Pilgrim Soul (27 page)

‘I don’t know. It’s a kind of madness. Mob hysteria.’

Danny shook his head violently. ‘Naw, too easy! Lets them off the hook. They wurnae dafties. They knew what they were doing. Bastards! They liked it!’

We were stilled by our thoughts.

‘How are you now, Danny?’

‘No’ bad. The headaches have pretty well stopped. I just get down at times. Whisky works.’

Suddenly I recognised myself. Clever Sam.

‘Is there a girl in your life?’ I asked.

Pain drifted across his face. ‘They’re a bloody nuisance, aren’t they?’

‘Escaped your clutches?’

He got up and poked some life into the fire. ‘I seem to know how to pick them. She was a reporter in London. Like you, Brodie. Eve Copeland. Heard of her? She had her own column in the
Trumpet
.’

‘You’re using past tense.’

He rubbed his face. ‘Turned out she was also an agent.’

‘As in
secret
agent? Good God, man. Who for?’

He sighed. ‘Who do you think? She’d been coerced. Nazis had her parents. Jews. Her real name was Ava Kaplan.’

‘How did you find out that – Eve? Ava? – was an agent?’

‘Eve. Scotland Yard. But she got away before they did.’

‘What happened?’

‘It’s a long story. She went off to Berlin looking for her folks.’

‘And?’

He looked sheepish. ‘I went after her.’

‘Christ, Danny! And I thought I was a magnet for trouble! Did she find them?’

‘Nup. Long since dead. The Nazis had been playing Eve along. So she went after them.’

‘Retribution? And I suppose you tagged along for the ride?’

‘Oh aye. And we had a wee bit of help from the Irgun Zvai Leumi.’

‘The ones that blew up the King David Hotel? You’re kidding.’

‘The same. But they see themselves as freedom fighters.’

‘I can’t completely blame them. After what was done to them.’

He eyed me closely. ‘That’s how I see it. We’ve got ourselves in a right bloody fankle. We’re supposed to be in charge of Palestine, but really we’re siding with the Arabs, which means we’re trying to stop Jewish refugees getting in. Or, as they put it,
going home
. Our boys get shot or kidnapped or blown up, and all the while we’re trying to help them create a Jewish state. Eve’s part of their delegation in London.’

‘Your girl’s part of the Israeli negotiating team?’

He stopped pacing. ‘She’s not mine, Douglas. She’s chosen a different way. But yes, she and her pals are hammering out proposals for the UN. She could be prime minister of Israel one day. A tough lassie. But hie, we’re not here to solve
my
problems.’

‘You think you’re here to solve mine?’

He looked me up and down. ‘Not me.
You.
No one else can do it for you. It will get better, Dougie. I promise you. It just takes time. Time and talking about it.’

‘Are you some kind of amateur Freud? The talking cure? I don’t
want
to talk about it.’

He shrugged. ‘Well, don’t then. You were always a thrawn bugger, Brodie. Just let me say this: I’ve been through it. Still going through it. It’s like a kind of battle fatigue. Oh, by the way, congratulations,
Colonel
.’

I waved it down. ‘A contrivance. Short term. While we sort out this mess.’

‘Good. If it keeps you busy. Stops you feeling sorry for yourself.’

I looked at him, seeing briefly the slim young detective from thirteen, fourteen years ago. The shining-eyed energy and sharp intelligence. How we’d recognised each other instantly though we’d never met. The door opened. Sam’s head came round.

‘I hope you like coney stew, Danny.’

FORTY-ONE

We pushed our plates away and, for the first time in days, perhaps weeks, I felt more than just nourished by the hot food. Danny had talked about some of his escapades as a private eye and had Sam and me laughing out loud at the tales of missing dogs and husbands. It seems I’d been starved for not just meat. I filled him in on the details of the pursuit I was leading in Glasgow. I told him about the twenty-one hunters I’d set loose last night. Was it only last night?

‘They sound a motley crew, Brodie.’

‘They’re keen and well motivated. Maybe over-motivated.’

‘I can imagine. And can we just get this clear? I
want
to help. If you’ll have me –
Colonel
– you’ve got twenty-two. I’ll fit in. I’m as motley as the next man.’

‘OK,
Captain
. But can we drop the titles? It’s just going to get in the way.’

‘Sure. But we need a leader. You’re it, Brodie.’

