A Gathering of Saints

by A Gathering of Saints (retail) (epub)

  ‘Queer Jack?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Swift nodded, keeping his eyes on the road. They reached the bottom of a low hill and Black waited until the ritual gnashing of the gears had been completed before he answered.

  ‘Why do you assume that he’s dead?’

  ‘It’s been seven weeks since the last killing, sir. Not a whisper since that one in Southampton. Dranie.’

  ‘The last one we know about, Swift. There’ve been five or six thousand bombing deaths since then; easy to have overlooked any number of them.’

  ‘Yes, sir. I thought of that.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I checked with Central Records and the Register of Deaths. Since September twenty-first there’ve been two hundred bodies initially unidentified and fifty-one people reported missing. There’s only six unidentified bodies left and eight of the missing. Of the six corpses, three are women and two are children under the age of ten. Cause of death on the only adult man is listed as decapitation.’

  ‘The missing ones?’

  ‘A brother and sister, eleven and fourteen, from Birmingham, three men from the Stoke Newington shelter bombing, two married women thought to have run away from their husbands and a seventy-five-year-old man from Godalming with a history of wandering off.’ Swift paused, frowning. ‘None of them seem to fit, do they, sir?’

  ‘No, I suppose not.’ Black lit a cigarette and wound down his window half an inch to let the smoke out. Looking through the spattered windscreen, he could see the distant spire of St Mary’s church in Faversham. A moment later, Swift wrestled with the gearstick once again and they turned off the main road onto the narrower Ashford Road. As they began their climb into the hills, the engine noise steadily became more laboured. Behind them the lowland marshes vanished, hidden behind the grizzled veils of rain.

  ‘He’s still alive,’ said Black. ‘I’m positive of that.’

  ‘I’m not so sure Captain Liddell is quite so convinced.’ Swift lifted one hand off the steering wheel and flicked the leaking sunroof with an irritated thumb and forefinger. ‘What with his sending back the Alvis and giving us this.’ Swift made a small, throat-clearing sound. ‘Not what you might call a vote of confidence, sir.’

  ‘Liddell has other concerns,’ said Black, trying to be diplomatic.

  Swift snorted under his breath. ‘Like keeping his clappers out of a vice,’ he muttered.

  ‘Now now,’ Black chided with a smile. ‘Mustn’t be disrespectful, Constable Swift. That’s no way to get a detective’s gong.’

  ‘I just don’t want to see you caught in the middle, sir, that’s all. I’m not completely in the picture but I’ve seen enough to know that you’ll take the blame if this all comes to nothing. There’s police work, sir, and then there’s politics and the two don’t mix.’ Swift paused. ‘And if you don’t mind me saying so, sir, after what I’ve seen these last weeks, I’m not sure I’d want a detective’s badge.’

  ‘I appreciate your concern but I can take care of myself, Swift. Queer Jack’s still out there and we’re going to find him eventually, never fear.’ It sounded weak, even to Black’s ears. Swift was right. If something didn’t happen soon there was a good chance Liddell and all the rest of them would cut their losses. It would be his clappers in the vice, not Liddell’s or anyone else’s. He was beginning to think it had been planned that way from the beginning. He had no particular connections at the Yard, no powerful friends, and he was a Jew. What better sacrificial lamb or Judas goat?

  They drove on in silence, engine rattling alarmingly, rain tapping on the canvas roof like old bones. Black stared out the window at the forested hills rising around them. His assistant was right. Travelling south they sputtered through the little village of Sheldwich, with its ancient slate-roofed houses, then Budlesmere, and finally the crossroads at Challock Lees. Following the directions they’d been given they turned onto a roadway that was little more than a deeply rutted path and began climbing through the dense forests of King’s Wood.

  Half a mile later the trees began to thin and they came out onto a wide pasture at the summit of the hill. They went through an open gate and Swift brought the car to a halt, the engine rattling for almost half a minute after he’d withdrawn the key. Directly in front of them was an assembly of barns and outbuildings surrounding a large brick and half-timbered farmhouse. To the right the hill dropped away in a long, sloping meadow, broken here and there with dark hedgerows and the tumbled remains of old stone walls.

