A Gathering of Saints

by A Gathering of Saints (retail) (epub)

‘Umm. I suppose so.’ He didn’t seem pleased by the prospect. He nodded once then left the office, still clutching the list. Liddell leaned back in his chair. He lit his pipe and puffed thoughtfully, staring up at the ceiling.

  Eighty-one names were on the list Police Constable Swift had compiled at Asprey’s and, as Blunt had observed, most were wealthy and titled. The only doctor on the list was Sir Hugh Rigsby, The King’s surgeon, and setting aside his background and present position, it seemed unlikely that a seventy-year-old man would be skulking about in public toilets poking pen nibs into people’s eyes.

  Still, a Penna Nettuno Superba with a Rover nib had been used as the murder weapon and a pen like that could easily be stolen. All eighty-one names would have to be checked. Even if one had been stolen or lost, the name of the original owner was a place to start. At least Morris Black had finally come up with something.

  Liddell slumped forward, pushed back his chair and stood up. He went to the window and looked down onto the street. A very ordinary nightmare. A clear day in early winter, cabs tooting about in Clubland, lunatic killers wandering about anonymously carrying earth-shattering secrets, black-market fillet steaks being offered with a wink and a nod at Whites and tonight…

  Tonight there was a full moon.

  Black had called him just after midnight with his news. According to the policeman, Queer Jack had made a mistake at last. He’d be in Coventry today, stalking his next victim, and Morris Black was sure he knew how to track him down. He wouldn’t say how.

  Liddell had forbidden it, of course, without any explanation. What explanation could there be? Black certainly assumed there was going to be a raid – Queer Jack’s supposed presence was proof enough of that – but dear God, Black had no idea what kind of raid it would be and Liddell wasn’t about to tell him; bad enough that he knew himself. Three days ago a series of Ultra messages had been decoded by the boffins at Bletchley Park. Under the overall code name of Moonlight Sonata, three possible targets had been chosen for a massive raid. Yesterday the final target had been chosen: Coventry, code-named Korn by the Luftwaffe, probably in reference to the huge Cornercraft Machine Works located in the centre of the city. Hundreds of bombers, as many as the Luftwaffe could muster, and led by KGlOOs – incendiary pathfinders, known for their pinpoint accuracy – would seek out their target. By midnight Coventry would be a fuming torch. And the twenty or so people who knew just what sort of raid it would be had been sworn to secrecy.

  Liddell could taste the sour bite of anxiety building in his gut. How would it look on the cover of Life magazine or Newsweek, or God help us all, the front page of the Evening Standard? A city in England’s heartland offered up like a sacrificial lamb without so much as a whispered warning to local officials. Only a few weeks ago Coventry, a legitimate military target with a score of factories in military production, had been stripped of its anti-aircraft defences with most of the ack-ack batteries shifted to London.

  From a public relations standpoint it would be catastrophic: Churchill portrayed as the arrogant warmonger, a coward surrounding himself with a wall of protective artillery while his innocent countrymen are left defenceless. It was just the sort of thing to make the American Congress hesitate. Fuel to feed the isolationist fires. A propaganda disaster. Hitler and his wretched crew would laugh themselves senseless and here Liddell was caught in the middle of it all.

  He swore under his breath. As director of B it was his job to ferret out the nation’s enemies and bring them out into the light of day but Ultra was forcing him to walk in Goebbels’s dragging club-foot steps and create yet another lie, cloaking the truth in darkness.

  Even more horrifying was the cold calculation of people like Desmond Morton, Churchill’s éminence grise – he saw the whole affair as an opportunity to capitalise on. Coventry would be bombed into martyrdom, the government would be officially outraged and the city would become a veiled threat to the Americans – join us now or perhaps this will be the fate of your own cities. Christ! What kind of war was Liddell fighting?

  He jammed his balled fists into the pockets of his trousers. There was no way around it; the Ultra secret had to be protected at any cost. If any move was made to evacuate Coventry, or even bring in additional fire-fighting equipment, Nazi intelligence might make the connection and assume that their coding system had been compromised. They’d stop using the Enigma encryption machine within hours and Churchill would lose his precious intelligence source. Lunacy. The fate of an entire nation hanging on the thread of a mad killer’s whim.

