Morton stared at the screen, his brain humming with activity, as he tried to bring together all the disparate strands of the Finch Case.
Finally, he felt like he was getting somewhere.
‘Look, I’m having to put people off,’ Tamara ranted down the phone. ‘What are you doing about Morton Farrier?’ She lifted the phone away when his hoarse laugh bellowed into her ear.
‘Biding my time,’ Shaohao Chen replied. ‘Biding my time.’
‘Yes, until when, exactly? This is getting ridiculous and is losing us money.’
‘He’s got a meeting in London lined up. With Liu Chai.’
‘What?’ Tamara gasped. ‘You need to stop that meeting from happening or we’re finished.’
Another laugh. ‘You worry too much, Tamara. I’m not going to let the meeting happen.’
She ended the call and threw her phone on the floor.
Chapter Twenty-Five
23rd January 1942, Valletta, Malta
Her first week on the island had been characterised by an incessant, seemingly random stream of bombing raids. They had ranged in ferocity from attacks by a lone Messerschmitt to giant swarms of several hundred Junkers 88s, attempting to obliterate the island’s ports and airfields; the lamentable air raid siren had unremittingly whined on like a broken record, as it became difficult to know when one air raid finished and another began. And that, she and Aileen concluded, as they stared down from the controller’s dais to the plotting table below, was the problem: the island was almost always on red alert because of the inadequacies in intelligence-gathering. The pathetic quantity of intercepts being collected at Dingli and Siggiewi suffered from an unacceptable delay in reaching this operations room, from where immediate defensive action could be taken. Elsie had paid a visit to the Royal Naval Station at Dingli and met there the only operator that they had—a dilly-dallying civilian who had sent all of his logs to the admiralty in Alexandria, leaving nothing for Elsie to analyse. She had remained there, monitoring and intercepting traffic for four days solid. She had slept there and eaten there, building up a detailed picture of the kinds of R/T traffic passing over the island. There was much to be done in the three weeks left before she and Aileen were due to leave.
‘You girls got nothing to be getting on with? I can give you some jobs in housekeeping, if you want.’ It was Shorter. The women turned and saluted.
‘
We were just coming to find you, sir,’ Elsie replied.
‘Oh, really?’
‘Yes, sir. We’d like to go out to the station at Qawra Point and make use of the mast there.’
Shorter tutted and waved his hand indifferently, before turning and leaving the room. The door swung shut with a light bang.
‘We’ll take that as a yes, then, shall we?’ Elsie laughed.
‘We’ll have to hitch a lift,’ Aileen warned.
Elsie tutted and waved her hand indifferently, mimicking the manner of Wing Commander Shorter.
They had walked for several miles towards the shimmering horizon before any kind of suitable traffic had come anywhere near them. Finally, an army truck painted in the peculiar sandstone-wall camouflage responded to the women’s frantic waving. It ground to a halt beside them, sending a wave of thick dust into the air.
‘Sorry about that,’ the driver called down cheerfully. ‘Looking for a ride?’
‘Yes, please,’ Elsie answered, waving the cloying dust from her face.
‘Where are you headed to?’
‘Qawra Point radar station,’ Aileen said with a splutter.
The driver smiled. ‘Hop on.’
The women headed to the back of the vehicle and clambered in. It was some kind of personnel transporter and Elsie was pleased to see the hard wooden seats entirely empty. She was beginning to grow tired of the attention that two women in uniform were garnering on the island. It was like being permanently surrounded by a clowder of tom cats in heat.
The truck pulled away, rumbling and jolting over the rough roads. As they neared the north side of the island, a wind began to pick up, sending clouds of dust through the open sides, showering the women in a fine coating of sandy grime.
‘Well, we don’t need any camouflage now,’ Elsie laughed, looking down at her dirty uniform.
‘Golly, we do look a state,’ Aileen agreed.
After a time, the truck drew to a stop and the driver switched off the engine. Moments later, he appeared at the rear of the vehicle.
‘Qawra Point,’ he smiled. ‘Sorry about your uniforms.’
The women thanked him, climbed down, brushed themselves off as best they could and stood well clear as the truck continued its journey. Their destination was obvious: the hundred-foot-high mast situated on a bunker just a short distance away.
‘Come on,’ Aileen said, grabbing Elsie’s sleeve.
They walked at an eager pace into a small compound that was bounded on one side by the rocky coastline. They showed the guard their papers and continued striding towards the listening post. Just like the station at Siggiewi, it was a perfunctory concrete box with one narrow rectangular window.
Elsie pushed open the metal door and stepped inside. Dark, dismal and filled with what Elsie thought to be a bitter, sweaty smell. A table contained two Hallicrafter receivers—the old, original type that had been used back at Hawkinge. They weren’t brilliant, but they would do the job.
‘Let’s get to it, then,’ Aileen said, sitting down at the table and putting on the headset.
Elsie sat beside her and switched on the old Bakelite machine, smiling as the dials were illuminated into life; it was nice to be back at the controls.
Listening, turning, scribing and translating…Listening, turning, scribing and translating…
The operation was slick. The two women’s hands moved mechanically across the logs. There was little discussion. The Luftwaffe codes used by the units in France were identical and it took little time for
