‘No. Were you expecting someone?’
‘Raymond Steiner. I was trying to break his neck when the bomb fell.’ He slumped against his pillows, tired out.
‘You need to rest. I’ll come tomorrow and we can chat.’
‘There’s so much to tell. About Dinah. She’s here, waiting to talk to you.’
‘All that tomorrow, old chap. Can I have one of your waffles?’
‘Please. Before you go, how did you find me?’
‘No one could locate you. Had a brainwave and rang that art dealer friend of yours. She said, “Try the Canadian hospital …”.’
****
He knew he should telephone Dinah but kept slipping in and out of sleep. It was odd he had trouble recalling her face; only seeing her dark hair as she passed through the door marked “Private – No Entry”. He’d had such a strange dream, being on the Pornic headland with her and Elisabeth. He could still hear the roar of the sea.
The doctor came in to carry out tests, but seeing him half-asleep said they would keep until next day, when ‘we must start to get you up and on your feet’, and gave him a sedative.
****
He awoke refreshed, but when the nurse came in to wash him he saw he was covered in a web of bruising. With her help, he just managed to shuffle painfully to the mirror over the basin. A hollow, dark-bearded, grey visage looked back at him. The eyes, more blue than green, deep-set in yellow circles, seemed dead. The nurse said a visit from the barber would make him feel better.
Later, the doctor’s tests were ‘fine’. Hearing, vision, reflexes, mental agility and memory. ‘All in pretty good order. Memory sometimes suffers for a bit in these circumstances, but yours is according to Hoyle.’ He’d been fortunate to have escaped any fractures but he had been badly dehydrated. He should expect the bruising to come to life; he could have some discomfort, but nothing serious, though one or two of the bigger haematoma needed watching. Four or five days’ bed-rest, positive diet and an exercise regime: he should be fit enough to leave. A fortnight’s recuperation, fresh air and exercise, and he could probably resume his duties.
Four or five days more. He must get to a phone, ring Podger. Poor Dinah. She must be out of her mind with worry. Strange he still couldn’t picture her face. Perhaps that was the bomb.
‘By the way, it’s just when you think you’ve put it all behind you, you might have some recurring memories, nightmares, anxieties. A feeling of weakness. Perfectly normal. They’ll pass. Now, a visitor’s been waiting.’
Hendersley’s face was studiously encouraging. ‘How very good to see you, Peter, and looking not bad considering the circumstances. We were beginning to think we must have lost a valued colleague in these dreadful raids.’
Something was troubling Peter, on the edge of his mind. Was it to do with the dream? He half-sat, half-lay as he half-listened to Hendersley’s apologies for not having been in town to meet him. Get together in, say, 14 days – gathered he should be on his feet by then – and go over his mission? Any points he couldn’t pass on in writing. The Canadians were alongside, wished him well, very happy with how it had all gone. He knew Peter had already talked to Reichenau. Missions a success on all counts. Foreign Secretary very pleased. There were ideas for further work, hoped he’d be interested.
A nurse tapped on the door and brought in coffee.
Hendersley balanced his spoon across his cup and spoke quietly. If Peter were prepared to abide in his Canadian identity for a while longer, that would be very helpful. Also important for Canada’s credibility that he should be visible, carefully visible. ‘Are those waffles?’
‘Waffles? Yes, the real thing. Try one. It’s a very good hospital. The staff are very kind.’
Hendersley took a waffle and nibbled at it, then nodded and went on with his agenda. The Canadian identity might have a future in ways they could talk over. Ideas had been proposed. He hoped Peter might find them interesting. Naturally, exercising care, he could be himself for family and friends. He tried another tentative nibble, then took a small bite. Just immediate family for the moment, perhaps. And close friends. But not to weary him: enough said until he was on his feet. A confident bite into the waffle. The hotel was still holding his luggage and would find him a room for as long as he needed it – with a smile, on the same terms and conditions. He’d want to get his own kit back from store – they would arrange all that when he reported – and a place of his own, somewhere sufficiently quiet. They could help him with that too, at least on a temporary basis.