  Liddell stared up into the sky, visible over the rooftop of the Carlton Club, directly across the way. Pale as watercolour and bloody well clear as Waterford crystal. No clouds and a full moon; no rain or snow to stop the Luftwaffe as they made their way across the Channel; bad weather wasn’t about to ease his guilt.

  He went back to his desk and, using the multiple tool he kept tucked into the watch pocket of his vest, he began reaming out his pipe, scraping the dottle into the large, brilliantly coloured art deco ashtray Burgess had given him on his last birthday. It was a Noritake with a flamboyant leaf and flower motif, probably frightfully expensive if he knew Burgess. Puffing out his cheeks, Liddell blew into the stem to free the last bits of old tobacco, the tip of his tongue burning with the bitter taste of accumulated tar.

  Burgess. Dear God, another secret he had to carry about, not to mention Blunt and all the rest. He’d vouched for all of them at one time or another, got them jobs, helped them avoid being conscripted, convinced himself and others that their vices could be tolerated for the greater good on the basis of enlightened liberalism. He frowned, took out his pouch and began packing his pipe again.

  Their homosexuality was one thing but what about the rest? A decade ago he’d made his mark at Special Branch by infiltrating the Communist Party of Great Britain and bringing a dozen of its leaders to trial for sedition. Now here he was turning a blind eye to the political backgrounds of people like Blunt and Burgess and Maclean, all of whom had definite communist affiliations during their student days. He’d managed to convince himself that it was nothing more than youthful idealism but he was also aware that his connection to them was probably enough to have him pilloried.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to ward off a sudden wave of mental exhaustion. Was he really fool enough to risk being drummed out of public service simply for the sake of his loneliness? Apparently so. Between his friends, his enemies and Morris Black, it looked to be a rocky road ahead. Sighing, he struck a match and lit his pipe again. How many secrets could one man keep before they drove him mad? He reached out, picked up the telephone on his desk and dialled Tony Blunt’s local.

  ‘Forget about the list for now,’ he said when his assistant answered. ‘I want you to find out what’s happened to Inspector Morris Bloody Black.’

  * * *

  Morris Black, going directly against Liddell’s orders, had taken the eleven o’clock train to Coventry, first telling Police Constable Swift that he wouldn’t be in that day. There had been no raids on London the night before but a few sorties had been made over outlying areas and the London & North Western Line had been disrupted, forcing him to take the longer route from Paddington, travelling via Didcot, Oxford and Birmingham. Instead of reaching Coventry shortly after one o’clock in the afternoon, he didn’t arrive until almost four.

  It was infuriating since he could have driven the distance in a little more than two hours but he hadn’t wanted to involve Police Constable Swift, even though he was reasonably sure that his assistant knew what he was planning.

  Black had never been to Coventry before and entering the city by his circuitous northern route, it struck him that it had been built rather like an oyster, sprawling suburbs and industrial districts built up in rings around the perfectly preserved pearl of the walled medieval town, concrete and steel giving way to half-timbered Tudor.

  Leaving the station, the detective asked a porter for directions, then took th
e tram up into the market centre, getting off at the High Street near the old Corn Exchange. The road was thick with traffic, the pavement on either side filled with shoppers, dressed against the chill. Directly ahead of Black, rising above the low, surrounding buildings, was the majestic bulk of St Michael’s Cathedral, the grey, needle spire jutting into the pale, clear sky, the image of Queer Jack’s postcard come to life. A little farther on was the lesser spire of Trinity.

  Ignoring them for the moment, he turned down the High Street and eventually found the number he was looking for, a small antique shop at the entrance to a narrow cobbled alley.

