Eye of the Needle (30 page)
Trying to be utterly silent, with painful slowness, Lucy shifted the gun to her left hand, and with her right took the axe from her belt, lifted it high above her head, and brought it down with all her might on Henry’s hand.
He must have sensed it, or heard the rush of wind, or seen a blur of ghostly movement behind the window, because he moved abruptly a split-second before the blow landed.
The axe thudded into the wood of the windowsill, sticking there. For a fraction of an instant Lucy thought she had missed; then, from outside, came a scream of pain, and she saw beside the axe blade, lying on the varnished wood like caterpillars, two severed fingers.
She heard the sound of feet running.
She threw up.
The exhaustion hit her then, closely followed by a rush of self-pity. She had suffered enough, surely to God, had she not? There were policemen and soldiers in the world to deal with situations like this—nobody could expect an ordinary housewife and mother to hold off a murderer indefinitely. Who could blame her if she gave up now? Who could honestly say they would have done better, lasted longer, stayed more resourceful for another minute?
She was finished. They would have to take over—the outside world, the policemen and soldiers, whoever was at the other end of that radio link.
She
could do no more….
She tore her eyes away from the grotesque objects on the windowsill and went wearily up the stairs. She picked up the second gun and took both weapons into the bedroom with her.
Jo was still asleep, thank God. He had hardly moved all night, blessedly unaware of the apocalypse going on around him. She could tell, somehow, that he was not sleeping so deeply now, something about the look on his face and the way he breathed let her know that he would wake soon and want his breakfast.
She longed for that old routine now: getting up in the morning, making breakfast, dressing Jo, doing simple, tedious,
safe
household chores like washing and cleaning and cutting herbs from the garden and making pots of tea…. It seemed incredible that she had been so dissatisfied with David’s lovelessness, the long boring evenings, the endless bleak landscape of turf and heather and rain….
It would never come back, that life.
She had wanted cities, music, people, ideas. Now the desire for those things had left her, and she could not understand how she had ever wanted them. Peace was all a human being ought to ask for, it seemed to her.
She sat in front of the radio and studied its switches and dials. She would do this one thing, then she would rest. She made a tremendous effort and forced herself to think analytically for a little longer. There were not so many possible combinations of switch and dial. She found a knob with two settings, turned it, and tapped the Morse key. There was no sound. Perhaps that meant the microphone was now in circuit.
She pulled it to her and spoke into it. “Hello, hello, is there anybody there? Hello?”
There was a switch that had “Transmit” above it and “Receive” below. It was turned to “Transmit.” If the world was to talk back to her, obviously she had to throw the switch to “Receive.”
She said: “Hello, is anybody listening?” and threw the switch to “Receive.”
Nothing.
Then: “Come in, Storm Island, receiving you loud and clear.”
It was a man’s voice. He sounded young and strong, capable and reassuring, and alive and
normal
.
“Come in, Storm Island, we’ve been trying to raise you all night…where the devil have you
been
?”
Lucy switched to “Transmit,” tried to speak, and burst into tears.
P
ERCIVAL GODLIMAN HAD A HEADACHE FROM TOO
many cigarettes and too little sleep. He had taken a little whisky to help him through the long, worried night in his office, and that had been a mistake. Everything oppressed him: the weather, his office, his job, the war. For the first time since he had gotten into this business he found himself longing for dusty libraries, illegible manuscripts and medieval Latin.
Colonel Terry walked in with two cups of tea on a tray. “Nobody around here sleeps,” he said cheerfully. He sat down. “Ship’s biscuit?” He offered Godliman a plate.
Godliman refused the biscuit and drank the tea. It gave him a temporary lift.
“I just had a call from the great man,” Terry said. “He’s keeping the night vigil with us.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Godliman said sourly.
“He’s worried.”
The phone rang.
“Godliman.”
“I have the Royal Observer Corps in Aberdeen for you, sir.”
“Yes.”
A new voice came on, the voice of a young man. “Royal Observer Corps, Aberdeen, here, sir.”
“Yes.”
“Is that Mr. Godliman?”
“Yes.”
Dear God, these military types took their time.
“We’ve raised Storm Island at last, sir…it’s not our regular observer. In fact it’s a woman—”
“What did
she
say?”
“Nothing, yet, sir.”
“What do you
mean
?” Godliman fought down the angry impatience.
“She’s just…well, crying, sir.”
Godliman hesitated. “Can you connect me to her?”
“Yes. Hold on.” There was a pause punctuated by several clicks and a hum. Then Godliman heard the sound of a woman weeping.
