A Thousand Suns (7 page)

‘Well, now, that looks like, what? A medal or something? ’

Chris nodded. ‘It’s a medal all right . . . but it ain’t a Purple Heart.’

Mark looked at it again. ‘It looks a bit like - ’

‘An Iron Cross?’

He looked up at Chris. ‘Yes.’

‘Look at the pilot’s tunic, the collar.’

The tone of the tunic appeared to be dark, and amidst the hard-to-read chaotic pattern of high-contrast blacks and whites he could just discern the collar and on it two barely distinguishable oak leaves.

‘You telling me, you think the pilot was a Kraut, Chris? A Luftwaffe pilot?’

A waitress arrived with their grilled steaks and waited irritably for them to tidy away the photographs and make space on the small wooden table between them. Chris ordered a couple more beers before she departed.

‘Yeah. So what do you think?’ Chris asked eventually.

Mark took his steak knife, cut a slice of grilled rump and tucked it into his mouth. His jaw worked on the piece of meat for over a minute before he replied. ‘I’ll tell you what I think. I think you may well have one helluva story waiting for you down there.’

‘Yeah. There’s something there, but I don’t want to get too excited yet. There could be a hundred and one reasons why that corpse is wearing what he’s wearing, and any one of them could lead to a dull story . . . and we won’t know unless -’

Mark could guess where he was going with that. ‘Unless we go take another look.’

Chris nodded. ‘I might go and see if our friend Will’s around after we’ve finished dinner.’

‘We’re not diving tonight if that’s what you’re thinking. ’

‘Why not?’

‘Because we’ve both eaten dinner, consumed alcohol and I’ve still got to finish fixing the radio. It can wait until tomorrow.’

Chris threw his hands up in a gesture of resignation. ‘Okay, okay . . . you win. Tomorrow night, then, that is if I can get that old bugger Will to agree to take us out again.’

Chapter 6

File n-27

It had been asleep for sixty years, file number n-27, a dusty file, containing reams of yellowing paper in a faded and dog-eared cardboard cover. Once upon a time n-27 had occupied dozens of cardboard covers, which in turn had filled several filing cabinets. But over the years, ‘liabilities’ had died off and the unnecessary documentation had been stripped away - old records to do with these long dead liabilities . . . details of movements, copies of bills and invoices, bank statements, phone bills, discreet liaisons, sexual peccadillos, all of these had been peeled out of the folder and destroyed, no longer useful or relevant. What was left was a barebones file, the skeletal remains. One last, persistent name at the bottom of a list of approximately two dozen on the inside of the front cover had survived the merciless sweep of a black marker pen.

One of them remained alive.

File n-27 had spent its entire life residing in a windowless office off the duty corridor on mezzanine floor 3, beneath an anonymous government building in Washington. More than half a century ago, all of the rooms on this floor had been occupied by staff belonging to this department, which had been hastily assembled and granted a black budget in the final days of the Second World War.

The anonymous men who had once worked here had only ever referred to this place as ‘the Department’. A long, long time ago it had been busy for several frenetic months, then, over the ensuing five years, it had gradually been pared down to a maintenance staff responsible only for collating data from the routine low-key surveillance operations carried out.

In the early years of the department’s life, at any one time, roughly half of the names on that list were being watched discreetly, from a distance. However, over the decades, there were fewer names as Mother Nature had whittled their number down, and in turn the head count on the department’s payroll had slowly dwindled too as the data to collate correspondingly decreased.

To be fair, from time to time, the department’s personnel had temporarily grown. There had been other very special files over the years that had been entrusted to the department to look after. These files had come to join n-27, like reluctant house guests. In particular, file 759-j had arrived in ’63, and had stayed in its own filing cabinet for over thirty years. Its arrival had once more restored, if only for a little over a decade, some semblance of life to the duty corridor. A second water-cooler had even been installed against one lime-green wall, and a poster of Marilyn Monroe had mysteriously appeared one Monday morning. But the years passed, Marilyn’s print faded, the corners and edges of the poster scuffed and ripped. In the mid-eighties, file 759-j was eventually closed and its paper contents incinerated. The second water-cooler was removed as staff became reassigned and n-27 once more slumbered fitfully alone. And as the second millennium came to an end, the department became all but a shell. A single office, a single phone line, a trickle-feed black budget no longer topped-up but allowed to slowly spend itself out and one solitary clerical officer, counting off the last months until his retirement . . . and just one sleeping file.

That all changed with a small clipping from a local newspaper, arriving by internal post in a plain brown envelope.

The clerical officer read it quickly and understood its importance instantly; his traditional mid-morning cheese and bacon bagel was forgotten for now.

The
Medusa
has been found
.

The clerical officer knew what to do.

There was a protocol to follow; a protocol originally written with a fountain pen sixty years ago, and again on a typewriter ten years later, and when the ink on that had finally faded, rattled off on a dot matrix printer . . . and that too was fading now.

The clerical officer read through it and finally located in faint grey dots the name he was after.

