“You’ve been inside the radio Station, haven’t you? Heartland Radio?” Ivanhoe’s question didn’t faze me; I’d been alerted to a dark mood by his sullen expression. We were walking down Cockburn Street, supposedly browsing the windows of the second-hand stores.
“Aye, a few months back,”
“It’s got two street windows, but they’re painted on the inside. If we got two grenades through the windows, how much damage would they do to the operational parts?” I recalled the foyer, the two seated areas to either side of the door. I couldn’t remember any light coming from outside, and told Ivanhoe as much. “So there may be wood behind the glass?”
“Aye, but there’s a fair bit of building between the front windows and the back where the men play the records.”
“Okay, you’re in.” Ivanhoe looked up and down the street, and by his expression I knew he was leaving. “22 Haddington Place, tonight at seven. The landing door will be open. It’s apartment 2-1. You’ll meet strangers, so there’s no names, no code names, no unit designation.”
And off he went, a whole bottle of soda, shaken up, just about to pop his cork.
Möller was in place at noon, sitting behind the desk, oblivious to the bottle of worms that was waiting to drop on him. He behaved business-like, and never mentioned Musselburgh Races once.
That evening, seeing little sense in going home, only to up-sticks again and travel back the same way I’d come, I worked late at the office. At six thirty I ‘clocked-out’ and walked down Leith Walk.
The grand avenue from Princes Street’s East-End down to Duke Street was actually a collection of short streets, collectively called Leith Walk. Haddington Place was near the top, and I knew as I approached, on the western, left, side that I was looking for an address almost opposite the radio Station.
Arriving at six fifty-seven I found the large blue door unlocked, the number clearly painted above. Inside was a long corridor, then a rise of steps taking us up past the shops on either side. A dark zig-zag staircase climbed me further. Again, the door to flat 2-1 was open, so I walked cautiously inside. “Hello?”
“Through here,” Ivanhoe’s voice. The apartment was furnished, but dark, not a light on in the place. Guided by the quiet conversation I soon found myself in the front room. Ivanhoe stood with a familiar female figure, and a man I’d never seen before. He wore full length dark work overalls. Drapes were pulled over tall windows, but we could see through them. Due to the lack of light in the room, I’m quite certain that no one could see us. “Ah, come on in. Dave, this is Jim.” I shook his hand and gave him a cursory glance; I guessed Dave would be about thirty. “And, of course, Jim, you already know Lil.”
I nodded to Lilith, and made the supposition that Dave was from a third organization.
Ivanhoe took the lead. “Welcome to our first joint operation in Edinburgh. Hopefully sometime soon we’ll blow Heartland Radio to pieces.”
It was obvious I was there as the guy-who’d-been-inside, and when we retired to the back room, and put a map on the kitchen table, I could see where the intelligence had fallen short. There was plenty information on the stuff outside, the alleyways at the back, but precious little inside. I filled them in somewhat, but by the time my memory had been exhausted, we were still left with a large area of white paper near the rear of the floor-plan.
“I know someone who left the tour.” I said, looking at Lil(ith). “She got some time away from the goons; I’d say she’d remember more than me.”
Lilith folded the map carefully. “Then we take the plan to her, and get her to fill in the blanks.” Everyone nodded.
Ivanhoe finished the meeting. “We meet back here tomorrow, same time.”
In three or four minute intervals we left individually, me taking the map.
Back at our apartment, Alice added a few short corridors, and confirmed my positioning of the two sound-proofed record-playing booths, but we still had a blank space.
“We have to go back in.” she said, her mischievous grin infectious in the extreme.
“Ivanhoe would never allow it.” I said with some finality.
“Then we go through Lilith.”
And that meeting took one phone call and a five minute walk.
Bennet’s Bar next to the King’s Theatre was nearing closing time, but we still had half an hour, and I’d bought three drinks, so we’d paid for the hire of our seats.
“You want to break in to the Radio Station?” Lilith asked. I wondered if she shared the same sense of humor as my wife, or if they’d agreed on some acting chop they’d learned at high school, but she showed the same impish expression as Alice had used just minutes before. I had a fleeting idea that women were a whole different race altogether, then my wandering mind was brought back to reality with Lilith’s question. “How are we going to do it?”
Obviously she had no problem with us going on a side mission without telling Ivanhoe.
And that’s how, at two o’clock in the morning, we found ourselves outside Heartland Radio me looking up the hill, Alice looking down, and Lilith bent at the door, picking the lock. The car was a little further up the hill, doors unlocked, keys in the ignition, in case we had to make a quick getaway.
Unknown to Lilith, Alice and I had a secondary mission, which we hadn’t disclosed to her boss; we were going to steal some records. Another birthday present for my little sister.
I mean, it’s not every day you get to break into a Radio station. Why not?
A minute’s work on the outside lock got us inside, and with the aid of our torches we found our way to the back. The reconnoiter took less than a minute; the area in our map that had remained blank contained two storerooms, and from floor to ceiling, they were filled with records; tens of thousands of records. Each shelf had names taped to them, some I recognized, others meant nothing to me.