  The sign over the shop window said Garlinski’s. A huge fat marmalade cat was curled up in one corner of the window display, as dusty as everything else, catching a sliver of sunlight. The rest of the goods cluttering the window were more old than antique – embroidered souvenir pillows from Edinburgh; a badly framed tintype of a sad-faced Victorian child posed kneeling on a grandfatherly chair; a Meccano set still in its box, the yellowing sellophane still wrapped around the neat rows of girder and plate; a glass globe etched with countries that no longer existed; a coronation biscuit tin commemorating the ascent of Edward VII to the throne. A small glass bowl containing a few shirt studs and a silver fob without a watch. The marmalade cat flicked its tail in a brief, snake-like motion. Morris Black pushed open the door and went into the shop.

  The interior was as cluttered as the window, hundreds of items, large and small, dimly lit clues to vanished lives and times. At the far end of the narrow, low-ceilinged room Black could see a glass-fronted counter, light pooling over it from a green-shaded lamp. An old man, wisps of snow-white hair circling the bald dome of his skull like a halo, was seated on a stool behind the counter, hunched over a chessboard. He wore an old-fashioned collarless white shirt and over it a shapeless grey cardigan. Steel-rimmed spectacles were balanced on his forehead.

  He looked up as Black edged down the aisle and flipped the glasses down onto his broad, jutting nose. The man’s face was seamed like shoe leather, lips thinned with age, cheeks hallowed, skin drawn over bones like parchment. He smiled, the pale blue eyes behind his glasses glinting with curiosity.

  ‘You must be Inspector Black, the young man who telephoned me.’ Coming from the old, worn body, the man’s voice was surprisingly rich and strong. A singer’s timbre, trained and even, but still heavy with a middle-European accent.

  ‘Hiram Garlinski?’

  ‘Yes.’ The old man’s smile widened. A pleasant face, full of years. ‘A rag and bone man in Warsawa, but here, an antique dealer.’

  ‘How did you know who I was?’

  Garlinski shrugged. ‘You have the look of a policeman. A Jewish policeman, which makes you all the more interesting.’

  ‘What does a Jewish policeman look like?’

  Garlinski smiled again. ‘Official, but nervous. An odd combination, don’t you think?’ He looked down at the chessboard in front of him, moved a piece then looked up again. ‘Jews have been looking over their shoulders in this country since Cromwell allowed us to return. Policemen have knocked hard on the Jew’s door for even longer. One in the same is a very rare thing. A little uncomfortable for you, nu?’

  ‘Sometimes. A little.’

  ‘It’s good for Jews to be nervous. A necessary instinct for survival. Especially now.’

  ‘You’ve had some trouble?’

  ‘No. So far there has been no Kristallnacht in Coventry but you never know. The English have a lot of German in them and even more of the French. Not a healthy mix.’ Garlinski held out one raw-boned hand above the chessboard and waggled it back and forth. ‘Being a Jew in these times is like balancing over a bottomless pit on a single strand of thread. The slightest change in the wind’s direction and so it goes.’ He shrugged again. ‘But you know all this, don’t you, Inspector?’ Garlinski added softly.

  ‘I didn’t come here to discuss anti-Semitism.’

  ‘No. You came to talk to me about playing chess. Or so you said. What does a detective inspector from Scotland Yard want to know about the game of kings and why does he want to know about it from someone like me?’

  ‘I telephoned the British Chess Federation. They told me you were the local chairman of the Correspondence Chess Association in Coventry.’

  ‘That’s true. I told you so when you called.’

  ‘They also said you were one of the coaches for the national team last year. That you are considered a grandmaster.’

  ‘Buenos Aires.’ Garlinski nodded. ‘Alexander, Thomas, Milner-Barry, Golombek and G. H. Wood.’ He said the names softly. ‘But I was never the official coach. I didn’t go with them; Milner-Barry knew better than that. But I helped.’ He sighed wistfully. ‘It would have been a great thing to see. Capablanca played for Cuba. Of sixteen matches, there were seven won, nine drawn and none lost. A great thing to see.’ He looked at Black. ‘There won’t be another tournament like it, not in my lifetime, Inspector. Perhaps never.’

  Black reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and took out the postcards from David Talbot’s rooms at Cambridge. He handed them to the old man. Garlinski examined the squares of cardboard carefully then nodded.

