Death In Captivity (23 page)

‘Who do you imagine—?’ began Captain Abercrowther, and caught Goyles’ eye and stopped.

‘Look here,’ said Baird. ‘You’re a bit of a carpenter, Abercrowther. If I get a small party in here to shovel back the sand into the shaft, could you fix this trap-door so that it can neither be opened nor spotted?’

Captain Abercrowther nodded.

‘And if you gentlemen would come with me for a moment, I think I’d like a word with you about this.’

Goyles waited to see if he was being included in the invitation. When he saw that he was not, he had to make a very quick decision.

What he did was to move across, catch Colonel Baird as he was about to leave the hut, and say something to him.

Colonel Baird looked startled.

‘I take it you know what you’re talking about,’ he said.

‘I’ll explain as soon as I can, sir,’ said Goyles.

Colonel Baird hurried after the other members of the Committee and Goyles walked slowly back to his own hut. Although his body moved with deliberation his mind was at stretch.

The first person he looked for was Doctor Simmonds, whom he found in his room turning over the pages of a six months’ old copy of
The
Lancet.

He came straight to the point.

‘You examined Coutoules’ body, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘Did you have the opportunity to do it thoroughly?’

‘Reasonably so,’ said Doctor Simmonds cautiously. ‘I had one quick look at him when you first discovered the body. Then the Italians gave me a further opportunity of examining him when he was brought up for the second time – largely, I surmise, to make certain that I should agree with their own diagnosis.’

‘What was the exact cause of death?’

Like most doctors when asked this particular question, Doctor Simmonds took a few moments off for thought.

Then he said: ‘Asphyxiation caused by sand. There was sand in the stomach and in the trachea – a little in the lungs – not very much. You wouldn’t expect much. The reflex would have kept it out until the moment he lost consciousness.’

‘It wouldn’t have been possible to fake that effect after he died from some other cause – shock or heart failure?’

‘You mean by pouring sand into his mouth?’

‘Yes.’

Doctor Simmonds considered the suggestion carefully and shook his head. ‘Quite impossible. You wouldn’t get any sand into the stomach at all, if he was already dead. Or it would be very difficult. You’d need a force-pump to get it down, and that would leave obvious signs.’

‘Was there
anything,’
said Goyles, ‘anything out of the ordinary at all? Anything that shouldn’t have been there if he simply died under a fall of sand? Was there anything to suggest – I don’t want to put ideas into your head you know – but was there anything at all to suggest that he might have been killed by being
held
face downwards in sand?’

‘How exactly do you visualise it being done?’

‘If I am right the operation would have been carried out by two or three men – men who wouldn’t make any very obvious mistakes – I mean they would know about postmortem bruising and that sort of thing. I thought that one of them might perhaps have got hold of each of his arms
by the sleeve of his coat
and twisted his arms behind his back to force his head down and prevent him moving, whilst the other would press his head down into the sand—’

‘Hold it a moment,’ said the doctor. ‘That rings a bell. I’ll just have a look at the notes I made at the time.’ He took a notebook out of the drawer of his desk and turned the pages –’ ‘Yes, I thought so. There was a slight but distinct marking on the nape of his neck. I discussed it with that professor and we rather assumed at the time that it was done by a stone in the sand which fell on him—’

‘But it might equally have been a hand holding him.’

‘More probably, I should say.’

His next visit was to the Quartermaster.

‘You remember,’ he said, ‘some weeks ago, getting hold of one of the Italians for me – a chap called Biancelli—?’

‘The one that shot himself?’

‘The one that was said to have shot himself,’ amended Goyles. ‘But that’s not the point at the moment. It’s the other man.’

‘The other man?’

‘When you found out about Biancelli for me, you told me the name of the carib who was with him – I think it was Marzotto. Could you fix it for me to have a word with him?’

Captain Porter looked doubtful.

‘I wouldn’t ask you,’ said Goyles, ‘only it’s hideously important.’

‘Of course I’ll do it for you if I can,’ said Captain Porter. ‘It isn’t that – but I’ve got a sort of feeling – wait here a moment, would you?’

He was back inside five minutes.

