Trouble

by Michael Gilbert

  Finally, might I say that I entirely concur with the comments of Mr. Prince, the jury foreman, a respected member of the team at the Arsenal Laboratory. The explosion had none of the characteristics of the explosives we use. The blast they give is powerful, but concentrated. As well as its commercial use I have some experience of its military use. As a young officer in 1945 I was concerned in the blowing up of submarine pens at the mouth of the River Scheldt. Incautiously used it might have blown a hole in the roof, but it would not have caused instantaneous all-round destruction, nor would an immediate fire have resulted, even if ultimately assisted by petrol.

  In my view, this explosion was caused by the detonation of a fairly large quantity of cordite. Not many people or institutions have any reason to own or store cordite, so might I suggest that steps be now taken to examine any known local stocks, as carefully as mine were examined two weeks ago. We might then be a little closer to discovering the truth about this appalling tragedy which has cost four young lives. “Well,” said Anthony when he had read through this letter twice, “that’s going to start something, isn’t it?”

  Two days later, when he was demonstrating to Nurse Williams that he was ready to be discharged by doing press-ups on the floor, he had a second unexpected visitor.

  “My name’s Mowatt,” said the stout and placid civilian. “My friends call me Reggie. We haven’t met, but I’ve heard your voice more than once.”

  “You’ve heard—?”

  “Or, to be strictly accurate, a tape-recording of it.”

  “Oh, I see. Then you’re a spook.”

  “That graphic Americanism would be more accurately applied to MI6. I’m in Five. Home security. Just a civil servant, really.”

  “Then you know Chief Superintendent Bearstead.”

  “Bruno Bearstead? Yes. He’s an old friend. And we’re working together on this operation. I understand he put you in the picture.”

  “He told me as much as he had to if I was going to help. What he seemed to want to know was any connection between a local businessman called Arthur Drayling and some Pakistani kids and another lot who—”

  He found he couldn’t go on. Putting the horror into words brought it to life again. He wanted to bury it.

  “The other lot who were involved in the explosion in Wick Lane,” continued Mowatt smoothly. “Incidentally, I thought what you did was startlingly brave. Fire knocks the guts out of most people.”

  “If I’d stopped to think I wouldn’t have done it.”

  “All right. I won’t embarrass you. And a small correction. It wasn’t just Drayling’s connection with those two lots of boys we wanted. I’m sure Bearstead made that clear. Anything about him at all. His home life, his business, his character—”

  “I didn’t understand that my remit was as wide as that,” said Anthony. “But even if I had done, I’m not sure that I could have helped very much. My acquaintance with him is confined to exchanging trivialities in the club and listening to him laying down the law about modern youth.”

  The way in which he said this would have deceived most people, but it did not deceive Mowatt. He was so used to listening to people telling truths, half-truths and quarter-truths that the tiny hint of uneasiness had not escaped him. It was in the tone of voice, not in the words. He does know something, he thought. And he’s not telling us. And it’s not going to be any use bullying him.

  He said, “As long as you realise how desperately important this is. I must tell you that we’ve had a certain amount of luck. We’ve succeeded in establishing a system of watching and even given it a useful dry run. But if I was a betting man I wouldn’t put our chance at more than six to four on. If we were at war, it would be different. We could put a fence round this island that I’d defy anyone to break through. But we’re not at war. Or not in the old-fashioned sense of the word. And we have to spend half our time worrying about whether we’re standing on someone else’s toes, or upsetting the public or giving a field day to the opposition press.”

  “I do understand that,” said Anthony. “And I’ll do what I can. That’s one of the reasons I want to get out of here.”

  When Mowatt left the hospital his chauffeur noticed that he looked pleased. He came across, but did not at once get into the car. He said, “What do you do, Sam, with someone who knows something important, but for some reason won’t spill it?”

  “Burn the soles of his feet.”

  “I’m afraid that wouldn’t be practical in this case. No, we shall just have to wait and hope that his conscience does the trick. In Mr. Leone’s case, his conscience is a very powerful monitor, or so I should imagine.”

  “Is what he knows connected with the job you’re on?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “And it’s important?”

  “It could be very important.”

  “Then hadn’t someone better keep an eye on him when he comes out?”

  “Actually,” said Mowatt, “that’s one of the reasons I came to see him. I suppose we’ve got our usual tail?”

  “Well, there’s a man in the passenger seat of that van, parked three back. He arrived after we did and has been doing nothing much since. I suppose that’s why you come out grinning all over your face, so he’ll think that anything the other chap knows has been passed on to you.”

  “You read my mind, Sam. It occurred to me that we are more used to looking after ourselves than he is.” He got into the car and shut the door. When they moved off the van pulled out and followed some distance behind. Mowatt was not worried. As head of the Irish Section of MI5 he would have been surprised if, at that juncture, he had not been kept under observation.

  Crafty as a waggon-load of monkeys, thought Sam. Probably nothing in it. But when he was putting the car away he got the gun out of the door pocket, unloaded it, cleaned it carefully and reloaded it.

