72
The Dolphin, King’s Cross. It was in this pub that Jake’s story had taken its first lurch towards the nightmarish with the news of Britton’s death. He recalled it perfectly: the garish headline, a plummeting drink; astonishment that the professor he had just been speaking to was no more.
Well, here we are again.
Jake took in the fading chintz, the smell of old beer. A drunken city boy was singing folk songs to a pair of Dubliners. The pub was the same, but Jake’s understanding of the universe had changed forever, and he felt a pang of longing for his old life. Luke McDonagh sat in the far corner, two pints and two whiskies already lined up in front of him.
“This is how you journalists roll, is it?” said Jenny. “And there was I thinking Fleet Street was grown up nowadays.”
McDonagh reddened and a hand flitted to his fringe. Jake recognized the gesture: shame at the vice, panic at the approach of an attractive woman.
“Jenny and I are … workmates,” he said.
“A pleasure to meet you.” McDonagh gestured at the drinks. “Tuck in.”
“Just one of them for me,” Jake mumbled, hand hovering before he settled on the pint.
Jenny ignored the display, evaluating the other drinkers. The old timers were definitely clean and the city boy looked innocent enough.
“Before I tell you what I’ve got,” said McDonagh, “I want you to know I’ve put a lot of work into this whole project. Plus there’s all this stress and upheaval, having to get out of my flat and so on.”
“Luke, if you deliver the goods we’ll really look after you,” said Jake. “I promise you that.”
“Great. Well then. I started off looking in the National Archive. I won’t bore you with the techniques, but everything drew a blank. There’s not a trace of the ancient Etruscans in the whole damn place. And then it hit me. I was doing it the wrong way around. Churchill was scheduling a meeting, remember? The answer was simple – check his wartime appointment diary.”
“Of course,” said Jake. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Throughout the war, Churchill’s secretaries recorded his engagements on a stack of appointment cards. They had gone under the hammer at Christie’s a couple of years back; Jake had covered the story.
“Churchill College Cambridge has a copy of the cards in its archive,” said McDonagh. “I went up there last week, and sure enough, there it was.”
McDonagh rummaged through his folder, producing a photocopied appointment card. The handwriting was impeccable.
20th September 1941.
1 p.m.: Head of Special Intelligence, 54 Broadway, St James’s Park.
Prep – W.S.C. to read Dicks Report, 41 pages. Highly classified.
“W.S.C. is Winston Spencer Churchill,” said Jake. “Obviously. But what’s this ‘Dicks Report’ he’s got to read?”
“That’s where things get really interesting,” said McDonagh. “Dr Henry Dicks was a British psychiatrist. His most famous patient was. Wait for it … Rudolf Hess.”
“Hess?” said Jenny. “As in Hess, Hitler’s deputy? The Nazi who flew to Britain to try and make peace?” She recalled beetling eyebrows, a thick-set skull.
“That’s him,” said McDonagh. “In 1941 Germany found itself fighting the British, whom Hitler admired, and at peace with the USSR – which he wanted to annihilate. In short, he was fighting the wrong war. Hess was a bit … a bit simple, and he dreamed up this crackpot plan to put the situation right. Without telling anyone what he was planning, he flew solo to Scotland, parachuted out of the plane and contacted a rightwing aristocrat who was thought to favour peace. He wanted to arrange a ceasefire that would give the Nazis a free hand to invade Russia. But when Hess landed he was arrested. He spent the rest of the war as a P.O.W. It was a big scandal in Germany.”
“The Hess affair was one of the most mysterious episodes of the war,” said Jake. “It’s been the subject of conspiracy theories ever since.”
The journalists both took a swig of beer; their whiskies had been neglected for fear of Jenny’s disapproval, and they huddled together for comfort.
“Dicks carried out a series of interviews with Hess in June 1941,” McDonagh finished. “He was trying understand the mindset of the Nazi leadership.”
“But what does Hess have to do with ‘the Etruscan matter?’” asked Jake.
