by Seb Spence
“Hednesford”
“Yes. Did he mention it, or indicate who or what he might be going to see there?”
“No. With hindsight, I think he was deliberately being vague. I suspect he didn’t want us to find out what he was doing because he knew we’d try to stop him.”
“Tell me again what this man Morrison said about Cobalt,” Minton asked, turning back to Barton.
“He said that GK had told him he knew who Cobalt was: a slim girl in her twenties, slightly above average height, with brown hair, and probably on the stage.”
Minton closed his notebook and stood up.
“That’s been very useful, gentlemen. Rest assured that I intend to take this case very seriously and will do whatever I can to find out what has happened to your colleague. I will be in touch immediately if there are any developments.” With these remarks, he stood up to go. Barton saw him to the door and then returned to the dining room.
“I’ve a feeling we’ll see some results soon,” he said optimistically to Moncur. “I get the impression our friend the Colonel is a man of action.”
#
Sitting in the back of his staff car as it sped on its return journey to Hampstead, Minton reviewed his meeting with the two airmen. They both seemed genuine, and he saw no reason to doubt the information they had given him, in which case some small but important pieces of the jigsaw had fallen into place: Barton had confirmed that Cobalt was a woman, in her twenties, with brown hair – a description that matched Lucy Walker. Cobalt was also ‘on the stage’, which fitted with the profession of actress given in Lucy’s fake passport. It all seemed to be further confirmation of Lucy’s guilt.
Minton did not hold out much hope for George Kemp if it was true that he had run into Cobalt or other members of her cell. Agents tended not to take prisoners: anyone who intruded on their activities was more likely to be eliminated. The Mauser pistol found in Lucy’s bag seemed to indicate that she – or an accomplice – had killed before. He would certainly grill her about what had taken place at Hednesford, but he expected that anything useful he got out of her would come too late to save George Kemp.
Along with the mound of other evidence they already had, Barton’s testimony pointed to Lucy Walker as Cobalt. The conclusion seemed undeniable – yet Minton had a vague feeling that things were not as they seemed. He could not put his finger on what it was, but he sensed something was not quite right. One aspect that bothered him was the dead aunt – it seemed coincidental that the one person who could support Lucy’s story had been killed by what appeared to be a stray incendiary bomb the very day the girl was brought in. The initial reports said that approximately four hundred people had been killed in Saturday night’s raid, which put the odds of Irene Walker being one of the victims at around one in ten thousand. Minton was always suspicious of coincidences in his investigations.
2.
Tuesday, 10th September, 1940: Bramlington
Grace Harrison reclined listlessly on the living-room sofa and flicked through the current issue of ‘Woman’s Illustrated’. Lost in thought, she was not really taking in any of the home, beauty or fashion tips the magazine was offering: the frock patterns and recipes on its pages did not register with her. She was thinking of Frank Barton. It was now a week since she had walked off from him, angry that he had misled her. She had spurned his apology when he had phoned her the following day and had torn up the letter he sent subsequently. But she was beginning to regret their break-up. Once the anger had subsided, she could see his point about Mrs Talbot – the postmaster’s wife was not a person who could be interrupted easily.
Grace began to miss him. If he really liked her, she felt sure he would not give up, he would try once more, and if he did, she decided she would forgive him. But so far he had not tried to contact her again. The last few days had been a dispiriting time for her, and she had started to languish and become withdrawn.
Her train of thought was broken by the ringing of the phone. She threw the magazine down on the sofa and went immediately to answer it, hoping it would be Barton. It was not, but the voice sounded familiar to her.
“Hello, Miss Harrison? This is Roy Miller here. You helped me out with my magic act at the evacuees party a couple of weeks ago.”
“Oh yes, of course,” she replied, a note of disappointment in her voice. She remembered that that was the day she had met Barton.
“The reason I’m phoning is that I wondered if you could do me another favour.”
“What is it?” she said warily, though she half expected what was coming.
“I’ve been given the chance of an audition at a rather important London venue. If I land the job, it will be a major boost to the act – it will be nothing but quality bookings evermore if I get this engagement. The problem is, I still don’t have an assistant.”
“No, Mr Miller,” she responded emphatically, pre-empting his request, “I will not be your assistant again.”
“Now please hear my proposition, Miss Harrison, before you reject it. First of all, I promise that if you help me out, it will be the last time I ask you. If I can get this booking, I should have no problem attracting a new assistant. Secondly, as well as covering your expenses, I’ll pay you a fee for the performance. It won’t take up much of your time – a few hours at most. This opportunity means a lot to me, Miss Harrison, and I can’t take it without your help. I had a replacement for Ada lined up, but it all fell through at the last minute, and there’s no time to find another. Believe me, you are my last hope.”
Grace was moved by the note of desperation in his voice. Well, what’s the harm in it, she thought; it would be a distraction from her problem with Barton and might lift her from the apathetic mood she had fallen into recently. And then there was the fee: money was tight these days and anything extra was always welcome.
“When is the audition?”
“This Friday, at 11.30am.”
