by Jack Treby
I gulped. ‘Er...yes, that’s right. He wasn’t at breakfast. We had a bit of drinking session last night. Just wanted to check he was all right.’
‘I see.’ There was a pregnant pause.
‘Is he? All right, I mean?’
The first officer shook his head sadly. ‘No, I am afraid he is not. Mr Kendall died in his cabin last night.’
‘Good lord!’ I tried to show the appropriate level of surprise. ‘Died?’
‘Yes, I am afraid so.’
I allowed myself a moment to let the news sink in. ‘Poor fellow,’ I breathed. I have never been a virtuoso when it comes to play-acting, but when my neck is on the line I pride myself I can lie with the best of them. ‘He can’t have been more than...what, fifty five?’ I shook my head. ‘Did one of the stewards find him?’ Heinrich had sworn blind that he had not seen Kendall since last night.
‘That is correct. He was discovered in his cabin at a quarter to seven this morning.’
‘In his cabin?’ So the young lad had been lying. But that didn’t make any sense. Why would one of the stewards enter Kendall’s cabin a good hour and a half before breakfast? Rüdiger saw my confusion and was quick to explain.
‘Mr Kendall asked for an early morning call. I understand he wanted to send a telegram before breakfast. It was a matter of some urgency, he said. The steward knocked and when he did not answer, the door was opened and the man was discovered lying on top of his bed.’
‘Lord,’ I breathed. ‘How awful.’ That at least explained why there had been no fuss at breakfast time. The corpse had already been discovered, long before any of the passengers had surfaced. ‘So how did he die?’ I asked.
‘That we are trying to determine.’
‘You’ve had a doctor in there to take a look, I imagine.’ I knew very well that they hadn’t, but I couldn’t resist baiting the fellow. It doesn’t do, in these situations, to always be on the back foot.
‘Unfortunately not. We do not have a medical officer on board.’
‘No doctor?’ My eyes boggled in apparent surprise. ‘Seems a bit lax, if you don’t mind me saying so.’
Irritation flashed across the first officer’s face. ‘It is something that has been discussed but it has never been thought necessary until now. We will have to wait until Rio for a full examination; but it seems likely that Mr Kendall died in his sleep. There was a sleeping draught by his bed which he may have used. The instructions were in Spanish, so perhaps he misread the dosage. A doctor will be able to determine that. In the meantime, we will leave the body in the cabin.’ At last, something that did make sense. So Kendall had not been moved after all. Heinrich must have known he was dead when I had spoken to him, even if he had not been the one to discover the body. The lad was a surprisingly good liar. Not that I blamed him. He had clearly been under orders to keep quiet. ‘We are only a day and a half from our next port,’ Rüdiger added.
‘So why wasn’t there an announcement at breakfast?’ I asked.
‘Captain Albrecht felt it would be better to wait until lunchtime. We do not wish to cause any undue distress, especially after the unfortunate news concerning Herr Schulz yesterday afternoon. Better to wait until we are through the storm and the matter can be attended to properly. Captain Albrecht does not have the time to visit the passenger decks this morning. But when we heard from the steward that you had enquired about Mr Kendall, the captain thought it best I had a quiet word with you.’
‘I understand.’ So I wasn’t under suspicion. I was just being a bit of a nuisance. That was the first good news I had had all day. ‘Well you can rely on my discretion,’ I told him. ‘Lord, two passengers dead in less than two days. Not a good run.’
The first officer nodded gravely. ‘Captain Albrecht is very upset. He has never lost a passenger before. It is most regrettable.’
‘Not his fault, Captain Rüdiger. These things happen. It’s Miss Tanner I feel sorry for. She’ll be mortified.’
‘The Fräulein was close to Mr Kendall?’
‘No, but she admired him. He was a singular fellow.’
‘A journalist, I understand. Captain Albrecht said he was highly respected in his field.’
‘I’ll say.’ Another pause descended. ‘Was there anything else, captain?’
‘No.’ The first officer pulled himself up. ‘You will excuse me. I must return to the control room now. The storm will be upon us shortly.’ He reached for the door and stepped out into the corridor.
