The Sleeper

by J. Robert Janes

  ‘Neither. The yacht won’t be safe once the hue and cry has been raised unless, of course, Joachim has had her name and registry changed.’

  Christina wouldn’t yet let him see the note Burghardt had sent, but asked, ‘What, then, do you intend to do?’

  ‘My people have a cottage in the mountains of northern Wales. Once they’ve got Karen safely away, and MI5 are looking elsewhere, I thought you might join them and give the matter of that document a little time before you release it to destroy Colonel Buntington Hacker and those who employ him.’

  ‘And yourself?’ she asked. ‘Will you not be joining us?’

  ‘Most certainly, but I must be careful. I can’t be seen to have been involved, can I, but later, if you were to hand that document to that husband of yours, he would, I’m sure, take care of the rest.’

  ‘And Karen?’

  ‘Will by then be home and safe.’

  And she would, thought Christina, have the pleasure of seeing Ash’s face as he read it, knowing Karen had been taken from him. ‘Burghardt’s note said only that the Thule Sólarsteinn would be putting in to Weymouth tomorrow.’

  Which would allow a day or so to make the run down to Cornwall. ‘And is it definitely Werner Beck whom Joachim is sending?’ he asked.

  The champagne she had held off sampling trickled down her throat, making her feel, thought Christina, as though naked with him beneath a mountain waterfall. Enjoying the moment, she smiled and said, ‘My lover, yes, though every part of me now wants yourself and we were, I think, made for each other.’

  Beck reached for the binoculars. The house was on a hillside above this tiny finger of the Helford Estuary, and from it, a steep flagstone path led down to the shore and to a 5.5-metre yacht that looked as though it had never been used. No other houses seemed near, just thickly wooded hills and a road.

  He hadn’t put in to Falmouth Harbour. Only at the last had he decided on making for the river. Wanting every possible out, including a little of his own, he had looked for a place to leave the Hálfdan Ragnar but appear as if with someone. It was now Tuesday the fourteenth.

  A car was parked a short distance from the house, but there were no signs of electrical or telephone wires. Old, of white stucco with dark trim and leaded casement windows, the house was perfect. A rockery, awash with colour, tumbled from the drive in which the car was parked, the rhododendron superb.

  Satisfied that the household would not awaken for a bit, he climbed down into the cabin and set to work, was shaving the last of the drunkard’s whiskers away when he saw a fair-haired woman with two children come out of the house. A dog was with them, a cocker spaniel, the three soon on the lawn and gazing down at him, the children held by the hands. None of them knew quite what to make of the visitor.

  Hurriedly wiping his face on the towel and reaching for his seaman’s cap, he went on deck to grin and cheerily wave a good morning. His clean but faded blue denim shirt and trousers would have to do. There was still no sign of the husband and father, and as the woman and her children came down the path, she hushed the spaniel, it heeling obediently.

  Cupping his hands, Beck shouted, ‘A seized-up fuel injector, and I am lost, I think. Yes … yes, that must be so.’ Giving her the name of the yacht, he told her he was on holiday.

  They got all sorts of people in summer, thought Mary Anne Livingston. Several ventured much farther up the Helford. ‘Have you registered with Customs?’ she called, her uncertainty all too clear, she felt.

  Holding up a fistful of papers, he answered, ‘At Falmouth, ja. I was heading down the coast to Land’s End.’

  ‘Then you had best come in.’

  She must have said something to her son, for the boy began to object. Repeating her request, he dejectedly turned away and began to climb the path, Beck realizing that there was someone else up there after all, and cursing his luck.

  The dog began to move about, the woman and her daughter remaining next to the shore. Leaning over the side, he put his rucksack into the dingy. Mist still rose off the water, a heron labouring along the far bank, the woman again calling softly to the dog.

  ‘I’m Mary Anne Livingston,’ she said as the boat nudged the sand, ‘and this is Anna, whose brother, Derek, has gone to tell his father we’ve company.’