He said, “Hello, can you hear me?”
The weeping went on.
The young man came back on the line to say, “She won’t be able to hear you until she switches to ‘Receive,’ sir—ah, she’s done it. Go ahead.”
Godliman said, “Hello, young lady. When I’ve finished speaking I’ll say ‘Over.’ Then you switch to ‘Transmit’ to speak to me and
you
say ‘Over’ when
you
have finished. Do you understand? Over.”
The woman’s voice came on. “Oh, thank God for somebody sane, yes, I understand. Over.”
“Now, then,” Godliman said gently, “tell me what’s been happening there. Over.”
“A man was shipwrecked here two—no, three days ago. I think he’s that stiletto murderer from London, he killed my husband and our shepherd and now he’s outside the house, and I’ve got my little boy here…I’ve nailed the windows shut and fired at him with a shotgun, and barred the door and set the dog on him but he killed the dog and I hit him with an axe when he tried to get in through the window and
I can’t do it anymore so please come for God’s sake. Over
.”
Godliman put his hand over the phone. His face was white. “Jesus Christ…” But when he spoke to her, he was brisk. “You must try to hold on a little longer,” he began. “There are sailors and coastguards and policemen and all sorts of people on their way to you but they can’t land until the storm lets up…. Now, there’s something I want you to do, and I can’t tell you why you must do it because of the people who may be listening to us, but I can tell you that it is
absolutely essential
…Are you hearing me clearly? Over.”
“Yes, go on. Over.”
“You must destroy your radio. Over.”
“Oh, no, please…”
“Yes,” Godliman said, then he realized she was still transmitting.
“I don’t…I can’t…” Then there was a scream.
Godliman said, “Hello, Aberdeen, what’s happening?”
The young man came on. “The set’s still transmitting, sir, but she’s not speaking. We can’t hear anything.”
“She screamed.”
“Yes, we got that.”
Godliman hesitated a moment. “What’s the weather like up there?”
“It’s raining, sir.” The young man sounded puzzled.
“I’m not making conversation,” Godliman snapped. “Is there any sign of the storm letting up?”
“It’s eased a little in the last few minutes, sir.”
“Good. Get back to me the instant that woman comes back on the air.”
“Very good, sir.”
Godliman said to Terry. “God only knows what that girl’s going through up there—” He jiggled the cradle of the phone.
The colonel crossed his legs. “If she would only smash up the radio, then—”
“Then we don’t care if he kills her?”
“You said it.”
Godliman spoke into the phone. “Get me Bloggs at Rosyth.”
BLOGGS WOKE UP
with a start, and listened. Outside it was dawn. Everyone in the scramble hut was listening too. They could hear nothing. That was what they were listening to: the silence.
The rain had stopped drumming on the tin roof.
Bloggs went to the window. The sky was grey, with a band of white on the eastern horizon. The wind had dropped suddenly and the rain had become a light drizzle.
The pilots started putting on jackets and helmets, lacing boots, lighting up last cigarettes.
A klaxon sounded, and a voice boomed out over the airfield: “Scramble! Scramble!”
The phone rang. The pilots ignored it and piled out through the door. Bloggs picked it up. “Yes?”
“Percy here, Fred. We just contacted the island. He’s killed the two men. The woman’s managing to hold him off at the moment but she clearly won’t last much longer—”
“The rain has stopped. We’re taking off now,” Bloggs said.
“Make it fast, Fred. Good-bye.”
Bloggs hung up and looked around for his pilot. Charles Calder had fallen asleep over
War and Peace
. Bloggs shook him roughly. “Wake up, you dozy bastard, wake up!”
Calder opened his eyes.
Bloggs could have hit him. “Wake up, come on, we’re going, the storm’s ended!”
The pilot jumped to his feet. “Jolly good show,” he said.
He ran out of the door and Bloggs followed, shaking his head.
THE LIFEBOAT
dropped into the water with a crack like a pistol and a wide V-shaped splash. The sea was far from calm, but here in the partial shelter of the bay there was no risk to a stout boat in the hands of experienced sailors.
The captain said, “Carry on, Number One.”
The first mate was standing at the rail with three of the ratings. He wore a pistol in a waterproof holster. “Let’s go,” he told them.
The four men scrambled down the ladders and into the boat. The first mate sat in the stern and the three sailors broke out the oars and began to row.
For a few moments the captain watched their steady progress toward the jetty. Then he went back to the bridge and gave orders for the corvette to continue circling the island.
