The Danger of Life

by Ken Lussey

  ‘I’m intrigued. Of course I’ll help. What do you want me to do?’

  ‘One of the members of my section, a man called Arthur Thompson, is part of a team in Glasgow minding a man called Geoffrey Smith. The two of them were arrested by the police early this afternoon at Hillington, west of Glasgow, because they were behaving suspiciously near the Rolls-Royce factory there.’

  ‘The one that manufactures Merlin aircraft engines?’

  ‘That’s the one. Look, Bob, I am sure that the police will have material that looks very incriminating, but we badly need this whole problem simply to disappear. The men are being held at the main police station in Renfrew and, with your background in the Glasgow police and your new role in Scotland, we thought you might be able to persuade the police to release the men into your custody without any fuss. I’ve spoken to the senior officer on duty there, a Lieutenant Callaghan, and as well as having a military rather than a police rank, he’s a by-the-book man. I’m a woman telephoning from London, and a foreigner to boot, and there’s no way he’s going to take action at my request.’

  ‘“Lieutenant” is a police rank in Scotland, Monique, it’s below superintendent. You know that you could just get the head of MI5, the Security Service if you prefer, to telephone the Chief Constable of Renfrewshire Constabulary and shake the tree from the top down. Incidentally, that’s the force you are dealing with. I was with the City of Glasgow Police, though I grant you we had pretty good contacts across boundaries with our neighbours.’

  ‘I know we could take this to the top Bob, but we are really keen not to. It’s imperative we keep all this quiet. Ideally the police who have been involved so far need to be sworn to silence. If anything gets into the newspapers about the arrests, or the factory, or still worse about links between them, then an important operation will be wrecked.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do. What do you want me to do with the two men if I can get them out?’

  ‘They’ve got a safe house in the Glasgow area and there are another two members of my section there, but there’s always a chance that taking them there could simply broaden the police interest if they realise what’s happened. If you could find somewhere out of the way to keep them for a couple of days that would be ideal, until we can work out how to clear up the mess properly. Can you let me know how you get on?’

  ‘Can I reach you on this number later tonight?’ asked Bob.

  ‘Yes, I’m not going anywhere until things are resolved. There’s one other thing. Geoffrey Smith is a man with a past that is nearly as complicated as my own. It’s important that he doesn’t know the name I use in the Security Service in London. If you need to refer to me within his hearing, please stick with “Monique Dubois”. That’s also the name I used when talking to the policeman in Renfrew, who I believe will still be on duty this evening.’

  Bob ended the call and leaned back in his chair, tapping his fingers on the desk. He thought it intriguing that Monique was so keen not to be referred to as “Vera Duval”. He’d only ever thought of her as Monique anyway.

  He looked at the clock on the office wall. It was 4.40 p.m. Sunset would be at a little before 6 p.m. and it would be completely dark perhaps forty minutes later.

  This mattered to Bob because of his vision. He’d already worked out that the simplest way to get to Renfrew would be to fly there. Renfrew Airport was right next to the Rolls-Royce factory and only a few minutes drive from the town of Renfrew itself. A plan, of sorts, was coming together in his mind, but he had no idea how long it would take to persuade the police in Renfrew to release the two men they had arrested. The problem was that he couldn’t fly at night. His partial blindness had initially caused severe problems with depth perception and three-dimensional vision. Over what had seemed to him to be a very long time he had learned to adapt and cope, to the point where flying in daylight really wasn’t a problem. But flying at night was an altogether different proposition, with many of the visual cues he used to circumvent the effects of his injury no longer available to him.

  His initial idea had simply been to fly the Airspeed Oxford directly from RAF Leuchars to Renfrew, then fly back to RAF Turnhouse with the two men on board. But that seemed impossible to achieve before nightfall.

