Flicker

By Andrew David Doyle

The title FLICKER was named mainly due to the flickering of the Pathe - Wartime Newsreel footage and film presentations that were shown at almost every cinema on a daily basis across the United Kingdom as the great war unfolded. The technical term and explanation would be aimed towards the FLKR indirect acronym which is explained as :- Flicker, Frame or FFV, a method of modifying poor-quality video files into files that can, and do trick the human eye into observing a clearer and better image.

With trickery and deception being the main driver for this World War II counter intelligence spy novel, Lt Colonel Kemp Hastings R.A. Chief of Staff Bletchley Park, struggles to makes sense of the predicament he suddenly finds himself wrapped up in. In an attempt to ensure the safety and protection of the Prime Minister Mr Winston Churchill the Staff at Bletchley soon hatch a plan that required a great deal of internal resource to ensure success but finds to their surprise that a higher echelon was already at work.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: May 30, 2014
• ISBN: 9781491736043

Andrew David Doyle

Andrew David Doyle was born in Dundee, Scotland in 1962, and is one of those unique authors we all wish we had accompanied during his many global travels. Andrew holds a business degree and several academic diplomas including the arts, law, Philosophy and engineering. As an avid writer Andrew has penned fourteen novels and has more manuscripts sitting on his busy desktop, where we can find each 'adventure' simply screaming out for publication. The genre of Anunnaki, heraldry, religion and the obscure world of the Knights Templar is what Andrew deems as his hidden knowledge base and foundation stone which he carves out and places into his life's journey. As an author Andrew draws on many aspects of history where the threads of simple life are recorded in the rich storytelling tapestry of this adventurer.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

‘THE BUSINESS END OF SPYING’

‘When will these stupid idiotic bastards stop killing one another in public places, I mean shooting someone in broad daylight is one thing, but shooting someone on a bloody commuter train, for the sake of God’. Remarked the taller of the two gentlemen as they stood and waited patiently for the daily hustle and bustle of the late 1930’s commuting world made their way from the train carriages and headed out through the railway station exit doors. ‘Are you kidding me, my old mucker, Germany and Britain stop killing each other, huh! that’s a joke, not on your nelly my dear friend, well at least not until someone somewhere takes the initiative and shoots either Hitler or Churchill in their ‘political’ little cotton socks, but, mind you I have heard through the old proverbial grapevine only recently that even the German internal affairs office are considering taking Hitler out, they the inner Wermacht rank and file apparently think that the Fuhrer is losing his marbles, now that would be very welcome news indeed, and perhaps a single event that would certainly bring this shitty unholy war to an end’

As the two men conversed there was a blast from the steam locomotive’s whistle, the sudden release of steam pressure and the high pitched tone made the two men flinch momentarily as they were taken by surprise. ‘Bloody hell that’s damn loud.’ Retorted the taller of the two men as they began shaking their heads and sticking their fingers in their ears. The overly loud steam whistle still echoing throughout the station as each continuing whistle blast drowned out every conceivable noise in the domed shaped building, the acoustics literally causing the heavy steel girders to rattle on their heavy gusset plates, and the round headed rivets could be observed rotating in response to the vibrating echoes of the complete roof section, a portion of the structure located high up on the Victorian steel cross beamed framework was physically vibrating away. After the second blast of the whistle several grey and white pigeons took flight having been disturbed by the unwelcome signal of the train’s indication of departure, the whistle serenade was soon followed by a series of white and light blue clouds of more hot steam puffs as they swirled and bellowed upwards from the steam engine’s main propulsion system. Each little cloud expelled just as the pressure within the steel lined ‘hot box’ equalized and reached it’s one hundred pounds per square inch of working pressure and then the ‘loco’ began easing it’s way forward eventually shunting it’s way out of the busy station. The huge machine continued on it’s way forward and laid testament to great British engineering in motion as the mass tonnage of steel slowly slid its way on her outbound journey South to London, high up in the roof enclosure a single large white steam cloud lingered for a few moments longer then escaped through the many broken glass panels of the antiquated glass canopy.

As the outward bound train passed by railway siding number (3A) an MI5 Government investigation team had assembled and were heading for passenger coaches E60 & E63 at the South end of the stationery train.

