The dust was everywhere, fine, tan-coloured, and it floated down bringing the pungently sweet aroma of nutmeg. The discharge cone of the hammer mill was sunk into the cellar, while the rest of it rose up through the floor into the dusty timbers above.
‘Bloody stuff gets up your nose,’ shouted someone in a cloth cap, smock and apron, all of which were liberally covered. ‘Here, mate, what’re you doin’ standin’ about like friggin’ royalty? This here’s out of bounds t’ th’ likes of you.’
Nutmeg clouded the eyebrows and gnarled face, collecting in the wrinkles that pulled the skin about the antagonistic eyes and grim-set lips.
‘Colonel Hacker sent me. I was told to come here,’ he shouted as another hundred pounds shot through the machine.
‘Hacker,’ clucked the little man. ‘Hacker … Hey, Wilf, you know any Hacker? Christ, th’ bloody racket! WILF, CAN’T YOU HEAR ME NONE? SHUT TH’ OLD WHORE OFF! Bugger’s stone deaf at his age. Perishing terrible ain’t it. Hacker?’
The machine died and the dust hung in the air, clinging to everything, and where too much had built up on a nearby timber, it avalanched to the floor, leaving dense little clouds.
The silence was penetrating. Up from the cellar came a shout, ‘Bill, for the love of Jesus, what the hell is the matter now? We’ve got the grind. The blades are set correctly to match the screen. The feed’s just fine. Bill, I won’t have it—’
A head, shoulders, shirt and tie appeared and then the rest, bald over the crown, big-eared, thick-necked, big-shouldered but stooped and stout.
Bill dragged off his cap. ‘Says some’ne called Hacker sent him, Sir John. Don’t know no Hacker, does I, nor young Wilf.’
A forearm was gripped in comradeship. ‘It’s all right, Bill,’ said Sir John. ‘Never mind. I’ll attend to it, now there’s a good chap. The grind’s bang on. Why not take your tea break then press ahead, eh what? Champion, Bill. I knew you could do it.’
‘That old whore’s had it, Sir John. You can’t tease life out of th’ dead.’
The man from the cellar gave Bill’s arm a friendly squeeze. ‘You just have, right? Now be a good lad and have your tea.’
He began to roll down his sleeves, to think better of this and to brush himself off. ‘Tired,’ he said. ‘The machine’s just tired.’ But in the shop, he added, ‘If you’ll excuse me, Captain Ashby, I shan’t be a minute.’
Snatching up a brush, he strode the length of the shop and out to the pavement, the passersby parting, he paying them no mind and brushing himself thoroughly down before straightening his tie.
On the way back, he collected his jacket, then came on to stand in speculative appraisal before him, thought Ashby. Nutmeg still clung to him, the eyes gun-metal blue beneath washed-out brows, the stance tough but not necessarily belligerent, the age about sixty-three. A man, then, who took life as it came.
So this was the schoolmaster. ‘Sir John Masterson at your service, Captain. Bunny’s sent word. Sorry about there not having been anyone to greet you. I should have known better, but … well, duty called. Good of you to find the time.’
‘Your Colonel Hacker gave me no choice. I don’t know who you are or what you want with me, but I’m not happy about it.’
A flicker of irritation stiffened the stance but it passed into a brief smile, the handshake firm, Masterson almost as tall as himself.
‘Bunny’s a good man, Captain Ashby. Would have made a splendid detective had the Yard had the sense to hire him. Still, ours is not to complain, hmm? We’ve got him and they haven’t.’
‘What do you people want with me?’
Stung, Masterson raised his voice. ‘We people, Captain, can help you, or would you prefer we let the Germans find your daughter? Ah, I thought not. Well, there’s a good chap. Knew you’d see things our way. Would you prefer tea or beer? Tea’s upstairs in what’s left of the tasting room. Beer’s any pub you care to choose. The Red Lion in Saint James’s, perhaps. Then you’ll be near your club and can pop over afterwards. Yes, I think that would suit admirably. Agreed?’
He would choose the tea, thought Ashby, and find out all he could, but again there was that flicker of irritation from Masterson.
