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

by Richard Whittle

‘You said yourself something must have happened to prevent your man winding an explosive device.’

  ‘Ludwig Roth was not my man. And that is not what I meant. If our submarine commanders had made a habit of landing their injured men on enemy shores I am sure we would very rapidly have run out of submarines. This injured crewman, was it the translator, Mark Lewis?’

  Spargo paused, wondering how to play it. Didn’t want to set them onto Rydel.

  ‘Last night I was told some sealed boxes came ashore. They were left in the bay, hidden between rocks, behind barbed wire defences.’

  ‘And that is all, John Spargo? I hope you are not about to tell me the boxes remained there. What became of them? Where were they taken?’

  ‘The man I spoke to last night was the injured man. He says he was unconscious when he came ashore and learned about the sealed boxes later. He said that if they were still on the beach when the cliffs collapsed they would have been buried.’

  Bar was flagging. He shook his head and closed his eyes. ‘Cliffs collapsed, John Spargo…? What cliffs?’

  Bar dipped a hand inside his coat, fished around for a while and brought it out empty. Benares sprang to life. From one of his own pockets he took a thin aluminium cylinder, unscrewed the end and tipped out a cigar – emergency supplies for Bar. He produced his switchblade and trimmed one end neatly. The same knife, the one with his own dried blood on it plus Benares’ fingernail trimmings. Spargo flinched. Bar, cigar in mouth, leaned back.

  ‘And this is all you discovered last night, on the telephone to your friend?’

  ‘He’s not a friend.’

  ‘If you are unable to obtain the information we need we shall obtain it ourselves. Tell me where we can find this man.’

  ‘It won’t do you any good. I told you, he was brought ashore unconscious. He learned about the sealed crates later.’

  Ash from Bar’s cigar fell on the floor. Benares, tired of standing, kicked a chair across the lino and sat on it. Apart from the deep hiss of the gas heater the room was quiet, no rain beat on the roof, no wind sang through the gaps around the door. Spargo, out of ideas, stared at the floor. He had a nagging doubt. Something in Rydel’s words didn’t ring true.

  ‘There is something…’

  Bar and Benares came to life. Both leaned forwards, both said ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m not saying it’s good news. There used to be a sea adit in the cliffs. My father told me about it. He also told me the cliffs in the bay collapsed in the nineteen thirties.’

  Bar’s expectant expression vanished. ‘John Spargo, what is a sea adit? Explain these things to me in proper words.’

  ‘A gently sloping drive. A tunnel. When my father took over the Kilcreg mine this tunnel in the cliffs was its only entrance. He said it was how the mine started. He said the locals found a mineral vein high in the cliffs and they mined it for ore, they followed it deep into the ground. Years later the cliffs collapsed and destroyed the entrance, but it wasn’t a problem. By then my father had sunk a shaft, which they used for the main access.’

  ‘Why should these things interest me?’

  ‘When I was a boy miners mentioned the old adit. I remember asking my father about it and he said the cliffs collapsed before the war. When I made the phone call last night I was told your sealed crates had been left in the bay and may have been buried by the collapse.’

  ‘And the significance of this is?’

  ‘If the cliffs collapsed before the war, how could they have buried packing cases left by a U-boat in 1945?’

  ‘So you are telling me your informant last night lied to you.’

  ‘No, he had no reason to lie to me. It means my father lied to me.’

  Bar was looking at the floor. For a while he said nothing.

  ‘Are you saying the cliff collapse was deliberate? To bury the cases?’

  ‘I think it was deliberate, but it wouldn’t have been to bury the cases, not after Volker had taken the trouble to bring them ashore. I’m thinking that perhaps my father blasted down the cliffs to seal the old adit.’

  Bar looked up. He did the beckoning thing with his hand.

  ‘Keep talking, John Spargo.’

  ‘My daughter found mineral fragments in the bronze box with Volker’s journals. That could mean the box was opened in the mine. Perhaps my father had all the sealed crates taken there. Then he sealed the entrance by collapsing the cliffs.’

