So she was ‘young and lovely,’ was she?
‘They might want you, too, Captain. Did you ever think of that, seeing as you have already talked your way through what has to be one of the most closely guarded frontiers and then talked your way right back through it but with a kidnap victim?’
‘On the way out we had a little excitement because, though armed, I wasn’t driving the car.’
He must have stolen. Dear God, what a gamble, thought Hilary, what a lark, but he wouldn’t like what she had best say. ‘I’ve told my “friends” at MI6 that, as a pacifist and the daughter of a suffragette, I want no part of their work.’
And chance had brought them together, thought Ashby, warming to her. ‘We think alike,’ he said, ‘but why, then, did you suggest you might have been able to help?’
Pouring the tea was one thing; telling him the truth another. ‘Look, Captain, these “friends” of mine wouldn’t care a fig for you and your daughter. Oh, they’re nice enough, of the right class—moneyed, some of them, or once of money and still behaving as if they had it—but they wouldn’t care about me either, and that’s the way it is, because that’s how it’s always been. They will want their pound of flesh if I ask for their help.’
She tried the tea and made a grimace, was no one’s fool, thought Ashby.
‘Will there be war, do you think, Captain, because if there is, all this …’ She indicated the cottage. ‘Will have been for nothing. Granted they might even repossess the mine, and that, my dear father would welcome, but you see, I really do speak German and French without the trace of any other accent, even to picking up on some of the dialects if necessary. For much of my life I’ve been on the Continent at one school or another.’
‘And your mother?’
‘Died when I was very young. Wars are stupid, aren’t they?’ she asked, warming her hands by clasping the teapot.
‘No glory,’ he said, ‘only suffering and destruction. Lives lost, and others changed forever.’
‘Death,’ said Hilary, wanting suddenly to tell him. ‘My brother, at Mons. I was four years old, but after that, my father couldn’t stand the sight of me. I reminded him far too much of Alex and then of our mother who was always Beth to us, but Bethany to him. Hence France and then the Reich, and yes, I have seen and heard it all, and your daughter really does scare the hell out of me in more ways than one.’
Wishing that they had talked like this before, Ashby found himself at a loss for words and tried the tea. Grimacing at it, too, then suddenly smiling, he remembered something and, dragging at a pocket, pulled out a fistful of sugar cubes. ‘They’re a bit dusty,’ he said. ‘I took them off one of the boys. Le travail de Dieu, mais la récompense du diable.’*
He had watched her as he had said it, the imp, thought Hilary, his expression teasingly one of challenge, and yes, he was waiting for her to continue en français, and she would love to but had better not, for that language had its own magic as he, apparently, knew only too well.
The sugar cubes were cast like dice onto the table, she seeing the pocket lint and the hairs, and probably there were sweaty fingermarks as well, for didn’t all schoolboys have those? ‘Seems like treason to use them,’ she said in English, seeing that smile of his come instantly back into what were absolutely smashing grey eyes.
‘I took them from Jackie Peterson,’ said Ashby. ‘Knowing the agony he’d gone through to steal them, I hated to, but then Telford nudged me to action. Our assistant headmaster’s got it in for me, Miss Bowker-Brown. I’m …’
‘Hilary, please. Bowker-Brown is far too stuffy. Besides, I’m a Socialist.’
‘And I’m not exactly suitable as a teaching master, but the boys and I seem to get on well.’
I’ll bet you do, she thought, but he suddenly withdrew into himself, his expression clouded. ‘What is it?’ she asked, only to see him shake his head.
‘Nothing.’ But was it really? he wondered. Jackie could so easily have told his father that dear old Peachey had gone up to London.
As he explained things, Ashby found himself liking further what he saw in her.
‘Spurgeon’s Bombay Tea and Spice?’ asked Hilary, giving him a frown.
