The Great Darkness

by Jim Kelly

  ‘Really?’ said Brooke. ‘My friend was called Ernst. They found his body on the riverside. He’d been climbing and fallen and someone had dragged his body away from the scene. Injuries – well, you don’t want to know. Left leg nearly severed, here …’

  He ran a finger across his knee.

  ‘Skull crushed, too. So we’re all sure, are we, that we don’t know Ernst Lux?’

  Brooke leant over the table and set down one of his cards, embossed with the switchboard number: Cambridge 0959.

  ‘If anyone can help, ring me. If I don’t hear soon we’ll be making enquiries, college by college, starting at Michaelhouse. Enjoy Hay Fever.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Behind the front desk at the Spinning House, a board studded with hooks held the station keys. Taking a small bunch marked GARAGE, Brooke asked after the prisoner, Turl. The sergeant scanned the log. ‘I checked on the hour, sir. Asleep. Ate his dinner at six. He’s had tea, too, at eight. Doctor looked him over this morning. Apparently he’s a “fine physical specimen”.’

  Brooke recalled the pace at which he’d fled the scene on Castle Hill.

  He tapped a finger on the duty book. ‘Anything happening, Sergeant?’

  The highlights were quickly listed: a fire in a town alleyway, possibly started deliberately. A broken shop window on Girton Road, but nothing taken. And a gunshot, heard by several people on Mill Road earlier that evening at around seven-fifteen. Two constables conducted door-to-door enquiries, with no results.

  ‘I’ll be back to check on the prisoner in ten minutes, Sergeant,’ said Brooke, heading out the back door into the station yard. An old corrugated iron garage made up one side of the square. Brooke slipped the padlock with the key and rolled up the slated door on metal rails. Strip lights revealed the three lorries from Castle Hill.

  His encounter with the night climbers in St Radegund had left him frustrated and angry. If he didn’t get a call in twenty-four hours, he’d take action: a visit to the college and a night in the cells might focus young minds on the consequences of failing to help the police with their enquiries.

  In the meantime, the continued silence of Turl was proving intolerable. Brooke was determined to loosen his tongue.

  He stood by an open tailgate, trying not to breathe in any trace of the dead meat. The professional consensus was that the animals had died within the last twenty-four hours, that the carcasses were of good to superior quality, and had been dispatched expertly by a trained slaughterman.

  Profit from war was an ugly reality. Black market said it all: shadowy, evil, shameful. He thought of his son, in France. Luke’s last letter had ended wistfully …

  When it starts I can’t write. We’ll be on the move and speed is everything. Tell Mum not to worry, I’m a survivor. There’s talk of leave by Christmas.

  He collected a mechanic’s spotlight from the sump pit underneath one of the lorries, and looped a twenty-foot electric cable over his arm.

  At the top of the circular stone staircase which led to the cells, he kicked off his shoes, with their telltale Blakey’s, and padded silently down the twenty-one steps. A little light from the stairwell illuminated a short corridor and six locked doors. Attaching the spotlight lead to a plug in the rotting wainscoting, he approached Turl’s cell: number five.

  In the twenty years he’d served at the Spinning House, he’d unlocked the various cells a thousand times; each one had a slightly different mechanism, but at a subconscious level he was able to adapt the twist of the wrist to each, so that the door of cell five flew open and crashed against the brickwork of the wall in less than a second.

  At the same moment Brooke switched on the spotlight.

  Turl stood frozen against the backdrop of his own shadow, a sheet still falling from his hand. Brooke waited to speak, knowing that in this moment, the prisoner had no idea who was behind the light.

  The prisoner didn’t move. Brooke wondered later if he was waiting for a bullet, or a flick knife to the guts. His face revealed a genuine expectation that he was about to die.

  ‘Relax,’ said Brooke.

  ‘Don’t you people sleep,’ said Turl. ‘What’s this? The third degree?’

  Brooke took the chair and set it in the cell doorway while Turl sat back on his bunk. They were six feet apart. Brooke attached the spotlight to a bracket on the wall which had once held a candle.

  ‘We had some unanswered questions,’ he said.

