Dancing with Artie (Thaddeus Hunloke Book 1)

by Pete Heathmoor

  Donovan reached into this tunic pocket and pulled out a small package wrapped in brown paper. With trembling hands, Hunloke tore at the paper to reveal a packet of cigarettes. Adhered to the front was a white label on which a talented artist had made a pen and ink drawing of Flash House. Neatly written around the cartouche was written ‘Flash Camp 876 – 1944’.

  “Thank you... thank you very much...,” Hunloke attempted to sound bright and cheerful but his words emerged throttled and hoarse.

  A corporal ordered the men to present arms in a final act of salute and Donovan slowly escorted Hunloke along the line of guards. When Hunloke neared the Humber, the back door drifted lazily open. He leant and peered inside to discover Poppy seated behind Rodney Bidder at the wheel. Thaddeus Hunloke was about to climb aboard when he was stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

  “Beggin’ your pardon, sir. Listen...” The hand belonged to Donovan and he directed Hunloke’s attention towards the prisoner compound. On the damp air drifted the sound of singing. It appeared to come from the vague vicinity of the camp with no specific point of origin. It was as if the chorus of male voices appeared to be constantly on the move.

  “What are they singing, sergeant?” asked Hunloke.

  “I believe it to be a German marching song, Mr Hunloke. I thought they were up to something this morning.”

  “Marching song?

  “Yes, sir, for you, I believe...”

  The distinctive Germanic voices brought back memories of Nuremburg, of torch light parades, of a young Elsa on his arm. For the first time since her death, his heart stirred, and he felt the pangs of grief striking at his soul. He thought such thoughts would bring about tears of anguish, but instead the tears were those of closure and for the love he had once shared with a woman, a stifled love, a passion that had been as much a victim of the war as anything else. With the strains of the rousing martial melody lingering in the air, he climbed into the back of the Snipe. He felt his right hand being tightly clutched by Poppy.

  “How are you feeling, Artie?” she enquired earnestly.

  “Do you know what, Lady Violet? I’ve never felt better! I feel bloody marvellous!” He grinned whilst he spoke and yet she was confused by the relentless tears that rolled down his cheeks and which he made no attempt to stymie. It was after all, a dreek day in Derbyshire.

  Chapter 26 - A Clean Pair of Heels.

  Monday, 4th December 1944.

  “Have you got anything else to wear, Thad?” asked Rod Bidder over a bowl of lunchtime mutton stew in the refectory at Flash House. It was the first meal of the day for the occupants and Hunloke felt famished after his emotional send off from Flash Camp.

  “Only what Poppy leant me the other day,” replied Hunloke.

  “Then get yourself to Burtons or whatever they have in this part of the world and buy yourself a suit. I can’t have you sitting around in that uniform. It isn’t you... Well, not the Thaddeus Hunloke I know.”

  “Yessir...” The parsimonious Hunloke thought of the money he had spent on his service uniform, which he had worn only once in anger.

  “There’s a Co-op in Chesterfield, you ought to be able to pick something up there if you mention my name. I believe a Co-op should suit you just fine,” suggested Poppy.

  “I sense you have an ulterior motive, Lady Violet,” quipped Hunloke, ignoring her jibe.

  “That’s simply not true. But if you’re going into town, I would like to speak to the Reverend Ward about the Christmas carol concert at the chapel. We hold it every year for the village and surrounding farms and cottages. It’s expected of us.”

  Hunloke had quite forgotten that Christmas was looming. For all the faults of his marriage, it would be his first Christmas as a homeless widower.

  “Fair enough,” he answered in a distracted manner.

  “Thaddeus?” asked Bidder.

  “Sir?”

  “I’d like to apologise.”

  “For what?”

  “For the way you were treated this morning. It was bang out of order. It seems pretty clear to me that Turbutt was talking out of his arse. The send off they gave you at the camp was damned moving, even to an old grouch like me. You couldn’t have made that much of a hash of it.”

  “No, sir...” Hunloke let the compliment and apology hang in the air.

  “Anyway, I’ll leave you two to get on with it,” declared Bidder. “I’ll finish reading your notes. Very concise, by the way, Thad. What exactly did Turbutt take away with him?”

