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

by Richard Whittle

  ‘Monowitz,’ Walter says proudly. ‘Look at it Theodor, it is like an American city!’

  ‘A city of factories, so far from Germany.’

  ‘But in Greater Germany, Theodor!’

  ‘You sound like Göbbels. When we lose U-boats he tells us we are winning the war of the Atlantic. When our cities are bombed to destruction he tells us the enemy has failed yet again.’

  Walter shrugs. ‘Do you expect our leaders to tell the truth? Do you want them to demoralise our citizens?’

  Theo stays silent. Walter doesn’t know his own mind. One minute he spouts propagandist rhetoric and the next he declares the Reich is done for.

  They drive on. This place is indeed a city – a city of factories set out on a grid. Theo wonders where the workers live; he has seen no houses, no accommodation blocks. Walter is examining a small, hand drawn map that he orients in the direction they are driving. He starts giving directions, left here, right there, follow the perimeter to new factory buildings…

  ‘There!’ he says. ‘The grey building. Drive to the double doors and wait. I will go to find Heiss.’ He consults his paper again. ‘Doctor Thomas Heiss.’

  He opens the door to get down and then hesitates.

  ‘No, as my aide it is better that you should go. Find Dr Heiss, he should be here somewhere. Tell him Oberführer Wolff has arrived.’

  Theo clambers down and walks through the snow to the closed steel doors. The place is the size of a hangar and banging them with his fist makes an echoing boom inside but has no other effect. Nobody comes. Then Walter is beside him, briefcase in hand. Along the road men are clearing snow, watched over by two armed soldiers. All look malnourished, the workers particularly so. To Theo they look even more starved than the prisoners that work in the dockyards.

  Walter disappears down the side of the building. A few minutes later one of the double doors slides back and he is standing there with Heiss – a short bald man wearing a long white coat and small, rimless glasses. Clearly he feels the cold. He is attempting to lift the collar of the white coat but it won’t stay up.

  Walter turns to Theo.

  ‘Get the truck, Kapitänleutnant, turn it and reverse it. Bring it inside so we can close these damn doors and keep out the cold.’

  Theo takes time to find the right gear. Reversing isn’t easy, the truck is huge and the mirrors and windows are still iced. He tries several times while Walter looks on, laughing and shouting instructions. Heiss looks on with disinterest.

  The building Theo reverses into is an unfinished construction shop. Along one wall is heavy machinery, waiting to be installed.

  ‘You come at a bad time,’ Heiss says. ‘I was expecting you days ago. Now there are bombing raids from the west at the east, the Americans and the Soviets. Life is so difficult.’

  Theo and Walter ignore the man and he wanders off, first closing the double doors and then, walking purposefully, heading towards the far end of the building. Theo drops the truck’s tailgate and, with Walter helping, both men grapple with the packing cases, lowering them one by one to the concrete floor.

  Theo checks Peter. The boy is still sleeping. Soon they will have to move the crates that surround him. To make things worse, Heiss is returning, waving his arms. Complaining that officers of the Reich should not be labouring.

  ‘Oberführer,’ he says, ‘we have workers to do these things! You must wait, I shall handle it, I shall fetch workers.’

  He is already at the doors. Before Walter can stop him he has run outside and is shouting to the soldiers, beckoning with a waving arm.

  ‘Damn fool,’ Walter mumbles. ‘The last thing we need is their help but I can’t refuse, it will not look good. Leave things to me. We will move the crates to the back of the truck. The workers can lift them down.’

  ‘What about Peter? What happens when we move the last crates?’

  ‘I’ll think of something.’

  Heiss returns at the head of a column of men. ‘Prisoners, Oberführer!’

  He calls it out proudly, as if he’d captured them himself. The column includes the soldiers who, once inside the building, separate themselves from the others and stand aside.

  ‘We make them work for their food and their beds,’ Heiss says. ‘It is good for their souls. We have ten thousand here, Herr Oberführer! Ten thousand workers!’

  ‘All prisoners of war?’ Theo asks. ‘French, Polish, British? Americans, perhaps?’

