The Boy Who Liked Monsters (Commander Shaw Book 19) by Philip McCutchan

Author:Philip McCutchan [McCutchan, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Endeavour Media
Published: 2018-04-18T22:00:00+00:00

Ten

It was really quite simple, at any rate the first stage was: Perro, as was confirmed to me as the bulky man’s name when the woman Tanya spoke to him, had sophisticated means of communication. Radio and TV transmitters and receivers, an ability to monitor the world’s wavelengths, and so on. But for a start only the simple telephone was required; and I was to use it to call Focal House, which Perro seemed to know all about.

“You will call your chief, Commander Shaw.” He paused, looking at me searchingly. “What is his name?”

I said, “We call him John.”

“Yes? He is the democratic sort?”

I said he was.

“John.”

“Yes.”

There was a short laugh. “No. He is known to you as Max.”

“Oh,” I said. That was one long shot gone for a burton: addressed as John, Max would have smelt a rather big rat, but it was not to be. “Well, you know best. Let’s settle for Max, then. But I’m not putting through any calls to him, M’sieur Perro.”

“I believe you will,” Perro said with confidence. I glanced round at Felicity, the obvious means of ensuring my compliance. Her face was whiter than ever but she was an experienced field person who’d faced this sort of thing before, many times. But of course it was me who would be expected to break when the squeeze was put on Felicity. I, too, was experienced; but there does come a time when you can’t sit back and watch suffering. However, this time it wasn’t to be Felicity at all.

Perro spoke in an aside to the woman Tanya, and she left the room. We remained, standing in silence. Out of sight, a clock ticked. I looked through the windows, across the garden towards the cypresses in the cemetery. I wondered if that cemetery had been one of the places where the Gestapo of so many years ago had buried the French dead after torture. But most likely the victims would have been conveyed alive elsewhere in sealed vans, by road or rail, to the gas chambers or the cremation furnaces, a cleaner and easier disposal. Whether or not there were torture victims buried there, the cemetery had a haunted look, and there was a sense of utter desolation as the shades of evening began to come down, and Perro switched on an overhead light.

Within a couple of minutes Tanya came back and she had brought the boy with her.

Perro said, “This is James Jervolino.”

I said, “Hullo, James.”

He didn’t answer, standing there with the woman’s grip on his shoulder, tongue-tied and dead scared. His eyes were red and puffy and he had a sniff. Basically they were dark eyes, Italian eyes. He was a sturdy little boy physically, with dark, curly hair. In his left hand he carried a teddy bear; it was wearing a kilt in what I recognised as the Mackenzie tartan. I said, “So teddy’s a Scot, is he?”

He nodded. He still didn’t speak; he just stared at me as if expecting help, as if perhaps we were the cops, English variety if not the Americans he’d have thought would come.

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