The Mathematical Bridge

by Jim Kelly

  Back inside the signal box it took the engineer ten minutes to answer the captain’s questions. The turntable had to be fixed. Cambridge had no other means of efficiently controlling the munitions trains which were ferrying arms to the East Coast ports. There was no Y junction allowing a train to execute a three-point turn, there was no balloon loop allowing a stately circular turn, although there was one twenty miles north at Ely. To use that would add hours to timetables, but it was the only quick fix. The turntable needed reconstructing. It might be done in three months.

  Brooke had heard enough.

  ‘You said the blast was perfectly timed. That could only be done by eye?’

  The captain nodded, looking at Brooke for the first time. ‘Yes – line of sight. You’re right, of course. Unless they were just plain lucky. But it doesn’t look lucky, does it? It looks like someone smart worked it out.’

  Brooke heard dogs barking. ‘They’re searching the yards?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. They keep dogs to check the trains. Who knows if they can pick up a trail.’

  Brooke followed the sound of the hounds. A path led under the mainline, through a damp tunnel, and out into the fields beyond. The dogs were ahead, a pack of half a dozen, glimmering against the snow, pulling the handlers ahead. The concerted baying suggested a scent had been found.

  The ground rose to the north to a line of trees, in the lee of which stood a little church his father had always called the Leper Chapel, a perfect Norman jewel swathed in a sand dune of snow so that its roofline was almost lost from sight. Once it had been a refuge for outcasts; now the dogs were on the heels of another.

  Brooke tried to run in the snow, his boots sliding left and right so that he had to study the rutted path left by the men. When he looked up he was surprised to see them coming back, led by a large man in a railway guard’s uniform, a shirt open at the throat as if out with his dogs on a summer’s evening.

  Brooke showed his warrant card.

  ‘Nothing to see,’ said the guard. ‘Footprints run out down by the road. Then there’s tyre marks. He’d have needed wheels to haul the bomb this close. It was a hell of a blast. Even then, he can’t be a weakling.’

  Brooke thanked them and walked on. The path led to the road, perfectly covered in a shroud of snow, except for the tyre marks. But the guard had missed one crucial detail. The geometry of tracks was too complex to decipher, but twenty yards up the lane the pattern was clear. There were six crisp lines, three coming in, three going out, and no double-tracks where rear wheels ran over front wheels. The narrow axle length confirmed Brooke’s diagnosis: a three-wheeled van. Not unique, but difficult to hide.

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  Brooke headed for the Nile cot in his office. The couch was designated as a daybed, but while he collapsed on it when he felt his body struggling with wakefulness, it rarely rewarded him with sleep. If he really wanted oblivion he took a cell below, but tonight the whole building was a hive. Officers came and went. The chief constable had made an unprecedented second appearance, a Cambridge News photographer in tow. Brooke had spotted several military cars in the station yard below. So he’d retreated to the third floor and hid behind the slatted blinds, feet up. Top-level discussions were taking place in Carnegie-Brown’s office. Before he threw himself into the fray Brooke needed rest: ten minutes, a half-hour, anything. And for once the gift of sleep was his. The walk over the snowfields to the Leper Chapel had left him chilled, cold to the bone, so that the sudden institutional warmth of the Spinning House felled him like a tree.

  Edison woke him with a cup of tea. Dawn was visible through the blinds.

  The sergeant theatrically dropped a bunch of heavy keys onto Brooke’s desk as he sipped from his own cup.

  ‘Walsh’s, the ones we got off his belt. I decided to take them into protective custody last night when you left for the hospital. It took a while, but I whittled them down quick enough: keys for the church, the school, the cottage. Which left this.’ Edison held out his hand to reveal an old iron key with a crude block blade. ‘The wife had left the cottage open, so I had a nose around.’

  Edison coughed, the closest he would ever get to admitting a breach of regulation, let alone the law. ‘Sure enough, there was a door under the stairs to a small cellar. Key worked smoothly enough, in fact it had been well oiled. Not much downstairs but a square of concrete, swept clean, and some sacks, almost empty, containing a dry, caustic powder. County’s got a man they use from the university, he’ll give us chapter and verse, but I took a handful down to a chemist I know with a shop in Chettisham. He was a bit sleepy, but he’d no doubt: potassium chloride. If we’re talking Paxo, this stuff is the sage to go with the onion and the salt. A lethal combination.’

