‘I love you, Tom,’ she sobbed. ‘I love you so much. But I had to do something. I just had to. All those poor children . . .’
‘I know.’ And he knew, too, that there would come a time when every decent man and woman in the world would be called on to do something, to face up to the gas, the trenches, the barbed wire, the tanks and the fission bombs. They couldn’t leave it to God, the father of the rain, to bring down the tyrants; this was something mankind had to do for itself.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am delighted to thank four remarkable people for the incredible assistance they have given me in my researches for Nucleus.
The first is Alan Fry, one of the cleverest people I have ever met, who has helped me understand a little about particle physics. If there are any mistakes in the book, they are mine not his.
The others three are all flying men: Willie Cruickshank and Al Coutts of the Wildcat Aerobatics team – www.wildcataerobatics.com – based at Old Buckenham Airfield, Norfolk, and Squadron Leader Mark ‘Disco’ Discombe of the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight at RAF Coningsby, Lincolnshire.
Willie and Al took me up in their Pitts S2B planes (which apparently perform and fly very much like Spitfires) and helped me devise a manoeuvre which has special significance for the story – but which I can’t divulge here.
Disco Discombe, meanwhile, allowed me to crawl over the BBMF’s prized Spitfires and spent hours explaining in wonderful detail how they worked and why they were so important to Britain’s survival.
As always, it gives me pleasure to thank my wife, Naomi, and friends for putting up with me when the going gets tough in mid-book and I become difficult to live with. And, of course, my editor, Kate Parkin, and agent Teresa Chris, who do so much to smooth the rough edges of my work.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rory Clements was born on the edge of England in Dover. He was an associate editor at Today newspaper, followed by stints at the Daily Mail and Evening Standard.
Since 2007, Rory has been writing full time in a quiet corner of Norfolk, England, where he lives with his wife, the artist Naomi Clements Wright, and their family. He won the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Award in 2010 for his second novel, Revenger; and three of his other novels – Martyr, Prince and The Heretics – have been shortlisted for awards. Nucleus is the second of his thriller series featuring Professor Tom Wilde. The first, Corpus, is available in paperback from Bonnier Zaffre.
To receive exclusive news about Rory’s writing, join Rory Clements’s Readers’ Club at www.bit.ly/RoryClementsClub and to find out more go to www.roryclements.co.uk.
If you enjoyed Nucleus – why not join the Rory Clements Readers’ Club by visiting www.bit.ly/RoryClementsClub?
Turn over for a message from Rory Clements . . .
Dear Reader,
Have you ever wondered what it is like to live on the brink of war? Today’s generation has been fortunate thus far, but in the summer of 1939 my parents and their friends must have known that very soon they would have to stand against the Nazis to preserve the freedom of Britain and, ultimately, the world.
It must have been a terrifying experience, for the German war machine looked unstoppable – but how much greater would that fear have been if the young men and women of the free world had been aware that the race for a nuclear bomb had already started and that Germany seemed to be leading the field?
That is the frightening truth at the heart of Nucleus. My book is a work of fiction, but in reality Germany had achieved fission; they did start a nuclear programme in 1939.
However, this book is also about something much more human than war machines: heroism – true, unsung heroism of the old-fashioned kind.
There are my protagonists, of course. Tom Wilde and Lydia Morris are nothing if not brave. But in Nucleus there are also two real-life heroes who, in their individual ways, saved many thousands of lives, but whose names are now almost lost to history.
They are Bertha Bracey and Frank Foley. I imagine that if you walked down any street you would be hard-pressed to find a single person who could tell you who these two were or what they did. And that, to my mind, is a crying shame.
Let me tell you a little bit about them.
Bertha Bracey, a devout member of the Society of Friends (the Quakers), was born in 1893. After the First World War, she was a Quaker volunteer involved in feeding a million starving German children.
In November 1938, the terrible events of Kristallnacht made it clear that no Jew was safe in Germany. Bertha was one of those who persuaded an initially reluctant British government to take in 10,000 unaccompanied German Jewish children and provide sanctuary. For the next ten months she worked tirelessly organising the so-called Kindertransports, ensuring that every child was found a home and school in Britain. Those 10,000 children owed their lives to Bertha and her remarkable band of helpers.
Frank Foley also saved the lives of many thousands of Jews. His official role was Britain’s Passport Control Officer in Berlin, but he also happened to be MI6 station chief – Britain’s top spy in the city.
Jewish people were desperate to get out of Germany – and Foley broke all the rules to make sure they did, handing out visas at the slightest excuse.
He deserves a book in his own right, of course – and there is a brilliant one: Foley, by Michael Smith. Novelists, of course, are indebted to such books for their research. Those that have helped me are too numerous to list, but I would recommend The Years Of Persecution by Saul Friedlander to anyone interested in those dark days.
Which brings us back to 1939 and the impending war. If you enjoy Nucleus, I hope you’ll keep an eye out for the third in the series. I haven’t settled on a title yet, but it is set later the same year – at the very time the Nazis invaded Poland. Hitler was about to overrun Europe and many eyes were focused across the Atlantic to the USA. Would President Roosevelt step in to help the Allies with weapons and, perhaps, troops? The decision rested on a knife-edge.
If you would like to know more please visit www.bit.ly/RoryClementsClub where you can join the Rory Clements Readers’ Club. It only takes a moment, there is no catch and new members will automatically receive an exclusive extra chapter that throws more light on the events in Nucleus. Your data is private and confidential and will never be passed on to a third party and I promise that I will only be in touch now and then with book news. If you want to unsubscribe, you can do that at any time.
Of course, I would be delighted, too, if you could spread the word about my books. Online reviews are particularly welcome. I always read them!
Anyway, thank you once more for your interest in Tom Wilde and Lydia Morris and the world of 1930s Cambridge. I hope you enjoy reading the books as much as I love writing them.
With my best wishes,
Rory
First published in Great Britain in 2017 by Zaffre Publishing
This ebook edition published in 2018 by
ZAFFRE PUBLISHING
80-81 Wimpole St, London, W1G 9RE
www.zaffrebooks.co.uk
Copyright © Rory Clements, 2018
Cover design by Nick Stearn
Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com
The moral right of Rory Clements to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978-1-78576-373-1
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Zaffre Publishing is an imprint of Bonnier Zaffre, a Bonnier Publishing company
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