Orders from Berlin (27 page)

There was something he was missing. Thorn kept reading the note again and again. And then suddenly he reached up and hit the side of his head with the flat of his hand. Hard – and not once but twice.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t I see it before? It was staring me in the face.’

‘See what?’ asked Trave, mystified.

‘Who C is. Look, Albert wrote it down,’ he said, jabbing his finger at the word
Hayrick
.

Something to do with farming, Trave had thought. Not like a name at all. But he’d clearly been wrong about that.

‘The name’s spelt wrong,’ Thorn explained. ‘That’s all. Maybe Albert scribbled it or you didn’t read it right. It should be Heydrich. That’s who C is. I can’t believe I didn’t work it out myself.’

‘Who’s Heydrich?’ asked Trave, beginning to feel out of his depth.

‘Reinhard Heydrich is head of the SD, the intelligence division of the SS, and he’s also in charge of the Gestapo,’ he said. ‘After Himmler, he’s perhaps the most feared man in the Third Reich, and unlike the other Nazi leaders he’s clever, fiendishly clever. Wait a minute – I can show you what he looks like.’

Thorn was a man transformed. There was an excitement in his voice, an urgency that had been entirely absent before he deciphered the name on the note. He went over to a tall bookcase that ran almost the entire length of one wall of the room and began running his finger along the titles, up and down the overflowing shelves, until he abruptly pulled out a tall book and took it over to the desk, pushing a pile of papers onto the floor to make room.

He turned the pages rapidly, forward and back, until he found what he was looking for and then beckoned Trave over to join him. ‘Look, there he is,’ he said, jabbing his finger down at two large photographs on facing pages of the book. They were of the same man. In the first he was dressed in a black SS uniform, standing ramrod straight on an elevated rostrum with his arm rigidly raised in the Hitler salute as a line of goose-stepping soldiers marched past on the street below. Above his head, enormous red-and-black swastika banners hung down from flagpoles extending
horizontally
from the roofs of a row of tall, imposing
nineteenth
-century buildings – government buildings, Trave assumed – probably Berlin. And then on the opposite page, the man was shown seated, again in uniform but this time without the peaked cap. This was a studio portrait, an opportunity to get closer to the subject and more personal. Blond-haired, thin-lipped, classically handsome, he was a living embodiment of the Nazis’ Aryan ideal – a cruel Viking face with penetrating, ice-cold eyes, eyes that would miss nothing, Trave thought. He began to understand the intensity of Thorn’s reaction to the note.

‘Why does he call himself C?’ he asked, curious.

‘C’s what we call the head of the British Secret Service – C for chief, I suppose. And Heydrich knows that. He’s always loved spy novels, particularly British ones, and so he fancies himself as the German C.’

‘How do you know this?’

‘Because Albert told me. Not about Heydrich calling himself C, but everything else about him. Albert used to be C before he retired, and he was a walking encyclopedia when it came to the Nazi leaders. And apart from Hitler, Heydrich was the one he talked about the most. I should have made the connection. I think I nearly did on that first day, and that’s why I knew I had to bring the decoded message over here for him to look at. I realized unconsciously that the solution to the C riddle was in something he’d told me. And then Seaforth must have realized that Albert knew it was Heydrich when he ran into him outside HQ. Seaforth’s no fool, and he would have put two and two together – me grabbing the decoded message in the morning and Albert hotfooting it over there in the afternoon. And so he had to silence Albert before he talked to anyone else—’

Thorn broke off. He’d become more and more agitated as he spoke, and now he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to regain his self-control. ‘God, I wish I knew what they were planning,’ he resumed, shaking his head with frustration. It was now almost as if he had forgotten about Trave and were talking to himself. ‘All this time gone by and I still have no idea, except that it’s got to be something important if Heydrich’s behind it. I keep thinking it’s got something to do with the invasion because that’s what all Seaforth’s intelligence briefings have been about. If I had my way, I’d hold the bastard over that banister out there until he talked, just like he did to Albert—’

Thorn stopped again, this time seized by a fit of coughing while Trave watched him from across the room. ‘How do you know it was Seaforth who intercepted Albert?’ he asked. ‘Surely it could have been someone else from where you work?’

