by Anne Perry
“Half the royal family is German, my dear, and none of it makes any difference if you get in trouble in Berlin.” Charles’s face was grim. “Or in any other German city, or Austrian city, for that matter. I don’t want you taking the risk. And even the profoundest apology won’t help.”
“You’re exaggerating.” Katherine smiled placatingly. “Margot’s got enough sense to be careful. She’s not Elena, Charles.”
“Elena did rather well.” Charles looked as if the remark had surprised himself.
“With Margot’s help,” Katherine pointed out.
Margot looked from one to the other. “Mother, I’m over thirty. I’ll go if I want to and not if I don’t. Cecily Cordell is my friend, and I’m going to support her and be there to wish her happiness. I’ll be a guest of the British embassy. Right now, that means quite a lot. As you point out, several of our rich and titled people are falling over their own feet to impress that appalling little man, Adolf whatever. The most they’ll do is make me sick with their disgusting manners.” She added, “And don’t fuss, Father, I’m going to have fun and wish Cecily well. God knows, she needs it.” She turned to Josephine, who so far had not spoken.
“Oh, I agree with you,” Josephine said. “But that doesn’t mean to say I would be right.”
* * *
—
“Did you mean that?” Lucas asked in the car on the way home, driving slowly along the dark roads, which were darker still under trees.
“As far as I went, yes,” Josephine replied, as if staring straight ahead of her, through the windscreen, might help her think.
“Do you think she’ll be safe?” Lucas asked.
It was a question with many layers of meaning, some darker than others. Josephine took a few moments to choose how she would answer. “Margo will go if she wants to, and our arguments will only confirm her decision. She looks lovely. She’s so full of life and occasionally laughter. But have you looked at her face in repose, Lucas?”
“I know. She still grieves for Paul,” he answered. “Maybe she always will. And certainly she won’t forget him; she would despise herself if she did. But she has no purpose. She needs something to fight for or against. All that intelligence and energy is being wasted, turning back against her.”
“Let her go,” said Josephine.
“Could I stop her?” There was self-deprecating amusement in his voice.
“You could probably stop her from going to Berlin, if you tried hard enough,” Josephine answered. “You couldn’t stop her fighting against herself, one way or another.”
Lucas took his hand off the wheel for a moment and put it over hers.
She gripped it gently.
CHAPTER
4
Elena woke up the first morning in Trieste and wondered where on earth she was. The bed was comfortable enough, but a bit narrow. She felt that if she turned over, she might fall out.
The room was totally unfamiliar. There were no curtains on the window, only wooden shutters, but they were very effective at keeping the daylight out. There were only slight cracks around the edges allowing in enough light to see the outline of the simple furniture: a wardrobe into which she had unpacked her clothes, a chest of drawers for underwear and personal things, a basin on a handsome wooden stand, and a big ewer of water. The water was cold, of course. Hot water was in the bathroom…or was it the kitchen? She only dimly remembered the rest of the small apartment. She had the necessities and not a lot more.
She turned sideways to look at the alarm clock on the table beside the bed. It was nearly nine o’clock. How had she slept for so long? Then she remembered it had been midnight when she had finally arrived on the train from Milan and found a taxi at the station to bring her here.
She pulled the blankets more closely around her and lay back again. What on earth had she done? Why had she told Peter Howard that she would find Aiden and rescue him? She had no idea where he was; she had done everything she could to forget he ever existed—though, how could she? Hadn’t he turned her life upside down, ruined her career, disgraced her both publicly and privately, and made her doubt herself in every way? Even worse, hadn’t she willingly chosen that path? He had not forced her into anything. Yes, he had deceived her and lied to her, but it was her choice to believe him.
Elena had ached for Margot when the news had come of Paul’s death, physically hurt for her. But Margot was better off than Elena, who had loved Aiden and discovered that the man she had cared for so profoundly had never even existed, and he certainly had not loved her. She knew that now, and so did everyone else, starting with her own family and extending…who knew how far? Elena Standish? Oh yes, that stupid girl who was so infatuated with Aiden Strother that she couldn’t see what he was, and so she let everyone down. Her poor father most of all, because he had got her the Foreign Office job.
Peter Howard had made it seem like quite a good idea for her to be the one to rescue Aiden, now that she knew Aiden had been on their side all the time. In some ways it vindicated her belief in him, if not his behavior. She would do this casually and gracefully. She would accept his thanks with a smile and walk away. It was nothing, just my job, she would say. Goodbye. She must be professional. No thudding heart. No breath catching in her throat, no longing for his touch, his smile, the sound of his voice. She would wish him good luck and turn away without even glancing back to see if he was looking at her.
Only now she was lying in a narrow, rather hard bed with blankets that smelled strange—not unpleasant, but unfamiliar—in a bare room with nothing that belonged to her except her clothes and her suitcase. She had information that Peter Howard had given her to read, remember, and then destroy. It was confetti now, mixed in with the waste from the train’s toilet, irretrievable to anybody.
