by James R Benn
“I am supposed to be on bed rest, but I’ve managed to take a few strolls. If Dr. Hughes doesn’t catch me, no one else seems to take notice,” he said, donning his silk robe and stuffing his feet into leather slippers. “Come, we’ll find a secluded corner. It may do both of us good to talk of things other than concentration camps.”
Down the hall, away from the nurses’ desk and the flurry of activity around it, we passed an open ward, with a half dozen beds filled with patients in casts of various sizes. One guy with his leg raised by a pulley and his arm in a cast from shoulder to wrist stared at Kaz, perhaps jealous of his mobility and snappy sleeping duds. Kaz looked right back at him, and I wondered if he dreamed of injuries that would knit themselves back together.
At the end of the corridor, a wide room with a broad expanse of windows displayed a motley collection of chairs, an afterthought of furnishings from the attic. Well used, like Saint Albans itself. The room had been given a fresh coat of paint, but it had been hastily applied, slapped on over peeling and chipping layers from the last century.
We sat on a couch overlooking the grounds. Two Home Guards walked across the lawn, rifles slung over their shoulders, a reminder that despite the bright paint, this was still a prison.
“I cannot get used to the idea that our time together is over,” Kaz said. “The best I can hope for is to sit at a desk, it seems.”
“That’s right where you were when I first met you,” I said. “You never know what’s in store, so don’t count yourself out.” It was not much of a straw to grasp at, but it was all I could come up with. I didn’t want to think about the end of our partnership either.
“True enough,” Kaz said. “I certainly never could have guessed we’d end up in an insane asylum. But I think my heart condition will decide matters, no matter how much I wish otherwise. Now, tell me how you ended up in a padded cell.”
“I’ll get to that. But first, I want to ask you about something you said the last time we talked. When I said there was no reason for anyone to kill Holland, you said that was an important clue. What did you mean?”
“I said that when you told me he was a mute,” Kaz said. “Unless you learned something new last night, my thought is that he was killed either as a message to someone else—a warning perhaps—or because he was ready to speak once again.”
“Couldn’t he still communicate by writing?”
“Not if his silence was psychological, based on something he experienced. Perhaps his silence extended beyond the simple spoken word? Think of going mute as a mechanism for cutting himself off from the outside world,” Kaz said.
“Now you sound like Doc Robinson. When he’s making sense,” I said. “I’ve thought about that, but I keep coming up against the question of what Holland might have learned that posed a danger to anyone. If you’re right, he’d cut himself off from human contact; that argues against anyone confiding in him, much less having a conversation.”
“Is it not Dr. Robinson’s job to attempt to communicate with patients in your ward?”
“Good point,” I said. “But there was nothing in Holland’s file to indicate he’d been spilling the beans about anything. Or could if he’d wanted to,” I said.
“But what did you do to land yourself in a padded cell?”
“I can tell you that,” a voice said from behind us. “But I am more interested in how you got out so quickly.” It was Dr. Hughes. He’d come up behind us and surprised the hell out of me. I watched him for any sign he’d heard more than the remark about my accommodations but saw nothing except a stern stare focused on Kaz. “Baron, you should be in bed. No strenuous activity, remember?”
“If a walk down that hallway is considered strenuous, I am in for a life of indolence,” Kaz said.
“It could be worse,” Hughes said. “A wealthy man can hire someone to push him about in a rolling chair. It would add years to your lifespan.”
“Such a cheery notion,” Kaz said. Hughes was swimming right toward the bait.
“Please excuse us, Boyle,” Hughes said. “I need to examine the baron in his room. But do drop by my office later today, would you?”
Without waiting for an answer, Hughes took Kaz by the arm as if he were an old lady and led him down the hallway.
Neither of us had said it out loud before, but this was it. We were pulling out all the stops to keep Kaz in uniform at some desk job, but it meant the end of our partnership. We’d spent most of our time together over the last couple of years. Risked our lives together, saw the horrors of war together, faced death and sorrow together.
