I still loved her. But it was a love for someone in my past. Someone who went away. Maybe – given her revelations – someone who was never there in the first place, except in my imagination. I glanced across at her, but she was staring inward like a yogi.
The plane droned on across the scarred earth of northern France. Through breaks in the clouds I could see the land far below. I imagined it a year ago, after great armies had chewed up the ground with their heavy treads and high explosives. But it wouldn’t have taken long for nature to cover our sins. New grain would wave in the summer heat and apples ripen in drowsy orchards. The rows of white crosses would glint in the sun in the great cemeteries from the first war. New mounds would be settling alongside them, filled with young men who’d never see the wheat fields of Iowa or Essex again. I fingered my scar and tried to tell myself I was lucky.
“OK, chaps,” called the pilot. “We’re over the Channel and heading for London.
We’re going into RAF Hendon. We’ve radioed ahead. It won’t be the first time they’ve had a wonky Lanc drop in for tea.”
Soon afterwards we began the descent, and I saw London spread out underneath us.
We were tracing the Thames westwards. From the ground it was hard to get a perspective on the damage. From up here its scars were fully visible. Docklands and the area around the Tower of London displayed their wounds. St Paul’s stood secure and insolent above the acres of devastation, as though its great dome was cannibalised from the flattened buildings all around it. We turned north and slid over Regent’s Park, levelling out at about a thousand feet over Hampstead Heath.
Again we dipped, and the runway of RAF Hendon sliced the green sward ahead. We circled, waiting for the tower’s instructions. At their bidding we tried twice, then a third time to lower the landing gear. But whatever had stopped the wheels coming up was stopping them going down. The last words from the pilot before he turned in for the landing were, “Brace yourselves.” We needed no telling.
I didn’t try to look forward this time. I took Eve’s hand. It was cold and limp.
“Just in time for the late editions,” I said. She tried a weak smile but it didn’t come off. The pilot called out the height. One thousand feet, eight hundred, six… a hundred feet…
The plane was flying level and true. I leaned out and saw a line of trees and beyond them some houses at the far end of the airfield. The runway was to our right. We were heading for the grass alongside. I prayed they’d had a lot of rain the last few days. I felt the tug on our wings as they pulled up the ailerons and feathered the engines. The grass rushed towards us and a fire truck charged out to meet us along the runway. Bizarrely I saw one of the firemen hanging on with one hand, yanking on his bell rope. I don’t know who he was warning, but we didn’t need it.
We hit once and bounced, then a second time. When we came down for the third time we stayed down, skidding along the grass in a series of thumps and bangs.
The flyboys had kept the nose up as long as they could but now it tipped and caught; our starboard wing went down and we pitched over. There was a great metallic screaming and a smashing and splintering as the starboard propellers buried themselves in the ground. The plane swung round like someone had grabbed its trailing wing. It tipped, and we were up in the air, balancing on one wingtip like a mad ballet dancer. Then we were falling back to earth and the whole shebang seemed to be fragmenting around us – then… nothing.
TWENTY FOUR
It was the second time in six months that I’d woken in a hospital bed with Gerald Cassells’ face looming over me. I tried to focus and realised my left eye was blocked. I raised my hand to brush away the obstruction and hit my face with a plastered forearm. Pain shot up my wrist and I let the weighty cast drop back on the bed.
“Steady, old chap. You’ve got a bandage on your head. And broken wrist. Nothing fatal. Soon be up and about.”
“Eye?” I mumbled, pointing at it with my free hand.
“Bruises and cuts, but still functioning,” he said.
“Where is she?” I asked.
Cassells looked puzzled.
I unstuck my tongue from the roof of my mouth and tried again. His face relaxed.
“She’s all right old chap. Better than you. Bit bruised and so on, but nothing broken. They’re keeping her in the next ward.”