  “Something on your mind, Sergeant Major?”

  Captain Olbright, who commanded C Company of the 134th Regiment RE had known Sergeant-Major Pearce long enough to detect when he had something he wanted to tell him. The importance of the matter was indicated by the intensity of the frown on Pearce’s normally good-tempered face.

  “You read that piece in the local paper, sir. About checking explosives.”

  “We all read it.”

  “It was what Sergeant Alnutt said to me this morning. You know he’s been in charge of the 3 Platoon guard. It was something he noticed at the time, but he didn’t report it, thinking it wasn’t all that important, I expect. It was between sentry changes. The way they do it – it’s not exactly Brigade of Guards style – the sentry on duty does his two-hour spell, then he comes in and wakes up his relief, who takes over.”

  Olbright nodded. This was the way most night guards worked.

  “Well, sir, Alnutt happened to be awake when the changeover was being made and he saw the guard who’d come in – Sunley, that was – over at the other side of the room where the ammo shed keys are kept. The guard isn’t supposed to handle the keys at all. They’re kept in the guard-room for safety. So he asks Sunley what he’s up to. Sunley says, ‘I noticed one of the keys had fallen off I was putting it back. Didn’t mean to wake you up.’”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Sunley’s in 3 Platoon. They and the other two do a week on duty each. So it must have been a fortnight ago.”

  “So what made Alnutt bring it up now?”

  “Well sir, he’s not exactly a genius, but he’s got a lot of common sense. And when he was turning it over in his mind afterwards, what he thought was that once a key is hung up on a hook it doesn’t fall off. Really, practically speaking, the only way it could come off its hook is if somebody took it off and it looked as if that somebody must have been Tim Sunley. Well, then he reads that piece in the paper and he begins to think about it some more. And then he remembers something else. The buzz is that Sunley is friendly with a Paki girl, who’s the sister of one of that lot who were in trouble for scrap
ping with the white lot. So, adding two and two together, he decides he’d better tell me. And I thought I’d better tell you.”

  Thus obeying the age-old custom, thought Olbright. If the buck looks awkward, pass it up quick. And if what Sergeant Major Pearce suspected turned out to be true, it might be very awkward indeed. Clearly the first thing to do was to check the stores.

  He said, “I take it you’ve got the hand-over schedules?”

  “Signed them myself, sir. And checked them. I wasn’t going to sign blind.”

  “Then get hold of the keys, quietly. We don’t want to start people talking. Particularly as there may be nothing in it.”

  “New guard doesn’t mount until five o’clock. Give us plenty of time to go round.”

  “All right. I’ll meet you at half-past two, by the footbridge over Lower Dock Creek.”

  At a quarter past three they were standing outside the northernmost of the three store sheds and neither of them were looking happy.

  “You’re quite sure, Sergeant Major?”

  “It’s not difficult with this lot, sir. They’re charges for the old twenty-five pounder. They’re in different coloured bags so that the loader who was making up the charge knew which to put in. Blue for charge one. Blue and red for charge two and so on. I counted them myself when we took over.”

  “And we’re four bags short.”

  “I’m afraid so, sir.”

  “This must go straight up to the CO,” said Captain Olbright.

  When Colonel French understood what his subordinate was telling him he, too, looked unhappy.

  “We’ll have to call in the MPs,” he said. “I don’t like it. They’re apt to play a bit rough in cases like this. But I don’t see any alternative, do you?”

  “I’m afraid not, sir.”

  “What sort of chap is Sunley?”

  “Well, he’s young. Just average, I should have said.”

  “He’s not a raving bolshy; I mean, the sort of type to go round blowing people up?”

  “Absolutely not, sir. But, of course, that girl may have led him on.”

  “I suppose that’s right.”

  18

  The Military Police headquarters, known locally as the Bastille, was a square yellow brick building tucked away behind the Royal Artillery Barracks. Colonel Craik’s office was on the second floor at the back overlooking an unfrequented corner of Woolwich Common. The Colonel, who had white tufted eyebrows and brick-red cheeks looked like a prosperous, but over-worked, farmer. He was within six months of retirement; a retirement not destined to last long since he was to be carried off within the year by a massive cardiac occlusion.

  Tim Sunley had been interviewed, briefly, by his own CO and warned that there was a serious charge pending. He had been driven, late in the afternoon, to the police headquarters and lodged in one of the cells on the lower ground floor. Enough light filtered through the barred semi-basement window for him to examine the furnishings. A canvas cot on an iron frame; a wash-basin and a chamberpot; a varnished set of prison regulations on the wall. From the moment he had entered the building no one had spoken to him.

  The cell was uncomfortably hot. When he was making up his bed with the two blankets which had been provided he had noticed a blackened stain along one side of the canvas and had wondered about it. He had heard stories of what went on in the Bastille and had half believed them. He slept badly and was woken in the middle of the night, imagining that he had heard screams. It could have been a dream. He lay awake, listening. The only sound was water running somewhere. When that stopped the silence was so intense that it seemed to press him down.

