by Jim Kelly
‘And there’s this.’ Edison handed over a note. ‘The factory manager at Newton called in, wants to see you. A summons apparently, top secret too. He had to be persuaded to tell the desk sergeant as little as that.’
Brooke, gleeful at the prospect of getting out of the office, took the note and fled, after alerting Edison to the prospect of a trip to London in the Wasp the next morning.
‘We’re going to spy on the Flynn family,’ explained Brooke. His detective sergeant beamed.
The towpath led Brooke through the city along the river. On the long stretch below the Great Bridge skaters were racing on a course marked out with barrels on the ice, the silver surface already scoured with a thousand lines, crossing and recrossing. It reminded Brooke that he’d promised Joy they’d skate by the house, re-enacting a childhood adventure.
Opposite Jesus Green a fire had been lit on the ice itself, in an iron cradle, and a man sold hot chestnuts.
Brooke crossed Newton’s Bridge, trudging across the still snowy playing field where Ralph Milton-Forbes had illustrated the principles of RADAR as his pedigree hound inscribed frantic circles in pursuit of a ball. Its name? Brooke thought it had an Arthurian ring. Galahad perhaps.
Rafe Forbes was in his corner office, the dog stretched out on a mat. The plate glass metal-framed windows revealed a great curve of the frozen river embedded with houseboats and narrowboats.
‘Inspector. Many thanks. Sorry about the call, but we’ve made an unwelcome discovery.’
Forbes was in the tweed suit, but Brooke noted the badge – the letter G on the lunar background – was missing. The silver hair had been slicked back with extra severity, exposing the angular famished face, which looked like it had been formed at speed. Despite the pedigree hound Forbes had something of the mongrel whippet about him.
‘Let me show you,’ he said.
They walked through two of the large production line halls, the slight murmur of conversation fading away as Forbes strode down the central aisle. At the north end of the block was a set of wide doors marked GOODS IN – GOODS OUT.
A lorry was unloading packing cases.
Forbes, producing a penknife, ripped one open to reveal a stack of metal boxes, not in solid steel or aluminium, but perforated, like a child’s Meccano set.
‘We have these made at a factory in Birmingham. We install the electronics, the diodes, the valves, the circuits, the wiring. The box provides the framework. We track every one of these boxes from when they arrive. Each gets a number punched into the metal – here – see?’ He walked to a bench where a series of the boxes was piled and showed Brooke the one he picked up: 6758b. ‘The serial numbers are sequential and recorded at each stage of production through the factory. So, if we need to, we can trace any box and its journey through the factory. Foolproof really. Then – over here at “goods out” – we hand over the finished box to the drivers from RAF Bawdsey. See?’
The finished electronics were encased within the Meccano shells, complete with serial numbers. A lorry, tailgate down, stood ready to take its shipment.
Forbes lit a cheroot. ‘One’s missing. It’s only just come to light because it is only here, at “goods out”, that the boxes return to their serial order. It’s the failsafe point, but it only comes at the end. Up to then each box takes its own route, as I said, depending on whether they’ve been earmarked as receivers, transmitters, whatever. The technicalities are tedious. The fact is we’ve lost a transmitter, close to its final stage of production, and it is one of a new range with inbuilt anti-blocking. Top secret – a tired cliché I know, but there it is. Top secret, and bound for the frontline on the East Coast, and trials.’
‘When was it taken?’
Forbes looked around. ‘Wait here. I’ll get the dog.’
He came back with the hound, the cigar still clamped between his lips, and they set out though the GOODS OUT doors and across the snowfield. Behind them steam rose from the factory’s vents and piping.
‘The unit was last recorded in situ the day before the bomb. First floor, the diode lab.’
‘Is each lab locked?’
‘Yes,’ he said, shaking his bunch of keys. ‘Same as the main doors. Three sets: Ridley, the managing director and mine. And there’s no evidence of any locks being forced.’
He sucked the life out of his cheroot, ditching it in the snow.
