Fifth Column

by Mike Hollow

  “It was that arms smuggling business, wasn’t it, on the French–Spanish border?”

  “Yes, I was acting as liaison with the French police.”

  “That’s right,” said Ford. “I can remember being jolly pleased that we’d found you – and that K Division was prepared to release you for six months. We were very stretched then, and there aren’t that many coppers in the Metropolitan Police Service who can speak French – not properly, that is. It didn’t tempt you to consider a permanent transfer to us, though? We’d have been glad to have you.”

  “No, sir. It was interesting, but it wouldn’t be my first choice for the rest of my career.”

  “But you helped stop weapons being smuggled into a civil war across the border. You probably saved lives by doing that. That’s something to be proud of.”

  “Yes, I suppose I thought so at the time, but from today’s perspective it all looks a bit different. Whatever that Non-Intervention Agreement may or may not have achieved, the end result was that Franco won the war, and we all know how his friends have turned out. If anything I did helped Hitler and Mussolini to get what they wanted back then, I’m not so sure it’s something to be proud of after all.”

  “The important thing is that you served your country and defended its interests.”

  “And as Lord Palmerston said, ‘We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.’”

  “Yes, it’s a question of being realistic, pragmatic.”

  “But Palmerston also said, ‘The real policy of England is to be the champion of justice and right.’ Sometimes that’s not the pragmatic route to take.”

  “Quite, but we have to live in the real world, John. You must know that.”

  “Yes, I know that only too well, and it’s about the real world that I’ve come to see you. There’s a few things I’d like to check with you. I’ll understand if you don’t want to comment, but you may be able to help.”

  “Of course, John, you know you’re trusted here. What is it you want to know?”

  “First of all, I wonder if you can tell me anything about the Radio Security Service. I’ve heard it mentioned, but I don’t know what it does.”

  “Yes – as far as I’m concerned you’re still one of us, and I don’t need to remind you you’ve signed the Official Secrets Act. The whole thing’s rather hush-hush, so do please keep it to yourself. The powers-that-be are obviously worried there might be German agents in the country sending secret messages back to Berlin, so our colleagues in Military Intelligence have people looking for suspicious wireless signals – but it’s a huge job, so they’ve set up a network of radio amateurs to help.”

  “These are the sort of chaps who used to rig up aerials in their back gardens and talk to other amateurs all over the world in the middle of the night, yes?” said Jago.

  “That’s right,” replied Ford. “Of course they had to stop doing that last year because we impounded their transmitters, but they were allowed to keep their receivers. Anyway, discreet approaches were made to them – sometimes through the local police, as I expect you know – asking if they’d be willing to do some radio work for the government in their own time. It’s on a voluntary basis, so they’re called voluntary interceptors, although you won’t read about them in the papers. Their job is to check the airwaves and report anything that might be a coded message. Then if we think someone’s making a suspicious transmission we can investigate. Mind you, as far as I know we haven’t caught anyone yet. Anyway, the whole set-up’s part of the Radio Security Service. I’ve an idea the intelligence chaps run it from Wormwood Scrubs, of all places – nice strong prison walls to keep the bombs out, I suppose. Don’t tell anyone I told you that, by the way. But what’s your interest in the whole business?”

  “It’s just that I’ve got reports that someone is claiming to be one of these people and threatening to report a member of the public unless they give him money.”

  “Well, when you find out who he is, let me know, and we’ll check whether he’s a genuine interceptor and get him dealt with. If he isn’t, he shouldn’t know about it, which will mean someone’s been talking, so thanks for the tip.”

  “I’d like to ask you a question about a chemical too.”

  “By all means. Which one?”

  “Hydrogen peroxide.”

  Ford laughed.

  “Thinking of changing your hair colour, are you?”

  “Surprising as it may seem, I’m not,” said Jago, “although I’m impressed to discover there seems to be no subject on which you’re not well informed. As it happens, I was interested in hydrogen peroxide’s other uses. A pal of mine in the RAF told me the Germans had been working on using it as fuel for some kind of rocket plane.”

  “True enough, as I understand it. I don’t think they’ve got close to anything operationally viable, though. The big potential of hydrogen peroxide is that if it’s used in the right way it can release large amounts of energy, because it decomposes into hot steam and oxygen.”

  “But it can also blow up, right?”

  “Exactly, so they’ve still some way to go.”

  “I’ve got a local engineering company that’s had some of its hydrogen peroxide go missing. I’m assuming it must be just plain pilfering, but is there any way that this substance could be useful to an enemy?”

  “Not if it’s just the chemical itself, and in small quantities. What might be of more interest to the enemy is what the company’s doing with it.”

  “I see. They haven’t told me that, of course.”

  “Quite right too. What’s their name?”

  “Everson Engineering.”

  Ford nodded.

  “Does that mean you know them?”

  Ford simply smiled, his facial expression indicating that he was waiting for Jago’s next question.

  “If they’re doing secret work for the government, is there any way it could be significant that hydrogen peroxide is going missing?” said Jago.

