‘Why did they have to kill her? She didn’t know anything.’
‘And must have convinced them of that. Your motor or mine?’
‘Neither, damn you. I have to get Constable Blakey. He’ll be checking that the pub has closed.’
Must schoolmasters always be a bind? ‘I don’t think I would, old cock. I think if I were you, I’d keep mum about it and bugger off back to that school of yours after we’ve had ourselves a chat, but not here.’
‘I’ve got to return the flashlight—the torch. If I don’t, the landlord will only start thinking I must have found something. God, I loved her as a friend. We never talked about Karen. If I’d known those two would do this, I’d have let them take me.’
‘The flashlight,’ said Hacker. ‘You can return the bloody torch, my man, when we’ve had our little chat.’
‘Not until you tell me who you’re working for.’
‘Let’s just say I’m a friend in need. That little bit of crumpet you’ve been playing round with has been the victim of a particularly nasty sex attack. I shouldn’t want to be involved if I were you, not with a daughter hidden away, and those two wanting to take her home to her mother and your former wife.’
Hacker chose the Rover, forcing Ashby to leave the light on the landlord’s doorstep, but when they had reached the little Norman church in the hills, he decided that he had best enlighten the schoolmaster further. ‘I was at Mons. Fourth Middlesex under Smith-Dorrien.’
‘Second Army Corps and the Mons-Condé Canal, Colonel. Get on with it.’
‘Of course. A bloody ditch no more than seven feet at its deepest and sixty-four across, but a bastard to defend, what with the coal mines and the frigging place being built up like that.’
‘They didn’t have to kill the children, Colonel. Damn them, they should have waited.’
Christ, that from a captain and echoing what so many others had cried. ‘Sixty of those kiddies, was it, coming along that road at lunchtime? God, the tears, Ashby, the men going soft just like yourself.’
‘August 21, 1914, a retreating army, and a little before my time, but this still has no bearing whatsoever on what’s happened.’
‘Be that as it may, I was right there from the start, and within three days, the Fourth’s strength had been reduced to a thousand two hundred seventy-five.’
‘And within a few more days, the Battle of Le Cateau had damned near finished you all off, Colonel, but what’s it got to do with me and Daisy?’
‘Only this. What do you do with old soldiers? You either let them sell insurance or teach school. Since neither—your kind anyway—were to my liking, I found Burma far better.’
Then Hacker had been looking into his background and was a policeman, thought Ashby, but not Special Branch. He couldn’t be.
‘Why not tell me about it, Captain. Begin with this graveyard. To bang three rounds from a Walther P38 into that motor of yours in the pitch of night, you having driven straight at them, suggests more than chance.’
Hacker had been to the school for a look at the car, had been to the church here, too, and round asking questions. ‘I think you’d better be the one to tell me.’
‘Let’s not quibble.’
The schoolmaster tried to lose himself in looking out his side windscreen, still dwelling on his tart of a barmaid. Taking out a cigarette, Hacker lit up but didn’t offer one.
‘They were following me,’ said Ashby at last.
‘Skip the incidentals. The evidence is clear enough.’
There was no use in remaining silent, thought Ashby, quickly outlining what had happened, Hacker asking, ‘Did they say anything to suggest they might have been sent from Berlin?’
‘Yes.’
‘Not Bremen?’
‘No.’
‘Berlin, then. You do impress me, Captain. What’s the General Friedrich Otto von Hoffmann like?’
‘My daughter would give you an entirely different view of him. Look, the one called Martin said that Berlin didn’t want any trouble.’
‘Yet they have most certainly given you plenty, haven’t they?’
‘You aren’t Special Branch. You’re MI5, counterintelligence.’
