by James R Benn
“I can’t promise a few feathers won’t be ruffled. But I was asked to investigate a suspicious death at an SOE facility by the security officer there,” I said.
“You don’t have a written order, I imagine?” Scutt asked.
“No sir. I’ll understand if you want to reconsider,” I said.
“No need, Captain. I just don’t like surprises. Unfortunately, we are more short-handed than usual. That call from the chief superintendent was about putting a detail together to assist with a nasty gas-main explosion out on Watford Road. A number of casualties, I’m afraid.”
“South of Edgware?” I asked.
“Yes. You know the area, then?” Scutt’s eyes narrowed, and I could tell he wasn’t engaging in idle chitchat.
“We were driving on that road this morning. We were stopped at an intersection when a building in the next block exploded. It wasn’t pretty,” I said. “Funny, but I didn’t smell gas.”
“Odd, since the chief superintendent was quite clear on the subject. Faulty gas main. Did you see anything to suggest otherwise?” Scutt drummed his fingers on the wooden desktop.
“Listen, Chief Inspector, I’m not going to spout off about this, but you and I both know it wasn’t a gas leak. I spoke to a gent who said he saw a silver flash in the sky a second before the explosion.”
“The V1 rockets make a distinctive sound with which we are sadly familiar. No one reported anything like that,” Scutt said.
“The V2 rockets are supersonic,” I said. “Faster than sound, so no noise. I’m sure the chief superintendent covered that.”
“Captain Boyle, trouble follows in your wake, doesn’t it?”
“I tend to think I follow after it, but I take your point, sir. I can’t reveal anything else, but it’s safe to say this V2 business is connected to my investigation.” To a small extent, but it was still the truth. Kind of.
“Very well,” Scutt said, with a quick nod. “I trust you’ll keep this to yourself. Apparently, a cabinet committee came up with the gas-main story in preparation for expected rocket attacks. Scotland Yard has been briefed. The idea is to prevent panic, but I think people will see through the lie fairly quickly.”
“Duncan Sandys, right?”
“You are well-informed for a chap who’s recently returned from sunny France,” Scutt said. “You must have friends in high places indeed. Yes, Sandys briefed the powers that be here, but other than putting forward the cover story, he had little to offer. What about you, Captain Boyle? Any idea what we should expect?”
“No, sorry, I don’t. I wish I could help,” I said, feeling foolish for suggesting I might know more than I did.
“It’s difficult, you know,” Scutt said, leaning back in his chair, his eyes focused on something far beyond me. “For years we were bombed. We watched dogfights in the sky over our city. We slept in underground shelters. And we took it, for the most part, like good English men and women with faith in our leaders and our fighting men. We endured horrible losses and waited for the day when we could bring the fight to the Germans in Europe.”
“That day has come,” I said. “Paris is free, and the Nazis are scrambling to get home. I’ve seen it myself.”
“Yes, and let me tell you, there were prayers of thanks and celebrations far and wide when we learned of the invasion. For a moment it was as if we could see the end of this blasted war. The bloody Luftwaffe was gone from our skies, and it felt like we could breathe once more. Do you understand, Boyle?”
“Yes sir, I think I do.” But I probably didn’t. Back in 1940, when London was bombed and burning every night, I was safe back home in Boston, still a civilian. Death and destruction were things you heard about on the radio, an ocean away.
“It was a week after D-Day that the V1 attacks began. Those damn buzz bombs, hundreds of them. You’d hear them coming, that put-put-put sound coming from their pulse-jet engines. Then it would cut out, and you knew it would hit in twelve seconds, exactly. Two streets over, perhaps, or right down on your head. Thousands of casualties, and everyone wondering, Is this what we endured for? To watch our city burn and our loved ones die? For these inhuman machines to slaughter us just when we imagined victory was in sight?”
“I didn’t know, Chief Inspector. I’d been away,” I said. The only real news I’d had was from a German Army magazine touting Hitler’s new terror weapon. “I had no idea it affected people this way.”
