The Suicide Exhibition: The Never War (Never War 1) (23 page)

Guy was smiling. ‘Air reconnaissance. They send planes over, sometimes in amongst the bombers but often on their own to photograph the landscape. They’re looking for RADAR installations, airfields, checking what damage they’ve done.’ He glanced at the envelope, then at Sarah. ‘That’s it, isn’t it?’

In reply, she tipped out the contents of the envelope. Photographs spilled across the table.

‘The ATA regularly fly over the area on ferry flights, delivering planes. I asked one of the men if he could take some pictures. He was happy to oblige.’

‘I bet,’ Guy murmured, leafing through the pictures.

Sarah coloured slightly. ‘It’s not very sophisticated. I think he just leaned out of the cockpit with a camera.’

‘These are very good,’ Miss Manners said, showing real interest for the first time. ‘And actually, that’s pretty much how we take reconnaissance photographs of the continent. It’s a rather ramshackle operation in that respect. The secret is in interpreting the results.’

‘They’re just pictures,’ Green said. ‘Should be easy enough.’

‘Oh there’s an art to it,’ Miss Manners told him. ‘Mainly to do with scale. Do we know from what height these were taken? Or what lens was on the camera? No? Then we have to work out the scale some other way.’

‘There’s a church on this one,’ Davenport said as they spread out the photographs. There were about thirty of them. ‘Bit of a jigsaw, isn’t it?’

‘If we know which church it is, that will help,’ Miss Manners said. ‘We need something, some landmark, to give us a size. If you look at the church tower, for example, from this angle there’s no way of knowing how high it is. An expert would look at the angle of the shadow, take into account the time of day and position of the sun, that sort of thing. We
need to try to relate these images to the map and see how they fit together.’

‘Here’s Shingle Bay,’ Sarah said, pulling out one of the photographs. ‘You said it was like a jigsaw, Leo – well, let’s see if we can piece together the area.’

Miss Manners took charge of organising the photographs. Although some photographs showed overlapping views of the same area, the task was complicated by the fact that there were also gaps. But with constant reference back to the maps, eventually they had a patchwork photographic picture of the area.

‘Now for the hard part,’ Guy said. ‘Spotting what the Germans might have spotted. They probably have similar photographs, so what did they see?’

‘If anything,’ Green said.

‘You still think we’re wasting our time?’ Guy asked. ‘Still think there’s no reason for them coming to Shingle Bay?’

‘Oh there was a reason all right, and I’d love to know what it is.’ Green gestured at the photographs spread across the table. ‘But I’m not convinced that we’ll ever find out what it was. I’ll be more than happy if you can prove me wrong, sir.’

‘You need to reduce the size of the problem,’ Brinkman told them the next day.

Guy was frustrated, wondering if Green was right and they were wasting their time. Davenport had a stack of books and papers he was reading through, occasionally wandering round the table and peering at the photographs. Miss Manners and Green had returned to the main office, leaving Sarah to mark up the map with notes of anything visible in the photographs.

They had made a lot of notes, but little progress.

Brinkman tapped the photograph of Shingle Bay. ‘This is the key, fairly obviously. Start from here. You’ve looked for possible targets for the raid, and you’ve found reasons why a raid on potential targets wouldn’t start from here. So turn it round again.’

‘How do you mean?’ Pentecross asked.

‘Don’t look for a target at all. Instead, look for a location. Don’t worry about what’s there on the map or the photographs.’

‘Because it might not be visible?’ Sarah said.

‘Or it might have gone,’ Brinkman told them. ‘You’re looking at a landscape over a year after the raid took place.’

Davenport frowned, putting down his book and joining them at the table. ‘But if they were after, I don’t know, a person – someone driving along this road near the headland – then there’s no way we could find out about it now.’

‘True. But a person is unlikely as they’d have to know precisely that person’s movements in advance.’

‘But you’re saying we can look for things we can’t actually see,’ Pentecross said. ‘Or something like that.’

‘Something like that. Work out where they were heading. Then worry about what was there, what they were after.’ Brinkman straightened up. ‘Just a suggestion. Give it another day, but I don’t think it warrants more than that.’

