by M C Jacques
“I was with Sarah, Sarah Millar.” McKay looked her in the eyes, returning her own piercing expression. “We were together all night. And that’s all I want to say! An’ that’s too much already!”
“It’s all you need to say about that, Tina. Now, is there anything else? Anything else at all?” The girl thought hard and, not for the first time, looked pensively back at McKay.
“Well, you best ask Graham Locke in Maintenance. ‘e knows more. They’re all I know about. I think ‘andy Andy, as they call him, may have found one or two strange things as well, but that’s just gossip, as far as I know, because Andy’s hardly ever in these days and I ‘aven’t spoke to him about that. I’ve just ‘eard chat about it. He’s only part-time here nowadays, he is. An’ please keep it quiet! ‘Bout Sarah and me!”
“Don’t worry. That’s fine, Tina. It sounds like you’ve got a few more customers now. I hope I haven’t kept you too long!”
She issued a warm smile, rich with relief, as she rose from the table and then scurried back out of the smaller room into the main area of the café. Now, thought Mark, it’s time to email John Foote.
Although it had been around twenty years since Mark had graduated from Oxford in a discipline which he describes, for convenience, as Ancient and Semitic Languages, he and John had remained friends, warm friends. Their friendship was a mutual fact of life and was entirely non-negotiable.
Upon returning to his native Kentucky, after having studied a potent cocktail of Politics and International Studies at Keeble College, Oxford, John Foote had paved a successful path in journalism and publishing, embracing all the latest online technology along the way. As a result, he had quickly outgrown his Southern Baptist upbringing, church and, indeed, town, and had embraced the good-time liberalism of Manhattan, along with an industrious and adoring wife, where and with whom he had been stationed for the past fifteen years or so.
Amongst many other evident talents, John Foote possessed the particular ability to be able to track people down electronically. Over the years, McKay had concluded that this was as a result of three main things: solid technical ability, shrewd judgement – in knowing exactly where and what to search – and sheer persistence or ‘dogged determination’, as a mutual friend and former colleague had once described it in her soft Scottish lowland lilt.
Next, thought McKay, he would cut straight across the concrete taxi-way and on to the Restoration Hangar, the home of Graham Locke’s Maintenance and Technical Services team, one of the jewels in the Royal War Museum’s hefty crown. Then, he might just be able to find time for lunch.
McKay reclined and sipped what remained of his delicious coffee before proceeding to make his way back across the glazed floor towards the café’s main door. Affixed to the door’s glass panel was a glossy poster commending the Tidy Mess – ‘ECO-FRIENDLY LUNCH DEAL, ONLY £15 FOR 3 COURSES, £12 FOR 2!! MON-THURS, 12-2pm.’ The poster almost distracted him from the buzzing of the internal intercom and the contents of the ensuing message: “Paging Matt Fothergill, Matt Fothergill. Please come to the Restoration Hangar immediately! Paging Matt Fothergill, Matt Fothergill. Please come to the Restoration Hangar immediately!”
12
Meeting Graham Locke and emailing an old friend…
“They’ve been at the Hetzer Tank Destroyer now! That sadist has put a Heath Robinson contraption inside, linked to the turret. Ready to go off. The wrong person walks by and whoosh! Curtains! And another corpse in the Warfare on Land Hall! Anyway, it’s all sealed off now.”
“What have you done with the contraption itself; anything?” Fothergill asked the distressed and red-faced Graham Locke.
“Didn’t touch a thing. Sealed it securely, the Hetzer itself I mean – put on a new heavy pad lock to which only I have the key – and then paged you.” Locke’s eyes then settled on Fothergill’s.
“Did anyone see what you saw, Mr Locke?” McKay had not waited to be introduced and Locke looked concerned at this question. His head spun in the direction of his Director.
“Don’t worry, Graham. It’s all right. This is Mark McKay, Mountfitchet’s chum. Come to help us sort this business out, right?”
“Right, Mr Fothergill.”
Locke’s head rolled between the two men, as if at Wimbledon, before resting on McKay. “I thought that it may well be Dr McKay. No. I was in and out in a jiffy, once I clocked what’d been going on in there. Sealed the place off straight away. All doors locked and bolted.”
