The Path of the Bullet

by M C Jacques

  “My word, we are tetchy today, aren’t we? Well, I hope you were a good deal calmer than that with the police… Otherwise, you’re going to be high on their list of suspects, aren’t you, o-l-d b-e-a-n! And, well, I don’t suppose that you’ll want all the other stuff mentioned at all, will you? And I know that Sarah certainly won’t!”

  “What the hell do you mean by ‘other stuff’? Which other stuff? What the hell has got into you today?” But there was no answer from the woman. Just a long and direct stare with a slight, only just detectable, nodding of the head. She knew that she had scored her points. And he knew from what she had let slip that Mountfitchet had already been sniffing around the RAF records and checking out his past. “Just how close are you, in any case, to that old war horse?” he enquired, albeit with a feigned sincerity, reflecting her spiky glare, eyeball to eyeball.

  Fothergill’s face having by this time been rendered a Mountfitchet-like burning red, Jill tossed back her ginger, shoulder-length hair with the requisite contempt, and exited the office in long, looping and carefully measured strides. Despite his considerable irritation at her last remark and at her attitude on the whole, his eyes still locked on to the woman’s swaying thighs. What remarkably tight skirts that woman has begun to wear, indeed, is now able to wear, pondered Fothergill, as he then stared down at the rim lines inside his ‘Your Country Needs You’-adorned coffee mug. “He quite likes you, you know, Jilly!” he called. “Perhaps it’s the tight skirts!” The latter words being thwarted by the resounding thud of the office door being slammed shut.

  3

  Noon, Secret Rooms. Meeting ‘Duggie’ Mountfitchet in Cambridge…

  The narrow road which runs aside the northerly stretch of what the locals call ‘Roman Bank’, harnessing the Lincolnshire coastline north of Skegness, is corrugated and precipitous in parts. McKay had set off just a wee bit in arrears for his meeting with his late father’s mate in Cambridge, so he wasn’t driving his late father’s beloved automobile quite as gingerly as he thought he ought to have done over such terrain.

  Actually, McKay reflected, he had been ready to leave on time before his erratic neighbour, Terry Stoat, had called around for a chat, to ‘borrow’ some milk and to bid help with a crossword. Terry had got the milk, at any rate. As to the answer to his neighbour’s question re the collective noun for a group of owls, ten letters, McKay had vacillated between ‘parliament’ and ‘conference’, finally fastening on the former, although he had not been at all certain at the time, and he still wasn’t. Terry’s chat had been apologetically deferred.

  But as he drove, skimming across the quivering-through-heat tarmac, McKay’s various mental wanderings were largely cancelling the sonorous notes of Camel’s The Flight of the Snow Goose. And the curiosity was biting him! What could his late father’s old friend possibly seek from him with such apparent urgency? To return something which he’d borrowed off his dad? To repay him, or, worse still, inform him that his dad had died with a debt, or debts, hitherto undisclosed and, therefore, naturally, unpaid? Just what could it be? He mentally replayed the Wing Commander’s answer to that very question. ‘Can’t tell you that over the blower, old boy. ‘Fraid not. Must wait ‘til Cambridge on Saturday. Noon. You know where, your dad’s old club. Downstairs.’

  And it was Saturday, and it had turned eleven, and now McKay was carefully reversing his Scimitar into a slot at the Milton ‘park and ride’ on Cambridge’s northern edge, just off the A10.

  The scents of summer warmed McKay’s spirit and outlook. Even though he found most of his dad’s mates highly amusing, the Wing Commander had a specially endearing quality about him. McKay hoped that this wasn’t simply because he had been a very close pal of his dad’s. It wasn’t. He cracked good jokes, for one thing, and used unlikely but apposite metaphors and gloriously pompous and anachronistic phrases, the like of which are rarely still heard these days. Aye, Mountfitchet was okay.

  That distant lime-white structure peeping through the trees and sandstone edifices must be King’s College, reasoned McKay on the bus. He’d viewed the chapel aside it closely once, around twenty years before, when he hadn’t quite been of a sufficient age, or of sufficient maturity, perhaps, to genuinely appreciate and revel in its magnificence. His dad, having been a Cambridge man, had insisted on visiting the place, including a stroll around Jesus College’s quadrangle, whatever the weather, whenever within even a remote striking distance. More often than not they had broken their journey there as they were returning to their Leicestershire home from an air display at the RWM Tuxford. McKay knew that Mountfitchet was still closely associated with that establishment and that he cared about its wellbeing with gusto.