  ‘Then they are gone,’ Bar said. ‘You said the mine is flooded.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘I do not pretend to understand these things, but does not the level of flooding of such a place depend on the water table? We are close to the sea. Should not the water table be at sea level here, therefore a great distance below the entrance you speak of? Did you not say it was high in the cliffs?’

  ‘The adit entrance may be dry, but it will lead down to flooded workings. It’s all irrelevant anyway. You can’t get into it.’

  Bar was nodding.

  ‘Because your father brought down the cliffs...’

  ‘Even if you found a way in, brought in pumps and spent six months pumping the mine dry, you’d find nothing. The mine was a warren of passages linking new workings with old ones.’

  ‘You give only reasons why things cannot be done, John Spargo. Millions have been spent already. If there is any chance of success with this venture then more millions will follow. I have heard of mines being reopened, cannot this be done?’

  ‘I am telling things as they are. You accept that if the crates are in the U-boat their contents are now worthless. Conditions in the mine will be far worse. Mine water is highly corrosive. There’s probably nothing left of your boxes.’

  ‘These cliffs you speak about. Can they be reached by road?’

  ‘The road through Kilcreg ends at the bay. It was once possible to walk along the beach at low tide but it wasn’t easy. Some of the boulders are as big as buses.’

  ‘The track outside this building appears to continue. Luis says that in the distance there is the sea. Does the track not lead to the top of these cliffs?’

  ‘Years ago I walked it. It was overgrown with heather. It’ll be far worse now.’

  ‘But it is driveable?’

  ‘It’s hardly walkable.’

  ‘I need closure on this, John Spargo. If what I am seeking cannot be recovered, then I need evidence that will convince the consortium that further expenditure is futile.’

  ‘What evidence can there be? Just ask your new associate, Murphy, he pretends to know about mining. He will tell you that anything left in a flooded mine for more than fifty years will be worthless.’

  ‘I do not know this man Murphy. I need to convince myself, John Spargo.’

  ‘You were willing to walk away from it last night.’

  ‘I was not. I wished to concentrate your mind, to give you time with your thoughts. Did really think I would not return? Now, come, I wish to see this collapsed cliff.’

  ‘See it? You had trouble walking up the steps, you’ve got no chance of reaching the bay.’

  ‘There is no need for you to insult me. But regrettably you are correct, so Luis will make the journey on my behalf, you will take him there.’

  ‘You will have to drive through Kilcreg, get down to the beach and walk to the cliffs. It’s impossible, there are too many boulders.’

  ‘Driving through Kilcreg would be most unwise. The track we came here on, does it not lead to the cliff top? Can you not drive there in the vehicle outside?’

  Spargo raised his arm and pointed a finger at Benares. As he did so his shirt tugged at the dried wound and he gasped.

  ‘I’m not going anywhere alone with that madman, not after what he did to me!’

  ‘Just do as I say,’ Bar sighed as he struggled to his feet. ‘I have enough problems, I do not need more from you. And take this with you,’ he said, taking the torch from the table and holding it out. ‘If you find this place I want to know about it. When you ret
urn you will tell me all you can.’

  From what Spargo could remember about the cliffs they were more than an hour’s walk from the mine buildings. That was when he was young and fit. Now, driving was the only realistic way to get there – and if the SUV got stuck then it wasn’t his problem.

  Not wanting to let his only means of transport out of his sight, Bar changed his mind about staying in the counting house. With Spargo up-front and Benares driving he sat in the back seat as the SUV battled its way through deep heather. The track to the cliffs barely existed, and sudden jumps and bumps were the norm. Every one of them triggering pain in Spargo’s side. His wound was open again. And it was bleeding.

  Bar complained constantly about Benares’ driving and the lack of room in the back of the SUV. Benares, having stalled the engine for the fourth time, took his foot off the pedals and turned off the ignition.

  ‘I have had enough of this foolishness. I can go no further. Now we must walk.’

  They had stopped on a low ridge, the last of several that ran parallel to the coast. Each ridge had promised a view of the cliff top and the sea beyond. This ridge, the last ridge, delivered the view Spargo had waited for. Spargo unlatched the door but the wind held it shut. He leaned against it. The wind dropped for a second and he fell out. More pain as he hauled himself up. Bar came up beside him.

