Deep Shelter (33 page)

“There are no windows.”

They both turned to the pub’s windows, then back to the magazine. The windows would have shown in the mirror behind the bar. The clock in the picture said 3.30. Eternal Guinness Time. But there was no daylight, no windows, no outside.

“And where’s the photographer standing?” the landlord added. He grabbed the magazine, marched through the crowd to the furthest corner, by the door. He climbed up onto a bench, still holding the magazine. Customers were looking now. “It’s impossible.”

“Yes,” Belsey said.

“So what is this?” the landlord asked from his perch. “Has someone copied my pub?”

HE MADE WHITEHALL TO WILLESDEN JUNCTION
in forty minutes, heading for the home Duncan Powell had left half-empty. Belsey tried to establish the chain of events as he drove. Five months ago Duncan Powell visits Malcolm Walsh. He has a theory the accident might connect to Line X sabotage, to Ferryman. He gets the sister’s photo of the regiment and, one week later, he places the advert for a reunion in
Military Heritage
.

Meanwhile someone, somewhere, is trying to break the code of their own name. Easton types in searches, trying out combinations of words; a safe-cracker coaxing the mechanism. What would he have to go on? The year his old life ended. He starts with that:
1983
. And then he adds
military accident
. Nothing useful. Maybe he knows a little about his real parents: he types in
81 Signal Squadron
. And his father’s face appears.

So Michael Easton calls the number. I’d like to come to the reunion. I’d like to reunite with myself, if that is possible. Duncan Powell invited thirty-seven dead people to a reunion and one got in touch.

Belsey parked at the far end of Viners Road. He rested his arms on the steering wheel and watched the orange silence of the street. And he tried to remember what it was like being eight. The memories were there, over-handled fragments worn to dullness. He imagined being a young Michael Easton—adopted, transplanted to Cumbria. How much would you remember if your past was amputated from the present?
M claims the confidential information is within him
. Your new parents give you an approximation of the truth: your birth parents were in the military. They died in an accident. And maybe for a while it suffices but it does not stop you wondering. And then, when your adopted parents are no longer around to hold the story together, deep memories grow. They are like the bacteria inside us, peaceful until we die, when they begin to consume us from within.

Cut to five months ago. Powell is stopped for speeding on 23 January—that was how Belsey got the fingerprint match. It would have been a few days after Powell’s visit to Malcolm Walsh. Stopped by police, only he’s not charged, just printed and filed away. So that must have been the security services already on to him. They were tracking Powell as soon as he got involved with the campaign for truth.

Meanwhile Easton sells his home. Powell has given him a lead. He’s suggested that the tragic accident that stands as a gateway between Easton’s identities was in fact a crime, with a name attached: Ferryman. Easton goes researching across Eastern Europe, hunting for Ferryman’s identity. For any other clues as to what happened in November 1983.

He tries to find an answer under London. Tries to find one in the depths of his own mind. One night he shows Powell the St. Pancras Library bunker and they run into trouble. The two of them surface. The two of them are chased. Powell is knocked down by a black Land Rover. Easton flees for his life, straight into Belsey’s. And then, just when Easton was backed into a corner, when he had no cards left to play, Belsey hands him one more—a hostage. Now Easton can get the world to pay attention to whatever it is he and Duncan Powell are not allowed to say. All it costs is an art student and a crooked detective.

ANDREA
’
S FACE APPEARED IN
the window beside the front door when he knocked. She opened the door but kept it on the chain.

“I need to talk to you,” Belsey said.

“Why?”

“I may have discovered why Duncan died.”

She let him in. She was alone; no friend around, thank God. The front room was lit by the dull glow of an American sitcom. The sofa was still being used as a bed. Belsey took a seat in the armchair. Exhaustion hit him. He felt gnawed away inside. No sleep for forty-two hours. He was on the edge of delirium. Not where he wanted to be. The power to discern reality was one of his most valued traits right now. Had it already gone? He tried to focus on Andrea.

“Did Duncan ever mention a man called Michael Easton or Michael Forrester?” he asked. She shook her head. “I think they met. I think Duncan was killed deliberately, to stop him writing about something.”

