The Falklands Intercept (18 page)

‘Look at this map.' Stapley turned to the map on his desk. ‘Amundsen and Scott are on different routes. Look. They are coming at the Pole from slightly different angles. If Amundsen's instruments are off a little – don't worry about the maths for now – it would have been easy for them to miss by thirty miles. And you can see how Scott then
inadvertently
almost crosses the Pole itself on both the outward and return journeys.'

‘But not enough to murder for.'

‘No! It's an extraordinary tale. No doubt about it. And if they were right it makes Scott's expedition all the more tragic. They did, in a sense, win against Amundsen – or they might have won. If Scott had known that he got much closer to the Pole than Amundsen he and his party might have started the fatal return journey in better heart.
One of the strongest men in the party, Petty Officer Evans, went to pieces quite quickly. Soon after they turn for home Scott begins to comment in his diary that Evans is run down and prone to frostbite. He dies on Saturday February 17. There is a distressing entry in Scott's diary about the state he was in but no real clinical data as to why he died. Dr Wilson was unsure too. The scene is slightly glossed over in the 1947 film
Scott of the Antarctic
where James Robertson Justice played Evans. There has been lots of
controversy
since about why he died. Unfortunately it has played into the English obsession with class. Of the five men who formed Scott's polar party four were officers or could be
considered
officers. Scott was in the Royal Navy. His faithful companion Wilson was a doctor of medicine. Bowers was an officer in the Royal Indian Marine, the embryonic Indian Navy. Captain Oates was famously a captain in a glamorous cavalry regiment, The Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards. Only Evans was from the lower deck – the only non-
commissioned
officer. In some eyes this made him more likely to crack. His simple mind found it hard to occupy itself during the endless trudging over the Antarctic sastrugi.'

Jacot interrupted ‘I know it was a different world and I know the Guards regiments are hardly typical but in my experience the senior non-commissioned officers are the toughest of the lot. If we were like the Israeli Army, without obsessions about where you went to school or insisting that every officer has a degree then they would be in charge. I am not convinced.'

‘Quite, Colonel. I am without military experience but I tend to agree. The most
convincing
theory about poor old Evans is probably that disappointment at not being first to the Pole broke his heart. There is some evidence that he was planning to run a pub and that he had planned his whole future on being one of the first men to the South Pole. Tragic, indeed. It's as if you thought you were going to be Armstrong and Aldrin and you ended up being Pete Conrad and Alan Bean.'

‘Who?'

‘Exactly. The third and fourth men on the moon four months later.'

‘Oh, yes. Absolutely right. What about the rest of the data?' asked Jacot.

‘It's corrupted and in a different format. It seems to be about oil but I doubt it's
connected
with the expedition. Could be though. Paraffin oil consumption rates and leakage of supplies at various depots was one of the things that did for poor old Scott and his companions. In fact there is a rather good scene in the film if you remember. Some of the text is in Spanish. Most odd.'

It was a bleak story, and suddenly Jacot felt immensely sad. England had been spared much of the madness of the 20th and other centuries. Yes, we had sent a generation to die in the trenches. Yes, we had been blitzed. Yes, we had lost an empire. But somehow we seemed to still be in control at home. Masters of our fate at least on these
overcrowded
and foggy islands. For how much longer?

His more immediate concern were two unsolved murders. He was up against
something
, a force or a group of people or perhaps even a single individual who were capable
of acting with extreme ruthlessness and cruelty. It was beginning to dawn on him who they might be. He was frightened not because he was alone – he had the backing of Lady Nevinson at least, and her formidable will and network of connections. The French as well, he supposed. But the really frightening aspect was that he was fighting a force that appeared to be deeply embedded in nearly all aspects of official life.

His optimism soon returned. Not because he thought the task ahead was going to be easy but because it seemed probable, no possible only, that a great national
disappointment
was about to be reversed. If Scott had been first at the Pole after all? Well there was something to cheer the heart of every English schoolboy.

Jacot was sitting two rows back from the high altar. He could hear the heavy shoes of the college porters as they carried Charlotte Pirbright's coffin slowly down the aisle. At a wedding the congregation craned their necks to look round for a glimpse of the bride and her dress. At a funeral, particularly a young person's funeral, the congregation more often stared straight ahead. All members of the college and university attending were wearing their gowns – black for the most part but interspersed with the dark blue of Trinity and Caius.

The chapel of St James' College, Cambridge was a good place for a funeral – in theory at least. Although Jacot wondered what comfort Charlotte's family and friends would derive from the astonishing architecture and the glorious music.

