Chapter 20

Despite the drizzle, Harry decided to walk to his office, rather than take a cab. He needed to clear his head, and the half hour it would take him would be good ‘thinking time’. He set off at a brisk pace, his route taking him directly across the huge and rambling block of municipal greenery that was Birkenhead Park. It was a route he knew well, and he could often be found on Saturday afternoons in the summer sitting on one of the many benches dotted around the place, reading the day’s papers. He knew that the good burghers of New York City had, when considering developing a city park for themselves, visited Birkenhead, and that Central Park was modeled closely on its layout. He sometimes wondered whether there were the scouse equivalents of a Woody Allen and a Mia Farrow, living their separate lives on opposite sides of the vast expanse. If there were, they probably hadn’t named their child ‘Satchel’, he thought.

He couldn’t believe that brother of his. Alan had known how much Ana had meant to him but, like siblings the world over, he just had to go one better! He wondered if Ana knew? Of course she would. That’s not the kind of thing sisters keep from each other, and anyway, he knew that Alan had kept up some kind of contact with Ana after Harry and her had split up.

‘Forget it, Harry,’ said that old, reliable voice in his head. ‘What’s done is done – and you’ve got work to do’. He could brood about Ana later. For now, he knew he had little more than an hour to get something together that would show Laurel McFry that he hadn’t wasted the day. Harry enjoyed nothing more than a deadline, but even he knew this was pushing it.

As he pulled open the door to Meldew Buildings, Henry, the janitor, was in the foyer, hanging a picture on the wall opposite the stairs. “Had a visitor earlier, Mr McFry,” he said, as he stepped back to check the straightness of the picture. A young lad, asking if anyone knew where you were.”

“Do you know what he wanted?” Harry asked.

“Wouldn’t say. I told him you’d be back earlier. Didn’t seem to want to leave a message.” Henry noticed Harry glance at the door that led to Mrs Shipman’s flat, and smiled. “It’s alright – she’s out shopping somewhere, I should think.” And he’d winked at Harry as he gave the picture another fractional adjustment.

The door to his office was unlocked, but he was sure he’d locked it on the way out. Harry could smell something wasn’t right. His PC was still switched on – ‘Stupid, Harry – you’ve got to be smarter than that,’ he thought. As he glanced around the room, everything seemed in order, and it took a few moments for him to realize that the leather portfolio he’d picked up at the library last night wasn’t on his desk where he’d left it. Everything else seemed OK. Feeling just a little uneasy, he took off his coat and hung it on its usual home, dropped the file onto his desk and took up his post in front of the PC.

He knew that whoever had warned him not to go to the library was also connected to the medals, and that the medals must somehow be connected to Laurel McFry. Now, he started to wonder whether there might not also be a connection to ‘DKL’, who had dropped the portfolio in the corridor outside the local history room. If that was the case, he’d better make contact with the mystery caller as soon as he could. And with that thought, he sprang up and headed across to the coat rack, fishing out from his pocket the crumpled notepaper with the number he’d been asked – told – to ring. ‘Time we started slotting these pieces together, Harry,' that voice in his head was saying, 'or someone's going to get hurt'.

Chapter 19

Harry and Adam walked through the chilly, drizzling rain to the taxi cab office around the corner from Harry’s flat. He was a regular there, so Maud, the elderly woman who sat behind the window in the cramped waiting room, with its yellowing walls and torn posters, glanced up only briefly over her half-rimmed glasses as they pushed open the door. “You found my princes yet, Harry?” she asked, as she continued drawing circles on a word search.

Harry smiled. Maud’s father had told her, when she was a little girl, that she was descended from Welsh royalty. Sixty years later, she still hoped someone would find the link back to the dynasty that had ruled whole swathes of Wales many centuries ago. Harry had promised he’d do some digging for her, when he had some free time, but had never quite gotten around to it. They should make bumper stickers for folk like Maud, Harry mused: “My other tree contains royalty”.

“Taxi for the Park, please, Maud,” he said, and she’d pressed the switch on the radiophone and called for a free cab. A couple of seconds later, the radio crackled and a voice Harry recognized said: “Two minutes, Maud.”

Harry and Adam took a seat, Harry gripping the folder he’d picked up from home and scanning the posters on the opposite wall, Adam wondering (not for the first time) why his uncle Harry was the only adult he knew who didn’t drive a car.

The taxi soon drew up outside. “See you, Maud,” Harry shouted, as they left the office, but she was too busy circling words to acknowledge him.

