The Man Who Played Trains: The gripping new thriller from the author of Playpits Park

by Richard Whittle

  Theo makes trips to the farmhouse and brings out his bags, spare quilts and spare clothes for Peter. Artur gives him a small churn of milk and a cloth bag of bread and cheese. Peter is dressed in thick clothing, topped with an outsize overcoat whose sleeves cover his hands.

  Artur carries the food to the truck and Theo carries Peter, lifting him over the tailgate, and carrying him over the fuel cans to a concealed space between crates Walter is making for him. The boy does not flinch. Soon he is lost in the quilt and a mass of spare clothes.

  While Theo is there the engine growls to life, gears grind and the truck starts to move, its wheels crushing ice. By the time he struggles to the tailgate and tugs the canvas canopy aside to see out, the truck has left the farmyard and is grinding its way up the lane. All Theo can see of the farm is the barn, the rusty steel roof of the farmhouse and the pillar of pale smoke rising from its chimney.

  There is no point in Theo complaining about the hurried departure, what is done is done. When this war is over he will return to the farm with Peter and thank Artur properly, perhaps even help on the farm for a while. Perhaps stay there for ever.

  Hours pass before Walter pulls off the road. Theo, still in the back, stretched out uncomfortably on the fuel cans with his head close to Peter’s den, is rocked and buffeted as Walter takes the truck down tracks, into dense woodland. The cab door slams; Walter’s boots crunch deep snow as he walks to the tailgate; daylight streams into the truck as the corner of the canvas is lifted.

  Walter’s capped head is framed by canvas. He is looking for something, trying to see past Theo, squinting down the dark narrow alley.

  ‘Behind these crates you will find a naval kitbag, it has all your old kit. Change into your naval uniform and then bring me everything I gave you in Berlin.’

  ‘My kit? You told me you had destroyed everything of mine.’

  ‘I lied.’

  ‘Does that mean you still have my travel permit and my rail warrant?’

  ‘Come, move! We do not have all day!’ He wags a finger at Theo’s Luftwaffe boots, damaged from when he chopped wood. ‘Take those off. Your socks, too. I want everything.’

  Theo shakes his head, exasperation rather than refusal. He has done a deal with the devil. In exchange he has been given his son.

  Walter continues: ‘It is inevitable we will be stopped. When it happens you will say you are a submariner on leave. You will show them your rail warrant and tell them that because there are no trains it is now worthless. You are returning to your dockyard by any possible means and out of the goodness of my heart I stopped at the roadside to give you a lift. It is what you will say, you will not elaborate in any way. Give me your Luftwaffe papers. You will find your old naval papers in your kitbag. Now, move! Pass me one of those fuel cans!’

  Theo does as Walter asks and then goes for the kitbag. In it he finds boots, standard naval issue rather than submariner’s sea boots. They are brand new, as is the cap. His white roll-neck sweater is missing, as is his old leather jacket. In their place is a standard naval tunic and a greatcoat, rolled tight. Both show his true rank. Taking care not to be seen by Walter, he transfers his Kriegsmarine notebooks from the Luftwaffe kitbag to his naval one.

  Soon he is a naval officer again, smarter but less comfortable than before.

  Walter has walked into the trees and is burning kit. Theo consigns his papers and kitbag to the flames, and finally his tall Luftwaffe boots.

  ‘Shame about those,’ he says. ‘I was beginning to like them.’

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-TWO

  SPARGO SAT AT HIS DESK, concentrating on a sheet of white paper. On it he’d pencilled names, Rydel and Lewis, Kalman and Stuart Main. He added Letchie, and then Day and Montgomery. He drew circles around them. Drew lines to link them.

  Sure Main wasn’t involved in any way he rubbed out his name. Down the left hand edge of the paper he listed more words: journals, cottage, Letchie’s laptop, Lewis’s email. After adding several more items he started to draw lines between these, too. Then he screwed up the paper and dropped it into his bin.

  He missed working with Murphy. Seeing connections between seemingly unrelated things was something Murphy excelled at. So was Jez – but if he asked her to help there would be a big price to pay, he would have to come clean with her. Trouble was, he couldn’t remember what he’d told her and what he hadn’t.

