The Deep Secret

by David Robinson

  “No. But we do have CCTV coverage of the visitors’ entrance, of course.”

  Croft felt his excitement rise. “So Harper would be caught on your tapes?”

  Inskip nodded, and studied the file again. “Harper last visited Burke at eleven thirty on Wednesday, June the twenty-seventh.”

  Croft made a rapid calculation in his head. “Four days before Burke’s escape.” He gazed grimly at Millie. “A last meeting, finalising their plans.” He swung his concentration back to the governor. “Could we see that footage?”

  Inskip reached for the phone. “I’ll arrange it.”

  ***

  Croft confided quietly to Millie that Hattersley’s record keeping was of the highest order. With the date and time of Harper’s last visit logged, finding the relevant video footage took only a matter of minutes.

  Securing a useable image of the supposed solicitor was a good deal more troublesome.

  “He’s careful,” Millie said as they ran the two minute clip over and over again. “Not once does he look up at the camera.” She looked over her shoulder at Inskip. “Governor, did you not take any still pictures of this man or other lawyers?”

  Inskip shook his head, sadly. “It’s not policy, but after this is all over, I’m sure the Home Office will recommend it as good practice.”

  “And I can imagine the kind of resistance it will meet from the legal profession,” Croft ruminated. To Millie he said, “You need to fax that authorisation Burke sent Harper back to Shannon. Tell him to call Avon and Somerset, and get them to visit the bank. They may have a better image of Harper.” He paused the video on a shot of Harper looking directly into the reception warder’s eyes. It was not a full face image, but it was as close as they could come. Addressing the warder alongside them, he ordered, “Freeze and crop that image, then get it ready for nationwide circulation, please.” He turned further to speak with Inskip. “Governor, is there any chance we could see Burke’s personal effects?”

  He frowned. “I’m not sure. His family may—”

  “He has no family,” Croft interrupted. “That’s why he never had visitors. Please, Inskip, I need to look through them, see if there’s anything that may give us a hint as to Harper’s real identity.”

  Inskip nodded.

  ***

  It was a mean and pitiful collection of odds and ends in a standard office storage box; one of the collapsible kind. In it was a bundle of prison clothes, a photograph of Zepelli and Georgina, a couple of paperback novels – Dickens’ Bleak House and Nevil Shute’s On The Beach – an A4 writing pad, similar to the one Zepelli had used to produce his manuscript, a bunch of three keys on a ring, a couple of ball point pens and a pencil.

  “We won’t remove the clothing or dispose of the other items until his death is confirmed and the police have done with them,” Inskip explained.

  Croft took out the A4 pad. A number of sheets had been removed and the remainder were blank. He ran his hand over the top sheet. With a frown he took the pencil and began to rub it over the sheet.

  “I’m not sure…”

  Millie cut Inskip off. “It may be something or nothing, Governor. I’ll authorise it.”

  It took many minutes before the sheet was covered with pencil rubbing and words beneath showed through.

  “Looks like a rambling passage of prose on life in Germany, but when you read it closely, there are some instructions in it, probably for Harper,” Croft speculated. “And look at this.” He pointed to three words: das Krankenhaus Königin.

  “German?” Millie asked.

  “Rough German, too,” Croft said with a nod. “The queen’s hospital. It’s obviously a reference to events at Queen’s in Nottingham and Sunday night. Written in Burke’s hand at a guess.”

  “I didn’t realise Burke could speak German,” Millie commented.

  “It’s logical. Zepelli’s manuscript indicates that Julius Reiniger would become an influence in his life, remember, and Julius was German. The young Burke, if not his father, would have been fluent by the time he was in his teens.” Croft frowned. “It also means that Harper must have been fluent, too. Look at the references here.” He pointed out occasional words. “Feuerwerk… fireworks; Pistole… pistol; gehen Sie zu der Wache… go to the guard. And here, look. Das tiefe Geheimnis: The Deep Secret.” He passed the sheet to Millie. “We were right. Harper is his accomplice. If you can get the details back to Shannon, along with the CCTV image, and have them circulated, at least we’ll be seen to be doing something.” He faced Inskip. “Governor, the original document, the sheet above this. Burke must have given it to Harper. Is there a copy of it in your file?”

