Further down the valley, the mist thinned. As he approached the cottage that had once been his mother’s he swung in the road and stopped on the grass verge where Mitchell parked his car on that first, dark day. He stepped out onto damp grass, slammed shut the car door and then checked his wallet to see if he had enough to pay Rosie for the damage he’d done to her garage when he took her stepladder.
Rosie heard the car arrive. Before Spargo reached her gate she was out in the road and running towards him.
Running, at eighty-seven years old.
‘John…? Oh John, I hoped you would come!’
She met him in the road with a motherly hug. She was dumpy and round-faced with a shock of white hair, wispy cotton wool that had once been dark, neat and permed. Her rose-red face beamed. Then, as a switch had been thrown, it turned solemn.
‘Morag…’ she said, suddenly close to tears. ‘Such a terrible thing to happen, I’m so sorry. She was good to you and a good wife to Sam. Do you have time for a cup of tea, or do you have to go? I’ve baked some scones.’
Her voice sang, a trace of the Nordic lilt that the old ones still had. He listened to it fondly, picking out the odd smattering of dialect words heard so rarely now.
‘I’ve got all the time in the world, Aunt Rosie.’
He had been inside Rosie’s house so many times. He had helped her redecorate it. He could remember hanging, at least thirty years ago, the flowery wallpaper lining the living room walls. He waited in that room while she made tea, refreshing his memory with the same old photographs in the same old places. Unlike Rydel’s room in Edinburgh the room was spotless.
She came from the kitchen with her best china teapot, two cups and two plates packed tight on a tray. She set it down on a side table and then moved it, table and all, until it stood between two armchairs. The scones came with butter and jam. He was about to complement her on her ability to conjure up such a spread when she cut him short.
‘Sit down, John. There is something I know about Morag and Sam...’ she paused while she poured milk into the cups ‘…something I shouldn’t tell you. I promised them I would not.’
Spargo sat quietly, smiling inwardly. What little gem did she have for him? That his mum and dad weren’t actually married? That would have been a real sin back then – also most unlikely in a place like Kilcreg. Nor could it be true, because he had his original birth certificate and it said Morag and Samuel Spargo. No excitement there, then.
Rosie passed him a cup and saucer and he took it. He reached for a scone from the plate, broke it in half and spread jam on it.
Rosie sat down. She seemed to be taking her time. Slowly she placed her teacup by her side and then laid both hands in her lap.
‘The things that have happened here,’ she said quietly. ‘I think I know why.’
‘It’s no secret, Aunt Rosie, not now.’
‘Do you know about the Germans?’
‘I know about the U-boat.’
‘The Germans,’ she repeated.
‘You mean Franz Rydel and Mark Lewis? Yes, I know about them. Actually they were Polish. I also know Mark Lewis changed his name from Marek Lewandowski.’
She nodded. ‘That is so.’
‘Do you know about the boxes?’ he asked. ‘The one on the roof? The ones in the mine?’
‘Boxes, John?’ Her frown said she didn’t. ‘The men came in the night. They brought Franz and Mark ashore in a small boat. There had been an accident or something and he was unconscious. I didn’t see them arrive, of course, I saw the next day. Franz was hurt very badly, he had bandages around his head. When he returned he stayed at the mine house. He lost the use of his arm, poor man.’
‘Returned? What do you mean? Was he in a prisoner of war camp?’
‘Prisoner of war? No, when he returned from hospital, I mean. Do you remember them, Marek and Franz? When they were not working they used to play games with you. You were a quiet wee boy, you kept yourself to yourself. Marek taught you, he spent months with you. Later he became a teacher.’
Spargo nodded. Sipped his tea. ‘They lived in the extension in the mine house, I remember them vaguely. I think they were miners.’
‘Only Franz Rydel worked at the mine. He didn’t work underground, because of his arm. When the mine closed he moved to Edinburgh. I don’t know what he did there, I never saw him again. As I told you, Marek became a teacher, he taught languages, English and German. He went to live in Inverness and married a local girl.’
