With a finality she would fail to appreciate, Masterson drained his glass and ordered another. Bunny had said the little vixen was hiding something and by God, she still was. ‘Look, Miss Bowker-Brown, your friends in MI6 have left you cold, so why not cooperate and let us get on with the job?’
Taking a sip to give herself a chance to think, Hilary knew he would have fed queries up through the chain of command and had a look at Brigadier Gordon in particular. ‘All right, I had best tell you, hadn’t I? The one I hit didn’t know German very well, if at all. The fair-haired younger one might have, but everything happened so quickly, I can’t say he said anything more than, “Go back,” and that was given in perfect Deutsch.’
‘And the one you hit was the one who had followed you and the girl on the train?’
A nod was all she would give, thought Hilary, but hadn’t Karen’s father asked if the sleeper could be Brigadier Gordon?
‘It’s odd that MI6 should have buggered off and left you like that,’ said Masterson. ‘Could they have run that little show, not to see if you were on your toes, but to snatch the child for later use in a trade-off, the mother giving them whatever info they wanted in exchange for her daughter?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Had the thought not occurred to her, or had she suddenly remembered something and decided to keep mum about it? ‘Let me put it this way. Could they have staged that attempt for purposes of their own?’
Brigadier Gordon had insisted she take Karen on a picnic, thought Hilary, and … Oh damn, she had forgotten to tell that to her father. ‘I could have killed one of them, Sir John. As it is, heaven only knows how badly he was hit.’
Their lunches came, Masterson marshalling his bangers and mash and asking, ‘But did Brigadier Gordon know you would be armed?’
Oh dear … ‘I … I kept that to myself.’
He reached for his pint. ‘Then they could have set it up and have suffered accordingly.’
‘But … but they would surely have forewarned me,’ insisted Hilary. ‘They … they wouldn’t have kept that from me, lest I take the matter to Major-General Sir Stewart Menzies.’
Dear God, was she that well connected? ‘Then I’d best tell you, Ashby’s wife has come over again. Bunny thinks she might have been here earlier. Have a look at this and tell me if you’ve seen her.’
Having hardly had a chance to eat, Hilary set her knife and fork aside. The woman was incredibly beautiful, the felt cloche and woollen suit fitting perfectly, and yes, earlier when trying to warn her by phone, Ash had described her perfectly. ‘No … No, I’ve not seen her.’
When she handed the photograph back, Masterson resisted the impulse to smile but said, ‘I do believe I’ve spoiled your lunch. Don’t tell me you and the schoolteacher are having it on.’
‘We’re not. It’s … it’s just that, having seen that photo, I can’t understand why Karen’s mother should hate her father the way she must. Surely the couple could have come to some agreement, if for no other reason than Karen’s well-being?’
‘You’re not in love with him, are you?’
‘Is that different from “having it on”?’
Oh my, oh my. ‘We just can’t have him interfering, that’s all. Let us take care of this sleeper and all he’ll bring us, and then you and the captain can do as you please. I take it you and the child are getting along all right?’
Again Hilary set her knife and fork down. ‘Much better, yes, but would that really matter?’
Letting a breath escape, he told her that she might need the child to come to her when called, and that their getting along could well make all the difference. ‘But never forget, please, that Ashby was quite attached to that barmaid of his and will be worrying about yourself. We simply can’t have him anywhere near that cottage of yours, Miss Bowker-Brown. Now eat up. That steak of yours is getting cold.’
She began to tell him of the mine, the cottage and the terrain, he ordering tea for her and another pint for himself and asking details of her, she soon gaining more and more confidence in him.
He was most curious about the boat shed and when told, said, ‘It sounds as if it was once used by smugglers.’
‘That whole coastline was and is, and right round it,’ she said and grinned, only to think of the possible dangers and, glancing at her watch, to say abstractedly, ‘I must try to get a look at the plans of the mine while I’m here.’
‘You do that,’ he replied, mopping his plate with a last bit of bread. ‘Let Bunny know if there’s any bother. Leave a note for him in that outhouse of yours. He’ll not come to you and knock on the door. In fact you won’t likely see him until the end.’
