The Suicide Exhibition: The Never War (Never War 1) (40 page)

‘Did you get authorisation?’ Brinkman asked as Green drove them to Piccadilly.

‘Not as such,’ Alban replied.

Brinkman frowned. ‘I thought they knew all about Station Z, now that you’ve briefed them.’ There was no reply. ‘That
is
what you said at the funding meeting.’

‘Well,’ Alban said slowly. ‘Perhaps I gave slightly the wrong impression. I’m afraid I was rather vague with my superiors. Didn’t think they’d believe the whole story, to be honest.’

‘So how did you convince them to continue our funding?’

‘I went to see the heads of the Secret Intelligence Service, as I said,’ Alban told him. ‘And I told them that MI5 would appreciate their support in agreeing to maintain your funding. Then I told my own bosses at Five that SIS had told me they’d appreciate MI5’s support in the same deal.’

Brinkman laughed. ‘So they each think the other one owes them a favour. You’re a cunning bugger, I’ll give you that. But it might come home to roost.’

‘I’ll worry about that when it happens. For the moment, let’s get on with the job in hand, shall we?’

Green stayed in the staff car, parked out of sight in the next street. He had strict instructions to come and assist if Brinkman and Alban were not back by midnight.

The combination of darkness and noise never ceased to amaze Brinkman. It was even more pronounced as they neared their destination. Walking along blacked-out Jermyn Street, they heard the noise of Crowley’s festivities long before they made out the dark silhouette of the tall town house that
was number 93. Edges of light spilled round the side of the door as it opened in front of them and two people stumbled out – a man and a woman, locked in an embrace so tight that they might have been a single entity.

Alban grabbed the door before it shut. He and Brinkman stepped inside and closed it behind them.

Immediately, they were accosted by a young woman. She was very drunk, and almost naked, wearing only a simple velvet cloak, tied by a gold cord at the neck. Brinkman could feel the colour rising in his face. Alban seemed indifferent, but perhaps he was merely better at controlling his embarrassment.

‘More lovely people!’ the woman slurred. Champagne slopped out of the glass she held. ‘Whoops. We’re all through here. Come along.’

The cloak fell away as she walked down the hall. She turned back, totally without shame. ‘Come along, boys.’

‘We’ll be right with you,’ Alban assured her. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he muttered under his breath as she turned away again. ‘My New Year’s party was going to be a pint in the pub followed by a couple of hands of bridge. Do you play?’

‘Sadly not,’ Brinkman told him.

They let the woman turn out of sight into a room further down the hall. The sound of talking and laughter, accompanied by a gramophone, spilled out.

‘She’s left the door open,’ Alban said. ‘That’s a pity. We’ll have to be quick up the stairs and hope no one sees us.’

‘They probably won’t care if they do,’ Brinkman said.

‘True. But better safe than sorry.’

Brinkman hurried after Alban, taking the stairs quickly and quietly. He couldn’t resist glancing back down into the room below. There were maybe a dozen people in the room all in various states of undress. A mass of writhing, intertwined bodies. He doubted any of them would notice two people hurrying up the stairs.

Alban knew the layout of the house from a rough plan that Miss Manners had drawn them. He led the way to the study on the first floor. The door was locked, and Brinkman waited
impatiently while Alban set to work. It seemed to take for ever, but finally the door clicked open.

At the same moment, there was the sound of heavy footsteps on the stairs coming down. They slipped inside the room, Alban closing the door quietly behind them.

‘Empty,’ Alban whispered. ‘Thank God. Not sure how we’d explain what we’re doing here otherwise. I suspect there are people hiding all round the house for various reasons, but we’re hardly a couple.’ He grinned suddenly. ‘Though here, maybe we could be – what is it Crowley says? “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law”?’

‘There’s enough of that going on downstairs,’ Brinkman told him. ‘Let’s find the files and get out of this place.’

They started with the desk, Alban easily unlocking the drawers and checking the contents of each quickly and thoroughly. It was obvious he had done this sort of thing many times before. The desk yielded nothing of interest so they moved on to a large filing cabinet on the back wall of the room.

‘Ah now we’re getting somewhere,’ Brinkman said as Alban pointed out a set of hanging files labelled ‘Séances – Transcriptions’.

