“Never you mind. Anyway, that’s his letter. What do you think?”
“I am very sorry Jan’s friend has disappeared. With luck it’s nothing sinister, but as your countrymen are fighting so hard for us, if one gets into trouble, they certainly deserve our help. I’ll have to sort out things at the Yard though. Gatehouse will need to know if I’m opening an investigation and he might want me to get a junior officer involved. I’ll try and swing it though.”
Sonia kissed him on the mouth. “Thank you, Frank.”
“Now, where were we?”
*
Jack Stewart fell exhausted onto the cot bed. For the first time his team had been kept busy on their home patch. They had received urgent messages for help from the East End, but they had their hands full in Chelsea. With the activity of Friday night in the East India Dock and yesterday’s goings on around Cadogan Square, he hadn’t slept for forty-eight hours. He wouldn’t be on his cot now if he hadn’t been ordered by a superior officer to take a break. “They’re bound to keep on coming today, perhaps in greater numbers, so it won’t do us any good if you’re a complete basket case. Get a couple of hours at least. We’ll try and rotate your men with the men from Battersea, although they’ve not had a very easy time of it either. Go on, off with you.”
As Stewart lay on the cot he could hear the radio in one of the other rooms. The newsreader said that there had been casualties overnight, but implied they were not great. Stewart knew the truth was much worse than that. Hundreds had died at least and he’d guess that thousands had been injured. Someone turned the radio off. Stewart’s eyes closed, but he couldn’t sleep. His mind was filled with the images of the night. He had seen many terrible things, but the worst must be the woman and the baby. She was waving at him from the fourth-storey window of a house just off Sloane Street. The fire had taken a firm hold and the floors below were engulfed in flames. The woman had been shouting something, but he couldn’t make out a word through the bedlam of the droning planes, the explosions, the multifarious noises of the fire and the roar of the hoses. He shook his head and cupped his hand to his ear. Some of his men were attempting to put up a ladder, but the heat was too intense for them to get close enough. He could see the flames leaping higher around the window and then there was a crack as some of the roof disintegrated. He saw that the woman was holding a baby out from the window. She was going to let the baby go and wanted someone to catch it. Stewart shouted over to his men.
“Forget the ladder. She’s going to jump. Get the—” There was another crack and another part of the roof crumbled. An explosion of smoke and flames filled the space where the woman had been. Then he saw them, mother and child, flames streaming from the woman’s nightdress as they tumbled through the air into oblivion.
He opened his eyes and reached beneath the cot. He scrabbled around until he found the Johnny Walker. He took a long pull on the bottle. The warm, amber liquid burned his dry throat, but served its purpose. Within seconds Jack Stewart fell asleep.
*
Saturday night had produced some excellent pickings, there was no doubt. Jake dropped the sack carefully on the ground and rummaged in his trouser pockets for the key to the lock-up. Of course, you needed good nerves for this sort of business and good nerves were what he and Billy had. They had done much better than when they’d been traipsing round the suburbs. Tooting and Bexleyheath weren’t exciting locations for their activities, though they’d come across some nice jewellery and the odd interesting-looking painting.