Our Friends in Berlin Read online

  ‘His name – the Irishman’s name – I remember now. It was O’Dare.’

  Hoste repeated it softly. ‘William O’Dare. You’re sure about that?’

  She was, though she couldn’t tell whether it meant something to him or not. They said goodnight.

  He had written the name down. William O’Dare. One of several aliases that Billy Adair had used. Well, well. So Marita had already put him to work.

  The sound of Amy Strallen’s voice was still in his ears. He hadn’t expected to hear it again, not now – or ever.

  Next morning Hoste ran a background check on Georgina Harlow – her record of employment at the MoD, her clearance level, her routine responsibilities. He also got someone to check her appointments diary and noted that the following week she would be accompanying the junior minister on a special train to Shoeburyness, an artillery barracks and key position in the coastal defence of south-east England. He telephoned Castle from his office.

  ‘Any chance of locating the list of personnel due to travel to Shoeburyness on Tuesday week? I gather it’s a trip to inspect tanks, ack-ack guns and the like.’

  ‘I’ll make enquiries,’ said Castle. ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘Just a hunch. I’ve had a tip-off about a potential leak at the MoD.’

  Castle promised to look into it. When he called back something in his voice had changed. ‘The Shoeburyness train. About thirty people from the MoD are listed as travelling, including Georgina Harlow and her boss. Guess who else.’

  ‘Someone from the Cabinet?’

  ‘Only the PM himself. Also Beaverbrook, Morrison, Archie Sinclair. This one’s a big number, old boy. Anything you need to tell me?’

  ‘Not yet. It may be nothing at all, but I have to check. Marita could be involved.’

  ‘Ah. I begin to understand. Well, if you need assistance …’

  ‘I’ll let you know,’ said Hoste, and rang off.

  He stayed about twenty paces behind Georgina Harlow from the moment she left work. She had dressed with a shy twist of glamour this evening, he noticed; a dove-grey summer jacket and skirt, a leather handbag that looked new, and a bright lipstick: she looked attractive, though natural reserve clung to her like a perfume. She entered the bar of St Ermin’s Hotel in Westminster, where Billy Adair was waiting. He monitored their initial awkwardness together, which began to dissolve with the drinks (gin and pep for her, stout for him) and faded once they’d sat down to dinner. He didn’t get too close lest Adair happened to remember his face, though he sensed he would not. The Ulsterman did most of the talking at first, and little by little drew out his more diffident companion. By the end of the evening they were getting along like old pals. He shadowed them onto a tram heading north. They alighted at Maida Vale and walked another five minutes to her flat, where after some negotiation on the step she invited him inside. The evening had been a success.

  By eight o’clock the next morning he was at Fenchurch Street Station just in time to see a black Daimler pulling away, having deposited its ministerial load. The concourse was thronged with police. The ‘special’ was in fact a regular commuter train intended for Southend but requisitioned for the occasion by the MoD. A guard was directing bemused passengers away from it. Hoste skulked around the station, keeping an eye out for faces he might know. At Smith’s he bought The Times and started on the crossword. He got stuck on five down, six letters, a word meaning both to split from and become attached to. How could one word contain virtual opposites? A sudden explosive clatter made him look up: a pigeon was frantically seeking an exit from under the vaulted glass roof. Another knot of VIPs were being escorted across the concourse. Among them he spotted the Home Secretary.

  He covered a yawn with the back of his hand. He had got back to his flat at about two thirty and snatched a few hours’ sleep before starting out again this morning. On board the train he flashed a card to the police inspector’s enquiring look. They had already swept the carriages, he gathered, but he decided to give them a once-over himself. The front one was the dining car laid out for breakfast, the middle two unoccupied, he presumed for the security detail. The back three carriages were reserved for the PM, his ministers and minions. He was about to have another scout along the platform when the guard’s whistle blew and the train began to move. Soon they were out of the gaunt, damaged precincts of the City and into the east, flashing past factories and warehouses and the ruins of the docks, the Thames an iron-grey sash in the distance.

  He wandered along the corridor, glancing into the compartments. Blank faces turned to him, then looked away. He hadn’t yet spotted Georgina Harlow among the swarm of secretaries and assistants. A military policeman stood armed at the head of the last carriage: the PM and his entourage weren’t taking any chances.