  In the distance, at the bottom of the valley and almost invisible in the rain, was the darker smudge that marked the tiny village of Bilting, its dozen shops and houses strung out along the narrow road leading north-east to Canterbury, ten miles away.

  Black ducked out of the Austin and pulled up the collar of his mackintosh as the rain slashed coldly against his cheek. With Swift on his heels he trudged across the muddy yard and then hammered on the door of the farmhouse. It swung open a few seconds later and Black found himself staring into the grinning face of a sandy-haired man wearing a worn, moth-eaten Navy pullover and a mud-clotted pair of gumboots. He was holding something that looked remarkably like a grenade in his left hand.

  ‘Fleming?’ asked Black. The burly man wasn’t what he’d been expecting at all.

  ‘No. I’m Calvert. His Lordship’s inside. Who’re you, pray tell?’

  ‘Inspector Morris Black. CID. This is my assistant, PC Swift.’

  ‘Good Christ! The Yard!’ Calvert looked back over his shoulder. ‘Burn the evidence, lads! We’ve been nicked!’ He turned back to Black smiling broadly. ‘Bit of a joke. Welcome to the Garth.’ He used his free hand and gripped Black by the elbow, steering him into the house. Swift followed, closing the door behind him.

  Once upon a time the large room had been two-storeyed but someone had removed the first floor, planking, joists and all, turning it into a high, arch-roofed enclosure that had the look and feel of a slightly impoverished chapel. A lit inglenook fireplace stood at the far end of the room where an altar might have been and rows of wooden packing cases littered everywhere could have passed for pews. The room was lit by two rows of grimy, rain-streaked lead-glass windows.

  Off to one side several men dressed in the same style as Calvert were prying open crates with crowbars. Littered around them were more crates piled with grenades, rifles, saucer-shaped land mines and oil-paper packets of explosives. They were being overseen by a tall, slender man with dark hair wearing tightly fitted jodhpurs and a pair of highly polished riding boots.

  ‘It looks like a bloody IRA camp,’ Swift whispered.

  Calvert clapped him on the back, laughing. ‘Not far off, Constable.’ He turned away and bellowed down the room. ‘Fleming! You have guests!’

  The dark-haired man nodded to his men, then came towards Black. Unlike Calvert, he was partially in uniform; his dark-green sweater had captain’s boards on the shoulders. Black frowned; according to his information Fleming was a lieutenant commander in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve. This man was wearing the pips of a Guards captain. Black groaned inwardly, wondering if he’d spent the last hour in a leaking Austin for no reason.

  ‘Lieutenant Commander Fleming?’ he asked as the man approached.

  ‘That’s Ian, my younger brother,’ said the man. ‘I’m Peter.’

  ‘I’m Inspector Morris Black. I was supposed to meet your brother here this morning. Perhaps there’s been some mistake?’

  ‘No mistake,’ said Peter Fleming, shaking his head. ‘Ian’s in the other wing.’ He smiled. ‘Still sleeping, I’m afraid.’ He gestured. ‘Follow me. You can wait in the kitchen while I knock him up.’

  Leaving Calvert behind, Peter Fleming took Black and Police Constable Swift across the large room and through a door leading into another, newer part of the house. They went down a narrow, freshly painted central hall, finally reaching a large, well-appointed kitchen.

  There was a huge, oak monk’s table with benches capable of seating at least a
dozen people in the centre of the room, two refrigerators and an enormous stove that could have come out of a restaurant kitchen. A tall, bald man, dressed like Calvert but with the addition of a flowered apron, was chopping vegetables at a massive butcher’s block in one corner.

  ‘Hop it, Max,’ ordered Fleming. The bald man nodded, gave Black and Swift one brief appraising look, then left the room, wiping his hands on the apron. ‘Half a minute,’ said Fleming, flashing a quick smile. He turned away and disappeared up a back stairway. Black went to the windows over a pair of large stoneware sinks. The windows looked out over the valley and down to the village. From what he could see, no road or path led up from that direction. The only approach was up the track through King’s Wood.

  ‘They’ve got the high ground,’ commented Swift, clearly thinking along the same lines. He sat down on one of the benches. ‘Must be some sort of commando outfit. Cloak-and-dagger stuff.’

