She’s trying to learn more about me, thought Klaus. Fishing for information. That was yet more training rising to the surface, the vestige of a youth spent at the Reichsbehörde and a middle age spent at Arzamas-16. But the oldest Klaus, the one who’d come to Britain foolishly thinking it would make him a free man, found he didn’t care if Madeleine were fishing or not.
He thought back to what he saw in the park during his taxi ride through London. “Painting supplies,” he said over his shoulder. “I’d like painting supplies.”
“Are you a painter?”
“No.”
This time there definitely was a hint of amusement in her expression. He could tell she wanted him to elaborate, but the bell chimed just then, and so Madeleine went to answer the door. Klaus followed her a minute later, just in time for the argument.
Marsh and Pethick had arrived. To Roger and Anthony, Marsh said, “Having fun? Party’s over. Get back to work.”
Roger scowled. Pethick pulled out his billfold, removing a five-pound note to cut off Anthony before he could protest: “Take a breather, gents. We need a private few with the guests.”
The two minders tossed their cards on the table. Anthony collected his blazer from the floor, took the note from Pethick, and followed Roger through the garden door behind the house. The hinges needed oiling. Madeleine, Klaus noticed, had also made herself scarce.
Marsh took one of the vacated seats. Gretel pouted at him. “I was going to win that hand, Raybould.”
“Don’t call me that.” He tossed an envelope on the table, scattering the pile of chips she had amassed. Cards fluttered to the tangerine carpet. “What the hell is this?”
Klaus recognized Reinhardt’s handwriting. He suppressed the urge to step forward and see firsthand what Gretel’s instructions had wrought. But something in his bearing piqued Pethick’s curiosity. Pethick sidled up to the kitchen, where Klaus leaned against the doorjamb.
Gretel took the envelope. She studied the postmark for a long moment, as if committing it to memory. Which she was, Klaus knew. Committing it to the memory of a younger version of herself, the Gretel who had foreseen this moment.
What are you doing, sister? What will this new paradox achieve?
After studying the envelope, she tipped it over the table. A set of photographs spilled out, knocking more chips to the floor. Most were of a pair of men sitting on a park bench; Klaus recognized neither of them. One photo was of a newspaper. Gretel scrutinized this as closely as she had the postmark.
Marsh leaned forward. “Well?”
Gretel sifted through the remaining photos. Her gaze lingered over one of the clearer shots. “I haven’t seen William in ages,” she said.
“Who took these photos?”
Klaus felt Pethick watching him, sidewise. Honey trickled down his fingers, cool and sticky. He took a bite from his sandwich. The bread was stale. He chewed nonchalantly, thinking about anyone but Reinhardt.
“A friend,” said Gretel.
Marsh’s tone was calm. Measured. “Why so baroque, Gretel? Why not tell us about Will when you came in?”
“Without evidence? Would you have believed me?” Her playful demeanor vanished. She stared at Marsh, bottomless dark eyes boring straight into his. “The woman who killed your daughter?”
Six words that sucked all the air from the room. Pethick and Klaus both turned to watch Marsh. Their breath ought to have steamed in the sudden chill. The silence was so complete, so heavy, that Klaus couldn’t hear anything but his own chewing. He realized he wasn’t tensing up to grab Gretel, nor preparing to pull her out of harm’s way. This time, he was a spectator. Let Gretel fend for herself. She always did.
Marsh held her gaze through the length of several agonizingly long heartbeats. He didn’t blink. That impressed Klaus. He’d never known anybody who could stare her down. Not when the madness behind her eyes was so naked to the world.
And, yes, it was madness. Klaus knew that as well as anybody. But there was something else, too. Something previously hidden to him.
No, not hidden. Something he’d never dared to acknowledge before. Gretel had dropped her masks and her pretenses, and for the space of those few heartbeats, he saw his sister’s essence.
He saw her heart and soul, darker even than her eyes. He saw the truth of this woman for whom the world and its people were nothing more than tools toward an end. Remorseless, like a chess player sacrificing pieces according to her grand strategy: Rudolf. Heike. Doctor von Westarp. Marsh’s daughter. The REGP itself.
