by John Wilson
Arthur came into the room.
– Mr Preston is ready for you now
He led them up a flight of stairs and Jones realised they were heading towards what had once been Adam’s room. Once again, he fixed his eyes on the fine cut of Arthur’s suit as they climbed.
Arthur showed them into Adam’s old room. It remained narrow and cold but now there was nothing other than a makeshift table with an Angle-poise lamp balanced on it, its light shining on a pile of documents and a long brown cardboard tube. Dust shadows marked where Adam’s books had been. Preston emerged from the gloom holding a document and two pairs of white gloves. Jones felt that this had been orchestrated to make Falling uneasy, but Falling remained impassive.
– Falling. This is a register of the documents on this desk. I want you to go through it with me and confirm that all the documents are there. When you and your solicitor leave I will want you to go through it again so that we can be sure no documents have been removed. Is that understood?
Falling took the document from him, nodding almost imperceptibly. He and Jones studied it together. A Baedeker map, circa 1900, of the area between Victoria Park in Hackney and Walthamstow, a list of coded names, large photographs of handwritten bomb-making instructions, a short written history of Abbey Mills Pumping Station and, finally, a roll of plans giving the detailed layout of Abbey Mills Pumping Station itself. Adam ticked them off, signed the register and handed it back to Preston.
– Thank you, Preston.
– Wear the gloves when you are handling the evidence. If your fingerprints turn up on anything there will be hell to pay. Arthur will be waiting outside. I have work to do.
And Preston dropped the gloves on the table and left the room without a further word, closing the door quietly behind him.
Adam picked up the closest pair and squeezed his hands into them. The material was coarse and pulled at the skin on his knuckles. He couldn’t understand why Preston was making such a fuss. Fingerprints were one of the weaker points in the prosecution case, no thanks to the police who handled the cardboard tube and enclosed documents liberally at the time of Novak’s arrest. Numerous different prints had been found, and, although some remained unidentified once the police had been excluded, none matched those of Novak.
Gingerly, he placed one gloved forefinger on each end of the tube and held it under the lamp, turning it slowly and sliding the light along its length. It was old and slightly spongy to the touch. The spiral fold moved along its length as he turned it, and deep dust lay in the groove. There was a rectangle of damaged paper where, Adam assumed, an address had been taped to the side, and another area of adhesive damage where once postage stamps had been. Otherwise the cardboard was anonymous. The documents had been found rolled up inside it under Novak’s floorboards.
He handed the tube to Jones and turned to the plans of the Abbey Mills Pumping Station and tried to roll them out flat under the light. But the plans, made of pale blue paper, kept rolling shut again until Jones was enlisted to hold one end open whilst Adam carefully unrolled the other end. Katya had been right. The paper was old and very thick. In the righthand corner, with the other technical details, was the date that the plan had been produced: 26th January 1926. How could she have known that? And how could one man work easily with these large plans when the ends obstinately rolled over his hands as he tried to read what they contained? Adam looked for evidence of any man-made folds in the document, effected with the intention of stopping the plan from rolling up, but he found none. It looked as though the plans had rarely been removed from the tube over the previous fourteen years.
****
Albert Simms, an official of the Metropolitan Water Board, had provided a short history of the Pumping Station. In the 1840s and 1850s, before the creation of a modern sewage system, human waste was pumped straight into the Thames. This had led to numerous outbreaks of cholera and the deaths of tens of thousands of Londoners. In the late nineteenth century Sir Joseph Bazalgette, chief engineer of the London Metropolitan Board of Works, created a sewer network for central London. Central to his project was the construction of the Thames Embankment and the building of major pumping stations at Deptford, Crossness, Chelsea Embankment and, finally, at Abbey Mills in the River Lea Valley.
Adam picked up the Baedeker map. Not much had changed in the East End of London since 1900. The Abbey Mills Pumping Station was located around a mile west of Novak’s flat in Leytonstone. Bands of blue, London’s rivers, flowed around it, and to the north was the East Warwick Reservoir, where hundreds of millions of gallons of London’s drinking water were stored. Several strategically placed bombs would cripple the sewage system and poison the water supply. This, said the prosecution, was what Novak had been planning to do at the time of his arrest.
– Oi!! Mr Falling! How long are you going to be? I’ve been standing here an age!
There was an angry rapping on the door. Falling and Jones looked at one another through the gloom and then at their watches. It was 7.30 p.m. You lose track of time in the blackout.
– Sorry, Arthur. Won’t be long.
Adam was scribbling furiously in his notebook.
– I’m coming in!
Arthur burst into the room. His eyes were gleaming and his usually immaculate coiffure was awry.
– Have you any idea what time it is? I need to get home!
– We’re finishing off … nearly there.
– I don’t need to be treated like this. I’m not your clerk anymore … Thank God!
– The feeling is mutual, Arthur.
– Bloody cheek!
– Let’s go through the inventory together. I’m sure it’s not the first time you’ve done an inventory of the contents of my room.
