The Enemy Within

by Edward Marston

  ‘No,’ said Marmion, thoughtfully, ‘he’s putting himself through hell.’

  ‘That doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘It does to me, Joe. I feel that Paul has looked back on all the trouble he’s given us and, perhaps, on what he did to Sally Redwood and to Mavis Tandy. He’s accepted that he created untold damage. That’s why he’s taken himself off.’

  ‘I don’t follow you,’ said Keedy.

  ‘He’s punishing himself.’

  There was a cracked mirror in the public lavatory. When he stared at himself, Paul saw that he had a two-day growth of beard. Though he’d brought shaving equipment with him, he wasn’t tempted to use it. From now on, he wanted to look different.

  The visit to Oxford had been made on impulse and paid him a handsome dividend. Wally Hubbard had been quick to make a logical deduction. David Ackley had been held at Knockaloe. When he’d been at the hostel, he had papers to show that his name was Benjamin David Croft. It had said so in the newspaper reports. The only place he could have got them was from Croft himself. It followed that the person Hubbard was after must also be on the Isle of Man. Without realising it, Marmion’s telephone call to Oxford had put Hubbard in possession of some priceless information. On the train journey back to London, the escaped prisoner had not stopped smiling to himself.

  For most of the way, his compartment was quite full. Only when most of the other passengers got out at various stations did he have the room to take out the map of Britain he’d bought in Oxford. When he opened it, his eyes went straight to the Isle of Man. That was where he’d find the man he’d sworn to kill. It wouldn’t be easy to get to the island and it would be even more difficult to get access to the camp once he was there. But he was undaunted. Hubbard had got the breakthrough for which he’d been waiting and it was all down to a telephone call from Scotland Yard.

  When it was all over – and he’d achieved his aim – he’d make sure that he sent a message of thanks to Inspector Marmion. The signature at the end of the letter would be that of a very grateful Detective Constable Rogers.

  Iris Goodliffe let her set the pace and the mood. If Alice wanted to walk along in silence, her partner was happy to humour her. The moment she saw her, Iris could tell that something had happened. Alice was grim and preoccupied. Though she was on duty, she was not thinking about police work. She was simply following a daily pattern, matching Iris stride for stride on their beat. It was the scream that finally jerked her out of her reverie. They were walking past an alleyway when they heard a loud wail of protest from nearby. It was followed by the sound of a slap that only intensified the scream. A man’s voice ordered the woman to shut up, then there was a noisy scuffle.

  Alice and Iris responded at once, running swiftly down the alleyway. As they rounded a bend, they saw a pathetic sight. A woman of roughly their own age was trying but failing to fight off a much older man. Both wore tattered clothing and swayed drunkenly. Having dropped his trousers, the man was trying to lift her skirt. When he saw the two policewomen, he gave them a mouthful of abuse before tugging his trousers back up again and staggering off. Huddled against the wall, the woman began to cry. Iris stepped in quickly to console her.

  The incident had a deep effect on Alice. It made her think of her brother, grabbing Mavis Tandy against her will. Neither of them had been drunk at the time and Paul was much younger than the ragamuffin they’d chased away, yet the image of abuse remained in Alice’s mind. Was that Paul’s future? Unable to relate properly to women, would he take by force what he couldn’t get by agreement? Absorbed in her thoughts, she didn’t notice that the victim had just collapsed in a heap.

  ‘Snap out of it, Alice!’ yelled her companion. ‘Why are you just standing there? Can’t you see I need help?’

  Claude Chatfield had been as good as his word. Having promised to make enquiries about the men interned at Knockaloe Camp, he did some exhaustive research. It involved a number of phone calls and a long interlude when he went through a bewildering list of names. When he summoned the detectives to his office, he had disappointing news for them.

  ‘He’s not there,’ he announced.

  ‘Are you sure?’ asked Keedy.

