A Gathering of Spies (25 page)

How far left to go?

All the farther, she decided, for not having gone yet.

She looked at the two bodies for a moment before she struck off. Looking at them made her gorge start to rise.

She looked away.

She went.

14

FLAMBOROUGH HEAD, YORKSHIRE

The lighthouse was no stranger to storms.

She had stood here, on Flamborough Head, for more than a century. During that time, she had seen far worse storms than the one that was gathering now, out over the North Sea.

She stood eighty-five feet from the ragged cliffs that sloped down to the water's edge. Originally, she had been built one hundred feet from the precipice, but in the intervening century the storms had eroded the land. The sea was hungry for her, nipping closer with each passing decade. Eventually it would claim her—but that time was still far away.

For four years now she had lain dormant. One day very near the start of the war, the government had come and told old Rupert that they were borrowing her. From now on, they'd said, she was not to be lit unless they ordered her lit; and once lit, she was not to go dark until they ordered her dark. Old Rupert was to remain living there, ready to be of use.

And he had ever since, but the government had never returned.

Perhaps they had forgotten her.

The Nazis, however, had not forgotten her.

Even unlit, she served as a fine landmark. Her gray stone façade was painted with red and white stripes. At forty-odd feet she was not a particularly tall specimen of lighthouse, but perched up on the cliffside she was tall enough.

Rudolf Schroeder knew her as rendezvous four. From three o'clock to five o'clock on Sunday mornings, she would be watched by a U-boat at sea. If a light was to flash twice, the U-boat would dispatch a dinghy to the rocky beach below.

Old Rupert had been manning the lighthouse for thirty-five years.

Tonight he stood on the balcony that encircled the lantern, holding a bottle in his hand, peering up at the sky. Any moment now, he thought, the storm would break. It would be a real storm, a humdinger. Not the worst he had ever seen, not by a long shot—he had seen quite a few storms in his thirty-five years keeping the lighthouse—but a humdinger nonetheless; and the cliff would crumble that much faster, and the sea would creep that much closer.

This pleased him, somehow.

The air was heavy and hot and clung irritatingly to his skin. Even the cool breeze coming in off the water couldn't cut through it. In an hour, perhaps, when the breeze was no longer cool but had turned viciously cold … but old Rupert didn't care to wait. He turned and moved inside, stepping carefully past the mercury baths (more than once he had slipped, when drunk, and mercury was not a good thing to be slipping in), and then cautiously descended the narrow stone staircase.

Rupert moved into his tiny, gloomy kitchen and fetched a glass. Why a man should need to drink from a glass was beyond him, especially when the man was alone; but Marion, he knew, had always disapproved of his drinking straight from the bottle. Marion had considered it unseemly.

He carried the glass and the bottle into his study. The room was windowless, cramped, fragrant with old books. He lit the kerosene lamp and settled into his chair. A small framed photograph of him and Marion sat on the desk beside a quill and inkwell, a rusted old compass, and a five-inch rack and pinion sextant. A chessboard beside the quill had gone untouched for at least three years; a thick layer of dust lay atop the pieces.

Rupert poured himself a tot, toasted to nothing, and knocked it back. He poured himself a second, set it down, then looked around and wondered what book he should read tonight.

There had not been a lot for Rupert to do since the government had forbidden him to operate his lighthouse and Marion had gone away. Most nights he drank. For the first few hours of drinking, he would read, or study old maps, or play solitaire. Then, when sufficiently intoxicated, he would start to sing. Sometimes he would go up to the balcony and sing out at the sea, daring his drunk limbs to betray him, to send him tumbling over the railing. That would be a relief, in a way. But so far his legs had always held him. Perhaps he simply needed to get more drunk, he sometimes thought, before going up to the balcony surrounding the lantern.

It seemed like a fine night for singing to the sea—the storm and all. He knocked back his second drink, refilled his glass, and turned his attention again to the rows of books.

