by Amy Myers
‘Can you be sure of that over the telephone?’
‘I’d risk it. He was in the army, not the RAF. Oliver was his younger brother, and I gathered it was generally thought at the time that Oliver had done the right thing in disappearing from the family escutcheon, even though his mother never believed in his cowardice – naturally enough. I asked what had happened to Oliver’s effects. That produced a reaction. A long pause – you know the sort of thing?’
She did. The feeling that you had gone wrong somewhere or that – and she hoped so in this case – that you had hit a nail on the head.
‘He said,’ Peter continued, ‘that there seemed a lot of interest in these things and that I was the second aviation historian who’d asked about that.’
‘Who was the first? Or can I guess?’
‘You can. Jack Hardcastle. How do you feel like a chat with Mrs H?’
Susan didn’t answer her phone until the following weekend as she’d been away, and as Monday was set aside with great reluctance for visiting the Family Records Office in London, it was Tuesday before Georgia could go to Eynsford. Better that way than discussing it over the phone. Susan needed live contact.
Meanwhile, north London, poring over indexes of births, marriages and deaths, was no place to be on a late August day. Only a week to go and the bank holiday would be here, signalling the imminent arrival of autumn. August should be spent in the sunshine, but nevertheless Georgia obeyed instructions, did a thorough sweep and ordered the certificates. One thing was sure. Sylvia’s twins, born in early May 1941, could well have been Oliver Tanner’s.
*
As Georgia drove up and parked by the side of the lane on the Tuesday morning, Bramley House looked desolate, and she tracked this down partly to the fact that the Spitfire and Hurricane had departed from the doorway.
‘I couldn’t bear them,’ Susan said frankly as she led her into the living room. The door of Jack’s office was closed. ‘They seemed to be mocking me every time I came into the house. It’s bad enough waiting all the time for the police to ring, without having too many of Jack’s things around. I suppose I’ll have to decide what to do about his collection.’
‘Take your time,’ Georgia advised. ‘Are the police any further forth?’
‘They don’t seem to be. They talked to Eddie Stubbs again a day or two ago.’
‘I’m sorry to pester you again . . .’ Georgia began.
‘Pester all you like. It’s a small price to pay for company. I think of Jack all the time anyway.’
‘Did he ever mention a 362 Squadron pilot called Oliver Tanner?’
‘Not that I remember, but then I didn’t know one from the other.’
‘Or Jack meeting or phoning a Robert Tanner?’
Again a no. ‘He said,’ Georgia explained, ‘that he had sent something – an RAF logbook – to Jack.’ She knew it was all too probable that his killer had taken it. ‘Is there anywhere he might have put it for safe keeping?’
Susan grimaced. ‘Safe keeping? Goodness knows. Jack was a squirrel.’
‘No hollow tummies in the wooden Spitfire?’ Georgia joked.
Susan managed a smile. ‘I think I’d have noticed. Jack was a straightforward man. He wouldn’t think of that.’
‘The bank? Storage?’
Susan shook her head.
‘What would you have done with it?’ Georgia asked in desperation.
The answer was prompt. ‘Copied any pages I wanted and got the original out of the house. Given it to my son, probably. But before you ask, he hasn’t got anything. The police have checked already.’
‘And Michael Hastings only has the disks,’ Peter grunted when Georgia reported back. ‘Which makes me wonder if this logbook is so important.’
‘It could be,’ Georgia said firmly. ‘It’s worth checking anyway.’
*
‘You know what?’ Peter looked up in the middle of the spaghetti puttanesca she had cooked. He was getting gloomy again, she realized with foreboding, partly through frustration with Suspects Anonymous. ‘I still don’t think we’ve got the full story.’
‘We’re eating supper,’ she protested. ‘No work. Anyway, we now know there’s a corpse in the dell, unless Matt had it removed. That’s possible, but unlikely. Isn’t that full enough for you?’ It certainly was for her.
‘No. Something Eddie said set up a train of thought and it’s gone, dammit. And what exactly did Purcell imply by “as he spoke to her in 1940”? Fairly weird statement, isn’t it?’
