A picnic … ‘What will you do if your wife decides to come back to you?’
‘Bring Karen out of hiding. Stop the hurting. Try to make up for everything. It’s … it’s what Karen really wants. She’s a wonderful little girl, Ruth, and I have to do everything I can.’
‘Wetherby Cottage would suit,’ she said curtly. Reaching for the teapot, she changed her mind, for her hand was shaking far too much.
‘Has Hacker been back here?’ he asked.
‘Hacker?’ Her cup rattled. ‘No … No, of course not. Why do you ask?’
‘Because, as I told you before, if he ever finds out where Karen is, he’ll leak that information to the Germans. He won’t even bother to ask my permission. He’ll just do it.’
From the side of the hill, the patchwork fields were grey-green in summer haze, the hedgerows and oak woods alive with the distant calls of birds. Slowly Hilary let her gaze travel over the land but there was no sign of Brigadier Gordon or of anyone else, although Lionel Dandridge had said MI6 would be watching for the least sign of trouble.
Down over the hills and dales, the distant ragstone tower of the Church of Saint Nicholas tolled its carillon. All of her friends were either married or planning to be, all with no thoughts of the war to come, none either of doing anything out of the ordinary.
Near the church, a straggle of houses crept uphill, some of them solid Georgian places. Others were of that red brick common to Kent, but there were cottages, too, with either slate or thatched roofs and white, plastered walls, and of course there were the oast houses that tipped their canted conelike roofs above the crowns of the trees.
Karen had spread the tablecloth in the shade. The pony flicked its tail. The roan, a gelding and a fine hunter, tossed its head and snorted at something, Hilary saying, ‘It’s all right, Chancellor. It’s only one of the farmers burning branches or refuse.’ But there was no smoke in sight, just the softest of breezes bringing the warm scent of the land, of plowed earth, crops, clover and bees, she decided.
On her best behaviour, Karen had opened the picnic hamper and had begun to set things out, but would she bolt and run should this sleeper come at them, wondered Hilary, and would Dandridge and the men with him not be able to get here in time?
With the sounds of cutlery came the flash of an uncertain smile, Karen then setting the napkins precisely in place.
Indicating the pony, Hilary said in Deutsch, ‘Meg hasn’t been ridden in such a long time, but see how contented she now is. I think you’ve found a friend.’
‘You will not give her to me. Herr Albert was just saying that to please me.’
‘Then let’s shake on it, shall we?’
Getting up, Karen came to her. ‘Why should you do such a thing for me?’
‘Because I, too, would like to be your friend, and because I think we both need this.’
‘You don’t really want this picnic. You’re afraid my grandfather’s men will come and take me away.’
‘I do want the picnic, perhaps more than anything, Karen. Like yourself, I want so much to be at peace, but yes, I am afraid—why shouldn’t I be? But Meg really is yours, for keeps, or for as long as you are here.’
The site was far too exposed, felt Hilary, Dandridge having insisted on it. Several roads crossed through the area, any one of which could be used and not all of which could be closely watched without a lot of men.
Again the roan tossed its head. ‘Chancellor, what is it?’ she asked, but could find no answer. Sliced ham with homemade piccalilli relish, devilled eggs and buttered bread were being set out by Karen, egg-salad sandwiches, too, that the girl had helped Dotty make. Radishes came next, and she would be remembering how she had gathered them under Albert’s careful guidance, then washed, trimmed and diligently split them into fans under Dotty’s patient eye, but would she run to Dandridge when told to, or would she do only what the sleeper wanted?
‘Hilary, the picnic, it is ready.’
Riding boots, breeches and jacket that had once meant so much to herself and had been carefully put away by Dotty had fitted almost perfectly.
‘Please come,’ said Karen. ‘Please let us not worry so much we can’t enjoy something so lovely.’
There was still no sign of smoke, yet Chancellor remained uneasy. A line of beeches followed the road at the foot of the hill. Next to it was a low stone wall, the brush thick with honeysuckle, hawthorn, wild plum and pin cherry all in blossom. Forcing herself to search each dip and hollow, Hilary found nothing untoward. Tidying Chancellor’s forelock, she hugged him and whispered, ‘What is it, a cigarette?’