The tasting room was almost as long as the shop below. Hundreds of white porcelain bowls stretched in a line atop a counter that ran from end to end, and behind each there was an equally sized white porcelain pot with its strainer. Sample tins of tea were ranked along the shelves. Gas burners stood under waiting kettles, a clock giving the time clearly in quartered minutes, brass spittoons standing sentinel on rollers, but everywhere there was the dust of disuse, the room so obviously having been shut up for years, Ashby had to give Masterson a questioning look.
The rounded shoulders shrugged; the voice, when it came, was somewhat in rebuke. ‘Two things, Captain. First, Spurgeon’s used to occupy the premises next door as well, and the spice side of things existed hermetically there, so as not to bugger the tea. Second, the tea business has its ups and downs. Taken on the cycle, when the price is right, it can make you a fortune. Taken at the wrong time, it can treat you like a bad woman. I inherited Spurgeon’s from my father, to whom the tea trade had just given the clap. Now what’ll it be? Some Dum Duma, or would you prefer the Darjeeling? There’s no milk by the way, nor is there any sugar. There never was, of course.’
The Dum Duma, from Lakhimpur in Assam, was a ‘first-rate self-drinker.’ ‘The Assams,’ said Masterson, ‘are the stalwarts of the tea trade in Britain. Marvellous teas, though not so fine as the Darjeeling where the mist rises to hover at about four thousand feet. Here at Spurgeon’s we used the shilling when weighing out, same as Brook Bond. In Bombay, and in the hills, I used the four-anna silver piece.’
Selecting a canister, he blew dust out of two of the bowls, shook and banged a kettle to dislodge and get rid of the scale, then filled it and set the water to boil. Using a beam balance and the four-anna piece, he perched himself on one of the stools and indicated that another should be used. ‘I met Bunny in Burma, of course, and our paths have more or less crossed ever since, but that’s of no consequence, is it?’
‘Burma … What was he doing there?’
And thank you, thought Masterson. ‘Police work. Mainly that and putting down insurrections in the hills and training regulars. Sad, really, to see it all go, the Empire. Giving the buggers quasi-dominion status isn’t the answer, but our Prime Minister Chamberlain’s got his work cut out for him. This business with Hitler won’t stop. Austria and now the Sudetenland and then Danzig, eh? It can’t go on, can it? We’ll soon be forced into doing something. Poland is my guess. Poland and then, why then, the sky’s the limit if we don’t stand firm.’
The kettle came to a boil. Masterson glanced at his wristwatch and spoke of oxygen in the water and how essential it was to take the water at exactly the right time. Routine took over, and he made the tea, again keeping an eye on his watch. Five minutes he would allow it to steep. Five and no more.
The clock on the wall had stopped.
‘Tell me about General Friedrich von Hoffmann, Captain.’
‘Not until you tell me a lot more about why I’m here and what I’m getting into, especially with employees like your Colonel Hacker.’
Oh dear, oh dear, Bunny had really upset him, but must schoolmasters always assume the worst? ‘There’s not much to tell. MI5 counterintelligence has virtually no budget, as you can well surmise, and few permanent staff. Even now, its main concern is still the threat of international Communism, though I am, thanks to Bunny’s efforts and those of others, bringing my associates round to believing the Reich a far greater threat. Myself, I’m what we call a coordinator. I run Bunny and a few others, and they report back to me.’
No budget and few other than Hacker working on the threat from the Reich … ‘And this place?’
Masterson used a handkerchief to mop nutmeg from his b
row. ‘Apart from the shop? Oh, a blind, I suppose. Spurgeon’s provided the opportunity for a bit of travel, so it’s all to the good. We’re attached to Section B, counterespionage, but there are other sections: administration, security, military liaison, aliens and overseas control, all of which sounds very grand. B has three main functions: counterintelligence, countersabotage and countersubversion. Major-General Sir Vernon Kell heads it all, as he has for a good many years, and Captain Guy Liddell’s director of Section B. There are desks for any number of things in B, enemy wireless, mail, police liaise with the constabulary and the Yard. Have to, you see, because we’re under the home secretary and have no powers of search and arrest ourselves. We’re part of the civil service, a bind, Bunny would say. He’s one of what we call the “Watchers.” Moves about the country a good deal, that one. Never stops for long, let me tell you.’
