by Jim Kelly
‘You mentioned a War Office report?’ said Brooke. The nature of the American’s death made him want to keep asking questions. Its violence, perhaps, or its sudden, God-like brutality.
Stone grabbed the white phone on his desk and instructed someone to bring up the relevant documents. He also ordered three cups of tea.
‘I’d appreciate a measure of discretion, Brooke. The details are sensitive.’ From a drawer he produced a map upon which he marked the spot where the three barrage balloons had been tethered. The missing third balloon had been located by a military messenger in a field ten miles short of the coast.
The tea arrived. Brooke balanced the saucer on his knee while Stone fussed with a cigar.
‘We had reports, Major, last night, of a military working party out on the riverside. Army, certainly; Londoners, apparently. Your boys?’ asked Brooke.
Stone nodded several times as if agreeing with the question. ‘Middlesex Regiment, part of an anti-aircraft battalion,’ he said finally. ‘The guns are south and east of the city. When the real show starts they’ll earn their keep. For now they’re available for special duties with Civil Defence. We’re keen to help when and where we can.’
‘Why were they out by the river last night?’ asked Brooke. ‘Looked like a fatigue, digging trenches, maybe.’
‘There’s your answer,’ said Stone.
An orderly arrived with the War Office report, which comprised a single sheet of A4. Brooke read the first two sentences quickly, finding them unintelligible, crammed as they were with military jargon, technical specifications and poor grammar.
‘The man who died was called Lux. An American scientist,’ he said, folding the report and slipping it inside his jacket.
‘A foreigner?’ said Stone. ‘Unfortunate. But there we are. The War Office is likely to take a wider view of such casualties.’
For a moment Brooke imagined Lux entangled, bare hands pulling at the wires, tearing them away from his throat. The constable’s report had mentioned the hands, lacerated; it was one of those words that made Brooke wince, a sympathetic pain reaching down to the fingertips. He thought of Claire’s patient with his bandaged limbs.
‘What does it entail, this wider view?’ asked Brooke, acutely aware that to some extent Stone was trying to fob him off.
‘We’re wasting time on this, Inspector. This was one man,’ said Stone, his good hand encircling his cup. ‘This war, it’ll kill thousands. You know that. Hundreds of thousands. They’re the dead and the dying, Brooke, while we sit here. In Poland, out in the Atlantic. There’s no rhyme or reason, is there? We didn’t do that at Passchendaele, did we? Pick our way over the battlefield asking: and this one, how did he die? No one has a right to justice, that’s what a war is, Brooke, a suspension of normal rights. What makes Dr Ernst Lux so special?’
Driving out through the checkpoint ten minutes later, Brooke played the conversation back in his head until he was finally sure: he’d never mentioned Lux’s first name, or his doctorate. Perhaps Major Stone was more concerned about the American’s death than he wished to appear.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The phoney war spluttered on. The Wehrmacht had made a lightning raid into French territory, teasing the massed allied armies. In Moscow, Stalin was telling the Finns the price they’d have to pay for peace. At sea, German U-boats had sunk a British merchant ship, although – according to the reports – the Clement had been carrying ballast en route to Rotterdam, and the crew had been rescued.
Brooke folded the Daily Telegraph away as Edison brought the Wolseley into a cul-de-sac on the southern edge of the city. The car was Edison’s delight – a four-cylinder Wolseley Wasp. Brooke suspected that the mileage allowance, and the chance to drive despite petrol rationing, were among the benefits that had tempted the former sergeant off the allotment and back into the force.
Edison parked it with exaggerated care beside a grass verge dotted with cherry trees.
‘A single shot? Just the one?’ asked Brooke, surveying the street.
‘That’s it, sir. That’s all he heard, man who rang it in. Number 29: there … He reckons it’s a Nazi parachutist, holed up in a garden shed.’
Brooke appreciated Edison’s old-fashioned precision. There might have been more shots, but only one was heard.
The street was pure Metroland. Sub-Lutyens villas, semi-detached, with fake Tudor beams, sat back from neatly tended gardens, each one a miniature version of Madingley’s sweeping artifice.