The rattling, metallic call of a chaffinch was startling, the day just far too quiet and far too still. Unseen before this, a motorcar was parked on that road in a hollow and well to the south of them, the hedgerows thinning as the road crested the next gentle rise. Although she could only catch a glimpse of its roof, she felt it a small, dark green sedan, the colour all but melding with that of the leaves.
‘Hilary …’
She had moved along to the saddle. ‘I’m coming. Sorry. You must be starved.’
The butt of the gun was cold. The owner of the sedan was probably just out walking his dog. Shoving the revolver back down into the saddlebag, Hilary rewrapped it in its towel, and indicating the latter as she drew the two out, said, ‘My pillow. Bet you didn’t think to bring one. Eat that lot and you’ll soon want a nap.’
There were strawberries, too, and Devonshire cream, and still more sandwiches. The revolver had been kept through all those years since the Great War but had been taken out and fired when her father had been away and Albert, bless him, had judged it prudent and known it would remind her of the brother she had hardly known. If someone was about to come for Karen, they would work their way round the hill and come at them from over its crest, flushing them quickly downhill towards that motorcar.
At a point perhaps a thousand yards from the hill, the spreading arms of a magnificent beech rose above the far edge of a pasture, and where its shade hid the sun, the cattle lolled. Using binoculars, Christina surveyed the hill, the location perfect. Karen was eating a sandwich, the Bowker-Brown girl saying something, but why hadn’t Osier made contact with herself at the Chelton Hotel in Maidstone as Burghardt’s message had stated he would? Had Osier others with him, others he hadn’t wanted her to know of?
The Hilary girl sat facing the brow of the hill, which was steep and rising towards the sun that was now all but behind Karen. She had taken a folded towel and had placed it beside herself, but did she suspect something? Was this why she sat not facing the view but the crest of that hill?
‘Hilary, do you like my father?’
‘I hardly know him.’
‘But would you like to know him?’
‘Yes … Yes, of course.’
Karen had nodded at something the girl had said, thought Christina. Choosing another sandwich, Karen took a radish and then passed the bowl to the girl, who never for an instant let her gaze stray from that crest. Cleverly she was using Karen’s eyes as a mirror to the downslope behind herself, and when Karen again looked towards the pony, the girl simply kept herself focused on the perceived threat.
Again they were talking.
‘Hilary, my mother doesn’t love my father and hasn’t for a long, long time. He’s not a Nazi; she is, and thinks the Führer is not only right but that he will conquer the world.’
‘But does your father still love her, Karen?’
‘I think he would like to forgive all her mistakes and that he would like us to be together, but Herr Beck, he is Mutti’s latest.’
It was infuriating, felt Christina, not to know what they were saying.
‘Do you like Herr Beck?’ asked Hilary.
‘They have been together for some time.’
‘That’s not what I asked.’
‘O
pa says he is a good German, a true Nazi, and that in time he will prove himself, but that Mutti could do better if she wanted. She doesn’t, and … and I think Grandpa is willing to accept this, myself …’ She shrugged. ‘He is very handsome, and he does have a nice sailboat he keeps in Bremen and a hunting lodge in the Jardelunder. It is near Flensburg, I think.’
And in Schleswig-Holstein on the Danish border, thought Hilary, not liking the thought.
‘Mutti hates going there. She says she always gets her feet wet and her backside bitten by the flies, which are horrible, the clouds of them so thick.’
The Bowker-Brown girl laughed at something Karen had just said, but was it a sign that her vigilance had lessened? wondered Christina. Again she, herself, thought the place perfect for an attempt and wondered not only where Osier was but why he hadn’t moved in on them. Had he been waiting for the girl to relax? Was he letting her get so used to the picnic, she would forget to watch the crest of that hill?
Perhaps a half hour went by, the girl still not having changed her position but now peering into Karen’s teacup to read the leaves as Karen leaned forwards. A moment, then, when the brow of that hill wasn’t being watched, the two of them avidly discussing things.
