Blood on the Tongue (Ben Cooper & Diane Fry)

by Stephen Booth

  Rowland noticed Cooper looking at his hands. ‘It’s not so good today,’ he said, apologetically. He looked pale, and his eyes had sunk further into their sockets. ‘If you want a cup of tea, you’ll have to put the kettle on yourself.’

  ‘Have you got anybody to help you?’ asked Cooper, as he walked through into the kitchen.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘If you’re ill and can’t look after yourself, you surely have some kind of home help, don’t you?’

  Rowland said nothing. Cooper plugged in the electric kettle and found two mugs with pictures of the Houses of Parliament on them. He noticed that there was a dent a couple of inches wide in the back door, and the wood was crushed. He wondered if the old man had fallen while trying to do some job in the kitchen.

  Cooper glanced through into the front room. Rowland was staring at his hands. His fingers were as brown and as knotted as the pine table they lay on.

  ‘Have you tried Social Services? Or talked to your GP?’ said Cooper.

  The old man shook his head.

  ‘They could send you a home help,’ said Cooper. ‘At your age, you must qualify. It would make things easier for you. I mean, how do you manage to cook yourself a meal?’

  Rowland just smiled. ‘You’ll find some tea in the top cupboard,’ he said.

  While he was finding the tea, Cooper looked through the kitchen cupboards, trying to slide the doors open as quietly as he could. There were plenty of tins of all descriptions – steak puddings and hot dogs, new potatoes and mushy peas, peaches and pineapple chunks. He wondered if Rowland were capable of operating a tin opener. A small fridge stood in the corner, and he could hear its coolant gurgling in the pipes at the back. He found some milk in it and checked the use-by date on the plastic bottle, remembering the sour taste of the tea at George Malkin’s house. That taste had stayed with him for days afterwards. But Rowland’s milk was OK for a day or so yet. Could that mean somebody did a bit of shopping for the old man occasionally? That was something, at least. Cooper wondered how he could ask Rowland the question, and whether he would get an answer.

  He carried the two mugs of tea back through from the kitchen.

  ‘What are the neighbours like? Will they fetch some shopping for you?’

  Rowland didn’t answer. He looked at his mug on the table. Cooper knew he was being told as clearly as he could be that it was none of his business.

  ‘Don’t worry about me,’ said Rowland. ‘I’ve got a routine to my day. I’ve got the telly, there. And when there’s no more sex and violence on, I know it’s time to go to bed.’

  Cooper sat down opposite him. The television muttered in the corner, and he didn’t bother asking Rowland to switch it off.

  ‘We were talking about the Lancaster crash the other day,’ he said. ‘Do you remember?’

  ‘Of course I remember. Sugar Uncle Victor. There aren’t all that many things happen around here that I wouldn’t remember.’

  ‘You said then that Pilot Officer McTeague was different from airmen who were sometimes in shock after a crash.’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘I want to ask you again why McTeague was different.’

  Rowland breathed slowly for a while. But Cooper could see he had less resistance today.

  ‘I smelled him,’ said Rowland.

  ‘What?’

  ‘When we realized there was at least one crew member missing, we looked in the wreckage as best we could. Some of it was on fire, and our sergeant shouted at us to stay away. But we couldn’t have left someone in the burning plane, could we? I went to look in the cockpit. It had broken away from the fuselage, so the flames hadn’t reached it. And when I stuck my head in there – well, I could smell the whisky. The fumes fair knocked me out.’

  ‘Do you mean Pilot Officer McTeague was drunk?’

  ‘By the stink of the cockpit, he must have been pissed as a snake. Other folks might have taken what he did for shock, like you say. But I’ve never doubted that he was drunk when he flew that plane into Irontongue Hill.’

  ‘If he was, his crew would have known.’

  ‘No doubt. But only Zygmunt Lukasz survived, didn’t he? And he never said anything.’

  ‘Not officially, anyway.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you ever meet any of the Polish community in Edendale?’

  ‘Community?’ said Rowland, confused by the use of the word.

  ‘They have their own church up the road,’ said Cooper. ‘And an ex-serviceman’s club, where Zygmunt Lukasz is a member. They even have a school.’

  ‘So they do,’ said Rowland, faintly surprised. ‘But I’ve never thought much about it really. They keep up their own way of life, do they, then? I’m not surprised – like I said, they have their own beliefs, and they stick to them.’

  Rowland watched Cooper quizzically, until he began to fidget uneasily.

  ‘I can’t blame them for that,’ said the old man. ‘If I had to live in Poland for some reason, it wouldn’t make me Polish, would it? No, I reckon I’d still be a Derbyshire lad until the end of my days.’

  Rowland closed his eyes momentarily. A voice continued to mumble from the TV. It was a different voice now – a woman with a Scottish accent. Soothing and reassuring.

  ‘Maybe I was wrong about McTeague,’ said Rowland. ‘But I can only remember what I saw and heard.’

  ‘But you didn’t see Pilot Officer McTeague, did you? You didn’t hear him or smell him, either.’

