by Joel N. Ross
Her grip tightened on the railing. “No cause is foreign which casts its hungry eyes upon your shores.”
“Oh, bravo, Harriet, how prettily said. But shall we stop playing charades? I came because I heard Tom was given a parcel in your husband’s stead, a parcel that would damage the fascists. I’d hoped to find it here, and destroy it. But it appears I was misinformed.” He chuckled, the sound of dry leaves underfoot. “Happily, I had the great good fortune to overhear your conversation with that gruff fellow on the telephone. The parcel will not damage my allies, only aid them.”
“You heard,” she said.
“Herr Sondegger, who has news of a Japanese attack on the United States, came to London to warn the Americans. A wise approach. Roosevelt is slick—he’ll manipulate his people into the wrong side of a bloody war unless he is stopped. It seems Herr Sondegger is not betraying his fatherland, but protecting it.”
“I pity the man with whom you will share a cell.”
He waved away the threat. “You’d testify against your own father? I know you better than that. Is the parcel here? . . . No? Then I’ll take no more of your time.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m late for an appointment I expect to be quite informative.”
“When you are in prison, I’ll close Burnham Chase. I’ll auction the paintings from the walls. Nothing will remain of what you love.”
“And the gardens, Harriet? Will you burn the fields and salt the earth?”
“I’ll do what must be done.”
“None of us can do otherwise.” He opened the front door and walked into the colorless dusk.
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
EVENING, DECEMBER 5, 1941
THE MORGUE ANNEX was housed two streets from the borough hospital, in what had once been public baths. Inside the front door, a mosaic arrow on the wall pointed left under a hand-lettered sign reading INQUIRIES. Tom and Audrey followed the arrow into the blue-green light of a drained pool area used as a mortuary. Their footsteps echoed off the mildew-stained tiles as they passed rows of cots, empty now but sagging with meaning and grief.
They found a woman in a small reception room, sitting at a cluttered desk under a motionless ceiling fan. They told her their business and she ran to fetch the doctor.
Tom dropped his hat on the edge of the desk and kneaded his right forearm. The pain had faded, but was coming back hard. He turned toward Audrey, wanting to see her smile. She was standing with her hands clasped, her face a dull mask.
“You should wait here,” he said.
“I’ll go with you.” A door slammed down the hall, and she startled.
“Stay here, love,” he said. “It won’t take a minute.”
She shook her head, and a man entered. He had receding hair and a birthmark under his left eye that looked like a drop of blood.
“I’m Dr. Masaccio,” he said. “Close as we come to a coroner at present.”
“Close enough,” Tom said, and told him what he wanted.
“Fellow in his thirties, in the canal?” the doctor said. “An open verdict, most likely. The water confuses matters somewhat. . . .”
He led them downstairs and then into a cool basement room with a row of file cabinets and a set of swinging doors. He checked his records and brought out a wheeled stretcher. He said no identification—nothing at all—had been found on this poor soul, which was not surprising, as some people lightened a body before reporting it found. He drew back the covers to reveal a face: fish belly white with a spiderweb of veins. The eyes were empty slits and the hair a thatch of stiff wire.
Audrey clutched Tom’s arm as he shook his head. “It’s not him.”
“You’re certain?”
Tom looked at the doctor.
“Well, there is one other candidate.” Dr. Masaccio pulled the sheet over the dead face. “I’ll have him brought out.”
He wheeled the body away, leaving them surrounded by the chill and the echo of the swinging doors.
“Do you know why they call me Venus?” Audrey asked.
“I have a theory,” he said, trying to make her smile.
She didn’t. “I was at home during one of the first raids.”
“You were hit.”
“Half the roof gave way. Da was buried, but he . . . I wasn’t even scratched. The gas lines broke; everything was flames and dust. I heard him calling.” She stopped, and the echoes of her voice faded to silence. “He was a long time dying.”
Tom wanted to hold her. Wanted to stroke her hair.
