Partly under the wax, there was a small tin box of matches, Hilary prying off the wax only to see on its lid the grim-faced, spike-helmeted countenance of Kaiser Wilhelm II, with huge muttonchops and handlebar moustache, the matches having been manufactured and sold in England by Bryant and May of London, but dear God, was that portrait some sort of sign? There were six of the matches left, and each was little more than two inches long and with a good half-inch head that was a dark cocoa brown. They couldn’t be of any use, not now, not after such a long time, and certainly they had been left after 1859, maybe 1865 or 1870 and not that long before the mine had been closed for good.
Pocketing the box and the candle stub, she again took Karen by the hand. ‘Feeling better now?’ she asked.
‘A little, yes.’
When they finally reached the adit, they turned off towards the right. ‘Soon we’ll be able to see the entrance,’ said Hilary. ‘As soon as we can, we’ll go and get help.’
‘My mother would have come after me, Hilary. She doesn’t love my father anymore.’
‘Yes, I know. It’s not very nice when that happens, is it?’
‘She loves Herr Beck. He makes her happy. For a long time before she met him she didn’t smile the way she would when with him, but Opa still thinks there is something wrong with him and that if only she would let her heart listen to his advice, all would be perfect. More grandchildren for him, a brother and sister for me to help look after.’
‘Karen, sh!’
The daylight had all but gone, but still there was enough to see that someone with a rucksack was standing in the entrance to the tunnel. Tugging at Karen, Hilary pulled her into darkness and whispered, ‘Let me have the torch.’ And then, ‘Karen, give it to me, please!’
They had to find that winze again, had to reach that stope and climb those ladders, had to get to the cottage before he caught up with them.
‘I’ve got a gun!’ she yelled. ‘I’ll kill you if you come after us!’
But where was the gun, where the satchel? She must have left them in the stope when that scream had come and she had knelt to comfort Karen and the torch had fallen into that pool.
‘Karen, listen to me. That wasn’t your father. He would have called out to us.’
The MG’s engine was overheating; the rad had sprung a leak. Two flat tyres had slowed Ashby down, then a tour bus that had broken its rear axle on the narrowest of roads, then a farm lorry pulling a wagon, and now this! He knew he was somewhere between Five Lanes and Bolventor, but still east of the Fowey and well out on Bodmin Moor. Letting the ghost of a smile come, as did the irony amid clouds of steam and fading light, he thought of Bill and the damage Kurt Meydel and Martin Lund had done to the car in that graveyard. He thought of Daisy, too, and of Hacker, then of Christina and Brigadier Charles Edward Gordon, and always of Hilary and Karen. Even though she hadn’t liked or trusted the brigadier, Hilary would still think him MI6 and trust anyone he sent.
Alone in all that emptiness, with its crags and tors, its moors and bogs, Ashby could see no one else. Some three miles to the north-northwest were Brown Willy, Rough Tor and Hawks Tor, and to the southeast maybe five miles, Kilmar Tor. Cattle grazed, but they were distant, beyond them, two shire horses and a few ponies, the wind bringing the smell of moor grass, peat, farm animals and bog water.
‘I have to,’ he said aloud as he started out on foot. ‘I haven’t any other choice. If Christina links up with Brigadier Gordon, Karen will come to her and that will leave Hilary to deal with them all on her own.’
Right round Weymouth Bay, Christina could see that there were lights. They lit up the long row of Georgian houses that had been turned into hotels, shops and bed-and-breakfasts to line the promenade, lights glimmering also from the dark water across which came snatches of music from a pavilion. Werner would be waiting for her, as would Osier, Brigadier Charles Edward Gordon.
Taking the elevator at the Gloucester Hotel, she went up to the seventh floor. Burghardt had had the embassy forward a pouch for Werner, just as Osier had said the Kapitän would. All the cash he would need and a Danish pistol, the M1910/21 that must have been in the safe Werner had opened, and with six- and eight-shot magazines that held 9mm cartridges. A heavy gun, it was even longer than a Mauser and would not be easy for him to hide, a puzzle, Burghardt having chosen it.
