The Mathematical Bridge

by Jim Kelly

  ‘Children,’ said Walsh, motioning for them to sit. ‘This is Detective Inspector Brooke, from the police. He’s trying to find who took Sean, who wanted to hurt him. There’s nothing to fear. He simply has questions. Speak up if you can help with the answers.’

  Brooke noted that despite the head’s mild manner and the friendly tone, the children had listened to him in complete silence. One of the girls at the front had produced a handkerchief and held it over her mouth. The boys’ good humour had evaporated entirely. As Brooke took up a position in front of the blackboard every child followed the movement, transfixed.

  The story of the evacuees’ journey to Cambridge and St Alban’s was quickly established. They’d parted with their parents at King’s Cross and boarded a special train which had separate compartments, with a single corridor. Sean had shared with five other children but had made particular friends with John McQuillan.

  McQuillan stood up when asked. As a policeman in uniform, Brooke had noted the effect authority could have on a child. This was of a different order. The boy looked terrified.

  ‘Did Sean say he was happy, or unhappy? How was he, John?’

  The boy’s shoulders were in constant squirming motion. ‘Dunno,’ he said.

  ‘John,’ warned Mrs Walsh. ‘Speak nicely.’

  ‘Don’t know, sir.’

  ‘Did he cry when you all left London?’

  ‘Only the girls cried.’ The boy fidgeted, pulling up a sleeve on his jumper to reveal an ink-spotted pale arm. Brooke caught a glimpse of a sketch of a football corner flag, carrying the letters QPR.

  ‘Did you speak to any adults on the train?’

  He shook his head. ‘Sean and I talked about football. Then we played I spy. We had to spot church spires and cows. A woman gave us squash, and a bun.’

  ‘Yes. And you played hangman, didn’t you?’

  McQuillan looked wary. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And Sean won?’

  McQuillan nodded.

  ‘Then what? What happened when you got to Cambridge?’

  The boy was clearly tongue-tied, so Brooke motioned with his hand for him to sit down.

  A confident girl called Alice took up the story. ‘They gave us squash again outside the station. There was a van, with a counter … And there was a sweet shop too, and if anyone had pocket money they could spend it. Then we all had to use the toilet. A woman showed us where, because they said it was a walk to the school. Then Mr Smith arrived and said we’d to follow him. So we did.’

  Mr Smith, Mr Walsh explained, was the school caretaker.

  ‘A man gave us flags,’ offered McQuillan, eager to reclaim the story. ‘Mr Smith didn’t see because he was at the front. But we took the flags.’

  The other children joined in to describe the man handing out flags. Large, in a donkey jacket, with dirty fingernails. They’d all waved the Union Flags in their double line, holding hands.

  ‘They try to welcome the evacuees,’ explained Walsh. ‘They give out flags, or balloons, or sweets. Even cakes.’

  ‘I didn’t like the man,’ said one of the girls confidently. ‘He smelt of whisky,’ she added, then flushed, perhaps realising she’d given too much away about life at home.

  ‘Where was this?’ asked Brooke.

  One of the other boys, slightly older than the rest, had a clear memory. ‘There was a memorial, to the Great War. A soldier striding along. I liked him.’

  Brooke nodded. ‘The Homecoming’ was a statue at the bottom of Station Road. A bareheaded young soldier marched into town, with a glance towards the station as if expecting his comrades to join him. The figure was joyful, victorious, and the warrior carried a laurel wreath. The soldier was modelled on a friend of Brooke’s from his student days, a Trinity man who had indeed marched back victorious, or at least alive.

  ‘Did he say anything?’ asked Brooke. ‘The man with the flags?’

  ‘He said the flag was for me – Mary,’ said one girl. ‘We all had our labels, so he could see. He told Patrick that it was a good name to have, didn’t he?’

  Patrick nodded.

  ‘Did he read all of your labels?’

  Several children nodded.

  ‘What did he sound like – did he have an Irish accent?’

  None of them spoke, but several nodded.

  The rest of their first day had run to a strict schedule. The children were given a meal in the church, asked to make up their overnight ‘beds’ on the pews, and then taken to the school playground, where Mr Smith organised games. They were back inside by six, where they had tea, and Father Ward read them stories. They’d had a singalong, with Mrs Aitken at the piano. The doors were locked, a register taken and the lights turned out.