Ashby would think the world of him now, thought Hacker, so best not to mention training regulars in Burma. ‘Unfortunately, given our Prime Minister Chamberlain’s peace initiatives, the Germans have set this country awash with their bloody agents, Captain. Until recently, every Abwehr and SD* outpost from Hamburg to Bremen, Wilhelmshaven, Münster and Kassel—Dresden even, and Stuttgart and Kiel—had been developing agents and sending them over here. Now that they’ve tightened everything under Bremen, things can only get far worse. Some have their bona fides—good cover and good reasons for being here, and we can’t do much about them yet—but the point is, old cock, the buggers are picking their bombing targets and we know this. Every aerodrome, railway depot, harbour, dockyard—even the King George and Queen Mary reservoirs and the pumping stations that supply London. Everything, Ashby, including the firefighting capabilities of our major towns and cities. And right in the middle of this, you and your daughter come along to take me away from what I ought to be doing. Where the hell have you got her stashed?’
Hacker was the only one on it, then, thought Ashby. ‘I’m not saying.’
‘You’d bloody well better. Your two birds will have crossed over to the Continent via Dover, so you can kiss them good-bye. One trussed-up barmaid with her face bashed, her tits carved, buttocks slashed and throat slit, and one more unsolved murder for the Yard, or would you rather I talked to them?’
‘Now look …’
‘You look yourself. You’re in trouble up to your arse even if you do let us help you. They’ll activate a sleeper, Captain Ashby. Someone they’ve planted years ago and left to lie dormant. Since that wife of yours has a father who has friends in high places, if I were him and I’d just blown two R-men who should have known better than to disobey Berlin, I’d think twice. Yes, I would. I’d get that Abwehr of theirs to use someone we hadn’t cottoned onto, somebody neither we nor you will ever know about until it’s far too bloody late. Where is she?’
‘Safe for now. When I think differently, I’ll tell you.’
‘And have your bloody horse shot out from under you? Have that tom titmouse of a headmaster scream his head off so that the Hun can get a bead on you and shatter that leg of yours when you’re out there trying to save him? Use your head, man. If they’ll play with that barmaid of yours, they’ll play with whomever you’ve got looking after that child. Let’s hope your daughter doesn’t have to witness it, because if she does, she’ll—’
‘That’s enough, damn you. I’ll warn them myself.’
And stubborn to the last. ‘How? By going there? By telephoning or using the post? Do so and those friends of yours will thank you from the other side of the grave.’
Near Flensburg on the Danish border, the Tuesday train was still rushing across the flat farmlands of Schleswig-Holstein. Christina Ashby, née von Hoffmann, couldn’t help but feel depressed. Even at midweek there had been no first- or second-class seats available, no chance of a compartment to herself. Had Burghardt known of this? she wondered, clenching a fist at the obvious answer. To him, Werner Beck was still the youngest son of the wealthy importer of cotton who had once given Burghardt hell over spoiled bales in the hold of a rotten freighter.
The railway coach was crammed with sailors of the Kriegsmarine, some so young their drunken mouths had fallen open even before sleep had overcome them, others still grinning at her lustfully, they all stinking of sweat, bad women, cigarette smoke, beer and schnapps, but in amongst them and crowded, too, the peasants stank of onions, herring, hard-boiled eggs, cabbage and farts of their own.
Using a tissue, offended by what she was having to do, she rubbed the window to clear it. The trouble had starte
d with the switch in trains at Hamburg. So few of importance went north, there had only been one first-class carriage and two second-class. Bribery had been of no use. Burghardt again? she wondered. At Easter, Ash would use the crowds to get through the Reich’s border guards, he to then snatch Karen, but what the hell had gone wrong with those two Werner had sent over? She had been so looking forward to seeing her again.
The wheels rattled over a bog, the bed of the railway sinking under the weight and giving back repeated undulations, the carriage old, high and with those stiff-backed, wooden benches of fifty years ago. They passed a village and she saw a farmer staring dumbly at them from his milk cart.
Werner had been supremely confident, and Burghardt had sent her to deliver the message home that such a degree of self-confidence had not only been reckless but inappropriate. Karen should have been back in the Reich by now. Instead, Werner, having heard nothing of it, would still be waiting, and she knew exactly where he would be, and so would Burghardt.