Fothergill took a deep breath and looked about him, to either side. “And so, with that, I’m afraid that I must tear myself away, gents.” He spoke as if events of this type were merely routine, part of the RWM’s daily diet and of no particular interest or consequence to himself or to his sphere of responsibility viz the museum itself and its staff. “I’ve got a meeting in Cambridge to attend. Council Liaison Committee. Damned waste of everybody’s time. So, toodaloo. See you both around!”
Graham Locke nodded, as his best efforts to mask a facial expression ridden with utter disgust and indignation failed.
“Now you see what we’re up against here! That man will be the ruin of this place, if we’re not careful! He just can’t get it into his thick, overpaid skull that we’re all at risk until this lunatic is caught!” Locke’s charged words echoed about the hangar.
“I think that he’s concerned,” put in McKay. “Is there anywhere we can sit down, Graham? It’s okay to call you that, isn’t it? I’m Mark, by the way, or McKay, if you prefer.”
Locke paused briefly. “Of course it is, Mark! The old Wing Commander mentioned that you’d be calling in on my little department before very long. Can’t help but like the old guy. Respect him, too. Decent bloke. Donates a lot of time and dosh to this place and gets involved, you know, hands on. People don’t realise. He loves this place, so he does. Takes him back. Makes him feel young again. I take him up every now and then in the Dragon Rapide; he loves it! Anyway, any friend of his…” Locke stretched out an impressively large, oily hand.
McKay responded in kind before being led up a climb of some four steps and into a small mint-green ‘porta cabin’-type structure, situated internally within the cavernous Restoration Hangar itself. They passed through what was clearly some sort of staff room for the technicians and operatives, to which a Pirelli calendar and a number of strewn, grease-marred editions of The Sun and Daily Mirror bore witness.
“Take a seat,” indicated Locke, as he closed the door of his squat but homely office. “How can I best help?” And the tone of his enquiry convinced McKay, in the first instance, that he really did want to help and wished this mess to be sorted as soon as possible.
“I suppose that I’d like a rundown of what’s been going on. Let’s start with your take on the shooting of Sergeant Smith and go on from there.” Locke nodded approvingly, straightening himself in readiness. And he spoke at length and fluently, as if his previous silence, relatively speaking, had been suffocating him. He explained the intricacies of the improvised device used to assassinate Smith at close range. ‘Fiendishly clever’ it had been, alarmingly so. He confirmed to McKay that it had been an extensively modified NDM eighty-six, or at least the bare bones thereof, which had been wrought into the cockpit and turret of the German Sturmgeschütz Three, ‘The Stug, we know it as’, to fire the deadly shot.
Local police from Royston, on patrol along the A10 quite nearby, had been the first to arrive but, having had a cursory glance inside the Stug, had been keen to get Cambridgeshire CID involved as soon as possible. The SOC team had then spent the best part of two full days there and the hall itself was completely closed to the public and even to museum staff for about forty-eight hours.
‘Every single member of the museum staff’ had been interviewed at least twice by Burrows and his team of CID officers from Cambridge. No one was interviewed by the same officer twice. Locke thought this was good technique and spok
e highly of Detective Inspector Burrows who was leading investigations. Sarah Millar had even been taken in for questioning but was released without charge quite soon after. He was quite surprised by her early discharge, ‘Especially considering the type of company she keeps, out of working hours’ he added with a slight narrowing of his eyes. ‘That’s when she’s not skulking around the museum exhibits ‘til god knows what hours!’ McKay remained quiet, though his interest in Locke’s observations and revelations was intense.
Locke also spoke of his exasperation at not being taken seriously enough by the Executive Management trio of Fothergill, Prestons and Millar. “One minute Fothergill couldn’t care less about anything other than his precious extended lunches with this VIP or that committee, and the next minute he’s worried sick about the museum’s reputation and the effect any scandal will have on visitor numbers and the museum’s TFRs; that’s tourist figure ratings, sorry! He gets that lingo from Sarah Millar, of all people, if you ask me! She puts the fear of God into him about that; I’ve heard her: ‘Don’t you expect me to increase the numbers again next year if visitors think that they’re going to have to step over rows of body bags after they get off the coach!’ You know, stuff like that. She’s a very powerful woman, that one. Fothergill doesn’t have the stomach for a fight: ‘It’s better to go with the flow’ is one of his favourite sayings, and he seems to live by it at times.”
