The New Eastgate Swing

by Chris Nickson

  ‘That sounds fine.’

  ‘Do you want some advice?’

  ‘What?’ he asked sharply.

  ‘Just keep on moving and try not to dwell on it. It’s one time when thinking doesn’t help.’

  Markham nodded. ‘I’m going to crack on and finish this fraud.’

  Another hour going through the papers, trying to concentrate, finding one more connection. Then off to the factory, never mind the ugly bruises on his face, checking the wing mirror every few seconds as he drove. People gave him sideways glances. Good, he thought. He wasn’t in the mood for chit-chat.

  By early afternoon it was all over. A full confession. No begging for any sort of mercy this time. The embezzlement had funded a gambling habit. Markham waited until the police arrived, taking the thief off in handcuffs. On the way home he deposited the cheque in the bank. Alert every single moment.

  The alarm woke him at nine. At least he’d been able to sleep. The bedroom looked down on the graveyard. Markham stared out of the window into the darkness as he smoked a cigarette, then dressed. His old army trousers, a snug fit now, the wool scratchy against his skin, but right for this job. Dark shirt and sweater, hiking boots. With a black windcheater he’d be ready.

  At half past he was waiting, sheltering from the wind, cupping a cigarette in his palm, the glow of the tip hidden, the way he’d learned when he was still at school. He’d come out with the knife in his hand, checking everywhere to make sure his assailant wasn’t waiting to surprise him. When the Wolseley glided over the gravel, he trotted out of the shadows and climbed into the passenger seat.

  ‘How are you going to do this?’ Markham asked as they sped out along Otley Road.

  ‘Carefully.’ Baker’s voice was tight and cautious. ‘Did you bring gloves?’

  ‘In my pocket.’

  ‘Torch?’

  ‘Yes, with new batteries.’

  ‘I went out earlier this evening for a recce. There’s only one watchman and he doesn’t seem too enthusiastic about his rounds. Keep it quiet and we should be fine.’ He paused. ‘Don’t worry, no one’s following us. We’re safe.’

  There wasn’t much more to say. It wasn’t the time for small talk, just to prepare. If they were caught … he wasn’t going to think about that. He lit another cigarette.

  Baker turned down a track between two fields, just far enough along to be out of sight of the road. He turned off the headlamps and they were lost in the night.

  ‘Follow this track and we’ll come out on the other side of the shadow factory.’ He was whispering; noise carried in the darkness. ‘Try not to use your torch.’

  They moved slowly. Baker took the lead, Markham just a pace behind. Through a small copse with the strong smell of leaf mould. A sliver of moon appeared for a moment, long enough to make out the building two hundred yards away. It was huge, larger than he remembered, dwarfing everything around.

  The last fifty yards were bare ground illuminated by floodlights.

  ‘There’s a way to get through without being seen,’ Baker whispered in his ear. ‘See down there to the left? One of those lights has burned out. Go down that way. Close to the factory there’s enough shadow to hide us.’

  Moving in a crouch, running through the empty space with his heart in his mouth, it was like being back in the training he’d had at Catterick Camp. The only difference being that there was no sergeant screaming at him.

  By the time he reached the building he was gasping for breath and his heart was pounding. He waited for Baker. The only sound was the deep thrum of a generator from somewhere inside.

  Then Baker was there. He’d moved in silence. Markham could feel breath against his ear and two quiet words: ‘Follow me.’

  Baker knew what he was doing. He seemed to go on instinct, to disappear as he moved, almost impossible to spot. His footsteps hardly seemed to disturb the ground. Finally he halted.

  ‘There’s a door a few yards along. We’ll go in there. Give it ten minutes. If the watchman’s coming, he should have passed by then.’

  ‘What the hell did you do in the war?’

  ‘Didn’t I ever tell you? I was in Number 4 Commando. Now keep your head down and stay shtum.’

  The seconds seemed to stretch out endlessly. Markham could feel the sweat rolling down his back and his hands were clammy.