‘I took it merely to mean that he had told Sylvia the story in 1940. She confirmed it. She told me she left Malling so that she was no longer reminded of Oliver all the time. Then Alan told her what had happened, except for the fact that the body was still in the dell. He spared her that. It wasn’t the fact that she was pregnant that made her leave – not that it makes any difference. The twins are almost certainly Tanner’s.’
‘I agree.’
She sighed. ‘So why are you so sure it’s not the full story?’
‘I told you already. The attack on Alan was after he met you, which implies that the arsonist was not particularly interested in what he told you, but in what proof he had. And that might mean more than an accident at the heart of the story.’
Tap, tap, tap. The sticks advanced out of the darkness. What was so terrible that it could have led to Fairfax’s murder later? She saw where this was leading and shrank from it. Murder begets murder.
She swallowed. ‘Are you implying that Patrick Fairfax deliberately murdered Oliver Tanner? Supposition. It wouldn’t fit all the facts.’
‘Why not?’ Peter asked.
‘The other pilots wouldn’t have helped cover up a murder. For one thing, that would make them accessories after the fact, which could carry the death penalty in those days.’
‘They might not have known it was murder. It was getting dark. They were burying him, presumably in a sheet or blanket. Even if they’d had time to be curious, death by hitting one’s head on a stone and by other hands crashing the stone down would look the same to the lay eye, especially in the dusk. Especially if the person telling you what had happened was your much admired leader whom everyone trusted.’
‘That’s possible,’ she agreed. In her mind she saw the blood from the stone, seeping into the ground, from what was left of Tanner’s head. She saw the whole grisly scene, but there was one inevitable question.
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Over Sylvia?’
‘The trophy girlfriend. A prize. Fairfax could well have thought the prettiest, wittiest girl in town should be his, and not welcomed the idea of being second best to an LMF pilot. It could have been manslaughter; it could have been deliberate murder. We might never know.’ Some drumming of fingers on the table followed. ‘I’d like to know whether that logbook survived.’
‘Why? Tanner wouldn’t have recorded anything about Sylvia in that.’
‘No, but Jack asked for it specifically. He must have had some reason. Besides, it might give us some insight into the man. He was charged with LMF. How did that reveal itself in the logbook, for example? Did he forge entries? No, he can’t have done. Logbooks had to be signed by the intelligence officer, or flight commander.’ Peter poured himself another glass of wine as the spaghetti grew slowly colder. ‘What exactly did Michael Hastings say when he told us what he held of Jack’s possessions?’
Presumably Peter had some reason for going over this old ground. ‘As I told Mrs Hardcastle,’ Georgia obediently complied, ‘he said he had the computer files, but that was all.’ Then she had a sudden doubt, thinking again. ‘No,’ she said slowly, ‘didn’t he say that what we saw were all the files he had?’
‘That’s my recollection too. And files would not include anything Jack left with him for safe keeping. Such as a logbook.’
Chapter Fourteen
It was in their hands at last: Michael Hastings had obligingly disgorged it, once Susan Hardcastle had spoken the magic words of consent
. Now all they needed were the magic words to tell them what, if anything, made this logbook so important that Jack had asked to see it. It was history, as Peter had remarked. Grey-covered, each page of the book had columns headed month, date, aircraft type, serial number, pilot, remarks, flying times etc. Each sortie was meticulously recorded in Tanner’s neat handwriting. She glanced at one entry: attacked 3 Me109s; bullet in starboard wing; engine rough. This looked like standard stuff.
‘Perhaps Jack’s interest was only casual,’ Georgia said at last.
‘Then why did he secrete it away? He could just have returned it to Tanner’s brother.’
‘Did Jack think Tanner had managed to fake the logbook in some way? Claimed he was flying when he hadn’t been?’
‘I doubt if that would be possible. These logbooks had to be signed every month or so. Look, it’s initialled here and there.’
Georgia squinted at it. ‘It’s unreadable.’
‘That’s not unusual with officialdom.’