Harry climbed into the front of the cab, with Adam and his bag on the back seat. The driver pulled away, before turning to his passenger and saying: “How’s it hanging, Harry? You going to Carrie’s?” Harry had known Jimmy for as long as he’d lived in Rock Ferry. It was a small cab company, with only half a dozen drivers, so it hadn’t taken long to get to know them all. Jimmy, he knew, would be quick, taking the flyover past the town centre and then skirting the park to Carrie’s house. “Things are well, Jimmy. You get that magazine I sent you?” Jimmy had always been interested in Harry’s job, fascinated that someone could make a living out of poring over old records, linking people to their past. He never understood the fascination some people seemed to have with their past. ‘Life’s too short to worry about all that’ was Jimmy’s approach. Nevertheless, Harry hadn’t given up persuading him to think about his family history. Just last week, he’d sent Jimmy a back-copy of a genealogy magazine he subscribed to, with a feature on Victorian handsome cab drivers. “Yeah, I got it. Interesting reading, Harry. But it still doesn’t make me want to dig up my old granddad!” He was laughing, generously, as he spoke.

Harry was fascinated how some people seemed to have not one jot of interest in how their lives had been formed, of the struggles of former generations to raise families, sometimes against great odds. The same kind of people, he knew, sneered at family historians for the time and energy they devoted to the dead and gone. But Harry knew that the minute a will was disputed, or as soon as there was a hint of someone rich or famous in their family past, they’d come running to Harry for help.

Within a few minutes, the battered old Mondeo, with its lurid, yellow sign proclaiming ‘Rock Cabs’, was pulling up outside Adam’s home. Just about the same time, a blue people carrier crawled up behind it, and out piled Adam’s younger brothers, followed swiftly by their mother.

“Good timing, Harry,” she said, easily, and she reached into her handbag. “Here, let me get that. It’s the least.” She paid Jimmy his fare, and the five of them walked through the open gate and up the path to the house. More of a contrast to the run-down place where Harry lived there could hardly be. It was the same, Edwardian three-storey stock housing but it had been well-kept over the years and, of course, Carrie and her family had the whole house to themselves.

The kids were soon settled at a Playstation. Harry had taken a chair at the huge oak table in the kitchen, while Carrie made the two of them a coffee.

“So, did he say much?” she asked.

“You know kids,” Harry replied. “They keep it all close these days.”

Carrie nodded, as she handed him his cup. “You know, he’s got a new woman?” Harry didn’t. Alan hadn’t mentioned anyone new, last time he called. But his brother was like that – liked to keep the big news to himself, liked to let you find these things out by accident. “Oh, didn’t I tell you?” he would no doubt say, with his usual nonchalance, if Harry were to ask him about this new partner when they next talked.

Carrie sat down at the table, opposite him, cradling her coffee in both hands, elbows spread on the table. “Yes. Someone you know, apparently, He told me about her when we arranged Adam’s visit.” She was waiting for a reaction from Harry – any reaction, like a spider waiting for the first tiny movements on its web; but none showed. ‘OK, Mr Harry McFry, all cool and uninterested’, she thought, ‘let’s see how you like this one:’ “It’s Ana’s sister.”

Harry winced. That was all he needed to know. His little kid brother living with the sister of ‘the one that got away’. As if his life wasn’t bad enough just now, his had-it-all, threw-it-all-away brother was now enjoying life with the next best thing to heaven, the younger sister of his one true love.

Carrie caught his agony, but it was not the reaction she’d wanted. Truth was, though she would never admit it, she carried a flame herself for Harry McFry. What she wanted to hear was some sort of disclaimer, something from Harry that said ‘that’s all in the past and it doesn’t bother me’. Instead, she knew that Harry had never really stopped loving Ana, and if she needed proof it was etched all over the face she studied now, so intently. Harry took a gulp of his coffee, and stood up quickly. “Gotta go, Carrie. I’m in the middle of something right now. Thanks for the coffee.” And he reached for the file of papers on the table.

Carrie’s chair scraped against the flags on the kitchen floor as she stood up, too. “Harry – why don’t you come round for dinner this Friday? It’d be good for the kids to have you around.” She wasn’t above using Harry’s love of his nephews to get what she wanted.

“Sure, Carrie. That sounds good. I’ll be there.” And with that, he was out of there.

*

In the unlikely event that Dr Dacre Lawrence were ever to meet Jimmy the cab driver, and if the subject ever got around to family history, then they would find they had a lot in common. Dacre Lawrence had little time for his family’s past. That’s not to say he hadn't loved his parents – thankfully, the people who can say that and really mean it are few and far between – but he had no respect for where they came from, or what they had believed in. He remembered his father as a book-lover, a devourer of novels who relished his weekly visit to the public library. When he died, Dacre had spent weeks negotiating with the customer service departments of book clubs his father was a member of, trying to persuade them that they should stop sending their interminable supply of ‘books of the month’. His mother was, so far as he was concerned, a quiet, self-effacing woman who took pride in ‘keeping a clean house’. His parents had met after the war and Dacre had been the only product of their marriage, raised in a small town in Yorkshire where his father worked in a factory. His mother had died when he was in his mid- twenties, but he knew she had been proud to see him finish his training, and set out on a career that would help humanity so much. His father, who had survived her by another twenty years or so, got to see the real Dacre as he matured into his role as a general practitioner. Those early traits of disdain for common folk, which he’d seen in his son as he went, first, to grammar school and then, to Oxford, seemed to strengthen as Dacre grew older. As time wore on, the pair came to develop a mutual disrespect for each other which meant that Dacre Lawrence restricted his visits to see his father to birthdays and Christmas time – fleeting visits to drop off a card and a present. That was enough, for each of them, to maintain family ties.

