Love is the death of me

by Dick Hardman

  “Dan Stockley, you were arrested in connection with assisting three men and a woman to evade capture by the armed forces, and for transporting them.” A bland indictment by Davis based on a shrewd guess.

  “At the time of arrest, you were searched and found to have in your possession, amongst other things, an unlicensed Webley revolver and four forged £5 notes.

  “I can assure you sir, your time in prison will be very short indeed. The hangman is preparing the noose as we speak.

  “I doubt you have seen a hanging. Bit of a private affair you know. A few officials and under certain circumstances, perhaps selected members of family attend.

  “The hangman has a bit of a tricky job. There is much more to it than pulling a lever to release the boards you will be standing on. Oh yes indeed!

  “He has to calculate the drop so it is enough to snap your neck. Very humane way to go, I suppose, after the waiting around, the religious rights, the long walk to the gallows, and the slow climb up the steps. I have seen many a brave man cry out for forgiveness, usually after they have pissed themselves. Most distressing for everyone. Then of course you will be held in position, while the noose is slipped over your head and tightened.

  “I often wonder whether the condemned man, or woman, plans some way to beat the drop, bending forward at the last instant when the floor falls away, perhaps to ease the shock on the neck.

  “This is where the hangman’s skill comes in. He has to make sure the drop is just right. Too short and you dangle there choking with all your neck muscles ripped apart, it must be sheer agony. If the drop is too long, your head will be torn right off. You will be dead of course, but the heart will continue to pump blood for a while. Did you know, the heart is not controlled by the brain, but by the bundles of His inside it? In case you did not know, these form part of the electrical conduction system of the heart.

  “Well to continue, the blood is spurting in strong crimson jets from the neck of your body, as it lays twitching on the ground.

  “Can you imagine that? All these strangers looking on, and of course I will make sure your wife and child are there with a good clear view.

  “For a traitor like you, I will have a little talk with the hangman and ask him to make it a long drop. Of course, everyone will be very upset, but no one will say a word, because they would not wish to do the hangman’s job.”

  Stockley was quivering with rage and would have leapt at Davis had Mark Holland not stood close behind, and held him down.

  Steve Davis did not flinch or acknowledge the man’s aggression and continued to speak, while locking his steely glare onto Stockley’s furious eyes.

  “Where is your wife Mary and daughter Barbara?”

  “They are somewhere safe,” Stockley spat back, defiantly.

  “Safe from whom?” asked Davis in a quiet and indifferent tone.

  “From the men who took them, and forced me to drive the spies to London.”

  “So they did reach London,” muttered Davis, scribbling on his pad.

  “They also paid me £250, promising to return Mary and Barbara safely, but they would kill us all if I talked to anyone about it. No one else knows, not even the man who helped me fix the lorry wheel.”

  “Just tell me where Mary and Barbara are, so I can protect them.”

  “No, I don’t trust you.”

  “OK, all I really want to know is where you took the spies. What’s the address?”

  “I can’t tell you!” Stockley shouted vehemently.

  “Never mind, I will find your wife and daughter eventually and she will be charged with treason as well. I will hang her first and let her choke to death. Next it will be you with your head ripped off, all in front of your daughter. How do you think she will be after that?”

  “You wouldn’t dare, you would not be allowed.” Stockley snorted his reply derisively.

  “Do you know a lot about how we treat spies?” Davis spoke as if he was surprised the man knew anything.

  “No!”

  “Then how do you know what I can or cannot do?” He queried, seeming genuinely curious.

  “It is inhumane, that is why. Inflicting such a sight on a defenceless child.”

  “You explain that to the maimed and dying, victims of the spies you have released on the country. Innocent woman and children, like yours, writhing in agony under the rubble, from those spies’ bombs.” Davis pounded his table top, the sound like a thunderclap, as his beefy paw hit the thin wood. Objects lifted and clattered back under the shock.

  “I have no problem at all with your child seeing her mother and father die.” Davis concluded.

  “Do you have a wife and kids?” demanded Stockley, as he tried to instil guilt and win the argument.

  “No!” Davis lied, his expression unmoved.

  “I’m going to rip your bloody head off if it’s the last thing I ever do!” Rage surged within the bull of a man as he struggled to rise to his feet, under the weight of Holland’s average, but muscular build.

  Davis paused and stared with an unemotional expression on his jowly face, waiting patiently for calm to be restored.

  “Of course Dan, I can just as easily make all this go away. Tell me everything I want to know, leaving nothing out, and agree to work for us, then you and your family can walk free.” Steve Davis offered out his slightly upturned palms, in an expression of sincerity, backed with a look of genuine concern.

  From a certain horrible death, to life as normal. Stockley’s face had become disconnected from his brain at the proposition. It took him many seconds to process what had just been offered to him.

  ***

  Davis watched the man’s rage-twisted features slowly relax, as the tension drained away; then his mouth, still open from ranting, gradually closed as it caught up.

  Stockley could see no real downside to the offer, none at all, and no doubt the Government would pay him, another benefit.

