Troubled Midnight

by John Gardner

  “Could have killed them?”

  “Quite, sir.”

  “You were on the landing. You knew someone had left the house while you were up there: in the bathroom?”

  “Yes, in the bathroom, sir.”

  “You went down. Went after them did you?”

  Gibbon nodded, head down, shaking his head, then nodded. “Of course, sir. Of course I went down, went after him … them. Out into the street, onto the pavement but there was no sign of anyone. I walked down to the Royal Oak and out into the road. Crossed the road. Nobody. Either way there was nobody about.”

  “What was the time?”

  “Must’ve been six-thirty, maybe a little after that. I can’t say I looked. I went back. There’d been nobody else out in Portway. The whole place was deserted. I mean you could see a fair distance. Cold though: very chilly. It was dawn, sir.”

  “Coming up like thunder,” Tommy mused. Then, “And you went back into the house?”

  “Of course, sir. I did notice the door to the cellar, on the left hand side before you go down the passage to the study and the kitchen. That was open, that door.”

  “You didn’t investigate?”

  “Not straight away, no, sir. I went into their front room and the dining room, then down the passage, looked in the study and the kitchen. Even went into the larder. The kitchen table had been laid for breakfast. Must’ve done that the previous night, last night.”

  Tommy nodded.

  “Then I went back and down the stairs to the cellar. I found them down there.”

  Suzie thought of the Colonel’s head, like a bloodied loofah. Thought of it and yet again. Closed her eyes to banish it from her head, but it stayed there.

  “And then?” Tommy asked.

  There was a pause and Sergeant Gibbon didn’t look straight at anyone: looked down, then a glance to his left and right. A big intake of breath. “It shook me up, sir. Shook me up. I had to dash up the stairs again. Threw up in the downstairs toilet.”

  “You recognised your commanding officer then? Colonel Weaving?”

  “Immediately.”

  “Even though he was lying on his face with the back of his head smashed in?”

  “Immediately, sir.”

  “And you also recognised Mrs Bascombe? Emily Bascombe?”

  “I did sir. Yes.”

  “You knew the lady well?”

  “I knew her enough to recognise her. Yes.”

  “You knew she was engaged in an affair with your CO?”

  “Oh, indeed, sir, yes I did.”

  “When had you last seen her?”

  “Monday, sir. Monday 13th December, sir. When I brought the Colonel down and dropped him off. She asked me to come in for a cup of tea.”

  “Her actual words?”

  “You want to come in for a cup of char, Monkey?’ was what she said.”

  Tommy nodded. “How many people knew of the affair between Colonel Weaving and Mrs Bascombe?”

  “I couldn’t say, sir. I never discussed it with anybody else. It wasn’t common knowledge, I’m sure. I never heard it off anyone else, except the odd jocular remark.”

  “Jocular remark?”

  “Yes, sir. Like, ‘The Colonel’s fond of Wantage. He got a pusher there?”

  “A pusher?”

  “A young woman. A bint. A bit on the side.”

  “And how would you answer that?”

  “I wouldn’t sir. Like I said, it was jocular. I would never discuss it. Only with the Colonel.”

  “You had known him long? The Colonel?”

  “About two-and-a-half years, sir. Since early ’41. I was with him at the formation of No 2 Commando. We both did the course together at Achnacarry. Then we were both sent to the Central Landing School, Ringway. Did the parachute course together, then worked on the ground training course, formulated it. He was a Major then. There was Sarn’t Mulford, Sarn’t Alexander, and Sarn’t Long – Pete Mulford, Pete Alexander and Chris Long. The officers were Major Weaving, Major Hutt – Shed, they call him, Shed Hutt – Captain Sharp, Wilson Sharp, and Captain Puxley, Bomber Puxley. We were all commando trained and had done the required jumps. We worked out what kind of course we should set up: training after the parachute course. Landed from the air, then fought on the ground. We worked out the best training. A lot of street fighting as I recall. A lot of section in defence and attack. A lot of working in pairs, map reading, navigating on the ground. Major Weaving was very antsy about the possibility of being dropped way off the LZ…”

  “LZ?”

