Barbara Cleverly - Not My Blood

Joe was already tearing out of the door.

The school hall still smelled, not unpleasantly, of small boys who’d recently been laughing their socks off and sucking on aniseed balls and peppermints. When the last child had gone with much giggling and pretend fighting from the room to the upper floors to prepare for bed, a puzzled Langhorne had been politely dismissed also and his expensive equipment requisitioned. When asked why he should leave his pride and joy in the hands of a doubtful quartet who arrived after hours carrying their own film reel, not even Joe could think of a convincing explanation. Langhorne had, in the end, withdrawn with a theatrical show of raised eyebrows and mutterings about “a very ancient and fishlike smell” that he declared himself able to detect.

The moment he’d gone, Dorcas busied about checking that the blackout curtains were doing their work at the windows and that no one could peer in from the outside.

She settled down at the end of the row next to Gosling, who’d stationed himself beside the projector. No one suggested she might like to leave. Gosling’s nimble hands threaded the film, adjusted buttons and screws, repositioned the screen, and refocussed. Then, at last, he pronounced himself ready to start on the film. He’d loaded up the one Dorcas had advised-the most recent, according to its number.

Martin turned off the house lights, and the metal wheels creaked into life.

Flashes of white light and unintelligible symbols followed on the screen, and suddenly the film had started. Eerily silent. Harsh black and white with little grey. Breath was drawn in audibly as a scene they recognised appeared on the screen.

The white room at St. Raphael clinic came up. Overlying it along the bottom, a strip of numbers gave the date and time. A fortnight previously, Joe calculated. The clock in the background behind the operating couch was given close focus. Twelve noon confirmed the time given. It seemed important to the filmmaker. Without a break, a physician entered.

Joe peered eagerly at the gowned figure, seeking an identity, trying to turn it into Bentink, but the cap and mask hid the features. Physicians still lagged behind police forensic staff when it came to the wearing of protective gloves, Joe had noticed. The hands on view and the eyes were those of a middle-aged man, but that was as much as he could make out. The white clothing against the white walls gave him an insubstantial, ghostlike appearance.

The doctor was escorting a child. A boy. He was wearing a white hospital smock and looking anxious. Dark hair, dark eyes, unknown to the audience. A second surgeon, similarly attired, appeared and, one on either side of the table, they caught and fixed the boy’s arms to the sides. Wires were produced, and these were applied to the child’s temples.

To Joe’s horror, the boy began to twitch and writhe and try to free himself. It was a moment before he realised that the boy had entered into an epileptic fit. The fit started at five minutes after 12:00, and the film was interrupted at 12:10.

A blip in the film indicated that a splicing had occurred. A second scene with the strap ‘London’ and the same date and time appeared. The same layout but a different room. A clock gave the same time. A second boy, so like the first they must have been identical twins, came in, and the procedure was repeated. But on this second boy, no wires were applied. He lay looking uncomfortable and scared as the minutes crawled by. At 12:07, the twitching began. Though not as intense as the first boy’s, it seemed to be a mirror image.

It was Joe who leapt to his feet and snapped out a command to a very willing Gosling to switch the bloody thing off.

Dorcas ran to put on the lights, and they sat, in a huddled group, shaking with anger and distress.

Finally: “Will someone please tell me what we’ve just seen?” Joe gritted out the words.

With an effort at calm, Dorcas tried. “An experiment. Those were identical twins. Very valuable to Bentink’s research. I’d say they are the rarest of the rare-a pair of epileptic twins. He was trying to show that they are so closely linked by their genetic make-up that inducing a fit in one of them by the application of an electric current will produce a reciprocal and simultaneous reaction in the twin separated by fifty miles.”

Joe deliberately damped down emotion. “Could it possibly have been faked?”

Dorcas took her time in replying. “Not the exploitation. But the results? Yes. I can see how he could have arrived at this demonstration. And, Joe, I believe that’s what it is. The fact that it’s filmed-it gives the experiment the aura of a stage illusionist’s trickery. But the pain and the terror, they are real. One, at least, of those boys may not have survived. And God knows what further horrors are on the other reels. There were ten altogether.”

“Who are these boys, I’m wondering? Patients?”

“No. They are-were-gypsies.”

“Dark, I agree, but how can you be certain?” Joe thought he already knew the answer but waited for her confirmation.

“It may be silent, but I could read the lips of the first boy. He was calling out in Romany. For his mother.”

She could do no more. Dorcas covered her face with her hands, and her shoulders began to heave uncontrollably. It was Gosling who flung both arms about her with a cry of concern and murmured into her hair. Joe was swiftly at her side with a large handkerchief, and from somewhere Martin summoned up a glass of tepid water.

Martin’s down-to-earth voice brought a measure of calm. “I can get a print of the lad’s face off that, no problem. Take it to the encampments and show it around. Then the East Sussex boys can move in and do their job.” He was on his feet ready for action. “I’ll have that bloody place turned inside out and dug up. I’ll string the bugger up! I’ll kick him till he squeals! Bloody toff! Why does he think he can treat those lads like animals? Gypsies? Worth less than nothing to him. Would he do the same stuff to a kid of his own class? Applying electric currents like that-it can kill.”

“Well, there you have it, Martin,” Joe said. “Spielman? Renfrew? Peterkin? All the lost boys we know of? Perhaps those we can only guess at? Have they passed through his pitiless hands? Does he draw a line? From monkeys to sons of ambassadors and statesmen-has he any boundary? I think we should enquire with this ammunition in our knapsacks. A dawn raid, are you thinking? Can you activate a colleague in East Sussex? If we’re going to do this, it must be watertight.”

“Leave all that to me. The force’ll be ready. And we’ll be glad to see you there, assistant commissioner.”

The telephone was ringing as they approached the equipment room. Gosling sprinted ahead and caught it before it rang off.

“Hold a moment, will you?” he said as they entered. “I’m going to repeat that for interested parties who need to know. The Spielmans are now in Dover. They’re waiting to catch the earliest ferry in the morning.… Not possible to detain them.… Diplomatic immunity in force. Herr Spielman going to take up an important post in the new Parliament in Berlin. We feared as much. But why Dover? Have you wondered? Surely Harwich to the Hook of Holland is their most direct way to Germany?… Extra baggage arrived? What extra baggage? Describe it, please. Thank you. I’ll let you know. Hold a moment.”

He turned to Joe, ashen-faced. “Well, that explains Dover. They’ve just had a little local delivery. It’s more bad news, I’m afraid, sir. They’ve registered, as well as their many trunks and suitcases that came from London with them, an extra unit. It arrived late this evening by local lorry and is awaiting stowage on the boat when it loads up. It’s a coffin, sir. A child’s coffin.”