The Sinclair Betrayal Read online

  The Sinclair Betrayal

  A Jayne Sinclair Genealogical Mystery

  M. J. Lee

  About M. J. Lee

  Martin Lee is the author of contemporary and historical crime novels. The Sinclair Betrayal is the sixth book featuring genealogical investigator, Jayne Sinclair.

  The Jayne Sinclair Series

  The Irish Inheritance

  The Somme Legacy

  The American Candidate

  The Vanished Child

  The Lost Christmas

  The Inspector Danilov Series

  Death in Shanghai

  City of Shadows

  The Murder Game

  The Killing Time

  The Inspector Thomas Ridpath thrillers

  Where the Truth Lies

  Where the Dead Fall

  Other Fiction

  Samuel Pepys and the Stolen Diary

  The Fall

  “We are such stuff as dreams are made on,

  and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”

  William Shakespeare

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SIXTY

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SIXTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SIXTY-NINE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  CHAPTER ONE

  Sunday, July 11, 1943

  Harrington USAAF base, Northamptonshire

  ‘Are you the Joes we’re droppin’ tonight?’

  The airman was dressed in dirty grey overalls with a baseball cap pushed back off his forehead. Monique thought he was young, no more than eighteen.

  ‘We are. Four of us.’ Philippe Lemaitre pointed to each one of the agents sitting on the bench in the Nissen hut that served as the airfield ops room. ‘Nanny, Elviron, Wallace and myself, Boris.’

  ‘You Brits think up the cutest code names.’

  ‘I’m French,’ said Monique.

  The airman ignored her. ‘Any more of you guys?’

  ‘That’s all of us,’ answered Philippe.

  ‘You got your gear?’

  Their bags were lying at their feet. Next to Philippe was the suitcase containing the radio. Each one had checked the other’s kit. The contents of each bag had been searched and anything that might betray their British identity was removed; bus ticket, cigarettes, receipts, bills, and letters. New papers with their French names and identities were given a final check and francs inserted into their wallets.

  They were as French as the SOE could make them.

  ‘Okey-dokey, if you wanna come with me, we’ll kit you out with the best American silk. But I need to take this,’ the airman said, picking up the case with the radio inside. ‘It’s too heavy to jump with. I’ll get the guys to pack it in one of the containers.’

  ‘How long will it take to Reims?’ asked Monique.

  The young airman shrugged his shoulders. ‘Beats me. Should be about two and a half hours but it depends on the weather. Why? You got somewhere you gotta be?’

  She shook her head. She liked the casual tone of this man. For some reason, it made her feel calmer even though her heart was beating like the wings of a startled swan.

  They all stood up and followed him to a table in the far corner.

  ‘Any of youse jumped before?’

  ‘All of us have completed the parachute training course at Ringway.’ Once again, Philippe answered. He had appointed himself the spokesperson for the group.

  The airman laughed. ‘I asked if any of you have jumped before. You know, a real jump.’

  There was a moment of silence before Elviron answered. ‘This is our first time.’

  ‘Right, listen up. Here are your chutes. Fasten them properly and check each other. I’ll make a final check myself. We don’t want none of you to hit the dirt at six hundred miles an hour. It might put a ladder in your stockings.’ He stared at Monique’s legs. ‘We’ll be flying at two thousand feet across the Channel, dropping to eight hundred feet as we approach Amiens. There are two lights; red and green. Red is your thirty-second warning, green is go. Don’t hesitate over the hole. If you do, I will push you out. Clear? Your dropping time is a little over ten seconds, so not long after you leave us you’ll be standing on French soil.’

  They nodded their heads.

  ‘Right, get moving.’ He checked his watch. ‘We’re leaving at 02.00 hours. That’s in thirty minutes for those of you who can’t tell the time. The other aircraft have left already, we’re the last.’

  ‘Have you flown this route before?’ asked Philippe.

  ‘Me? No, but Charlie has.’

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘Captain C. Thomas Charles the Third. He’s the commander of this Carpetbagger squadron. So you guys must be pretty important if you got him flyin’ you.’

  ‘Has the equipment been loaded?’

  ‘The guys are just doing it. The containers will be dropped from the bomb bay and the nodules through the Joe Hole on the second pass. Two of you drop on the first pass, two more on the third. Okay?’

  ‘Won’t that give the Germans time to spot us?’