“Then I was billeted with a family,” she said. “Living in the West End, I thought I was lucky, but it wasn’t a month before another bomb hit. I was in the bath, having my five inches. The basin flipped upside down and I was trapped under, in a little cave, when rescue workers came, and I tapped a pipe for them as they dug. They shifted the basin and hauled me up a long shaft of rubble. It was dawn, and Inch was there. He gave me his coat. He said I was like Venus rising from the surf.” A smile rose and broke and then died on her face. “I wasn’t a bit of use anymore. In the Ambulance Corps, I couldn’t face it, all the death and people buried and dying and dead. You think I’m a coward.”
“I think you’re a beautiful idiot,” he said. “Wait upstairs.”
She looked at her new shoes: “I don’t want to be alone anymore.”
The squeak of wheels preceded Dr. Masaccio into the room. “Excuse the wait,” he said. “Now, then. The body was in the water for a time and it’s possible a barge, er, impacted the—”
Tom flipped back the sheet. He put his hand toward the lifeless face and felt waves of chill. The seeping cold of refrigeration, the cold of empty flesh. Earl was dead.
Masaccio spoke from the end of a long, dark tunnel. “—wallet presumed stolen. Perhaps this isn’t the best time?”
“Tell me,” Tom said.
“The lady appears—”
“Tell me.”
“His collarbone was broken,” Masaccio said. “There’s a puncture wound just under his floating ribs, not a fatal injury, possibly caused by airborne debris. Mostly likely he lost blood, fell in the canal. The shock of the water and the blood loss . . .”
“Take me home,” Audrey was saying. “Tommy, I want—I’m cold. It’s very cold.”
“How long ago?” Tom asked.
Masaccio drew the sheet over Earl’s face. “Difficult to say, with the water, this time of year. The official cause of death is drowning, but—”
“It’s murder,” Tom said. He could picture every motion, that night on the canal behind Stables & Co. “He was pushed.”
Tom didn’t know what Earl’s game was, but he’d put the first microfilm in Tristram Shandy, then met Sondegger at Regent’s Canal, off Hyde Road. Had there been a betrayal? A trap? For some reason, Earl and Sondegger had fought, and Earl had won. He’d locked Sondegger in the brick building on the canal towpath for safekeeping.
But Sondegger wasn’t much for losing. Locked and injured, he’d drawn Earl close to the rusty iron grating with his honeyed voice. He’d asked for a light for his cigar, and Earl couldn’t resist playing along. He’d leaned close and flicked his lighter. And Sondegger, barely able to stand from the blow to his head, had smashed the cobbler’s bench through the grille into Earl’s face and driven him into the canal. Earl had slid down the muddy bank, weak from blood loss, and unable to use one arm because of a broken collarbone. He’d sunk in the numbing current.
Yeah, Tom could see exactly what had happened.
“Please, can we go?” Audrey said.
“Mr. Wall?” the doctor said.
Earl was dead. He’d been dead since the night Sondegger was found. Why had Sondegger been singing? To cover Earl’s cries, to cover the splashes, and to draw attention. At that point, with Earl dead, Sondegger wanted to be captured. Because there was no other way t
o get to Tom—and he needed an American to run with the microfilm. He’d sent for Earl, knowing they’d bring Tom, knowing they had no other choice. Before Davies-Frank had even entered the Rowansea, Sondegger had known.
It was worse than Crete. Tom had been pressed into service by Sondegger, drafted into Hitler’s army.
“Tommy, I want to go.” Audrey put her hand on his arm. “Please.”
“Then go.”
DUCKBLIND HAD CONSIDERED doing both her errands at once—wheeling the pram with the transmitter along while she stole a battery, then heading directly to the transmission location for a site check. Her Schmetterling self whispered in her ear: If you do that, you’ll have time to locate Tommy Wall! She squashed the urge firmly. She was simply bubbling with excitement—they were finally transmitting—but still, security was paramount. She’d first filch the battery, then check the transmission location.
She left the pram safely at Mr. Pentham’s, and a mile from the house she appropriated a bicycle. She needed a twelve-volt battery. Well, that or domestic voltage, but using domestic voltage was silly, as the Brits could pinpoint the area of transmission within a block using their DF equipment. They would turn off the mains to each of the buildings until the transmitter went off the air, and discover her precise location.
