The Great Darkness

by Jim Kelly

  ‘Delightful news from Scotland Yard,’ she said, and the room fell silent. ‘The Auxiliary Fire Service is conducting an exercise this evening on Midsummer Common, an event already on our calendar of wonders. A house, as you will have all noted, has been constructed of cardboard boxes, and is due to be set alight at eight o’clock. The AFS’s two fire tenders are to tackle the blaze, exhibiting a high level of efficiency and skill.’

  The AFS was not known for its efficiency or skill. It had also failed to work smoothly alongside the town’s existing brigade. Its inability to put out a fire was almost certainly going to be matched by an equal inability to start one.

  ‘The development of the AFS is a government priority. Fleet Street’s finest have been invited to step out into the provinces to witness its skills. The Cabinet wishes to show its support. The minister of labour, the Right Hon. Alfred Brown, will therefore be a guest of the civic party.’

  There was a universal groan.

  ‘All leave is cancelled,’ she said, raising her voice. ‘Day shift will run until midnight. County will provide a motorcycle escort and twenty uniformed officers to shadow the minister. We will be responsible for crowd order at the event. This should not be a problem as there has been no advance public notice of the event, or the VIP visit. However, given it is the minister, we will perform our limited task with aplomb. Thank you. Let’s get to work, shall we?

  ‘Inspector Brooke: a moment, please, in my office.’

  Brooke watched her heels, and the seam on her stockings, as they climbed a metal spiral stairwell into her office, the bay window of which looked out directly into busy Regent Street, with a view of Emmanuel College’s chapel beyond. Wren’s exquisite six-sided lantern tower caught a shaft of sunlight, which had broken through the clouds, only to be washed away by a fresh squall of rain.

  ‘The Childe inquiry?’ she asked, sitting at her desk, touching a plain folder on the blotter.

  Brooke offered a brisk, logical summary: Childe believed he was a witness to something of great importance, almost certainly the classified film shown in the Galen’s theatre on the night of the Great Darkness. He’d made a report, outlining what he’d seen, which had been sent by the secretary of the local communist party to their London headquarters. A day later Childe was dead. The Met was endeavouring to find the letter, which had been sent first class. Questions crowded in: had Childe told anyone of the contents? Was he killed to ensure his silence? Who had the copy of the letter, given it was not on his body?

  ‘The case has disturbing subtleties,’ said Brooke, and left it at that.

  Carnegie-Brown closed her eyes. She expected her senior detective officer to make sense of life, to bring her solutions, not intricate problems.

  ‘The chief constable has received a series of calls from Madingley Hall,’ she said, flipping open the folder.

  ‘Yes. I made enquiries about the soldiers digging on the riverbank – at St John’s Wilderness, on the night of the Great Darkness. The CO, Swift-Lane, warned me off,’ said Brooke. ‘I was happy to comply. I’m not happy now. Childe was in the work squad which dug the pits. I’ve asked for further information: I’d like to know what was in the pits. We are dealing with a murder inquiry, ma’am. This young man leaves a wife and two children. He has a right to a proper investigation.’

  ‘I’m perfectly aware of the gravity of the case, Brooke. Tread carefully. The chief constable advises cooperation, not confrontation.’

  ‘A meeting place has been agreed on neutral ground,’ said Brooke. ‘Swift-Lane is keen to “clear the air”, apparently. We’ll see.’

  She stood up and produced a silver cigarette case from inside her tunic. This had been a rumour in the Spinning House for some time: that she had a weakness, a human frailty, even if it was a common one, but no one had ever seen her indulge. She lit the cigarette with a lighter and stood by the window.

  ‘Those pits on the riverbank, Brooke. What do we really think?’

  ‘Take your pick of the town gossip,’ said Brooke. ‘Are they shooting mutineers? I doubt it. Are they burying the mangled dead from air raids, all hushed up by Whitehall? I doubt it. Are they testing weapons out on Thetford Chase, or in some forsaken corner of the Fens? Are there casualties they wish to conceal? It’s all talk.’