  ‘His name is Francis Rydel,’ he told her that evening. ‘He’s old, probably in his late eighties. Lewis, the translator, was his cousin. When Rydel’s wife died, Lewis moved down from Inverness to stay with him.’

  ‘You told me Lewis was killed in a hit-and-run. Are you saying you went to his house?’

  ‘I’ve got stuff from there,’ he said, over-cheerful. ‘A stereo and boxes of CDs for that friend of yours. The one who does the charity stuff.’

  Her eyes burned. ‘Dad! Stop trying to divert me! I can’t believe you went there! What did you hope to achieve?’

  ‘Not as much as I did achieve. It was Lewis who sent me that message. I also – ’

  ‘What message?’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you? An email. I told Mitchell about it.’

  ‘But you didn’t tell me.’

  None of the soft chairs in Jez’s sitting room were particularly comfortable and he circled around, selected the best and sat down on it. Jez stayed standing while her father explained about the email.

  ‘It was there,’ he said. ‘With the deleted items.’

  ‘I think I need a stiff drink.’

  ‘Did I tell you I met Kalman again?’

  ‘Who the hell is Kalman?’

  Jez crossed the room, opened a cupboard and poured two gins.

  Spargo told her about Kalman, and pewter plates, and Montgomery and Day. And Hermann Göring’s lighter. Jez poured herself another drink.

  ‘Useful man, Day,’ Spargo added. ‘Likes to make out he’s a shady trader. Makes his buyers think they’re getting something under the counter.’

  Jez listened, nursing her glass and trying hard not to scream. Over the years her father had been in all kinds of scrapes but nothing like this. She hoped, but doubted, he was telling her everything.

  ‘Did you show Rydel the lighter?’

  Spargo nodded. ‘He recognised it. I thought he was going to have a seizure.’

  Jez rolled her eyes. Another dead body was all her father needed. ‘And did Rydel admit to having known Volker?’

  ‘He didn’t admit to it. It was obvious he did.’

  ‘And you think they were together on the submarine. You said its number just now. What was it?’

  ‘U-1500.’

  She jotted something on a notepad.

  ‘And this Kalman. You said that as soon as he found out the submarine was the U-1500, the whole thing was called off?’

  ‘No. He was then to search the boat. Then he found the pewter. The consortium wasn’t interested in it.’

  ‘How much of this do the police know? What have you told them?’

  ‘Very little.’

  ‘Don’t you think you should? Do they know about Day?’

  ‘No. He did me a favour.’

  ‘Rydel, then?’

  ‘I only met him this afternoon.’

  ‘Of course you did, how silly of me. I suppose he’s done you favours too.’ She tried to calm herself. ‘What about Kalman?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Have you told the police about him?’

  ‘How can I possibly tell them? He’s trying to sell pewter so he won’t have to take it through customs.’

  She rolled her eyes again. Her father was protecting people. It had happened before, it happened when he and Murphy fell out. At the time she was too young to understand but her mother told her years later that Murphy had smashed up a car when drunk and her father had covered things up somehow.

  ‘And Kalman did you a favour, of course. Gran has been murdered, and you’re bimbling about, keeping all
this to yourself.’

  ‘I’m not bimbling about. I just can’t seem to pull it all together. I can’t prove anything.’

  ‘That is not your job. Just because you don’t like Quinn doesn’t mean you shouldn’t tell him what you know.’

  Jez waited, watching him ponder her words. She knew she had made her point and it was tactless to pursue it.

  ‘Any sign of your Spanish contract?’ she asked.

  It was the first alternative topic that came to her mind. Perhaps not the best one.

  ‘Haven’t heard anything. I can’t say I’m surprised though. I got the impression it would take a few weeks.’

  ‘Tell me about him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Oscar Bar.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Humour me. You said just now this exploration thing cost millions. Is Bar rich enough to finance it?’

  ‘Why should it be anything to do with Bar? Kalman said exploration of the sub is paid for by a US consortium.’