To Dacre Lawrence had fallen the wretched task of disposing of his father’s effects when he died. All those boxes of books, parceled up and taken to charity shops. And then those papers! What on earth were they, Dacre had wondered, and where had they come from? He’d opened a few of the box files he’d found in the spare room of the same house he’d grown up in. He’d known nothing of these, as a child – or maybe they had been there all along, and he simply hadn’t had the curiosity to look or to ask what they were. The boxes seemed to be stuffed full with articles, closely carbon-typed on thin, flimsy paper, all from the days before the war. What they were doing in his father’s possession, he would never know.

The difference between Dacre Lawrence and you, gentle reader, or I, is that we could never have cast aside such precious records as those. But for Lawrence, just at that time, they were just so much ‘stuff’ to be gotten rid of, and three trips to the municipal waste tip in his new Jaguar they had taken, too.

Chapter 18

After Colin McAllistair had taken Stan Redfearn’s call, he had booked his train tickets to Birkenhead, and then spent a few moments pondering how he might best use the afternoon to discover the identity of whoever had been awarded the medals. In his study, it took him what seemed like an age to locate a manila folder, which he finally found wedged between a pair of outsized books on the bottom of his library shelves. He took it to his desk and opened it, drawing out a sheaf of closely-lined notepaper which he proceeded to scan. When he’d finished, he sighed. Reluctant though he was to admit it, there was really nothing else to be done, except to contact his old college supervisor, Professor Pickfield.

It wasn’t that Pickfield and he were at odds in any way. Far from it: McAllistair had been a brilliant student, one of Pickfield’s favourites. But it had been over ten years since they had spoken, and McAllistair was embarrassed to acknowledge that he had let their friendship slip. As he typed the eminent Professor’s name into a search engine, part of him was even hoping he might find an obituary, so acute was the injustice of neglect he felt he had done his former intellectual hero. But, as page after page of entries were returned, he cast such an unworthy thought aside. The Professor seemed very much alive – indeed, had published a book as recently as last year. With practiced ease, Colin found a phone number for the college in Oxford where Pickfield was a distinguished Professor, and moments later was speaking to his secretary, and ‘holding’ while she tried to locate him.

“Mr McAllistair!” boomed the voice at the other end, when finally Pickfield had been found. “I take it this call isn’t to try to persuade me to further inflate the marks for your rather miserable dissertation on the International Brigades?”

Colin smiled. Same old Pickfield! “I think we both know you inflated them more than enough the first time!” he replied. After being duly admonished for a decade of neglect, Colin could feel himself relaxing. He imagined his old professor sitting in his huge room in the Oxford college where he had spent his life, surrounded by books and piles of papers on his desk, his wild, grey hair bouncing on his head as he peered out through his thick-rimmed spectacles.

“So… to what do I owe the unexpected pleasure?” Pickfield’s voice was warm and had lost none of its rolling charm.

“Well, I can’t be sure, but – do you remember when you sent me to interview that journalist who had fought at Jamara?”

Pickfield was quick to respond. “Remember? It was one of the finest accounts of the battle I ever read. Jonathan Harcourt. He wrote for the ‘Daily Herald’. Articles syndicated all over the world. Why? “

McAllistair was more confident now, and marveled at his former lecturer’s memory: it had been over a quarter of a century since he had made the trip to the market town of Thirsk, in North Yorkshire, to interview Jonathan Harcourt. He had even forgotten his name – yet Pickfield hadn’t. “Well, I wondered if you had the notes I made?” Colin waited for a response which, if truth be known, he could have scripted.

“Mr McAllistair! If you think I am in the habit of destroying, or even mislaying, valuable primary source material, then you are not the student I thought you were. If you would be so kind as to give me your fax number, you shall have the notes within the hour. Along with an invitation to come to dinner at your earliest opportunity. Marjorie would, I am sure, be delighted to entertain you, She still asks after you.” Colin remembered Pickfield’s wife as a gracious and entertaining host. Suitably reproached, he gave him the number, and (feeling like a callow undergraduate again) promised he would keep in contact more regularly in future. “I should think so, too! And if you don’t mind, please make it sooner than 10 years time. I would hate to disappoint you by not being around to take the call,” had been the Professor’s reply, before he had hung up. Old friendships – easy to neglect, but harder still to resurrect, thought Colin, as he wandered off into the kitchen to make himself a lemon tea.