All along the corridor there were darkly stained side and end tables, the heavy cream brocade of the walls setting off cut-glass vases of flowers and cabinets of china. Longing for a cigarette, excited and wanting to calm herself, she tried not to hurry. The Dolphin Suite the brigadier had taken must be at the far end of the corridor next to that staircase. Gilded wall brackets held gooseneck lamps with pleated linen shades that threw a dusky yellow light over oils in heavy frames: scenes of the seacoast and nearby farms, things painted years ago. One was of a farm girl feeding chickens, her straw-coloured hair exactly like Karen’s.
Reaching the suite at last, wanting still to be certain she hadn’t been followed, she glanced apprehensively down the length of the corridor to the lifts and beyond.
Mein Gott, it was quiet. Everyone else must still be at dinner.
There were no lights on in the suite and that was odd, so too, the lack of welcome. Softly closing the door, she took out the gun, thumbing its safety off and waiting. Had MI5 arrested Werner and the brigadier? Would they now arrest herself?
‘My dear woman,’ said Gordon, ‘do come in. There are things we must discuss.’
Still she couldn’t see him. Everything told her to leave while she could, that this wasn’t right. ‘Osier,’ she said, he answering:
‘I assure you we are quite alone. Keep that gun of Burghardt’s in hand if it makes you feel more comfortable. I merely want to talk. If at the end of our discussion you wish to leave, then please rest assured we will give you every opportunity since we do not want a scene.’
‘We?’ she managed. Was he not Osier?
‘A few associates, that is all,’ he answered, and when still she hesitated, ‘Have I not made myself clear?’
‘Where is Werner?’
This was not going to please her. ‘Not on that yacht.’
‘You’re lying!’
‘My dear, I wish I was, but Joachim Burghardt has outfoxed us and sent a Dane who claims he knows absolutely nothing. Herr Beck is no doubt already in Cornwall while I, fool that I’ve been, thought him here and called off my people there. In short, Christina, it will be up to Herr Beck to wrest your daughter from MI5’s Colonel Hacker.’
Turning, she put the lock on and then the bolt, would shut the two of them in, decided Christina, until she had got everything straight.
‘Why not come into the other room,’ he said. ‘There’s a lovely view overlooking the bay and the pier. You can even see the ferry terminus to Cherbourg, should you wish to change your mind and take it.’
He wasn’t Osier. He couldn’t be. ‘Have you a cigarette?’
‘Certainly, and I’ve a damned fine brandy if you wish, or champagne.’
‘And?’ she asked, seeing him more clearly now in silhouette against the windows.
‘And an offer, my dear, that I do not think you can possibly refuse if ever you wish to take that daughter of yours home.’
For some time now Karen and the girl had made no sound. Beck hesitated, the darkness of the mine absolute. They had taken the first crosscut and had stumbled, fallen and hurried up this towards the left, the girl often dragging the child to her feet.
As he had shone his light at them, they had turned away, the girl pushing Karen in front of herself, the timbered crosscut continuing on and then up, they going from level to level until finally into what must once have been a stope, a working room and face from which the ore had been extracted, he having caught the girl by an ankle and dragged her back, only to have her suddenly kick him.
She had scrambled away, and after a minute or so he had heard her ragged breathing, then had heard her fall several times as though injured, only to get up and carry on.
Now it was as if they were no longer here.
Water lay beneath Hilary’s broken left hand. Easing herself into a sitting position, she slid the hand below the surface, trying to still the pain.
Beck knew he was close to them, but was there something else? he wondered. This last bit of tunnel must have led them to a point below the cottage, and above them there must be a connection between the two; why else would she have come this way?
Pocketing the light, he removed the rucksack, took out his knife and began stealthily to pull himself up into the stope and make a circuit of its floor.
Hilary heard him but only once. Easing herself upright a little more, she tried to find a rock with which to defend herself, but all were far too big to lift with one hand.