  They’d confiscated Turl’s tobacco and rolling tin when they’d charged him but Brooke had taken them from the possessions box.

  He rolled one now, without offering Turl a smoke.

  Turl had his hand up against the glare. ‘This isn’t very civilised, Inspector. There’s a light …’ He indicated the single bulb.

  ‘Running black-market meat’s a sordid crime,’ he said. ‘It’s unprofessional to let personal considerations affect an inquiry, but my son is your age and he’s currently camped out on the Belgium border, waiting for a war to start.’

  He gave Turl the roll-up he’d made and a box of matches. ‘I thought we’d talk for twenty minutes. Then you can sleep. Then I’ll be back. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow night. We’ll cut this session to ten minutes now if you answer one question. You can roll ten fags too. You won’t get a better offer.’

  ‘Tell me the question if you want a deal.’

  ‘Your first name. Your real first name.’

  Turl dropped his hand, and narrowed his eyes. ‘Jack.’

  ‘Short for?’

  ‘Short for nothing. It’s Jack.’

  ‘Alright, I’ll believe you, Jack. While you roll your fags, I’ll tell you a story. In the last war I was taken prisoner in Palestine,’ began Brooke. ‘It was my own fault. I’d come up with a plan to fool the Turks. All very Boy’s Own Paper. We were going to attack Gaza from the west, and we wanted the enemy to use some of their men to defend their eastern flank. We contrived some coded documents and a map indicating a fake attack. We knew they’d cracked our codes, but they didn’t know we knew.

  ‘To cut a long story short, my plan was to let these orders fall into enemy hands, and then make a miraculous escape. I got the first part right. I waited by a desert oasis with the coded documents in my saddlebag until a Turkish patrol came into sight. I let them take a potshot or two and then rode away. I’d obtained a bottle of blood off the battalion surgeon, so it was easy to fake a wound, and drop the saddlebag. Clinging to the horse, I was supposed to outrun them back to our lines. I didn’t make it.

  ‘I spent six days in the desert being interrogated, by day and night.’

  He paused, adjusting the tinted lenses, as Turl lit up.

  ‘Did you tell them the truth?’ asked Turl, his eyes reduced to slits in the glare.

  ‘In the end, after six days, I told them a lie.’

  ‘That was brave.’

  ‘It was important. We attacked in the west the next day, the Turkish line collapsed, and the road to Jerusalem was open. The king gave me a medal.’

  Turl tipped his head.

  Brooke laughed. ‘When I was in front of the light, at night in a cell like this, I wasn’t alone. That’s how I survived. How I got through it. There was a ghost with me. A man I loved, and admired. My father. He’d saved thousands of lives once, when I was just a child, and I saw that this was my chance to do the same. To match up.’

  Turl’s cigarette smoke hung over his head like a cloud.

  ‘What did they do when the attack started and they realised you’d lied?’ he asked.

  ‘They shot me, in the knee, to make sure I couldn’t get back to the battalion, then they left me for dead in the desert. They said I’d be food for carrion, for wild dogs and jackals. They said I’d be eaten alive. Or I’d die of thirst.’

  Brooke retrieved his hip flask and drank some cool water.

  ‘Make you feel good, does it? Bragging,’ said Turl.

  Brooke smiled. ‘I’m telling you this because I didn’t c
ome to hate them, my interrogators. I hope you won’t hate me. We were simply enemies, and it was war. There are many types of war. This is a war now, Jack. You and me. This is my war. It’s not personal, but I take it very seriously.’

  A tendon in Turl’s jaw flexed as he drew nicotine into his lungs.

  ‘There’s been another change of plan, you see. If I don’t get answers soon I’ve decided that once we’ve found your home city or town, we’re going to charge you, put you up before the magistrates and then let you out on bail. Once you’re free, walking your own streets, your friends will find you soon enough.’

  ‘You can’t do that,’ said Turl, before he realised he’d said too much, that he’d exposed his fear.

  Brooke smiled. ‘I’ll bend the rules for you, Jack. Before we let you go we’ll make it clear you’ve been helpful. Then it’s just a matter of time. Your mate, “Nev”, he couldn’t face the prospect. We found him in the river, Jack. A brick in each pocket. I wonder if you’ll be tempted to take the same shortcut?

