Authors: Pauline Rowson
Finally he exhaled and said, ‘So you reckon this cancer was caused by something hazardous in a fire we attended in 1994?’
I nodded.
‘OK, so let’s work this out.’ Sam rose and began to pace his office. ‘Five men dead, that would mean that two appliances went to the fire.’
‘Two?’
‘We’ll say the water tender was riding the officer in charge, a driver, a BA controller and two men in breathing apparatus, for example, Vic and Scott. The second appliance, the water tender ladder, would have been carrying a driver and possibly three fire fighters wearing BA. That could have been Duggie, Tony and Jack. Only those men wearing breathing apparatus would have gone into the fire, making it the five. The BA controller stays outside, the drivers operate the pumps, and the officer in charge usually runs around like a headless chicken.’ He gave a brief smile.
‘No one else would be at risk then?’
‘No…unless the first pump was riding one more fire fighter wearing breathing apparatus.’
Sam looked worried. I didn’t blame him. He pulled a photograph from the wall behind his desk. ‘That leaves, me, Dave Caton, Sandy Ditton, Des Brookfield, Colin Woodhall, Brian Clackton and Stuart Hallington.’
‘And, according to Brookfield, possibly two other fire fighters who were on secondment.’
‘Brookfield knows about the cancer?’
‘No.’
‘And you say you can’t see the fire reports?’
‘No. Can you can recall a fire on board a ship in 1994?’
‘Let me think. I left the brigade in 1996, bought my first guest house, which I sold in 2000 to buy this place. Best thing I ever did. So it would have been two years before I left. I was forty-four then.
I resigned,’ he explained. ‘Could have stayed on until retirement age at fifty-five but didn’t want to. My mother died leaving me her house and some money and Helen and I thought we’d give this business a go. Always wanted to. Sorry I’m rambling, but I am thinking.’ He stared down at the photograph. ‘1994? I thought, at Jack’s funeral you know, how many of us from the old watch were gone. Lucky Brian’s still alive…for now.’ He turned back to face me. ‘No, I can’t recall any sort of fire that might have contained chemicals and especially on board a ship. That would have stuck in my mind. ’
Disappointment washed over me. I felt as though Sam was my last hope and now I saw it slip through my fingers like grains of sand. ‘It was the year Tony Blair became leader of the Labour Party so Sandy Ditton tells me,’ I said rather cynically and bitterly.
‘Was it now. Not that interested in politics but Sandy always was. More interested in that than being a fire fighter. Stood for Parliament once.
1994. Tony Blair. Hang on.’ The gleam in his eyes made my heart leap. His telephone rang and I had to curb my impatience.
I crossed to the photographs as Frensham handled an enquiry about some bed linen. They were much like Jack’s, taken on exercises, at charity functions and visits to schools. There was a watch photograph with the men posed in front of an appliance. Why had one of Jack’s photographs been missing? Could it have provided a clue to my investigations? Had there been anything in that empty frame in the first place?
‘Sorry about that,’ Frensham said as he finished his call. ‘Now where were we? Yes, there
was
a fire on board a ship, of course. But the ship wasn’t at sea; it was tied up in the port. That’s what threw me until you said that about Tony Blair.’
I didn’t have a clue how that could have made a difference and I didn’t much care as long as Sam Frensham could help me. Was I at last about to get a break? I resumed my seat and sat forward eagerly.
‘I was pump man,’ Frensham continued, evidently with relief. ‘If it is
that
fire then there
were
two pumps. I was on the second one with Jack and Tony. They went in wearing breathing apparatus but the first pump had almost extinguished it.’
I leaned across the desk. ‘Can you recall what was on fire?’
Frensham screwed up his face in concentration but finally shook his head. ‘No, sorry. I didn’t go on board. Thank goodness,’ he added with feeling. ‘Neither Jack nor the others ever said anything about it. It was a simple fire quickly extinguished. I do remember though that the ship wasn’t loaded. You think it might have been that?’
‘I don’t suppose you remember the name of the ship or the date?’ I asked without any real hope, wondering if he would confirm it was 4th July.