*

As Laurel McFry sat waiting in the foyer of the bank, she could not help but wonder how Harry McFry might be faring. She doubted very much he had been able to find her missing McFrys. She wasn’t stupid enough to employ the services of a genealogical private investigator over nothing. In any case, they’d agreed she would call him later that afternoon, so it wouldn’t be too long before she knew, one way or the other.

“Mr Attwood can see you now, Miss McFry” – the voice young and slightly hesitant, so that when Laurel looked up she saw a teenage boy standing beside her. Only his badge would have suggested he was a bank employee, she thought.

“Miss McFry – won’t you take a seat, please” – the bank manager, the very essence of politeness, was smiling in rather too forced a fashion as he beckoned Lillian to a chair beside his desk. She’d sat down, and placed her small clutch bag on the corner of the desk. Charles Attwood tried to prevent himself being mesmerized by the elegant woman who seemed to have so effortlessly made his office her home, to have relaxed so easily into the space. He saw many clients each day, but few had the poise and grace of Laurel McFry. He pulled himself back to the task in hand, which was not a one he relished.

“This really is a most delicate matter, Miss McFry,” he said. “I’ve asked to see you because the portfolio of shares we hold for you is – and there really is no other way to tell you this - rather worrying us.” Attwood was not someone who found it easy to break bad news. He could never have been a doctor, telling someone they had only the shortest of times to live.

He proceeded to explain to her that he had a report showing the performance of her shares over the last year, and dividends due to her next month were likely to be very much lower than in previous years. Laurel confessed that she hadn’t known, that she left such affairs in what she assumed were the capable hands of his good self.

“Precisely, precisely, Miss Fry. Which is why I must advise you to divest yourself of all your holdings in McFry and Sons at the earliest opportunity. You will, of course, have to absorb the expected loss, and I would be remiss if I did not inform you that it is not insignificant. But better to do so now, than to watch the shares slide still further”. Attwood paused, and awaited a reaction.

The wolves weren’t at the door for Laurel McFry. But they were gathering on the distant hills, and for the first time in her life she heard the faint but unmistakable sound of their howling, drifting on the wind.

Chapter 17

The long ride back to Yorkshire gave Dr Dacre Lawrence ample time to reflect on his meeting with Lillian McFry. As he watched the Cheshire hills, the Lancashire mill towns and then the west Yorkshire moors speed by through the window, he couldn’t help but think that there was more to the woman than met the eye. He began to wonder who might now have the medals – and, more importantly, the piece of paper that accompanied them. What if the records had been wrong, and Lillian did have a family of her own somewhere? Perhaps she had sold them to another dealer? Or – and here Lawrence visibly blanched at the thought – what if Cyril Galloway had double crossed him? He opened the briefcase on the seat next to him, and began hunting through the papers inside, until he found a card bearing the name ‘Telford Auction Rooms’. Picking up his mobile phone, he dialed the number on the card, punching each digit slowly until he was connected.

“Good afternoon, Telford Auction Rooms, Sindy speaking. How may I help you?” the voice at the other end said.

“Put me through to Cyril Galloway”.

“Who shall I say is calling?” the receptionist asked.

“Don’t!” was Dacre’s response. At the other end of the line, the receptionist was shocked by the tone of the caller’s voice, but she nevertheless located Mr Galloway and put the call through.

“Yes? Who is this, please?” asked Cyril, still holding the leather-bound, first edition book he had been examining.

“Dacre Lawrence. Listen Cyril, I think you have some explaining to do. I’ve been out to see Lillian McFry and she tells me she no longer has the medals. I wonder if you can enlighten me as to where they might be?”

Cyril was shocked, but could read the implication in the caller’s question. He wasn’t afraid of Dacre Lawrence, as some people were. His response was careful and precise.

“Now look … I can assure you that I don’t know where they are. I made her the original offer, and then I called you when she didn’t bite on it. If she’s subsequently disposed of them then there’s not a great deal we can do about it”.

Dacre Lawrence paused. “I’m not prepared to give in on this one, Cyril. There’s an awful lot of money at stake here, and I’ve put myself out on a limb to get it. If this particular bough breaks, you’ll be under it to break my fall. I hope we understand each other”.

Cyril assured him that he understood well enough the importance to Dacre of obtaining the medals and the accompanying paper. He thought for a moment.

“There is a chance – just a slim chance, mind you – that I can find out what happened to the medals. Will you be in your surgery later this afternoon?” he had asked. It was agreed that Cyril Galloway would ring Dacre Lawrence later that day.