  His next thought had been to fly back to Turnhouse and have a car and driver take him over to Renfrew. Again, though, the problem of darkness intervened, this time because of the difficulty in covering what couldn’t be much more than 50 miles across central Scotland in the blackout. Shielded headlights and the absence of street lights made driving at night extremely difficult and dangerous. That left no option but to put in place a rather more complicated third-choice plan. He leaned forward to pick up the phone again, hoping that those he needed to talk to hadn’t already abandoned their offices for the afternoon.

  Flight Lieutenant Buchan sat in the back of the car with Bob, as Sergeant Bennett drove them to where the Airspeed Oxford was parked. Bob looked across at Buchan. ‘Have the Poles come up with anything about Sergeant Winograd yet, George?’

  ‘No, sir. I was going to have another word with Major Kaminski in the morning, before deciding whether to return to the office.’

  ‘You may have found out yourself’ said Bob, ‘but it seems that Winograd could in theory have started up the Mosquito without external assistance, though it would have been extremely difficult in the dark. The thought crossed my mind that he might have been intending to hide in the cockpit until first light this morning, and then steal the aircraft. That’s why we need to know if there was any chance he had the skills to fly the thing.’

  ‘You know better than I do, sir,’ said Buchan, ‘but I can’t imagine that it’s a straightforward process to steal an aircraft, even if it’s theoretically possible.’

  ‘No, you are right. Do you know if there’s been an inventory taken of what Winograd had on him at the time he was killed? Corporal Taylor talked about a local Ordnance Survey map, but could you take a close look at anything else he had with him? I’m particularly interested in anything that might have been a checklist or instructions for starting a Mosquito.’

  Sergeant Bennett spoke from the front of the car. ‘Sir, I took a look through what the RAF Police had collected while I was waiting for the body to be identified this afternoon, and there wasn’t anything entitled “How to fly a Mosquito” in either Polish or English. But maybe we should be looking for something less obvious. I can take another look at his stuff if you like, just to double-check.’

  ‘Thanks, Peter,’ said Buchan, ‘that would be very helpful.’

  After an uneventful flight directly into the setting sun, Bob was back on the ground at RAF Turnhouse by 5.45 p.m.

  As he got out of the aircraft Bob was met by Lieutenant Michael Dixon, the naval officer who headed up his naval team, and the only team leader who had been in the office at Craigiehall when Bob had telephoned. Bob knew that Dixon was in his mid-twenties, and that he was highly regarded by MI11.

  Lieutenant Dixon saluted. ‘You owe Wing Commander Spencer a few favours, sir, but he seemed pretty amenable’.

  ‘What were you able to organise?’ asked Bob.

  ‘We’ve got the use of the station flight Avro Anson, sir, and a pilot. That gives the room you need.’

  ‘And the overnight accommodation?’

  ‘That’s also arranged sir,’ said Lieutenant Dixon.

  Wing Commander Bernard Spencer was the station commander at RAF Turnhouse, and Bob reflected that if this worked out as he hoped, then he would indeed owe the man a few favours. It crossed his mind, not for the first time, that it must be a little awkward for a wing commander running a RAF station to have a more senior officer living on the base and borrowing station and squadron assets. But, so far at least, Spencer had seemed relaxed about the arrangement.

  ‘What about when we get to Renfrew Airport?’ asked Bob.

  ‘A s
taff car will be waiting for us, sir, but no driver. I will drive us into the town and back. What do you want me to do when we are at the police station, sir?’

  ‘Just follow my lead, and don’t look surprised by anything that happens. I’m not sure what the police have on the two men we want to release. Hopefully we can find out tonight.’

  Bob was very familiar with Renfrew Airport and the area around it. His love of flying had first blossomed after attending the Scottish Flying Club Pageant held there in 1933. Most of his disposable income as a young policeman with the City of Glasgow Police had been spent on learning to fly at Renfrew, in the days when flying cost £2 per hour if you flew with an instructor or 35 shillings per hour once you could fly solo. Bob seemed to recall that there was also a special rate of 21 shillings, or a guinea, per hour that was charged on the first Sunday in every month, an offer he used to the full while building up his hours.