How do you leave all that behind?
I had no idea.
I stood and gazed out the window, hoping for inspiration from the clearing sky and leafy branches swaying in the wind. Mother Nature kept things to herself, so I went to find Big Mike. Walking along the corridor, I thought about what Kaz had said. Robinson did spend time with Holland, but I had my doubts about how much communication went on during those sessions. Faith also spent time with him, but in total silence by all reports. I needed to speak with Iris and get her help. Faith was a bit too jumpy to approach directly.
Which brought me back to Kaz’s other notion. That Holland’s killing was a message. A signal to someone. Meaning what?
I asked at the nurse’s station where the new patient had been taken. I was told to move on. I didn’t want to use his code name, since throwing that around might get me tossed back into the padded suite. Instead, I wandered off, glancing into rooms on either side of the main corridor. Five rooms were occupied, all by patients in a lot better shape than Skory. I kept going, finding the next rooms darkened and unfurnished. Beyond those, the hallway was unlit. It went the length of the building and hooked left, sunlight barely illuminating it.
No fresh coat of paint here. Falling plaster littered the floor, and rooms were stacked with discarded furniture and heaps of rotting mattresses. On one wall the word help had been written in large letters, the substance used for the scrawl best left unconsidered.
Several doors were nothing but bars, holding cells for the poor souls of Saint Albans. Here was the essential truth of this place, the true function that brooms, mops, and paint couldn’t disguise. It was all for our own good, as it had been for the original inmates. And for the good of the war effort, as it had been for the greater good of society. Saint Albans was an asylum, a prison to keep what was in our minds locked up tight.
If these walls could speak, they would scream.
Chapter Seventeen
I was about to give up when I made out echoing voices at the other end of the corridor. There was no one in sight, but as I approached the far end, the sound grew louder. I glanced up the stairwell but was stopped cold by a Home Guard standing at the third-floor landing.
“Turn around, mate,” he said. “No one allowed without authorization.”
“Ask Lieutenant Feliks Kanski,” I said. “He’ll vouch for me.”
“You’re not authorized. Can’t make it any simpler. If you don’t want trouble, move on. Now.”
I held up my hands and backed off. This must be where they had Skory stashed. He had to be hot stuff to deserve his own special security within Saint Albans. Trouble, I had enough of, so I walked back through the ruined halls and waited outside Kaz’s room, far enough away for Hughes not to spot me. I hadn’t figured out how much, if anything, to tell Kaz, and I needed more time to work that out.
Hughes left a minute later, headed in the opposite direction.
“How’d it go?” I asked Kaz, soon as I got through the door.
“We had to do a bit of a dance,” Kaz said. “A distinguished medical man such as Dr. Hughes would not stoop to accept a bribe. But a consulting fee, that is another matter.”
“Nicely done,” I said. “You look happy with yourself.” His face was lit with a joy I hadn’t seen in a while.
&
nbsp; “Well, I upped the stakes,” he said, smiling. “The good doctor will release me for desk duty, given that I suffer no further setbacks. An understandable precaution on his part.”
“Okay, but what else?”
“I insisted on being allowed a second opinion about my mitral stenosis, with a significant finder’s fee for him, of course,” Kaz said.
“But you don’t need him to find anyone. You have your own doctors in London,” I said.
“Yes, the best Harley Street has to offer,” Kaz said. “The stumbling block was security, as usual. Hughes refuses to release me too soon since he wishes to keep an eye on my condition. It wouldn’t do for me to drop dead before he collects the last payment.”
“Got it. He won’t allow your guy on the premises.”
“Correct,” Kaz said, “without a background check, which would take weeks. But Dr. Hughes did come up with an alternative. A US Army surgeon will be visiting Saint Albans tomorrow.”
“Your second opinion is going to be some unknown army doctor? You sure that’s smart?”