‘I’d assumed I’d be able to go back to the flat.’
‘But your flat’s gone.’
‘Gone?’
Hendersley looked horrified. ‘I’m so sorry. I’d assumed you knew.’
‘Knew?’
‘I do so apologise for blurting it out when you’re not yourself. I’m sorry to say the block was bombed out in that first raid.’
Peter took a moment to grasp the news. ‘Ella – my sister – was living there. And the housekeeper and a refugee.’
‘Your sister was out in the thick of the raid, driving an ambulance. The housekeeper was in the shelter. I don’t know about anyone else.’ In Peter’s dismayed silence, Hendersley felt some explanation was needed. ‘I checked in case you’d decided to stay there after all.’
‘I wouldn’t have done that. Is the place quite gone?’
‘Your side of the block sliced open, I’m afraid. A parachute mine lodged on the first floor and finished it off. The whole area took a hit. Not as bad as docklands, of course.’
He’d held back his good news till last. ‘Your mother.’ He beamed—a novel sight. Even now his mother should be on a steamer crossing from Odessa to Istanbul. ‘According to the consul, the Russians simply decided, from one moment to the other, to let her go. Put her on a train to Odessa with an NKVD escort.’ The plan was that she would rest in Istanbul, then make her way to Jerusalem where she would be reunited with Peter’s father. He was very happy for Peter and his family that his mother’s ordeal was over.
So, getting up to go, with another apology for springing the news of the flat on him, if Peter could be in touch as soon as he was out and about? In his Canadian identity. He was really looking forward to getting those personal impressions of Vichy and Berne. And of the legation. ‘The whole experience seems to have fitted you well. We’ve something more in mind we think will fit you just as well.’
****
His mother free. So while Steiner had been stalking him, Burenko was living up to his word. As he was trying to make sense of it, Nick came in. He’d brought a bag of books. Before he could hand them over, Peter said, ‘Nick, the Russians have let my mother go. Hendersley’s just told me. They simply sent her to Odessa with an NKVD escort. According to the consul, she’s on her way to Istanbul. Burenko’s lived up to his word.’
‘Peter, what wonderful news. You must be so relieved. You think it’s really Burenko’s doing?’
‘I think it must be. I’d told him Dinah was dead – had been shot before my eyes in Neuchâtel – and obviously he believed me. He said he would have my mother freed at once. And she is free and she’ll meet my father in Jerusalem. The only odd thing is Steiner’s trying to kill me. Perhaps it was just personal.’ Steiner had a long memory, Filon had said.
Nick put the books on the bed, then took his tobacco pouch and began to fill his pipe.
‘I don’t know how it’s worked, Nick. I want to go over everything in detail. But it has. They’ve let my mother go and we have Dinah. Dinah here. Willing to talk to you. I must ring her.’
But Nick wasn’t responding. He was putting the stubby pipe, unlit, in the ashtray and looking away, out of the window. Eventually, he spoke, slowly and quietly. ‘When I first went to sea in the training ship, an old three-master, a real pig, we’d be sent on deck in gale-force winds to square things away, big seas coming right at you. We’d have to cling on like mad, but the sea was coming at us from one direction, so we knew to
brace ourselves that way.’ He turned to face Peter. ‘But once in a while, old chap, a rogue wave would come across the deck from the other side, completely unexpected, and knock you off your feet. You just had to hang on for dear life. You never saw it coming. You couldn’t. You just had to hang on.’ He fell silent.
Peter looked at the shadows of leaves patterned on the ceiling. Outside the room, nurses were bustling past, chattering as they wheeled a bed down the corridor. He tried to see Dinah’s face, but couldn’t.
Nick was saying, ‘Bear with me while I organise some tea.’ He was away a little while.
When he returned, Peter said, ‘I hid her at the Finsbury Crown. Podger Potts’s HQ. He put her up for me in his mother’s house next door. I thought she’d be safe in their shelter. I suppose nothing is safe against a direct hit.’