  But why had the father not come himself? Taking her hand in his, he felt the cool firmness of it. ‘Harald Jensen of Copenhagen, at your service, madam.’ She was in her mid- to late thirties, with soft blue eyes and shoulder-length, pale blonde hair.

  ‘I expect you would like a cup of tea,’ she said, again with a touch of uncertainty that puzzled. ‘We don’t get many visitors, I’m afraid. You’ll be something special.’

  The daughter was the image of the mother, Beck tousling the child’s head. Grinning, he asked if she would like a ride on his shoulders. ‘It’s a long hike up to the house, is it not?’ he asked, making friends with the spaniel and glancing at the mother for permission.

  ‘Please,’ he said, handing the woman the rucksack. ‘If I can leave the boat here, I can find a place to fix or replace the fuel injector. Maybe today, maybe tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, of course, it will be all right,’ said Mary Anne, hesitating yet again. ‘My … my husband is quite ill, Mr. Jensen. He does so love it when someone pays a visit. I’m sure he will know exactly where you can go for help.’

  Ill and Gott sei Dank, his luck had just returned. Hoisting the girl onto his shoulders, he reached for the rucksack only to hear the woman say, ‘You had better let me take that. You’ll soon find that Anna is enough.’

  And uncertain of him again, felt Beck, she wondering how a fuel injector could be so heavy, the rucksack crammed with ropes, a grappling iron, two flashlights, his gun, the Wheal Deep’s drawings and other things, all of which could well be needed.

  The dog came when called and they started up, the woman going first, Beck thinking that he must be out of Cornwall in three days at most, less if possible, and that this anchorage would simply have to do. From here it wasn’t all that far to Saint Ives, but had he a need to go there at all and what would he find when he got to that cottage?

  From Blind William’s cottage to the edge of the cliffs, it was perhaps two hundred yards, and from there along the same to the east, and then down to the boat shed by degrees, though vertically one hundred. Standing in the tiny cove on that same Tuesday, 14 June, her satchel holding revolver and torch, Hilary looked up at the cliff whose all but sheer face towered uncomfortably above. In plan view, the tunnel, the adit that had led to the building of the boat ramp must lead to another tunnel that gave access to the area below the cottage, Blind William’s hearthstone completing the way in and the way out when smuggling. Yet there was no further evidence of the adit’s breakthrough to the cliff face, not that she could see, and there wasn’t another cove nearby.

  Each time a wave came in, the water would rush into the cove to spread the apron sands and rattle the shingle. Forgetting her troubles for the moment, Karen had found wrecking to be an all-consuming task of great interest. Gathering firewood was one thing, distastefully disentangling the strands of kelp another, but old bits of netting might have possible use. Cork floats, colourful pebbles, seashells and a dark-green bottle were added to the collection that now nearly filled one-half of the orange crate that had been rescued from the surf. The driftwood basket was full.

  Crouching, Hilary sketched the outline of the cove in the sand. The rampart the boat shed rested on was to the west of her, the path to the top of the cliffs, directly in front. Hence the cottage would also be off to the west but not so far, and from there to the shafts, in a south-southeasterly direction, it would be at least two miles across the moor.

  Two miles of tunnels and workings. Could it be as much? she wondered. The pump shaft was just outside the western wall of the engine house, and from there to the main shaft, going in a sout
hwesterly direction, it was about seventy feet.

  The miners had used a winding engine. Eventually wire rope had replaced its hemp, the headframe holding a large pulley wheel at the top to raise and lower the iron kibble that would have brought the ore to the surface and sometimes taken the men down, a dangerous practice, for they were to use the ‘ladder roads’ to climb into and out of the mine. All of this headframe apparatus was long gone and now there was only the gaping hole of the shaft, some twelve by eight feet.

  Drawing a line from the main shaft to the pump shaft, she marked in the latter’s size at almost eight feet in diameter, before sketching in the ruins, the road, cottage and cliff face.

  The adit had to be behind the boat shed.

  Going over to the shed, she soon found, as she had so often before, that there was little granite among the broken killas of grey-green schist and slate. ‘Karen, come and help me. Let’s have a look in the shed for the entrance to the tunnel.’

