The Lifers' Club

by Francis Pryor

  ‘Precisely. So I asked myself, “where else was there?’’ ’

  Alan smiled. He enjoyed making revelations.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And it came to me. The wet sieves. They were in constant use and were always flooding. Early on we’d used the digger to sink two large soakaways, but the ground there is such heavy clay that they soon backed-up and never functioned properly. Hence all that bloody mud.’

  ‘You forget, Alan, I wasn’t there.’

  Alan ignored this.

  ‘We worked two 5mm wet sieves, each on a roller-frame. The sludge was emptied into buckets, which were tipped into the soakaway pits. One was in use, while the other drained dry, which took a day. We nearly had to dig a third, but then the weather improved.’

  ‘And where were the pits and the sieves?’

  ‘On a patch of ground disturbed just after the war. We knew there’d be no archaeology there…’ His eyes were closed as he thought back to the scene: ‘It was near the edge of what is now the lorry park, on land that was going to be landscaped.’

  ‘But wouldn’t the landscaping have disturbed them?’ Grahame asked.

  ‘No.’ He had opened his eyes now. ‘No, they were right on the edge. At the time I reckoned the footings of a nearby wall would also act as a bit of a soakaway – which they did, sort of…’

  Grahame had seen the implications of what he’d just said:

  ‘So they’re probably still there?’

  ‘I don’t see why not. They may be under the low perimeter bank, which I noticed the other day they’d planted with trees, presumably when all the building and landscaping work was finished.’ He paused briefly, ‘but I’m not certain it…’

  ‘It?’ Grahame cut in.

  ‘The bank. I don’t think it reached as far as the pits. I’d be able to find them easily enough, though, because I’d placed them as close as I could to that wall, which also helped cut the wind. It was February, remember. Anyhow,’ he ended with conviction, ‘I bet you anything you like, that the wall or its footings are still there.’

  ‘I don’t suppose I need to ask what you’re going to do now?’

  Grahame’s brow was furrowed with concern. Alan smiled, he was, after all, still the sensible, cautious big brother.

  ‘I’m going to reopen the site and we’re going to find Sofia.’

  Five minutes later Alan phoned Indajit on his home number. It was late and the lawyer sounded drowsy, but he soon woke up when Alan explained what he planned to do.

  ‘Right,’ he said when Alan had finished, ‘I’ll be there. You should always have a lawyer alongside you, especially when you plan anything illegal.’

  * * *

  Alan was a great admirer of the soldier and archaeologist, Sir Mortimer Wheeler, who used to tell both his military colleagues and the many archaeologists working for him that ‘time spent in reconnaissance is never wasted’. How right he was, Alan thought. Now he must make careful preparations himself. The people who wanted him out of the way were ruthless, thorough and violent. They also had imagination. Both the Land Rover explosion and the ‘accident’ that killed Steve were unusual – and quite inventive. So he’d have to do even better.

  As a first step, he phoned Paul and asked him if he could borrow some tools over the weekend. Alan’s story was that a group of friends were coming over to help him dig Clara’s garden. Paul was in a good mood and agreed readily to this.

  Alan was about to ring off, when Paul added, ‘Could I ask you a small favour, in return?’

  ‘By all means.’

  ‘D’you think you could return the tools early on Sunday evening?’

  ‘Sure. I could bring them round earlier if you want, we’ll be finished well before then.’

  ‘No, no,’ Paul was adamant, ‘Sunday evening would be fine. The thing is, I’m away all Saturday and I’ve got to do some work on the farmhouse cesspit with the mini-digger on Sunday afternoon. And I’ll need to make good afterwards. Plant a few roses, that sort of thing.’

  Alan was far from convinced: Paul’s ‘garden’ at the farmhouse was little more than a weed patch. There was also something not-quite-right about the request; most faulty cesspit soakaways usually stink – it’s the smell that shows there’s something wrong. But Alan could swear he’d never detected a whiff from Paul’s drains. And it wasn’t as if he was there long enough to use them much, either. He was always away, somewhere else. And besides, there were loads of tools in the Tool Store he could use.

