by Jim Kelly
‘They said I’d to help. That it was for a just cause and there would be no deaths. None. They promised.’
His role was limited to chemistry: he had to store the chemicals, mix the explosive charge and set the fuse. The factory was in his basement, but Kathleen was often at school, following a strict timetable, and so the secret was easy to keep. His wife knew nothing.
The dates for the bomb attacks were fixed, along with further assurances that no casualties were planned, but the targets were a secret Smith kept alone. Then, with days to go before the first blast, the paperwork from the diocese in Shepherd’s Bush showed that Sean Flynn would soon be a pupil at St Alban’s.
‘I told them I’d ride my luck,’ said Walsh. ‘I hadn’t seen the boy for nearly three years. I wasn’t even sure he knew I existed. When his mother visited, I could disappear. I said I’d deal with it. They said they’d deal with it. The boy would be taken somewhere safe until the targets had been hit.’
Walsh’s eyes had flooded, and he leant over, throwing the window wider and watching the white streaks in the light, the wet snow falling.
Brooke shook his head. ‘But when you found Sean had gone … When we found his body …’
Walsh held his head in both hands. ‘I found Smith in the cellar. He said they’d planned to keep the boy safe, that there’d been an accident. But we were to keep to the plan. I still had a lot to lose,’ he said. ‘Kathleen, my job, the child to come. He said I’d to lie low. I couldn’t bring him back to life, could I?’ The blood had rushed to his face, and his hands were shaking violently.
Sister Heggarty stood, checking her fob watch.
‘There’s worse,’ said Walsh. ‘They knew I had a picture of Mary. I’d shown them once, by the fire in the cellar: the woman I’d left behind. They took it from me. Joe gave it to Colm and said it was “insurance”. If she came to Cambridge they’d have to look after her too. Colm wouldn’t have touched her. But Joe.’ He shook his head. ‘I couldn’t do anything.’
Brooke met the plaintive tone with silence.
Sister Heggarty tapped her watch, catching Brooke’s eye.
‘The priest, the housekeeper, were they involved?’
‘Not directly. Smith knew their secret. It was enough to buy their silence, nothing more.’
‘We’ve found the van, but Smith is on the run,’ said Brooke. ‘Did he say where they’d hidden the RADAR unit they stole from Newton’s? That’s crucial, Liam: we must try and stop them getting it back to Ireland, or worse, to Germany.’
Walsh sat up, eyes wide. ‘No, no. The factory bomb’s not us, Brooke. No way. The turntable – that’s a direct order from Dublin. That was to be the first. The second’s still to come.’
They’d set a pitcher of water and some glasses beside the patient’s bed. Brooke felt nauseous, as if the room was spinning. So he poured himself a drink, and let the cold water slip down his throat.
‘The IRA left a slogan at the site of the bomb, Liam. It was a Republican bomb.’
‘No – well not us, Brooke. Smith was adamant: Dublin runs the S-Plan and there was only one cell in the city. He said the factory bomb meant someone was covering their tracks, using us as a blind. He said it was perfect, a real lucky break, because nobody would be ready for the second attack.’
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
The news that the IRA had the potential to strike again in the city transformed the investigation. Despite the late hour Brooke briefed the chief constable and the superintendent by telephone. Until they had Smith under lock and key, all leave was cancelled, while the Borough’s meagre force was immediately supplemented by uniformed constables from County, marched down Castle Hill and detailed to guard key targets: Marshall’s airfield fuel depot, the Great Bridge, King’s College Chapel and several factories engaged in work for the War Office. Carnegie-Brown, whose flat was less than a minute’s walk away, appeared promptly, only to be embroiled in tense conversations with Special Branch and the Home Office. The prime minister, it emerged, was being briefed on developments. At Abbey Depot the Royal Engineers had arrived in force to assist railway labourers in trying to remove the stricken engine and start work on the turntable beneath. Meanwhile, vital munitions trains were being rerouted via Ely. Discreet surveillance of the School of Pythagoras was allotted additional manpower. Brooke rang St James’s Palace, with his superior’s imprimatur, to make a final request for the royal visit to be postponed. He had little hope of success.
