The Suicide Exhibition: The Never War (Never War 1) (10 page)

‘What?’

‘Well, I followed her, OK?’

Guy nodded, wondering what was coming now.

‘About ten o’clock this morning, she headed off to the tube. Took the Northern line right down to Morden, then walked for ages. She had a bag with her, like a holdall.’

‘So where was she going?’

‘Just some house. An ordinary house on an ordinary street. Not bombed out or anything. A woman answered the door, they talked for a moment and then she went inside.’

‘A friend maybe. Or a relative.’

Sarah nodded. ‘That’s what I thought. I was a bit disappointed, I don’t mind telling you. She was there for about half an hour. I watched from a little park just down the road. I was going to give up and head back to the offices to look for Sergeant Green, but then she came out. And off she goes to another house on another ordinary street. She had a list, I think. She checked a piece of paper before she headed off.’

‘And she went inside there?’

‘But only for a minute. This house was set back from the road with a little front garden. Quite nice. She came out with the woman who’d answered the door and a dog. Labrador, I think. And then…’ She shook her head as if she still couldn’t quite believe it. ‘She had a camera in the holdall. A proper one with a flash gun and everything.’

‘She took a picture?’

‘Several – of the woman, and of the dog. Then of them both together. Then she’s off again.’

Sarah paused to finish her drink. ‘I followed her to three more houses and a flat. And at all of them she took pictures – of the women there. One of them had a baby, one had a small girl. One had a cat. She took photos of them all.’

‘A hobby?’ Guy wondered.

‘But there wasn’t any pattern to it. Just random houses in south London. And it didn’t seem like she knew any of the people, but they were happy for her to snap away at them. Then she headed off back to Whitehall, and that’s where I saw her meet up with Green.’ She leaned forward again. ‘What’s the place he was coming out of? Just some office?’

Pentecross forced a smile. ‘Just some office,’ he lied.

Luckily, she didn’t pursue it. ‘Oh, I nearly forgot. Before that, after all the photos, she went somewhere else on the way back. Just down from Clapham High Street.’

She waited, obviously expecting Guy to ask her where Miss Manners had stopped off. He didn’t disappoint her.

‘The YMCA,’ she said. She nodded vehemently before he could react. ‘Yeah – that’s what I thought. Why the hell does someone like that call into the YMCA?’

‘Maybe she’s been bombed out and has a bed there.’

‘No. She was only there for a couple of minutes. Five at the most.’

If Guy had hoped to get some answers from talking to this woman, he was just getting more and more confused. ‘In the scheme of things,’ he said, thinking out loud, ‘I think we can probably leave aside the photography and the YMCA, given everything else.’

He told her about the burned German in Ipswich hospital. So many people must have known about him that Guy didn’t think he was giving anything away that he shouldn’t. He glossed over the fact that it was eight months ago, but he told Sarah how he’d been intrigued by Green’s presence and the mention of Colonel Brinkman.

‘There have been other things too,’ he said, hoping she wouldn’t push him for more details. ‘I saw Green at an RAF base when I was delivering a message. Ran into Brinkman
when I was following up on a… a downed German airman. A guy on a tube station who tried to warn me off. Each time I felt I was missing something, something important – something I should know about and be able to help with, only it’s just out of reach.’

‘I know the feeling. You just want to know what the hell’s going on, right? Even though you know, deep down, that you shouldn’t ask.’ She gestured at a poster pinned to one of the pub walls: ‘Be like Dad – keep Mum.’

‘We should drop the whole thing,’ Guy said. ‘There’s so much going on that the likes of you and me know nothing about anyway. One more shouldn’t matter to us.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘It shouldn’t.’

The building was bland and nondescript – just one of a row in a Regency street. If the street had a name, it was probably lost in the rubble where the end block had taken a hit from a bomb. The only thing that marked out the building where Sergeant Green and Miss Manners worked was the pile of sandbags outside. The windows were shuttered, and the stone façade was stained with age and London smog. It looked just like any of a number of offices or government departments across the city. It could, Guy thought, have been chosen for precisely this reason.

‘So that’s Station Z,’ he murmured, examining it from the other side of the unnamed street.

‘Station Z?’

‘Just a name I’ve heard mentioned.’