High above, and unknown to them, Hacker waited just below the floor of the cottage. From Zennor, he had followed the one AST-X Bremen had sent and a woman, the car then having been moved well away from the cottage, the woman no longer present, she having been pushed, no doubt, into one of the shafts, the man then climbing down to a boat shed and going into the mine, himself deciding on a very different entrance.
Rung by rung, on the first of what could well be a sequence of ladders, he began to ease himself down below the cottage and when he came to a bench on which the miners had once stood and worked, felt his way across it through the rubble, was still well above the others.
To Beck, aprons of broken rock skirted the walls of the mined-out stope. Each time he stretched out a hand, he felt the rough surfaces, but not the clothing of that girl. Had she found the gun she had mentioned?
Hilary knew he was getting closer, but as yet, not from which direction. She and Karen could get up at the last moment and try to make it back through the maze of tunnels that had led them here. She wished she could have found the satchel with Alex’s revolver. Their torch was now somewhere else.
When Karen stiffened in alarm, Hilary knew he had found them.
The child began to whimper, Beck saying in Deutsch, ‘So, that is enough, I think, Fräulein. Now you will come with me.’
Rung by rung and still above them, Hacker stealthily lowered himself down the next ladder. The bench he came to was wider than the one he had left, though not by much, but it was clearer of rubble insofar as he could tell, though he must go easily. He had to get down there before they left the area, but when the Bowker-Brown girl tried to scramble away, the child shrieked and filled the workings with her cries, until the Boche cursed the child and shook her hard, then switched on a torch.
Blinking, shielding her eyes from the painful glare, the Bowker-Brown girl had trapped herself in a far corner. Warily she thought to go to the left and then to the right, never once taking her gaze from that Boche. Hurt badly, she had undone the buttons on her shirt, making a sling of it for her left hand.
Releasing the child, the Boche watched as Ashby’s daughter scrambled across the floor towards the girl. Falling twice, getting more scrapes and bruises and torn clothes, she finally reached Bowker-Brown, who held her tightly and said, ‘Don’t try to talk. It’s all right.’
Hilary could see that the satchel was lying on a large rock to her left and near the pool where they had first lost their torch, but that the man had not yet caught sight of it. She could also see beyond him and above, and well back of the ledges, a faint shaft of light that must be coming in from the cottage.
‘Please, my name is Werner Beck and I mean you no harm. Let me just take Karen and go. She will be quite safe, I assure you, and happy once she has been returned to her mother and grandfather.’
He was lying, of course, thought Hilary. There was no way he could leave her here. ‘Doesn’t her father have a say in things?’
‘Ach, that is simply not possible. It never was.’
Brushing Karen’s tears away and chucking her under the chin, she managed a smile. ‘Help me up then, Herr Beck. I seem to have hurt my hand rather badly.’ Hacker … was Colonel Hacker now in the mine?
Beck didn’t move, for somewhere above them in the darkness, a revolver had been cocked. The stope, he knew, would go up behind him to ledges, each about a fathom or two in height but often only a yard or so wide. At each of these ledges, the face of the mined-out stope would be quite irregular, the hanging wall steeply inclined above the working face and with, no doubt, loose rocks that had probably never been scaled away.
Sensing that Herr Beck must have finally seen that the hearthstone had been moved, Hilary reached for Karen’s hand, he switching off his light and throwing himself to one side as a stab of flame, a brief flash lit up the stope, the bullet ricocheting, she cringing to shield Karen and shrieking, ‘Don’t fire! Please don’t!’
Hacker scrambled down the next ladder, Beck rolling over onto his back and firing at him, one rock falling and then another.
Dragging Karen after her, Hilary started towards the tunnel. She had to find it, had to get them out of here, but when the ‘run’ came, the sudden rockfall filled the stope with noise and dust. Choking, trying desperately to breathe, she huddled over Karen until the sound of the rocks had finally trailed away to a silence broken only by that of themselves.
