by Mark Ellis
“Oi. Mate. Another body here. Can you give me a hand?” As he turned back to clear away some more of the rocks, he noticed something glinting in the rubble.
* * *
Voronov had suggested meeting at the Savoy or the Ritz, but the Countess had said that would be far too dangerous as there were all sorts of acquaintances they might bump into. And so he found himself in this rather nondescript hotel near Russell Square. As she’d pointed out, it was quite big, so their presence there wouldn’t necessarily stick out – and the rooms were perfectly comfortable, though bland and soulless – and he was a man of soul! Still, the prize was his and even if the surroundings were not to his liking, he was not going to be put off his enjoyment of that prize.
There was a light tap at the door. He jumped up, ran a hand through his oiled hair, straightened his tie and ruffled his beard to ensure the absence of unsightly detritus. The door opened to reveal the Countess, looking attractively demure.
“Come in. Come in, my dear. So glad you could make it.” He hurried her into the room, grasped her shaking hand and pulled her towards the window. “A fine view of the back of the Liverpool Insurance Company. I’m sure you agree, my little Maria, it is one we can do without.” He snapped the window blind down abruptly, leaving the room lit only by a small ugly bedside lamp. “A drink? I took the liberty of bringing a fine ’36 Dom Perignon. The chilling facilities here are, I’m afraid, rather inadequate, but the bottle was cold when I got here and I have left it in the basin in cold water. Shall we?”
The Countess nodded with resignation as she lowered herself onto the large metal postered bed. Voronov removed the champagne flutes from his briefcase, made a big show of popping the cork and poured out two glasses.
An hour later he sat up in the bed, puffing happily on a large Corona cigar. It had been a pleasurable experience. Not, as was usually the case, completely up to expectations, but certainly worthwhile. A B or maybe even a B plus. Of course, she was not a willing participant, but that could cut both ways in the lovemaking experience. With a willing party there was pleasure but no challenge – with a partner such as the Countess there was the challenge of provoking a real response. For all his ugliness and violence, he knew he was a skilled lover who was quite capable of making a woman, even the most beautiful woman, forget his absence of physical charms and be taken to the heights of ecstasy. He had, as they said in this benighted country, pulled out all the stops and the Countess had not avoided receiving pleasure from him, hard though she had tried to. She was certainly relaxed enough to have dozed off by his side. Her nose twitched rather charmingly as she adjusted her position in her sleep. The bed sheet slipped to reveal what he considered the perfect breast – not too long, not too small, a handful for a big-handed man like himself. He pulled the sheet further back and admired her. Considering all she’d been through, she was in remarkably good shape. He felt the signs of reviving capability below. Their arrangement, as far as he was concerned, did not preclude repeat performances. Replacing his cigar in the ashtray, he reached out for that perfect handful. They could discuss the other matter later.
* * *
“It is surprising how easily one could get used to the screams in this place,” mumbled Andrei as he sat in his own faeces, finishing the bowl of thin gruel which would be his only meal of the day. Something had happened to Andrei in the past four weeks, something had snapped. Not so difficult to understand really. He had been in the Lubianka for nine months, although if asked he would not be able to say how long. In the desperate, cold gloom of Moscow’s notorious prison, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years all melted indistinguishably into each other. There were events, of course, to punctuate the time – mealtimes, although the paltry tasteless rations provided rarely made these red letter moments. Far more memorable were the beatings, the interrogations, the threats and the carrying out of threats, the screams and, of course, the blood. However, the thing that had snapped in Andrei made him almost impervious to all of these events. He was ill, emaciated, swimming in his own waste, freezing or boiling depending on the season and he was going to die soon. He had accepted this and now lived in a state of irrational, gibbering cheerfulness.
Karol had given up trying to talk to Andrei. Whatever happened, he was determined to keep his mind to the end. Rising stiffly to his feet, he summoned up all his reserves of strength and began banging loudly on the door. “For Christ’s sake, someone come and clear up in here. Andrei’s shit himself again. Please, someone.” The effort of banging and shouting completely drained him and he fell back down on the thin straw mattress in his corner of the cell. After a while he could hear heavy steps, then the door clanked open. The guard was short and built like a small tank. He had crossed eyes, but Karol couldn’t see them in the dark of the cell. The guard leaned over and punched Karol on the back of his neck.
“What the fuck is your problem, you Polish pig? Smells like roses in here, doesn’t it, Andrei?”
Andrei nodded enthusiastically.
“See, your friend’s happy. No more complaints, you Polish scum.”
As the guard aimed another blow at Karol’s head, the sound of footsteps reverberated down the corridor. A small man with very thick lens glasses pushed his way past the guard and into the room. He was followed by a taller, wiry man carrying a briefcase. The guard dissolved into spasms of obsequiousness and was despatched by the shorter man’s waved hand. Both of Karol’s new visitors wore nondescript dark suits and brilliant white shirts, but no ties. Both men wrinkled their noses in disgust at the stink in the cell.
“Come, my Polish friend. We are going to give you a little break from this sewer.”