  ‘How long will this take?’

  ‘Twenty minutes to get there, I guess. Half an hour to look around and another half to get back. Between one and two hours, at a guess.’

  Benares, already out, went to get back in.

  ‘It is too far to walk. I will drive closer.’

  Bar snapped something in Spanish and Benares froze. Bar turned to Spargo.

  ‘To drive further would be dangerous, would you not agree? I am concerned for this vehicle. It is my only means of return.’

  Spargo agreed. Benares glared at them both and then spoke.

  ‘Very well, Mister Spargo. You will walk ahead of me. Do not do stupid things and do not walk fast. I do not have appropriate shoes for these silly games.’

  Walking fast was not on the cards. Spargo, limping and in pain, wondered if he would even reach the cliff top but despite his misgivings he reached it well before Benares. He wanted to keep away from the man. That he was a liability to Bar and his cronies was never far from his mind; where better to dispose of someone than a remote cliff top?

  ‘It’s changed,’ he said.

  ‘What has changed, Mister Spargo?’

  The cliffs swept towards Kilcreg in a long, concave curve. The collapse, whether natural or caused by his father, had been massive. Boulders that really were the size of buses had tumbled into the bay far below. The last time he was here, when Jez was young, they had scrambled down the cliffs, around a maze of great boulders.

  ‘The cliffs,’ Spargo said. ‘There were paths down to the bay. They’ve gone.’

  Benares had his collar up, the lapels held together with his hand. He mumbled something Spargo didn’t catch. Spargo, still wanting to keep his distance from Benares, turned towards Kilcreg and started walking. Benares, trailing well behind, followed without protest. Then, in what must have looked to Benares like a suicidal leap, Spargo jumped off the cliff edge.

  By the time Benares reached the same spot Spargo was zigzagging down to the bay. He had seen a way down and his soles had deep treads, they gripped well. In the few minutes it took Benares to reach the spot where Spargo had jumped – and realised it had been on to a ledge beneath the cliff top – Spargo was well ahead. Walking near Benares he’d felt vulnerable. Halfway down the cliffs, despite the sheer drop to the rocky beach below, he did not.

  Benares was sitting at the top with his legs dangling over the cliff edge. Shorter than Spargo, he was unsure how to reach the ledge. Finally he slid forwards. Landed on the ledge in a shower of soil and stones.

  The cliffs were the colour of rust. Here and there they were streaked bright green from traces of metallic minerals, corroded by rain and salt spray. Coarse grass and wild flowers sprouted optimistically from precarious ledges. Endangered species.

  Long ago, Spargo’s father had banned him from the cliffs but he had gone there anyway, scrambling sure-footed across them and exploring them, searching for minerals and crystals. He was no longer that boy. His muscles lacked tone and the steep twists and turns took their toll; every step he took jarred his bones and tugged at his wound. Nauseous, he stopped again and looked up. Benares, in his handmade brogues, was descending. He hadn’t come far.

  Spargo recalled their time in Madrid. There, Benares was streetwise; here, he looked scared. In the more perilous places on the cliff face he clung to the rock like a man on a seventh floor ledge.

  From where Spargo stood he could see the whole bay. At one end the cliffs turned inland, out of sight and at the other he could just make out the remains of the Kilcreg jetty. Closer to him, scoured into the rubble of rocks of the beach, were the dark hollows of rock pools – or others just like them – where he had once trawled for minnows with his net. Near the waterline was a black berm of weed and a scatter of silver-brown driftwood – wood that once a week Mr McGregor, from the shop in High Street that was no longer there, had collected for his house fires. Whenever he was asked, young Spargo had helped him with the larger timbers. Helped him drag them to the shop, where he was paid for his trouble.

  What was new in the bay was the flotsam of plastic, the bottles, the bright coloured fish trays and white polystyrene. Plastic that revolutionised packaging. Revolutionised filth.

