by Davis Bunn
His stomach rebelled against the prospect, but he needed to wake up. “Coffee would be great, thanks. Black.”
“Charles, would you be so kind?”
The guard was already on his feet. “Certainly, sir. And yourself?”
“Nothing, thank you. This way, Mr. Kelly.”
Midway down the adjoining corridor Compston unlocked a door. “I do apologize for remaining in my robes, but I must dash back to finish hearing this case.”
The judge’s chambers were austere in an expensive and oddly personal manner. Scandinavian furniture matched the light parquet flooring. Narrow bookshelves shaped as a dozen bas-relief pillars marched around the room. A stubby conference table sprouted from the end of Compston’s desk, surrounded by beige leather chairs. “Do make yourself comfortable, Mr. Kelly.”
The judge kept the conversation inconsequential until the guard brought Matt’s coffee. Then, “Perhaps you’d be so kind as to tell me what this is all about.”
The judge was two people. One was pleasant and mild-voiced and maintained a steady smile. The other was steely-eyed and asked incisive questions. Matt drank his coffee and related what he knew and wished he could degum his brain. When he finished, the judge glanced at his watch and said, “I can’t run much over my ten-minute recess, I’m afraid. There’s quite a full docket all this week.”
“Major Stafford was not helpful.”
“No. I rather imagine he wouldn’t be.”
“Do you think the right man was tried for this crime?”
“What I think, Mr. Kelly, is that British justice ran its proper course. Regardless of what the major might have inferred, there was no question of miscarriage. The prosecutors simply did not have a case.”
“That was not what I asked.”
“That’s as may be. But as an official representative of Her Majesty’s courts, that is all I am prepared to say.”
Matt was too tired to care. “I appreciate your being willing to see me.”
“Not at all, Mr. Kelly.” The judge remained seated behind his desk. “Tell me, are you fond of English pubs?”
“I’ve never been to one.”
“You can’t possibly visit my country without sampling at least one country pub, Mr. Kelly. It simply isn’t done.” He reached for a pen and scribbled a note. “Where are you staying?”
“Visiting officers’ quarters at Upper Heyford.”
“Splendid.” He handed Matt the paper. “The Fox and Crown in Sumerton. A mere stone’s throw from the base. You could walk it if the weather wasn’t so miserable. Shall we say seven o’clock?”
Matt resumed his zoned-out state for the return journey to Upper Heyford. Brian Aycock remained silent until they halted before one of the base’s faceless brick buildings. “Visiting officers’ quarters. Officers’ mess is the next building to your right. You’re in room forty-nine, ground floor, key should be in the door.”
“I’m scheduled to meet the judge tonight. I can do that on my own.”
“He knew I was escorting you. If I wasn’t invited, I shouldn’t come.” He offered Matt his hand. “It’s been nice meeting you.”
“Thanks for everything.”
“Here, you’ll need this.” Brian handed him an umbrella, then Matt’s file. “Thanks for the chance to read that. It made for a change from file-clerk duties.”
“What are you, CIA?”
“Cultural affairs.” They shared a smile. “You can catch a cab to Sumerton outside the main gates. Good luck.”
The room was bare in the extreme. Table, chair, bunk, sink, threadbare towel, light over the mirror, bulb in the ceiling, two sheets, one blanket. Matt zonked out for five hours and woke up famished. He showered and shaved using a disposable razor left with a skimpy bar of soap. He dressed in the same clothes, as he had nothing else. Outside his room, people laughed loudly at words he could not be bothered to understand. The noise only heightened his sense of unwelcome.
He walked to the mess hall in the misting rain. He ate alone. No one spoke to him. No one looked his way. The food was very bland. When he finished, it was half past six. He left the mess hall and followed the road to the main gate. He entered the first taxi in line and gave the driver the name of the pub.
Rain fell in soft pattering beats upon the car. What little Matt saw of his surroundings showed a village cut from the same mold as the base—modest brick houses, neat terraced gardens, and quiet lanes. A military town.
