Fifth Column

by Mike Hollow

  FIFTH COLUMN

  “An atmosphere of intrigue and deception permeates this story. With great skill Mike Hollow digs into the rubble of wartime London and shows us a world of danger and conspiracy.”

  Gethin Russell-Jones, author of

  My Secret Life in Hut Six and Conchie

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Mike Hollow was born in 1953 in the Essex County Borough of West Ham and spent his early years in Romford. After studying Russian and French at Cambridge University he worked for the BBC for sixteen years and then the international development agency Tearfund for eleven before going freelance as a writer and editor in 2002. He lives in Hampshire with his wife Margaret and has two grown-up children who live in London. Nowadays he earns his living translating Russian in his cellar and spends the rest of his time writing stories about Detective Inspector John Jago, the Blitz Detective. The first novel, Direct Hit, was published in 2015, and Fifth Column is the second in the series.

  Fifth Column

  The Blitz Detective

  MIKE HOLLOW

  Text copyright © 2016 Mike Hollow

  This edition copyright © 2016 Lion Hudson

  The right of Mike Hollow to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Published by Lion Fiction

  an imprint of

  Lion Hudson plc

  Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road

  Oxford OX2 8DR, England

  www.lionhudson.com/fiction

  ISBN 978 1 78264 186 5

  e-ISBN 978 1 78264 187 2

  First edition 2016

  Acknowledgments

  Extract p. 7 taken from “Burnt Norton” in Four Quartets by T.S. Eliot, copyright © 1940 T.S. Eliot. Reprinted by permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.

  Extract p. 9 taken from Daily Digest of Foreign Broadcasts, No. 399, 21 August 1940, copyright © British Broadcasting Corporation. Reproduced by permission of the British Broadcasting Corporation.

  Front cover image copyright © Fox Photos/Getty Images

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  For Margaret, my wife, friend, and most faithful editor in art as in life

  Footfalls echo in the memory

  Down the passage which we did not take

  Towards the door we never opened

  Into the rose-garden.

  “Burnt Norton” (1937), from T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

  “Churchill and his fellow liars have deceived us on every phase of this war, and it is typical that they should have assured us that Germany had decided to abandon her air attack [on Britain] just before the biggest raids of the war… A more sinister example of mendacity was the official denial that any parachutists had landed, whereas in fact they did land, and are now being sheltered by the Fifth Column, and are probably receiving regular coded instructions from Germany.”

  From a broadcast by the New British Broadcasting Station, a German propaganda radio station purporting to be British, at 9.30 p.m. on 20 August 1940. Reported in the BBC Monitoring Service’s Daily Digest of Foreign Broadcasts, No. 399, 21 August 1940.

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  The Anderson shelter had guarded his life for another night, but it felt like a grave. Only the thin sheet of corrugated iron at his side separated him from the cold earth in which he was lying. He drifted in and out of a restless, shallow dream. Now he was in France again, in a dug-out lined with sodden planks of wood, waiting for the day’s shelling to begin. Then the picture shifted, and he was twelve years old, a Boy Scout stirring in a canvas tent as a chorus of birds heralded the start of day. Their song began to fill his ears, with one note soaring louder than all. It wailed on and on, and his body jolted. He was awake.

  His eyes opened, and he was back in the present. It was Friday morning. He wasn’t a Boy Scout and he wasn’t a soldier, and the dawn chorus was the monochrome blast of the all-clear siren.

  Detective Inspector John Jago was chilly despite being fully clothed, and his joints were stiff. He tugged the worn blanket up under his chin and shifted his aching body carefully on what passed for a bed in this cramped metal box as his mind cleared.

  What a way to live, he thought. He’d spent twenty-five shillings – not to mention elevenpence postage – on Selfridges’ promise of a purpose-made “shelter bed”, but that decision was beginning to feel like a triumph of hope over experience. The wooden frame and webbing (“comfortable even without a mattress”) were sturdy enough, but the thing was only five foot nine long and a miserly twenty inches wide. The simple act of turning over was now a delicate manoeuvre that risked pitching himself onto the damp floor, bedding and all. Tonight he would fetch his old eiderdown from the house and lay that on top. At least being warm might help, although the air raids of late had pretty much put paid to any chance of a decent night’s sleep.

  A lady in the newspaper, well-meaning no doubt, had advised that the best antidote to a sleepless night in a shelter was to undress and go to bed “properly” as soon as the raids were over. All very well if you didn’t have a job to do, he supposed. And as for her other helpful suggestion – having a sleep after lunch – well, that was just another way to make a policeman laugh.

