The Suicide Exhibition

by Justin Richards

  “You work with them?” Guy asked.

  She laughed, and folded her arms. “That’s not likely, is it. Well?” she prompted.

  “Guy Pentecross.” The “Major” might just intimidate her—though she didn’t look like she intimidated easily.

  “Sarah Diamond,” she responded.

  Guy gestured across the road. “There’s a pub just down there. The Red Tavern. Let me buy you a drink, and I’ll tell you what I can.”

  CHAPTER 10

  “I’ll have a half of bitter, thank you.”

  Guy thought he made a good job of hiding his surprise. But when he returned with his own pint and Sarah’s half, she smiled.

  “Developed a taste for it trying to keep up with the other flyers.”

  That surprised him even more. “You’re a pilot?”

  “I’m with the Air Transport Auxiliary.”

  Guy nodded. He knew that the ATA was responsible for delivering new or repaired planes to where they needed to be. It was a huge logistical exercise to make sure the right planes were in the right places when they were needed.

  “Isn’t that part of the RAF?” he asked.

  “No, we’re technically civilian. That means the ATA has to recruit pilots who aren’t suitable for frontline duties.”

  “Like women.”

  She put down her beer and glared at him. “It’s a matter of opinion,” she said levelly, “but yes. Also pilots who’ve been invalided out of the RAF but can still fly a plane, and citizens of countries that are neutral but who want to do their bit.”

  “Like America?”

  “Don’t be fooled by my accent. I might sound like a Yank, but I’m as British as you are. Well, half as British—on my dad’s side.”

  Guy tried to imagine the woman sitting opposite him in the cockpit of a plane rather than in the corner of a crowded pub. The hint of anger and steel he’d just seen from her made it easier. Yes, he thought, this was a woman who had the determination, skill and courage needed to be a pilot.

  “Sorry if I’ve been making assumptions.”

  Her expression softened. “People do. Don’t worry about it. But I guess you’re wondering how being an ATA pilot got me following Sergeant Green and Miss Manners.”

  “Is that the woman’s name?”

  She picked up her beer, looked at it, then put it down again. She was looking past Guy, though he could tell she wasn’t focused on anyone or anything else. She was staring back into her memories.

  “I guess it all started a few months ago, back in early May…”

  * * *

  Sarah loved flying. Ever since she was a girl, she’d watched her father’s planes soaring into the sky and promised herself that one day she would be up there with them. It had taken determination, stubbornness and quite a few tears, but eventually she had persuaded her father to let her learn to fly, starting on the smallest planes from his freight business. She had graduated from that to larger aircraft, before amusing her father and angering her mother by leaving to take a flying job. Yes, it had been dangerous, but it was exhilarating too. Even before joining the ATA, she had been making her way in a man’s world.

  In fact, if anything, it was easier in the ATA. She wasn’t the only woman, and all the “girls” worked together and shared accommodation when they were on duty, though Sarah much preferred the seclusion and privacy of her flat in Hammersmith.

  Sarah could fly anything. Almost all the aircraft in service with the RAF had the same basic instrument layout, so any pilot could fly any plane. But that didn’t mean they handled the same. She didn’t care. Even the twin-engine Avro Anson she was currently delivering could get Sarah Diamond into the sky, and the sky was where she loved to be.

  One day, she promised herself, she’d fly fighter planes. For the moment, though, Hurricanes and Spitfires were the preserve of the ATA’s male pilots. But yes, one day … For now, she sacrificed the speed of nimbler aircraft and made do with the exhilaration of flying through a clear blue sky, of feeling alone in the world, of seeing her father’s native England spread out beneath her like an eiderdown of quilted fields and hedgerows.

  The Avro Anson was used mainly as a training aircraft for pilots of the larger Avro Lancaster bomber, though it could carry a decent cargo and also played a role in maritime reconnaissance. It performed well enough, and the conditions generally back in early May, and especially today, had been ideal for flying. She had the sky above Essex to herself.