“Ah. That I don’t know.”
“I take it this Dicks Report is still under lock and key?” asked Jenny.
“Actually, no,” said McDonagh, fishing once more in his folder. “Photocopies of Dicks’s notebook are in the Wellcome Library in Euston for anyone to inspect. It’s of medical interest.”
Jake studied the cover page. The handwriting was a doctor’s scrawl, but it was legible enough.
Points for study.
* Sexual delinquency confessed.
* Superstitions: amulets.
* War guilt. Atrocities and reprisals: ranges from sadistic participation, approval, detachment, disassociation (washing hands of it) to mild/violent disapproval.
* Latent needs: Aggression (hate, sadism), exhibitionism, heterosexuality, omnipotence – “magic control of objects.”
Jenny peered at the list. “He sounds like quite the character.”
“Yep,” said McDonagh, “a proper wrong ’un and no mistake.”
Jake started forward – the name ‘Mark Anthony’ was written at the bottom of the page without explanation. “What’s this all about?”
“Again, no idea. There’s no further mention of him in the entire report.” He laughed. “Or Cleopatra, for that matter.”
Jake began reading the psychiatrist’s notes, which were copious.
2nd June. The first impression is of a schizoid psychopath. Compared to the photos in the press, the face is that of some tormented beast – the face is bestial, ape or wolf. At one time, it might have been quite charming – it is now hounded and haunted by this blasted German Satanism. The gaolbird or chronically unemployed, failure-in-life look is there.
“Well, whatever the Etruscan connection there’s no denying it’s a scintillating read,” said Jake.
There is a tremendous feeling of stone-walling. This is not on the level of the man who does not wish to give himself away – it is withdrawn-ness. He is not rude, he is detached. He barely smiles at jokes, he will not volunteer anything, he appears uninterested. He is a good specimen of the rudderless nothing who is only alive in reflected group energy. At times he evidently gets acute paranoid fears of the poisoner or secret enemy.
“It gets better,” said McDonagh, taking the report and turning a few pages. “Read the entry for the fourth of June.”
He is in a state of apprehension which varies only in degree. Surveillance, gently as it is done, deprives him of sleep. He is, I suppose, constantly on guard against assassination – the slightest noise in the guarding suites, or the orderly officer creeping into his room to see whether he is alright, wakes him. I am too unfamiliar with the personalities which rule in Germany to say whether this is the normal attitude of the Nazi leaders, or whether this man has an additional personal paranoia system. The expression of his eyes is perhaps the most significant – hunted, unhappy, wolf-like, and also shifty.
“And this one,” said McDonagh.
7th June. He is not even equal in knowledge of culture or world affairs to his mess mates. And he is the third man in The Reich. Miserable, pricked balloon, dramatizing himself as the saviour hero.
“He sounds like a man on the edge,” said Jenny.
“Not a bad analysis,” said McDonagh. “Pretty spot on, actually. Because shortly after that entry was written Hess tried to commit suicide by throwing himself over a balcony.”
*
De Clerk frowned as he studied his monitor. He had taken control of Camden Town Hall’s network of CCTV cameras with ease – it was just a question of finding one in the right place to peer into The Dolphin. Suddenly he had it. He zoomed in to see pints on th
e table. Whisky too, by the looks of it, and a wad of paper being handed from person to person.
“Three of them,” de Clerk said into his mouthpiece. “Looking at documents.”
“What sort of documents?” asked Waits.
“No idea, the resolution’s not high enough.”
“Ok then. Frank and I are almost in position. Keep a good eye out – once they’re on the move we’ll nab all three of them.”
73
“Hess was definitely mad,” said McDonagh. “Even the Nazis thought so – it’s amazing he climbed so high. He was a member of the Thule Society, a German occult group. And he consulted horoscopes religiously. Here, read this bit.”
He passed Jake the report.