‘It’s not going to be a bad one, is it?’
‘There is nothing to fear, Mr Bland.’ He smiled tightly. He was aiming for reassurance but the expression did not suit him at all. ‘We are already moving around the edges of the storm. And the Richthofen is designed to cope with anything that nature can throw at it.’
I grimaced. ‘Forgive me if I’m not reassured.’
‘You are welcome to join us in the control room, if you wish to have...what is the phrase...a grandstand view?’
Now the man was being facetious. ‘I think I’ll pass on that,’ I muttered.
‘As you wish. Ah, good morning, Mr Finch.’
The first officer tipped his hat as Jacob Finch, the stockbroker, made his way purposefully along the passage towards us. I tried very hard not to scowl at him. It seemed like I couldn’t walk anywhere on the ship this morning without bumping into some idiot or other. Unfortunately, Finch’s cabin appeared to be directly opposite the steward’s. Finch was clutching two pieces of paper in his hands, one of which looked to be a telegram. He nodded perfunctorily to the first officer, who moved smoothly past him and continued on his way. Finch grimaced at the sight of me, which was a bit rich considering he was the one obstructing the corridor.
‘I wish it was a good morning,’ he exclaimed, waving the telegram in front of me. ‘It’s an absolute disaster.’
‘Stocks taken a dive?’ I enquired. The last thing I wanted to do was engage him in conversation – I had too much else to think about just now – but the damned fellow was standing between me and the rest of the deck.
‘If only it was that simple!’ he declared. ‘Everything’s going horribly wrong. One hand doesn’t know what the other hand is doing. I wish I were a stockbroker, then we might not be in this mess.’
I didn’t understand. ‘What do you mean, not a stockbroker?’
‘You really don’t know, do you?’ He shook his head sadly. ‘You poor sap. You’re up to your neck in it and you haven’t got a clue what it’s all about.’
I no longer had the patience to be polite. ‘Mr Finch, I really have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘No. How could you? I’ve just been in touch with London. You’re not going to like this one little bit.’ He fumbled in his jacket and produced a leather wallet with a small metal star. ‘Jacob Finch. Special Branch. There’s been the most god-awful cock-up. You shouldn’t be here at all.’
Chapter Ten
The outer edges of the storm were beginning to make their mark on the hull of the Richthofen. I was well away from any of the windows, in a tiny cabin towards the front of the passenger deck, but the sound of the rain battering the canvas exterior of the Zeppelin was becoming audible even in the depths of the ship. The wind was whistling around us and, in the distance, I could hear the first grumble of thunder. That should have been enough to give me palpitations but at the moment, in the cramped confines of a passenger bedroom, my attention was focused wholly on Mr Jacob Finch.
He was a strange looking fellow, a little under six feet tall, with bright ginger hair and an anxious, square jawed face. He might have been considered handsome, if only he had managed to stay still long enough to be photographed. But his eyes and hands were constantly on the move and there was a shifty air to him, born – I suspected – more of anxiety than any attempt at duplicity.
‘Does the captain know you’re on board?’ I asked him, incredulously. I had followed the man into his cabin in something of a daze. The last thing I h
ad expected to find on a German airship was a British policeman.
‘Yes, he knows,’ Finch confirmed. ‘He’s not at all happy about it. Why would he be? It’s an appalling situation. I have no jurisdiction. We’re in international waters. I can’t arrest anybody. I can’t do anything. But the captain’s allowing me to pursue a few enquiries, so long as I’m discreet. Not that he really knows what I’m looking for. I could hardly go into details. But he’s given me access to the telegraph, so I’ve been able to keep in touch with London.’ He gestured to the notes in his lap. He had left breakfast early, I recalled. Perhaps he had been summoned to the radio room. ‘Not that they’re much help either. We’re on our own out here. It’s been a shambles from start to finish.’
‘And you’re really a member of Special Branch?’ I asked, not bothering to hide my incredulity. He did not seem like a policeman to me. I glanced down at his shoes. He didn’t even have flat feet.