Andrea sat down and seemed to grow paler still. Turning a death into a murder is an announcement of its own, Belsey reminded himself. Into an assassination. That was moving things into a different world.

“Who are these Michaels?” she asked.

“It’s a good question. That’s what I’m trying to find out. I think Michael Easton was another name for Michael Forrester. I think he shared an interest with your husband. The place where Duncan was knocked down is near an entrance to underground tunnels. My theory is he’d been down there and seen something—maybe shown by Easton, who contacted him as a result of this advert.”

He passed the magazine over, studying her face for any stray flickers of knowledge.

“This is Duncan’s work number,” she said.

“Yes. The magazine’s from February. Do you remember anything Duncan might have said about work, research, around that time?”

And then the flicker came.

“Someone had contacted him. He was excited. Why didn’t he tell me what he was doing?”

“I think Duncan didn’t tell you because he knew it was dangerous. I need to see any notes he might have left behind.”

“You already have them.”

“You mean the police?”

“The Inspector already has everything.”

“Inspector Gary Finch.”

“Yes.”

“Andrea, what did Inspector Finch say exactly?”

“He said he was investigating Duncan’s death.”

“What else did he take?”

“Notes, computers, books.”

Belsey got to his feet. Of course. Road accident, take the fucking hard drive.

“And he asked about his work?”

“His work, his friends, where he’d been, where he’d been that afternoon, the day before.”

“And where
had
he been?”

“Nowhere. The library.” Belsey found the same library books, still on the floor, still waiting to be returned. Sailing, bird watching.
Birds of the Mediterranean
,
Bird Migration in the Adriatic
. He picked up the book on the Adriatic. There was that blue again, the dazzle of light on waves, only without the floating debris. He thought of the white birds on the remains of the Hercules.

“Planning a holiday, you said.”

“Yes.”

“Was Duncan always interested in bird watching?”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“I don’t know. Was he?”

“No.”

Birds of the Adriatic. Belsey flicked through.
The wetlands along the Eastern Adriatic coast provide internationally important resting areas for more than twenty waterbird species
. What were they in the debris photo? He looked at the picture on his phone. He searched the book again until he had a match. Spoonbills. And his heart kicked.
One of nature’s great wonders, the spoonbills undertake a flight of thousands of miles, year after year, each spring and each autumn
. But never the middle of November. Not for the spoonbills. Whatever the accident photographs showed it wasn’t what happened in November 1983. Any more than the squadron in the Red Lion was drinking on the corner of Whitehall.

He had moved beyond the relatives of the dead. In a matter of hours he had moved beyond the mystery they had lived with for three decades, past the company of their anger onto new ground. They thought they had a mystery but they had just the beginning of it. And now he missed the companionship.

Only one companion left.

Belsey tried Jemma’s mobile. Maybe Easton would pick up. But there was no answer. He sent an email to the Ferryman account:
What happened on 9 November 1983?

Andrea was at the window, peering around the curtains. He felt her rising panic. A lot of half-pieces of information were stirring unfocused anxiety. He’d subjected her to the same fate as Malcolm Walsh. People die, their secrets turn up like lovers at the funeral. Memories, which you thought you got to keep, start to change.

“Should I tell someone?” she said. “Other police? The ones who spoke to me? Who can I trust?”

“I wouldn’t call any other police right now. Let me see what I can find out. Try to be calm.”

“Am I even safe?” She was about to cry.

“You’re safe. You’re here. They’re not interested in you.”

“Where are you going to go?”

“I don’t know.” He saw her expression and realised what she was asking. “Andrea, I don’t think my presence is going to keep this place secure. Is there somewhere else you can go for tonight? That friend of yours?”

“She’s not in London.”

“I can stay for a bit if you want. You should get some sleep. I can’t promise I’ll be here when you wake up.”

He sat down. She propped on the edge of the sofa. The sitcom ended with someone proposing and laughs all round.

Then came the news.

A man in a shirt and sports jacket stood outside Cromwell Hospital, microphone up, excited by possibilities.