  Three years later in 1936, still aged only 24, Bob’s enthusiasm for aviation led to his being invited to join 602 (City of Glasgow) Squadron of the Auxiliary Air Force, which was based at Abbotsinch, only two miles west of Renfrew Airport. As a member of what some referred to as the best flying club in the world, Bob’s flying was now free of charge, and he trained on the Hawker Hind biplane light bombers operated by the squadron, while continuing to pursue his career as a policeman. Then, in May 1939, he had started to learn to fly the Spitfire at Abbotsinch. This was an area that held very many, mainly happy, memories for him.

  This all crossed his mind as the Avro Anson made its approach to Renfrew Airport from the east. Just to the south of the airport Bob could see in the last of the daylight the grid pattern formed by the roads leading through the vast Rolls-Royce factory at Hillington, apparently the reason for his visit. Bob had watched from the air as the factory had been built during 1938 and early 1939, and he knew the vital role it played in the war effort. The Merlin engines it produced were used in Spitfires, Hurricanes, Lancasters and Mosquitoes, and while Rolls-Royce did operate other factories in England, this remained one of the most important, and sensitive, industrial sites in Scotland.

  ‘I learned to fly here,’ he said to the flight sergeant pilot as they taxied to a parking area by the hangars.

  ‘You were lucky to be so close to home, sir,’ said the flight sergeant. ‘I learned to fly in Canada, in winter. That may be why I never complain about the climate in Scotland.’

  Bob laughed. ‘Thanks for the flight. I’m not sure how long we are going to be, but I doubt if it will be much less than an hour, and it might be rather longer.’

  ‘Don’t worry, sir, I’ll be waiting.’

  Renfrew Police Station stood close to the centre of Renfrew, a town on the south side of the River Clyde some five miles west of the centre of Glasgow. It was a large and imposing sandstone building whose design echoed that of a Scottish castle.

  Bob led the way in. The lobby beyond the front door was dominated by a reception desk, occupied by a sergeant who looked as if he enjoyed a pie and a pint, who stood up as he saw the gold braid on Bob’s peaked cap.

  ‘Hello, Sergeant. I’m Group Captain Sutherland and this is Lieutenant Dixon. I’m here to see your Lieutenant Callaghan.’

  ‘Yes sir. Is he expecting you?’

  ‘No, he’s not,’ said Bob, ‘but he will want to hear what I have to tell him. Is it possible to let him know I’m here, please?’

  ‘He’s not actually in the building, sir. He’s out on patrol in the town centre with two new constables. Just showing them the area, you understand.’

  ‘Are there any other senior officers in the building?’ asked Bob.

  ‘No, sir, Lieutenant Callaghan is the shift commander. I don’t expect him to be very long, though. Do you want to wait for him? Can I offer you both a cup of tea?’

  Bob and Lieutenant Dixon had barely sat down in an interview room with their cups of tea when the door burst open. Bob looked up to see a tall man in police uniform standing in the doorway.

  ‘Well, damn me! Look what the cat’s dragged in!’

  ‘Hello, Jack,’ said Bob, smiling at the sudden realisation he knew the man, ‘how are you? Perhaps I should do the introductions? This is Lieutenant Michael Dixon, who works with me. Michael, this is Lieutenant Jack Callaghan.’

  ‘I’m guessing that you know one another?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘You could say that, Lieutenant,’ said Callaghan. ‘You’ve done well for yourself, Bob. When the front desk said there was a group captain waiting for me it never crossed my mind that it might be you. Do you know that the Herald did an article about you a couple of years back, during the Battle of Britain? You’d just shot down five German fighters in a single day and been awarded another medal. They did a “local boy makes good” story, though they neglected to mention that the local boy in question actually came from Edinburgh.’ Callaghan grinned. ‘Then I heard you’d been shot down and wounded, and nothing since.’

  Bob’s mother had sent him the cutting from the Herald at the time, to his acute embarrassment. But there was something more pressing he needed to say before he could turn to the reason he was there. ‘I was very sorry to hear about Mary and the children, Jack.’