I suddenly glanced at my watch. ‘Damn! We’ve got a meeting in twenty minutes.’

Sam threw her napkin down. ‘Are you totally daft, Douglas Brodie? You could hardly stand this afternoon. You were – as Duncan put it exactly – in a total dwam at your desk. Now you think you can just bounce back as though nothing had happened? You’re aff your heid!’

Danny was smiling. ‘She has a point, Brodie. You could get hold of – Belsinger, is it? – by phone and cancel. We could make it tomorrow.’

‘Nup. It’s no way to start. They need to get used to a routine. I need to be there. Are you coming?’ I was on my feet. The dizziness hit, but then died down. I seemed to be nearly under control. Fresh air would help.

‘I’ll grab my hat,’ he said.

‘Good. Where are you staying, Danny?’

He looked at Sam.

‘He’s staying here, of course, Douglas. I invited him.’

Danny grinned.

I groaned. ‘I hope you can afford your own whisky. Let’s go.’

We hacked and slithered our way down through the frozen streets and up the steep hill to our rendezvous at Garnethill. We arrived blowing steam like a pair of old locomotives. I introduced McRae to Shimon and Isaac and we had just enough time to get our coats and hats off before the first of the group started arriving.

As they gathered in front of Danny and me, I sensed a new mood. There was more talking, more recognition of each other. We got them seated, I counted heads – I made it twenty-three – twenty-four, counting Danny. I spotted two new faces. Swarthy characters sitting either side of Malachi at the back. One wore glasses and looked professorial.

‘Mal, can you introduce your new pals?’

Malachi turned to them and said something. Then he spoke up. ‘They are Paulus and Emmanuel. Hungarian. They got out in ’39. They wanted to help.’ First one and then the other got up and nodded.

‘Shalom, Colonel.’

‘Welcome, both. But please, it’s just Brodie. OK?’

They sat down and I noticed a quiet watchfulness about them. Self-contained and wary. They looked handy.

‘I’m
also
bringing someone new this evening. This is Danny McRae, formerly captain in the Scots Guards and then SOE agent. But perhaps there is something special about his background you might want to hear. Danny?’

Danny stood up, calm and assured as ever – cocky even – and briefly described his year in captivity in Dachau. It gripped them and got them on side. One man even stepped up and shook his hand in fellow feeling. Bathsheba’s eyes glittered in scrutiny.

I got them to settle down and we began taking reports. As each got to his feet I asked him to call out his name and his map reference, his beat. I asked what languages he spoke, and what he’d been up to today. It was hardly a model reporting session from Central Division, and scarcely a team briefing of NCOs before battle. But it would do.

‘I’m Maximillian. I have reference D5.’ I pointed at the map area on the easel. He nodded and looked down at a scruffy envelope. His notes. ‘I talked to four shop owners today. I got talking to some customers too. Asked them about new people. And to keep an eye out for people that acted differently.’

‘Good, Max. Any signs?’

He shook his head. ‘Next,’ I called.

And so it went. Sometimes there were overlaps of areas. Sometimes there were questions from other members of the team.

‘Hey, Eli? You said you’d been in MacDougall’s. You know his brother has a butcher’s in Partick. I hear he’s big in the black market. He’s got poachers who bring him meat. We should watch for anyone with cash to spend on meat.’

‘
Ja
, I know this.’

We had nearly finished with the men. I looked up to the back of the audience. She sat quietly, watching.

‘Bathsheba. Miss Goldstein. Would you please report?’

The girl’s eyes widened – which scarcely seemed possible –and she tucked a strand of stray black hair into her scarf. Slowly she got to her feet and the room grew quiet.

She started too low for me to hear.

‘It’s OK, Miss Goldstein. Please speak up.’

She coughed and found her voice. ‘I have K4. I’m asking the shop owners to keep an eye out. Some of them are helpful. Jews own three of the shops and I will see them each day from now on.’

‘Well done, Bathsheba. And what languages do you speak?’

‘German, a little Polish and, of course, English.’

‘Of course. Thank you. Everybody: this is working well now. I have decided we’ll meet every second night. In between times, if any of you find out anything, you must phone me at the
Gazette
newsroom or at my digs. You have the numbers on your instruction sheets.’

We didn’t finish until after nine. As we wrapped up for the evening, I suddenly felt woozy. I’d been keeping going with sheer will power. Danny and I were the last to leave.

