Sounds From Another Room

168 Pages·2014·2.52 MB·English

by  Peter Horsley

SOUNDS FROM ANOTHER ROOM
SOUNDS FROM
ANOTHER ROOM
by
PETER HORSLEY
First published in Great Britain in 1997 by
LEO COOPER
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS
© Peter Horsley
ISBN 0 85052 581 0
A catalogue record for this book is
available from the British Library
Printed in England by Redwood Books, Trowbridge, Wiltshire
To
ANNIE
My Long-Suffering Wife
Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword
1. The Clinic
2. A Miserable Start
3. Escape to Sea
4. The Royal Air Force
5. Before The Storm
6. The Storm
7. Voices
8. The Road Ahead
9. A Stately Room
10. Visitors
11. The Corridors of Power
12. Caught in a Web
13. The Beginning of the End
Index
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to acknowledge the help of his wife, Annie, with the editing; his
secretary, Mary Churcher, for all the many hours of typing; Leo Cooper of Pen & Sword
Books Limited for all his kindness and patience; Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Bloomsbury
Publishing Limited for their generous agreement for the use of the extract from The
Feather Men; This England Magazine for their permission to reproduce the poem by John
Magee; David Higham Associates for permission to publish John Pudney’s poem
‘Breakfast’, and finally his lucky stars for having lived through it all.
Foreword
Long introductions are tedious to reader and writer alike so this Foreword is short. My
story is not the traditional saga of some minor military figure; it recounts a number of
separate events, each true and of such intensity at the time that they altered the pattern of
my life thereafter, like coral polyps shaping a reef.
I like to compare it to a house whose main rooms are the events I shall describe and the
corridors between but the passage of time. The rooms themselves are of such variety they
might have been designed by different architects and with each furnished in the style of its
immediate tenants.
There is a mystery about the house, for on occasions there would appear to be a house
within a house, one living in the present, the other in a parallel time and dimension. The
whispers and sounds of the other occupants sometimes break through from the recesses of
a distant and unknown room, though message and messengers remain tantalizingly
elusive.
Both style and time may at times seem confusing but there is a reason for this.
Orphaned early, I was a lonely child, often thrown back on my own resources and
imagination. With no one close enough to whom I could reveal my innermost secrets, I
became a compulsive scribbler, and remain one. So the book is a mixture of what I
actually wrote at the time and what I have written since, from diaries and notes. For
example, my school diaries are written exactly as they were at the time and ‘The Storm’
was written shortly after the event.
Just ten years ago I was involved in a very serious accident which, at the time, seemed
to have been caused by some quite inexplicable malfunction of my car. As I lay at the
roadside, not far from death, the whole story of my life passed in front of me, like a film
that was madly out of control.
A most remarkable explanation of the cause of that accident was later provided by Sir
Ranulph Fiennes in his book The Feather Men. It appears that I was the innocent tool of a
terrorist gang who had decided to use my car as a murder weapon. A former officer in the
Special Air Service, Sir Ranulph is very familiar with the shadowy world of terrorism and
I have no reason to challenge the facts as he gives them, even though several questions
remain unanswered. As it was this extraordinary and devastating experience which
triggered the idea behind this book of mine, he has very kindly allowed me to reproduce
that story as my opening chapter.
1
The Clinic*
It happened a long time ago in a far off desert country. The four sons of Sheik Amar Bin
Issa were killed in an ambush in the South Yemen by British forces. The Sheik swore an
oath of revenge on his sons’ killers.
‘The Clinic’ were a European gang of ruthless hired assassins who banded together to
kill for money. The Sheik finally met the leader of the gang in Dubai and took out a
contract on his sons’ killers – a million dollars down payment, and a further million dollars
for each of four films proving the assassinations; one stipulation of the contract was that
the deaths were to appear accidental, arousing no suspicions of murder in the minds of
relations or friends.
‘The Feather Men’ were a British group – feather because their touch was light. They
took into their grasp crimes which were beyond the powers of the ordinary police. The
Feather Men relentlessly pursued the IRA in Northern Ireland, moving silently against
those members who had escaped the hands of the law through lack of evidence. They also
took under their wing the families of the SAS [Special Air Service] and established a body
of watchdogs to look after their interests. The Feather Men were controlled by a
committee† of senior establishment figures under the chairmanship of Colonel Tommy
Macintosh.
So far the Clinic had fulfilled half their contract by ‘arranging’ the deaths of
Superintendent John Milling, a former Marine, and a police officer in the Omani Police
