Chapter Twenty-Two
“I have to
check your shoes,” I said, opening the curtain to Juliet's underground room. It was about ten by ten feet, adorned with an electric light, a cot and chair, and one wood-plank table covered in loose sheets and pads of paper. A candle in a sconce was the only decoration on the limestone walls.
“Oh, please, Billy, I am quite busy,” Juliet said, as she wrote out a long column of letters.
“Please,” Kaz said in his most soothing tone. “We must ask. It wouldn't do for the others to wonder why we gave you special treatment.”
“Of course. But be quick about it.” She swiveled in her seat, lifting her feet to show a pair of worn and scuffed leather lace-ups, not a speck of dried blood to be seen.
“That's it, thanks,” I said, giving her a smile. “Sorry to bother you.”
“Oh, it's not that. I shouldn't have been short with you, but this is all so frightening,” she said, turning back to the jumble of letters. “It's hard enough to do the job we came to do, but a killer among us is too much to bear.” Her voice caught, and I saw her hand tremble before she laid it flat on the table. She didn't meet my eye.
“We'll find whoever did it. Meanwhile, I have an idea to help out the count. I'll tell you about it when you're done.”
“I could use some good news. I'll be finished in about an hour.” With that, she sighed and returned to her coding.
Sonya was keeping everyone else corralled in the salon. With a fair amount of griping, we got everyone to show us their boots. Dusty and dirty, but bloodless. Sonya had white socks folded down over the tops of her shoes, clean and neat. I pulled her aside, out of earshot of the others.
“Is there somewhere we can put the body for a while? Someplace cool, perhaps?”
“Why? We can bury him tonight as we did Lieutenant Armstrong,” she said.
“I have something else in mind,” I said. “I'll tell you and Juliet about it later. But for now, what's the coldest part of these tunnels?”
“There's an unused ice pit off the root cellar. They used to store ice during the winter and it lasted all year, I understand. It's empty now, but I know it's cold and damp. We stored weapons in it for a while.”
“Perfect,” I said. “Can we get some sheets to wrap the body?”
“Of course,” she said. Kaz and I followed her as she gathered up a couple of sheets and a length of twine. We rolled Brookes in the sheets, and bound him up as best we could. It wasn't so much a gesture of respect as a matter of convenience. It's easier to carry a corpse if the arms and legs aren't flopping around. Brookes was going on one last mission before he was laid to rest.
“What are you up to, Billy?” Kaz grunted, as we lumbered through the tunnels with our awkward load, Sonya leading the way.
“Maybe getting Zeller off our backs,” I said, leaving out the tricky part. Which described most of my idea admirably.
Sonya took us into the root cellar and opened a hatch that led to a brick-lined chamber. We carried the body down four steps and immediately felt the chill. The room was perfect. As we set the body on matted straw, Kaz shook his head slowly.
“There are many ways to die in this war,” he said. “This one seems particularly senseless.”
“It makes sense to someone. That's what we need to understand,” I said.
“When these poor boys come to us they are frightened, often in shock from what they've endured in the air,” Sonya said. “We give them shelter and hope, and the fear fades away. But Sergeant Brookes was always afraid, always worried. None of the other men, even his own crew, gave him a kind word.”
“Do you know why?” I asked.
“No. They would not speak of it, and he hardly spoke at all. When I did ask him directly, he simply stared at the floor. For a long time.”
“Poor lad,” Kaz said.
“He carried guilt. Over what, or whom, I have no idea,” Sonya said. We stood for a few moments, paying what respects we could. Then we left him in the ice pit. Sonya went off to see if Topper was done rigging the aerial, and we returned to the salon.
“What next?” Kaz asked as we neared the entrance. We had a while until Juliet was done coding and I could reveal my scheme, such as it was.
“Let's talk to Fawcett and find out if he had a beef with Brookes. Then Babcock.”
“Lieutenant Babcock was his commanding officer,” Kaz said. “Perhaps he knows more than he was willing to say when his sergeant was alive.”
“I had that sense, too,” I said. “But he might have been protecting Fawcett. And remember, Fawcett was one of the people out of the room. Let's tackle him first.”
