by Tim Binding
Dropping the envelopes in the letter box he turned on his heel and hurried up the hill. Twenty minutes later he was knocking on the door. Mrs Luscombe stood in her slippers.
“Major. You’re a bit early!”
“I am sorry, Mrs Luscombe. I must see your son. Is he here?”
He peered in. Through the kitchen he could see Veronica leant up against the kitchen sink, her head in her hands, crying. That boy Peter was there also, he thought. Ned came out of the kitchen, closing the door.
“Major.” He was stiff and awkward. He looked embarrassed. He must have heard the news of his dismissal.
“I am sorry to disturb you, Inspector.” The words were formal, polite. Not what he wanted at all. “I am being called away. To somewhere colder, I think.”
“Called away?” The sobs behind Ned reached a crescendo, then died away again.
“I am sorry,” the Major repeated. “I have come at a bad time.” He sighed and shut the front door behind him. “I am to be arrested. I have done something foolish. It is too complicated to explain. But there is something you must know. Something I must tell you. A secret.”
“Oh?”
“A very dangerous secret. It makes me ashamed to tell you. If I could stop it I would.”
“Stop a secret?”
He told him.
“Coming here? Hitler’s coming here?”
“That is correct.”
“When?”
“His birthday. A morale booster. For Him as well as everyone else, I think.” He grabbed Ned by the arm. “But don’t you see, Ned, He must not come! It would be a sacrilege. Last night I imagined how I might prevent it.”
Ned diverted his train of thought.
“How long have you known?”
“Yesterday. At the moment only a few have this information. Captain Zepernick, Major Ernst, they have known for longer. But this is not the point.”
Ned interrupted again. “How long have they known?”
“I do not know exactly. A month, I believe.”
“Before you came back from leave, then?”
“Yes, before I returned, why?”
“You’d better read this, then.”
He put his hand in his pocket and handed him the letter.
Lentsch’s eyes were quick, unbelieving. “This is Isobel’s hand-writing! When did you get this?”
“The day she died.”
“The day she died?”
Ned took a deep breath. “This is very difficult for me, Major. Difficult for all of us. A lot of letters get sent to you, unpleasant letters, malicieus letters, denouncing old enemies, settling old scores. They’re quite easy to spot. We have them delivered to the police station, so we can weed them out before they cause too much trouble. It’s something we’ve done all along, to protect ourselves.”
“And this came in such a consignment.”
“Yes, but hers was addressed to me, not you. That’s what made it so odd. She’d written an anonymous note to me. I recognized her handwriting straightaway of course, like you have done, but that’s what she was counting on. The point is she didn’t want anyone else to know she wanted to see me. She was frightened of something.”
The Major read the note again.
“Why did you not tell me about this before?”
“I’d have thought that was obvious. Whatever it was she wanted to see me about was something she dared not tell you. Whether it was because you were involved or because it would compromise someone close to her, I didn’t know. But I couldn’t trust you.”
Lentsch turned on him. “Couldn’t trust me? I was the only one you could trust!”
For a moment Ned thought the Major was going to strike out. He beckoned him into the armchair. The Major sat down, reluctantly.
“Look, Major. You’re German. I’m British. Whatever you might think, we’re still at war. You are my enemy.”
Lentsch flapped the letter in his hand.
“And by this stupid deception we have been looking the wrong way. I did not think we were complete friends yet, but I did not think you would try and harm her in this way.”
“Isobel is dead. It was the living I was worried about.” The refrain ran through his head again. She couldn’t tell Lentsch, she couldn’t tell Lentsch, she wrote me the letter ‘cause she couldn’t tell Lentsch.
“Don’t you see? She found out about something so terrible that she dared not tell even you, the man she was in love with. Because you were German.”
“You mean the visit?”
Ned shook his head.
“Not just the visit. Think about it. If she had found out, maybe someone else had too. An islander. A British patriot, Major. What do you think someone like that might try and do?”
“An assassination attempt?”
“Yes. She hadn’t just found out that Hitler is coming. She’d found out that someone is going to try and kill him. Someone she knew, perhaps was close to. Her father?”
“Impossible!”
“Her aunt, then.”
“This is absurd! Mrs Hallivand trying to assassinate Hitler!”
“Well, someone is, I’d bet my life on it. That’s why she was so nervous on the telephone. That’s why she wanted to see me.”
Lentsch bit his knuckle and crossed to the window. “Have you any idea what would happen if such a thing took place?”
“The war would end?”
Lentsch shook his head.
“Perhaps. Not immediately. Büt the consequences to this island would be terrible. It would be madness to try this. Madness.”
“But if it shortened the war.”
“They would destroy the island, Ned. Everyone and everything in it. Do you want that? Your mother shot. Veronica. Her mother. All of you shot!”
“No, but…”
“That is the price you would pay. Can you let that happen?”
“No. No. I don’t think I can.”