15th July. I have little cause to revise my opinion either of the nature of his personality, the mental trouble from which he is suffering, or the causes which led to the appearance of his abnormal mental state, culminating in attempted suicide. Yet, important changes have taken place in his attitude since then. I should like to comment upon them. A short while after his attempted suicide, his delusional fears of being poisoned began to disappear. By July ninth, after frank discussion of his symptoms, he admitted his mental state had been a psychosis. He is at present in a much saner and more cheerful frame of mind. One is bound to emphasize again his obvious limitations. His mental processes are primitive, and his philosophical outlook is that of a superstitious fatalist, derived from the murky levels of German hero-fantasy and national self-adulation.
Jake turned to the final page. Dicks had concluded:
He has to accept the source of his fears in his own fantasy, and he perhaps could be brought to acknowledge that it was a reasonable fantasy to have for one who has been in a regime of unprecedented persecution and secret conspiracy.
Jake tamped the pages into a pile and set them on the table. Something was nagging at him. Granted Dr Dicks was a psychiatrist; but Hess wasn’t the first person they had certified insane in the last few weeks. Roger Britton, Charlie Waits, Florence Chung, Giuseppe Nesta: each of them had been written off as a lunatic. Jake suspected they were all as sane as he. The journalist drained his pint and stared at the dram.
“There isn’t a mention of the Etruscans in this entire document,” Jenny was saying. “It’s not very helpful. If anything, it just raises more questions.”
“You haven’t noticed then,” said McDonagh. “Thought you were supposed to be top journalists?”
Jake’s looked up. “Noticed what?”
“The note in Churchill’s diary said the report was forty-one pages long. But there are only thirty-seven pages here.”
“Which means …”
“Which means four pages have been removed,” said Jenny.
“Exactly,” McDonagh replied. “And it’s obvious which ones.”
“It is?”
“It is indeed. There’s an entry every few days in June, but then nothing in the run-up to July’s suicide attempt. No description of the crisis coming to a head, nor even the night Hess threw himself over the banister. Not a sausage until July fifteenth, when he starts making his recovery.”
“Then who removed the four pages?” said Jake. “Where are they now?”
“Well, I should have thought that’s perfectly obvious.”
Jake waited for him to speak.
“Oh – perhaps I forgot to tell you where Dicks carried out his interviews?”
“Go on.”
“After Hess was arrested he was held at a local farm. Then they locked him in the Tower of London for a couple of weeks, the last prisoner ever held there, incidentally. Finally he went to a detached house in Surrey called Mytchett Place – That’s where Dicks carried out his interviews. Mytchett Place was a safe house run by MI6.”
There was an intake of breath.
“Given that Churchill was meeting the chief of the Special Intelligence Service, I’d say MI6 look a good shout for the page removal,” McDonagh finished. “Wouldn’t you?”
Under the table Jenny gripped Jake’s knee. Jake grabbed one of the whiskies and downed it in one.
It all came down to four pages from a psychiatrist’s notebook. Four pages to explain how Rudolf Hess was the link between MI6 and the Etruscans. Four pages to reveal how the whole fractured jigsaw fitted together. Four pages that would turn history upside down.
*
The door of the pub swung open and three figures emerged onto de Clerk’s monitor. “They’re on the move,” he observed calmly.
There was a handshake between Jenny and McDonagh, another between the journalists. Then the freelancer was off, pacing towards Bloomsbury at speed.
“The group’s splitting up now,” said de Clerk. “Frobisher and Wolsey are heading east – they’ve got the documents. Advise who to follow?”
“Keep on those two,” said Waits. “Evelyn’s on the other chap’s tail, we’ll pick him up later. Is the coast clear?”
De Clerk rotated the camera. The Dolphin was on a backstreet behind King’s Cross proper. One side of the road was red-brick Victorian tenements; the residents, well-heeled nowadays, would be at work. The other side was bordered by the Town Hall, but the building faced the opposite direction, the rear used only for deliveries. The street was empty – they wouldn’t get a cleaner chance than this.