  ‘Talk?’ said Carnegie-Brown. ‘Now there’s a weapon we should fear.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  Rain on the Backs, with the river brimful with the flood, lapping at the banks. Brooke always felt that on days like this the water might start welling up, through drains and ditches, creeks and basements, until the city was reduced to a series of reflections in a mirror-like maze. A Fen acqua alta. Even the cattle on the water meadows looked soaked, with straggly beards where they’d chewed the grass.

  Colonel Swift-Lane, wrapped in a full-length oiled coat, sat upright on a bench, looking across the meadows to a distant school playing field. As Brooke approached, the referee’s whistle signalled the start of a rugby match.

  ‘Look, I’m indebted we could meet, Brooke,’ offered Swift-Lane, shaking hands vigorously. The man was a ball of suppressed energy. ‘I think the time has come to pool our resources. The death of this conchie changes everything. The chief constable briefed me, and felt it might help if we joined forces. Has there been any progress in the inquiry?’

  Brooke lit a cigarette, calculating how much was in his interests to tell the colonel. ‘So far there is no trace of the letter at Cadogan Place, the Party’s London headquarters.’

  Brooke watched the boys form a line-out in the rain.

  ‘Christ, what a mess,’ said Swift-Lane. He jumped up, walked away to the river’s edge, then came back to his seat. ‘It goes without saying that we wish to limit the degree to which this information is circulated. It is highly classified.’

  Brooke noted again the slight wiry frame, the barrel chest, out of proportion to the short, powerful legs. The colonel had mentioned an Arctic expedition and Brooke pictured him man-hauling a sledge. It occurred to him that this might be the successful physiognomy of the explorer: wiry, compact and low-slung.

  ‘Military intelligence are involved, Brooke. They were there on the night, at the Galen, and they’ve been on the case from the off. They keep a watching brief on all classified projects. After the last war I did a stint with them, before returning to the general staff. I know how they work. If they think any sensitive information has leaked, we won’t know what’s hit us …’

  He turned in his seat as if about to deliver a confidence. ‘I appreciate the update. You know you can ring Kerridge at any time. For my part, I have some news. The intelligence services picked up three of Childe’s fellow travellers. They’re in custody up at the Castle Gaol. Names of Henderson, Lauder and Popper. I got notification this morning.’

  Brooke, angry, lit a cigarette with exaggerated calm. ‘Any chance they might have informed me, the officer in charge of the murder inquiry?’

  Swift-Lane concentrated on the distant sports field. ‘These men may have been under surveillance for some time. I’m not privy to the full file. The central point remains, Brooke: these three men saw Childe before he sent his report. They met up that very night. They claim Childe told them nothing. Are they lying? If so, who might they have told …’

  ‘You know what was on this film?’ asked Brooke.

  ‘I don’t know the precise details.’ Swift-Lane ran a hand over his oiled hair. ‘Look. The film and the pit are part and parcel of the same …’ He searched for the right word. ‘Project. Whatever it is that’s buried on the riverside is just that, buried. It’s the past. That really is all you need to know, Brooke.’

  The colonel buried his head in his hands.

  ‘Can I interview Childe’s three comrades?’ asked Brooke.

  ‘I’ll clear it,’ said Swift-Lane. ‘We need to know why Childe died. Is it the letter? Or are there other, hidden motives? The hard truth is that if we can’t clear this up, military intelligence will
take on the case, lock, stock and barrel. Either that or they’ll pass it to Special Branch at the Yard, then we’ll never know the truth.’

  Brooke adjusted his tinted glasses, watching the rugby play out in a vivid green light.

  Swift-Lane was up again on his feet.

  ‘One detail you should know,’ added Brooke. ‘Henderson, the local party chairman? We searched his house and found a two-way radio transmitter, and receiver.’

  Swift-Lane looked stunned. ‘His house was checked. They all were. How could they have missed a radio?’

  ‘It was in the loft space, under the roof.’

  A ragged cheer greeted a try scored in the distant rugby match.

  ‘Then we really must keep in touch, Brooke,’ said Swift-Lane, as if it was a threat.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Detective Inspector John Solly, of Sheffield CID, stood on Fitzalan Square, watching the first snow flurry of the year accumulate on the bronze shoulders of Edward VII, who looked north from his central plinth towards the distant high line of the white moors.