Just after midnight Brooke descended to the duty desk and checked for messages. Edison, leaving the Wasp, engine running, at the kerb outside, appeared with the promised full list of members of the Galton Society.
‘The desk rang,’ he said. ‘Thought you’d want this as soon as … Besides, they need all hands.’ He handed Brooke the slip of paper: ‘Talk about getting blood out of a stone. I said I’d take the request to the master of Benet’s unless I got the list – that did the trick. He swears that’s the lot: all current members of the Galton Society. I’m off to relieve the radio car at the School of Pythagoras.’ He executed a smart salute and fled.
Brooke read the list there and then. Twice. A single name, halfway down, caught his eye immediately. In five syllables it changed everything. The twists and turns in the current inquiry were Byzantine. Retrieving his cigarettes, he checked the station clock and went outside to smoke. It was the dead of night: what could he do? In the morning he’d make enquiries, set in motion an entirely new investigation. But for now, he was left with action. Personal action.
Back in his office he got out the file on the Newton factory bombing and made a note of the key witness’s address. He set off north, down to the river, along the towpath. A brisk mile and a half took him past Jesus Lock, white with cascading water, over Newton’s Bridge and then out to the watery fen edges of the city, where the river was wide. The thaw had unlocked the river, black water sweeping past towards the distant sea. The dead arctic air had given way to something greener and softer: the first hint of a real thaw, even a distant glimpse of spring.
The mooring was opposite Coldham’s Common, the site of the city’s once-great medieval fair. A fog drifted here over flooded water meadows. Posts, driven into the bank, marked a line of moorings, each with a wooden landing stage. Six were full, one boat still lit up, a man smoking, sitting in a chair on the low roof.
Berth number seven was empty.
‘Can’t sleep,’ offered the boat owner, shaking his head.
‘I’m looking for the narrowboat Elsie,’ said Brooke. ‘I’m with the Borough.’
‘She left at dusk,’ offered the lone smoker. ‘I told her to wait for the light, but she’s not a woman who takes advice. As soon as the ice broke up she was gone.’
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Brooke sat in Rafe Forbes’s office looking out at the distant river, a pale luminous presence in the still lingering mist of morning. The shadows of barges crossed in midstream. On the opposite bank the chimney of the waterworks at Barnwell belched steam into the sky, childish white puffs, until they began to discolour with the gritty purple-black of coal dust. In the distance he could hear – or even feel – the pounding of the great engines, the pistons driving, pumping water to the city’s taps. By comparison the noises of the factory were delicate and discreet, a drill bit whirring somewhere, the gentle trundle of the production lines, the constant single-note hum on the air of electrical power.
Forbes had seemed startled to see the inspector, parking him in his office with the sleeping Great Dane, while he dealt with an urgent matter down on the shop floor. Brooke, smoking, was grateful for the moment of reflection. Scotland Yard and Downing Street had rung to inform the Borough that the planned visit by Prince Henry would proceed. A patrician civil servant had relayed a brief sense of the thinking behind the decision: ‘The Cabinet feels that the machinations of Irish ingrates should not be allowed to unsettle, in any way, the smooth workings of the Court of St James.’ Brooke took the civil servant’
s name, always an act of mild insubordination, and remarked that he hoped the Cabinet’s decision would stand the test of time.
The prince’s visit was tomorrow. Brooke couldn’t shift the uncomfortable feeling that the inquiry was running out of time. And now it had taken an unpredictable turn.
Forbes came back, a cup and saucer in his hand, a clipboard under his arm.
‘Sorry about that. Everyone’s under pressure and there was a hitch on the main production line. It’s sorted out now. Good news, because the boys at Bawdsey are keen to get on. Who knows when Jerry will come.’
He patted the dog’s huge head under the desk.