  “Target. Landing Zone.”

  Tommy nodded and Sergeant Gibbon continued, “When he did the night jump, Major Weaving landed a mile or so away, in a pond. Didn’t like that.”

  “Yes, I can see the danger…”

  “It’s all bloody dangerous, Guv’nor. They can shoot at you in the air and on the ground. It’s dangerous coming down and dangerous when you get down.”

  “Yes, I understand, Sarn’t. Unpleasant.”

  “Thinking about it’s unpleasant. But, finding my boss and his lady like that. Well…” he shook his head once more and swallowed hard.

  Eventually Tommy asked if these same, named, officers and NCOs were still together.

  “Some of them, yes. We’d just got things set up for ground training when we were all – officers and NCOs – sent off to train as glider coxwains.”

  “Coxwains?”

  “Original name – Glider Coxwains. Didn’t last long. Glider pilots took over.”

  “So you did your training together, you and Colonel Weaving?”

  “The lot, sir, yes. EFTS, then Glider Training and last of all the conversion to heavy gliders.”

  “And you were with him through it all?”

  “Close as a sergeant can be to an officer, yes. When we were moved to Brize for him to take command of the Heavy Glider Conversion Unit I became his Orderly Room Sergeant. Then Sarn’t Major Hardy arrived and took over the Orderly Room and I became his personal sergeant. Like his driver and bodyguard.”

  “A sort of unofficial post?”

  “Not really. Colonel Weaving was the boss. He could appoint who he wanted. He got the people he wanted at Brize.”

  “Who?”

  “The people he’d trained with. People whose measure he knew.”

  “Names.”

  “I already give them to you. Sarn’t Mulford, Sarn’t Alexander, and Sarn’t Long. Officers are Major Hutt, Captain Sharp and Captain Puxley. The Old Firm, the Colonel called it.”

  “And they’re all at Brize Norton?”

  “The lot, sir. Well Major Hutt’s been on leave, so’s Captain Puxley. I think Major Hutt’s been called back – I telephoned the Orderly Room about an hour ago – and Captain Puxley’s expected back tonight. I think that’s how it stands. Oh, and there’s Sarn’t Major Hardy, Pearce Hardy. Bit of a nob, sir. They say he’s an Honourable, like yourself, sir.”

  “You’re well informed.” Tommy reached for his cigarettes and Cathy leaned over to light one for him, using her lighter that she said some boyfriend had made for her. “Turned it on a lathe,” she’d said. Suzie wondered if he’d turned Cathy on a lathe as well.

  “Anyone the Colonel didn’t get on with? Among his officers and NCOs I mean.”

  “Absolutely not, sir. The kind of unit we had would eventually have to fight together – will eventually have to fight together. There’s no room for petty squabbles or bits of resentment knocking around. No, we were a team and Lieutenant Colonel Weaving was the boss. We all obeyed him and worked with him. No rancour, no bitterness. I don’t know about his private life, sir.”

  * * *

  EVENTUALLY TOMMY FINISHED it up, told Suzie that he wanted her to make a thorough check on Tim Weaving’s background, “Parents, siblings, mistresses, children, houses, guineapigs, the lot: the full calamity.” Tommy smiling with the kind of smile you see on determined, but dead, people.

  Sergeant Gibbon was heading str
aight back to Brize Norton and before he left, Tommy rang the aerodrome and let them know that he would expect to be there, and would like to interview the Glider Pilot Regiment training staff tomorrow. He spoke to Captain Sharp advising him that he would like to interview each of the officers and NCOs in turn, and learned they were expecting Major Hutt back later in the evening, and Captain Puxley before midnight. Tommy made a strange, knowing face and took the others off to the murder site, Dennis Free lugging his camera equipment with him. “Dinner at The Bear, Suzie. Seven-thirty on the dot.” Eyebrows arched, “No need to dress.” Then a throaty little laugh, kind of suggestive, but Tommy was always being suggestive.

  Suzie huddled over one of the telephones, making notes and tracking down the numbers of half a dozen departments she needed to speak to at the War Office: people who would give her everything, she was assured, from Tim Weaving’s shoe size to the state of his liver.

