Last Out From Roaring Water Bay (13 page)

“I’m not sure of that either.”

“What are you sure of then?”

“I know that two enforcers from the dregs of Europe are connected to a stolen identity in regards to an ex officer of the MDP. I know that you’ve a passing interest in a recently exhumed world war two Spitfire fighter plane. What I don’t know is what connects the two. Maybe you can throw some light on the matter.”

I sighed. “I knew the farmer who owned the land, but that’s as far as it goes.”

“Yes, I did speak to Mister Bickermass when I was overseeing the salvage operation at his farm; such a nice, pleasant chap. Strange that he never mentioned your presence at the crash site.”

“It’s hardly surprising since I wasn’t
there,
as I explained to DC Stevens, when he interviewed me over another matter. Did you know that the farmer died in mysterious circumstances shortly after the recovery of the plane?”

“I’d heard that he had been killed in an unfortunate accident. Fell into a slurry tank, I was led to believe.”

“Rather strange don’t you think considering there are two known killers floating around unchallenged and posing as MDP?”

I could have easily taken up some serious issues with Hamer on how I thought Lens had died, but I suspected it would only fall on another pair of deaf ears. I drank some tea and stuffed a piece of bacon into my mouth.

“Please understand, Mister Speed, I’m not here to take over official constabulary business. And neither am I here to persecute you over a plane wreck. It’s your help on a different matter that I really sought.”

He wants my help?
I almost choked on my food with the request. I said, “I’m listening.”

Hamer wiped the corners of his mouth with a napkin.

“I’m not one bit interested in any active part you had in the discovery of the Spitfire, Mister Speed.” I was about to protest my innocence when his hand rose. “Please hear me out.”

I shrugged and carried on eating before the food went cold.

He jerked an appreciative smile. “I believe, Mister Speed, that it was you who first discovered the wreck with your metal detector. I believe you allowed Mister Bickermass to take the credit; a nice gesture Mister Speed. I assume the number of arrest warrants you’ve accumulated over the years for non-remittance of treasure trove obviously accounted for your silence. How am I doing so far?”

“You should take up writing fiction. And you’ve obviously had an extensive chat with that Peeler DC Stevens.”

He ignored my remarks and pushed on. “Look at it from my point of view. The plane is found, exhumed, and the pilot, a chap by the name of Rowlands, is given a military funeral. After cross-referencing, everything is logged and stored in the archives for eternity. Another chapter in history concluded. Sounds so simple don’t you think? But out of nowhere questions are asked by a local police station enquiring about you and a retired MDP official who has had his name used by criminals, all because of a piece of wreckage and a military uniform full of bones.”

I was thinking about something else. What had happened to the identity tags around the skeletons neck bone which would have identified the body correctly? I hadn’t removed the tags, so where did they get the name Rowland from?

Hamer went on. “There has to be a connection surrounding the wreck of a Spitfire with a renowned treasure hunter and two killers from Europe.”

“It does seem a strange concoction, doesn’t it, Inspector?” I said, and promptly wiped my plate clean with a slice of cold toast.

He frowned at my indifferent response. I suppose I should have eased his mind and told him the name I saw on the tags, but why should I stupidly strangle myself by admitting I was there at the scene. I was deep in it enough to want more additions.

“I feel that you’re not taking me seriously, Mister Speed?”

“I’m not clear as to what you’re getting at?”

“I think there was something else at the wreck site which isn’t there now.”

“What might that be?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You could have asked Tommy Bickermass what he saw, if he hadn’t been killed
accidentally
.”

“You sound as if you don’t think it was an accident?”

“At last I’ve got someone following in my direction. I believe Winston has met those two thugs before at the farm. He proved that by his reaction. He was old Tom’s dog, and as I said before, he reacts against anybody who harms his friends, especially his master.”

“Have you any proof?”

“That Love and Hate killed Tommy? Yes if I can get the dog to talk.”

“Being facetious won’t help, Mister Speed.”

“What difference would I make? I couldn’t even convince the local police to investigate the suspicious death of a good friend of mine; another statistic of the Love and Hate crime consortium. Why don’t you try and persuade the police otherwise, since you’re on friendly terms with that Peeler Stevens.”

