London Calling

by D. N. J. Greaves

  Parkinson lay very quiet, almost in the peaceful recline of a really deep sleep. His body was stretched out below the rear wall of the room. Not a mark showed on him, apart from a light covering of dust and scattered glass fragments. But the position of his head belied his repose. It was twisted at an unnatural angle to his chest. His eyes were open, his face a picture of mild astonishment. Reynolds knelt down to check for a pulse, something he knew would be a complete waste of time. But he had to do it anyway. His young colleague deserved no less, even if it was nothing more than a futile gesture. Poor bastard. Gently he closed the dead man’s eyes.

  The ringing in his ears was still there, but gradually he began to make more sense of his surroundings. He could hear the roar of a fire. Flames were billowing out from somewhere away to his right, lighting up the room with flickering crimson shadows. He moved over towards what was left of the bay window, and looked out onto the view. A giant’s hand, maybe the god of war himself, appeared to have smashed numbers seventeen and nineteen almost into oblivion. There was nothing left but a heap of smashed bricks and broken furniture scattered across the gardens and road. The house next door was leaning drunkenly away, halfway sagging into the roaring abyss of where the other two houses had once stood.

  Suddenly the door crashed open, and a burly figure lurched into the room.

  ‘Christ, that was close!’ It was Fletcher, the man who owned the house. His voice sounded from a long way away. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes… nothing that won’t mend… What about your family?’

  ‘They’re alright.’ Fletcher turned to look at the body on the floor. ‘What about him? Is he-‘

  ‘He’s dead. Leave him there for the moment. We’ll sort him out later.’ Something popped in his ears. Reynolds could just make out the sound of Fletcher’s wife’s coming from the rear bedroom. She was trying to hush the cries of her frightened children. He spat some more dust out of his mouth. ‘Get your wife and kids out of the house - before anything else happens. I’ll follow you down.’

  Fletcher disappeared as quickly as he’d arrived, leaving Reynolds standing alone again. He looked around. The telephone lay on the floor, hard up against the wall where it had been flung to. He bent and picked up the receiver, but the line was dead. He left the room, and followed the family as they clattered downstairs and out onto what was left of the street. There the heat was intense and the fire roared louder, belching out great billows of flame and smoke up into the night skies. Panic and pandemonium reigned. Neighbours rushed about, gawping and pointing at what had just happened. Some of them were restraining a man, frantic in his efforts to break loose and dash into the one of the houses. He was screaming at the top of his voice-‘my wife, my daughters, someone help, please God, help…’ He sobbed, falling to his knees. But he would never have made it. The flames, the searing heat drove everybody away. Whoever had been inside would have died instantly.

  At least Simms’ house looks alright, he thought. Some blast damage to the front, the usual smashed windows, but nothing worse than that. But he could see evidence of another fire behind number fourteen. Whatever had happened there was also sending clouds of smoke upwards beyond the silhouette of the house. Suddenly he remembered the watchers at the back- Beckett was taking the early night shift and Thompson wouldn’t be turning up for over another hour. He needed to check the rear of the house first, then report in and summon reinforcements.

  Reynolds hurried as fast as his aching head would let him back up the street, dodging the crowd of spectators that had gathered to witness the effect of the bombing. At the top end an alleyway took him left through to the gardens at the rear of the even numbered houses, and there he could see for himself the extent of the damage to the railway line and embankment. He struggled forward through the cloud of smoke and burning debris to where the bomb had exploded. There was no-one to be seen on either side of where the archway once stood. He was just about to turn back when he noticed what looked like a body lying in a pool of blackness. It was Beckett. Suddenly the overwhelming smell of burnt flesh and decay reached him. Nausea washed over him like a heavy wave, forcing him down onto his hands and knees. When the retching abated, he got up and staggered away. He had to find a working telephone as quickly as possible.

