The House of Special Purpose Read online

  ‘You’d be Detective Superintendent Black?’

  Black smiled at the upping in rank Liddell had managed for him. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I am.’ He looked around the deserted room. ‘No other passengers?’

  ‘I’m Wiggins, sir. Sparks for this trip. Follow me and I’ll take you down to Mother Brown. And you’re the only passenger I was sent to fetch, sir.’

  ‘Mother Brown?’

  ‘It’s what we call the crate, sir.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Black, praying it was anything but. Hefting the luggage, Wiggins used his hip to open the doors at the far end of the room and they stepped directly out onto the quay. Black paused and stared. The aircraft moored a few dozen yards away was enormous, like some sort of flying whale. She was painted in a suit of brown and grey camouflage, which seemed to be completely useless since she was also fitted with gleaming target-like RAF roundels on her flanks and wings. The name Mother Brown was neatly painted in white on the blunt, boatlike nose.

  The aircraft bristled with weaponry. Even in the dawn gloom he made out the machine guns in the nose turret, another pair in a mid-upper turret, a pair of waist guns poking out an open hatch on the side he could see and presumably their mates on the opposite side and at least four more machine guns sprouting from a rear Perspex blister.

  ‘Not quite the sitting duck you might think,’ said Wiggins proudly.

  ‘No,’ agreed Black. ‘I can see that.’

  ‘Even got the capability of torpedoes and bombs we can run out under the wings,’ said Wiggins. ‘Bean the odd submarine or E-boat in the Channel from time to time. Great fun.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Well, come along, sir. Met says the weather’s closing in over the Irish Sea so we’ve only got an hour or so to get past it.’

  Black followed Wiggins down the concrete quay and onto a gangplank that slanted up to the open front hatch. Wiggins traversed the gangplank easily, even loaded down with Black’s bags, but the detective was a little slower. A lurching drop into the oily depths of Southampton Water was definitely not his idea of great fun.

  He made it across and ducked his head as he stepped through the hatchway. Wiggins had vanished into the complex interior of the aircraft and Black had no idea which way to turn. On his left was a low-ceilinged storage area that appeared to contain an anchor and several bound-up and uninflated dinghies, while to the right was a small compartment with several trunk-like lockers welded to the deck, a rack of carbines and a metal-clad stairway. A pair of legs came down the stairs and resolved itself into a man a little older than Wiggins wearing a pilot’s cap and a leather flying jacket so old the sheepskin at the collar had turned the colour of tobacco and the leather itself was cracked and worn down to the canvas underlining. The expression on the man’s face was not particularly friendly.

  ‘Crofton,’ said the pilot. ‘You’ll be Black, our illustrious passenger.’ There was a sour edge to the comment.

  ‘Passenger?’ asked Black. ‘There’s really no one else?’

  ‘Just you and the crew. You must be some sort of boffin or a politician to rate an entire Sunderland all to yourself.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ Black responded, shaking his head. ‘I thought I was hitching a ride.’

  ‘No, we’re using twenty-five hundred gallons of very scarce aviation fuel just for you.’ He paused. ‘I hope you’re worth the expenditure.’

  ‘Somebody in His Majesty’s government appears to think so,’ said Black. ‘It certainly wasn’t my idea.’

  ‘I suppose there’s some cloak-and-dagger need for speed. A convoy would take weeks, if you got there at all.’

  ‘Something like that.’ Black nodded. ‘Ours but to do or die and all that.’

  The pilot gave the detective a speculative look, then shrugged. Crofton’s voice softened slightly. ‘I suppose we all have our jobs to do.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’ll be using the old Pan American route,’ said the pilot. ‘Southampton to Foynes in Ireland, Foynes to Botwood, Newfoundland, Botwood to Shediac in New Brunswick and then a straight run down the coast to New York. The old way was here to the Canaries with an overnight in Bermuda before New York but there’s too much chance of running into a Gruppe of 109s heading up the Channel. Nasty buggers they are too. Like great bloody hornets swarming all about you.’ He paused. ‘You’d better follow me and get yourself kitted out before we take off.’ He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. ‘Two toilets back in the nose, port and starboard. He pointed upward. ‘Cockpit and navigation station directly above.’ He headed for a narrow bulkhead door. ‘This way to the wardroom.’