  Brooke asked to see the caretaker before he left. Joe Smith, who they found shovelling snow in the playground, turned out to be a surprise: twenties, fresh-faced, he’d taken the job while waiting to be called up. His father was already out with the expeditionary force in France. His accent was pure London East End. Even leaning on his shovel, he projected a sense of potential motion: knees rising perhaps, arms pumping, as he ran into the distance.

  Walsh told him that they’d found Sean’s body in the river.

  They all stood in silence until the head teacher rested a hand on the young man’s broad shoulders.

  ‘An athlete, our Joe,’ he said. ‘He runs like the wind, up at six and off along the river like a whippet. And he’s a wonder with a football in the playground.’

  This recommendation delivered, Walsh seemed suddenly crestfallen, as if he’d realised that he’d traduced the general air of grief. ‘I must go and tell Father Ward the news,’ he said. He hurried away, back into the warmth of the school.

  Brooke asked the caretaker about the man who’d given out flags, but the children were right, he’d not seen him, and he’d been astounded at Speaker’s Corner, on the edge of Parker’s Piece, when he’d turned back to see the children waving their flags.

  ‘Not a sign of ’im. But they all had the flags, and wavin’ like mad. It was a sight. It certainly cheered ’em up. A few people clapped an’ all. People on the street, a few on park benches. It’s good to see. A welcome really.’

  ‘Did you meet Sean later, in the playground?’

  ‘Oh yeah. I’ve got to know John since – John McQuillan – and they stuck together that first day. They was both football mad. Good too, I got ’em overlapping, tracking back, keepy-uppy. They had skills, no question.’

  Brooke stepped closer to Smith. ‘I’m sorry to ask this. We’re pretty certain it is Sean we’ve found, but it would help to be sure.’

  Smith nodded, rearranging his feet as if called on parade.

  ‘I’m going to see his parents in London now. They have the right to know quickly. We will need a formal identification. That may take a few days to arrange. It would be a great help to me if I could be certain of the child’s identity now. Would you – could you – identify the body for us unofficially? It would take a moment.’

  The colour drained from Smith’s energetic face. ‘Yes. Of course. If it helps. I can see his face now. So I could, yes. But there’s still hope is there – that there’s been a mistake, and it’s some other kid?’

  Brooke replaced his hat. ‘I’ll get my sergeant to send a car. Perhaps an hour, no more.’

  He touched the hat rim and turned away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Brooke slept fitfully on the train, opening his eyes between troubled bouts of unconsciousness to see the winter landscape rattling past. Descending the shallow funnel of the Lee Valley, shadowing an ice-locked river, they reached the north London suburbs, smoke from factories obscuring dismal streets where, in contrast to the Fens, the snow seemed to be in retreat. Barrage balloons squatted over a colony of gasometers in Hackney, and a tram, running alongside the tracks, shed lurid sparks from the pantograph above, which seemed to glide along the wires. Then they were in Liverpool Street, the concourse packed with soldier
s, smoking, camped out on kit bags. The reek of damp clothes was overpowering.

  Outside, the air was freighted with coal and petrol. He found a call box and rang the Spinning House. The sergeant had a note to hand: Joe Smith had no doubt, the boy in Dr Comfort’s morgue was Sean Flynn. Brooke replaced the receiver, let the change chug from the metal box and stepped out into the bustling city. On the Tube, forced to play sardines, he thought the general mood was sombre, even defeated, which was odd, given the war was yet to start in earnest. Perhaps it was the thought of the dull sacrifices to come: hunger, cold and separation.

  In contrast his present task was simple enough. He had to tell Mrs Flynn that the body had been found and that it was her son, although a member of the family would have to complete the official identification. Finding his killer was the Borough’s priority. All available officers were currently trying to hunt down the mysterious man who’d handed the children flags while making sure he read the labels attached to their suitcases and cuffs. Was he a local character? Uniform branch would check the shops, the pubs. The donkey-jacketed Irishman was their prime suspect, and a close match, superficially, for both Dr Bodart’s lumpen Celt, seen at Newton’s factory moments before the bomb blast, and Patrick O’Leary, labourer of Honey Hill. He’d tell Mrs Flynn an arrest was imminent. It might help.