Georgia continued reading when something struck her. ‘Look at this entry, Peter. August sixteenth. Pilot self. Remarks: raid on airfield by Dorniers. Got Spit out of harm’s way. Attacked, got one.’
‘So?’ Peter asked.
‘I’m sure that was the day Jean Fairfax told me Patrick had rushed out to save one of the LMF pilots who was frozen with fear in the cockpit. He pulled him out, and took the aircraft up himself.’
‘That might have been Joseph Smith, not Tanner.’
‘All the same, I’ll just check something else.’ Georgia turned back to July 20th. ‘Remarks: Ju87s over convoy. Attacked Me109 fighter escort. Shot down one. But according to Jean Fairfax, Patrick rescued the same pilot from certain death; he wasn’t even firing, but trying to get the hell out of it.’
Peter logged on to Jack’s notes. ‘Well, perhaps we’re in luck. Joseph Smith only joined the squadron on the twenty-second, so if Jean has her facts right, it was indeed Tanner to whose rescue Patrick did – or did not – come. Where does that get us? Tanner was a fantasist and cooked the books?’
‘He couldn’t. They had to be initialled.’
He seized the logbook from her and went quickly through it. ‘One set of initials only, and that’s at the end of July. No more. Either Tanner eluded the check, or routine had gone by the board in the frantic scrum of battle conditions. So there is a question mark – a small one,’ he warned.
‘Jack wanted this logbook,’ Georgia argued. ‘He thought enough of its contents to ask Michael Hastings to look after it.’
‘He was a thorough man.’
‘Then he would have pursued it twenty years ago for the squadron history, not for a general history of the battle years later.’ She took the logbook back to skim through it once more. ‘Have a look at the last entry, on August thirty-first, the day of the dance.’ She thrust the logbook under his nose again. ‘The handwriting’s changed,’ she said. ‘It’s less neat. Look at this line scored underneath the entry for the first operation, when they were scrambled at twelve fifty p.m. Raid on Biggin, Heinkels and Dorniers. Attacked Me109 escort. Lyle shot down. No enemy again (underlined). Fairfax tally ho!’
‘That doesn’t make sense,’ Peter said.
‘I agree. It did to Tanner though. He’s obviously under extreme emotion.’
‘Nothing for the next day, the day of his death?’
‘Yes, but not a report of an op.’
‘What then?’
‘A doodle. Look.’
Peter stared at it. ‘What is it?’
‘I think it could be the dormouse.’
Peter frowned. ‘As in Alice in Wonderland?’
‘Yes, it might be Tenniel’s drawing of the Mad Hatter stuffing the dormouse in the teapot. Is Tanner reproaching himself for being asleep at the switch?’ she speculated. ‘Blaming himself for Lyle’s death?’
‘Why the mention of Fairfax tally-ho then? That Tenniel picture always worried me as a child,’ Peter observed. ‘The Mad Hatter seemed to be pushing him in upside down, but whether upside down or not the dormouse went through a rough time.’
‘As Tanner did. But, unlike the dormouse, no one listened to his story before stuffing him in the teapot,’ Georgia reflected. ‘This was probably drawn after he’d seen the CO and learned of the LMF charge. Suppose, just suppose, Tanner wasn’t a fantasist and we’ve got it upside down. Everyone, including the CO, had it upside down.’
‘I’m not sure I follow,’ Peter said politely.
‘Not literally,’ she said impatiently. ‘Suppose the RAF had it upside down, that 362 Squadron still has it upside down.’
‘Do you mind telling me what you’re talking about?’
‘Suppose – what a wonderful word.’ Her excitement grew. ‘Suppose Oliver Tanner is the dormouse, and Fairfax the Mad Hatter. That it wasn’t Tanner whom Fairfax helped out of that aircraft on August sixteenth, but Fairfax helped out by Tanner. Oliver wasn’t a gung-ho chap. He wouldn’t have let down a fellow pilot by saying the fellow couldn’t hack it. Fairfax might have done though.’
‘Pardon my saying so, Georgia, but you’re not thinking straight. Fairfax is on public record as a war hero; he won two major decorations. And you claim there might have been a slight mistake?’