  6 Ashcroft Gardens, Millbank 0135

  The telephone rang, dragging him up from the depths of a deep sleep. For a second or two he was completely disorientated. He had been fast asleep dreaming of- what the hell had it been? Something about an argument during a meeting? Then the phone rang again, jolting him back to reality. He sat up and blearily switched on the bedside lamp, and grabbed the receiver. He recognized the voice. It was Richard Davies.

  ‘I’m sorry to disturb you at this unearthly hour, sir, but something’s happened to our team in Hanwell’.

  ‘What?...Oh, yes. I remember.’ Petrie still felt a little disorientated, but his mind began to click rapidly into gear. Operation Matador. It had to be bad news at this time of the night. Across the other side of the bed his wife stirred, but did not awake. Keeping his voice down, he growled quietly into the speaker. ‘Alright, laddie, tell me the worst.’

  ‘There was an air raid. One of the bombers dropped a load almost directly onto our target. The bombs missed the pharmacist’s house but caused widespread damage to the area. Two of the overnight team are dead, Parkinson in the house across the road and Beckett at the back.’ Petrie cursed under his breath. ‘Who’s there now?’

  ‘Reynolds, sir. He’s just reported in. He can’t be sure what’s happened to the occupants in number fourteen. As far as he can tell, nobody’s come out. The house is intact, although there’s the usual blast damage to windows and so on, but nothing worse than that.’

  ‘He’ll need some back-up.’ Petrie yawned, rubbing his unshaven face wearily.

  ‘I’ve already taken care of that, sir. I’ve managed to get hold of a team at short notice. They’re on their way.’

  ‘Good. So, there’s no sign of O’Malley, then?’

  ‘No. Reynolds wants to know what further action he should take. Should he try and get inside the house and find out what’s happened?’

  ‘No, Dick that might be…wait a minute.’ He was fully awake now. An idea suddenly occurred to him. ‘The emergency services should be there by now, are they not? What about this- let’s say there’s an unexploded bomb, or a gas main that could rupture at any moment. Tell the locals. That’s good enough reason as any to evacuate the entire street and surrounding area. Put them up overnight in a local school. At the same time we can screen who comes out, and conduct a thorough search of the building and its contents. If we find the transmitter, then leave it where it is. Better still, wait for me - I’m coming over myself. Meet me there in half an hour.’

  6 Ferndale Avenue, South Harrow 1100

  There was a soft knock at the front door. She rolled over in bed, not absolutely convinced of what she thought she had just heard. A quick glance at the alarm clock - this was a strange time for somebody to come visiting. After all, it was a Sunday morning. Most of her respectable neighbours would be in church, but she had little time for that nonsense. This was normally an occasion for a long leisurely lie-in, either alone with the papers and Timmy her ginger cat, or maybe a male companion, perhaps one of these well heeled and randy Yanks. The country was bursting to the seams with them, all looking for an easy conquest, confident in their ability to charm the panties off her or anybody else they chanced their arm with.

  It had certainly been the case for many of her friends. These Americans seemed to have a never-ending supply of money and goods usually only available at extortionate expense on the black market- stockings, perfumes and the like. And if your luck was really in, maybe even some champagne, or perhaps incredibly, a hint of diamonds. She’d never seen the latter, but there were plenty of rumours circulating about rings and marriage proposals. But if you believed that, then you needed your head examining. As the saying went: over paid, over s
exed and over here.It was as apt a description of these Yankee boys as any. So she’d had a few flings with one or two of them, but nothing too serious, nothing worth treasuring beyond a temporary satiation. She was a sensual women, and enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh as much as any other, perhaps even more so, but so many of these men were mere boys, eager but inexperienced and with little idea of what a woman really wanted or needed. She remembered a conversation with one of her more worldly friends, laughing and giggling like silly schoolgirls over a drink in the bar of one of the more fashionable city hotels: ‘they’re always in and out of your life, coming and going and going and coming- and always much too soon.’

