between her lips and Valentine noticed that she left a smear of colour on her fingertips which she expertly removed by running her fingertips over the bar towel.
Valentine talked her through as much of the detail as he could. He was beginning to enjoy himself, thinking that he always used to talk to Julie about his day. But when they’d finished the drink Jan held up a bunch of keys. ‘Follow me,’ she said.
They walked up the High Street, then into an alley lit by an old gaslight converted to electricity. A sign hung, as if outside an old inn, and on it was drawn a wrecked ship, men struggling ashore with barrels held aloft. The word MUSUEM was picked out in fake gold coins. She expertly unlocked the door, then reached inside and hit numbers into a security pad. ‘I was going to show you tomorrow,’ she said, flicking on lights to reveal a lobby, dominated by a single black and white reproduction of the quayside crowded with sailing ships. ‘But we’re closed Tuesdays, so I got the keys. I’m glad I did now. You need to see it.’
She led the way through a room full of glass cabinets cluttered with fossils. At the back, near a fire exit, was a small lecture theatre with a video screen set up in front of six empty plastic chairs. Beyond was one last room, and over the door a hand-painted sign which read:
The room was crowded with display boxes, the walls covered in framed pictures and memorabilia. Valentine noted a large picture of a Lancaster bomber on a grass runway, a brick conning tower in the background. Another showed an artillery gun on the edge of a pine wood, set on what looked like bronze rails, the narrow muzzle pointing skywards.
‘We do an info sheet for each room,’ she said, unfolding a piece of A4. ‘You can have it. All you need to know now is this. .’ She took a deep breath. ‘In the first years of the Second World War the government set up this weird secret army. They called them Auxunits, the dullest name they could think of. Later they got called The Stay Behind Army, but that was after the war. During the war almost no one knew they were there. The idea was simple: if there was an invasion these men would go to ground, then come out and cause mayhem behind the lines once the Germans had moved on towards London. They’d hide in what they called OB’s — observation bases. Holes in the ground really, dugouts: but they were well trained, well armed. This is a list of the stuff they were given.’
There were two or three documents in a single glass case. Jan put a fingertip on the glass above the smallest. Valentine squinted, struggling to read the lines, amazed at how haphazard the letters were on manual typewriters, even on an official document.
‘I’d like to claim I spotted this, but one of the curators heard your appeal on the radio. He thought you should know.’
LIST OF ARMS, AMUNITIONS STORES and EQUIPMENT required for one Patrol, Auxunits.
1. ARMS
7 Revolvers.38 American
2 Rifles.300
7 knives fighting
3 knobkerries
48 Grenades, 36 M. 4 secs.
3 Cases S. T. Grenades
2 Cases A.W. Bottles
1 Rifle.22 with silencer
1 Thompson Sub-machine Gun
2. EXPLOSIVES
4 Auxunits (boxes containing explosives and concomitants)
3. AMUNITION
40 rds.38 American
200 rds.300
1,000 rds.45 for S.M.G.
200 rds.22
4. The provision of one Elephant Shelter for construction work. The necessary equipment for furnishing the base i.e. one Tilley lamp, two Primus stoves, Elsan chemical closet.
5. EQUIPMENT
7 Holsters (Leather American)
7 Groundsheets
7 blankets
7 pairs of rubber boots
7 water bottles, carriers and slings
1 set of equipment Thomson sub-machine gun
1 Pair of wire cutters
1 monocular and case
6 cyanide capsules
Valentine speed-read the lot and didn’t see anything. ‘Sorry?’ She put her finger on the glass right above the last line. Valentine straightened his back and there was an audible crack from his vertebra. He blinked three times, and read it out loud. . ‘Six cyanide capsules. Jesus, Jan. You superstar.’
Jan Clay beamed.
Then Valentine’s shoulders slumped. ‘But this is seventy-five years ago. So what are we saying — that there’s one of these dugouts — out there, and
She was shaking her head before he’d finished. ‘No. It’s possible, but no. I’m not saying that. These things were closed down by the end of the war, most of them filled in. The gear was supposed to go back to Whitehall but, you know, there was a war on. What if someone squirreled some of the gear away? That I can imagine, can’t you? A cigar box somewhere in an attic: one of the pistols, perhaps, some bullets and the pills.’
Valentine looked through the glass at the old document, its jumbled type and foxed corners making it seem like a message from another, lost, world. ‘Maybe,’ he said.
‘There’s more,’ she said. ‘I checked with one of the archivists at the county museum. A lot of the records were burned but we do know there were several of these units on the North Norfolk coast. Locations are sketchy — precise locations unknown. But there was a persistent rumour after the war that they’d set one up at Creake in 1939, and that the dugout was up near that ruin — the Warrenner’s Lodge. When English Heritage took it over in the eighties they even did a geophysical survey — didn’t find much, just a shadow of the old warren underneath. But what if it was up in the woods, George?’
TWENTY-FOUR
Shaw settled into his pace, bare feet thudding into wet sand, his work clothes and boots stuffed into the rucksack on his back. The night sea breeze was heavy with ozone, and he dragged in lungfuls, but still he could smell what they’d found in the woods. The charred corpse, a human candle: the stench of it was like a second skin on him, and he was desperate to shed it. When he got to the house he’d swim, then let the sea breeze dry him off,
