The Suicide Exhibition

by Justin Richards

  “Even Mrs. Willis has moved out now, did I say?” She paused in the doorway and turned back, shaking her head. Her blurred vision meant she could barely make out the form of the man standing in front of her. “You’re not drinking your tea. I told you, if you leave it too long it’ll go cold and won’t be nice. I’m sorry there’s no sugar. Have I told you there’s no sugar?”

  The man who had lived in her house, eaten her meager meals, and drunk her weak tea for several months now put his hands gently on her shoulders. “You have told me. You have told me everything.”

  He sat her down in the chair which he no longer needed. He wouldn’t be coming back. Beside her, the tea got slowly cold.

  * * *

  The British Museum was an obvious place to return to. Some people had the potential to provide more information through their actions than their words. The old woman at the museum was one of these. He watched her leave the building, and followed her through the streets. She had lived a long time—perhaps there was value in asking her to relate her knowledge and experiences.

  She met another woman, outside a building in St. James. Connections were useful, and he followed the other woman now. He could always find the old woman at the museum if and when he needed to.

  The other woman was younger, with fair hair and slightly angular features. At the end of the street, she turned and almost collided with a man. He caught her arm. He knew her, but she seemed surprised to see him.

  * * *

  “Andrew?”

  “Did I startle you?”

  Sarah had been half-expecting a call from Whitman. But she had certainly not expected to find him in St. James’s Square. “You following me?”

  “I was looking for you. It’s been a while.”

  She looked round, checking that no one had followed her from the office. “We can’t be seen together. People might…”

  “Might get the right idea?”

  She shook her head. “That’s over. You know that’s over.”

  “That a fact?”

  In truth it had never really started. A few fumbled moments and stolen kisses in his office at the embassy. But that was never what she wanted. “I only saw you because I wanted to do something.”

  “Then let’s do something.”

  “For the war.”

  He grinned. “Whatever reason you want.”

  “Be serious.”

  “OK, OK.” The grin subsided into a more passive smugness. “The information you provided, about transport, logistics, all that, it was really useful.”

  “Was it?” she snapped. “Then why hasn’t America joined the war?”

  “You got lend-lease, what more do you want?”

  “What do you want?” Sarah demanded. “I’m not at Air Transport Auxiliary any more, so I don’t have access to the information I used to.”

  “That a fact?” Whitman said, though he obviously knew this. “So what do you instead?”

  “It’s just … office work.”

  “I’m sure you have access to a load of useful stuff in this office work.”

  “No,” she insisted. “I don’t.”

  “Even so, it’d be a shame if your new colleagues thought they couldn’t trust you.”

  Sarah felt suddenly cold. “Are you threatening me, Andrew?”

  “Hell no,” he said. But his unsympathetic smile suggested otherwise. “Just don’t be a stranger, OK? You hear anything you think would interest Uncle Sam, you look me up.” He reached out and cradled her cheek for a moment in his hand. “Good girl.”

  Sarah stepped away. She didn’t reply, but turned and walked back toward the office.

  Whitman watched her go, the smile still etched on his face. If he had been concentrating less on how much of Sarah Diamond’s legs were visible below her skirt and more on his surroundings, he might have seen the tall, gaunt, hollow-eyed figure that watched him from the shelter of a nearby doorway. That followed him as Whitman turned and headed off toward the American embassy.

  CHAPTER 26

  Although Sarah was not one to worry about anything for long, the encounter with Whitman unsettled her. Usually by the time she got home, made herself some dinner and perhaps read for an hour, Sarah was exhausted. Her social life, such as it was, had dwindled to the occasional drink at the end of the day with Guy Pentecross or Leo Davenport when he was around. Occasionally Miss Manners joined them, but she said little and drank less.

  After her run-in with Whitman, Sarah went back to Station Z, hoping Guy would ask her to the pub. But he was deep in conversation with Davenport, waiting for Brinkman to be free so they could talk about the burial mound in Suffolk. She hung around for a few more minutes, then left.