  ‘He’d already legged it by the time we got there.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘I always thought they would find him sleeping it off,’ said Rowland. ‘I had half a mind to try to find him myself and knock the living daylights out of him. But I don’t think anybody else even noticed. The fire got to the cockpit, and that was that. Nobody said a word.’

  ‘Mr Rowland, why didn’t you say anything about this at the time?’

  ‘What makes you think I didn’t?’

  ‘Because it isn’t mentioned in the inquest report. It isn’t mentioned in the accident report, either.’

  ‘Always believe everything you read in official reports, do you?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘I can’t imagine you do. You probably write enough of them yourself to know the drill. Some things you put in, some you leave out. Now, don’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘I told the officers about it, but they left it out of the reports. I was only a young RAF squaddie. I did what I was told. We didn’t question things in those days.’

  ‘There’s one more thing I want to ask you about,’ said Cooper. ‘The money.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Rowland. ‘The money.’

  ‘There isn’t any money mentioned in the accident reports.’

  ‘No, there wouldn’t be.’

  ‘As far as I understand it, Lancaster SU-V was on a routine flight from its base at Leadenhall to RAF Branton in Lancashire. The aircraft had recently been through major repairs, including the replacement of a wing. Its crew were taking it on a test flight before it returned to normal operations.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rowland. ‘But when they set off on that routine flight, they were also asked to take the weekly wages to RAF Branton and three other RAF stations in Lancashire. It was safer than sending airmen armed with pickaxe handles to collect it from local banks – and some of those bases were in places where the nearest bank was a long way off.’

  ‘I see. But the money never arrived. Because on the way there, the Lancaster crashed on Irontongue Hill.’

  ‘And some bugger disappeared with the loot,’ said Rowland. For a few seconds, there was a faint spark in his eyes. ‘It was funny really. The RAF were going daft about it, but they daren’t say anything publicly. Well, they didn’t want crowds of folk wandering about on the mountain looking for the money. It was second nature with them anyway, to keep information to themselves. It was second nature to us all at that time. We never said anythi
ng, though some of us looked for the money ourselves when their backs were turned, I expect. There’d be one or two hoping to come across a few pound notes blowing about the moor.’

  ‘It was never found?’

  ‘Never. A couple of officers came out to the site. They got angry with us, but of course the rescue teams were more bothered about the human casualties. Some of us had been up there for hours and hours in the freezing cold, trying to piece the injured blokes together and get them off the mountain. We were in no mood to be harangued by some RAF brass with their posh accents and their Clark Gable moustaches. There were angry words, by all accounts. Some said that blows were struck, but no charges were ever brought, civil or military.’

  ‘What happened in the end?’

  ‘Two members of the Home Guard were suspected.’

  ‘What? Dad’s Army?’

  ‘They were given the job of guarding the wreckage overnight. They were the only people who had the chance of removing the money, so the theory went.’

  ‘This wasn’t in the crash report.’

  ‘Of course not. It was nothing to do with the crash. Do you think the RAF went round telling everybody there had been thousands of pounds in cash on board the plane?’

  ‘Who were the two Home Guard men?’

  ‘I can tell you their names if you want, but remember that they were men who were already too old for active service. They’re long dead. Of course, the police ought to have been looking for somebody who suddenly got rich about that time. That amount of money would be like finding King Solomon’s Mine for some poor bloody farmworker. They could hardly have spent it without anybody noticing. Not in wartime – think of rationing, for a start. But it was the two Home Guard blokes who took the blame. Walker and Sykes, they were called. They were questioned for days, but they were never charged. Without the money, they couldn’t prove anything.’

  ‘Did you know these men?’ asked Cooper.

  ‘Oh, aye,’ said Rowland. ‘Walker and Sykes were with the West Edendale company. One of them was the water board man that used to look after Blackbrook Reservoir. But his mate, now, he made a living working in the kitchens at the Snake Inn, as I recall. He didn’t look quite English, you know. Too dark of complexion. He was one of those who always came under suspicion during the war. If you didn’t fit in before the war, then you turned into a Nazi spy once it started. Aye, you were either one of us, or you were one of the enemy. That would be why he joined the Home Guard, I reckon – to show the local folk which side he was on.’

  ‘But then, when the money went missing …?’

  ‘He was the obvious one to blame. When they found out he was on guard, everyone was convinced it was him that took the money. Nobody thought too much about how he did it – they just knew it was him.’

  Cooper frowned. ‘But, Mr Rowland, if it wasn’t the Home Guard men who took the money, then who was it?’

  ‘I don’t know the answers to these questions,’ said Rowland. ‘Why are you asking me?’

  Cooper knew he should stop now. But he was sure that Walter Rowland knew more. He felt he almost had the one fact that would be the key to everything.

  ‘Somebody local? Can you tell me who?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ said Rowland. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  There was a fatalism in the old man’s voice that hadn’t been there before. Though he was trying to answer the questions, it was difficult for him to rouse the interest. He was several inches nearer to the brink of despair. Cooper knew there was something wrong, and it was more, even, than the pain in the old man’s joints.

  ‘Just a minute,’ he said. ‘Sit there and don’t move.’

