Blood on the Tongue (Ben Cooper & Diane Fry)

by Stephen Booth

  She sighed. ‘All right. Where is this Leadenhall place? I expect you’ve located it precisely, with your usual attention to detail when something interests you. You can probably give me the exact map co-ordinates and the course directions your World War Two pilot was supposed to be following.’

  ‘It’s near Newark, in the Trent Valley area of Nottinghamshire.’

  ‘Think you can find it?’

  ‘Of course. Why?’

  ‘That’s where we’re going this afternoon.’

  ‘What about Eddie Kemp and the baby?’

  ‘Gavin and the search team can cope here. It’s obvious they’re not going to find Baby Chloe being cared for by Vicky Kemp. Her darling husband will be picked up somewhere in due course. You know there’s no point in us chasing our backsides over that.’

  ‘I suppose not. But Leadenhall …’

  Fry waved his protests aside. She wasn’t going to be put off her chance to go somewhere and do something at last.

  ‘We’re going to follow the footsteps of the Snowman,’ she said.

  18

  The Leadenhall Aircraft Museum opened on some days during the winter months, but it was obvious that hardly any visitors came. Diane Fry and Ben Cooper found the gates open and a few volunteers taking the opportunity of the lull to carry out restoration and maintenance work on their aircraft.

  The main hangar was gloomy and cavernous. Inside, a Spitfire had been roped off and the armour plating round its nose had been dismantled. A man in blue overalls was doing something with a wrench deep inside the engine. The clink of metal against metal echoed in the hangar like a pebble rattling at the bottom of a deep well.

  A twin-engined Vickers Wellington seemed to be the central exhibit. Cooper edged towards the information board under its nose. This wartime bomber had been recovered from a remote Norwegian fjord where it had crashed in 1941 after being damaged by a German fighter. Its canvas fuselage had been torn away in large sections, exposing a metal grid-like structure underneath and offering glimpses of the flight cabin and the navigator’s table. The aircraft’s upper surfaces were painted a camouflage green, but underneath it was black, where it would be seen only against the sky.

  The Wellington had a powerful presence, even in this setting, and it reminded Cooper of something. He learned from the information board that Wellington bombers had been referred to affectionately by their crews as ‘Wimpeys’ after a fat, hamburger-eating character in the Popeye cartoons. But the impression it made on him was far from cartoon-like. There was nothing harmless and bumbling about this machine. The comparison he was trying to grasp was more animal-like.

  After they’d crossed the concrete floor, Cooper turned for another view of the Wellington. The Perspex panels of the cockpit were like a pair of dark eyes staring down the long nose and over the front gun turret towards the sky beyond the hangar walls. For Cooper, there was nothing cosy or nostalgic in the impression at all. The aircraft had a snout like a muzzled hunting dog.

  ‘How recent was the Snowman’s visit here, Diane?’ he said.

  Fry paused by the sliding doors of the hangar, near a set of display boards filled with newspaper reports of Second World War air battles. Fighter Command Spitfires destroy eight Messerschmidts over English Channel.

  ‘Sunday 6th January.’

  ‘The day before he was killed, probably.’

  ‘Somebody might remember him – it was only a week ago. And look at this place – it isn’t exactly heaving with crowds, is it?’

  ‘No, you’re right. But, Diane …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m supposed to be interviewing the staff at the Snake Inn this afternoon, trying to jog their memories about four-wheeled drive vehicles. You could have brought Gavin here with you. They didn’t need him at the Kemps either.’

  ‘Yes, I could have brought Gavin.’

  ‘So why am I here?’

  ‘Perhaps I wanted to keep an eye on you.’

  Outside, an elderly man in an ill-fitting flying suit with wing insignia was washing the fuselage of an Avro Shackleton. He had a stepladder, a bucket of water and a cloth, and he went about his job lovingly, with complete absorption and wonder, like a grandfather who’d been asked to change the nappy of a brand new grandchild.

  ‘Perhaps we could ask him to do the windows at West Street,’ said Fry, ‘now that Eddie Kemp has gone on strike. He looks as though he’d make a nice job of it.’

  ‘I think it’s a labour of love,’ said Cooper.