Karol was prodded out of the door, along several corridors, down some stairs and eventually into a room he by now knew quite well. For once he was offered a cigarette, which he sucked on gratefully. Then the questions began. The same old questions to which he gave the same old answers. Hour after hour after hour.
* * *
A thin drizzle was pattering against the window panes as Merlin sat thinking at his desk. He had just read a newspaper report of Churchill’s latest broadcast the day before. Churchill had said that if Hitler was going to invade, it had to happen soon as the weather would deteriorate and the large invasion fleet, which had evidently been mustered by the Nazis in the ports of Germany, Holland, Belgium and France, could not be left waiting forever at anchor as British aircraft and warships in the Channel pounded them. Drawing on his profound love and knowledge of British history, he had compared the moment with the time when Drake was finishing his game of bowls as the Spanish Armada broke or when Nelson stood between Britain and Napoleon’s Grand Army. Merlin, with deference to Churchill, thought it felt a lot worse. Drake and Nelson had triumphed and with the long view of history it seemed inevitable that they would do so. He felt no inevitability about the victory of British power now. It suddenly occurred to him that tomorrow was Friday the 13th – for whom would it be unlucky?
The phone rang. Merlin picked up the receiver as Bridges came through the door. “Yes? I see. When exactly? We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
Bridges looked at him enquiringly.
“They’ve found a body off Euston Road. Wearing a flyer’s uniform. Let’s go.”
Chapter 12
Mexico 1519
The large burning orb of the midday sun beat down relentlessly on the agitated crowd milling around the square in front of the great temple. The inhabitants of the great Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan were excited by the news coming from the coast. An army had disembarked from a flotilla of great canoes, which had arrived from the east over the Great Sea. This force was now travelling steadily through the subject lands of their mighty ruler, Montezuma, with all indications that its intended destination was their holy city of the lake. All sorts of rumours were circulating about the nature of these men. The priests were saying that they were not men at all but gods, whose arrival had been foretold by the startling natural phenomena
of recent times – the column of fire stretching from earth to sky, which had appeared every midnight for a year; the two temples destroyed by fire and lightning; the comet seen by day; the bird whose head had a mirror in it in which the approaching army had first revealed itself to the great Emperor. These men or gods were strange white creatures riding on four-legged monsters like deer. Their bodies were covered with thick dark material and their faces sported bushy red or black beards. In their caravan were new strange weapons of warfare capable of rivalling in noise and power the loudest thunderstorm. As the air hummed with this gossip, at the foot of the temple stairs, close by the rack holding the countless skulls of victims sacrificed to the great gods, a fight broke out between the supporters of rival interpretations of events; swords were drawn and blood was spilt.
High above the crowds, the great Emperor noticed this commotion and sighed. He fingered the ornate imperial amulet, which hung glittering around his neck, then stared up briefly at the burning sun. What should he do? Should he treat with these gods to protect his great kingdom from their wrath or should he listen to those of his advisers who insisted that these creatures would bleed if cut and should be attacked without delay? But then to attack was not so easy – the newcomers were travelling through lands subservient to his power, but not loyal to it. The Totonacs, for one, were rumoured to be keen to use the foreigners to assist their independence. The Tlaxcalans likewise.
Then again, what did these creatures want? He had heard they had a great hunger for gold and he and his people certainly had an abundance of that. He glanced to his right at the open door of the temple treasury. The sun’s rays were flooding through the doorway and a blinding glare of reflection bounced back from the multitude of golden statues, vases, ornaments and other artefacts kept there in honour of Huitzilopochtli, the Sun God of War, Quetzalcoatl and the other great gods of the cosmos.
Montezuma sighed again. He looked across the wide platform that lay just beneath the high apex of the temple. His priests were busy preparing the sacrifice to his left and he heard the whimpering of the victims. One of them looked up and dared to stare at her Emperor. She was a pretty young thing with long, flowing black hair, deep, dark eyes and a perfect figure. She was naked, as were the other three maidens who were to die to propitiate the gods and, Montezuma prayed, to secure guidance as to how best to resolve his current passing problem. Now the victims were brought forward by the guards to the great stone table in the middle of the platform. Their whimpering halted as they faced the truth of their fate. The pretty, dark girl kept her gaze on the Emperor and he fancied that he saw there a defiant glare. Montezuma looked down at his beautifully crafted, golden amulet, which took the form of two snakes entwined, their eyes flawless emeralds glittering in the burning sun. A thought occurred to him. He stood and raised a hand to the Chief Priest, who halted proceedings. Montezuma strode towards the girl and removed the amulet from his neck. He would place it around her shivering neck and after the knife had done its work and her heart had been plucked from her slender frame, the cremation of her body would blend her ashes with the molten metal to provide a majestic offering of sacrificed beauty to the gods – surely then he would be given the guidance he required? He held the amulet out. The girl stared beneath her briefly at the masterpiece of intricate workmanship and a tear dropped onto the flawless metal. As he lifted the amulet up to place it around her neck the silence was suddenly broken by a loud cawing noise and a large, black bird swooped down and plucked the amulet from Montezuma’s fingers. The bird rose high in the air before swooping down again and dropping the amulet in front of the treasury door. The Emperor looked hard at the girl before turning and walking back to his seat. A servant hurriedly retrieved the amulet and at a nod from the Emperor replaced it around the royal neck. His idea was clearly not pleasing to the gods. The girl could die without decoration. He shaded his eyes from the sun with his hand then nodded at the Chief Priest, who resumed chanting before proceeding with his grisly work.
