Solomon was hauled into interview after interview. It lasted for months. Some nights he’d be allowed home, under house arrest, looking worse than the day we were freed from Auschwitz, dark rings under his eyes from sleep deprivation. I’d wake up at night listening to his whimpering, rolled into a feotus ball next to me. He was inconsolable most of the time. Just sitting in the lounge staring into space.’
‘Was he the only one under suspicion?’
‘I don’t think so. He mentioned seeing some of his colleagues, coming and going. They were kept apart from each other, I think. He never talked about it. One day, I came home and he was sitting in the bath, fully clothed, no water, flicking the safety switch on a gun he’d rescued from the camp, a reminder of dark times. I asked him what he was doing. He looked at me and said, ‘I was wondering how many of us this thing had killed’. We had no bullets for it, so I wasn’t afraid, just sad.’
‘Can I see the gun?’
‘I don’t carry it with me, you know,’ quipped Nadine, the taking another sip of wine.
‘Yes, of course.’
They arranged to meet again, next week.
Nadine’s flat in Pimlico was on the top floor with no lift, 43 in heavy brass stood glistening as the automatic hall light reflected off its surface. Jonny caught his breath before pressing the bell.
‘You must be fit,’ were his first words of greeting.
Nadine was dressed in a grey trouser suit with white blouse emphasizing her full figure. This time she had let her grey hair fall loose around her face. The smell of roasted coffee beans hung in the air as Jonny surveyed the room.
‘How do you like your coffee? No let me guess. Black, one sugar,’ Nadine called from the kitchen.
‘Perfect. Where did you get these pictures? They must be quite valuable.’
‘Maybe,’ said Nadine handing Jonny the mug of coffee. ‘They are mostly signed prints but artist’s editions or else edition artiste. I like the two early Dali’s, particularly the Don Quixote. The swirls of the pen are so free.’ She stood gazing at the picture.
‘I’m a more traditionalist,’ said Jonny moving towards the water colour of the sun setting over St Mark’s Square in Venice. It was numbered and signed with ‘A E’ in one corner.
‘The most beautiful city in the world.’ Solomon took Stewart and I there just before the trouble at Porton. Her face now became sad and the lines around her eyes became exaggerated. She collected herself and opened a cupboard in the bedroom and returned with a box. Inside covered with a white duster was a Walther P38. She handed the box to Jonny. He took the gun out of the box in its plastic wrapping.
‘That’s funny, it looks better now than when Stewart last played with it. He loved running around shooting imaginary enemies. Solomon always told me to keep it wrapped that’s probably why. More coffee?’ she took Jonny’s mug.
‘Interesting piece.’
‘Yes, I’d never be part with it whilst….. Solomon wouldn’t like me to let it go. He always said that it was for Stewart when he went, so now it’s his bit of personal history.’
‘Where is Stewart these days?’
‘Still working. I don’t think he’ll ever retire. Some hush-hush work on genetics in Cambridge. Just like his father. Have you ever met him?’
‘No. I assume that’s a picture of him over there on the mantelpiece. If it wasn’t for the hair colour, I’d think it was Solomon.’
‘Oh, his hair is now the same colour as Solomon’s. Your right, I can’t see anything of me in him.’
‘When did you last see Solomon, Nadine?’
‘On the day they released him from prison. I waited at the end of the street. I wanted to see him again just once. He had cut himself off from the world after Porton. Didn’t want me and Stewart to suffer the ignominy of having to visit him for years. Stewart was only nine at the time. At first, I was angry. He had no right to cut us off.’
‘Why do you think he wanted to remain, how shall I put it?’
‘Hidden?’
‘Yes, cut off from you, Stewart and his previous life. You must have been very upset with him.’
‘At first when he refused to see us or talk to us. Thirty five years is a very long time to be apart, I’m sure he made up his mind as soon as he was sentenced that his life was over. I know he felt betrayed after all he’d done to invoke justice into a cruel world.’
‘You must have angry with me, too,’ said Jonny.