“Bloody hell.” I could manage no more as I moved the beam of my torch along the shelves.
Lilith was a good deal more business-like. “If we used an incendiary bomb rather than C4, this place would burn for years.”
I nodded. “There must be a ton of shellac here.”
I watched Lilith’s expression as Alice and I produced our two haversacks from inside our jackets. “What the…?”
“Shh.” I pressed my finger to my lips. “Don’t say a word.”
Skimming the titles briefly, Alice and I must have gotten twenty records into each of our bags in about a minute. There was simply no room for any more. As Alice and I worked, Lilith took more details of the rooms, their boarded-up windows.
“Let’s go.”
We pulled the door closed and walked away. It had gone without a hitch, and with the immense selection of records in the store-rooms, there was some doubt as to whether our thievery would ever be noticed.
A moment later, we drove away up the hill. Job done, information gathered.
The meeting at 22 Haddington Place the next evening took on a whole new dimension.
“Incendiary?”
Lilith nodded. “The rooms are filled with shellac records, but the windows are blocked. Large pieces of wood inside.”
Ivanhoe grinned. “I like it. The fire would not harm the floor of the tenants upstairs. They’d get out with lots of time.”
“How long until the fire brigade would arrive?” I asked.
Dave answered. “Normally three, four minutes, there’s a station just down the road. But I’ve got a man inside. The fire engine will have a flat. Even if they’re quick, which my man will ensure they won’t be, it’ll take then at least five minutes to change the wheel.”
Lilith looked around the table. “So our little shellac pile will have maybe ten minutes to burn before help arrives. That’s enough time.”
Ivanhoe obviously agreed. “So it’s a go, then?”
We all nodded.
Ivanhoe shook my hand. “Well, thanks Jim. You’ve been a great help.”
“Oh no you don’t,” I waved my hand at him. “You don’t shut me out so flipping easily. I know the place, I’ve been inside. I’m in on this one, mate.”
His gaze lingered, but he heard no other objections. “Okay, but we get in, we set our charges, and we get out.”
“That’s fair enough.”
We planned further. Lilith was to come with me in my car, and we were to drive up Leith Walk on our getaway. Dave and Ivanhoe would make their getaway down the hill. Both cars would carry incendiary devices with timer fuses. No matter if anything happened to the other car, at one in the morning, we would go in.
Friday night was chosen as the time of the operation, and I picked Lilith up on the corner of Lochrin Place and Home Street. I was gradually homing in on her home base.
The dark drive went uneventfully, but when we neared the Radio station, we noticed a German car outside, and two guards standing on the pavement. “Damn.” I drove past, the guard’s eyes following us.
“Maybe there’s a meeting inside?” Lilith offered, but I couldn’t ignore the possibility that our little break-in had been discovered and they’d set up new security protocols.
Of course, it did present the other, more sinister possibility; Ivanhoe’s scheme had been leaked. We had a traitor in our group somewhere. I drove down to the bottom of Leith Walk, then down to the docks. Guards there.
“What are you looking for?” Lilith asked.
“Just seeing if the radio station is the only place they’ve placed extra guards.” I turned us around. I didn’t fancy doing anything too conspicuous, I mean, we had incendiary bombs in the car; we’d get arrested and shot just for having them.
“Constitution Street.” Lilith pointed to my left. “There’s a few German warehouses there, they’re never guarded.”
And right enough, there were a couple of men posted outside, looking bored as hell.
“So something’s got them spooked.” I said, turning the car round. “I’m headed home.”
“I think that’s a good call,” Lilith said. “We’re not going to get anything done tonight, and every minute on the streets could get us caught.”
Lilith wanted dropped off at the King’s theatre, and she walked off down Home Street.
I watched her in the rear-view mirror for a minute, then drove up the hill.
I was enjoying a long-ish lie-in on Saturday Morning when there was a knock at the door. I pulled myself out of bed, pulled trousers and slippers on. Mom tapped quietly at our bedroom door. “It’s for you, James.”
I didn’t ask who, just slipped my arms into yesterday’s shirt.
Balfour stood at the bottom of the hallway. “A word in your shell-like?”
“Sure, eh, let’s go out onto the stairs.”
We huddled, closing the door gently behind us. “Dave’s friend at the Fire Station was arrested yesterday.”
“So word of our raid got leaked?”
He shook his head. “We don’t think so. The chap didn’t have any other information but to kill the tyre. We think maybe it just spooked Jerry in that area, nowhere else got alerted.”
“Ah, that tells a tale. So what happens now?”
“Well, if it all dies down, we’ll get word to you.”
“Okay.”
The idea of us all getting caught red-handed brought the idea of danger back to me real hard. As the cold stone floor seeped up through my thin slipper soles, I felt a pang of dread, like someone stepping over my grave.
I walked back into the apartment, feeling ready for a whole day off.
Funny thing was… I actually got one.