The Broken Penny

by Julian Symons

  ‘Jacob.’

  ‘So was I. Poor Jacob.’ She was silent. ‘What will you do if we get back to England?’

  ‘I don’t know. First I should like to clear up things.’

  ‘What things?’

  ‘I don’t know. There was something odd about the whole thing in England. I should like to see–’ He paused. It would be wrong to mention Sir Alfred.

  Milo said, ‘Very good advice that, about trying to get some sleep.’

  They were silent. Staring into the fire’s flicker that slowly died, listening to the murmur of the engines, looking at Ilona’s hand on the chair arm as it was revealed occasionally in a flicker of light, Garden wondered whether he was in love, moved his buttocks in a useless attempt to find a soft place on the chair, thought again of Jacob. He remembered how when he was a boy of six or seven their cat Timmy had trotted up the garden path and deposited a dead sparrow at a point nicely equidistant between the boy and his father. Mr Garden had taken the occasion to read a brisk moral lesson to his pale and distressed son on the theme that it is the mission of the stronger to kill, of the weaker to suffer – that, he said, was natural selection. It was not in fact the dead unruffled body of the sparrow that had disturbed the boy, but the sudden revelation that the purring cat who never put out a claw in anger could kill so heartlessly, so casually. He cried out not for the sparrow, but for something in his own innocence that had been injured beyond repair. Why do I think of something so utterly irrelevant? Garden asked, and answered himself: if it were really irrelevant I should not think of it. He shifted again on the hard chair, and resigned himself to a sleepless night.

  Something pressed his arm and he opened his eyes. Captain Kaffel blew a sour breath into his face, and moved on to the others. Granz woke immediately, Milo with a quick shrug. The girl curled up in the chair and muttered something. Garden said, ‘Ilona,’ and she opened her eyes, looked at him and smiled. Getting up, stretching, Garden found his back and thighs aching from the night in the chair. He was conscious of a smell about the clothes he was wearing, a smell of drink and stale food, the captain’s smell, that he had not noticed last night. This mingled unpleasantly with the smell of fog and human sweat in the cabin. Garden shivered. Captain Kaffel was solicitous. ‘A little drink, eh? To warm you up.’ Garden shook his head, and put on the duffel coat.

  Granz placed a hand on the rifle and then took it off. ‘In Dravina, no, it would not do. It is yours,’ he said to the Captain, whose pig eye glinted approvingly. Now he positively would not be refused. The bottle of white liquid was produced and sloshed into the chipped cups and medicine glasses. ‘A safe journey, the best of luck,’ the Captain said as he tossed it back. He caressed the rifle affectionately, and suddenly dug Garden in the ribs. ‘We remember the old days, eh? Bang, bang. When are they going to come back?’ They all went up the companionway, shivering in the raw morning air. The Captain came with them in the boat. He took one of the oars and Granz another, and they moved slowly to the river bank. The fog was lifting slowly and the Captain said that in a couple of hours it might be clear. By walking for five minutes, he said, they would strike the road and could pick up a bus into the city. It was simple, simple. He grinned a farewell with all his bad teeth and, bending over the oars, faded into the mist.

  Chapter Five

  Kaffel’s information was accurate. The fog lifted as they moved away from the river; they found the road and after walking along it for half a mile were picked up by a bus which took them into Dravina. There was only standing room on the bus, which was crowded with men in shoddy clothes who gave the four of them no more than one incurious glance. To one side of them a man was reading the morning paper, and Granz from his great height rested his chin almost on the man’s shoulder in his anxiety to see the news. Very deliberately the man folded the paper and put it in his pocket, growling a refusal when Granz asked to see it. Almost all of the men got out by the entrance gates of a big factory that was already belching smoke from two tall chimneys.