  Two of the men are wearing items of clothing resembling British battledress. Others have a mix of ill-fitting clothes, odd boots and fingerless gloves.

  ‘All enemies of our Reich, Kapitänleutnant. Unfortunately we do not have enough men like these, less than two hundred. Now, leave this work to them. Guards, come! I want three men in the truck. The rest of you, move these crates and stack them neatly against the wall.’

  Frantically Theo turns to speak to Walter, but he is not there. He glances this way and that but it is already too late. Three prisoners are at the rear of the truck, one of them climbing the tailgate.

  So this is it, Theo thinks. This is the moment of truth…

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-SIX

  TWO DAYS AFTER SPARGO’S VISIT to Jez’s lab he had a phone call from Mitchell. The detective sounded different, less friendly and more like Quinn. Wasting no time on pleasantries he came straight to the point.

  ‘Spargo, I’m guessing you know Kilcreg as well as anyone. Is there any way to reach your mother’s place without being seen? From up on the moor, I mean. If someone came down the hillside behind you mother’s place, how would get up there, is there a road?’

  Spargo noted the use of his surname. He was sure that until then Mitchell had always called him Mister.

  ‘They would have been seen coming down the hillside,’ he said. ‘It’s a ten minute scramble down a steep grassy slope. You’ve seen what it’s like. There is no cover. You would risk being seen from the road.’

  ‘Really? Who by? It’s not exactly the Edinburgh bypass. From what I’ve seen of the place I doubt if more than four cars a day use the road.’

  ‘There are more than that.’

  ‘In summer, maybe… and I’m betting most of those are lost holidaymakers. So what is up there? On the moor, I mean. Is there any access?’

  ‘There’s the track up the hill behind the plant yard. It’s overgrown.’

  ‘I know that, you pointed it out. No point anyone parking near the plant yard, going up that track, walking a couple of miles and then walking back down the hill further along.’

  ‘You asked.’

  ‘So what about other access? When I took you to Kilcreg we passed a signpost at a junction, way back along the road. Where does it go?’

  ‘Same place. The high moor. It’s always been called a drovers’ road but it actually leads to the old mine buildings and then to the sea cliffs. The first mine entrance was in the cliffs. Later they sunk a shaft –’

  ‘You told me.’

  ‘The mine used the drovers’ road was used to move ore. In wartime, when the mine increased production, the ore lorries got stuck in boggy ground. That’s when they cut a new track down to the plant yard. If you are thinking of Letchie, forget it. It is definitely not classic Porsche country.’

  ‘That’s no problem. We went through his financial papers. He rents a lock-up in Inverness and we opened it up. Found a Range Rover, six months old and in showroom condition.’

  ‘He’s washed it.’

  ‘No doubt.’

  ‘Forensics have it?’

  ‘Not yet. They have his Porsche. When they return it to us they will take the Range Rover. I shouldn’t say this, Spargo, but I’m convinced Letchie killed your mother. We have no evidence anyone else was involved.’

  ‘Someone else has to be involved. Otherwise who murdered Letchie?’

  ‘I mean nobody else was involved in your mother’s murder.’

  Spargo went quiet. He had already reached that conclusion.
‘Someone wanted Letchie dead,’ he said.

  Bloody obvious, really. He regretted saying it.

  ‘That’s DI Quinn’s business.’

  ‘And Lewis?’

  ‘Also DI Quinn’s business. If he wants my assistance he will ask for it and I will give it to him.’

  ‘I’ve got Lewis’s translation. Whatever he might have told you, he actually finished it.’

  Mitchell took a while to respond. When he did, his voice had changed. It was sharp. It showed clear, renewed interest.

  ‘He did? What, all of it? He lied to me?’

  ‘He concealed it in his music collection.’

  ‘And you found it? How? What do you mean by music collection?’

  ‘CDs. Compact Disks. I went to his house. He lived with his cousin, a man called Rydel. They were both Polish. Both prisoners of war here in Scotland.’

  ‘I thought the Poles fought with the Allies?’

  ‘Long story.’ Not one he wanted to repeat to Mitchell.

  ‘Does DI Quinn know you went to Lewis’s place?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You really do push your luck, Spargo. Alright, leave things to me. I will speak to Murdoch.’

