If Necessary Alone

by V M Knox

  Entering the manse, he decided to discuss the Frew sisters with Aidan, when the man awoke. There would be so much for his friend to do. Small communities always felt such loss acutely. There were funerals and memorial services to arrange and even with a damaged kirk, it had to be done if the villages of Huna and Canisbay were ever able to come to terms with the recent events.

  He swung the coal sack down beside the fireplace. Of all those who had died, Clement would always feel heartache about Sean. The elderly farmer from Brabster, the only passenger on Sean’s bus, had altered Sean’s usual bus route, something Jean Buchanan had not known.

  Kneeling in front of the fireplace, Clement opened the sack and emptied the coal into the scuttle beside the grate then reached for the brush. Cold ash fell through the andirons onto the bricks beneath as he swept the white ash aside. Turning, he looked around for some paper to light the fire, his eye falling on a local newspaper left on the velvet chair. Tearing off several pages, he twisted the paper into lengths and laid them in the grate, then piled some kindling on top. Reaching for the box of matches beside the coal scuttle, he lit the paper and watched the flames take hold. Taking some pieces of coal, he laid them over the twigs and waited. The orange flames rose quickly, the paper blackening and burning away, a twig catching the flame and glowing red. Standing, he went into the kitchen, filled the kettle, set it on the stove and returned to the sitting room to add more coal. He watched the flames dwindle, the kindling failing to ignite and he realised the twigs must have been damp. Clement looked around.

  Behind him was a bookshelf filled with neatly stacked magazines. With no more newspaper he hoped that Aidan wouldn’t mind sacrificing one of his fishing magazines for their comfort. He took the top one from the nearest pile. A wide-eyed fish stared back at him and he remembered seeing the magazine with the lead article about the breeding habits of the North Atlantic Cod. He smiled, wondering if given the events of the last week, Aidan would ever again read such mundane matter. Opening the magazine, he tore off the back few pages and scrunched them, poking them between the kindling and waiting for the fire to take. Staring into the flames, he waited while the kindling crackled and the fire took hold.

  Putting the brush and matches aside, he closed what was left of the magazine. A small square of paper fell from between the pages. Without much thought he picked it up and glanced at the jumble of letters and numbers arranged in columns. Frowning, he stared at the note. The lists resembled a puzzle. Laid out on the slip of paper in the shape of a rectangle were eight columns of letters. Above them was a line of numbers; 1,8,3,4,2,6,7,5 and beneath each number was a letter that spelt the word breeding. Beneath this were three lines of eight letters each in random order.

  Clement’s mind raced. On the lower edge of the note were five groups of five random letters. He’d seen them before. The encrypted message Sarah had taken down while sitting in Eric Fraser’s boat-shed. He felt the blood draining from his head and he forced himself to think. What had Sarah said? That a key known to both the sender and the recipient was essential to decipher the message. Clement’s gaze fell on the only intelligible word on the page; Breeding. He turned the magazine over in his hand. Breeding was the verb in the magazine’s lead article. His eye returned to the note. Was it the key to deciphering the scrambled message? But no matter which way he read the letters, he couldn’t make out any other word.

  He stared at them, his eyes going from the transmitted groups of letters to how they were formed. The transmitted message followed the vertical column in the numerical order above the key word. The letters were read horizontally. His eyes returned to the rectangle as he saw it. He began to spell out the letters. They were not random. They were German. Across the bottom line he recognised one German word contained within the encryption.

  In his head Clement was plunged into his past, to a time more than thirty years ago, when he worked as a youth on a farm in Romney near his boyhood home and before the first war. The farm manager had a dog whose name was Weiler. In his head, Clement could hear the farm manager’s wife calling the animal now, the way Germans pronounce W’s like V’s. But it wasn’t the pronunciation that now made Clement’s blood run cold.

  He knew what Weiler meant.

  Hamlet. A Great Dane. And Clement knew of only one Dane in Canisbay.

  ‘I see you found it?’

  The voice came out of nowhere; calm, hypnotic. Clement’s breathing stopped. Without moving, he lifted his gaze and faced his true enemy. He held the stare; cold, impassive.

