Wings of Death

by David Holman

  The Silver Angel

  An Alex Swan Mystery

  David Holman

  © David Holman 2016

  David Holman has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published by Endeavour Press Ltd in 2016.

  To my dear wife Kirstie and my beautiful daughters,

  Victoria, Emily and Bethany- Anne.

  For the things we have already achieved together

  and for those that we are yet to achieve.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Jack Hollingsworth crouched down beside the still figure lying on the concrete floor of the hangar and shone his torch into a blood stained face that he instantly recognised.

  In a sudden state of shock, he moved the light onto his watch. Up to this unforeseen moment, the evening had started well for Jack, in what he thought would be another tedious evening of night duty.

  Almost three hours ago, he had stopped reading and hastily rammed his copy of the Cumberland News under the reception desk. At Brinton Aviation Ltd this was almost what is known in the working world as knocking off time, and as a security guard, prepared himself for the onslaught of bodies that would hand in keys and grab for their cards to clock off from their shifts.

  Then, the blast of the klaxon sounded, indicating the end of the shift, and he listened for the impending sound of the pounding feet and smell of cigarette smoke from the workforce that would soon pour through the double doors from the assembly and maintenance hangars, on their way out to transport buses, bicycles and for the management, the company cars in the car park.

  Forty minutes later, he had seen the last of the day shift place their clock card into the machine and checked his watch. It was 6.00 pm. Hollingsworth knew by the empty key hooks on the wall, that a few people would still be in their offices. There was one particular hook that he could personally guarantee would not have the keys on it until usually around ten o’clock in the evening.

  On some nights, he had not been collecting these keys until gone midnight, and there were even a few occasions when he had not received them at all. These keys belonged to the green room inside Hangar 2, and the current occupants of this room were the American officials assigned to a new reconnaissance drone project known as Python Hawk.

  Hollingsworth didn’t really like Americans that much. He had every right to have this particular distaste for Britain’s friends across the pond, as his personal hatred was the very reason why for the last twenty-one years, he had been walking with a slight limp. A fateful night, which would forever be embedded in his memory.

  *

  In the spring of 1944, Hollingsworth, as an MP, had been on duty on an RAF station situated on the Suffolk and Essex border and a young American rear gunner, more commonly known as a Tail- End Charlie, had been part of a USAAF B-24 Liberator squadron returning with his crew from a short mission over Bremerhaven.

  Following debriefing, the airman had dived onto his bunk in the tent to open his mail. He had opened the first letter with great excitement. It was from his sweetheart back in his home town of Kissimmee, a province near Miami in Florida, and the scent of Emmie-Lou Harris’ perfume was on the envelope. Hastily, he ripped open the back and extracted the folded letter. With a beaming smile on his face he read it, then with confusion, read it again, threw it down and wept. Airman Harry Pinner had been sent a Dear John.

  Emmie-Lou, deciding that the pressure of him risking his life every night in a flying spam can, was too much for her to handle. She had now chosen to be the girl of Pinner’s arch rival Brad Grissom, who owned the local garage and therefore been exempt from call-up duty.

  Pinner picked up the letter and pulled a Ronson flip lighter from his flying suit. Holding up the letter, he set it alight. Mesmerized by the curtain of flame as it moved across the paper from the corner, he allowed it to reach and burn his fingers. He then clenched his fist crunching up the remains of the letter, dousing the remaining flames to endure the final penance of pain for losing his girl to his high school nemesis. He opened his slightly scorched hand again, allowing the charred embers to cascade down to the tent floor, then he jumped down from his bunk, exited the tent and headed straight for the station’s mess bar.

  Later that evening, Sergeant Jack Hollingsworth and his colleague Corporal Tony Savage, were having a friendly game of cards, when they received a call in the guardroom. The report from the mess was that a US airman had downed eight large bourbons, had an argument, then a fight with an RAF armourer, and after being told to leave and cool off by the bartender, had stolen a bicycle. The last sighting was of him riding out towards the stationary aircraft parked in the dispersal area.

  Hollingsworth and Savage put on their red banded peaked caps, jumped into a jeep and headed out. As they approached the leviathan spectacle of stationary twin-engine bombers silhouetted in the moonlight, Savage pointed out to one of them that had its interior lights on. The rear crew entry door hung open, flapping gently in the slight breeze that blew across the airfield, and the stolen bicycle was propped up against the fuselage, just under the white star USAAF ensign. Inside the rear gun cupola, silent and still, sat Airman Harry Pinner, his arms resting on the breaches of two Browning machine guns.

  Hollingsworth drove directly towards the aircraft in full view of the tail section and, like an escaping prisoner of war caught in the beam of a searchlight, the jeep’s headlights lit up the airman inside the small Perspex bubble.

  Suddenly, the twin barrels of the Liberator’s machine guns spewed hot fire, hitting the front of the jeep, igniting both the grill and bonnet on impact. As the consistent barrage continued, the line of tracer fire begun to creep upwards, smashing through the Jeep’s windscreen, with broken glass flying in all directions.