  ‘OK. What say I give you a hand when I come round?’ Alan replied.

  ‘Excellent.’ Paul sounded delighted. ‘Many thanks, Alan. Drop the other tools back in the Store then bring a couple of spades and a fork over. We’ll soon knock the job on the head.’

  Yes, thought Alan, we most certainly will.

  Thirty-four

  Friday had been a good day at Impingham and the team arrived back at Priory Farm in high spirits. Everyone was ready for the weekend. Steve’s replacement, Jake Williamson, asked Alan if he’d join them for a quick pint before heading home. Sadly Alan had to decline. He told Jake that he was planning to get away early for the weekend. Jake and the diggers then headed noisily down the road towards the village pub. Alan walked over to the hangar. He tried to appear relaxed and slightly bored, as if doing the final chores of the week. But beneath the surface he was wired and ready to go. Much to do, so little time.

  The Reference Collections office was the lower of the first two stacked Portakabins along the left-hand side of the hangar. Inside it, the admin staff were getting ready to leave for home. A middle-aged lady, Alan thought her name was Elsie, who was still sitting at her desk, handed him the keys to the Tool Store.

  Alan asked about Paul’s whereabouts, as he didn’t want to bump into him in the next few minutes.

  ‘He’s in a meeting with important clients,’ Elsie replied, ‘it’s about the big York job.’

  ‘Odd time for a meeting?’

  ‘Yes, they phoned from Leicester this morning. Poor Paul didn’t seem too happy. Still, as I said, if you want to be a high-flyer you sometimes have to burn the candle at both ends.’

  ‘Where are they now?’

  ‘Still in the board room, I think.’

  Alan leant across to the window and glanced at the upstairs windows. The board room was in the top layer of the two Portakabins. He could just see the outline of people sitting around a table. Even with one of the hangar’s main sliding doors open, it was gloomy inside the vast interior. They already had the lights on.

  ‘When’s it ending?’ He asked.

  ‘Late, apparently. Then they’re going back to Leicester for an architect’s meeting first thing tomorrow. It’ll probably last all morning.’

  ‘What, on Saturday? Everyone? Even Paul?’

  Alan pretended this was news to him.

  ‘Why the surprise?’ Elsie replied. ‘That’s what happened last weekend too. It’s the way they do things these days. “Intensive brainstorming” they call it.’

  ‘Blimey,’ Alan replied, ‘glad I’m not doing it. By Friday night my brain’s too whacked to be stormed.’

  She smiled.

  ‘Me too. But I wouldn’t worry, they’re all well paid. Anyhow, one of the chaps from Leicester told me not to hang around after I’d brought them tea. He said they’d all be having something a bit stronger later on, when their spirits started flagging.’

  ‘One of those meetings, then?’

  ‘A booze-up, d’you mean? No, they were serious, alright. They all had laptops with them. They meant business. Like you said, glad I’m not up there with them.’

  Quietly Alan slipped out of the Portakabin, leaving Elsie busily preparing the tea tray for the meeting in the board room. He headed for the main hangar doors, one of which was rolled back, open. He walked around the edge of the han
gar then stood briefly on the dark side of the closed door and looked back at the board room window. The angle was better here and yes, he could clearly see Paul and Abdul’s distinctive silhouettes, sitting next to each other,

  Relieved to be out of the gloom of the hangar, and back in the warmth of the sunshine, Alan went round to the Tool Store and checked out a selection of spades, mattocks, shovels and forks, which he loaded into the back of his Fourtrak.

  But he still had one more essential thing to do.

  He returned to the Tool Store and locked the door behind him. But instead of selecting more tools, he walked across to a small door at the back of the store. This opened onto the narrow space between the stacked Reference Collections Portakabins and the north wall of the hangar. Very slowly he pushed on the door and looked out, taking care not to be seen. All was clear. High above his head, the lights in the board room provided some welcome illumination. He walked along the inside of the hangar, staying close to the base of the Portakabins, so as not to be seen, should anyone up there look down.

