The Sign of Fear Read online

  By the same author:

  Underdogs

  None Mil

  Trans Am

  Early One Morning

  The Blue Noon

  Night Crossing

  After Midnight

  The Last Sunrise

  Dying Day

  Empire of Sand

  Death on the Ice

  Signal Red

  Dean Man’s Land

  The Dead Can Wait

  A Study in Murder

  As Tom Neale:

  Steel Rain

  Copper Kiss

  Silver Skin

  Black Cross

  First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2016

  A CBS company

  Copyright © Robert Ryan, 2016

  This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

  No reproduction without permission.

  ® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

  The right of Robert Ryan to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  Hardback ISBN: 978-1-47113-510-1

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-47113-511-8

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-47113-513-2

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Typeset by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh

  Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

  Simon & Schuster UK Ltd are committed to sourcing paper that is made from wood grown in sustainable forests and supports the Forest Stewardship Council, the leading international forest certification organisation. Our books displaying the FSC logo are printed on FSC certified paper.

  For Deborah once more

  Our Little Funk Hole in the Vaults (1917)

  When the Kaiser’s sun shines in the west,

  And the reign of the tyrant is o’er,

  Worse than ever was known of before;

  For ’gainst babies his battles are fought,

  And Humanity’s law set at naught,

  So for safety’s sake, I run from the bomb of the Hun,

  To my Little Funk Hole in the Vaults.

  There’s a bleak little hole at the bank,

  Where we rush when we hear of a raid,

  All helter and skelter, before any damage is made.

  There we sit and count our sins,

  And decide to redeem our faults,

  Till we hear it is done,

  Then we all make a run,

  From our Little Funk Hole in the Vaults.

  Part of a song written by staff of the Bank of England after bombs fell in nearby Lothbury and Coleman Street

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  FORTY-EIGHT

  FORTY-NINE

  FIFTY

  FIFTY-ONE

  PROLOGUE

  13 June 1917

  ‘Have you seen this man?’

  The words sounded stale in Major John Watson’s mouth. He must have uttered the phrase a thousand times in the past few weeks, always accompanied by a showing of the now-creased photograph of the square-faced Irishman he was seeking.

  The elderly jeweller repositioned his pince-nez on the bridge of his nose and leaned over the glass-topped counter. ‘Buying or selling?’

  Watson looked around the shop. There wasn’t that much to buy in the sad, dusty cases, unless you were in the market for second-hand. The war had made diamonds scarce, and what was Hatton Garden without its stock in trade?

  ‘Selling,’ Watson said. ‘A diamond star and a diamond badge. Either complete or broken down into sapphires, emeralds, rubies and pink diamonds.’

  The man’s eyes narrowed a little as he recognized the description. ‘The Irish Crown Jewels?’

  Watson nodded his assent and jeweller looked at the photograph again. ‘Is that—’

  ‘No. It’s his brother, Frank,’ pre-empted Watson.

  ‘Of course. I heard he was acquitted by the investigating committee.’

  Doesn’t mean he’s not guilty of the crime, thought Watson. Just that he is a very slippery customer.

  ‘I haven’t seen him, no.’

  ‘Thank you for your time. If you hear anything . . .’ Watson slipped the photograph back into his jacket pocket and laid his calling card down on the table. ‘Perhaps you could ring me.’

  ‘Ah. I see,’ the jeweller said, recognizing the name on the card. ‘And how is Mr Holmes? I met him once, you know, during that Blue Carbuncle affair.’

  ‘He is well,’ said Watson drily. In fact, he was in bed at the Connaught, having spent the night trawling for their quarry in the Tick-Tock Club and the back room of the Orinoco, a mission not without its risks, given the clientele of such places. How would he explain himself if there was a police raid? Not, as Holmes had pointed out, that a raid was too likely, given the paucity of policemen in the city. Conscription had winnowed the ranks considerably.

  ‘Let me tell you something, Dr Watson,’ the jeweller said, his eyes scanning from side to side as if worried he might be overheard. ‘There are merchants along here who would kill for a sniff of a pink diamond right now. But you couldn’t keep something like that secret for long. If this man is trying to sell the Irish Crown Jewels or their component parts, it isn’t in Hatton Garden. I’d have heard.’

  Watson thanked him and walked out into a bright summer day. Dr Watson – it was some years since he had been anything other than a major and the title sounded at once comforting yet alien. He supposed he was, dressed in his civilian clothes and working on behalf of Sherlock Holmes, back to his old ways. He was, temporarily at least, Dr John Hamish Watson once again. Which, he thought, might be the whole object of the exercise.

