'Why?' I said. 'Because it was a German bullet that crippled you?'
'So I pretended until the day I got down on my knees and asked God to help me face the truth.'
'Joanna Grey?' I said gently.
His face was completely in shadow. I found it impossible to see his expression. 'I am more used to hearing confessions than making them, but yes, you are right. I worshipped Joanna Grey. Oh, not in any silly superficial sexual way. To me she was the most wonderful woman I'd ever known. I can't even begin to describe the shock I experienced on discovering her true role.'
'So in a sense, you blamed Steiner?'
'I think that was the psychology of it.' He sighed. 'So long ago. How old were you in nineteen-forty-three? Twelve, thirteen? Can you remember what it was like?'
'Not really - not in the way you mean.'
'People were tired because the war seemed to have gone on for ever. Can you possibly imagine the terrible blow to national morale if the story of Steiner and his men and what took place here, had got out? That German paratroopers could land in England and come within an ace of snatching the Prime Minister himself?'
'Could come as close as the pull of a finger on the trigger to blowing his head off.'
He nodded. 'Do you still intend to publish?'
'I don't see why not.'
'It didn't happen, you know. No stone any more and who is to say it ever existed? And have you found one single official document to substantiate any of it?'
'Not really,' I said cheerfully. 'But I've spoken to a lot of people and together they've told me what adds up to a pretty convincing story.'
'It could have been,' He smiled faintly. 'If you hadn't missed out on one very important point.'
'And what would that be?'
'Look up any one of two dozen history books on the last war and check what Winston Churchill was doing during the weekend in question. But perhaps that was too simple, too obvious.'
'All right, 'I said. 'You tell me.'
'Getting ready to leave in HMS Renown for the Teheran conference. Called at Algiers on the way, where he invested Generals Eisenhower and Alexander with special versions of the North Africa ribbon and arrived at Malta, as I remember, on the seventeenth November.'
It was suddenly very quiet. I said, 'Who was he?'
'His name was George Howard Foster, known in the profession as the Great Foster.'
'The profession?'
'The stage, Mr Higgins. Foster was a music hall act, an impressionist. The war was his salvation.'
'How was that?'
'He not only did a more than passable imitation of the Prime Minister. He even looked like him. After Dunkirk, he started doing a special act, a kind of grand finale to the show. I have nothing to offer but blood, sweat and tears. We will fight them on the beaches. The audiences loved it.'
'And Intelligence pulled him in?'
'On special occasions. If you intend to send the Prime Minister to sea at the height of the U-boat peril, it's useful to have him publicly appearing elsewhere.' He smiled. 'He gave the performance of his life that night. They all believed it was him, of course. Only Corcoran knew the truth.'
'All right,' I said. 'Where's Foster now?'
'Killed, along with a hundred and eight other people when a flying bomb hit a little theatre in Islington in nineteen-forty-four. So you see, it's all been for nothing. It never happened. Much better for all concerned.'
He went into a bout of coughing that racked his entire body. The door opened and the nun entered. She leaned over him and whispered. He said, 'I'm sorry, it's been a long afternoon. I think I should rest. Thank you for coming and filling in the gaps.'
He started to cough again so I left as quickly as I could and was ushered politely to the door by young Father Damian. On the step I gave him my card. 'If he gets worse.' I hesitated. 'You know what I mean? I'd appreciate hearing from you.'
.
I lit a cigarette and leaned on the flint wall of the churchyard. beside the lychgate. I would checks the facts, of course, but Vereker was telling the truth, I knew that beyond any shadow of a doubt and did it really change anything? I looked towards the porch where Steiner had stood that evening so long ago in confrontation with Harry Kane, thought of him on the terrace at Meltham House, the final, and for him, fatal hesitation. And even if he had pulled that trigger it would still all have been for nothing.
There's irony for you. as Devlin would have said. I could almost hear his laughter. Ah, well, in the final analysis there was nothing I could find to say that would be any improvement on the words of a man who had played his own part so well on that fatal night.
Whatever else may be said, he was a fine soldier and a brave man. Let it end there. I turned and walked away through the rain.
Also by Jack Higgins
Storm Warning
The Savage Day
The Last Place God Made
Day of Judgement
Solo
A Prayer For The Dying
Luciano's Luck
The End