As a torch came on, the beam of it searched for them through the dust until at last it had picked them out.
Beck coughed several times and then said, ‘Karen, your mother is waiting. She’s here in England and not far, and with a little luck, we will soon be together.’
Christina crossed her legs and, resting the hand with the pistol on her knees, sat looking at the brigadier. He was handsome, and he had been a gratifying lover.
‘What you wish is just not possible,’ she said. ‘My father would never agree to come over.’
‘And Werner Beck will never get that daughter of yours out of Cornwall.’
She tossed her head. ‘You’re forgetting that you told your people Werner was to have arrived here in Weymouth, Brigadier.’
‘They’ll have gone back to the mine. They’ll be there now.’
‘And Colonel Hacker?’ she asked.
‘Will not have their help. My dear, having wanted a tidy end to things, he has no one else, but you see, he really must be stopped and you must give the Yard’s summation of the murder of Ashby’s barmaid to your former husband as Burghardt intended.’
Hacker, if successful, thought Christina, would be arrested, Ash getting everything he wanted. ‘Werner won’t fail.’
Somehow he had to make her put that damned gun down. ‘Perhaps you are right, but its possibility is something you had best consider. General von Hoffmann can tell us much, Christina. In exchange for what the Reich and its Oberkommando der Wehrmacht intend, including army and divisional strengths, weaponry, codes and Luftwaffe support, I will let you and your daughter leave England.’
‘You forget, Brigadier, that I am the one holding the gun.’ He had turned on the lamp behind himself, was sitting on the couch opposite her.
Even with the light shining in her eyes, felt Gordon, it was doubtful she would miss, but was she really intent? ‘Your father need not give himself away, my dear. We could agree to meet in Switzerland.’
‘Berlin would only learn of it. The SS and the Gestapo keep tabs on everyone, generals especially.’
Those shapely legs of hers uncrossed themselves, she getting to her feet, he wondering if she had ever killed before. ‘My dear, did I not say all exits here were being watched?’
‘Osier. And here I thought you were the one Burghardt had awakened and I willingly let you fuck me.’
Not taking her gaze from him, she reached for a pillow, he saying, ‘Why not wait until we hear how things have gone in Cornwall?’
‘That could take hours.’
&
nbsp; The telephone rang, she flicking an uncertain glance towards it, the cushion now covering the muzzle of that gun.
‘My dear, they will only rush the room if I do not answer.’
Motioning with the gun, she said, ‘Tell them we are still negotiating and that we are both hungry. Some coffee, I think. A few rolls and some Brie perhaps. I haven’t eaten in hours.’
When he had rung off, Gordon felt the cushion against his back and said, ‘I wouldn’t, if I were you.’
‘Then go into the bedroom and I will tell you what you will and won’t do.’
Had there ever been an Osier, he wondered, and if so, why then had Burghardt failed to inform her of how to make contact and then identify the sleeper as he should have?
Motioning with the pistol, she told him to draw the curtains and then to sit on the edge of the bed, facing her. Closing the door behind herself, she came to stand over him, her grip on the pistol tightening.
Still smiling, Christina shoved the cushion and the muzzle of the gun against him and said, ‘Ash and that girl he’s got looking after my daughter will soon be joining you.’
Another loose rock fell from the roof of the stope and then another, Hilary cringing, as did Karen. Hugging the child, she huddled against a wall, dust continuing to fill the air, and when a trail of loose rubble slid away, she was blinded by the light from his torch and brought her injured hand up to her lips in panic.
Beck knew she was terrified and not just of himself, for the roof could cave again at any moment. ‘Please, you have no other choice but to follow me,’ he said.
‘But to … to go through the mine …’ she stammered.
‘Whoever fired at me will have others with him, and they will have heard the rockfall. I can’t chance going back to the boat shed. We must find another way out.’
‘Someone fell down one of the shafts,’ said Hilary, Karen burying her face more deeply against her.
The Sleeper Page 26