He dialled the number, hoping that it was still current. If not, he wasn’t sure whom he would have to call next . . . there was no one else’s number to dial.

He tapped in the number, surprised at how edgy he was. After so long, file n-27 had come back to life.

Chapter 7

McGuire

It had been raining all day.

Chris finally decided to venture out of the coffee shop and head back to the motel as the dull grey of the afternoon was darkening with the approaching evening. Normally he would have grumbled and cursed the mean-spirited weather, as the fresh wind pulled at his clothes and the rain stung his cheeks, but right now his mind was on that aborted phone call to the museum and the very odd way it had ended.

The shortcut from the coffee shop led him down from the coast road, through dunes of sand peaked with wild grass, to a small, deserted cove. Across the cove he could see the bright quayside lights of Port Lawrence.

There were numerous boats at rest on the shingle, many of them little more than dinghies or just the stripped-down remains of larger vessels. All of them eroded by the elements, many worn away to exposed ribcages of ageing timber. Littering the ground between these dead and dying hulls like scattered body parts were ropes, tackle, anchors, cleats . . . the loose detritus of several dozen boats. A man could make a fortune selling this sort of junk in the right place to the right kind of people. A trendy little boutique in Greenwich Village, catering for dim-witted rich people seeking a slice of ‘traditional’ to slot inappropriately into their modern homes.

The shower was easing now, nothing more than a few wilful spots.

It was then that he heard a cough behind him. Not an honest, out-loud bark, but a short, brittle grunt that sounded smothered.

He spun round. Amongst the dimly lit silhouettes of dead hulls around him, he could make out nothing. He debated whether to call out a challenge. But he knew his own voice would unsettle him even more. He held his breath, and listened intently for any noise other than the tide on the pebbles and the occasional clatter of wind-borne debris. A few seconds passed, and Chris was prepared to believe it was his over-active imagination playing the devil when he heard the clatter of pebbles and the crunch of a clumsily placed foot.

‘Okay, who the fuck is that?’ he growled in a voice he hoped sounded menacing.

He heard another footfall, and then, his eyes growing keener, he picked out an indistinct form moving slowly between two of the beached vessels.

‘You’re the news man, aren’t you?’ said a voice coming from the dark shape; an old man.

News man?
Chris found himself grinning in the dark. The natives were gossiping.

‘Yeah, I’m the news man.’

Chris heard the crunch of feet drawing closer, and the dark form grew until he could make out a lined and weathered face framed by the hood of an old canvas raincoat.

‘My name’s McGuire,’ he said. Chris could see by the fading light of the overcast afternoon that he was holding out a hand.

He grabbed it awkwardly. McGuire’s grip was surprisingly strong.

‘You’re here about that plane out there, aren’t you?’

Chris wondered whether to play it dumb, but then Port Lawrence was a small town. Undoubtedly old Will must have been spreading the news about his two passengers, like some old dear in a salon.

‘Yeah, you got me.’

‘I can tell you a story or two about that,’ said McGuire as he pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and offered one to Chris.

‘No thanks. I’m five months quit.’

The old man laughed, a wheezy cackle that degenerated into a rattling cough. It sounded like something loose and leathery rattling in a cage. ‘Five months quit, eh?’ he said finally. ‘Not bad, but you know, you’re never “quit”, you’re just resting between smokes.’

Resting between smokes just about summed it up perfectly. Chris was tempted, but resisted the urge to reach out for one.

‘Don’t mind if I poison myself, then?’

‘No. Poison away.’

McGuire sheltered his cigarette and lighter from the wind and lit up. From the flickering glow of the flame Chris could see his face. It was long and narrow and weathered. He suspected the old man looked ten years older than he was.

The wind gusted and Chris shivered.

‘So? You going to tell me what it is you know about that plane, then?’ asked Chris.

McGuire took another long pull on his cigarette. ‘We found the pilot of that plane out there, on the beach just along the way from here. Found him on the sand rolling in the waves . . . pretty much in the last week of the war that was, if I recall correctly.’

‘How do you know it was the pilot of that plane?’

‘Well, it was Sean who got a good close look. Sean said he was an airman, one of ours. I went off to town and found Sean’s dad and told him we’d found the body of one of our boys down on the beach. Then, within only a few hours, they arrived.’

‘Who?’

‘Goddamned near everyone by the look of it. Army first, then later on some navy ships and still more army. They closed off the beach and spent several days out there looking for the plane that poor lad had come from. They never found it, though. Those navy ships trawled this way and that way out to sea for near on a week. Then overnight, in fact, the night before VE day was announced, they just disappeared. Ships, army, barbed wire, everything . . . just vanished into the night.’

‘And you’re certain they were looking for the plane?’

‘Yessir, that’s what it looked like. They sure as hell wanted to find that plane out there. And I figure I know why.’

Chris nodded. ‘Go on.’

McGuire smiled. ‘You planning on putting this in a book or on the TV or something? Cos if you are, I guess I’ll be due something, right?’