He had read them all before, many times over. Even when the lighthouse had been operating, Rupert had suffered no shortage of free time. Once every four hours he had needed to crank a large weight up the center shaft of the tower to keep the lens turning; but except for that simple task, his days, for the most part, had been his own. Marion had left nearly eight years before, when she'd married the boy from over near the Tyne. Rupert had approved of the boy. Then he had been shot down in the Battle of Britain, a true pity. Rupert had hoped that Marion would come home after that, but she'd chosen to stay in London. Not that he blamed her. A young woman didn't want to be stuck in a lighthouse with her old, drunk, half-mad father; even he understood that.

He realized that his eyes were misting over. But there was nobody there to see it, so he didn't care. He knocked back his third drink, refilled the glass, and dabbed at the corner of his eye.

Then he made his selection for the evening:
King Solomon's Mines
, by Haggard. A fine selection for a Saturday night, he thought. Adventure and so forth. He would barrel through it, and by the time he reached the end he would be drunk enough to go up to the balcony and dare the ocean to take him.

Maybe he would even be drunk enough, tonight, that it would actually happen.

He turned to the first page. Outside, the clouds split open and spilled out the first drops of summer rain.

PART THREE

15

WHITLEY BAY

Taylor swept the binoculars across the night-shrouded beach, left and then right, right and then left, in ever-widening arcs. He took them from his eyes and puffed on the damp cigarette hanging between his lips. He checked his wristwatch. He put the binoculars to his eyes again. Left and then right. Right and then left. It was too soon for the Heinrich woman to be on the beach, of course. It was raining with ever-increasing force, and it was the dead of night. All of which meant that he wasn't seeing much of anything through the binoculars. But he wasn't yet ready to give up. Perhaps, if he was watching closely enough, he could apprehend her before the
treff
proper and avoid a bit of complication. Perhaps—

“Sir,” somebody at his elbow was saying.

Taylor took the binoculars from his eyes again. He turned to look at Kendall. Kendall looked nervous, but then, Kendall always looked nervous.

“Sorry to disturb you, sir. It may be nothing. But we've got a call from Wells—”

“Who?”

“Wells, sir. At Latchmere.”

“Yes, yes.”

“He says that Schroeder is extremely anxious to speak with you.”

“What's it about?”

“He refuses to tell anybody but you, sir. But he seems to have convinced Wells that it's important.”

Taylor took another drag from his cigarette, then pitched it into the sand at his feet. “Tell him he'll have to wait. I'll be at Ham Common on Monday.”

“Wells asked to speak to you himself, sir, if you said that.”

“For God's sake, why?”

“He seems to feel it's important.”

“Bloody idiots,” Taylor muttered. “All right. Cover the beach, Kendall.”

He handed Kendall the binoculars and then turned on his heel and strode off toward Faulkner's Pub, moving briskly under the cold, plump drops of rain.

They had taken over Faulkner's Pub for this particular operation, with Peter Faulkner's grudging consent. Faulkner's was perfect for their needs. Only the Highland was closer to the expected scene of the
treff
; but since the Highland was also a landmark for the meeting, Taylor had considered it a bit too close for comfort.

On this summer midnight, Faulkner's Pub was filled with men cleaning guns, men studying maps, men talking in low voices. The one thing none of the men was doing was drinking, which frustrated Peter Faulkner, standing by the bar, to no end. But he was able to take some satisfaction from their presence nevertheless. He was looking forward to explaining to his wife the next morning that the marital problem that had brought these men to his pub must have been a corker indeed. Twenty-five government agents were apparently after the woman in the photograph, armed to the teeth, with seemingly limitless resources.

Taylor moved to a corner in the rear of the pub and accepted the phone that was offered him.

“Taylor,” he said.

“Wells here, sir.”

“What's the problem?”

“Schroeder's been sick all night. Now he's demanding to see you immediately.”

“Sick?”

“Vomiting, sir.”

“Pity. Why does he want to see me?”

“He won't say.”

“Put him on.”

“He says he won't speak over the phone, sir.”

“I haven't time for games, Wells. Tell him it's that or nothing.”

“Hold on, sir.”