  Dravina is divided into a new town and an old town, which is still enclosed by its original walls. The Street of the October Revolution, the conductor told them, was in the new town. The bus went within two minutes’ walk of it. Part of the new town was built by the Austrians, who favoured large, square, vaguely classical buildings in fawn-coloured brick. To this the Royalist government of the thirties added houses and offices in a kind of European Victorian Gothic, and since the war the Communist administration had contributed large blocks of flats and official buildings marked by a certain knobbly simplicity. In the Street of the October Revolution the three styles were all in evidence, with the effect of making it look curiously like a film set. The street was wide and the buildings well kept. Number 14 was large and square with many windows. They walked past the swing doors and looked casually inside. Nothing was visible but a wide and apparently empty entrance hall. Granz shook his head. ‘I don’t like it. Who is this Lepkin?’

  Almost opposite Number 14 there was a tiny bistro below a block of offices. They went in there, drank ersatz coffee with a flavour of nuts and goat’s milk, and ate hard brown bread with a solid and almost tasteless jelly that was called marmalade. Milo asked the man who served them the name of the big building over the way, but got no intelligible reply. ‘Lepkin?’ he asked. ‘Do you know Lepkin? Does he work there?’

  This time the man seemed startled. He looked at them oddly. ‘I know no Lepkin.’ Then he walked away from them deliberately and went to the end of the room where he stood in urgent conversation with a large woman who waddled from behind a counter to stare at them.

  Ilona had reached over for the morning paper, which hung in a rack attached to a bamboo stick. She turned the front page and slapped down her hand suddenly. ‘A horse fly,’ she said, and pushed over the paper to Garden. A photograph of him stared up from the page. Beneath it in black type he read, ‘Watch for this man. He is the English saboteur and criminal pervert, ringleader of the dastardly assassination plot.’ No name was given. He recognised the photograph as one taken years ago, just after the liberation. It showed a remarkably youthful figure wearing a beret and making the V-sign. The picture had been touched up to make the smile on his face look like a triumphant and ugly leer. His first reaction was that it showed a man absurdly unlike the figure sitting in this bistro drinking ersatz coffee and eating hard bread. Or was that a belief he held simply because the man in the photograph seemed so far away? If he could judge from the look of alarm in Ilona’s eyes that must be true. He read the story carefully, and found that it gave no further important details of the ‘plot’, and that there was still no mention of Arbitzer. He passed the paper over to Milo and Granz. After a minute or two Granz said, ‘Evidently it is necessary that we should see this Lepkin.’

  ‘Is the photograph like?’ It was curious that he felt no alarm whatever.

  ‘It depends on the keenness of your eyes. There is a great change, yes, but anybody who knew you in the past might recognise it. We must see this Lepkin, there is nothing else for it.’

  ‘One of us should go over,’ Garden said. ‘The rest wait here. Since Peterson was my friend, and I have his diary, it had better be me.’

  ‘Madness,’ said Ilona, and the others agreed with her. ‘Your picture is in the paper, your voice – you speak our language well, but there is an accent–’

  ‘All the more reason for me to go. I have a friend here.’ He tapped the revolver. ‘If the photograph is really recognisable I must be caught very soon. Why should you be caught with me? If I don’t come back or send for you in fifteen minutes’ time you had better leave.’ The fat woman and the waiter were now engaged in a furious argument. She seemed to be urging him to some course of action. Garden got up.

  Granz said doubtfully, ‘I do not think–’ The girl said ‘No’. Then he was out of the bistro and walking across the wide road. He pushed open the swing door of the fawn-coloured building.

  The entrance hall only appeared t
o be empty from outside. In fact a man sat in the middle of it at a glass-fronted inquiry box rather like the pay desk at a cinema. This cinematic impression was enhanced by the fact that the floor of the hall was some kind of black and white mosaic. Two or three men stood unobtrusively within call of the inquiry desk at the entrances to corridors that led off the hall. Garden looked vainly for some sign that might indicate the nature of the business carried on here. Then he advanced to the inquiry box. ‘May I see Comrade Lepkin?’

  Behind the glass a man raised sandy eyebrows. Garden felt that he had said something wrong. ‘An appointment?’