The assembly of grey and black suited men appeared to be acting rather clandestine in their behavior and could be deemed to be almost fanatical in the execution of their duties as they observed the hustle and bustle within the busy railway station as each field agent watched the people around them with great interest. Six hours earlier, it had been reported to Whitehall that a sinister event had occurred on one of the commuter trains albeit, no one was quite sure who lodged the complaint, and that was not good publicity for the railway operators as the owners and they were very concerned that two more people had been shot whilst in transit, and that made six killings since the beginning of the year. But the circumstances of this recent drama according to their chief operations officer exposed a dirty trail of espionage, it was a path that led straight back to the military high command itself.

The sudden death of passengers was bad enough due to accidents but murder on any vehicle for any travel operator was not a good thing at any time, and the Railway operators senior Leadership were demanding answers and were seeking assurance that the ministry of defence would place armed soldiers acting as safety guards on their mail trains. It was only three days ago that a comprehensive article was displayed in the local newspaper and was warning the inhabitants of Great Britain that times had changed and this warning was from Winston’s Churchill’s cabinet office coupled with a stark reminder enforced by Lord Kitchener’s poster in an effort of reminding the British people that their country was at war and needed the people to pull together during these darkest of hours, and that this was now wartime Britain and the beginning of World War II was imminent and of which appeared to be politically inbound with little or no indication of halting to prevent further atrocities.

The message being conveyed by Government was simply to ‘be careful what you do and what you say, and, do not assume all is well, careless whispers will cost lives.’ After a brief search of the carriage compartments had been completed and the initial findings had been fed back to the Chief Investigating officer, the reporting officer tipped his hat smiled back at his colleague then continued with clearing the remaining passenger’s from the opposite end of the train. A few short minutes later and the train fell hauntingly quiet as the remaining two travelers scurried away down the platform hugging one another whilst commenting on the fact that someone had been shot somewhere on the train. As the Officer from the MI5 secret services investigation branch made his way up through the train carriages he was suddenly hit by a strong whiff of pungent gas, it was almost a lingering aromatic type of fragrance of what he thought could be warm vinegar or something like phosphorus, it was as if someone had just struck up a million little firey matchsticks simultaneously, but being a man of experience he knew what steam trains smelled like, and this was nothing like that aroma at all, especially when the boilers were vented and the mass of condensed steam fuelled by heated coals hit the cold atmosphere, but somehow this smell was somewhat different, he was not sure exactly what was different about it, the smell was strong enough inside the carriage to make his nose hairs tingle and his eyes water slightly. He took another sniff of the tingling air, then gulped uncontrollably and wiped his nose again, the Officer then began to wipe his full face with his white cotton handkerchief and continued with his enquiries.

The senior field agent had just acknowledged to his friend that the two bodies initially discovered had been formally identified but were still lying uncovered in the cabin where they had been shot, he reported that each corpse had been carefully searched and was relieved of any identification papers along with the important remaining camera equipment.

It was by the simple process of elimination and cross referencing the details contained on their Military ‘Press’ identification badges and the matching up of documents against the reporter’s Home office travel passes that expedited a quick and accurate identification of the two corpses. What troubled the team more than anything else at this point was that a third black leather bag had been discovered and was found in the cabin along with other items, the satchel which was reported to contain a complete British Police Officer’s uniform. And it was only a matter of luck for the investigation team that the early o’clock commuter train was never as packed with travelers as the mid-morning train would have been, and of which, for the investigation team was simply making life a little bit easier for the deployed specialists to control and sift through the murder scene as they gathered their evidence, but as for the black bag and the Constabulary attire, well time would tell who it belonged to.

The stationery train itself consisted of eight carriages in total albeit, the last two passenger carriages in question were now a very high profile military oriented espionage crime scene, and deemed sensitive by the interior military command structure based on their recent intelligence reports from Whitehall. The arrival of this elite field team at site signified to all nearby and to the local authorities that this was no ordinary murder scene, the inner rail hierarchy leadership knew that this was an orchestrated investigation of an incident that was going to be scrutinized to the very highest order, it was going to be an investigation that required the multi forensic talents and skills of a very skilled team who would literally sanitize the complete area which would ultimately be leaving no proverbial stone unturned. The only information released to the investigation team prior to their arrival at the Railway station was: beware of any ‘Unknown Chemicals’. But as far as the railway line were concerned they wanted their train back on schedule in order to meet their customer needs.