  The first she saw was the shadow. It crept over the cockpit canopy like a dark cloud edging across the sun. But, glancing up, Sarah saw that the shape was too solid, too regular to be a cloud. It had to be another plane.

  Sarah dipped the nose of the Anson, losing height. Until she could see what was above her she was going to assume the worst. Friendly aircraft tended not to come at you rapidly out of the sun.

  Very rapidly. The Anson was hardly the fastest of aircraft, but the dark shape kept pace, matching every turn as Sarah pulled out of the dive and looped round. All the time she tried to make out what was following her so closely.

  Nose up now—a rapid climb. For a moment she seemed to throw the pursuer. Caught a glimpse of the dark shape. It didn’t look like a plane at all—stubby, almost a disc. Prehensile fins erupted from the back section. Light shone out from beneath.

  Then, in a blur, it was behind her again. Sarah twisted and turned the plane, feeling the fuselage judder under the strain, hearing the metal creak. The two 350-hp Armstrong engines roared in protest.

  She pulled out of a steep turn and climbed into a loop. Somehow she was behind the other aircraft. Its shape was still indistinct. All she could see was a black silhouette like the stern of a warship. Hard and brutal rather than elegant and aerodynamic.

  If the plane had been armed, she’d have had a perfect shot. But even when the planes Sarah flew had guns fitted, there was never any ammunition. Her role was strictly—and forcibly—non-combat.

  The dark shape in front wouldn’t know that though, so she pressed home the “attack.” She’d heard that a pilot had rammed his unarmed training Anson into an enemy Heinkel bomber over Gloucestershire last year—destroying both planes. For an insane moment, she considered the same maneuver. But then, suddenly, the “target” was gone.

  Sarah was flying into a blaze of light that streaked away from her, carrying the dark aircraft with it and disappearing into the distance. In seconds, Sarah was alone again, with the sky to herself.

  If the plane had been fitted with a radio, she’d have been screaming into it by now. As it was, Sarah was talking to herself. Her American accent was more pronounced when she was angry. “Someone down there had better have a bloody good explanation for what just happened.”

  * * *

  Pauline Gower, head of the female branch of the Air Transport Auxiliary, was quite severe-looking, until she smiled. She wasn’t smiling now.

  “What have you got yourself into this time?” she asked.

  Sarah Diamond was sitting in the common room of the ATA Women’s Section at their base not far from Maidenhead. A cup of tea sat cooling on the table in front of her.

  “I haven’t gotten myself into anything.”

  Gower sat down opposite, staring intently at Sarah. They contrasted almost perfectly. Gower was dark-haired with a roundish face, whereas Sarah was blonde and thin-featured. Gower was organized, ambitious, determined. Sarah was certainly determined, but she was impulsive and lived in the moment.

  Both of them were passionate about aircraft, though. Both were women who had made their way in a very male world. Both of them knew nothing more exhilarating than flying, and each secretly imagined they would die doing it.

  “So why do I have a colonel no less phoning to tell me you’re confined to barracks?”

  “We don’t have barracks,” Sarah pointed out.

  “I did mention that. I don’t think he was amused. Anyway, you’re grounded until someone from London talks to you.”

&nb
sp; “What about?”

  “You tell me. Or actually, don’t,” Gower added waving her hand. “I don’t want to know. Colonel Brinkman said that until his people get here you’re not to talk to anyone. So he obviously doesn’t know you.”

  Now she did smile, and Gower’s whole face changed. The cares of the world seemed to melt from it, and Sarah imagined this was how she looked when she was alone in the sky.

  “You’re off for a few days, aren’t you?” She knew full well this was true. Gower knew every detail about her girls and their roster.

  “I was about to drive into town.”

  “Soon as these people have spoken to you, you can go. But please wait for them. I don’t need any more grief than I’m getting already. You all right for fuel?”

  “Should be all right for getting to London.”

  “Yes.” Gower stood up. “Well, make sure you’ve got enough to get back again.”