  Finally there was a nudge in his ribs and a hand gesture. They crept to the door and Baker handed him a torch.

  ‘Keep that shining on the door whilst I open it.’

  The lens was taped so only a pinprick of light showed. He focused the beam on the lock. A few movements and he could hear the tiny click as it freed. The handle turned and he held his breath, praying there was no alarm.

  Just silence and they slipped inside. Baker closed the door behind them.

  ‘We can breathe a bit easier now,’ he said. He sounded relaxed, almost happy. ‘The watchman won’t come inside.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Stands to reason.’ He was still whispering but the words seemed to echo away into the vastness. ‘If there’s something secret in here, they won’t want everyone seeing it.’ He switched his torch back on, letting the light play around on the far walls. ‘This is too big for us to search together. We’ll have to split up. You go to the left. Keep your gloves on and the beam covered.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Meet back here in half an hour.’

  He began. It was nothing more than cavernous, empty space. Even in his hiking boots each footstep felt as loud as a scream. He kept one gloved hand over the torch lens, giving just enough of a glow to direct him.

  A door ahead was unlocked and took him into another part of the factory. This had been divided into smaller rooms. He tried every door. All offices, all empty. A row of them that stretched into the distance. How big was this bloody place, he wondered?

  The last door stuck. But it wasn’t locked. Markham put his shoulder against it and pushed. It gave noisily, scraping against the concrete floor. He held his breath, expecting to hear someone running, alerted by the sound. Nothing. There was only silence.

  A camp bed, the type he’d seen so often in barracks. Sheets and blankets neatly folded. In one corner a sink with a towel hanging over the edge. And in the air, something familiar. Just very faint, but definitely there.

  The smell of Amanda Fox’s perfume.

  Markham began to search, opening up the bedding, the towel, looking everywhere for any definite sign she’d been here. On his hands and knees he looked in the corners and along the skirting board. Something glinted under the bed, against the wall. He stretched, fingertips rubbing against it, then pulled it towards him. A gold ring. A wedding ring with some fine engraving and a beautifully set sapphire. He’d seen it before. It had been on her hand the last time she’d come to his office. He slipped it into the side pocket of his battledress trousers, and made sure everything in the room looked the way it had before.

  Questions. Too many of them and not enough time. Only fifteen minutes left.

  He moved quickly, trying to stay quiet but needing to check everything. Three locked doors; he knocked softly in case she was inside. No answer, only the soft, constant hum of machinery.

  He was back at the meeting place on the dot of half an hour.

  ‘I–’ Markham began, but Baker cut him off. ‘You need to see this.’ His voice was sober and chilling. ‘Now, Dan.’

  He led the way as if he’d memorised it, barely needing the light. The path twisted and turned until he stood in front of a door.

  ‘Open it. Use your torch, it’s all right.’

  Mystified, he turned the handle and switched on the beam.

  The room was as big as a football field, the ceiling high above, lost in the darkness. At first he couldn’t make out what filled the space. Then he realised: boxes. Cardboard boxes, folded, waiting to be assembled. Each one about six feet long and two feet wide. Wave after brown wave of them. Thousands of them.

  More than that. H
undreds of thousands of them. Maybe millions.

  Markham turned.

  ‘What …?’

  ‘They’re coffins.’ Baker’s voice was empty. ‘Bloody cardboard coffins.’

  ‘But,’ he began and understood he didn’t have anything more to say. He let the light play over everything. There were acres of them.

  ‘Everything ready for when they drop that nuclear bomb.’ He heard the long sigh. ‘I just wanted you to see it. We’d better get out of here.’

  Following the corridor back to the door, Markham explained what he’d found.

  ‘She must have left the ring hoping someone would find it.’

  ‘So he’s got her. And he’s involved with this place somehow.’ There was an edge to the man’s voice he’d never heard before. Bitterness, disillusion. Baker turned the knob and a rush of cold air hit their faces.

  ***

  They were speeding back towards Leeds. Markham smoked one cigarette then lit another from the tip. The Wolseley was on Otley Road before either of them spoke.

