A Study in Murder, page 20
So he wasn’t exactly welcoming to the two men who turned up at the camp asking if he would accompany them to an unspecified location. One was a captain in the King’s Royal Army Rifle Corps, who introduced himself as Carlisle, the other a burly sergeant from the Honourable Artillery Company. Bloch didn’t like the look or the sound of either of them. The regimental titles suggested to him they had come because of his sniping ability. He had already told them at Bisley that he would not assist in any programme that led to the death of German soldiers.
They took him to one of the interview rooms, where he was provided with tea – it was a better option than what the British had the audacity to call coffee – and cigarettes.
The captain affected a nonchalant air, smoking with his hand to one side so the smoke curled away from him, one leg crossed over the other showing boots polished to a mirror gleam. The sergeant parked his bulk by the door and glared at Bloch from under his peaked cap, as if daring the German to try to get past him. Bloch had no intention of doing anything so stupid.
‘Would you prefer English or German?’ the captain asked.
‘How is your German?’ Bloch asked in English.
‘Adequate.’
‘English will be fine.’
‘Good.’ Captain Carlisle took a puff on the cigarette. ‘Scharfschütze Bloch, we have a favour to ask you,’ he said. ‘A favour that might develop into something to your advantage.’
‘Favour?’ The Englishman had made it sound as if he simply required a lift to the station and was offering to pay for it. Yet the use of his ‘sharpshooter’ title suggested otherwise. ‘What kind of favour?’ he asked. ‘You understand, I cannot help the British war effort. That would be treachery.’
The captain uncrossed his legs. ‘I promise you, we are not dealing with anything that would result in the death of a single German. You have my word.’
Bloch made a face that suggested disbelief.
‘Initially, we simply want you to make a shot. To prove it can be done.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, it pains me to say this, but you are the best sniper we have on home shores at the moment.’ He flicked the ash off the cigarette. ‘The best of our chaps are, of course, over there.’
‘Killing my comrades,’ Bloch said.
‘If they aren’t killed by those comrades first.’
‘True.’ For a moment he caught an echo of the sharp tang of decay that had been his constant companion during those months out on the front line, where every day was spent trying to get a British officer in the crosshairs. And where, for a few fleeting moments, he had framed Winston Churchill, the former First Lord of the Admiralty, in his graticule. The very man who had later ambushed him out on no man’s land.
‘If you do this exercise, hit or miss, we will pay you. Initially, twenty pounds. If you repeat the exercise under certain conditions we will pay you . . . considerably more.’
Although Bloch wasn’t particularly interested in the cash, he found himself asking: ‘How much more?’
‘More than money can buy.’
Bloch laughed. ‘And what is that?’
Carlisle dropped the cigarette on the concrete floor and leaned forward. His features seemed to harden, the air of foppishness banished, and the brown eyes fixed Bloch with a piercing stare that made him want to squirm. He kept stock-still, waiting for the Englishman to speak. ‘Follow this through,’ Carlisle said quietly, ‘and we’ll give you your freedom. You can go home and see . . .’ he clicked his fingers, ‘. . . what’s her name, Sergeant Balsom?’
‘Hilde,’ the big man grunted.
‘Ah, yes. Hilde. Play your cards right and you’ll spend the rest of the war fucking your beloved little Hilde till the cows come home.’
Bloch resisted punching the man in the face for his crudity but the sergeant noticed his body stiffening and took a step forward. Nevertheless the words conjured up an image of him and Hilde in the hotel room in Brussels and he swallowed hard. He did want that again, more than anything.
He licked his lips. ‘Tell me more.’
Carlisle took a piece of paper from the top pocket of his tunic, unfolded it and laid it out. On it was a drawing of a stretch of water, a bridge and a series of buildings, one of which, on the left bank, was marked as an observation post.
‘The target is on the bridge,’ said Carlisle. ‘You will be up here. It’s an old observation post built by the Dutch when they had this land. It is now on the German side of the border.’
‘You want me to go into Germany?’
