The Convenience of Lies (18 page)

And
she began to weep for the woman she believed she was could be no more.

Twenty-Nine

A boy on a bike is rarely noticed. He is as unremarkable as a tree in a wood or a brick in a wall. Yet he sees much. The world and its ways are still a mystery to him. Each new sight and experience imprints itself on the blank page of his open mind – all the more if what he witnesses is so fearful he is too afraid or too confused to tell anyone else about it.

So
it was with Ronnie Stansfield, eleven next birthday and good at mending things like his Dad had been. His Mum sometimes worked late shifts at the gunpowder factory. Then their house felt empty and sad so Ronnie stayed out till all hours on those nights.

On
this calm autumn evening, he rode up the country lanes around Shaw Hill golf course. The rosaries of street lights were coming on in the valleys below and only the iron clunk of railway wagons being shunted in the underground chambers beyond the trees could be heard. This was where the munitions his Mum helped to assemble were prepared for dispatch.

Ronnie
sneaked his bike through a hedge and rode the rough ground towards Hardfield Wood. His den was here, the place where he was the hero of his own stories and even smoked a cigarette. He’d filched it from a packet left on the mantelpiece by Mr Towner, the neighbour who came for meals now his wife had cleared off.

Smoking
seemed manly to Ronnie but out in the open air, the real taste of tobacco made him giddy and sick. No more cigarettes went missing after that. Besides, Ronnie didn’t dare risk his friendship with Mr Towner for Mr Towner was a loco driver and Ronnie was a train spotter.

And
that night, Mr Towner was booked to drive a big Class 47 diesel on a job he’d said was very hush-hush.

‘What’s
hush-hush about it?’

‘Don’t
rightly know but it’s going from your Mum’s place and we’ve been told to keep our traps shut about it.’

Everyone
thereabouts knew the gunpowder factory made bombs and bullets for the government. This was dangerous work with a special law against talking about it. Ronnie’s Mum said anyone who did would be locked in prison and the keys thrown away.

‘So
is your train hush-hush because someone might blow it up?’

‘No
lad, that’ll only happen if I chuck my fag ends in the wagons.’

‘But
spies are real, aren’t they - like terrorists, like you see on the television?’

‘True
enough but this is just some special delivery, a special cargo.’

‘What’s
special about it?’

‘I
shan’t get to know that, will I? My job’s just to drive the train to the docks.’

‘So
is it a special cargo because it’s for a war?’

‘Your
Mum’s factory only makes things for war,’ Mr Towner said. ‘War is what puts bread on the tables round here.’

*

Hardfield Wood was criss-crossed with animal tracks and hunted by owls and sparrow hawks. The ground beyond sloped down to the gunpowder works’ perimeter fence and below that, the network of huge underground storage rooms Ronnie called the concrete caves. There were twenty of them beneath artificial hills covered in tons of earth to absorb any blast from an accidental explosion.

Each
was honeycombed with brick-built chambers where TNT was kept with thousands of bombs and mines, grenades and ammo, all stacked in wooden crates.

But
it was the factory’s own private railway which really fascinated Ronnie. Every bunker had a siding running through a tunnel to an unseen platform where forklift trucks loaded pallets of munitions into wagons.

These
were shunted out to the factory’s marshalling yard by a stout little Fowler 0-4-0 diesel and coupled up behind a big mainline engine for the likes of Mr Towner to drive to distant ports.

From
there, whatever Ronnie’s Mum and other women had so carefully produced could be shipped across the world to any country where people had to fight and others had to die.

But
as Ronnie heard her say to Mr Towner, if folks round their way didn’t make such things, the French would… or the Yanks, or the Russians or the Chinese. It was just a job of work and everyone needed to live, didn’t they?

*

Ronnie left his bike in his den and ran across to the wire fence to watch the shunting. But something was happening he’d never seen before - a man dressed like soldier, caught for a moment in the yellow light from a lamp above a tunnel. He had to be an army man because he was wearing a black beret and combat fatigues and had a short rifle cradled between his arms.

Ronnie
felt an immediate tingle of excitement - but instinctive fear, too. He’d only ever seen soldiers in films or on television. Why would a real one be patrolling the concrete caves – and with a gun?

Then
he saw a second soldier walking from another siding. Something unusual was going on, something hush-hush like Mr Towner said. The normal security men had dark blue uniforms and dogs but not guns.