The call completed, Lawrence settled back in his seat. But even as the car sped along the M62, the questions wouldn’t go away. Did Lillian McFry know she had been sitting on £20 million? He thought again of the old woman, alone in the bungalow. Maybe she was senile, after all? She could just as easily have thrown the medals out in her dustbin as sold them on somewhere. What on earth had she meant by ‘Four plus three is one’? And who would be writing to her, at this time in her life, from France?

*

Lillian McFry pulled the letter out from the envelope, dug out her glasses from the side of her chair and started the slow task of deciphering the words in front of her. She read little these days, and had few letters to worry about other than utility bills. She angled the paper to catch the light from the window, until she could comfortably make out what was written.

“My Dear Lillian” she read, “I know that if you even receive this letter you are old now, but my friends in England continue to tell me that they find no record that you are dead! So, I write again (and will write still more until I learn finally you are gone) in the hope that I can persuade you even now to come home. Your country yearns for you even as much as I do. We have never forgotten you, and have made a place for you even in death. How many years have passed, my love, since you were in my arms? Those who remember are getting fewer by the week. I myself suffer with aches and pains, but they are nothing to the ache in my heart for you. What keeps you there, my love? Must I give up these letters to you, and accept that you are no longer there? Had I the strength you must believe I would travel myself to see you but, alas, my doctor warns against it. Be safe, my compatriot; remember the great times we had. You are honoured by us each day. Yours with my unending love, Philippe.”

Inside the envelope, she found the banknotes. They had changed the design over the years, but she didn’t imagine this mattered. Folding the letter carefully, she took both it and the envelope to her sideboard, where she added them to a pile of similar ones that were stored there. She caught a small tear come from the corner of her eye as she closed the door to the sideboard. ‘Too late for crying now, Lillian Blyth,’ she told herself, and made her way to the kitchen, carrying Dacre Lawrence’s cup and the pile of bourbon biscuits he had hardly touched.

Chapter 16

Harry caught Adam’s grin as he rounded the corner into the arrivals hall. He was carrying only one bag, and trying to look older and relaxed, even though his face showed the excitement of a twelve-year old who had completed his first solo plane trip. Harry liked Adam – he was a smart kid, easy to be around.

“Good trip?” he asked, as he shouldered the boy’s bag.

“Cool.” Adam had replied, as they made their way to the rank of phone booths near the exit. Harry called his sister-in-law to let her know he’d arrived safely, then the two of them headed out to catch the bus.

“How’s your Dad?” Harry had asked, when they were seated on the shuttle and waiting for other passengers to climb aboard. He looked carefully for any reaction, but there was nothing immediately discernable. “OK. He said to tell you Ana was asking after you.”

They didn’t speak much after that, Adam reading a magazine he’d slipped from his bag, and Harry’s mind off down an avenue he rarely explored these days. It wasn’t that he didn’t think about Ana, it was just he had learned it was easier, all round, not to let himself lapse into painful recollections. But now, with only the prospect of a rail ride to Birkenhead to excite him, he found himself replaying scenes from a Madrid hotel room over again in his mind.

Harry had met Ainhoa at a conference organized by the Société des Historiens Sociaux in Paris, seven or eight years ago – a time Harry often referred to as ‘my previous life’, when he’d been a lecturer in social history at a provincial university. ‘6 BG’ he might have termed it, a mocking reference to that time in his life that pre-dated his career-switch into full-time genealogy. She was beautiful alright: he had watched her as she delivered a paper, in French, to a workshop at the conference, and fallen straight away for the way she seemed to keep her head bowed as she read from the paper, nervously pushing strands of her shoulder-length black hair back over her ear every now and again. When she did pause to look up at the room of faces in front of her, she blushed a little, then seemed to return to her theme with a greater vigour. Harry had understood hardly a word she said. French wasn’t his strong point, anyway, but her heavy foreign accent hadn't helped and, well, the view was a little... ‘distracting’. He had checked her details in the programme: Anhoa Magunagoikoetxea Zornoza - the kind of name that would make a Scrabble Champion salivate. Back then, he knew little about Spain, and it even crossed his mind that she might be Hungarian. When they’d become more intimate, they had agreed on ‘Ana’ as a name they were both comfortable with using, but it was the more formal Senorita Zornoza that he’d used when, on the pretext of discussing some finer point from her paper, he had persuaded her to meet him for a coffee later that day. The move towards ‘Ana’ did not take long. She liked his apparent shyness, and the way he seemed interested in her, so unlike the Spanish men she’d known, so lacking in that arrogant machismo she had come to detest. So, a dinner, a few drinks and a walk arm- in- arm through the bustling, late-night streets off the Boulevard St Michel (so natural, it seemed, to be holding each other that way!) was the prelude to their first night together. Harry remembered the smell of her hair, so fresh and inviting, even now. 'How did you manage to screw that one up, Harry?’ he asked himself, silently. The same voice replied: ‘It’s a skill, Harry. Let’s face it, if there’s a relationship to foul up, you’re the man for the job’.