They ringed the areas on the map that seemed prime target locations. From that they moved back to the photographs. Miss Manners sent for the troop and supply movement orders for the area for the week either side of the incident, warning that there would be a lot of information and that it wouldn’t give them the complete picture.

‘There’s a wooded area,’ Sarah said, checking one of the circled areas against the corresponding photo. ‘Maybe there’s something hidden by the trees.’

Davenport looked over her shoulder. ‘What’s that in the middle of the trees? A clearing?’

‘Just raised ground, I think. Small hill.’

He grunted and moved round Sarah to peer closer at the image.

‘Important?’ Guy asked.

‘Looks familiar, that’s all. The shape, I mean… It reminds me of something.’ He peered at the map. ‘Anything on the map?’

Guy checked. ‘Something’s marked. It just says “Tumulus”. What’s that mean?’

Sarah shook her head. ‘Haven’t a clue.’

But Davenport was staring at them, his mouth open in surprise. ‘Tumulus? Are you sure?’

‘You know what it means?’

‘It means we’ve found what they were after.’ He stared back at the map. ‘Of course. That’s why I recognise the shape of the mound. Looks a bit different from above, of course, but even so…’

Guy looked at Sarah, but she shrugged.

‘A tumulus,’ Davenport said at last, ‘is an ancient burial mound. Like the one Streicher and his men were excavating in France. Like the one where they found the other Ubermensch. And here’s a very similar looking mound right next to Shingle Bay. I’ll bet you Threadneedle Street to an orange
that
is what they came for.’

There were some things he remembered from before the great darkness, the long sleeping in the tomb. Pain was one of them – what it felt like, and how to deliver it.

But it took time with books on anatomy to understand how pain worked, and a long session with a doctor he waited for outside a hospital to learn how best to inflict it. Pain as a tool was unparalleled. Pain could unlock information from any of the people he sought out. Pain was his friend.

‘Have you told me everything?’ he would ask. And pain helped him to know when they had. When they were of no further use to him.

He didn’t think of it as home – he had no home. But he returned through habit and convenience to Dorothy Keeling in her shattered house near Blackfriars. He sat and listened as she related more of her life history, more of what her friends had told her over the years. He learned something else from her too – that information given willingly was less concise but often more useful, more insightful, more reliable than information taken under duress.

‘I lost my brother Tom in the Great War,’ she said as she fumbled to find the table for his cup of tea. ‘Did I tell you that?’

‘You did.’

She shuffled back towards the doorway, relating for the third time exactly how she thought Tom had died. The Ubermensch stood up, walking slowly after her, ignoring the steaming tea.

‘Even Mrs Willis has moved out now, did I say?’ She paused in the doorway and turned back, shaking her head. Her blurred vision meant she could barely make out the form of the man standing in front of her. ‘You’re not drinking your tea. I told you, if you leave it too long it’ll go cold and won’t be nice. I’m sorry there’s no sugar. Have I told you there’s no sugar?’

The man who had lived in her house, eaten her meagre meals, and drunk her weak tea for several months now put his hands gently on her shoulders. ‘You
have
told me. You have told me everything.’

He sat her down in the chair which he no longer needed. He wouldn’t be coming back. Beside her, the tea got slowly cold.

The British Museum was an obvious place to return to. Some people had the potential to provide more information through their actions than their words. The old woman at the museum was one of these. He watched her leave the building, and followed her through the streets. She had lived a long time – perhaps there was value in asking her to relate her knowledge and experiences.

She met another woman, outside a building in St James. Connections were useful, and he followed the other woman now. He could always find the old woman at the museum if and when he needed to.

The other woman was younger, with fair hair and slightly angular features. At the end of the street, she turned and almost collided with a man. He caught her arm. He knew her, but she seemed surprised to see him.

‘Andrew?’

‘Did I startle you?’

Sarah had been half-expecting a call from Whitman. But she had certainly not expected to find him in St James’s Square. ‘You following me?’

‘I was looking for you. It’s been a while.’

She looked round, checking that no one had followed her from the office. ‘We can’t be seen together. People might…’

‘Might get the right idea?’