A crowd had formed at the far end. A uniformed constable ushered them back, while another, standing guard at the gate of number 29, approached the Wasp.
‘Sir. Family’s down the end of the street with the rest out of harm’s way,’ he said. ‘We’ve cleared all the houses. Mr Reed, that’s who spotted him, he’s inside the house.’
Mr Reed was a cricket fan: there was a bat in the umbrella stand in the hall, and some boots by the mat. In the front room, a large print of a Test match at Lord’s dominated the wall over the fireplace, while he sat on a dining room chair at the French windows, which were open. Across his lap was a rifle.
‘I’ve got him covered,’ he said, pushing a few wisps of hair back from his forehead. ‘The constable said there were reports of parachutists with the raid last night. I reckon I’ve got one, maybe he’s got the chute in there with him.’
He nodded down the garden, which was about fifty yards in length, dominated by an immaculate lawn, which had been cut in longitudinal stripes. At the far end was a shed, beside an air raid shelter, sunk into the ground so that only its curved roof, turfed over, was visible. In front of the shelter, obscuring the door, was a large iron grass roller, the handle sticking straight up in the air in the shape of a capital T.
‘My youngest heard him cough when she took the dog for a walk. He’s in the shelter, not the shed.’
‘What time was that?’ asked Brooke.
‘Late. We all had a bit of a lie-in after the raid. ’Bout eight-thirty, I reckon. I slipped down there and had a listen,’ continued Reed. ‘Bastard was fast asleep. So I pushed the roller down the lawn. It’s oiled up, coz I use it for the club, and we’re near the mainline, so every time a train went past I rolled it twenty foot nearer. Last push I crashed it up against the door and wedged in a brick. He’s going nowhere.’
Brooke considered the quiet suburban scene. Late roses bloomed on either side of the greensward while autumnal leaves fell from a line of plane trees. If it really was a German parachutist, he should secure the scene and ring Madingley Hall. Emergency orders, covering precisely this situation, had been issued by the military.
Brooke, however, relished the chance of meeting the enemy face-to-face.
‘Tell me about the gunshot,’ he said.
‘Well, he shouted first. Said he wanted out, that I’d got nothing to fear. I said I’d rung the police. Then he offered money: five pounds, so he could get away. He said it was all a big mistake. He said that a lot. So I ignored him.’
‘So he spoke English?’
Mr Reed nodded. ‘If he’s a spy he would do.’
Edison returned from a recce. ‘All clear, sir. Back alley’s got a constable on it, and then there’s the railway line, with a six foot wire fence.’
‘And he fired the gun then, did he, Mr Reed?’ asked Brooke.
‘That’s it. There’s a gap in the door panel, for ventilation, and I reckon he thought a potshot might help. Bounced off the back of the house. He said to let him out or he’d come out shooting. Tosh that, coz he’s not going anywhere. Mind you, if he’s got one bullet he’s got more. So I’m staying here.’
Brooke took the rifle off Mr Reed and gave it to Edison, and then walked out through the French doors. The sun broke through the drifting clouds and lit the garden up in primary colours.
Brooke’s footsteps were soft on the grass. When he reached the roller, he sat on the lawn with his back to it, the curved iron edge already warm with the heat of the sun. Whoever was
in the shelter was less than six feet away, so he didn’t need to raise his voice.
‘Detective Inspector Brooke here,’ he said, and heard a sudden shifting of weight. ‘Borough police. I’m no expert but I’d say there was no way out of that shelter other than through the doors and there’s a tonne of iron stopping you that way. There’s twenty officers in the street, the back alley too, plus a platoon of armed soldiers. I can’t roll the thing back until you chuck the gun out. Can you get it through the hole?’
There was a long silence. A cat came down the lawn and began to eat one of the bedding plants. A goods train clattered by on the railway line.
The silver bullet caught Brooke’s eye as it fell on the grass, followed by four others.
‘I can’t get the gun out. That’s all the ammo I’ve got.’