That’s how Harry came to be in a slightly melancholy mood as the train pulled into the station near his home, not helped by the dreary rain that was still falling, making the streets seem dull and lifeless. The short walk to his flat was a bleak one, a boulevard of broken shopkeeper’s dreams, the boarded-up windows a testimony to the nightmare of mortgage foreclosure. When they finally reached the house, he’d said: “You may as well wait down here, Adam,” and gestured to a low bench in the hallway. “I won’t be long.” Harry climbed the stairs with practised haste, took the key from his pocket and opened the door to his flat. Quickly, he filleted the low bookcase by his bed of the files he thought he’d need. Turning to leave, he caught sight of the dull, red light blinking on his phone – a message which he’d better take, as he wouldn’t be back for a few more hours yet. It was short and to the point. The same voice that had called him at work the night before: “I need those medals back, McFry. Ring me and we’ll talk about it” – and the caller had reeled off a number before hanging up. Harry jotted the number down on a pad beside the phone, pulled off the sheet and stuffed it in his pocket. And then he was out of there.

Chapter 15

The curator of the North of England Museum of Labour History would, if he existed, have been delighted to acquire the medals that were now securely stored away at the back of Stan Redfearn’s safe. Shortly after Harry McFry had left his shop, Stan had contacted the only person he knew who might know enough about the Spanish Civil War to be able to shed light on their provenance. Stan himself had a little knowledge: he bought and sold memorabilia from any theatre of war, and the war between the republicans and nationalists was popular among certain collectors. Instinctively, when Harry had shown him them, he had felt they were special. These weren’t the kind of mass-produced affair that were dished out right, left and centre – they were a cut above that. Even so, precisely how special they were, he had yet to learn. Colin McAllistair had made the Spanish Civil War his lifetime’s study. He could discourse in detail on the finer points of the campaign, had interviewed many of its veterans and had published widely on the subject. McAllistair wasn’t a man to court publicity, however, and it had taken Stan the best part of half an hour before, via his publisher, he had found his contact telephone number. Stan began his conversation with a little trepidation, explaining how he ran a small military memorabilia shop, and how a customer had that day brought in some ‘interesting’ medals. McAllistair had been polite enough – he received similar calls once every month or so, but usually they were from people who had little or no knowledge of the war, who had perhaps found their grandfather’s medals in amongst the possessions they had inherited. He bristled at Stan’s initial statement that he ‘felt they might be worth something’. “I can assure you that every medal issued in that campaign was a medal earned, Mr Redfearn. And that goes for whichever side issued it.” His warm, Scots brogue sounded colder in rebuke. Yet he sensed that Stan Redfearn hadn’t really meant it that way, and was relaxed about spending time discussing his query. After Stan had described each of the medals, there was a brief pause, after which he replied: “And you say your shop is in Birkenhead? Then, how would it be if I popped up to see them? I’m very interested in them, Mr Redfearn. You are quite right in supposing that these are Republican medals. But if they are what I think they are, they are one of only two sets issued after the war by the Republican Government in Exile. You should keep them safe, as I believe we will discover they are of international importance.” With that, they agreed a time when Colin McAllaister could visit the shop the next day. “Meanwhile,” he’d said to Stan, “I’ll see if I can’t find out a little more about ‘LB’ for you. But you can be assured that, whoever it might be, their contribution to the Republican cause was amongst the greatest ever made.”

That afternoon, Stan Redfearn spent a couple of hours re-reading a dog-eared copy of George Orwell’s ‘Homage to Catalonia’, dug out from a stack of books on the groaning shelf in his back room, and found himself lost (as he had the first time) in the internecine, labyrinthine politics of the POUM, the Anarchists and the Communists that made the story of the Spanish Civil War such an intriguing, yet ultimately tragic one.

*

The occasions when Harry McFry regretted losing his driving license were few. A stupid decision to take to his car after he’d had a drink one night had cost him dearly these last two years, but he’d also come to appreciate the sense of freedom that came without having to worry about where to park, or whether his car would still be where he’d parked it when he got back. But the 40 minute journey out to the airport was not one he relished – a change of trains, then a shuttle bus - even if it gave him time to think through the Laurel McFry problem. He’d make sure to drop by his flat on the way back, he thought, and pick up those files he should have taken that morning. With a bit of luck, there would be enough clues in his old notes to ensure he could at least provide the lady with something. The medals – they were a different story. He’d have another look at that envelope: see if it didn’t have any secrets to give up – maybe even ask Charlie to look at the postmark, his ‘professional’ eye probably better at deciphering the smudged print.