It was far better to take the minimal risk of securing a battery. She’d have bought one, but the black market was risky. Plus, pilfering was more to her taste.
They’d quizzed her silly on the matter of her wireless transmitter. The sender had a variable-frequency master oscillator that covered 5MHz to 16MHz in two switched bands, and a side-contact based triode with a top-cap grid. Actually, the wireless was plain as a pumpkin. Easy as filching the battery itself.
Duckblind had first spied a lovely car, a Darracq, all alone under a spreading tree. Darracqs had twelve-volt batteries, ripe for the picking in a hinged panel in the valence. Nobody was about—but there was no hinged panel! The battery was under the driver’s seat instead. She reached into her bag for the spanners and bent down to inspect the battery.
Six volts, not twelve.
Footsteps sounded behind her, and a man cleared his throat. She dropped a scrap of paper on the floor of the car and remained bent over the driver’s seat. He cleared his throat again. She wiggled excessively as she rose. She stammered and blushed and finally admitted that a very important address—here, on this little slip of paper—had taken flight and then landed in his car. She’d merely been retrieving it, but he must think her the lowest sort of motorcar thief!
He jollied her gallantly and gave her and her bicycle a lift across town. She asked, wide-eyed, about his lovely car. A 1923, he said, which explained the cursed six-volt battery. Darracqs didn’t go to twelve volts until 1924 or 1925.
She bade the gentleman farewell, then biked a short distance for countersurveillance. She’d have to bustle. In fifteen minutes, she passed a Sunbeam, an Alvis, and a Bentley. All would do nicely, but none were properly situated.
Oh, lovely! Over the road, she spied a Bedford lorry, with a pair of twelve-volt batteries mounted on the outside. She slipped behind the lorry and undid the connections. The battery was a little lamb. It leapt into her arms and thence into the bright pink paper she’d set in the bicycle basket. She headed down the alley behind the post office, rode past the viaduct, and took a circuitous route until finally she abandoned the bicycle at the station. She’d been associated with a bicycle already, and it wouldn’t do to become predictable.
The battery was awfully heavy, but she carried it as if it weren’t, hopped aboard the Circle Line, switched to the Northern, and got off at Moorgate, cradling her bright pink parcel close. She’d tied it more securely and added a bow. She passed the Insurance Institute and the handsome Gothic facade of the church and then entered the damaged churchyard. An old Roman wall had been exposed by the bombing.
She climbed the stone steps. At the top, concealed by a half wall, were two planks. Her secure entrance. She edged one of the planks into the blasted-out window of the priory next door and scuttled across. The priory was a burned husk, with no windows or doors remaining—and only one set of easily watched interior stairs up to the second floor.
She completed her site check, removed the pink paper wrapping, and left the battery hidden and protected from the rain. She gazed about one final time. The exit routes were arranged, the entrance clear. She could see the top of the Guildhall through a bombed-out window. It had been hit last summer, and there was a water-storage tank on the premises now, and a long, lofty antenna sweeping into the sky—a transmitter that would camouflage, at least for a time, her own transmission.
Descending the Roman stairs, she almost twisted an ankle. She really must take more care. She caught the motor bus and headed back to Mr. Pentham’s, her home for today, though she’d not return after tonight.
HIGHCASTLE BARKED INSTRUCTIONS at Illingworth into the jeweler’s phone. He had an action to plan and five minutes to plan it. He needed three teams. Each would split into two units: Alphas would control the roads encircling Mr. Pentham’s house, and Betas would sweep forward to flush Duckblind if she slipped past the forward team.
She would not slip past. Highcastle himself would command the forward team.
“All for a misplaced cuff link, sir?” Illingworth said.
“No,” he replied. “All for a bloody hunch.”
He gathered the men and briefed them in twenty words—that’s why it was called a bloody “brief”—and commandeered a direction-finding lorry, muddy brown, with dull green letters saying it was a Pearson & Eliot goods van. He wished he hadn’t wasted Ginger on minding Wall and Lady Harriet, but no matter. This was his one break.