At the rear end of the locomotive next to the crime scene carriages was the secure postal carriage and the guards van which formed the trailing end of the 22:21 hours from Edinburgh, both of which still remained undisturbed, and had now been quarantined and placed under the control of the British counter-intelligence services. There was an air of uncertainty from the central intelligence office as to what items were being posted on the Royal Mail train, and they had grave concerns that the rail services could be instrumental in the carriage of toxic chemical fluids and solids, however the MI5 team knew that any disruption to the internal Royal mail chain could also have serious repercussions elsewhere up and down the country, and they made all haste to release the domestic mail first where possible, and then the strategic decision was made to the effect that only mail that was heading overseas to Holland and Belgium in particular was to be retained.

Standing in the darkened shadows of the passenger carriage two men were busy interrogating one of the railway workers, the worker being a train guardsman and who was standing off to one side of the exit doorway of carriage E61 and was leaning up against the wooden framework as the two inspectors conversed with him, although he was innocent of any wrong doing the worker appeared to be very nervous and somewhat twitchy, especially at the hands and wits of these two seasoned investigative Officers from the MI branch of the military, and who were indeed a force to be reckoned with, and throughout the short interchange the inspectors periodically stopped their conversation and began discussing comments and details in almost intimate whispers between them as the rail worker waited patiently to be released from their enquiries.

After eleven minutes the Leading Officer of the two inquisitors placed a hand on the young man’s shoulders and thanked him very much for his valued feedback. Field Agent ‘Pinkie’ Pinkerton and his side kick ‘Billie the Ball’ Baxter having spoken with each other over the guards responses reconvened within the carriage as the young guard began gathering up his belongings and was waiting to see what happened next. It was during this conversation when Pinkie suddenly spied what appeared to be a very thin trickle patch of dried blood, the stain consisted of a single patch which appeared to have seeped under the bottom edge of the cubicle’s door frame. The investigator coughed awkwardly whilst nodding his head and grabbed the attention of his investigative partner, he then twitched uneasily as he motioned the Railway guard out of the doorway and out of the crime scene, Pinkie thanked the Guard again for his time and assistance, and then patiently waited until the guard was far enough out of earshot before he said anything further to his colleague. Billie meanwhile was busy taking notes, and began to walk through the carriage toward the cubicle door, Pinkerton slowly leaned forward and whispered something into his colleague’s ear.

‘Did you check the damn toilet cubicle Mister Ball, did you check the wee boys room my dear friend?’

He asked whilst pointing in the direction of the toilet cabinet. His colleague responded, ‘Nope, I thought you were going to do that.’ Pinkerton took a very deep breath then shook his head slowly from side to side then tilted his grey hat upwards above his eyebrows then spoke very slowly. ‘Tish, tish, tish, nope you said you would check it, you scatter brained moron, damn this could have been embarrassing, okay Billie here is what we will do, we need to clear the complete train of Guards, Policemen and even the civil coroner staff, but please, please, please Billy be careful the cubicle could be booby trapped, and could go bang at any second, then none of us will get out for lunch, hence, why we should get all the lovely innocent people a million miles away from here. Remember Donegal in Ireland last year, and that image of that sad old broken rusty bicycle lying up against the school gate, the bike that was packed with almost forty pounds of HME—Home Made Explosive—well, no one thought the black and tans would get caught out with that old chestnut, now did they, and you know as well as I do, three good men died for their stupidity or their ignorance that very day. So you, my dear tweed dressed friend had better be bloody careful, I especially don’t want to have to explain to your good lady wife why your testicles are in Edinburgh and portions of your little pink arse are still in London. Oh Billie one more thing do not try to open any cupboard or locker doors either, especially doors that are not already open, you know the drill! absolutely nobody on this train at all, including Policemen, oh and Billie, nice and courteous don’t want a panic either, just ensure that we have evacuated everyone from the next two carriages first, that should give us some space to work from.’ It was then that a loud clatter of metal could be heard and Billie turned around quickly and watched as the platform attendants struggled with a huge metal box that had slipped off a large two wheeled trolley, and had landed on the cold concrete standing of the platform with a clatter of steel and stone.

Billy turned quickly, at being disturbed, took a second longer staring at the two men then began making his way to the adjacent carriage muttering something along the lines of ‘don’t labor the bloody point I get the drift, clear the bloody carriages’. Pinkerton then addressed the ‘ticket inspector’ who had momentarily stepped on to the commuter train just as Pinkie raised his hand and stopped the man literally dead in his tracks. ‘Sorry mate, not today, tickets are not for clipping, we have a situation and I am afraid you are not invited or authorized to be here, I would therefore suggest however sir, that you go get a nice cup of tea and