  Edison sat down with a satisfied sigh.

  ‘And it’s all gone?’ asked Brooke.

  ‘But for a few grains. I reckon the rest went to blow this locomotive off its rails. That’ll be Smith’s work.’

  ‘Walsh was an accomplice,’ said Brooke, shaking his head. ‘Hardly your desperate Fenian hero, is he?’

  ‘Takes all sorts.’

  Brooke told Edison to rest, while he fetched fresh tea from the canteen. In an eloquent gesture of commendation, he added biscuits.

  The repercussions of the discovery were clear to them both, but Brooke, on his feet at the window, spelt them out nonetheless.

  ‘So Walsh is part of the cell – either by free choice or, more likely, coercion. The bomb factory’s in his cellar, which begs the question: how much did the wife know? Or suspect. The arrival of young Sean threatens to expose Walsh, which puts them all at risk at a vital moment, not least in that it would wipe out their hold over Walsh. The child dies. How? That, we still don’t know. Walsh will talk, when he can, because there’s nothing left to hide. But he may not know it all.’

  Edison fled to the sergeants’ room to check on the hunt for Joe Smith. Brooke checked with Addenbrooke’s by phone on the condition of the head teacher. Liam Walsh had been sedated and would be asleep or unconscious for at least six hours, possibly more. There was concern about the strength of his heart. When Brooke got off the line the girl on switchboard informed him that the detective chief inspector wished to see him in her office. The exact phrase was one of Carnegie-Brown’s most chilling: At your earliest convenience.

  She greeted him with a nod to the empty chair in front of her impressive desk. She’d spent an hour with the chief constable, a former military officer and a newly ennobled peer, and there was an air of suppressed irritation in her manner.

  ‘Smoke if you wish,’ she said, producing a silver box, neatly filled with her chosen brand, and a tartan lighter.

  ‘To some extent we can relax,’ she added, after a lungful of nicotine. ‘It’s the judgement of the military at Madingley, but most importantly Scotland Yard, that our bomber will have moved on. So far in this campaign each cell has delivered a maximum of two explosions. The bad news is this second bomb is conspicuously more sophisticated than its predecessors. The Home Office have issued a D-notice, so it won’t make the papers, not this year at least. There will be a sweep of known IRA sympathisers in Liverpool, Birmingham, West London, Glasgow. There is a—’

  She slipped on a pair of glasses and checked a note on her blotter.

  ‘There is a “total determination” to limit the S-Plan’s effectiveness. But as I say, the caravan has moved on, largely in pursuit of Smith. We are left with the job of clearing up the local cell – and making sure Smith is not still in the city. Which, frankly, is extremely unlikely. Especially if, as you report, he has access to a vehicle. This man Walsh sounds like a local recruit. So he won’t know anything of any real import.’

  ‘He may know who killed the child.’

  ‘Indeed. But the priority is Smith, Brooke. He may be a senior figure in the S-Plan, despite his age. Or because of it. So if we can find him we must. This vehicle?’

  Brooke filled her in on the three-wheeler.

&nb
sp; ‘It’s too conspicuous parked on the street,’ said Brooke. ‘So there’s a garage somewhere. We’re on to it now, ma’am.’

  ‘I see. Keep me up to date. Then we need to move on.’

  She flipped a file closed and opened another.

  ‘Which brings us to the royal visit. Downing Street were reviewing the schedule, but I suspect there will be a determination not to be intimidated. If the railway bomb stays out of the papers, off the radio, why cancel a VIP visit to our fair city? You can see the logic. So liaise with County, Brooke. We need the security to be watertight. I’m told a thaw is coming too, so the football match is very much the highlight of the day. The prince is apparently looking forward to the game keenly. His safety is our duty. I’m sure I can rely on you.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  Brooke spent a day at his desk, largely putting in place the final details for the visit of HRH Prince Henry, as directed, and liaising with the Home Office on border checks for the runaway caretaker. A package containing Smith’s mugshot was to be shipped to officials on the Isle of Man, to complement those circulated to the ports. All the major rail companies were asked to keep watch at main stations, especially at terminals in London and Glasgow.

