As Stefan Gillespie came to he was in complete darkness and the darkness was in motion. He was dizzy. He tried to move but he could push his legs only a few inches before they came up against some kind of wall. There was a smell of oil and leather and something sweet. The disorientation was clearing; he recognised the sweetness. It was chloroform, quite faint now, but enough to bring what had just happened into focus. He was in the boot of a car, doubled up and barely able to move, but not tied. He could make no sense of why he was there. If the Gestapo wanted to teach him a lesson, surely a few broken ribs would have done. This was something else. He didn’t know the Nazis but he had grown up in a civil war. When they came for you, whichever side it was, they didn’t need to take you away for a thrashing; they only took you away when they intended to kill you.
Occasionally he heard faint voices over the sound of the engine. Nothing he could make out, but he thought there were two of them in the car. He couldn’t tell how long they’d been driving. The jolting was worse now. The car had to be off the road on some kind of track. His thoughts were all of Tom now. It couldn’t end here. He had to do something. He reached out with his left hand. He could feel something on the floor. He stretched his fingers along it. It was a wrench or a tyre lever. He gripped it. When the boot opened he might have his opportunity. If he feigned unconsciousness they’d pull him out. There would be a moment, maybe the only one, to take them off guard and run. The car stopped. He heard dogs barking. The doors opened. The sound of feet. They were at the back of the car now. As the boot lifted he saw darkness and trees. That was good. If he could get into the trees he would have some chance at least. Torchlight shone down on to his face. He closed his eyes.
‘He’s still out.’
Someone else was approaching. Stefan was gathering his strength. As soon as he was upright he would have to use every bit of that strength.
‘Wake him up.’
His hand tightened on the tyre lever. He was ready to hit out. But the touch on his face was unexpectedly gentle. There was a scent he recognised.
‘Come on then sleepy head!’
He opened his eyes. In the torchlight, Hannah was smiling at him.
*
They were somewhere above the Free City, in the forests that climbed the hills overlooking Langfuhr and Oliva. There was a small clearing here, and an old hunting lodge. It was a single-storey building with some kennels and an enclosure of cast-iron railings at one side. Tiles had fallen from the roof; windows were broken; ivy crawled up the crumbling brickwork. But inside the lodge a fire burned in the grate and there was a basket of cut timber. Animal traps hung from the walls. There was an oak table in front of the fire. And there was a bottle of Machandel vodka on it. Hannah Rosen and Stefan Gillespie sat on a bench opposite one of the men who had pulled her off the street outside the Danziger Hof. An hour ago the same man had clamped a chloroform-soaked handkerchief over Stefan’s face on the Speicherinsel. He was in his mid-twenties, thin, with fair, curling hair. He called himself Leon, here anyway. Two grey Weimaraner dogs stretched out in front of the fire.
The fact that Hugo Keller was in Danzig had surprised and shocked Hannah. She wanted explanations, but as Stefan gave them they only silenced her. She had achieved nothing. She had put her own life and the lives of others at risk, and she hadn’t even got the truth out of Francis Byrne. She heard the words of the old man in the library again. He was right. She had almost delivered herself to the Gestapo, walking blindly into a situation she didn’t understand, in a place she had no business to be. Stefan had been in a Gestapo cell because of her. He didn’t tell her he was lucky he wasn’t still there, but she knew it anyway. She thought about the boy he had brought with him to the synagogue in Adelaide Road, who talked about the tricycle in the window at Clery’s. She had felt a lot in the last few days, anger, frustration, loneliness, shock, fear; now as she sat beside Stefan she felt sick inside. She needed to touch him, but she couldn’t. She was glad he was there; she had wanted him there. But she was irritated by the number of people who had every right to make a list of her mistakes and throw it at her now.
Hugo Keller troubled Leon; the whole thing troubled him.
‘So you bump into this Keller, in the police station in Weidengasse, where you’ve just been interrogated by the Gestapo, about Hannah. He’s a man you arrested in Dublin last year, who was spirited out of Ireland by influential friends, including some Irish policemen and the Nazi Gauleiter, Adolf Mahr. You find out he’s working for the Gestapo in Danzig now, and he’s blackmailing this priest, Byrne, at the cathedral. Then the two of you go out for a drink together.’ He looked at Stefan hard. ‘Does that sound odd?’
‘It wasn’t easy to say no to a drink. He’d just lied about knowing me. If he’d told them who I was they’d have taken me straight back to the cell.’
‘That’s what doesn’t fit. Why would he do that?’
‘He’s a frightened man, I know that. He’s been brought to Danzig because of Father Byrne, because he’s the one who’s got a hold over him. I don’t know why the priest is so significant, but that’s what it’s about.’
Leon was silent, thinking through what Stefan had told him. It was beginning to make some kind of sense.