‘In Carnaby Street along with all the rest that Soho has to offer these days, the touts, the girls, the gamblers, les flâneurs* aussi. My opinion is that MI5 are desperate for something to come along so that they can get Whitehall to free up the funds and let them staff up. Insofar as I can see, they’re totally unprepared for what the Reich might well have in mind. Sir John Masterson runs a few of MI5’s Watchers out of that shop, but must report to someone higher. If I could get to that person, I could at least check out his Colonel Hacker, for I don’t like what I’ve seen of him either.’
He would have to tell her, thought Ashby, and come what may. ‘Look, if I don’t go along with them and let Hacker use Karen and this cottage of yours to set a trap for whomever the Abwehr is using to get Karen, Hacker will … Well, he’ll see that I’m tied up in a murder investigation and maybe even accused of it.’
‘Murder?’ managed Hilary, blanching as she fingered the edge of the table but forcing herself to look steadily at him. ‘Then you had best tell me everything, hadn’t you, Captain, especially since I’m invariably all alone and just happen to have a mine whose shafts are uncovered and a cottage whose cliffs are far too close for comfort should anyone I don’t know, and never have, take a notion to get rid of me.’
‘It won’t get to that, I promise.’
‘But promises made are often not kept, chance tending to bring on the unexpected at the worst of times.’
As calmly as he could, Ashby outlined what had happened to Daisy, and Hilary saw then that he really did have feelings for the murdered woman and grave doubts about this Colonel Hacker. Nor was he really hoping for a reconciliation with his wife but was trying to be coldly realistic, Christina having become a leader in the Frauenschaften* and taken a Nazi lover.
‘Christina knew I would be in London, Hilary. Someone high up in the Abwehr gave that news to her father and somehow she pried it out of him, or he willingly gave it with the hope she would then find out where I was hiding Karen. Granted, I’ve got to give her the chance she’s asked for, but I honestly don’t believe her. I can’t. You see, it wasn’t just those two SS I found her in bed with. It was others. That father of hers kept an eye on her and as often as he could, he would let me know where I could find her and with whom. The gesunde Erotik, the Gruppensex, even the Kraft durch Freude weekends and holidays.’
The healthy eroticism, group sex and Strength through Joy breaks from work. ‘And all through it, Karen didn’t notice that something was going on?’
‘Invariably she stayed with her grandfather. Deliberately he tried to shelter her from it, I’ll have to give him that.’
‘But drilled it all into her, as they did at school, that she, too, was a Nazi and of the master race.’
‘And since Christina still has her British passport, she’s free to come and go, and if she can, to take Karen back.’
He had laid his cards on the table and she had lain her own opposite his, but it would have to be said. ‘Then that wife of yours has you right where she wants. Not only are you on the run from Scotland Yard, you’re stricken with guilt over the murder of a totally innocent woman who just happened to be having an affair with you, and you’re fighting your conscience over me and your daughter. Frankly, Captain, I don’t envy your position, nor do I envy my own.’
‘Could you talk to those friends of yours?’
‘Ah, mon Dieu, Monsieur le capitaine, do I have any other choice? Not only am I in danger, there are Monica and Ewen. None of us will ever know when this … this blessed sleeper comes for Karen. Even if I stop trying to teach her English and have no further contact, he would still think I could well know something useful. Here, you read the damned tea lea
ves. Maybe you can see something other than what I think they’re shouting at me. My God, and dear Lord forgive me for saying your name in vain again, I’m only twenty-eight, Captain, and until you and that daughter of yours came into my life, I was doing just fine. Admittedly broke, but then far too many of us Socialists are.’
She stopped herself, suddenly realizing what she’d just done, thought Ashby. Her French had been beautiful. Absolutely natural. Very rapid, very earnest and expressively emphasized by the hands and eyes, and yet cuttingly to the point, he now knowing he had no other choice. ‘I’ll let Christina have Karen. I can’t do otherwise and be certain of your safety and that of Monica and Ewen.’
Ah bon, her sudden use of French had forced him to say it, said Hilary to herself, but English would be best for now. ‘Look, for all I know the person I have to contact could be on the Continent. It won’t take long for a letter to reach his secretary. The sleeper can’t know Karen’s here or he would have made a grab for her by now.’