Jacot looked up. Three great Christian symbols recurred throughout the chapel. First, of course, the crucifix or variations of it as you would expect. Second, and more
unusually
at least in the British Isles, the Cross of St James. In heraldic terms “a cross flory fitchy” except with the lower part fashioned as the blade of a sword – to remind
worshippers
of the role played in the Reconquista of Spain from the Moors by the noble and military order of Santiago.

Some of the more “right-on” dons a few years back had objected to what they saw as symbols of ethnic cleansing. It was certainly one way to look at the re-Christianization of Spain thought Jacot. Like the maddest Victorians whom they so affected to despise, the trendy dons wanted to cover up the evidence of attitudes that they did not approve of. The Victorians with their unhealthy attitudes to sex wanted to paint out the naked breasts and the fleshy female bottoms that so disturbed them, and an attempt had been made in the late 19th century to ‘bowdlerise' the chapel. But the High Church and worldly dons of St James' at the time would have none of it and the glorious putti and generously endowed angels had survived unscathed. Modern prudishness was different. Its highly developed and over-refined sense of offence felt that severed Moorish heads carved in stone, even ones no longer colourfully painted as they would have been when the college was founded, might give offence to those who were not Christian. It had been a longer, more vicious and closer battle this time round. The still very High Church dons had seemed less confident in their cause but at the last minute had stood firm, not sadly in the service of history, accuracy or truth but because they regarded the group of younger dons mounting the campaign as not quite gentlemen. It wasn't their atheism or political correctness but the way they dressed that offended their elder brethren.

The third symbol which occurred throughout the chapel in various sizes and forms
was the scallop shell – the personal symbol of St James, son of Zebedee, disciple of Jesus Christ and the first Christian martyr. In wood on the roof of the chapel, in stone on the supporting columns, in wood once again on the pews and imprinted on the front of the prayer books. Always and everywhere in this chapel, gilded. It gave the impression that the chapel was filled with stars.

Charlotte Pirbright's parents took their seats accompanied by her younger brother. They were not tearful yet, but their faces had the tell-tale tautness of grief barely under control. The overwhelming primal fear of every parent, losing a child, had happened to them. They looked in their late fifties, almost the prime of life in the modern world, but too late to really shake off tragedy and regain some sweetness in life, if indeed any parent in a similar situation ever did. There might be nights when their lost daughter would
re-appear
in their dreams. The family would be re-united briefly but waking would bring reality.

Jacot needed a drink. Actually another drink. He had knocked back a large slug of vodka in some fresh orange juice just before the funeral. Maybe he was on the edge. His hands hurt badly. By one of those seemingly malevolent tricks of fate alcohol lifted his spirits and soothed most of the aches and pains in his body but never his hands. Something in the burning process or the skin-grafting process had made them immune to the deadening effects of alcohol.

Jacot looked round the chapel. It was almost a partial re-run of the dinner the night before General Verney had died. The Americans were there and a sprinkling of other spooks. Most of the fellows of the college. Pretty much the entire staff of SWASI. A large group of friends and friends of the family. And most of the college servants, including Jones 74 who was acting as a pall bearer. Jacot could see him sitting off to the left of the altar looking very upset. He had clearly been fond of the young don.

They stood to sing “Onward Christian Soldiers” which should make everyone feel a little better thought Jacot. He certainly enjoyed belting out the comforting words. But the music could not remove his overwhelming sense not of sadness, or grief or even sympathy, but of danger.

At the reception afterwards in the Fellows' Combination Room where tea and
sandwiches
were served Jacot was introduced by the Master to Charlotte's father. Jacot expressed his condolences and explained, in confidence, his role in the investigation. Charlotte's father even bravely managed a brief smile ‘Yes the Colonel with the burned hands. She mentioned you.' Jacot had an urgent rendezvous with Monica Zaden who would be arriving in Cambridge shortly, so he made his excuses and left. They had agreed to meet in a pizza restaurant near King's.

From his seat in the Pizza parlour Jacot could see her walking along King's Parade. He could tell she had not been to Cambridge before. She was smiling. Parts of the
university
city had that effect on outsiders. Seeing King's Chapel and the Senate House for the first time with the hint of the river and “The Backs” behind was like walking in St Mark's Square for the first time. It was impossible not to be impressed and cheered by the achievements, aesthetic sense and standards of those who had gone before. Monica swayed deliciously on her long legs.

‘There's no code in the text. Nothing to decrypt as far as we can tell.' She shrugged one of those peculiar French shrugs. An acceptance of the way things were or the
limitations
of the way things could be. Englishmen kept a stiff upper lip – Monica had quizzed him on what exactly the phrase meant. Welshmen grinned with resignation. Frenchmen and women shrugged.