I settled back. The relief washed over me. I began probing my body, flexing my limbs as best I could. Apart from the wrist which had ceased throbbing, I felt stiff and bruised all over. Hardly surprising. They found us at the crash site, still strapped into our seats, but with bits of the fuselage in our laps. There was a big hole in the hull and firemen were already clambering around. I heard their shouts and the hissing of water on flames, and the fireman I’d seen hammering on his bell – I swear it was him – eased his head through the jagged hole.
They cut us loose – from each other and from the wreckage – and tenderly eased our bodies out on to the wet grass. They gave us both shots despite Eve’s protestations. She wanted to get going, she had a story to tell, she kept saying. They didn’t listen, just lifted her on a stretcher into the back of an ambulance. She was quieter by then; the painkiller must have got to her. As it was beginning to get to me. I felt myself slipping away and letting go, letting it all go.
I fought my way to the surface again. “Gerry, is everybody else all right? Did they all get out?”
He screwed up his face. “The Redcaps are fine.” He shook his head. “But the RAF chaps in the front seats didn’t make it. The nose took the brunt.”
Shit. Shit, shit. They’d flown through the war, through ack-ack and clouds of shrapnel, against all the odds. Then they bought it, flying a pair of dumb civilians into London. Another bad joke, God.
“What happens now, Gerry?”
“You’re clear to go, old chap. I’d stay in bed for a day or two then hop it. You did your bit. Got the girl, and all that.” He suddenly looked sheepish.
“What about Eve? What happens to her?”
“Fact is, we need a bit of a chat with her.” He was avoiding my eyes. “Bert Wilson has a warrant.”
“Wilson! You can’t let that animal near her! Remember what he did to me!”
“I know, I know. But look, things have changed. He can’t throw his weight around now. I’ll see to that.”
I shook my head. “Can I see her before she goes?”
He shook his head. “She’s under guard. No one allowed. Look, it’s only for a couple of days while they find out what she knows about the Jerusalem attack.”
“A couple of days? Then what?”
“Then she’s out. We might want a chat with her. Make sure she doesn’t have any other ideas.”
“Ideas? About what, for Christ’s sake?”
“Look at it from our point of view. She came here as a German spy. All right, all right, she turned. But she went maverick. Killed a senior official in Berlin. She’s somehow linked to the bombing of the King David. We think she’s a threat, possibly a cell leader of a Jewish terrorist group. Wilson, for one, is wondering what she’ll do next.”
I sank back in my pillows and prayed they would never leave her alone with Wilson. Not even for two minutes, much less two days.
His Majesty’s Prison Holloway is a Victorian folly. Its crenulations and turrets would look more comfortable perched on a hilltop in Scotland, a staunch defence against the marauding English. Instead, Holloway Prison for Women dominates the quiet Parkhurst Road in north Camden. It has its own little walkway up to it and its great doors look as though they’ve been welded shut. Two policemen superfluously guard an impregnable fortress.
For late August the day was cold and windy, as though autumn was coming in early. I was told ten o’clock, and it was already quarter past. The two days had become four weeks. And instead of a friendly chat at the local nick in Charing Cross, they’d quickly moved Eve to the safety and security of Holloway. Cassells didn’t make it clear whose safety and security wer
e at risk; it felt like Eve’s.
I stood waiting with a taxi across the road. The coppers wouldn’t let me closer.
I tried to scratch the itch that gnawed away under the tight bandage on my left wrist. Suddenly the little door in the blank expanse eased open. A warder stepped out, looked around briefly and signalled. Eve emerged. She looked straight ahead. Her eyes flicked over me without recognition. She walked slowly down the path to the public pavement, looked left then right, and began to walk away. She was wearing different clothes from the Army duds borrowed in Berlin, and she carried a brown paper parcel.
I ran after her, signalling the cab to follow me. “Eve! Eve, wait!”
She kept walking. I knew she’d seen me, heard me. I got within reach and put my hand on her shoulder.
“Eve, it’s me. Please stop. I’ve got a cab.”