“I see,” said McKay, reminding himself of the picture of the quite stunning Sarah Millar which Mountfitchet had given him in Secret Rooms.
“And there’s another side to her.”
“To Millar, to Sarah Millar, you mean?”
“Yes. There’s a part-time technical assistant who works here called Andy Fordham. He’s a good guy and a useful all-rounder. Better with his hands than his brain, if you follow my meaning. He puts in his hours and more besides; at least, he used to. Anyway, he’s complained to me – well, perhaps that’s a bit too strong – he’s mentioned to me a few times that when he’s stayed on and worked late, and he’s getting ready to go, he hasn’t been able to activate the alarm because he’s felt certain that there’s been somebody else there, nearby, hanging around.”
“Where is this ‘here’? Has it been in just one place or in a number of places?”
Locke pondered. “I think that it’s usually been in the Warfare on Land Exhibition; I think.” He paused again, trench-like furrows rippling down across his brown forehead. “Yes. That’s where it’s been, each time – the Warfare on Land Exhibition. We pored over the CCTV footage – nothing doing! It was either blank or had been erased, scrubbed clean.” Locke correctly anticipated the question about to slip off McKay’s tongue. “Indeed, yes, DI Burrows was informed and a team from CID scanned the footage themselves. Again – nothing doing.”
Graham Locke was now in full flow: “And another thing you might find interesting,” he nodded, possibly self-assuring gesture, thought McKay, “is that whilst every bit of damage has been done to Allied machinery, mainly British and American, the Axis gear, German and Italian, has been spruced up. And that’s how I know that it’s not Andy Fordham who’s been doing this stuff.” McKay’s motionless silence constituted a strong request for Locke to keep pouring forth. “Well, it’s clear to me that whoever is tarting up all the German stuff is no technical expert. Take the case of the Hetzer Tank Destroyer in the ‘Bocage’ display in the Warfare on Land Exhibition Hall, for example. Now, that is a vehicle of stealth, a sniper of sorts if you like. It used to stalk its prey, Cromwells and Shermans, by waiting in bushes, undergrowth, you know, in thickets and the like, and then it would surprise them, blast them to smithereens. It’s low with slanted armour, you see. It’s very difficult to take out in combat, and is fully camouflaged – painted khaki and other colours to merge in with shrubbery. Now, you look at our Hetzer on display and you’ll see that it’s glossy – shiny! Some clown has polished it! Ha! It’d be a disaster in a real combat situation, be seen from miles away, even in a spinney or thicket! First bit of sunlight and it’d be taken out in no time!”
McKay smilingly declined Locke’s second offer of a coffee and thought he had better move his enquiries on to the Tidy Mess, from where he could also email John Foote. What a lot he had to tell his old friend and what a great deal of finger-work he had to ask him to do.
Just as he was crossing the recently turfed area between the hangar and the concrete concourse, a compact, deep blue fighter plane commenced its take-off. A Chance-Vaught Corsair, thought McKay, as the pilot pulled the plane back into a steep ascent.
“Putting in some hours before the Air Show!” called out Locke, his left arm and hand angled in the direction of the ascending craft. He leaned against the hangar’s huge doorframe, studying McKay’s movement and direction almost a little bit too intently as he walked away into the distance. But even Locke’s saturnine, lean-to posture was ruffled when a screaming voice urgently called: “Graham, you’d better go and take a look PDQ – someone’s been at the turret on the Conqueror. It could have been fatal.”
13
Lunch at the Tidy Mess and emailing an old friend
It was barely noon, but the twin doors to the Tidy Mess were propped open and the unmistakably catchy chord sequence of A String of Pearls greeted McKay’s ears. The themed decor consisted of a curious ensemble of some 1930s’ but mainly 1940s’ paraphernalia and incunabula: a Remington typewriter here, an Oldsmobile poster there; and a series of ‘Take to the Air’ portraits of famous US planes such as the Mustang, the Grumann Hellcat and the Mitchell Flying Fortress B-17. And the staff looked the part, too. It took by no means a giant leap of imagination to feel a part of the wartime past.