‘So what now?’ Sarah asked. ‘Is this it? We just walk away and leave well alone?’

‘We should,’ Guy conceded. Before she could respond, he caught her shoulder and pulled her back into the shade of a doorway.

‘Why, Mr Pentecross – we only just met.’

He nodded at a figure on the other side of the road, striding towards the building they’d been watching. ‘That’s Colonel Brinkman,’ he said quietly.

As Brinkman went inside the building, Guy caught a glimpse of a uniformed soldier just inside the door. Slightly embarrassed, he realised his hand was still on Sarah’s shoulder, and he was standing rather close to her.

‘Sorry,’ he said, stepping away. He tried to ignore the way she was smiling at him.

They stood in silence for a few minutes. Eventually, Sarah said: ‘You need to be anywhere this afternoon?’

Guy shook his head. Was she going to suggest they go for another drink? Or maybe lunch – it was past one o’clock. He wouldn’t mind. Perhaps she wanted him to ask her. ‘What about you?’

‘A couple of days leave.’ She tilted her head to one side, looking past him. ‘Brinkman’s back. You going to grab me again?’

He was tempted to say yes, but Guy hadn’t really got the measure of Sarah Diamond yet. He wasn’t sure quite how serious she was about anything. Instead he stepped back to stand beside her in the doorway.

Brinkman was walking briskly away from them, Miss Manners by his side. Brinkman was carrying a briefcase.

‘Stopped off to pick up some papers or something,’ Sarah said. ‘Let’s see where they’re going.’

‘I’m not sure that’s wise.’ Now they’d got this far, now he’d seen where Green and Brinkman worked, Guy wasn’t sure how far to push this. He was past the point where he could pretend it was part of his job to know what the mysterious Station Z was doing.

‘I thought you said you were free this afternoon.’

‘I am.’

‘Then come on.’

Because some of the roads were still closed off after the previous night’s bombing, it was impossible to tell where Brinkman and Miss Manners were heading. It wasn’t until they arrived at their destination a good half hour later that Guy realised:

‘They’re catching a train.’

‘Then so are we,’ Sarah told him.

She didn’t wait for him to argue, but followed Brinkman into Euston station. When Guy caught up with her she was biting her lower lip and staring across the concourse.

‘What is it?’

‘I was going to queue behind them for a ticket,’ she said. ‘Listen out for where they’re headed. But…’ She pointed to where Brinkman was disappearing onto one of the platforms.

‘He’ll have a travel permit,’ Guy said.

‘So we’re scuppered.’

‘Not really.’ It would be easy just to agree and walk away. But it was also a chance to show her he wasn’t a complete fool, and that he was as committed to this as she was. ‘Check the departures board and see where the train from that platform is headed. Then we buy tickets to the end of the line.’

Five minutes later, Guy was buying two returns to Denbigh Hall. ‘Is your journey really necessary?’ a poster beside the ticket window demanded. It was a good question.

Sarah was already on the platform. She pointed out the carriage where Brinkman and Miss Manners had boarded, then suggested they find a nearby compartment. ‘We’ll need to check at each station to see if they get off.’

The train was quiet enough that they had a compartment to themselves, two down from Brinkman and Miss Manners. At each stop, Sarah pulled down the window and leaned out to see if they were leaving the train. She closed the window again as the train pulled away, to keep the smuts from the smoke out.

‘So what aren’t you telling me?’ she asked.

‘What do you mean?’ Guy shifted uncomfortably on the seat.

‘There must be something. I mean, what you’ve said is hardly enough to get you on a train with a strange woman heading God knows where. Following Green? Maybe, at a pinch. But why are you here now? It’s not because of some dying Kraut in a hospital or feeling snubbed by a sergeant.’

Guy was saved from answering as the train slowed again. Sarah gave him a look that suggested she still expected an answer, then pulled down the window again.

‘Quick – they’re leaving!’

She pushed past Guy and hurried down the corridor.

‘What station is it?’ he asked.

‘God knows.’

The sign opposite the door as they left the train said ‘Bletchley’.

‘Never heard of it,’ Sarah said, pulling a face. ‘Where are we – Bedfordshire?’

But Guy knew the name. ‘Bucks, I think. And I know where Brinkman’s going.’

‘Clever man. Glad I let you come.’