‘Generally everyone in Danzig’s got a good idea who the informers are, but this man Keller’s an outsider. I don’t know him. I doubt anyone knows him. The priest isn’t good news,’ he reflected. ‘Not at all. There’s not much opposition left in our Free City. Socialists, communists, liberals, Catholics, Jews, we’ve all been battered into silence over the last few years. We’ve got an election now, but don’t let that fool you. The Nazis have probably held a thousand election rallies this year. Compare that with a dozen from the opposition, and most of those were broken up by the brown shirts and the police. Tomorrow they’ll be outside every polling station. They already know who’s going to vote against them. And you’ll need guts to do it. Some of the only guts left are in Oliva Cathedral. I’m a Jew, Herr Gillespie. I haven’t got much to thank the Catholic Church for, but while Edward O’Rourke is bishop of Danzig there’s someone still standing up to the Nazis here, someone they can’t just knock down. People trust him.’
Stefan nodded. It explained the relationship between Byrne and Keller. ‘Well, they might want to think twice about that with Father Byrne on the bishop’s payroll.’
‘Not all the opposition is out in the open,’ said Leon. ‘A list of everyone the bishop talks to would be worth a lot. Especially if the Nazis win this election big time. That’s when the arrests will really start, on a scale we’ve never seen.’
Stefan remembered the sense of darkness he had felt earlier, knowing nothing about any of this. Keller was doing what he did best, but Stefan still felt there was something else, something more urgent than mere information. Hannah reached across and took his hand.
The two dogs suddenly leapt up, growling, and raced to the door. Leon stood and moved to the window. He could see nothing in the darkness, but the dogs had heard something. He pointed to another door, at the back of the room.
‘If I say go, walk out that way, into the woods, and keep walking.’
He opened the front door. The Weimaraners disappeared into the night, barking furiously. Leon followed them outside. Over the noise of the dogs Stefan and Hannah heard an engine. Stefan got up and went to the window. He could see white headlights through the trees. A pickup emerged into the clearing. The dogs bounded towards it. Leon turned away and walked back inside.
‘It’s all right,’ he smiled, relieved. ‘We’ll be going soon.’
He poured a glass of vodka and drank it.
‘How long will it take?’ asked Hannah.
‘It depends which way he goes.’
A man Hannah knew as Johannes walked in, smiling, wearing a student’s cap. He had been the driver of the car outside the Danziger Hof. He had been the other man in the car that brought Stefan to the hunting lodge. He was younger than Leon, barely in his twenties. Where Leon was tense and nervous, Johannes was cheerful and relaxed. Behind him was an older man, bearded, dressed in green loden. He had a pipe between his teeth that had gone out some time before. The Weimaraners pattered beside him, sniffing at the leather bag over his shoulder. He clicked his fingers at the dogs. They went back to the fire and curled up in front of it. Leon’s expression had changed as the man walked in. It wasn’t who he expected.
‘Who’s this, Johannes?’
The older man smiled, taking out a box of matches to relight his pipe.
‘How’s it going?’
‘Peter’s broken his leg,’ explained Johannes. ‘This is Karl. He’s a friend of Peter’s. It’s fine. He knows the forests backwards.’
‘I’m sorry, Karl.’ Leon looked at him uneasily. ‘I don’t know you.’
The bearded man carried on lighting his pipe.
‘He’s the same price as Peter,’ said Johannes with a shrug.
‘It’s not about the bloody price. We don’t know him!’
‘Peter sent him instead. He said Karl knows what he’s doing.’
‘It’s not up to Peter to decide –’
‘Look, it’s no skin off my nose, son.’ Karl drew on his pipe, grinning amiably. ‘I had to come up and feed Peter’s dogs anyway. I could do with the cash, but if you don’t want a guide, that’s your business. I’ve done it before. You wouldn’t be the first ones I’ve helped get across into Poland.’
Leon still wasn’t happy; he’d been backed into a corner.
‘We’ve got to get them out, Leon,’ said Johannes, shrugging.
‘I know that.’
‘Well, I’m here if you want me. I’ll feed the dogs.’ Karl whistled quietly to the Weimaraners and went outside. They trotted out after him.
‘It’s not a decision you should have made, Johannes.’
‘We’ve always trusted Peter.’
‘There are people you pay and people you trust.’
Stefan exchanged a look with Hannah.
‘Is there a problem, Leon?’ she asked.
‘No. It’s just not the way we do things. But we’ll have to get on with it. It’s too late to worry about it now. The sooner we go the better. Ten minutes, right? You two get some air. I’ve just got a few things to sort out.’
It was clear Leon wanted to speak to Johannes on his own. Stefan smiled, knowing there was a bollocking to be delivered. He glanced across at Hannah. She nodded. As they walked out into the night the forester was heading back in, filling his pipe. He stopped to relight it once again.