‘Hop in the car and I’ll drive you over to Zennor. There’s a call box near the church. Give him a ring.’
‘Sacrifice myself, is that what you want, Captain?’
‘Not at all. I want to set right what I’ve done, and the only way I can make sure you are safe, even if I do let Christina have Karen back, is for those friends of yours to help us. It wasn’t right for anyone to have killed Daisy. It makes no sense unless her killer wanted to force me to cooperate.’
Hacker … wondered Hilary. Did he think the killer was this Colonel Hacker of MI5, but how could that be?
Zennor and Zennor Head were where Arthur had met the four kings of Cornwall. Having always loved the view, Hilary couldn’t help but try to lose herself if but for a moment, for this tiny village lay in a hollow. Beyond the nearby farms with their flattish barns and sheds, the nearby moor with its pastures was a jade-green patchwork divided by crooked hedgerows, while inland, Ice Age boulders lay strewn as if thrown by the gods, the pink of the heather climbing to bare granite tors from which there were other and equally magnificent panoramas of the sea.
The road was narrow, the grey granite cottages huddled closely about Saint Senara, which dated from the twelfth century but had been much altered since. Subjected to the usual stares of occasional passersby, the vicar most frequently, she finally got a line through, and when she came back to the car, Ashby could see from her expression that she knew there would be no point in trying to hide the result. ‘They want me to take the train tomorrow and to bring Karen with me. Look, I’m sorry, Captain, but those are their terms. They’re … they’re not saying what, if anything, they can or will do, or even if they’ll help us.’
‘But they’ll have someone watching over the two of you all the way?’
‘Probably, but … I don’t know, do I?’
Furious with herself, with them and with him, Hilary threw herself into the bucket seat and slammed the door. ‘Drive on, Captain. The noble citizenry of Zennor have seen enough of us to set their tongues to wagging. I don’t even know him,’ she shouted at the vicar and his dog. ‘I’m simply bumming a lift!’ But right away she regretted it and added, ‘Sorry, Vicar. I’m just not myself. Come for tea whenever you wish. It might even help to have God on our side.’
Thanking her, the Right Reverend Thomas Bottrell touched his hat, gave the MG and its driver another once-over before wolfishly smiling and raising his bushy eyebrows.
At half past midnight the wind rose to a gale, and when a slate came loose, Hilary sat bolt upright in bed. Another and another slid away. She would have to weight them down or else the roof would start leaking again.
Drenched to the skin, even with her oilskins on, she struggled to climb the ladder, and when the first of the lightning came, it revealed a gap in the slates, then the moor and the engine house. Ducking her head to clear the rain from her eyes, she looked again and wondered if there was someone with a lantern standing beside the chimney stack, but then that light went out and the thunder came, yet still she couldn’t help but wonder if the sleeper hadn’t already found the cottage.
Wedging three spare slates into the gap, she weighted them with a slab of rock. Repeatedly now the lighting threw the ruins into view, casting pale blue shadows over the chimney stack. Pindanter? she wondered. Could it have been her imagination playing tricks with her or had it really been the sleeper?
Joachim Burghardt hadn’t been in Cologne in years. A very beautiful city with historic, half-timbered houses and narrow, cobbled streets that echoed the centuries, it was a bitch to get through. Tourists were everywhere even early on this Monday morning, 30 May—English, French, Italian, so many languages, all as if seeming to mock the very threat of war.
When at last his driver headed south towards Brühl, Burghardt heaved a sigh and settled back, the road lined with trees, but the estate wasn’t far, and when they got there, he said, ‘Wait for me. Generals being what they are, I won’t be long.’
Rococo and very baroque, the villa was something else again, for each of the tall French windows rose to an ornate open half-shell, a stone filigree of seaweed and a frowning effigy of Neptune. Impressive it was, but uncomfortable, seeing as General von Hoffmann was waiting. Taking a last drag at the cheroot before grinding it beneath a heel on the newly swept pavement, he glanced up.