  When he reached the foot of the cliffs he sat on a boulder, nursing his side and observing the progress of the man in the brogues. The route they had taken was the only safe way down to the bay. The rest of the cliff looked as if it had been piled there by the hand of a giant, a perilous rockslide of packed earth and boulders. Somewhere, high up near the top and buried beneath boulders, was the original entrance to Kilcreg Mine.

  When Benares finally reached the beach he went down on one knee as if about to kiss the ground. Instead, he re-tied a shoelace. Straightened up and made his way to Spargo.

  ‘Waste of time,’ Spargo said, wagging his arm like a pointer. ‘My father told me the old mine entrance was in the middle of the bay. You’ve seen how impossible it all is. We can go back and tell Bar there’s nothing here.’

  Benares scowled. Muttered a response. The crash of waves swamped his words.

  ‘Another way,’ he shouted. ‘There is another way up, yes? I cannot go back that way. My shoes slip, the soles are made from leather.’

  ‘The only other way out is to walk to Kilcreg. When you get there you’ll be seen, you’ll have to walk past the houses. And you can’t walk from Kilcreg back to your car, it’ll take hours. What about Bar? He’s still at the top.’

  ‘We will take your Volvo.’

  ‘It’s not four wheel drive. It won’t even reach the counting house.’

  ‘You told Mister Bar the cliff had collapsed. That is not correct. There is a cliff at the top of that slope, I can see it.’

  ‘Cliffs keep collapsing, it’s what they do. That bit will be fresh, perhaps five or ten years old.’

  ‘You said the old entrance is gone, Mister Spargo. But it cannot have gone, can it? A tunnel in the cliffs cannot disappear. If I make a hole through a block of cheese and I grate the end off of the cheese, the hole might be hidden by grated cheese, but it is still there.’

  ‘We’re not talking about grated cheese we’re talking about massive blocks of rock.’

  ‘But this adit you speak of, this hole. It is still there, is it not? You understand me, I think. What if the rubble has now slipped away from it? What if the entrance is open again?’

  ‘It won’t be. If my father blasted the cliff it would have destroyed a whole length of the entrance tunnel.’

  ‘That is what you call wishful thinking, Mister Spargo. You have no proof of that. Also, I can see many places high up that look like openings in
the rock.’

  ‘They are hollows and shadows, optical illusions. That one there, look where I’m pointing, the dark bit under the white boulder, halfway up. It looks like an entrance but it isn’t. It’s where a boulder has fallen out. It’s like a tooth socket.’

  ‘But I can see other places. Mister Bar asked me to verify the old entrance is no longer accessible. You are going to do it for me now, Mister Spargo.’

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-THREE

  THE WIND IS ICE-COLD, straight off the Baltic Sea. Theo, on the bridge, pulls up his collar and adjusts his scarf. Those on watch must stay vigilant – leaving port these days is like Russian roulette. As well as debris there are mines dropped into the Elbe at night by enemy aircraft. Though minesweepers work constantly they cannot clear them all.

  Soon they will be in deep water and able to submerge safely. Theo will do it as routine, he will test-dive his boat, taking his crew through drills to familiarise them with their new boat. Drills that under normal circumstances would have been done days ago.

  He considers dropping to periscope depth to test the new schnörkel. But if he does that he will lose speed, it will take longer to reach safer, deep water. The top of the schnörkel – the bit that breathes air for the crew and the diesels – is encased in the same rubber as the six bronze boxes. He has been told this kills radar waves and cannot be seen by the enemy’s radar. How do they know such things? He is sceptical of the claims, he is an engineer, not a wireless man. He makes a mental note to ask his telegraphist; perhaps one day he will learn these things for himself.

  He hears the pad of soft soles on the ladder. Chief Engineer Lange emerges from the hatch with two steaming mugs.

  I’ll tell you what,’ he says, gesturing to the small hatch in the deck of the bridge. ‘If we have to get out of here quick, we must make sure that fat bastard comes up last.’

  Theo hesitates. The comment triggers a question in the back of Theo’s mind but before it can form, it is gone. Trying in vain to recall it he stares out to sea, towards the bleak islands of Heligoland Bight.

  ‘Dangerous man, Chief. Best keep him sweet.’