Ronnie
crawled further along through the grass and nettles to get a better view. His jeans and T-shirt were already torn so his Mum wouldn’t mind. He watched the soldiers exchange a word then carry on patrolling.

Then
the Fowler clanked into view from the nearest tunnel, pulling three red and grey munitions wagons, each loaded and ready to be taken to Mr Towner’s engine. The shunter waited for clearance to reverse from the siding and onto the line which looped around the whole site. Its engine was idling and drowned out the low rumble from the other tin-sided sheds nearby.

His
Mum would be in one of them, standing at a conveyor belt rattling with brass cannon shells to be filled with explosives. Not far away, lines of thousand pound bombs, each bigger than a coffin, was being crated up alongside tons of machine gun ammunition.

Ronnie
moved along around the perimeter fence towards the marshalling yard. He’d just passed three more concrete caves when he heard a yell.

Two
people in dark overalls ran out of a tunnel and along the railway line, chased by two men who weren’t in uniform and didn’t have guns.

One
of the runners looked round to see how close the pursuers were and seemed unaware of the diesel reversing with its wagons. Then the figure stumbled and was hit a glancing blow by the engine’s buffer and spun to the ground, twitching and flailing as if having a fit.

The
engine driver couldn’t have seen anything because he didn’t stop. One of the chasing men spoke into a walkie-talkie. Ronnie saw them lift the injured person by the arms and legs and carry them to the roadway that ran round the site.

No
more than half a minute later, a car pulled up. The driver unlocked the boot and the fallen runner was put inside. The boot was shut, the men got in and drove away. Ronnie couldn’t move for a few moments.

He
had seen something happen – but what, exactly? The men were just shadows in the gathering gloom. There was nobody there now.

First
the soldiers and their guns, now this. Ronnie felt himself trembling. Suddenly, he wasn’t playing in Hardfield Wood any more. This wasn’t a game. What if those men had seen him spying on them? What would they do next? And where was the other runner who’d escaped?

But
Mr Towner’s train was due off soon. He’d watch from the footbridge. But even then, this frightening night wasn’t over. Behind the plume of oily smoke venting from Mr Towner’s engine, Ronnie counted forty-two trucks, each with their sliding metal doors sealed shut. There would usually be no more than five or six.

That
wasn’t all. He saw more soldiers with rifles and packs. Two climbed into the rear cab of Mr Towner’s engine and the rest headed down to the end of the train. And that was odd, too. Hooked up to it was an old bullion coach. Ronnie recognised it from his train spotting books. They’d carried gold bars before the army bought them to transport ammunition. The soldiers could only be there to protect whatever was locked in the wagons.

Ronnie
checked his watch. It was almost nine thirty. Mr Towner must have called the control box at Preston from the phone in his cab because his train started edging forward in the darkness and whatever mission lay ahead. Ronnie waved and waved but couldn’t be sure if Mr Towner had seen him or not.

It
was best to go. He hurried back for his bike hidden in the wigwam of fallen branches which was his den. On other days, it could be a pirate ship or a fort besieged by warriors but on this night, it offered no shelter from his imaginings.

After
what he’d just seen - or believed he had - the moonlight shifting through the trees made everything seem spooky and he was scared. As he took hold of his bike, something moved in the den.

It
was a man. His face was smeared with green and brown make-up like soldiers put on in the jungle. He wore black overalls so Ronnie knew who it must be straight away. This was the other running man, the one who’d escaped.

‘Don’t
be frightened, kid,’ he said. ‘I need you to help me.’

*

Another sixty miles and Shelley Lucas would be in the Lake District. She drew off the northbound carriageway of the M61 and into Anderton Services - a building she thought so hideous it could only be improved by an ounce of carefully placed Semtex. But the IRA had yet to do the decent thing so she’d forego breakfast that morning.

Taz
was the more immediate concern. Her old terrier hadn’t cocked a leg since leaving their overnight hotel en route from London. But beyond the car park was a public right of way down through a grass field to a brook at the bottom.

It
was going to be another hot day. The back of Shelley’s white cotton dress was already sticky with perspiration. She would change outfits before having lunch with a new author it was vital to impress. He was a PR dream - descended from slaves, gay and living in Wordsworth country. She simply had to sign him.

Taz
was unleashed and romped off into the field. Like his mistress, he just about remembered being young. Shelley stood by a kissing gate on the bridge over the stream. On the other side were two railway lines and far the distance, a church and the town of Blackrod, according to her map.