The noise from downstairs was suddenly louder. A female voice was shrieking – though whether in pain or pleasure was impossible to tell. Over the noise there was a dull, metallic click. It was a sound both men recognised at once. They turned quickly.

To find a young man standing just inside the door. He wore dark trousers and an open-collared white shirt, the front of which was flecked with what looked like blood. His dark hair was slick with sweat, a curl matted to his forehead. His thin lips were set in a cruel smile, and in his hand was a revolver.

He walked slowly over towards them, until he was standing right in front of Brinkman, the revolver inches from Brinkman’s face.

The man’s voice was slightly nasal, upper-class and affected. ‘Do you have one good reason why I shouldn’t shoot you both
here and now?’ he asked. ‘I thought not,’ he went on before either of them could speak.

His finger tightened on the trigger.

ALBAN’S HAND SNAPPED
out in a blur, grabbing the other man’s wrist and twisting it so the gun was pointed upwards. A bullet cracked into the ceiling. Brinkman reacted at once, hammering his fist into the man’s midriff. He doubled over, crying out in pain.

Alban was still holding the man’s arm, still twisting it. He brought up his knee as he slammed the hand down on it. The gun clattered away across the floor. Alban finally let go, and the man crumpled to the ground in a painful heap.

‘I’ll kill you for this,’ he gasped.

‘Yes, well, good luck with that,’ Alban said. ‘Next time I’d suggest you don’t stand so close to the person you’re hoping to shoot.’

‘Get the files,’ Brinkman said, ‘and let’s get out of here.’

Alban scooped up the revolver and stuffed it into his jacket pocket. Then he stepped over the prone figure on the floor and joined Brinkman at the filing cabinet. They both glanced round at the sound of the man stumbling from the room.

‘You should have hit him harder,’ Alban said.

‘Next time,’ Brinkman promised. ‘Is there a briefcase or something we can put all these in?’

‘I’m sure I can find you something suitable.’ The voice came from the doorway. The young man they’d disarmed was with an older man which Brinkman recognised at once as Crowley.
‘Perhaps if you tell me what you want, I can help?’

‘We should just kill them,’ the younger man said. His face was still contorted with pain.

‘Oh please, Ralph – go back to the party and see if you can’t enjoy yourself,’ Crowley said. ‘Preferably without hurting anyone else for once.’ He dismissed the man with a gesture.

Doubly humiliated, Ralph glared at Brinkman and Alban before turning and striding away.

Crowley crossed to his desk and sat down. He motioned for Brinkman and Alban to be seated too. ‘I’d offer you drinks, but I suspect you’re on duty. Am I right? Is this some sort of official visit?’

‘I’m not at liberty to say,’ Alban told him, sitting down. ‘So it is, then. I’m flattered.’ Crowley glanced at the open filing cabinet. ‘You think I’m a spy?’

‘Nothing so mundane,’ Brinkman assured him. ‘We think the transcripts of your séances might hold vital information.’

‘Vital for the war effort?’

‘Of course.’

Crowley nodded. He ran a hand over his bald scalp. ‘Then, by all means, take them. I’d be grateful if my files could be returned when you’ve finished, but you should know that whatever else I might be, I am a patriot.’

As Green drove him up to Bletchley first thing the next morning, Brinkman wondered if he should have asked Crowley about the Vril. Should he have insisted the man tell them everything he knew? But Alban’s advice had been not to trust the man, however patriotic and cooperative he might seem.

‘In any case,’ Alban had said as they left the house in Jermyn Street, ‘I doubt if he can distinguish between myth and reality. He doesn’t know what’s actually true and what’s his own warped imagination.’

‘I guess we can always pick him up later,’ Brinkman had agreed.

It didn’t occur to Brinkman until they arrived at Station X that Wiles might have taken New Year’s Day as a holiday.

‘I don’t think he knows what a holiday is, sir,’ Green said when Brinkman voiced his thoughts.

He was right. Wiles and, so far as Brinkman could tell, his entire team were already hard at work. Or what passed for work – one of the men was asleep in his chair, snoring happily.

‘Just ignore Douglas,’ Wiles said. ‘He’s been here all night.’

‘Doesn’t he have a home to go to?’ Green asked.

‘Oh yes. I think that’s why he stayed, actually.’