  * * *

  The man was in army uniform—a sergeant. He was broad-shouldered with close-cropped hair and a flattened nose. The woman looked more like a secretary, in her navy skirt, white blouse and dark jacket. Her dark hair was gathered up and she wore horn-rimmed spectacles. All of which made her look older than Sarah Diamond suspected she really was.

  The man introduced himself as Sergeant Green. The woman said nothing and sat slightly apart with a notepad and pencil as Green spoke to Sarah.

  “I didn’t catch your name,” Sarah said pointedly.

  “Miss Manners is here to observe and take notes,” Green explained.

  Miss Manners glanced over the top of her glasses before returning her attention to whatever she had written.

  “You’re American,” Green said.

  It wasn’t a question, but Sarah had no hesitation in denying it. “No, I have a British passport.”

  “You sound American.”

  “You look like a boxer.” She let that hang for a moment before explaining. “All right, so my mother is American. Her father was at the U.S. embassy for a while, and she came over with him. Met my dad, and they got married. Moved back over to New York when I was four years old.”

  Green nodded, and Miss Manners made a short note.

  “I don’t believe you came here to quiz me about my ancestry,” Sarah told them.

  “Where did you learn to fly?”

  “Dad had a freight business. Couldn’t keep me away from the planes. Eventually he gave in and taught me. Mother was furious. It’s not very ladylike to fly planes.”

  “So you flew for the company?”

  “No, I ran away and joined a flying circus.”

  She could tell he thought she was joking. But it was the truth.

  “What did you see today?”

  They both leaned forward as he asked—this was why they were here, as if she hadn’t guessed.

  “Well, you tell me,” Sarah said.

  He smiled thinly. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. But it would be useful to know what exactly you saw.”

  Sarah took her time. She lit a cigarette and blew out a long stream of smoke.

  “An aircraft,” she said at last. “Dark, no markings that I saw.”

  “Shape?” Green prompted.

  “Strange. It didn’t have wings, well not to speak of. More of a disk, or a foreshortened fuselage. I only caught glimpses.” The cigarette wasn’t doing anything for her, and she leaned forward to stub it out. “It moved at a hell of a lick, though, I’ll tell you that. Experimental, is it?”

  The sergeant’s eyes narrowed—obviously it was. They didn’t want word getting out. Well, that made sense.

  “Are you married?” Green asked.

  She laughed. “Why, Sergeant Green, we only just met. I don’t even know your first name.”

  He blushed and looked down.

  “It’s a serious question.” Miss Manners’ voice was as prim and precise as her bearing.

  “I believe it always is.”

  The woman’s eyes were hard as flint behind the lenses. “He is asking so we know whether or not you are likely to confide in your husband when we tell you that you cannot speak of what you have seen.”

  “I don’t talk about my work,” Sarah assured her.

  “You don’t talk about today either,” Green said. “Not to your colleagues. Not to Miss Gower. Not to anyone. Not ever.”

  “Even my husband?”

  “You’re not married,” Miss Manners said.

  “How do you know?” Sarah snapped. How dare this secretary make assumptions about her personal life.

  But the woman seemed unperturbed by Sarah’s angry tone. “I can tell.” She closed the notepad and tucked it together with the pencil into her shoulder bag as she stood up. “This interview is over.”

  Green tried to gloss over it. He assured Sarah that they appreciated the fine work she was doing. He told her that it was in everyone’s best interests if she said nothing of today’s events. He told her that her country—her father’s country at any rate, though he didn’t say that—would be in her debt.

  But none of this disguised the intriguing fact that Sergeant Green was the assistant, and that the mysterious Miss Manners was actually in charge.

  * * *

  “There’s a war on,” she told herself as she drove to London. “There’s a bloody war on.” But even so, she didn’t like the idea of being told what she could and couldn’t tell anyone. Was this any different to the secrecy surrounding her work for the ATA? Well, yes it was—that was her job.