‘I know it was him because of what he’s done since. He’s used Ava to frame her husband for the murder, and that’s got to be because he needs someone to take the blame for what he did.’

‘What evidence have you got for that?’ Trave asked sceptically.

‘I was in Ava’s flat three days ago when he admitted picking the locks on Bertram Brive’s desk—’

‘Where Ava found the cuff link?’ interrupted Trave, looking aghast.

‘That’s right. You look surprised. Didn’t you know about this? Your inspector was there too. He heard what had happened.’

Trave looked thunderstruck – he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. ‘God, it’s monstrous,’ he said.

‘What is?’

‘Quaid kept quiet about it deliberately. When Bertram said he’d been framed in the interview, Quaid said nothing about Seaforth opening the desk. He must have realized that Bertram would have been far less likely to confess if he’d known the full picture of what happened.’

‘Well, he seemed mighty friendly with Seaforth when they were in Ava’s flat, I can tell you that. It wasn’t the first time they’d talked.’

‘I know,’ said Trave. ‘I’m pretty sure it was Seaforth who told Quaid to keep your office out of the investigation, and then when I followed him to Coventry Street, he rang up Quaid and complained about me. I got a serious dressing-down. Quaid threatened me with a transfer to the military police.’

‘When was this?’

‘The day before Bertram was arrested. Seaforth was with Ava at the Corner House.’

‘Softening her up for the next day,’ said Thorn, looking furious. Trave sensed that there was a strong element of jealousy involved in Thorn’s reaction to Seaforth’s involvement with Ava, but that didn’t change the significance of what Thorn had told him about what had happened at Ava’s flat.

‘That’s got to be how Seaforth knew to bring the cuff link to plant in the desk,’ Thorn went on. ‘Your inspector must have told him about it, maybe when he rang up to complain about you.’

‘I tried to follow him again the next morning,’ said Trave.

‘That was brave.’

‘But he saw me. I never had a chance. He must have been on his way over to Battersea. And the funny thing was that he never complained about me that time. I thought my number was up, but nothing happened.’

‘Because he didn’t need to. Can’t you see that?’ asked Thorn impatiently. ‘He’d got what he wanted. Bertram h
ad been arrested an
d so he wasn’t worried about Albert’s murder any more. He could concentrate on the bigger picture.’

It wasn’t proof of Seaforth’s involvement, but it did at least make sense, thought Trave. He needed more, but for the first time the pieces of the jigsaw seemed to be fitting together. He was seized with a wave of anger against Quaid, but then he realized his own powerlessness. Quaid had the case sewn up, and there was no way he was going to allow Trave to reopen it. Not after the corners he’d cut to extract Bertram’s confession. ‘Isn’t there anything you can do?’ he asked, looking over at Thorn, who’d gone back to staring at the pictures of Heydrich in the book that was lying open on the desk.

‘Not without more evidence,’ said Thorn. ‘Seaforth’s the rising star where I work. His intelligence gets better each week, which isn’t surprising if he’s got a direct line to Heydrich. He’s leading the entire Secret Service by the nose, and they just don’t see it. And I’m worried that he’ll implement this plan prematurely if I go after him in the open. Really, I don’t know what to do, what angle to pursue. Maybe there’s something in his past. His father’s dead, but as far as I know, his mother’s still alive. It’s a long shot—’ Thorn broke off, looking dejected.

Outside there was a new sound – aircraft overhead. And a few moments later there was the noise of explosions as the first bombs began to fall. The war had come to Battersea.

Trave turned off the light and lifted the edge of the blackout curtain. Thorn came to stand beside him at the window and the two men looked out, transfixed by the sight that met their eyes. A welter of searchlight beams crisscrossed the darkening sky, moving madly from side to side as they tried to pick out the German planes flying overhead – Dorniers and Heinkels with big black crosses marked on their sides. They were dropping flares that hung in the air like Roman candles, exploding chandeliers of phosphorescent light that lit up the park across the road in lurid green and yellow colours. Concealed among the trees were the anti-aircraft guns that had sprung to life as the first bombs fell. The noise was tremendous – the roar of the aircraft; the sound of the AA shells bursting in mid-air; and the fainter patter of the planes’ machine guns firing continuously at the strange-looking otherworldly silver barrage balloons that still floated above the park, tugged this way and that by the wind. Their panoply of wires kept the bombers high in the sky, but as Trave and Thorn watched, one of the balloons took a fatal hit and flamed grotesquely as it fell drunkenly to the ground.