  No, if you wanted something more substantial in life, then it was almost certainly not with one of these farm boys from >Iowa, or some fast talking slick charmer from Atlantic City, or a used car salesman in uniform from Miami, New York or one of the thousands of other places she’d heard of and knew from the pages of an atlas, but had never seen for real. Here today and gone tomorrow- that was their motto. You never knew when the call of duty would take them away, sometimes permanently, and it was best not to get too deeply involved. Of course, it would never happen to them, they all said- they were indestructible- it would always happen to someone else. But sadly, more and more failed to come back, transferred away to another base, another country, or a more permanent place of rest in a cemetery, a watery grave or some hole in the ground. ‘

  It was nearly five years since her husband had died in that accident abroad, and she had yet to find someone who had matched up to the measure of her former lover. As time slipped past there had been various muttered whispers among her family, but she’d ignored them- how could they possibly understand the way she felt? Even some of her closest friends had voiced some concern. You’ve hit thirty. You’ll end up on the shelf, an old maid, alone and without a man to take care of you. She didn’t really care so much about what they thought, about being older and still effectively single, but she hated the word ‘widowed’. It almost had the same connotation as that dreadful word ‘spinster’. There were certainly plenty of widows about- the war had seen to that, and many were considerably younger than her. But there was no way she would ever consider a marriage of convenience, even in her darker moments when loneliness enveloped her mood like a dank, smothering black fog. She was far too independent and choosy to consider such an option- it would almost be like waving a white flag and surrendering to the forces of damned convention, behaving in the same way as everyone else did.

  No. She was determined never to give in like that. The life assurance had paid off the mortgage, and her job provided enough income to live a comfortably independent life of her own choosing. She had a good social life, and many friends. And someday she’d meet the right man. Not a knight in shining armour - she was old enough and wise enough to realize that those fairy tales were utter nonsense. Life’s reality was far harder than fantasies like that. The right man would eventually come along.

  The knock was repeated. This time she slid out of bed, slipped on a dressing gown over her slim naked body and went downstairs.She could just make out a blurred outline through the part frosted glass inserts in the front door. She opened the door on the latch, and squinted out into the bright light.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mrs Grey? Mrs Patricia Grey?’ The voice belonged to a man she’d never seen before. He was of average height, well built and about the same age as her. She thought him good-looking, but rather bedraggled and unshaven.

  ‘Yes, that’s me. Christ, it’s a bit bloody early. What do you want? Who are you?’

  ‘I’m very sorry to disturb you at home, but I have a letter from a mutual acquaintance.’ The stranger leaned closer, and murmured in a low voice. ‘Are you familiar with the name Canaris?’

  ‘Perhaps, perhaps not.’ She immediately looked suspicious and alarmed. ‘What’s it got to do with you?’

  ‘Quite a lot, actually.But first, would you mind reading this letter? He wrote it recently, and asked me to give it to you should the need arise. Please read it,’ the man’s eyes pleaded. ‘I’ll wait here while you do, if you don’t mind. It may explain a few things.’

  ‘Alright.’ She took the proffered envelope and retreated back inside the house. A few minutes later the door re-opened. This time, the latch chain was taken off. ‘You better come in.’

  He closed the front door behind him and followed her into the kitchen. She pointed to a chair. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘Thanks,’ he smiled and sat down wearily. ‘I must apologize for my appearance and state, but it was a bit of a rough night, and it took me some time this morning to find where you lived.’

  ‘Yes, you can say that again.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘You could do with a shave, a bath and some clean clothes.’ She turned her back on him, busying herself with filling a kettle and turning on the cooker. ‘I’m not in the habit of letting strange men call on me, like this. At least you had the decency to call at a reasonably decent hour, although it still feels like the crack of dawn,’ she laughed, and carried on talking with her back towards him. ‘Obviously you know who I am, so perhaps its time you introduced yourself. That’s what a real gentleman would do, rather than rely on the contents of a letter.’ She slid open a drawer, and turned around. The change was dramatic. A ten-inch kitchen knife glinted in her hand. ‘Don’t think I don’t know how to use this,’ she said fiercely, a hard, determined look on her face. Simon didn’t know whether to laugh or put his hands in the air. She’d caught him completely off guard. But the woman looked serious enough not to be taken lightly. Canaris had told him very little about her, saying it was for the best. He did not want her put in danger in case Simon was captured and persuaded to talk.