  Hollingsworth turned the jeep sharply to the left and slammed on the brake. Noticing that Savage had slumped forward, he turned to his colleague. Blood was pouring from a large wound at the side of Savage’s head. Hollingsworth knew instantly that his friend was dead. He rammed his foot on the brake pedal stopping the jeep and jumped out quickly, feeling a sudden sharp pain. He looked down and saw the gaping blood-filled hole in his trousers. A bullet from the Liberator’s rear guns had hit him below the knee. With the gunfire continuing, he clambered for cover, drawing his standard issue Webley .455 revolver from the holster on his hip. He crouched low behind another B-24 Liberator.

  Pinner continued firing his machine guns, spraying the other parked aircraft with bullets. Some of these stray shots had shattered the windows of a parked US Army L-2 Grasshopper observation aircraft.

  On the other side of the Grasshopper, Hollingsworth waited and checked that he was safe in his present position. Then abruptly, the firing ceased. There was a short interval, and then suddenly, a single shot rang out. He realised that the sound of the last shot was different from that of the .303 calibre Browning machine guns of the bomber, which he had endured for the last few minutes.

 
; Cautiously, the MP took a peek to look at the rear of the Liberator, straining his eyes in the moonlight to detect any movement from inside the rear cupola. Squinting in the dark, he could just make out a figure slumped forward over the guns.

  Later inspection would reveal that Pinner had taken his own life with just one bullet entering his skull from his personal Colt 45 pistol placed in his mouth, smearing the roof of the rear gun compartment with his blood and brain tissue.

  Hollingsworth had then spent the next four weeks in hospital. The bullet that had hit him had shattered the lower part of his patella, leaving him to walk with a limp for the rest of his life.

  Since then, there had been days, especially during the winter months, when the pain would be quite severe causing him great discomfort. He had also cursed the time spent in hospital, as this had prevented him from attending Savage’s funeral.

  *

  Almost twenty-one years later, this late January evening was one of those severe wintery times. He rose from his chair, grimacing as the sharp pain shot through him. Straightening himself, he grabbed his torch and clipboard ready for his first site check. The bi-hourly routine would take him to the offices of the main building, then across the apron to the hangars.

  He descended the stairs and walked along the main corridor unlocking each office door with his master key and making a quick sweep of light with his torch. He then entered into the main hall used for corporate events such as the lectures and press conferences that introduced each new prototype. Once through the doors on the other side, he walked into the workforce canteen.

  At the kitchen area, Hollingsworth entered a side room, switched on the light and placing his torch and clipboard onto the beige Formica work surface, picked up a kettle to fill it.

  After a few minutes, he took his cup and saucer with the teaspoon half submerged and sat down at the table, reaching across and grabbing a half folded newspaper. An attempted crossword puzzle faced upwards, with various scribbled words around the edges of the grid. He opened the newspaper up in front of him, simultaneously stirring his tea, and settled into a report about the latest impending defence cuts. Ten minutes later, he rose from his chair, washed out his cup and placed it on the draining rack, then picked up his torch and on his clipboard, he ticked off the areas that he had checked including the kitchen.

  Hollingsworth exited the canteen and made his way along the corridor, checking each side room. At the end of the long corridor, he had arrived to another hall. This was smaller than the canteen and was used as a meeting room, the tell-tale signs being the long oak table in the centre, surrounded by twelve matching high backed chairs. Closing the door, he ticked off all areas of the main building as being secure with nothing to report. His next port of call would now lead him outside to the hangars and the workshops.

  Exiting through a side door, he faced the first of the three large hangars. Known more familiarly as The Magic Box, Hangar 1 was where it all happened. Where all of Brinton’s winged creations were brought to life. From the drawing boards in the Chief Engineer’s office perched on the overhanging mezzanine, to the assembly floor with the strategically placed support jigs. These particular jigs had been recently constructed to a significant specification, because on them, was the Brinton’s latest design.

  To meet Air Ministry requirement OR559 for a high speed low level attack and reconnaissance aircraft, Brinton Aviation had been awarded the contract to build this machine. However, following political constraints regarding budgeting, the recently elected government had decided to amalgamate Brinton with two other aircraft manufacturers to jointly produce the project.

  The directors at Brinton had campaigned against this, as it would mean a reduction in their own workforce, but despite taking this to the cabinet table of the newly elected British Government, it had been concluded that the amalgamation decision was set in stone. With what seemed a threat, the Ministry of Supply had bestowed Brinton with a somewhat threatening ultimatum: ‘amalgamate, or cease to be.’ A consolation from this was that the Cumbrian based plant would be the chosen location for the final assembly of the project. They would build the fuselage, engines and wings; the avionics would be produced by the other companies respectively.

