SS-GB (22 page)

‘You won’t find Professor Frick, and I doubt if you’ll find any of his staff.’

‘Why not?’ said Douglas.

Huth turned round slowly and looked at Douglas. ‘Because Professor Frick’s co-workers are under the protection of the German army.’

‘But the “wanted” notices, that you just ordered Harry to prepare…?’

‘Just a device, to force those army idiots to tell me where they are…even to let us see them.’

‘I see,’ said Douglas who did not see at all. Had Huth not seen the railway ticket to Bringle Sands that had been in the dead man’s pocket? Harry Woods must have destroyed the ticket. Now Douglas had no doubt that Professor Frick’s team were working for the German army somewhere near to Bringle Sands, where the dead man had come from.

Huth said, ‘You find where the army have hidden
Professor Frick’s scientific staff and I’ll give Harry Woods the sort of protection that no one dare challenge.’ He inhaled on his cigarette, still staring at Douglas. ‘Back in Berlin I had a drunken homosexual working for me. Some of his treasonable remarks would have made even you turn pale.’

‘I turn pale very easily,’ said Douglas.

Huth wasn’t listening. He had those steely grey eyes drilling into Douglas’s head. ‘Do you know what I did?’ Without pausing he added, ‘I wrote instructions for him to act as an agent provocateur.’ Huth laughed briefly. ‘A perfect defence. From then onwards he had no one to fear.’

‘And whom has Harry Woods to fear?’

‘Well certainly not that white-haired fatherly old Fritz Kellerman. He’s a Prussian gentleman of the old school.’ Huth laughed, got up, put on his overcoat and picked up the piece of paper on which Harry Woods had written the name and address of the tailor in Lambeth. When he got to the door, he turned and said, ‘Are you going to find young Spode for me?’

‘I think so.’

‘Time is running out,’ said Huth, and left.

Douglas found it difficult not to feel smug when he first noticed the man. He was exactly the type Huth would be bound to choose. He was twentyish, perhaps younger, a thick-set man with a reddish complexion that still suffered the skin eruptions of adolescence. He wore a belted coat, and a tweed hat of the sort favoured by anglers and college professors. He carried a carelessly rolled umbrella, and a street-map, which he consulted each time Douglas halted.

In the Haymarket Douglas jumped aboard a passing bus. Its platform was already crowded but the others made room for him. He looked back to see the young man frantically elbowing his way through the home-bound office workers, and craning his neck to keep Douglas in sight. By Piccadilly Circus Douglas had lost sight of his pursuer. Halfway up Regent Street, he got off the bus and went east into Soho.

It was too early for Bertha’s bar. Douglas walked up to the floor above and returned the dinner suit to Charlie Rossi. He grumbled about the marks on it in a good-natured way that a couple of cigarettes smoothed over. There, ready for him, was his own suit, folded more carefully than it had ever been folded before. Douglas remembered the time when Rossi’s hire service had been distinguished by the use of black and white layers of tissue paper, and dozens of pins, and beautiful boxes with Rossi’s name in scrollwork. Now the old man had wrapped his suit in newspaper, and could spare not more than two layers of that.

Douglas insisted on paying for the hire of the suit
and Rossi responded by bringing from under the counter a bottle of Marsala and two glasses. Compared with his fellow tradesmen, Charlie Rossi was a lucky man. As an Italian, he enjoyed the special status of being allied to the Germans. But as the old man said – straight-faced but with twinkling eyes – the British had not interned him at the beginning of the war, and that had been his downfall. In fact, they both knew that Charlie had been famous for his anti-Mussolini jokes for more than a decade.

It was twilight as Douglas emerged into the crowded streets of Soho. In spite of the restrictions on the use of electricity, there were still many illuminated signs, and Germans of all shapes and sizes in every imaginable kind of uniform were spending their money on the delights everywhere offered. At the end of Old Compton Street, the Feldgendarmerie unit attached to West End Central Police station manned the regular checkpoint. The NCO recognized Douglas and let him through the barrier ahead of two black-uniformed tank officers and their girlfriends. They objected to this but the Gendarmerie Feldwebel told them that Douglas was a SIPO officer and this silenced the officers immediately.