THE SHRILL RINGING
of a bell broke up the card game on the cutter.
Slim said, “I thought something was different. We aren’t going up and down so much. Almost motionless, really. Makes me damn seasick.”
Nobody was listening: the crew were hurrying to their stations, some of them fastening life jackets as they went.
The engines fired with a roar, and the vessel began to tremble faintly.
Up on deck Smith stood in the prow, enjoying the fresh air and the spray on his face after a day and a night below.
As the cutter left the harbor Slim joined him.
“Here we go again,” Slim said.
“I knew the bell was going to ring then,” Smith said. “You know why?”
“Tell me.”
“I was holding ace and a king. Banker’s Twenty-One.”
LIEUTENANT COMMANDER WERNER HEER
looked at his watch. “Thirty minutes.”
Major Wohl nodded. “What’s the weather like?”
“The storm has ended,” Heer said reluctantly. He would have preferred to keep that information to himself.
“Then we should surface.”
“If your man were there, he would send us a signal.”
“The war is not won by hypothesis, captain,” said Wohl. “I firmly suggest that we surface.”
There had been a blazing row while the U-boat was in dock between Heer’s superior officer and Wohl’s; and Wohl’s had won. Heer was still captain of the ship, but he had been told in no uncertain terms that he had better have a damned good reason next time he ignored one of Major Wohl’s firm suggestions.
“We will surface at six o’clock exactly,” he said.
Wohl nodded again and looked away.
T
HE SOUND OF BREAKING GLASS, THEN AN EXPLOSION
like an incendiary bomb:
Whoomph
…
Lucy dropped the microphone. Something was happening downstairs. She picked up a shotgun and ran down.
The living room was ablaze. The fire centered on a broken jar on the floor. Henry had made some kind of bomb with the petrol from the jeep. The flames were spreading across Tom’s threadbare carpet and licking up over the loose covers of his ancient three-piece suite. A feather-filled cushion caught and the fire reached up toward the ceiling.
Lucy picked up the cushion and threw it through the broken window, singeing her hand. She tore her coat off and threw it on the carpet, stamping on it. She picked it up again and draped it over the floral settee.
There was another crash of glass.
It came from upstairs.
Lucy screamed. “Jo!”
She dropped the coat and rushed up the stairs and into the front bedroom.
Faber was sitting on the bed with Jo on his lap. The child was awake, sucking his thumb, wearing his wide-eyed morning look. Faber was stroking his tousled hair.
“Throw the gun on the bed, Lucy.”
Her shoulders sagged and she did as he said. “You climbed the wall and got through the window,” she said dully.
Faber dumped Jo off his lap. “Go to Mummy.”
Jo ran to her and she lifted him up.
He picked up both guns and went to the radio. He was holding his right hand under his left armpit, and there was a great red bloodstain on his jacket. He sat down. “You hurt me,” he said. Then he turned his attention to the transmitter.
Suddenly it spoke. “Come in, Storm Island.”
He picked up the microphone. “Hello?”
“Just a minute.”
There was a pause, then another voice came on. Lucy recognized it as the man in London who had told her to destroy the radio. He would be disappointed in her. It said, “Hello, this is Godliman again. Can you hear me? Over.”
Faber said, “Yes, I can hear you, professor. Seen any good cathedrals lately?”
“What?…is that—”
“Yes.” Faber smiled. “How do you do.” Then the smile abruptly left his face, as if playtime was over, and he manipulated the frequency dial of the radio.
Lucy turned and left the room. It was over. She walked listlessly down the stairs and into the kitchen. There was nothing for her to do but wait for him to kill her. She could not run away—she did not have the energy, and he obviously knew it.
She looked out of the window. The storm had ended. The howling gale had dropped to a stiff breeze, there was no rain, and the eastern sky was bright with the promise of sunshine. The sea—
She frowned, and looked again.
Yes, my God, it
was
a submarine.
Destroy the radio
, the man had said.
Last night Henry had cursed in a foreign language…
“I did it for my country,”
he had said.
And, in his delirium, something about
waiting at Calais for a phantom army….
Destroy the radio
.
Why would a man take a can of photographic negatives on a fishing trip?
She had known all along he was not insane.
The submarine was a German U-boat, Henry was some kind of German agent…spy?…this very moment he must be trying to contact that U-boat by radio…
Destroy the radio
.
