James Benn - Billy Boyle

I turned a corner and across the heath I could just make out the hall with that plume of smoke right next to it. Fog was starting to rise, and it was hard to see clearly at that distance. The smoke sort of hung in the air, like a question mark, reanimating my childhood fears. My heart raced and my palms felt clammy. I shuddered, not wanting to believe what my body was trying to tell me. A British military truck with the big red cross on the sides sped down the road toward me. As it neared, the driver put on his siren, the wailing sound echoing in my ears as it went by.

The parking lot was full of people, grouped around the source of the smoke. Scattered debris and small sputtering ground fires marred its usually neat surface. Harding and Jens stood watching me pull in, or the ambulance pull out, or both. As soon as I could make out the expressions on their faces, I knew something terrible had happened. I skidded to a halt in front of them and switched off the motorcycle.

“What happened?” I asked. “Who’s in the ambulance?”

“Boyle, I…” Harding looked surprised to see me, and seemed to have trouble getting his words out. “I thought you were in London.”

I didn’t know what that meant, and I didn’t care.

“Jens,” I asked, “Who got hurt?”

“Kaz. They are taking him to hospital. He’s badly injured.”

“What the hell happened here?” I yelled as I got off the bike.

The two men looked at each other and I realized they were in a state of shock. They weren’t going to tell me anything. I went over to the crowd, where several men were using fire extinguishers to douse the fire that was producing the smoke. It smelled like burning rubber. I pushed through the bystanders. Harding followed me and gripped my shoulder.

“No, Boyle, wait-”

It was too late. Too late to stop me from seeing the smoldering wreck of the Riley Imp, with its burning tires still giving off choking black acrid smoke. Too late to see that someone had been at the wheel when something had gone very wrong. Too late to stop me from seeing the charred, unrecognizable corpse that had been caught up in a furious fire from the fuel tank.

The only person who ever drove her beloved red Imp was Daphne.

I felt dizzy as a swirl of smoke blew itself around me, hitting me like a hammer blow with the smell of burnt flesh. The world started to spin. Harding tried to hold me up, but my knees turned to jelly and I went down on all fours, and retched.

The next thing I knew we were in the kitchen. Someone handed me a wet towel and I lowered my head into it. That awful smell of soot was still in my nostrils. I tried to get a grip on things. Daphne was dead. Kaz almost. This was bad, real bad. I had to pull my head out of the wet towel, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t face it. What the hell was happening? Why?

“Billy.”

It was Jens. I tried to straighten up, and managed to wipe my face and look at him. He didn’t say anything. We were at one end of a long wooden table, and there were people milling all around us, buzzing, talking, whispering. Harding was seated next to me, a medical orderly wrapping his hands in bandages. I tried to ask about that, but no words came out.

“Major Harding tried to get into the car to pull Daphne out,” Jens explained, “but it was impossible. The flames were everywhere, all of a sudden, as if there had been an explosion.”

“What happened?” I managed to croak. I held up my hand before either one could answer. “Tell me everything, exactly, from start to finish.” Something in the back of my mind was trying to get through to me, but I didn’t know what. I needed to know everything.

“Take it easy, Boyle,” Harding said with real concern. “It must’ve been a loose fuel line or something.”

“It was an accident, Billy,” Jens said, “a terrible accident. What else could it have been?”

I couldn’t accept with their assurances. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that they both outranked me and that Harding could ship me off to the Aleutians.

Daphne. I couldn’t believe it. I told myself to hold on, to think, to fig-ure this out before I fell apart. I had to pull myself together and get the story from them, just like a cop interviewing witnesses. That’s it, just be a cop. I took a breath, trying to ignore the taste of black soot at the back of my mouth, and fell back into that role. My screaming brain slowed down. I could do this.

“Tell me everything, and don’t stop before you get to the end!” I said.

I felt Harding’s eyes on me as the orderly finished his bandages. He looked at Jens, nodded slightly, then winced as he tried to flex his hands.

“I should start with yesterday then,” Jens said. “Daphne drove in at midmorning in that red sports car. She asked for Major Harding, who was in conference with the king. She told me it had to do with Major Arnesen, that you wanted his orders canceled, that he was not to leave England.” He looked at me for confirmation.

“Right,” I said. “Go on.”

“She had to wait for Major Harding. I told her Anders was under orders from the king, but that the British government, as our host, could certainly request a change of plan. Then things got busy. Rolf returned unexpectedly. He asked if I had heard from you. I said I had not. He didn’t explain himself further.”

“When did Kaz get here?”

“Late afternoon. By that time Daphne had spoken with Major Harding and Major Cosgrove. Kaz came bursting in, looking for you and Daphne. He wouldn’t speak to anyone else. He and Daphne went into the library and stayed there for quite a while.”

“OK, stop for a second,” I said, trying to keep everything straight. “So Daphne got through to both you and Major Cosgrove about Anders?” I asked, looking at Harding.

“Yes, she did.”

“Where is Major Arnesen now?”

“On board the Norwegian naval submarine Utsira, somewhere in the North Sea, approaching the Norwegian coast.”

“Damn! Couldn’t you or Cosgrove get his orders changed, sir?”

“The decision was made not to alter his orders.” Now Harding sounded more like himself. Unfortunately, that was a know-it-all hard-ass. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“You let him go?”

Harding gave me a cold stare. “Major Arnesen is on a dangerous mission for our valued ally, the Norwegian government in exile. It is hardly a matter of ‘letting’ him go. He is the king’s representative to the Underground army, not an escaped convict.”

I tried to take it in. I didn’t like it, but I needed to focus on Daphne and Kaz. I nodded to Jens to continue. I thought it best not to say anything right now to Harding, to let my anger settle. I urged myself to make believe I was wearing a blue coat, sitting in someone’s Boston kitchen. I’d feel bad that their life had been shattered, but then I’d leave, file a report, head home, and have a beer at Kirby’s.

Then it hit me. Diana! Oh my God. Had she left yet? Would she know her sister was dead? Who was going to tell her? And the captain, who had been worried about the wrong daughter! I guess some of what I was feeling showed despite my resolve.

“Billy? Are you all right?” Jens asked.

“Yeah, go on.”

“Well, it was obvious that Kaz had some important information, and that he wanted to get it to you. Daphne wasn’t sure when you’d return, so they decided to wait here. This morning, I saw Daphne and Rolf standing by her automobile. He was carrying her bag.”

“Where was she going?” I asked.

“To meet you in London,” Harding answered, as if it were obvious. “You called here and left a message for Daphne and Kaz to meet you at headquarters.”

“Who took the message?”

“Rolf,” Jens spoke up. “He gave them the message himself.”