When she did finally arrive, marsh and bogland depressingly stretched away from her in waving reeds, wind-torn, stunted birch and dwarf willow with endless drainage ditches, ponds, inlets and wider channels that might, at times of high water, become momentary lakes or slow-moving rivers. Sphagnum moss, bilberry, black water and bog mud that stank of rotten eggs were always underfoot.
Werner loved the Jardelunder. His family’s thatched-roof hunting-and-fishing lodge had been refuge and home, for as the youngest of five brothers, the rest still in the family cotton business, he had had to strike out on his own. Mechanical engineering had proven rather useless in the Great Depression, and he had retreated here to live off the land and take his photographs of nesting birds, drying nets, otters, voles and mink. He had thousands of photographs, had had showings in several well-known, if small, galleries. Sailing, and signing on as a deckhand on a banana boat had helped, but yes, three years of absolute freedom had spoiled him. Then in the spring of 1936, he had found a job with the import-export firm of Donnecker, Luntz and Lammers in Bremen, with supposed warehousing in Bremerhaven, Wilhelmshaven and Hamburg. Everything had come together for him. The Abwehr and running agents into and out of Britain.
He was standing at the very end of a point of land, looking off across the black water towards the Danish border that lay some 300 metres away. He was watching for the Norwegian skiff that would bring Karen to him, still refusing to admit that he had failed.
‘Werner, it’s me,’ she called out. ‘Burghardt says you are to return to the office.’
He didn’t turn to look at her but remained concentrating on a copse of alders beneath which the reeds were close and hid that very boat.
Would he hate her for telling him? she wondered. ‘Darling, they’re not coming. Burghardt had a cable—look, I don’t know what it said. That bastard wouldn’t have told me.’
‘What made you go to him?’
Still he hadn’t turned. The forage cap, canvas duck coat, oilskin cape, cords and high boots were those of a hunter or fisherman. A string bag, the same as the locals used, held two dozen gull eggs, a delicacy much revered when boiled for twelve minutes, yet tasting so strongly of fish she had thrown up immediately and still felt sick at the sight of them.
Again he asked what had made her go to the captain, and she said, ‘A telephone call from Ash at 0215. I didn’t take it. I couldn’t.’
He stiffened. Tall, lean, hard and incredibly handsome, he was thirty-four and only two years older than herself, and yes, she did love him madly because of what he could do to her, and yes, it had been good.
Still without turning, he said, ‘Don’t lie to me, Christina. Not after breaking our security. Burghardt will have my balls.’
‘I hope not.’
‘Then don’t be foolish! You talked to Ashby and he told you what that cable on the captain’s desk contained.’
She wished he would look at her. ‘Ash didn’t tell me. He simply asked, “Guess what’s happened?” and then rang off, but I think he must have been very upset about something those two you sent must have done.’
Beck clenched a fist and said, ‘They were told not to cause any trouble, but you … What did you do? You played right into his hands. Ashby isn’t stupid, Christina. He made you go to Burghardt. Even after all the years of separation, he could still do that to you and you let him, damn you. Even if you had used the British courts to get Karen back, he would have kept his silence and gone willingly to jail, knowing war was in the offing and that as a former soldier he would again be useful.’
Liebe Gott, but she had touched a nerve. ‘I know Ash isn’t stupid, darling. I would never have married him if he had been, and I did love him once.’
‘Love, was it, with the mind and heart of a schoolgirl in a defeated nation wanting to sample a little something different! So, what’s it to be, eh? Me to England to find out what went wrong, or me to the office as ordered by the Kapitän?’
The firmness of her father came and Christina was grateful for it. ‘This isn’t the time to disobey orders. Burghardt will know he’s up against it himself and is bound to have a little something.’
Beck tossed a dismissive hand. ‘He’s near retirement and content to rest out his days running the Bremen office.’
Werner hadn’t been able to hide his bitterness, a bad sign. Men, thought Christina, wanting to shake her head in despair at the sex, but it would be best to be calm yet not avoid the truth and simply tell him. ‘Running AST-X Bremen, Liebling. Running the British Isles is not so bad, is it? When he retires, as he most certainly will have to when I am done with him, he will have to be replaced.’
