by John Creasey
‘You’ve the devil’s own luck, Rolly. I’ve fixed one part. You can go but Paterson’s on ops tonight already.’
‘Bless your little heart!’ exclaimed the Toff. ‘How soon do I start?’
‘There’s a car leaving the Air Ministry in twenty minutes,’ said Tim. ‘It’ll take you to Hendon and there’s a ‘plane leaving for Lettley as soon as the car arrives. Carrying some papers,’ Tim added briefly, ‘and there’s plenty of room. You’ll have a Wing Commander with you and he might be curious. Don’t let me down.’
Rollison smiled into the mouthpiece.
‘I’ll see you all right,’ he said with assurance. ‘One day I’ll let you know what it’s all about and you’ll be glad you spread yourself. Cheerio.’
He replaced the receiver, bundled the file back into the cabinet and locked it and hurried downstairs. He was at the main doors of the Air Ministry building just fifteen minutes later; the sidelights of a car glowed eerily through the gloom and he approached the driver, a girl in uniform just visible in the reflected light.
‘I think you’re expecting me,’ he said. ‘Colonel Rollison.’
‘The others won’t be a moment, sir,’ said the girl.
They followed almost on her words and with Rollison climbed into the tonneau. Rollison was brief but heartfelt in his thanks, a gruff-voiced man waived them and the journey to Hendon passed with neither incident nor comment. The transfer to the aeroplane, a twin engined bomber, was quickly accomplished and they took off within a few minutes of arriving at the airfield.
Once in the air, the gruff-voiced man said: ‘Well, I’m going to have a nap. Need it.’
Obviously the machine had been converted for the seats were upholstered and the passengers’ comfort well looked after. Faint snoring came in place of the gruff voice and the other man said little, evincing no curiosity whatsoever about the reason for an Army man’s sudden journey. Rollison smiled appreciatively in the darkness and then settled down with the roar of the twin engines loud in his ears. Now and again a member of the crew passed him and, on the starboard side some half an hour along the journey, he saw a network of searchlights and coloured shells rising into the air. He even caught a glimpse of a machine illuminated by the searchlights with a dozen puffs of whitish smoke bursting about it. Then the silvery streak disappeared while his aircraft went onwards steadily.
The flight to Lettley took precisely two hours.
The gruff voice grunted once or twice after being awakened and they climbed from the ‘plane to the landing ground. Rollison felt somewhat ill at ease as he asked one of his companions how far it was to Bedloe.
‘Fifteen miles or so,’ he was told. ‘They may have a car going over there in the next hour. Hold on, I’ll see.’
There was a car leaving at 3am, he was told a few minutes afterwards, which meant he would be at Bedloe about half-past three or a little later. Would that be all right?
Rollison assured them that it could not be better and was ushered hospitably into the mess where he was fed on bacon, egg and strong tea, in company with a dozen members of the station personnel, the crews of two bombers who had just returned from a ‘flip over the pond.’ Their desultory talk about the night’s journey intrigued Rollison who saw that their tired eyes were bright enough to reveal the spirit in them and wondered whether Gerald Paterson would be anything like them. He asked whether anyone knew Paterson and the men stared at him, suddenly interested in a man who until then had been a chance guest whom there were too tired to worry about.
‘Good Lord, yes,’ a tall, dark-haired man said. ‘Don’t we all? Mad blighter.’ There was a general chuckle which Rollison rightly took to be praise and appreciation of Paterson. ‘He got back last night with a couple of holes in his belly and only just holding together but he got back. Know him?’
Rollison felt a lump hardening in his throat.
‘I was going to see him, but—’
‘No need to get worried,’ a chunky man assured him with a side grin. ‘Pat’s all right, no holes in his diaphragm. Belly applies to his kite.’ His grin widened at Rollison’s obvious relief and he went into some details of the escapades for which Gerry Paterson had made himself famous.
It was when the party had left the mess that a broad-shouldered man with the two thick and one thin stripes of a Squadron Leader approached him somewhat diffidently and asked casually: ‘Did I gather that you were going to see Paterson?’