  A red-cap brought him his breakfast and his midday meal. He had little appetite for either. The day passed slowly.

  When the last of the daylight had gone the single electric light in the ceiling came on. Sunley looked at his watch and saw that it was half-past five. This reminded him of something. It required an effort to tear his thoughts away from his own predicament. Then he remembered. He had arranged to meet Shazada at six o’clock in the old stable. He had intended to exact a full and delicious reward for what he had done for her and her brothers. The thought had been exciting him for days. Now it seemed unimportant. He was more interested in the stain on his cot than in Shazada. He was certain that it was dried blood. And he had noticed something else. There were steel slots in the metalwork of the cot. A strap passed through them would secure a man’s wrists and ankles. In spite of the warmth in the cell he had started shivering. Oh God, whatever they were going to do to him let them do it soon and let it not hurt too much.

  There were heavy footsteps in the passage. The bolts shot back and the door opened.

  It was the silent red-cap with his supper.

  Shazada had reached the stable in good time. She was not happy. Something had happened. Something which involved Tim. It was hardly a rumour. No one had said anything. It was the faint cold breeze that runs before bad news.

  As six o’clock became six fifteen and crept along to six thirty her fears were increased. Vague apprehension hardened into certainty. Something bad had happened. Tim had been late before, but never as late as that. She would give it another quarter of an hour.

  She had noticed, on other occasions, that the stable was full of noises. The old timbers moved, overhanging branches tapped on the roof, creatures rustled in the straw. Now there were other more disturbing noises. When she had arrived before Tim she had found that, however quietly he came, she could detect his arrival at the last moment when he broke through the last screen of brambles which surrounded the tiny clear space in front of the door. Now she heard the same sounds, but with a difference. It seemed to her that someone was moving through the brambles, but was not approaching the door. More than one person.

  She went across to the window and looked out. The wind was blowing the clouds across the moon. Perhaps it was the wind which had made the noise. The shadows came and went in confusing succession. One thing was certain. She had to get out.

  At the door her courage almost failed her. But it was no use standing still. Better to move. The first part, through the brambles, always had to be done on hands and knees. The closeness to the wet earth gave her a sort of courage. When she scrambled to her feet and moved towards the wire fence she thought that the worst was over. Then it happened.

  A flash of brilliant light lit the whole glade. In that blinding moment she saw, or thought she saw, two figures crouching under the bushes. Fear jerked her like an electric shock. She tore through the last barrier of thorns, hurled herself at the fence, wriggled through leaving a strip of her anorak on the wire, and ran, sobbing, down the path towards lights and people and safety.

  On the morning of the third day, Tim had just completed a rough wash under the cold tap when two red-caps he had not seen before marched in. Both were immaculate figures identically dressed and shining with offensive confidence from the toes of their polished boots to their gleaming brass cap badges. The only observable difference between them was that one, who wore a sergeant’s stripes, was taller than the other. Both of them carried thick two-foot swagger sticks.

  The tall one, whose face looked as though it had been carved out of red stone, jerked a hand towards the door. Sunley put on his jacket, grabbed his cap and followed them along the corridor and up the steps to the second floor.

  The Sergeant knocked on the door of the room at the end of the passage, a voice bellowed, “Come in” and the three of them trooped in and formed up in front of Colonel Craik’s large desk. It was bare of papers, a fact which seemed, somehow, to increase its menace.

  There was a long pause. The Colonel examined Tim carefully, as though he was compiling an inventory of every item from his unpolished black boots to his uncombed blond hair. Then he turned to the Sergeant and said, in a tone of cold displeasure, “How dare you bring this man in front of me in that state?”

  The Sergeant said nothing.

  “Take him away and clean him up.”


  The Sergeant said, “Sir.” The two policemen swung about as smoothly as puppets worked on the same string and stamped towards the door. Tim shambled after them. Neither of his warders seemed surprised by the Colonel’s reaction.

  “In here,” said the Sergeant.

  It was an ablutions room with a concrete floor, two wooden forms, a row of wash basins and a single shower.

  “Strip.”

  Tim took off his battledress jacket, khaki shirt and vest.

  “Everything,” said the Sergeant. “Unless, that is, you want to take a shower in your trousers and boots.”

  “Might be the custom of his unit,” said Shorty.

  The showerhead was rusty and the jet of water that came out of it was icy. The Sergeant handed Tim a cake of soap of almost exactly the size and colour of the bricks out of which the building was made. He soaped himself half-heartedly, got out and dried as quickly as he could. Whilst he was dressing the Sergeant said, “Trousers only. We’ve got a lot of work to do on your top half.”

  He opened a canvas bag and produced a large nail-brush. With it he proceeded to scrub Tim’s arms, shoulders and, finally, his face. Then he produced an old-fashioned cut-throat razor. Tim said, “I’ve got my own washing kit in the cell. Couldn’t we use that?” He was afraid of razors. When the hairdresser was shaping his hair he would never allow him to use one. “Please, I’d much rather you used my stuff.”