‘You’re out of luck,’ he said. ‘Marzotto left with the other bunch of thugs when Mussolini fell. I fancied I remembered the name. He was the only carib who went with them.’

‘Thank you,’ said Goyles.

Although he was well aware that time was running against him, he hesitated before taking the next step. He stood for quite ten minutes watching a basketball match, which was being contested with more venom than science, on the dust pitch between A and B Huts. Outwardly, the microcosm was unchanged. It was underneath the surface that the sands were shifting and the currents running.

Not so far under the surface, either, thought Goyles. He walked across to the Infirmary Hut. Its only occupant was Hugo Baierlein. The health as well as the
morale
of the camp was evidently on the upgrade. The beds, which were usually all occupied, were now empty. Even Baierlein was out of bed. He was hobbling very slowly across the floor, both legs swaddled in plaster.

‘I’ve been across the room four times,’ he announced. ‘I feel like a very old, very depraved man with the gout which his forefathers have visited upon him.’

‘Good show,’ said Goyles. He sat on the bed for a moment swinging his legs, and Baierlein, having finished his fifth crossing, came to rest opposite him.

‘What’s on your mind?’ he asked.

‘I’d like to put a question to you,’ said Goyles. ‘I just want an honest, unbiased opinion. I wouldn’t bring this up if it wasn’t so desperately important, and you’re the only person left who can give me an answer.’

‘Go on.’

‘When you were going up the ladder that night – you and the others, and the searchlights came on again and the machine guns opened up – did you think it was a ghastly fluke – or did the thought come into your mind that you might have been given away?’

It was some time before Baierlein spoke, and when he did so he did not appear to have heard the question.

He said, ‘Alec was to go first up the ladder, then Grim. Desmond was next and I was last. We were all lying out in the deep shadow between the Theatre Hut and the Chapel. It’s one of the places no searchlight can reach. We had fifteen yards of open to cover before we reached the wall. We lay in reverse order – that is to say, I was nearest the wall, Alec furthest away. That was so that when we came to the wall the first man could throw the ladder up and steady it, whilst the back men went up it first. Immediately the arc lights started to dim we got going. I’ve never moved faster in my life. I swear we had the ladder in position before the searchlights started to fade.’

‘I estimated there was about two seconds interval between the arc lights and the searchlight,’ said Goyles.

‘Then it proves you can go fifteen yards in two seconds if you really try,’ said Baierlein. ‘I felt at that moment we were going to pull it off. I was half-crouching under the ladder, holding it, and Desmond was standing on the foot of it. Grim was half-way up and Alec – he could have got away altogether, you know, if he’d just considered himself – was lying on the wall, holding the top of the ladder. Then the fresh searchlights came on.’

He paused again.

‘I don’t think any of us moved whilst you could count five. The searchlights were flicking about all over the place, but not systematically, and too fast to be much use. I couldn’t see what happened next, but I fancy Alec got up to jump – anyway he must have moved. All the lights swung round at us and the shooting started. Alec rolled off the wall, right on top of me. I think he was dead before he fell. Grim tried to go on up the wall – he got up about three rungs before they finished him. Desmond was on the ground. I didn’t even know I’d been hit till I tried to move.’

‘I see,’ said Goyles. ‘So you think—?’

‘I’ve thought about it, on and off, ever since. I can’t honestly come to any other conclusion. They weren’t expecting us. They were alert, and quick on the trigger – and when they did spot us they did a lot more shooting than was necessary. But I don’t think they were waiting for us. If they had been – if they’d known what was happening and where it was going to happen – they’d have had plenty of time to get the searchlights on to us
after
the arc lamps went out and before the searchlights themselves were cut.’

‘Yes,’ said Goyles. ‘I thought of that.’

‘Then again, even when the spare searchlights came on it stuck out a mile that they hadn’t a clue what to look for. But it was more than that. I was listening to the sentries on the nearest platforms when the lights first went out. They were surprised out of their wits. No. I’m sorry. If you want me to say that we were framed, I shall be a bad witness.’

‘I don’t want you to say anything of the sort,’ said Goyles. ‘In fact, if it’s any consolation to you, you’ve taken a load off my mind.’

