Текст книги "Eye of the Needle"

Автор книги: Ken Follett

Соавторы: Ken Follett
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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 22 страниц)

28

PERCIVAL GODLIMAN FELT REFRESHED, DETERMINED, even—rare for him—inspired.

When he reflected on it, this made him uncomfortable. Pep talks were for the rank-and-file, and intellectuals believed themselves immune from inspirational speeches. Yet, although he knew that the great man’s performance had been carefully scripted, the crescendos and diminuendos of the speech predetermined like a symphony, nevertheless it had worked on him, as effectively as if he had been the captain of the school cricket team hearing last-minute exhortations from the games master.

He got back to his office itching to do something.

He dropped his umbrella in the umbrella stand, hung up his wet raincoat and looked at himself in the mirror on the inside of the cupboard door. Without doubt something had happened to his face since he became one of England’s spy-catchers. The other day he had come across a photograph of himself taken in 1937, with a group of students at a seminar in Oxford. In those days he actually looked older than he did now: pale skin, wispy hair, the patchy shave and ill-fitting clothes of a retired man. The wispy hair had gone; he was now bald except for a monkish fringe. His clothes were those of a business executive, not a teacher. It seemed to him—he might, he supposed, have been imagining it—that the set of his jaw was firmer, his eyes were brighter, and he took more care shaving.

He sat down behind his desk and lit a cigarette. That innovation was not welcome; he had developed a cough, tried to give it up, and discovered that he had become addicted. But almost everybody smoked in wartime Britain, even some of the women. Well, they were doing men’s jobs—they were entitled to masculine vices. The smoke caught in Godliman’s throat, making him cough. He put the cigarette out in the tin lid he used for an ashtray (crockery was scarce).

The trouble with being inspired to perform the impossible, he reflected, was that the inspiration gave you no clues to the practical means. He recalled his college thesis about the travels of an obscure medieval monk called Thomas of the Tree. Godliman had set himself the minor but difficult task of plotting the monk’s itinerary over a five-year period. There had been a baffling gap of eight months when he had been either in Paris or Canterbury but Godliman had been unable to determine which, and this had threatened the value of the whole project. The records he was using simply did not contain the information. If the monk’s stay had gone unrecorded, then there was no way to find out where he had been, and that was that. With the optimism of youth, young Godliman had refused to believe that the information was just not there, and he had worked on the assumption that somewhere there had to be a record of how Thomas had spent those months—despite the well-known fact that almost everything that happened in the Middle Ages went unrecorded. If Thomas was not in Paris or Canterbury he must have been in transit between the two, Godliman had argued; and then he had found shipping records in an Amsterdam museum that showed that Thomas had boarded a vessel bound for Dover that got blown off course and was eventually wrecked on the Irish coast. This model piece of historical research was what got Godliman his professorship.

He might try applying that kind of thinking to the problem of what had happened to Faber.

It was most likely that Faber had drowned. If he had not, then he was probably in Germany by now. Neither of those possibilities presented any course of action Godliman could follow, so they should be discounted. He must assume that Faber was alive and had reached land somewhere.

He left his office and went down one flight of stairs to the map room. His uncle, Colonel Terry, was there, standing in front of the map of Europe with a cigarette between his lips. Godliman realized that this was a familiar sight in the War Office these days: senior men gazing entranced at maps, silently making their own computations of whether the war would be won or lost. He guessed it was because all the plans had been made, the vast machine had been set in motion, and for those who made the big decisions there was nothing to do but wait and see if they had been right.

Terry saw him come in and said, “How did you get on with the great man?”

“He was drinking whisky,” Godliman said.

“He drinks all day, but it never seems to make any difference to him,” Terry said. “What did he say?”

“He wants Die Nadel’s head on a platter.” Godliman crossed the room to the wall map of Great Britain and put a finger on Aberdeen. “If you were sending a U-boat in to pick up a fugitive spy, what would you think was the nearest the sub could safely come to the coast?”

Terry stood beside him and looked at the map. “I wouldn’t want to come closer than the three-mile limit. But for preference, I’d stop ten miles out.”