But
time was pressing. She bent to put Taz back on his lead. Then she noticed a running shoe in the nettles on the track side of the gate. It looked new. Shelley leaned over to see if the other was there.

And
it was - and on the foot of a body lying on its side in a patch of withered brown lupins.

Thirty

Apart
from Hester and Ruby carrying a picnic down to the stream, little else moved in the warmth of Garth Woods that morning. A bird might flit from the caves of shadow beneath the oaks and ash but that was all. The spirits of the magical trees themselves remained bound within their roots.

The
air carried a charge of thunder from the slate blue clouds massing beyond the Shropshire hills. It might take another hour for the weather to break, for a wind from nowhere to stir the limp green leaves above where they sat and bring rain to make mud of the bare cracked earth.

‘You
pour our tea, Ruby, and I’ll cut the cake.’

Hester
was desperate to create a safe new childhood for Ruby out of the abnormalities of her life. She’d no template for how this could be done, only a feel for the way it might be achieved. But the disconnectedness between Ruby and those around her wasn’t simply a consequence of her abduction which might heal in time.

This
was how she was and likely to be. Ruby occupied a very private space in the world of others and could only interact with them in the way she was wired to do.

‘We’ll
go to the hospital tonight, shall we? Call in and see how Lexie’s getting on.’

Something
of a frown crossed Ruby’s quizzical face.

‘No,
that man will be there.’

‘Which
man, Ruby?’

‘In
the street, the ginger man. He was coming for me again.’

‘I
didn’t see a ginger man.’

‘Then
you weren’t looking properly. He was behind us and I’m not going back there.’

‘You
knew this man?’

‘He
put me in a bag.’

‘He
did what, Ruby?’

‘It
was dark and I was in a room with some beds and some children.’

Hester
set down her cup, unsure how to react for the best. Prompting Ruby with questions might cause her retreat into herself again. But the story of her ordeal was better out than in, however long or painful the process.

‘This
ginger man doesn’t sound nice to know,’ Hester said. ‘Where did he take you?’

‘I
don’t like this cake. I’m going back to draw now.’

*

McCall found Shaw Hill golf course and the grand, bow-fronted Georgian house which was its country club. He walked into reception with his briefcase, obeying the first rule of blagging for hacks - play whatever role that day’s assignment demands.

‘I
believe a client of mine might be staying with you,’ he said. ‘Could you just check for me, please? His name’s Terry Boland.’

The
receptionist smiled, top lit by a chandelier, and scrolled down a list of guests on her computer screen.

‘No…
sorry, we’ve no Mr Boland with us,’ she said. ‘But there’s a Mrs Boland. Could that be his wife?’

‘Yes,
that’ll be her. I can go up, can I?’

‘You
could but there’s a note here from the housekeeper. It says Mrs Boland didn’t use her room last night and the bed wasn’t slept in so there’s no one there at the moment, I’m afraid.’

‘That’s
OK. By the way, which of their cars did she come in?’

‘There
isn’t a registration number shown here so I assume she arrived by taxi.’

McCall
asked if he might take a stroll around the grounds while he waited for the Bolands. The receptionist gave him a location map and he set off towards the golf course.

He
had to think. The existence of a Mrs Boland was new information. But then, an armed detective being sought by the spooks would need an accomplice. McCall had seen nothing about the hunt for Benwick in any of the papers. That suggested a news blackout which only happened in sensitive cases - or when lives were at stake.

One
thing was for sure. Benwick wasn’t risking his liberty for anything connected with nine irons or nightingales. The reason - whatever it was - had to lie in the sprawl of sheds and buildings on the other side of the golf course fence where the shunting of wagons loaded with the profits of war rarely stopped.

*

The body by the railway line wasn’t much of a mystery, not according to the first assessment of the British Transport Police sergeant who’d been called out. Edgar Crowther was raised near Blackrod so knew where to go when they said a corpse had been found by Kittie’s Crossing.

He
remembered damming the brook there as a kid, putting pennies on the track to be flattened by steam trains hammering up to Scotland or south to London. Now, with a gold clock ticking in his head, the contorted remains of a stranger lay amid his boyhood memories, guarded by a constable barely out of school himself.

‘What
makes people do something like this, Sir?’

‘I
try not to guess anymore,’ Crowther said. ‘But this one could just be an accident.’

‘How’s
it possible to tell?’