As he got down from the bus - filled, he noticed, not with passengers, but instead with a phalanx of air stewardesses looking trim and dandy in their long, blue raincoats and perky little hats, and by another group of assorted airport staff who might be cleaners – he caught a glimpse of the huge logo for the new John Lennon Airport. He gave a wry smile as he saw the text printed beneath: ‘Above Us Only Skies’, a quote from the former Beatle’s most famous solo song. He remembered how, on his last visit to the airport, he had lost (or had stolen?) his mobile phone. Perhaps they should change the strapline to ‘Imagine No Possessions’? Instinctively, he felt for his wallet and keys and realized, to his horror, that he still had his handgun snuggled deep in it's shoulder holster. ‘Not a good idea at an airport, Harry!’ he thought to himself. All the extra security these days meant he might have awkward questions to answer if, for whatever reason, someone chose to search him. Dismissing the thought as best he could, he glanced up at the arrivals board, and saw that the Madrid plane had landed around 20 minutes ago. Perfect – in a few minutes, Adam would be out of the baggage hall, into Arrivals and the two of them could retrace his steps back to town.

Chapter 14

Someone once said that life is a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood. If this were true, then there were - could only be - a handful of people in the world who had learned the lesson of distrust more than Lillian McFry. Now, as she sat contemplating Dr Dacre Lawrence’s offer, she drew heavily on that learning. He had told her that he was authorized by the governors of the North of England Museum of Labour History to offer her the sum of £10,000 for her medals. A sum, he had assured her, much more than she could obtain if she were to send these to an auction. “Provided, of course, that the certificate proves to our satisfaction that these are what we think they are,” he had added.

She had paused a while, before replying: “While I may well have considered selling them, Dr Lawrence, I can assure you that these medals are rare ones. I can challenge you to find their like anywhere in England, and if I were to live, God forbid, another century, I doubt you would.”

Lawrence had looked at her, wondering again whether he might not have underestimated her. He realized, for the first time, how little he really knew about his prey. Perhaps he should have spent a little more time fleshing out what little he did know before he had made his approach? Too late, now. He would have to draw upon all his powers of persuasion.

“Madam, I am fully aware of their importance. Our museum would dearly love to acquire them, and to provide for them the honourable home they justly deserve.”

Home. The very word hit Lillian with a force she hadn’t expected. Her life had been a full one – fuller than many women you would meet, but her spiritual ‘home’ had been fractured and torn apart. “Four plus three equals one,” she found herself saying to her visitor, as much surprising herself with the words as she did him. “But I don’t expect you to know what that means,” she had added, “not, at least, unless you were ever there.”

Lawrence was growing more impatient. “Mrs McFry. If I may be candid, you are an old woman. Your husband was a great man. His contribution to the labour movement should be properly recognized. Without a family to follow you, please consider my offer. We believe it to be more than generous. The medals, and the certificate, will have pride of place in our collection, I can assure you of that. And I have the chequebook with me, so if you were to agree to the sale the money would be yours today.” He had patted his chest as he said this.

Lillian McFry sat up a little straighter, and glared at Lawrence. “Your offer, or their offer” she said, letting him know that she had noticed his slip “is quite meaningless. The dealer who valued these medals was a crook. That he share’s your company makes me very much question your own background, Dr Lawrence. I cannot sell you the medals, because I no longer have them. So perhaps it was time you got back into your car,” and here she gestured to the window, where she could just make out the shiny silver of the Mercedes, “and went back to the work for which the State no doubt pays you handsomely”.

Dacre Lawrence felt the wound of her ‘I no longer have them’ harder than he might have shown. Did this mean she had sold them? Or had she given them to someone for safekeeping? And she hadn’t mentioned the ‘certificate’. But the most pain came from the barbed, final comments that reminded him, in an instant, of how his father had once spoken to him. He knew, though, that it was pointless now to argue. With difficulty, he eased his heavy frame from the armchair, and forced a smile.

“Perhaps, madam, you are right. It’s time I was going back to work.” He moved towards the doorway and the passageway, turned to face Lillian, who had also (though with less of a struggle) stood up. “Please don’t worry – I shall let myself out. And if you should ever decide you wish to reconsider my offer, please get in touch. My number’s on this card.” He reached inside his jacket and fished out a business card. Lillian took it from him, without a word.

As he walked up to the front door, he saw a figure through the frosted panel of glass, and just as he was turning the handle the doorbell rang. He opened the door, to the surprised face of the local postman, who collected himself and said: “Special Delivery for Mrs McFry. Is she alright?” Lawrence, too, composed himself quickly: “Yes, yes – I’m merely visiting her,” and edged past the postman and made his way up the path towards where his car and driver were waiting. As he got into the car, he saw the postman and Lillian McFry exchanging words as she moved a pen, with some difficulty, across the proof of delivery card the postman was holding.

