Chris had done this kind of thing once before, nearly fifteen years ago: attempting to track down the location of a young man, still a kid really, only fifteen, for his mother. The boy and a dozen or so other men, old and young, had been rounded up in a village in southern Bosnia by a small unit of armed Serbian militia and whisked away, never to be heard from again.
With hindsight, many years later, it was obvious that they, like many others who had disappeared, had met with a grisly end. But, at the time, Chris was willing to believe that the boy and his companions were either being drafted or taken to some hastily assembled prisoner-of-war camp, and that they could be tracked down. His efforts, of course, had led him nowhere.
This was hopefully going to be a little easier.
He had a name, two names, Sean and Tom Grady, and that was all. The first thing Chris thought to do would be to establish that the old man, McGuire, for lack of another name, had in fact been telling the truth, and that there had been a Sean Grady and his father living in Port Lawrence during the Second World War.
He left Mark to his own devices once more, tinkering with the diving equipment, while he headed out in the morning to visit the local church, perched on a small hill overlooking Port Lawrence. The preacher he managed to speak to there was only in his thirties and although very helpful and friendly couldn’t assist Chris at all when he mentioned the names. He suggested the Fishermen’s Social Club as possibly being of some use. If Tom Grady had worked on one of the fishing boats then he almost certainly would have been a member of the club. And, the man added, back then that was pretty much all they had for work round here, fishing, so it was more than likely that he would find this man’s name in their member register.
Chris thanked the young man and headed back into town, down towards the jetty end of Devenster Street, where he eventually tracked down the old weathered barn that still functioned as the Fishermen’s Social Club, as well as being used as a community centre.
He let himself in through a small door at the front. Inside, he found himself standing in a modest hall, dimly lit by several strip lights that shone coldly down onto a tired and scarred linoleum floor, and a low wooden stage upon which were stacked dozens of orange bucket seats. At the far end of the hall, he saw a small bar, which, surprisingly at this time in the morning, was open.
If it was anything like the working men’s clubs his dad had taken him into when he was just about old enough to shave, Chris imagined there were no formal opening times for the bar; it just opened when any member of the Fishermen’s Social Club decided it was about time for a drink.
Perched on one stool was a young man in his twenties, staring languidly at a small TV on a counter behind the bar. Another man, old enough to be his grandfather, was stacking bottles of beer in a fridge.
‘Can I help you?’ the older man asked, his voice echoing down the hall.
‘Hi, I wonder if you can help me actually.’ Chris walked over towards the bar. ‘Somebody suggested I try this place, so hopefully you can. I’m trying to trace someone who lived here a while back. I’ve got a name, but that’s all I have.’
‘How far back?’ the younger man asked.
‘Oh, 1945… war time.’
He shrugged. ‘Too far back for me, sorry.’ The young man resumed gazing at the TV opposite.
The old man behind the bar sauntered over to stand opposite Chris. ‘What name have you got?’
‘Grady, Tom Grady.’
He stroked his chin as he pondered the name. ‘Hmm, Tom Grady. Can’t say the name rings any bells.’
‘He had a son, Sean Grady.’
The old man’s face lightened up. ‘Sean Grady, now that… that, yes… I remember Sean Grady. Yes, he was a lad in the school. A year above me if we’re talking about the same Sean… he was a character, there’s no doubt about that.’
Chris sat down on one of the stools. ‘Do you think his father might have been a member here?’
‘Easy enough to find out, young man. I can have a look at the member register. Just give me a moment.’
The old man came out from behind the bar and wandered across the hall to a doorway. He let himself in and closed the door behind him.
Chris nodded a greeting to the lad propping up the counter beside him. ‘All right?’
‘Sure.’ The lad studied Chris for a moment. ‘You Canadian?’
‘English.’
‘You the reporter guy come to look at the wreck?’
The question took Chris aback. He wondered if there was anybody left in Port Lawrence who still didn’t know about the wreck and Chris for that matter.
‘Yeah, that’s me, I guess. I’m just looking up a relative for a friend of mine back in England. They lost touch during the war.’
‘Right,’ the young man responded, uninterested in Chris’s tacked-on cover story; once more his dull gaze transferred back to the TV behind the bar.
The door opened and the old man returned with a large, dog-eared, leather-bound book.
‘Yes, we did have a Tom Grady as a member. I think that’s the one you’re looking for. Here — ’
He set the register on the bar and ran a finger down a column of handwritten names.
‘He was a member at the club for about ten years. Ahhh, I can see he left owing us a subscription!’
‘Would you have any details on his next of kin, or, I dunno… his employer, or bank details. Perhaps a forwarding address?’
The old man laughed. ‘This is a social club, not a census bureau. That’s all we have I’m afraid.’
Chris cursed under his breath.
‘But, I do recall they had family not so far away. Up the coast about fifty miles, a place called New Buxton. If you can find them, maybe they can help you.’
Chris looked up New Buxton on his road map when he got back to his room. It looked like a small town, and that was good news. If they were family on the father’s side, he was in business. Otherwise, that would have to be the end of the trail. If he was lucky there would be a few Gradys living there, and he could ring them up in turn. But first, he needed some numbers to ring.
He knocked on Mark’s door and let himself in.
‘Can I have a quick go on your lappie?’