  ‘I didn’t say it was Bar. Tell me what you know about him. What’s his history?’

  Spargo shrugged. ‘I know next to nothing about him. BarConSA’s not in the mining directories. Murphy hasn’t heard of them.’

  ‘I’m talking about Bar, not his firm. You said he is old.’

  ‘Pushing ninety. Possibly more.’

  ‘The name Oscar doesn’t sound Spanish. Not sure about Bar.’

  ‘I thought at first he was Swedish.’

  ‘Have you looked him up on the Internet?’

  ‘I didn’t think of it.’

  That surprised her. Her father was computer literate. He used the net for mining research.

  ‘You said Swedish. Why?’

  ‘The mixed accent. Natural Spanish flows. It’s not as smooth as Italian but you know what I mean. Bar’s is guttural, his words are clipped. I got the impression he had a throat problem.’

  ‘Maybe he is German.’

  ‘I wondered about that. It might explain the pictures.’

  ‘What pictures?’

  ‘In his study in Spain. Old photographs. One was of a group of men in uniform. They could have been German.’

  ‘Wartime? And you couldn’t tell if they were German? With the possible exception of Spiderman, the Third Reich probably had the most recognisable uniforms in the history of the world.’

  ‘If you mean caps and jackboots they weren’t wearing any. Anyway, I didn’t get a good look. Bar came in.’

  ‘While you were searching his study.’

  ‘I wasn’t searching. I was early for breakfast. I was standing just inside the doorway. I simply wondered why he had taken down all his pictures. The nails were still in the wall, you could see where the pictures had been.’

  ‘What about the rest of the pictures.’

  ‘I didn’t see them. Didn’t have time.’

  ‘What did Bar say when he found you there?’

  ‘Not a lot.’

  ‘You said he was old and in a wheelchair. Sounds to me he’s about the right age.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Don’t you think it strange he wants to hire you at the very same time as this U-boat business is going on?’

  ‘It isn’t the same time. I met Benares long before all this happened.’

  ‘I can’t agree. You said the diving started early in the year. You met Benares in London months later.’

  ‘They didn’t know it was the right boat until Kalman found that name tag. That couldn’t have happened until after I met Benares.’

  ‘What do you mean, the right boat? Surely if it was empty it was the wrong boat?’

  He took a swig from his glass. ‘No, it was the right boat. It was the boat they had been looking for. Kalman said it was the right boat because it had no guns or torpedo tubes. He said there was space for cargo, but apart from the pewter it seemed to have been carrying nothing.’

  She listened, nodding occasionally. Found herself gazing into the middle distance like her fellow academics did.

  ‘They paid out millions of dollars…’ she mumbled, ‘…knowing anything found in the submarine would be worthless.’ Then, no longer mumbling: ‘Gold doesn’t corrode. Were they looking for gold?’

  Her father shook his head. ‘I’ve been through all that. Kalman was adamant it wasn’t gold.’

  ‘But still he didn’t know what it was.’

  ‘I remember him saying the whole thing had been about nothing.’

  ‘He said?’

  ‘This whole game’s been about nothing. His exact words.’

  She looked up from the floor and her gaze met his. Suddenly things seemed so clear. She sat bolt upright and looked at her father.

  ‘If there was anything in the submarine it would be worthless,’ she said. ‘Are we sure of that?’

  ‘Absolutely. Unless it was gold. And there was no gold.’

  ‘You know what? This Kalman friend of yours wasn’t hired to look for anything.’

  ‘What do you mean? And he’s not my friend.’

  ‘Just listen to me! Oil exploration found a wreck. Someone, later on, did more work and realised it was a submarine.’

  ‘That might have been Kalman’s firm. I’m not sure.’

  ‘That’s irrelevant. Kalman was hired to check to see if it was a certain boat – a particular German U-boat. When it turned out to be the right boat – one with no armaments – he was asked to search it. He found nothing of interest.’

  ‘That’s about right.’

  She looked at him sternly. ‘About right…?’

  ‘Yes, absolutely right.’