Nick pulled up his chair close to Peter. ‘I’m very sorry to tell you this. She’s gone, but it wasn’t a bomb. According to local police, she died from a single shot to the head some time during the raid on that Saturday night. The man who killed her then turned the gun on himself. They were found the following morning in a park up by Stoke Newington. A police officer identified them. It seems he recognised them from his time in the Farringdon division, covered where they lived.’
‘Them? Recognised them?’
‘According to the police, it appeared that her grandfather shot her and then himself. A revolver was found near his body. It had been fired twice. Apparently the officer immediately recognised the old man’s velvet smoking jacket.’
‘Her grandfather?’ Dinah dead. Shot. ‘We were home and dry, Nick.’ He still could not see her face, but he could hear her. “Have you been waiting long, Mr Peter?” If only he had gone to look after her rather than hunting down Steiner. ‘Dinah shot dead.’ The irony was sour in his mouth. Vengeance for Elisabeth before safety for Dinah. Bitterly he reflected that Elisabeth would have scorned vengeance, just as she scorned violence. “To use violence is really a sign of failure.”
A nurse brought in the tea. She started to say something, then stopped herself and went out quickly.
‘I’m so sorry to be the bearer of such rotten news.’
‘If I have to hear it, I’d rather it came from you, Nick. You’re the only one who knows all about us.’ He fought to control his voice. ‘Are the police certain that’s what happened?’
‘The inquest’s been held. They’ve closed the case. With these raids every night, they’re not likely to spend much time on something that seems so open-and-shut. There were some odd things. They couldn’t find her papers or where she’d been living. No one locally knew her, apparently. But the officer’s identification was good. Your housekeeper told them that between the two raids the professor had a phone call and appeared very agitated, and later went out.’
‘She was anxious to talk to her grandfather. I said not to contact anyone. Anyone.’
‘You think she rang him.’
‘She knew he was in the flat. She wanted to see him before she spoke to you, Nick. I’d asked her not to.’
‘Why on earth would he kill her? His own granddaughter.’
Why on earth? ‘Could you pour me another cup?’ As he sipped, he went back to dinner in their house, the night he had seen Davidson. Dinah telling her grandfather how they would marry when the way ahead was clear. The professor’s bird-like features over his glass. “My granddaughter is everything to me, her safety and her happiness. There is nothing I will not do in my power to make that certain. Nothing.” And later, before he went to Berne, the professor’s declaration that there was nothing he would not do for her. ‘He once said to me there was nothing he would not do for her.’
Nick looked out of the window at the bright day. ‘You mean?’
‘His communist convictions were his bedrock. He’d made her a communist. She’d followed him devotedly, working for the cause. How proud he must have been of her. He went to the camp for her, abandoned Novalis. And then … then she tells him she’s turning their whole world upside down.’
‘It’s damned hard to think of his being willing to go that far to stop her.’
‘No. He probably believed he had to save her.’
‘Save her?’ Nick stood, looked out of the window again and sat down. ‘Still damned hard. Easier to understand, perhaps.’
‘Where did the old man get the gun?’ He knew the answer. Hadn’t Ella seen it in the safe?
‘Oh yes. The gun was German—a Mauser. Yours, I suppose.’
****
‘I must make tracks.’ Nick gestured with the unlit pipe at the bag on the bed. ‘I hope you like the books. If not, give them to the library here. I’ll pop down again before they discharge you. If there’s anything … just give me a call.’
‘Thank you for bringing me books yet again. I hope it won’t become a habit.’
‘Let’s try to make sure it doesn’t.’
There was something he needed to say before Nick went. ‘Nick, I’m very sorry it’s ended badly. Bringing Dinah over, I really thought we’d done it, that Davidson and the other traitors in the FO were finished. I was sure she’d be safe with Podger. I didn’t stay by her or go back. I feel I’ve let you down ’
Nick waved the pipe. ‘What nonsense. Don’t even dream of feeling bad. She was safe. You had other things that needed doing. I really thought you’d pulled off the impossible.’ He stood. ‘One of the few benefits from my seafaring days was learning to accept there’ll be rogue waves. Don’t think this is played out yet, Peter. Not as far as I’m concerned, and you’re still in the game. We’ll be keeping in touch over it.’