She had no right to give up, she couldn’t now that she understood. She knew what she had to do. She would have liked to put Jo somewhere else, where he could not see it—that bothered her more than the pain she knew she would feel—but there was no time for that. Henry would surely find his frequency at any second and then it might be too late—
She had to destroy the radio, but the radio was upstairs with Henry, and he had both the guns and he
would
kill her.
She knew only one way to do it.
She placed one of Tom’s kitchen chairs in the center of the room, stood on it, reached up and unscrewed the light bulb.
She got down off the chair, went to the door and threw the switch.
“Are you changing the bulb?” Jo asked.
Lucy climbed on the chair, hesitated for a moment, then thrust three fingers into the live socket.
There was a bang, an instant of agony, and then unconsciousness.
FABER HEARD
the bang. He had found the right frequency on the transmitter, had thrown the switch to “Transmit” and had picked up the microphone. He was about to speak when the noise came. Immediately afterward the lights on the dials of the wireless set went out.
His face suffused with anger. She had short-circuited the electricity supply to the whole house. He had not credited her with that much ingenuity.
He should have killed her before. What was
wrong
with him? He had never hesitated, not ever, until he met this woman.
He picked up one of the guns and went downstairs.
The child was crying. Lucy lay in the kitchen doorway, out cold. Faber took in the empty light socket with the chair beneath it. He frowned in amazement.
She had done it with her
hand
.
Faber said: “Jesus Christ Almighty.”
Lucy’s eyes opened.
She hurt all over.
Henry was standing over her with the gun in his hands. He was saying, “Why did you use your hand? Why not a screwdriver?”
“I didn’t know you could do it with a screwdriver.”
He shook his head. “You are truly an astonishing woman,” he said as he lifted the gun, aimed it at her, and lowered it again. “
Damn
you.”
His gaze went to the window, and he started.
“You saw it,” he said.
She nodded.
He stood tense for a moment, then went to the door. Finding it nailed shut, he smashed the window with the butt of his gun and climbed out.
Lucy got to her feet. Jo threw his arms around her legs. She did not feel strong enough to pick him up. She staggered to the window and looked out.
He was running toward the cliff. The U-boat was still there, perhaps half a mile offshore. He reached the cliff edge and crawled over. He was going to try to swim to the submarine.
She had to stop him.
Dear God, no more…
She climbed through the window, blotting out the cries of her son, and ran after him.
When she reached the cliff edge she lay down and looked over. He was about halfway between her and the sea. He looked up and saw her, froze for a moment, and then began to move faster, dangerously fast.
Her first thought was to climb down after him. But what would she do then? Even if she caught him, she couldn’t possibly stop him.
The ground beneath her shifted slightly. She scrambled back, afraid it would give way and throw her down the cliff.
Which gave her the idea.
She thumped on the rocky ground with both fists. It seemed to shake a little more and a crack appeared. She got one hand over the edge and thrust the other into the crack. A piece of earthy chalk the size of a watermelon came away in her hands.
She looked over the edge and sighted him.
She took careful aim and dropped the stone.
It seemed to fall very slowly. He saw it coming, and covered his head with his arm. It looked to her as if it would miss him.
The rock passed within a few inches of his head and hit his left shoulder. He was holding on with his left hand. He seemed to lose his grip and he balanced precariously for a moment. The right hand, the injured one, scrabbled for a hold. Then he appeared to lean out, away from the face of the rock, arms windmilling, until his feet slipped from their narrow ledge and he was in midair, suspended; and finally he dropped like a stone to the rocks below.
He made no sound.
He landed on a flat rock that jutted above the surface of the water. The noise his body made hitting the rock sickened her. He lay there on his back, arms outflung, head at an impossible angle.
Something seeped out from inside him on to the stone, and Lucy turned away.
EVERYTHING
seemed to happen at once then.
There was a roaring sound from the sky and three aircraft with RAF circles on their wings flew out of the clouds and dipped low over the U-boat, their guns firing.
Four sailors came up the hill toward the house at a jog trot, one of them shouting, “Left-right-left-right-left-right.”
Another plane landed on the sea, a dinghy emerged from inside it and a man in a life jacket began to row toward the cliff.
A small ship came around the headland and steamed toward the U-boat.
The U-boat submerged.
The dinghy bumped into the rocks at the foot of the cliff, and the man got out and examined Faber’s body.
A boat she recognized as the Coastguard cutter appeared.
One of the sailors came up to her. “Are you all right, love? There’s a little girl in the cottage crying for her mummy—”
“It’s a boy,” Lucy said, “I must cut his hair.”