  As he turned the corner onto Jesus Lane and viewed the neo-classical façade of the very club his father had frequented with the Wing Commander, two smarting tears threatened to swell in synchronised empathy, moistening those only-just-visible ocular recesses. But by the time he had commenced the descent, twisting into the innards of the club’s basement, McKay’s composure was, once more, very much his own.

  Mountfitchet had already arrived and was stationed at the bar, upright and taut, like a steel spring, but beaming. He folded his copy of The Guardian, expertly quartering it and tucking it under his left arm. “Good to see you, old man! Nearly on time, what, from the wilds of Lincolnshire, ain’t it, these days?”

  McKay grinned widely as they released each other from a mutually energetic handshake. “It’s very good to see you again, too, sir.” Mountfitchet then twisted his open, large and ruddy right hand a few times in front of his mouth.

  “Yes, thank you, I’ll have a small glass of Orvieto.”

  The barman nodded merrily and turned to the Wing Commander, obviously resuming a previous conversation. “The word might just be ‘unkindness’, Wing Commander, although…” he squinted a lack of conviction.

  Momentarily perplexed, McKay proffered his own nominate: “Perhaps, the term is a ‘parliament’ of owls? Ten letters, like unkindness. But I think it’s an unkindness of ravens, or rooks.” Both onlookers were ossified by McKay’s prompt solution. “Oh! Don’t panic. I’ve had a few hours to chew it over in the car – my neighbour takes The Guardian, too!”

  The former RAF man nodded approvingly towards the bartender who gleefully span and twirled an appetizingly clear bottle towards the counter top and dispensed the wine into a sleek glass, via a wristy flip of the bottle, in little more than a jiffy.

  “I say! Jolly good show, Alex, old lad!” commented Mountfitchet as he gently ushered McKay away from the bar. He then conducted him across the stone-slab floor, through an inconspicuous corner door which McKay had not even noticed was there, then along a circuitous, shadowy corridor, veering off, finally, into a dimly-lit, compact room. A sturdy and heavily-padded door was shut tight by the tour leader, the older man, who then sighed as he sat down. His face, cratered in one or two parts, was illuminated only by the dull yellow of a low-wattage table lamp placed directly between them.

  “Well, we’re in good company here, old man, make no mistake.” The older gent sipped his scotch like he was savouring nectar. “Ah… aqua vitae,” he commented. “This is the stuff! Now, where the Dickens was I? Oh yes, and while I forget, Jiminy Cricket! Just listen to me! While I remember, here’s a few photos that girl Emma in Records dug out for me.” At this point, Mountfitchet delved into one of the voluminous pockets of his golden-brown Harris Tweed jacket and slung a thin wad of folded A4 documents onto the table towards McKay, rather like they were cards being dealt out. “Photos of the main players at the museum. Don’t want you caught unawares, do we? Now, where was I again?”

  “With good company, hopefully,” smiled McKay.

  “Yes, damn it! Of course. We’re in good company here; in this very place, so it is said, Churchill conducted covert meetings with de Gaul and other leaders of various resistance movements here during the war. Princess Anne c
ertainly had a few secret liaisons with good old Gavin Maxwell – before they cottoned on to the fact that he was gay, of course! What!” And then his face straightened as he regarded McKay’s concentration upon the photographs. The pleasantries were, apparently, through. “So, you’re not doing much radio these days, old man?”

  “No, sir. Not since, you know…” As McKay spoke, Mountfitchet appeared to study his Glengoyne and the texture of the crackling ice cubes even more assiduously. “A little evening work now and again. I’m still doing the hotel in the Cotswolds throughout December and New Year – keeps the wolves from the door, you know, sir.”

  Mountfitchet nodded grimly. “Quite. Quite. Well, old man, you must have been asking yourself what all this could possibly be about, eh?”