  ‘Police bail of a fiver should buy your freedom. I’ll pay, if it comes to it. We could even have a whip round. I thought it was only fair to let you know so you’ve got time to think it all through. This is going to happen, Jack. To you. Soon.’

  Brooke stood and cut the light.

  ‘I’m going to feed you to the dogs,’ he said, closing the cell door.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  A single window gave a narrow view of a topiary maze and a statue of Neptune standing in a mossy stone pool, all lit by the morning sun. The gardens of Madingley Hall lay beyond, running into a blue distance, a few spires rising from the haze that was the city. Brooke sat in a corridor leading to a polished door, along which had been arranged a dozen seats. Half an hour earlier he had been on the eleventh chair in the corridor, waiting his turn, having been picked up at home by a military driver in a black car, who had knocked on the door at seven, suggesting Brooke might have time to ‘brief’ the commanding officer up at Madingley Hall on an issue of relevance to the Borough constabulary. Now, an hour later, he was in the first chair.

  It was one of the illuminating aspects of war that it laid bare these realities of power. He’d been summoned, and he’d obeyed.

  ‘Brooke?’ Captain Kerridge appeared at the door. ‘Your turn,’ he said, adding in a whisper, ‘We don’t know each other, Eden.’

  The commanding officer’s room was vast, a dining hall, perhaps, in its medieval heyday, with a single table set against a bay window, with its stunning view of the city. The contrast with Major Stone’s stuffy office was stark. The army was an organisation which placed power precisely in the hands of those who held office. Deputies were for emergencies only, to communicate orders down the line, and to work diligently through paperwork. This was the office of an all-seeing commander.

  A small, sinewy man in a flawless uniform shook Brooke’s hand and sat down on a side chair, offering his guest another. The disarming informality put Brooke on his guard. Kerridge retreated to a discreet distance and began working through some papers on a side table.

  ‘George Swift-Lane,’ the CO said. Brooke noted the studied omission of his rank, designed to put the detective at ease. A well-scrubbed face, with ruddy cheeks, was offset by eyes which had the first rheumy opacity of old age. Swift-Lane had cut himself shaving and three small eruptions of cotton wool marked his attempts to staunch the flow of blood. There was a boyish energy to the man, which suited his slight frame, and a tendency to fidget. His hair colour was irrelevant owing to the application of oil, which lashed what there was to his narrow skull.

  ‘Thanks for coming in,’ he said, and Brooke felt instantly uneasy. Politeness as a prelude to authoritarian brutality was an English trope. The contrast between this bustling, impish officer and Major Stone, his stolid, bureaucratic deputy, was striking.

  Brooke tilted his head to one side. ‘Swift-Lane, I know the name?’

  The effect of this enquiry on the colonel’s face was startling. A look of settled hatred was immediately apparent in the eyes, and the colour drained from those schoolboy cheeks.

  ‘Brother’s in the Cabinet, other one’s an admiral or some such. Boys will play with boats. I did a bit of amateur exploring after the last war, the Arctic mainly. That made the papers. It’s one of those names … But back to business …’

  Swift-Lane glanced at one of the three phones on his desk. ‘I rang the chief constable, and I don’t want anyone thinking I’m in the business of going over people’s heads as a rule, but this is a very sensitive matter.’

  The colonel’s eyes narrowed, noting perhaps Brooke’s confident refusal to fill the silence which had fallen after this statement. In an anteroom, someone was typing at the steady rate of machine-gun fire.

  ‘You’ll have an idea what we’re up to here. The vision is a simple one. Whitehall ministries, susceptible to attack in the capital, are being moved out to Cambridge. We’re trying to bring the armed services together. The country’s been broken up into regions and each will have a “capital” – so to speak – in the event of an attack. Cambridge will oversee the Eastern Region.

  ‘We are given to understand that the Germans will attack next year. Then the real war will begin. It’s far more difficult to predict its end. This will be a fast-moving, technological conflict. We may find ourselves isolated. It is a small risk, but we must be prepared for the worst. The unthinkable: an invasion.’

  He let that idea hang in the air.