Crowley’s files took up two large cardboard boxes, which Wiles accepted with delight rubbing his hands together. ‘Ah, now we’re getting somewhere.’ He pulled out a file at random and leafed through the pages. ‘I imagine it’s a simple case of substitution. These people use letters and numbers where we equate the signals to Morse code or image data.’

‘Can you rationalise the two?’ Brinkman asked.

‘Just a matter of finding a decent-length transcript in here that matches a transmission we already have. That will give us our Rosetta Stone, as it were. Child’s play after that. Bit of a slog, but easy enough. Did you learn any more about how Crowley makes contact?’

‘Sadly not,’ Brinkman said. ‘He was willing to let us borrow these records – he wants them back, by the way – but not very forthcoming about his activities. Just said it was all down to the rituals and arts as laid down from time immemorial, or some such guff, channelled through an empathic medium.’

Wiles snorted. ‘So Crowley probably doesn’t know how it works either. Just that it does. Luck, more than science I suspect. This empathic medium will be an individual tuned into the Vril frequency, I would think, rather like the German psychics.’

He started emptying out the files onto his already cluttered desk. After several minutes of sorting through, he glanced up at Brinkman and Green. ‘Are you still here? There’s no need to wait. I’ll call you as soon as we find anything interesting.’

Wiles was already lost again in his examination of the files as Brinkman and Green let themselves out of the hut.

It was not until the middle of January that Wiles called. ‘I think I may have something’ was all he would commit to on the phone when he did eventually call. He promised to be more forthcoming in person the next day.

Guy and Sarah welcomed the relief from ploughing through lists and transcripts of Y Station intercepts. Davenport was called back from recording the commentary for a documentary film about how bravely the Allied forces were resisting the Japanese in the Pacific. ‘Bloody disaster’ was his personal take on the situation as they gathered in the conference room.

‘The situation in the Pacific, or the film?’ Guy asked.

‘Both, if you want the truth.’

As usual, Miss Manners prepared to minute the meeting, while Green remained in the main office to man the phones and field any visitors.

Wiles was late. But the others used the opportunity to update each other on their progress, or lack of it.

‘I’ve been wondering,’ Guy said. ‘Do you think these UDTs only started coming recently?’

‘We know one crashed in the Black Forest in 1936,’ Davenport reminded him.

‘True, but has their activity increased? And if so, why?’

‘To do with the war, maybe?’ Sarah suggested. ‘Perhaps the upheaval, the fighting, the bombardments and troop movements have woken something up.’

‘
The Coming Race
talks about a civilisation under the ground,’ Brinkman said, ‘so that’s possible I suppose.’

‘There are all sorts of legends about underground civilisations, or sunken societies,’ Miss Manners agreed. ‘From Atlantis to Agarthi, which is thought to be in Tibet.’

‘More likely UDTs have been around for a long time,’ Davenport said, ‘and it’s only because of RADAR that we’re picking them up now. That and the fact we’re on the lookout for aircraft that we can’t account for. There are all manner of reports of strange things flying about in antiquity, usually put down to gods or monsters.’

‘And don’t forget it’s only in the last few years that we’ve had aircraft up there ourselves,’ Brinkman said, checking his watch. ‘Perhaps Wiles will have some answers for us.’

When Wiles finally arrived, he was armed with rolled up maps and a stack of handwritten notes. He proceeded to pin up the maps alongside and sometimes over the ones already on the walls. He rearranged the cotton threads, still in place from the last time he’d been.

Finally, happy with his handiwork, Wiles slumped down in a chair. ‘Well, there you go,’ he said, gesturing at the walls as if this explained everything.

When this was met with silence, he sighed and went on: ‘Using the dates and times from Crowley’s séances, together with the data contained in the transcripts, we managed to trace most of the Y intercepts. Thanks for your help with that, by the way. Anyway, to cut a long story short, if a transmission was picked up by more than one station, and using the varying reported signal strengths, we managed an approximate triangulation for quite a few of them. We also extrapolated the lines of flight for the UDTs, though that was less conclusive. The reason being that the craft can evidently change course, whereas a radio wave cannot.’

‘And you’ve found – what?’ Brinkman prompted.

‘A point of origin. Well, actually several possible points of origin, but one in particular seems to be a focus. Almost like the transmissions are searchlights pointing it out to us.’