Air Wing in a helicopter ‘air accident’ by tampering with the pilot’s collective control
lever. After an unequal aerodynamic battle, the helicopter plunged into the sea, killing
John Milling. They had then settled the fate of Major Mike Kealy, Special Air Service,
who died of ‘exposure’ in a climbing accident in the Brecon Beacons. He was leading a
batch of SAS trainees on a forced march in atrocious weather conditions when he became
separated from his charges. Kealy was then ambushed by the gang who drugged him and
left him to die on the mountain in the cold and swirling fog. Later on they would deal with
Corporal ‘Mac’, the last of the four, and even attacked Ranulph Fiennes himself close to
his Exmoor Farm. He was only rescued by the intervention of the Feather Men who had
been watching the gang as they circled his farm.
The Clinic now turned their attention to Major Michael Marman. They had broken into
Marman’s Clapham home while he was out shopping and had photographed his diary.
During their escape, however, they were recognized by a member of the Feather Men who
had been watching their unlawful activities for some time. Mike Marman was immediately
warned that he was on the Clinic’s hit list as a former member of the Sultan of Oman’s
Armed Forces. The Feather Men meanwhile arranged for John Smythe, an active
watchdog, and a team of local volunteers to mount a round-the-clock surveillance of
Marman.
The Clinic had then to decide how to dispose of Major Marman. After considerable
argument between members of the gang, it was decided to dispatch him in a road accident.
Meier, the technical member, had already perfected the ‘Boston brakes’ method in
America. This involved fitting a sophisticated device to the brakes of a lead car, controlled
by radio from a following car and steering it into the victim’s vehicle travelling in the
opposite direction. It had worked before in the States and Meier saw no reason why it
should not work again.
While Meier’s technical skill was undeniable, the gang recruited another member, Jake,
a genius with cars and unethical devices. The gang leased an old disused airstrip in Kent
and began to assemble the necessary tools and equipment to modify the brakes of the lead
car. The plan began to take shape. First, Marman had to be caught alone on an open road.
‘It is lucky,’ said Meier, ‘that Marman’s car is a very small Citroen 2CV which will crack
open like an egg when it is hit.’ A day well ahead was chosen, after a study of Marman’s
diary and maps, Tuesday, 11 November, when Marman was due to visit an old friend,
General Robin Brockbank, at Steeple Langford in Wiltshire. ‘He should be driving back
after lunch along the A303 at about 3.15 pm in time to reach his house in Clapham just
before dark. If we allow him an average speed of fifty-five miles per hour, he will be,’ said
Meier pointing to the map, ‘somewhere along this dual carriageway between
Winterbourne Stoke and Popham. If this plan does not work the first time, we will
continue to look for a suitable time and place until it does.’
‘All we need now,’ Meier continued, ‘is to find a driver who is scheduled to head west
on that same stretch at about 3.30 p.m. – that should not be too difficult, since the A303 is
the main arterial road between London and Plymouth. What sort of person uses that
route?’ Meier asked and then answered the question himself, ‘A representative of a
company with offices in both places.’ ‘Do you remember,’ Meier went on ‘that Hovercraft
we bought from M L Slingsby last year for that smuggling job? I have discovered that the
Holding Company owns a subsidiary, M L Engineering, in Plymouth and after a lot of
research, I have also found out that M L Holdings are having a main board meeting in
Plymouth on the morning of 12 November. I have looked at a number of alternative
companies and for one reason or another have discounted them. Here is a list of four
nonexecutive directors who will attend the meeting. I have picked out the most likely
candidate, Sir Peter Horsley, who lives at Houghton, near Stockbridge, and is likely to use
the A303 on his journey to Plymouth, so Jake and I will pay him a little visit.’
Shortly after this meeting Jake and Meier quietly broke into Sir Peter’s office above a
garage close to the house in the dead of night. They found his diary open on his desk and
it took only a few minutes to photograph the relevant pages before they left again, making
sure that there were no traces of their visit. On the way out they passed an open garage.
They went in and found a large saloon car and Jake made a quick inspection of it, a BMW
728i automatic, registration 3545 PH, Michelin XV tyres. This was undoubtedly the ideal
car for their purposes.
The two returned to the disused airstrip and the next day they purchased a second-hand
BMW 728i and two target practice cars; Jake fitted the control system to the BMW and
rehearsals began in earnest. It was decided that Meier and Jake should follow the BMW
and De Villiers, another member of the gang, would follow Marman’s 2CV. All was now
set. They perfected the equipment and procedures just two days before the target date.
On the night of Monday, 10 November, five members of the gang assembled outside Sir
Peter’s secluded Victorian house in the village of Houghton. Three remained on watch