  “Notes belonging to Lieutenant Conway. Most of it to do with his suppositions regarding the POW’s. Nothing much of interest...”

  Bidder smiled approvingly. Once again, Hunloke had not been as incompetent as he had been led to believe. “By the way,” asked Bidder casually of Poppy, “why does the inspector call you ‘Lady Violet’.”

  Hunloke answered the query. “Because that’s who she is, Lady Violet Eason. Or was.”

  “Lady Violet Eason?” repeated Bidder.

  “That’s what Artie said...,” replied Poppy dismissively.

  “As in the Duke of Brocklingby?” asked an astonished Bidder. The name meant nothing to Hunloke.

  “Yes, Daddy is the current Duke. Don’t look so surprised, I am the youngest of eight children, it’s jolly difficult finding husbands for six daughters. I could have done a lot worse than Eddie.”

  “I wasn’t inferring anything Lady Violet,” replied Bidder with a tinge of deference acquired from years of service with Scotland Yard.

  “I am not Lady Violet, I am Poppy. I just let that idiot call me that to keep him amused,” answered Poppy, naturally referring to Hunloke. “Just because some ancestor won a battle in Europe, the family get encumbered with a massive palace and a pompous title. It’s rather unfair really. Hunloke from the Camp got nothing for fighting in France.”

  “I got the Military Cross for losing the Battle of France,” answered Hunloke glibly.

  “Well, you almost won; you came second in front of the French, Dutch, and Belgians.”

  “That’s one way of looking at it...,” grinned Hunloke.

  Rodney Bidder made his apologies and left the refectory to resume reading in the library. He considered Hunloke’s discipline over the past week had been nothing short of miraculous after co-habiting with Lady Violet Eason for one week. Bidder conceded he would certainly have succumbed to madness after only one day.

  “So you’re fine then?” asked Poppy for the umpteenth time.

  “I told you, yes!” answered Hunloke in an exasperated manner. “Stop worrying!”

  “I don’t like you being so equitable, it isn’t you. You haven’t criticised me once since we returned from that smelly camp.”

  “You mean I’m normally a miserable, belligerent old bastard?”

  “Well, if you want to use such common speech, then yes.”

  Hunloke laughed. It was true; he was still in a euphoric mood following his send off from the camp. The memories elicited a warm glow in his now full stomach and he purposely had to repress the smile that kept trying to assert itself.

  It didn’t require a psychologist to understand why the send off from the camp meant so much to him after the way he had been shabbily demobbed from the Army after Dunkirk. Following hospitalisation in Birmingham, he had become persona non grata. His old regiment had moved on leaving him as an unwanted casualty of war.

  The distant summons of the hallway phone interrupted Hunloke’s reflections on his past. The ringing stopped abruptly when someone answered the call. There was only one line into Flash House and Hunloke assumed that person to be Rodney Bidder. Some sixth sense prompted him to make his way to the library. He met Bidder in the hall, stopping next to the shapely marble backside of a Greek muse that fitted his hand perfectly.

  “I accepted a reverse charge call from the railway station,” declared Bidder, “it’s your Lieutenant Conway. Says he’s there and wanted to let you know he’s on his way back.”

  Taken
aback as he was by the news of Conway’s early return, Hunloke thought quickly on his feet. “Ask him to stay there, sir. Tell him to grab a cup of char in the station buffet. I’ll meet him there.” Bidder gave Hunloke one of his suspicious looks. “Nothing underhand, sir. I just want to warn him about what’s happening here, to be on his guard.”

  “Fair enough, inspector, but I want him to make a full report to me when he gets here, understood?”

  “Yessir...”

  Hunloke took immense pleasure in driving the Humber Snipe to Chesterfield. Poppy sat at his side and for a brief moment the war seemed far away and almost an irrelevance. He had changed into the clothes he had worn for the mufti evening at Flash House, Oxford bags and tweed jacket. His Army greatcoat lay on the back seat. Had it not been for petrol rationing he might have considered driving around all day and night in the Snipe, for the efficient heater made the car interior far cosier than the frigid mansion.

