside. Look at the roof.”

As Bryant loped off in the direction of the front door, Longbright looked up and saw the smashed glass of the skylight lying on the tiles.

Land was returning to the patrol car when he rounded the end of the garden wall and walked directly into an elderly Indian gentleman. His shout of surprise alerted the men in the car, who ran to his help just as the killer lashed out at the soft flesh of his throat. The superintendent stumbled against the wall, gasping for breath as his attacker surrendered. “I did not want to do this!” shouted the old man. “I am paying the debt for my son!” The officers led him away.

As Bryant pushed open the front door of the house, Susan Whitstable hit him on the head with an omelette pan. “I’m frightfully sorry,” she said, not sounding sorry at all. “I thought you were one of them. Why are you making so much noise outside? The children are trying to sleep.”

“Where’s my partner?” asked Bryant, rubbing his skull and shoving past her to the foot of the stairs.

“We have enough trouble keeping track of our own people without having to find your staff for you,” Susan said, walking back to the dining room still clutching the pan. As Bryant began to climb the stairs, his torch beam faltered.

“Oh no, not again.” He felt sure that somewhere up above, the spirit of James Makepeace Whitstable was watching over the house, enjoying their battle to hold back the darkness. Upon reaching the landing he found himself without any light. From somewhere further along the hallway came the sound of scuffling. Then a hand shot out and pushed him back against the wall.

“He’s got Berta Whitstable tied up in there,” whispered May. “I think he’s arming some kind of explosive device. I saw him detaching a large wired object from his belt.”

“I wondered if they would resort to something like that,” hissed Bryant. “Nothing short of an explosion would get rid of this lot. The orders came in to remove all of the remaining Whitstables tonight. What can we do?”

“Go back downstairs and start getting everyone out of the house as quietly as possible. Send one of the armed officers up. No more than one, though. I need the element of surprise, but I daren’t tackle him alone. Berta’s still in there, and he could trigger the device.”

Bryant ran down the stairs and opened the living room door. Everyone was seated around one of the girls, who was reading aloud. How typical of the Whitstables to set up a reading circle when their lives are under threat, he thought. Gathering a pair of officers, he sent one upstairs to May, and had the other assist him.

“I want your attention,” said Bryant, stepping into the centre of the circle. “Everybody, please.” Several Whitstables craned their heads to one side, gesturing for him to move.

“We’re reading A Christmas Carol,” said one of Susan Whitstable’s daughters. “We always do at Christmas. It’s nearly the end and you’re spoiling it.”

“Scrooge beats Tiny Tim to death with his crutch,” said Bryant maliciously. “Now, I want you all to move outside as quickly and as quietly as possible.”

There was a chorus of protest. “But it’s pouring!”

“Have the girls got time to go and change?” asked Susan, indicating her offspring with the omelette pan.

“Everyone must go right now, in the clothes you’re wearing.”

“I’m wearing a Cecil Gee sweater,” complained Nigel Whitstable. “If the colours run I’m sending you the bill.”

“If you’re not all out of this room in twenty seconds, I’ll have you dragged out,” Bryant warned, hoisting two of the smaller children to their feet. “You shouldn’t be listening to Dickens at your age, you’re too impressionable.”

“Daddy says we can do whatever we please because you’re public servants!” said Berta’s granddaughter, Delilah Whitstable. The others started to file out, complaining as they went.

“He does, does he?” Bryant looked for her father as he lifted the child into his arms. “I must remember to see if his road tax has expired.”

Outside, in the dark, in sliding sheets of rain, Longbright stood alone, watching the trees for movement. She wiped her torch against her sodden trousers. When she raised the beam, she saw the assassin walking towards her from the end of the garden. Tall, middle-aged, and sickly, he was nevertheless dangerous. In his left hand was a long-handled weeding fork, presumably all he could find in the gardener’s shed.

She walked towards him, wary but unafraid.

He came to an unsteady halt and peered at her. The rain had plastered his hair flat, giving him a skeletal appearance.

“You are Whitstable?” he asked awkwardly.

“No, I’m a police officer, and you must put down your weapon.”

He seemed so pathetic that she almost felt sorry for him. Lumbering at her, he raised the red metal fork, but long before it could connect she clouted him with the house brick in her hand, stone cracking against bone. Knocked from his feet, he fell into the weeds, raised himself on one arm, then dropped.

Longbright tossed the brick aside and walked away. Usually, she kept one in her immense handbag, but tonight she had left the bag back at the unit.

Upstairs, May and the constable had been discovered. The assassin was standing in the bathroom doorway, unsure of his next move. Behind him Berta lay whimpering on the tiled floor with a towel knotting her ankles and a flannel stuffed in her mouth. In front of her was a heavy six-inch-thick steel disc, joined to an electronic detonator. After appraising the situation and recognizing the conditions of a stalemate, the assassin knelt and calmly continued setting the detonator.

“We have to get him to hand her over,” May whispered to the constable. “He’s going to set the thing off without worrying about himself.” During his career in the force, May had never encountered the most dangerous kind of assassin: a fanatic prepared for glorious sacrifice, unconcerned for his own survival. At this point in the twentieth century, such people were still a rarity. “Can you pick him off from here?”

“I can’t be certain, sir. He’s too close to the woman.”

“Then hold your fire. Wait here for a minute.” May slowly crept forward, his eye fixed on the detonator.

“Your orders were wrong!” he called suddenly, making the assassin start and Berta Whitstable flinch. “You’re not supposed to hurt these people. I know that’s what you’ve been told to do, but the command has been canceled. Please, don’t move.” Knowing he could not dissuade, May spoke to divert. He directed the armed officer to edge towards the assassin, who looked up only briefly before returning his attention to the bomb.

“Stay there and keep me covered,” May told the officer, lowering himself slowly to the ground with a grunt. “And to think my mother told me I’d be happier in a desk job.”

He began to move forward, one foot shifting quietly in front of the other. The assassin finished twisting the wire caps of the detonator shut. He turned a switch, set the box down and took a step back, bracing his wasted body for the worst. Behind him, Berta spat out the flannel and began to scream.

Judging by the size of the casing, the bomb blast would be too big to contain by simply throwing himself on it. May looked at the floor, judging the positions of assassin and captive. Towels had been dragged from the rail above the radiator; several had fallen on the floor. It was all he needed to see.

The assassin was still staring at him, waiting for the safety countdown to end, when May threw his torso forward. Moving with a speed that surprised them all, he slid into the bathroom with as much force as he could muster, slapping the steel disc across the floor. It skittered over the polished bathroom tiles like a hockey puck and thudded into the towels which had fallen against the far wall.

Berta released a howl of fear as the armed officer darted in and brought his knee up hard into the assassin’s stomach, punching the breath from him. The man landed hard on the floor as May twisted the bomb’s safety timer back.

“Some help up here, please,” he shouted, untying Berta’s ankles and pushing her from the room, out of harm’s way. As officers thundered up the staircase and prepared to take their prisoner, May leant against the wall to regain his breath, and realized how very, very tired he had suddenly become.

Behind him, still connected, the bomb’s countdown read-out zeroed itself, jumped back to override: mins: 5:00, and began to flicker downwards once more.

“Take him downstairs quickly,” May told his men as he passed them on the stairs. “There’s still one assassin loose, in or around the house. Nobody’s safe until he can be found.”