  Brooke made regular calls to Addenbrooke’s, but Walsh was still too ill, or drugged, to speak. His wife had not left his side. If they couldn’t tackle Walsh soon, and the dutiful Kathleen, they’d have to get answers elsewhere. What did the parish priest and his housekeeper know of Walsh’s secret, and Smith’s for that matter? Had they been reluctant accomplices? Brooke placed a radio car at the church to keep a round-the-clock watch on the scene. He didn’t want another bird to fly.

  He caught up with Edison at the counter of the British Restaurant, a government-run canteen round the corner, which served up hearty meals. Over their heads, largely unseen by the workers eating below, stretched a fine plaster ceiling depicting pincers and compasses in trompe l’oeil, evidence of the building’s former life as a Masonic hall. The setting gave the menu a slight lift. Over meat (unspecified) and two veg (examined by Edison with all the dignity of a veteran of the allotment), they discussed the chances of tracking down Smith’s three-wheeler.

  Edison had not been idle. The maintenance of three-wheelers was in some respects a specialist task. The engine, and its fuel mix of petrol and oil, were essentially those of a motorcycle. There were six garages in the town which offered the expertise, although any petrol pump could be used for fuel as long as the garage could provide two-stroke oil for the mixture in the tank, although some drivers carried their own supply.

  They split the list of a dozen in half and went their separate ways.

  Outside it was cold, but not bitter. Carnegie-Brown was right, a cool thaw was in the air, a tonic after hours in the fetid office. The first garage owner recalled no three-wheelers at all. The popular ‘handyman’s van’ required little maintenance, Brooke was told, which was why it was used by several small businesses in town. Most owners were motorbike enthusiasts who could undertake maintenance work in-house at much reduced costs. In fact, such was the fascination with the two-stroke engine, most preferred to do it themselves.

  ‘Frankly, it’s more difficult to stop the sodding engine than start it. They’re bloody marvellous,’ said the first garage owner. ‘So we don’t see hide nor hair, ’cept for fuel.’

  Brooke strode on, an early sunset leaving the roadside snowdrifts splashed with orange and gold. The second garage operator had two or three regular customers, but none had an Irish accent or an East End accent. Ditto garages three, four and five.

  The Crossways Garage stood on the old coast road a mile north of the Upper Town. A bleak stretch of single carriageway ran into the distance towards the Fens. The owner offered Brooke tea, as he said he looked tired and desperate, and his own son was a constable in London, although he’d be called up soon enough. He had four three-wheeler owners on his regular books, but none of them fitted any aspect of the description Brooke offered, and were otherwise forgettable.

  ‘You get the odd one-off customer, a course,’ he added. ‘I had one a month ago, less. Thought he was a Yank and I said so and he just laughed. You see ’em about a lot now – you noticed? Pilots I reckon, checking out the air bases. If it kicks off perhaps they’ll come to the rescue, eh?

  ‘He came in the once, as I say. The brake cables had gone and that’s a terrible job, ’cause they rust inside the plastic coating. You have to drag ’em out. So I did. He helped, actually. So we had a bit of a chat. Nice bloke. Don’t recall anything about the van – sorry.’ He shrugged. ‘He never came back.’

  Brooke gazed into the small stove. Outside the light was almost gone.

  The owner lit a pipe. ‘I saw him again, mind. Least I think I did. It’s a small town. I was down by the Old Ferry, you know it?’

  Brooke nodded. It was the inn at the foot of Pound Hill, a hundred yards from Honey Hill.

  ‘I saw him opposite on foot, coming out of a lane there that goes down to the river, the back of the colleges. I remember alright, because we passed in the street and he cut me dead, but he’d been as nice as you like when he wanted something done.’

  It took Brooke twenty minutes to reach the spot.

  The pub was open, with two great fires alight, and working men clustered round both at the end of the day.