  4

  Mountfitchet’s explanation for the meeting…

  “Well, let’s see now…” Mountfitchet’s brow furrowed still further. “It all seemed to kick off around September, October, 1998. Yes, about then. I’d taken a break in the North Country after Eva’s funeral, and that of your late mother, of course, too. Anyway, early in 1999, rumours had started going around about people, roosters, roaming around in the museum at night, after dark: ghosts, goblins and I don’t know what else – you know the sort of stupid nonsense you hear from certain folk. And then the first reports from the technical and maintenance guy about displays, I mean military equipment, being tampered with – some extremely dangerously – came through.”

  McKay nodded and grinned. The grin quickly waned, though, when his thoughts dared to hover on that dark summer and autumn of 1998.

  “I must put my hand up.” Mountfitchet’s gate widened and he illustrated his admission manually. “I didn’t give it much credence, to begin with, at least. And then, some weeks later, late on the evening of Tuesday, March the fourteenth, two thousand, quite a few of the local residents heard yelling, gunfire and the like, coming from the Warfare on Land Exhibition Hall. Well, they’d never complained about a damn thing before. Must’ve been genuine. Must’ve heard something serious. But I have it on good authority that the whole place was in total darkness all of the time. Graham Locke, Head of MTS at the museum, was first on the scene; he lives just in Tuxford village there, across the way from the museum, between the church and the station. His daughter-in-law called him on the blower. She lives near the garage on the Royston road. There was a right din, apparently! Anyway, when Locke had opened up the Warfare on Land Exhibition Hall, he found that the sound effects tape for the landing craft had been activated. That means that somebody had walked past it and tripped the infra-red switch. Now, he’s the least superstitious man you’ll ever meet, but Locke swears to this day that he sensed there was somebody else there, still there in the building – even before he’d put two and two together about the tape having been tripped. And that tape machine is bloomin’ loud, old man, I’ll tell you, especially on a quiet evening!”

  “But why do you remember the date so very clearly, sir?”

  “Ah! Knew you’d ask that! Well, I remember it vividly because it was on the fifteenth of March, the very next day, minutes, if not one minute before closing time, that Sergeant Smith of the regional infantry, visiting the regimental display that afternoon, was shot dead. Yes, old man, a British soldier was murdered in cold blood the very next day. Should be a haven for us, this place, not a damned no-go zone, eh?” He recomposed himself and orientated his look back in McKay’s direction. “That’s why the date is lodged in my mind! Always will be now, I suppose, damn it!”

  “So what was ascertained by the Cambridgeshire Constabulary about the shooting? I suppose the Sergeant would probably have been at leisure; he could hardly have been expecting to be shot at by a sniper at point blank range or whoever, at point blank range, in a museum!” McKay’s voice carried evidence of only a mere passing interest.

  “Exactly, old man, exactly. He’d had a jolly good lunch in The Tidy Mess by all accounts, and availed himself of a couple of bottles of plonk, too! Came on a bit strong to Rosie Camborne, one of the waitresses there; sweet little thing she is. Anyhow, Smith eventually staggered out of there at around four o’clock – much to the relief of Danny Kurtis, the manager. Nice guy. Son of an old US airman stationed at Snetterfield during the war; knew James Stewart and met Walter Matthau, too, apparently!

  “Anyhow, sensibly, Smith had a couple of strong coffees in the Take-Off Bar in the American Air Museum between four forty-five and five-twenty and then plodded off in the direction of the Warfare on Land Exhibition Hall. Now, according to Chelsea – my word, she’s a girl and a half, say! – who served him at the Take-Off Bar, Smith told her that he was hanging around because he had arranged a meeting with someone who worked in the museum itself. So it would seem that Smith may have already spoken with whoever it was who shot him! He may even have known that person, but there was no mention or trace of any museum employee or associate anywhere to be found on his body! The police searched high and low in and around his house, too.” He frowned momentarily. “That’s it! Apple Tree Cottage – quaint little place near Wicken Fen. Also, there’s no record of him having a mobile, and all of his calls from and to his home have been accounted for. Baffling. Absolutely baffling.”

  McKay nodded slowly. “What about the Sergeant’s general lifestyle? Anything out of the ordinary there?”

  “That’s just it! Quiet as the proverbial mouse! Lived like a recluse since his wife went off with his CO! Big reader. Read military history books, all sorts, like they were going out of fashion. Seemed to be fascinated by the writing of a guy called Frearson. He was a regular at the RWM; visited us almost monthly, studied the displays, took notes, that sort of thing. We’d all seen him around, here and there. Kept himself to himself, as a rule, sat at his favourite table in each of the museum’s cafés and bars, whenever he could. Usually ordered the same things, too, from all accounts.”

