Orders from Berlin

by Unknown

  ‘Downing Street,’ he shouted. ‘But I don’t think we’re going to make it in time.’ Or if they were going to make it at all, he might have added. Trave could feel the Austin’s engine spluttering as if it were on its last legs. It wasn’t made for the kind of treatment he’d been subjecting it to since they left Battersea.

  The clutch had gone – Trave realized the problem as they turned into Whitehall. There was no power in the car; it was going forward on its own momentum. Once he’d stopped there would be no starting again, and he needed to turn left into Downing Street across a steady stream of oncoming traffic.

  ‘Hold on!’ he yelled, and turned the wheel violently, rushing between the front of one car and the back of another. Ava closed her eyes and held her breath. She was gripping Trave’s thigh with one hand while she pushed against the dashboard with the other, thrusting herself back into her seat as she braced for the inevitable smash, the awful impact of metal on flesh. But nothing happened. Just the sound of screeching brakes and horns and shouts, and the car engine thumping violently once, twice, before it finally gave up the ghost.

  She blinked when she opened her eyes because she was looking at a sight she’d seen before in newspapers and magazines but never in the flesh: a hanging glass lamp, a white-painted Georgian fanlight, a shiny black door with a lion knocker in the centre, and up above, the bright brass numeral 10. But there wasn’t a solitary policeman with folded arms standing outside. Instead, armed policemen were converging on their car from all sides. They were taking hold of her; they were taking hold of Trave – and he was shouting up at the empty windows: ‘Thorn, can you hear me? Seaforth’s got a gun – he’s going to kill Churchill! You have to stop him!’ Shouting as if his lungs would burst, shouting over and over again until he was finally overpowered and forced to lie face down on the ground with his hands cuffed behind his back. And it was then they heard the crack of pistol shots coming from the windows above. One and two and then after a pause two more. And then silence.

  Seaforth and Thorn got out in front of 10 Downing Street and showed the armed policeman on duty the day passes that their driver had given them. He knocked on the door and they were let inside. Thorn had been to Number 10 before, but it was Seaforth’s first time and he let out a gasp of surprise. The famous but modest outside entrance had not prepared him for the grandeur of the entrance hall, with its ornate fireplace and black-and-white marble floor laid out like a draughtboard. A young man in a grey suit came forward with a knowing smile, and Seaforth sensed that he had seen the look of surprise on visitors’ faces a thousand times before. He checked their passes, shook their hands, and asked them to follow him up a wide staircase lined with engravings and photographs of former prime ministers. Seaforth, an amateur student of history, recognized most of the faces and one in particular. At a turn in the staircase he hesitated for a moment in front of the picture of Spencer Perceval, who had been murdered with a pistol bullet in the House of Commons in 1812 – the only prime minister to date to have fallen victim to an assassination. But soon there will be another, thought Seaforth with grim determination as he resumed his ascent, followed by Thorn, who gripped the mahogany handrail tightly, fighting a resumption of the nausea he had felt in the car.

  At the top of the stairs, the young man ushered them into a small, elegantly furnished ante-room and asked them to wait. They sat side by side on hard-backed chairs under a large nineteenth-century oil painting of a fat man in an enormous wig. And opposite them, a man in a suit and tie was sitting ramrod straight on a similar chair. Seaforth recognized his ascetic, humourless face from his last visit to the Prime Minister. It was Churchill’s bodyguard, Walter Thompson. Seaforth nodded at Thompson, who inclined his head briefly in response and then continued to stare straight ahead. There was something unyielding about Thompson that unnerved Seaforth, and he hoped that the bodyguard wouldn’t ask to see his briefcase before he went in. So far, just as on their last visit, there had been no search, but Seaforth was taking no chances, which was why he had concealed the pistol in the secret compartment of the briefcase rather than on his person. But he felt instinctively that Thompson would find the hiding place if he was given the chance.