  He led Black through the small galley kitchen on the other side of the bulkhead. There was a small electric cooker and a coffee urn on the starboard side, a table bolted to the deck in the middle of the tiny room and a pair of cots slung one above the other. ‘Come up here if you’re hungry. Food in the pantry, even some bacon if you’d like, but I’d wait until after Foynes. They do quite a nice Full Irish and we’ll be there for an hour or so topping up and checking the Met again.’

  They went through a second hatch leading after and Black squeezed down a narrow corridor lined with various cables and lines. They exited into the waist of the aircraft. Black spotted an empty bomb rack and commented on it. ‘Saves weight and gives us a longer range. We’re not carrying any flares either.’ The pilot pointed to a pair of large containers fitted to sliding rails.

  ‘Where is the fuel?’ asked Black as they passed through another hatchway.

  ‘Wings,’ answered Crofton. ‘Four big tanks and another pair fitted into the tail section.’ They stepped out into a large compartment that contained a pair of leather-covered padded benches, some webbing holding back a supply of parachutes and a rack of extra propeller blades and another rack of dinghy paddles. It was the full height of the hull and Black could see a ladder bolted to the bulkhead leading up to the upper deck.

  ‘Cosy,’ he said.

  ‘Bloody cold this time of year,’ said Crofton. ‘We’ll be nudging the toe of Greenland.’ He found a locker, opened it and withdrew a crumpled flight suit, a sheepskin-lined jacket like his own and a pair of heavy sheepskin-lined boots. ‘Put these on or you’ll freeze.’

  Black took off his overcoat and began slipping into the heavy clothing. Crofton watched him do up all the requisite snaps and tabs. When Black was finished, Crofton gave him a brief nod then went up the ladder to the upper deck of Mother Brown. At the top of the ladder he turned and looked back down at Black. ‘Sit down on one of the benches and use the harness bolted to the wall to strap yourself in. There’s a bit of chop so takeoff might be a little rough.’

  Black nodded and did as he was told. A few moments later he heard the gangplank scraping on the quay and then the engines fired, one by one. Within a few minutes they were hurtling down Southampton Water in the dawn light, their passage throwing up spray that completely obscured the portholes along the side of the hull. He felt a brief moment of stomach-lurching vertigo and then the nose of the ponderous-looking flying boat rose up off the water and they were airborne. Black took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to ease his anxiety. Fighting the immediate urge to urinate and trying to ignore the continuous vibration of the hull and the thundering of the four Bristol Pegasus engines, Morris Black flipped open the folio case Wiggins had carried aft and began to read through his briefing notes.

  * * *

  The two-tone blue-and-white United Air Lines DC3 did a short turn over the Washington Monument and the Tidal Basin, slowly descending as it crossed over the Potomac and the huge construction site of the new military headquarters building being built with disturbing proximity to the neat rows of crosses that made up Arlington National Cemetery.

  The aircraft dropped with a sudden lurch and Jane grabbed the arms of her seat, trying not to think of the way her belly was doing flip-flops. None of the other passengers on the plane seemed to be paying the slightest attention and continued r
eading their complimentary copies of the Washington Post or New York Times.

  Gathering up all her courage, she took a quick peek out the porthole window beside her and saw a confusing, snaking tangle of roadways under construction and then the end of the runway, which seemed to be rising towards her at an alarming rate. She had just lit a cigarette when one of the stewards came by telling her to extinguish it and to help her with her seat belt. Less than a minute later the flight touched down right on time and taxied towards the newly built terminal building of Washington National Airport. By the time the aircraft reached the terminal and the airstairs were being rolled into place, Jane was almost at the head of the line in front of the main door. She had flown a few times before and each time she did so she liked it less. For her, trains and motor cars were the only natural form of transportation on land and ocean liners for oceans. In a car or train wreck you had a chance of walking away and if a ship sank there was at least a possibility of getting aboard a lifeboat. If a plane went down, you went down with it, usually in flames, and that was all she wrote – no second chances.