“Back to the surgery,” he snapped at his driver, and the car purred away out of the quiet cul-de-sac, leaving in its train a trail of twitching curtains, and enough gossip-fodder to fuel the lunchtime discussions in at least a dozen of the houses it passed. Dacre Lawrence, meanwhile, was smarting inside, even as his mind was trying to process who it might be who would be sending little old Lillian McFry a registered, air mail package which, he had just had time to notice, was covered in its right hand corner with French stamps.

Lillian, meanwhile, had retreated into her lounge, pausing only to wipe the lipstick from her thin lips before she sat once more before the desultory heat of her fire, and pulled open the flap of the package she’d just taken delivery of.

Chapter 13

As Harry exited the shop, he checked carefully to see who might be around. Taking a few steps towards the station, he paused in the doorway of a former bank, now closed and boarded up. He lit a cigarette as he slowly surveyed the scene. There were few people in the square: a couple wandering aimlessly through the gardens, hand in hand and seeming oblivious to the rain; someone getting out of a car with a bundle of papers to be delivered to one of the many solicitors’ offices that packed the square; and a teenager sat on a bench, listening (probably) to some terrible cacophony on his iPod. Nothing out of the ordinary for a Wednesday lunchtime, he thought. Hamilton Square was beautiful whatever the time of year – a larger collection of Grade I listed buildings in England you'd be hard-pressed to find, he mused, a solid remnant of the days when Birkenhead ships ruled the world.

He’d left the mystery medals with Stan Redfearn. He didn’t want to carry £20,000 worth of memorabilia about his person to the airport: they were much safer stashed away in Stan’s safe in the back office. And Stan had promised he’d get together a detailed report on them if he could keep them for a day or two. Harry had been surprised at Stan’s valuation. He knew, of course, that they weren’t destined to pay his back rent. But someone, somewhere, had felt he should have these, or know about them, and it would nag him all the way during his journey to the airport. Stan had told Harry that the medals were ‘absolutely unique’. They had been issued to someone who had exhibited conspicuous valour during a military campaign in 1937. With a little time, he might even be able to discover whose they were. Whoever it was, they had fought gallantly in the Spanish Civil War on the side of the Republicans, Stan had said. “I’d like to have met the person these were issued to, Harry. The stories they could tell. You’re sure as hell a lucky guy to have them. How did you get them?” Harry had been circumspect in his reply, mentioning an elderly uncle who had passed away, and a house clearance when the medals had been discovered. Even as he told this to Stan, he had sensed he wasn’t being believed. With another glance around the square, he stubbed out his cigarette and made his way into the station entrance.

*

Tom Gauntless left the hastily-convened team briefing in the offices of the Family Health Services Counter Fraud Operation wondering whether his staff were up to the task he’d set them. It was one thing to identify a trend – in this case, the systematic downloading of confidential medical files from all across England by a GP who had no authority to do so – and quite another to undertake a proper investigation, prepare a strong enough case for prosecution and then bring someone to justice. He was still smarting from a case last year, when a dentist had walked from court with a suspended sentence (as far as Gauntless was concerned, just a slap on the wrist) for his fraudulent manipulation of data that had netted him an extra £2 million over a four year period.

One thing was certain, there would be money at the bottom of this. His career had taught him that the few bad apples that sometimes made the whole bunch seem sour were usually motivated by greed.

Dave Morris, Gauntless’ young deputy who had instigated the software package that identified this latest miscreant, stayed in the seminar room after everyone had left, and stood looking out the window at the glorious panorama of Cardiff Bay. He was quietly mulling over his next steps, a mix of thoughts speeding through his mind. He’d been quietly flattered when Gauntless had announced to the team that Dave Morris would be heading up the enquiry, with a free hand to make any investigations he thought fit, and the services of whoever in the team he felt he needed to make the investigations a success. Was he up to it? His wife often told him that he should be more confident in his abilities, but she didn’t have to work for Tom Gauntless. Maybe Gauntless had put him in charge because he thought he might screw up? Morris dismissed the thought as best he could. The next few weeks would be a test, whichever way he looked at it. He picked up a phone on a table by the window and punched in the number for his secretary – she was sat barely twenty yards away, in the open plan office outside the seminar room, but he didn’t want to walk out there just now, to a sea of faces wondering, like he had, whether Gauntless had made the right decision. “Angela – can you get me on a train to Northallerton, North Yorkshire first thing tomorrow morning? I’ll need accommodation for a couple of nights, too. And tell Jane I want to see her – tell her to see me in the seminar room in about five minutes.” After that, he dialled home and told his wife he’d need to be away from home for a few days, and to cancel the dinner party they had planned for Friday night.