BLOGGS STEERED
the dinghy toward the body at the foot of the cliff. The boat bumped against the rock and he scrambled out and onto the flat surface.
Die Nadel’s skull had smashed like a glass goblet when he hit the rock. Looking more closely, Bloggs could see that the man had been somewhat battered even before the fall: his right hand was mutilated and there was something wrong with his ankle.
Bloggs searched the body. The stiletto was where he had guessed it might be: in a sheath strapped to the left forearm. In the inside pocket of the expensive-looking bloodstained jacket, Bloggs found a wallet, papers, money, and a small film can containing twenty-four 35mm photographic negatives. He held them up to the strengthening light: they were the negatives of the prints found in the envelopes Faber had sent to the Portuguese Embassy.
The sailors on the cliff top threw down a rope. Bloggs put Faber’s possessions into his own pocket, then tied the rope around the body. They hauled it up, then sent the rope down for Bloggs.
When he got to the top, the sub-lieutenant introduced himself and they walked across to the cottage on top of the hill.
“We haven’t touched anything, didn’t want to destroy evidence,” the senior sailor said.
“Don’t worry too much,” Bloggs told him. “There won’t be a prosecution.”
They had to enter the house through the broken kitchen window. The woman was sitting at a table with the child on her lap. Bloggs smiled at her. He could not think of anything to say.
He looked quickly around the cottage. It was a battlefield. He saw the nailed-up windows, the barred doors, the remains of the fire, and the dog with its throat cut, the shotguns, the broken banister, and the axe embedded in the windowsill beside two severed fingers.
He thought, What kind of woman is she?
He set the sailors to work—one to tidy the house and unbar the doors and windows, another to replace the blown fuse, a third to make tea.
He sat down in front of the woman and looked at her. She was dressed in ill-fitting, mannish clothes; her hair was wet; her face was dirty. Despite all that, she was remarkably beautiful, with lovely amber eyes in an oval face.
Bloggs smiled at the child and spoke quietly to the woman. “What you’ve done is tremendously important,” he said. “One of these days we’ll explain, but for now I have to ask you two questions. Is that okay?”
Her eyes focused on him and after a moment she nodded.
“Did Faber succeed in contacting the U-boat by radio?”
The woman just looked blank.
Bloggs found a toffee in his trousers pocket. “Can I give the boy a sweet? He looks hungry.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Now, did Faber contact the U-boat?”
“His name was Henry Baker,” she said.
“Oh. Well, did he?”
“No. I short-circuited the electricity.”
“That was very smart,” Bloggs said. “How did you do it?”
She pointed at the empty light socket above them.
“Screwdriver, eh?”
“No. I wasn’t that smart. Fingers.”
He gave her a look of horror, disbelief. The thought of deliberately…he shook himself, trying to put it out of his mind. And thought again, What kind of woman is she?…“Right, well, do you think anyone on the U-boat could have seen him coming down the cliff?”
The effort of concentration showed on her face. “Nobody came out of the hatch, I’m quite sure,” she said. “Could they have seen him through their periscope?”
“No,” he said. “This is good news, very good news. It means they don’t know he’s been…neutralized. Anyway…” He changed the subject hastily. “You’ve been through as much as any man on the front line. More. We’re going to get you and the boy to a hospital on the mainland.”
“Yes,” she said.
Bloggs turned to the senior sailor. “Is there any form of transport around?”
“Yes—a jeep down in that little stand of trees.”
“Good. Will you drive these two over to the jetty and get them onto your boat?”
“Surely.”
Bloggs turned to the woman again. He felt a tremendous surge of affection mixed with admiration for her. She looked frail and helpless now, but he knew she was as brave and strong as she was beautiful. Surprising her—and himself—he took hold of her hand. “When you’ve been in hospital a day or two you’ll begin to feel depressed. But that’s a sign you’re getting better. I won’t be far away and the doctors will tell me. I’ll want to talk to you some more, but not before you feel like it. Okay?”
At last she smiled at him, and he felt the warmth. “You’re very kind,” she said.
She stood up and carried her child out of the house.
“Kind?” Bloggs muttered to himself. “God, what a woman.”
He went upstairs to the radio and tuned it to the Royal Observer Corps frequency.
“Storm Island calling, over.”
“Come in, Storm Island.”
“Patch me through to London.”
“Hold on.” There as a long pause, then a familiar voice. “Godliman.”
“Percy. We caught the…smuggler. He’s dead.”
“Marvelous, marvelous.” There was an undisguised triumph in Godliman’s voice. “Did he manage to contact his partner?”