“Our esteemed Dr. Hughes thinks very little of his ideas, which gives me great hope,” Kaz said. “Hughes adheres to the opinion of most doctors that the heart is too delicate an organ to operate on or to even handle. Such a viewpoint veers toward superstition, but I have encountered it before. My own physician told me the medical profession shuns those who dare question that long-standing belief.”
“I’m guessing this Yank doctor thinks otherwise?”
“Exactly,” Kaz said. “He is touring British military hospitals to lecture on removing shrapnel from the heart. Demonstrating the operation, when possible. Hughes reluctantly admits this procedure may have some value but doubts it can be applied to other maladies.”
“Such as mitral stenosis,” I said.
“Quite so. But by granting me a consultation with an American doctor with a security clearance, Hughes fulfills his side of the bargain and earns his fee,” Kaz said. “I do hope Big Mike hurries back with the funds. I sense that Hughes shares the common English distrust of foreigners and will not wholly commit himself until his pockets are stuffed with fifty-pound banknotes.”
“Funny that the guy taking the bribe doesn’t trust people,” I said. “I’m not sure how much longer Big Mike will have to stay here. I looked for him, but they seem to have Skory hidden away upstairs with a guard stopping anyone who gets close. By the sound of them yakking, there’s a bunch of people up there.”
“Skory must be important to rate such special treatment,” Kaz said. “Big Mike did promise to tell us more about the Nazi weapons program. I assume Skory is connected somehow.”
“And to the girls the Krauts picked up. And perhaps Ravensbrück, if I understood what he was saying.”
“We shall have to wait. For now, amuse me with the story of how you ended up in that padded cell,” Kaz said, grinning at the prospect. For the moment, our situation and common fears faded into the background as I went over what I’d found.
I started with Miller, who played at the violent daredevil, but who, in reality, couldn’t pull the trigger on a traitor. His decision caused suffering, pain, and death. Much of the pain was in his own mind, apparently. I didn’t see him as the killer. Robinson thought he needed more therapy. Convulsive therapy, according to the notes.
“I’ve never heard of that,” Kaz said. “It must be a new treatment, perhaps for war neurosis. I agree, Miller has shown himself to be incapable of cold-blooded execution. But consider the possibility that he now feels he must show he can do it. To prove himself.”
I admitted it was possible, but not probable. Then on to Holland himself. He’d withstood terrible torture and withdrew into himself. He’d held out against the Gestapo, but not against his own mind. No friends here, except for Faith. But you couldn’t call them friends, really. Silent companions, at best. Robinson’s notes were of no help.
“You should talk to Faith,” Kaz said. “Through Iris, of course. There is always a chance she noticed something.”
I agreed and went on to Sinclair. An egghead who worked at the Admiralty. Not a field agent, but some sort of technical specialist who’d had a nervous breakdown and lost all inhibitions against keeping secrets. Apparently he knew a few, even though he referred to himself as nothing but a wheezer and a dodger.
“Wait,” Kaz said, holding up a hand. “Wheezer and dodger, you say?”
“Yeah. He described himself that way to me. Does it mean anything?”
“It means Sinclair is more than a specialist. Wheezers and dodgers is a nickname given to the Admiralty’s Directorate of Miscellaneous Weapon Development. From the last two initials, you see,” Kaz said. “And because many of the personnel were older and drawn from academia. Churchill himself takes an active interest in their work.”
“Which is what, exactly?”
“Advanced weapons development,” Kaz said. “All manner of things, most of which are top secret. Some reports indicate they’ve had success degaussing ship hulls to protect against magnetic mines, although nothing has been confirmed. They have several projects with rockets as well as improved anti-submarine weapons.”
“If it’s all so top secret, how do you know about it?”
“Billy, reports come across our desks at SHAEF all the time. I merely caught up on my reading the last time we were there. Seems like ages ago, does it not?”
