[Sticks]

Episode Three: A Convenient Lie

Spoiler:

The man in grey pushed past James and turned off the television. “That’s enough of that” he said with an air of irritation.

The television burst back into life, as it did so, James noticed that the woman in blue’s eyes glowed.

“Sapphire” the man in grey said again in an irritated tone as once again he turned the television off.
“We need to see as much information as we can about this Steel” the woman in blue replied, “We have never dealt with an incursion that had a global reach before, normally they have been confined to one location”

“That’s because this whole planet is engaged in this obsession with that infernal war” the man in grey replied, “I doubt we can learn much from that primitive news report”

“Well it is about one hundred years since that war” James objected, “You can’t expect us all to forget about it as if it never happened, and anyway, those attacks in Middlesbrough, what makes you think they are the result of some German Zeppelin raid during World War one and not some terrorist attack.”

James saw the man in grey glower at him, then the woman in blue spoke up as if she had been in some conversation with the man in grey that James was not privy to.

“I suppose it is a fair question for the Detective inspector to ask” the woman in blue said to the man in grey, “He has no reason to trust us, especially given what he believes we did, or to be more accurate didn’t do.”

“I don’t trust you” James replied, “I see you two lurking round a crime scene. You claim that the ramblings of an old man, that his father in World war one saw the children from our school in South Yorkshire appear and disappear from what was no-man’s land, is true. You claim to be from some agency, but do not say which one nor do you have proof of identity”

James thought for a moment, “You call your selves Steel and Sapphire, are those real names or code names”

“I suppose that is one way of looking at it” the lady in blue replied, “but they are who we are. There are a number of operatives with similar names who could have been assigned”

“Apart from the transuranics” the man in grey interjected.

“We still have a problem here in Ypres” James cut back in, “We will have parents arriving tomorrow wanting answers, what do I tell them, their children when on a field trip back in time to the middle of a war zone and back?”

“Well that will go down well” the man in grey retorted

“Why not stick with the line that Officer Francoise Janssens proposed” the lady in blue suggested, “unexploded gas shell”

“We could easily arrange for someone like Silver to plant something that will give that appearance” said the man in grey.

“You know that’s not his speciality Steel” the lady in blue chided.
“I know, it’s probably Copper’s field of expertise” The man in grey replied

“So you expect me to lie, while you swan off back to England to investigate those bombings in Middlesbrough” James answered back.

For a moment James saw the lady in blue’s eyes again glow blue, “Whoever is doing this is still here Steel, they are still in this region, the bombing in Middlesbrough, it must be something to throw us off the scent”

“Or testing out its ability” the man in grey replied, “get Copper to pay a visit to Middlesbrough and then meet us here”
“He may be busy on another assignment” the lady in blue objected.
“Just do it Sapphire” the man in grey insisted in an irritated tone.

“Hey!” James interrupted, “Still here!”

“You asked us if we expected you to lie” the man in grey said with what seemed like a menacing tone that irritated James, who was after all a serving policeman who in his time had seen a number of criminals try their luck with him.

“Some people can tell” James replied back in an angry tone.
“We have given you an option” the man in grey replied, “We can arrange for Silver, or Copper to plant a device in that field which will look as if those children and their teacher unearthed some ordinance from your first world war. It would make our job easier if that were to be the official explanation”

“How?” James hit back

“It would keep people away from visiting that area” the man in grey replied, “It was their obsession with that area’s blood soaked past that allowed whoever has done this to break into the present. It was this obsession with wanting to see where it happened that could have been the trigger”

James looked at these two mysterious figures, it seemed they were probably from some kind of agency, but it rankled him that they refused to say which one. There was also what the old man had said about them not aging and visiting him and his father through the years, but then could he trust the memory of an old man, who was now suddenly missing, and if the photographs he had been handed were correct, had also been sent back to die in a World War one Trench. It would just be James word, with no corroboration from this old man.

The other annoying issue was that this mysterious couple, going by codenames taken from the periodic table, except for the woman in blue, whose codename was a gem stone, irritatingly had a point. The evidence that James had, that a bunch of children and their teacher had been transported back in time briefly, to be exposed to deadly nerve gas and then returned, was thin and open to scepticism to say the least. Documents could be forged, images changed using photo shop. The man who had given them to him could be written off as someone with dementia, except here was now missing. It would be, as this mysterious couple suggested, easier to tell the grieving parents, that their children had triggered some kind of forgotten chemical weapon from a distant war, which had been brought to the surface by agriculture.

