Dying to Know (31 page)

In fact, what I couldn't find was a screwdriver, but I managed to locate one in the old rusty toolbox that Dad kept by his Thermos stove. From my pocket I took Mum's brooch and began to prize off the fake diamonds, one by one. I didn't have the foggiest idea how many diamonds Smith was expecting to get, and could only hope that it was about the same number. They were fairly obviously fake, but he would be looking at them only for a moment or two, I hoped.

When I had the last gem out of its setting, I kissed the remaining emeralds, apologized silently to Mum, then slipped the butchered brooch back into my pocket. I put the diamonds into one of several old Golden Flake tobacco tins that Dad kept about the shed, took a deep breath and then muttered a short prayer.

I loosened the belt on my trousers, then picked up the grenade and without thinking too much about anything, pulled out the pin, holding the lever tight against its side; I didn't know too much about Mills bombs, but I was fairly sure that as long as I did that, I would be safe. I then tucked it under my belt and tightened it again. It was uncomfortable but it held in place, the lever pressing into my stomach.

My head was full of uncertainties, but there was one that drowned out all the rest: was this grenade fitted with a four-second fuse or seven-second fuse?

There were cases when the sods kicked it back and blew one of us up
. I remembered my father's reminiscences from a few days ago.

I opened the shed door.

Smith smiled. ‘About time, Dr Elliot. I was starting to think you were trying to tunnel your way out of there.' He still had Max's arm in a tight grip, the gun pressing into the side of her chest.

I walked forward, came to stand just beside the gaping chasm of Dad's bean trench. It looked like a mass grave awaiting filling; perhaps it would prove to be so. ‘Here they are.' I held up the tin and rattled it and felt the grenade shift slightly. I hurriedly put my arm down.

‘Throw it over here.'

‘Let Max go first.'

He was standing about ten yards away and in darkness but I heard the grin in his voice. ‘When I know that those are the real diamonds, I will.'

I hesitated, not least because there was a danger that the act of tossing the tin over to him would dislodge the Mills bomb with unfortunate consequences for my trousers and their contents.

‘Come on, doctor.'

So, with a somewhat stilted action, I threw the tin over to him; it landed in the mud about two feet in front of him. He looked down at it and at that moment I surreptitiously pulled the grenade from my belt, still squeezing the lever. He glanced across at Max and I could see he was wondering what to do; I was hoping that he was going to have to let go of Max to get the tin but, unfortunately, they train policemen well these days. He said to Max, ‘Bend down and pick it up.'

She flicked a nervous glance at me, then complied.

‘Open it.'

She did so and I held my breath. There was barely any light for him to see by, since I had been the only one with a torch and I had deliberately left it in the shed. He peered into the tin; he did this for what seemed a very long time indeed . . .

So long that I began to think that he knew, in which case I couldn't see how Max was going to come out of this alive.

He looked up; I have never been so relieved as I was then, because I saw a smile on his face. ‘You've been very wise, Dr Elliot. Very wise indeed.'

‘Let Max go, then.'

He looked at her and for a moment I thought that he was just going to kill her there and then, but all he did was to lean down and kiss her lightly on the cheek, then release her arm. ‘Give me the diamonds, miss.'

The plan was that she would give him the diamonds, she would run to me, I would release the lever on the Mills bomb and throw it, and the two of us would leg it as quickly as we could.

For obvious reasons, however, I hadn't consulted Max.

Which is perhaps why a look of determined aggression came across her face and she deftly threw the tin into the air.

At once, the tin was lost in darkness and weather and Smith watched his inheritance sailing away with a stunned, almost idiotic expression. Max took her chance and bolted . . .

Smith was quick, though. He grabbed and almost got her arm as she sprinted towards me. Only almost, though . . .

She collided with me with such an impact that I almost dropped the grenade. Smith's attention was torn between us and the diamonds; uncertainty flickered across his face for a second.

I released the lever on the grenade.

Smith smiled, a decision made.

He raised the gun and pointed it at us. He said sadly, ‘I can find the diamonds at my leisure.'

My father's words came back to me.
You've got either four or seven seconds then before it explodes, so you don't want to throw it too early.

But which was it?

Max said desperately, ‘Someone will hear the shots.'

He was puzzled. ‘So?'

I threw the grenade.

He looked at the grenade as it headed towards him but didn't recognize what it was – why should he? – and he began to dodge it, moving to the right so that it would pass harmlessly by. He almost certainly thought that it was a pebble or something, so dodging it would be easy and then he could get on with shooting us.

I fell to my left, pulling Max with me. As we disappeared into the maw of the bean trench, I saw it had fallen to the ground in the darkness behind him, and he was concentrating once again on us. He began striding towards us purposefully, the gun following us, as we fell into the ditch.

He was smiling again.