  The lifeboat really was as good as Ash had said when they’d first met. All down the length of the floor there were still items of one kind or another, nets, flats, pilchard baskets, cutting tables like the one she had rescued, overturned barrels, but at the back and hiding the cliff face was a solid wall of heavily tarred timbers. Only by listening closely could she and Karen hear that water was still draining out of the workings.

  Up in the loft there were, among other things, the lobster traps that, as Ash had said, were really quite all right, and through gaps in the roof, light did seep and she could see at once that repairs would be needed.

  Again, heavy timbers blocked off the cliff face, she straining on tiptoes to run her hands over them. ‘I know it’s here, Karen. It has to be. It’s just the right distance from the cottage. Blind William must once have been a smuggler. The cove’s perfect for it.’

  Together, they picked their way back along to the loft door and struggled to open it, light immediately flooding in with a view of the cove and the waves. More nets clung to pegs in the rafters, the open wickerwork of the lobster traps making them appear as cages.

  Air was rushing into the wall through seams between the timbers. ‘It’s got to be behind this,’ she said. ‘Please don’t be afraid. Just help me find it.’

  Pushing first on one and then another of the timbers, Hilary tried each but all were far too solidly in place. Standing back, they both looked at the wall. Upright posts stood against the timbers which lay piled horizontally, one on top of another. The posts in the middle of the wall were only as wide apart as Karen could stretch her arms. ‘These two posts are very heavy,’ she said, ‘but why is this, please?’

  ‘To hold the roof.’

  ‘But this they do not do?’

  A cross timber ran above them, from one side wall to the other, tying those together. Above this cross timber, the rafters slanted upwards until they came together to form the crown of the roof. Tarred wooden pegs in those two middle uprights, a peg nearest the cross timber and another next the floor, could not be found in any of the other posts.

  Prying on one of the pegs, it soon came out, and when the post was moved, Hilary realized they had found the entrance and together they opened it. Taking the torch out of the satchel, she checked to see that it was working, inadvertently shining it on the floor of the tunnel where a litter of broken rocks lay amid pools of water. A ladder led down. Ash wouldn’t want her to go in there, not with Karen, but at least she could have a look.

  Grantley’s, on this Tuesday, the fourteenth, was all but ready for Founders’ Day tomorrow, thought Ruth. Out on the Common, the wind wafted the canvas tents and marquees and stirred the school’s banner with its coat of arms and ridiculous Latin motto, which translated into ‘a clean heart and a cheerful spirit,’ and God, the hypocrisy of it! One could have wished for knights in armour instead of laurel leaves in battleship grey and blue with the quartered shield bearing chevron ermine arms. Her grandfather had found it somewhere and had modified it, and tomorrow the boys would all be cheering it, after which would come the annual regimen, a tour of the buildings, meetings with the masters, quiet little consultations and then the luncheon at twelve sharp and laid on with style, she not having had to take even the simplest part in its planning. Useless, that was what she was and had become. A nothing, but forced to listen to the driest of speeches and to act out the lovingly attentive wife of the headmaster!

  Cricket, rugger, soccer came in the afternoon, then tea at half past five and closing, and God, she couldn’t go through with it, not anymore, not with herself not having spoken up and told Ash the truth about that wife of his.

  ‘Ruth? Darling, may I come in?’ asked Anthony, her back to him, she still gazing out through the leaded panes.

  How defensive his voice was, how pitiful and pitying. ‘You’re in, so what’s the difference?’

  ‘Only that I asked.’

  Why did he have to do it to her? she wondered. Feeling him near, she stiffened.

  ‘Ruth, there’s something I must tell you.’

  ‘What have you done? Told them where that daughter of his now is? The last time she was moved, you told me she had been taken to Kent, Anthony. You didn’t think that I might then meet that wife of his and that she would make me tell her.’

  ‘And did you?’ he softly asked.

  ‘Damn you, yes! She … she forced me to. She had a knife and would have killed me had I not told her she would then never get her daughter back.’