  “No. There may be a mention of it in the supervising officer’s report, though.”

  “Could we check?”

  Inskip nodded and they made their way back to his office, where he pored over the reports while Croft studied the rubbing once more.

  “Here it is,” Inskip said. “Report by Officer Alton after that same, final visit; 27 June. Document handed to William Harper by Burke. Checked by Alton. Burke explained it as a passage to be included in the manuscript Harper had taken delivery of. Alton did not consider it of sufficient importance to take a copy, but he did read it as an extract of the life story of one Julius rye… Rhine…”

  “Reiniger,” Croft concluded. “Julius Reiniger. An old friend of Burke’s father.”

  Inskip read further. “Yes. That’s exactly what it says here.”

  “It’s nothing of the kind,” Croft declared. “It was a mnemonic; a reminder to Harper of all the things that needed to be done to finalise the escape and the plan of action beyond it.”

  Inskip’s florid features paled. “Oh, sweet Jesus. And Alton didn’t see it?”

  “I’ll make an educated guess. Alton didn’t speak German.”

  “Doesn’t make any difference,” Inskip insisted. “If any of it is in a foreign language, it should have been copied and logged in the file.”

  Croft shook his head. “Explained as a passage from a book, moreover a passage concerning Julius Reiniger, but I don’t think so.” He looked to Millie, his eyebrows raised seeking guidance.

  She shrugged. “You tell me. Where do we go from here?”

  “I’m trying to work that out,” Croft said. “There’s one more reference on that sheet, and this time it really is bad in any language, not just German, but it’s quite deliberate.” He pointed to the offending words, führen Sie Kate. “Names should always be spelled as they are in the person’s native tongue.”

  “It is,” Millie objected “But who is Kate? Some woman Harper’s involved with?”

  “I don’t think so. I think Kate is not a woman but a man. Me. Kate is German for a cottage… or a croft. That says ‘lead Croft’.” He looked into Millie’s surprised eyes, his features grim in the dim light. “I told you, didn’t I? He’ll lead me all the way until he has me in the killing bottle where he’ll demand The Deep Secret and then kill me.”

  ***

  Millie was talking on the mobile as they stepped out into the hot July sunshine, and climbed into her car.

  While she negotiated with Shannon, Croft let the window down to cool off the interior, and studied the pencil-rubbed sheet again. Something did not make sense. Gehen Sie zu der Wache. Go to the guard. Which guard? One of those killed at Queen’s? And do what when he went to the guard? Steal his uniform or riot stick or keys? Why would Harper need reminding of such a necessary task? It was so obvious that unless he was of below normal mental abilities, he should need no reminder. And yet, his actions since the escape and particularly since the murder of Burke, indicated a degree of intelligence.

  “I left the governor with a photocopy of the sheet, sir, and I have the original, but the copy I faxed to you should have arrived by now… Well, I don’t know what the significance is, because Croft and I haven’t had time to discuss it yet, but it does seem to indicate that Harper, or whatever his real name, will lead Croft to some conf
rontation.”

  Millie paused again, listening to Shannon, while Croft continued to puzzle over the line. It came after fireworks and disguise – verschleiern – and while it might come after disguise (Burke had disguised himself as a nurse during his escape) to their knowledge, Harper had not yet got hold of any fireworks.

  Was the word Feuerwerk a cryptic allusion to firearms reminding Harper that they would need weapons? If so, why was the word pistole included earlier?

  “Okay. See you in a couple of hours.” Millie shut the phone off and started the car. Pulling on her seatbelt, she announced, “Back to Scarbeck. Nothing new, but, according to Ernie, Avon and Somerset Scientific Support are already at Burke’s old address in Sentinel Street, looking for bones. Only scanners right now, because someone lives in the place but…”

  Croft felt his colour drain and Millie trailed off, looking at him.