I thought that I had blown it. It had been a seven-second fuse and been thrown too hard. Every step he took meant that he was walking away from it, towards safety.

And then the Mills bomb did what Mills bombs do and there was a huge explosion about ten yards behind him.

It was an explosion the like of which I had never known before; as we fell into what seemed to be a bottomless pit, I remember thinking that Mills bombs were certainly more powerful than I had imagined them to be, after which we hit the bottom.

Actually, a bottomless pit would have been far nicer than the rotting vegetables, fruit, tea leaves, worms, beetles and slugs that we ended up in.

FORTY-FOUR

D
ad's bandages were off and he now wore, in lieu of a full head of hair, a rather fetching, and somehow appropriate, purple woolly hat. He was fully mobile and was due to go home in the next few days, and he no longer had a police escort, but he was not happy.

‘Bloody vandalism,' he said.

It had been three days since that night on the allotments and my ears were still ringing with the noise of the grenade exploding. His words had to fight to get through to my brain. ‘What is?'

He looked at me sourly. ‘The way my souvenir was destroyed.'

I didn't follow for a moment, then, when I did, I looked across at Max for support. She only smiled sympathetically. To Dad, I said, ‘Are you serious?'

He was outraged. ‘Never more so.'

‘You're moaning because I used the grenade to save our lives?'

He shrugged but still looked disgruntled. ‘Valuable, that was.'

‘More valuable than my life? More valuable than Max's?'

He had the grace to soften at Max's name. ‘Of course not,' he said and smiled at her.

Even after years of this treatment, I found it hard to keep quiet.

Silence followed, into which Max asked timidly, ‘Can you remember what happened at the Lightollers' house now, Dr Elliot?'

‘Oh, yes. It's all come back now.'

‘Did you see who pushed you down the stairs?'

‘Not at all. It all happened too quickly.'

I joined in sulkily. ‘That was why Smith didn't want to be around you when you'd come through the operation; he was afraid you might just be able to identify him.'

Max asked, ‘What about the watch? I don't understand where that came in.'

Dad was at once enraged. ‘Oh, the watch! Do you know, that mountebank Lightoller only had the sheer, untrammelled gall to have it out on display in his sitting room! I saw it when I came in to see what was going on. It was in a display cabinet. I opened the cabinet, grabbed it and then made my way further into the house; I remember thinking that I would have a bit of fun with that watch.'

‘So you had it in your hand when you fell down the stairs?'

‘I suppose so. I don't really remember.' He scratched his head and said to Max, ‘I do hope you're fully recovered from your ordeal, Max.'

He had never called her by her first name before. I was fuming inside because he always made me fume inside, but I thanked him for that. She replied with a demur smile, ‘Yes, thank you, Dr Elliot.'

He nodded and smiled and I knew that she had passed a very high hurdle. Of me he enquired, ‘So where are they?'

‘Where are what?'

‘The diamonds.'

I shrugged.

‘You don't know?' His voice suggested not just incredulity, more despair, almost disappointment that once again I had failed to live up to his expectations.

‘No,' I sighed, trying to find some affection in my irritation; this man was, at heart, made of the right stuff, after all. ‘If they ever were in that book, where Lightoller put them after that is anyone's guess.'

The expression on his face suggested that he took this defeat personally. I swear that he even muttered, ‘After all I've been through . . .'

Silence descended again until he overcame this personal slight and, perking up, he said brightly, ‘Ada's been to see me.'

‘Ada Clarke, the stool pigeon?'

He frowned. ‘That's not very nice, Lance. Ada is a good Christian woman who found herself placed in a very difficult position. It was my fault and I don't blame her in the least.'

I murmured, ‘You'd better hope she's not
that
Christian . . .' But he didn't hear me.

After a few seconds during which he seemed to be working himself up to something, he finally broke down and asked me with a hint of suppressed excitement, ‘Tell me, Lance, did it make a big bang?'

‘What?'

‘The Mills bomb. Did it make a big bang?'

Max looked rather unwell at this. In fact, Constable Smith had been fairly comprehensively blown apart; it was not a sight I was going to forget for a long time. As if that weren't bad enough, because a man had died, there was going to have to be a police investigation into what had happened. Masson had assured me that I would be exonerated, but even so, I could not but feel a little anxious. I said non-committally, ‘Fairly.'

He said, ‘Really?' in a tone I found a trifle odd.

‘Don't you know?'

With that asperity I knew so well, he said, ‘I wouldn't know, would I? I wasn't there.'

‘But what about all your experience of them during the war?'

He looked for a moment nonplussed, then slowly smiled. ‘To be honest, I never got around to using one,' he admitted. This ought to have been in a sheepish expression, but there was an unmistakable air of sangfroid.

‘No?'

He shook his head. ‘No.' I was about to pounce with a bit of triumph when he added, ‘I never got the chance. To be honest, I always had the tommy gun.'