  ‘Yes,’ Black agreed. It stood to reason, given Fleming’s position as assistant to Godfrey, the head of Naval Intelligence. Or something a little less optimistic, he thought to himself. Early preparations for an official but clandestine resistance movement if the Germans invaded.

  After waiting for another five minutes, Black heard the sound of shuffling footsteps coming down the back stairs. A dark-haired man appeared, wearing bedroom slippers and a long silk dressing gown, black with a twisting pattern of snarling red dragons. The man was heavier set and an inch or so shorter than his brother but the family resemblance was obvious.

  ‘Shit,’ said Ian Fleming, looking blearily around the kitchen. ‘I’ve gone and missed bloody breakfast.’ He glanced at Black and Police Constable Swift with very little interest. ‘G’moming.’

  ‘Lieutenant Commander Fleming?’

  ‘Not today,’ he answered, shuffling across to the stove. A tin pot was on the warming plate. He found a mug on the counter, inspected its interior then poured himself coffee. Bringing the mug to the table, he sat down across from Black and sighed. ‘You’re Black, I suppose?’ He glanced down the table. ‘And this would be Constable Swift, Watson to your Holmes.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got a cigarette on you?’

  ‘Certainly.’ Black took out his Gems and tossed them over the table to Fleming. The younger man shook one out of the packet and lit it using a box of Swan Vestas from the pocket of his dressing gown. He blew out a long plume of smoke then settled back in his chair.

  ‘Turkish blend is better, you know,’ he said, looking critically at the cigarette in his hand. ‘Smoother than pure Virginia. Easier on the lungs. Better aroma.’

  Black shrugged. ‘It’s all the same to me.’ Fleming was one step away from being a character out of a P. G. Wodehouse farce. If it hadn’t been for the tense line of jaw and a hidden, flinty look in the man’s eyes, he would have been ridiculous with his silk dressing gown and his tobacco.

  ‘You’ve come a long way to see me. Perhaps you should get on with it.’ Fleming flashed a quick smile. ‘Peter’s got something on for this afternoon. Bombs in butter churns or some such. I’m to join in.’

  ‘I won’t keep you for very long.’

  ‘They rang me from the office. Said I should cooperate fully with your investigation.’ Fleming paused. ‘You’re with Liddell’s mob, aren’t you?’

  Black nodded. ‘For the moment. I’m looking into the possibility that information has leaked out concerning the Ultra decrypts.’

  ‘Good Christ. You’re sure?’

  ‘Not entirely.’

  Fleming held up a defensive palm. To Black it seemed an oddly feminine gesture. ‘I haven’t said anything.’

  ‘I’m sure not. But we have to check.’

  ‘Surely there can’t be that many who know.’ Once again Fleming looked in Swift’s direction. The balding police constable had his pad out now and was making notes. ‘Admiral Godfrey had to move heaven and earth to get me clearance and I’m his personal assistant.’

  ‘My list has thirty names on it, including yours. There are eighty-seven others who come into physical contact with the material on a day-to-day basis. There are twelve copies of the decrypts made each day.’ Black looked down the table. ‘Swift?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The constable consulted his notebook. ‘Bletchley Park keeps a check copy and there’s another made for the radio operators who send the material out into the field. Then there is the one used by the Teletype operators. Colonel Masterman gets a copy and so does Menzies at MI6 and Harper at MI5.’

  Fleming looked surprised. ‘That many?’

  ‘There’s more,’ said Black.

  Swift continued his litany. ‘Air Intelligence has its own as does Military Intelligence at Whitehall and Naval Intelligence at the Admiralty, that’s Lieutenant Commander Fleming’s copy. There is another copy made and taken to Oxford University each day for safekeeping, one for the prime minister’s office and a last copy which is taken to the Public Records Office.’

  Fleming nodded, sadness clouding his face briefly. ‘I knew about that one.’

  Black was suddenly interested. ‘Yes?’

  ‘That was Jane’s job. I don’t suppose she had any real idea what she was carrying but I did.’

  ‘Jane?’

  ‘Jane Luffington. A Wren I was seeing for a time.’ Black looked down the table at Swift.