“Well at least many of the V1 launch sites have been overrun or bombed out,” Scutt said. “There are certainly fewer strikes these days. Which will make a renewed offensive by these V2 rockets all the worse. Once again people are beginning to feel safe, and I fear a real panic may set in. You’ve seen the result of one strike. Imagine dozens throughout London. Sandys told us that while the V2 warhead is slightly larger—twenty-two hundred pounds of Amatol compared to less than nineteen hundred in the V1—its speed upon impact buries it deep, so the explosion is far, far worse.”
“Gas mains it is, then,” I said. “As long as the story holds. Are there any plans to evacuate children, like during the Blitz?”
“There’s not much stomach for evacuations, leastways not around here,” Scutt said, shutting his eyes for a moment as if to banish a bad memory. “You remember Roy Flack?”
“Sure. Detective sergeant. We worked together last year,” I said, sensing this would not end well.
“In late June, he and his wife decided to send their children away. Twin girls, nearly six years old,” Scutt said, glancing into the office where detectives were getting on their coats, some of them looking his way. “Their nursery school had arranged lodging for thirty children. Temporary quarters in a quiet village in the Kent countryside, with teachers and staff to care for them. Flack was relieved to get them out of the city. Two days after they arrived, a V1 dropped on the village. Hit the school square on. Twenty-two children died, including Flack’s girls. No other rocket ever came close to that village. A malfunction, perhaps. God only knows.”
“Jesus,” I said. “I can’t even imagine. How do you go on?”
“Eleanor Flack didn’t. Killed herself two weeks later. Now get on with your investigation. I have to get to the blast site and help spread the story about gas mains while we search for any parts of the bloody machine still intact,” Scutt said. “Check with me tomorrow. Here. You may have the postcard back, we’re done with it.” He handed me an envelope.
“Thanks. Leave a message for me at the Dorchester Hotel in case something comes up before tomorrow,” I said as we left the office together. “I appreciate your help, Chief Inspector.”
“We must help each other these days, Captain. There is little alternative,” Scutt said, joining the group of men awaiting his orders. One of them looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure. He turned away to speak to another detective. As I was taking the stairs down, I realized it had been DS Flack. It’d been only ten months since I’d seen him, but he was nearly unrecognizable.
I stopped and turned to be sure it was him. He was gaunt, his face sunken, eyes drooping from the burden of dark bags hanging beneath them. The collar of his shirt was loose around his neck. His shoulders were hunched, the weight of death too crushing to bear. He was a trace of his former self, a wraith shadowed by guilt and grief.
I had to look away.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Big Ben sounded the hour, the deep resonant tones solid and reassuring. I left Westminster behind and retraced my steps along Birdcage Walk to Hyde Park Corner. Nearly home. I hadn’t been here for a couple of months, and my accommodations during that time away had ranged from a dusty foxhole in Normandy to the sagging mattress and iron bedstead at Saint Albans.
I was looking forward to the Dorchester.
The grand hotel sat opposite Hyde Park. When I’d first arrived in ’42, the front had been heavily sandbagged. When I was here for a brief stay in Jun
e, they’d all been removed. Today, new sandbags were being unloaded by the main entrance. I wondered which high-ranking guest had tipped off the hotel staff.
I sidestepped the work crew and entered the lobby. Reception was to my left in a small area dwarfed by a black and white marble hallway. White flowers decorated the hallway, blending with the color of the marble and highlighted by soft white lights. It was a different world.
“Captain Boyle, it is a pleasure to see you,” Walter said from behind the front desk. The same spot he’d occupied the first day I arrived in England. “Is Baron Kazimierz with you?”
“It’s good to see you, Walter. Believe me,” I said. “Kaz should be along in a few days.”
“I trust he is well,” Walter said. “It has been a while since we’ve seen either of you.” Kaz was legendary at the Dorchester. A favored guest, since everyone knew the story of his family’s last visit in the suite he still occupied, and what had happened in Poland after that. He’d made the hotel his home, unable to leave the scene of their last moments as a family. I was Kaz’s friend, so the staff extended their graciousness to me, but I knew who was first in their thoughts.