  ‘You know what the numbers mean?’ Black asked.

  ‘Certainly. They are chess moves.’

  ‘Could you explain?’

  ‘Of course.’ Garlinski set the postcards aside and gestured towards the chessboard in front of him. ‘There are sixty-four squares on the board, thirty-two in the white field, thirty-two in the black. When playing correspondence chess, the squares are numbered from the player’s left to right. Numbers one to thirty-two are white, thirty-three to sixty-four are black. You understand me so far, Inspector?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good.’ Garlinski nodded briefly, the scholar with his new pupil well in hand. ‘As well as representing a square, the first sixteen numbers in each field also represent a piece.’

  Black looked down at the board on the counter. ‘So the white queen is number four then.’

  ‘Quite so.’ Garlinski nodded, obviously pleased. ‘Throughout the game the piece’s number never changes, only its location, identified by the second number for each move.’

  ‘I see. And the X you see on some of the moves means that one piece has taken another.’

  ‘Ei gut! You have it!’ The old man lifted his shoulders. ‘Not very difficult really, only time-consuming. But that is part of the pleasure, really. The anticipation.’

  Black looked thoughtfully down at the board then gathered up the postcards again. He leafed through them slowly. ‘I don’t suppose these particular moves mean very much.’

  ‘Only that the player making them was very good.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘The level of play. The sophistication,’ Garlinski took the cards from Black and glanced at them, nodding, his thin lips pursed. ‘This comes from the Munich tournament in 1936. The Reti opening. Reti was a Hungarian who died ten or eleven years ago. A great master but the opening is reasonably obscure. Keres, the Estonian, was the last to use it in international play.’

  ‘In Germany?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How many British chess players would know about the opening?’

  ‘Thousands.’ Garlinski smiled. ‘But there can’t be more than a few hundred who have the middle-game technique to use it.’

  ‘Would they be members of the British Chess Federation?’

  ‘Presumably.’

  ‘And your organisation?’

  ‘The two groups are not mutually exclusive. The man who played this game may well belong to both.’

  ‘Are there any members of your association here in Coventry who could reasonably use the opening?’

  ‘Other than myself?’ Garlinski shook his head. ‘I would think not.’

  ‘Do you have a membership list?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Could I see it?’

  ‘Of course.’ Garl
inski stared at the detective. ‘But first perhaps you will tell me what this is about.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t. Not at the moment.’

  ‘A question of security?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘I see.’ The old man got up from his stool, glanced briefly at Black again, then shuffled back through the rear of the shop, going through a doorway hung with a long, dark blue velvet curtain. Black could hear footsteps climbing stairs; presumably Garlinski lived above the shop.

  He reappeared a few minutes later carrying a small wooden recipe box filled with neatly tabbed file cards. Shifting the chessboard to one side, he opened a drawer in the counter, took out a sheet of paper and began transcribing names from the cards, using a pencil stub he took from the pocket of his sweater.

  ‘How many members of the association live in Coventry?’

  ‘A dozen or so,’ Garlinski answered, still writing. The detective glanced at his watch. It was already past five in the afternoon and outside dark would be closing in. Within an hour or so, two at the most, it would be fully dark. There wasn’t much time.

  Garlinski spoke without looking up from his writing. ‘You are in a hurry, Inspector?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You won’t have time to take tea with me then, I suppose?’

  ‘No. I’m sorry.’

  ‘A disappointment. You seem to be an interesting young man.’

  ‘For a Jewish policeman?’ Black smiled.

  Garlinski laughed and continued writing. ‘An old man like me can’t be choosy these days. I have been alone for too many years.’ He looked up at Black. ‘You are married?’

  ‘My wife is dead.’

  ‘Then we are the same man, Inspector. Our hearts have been broken.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I play chess to ease the loneliness but you, Inspector, your game is much more dangerous. Chasing small criminals in the middle of a war.’

  ‘Or worse.’

  Garlinski finished his list and handed it to Black. He scanned it quickly: eleven names, eleven addresses. Six had telephone numbers. He could place calls from the nearest post office; the rest he would have to visit in person.