There had been little enough to memorize: the name of Aiden’s handler, Max Klausner, who had apparently disappeared. She knew roughly his description, and the places he had frequented, although that information was mostly secondhand and could be false. But Max was the only place to start. There were tens of thousands of people in Trieste. The city was filled with all nationalities, languages, and cultures. It had been occupied over several hundred years by many other countries. Its streets looked Austrian rather than Italian, with their high pale buildings of classical proportions. Most Italian cities had their ancient medieval and Renaissance history, and names famous for art, science, exploration, and ideas that had shaped the world.
Trieste was different, and there were those who said it was the most beautiful of all the cities in Italy. Which was irrelevant to Elena, except that she was a photographer and was supposed to be here to try to capture some of that beauty for those who might never see it for themselves. She must do that sufficiently well, at least to be believed. This meant she needed all her skill, as well as enough time, to do it justice, find something new to say, as if a thousand people had not done it before her.
At the same time she must not lose sight of her mission to find Aiden, rescue him and whatever information he had. Why had he not sent it back himself? It could be helpful to know that. Had he only just compiled it? Was the information so sensitive that it could not be sent by post? Surely, he had the means to send information back regularly? Had that only been through Max Klausner? But what had happened to him?
The possibilities were not good. Was he dead? Or a prisoner somewhere, or too ill to send a message? Or injured, perhaps, in a hospital? That was not likely; MI6 could have ascertained that for themselves.
The worst possibility was that Max Klausner was a turncoat, in which case Aiden might well be dead and they had not yet discovered his body. If he had been taken out to sea, they never would.
There was no point in lying here thinking of the worst. She must get up, get breakfast, and begin to make plans. Go out and find a café. Have breakfast publicly, start talking to people and, a
bove all, listening. Peter had made sure that MI6 provided Elena with an apartment in this area because, as far as they could tell, this was either where Max had worked or where he had lived. Most likely both.
She was going to lie, and of course her lies must be consistent. Peter had told her always to use as much of the truth as she could. She would be less likely to trip herself up if she didn’t appear to be secretive. Share with people and they will feel at ease, and if they don’t then share with her, she would need to figure out what they are covering up.
She rose and opened the shutters. The floor was made of stone, possibly low-grade marble, and cold under her bare feet. She looked out at the street below. She remembered now. She was on the third floor. The stairs were steep. She had lugged her suitcase up herself, after paying the taxi driver.
The street was narrow. As she stood at the window, the opposite side looked only a few yards away. She almost felt she could reach across and touch someone on the other side, except for the bright laundry hanging on ropes extending from one building to the next and fluttering now and again in the slight breeze. In the distance someone was singing, a man with a light tenor voice. Right below her, laughing children were playing some sort of game with stones.
Elena closed the window and clipped the shutters back. Then she washed and put on a short-sleeved linen dress in an unusual shade of light blue-green. It had been recommended by Margot, whose advice Elena thought she should have taken years ago. She chose shoes that would be easy for walking.
Outside, the air in the street was warm already, and people were buying newspapers and hot rolls for breakfast and hurrying to work or school.
The first thing she did was find a café serving breakfast. She smiled as charmingly as she could and asked the waiter about the neighborhood. The coffee was excellent and the bread as good as any she could remember—but then, she had always loved crusty Italian bread still warm from the oven.
On the long journey from Paris, she had studied all the information Peter had given her. She marked in her street map the locations she knew to have any connection with Max Klausner: messages from him or left for him. Aiden was never mentioned in them, but the more she looked at them, the more she saw a pattern emerge. They were all restaurants of some sort or other, most of them small and out of the way. She imagined they were the sorts that residents would dine at regular, rather than fashionable places for business meetings or to take a new friend or a romantic interest.
She could not afford to draw attention to herself by asking questions that could not easily be explained away. It seemed Aiden’s cover was blown and that he was known by the enemy to be a British agent. But who was the enemy? Italians under Mussolini? Why? What plans or ambitions did Il Duce have that England might thwart? More likely, from what Peter Howard said, Aiden’s interest was the Nazis, specifically the Germans, although she had been made aware of the increasing support for the Nazis in Austria. Klausner was Austrian rather than Italian, even though, apparently, he was born here in Trieste.
She sipped her coffee and watched the people passing by. What did Max Klausner do for a living? MI6 knew few facts. Klausner was deliberately elusive, but he must do something that offered him both a degree of freedom and anonymity. He needed to be unnoticed to do the job of a fixer and to pass on messages and give information.
The waiter poured Elena another cup of coffee and she thanked him. She asked him about one or two of the other restaurants in the area.
“What type of food do you like, signorina?” he inquired. “Tell me, and I will tell you the best places to go, apart from here, of course.” He gave her a wide smile.
“I should come here every day for breakfast,” she answered. “As long as you have that jam. What is it? It’s lovely.”
“Apricot,” he answered with pride. “We make it ourselves.”
“Then I will be your friend for life,” she said. “Or until you run out of jam.”