  Sleep came slowly. In her mind she went over the short conversation with Whitman again and again. “Is that a fact?” he said inside her head, in that annoying drawl she had once found faintly attractive. Would he really tell Brinkman—or worse, Guy—that she was a spy?

  It was a blunt word. But it was true. She’d passed on sensitive information that she had been entrusted with despite her background, despite being only half British. Were the other non-British nationals caught up in this war as ambivalent as she was?

  That was all nonsense, she thought as she finally drifted off to sleep. She’d acted out of the best of motives—hoping the more they knew, the more likely the Americans were to come to the Allies’ help. Though the fuel coupons he’d given her were useful. She hadn’t exactly objected to being paid for the information, had she …

  She woke early, still exhausted but with an idea of what best to do. She thought she would be in the office before anyone else, but she could hear the clacking of Miss Manners’ typewriter before she reached the top of the first flight of stairs.

  “You’re in early,” Sarah said, trying to sound bright. Her head was pounding, like she had a hangover though she’d not had a drink for days.

  Miss Manners paused to give her a sympathetic look. Perhaps she was always in by seven in the morning.

  “What time will the colonel be in?” Sarah asked quickly, before the typing resumed.

  “He’s in already.” There was the hint of a smile at Sarah’s expression. “There’s a budget review coming up in a few days. Colonel Brinkman wants to be sure we can make the best possible case for … Well, for continued funding.”

  “You mean, we might not?”

  “It’s possible. MI5 and SOE would both like to see us closed down.”

  That was a worrying thought. “But surely, what we do…”

  “As far as they’re concerned we don’t do anything. Except take resources they’d rather deploy elsewhere. We have precious little to show for our efforts after all.”

  “But…” Sarah struggled to disagree with this. Most of what they were investigating was based on supposition and extrapolation. “Shingle Bay—they know that happened.”

  “Just a raid—so they would say. The enemy probing our defenses.”

  “And what about Hess?”

  “Again, to play devil’s advocate, do we really want to commit valuable resources, money and personnel to investigating the ravings of a delusional misfit who has defected from the enemy and could for all we know be feeding us all sorts of bogus nonsense precisely to ensure we make those commitments?”

  Sarah suddenly felt desperately exposed—could she go back to the ATA after this? What would she tell them? What about the aircraft she had seen? “Surely we don’t cost the war effort very much.”

  “True,” Miss Manners agreed. “But the problem is, the war effort doesn’t have very much.”

  * * *

  Brinkman was making notes as he read through a pile of documents. He didn’t look up when Sarah knocked and went into his office. She waited for a while, coughed politely when he still didn’t look up, and waited some more. Finally, he glanced at her and gave a small nod.

  “We should tell the Americans,” she said. Best to be direct. “I know someone at the embassy.”


  “Why?”

  “They can provide funding. We’d be less dependent on the British war effort, not have to worry about MI5 and SOE and the others grabbing our budget.”

  “You think the Americans would believe us?” he asked.

  She could tell from his tone that he didn’t. “We could try.”

  Brinkman grunted and returned his attention to the papers on his desk.

  “Is that a ‘No,’ then?”

  “We’re not wasting time and effort telling the Americans. They want to get involved, they can do it properly rather than continually sitting on the fence.”

  “But this is different.” Sarah said, exasperated.

  “We’re still fighting a war.”

  “Not if we lose our funding we’re not.”

  Brinkman sighed. He leaned back in his chair. “Thank you for the thought, Sarah.”

  He usually called her “Miss Diamond.” She was only “Sarah” when he was annoyed.

  “As in ‘thanks but no thanks,’ you mean. But look,” she went on, “surely things are different now that Roosevelt and Churchill have signed the Atlantic Charter?”