  He went back into the kitchen and looked at the back door. The lock was missing completely – there was only a round hole where the barrel should have passed through, and there was bare wood that had been recently exposed. He eased open the door by its outer edge and found he was looking into a small lean-to extension built on to the back of the house. There was a work bench, surrounded by wood shavings on the floor. But there were no tools – the racks above the bench were empty. There were marks on the bench where a lathe might have been clamped, but there was no lathe. The door that led outside had been forced, and fresh splinters of wood stuck out of it at dangerous angles.

  ‘You’ve had a breakin,’ said Cooper. ‘They’ve ransacked your workshop.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Rowland.

  ‘Have you reported it?’

  ‘To the police? There didn’t seem much point.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Your lot would do sod-all. There’s other folk that get more done about things around here. So I told them.’

  Cooper stared at the old man. ‘Who are you talking about, Mr Rowland?’

  ‘Local folk, that don’t like burglars and drug dealers. Folk that are prepared to do something about it.’

  ‘You mean vigilantes?’

  Rowland said nothing, avoiding his eye, and Cooper knew he would get nothing more out of the old man. But he was thinking of two youths who had ended up in hospital, and of a piece of CCTV film that would identify Eddie Kemp.

  ‘I’ll get somebody to come out to take the details of the incident and get some fingerprints,’ he said. ‘If you can make a list of what’s been taken, we’ll get people to look out for your property.’

  Rowland lowered his head. He hardly seemed interested. He was still looking at his mug of tea, his twisted hands held in front of him as he watched the steam rise and vanish. With a shock, Cooper realized that the old man was probably unable to pick up the mug. He remembered that Rowland hadn’t actually asked for the tea, just told him to get one for himself.

  Cooper flushed with embarrassment. Now he didn’t know what to do. There was no way he could help Walter Rowland, no way that he could offer to lift the mug to his lips to help him drink. The old man would never accept that sort of help from a stranger. Not from anyone, maybe. The only option was to leave him to it, to save Rowland the humiliation of having to sit there while the tea went cold, and to pretend that he didn’t want it.

  Helplessly, Cooper looked out of the window at the net curtains in the porch of the house next door. If he went to knock on the neighbours’ door when he left, Rowland would see him. On the other side was the Gospel Hall, where the singing had stopped now. Cooper recalled hearing the sound of cars starting, and doors slamming. He could even imagine he’d heard the noise of a key turning firmly in the lock of the big oak door before the hall fell into silence. He didn’t know where else to look for help. His training had never prepared him for this.

  Of course, where large amounts of money were involved, anything could happen. It could bring out the worst in everybody, whether it was wartime or not. Sitting in his car in Underbank, Cooper considered the people he’d talked to. Had any of them suddenly become rich in the past? Walter Rowland or George Malkin? It didn’t seem likely. And if Danny McTeague himself had walked off with the money from Lancaster SU-V, there was no way of finding out. That left only one man alive who’d been there at the time.

  He looked at his watch. He might just be in time. The Lukaszes should be at West Street to make their statements right now.

  Fry watched Grace Lukasz rub the palms of her hands on the arms of her wheelchair, leaving noticeable sweat stains. On her own, the woman was nervous.

  ‘Mrs Lukasz,’ said Fry, ‘where did your son Andrew get the cigarette case that upset your father-in-law so much?’

  ‘I don’t know. Andrew wouldn’t tell us. In fact, he was very secretive about it. You know, I’m not sure now what he wanted when he came. I thought he wanted to be reconciled, but something went wrong, and I don’t know why he argued with Zygmunt. Since he’s lived in London, Andrew has become like a stranger to us.’

  ‘Did you have any idea who Nick Easton was, the man who came to your home on Monday?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Mrs Lukasz.

  ‘Not really? What does that mean?’


  ‘It means I only suspected. Nobody had told me anything, but I can put two and two together when it comes to my family. I thought he must either be a policeman – or something worse.’

  ‘Worse?’ Fry looked at Murfin and almost smiled. ‘Is there something worse?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Lukasz. ‘I think there are people who would want to do Andrew harm.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve been worried about Andrew for a long time. You know we didn’t see him for nearly five years after he left to go to London?’

  ‘There was some question of discord over his wedding.’

  ‘Yes, but it was more than that. He was always evasive about the details of his life and what he did. Nobody else would have noticed, perhaps. Peter didn’t notice it. But I’m Andrew’s mother – I didn’t need to work it out logically. I started to feel sure that he’d become involved in something dangerous. Peter said I was talking nonsense.’ Grace Lukasz toyed with the spokes of her wheels, while her eyes followed Fry’s pen as she made notes. ‘Then Andrew turned up in Edendale a few days after New Year, and he was still evasive – evasive about why he’d come. He said he had business in the area, and I believed him. But I was worried what sort of business it might be.’

  ‘Do you think it was something to do with the cigarette case?’ asked Fry.

  ‘Yes. It was what he argued with Zygmunt about that Sunday. I’ve never heard either of them so angry. I was glad that Peter wasn’t there. Andrew said something about loyalty, and that was when Zygmunt really got angry. I thought he was going to have a heart attack. He shouted in Polish, and it was after that Andrew walked out.’