  She’d met a pilot at the derby last year who told her a DC3 could fly on one engine and even coast a good long time on no engines at all but she hadn’t been convinced and he hadn’t managed to charm his way into her bed. Not many did these days, given the hideously unromantic and recurrent memory she had of emptying all eight shots from a Brazilian Walther automatic into the face and chest of a man who’d been making exquisite love to her only a few minutes before.

  The airstair cleats snagged into their appropriate slots and the steward, a woman this time, unsealed the door and pushed it back. She smiled, showing every perfect, gleaming Ipana-buffed tooth in a completely insincere smile and saying the same thing over and over.

  ‘I hope you had a wonderful flight with us today and thank you for flying United Air Lines.’ Jane almost expected the girl to stick her paw out for a tip. She brushed past the woman, stepped out into the sunshine and took a deep breath of fresh air. As she went down the airstairs she could see the baggage guys unloading the rear compartment. All she had was an overnight case she’d carried on board – at this point she still wasn’t sure she wanted the job she’d been offered. She smiled at that as she stepped off the airstairs and headed across to the bone white terminal building. At this point she wasn’t sure she even knew what the job really was.

  She stopped on the tarmac and dropped her overnight bag, letting the rest of the passengers swarm around her. She lit a cigarette at last, pulling the smoke down deeply into her lungs. Here she was in Washington, D.C. and for the life of her she didn’t know why. Spies and traitors and secret organisations – it was Black Mask comic book stuff or Lamont Cranston and the Shadow. Shaking her head, she followed the last of the passengers from her flight into the terminal.

  Once inside she paused, looking for a sign that would tell her where the taxi rank was, but she was surprised to see a nice-looking young man with dark hair wearing a blue suit and carrying a cardboard sign in his hand that read MISS JANE TODD. The man smiled as she approached him.

  ‘I’m Jane Todd.’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief,’ he answered, still smiling. ‘There was a very unpleasant-looking woman with her hose rolled down to her ankles who just went by. For a nightmarish moment I thought she might be you.’ He lowered the sign, putting it under his arm, and extended a well-manicured hand. ‘My name is Fleming. Ian Fleming.’

  ‘You’re a Brit,’ said Jane.

  ‘Quite so.’ He took her by the elbow and guided her across the terminal to the main doors. ‘Born and raised.’

  ‘So why are you kidnapping me?’ Jane asked.

  ‘Because you’re in need of kidnapping,’ Fleming answered with a laugh. ‘Too easy to get lost in this city, I’m afraid. If someone doesn’t kidnap you and show you the ropes, you’re bound to wind up in some terrible den of iniquity.’

  ‘Dens of iniquity are some of my favourite places.’ She smiled pleasantly, cocking her hip.

  ‘Then I shall have to take you to the Casino Royal at Fourteenth and H. Extremely iniquitous.’

  ‘You’re very charming,’ said Jane as they stepped out of the terminal and into the sunshine again.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘It wasn’t necessarily a compliment,’ she said. ‘In my experience the majority of charming men are also not to be trusted.’

  ‘Part of the charm.’ Fleming laughed. ‘In my experience women love cads. Thrive on them, as a matter of fact.’ He raised his hand and a nondescript dirt-brown Dodge slid forward from where it had been waiting in a no-stopping zone. Jane took a quick look. It had U.S. Army plates and the man behind the wheel was wearing a khaki uniform, not a cabbie’s cap.

  ‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ said Jane as Fleming handed her into the backseat. ‘What Alice said when she drank from the Drink Me bottle.’

  ‘Good for you,’ responded Fleming. ‘I’ve come to the conclusion that with only a few exceptions no one in this country reads books.’

  ‘Then you’ve come to the wrong conclusion, Mr Fleming.’

  ‘Commander, actually.’

  ‘Commander of what?’

  ‘Naval Intelligence.’

  ‘British Naval Intelligence?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be off fighting a war somewhere?’

  ‘Shouldn’t you?’ Fleming replied.

  ‘This exchange of bon mots is terrific,’ said Jane, ‘but I really would like some straight answers.’

