It was after one in the morning by the time they checked into the modest-looking hotel in East London.
“No one will look for us in a place like this,” Erika said.
She was right. The hotel lobby looked tired and threadbare around the edges, like a child’s once-favorite toy now relegated to the back of a closet. Cheap red carpeting dotted with dark oily stains, clashed with vomit-green walls and furniture covered in orange and black leatherette upholstery. The whole effect was of a room in some hideous corner of America’s heartland—the furthest thing from London’s East End. The only giveaway was a framed portrait of the queen staring sternly down from her perch on the wall above the soot-stained mantel.
After paying in cash, Michael and Erika trudged up to their room, the manager dogging their heels. A gnomish man of indeterminate age, he babbled in his thick Birmingham accent, pointing out various aspects of the hotel. A moment later, he was gone, his admonishment not to play the television after nine fading down the hall.
“Bloody depressing,” Michael said, wiping his finger along the top of the dresser. It came away smudged with grime.
“You’ve obviously never been to Berlin. There are places even a rat wouldn’t live in.” Erika stripped off her blouse, revealing a frilly lace bra, her generous breasts threatening to spill out of the cups. “I’m going to take a bath.”
She walked past Michael, her heady fragrance filling his nostrils. A flush of heat rose up from his collar.
Bloody Christ!
“Uhh, fine.... I’ll check the message machine at my flat.”
Erika nodded wearily and disappeared into the bathroom. A moment later the sound of the water splashing into the tub filled the room. Shaking his head, Michael went over to the bed and sat down, reaching for the phone that sat on the battered nightstand. He grimaced when he noticed the rubbed-in filth on the ear- and mouthpieces. Wiping them off on the bedspread he dialed his number.
“Hello, you’ve reached Michael’s answering machine. Though I’m not at home, you may leave a message after you hear the tone. Cheerio!”
It sounded insipid now that he heard it as others did. He made a mental note to change it when he got home—if he ever did. And the bit about not being home, a bloody invitation to any thief who cased by phone.
The machine beeped and Michael punched in his three-digit code. He heard the machine click and the message tape rewinding. Three seconds later the first message played back: “Michael, it’s mother, I’m sorry again about what happened. Please call me when you get back. I think we need to talk.”
The machine beeped and then the second message played: “Michael! Where the bloody hell are you? Everything’s all mucked up. Call me as soon as you get home.”
He listened for a few minutes more then hung up when he realized there were no more messages. He would call his mother back and apologize. It was the right thing to do, after all. But she could wait. Ferguson was another matter. Picking up the phone, he dialed again.
Ferguson leapt for the phone when it rang, knocking it off the table. Cursing, he snatched it up and put it to his ear, suddenly nervous.
“H—hello?”
“Hi, John, it’s Michael.”
Ferguson rocketed to his feet and began pacing, the ratty robe flapping open as he walked. “Dear God, man, where have you been? I’ve been going out of my mind.”
“I’d rather not go into it. What’s the problem, someone misplace a grave?”
Ferguson rolled his eyes. “You know, Michael, sometimes you’re a real shit. I’ve just spent the last five hours sitting under a bleedin’ hot light answering the same damn questions over and over again. Christ! It was like something out of a bad Yank movie. We opened a real can of worms, mate.”
There was a long moment of stunned silence. “What are you talking about?”
Ferguson’s motions became more frantic. “What the fuck do you think? The bloody South Wessex crap. There’s a D-notice on that! These wankers aren’t fucking around.”
“Who? Special Branch?”
“MI-bloody-Six! They kept asking me where you were. They want you to come in and talk to them, Michael.” Ferguson stopped pacing and listened. “Michael, are you there?”
“I’m sorry you had to take the brunt of this, John. But there’s something strange going on with all of this, something I’m convinced is tied in with what happened to my dad. They’re hiding something—the D-notice confirms it.”
“Never mind all that,” Ferguson said, pacing again. “If you want to keep your bloody job, you’ll tell them everything you know with a pretty-please-and-a-cherry-on-top. As for me, I want nothing more to do with this. As far as I’m concerned, the Royal South Wessex can bloody well rot.” Ferguson slammed the phone down and screamed, “Bloody gits!”
Suddenly exhausted, Ferguson trudged back toward the bedroom. It was then that someone began pounding on the door. Sharp, insistent, and as relentless as before. Livid, he stormed toward the door and flung it open. He noticed that the lights in the hall were out, obscuring whoever it was standing outside his door.