Brooke explained the essence of Liam Walsh’s confession. ‘The implications are clear. The IRA didn’t plant the bomb. The modest blast was a diversionary tactic which, it has to be said, worked very well. Their sole aim was to steal the RADAR unit and focus attention on the “Republican” bomb. I think the chief suspect has to be German agents. German agents with a set of keys.’
Forbes looked shocked. ‘I can assure—’
‘The Galton Society,’ Brooke said. ‘You’re a keen member?’
Forbes straightened his tie. ‘Used to be. No time now, of course. As I said, mathematics was my subject, at Caius. But you know, I like to take an interest in the wider fields. And statistics play a role.’
‘We’re talking about eugenics?’
Forbes laughed. ‘You’d find the average meeting pretty dull, Inspector. Eugenics was once the subject of the day. No longer. As you say, the debate’s moved on. But just because there’s a war on doesn’t mean you can’t tackle the big issues. Race. The purity of the nation.’
Forbes’s jawline set defiantly.
Brooke put a piece of paper on his desk.
‘What’s that, Brooke? More surprises?’
‘It’s a list of the current membership of the Galton Society. You’ll note the name circled.’
Forbes retrieved his glasses from his tweed jacket pocket.
He shrugged. ‘Augustine Bodart?’
‘You know the woman? A professor of natural sciences at Davison College. Keen interest in hereditary patterns. Eugenics for plants.’
‘We have dinners, lectures. I may have talked to her.’
‘May or did?’
‘Why the hectoring tone, Inspector?’
The dog growled under the desk.
‘Because she is the woman, walking idly on the riverbank, who spotted our Fenian bombers and raised the alarm. She lives in a houseboat half a mile to the north, and reports to the Spinning House twice a week. An Austrian citizen. Eugenics may be out of favour in this country, Mr Forbes, but it is pretty much state policy in Germany.’
Forbes sat, focused – Brooke felt – on some inner turmoil.
‘What if,’ said Brooke, ‘what if she didn’t see three Irishmen leaving the scene. What if she stole the RADAR unit and set a modest explosive charge to cover her tracks, after employing an educated hand to transcribe a Fenian slogan, so that we wouldn’t miss the point. She had to cut through the wire to get in, but she needed time to get the unit away, so a diversion was key. And talking of keys, she’d need a set to get into the factory and leave no trace of a break-in. Not until it was too late.’ Brooke looked out at the river. ‘But it doesn’t all go to plan. She sees that there’s a police presence along the river. A constable is approaching. My guess is she was in a tight spot, with the RADAR unit hidden under the coat. She needed to think fast. The explosion was imminent. She’d already set the bait – the fake Irish slogan. So I think she hid the unit somewhere on the towpath and then made up her story, picking the unit back up when she was allowed to walk home.’
The dog whimpered, but Forbes stilled it with a kick.
‘She was interested in the dogs, in the breeding, the family lines,’ said Forbes, his voice flatter, dispirited.
‘So you knew her well?’
Forbes opened his desk drawer, took out a bottle of whisky and poured some into a mug.
‘We had a dinner at my house – not just Augustine, the members, the Society. We take it in turns to play host. She took us to her college for formal hall. All a bit tatty if you ask me. Not a patch on Trinity.’
‘Your house, you say. Just dinner?’ asked Brooke.
Forbes shrugged. ‘What’s to tell? We walked to one of the studs nearby. A short talk on the bloodstock. Fascinating stuff, actually. I showed her the kennels at our house on the way back while the rest had sherry. She was certainly keen. I explained how it all worked. She asked some intelligent questions, about the other breeders, how we keep in contact, how the records are verified. The costs too.’
‘The kennels are out in the grounds I take it?’ said Brooke. ‘The dogs are valuable. So – locks? Did you have to unlock them that night? At any time was she alone with the keys? A moment would be enough to gain an impression in putty.’
Forbes set his keys on the desk. A fob – a brass ring – upon which hung the factory keys alongside with the rest. He held his head in his hands.
