The Shepherd File (4 page)

‘Large quantities,' repeated Morrison. He made a note. ‘You were thinking about chemical warfare?’

‘Lots of people are — it's the new vogue.'

‘Oh-is it?'

‘Safer than bacteriological — fewer after-effects and can’t get out of control. The Americans call it a caponiser weapon and the Russians
prekratitel
voiny
— a war-stopper weapon. So it is, in theory.’

‘In theory?’

‘No one has tested it in practice.'

‘How would it be distributed?'

‘You would infiltrate agents into enemy territory and dope the reservoirs. You could then, during the following twelve hours, occupy their main cities without resistance. In theory, of course, if you continued to dope the reservoirs, you would never have any resistance.’

Morrison struggled with his growing disbelief.

‘It would be dropped in reservoirs?'

That’s right — and would contaminate the water supply.’

‘So everybody would be doped?’

‘That is the theory.'

‘And would get hallucinations?’

The same effect as taking drugs.’

‘And this could be done to all the London reservoirs?’

‘In theory, there’s nothing to stop it being done. LSD is odourless and tasteless and it dissolves in water.’

‘Put an entire city into a trance,’ said Morrison. The idea fascinated him. ‘Well. What would an entranced population do?’

‘Sit about. Look at things. Not take any interest in what was happening around them.’

‘Couldn’t be roused to danger?’

‘Not at all.’

Morrison said: ‘This is serious, is it? This sort of thing is possible?’

‘Perfectly possible,’ said Pendlebury. ‘Indeed there are many people as well as strategists who consider it preferable to conventional war.’

‘Does it have any after-effects?’

‘An ordinary dose doesn’t.’

‘You’re doped for twelve hours and then come round?’

‘From, shall we say, three to twelve hours, depending on the amount.’

‘No ill effects?’

‘None, providing it was done properly.’

‘It immobilizes a city while the paratroops take over.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Then they all wake up?’

‘Unless they are unfortunate enough to have had an overdose.’

‘What happens then?’

‘We don’t know,’ said Pendlebury. ‘So far no one has had an overdose, at least not to our knowledge. But we suspect they would probably suffer damage to some of the brain cells and go mad.’

‘Well, well,’ said Morrison. It all sounded unbelievable to him but by now he had come to recognize that many things would always be unbelievable to his rather pragmatic intelligence. He had to take Pendlebury seriously. Pendlebury was a boffin. A chief boffin. Otherwise Morrison would have treated the story differently: with disrespect. ‘Right,’ said Morrison. ‘The factory in Libya is producing this stuff. I take it there’s no doubt about it?’

‘None,’ said Lamb. ‘If Shepherd said they’re producing it, they’re producing it.’

‘Where’s it going?’ said Morrison; and there was silence. Pendlebury shrugged his shoulders and seemed to go into some trance of his own. Lamb looked glum and shook his head.

‘I’ve thought about that,’ said Pendlebury, at length. ‘Ever since I read the Foreign Office memo. It’s disturbing. What I mean is — it’s all right trying to tell laymen what this thing is like but it doesn’t really carry conviction and it doesn’t really register. It’s like trying to describe the effects of a fifty-megaton explosion. You wouldn’t really understand unless you saw it. It’s the same with these new compounds, these hallucinogens. People tell you it would dope the population of an entire city and that it’s a harmless drug. So it is, in one way. Even so, imagine the trains and buses crashing into each other as the drivers passed out. Thousands would be killed. Then, if there was an overdose — ’ Pendlebury shook his head. ‘It’s not science-fiction,’ he said. ‘It could be a city of raving idiots. That’s what I mean — it’s difficult to convey the possibilities and dangers.’

‘And they’re making this in Africa?’ said Morrison. The words hung in the air.

