A Silent Way to Die (A Kember and Hayes Mystery) Read online

  The old guard had good reason to be wary of men. The ATA detachment at RAF Scotney had been stalked, terrorised and murdered by the Scotney Ripper. These two new ATA pilots sitting in the cabin were a reminder of the terror and loss.

  A frosty radio call from the Scotney control tower grabbed Lizzie’s full attention.

  ‘Hello Cuckoo, this is Lost Child,’ she replied. ‘Request permission to land, over.’

  Lizzie pulled on the controls of the Anson to maintain height as a cold air pocket tried to drop the aircraft lower.

  ‘Lost Child, Cuckoo here. Permission granted,’ came the tinny, humourless voice over the radio.

  Lizzie’s feet danced on the rudder pedals, urging the Anson to fight against a vicious crosswind.

  ‘Making final approach, over.’

  She throttled back and turned her head to speak over her shoulder.

  ‘Not long now,’ she shouted to her passengers, above the engine and wind noise. ‘Buckle up tight, it’s going to get a bit hairy.’

  ‘Hairy?’ said a voice from the back. ‘I’ve already grown a beard back here.’

  ‘Well, you’ve always had a moustache problem,’ said another.

  ‘You speak for yourself.’

  The laughter drowned beneath engine noise as the Anson dropped through a cloud, and Lizzie increased power to counteract another deep plunge through a pocket of freezing air. Wind noise increasing as the undercarriage slowly descended from the engine nacelles, Fizz cranked the lever through the last of its 140 turns and the Anson juddered along its entire length as the undercarriage locked into position. With more drag, the speed dropped rapidly and the wings waggled, testing whether to pull the Anson off course. Lizzie tightened her grip on the control column, steering to port and pushing hard with her left foot to bring the aircraft back level and pointing towards the runway.

  ‘Steady on,’ the man shouted, ‘there’s a G and T with my name on it and I’d like to live long enough to drink it.’

  More laughter from behind but Lizzie’s concentration denied her a smile. She lowered the flaps and the speed dropped further. ‘If we get down in one piece the first round is on me.’

  A chorus of approval from her passengers was cut off as a series of gusts buffeted the Anson, threatening to dump it in the fields short of the air station. Another wing dip, level off, a drop-rise-drop, left stomachs queasy.

  ‘Stand by,’ Lizzie shouted as she eased the throttles back on both engines.

  The Anson levelled out, decreased in speed and descended until the large, rubber tyres touched wet grass, turning the aircraft from a relatively graceful bird into an ungainly, speeding animal. Now out of its natural environment, ground turbulence threatened to spin the heavy Anson or tip it on its nose. Lizzie, a veteran of thousands of flying hours in many aircraft, was having none of it and tamed the beast, steering it towards a waiting ground crew sheltering from the biting wind inside a hangar.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Flight Lieutenant Ben Vickers, officer in charge of the RAF Police responsible for the safety and security of RAF Scotney, stood to the left of Flight Captain Geraldine Ellenden-Pitt, officer in charge of Number Thirteen Ferry Pool. To her right, Wing Commander John Matfield, second-in-command of RAF Scotney, wearing his usual pristine uniform, squinted up at the sky. Vickers saw Matfield sneer as an Anson came into view, and they watched as the aircraft swept around in a wide arc, passed through low cloud and made its final approach to land.

  Matfield’s sneer slowly transformed into a scowl and Vickers noted Geraldine’s look of satisfaction as the twin-engine aircraft settled gracefully onto the grass strip, decelerated and trundled to a stop over by its dispersal pen near to where they stood. They both knew the smooth landing would have irked Matfield, who disliked women being on the air station, especially as pilots.

  Ground crew immediately swarmed over the Anson as the engines spluttered to a halt and the door was flung open. A fuel bowser grumbled its way towards the aircraft and engineers wedged chocks around the tyres. As soon as everyone had left the aircraft it would be checked over, refuelled and made ready for action.

  Lizzie and the three other established pilots familiar to Vickers descended the ladder and saluted before climbing into the open back of a waiting Bedford lorry. One of the newcomers stepped lightly from the Anson, her brown hair flicking in the wind, followed by the other who fought to keep her blonde waves in check. Both saluted and hauled their kitbags into the back of the lorry, joining the others to await their flight captain.