She was determined to go on now, nonsense or not. ‘Remember what Eddie said.’ Odd facts were beginning to clog together in her mind now. ‘These LMF cases begin with rumours going round. Who better to spread them than a popular pilot like Fairfax? He climbs down from the cockpit and says offhandedly, “I say, chaps, better watch young Tanner, he cut me up at the third cloud” or whatever pilots say. The further the ripples spread the more it will be believed. The climate is there. It’s not as though it was an orderly line up to see the headmaster when they returned from an operation. The adrenalin was going as they all rushed to dispersal. Angry words, angry accusations, not thinking straight when a chum has been shot down.’
She had set Peter thinking at least. She could tell that from the drumming fingers. ‘Far too many unanswered questions, Georgia,’ he said briskly. ‘First, they both wrote full combat reports. Discrepancies would be tracked down if there were a serious charge against someone.’
‘But Tanner wasn’t the sort to word combat reports as though he deserved the VC. Or to mention that he saved someone’s life under fire. I bet if we read this logbook against Jack’s biography and the National Archive records we might find a few discrepancies.’
‘We’ll do that,’ Peter replied briskly. ‘You do realize that you might be implying that Fairfax had it in for Tanner in a big way, and that the LMF charge was concocted? I might go along with that, but to take it further and theorize that Fairfax was the real LMF candidate is going overboard.’
She stared at him. ‘It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? But think about it. When we ask about Fairfax we’re always told what a great chap he was and what a magnificent man of the air. Not what a great chap he was in a dogfight or in the midst of battle.’
‘Wrong. Jack Hardcastle said, according to your notes, that he was a gung-ho leader, taking his section into the midst of the fight.’
She was deflated, but aware that Peter was watching her closely for her reaction. ‘Let’s read what Jack had to say in his biography.’
‘I’ve a better idea. I’ll talk to Bob McNee.’
‘Why him?’
‘Both Tanner and Patrick were in B Flight, and he was its commander. It would have been he, not Patrick, who put forward the LMF charge.’
*
She prowled restlessly round the garden for the remainder of the afternoon. Only fifteen days to go before Battle of Britain Day, when the publicity for the film would be kicked off. After that, there’d be no stopping the momentum, even if her theory was right. It would be grist to the mill, not worthy of serious consideration. Peter had announced he needed twenty-four hours at least, so she could either resign herself to the wait, or do some work on her own.
‘Georgia?’
The call from Peter came exactly on the twenty-four-hour mark.
‘You’re very prompt.’
‘It seemed a good time to call. This is September first, the anniversary of Tanner’s death.’
‘Can we offer him anything?’
‘I think we might. Nothing definite, because Bob McNee’s away until next week. Theory still, but credible. In Jack’s biography he’s full of enthusiasm for the airman and the fighter. The gung-ho approach straight into the midst of the enemy formation. By the time of the squadron history, however, he’s adding a caveat. The losses in B Flight were high, and one reason, he conjectures, is that the gung-ho approach practised by Patrick could lead to problems. Think of it, Georgia, straight into the middle of a flock of birds and what do they do?’
‘Scatter.’
‘If they’re Messerschmitts, not birds, they scatter to fly round and home in on the rest of the section. Number Two will be close to his leader, so that’s not so tricky, but Number Three, the arse-end Charlie, would be a sitting target unless the leader turns to protect him. So would the weavers who protect the whole flight or squadron at the rear. That could be what happened to Lyle, who was Tanner’s chum. It would explain Tanner’s angry logbook comment Fairfax Tally-ho.’
Georgia longed to agree, but surely there was a snag here. ‘Fairfax and the tally-ho theory doesn’t fit with Fairfax frozen with fear in the face of the bombers coming straight for him on the airfield.’
‘Bombers wouldn’t scatter. They’re coming straight for him, and he’s powerless. Even if he gets the Spit up he’d be vulnerable until he gets his speed up. That’s a different ball game to being up already, and being able to take action of some sort.’
Another problem. ‘What about the aircraft he shot down and had confirmed? He won decorations for that.’