She stopped and turned to me. Her face was grey and wet. The flesh had fallen away and the big features stood more prominently. It was a truly stupid thought; she looked more Jewish.
“Go away, Danny. I don’t want any more. I just want to get away from here.”
“Be sensible. It’s miles to a bus. I have a cab.” On cue the taxi rolled up and sat next to us. She looked back down the long empty street, shivered and nodded.
I helped her in and we set off back to town.
“Where do you want to go?” I asked.
She dug into her coat pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “They said my flat’s gone. I guess my landlady didn’t want me back.”
“I guess so.”
“I have to stay here. Part of the bail conditions.” She handed me the paper.
“Cabbie? Can you take us to Battersea?” I gave him the address.
It was a long ride. We were in silence for most of it. She sat with her head against the window gazing out at nothing. I noticed her hands; they looked thinner and longer. We pulled up outside a Victorian mansion block opposite the park. I paid the driver, wincing as the meter reached ten bob. I gave him a tanner tip and got out beside Eve. She was standing in the street gazing up at the redbrick faзade.
“They said they’d left my stuff here. My clothes. Shoes. I have to report to the police station every day. It’s round the corner.”
“Who’s paying?”
“They are. For a month, they said. Till I can find somewhere.”
This was unwarranted charity. Not like the Yard to care what happened to former guests of His Majesty. Wilson had set this up. He hadn’t done with her yet. But why? “Come on. Let’s get you settled,” I said cheerily. “Let’s see if they left you a kettle.”
She looked like she was going to protest, but then she clamped her mouth shut and fished out two keys. One was for the big main door. We went in and stood for a moment in the gloom of the hall till our eyes recovered. Her flat was on the third floor. We took the lift and emerged in a corridor lit by the sunlight from big windows.
The flat was stale and dark. I found a switch. A light came on in a tiny toilet and sink on our left. I could see a chink of daylight ahead, and I strode across the sitting room and flung the curtains open.
“Room with a view! Look, you can see the park.”
She didn’t respond. She sat down on the couch, still in her outdoor coat, and closed her eyes.
“Sleepy?”
She shook her head. “Danny, it’s OK now. Thank you for all you’ve done. I just need some quiet.” She closed her eyes.
I felt my resolve slipping away. Stupid, stupid me. I thought I was over her.
Instead I’d been holding on to the tatters of a dream. That she’d come out of jail and we’d be able to pick up again. That with everything out in the open, we could at last be ourselves. But it seemed that her self wanted nothing to do with my self. I was a jilted teenager. And it stung.
“Sure, Eve. Just wanted to make sure you were all right. Check that Wilson had left you in one piece.”
She opened her eyes and stared at me. I shrugged.
“I’ll leave you to it. Call me when… Call me if you need anything. Otherwise…” I turned and made for the door.
“Danny? Wait. I’m sorry. I’m being a bitch. How’s your head?”
I rubbed the new marks on my brow. “Hasn’t spoiled my good looks.”
“The arm?”
I waved my bandaged wrist at her. “You wouldn’t have a knitting needle would you? I have a terrible itch.”
It got a faint smile from her. “I heard we were lucky.”
“And the flyboys weren’t. Shame it wasn’t the Redcaps. We could have made a run for it.”
We went quiet again. I was at a loss. “Right, I’m off,” I said.
“Do you want a cup of tea?” she asked.
We muddled about until we found the kitchen and the kettle. Someone had been thoughtful enough to provide a teapot, two cups, a strainer and a packet of tea.
There was even a bottle of fresh milk in the pantry. Jam and a loaf and some butter in a dish. We made tea, and strawberry jam sandwiches.
“Was it bad?” I asked.
She sipped at her second cup and took a pull on her cigarette. “Was it bad?” She let the silence gather. Her big eyes filled. She kept brushing them with her cuff until they were red and puffy. She wasn’t going to give in to tears.
