“When, Rob? When did he say something?”
“The night of the crash in the bar. I was drunk. And upset. I remember being confused. Damn it, what did he say?”
Susie let him rack his brains in silence for a minute before speaking again.
“Well, why don’t you ask him?”
“Is that safe? I’ve avoided saying anything to anyone at TFU.”
“He’s not at TFU, is he? And anyway, all you’re doing is asking what it was he said to you.”
Rob looked at his watch. “He lives in the mess. I could even catch him tonight.”
“Then let’s fly, flight lieutenant.”
THE MESS BAR was busy for a Monday night.
Rob surveyed the room.
At the bar; a white-coated steward regarded him expectantly.
“Is Squadron Leader Richardson in?”
Without answering, the steward pointed to the far wall where JR sat with two others Rob recognised from his few dealings with the Graveyard.
As he approached, the three men stood up, as if he was a senior officer or a woman.
“Hello, Rob.” JR reached out his hand, followed by the two other pilots who gave him a warm greeting.
“JR. Do you mind if I borrow you for a moment?”
JR gave the others a look, and they headed off to the bar.
“When we spoke on the night of the crash, you said something to me about Millie. Do you remember?”
Although JR’s eyes were sunken well into his head, with bags that looked like rolled up carpets, he still had a twinkle. Just like Millie.
“I wondered when you would come to me.”
Rob stared at him for a moment. “You’re the accomplice?”
“Ha! I’m not sure I’m that. But, just to be clear, this isn’t an official visit on behalf of Wing Commander Kilton, is it?”
Rob shook his head. “No, it absolutely is not.”
“Good. You know what this place is like. What it’s become since your lot moved in, anyway. Careless talk costs lives, and all that.”
“Yes, sorry about that.”
“Not your fault. Anyway, I know you and Millie were close.”
“We were.”
“And yet, it appears he kept something from you?”
“I think so, probably for my own good. But now I need to know.”
JR looked more serious. “Is it true Millie’s name is being dragged through the mud by that oaf Kilton?”
“It’s nonsense, of course, what they’re saying about him.”
“We all know that.” JR picked up his drink and looked around the bar. “But this is not a place to raise doubts about the truth unless you’re well-armed.”
“So, you were helping him?”
JR waggled his head. “Sort of. Just one trip. He’d officially asked to go to Wyton for some meeting, but he asked us to take him to Abingdon instead. He obviously didn’t want the visit on any official log.”
“Abingdon? When?”
JR screwed up his face, which became a sea of wrinkles. “Early last week. Monday, I think.”
“What did he do there? Who did he meet?”
“No idea, I’m afraid. Like with you, Millie didn’t want to involve anyone else unnecessarily. I just waited for him.”
“Abingdon…” Rob said to himself.
“He was there for nearly three hours, from memory. We decided not to make any logbook entries, so I can’t be certain.”
“Did he have anything with him? A large bag, for instance?”
JR thought again. “Yes. Like a holdall.”
Rob sat back.
“I’d look through a list of units at Abingdon if I were you,” said JR. “He must have met with someone there?”
“We will, thank you.”
“We?”
Rob looked around the room and thought for a moment. JR was the picture of a trustworthy man. But he knew he couldn’t take any chances.
“I probably shouldn’t say too much. The same reason Millie didn’t involve you more than he had to. You’ve been very helpful. Can I buy you a drink?”
“No need. The bar’s about to shut. To be honest, Robert, if you’re helping a cause that’s close to Millie’s heart and it pulls the rug from under Kilton, I’m happy. He’s bad news.”
“It’s taken me a long time to see that.”
They stood up. JR shook his hand. “It’s not your fault, it’s the way the system works. But Robert…”
“Yes?”
“Tread carefully.”
SUSIE SAT IN HER CAR, exactly where she said she would be, opposite the church in Amesbury. Rob could see the red glow of her cigarette as he approached.
He opened the back door and climbed in.
She looked around in surprise.
“What are you doing?”
“I thought it would be better?”
“Well, it looks odd. Get in the front.”
They both laughed.
“We’ll make a field agent out of you yet, Flight Lieutenant May. But there’s a way to go.”
Once he was in the passenger seat, she drove off.
“Too suspicious, sitting in a parked car in the middle of the night. So, what did you find out?”
“The Maintenance Unit helped him, but just once. Last Monday. The old boy I mentioned. JR. He took him on an unrecorded trip to RAF Abingdon. And he had a large bag.”
“Well done, Rob. Who did he meet?”
“They don’t know. It was pretty much an air-taxi service. They waited for around three hours and then took him back. JR suggested I look up a list of the units at Abingdon as a starting point.”
“And then what? We call them? That’s fraught with danger.”
“What else can we do?”
“Where’s RAF Abingdon?”
“It’s an old station near Oxford.”
They looked at each other.
“Oxford!” Susie said.
“A coincidence?”
“My organisation doesn’t believe in coincidences, Rob.”
“So, Millie drove there at the beginning of June and then flew in with a large holdall last Monday.”
“The tapes?”
Rob nodded. “Has to be. It was so clever of Millie. He flew the bloody things out. No-one searches us when we fly. Quite brilliant.”
Susie smiled.
“What’s funny?”
“My prodigy’s outstanding work.”
The car briefly mounted a verge and swerved back onto the Tarmac.
“Forget this. I can’t drive and talk.” She pulled over into the entrance to a field and parked the car completely off the road, masked by a break in the hedge.
“Let’s have a walk and work out our next move.”
She opened a five-bar gate and immediately recognised the field.
“Huh?”
“What?” Rob asked.
“Don’t you recognise it?”
Rob looked across toward the airfield double fence. Pieces of discarded tents lay on the ground, along with the odd piece of litter.
They began walking toward a circle of logs in the centre. “What exactly did you do here?” Rob asked.
“What you might imagine. Listening, mainly. The services get an instinct for groups that can threaten national security, and the first thing is knowledge. We need to know what’s going on. But, as you’re finding out, we don’t really intervene very much. It’s more a case of tipping off the local police, which is what happened here.”
The blackened remains of a bonfire sat in the centre of the log circle.
They sat down on the largest log.
“So, it was you who returned the Guiding Light material that was stolen?”
“Well, first I helped steal it, but then… Yes, I made sure it didn’t go very far.”
He laughed.
“It was wild. We cut the fence, scrambled across the airfield, and broke into the toilets. Took us a while to work out they were a dead end. It was a bit of a farce, but it was a pretty good job in the end, and well targeted. So, worth me being there.”