“No! Then let others try and kill him. It would be better for our country’s soul if we did it ourselves. But He must not come here, not for propaganda, not for an assassination attempt, not at all. And there is one way to prevent it. It rests on a simple equation, a strategie certainty. You are right about one thing. If the British knew he was coming here they would try and kill him. They would have to. It would be too great an opportunity to miss. And if He thought that the British knew of His intentions, He too would know they would make this attempt. Two years ago he would have cocked a snook at such a danger. But He is careful now, wrapped in suspicions of His own troubled destiny. The War needs him. Only He can win it. So He will not expose Himself to such unnecessary danger. He will stay at home, in one of his eastern bunkers with sandbags and sycophants for company.”
“I don’t follow,” said Ned.
“I have thought of a way to lay a false trail. Make them believe I have managed to escape to England with this information. I have ranted and railed against Him, cursed his folly, and now, with his birthday hour approaching, I smash his picture and before I am put under formal arrest, I disappear.”
“Hide you here, you mean?”
“Yes. At first they will think that I have gone on a drinking spree. They will search the bars and the brothels and the out of hours drinking clubs. They might imagine I have committed suicide. But tomorrow the Captain will get a letter I have already sent. In it I have explained that my conscience demands that I betray my country, that I have defected to England, and that I intend to tell them everything I know. Everything!”
“And all the time you’ll be here?”
“Of course. Just for a week, a month at the most, until the time has passed. Soon He will not be able to come. Soon fresh catastrophes will be occupying His great mind. Then it will be safe to come out of hiding.”
“Not for you, it won’t.”
“No, not for me. For the island.”
Ned stared at him, not quite believing what he was hearing. It was a mad idea.
“So you want
me to hide you, is that it?”
“If you please. But in a different chimney from your radio.”
Ned couldn’t smile.
“It’s not as easy as that, Major. It’s been a busy night all round. You’d better come into the kitchen.”
Lentsch followed him into the kitchen. Veronica was sitting at the table now, holding the boy’s hand. He started out of his chair when he saw the Major’s uniform, but Veronica quietened him back down. Ned crossed over to the back door and lifted a jacket up from the one hook. He held it up to the light.
“Recognize this?” he said.
“I’ve been through it a dozen times with him,” Ned said. “I still can’t make sense of it all.”
“He saw the man who killed her?”
“That’s what he told V. That’s right, isn’t it, Peter?” He held up the coat again and waved it in front of the boy’s face. “Coat? Girl?”
The boy nodded.
“Here we go again. Watch this, Major. Worse than a bloody pantomime.”
Veronica slung the jacket over her shoulders and lay on the floor. Ned picked her up and started to drag her across the room. “This is what you see. Ja?”
The boy nodded again.
“And the jacket…”
V wriggled her shoulders. As the jacket slipped off the boy leant forward and snatched it up, clutching it to his chest.
“That’s what he saw up on the cliff that night,” Ned explained. “A man driving up in a car and dragging Isobel towards that shaft. Now. The man.” He spread his hands far apart. “Big, ja?”
The boy nodded again and spread his fingers out.
“Big hands too, eh?” Ned pointed to his eyes and mouth. “What about the face?” The boy shook his head.
“It was too dark. Now look at this,” Ned said, pointing to his own clothes. “Like this?” He pulled at his jersey and his old trousers. The boy shook his head. Ned pointed to the Major’s buttons. “Buttons, cap.” He held himself upright, like a soldier, straightening an imaginary uniform. “Uniform, yes?” He marched up and down. The boy clapped his hands. Ned turned to the Major.
“There you are. A big man in a uniform. You know of someone like that, don’t you? Who lives opposite?”
“Ernst?” Lentsch sounded incredulous. “You think it was Ernst all along?”
“I think it was Ernst all along.”
The Major fretted. “You must take this boy to the authorities,” he insisted, “to the Captain. Ernst must not be allowed…”
“You can’t!” Veronica leapt to her feet.
Ned threw up his hands. “V, I’ve already told you. I’ve no jurisdiction over him. It’s out of my hands.”
“Out of your hands! Listen to yourselfl You know what will happen to him if you do, don’t you?”
“Veronica…”
“They’ll beat him to death, that’s what. Just because of who he is. Isn’t that right, Major?”
Lentsch shook his head, not in denial but in despair.
“And even if they don’t, he won’t be fit to work after they’re through with him. Which is the same thing in the end for him, isn’t it? Isn’t it?”
The Major looked down at the floor, ashamed.
“So what do you want me to do?” Ned asked.
“I don’t know. Hide him. Lock him up. You’re meant to be the law around here.”
Lentsch looked at them both.
“This is how it happens. The closer He approaches, the nearer His spirit draws, the greater the danger. You see how we are all being pulled into this crazy whirlpool. You still do not fully appreciate the truly corrosive quality of His name. Thank to my letter they will begin to worry that I am part of some conspiracy. They will start tracing back: me, Isobel, van Dielen. Her murder, his disappearance. There is quite enough there to unsettle them. Now there is this boy. It does not matter that none of us have anything to do with an assassination attempt. He has cast his shadow and that is enough. One of us might have been able to evade capture. But me, the boy? And what about Veronica here, who gave the Captain this information.”