  He crossed the road to the teahouse on the corner of the Garden and Greville Street. It was a neat place, with bentwood chairs and lace tablecloths, and was around half full, although the customers were mostly the old, the infirm and the war-damaged. He took a place at the window and ordered a pot of tea and a currant bun. And,
a hasty addition, two of the establishment’s homemade biscuits. Perhaps, he thought, his appetite was coming back.

  It was several months now since the incident that had robbed him of his ability to enjoy everyday sensory pleasures. If he found himself revelling in the sun on his face, the wind in his hair, the smell of freshly brewed coffee, the nose of a fine claret, he was whisked rudely back to a rusting bridge in Holland. There, in the midst of a prisoner exchange – in which he was one of the captives to be swapped – he had seen his friend and companion Mrs Gregson shot down in front of him. Murdered. Executed. Killed by the hand of the egregious Miss Pillbody, a German agent whose intention had been to hurt Watson by snatching away something he had grown to . . .

  Grown to love.

  Yes, perhaps. Since their meeting in Flanders in 1915, where, as a VAD, she had assisted him in his medical work, he had certainly become fond of Mrs Gregson. But, in the mêlée that followed the shooting on the bridge, Watson had been deprived of any chance to comfort her in her dying moments. Or to find comfort himself. It was while he was recovering from his ordeal as a POW in Germany – and the events in Holland – that Holmes had arrived at the convalescent home, claiming that an old nemesis, the thief who had walked free after stealing the Irish Crown Jewels from Dublin Castle, was in London once more.

  Watson took out the photograph of the Irishman and laid it in front of him. It was like chasing smoke, looking for this one. A whisper here, a rumour there, that was all they had to go on. Was the man even in London? Or had Holmes simply engineered this whole business to try to shake Watson out of his lassitude? To make him Dr Watson once more?

  He was aware of the waitress at his shoulder, a stout middle-aged woman who clearly had nothing wrong with her appetite. She laid the biscuits in front of him, but stayed at his side.

  Watson looked up at her. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You looking for him?’ she asked, nodding at the picture.

  ‘As a matter of fact, I am. And it isn’t Ernest, if that’s what you are thinking. It’s Frank, his brother.’

  ‘No matter who he is, he was in here, ’bout half an hour ago. With another gentleman. Foreign, the other man. American, I think.’

  ‘Are you certain it was this man?’

  She peered down at the grainy portrait. ‘I’d bet ten bob on it.’

  Watson began to fumble for his pocket for coins, all thought of tea and buns gone. ‘And which way did he go when he left?’

  ‘I don’t know. I was out back.’

  Watson groaned. More smoke to slip through his fingers.

  ‘But I heard him tell his companion to fetch him a taxi to Liverpool Street Station.’

  It took Watson ten precious minutes to find a motor cab to take him east to Liverpool Street. In the end, he had resorted to breaking the law to get the attention of a cabby, emitting a loud, piercing whistle that wouldn’t have been out of place at the docks or at the end of a saucy show at the Alhambra. You could be fined for making such a sound in the street, in case it was mistaken for a Zeppelin air-raid warning. Still, this illegal blast of air did the trick in procuring a metered taxi and, within fifteen minutes, he was dropped at the rank in front of the terminus of the Great Eastern Railway.

  As he stepped across the open concourse of Edward Wilson’s Gothic confection, he was aware of a strange, tightening sensation in his chest and the feeling that his hatband was several sizes too small. He paused to take stock. The physician in him quickly dismissed any notion of a heart attack. Yet, whatever it was, the affliction was making him feel nauseous. He looked around at the porters and travellers – many of them soldiers heading out to the barracks in and around Colchester or for embarkation in Harwich – and they looked similarly discomforted by the strange thrumming that agitated the atmosphere around them.

  His brain, initially confused by this disturbance in the air bouncing off the red-brick façade before him, finally determined the noise was coming from the sky. He looked up through a gauze of wispy clouds, and his first thought was: dragonflies?

  The man whom Watson had spent fruitless weeks chasing was unaware of what was happening back at Liverpool Street Station. He had bought a single ticket and caught the train to Colchester without mishap. From there, he had taken a connecting service to a village on the edge of the militarized zone around the Combined Services Signal School, which everyone knew was the HQ for the Government’s code-breaking and wireless interception organization. It was the second time he had made the journey and he knew it was but a brisk ten-minute walk down the gentle hill to Dr Bradford’s house. Bradford had a motorcar he was determined to use for the return journey, hence the single. It would also thwart anyone who had tried to follow him into the Essex countryside. He had heard that Holmes and Watson were taking an interest in him. Good. It would be a real pleasure to wrong-foot them once again. But he had to be careful. They might not be at the height of their physical or mental powers, but he shouldn’t underestimate the pair. Still, twisting the tail of that insufferably self-important sleuth and his unctuous little lapdog would give him considerable pleasure.