“Right.” Godliman drew two pencil lines parallel to the coast, three miles and ten miles out respectively. “Now, if you were an amateur sailor setting out from Aberdeen in a smallish fishing boat, how far would you go before you began to get nervous?”

“You mean, what’s a reasonable distance to travel in such a boat?”

“Indeed.”

Terry shrugged. “Ask the Navy. I’d say fifteen or twenty miles.”

“I agree.” Godliman drew an arc of twenty miles’ radius with its center on Aberdeen. “Now—if Faber is alive, he’s either back on the mainland or somewhere within this space.” He indicated the area bounded by the parallel lines and the arc.

“There’s no land in that area.”

“Have we got a bigger map?”

Terry pulled open a drawer and got out a large-scale map of Scotland. He spread it on top of the chest. Godliman copied the pencil marks from the smaller map onto the larger.

There was still no land within the area.

“But look,” Godliman said. Just to the east of the ten-mile limit was a long, narrow island.

Terry peered closer. “Storm Island,” he read. “How apt.”

Godliman snapped his fingers. “Could be…”

“Can you send someone there?”

“When the storm clears. Bloggs is up there. I’ll get a plane laid on for him. He can take off the minute the weather improves.” He went to the door.

“Good luck,” Terry called after him.

Godliman took the stairs two at a time to the next floor and entered his office. He picked up the phone. “Get Mr. Bloggs in Aberdeen, please.”

While he waited he doodled on his blotter, drawing the island. It was shaped like the top half of a walking stick, with the crook at the western end. It must have been about ten miles long and perhaps a mile wide. He wondered what sort of place it was: a barren lump of rock, or a thriving community of farmers? If Faber was there he might still be alive to contact his U-boat; Bloggs would have to get to the island before the submarine.

“I have Mr. Bloggs,” the switchboard girl said.

“Fred?”

“Hello, Percy.”

“I think he’s on an island called Storm Island.”

“No, he’s not,” Bloggs said. “We’ve just arrested him.” (He hoped.)

THE STILETTO was nine inches long, with an engraved handle and a stubby little crosspiece. Its needlelike point was extremely sharp. Bloggs thought it looked like a highly efficient killing instrument. It had recently been polished.

Bloggs and Detective-Chief-Inspector Kincaid stood looking at it, neither man wanting to touch it.

“He was trying to catch a bus to Edinburgh,” Kincaid said. “A P.C. spotted him at the ticket office and asked for his identification. He dropped his suitcase and ran. A woman bus conductor hit him over the head with her ticket machine. He took ten minutes to come around.”

“Let’s have a look at him,” Bloggs said.

They went down the corridor to the cells. “This one,” Kincaid said.

Bloggs looked through the judas. The man sat on a stool in the far corner of the cell with his back against the wall. His legs were crossed, his eyes closed, his hands in his pockets. “He’s been in cells before,” Bloggs remarked. The man was tall, with a long, handsome face and dark hair. It could have been the man in the photograph, but it was hard to be certain.

“Want to go in?” Kincaid asked.

“In a minute. What was in his suitcase, apart from the stiletto?”

“The tools of a burglar’s trade. Quite a lot of money in small notes. A pistol and some ammunition. Black clothes and crepe-soled shoes. Two hundred Lucky Strike cigarettes.”

“No photographs or film negatives?”

Kincaid shook his head.

“Balls,” Bloggs said with feeling.

“Papers identify him as Peter Fredericks, of Wembley, Middlesex. Says he’s an unemployed toolmaker looking for work.”

“Toolmaker?” Bloggs said skeptically. “There hasn’t been an unemployed toolmaker in Britain in the last four years. You’d think a spy would know that. Still…”

Kincaid asked, “Shall I start the questioning, or will you?”

“You.”

Kincaid opened the door and Bloggs followed him in. The man in the corner opened his eyes incuriously. He did not alter his position.

Kincaid sat at a small, plain table. Bloggs leaned against the wall.

Kincaid said, “What’s your real name?”

“Peter Fredericks.”

“What are you doing so far from home?”

“Looking for work.”

“Why aren’t you in the army?”