  “You okay, Felix?”

  “Of course. It’s not guard. It’s sentinel.”

  “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

  Croft showed her the pencil rubbing. “There. Gehen Sie zu der Wache. Go to the guard. It’s not what Burke meant. He meant go to the sentinel. Sentinel Street. His old house. It was a reminder to Harper that he needed to go to the old Burke house on Sentinel Street.”

  Millie looked doubtful. “You’re sure?”

  “No,” he admitted, “but if there’s something at that house Burke would have needed, then they would have to go there, and he wouldn’t want to leave evidence like this lying around, so he translated it into rough German in such a way that even if we translated it after his escape, the meaning would be ambiguous. Go to the guard. Which guard? Alton? Carter? One of the other warders? Do what when he got there? This doesn’t say, but Harper would need only a reminder to go there. He’d know what to do.” Croft’s eyes burned into her. “He’s making for Bristol.”

  “Felix…”

  “What’s his last known location?”

  “Wolverhampton.”

  Croft yanked out his phone and accessed the online maps.

  “Nottingham. They headed north, passed through or round Scarbeck on their way to Warrington.” He scrolled the map up to centre Warrington in the display, and as he carried on, he scrolled it down and to the left again. “From there, his route has been consistently south on the western side of the country. Shannon pointed that out yesterday. Northwich, Nantwich, Wolverhampton.”

  “And suppose he next turns up in Northampton?” Millie demanded.

  Croft shook his head. “Führen Sie Kate, remember. Lead Croft. He’s leading me. He can’t do that and take ad hoc directions. He has to be consistent or I can’t follow. Only now we’ve got a beat on him. He’s making for Bristol, and we can be there before him. I hope.”

  “How far is Bristol from here?”

  Croft checked the phone again, logging start and finishing points on the map and checking the readout. “A hundred and thirty or forty miles give or take.”

  Millie checked her watch. “Ten past three. We’ll hit traffic round Brum and it’ll be pushing six by the time we get there. I’ll call Ernie, have him advise Avon and Somerset to expect us.”

  Croft opened his door. “Move into the passenger seat. I’ll drive while you speak to him. You can take over south of Birmingham.” Climbing out, he paused. “Oh, and while you’re at it, tell him Avon and Somerset need to get discreet armed police on the street.”

  29

  With the coming of television, theatre audiences were dwindling. Fewer and fewer people were prepared to pay to watch me escape from a mailbag into which I had been handcuffed and chained before it was dropped into a glass tank of water. So, in 1954, after an unsuccessful season in Morecambe, Julius and I talked it over and decided to switch the act over completely to comedy hypnosis. Up until then, it had been just one part of the show.

  It was the right move. Georgina was pregnant, and she could not go on adding the glamour an escapologist needed to keep the men in the audience watching, and hypnotism permitted me to introduce a line of risqué comedy that excited those same men, and caused their wives to blush. All right, so we sailed a bit close to the wind as defined by the Hypnotism Act, but the audience had a good time, we kept up our standard of living, and Georgina got the rest she needed while she was carrying our child.

  During the winter of 1954, we took the show on the road, working flat out seven days a week from early November through to New Year’s Eve, and all the time, waited for the phone call that would send me scurrying back to Bristol to greet our new arrival.

  It was a difficult pregnancy. Georgina’s blood pressure was variable, a source of major concern for the maternity hospital, and once, when her iron levels dropped (anaemia), they dragged her in and kept her there for ten days.

  She finally went into labour early in March. The show was running in Scarborough when the call came, and it took me eight hours to get home to Bristol, with Julius and me taking turns to drive. Back then, England’s roads were not where they are now. There were no motorways, and my car, a Ford Anglia 105E, was hard pressed to sustain fifty mph.

  It’s impossible to underestimate the pressure of work and worry and distance, and I feel sure it was as much a contribution to my current heart condition as were the strains of escapology and the endless supply of cigarettes. But Julius was a brick, a solid foundation lending a shoulder upon which I could lean.