  ‘When I search for something I start by looking in the most likely place. Only if I don’t find it there do I start to look elsewhere. The sub was the most likely place to find whatever this consortium was looking for, it was their preferred option. But whatever they wanted wasn’t there, which meant it was somewhere else. They will now concentrate on the other possible places.’

  ‘I don’t buy it. Nobody in their right mind would shell out millions if there was a cheaper way. They would look in the other places first. Searching a wreck on the bottom of the North Sea has to be their very last option.’

  ‘I said preferred option, not cheapest.’

  ‘It’s not the option I would go for.’

  ‘You can’t possibly say that without knowing their alternatives.’

  She could see he hadn’t got it. She would have to spell it out for him. She pressed her fingertips together prayer-like and placed them over her mouth and nose. Closed her eyes and rubbed her eyelids with her fingertips.

  ‘Searching elsewhere might have had risks,’ she said.

  ‘And exploring a wrecked sub doesn’t have risks?’

  ‘I mean other kinds of risks.’

  She let him digest it.

  ‘Kilcreg, you mean? Do you seriously expect me to believe they were looking for Volker’s journals?’

  She kept her hands to her face. Her voice echoed, as if speaking through a tube.

  ‘To me it’s obvious. They were sealed in a bronze box. There was a good chance they would survive.’

  ‘Not if they were in the U-boat.’

  ‘I agree. The journals would be ruined because the box would eventually leak. But the box would be there and Kalman would have found it. End of story. Everyone goes home. But if the box is not there, then it is somewhere else. And perhaps the journals are still readable.’

  ‘You’ve made a quantum leap from the sub to Gran’s cottage.’

  ‘It’s no quantum leap. The diaries were written by Volker. Volker was on that boat. Somehow the box got from the U-boat to the roof of the mine house.’

  Spargo shook his head. Whether it was disagreement or denial she couldn’t tell.

  ‘So tell me how they got there,’ he asked.

  ‘I’m a geologist, not a clairvoyant.’

  ‘If somebody thought the journals were in Kilcreg then why didn’t they look there first? For the ki
nd of money they spent searching, they could have bought every house in the place.’

  ‘And they would have done that, would they? Bought a village? Just the thing to do when you don’t want to draw attention to yourself.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that.’

  ‘What if their preferred way was not to break the law?’ she continued. ‘What if for whatever reason their preferred way was to spend millions rather than to break in to Gran’s house?’

  He was smirking now. ‘Considerate criminals.’

  ‘Or perhaps not criminals at all. Perhaps a consortium that put up money to search for a sub for a perfectly legitimate reason. Or what it considered to be a legitimate reason.’

  ‘A consortium that then murders your grandmother.’

  ‘No, not necessarily. A consortium that knew – somehow – where the journals might be if they weren’t in the U-boat. A consortium that after failing to find what it expected to find on the U-boat decides to hire someone to check out Gran’s cottage.’

  Her father went quiet. Then he murmured ‘Oh Christ...!’

  ‘I was thinking more of Ian Letchie.’

  His smirk had finally gone. She was getting through to him at last.

  For a few minutes they went without speaking. Jez left the room and made coffee, strong and black. For him, to keep him awake on his drive home. For her, to keep her sharp for what she planned to do when he’d gone.

  ‘You said you had boxes for Brenda,’ she said as she carried in the mugs. ‘We should bring them in from your car. I’ll give her a ring tomorrow and she can pick them up.’

  Halfway through coffee she made the first move. She stood up, went to the hall, slipped her coat on and opened the front door. Spargo followed. When the three boxes were inside she piled them against the wall to make space.

  ‘Which one has the stereo?’

  ‘Not sure. But don’t hold your breath. It might have batteries and valves.’

  She went for scissors and scored through parcel tape. Revealed, in the first box, an expanse of shiny steel.

  ‘I take back what I said about valves,’ he said. ‘It’s a CD player, it looks new. What will Brenda do with it, sell it?’

  ‘The best stuff goes for auction. It makes sure she gets the best price.’

  She opened the second box. Saw silvery plastic CD cases, packed on end. She eased her hand between them. Tugged out a handful and glanced at their covers.