McKay noted that he appeared to be their first customer that lunchtime. A tall, elegantly dressed waiter approached him. “A very good day to you, sir. Care to select a table? The choice is yours.” His right arm swung around to indicate the breadth of choice. “As you can see!”
McKay took a corner table which sported a small, 1930s, square, metal-framed window which looked out towards the Battle of Britain Display hangar. From his left hand, the waiter produced a burgundy leather menu with jazz-age style, curvilinear lettering and crunchy, parchment pages. McKay ordered the soup of the day, which turned out to be broccoli, a roll and some salad. He was selecting a glass of wine from the list when he noticed Graham Locke and two male members of his team speeding bouncily along the concourse in an oldish, open-top Land Rover. “Graham and his team seem to be in a hurry!” McKay observed.
“Yep, sure are! Those guys have just been Tannoyed… again! They’re sorting out more issues in the Warfare on Land Hall – that’s where they’re moseying on up to right now. Some loser’s been filing away at the turret on that oversized British Conqueror tank. Probably hoping that some young vandal would swing on it and then get crushed as it landed on top of him. One of the security guys was blowin’ a fuse about it earlier. Any wine, sir?” McKay indicated his choice: Castelli Romani, a small carafe. He’d got to know it when he once stayed in Bologna and later on discovered a small pizzeria near Summertown in north Oxford which served it. He’d been seriously tempted by the apparently ‘honey-yellow softness’ of the Californian Brougham’s Mist before he’d noticed that it was 14% ABV. His choice was a more modest 10.5% as it was, after all, only just midday.
“Do you get a lot of vandals here, then?”
The waiter’s head listed and he grinned before answering. “We get a lot of British schoolkids, sir. Loads of them, in fact. Busload after busload. Vandals? You don’t need to look any further than the school bus! No discipline. No, sir!” He marched off. McKay sensed that there was resentment in just about every syllable of the waiter’s last remark. This was more noticeable, perhaps, because McKay estimated the waiter’s own age to be around eighteen or nineteen; young to be expressing such censure on his British peers. Later on, in fact, he assured McKay that he was nearly twenty year
s old, from Wyoming, with the name of Danny Kurtis, frequently becoming Danny ‘Kaye’ Kurtis because of his surname’s initial letter.
Danny loved the UK, loved his job and loved being an American. “I’m so proud of what our boys did to that fascist pig! You’d never have done it on your own – he’d have licked you clean! Not that you lacked guts; you just didn’t have the men and machines to get the job done. Anyway, I’d better give you some space. I’ll fetch you that cafètiere you asked for.”
He’d been at the museum for just over a year, having taken a junior waiter’s job in ‘Take-Off’ just for the previous summer but he liked it so much that he’d remained there, cancelled the next leg of his pan-European tour – which would have taken him through France – and flourished, soon having been moved across to the Tidy Mess, where he was now proudly bearing his ‘Head of Service Team’ lapel badge in the standard red, white and blue RWM colours.
Mark knew that John would still be asleep so he would certainly email and not call. It would be three or four in the morning in Manhattan. McKay recalled that the two would frequently have been up to such hours in their Oxford days: chewing life’s cud, discussing possible or probable joint literary ventures. McKay recalled the early morning calm of the twisty nooks within the college quarter of the old mediaeval town. Quite often, at least a couple of times each week, they would visit an all-night bakery on the Cowley Road and stock themselves up with fudge doughnuts and the like. John always made the coffee; it was his thing and he made it better than anyone else in his hall at Keeble.
Although John was his junior by a few years, McKay conceded that John was altogether better at life than he was. Much better, in fact, and certainly far wiser. John would never have got himself slammed up in an East German cell, just weeks before unification, he thought. Only on one of his journalistic missions for the Washington Post, he sniggered to himself. And he’s only ever had to marry once, McKay mused, as he began to turn the thoughts in his mind into taps on his keyboard.