Douglas hurried on self-consciously. He turned south past the ruins of the Palace Theatre, now a ‘garden’ of weeds and wild flowers that were said to thrive on the cordite traces. In the lower part of Charing Cross Road, Douglas stopped to look at an outdoor rack of secondhand books. Then he saw him again. Of course Huth would have assigned an experienced man to this task. Douglas wondered if it was something to do with the phone call from Colonel Mayhew, although at the time Huth appeared not to notice it. Douglas stopped to give a penny to an old man at the handle of a street-piano and turned to look round. The man stopped and looked at his map.

Irritably, Douglas decided to give this man the slip once and for all. He moved through the crowds quickly, keeping close to the buildings so that as he reached the Leicester Square entrance to the Underground he was able to move smoothly down the stairs, dodging in and out of the people coming up. Once at the lower level, he ran across the concourse, past the ticket offices, machines and kiosks. Holding up his police pass he went through the barrier with a nod from the ticket inspector. Then he hurried down the long moving staircase that went to the Piccadilly Line trains.

The platform was crowded, and Douglas imagined the young man still fumbling with his change at the ticket office, or arguing with the ticket inspector. But Douglas did not depend on that. He forced his way through the people, and on to the first train that arrived. A porter had to help crush the last few passengers in. The automatic doors slammed shut and the train lurched away.

At the next stop – Piccadilly Circus – Douglas waited until the doors were about to close before stepping out on to the platform. Then he crossed to the Northbound side and waited until a train disgorged its passengers, before melting into the crowd, to go with them along the exit tunnels.

Douglas was at the foot of the moving staircases when he saw the man again. By now he had abandoned the idea of disguising his intentions, and, this time, when Douglas stopped to look back, the man did not consult his street-map. Douglas stepped on to the moving stairs, and stood still to let them carry him upwards. Both men needed a moment to catch their breath. The two of them – seemingly oblivious of each other – stared at the advertisements that floated past, and took deep breaths of warm, stale air.

By now the contest had become a trial of strength. Each persuaded himself that nothing was more important. In his state of stress and tiredness, Douglas began to believe that he would become the laughing stock of the entire Metropolitan Police Force if he failed to shake off this limpet. Douglas turned to assess the man. The Piccadilly line trains are deeper than any others in the London Underground, and here they are at the lowest part of the railway system. The escalator joining them to street level is of dizzying length. Douglas watched him carefully. The man was toying with the handle of his umbrella and did not look up. Perhaps this was a good thing. If he thought Douglas had given up hope of shaking him off, one last ruse might do the trick.

As, at last, Douglas reached the very top, he waved his pass at the ticket collector but instead of exiting he turned round to descend on the escalator alongside. Soon the two men were abreast of each other, each moving in different directions. The man’s face contorted with anger. He pushed his umbrella into the belt of his coat and began to climb from one moving staircase to the other. He gripped the electric light stanchion with one hand and rolled his body over until he got one foot on to the moving handrail of Douglas’s staircase. For a moment it seemed he must fall. With the agility, and the handgrip, of an athlete, he threw his weight into a kick that moved him far enough to grab the handrail with his free hand. The floppy umbrella slipped loose and came clattering on to the steps, the man followed it. A woman screamed.

He had landed heavily, knees bent and body crouched forward, as if about to faint or vomit. As he straightened, he was holding the umbrella in two hands. The hands parted and Douglas saw the shiny
length of steel blade that had been concealed within the bamboo stick. And suddenly the man was leaping forward.

He lunged with all the desperate anger of the assassin. His arms stretched wide, uncaring for his own safety, the blade high in a tightly clenched fist. It swung down, beginning a curve that would have ended in Douglas Archer’s heart, had sheer terror not made the intended victim totter on the edge of the step. The sharpened blade sliced the shoulder strap from Douglas’s raincoat, and blood gushed from his ear.

A woman screamed and kept on screaming and another voice was shouting for the police. Already the man was swinging his blade for the second cut. His face was so close that Douglas felt warm breath, and saw the dilated eyes fixed upon the chest, as he calculated the jab to his heart. Experience and training told him to stay calm, and use only that minimum of force that the law decrees permissible in a case of self-defence. But instinct said fight.