The voice sounded reedy, as if a dying man was begging for water. What if he was lying? One call to Madingley Hall would secure him a platoon of soldiers to surround the shelter.
He stood, kicked the brick away, and pulled the roller back a yard.
Running up the shutter, he was presented with the sudden impenetrable darkness within. He took off his glasses and for a moment doubted his decision as he saw the light catch a gun barrel, and then heard the distinct metallic whirl of the chamber being spun. Braced, he took a half-step back, and heard the trigger being pulled.
A face emerged into the light. It was Turl, the lorry driver from the night before. He showed Brooke the gun: a pistol with the chamber empty.
He opened his other hand to reveal a bullet.
‘Old trick. Always keep a spare. You’re lucky. I don’t fancy swinging for killing a copper. But it crossed my mind …’
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Blenheim House was an imposing nineteenth-century suburban villa, with a two-pillar porch and a great wisteria spreading out so that the windows had to be clipped free of tendrils. Major Joelyn Stone had liked it at first sight six weeks earlier. Officers’ quarters had been set aside at Madingley Hall, but Stone’s wife had announced her determination to set up household for the Duration. Stone certainly felt the house added an elegant air of confidence to their social position, a fitting residence for the deputy commanding officer. (Swift-Lane, his superior, was a Cambridge man, with a family house in a nearby village.) Stone had particularly liked the facade, until his own well-developed sense of self-knowledge had caused him to hastily move on to consider the other attributes of the house: a fine dining room, a renovated kitchen and laundry, and the electric lift, large enough to accommodate his wife’s mother and her wheelchair.
The battalion driver swung the staff car in a circle on the gravel. Stone almost ran up the semicircular steps to the door, his knees rising smartly. The door stood open in the autumnal heat, the entrance hall thick with the sound of ticking clocks.
Taking the steps two at a time, he paused at the first landing.
His wife’s bedroom door was open and he heard the chair legs grate as she pushed herself back from a writing table.
‘Don’t get up,’ he said. ‘The car’s waiting. I’m due in court for the tribunal. I can’t be late.’
Two changes of uniform hung in his dressing room.
It was twenty-one years since he’d lost the two fingers on his right hand. His middle finger had been badly damaged by the gunshot too, but the field surgeon had saved it, although the scarring was unsightly so he always wore a cover for the digit. Originally this had been a canvas sheath, but he’d hired a jeweller to make a brass replacement, the regimental badge engraved discreetly in the metal.
Buttoning up a tunic with one hand was one of the many skills he had honed over the years. If he’d had time he’d have run a bath and washed away the grit and dust of the day. But the court sat at one, and he was always punctual.
He considered himself in the full-length mirror.
Was Brooke, the Borough detective, a threat? At this point in Stone’s plans the last thing he wanted was a complication of any sort. A civilian death was unfortunate, but the War Office seemed disposed to set that aside. For now, all he could do was make sure all the necessary paperwork was completed at top speed. The Ministry of War report, the coroner’s statement, his log for the CO: everything was in hand.
The problem was that Brooke appeared oddly persistent. The affectation of the tinted glasses grated. Despite being a provincial policeman of no obvious intellect, he projected a haughty impatience. If he’d been in uniform, Stone would have suspected suppressed insubordination.
Stone, in a freshly laundered uniform, found Margaret at the bottom of the stairs, standing where she often stood, beneath the full-length portrait of her father. Stone had never met the general but the picture’s lovingly recorded insignia and medals told the story of his father-in-law’s life in exemplary clarity. Cut down by artillery fire in a now long-forgotten skirmish in India, he had come home a dead hero. The last honour, a starburst of silver and gold, had been awarded posthumously but was nonetheless included by the artist on the general’s extravagant chest.
‘Don’t forget the Atkinsons, Joelyn. Tonight at seven. It’s shoulder of lamb, your favourite.’
Ignoring her, he walked to a narrow mirror and straightened his tie. Somewhere in the building the lift was in operation, because they could hear the chains running in the shaft.