‘And before that?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You said after they were landed they went away.’
The question seemed to puzzle her. ‘No, only Franz, he went to hospital. Marek didn’t go into hospital. Before Franz went there Sam gave him different clothes… gave them both different clothes. He could hardly have them going around in German uniforms, could he? He burnt everything. Their papers too.’
‘Burnt them? You mean they weren’t handed over as prisoners of war?’
‘They weren’t prisoners, were they? Nobody arrested them or anything.’
Spargo shook his head. Rosie was old. He was beginning to wonder if she was losing the plot.
‘Sam told the authorities that Marek and Franz were Polish seamen from a merchant ship that had been torpedoed. They were questioned of course. They said they had been in a small boat for days and it had been wrecked on the rocks. The police and army searched along the coast but of course they didn’t find anything. Nobody worried, not really, the war was nearly over and people were starting to celebrate. Franz was in hospital for nearly a month. For a short time he went to a refugee camp with Marek, and then they came back here to work. They couldn’t go home, could they? Not with what happened to Poland after the war.’
‘Are you saying everyone here knew they were from the U-boat? Yet they all kept quiet?’
‘You know what it was like here, John.’
He knew very well what it was like. Except at the mine, Kilcreg had no electricity, and only the mine and the doctor’s house had a telephone. There were no televisions, only two or three cars, and no regular bus. The place wasn’t nearly as quiet as it was now but it was much more cut off. A very different world.
‘I met Franz Rydel,’ Spargo said, sitting back as if nothing he’d heard had surprised him. ‘Recently, I mean. He still lives in Edinburgh. Mark moved there from Inverness after his wife died, but he died too.’
It sounded blunter than he’d meant it to sound but there was no way he was going to explain what really happened to the man who became Mark Lewis. She nodded knowingly.
‘I’m not surprised he died. He wasn’t a very healthy young man. He was always so scared. He thought the authorities would find who he really was and send him back.’
She reached for a scone, snagged her sleeve on her cup and it went over, dumping its contents on the rug – déjà vu for Spargo – not a dead arm this time but a hand that had started to shake. Rosie jumped up, dashed to the kitchen, returned with a cloth and knelt down to wipe.
‘Did you know Morag and Sam had a daughter who died?’ she asked.
It was said as an aside, slipped into events as if she hoped it wouldn’t be noticed. Spargo bit his lip.
‘I do know that,’ he admitted. ‘Nobody ever said. But when I was ten I found a birth certificate in a drawer, hidden under the lining paper. I asked my mother what it was and she snatched it from me. It upset her so much I never mentioned it again.’
‘Janet Mary Spargo, born in May nineteen-thirty-eight,’ Rosie said. ‘She died of influenza when she was two.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘Because their little boy also died from the same disease. It was a terrible time. She – ’
‘Their boy?’
‘He was taken to hospital in Thurso. He was around your age. Perhaps a month or two older.’
‘I had a sister and a brother?’
‘I don’t know, John. I don’t think so. I do
n’t think you had any brothers or sisters.’
She stood up quickly and scurried to the kitchen. She didn’t come back to the room but instead she pulled out a chair from under the kitchen table, sat down on it and stared out of the window at the hillside. Spargo walked to her and put his hand on her shoulder. Spoke softly.
‘What are you trying to tell me, Rose?’
She stood up suddenly as if shaking him off. Went to the drainer and moved dishes, putting them in some kind of order. She didn’t speak again until she finished doing it.
‘They brought you off the submarine with Marek and Franz,’ she said. ‘You were sick with pneumonia and they thought you would die. Your father didn’t think you would survive the journey he was about to make and so he brought you here. The reason they let Marek come ashore was that on the submarine he had taken care of you and Franz. Morag and Sam nursed you back to health and kept you as their own. I don’t suppose you remember any of it, you were only a wee slip of a boy. The captain was a man named Volker and you were his son.’ Her eyes darted to his and then back to the window. ‘I don’t remember Mr Volker’s first name. I never met him, of course.’