  ‘Alright, seeing as you insist,’ he began, cautiously eyeing the knife in her hand. ‘I’ll tell you what I can, what’s safe for you to know. My name is Peter O’Malley. Canaris has sent me here. I was staying at another location in London, but it proved unsafe, compromised, as the admiral would say. He gave me your address the last time I saw him, but told me very little about you. Entirely for your own safety, I might add. All he would say was that the letter he had written would provide an introduction, good enough for you to put me up for a few weeks, enough until it was time for me to leave. I’ve not seen the contents.’

  There was a long pause while she eyed him up. ‘I see. Well, it’s obvious enough where you’ve come from, Mr O’Malley, or whatever your name is.’ The point of the knife had not wavered at all. She thought for a moment, then said: ‘your English is very good, good enough to pass without comment. I have no idea why you’re here in England, but I’ll bet you’re up to some sort of mischief. So why should I help you?’

  ‘The letter should be a good enough reason,’ he said, ‘but as I said I don’t know what’s inside it, or how you fit in with the Admiral’s plans. I really can’t tell you the full story of why I’m here, at least not yet, not until we know each other better. But there’s one thing you should believe in, and that’s this - I’m on the same side as Canaris. If you really know him, or perhaps know something about what he’s tried to achieve in the last few years, then maybe you’ll begin to understand what this is all about.’ She stared at him for a long minute, then put the knife down. ‘Alright,’ she said slowly. ‘That will do for now.’ The kettle was about to boil over. ‘Have your cup of tea, and then you can use the bathroom after I’ve finished. Once you’re clean and respectable we’ll talk further. But I’m not doing anything that will harm England, not in any way.’

  ‘That’s fine with me. And perhaps you can tell me how you know Canaris.’

  ‘Oh, that’s simple enough. There’s no mystery there at all.’ She smiled for the first time, suddenly transforming her pretty face. ‘He’s my father.’

  Room 42, third floor, Cabinet War Rooms 1910

  ‘I don’t believe it! Nicholls’ shrill voice broke the silence, harsh with criticism. ‘It’s ab
solutely incredible! How could you let him slip through your fingers again? Twice in three days? This is gross incompetence!’

  Petrie tried his best to remain calm, but the little bastard was sorely trying his patience. The Joint Intelligence Committee emergency session had been reconvened at short notice in view of the dramatic events of earlier today. It was late on a Sunday, normally a time to be home with the family even in the middle of a war, but this matter would not wait. Far too much depended on it.

  He kept his voice at an even tone. ‘Perhaps you haven’t fully appreciated what I’ve just told you, Alan. The bombing was a freak accident. Nobody could have foreseen such an eventuality.’

  He’d already spoken to the local air defence commander, who was convinced those enemy aircraft were heading for the Vickers factory. Two of the bombers had prematurely dropped their loads short of the target, one of them later crashing in the countryside west of the city. Two more were shot down on their approach. The last one managed to get through and cause minor damage, before escaping into the night skies.

  ‘That may be so,’ Nicholls continued irritably. ‘And admittedly I’m no expert on intelligence operations, but it seems to me you had far too few men on duty last night. Look what happened- you call it a freak accident, so you say, but O’Malley appears to have escaped from your surveillance operation. Where the hell is he now? You’ve lost him, haven’t you?’

  ‘We don’t know where he is, but we’ve circulated his picture with every police officer throughout the city. Nevertheless, our fall back position is the meeting in Hyde Park. He’s bound to-‘