“Weak heart.”

“Where have you been for the last few days?”

“Here, in Aberdeen. Before that Dundee, before that Perth.”

“When did you arrive in Aberdeen?”

“The day before yesterday.”

Kincaid glanced at Bloggs, who nodded. “Your story is silly,” Kincaid said. “Toolmakers don’t need to look for work. The country hasn’t got enough of them. You’d better start telling the truth.”

“I’m telling the truth.”

Bloggs took all the loose change out of his pocket and tied it up in his handkerchief. He stood watching, saying nothing, swinging the little bundle in his right hand.

“Where is the film?” Kincaid said, having been briefed to this extent by Bloggs, though not to the extent of knowing what the film was about.

The man’s expression did not change. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Kincaid shrugged, and looked at Bloggs.

Bloggs said, “On your feet.”

“Pardon?”

“On your FEET!”

The man stood up casually.

“Step forward.”

He took two steps up to the table.

“Name?”

“Peter Fredericks.”

Bloggs came off the wall and hit the man with the weighted handkerchief. The blow caught him accurately on the bridge of the nose, and he cried out. His hands went to his face.

“Stand to attention,” Bloggs said. “Name.”

The man stood upright, let his hands fall to his sides. “Peter Fredericks.”

Bloggs hit him again in exactly the same place. This time he went down on one knee, and his eyes watered.

“Where is the film?”

The man shook his head.

Bloggs pulled him to his feet, kneed him in the groin, punched his stomach. “What did you do with the negatives?”

The man fell to the floor and threw up. Bloggs kicked his face. There was a sharp crack. “What about the U-boat? Where is the rendezvous? What’s the signal, damn you—?”

Kincaid grabbed Bloggs from behind. “That’s enough,” he said. “This is my station and I can only turn a blind eye so long, you know—”

Bloggs rounded on him. “We’re not dealing with a case of pretty housebreaking. I’m MI5 and I’ll do what I fucking well like in your station. If the prisoner dies, I’ll take responsibility.” He turned back to the man on the floor, who was staring at him and Kincaid, face covered with blood, and an expression of incredulity. “What are you talking about?” he said weakly. “What is this?”

Bloggs hauled him to his feet. “You’re Heinrich Rudolph Hans von Müller-Güder, born at Oln on May 26, 1900, also known as Henry Faber, a lieutenant colonel in German Intelligence. Within three months you’ll be hanged for espionage unless you turn out to be more useful to us alive than dead. Start making yourself useful, Colonel Müller-Güder.”

“No,” the man said. “No, no! I’m a thief, not a spy. Please!” He leaned away from Blogg’s upraised fist. “I can prove it—”

Bloggs hit him again, and Kincaid intervened for the second time. “Wait…all right, Fredericks—if that’s your name—prove you’re a thief.”

“I done three houses in Jubilee Crescent last week,” the man gasped. “I took about five hundred quid from one and some jewelry from the next one—diamond rings and some pearls—and I never got nothing from the other one because of the dog…you must know I’m telling the truth, they must have reported it, didn’t they? Oh, Jesus—”

Kincaid looked at Bloggs. “All those burglaries took place.”

“He could have read about them in the newspapers.”

“The third one wasn’t reported.”

“Perhaps he did them—he could still be a spy. Spies can steal too.” He felt rotten.

“But this was last week—your man was in London, wasn’t he?”

Bloggs was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Well, fuck it,” and walked out.

Peter Fredericks looked up at Kincaid through a mask of blood. “Who’s he, the bleedin’ Gestapo?” he said.

Kincaid stared at him. “Just be glad you’re not really the man he’s looking for.”

“WELL?” Godliman said into the phone.

“False alarm.” Bloggs’s voice was scratchy and distorted over the long-distance line. “A small-time housebreaker who happened to carry a stiletto and look like Faber….”

“Back to square one,” Godliman said.

“You said something about an island.”

“Yes. Storm Island—it’s about ten miles off the coast, due east of Aberdeen. You’ll find it on a large-scale map.”

“What makes you sure he’s there?”