Taylor held on. He considered lighting another cigarette as he waited, then decided against it. Not only was he running low, but he hadn't eaten in hours; all the smoke was making him feel a bit nauseous.

After a few moments, Wells was on the line again.

“Sir?”

“Yes?”

“He still won't speak over the phone, sir. But he says that you're wasting your time there. He demands that you come to Latchmere and speak to him immediately.”

“Wasting my time?”

“That's what he says.”

“God damn it, tell him no more goddamn chocolate if he doesn't get on this goddamn phone right now.”

“Hold on, sir.”

Another, longer, pause. This time Taylor gave in to temptation and lit a cigarette. He took a deep drag; his head immediately began to swim.

“Andrew,” a voice said. Dour, lazy, heavily accented.

“Rudolf. What the hell is this about?”

A hesitation.

“Winterbotham,” Schroeder said then.

“What about him?”

“He's buggered us both.”

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“The old cocksucker,” Schroeder said distinctly, “was meant to come here and fetch me. But he never came. And the chocolates he gave me were poisoned, I'm sure of it. I've been sick as a—”

“Slow down, Rudolf. Go there and fetch you for what?”

“For the
treff
.”

“Rudolf, you had—”

“We deceived you,” Schroeder said. “He promised to take me with him if I helped to throw you off his track.”

“Throw me off his track?”

“If I lied to you, Andrew. Lied about the location of rendezvous four.”

Taylor's cigarette fell from his mouth.

“Fuck,” he said.

FLAMBOROUGH HEAD, YORKSHIRE

A lamp was on inside the lighthouse, blazing out through the sheeting curtains of rain.

There would be food in there, and dry beds. Compared to the gray night, the whipping winds, and the evil rain, the light inside looked brighter than it must have actually been. It looked as if a sun were glowing inside the lighthouse, a miniature sun, beckoning her …

No, she was hallucinating. That was all. How many miles had she gone, in the past few days? Too many.

Ten steps left to the door. Nine steps. Not too late to be strong … to turn and burrow under a bush and wait out the storm and the night … but she was so hungry, so tired, so cold and wet … Besides, she was feverish … eight steps … Suddenly she realized that she could not make it. She could not even make it to the door. She was finished.

Then she had made it, somehow, and was rapping the brass knocker against the hoary wood, over and over again.

Then the light was growing brighter, ever brighter.

Then the door opened, and hands were pulling her inside.

The old man was very drunk.

Katarina was sitting in Rupert's study on a creaky wooden chair, with a tattered blanket around her shoulders, listening to the old man talk about his daughter. A nearly empty bottle sat on the desk before him between a book and a dusty chessboard. The old man was trembling and slurring his speech—but this, she thought, was not necessarily from the liquor. This could have been from prolonged exposure to the mercury baths. Most lighthouse keepers were half mad, at least.

She took a sip of her tea. It was hot and strong and made her feel almost like herself again.

“'Round your age,” Rupert said, and reached for the bottle. He started to bring it directly to his mouth, then paused, squinted, and moved the neck of the bottle unsteadily toward a glass.

“Where is she now?” Katarina asked politely.

“London,” the old man said. “Hell, I don't blame her.” He raised his glass. “To London,” he said.

Katarina smiled weakly.

He drank, peering at her over the rim of his glass. “Care for a tot?” he asked.

“Thank you, no.”

“Some grub?”

She hesitated.

“Got a bit of bubble and squeak someplace. Hold on.”

Rupert levered himself out of the chair without waiting for an answer, stumbled, righted himself, and moved past her, toward the kitchen.

Katarina sat without moving. She felt drowsy. How long had it been since she'd last slept? Forty-eight hours? Seventy-two? The room was warm; the storm outside seemed distant. The blanket across her shoulders was dry and smelled old, but old in a good way.

She looked around and found a clock tucked onto a shelf between books. Nearly half past twelve. Sunday morning; and earlier than she had thought. In just under three hours she would be standing on the beach outside. She would need to find a light of some kind, to give the signal—she had left hers abandoned in the countryside, along with everything else she had been able to drop, to lighten her load. But the old man must have a torch around there somewhere.