  ‘I think he will see me if you give him this message.’ On a piece of paper torn from Peterson’s diary he wrote: ‘I have an urgent message from Comrade Peterson or Floy.’ He folded the slip of paper and passed it under the glass. The sandy man pressed a button and one of the men at the corridor entrances walked briskly across the hall. Garden noticed that he wore a heavy brown belt with a pistol holster in it. The sandy man said something inaudible and gave him the note. The man with the brown belt went away down one of the corridors. Garden sat down on one of the benches that ran halfway round the hall, and waited, with a growing feeling of uneasiness.

  He had not long to wait. A little figure wearing gold-rimmed spectacles walked quickly, almost trotted, out of the corridor and across the hall. Garden stood up. ‘Comrade Lepkin.’

  ‘No, no.’ The little man looked immensely amused. He had a happy expression, and looked slightly like Mr Pickwick. ‘I will take you to him. Come along.’ They went across the black and white floor and down the corridor which was flanked on either side by numbered rooms. Behind some of the doors came the sound of typing. At the end of the corridor the little man trotted down a flight of stone stairs. Here there were more doors on either side, but no sound of typing. Garden was beamingly waved inside one of these doors. He saw a desk and a man writing at it, head down. ‘Comrade Lepkin?’ he said uncertainly. He heard the door close behind him.

  The man carefully finished what he was writing, blotted it and looked up. He was in his late forties and the severity of his pale, strikingly handsome features was enhanced by a pair of rimless spectacles. He said in a cold voice, ‘District Commander Lepkin of the Special Section, People’s Police, yes.’ At the moment that these words were spoken Garden felt something hard sticking into his back. The voice of the little man, bubbling with suppressed amusement, said, ‘Please put up your hands.’ Slowly Garden raised his hands above his head and then, as he felt the other fumbling at his hips flung himself suddenly to the right and caught the little man’s revolver hand with his arm. They crashed to the floor together and struggled there in a flurry of arms and legs. He heard Lepkin say, ‘Don’t shoot,’ and then received a stunning blow on the side of the head.

  He recovered consciousness to find himself sitting in a chair. His revolver lay on Lepkin’s desk. The little man watched him carefully, still smiling, from one side of the room. Lepkin sat at the desk below a portrait of the President, looking calmly at him. The look was impersonal, directed less at a man than at an object. Lepkin was about to speak when the telephone rang on his desk. He picked it up, said, ‘Yes’ twice, and then, ‘Yes, do that.’ He said to Garden, ‘You will be interested to hear that your friends over the road are being brought here. The woman reported their presence. She thought it suspicious that they wanted to know what this building was, and asked whether I worked here.’ The little man took off his gold-rimmed spectacles and polished them, smiling benignly to himself. ‘Prilit here can tell you that people do not often mention my name or ask for me. They think it does not bring them luck.’ Now little Prilit laughed outright. Lepkin’s chilly gaze was transferred to him. ‘You realise who this is, Prilit?’

  The little man tried to conceal an obvious bafflement. ‘A spy beyond doubt, a saboteur. Planning your assassination perhaps. A madman. To ask for Comrade Lepkin indeed.’

  ‘I see you do not realise.’ With a leisurely hand Lepkin unfolded the newspaper on his desk and passed it to Prilit, who looked at it, then at Garden, and back again at the paper. ‘The Englishman!’

  ‘Precisely, the Englishman. Now what we have to determine is why the Englishman sent this note which you very properly brought in to me, saying that he had an urgent message from Comrade Peterson or Floy.’ With cold politeness he asked Garden, ‘Who is Comrade Peterson or Floy?’

  ‘I invented him in the hope that you would see me.’

  ‘In that you have succeeded. What do you want to say?’