  “OK! I will work for you. What guarantee do I have that you will keep your word?” The man was trying to make demands in a one sided negotiation. Still, Davis expected it, it always went like this. Just human nature.

  “What I write up in my report will be witnessed by Mr Holland, who is behind you. He will agree anything I write and no one will know anything different. If I said that you willingly offered information and services to King and Country, then that is how it was. All I want is to catch these spies and keep this wonderful country safe. I know you do too. I understand you were under great duress and am prepared to overlook the matter as though it never happened.

  “What more can I offer you as assurance?”

  Dan Stockley was greedy, but he was no fool. Once the fat man in front of him had written the report and it was witnessed, he could see no way it could be reversed. In any case, the fat man and his Government had more to gain than lose, by keeping him on side. Best not turn argumentative at this stage.

  “Your word is good enough for me.”

  Davis smiled warmly and just as if the interrogation had never happened, slid some photos across the table for Dan to look at.

  “Now Dan, have you seen any of these people?”

  “No, no, no, yes, this man.” He had identified Klein, so they were on the right track at last.

  “Thank you Dan, so where exactly in London did you drop the spies off?”

  “28 St Albans Avenue. They unloaded quite a lot of bulky kit and waterproofed packages into the house, from my van, and then I left for a job.”

  “Did they say anything that I would be interested in?” Davis enquired in his ‘friendly’ voice.

  “They hardly spoke, except a joke in German. The girl was very ill though, they had to hose her down while she was naked, her body was bright red like sunburn and they had to hold her up while they did it.” Dan was gleefully giving up all he could to help his new best friend. Davis had seen it all before, many times.

  “Well, thank you Dan, I can see we are going to work well together. You don�
�t mind coming with us straight away to 28, do you? We need to be sure we go to the right place and you are the only person who can identify these evil people.” Davis was such a reasonable man.

  “Well, I have work to do, but yes, of course I will come with you, we can get this buttoned up today.”

  Davis saw Mark Holland soundlessly write instructions, and pass them to the police officer out in the passage.

  “That is jolly good of you Dan, I appreciate it. We will head off immediately.

  “Come on Holland old chap, get the car and let’s go straight to 28.” Davis scooped up his papers, stuffed them into his leather bag and the three of them hurried out to the car.

  As Davis, Holland and Stockley raced to London, the local police surrounded and raided 28 St Albans Avenue within minutes of the Chief Inspector’s call to Scotland Yard.

  Betrayal?

  While his team were settling in on their first day at Gant’s Hill, Peter worked through the items Sundown had listed, in his coded message at the safe house. It contained a list of secure hiding places for the beacons, their kit and themselves. Each member of the team would be informed of their specific safe place and it was information that could not be shared between them. Any person caught by the British could only give up their own location and with luck, it would be cleared out by the time the spy yielded under torture.

  To raise cash, Peter took a train out of the city and purchased low value items using a forged £5 note each time. He concentrated on the shops that were busy with Christmas trade, places that would have the change and where cash flowed quickly. The takings would be deposited with the bank in large amounts. The following morning, the money would be counted and checked, and the forgeries would probably be detected, but he would be long gone and no one would remember him.

  Carrying two bags of shopping, he made his way to the nearest garage. It had a Morris 8 van for hire. After a bit of haggling, a rate was agreed for today, and return tomorrow morning. Peter’s papers were checked, he paid a hefty deposit, and drove the van away from the garage.

  By now, his paranoia was clanging its bell for all it was worth. Far too many people knew they were at the safe house. Sundown knew, Dan Stockley knew and so did Dr Betty Marsh. All his eggs were in this one basket and that was just asking for trouble.

  ***

  At mid-day, he raced back to 28 St Albans Avenue, and had cleared the house of all their belongings by 1.55pm.

  As Peter drove away, at the end of the Avenue, several Wolseley police cars were racing towards him their bells clanging insanely. At the sight of them, his guts churned making him feel queasy and weak. His mouth went as dry as a desert, but to his immense relief, they raced by. He would have liked to have watched where they were heading, but the traffic forced him to turn into another road. The chances of that number of police cars in a road like this, were remote. He guessed where they would stop.

  The next question in his mind was, who had betrayed them?

  ***

  Later that afternoon, Steve Davis arrived at 28 St Albans Avenue and strode towards one of the policemen, guarding the house.

  “Good afternoon officer, you are guarding this house on my instructions. Please tell me you have the occupants under arrest.” The constable looked surprised and asked for Davis’s identity. Satisfied everything was in order, he broke the news.

  “There was no one here when we arrived at 2.00pm. We searched the house and cordoned it off. There are no clothes here, just normal furniture, so we believe the occupants have already left and will not be back. That is why we are visible, there seemed no point in hiding.

  “We have taken the liberty of speaking to neighbours and they say a Morris 8 van was seen leaving, moments before we arrived. No one remembered a registration number. A single man took things from the house and loaded up the van. Much earlier this morning, three men and one woman left early in a taxi, one of the men was the van driver.

  “I am sorry sir, but we just missed them.”