Uplands

Nothing seemed to happen for about a week. Morrison disappeared. Inspector Post was nowhere to be seen. The others remained at their desks and waited to see what would mature; and when nothing did and day passed day without any apparent development or any word from Morrison, they followed their own preoccupations with their own particular aspects of the case. Holmes was anxious; he was anxious not only about the Shepherd affair for its own sake but about the effect it was having on the relationship between the Foreign Office and Lamb; a small but bitter departmental war was now raging, an avalanche of complaints building up in the Cabinet Office.

Frensham, the secretary to the Cabinet, who was an amiable man and disliked rows, tackled Holmes in the corridor one morning with an alarmed: ‘My dear Holmes, can’t you do anything to stop them?’

Holmes, who had been thinking for some time how to do that, murmured it was very difficult, grimaced, smiled, hurried on, waved, and said he would see Frensham later. He had no intention of seeing Frensham later. It was the only way he could escape. The trouble, as Holmes knew, was that in their own ways Scott Elliot and Lamb were both right, on the minor points of departmental responsibility which had started the row; but by now the dispute had widened so considerably and its frontiers had been so extended that no one quite remembered how it had started or what the original argument had been about. It was a nagging accompaniment to the main intractable problem.

What sort of man was Shepherd: had he betrayed Foreign Office secrets, as Scott Elliot believed, or had his meeting with the Russian some other purpose? Holmes waited impatiently for Morrison to report. But Morrison was not a man to be hurried. He would take his time.

Meanwhile Holmes made discreet enquiries, not about Shepherd nor his mission, but about Africa. He went through the Foreign Office intelligence reports: the blue-flimsy file on Africa became his bedside reading; he turned up unexpectedly at diplomatic receptions, seeking the men who could give him information, he haunted embassies with strange emblems, over whose doors, in Kensington and Notting Hill, hung little-known flags. Some of the men he talked to were flattered by his interest, others were suspicious, one or two hostile. One morning, as he was about to arrange lunch with a gentleman from the Sudan, came a message that Morrison would like to see him. Holmes discarded the idea of the lunch. He invited Morrison over.

Morrison settled in the familiar armchair and had a grateful sip of the best malt before unburdening himself. They had made some progress in tracing Shepherd’s movements.

Shepherd had flown back to London from Cairo but had not had his interview with Scott Elliot until the following day. That evening he had gone home, had spent the night at home with his wife and son, and had left the next morning for London where he had gone into hospital. He had discharged himself within twenty-four hours. ‘The excuse was that he didn’t like the place,’ said Morrison. ‘They say he was very difficult. He had a row with the doctor.’

Shepherd had gone home, had been at home a day, and the following day had seen a man in Harley Street, a homoeopathic consultant, who had told Morrison that Shepherd seemed to have been in ‘a high state of nerves’ and ‘very excited’.

Morrison consulted his notebook, which he had placed open on the arm of the chair. The consultant was one of a group of four in a practice which utilized the services of a private nursing home in Belgravia and a nature-cure establishment in Surrey. Morrison was not clear whether the consultant brought up the subject of nature cure or Shepherd, but whoever had done so, they had rung up the matron of the nature-cure establishment from the consulting-rooms and Shepherd had gone down there that afternoon.

‘He seems,’ said Morrison, ‘to have taken elaborate precautions either to establish an alibi or cover his tracks.’

The nature-cure place was highly respectable and under distinguished patronage. Its clients were mostly wealthy business men who had been over-indulgent, and middle-aged women who wanted to slim, who would go for courses of treatment which included dieting, brine and sauna baths and massage. This provided the basic income but, at the same time, the place seemed to have some genuine patients who were treated, under orthodox medical supervision, on strict diets, mostly for stomach troubles. The matron, said Morrison, was a Mrs Wrythe, who was chairman of an international health food organization, organizing honorary secretary of a pure water campaign, and had a number of reliable social connections, being the daughter of the late Bishop of Pensford.

‘Extraordinary!’ chuckled Morrison, seeing the expression on Holmes’ face. ‘But there’s no doubt she has a reputation as a dietician and a masseuse. She’s a crank, of course, but she was trained originally at St Thomas’s so she has a professional background. She’s apparently looked on by the health food magazines as the leading light of the new food movement.’