The sweep by the Belgium army of Flanders field for any potentially dangerous ordinance left from World War One would probably last a week or so. Officer Francoise Janssens, the one in charge at the scene and so convinced of the unexploded ordinance theory, would probably take the lead when the grieving parents arrived from England. James was there as a mere courtesy. If these mysterious figures were right about their friend planting evidence to bolster that theory then that would be classed as the official cause of the tragedy.

James was never a fan of “the convenient lie”. He had seen it used back at the West Yorkshire force, when officers had to speak to young children about the death of say a parent, telling them that they had gone to “Heaven” James was not a believer in God and never felt comfortable with people saying that to young children, thankfully, his experience was in breaking bad news to older people, although that was hard enough. The theory of the unexploded ordinance was, given the evidence from the old man, such as it was, and the confirmation by these people calling themselves, Sapphire and Steel, was another such “Convenient lie.”

James would have to play along with the convenient lie because he effectively had nothing, except for one thing. One child did not return.

James need to find where that child was buried, maybe if he could, then any remaining DNA evidence would be compelling to prove what really had happened.

James narrowed his eyes, “So it looks like I don’t have a choice but to play it your way”

“No you don’t” the man in grey replied
“Well, I have to get on” James answered back, “I have to unpack and then go down stairs, ring England to confirm I have arrived and then find somewhere to eat”

“You do that Detective Inspector” the man in grey growled, “just give those grieving relatives an official shoulder to cry on, and let us do our job”

“When you have finished” James asked, “whoever has done this, is there any chance”

“No I’m afraid not” the woman in blue interrupted, “Even if we can shut this down, we cannot allow those responsible to stand trial in a human court, it would be too dangerous”

”Human court?” James observed, it almost sounded as though these mysterious figured were aliens, surely not

“But we will make sure they can never do the same thing again” the man in grey added.

“We will let you get on” the woman in blue told James.

The television burst into life, instinctively James turned to look at it, it was the news report about the Middlesbrough bombings. James turned his head back, but the two strangers were gone.

James had a strange feeling and looked inside the envelope. It was empty!

Those two had been there to get the contents of the envelope after all, they had lied

James did some minimal unpacking and then went down the stairs to find the female consular staff member that had shown him his room.

He found her in a common room, along with others staring at a TV with more news about the Middlesbrough bombings.

It had been three devices with unconfirmed reports that they had fallen from the sky. There was a report of a radar anomaly shortly before the attacks, but experts were saying it was some possible radar glitch. The devastation caused by the explosions would have to have been made by a device, too heavy to be carried by a light aircraft, the only other thing that could have caused the radar glitch.

From James’ knowledge of history, the figure quoted by the expert as to the size of the device, was well within the size limit of a World War One Air ship.

More circumstantial evidence that someone was bringing World War One into the present, but not enough to go public and try and expose where ever agency had sent those two called Sapphire and Steel to take the contents of the envelope.

Could this be the result of some secret government experiment gone horribly wrong – Equally farfetched but was it more so than “Time Breaking in to the present?”

James noticed that there were tears in the consular staff member’s eyes, he should have known from her accent earlier, even though she tried to hide it, that she was from Teesside.

“Sorry to interrupt” James apologised, “But that old gentleman, did you get him to sign in”

The woman nodded and asked James to follow him as they headed back to main reception. There she got from the security guard the signing in book and opened it to the page for that day.

The page was torn out.

Someone was going to great lengths to prevent James from finding out who the old man was

James looked at the page left behind, it was blank, but he could see some indentations.

“Do you have a pencil?” James asked the guard
“I have a pen” the guard replied in a thick North London accent
“That won’t do, I need a pencil” James insisted

The guard looked in his draw, “Sorry guvnor” the guard replied, “All I have is a child’s pencil crayon”

“That will do” James replied and crabbed the pencil crayon, then turning to the female consular staff member if she remembered where on the page the man had signed in.

“Just before you arrived” she replied

James closed his eyes and tried to remember where on the page he had signed in.

It was near the bottom!

James took the pencil crayon and lightly started scribbling where he had signed in, and slowly his signature started to appear as white space not filled in by the pencil crayon and his first and last name that he had had to print, then he scribbled just above and got the feint scribbling of the old man’s signature and printed name. James peered at it and then wrote the name on a small notelet pad the security had on his desk.

There was some cover up going on. This secret agency that the two people calling themselves Sapphire and Steel, were involved, and with this only lead, he was going to get to the bottom of it

To be continued – If I can!