‘Who was the girl?’ he asked casually.

‘The one you were staring at all night?’

‘Was it that obvious?’

‘Danny, you bored holes in her. You heard me use her name. Bathsheba Goldstein. Got out of Germany to Paris just before the war. Holed up there with non-Jewish friends. Lost her folks and wants to get her own back. Like your girl, Eve.’

‘No one’s like Eve. But I have to admit, Miss Goldstein is easy on the eye.’

I raised an eyebrow at him, wondering where this might go; wondering, too, if I’d just felt a small and inappropriate pang of jealousy.

We negotiated our way over the rollercoaster hills back to Sam’s house. Down Hill Street and up Lynedoch Street into Park Circus. A crow would have done it in a couple of wing flaps. But we were fighting icy pavements and the gravity of our years. I think Danny was slowing his pace for me.

Later, when the lights were out and the house was silent, Sam crept into my room and sneaked into my bed.

‘Are you sure this is sensible?’

‘It’s never been sensible, Brodie.’

‘I mean with . . .’

‘Are you suddenly worried for my reputation?’

‘How it looks. In front of Danny.’

‘I’m probably seen as the whore of Kelvingrove. At least by the good matrons of Park Ward. I can almost hear them tutting as I walk by. Net curtains twitching.’

‘I could make an honest woman of you.’

‘Wheesht, Brodie. I’m off to Edinburgh tomorrow for three days.
Carpe diem. Carpe meam
.’

With the last of my flagging strength, I did.

FORTY-TWO

The days and evenings fell into a pattern. Danny McRae would head off first thing and walk the streets himself. Unbidden, he’d simply adopted the role as my second in command. He got a map and list of the streets and the names of the hunters assigned to reconnoitre them. He made it his business to spend a few minutes with each of them every day. Probably longer with Bathsheba, though I didn’t ask. Lucky man.

But it gave me an invaluable pair of experienced eyes and ears out on the streets, sifting and evaluating. He hadn’t lost his detective skills. Or his questioning, restless mind. An unquiet heart.

We got into the habit of sharing a bottle in the evening. Sam wasn’t around to dilute the topics, and initially we talked of our days in the force, and the girls we danced with and kissed. But halfway down the bottle we usually got round to comparing notes on our respective wars. We’d been in the same theatre for a while with the 8th Army in the desert. It’s where he got wounded; he still carried the limp that showed at the day’s end.

As the level in the bottle dropped further we began to delve into the damage inflicted on us. The mental damage.

‘It’s the nightmares,’ I said. ‘Sometimes I’m scared of going to sleep.’

‘I know how that goes. But I couldn’t work out whether I was having bad dreams or flashbacks. When they first brought me back here I couldn’t remember much of the year before. From the time the Gestapo picked me up.’

‘Has it come back? Do you remember it all now?’

‘Mostly. It’s a bit jagged. But in truth there’s not much you’d want to remember.’

The more Danny told me, the more I found myself opening up to him in a way I hadn’t ever done to anyone, even to Sam. Especially to Sam.

‘And you still get down at times, Danny?’

‘Don’t we all?’

‘Oh aye, but does it get bad? Really bad?’ I chose my words carefully. ‘To where it all seems . . . pointless?’

‘Sure. Lately. Since I lost Eve.’ He eyed me carefully. ‘You mean ending it? That bad?’

I shrugged. ‘But you don’t, do you?’

‘You just bugger on.’

We were quiet for a bit.

‘Can I tell you something?’

‘I hope it’s not about your sex life, Brodie.’

‘Nothing as simple. Look, I thought I was over it. And I was. For a while there. But for no reason, sometimes, I get really het up. Like I’m standing on a cliff and I’m about to fall off. Or like I’m being attacked. I just . . .’

‘Blow up? No reason?’

I nodded.

Danny smiled and refilled the glasses. He stared into the fire. The white of his scar glowed like a silk ribbon among his red mane.

‘I used to get blank spots. As though I’d got stocious the night before. But without having touched a drop. I’d lose a few hours – a couple of days even. Couldn’t recall a thing. But I’d find scribbling. My
own
scribbling on a wee notepad. Some kind of warning to myself. Thought I was going daft. And before Eve . . . Naw, it disnae matter . . .’

‘Go on. You’re among friends.’ I waited.

‘The girl that got killed in France. By Caldwell. She came back to me in London.’