  The police constable flipped through the pages of his notebook, then nodded. ‘Yes, sir. She’s on the list. Motor Transport Division. A motorcycle courier.’

  ‘She took the file copy to the PRO every day,’ said Fleming. ‘Bored her to tears. Trotting baskets of paper about wasn’t her idea of fighting a war.’ He scratched his jaw sleepily. ‘Nor mine for that matter.’

  ‘You said you saw her for a time. You’re not together anymore?’

  ‘She’s dead,’ Fleming answered bluntly. ‘Killed in a raid.’

  ‘When?’

  The dark-haired young man thought for a moment. ‘It’s been almost two months. Towards the end of September.’ His expression darkened. ‘She was badly burned; it took almost a week for her to be identified. I’m not sure exactly when she died. It was her days off so they didn’t miss her at work.’ He shrugged. ‘Between the twentieth and the twenty-fourth I suppose.’

  ‘Had you known her very long?’

  ‘Not quite a year.’

  ‘You never discussed Ultra with her?’

  ‘Certainly not.’

  ‘With anyone?’

  ‘No. I’ve already told you that.’

  ‘Not even with your brother?’

  ‘No.’

  There was a slight hesitation in the man’s voice but Black decided not to pursue it for the moment; he was far more interested in Fleming’s girlfriend.

  ‘Did Miss Luffington have any family in London?’

  ‘Yes. Her mother runs a local in The City. A widow.’

  ‘Do you know the name of the local?’

  ‘The Rising Sun, in Burgon Street.’

  ‘Did Miss Luffington live with her mother?’

  ‘No. She shared a flat with three other girls.’

  ‘Did you know them?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The mother?’

  ‘I met her once or twice.’

  ‘Did Miss Luffington see her mother often?’

  ‘Every day. It was her big secret.’

  ‘Perhaps you could explain that.’

  ‘She popped in for lunch. To save money.’

  ‘While she was working?’

  ‘Yes. She only took a few minutes.’

  ‘I see.’ Black paused for a moment, thinking. ‘What happens to the DNI copy of the decrypts once they’ve been analysed?’

  ‘They’re burned.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘Me,’ Fleming answered curtly. ‘There’s a large fireplace in the office. Quite convenient, actually. Keeps the chill off.’

  ‘Umm.’ From his other interviews Bl
ack had learned that Air Intelligence used a modified confetti-making machine to destroy their copies, Military Intelligence used a Whitehall incinerator and Bletchley disposed of theirs on a weekly basis using the furnace in the main building. From what Black could tell, all the departments kept their decrypts in locked and secure containers while not in use.

  Still, keeping the material safe from prying eyes was a daunting task, with lots of room for error and oversight. At least a hundred separate flimsies were in each packet of decrypts, which amounted to thousands of copies flitting about from hand to hand.

  Since the real flow of information had only begun a few months ago, it wasn’t surprising that no one system of security had been established but the various methods of transmittal – by hand, radio and via Teletype – added to the confusion and increased the possibility of the information’s leaking.

  Even the supposedly secure Teletype line that now ran directly from Bletchley to Menzies at 55 Broadway was no guarantee of absolute privacy; Liddell himself had admitted that he and his people were monitoring telephone conversations at several embassies. If they could cut into telephone and Teletype lines, so could someone else. Unlikely perhaps, but not impossible by any means.

  Morris Black thanked Fleming for his cooperation and a few minutes later Black and Swift were back in the rain, trudging across the muddy yard towards the Austin.

  ‘Worth the trip, sir?’ asked Swift as they let themselves back into the car. The constable fitted his key into the ignition and pressed the starter button. The engine coughed, complained, then caught. He struggled with the gears.

  Black nodded. ‘Yes, it was worth the trip.’ Looking out through the windscreen, he could make out the two figures of Ian Fleming and his brother, watching them from the doorway of the house. Swift jerked the Ruby into reverse, turned it around in the yard, then shifted into bottom gear and headed down the track leading to the gate. They passed through and a few seconds later they were surrounded by the trees of King’s Wood once again.

  Black stared out through the windscreen. ‘I’m afraid we’ll have to disturb Wren Luffington’s eternal rest.’ He grimaced. ‘We’ll need an exhumation order from Purchase, I suppose.’