“It’s short notice, Mr Miller, but as it happens, I am free then. Alright, I agree.”
“Excellent, Miss Harrison, you cannot know how relieved I am to hear that. I’m eternally grateful. You won’t regret this. Now, I’ll need to know your dress size so that I can look out a costume for you.”
“Costume?” she queried, a note of suspicion in her voice.
“Yes, of course. This has to be a proper performance; you’ll need a magician’s assistant costume.”
“It’s size ten.”
“Perfect! If you could get to my lodgings for nine o’clock sharp, Friday morning, that would give us time to try out the costume and rehearse a few tricks.”
Grace wrote down the address he gave and said she would be there by nine. She put down the phone absently, wishing the caller had been Frank Barton.
3.
Wednesday, 11th September, 1940: Windermere House, Hampstead
Four days had now passed since Lucy’s arrest, and Minton felt he had made no significant progress towards breaking her. She had not deviated at all from her original story; there had been no slip-ups. Still, it was early days. Minton had had cases before where it had taken weeks to wear down the suspect. Now that the invasion threat had receded – for the time being, anyway – the imperative for immediate results had gone, so at least the interrogations could proceed at a more measured pace.
Lucy herself had gone into a state of torpor. She responded to questions automatically, almost in a trance, her replies delivered softly in a monotone. Since being told of the death of her aunt, she had stopped asking them to verify her story and no longer mentioned Elliott or the others at Lyonesse Films. When not actually answering a question, she just sat staring listlessly down in front of her.
Armed with Barton’s information from the previous day, Minton decided to observe her reaction when he brought up the topic of Hednesford. For the interrogation session this morning he chose to question her alone: it would be less threatening and hopefully would lead her to lower her guard. Since meeting Barton, he had disco
vered that the RAF’s No. 6 School of Technical Training was located at Hednesford and guessed that was the reason why Cobalt or her associates had visited the town.
He started by asking her a series of questions about an unrelated topic – the rehearsal the day before her arrest. As usual, she answered perfectly. At the end of this first bout of questioning he paused and then, watching her very carefully, asked: “Have you ever been to Hednesford, Miss Walker?” She shook her head, but other than that there was no reaction, no sign of recognition.
“It’s a small town north of Birmingham,” he continued.
“I’ve told you before, the only place I’ve been to outside London is Derby.”
“There’s a large RAF training school there. Have you ever met anyone in the RAF?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head again.
“Does the name George Kemp mean anything to you?”
“No.” There was not even a flicker of recognition.
Minton decided to shelve that line of enquiry for the time being and went back to trying to find contradictions in her story. “Tell me again about your first meeting with John Elliott. I believe you said he came into the bookstore to buy a particular book.”
She began wearily to repeat her description of her first meeting with Elliott. “It was the Monday, two days before I met him in the park. He came in and went straight up to the counter to ask for a book he was looking for.”
“That’s right,” Minton interrupted, hoping to catch her out, “Dicken’s ‘Old Curiosity Shop’ wasn’t it?”
“‘Bleak House’,” she corrected him, “Castle’s 1918 edition. He said he needed it to complete a set.”
“Ah yes, ‘Bleak House’.”
“As it happened, we had two copies in stock and he bought both of them.”
This was a new piece of information. Minton frowned quizzically. “Two copies – you didn’t mention this before.”
Lucy shrugged. “It’s not important.”
“Why would he want to buy two copies of the same book?”
“I don’t know.”
Minton could think of a reason: to use a book code, sender and recipient needed to have identical copies of the book that was being employed. This observation triggered a rather worrying train of thought in Minton’s mind. He called in the guard immediately and had Lucy returned to her cell. He then went back to his office and sat alone at his desk for several minutes, thinking about Lucy’s latest revelation and its implications if his intuition was correct. He decided he needed to do three things straightaway: make a call to a contact of his at GC&CS; ring round as many booksellers as it took to track down a copy of Castle’s 1918 edition of ‘Bleak House’; and then go back to Grindley Street.
4.
Thursday 12th September, West Kent
Barton had been in a good mood since his meeting with Colonel Minton; he felt that things were progressing. Hopefully, Minton would be able to track down the people who might be holding GK, and that would be one of his problems solved. He felt he could now start thinking about the other challenge – how to bring round Grace Harrison.
Two days after his meeting with Minton, Barton found himself once again in rural Kent. A balloon had broken free from the Dover defences and had drifted inland, finally coming down on the outskirts of a village in the Weald. Once his team had corralled it, he intended to make a detour to Bramlington on his way back to Stanmore. He would try one last time to win Grace over, face to face.
While his men were stowing the balloon on the recovery truck, Barton drove his Austin Eight into the local village to find a phone, so that he could call his section at Balloon Command to let them know that he and his team had accomplished their task and would now be heading back. He found a public phone in the village pub and made his report from there.
At the end, the NCO who took his call was about to ring off when he remembered something. “Oh, by the way, sir, a Squadron Leader Dobson has been trying to contact you. He left a number if you want to ring him back.” Barton recognised the name immediately as that of George Kemp’s CO. He took down the number and rang it straightaway.