‘That’s right,’ said the Toff.
‘H’m. Good fellow. You don’t know him well, I suppose?’ He eyed the Toff as the latter shook his head and then shrugged. ‘Oh well. Look here, I shouldn’t say this but he’s not in any bother? Odd, I mean, you coming up here to see him.’
‘No official bother,’ Rollison assured him.
‘H’m. No. I’d know about that. Or I should. You’ll find him a bit tense. Between ourselves, I’ve often wondered what’s on his mind. But natural, the way he goes on. You expect it in the Polish or Free French boys, y’know, but Pat’s got some bug biting him. Best of fellows, flown with me a lot, but—look here, you don’t mind me talking like this?’
‘Great Scott, no!’ exclaimed Rollison, wondering how best to encourage the man to go on talking. He was eager to learn all he could of June’s Gerry and it was not yet half-past two; the car would not be ready until three o’clock.
The other car, with the two men it it, was approaching York and a few miles beyond York was Bedloe aerodrome. Neither of them had spoken for some time but both were thinking of the precise instructions they had been given and pondering the chances of being able to carry them out before morning.
‘Paterson always gives me the impression that he’ll do a dam’ fool thing one day and pay for it,’ the Squadron Leader commented next. ‘Man with a problem, I’d say. I mean, a few nights back—Monday— he dashed down to London. Didn’t stay long but came back looking like death. I’d like to help him. If you do learn anything, give me a tip.’ He cleared his throat and went on: ‘I dropped in here a bit earlier, spot of bother with the kite. My station’s Bedloe and I’d like to help Pat, as I say. All this strictly between ourselves, of course.’
‘Of course,’ echoed the Toff. ‘He came to London on Monday, you say?’
‘Yes. Good man, thanks a lot.’ The Squadron Leader proffered cigarettes, then glanced at the clock. ‘Our car won’t be long. I’m coming with you. Er—you are Rollison, aren’t you? I mean the fellow who gets about one way and the other. Dubbed the Toff, eh?’ A slow, shy smile curved the other’s lips and he added: ‘I thought so, wouldn’t have worried you otherwise. I mean, you coming up to see Paterson like this.’ He waved a hand uncertainly and smiled more widely. ‘Worst of having a reputation. Of course, mum’s the word from me. Let’s go out and see about that car, shall we?’
A little tensely the Toff agreed and they sauntered into the night. The Toff was trying to digest the disquieting fact that on Monday, the day of the first murders in Chiswick, Paterson had flown to London and returned ‘looking like death.’ He remembered, too, that an RAF man had been seen near the shop but hurried away.
Fifteen miles away the two men were huddled together in a kiosk and one was saying to an Adjutant at Bedloe: ‘If I can have a word with him, I’d be very glad. It’s particularly important … Yes, I’ll hold on, thanks very much.’
Chapter Nineteen
Calling Flight-Lieutenant Paterson
After a long wait the telephone crackled in the ear of the man from London. He nudged his companion quickly, waited for a man to say ‘Hallo’ and spoke in a low-pitched, urgent voice: ‘Is that Flight-Lieutenant Paterson? My name is Edgley and I—’
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said the voice at the other end of the wire. ‘Mr. Paterson is out and isn’t expected back for another twenty minutes.’
‘Out!’ The voice los
t much of its culture. ‘At this time of night he can’t be. He—oh, I see what you mean.’ He broke off as in turn he was nudged sharply. ‘You mean he’s flying. Oh, er—then I’ll ring him later.’
‘Can I give him a message, sir? Or ask him to ring you back?’
‘I won’t give him that trouble,’ said the man who called himself Edgley. ‘I’ll call again in about half an hour.’
He rang off and, into the quiet darkness of the kiosk, swore unrelievedly for thirty seconds, finding neither echo nor reproof in his companion. Both of them left the kiosk and went to the car, parked in a nearby field without lights. They lit cigarettes and settled down to wait while above them the air was filled with the droning of aircraft returning from ‘flights over Germany.’
