Here we go! 1943, the year that OTL saw the beginning of the end for the Axis.
Chapter 309
“TWO MONTHS!” Hunt yelled. “Two months!” he repeated slightly more restrained, and he was happy that no one was here to see his moon-sized head and the remnants of yesterday's New Years celebrations.
The last of the thirteen Cuba Libre's[1] he'd had over the last eighteen hours must have been bad or something.
Either way, he had barely survived the phone call that had called him to this house on the outskirts of Liverpool.
He collected himself ,stepped around the corner and saw immediately why he had been called. The damage to the outside of the house was limited to blown-out windows and door, and this very thing told him that it was most likely only a small charge, hence a hand grenade.
A constable wearing Sergeant's stripes asked for his identification when he walked up to the house and after being shown told Hunt what they knew.
“It's little enough, Sir. It used to be a boarding house until the war broke out and most of the tenants were called up or left for other reasons.”
“So why am I here?”
The Sergeant saw the signs and having heard about this case decided to let it slide.
“Well, for one I saw enough Hand Grenades going off at Ypres, secondly the the owner was a bloody paddie.”
Enough circumstantial evidence, Hunt figured. Time to look at Special Branche's list of Persons of interest.
“He was killed then?” Hunt asked aloud.
“He was, Sir. Not nice the sight was, I can tell you.”
“I need to make a call. Where is the next telephone?”
“Right in there, Sir. He had it hooked up just before the war.”
In London a phone in an office that was as far from the Yard as was possible rang half an hour later.
Percival Godliman picked up and before he could say anything the call he had been waiting for for some time now came.
“Hunt here. It seems our friends have struck again.”
“Are you sure?”
“Definitely. A grenade was used to off an Irishman who was on the IRA watchlist. We could never nick him for anything, but it seems that someone else knew more than us.”
“Hold on, wasn't the chap we had in mind for stealing the grenades in the first place IRA?”
“He was. House cleaning?”
“Hard to say. Either way, we will come back up..”
“I wouldn't bother yet, Godliman.” Hunt interrupted, “As far as we know he could have flogged the grenades to someone else who threw them around at random.”
“True enough. Still, I will tell Bloggs to stand by. You will definitely hear from us again.”
~**---**~
Across the city Liam Devlin was as frustrated as Hunt was but lacked the hangover.
He also knew for certain that the latest stiff had been part of the IRA at one point, the boarding house had been a conduit for newly arrived men and various supplies and arms. The close proximity to a train station only helped in this task.
Though why someone would attack the infrastructure of the IRA in Britain was a mystery. The English would rather arrest the man to find out what he knew and the IRA itself was mad to destroy a network that might never be rebuilt.
That only left the Reds, the Nazis and the Reformed IRA, though it was unlikely the Reds or the Nazis would attack someone whose death would have no discernible impact on Anglo-Irish relations.
But what would the Reformed IRA gain from destroying the IRA network?
Maybe the RIRA blokes had attacked Harrison for talking to him, though that was unlikely.
At least he now knew where to go next. If anyone knew what was going on in the community it was this man. To talk to him he would need to travel across the city and if his suspicions were correct...
He looked up and saw that in his thoughts he had neatly walked past his destination and had to double back. Two minutes later he knocked at the door and was puzzled when he didn't hear an answer. True, he had last seen this man ten years ago when they had battled the Loyalists in the Six Counties but Thomas Riley could not have changed this much.
When he tried the door and found that it was unlocked he was even more puzzled and felt into his pocket for the small snub-nosed Webley Pocket pistol he carried.
He slowly opened the door, never seeing the police constable who was stepping out of the grocery store, only to step inside and beg the use of the store telephone as he saw Devlin fiddling with the door.
Devlin meanwhile methodically searched the two-storey house and saw immediately that the place had been tossed by someone who knew what he was doing, though what they were looking for Devlin couldn't know. Riley had mostly served as contact who sent new arrivals elsewhere, using the courier service he owned as a cover.
Riley never kept any of his confidential papers at his private residence as doing so had nearly cost his head when the Brits had searched his place when he had still operated in Ireland.
That he opened the door to the bathroom from the right of the doorframe instead of the left saved his life as the grenade was wired to the door being opened and not the handle.
The blast threw him backwards, caused nosebleed and not a few scrapes and bruises along with ringing ears. He fainted on impact with the opposing wall.
Hunt on the other hand felt perfectly fine by the time thanks to a cup of scorching hot black wartime Coffee bought at an American Restaurant and was on the scene within ten minutes of the explosion, having by pure chance been on the way to speak to Riley too.
Liverpool had been a point of entry for IRA terrorists since they had founded themselves and so the files Special Branch had available were very extensive, and the last victim, just like this one, had been a suspected if not known IRA member.
It were actually the sirens of the fire brigade and the police vehicles that woke Devlin from his slumber.
Luckily for him he had not been severly wounded, but he knew that this might change of the local plod caught sight of him in here. He staggered to his feet and brushed dust and masonry from his clothes. His face had to be covered with blood from the wood splinters that the door had produced, but it seemed as if the grenade had been on the opposite site of the room else he would have been killed by the splinters of the door that seemed to have suffered less damage than would have been expected.
It seemed that booby trap had been done on the cheap, with one grenade to cover both entry points.
“OY, YOU THERE! STOP!”
The man who had yelled at Devlin was about his own age and general build and judging by the coat he was wearing that neatly concealed a gun a copper of some sort, and thus by definition not someone Devlin wanted to speak to right now. He dashed through the halway and was out the back door before Hunt could pursue him and over the fence by the time the Brit was at the door.
“Bloody hell, he knows my face!” Devlin mumbled as he made his way away from the scene of the explosion.
+-+-+-+-+-
Comments, questions, rotten tomatoes?
[1] It can be done ITTL. Coca Cola is operating from London and across the Empire, and the drink was apparently invented during the Spanish-American war. It was also the cause of the biggest headache I ever had, but damn that party was so worth it.