  Fry snorted. ‘Cleaning?’

  ‘It’s a question of what he’s cleaning.’

  ‘It’s a plane,’ said Fry.

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  She shook her head, exasperated. ‘Well, he’s obviously only the hired hand. Let’s find someone who knows what’s what around here.’

  They asked at the shop, but the woman behind the counter said that she didn’t normally work on Sundays and directed them back to the Shackleton and the man with the stepladder.

  ‘Mr Illingworth?’ said Fry.

  ‘That’s me.’

  They introduced themselves. ‘We’re enquiring about this man,’ said Fry. ‘We believe he visited last weekend. Sunday 6th January.’

  Illingworth looked at the photograph. ‘Is he dead, then?’

  ‘I’m afraid so, sir.’

  ‘Funny,’ he said. ‘I don’t think the other lot knew that.’

  ‘Other lot? What other lot?’

  ‘The last lot of police that came.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘It was only two days ago. I suppose you’ve found him since then, have you?’

  ‘Mr Illingworth, are you saying some police officers have been here already asking about this man?’

  ‘Yes, but they had a photograph of him when he was alive.’

  ‘Where were these officers from?’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t remember. Weren’t they your lot?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Fry. ‘We’re from Derbyshire.’

  ‘Ah, out of your area, then. I assume they were Nottinghamshire Police.’

  ‘And they were trying to identify this man?’

  ‘No, no, they seemed to know who he was. They had a name, even.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘Sorry …’

  ‘You can’t remember. That’s OK.’

  Cooper looked at her. He knew what she was thinking: a lack of communication somewhere had led not only to duplication of effort, but to a waste of several days of their time in trying to identify the Snowman. Surely Gavin Murfin had contacted Nottinghamshire for their missing persons – they were one of Derbyshire’s neighbouring forces. Fry’s jaw clenched. Somebody was going to be in trouble. And for once, it wasn’t Ben Cooper.

  ‘Wait here,’ she said, ‘while I make some calls.’

  As she walked off, Illingworth shrugged. ‘Sorry I can’t remember any more,’ he said. ‘Sounds like a bit of a cock-up, doesn’t it?’

  ‘You’ve got a Lancaster here, haven’t you?’ said Cooper.

  ‘Ah, you’re interested in the Lanc, are you? Yes, one of the few left, she is. Do you know we had to buy this one from Canada? All but a couple of the RAF’s Lancs were scrapped. Or left to rot.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘She’s in a separate hangar of her own. We’re still working on her. There’s a bit of restoration to do yet. In fact, I think they’re bringing her out now to turn over the engines.’

  The doors of the next hangar stood wide open. Although the displays were protected by wooden barriers, Cooper was able to reach across and touch the side of the Lancaster. To his surprise, it felt light and fragile. It was nothing more than a series of sheets of thin alloy, held together by thousands of tiny rivets. That it had ever travelled to Germany and back was a miracle.

  A shaft of winter sun came through the Perspex panels in the hangar roof. The weak light lit up tiny details here and there on the Lancaster – a patch of worn red paint on
the fuselage markings, a stencilled number on an escape hatch cover, and the rust caked on the barrel of a Vickers machine gun that poked from a shattered turret.

  A small tractor attached to the undercarriage of the Lancaster was slowly towing the big aircraft out on to the tarmac. It was a very tight fit – the wing tips cleared the side of the hangar entrance by only a foot or two on either side.

  ‘Most of the people who work here are volunteers, I suppose – enthusiasts,’ said Cooper.

  ‘That’s right. We couldn’t do without them. They put their own time and effort in, and their own money, too. It’s an expensive hobby.’

  There was a metal ladder leaning against the fuselage of the Lancaster. Cooper couldn’t resist a peep inside the open door. He was amazed by the confined space inside the aircraft, which looked so large from outside. Forward from the door, the main spar half-blocked the passage, narrowing it to two tiny compartments behind the cockpit.

  Cooper glanced back at Illingworth. ‘Which crew members sat in these compartments?’

  ‘The wireless operator and the navigator. Then there’s the flight engineer’s position, right in the passage between the navigator and the pilot. And down there, under the pilot’s feet, is the bubble where the bomb aimer lay. The best view in the aircraft, he had.’