  ‘It might, but you’ve got too much equipment and the hole ain’t that big.’ The airman shrugged his shoulders. ‘We done three drops before and the French team know what they are doing.’

&n
bsp; Philippe nodded.

  The airman checked his watch. ’Twenty-eight minutes, you better get movin’.’

  They struggled into their jump suits and strapped on the parachutes, checking each other as they had been taught on their training course.

  After they had finished, the airman went over their harnesses one more time with a rough professionalism, tightening straps and adjusting the position of the chutes.

  ‘Right, this way.’

  They walked, or rather, waddled, on to the airfield, the reserve parachutes hanging between their legs, making it difficult to proceed.

  A single B24 Liberator was parked in front of them, its four engines making a thunderous roar as the pilot warmed them up. The aircraft was painted a deep, dark, matt black, which blended into the night, with one single American star on the port side but no lights.

  Turbulence from the engines tugged at Monique’s jump suit. She smelt the air. It was heavy with the sweet, sickly aroma of aviation fuel.

  ‘This is Doris. She makes a hell of a racket but she’ll get you there, and us back, as sure as Daniel Boone was from Kentucky.’

  Monique took one last look behind her. Someone had already switched off the lights in the ops room. Immediately behind it stood an ash tree, its branches still without any leaves, bare and stark in the pale glow of the moon. Would she ever see England again? Would she ever see her son?

  Philippe nudged her in the back. They both climbed aboard and sat next to each other on a wooden bench aligned against the metal side of the plane, Elviron and Wallace sitting opposite them. Both were English and had grown up in France. She was the opposite; a Frenchwoman who lived and worked in England. Monique knew them both vaguely from the tradecraft course in Arisaig, but they were not part of her group. On arrival, they would separate, with Philippe and her staying in Reims and Yvonne and Ron heading east to the Vosges.

  Nobody spoke.

  The airman climbed aboard, closing the door behind him. He handed them flasks of coffee and sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper.

  ‘For the trip,’ he shouted over the sound of the engines. ‘Courtesy of Uncle Sam. Only baloney, I’m afraid, but she’ll do.’

  As he spoke, the pitch of the engines increased to a sharp whine. The airman crossed himself three times, lifting his eyes to the heavens and mumbling a short prayer.

  The plane lumbered down the runway, shuddering as the wheels hit uneven lumps of grass. The noise increased as the pilot coaxed more power from the engines. For a second, Monique’s heart skipped a beat as the plane lurched forward.

  She thought of John, her darling John, dead for nearly two years now. His face flashed through her mind, smiling that knowing grin of his. It was as if he were a guardian angel looking down on her.

  The plane wobbled once more before floating upwards, losing contact with the rude earth that desperately tried to hold it down. Monique felt the sudden release of tension as they rose into the night sky and headed across the Channel to her beloved France.

  Would she ever see England again?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Monday, December 25, 2017 – Christmas Day

  Macclesfield General Hospital, Cheshire

  After leaving Christie’s and the Roberts family, Jayne drove down the A523 to Macclesfield. She pressed the accelerator with her foot and felt the BMW surge forward. The wide road was empty. On Christmas morning, most families were spending time together, swapping presents, eating chocolate and nuts, preparing turkey or simply enjoying the special joy that is Christmas morning.

  This year, she wasn’t able to do any of those things. Instead, she was driving to see her stepfather, Robert, who was seriously ill with pneumonia in Macclesfield General.

  As she drove, memories of Robert and their life together kept coming back to her.

  The time they had gone to Blackpool and she had so wanted to ride the Big Dipper but her mother had said no, until Robert stepped forward to accompany her even though he was scared of heights. As she hollered and whooped, he’d spent the whole ride with his eyes closed and his hand tightly gripping hers.

  Or the time she had come home from school with her uniform ripped and torn after a fight with a boy who tried to bully her. Robert had taken her out to buy a new uniform before her mother saw the damage to the old one.

  Or the time when they had sat and listened to Candle in the Wind over and over again on the day of Princess Diana’s funeral, both of them with tears in their eyes while her mother looked on in bemusement.

  She realised she had shared so many wonderful times with her stepfather. A man who was more of a parent to her than her mother had ever been.

  She parked the car and hurried up to his ward. Vera, her new stepmother, was waiting beside his bed, a book open and her knitting in the bag by her side.

  Robert was still sleeping in his bed, but the oxygen mask no longer covered his mouth.

  ‘How is he?’ Jayne whispered.