  ‘I’m absolutely sure, Sergeant. I spent hours going through the record of admissions and Ben Croft’s name is not among them. Do you realise how many people are locked away in that camp?’

  ‘I expect it’s a lot, sir.’

  ‘Give me a number.’

  ‘Would it be around … 5,000?’

  Chatfield laughed derisively. ‘No, it wouldn’t.’

  ‘I fancy that it’s much more than that,’ said Marmion, stepping in. ‘Knockaloe is near Peel on the Isle of Man. It was ready-made, so to speak, because it’s on the site of what used to be Cunningham’s Holiday Camp. When a friend of mine went there before the war, he was one of almost 3,000 men.’

  ‘Men?’ repeated Keedy. ‘Were there no women?’

  ‘No, Sergeant – just men. They slept in bell tents.’

  ‘It’s still a male enclave,’ said Chatfield. ‘There are no females interned there. Much to my disgust, I’m told that women of a certain sort do somehow manage to sneak in there from time to time in search of … customers. I’ve no idea how they get in and out of the camp.’

  ‘I daresay they bribe the guards with favours, sir,’ said Marmion.

  ‘Well, it shouldn’t be allowed. As for numbers, my research yielded the fact that between the outbreak of the war and the present time, well over 20,000 men have entered the camp and around a third of them have left. That still leaves a substantial total.’

  ‘I had no idea it was that many,’ said Keedy.

  ‘Neither did I until I had to plough my way through the lists.’

  ‘They’re mostly Germans, aren’t they?’

  ‘No, Sergeant, they’re persons of German extraction with British passports. Some have been here for most of their lives but it makes no difference. They had to be rounded up and interned in civilian camps like Knockaloe or incarcerated in prisons. Since we left nothing to chance, people from countries allied to Germany were also rooted out and arrested.’

  Marmion leapt in to stave off the lecture that seemed to be in the offing.

  ‘Did you find any record of David Ackley in the camp?’

  Chatfield was nonplussed. ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘Yet we know he was there. Breen confirmed it.’

  ‘The truth is that I wasn’t looking for Ackley’s name.’

  ‘That was very remiss of you, sir,’ Keedy interjected.

  ‘Keep out of this, Sergeant.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Even if you weren’t specifically searching for it,’ said Marmion, ‘my guess is that you’d have spotted it. A man with your eagle eye doesn’t miss much.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Chatfield.

  ‘So if you saw no mention of David Ackley, then the name was deliberately omitted from the list. Special Branch must have had their own reasons for keeping his whereabouts to themselves. Do you agree, sir?’

  ‘I do, indeed.’

  ‘Then the same may be true of Ben Croft. His presence on the island could deliberately have been left unrecorded.’

  ‘They’re not parallel cases, Inspector.’

  ‘They might be.’

  ‘Ackley was sent to Knockaloe for questionable political activities. As far as we know, Croft was never involved in politics. He was an insurance agent. There was no reason to send him to the Isle of Man.’

  ‘Yes, there was, sir. You’re forgetting that his mother was German.’

  ‘Then why was he walking freely around this country over a month ago? If there’s been a good reason to arrest him, he’d have been whisked off to a civilian internment camp long before now. Your reasoning is unsound, Inspector,’ said Chatfield. ‘Croft is not and has never been at Knockaloe.’

  ‘Then how did Ackley manage to steal those papers from him?’

  ‘I agree wit
h the inspector,’ said Keedy. ‘Croft is there and I should be sent to find him. He told one of his women friends that he was going to sail somewhere. It was to the Isle of Man.’

  Chatfield glared at him. ‘I’ll make the decisions.’

  ‘Then I hope you’ll grant our request, sir.’

  ‘What do we have to lose?’ asked Marmion.

  ‘We stand to lose the services of Sergeant Keedy at a time when he’s most needed here. Both of you seem to have forgotten that we have other priorities. We have to solve the murder of David Ackley and recapture that infuriating wretch, Hubbard. When we’ve dealt with those problems, we can turn our attention to Croft.’