  A knife … ‘Ruth, I … I didn’t know you would meet her. How could I have? I thought you would like to know where the girl was and that if I told you, it would make you feel as though you’d been brought into things.’

  ‘And now?’ she asked.

  Pearce wanted to reach out to her. He almost did, but knew she would only turn on him. ‘Darling, Ash needs our help. There’s still time to undo what’s been done.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. I don’t even want to hear it. I wish to hell I’d never married you.’

  ‘Ruth, Dave knows who the sleeper is.’

  ‘Is that why he came looking for that gun of yours you’d taken back from his room?’

  ‘Darling …’

  ‘You bastard! Get out of my room before I scream!’

  Choking suddenly, she went all to pieces, and as she rushed past him, he tried to tell her that it hadn’t been himself who had taken Ash’s rotor and that the gun was still in his room and that Dave could have it if needed. ‘I’ve told him where it is, Ruth. Dave knows who this sleeper is. It’s a Brigadier Charles Edward Gordon of MI6. He found his wife staying the night with Gordon at a country house near here. Ash mustn’t leave because of tomorrow, but he desperately needs someone to go to Cornwall and tell this girl he’s got looking after his daughter who the sleeper is.’

  ‘Who took the rotor from his car, Anthony?’

  ‘It was Banfield. Thinking I was the culprit, Roger took it upon himself to warn Dave that the sleeper must be someone at the school and very close to him.’

  ‘He chose an odd way to do it.’

  ‘Not really, not knowing that the boys would find it soon enough and show Ash where it was among the osiers I’d been looking at far too many times. Now will you go? Banfield was the one to suggest it. Roger … Well, Roger felt it might help you to get over things.’

  ‘And Ash?’ asked Ruth, seeing Anthony’s eyelids flicker and that cheek muscle of his twitch.

  ‘There’s a train at eleven that should get you to Saint Ives by mid- to late afternoon. I’ve drawn you a map of how to get to the cottage.’

  How could he possibly have done that, having never been there? ‘And Ash, Anthony? Surely, given such a serious matter, even Founders’ Day can do without him, or is it that you know Colonel Hacker will be there at that cottage and that I will most certainly have to confront him with the truth as well?’

  ‘Ru
th, please just go and take care of it. When … when I was in that prisoner-of-war camp, the Germans did try to get me to inform on the others but I refused. I had to because … Well, because one of the men who was involved in an escape attempt was rather dear to me.’

  ‘A hero, are you?’ she asked, and turning from him, went downstairs and out along the cobbled path that led from building to building.

  As he watched, she disappeared into Milton Hall, would now be walking down the corridor to the room in which Dave was teaching.

  Five minutes later, Ash was at that car of his and handing Ruth his mortarboard and gown, for she had told him what she had done and about that wife of his, and had known that only he should bring the warning. Ash held her tightly, Ruth kissing him on both cheeks, then standing there looking after him as he drove off.

  She had known this husband of hers hadn’t wanted Ash to risk his life, but had known Ash would have to, that there could be no peace for him otherwise.

  * Tourist, traveller or voyager

  9

  Beck couldn’t believe his luck. Mary Anne Livingston’s husband, Alfred, was nearly twice her age and dying of emphysema. At 0800 hours the nanny had come to take the children off her hands and the son to school, the day nurse soon afterwards.

  It had been the husband who had suggested Helston for the repairs and had told them to make a day of it. Penzance and now Land’s End and she driving.

  ‘I’ve never been down here,’ she said. ‘It must seem odd, really, but my husband’s business interests were always elsewhere. There seemed no need until … Well, until.’

  They were driving across moorland that often rose to bald, grey granite outcrops on the heights, the sea always present, one huge and breathtaking expanse. Scattered, isolated farmsteads stood among green fields on distant slopes that were more gentle. Old mines seemed everywhere. Stone hedgerows, crooked and overgrown, the buckthorn dark and windblown, bordered most of the fields, while across the moorland, the gorse was golden, the heather pinkish, neither yet in full bloom, bracken clustering about the wettest areas.