‘Yes. We can get you across easily enough. The target will be here, as I say, but we do not want him, um, eliminated until he is on the German side. That is, well past halfway on the bridge – after the concrete support in mid-stream. Understand? It must not compromise the neutrality.’
‘Actually, I don’t understand,’ Bloch began.
‘You don’t have to. You just have to do the job. You will have papers on you saying you have been released by the British authorities on compassionate grounds. Once you have made the shot, you will be free to pick up the various travel documents you need to get home. After you have made the shot.’
Bloch squinted at the map once more. He could iron out the details later. Hilde! He could almost taste her. ‘There is no scale. What is the distance from tower to bridge?’
‘Around nine hundred yards – say, eight hundred and twenty metres.’
‘With what weapon? Not an SMLE? I don’t want to be in Germany with one of those.’
‘No. We have a captured Gewehr 98 with Oige optics.’
Bloch preferred the Görtz telescopic sights. Whichever he used, the distance was still at the far end of guaranteed accuracy. He tried his best to stay focused on the matter at hand, but his pulse was racing at the thought of going home. He had been happy to sit out the war, but these bastards had opened a door to temptation and he wasn’t sure he could resist.
‘It has been some time. I would need to practise.’
Carlisle gave a quick smile. ‘That’s why we are here. That is the first part of the favour. Show us it can be done. Show us you can do it. There is a setup at Gravesend that mimics the actual conditions. Bridge and tower, the same. We can practise there with dummies. You manage the shot, twenty pounds is yours. Then if you agree to the real thing . . . well, it’s home, young man.’
Unease squirmed in Bloch’s stomach. The British were famously skilled at reeling in their prey with blandishments and enticements, delivered with a sorry-to-trouble-you-old-chap air of slight distraction. The next moment, a steel trap slams shut. ‘I will need to know more.’
‘About?’ asked Carlisle. ‘It’s very straightforward.’
No, he thought, it is anything but. ‘About the target. About whether I am aiding the enemies of Germany. About why you are doing this. Why do you need me?’
Carlisle banged the table, his patience seemingly exhausted. ‘What you are doing, Bloch, is saving an old man from many hours of torture. It is Sherlock Holmes walking across that bridge and believe you me, you will be doing him a great service if you end his life there and then.’
THIRTY-FIVE
The final part of the jigsaw that was Mrs Gregson’s grand plan needed a large green space in North London, away from prying eyes and, she had been told, to the north-west of the intended target. If the weather held, that was. After a morning scouting suitable locations on a hired motorcycle, she chose Waterlow Park. Lauderdale House, which stood on its fringes, had been taken over for the duration by the Air Defence Department of the War office but never utilized, and it was a simple matter to have Nathan seal the park itself for ‘air defence exercises’. That way any curious locals were likely to think that when David Devant and George Bletchley – Maskelyne’s pilot – turned up, the enormous horse-pulled dray they used was delivering a barrage balloon. Which was close enough.
With the dray manoeuvred through the entrance by Highgate Cemetery, Mrs Gregson watched the unloading of the cargo. Devant was too infirm to help, and besides he had his own work to do some distance away, and so Nathan had recruited six burly ‘ruffians’, as he described them. Mrs Gregson was dressed in her Dunhill motorcycling clothes, a totem of more carefree times, and she had to admit, as insane as her scheme seemed, she was enjoying herself. Inaction was anathema to her and even if the whole pack of cards collapsed at least she could tell herself she had tried her misguided best.
After Devant left by bicycle to take up his position, the ruffians, whom she discovered were professional agents provocateurs employed by MI5 to create or disrupt protests as required, set about unloading under the direction of Mr Bletchley. The light was fading across the park, he had to be airborne by dusk and he snapped out brisk orders on how to manhandle the giant parcel off the flatbed of the dray and where to place it on the grass. The ruffians, despite their size and strength, were sweating by the time they had finished.
As Mrs Gregson watched the canvas envelope being unfolded on the grass, Bletchley walked across to her. He was a tall, willowy chap, perhaps sixty, with the wind-beaten skin of someone who has spent a lot of time outdoors. Or in the sky. ‘It’s a Rozière, you know, miss,’ he said with some pride, pointing at the unfurling inverted pear shape. ‘Very rare.’