  ‘Christ,’ he said finally.

  ‘I can’t get those coffins out of my mind,’ Baker said

  ‘I know.’ The picture would stay in his head for a long, long time. Years.

  Baker kept looking straight ahead. ‘God only knows where that Mrs Fox is now.’

  ‘Seems like we have some work to do.’ And he realised that for the last hour he hadn’t even thought about a man trying to kill him.

  ‘Aye. It does.’

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Markham was home in time to fiddle with the dial on the wireless. He’d checked the dark spaces outside and climbed the stairs cautiously, not even realising he’d been holding his breath until he shot the bolts on the door.

  Between the crackles and hiss he found Voice of America, the last few minutes of Jazz Hour leading up to midnight, Willis Conover talking then the unmistakeable wail of Charlie Parker’s alto sax with strings on ‘Summertime’.

  Outside, a winter rain was falling. Summertime was a long way away.

  Markham made a cup of tea, the sound on the radio barely more than a background whisper. He reached into his pocket and brought out the ring, cupping it in his palm before placing it on the table. He’d hold on to the thought of being able to return it to her. But he didn’t know how.

  And the coffins … he’d never be able to forget them.

  ***

  It was almost ten when Markham reached the office. He’d still taken precautions, watched everything carefully but seen nothing. He parked on Albion Street, behind Baker’s Wolseley, smoking a cigarette. He didn’t want to go in yet. There was too much going through his mind.

  Instead he walked down to WHSmith at the top of Cloth Hall Street and bought a picture postcard that showed Leeds in the sunshine. On the back he scrawled I’m ready and addressed it to Carla at the Art Department at Durham University. A stamp from his wallet and he popped it in the postbox.

  Fighting back, he thought. And now he had a real reason to win.

  ***

  ‘I thought you’d have been here earlier,’ Baker said. He folded his newspaper and put it on the green baize of the card table.

  ‘I had something to do first.’

  ‘How did you sleep?’

  ‘Not so well.’ His dreams had been filled with corpses climbing out of cardboard coffins, each of them with the dark eyes of the man who’d attacked him, looking for the lives that had been taken from them in a nuclear instant. In the background the giant cloud of a bomb that wouldn’t disperse. He’d woken twice, chilled but sweating, and it had taken a long, fearful time before sleep returned. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Tossing and turning. I didn’t want to tell the wife about it. Don’t need her worried, too. She kept asking me what was wrong.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘I told her it must have been the piccalilli I had with my supper.’ Baker paused. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘Nothing we can do about the coffins.’

  ‘I meant Mrs Fox.’

  ‘If they had her there, then someone at Cokely’s knows about it. A few locked doors, but doesn’t look as if there’s much going on in the old Avro factory besides storage …’ He didn’t need to say the words. ‘It’s got to be him. The same one who tried to kill me.’

  ‘Very likely. But the real question is, where is she now? Find that out and maybe we’ll have him, too.’

  ‘What about Tim Hill?’ Markham suggested. ‘He works at Cokely’s. You said yourself that he sounded shifty.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  ‘How do we get him to talk, though?’

  ‘You leave that part to me.’ Baker tapped the side of his nose.

  ‘What’s so important about Amanda Fox?’ he wondered after a while. ‘Why has he taken her?’

  ‘Happen we’ll know once we find her.’

  ‘Yes.’ A sudden thought from the night before came to him. ‘You said you were in 4 Commando?’

  ‘A long time ago now.’ He rubbed his belly. ‘I didn’t always have this, you know. Came after I was demobbed.’

  ‘I heard about the things your lot did from some troops when I was in Germany.’

  ‘Trust me, Dan,’ the man told him, ‘you didn’t hear the half of it.’

  ***

  Baker disappeared, returning a little before four. Full darkness, the buildings all glowing with lights. Markham was sorting through receipts, deciding which to keep for the Inland Revenue, when he heard the heavy footsteps on the stair. He tensed, his hand curled around the flick knife in his pocket.