Spargo knew it couldn’t be true, he wondered how to respond without hurting her feelings, but when he opened his mouth to reply he couldn’t find the right words. He turned away from her, returned to the living room and slumped into a chair.
No, it couldn’t be true, not something like this. But in the silence, things slipped into place in his mind, Bar’s remarks that he could do him – Spargo – no harm, nor harm any child of his. And there were other things, things like Bar’s knowledge of his father, Sam Spargo, the things said in Spain. Had Bar guessed from the start that Volker had been here, landed his sick child here? And, if he had done that, he might well have offloaded the crates here. It made sense, horrible sense.
Rosie interrupted his thoughts, came in from her kitchen and rearranged tea things. Keeping her back to Spargo she spoke to him as if commenting on the weather, or the state of her garden.
‘A long time ago Morag told me Sam meant to tell you these things when you were old enough. But he died, of course.’
‘It can’t be true,’ Spargo said. ‘The boy was German. I hardly know a word of the language.’
‘I don’t remember you saying anything at all for many months. Morag and Sam only spoke to you in English, Marek and Franz too. They were educated boys, they spoke English well.’
‘Someone in the village would have said something. You can’t just substitute one child for another. There are death certificates and papers.’
Spargo was in denial; either Rosie was getting senile or she’d got hold of some cock and bull tale from her neighbours. He would be able to disprove it easily by getting hold of old records. Compare DNA tests if necessary – though he wasn’t sure who with.
‘Back then we had a doctor here,’ Rosie said. ‘He took care of things. Sam and Morag were well-liked. We all knew what happened, we all colluded. We were saddened enough by the death of their daughter. And then for John to die too…’
John? Spargo jumped up and went to the window. The mist was clearing, whipped into nervous swirls by a sharp breeze. Fine drizzle clung to the pane and refused to run down it. He fidgeted with his fingers. A man his age, frightened by knowledge. He waited silently for more from Rosie. Like him, she stayed quiet.
‘I’m so glad I told you,’ she said at last. ‘You’re old enough to know it now.’
Old enough? How old do you have to be to hear something like this, the secret of a lifetime passed from one to another for safe keeping. He was close to tears but he wasn’t sure why. It felt as if someone was rearranging his innards.
‘What did they do with the body? Of their boy, I mean.’
‘What people always did with bodies,’ Rose said, matter of fact. ‘They buried him.’
‘In Thurso?’
‘Why in Thurso? They brought him home from hospital. We buried him at the Crag.’
‘I thought the Crag was disused?’
‘It wasn’t back then.’
She came over and stood beside him, staring out to the road. The drizzle turned to hard rain. It was what happened at Kilcreg. Things changed unexpectedly.
‘If you don’t like the weather, just wait a while,’ Spargo said in an attempt at humour that Rosie ignored. ‘They didn’t make it,’ he added, serious again. Rosie turned and looked at him, puzzled. ‘The U-boat,’ he said. ‘Volker’s submarine. They were going to South America. They didn’t make it.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ she said. ‘All that sea.’
Spargo needed air and outside he got plenty. He got rain too, rain that soaked his hair and ran down his neck. Unsure what to do he walked aimlessly towards where the mine house had been and then changed his mind, turned in the road and walked purposefully back. When he reached the remains of his old school he turned onto the path beside it and kept up the brisk walk, slowing when the path steepened and taking short-cuts over rocks, scrambling like an ape on all fours.
High on the hilltop the ragged grass made way for dark heather that swamped the old path. Making for the cliffs he ploughed through it. Rain drifted from the sea in soft, drenching gusts, rain that drained off his jacket and soaked his trousers, his socks and his shoes. Shivering now, he gazed out to the bay. If he was indeed Volker’s boy it would be ironic if he succumbed to the very same illness that brought him to this place.