  Geraldine began to turn away when a man in an army-style greatcoat clunked down the ladder. Placing a cap on his head, the man looked across and strode over. Standing before them, Vickers could see the man was about Geraldine’s height, aged maybe fifty with short, grey hair. His uniform displayed ENSA insignia.

  ‘Martin Onslow,’ the newcomer announced brightly. ‘Director of the ENSA concert party entertaining you this week.’

  Vickers caught Matfield’s look of distaste at the man’s accent.

  ‘You must be Group Captain Dallington, sir.’ Onslow saluted.

  Matfield’s eyes flicked to Onslow’s cap badge before giving him a cold stare. ‘Civilians have no need to salute, Mr Onslow.’

  Vickers exchanged a wide-eyed look of astonishment with Geraldine. Dallington, the commanding officer of RAF Scotney, had always required the civilians of the ATA to salute RAF officers.

  ‘Ah, but I’m in the Entertainments National Service Association,’ Onslow replied. ‘That makes me a serving officer.’

  Matfield’s lip curled with contempt. ‘But you’re American.’

  ‘Born in Canada, actually. Moved to England when I was twenty. Is that a problem?’

  Matfield ignored the question. ‘I’m afraid the group captain is indisposed so he sent me.’ Vickers caught a hint of and I’d rather be anywhere else in his tone. ‘I am Wing Commander Matfield. This is Flight Lieutenant Vickers, head of the RAF Police on the station. He’ll be looking after you.’

  The two men shook hands.

  Onslow turned to Geraldine and smiled. ‘And this is?’

  ‘Flight Captain Ellenden-Pitt, head of the ATA detachment here,’ Geraldine said with a smile.

  ‘She’s also’ – Matfield raised his chin to stretch his neck muscles – ‘a civilian.’

  Vickers noticed a twitch of Onslow’s eyebrows but Geraldine’s smile remained in place.

  ‘Glad you could make it at last, Mr Onslow,’ Geraldine said. ‘It’s always nice to see an ENSA show.’

  ‘And it’s always nice to perform,’ Onslow replied with a wink. He looked at Vickers. ‘Any sign of the rest of my company?’

  ‘They arrived two days ago and camped about half a mile south of here,’ Vickers said. ‘We’re on the Luftwaffe’s flight path to London and still getting shot up and bombed so they thought it best to be a little removed from the air station.’

  ‘Brave troops, eh?’ Onslow chuckled. ‘I prefer a comfy bed.’

  ‘I’ll show you to your quarters shortly, but while we’re over this way, you might as well have a look at where the show will be staged.’ Vickers indicated a nearby hangar. ‘I’m sure the wing commander and flight captain have bags of work to do.’

  Parting pleasantries observed, Geraldine turned towards the Bedford lorry and Vickers led Onslow towards the hangar.

  ‘I hear you’re a comedian,’ Matfield called.

  Onslow didn’t turn back. ‘So I’m told.’

  ‘I don’t much care for professional comedians.’

  ‘I don’t much care for amateur—’

  ‘Shall we?’ Vickers cut across Onslow, hurrying him away.

  Lizzie and the other ATA women sat in silence, being bounced around in the back of the Bedford as it negotiated the partly tarmacked gravel and earth perimeter track. She saw wariness in the eyes of the new women and had sensed a hostility towards them from the old since departing ATA HQ at White Waltham.

  Aft
er the Ripper’s killing spree had terrorised the air station and village, the women had tried to put it behind them and forget. But such wickedness can never be forgotten and the memories returned, often at the bottom of a third glass of sherry or whisky, sometimes in a noise half-heard on the wind, but always in nightmares. After everything they had been through, accepting new faces into their tight-knit group was never going to be easy.

  In fact, the one place Lizzie felt truly free was in a cockpit, thousands of feet above the patchwork fields of England. Flying in the sun and among the clouds made her feel safe, despite her job becoming only marginally less dangerous since the end of the Battle of Britain. Barrage balloons and the weather still tried to bring down the unwary, enemy raiders continued to pick on lone aircraft during daylight hours, and the anti-aircraft boys were no less jittery and trigger-happy.

  The Bedford jerked to a halt on the large semi-circle of gravel in front of the manor house used as the HQ and officers’ quarters. The women heard the rattle of a chain and waited for the rear flap to drop open before rising from the bench seats and jumping to the ground. Lizzie felt giddy as her feet sank into the loose gravel. Fatigue and grief weighed her down.