‘Mother wants to go out,’ said his wife, somehow implying that Stone had dodged a duty. Marriage to Margaret had brought him a fortune, and the priceless cache attendant on a being part of a famous military family. As yet, Stone had failed to make the most of these privileges.
‘About six then, six-thirty,’ she said.
A five-minute drive along leafy lanes took Stone into the city, past a roadblock holding back civilian traffic on Station Road. Beyond it he could see a line of fire tenders and a smudge of grey smoke lingering over Kew’s Mill, where the balloon had come down in flames.
A few glittering military careers were built on bravery, initiative or intelligence. Most were built on an ability to lie low. The three errant barrage balloons represented a blow to Stone’s reputation for diligent, unremarkable service. Damage limitation was, however, a military skill in itself.
The car slipped into the rear yard of the court of assizes. The high spiked walls radiated the autumnal heat which had been building up all day, so that as Stone got out he inveigled a finger of his left hand under his starched collar.
Lunch was a perk, served in the old Judge’s Lodgings, with sherry and wine. Cold ham, a green salad and floury fen potatoes were laid out on silver plate set on a fine table in a bookcase-lined room. Stone’s buttons were reflected in the polish. His two fellow tribunal ‘judges’ were a Labour alderman and a woman from the WRVS who’d been an ambulance driver in the Great War. The conversation was worthy, taking its cue from the morning radio news, which had set out a preliminary timetable for the further introduction of rationing.
The court clerk knocked three times and they took a moment to compose themselves. The woman said a prayer, which Stone felt was an imposition, but he sunk his chin to his chest nonetheless. Beyond the door was a damp wooden corridor which led them in a semicircle, until they reached a stone arch and a green-baize door. An usher appeared, the light flooding in behind him, and they filed past – the lady first – to the echo of ‘All rise!’
The court list was laid out on each blotter: ten names, all applying to be registered as conscientious objectors. It was Stone’s job – a temporary posting, due to illness – in concert with his two assessors, to place each applicant in one of four categories:
Armed Forces
Non-Combatant Armed Forces
Conditional Registered CO
Unconditional Registered CO
Stone studied the names, and then looked up as the first man was called: they came and went, each one judged, to be processed by clerks sitting out in the lobby of the court. On the whole, Stone thought them sincere in their belief that war was immoral. His ow
n experiences on the Western Front had taught him that it took very little courage to hold a rifle and sit in a trench. Fear had a paralysing effect on the human psyche. What had terrified him was the appalling responsibility of leading his men. Running at the enemy, being the first to break cover, required a rare degree of bravery. To some extent the men before him now, who many classed as cowards, were leaders too, stepping out from the safety of the crowd.
An hour later the last name was called out.
‘John Christopher Childe.’
The public gallery was packed, and Stone noted several women and two small children. Childe stood in the dock and glanced nervously up at the bench. Stone’s heart missed a beat; he recognised the man instantly. He’d passed him that morning on the stairs leaving Vera’s house.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Brooke sat alone in the Spinning House interview room, waiting for Turl, the lorry driver who’d fled the scene on Castle Hill, to be brought up from the cells. The furniture, brutally utilitarian, consisted of a desk and two chairs for the officers conducting the interrogation, and a chair opposite for the prisoner. A spare, for the duty solicitor, stood in one corner. A single unshaded light bulb hung above the table. One small lancet window let in the north light. On the south wall, a large map of the city had been taped up, revealing the way in which the river, rising in the southern hills, ensnared the city in a noose before swinging away north to the Fens and the sea.
Twenty years had passed since he’d been captured in the desert, but rooms such as this still made Brooke’s palms sweat. The brittle sense of past tension permeated the air. The nightmare for Brooke lay in the rules set by his captors, that he must provide answers but was forbidden the freedom to ask questions. By day they’d tied him to an old cartwheel and set it out on the sand, so that he’d have to look up at the sky. At night they’d left him in a cell without light, then dragged him out, at random times, down a short corridor into a room just like this, save for the window. What came to him when he did sleep was the vivid sense that he was in that room, and the fetid, earthy smell of his own body, charged with the electricity of fear.