The Dead Can Wait (4 page)

‘Dirk. Dutch.’

The Dutch were neutral, but Ross felt they leaned towards the British side. ‘Bradley Ross,
New York Herald.’
They shook hands. ‘A camera jockey, eh? You’re the guys who are going to put us scribblers out of business?’

Alberts laughed. ‘Only when people can carry a movie projector in their pocket. And only then if they ever let us near the war. You need a letter from God countersigned by Haig. So I’ve been sent here to sniff out a good news story on the Home Front.’

‘Find any?’

Ross recognized the little shuffle of feet and the tensing of the body. Alberts’ shoulders tightened up towards his ears just a little. Yeah, this guy had a story. But he wasn’t going to blab.

‘Sorry, dumb of me to ask. Buy you a drink?’

Alberts met Ross’s direct gaze. ‘Thank you. A Van der Hum and soda.’

Ross whistled up the liqueur and an Old Jamaica for himself from the white-jacketed barman.

‘What about you?’ Alberts asked.

‘Much like yourself. Can’t get permission to get close to anything juicy. British got it all sewn up. They got five official war correspondents – why do they need some Yank blundering around telling the truth?’

All five – plus a few special correspondents like John Buchan – allowed their work to be supervised and censored by the British Government. Ross’s newspaper wouldn’t countenance that.

Alberts swilled his drink around the glass. ‘I did hear of one thing that’s interesting. Here. In England. Something big.’

‘You keep it,’ said Ross, feigning disinterest with a wave of his hand. ‘Don’t tell me anything you might regret.’

Alberts took a large mouthful of his liqueur. ‘This isn’t a movie-camera type of story. The thing about us lot, we are hardly inconspicuous, are we? You know, a guy with a script and another turning the handle of some big, black box. You don’t get undercover cameramen.’

‘I guess not.’

‘You only need a notebook to get your story. I need a ton of equipment.’

Ross nodded. It was one advantage of the printed word over the moving picture. ‘You’re making me feel a lot better about newspapers,’ he said.

‘I think there is room for us both,’ said Alberts. ‘We are in the same game, just different ways of presenting it. I think this one is on your side of the pitch.’

Ross drank some of his rum. He examined the Dutchman closely, sniffed at his cologne. Was it really only professional companionship he was after? The green of his emerald stud seemed to glow brighter by the minute. Was the choice of colour an accident? Perhaps, as a foreigner, he did not know what it symbolized, in both London and New York. ‘So what is it, Dirk? This story.’

The Dutchman gave a sly smirk. ‘Just a rumour. No, not even that. A whisper.’

‘A whisper of what?’

Alberts leaned in close, and Ross felt the hot, alcohol-laden breath on his ear. ‘Something very hush-hush.’

‘Where? Here in London?’

‘Suffolk, so I am told.’

‘Suffolk. Interesting. And would you like to tell me more? Over dinner, perhaps?’ Ross asked, his hand coming down on the bar within a half-inch of the Dutchman’s. The film man didn’t pull away, just stared down at it, wandering if he was interpreting the signals correctly.

‘Once we have got to know each other a little better, perhaps,’ Alberts ventured cautiously, knocking back his liqueur and bringing the glass down so that their knuckles touched. ‘Dinner sounds like a good idea.’

‘What about the gathering at the Savoy?’ asked Ross, aware of a thrumming in his temple.

Alberts laughed and touched the emerald stud, twirling it between forefinger and thumb. He knew what it meant, all right – that they both belonged to a forbidden fraternity. ‘Oh, don’t worry, we’ll manage somehow.’

Georgina Gregson came clattering down the steps of her lodgings, thanking the Lord that changes in fashion meant skirts no longer had to drag along the ground and so trip you up when descending stairs at speed. As she reached the pavement, the motor taxi standing at the kerb flipped its flag to ‘For Hire’. Luck was on her side.

She had a ticket for Sir Henry Wood’s ‘Promenade Preview’ at the Queen’s Hall in Langham Place. The last time she had attended one of his concerts, the audience had booed at the inclusion of Beethoven and Wagner, but Sir Henry had won the dissenters round with an impassioned plea that great art transcended national boundaries. This time, though, it was a very safe programme – Ravel, Debussy, Vaughan Williams and Elgar, an Anglo-French musical alliance.