‘I was. If you hadn’t published. If Mrs Osborne hadn’t come to your office. If Solomon hadn’t had a conscience. If someone at Porton hadn’t fingered him. “Ifs”, they swirl around your head and grind you down like an unyielding foe. You have to live with them but also look at the good that happened afterwards. I don’t know but I have to content myself, as you do, I assume, that other sons like Mrs Osborne’s, are still alive.’
‘Yes. I really did not have any choice. Solomon did what he thought was right.’
‘I know he did but…..’ Nadine looked around at her existence. What might have been, as her gaze settled on the waters of the lagoon in Venice, bathed in the orange glow of the brush strokes of the setting sun.
‘Nadine, would you have any objection to me setting up a meeting with Stewart?’
‘No, of course not. I had to explain to Stewart. Bit at a time as he grew older, the tragedies that had befallen us throughout our lives and then why his father was in prison. There was nothing that I hid from him.’
Chapter 39
London
Jonny turned to the board on the wall. Nadine Isaacs’ name was added to the possible suspects. Motive was possible. Opportunity and weapon were also ticked for the moment.
Jonny parked his black convertible in the Addenbrooke Hospital carpark and unfurled the soft top and secured the roof. He loved this little car in London, but long journeys could be uncomfortable for his long legs. He walked towards the large information board and surveyed the buildings looking Treatment Centre on LV 6.
At the Department of Medical Genetics’ reception desk, Jonny asked for Professor Stewart Isaacs.
As soon as Professor Isaacs appeared out of the lift and walked towards reception, Jonny thought he was about to meet the man behind ‘Stealing the Staircase’. Every little thing about Stewart, face, build, his gait, his demeanour, everything was Solomon, his father. It was unnerving and amazing.
‘I am sorry to trouble you in such trying circumstances, Professor.’
‘It’s all right. The past few weeks have been very difficult but none more so than things that happened long ago. Anyway, my mother has told me a lot about you, Mr Wightman,’ said Professor Isaac as he took Jonny’s hand.
‘Jonny, please. May I call you Stewart?’
‘Of course, everyone does. Professor is so lofty, I think. Come, I’ve put everything on hold for an hour or so. You have my undivided attention.’
Jonny was shown into a study lined with expensively bound books, a fine mahogany desk with red leather inlays behind which Stewart took his seat.
‘Fascinating subject, genetics. Not that I know much about it. What exactly do you do, Stewart?’ confessed Jonny trying to get a nagging thought out of his mind about something Solomon had written which worried him, one of those loose ends.
‘Me, these days co-ordinate the young ones. We adopt a broad approach to ‘Medical Genetics’ here. Taking what my father and others after him started. He had a vision and I have a vision, a different vision. Mine is applying genetics to diagnostic and therapeutic approaches to disease. The ongoing research here addresses a broad range of monogenic and multifactorial genetic disorders. Many research programmes and clinical activities are run jointly with other departments at Addenbrooke’s and elsewhere. We used to share the Department of Pathology here, but I fought to separate it and so the University of Cambridge Department of Medical Genetics was established here a few years ago. We have close interactions between the Department and members of the NHS East Anglian Medical
Genetics Service including NHS consultants and the Directors of the NHS Molecular and Cytogenetics Laboratories. Medically qualified members of the Department also have clinical duties in the NHS Clinical Genetics Department. Sorry, too much information, anyway, there you have it, Jonny. It’s big and very important.’
‘Certainly is, and therefore I must thank you for your time.’
‘Mother said that you were trying to enlighten the police as to the person who killed my father.’
‘No, not enlighten them, at least not at this time. As I told your mother, the police appear to have very little to go on and, further, they are unaware of my interest at the moment. Of course, once I have anything to say to them, I will do so but until then, everything stays with me.’
‘My mother told me years ago when I was growing up that there had been a newspaper report that exposed unethical Porton Down experiments and that your work was based on a leak, shall we say. Yes, the least said about that the better. It has caused a lot of heartache for my mother. She was very angry, and I think still is.’