* * *
Friday, September 13, 1940
Tarkowski blearily removed the bedcover from his face and slowly opened his eyes. His head throbbed. Another endless meeting followed by several rounds of Polish plum brandy with the general and his cronies had played havoc with his brain cells. He rolled onto his side and grimaced as his back creaked in sympathy with his head. The high ceiling above him shimmered in the distance as his ears began to register an unusual sound. His wife was not by his side, but, as he levered himself up on his elbows, he could see the back of her dressing gown in the bathroom facing him. Her shoulders were trembling, he could see, and the unusual sound was that of her crying. Maria had never been one for tears. Even during the worst moments of their flight from Poland, when it looked as if they would lose everything including their lives, she had never shed a tear. Not even when one brother’s death had been reported and then Karol’s capture had become known had she wept – not in front of him anyway.
He rose stiffly from the bed and walked to the bathroom. He placed his hands on her shoulders. “What is it, my darling? This is not like you.”
Maria’s shoulders fell for a moment, then she turned and melted into his arms. “Oh. Adam. Adam. I am so unhappy!”
“Please, darling. Tell me. Who or what is causing this?”
“It’s Karol. Voronov thinks he can help, but for a price. He knows or thinks he knows about—”
“What does that fat, jumped-up, Russian thing know? How dare he!”
“He says he has contacts who can help, if we…”
“Calm down, Maria. I doubt very much he can do anything for Karol and we must not succumb to blackmail.”
The Countess started to sob again. How could she begin to explain to her husband that for love she had already paid part of Voronov’s price?
* * *
Merlin drummed his fingers on the desk in irritation. He had had a frustrating night. Due to an unexploded bomb scare on the Embankment, he and Bridges had been confined to the Yard for three hours. When they had eventually arrived at the makeshift mortuary near Euston it was late, dark and raining. No one knew anything about a dead flyer. On their way home a raid had started up. The raiding party didn’t seem as vast as on some previous nights, but their targets seemed to include Euston Road and the Strand. Bridges had driven skilfully to avoid a couple of bomb craters, smoking and flickering with flames, and when they got back to the Yard they had decided to hole up there for the night.
There was a shelter at the bottom of the building, but they had some bedding to lay out in Merlin’s office and they had both dossed down there. Sleep had largely evaded Merlin, however. Bridges’ regular snoring didn’t help, but the ack-ack barrage was the main culprit. London’s defence forces had finally got their act together now and the guns rhythmically boomed out for hours. Eventually Merlin had nodded off for an hour or two.
“Sergeant. Get on to the ARP people and the Medical Corps people and try and track down someone sensible who can lead us to this body. The doctor who called me yesterday was a Lieutenant Ross.” Merlin’s fingers drummed some more. A firm knock on the door preceded the entrance of Constable Robinson.
Bridges had not yet tidied up the loose bedding and Robinson stepped gingerly between the blankets and sheets.
“Yes, Robinson. What have you for me this morning?”
“I had dinner with my brother last night. I went out to his house in Chiswick. He had a night’s leave. Anyway, as promised, he had done a little more research regarding the amulet. Here’s his report.”
Robinson put a brown envelope on the desk.
“Please summarise, Constable.”
“He’s done a bit more reading and thinks he’s actually identified the piece. There’s a reference in one of the books to an amulet with this design of intertwined snakes being worn by Montezuma himself.”
“Montezuma himself? How interesting.”
“He has provided a lot of other esoteric information, which I d
on’t think is particularly relevant, but I did ask him who might own such an item now. He said obviously it might have belonged to a museum in the Americas or Europe. There are also, of course, private collectors. Perhaps the biggest owner of items such as this before the war was the Spanish government.”
“That’s not a surprise to me, Constable. The Spanish conquest of the Aztecs and Incas, Cortes, the Spanish treasure fleet and so on. Easy to forget after the insanity of the Civil War how great and rich a nation Spain once was. But what has all this got to do with a Polish airman?” Merlin stared up at his Goya print. “Any idea how much it’s worth?”
“He couldn’t estimate a value, but thinks it must be worth a bomb.”
As Merlin scratched his nose in thought, Bridges returned. “I’ve tracked down Lieutenant Ross. He was very apologetic. Said he and his subordinates were dragged away to help with some casualties in St John’s Wood. He’s at the mortuary now and can show us the body.”
“Will the warden who discovered it be there?”
“I’ll ring and ask, sir.”
“It would help if he is, Sergeant.”