She had bought only a single ticket because she found it easier to lose herself at a concert when she was alone, not having to worry about whether a piece was too modern, or indeed too German, for a companion.

She shouted the address of the hall to the cabby and hitched her skirt as she stepped into the back. It was only when she was most of the way inside that she realized that the rear seat was already occupied.

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she began. ‘I thought—’

‘Close the door, Mrs Gregson,’ said the man, who remained pressed into the corner shadows.

Before she could react, a rough shove pushed her into the interior and the door slammed behind her.

‘What is going on? How do you know my name? How dare—’

‘You don’t recall me, do you, Mrs Gregson?’ He leaned forward as he said this, pushing a pink and hairless face into the evening light. ‘Grover. Sergeant, as was. Might have added a few pounds since then.’ He slapped a stretched waistcoat. ‘I knew your husband. Remember you when you were the Red Devil.’ He shook his head. ‘Never change, do you, you lot? Always causing trouble. Knew it as soon as I saw your name.’

By ‘you lot’ she assumed the corpulent little man meant suffragettes, of which she had been proud to call herself one. And no, she had no recollection of him at all. She had tried to purge those nightmare months from her memory. The ‘Red Devil’ had been the gutter press’s favourite nickname for her when she had been falsely accused of trying to murder the Prime Minister.

‘I’m not sitting here listening to this.’ Mrs Gregson turned to open the door but came face to face through the glass with the scowling, bewhiskered face of an aged constable, stooping down and holding the exterior handle so she couldn’t move it. When she slumped back in the seat, Grover thrust a piece of paper at her.

‘I am detaining you under the Defence of the Realm Act, Mrs Gregson.’

She slapped the document away. ‘Really? On what grounds?’

‘On the grounds that you have imperilled national security by sticking your nose in where it was not required and then kicking up a stink about it.’ He gave a rap on the partition and the cab moved off.

Mrs Gregson racked her brains as to what she had done recently that could possibly—

‘Is this about that
Motor Cycle Gazette
advertisement?’

Grover sucked air through his teeth, a thoroughly unpleasant sound. ‘There you go again. It would be best if you said nothing until the tribunal.’

‘Tribunal? What tribunal?’ The word conjured up anonymous bureaucrats in dingy rooms deciding her fate with no recourse to judge, jury or lawyers. She felt a small twinge of apprehension. She knew only too well how the machinations of the legal system could swallow a person whole, even in peacetime. And they were a long way from the days of Habeas Corpus.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she demanded as the cab gathered speed.

‘Somewhere,’ said Grover with the hint of a smile, ‘where you will feel right at home.’

She could tell what he meant by the amused twinkle in his eyes and she had to fight hard not to give him the satisfaction of tears. They were taking her back to Holloway Prison.

PART TWO

11–15 AUGUST 1916

FIVE

Percy Littlewood finished loading the wooden vegetable crates into the Warwick three-wheeler delivery van a little after eight and set off for the twenty-minute drive through the Suffolk lanes to the Elveden Explosives Area. It was rare for a civilian to have any contact with the requisitioned estate, and over the past few weeks the grocer had learned not to ask any questions and to keep his mouth shut. What they were doing behind the trees was no business of his.

Even in The Plough, when the topic of Elveden inevitably came up and wild speculations began to gain credence with every pint consumed and eyes swivelled towards him, he simply shrugged. He was earning good money delivering food and supplies, enough that he wasn’t going to throw it away with idle gossip. He’d seen what happened to them that did let their tongues wag. No, this was a lucrative business, for him at least.

It meant that if the arrangement went on much longer, he could afford to ask Lizzie Cosford for her hand in marriage. Twenty years younger than he she might be, but he suspected the modern woman couldn’t afford to be too fussy. A lot of lads Lizzie’s own age wouldn’t be coming home and, if they weren’t careful, England would become a country of spinsters. The newspapers were already full of adverts from desperate young ladies, their fiancés slaughtered in France or Belgium, offering to marry and care for the blinded or the maimed.

There was no traffic on the road and Percy made good time, reaching the entrance to the Explosives Area in just over a quarter of an hour. He stopped at the barrier and the sergeant with the lazy eye went through the motions of looking in the back of the van to make sure he wasn’t smuggling anybody in and then waved him on with a warning to unload at the usual place, where he could pick up the order for next Tuesday.