  McKay wondered exactly where all this was leading, although an impression was beginning to form.

  “So, how much do we know about the shooting itself?”

  5

  Some information re the shooting of Sergeant Smith…

  “Well, old man, let me tell you, the point here is that we are not dealing with any normal, common or garden sniper. I don’t suppose for a minute that there actually is such a beast, of course! Nothing normal about these chaps, not by a long shot!. Sorry, unintentional pun! Let me take a moment to explain to you what I mean.” The old airman edged forward across the fine burgundy leather seat, as if to impart some scandal in a busy jostling place where he was surrounded by ears, bristling with inappropriate curiosity.

  “You see, old man, Smith was not simply shot with a gun. No. When the police combed the area they discovered that he must have been lured into looking down the barrel of a gun, quite literally, and a brutish gun at that, too – the turret of a Second World War German Sturmgeschütz Three, or ‘Stug’, as its sometimes known. It’s a sort of tank-like assault vehicle. Mean as hell in its day. Of course he wasn’t shot by the Stug itself, but some clever Dick had rigged up, inside the Stug’s turret, some damned Heath Robinson of a device using the bones of a sniper’s rifle.”

  “Just one shot?”

  “One single shot. Right through the temple… and it was lights out for poor old Smithy!” The old airman suddenly bore a look of concern. “Curious thing is, old man, that there were a number of shots fired or, at any rate, had been fired in the general proximity. A couple of the personnel vehicles across the way had been scored and there was some evidence of ricocheting, too. One bullet went clean through the door on that old Thorneycroft Antar Tank Transporter, the one with the Centurion on its trailer.”

  “Calibre?”

  “You’ll love this, old man! It was an improvised device which required an amazing degree of technical knowledge as well as access to precision manufacturing facilities. Exactly! I knew that you’d fasten onto this! An
yway, you asked about calibre; well, it was a seven point six two by fifty-four rimmed cartridge.”

  “Something like an NDM seventy-nine or eighty-six.”

  “Something very like that, old man, with modified sights for remote application; very ingenious. Naturally, to begin with, all fingers pointed at Graham Locke – mentioned him before, I think, the Head of Maintenance and Technical Support in the museum – but he was nowhere near at the time; got a list of sound-as-a-pound alibis as long as your arm! Besides, he’s as sound as a pound himself, that guy, and fiercely defensive of the museum’s reputation! Then there’s a multitude of part-timers and volunteers of all sorts and shades. Now the pick of those guys and the one I’ve asked to give you all the backing he can is an American chappie called Jay Gould. His mates, or buddies, ha, have nicknamed him ‘Stevie’… Can’t think why. Anyway, he’s a capital chap. As dependable as a Remington or a Cadillac, or whatever you like! Lives at the US air base at Lakenheath but he helps out at the RWM Tuxford as a volunteer. Knows the machinery in that place like the back of his hand.”

  “Right, sir; what precisely would you like me to do and when would you like me to start?”

  “A real chip off the old block, eh? Just like your old dad! D’you know what he said to me once, just after you’d graduated from Oxford? He said, gleaming with pride, ‘Duggie, that reprobate son of mine might have got himself sent down from Repton years ago, but now he can solve any riddle which is put before him, including ones which have baffled most scholars for two millennia!’ Now, McKay, that brings me on to the one other thing I want to say. Here and now.” Initially, McKay considered his elder to have been slightly the worse for wear at this juncture. What Mountfitchet said next amended that view with interest.

  “There is one other reason as to why you are uniquely suited to sniff out this one.” He snatched an unchastened gulp of the Glengoyne. “Burrows, the CID chappie, told me in the strictest confidence that they’ve had the tabs on Sarah Millar who does marketing and co-ordinates school visits. Nice looking lass. Very well put together. Quite classy, I thought. Turns out she may have got herself caught up with some God-awful militant fundamentalist cell operating right here, smack in the centre of Cambridge! Burrows reckons that these roosters might even have a link with Al-Qaeda forces operating in the Maghreb. I ask you!” His eyes rolled slowly for a few seconds before he continued.