‘I’m afraid so,’ Finch replied, fidgeting in his chair. I was sitting on the bed, on a freshly tidied orange blanket. He had propped himself up on a stool, with his back pressed against the folded up wash basin. ‘I flew out from Croydon to Friedrichshafen on Saturday afternoon and joined the Richthofen at the eleventh hour.’
‘That sounds familiar,’ I observed.
‘You can imagine the shock when I found out you were on board as well. You’re not meant to be here at all.’ He lifted the notes from his lap and rustled them absently. The damned fellow seemed incapable of keeping still. One of the papers was a telegram slip. The other was a white sheet with pencil marks scribbled across it, presumably a decryption of the message he had been sent from London. I wondered briefly what book code he was using; then I noticed a copy of Alice in Wonderland projecting out of his jacket pocket. MI5 were not the only ones with a sense of humour, it appeared. ‘It’s a total nightmare. Things should never have been allowed to get this far. I’ve checked your credentials with London.’ He waved the telegram towards me, for emphasis. ‘They’ve given you the all clear. So I’m afraid it’s up to the two of us to sort out this sorry mess. But you really shouldn’t have been on board in the first place.’
‘Yes, you said that before. Look, can we start at the beginning?’ I was not altogether sure I trusted this strange, anxious looking man. He had checked my credentials but I had not had the opportunity to check his. The identification he had given me looked genuine, but I was not about to take it at face value. And even if it were true, my opinion of Special Branch had never been that high. ‘Why don’t you tell me what this is all about?’
He nodded, folding up the papers in his hand and cramming them into the inside pocket of his jacket, next to the book. ‘You won’t believe a word of it. The level of incompetence involved.’
‘I’ll believe anything when it comes to your lot,’ I said, only half jokingly. The boys from Special Branch were a laughing stock among the Intelligence community. When MI5 identified a spy ring, it was Scotland Yard who were called in to make the arrests and it was they who received the credit. But behind the scenes the organisation was an unmitigated disaster. They had been infiltrated by Soviet agents at the tail end of the twenties and had leaked all kinds of state secrets to the Russians, something that would never happen with MI5 or the SIS. Staring across the cabin at the policeman, I was curious to know what had gone wrong this time.
Finch gripped his hands on his thighs, took a deep breath and began his story.
‘We have a file in the depths of Scotland Yard which isn’t supposed to exist. Only a handful of people know about it. It can’t be removed from the archive and only seven people have direct access to it. The security is supposed to be watertight.’ Finch grimaced. ‘I only wish it had been. One of these seven people accessed the file on Saturday morning, in order to update it. And, when he did, he discovered the documents had been tampered with. God knows how, but someone had got hold of the file and made a complete photographic copy.’
‘You mean someone just waltzed into Scotland Yard with a miniature camera in their pocket?’
The policeman laughed bitterly. ‘You know, I wouldn’t be at all surprised. Security is an absolute joke. But no, this time, it was an internal job. Which only makes it worse. One of our own people! It’s absolutely shameful.’ His fingernails, I saw, were digging into the fabric of his trousers. This was not a man who viewed his work dispassionately. ‘You think you can trust someone and then...’
A rumble of thunder served to underscore the point and for an instant the room seemed to shift sideways. I clutched onto the edge of the bed to support myself. The effect of the wind was starting to be felt even here. But I had more important things to concern myself with than a bit of turbulence.
‘But if the file was still there, how did you know it had been photographed?’
Finch rolled his eyes. ‘Because the papers were all over the place. Staples removed. Everything out of order. It must have been put back in a rush.’
‘Do you have any idea who accessed the file?’
‘Yes. It’s practically the only thing we do know. We know who accessed it and we know what she did with the photographs.’
‘She?’
‘One of our female clerks.’ Finch shuddered. ‘Came on shift in the early hours of Saturday morning. We always have somebody there to keep an eye on things. And this was a woman of impeccable character. Been with us for years. From a good family. The highest level of clearance for her pay grade. It makes me despair, Mr Bland, if you can’t trust a woman like that.’