  Some of the Perspex looked very new and clear to Cooper. But inside the aircraft, the instruments and equipment were all obviously original. To his left, towards the tail, the fuselage narrowed even more. Down at the end of a dark tunnel was a glimpse of curved sliding doors, left partly open.

  ‘That must be the rear gunner’s turret.’

  ‘Correct,’ said Illingworth. ‘That’s Tail-End Charlie’s place. The coldest, loneliest spot on a Lancaster, without doubt. It was so cold back there that the rear gunner had to wrap himself up in an electrically-heated suit, so that his arms and legs didn’t seize up completely and leave him useless.’

  Cooper could see that the rear turret was also the most vulnerable position. And in fact, it was the one where you would be unable to see anything of your own aircraft, as you were flying backwards. The space in there was tiny, barely big enough for a man to sit. The breech blocks of four machine guns jutted through the Perspex, and it would be impossible to move your feet more than a couple of inches either way because of the ammunition feeds, rising like conveyor belts from the base of the turret.

  Illingworth was warming to Cooper’s interest in the aircraft. ‘You’ll notice that the only crewmen with a proper view out of the aircraft were the pilot, the bomb aimer, and the flight engineer, all up front. The navigator had to work in a curtained-off area – he wouldn’t have any idea what was going on outside, except for what he heard on his headphones. That glass bubble above his position is the astrolabe, for making sightings of the stars – all very well, as long as there were no clouds.’

  ‘Of course.’

  But on the night Uncle Victor had crashed, there had been plenty of cloud over the Peak District. Cooper’s eyes were drawn back to the rear gunner’s turret. Because of the cramped space, the rear gunner couldn’t have been a big man, or he wouldn’t have fit. Of course, Sergeant Dick Abbott had been only five foot six inches tall. The doors would have slid shut behind Abbott quite easily as he sealed himself up for his last journey.

  Cooper shuddered. Noticing his expression, Illingworth smiled grimly. ‘The Lancaster was known to be the worst aircraft to get out of in an emergency. And the quickest to sink, if it was ditched into the sea. Makes you think, doesn’t it?’

  Surely this Lancaster would be haunted. Cooper could imagine the aircraft standing at night in its darkened hangar, full of spectral sounds – the quiet throwing of switches and levers, the muttering of conversations on the intercom.

  ‘We’re going to have to ask you to stand clear now,’ said Illingworth. ‘They’re going to start her up in a minute. You don’t want to be turned into mincemeat by the propellers.’

  Cooper climbed down reluctantly. ‘How much would this aircraft be worth?’ he asked.

  ‘Worth?’ The man looked astonished at the question, as if someone had suggested selling the Queen Mother. ‘How can anyone say what she’s worth? She’s priceless.’

  ‘Where on earth do you get the parts to restore it?’

  ‘Wherever we can. Aviation scrapyards, dealers, other museums. Some bits have to be made new, of course. We need a new main spar for the Lanc if we’re ever going to get her airworthy again. You don’t find many of those lying about, so we’ll have to get somebody to make one. That’s a long way in the future, though, for this aircraft.’

  ‘Have you got a collection here, too? I mean memorabilia, that sort of thing?’

  ‘Yes, lots of stuff. There’s a display over in the old control tower building.’

  ‘And I suppose some of your volunteers have their own collections.’

  ‘Of course they do. They’re enthusiasts. Some of them get into it in a big way. They spend all their money filling their homes with stuff. You wouldn’t believe it. But I suppose it’s like anything else. If you get keen on it, you’ll go to any lengths to collect whatever you can get your hands on.’

  ‘They’re men usually, I imagine,’ said Cooper.

  ‘Well, as it happens, yes.’

  ‘Who have you got here who’s like that? Can you give me a few names, sir?’

  Illingworth began to reel off names until Cooper stopped him.

  ‘Who was that last one?’