  “So you’re the daughter of a Duke?” he asked absently.

  “What of it?” she countered with a tinge of crabbiness.

  “Nothing...”

  “You mean it doesn’t intimidate you?”

  “No, only senior officers and Superintendant Bidder intimidate me.”

  “Oh...”

  “Disappointed?”

  “No...,” answered Poppy tetchily.

  “That’s good then. So your dad’s place is bigger than Flash?”

  “Slightly...,” she answered sarcastically, “it’s a palace, funded and built by public subscription in the year diddly-wit.”

  “That was a good year for palaces,” laughed Hunloke.

  “I don’t like you happy. You’re no fun at all...,” complained Poppy.

  “I’m sure Mr Conway will do his best to bring me back down to earth.”

  “Good, I want my grumpy Hunloke from the Camp back.”

  “Can’t call me that anymore....”

  “I’ll call you what I like, I’m the Lady around here!”

  “I know, and I’m just the son of a London stevedore. I know my place, ma’am...”

  “What’s a stevedore? Don’t they fight bulls?”

  “That’s a matador... Stevedores stuff and unstuff ships.”

  “Well, I can see you’re a chip off the old block when it comes to stuffing...”

  The Austin staff car stood out from the four other vehicles parked in the small car park at the front of the Victorian station building at Chesterfield Midland Railway Station. The station buffet was a gloomy space with little to offer other than weak tea. Hunloke and Poppy found Conway and Christine sitting at a corner table under the watchful eye of a murine woman serving behind the counter. There was little else to distract the manageress in the empty station restaurant save for the middle-aged couple sat by the door, the man was removing a smut from the woman’s eye. They were clearly in love and not married, to each other at least.

  Conway jumped to his feet when he saw the tall greatcoat-clad figure of Hunloke approaching the table with Poppy dawdling absentmindedly behind him. Conway made to offer a salute until he noticed Hunloke wasn’t wearing his military cap.

  “Hello, sir.” Conway’s greeting was surprisingly civil considering he and Christine had been hanging around the restaurant for the best part of an hour.

  “Sorry for keeping you, Brian,” declared Hunloke, shaking Conway’s hand. “There have been a few developments you may or may not be aware of.” Hunloke was unable to greet Christine. The ATS driver was embroiled in an affectionate embrace with Poppy, who greeted the corporal like a long lost friend.

  “Aye up, me duck,” said Christine finally to Hunloke. “Glad you got here at last. I need to spend a penny. Have you got one I could use, Brian? Just in case...”

  Conway rummaged for a penny and handed it over to Christine. Poppy decided she would join the corporal on the heady excursion through the station, leaving the men alone, so giving her a chance to catch up with Christine’s gossip.

  “I take it from Corporal Baldwin’s somewhat informal greeting that you have heard the news,” said a seated Hunloke.

  “Yes, sir. I rang the camp before ringing the house and spoke with Donovan. Chrissie asked me how she was supposed to address you and I told her to use her normal greeting. I didn’t quite expect that,” answered a grinning Conway.

  “So other than working, you had a good weekend?”

  Conway’s grin remained in place. “Very good, thank you, sir.”

  “You don’t have to keep calling me ‘sir’, Brian; technically I am plain ‘inspector’, two steps up from lowly ‘constable’.”

  “If it’s all the same to you, sir, I’d rather call you ‘sir’. I’ve kind of got used to it.”

  “A rose by any other name, Brian... Your flash I think. So how did it go?”

  “Like the curate’s egg, sir. Good in parts. Found out a few interesting snippets, could have found out more had it not been for Lieutenant Colonel Clarence Turbutt.” Conway reached into his overcoat pocket and offered Hunloke one of his cigarettes.

  “You know him then?”

  “Of him... He’s part of the War Office committee that heads up the CSDIC. He told me he was replacing you at the camp and dismissing you. You seem quite chipper about it?”

  “I wouldn’t say chipper, but I feel better than I thought I would. My old boss, Superintendent Rod Bidder is at the house. That’s why I wanted to speak to you here.”

  “You don’t trust him?”