A mile from the main gates they left Upper Heyford and entered a narrow country lane. The taxi halted before an ancient two-story inn. A hand-painted sign creaked softly above an arched door of stout English oak.
Inside, large stone fireplaces burned at both ends of a single great room. The bar ran down the wall opposite the entrance. The inn was quiet for being so full. Matt spotted the judge waving from a leatherclad booth and walked over.
“Mr. Kelly, excellent. So glad you could join us. May I introduce Miles Spending, chief constable of this charming little borough. What will you take?”
“I’d better stick with coffee, thanks. Black.”
“I’ll get it.” The constable was a very neat man, compact and still. He moved to the bar and returned with an economy of motion. Few people noticed his passage. Matt assumed he liked it that way. “Here you are, Mr. Kelly.”
Without his wig and robes of office, Edward Compston’s dual nature was even more striking. His looks and manner were almost boyish. Straw-blond hair fell over his forehead. He spoke with gentle hesitation. Yet there was a blade-hard edge to his gaze, a judge’s incisive ability to slice down deep and draw out the kernel of truth. “Do I need to inform you, Mr. Kelly, that this little meeting of ours is off the record?”
Matt sipped from his mug. The coffee was freshly brewed and very strong. “No.”
“Fine. Then perhaps you’d be so kind as to repeat for the constable what you told me earlier.”
One of the men serving behind the bar crossed the flagstone floor and tossed a double handful of cedar chips onto the nearest fire. A lady seated in the next booth drank mulled wine. Matt could smell the cinnamon and clove. The constable heard him out in silence. Then, “You’ve identified the thumbprint as belonging to our victim here?”
Matt nodded. “Could Barry Simms have survived the blast?”
The constable retreated into his glass. “Not a hope of that, mate.”
“What about the man arrested for the crime here? Any idea where he was around the time of the Baltimore incident?”
Compston offered, “I doubt very much our man was involved.”
“One way to make sure.” The constable rose from their booth. “When exactly was the attack out your way?”
“Eighteen days ago.”
“Hang on a tick.”
As the constable made his way to the bar, Compston leaned forward and said, “While our friend is otherwise occupied, let me share a couple of items. There is no love lost between the base police and our local lad here. The incident in question occurred on what might be classed as disputed territory. Upper Heyford is actually two bases connected by the public road you took to come out here. Barry Simms rented a house on this road. His landlord was the air base. Do you catch my drift?”
The constable was heads-down with one of the barmaids, a frowsy woman with bright copper hair. She picked up a phone from beneath the counter and dialed, leaning over so the constable could hear what she said. Matt replied, “The base police want to treat the village as part of their turf.”
“Precisely. Snedley-Cummins, the man accused of the bombing, was effectively handed to the constable on a platter by Major Stafford.”
The judge was no longer smiling. Matt could easily imagine the stern face across from him pronouncing the words “ten years to life.” “Your constable friend refused to go along.”
“That is quite correct.” Compston’s eyes tightened in approval. “To say the least, Major Stafford was less than pleased. He went to the press and p
ublicly accused the constable of dragging his feet.”
“Snedley-Cummins was tried in the public eye,” Matt surmised.
“They don’t call it the local rag for nothing,” Compston agreed. “Finally the crown prosecutor brought forward the case against Snedley-Cummins. Did so despite the constable’s objections, I hasten to add. The trial was duly heard by me. The accused was found not guilty by a jury of his peers. The press called it a miscarriage and blamed our constable for faulty handling of what should have been an open-and-shut case. Again, using information supplied by our Major Stafford.”
“Did this Snedley-Cummins do it?”
“Geoffrey Snedley-Cummins was assigned as liaison between the RAF and your departing lads. His official rank was adjutant, but unofficially his duties were quite far-reaching. On a smooth-running base, the adjutant handles a number of issues that should never be brought before the base commandant. Unfortunately, Upper Heyford has recently been anything but smooth-running. To put it bluntly, Snedley-Cummins was a snob and a pest.”