  Seaforth could see from where he was sitting that the building opened up in all directions, and there were people coming and going on all sides. Some of them were carrying packing cases and there was a general atmosphere of upheaval. But there was little talking going on; the loudest example of that was coming from behind a closed door at the end of the ante-room in which they were sitting. There were two voices, one muffled and the other, unmistakably Churchill’s, growing steadily in volume, so that Seaforth was soon able to make out most of what he was saying.

  ‘Totally unacceptable … no excuse for this kind of inertia,’ and then even more loudly: ‘I’ll tell you what you sound like – like the secretary of some damned Surrey golf club. This isn’t golf we’re playing, General. It’s war. Do you hear me – war!’ Churchill practically roared the last word, and then, after a few less audible exchanges, the door opened suddenly and a purple-faced man in a medal-encrusted military uniform emerged, straightened his jacket as if making an effort to regain his dignity, then marched across the ante-room to the staircase and disappeared from view.

  Opposite Seaforth, Thompson showed no reaction. He didn’t even move a muscle. The bodyguard’s intense static concentration worried Seaforth, and with every minute that passed he became more irrationally convinced that Thompson suspected him. He’d even have welcomed a renewal of Thorn’s questions to defuse the tension, but Thorn was silent, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, apparently lost in contemplation of the carpet but in fact trying desperately to fight the sickness that was threatening to overwhelm him.

  Several minutes passed and the secretary who’d received them in the entrance hallway below reappeared as if from nowhere. He knocked on Churchill’s door, opened it, and indicated to Seaforth and Thorn to go in. Thompson got up too, and Seaforth inwardly despaired. His chances of success were zero with Thompson watching his back.

  Seaforth took in the room in a moment. As he’d expected, it was full of smoke – from cigars and from a fire that was smouldering in a grate on the far wall. But the smoke was less oppressive than it had been in the bunker because of a slight breeze blowing in through a sash window. On closer inspection, Seaforth saw to his surprise that there was no glass in the frame, just a net curtain hanging over it, through which Seaforth could see the outline of the stone buildings on the other side of Downing Street. Below the window was a recessed seat on which a well-groomed, well-fed black cat was curled up on a fitted cushion, dozing with its yellow eyes half-open.

  A large kneehole desk took up most of the space in the centre of the room, covered with papers and files and pens and a telephone, and a bottle of Pol Roger champagne with a half-empty glass beside it. And behind the desk was the familiar figure of Churchill, wearing a black silk dressing gown decorated with rampant red Chinese dragons.

  He looked up as they came in and waved them to two chairs opposite him in front of the desk, then spoke over their shoulders to Thompson and the secretary, who were standing in the doorway behind where they were now sitting.

  ‘I shan’t be needing you for at least another hour, Thompson,’ he said. ‘See if they can rustle you up something downstairs. And no calls, John,’ he added, addressing the secretary. ‘I’m going to have to put my thinking cap on with Alec and Mr Seaforth here.’ Churchill smiled; his earlier ill humour seemed to have disappeared entirely.

  The door closed, leaving Churchill alone with his two visitors. It was the perfect opportunity, thought Seaforth, who had decided in advance that he would need both Thorn and Churchill to be sitting down when he began shooting so they wouldn’t be moving targets. Now he could strike straight away without having to wait – Churchill first because he might be armed and then Thorn, who definitely wasn’t.

  Seaforth picked up his briefcase, placed it
on his knees, and opened the lid. But then, just as he was about to get out the briefing document and release the catch on the secret compartment, Churchill got up from his chair and went over to the fire. He placed a log carefully on top and poked the smoky coal repeatedly until it produced some reluctant flames.

  ‘I used to be good at fires. Learnt the art when I was a young man out in South Africa. But now I rely on other people and you can see what happens,’ he said, renewing his efforts with the poker. ‘It’s chaos here today. A bomb blew out the glass in most of the windows yesterday. It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last, but Clemmie decided that she’d had enough, so we’re moving to a flat round the corner just above that damned bunker, and I have to sit in here while everything gets tossed about. I don’t like it and Nelson doesn’t like it either …’

  ‘Nelson?’ repeated Thorn, who had been trying to stay afloat by carefully following Churchill’s every word and was now nonplussed by his reference to a dead admiral.