The Crag was tucked in a sheltered hollow overlooking the sea. Once a simple overhanging rock that provided shelter for ancient man – over two thousand years ago, he’d been told at school – it became the site for a small graveyard and then a stone chapel.
All that remained of the chapel were four high walls. Such were the superstitions of the locals that, unlike the old school, and more recently the mine house, the chapel walls had never been robbed of their stone.
He reached the graveyard wall and its tall iron gate. He had been there before, long ago when he’d explored the place for a dare. He was seen by Mrs Kennedy who ran the post office and shop, and she told his teacher. The Crag was a holy place, he was told next day. It held spirits. He had never been back there. He had never taken Theresa and Jez.
Had the residents of Kilcreg conspired to keep their children away from the place for a more sinister reason, he wondered? Were they scared they might discover the grave of their very-much-alive school friend John Spargo?
He was weeping now and he wasn’t sure why. Stopping at the gate, he gave it a shove. It opened half way before it jammed against weeds. Once, people from the village kept the place neat. Now, within the shelter of the walls, lush undergrowth swallowed the gravestones.
Hampered by greenery he skirted the wall, spiralling inwards as he inspected inscriptions on flat slabs and headstones. Amongst weatherworn stone stumps, tall obelisks poked through the undergrowth like masts on a green sea, the tallest of them carved with a skull. The ancients were like that, they hedged their bets, mixed their old beliefs with the new Christian teachings.
His visit to the place years ago had scared him. Could it be the cause of his nightmares, his imaginings? Had the ghosts he’d imagined back then stayed with him?
But pagan skulls were not part of his nightmare. There was something else, something deep in his memory that struggled to surface. He moved to a place where the wall had toppled and sat down on wet stones. Placed his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
Jez was right, his dreams were muddled, they didn’t fit together in time. His mother had taken him to the doctor about his visions long before he came to this place, long before he went underground with his father and long before he heard tales of man-engines and dead miners.
Bar said Volker’s boy was taken from the farm in the truck with the crates, crates to be sealed in the bronze boxes and then coated with rubber. Buna rubber, Jez had said. Rubber made from chemicals rather than imported latex.
Bar had mentioned Mon
owitz. At the time it hadn’t rung bells but they were ringing now. He knew what the Nazis had done, he had read the books, seen the documentaries. He knew the slave labour camp for the workers at Monowitz in Poland had another name – Auschwitz Three.
He, John Spargo, had been there, he’d been driven through Poland in a truck, concealed between crates in a rat’s nest of blankets. Aware for the first time where his dreams – his imaginings – really came from, he buried his face in his hands. The white ghosts, the men, women and children that turned to him. Stared with those unseeing eyes.
Bar had said January, nineteen forty-five. This was the month the Nazis, fearing their death camps would be being discovered by advancing troops, emptied Auschwitz, the month prisoners not transported by train were force-marched through Poland. Most fell dead on bleak, snow-swept roads.
Rosie is right. He is Volker’s boy. He has seen hell.
John Spargo is a lost boy, one of Peter Pan’s children. He has lost not just two parents, but four. What would Oscar Wilde have made of that, he wonders? Misfortune? Carelessness? Behind his cupped hands he manages a cold, wet smile.
Morag knew about the box in the roof, he is sure of that. She didn’t give in to Letchie, she gave her life to protect her surrogate son from the truth. Truth he struggles with now.
He has abandoned his search for the grave. It is hidden here somewhere, somewhere safe. He stands up, makes his way to the iron gate and tugs it closed behind him. Again he walks to the cliffs. Again he looks down to the bay.
This time he closes his eyes and sees his father, wading through surf with a child in his arms.
But which father? He can’t remember a thing, not a damn thing. He dips a hand into his pocket, takes out the shell of the lighter and strokes the gold eagle with the tip of his thumb. Feels the contours of its sharp-pointed wings…
The Man Who Played Trains: The gripping new thriller from the author of Playpits Park Page 54