  Halfway along the hangar wall was a side door into a place that Paul had named – rather pretentiously Alan thought – the Innovations Space. This was a fairly standard wartime extension to the hangar, used by RAF maintenance crews to strip down and run Merlin engines. It was a large space with insulated, double-thickness walls, plus fitted floor-to-ceiling racks and cupboards along two walls. Originally these had held engine parts and spares; they were heavily built, but were now used to store reference materials and packaging. The purpose of the small team working in the Innovations Space was to devise eye-catching products that would appeal to specialists and collectors alike. They were responsible directly to Paul. Theirs was development, rather than production work, which was done elsewhere.

  Once in the Innovations Space, Alan turned on the light, knowing that the thick walls would reveal nothing on the outside. He jammed a short baulk of timber into the grab handles that the RAF had welded to the side door he had just come through. This shut it permanently. Then he took out a piece of paper from his pocket. It was the diagram that Grahame had drawn for him on that Saturday morning as they’d sat together at the kitchen table. He stared at the image on the page for a long time. Then he looked around. There was a large table in the centre of the room and a bench at the far end. To the left was a standard self-contained laboratory emergency shower, and directly opposite it, a fume cupboard. Beside the cupboard were two pressurised cylinders of carbon dioxide.

  He took a package out of his pocket: a set of small, decorative birthday cake candles.

  He walked past the table, over to the bench and gathered-up as many storage boxes as he could find. Next, he collapsed them, making a three-foot high stack of cardboard at the foot of the workbench, along the back wall. Then he lit two candles and made small puddles of soft wax: one on the table, the other just above the door of the corridor from the Main Office. Into each of these puddles he pressed an unlit candle. Finally, he moved the access stepladder across to the shelves above the workbench, and lashed it securely in place. He climbed the ladder to the top shelf and again lashed it in place. He was taking no chances. From the ladder, he pulled at the shelf firmly. It didn’t budge. It was good and strong. He also checked with his hand to make sure there was nothing sharp up there. But it was clean. Just cobwebs and dead flies.

  There was one last thing he had to do. He left the Innovations Space and walked down the corridor into the General Office, where he let himself out into the main hangar, having first locked the door and put the key in his pocket. Next he made his way to the hangar’s north-east corner, where he knew there was a small door to the outside. On his first visit to Priory Farm, back in 2002, there’d been a toilet there – probably left over from the war, to judge from the crazed glaze of the War Department utility bowl. It was almost completely dark at the back of the hangar, but he could just make out it was still there.

  The toilet was enclosed within a plywood cubicle, which he now clambered up. Once on top, he loosened a sheet of plywood with the blade of his pocketknife, and lowered it carefully to the ground. Then he climbed into the space where the cistern was housed. He knew this would have to be accessed by a trapdoor, which he removed and placed to one side. Then he lowered himself into the little compartment below, standing on the bowl. He looked down: it was dry and held two mouse skeletons. He remembered the water supply had been cut-off after a sharp frost in 2003. Strangely, the seat was still up.

  A couple of dead, but very thorny bramble stems had penetrated through the external door. He snapped them off and pushed down hard on the handle. The latch was rusty and gave way easily. It didn’t take much effort to open it. Once outside, he pushed the door ajar and then made his way through the hawthorn scrub along the hangar’s east back wall, round to the concrete apron at the front.

  As he climbed into the driver’s seat he saw his face in the Fourtrak’s mirror. He was thickly covered with dark grey dust and grime. He didn’t look like himself at all.

  Thirty-five

  The next day dawned bright and sunny. Alan checked his watch, yes it was Saturday. He put on his only suit and a borrowed tie from Grahame. He hurried across to the table where he spotted some coffee in the jug and poured it into a mug. Grahame was horrified.

  ‘But it’ll be icy cold!’

  Alan shook his head.

  ‘No, delicious,’ he mumbled as he hastily buttered a Marmite sandwich. ‘Must dash.’ He slapped Grahame on the shoulder and hurried from the room.