‘Is it?’ she asked.
‘Uses a gas bladder in the top of the envelope. Helps with lift. Usually filled with hydrogen. That’s what happened at the Liverpool Empire with the half-sized one.’ He shook his head at the memory at a stunt gone wrong.
‘And now? What do you use?’
‘Helium. Bloody expensive, if you’ll excuse my language.’ He took out a cigarette and put it between his lips. ‘But at least we won’t go up in flames.’ He gave a grin and lit his Woodbine. ‘Sorry, rude of me, would you . . . ?’
‘Yes, please.’ She had cut down since her days of nursing, when the smoke helped mask the smell of gas gangrene and carbolic, but her heart was fluttering like a trapped bird and she needed to steady her nerves. ‘Thank you.’ She leaned forward into the proffered match. ‘Is the wind to your liking?’
He licked a thumb and held it aloft. ‘Holding up. It’s fortunate we don’t have to be pinpoint accurate. I think luck is on your side.’
Mrs Gregson took a lungful of the coarse smoke and held it for a while, suppressing the urge to cough. ‘Let us hope so. You know, Mr Bletchley, that what we are doing is—’
He shook his head vigorously. ‘Don’t tell me. All I know is I have never seen Mr Devant looking so happy. Not for a while now, at least. And when he told Mr Maskelyne, well, the two had a right old laugh. If he’d been stronger, he’d’ve been here. OK, I admit it’s a bit of a rum do. What with that.’ He nodded towards the parked dray, where, next to the wicker basket, a sausage-shaped bundle lay. Valentine’s corpse. ‘But I’m just doing what this strange lady hired me to do. No questions asked. No, I didn’t catch a name, officer.’ He smiled now. ‘But she paid very handsomely in cash.’
‘I did.’
‘Mr Devant told me it might be unconventional, but it was for a good cause.’
What with all the arrangements she had had to make and the strain of organizing this launch, she had almost forgotten why she was doing all this. To rescue Watson, of course, to bring him back, dust him down, feed him up, and see where they went from there. ‘It is.’
Bletchley looked at the now enormous envelope and its long fringe of guy ropes and nodded his approval. He began to roll up his sleeves. ‘Then let’s get a fire going, eh?’
The breeze swirled around the roof, plucking at Miss Pillbody’s clothes as she sprinted across an open area until the shadow of the chimney stack swallowed her. There, she caught her breath and scanned the night sky. It was empty, apart from patchy cloud and the pinpricks of stars.
Below her stretched the terraced homes of North London, the lights hazed by the smoke from a thousand chimneys. No wonder nobody ever tried to escape from the roof, she thought. It was a long way down and, even though she had a head for heights, she didn’t fancy trying to cling to one of the drainpipes that, anyway, had spiked collars every few yards to prevent anyone shimmying up or down.
She checked the sky again. Still empty. The thought occurred to her that she had been fooled, taken in by the Gregson woman. She regretted, now, killing Wardress Gray. She could have just tied her up. But she personified the days of humiliation Miss Pillbody had endured in Holloway. She had to admit to enjoying stabbing her over and over again until the life had gone from her body, which she used to block the bolted door to the bathhouse. She’d hang now if she was caught, that was for certain. Not as a German spy but as a murderer. Even her own government couldn’t object to that.
Was this what Gregson had in mind all along? To put her in a corner where she might do something like this and then leave her to face the consequences? The sky was still devoid of any unusual feature, the promise of rescue looking increasingly empty. Yes, perhaps Gregson had intended the noose all along.
She wouldn’t go without a fight. She could certainly take at least one over the edge of this block, plummeting to the courtyard below on one side, or the streets of Holloway the other. Better a death like that than the cruel judicial ceremony of the hangman.
From below the sound of a hacking cough carried up from the gatehouse. There were squat towers down there with searchlamps, aligned pointing downwards at the moment to sweep walls and courtyards, but, no doubt, able to swivel up and rake the rooftops to find any escapee.