He didn’t rise to that. ‘He’s changing trains. Depending which way he goes, it’s either Oxford or Cambridge – this is the Varsity Line, it links the two university cities.’

But he was wrong. Brinkman and Miss Manners were heading out of the station altogether. Guy and Sarah followed, turning right along the main road and keeping well back. Two other men and a woman in WRENS uniform were heading the same way, so it was easy to keep out of sight.

They’d gone almost no distance, just a few hundred yards, when Brinkman turned into a wide driveway. The other passengers followed. Sarah hurried after them, Guy close behind. He almost walked into her as Sarah stopped abruptly.

She was behind the woman in uniform, who was waiting behind the two men. There was a barrier lowered across the road, and two soldiers were checking passes.

Guy tapped Sarah on the shoulder. ‘Maybe discretion is the better part of valour right now,’ he said softly.

But as he spoke, another man arrived in the line behind him. If they turned and left now it would be obvious they weren’t supposed to be here – wherever ‘here’ was.

The soldiers nodded through the two men and the WREN. More people from the train were arriving behind Guy now, nudging him forwards. The nearest soldier turned to Sarah.

‘Got your pass ready, miss?’

She didn’t move. The soldier’s eyes narrowed.

The second soldier reached to unsling his rifle.

GUY STEPPED FORWARD
, pulling out his Foreign Office pass. ‘Sorry,’ he said, showing the pass. ‘We’re with Colonel Brinkman. He just went through with Miss Manners.’ He nodded to where Brinkman and Miss Manners were walking up the main driveway.

Ahead of them, in the distance, Guy could see a large house. To either side were trees and concrete driveways leading to what looked like wooden-boarded temporary huts.

Sarah seemed to have recovered her composure, and showed her ATA pass. The guard took both passes, inspecting them carefully before turning to his colleague.

The other soldier shrugged. ‘Brinkman brings all sorts.’

‘You should have been booked in,’ the first soldier told Pentecross.

‘I know, I’m sorry. It was a bit of a rush. Last-minute thing. You know what it’s like.’

People in the queue behind were shuffling impatiently.

‘You need to catch up with the colonel,’ the soldier said. He handed their passes back. ‘You won’t get into any of the secure locations unless you’re with him, not on these passes.’ He waved them through and turned his attention to the man waiting behind.

‘That was close,’ Guy breathed as they hurried up the driveway.

‘What the hell is this place?’ Sarah asked.

‘Somewhere we shouldn’t be, that’s obvious. We stay just long enough that they don’t get suspicious when we leave, then we’re out of here, all right?’

Sarah nodded. From her expression Guy guessed that like him she was beginning to think they should never have come. Some things were best left well alone. He silently cursed his curiosity.

Ahead of them, the house was now clearly visible as they approached. It looked, Guy thought, a bit of a mess, as if sections had been added haphazardly over the years. The result was an unsymmetrical structure that didn’t quite look ‘right’.

But this was not Brinkman’s destination. He and Miss Manners turned off along a narrower roadway that led between several of the temporary wooden buildings. The place was busy – people walking or on bicycles. Many were in uniform, but a lot of them were in civilian clothes. The number of women suggested to Guy that it was some sort of administrative centre.

Wherever they were, it was apparent that the work done here was sensitive. Sarah nudged Guy as they passed a noticeboard by the side of the drive. In amongst notices of social events and concerts was a foolscap poster:

REMEMBER

Do not talk at meals

Do not talk in the transport Do not talk travelling

Do not talk in the billet

Do not talk by your own fireside

Be careful even in your Hut

Anywhere else, Dr Henry Wiles might have cut a rather odd figure in his threadbare tweed jacket, ancient waistcoat, and wire-rimmed glasses. But here at Bletchley Park, staffed with the most brilliant and eccentric academics and thinkers, Wiles fitted right in.

‘Colonel Brinkman is due in a few minutes, sir.’

Wiles couldn’t recall if he’d ever been told the girl’s name, but she reminded him vaguely of his niece Deborah. He should probably find out what she was called, since it was always the same girl who brought the messages to this Hut. At least, he thought it was.

‘Thank you. What was your name again?’

‘It’s James, sir.’

‘James?’ Wiles pushed his glasses further up his nose.