  ‘The cat – my cat,’ said Churchill, pointing over at the sleek black animal watching them from the window seat. ‘Brought him here when I took over as PM, and he chased Munich Mouser, Chamberlain’s feline, out within a week, and we haven’t seen hide or hair of him since.’ Churchill’s pride in his pet was obvious. He went over and stroked Nelson for a moment before returning to his seat.

  Seaforth had had enough. He’d come here to assassinate Churchill, not listen to him talk about cats. And his heart was racing – he knew he couldn’t cope with any further delay. He put his hand back in the briefcase and released the catch, then reached inside the compartment—

  And outside the window pandemonium broke out – the screeching of a car’s brakes, people running, and a man shouting: ‘Thorn, can you hear me? Seaforth’s got a gun – he’s going to kill Churchill! You have to stop him!’

  And Seaforth did have a gun. He had it in his hand now. He lifted it out of the briefcase and pointed it at Churchill, and then, just as he was about to pull the trigger, he felt a great weight land on him from the side and he was falling to the floor. The gun went off in his hand once and then twice, and now the weight was heavier. It was dead weight. Thorn was dead. He was sure of it. And there was still time. He hadn’t lost hold of the gun. He pushed hard against Thorn’s body, rolling away towards the fire, and levered himself into a sitting position. He raised the gun and looked up at his enemy, the man he hated, the man who’d murdered his brother in cold blood. Looked up to watch him die but instead found himself staring into the muzzle of another automatic pistol, one he’d never seen before. And then the world exploded and he was gone.

  CHAPTER 13

  Trave handed over his gun and the documents that he’d taken from Seaforth’s flat and was driven in an unmarked police car to an anonymous grey stone building in Whitehall by two plain-clothes policemen who refused to answer any of his questions about what had happened inside Number 10. They led him to a windowless, ground-floor room containing nothing except a table and two hard-backed chairs and a rather bad picture of the Tower of London, then locked him in.

  Trave sat in one of the chairs and paced the room and then sat in the other one, drumming his fingers on the table. An hour passed and then another, and finally the door opened and a small bald man with thick glasses came in, bringing sandwiches, a flask of coffee, and some pieces of white paper and a pen.

  ‘You’re to write down everything that’s happened,’ said the man. ‘Leave nothing out. And then ring when you’re done,’ he instructed, pointing to a bell by the door.

  ‘What happened—’, Trave began, but the man held up his hand.

  ‘All in good time,’ he said. Then, appearing to take pity on Trave’s obvious desperation, he added: ‘Mr Seaforth is dead, and so is Mr Thorn. The Prime Minister survived the attack.’

  ‘Thank God,’ said Trave.

  ‘Indeed,’ said the man, inclining his head.

  ‘Who are you?’ Trave asked.

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said the man, and went out, locking the door behind him.

  Trave wrote. Sheet after sheet, not leaving anything out, from the night of Albert Morrison’s murder to the final death-defying drive to Downing Street. And when he was finished, he rang the bell.

  And later, much later, the man in the glasses returned and talked to him for what seemed like hours, pressing him on this point and questioning him on that until Trave’s head ached and he couldn’t be sure any more about what was true and what was not. On and on, until abruptly, without any warning, the man got up, gathered all the papers off the table, and opened the door.

  ‘You’re free to go,’ he said.

  ‘Go?’ repeated Trave, temporarily bowled over by the unexpected turn of events.

  ‘Yes, and free to report for work in the morning, which is not something you’ve been used to doing recently, I think,’ the man observed with a faint smile.

