‘I didn’t know if you …’ She hesitated, and then said quickly, ‘I didn’t want your father laughed at.’
‘Laughed at? Really, Mother! Suppose nobody else picked up this transmission? If these men died, then you’d have been responsible.’
Her face went blank. ‘I didn’t want them laughing at him,’ she repeated obstinately. ‘You know what people are in a street like this.’
‘This is more important than what people think.’ My tone was impatient. And then, because I knew she was upset and tired, I kissed her. ‘We shan’t be bothered about it,’ I reassured her. ‘It’s just that I feel that I must report it. It wouldn’t be the first time he picked up a transmission that no other operator received,’ I added, and I went out of the house and back along the street to the Underground.
I had no idea who I should get on to at Scotland Yard, so in the end I dialled 999. It seemed odd to be making an emergency police call when we hadn’t been burgled or anything. And when I got through to them I found it wasn’t easy to explain what it was all about. It meant telling them about my father and the ‘ham’ radio station he operated. The fact that he had just died because of his excitement over the message only made it more confusing.
However, in the end they said they had got it all clear and would contact the Canadian authorities, and I left the call box feeling that a weight had been lifted from my shoulders. It was their responsibility now. I needn’t worry about it any more. And when I got back to the house, I put the log book away in my suitcase and went through into the kitchen, where my mother was quietly getting a meal. Now that the matter of the message was cleared up and the authorities notified, I began to see it from her point of view. After all, why should she worry about two men in a distant part of the world when my father was lying dead upstairs?
That night my mother had the little bedroom and I slept on the couch in the parlour. And in the morning I woke to the realization that there was a lot to be done — the funeral to arrange, all his things to go through and the pension people to be notified. I hadn’t realized before that death didn’t end with sorrow.
After breakfast I sent a wire to Mr Meadows and then went on to arrange things with the undertaker. When I got back it was almost eleven and Mrs Wright was in from next door having tea with my mother. It was Mrs Wright who heard the car draw up and went to the window to see. ‘Why, it’s a police car,’ she said, and then added, ‘I do believe they’re coming here.’
It was a Police Inspector and a Flight Lieutenant Mathers of the Canadian Air Force. They wanted to see the log book, and when I’d got it from my suitcase and had handed it to the inspector, I found myself apologizing for the writing. ‘I’m afraid it’s not very good. You see my father was paralysed and-‘
‘Yes, we know all about that,’ the Inspector said. ‘We’ve made inquiries, naturally.’ He was no longer looking at the page on which the message had been written, but was leafing back through the log book, the Flight Lieutenant peering over his shoulder. I began to feel uncomfortable then. The pages were such a muddle and in the Inspector’s hands the log looked exactly what it was, a child’s exercise book. I remembered my mother’s words — I didn’t want your father laughed at.
When he had examined every page, the Inspector turned back to the one on which the message was written. ‘I think you said that your father died immediately after writing this?’
I explained to him what had happened — how my mother thought she heard him call out to her and went up to find he had somehow struggled to his feet. And when I had finished, he said, ‘But you weren’t here at the time?’
‘No. My job is near Bristol. I wasn’t here.’
‘Who was here? Just your mother?’
‘Yes.’
He nodded. ‘Well, I’m afraid I’ll have to have a word with her. But first we’d like to have a look at the room where your father had his radio.’
I took them up and the Flight Lieutenant had a look at the radio whilst the Inspector prowled round, looking at the books and the map hanging on the wall. ‘Well, it’s all in working order,’ the Flight Lieutenant said. He had switched on the receiver and he had the earphones over his head whilst his fingers played with the tuning dial. But by then the Inspector had found the old log books in the drawer and was glancing through them.
At length he turned to me. ‘I’m sorry to have to ask you this, Mr Ferguson, but we’ve been on to the doctor and I understand your father had a stroke some three months ago. You were down here then?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But only for a few days. He made a very quick recovery.’
‘Have you been here since?’
‘No,’ I told him. ‘We’re on airfield construction at the moment. It’s a rush job and I haven’t had another chance — ‘
‘What I’m getting at is this … can you vouch for your father’s mental state? Could he have imagined this?’
‘No. Certainly not.’ I felt suddenly angry. ‘If you’re suggesting that my father…’ I stopped then, because I realized what must have prompted the question. ‘Do you mean to say nobody else picked up that transmission?’
‘Not as far as we know.’ He turned to the Flight Lieutenant. ‘However, there’s no doubt he was following the progress of this expedition,’ he said. ‘There are dozens of references to it in these notebooks, but…’ He hesitated, and then gave a little shrug. ‘Well, take a look for yourself.’ He passed the books across to the Canadian. I might not have been there as the Air Force officer bent down to examine them and the Inspector watched him, waiting for his reaction.
At length I could stand it no longer. ‘What’s wrong with the message?’ I asked.
‘Nothing, nothing — except…’ The Inspector hesitated.
The Flight Lieutenant looked up from the log books. ‘We’re not doubting he was in touch with Ledder, you know.’ His voice held a note of reservation, and as though conscious of this he added, ‘I checked with our people at Goose right away. Simon Ledder and his wife are both registered hams operating their own station under the call sign VO6AZ. They take on outside work and in this case they were acting as base station for the McGovern Mining and Exploration Company, receiving Briffe’s reports by R/T and transmitting them to the Company’s offices in Montreal.’
‘Well, then?’ I didn’t understand why they were still so doubtful about it. The fact that nobody else picked up the transmission — ‘
‘It’s not that,’ he said quickly. And he looked across at the Inspector, who said, ‘I’m sorry, Mr Ferguson. All this must be very trying for you.’ He sounded apologetic. ‘But the fact is that Briffe and the man with him were reported dead — almost a week ago, didn’t you say, Mathers?’ He looked across at the Canadian.
‘That’s so, Inspector.’ The Flight Lieutenant nodded. ‘On September twenty-fifth to be exact.’ He tossed the log books on to the table. ‘I don’t want to seem unappreciative,’ he said, looking across at me. ‘Particularly as you say your father’s excitement at receiving the message was the cause of his death. But the fact is that Bert Laroche, the pilot of the crashed plane, trekked out on his own. He reached one of the construction camps of the Iron Ore Railway on the twenty-fifth and reported that the other two were dead when he left them. He’d been five days trekking out, so they were dead by September twentieth. Now you come along with the information that your father picked up a radio broadcast from Briffe yesterday. That’s nine whole days after Briffe was dead.’ He shook his head. ‘It just doesn’t make sense.’
‘The pilot might have made a mistake,’ I murmured.
He stared at me with a sort of shocked look. ‘I guess you don’t understand the Canadian North, Mr Ferguson. Men just don’t make that sort of mistake. Certainly not experienced fliers like Bert Laroche.’ And he added, ‘He crashed his Beaver floatplane into a rock trying to land on a lake in a snow storm. Briffe and Baird were injured. He got them ashore and the plane sank. That was on September the fourteenth. Baird died almost immediately, Briffe a few days later, and then he started to trek out.’