‘What’s the name of this place?’

‘Uplands, near Pirbright.’

‘I seem to have heard the name.’

‘You may have. She has a scrapbook full of newspaper cuttings,’ Morrison said. ‘It’s a genuine place all right.’ He reeled off the names of the patrons; a list of men and women with titles, orders and decorations, but — as Morrison pointed out — no scientists and few doctors. ‘They’ve got a thing against science,’ said Morrison. ‘Science is bogus. It poisons the atmosphere.’

Holmes looked interested. ‘Did you go into this?’

‘The science bit? Once she got on to that it was difficult to stop her talking. But she gave me a number of leaflets and things.’

‘May I see?’

Morrison grinned. He rummaged in his briefcase and produced a neatly printed pamphlet with a photograph of a large country house on the cover. The text inside was discreet and reasonable, not in any way strident or on the defensive, as Holmes had expected from what he had known of other nature-cure establishments.

‘This Mrs Wrythe must be rather an exceptional woman?’

‘She is that.’ Morrison finished his whisky and began to search for his pipe. ‘Formidable, I thought. Bit batty but highly efficient.’

‘And is there a Mr Wrythe?’

‘Not now. I gather he was a doctor and died years ago. She is convinced that if they’d had the right diet at the time he could have been cured. She started Uplands with the money he left her.’

Holmes murmured something that might have been an expression of sympathy, or of interest, and studied the pamphlet with a frown. He flicked over the pages and then put the pamphlet on his desk, after asking Morrison whether he might keep it. Morrison said he might do so. Morrison was curious. ‘Are you,’ he asked, ‘going down to see her?’

‘I might,’ murmured Holmes. ‘But tell me more.’

There was not a great deal more. Shepherd had arrived at Uplands on the Friday night. Just before lunch on Saturday morning he had left in his car, ostensibly to go home to collect some clothes and a dressing-gown, but he had never got there. That afternoon he had the meeting with Nina Lydoevna on the banks of the Thames at Runnymede, which had been witnessed by the Foreign Office man tailing the Russian’s movements, and after that he had vanished. His car had been left at Runnymede. His body was recovered from the river at Staines three days later.

‘What about the widow?’ asked Holmes.

Morrison had had two visits to the bungalow at Bray where Mrs Shepherd and her small boy lived but he had found very little and she had been uncooperative. Morrison had put a man on to watch the bungalow but he did not think she knew anything.

‘I got the impression,’ Morrison said, ‘that she was not only uncooperative but definitely hostile. I had to dig all the information out of her. She volunteered practically nothing.’

Holmes asked what sort of woman she was.

‘Good-looking; young,’ said Morrison, promptly. ‘Probably,’ he added, ‘impulsive.’

‘Where did Shepherd meet her?’

‘At a nightclub in Brussels. She was what they call a hostess. Nothing wrong though. The department vetted her pretty thoroughly when Shepherd married. Lamb says she was a remarkably nice girl from a rather dull home who wanted the bright lights. She was attractive but was apparently pretty cagey about men. Not the usual kind of hostess,’ said Morrison, with a meaningful emphasis on the word hostess. ‘But then,’ he added, ‘you get all sorts.’

Holmes felt that that was indeed true; and wondered whether Morrison would even go so far as to say that it took all sorts to make a world but Morrison didn’t, because he was engaged in the difficult operation of getting his pipe to draw. There seemed to be a blockage.

‘I think,’ said Holmes, ‘I’ll go and have a look at Uplands.’

*

Uplands was more or less what he expected; but Mrs Wrythe was not. He had thought of her, when he wrote on his private notepaper for an appointment, as a rather well-meaning, idealistic, and perhaps slightly fluffy person. The letter he had had back was crisp and business-like. If Mr Holmes would call at such-and-such a time she would see him. Holmes had written back to confirm the appointment and had hired a chauffeur-driven Rolls to drive him down in state and bring him back again. The chauffeur had been well primed about his employer. Holmes was a rich and neurotic young man who had had a nervous breakdown and was seeking a way back to health.