  ‘But he’s linked to Wally Hubbard, sir. The one way to keep Croft alive is to find him first and offer him shelter.’

  ‘You’ve just defeated your own argument, Inspector.’

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘Let’s assume – for the sake of argument – that Croft is in Knockaloe.’

  ‘I’m convinced of it, sir.’

  ‘And so am I,’ said Keedy.

  ‘Then we can stop worrying about him,’ declared Chatfield. ‘We certainly don’t need to get in touch with him and arrange sanctuary. He already has it. If he’s marooned on the Isle of Man, he’s in the safest place possible. Hubbard would never dream of looking for him there.’

  Back in the house he’d borrowed from Felix Browne, he spread the map on the table and pored over it. Situated off the west coast of Britain, the Isle of Man was a blob in the middle of the Irish Sea. Hubbard knew that there were internment camps there, though he had no idea of their exact location or of their size. Getting there was the initial problem and there were two potential solutions. He could either bamboozle his way somehow on to a ferry or he could hire a small boat along with someone to sail it. There were immediate objections to the second mode of transport. A small vessel would take much longer to reach its destination and would cost a lot of money to hire. Something else worried him. In any expanse of water around the British coast, German submarines were always a threat. If he was travelling in a trawler or a similar craft, Hubbard didn’t wish to be torpedoed because that would end in his death.

  If, however, the submarine attacked a large ferry, the chances of survival were much higher. The vessel would have an adequate supply of lifeboats and a well-drilled crew to get all the passengers into them. Before it sank, it might even be possible to send out an SOS. Hubbard would be rescued along with everyone else. For that reason, he elected to travel in some style. His one regret was that he was unable to take Maisie Rogers with him. She deserved a treat.

  The two detectives keeping the barmaid under surveillance were still not sure if she’d deliberately tricked them or if they’d not been as alert as they should have been. It made them address themselves to their task with more care that morning. Maisie Rogers left the house at the same time and caught the same bus to work. When they’d seen her enter the Dun Cow, one of them watched from the opposite side of the road while the other walked around to the rear of the property. There was no way, they believed, that she could slip past them unseen again.

  The man outside the front of the pub had not forgotten Wally Hubbard. Since Maisie was prevented by them from going to him, they felt that Hubbard would come to her sooner or later. When he saw a figure tapping his way along the pavement opposite with a white stick, the detective felt the thrill of recognition. It was the disguise that Hubbard had used before. If he was foolish enough to use it again, he deserved to be caught. The detective bided his time until the man was only a dozen yards from the pub, then he ambled across the road as if about to enter the building. Instead of doing so, he suddenly turned around and blocked the way for the blind man. There was an immediate collision and the latter backed off apologetically.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘It was my fault.’

  ‘You can see as well as I can, Hubbard.’

  ‘My name is Andrews,’ corrected the other. ‘I’m Clem Andrews.’

  ‘I know exactly who you are and you’re under arrest.’

  Moving swiftly, he pulled out a set of handcuffs and snapped them on to the man’s wrists before he could move. The detective grinned triumphantly and snatched off the man’s dark glasses. His grin froze. It was not Wally Hubbard, after all. He was looking into the tiny, pale, sightless eyes of a stranger. The man needed no disguise.

  He was genuinely blind.

  To add to his dismay, the detective saw that someone was watching him from the front window of the pub. Maisie Rogers had seen everything.

  ‘It really shocked,’ said Iris Goodliffe.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, you expect that sort of thing at night when people have been drinking and they look for a bit of excitement.’

  ‘It was more than a bit of excitement,’ said Alice. ‘He was going to rape her.’

  ‘At least we saved her from that fate. The woman stank of drink and wasn’t really able to defend herself. What disgusted me was how much older than her he was. He was repulsive. What gets into men like that?’