“Very well. I shall play the imperious officer and order you to assist me,” he said. “This may also give us a good cover for speaking to Blake alone, since we'd be interviewing each man separately.”
“Yeah, after we talk to the Canadians. Right now, this killer is our biggest problem.”
“Second only to the Germans,” Kaz said.
“But as far as we know, they're not the ones wandering through the tunnels killing our guys, so let's focus on that. Come on.”
We entered the salon, where Babcock and Fawcett sat silently at one end of the table, while Switch, Meyer, and Dogbite played cards at the other.
“We will be conducting interviews with each of you,” Kaz said. “To determine what light you might be able to shed on the killing of Brookes.”
“You mean put the screws on until you get a confession,” Meyer said. “Tell me why I should listen to a Polack in a Brit uniform anyway.” He didn't look up from his cards.
“That is not quite what I had in mind. As for your question, suffice it to say the Polack officer, who outranks you, will communicate with London over the Brit radio for a Brit aircraft to get you out of here. Here being the safe house provided by SOE, a decidedly British organization. Or would you rather wait for the war to roll over the château? Assuming the Germans don't discover you first and have you shot?”
“What the hell do you mean, have me shot? I ain't been with the Resistance.” Meyer was interested enough in the answer to his question to look up at Kaz.
“Don't matter. Enough of us been runnin' around killing Krauts,” Dogbite said, grinning as Meyer lost some of his bluster. “Ya gotta figure by now, some Jerry spotted one of those blue RCAF uniforms, or me in my flight suit and leather jacket. Hitler don't appreciate commandos so much, and I bet the Gestapo'll be happy to gun us all down.”
Kaz took some joy in filling Meyer in on the
Führer
's infamous Commando Order. It only made me more nervous, since it applied directly to us, whether we were shooting up the local garrison or not.
“Okay, okay,” Meyer finally said. “You made your point. I'll fit you in my busy schedule whenever you want to chat.”
“We'll begin with the victim's fellow crewmen. Sergeant Fawcett, you first,” Kaz said, gesturing for Fawcett to follow him. “Sergeant Boyle, come along.”
“Can we get some chow first? I'm starving,” I said, giving it the right amount of disobedient petulance.
“
Now
, Sergeant. We have a lot of work ahead of us.” Kaz herded Fawcett out ahead of him. I shrugged in the general direction of Meyer as if to say,
What can you do with a stuck-up officer?
He grinned, the first sign of anything mutual between us besides disdain. He shuffled the cards, murmuring something about that runty Polack bastard. I was tempted to warn him about underestimating Kaz, but I didn't want to be his pal that badly.
“Sit down, Sergeant Fawcett,” Kaz said, as we entered the room where he and Topper had repaired the radio. The workbench was covered with tools and spare parts. Kaz and Fawcett took the two chairs facing the bench; I grabbed a crate and sat across from them, the junior partner in this interrogation.
“It's Flight Sergeant, actually,” Fawcett said, resting one arm on the bench. “Not that I care much about rank. Ronnie will do fine, if this is a friendly talk.” His face might have looked youthful with those freckles, but his voice was firm as he stated his full rank.
“We're all on the same side, Ronnie,” Kaz said, crossing his legs and shaking out a crease that had never been there. “Obviously, it makes sense for us to speak with you first, since the victim was a fellow crewman, and you were in the tunnels at the same time he was.”
“I was only gone a few minutes. I stopped in the latrine, had a piss, then went to my room and grabbed my jacket. Never saw Brookes.”
“Do you have a knife?” I asked.
“Sure. Take a look,” Fawcett said, handing Kaz a black metal pocket knife. “Standard issue for aircrew. I keep it sharp, but I didn't use it on Brookes.” Kaz opened the blade. It was four inches or so, and I could tell by the sheen that Fawcett took good care of it. Which could mean he was handy with it or that he had a lot of time on his hands. Kaz handed it to me, and I inspected the opening that held the blade. No telltale blood or gore stuck inside.
“If I killed Brookes with that knife, when did I have time to clean it?” Fawcett said. “Not to mention the blood I would have gotten on myself.”
“Had to ask,” I said, glancing at his fingernails as I handed the knife back to him. They were clean.