  From East Acton Underground station, he set off down Uxbridge Road, then turned into a district of comfortable three-storey villas. Askew Road was very different. Here were smaller cottages, two-up two-down, but of a superior quality, with small neat gardens in front and fresh paintwork in various Victorian colours, a detail which gave the game away. A single colour would have signalled a common landlord, but the variation pointed to ownership.

  Number 36 was like the rest save for a poster in the downstairs window: ARP WARDEN.

  Brooke knocked, took his hat off and held it at his chest, slipping his glasses into a top pocket.

  The woman who answered the door was in a pinafore, slightly flushed with some domestic task. Brooke would have placed her age at between thirty and forty. Squinting into the darkness of the hallway he thought her eyes were green and striking, set wide in a plump face.

  ‘Mrs Mary Flynn?’

  ‘Yes. What’s wrong?’ At some level she knew already, because she took a quick step backwards and nearly fell, one hand leaving a white floury handprint on the wallpaper.

  ‘Detective Inspector Brooke, Mrs Flynn. From Cambridge. I think Shepherd’s Bush sent a constable round about Sean.’

  She nodded, dropping her hands to her apron, working out the truth on a more conscious level. If Sean had been found alive they’d have relayed another message through the local constable. This strange, pale man, with amber-tinted glasses, stood before her like an undertaker at the graveside.

  She rallied. ‘I see. Of course. Come in.’

  She told him to take a seat while she fetched her son Bobbie, as her husband was at work. Brooke said he could come back later, but she shook her head. Somewhere in the house he heard a muffled conversation, and then quite distinctly the sound of sobbing.

  Brooke waited. The room was tiny but set out in a cameo of middle-class suburban life, with a mantelpiece, three armchairs, a tiled grate and a table inlaid with the image of an elephant carrying a potentate.

  When Mrs Flynn returned her eyes were red, her cheeks wet. Bobbie was a teenager, in working boots and a collarless shirt, and he stood behind his mother as she took a seat. The boy stared belligerently at Brooke.

  ‘I’m afraid it is bad news,’ said Brooke.

  Her head dipped. Bobbie made a move towards his mother but then took a step back.

  ‘We retrieved the body of a boy from the river. The school caretaker has identified him as Sean. Obviously, we must arrange for a formal identification by a member of the family, but I don’t think there’s much doubt …’ Brooke had promised himself that he’d use the word itself – ‘dead’ – because in the long run it was therapeutic, but his courage had failed him at the last. So much for the hero of the desert.

  Mrs Flynn seemed to be studying Brooke’s lips.

  Bobbie overcame his inertia and gripped his mother’s shoulders. ‘Sorry, Mum,’ he said.

  ‘Gerald, my husband, said we should fear the worst,’ she said. ‘So we are prepared.’ Her eyes had begun to focus on the mid-distance and the blood had drained from her face, leaving thin lips slightly blue.

  She patted her son’s hand and he fled, presumably to the kitchen, as they listened to the sound of cups and a tap running.

  ‘Bobbie’s got shift work on the railway, stoking coal. He’s on a double today, again. He’s tired, worn out really. We all are. He’ll be old enough by the spring, and then he’ll be gone too.’

  This gave Brooke a glimpse of the nightmare with which she lived.

  ‘The Royal Engineers, like his big brother,’ she added.

  By the time Bobbie appeared with a tea tray she was crying again, but the breakdown of appearances seemed to help. Without prompting she told Brooke what Sean was like: a bit of a loner, the baby of the family. Bobbie sat with his tea on the floor, his back against the wall, his feet to the unlit fire, nodding agreement. As his mother spoke her accent was more fully revealed, an Irish brogue emerging from behind a brittle English, middle-class screen.

  ‘Can you think of any reason why someone would want to do this to Sean?’ asked Brooke. ‘We think – in fact, we’re convinced – that someone killed your son. It wasn’t a random act of violence, it was planned and executed. Do you see?’