  It had gone six o’clock when she was on her third call to find, yet again, that her quarry had already left for the day. She wrote a report on what she’d managed to get – mother and father still living, near Kingsbridge, beautiful Devon, close to wild Dartmoor (which they’d already known because Tommy had spoken to them after a local officer had broken the news). In her head, Suzie sang –

  ‘When Adam and Eve were dispossessed in their garden up in heaven,

  They planted another one out in the West,

  ‘Twas Devon glorious Devon.’

  Her dad had sung that when they holidayed on the west coast, and she didn’t care if the words were right or not.

  Weaving had another girlfriend, Annie Tooks, private income, flat in Knightsbridge; and yet another who sounded a bit of a tart, little flat near Shepherd’s Market. Made a note of it, Julia Richardson. Siblings? One brother and one sister, Ralph and Dorcas. She had just signed the report, put it in an envelope and placed it on Tommy’s desk when the door opened hesitantly and Curry Shepherd slid into the room.

  “Suzie,” he said, with that same charming somewhat sceptical manner that seemed, to Suzie, to be like an engaging stutter of his personality. “You want to … to know about Tim Weaving?” He had a grin, ear to ear and his eyes were lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree, the little candles flickering away in the bottomless grey of his irises.

  “That’s want Tommy wants,” her heart was doing little jerky fast beats and she was again blushing under her clothes while she imagined her breathing was becoming too fast for comfort. In her head she saw the Harvard aircraft she had seen with Tommy, the one flying low over the Market Square on that cloudless sunny Sunday afternoon.

  “Well, old horse, come hither because what I don’t know about Timothy Arthur Weaving ain’t worth knowing. Fancy a jar of something, where we can talk in comfort … er … heart, as Tommy would say?”

  “Well, a crystal goblet’s more in my line, Curry.”

  “Mine as well and I know a nice little place where we won’t be disturbed.”

  Chapter Six

  HE CAME UP from the underground and marched into the gloomy confines of Paddington Station. Marched was the correct word. When he was in uniform he moved smartly, shoulders square, spine straight, looking every inch a man with pride and confidence, oblivious to the filth hanging everywhere.

  Even the air smelled dirty, full of grit and soot while the drabness seemed to transfer itself to the people all around: the soldiers, sailors and airmen, the elderly porters and officials of the Great Western Railway who ran the place. Then there were the civilians with their bloodless faces. Lord how he hated them all. The soldiers in their rough uniforms, sometimes dazed or drunk, rifles slung on their shoulders, going on, or returning from, leave or to a new posting. Tired.

  To Sadler these men were civilians dressed up as soldiers, not the real thing, and how they had run from the Panzers in 1940: the Panzers and the Stukas who played their efficient game of leapfrog across France, Belgium and the Low Countries in that glorious early summer.

  Now he saw others, the sailors with their neat little suitcases, wearing their square rig uniforms with the sailor caps that used to proudly bear the name of the ship in which they served, now reduced to a dull gold simple HMS. And the civilians? All looked fatigued beyond their limits, their faces greyed out, as though they were auditioning for the part of a corpse. Blind leading blind, he thought.

  As he moved steadily towards the noisy public bar on the main concourse, Sadler cursed and fought a battle deep inside himself. Why in heaven’s name had he taken such a risk? Two dead and the police climbing all over Wantage. What on earth had possessed him? A kind of bravado? The need to share what he was doing with others?

  The killing didn’t worry him, except for a few nasty moments with the woman. Possibly it was the need to show off, to declare himself to Linnet? After all he couldn’t possibly have done it without Linnet. His friends in Occupied Europe didn’t know about Linnet because when he first suggested it – in an encrypted signal – they slapped him down.

  If I find a suitable recruit, who could assist in my work, have I the right to use him without reference to you? The answer came back, volleyed on the return: On no account recruit anybody. Trying to recruit would put your own status at grave risk.