  “It stops short of bringing the U.S. into the war.” Brinkman sighed, wiping his hand across his forehead. “I’m sorry. Sharing information with the Americans would still be difficult under the best of circumstances. I’m sure it will happen one day, but not yet.”

  “And American funding?”

  “To be honest—not if I can help it. They’d turn this whole operation into a bloody circus.”

  * * *

  Davenport sat in the front and talked to her almost all the way. That at least made Sarah feel she wasn’t just there to act as the driver. Guy dozed in the back, and she knew he’d been at the office most of the previous night finishing up paperwork from a fruitless day interviewing fighter pilots. None of them had seen the UDT they had almost intercepted, but it still had to be written up and filed.

  “It’s on a smaller scale to the French barrow,” Davenport said, once he had exhausted the latest society gossip. “But the design is very similar. From my notes we were able to dig in, avoiding most of the traps and tricks Streicher’s men ran into. Green commandeered a squad from some nearby unit and the ground’s firm enough they could dig quite deep and come up into the central passageway from underneath.” He mimed with his hand. “Clever, eh? My idea, of course.”

  “Of course,” Sarah said. She couldn’t help smiling.

  “False modesty is so affected, don’t you think?” Davenport said.

  “I’ve not come across it recently. So, setting modesty aside if you can manage that, how do you know so much about archaeology?”

  Davenport smiled back. “Oh it’s always been something of a hobby. Colonel Brinkman rather latched on to that and sent me to work with Elizabeth at the Museum when I first got involved in all this. I’ve a good memory, and that helps not just with learning my lines but remembering anything I read. I read a lot. You spent a long time just sitting around waiting when you’re making a film you know.”

  “And on an archaeological dig, I expect,” Sarah said.

  “That does seem to be the case. But if Green and his chaps have been putting their backs into it, they’ll already have broken into the main passageway, just shy of the burial chamber itself.”

  “When do they break into that?” Guy asked from the back of the car, stifling a yawn.

  “Oh they don’t. Green will dismiss the men before that.” Davenport lapsed into uncharacteristic silence, and Sarah guessed he was recalling the ordeals of France.

  “Had the devil’s own job finding the place last week,” Davenport said as they drew closer to their destination. “The road signs have all been taken away and according to Green about half the population has been moved out of East Anglia. So no signs to follow and no one to ask.”

  He seemed to know the way perfectly now, and Sarah guessed he remembered a route as easily as he recalled his lines for a play. Certainly it seemed that once he had read something, Davenport could remember it pretty much verbatim.

  Main roads gave way to narrow, winding lanes and finally, they turned off the lane and on to a single-track bridleway. They reached a farm gate, and Davenport got out to open it and allow the car through.

  As he pushed open the gate, an elderly woman came hurrying up from the other side of the hedge. Her gray hair blew across her face and she pushed it aside irritably before jabbing her finger at Davenport.

  “Who is she?” Guy asked, leaning forward in his rear seat.

  “No idea. She’s not happy, though.”

  The woman had turned to glare at the staff car, pointing. When Guy opened his window, her glare turned into a smile for a moment. She hurried forward, and Sarah could make out the details of her weather-beaten face and milky eyes.

  “Is that him? It doesn’t look like him,” she said, her voice a sharp nasal whine.

  Davenport caught up with her. “No, that’s not him. He’s very busy, but we’re hoping tomorrow. Or possibly the day after.”

  The woman turned. “I shall want to see him.”

  “Of course. I’m sure he’ll want to thank you personally.”

  The woman seemed to stiffen slightly at this. “Really? You think so?”

  “I’m sure of it,” Davenport said.

  The woman nodded. “Very well then. You can drop me by the barn, I’ll walk from there.”

  Sarah watched in surprise as Davenport opened the back door of the car to let the woman climb in. He raised his eyebrows at Sarah before returning to the gate and waving her through.

  “So who are you, then?” the woman demanded as they stopped to let Davenport close the gate behind the car.

  “Um, Major Pentecross. And this is Miss Diamond.”