“Detective Sergeant Kirsty Craik was the officer originally assigned to the investigation of missing student Jemma Stevens. Craik was involved in a car accident last night. There were rumours that she was being treated behind me at the private Cromwell Hospital in west London. No word from the Metropolitan Police yet as speculation mounts regarding possible connections between last night’s events and the Jemma Stevens investigation.”

Monroe had got to work, then. It was better than nothing. Unless the move was going to force Finch into something drastic, like slitting Kirsty’s throat. Andrea saw how intently he was watching the report.

“Do you know about this?” she asked. “Is it to do with Duncan?”

“Maybe.”

No report on the St. Matthew’s doss-house murder, though. Obviously the homeless don’t always make the bulletins. Still, it should have done.

Belsey called Cromwell Hospital. He introduced himself as Finch and asked to be put through to Kirsty Craik. He got a flat denial that she’d ever been in.

“And if anyone ever was here, they’re not here now,” a woman said, pointedly.

Belsey went outside, studied the vehicles parked on the road, took the Umbro bag from his own car, along with the cosh and his CS spray. He deadlocked Andrea’s door when he came back in and told her to set the burglar alarm. He checked the glaziers had done a decent job on the side. Andrea took a blanket upstairs. Belsey spread the papers from the Umbro bag on the coffee table.

First he read through the FOI responses. Eastman had two techniques: he homed in on details until he was blocked, finding the edge of whatever remained secret; then he became more subtle. He was told information about MOD purchasing of furniture couldn’t be disclosed so he asked for general budgets: MOD budgets for 1970–1980 then the spending of individual departments. Eventually he must have been left with an excess, an amount of budget unaccounted for. He’d made FOI requests on steel, stationery, labour: employment of electricians and engineers, trying to find the space representing JIGSAW and its projects.

Belsey sorted the requests into piles.

The biggest related to Site 3: twelve requests, four to local authorities, eight split equally between the Home Office and the MOD. Easton asked about equipment kept at Site 3, research carried out at Site 3, experiments concerning Site 3. None received more than a polite refusal.

Easton had more luck with a curious selection of FOIs about trains: government purchasing of railway tracks and associated employment of trackmen and track gangs. These did get a response. An information officer for MOD Procurement opened a chink. Yes, the Ministry Of Defence purchased ninety-two miles of disused railway track in 1957. Purposes undisclosed.

To run beneath the city? A city beneath the city, like Terry Condell said? With some kind of private transport system connecting the exchanges? The Sites?

Finally Easton hunted those responsible for the underground project. The clique. The Doomsday men. Obviously no one would release names, so he sent his own. Where was Douglas Argyle 1970–80? Where was Edward Strathmore 1970–80? Where was a man called William Lanzer?

More requests than any related to this William Lanzer. The name kept coming up. No title given. Lanzer didn’t seem to be a lord or a sir or a corporal. Plain old William Lanzer. Easton asked: Where was Lanzer employed? How much was he paid? Do you hold any files relating to his work?

Belsey searched the name on his phone and saw why.

William Lanzer, architectural engineer, born 23 August 1919. First Supervising Engineer of the General Post Office and subsequently Chief Technical Officer at the Ministry of Public Building and Works.

Lanzer was a pioneer and uncompromising visionary who worked his way to the heart of post-war planning. He helped introduce a new, Brutalist aesthetic to British architecture, a style that was to prove as inspirational as it was controversial.

The entry was in an online encyclopaedia of twentieth-century architecture. It gave a list of buildings William Lanzer had either worked on or commissioned: Centre Point, Barbican, Archway Tower, BT Tower, Baynard House.

So he’d found the Doomsday Department’s chief architect. Belsey read Lanzer’s entry in full. Lanzer started his career in the research section of the Ministry of Home Security, investigating the effects of bomb blast on reinforced concrete. After the liberation of Calais he went to northern France to examine the effects of the Allied bombardment on the heavily defended V-1 and V-2 sites. In 1953 he attended the atomic weapons trials in Australia.