  Garden was silent. What could he possibly have to say to District Commander Lepkin, of the Special Security Section, People’s Police? Lepkin touched Garden’s revolver. ‘Search him, Prilit. I want everything that is in his pockets. And let us have no more nonsense. I don’t want to kill you, but I should not have the slightest objection to crippling you.’ Prilit moved across and began to search him. ‘Another point. Those are surely not English clothes you are wearing. Where did they come from?’ Garden made no reply. ‘I can see that you are going to be stupid. Surely, now that you have taken the step of surrendering yourself to us it is pointless not to answer questions. You don’t agree? We shall see.’ He looked at the collection of things that Prilit had put on his desk. ‘English money, yes. Papers, very well. Keys. English cigarettes – you did not play your part

  very well, do you think our people would smoke filthy English cigarettes? – more money, a diary.’ Lepkin looked through Peterson’s diary, in which his own name was noted down. Then he put his fingertips together. ‘Your name, we have been told by headquarters, is Garden. Come now, Garden, why are you here?’

  ‘I mistook the building.’ It did not seem to matter much what he said.

  ‘I expect something better than that.’ Lepkin waited.

  ‘Down below?’ There was something fawning about little Prilit.

  ‘You hear, Garden? Do not be deceived by Prilit’s appearance, he takes great interest in the work that goes on down below. He is careful and thorough. You won’t like it if I send you down with him.’

  ‘Can I take him?’ There was no doubt now about Prilit’s fawning eagerness.

  ‘Not yet. Let us see the others first.’ Lepkin picked up one of his desk telephones and spoke a few words. Two men brought in Granz, Milo and Ilona. There was a swelling on Granz’s cheekbone and his coat was torn. Granz and Milo had their hands tied behind their backs. ‘Outside,’ Lepkin said to the guards.

  Little Prilit almost bounced up and down with excitement. ‘Sir, it is about three of them that we had the urgent code message.’ His glance swept over Garden, Granz and Ilona. ‘Should I not say that we have them safely?’

  There was no change apparent to Garden in the icy calm of Lepkin’s voice, but as the little man heard what was said he blushed as rosily as a schoolgirl whose secret diary is being read aloud. ‘Do you suppose that had not occurred to me? My dear Prilit, I am afraid you are a fool. What are you going to tell as your fine story of achievement? “The man you were looking for has been in our town perhaps for a day or two. He obligingly came in here and gave himself up. The keeper of a bistro across the road came in and reported that the behaviour of the others was suspicious, so we arrested them.” We shall appear marvels of cleverness, shall we not? The Director-General will be delighted when he learns that three of them were sitting at their ease on the other side of the road and we did not know it. You will obtain promotion, my dear Prilit, you cannot avoid it, and as for me I shall be made a Hero of the Republic.’ Lepkin bared strong white teeth in an unamused smile. Prilit stammered something, and Lepkin cupped hand to ear with a grotesque parody of courtesy.

  ‘What’s that? We need not tell that story to the Director-General? Bravo, little Prilit, a glimmer of intelligence is illuminating your brain. Now, shall I tell you what we are going to do? We are going to find out the exact background of these four, how they escaped from Lodno and Baritsa, how they got from Baritsa to Dravina, what they h
oped to do here. Then it should not be beyond our ingenuity to think of some more romantic version of their capture, which will do us both credit, and may even bring you that promotion for which you are so eager. By the time we have done with them I do not think they will want to dispute our story. After all, what does it matter to them?’ There was no hint of sarcasm in Lepkin’s voice. ‘Am I making sense, Prilit? Do please inform me if I am not making sense.’

  The eyes with which the little man gazed at Lepkin were a dog’s eyes, adoring. Granz said loudly, ‘If I have anything to do with it they won’t pin any medals on either of you. I shall tell them we were sitting perfectly innocently over the road when your men came–’

  Prilit ran across to Granz and smacked his face hard, once, twice, three times. Granz kicked him on the shin and Prilit howled with pain. Lepkin stood up, revolver in hand. He looked annoyed and dangerous.

  ‘That’s enough. Prilit, you cannot even hit a man with his hands tied behind his back. I will see them myself alone, each in turn.’ He pressed a button, and the two guards came back. ‘Take those three next door and see that they do not talk to each other. Prilit, next door too. I will ring when I want you.’