Frensham shook his head. ‘No. The only reason I do remember it is because you triggered my memory, Tony Blair, politics. I saw that MP
at the Port. William Bransbury, MP for Portsmouth East. The one who was Tory and went over to New Labour. You see that was my constituency then and I voted for him and not Ditton.’ He grinned.
‘What was Bransbury doing there?’ Steve’s words came back to me. Was someone protecting him?
‘I don’t know.’
‘It was daytime then?’
‘Yes, must have been.’
‘Hot or cold? Summer or winter?’
Sam thought for a while. ‘Summer.’
So it could have been on the 4th July.
Sam said, ‘I’m really sorry I can’t be of more help.’
‘You’ve already been a great help. Look, if you do remember anything more please let me know, won’t you?’
Frensham waved away my gratitude. ‘If I can help Jack, or any of the others, you only have to ask. You will tell me how you get on, won’t you?
Come and stay for a couple of nights on the house, bring your wife.’
‘That’s really very kind of you,’ I said shaking his hand, thinking I’d rather bring Jody. My last image of her flashed through my mind. She stirred more than desire in me but this time that longing was tainted with unease. There was something about our last exchange in the dockyard that troubled me. I couldn’t say what though.
As soon as I reached home I looked Bransbury up on the Internet. He was born in 1958, the same year as Simon, educated at the local grammar school and then took a degree in Science at Oxford. Would Simon know him? It was possible; they must have been at Oxford together though not necessarily on the same course. He was married with two children and lived just outside of Portsmouth. His interests were football, tennis and surprise, surprise, the environment! There was no information on him holding any surgeries but I could e-mail him through the House of Commons website. I decided to telephone first and ask for his office.
On the third attempt I got through to his secretary. I asked if he could check Mr Bransbury’s movements in 1994, which involved a visit to the Portsmouth ferry port. I got a frosty reception and was told to put my request in writing with an explanation of why I needed such information. I e-mailed him, wondering if I would ever receive a reply.
There had to be some kind of record of MPs’
engagements but though I searched the Internet I couldn’t find one. I found snippets of his visits since becoming a minister in 2005 with details of speeches and some photographs but nothing for when he had been an MP in 1994. Then I recalled what Ditton had told me. Bransbury had been a Conservative MP in 1994. I found articles about him crossing the floor in 1997.
The local conservative party might be able to help me with that visit to the port in 1994 if I needed it. It could be pure coincidence. There was someone else I could ask first though.
I telephoned Nigel Steep, hoping he would still be in his office. It was gone six. He was.
‘I need a couple of favours,’ I said. ‘Can you find out for me which shipping lines used the port in the summer of 1994?’
‘Of course, and the other favour?’
‘William Bransbury, the Government minister, visited the port in July 1994. Can you find out when he was there and what he was doing?’
‘That might be harder to answer. I’ll get back to you tomorrow.’
I spent some time staring at Jack’s postcard and the message taken from the Gideons New Testament and Psalms trying to see if I could squeeze anything further from it.
His mouth is full of …deceit and fraud, he murder
the innocent.
That implied that Jack had discovered the identity of the person who had placed something dangerous on that boat. Could he be referring to Bransbury?
I re-read the postcard:
Look after ‘Rosie’ for me, Adam. You’re an accomplished
artist and a good friend. Happy Sailing!
Best Jack
4 July 1994
I couldn’t get Bransbury’s name from the letters on the postcard. I pinned it back on the board above my computer and desk and stepped back inside the house from my studio. As soon as I did I knew something was wrong. I strained my ears but could hear only the gentle whirr of the central heating boiler. Despite the silence I knew someone was inside the house. My mind rapidly replayed my conversation with Steve. He’d been sent to warn me off. I had ignored the warning.
Had our conversation been bugged? Steve hadn’t succeeded so now I had to be told in stronger terms. Men had died because of this secret. Now it was my turn.
A shiver ran down my spine. My chest tightened. I struggled to get my breath. My hands began to tremble.
Run away, said the coward’s voice inside me. I wouldn’t. I crept forwards through the kitchen into the hall. Empty. Something creaked behind me. Someone was there. I made to turn round when something struck me on the side of the head.
It was pitch dark when I regained consciousness.