  “Hello,” Sarah said, glancing back and switching on a smile.

  The woman did not smile back. “They let women drive, do they?”

  Davenport opened the door in time to hear this. “Oh, indeed,” he said. “And Miss Diamond is very good at it. She flies airplanes too.”

  “Does she?” The words were laced with both admiration and disapproval in roughly equal measure.

  “This is Lady Grenchard,” Davenport explained as they drove slowly up the track. “She owns the land, and indeed the burial mound. She has very kindly allowed us to dig a very small investigative trench.” He nodded meaningfully at Sarah and Pentecross.

  “They tell me that I can see how it’s going when Mr. Carter arrives,” Lady Grenchard said. “Though why the need for all the secrecy I have no idea.”

  “Bureaucracy, I’m afraid. The war, you know.”

  Lady Grenchard sighed. “This war is so inconvenient.”

  Sarah was about to make a sarcastic comment. But the old woman added quietly: “They killed my grandson, you know. The Germans.” She wiped her sleeve over her eyes. “The sooner it’s all sorted out and we send them packing the better. I shall be very cross, Mr. Davenport,” she went on quickly, “if your people have dug too close to the mound. We respect the dead here. And the legends. I told you about the legends.”

  “Indeed you did.” Davenport ignored Sarah’s inquisitive glance. “And we will be very careful, I can assure you.”

  “What legends are these?” Guy asked, ignoring the glare this earned from Davenport.

  Lady Grenchard was shocked. “Hasn’t he told you?”

  “We’re just visiting. Rather short notice.”

  “Local stories about the burial mound,” Davenport said. “Apparently it’s cursed.”

  “Really?” Sarah said.

  “Oh do tell,” Guy said. “This is all so interesting.”

  Lady Grenchard seemed to soften slightly at his request. “The legends date back longer than anyone can remember. But the mound is said to be the burial place of an ancient chieftain. He was a tyrant—oh, a terrible man if the stories are true. Dreadful. It is said that if anyone opens the burial chamber, they will die th
e most agonizing death and the chieftain will rise again to claim his former kingdom.”

  Guy nodded. “How … fascinating.”

  “I put no store in such frivolous stories myself, of course.”

  “Of course.”

  “But as the landowner I do have a responsibility to history, and to local superstition and feeling. My father was very much a believer that we should leave well alone. He said that the story was probably a load of tommyrot—that was the word he used. Tommyrot. But if there was even the slightest chance that the smallest part of it might have some grain of truth in it … Well.”

  “Well,” Davenport echoed. “Indeed.”

  “Just here will do very nicely, thank you.”

  It took Sarah a moment to realize the woman was talking to her. She stopped the car beside a stone-built barn, and Lady Grenchard got out.

  “You will tell me when he arrives,” she said to Davenport. Her tone made it clear this was an order rather than a request.

  “Oh I will, I promise.”

  He let out a long sigh as they drove on. “We’ll have to leave the car at the bottom of the hill. The track peters out after that.”

  “This Mr. Carter she’s waiting for?” Guy asked slowly. “Is he…?”

  “Yes. I didn’t want to have to order her to make the land available. That would have garnered all sorts of unwanted attention, and it doesn’t do to upset the local nobility. Could make things a bit sticky.”

  “So you told her Howard Carter was coming to see the excavations?”

  “Together with the promise of a couple of tickets to my next West End play. Though God alone knows when that will be.”

  “Hang on,” Sarah said. “You mean Howard Carter as in the chap who discovered the tomb of Tutankhamun?”

  Davenport nodded. “That’s the one. Luckily, the formidable Lady Grenchard doesn’t seem to be aware of the fact the poor blighter’s been dead for a couple of years.”

  * * *

  The track wound its way down the side of a hill toward woodland. At the edge of the woods a truck was parked—having brought Green and his soldiers, Sarah assumed. She parked the staff car close by, leaving room for the truck to turn.