  ‘Graham Kemp. Now, he’s a complete nutcase for collecting. Graham travels all over the country if he hears of something that might be interesting. He even takes his holidays in places where he can look at aircraft wrecks or scrapyards. His wife gets totally naffed off about it.’ There was a burst of noise, and the propellers of the four Merlin engines began to turn. Illingworth had to raise his voice against the noise. ‘We haven’t seen him around here for a bit, but he’s one of the keenest collectors I know. Is it Kemp you’re interested in?’

  ‘Graham Kemp,’ said Cooper thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps it is.’

  Fry appeared at the corner of the hangar. She didn’t look any happier. ‘Nottinghamshire don’t know what the hell I’m talking about,’ she said. ‘But they’re going to ask around.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘Great? Oh, it’s absolutely bloody marvellous.’

  Then the engines of the Lancaster caught with a roar. Cooper could see the frame of the aircraft shaking so hard that it was a surprise the rows of rivets didn’t pop out. No wonder the crew had come back deafened and wobbly when they set foot on the ground again.

  The noise of the engines was deafening, but exciting too. It reminded Cooper of the sound of an orchestra tuning up before a concert. There was nothing except roar and discord, but it held out the promise of something entirely different to come.

  Fry listened sceptically while Cooper told her about Graham Kemp.

  ‘Some relation of your friend Eddie’s?’ she said.

  ‘Quite possibly. I’ve an idea that he has a brother.’

  ‘Maybe he knows where Eddie is, then.’

  ‘I can soon track him down.’

  ‘No, Ben. It’ll have to wait.’

  Then Fry was silent for a while. For half an hour, Cooper was left to his own thoughts as he drove towards a yellow sunset, which dripped over the Dark Peak hills like honey running away into the west. Everything he could see ahead of him was distorted by long shadows lying flat on the landscape. In this light, snow could be black, while the bleak gritstone tors could shine like polished gold.

  By the time they were approaching Edendale itself, though, the sunset had gone. They were left with the street lamps and the wet roads, and the stained heaps of snow lying in the gutters. In every house they passed, curtains glowed and flickered in the windows as people hugged their own little lives to themselves. But the hills were lost in the darkness somewhere above the town.

  ‘You’ve still got a job left to do,
haven’t you, Ben?’ said Fry as they approached West Street.

  ‘Have I?’

  ‘Interviews with the staff at that place near where the Snowman was found.’

  ‘The Snake Inn,’ said Cooper.

  ‘You’ve got it.’

  ‘It’s quite a long drive from here.’

  ‘You’d better get going, then.’

  They saw Gavin Murfin in the car park chatting to members of the task force. He shrugged when he saw Diane Fry.

  ‘I take it there was no Baby Chloe at Eddie Kemp’s house, Gavin?’ she said.

  ‘Not a sign. Not a single used nappy.’

  ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me? If anything goes right this week, I’ll buy you another singing lobster.’

  The licensees of the Snake Inn ought to have been the best people to remember vehicles passing along the road after the heavy snowfall had started early on Tuesday morning. There were hardly any buildings for miles in either direction on the A57, and the inn relied on tourists or passing trade between Derbyshire and Manchester. They would notice when no vehicles were passing, and they were the first place to be cut off when the snow came.

  Yet when Cooper went through their statements with them carefully, they could remember nothing except the snowploughs battling their way over the Pass from either direction. The plough from the east they remembered particularly, because its crew had stopped at the inn to fill up their flasks, shortly before they found the body. That was the sort of incident that focused the memory wonderfully. But no matter how many times Cooper went over their statements, the Snake Inn licensees recalled no four-wheel drive cars struggling through the snow that morning.

  So had somebody been very lucky indeed? Or had the Snowman’s body been in the lay-by during the night, in full view of passing traffic? Cooper sighed. He was going to have to tell Fry to re-draw her time line.

  On the way back from the Snake Inn, it wasn’t a long diversion from Manchester Road into Woodland Crescent, Edendale. In fact, it could even be called a short-cut. Cooper drove down the Crescent first, then reversed and came back again, checking for signs of Alison Morrissey or Frank Baine hanging around the Lukasz bungalow. The blue BMW was parked in the drive again, and its windscreen was clear of snow and frost, which suggested it had been out and had returned quite recently. If Peter Lukasz had just finished a shift at the hospital, it might be a good time to catch him.