I had to admit it did. Kaz pressed me on what else I’d found in the files, and I was forced to tell him I stopped searching as soon as I’d gotten my bright idea to use the telephone to contact Colonel Harding in London. I told him about all hell breaking loose and Jenkins finding me in my room with the knotted sheets.
At least it gave Kaz a good laugh.
“It’s a good thing Dr. Robinson took pity on you,” he said. “Too stubborn to kill yourself?”
“Something like that,” I said. “But let’s get back to our suspects. Or lack of them.”
“You must watch for anything unusual,” Kaz said. “Any action that Holland’s death would have triggered. In the absence of any clear motive, be alert for when one does appear.”
“Feliks and Big Mike showing up with an agent smuggled out of Poland is unusual, but that can’t have anything to do with it.”
“Right. It is doubtful, since that journey began long before Holland was killed. Still, keep your eyes open for any connections. And try to speak with Faith. She was close to him.”
“I will,” I said as I rose to leave. “Get the lowdown from Big Mike in case I miss him. I’ll check back later.”
“Billy?”
“Yeah?” I stopped in the doorway, the busy rush of people in the hallway at my back. I turned to Kaz in his small room thick with memories and despair. His eyes welled with tears that did not fall, his mouth quivered with words that could not escape his lips. The world carried on around us in the corridors of Saint Albans, in the fields and forests beyond, but between us there was nothing but suffering leavened by the thinnest vein of hope.
“Yeah,” I said. I slapped my hand on the door and left.
Chapter Eighteen
Wondering how best to approach Faith, I hoofed it over to the north wing, cutting across the wide lawn. Iris was the key, but since she was so protective, I’d need a damn good plan to convince her to help. Not that I had much hope Holland had said anything to Faith.
I hunched my shoulders against the growing winds as I walked along the gravel path on my way to the main entrance. Off to my left, something moved behind the shrubs under the windows. I spotted a flash of khaki battle dress hidden behind greenery except for a flash of brown and the whites of eyes peering at me between branches.
“Who the hell are you?” I asked, equal parts angry and amused at whatever game this guy was playing.
“Classified,” he said, standing and pushing his way through t
he bushes. “I have to stay in practice. No lolling about for me. They call this a rest camp, but I know there’s no time to rest.”
“I’m Boyle,” I said, extending my hand.
“No, no names,” he said, taking a quick step back. His eyes darted around, as if deadly threats loomed everywhere. He looked up to the clock tower, finally returning his gaze to me. He was broad faced, on the short side, but with plenty of muscle and tense energy. Tiny beads of sweat gathered under locks of brown hair falling across his forehead.
“Smart,” I said. “You can’t reveal what you don’t know.”
“Yes. They’re clever with their interrogations. Watch yourself,” he said. Judging by his accent he was what the Brits called a toff, a rich upper-class type. But his eyes shone with a crazed wariness that hinted at something coiled and prepared to strike.
“I do,” I told him. “Have time for a cup of tea?”
“You don’t drink tea,” he said, pulling a notebook from his tunic pocket. He slapped it against one palm. “Coffee, all day long. I’ve been watching. Taking notes. You walked a lot when you first came here. Then they put you to sleep. No telling what they did to you then, my good chap. Now you don’t walk as much, but you ask a lot of questions. Of everyone.”
“Still, I don’t get many answers,” I said, eyeing his notebook. “I bet you do, though.”
“They’re all in here,” he said, tapping his head. “My notes are in code. It’s unbreakable. Once I write things down, they go directly into my brain. Never forget a thing.”
“Why’d you look up to the tower?” I asked, watching as he wrote a few lines in his notebook, his pencil stub racing across the lined paper. As good as I was at reading upside down, I couldn’t make anything out.
“Wanted to know what time it was, of course. You’ve lost your watch, by the way.”
“Somebody swiped it while I was sleeping. You don’t have their identity in your notebook by any chance?” I smiled as I said it, so he’d know I was kidding.