At regular intervals the great bombers came, quivering the air and shaking the ground as they drew near and landed. From time to time flares were shown to lead them in and once there was a crash loud enough to make Edgley jump.
‘What’s that?’ he demanded, and peered through the rear window of the car. ‘It must have been—say, look at that!’
‘Look at that,’ commented the Toff as he settled down in the tonneau of an RAF car and, with a girl driving and the Squadron Leader at his side, he contemplated the light which had suddenly appeared in the eastern sky. It was not the beginning of dawn but a red and yellow flare, a streak of flame growing rapidly larger. In the distance the roar of engines could be heard clearly; the operations from the station they were just leaving had been completed before the Bedloe flights and the air nearby trembled less.
‘Eh?’ asked the Squadron Leader, who had introduced himself as Conway just before climbing into the car. ‘Oh, that. H’m. One of them has had a spot of bother. He’ll make it.’
To the Toff the complete detachment of flying men had always been a thing of wonder and it grew no less then as he watched the streak of flame growing nearer. It was an aircraft returning and the familiar radio phrase ‘one of its engines caught fire’ was vivid in his mind. He had seen the same thing a hundred times in the first battle of Libya and, although at that time he had grown used to it, he had never ceased to marvel at the coolness of the men who handled burning machines with precision and competence which made courage take on a new and deeper meaning.
As they drew nearer to Bedloe, so the returning bomber drew nearer to them. The fire in the sky became a great beacon and they could see the tail-end of the flames and picture the nose of the bomber, made a silhouette by the engine fire. The droning roar of engines grew louder, not drowned by the sound of the car engine. Rollison found himself fascinated by the sight but forced himself to turn and peer at the vague profile of Conway’s face: the light from the returning ‘plane was good enough to show the man’s features and the glow in his eyes.
Rollison saw a chance of learning more about Paterson and said quietly: ‘You weren’t far out in guessing, Conway. I want to see Paterson because his girlfriend is having a spot of bother but I have wondered if he knows anything about it. I’m briefed for her, in a manner of speaking.’ Having delivered that half-truth, he went on quietly: ‘Has Paterson given you any indication of what’s bothering him?’
‘Afraid not,’ said Conway. ‘Something eating at his vitals, you know what I mean. Not uncommon, of course. Fellows whose people have been bombed out take it hard, sometimes, but I needn’t go into that. Paterson hasn’t any people except his girl. Haven’t seen her but he showed me a photograph. If she’d turned him down or had gone on the loose, I might have put it down to that but she writes regularly. Not much you don’t get to know about the other fellow, of course. It’s not that and—anyhow, you may find out something. If I can help, say the word.’
‘I’ve been able to get him a few days’ compassionate leave,’ said Rollison. ‘I pulled a few strings. He doesn’t know it yet. I’m told he’s flying tonight, by the way.’
‘Oh, yes, he’s out,’ said Conway. ‘Due back about now, in fact.’ As he spoke he turned towards the other window, seeing the great ball of fire which was now so near and low that it seemed as if they could feel the heat from it. That was an illusion for it was six or seven miles away, although few seeing it would have believed that. It flew lower and lower and against it the tall trees of the surrounding countryside, the roofs and chimneys of many cottages, the square outlines of a huge barn, were all shown in vivid relief. About the burning ‘plane there was a great radius of light which remained when the fire itself disappeared from sight.
Conway’s teeth clamped together and Rollison heard them.
The glow remained enough for him to see the other’s profile. Conway’s lips were set, his eyes narrowed and he was looking straight ahead of him, rigid and unmoving. For some seconds he did not even draw on his cigarette but, at last, he relaxed and grunted: ‘All right, I think. Damn’ kites blow up sometimes.’ The red tip of his cigarette glowed as he pulled at it and he added: ‘We won’t be long, now.’