‘The leaves tell me that someone tall and with lovely grey eyes and a super smile has come into your life,’ said Hilary.
‘That is my father,’ said Karen. ‘You are only teasing me. I want what the leaves say.’
‘Of course. Do you see that one, and the way the others are pointing at it? That means he really does love you very much, Karen Ashby, and that there is, yes, a third person in your life.’
‘My mother. Will Opa’s men come for me today, Hilary?’
‘Not now, not here. At least I don’t think they will. They wouldn’t have waited this long, not them.’
‘Then why is it I feel someone is watching us?’
Dropping the cup, the Bowker-Brown girl leapt to turn and look downslope towards the road and the beech tree. Hunting the pastures and the surrounding woods, she remained ready to grab Karen and make a run for that roan of hers.
Unseen from the picnic, the Hoffmann woman left the tree to pick her way among the cattle, Brigadier Charles Edward Gordon watching her with consuming interest, for she was an extremely attractive woman. Rough trousers, the hair tied out of the way, she had even chosen white tennis shoes and had darkened them with earth.
Having left her sedan in that hollow had, of course, been a mistake. ‘But is she working alone, Lionel?’ he asked.
‘By rights, she should have walked up that hill by now and demanded her daughter,’ said Dandridge.
‘But looks as if expecting company,’ said Gordon. ‘Though we can’t be entirely sure, it appears that MI5 haven’t yet cottoned onto her, nor to the presence of those two on that hill.’
There had been no sign of Bunny Hacker, Sir John Masterson or anyone else of their incompetent ilk, thought Dandridge, and when the brigadier handed him the binoculars, he saw a honey buzzard fly up from the broken trunk of a dead elm near the Hoffmann woman. ‘She’s using that hedgerow as a screen, Brigadier. There’s something in her right hand, but her fist is too tightly closed for me to see what it is.’
‘Look for wasps.’
‘What?’
‘Please don’t yelp at me, Dandridge. We wouldn’t want her to get stung. Honey buzzards eat insects, especially wasps and bees.’
When she stopped suddenly, Dandridge saw her backing cautiously away and then saw the swarm.
‘Can you deal with her, Lionel? Have others follow but not too close. Bunny’s no fool and will soon be on to her. It really is a puzzle, his not being here. Too busy, perhaps, chasing elsewhere for the child.’
Taking the binoculars, Gordon trained them on the schoolteacher’s former wife, she now heading back to the beech tree.
Up at the picnic, thought Gordon, Hilary and the child were still unaware of the woman’s presence, or that of Dandridge and himself. Perhaps an hour went by. At seven years of age, playing cards was obviously a serious business. Hilary was sitting cross-legged, facing the child but now with her back to the crown of the hill, a mistake if ever there was one, the afternoon decidedly hot. Even the sound of birds had retreated, that of a distant cowbell muted, the roan tossing its head.
Shuffling cards had never been easy at that age, he told himself, and when some of them shot out onto the tablecloth, the child must have given an exasperated cry before flicking her gaze anxiously up.
‘Karen, what is it?’ asked Hilary.
Swiftly the child looked to the right and left, Hilary Bowker-Brown fighting lethargy as she scrambled up, knowing only too well, thought Gordon, that she couldn’t move fast enough, for two men were now on the crest of that hill, set against the heat-hazed sky and sun, the one carrying a Schmeisser, the other a Luger.
Fanning out, they started downhill towards the child.
‘Karen, run!’ cried Hilary, snatching up the towel and trying to get the gun free of it. ‘Karen, please! They’ll hit you!’
Hilary fired at them, the sound startling the horses, the man to her right dropping his weapon to clutch at a left shoulder and angrily yell something to the other, as again and again she fired, sending another shot at the one she had hit and two at the other.
Retreating back over the hill at a staggered run, having snatched up the Schmeisser, they were soon gone, the sound of the Hoffmann woman’s car now starting up, Gordon laying the binoculars on the sedan until it had disappeared from sight.
‘Well, well, well,’ he said. ‘I gather it’s time for us to leave, Dandridge. Were you told our Hilary would be bringing a weapon?’