“They put me in solitary. A little cell. Away from the others. Said it was for my own sake. They wouldn’t let me sleep. Called me names. Nazi shit. Jewish whore. Better if I’d died in Belsen.”
I reached out but she moved her arm. She kept going.
“I didn’t mind what they called me. But then he started on my people. He made up lies about Gideon, said he was a deserter. A murderer. A child molester. Gideon?
The man who won the Military Cross with the Jewish Brigade? He told me they knew what had happened to my parents. Knew where they were buried. Said he would tell me if I told them the truth.”
“Eve. Who’s he?” fearing the answer.
“Wilson. The one you said was at my flat. He hates you. He kept telling me you were scum.”
“From him that’s a compliment,” I hissed.
“He wouldn’t listen to the truth. My truth. Didn’t want to hear about the warnings. Didn’t want to listen when I said they had Arab spies in the British Mandatory Government. That they’d been the ones who’d deflected the warning. The ones who’d said it was a rumour.”
“Is that true? Arab spies in Palestine, working for us?” I could believe it. We Brits have always had a thing about the desert. Rudolf Valentino in white robes, making the girls swoon.
“We know who they are. We know them by their terrorist names. I can give you details. But not Wilson. He wouldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to.” She took some more tea. With her coat off I could see the bones of her shoulders. I wanted to hold her.
“What happened to MI5 and your pals there? The ones who ran, what was it, the Double Cross unit?”
“B1A? Yes. I asked for them. Asked for Tar himself. Tommy Argyll Robertson. The colonel in charge. They just laughed. Said I was making it up. They’d never heard of such an outfit.” She shrugged. “Washed their hands of me, I guess. A Nazi spy is one thing, but a Jewish agent…”
Her voice was quieter now. “I kept trying to get some sleep. And every time I dropped off, they woke me. He told them to wake me. That was bad. I begged them for sleep…” She broke off, searching for the words.
“And the woman. One of the warders…” She couldn’t get it out. “She kept doing a search. A body search.” Her eyes blazed. “The others held me. She made me stand naked. And she touched me. She put her fingers in me. She enjoyed it!”
Her chest was heaving. “And all the time… all the time… he was there. Behind the grill. Watching me. I can see his eyes…”
She gathered herself after a while and started again in a whisper. “I couldn’t take it, Danny. I couldn’t help it. They made me. I was out of my mind…”
I whispered, “What? What did t
hey make you do, Eve?”
“I told them I knew about the bomb. I told them about Menachem Begin. Told them he was the leader of Irgun. Told them he didn’t give a warning. I betrayed him.
How could I?” She broke apart again. I pulled her to me and held her for a long time till the sobs stopped. She pushed back and went to the bathroom and washed her face.
I was pacing the room when she got back. “We’re going to file a complaint, Eve.
They can’t do this to you. I won’t let him get away with it. That bastard!”
She took my hand. “But he can, Danny. You know he can. Who’d believe me?”
I calmed down. I decided to go. Take the pressure off. Let her sleep. The sun was dropping behind the trees.
“What will you do now?” I asked.
“See Jim. See if he’ll print the truth. See if I still have a job.”
“Then?”
She shook her head. “We’ll see.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Do you want me to come round? I mean…”
“Let’s leave it, Danny. For a bit. I’ll call you if I… You know.”
I left her, left the building and walked into the park. I sat on the wall watching the river, going over and over what she’d told me. Why had Wilson let her go? Why hadn’t he charged her? He could have pinned a murder on her. He could have charged her with accessory to commit terrorist acts. Had he got all he wanted? It wasn’t much of a confession. They probably already had Begin’s name against this action anyway. At least she was out. Why look a gift horse?
When the parkie ushered me out I went home. Then I went to the pub. Maybe the lads needed a beer. I did.
TWENTY FIVE
I didn’t expect to hear from her any time soon. Perhaps ever. So her voice on the end of my phone, two days later, was a shock, like a call from the spirit world.
“Danny, can you talk?”
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