Boudicca was meowing like mad and pushing up against my shoulder. I tried to move but a sharp pain shot through my head. I must have drifted off again. The next time I awoke my head was still hurting but not quite so fiercely. Slowly, testing the pain threshold with each movement, I propped myself up. As I grew acclimatised to the pain I began to be aware of my surroundings.
I was in the hall.
The phone rang. I let it. Whoever had attacked me had let me live, why? I could so easily have been finished off and my death made to look like an accident, a house fire perhaps, or a fall down the stairs?
I shuddered and hauled myself up. Wincing and clutching my head I dragged myself into the kitchen, almost blindly, wondering if I would ever get full vision back. When I removed my hand there was blood on it. I rinsed it under the tap and then poured myself a glass of water and drank it thirstily. I felt sick and dizzy and knew that I really ought to go to hospital but I didn’t want to, besides I didn’t have the energy and I couldn’t ride the bike, not in this condition.
Staggering back to the lounge I sprawled myself on the sofa where again I drifted into unconsciousness. I woke once and managed to reach the downstairs cloakroom before being violently sick. Then hauling myself back to the lounge I threw myself once more on to the sofa.
If they came for me now I’d be an easy target.
The pain in my head was so intense that I couldn’t give a damn if they did.
When I woke some time later there was a chink of light coming through the bay window. I raised myself up on an elbow; the pain wasn’t nearly so severe and I could see. There was no double vision. My mouth felt like someone had stuffed it full of sandpaper and my hand rasped over my unshaven chin. But I was alive and in one piece and clearly it was morning.
I clawed my way up the stairs and shaved carefully, staring at my haggard face in the mirror hardly recognising the man who stared back at me. Then I stood under the shower until I felt almost human again.
‘Who were they, Boudicca?’
She meowed at me as if to say how the hell should I know, tucked her tail around her body and laid her head down on the soft duvet of the bed.
I coped with breakfast, and slowly and miraculously my brain began to function. Yet, no matter how well I exercised it, it could not come up with a reason for why I had been allowed to live. Maybe it had been a sheer fluke.
Maybe I had a thicker skull than the attacker had anticipated.
I crossed to the studio. Before I reached it I could see that the door was open. Cautiously I moved forward and pushed my fingertips against it, my heart knocking against my ribs and steeling myself for another attack or sight of the intruder.
Slowly the door swung open and I stepped inside. But there was no intruder, only the chaos of my wrecked studio. I picked my way through the debris to my desk and stared up at my notice board. Jack’s photograph, the postcard and the message from the Gideons New Testament and Psalms had gone. Someone was wiping the trail clean. Next time it would be me.
Despite my pounding head I made my way to Rosie’s. I couldn’t see anyone following me but that didn’t mean to say they weren’t. If Steve was right and it was MI5 or Special Branch then I guessed I wouldn’t spot them, just as I hadn’t heard or seen anyone enter the house.
They’d be too well trained for that. I wasn’t sure how safe it was to stay in the house. Would they try again when they saw I was alive and still determined to get to the truth? I guessed so.
Rosie looked so bereft when she answered the door to me that it filled me with an even greater resolve to find the bastards who had killed Jack and who were having a pretty good go at finishing me off. I gave her a hug and felt myself connect with Jack.
‘Sally’s here,’ Rosie said.
At first I thought she meant her daughter but my sluggish brain finally recalled that her daughter was called Sarah, not Sally. I entered the lounge to find Jack’s colleague from Red Watch perched on one of the chairs. I was pleased to see her. If Rosie couldn’t help me perhaps Sally could.
I said to Rosie, ‘I came to ask if you have Ian’s telephone number and address.’
‘No, I don’t, sorry.’
‘I’ve got his number,’ Sally volunteered, as I hoped she would. I smiled my thanks. As I copied it from her mobile onto mine she said, ‘Why do you want it?’
‘I want to talk to him about Jack.’
She thought for a moment then shrugged.
‘Perhaps it will help him.’
‘Do you know where he lives?’
‘St James’s Road, Locks Heath but don’t ask me the number. I only know the house. It’s a colour-washed bungalow in yellow. Poor Ian. He feels so responsible.’ Sally flashed Rosie a look.