  Standing to one side, Geraldine addressed her pilots.

  ‘As you are aware, ladies, our new pilots have finally arrived,’ she said brightly. ‘I hope you’ve started to get to know each other but we can continue that in the warm.’ The smile fell from her face at the sight of the pilots’ expressions. ‘Has something happened?’

  Lizzie looked sideways at Fizz and concentrated on controlling her breathing. The Scot, raising her chin defiantly, said, ‘You cannae bring in any old whores to replace who we’ve lost.’ The insult emerged as auld hoors as anger deepened her usually mild accent, and the new women stiffened as if ready for a fight. ‘They were worth more than that.’

  Geraldine’s face hardened in a second. ‘You two, wait inside,’ she said, and waited for the new women to go in. She looked at Niamh, Agata and Lizzie with eyes that had lost their previous sparkle, before turning to Fizz. ‘I don’t much care for your opinions, Third Officer, especially expressed in such base terms.’ She glanced at the others. ‘I appreciate you still feel the loss of your colleagues, as do I, especially under such horrific circumstances. That does not mean you can denigrate new pilots on a whim. We need them and the reason for that is not their fault.’

  She stepped back, took a deep breath and relaxed. ‘Come on, I’ll buy you all a drink and you can get to know each other, nicely. Take your minds off things.’

  As she turned towards the door, Lizzie felt Geraldine’s hand on her arm.

  ‘Are you all right? You look pale.’

  Lizzie wanted to express the sadness she felt about her friend at Duxford but the familiar band tightened across her chest. Anxiety attacks, and what psychologists had begun calling OCN – Obsessive Compulsive Neurosis – while she was still at university, had plagued her since her mother’s riding accident, witnessed when she was a child. She had learned to live with her conditions, for the most part, but they did have the annoying habit of emerging at the most inconvenient times.

  Lizzie shrugged. ‘It’s been a tiring day.’

  As they followed the others into the lounge, Lizzie saw one of the comfy chairs and one of the sofas they had once regarded as their domain already occupied by the new arrivals. She felt like they’d walked into the saloon of a cowboy film as four RAF officers, sitting around a low table in the far corner, stopped chatting to look their way and the barman behind the counter that ran along one wall stopped polishing a pint glass. Tilly, the black and white cat adopted by the station as its mascot, jumped down from the arm of a chair and sauntered off. The rest of the lounge was empty.

  Geraldine appeared to not notice the tension and strode across to order drinks, leaving the women to chat. The barman hung up the glass, the officers returned to their conversation and Lizzie half-expected a grizzled old-timer to resume bashing out a tune on a tinkly upright piano.

  Despite their cool reception, the two seated women leant forward to greet the old team, their demeanour welcoming rather than threatening.

  ‘We haven’t really met properly. I’m Hazel Kennedy.’ The woman with dark hair and bright, brown eyes looked up at Fizz.

  ‘I don’t care who you are,’ Fizz growled. ‘You’re in my chair.’

  Hazel looked puzzled for a moment then stood up, her nose two inches from Fizz’s. ‘That’s not very friendly.’

  ‘That’s because I’m not your friend.’ Fizz waited, unmoving.

  Hazel held Fizz’s gaze for several seconds before she smiled, as if realising something, and stepped aside to choose a seat on one of the nearby sofas.

  Fizz flopped into the vacated easy chair as Agata and Niamh chose the two remaining chairs. ‘We lost our friends to a maniac not long back and they were irreplaceable, so we’re not best pleased you’re here.’

  Starting to feel the group tension permeating through her own chest, Lizzie sank onto the sofa and rolled her shoulders, trying to relax.

  ‘Don’t mind us,’ she said. ‘Fizz is right, we’ve had a bit of a rough time. I’m Lizzie Hayes, by the way. Where are you from?’

  Hazel returned Lizzie’s half-smile. ‘Guildford, in Surrey. I’ve been working out of White Waltham but jumped at the chance to see somewhere different for more than an hour at a time.’

  ‘Scotney’s certainly different,’ Lizzie said. ‘What about you?’

  The woman across from Lizzie guided her wavy, blonde hair behind her left ear. ‘Yvonne Fournier, from St Omer in France.’

  ‘Christ, a bloody Frog,’ Fizz said dismissively, lighting a cigarette. ‘It’s getting like the League of Nations in here.’