  ‘Murdoch?’

  ‘DI Quinn.’

  ‘Are you going to tell him I went there?’

  ‘If I think it necessary.’

  ‘The translation,’ Spargo said. ‘Lewis had hidden it in a boxed set of Wagner CDs. His main collection had composers like Chopin and Debussy.

  ‘A storm in a sea of calm.’

  ‘Couldn’t have put it better myself.’

  ‘Have you read it? The translation, I mean.’

  ‘I’ve been working through it. The journals were definitely written in wartime. Volker started them when he joined the German navy. He did U-boat service. Looks as if he was involved in some way with transporting looted paintings. He doesn’t say it exactly, but in nineteen-forty-four he’s in Berlin, then in a place called Carinhall. He met Göring there.’

  ‘Göring was the air force one, right?’

  ‘He was head of the Luftwaffe and Hitler’s deputy. He hoarded looted works of art. He had – ’

  ‘I know that, I’ve heard all that.’

  ‘Volker describes the bronze box, right down to the screws in the lid. My daughter analysed dirt she found in the bottom of the box. It has traces of scheelite, the mineral they mined at Kilcreg. To me, it means the box was opened in the mine. The screws in the lid were supposed to be bronze, not steel. It’s my guess my father – or whoever opened it – lost the originals and had to use steel ones. It’s why they corroded.’

  ‘Are you saying your father knew what was in the box?’

  ‘I’m beginning to think it.’

  ‘And Volker was on a U-boat?’

  Mitchell went quiet. Spargo started to answer, but Mitchell interrupted.

  ‘Could this be the wreck that’s been in the papers? You know it? You’ve read about it?’

  ‘I bumped into an American diver who was working on it.’

  ‘Robert Kalman, yes. We know all about him.’

  Spargo swallowed. Wondered what was coming next. ‘I met him only briefly,’ he said.

  ‘Strange, that. He told me you and he were good friends.’

  Spargo swallowed again. ‘Not true.’

  ‘Spargo, listen to me. Am I getting this right? Are you seriously suggesting the U-boat wreck was searched in the hope of finding looted paintings?’

  ‘It hangs together.’

  ‘Not in my book it doesn’t. Not going to be much good, are they? How long is it, sixty years? Paintings, sixty years in salt water?’

  ‘I’m simply telling you what I know. Volker writes that he is transporting crates in a truck. Later they are loaded on to a U-boat, though by then they are sealed in bronze boxes. I’m guessing the one I found was made to carry something else, perhaps a small art treasure. Anyway, Kalman assured me he didn’t find any bronze boxes.’

  ‘Would they have survived?’

  ‘Probably. I’m not saying they would have stayed watertight, not for that long, not at great depth. But something would remain of them. Kalman is an experienced diver, he would have found them. He would have said.’

  ‘Oh, would he? Not according to Customs and Excise.’

  Spargo went cold. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘My friendly Customs man tells me they have been keeping an eye on Kalman from the start. His boat has been in Inverness for a while and the day he was due to leave they boarded it and searched it. They found a pewter dinner service. Also a mug with Volker’s name on it.’

  ‘Pewter? Really?’ Spargo could hardly get the words out. It sounded so shaky he wished he hadn’t tried.

  ‘We’ve had the San Francisco police looking into the firm he works for, an outfit called Posidonian. It seems to be above-board. We’ve also had the Los Angeles police checking the people who put up the exploration money, it’s a trust that funds world-wide exploration of historical sites. Customs now has Kalman’s underwater videos, I have seen them. They show the inside of the sub from stem to stern – not somewhere I would like to go, Spargo. If there were any crates stored on board then I didn’t see them. Look, Spargo, I have to go. Send me a copy of Lewis’s translation.’

  Spargo, tense, breathed out. Tried to sound confident.

  ‘No problem, I’ll do it now. About Letchie’s Range Rover. Call Scenes of Crime in Edinburgh. Tell them you’ve got a vehicle you want checking for traces of soil. Tell them it’s urgent.’

  ‘And why should I do that?’