  He sat at a bay window with a half-pint watching the world go by. It was a busy street at going-home time, the pavements treacherous, slushy and wet, dusk falling. The lane opposite was a narrow alley, no wider than a standard car, snaking off between shops. Watching for twenty minutes, nobody left, nobody came.

  After half an hour he crossed the road and walked down the little street. That day’s fresh snowfall was soft. Meltwater gurgled in drainpipes. At the bottom of the track there was a large medieval barn-like building, with carved stone lintels, and a once-grand arched doorway. Beyond it, across a meadow, was St John’s College. A small slate sign had been etched with the address:

  The School of Pythagoras

  Up close, Brooke could see that the building was almost derelict, although the roof was sound. A set of double doors led into the ‘barn’ end, and these were held fast by a padlock and a heavy chain. Over this doorway was a small shelter, made of tin, which had been latched onto the old stonework, to offer some protection for the archway. Across the snow beneath ran the ghost of three parallel tyre marks.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  Brooke set out at a striding pace for his old college, over the Great Bridge, and through Bridgetown beyond, where shop window lights were reflected in the icy street. Darkness was freezing the tentative thaw. Under the shadow of the tower of St John’s he turned away into the old ghetto. Here the snow had gone from the narrow alleyways, but the damp stones were glassed with ice, so that his brogues skidded and skimmed, and he had to use both hands to brace himself between the narrowing walls. At Michaelhouse he didn’t need to use his signet ring to deliver the coded knock, for the door stood open, students tumbling in, heading for open fires and dinner.

  Doric, signing in a visitor, must have just come on duty, because he still wore the black coat and bowler hat provided by the college. Brooke stepped past and into the panelled room beyond without a word, until, out of sight, he took the seat within the chimney breast beside the glowing coals. This room, which he’d admired as an undergraduate, had the weathered, polished patina of a ship’s cabin. The juxtaposition of the busy front counter and this hidden bolthole was deeply comforting.

  The porter, free of visitors, joined him.

  ‘Freezing, but the river’s lost its ice,’ said Doric, taking off the bowler and setting it delicately on a brass hook, but leaving on the greatcoat. Standing before the fire he executed a kind of stationary march, alternatively lifting his feet an inch or two and then setting them down again. Brooke imagined this habit had come from standing sentry in the dark cold nights in the Cape or the Transvaal.

  ‘I need your help,�
� said Brooke. ‘Do you know the night porter at St John’s?’

  Not only did he know him, he knew of the School of Pythagoras.

  ‘They rent it out, Mr Brooke, and it’s no end of trouble, that’s what Griffiths says – he’s my oppo. Always grumbling he is, because the tenants don’t pay up one week, then they’re off the next. Which is a shame, he says, because one of the fellows, a historian, insists it’s the oldest house in the county – let alone the city. Older than the university, Mr Brooke.’ Doric paused for effect. ‘Never was a school neither, and nothing to do with this Pythagoras.’

  Doric’s fingers fluttered. ‘He says the family that built it sold it to a college in Oxford of all places, and they sent students there as a retreat. Perhaps some of ’em were mathematicians, that might explain it.’

  It was a long speech, and Doric seemed exhausted, so he shrugged off the coat and took a chair, set to one side, from which he could see the counter. Again, his feet began to shuffle, as if he was at the paddles of the college organ.

  ‘It’s the present tenant I’m after,’ said Brooke. ‘Do me a favour, Doric. Ring this Griffiths, tell him that a constable will call to pick up the keys. I need to conduct a search and leave a watchman. Tell him to keep it all under his hat.’

  In the end, Brooke went himself, unable to set aside his curiosity. The porter gave over the key with a brief nod, having been forewarned by a call from Doric. According to the records the current tenant was a farmer named Jackson, with an address in the Fens, near Chatteris. Brooke worked his way through the college’s old courts, then over the Bridge of Sighs, to the Victorian buildings. Beyond that lay the old barn. It stood looking across a wide field upon which had been built several snowmen, two with college scarves, all of them frozen now, but slumped slightly, waiting for the thaw to begin again the next day.

  The door was half a foot thick and opened on oiled hinges, the key turning with ease.