  ‘Fine. I think he’s getting better. The doctor said he didn’t need oxygen any more. The colour has returned to his cheeks and his hand isn’t so clammy.’

  Jayne heaved a sigh of relief. If Vera thought he was improving, it was a good sign.

  ‘How are you?’ Vera whispered again.

  ‘Not bad, a little tired but I can manage.’

  ‘How was the case?’

  ‘Good. All worked out in the end. In fact, the result was better than good.’

  She had found the missing ancestor, Tom Roberts, and the meaning of the three objects he had left behind in the box in the attic. The football and the label were going to be donated to a museum, as they were valuable artefacts from the Christmas truce of 1914.

  Jayne approached Robert’s bed. ‘He still looks a little pale,’ she whispered.

  ‘Why are you two whispering?’ Robert’s voice was weak and crackly. ‘I can hear everything, you know. Not deaf yet.’

  Jayne and her stepmother looked at each other. It was Vera who spoke first.

  ‘How long have you been awake?’

  ‘Quite a while. Time for me to get up.’ He tried to lift his shoulders from the bed.

  Vera was up in a flash, pressing his body gently back down. ‘You stay right where you are, Robert Cartwright,’ she ordered. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’

  His eyes were open now and Jayne was stunned by the brightness of the blue irises.

  ‘You gave us a scare, Robert,’ she said.

  ‘I know. Sorry, lass. What day is it?’

  ‘Christmas Day.’

  ‘I could murder a turkey leg.’

  ‘I’ll see what the hospital has to eat,’ said Vera. ‘You must be starving.’ She rushed out to the nurses’ station.

  ‘I’ve been so worried, Robert.’

  ‘I can imagine, lass.’

  ‘Vera has been brilliant, staying here with you.’

  ‘She’s one in a million, my new wife. I’m so lucky to have found her.’

  Jayne glanced towards the door.

  ‘I hope you realise why I’ve been nagging you so much to look into your own past, Jayne. I’m not going to be here much longer.’

  ‘Shhh, Robert, don’t talk like that.’

  But she knew what he said was true. He wasn’t going to be here for ever. But whether it was two days or ten years, she vowed to enjoy every second of every minute with him.

  ‘You know he was my best friend.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your real father. He wasn’t a happy man and he wore his heart on his sleeve...’

  ‘Shhh, Dad,’ Jayne interrupted. ‘Save your strength, we’ll talk about it later.’

  ‘No, we’ll talk about it now,’ Robert said forcefully. ’You see, I think he’s still alive.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  Monday, December 25, 2017 – Christmas Day

  Macclesfield General Hospital, Cheshire

  ‘What? What did you say, Robert?’

  The old man closed his eyes and took a d
eep breath.

  In the rest of the ward, the three other patients slept quietly except for one who was watching television, chuckling along at a comedy sketch, earphones clamped to his head.

  Then Robert Cartwright began to speak again, the words struggling to leave his lips. ‘I said I think your father is still alive. I’m sorry, I’ll make it clearer: I know your father is still alive.’

  A noise like a train leaving a tunnel rushed through Jayne Sinclair’s head. ‘My father… alive? That can’t be. He died when I was seven… My mother told me he died just a few years after he left us.’

  ‘You have to understand she thought she was doing what was best for you, Jayne.’

  Jayne shook her head, trying to understand. ‘So… so he didn’t die?’

  Robert shook his head, his white hair brushing against the fabric of the National Health Service pillow.

  ‘But…but my mother said he died in a car accident.’

  ‘That’s what she told you.’

  ‘But I remember the day of the funeral. She went to the church service and the burial, and you stayed to look after me. It was before you two were married.’

  The old man lying in the hospital bed had been a wonderful father to Jayne as she was growing up, even though they had no biological connection. He was the one rock she could always rely on as her mother’s behaviour became increasingly erratic.

  Always supportive, always understanding, always there for her.

  ’I remember the day well too, Jayne. We went to the shops and you insisted we bought a pineapple. I’d never had a fresh one before, only ever eating pineapple chunks out of a tin. We made a right mess of hacking it to pieces.’

  ‘It tasted so good, though. Even now, the smell of fresh pineapple always takes me back to that day.’

  Robert turned his head towards the monitor beeping softly beside his bed. ‘She didn’t go to a funeral, Jayne, she went to see him,’ he said softly.

  ‘But I remember her leaving, dressed in black. She even wore black gloves.’