Douglas struck out. He heard the man yell with pain, and felt his fist connect with his attacker’s face. But the blow did nothing to stop the man’s descent. The whole weight of him collapsed against Douglas and for a moment it seemed as if they both must topple. Then Douglas grabbed the moving handrail, to pull himself out of the way. Forced back against the handrail, Douglas kicked viciously. His shoe hit the man’s knee, and this time produced a louder howl of pain.

The attacker kept going. His knees folded, and with arms stretched he dived face-first down the stairs. He struck the steps with a terrible sound. He bounced, arms and legs flailing the air desperately. But now nothing could stop him. Like a bundle of rags in a
pulping chute, he tumbled down the seemingly endless staircase. When he hit the bottom level, he seemed to disintegrate, as shoes, hat, umbrella and map flew in different directions and his coat burst its belt and buttons, and wrapped itself round his head.

There was a small crowd there by the time Douglas reached the bottom, and the railway police arrived soon after. The man was dead, his skull cracked and his face brutally crushed. Douglas went through the dead man’s clothes. Inside his jacket, a specially-made pocket contained a thin bundle of Resistance leaflets, reduced now to a bloody pulp. His wallet contained over two hundred pounds in fivers and a forged curfew pass that would not have fooled even the most myopic of patrol commanders.

Douglas waited until the body was collected, and talked with the Scotland Yard duty officer to make sure that a full report would go to Standartenführer Huth’s desk for immediate attention. Douglas declined the suggestion that he should go for a medical checkup and a dressing for the cuts on his neck and ear. Already he was late for his appointment with Barbara Barga.

‘When I was a young Sub-Divisional Inspector I often found myself in a brawl with drunks on a Saturday night. But this was different. I never dreamed what it might be like to have a strong, determined kid, with a knife in his hand, trying to murder me.’ Douglas sat back in the best armchair, and sipped the hot soup.

Barbara Barga said, ‘And you don’t think he could have had any connection with Standartenführer Huth?’

‘To murder me! Huth doesn’t have to go to all that trouble. Now that he’s empowered to sign the Primary Arrest Sheets he could pop me into a concentration camp, and I’d never be seen again.’

She shuddered. ‘But could he have sent this man just to frighten you?’

‘Huth frightens me enough already,’ said Douglas. ‘He doesn’t need anyone waving daggers.’ Barbara came round the back of the chair, and leaned over to kiss him.

‘Poor darling,’ she said. ‘Have another bowl of soup.’

‘No thanks; I’m fine.’

‘I still think you need a Scotch.’ She took a slice of bread and a toasting fork. ‘You’re in shock.’

Douglas took the bread and toasting fork from her and leaned forward to hold it near the hissing flames of the gas fire. His hand trembled.

‘In England, it’s a man’s job to make toast,’ said Douglas. It was his way of saying he didn’t want to be treated like an invalid.

‘Or every Englishman’s sneaky way to hog the fire,’ was her way of saying she understood.

‘Is that your experience of Englishmen?’

‘Of some of them…people are depressed and nervous, aren’t they, Douglas? This lack of self-confidence makes them devious and unreliable.’ She paused, uncertain of whether she’d offended him.

‘We’ve always been like that,’ said Douglas, and made light of her criticisms. ‘But if that’s the way you feel, why are you risking your neck with…?’ Douglas didn’t say the names of Mayhew, Benson and Staines.

‘Oh, my, you are discreet,’ she said. ‘A lady’s honourable name has nothing to fear at your hands, Doug.’

The toast smoked. Douglas turned it over, and held the other side to the fire. ‘You still haven’t told me.’

‘Let’s just say I can’t resist a titled Englishman.’

Douglas knew there were other reasons but he did not press it. The radio was broadcasting dance music, direct from the Savoy Hotel ballroom. Carrol Gibbons was playing his famous white piano. For a few minutes they listened to the vocalist singing ‘Anything goes’.

She had butter for the toast – pale and spotty, it was home-made and delicious. ‘I’m not really a part of it, Doug,’ she said suddenly. ‘But with my syndicated column I can be valuable to Mayhew and the others…and, from my point of view, it’s a story no good reporter could pass up.’

‘But how did you contact them? And why should they trust you?’