The Suicide Exhibition: The Never War (Never War 1) (30 page)

‘Hardly a word, old boy,’ Davenport said happily. ‘But I don’t need to, do I? I’m American.’

‘But you’re not,’ Guy said, desperately.

‘I sure as hell am. Streicher will vouch for me. In fact, he might even get us in to see the artefacts if I offer my expert help.’

‘You
really
think that’s likely?’

Davenport shrugged. ‘No harm in asking. I’d guess they’d
welcome informed opinion about what they’ve found if it’s half as interesting as that bracelet.’

‘But from an American?’

‘You worry too much,’ Davenport said.

‘Well you don’t seem to worry at all, so I’m doing it for both of us.’

‘Look,’ Davenport said, his voice calm and reasonable. ‘Germany is not about to declare war on America. And the US is not, unfortunately, about to declare war on Germany either, so there’s no problem. I’d say we’ve got a couple of years before that happens and Professor Carlton Smith with his carefully established Nazi sympathies becomes persona non grata in the Fatherland.’

Guy just stared at him. He felt numb inside at the thought of going into the heart of Germany. He drained his coffee, not even tasting it.

‘That’s settled, then,’ Davenport said. ‘I’ll talk to Jacques and make arrangements. Hopefully we can leave in a couple of days. And with luck we’ll be home for Christmas.’

TWO SPITFIRES BANKED
and turned in a sky streaked with pale cloud, elegant but deadly. They had been sent up to intercept an unidentified aircraft that had shown up on the RADAR over Kent. Pilots Billy Glossop and Ken Franks had made good time to the intercept coordinates, only to find there was nothing there.

‘False alarm,’ Billy said over the radio.

Ken had to agree. ‘It might have headed back out to sea. Want to take a look?’

‘Why not?’

The throaty rumble of the Spitfires’ Merlin engines became a roar as they accelerated out towards the coast.

They never came back.

Brinkman was livid. The report he was holding added to his anger, but it also put his feelings into perspective. Perhaps Davenport and Pentecross were right after all. His first thoughts on getting the message from the French Resistance, relayed via a grudging and puzzled SOE, had been that they were being bloody fools. He couldn’t afford to lose either of them on what was so evidently a dangerous and ill-considered waste of time.

Reading the report of the encounter over the Kent coast, he realised that things had changed. Not that Pentecross and
Davenport knew that, and there was no way to tell them. But events now made it clear that any information they could bring back was vital. Their mission might be rash and foolhardy, but it might also provide the only way to begin to fight back.

He read the main part of the brief report for a third time. If there had been any doubt before that the UDTs were hostile, there was none now.

Two Spitfires were scrambled from Thorney Island to intercept the Unknown Detected Trace at 11:37 GMT. Radio contact was maintained during the initial search phase of the operation, but no contact was made with the suspected Raider.

Squadron Leader Glossop made the decision to extend the search to the coastal area. No further contact with Glossop was made. Flight Officer Franks radioed in a garbled report at 11:52 GMT, transcribed below.

It’s big, and all lit up. Never seen anything like it. No markings. How does it stay in the air? (BREAK) …streak of light right at him. Billy? Billy? Nothing from Billy. Think he may have (BREAK) It’s turning. God it’s fast. Taking evasive action. It’s firing again (BREAK) … to base. Damage to tail section. Losing height. Going to have to bale. (CONTACT LOST)

Witnesses on the ground report two loud explosions several seconds apart (see Police Report SECon 41-11-0906/4 for statements). Wreckage of both Spitfires was found scattered over a wide area of Walland Marsh. Both aircraft appear to have been fully armed when downed, meaning that neither got off a single shot at the Raider.

Miss Manners was at Bletchley when she got the call. Sergeant Green re-routed it from the Station Z offices to the Station X switchboard, who in turn relayed it to Hut A.

‘It’s for you,’ Wiles said, holding the phone out to her.

She expected it to be Green or Brinkman. It was neither.

The voice at the other end of the phone was a nervous whisper. ‘Pen?’

‘Jane – is that you? Where are you? Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine, but I’ll have to be quick. Since I spoke to you and your friend the other week, they’ve been watching me all the time. I think they know. Rutherford rarely lets me out of his sight. I managed to slip away, but I haven’t got long.’