“I’m hardly on friendly terms, Mister Speed. But you could still prove to the police that they were wrong if you move without delay.”

“I’m hardly in a position to take the law into my own hands without having them slapped for unnecessary intimidation. DC Stevens did warn me to watch where I stepped.”

“But if you could, would you like to bring those responsible to justice?” His expression was serious.

“Damn right, if I knew where to begin.”

“Begin by telling me everything you haven’t told me? Like what you saw or found at the wreck site that has got people spooked enough to bring killers into the affray.”

Hamer was pushing his luck. He’d chosen the wrong line of approach to ask for my help. My reaction towards his clever ploy to get me to reveal information for his benefit and a possible prosecution against me probably sounded a little hostile. I didn’t care a toss!

“I’ve already told you I wasn’t there at the farm. So why push it? Inside the ministry you probably carry a lot of whack. Outside in the real world you’re way out of your jurisdiction. If you really want to be a good policeman, why don’t you work alongside our wonderful police force scattered around good old London and between you, hopefully you can find the two unscrupulous characters roaming the streets bothering people with the intention of wanting to murder them.” I stood to leave. “Thanks for the wonderful breakfast. I only hope I don’t vomit on the way home when I think of what you tried to pull.”

Hamer was certainly persistent and being the typical policeman, he attempted to put the frighteners on me.

“Be warned, Mister Speed. This is far from over. I implore you to reconsider working alongside me. Those two brutish fiends are still a threat to you. It isn’t going to go away. All you’ve achieved is to stand on the tails of a couple of rattlesnakes without getting bit. You’re treading a dangerous path. I know them; how their devious minds work. They’ll want retribution. They’ll strike back and they might be successful next time. I can’t protect you unless you help me. Hand your problems over to the professionals who get paid for dealing with dangerous villains.”

I smiled confidently. “Don’t fret. I’m a big boy. Must get back or Winston will start tearing my place apart in search of food.”

I turned to leave but checked my stride. I thought he deserved something for buying me breakfast. I asked him, “Ever heard of a wartime operation ‘Huggermugger’?” His expression said he hadn’t. “Look it up in the military archives,” I told him. “It’s very interesting. World War Two, I’m informed. R.A.F. Duxford carried out the operation.”

I probably should have kept my mouth shut because when he finds out what I know, he’ll no doubt be even more suspicious of how I know so much. By giving him that information I was thinking more on the lines that the military might rectify their mistake and bury Craven under his own name with full military honours; then again, the inevitable embarrassment of owning up to their gaff would have them sweeping the mess under the carpet as usual. As for my own enquiries, the right direction had me heading towards McClusky’s which I located at Greenland dock in Greenwich.

I parked the Roadster and went on foot to the dock gate. It was busy when I got there; bustling with traffic passing through security. I used the confusion and sneaked past the security hut alongside a long wheeled-based lorry trundling through the gate. When I’d reached the warehouse where McClusky’s resided, a large red brick and concrete structured building with an array of warning signs indicating a fragile roof, I peeped through the large opened steel doors.

There wasn’t much happening inside; just the horrible scraping noise of a solitary bucket loader shovelling piles of grain into sectioned bays. I noticed to the left a steel stairway leading to what appeared to be raised offices which would be worth a look inside. I decided I would return later. In the middle of the night when it was nice and dark, perhaps bring along a selection of tools to break-in and have a look inside when nobody was around. What I would be searching for I’ve no idea.

*

I was back at McClusky’s just after midnight. I was prepared this time, dressed in black combat type clothing, a zipped and buttoned bomber jacket, trousers and black soft soled boots. I considered a balaclava with slits for eyes as a little excessive in case I got caught and it would be hard to explain away. I parked the car down the road, collected a leather bag, something similar to a doctor’s bag, from the boot and walked fast-paced to the main gate and past the security gatehouse with unimaginable ease. I suspected that the lapse of disciplined security was duly down to the attitude of the two guards within the gatehouse, who probably decided that first class security requires first class pay and the pittance that they were probably paid didn’t warrant the effort to get off their backsides in too much of a hurry; such consideration only served to make my task simple.