  Solly, a big man in a heavy overcoat with the collar up, studied the principal building across the square; since he’d been a child he’d never heard it called anything but the White Building. While the rest of the city centre was layered in a fur of soot, it defied the grime. The facade’s glazed tiles recorded the city’s fame: men aglow at an open furnace, men at lathes, men at drill jigs, men at steam hammers.

  Solly’s brothers had gone into ‘the steel’. He was smarter, no one’s fool, so he used his brain, not his muscles. And his eyes: for twenty minutes he’d kept watch on the public bar door of the Elephant Inn, right next to the White Building. Spotting his quarry at last, he skipped between a pair of black cabs on the rank and plunged into the pub, to be engulfed in a warm fug of humanity, rank with damp clothes and coal smoke.

  Three crowded bars led to a snug which was so full he had to thread his path to the bar as if trying to get a decent view on the terraces at nearby Bramall Lane, to watch his beloved United. He’d rolled a pound note up tight and slipped it into the top pocket of a man who stood at the end of the bar.

  ‘I’ll get that,’ he told a barman who’d just delivered a pint. ‘And another.’

  They were in a corner, and at head height they faced a line of open modesty screens, small glazed panels of fogged glass. Solly deftly closed two so that they couldn’t be seen from the other bars.

  ‘I can’t talk,’ said Solly’s informant, revealing tobacco-stained teeth. ‘It’s too dangerous.’ Clossick owned a cab, and boasted bat-like hearing and a mind sharp enough to recall minor details. The city’s infamous gangs used taxis to keep one step ahead of CID, which regularly circulated lists of suspect licence plates.

  Clossick heard a lot, but said little, unless paid.

  ‘Too late now, pal,’ said Solly. ‘Might as well make it short and sweet and enjoy the pint when I’m gone.’

  The cabbie had wide, flickering eyes, with which he kept a constant vigil over the detective’s shoulders.

  ‘The lorries?’ prompted Solly.

  ‘That’s it. I did hear …’

  It was Clossick’s signature: I did hear …

  ‘They set up a convoy, Mr Solly,’ said Clossick. ‘They went down south to pick up meat at farms. All under the counter, no paperwork. None that’s legit.’

  Clossick tapped the bar top. ‘Left here at dawn, back by dusk, that’s the way of it. They’ve done half a dozen trips in the last few months, and no problems. Plan is to stockpile the meat then play the market when rationing starts.’

  Clossick drank, then set his empty glass on the bar top.

  Solly flipped open one of the screens, ordered a refill, sipping his own pint.

  ‘This last time it’s a right lash-up,’ said Clossick, lifting his drink. ‘Local uniform in Cambridge catches ’em parked in the street, two of the wagons full. One of the drivers panics, makes a run for it, when the coppers arrive. Another follows suit. Wouldn’t give a lot for their chances if either shows their face back in the city. If they’d sat tight they might have got away with it.’

  Solly put an elbow on the bar, pivoting, so that his lips were close to the cabbie’s ears. ‘We need to find the meat, Clossick. How many times have they done this run? Half a dozen? So there’s lorry-loads of the meat somewhere. And that’s if it’s one convoy. What if there are more? Find me an address, pal. It’s worth a fiver.

  ‘And if you get the chance, let it slip that the driver’s being transferred back home. He’s turned informer. Arrests are imminent. He’ll be at West Bar in a cell by tomorrow night. I’m going down to pick him up, make sure he gets here safely. Then he’ll be out on bail. Spread the news, Clossick.’

  Solly left, ricocheting off the other customers, until he fell out into the street. The snow was an inch deep. He looked up into the low sky, which seemed suspended just a foot above his head, and watched the shadows of the falling flakes, already smudged with soot.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Brooke climbed Castle Hill, past the spot where the lorries had been parked on the night of the Great Darkness. At the top stood the County Gaol, amongst the ruins of the castle. It was a mathematical gem: eight-sided, an elegant octagon, each wing afforded its own central spine, within which lay a three-storey high corridor and a soaring, iron-framed skylight roof. The views out were mean, the small cell windows criss-crossed with bars, imposing a latticework frame on the college spirelets spread below. Rain fell across a slate-grey city.