The tea was dark and bitter. ‘What, exactly, have you two got in mind for me?’
There was mist on the tea, a good sign, thought Masterson, blowing it away. ‘We’ve had a series of wireless signals come through from AST-X Bremen. Bits of five-letter groupings, is all you need to know, but there’s a sleeper somewhere, Captain, and we greatly fear those signals are his wake-up call and that he’s to find and take your daughter back. Where have you got her?’
A sleeper … Hacker had said the same. ‘I’m not saying, Sir John.’
‘Oh come now, be sensible. They’ll find her, and then what?’
‘You can stop them.’
‘How? Once they’ve got her, we might not even know which aerodrome they would use to take her home. Then, too, they might decide to use a trawler and we wouldn’t know that until it was far too late. Good God, man, we’ve not the manpower or the finances to cover the whole of the frigging British Isles.’
They needed something, then, thought Ashby, something like a real coup to convince Whitehall and the prime minister of how necessary MI5 was and how great the threat from the Reich.
‘Well?’ demanded Masterson, taking a swig of tea to slosh it round and then spit it out.
‘I’m still not saying. Right now she’s safe.’
‘Can you be absolutely certain of that after what those two birds did to that barmaid of yours? I should think not, so you’ll tell us where the girl is and let us leak that to our friends in the Abwehr because we want this sleeper, Captain, and everything else he can bring us.’
‘And if I don’t agree?’
‘The Yard will pick you up.’
‘I didn’t kill Daisy.’
‘Good gracious me, of course you didn’t, but you don’t have an alibi. Not unless you want to tell the court where the girl is and why you’ve not only taken her from her mother but hidden her away.’
‘I still can’t understand why they killed Daisy. It makes no sense. That colonel of yours must have known where she was since he came upon me just after I’d found her.’
Oh dear, oh dear. ‘Bunny is always on top of things. Has to be, now doesn’t he?’
Hesitantly invited into the sitting room of Headmaster House and offered tea, Hacker set the cup and saucer down on the mantelpiece. Neither Anthony James Pearce nor David Douglas Ashby was present or near on this Friday afternoon, the Pearce woman frightened out of her wits about the murder.
Leaving the tea untouched, he said, ‘The Yard would be grateful if you would take it upon yourself to let me have a look through Captain Ashby’s room.’
‘Is he a suspect?’ she yelped.
She had even splashed tea on her frock. ‘One never knows, does one, madam? Apparently he was intimate with the woman, though I must say it’s odd, a man of his calibre having sexual relations with a barmaid. Did you know he was and that he had a wife?’
Ruth blanched. ‘A wife? Ash? No. No, I didn’t!’
And never mind the barmaid. Beaten by the news of a wife, her head was now bowed, she so near to tears, Hacker knew he had to wonder about her feelings for the schoolmaster, but asked, ‘Mrs. Pearce, don’t headmasters check out each of the masters before hiring them, or is it that your husband doesn’t tell you anything? Come, come, why weren’t you a party to Captain Ashby’s marital status?’
Defiantly, she looked up at him. ‘I wasn’t, that’s all. My husband and I seldom discuss him. He’s a good teacher. Isn’t that enough for me to know?’
‘Not when there are tears. Were you in love with Captain Ashby? Are you?’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, you, Mrs. Pearce. You’re giving every sign of it.’
‘I’m not. How could I be?’
‘Then you’ll let me see through his room.’
Ruth wrung her hands. ‘As I’ve told you, Colonel, my husband’s away in Taunton. The boys … It will start the school to whispering. Their parents are bound to hear of it and then I … I don’t know what will happen.’
A scandal, ripe like rotting fish. ‘The room, Mrs. Pearce. Your husband’s being questioned in Taunton. We thought it might be best to do it there. Out of sight and on the quiet, so to speak.’
‘Anthony went to the dentist!’
‘Of course he did. And Captain Ashby?’
‘Went up to London. He … he won’t be back until late on Sunday. I …’
‘We know exactly where he is, Mrs. Pearce. He’ll never know I’ve been in his room. Just a look, eh, to help our investigation along.’
