Deep Shelter (28 page)

Belsey took his new mobile out. The military liked to keep watch over their own. Online, he found a number for the Royal Military Police. He had a contact at the RMP—Steve Hillier. Their last meeting had involved a squaddie gone AWOL, found conversing with angels on the roof of a Vauxhall nightclub. Belsey helped talk him down and had never quite forgiven himself for it. He dialled the RMP headquarters at Southwick Park and got put through.

“Steve, can I call in that favour?”

“Of course.”

“2nd Signal Brigade, 81 Signal Squadron. Mean anything to you?”

“Not off the top of my head, Nick. Where are they based?”

“I don’t know. I’ve got an advert about a reunion in November. Class of 1983.”

“Right. Planning to go?”

“I need to know who these people are, if there’s any way of contacting them. I need to find out what they were doing at that time. 2nd Signal Brigade, 81 Signal Squadron, 1979 to 1983. I’ll send you a picture of the advert.”

“OK. I can get you a number for their base at least.”

Belsey wrote down Hillier’s mobile number and sent through a rough shot of the advert taken on the new phone. He flicked through the case notes again with the radio on; no news on Jemma. No mention of Kirsty.

Hillier called back ten minutes later on a different line.

“What is this?” he asked, quietly. Belsey could tell from his voice that something was wrong.

“You tell me.”

“Well, it’s going to be a strange kind of reunion.”

“Why’s that?”

“They’re all dead.”

Belsey took the magazine from the passenger seat.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean they’re no longer on this earth with us. Who placed the advert?”

“I don’t know.”

“Someone with a dark sense of humour,” Hillier said. “There are copies of thirty-seven death certificates here. They all died on the same day, ninth of November 1983.”

Belsey looked at the pub scene again. Then at the face that troubled him more than any other.

“What did they die of?”

“It was an air accident.”

“A crash?”

“A mid-air explosion.”

Easton stared out. Cautious. Quizzical. 9 November 1983. Belsey saw the calendar in the Control Bunker, crossed out to 11 November. Remembered Riggs observing the two-minute silence deep underground.
It just ended. Suddenly. No reasons given
. Exercise Able Archer.

“Nick,” Hillier said. “I don’t know what this is, but you haven’t spoken to me, OK?”

“OK.”

“The brigade is disbanded. There’s nothing else I’m going to be able to get.” He hung up.

Were you here? . . . Reunion planned
.

Belsey dialled the number at the bottom of the advert. His heart was beating fast. A machine clicked in. Someone awkward with technology cleared their throat.

“Hello,” the voice said, “you’re through to Duncan Powell. Leave a message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.”

BELSEY FELT HIMSELF ON THE VERGE OF SPEAKING. HE
had an overwhelming urge to try, to test the possibility that Powell might hear him, the call reaching whichever subterranean exchange could make the connection. Finally he said: “Andrea, if you’re there, please pick up.”

She didn’t. It recorded his waiting. A squad car passed and slowed. He heard it stop at the end of the street.

Time to move on. He cut through to the other side of the estate, under the Westway into Paddington, fast past Paddington Green police station, along the Harrow Road. After five minutes’ twisting through the back streets of Bayswater he felt safe enough to stop again. He walked into a newsagent’s, searched for
Military Heritage
among the magazines. It had
Collectors’ Monthly
,
History Now
. No
Military Heritage
. The woman behind the counter said she’d never stocked it, didn’t think many places would. She recommended contacting the magazine directly and requesting a subscription.

Belsey called the number listed in the magazine. A man answered.

“I’d like to speak to the subscriptions department,” Belsey said.

The man laughed.

“There’s only one department here. How may I help?”

“This is Detective Constable Nick Belsey. I’m trying to track down someone who may subscribe. His name’s Michael Easton.”

Belsey waited while he checked.

“Easton. Mr. M. Easton, yes. He ordered a back issue.”

“Just the one?”

“Yes. The February issue this year.”

“What’s the address you’ve got?”

“103a, The Beaux Arts Building, Holloway.”

Belsey scribbled it down.

“One more question,” he said. “There was an advert in that February issue—a reunion for a Signals regiment. Do you remember anything about it being placed?”