“Coast’s clear,” said de Clerk.
The targets were making for a passage that cut past the Town Hall to join Euston Road, where a discreet snatch would be impossible. It was one of the busiest arteries in London.
“You’ve got thirty seconds,” he warned.
*
“We need those missing pages,” Jake was saying.
Jenny laughed. “Do you have any idea how difficult getting them out of MI6 would be? We’d have more chance raiding 10 Downing Street.”
They were twenty paces from the passage when Jake heard the bark of an engine nearby. Boy racers, probably. There was an estate a few blocks away.
“Aren’t MI6 files stored digitally?” he said. “We wouldn’t have to get the physical document.”
That car was getting closer; a white Ford Transit clattered towards them from the other end of the street.
“Even if it was stored digitally, which is far from certain, you’d need a hacker with some serious skills,” said Jenny. “Nothing short of a genius, actually.”
A gunmetal BMW rounded the corner. There were ten paces to go before they made it to the passageway. Beyond it Jake glimpsed Euston Road, billowing with traffic fumes.
“We might have a bit of a problem finding one of those at short notice,” he said. “Geniuses don’t grow on trees.”
There were five paces to go when it hit Jenny. Did she dare?
Three paces, two paces, no paces.
74
“Hold it, hold it …” de Clerk stared at his monitor. “School trip incoming …”
A class of primary school children in red sweatshirts had appeared on the Euston Road side of the passage; two teachers herded the group in and at once the cut-through was full of bobbing heads. De Clerk watched Jake pause at the entrance, letting the children pass. But his warning had come too late to abort the swoop. First he saw Davis’s van enter the shot, then the sleeker form of his boss’s BMW. The car swept gaily past the school trip and was away down the street.
“Damn,” said Davis. “Damn, damn, fuck, damn.”
“Language please, Frank,” said Waits. “Circle around and let’s try again. Edwin, keep on them, would you?”
*
Jake glanced at the car as it shot by. He had been mistaken: it wasn’t a boy racer at all. It was a top-of-the-range BMW, going too fast for him to see the driver. A Korean boy glanced up at the journalist as he pushed past – toothy grin, the devil’s own eyebrows – and Jake chuckled, fighting the urge to ruffle the kid’s hair. He had always identified with the naughty ones. They squeezed through the passageway and out onto Euston Road, where the traffic was gridlocked, as always. King’s C
ross Tube Station was on the other side of the street. And the flat where they were staying was a couple of miles away; it belonged to a university friend who was holidaying in France.
“Come on, let’s stroll,” said Jake. “I could do with the walk.”
*
De Clerk used a camera owned by Network Rail to track the pair past the station, but they went out of shot as they crossed from Camden into the neighbouring borough of Islington. De Clerk’s fingers were a blur as he brought up a camera used by local police to keep tabs on drunkards and prostitutes. Then he had them again. They were turning onto Caledonian Road, a residential street striking northwards through the borough.
“They’re heading up the Cally Road towards Regent’s Canal,” said de Clerk. “Just passed a Tesco Metro on the left. There aren’t many pedestrians about further up the street. Reckon you might have another chance if you get there asap.” He pronounced the abbreviation as a single word.
“On our way,” replied Waits. “Just tackling the one-way system. Blue lights on now I think, Frank …”
Jenny was deep in thought as they passed a row of neglected period properties. The frontages were caked in soot and the paint flaked away, as if the terrace was afflicted by some dreadful skin complaint.
“I don’t know how you’d feel about this,” she said. “But I do know a guy who could tackle MI6’s firewalls. A genius, as it happens – literally.”
“Oh?”
“There’s only one problem. He’s MI6 too.”
“Well, it’s a bit academic then, eh?”
“The thing is …” Jenny bit her lip. “I always got the impression he kind of – liked me, if you know what I mean.”
“What are you suggesting?” Jake laughed. “You seduce him into helping us?”
Foretold by Thunder Page 22