CHAPTER FIFTY
An hour later, forty miles north of the Great Bridge, the lock-keeper at Denver Sluice put down the phone and checked the note he’d made, outlining precisely Inspector Brooke’s description of the narrowboat Elsie. The vessel and its owner, an Austrian national by the name of Bodart, were missing. The narrowboat had last been seen at its moorings the day before, at dusk. RAF reconnaissance aircraft were flying over rivers and tributaries. Flood banks were being checked by local police, gamekeepers and water bailiffs.
A wooden signal box gave the lock-keeper a clear view up- and downstream. To the north the river, a ribbon at low tide, swept towards the sea through black tidal marshes, beyond which lay the North Sea, or as it appeared on many of the older charts, the German Ocean. Denver – the Great Sluice – comprised a complex of locks and gates which held back the devastating tides on one side, as well as the ‘new rivers’ built by the Dutch to drain the Fens on the other. The locks and barriers comprised the mechanical heart of the Fens, beating with the tides, protecting the land from floods, but letting the rivers – and their laden boats – slip back and forth between the sea and the land.
The detective inspector’s orders had been brutally clear. ‘It may be the Elsie will try to get something out of the country in broad daylight. It’s small, heavy, a metal box, with electronics. There’ll be a woman in the narrowboat, but she may meet others. We cannot allow the Elsie to pass to the sea or make contact with a sea-going vessel at the sluice. We need to be vigilant.’
The lock-keeper printed out a card giving the Elsie’s vital statistics – length, livery and engine – and added it to the down-traffic noticeboard, adding the explicit order in capital letters: DENY PASSAGE.
The river ice was nearly gone. The army unit camped out on the bank, keeping permanent watch on the Great Sluice, had posted extra guards. If the Elsie appeared they were on alert to take her into custody, along with her owner. The lock-keeper went out onto the observation deck as a line of barges came into sight from Cambridge, carrying coprolite and sugar beet. Taking off his jacket he began to engage the winches necessary to raise the doors on the Big Eye, the main lock. Frozen snow still lay over the tarpaulin decks of the approaching boat. A heron, angular and still, stood on the forrard wheelhouse.
The boat slipped past, the gates closed and the lock-keeper waved a farewell to the diminishing captain, who stood at the stern. Back inside, out of the cold, he found he could not rest. Brooke’s final words had been a disturbing warning. ‘If the Elsie appears she must be stopped at all costs.’
The keeper opened the locked box below the observation sill. It contained a pistol and a shotgun. He broke the gun over his arm and slipped in two cartridges.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Claire’s and Joy’s shift patterns ran in tandem so that this evening marked the start of three days’ joint leave. They’d shopped together on Market Hill, pooling the ration cards to bu
y a chicken, supplemented with winter vegetables from Edison’s shed, still black and dusty from the peat. At Rose’s tea hut they’d ordered ‘Inspector Brooke’s usual’ – bacon sandwiches – while Joy had swapped tales with Rose’s daughter, Dawn, of pregnancy, and exotic cravings, and fussing mothers. Finally, they’d got sausage meat from the local butcher to complete the feast.
The fire had been lit, one of his father’s bottles of claret opened, and Joy had bought a record on Green Street which crackled before flooding the house with the Ink Spots’ latest release. The slightly forced party atmosphere even managed to survive the lyrics of ‘Address Unknown.’
There had been no more news of Ben or the missing Silverfish. The good humour in the house was brittle, sustained by the weary maxim that no news was good news. They’d requested updates from the Admiralty, and the families of two of Ben’s crewmates had been in touch to ask if they’d heard any news. But there had been none. Joy had pointedly wedged a snapshot of Ben, on the beach at Gosport, waist deep in the water, against the clock on the mantelpiece, obscuring the ticking hands behind.
Brooke opened the door to smell the food and hear the music, and for a fleeting moment thought that Rose’s prediction had come true at last: a letter had arrived, or a telegram, bearing good news. One look at Claire’s face told a different story. Her wide smile didn’t match the dull light in her eyes. They embraced but said nothing.