‘You think the bomb was a diversion?’ asked Brooke.
‘Possibly. But is a bunch of bog-trotting peasants up to this? The difference between the missing unit and a standard unit at this stage of production is not apparent. It would take me ten minutes to be sure. And the Air Ministry agrees. We have to “entertain” – their word – entertain the notion that the IRA bombers have been given help, possibly by German intelligence. Whitehall’s ordered a stocktake, every nut, every bolt. That’s two days of production gone. After that we’ll have an RAF guard on the perimeter.’
He called the dog back from the distant veranda of the old sports pavilion, where it was tracking the ghosts of footballers past. It trotted up, a stick in its jaws.
‘Sorry, old boy,’ he said, patting the dog, looking up at Brooke. ‘We live out on the downs near Newmarket. She gets plenty of room to run at home, as far as you can see. But we need to get back to the office now.’ He slipped a lead through the collar. ‘So that’s the deal, Brooke,’ he said, leading the way. ‘Air Ministry will make the factory secure so this can’t happen again. Your job, I’m told by the chief constable and the Home Office, is to find the transmitter before it is either spirited out of the country, or someone with the requisite knowledge picks it apart.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Brooke was on the phone to Scotland Yard, attempting to set out his plans for securing the stolen RADAR unit – which were sketchy at best – when Edison appeared with a single sheet of paper which he placed on the blotter: YOUR WIFE – DUTY DESK. How long had he known his detective sergeant? Three months, possibly a week longer, but there was already a curious bond between them. Edison’s personality spoke of experience, and a kind of common-sense grip on the ways of the world. The look in his eyes at this moment, an intensity of focus, told Brooke that he should cut short the call and descend the three flights of steps, two at a time. A second sense made him take his greatcoat, his cigarettes and his hat.
Claire stood back from the desk to make room for a woman who was trying to report the details of a burglary, her mouth obscured by a handkerchief. His wife held a letter, flat against her handbag. Brooke’s eyes were damaged, in that he suffered from acute photophobia – a painful aversion to light – but his vision was excellent, 20:20 in fact, and so he saw immediately the capital typed letters of an official telegram. It was impossible not to think of Rose King and her ridiculous tea leaves, and the unreliable rider to her prediction: It’s good news.
Brooke took Claire by the arm out into the street. There was very little need to speak because the situation, while long envisaged, was unique. Claire had never seen his office at the Spinning House, although he had called at the hospital many times. They had, until the recent alterations, used their secret place in the basement of the hospital. Since the outbreak of the war and the departure of the children, they’d gone there many times. He held a vision of her nurse’s uniform draped over a boiler pipe. The Spinning House offered no such privacy or excitement. He couldn’t recall a single occasion on which she’d been beyond the duty desk.
She would only visit the station in an emergency.
They walked out onto Parker’s Piece. In daylight the great open park, on which the army was camped, had lost its magical night-time aura of chivalrous battle. After dusk, fires were allowed unless a siren wailed, so smoke drifted, and snatches of music were on the air. The scene now was bleaker. A listless line of soldiers waited in a queue for food from a mobile kitchen. A Bofors gun, set on a miniature hill of sandbags at one corner, was the focus of a training exercise, a platoon of attentive recruits watchin
g a crew go through their split-second routine.
They found an empty bench under a tree festooned with balls of mistletoe.
‘It’s Ben,’ she said, giving him the telegram.
The wave of relief left him giddy. He’d been keeping at bay the thought that it was Luke. An accident perhaps, his crushed body found under a tank where he’d insisted on sleeping out of the snow and rain. Claire saw the confusion, and the sudden guilt, and understood the moment in its entirety.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘Stupid of me.’ She squeezed his hand.
He read the message:
ADMIRALTY BUILDING WHITEHALL
7 JANUARY 1940. 1400 HOURS
NORTH SEA/ARCTIC
CONVOY 18C
REGRET TO INFORM YOU LEADING SUBMARINER BENJAMIN JONES MISSING AT SEA. HMS SILVERFISH UNACCOUNTED FOR 180 NAUTICAL MILES NNW NARVIK.