  ‘My daughter works with them occasionally. She’s a geologist and she’s good. I know you said Letchie’s Range Rover has been washed, but if anybody can tell you if has been on the old drovers road across the moor, she can.’

  Mitchell gave a noncommittal grunt.

  ‘What have you done with the journals?’

  ‘They’re with a university lecturer. At the time I didn’t realise Lewis had already translated them.’

  ‘Is that wise? To let him have them, I mean.’

  ‘It’s a her, Marie Howard. Considering what I know now, no it wasn’t wise. I’ve tried to get them back but she’s away. Gone to Spain and taken them with her.’

  ‘If I were you I’d be worried. Three people have been killed.’

  ‘Then Spain is probably the best place for her.’

  ‘I’m not just thinking of her, Spargo. You found the box. You’ve had the journals in your possession and now you have the translation. You want to know what puzzles me most about all this?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What puzzles me most is why you are still alive.’

  Spargo made coffee, took it to his office and phoned Jez. ‘Just want to put your mind at rest,’ he said. ‘I’ve just spoken to Mitchell and told him everything. I’m about to email him the translation.’

  ‘Has he got anywhere? With Gran?’

  ‘Letchie had a Range Rover hidden away. I’ve suggested he contacts SOCO here and gets you involved. If the vehicle has been to Kilcreg, you will be able to find out by comparing soils.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t do things like that. They have their own procedures. If they want help they’ll ask for it. I was about to phone you anyway,’ she continued, ‘about that dirt from the box. There is clay mixed with the scheelite. Andy worked on it yesterday evening, he used XRD.’

  ‘XRD. X-ray diffraction.’

  ‘So you haven’t forgotten everything you learned at university.’

  ‘I can’t remember what it’s used for though.’

  ‘Think of it as a mineral DNA test. Andy also used the electron microscope on it. He found microscopic fibres he thinks are fine cloth or perhaps paper.’

  ‘Probably from the journals. I’m not sure all this work you are doing is worth the trouble. The clay you found is probably from someone’s boots.’

  Spargo counted the seconds of silence. Knew he had blundered.r />
  ‘That’s the kind of remark I’d expect from you. You’re like the rest of them here, you think forensic geology is only about analysing mud from boots.’

  He didn’t know much about the academic world. Years ago one of his mining lecturers warned him if he ever thought of becoming a lecturer he should first buy a stab-proof vest to protect his back from his colleagues. Jez had been involved with the forensic thing from the start and it was becoming successful. Others would be jealous.

  ‘Jez, I’m sorry, I was out of order. What you are doing is great. So what is the clay?’

  ‘It’s a rare earth clay used in brewing as a filtration medium. It’s called kieselguhr.’

  Spargo’s grip on the phone tightened. He knew about kieselguhr. Brewing wasn’t its only use. In the days when the only alternative to gunpowder was nitro-glycerine – an explosive that went off if you simply shook it – Alfred Nobel discovered that if he mixed it with kieselguhr it became safe.

  ‘It’s also used in the manufacture of blasting gelatine,’ he said. ‘That’s gelignite and dynamite. And the fibres… sticks of mining explosives are wrapped in waxed paper. Could the fibres be from wrappers?’

  ‘Was there an explosives store at the mine?’

  He thought about it. There must have been one but he couldn’t remember where. The headframe at the top of the mineshaft had been on the high moor, tucked in a hollow. Beside the headframe stood the winding house, the generator and the ablutions block. The admin building, and the counting house where his mother worked, stood some way off, well away from the noise.

  In his experience any explosives store would have been a good half-mile away from all of those buildings and he couldn’t recall ever seeing one. In some mines, stocks of explosives were – and still are – kept in underground lockers close to where they are needed.

  ‘There must have been one,’ he said. ‘Though I can’t remember where.’

  ‘Think about the things we know,’ she said. ‘The box was opened somewhere at the mine. From what we now know, it was probably kept for a while in an explosives store. Someone, most likely your father, screwed down the lid and hid the box in the roof of the mine house. What we do not know is why.’

  ‘Hid it from who, Gran? She wouldn’t have gone up there. She hated heights.’