“Did you see anyone else?” Kaz asked.
“Not a soul. But the latrine is down a lateral tunnel, so I could have missed someone while I was in there.”
“How well do you know your way through the tunnels?” I asked.
“I got lost a few times when I first got here, but I'm okay if I don't wander far. They keep the doors that lead to the château locked, so sooner or later you wind up back where you started.”
“What about Armstrong? He had the run of the place, didn't he?” Kaz asked. It was a good question. Perhaps there was a connection between him and Brookes.
“Yeah, he did. Juliet wanted someone who knew where all the keys and secret passages were, in case something happened while she and Sonya were out with the Resistance. She made him promise to keep it all to himself.”
“And did he?” Kaz asked.
“Far as I know,” Fawcett said. “It was right after we found out we were stuck here. Juliet told us the next network on the escape route had been rolled up, and it might be awhile before we got out. She stressed that we had to stay underground and not attract attention, and asked for one volunteer to learn the ins and outs of the place. Armstrong spoke decent high-school French, and was interested in the tunnels and the Druid temple, so he was the logical choice.”
“How did he get along with Brookes?” Kaz asked.
“As well as anyone,” Fawcett said, his mouth set in a grim line.
“Why don't you tell us the story?” I said. “The truth about Brookes. Why did Meyers and Blake ride him so hard? What did you have against him?”
“I despised the man. Not that he was much of a man.”
“Tell us,” Kaz said, settling back in his chair. Fawcett sighed, closed his eyes, then opened them, seeing the past he'd rather not remember.
“We were flying out of RAF Topcliffe when Brookes joined us. We were getting the Mark III Halifax after our old ship had been shot up during a raid on Essen. We had two killed, one of them the mid-upper turret gunner. Brookes got that job. I was the rear gunner.” He stopped, and rubbed his eyes as if simply beginning the story had fatigued him.
“It must have been hard for Brookes and the other fellow to become part of the crew,” Kaz said. “Were you all together a long time?”
“I came over from Canada with Babcock and Colin Carter, our copilot. We picked up the rest of the boys over here and had good luck until Essen. We ran into heavy winds, heavier than expected. Our squadron arrived over the target fifteen minutes late. By then, every antiaircraft battery in the Ruhr valley was filling the sky with flak. Three aircraft went down, and ours was shredded. Three men wounded, two dead. We were flying so high to avoid the night fighters it was forty degrees below zero inside the aircraft. Their blood froze instantly, everywhere in the fuselage.”
“Were you hurt?” I asked, mainly to give him a breather.
“Not a scratch,” he said, a slight shiver of memory trembling through his body. “Anyway, that's not the story you wanted to hear, sorry. So Brookes and another lad, Johnny Miller, join us. Miller is the wireless operator. We have a few milk runs to Brest and Cherbourg, and the new boys do fine. No sign of trouble from them or the new aircraft.” He picked up a small screwdriver and began to tap it against the wooden workbench.
“And then?” Kaz asked.
“Then Hamburg, Nuremberg, Leipzig. All deep into Germany. We watched the cities burn, watched our planes explode and crash, and waited for our turn at the flames. Then Berlin. And again Berlin. We were all on edge, dreading each mission, but we kept on as best we could.”
“Except for Brookes?” Kaz prompted.
“He was shaky, no doubt. I was worried about him, about whether or not he could do his job. He was either jumpy or clammed up, a lot like you saw here. And his job wasn't just to defend the ship, it was to help me in case we had to bail out.”
“How?” I asked, remembering the stories I'd heard about tail gunners and their survival rates.
“It's too damn cramped to wear a parachute in the rear turret. It's the mid-upper turret gunner's job to help the rear gunner out of the turret, lend a hand with his 'chute, and let the pilot know they're both clear to jump.”
“I'm guessing that didn't happen,” I said.
“March thirtieth, it was,” Fawcett said, either not hearing or ignoring my question. “A big raid on Nuremberg. Nearly eight hundred bombers, they told us in the briefing. Then they pulled the sheet off the big map showing our route. It was a goddamned straight line. They sent us into the teeth of the enemy defenses without any evasive maneuver.”