How could she have said a thing like that, even to himself? wondered Beck, but said, ‘Ach, we should not argue. Now that you are here, we have better things to do.’
Only then did he turn to face her, still angry, thought Christina, and very much concerned with what had actually gone wrong. ‘Darling, don’t be upset. Vati will speak to Canaris and everything will be all right, you’ll see.’
Was it at moments like this that he hated her? wondered Beck. ‘Burghardt doesn’t need another wasp up his ass, Christina. You’re enough. There is always the Kriegsmarine for me. War will come. If not this summer, then in the autumn, unless Britain and France are willing to back down over Czechoslovakia and let the Führer march into the Sudetenland without a shot.’
From where he and Colonel Hacker stood among outspreading poplars late on that Tuesday afternoon, Ashby could see them quite clearly. The police were cordoning off the chantry. Extra constables had been brought in from the surrounding villages and towns. Two detectives from Scotland Yard stood looking down at Daisy, one with a black leather notebook, her red hair clashing with the pale, bluish white of her skin. ‘Why can’t they cover her?’ he said.
And so near to tears he might just as well have been, thought Hacker, cramming his hands into the pockets of his mack. ‘You don’t listen, do you, Captain? You were to have gone your way, but oh no, like an errant duck you had to turn righteous!’
‘I had no other choice.’
‘Good God, man, you’re not playing rugger with schoolboys. Those two came straight from Berlin. Not even Abwehr Bremen, Ashby. Berlin, you said. R-men. Reisagenten, ja? Travel agents!’
‘Have you told our friends from the Yard about them?’
The watchful, green-brown eyes sought him out, the wind teasing the thick thatch of Hacker’s eyebrows and moustache as he said, ‘You’re not that blind, Captain. From now on you’ll take your orders from me. The sight of that barmaid frightened you. You panicked, then thought better of it. You were in love—the landlord will swear there was something going on. No, you didn’t quarrel. No, you don’t own a spring-assisted knife, you’re a war hero, a holder of the DSO, the Military Cross, the lot. You had come to see if the two of you could spend your summer holiday in the Lakes District. You’re the
broken, shattered lover. Try crying as you now all but are, by Christ, and it might just help.’
Turning away to gaze out to sea, Hacker went on. ‘Whitehall should be shot for letting the Hun run wild here. Do you know what I took off a chappie last week up at Farnborough? Details, Ashby. Not just of the RAF’s experimental station there but the one at Hendon as well. Bugger had a Leica, telephoto lens and all. Frigging tourist on a bicycle, lederhosen, no less. A pity the motor hit him, but you know what some of our roads are like. Should have had reflectors on his rear mudguard. Should have. The German Abwehr calls this country the Golfplatz, a bloody golf course, a frigging putting green! Well, I won’t have it, do you hear? You’ll do as I say from now on, my man. Make no mistake about it.’
Finding himself a cigarette and lighting it, Hacker gave the schoolmaster a moment, then asked, ‘Does that woman at the school know you’ve a daughter tucked away?’
‘Ruth thinks it’s another woman.’
‘You’re full of surprises. And the boss man, Captain Anthony Pearce of the Blues?’
‘Knows Karen is in England, but not where.’
‘Good. Now I’m going to give you one more chance before I tell those two from the Yard down there to either leave you out of this or take you in. Here’s an address up in London. You will pay it a visit or I will go down there, as I must, and tell them you did it.’
‘Karen’s safe.’
‘But for how long? Believe me, I meant what I said. They’ll activate a sleeper for this, ein Schweigeagent. An S-man.’
At last, thought Ashby, Daisy was being gently laid on the stretcher, but left as found with hands and ankles still bound, though even from here, as she was being covered, he could see what had happened to her throat and breasts. Her ‘tits,’ Hacker had called them. ‘Before I agree, Colonel, I’ve got to see my daughter.’
The son of a bitch! ‘Don’t even think about trying to warn whomever you’ve got looking after the child. Just let us get this sleeper before he does us any real harm.’
The Sleeper Page 4