  During that time, we practiced and practiced The Deep Secret until I was as complete a master in it as he was. In essence, it was very simple. Perhaps, if I had known then what I learned many years later, I would not have been so grateful, but he demonstrated time and again an abiding loyalty to me, and on the night Gerald was born, I loved him as much as I would a brother, and it was my greatest pleasure to offer to help him when his girlfriend got pregnant a year later.

  Stella wouldn’t have Julius living with her, so he took the spare room in our house. Stella was a flighty piece. Whisper had it that during the war she had been flogging her mutton to the servicemen in Bristol. I had no idea whether the tale was true, but looking at her, it was easy to believe. Big, blonde and blousy, with a wicked laugh and a loud voice, she was well known in the Easton area where we lived on Sentinel Street, and when she became pregnant, our first thought was to find a backstreet practitioner who would deal with it for her. She wouldn’t hear of it. Reckoned a baby would be good for her.

  So in June 1956, fifteen months after my son, Gerald, came into the world, her baby, Billy, was born. Julius doted on the boy, and as he grew, he would spend as much time at our house as he did his own. He and Gerry would become the best of friends. Never a day went by without you seeing them play together. If I had known then what I now now, I’d have put a stop to it for Billy’s sake, but, to be frank, I had other worries.

  Times were hard, but they were about to become harder. Bookings began to dwindle, the absurdities of the Hypnotism Act made it impossible for me to stretch the show any further, our income went down, just as we needed it to go up to cater for the additional mouths we had to feed.

  “Perhaps, my friend, it is time to put The Deep Secret to use,” Julius suggested over a few beers at The Narrow Boat Inn where we went to wet the baby’s head (Julius’s baby).

  I had already used The Deep Secret many times in the four and a half years since Julius taught me, mainly on Georgina when I wanted my oats and she wasn’t in the mood. But of course, it worked so easily on her because I had hypnotised her so many times in the past.

  Along with Julius’s hypnotic cocktail (which I gave to one or two chosen volunteers during the interval) I had also used The Deep Secret in my stage show. Speed of hypnotic induction is vital in any show, and I had plenty of volunteers wherever I appeared. It was inevitable that I would pick up some of the one percent of the population upon whom the secret worked.

  I told him so, and he replied with that knowing little smile, “When I suggested using the secret, Gerald, your sta
ge show was the last thing I had in mind.”

  Typically, Julius did not explain what he meant, but demonstrated it. Two days later, having had enough of Georgina and Gerry, and he in need of a change from Stella and Billy, he and I took the Aust Ferry over to Chepstow, and drove to Cardiff, where we spent the rest of the week in cheap digs.

  Julius’s plan was simple. We would sit in a café, taking an hour to drink a cup of tea, and get into conversation with a man or woman, and at some stage, we would try The Deep Secret. If it didn’t work, we ran for it, and I tell you now, there were those times when we had to run like the wind to get away from some angry man who was sure we were pansies propositioning him.

  We eventually found our target on Friday in a café in Penarth. A woman of about forty years, well dressed, not lacking in funds judging by the way she handed over a five-pound note to pay for tea and a cake, and fussed when the waitress did not have enough pound notes for change and gave her no less than six ten-shilling notes.

  I engaged her in conversation, concurring with her annoyance, and as we talked on, Julius joined us, and naturally insinuated himself into our chatter.

  Half an hour later, buying all of us fresh coffee, he permitted her to drink from the cup, then he took her hand, stared her in the eye, and she was ours.

  That afternoon, I saw a side to Julius I had never seen before. Pure greed, and not only for money.

  We ordered her first to take us to her bank, where we demanded she draw as much as she was allowed (twenty pounds) and hand it over to us. This she did. Then we took her to a fleapit hotel, the kind the prossies used, and we had her; in turns, for the whole afternoon.

  By God, it felt good to sink my todger into a pit after so long without (Georgina’s pregnancy difficulties had curtailed our games and she stills suffered from a depressed libido). Even if this woman was a bit on the chubby side, she was worth it. Twice I shot my load into her, and once she sucked me off.