  ‘Little acts of kindness,’ Aidan said, his eyes flicking to the fire that was now well alight. ‘A good man’s undoing.’ From under the sling, Aidan raised a pistol then clenched it with both hands, the weapon motionless in his grasp, his finger slipping the safety catch.

  Clement’s heart pounded in his chest, his eye fixed on the muzzle of the weapon. Standing in front of the fire, Clement held Aidan Heath’s gaze and slipped the note into his coat pocket. His fingers felt the cool metal of Reg’s commando knife, forgotten, and lying in the greatcoat pocket. ‘Did you kill the Frew sisters, or did Stratton?’

  ‘Ah! Now I am insulted! Stratton had no finesse; no sense of the dramatic. Intimidation was much more his thing. And it was amusing watching you run around like a headless chicken. Now, put the note on the table.’

  ‘Even if you kill me, you cannot escape. The submarine has gone. It didn’t wait for you.’

  ‘Please don’t congratulate yourself just yet. You forget, Clement. I know where to find any number of boats that regularly make the crossing to Orkney or Shetland. So close to many of my friends in Norway. Now put the note on the table.’

  Clement reached into his pocket again. While feeling for the note, he turned Reg’s knife so that the blade was pointing downwards, ready for his hand to grasp the handle. Withdrawing the note, he placed it on the table then put his hand back into his pocket, the cool metal blade in his grasp. As Aidan reached forward to take the enciphered note, a coal burst in the grate, the sound like a discharged shot. Aidan spun around.

  Clement lunged forward. With his hands together and his arms extended, he swung both arms down hard onto Aidan’s pistol arm, deflecting the weapon. At the same time he punched his knee hard into Aidan’s gut. He dropped the gun and staggered backwards, then fell to his knees in front of the hearth. Scrambling to stand, his eyes were wild, their gaze shifting between Clement and the fallen pistol that lay a yard away. But Clement knew he had the advantage. Once again he slipped his hand into his coat pocket. As Aidan lunged to his left and reached for the weapon, in one swift movement Clement withdrew Reg’s knife and, aiming upwards, plunged it into the traitor’s torso. With an agonised scream, Aidan arched backwards, then collapsed onto the floor. Clement bent over him, pulled the blade free then reached for the pistol, but Aidan, with unnerving strength, punched his hand into Clement’s stomach. It felt to Clement as though all his internal organs would erupt through his back. Pain seared through his intestines; he fell sidewards, gasping for breath then endeavouring to stand, staggered forward, his head spinning.

  Aidan still lay on the floor, blood flowing onto the carpet from the deep knife wound, but still he struggled. With one hand clutching the wound, his left arm stretched wide, his hand searching for the pistol. Bright red blood bubbled up through his lips. Yet even as unconsciousness descended, his desperate fingers still sought the gun. Clement picked it up and flung it through the kitchen door beyond reach.

  Aidan’s face twisted in pain, his breath coming in rattling gasps. Clement knew that death couldn’t be far away. He stared at his enemy as Aidan emitted a deep, primordial groan. Despite his injuries, Clement saw with incredulity that the man was attempting to stand.

  Still holding the knife, Clement backed away. ‘It’s over. You cannot win.’

  ‘Killed by a piece of coal. Heil Hitler!’

  The encrypted note sill lay on the table. Keeping an eye on the dying man, Clemen
t grabbed it and pushing it into the coat’s other pocket, felt the grenade. Withdrawing it, he held it in his left hand for Aidan to see. Clement saw the resignation in Aidan’s expression.

  Despite the agonizing pain in his gut, Clement forced himself to move. Doubled over in pain and with his eyes on his enemy, Clement backed through the kitchen towards the rear door, the grenade in his hand. Standing in the doorway, Clement stared for one second at a man he truly loathed. Using his teeth, he withdrew the pin. Counting aloud, he tossed it sideways into the kitchen, to where he knew Aidan, even if he could, wouldn’t have the time to reach it.

  With three seconds remaining, Clement turned and ran for the far side of the poultry shed. Throwing himself on the ground, he wrapped his arms over his head.