Klaus’s freedom. Twenty years of his life.
The way Gretel moved through the world … it wasn’t simple madness. Nor was she misguided, as he’d let himself believe.
Klaus started to laugh. He couldn’t help himself. He was the world’s greatest fool. After so many years spent struggling to justify Gretel’s actions, so much effort expended bending over backwards to give her the benefit of the doubt, the real explanation turned out to be absurdly simple.
Gretel was evil, and she was insane.
Reinhardt could have told him that.
Thinking of Reinhardt sent another wave of hysteria crashing over the feeble breakwaters of his self-control. But it wasn’t joyful laughter. It was the laughter of the utterly overwhelmed. The others stared at Klaus. He retreated to the kitchen, wiping tears from his eyes. He breathed deeply until the fit subsided. And then the deeper reality hit.
Klaus doubled over and emptied his stomach into the sink. It took three glasses of water to wash the worst of the taste from his mouth.
Pethick came in. “Are you ill?”
Klaus waved him off with one hand, gulping more water. He swished it around his mouth, then spit the remnants of his gorge into the sink. The cloying scent of honey threatened to evoke a second wave of nausea. Klaus screwed the lid back on the honey jar and tossed the entire thing into the rubbish bin. He walked around Pethick and returned to his spot in the kitchen entryway.
Marsh hadn’t moved a hairsbreadth. His body had become a tightly coiled spring, and it wound tighter and tighter with every word Gretel spoke. She broke off when Klaus returned.
“Brother?” she said. “What troubles you?” It was still there, that thing behind her eyes, that alien emotion, bare to the world. She directed it straight at him. And the look in her eyes …
Doctor von Westarp, the mad genius who had turned a handful of starving orphans into the pinnacle of German military might, had a way of looking at people. When the doctor directed that dispassionate gaze through his thick glasses, it felt like Klaus was looking up from a microscope slide. The doctor had seen everything around him with a clinical detachment. Not malevolent—it was emotionless—but cold and hyperanalytical. That simple look cowed his mightiest children, long after they had mastered the Götterelektron.
The look on Gretel’s face, there in the British safe house, made Klaus miss the doctor.
“Let us not worry about your brother.” Marsh snapped, “The photos. Who. Took. Them?”
“Reinhardt.” The name passed Klaus’s lips as a whisper, floated across the silent room like a feather, and landed on the table with a thud. Pethick stared at Klaus. Marsh draped an arm over the back of his chair. “What was that?”
Klaus coughed. He peeled his gaze away from Gretel. He said, “Reinhardt is your photographer.”
Pethick shrugged at Marsh. Marsh looked down, shaking his head slowly, like a man listening to a faint echo. “Reinhardt,” he repeated, as though it were vaguely familiar. He looked up, wide-eyed. “Reinhardt from the Reichsbehörde? He’s here?”
“Yes.”
Marsh stood. To Pethick he said, “Keep working on her.” He pointed at Gretel with a thumb over his shoulder. To Klaus he said, “Come with me. Let’s talk.”
17 May 1963
Knightsbridge, London, England
Gwendolyn took Will’s recuperation more seriously than he did. She forbade him from returning to work for several days. And when he r
efused to stay in bed any longer, she relented only insofar as to arrange him on the Victorian fainting couch in their parlor. She put a jade green porcelain tea service (complete with sliced lemon) within reach of his one free arm, alongside a stack of his beloved Dashiell Hammett novels.
Fixing Will was what she did. Letting Gwendolyn fix him was what he did. This was the center of their relationship, and had been since the beginning.
His fingertips tasted of lemon when he licked them to turn the pages. The collar of his dressing gown caressed his neck with silk; a cotton chenille blanket cushioned the sling and hugged his chest. He could almost forget the pain, so warm and drowsy was the parlor. It was so peaceful, so relaxing, he couldn’t quite bring himself to tell Gwendolyn about his arrangement with Cherkashin. Not yet. He’d lost the gift that might have softened the blow. And he was in no shape for something so fraught. He had to be alert. Delivered injudiciously, the confession might color their relationship.