Had they already consulted the plans? she wondered, and when he asked how well she knew Brigadier Gordon, she bleated, ‘Why do you ask?’
‘Because, my dear, he’s tricky. Has to be, now doesn’t he?’
Dropping her gaze to her plate, seeing the brief sampling here and there, she said, ‘Like every other ordinary citizen, I really know very little about MI6 and certainly didn’t know that he was involved. Indeed, if you want the truth, I would never have thought it possible.’
‘But it is odd Gordon should have dealt with you himself. You see, it puts things on another level and makes him vulnerable, and that is something he would never do unless absolutely necessary. Dandridge there, I gather, at the club?’
Shoving her plate aside, she nodded and reached for her tea.
‘Well, not to matter,’ said Masterson. ‘It’ll all come out in the wash. Lionel’s no fool, but then Gordon wouldn’t use him if he was. Oh my, no, but you do see, I trust, that even with Dandridge, your brigadier might not tell him everything.’
‘Those two on the hill …’ she said, aghast at the thought that Gordon might well have had something to do with it.
But had Ashby suggested the same? wondered Masterson. ‘Now tell me what you know of the headmaster at that school of the captain’s.’
Putting far too much sugar into her teacup, Hilary tried to give herself time to think, for he wouldn’t have asked unless there had been a good reason. ‘I’m afraid I’ve never met him, Sir John, nor has Karen’s father told me anything.’
So be it. ‘Pearce was once a prisoner of war. There’s evidence, never proven I must add, that he might have been an informant. There’s never been an inquiry, and it may simply have been a rumour.’
‘Have you told Ash?’
Ah, now at last a very definite interest in the schoolmaster. ‘Certainly not, nor will you. Is that understood?’
‘Betray myself, betray my friends, betray my lover, if that’s what he might one day become, Sir John?’
How sharp of her. ‘Just leave it until we get what we have to. Then you can have him and the daughter, if you wish, and I will give you both my blessing.’
Out on the street, they parted with a handshake, he watching as she walked away, a pleasant enough little piece. Yes, she would do nicely, and when it was all over he would draft her into MI5 if for no other reason than to keep her from MI6.
The man was there when Hilary turned onto Old Compton Street and went along it to catch an omnibus at Charing Cross Road. He was there when she walked through the now-empty Covent Garden whose predawn markets would have rung with shouts and the trundle of barrows. And he was there when she got to the Public Records Office in Chancery Lane, and there, when empty-handed, she had returned to the door to search the street for him.
About her age, he was tall, good-looking, with straight flaxen hair, no hat, a newish grey mack, grey flannels, brown Oxfords, both hands in the pockets of his coat, the collar up.
Remembering the picnic, the warmth of the day, the smell of clover and Chancellor’s nervousness, she recalled the Luger in his hand, the panic of that moment, and again felt quite ill, for if he could walk round London like this, how safe would Karen and she
be in Cornwall?
When a taxi came along to let someone off, she was out the door like a shot and into the back. ‘The Geological Museum, Exhibition Road, South Kensington and hurry, please! I don’t want to miss my train.’
‘Right you are, luv.’ By the look, she had money, and who was he to question a fare like that? ‘You’re not being followed, are you?’
‘Yes, as a matter of fact I am.’
‘The bloke in the mack?’
‘Yes! He’s my ex. Could you …’
She flashed those big brown eyes in the mirror, and when, finally, they had gone along the Cromwell Road and had turned that last corner, added, ‘Thanks, I knew you could do it.’
First in the library and reading room, then three clerks later, she was standing in the cellars between towering shelves of file boxes while a little man in a blue smock teetered on a stepladder. ‘It only takes a bit of looking, miss,’ he said. ‘I know it’s here. Oh dear, oh dear, it’s been red-flagged. The entry’s missing.’
Government regulations being what they were, it took time getting the use of a telephone but at last the line was through. ‘Sir John, it’s me, Hilary. Someone’s taken the only set of drawings to the underground workings of my mine.’
‘When?’
‘At noon today while … while we were at lunch.’
‘The name given? Damn it, girl, to get that file they must have had to sign for it.’