‘Bad
crush marks on the right side of his head, see? Hit a glancing blow from a train on the south-bound line then spun round a couple of yards onto the embankment here, probably dead before hitting the ground.’

‘So
don’t suicides do it like this?’

‘No,
they mostly lie down or jump… horrible, that is… not pleasant at all.’

A
photographer came to take pictures of the body, face down in the dead flowers. Crowther could then turn it over and begin a search of the clothing for any documents to establish identity. The overalls were new but hadn’t any outer pockets. He knelt to unbutton them from the neck and put his hand inside to check for any there. But he withdrew it quickly.

‘Christ,
this isn’t a bloke, it’s a woman.’

‘Boiler
suit’s a funny outfit for a woman to be wearing in this weather, isn’t it, Sir?’

‘Maybe
she batted for the other side. Her haircut’s like a short back and sides.’

Within
an hour, she was zipped into a rubber bag and carried across the fields to Anderton Services where the undertaker’s recovery van was parked. Crowther hadn’t found a single piece of paper, credit card, purse or car keys on her to give him a clue as to who she was, where she lived or what she did for a living.

‘Don’t
like loose ends,’ he said. ‘This time next week, I want this poor soul in her grave and me and the wife to be away in the motor home, job finished.’

But
he knew in his water that many a door would have to be knocked before this case could be signed off.

*

McCall fired off a few long distance stills of the weapons factory’s complex of low brick buildings and concrete bunkers then sat back against a tree and rolled a joint. He took the smoke deep into his lungs and exhaled slowly.

A
skylark rose from the long grass in front of him, spiralling ever higher till it bequeathed its song to the earth and vanished. It made him think of Etta’s funeral and of Lexie - and why he wasn’t by her bedside.

He’d
used the excuse of chasing Ruby’s story. Yet that’s all it was - an excuse. There was something about the promise of happiness he’d never bought.

But
if he hoped smoking weed would give him clarity of thought on this or his other concerns, he was wrong. The revelations in Hoare’s memo remained as tantalisingly unexplained as when he’d first read them.

Why
did Inglis - a potential future prime minister - want a secret channel to the Ruby investigation? What crime had Benwick committed to make the spooks blackmail Hoare into finding him for them? And how would an armed fugitive like Benwick react when confronted by a hack he’d no reason to trust?

There
was only one way to find out. Benwick - and whoever his wife might be - might soon arrive back at the country club. McCall had to get back there and find a discreet corner to wait for the detective’s return.

But
as he got to his feet, he heard a sound in the woods behind him. It was no more than a shoe scuffing the dried undergrowth. He turned quickly and saw a boy, maybe ten or eleven, in a grubby T-shirt, ripped jeans and old-fashioned red leather sandals. McCall smiled with relief.

‘Hi,
you gave me a bit of a shock,’ he said. ‘You looking for lost golf balls?’

‘Sometimes
I do, yes.’

‘You
must be a very handy guy to have around the place.’

He
didn’t answer. McCall zipped his camera back into his briefcase and prepared to leave. But the boy kept looking at him as if he had something to say.

‘Are
you called Mr Mac?’

McCall
tried not to show any surprise when he asked how the boy knew his name.

‘The
man told me it.’

‘The
man at reception, you mean?’

‘No,
the one from the other night, the one who ran away.’

‘Sorry,
I don’t understand. Who ran away?’

‘This
man who wants to talk to you, they were chasing him on the railway.’

‘I
still don’t understand but where is he?’

‘He’s
in my den and he’s hurt his foot and he told me to tell him if any strangers were knocking about so I told him about you and he sent me to get you.’

McCall
was suddenly conscious of his own heartbeat, sure that he knew whom he was about to meet. He followed the boy further into Hardfield Wood. It was cool and shady.

The
den was a tent of fallen branches propped up either side of a low hanging a tree. The boy held back, uncertain of his role in this puzzling grown-up affair.

McCall
peered at the man in the hideout. Amid a litter of newspapers and fish and chip wrappings and no longer looking like the modish Miami cops he copied, lay Detective Inspector Laurie Benwick of the Metropolitan Police.

He
was unshaven and unwashed, wore a black boiler suit and could just have emerged from a three-day bender. His right ankle rested beneath a pack of frozen peas the boy must have brought to relieve the swelling. Benwick raised himself on his elbows and managed a grim smile.

‘Cometh
the hour, cometh the investigative journalist,’ he said. ‘Pull up a log… there isn’t much time.’