  And now what was the result? Two lives for nothing. The woman knew nothing and the man, Tim Weaving, was brave. Yes, everybody cracks in the end, but you require more sophisticated methods than either of them had to hand. In the end what had he got? The code name of the operation. Overlord, which they almost certainly knew already; and the fact that airborne troops would take part, several thousand airborne troops. By parachute and glider. For God’s sake, the OKW (High Command of the Armed Forces) would be thick as glue if they didn’t know that already. After all they had led the way, and demonstrated it in May 1940, at the ‘impregnable’ Belgian strategic fortress Eben Emael, together with the three major bridges across the River Meuse; as well as in Holland. Then again in May ’41 when they captured Crete using only airborne forces.

  The last little obvious piece of information he had ripped out of Weaving was that the Overlord plans also contained a vast deception operation, crammed with strategic and tactical moves of misdirection. But on all these points there was no detail: no collateral; nothing to back up the bare flimsy information.

  He sighed, pushing his anger away; aware of the stupid mistake, but forced to go on.

  They always sent a different courier. Sadler used to be amazed that there were so many women in England who supported the Nazi cause: the women were all British, ghosts like himself. Then he realised, quite quickly, that they supported no Nazi cause, they did it for pin money and had no idea what it was about. He also saw they were all friends of Julia’s, and Julia thought she was working for the Swedes anyway.

  Odd about Julia because it was through Tim Weaving that he had first met her. “Smashing girl,” Tim had said. “Must take you to meet her she’s a really splendid popsie. Not a tart mind you: nice girl, good girl. Only does it for friends. Has no enemies, eh? I’m engaged to her actually,” and he laughed like a drain, and in many ways she was a good girl, good family, top drawer, good clothes, spoke beautifully, had this wizard flat, wonderful taste, never wanted for anything. You could take her anywhere.

  To keep him operational the Abwehr wanted him to believe they had a considerable supporting cast floating around him, to make him more confident, keep him happy. First there was the way in which contact was made: not as secure as he would like, a FLAXman telephone number: Julia’s number. The first time it had been Julia herself and after that he saw her occasionally, just for a spot of the usual. Then he was told to meet in a certain place, and abide by rituals and safety precautions, like those ordered for tonight.

  The rule was to meet in a crowded place, as now in the humming main bar on the concourse at Paddington Station, noisy and brash, stinking of beer and deep within a cumulous of grey, choking cigarette smoke, a lot of uniforms interspersed with homeward bou
nd shuttlers from as far away as Reading or Oxford grabbing a fast drink before doing the return journey to their chosen provincial bolt hole; terrified of the night.

  And there she was, perky little hat, dark coat designed and made by someone with more than a passing knowledge of military tailoring; black leather bag on the small table, blue paper packet of Players cigarettes angled precisely against the ashtray next to a copy of the Evening News, and the leather gloves poking from the open bag, the sign that it was safe to approach. He also had a copy of the Evening News, folded and held in the right hand, while she smoked cautiously, holding the cigarette between neatly manicured fingers, the nails a startling crimson, the rings precise, in particular the intricate gold Greek puzzle ring on the little finger of her left hand – the final identification.

  Folded inside his copy of the Evening News was an envelope with the information neatly typed in a series of coded groups.

  He had been told to call her Dorothy, which he did now, sweeping down on her and planting a kiss, flamboyantly continental, on each cheek. “Darling,” she said quietly. “How lovely. Thought you’d never get here.”

  “Usual,” he grinned. “Bloody train was late, but I’ve got the whole weekend.”

  “Isn’t that marvellous. You said so on the phone.”

  “Darling,” he said and they locked eyes as he slid his copy of the Evening News on top of her’s, ready to make the switch now that they’d recited the coded passwords.

  “Want to stay here or go on to the hotel?” he asked, and she started to gather up her things, including his newspaper.

  The information would go to Julia and from her to the Swedish Embassy. From there it would pass to a particular person in the Defence Ministry at Stockholm. From Stockholm the coded groups would be sent swiftly to Hamburg and Berlin. Much good would it do them.

  * * *

  CURRY SHEPHERD HAD a car. It was parked round the corner from the nick in Mill Street, an expensive, dull green Vauxhall Ten. “The wonderful thing is I can get as much petrol as I want,” he told her, handing her into the front passenger seat.