I shrugged. ‘There are rotten apples in every organisation.’
‘But we do seem to have more of them in the Metropolitan Police than anywhere else.’ Finch let out a heavy sigh.
‘Perhaps you just notice them more.’ But we were straying from the point. ‘You say this “lady clerk” of yours made off with a copy of the file?’
Finch clamped his lips together and nodded. ‘Yes. She was the only one who could have done it. We arrested her at Croydon aerodrome a couple of hours later. She admitted everything, but by then it was too late. The films were already on a plane to Friedrichshafen. We had to browbeat a local pilot into flying me out there in a two seater a couple of hours later. I didn’t even have time to pack a suitcase.’ He gestured apologetically to his clothes. His suit was a bit frayed, I noticed, though his shirt looked new.
‘But if you knew a copy of this file was on one particular flight, why didn’t you ask for the passengers to be detained when they arrived in Germany?’
‘There wasn’t time. And this is far too sensitive to involve the German authorities.’ Finch leaned in close to me then, the stool he was sitting on tilting slightly in my direction as he shifted his weight. ‘It’s a question of national security. The fewer people who know about this, the better.’
That was the line Charles Lazenby had fed me. ‘You know, Mr Finch, I think it’s about time I was told exactly what was in this file.’ I was fed up with all the secrecy. ‘What’s so horrendous about it that you’ve had to go to all this trouble?’ Why had I been press ganged into travelling on this airship?
‘You mean you haven’t been told?’ Finch boggled at me. Another gust of wind rocked the ship and he shot out a hand to steady himself as the stool threatened to topple from under him. ‘How on earth could you be expected to help if they didn’t tell you what it was all about?’ he exclaimed.
I pursed my lips irritably. ‘I’ve been asking myself that very question. I gathered from Charles Lazenby that it was something pretty scandalous, but nothing military.’ That at least was what I had read between the lines. ‘So I assume it’s not just a few photographs of the Prince of Wales with his pants around his ankles.’
The electric light fluttered slightly and there was a boom of thunder. At least the pelting rain would serve to mask our conversation, if anyone happened to be passing by. The man from Special Branch looked away in embarrassment.
I blinked. Finch had gone red at the men
tion of the heir to the throne. I regarded him dubiously. ‘It isn’t Prince Edward is it?’ A sex scandal seemed far too trivial to be worth all this fuss. And nobody would bat an eyelid at a bit of royal bed hopping. ‘Everyone already knows what a libertine he is.’
Finch gripped his hands together again. ‘People don’t know the half of it, I’m afraid. Look, Mr Bland, this is absolutely top secret. It cannot leave these four walls.’ Another rumble of thunder served to underscore the drama of the moment.
So it was something to do with Prince Edward. ‘Go on.’
‘We’ve been keeping a detailed file on the comings and goings of the Prince of Wales for some years now.’
I frowned. ‘But that’s your job isn’t it, at Special Branch? To look after the prince and make sure he comes to no harm?’
‘I only wish it were that simple. Yes, we provide protection, but this file goes far beyond anything like that. It contains details of every movement Prince Edward has made in the last ten years. Every illicit liaison. Even copies of his private correspondence. That was why one of our people was looking at it on Saturday morning. It was being updated, now the prince is on his way home from Brazil. But Special Branch is only charged with protecting him. It’s not part of our remit to spy on the heir to the throne.’
I sat back on the mattress. ‘Well, that may be a breach of protocol,’ I admitted, ‘but it’s hardly a hanging offence.’
‘You don’t understand. It goes far beyond ordinary record keeping. This file makes shocking reading. It shows...well, I hate to even say it.’ His hands were trembling with embarrassment. ‘But it shows that the heir to the throne is...’ He closed his eyes and spoke the words in a hoarse whisper, ‘...faithless, dishonourable and utterly unreliable. That’s not my opinion, you understand,’ he added anxiously, ‘but the opinion of the British government. They have no faith whatever in Prince Edward as a future King of England. And this file makes that abundantly clear.’ He opened his eyes. ‘Have you ever heard of a woman called Maggie Meller?’