Mark looked up from the laptop. Chris could see from the flickering screen he was mid-session in a game of CounterStrike.
‘For work?’ he sighed.
Chris nodded. ‘Yes, for work. Sorry, mate, I’ll be as quick as I can.’
Mark quit the game. ‘Here you go, all yours,’ he said, sliding the laptop across the bed. ‘Chris, how much longer are you thinking of staying up here? I know it’s easy money you’re paying me, but I’m sort of getting bored.’
‘Hmm, not much longer. Two or three more days I guess.’
‘Do you think you’ll want to do any more dives down on that plane wreck? You do, I’ve got to go and restock the cylinders, and that’s a drive.’
‘Right. I think I might want to do another one and that’s probably it. But I want to fill in a few more of the blanks first,’ he said. As an afterthought he added, ‘Bear with me, Mark. This feels like a bloody good story, I just need to snoop around it a bit more.’
‘Ah well, have fun. I’ll go sort the air tanks out, then. See you later on. We’ll get a beer this evening?’
‘Sounds good. Here — ’ Chris tossed him the keys to the Cherokee.
Mark closed the door behind him, and Chris listened to the heavy sound of his feet down the hallway before firing up Explorer. He tapped in the address for NeighborSnoop, a handy, if somewhat shady, search engine he used to make use of all the time during his paparazzi days to track down the details of his latest quarry. He had a surname and a town; more than enough to flush out the phone numbers of anyone living there under the surname Grady.
Five minutes later, he had three phone numbers to call, and had decided, and quickly rehearsed, how he was going to handle them. The first number he dialled was engaged. The second answered after three rings.
‘Hello?’ a woman’s voice answered.
‘Hi, this may seem like a very odd call, it’s not a sales call, though, okay?’
‘Who is this?’
‘My name is — ’ it occurred for the very first time to Chris that it might be wise to start being a little bit more careful ‘- Jason Schwartz, I’m from the New England Fishermen’s Union. We arrange, from time to time, reunion gatherings for crews, and get-togethers from various social clubs. I’m trying to track down one of our members, his old crew are looking to meet up, you see… so I’m trying to get hold of Tom Grady. I was told he had family living out in New Buxton. But I’ve got no record of his current address see, so… there you go, hence the call.’
There was a pause as the lady absorbed Chris’s story, and in turn Chris held his breath in anticipation. It had sounded okay in practice, but just now it had sounded forced, as if read from a script. Chris reminded himself not to rehearse next time; busking this kind of thing always ended up sounding more natural.
‘Tom Grady? That’s a name I’ve not heard in a long, long time.’
‘Ma’am?’
‘Tom Grady was my uncle.’
‘Was? Oh dear, I’m sorry — ’
‘Oh, don’t be. I don’t know if he’s passed on, young man, I haven’t seen him in sixty years. I guess he probably must be dead by now. He moved out of state with his son. I guess that was… not long after the war. I think only a few days after the war, thinking about it.’
‘Oh… why do you think he moved away?’
‘I heard he came into some money, but I think that’s just hearsay. More likely he knew, with our boys coming home soon, that they would fill up the places on the trawlers once more, and he’d have trouble finding work any more. There’s not a lot else to do in Port Lawrence, other than fish, you know? I guess that’s still the way?’
‘Yes, ma’am. Fishing, and processing fish, that’s pretty much what we got over here,’ replied Chris, wary that he was exaggerating the drawl too much. He decided to try another angle — after all it was always his mum who was the one who bothered to write out and send the Christmas cards each year.
‘Did you ever hear from Mrs Grady?’
‘Oh, there was no Mrs Grady, Mr Schwartz. My aunt died some years earlier, before the war.’
Shit.
‘Well, I must say it is a surprise to have someone ask after Tom and his boy after so many years,’ she added after a moment or two.
‘You never heard from them again?’ Chris probed.
‘Well, thinking about it, yes. I think it was a year or so after they disappeared, we received a letter from Tom. He said that they’d moved to Florida, and he was working again and they were happier down there, and not to worry, that he would be in touch again when they had settled into a home.’
‘Do you have an address?’
‘No, not any more. I replied to his letter, but he never wrote again. I think they must have moved home once more and just… well, you know how it is with family. Sometimes they just give up on each other. Tom and I were never that close, not even when we all lived in Port Lawrence.’
Damn. This was feeling like a dead end.
‘Well, I’m sorry to hear about this. I’ll have to let Tom’s crewmates know he can’t be found. I do apologise for disturbing you.’
‘Not a problem, young man.’
He said goodbye and hung up.
The woman seemed, at least to some degree, to have confirmed McGuire’s little tale. That his childhood buddy, Sean, and his father had been gently hustled out of town… and probably with enough shut-up money for them to start over very nicely, thank you very much. And that, along with McGuire’s tale of navy ships at sea and the cove cordoned off with barbed wire and soldiers, that… and the fact that there were two Luftwaffe bodies lying off the coast of New England, inside a B-17 riddled with bullets. When it came to writing up the story, the old boy McGuire might well prove useful — he’d definitely get something out of it. But it was a shame he couldn’t track down this boy, Sean… an old man now, of course.
Chris decided following up on Sean Grady could wait until he was done with the diving up here. Then that was a line of enquiry he could pursue later on… just to add a bit more meat and gristle to the story.