Veronica bowed her head.
“They will come back for you,” the Major told her. “They will talk to you not once, but twice, three times; all day and all night. And you will falter. And that will be the end.” He stood up. “I have been wrong. If I go back, give myself up, perhaps these questions will be laid to rest. And you will have to try and find out the other matter before it is too late.”
Ned stopped him.
“There is another way, you know. To not hide but to cross the Channel. You and the boy, in the canoe. V too.”
“Tonight?” Veronica looked around, momentarily bewildered. “But I’m on stage tonight.”
Ned began to laugh. “Trust you, V.” He turned to the Major again. “The sea’s calm enough, if they don’t catch you in the first couple of miles. There’s a patrol boat out round the Casquets, isn’t there?”
“Once an hour it goes. But I am not a sailor, Ned. I would probably end up sailing straight into Cherbourg.”
“A compass would set you straight.” He didn’t tell them of the currents. They’d have to chance it.
Lentsch was thinking. “What about you? I don’t want you getting mixed up in this.”
“No one knows you’re here, if that’s what you mean.”
Veronica looked embarrassed.
“I’m afraid that’s not quite right. Zep told me once that no one had any idea where the Major went every evening. So I told him.”
Lentsch sighed. “So, Ned, now you are mixed up in this as well. They will come for you too. They will ask you what it is we talked about those nights, when I slunk away from the Villa.”
“I’ll tell them.”
“And they won’t believe you. They dare not. They could no more imagine that our evenings were innocent than they can believe that this boy has a right to life. They will see us all as threats to the fabric of his world; and in a sense they would be right. They would have to strap you to the block and squeeze it all out of you until you were broken into small pieces.” He looked around. “Now, it is all of us.”
Silence feil upon the room. Four in a canoe. They’d sink before they’d got a mile out.
A sudden hooting noise outside disturbed their troubles. Ned ran over to the front window. The Captain could be seen walking down Veronica’s front path.
Zepernick knocked on the door for the third time. He was becoming impatient. His face was unshaven and he looked dishevelled. The door swung open.
“Zep! Didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”
The Captain looked her up and down. She was out of breath.
“You have been running.”
“I was in the back garden.”
He took off his hat. “I’m sorry about yesterday evening,” he said. “I have been busy. You know why.”
“Did you find him?” She tried to keep her voice as light as possible.
The Captain shook his head.
“We have been up all night looking for him. Every billet, every excavation site. Nothing.” He looked around. “He is not the only one who has vanished.”
“Oh?”
“Major Lentsch. He should have reported to the harbour, but he has not.” He pointed to Ned’s house. “That is where he goes at night?”
“Used to, yes.”
“Last night he was at the Villa. This morning…” He puffed into the air. “You have not seen him today?”
“No. I don’t think Inspector Luscombe is there either.”
The Captain nodded. “Good. Maybe the Major has done the proper thing. Perhaps in a day or two we will find him floating in the water with a bullet in his head. Still,” he looked at his watch, the smile returning to his face, “everyone is searching for him. Everyone except me. No one knows where I am.”
“Oh?”
“All this time I have been thinking about yesterday in the Eyrie. It has been difficult looking for this Zwangsarb
eiter with such pictures in my mind.” He reached out and touched the front of her dress. “Some say the morning is the best time.”
“Zep! It’s nearly lunchtime!” She pushed him back. “Anyway, I can’t,” she whispered. “Mum’s upstairs.”
“No matter. I know where.” He pulled her outside.
“Please, Zep. Not now.”
Grabbing her wrist he hauled her down the garden path. The shed door hung open, the set of garden tools, the workbench, the ornament dangling from the roof, all in place.
“This time I will not make the same mistake,” he said. Taking the wooden shoe from its hook, he placed it on top of one the boxes piled up at the side before lifting her up onto the bench. He pushed her dress back up to her hips.
“Zep,” she said, turning her head away, pushing his hands away. “I don’t think we should.”
“Don’t think we should?” He was at her buttons now. “Don’t think we should? What are you talking about?” He yanked the dress open.
“No, I…” She tried to talk but his hands were under her, pulling at her worn elastic, sending her sprawling back against the wall. “Please, Zep. Not here. Not now.”
He pulled her up and hit her once, not hard, on the side of her head. She began to cry. He pulled off her underwear, slowly, methodically, looking her squarely in the eye. His fingers reached underneath.
“Now tell me again of this boy of yours.”
“What?”
“This boy of yours. Where did you say you saw him?”
Veronica kissed him quickly.
“We don’t want to talk about that now, do we?”
“This is a new kind of interrogation, Veronica. Very good for me and very good for you.” He examined her with dispassionate interest. “Where did you see him again?”
“I told you. Out of my surgery window. Climbing into one of those lorries.”