“I remember the guy.”

“Did he say why he wanted it in?”

“For a reunion. Why else would it be?”

BELSEY GOT TO THE
Beaux Arts Building in fifteen minutes. It was off Holloway Road, a grand Edwardian pile that had clearly served some municipal purpose before being converted into flats that sold for half a million. It was the size of a castle, with a gym lit behind basement windows and a concierge visible through the glass doors of the entrance hall.

Belsey waited for a man struggling with Waitrose bags to punch the entry code, followed him in, nodded to the concierge and found a lift. Empty off-white corridors circled the first floor. It struck him as a good place for someone returned from the dead.

Doors looked solid. 103a was identical to every other one. He stood before it wondering whether to ring. Then he saw it was open a crack. Belsey listened. He pushed the door open another inch and got a whiff of stale air. He walked inside.

Bare hallway, no bulb in the socket, no coats on the hook. He opened the door into a small living room. Thirty-two faces stared back at him. The open door made them flutter. Each occupied an A4 sheet attached to the wall by an inch of tape, floor to ceiling in six rows of five. Most belonged to men in military uniform. It was Easton’s old regiment, taken from the reunion advert itself; a gallery of the dead. There was Easton himself, close to the top. This had been his sole attempt at decoration. A mattress lay on the floor draped with a sleeping bag, books piled against the wall beside it:
On Thermonuclear War
,
Voices from Hiroshima and Nagasaki
,
Strategy in the Missile Age
. There were dictionaries of Russian, German, Czech and Hungarian. The carpet was cigarette-burnt. The small kitchen hadn’t been cleaned for several months. Belsey opened the fridge. It contained milk halfway to solid and a green loaf of bread.

He opened the door to the bathroom. The bath was filled with ash. Ash and scraps of paper, with burn marks up the side.

Tools filled the rest of the space: seven different screwdrivers in the sink, a length of rope and a grubby head torch on the floor. Propped against the bath was a yellow contraption that looked like a heavy-duty litter picker. It was labelled
BT Handylift
. Belsey experimented with it until the metal ends opened and he could see how the device might be used for lifting manhole covers.

He returned to the main room and looked at the faces. Blown up to A4 you saw the variety of expressions across the group—wry, amused, uncertain. Each hung alone. There was no letter box in the door to the flat itself. Belsey went downstairs. Beside the front entrance was a room of post boxes with some broken furniture stacked in one corner and a residents’ noticeboard beside electricity meters. It wasn’t hard to spot Easton’s post box; only one of them was overflowing. There were envelopes sticking out of the flap, several fallen to the floor beneath it. Belsey pulled one free and tore it open. The letter was on headed Ministry of Defence paper.

Dear Mr. Easton,

I am writing with regard to your recent enquiry for the following information under the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

You requested information about any experimental research connected to MOD property Site 3.

Unfortunately the relevant material is covered by Section 24 of the Freedom of Information Act and remains unavailable for public consultation.

Belsey opened another. Royal Mail Head Office this time:

Dear Michael Easton,

You requested material from the General Post Office Archive concerning Site 3 . . .

Again, it provoked a polite refusal citing the same Section 24. Westminster Council had written to him too:
The subject of this request was primarily the involvement of the council in preparations for nuclear war and any files concerning Site 3. Unfortunately, due to Section 24 . . .

Section 24, whatever it may be, seemed a pain in the arse and an abrupt end to a lot of otherwise courteous letters.

Belsey made a sweep of all the spilled envelopes, collected up everything he could find. He took a chair leg from the pile of broken furniture in the corner, wedged it into the slot of Easton’s post box and leaned all his weight on it. After a moment he could get a hand in.