  He checked the time on his wrist-watch. Eight minutes past six. Just five minutes or so until the blackout ended, then another half-hour till sunrise, but there was nothing to be gained from staying on this paltry shelf of a bed. He hauled his reluctant body out from under the blanket, tied his shoes, slipped on his coat and clamped his crumpled grey fedora onto his head. One final stretch to get his limbs working and he felt at least half ready to face the world. He unlatched the door he’d cobbled together a year before from salvaged wood – wondering then, as now, why the government had decided to supply the shelters with no means of sealing the entrance – and climbed out.

  His house was still there: a good start to the day. At least he sho
uld be able to go to work. No signs of fire in the immediate vicinity, but half a mile away the first of the dawn light revealed smoke curling above the rooftops, marking the points where random destruction, and no doubt death, had befallen the unlucky.

  He trudged along the few yards of uneven path to the back door of the house. A cup of tea would perk him up if the gas was still working, and if there was power he’d make a bit of toast to keep him going until he could get some proper breakfast in the station canteen – if not, it would be bread and margarine with a scraping of jam again. He opened the door, went in, and closed it behind him. With the blackout curtains still in place it was darker inside the house than it was outside. He searched for the light switch with his fingers and flicked it down, and was pleased to see the bulb that dangled from the ceiling glow into life – he had electricity.

  The brown enamel kettle was already full – he tried to remember to fill it every night in case the Luftwaffe hit the water main. He turned the knob on the stove and heard the hiss of gas, followed by a dull pop as his lighted match ignited it. He placed the kettle over the flames and reached for the teapot – and then the phone rang.

  With a sigh and another glance at his watch he put the pot down and walked through to the narrow hall. At this time of the morning there was no mystery about who might be calling. He lifted the receiver.

  “Jago.”

  “Good morning, sir. Tompkins here, at the station. Sorry to disturb you at this time of day, but I’ve just come on duty on early turn and I’ve been asked to call you.”

  “Don’t worry, I was already up. And it’s always a pleasure to hear your dulcet tones, Frank.”

  “That’s not what my missus calls it.”

  “Well, far be it from me to intrude on private grief, Frank. So what is it that needs me to turn out at this ungodly hour?”

  “A body, sir.”

  “Lots of bodies around these days, Frank. What’s special about this one?”

  “Possibility of suspicious circumstances, apparently. That’s why they want you.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Down in Canning Town, sir. Tinto Road, near the bottom end of Star Lane. On a bomb-site on the right-hand side as you go down the road. They say you can’t miss it.”

  “I dare say. Have we got anyone down there?”

  “Yes, sir, young Stannard. He’s waiting for you to arrive. He’s got reinforcements, too – one of them War Reserve constables.”

  Jago noticed the dismissive tone in which the station sergeant referred to PC Stannard’s recently enrolled companion. That was Frank’s way of signalling his opinion of the government’s solution to the wartime shortage of police officers, he thought, but now was not the time to rise to his bait.

  “Very well,” he said. “Get hold of DC Cradock and tell him I’ll pick him up at the station in about twenty minutes. And see if you can get the police surgeon down to the site pretty smartish.”

  Detective Inspector Jago put the phone down, returned to the kitchen, and turned the kettle off. A cup of cold water would have to do for now.

  His estimate of twenty minutes proved to be optimistic. The Riley started first time, and he was on his way promptly, but the roads were still clogged with fire hoses, and twice he had to find a way round streets that had been cordoned off because of bomb damage.

  It was five to seven by the time Jago reached West Ham Lane. He could see the police station ahead of him, its front door screened against blast by a wall of neatly stacked sandbags and the windows to the side of the entrance protected by horizontal wooden slats. On the pavement in front of the station stood Detective Constable Cradock, awaiting his arrival.

  Jago pulled up beside him. The young man looked as though he’d dressed quickly, and his hair was dishevelled. He eased himself carefully into the passenger seat with a quick “Morning, guv’nor”, and Jago nodded a wordless greeting to him in return. Cradock looked as bleary-eyed as Jago felt.

  “You getting enough sleep with these air raids every night, Peter?”

  “Not too bad, sir. They wake me up, of course, but I try to get back to sleep when the noise stops. How about you, sir?”

  “I seem to have lost the knack. Every time I think I’m going to doze off again Hitler drops another bomb just to spite me, and the anti-aircraft guns make so much noise I wonder whether he’s slipping them a fiver just to keep me awake. Last night I don’t think I got to sleep until it was nearly time to wake up. I must be getting old.”

