Tamar (28 page)

When he’d taken this one, Yoyo slithered over to me.

“Don’t tell me this is beautiful,” I said.

“I was not going to say that, actually.”

“Good.”

He slung a long leg over the dead tree and looked past me and then over towards the bridges and Plymouth. “It’s not what you expected?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. Don’t know what I expected. Something more like a proper river, I suppose. This doesn’t look like a river, does it? More like a . . .”

I didn’t know what it was like. More to the point, I didn’t know what I was doing here. At that moment, I was almost convinced I’d got everything wrong. Grandad could not have meant to bring me to this bleakness.

“Let me look at the map,” Yoyo said.

He studied it while I watched long-legged little birds poking their beaks into the mud.

Eventually he said, “This is not really the Tamar yet, I think. It says it is, here, but it is more like part of the sea. The sea will come in and out right up to here. And farther, too. What’s the word for this?”

“Tidal? Estuary? Is that what you mean?”

“Yes, I think so. So tonight, for example, this tree we are sitting on will be in the water, probably. And see that smaller bridge over there? It goes over another river that joins this one. And here and here there are other little rivers that join it also.”

“So?”

“So this water is a muddle of all sorts of rivers and the sea. Your Tamar ends here and gets mixed up with everything else and disappears.”

“What are you on about?” I said nastily.

He regarded me over the top of his sunglasses. “What I’m trying to explain to my sulky little cousin is that we are doing things backwards. We are going from the end of the river to the start of the river. And endings are always sad. We are doing the sad bit first, which is wrong. Strange.”

He put his hand on my shoulder and joggled me lightly. “Cheer up. The river will get more beautiful farther on. It will get clearer, more like you expected, I am sure.”

“I bloody hope so. This is deadly.”

“Here,” he said, “you see the next mark? It’s just round the bend here, this tiny village.”

I had to smile because I love the way he says village:
willage
.

He looked at his watch. “And I notice it has the sign that means pub.”

The willage was called Cargreen and the name of the pub was even weirder: the Crooked Spaniards. It sat on a big quay that was also a car park. Yoyo had been right: the river looked a lot lovelier just this short distance farther away from the estuary. Its surface rippled sky blue and silver, slicing and shuffling the reflections of the boats moored out in the deeper water. We looked upstream where the river vanished between the shoulders of the tilting hills. Yoyo took more photographs. Then we heard the rumbling of an engine and a chirpy toot. Turning, we saw a cruise boat sidling towards the quay. It carried a cargo of ancient ladies, their white and wind-fluffed heads like floral tributes on a coffin.

I thought of Gran. I wondered what she would think if she knew — if she could understand — what we were doing here. For some reason I was sure that she would be frightened. I suddenly felt very uneasy.

“Oh, my God,” Yoyo said, stuffing his camera into its case. “Come on, Tamar. If those old ladies get to the bar first, we’ll be the same age as them before we get served.”

As evening closed in on 4th March, a stocky man called Paul van Os was sitting in a bar at the top of Red Lion Street in Apeldoorn. Under his coat he wore an overall stained with blood and, from the smell of him, something worse. There were two cups on the table in front of him, one containing fake coffee, the other gin from a bottle that the café’s owner, Anje Mol, kept under the counter. Van Os had paid for these treats with half a kilo of fatty sausage meat that he had smuggled out of the abattoir at Epe.

For half an hour he was the only customer. The man who then came in was tall and hawkish. He came across to van Os and without speaking picked up one of the now-empty cups and took it over to the counter. Mrs. Mol reached into the darkness below her and brought out the gin and a second cup. The thin man made no move to pay, and it seemed that Mrs. Mol did not expect him to. He stood smiling at her for a few seconds. In the light of the bar’s single candle, his face resembled a primitive weapon carved from bone. Mrs. Mol glanced across at van Os, shrugged slightly, and went out through the door behind the counter that led up to her living rooms.