“He and Major Stafford did not get along.”
“That is putting it mildly. Quite early on, the two of them had several legendary run-ins that . . .” Compston was halted by the constable returning to their booth, accompanied by the barmaid. “Is this quite necessary?”
“She insisted,” the constable replied.
The barmaid said to the constable, “Go get me a drink, love. A double gin and bitters will do nicely.”
The judge protested, “Bertie, really. We were trying to—”
“Oh, do hush up and give a girl some room. That’s a dear.” She was cheery up close, with bright eyes and a face that looked born to smile. She said to Matt, “Are all American spies as lovely as you?”
Compston inspected the oak beams above his head.
Matt replied, “We’re required to take handsome lessons as part of our training, ma’am.”
“Oh, get on with you.” She motioned to the judge seated next to her. “Look at this one, I ask you. You’d never guess he chased me for nigh on a year, begging me every step for a kiss.”
Compston turned bright red. “I never.”
She toyed with the strings of multicolored glass baubles around her neck. “Had the cutest look about him, like a little lost pup. Just begging to be picked up and cuddled.”
“Bertie, please.”
She patted the judge’s cheek. “Never you mind, dear. You can play stern with the rest of the world. But I know better, don’t I. Oh, my, yes. I know.”
Compston harrumphed and straightened his hair. “We were discussing the case.”
“Geoffrey Snedley-Cummins’s guilty of being a snot. But he ain’t got it in him to go planting any bombs.” She accepted her glass from the returning constable. “Not the one here nor your’n either. I phoned my friend over at the golf club. Geoffrey hasn’t missed a night in weeks. Pops in for a glass around nine, sits by himself, reads the paper, leaves. Poor lad hasn’t had a word spoken to him since the trial.”
The constable asked Compston, “You told him?”
“The bare bones.”
He said to Matt, “According to any number of sources, Geoffrey Snedley-Cummins was as much a petty tyrant as your Major Stafford, only with more airs. The two positively loathed one another. One of Snedley-Cummins’s last acts before retiring was effectively to block Major Stafford’s promotion by accusing him of larceny.”
“That Stafford’s a dreadful man,” the barmaid added. “If one of them poor soldiers shows up five minutes late for work, you know what he makes them do?”
Matt said quietly, “Stand at attention all night on his front lawn.”
She studied his face. “Don’t believe I’d want to get on your wrong side, Yank. Oh, my, no.”
Matt asked, “Do any of you have an idea as to who was behind the bombing?”
The barmaid settled her ample girth upon the table. Her breath smelled of her spiked gin. “What’s your name, love?”
“Matt.”
“Well, Matt. You look like a sensible sort. More than I can say for this lot.”
The judge sighed.
“There was this Yank, see. Not Barry Simms. This other one. Showed up out of the blue. Worked down the road at the Lamb. Not near as nice as us here. Different sort of place altogether.”
“The Lamb is a pub right at the other end of Upper Heyford,” the constable supplied. “Known as a trouble spot. The odd dustup in the lot after hours, rumors of items pilfered from the base and sold out the back. The sort of problems you find around any base. Major Stafford and his men do their drinking there. They claim it’s so as to keep the place in order.”
“You don’t believe that?”
The constable and the judge exchanged glances. Neither man spoke.
“This other Yank, he was seen drinking with the major from time to time. Everybody knew the Yank was in the trade right up to his scrawny neck.”
“The trade?”
“As in goods off the backs of lorries, love. I wouldn’t put it past the major to be taking a payoff for looking the other way.”
Matt asked, “Can you describe this other American?”
“Tall, pale, scarred, and very lean. I used to go in there from time to time on account of a friend worked there. Not anymore. Her man’s been sent off to Baghdad and she’s moved—”
“You were telling our guest about the American.”