  “No, quite the opposite, but if we were at the house he’d end up questioning you and I’m not sure that he’s up to speed with things yet. What did you find out about Major Charles Beevor?”

  “Right, sir... Grammar school boy from Nottinghamshire, veteran of the last war, served with the Sherwood Foresters.”

  “That’s the same regiment as Tommy Gray.”

  “Who?”

  “The husband of Constance Gray.”

  “Ah, yes...” Conway did not like to be reminded of Constance. When in London, his dreams about Connie lay dormant in his mind. Now, in Chesterfield, he found his proximity to Flash House rekindling the memories of his nightmares, which Christine Baldwin had since kept at bay. He hoped she would continue to do so.

  “I wonder if it was the same battalion?” proposed Hunloke.

  “Dunno know, sir. Beevor was posted to Flash Camp in June after the sudden death of the camp CO.”

  “Death? Suspicious was it?”

  “Recorded as a heart attack.”

  “How old was he?”

  “Forty-eight, sir.”

  “Plausible, I suppose. And so Major Beevor found himself posted to Flash.”

  “Yessir...”

  “What else?”

  “Well that’s about it. Nothing much else to say. A quiet type they said, liked to read and kept his own company.”

  If Hunloke was disappointed by the paucity of information relating to Beevor, he kept it to himself. “And so we come to Major Henry Mills. What have you got on him?”

  “A most grey figure, sir. Took a few G and T’s to find out much about him. He is indeed MI6, spent time in Germany before the war where he attempted to build up a cell to gather intel on the fascists. His cell was compromised and broken up by the Gestapo or Abwehr. It is rumoured he might still have an agent or two in place. That’s how he might have heard about Operation Rabe, if it even exists.”

  “Why do you say that?” Hunloke was thinking about Günter Grass’ revelation.

  “Because Rabe was dismissed by analysts as being defunct, never really got off the ground, like a good deal of German scams. It would appear Mills was given permission to pursue his agenda with only limited resources. The fact that five POW’s escaped and half the country has been looking for them has somewhat raised the profile of Operation Rabe. There is serious talk of confining POW’s to camps but there appears to be sufficient doubt to make the War Office hesitant. The POW’s are too valuable a work force at the moment
.”

  “So our Henry Mills is a bit of a lone wolf?”

  “Yes, always has been, so said. I couldn’t get anything on his background, classified. And nobody I know ever socialised with him.”

  “That’s good...,” stated Hunloke, though in truth he wasn’t sure he was any the wiser. Perhaps Mills’ motive for engendering Hunloke’s easily gained trust was for a reason not yet apparent. “Documents pertaining to any child of Connie Gray...?” pressed Hunloke.

  “Requested the documents, they’ll be posted to Flash House for your attention.”

  “Thanks, Brian. Great job.”

  “Thank you, sir. And have you discovered anything?”

  “Well, Brian, between you and me, I have an idea that the two escapees never left the estate.”

  “How do you mean, sir?”

  “I mean that in 1940, an auxiliary bunker was possibly built on Flash land and Cathy Maxfield’s husband was one of the men detailed to man it as and when the invasion arrived. Bonhof and Mrs Maxfield were pretty close and it’s possible she told him of the den’s location, possibly in the gully by the Chapel.”

  “And have you acted on this intel?”

  “It’s not intel, Brian. It’s a copper’s hunch. I can’t go acting on hunches.”

  “We should tell the camp and arrange a search,” insisted Conway. Hunloke immediately regretted being so candid with the lieutenant. He blamed his rashness on his good humour and eagerness to show he had been doing something whilst the lieutenant was in London. “Anyway, sir. I’ve got to report to the camp commander.”

  “What, straight away?”

  “Yes, orders from a Major Fakir, relayed by Sergeant Donovan.”

  “‘Fa-keer’,” corrected Hunloke grumpily. He was seething inside for allowing his tongue to run away with him. He should have realised that technically Brian Conway was no longer under his command. “We’ll talk some more over dinner, shall we?” suggested Conway, rising from the table.

  “Yea, that’s a good idea, Lieutenant Conway...,” replied Hunloke without conviction. The two girls returned chattering amicably and Conway at once escorted Christine to the parked Austin.