A few minutes later they passed the open gate of a field where a car was standing but they did not see that, nor the two men from London sitting in it. Then they passed through a tiny village and turned right. Hardly had they left the main road before the car slowed down and figures loomed out of the glow of the headlamps which also glistened on fixed bayonets. A torch was shone on the face of the WAAF driver and then into the tonneau. Rollison already had his special pass out and Conway was recognised. After a brief inspection they passed on.
Half a mile away a dozen or more tiny little black figures were shown against the blazing red of a fire. By it were several small cars and a fire-fighting unit and they could see the men working hard to put out the flames, which were bright enough to show the men’s quarters and the other buildings outside which the car stopped. By the door two or three men were standing, all of them in flying kit.
‘Who was it?’ asked Conway, as he climbed out.
‘Pat,’ calmly a voice replied.
‘All right?’
‘I haven’t yet found the ruddy Hun who can really damage me,’ said a negligent voice from a doorway. ‘You caught a packet, Con, didn’t you? I think—what’s that?’ he added as a voice called: ‘Mr Paterson, sir.’ ‘What’s that, telephone at this time of night? All right, I’ll come.’
Standing by the car, the Toff caught Conway’s arm and spoke sotto voce.
‘Can you arrange for us to see him without a crowd?’
‘Glad to,’ said Conway. ‘Come on.’ He pushed his way through the waiting people with half-jocular comments as he went and passed the open door of the mess-room. From another room Paterson’s rather touchy voice was coming as he spoke into the telephone and he said abruptly: ‘Where do you say? What time is the train … are you sure? All right, thank you, goodbye.’
The ting! as he replaced the receiver sounded clear in Rollison’s ears. By then Rollison was wondering, as Paterson had done, who had called the man in the early hours of the morning. He had little opportunity for pondering that, however, for Conway pushed open the door of a small room containing two or three tables and writing desks and then called: ‘Pat, half a minute.’
‘That you, Con?’ Paterson came along the passage, his voice tense. ‘I say, old boy, I’m in a spot. I simply must get down to London in a hurry. Can’t help it and I don’t know whether to wake the Old Man for permission or push off. Can you fix it for me if I do?’ He completely ignored Rollison, who was taking stock of his man and liking what he saw.
Paterson was tall, spare-boned, good-looking in a rugged and masculine fashion; his photograph did not bring that out properly. His nose was on the short side and rather broad and his eyes were blue, not unlike June’s, although a lighter shade. He had fair, crinkly hair and a close-clipped moustache; his mouth was wide and full but well shaped and, Rollison thought, his chin suggested a man who would not sit back while things were happening elsewhere.
‘Don’t worry about that,’ said Conway. ‘Your good angel is on the spot, Pat. Colonel Rollison, Flight-Lieutenant Paterson.’ Conway’s voice grew formal and then he broke again into the jerky sentences which he had used most of the time. ‘Here’s your man, Rollison. Call me if I can help. Oh, I forgot—there’s a ‘plane going down south from Batley around five o’clock: you ought to make it if you hurry.’
Rollison had already shown Conway the authority for Paterson’s leave and the Squadron Leader nodded and went out, closing the door behind him.
Rollison saw Paterson’s eyes widen and then narrow, as if he were recovering from his surprise and beginning to assess his visitor. There was a momentary silence while Rollison judged the best means of approach. Here was a man who had just force-landed after a bombing sortie over Germany, who had flown for miles with one engine burning, landed and got out without turning a hair. To tell him that his fiancée was likely to be put under arrest at any time, and that the police would probably discover the details of a death he himself had caused, was not much to the Toff’s liking.
‘Well?’ asked Paterson, giving the impression that he did not intend to beat about the bush. ‘What is this? A man’s just ‘phoned me to say that a friend of mine is ill—are you on the same errand?’ He looked perplexed, clearly unable to understand why two people should take such interest.
‘More or less,’ said the Toff. ‘Paterson, I’m going to give it to you straight, without any frills. I don’t know anything about the other call but I suspect that it’s an attempt to get you away from here before I see you.’ He prevented an interruption and went on quickly: ‘No-one is ill, but your fiancée is recovering after an attempt to murder her.’