“He’s doing very well,” I said. “Say, what’s with the sandbags?”
“I have no idea. They went up again when the V1s started. When that threat seemed to have passed, we had them taken away. Now management feels the need to put them back. But with the Blitz and the V1s gone, what is the point?” Walter looked genuinely puzzled, so I figured word hadn’t leaked out yet.
I agreed that it didn’t make much sense, thanked him for the bag he’d packed for me, got my key, and went upstairs.
The room was quiet. I sat on the couch for a moment but couldn’t settle. I checked Kaz’s bedroom. Everything was neat and clean, not a speck of dust to be seen. My room was the same. I stared at the bed, the soft mattress and fluffy pillows looking strange and foreign. Everything looked perfect, nothing was right. No Kaz, no Diana, the fate of Angelika unknown, V2s about to rain down on London.
I couldn’t sit still. I took my jacket off and tossed it on the bed. I reached up to the top shelf of my closet and took down a box. I put on the shoulder holster and loaded my .38 Police Special revolver. It fit snugly against my side, heavy and reassuring. If I was going to track down a killer, I didn’t want to give him a chance to break my neck or stick a shiv between my ribs. I put my jacket back on and checked the reflection in the mirror. I’d lost enough weight for the loose clothing to hide the bulge of the pistol.
I left the room behind. It was too much. Too thick with memories, comfort, and loneliness. I told Walter I was expecting Big Mike and headed for the restaurant, grabbing a table by the door so I’d be able to spot him. I didn’t feel hungry but knew I had to eat. I went for the chef’s special, Haddock Monte Carlo, fish with spinach and a poached egg. It was good, but not as fancy as the name sounded. They liked to dress up the rationed amounts of meat served in each dish with a high-class moniker.
Big Mike appeared as I polished off the last of the grub.
“Welcome home,” he said as the waiter removed my plate. “You want to rest up for a while?”
“Hell no. Order some food if you want, then let’s get to SOE headquarters,” I said.
“Okay, but I’m supposed to tell you Sam said I should make sure you don’t do anything too strenuous. He’s worried about you, Billy.”
“Great. Message received. You don’t want any lunch?”
“Naw,” Big Mike said. “The Poles put out a spread. Getting Skory was cause for celebration.” Big Mike didn’t turn down food often. It must have been a helluva meal.
“Any news?”
“Another V2 hit in Essex. Put a big hole in a field, no one was hurt,” Big Mike whispered. “Another struck Paris, several people killed. That’s it as far as we know.”
“Let’s hope that’s all for today. Anything else?”
“Yeah. Sam got in touch with Cosgrove’s replacement at the Foreign Office. Douglas Tiltman. He’s worked with the British Red Cross on prisoner exchanges with the Krauts. Sick and disabled POWs, that sort of thing. He knows Count Bernadotte of the Swedish Red Cross, so he’s a good choice.”
“We’ll see,” I said. “When can we talk to him?”
“Sixteen hundred,” Big Mike said. “At Norfolk House.” It wasn’t far. The large building on Saint James’s Square housed the main headquarters for SHAEF, and it was where Harding hung his hat when he was in town. I had a desk there too, but I hadn’t seen it in months.
“Okay, we should have enough time to pop in and talk to Vera,” I said, doubting SOE had many spur-of-the-moment visitors.
I filled Big Mike in on my talk with Chief Inspector Scutt as we made the short drive to Baker Street. The main SOE headquarters was at number sixty-four. Not close enough to the more well-known 221B Baker Street to draw attention, of course.
“You sure Vera Atkins works here?” Big Mike asked as he looked for a place to park the jeep. “SOE’s got offices all over town.”
“If she’s not there, we’ll ask where the French Section is located,” I said as he maneuvered the jeep into a spot near our destination. “Their other offices are all in the Marylebone area.”
“Yeah, SOE probably hands out maps to anyone who comes knocking at their door,” Big Mike said. “You better get that gift of gab revved up, Billy. We’re gonna need it.”