She shook her head. ‘That’s over. You know that’s over.’

‘That a fact?’

In truth it had never really started. A few fumbled moments and stolen kisses in his office at the embassy. But that was never what she wanted. ‘I only saw you because I wanted to do something.’

‘Then let’s do something.’

‘For the war.’

He grinned. ‘Whatever reason you want.’

‘Be serious.’

‘OK, OK.’ The grin subsided into a more passive smugness. ‘The information you provided, about transport, logistics, all that, it was really useful.’

‘Was it?’ she snapped. ‘Then why hasn’t America joined the war?’

‘You got lend-lease, what more do you want?’

‘What do
you
want?’ Sarah demanded. ‘I’m not at Air Transport Auxiliary any more, so I don’t have access to the information I used to.’

‘That a fact?’ Whitman said, though he obviously knew this. ‘So what do you instead?’

‘It’s just… office work.’

‘I’m sure you have access to a load of useful stuff in this office work.’

‘No,’ she insisted. ‘I don’t.’

‘Even so, it’d be a shame if your new colleagues thought they couldn’t trust you.’

Sarah felt suddenly cold. ‘Are you threatening me, Andrew?’

‘Hell no,’ he said. But his unsympathetic smile suggested otherwise. ‘Just don’t be a stranger, OK? You hear anything you think would interest Uncle Sam, you look me up.’ He reached out and cradled her cheek for a moment in his hand. ‘Good girl.’

Sarah stepped away. She didn’t reply, but turned and walked back towards the office.

Whitman watched her go, the smile still etched on his face. If he had been concentrating less on how much of Sarah Diamond’s legs were visible below her skirt and more on his surroundings, he might have seen the tall, gaunt, hollow-eyed figure that watched him from the shelter of a nearby doorway. That followed him as Whitman turned and headed off towards the American embassy.

ALTHOUGH SARAH WAS
not one to worry about anything for long, the encounter with Whitman unsettled her. Usually by the time she got home, made herself some dinner and perhaps read for an hour, Sarah was exhausted. Her social life, such as it was, had dwindled to the occasional drink at the end of the day with Guy Pentecross or Leo Davenport when he was around. Occasionally Miss Manners joined them, but she said little and drank less.

After her run-in with Whitman, Sarah went back to Station Z, hoping Guy would ask her to the pub. But he was deep in conversation with Davenport, waiting for Brinkman to be free so they could talk about the burial mound in Suffolk. She hung around for a few more minutes, then left.

Sleep came slowly. In her mind she went over the short conversation with Whitman again and again. ‘Is that a fact?’ he said inside her head, in that annoying drawl she had once found faintly attractive. Would he really tell Brinkman – or worse, Guy – that she was a spy?

It was a blunt word. But it was true. She’d passed on sensitive information that she had been entrusted with despite her background, despite being only half British. Were the other non-British nationals caught up in this war as ambivalent as she was?

That was all nonsense, she thought as she finally drifted off
to sleep. She’d acted out of the best of motives – hoping the more they knew, the more likely the Americans were to come to the Allies’ help. Though the petrol coupons he’d given her were useful. She hadn’t exactly objected to being paid for the information, had she…

She woke early, still exhausted but with an idea of what best to do. She thought she would be in the office before anyone else, but she could hear the clacking of Miss Manners’ typewriter before she reached the top of the first flight of stairs.

‘You’re in early,’ Sarah said, trying to sound bright. Her head was pounding, like she had a hangover though she’d not had a drink for days.

Miss Manners paused to give her a sympathetic look. Perhaps she was always in by seven in the morning.

‘What time will the colonel be in?’ Sarah asked quickly, before the typing resumed.

‘He’s in already.’ There was the hint of a smile at Sarah’s expression. ‘There’s a budget review coming up in a few days. Colonel Brinkman wants to be sure we can make the best possible case for… Well, for continued funding.’

‘You mean, we might not?’

‘It’s possible. MI5 and SOE would both like to see us closed down.’

That was a worrying thought. ‘But surely, what we do…’

‘As far as they’re concerned we don’t do anything. Except take resources they’d rather deploy elsewhere. We have precious little to show for our efforts after all.’