He read it three times as if some hidden meaning would rise up from the arid text.
‘How’s Joy?’ he asked, finally.
‘At the hospital on her shift. She thought it was best. I can’t think of anything better. I’ll join her later.’
He made himself hold on to the telegram.
‘We’ll have to wait,’ he offered. ‘Missing is missing, Claire. There’s still hope.’
‘This isn’t part of the deal, Eden,’ she said. There was something bitter in her voice which was so unexpected he felt his blood run cold. ‘I have my two lives and they balance out. I look after people who are ill. I never stint. I use what talents I’ve got as best I can. It’s not a crusade or anything, it’s just the way I want to live my life. When I come home there’s a family. That’s you, and Joy, and Luke – and it’s Ben now too. And it’s the child that’s coming. They balance out, these lives. So this isn’t allowed – is it?’
She smiled, but there was an uncharacteristic hint of cynicism. Unlike Brooke, Claire’s faith in a God was unshakeable. It didn’t express itself in the fabric of churches, or holy pictures, or ceremonies of any kind. But there was a God and he – or even she – was responsible for that balance between goodness and reward.
‘I can try the Admiralty, through the Yard, if it helps?’
She nodded. ‘Anything. If Ben’s missing, then they’re all missing. There must be a story, a narrative, a series of events. Anything would help. Anything would be better than this. It’s so … insipid.’
She took the letter and put it in her bag.
For a few minutes they tried to concentrate on domestic issues: food and bills and shifts, and a planned outing to the theatre to see a comedy. Eventually the conversation died.
‘Just tell me something about your day,’ said Claire. ‘Just something normal and commonplace. Then I can pretend this hasn’t happened.’
Out on Parker’s Piece they were taking down some of the tents and a unit of soldiers was hauling railway sleepers into place along the outlines of what looked like a football field. Three men with wide brooms were shifting the snow from the grass and repainting the lines.
‘Wembley for a day,’ said Brooke, trying to put some light-heartedness into his voice. ‘We’re getting a royal visit from Prince Henry, the king’s brother, Saturday. Apparently, he was a bit of a dud at school, but he’s mad about football. They’re laying on a match: Army v University. Security is down to us.
‘It’s Prince Henry’s request that they play the game right there. On that spot. According to the record books, the first ever game of football using modern rules took place there in 1863. I’ve had all the details from Edison. Of course they’d been playing the game for centuries; hacking, fighting, brawling, but this was the first modern game of soccer.
‘The sleepers are for the crowd to stand on. They’re expecting a packed house. It’s the last thing we need, but there it is. They’re bussing in children too, so it’ll be mayhem in its own way.’ Brooke lit a cigarette.
‘What about that poor child in the river?’ said Claire.
He’d told her all about the violent death of Colm Hendrie, and his link to St Alban’s and the dead boy’s mother.
‘I can’t shake off the feeling that lies are being told,’ he said. ‘There’s the Walshes – the head and his wife. He looks like a broken man, she looks like the Rose of Tralee. I can’t be sure, but I think she’s pregnant – the word “bloom” falls well short of the reality. Then there’s the priest: a good man, I think, but there’s a secret there too. The priest and the housekeeper are a bit of cliché. They’re close, of that there is no doubt, cooped up in the presbytery. A fine woman – that’s her cliché. Then there’s Smith the caretaker. Clean-cut, an athlete, a friend to the kids. Too good to be true?’
‘I never had you down as a cynic, Eden.’
‘I’m a sceptic.’
‘Sounds like a nest of vipers to me,’ said Claire.
They stood.
She ran a hand down one of his lapels. ‘About the priest. There’s an old saying, more popular with us girls I suspect. If you think two people are having an affair, they are having an affair. It’s all in the body language. You’ve an eye for that, Eden. Trust yourself.’