“I’m not sure. We still have to cover every other possibility—other towns, the coast, everything. But if he did steal that boat, the…”

“Marie II.”

“Yes. If he did steal it, his rendezvous was probably in the area of this island; and if I’m right about that, then he’s either drowned or shipwrecked on the island—”

“Okay, that makes sense.”

“What’s the weather like up there?”

“No change.”

“Could you get to the island, do you think, in a big ship?”

“I suppose you can ride any storm if your ship’s big enough. But this island won’t have much of a dock, will it?”

“You’d better find out, but I expect you’re right. Now listen…there’s an RAF fighter base near Edinburgh. By the time you get there I’ll have an amphibious plane standing by. You take off the minute the storm begins to clear. Have the local Coastguard ready to move at moment’s notice too—I’m not sure who’ll get there first.”

“But if the U-boat is also waiting for the storm to clear, it will get there first,” Bloggs said.

“You’re right.” Godliman lit a cigarette, fumbling for inspiration. “Well, we can get a Navy corvette to circle the island and listen for Faber’s radio signal. When the storm clears it can land a boat on the island.”

“What about some fighters?”

“Yes. Except like you, they’ll have to wait until the weather breaks.”

“It can’t go on much longer.”

“What do the Scottish meteorologists say?”

“Another day of it, at least. But remember, all the time we’re grounded he’s bottled up too.”

“If he’s there.”

“Yes.”

“All right,” Godliman said. “We’ll have a corvette, the Coastguard, some fighters and an amphibian. You’d better get on your way. Call me from Rosyth. Take care.”

“Will do.”

Godliman hung up. His cigarette, neglected in the ashtray, had burned down to a tiny stub.

29

LYING ON ITS SIDE, THE JEEP LOOKED POWERFUL BUT helpless, like a wounded elephant. The engine had stalled. Faber gave it a hefty push and it toppled majestically onto all four wheels. It had survived the fight relatively undamaged. The canvas roof was destroyed, of course; the rip Faber’s knife had made had become a long tear running from one side to the other. The offside front fender, which had ploughed into the earth and stopped the vehicle, was crumpled. The headlight on that side had smashed. The window on the same side had been broken by the shot from the gun. The windshield was miraculously intact.

Faber climbed into the driver’s seat, put the gearshift into neutral and tried the starter. It kicked over and died. He tried again, and the engine fired. He was grateful for that, he could not have faced a long walk.

He sat in the car for a while, inventorying his wounds. He gingerly touched his right ankle; it was swelling massively. Perhaps he had cracked a bone. It was as well that the jeep was designed to be driven by a man with no legs, Faber could not have pressed a brake pedal. The lump on the back of his head felt huge, at least the size of a golf ball; when he touched it his hand came away sticky with blood. He examined his face in the rear-view mirror. It was a mass of small cuts and big bruises, like the face of the loser at the end of a boxing match.

He had abandoned his oilskin back at the cottage, so his jacket and overalls were soggy with rain and smeared with mud. He needed to get warm and dry very soon.

He gripped the steering wheel—a burning pain shot through his hand; he had forgotten the torn fingernail. He looked at it. It was the nastiest of his injuries. He would have to drive with one hand.

He pulled away slowly and found what he guessed was the road. There was no danger of getting lost on this island—all he had to do was follow the cliff edge until he came to Lucy’s cottage.

He needed to invent a lie to explain to Lucy what had become of her husband. She wouldn’t have heard the shotgun so far away, he knew. He might, of course, tell her the truth; there was nothing she could do about it. However, if she became difficult he might have to kill her, and he had an aversion to that. Driving slowly along the cliff top through the pouring rain and howling wind, he marveled at this new thing inside him, this scruple. It was the first time he had ever felt reluctance to kill. It was not that he was amoral—to the contrary. He had made up his mind that the killing he did was on the same moral level as death on the battlefield, and his emotions followed his intellect. He always had the physical reaction, the vomiting, after he killed, but that was something incomprehensible that he ignored.

So why did he not want to kill Lucy?