Jonny searched the Professor’s eyes for any indication of deceit in the statement. He wasn’t sure as the Professor turned away from his glance.
‘Yes, that was my work. As a young reporter in a minor provincial newspaper that day is etched in my memory. I can tell you that I had no idea who leaked those papers at the time and I wouldn’t know for a very long time afterwards. Actually, after your father was released from Belmarsh, he came to me with his life story which admitted it was he who delivered those papers to Mrs Osborne. Your mother told me a little of what happened to your father afterwards, but it was and still is, totally shrouded in the Official Secrets files at the Ministry of Defence. Everything was done behind officially closed doors in ‘camera’. I was……….’
‘Let me stop you there, Jonny. I used to lay awake at night after my father did not return to live with us. I couldn’t understand why he’d abandon me. Left my mother and me to fend for ourselves. Oh yes, we were provided for by some Ministry pension scheme. As I grew used to it, my mother told me more and more. When I heard about your report, you were on my ‘hit’ list for elimination in my child’s eye, of course,’ he said smiling.
‘I understand, Stewart. You have to realise that Mrs Osborne had no idea who had delivered the information, all we knew is that her son had died in….’
‘Yes, I know. I know you had no choice, I just wish I hadn’t lost my father.’
Stewart walked over to a locked cabinet and punched in the code. The spring-loaded door swung open. He retrieved a large yellow folder brimming with papers.
‘Brought those from home this morning. Never showed them to anyone, not even mother. It would have upset her too much. You will be the first. Don’t start reading it here, it will take too long to assimilate, take them with you, I don’t need them now my father's dead.’
Jonny took the folder and started to open it.
‘No, leave that for later.’
Stewart gave Jonny a rough resume.
‘I am sure you’ll have some queries for me once you read the details.’
‘Stewart, before I go can I ask you another question?’
‘Of course.’
‘Were you aware that your mother kept a gun from the war?’
There was a hesitation before he answered.
‘Yes. A Walther P38, if I remember. Haven’t seen it for a while. Used to run around with it, playing cowboys.’
‘Yes, that’s what your mother said. Remarkable condition for such an old piece. Anyway, thanks for being so forthright in such circumstances, Stewart. It was a pleasure to meet you.’
They shook hands outside the lift as the doors opened and Jonny squeezed in amongst others dressed in white coats. On the ground floor, he walked to the reception desk with the new file safely tucked into his briefcase.
‘There was a conference in London last week. Something about ‘advances in hereditary disease prevention’. I thought I recognised Professor Isaac there, at my hotel?’ Jonny asked the receptionist as he was leaving the building.
‘Yes, Professor Isaac was one of the main speakers. It wouldn’t have been at the hotel, he always stays with his mother.
Did Stewart lie about not seeing the gun since childhood? Maybe he hadn’t seen it for years and yet he had a mind and recall, many of us would be grateful for half its capacity. Jonny shifted another name and photograph into the suspects’ column as soon as he arrived home. Solomon’s book had certainly made Stewart angry for himself and his mother, was that motive enough? At the moment it was. He put a tick in that column. Maybe the file from Professor Isaacs would help.
The yellow file contained undisclosed details of the court case against Solomon Isaacs. There must have been someone in the courtroom taking illegal shorthand notes for this amount of detail. Who had arranged this unauthorised intrusion into a court case held in camera? Someone who wasn’t happy with the proceedings or the outcome?
Chapter 40
London
He looked at the board again, inadvertently pushing the photograph of Captain Campbell up and down until it fell to the floor. He picked it up and took a closer look.
‘What have you got to say, were you in court. You were his “mentor”?’
Jonny placed the three photographs on the table, one of the frail old man being helped along the path at the cemetery and placed it next to Rod’s aged enhanced up-date. Definitely the same man. What was he doing at the funeral? Yes, they knew each other years ago in Germany and then back in the UK when he gave Solomon the opening for research at Porton. Had they kept in touch despite the Court case, despite the obvious disapproval of his colleagues? Was it Campbell who compiled the court case notes and why?