Will told himself he wasn’t procrastinating while she pampered him. But he knew better.
Gwendolyn opened a window to admit a cooling draft. He dozed off halfway through The Thin Man.
The rap of the door knocker jostled him to wakefulness. The noise came from both sides of the door simultaneously, through the foyer and the open window. It gave Will a drowsy, inside-out feeling, as though he could perceive everything at once, like the Sphere in Flatland.
They had given their housekeeper the day off. He sat up, but Gwendolyn breezed past the parlor on her way to answer the door.
“William Beauclerk, I know you wouldn’t dare remove yourself from that spot.”
She’d been sculpting. A kerchief held her hair, and a smear of dun-colored clay colored the curve of her jaw under her left ear, where she tended to tug at her hair absently when deep in thought.
Will settled back on the divan. He listened to the door scrape open a moment later.
A long pause. Then Gwendolyn said, “May I help you?”
A man’s voice, heard again from both sides of the door, said, “I’m seeking Will Beauclerk.”
Gwendolyn, stiffly: “Lord William isn’t receiving visitors presently. Kindly call another time.” And the door creaked again, but stopped, as though somebody held it back.
“This will not wait,” said the visitor. “I’m a colleague of Will’s, from—”
“I know who you are,” said Gwendolyn. Crisp. Terse.
Who the devil is it? And what the devil is this about? Will tottered to his feet, still woozy from the nap. He tossed aside the blanket, found his slippers, then tied the sash of his dressing gown more tightly about his waist as he shuffled to the foyer. The stranger was hidden from view by Gwendolyn.
“You must be Gwendolyn,” he said. She crossed her arms. “Are you Will’s wife, his secretary, or his zookeeper?”
“I’ve told you,” she snapped. “He isn’t well.”
Will said, “Darling? Who is it?”
Gwendolyn spun around, looking alarmed. “William! You must stay off your feet. You know what the doctor told us.”
“Doctor?” said Will, confused.
She hustled toward him, keeping herself between Will and the stranger. “Let’s get you back into bed before you put yourself in an early grave.”
“Grave?”
She took him by the shoulders, ready to march him upstairs. But their visitor stepped into the vacated entryway before she could spin Will around.
The shock of recognition hit him like a brickbat, launched a frisson of panic bounding through his body. The newcomer was a demon from a distant and unlamented past. A harbinger of sorrow. Or was he an opium nightmare, a mirage forged from the heat of Will’s fevered imagination?
What if Gwendolyn was nothing but a fantasy, while the real Will Beauclerk still lay sprawled on the floor of a Limehouse tenement with a needle in his arm?
Yet this demon was subject to the passage of time. It had aged just as a real person would have. Even at their most vivid, Will’s drug hallucinations had never been meticulous.
Will swallowed. “Pip?”
Marsh said, “Will.”
And Gwendolyn sighed. “Damn.”
* * *
Gwendolyn didn’t offer Marsh anything to eat or drink. Or even a place to sit. But he looked as though he wouldn’t have accepted either of the former, and he certainly didn’t wait for an invitation before taking a seat in the parlor. He perched on the edge of a green baize chair, his fedora balanced on the armrest.
Age hadn’t dampened Marsh’s intensity. His body looked softer in places; his belly a smidge wider; his hair thinner; his face craggier than it had been when they last saw each other. But those caramel-colored eyes still scanned every room like it was a riddle to be solved. He still carried that air of a man who couldn’t stand an unsolved problem. But what unsolved problem did William Beauclerk represent? What crisis precipitated this end to decades of estrangement? Marsh vibrated like an overstretched piano wire.
All Marsh ever did was destroy things. His sudden reappearance, now of all times, filled Will with a nauseating dread. He tried to cover with banter, hoping beyond all reason Marsh wasn’t there to talk about Cherkashin. Gwendolyn could see his agitation, but naturally she would have been looking for it. She knew all about the past Marsh and Will shared. Every awful thing they’d done for King and Country.
Every train he had derailed. Every barge he’d sunk. Every pub he’d bombed.
For his part, Marsh seemed to regard Gwendolyn as though she were just another piece of the problem at hand. And he deflected every attempt at small talk with curt answers to Will’s questions:
“I see you’ve met my darling wife.”