‘Mine, so it has to have been a woman and she must know of me. There’s … there’s something else. After I left you, I was followed but lost him. It was the younger of the two from the hill, the German, I think, though he could have been as British as myself.’
And there on orders from Brigadier Charles Edward Gordon? wondered Masterson, cursing the thought since MI6 hadn’t wasted a moment. ‘Don’t for God’s sake tell Ashby. Simply let Bunny know.’
‘But without the plans, and with them knowing the layout, surely you don’t expect me to go back there with Karen?’
‘I do, my dear, and you must.’ It could be that MI6 had the plans, thought Masterson, and it could be that Abwehr AST-X Bremen had them.
All along the Landwehrkanal in Berlin, which here followed the Turpitzufer, the leaves of the lindens drooped and the sooty smoke from the barges hung in the damp air. It was Saturday, 11 June, and as Burghardt got out of the Mercedes that had collected them at the aerodrome, Werner Beck came round to stand beside him, and they both looked up at the row of four-storeyed, once-fashionable houses that had held the Naval High Command and the headquarters of the Abwehr for far too long.
Dwarfed by the window behind which he stood, Canaris didn’t wave, and Burghardt wondered if the general had been at him again and if the admiral had had second thoughts.
‘So, my young friend,’ he said to Beck, ‘here we are, but please do not be too ambitious. Leave most of the talking to me.’
‘Does this mean I’m to be reinstated?’
‘Not at all. It means that for reasons of his own, the admiral requested that I should bring you along to carry my briefcase.’
They went up the steps into naval headquarters, and from there, once past the sentries and the Leutnant on duty, the elevator being out of order, found their way through the warren of renovated rooms, narrow corridors and staircases. The buildings were totally unsuitable, yet both Canaris and the Oberkommando der Kriegsmarine had stubbornly refused to move.
An outer office and two secretaries barred their way but the admiral, somewhat shy and self-effacing, came to welcome them.
‘Joachim, it’s good of you to come on such short notice. Herr Beck … Gentlemen, my humble abode.’
The office on the third floor was always, thought Burghardt, a shock to those who didn’t know Canaris. Of modest size, a former maid’s room perhaps, it held an iron cot, a few filing cabinets, a handful of plain chairs, an old leather couch and that same unassuming desk the admiral had had for years. Beyond a large map of the world, there were portrait photographs of former Abwehr chiefs and even one of the Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco, but only an etching of Canaris as a young man. This last hung next to that of a Japanese demon, while on the other side of the etching were two photos of the admiral’s wire-haired dachshunds, Seppel and Sabine.
For some reason, the dogs weren’t present, though the carpet indicated they most certainly had been, and recently.
‘You’re not impressed, Herr Beck,’ said Canaris quietly.
Caught off guard, Beck stood to attention. ‘It’s not my business to form judgements of my superiors, Admiral.’
‘Good. Then let this be a lesson. The simpler, the better. Now, please, gentlemen, there is time for coffee and a small chat. What have you brought for me?’
That was nice, thought Burghardt. The admiral had put the onus on them, while saving the rest for later.
Beck hung their coats on the stand. One of the secretaries had the coffee on a tray and he stepped into the outer office to offer Frau Schonenburg a little help. Not so old that she couldn’t appreciate a good-looking young man, she smiled but shook her head. ‘It is all right, Herr Beck. He is just a little preoccupied today and has missed his usual rest, but you mustn’t mind.’
Unfolding the ordnance map of Cornwall, the admiral ran his eyes along the north coast until he found the encircled cliffs and cottage. ‘Saint Ives is too close,’ he said.
‘But the location so isolated, it is all but remote,’ offered Burghardt.
‘And the ruins of that mine?’ asked Canaris.
Using a pencil, Burghardt pointed things out on the map and then on the latest of the drawings, those dating from 1875. ‘The pumping shaft is here just outside the western wall of the ruins, the entrance shaft to the mine, a little to the south and larger.’
‘There is another entrance here, Kapitän,’ said Beck. ‘An adit breaks through the face of the cliff, Admiral. It would have been used for draining the workings at and above that level, and for moving some of the waste rock out.’