Dobson was not one to mince words and came straight to the point. “Bad news about your colleague Kemp – I’m afraid he’s dead. His body was found in Birmingham, in a burnt-out building that was hit by an incendiary bomb two weeks ago, at the time Kemp was on his trip there. It’s only now that they’ve got round to clearing the site and they found his body underneath the rubble – it was in the cellar.”
Barton was unable to respond initially: he was stunned. He had sensed GK was in danger but had never really believed anything would happen to him. GK, he thought, led a charmed life. It was a shock to discover that his friend was not, after all, invulnerable.
“Are you sure it was George?” he said eventually.
“I’m afraid so. The body was badly burned but identifiable from the watch he was wearing – it had his name engraved on the back.”
“Was there anything suspicious about his death?”
“Suspicious? No. He was just a victim of the raid, like a lot of others that night. It looks as if I was wrong about him going AWOL, and I apologise for doubting him. Sorry to be the bearer of sad tidings, Barton, but there’s a war on and this sort of thing is happening all the time. Don’t let it get to you.” And with that, Dobson rang off.
In a dazed state, Barton returned to where the recovery team were waiting and went straight back with them to Stanmore, all thought of Grace being pushed to the back of his mind. His only objective now was to find out exactly what had happened to GK.
5.
Friday, 13th September, 1940: London
When doing the London ‘circuit’, Roy Miller liked to stay at a particular lodging house in Bloomsbury: to him, it was something of a shrine, for Harry Houdini had stayed there once – or at least, that’s what the woman who ran the place had told him. It was also handy for the West End, and, most important of all, it was inexpensive. He had lodged there many times and knew the landlady well.
Grace Harrison found the house without any trouble. Looking at her watch as she walked up the steps to the front door, she noted that it was almost 9am. She was resigned to going through with the audition, but hesitated on the doorstep before ringing the bell. She tried to remind herself why she was doing this. Was it to help Miller, or was it simply to take her mind off her problems and relieve the monotony of her life? Surely, she thought, it wasn’t for the fee he had promised? Perhaps it was a combination of all these reasons; but what did it matter, anyway? She pressed the button at the side of the door and heard a bell respond in the distant reaches of the house. A rubenesque, middle-aged woman in heavy make up and a tight dress eventually opened the door and smiled out at her enquiringly.
“I’ve an appointment with Mr Miller,” Grace informed her.
“Ah yes,” the woman replied in an affected accent, “you’ll be his new assistant – Miss Harrison, isn’t it? I’ll take you up to his room.” She ushered Grace in and led her up the stairs that ascended from the hallway.
Grace thought she had better set the record straight. “I’m only his assistant for today, actually. I’m just helping out as he can’t get anyone else.”
“Oh? I got the impression from Mr Miller that you were to be working with him permanently. I must have misunderstood. I can certainly recommend Mr Miller as an employer. Such a nice man. I’ve known him for years. He always stays here when he’s working the London stages. The first time was – let me see – way back in 1922, eighteen years ago. Doesn’t time fly? Of course, he was with his wife then. Lovely woman she was. Such a shame she died so young.”
Miller’s room was on the second floor. When they reached it, the landlady knocked on his door and shouted in to him, “Here’s your visitor, Mr Miller.” Lowering her voice, she said to Grace, “I’ll leave you to get on with your rehearsing.” With that, the woman turned about and went back down the stairs.
M
iller appeared at the door in his dinner suit and bow tie. “Miss Harrison, welcome. Please come in. Can I take your coat?”
Grace entered the room and allowed him to help her off with her coat, which he placed over the back of a chair. It was a large room, spartanly furnished with old pieces of furniture, none of which matched. The single window in the room looked out onto the back of a row of three-storey terraced houses in the next street. They seemed very close and occluded much of the daylight.
Miller had not turned on the one room light, which hung from the centre of the ceiling, or the gas fire – the electricity and gas supply for the room were both metered and, as always, he was economising. Consequently, the room felt cold and gloomy to her. It also had a slightly damp, mothbally smell.
“You have no idea how grateful I am that you’ve agreed to do this for me, Miss Harrison. I’d have lost this opportunity if it weren’t for you.”
“Your landlady seemed to be under the impression that I would be working with you on a permanent basis. I have put her right – this is a one-off engagement, Mr Miller.”
“Of course, of course,” Miller said soothingly. “Don’t know where she got that idea from. It’s ‘for one performance only,’ eh, Miss Harrison? Now, there’s no time to loose. We have a lot to get through. I’ve looked out a costume for you.” Miller went over to a large wardrobe in a corner of the room and took from it an elaborate headdress with turquoise feathers, and a matching costume on a hanger. The costume, which was covered with sequins, was a showgirl’s top – strapless with a low V-neckline. He laid them down carefully on the bed. “What do you think? Should be your size.”
“Do you mind if we have the light on so that we can see it properly?”
“Good idea,” he said, walking over to the wall switch by the door and putting on the light.
Grace held up the top. “I can’t wear this. It’s far too revealing. There’s less to it than a bathing suit.”