‘Sure, if I quote you, you’ll get something. That’s how it works,’ replied Chris with a reassuring smile.

McGuire seemed satisfied with that. ‘I’ll tell you, I think there was someone real important aboard the plane that pilot was flying; maybe a general, a government man or something. I mean, there was a lot of top brass and big hats heading over the sea at the end of the war, you know? All heading over there to see what beaten Nazis looked like, and slice up that country with the Ruskies.’

‘And the British,’ muttered Chris quietly.

‘Oh, yeah, you Limes were in it at the end too, weren’t you?’

‘I’m sure we had something to do with it.’

McGuire nodded. ‘Maybe you did. Anyway, so I think it was top brass who crashed out there, and they were looking for his body. And he must have been real important, because I never heard nothing on the radio or read anything in the papers about it. I reckon it was someone
too
important, if you know what I mean? Too important to tell everyone he’d been lost in a plane crash.’

‘And you think I might find out who it was out there on that wreck?’

McGuire cast a long glance out at the grey sea and raised his hand to point. ‘They were right out there, where that trawler snagged her nets. Just out there, a few miles out. I’ll bet the barn, the wreck out there is the one they were lookin’ for.’

Chris stood silently for a moment, following the old man’s gaze. Then he turned back to McGuire. ‘This body . . . you’re sure it was one of yours? An American airman?’

‘Hell, yeah. Didn’t look like a Limey to me. Sean got a better look, though.’ ‘Sean?’

‘My friend, he was a little older than me, he got a closer look; turned the body over an’ all. He was looking for a name on the body.’

‘Could I speak to him?’

McGuire shook his head. ‘Doesn’t live here any more. Shit, I don’t know if he’s still alive any more. He moved away with his dad not long after the war. Never seen him since.’

‘What was his surname?’

‘Grady, Sean Grady. His dad was . . . Tom Grady, I think,’ McGuire smiled, ‘it’s been a long time. The old memory ain’t what it used to be.’

‘Do you think Sean found out the pilot’s name?’

McGuire shrugged. ‘Don’t know, didn’t get a chance to speak with him again. He took all the damned credit for finding the body when the army came. I don’t think he bothered to mention once that I’d found it too. The army and government men made a big fuss of him while they were down there in the cove. Then, not long after, Sean and his dad moved away.’

McGuire spat a plug of phlegm on to the beach. ‘Sean and his dad got some kind of reward. That’s what happened. Or maybe you might want to call it go-keep-it-to-yourselves money . . . either way, all of a sudden, Tom Grady didn’t need to carry on scratching a living round here any more. No, sir.’

Chris cursed under his breath. If he had a name, it would go a long way towards making some sense of this story.

‘You didn’t speak to this friend of yours? Not ever again?’

‘No. I was too angry with him at the time. I know the bastard never mentioned me. I never got any goddamned money. To be honest, I never gave him, nor the body, nor all those ships and people a second thought until the other week when that trawler found the plane wreck. Then I figured that was the plane those ships had been looking for all that time ago.’

‘Right.’

‘You find out who it was on that plane out there, and you got yourself a story. That’s what I reckon.’

Chris nodded. Maybe this old boy was right. Maybe there was a body out there in that plane that was going to make sense of what he knew so far.

‘And you get some money for this,’ McGuire continued, ‘then you come looking for me, ’cause you’ll owe me some. I ain’t missing out on this story two times round. You understand?’

Chris nodded. ‘Sure. Presuming there is some money to be had, where would I find you?’

‘The Fisherman’s Club in town. Just ask for Danny McGuire.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll do that,’ said Chris.

The last of the pale afternoon light was rapidly fading, and the old man was little more than a dark silhouette. Chris saw the old man raise his arm again. McGuire was pointing up the beach towards a small cove.

‘You know, I went back to the cove some weeks later, after all the soldiers and ships had gone. I went back to where me and Sean found the body, and I made a cross out of driftwood, you know, out of respect an’ all for the dead pilot. I guess that cross would be still there if you looked for it, back in the dunes.’

Chris nodded.
I might do that . . . might make a good photo
.

‘Okay, I’ll have a look for it.’

McGuire nodded. ‘I’m getting cold.’ He studied Chris intently for a moment. ‘Don’t go forgetting that money, now,’ he muttered, before turning away and disappearing amongst the dark forms of the beached hulls around them.

Chris shook his head. ‘Now this is just getting silly.’

But he knew this was something he might have to follow up. If this friend, Sean, had indeed been
bought off
somehow, then he surely had something interesting to say on the matter. That is, if he was still alive after all this time. Chris made a mental note of the name:
Sean Grady, son of Tom Grady
.

That was a lead he could think about following up later, after he’d had a chance to take another look around the wreck of
Medusa
.

But this next time, despite Mark’s inevitable over-zealous cautionary warnings, he wanted to go right down inside the bomber. He knew the answer was there. It had to be.