  Lizzie pulled a face. ‘You’ve just met Fizz Mitchell. A Scot, as you can tell.’ She nodded towards Niamh. ‘That’s Niamh McNulty, from the Emerald Isle.’

  Niamh smiled. ‘Pronounced neeve but—’

  ‘Spelled N-I-A-M-H, would you believe?’ Fizz interrupted. ‘How many more times are you going to say that? No one cares.’

  From the angry frown and gritted teeth, Lizzie saw that Niamh cared. She feared the Irishwoman would rise to the bait but Niamh sat back, glowering.

  ‘I wouldn’t set great store by Lizzie, either,’ Fizz continued. ‘She isn’t quite normal at the best of times.’

  Lizzie tensed. There it was again. The phrase that followed wherever she went and mocked her deep-rooted anxiety. But Fizz had already moved on.

  ‘And Grumpy-face at the end is Agata Toroniska, a Polish refugee.’

  ‘Sorry about Fizz, she has a problem with people,’ Agata said, ignoring the glare from Fizz. ‘She likes no one.’ She gave Yvonne a nod that looked almost conspiratorial. ‘I am from Polska. Nazis are in my country too. I want all Nazis destroyed.’

  Yvonne’s gaze met Agata’s and she returned the nod.

  Geraldine arrived with a tray of glasses and a half-full bottle of whisky.

  ‘I hope you’re all getting along, especially you two Celts. It’s the Nazis we’re fighting, remember?’

  ‘Just getting to know each other, ma’am,’ Fizz said, taking a final drag on her cigarette.

  ‘We’re both from passionate peoples, ma’am,’ Niamh said.

  ‘We can all be passionate.’ Geraldine poured roughly equal measures in the glasses. ‘As long as that passion is directed in the correct manner.’ She looked at each woman with suspicion as they leant forward to claim a drink. ‘We are a team of women in a man’s world and that in itself is no slight challenge.’ Geraldine looked at Fizz. ‘You more than anyone should know what bad feeling can lead to, and if you are in any doubt, I suggest you relate the full story to the new girls. RAF Scotney should be our safe haven and anyone violating that sanctuary will no longer be welcome here.’ She raised her glass. ‘Back to work tomorrow, ladies. Your good health.’

  Kember hung his fedora and raincoat on the coat-stand in the fro
nt office of Scotney Police Station, eased himself into the visitor’s chair near Sergeant Wright’s desk and pressed his fingers to his eyes. Wright placed his helmet on a two-drawer filing cabinet behind the door and sat heavily in his own chair.

  ‘You all right, sir?’

  Kember rubbed his hands over his face. ‘Fine, thank you,’ he said, feeling tired and far from fine. He’d always found ploughing straight into a case adequate camouflage for whatever he felt at any given time and now was no different. ‘Before I telephone the chief inspector, I suggest you tell me everything he said.’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ Wright said, interlacing his fingers across his stomach. ‘His sister-in-law, a Mrs Joyce Hartson, has been on the telephone to him, distraught with worry. Apparently, her daughter Evelyn, the chief inspector’s niece, visited a family friend, who lives on a farm estate in Paddock Wood with her parents. She travelled there on Thursday, intending to return at lunchtime today.’

  ‘But she never arrived?’

  ‘She arrived, all right. Just never made it back home.’

  Kember scratched the back of his neck. ‘Did the chief inspector say anything else?’

  ‘Only that he wanted to speak to you straight away and looked to you to get to the bottom of it, quickly, sir.’

  ‘I’d better lance the boil, then,’ Kember said as he reached for the telephone.

  A moment later, Chief Inspector Hartson spoke over the operator as she connected the call.

  ‘Kember, I want you to take charge and find my niece immediately. You’re supposed to be a Scotland Yard detective and now’s the time to prove it.’

  Kember heard the operator tut in disapproval, and he spoke through gritted teeth.

  ‘I’ll do my best, sir. Have you anything for me to go on?’

  ‘Of course I have,’ Hartson snapped. ‘Listen carefully. A car was sent to collect Evelyn from Tonbridge station as arranged but she wasn’t on board. The driver checked with the guard who was adamant that only a young soldier in uniform and an elderly gentleman with his wife had boarded at Paddock Wood. I’ve got men tracing these people as we speak.’