‘I’ll be delighted to,’ Swan eagerly rose from his chair, placed his eye into the scope, and watched attentively, mesmerised by the spectacle that he was now viewing.
Dugdale stood beside him, and like an excited schoolboy, gestured to Swan to have his turn at the viewing scope.
Swan moved aside, smiling appreciatively, allowing his colleague to take hold of the scope, while Hallett paced up and down, closely watching a few of the displays, over the shoulders of the controllers.
The test lasted for another six minutes, then satisfied, Hallett waved a hand, gesturing to Stewart to cut the power. This was done, and the resounding vibrations from the rocket began to diminish. Hallett nodded and smiled patting the back of Stewart. ‘Well done, gentlemen. That looks to me like a very positive test.’
He walked over to Swan and Dugdale. ‘So, gentlemen, what did you think of that then?’
Swan shook his hand, praising him. ‘Marvellous, Mr Hallett. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to view Black Arrow in action.’
Hallett gave out a short laugh. ‘Ha! Well hopefully there will be a lot more action to come, when she gets shipped out to Woomera. Despite what you read in the papers, gents, I have a lot of faith in her, and I think she’ll have no problem putting our Prospero satellite into low orbit.’
In a jovial mood, he turned, opened the heavy battleship grey blast doors and walked up the slope to the Administration Block, to inform his superiors at East Cowes of a successful test.
Swan turned to Dugdale. ‘Absolutely superb, don’t you think Lionel?’
Dugdale nodded in agreement. ‘Most certainly, Alex. Now, I think we better follow him and let him know of our next intentions, don’t you? I also need to bring some uniformed officers back down here from the guardroom, to make our arrest.’
Chapter 21
At the same time the countdown had started for the rocket test, Arthur Gable had exited the car in Wellesley Mews and climbed the steps to the black door of the SID office. After stepping inside, he had reached down for the mail resting on the hessian doormat. There were five letters and the last two days of The Daily Telegraph. He had forgotten to cancel the newspaper delivery while he had spent the time in Battersea. The agreement between the two SID men, was that whoever arrived in the office first, would open the mail, disregarding who it was addressed to.
Now clutching the letter with the Brixton postmark on the envelope, he read it while drinking a cup of tea. Then, after reading it, he read it again.
Swan was in conversation with Dugdale and Morris, who after a rest at home, was back on duty. The telephone rang on the desk and Swan answered, surprised to hear from his colleague. ‘Arthur, I thought I told you to call it a day-old chap.’ Swan then listened, as Gable informed him of what he now had in his hand.
Swan then realised, that his associate possessed, what was probably the last thing that the murder victim, Otto Kappelman, had written, and requested that Gable read it to him over the phone.
In the SID Office, Gable sat down and placed the letter onto the desk. With his right hand holding the receiver, word for word, he read out the contents of the letter. ‘Dear Mr Swan, it has been over three years since we last communicated, when you took up my case in trying to find my missing documents, I took to protect myself at the end of the war, but I feel that I must write to you with the most urgency. Last night I was visited by an old friend from the war. We had worked together in Peenemunde. His name is Karl Ruger and he is working at the British Rocket Testing Establishment on the Isle of Wight. Karl has told me of the gravest matter. He has overheard a telephone conversation, planning to sabotage the British Black Arrow project. Karl is convinced that one of the other Germans working at the British site is working for a man who this saboteur calls, Merlin. A codename, perhaps? Karl now fears that he is being hunted for his life. He even thinks that he may have been followed to my home, as when he was on the bus yesterday evening, he saw two men watching him. He is too scared to go to the police about this. Mr Swan, I very much fear that the future of these lands and maybe even the world may be in peril from this Merlin, and he must be stopped. I will be out of England for a while as I leave for the VFW works in Bremen this morning to work as a consultant on a new vertical take-off aircraft design, now that the Luftwaffe has pulled out of your Harrier programme. Karl has left now. I have given him your details and said that he will come and see you, before he travels back to the Highdown rocket base today, but I have written this letter to you in precaution that something may happen. I hope that you will take this seriously, Mr Swan and use your contacts to do something about this before it is too late. I will return to London next Saturday, so perhaps we can meet to discuss this further. My highest regards, Otto Kappelman.’
Gable checked the envelope, informing Swan, the letter had been posted on the previous Friday.
Swan lowered his head, suddenly thinking of what possibly could have happened to the German test pilot, not long after posting it. ‘Arthur, we are about to bring Gruber in for more questioning, then we will probably arrest him for the murder of Kevin Powell. I’m thinking, that he is the saboteur Kappelman referred to. Leave the letter in the safe and take yourself home. It looks like we are going to be busy again tomorrow, when I get back to London. It’s a dammed good thing that you decided to go back to the office, this afternoon. This now gives me more material, to cross examine our Mr Gruber with. Have a nice evening, old chap and give Annie my love.’
For the next ten minutes, Swan sat and explained the phone call to his two colleagues.
Dugdale stood up and paced the office floor. ‘Well gentlemen, it looks as though we are now dealing with something a lot bigger, than just a local murder here. This needs to be reported to Scotland Yard and Special Branch. My god Alex, this Neo-Nazi nutcase, whoever he is, could easily bring us all into another war.’
Swan shrugged. ‘I don’t think it will come to that, Lionel. Let’s just bring Gruber back in here, and maybe he can tell us more about this, Merlin, and he can also tell us what this Eagle is. The more we know, the more we can do about it.’
The three men walked out of the room, along the corridor to Hallett’s office. Swan knocked at the door and after being invited inside, he entered, followed by the two policemen.
Hallett looked up from his desk, took off his reading glasses, and held them in front of him. ‘I believe that you have a suspect?’
Swan walked over. ‘We do indeed, Mr Hallett. We need to bring Heinz Gruber, in for some more questioning. Something else has just come up, and I think that he will be able to help us deal with it. I’m sorry to say, that we are going to arrest him for Powell’s murder, so he will be taken back to Newport once we have had time with him in the office. Will there be a problem with his tasks here? I mean, I’m hoping that someone else will be able to take over his duties on Black Arrow.’
Hallett, jumped at the statement. ‘Oh my, yes, of course. The rocket needs another test before it gets shipped off to Australia, but we can manage without Gruber for that. You are sure of course, that he is responsible for Kevin’s death?’
Swan nodded. ‘Absolutely one hundred percent. There’s a lot more to it though, including the real reason why Karl Ruger was killed; but until we can get to the bottom of it all, that’s all I can say.’
Dugdale interrupted. ‘So where is Mr Gruber, likely to be right now, Mr Hallett?’
‘He should be unloading the excess fuel, back into the storage tanks next to Gantry Two. If you’re going out there, you’ll have to put the suits back on.’