The ground floor of the SOE building, also known as Michael House, was taken up by a tailor shop. Above it stood four floors of nondescript windows, all curtained and giving no evidence of what business was conducted there. The steady flow of uniformed officers tromping up and down the stairs may have provided a clue, but I was sure the locals knew to keep walking and avoid eye contact.
On the first floor, we waited behind officers showing passes to a sergeant seated at a desk. He studied each pass carefully, entering the name and time into a logbook. Only then did he hand the pass back and release each man with a sharp nod. Behind him stood an armed corporal, his hands behind his back, and his eyes on each person approaching the desk.
“Passes?” the sergeant said, his open hand extended.
“We’re from SHAEF, and I’d like to speak to Vera Atkins,” I said.
“Who?”
“Flight Officer Vera Atkins,” I said. “Intelligence officer for SOE’s French Section.”
“Sorry, Captain, never heard of her. Now if you don’t have a pass, please go back to General Eisenhower and give him my regards,” he said. “Next.”
Another officer presented his pass as we waited. The armed corporal edged closer to us.
“Listen, we’ve worked with Vera, she knows us. Can you at least get a message to her?” I asked.
“Captain, please do not make me pick up this telephone and call for guards to escort you off the premises,” the sergeant said, resting one hand on the telephone as his buddy reached for his holstered pistol.
“Come on, Billy,” Big Mike said. “This ain’t gonna work. Let’s see about getting a pass.”
“How about I leave a note with you,” I said to the sergeant, ignoring Big Mike’s hand on my shoulder. “In case you suddenly remember Vera Atkins when you see her come in, you could give it to her.”
“Step aside, Captain, if you will,” the sergeant said, as a man in civilian clothes squeezed between us.
“Hello, Stanley,” the fellow said. He wore a wrinkled black suit, dark hair edging over a worn collar, and his tie askew. He produced a pass and a smile.
“Go on through, Mr. Marks,” Stanley said.
“Wait a minute,” I said, the name ringing a bell. “Leo Marks?” Diana had mentioned him when our paths had crossed in a French château on the eve of D-Day. Her SOE team had been holed up there, and she was the radio operator. Leo Marks was her SOE code master.
“I asked you nicely, Capt
ain,” Stanley said, picking up the telephone.
“How do you know?” Leo Marks asked, his dark eyes darting back and forth between Big Mike and me, taking in our SHAEF shoulder patches and perhaps the size of Big Mike’s shoulders. He sounded a touch worried.
“Juliet Bonvie,” I whispered, giving Diana’s code name during that operation. “I was in France with her, at the château in Dreux. She told me about the poem code. The life that I have is all that I have. And the life that I have is yours.”
“What’s her real name?” Marks asked, holding up one hand to Stanley, who set down the telephone.
“Diana Seaton,” I said. “She needs your help.”
“I can vouch for these two, Stanley,” Marks said. The poem had been written by Marks for use in coding. Diana had told me that before he came to SOE they’d used famous poems for encrypting messages. Marks had seen the danger in that, since the enemy could deduce the entire poem if they recognized any part of it. So he wrote his own. Unbreakable.
When we were logged in, Marks led us to his office at the rear of the building. We were followed by Stanley’s partner. Marks told us it was standard practice to guard anyone who was let in without a pass. The sentry would remain at the door and escort us out when we were done.
“Explain yourself,” Marks said as he shut the door and sat at his desk. “Quickly and convincingly, or you’ll both be thrown into the street. Might take a while for your sergeant here, but we have our own behemoths lurking about.” He snipped the end of a cigar and fired it up as I did the introductions.
I gave Marks the lowdown on Uncle Ike’s Office of Special Investigations, without going into the family history. “I’ve known Diana since I arrived in 1942. I worked with her in France, most recently Paris.”
“And where is she now?” Marks said, leaning back in his chair and affecting disinterest as he puffed away.
“Ravensbrück,” I said. He already knew. And if I knew, it proved my bona fides.