  Inside, Davis was seething, but appeared unperturbed.

  “Thank you officer, I know you all did your best. If you don’t mind, I will have a quick look round and then you can all go. We will take over the case.”

  He went from room to room. The place had been cleaned out and judging by the white powder everywhere, the police had dusted for finger prints.

  “Sir,” the voice of a man with fingerprint dusting equipment called out to Davis.

  “I could only find one set of finger prints; they were on the foot board of the bed in the room above. I sent them back for matching, but that will take up to a week, depending on whether or not they are in our system.”

  “We might be lucky then,” pronounced Davis hopefully, but actually he doubted it. Even if the spies had been careless, they would not be in the system.

  ***

  He made his way up to the bedroom where the print was found and just stood there, quite still, taking in the sights, sounds, vibrations and smells. He did not believe in the supernatural, the vibrations were neither physical nor spiritual, but wherever they go, people leave their mark. It might be how furniture is placed, or misplaced, little things that he could only describe to himself as vibrations.

  He walked over to the bed. Only one person (Anna) appeared to have slept in it, though it was a double. He looked briefly in the only other bedroom, two people had slept there. That meant the fourth had kept watch. People seldom like the idea of hot bedding, so why was the fourth position undisturbed. That was the woman’s bed and she was known to be ill, so she had been left to rest alone.

  He pulled back the unmade bedding and sniffed the sheets where she had laid down. There was a very faint odour of carbolic soap, the same as he noticed in the bathroom. There was also something else, near the area where her legs had rested. A smell of medication he thought. There was a faint speck where the backs of her knees would have been.

  “Bring me a magnifying glass, tweezers and a sample envelope,” he yelled and continued, moving up the bed. There was a single light brown pubic hair and something smeared on the sheet.

  The fingerprint man appeared with his bag of tricks.

  “Look there, on the sheet. I think it is a piece of scab and some sort of bodily fluid, like pus. Have it analysed, the woman who slept here was ill. If we know what was wrong with her, we might be able to pick up the trail from a hospital, assuming it was something treatable. She was mobile this morning, so perhaps she is still getting worse. We can only hope.”

  The man cut patches from the sheet and collected the hair.

  Davis could hear Holland calling him to come downstairs.

  “A neighbour has just mentioned that she saw her doctor walking along the rear access to the terrace of houses, but did not see where she went after that.

  “Doctors usually go to the front door, unless they don’t want to be seen. Was she up to no good, perhaps having an affair, or told to come that way on a house call?”

  “Good point Mark, let’s find out who the doctor is and pay a visit.”

  ***

  Doctor Betty Marsh had just finished seeing a patient when Steve Davis and Mark Holland walked in to her surgery.

  “Who the Dickins are you two,” she queried indignantly; though it was obvious to her they were not Jehovah’s Witnesses. She was in trouble, but play it natural she told herself.

  “Doctor Betty Marsh, you visited 28 St Albans Avenue last evening, you were seen and identified. What was wrong with the woman you saw there?”

  Davis had deliberately ignored Marsh’s question. He hoped she might guess they were law or security, then panic and give herself away. By laying out the facts, he hoped she would assume he knew much more than he actually did. It is difficult for a liar to successfully construct the lie, if the opponent has most of the facts.

  “You did not answer my question, who are you?” Betty reached for the phone and asked the operator for the police.

  “My name is Davis. Thi
s is agent Holland. We are from MI5 and I want answers to my question.” Both men held out their identification. Betty replaced the phone.

  “I went to see a patient, not someone on my books at the time, although they are now.

  “You know very well, I cannot discuss the woman’s condition, but suffice to say, it was a minor complaint that would have got better on its own. Not a stabbing or gunshot wound that I would automatically declare.”

  The doctor had just the right answers, no slipups there. There were only two conclusions Davis could draw, either she was an innocent party, or she was linked with the spies. She was a smart and confident adversary; he would be wasting time questioning her at this stage. If her patient was recovering, the trail was getting colder every second.

  “Did you see anyone else residing in the house?”

  “The patient came to the back door when I knocked and she appeared to be alone. I saw her in a bedroom and I was not aware of anyone else there.”

  “Why did you go to the back door?”

  Betty broke eye contact and had a slight smile when she looked up again.

  “I have a patient in another house in the terrace. I decided to avoid an out of hours consult by going unseen along the back path.”

  Davis gave up the futile enquiry, whatever she knew, it would not help him now the spies had gone on the run.

  “We bid you good day doctor. If I need you again, I will be back.” Davis was courteous in what he said, but plainly not sincere. She knew he did not believe her and from now on, she would be a prime suspect for questioning in relation to any dubious event, in her area.

  Davis and Holland walked back to their car and could see Dan Stockley watching them, no doubt hoping he would be returning home very soon.

  “Mark, release Stockley when he gets back to Dorset and wait until his family return. See if the spies contact him. If they don’t, arrest him again for treason.”

  “But you gave your word the charge would go away, if he told you all he knew and agreed to work with us!” Holland appeared shocked that Davis had broken his word.