‘No, sir. She stupidly didn’t forewarn.’
‘But stupid she definitely is not. She even held back two cartridges in case needed.’
Having wrapped her arms about the child, she was obviously telling Karen Ashby that everything was all right.
‘Karen, they’ve gone. Please don’t cry. Your grandfather wouldn’t have wanted them to kill me.’
But of course the child had known it would be otherwise had she run and not stood still.
On Tuesday, 7 June, Hacker swung the Rover in at the gates. Seen in the distance, the manor house was stately. Plane trees lined the drive, the house looking perhaps Italianate, but in red brick and with fluted limestone columns and upturned cornices: three storeys, twenty-six equally spaced and arched windows, and my God the money, but the longer he looked at the house, the more uneasy he felt. This was class, but what Christly business did Ashby’s nanny have in coming to a place like this, and why, of course, had AST-X Bremen not simply taken the child? Few if any staff, acres of wood and field, and any number of access routes, including simply walking away across field and stream, and never mind at that picnic. No, it wasn’t right. Having been called back by Sir John, who had received word of it from MI6, no doubt, he had had to leave off tracking the Bonnie Jean to hurry here.
The Bowker-Brown girl was in the rose garden, taking the shade and the peace and quiet of a latticed summerhouse beneath apple boughs in blossom and sitting in a chaise longue with pillow in her lap and looking like death warmed over and as wary as a crippled finch.
Sad and quick, those dark brown eyes watched him as he approached, she sizing up the retreats available—two routes of escape for her, latticed archways in between and nice, yes, it was very nice if one liked that sort of thing.
A gardener, an ancient retainer, could be seen through an arched doorway in the brick wall upon which the roses climbed and made their tangle. She could retreat at a pinch, could probably call up the reserves, that old codger with the spade no doubt having a bloody Lee-Enfield stashed nearby. Taking no chances, she had figured it all out ahead of time, a natural, and that, too, he’d best not forget.
Letting his gaze linger on her, he took in the s
leeveless cotton frock, the tight, small chest and stiffened shoulders, the newly polished, well-used brogues. Down to her underwear, she had thought of everything. ‘Miss Hilary Bowker-Brown?’
David Douglas Ashby had been right, thought Hilary. Although this one had the voice and stature of a detective, the deliberate undressing she had just received had told her all she needed to know. ‘Yes, that’s me, and yourself?’
He gave his name but also Special Branch, a lie, of course, but she would challenge him lightly. ‘They said they would be sending someone this afternoon at three, Colonel. Why, then, have you not carried on as you should have?’
Good Christ Almighty, who the hell did she mean? he wondered, and she could see this, too, damn her. ‘Better early than late, eh?’ he said, managing a smile and indicating one of the cane chairs she had positioned so that wherever he sat, she would always be facing him with her back to that brick wall and its retainer.
But no matter. Pulling out a black notepad and flipping it open before himself, he sat directly opposite her, the armchair sighing as he filled it.
‘About those two men on that hill, miss. Why not start right from the beginning by telling me what on earth made an innocent like yourself take along a weapon? No need to rush. I’ve told that cook of yours we won’t be needing tea.’
She winced at this and frowned, and he knew then that she wasn’t so much of a natural she could hide her feelings, that she had told the cook to definitely bring the tea so as to keep an eye on them.
‘Look, you’re not from the Yard, Colonel, so why not put that notepad away? You’re from MI5’s Watchers.’
Aware of him, was she, and encounters with Ruth Pearce or even with Ashby himself and the corpse of that one’s barmaid? Letting his eyes narrow, Hacker noted the shudder she gave. ‘Then let’s just start at the beginning, shall we?’
Her head was shaken. ‘Chief Constable Whitfield, in Maidstone, knows everything about what happened, Colonel. Should any harm come to me, or to any of my father’s staff, or to Karen Ashby, I have thought it best to advise him. You see, I can identify the man I hit, and certainly that one must know that if he ever comes back, I most certainly won’t miss but will kill him.’
The Sleeper Page 17