  ‘Sir, do you have a ticket for this train?’ He turned round to see Tessa Hammond grinning up at him.

  ‘I must have left it in my compartment,’ he said, patting down his pockets. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Castle tipped me off. Thought you might like some company.’

  ‘Ha. I was just on my way to the dining car. Care to join?’

  ‘I have news,’ Tessa said as they fell into step. ‘Georgina Harlow isn’t on the train. She called in sick this morning.’

  Hoste stopped abruptly. ‘That’s odd. She was fine when I last saw her –’ he glanced at his watch – ‘about ten hours ago.’

  ‘We’ve checked on her. She is fine, but it looks like she may have been slipped a Mickey.’

  He nodded. ‘Which means our man is – tell me, are you carrying?’

  For answer she tapped her handbag. ‘Hope I won’t have to use it.’

  They had reached the restaurant carriage. A waiter was fussing over a table setting; on enquiry he told them breakfast would be served in ten minutes. They settled at a table opposite one another. Hoste sat close to the window, wary of showing his face.

  ‘Someone once told me I have a very unmemorable face,’ he mused.

  ‘I don’t think that’s true,’ said Tessa with a frown.

  ‘It would be greatly to my advantage at this moment if it was.’

  They observed one another across the table, companionably lulled by the rocking motion of the train. The Essex countryside slid by their window. Tessa eventually broke the silence. ‘Amy Strallen’s call was a stroke of luck.’

  ‘Yes. I could tell she was surprised to hear my voice. Given the circumstances she might just have hung up.’

  ‘She’s behaved like a professional,’ said Tessa. ‘I’m not sure many others would have done.’

  Hoste heard something pursed in her voice. ‘I didn’t lay a finger on her, you know.’

  ‘I’m sure you didn’t. But one can understand why she felt … ill-used.’

  He looked away, lost in thought. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘do you know a word that means both to split and to cling to?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Today’s crossword. Six letters, third letter “e”.’

  She looked at him, wagging her head in disbelief. ‘Amazing the way you can utterly dissociate yourself from a subject when it suits you.’

  Hoste looked at her in surprise. ‘Is that what you think I was doing?’

  ‘My God, you don’t even notice!’ She paused, then said, ‘“Cleave” is the word you’re looking for. C-L-E-A-V-E.’

  The dining car had begun to fill, and two stewards were taking the orders for breakfast. They overheard one of them talking to an assistant dispatched from the VIP end of the train: the PM had asked for breakfast to be brought to his compartment. ‘Right away,’ came the reply. Some minutes later a breakfast trolley shrouded in a white cloth was being pushed up the aisle by a third steward. Hoste happened to look up and note the man’s face. He felt a twitch on the thread. Was there something familiar there? The carousel of mugshots that made circuits in his head was pulled up and inspected. Nothing came to him – nothing except that first twitch of unease. H
e exchanged a look with Tessa, who was rising from the table almost before he said, ‘Let’s go.’

  He kept his voice low as they followed the steward at half a carriage’s length.

  ‘Slow march,’ he warned Tessa. He couldn’t tell her why they were tailing the man, because he didn’t yet know himself. Instinct was driving him along. If he could just get another look at him … The steward was within sight of the military policeman when he stopped in the corridor and adjusted something on the trolley. His face came into profile, and Hoste knew it at last. PC Grigg, the bogus copper Marita had set on him at their first meeting. He had to move quickly. Looking at Tessa he raised his finger to his lips. As Grigg came to a halt Hoste was soundlessly behind him, and brought down the butt of his pistol on his head. The steward fell in a heap.

  The policeman, stunned for a moment, cocked his rifle and yelled at Hoste to drop his weapon and get on his knees. He pushed him to the floor. Not until Tessa was showing him her ID did the mood calm, and Hoste was allowed to pick himself up. Then it suddenly became frantic again when the cloth was lifted from the trolley to reveal a suspect device.

  An hour later, after an unscheduled stop on the line and the safe disposal of a home-made bomb, the train continued on its way to Shoeburyness. On arrival the ministers and their entourage debouched on the platform, and through the window Hoste glimpsed a squat, bullish figure clapping a homburg on his head and gazing about at his surroundings.