I didn’t want to use my flashlight with the fear of the beam being seen. Luckily the moonlight flickering through the night clouds lit my way sufficiently to scamper across the compound, having to clutch the leather bag tightly to stop the tools from playing a metallic jingle as I bounced along. I checked that every where was clear at the front of the warehouse before making my way to the rear. It was there where I saw a light emitting from a lower window underneath a steel stairway that led to a first floor doorway which I assumed was a fire exit.

I angled across, away from the building and pushed my back tight against a large steel container and waited there for a few minutes thinking there might be lookouts wandering around the perimeter. Satisfied I was alone I circled the container to check what was on the other side. There I found a lorry tarpaulin covering what I thought was a medium sized vehicle. I peeled back the corner of the sheet and the momentary flash of moonlight lit up, ‘wash me’, finger written in the dirt on the right rear door of a white van. Things were looking promising, and if I was to examine the vehicle closely, I’d have probably discovered a large dent on the front offside with car paint matching the blue colour of the vehicle that the van had hit while attempting to dissect me at Duxford.

I let the sheet fall and tip-toed across to the window under the stairway and crouched, carefully placing the tool bag down on the ground. I peered through the grain dusted glass. I could see men using hand pulled hydraulic stack lifts, in the motion of shifting large wooden crates in readiness to load onto a flat-backed truck parked inside the building. I counted a total of five men altogether, though there could easily have been more that I couldn’t see. It would be five men too many for me to handle in one go; one or two men, yes, three at a push if I was desperate. In reality I’d chosen the wrong night to risk an attempted break-in. It was time to get out of there before I was seen.

I eased away from the window, grabbed my tool bag, straightened my posture and back tracked my steps. I was on the verge of turning when something struck the back of my head with such force that I’d thought my skull had been cracked open. I almost blacked out but realized I was falling to the ground. In my semi-conscious state something or somebody had caught my fall. For a moment or two my head throbbed, the feeling of a lump swelling at the base of my skull, stretching my skin. I felt my heels dragging along the ground before I was dropped onto something cold, as if I was a large fish being slapped down on the fishmongers dissecting table. I think I died at that moment because everything went black and quiet.

I knew I wasn’t dead when I came round from my induced sleep. God only knows where I was. My eyes were glued shut. At least I thought they were. I raised my head and my neck cracked. The pain pumping at the back of my skull reminded me of the wise meaning:
watch your back at all times in enemy territory.
Something I’d neglected to do. At least my sense of smell hadn’t deserted me because I could smell the badness of congealed blood that had soaked into the neck of my black polo-necked sweater.

I quickly abandoned my first attempt to open my eyes when the incoming light tired to split my eyeballs in two. What fraction of feeling I still had in my body made me realize that I was still upright but slouched in some sort of harness. I had numbness around my crutch region and all my limbs and joints were a mixture of aches and pins and needles. I forced open my eyelids to a slit and stood the few inches required to support my own weight. I tried to move about to get the blood circulation going through my veins but all I could do was squirm as the harness seem to hold all my limbs tight.

My eyes flickered open fully and I became aware of what held me. The harness wasn’t a harness as such. Some inconsiderate bastard had nailed every conceivable part of my clothing to a wooden stanchion and I was pinned there in the form of a crucifix and no matter how hard I twisted, turned, or pulled, I wasn’t going anywhere, indefinitely.

I got a sudden strong whiff of damp walls. I looked around at what appeared to be the attic room of an old house. A single light pendant hung from the rafters dingily illuminating the room, its clear glass lamp diffused by its coating of fly excrement. In the corner of the room, abandoned on a small stool, I saw the culprit for my imprisonment; the nail gun that had attacked my clothing. Apart from the stool, there was no other furniture I could see. The attic room had no skylight so I couldn’t tell if it was day or night. The only entrance into the room was by a narrow, wood panelled door directly in front of me. In all honesty, I couldn’t visualize much hope of escape until I heard a bout of laughter and voices drifting from the other side the door.