  ‘In that unlikely event, regional government will become an absolute reality. As will military control. We need to be ready. I’m telling you this because we trust you. Your record speaks for itself.’

  Patience and power are rarely combined in the military psyche. Swift-Lane’s clasped hands came apart and seemed to propel him to his feet. Striding to the bay window, he looked out at the grounds.

  ‘You’ve been asking questions about some work done on St John’s Wilderness,’ he said, his back to Brooke. ‘An official request for information has come across my desk.’ He turned to face Brooke. ‘Drop it. It’s a distraction and it won’t occur again. How can I put it? A line of action, a defensive line, has been abandoned. Some work was being done here, now it’s being transferred to Oxford. There will be no further incidents. The chief constable was very considerate, but quite rightly asked me to make this request in person to you. Which I’m happy to do, and it is a request, Brooke. This is still a free country, after all, that’s what we’re all fighting for, in our own ways.’

  Brooke took off his glasses and rested them on his knee. Decisive, direct, apparently competent, Swift-Lane was in many ways a model senior officer. In the desert, Brooke’s life had been placed in real danger by a wide range of senior officers who combined stupidity with frantic manoeuvring designed to disguise their blatant shortcomings.

  Swift-Lane went to speak, but Brooke held up a hand. ‘We, the Borough police, are in the same position as everyone else, Colonel. Undermanned, and overworked. As a force, entrusted with imposing civil law and order, we are stretched to breaking point. No, beyond it. I’m being honest because I trust you.’

  Swift-Lane kept his silence.

  ‘I have no wish to enter a turf war, especially one I have no hope of winning,’ said Brooke.

  ‘Good man,’ said Swift-Lane, shaking hands as Brooke stood. ‘Captain Kerridge will show you out.’

  ‘You asked me to remind you, sir,’ said Kerridge.

  ‘Of course.’ Swift-Lane flicked open a file on his desk and extracted a single typed sheet, handing it to Brooke.

  ‘Your chief constable mentioned a puzzling case, a convoy of lorries … Black market’s one thing, a few lamb chops under the counter is what we expect. And fresh vegetables off the farms. If this war continues into its second year, its third, that will be an issue, of course: rural scavenging, urban starvation.’

  Swift-Lane ran a finger along his lips and Brooke guessed he’d said too much. It was pretty
clear the scenario of a successful invasion, in the sense of the Germans actually setting foot on British soil, had been rehearsed to some considerable degree.

  ‘What we don’t want – what we can’t have, Brooke – is organised crime operating a black market. That would seriously undermine our ability to govern. Public morale would dip. We’re all in this together, that’s the prime minister’s message. We won’t tolerate the rich buying scarce food. This might help …’

  Swift-Lane nodded, which appeared to be an accepted signal for his adjutant to take over the narrative.

  ‘One of our men has gone AWOL. Corporal Stanley Currie. You’ve got all his details there …’ Kerridge indicated the typed sheet. ‘This man, Currie, has been interviewed by redcaps on three occasions for offences related to the procuring of petrol outside the ration system and selling it on to private users. That’s in the last three weeks.

  ‘He joined up in the Great War, saw service in the trenches, then became a full-time soldier in ’37. Since then he’s been in the glasshouse twice. Both times for pilfering, cigarettes the first time, gin the second, both from the mess.

  ‘The chief constable said these lorries had full tanks and no paperwork relating to fuel, and the men had north country accents. On civvy street, Currie worked for the family garage business in Sheffield.

  ‘The morning after your lorries turned up, he left Madingley on a pass-out to town. Never came back. Coincidence, maybe, but it seems he had a reputation for supplying scarce goods, and besides petrol he apparently offered a line in fresh meat. Perhaps he’s the local man on the ground for this black-market outfit?’

  Swift-Lane tapped the sheet of paper in Brooke’s hand with his pen.

  ‘If and when you find him you’ll no doubt have your own questions,’ said the colonel. ‘But we’d appreciate the nod. Black-market offences are covered under Emergency Powers. Being in uniform won’t save him from the law. Ten years’ hard labour, I think. But we’d like to know when he’s in the bag. Personally, and I say this only to make myself feel better, I’d shoot the bastard.’