  ‘Not even a word of thanks,’ said Tessa, also watching. ‘He obviously doesn’t realise how close he came.’

  Hoste, finishing the breakfast postponed from earlier, smiled at her peeved tone. ‘Oh, I should think he does. But he takes it in his stride.’

  ‘Are you going to join them for the tank inspection?’

  He made a face. ‘I think I’ve had enough excitement for one morning. But perhaps we could go for a stroll in the meantime?’

  Tessa agreed to wait for him while he went to fetch his hat from the compartment. Making his way back through the empty carriages he couldn’t help thinking again about Amy Strallen. Without her tip-off (Hammond was right) today’s drama might have gone quite another way. She had a quick noticing eye, sound judgement, a sense of duty, the courage to take risks – in another lifetime she would have made a damned good agent. Too bad he had ruined any chance of being her friend. He thought about the night he had saved her life, the bomb that had come so near. And he thought also of the kiss, later, the natural way she had just leaned in and done it. That was something he should try to remember. Amy Strallen. Even the sound of her name pierced him.

  He had just slid open the door of the compartment when he sensed a shadow fall behind him. His first instinct was that a train guard had been following at his heels, checking the carriages, but that proved false the moment a cord slipped over his head and tightened around his neck. Whoever held the cord now shoved him into the compartment, with such violence that his face met the window with a smack. Dazed, choking, he began to tear with his fingers at the throttling noose, but could gain no purchase. Using his upper body he shoved the constricting weight back against the carriage seat, toppling them both at once. But the hands holding the noose stayed tight as a steel trap. His assailant began forcing him to the floor. A voice growled in his ear: ‘You’re gonna die, ya two-faced fuck.’ Adair. Of course. Hiding all this time, waiting for his moment. Hoste felt the life being choked out of him, his constricted throat screaming for air. He knew he must fight, must use his elbow or his heel, but the drastic loss of oxygen was making him faint. He wasn’t sure if the hissing noise he heard was in his own throat or in Adair’s straining breath.

  A metallic click sounded from above, and suddenly, miraculously, the savage pressure on his windpipe lifted: air, blessed air! Somewhere he could hear Tessa’s voice – clipped, decisive – ordering Adair to raise his hands. Hoste was bent double, still coughing as he got to his feet. Tessa had her gun trained on the Irishman, whose shoulders were heaving. His gaze had murder in it.

  ‘Was the bomb your idea, or Marita’s?’

  Adair ignored her. He was staring at Hoste. ‘You’re safe today. But someone’s gonna take you doyne.’

  Hoste shrugged. If – when – Marita got to know of this she would waste no time in organising his elimination. She would probably do the job herself. His eyes met Tessa’s: she knew it, too.

  ‘From now on, you’ll be lookin’ over your shoulder, wonderin’ when we’re gonna come for yer.’

  Hoste found his voice at last. ‘I’ll take my chances. You’ve been a marked man for long enough.’

  Adair half snorted, shook his head. ‘Marked is nothin’. She’ll make sure of it. You’re a dead man – a fuckin’ dead man.’

  Tessa, widening her stance, told him to take his gun out. Adair stared her out for a moment, then slowly reached into his jacket. He brought out the gun with a goading sort of insolence, and dangled it by his trigger finger.

  ‘You’re gonna take it off me?’

  Tessa waited a beat, then said, in a coolly formal tone, ‘The suspect drew his gun, intending to shoot.’

  Adair squinted from beneath his brow, bemused. Puzzlement turned abruptly to comprehension. As he brought his gun arm down Tessa fired. The shot perforated his eye. A small black rosette sprouted over the smoking hole, and after a tiny, eerie delay he toppled back against the angle of seat and window. Blood was leaking down his dead face.

  ‘Forced to defend myself I fired first,’ she continued quietly, ‘killing him.’

  Hoste, his ears still ringing from the shot, returned her gaze. She had won him a reprieve.