  An explosion ripped the manse apart, blowing glass and debris of all kinds outwards in its deadly trajectory. The shock wave from the detonation thumped in his chest. He waited, his breathing suspended. Five seconds later, he smelt the dust of destruction as it wafted over the rear garden. Ten seconds later Clement stumbled to his feet. He was alive.

  Chapter 29

  London, Thursday 8th May

  Clement stepped from the bus as a wave of pigeons circled above him. More than two months had passed since his mission to Caithness and the farm where he had been sent to recuperate in the Peak District had been a much needed break. Now the sight of sand bags and bomb damage and Johnny’s summoning letter reminded Clement that the war was not over.

  He crossed Trafalgar Square and made his way to Whitehall Place. Regardless of his physical recovery, the haunting images of the Frew sisters and the grotesquely displayed body of Donald Crawford plagued him nightly. Ten weeks of rest surrounded by beautiful scenery and vibrant spring flowers somehow only seemed to make the memories all the more obscene and he feared the sordid visions may never leave him. Yet he didn’t wish to forget them either. Not in any gruesome sense, but their deaths had been as much for king and country as any airman, soldier or sailor and the manner of their sacrifice was an ever-present reminder of the brutality of Nazism.

  Turning the corner, his gaze fell on the elaborate stone entrance half way down the street. His experience had taught Clement one very important lesson about himself; if necessary, he could act alone. The final verse of St Matthew’s Gospel rang in his ears. “I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” He felt it. He believed the Divine Hand had been extended in Scotland and on more than one occasion. There was work for him to do on Earth. Death had been so close that he had felt the Dark Angel’s breath, yet he had survived. Stepping through the door, Clement climbed the familiar steps.

  ‘Miss Ballantyne,’ he smiled, as he approached her desk.

  ‘Major Wisdom. I trust you are sufficiently rested after your recent trip north?’ Nora Ballantyne flashed a smile, her fingers never leaving the keys of her typewriter. ‘You may go straight in.’

  He thought for a second he may have glimpsed a genuine smile, but he wasn’t certain. Leaving her, he tapped at Johnny’s door before opening it.

  ‘Clement! Wonderful to see you! Won’t you sit down? Do help yourself,’ Johnny said indicating the tea tray on his desk.

  Clement poured some tea and sat in a studded leather chair.

  ‘How are you, Clement? Quite rested, I hope? You’ve had quite a time of it, I know. I’ve read your notes. “C” is delighted. And, it appears, you have a bit of a reputation. You know they are all calling you The Vicar? The way they say it sounds almost macabre.’

  ‘Perhaps, Johnny, but that is what I am.’

  ‘Indeed you are.’

  Clement sipped his tea. ‘And what of Stratton?’

  ‘Tried under the Treason Act and found guilty. He was hanged last week at Wandsworth.’

  ‘Did we learn anything?’

  Johnny shook his head. ‘Not much from his lips. Miss Ballantyne attended the trial on our behalf, incognito of course. But she did unearth some interesting information for the Prosecution. In fact it sealed Stratton’s fate. She discovered the grave of Reverend Aidan Heath.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Yes. It would appear that the real Reverend Aidan Heath is buried in Sighthill Cemetery, Glasgow and has been for over a hundred years.’ Johnny placed his tea cup on the tray. ‘The modern-day Aidan Heath was a complete fiction. It would appear that Stratton used his position as a police officer to access public records and was able to insert erroneous and misleading information whenever he wished. And as he lived at a boarding house in Sighthill when he was a young Constable at the Police Station there, he would have walked through the cemetery many times.’

  ‘Then who?’

  Johnny shrugged his shoulders. ‘Stratton kept that secret to the end, despite our best efforts. While it would be safe to assume that the modern-day Aidan Heath was a fanatical Nazi spy, it would appear that Stratton was equally zealous.’

  Clement stared into his half-finished cup of tea feeling as though he had been punched.

  Johnny went on. ‘When Stratton was being prepared for burial, a tattoo was found under his upper right arm. It was a Hitler Youth emblem. Quite distinctive, with its diamond shape and central swastika. I asked Miss Ballantyne and her troupe of bloodhounds to do some investigating. It appears that as a young man, Stratton travelled to Germany quite often to spend time with his mother’s family. It is possible that he and the man we knew as Heath met at Hitler Youth gatherings.’