  Henderson, Lauder and Popper, the principal activists of the city’s communist party, had been allocated cells in B Wing, but on different levels. They were forbidden to join the ‘wheel’, the circulating walk in the prison yard which afforded prisoners an hour each day to fraternise. The deputy chief warder was the only member of staff authorised to enter their rooms; their food was eaten alone, delivered through the door by the governor’s personal kitchen orderly.

  Brooke felt here the brutal imprint of authoritarian discipline. The risk these men posed to the state was surely limited: they claimed, separately, that they had no insight into the scenes Childe had witnessed. Vera Staunton had been clear: he was determined to tell London first, in writing, and no one else.

  Henderson, the trade union convener, was on his feet in shirt, tie and jacket, standing by his bed when the warder opened the cell door. A linen towel covered a bucket by the sink, but the stench was a shock, despite the open window.

  ‘On whose authority am I being held and under what law?’ he asked, before Brooke was fully through the door. ‘I demand to see a solicitor, and I wish to exercise my right to appear in front of a magistrate.’

  To an extent, the art of confrontation was Henderson’s business as a union official, but the forthright delivery, the summoning up of a sense of moral right, was nonetheless impressive.

  Brooke gave him a copy of the Emergency Powers (Defence) Act, having anticipated the request, and circled the relevant clauses. Carnegie-Brown had a pile of copies set out in the hall at the Spinning House, an eloquent reminder of the locus of power in a time of war.

  Henderson retrieved a pair of glasses from his suit pocket and read: ‘“Threat to national security”? In what sense? Christ, I fought for this country, Brooke, more than the bastards who write this rubbish ever did …’ He flung the paper in the air.

  ‘We searched your house, and the attic,’ said Brooke.

  Henderson took the news like a blow, subsiding to his bunk, head held between his hands, which he slowly ran back through thinning hair.

  ‘It’s not a crime.’

  ‘It is, actually. Your grip on the legal code isn’t exactly vice-like, is it? Unless you are registered as part of the government’s own radio monitoring scheme it is indeed illegal to own a transmitter.’

  Henderson shook his head. ‘The Party has its own network. It’s a contingency, in case of invasion. We’ll need to organise, keep abreast of the situati
on. I listen to Moscow; we’ve never transmitted. Is that a crime, man? In a free country? We’re ready to fight if the Nazis come, Brooke, a darn sight harder than the fascists will. Sod Peace News: we’ll fight the Germans on home soil, don’t you worry.’

  Brooke had come armed with a packet of Woodbines, a habit he’d learnt over the years when visiting prisoners.

  A single exhalation of smoke filled the box-like cell, catching a beam of light which came in through the high, narrow window.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Henderson. ‘I needed that. Sorry, it’s nothing personal. A tirade does me good … They took all my fags. They’ve banned visits, too, although the governor claims he’s trying to get that lifted. We’ll see.’

  Brooke tried to focus the anger in the room. ‘The problem, the reason you’re here, is Childe’s letter. It hasn’t arrived in London. Further, Vera says he made a carbon copy, a black. That should have been on his body. It wasn’t.’

  Henderson shook his head. ‘I tried to get Chris to tell us there and then. Not telling us was illogical. The London office is a bloody sieve. Tell ’em anything and it’ll be chit-chat on the docks in half an hour. Much better to speak to us – then, if needs be, go to London and tell someone. Why put anything on paper? In the end we agreed to the letter, only because that way at least someone would get to hear the bloody truth, whatever it was.’ Henderson lowered his voice. ‘Thing is, Brooke. The idiot changed his bloody mind.’

  ‘Childe?’

  ‘Yes. Rang me at the office from a phone box and said he’d tell us the lot at the weekly meeting that evening. Seven o’clock in the Mitre’s private room as always. What with the coins clattering there wasn’t much time. But he did say he’d thought it through and decided the best thing was to go public. Christ knows what he had in mind. Speakers’ bloody Corner?’

  Brooke felt this nugget of information would have given Swift-Lane a heart attack. Childe’s letter was dangerous enough, but if he’d decided to talk, and tell others, then he’d certainly put his life in danger.