  Next morning, on the stroke of nine o’clock, Trave arrived in his office at Scotland Yard. Quaid was waiting for him, looking apoplectic. ‘How dare you!’ he shouted before Trave had had a chance to sit down. ‘Going against everything I tell you to do – making a fool of me, creating a national security incident outside 10 Downing Street. The north of Scotland’s too good for you. You’ll wish you’d never been born by the time I’m finished with you …’

  Quaid paused for breath, but a knock on the door stopped him from finishing his tirade.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt, sir,’ said Twining, ‘but the commissioner wants to see you.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yes. And Detective Trave too.’

  ‘Looks like you’re in even bigger trouble than I thought,’ said Quaid with a mean smile.

  Trave had never met the commissioner, a retired air vice marshal with a reputation for hard work and discipline, and certainly feared the worst as he and Quaid waited to be called in. The brittle confidence he’d gained from being given his freedom by the anonymous government official the previous evening had evaporated under Quaid’s broadside.

  The commissioner, a tall, straight-backed man with a thin, ascetic face and a beaklike nose, didn’t look up when they came in but instead instructed them with a wave of his hand to sit while he finished reading a densely written document that Trave recognized as his own handiwork of the night before.

  Quaid stirred impatiently in his seat. ‘This is a bad business, Commissioner,’ he said.

  ‘Is it?’ said the commissioner, looking up and fixing his sharp eyes on Quaid.

  ‘Yes,’ said Quaid. ‘Detective Trave here has disobeyed my direct orders not once but repeatedly. He’s undermined a murder investigation—’

  ‘And most likely saved an innocent man from the gallows,’ interrupted the commissioner fiercely. ‘I know what Detective Trave has done. It’s what you’ve done that I’m concerned with here.’

  ‘Me?’ said Quaid, not understanding.

  ‘Yes, you. As I understand it, you’ve obtained a confession from a murder suspect by withholding critical information from him in interview and, even worse, refused to investigate a man who should have been a focus of the investigation. Have you anything to say about that?’

  Quaid opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. His face was flushed and he appeared to be having difficulty breathing. He was clearly overwhelmed by the sudden unexpected turn of the conversation.

  ‘Very well,’ said the commissioner, looking at Quaid with revulsion. ‘You can save anything you’ve got to say for the disciplinary hearing. In the meantime, you’re suspended. Now, get out.’

  Quaid got unsteadily to his feet and darted a look of hatred at Trave. He seemed about to say something, then apparently thought better of it. The commissioner waited until the door had closed and then turned to Trave.

  ‘I’m promoting you to detective sergeant and you’re to take over Inspector Quaid’s duties while we look for a replacement,’ he said. ‘Can you do that?’

  Trave nodd
ed.

  ‘Oh, and the PM wants to see you – to thank you in person, I expect. His office will tell you when.’ The commissioner got up and came round his desk to shake Trave’s hand. ‘You’ve done damned well, Detective,’ he said. ‘This whole country owes you a debt of gratitude. I’m proud of you.’

  A week later, on a cold, bright October day, Trave walked across St James’s Park and met Ava at the foot of the Clive Steps. They presented the official passes they had received with their invitations to the Royal Marine on duty outside the Number 10 Annexe and climbed the stairs to Churchill’s new residence. Continued bombing around Downing Street had left the prime minister with no option but to move to the new location with its reinforced walls and steel shutters.

  He greeted them at the door, coming forward with an outstretched hand. ‘Mr Trave, Mrs Brive, I have been looking forward to this moment. It is not often that a man can invite to lunch not just one person who has saved his life, but two. I shall forever be in your debt.’

  He ushered them into a small dining room hung with pretty landscape paintings, all of which Trave afterwards realized must have been painted by Churchill himself, and poured them glasses of champagne. He was dressed immaculately in a dark suit and bow tie, and the dinner service laid out on the starched white tablecloth was clearly the best.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, raising his glass to each of them in turn and looking them in the eye. ‘You are heroes, both of you. I have recommended you both for decorations and Alec Thorn too. You know he fell on Seaforth when he heard you shouting and that gave me time to get my pistol and fire? As St John said, “Greater love has no one than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.”’