  Clement stared through Johnny’s large windows, to the grey skies outside. Even though knowing both Heath and Stratton were dead, he felt that they were still laughing at him.

  Johnny leaned forward in his seat. ‘It doesn’t matter what Heath’s real name was, Clement. The fact is you located him and his accomplices. Names are immaterial and together with what we learned while on the raid in Norway, it has been a thoroughly excellent result.

  ‘You were in Norway, Johnny?’ he asked but his mind was still on Aidan Heath.

  ‘Yes. On a raid on the fish oil factories in the Lofoten Islands to be precise. I saw a lone fishing trawler that I wouldn’t have suspected without your information. Before the trawler sank, we managed to salvage the enigma rotor wheels and some code books. As I said, an excellent result. As indeed was yours.’

  Clement leaned forward. ‘And Stratton said nothing?’

  ‘Tight-lipped to the end.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’ Clement paused, but his question was more to himself. He looked across at Johnny. ‘Was he ever told that Aidan Heath is dead?’

  ‘No.’

  Clement nodded pondering such loyalty. ‘Is it possible they were related?’

  ‘We’ll never have the answer to that.’

  ‘Will you continue to investigate it?’

  Johnny shook his head. ‘Can’t waste valuable time and resources on something that doesn’t directly benefit the war effort. However, it may interest you to know that Miss Ballantyne learned something else interesting. She requisitioned Stratton’s police records file. His request for transfer to Thurso had been submitted only a day after Stratton, himself, discovered the body of a murdered man in Sighthill Cemetery. Stratton, so his Chief Inspector at the time noted, had been unusually disturbed by the death. The murdered man was identified as a John William Nicholson by the man’s wife, who the Chief Inspector subsequently believed may have had a hand in her husband’s death. But before she could be questioned, she disappeared from Glasgow. And upon further investigation, no John William Nicholson was found in official records for the address given. Nor, in fact, were there any for the man’s wife, one Mrs Jean Nicholson.’

  Clement sat back, his mind reeling. ‘So Stratton kept her out of prison and she was forced to do his bidding.’

  ‘So it seems.’

  ‘But it was Aidan Heath who did the killing.’ Clement leaned forward and placed the cup back onto the tray. ‘I’ve thought of little else, Johnny, while in the Peak Di
strict and I think I know how he did it. He must have been in the kirk and overheard Mrs Crawford tell me where her wireless was secreted. He was there to use his own radio transmitter which he must have kept in the vestry, connecting it to the long-range aerial in the rafters and using the brazier as a power source. That was why the German fighter bombed the bell tower. It was both the signal to escape and it destroyed the transmitter and antennae in the rafters. As soon as Aidan heard the aeroplane and saw that it was not one of ours, he left the kirk and ran into the graveyard where Jean would join him.’ Clement paused. ‘Everything that man said was a lie, including being afraid of heights. He killed those elderly ladies to make a telephone call to Stratton to arrange the logistics of his escape. Then he killed Donald Crawford because he knew to whom the call had been placed and, thanks to overhearing the conversation between Sarah and me, he knew exactly where to find Crawford. But what I find so despicable is that he took a cake the ladies had baked as proof that he was in their house, then sat calmly eating it.’ Clement paused. ‘He was seen, you know. It was something McAllister said when he came to the manse seeking help. “Aidan, you have to come back with me”. Why wouldn’t McAllister just say, “you have to come with me”? It only makes sense if McAllister had already seen Heath walking along the road. No wonder he went to such lengths to implicate McAllister.’

  ‘Don’t take it personally, Clement. Both Stratton and Heath are dead and you have done wonders, as I knew you would. In fact, I think I said that solo missions are for the young or those with a death wish. You proved me wrong and that doesn’t happen all that often, I’m happy to say.’

  ‘Thank you for the vote of confidence, Johnny. I’m not sure you are correct about that. However, I do know what I am capable of, if required.’