  ‘You’ll probably get a few if you wait long enough.’ Fleming reached forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder. ‘Let’s have the grand tour before we go to the hotel, Billy.’

  ‘Sure thing, Commander.’ Billy put the car into gear and they moved away from the curb, easing into the congested traffic in front of the terminal.

  * * *

  The little Irish village of Foynes lay far up the Shannon River, past Kerry Head, Tarbert, Killrush and Glin. By then the river was half its width at the mouth, her small bays protected by steep hills and headlands that kept the wind from turning the surface of the water into a spuming froth that would have made landing any sort of flying boat impossible.

  Unlike Southampton there was no mooring quay and Mother Brown had to make do with a bobbing buoy and chain out into the estuary, a rope attached to it and to the collapsible capstan on the nose of the aircraft. The front hatch was cracked open by the pilot and both Crofton and Morris Black stepped out of Mother Brown and into a small launch that had motored out from the village. Potts, the navigator, Stroker, the co-pilot, and the engineer, a man named Podborsky, joined the other two men in the small boat, leaving Wiggins in charge of the aircraft and the refuelling. On their descent Black had managed to catch a glimpse of their destination: on one side a small island and on the other the village itself, no more than a fisherman’s wharf with some large, industrial oil tanks. A scattering of cottages and shops lined the cobbled length of its single high street.

  As the launch puttered towards the shore, several lighters loaded down with oversized metal fuel tanks were already making their way out to Mother Brown. Black thought it was a little old-fashioned but he said nothing to Crofton. The launch burbled across the smooth water, barely ruffled by a faint, salty breeze. They reached the main dock, stepped out onto a floating pontoon and then climbed up onto the dock itself.

  Crofton pointed to a large shed-like building with the handful of documents he carried in his hand. ‘I have to go in and placate the Gardai and the lads at customs; this is supposedly a neutral country, after all. You can go up to the terminal building while the lads check on the Met again. If you’re wise, you’ll order some takeaway as well for the trip on.’

  At the end of the wharf Crofton veered off towards the customs shed and Black followed the others to a solid-looking building that might once have been a country inn. Now it contained a wireless room and operations office on the upper floor and a
pub and tearoom below. According to Podborsky, the engineer, this was the very place where Irish coffee had been invented a few years before, although Black was reasonably sure the concept of adulterating coffee with whiskey, Scotch or Irish, was probably as old as the existence of either beverage.

  The crew ordered their breakfasts from Mrs Walsh herself then thumped up the stairs to the Met Room. The pub owner led Black to a small table by the fire and took his breakfast order as well as an order for half a dozen takeaway sandwiches for later. Black took off his flying jacket, unzipped the overall beneath it and sat back in his chair, pondering what he’d read of the file Liddell had given him, all neatly typed on flimsy onionskin paper by the pipe-smoking spy himself.

  The official report on the assassination of the tsar and his family, and the commonly accepted myth, had been written in 1924 by one Nicholas Sokolov, a White investigator who published a book in Paris, where he was then living, called Judicial Enquiry into the Assassination of the Russian Imperial Family. The fact that the man was utterly anti-Bolshevik left his objectivity somewhat in question but he did seem to have marshalled all the salient facts together in a single volume.

  According to Sokolov, late on the night of July 17, 1918, Yakov Yurovsky, leader of the executioners, entered the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg and awakened the tsar and his family, explaining that due to civil unrest in the town they were to be taken to a safer part of the house. At the same time they were to be photographed as proof that they were still alive and in good health. The family took some forty minutes to clothe themselves and then they went down to the lower reaches of the house. They found themselves in a small, wallpapered room and there was no sign of a black-hooded photographer. According to Sokolov there was no cinematographer either, although for some reason the tsar and the rest of his family showed no hesitation in lining themselves in rows with the tallest at the rear, just as though they were about to be photographed or filmed. The group included Dr Eugene Botkin, the imperial family’s physician, especially important for the ailing tsarevitch, Alexei; Trupp, the tsar’s personal valet; Demidova, Queen Alexandra’s maid; Kharitinov, the pudgy cook and last but not least Jemmy, a spaniel owned by Anastasia, the youngest of the tsar’s daughters.