Gold lay above everything. Gold and dark blue and red, the coat of arms and family crest set in the middle of the mansard slate roof and right above an ornate clock that was, itself, above a fanlight and the many panes of the entrance doors.
An imposing three hectares of neatly trimmed lawn encompassed both the drive and the long rectangle of a dark blue pond on which several disinterested swans languidly cruised. When he rang the bell, he heard the chimes that must have pleased the granddaughter who had had the run of this fabulous house. ‘The child’s being spoiled might help us,’ he muttered to himself. It was a thought.
The butler looked as if of hammered iron, the entrance hall wide and grand: marble on the floor and walls, columns of it too, cherubs on the ceilings blowing golden horns, a bust of the Kaiser Wilhelm in an alcove, nude goddesses flanking the staircase in green bronze with water jugs balanced on their heads. How many shell casings did they represent?
The staircase divided at its first landing, they taking the right, the carpet so soft no steps could be heard. Foolish, that, said Burghardt to himself, what with Augsburg silver, Flemish tapestries and Old Masters handy.
The butler indicated that he should proceed to the end of the corridor alone. It was into the shit then, and so be it.
The study was dark and lined with books. Crossed swords, stags’ heads, suits of armour, a large globe of the world—he caught sight of all of these as he approached a windowed alcove where two in uniform were waiting: the greenish-grey of the Wehrmacht and the dark blue of the Kriegsmarine. General von Hoffmann’s legs were crossed, the jackboots gleaming even under the table. Admiral Canaris had his black patent-leather shoes planted firmly on the floor beneath his knees, but really these gave no hint of what was to come. A round and beautifully inlaid Russian table held their ashtrays, a jewelled, porcelain coffee service, and two cups and saucers. Smoke rose from their cigarettes, both of which lay at the ready in those ashtrays.
‘So, Burghardt, a full report, I think,’ said Hoffmann.
And no third cup and saucer. ‘General, Admiral, Heil Hitler.’
‘Just give us your report, Kapitän, and be quick about it,’ said Hoffmann.
‘General, Admiral, my pardons. I have only just come from the aerodrome and have not yet had the benefit of my breakfast or lun—’
It was Canaris, that little and almost frail-looking, white-haired, unmilitary man if ever there was one, who raised a small, thin hand to still the general’s ire and quietly said, ‘Joachim, things are quickly drawing to a head. Today the Führer has stated that it is his “unqualified deci
sion” to crush the Czechs. Yesterday, he ordered that our ground and air forces be substantially increased and that work on the Westwalle* be completed. Hence General von Hoffmann is understandably anxious.’
Bringing his heels together, Burghardt nodded curtly and said, ‘Yes, of course, Admiral. The sleeper known as Osier has been awakened and is in place. Two telephone calls were made from the Dorchester Hotel by your son-in-law, General.’
Damn the impertinence, thought Hoffmann. ‘My former son-in-law, Kapitän.’
The iron-grey military haircut suited the massive, blunt head with its large and watery blue eyes, thought Burghardt, but try as he did, he couldn’t imagine the grandchild sitting in that lap. ‘Herr Ashby, General, made the calls while he was in the company of your daughter.’
Canaris tried to conceal the faintness of a smile. ‘Be clearer, Joachim.’
‘Yes, please do,’ said Hoffmann quietly.
There was a duelling scar on the general’s left cheek, just a nick of the foil but a loss that would never have been forgotten. By concentrating on that one defeat, Burghardt knew he would irritate him, but that he had best not break too many eggs. ‘They spent the better part of the evening together, General. Ashby left the woman—’
‘My daughter.’
‘Your daughter, General. Ashby left her at about twenty-three thirty hours. The calls—’
‘Did they have sex, damn it?’
‘Unfortunately, that we do not know, General, but it is entirely possible, given that they went up to your daughter’s room. The calls were, however, made earlier in the evening and from the hotel’s main foyer while your daughter remained at their table. One of the calls was to the headmaster of his school, but it was unsuccessful, the headmaster being out at the time.’
The Sleeper Page 10