‘Thank you for all your support and advice. Please thank Tim for his sterling work. We couldn’t have got within sight of the finishing post without him.’
‘He thought you were a very sharp operator, wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of you.’ He patted Peter’s shoulder. ‘I’m really very sorry, my dear chap.’
****
Alone, he felt the touch of her hand on his arm. “Would you give me your protection? This violence frightens me.” The voice was low and accented. He had tried to protect her, God knew. Dark eyes had engaged his. But now he couldn’t see them.
His bruises came to life. Every part of his body ached.
Chapter Fifteen
As soon as he could drag himself to phone, he rang Podger at the Crown.
A little wary at first, Podger was very solicitous. What a tragedy. His mother sent her deepest condolences, in which he joined. The afternoon raid he’d been out on business or back in the pub with his boys—they could always nip down to the cellar. As far as he knew, the young lady’d been sitting in the garden reading his mother’s Dickens and then had watched the bombing with his mother from the attic with a cup of tea. When the bombing started again, once you could see it wasn’t just the docks, they’d called her, shut the pub, and all gone down the shelter. It was his mother who noticed all of a sudden that she wasn’t there. He’d stuck his head out, but she was nowhere to be seen. He thought perhaps she’d gone back to the house for something important. Then the bombing was such, to be honest, no one wanted to go out. Naturally, they’d kept quiet to the police. What a tragedy. His mother and him had really liked her. Wonderful spirit. Her granddad must have been absolutely cuckoo. Perhaps the bombing had driven him out of his wits. Yes, she might have used the phone in the bar. No means of knowing. There was a jar of small change. The barman dealt with cellarage and some other matters and he himself went out on business. The young lady’s things had been collected up and ready for him to take when he could get about. ‘We’ll ‘ave a drink to her memory, Mr ’ill.’ He would find out where she was buried, ‘poor lass’.
****
The hospital turned out in force to bid farewell to “the dog man”. The assisant-commandant produced a cutting from the Daily Express: “French Dog Saves Canada Diplomat”. The black and white rescue collie Totosh belonged to Parisian cabaret singer, Lucienne Bloch, 23.
The singer had been on her way to entertain French forces in London. She never left her beloved dog alone at home in case of bombs.
Peter promised to get in touch with her. Apparently he had been near death in his cellar tomb when Totosh scented him. He noted that the diplomat was unnamed.
The hotel found him a room and brought his things up from the luggage hold where they’d been moved when he failed to return after three nights. His pocketbook, identity papers and wallet had survived; so had the copy of Jacques, though a shrapnel splinter had driven into it. ‘Saved you from a nasty wound,’ matron had said. The manager congratulated him on his escape and apologised for the small size of his present accommodation. Rooms were in such demand at the moment. He hoped madam was well and away from the bombing.
Among the suitcases was one of hers. In it she had laid her wedding suit. “Even a modest young woman will not marry in her everyday dress. The most important day of a woman’s life needs something special.”
At last he could see her features, but they were indistinct, like an out-of-focus black and white snap. He lay on the bed and dug his nails into his palms. Then he pulled a pillow over his angry, tear-streaked face. His anger at her phoning her grandfather was so intense he had to clench his teeth to stop himself screaming.
****
Ruin was everywhere. It spread like plague. Broken glass underfoot, shattered brickwork and splintered timbers blocking pavements, frontages without buildings and buildings without frontages, roads breached, the acrid smell of burning. After each interminable night under bombardment, exhausted families crept with their suitcases out of reeking shelters into a world without power or water, to more streets pulverised, to swamped rest centres and desperate officials, to familiar neighbourhoods stripped of familiar landmarks.
Officially, it was business as usual, and that, Peter thought, was pretty near the truth, as businesses, workers, housewives struggled to keep themselves going. “Business as usual” was certainly true if you could afford the big hotels, clubs and restaurants. High life as usual in the cocktail bars, dining rooms and ballrooms. Why didn’t the stricken people leave their hellish shelters and rest centres and march on the Dorchester and the Ritz?
Innocence To Die For Page 49