The feeling was on a par, he decided, with the affection that drove him to send the Luftwaffe erroneous directions to St. Paul’s Cathedral: a compulsion to protect a thing of beauty. She was a remarkable creation, as full of loveliness and subtlety as any work of art. Faber could live with himself as a killer, but not as an iconoclast. It was, he recognized as soon as the thought occurred to him, a peculiar way to be. But then, spies were peculiar people.

He thought of some of the spies who had been recruited by the Abwehr at the same time he had been: Otto, the Nordic giant who made delicate paper sculptures in the Japanese fashion and hated women; Friedrich, the sly little mathematical genius who jumped at shadows and went into a five-day depression if he lost a game of chess; Helmut, who liked to read books about slavery in America and had soon joined the SS…all different, all peculiar. If they had anything more specific in common, he did not know what it was.

He seemed to be driving more and more slowly, and the rain and mist became more impenetrable. He began to worry about the cliff edge on his left-hand side. He felt very hot, but suffered spasms of shivering. He realized he had been speaking aloud about Otto and Friedrich and Helmut, and he recognized the signs of delirium. He made an effort to think of nothing but the problem of keeping the jeep on a straight course. The noise of the wind took on some kind of rhythm, becoming hypnotic. Once he found himself stationary, staring out over the sea, and had no idea how long ago he had stopped.

It seemed hours later that Lucy’s cottage came into view. He steered toward it, thinking, I must remember to put the brake on before I hit the wall. There was a figure standing in the doorway, looking out at him through the rain. He had to stay in control of himself long enough to tell her the lie. He had to remember, had to remember…

IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON by the time the jeep came back. Lucy was worried about what had happened to the men, and at the same time angry with them for not coming home for the lunch she had prepared. As the day waned she had spent more and more time at the windows, looking out for them.

When the jeep came down the slight slope to the cottage it was clear something was wrong. It was moving terribly slowly, on a zigzag course, and there was only one person in it. It came closer, and she saw that the front was dented and the headlight smashed.

“Oh, God.”

The vehicle shuddered to a halt in front of the cottage, and she saw that the figure inside was Henry. He made no move to get out. Lucy ran out into the rain and opened the driver’s door.

He sat there with his head back and his eyes half-closed. His hand was on the brake. His face was bloody and bruised.

“What happened? What happened?”

His hand slipped off the brake, and the jeep moved forward. Lucy leaned across him and slipped the gearshift into neutral.

“Left David at Tom’s cottage…had crash on way back…” The words seemed to cost him a great effort.

Now that she knew what had happened, Lucy’s panic subsided. “Come inside,” she said sharply. The urgency in her voice got through to him. He turned toward her, put his foot on the running board to step down, and promptly fell to the ground. Lucy saw that his ankle was swollen like a balloon.

She got her hands under his shoulders and pulled him upright. “Put your weight on the other foot and lean on me.” She got his right arm around her neck and half-carried him inside.

Jo watched wide-eyed as she helped Henry into the living room and got him onto the sofa. He lay back with his eyes shut. His clothes were soaked and muddy.

Lucy said, “Jo, go upstairs and get your pajamas on, please.”

“But I haven’t had my story. Is he dead?”

“He’s not dead, he’s had a car crash and you can’t have a story tonight. Go on.”

The child made a complaining sound, and Lucy looked threateningly at him. He went.

Lucy got the big scissors out of her sewing basket and cut Henry’s clothes away: first the jacket, then the overalls, then the shirt. She frowned in puzzlement when she saw the knife in its sheath strapped to his left forearm; she guessed it was a special implement for cleaning fish or something. When she tried to take it off, he pushed her hand away. She shrugged and turned to her attention to his boots. The left one came off easily, and its sock; but he cried out in pain when she touched the right.

“It must come off,” she told him. “You’ll have to be brave.”

A funny kind of smile came over his face, then, and he nodded. She cut the laces, took the shoe gently but firmly in both hands and pulled it off. This time he made no sound. She cut the elastic in the sock and pulled that off too.

Jo came in. “He’s in his pants!”

“His clothes are all wet.” She kissed the boy good night. “Put yourself to bed, darling. I’ll tuck you up later.”

“Kiss teddy, then.”

“Good night, teddy.”