“So I was.” She drained her glass. “Tall as you, I reckon. But a good deal older. Big in the shoulders, he was. Strong for a man his age. Big hands. Very intense in a scary sort of way. Not an ounce of fat on him.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Sorry, love. Never spoke a word to him directly.” She glanced up at where the constable stood beside the booth. “Saw him drinking with the major, though. Sitting there at the back table with their heads together. Saw it any number of times.”
The constable said, “The Lamb claims no man matching his description ever worked there, drank there, stayed there.”
“Which is all a load of old rubbish and you know it.” To Matt, “Told them and told them, I did. But the copper here did nothing about it.”
“No evidence,” the constable said.
She sniffed. “Oh, and I suppose the bomb went off all by itself.”
The constable sighed. Matt had the impression people did that a lot around Bertie. The constable said, “We did what we could after the blast. Circulated this information and a drawing done on Bertie’s description. Came up with nothing.”
She asked Matt, “Where are you staying the night?”
“On base.”
She looked worried. “That major wouldn’t be the least bit pleased to hear there’s a chance his claims might be debunked. Not to mention the fact his former drinking buddy, the man who ain’t supposed to have existed, is getting fingered for the job.”
“Matt looks like a fellow who can take care of himself,” the judge said.
“He does that. Well, I best be getting back to work.” She slid from the booth and stared down at Matt. “Never met a real live secret agent before.”
The judge said, “And you didn’t meet one tonight now, did you.”
“No, ’course not.” She smiled. “Been nice, just the same.”
Back on base, Matt went by the ready room. The chamber occupied the entire bottom floor of a brick building midway between the officers’ mess and the airfield. The place was empty except for a lone figure in the guards’ trademark camo fatigues. The young woman stood behind the desk, staring at nothing. Matt did not recognize her until he was up close to the desk. The last time he had seen her she had been soaking wet and deathly pale and groaning softly.
The young woman bore plum-colored indentations beneath her eyes. Her hair was washed and her clothes were dry. But she still looked shrunken by the previous night. She spoke with a hollow voice that matched her gaze. “Can I help you, sir?”
“I arrived here
on a military jet from the U.S. I was told to come here to make arrangements for the journey back.”
Something flickered deep in her eyes. A hint of red touched her cheeks. “Sir, Upper Heyford operates on a no-fly rule from midnight to six a.m. But I can call the pilots for you.”
“That would be great, thanks.”
She checked her log, then phoned a number and spoke briefly. She returned the phone to the cradle and said, “Wheels up at six-fifteen, sir.”
“Thank you very much.” Matt turned away, bitterly ashamed for the both of them.
Matt returned to his room and its peculiar brand of military monasticism. He dozed but did not fall into a decent sleep. An hour or so later, the nightmares began whispering to him. Not gripping him with their customary talons. Taunting him. Slivers of images, half-heard crystal chimes disturbed by a storm beyond the horizon. He tossed and turned for a while, fighting the reality that distance meant nothing to his internal fiends. Then he dressed and reentered the dark.
The rain was a colorless shroud over the night. Heavier than mist, too light for real rain. It clung to Matt as he walked. His umbrella was almost useless. All the world’s sounds were deadened. A solitary car crawled along the lane next to him. Matt noted the insignia on the door and the lone military policeman inside.
He placed his call from the red phone box situated outside the officers’ mess. Every surface inside the box was coated with damp. The air felt frigid. He gave the operator his credit-card number and waited through a series of clicks.
Connie answered with a sleepy hello.
“It’s me.”
“Matt.” She breathed his name in a way that warmed him four thousand miles away. “Hi there.”
“I’m sorry to call so early, or late—”
“No, no, it’s fine. I took a siesta to catch up on some sleep. Been a big day.”
“What’s going on?”
She stretched and moaned luxuriously. “You called to ask me about work?”
He leaned against the door. “No. You’re right.”