At the junction of the road, he saw a stall with a sign, saying Isle Asparagus, and went over and smiled at the woman standing behind it. He checked his watch. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said in broken English. ‘Please can you direct me in the correct way, to the rocket test site?’
The woman studied him for a few moments. ‘You mean the place overlooking The Needles?’ The man nodded, smiling again in recognition of the landmark, listening as she gave him the directions. Afterwards, the asparagus seller suddenly remembered something else. ‘Mind you, because it is Monday, if you wait here for about an hour, you can follow the rocket fuel truck, which comes off the ferry and goes to the site. It comes as regular as clockwork, past here every Monday, at about half past one.’
Andreas Trost, gave her a sharp bow. ‘Thank you, madam. You have been most helpful.’ He walked back to the car, got back inside and turned to the driver; he was a bigger man, his fat, sausage-like fingers, gripping the steering wheel. Trost repeated almost word for word, what the woman had said, but this time, it had been translated into perfect German.
Baumann nodded, as he placed the Consul into gear. As the car passed the asparagus stall, Trost wound down the passenger window and waved at the woman, who gave a friendly wave back and watched the car disappear over the hill, heading towards Norton Green.
Swan drove through Totland, with the convertible hood down and checked his map, clamped to the passenger seat by his briefcase. Assured of the next part of the route, he drove along the trunk road, and a few miles further, saw a sign for the rocket site. He followed the single lane track road, which gave him a splendid view of The Solent, and was relieved, when he came around the hill and saw the white buildings through the barbed wire perimeter fence.
At the end of the road, he came to a red and white barrier with the words MOD Property, on a sign at the front of it, and a uniformed guard exited the guardhouse to greet him. Swan showed his credentials, observing the two stripes on the man’s khaki jumper, and the guard nodded in acceptance, lifting the barrier. Swan then stopped at the other side of the barrier and looked back at the guard. ‘Excuse me, Corporal. How do I get to the Administration Block?’
The guard walked over to him. ‘Just drive up around this hill road, turn right, and follow it round, sir. The Admin Block is the second building. You’ll notice, where the other cars are parked.’
Swan thanked the guard, then drove up the hill and around a large storage hangar. As he turned the corner, he looked directly in front of him in awe at the top of the two rocket gantries, just visible below the escarpment; He could also clearly make out the Black Arrow R-0 rocket, recessed inside Gantry 2. He parked next to a green Land Rover, the unmarked police car, was also there. Locking his car, he turned again to look at the rocket, surprised at its size, compared to what he knew of NASA’s Saturn V, then walked inside the Administration Block.
Chapter 15
Inside the Examination Room, at St Mary’s Hospital, in East Cowes, duty pathologist, Dr Henry Sneddon, washed his hands in the basin. Behind him, on the table, lay the distorted half-covered naked body of the late, Kevin Powell.
Dr Sneddon dried himself, walked over to his desk, and picking up the small tape recorder and a small camera, carried them over to the tall wooden mobile trolley. He turned on the recorder and lifted the microphone. ‘Testing 1-2-3-4-5-6.’ He pressed the stop button to play back the tape, to check the quality. Tutting under his breath, Sneddon looked at his watch. She was late yet again. He continued: ‘Dr Henry Sneddon: Record for subject Kevin Powelclass="underline" Male, height: 6ft 2inches, date of birth: 12-03-36. Age at death: 33. Occupation: Engineer. Cause of death: Suspected head injury, resulting in fatal trauma. Post Mortem commenced, at 11.40am, on Monday April 7th, 1969.’ First examination, revealed that condition of body shows severe scalding to upper and lower abdomen, face, hands and feet, from high temperature steam exposure after death.’ Sneddon stopped the tape and reached for the camera to take a few photos of the victim’s recently shaved head. The door opened behind him, and a young girl walked into the room, over to the wash basin. Sneddon’s assistant, Hilary Price, apologised, as her boss looked at her venomously. ‘Too busy in the staffroom, listening to a new pop record on the radio, no doubt, Miss Price,’ he said sharply.
Too embarrassed to give a reply, she shamelessly bowed her head, as Sneddon barked at her. ‘Do hurry up and get your apron on, girl. We have work to do.’
He covered over the body again, ignoring Price, who quickly dried her hands, then skipped over, to accompany Sneddon at the table, fumbling at the cords to tie the brown rubber apron around her waist.
Sneddon spoke into the microphone again. ‘My assistant, Miss Hilary Price has now joined me for the examination.’ He stared coldly at her, and Price made a sorry gesture with her lips, giving him a shy smile.
Sneddon reached over and pulled the cover off the body and the girl gazed at it in horror, placed a hand to her mouth and rushed back over to the sink. As his assistant wretched, Sneddon gave a smug smile, relishing in this planned, devilish reprimand for her poor punctuality.
Swan sat at Brian Mitchell’s desk talking to Dugdale and Morris. ‘It would be a good idea, if we could interview three of the personnel at once, one on one, so to speak. But, I understand that we are a bit tight for space here.’
‘You can certainly say that again,’ quipped Dugdale, holding out his arms.
Swan concluded. ‘Very well, we’ll have to make do with the facilities we have, and bring them in one by one.’
There was a knock at the door, and Ron Hallett stuck his head in. ‘Excuse me, chaps, may I come in?’ Hallett walked over to the three men and introduced himself. ‘Ron Hallett, Head of Operations, here. I just got back from Geneva, and came here as quick as I could. Most terrible news, I took young Kevin under my wing, back in our early days at Ansty. Has anyone contacted his next of kin? His father, I believe. Mother died from TB during the war. Kevin told me, his father always blamed the Nazis for her death. When they occupied Jersey, she was unable to continue to go for her regular treatment at the special TB hospital, in Kent. I think Kevin had a girlfriend on Jersey, as well.’
Swan shook Hallett’s hand, the others repeating the gesture. ‘Mr Hallett, your reputation precedes you. My name is Alex Swan from The Services Investigations Department of the MOD. This is Detective Inspector Dugdale and Detective Sergeant Morris, from Newport CID. Can I offer you my sincere condolences on the loss of your Deputy Chief Engineer? Powell’s father has already been contacted by your Firing Officer, and is on his way here, from Jersey along with Susan Howard, Powell’s girlfriend. I’m also investigating the murder of Karl Ruger, in London.’
Hallett sighed. ‘Indeed, nasty business, as you can see, I’m a little perplexed by all this, what with Karl last week and Kevin’s accident on Saturday. I take it we are in a complete blackout of the Press over this?’
Dugdale nodded. ‘Yes, Mr Hallett.’
‘That’s just as well. The last thing we need, is some tabloid, smearing our establishment with some bloody jinx scandal.’ Hallett nodded, ‘Well, I will leave you chaps alone, now. Feel free to ask my secretary, for anything that you need. One more thing? I need to get you all kitted out in fire suits and hard hats. We are expecting the fuel lorry in about an hour, so standard procedure, is that everyone on site needs to be wearing protective gear. The Ministry of Supply have instructed me to offload the fuel, ready for another test tomorrow. I expect that you would want to go and visit the incident scene again at some point, which might prove a problem.’