The thin man waited until he was sure she had climbed all the stairs, then went back to the street door and slid the bolt. He carried the two drinks to the table where the slaughterman was sitting.

“Cheers, Paul.”

Van Os chinked his cup against the other man’s. “Cheers, Koop. I’d almost given up on you.”

“I had to come the long way round. There are bloody SS and police everywhere.”

“I know,” van Os said. “I got stopped twice on the way here from work.” He grinned. “They don’t keep me long once they get a whiff of me.”

“No,” Koop said. “I wouldn’t fancy searching you. Dear God, Paul, you do stink.” He took a sip from his cup. “Anyway, that’s enough polite conversation. I understand there’s something you want to talk to me about.”

“Yes,” van Os said. “Pork.”

Two nights later, Tamar returned to Sanctuary Farm. He had been riding the knackered bike for more than five hours. His spine and crotch were in torment. His feet were wet and very cold. Every time he had seen lights or suspect shadows on the moonlit roads he had dismounted and dragged himself and the bike into wet ditches or the denser shade of trees. Crouching in such places he had held the pistol against his shoulder with both hands and struggled to steady his breathing. Twice, German motor patrols had sped past.

Throughout all this he had been reciting, memorizing, Ruud van der Spil’s messages for London. Thinking about how to shorten them so Dart would not panic about the time he had to stay on air. One image had haunted his journey: Dart, frantic, his finger stabbing the Morse key, knowing the Germans were tracking his signal. Dart in the attic at the Marionette House waiting for the slam of car doors, boots on the stairs . . . Or at the farm. No, not the farm. He would tell Dart that there must be no more transmissions from there. The thought of Marijke being taken, of losing her, made his brain reel. Dear God, if that were to happen now, with the British and the Canadians so close . . .

And it was unworthy of him, but the truth was he didn’t want Dart at the farm anymore. The man tainted the air with his . . . his tetchiness. He had become both sullen and as taut as a stretched wire. You never knew how he would react. Like when he had come to the farm after the thaw and they had told him of Oma’s death. He had been so distant. No sign of human sympathy at all. But at the same time it was as though he was accusing them of some sort of negligence. As if to say that it might not have happened if he’d been there, even though he’d said from the start there wasn’t much he could do. The Benzedrine was part of it. Christ, the amount the man had asked London for! The signs were familiar; Tamar knew of other WOs who’d gone the same way. And the man was terribly lonely, of course. There was no mistaking the way he looked at Marijke. Or wouldn’t look at her. Might he have guessed? No reason to think so. They had been careful.

Despite his exhaustion, his aching need to shape his body around Marijke’s and fall asleep, Tamar was extremely cautious when he reached the farm. From the road he studied the blacked-out house closely for a full minute. Then he pushed the bike down the track, holding the revolver against his thigh. When he lifted the awful machine through the door of the big barn, one of the surviving hens made an irritable noise like a rusty clock being wound up.

In the yard he put his thumb and second finger into the corners of his mouth and let out a long whistle something like an owl call. He heard the door bolts clack, and then he was in the dark hallway, holding her. They stood locked together, silently; five days had passed since they had last done this. Then Marijke freed her arms and brought his face down to hers.

She kissed him twice, then whispered, “Ernst is here.” Sensing his dismay, she added quickly, “He’s had a phone call.”

“What?”

She took his hand. “Come. I’ll heat some food for you.”

The soup was thin, but it had beads of rich fat in it and, miraculously, small dumplings that glistened in the candlelight. Marijke stood with her hands on the back of Tamar’s chair, urging him to eat, when Dart’s news threatened his appetite.

Dart paced back and forth among the shadows, smoking. “It’s that crazy bastard Koop,” he said. “You know the problem with him? He’s got no fear. You’ve got to have fear in this business. It’s what keeps us alive. Without fear there’s no discipline, no checks; there’s just damn chaos. Koop thinks this is the bloody Wild West and he’s Billy the Kid.”