‘David didn’t kill that woman. How could he have?’
And bleating it out too. ‘We’re not saying that he did, only wanting to see if there’s a connection to those who might have.’
‘There’s a spare set of keys in my husband’s study. David is master of Todd House.’ But when they got to the room, he having followed her in full view of everyone who cared to look, Ruth found she couldn’t seem to fit the key into the lock.
‘Let me,’ he said.
The coarseness of Colonel Hacker’s thumb and forefinger made her cringe, and as the door closed behind her, Ruth leaned back against it, fighting for composure.
Hacker lost interest in her. The room was plainly furnished: two stuffed armchairs by the fireplace, an end table covered with books, the desk littered with stacks of exercise books to correct and grade, bookcases, a closet, wireless set, bureau and not a hell of a lot else.
When he found the revolver, a British Army Mark VI Webley in a bureau drawer, he said, not turning to look at the woman, ‘An old friend, I must say, Mrs. Pearce. Needs one hell of a lot of practice though. Any idea why he would keep it fully loaded in a school for boys?’
‘No! I … I didn’t even know Ash had it.’
Ash … And white as a sheet, no doubt, thought Hacker. ‘It, Mrs. Pearce?’ he asked.
When she didn’t answer, he flicked his wrist, swinging the cylinder open further, the brass cartridges spilling onto the carpet. ‘Pick those up, would you?’
‘I … I beg your pardon?’
‘I said: Would you pick those up?’
The bell rang in the halls, the sound of trampling shoes soon coming to her, Ruth down on her hands and knees at his feet, fighting for composure while trying to gather the cartridges, knowing the boys would be bound to see her and Colonel Hacker leave Ash’s room.
Hacker let a photograph drop, and as it clipped her brow, the woman saw not only a wife—slim, tall, elegant and obviously fair—but a child, a little girl of about three with Ashby’s winsome smile, the father and the daughter obviously birds of a feather.
Tears splashed the photograph, the Pearce woman’s hand shaking so much, the trauma of unrequited love was clear enough.
Looking up at last, she blurted, ‘I didn’t know! No one ever told me, not Anthony and … and not Ash.’
A ragged sob was given, Ruth knowing he was looking down at her with contempt.
‘Why not tell me about Captain Ashby and your hus
band, Mrs. Pearce? Sit over there on his bed and let me have the whole of it. What you know of their association, but more than that, what it has suggested to you.’
Everything, then, thought Ruth. Everything.
She might find out that he wasn’t from the Yard, felt Hacker, would discover soon enough that her husband hadn’t been questioned in Taunton, but by then it would be too late.
There was a recent photograph of Karen Ashby taken with the couple who must be hiding her. A trawler was in the background, and he could just make out the name: the Bonnie Jean. Though there were probably any number of such in the registry, it was damned marvellous what one found out some days, pure inspiration coming here like this with Ashby up in London as requested.
Now where the hell was that bloody trawler?
On that same Friday afternoon, 27 May, as Hilary waited for them to start eating, Karen fervently bowed her head, and with hands placed together, began to pray: ‘Führer, mein Führer, bequeathed to me by God. Protect and preserve me as long as I live! You have rescued Germany from deep despair. I thank you for my daily bread. Abide long with me. Forsake me not. Führer, mein Führer, my faith and my light. Heil, mein Führer!’*
A spoonful of soup was taken, then thought better of, Karen breaking bread into the bowl and saying, ‘They are not coming, Fräulein. They are never coming back!’
Ewen and Monica had gone to Falmouth in the Bonnie Jean. Karen had had her lesson, such as it had been, then a hike across the moors in search of birds’ nests, a deliberate avoidance of the mine, and now … why now, an early supper. ‘Of course they are,’ said Hilary. ‘They’ve just been delayed.’ But had they, she wondered, or had something terrible happened?
‘You can’t keep me a prisoner in this stinking cottage. I will run away!’
‘No you won’t. It’s far too dangerous, and you know it. Look, if you’re really planning to escape, at least have the decency to wait until you’re back in Saint Ives. It’s bad enough having to put up with someone who doesn’t want to learn her English.’
The Sleeper Page 7