Jo went out. Lucy looked back to Henry. His eyes were open, and he was smiling. He said, “Kiss Henry, then.”

She leaned over him and kissed his battered face. Then carefully she cut away his underpants.

The heat from the fire would quickly dry his naked skin. She went into the kitchen and filled a bowl with warm water and a little antiseptic to bathe his wounds. She found a roll of absorbent cotton and returned to the living room.

“This is the second time you’ve turned up on the doorstep half dead,” she said as she set about her task.

“The usual signal,” Henry said. The words came abruptly.

“What?”

“Waiting-at-Calais-for-a-phantom-army…”

“Henry, what are you talking about?”

“Every-Friday-and-Monday…”

She finally realized he was delirious. “Don’t try to talk,” she said. She lifted his head slightly to clean away the dried blood from around the bump.

Suddenly he sat upright, looked fiercely at her, and said, “What day is it? What day is it?”

“It’s Sunday, relax.”

“Okay.”

He was quiet after that, and he let her remove the knife. She bathed his face, bandaged his finger where he had lost the nail and put a dressing on his ankle. When she had finished she stood looking at him for a while. He seemed to be sleeping. She touched the long scar on his chest, and the star-shaped mark on his hip. The star was a birthmark, she decided.

She went through his pockets before throwing the lacerated clothes away. There wasn’t much: some money, his papers, a leather wallet and a film can. She put them all in a little pile on the mantelpiece beside his fish knife. He would have to have some of David’s clothes.

She left him and went upstairs to see to Jo. The boy was asleep, lying on his teddy bear with his arms outflung. She kissed his soft cheek and tucked him in. She went outside and put the jeep in the barn.

She made herself a drink in the kitchen, then sat watching Henry, wishing he would wake up and make love to her again.

IT WAS ALMOST MIDNIGHT when he woke. He opened his eyes, and his face showed the series of expressions that were now familiar to her: first the fear, then the wary survey of the room, then the relaxation. On impulse, she asked him, “What are you afraid of, Henry?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“You always look frightened when you wake up.”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged, and the movement seemed to hurt. “God, I’m battered.”

“Do you want to tell me what happened?”

“Yes, if you’ll give me a drink of brandy.”

She got the brandy out of the cupboard. “You can have some of David’s clothes.”

“In a minute…unless you’re embarrassed.”

She handed him the glass, smiling. “I’m afraid I’m enjoying it.”

“What happened to my clothes?”

“I had to cut them off you. I’ve thrown them away.”

“Not my papers, I hope.” He smiled, but there was some other emotion just below the surface.

“On the mantelpiece.” She pointed. “Is the knife for cleaning fish or something?”

His right hand went to his left forearm, where the sheath had been. “Something like that,” he said. He seemed uneasy for a moment, then relaxed with an effort and sipped his drink. “That’s good.”

After a moment she said, “Well?”

“What?”

“How did you manage to lose my husband and crash my jeep?”

“David decided to stay over at Tom’s for the night. Some of the sheep got into trouble in a place they call The Gully—”

“I know it.”

“—and six or seven of them were injured. They’re all in Tom’s kitchen being bandaged up and making a terrible row. Anyway, David suggested I come back to tell you he would be staying. I don’t really know how I managed to crash. The car is unfamiliar, there’s no real road, I hit something and went into a skid and the jeep ended up on its side. The details…” He shrugged.

“You must have been going quite fast—you were in an awful mess when you got here.”

“I suppose I rattled around inside the jeep a bit. Banged my head, twisted my ankle…”

“Lost a fingernail, bashed your face, and almost caught pneumonia. You must be accident-prone.”

He swung his legs to the floor, stood up and went to the mantelpiece.

“Your powers of recuperation are incredible,” she said.

He was strapping the knife to his arm. “We fishermen are very healthy. What about those clothes?”

She got up and stood close to him. “What do you need clothes for? It’s bedtime.”

He drew her to him, pressing her against his naked body, and kissed her hard. She stroked his thighs.

After a while he broke away from her. He picked up his things from the mantelpiece, took her hand, then, hobbling, he led her upstairs to bed.