‘There is a lot of data in the file, but of a routine navigational and metallurgical nature. We are not qualified to pronounce on its accuracy although we have had the
arithmetic
and angles checked by the mathematicians and scientists at the
Institut Polaire Francais
and they seem to add up. As far as they go anyway. The lone metallurgist on the staff is beside himself with excitement. Don't worry they won't reveal the details of the paper to anyone. We don't think there are any strange messages embedded in the text. It would appear that your Captain Scott's fate may have been crueller even than he believed at the time.'

‘Oh well, it was worth a shot.' Jacot took a mouthful of his spicy pizza. ‘I have to say though even if there is no code embedded in the paper its conclusions are extraordinary. You wouldn't understand the impact as a Frenchwoman, but if what Verney and Pirbright wrote stands up to inspection it means that Scott not Amundsen reached the South Pole first. Imagine if it turned out that after all the French had won the Battle of Waterloo.'

‘My history books at school always suggested that we did. Quite why the Emperor then had to go into exile and spend the rest of his life on an obscure English rock in the South Atlantic was never explained.' Monica ate a slice of her pizza and then held a forkful of her salad in the air creating a sense of expectation. She used the fork to emphasise what she was saying.

‘There is just one more thing. After the main text, which is uncorrupted, there are a few random words. Again we have no idea what they mean and there is no further text beneath them. Something about basins and oils and a date, 24 May 2015. Some other stuff too which you might want to mull over. Very odd. It's as if General Verney was
keeping his household accounts on the file. But they are separate from what went before. It looks as though they were a part of a bigger file which has now disappeared. We are not sure, cannot be sure, but there are apparently ways of working it out and tell tale signs according to our signals people. Whatever was in the file was encoded originally – a strongly protected code with a twist.
C'est un fichier cadavre
.'

‘What exactly does that mean?'

She ate the salad on her fork and smiled again. ‘Well obviously in English it means a corpse computer file. I know, I know, your French is up to that. You got there before me Dan. A corpse computer file is one that dies when it is moved or hacked into. There are lots of different types of varying sophistication. Some die suddenly when they are moved others merely start to degrade or decompose when they are moved from their home
location
. There you are.'

‘Hang on. Hang on Monica. That's all very well, but what sort of people use these files or understand how they work?'

‘Anyone who can afford to pay for some clever computer types. Anyone who has data that they are so keen to protect that if it does get stolen or decrypted it self-destructs. Some criminals use them to store data so that if the stuff is found by the authorities it can't be used as evidence – financial records or records of drug shipments are often guarded in this way. The FBI would not have been able to put Al Capone on trial for tax evasion, or is it avoidance, it always confused me in the vocabulary tests, if his financial records had spontaneously combusted once the Feds got their hands on them.

‘I must admit our people are puzzled. The uncoded information is dynamite for the Antarctic studies people. The coded stuff seems really low-grade.' She shrugged again. ‘There's more to tell. I think we need another glass of wine first. Then why don't we go for a walk on the famous “Backs”? My briefers waxed lyrical about them but I have yet to see them.' She fixed her eyes on his. The look wasn't entirely professional. ‘No one will be able to listen in.'

She had been well-trained, briefing rapidly and in a way that Jacot could understand quickly. One of their people had had a quick look round Charlotte Pirbright's rooms, courtesy of the now ever-reliable Chief Inspector Bradshaw. Yes, they had been searched by a team probably with an intelligence background. More importantly, the toxicology tests had come back from Strasbourg. Inconclusive. The samples were not good.

She did not look that disappointed thought Jacot. Her eyes were glistening with excitement.

‘But about an hour ago I received an email from a DCRI man in Papeete.'

‘As you know Gilles Navarre sent one of the swabs out there. Again it's not a good sample but our man in Papeete had a long conversation with one of the lab technicians at the Government Laboratories. Again the sample quality was not great but the lab guy has had a lot of experience with food poisoning and dodgy fish in the South Pacific, and there is definitely a tiny, tiny amount of Saxitoxin in the sample. It's possible that there
may have been cross-contamination but he's fairly sure. I got our man to check the label on the swab – it's from Verney's nose.'

Once Monica had briefed Jacot further they left the restaurant and walked through King's College crossing the Cam by the college bridge. Monica didn't talk much initially. She was too occupied admiring the view. Once in the cover of the trees they talked for a further five or so minutes. Monica made some notes in a small notebook. Jacot seemed keen to make sure that she had got various details right and read over her notes at the end of their brief conversation. Then he took both of her hands in his. She stroked the top of one of his silk gloves and then they both laughed, kissed each other and parted. Monica walked quickly away in the direction of the station. Jacot started on his way back to St James' but turned and watched her until she was out of his sight.