D-Notice by Bill Walker (big ebook reader txt) 📗

“Commonwealth War Graves Commission.... No, I’m sorry Mrs. Petrie, we haven’t located the grave as of yet. We’re waiting for files from our main office in Maidenhead. I believe we’ll know for sure in about a week.... Yes, I wish we could send it over the phone, too.... Thank you, I’ll call you as soon as I have the information.”

Michael hung up just as Ferguson pulled out a buff-colored envelope from under a pile of file folders. “We got another one of those letters in this morning’s post. ‘Dear Sirs. I know this is a trifle late for such inquiries, but I am trying to locate the grave site of my late father, Sergeant Major Arthur Woodley of His Majesty’s Regiment, Royal South Wessex....’”

Michael frowned. “Hmmm.... South Wessex.... Did you make those inquiries about the last ones we had in?”

“I should say so. Took bloody forever and a day for those wankers to get back to me. If I wasn’t such a bureaucrat myself, I might have gotten—”

“What did they say?” Michael cut in, impatient with Ferguson’s usual banter.

Ferguson threw up his hands in disgust. “That’s just it. They didn’t. The bloke said, and I bloody well quote: ‘‘er Majesty’s government have no record of such a regiment.’”

“What?”

“That’s what I said. Then the bloody arse told me to mind my own business and hung up on me.”

Michael leaned back in his chair, his eyes focused on a crack in the ceiling, and tried to make sense of what Ferguson had told him. On the one hand, it was conceivable that someone could have remembered the name of his father’s regiment incorrectly. But this letter made the fifth one in six months, and everyone had unerringly inquired about that selfsame regiment: The Royal South Wessex. Far too many to be mere coincidence.

So that left the man Ferguson had spoken to. Knowing Ferguson as he did, Michael knew that it was quite possible he’d rubbed the fellow the wrong way and been told to piss off for his troubles. That didn’t mean there wasn’t a Royal South Wessex regiment buried somewhere in the files.

He sighed and rubbed his temples where a dull throbbing had begun some moments before. What was the use, anyway? Without any leads, there was no way they were going to solve the problem now, or at any time hence.

So why did it bother him so much?

Shaking his head, Michael let the chair fall forward, the spring shrieking for lack of oil. “All right, then,” he said, as he began straightening his papers. “We’ll put it aside for now, maybe I’ll call the man myself later on. Let’s not worry about it.”

Ferguson stubbed out the butt of his cigarette and pulled out another, lighting it with a flick of his battered Zippo. “Fine by me, mate. I’ve bloody well had it with those tossers. I should’ve listened to me Dad and become a bleedin’ accountant like him. Prob’ly own a bloody Jag by now.”

Turning back to his work, Michael allowed himself a tiny smile as he imagined Ferguson tending to someone’s books, his office a blizzard of paper.

The phone rang again, and Michael snatched it up, grateful for the distraction. He pushed all thoughts of phantom regiments and incompetent accountants from his mind and put on his best phone voice. “Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Michael Thorley, Jr. speaking.... Yes ma’am, the information came in yesterday, and I was about to ring you up....”

Chapter Eleven

Sir William Atwater stood in the crowd of eager tourists cradling a wiry Jack Russell terrier in his arms. Dressed, as was his custom, in a dark blue pin-stripe Savile Row suit, starched white shirt and his Hussars tie, he stood straight and tall in resolute defiance of the infirmities of old age. His snow-white handlebar mustache was precisely waxed, and his Dunn’s bowler hat placed at the proper jaunty angle. Gray lambskin gloves covered the large liver spots on his hands and a tightly furled black umbrella hung from the crook of his arm.

The dog, all pointed ears and darting eyes, quivered with anticipation that mirrored his master’s.

The tourists around him reacted with awe and a whirring and clicking of shutters as the first of Her Majesty’s Horse Guards rode into view, the sun glinting off their highly polished breastplates and helmets. As always, they rode to the strains of the “British Grenadiers,” a sprightly tune that never failed to make Sir William swell with pride.

“Watch now, Watson, that’s a good lad,” he said to the little dog. “This is the best part, isn’t it?”

Watson yipped in reply and Sir William chuckled. Ever since his Evie had passed away five years before, Watson had been such comfort. Today, as he’d done every day for the past twenty years of his retirement—Good Lord, had it really been that long already—he’d awakened at 0600, dressed and taken his breakfast at the club. At precisely 1100 hours, he could be found standing on this very spot watching the Changing of the Guard—every day—rain or shine. One must stand on tradition, after all.

When the ceremony ended, he would stroll through St. James’s Park, let Watson do his duty, and then spend the afternoon sitting in his study writing his memoirs.

Of course, they would never be published, as much as he secretly wished they would be, for as the former Director of MI6, he was the guardian of his nation’s secrets, and therefore still bound by the Official Secrets Act. No, they would never see the light of day. His executors had instructions to burn the lot the very hour of his death, and he intended to see it done, even if it meant haunting the bloody fools. Sir William chuckled to himself.