  The design was based around the BR- 101, a concept which had already been on the Brinton Aviation drawing board as their proposal to meet the requirement. Design teams from the other manufacturers had worked with the team at Brinton, and the assembly workforce had been hand-picked from all three companies. The maiden flight of the first prototype aircraft had taken place last November and was now on Flight 10 at RAF Pembridge.

  Being a bit of an aviation buff himself, Hollingsworth had badgered Chief Engineer Howard Barnett for one of the specially commissioned promotional desktop scale models of the aircraft, which to Mrs Kay Hollingsworth’s annoyance was currently perched in the centre of their mantelpiece at home. For fear of damaging it during her cleaning sprees, she always by-passed it when attacking the area with the feather duster

  Hollingsworth limped his way through the side door of the darkened hangar and shone his torch around the vast interior. He could walk over to the back to switch on the main lights, but as his leg was beginning to play up tonight, had decided to do a quick routine walk along the paths of yellow safety lines that snaked around the airframe assembly jigs.

  He moved his light onto the workbenches, where neatly placed tools stood on the racks behind them. One of the other duties of night security officers, was to conduct a fire picket, ensuring equipment, such as oxyacetylene torches and gas bottles had been completely shut off.

  Satisfied, he slowly walked over to the middle of the hangar where his beam fell onto the second BR- 101 prototype. She was almost fully completed, all set for her Roll Out- Day at the end of the month. Following this, there would be rigorous tests for her two engines before her first test flight. Directly behind her sat three partly assembled airframes. These were the third, fourth and fifth prototypes.

  Hollingsworth moved around P-2 as it was known amongst the workforce, admiring the sleek and slender shape of the fuselage. His torch beam reflected like the sun off her polished metallic finish. Suddenly he slipped, momentarily losing his footing. The impact from this shot up his leg, aggravating his old war injury enough to silently curse the technicians who had failed to cover over this particular oil leak with sand before finishing their shift for the day. He vowed to write a report of the incident, and if needed, would present his shoe as evidence of this negligence.

  Outraged, he lifted his foot and placed his fingers on the liquid as it dripped from the heel. Shining the torch to view the oil on his fingertips, he noticed that it had an opaque, deep reddish hue to it. Thoughts of his dead colleague and the US airman on that fateful night in the war returned to him. His eyes then followed his torch beam to the floor, and he gasped in horror. It was not lubrication oil; the security guard had stepped into a pool of blood.

  Hollingsworth moved the light across the bloody mass, illuminating the lifeless body. Recognising who it was, he almost lost his grip on his torch. Crouching down, he reached for the man’s outstretched arm that rested half on a clipboard, and lifted the sleeve of the work coat to feel his wrist. There was no pulse. He limped painfully to the back of the hangar and reached out for the light switches, and as the straws of light across the roof flickered into life, picked up the receiver of the green telephone on the wall and waited for the operator to come on line. Then, on hearing her requesting voice, he instantly responded to her. ‘I need an ambulance!’

  Chapter 2

  In Whitehall, a double-decked Routemaster stopped at the rain swept metallic shelter, and at the back of the bus, the conductor bellowed Horse Guards Parade.

  The passengers alighted, quickly buttoning up their coats and putting up their umbrellas to confront the early April shower; the rain was getting heavier, splashing on the already saturated pavement.

  Kate Townsley crossed the road at the Cenotaph
and, stopping to reach into the pocket of her soaked white plastic trench coat, pulled out a piece of blue notepaper. Raindrops hit the black script causing the ink to smudge as she read the address:

  Mr A Swan

  Services Investigations Department

  7 Wellesley Mews

  Whitehall W1

  Holding the notepaper in her black kid-leather gloved hand, she walked down a side street next to the Banqueting House and then into a smaller street that came to a dead end. She climbed the two concrete steps and at the top, she quickly checked that the small brass plate matched the address on the piece of paper and pressed the bell.

  Within a few seconds, the big black door opened and a largely built, balding elderly gentlemen in a dark grey pinstripe suit, smiled from the doorstep and addressed her with his distinctive, but friendly East London dialect. ‘You must be Miss Townsley?’

  He stared sympathetically at her long wet brunette hair, as it clung to her head; the ends of it were resting on the glistening raincoat.

  ‘Mr Swan?’ Kate Townsley enquired.

  The man smiled. ‘I’m Arthur Gable, Mr Swan’s associate. Won’t you come on in my dear, before you catch ya death.’ With an outstretched hand, he gestured to her, standing aside to allow the dripping wet young woman to enter into the lobby.

  Kate crossed the threshold and walked inside through the hallway, gazing up at the paintings of Napoleonic battle scenes that climbed the walls of the staircase.

  Gable ushered her to the stairs. ‘Please will you follow me, miss,’ commanded the big man.

  She followed him up the stairs to a white glossed door and stood outside allowing him to knock, then a faint come in was heard from behind it. Gable opened the door and stood aside, letting Miss Townsley into the room where she was greeted by a tall thin man who had got up from an oak desk. He wore dark suit trousers and matching waistcoat with a white shirt and a green, red striped tie.