He removed twenty-three envelopes. Six were final demands addressed to an elusive Mr. Bhatnagar. One was Easton’s bank statement from HSBC. Belsey tore it open. Current account, 1 May to 1 June. There were purchases at cafes, supermarkets, rent to a lettings agent. It all seemed corporeal enough. There was travel to Piltbury. This was good, he thought; this was a life coming into focus. There was a payment of £176 to a company called Ammo Direct. Less good. Belsey stuffed the statement into his pocket and checked the remaining envelopes. They were stamped with the crests of government departments and public bodies. Half of officialdom seemed to be in reluctant correspondence with Michael Easton:
Dear Mr. Easton, I am writing in respect of your recent enquiry . . . Dear Mr. Easton, Thank you for your request . . . Dear Michael Easton, Unfortunately the department was unable to release the relevant information . . .

BELSEY WALKED OUT OF THE APARTMENT BLOCK,
cramming envelopes into his pockets. He checked underneath the car again. He used the Samsung and called Rapid Solicitors on West End Lane. Rapid specialised in custody calls, prisoners’ rights, police misconduct. They’d twice represented individuals making claims against Belsey, but there were no hard feelings.

“It’s Nick, from Hampstead CID. Is Vikram there?”

“Speaking. How’s it going, Nick? You sound a little breathless.”

“I’m fine. Do you know about Freedom of Information requests?”

“Of course.”

“What’s Section 24?”

“How fine are you exactly?”

“Not at all.”

“Section 24 is the national security exemption.”

“Covering what?”

“Pretty much anything the government doesn’t want you to know.”

“There’s a list?”

Vikram laughed. “Maybe somewhere, sure. But the government has discretion. The way they see it, if they don’t want to let something out, then it’s a threat to national security.”

“If someone’s a time waster, a crank, sends FOI requests all over the place just for a laugh, would anyone pool that information?”

“I don’t reckon. No.”

“Who oversees them?”

“The FOIs? There’s an Information Commissioner’s Office, but it doesn’t exactly oversee anything. They go to whichever public body has the relevant files.”

“OK. Thanks.”

“Remember, Nick, don’t say anything and don’t sign anything.”

“Understood.”

He moved on and stopped the car behind an Argos, got out with the Umbro bag over his shoulder. He wanted it with him now. He’d turned into one of those people with nothing except the truth amassed in an old bag, clutched tight. Darkest pub on the street was the Coronet. It occupied an old cinema and they’d preserved the gloom. You almost expected ushers with torches. He walked through to the back and sat down.

Belsey turned to the bank statement first. It gave him a pattern of activity up until a fortnight ago. Only one payment in—from a company called Connoisseur Catering: £1384. Catering was a good line of work for staying under the radar. For keeping strange hours. It would have given Easton a cover that he could walk away from at a moment’s notice. Belsey looked the company up. Connoisseur ran a chain of fifteen restaurants across central London, and also provided corporate and conference catering. Easton received £1384 from them on 1 May. Belsey found a number for the caterer and called. A message told him all the operators were busy.

He tried to piece together the geography of the life from its transactions. Mostly Easton withdrew big sums and presumably paid in cash, leaving little in the way of paper trails. But his two weeks in Piltbury and its surrounding localities were easily visible: Bath and Swindon—for the nearest big shops—and train fares, Piltbury to London several times a week. In London itself, Holloway and Highgate made sense. There was one pattern that Belsey couldn’t understand, however. At least once a week, since mid-February, there were cash machine withdrawals in Kew, near the Botanic Gardens. Maybe Easton knew someone there, maybe family, maybe he had a thing for horticulture.

Belsey circled it.

Either way, Easton’s money was almost gone by June: £215 remaining in the account when the statement ended. That could explain why it seemed a good moment to conclude his analysis. Especially if he was paying triple-rates. Maybe why it seemed a good moment to throw caution to the wind. A plan was being put into place. There were a few final purchases: the £176 to Ammo Direct two weeks ago. The same day, £200 to a company called Combat Effects pushed Easton into his overdraft. Belsey searched for a website. It advertised smoke flares for the paintball and military recreation community. Sounded fun. Why was Easton stockpiling smoke flares?

He had a lot on Easton now, but what he wanted more than anything was a location for the last twenty-four hours. Belsey called the bank, gave the requisite authorisation code and got put through to the police liaison department.

“How can we help?” a woman asked.

“Hampstead CID here. We’ve got a possible case of ID theft and I wanted to know the most recent transactions on this account.” Belsey read out the account number.