They went down the list ticking it off, and when this was over Adam and Jones removed their gloves and placed them under the circle of light thrown by the Angle-poise lamp.
– All right. Now please leave, Fa – Mister Falling.
– If you don’t mind, Arthur, I would like to have a few moments alone. I won’t do anything illegal.
And Adam ushered Jones and a protesting Arthur out of the room and onto the stairs. He looked around the cold and narrow room. The last time he had had felt like this was in his daughter’s room in Dulwich just before Christmas. A muted glow emanated from the lamp’s cone of light. There had been his desk. That was where he had kept the crystal paperweight Julia had given to him. His paperbacks had been on those shelves. His blue bag had hung from a hat stand in that corner. Thirteen years. Here had been his daydreams and his hopes. He would never see this room again. How much of himself had he left behind here? He took one last slow look around him, and then switched off the lamp and everything went black.
****
That had been Wednesday evening. Now Jones looked across at Adam as they sat waiting to be shown through security at Wandsworth Prison. His well-polished shoe was still tapping and every now and then he would run a finger between his nape and collar or smooth down his hair. Otherwise his head was bowed as he looked down at the blue notebook in his lap, turning it over and over without opening it. Jones recalled his surprise when Adam had suddenly pushed him and Arthur out of the room, shutting the door behind them. A crack of light under the door, silence from within and a red-faced Arthur complaining loudly about the intrusion. Then the light disappeared and Adam emerged.
– Good night, Arthur. Please thank Mr Preston for his hospitality.
– You’ve no right –
– Good night, Arthur.
And Adam led Jones down the stairs and out of Stirrup Court. Once outside, as soon as they had made it to Cloisters he had reached urgently for his Woodbines and lit up immediately, regardless of the blackout. The flare of the match, followed by the glow of the cigarette, threw Adam’s shadow into larger-than-life relief against the white column behind him. Behind Adam’s shoulder, against the column, his magnified shadow-hand was shaking violently against the stillness of the r
est of his silhouette. Jones looked into Adam’s eyes. Through the darkness they seemed calm but the erratic flickering of the cigarette in his peripheral vision hinted at something else.
– Fine. Fine. Just needed a cigarette.
– We should be making tracks.
– Yes. Of course. But would you mind if I had one more before we go.
And Adam had thrown down the half-spent cigarette and lit another whilst the first still glowed against the flagstones.
In the waiting room earlier Jones had been struggling to pin down the change that had come over Adam and, at that moment, watching the shaking fingers and the flicker and flare of the cigarette as Adam drew deeply on it, it came to him. He had been like a swimmer getting ready to dive deep underwater – preparing himself, pulling all his resources together until the time when he could surface again. He was going through the same preparation now, as they waited in the prison. Would he be able to hold it together?
There was a loud clang as the metal door swung open. A lanky warder stood in the doorway.
– Novak is in interview room four. Follow me.
Chapter Forty
(Friday 24th January 1941)
The corridor walls were a dirty cream colour, lit badly by a line of unshaded lightbulbs running the length of the ceiling. It had a narrow emptiness and their footsteps echoed to the counterpoint of the warder’s keys, rattling on his belt as he walked ahead of them. The blue serge of his jacket creased rhythmically with the movement of his shoulders as he marched.
Interview room four came into view. It had an ordinary household door with large plate glass windows on either side of it. Novak was sitting behind a rectangular table. He was oblivious to their approach. Adam could not recognise the straight-backed arrogant man he had met the previous month. His head was bent forward and, as they got nearer, Adam saw that he was rubbing his hands up and down his thighs in a repetitive, if not obsessional way. He seemed thinner and his hair, which had been so neat, had grown unruly and curled down over his ears. When the warder jangled the key in the lock he jumped out of his reverie, a startled look on his face. Seeing his visitors, he leapt to his feet, his head bowed.
– Mr Falling! Thank you so much for coming! I was beginning to think …
– I’m sorry it has taken longer than I had intended, Mr Novak. I had not meant to keep you waiting this long.
– Then you have spoken with Katya?
– Mr Jones has seen her, yes. She refused to sign the statement he prepared for her.
– But … but … she told him that I came over on the same ship?
– She told us she did not know you. She did not recognise you from the boat. She first became aware of your existence after your arrest.
Adam had been rehearsing these lines to himself ever since Jones had reported back to him. Even so, he was not prepared for the dramatic effect they would have. Novak, who had still been on his feet, slumped, crumpled even, back into his chair and, his arms and elbows flat against the table, he buried his face in them.
– She has not visited me, nor has she written to me!
Minutes passed. Adam looked over at Jones, who shrugged his shoulders, a bemused expression fluttering across his features.
Eventually Novak raised his head from the desk and looked their way.
– I am sorry.
– That is all right, Mr Novak. Would you mind if we got on? There is a lot we must discuss.
– Please, do you have a spare cigarette?
– I didn’t know you smoked.
– Usually I do not smoke. I need a cigarette please.
– Of course.