Check the sky. Still empty.
She felt disgust at her gullibility. Imagine trusting an Englishwoman who comes along and offers you your freedom. She had been duped. Now she would never see Germany again.
It was a roar, like the noise of a dragon exhaling and the light from it spilled across the slates of the roof. She stepped to one side of the chimney stack and for a second she saw the great bulbous shape, illuminated from within, like a giant version of a Chinese lantern. It had come from the opposite direction to the one she had expected. But at least now the sky was no longer empty.
As the burner was switched off the giant lantern disappeared again, leaving the sphere a darker shape against the pinpricked heavens. She could make out its shape by the way it blotted the stars. Drifting towards her, hundreds of metres away yet, blown inexorably to the rooftop by the breeze, was the instrument of her freedom.
All thoughts of hanging and hangmen dispersed from her head and she went over the instructions that had been delivered to her. She willed the lighter-than-air machine on, agonizing at the slowness of the approach. It roared again and the envelope glowed as it rose slightly. She imagined sleepy eyes were turning towards it now, guards and inmates wondering what manner of fire had arrived from the heavens. It was the fire that would take her home.
THIRTY-SIX
Watson waited until he was alone in his room to examine the piece of paper that Hulpett had given him. He read and reread it several times, hoping the meaning would leap out at him.
We made contact with Captain Brevette.
Brevette had been one of the two names written on the square of paper Archer had presented to Watson on his visit to the examination room. What was the significance of Brevette? He heard footsteps approaching and quickly tucked the paper under the excuse for a pillow. It was Harry, looking breathless and with snow in his hair.
‘You all right, lad?’
‘Never better, sir,’ he said, clutching his heart. ‘Just some of us boys having a snowball fight. One of the Germans joined in and wished he hadn’t. Looked like a bleedin’ snowman by the time we finished with ’im. He took it in good part, though.’ He paused. ‘I thought you might need a hand settin’ up for the surgery, sir.’
Watson nodded. He would be glad of the company, even if he did think Harry had something other than his best interests at heart. ‘As long as you aren’t neglecting your other charges.’
‘I told you, we’ve come to some arrangement, Doctor.’
‘And I said you must let me pay for any expenses in that area, Harry.’
He gave a lopsided grin. ‘I’ll bill you at the end of the month, sir.’
‘I won’t be—’ he began, before he realized the lad was joking. ‘I’ll pay you later on today. No arguments. Now, can you fetch me some boiling water?’
‘Sir.’
‘Oh, Harry.’
‘Sir?’
‘Do you know a Captain Brevette?’
Harry frowned. ‘Yeah . . . Brevette. He’s not on the list, is he? Must be some sort of mistake. He won’t be turning up for surgery today, though.’
‘And why is that?’
‘He died about three months ago. Maybe more.’
‘Of . . . ?’
‘It was the cholera. We had an outbreak. He was quarantined in the other compound. But it killed him.’
‘Just him?’
‘Only one to die. Some of the others had the . . . you know, the shits, sir.’
‘Diarrhoea and vomiting?’ Watson prompted.
‘Not half.’
‘Lucky.’
‘Not a word many of those affected used.’
‘Lucky you didn’t have a full-blown epidemic. Did they trace its source?’
‘No, but that German doctor had us clean out the latrines and he rerouted the drinking water pipes. They were next to the latrines.’
‘Steigler?’
‘That’s the kiddie.’
‘Good for him. And, Harry, one last thing – where is the chess club? In the rec room?’
‘No, they reckon that’s too noisy for them. Horseplay, they call it. Like a bit of peace and quiet, the serious players do. Hut 15 is where you’ll find them.’
‘Tonight?’
‘What’s today?’ He thought for a minute. ‘Yeah, Wednesday and Friday is backgammon, chess every other night. You fancy a game?’
‘I might,’ Watson said non-committally.
‘Well, be careful, sir. Some of them is demons and they like to suggest a little wager.’