Highcastle told the driver not to arse around, and the lorry sped across the city, skidded around a corner, and screeched to a halt. Ahead, traffic was nose to tail in a sea of bloody exhaust; they’d missed smashing an Austin by inches.
“Back it up.” Highcastle looked behind. Cars already there. Boxed in.
They were stuck.
CHILTON DETESTED WAITING, particularly for the likes of Rugg and Renard. He’d been wandering Central Hall for twenty minutes, pretending interest in the mosaic pavement, but the hall was open only until dusk, and he needed to speak with the two hooligans before it closed. He’d arranged this rendezvous to learn if Rugg and Renard had secured the parcel from Tom, but there was more at stake now. He must tell them that Sondegger was not a turncoat, not a defector. He was a patriot, and they must aid him.
Chilton paced between the statues of Street and Blackstone, his walking stick tapping the floor. There wasn’t a moment to waste, and his urgency fueled his anger with Rugg and Renard for their tardiness, with Harriet for speaking so disrespectfully. The day would come when she’d thank him, when she’d understand that he had acted not for himself, but for her. She’d regret how she’d spoken, how she’d raised her hand to him. To him!
A cough echoed in the hall. Chilton glanced toward the tower flanking the public entrance and saw a wiry form flick around the corner: Renard. Chilton left the building and headed toward the market. As he stepped past a phone box, Rugg and Renard appeared beside him. Four blocks farther on, they drew him under scaffolding and into an abandoned stall. It was dark and cramped and stank of unwashed vagrants. Chilton could almost feel the fleas crawling onto his trousers.
A voice came from the darkness: “Get yer own bloody squatter.”
His eyes adjusted, and he saw three boys—fourteen or fifteen—sitting on upturned crates. Filthy young vermin, with bad posture and worse teeth.
“Get out,” he said.
“Bugger off, you old shitworm.”
He struck the nearest boy across the face with his walking stick.
The boy yelped and stood, and Rugg said in his queer high voice, “Go on.”
The boys looked past Chilton to Rug
g and Renard, their dim eyes sullen. They shifted and scratched and shuffled outside, trailing a wake of stale sweat.
Chilton moved farther into the room, putting his foot in a smear of ooze. He suppressed a shudder as he turned to Rugg and Renard. “Imbeciles. You were meant to arrive thirty minutes ago. Have you no notion what is at stake?”
“We’ve news,” Renard said. “Took a bit of getting, but—”
“You may speak when I’m finished,” Chilton said. “We work for an ideal founded on authority; you cannot pursue our goal while you undermine it. Do you understand me?”
“We have a blinkin’—”
“Do you understand me?”
Renard nodded, his eyes hot with insolence. “Thing is, sir, we met Herr Sonder.”
The back of Chilton’s neck pricked with alarm. “Tell me you didn’t injure him.”
“Not a bit.” Renard opened his coat to show Chilton a pistol. “He set us to buying guns. Said we should fix that before we met you.”
“You took instruction from him?”
“He ain’t a traitor like you thought. He’s true loyal.”
“Do you understand nothing?” Chilton said. “You take instruction from me. You do not—you are not empowered to decide, on your own whim, to whom you report. Even my deluded daughter understands duty. Even she—”
Rugg interrupted: “Sets me fookin’ off.”
“Even my daughter,” Chilton continued, “would never disregard the direction of a superior.”
Renard glanced at his companion, then drove his right fist into Chilton’s stomach. Chilton doubled over and his stick went skidding across the stall. The pain was hollow and barbed, expanding in his center, and his vision narrowed to a dark field swimming with stars. He gasped for breath, heard a harsh wheeze and a high whine.
Rugg clamped his throat in an iron grip and straightened him. “Fookin’ endless natter. Set me off.”
Chilton’s mouth moved, but no sound emerged. His knees were liquid and his mind could not comprehend. Rugg flung him across the stall. He crashed into a rough wooden surface and fell to the foul ground. He tried to stand but couldn’t. He heard Rugg’s womanish voice outside the door of the stall, talking to the three young hoodlums. Chilton lifted his arm and watched his hand, a parched white claw, scramble for purchase on a splintered crate.