  Alice was jolted. The question made her think of her brother once again. She had no chance to brood afresh, however, because they were near the end of their beat. Ahead of her was the reassuring sight of Keedy hurrying in her direction. After an exchange of greetings with him, Iris left them on their own. Alice stepped gratefully into his arms.

  ‘I was hoping to catch you,’ said Keedy, hugging her before moving back. ‘Your father told me about Paul.’

  ‘It’s been on my mind ever since.’

  ‘It may not be as bad as it sounds, Alice.’

  ‘That girl had no reason to lie. Can my brother really be …?’ Sensing that he was in a rush, she let the words tail off. ‘Has something happened?’

  ‘Yes, I’m leaving the country.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ she asked, worriedly.

  ‘Don’t be afraid. I’m not going into a combat zone. I’m off to the Isle of Man.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I have to find someone.’

  ‘Then you must be sailing there. I’m right to be afraid, Joe. There may be submarines on the lookout.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think that ferries are their main targets. They’re more interested in sinking our destroyers and torpedoing our merchant fleet so they can starve us out. I’ll be as safe as houses, Alice.’

  She gave a hollow laugh. ‘Iris and I have just walked past some houses that were demolished by German incendiary bombs.’

  ‘You’re determined to have me killed, aren’t you?’ he teased.

  ‘No, of course I’m not.’

  ‘Then stop fearing the worst.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘There’s a good girl.’

  He gave her a brief explanation of why he was going and what he hoped to achieve when he got there. Alice was puzzled.

  ‘You say that the superintendent tried to stop you going?’

  ‘Yes, he did. Chat was dead against the idea.’

  ‘How did you persuade him to change his mind?’

  ‘We didn’t. Nobody could do that.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘We went over his head and appealed to the commissioner. Luckily, he saw the wisdom of our argument and granted me permission to go ahead.’

  ‘Superintendent Chatfield must have been very upset at that.’

  ‘He was,’ said Keedy, chuckling. ‘That’s why I got out of there on the double. I left your father to face the music.’

  Marmion was accustomed to withstanding the wrath of Claude Chatfield. As a rule, the superintendent strutted up and down his office, delivering his tirade with blistering force and demanding apologies. It was different this time. Seated behind his desk, he was icily calm. Marmion was kept standing in front of him for minutes. When he finally spoke, Chatfield’s voice was quiet and measured.

  ‘I suppose you think that you’ve got the better of me,’ he said.

  �
��I don’t think any such thing, sir.’

  ‘Isn’t that why you ran off to the commissioner?’

  ‘With respect, I didn’t run anywhere. Sir Edward popped his head into my office and asked how everything was going. I simply told him the truth.’

  ‘You sought to undermine my authority.’

  ‘I gave an honest answer to a straight question,’ argued Marmion. ‘When the commissioner asked why the sergeant and I felt the need to make contact with Ben Croft, the both of us stated our case.’

  ‘In short, you stabbed me in the back.’

  ‘We have the greatest respect for your opinion on operational matters, sir. This is a rare occasion when we disagree with you. As it happens, the commissioner chose to accept our advice instead of yours.’

  ‘Why didn’t you have the courtesy to ask me to join in the discussion?’

  ‘There was no time. It was over and done with in minutes.’

  Chatfield’s eyelids narrowed and his facial muscles tightened.

  ‘The structure of command is essential to the running of this force,’ he said, coldly. ‘Those of us in authority – and I include you, Inspector – are entitled to expect obedience from those beneath us. Do you agree?’

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  ‘You’ve had to discipline officers before and I know that Sergeant Keedy is inclined to kick over the traces.’

  ‘Not if he’s kept firmly in check, sir.’

  ‘How would you feel if, having given an order to a detective constable, you found it countermanded by someone of superior rank – if, in other words, you realised that he’d betrayed you?’

  ‘I’d be disappointed,’ conceded Marmion.

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘It would depend on the circumstances, sir. I repeat that we did not go in search of the commissioner. He came into my office of his own accord.’ He kept a straight face. ‘Sir Edward often does.’