James Benn - Billy Boyle

Jens jumped like he’d been poked with a sharp stick. Wow, had I been right.

“Who?”

“Her. The woman you’re protecting. The woman who was in your room last night. The woman who you probably escorted back to her quarters, being such a gentleman. Am I right, or were you off killing Knut Birkeland instead?”

Jens just about collapsed into a chair. His hands covered his face as he tried to mask his emotions. “ Gudshjelp meg,” he said in a whisper. “God help me.” He rubbed his eyes as if he were very tired.

“I did not kill Knut Birkeland, Billy. If you can figure out everything else, you should know that much.”

“What about her? Who is she?” Well, he was the one who called me single-minded.

“It’s more… complicated than you might think. If it would help you, I would tell you, but there is nothing she could know. And it would cause… great pain.”

“Tell me one thing, Jens. Did you take her all the way back to her room?”

“No, I didn’t want us to be seen together. I took her down to the first floor, and then she went on from there.”

“Then I need to talk to her. She may have seen something after she left you, something she’s not even aware of.”

“No. I will not put her through this.”

“It sounds like this goes beyond your normal slap and tickle, Jens.”

“What does that mean?”

“How do you say ‘romp in the hayloft’ in Norwegian?”

A limp smile lifted his lips. “I think I understand. As I said, it is complicated. Much more complicated than that.”

“You love her, and she’s married?”

“That would be simple. I have fallen in love with her, but…”

His voice trailed off, and his eyes wandered to some distant place. Suddenly I realized that he was right. It probably was very complicated. So complicated that it made him miserable and might lead him to give up his dream of fighting his way back home.

“But what, Jens?”

“Her husband is missing in action. He is a ghost that haunts her. Now leave me alone.”

I left him alone as soon as I realized I wasn’t going to get another word out of him. I walked down to the main entrance, went outside between the twin grim sentries, and gazed along the road we had driven down just two days ago, unaware of the undercurrents in Beardsley Hall that were stirring, as someone was getting ready to kill Knut Birkeland. I took a deep breath and let it out, hoping the fresh air would clear my mind and let me see a pattern emerging. Nothing. Nothing but the smell of flowers, damp greenery, and the faint pungent smell of gun oil hanging in the still air. The sentries’ Sten guns gleamed, the dark metal glistening with the perfume of death. I stepped off the smooth steps and onto the crushed stone driveway, liking the feel and sound of it underfoot.

I wondered about Jens and his female friend with the missing husband. That would throw a monkey wrench into his plans. It was one thing for a woman to have an affair right under her husband’s nose, at least then he had some chance of finding out. But missing in action? Maybe dead, maybe not? Maybe never to be seen again, maybe about to walk through the door tomorrow? That’s competition.

He was intent on protecting her, whoever she was, and I was lucky to have gotten anything out of him before he clammed up. Now I needed to talk to Major Cosgrove, to ask about his early morning stroll with Skak. He hadn’t been straight with me, but then again, who had? Every time I turned around I found somebody where they shouldn’t have been. I wasn’t any closer to finding a spy, the missing gold, or even figuring out if there really had been a murder. Suicide still didn’t make any sense to me, not for a guy like Knut Birkeland. He might have killed somebody if he got mad enough, but I couldn’t see him taking his own life. It was too introspective an act for a fellow like him.

But even with every Tom, Dick, and Lars wandering around Beardsley Hall before dawn, I couldn’t place anyone in Birkeland’s room, much less figure out how they could’ve killed him. I was tired and I was getting a headache. I was fed up with Norwegians and their holy crusade and healthy early morning walks. Maybe Jens had it right. Let God sort things out. I thought about saying a little prayer for help, but it had been so long since I had been to confession that I figured it would only piss God off. Maybe I should go to Mass this Sunday. I could write Mom and tell her about it, which would definitely make her day. But though it seemed like a good idea now, I knew come early Sunday morning, I might feel differently. I thought about food and drink and Daphne, not in that order. And sleep. Sleep would be good, too. But Cosgrove was bugging me. Why hadn’t he told me he was out with Skak at six o’clock in the morning? He might have seen someone or something, like blood on Vidar Skak’s hands. OK, that was a little overboard, but it would have made things a lot easier. I knew it would bother me all night if I didn’t deal with it now, so like a good little investigator I went back inside to find the major.

Cosgrove and Harding had set up shop in the map room. It was a long room on the first floor, looking out over the gardens, a row of high windows illuminating the room with the gray light that filtered through the thick clouds. It was summer, but damp and cloudy seemed to be what passed for summer weather here. There were large map tables set up on trestles under the windows, and a long conference table along the opposite wall. File cabinets and map cases filled the middle of the room, and Harding and Cosgrove were standing in front of one of the map cases, its wooden front panel open. I was about to make a crack about English weather when I saw the look on their faces. Something was wrong.

“Boyle!” Harding snapped. “Shut that door and get in here.”

I turned and closed the heavy oak door behind me. I walked over to the map case. Harding was peering inside while Cosgrove examined the lock on the open door. They looked like a couple of fancy dress cops on burglary detail.

“Someone steal the Beardsley family silver?”

“Nothing has been stolen, Lieutenant,” Cosgrove said. “But someone has been in this map case. All the Operation Jupiter maps are stored in here.” I looked at the case, but nothing appeared to be disturbed.

“How do you know someone got into the case, sir?” I asked Harding.

“Look in here, Boyle. See these compartments?” The inside of the cabinet was subdivided into sixteen small compartments, four rows of four, each large enough for a rolled map and accompanying documents. Ten of them, starting at the top left, were full.

“These ten maps represent the overall strategic plan for Operation Jupiter. Naval, air and ground forces, plus special operations. They include unit strength, dates, everything. And they’ve been moved. Each map is numbered, one through ten, the first in the upper left-hand corner, then the rest in order.”

“They’re out of order?” I asked.

“No. They’re exactly in order.” Harding allowed himself a sly smile as he looked up at me. “I reversed maps six and seven when I put them away. I figured if anyone unauthorized got in here, they would think it was their mistake and put them back in the right order.”

“This confirms it, young man,” Cosgrove said. “The spy is here among us.”

“Why would a spy need to break in to see these? Aren’t you briefing the Norwegians on all this?”

“Need to know, Lieutenant, it’s all about need to know,” Harding answered. “No one here needs to know all the details. We briefed the king and his top aides on the big picture, without much detail. Then we worked our way through the ranks, by branch of service. The navy people got their briefing, but nothing about parachute drops or Underground activity, for instance. Each group got a detailed briefing, but only on their part of the plan. Whoever broke in here got detailed information about everything.”