‘Oh, Jane,’ Miss Manners said sadly. ‘Just leave. Get out of there as soon as you can.’

‘You know it’s not that easy. Especially now. There’s something going on, everything’s sort of more intense, you know?’

‘Can you tell me anything specific?’

‘Not much. But I wanted to talk to you, to let you know I’ll do what I can.’

‘I’d rather you were safe.’

‘I’ll be all right.’ She gave a little gasp. ‘Sorry, thought someone was coming. I’m in his study.’

‘Whose study? Not Crowley’s? Jane!’

‘It’s no problem, he’s out. But his diary’s here. Let me give you some dates. I don’t know if it will help, but – have you…’ She gave a nervous giggle. ‘Have you got a pen, Pen?’

Miss Manners scrabbled around in the papers on the nearest desk until she found a pencil and a blank sheet of paper. She wrote down the dates and times that Jane Roylston gave her.

‘Thank you, Jane. Now get out of there. I’ll talk to some people I know, we can help you.’

But Jane sounded suddenly calm and in control. Worryingly so. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I don’t think you can. Not now.’

Then the line went dead.

Jane put the receiver back on its cradle and turned round. She had heard the door open, and she could guess who was there.

‘I was just making a call,’ she said. ‘My mother…’

‘But you know we never make phone calls, don’t you, Jane?’ Rutherford said. ‘Not without asking permission. And never from in here.’

‘It was the most convenient place.’ She couldn’t help glancing down at the diary, still lying open and angled so she could see it on Crowley’s otherwise tidy desk.

‘Was it now?’

He was leaning against the doorframe, hands in his pockets as he watched her. His mouth quivered, as if he was trying not to smile.

‘I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.’ She crossed the room, and was relieved that he stepped aside to let her through the door.

But as she passed him, Rutherford grabbed Jane’s wrist, holding it tight, twisting her arm up painfully behind her back.

‘No, it won’t happen again,’ he whispered close in her ear. ‘I think you’ve been a very naughty girl. And we know what happens to naughty girls here, don’t we?’

The pain was dispelled by the sudden fear. ‘Please, let me go. You’re hurting me.’

‘No I’m not,’ he said, tightening his grip. ‘Not yet.’

‘Jane? Jane!’

There was no answer. Just the tone. Miss Manners put down the phone.

‘Problem?’ Wiles asked, looking up from his work. Neither of the other two men in the room seemed to have noticed anything.

‘I hope not.’

He frowned and got up. ‘You’ve gone awfully pale, you know. You want some water or something? I’ll get Debbie.’ He helped her to a nearby chair.

‘Her name is Eleanor,’ she told him.

‘Whose name? Well, of course it is. What are you talking about? Here, let me.’ He took the paper she was still holding and put it down on the desk. ‘What is this?’ he asked as he glanced at it. He picked the paper up again. ‘Did you just write this?’

‘It’s just some dates and times. Probably of no use, but she was trying to help. And now… I just hope she’s all right. She sounded…’ Miss Manners couldn’t really describe it. But she had a terrible feeling something was wrong.

Wiles didn’t answer. He hurried over to one of the other desks and rummaged through the papers piled there. The man sitting at the desk made no comment, but turned slightly so he could continue his work uninterrupted.

‘Secondary data, Edmund,’ Wiles said to the man. ‘Where’s that list?’

The man didn’t look up from the sheet he was studying, but pointed to a wooden document tray that was almost buried under more papers. Wiles sorted through and finally found the sheet he was looking for. He brought it over to put down beside the dates and times that Miss Manners had transcribed.

‘I thought so. Where did you get these?’ He picked up both sheets and handed them to her.

The sheet Wiles had found also had dates and times on it. They were typewritten, and there were more of them. But she could see at once what he had spotted.

‘They’re the same,’ she said. ‘Or some of them.’

‘The times are very slightly different, but yes. Your list is a subset of this one.’ He took it back from her and peered at it, brow creased in thought.

‘But – what is that?’

‘You know that the Y Stations pick up what seem to be transmissions from the UDTs?’

‘Of course.’

‘Those transmissions are quite distinctive. They’re not like Enigma or any of the other enemy codes, so they’re easy to filter out and send straight to us. They record the dates and times of each interception, of course.’