  The drive across the Fens to Scoby seemed interminable, with big hold-ups at roadworks in Spalding. Then he noticed he was almost out of diesel. He arrived at Scoby Church dead on eleven, just as the undertaker’s black van drew up outside the porch.

  He slipped quietly into the porch. Alistair was standing there with Claire, waiting. One glance showed him that Alistair had told her everything: she stood up straight, her arm around his waist, whereas he looked tired and dishevelled. Two dark-suited undertakers reverently placed the five black velvet bags on a mahogany bier. Then Alan and Alistair each took a handle and together the four men carried the precious load into the church, with Claire following, behind. Once in the nave, the vicar sprinkled the babies with holy water and pronounced a blessing. Of course, Alan thought, they probably hadn’t been christened, so technically speaking he was breaking the rules. But it was plain that this funeral, like all others, was for the benefit of the living, not the dead. Tears were now running freely down Alistair’s cheeks.

  They slowly processed through the nave and into the chancel, where they halted next to the carved Victorian stone lid that once covered Tiny’s grave. It had been lifted off and now rested on two wooden batons. The vicar said a few words, then nodded to Alistair who placed the bags within it, alongside the bones of their mother. He stood up and lowered his head in prayer. Only then did the tears stop flowing.

  Noiselessly the vicar withdrew. He realised Alistair needed peace. Claire was the first to speak.

  ‘We’re so glad you could come, Alan.’

  Alan was about to mumble something suitable, when Alistair said,

  ‘And you were so right, Alan, it’s always best to face up to these things. It’s been difficult, but with Claire’s help,’ Alan could see her arm tighten around her husband’s waist, ‘I think we might achieve closure. Of some sort.’

  It was a calming, sobering moment for all of them. Yes, Alan thought, you’ve resolved the horrors of the past and put your demons to rest. Maybe I will one day.

  * * *

  Alan had agreed to meet Indajit at his brother’s farm, later that day. Indajit’s sat nav found it without any trouble, and in true English style they sat down to tea, before getting ready. The morning had left Alan emotionally drained, but now he found himself on edge, wired. The lawyer, on the other hand, made no effort to conceal his excitement. Alan reckoned he was actually enjoyi
ng himself, which was odd, given what they were about to do.

  After tea they went out to one of the secure grain store barns, where Grahame had housed Indajit’s car. They entered through a side door and Grahame turned on the light. Alan was carrying an old fertiliser sack, which was bulging with something.

  Alan pulled out the dark blue overalls that PFC issued to all its staff. The previous night, Alan had razor-bladed off the dayglo yellow PFC logo emblazoned across their backs. It had been one of the many small jobs that had stopped him dwelling on what had to be done today. Then, the whole thing had seemed rather unreal. But now it was very different. As he pulled on the sombre overalls Alan felt that reality was starting to strike home. But there was no turning back.

  He knew they faced many hazards. Even at the most trivial level, they could be stopped by depot security staff, or by the police. Either way, they’d have trouble explaining what they were up to, although having someone as plausible as Indajit alongside them, would help. But if, if, the Kabuls had guessed Alan’s plans, they both knew the consequences would be far worse: instant and final.

  Indajit struggled into his overalls awkwardly. They could see it wasn’t something he’d done before. Smiling, Grahame showed him how to reach into his trousers, through a slot in the overall’s pockets. Indajit was delighted with this. He gave Grahame his phone.

  ‘Please Grahame, you must take a picture. “Top lawyer in workmen’s overalls”, it could go viral on FaceBook.’ Grahame took the picture. And another with Alan beside him. Both men were smiling hugely. Almost too hugely.

  They both got into the grey Fourtrak and headed off towards Leicester. By now it was starting to get dark and the sky had clouded over. After an hour’s steady drive, they pulled into a side street a couple of blocks away from ‘Mehmet’s’, which they could hear was still doing brisk business, despite its imminent closure. By this stage, Indajit’s cheeriness was starting to evaporate. Tension was mounting. They parked in a small side street, waiting for darkness to gather.