Jonny had read the file Stewart had given him several times. Solomon’s manuscript revealed that during WWII, when he met Campbell, it was as a result of his employment in the Intelligence Corp in Germany and Poland.
By reputation and having to deal with them, Jonny knew that British Intelligence is the oldest, most experienced organization of its kind in the world, the unseen hand that has influenced world events. Despite losing an Empire, the British retained much of intelligence infrastructure that then existed and given that benefit to NATO and Europe. It was this need to protect the Nation that at some point had become too powerful within its own walls and at its core was the 1911 Official Secrets Act.
It’s all right to punch above your weight, admired and trusted by the CIA and feared by the Russians but to keep a cloak, with the help of the various Ministries of Whitehall, that protects the identities of the shadowy figures in and around the Porton Down establishment, Jonny thought it all went too far in the case of Solomon Isaacs.
Inevitably, Campbell would have involved in the evidence collecting against Solomon, but Jonny was concerned that Campbell may also have been caught up in the witch hunt that followed by the suits from MI6.
Campbell was an old man now living under the same roof as his adopted son, Schatzi. Jonny opened the file of names and addresses that Rachel had put together. He leafed through it and found Stuart and Schatzi Campbell’s address, ‘The Barn Ropers Lane Middlehurst Kent’.
Jonny typed it into his computer. Multimap located the property and gave him directions. ‘Shall I telephone first or just think of an excuse once I’m there?’ mused Jonny. No, Campbell, wouldn’t appreciate a surprise at his age. Jonny picked up the telephone. After five rings it was answered.
‘Campbell residence, how can I help?’ said the female voice at the other end.
‘My name is Jonny Wightman. I was a friend of Solomon Isaacs and I would like to meet with Mr Campbell Senior as I have some…’
‘Wait a minute, I’ll see if Mr Campbell is available.’ A minute or two passed as Jonny waited.
‘Thank you, Annie.’ Jonny heard a quivering voice and a door close. Campbell picked up the telephone.
‘Yes, Mr Wightman, what can I do for you?’
‘I really don’t want to talk on the telephone, Mr Campbell and I apologise for disturbing you, but I would like to drive down and talk to you about Solomon Isaacs, if I may. I saw you at his funeral with your son and I am trying to thread some pieces together about his death.’
‘Mr Wightman, I’ve told the police all I know. Nothing more to add.’
‘I think you may have more to add. I was his friend and I am trying unravel loose ends. Please spare me some of your time.’ Jonny sensed a softening in his voice.
‘Oh, yes, very well. Where do you live?’
‘Central London.’
‘Come for lunch on Thursday. Noon suit? I’ll get Annie to cook us something nice.’ There was a pause.
‘You know I admired Solomon, very much, but he did upset many people, still had an amazing mind yet, he suffered so much and never complained. I blame myself for what he did. I suppose I should have realised certain things about Porton Down, but I suppose that’s easy in hindsight. He thought that innocent servicemen shouldn’t be put through what he’d seen in Auschwitz, even though those experiments were not carried out in his department at Porton.’
‘Me too. I have been learning a lot more about him as the days go by since his untimely death. It’s very kind of you to spare me the time. See you at noon on Thursday.’
Clearly, thought Jonny, Campbell wanted to talk to someone. What could he now add?
Chapter 41
Middlehurst Kent Southern England
Jonny was sitting opposite Stuart Campbell at his dining table. The room as oak panelled and would have been dark save for the sunlight cascading through the leaded windows that graced one end of the room overlooking the lawn with willow trees edging the small stream that seemed formed the southern boundary of the Barn. A former hop storage building that was converted into Stuart Campbell’s house many years ago had been recently redecorated and smelled clean apart from the steam rising from the crock that stood in the middle of the table pervading the air with a mouth-watering mixture of lamb and mint.
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