‘Come on,’ Trave shouted, pulling Thorn by the arm. ‘We need to get out of here. They mean business tonight.’ It was dark in the room, and he knocked against the desk in his haste, hurting his hip. Thorn turned on the light and Trave found himself looking down at the close-up photograph of Heydrich. The SS leader’s piercing eyes seemed to follow him as he left the room.

They made it down the stairs without mishap, although the building rocked several times as bombs exploded close by and they both almost slipped more than once on the shards of broken glass that littered the carpet, blown in
from the landing windows that had shattered under the blasts
. It was worst on the final flight leading down to the hall. There was no light, and Thorn reached out and took Trave’s arm, holding on to it as they descended. Like brothers, T
rave thought as they negotiate
d the final steps.

There was no one in sight, but they could hear frightened voices coming from the open door leading down to the basement from the back of the hall.

‘The residents take shelter there. Do you want to go down with them?’ asked Trave, remembering Mrs Graves, the downstairs neighbour, telling him how the caretaker allowed them the use of the basement during raids.

‘What about you?’ Thorn asked.

Trave shook his head. Off duty or not, it was his responsibility to try to help with the rescue effort, and he was in a hurry to get outside.

‘Good,’ said Thorn with a determined smile. ‘I’m coming with you.’

Outside, the raid was at its most intense. The neighbouring apartment block had been hit and there were fires breaking out all the way down the street, with acrid black smoke billowing from the blown-out windows of the burning buildings. The incendiary bombs dropped at the start of the raid had done their work, and the flames were beacons for the heavier high-explosive bombs that were now finding their targets. They whistled and whined on their way down – some, with tubes shaped like organ pipes welded to their tail fins, actually screeched – and then exploded on impact with vivid white flashes and terrifying thuds that made the ground heave all around as columns of earth and broken masonry flew into the air.

And shrapnel falling from the ceaseless AA barrage
clattered
on the pavements, heating the concrete so that it burnt the feet of the rescue workers, while the embers and incandescent particles from the fires pricked their faces an
d slivers of flying glass cut into
their skin. Four fire engines had arrived on the scene with a great clanging of bells just as Thorn and Trave came out of Gloucester Mansions, but the crews were finding it hard to control the flames, which were now being fanned towards the smaller terrace houses in the narrow streets behind the apartment blocks by the strong south-westerly wind. It didn’t help that a mains had been hit further up Prince of Wales Drive, sending up a useless spume of foaming water and leaving little more than
a trickle to emerge from the firemen’s hoses. A thick pall of dust and smoke hung in the air, while up above the full moon turned from orange to crimson red, the colour of spilt blood.

Trave and Thorn crossed over to the park, which provided a vantage point from where they could see what was happening all around. Some of the trees were alight, but the heat was a little less intense away from the burning buildings on the other side of the street. And then suddenly, without warning, the water supply returned. The big hoses reared up like monstrous fat snakes, knocking some of the firemen off their feet, but they quickly recovered and it seemed for a moment that the worst might be over. The drone of the planes began to recede, and the deafening chatter of the AA guns grew more intermittent and finally ceased. It began to be possible to pick out individual sounds – ceilings and walls collapsing; the cries of the wounded and bereaved; and the shouts of firemen and other rescue workers directing residents away from the buildings and towards the park on the other side of the road. Trave went over to offer help but was turned back by an ARP warden in a tin hat who told him to rejoin the throng of residents standing under the trees. Some were in dressing gowns, a
nd most of them we
re holding handkerchiefs over their mo
uths and noses, gazing with red-eye
d incomprehension at the ruins of their homes across the street.