  ‘Yes, thanks for saying so. That was a real tragedy. I’ve sometimes thought that if you and she...’ He paused.

  ‘If I’m honest, the same thought has occurred to me,’ said Bob. ‘But I try to tell myself that you can’t live on “what-ifs” and “might-have-beens”.’

  Callaghan looked across the table at Lieutenant Dixon. ‘You’re looking a little lost, lieutenant. Do you want me to explain, Bob?’

  Bob nodded. Callaghan continued. ‘Before the war, your boss and I were detective sergeants together in the City of Glasgow Police. We live in strange times, and it seems that in four years in wartime it’s possible to move up the slippery pole from detective sergeant to lieutenant in the police, or to group captain in the RAF.’

  Bob felt there was a need to fill in a little more of the background. ‘A few years earlier, Jack and I nearly became brothers-in-law. His sister Mary and I were very close. But that was about the time I started to learn to fly. Police work is never easy on relationships, and Mary began to feel that she was my third priority, after the police and aeroplanes. She was probably right, I regret to say. We simply drifted apart. A couple of years later she married a foreman at John Brown shipbuilders and they had two children. Mary and the children were amongst those killed during the German bombing raids on Clydebank in March last year.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Lieutenant Dixon, who was beginning to look as if he wished he hadn’t been in the office when Bob had telephoned earlier.

  ‘Well, you’re right, Bob, we can’t change what’s done,’ said Callaghan. ‘And I’m guessing that you’ve not turned up on my doorstep on a Thursday evening to pass the time of day and reminisce?’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Bob. ‘I’m here because at the beginning of the week I took up a new job in Edinburgh as deputy head of Military Intelligence Section 11, or MI11.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Callaghan. ‘Am I right in thinking your visit relates to a telephone call I received earlier from a French lady in MI5 in London?’

  ‘Yes, it does. She’s someone I know well and trust, and although I still have to uncover the background, I am convinced that it is important to national security that you release the two men you are holding into my custody.’

  ‘I’m surprised to see you here, Bob, but if I’m honest I was half-expecting someone like you to arrive. Madame Dubois did sound very anxious and was fairly convincing. On the other hand, what we’ve found does look pretty serious.’

  ‘Could you tell me what happened today?’

  ‘Yes. My people here took a telephone call early this afternoon from the security office at the Rolls-Royce engine factory at Hillington. They’d seen two men in a car acting suspicio
usly. It seems they’d been driving around the site using the public roads that skirt its edges. There’s not much else out there on three sides of the site, so they stood out as odd. From time to time, they’d been stopping and getting out as if to look at parts of the factory through the fence. We sent out a patrol car which pulled the men over. When asked what they were doing, they came out with some rubbish about writing an article for an architectural magazine in the United States. When we searched them we found documents identifying the men as two British citizens, Geoffrey Smith and Arthur Thompson, with addresses in London. We also found a notebook with pencil drawings of parts of the factory as seen from outside the fence. Given the strategic importance of the Hillington factory we immediately detained both men.’

  ‘What’s happened since then?’ asked Bob.

  ‘When they arrived here, one of them, Thompson, asked if he could ring the Security Service in London. He did so. Not long afterwards I was telephoned by Madame Dubois. I’ve tried to interview the two men, individually, but neither is saying anything at all.’

  ‘What’s your view about what’s going on, Jack?’ asked Bob.

  ‘I don’t know, Bob, but I’m not very happy about the idea of the Security Service, or MI5, mounting some sort of operation on my patch without my knowing anything about it.’

  ‘I am pretty sure you are right, Jack, and if it’s any consolation we had no idea in MI11 that anything was going on until I talked to Madame Dubois not long after she spoke to you. Do many of your officers know what’s happened?’

  ‘No. I’ve instructed the two constables involved in the arrest to keep quiet. And only my desk sergeant and I know of the involvement of MI5, or MI11 for that matter.’

  ‘Does that mean you are happy to hand the two men you arrested over to me?’ asked Bob.