  “On the face of it, that seems unlikely. If a design or a component for a device using hydrogen peroxide as a fuel went missing it would certainly look suspicious, but it’s difficult to imagine what the enemy might be able to infer from a sample of the substance itself. After all, as far as I know, hydrogen peroxide is the same compound here as it is in Germany. Unless…”

  “Unless what?”

  “No, I’m letting my imagination run away with me. Just keep me informed of any further developments in your investigation, will you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Is that all?”

  “No, I’ve got one more question. It’s about valves – as in wireless valves.”

  “Right, those are much more interesting. They’re crucial in radio location work, for example.”

  “Locating radios?”

  “No, it’s a way of detecting enemy aircraft before they get here.”

  “Ah, you mean those big concrete ears I’ve seen down in Kent?”

  “No, those are sound mirrors – they’re meant to pick up the engine noise of approaching enemy aircraft. Radio location is quite different and far more efficient.”

  “How does it work?”

  “That I can’t tell you, but I do know that it depends on valves, and that a lot of work’s being done to develop new types of valve. It’s essentially about making them smaller and more powerful. If we can do that, one day we might be able to put the equipment in the aircraft itself.”

  “Which would be an obvious advantage, I suppose.”

  “Yes, and I’ll tell you something else. Before the war started we were having trouble manufacturing a particular part for a new type of valve, and we had to import them from a big manufacturer in Holland.”

  “I think I can guess who you mean.”

  “Maybe you can. But then it became clear the Germans were going to invade Holland, and it looked like we’d lose the supply.
At the last minute, just hours before the Nazis overran the country, we managed to load the valves and the machines for making them onto a truck and got it back here. Now they’re being made in this country.”

  “Are you saying Everson Engineering could be making these valves?”

  “I’m saying nothing of the sort. I have no idea where they’re being made.”

  Jago eyed him suspiciously. Here was someone else who might be leading him up the garden path.

  “The thing is, you see,” he said, “they’ve had valves go missing too.”

  “It may mean nothing,” said Ford. “I think it’ll depend on what kind of valves they are. If they’re just for domestic wireless sets they might make someone a few bob on the black market but they won’t be of any military importance – they’re too big and too weak. But if they’re some of the more advanced kind, a sample or two could be of great interest to the enemy. And in that case your investigation would in turn become of great interest to the Branch.”

  Jago decided it was time to be on his way. He stood and extended his right arm to shake Ford’s hand.

  “Thanks very much,” he said. “You’ve been a mine of information. But if it’s not a silly question, how do you know all this stuff?”

  “That’s easy,” replied Ford. “How do you know every crook in West Ham who’s ever robbed a till? Because it’s my job to know. The government believes we face a major threat from Fifth Column saboteurs, so we need to know what their potential targets might be, and that takes us down all sorts of unexpected alleys.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Jago came out of New Scotland Yard and walked up Derby Gate towards Whitehall. There to his right, in the middle of the road, was the Cenotaph. The sun was high, and it cast no shadow. In just twenty years this monument to the dead of the Great War had become an established feature here on one of London’s most famous thoroughfares. A wry smile crossed his face as he recalled why Westminster City Council had opposed the location in 1919 – because it would create a safety hazard for members of the public crossing the busy road to pay homage. More safety than any serviceman ever knew, he thought.

  He paused to gaze at the memorial, the faces of friends he had lost drifting through his mind. Even in the midst of the great stone-clad offices of government, it had its own imposing dignity. He appreciated its restraint – no statuary, no romanticized imagery of battle, just the stark whiteness of the stone. No words except “The glorious dead”. What a price they had paid, he thought, and how inglorious the death of those he had seen falling beside him.

  What would they think, those glorious dead, if they knew this empty tomb of theirs had not stood here two decades before Britain and its empire were again at war with Germany? How many more dead would join them? Even this, the visible emblem of their nation’s sorrowful respect, might be blasted to dust and ashes tonight, tomorrow night, or whenever the bombers next flew this way. And yet he was pleased to see that the Cenotaph was unprotected. No wooden boards or steel plates to shield it, no sandbags heaped around it. That gave it another dignity, he thought, as if those who had lost their lives in that war – his war – were still defiant in the face of death’s new offensive. He would like to bring Dorothy here – but no, he pushed the idea out of his mind.

  He crossed the road and headed up Whitehall towards Trafalgar Square, passing the Home Office on his left, and then the Colonial Office on the corner of Downing Street, where two Home Guard volunteers with rifles stood on the pavement beside a sandbagged guard post. For a moment he considered turning in to Downing Street to take a look at Number 10, but decided there was only a door to stare at, so why bother? He crossed the prime minister’s side street and continued on past the Treasury Buildings. He imagined the civil servants inside, separated from him by no more than the glass of a window and yet invisible, living in a different world. They probably think they run the country, he thought. Control what happens out here. Maybe that’s what Arthur Ford thinks too, in his way. If they spent less time in Whitehall and more in places like West Ham, Liverpool, Bristol or anywhere else getting a taste of Hitler’s fury at the moment, they might be in for a shock.