  Cradock raised his eyebrows and opened his mouth as if he’d just realized something important.

  “It could be night starvation, sir. Maybe you should try a cup of Horlicks at bedtime.”

  “Tommy rot,” said Jago. “I haven’t quite reached that stage, thank you very much. It’s morning starvation I’m suffering from – I didn’t even have time for a piece of toast before I came out. And in any case, if I need anything to drink before I go to bed, I’ll stick to a tot of whisky. Now, if I can stay awake long enough we’re going to Canning Town to see a man about a body.”

  Jago slid his left foot onto the gear change pedal, then with a glance over his right shoulder and a light touch on the accelerator he eased the car back into the sparse early morning traffic.

  CHAPTER 2

  “Morning, sir,” said PC Ray Stannard as Jago swung his legs out of the car. “Sorry to drag you out first thing in the morning, but I thought you ought to see this.”

  Jago looked the young constable up and down. So much had changed in the last few weeks. It was no surprise now to see an officer in such a state at the end of a night shift. His tunic and trousers were streaked white with plaster dust, his boots were scuffed, and his hands and face were daubed black with soot. Not so long ago, thought Jago, Stannard would have spent the night quietly patrolling silent streets, rattling the doors of shops to check they were locked and watching out for any evidence of petty crime. But now it could reasonably be assumed that in the last few hours he and his colleague had been scrambling over scorched wreckage, helping to pull the living and the dead out from under ruined buildings, and taking on any and every task that needed doing in the wake of the latest air raid.

  The detective turned to the War Reserve PC, who was in a similar state. He knew Stannard, but this other somewhat shorter man he didn’t recall. He gave a sideways glance back at Stannard and raised his eyebrows.

  “Oh, sorry, sir,” said Stannard, “this is PC Price; he’s a War Reserve. Volunteered when the war started, but he’s been on nights a lot, so you may not have met him.” He leaned a little closer to Jago and lowered his voice. “Not as bad as some, sir. Old soldier. Quite resourceful, considering they get thrown out onto the streets without any training.”

  Jago nodded.

  “Right, tell me what we’ve got here, then.”

  “A woman, sir, found dead just back there.”

  Jago followed the direction of Stannard’s pointing finger. The neat row of small, late-Victorian terraced houses was punctuated by a gaping space where two, three, perhaps even four dwellings had been reduced to a straggling heap of matchwood and rubble by at least one high-explosive bomb. Those still standing either side of the gap had lost all their windows and most of their roof tiles. At the far end of the wreckage he could see part of a front bedroom that remained attached to the neighbouring house; a wardrobe leaned drunkenly against the wall where what was left of the floor was sagging, the ragged stumps of its joists exposed to the air. Seven untidy-looking men were standing in a huddle on the pavement, smoking. There was no other sign of activity on the site.

  “So what’s all this about suspicious circumstances?” said Jago.

  “Well, it’s just that this woman, she wasn’t here when she should’ve been – if she’d been dead, that is – but then she was when she shouldn’t have. I’ve told the men who found her you’ll want to talk to them, so they’ll explain.”

  “All a bit quiet here now, isn’t it?”

&nbs
p; “The ARP warden says everyone’s accounted for, sir, and there’s no sound of anyone trapped. The people who’ve been bombed out have been taken to the rest centre in Star Lane. I thought it best to stop the work until you got here, so nothing would get disturbed.”

  “Good man,” said Jago. “Do we know who she is?”

  “I’m afraid we don’t, sir. There’s no identity card on her, no sign of a handbag or purse, and the warden says he doesn’t recognize her.”

  “And you’ve had a thorough look over the site?”

  “Yes, sir. Price and I looked all round for anything that might identify her, and got the rescue squad involved too, but there was nothing.” Stannard paused, since Jago seemed to be thinking, then said, “The police surgeon’s here too, sir, just on the other side of that pile of wreckage there. That’s where the body is – you can’t see it from here.”

  “Very good. DC Cradock and I will go and take a look. You show us the way.”

  The two detectives followed Stannard and Price, clambering up the unsteady heap of bricks, tiles and timbers littered with the shattered furniture and belongings of the unfortunate people whose homes this had been only hours before. When they reached the top they saw the grey-haired portly figure of Dr Hedges, the police surgeon, crouching beside the body of a young woman. She was a redhead, wearing a green coat that was unbuttoned, revealing a grey suit and green blouse. She had a black shoe on her left foot, and a matching shoe was lying near her right. Hedges hauled himself awkwardly to his feet as they approached.