Brooke kissed her. ‘Tell Joy this: war is chaos. The Silverfish could be anywhere. Missing means just that, and no more. Tell her I’ll try and find out some details. I’ll see her at home. If she still wants to, we can skate on the ice.’
Claire retied a scarf at her throat. ‘Did you like Ben?’ she said, the voice again exhibiting that unfamiliar edge.
‘He’s not dead, Claire.’
She put a finger across his lips. ‘I don’t mean that. Did you like him when you met him?’
‘I admired him. It’s too early to say.’
They kissed again and parted.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Brooke took a back seat in the hall of St Alban’s School, the place buzzing with excited voices, a crowd of possibly a hundred and fifty in place for an Epiphany play – The Arrival of the Magi. It was, he’d been assured by Father Ward, a mercifully short production, although he’d neglected to mention the sermon with which he greeted the audience of parishioners, evacuees, their temporary guardians and a handful of guests, including the local alderman, who’d felt motivated to leap to his feet to deliver a speech of his own in reply. The priest’s address had actually been a model of its kind, its message that the Epiphany was a revelation, in this case of the newly born Christ to the wider world, represented by the gift-laden figures of Balthasar, Melchior and Caspar.
The hall had been created by rolling back wooden partitions between three classrooms. Windows ran down one side, neatly blanked out with blackout boards. The children’s stage was hardboard, perched on milk bottle crates. On the floor sat the children, those in loco parentis on ranks of chairs, directly behind. Brooke nodded to Mr and Mrs Harper, dutifully sitting behind young John McQuillan.
Mrs Aitken played a piano as the audience joined in a rendition of ‘A Boy Is Born in Bethlehem’. Brooke’s musical talents were meagre, but he knew enough to recognise that the atonal accompaniment was down to the piano, not the pianist. His mind, despite the off-notes, was still focused on revelation, a concept which seemed almost palpable but just out of reach. Unbeknownst to the congregation a dozen uniformed officers were even now assembling on the Great Bridge, preparing to ascend Castle Hill. Once the play was over they would interview everyone. ID cards, papers and addresses would be recorded. The questions were obvious: many of these people, if not the vast majority, had known Colm Hendrie. Did he talk of friends, comrades, lovers? What of his family back in Ireland? Had he ever mentioned Mary Flynn? Edison had the woman’s picture, retrieved from the missal. Did anyone recognise her? And what of politics, and the IRA? Did the Upper Town have its hidden revolutionaries?
The burden of the inquiry seemed suddenly crippling. Brooke took a deep breath and closed his eyes until a change in the music signalled the drama was about to begin. It was in the silence after the hymn as the three kings began to present their
gifts to the doll in the manger that the siren, fixed atop the new Guildhall on Market Hill, let out its long, slow guttural wail, a note rising to a sustained pitch.
There was a groan from the audience, Mrs Aitken faltered at the piano and Father Ward took to the stage. ‘The children know what to do now, so please follow them.’ He raised a hand, said a line of prayer and set the drill in motion.
The young caretaker, Smith, led the way into the central corridor and then to the far end, where an open staircase twisted back and down to the basement. The heat here was dry and intense; a central corridor – exactly mirroring the one above – led away from the boiler room itself, where a coke oven fire door stood open, revealing the bright yellow-red glow of the coals. Beside it, a chair and cot bed marked the caretaker’s billet. On a shelf was placed a small framed picture of a family of three on a wide, deserted beach. On a hook hung a heavy overcoat.
Off the central corridor there were half a dozen rooms, one or two given over to stores – wood, a coal bunker, various cans of oil and other hardware. The children were split into boys and girls and led into two of the rooms, where blankets and sacks were ready for makeshift beds if the alarm lasted. Candles were lit to supplement the occasional light bulbs. A general air of unbridled adventure had taken hold.
Father Ward waited at the foot of the stairs directing the operation. ‘We’ve done the drill, of course,’ he told Brooke. ‘But this is the first time we’ve come down in anger, as it were. The sirens are rare by daylight so we don’t get the chance. Everyone’s a bit overexcited.’