“Yes.”
“And how is Olivia?”
“Older.”
The grandmother clock on the mantel tick-tocked loudly in the awkward silence. To his wife, standing beside his chair, Will said, “You would like Olivia. I think you two would get on famously. Quite sharp, that one.”
Gwendolyn responded with a noncommittal, “Hmm.” Marsh was the focus of her attention, as Will was the focus of his.
Marsh’s deflections were insulting; his aggressive demeanor the basest sort of rudeness. Maddening. Here Will was the gentleman, making an overture of friendship to the man who had stood aside and watched while Will destroyed himself. Marsh hadn’t lifted a single finger to help when Will needed it. He’d talked Will into diving headlong into the meat grinder they called Milkweed, and then turned his back when Will came out the other side an unrecognizable mess. Somehow, through undeserved good fortune and the intervention of an angel named Gwendolyn, Will had overcome those dark days. But now Marsh had returned to ruin him all over again. And he clearly wasn’t leaving until he’d had his say. Damn the man.
“Look,” said Will, running a thumb across his moist forehead. “Just what is this about, Pip? This clearly isn’t a social call. Not after all these years. I do recall you’re able to fake social niceties when you must. But you can’t be bothered to do so today.”
“He’s come to take you back,” said Gwendolyn. “They need you for something.”
Marsh shot her a hard look. Will knew she was right; he saw the gears turning as Marsh reassessed her.
“I will never, never go back to that life, Pip.” Will tried and failed to keep the tremor from his voice. Gwendolyn put a hand on his shoulder. “I would rather die.”
“Just who do you think you are?” Gwendolyn demanded. “Swanning into William’s life after all this time. Did you expect to take him by the wrist and drag him back into the shadows? Never once have you checked on him since you tossed him aside.” She emphasized her words with an unladylike finger. “Never once. Not even for the sake of basic human decency.”
Marsh ignored her. He turned to Will. “We need to speak privately.”
Will considered this. Maybe he’s not here about Cherkashin. Perhaps it’s something else.
“Gwendolyn knows everyth
ing about the old days. There are no secrets between us.” Except one …
Marsh studied them both. “Is that so?”
“I know about Milkweed, Mr. Marsh.” So icy was Gwendolyn’s tone that Will half expected to see hoarfrost creeping across Marsh’s body.
Marsh had worked Will into a corner, double damn him. There was nothing to do now but bull forward. If Marsh hadn’t come to discuss Cherkashin, this encounter could only strengthen Will’s connection with his wife. And if Marsh was here because of Will’s recent interactions with the Soviets, then he was already doomed.
“Whatever it is you’ve come to say, say it to us both.”
“If you insist,” said Marsh. One hand tugged at something in his breast pocket. “But remember I offered you the courtesy of privacy, as a nod to our previous friendship.” His voice dripped with venom. “And you refused it. A stupid bloody fool to the last.”
He tossed an envelope at Will’s feet. A handful of photographs spilled out, their glossy colors dull against the deep crimson and turquoise of the Turkish rug. Will gathered them.
Your countrymen would never hang the brother of a duke, he saw Cherkashin saying.
Panic clutched Will’s heart with red-hot talons. He thought he might hyperventilate. He didn’t want to breathe, didn’t want to exhale forever the last wisps of his contented and perfect life.
Oh, God, what have I lost? I ought to have known. The man destroys everything.
Somewhere nearby, the clamor of church bells announced a wedding, or a funeral, or the end of a war.
“William? You’ve gone pale as snow.” Gwendolyn crouched beside his chair, hand on his wrist, eyes on his face. “What is it?”
“Your husband,” said Marsh, “is struggling to explain why he committed high treason.”
“What do you mean?” She faltered. “William, what is he talking about?” She leaned over Will, glancing at the photographs that tumbled through his fingers.
A long, painful moment stretched between the three of them. When Gwendolyn found her voice again, it was high and reedy, the faintest thread of its usual self. “William. Why were you visiting with that dreadful Cherkashin?”
The Coldest War Page 14