He left the hut and went back to his own room, where he found Tun Meynell and a fellow Sapper Officer. ‘I heard you wanted to see me,’ said Meynell. ‘I brought Punch along with me. He knows more about these gadgets than I do.’

‘Punch’ Garland grinned down his enormous nose. ‘I’m a bit out of date now,’ he said, ‘but I’ll do what I can. Where do you think the instrument is?’

‘In Colonel Baird’s room,’ said Goyles. ‘Come on.’

They found Colonel Baird waiting for them.

He said, ‘When you asked me not to hold another committee meeting in my own room I guessed what was in your mind. In fact we were fools not to have thought about it before. I’ve had a rough search but I can’t find anything obvious.’

‘The microphone they make nowadays,’ said Garland, ‘is a tiny little thing. I saw one the Americans were using in their interrogation centre at Tozeur. I knew the man in charge. He showed me the corner of the room it was in and bet me five dollars I couldn’t find it in half an hour. I lost.’

‘What about following the wire?’ said Meynell.

‘That’s almost the only way to do it. It shouldn’t be too difficult here. The hut’s raised on brick piles. Let’s dig round outside.’

The two experts disappeared and Colonel Baird said to Goyles, ‘What put you on to this?’

‘It was the very first real clue I was given,’ said Goyles. ‘And I threw it away. Tim Meynell told me how he’d been under the caribinieri office in one of his sewer crawls, and heard what he thought was an American or a colonial voice. Roger heard the same thing later, when he was shut up in one of the rooms in the block.’

‘And they were listening to a relayed session of the Escape Committee?’

‘That’s about it,’ said Goyles.

‘Got her,’ said Garland, his great beak appearing at the window. ‘She comes in under the lintel – run the top of your knife in, Tim.’

‘I fancy the whole thing comes out,’ said Meynell. ‘It’s only held by a couple of screws!’ He was busy unscrewing them as he spoke. Then he drove in the end of his jack-knife and, levering outwards, brought away the whole of the piece of wood which framed the sill of the window.

Colonel Baird looked into the cavity. ‘I can see the end of the wire,’ he said. ‘Nothing else.’

‘It’s inside the wood,’ said Garland. He pointed to a knot-hole in the underside of the sill. He put the point of his knife into the hole and moved it, and they could hear that there was something metallic inside. He turned the piece of wood over.

‘No join at all,’ he said. “They make the whole thing out of plastic wood, and paint it to match the surrounding woodwork. Neat, isn’t it? Practically a standard fitting in all the best prison cells.’

‘Do you think that the other rooms in this hut—?’

‘I shouldn’t imagine so,’ said Garland. ‘However cleverly they hide the mike, the wire’s always the weak point. They wouldn’t want wires trailing all over the place. So far as I can see this is the only lead-in, and it stops here.’

He was screwing the window sill back into position. ‘It’s quite harmless now.’

‘But look here,’ said Baird. ‘Why pick on this room? They didn’t know I was going to use it. The chap who ran the Escape Committee before I got here had a room on the other side of the passage.’

‘That’s what I meant when I said it was a standard fitting,’ said Garland. ‘An experienced workman could install the whole thing in about an hour – provided the approach line had been laid.’

‘And I think I know when it was done,’ said Goyles. ‘Do you remember that
strafe
search we had – after the first wall break – just after you arrived, sir. They kept us all out on the courtyard from morning roll-call till after lunch. That would have given them time to install half a dozen microphones.’

‘If there’s nothing else we can do—?’ said Meynell.

‘No, that’s all right,’ said Colonel Baird. ‘I don’t think I should say anything about this, just yet. Thank you very much.’

When they had gone he stood looking at Goyles, who could see that he had worked out all the first implications of the discovery and was beginning to feel his way towards a second instalment.’

‘Goyles,’ he said, ‘I think it’s time you came out into the open.’

‘I was thinking the same myself, sir,’ said Goyles. ‘I’ve got one or two ends still to tie up. I’d like to say my piece this evening. Could you ask Colonel Lavery if that will suit him?’

‘Colonel Lavery?’ said Baird. It was difficult to say whether he was surprised or annoyed. ‘Yes – I suppose so. After tea, then – in his room.’

‘Colonel Baird says you have something to tell us, Goyles,’ said Colonel Lavery.