“Bloody Christ! I’ve had it with you bastards. I told you all I know.” Ferguson squinted into the gloom. “Where’s Welles, anyway? The shit too lazy to come himself this time?”
Before he could say anything else, a silenced automatic pistol was thrust into his face. It fired once, sounding like a loud cough. A spot of red flowered on Ferguson’s forehead and he toppled to the floor. A moment later, the pistol coughed once more, and a heavily accented voice intoned, “The Eagle flies....”
Michael hung up the phone and sighed, running his hand through his now unruly hair. He felt as if the four puke green walls of the room were closing in on him. Nothing made sense, not a bloody thing. And yet, there was a glimmer of hope that somehow it would all fit. The key was Cadwallader and Soames. Would they still have the things his father left in their care? After all, it had been forty-three years. Coming out of his thoughts, he heard Erika singing in the bathroom, her husky voice barely able to hold the tune. He recognized it as something by Duran Duran. A moment later the singing stopped.
“Michael?”
He looked up and caught sight of her standing in the bathroom doorway, wrapped in a damp towel. A wave of hot soapy air filled the room, raising the humidity to the saturation point. He didn’t notice. Every drop of water stood out on her skin like tiny liquid diamonds, and her hair, now wet and scraggly, hung over her smoldering eyes, making her look like some world-weary waif.
“The bath’s free,” she said, running a hand up her arm.
Without realizing that he was doing it, Michael stood up and walked toward her. It felt as if some outside force were operating his body and he was along for the ride, watching as if through a pair of reversed binoculars. A heart-stopping moment later he stood in front of her, inhaling her scent and losing himself in her eyes. He could hear his heart beating in his ears and his head felt as if it were filled with wet cotton. He saw something in her face, a longing that matched his own, and yet a part of him wanted to run, wanted to hide from her. He raised a hand to touch her and stopped himself. What was he doing? Was he daft? They’d only just met. It was then that he realized that the room had returned to normal perspectives and the look he saw in her face had fled. Had it really been there to begin with, or was it just post-adolescent longing? Feeling awkward, he fumbled with the bathroom door.
“Why don’t you order up some food. I’ll just be a minute.”
Erika watched Michael disappear into the bathroom, her mind a tangle of conflicting thoughts and emotions. Michael was clearly attracted to her. That much was obvious. The problem was she was beginning to reciprocate those feelings, and that was not something she’d bargained for.
Mein Gott, what am I to do? There’s no room in my life for this.
She sighed and waited until she heard the sound of the shower, then went to the phone, picked it up and dialed.
“Ja, it’s me,” she said.
And then she began to speak in rapid German.
The remnants of their carry-out fish and chips lay on paper plates strewn on one of the twin beds. Michael sat back against the headboard, his arm thrown over his eyes, his breathing deep and regular. Erika watched him; her expression neutral.
“Are you awake?” she asked.
“Mmmmm.... Just trying to sort everything out.”
“What’s a D-notice, Michael?”
He dropped his arm and looked at her with tired eyes. “You heard me?”
“I didn’t mean to.... Your friend, he is angry with you?”
“Scared was more like it.”
He spent the next few minutes telling her about his conversation with Ferguson.
“So, what does ‘D-notice’ mean?”
Michael sat up and crossed his legs. “It’s a restriction the British government places on information it deems ‘injurious to the public good.’ Sort of like ‘Top Secret’ or ‘Eyes only.’”
“And you think our fathers were involved in some way?”
“I’d almost bet my life on it,” he said, his eyes burning with a fierce light.
A flicker of worry crossed Erika’s face. Michael touched her hand, a brush of flesh against flesh. “I said...almost.... I’ve got to find out what happened to my father...and why. And to hell with the bloody government!”
“It was wrong of me to come here and ask you to become involved in my problems,” she said.
Michael shot her a look of disbelief. “What?”
“Let’s forget the whole thing. Go back to your life, Michael...while you still can....”
“Go back? Are you mad? After all that’s happened, you want to quit?”
She touched him then, and it jolted him like an electric cattle prod. “Yes, please....”
He looked into her eyes, and again he saw something there, a longing. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
She withdrew, shaking her head. “No, it’s nothing. We’ll keep going. I’ve no right to prevent you from finding the truth about your father. It’s what my father would have wanted.”
Confused, Michael was unprepared when Erika leaned over and caressed his face, placing a delicate kiss on his nose. She then moved over to the other twin bed and lay down, her face turned away from him.
Michael stared at her, his mind aswirl. A moment later his puzzled frown changed to a boyish grin. Sleep eluded him for the rest of the night.