Adam pulled out his Woodbines, offered one to Novak and shucked one out for himself. There was a well-smudged saucer at the edge of the table and he pulled it across so that it lay between them. He tried to control the tremor in his right hand as he put the lighted match to Novak’s cigarette. The Czech inhaled deeply and immediately had a coughing fit as the smoke invaded his lungs. Once recovered, he carried on smoking, giving no indication that he was going to say anything. Adam, smoking opposite him, looked into his red-rimmed eyes. The arrogance was gone. Instead there was, in their pale blue, entreaty, deep thought and … fear. Novak’s skin, even without the coughing fit, was more pallid than before and he smelt stale. There was dirt under his fingernails.
They stubbed their butts into the saucer.
– As I was saying, Mr Novak. Katya does not know you and she does not support your story …
– Yes … Yes. Forgive me. I do not know why I tried to involve her. It was wrong of me. It was very foolish.
– What are you talking about?!
– It was foolish. I made up a story because I thought it would help me. I should not have been so selfish.
– I don’t believe you, Novak.
– Why would I lie to you?
– Tell me about the documents that were found under your floorboards.
– What is there to tell?
– Well, describe them to me.
– They were … well, they were just documents.
– You know what they were. Describe them to me.
– Mr Falling, we have both read the police evidence.
A touch of the old arrogance returning.
– Tell me about the plans of the Abbey Mills Pumping Station.
– Yes. There were plans of the Pumping Station. And I am supposed to have been planning to blow it up!
– What colour was the paper?
– The colour? I … I cannot now remember.
– Mr Novak. This is important. Was it blue, white, brown or red?
After a long pause:
– Brown, I think … no white … I’m not sure.
– You don’t know, do you?
– Mr Falling, I have other things to worry about than the colour of paper.
– Were the plans old plans or new plans?
Another long pause and a sigh.
– I do not know.
Novak slumped backwards in his chair, a look of helplessness in his eyes. Adam slammed his hand down so hard on the table that even Jones jumped. He heard the rattle of keys behind him as the warder came across to see what was going on.
– I want you to tell me the truth! Did you hide those documents under the floorboards?
– I told you before. I had never seen those documents before. I had never even touched them.
– So how do you say that the documents got there?
– I do not know.
– And how was it the police knew where to find you and them? They knew exactly which floorboard to lift.
– I don’t know.
– Someone must have put them there. And someone must have tipped off the police. Have you any idea who that could have been?
I have no idea.
They were getting nowhere. Adam sensed that Novak was trying to help, was certainly more cooperative than he had been the last time. But he was holding something back. He sighed.
– The plans of the Abbey Mills Pumping Station were printed on blue paper. They had not been unrolled for a long time. And they were old. Katya knew that they had found plans under your floorboards. And she knew that the plans were old. How could she know that? Hoffer did not tell us anything about plans and we didn’t tell Katya.
Novak sat bolt upright.
– Katya knew about the plans?
– It seems to me, Mr Novak, that this means one of two things: either she planted the plans there herself or she visited your flat and found them there. Or perhaps she planted the plans and also visited you there?
Novak began rubbing his hands up and down on his trousers as he had been doing when they had approached the interview room. He did not answer but his eyes betrayed wild confusion.
– You’re not telling me the truth about your relationship with Katya.
– Why would I lie to you when my life is at stake?
– When we met in December you told me Katya thought I ha
d been gullible at the Tribunal. Why … how could you make such a thing up?
– Forgive me. I was being offensive. You see, I do not trust people easily. I trusted Hoffer and he betrayed me. I trusted … I trust Katya.
– Tell me the truth! How well do you know her?
– Ah! I remember now. It was Hoffer who told me what Katya said about you. It was not Katya. I was mistaken.
– You’re making this up as you go along.
– I remember. Hoffer told me that Katya was unhappy to be graded “C”. She wanted to be graded “B” or even better “A”. She was unhappy with your decision, Mr Falling.
– That doesn’t make any sense at all.
– I do not say it makes sense. I do not understand it. Why would she want to be interned? I am only telling you what … what Hoffer told me.
The trial was a matter of weeks away and they were getting nowhere. Novak was trying to protect Katya, of that Adam was sure. But he could not understand why. She obviously did not reciprocate this loyalty.
– Mr Novak. Do you know what a sub-poena is?
– What is this word suppeenah?
– It means witness summons. If we issue a sub-poena against Katya then she will be forced to come to court to give evidence. She cannot be forced to tell the truth but I believe she will. It may be the only way to save you. That is, if you want to be saved.
– I forbid it!
– I think that I might just instruct Mr Jones to issue a sub-poena against her. Your trial is only a matter of weeks away.
– But I forbid it. You are my lawyer. You must follow my instructions!
Adam shifted uncomfortably. Novak was right of course. If Adam acted contrary to his instructions he would be putting himself in serious professional jeopardy. However, if he followed Novak’s instructions, Novak would undoubtedly be convicted. And hanged. Outside the room the warder was jangling his keys. Time was nearly up.