  And, Sarah realized, she didn’t really object to being told to keep quiet. She was more annoyed at the thought she would never know exactly what she had seen. What was the aircraft—why had it come at her, and how fast could it go? The thought that she would never get to find out, let alone fly something like that, drained her.

  There was some comfort to be had from gunning the SS100 Jaguar along the more deserted stretches of road. She longed to get it up to the hundred miles an hour its name boasted the 3.5 liter engine could achieve. But that just drank the precious fuel. So she contented herself with a more modest speed, enjoying the throaty purr of the engine. Jaguar was a great name for a car, she thought.

  Reluctantly, Sarah left the car in the garage that went with her flat in Hammersmith. She didn’t go into the flat, but continued on into central London by bus and then underground train. Normally she would have treated herself to a bath and something to eat, but she was still tense after the meeting with Sergeant Green and Miss Manners. She needed to keep on the move, to be doing something.

  Sarah doubled back on herself several times, taking an indirect route to her destination. Only when she was absolutely sure that she was not being followed did she approach Grosvenor Square. She walked round the whole square twice before heading into the large imposing building that was Number 1. The United States embassy.

  “My name is Miss Diamond and I have to see Mr. Whitman,” she told the woman at the front desk.

  “I’m afraid Mr. Whitman sees no one without an appointment. He’s a very busy man.”

  “Just tell him I’m here,” she said sharply.

  CHAPTER 11

  Sarah Diamond blinked. She sipped at her half pint of bitter. “And that’s about it really.”

  Guy realized he’d not touched his own drink, he had been so involved in her story. And, if he was honest, in watching her tell it.

  “Whitman is a friend of Mother’s,” Sarah said. “He owes me a few favors, so I asked him to track down Sergeant Green. It took him a while to find the right one.”

  “Seems you had more luck than I did tracking down Colonel Brinkman.”

  “So how did you manage it, then? Come on.” She leaned forward across the table. “Your turn to spill the beans.”

  But now that it came to it, he was reluctant. He couldn’t tell her about Hess, that was classified. But she’d confided in him. He hadn’t actually said he’d tell her anything, but she’d obviously assumed his agreement.

&nbs
p; “You’re not going to tell me, are you?” she said when Guy said nothing. “Bloody typical. I show you mine and you won’t show me yours. I wish I could say that’s the first time it’s happened to me.”

  Guy felt the blood rising in his face. “No, it’s not that,” he said quickly. “I was just … just wondering how you came to be following the Manners woman if it was Green that you tracked down.”

  She leaned back and folded her arms. “I got an address. Government office near St. James’s Square. I kept watch and Miss Prim-and-Proper Manners came out before I saw Green. So I knew I had the right place.”

  Guy was going to have to tell her something. He wanted to tell her something. But how much?

  Before he could decide, she leaned forward again. “It was the weirdest thing, though. Well, maybe not the absolute weirdest given everything else, but even so.”

  “What?”

  “Well, I followed her, OK?”

  Guy nodded, wondering what was coming now.

  “About ten o’clock this morning, she headed off to the tube. Took the Northern line right down to Morden, then walked for ages. She had a bag with her, like a holdall.”

  “So where was she going?”

  “Just some house. An ordinary house on an ordinary street. Not bombed out or anything. A woman answered the door, they talked for a moment and then she went inside.”

  “A friend maybe. Or a relative.”

  Sarah nodded. “That’s what I thought. I was a bit disappointed, I don’t mind telling you. She was there for about half an hour. I watched from a little park just down the road. I was going to give up and head back to the offices to look for Sergeant Green, but then she came out. And off she goes to another house on another ordinary street. She had a list, I think. She checked a piece of paper before she headed off.”

  “And she went inside there?”

  “But only for a minute. This house was set back from the road with a little front garden. Quite nice. She came out with the woman who’d answered the door and a dog. Labrador, I think. And then…” She shook her head as if she still couldn’t quite believe it. “She had a camera in the holdall. A proper one with a flash gun and everything.”