  The Irishman straightened his clothes, took off his hat and smoothed down his tar-dark hair, before he yanked on the bell pull. The visitor could see a familiar spark of recognition in Dr Bradford’s face when he opened the door and squinted in the noonday light at the stranger standing before him.

  ‘Dr Bradford?’

  ‘Yes.’ The physicist instinctively pulled the dressing gown tighter around his waist and refastened the cord. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Are you alone?’ the visitor asked, looking over the man’s shoulder into hallway.

  ‘Quite alone.’

  ‘Have you had breakfast?’ The Irishman tried to keep the disapproval from his voice. What sort of hour was this to be rising?

  ‘I was just about to . . . I’m sorry, you are . . .?’

  The Irishman passed over his official identification and a letter asking for all assistance to be given to him under DORA, the Defence of the Realm Act.

  ‘I knew it!’ Bradford said excitedly as he read the name. ‘I guessed you were related the moment I set eyes on you. But I expect you get that all the time. You’re—’

  ‘His brother,’ he confirmed. ‘Frank.’

  ‘Come in, come in. Will you take tea?’

  ‘Thank you, yes.’

  The visitor took off his hat and examined the interior of the house as he followed Bradford through. It was built in the Arts and Crafts style around a square hallway with a central staircase that looked as if it could withstand an earthquake or a German bomb. Everywhere was wooden panelling and twee little carvings or bold William Morris wallpaper. It smelled strongly of polish and fresh flowers.

  Bradford indicated his visitor should wait in the sitting room. In it, he found four gramophones of different sizes and a collection of drums, some vividly decorated, others plain and unadorned, some intricately shaped, while others were simply hide stretched across a wooden frame. He tapped one of the larger examples and was surprised at the depth of sound and the deep resonance that came from it. It took an age before the air in the room returned to normal.

  ‘North African,’ said Bradford as he entered with a silver tray, which he placed on a low, carved table. ‘The Atlas Mountains. Lovely sound. Drums are something of a hobby of mine.’ He nodded towards the gramophones with their flared horns staring at him like a row of Cyclopes. ‘And recorded sound, as you can see.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Bradford had a reputation in this village – which was a few miles from the government installation where he worked – for eccentricity, a notoriety fuelled by his housekeeper. He was vegetarian, she told the locals, she had once caught him rolling naked in the snow, he stored his urine in jars, which he sometimes struck with a stick to make a noise, he played the viola at all hours of the day and night; that young men came from London sometimes, and stayed the night, and him almost forty and not yet married . . .
<
br />   For the price of a few pints in the Dragon Inn, the Irishman had heard it all on his previous visit to the village, albeit mostly second- and third-hand, and doubtless accumulating more sordid detail with each telling.

  ‘Sugar?’

  ‘No, thank you.’ In fact, he liked his tea over-sweet, but it had become the polite norm to refuse other people’s sugar, as it was on the list of ‘voluntarily’ rationed foodstuffs that the nation was meant to cut down on.

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Ah, just the one then, to be going on with.’

  Bradford passed him the sugared tea. ‘How is your brother?’

  ‘Well, his heart isn’t what it was.’ This was the truth, the hours in an open boat in particular having put a terrible strain on his organs.

  ‘I’m not surprised, after all those adventures. He is a brave man. A hero. Saving all those men.’

  ‘Ah. Although there are those who said if he hadn’t got them into that pickle in the first place, he wouldn’t have had to rescue them, now, would he?’

  Bradford gave a nervous laugh, unsure whether his visitor was being serious. It seemed disrespectful to a national hero. Perhaps the man was jealous of his famous sibling. After all, one of them was a household name every schoolboy admired, the other . . . well, who even knew he had a brother?

  ‘What can I do for you?’ Bradford asked.

  ‘We have a rather delicate situation.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  A lengthy pause followed. ‘The father of a young friend of yours . . .’

  The teacup froze halfway to Bradford’s lips and his eyes swivelled shiftily, as if looking for an escape route.

  ‘Please relax, Dr Bradford; I’m here to help. You could say I’m, well, sympathetic to your tastes.’

  The cup rattled slightly in the saucer as Bradford put it down, the tea untouched. ‘I am very discreet.’

  ‘That’s as may be. But you recall a rich, idle young man called Tyler hanging around the Jermyn Street Baths and the tables of the Orinoco? His father found some letters.’

  Bradford let out a groan. ‘He was meant to burn them.’

  ‘In my experience, those are exactly the kind of letters that end up not getting burned. Anyway, the son confessed all, his tale being that it was you who seduced him. Not vice versa.’