‘And that’s what’s on the list?’

He looked up from the page and smiled at her. ‘No.’

‘Oh.’

‘No, this is what we call “secondary data”. It’s transmissions of the same distinctive type that a Y Station has picked up, but which doesn’t correlate to a UDT sighting. Now sometimes that’s almost certainly because no one spotted the UDT. But some of these, we’ve been thinking, might originate from another source.’

Miss Manners stared at him. ‘Oh my God in Heaven,’ she breathed.

‘This list of yours,’ Wiles went on. ‘It only goes back to the beginning of September of this year, but it matches some of these secondary data for the same period. So whatever you have listed here, whatever these dates and times correspond to, could be that other source of transmission, do you see?’ His smile faded into a frown. ‘Unless these are more UDT sightings you’ve just come across? That would make sense, but it’s rather disappointing.’

‘No, they’re not UDTs.’

‘Oh good.’ He saw her expression and hesitated. ‘Not good?’

‘I don’t know. But I can tell you what’s transmitting the signals that you’ve intercepted.’

She stood up and handed him back the notes she had
written from Jane’s phone call.

‘These are all the dates and times in the last three months that Aleister Crowley has held a séance.’

THE HUGE CASTLE
dominated the landscape, rising above the leafless trees and standing stark against the darkening winter sky.

Guy could scarcely believe they had made it this far. Davenport seemed to take good luck in his stride. But he did confide to Guy one night that going on stage terrified him.

‘You’d think it’d get easier with practice, but not a bit of it. Give me a movie any day. Just the camera to worry about and if you mess things up you can do it again. Theatre with a live audience? Makes me shiver just thinking about it.’

They’d been staying in a chateau when they had that conversation. Guy was new to the dangers of keeping safe in occupied France. Davenport was an old hand, and seemed to have contacts across the country. A few were from resistance groups, but most were people he knew from before the war and trusted to keep them safe. The Countess d’Auverne was one of these.

‘We filmed some scenes for
The Princess and the Woodcutter
on the estate. She’s got quite an impressive woodshed, you know.’ Davenport had apparently played the handsome prince who arrived at the end to capture the heart of the princess.

‘A while ago, was it?’ Guy asked, suppressing a smile.

‘Not so long that the countess has forgotten me.’

He was right, she made them welcome and insisted they
take both French and German money with them when they left the next day.

When they crossed into Germany, things actually got easier. In the occupied countries, the Germans were wary of resistance groups and possible spies and saboteurs. Within Germany itself, the whole atmosphere seemed more relaxed. Jacques had provided Guy with French and German papers. The French ones were forged. The German papers were quite genuine although Jacques assured them the original owner no longer had any use for them.

Wewelsburg was to the west of the country, the village lying in the shadow of the enormous castle. The stone was pale in the evening light and you could believe the place had only recently been built – which, according to Davenport, most of it had. They found a secluded place at the edge of a field and sat down beside a large elm tree, leaning back against the trunk.

‘So what’s the plan?’ Guy asked. ‘Go and knock on the door?’

‘We could try that. Ask for Streicher. It might work.’

‘It wouldn’t work,’ Guy told him. ‘This whole thing is ludicrous, as I keep telling you.’

‘Got to give it a try, though.’

Guy sighed. He’d long ago concluded that Davenport saw life like one of his movies. ‘There are no second chances here, Leo. This is real life. It’s theatre, not the flicks. And if we mess up, they’ll shoot us. Never mind dying on stage, this is for real.’

For once, Davenport had the good grace to look chastened by Guy’s outburst. ‘You’re right, of course. What do you suggest? Apart from turning round and going home?’

‘Bit late for that. I’m not convinced we should ever have come here at all. But here we are, so let’s make the most of it. I don’t think we’re likely to get inside that place. So the question is, what’s the next best thing?’

They sat and watched the early December sun dip below the distant edifice. Davenport said nothing for a long time, and Guy began to wonder if he was sulking.

But finally, Davenport said: ‘All right, back to basics. We came here to learn whatever we can about the artefacts that Streicher recovered. Streicher himself may be here, or he may be off on another of his escapades. Question is, who would know and how do we get them to talk to us.’