  May 1935

  13

  A few tattered blue-black clouds were frowning over the horizon as the train wheezed into the station. The sky had a morose, bloated look, and the rain that had threatened all day started to spit. They heard the guard call out ‘Clitheroe’. Amy hauled down their suitcases from the overhead netting while Marita inspected her face in a compact. Outside, on the platform, they looked around for a porter, and found no one. A fusillade of bangs – the carriage doors closing – dinned in their ears. By the time they had emerged from the station the rain had got going in earnest.

  The hotel was a few minutes’ walk. ‘Come on,’ said Amy, ‘let’s make a dash for it.’

  Marita made a little exclamation of disgust, as though the very idea of dashing was beneath her. She followed Amy’s flailing run at a more dignified, stately trot. The burly landlord of the Swan and Royal gave them a pleasant welcome, though Amy noticed that Marita held herself somewhat aloof from his garrulous bonhomie. She could not always be relied upon to fraternise with strangers, so Amy found herself obliged to perform solo on the social niceties.

  ‘So you’ve come up all the way from London?’ the landlord went on, leading them up the narrow staircase.

  ‘Indeed we have.’

  ‘Changed at Blackburn,’ he said. ‘Taken you five hours or so, I dessay?’

  ‘Yes, about that.’

  ‘Must be famished!’

  ‘We are quite peckish,’ smiled Amy.

  ‘Right then, get settled in while they get your tea ready,’ he said, showing them into a room with two neat single beds. But he seemed for the moment unwilling to leave. He enquired as to the purpose of their visit, and on learning that they were here for a walking holiday he voiced his approval, and recommended a few places they should visit. ‘Aye, you’ve come the right time o’ year for it!’ he cried.

  Behind him Marita raised her eyes heavenwards. Amy, keeping the mood civil, thanked the landlord and said that they’d be down presently. When he had gone Marita puffed out her cheeks and leaned back on the bed.

  ‘My God, I thought he’d never go.’

  ‘He’s just being friendly.’

  ‘Really,’ said Marita, deadpan.

  Amy could not ignore the sceptical tone. ‘It’s the north. You’ll get used to it. It reminds me of my grandma – she was from round her
e. They do love to chat.’

  In fact she had not been back to Lancashire in years, not since she was a girl. She had had a vague idea of visiting her grandmother’s village, for old times’ sake, but worried now that it might test her holiday companion’s patience. She began to unpack, while Marita continued to lounge on the bed, smoking and reading. She was absorbed in a detective novel she’d bought at a stall in Euston. Amy felt secretly glad that her friend liked to read; it provided a respite from her conversation. Marita had so many opinions that it could be faintly exhausting to keep up.

  In truth, they didn’t know one another very well. They had met less than a year ago, at a secretarial college in Oxford. Amy had noticed the tall, well-dressed, pointy-faced brunette straight away, but like the others had kept her distance; she had about her an air that was not approachable. By degrees, however, Miss Florian – Marita – would sidle up to talk or share a cigarette. When the college went on a day trip she made sure that Amy was sitting next to her on the coach. A wary companionship bloomed between them. Amy for her part couldn’t help feeling flattered that this stand-offish and somewhat mysterious woman – her senior by three years – had decided to befriend her. As she got to know her better she realised that Marita held their fellow students in as much contempt as she had suspected. ‘They’re all feeble-minded schoolgirls just waiting to get fixed up with a man,’ she said. One of them, a bright, popular girl named Gabrielle Miller, she particularly despised and never tired of descanting on her faults. Once, when Amy innocently remarked on how friendly Gabrielle had been that day, Marita had turned on her with such a withering look that she knew never to mention it again. She couldn’t really fathom the root of her dislike, other than the possibility that Gabrielle was the only student who could match her in self-assurance.

  By the time Marita put aside her book to get ready for dinner Amy felt weak with hunger. The dining room of the Swan and Royal was not a cheerful one. The mustard-coloured wallpaper and the dusty brown curtains would have looked mournful on a summer’s day, but on a night of rainstorms they looked oppressively grim. The ghosts of diners past – single commercial salesmen, exhausted travellers, weekending couples and their fractious children – haunted the room. The service was slow, but the food, when it came, was perfectly decent. She had potted shrimps, then lamb cutlets with peas and potatoes. Marita watched her as she ate, and smiled.