He raised his eyes and put his hand on his heart, then answered her questions with entertaining descriptions of all the restaurants within comfortable walking distance.
She thanked him, paid the bill, then went out into the street. She followed her marks on the map and by lunchtime she was listening to her fifth helpful waiter, and wanting never to drink another cup of coffee.
Where better to meet than a restaurant? The waiter spoke to you, it was his job. He brought you a menu, you gave it back to him with your order. You did not even need to look at him. You paid him at the end of your meal and left. Everybody did it, either alone or in company. It was so normal as to be entirely unnoticed.
She used the obvious excuse to explain her questions. She was going to write an article for a travel magazine on the best places to dine in Italy. She wanted to mention those specializing in local cuisines, as well as the glamorous ones with a reputation already established. She took some good photographs of them: colorful entrances, dining rooms with interesting views, unique décor. Possibly she would sell them to a travel magazine.
She had learned quite a lot about the different places, and what their specialties were, when she began to realize how alike the waiters all were. What one had said blended in her mind with all the others. They had written down notes for her on prices and recommendations. Then they had turned to the next customers and spoken as easily. In a way they were invisible. Customers were nurtured, people eating, talking, laughing, but a waiter in the traditional distinct black was not remarkable, not really seen, because you expected him to be there. He would only be noted if he were not. Nobody said, “What’s that waiter doing here?” They only said, “Where’s the waiter?” if he were not there.
It took Elena the best part of two days to discover where Max Klausner had worked. It was not in one restaurant, but three. He had had a small apartment, though no one had seen him there for more than a week. He had completely succeeded in being what Elena had deduced: an invisible man. He was good at his job, an expert on food, and imaginative in his descriptions, making anything sound delicious. Nobody could remember exactly what he looked like. Dark. Average height. A little plump. A wry smile. One person thought he had a chipped front tooth, but could not be certain. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of middle-aged, dark-haired men in Trieste. Only his knowledge of food, his ease in conversation, and the name Max made her think it was likely to be the same man at all three restaurants.
The thing that mattered was that it bound him to a certain area, and only those restaurants that specialized in Austrian dishes. If they had a large Austrian clientele, surely Aiden would be among them.
Elena disliked dining in restaurants alone. She felt conspicuous, because it seemed that everyone else dined with friends. But it was necessary. She saw few other women doing so. She had lain awake a good part of every night since she had accepted the job, wondering exactly what she would do when at last she found Aiden. Would she be casual? Or would seeing him again, remembering so vividly how they had parted, make that impossible? Would emotion drown out all her intentions? The betrayal still hurt. She had been prepared to give him everything of herself, and he had refused her. Yes, it was a blow to her self-respect, self-belief. Was rescuing him now an oblique kind of revenge? But in a way, that was still letting him win, because she would be behaving badly, in a manner that injured herself even more, in order to hurt him. And would it?
Peter Howard trusted her to fulfill her mission, to be far bigger, far better than that. And so would Lucas.
She would just do her job. She would not give Aiden Strother that power.
For all her preparation, she was not ready for it when it happened. She was sitting at a small table in one of the more fashionable restaurants where Max Klausner had worked, when a group of people came in. There seemed to be six of them, three men in dinner suits and three women in evening gowns. It was one of the women who caught Elena’s eyes first. She was of ave
rage height, but she moved with such grace that she captured Elena’s attention, even more than the blonde in silver sequins or the startling brunette in red. She had very dark brown hair and she wore a black silk dress with fluid lines that moved with her. She was laughing genuinely, not for show, and her face was beautiful. If she had worn hopsack, she would still have been beautiful.
Elena watched her for several minutes before a flood of heat filled her whole body. She recognized the man with her: Aiden. It was his profile, the angle of his head, the light on his fair hair. He was handsome and he knew it. She had forgotten until now how straight he stood, which gave him several inches he did not really need. She swallowed hard. Her heart was thumping so, she thought it must be visible to other people, shaking every part of her.
Fortunately, they were all totally absorbed in each other. Not one of them was looking at her. Aiden slipped his arm around the waist of the woman in black. She allowed it. In fact, she was smiling easily. They passed within a couple of feet of Elena. Aiden actually glanced at her, just to make sure they were not accidentally going to bump her table. There was nothing in his face. No flash of recognition, or wondering for an instant if she reminded him of anyone.
“Excuse us,” he said casually. He spoke in German; the cadence of his voice was exactly as she remembered it.
Then he turned away and spoke to the woman in black. “Gabrielle, do you want to face outwards?”
She smiled at him. “Of course. Don’t we all?” But her tone was so light, she clearly did not care. “I’ve been here before.” She gave a slight, very elegant shrug, and moved further ahead of him.
Elena knew that she was blushing. She could not control it. Thank goodness no one was looking at her! She was a stranger worthy of no attention at all. A woman dining alone. She watched them until they were out of sight behind a pillar.
Aiden had looked straight at her and seemed not to know her from any other stranger. Could the memory of their passion, laughter, intimacy all disappear so completely, so soon?