  There must have been a railway nearby because in the sudden silence they heard the clash of couplings.

  ‘It’s not a pervert, is it?’ asked Bobbie, his fists balled.

  ‘No. Not that. We have to believe that whoever did this knew his victim – or at least knew of him. Does the family have any enemies, anyone who’d wish to do you harm?’

  ‘We’ll talk to Dad,’ said Bobbie. ‘But we’re just a family.’ He shrugged. ‘We’re not important.’

  Brooke felt this was a curious statement. Bobbie’s place in this family, his emotional position, seemed out of kilter. While his mother grieved, he seemed shocked – even disturbed – but also somehow disengaged, intermittently angry or disinterested.

  ‘He could have gone last year with the rest,’ said his mother, already blaming herself. ‘I just couldn’t bear it. The parting. So we hung on. Most of his class went to Essex in August. The whole school. A few stayed, but it was no fun for Sean. And if it did start, the bombing, it might be too late. Gerald said we should use our heads, not our hearts. St Alban’s was the last chance, so we took it.’

  She pressed her hand quickly against her lips as if she’d said something terrible. Brooke could tell that the reality of her son’s death was coming into focus. What could she see? A grave, perhaps. A coffin.

  ‘You were born in Ireland, Mrs Flynn?’ Brooke asked. It was a curious fact that while the house was laden with pictures and ornaments, not a single item echoed a Gaelic influence of any kind.

  Her chin came up. ‘Yes. Cork.’

  ‘And your husband?’

  ‘Dublin. But he came here as a child. Grandma lives in Kilburn. Grandpa’s dead. We’re Londoners now.’

  ‘And your family?’

  ‘I’ve not been back, not for a few years.’ She glanced at some Christmas cards still on the mantelpiece. ‘I’ve registered at the police station, so’s Gerald. We’ve done nothing wrong.’

  Brooke nodded, running a finger round the rim of his hat, studying the boy, who seemed reluctant to meet his eyes.

  ‘Sean’s death – certainly his abduction – coincided to some degree with a bomb attack in the city by the IRA organisation. One of many around the country, of course. Nevertheless, a pointed coincidence.’

  Bobbie actually laughed. ‘You’ll find no sympathy for that cause here, Inspector. This is our country now. Dad’s for making our lives here. We work, we don’t dream.
That’s what he says.’

  ‘No friends, workmates, neighbours, with such sympathies? Violence is a last resort, but surely others support the wider aim – a united Ireland.’

  ‘Dad says we have no time for politics.’ Bobbie levelled a finger at Brooke. ‘The copper who called said Sean just slipped away, that he’d slept in a church but wasn’t there in the morning? How does that happen? Whose fault is that?’

  His mother looked shocked. ‘Bobbie. Don’t.’

  ‘It’s alright,’ said Brooke. He outlined the facts as they had them. Sean’s abduction was as yet unexplained. He might have been taken from the church, or slipped away himself and then been abducted later, from the street.

  Brooke considered withholding the details of the child’s final minutes, but decided they deserved an account, in part – his account.

  ‘A college porter saw him in the river. He cried out for help.’

  Mrs Flynn rocked back slightly in her chair.

  ‘I’m sorry. The water was icy cold, so he wouldn’t have suffered. I got a boat and caught sight of him downriver, but I’m sure it was too late. It was over very quickly.’

  Brooke wondered if any lie he’d ever told had brought such comfort.

  ‘We will find who did this, Mrs Flynn. I can promise you that,’ he said, standing, pushing his hat into shape. It was a rash promise, and it made him think of Rose’s warning: Don’t take it personal.

  Bobbie stood too, studying his mother. ‘I can miss a shift, stick around?’ he offered.

  She shook her head. ‘No. Go to work. Can you phone your father from the yard?’

  Bobbie nodded.

  ‘I’ll go to church now,’ she said.

  They all left together, walking along the crowded streets to the Church of the Holy Blood on the corner. Bobbie embraced his mother, then disappeared down a flight of concrete steps into the Underground. His mother repeated arrangements for her visit to Cambridge: she’d get the train arriving at just after ten. Brooke said a car would take her to the Spinning House. A formal identification would take place in the Galen Building.