Free Blood on the Tongue (Ben Cooper & Diane Fry) by Stephen Booth Page A

straight in the eye. 'The length of time that has passed seems to me to be irrelevant, if there's been a miscarriage of justice.'
    Cooper sneaked a look at her over the files he was pretending to study. He hadn't expected her to be so young. If he'd bothered to think about it, he would have been able to work out her possible age range, of course, since he knew it was her grandfather that she was here to talk about. It was mentioned in the files that Pilot Officer McTeague had been twenty-three when he went missing. His daughter, Alison Morrissey's mother, had been born only days before he disappeared, which would make her fifty-eight now. She must have been one of those women who waited until her thirties before having children, because Morrissey could barely have been more than twenty-five or twenty-six. Cooper liked the way she'd answered the Chief Superintendent. She had plenty of determination. And she knew her stuff, too.
    'There was never a court case,' pointed out Jepson. 'Justice was not involved.'
    'Natural justice,' said Morrissey.
    The Chief Superintendent sighed a little. 'Go on.'
    'My grandfather was the pilot of a Lancaster bomber based at RAF Leadenhall in Nottinghamshire, part of 223 Squadron of Bomber Command. He'd been flying with the RAF for two years, and he had an excellent service record. He was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross after bringing home a damaged Wellington from a successful raid on German U-boat bases near Rotterdam. He ordered his crew to bail out once they were over England and landed the aircraft single-handedly. And that was despite the fact that he had himself been wounded by shrapnel from enemy anti-aircraft fire. As soon as he recovered from his injuries, he retrained on Lancasters and was posted to RAF Leadenhall.'
    'Very interesting,' said Jepson. 'But can we move forward to January 1945?'
    'You need to know what sort of a man my grandfather was,' said Morrissey.
    Cooper watched her eyes harden with a momentary anger as she spoke. Her age might have taken him by surprise, but he certainly hadn't expected her to be so attractive. She had that style and confidence that made a woman stand out from the crowd. He was enjoying her display of assurance and pride. He was surprised that Jepson hadn't softened to her more by now – he usually had a weakness for an attractive young woman himself. But the Chief must have hardened his heart, and once he did that, there was no way he would back down. This meeting could have only one possible outcome. Cooper was already beginning to feel sympathy for the Canadian woman. Jepson would let her go through her paces, but in the end, she was going to be disappointed.
    'This is a photograph of my grandfather,' said Morrissey. She slid a picture across the table to the Chief Superintendent, then one to Cooper. She'd hardly looked at him so far, except for a quick glance of appraisal when they'd been introduced. He had the impression that she was a woman who knew exactly what she aimed to achieve, and who was most likely to be able to help her. Now, she fixed her gaze on Chief Superintendent Jepson again.
    'That photograph was taken when he was promoted to the rank of Pilot Officer on joining 223 Squadron,' she said. 'Because of his service, he was a year or two older than most of his crew. That's why they called him "Granddad".'
    The photo was something that the LIO hadn't been able to produce for the files. Yet surely it must have been readily available, if it was an official RAF shot. Morrissey had been better organized, or had better help. Cooper glanced at Frank Baine. He'd heard of Baine vaguely. He recollected having seen a television programme the journalist had featured in, which had been commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain. The only thing Cooper remembered clearly from the programme was the fact that some of the Lancaster bombers used by the RAF during the Second World War had been built at a factory in Bamford,