“Who called you?” Tamar asked.

“Bobby.”

“From Apeldoorn?”

“Yes.”

“When was this?”

“About thirty, maybe forty, minutes ago,” Dart said.

Tamar put down his spoon. “I don’t understand. You were at the asylum?”

“Of course.”

“So how did you get here so fast?”

“I used the motorbike.”

“You
what
?” Tamar glared at him.

The bike was a German courier’s. It had been found in a ditch beside the Zutphen road three weeks earlier. Despite the skid, it had been in perfect working order — unlike its rider, who had come to rest ten metres from the machine with his neck broken. A couple of local amateurs had pinched it. They had some connection with Albert Veening, so they’d had the bright idea of stashing it at the asylum. Tamar had wanted rid of it. Anyone caught using it was as good as dead. That his own wireless operator had taken that risk was incredible.

Dart said defiantly, “I decided that this was an emergency. It goes without saying that I was extremely careful.”

Tamar swallowed his anger with a spoonful of soup. “So what did Bobby say?”

Dart came to face Tamar across the table. “It seems that Koop knows someone who works at the abattoir at Epe. This person told Koop that three tonnes of pork are hanging there. It’s for the German army, of course. God knows where it came from. Anyway, Koop ups and decides that this pork would be better used elsewhere. So he thinks it would be a good idea to steal it.”

Despite himself, Tamar grinned.

“It’s really not funny,” Dart said. “Koop’s idea is to hijack a German truck, drive it to Epe, talk his way into the abattoir and make off with the meat.”

“Hijack a truck? How?”

“A roadblock,” Dart said.

Tamar’s spoon clattered into the almost empty bowl. “Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.” There was a bitter note of satisfaction in Dart’s voice, and Tamar heard it.

“Does Bobby know when Koop’s planning to set up this roadblock?”

“Tonight. On the Arnhem road over the heath.”

“Oh, dear God,” Tamar said. “They’re going to find themselves up against half the Wehrmacht. At least two divisions are moving up to Apeldoorn tonight and tomorrow.”

“I know that,” Dart said. “Which is why I came on the motorbike.”

The two men stared at each other, then Dart put his hands down flat on the table and leaned towards Tamar. “You were supposed to put a stop to this kind of shit,” he said.

Tamar felt as though he had been struck in the face. His own suppressed rage flared like a stoked fire. “Don’t you . . . Do not tell me what I am supposed to do. You have no idea what I . . .” He lifted a hand. “Never mind. There are things that do not — must not — concern you.”

“Really? I’m supposed to sit in that damned madhouse while the Germans look all over the place for me and not be concerned that cowboy operations are going on just up the road? Cowboy operations that will have the Gestapo swarming all over us. Cowboy operations
you’re
supposed to prevent.”

Dart’s eyes were moist, and there was no mistaking the hate that glittered briefly in them. Tamar saw it and recognized it. It shocked and frightened him. He was unable to speak.

It was then that Marijke went over to Dart and took his head in her hands, turning his face towards her own. She moved her right hand to his mouth and touched his lips with the tips of her fingers. When Dart forced his eyes to meet hers, she shook her head slightly and murmured “Shh” just once. It was something you might do to soothe a child, and Dart immediately became childlike. His body slumped slightly, his lower lip trembled, and he released his breath in short gasps. Marijke pulled out a chair and pressed down gently on Dart’s shoulders until he sat. He inhaled shakily, then rummaged in his pockets for cigarettes and lit one.

“I’m sorry,” he said, letting the words out in a wreath of smoke. “I’m not losing my nerve. Don’t think that. But we all know that the average life expectancy of WOs in the field is three months. I’ve lasted five. I feel like I’m riding my luck as it is, even without crazy bastards like Koop screwing everything up.”

Marijke’s hands were still on Dart’s shoulders, but she was watching Tamar’s face.