He ran the three-wheeler in low gear down the road that led to the Hall’s tree-lined driveway but, as he always did, he yanked at the tiller and pulled off to one side before that palatial building came into sight.

‘You’d think they could spare some of those blighters to give a hand unloading,’ Percy muttered. But it was always a solitary job, probably in case he engaged any of the soldiers in conversation. He killed the motor and stepped out into an early morning silence. He didn’t like the place. He always felt as if eyes were watching him from the undergrowth. Sometimes he caught movement among the trees, heard the snap of a twig or the drift of conversation and laughter, even though he knew the billets were on the other side of the estate. It gave him the willies.

Littlewood quickly unloaded the crates of produce, slipped his bill in the uppermost wooden crate and gave a little laugh. What he was charging them was well worth suffering a dose of the willies twice a week. Then he fetched the sheaf of papers that had been left for him in a wooden box nailed to one of the old oaks. He executed a neat three-point turn and drove back through the barrier, waving at the sergeant as he did so.

It was two miles down the road before he pulled in and examined the orders. As he had expected, there was an extra brown envelope in there, with the words ‘Fresh Medical Supplies Required’ written on it. Delivering that to Brenda at the post office in Thetford would be worth an extra ten bob, no questions asked.

The envelope, though, hadn’t been sealed properly and he lifted it to his mouth to re-lick the gummed edge. And then hesitated. He looked in his door mirror to make sure he was alone on the stretch of road. He took out the piece of paper. It was indeed a list of medical supplies, written in a well-rounded hand.

Lint, seven rolls

Mentholated Balm, three tins

Rat Eradicator (Red Squill Compound)

Accident & Emergency (Surgeon’s No. 7)

Gee’s Linctus

Scrubb’s Cloudy Ammonia (2 bottles)

Sanitary Towels, compressed (one box)

Enule Suppositories (two boxes)

The list went on for two pages. He could get half of the stuff from the chemist at Thetford, but no, this had to be sent to London. And it was something else he was meant to be quiet about. Ten bob, though. He’d swear black was white for that. And the money would go straight into the Lizzie Cosford marriage pot.

He checked the road was still clear, engaged the Warwick’s first gear and drove towards the Thetford road.

Had Percy Littlewood been able to translate the code within that humdrum list, a cipher that had been painstakingly worked out between all parties, he might not have kept his mind on Lizzie. For in London, sharper eyes than Percy’s would be able to tell that the cause of death of the seven men who died in the training accident was no closer to being solved and that the one survivor was still mute. And the final item, for a case of St Joshua’s Tonic Wine to be express delivered – Joshua, one of the twelve scouts sent by Moses to explore Canaan, being the patron saint of spies – would be easily interpreted.

Send your own man in.

SIX

The eight gentlemen of the War Neuroses Committee had filed into the lecture theatre at Millbank and taken their seats, unsure of what they were about to witness. At the front of the hall, at a lectern, stood Major John H. Watson, in uniform, a wooden pointer in his hand. Behind him was a white screen used for lantern projection. Flanking it were several linen-backed hanging displays, each depicting an aspect of the human body – the individuals flayed to reveal the arterial, venous and lymphatic systems, the musculature or the nerve pathways. Next to the podium was a yellowy human skeleton, suspended from a metal stand by a hook in the skull.

Watson examined his audience. There were five officers from the Royal Army Medical Corps, including Crocker, the Deputy Director of Medical Services, and Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Armstrong Jones, Superintendent of Claybury Asylum, as well as three civilian specialists – two neurologists and a psychiatrist. The WNC had been hastily convened to answer questions that had arisen about the incidence of so-called battle neuroses and the treatment of the victims.

Watson felt remarkably under-qualified before them. The length of his own experience of the condition amounted to not much more than eight months. But, he reminded himself, he had one advantage over this illustrious body. Unlike them, he had peered into the dark pit that so many soldiers had fallen into. It was only by luck and good friends that he had not toppled in. But he had felt the tug of despair and anguish, like some dark, malevolent gravity. Only someone who had been to the front, or, like him, even further out into the cesspool of no man’s land, could possibly hope to understand what the soldiers were going through, week after week and year after year.