  He was starting to feel hungry.

  He walked up to Trafalgar Square and on a little farther to the corner of Craven Street and the Strand, where he got a decent lunch for half a crown at the Lyons Corner House. He thought he would then take a stroll up the Strand and catch a District Line train at Temple station, but remembered this would take him past the Savoy Hotel, where Dorothy was living – along with what seemed like half the American press corps. He noticed his own unwillingness to risk bumping into her on the street. Perhaps he was just nervous about unplanned meetings with her. Perhaps he wanted to avoid complications. He wasn’t sure, but he decided to steer clear of the area and get the train from Charing Cross instead.

  Jago returned to West Ham police station to find Cradock waiting for him. There had been another phone call from Everson Engineering.

  “It’s Miss Hornby again, guv’nor,” said Cradock. “She wants to see us.”

  “About what?” asked Jago.

  “She didn’t say. But she sounded agitated, as if it wouldn’t wait.”

  They drove to the company’s premises. Miss Hornby took them to her office and closed the door behind them.

  “Thank you for coming, Inspector,” she said. “Something’s gone missing, and in view of what happened on Friday it seems too unlikely to be a coincidence.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a personal file on one of our employees. Confidential, of course.”

  “Can you tell me who the member of staff is?”

  “Yes, it’s Miss Cartwright, the young lady I brought to see you on Sunday – Beatrice Cartwright.”

  “When did it go missing?”

  “That’s difficult to say. I’ve only just discovered we don’t have it, and it’s weeks since I last referred to the file myself. It could have gone missing at any time since then.”

  “Who’s authorized to have access to these files?”

  “Only those of us whose job involves maintaining and managing them.”

  “And who would those people be?”

  “Just me and Miss Watkins. We are the department, effectively – or we were.”

  “And no one else?”

  “No. Except Mr Everson, of course: he has access to them. After all, he owns the business, so they’re his property. But I can assure you there’s no laxity in our procedures, Inspector. Mr Everson is most particular in these matters.”

  “Have you told him the file’s missing?”

  “Yes.”

  “And he hasn’t got it himself?”

  “No. He told me that immediately, and he was also most concerned that I should not feel there was any failing on my part. Such a caring man – I sometimes think that if there were more like him in the world it would be a much better place.”

  “I can see you hold a high opinion of Mr Everson.”

  “Oh, yes. I couldn’t wish for a more considerate employer.”

  Jago walked to the office window and looked down at the street below.

  “I understand that his wife is an invalid,” he said, without turning round.

  “Yes,” said Miss Hornby. “She’s in a nursing home, poor woman. He’s devoted to her, of course.”

  Jago turned back to face her.

  “Would you say Mr Everson is the kind of man that women might find attractive?”

  Miss Hornby looked surprised, and Jago thought he saw a hint of a blush in her cheeks.

  “What a question to ask,” she said. “The short answer is I have no idea, but I’m sure he would never do anything to encourage such feelings.”

  “How long have you known him?”

  “For fifteen years – since I came to work here.”

  “And would you say he’s popular with the staff?”

  “I think they see him as a fair man.”

  “How would
you describe Miss Cartwright’s relationship with him?”

  “I’m not sure: in her position she wouldn’t have had much contact with him.”

  “People these days are sometimes a bit more free with their seniors than they were when I was a young man.”

  “Yes, I know what you mean. Miss Cartwright is young, of course, and probably a typical girl of her age – thinks she can do anything but isn’t old enough to know her limitations yet. You know what young women are like these days. I’m afraid I find them altogether too forward. Too many of them seem to think the world owes them a living. It wasn’t like that in my day – we had to fight every inch of the way to be accepted in companies like this. Now they just waltz in and expect everything to be handed to them on a plate. They don’t know they’re born, some of them. Look at the way some of them dress, too: it’s simply not appropriate for a place of work.”

  “You’re talking about Miss Cartwright?”

  “I’m talking about young women in general. But yes, there have been occasions when I’ve had to have a word with her on the subject. She would come to the office dressed in a way that would not have been acceptable when I was her age, and I got the impression she was perhaps doing it for Mr Everson’s benefit.”

  “You mean he wanted her to?”

  “Not at all. I mean it seemed to me that perhaps she was trying to make an impression on him.”

  “Trying to turn his head?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m simply observing that I thought she was perhaps endeavouring to catch his eye. She may well have assumed that arousing his personal interest might serve to advance her career. I’m afraid that’s just the way some young women are today.”

  “So are you suggesting there may be some kind of emotional relationship between them?”

  Miss Hornby lowered her voice.

  “These are delicate matters, Mr Jago. I’m not in a position to comment on such a possibility, and even if there were such a relationship I would not have the wherewithal to prove it. All I can say is that I get the impression Miss Cartwright would not be averse to the idea, if you know what I mean. Mr Everson is a remarkable man, Inspector. He’s doing important work, and one day this country will be grateful to him. His mind is entirely on his business, but I worry that he may be vulnerable to the charms of a wily young woman.”