  Baker came in smiling.

  ‘Worthwhile?’

  ‘You forget how many friends you make when you work somewhere for years. Had a few words on the QT and I’ve got all the gen on Mr Timothy Hill. All off the record, of course.’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘I thought I’d follow him home from work and have a word.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  Baker hesitated before answering.

  ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, Dan, but please, leave this one to me. The way your face looks right now no one’s going to open up if they see you.’

  He was right, of course. Battered, bruised, beaten, he wasn’t likely to put the fear of God into anyone.

  ‘All right,’ he agreed after a moment. ‘What are you going to do if he rings the police?’

  ‘Trust me, he won’t do that,’ Baker grinned. ‘And if he tries, it’s already been taken care of. Don’t you worry.’

  ‘Come over to the flat afterwards. Tell me what he says.’

  Baker shook his head.

  ‘Tomorrow. I’m already in the doghouse at home for staying out so late last night.’

  ***

  He thought he wouldn’t be able to settle, that once he was alone all the fear would rise again. But with the comfort of the familiar all around and a hot meal in his stomach he began to relax. He’d never bothered with television. Instead, he listened to the six o’clock news on the Home Service then settled down with Lester Young on the record player. Markham picked up On the Road and soon he was lost in the slipstream of Kerouac’s words.

  ***

  After a while he set the book aside. He needed to think. About the man. About Amanda Fox. Georgina. Carla. About what he’d seen at Cokely’s.

  Would the man return and try again? Everything in his brain said no. The man was professional. It would be stupid, a dangerous move. But that little bit of terror wouldn’t wash away. He was going to stay very, very cautious.

  There was nothing he could do about Amanda yet. Not without more information. He hadn’t asked Baker how he was going to make Tim Hill talk; from the glint in the man’s eyes, he didn’t want to know. Tomorrow. They could make their plans then.

  He sighed.

  He’d hurt Georgina. He would have told her, ended things cleanly and been honest. He’d just wanted to find the right moment, to make it simple.

  But maybe nothing in l
ife was that easy. They weren’t children any more.

  And Carla. She’d stepped back into his life and he couldn’t resist her. When she’d gone, three years before, he’d ached with the loss. Time had healed all that; so he believed, anyway. But now it was all back, stronger than before. Maybe this time … She wouldn’t be here until the New Year. One way or another everything else would be resolved by then.

  ***

  He needed time to think about the coffins, too, for what he’d seen to percolate through his brain. He read the papers, he knew about the bomb, that it would kill everyone. It was terrifying, but somehow it wasn’t real. It just existed out there somewhere, separate from his life.

  The coffins had brought it all home. They were where he lived, waiting for him and everyone else in Leeds. The government was behind them, operating quietly and making its plans. All the things they wouldn’t tell the people. A way to keep the veneer of civilisation once civilisation had been destroyed. It was the way the future could be. Seeing them there, the cardboard coffins in their hundreds of thousands, made it all very immediate. And it scared him.

  ***

  ‘You look very pleased with yourself.’

  For once he’d been the first in the office, waiting impatiently when Baker entered. The big man hung up his mackintosh and hat, taking his time before sitting with a contented sigh.

  ‘I had an interesting evening,’ Baker admitted, taking the pipe from his jacket and lighting it.

  ‘Go on. What did Hill have to say?’

  ‘Not much at first. He didn’t want to talk to me. But he changed his mind when I suggested things might go badly if all the things he was doing came out.’

  ‘You took a chance.’

  ‘It worked.’ He grinned. ‘The bastard’s in it up to his neck.’

  Markham leaned forward, elbows on the desk.

  ‘Well?’

  Hill was a scared man, it seemed. A little man in every way, no more than five feet four. Someone who relished the small power of his position. Some of Cokely’s work involved defence. Things covered by the Official Secrets Act. Hill had worked with Mark Fox, first in the Special Operations Executive during the war, and then setting up the jobs for the men brought over from East Germany.