So this was the young man who would, if required, accomplish what Osier had as yet been unable to do, thought Canaris. ‘And in the mine itself?’ he asked.
Burghardt gave his subordinate a nod, Herr Beck saying, ‘Flooded below a depth of fifty fathoms, Admiral. A small area of ancient workings lies nearest the surface, about 1500 metres to the south of the engine house and downslope from it. Below these ancient workings …’ Canaris held up a forefinger. ‘Bitte, Herr Beck. Define ancient for me.’
‘Nothing has been noted, Admiral, beyond a few words, but I would assume they are probably late medieval.’
‘And below these “ancient” workings?’
‘And below ground everywhere else are the far later workings, and not just those of the Wheal Deep. Breakthrough into other workings in 1868 allowed expansion into the Wheal Garrett, about a mile and a half to the south, but as with it, so too, the Wheal Deep. In any underground mine, it is down with the sinking of the shafts, out with the driving of the crosscuts or levels and adits, then up with the winzes or raises to extract the ore via the stopes, the ore often being dropped down to a lower level or half-level to be moved out to the shafts and hoisted to the surface. Waste rock is then used wherever possible to fill the mined-out stopes, but when the price of tin fell, the Wheal Deep ceased. Crosscuts and stopes were all abandoned, but these should still be accessible and fully timbered where necessary, especially since, in the levels above flooding, the water will have been drained via the adit to the cliffs.’
The explanation of mining had been succinct, and certainly the Führer would think highly of such confidence, but … ‘What about caving?’ asked Canaris.
It was now really only between himself and the admiral, thought Beck. ‘Some, no doubt, but you see, there are many passages.’ Spreading the plans of the mine, the admiral noting the age and mustiness of the dr
awings, especially those of the earliest, Beck quickly pointed things out.
‘And the number of levels?’ asked Canaris.
‘Twenty-five main levels to the flooding. The levels are at two-fathom intervals or close to it, but there are also the half- or intermediate levels, steps if you like, as the ore was followed and taken, with the winzes, the steeply inclined shafts or chutes between, and even occasional ventilation tunnels, and further underground shafts as well. It’s a warren, Admiral. It will offer endless possibilities.’
All well and good perhaps, felt Canaris, yet … ‘How is it, then, that you propose to get the child out through the mine, but only if necessary?’
Everyone knew that the admiral not only liked possibilities where the imagination could run, but better still preferred clear and decisive solutions. Quickly Beck searched for and found a much earlier set of drawings. ‘Through these ancient workings, Admiral, for they will have been long forgotten. Indeed they were doubtless not even known of when the mine itself was opened. It was only as this level was driven under them that a breakthrough must have occurred and this note, dated 4 July 1827, was made on the drawings. Since the tin, however, increased with depth, they were soon forgotten as the mine got deeper and deeper. Handheld drill steel and black powder were used for most of its life, with always the hand-pulled or pushed haulage trams and wheelbarrows, never pit ponies. For the later, more recent history, it was essentially the same, though not always with the intent of going deeper, for by then they were using the new dynamite and, at times, bringing down much larger volumes of ore and waste rock. Old workings would have been reopened and what lower-grade tin ore was left, scavenged. But still, and as always, the miners had to chase the veins wherever they ran, so there are tunnels and tunnels, openings and openings. It’s perfect, Admiral. Even if the British think they have us, I can still find another way through to those very early workings, and I will have the plans in my pocket and know of them—they won’t.’
The image of each level’s tunnels and openings was projected onto the next above, so that when viewed in plan, the hen scratching and ruled lines tended to overlap, but such confidence, thought Canaris, must be tempered. ‘I’ve been in many mines, Herr Beck. Tin, yes, and silver in South America. None were pleasant or “easy.” Most had men at work and long accustomed to the perils, while all of the abandoned ones presented an absolute torment of uncertainty and outright danger. You have no guarantee that needle in a haystack, those “ancient workings,” will offer the escape you think. Also that child will be terrified and you have no guarantee she will remain quiet should you have to take her down there.’
The Sleeper Page 20