Holmes had gone to some lengths to establish a background that would justify a visit; but he need not have troubled. Mrs Wrythe was apparently used to visits from people whom doctors had failed to cure and she hardly bothered to ask him who he was. Holmes was shown into a large and well-furnished entrance hall by a maid and, at her request, signed a visitors’ book. He noted the names of other visitors with interest. The signature above his was that of a retired general and above the general’s name was a fairly notorious woman novelist’s.

‘I am sorry to keep you waiting.’

Mrs Wrythe stood before him. His first impression was of a woman doctor. She wore a white coat. Her fair hair, streaked with grey, was cut neat and close to her head. This first impression was one she had deliberately set out to create. The second impression was of a natural and unaffected charm. She was not much over forty.

Holmes played his part to perfection. He stumbled a little, hesitated, put questions obliquely without doing more than to suggest what he had really wanted to say. Mrs Wrythe was understanding.

‘Here at Uplands,’ she said, ‘we believe in a completely natural way of treating bodily and mental ills. To begin with, Mr Holmes, most of the food that you are now eating is contaminated.’

‘Is it really?’ Holmes was alarmed. ‘Not — you don’t mean — actually contaminated?’

‘Take vegetables,’ said Mrs Wrythe. ‘To have frozen vegetables or have them treated with preservatives and encased in metal is bad enough. That destroys the natural vitamins. But, what is far worse, there is now hardly a vegetable garden in the country which is not poisoned.’

‘Weed killers?’ suggested Holmes.

‘More than weed killers,’ said Mrs Wrythe.

‘No!’

‘Oh, yes, indeed. Far more. The old-fashioned weed killers were not active poisons. But the new ones are. The new potent insecticides contain chemicals which are positively harmful. You may have heard of aldrin, dieldrin or hepta-chlor, Mr Holmes?'

Mr Holmes said he had not.

‘They are the components of some of the latest insecticides. Some of the worst have been banned but governments can do little against the cupidity and foolishness of man. These chemicals, sprayed on the fields, destroy all insects. If the birds eat the insects the birds themselves die. But the spray remains on the vegetables. It is absorbed into the vegetables through the roots. It is harmless in small doses. But it builds up, gradually and cumulatively. Not only this. Even the very water that farmers use to irrigate their fields contains dangerous compounds like chlorine and sodium fluoride added to natural water in the interests of so-called hygiene. Take bread — '

‘Ah, yes, bread,' said Holmes, nodding wisely, impressed.

The bleach added to flour, the residual deposits of atomic explosions, floating down from the outer atmosphere, the pesticides and insecticides, the colouring and preservatives in our meat, the sprays in the field, the chemicals in the water — all these things, Mr Holmes — the conscious and unconscious use of chemicals in our food at a rate which increases every year adds up to a dreadful overall picture. We are,' she declared, ‘gradually and persistently poisoning the whole human environment.’

‘There is much in what you say,' murmured Holmes.

‘And you — ' she said, throwing out an accusing forefinger ‘ — are also poisoned!'

Holmes shrank a little. ‘I suppose so,’ he murmured. ‘Putting it that way.'

‘We all are! None of us live healthy lives. Our civilization is not only artificial but it is now contaminating itself.’

‘It's terribly serious,' said Holmes. ‘Terribly.’

‘Of course it is,' said Mrs Wrythe, easily. ‘But, more and more, throughout the world, people are coming to realize what is happening.'

Mrs Wrythe spoke with hope and enthusiasm. The small movement which she had founded eighteen years ago had spread to a number of countries. Fruit and vegetables were grown on specially treated compost, in trays, under glass, protected from contamination. A diet of fresh fruit and vegetables together with brine and sauna baths and daily massage had brought miracle cures of cases given up as hopeless, authenticated by doctors.