‘Boys! You wouldn’t think their mothers would let them out, would you?’ He carried on into the lodge, whistling cheerfully to himself again.
They walked on in silence. Hannah held Stefan’s hand.
‘I still don’t know how you got here.’
‘Someone told your father what you were doing. He’d found out where you were. He came to see me, with Robert Briscoe. I assume you know him?’
‘Yes. But how did my father –’
‘Maybe you’ve got better friends than you know.’
‘Probably,’ she said very quietly.
‘He wanted me to get you out of here before you did anything stupid.’
‘Talking to Francis Byrne didn’t feel like it was stupid.’
‘Maybe it wouldn’t have been if he’d been in the Isle of Man. I know what you’ve been doing for the last three months. At least I know who you’ve been doing it for. And I just thought you were growing oranges.’
‘If they’d leave us alone to grow oranges I wouldn’t be doing it.’
They were still walking, deeper into the trees, away from the lodge.
‘I’m sorry, Stefan. I’m sorry you got involved –’
He shrugged. ‘I know why you left Ireland the way you did anyway.’
‘I had to go. And I think it was time to go.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Because if I’d stayed any longer, I might not have wanted to.’
‘Maybe it was worth a session with the Gestapo after all,’ he smiled.
‘What?’
‘To hear you say that.’
‘Do you think it didn’t matter?’
‘I didn’t want to think that.’
For a moment they looked at each other. He took her in his arms and kissed her. All of a sudden he was very tired. He didn’t want to talk any more; nor did she. There was a deep silence in the woods that surrounded them. As they kissed again they moved backward slightly and Stefan stumbled. Hannah laughed. He turned to look down at what he had stumbled over. It was the carcass of a dead Weimaraner. He saw the body of the other dog, closer to the clearing. He walked across to it, unconsciously silencing his footsteps. He didn’t need to know what the danger was to feel it. Hannah was still staring down at the first dog, aware of the unidentified threat in the darkness too. Stefan crouched down. There was a pool of vomit by the second dog’s mouth and there were several pieces of undigested meat.
‘They’ve been poisoned,’ he whispered.
‘He just went out to feed them. How could –’
Stefan put his finger to her lips. She didn’t understand, but suddenly he did. He stood perfectly still. His hand moved down to hold her arm. They waited. The silence seemed as deep as it had moments earlier when they were kissing. There was the sound of an owl some way off. Then another one, much closer, more urgent, and the noise of wings and branches as it took off, unseen, disturbed and irritated, into the night sky.
‘We’ve got to tell them!’ She hissed the words. She knew what he was listening for now. He shook his head. He sensed it might already be too late. There was a sound, a short snap; dead wood under a foot. Then something that could have been feet moving through leaves. He crept forward slowly, closer to the clearing where the lodge stood. There was movement. Out from the trees, into the moonlight, stepped three men in the brown uniform of the SA. Stefan and Hannah saw Karl emerge from the lodge, sucking on his pipe. He walked straight towards the three men. He carried on past them into the woods, as if he didn’t see them. More stormtroopers were coming out from the dark trees now. They seemed less worried about the noise as they started to fan out around the front of the lodge. Two of them were holding guns.
Hannah took a pistol from her pocket.
Stefan was surprised. He didn’t know she was armed.
He shook his head, pushing the gun back into her coat. ‘Too many!’
She hesitated. Her instincts were to help the two men in the lodge.
‘Walk very slowly. As quietly as you can.’
For a moment she just stared, still looking towards the lodge. He pulled her away from the edge of the clearing, further into the trees. There was a shout, then a gunshot. More shouts. More gunshots from the direction of the lodge. A scream. Hannah stopped, looking back, too shocked to move.
‘Keep going!’
As they walked, they heard more shots. Then the bullets stopped.
There was laughter now, outside the lodge. The light from several torches was sweeping around the clearing, into the forest. Stefan and Hannah were still not far away. They had to go carefully. They couldn’t make a noise. An order barked out. ‘Shut the fuck up, you bastards!’ The stormtroopers were heading into the trees. The light of the torches went before them. ‘There’s two more somewhere!’ The moon disappeared behind a cloud. Then Hannah tripped. The cry was barely anything; she stifled it in her throat. But it was still a sound. The torches swept round towards them. As she scrambled up, Stefan dragged her forward. It was too late for silence.
Now they were just running. The moon appeared and disappeared through cloud, giving enough light to see for a few seconds before it was gone, and they were plunging blindly into the undergrowth again, crashing through branches. They had no idea where they were going. They stumbled and tripped, pulling each other up as they ran. But each time the moon reappeared, and they saw a gap through the trees to aim for, their pursuers saw them, and the torches focused in. The Nazis had their own problems with the inconstant moon, blundering and falling as they spread out behind the fugitives. But they were enjoying the hunt. They followed with a mix of curses and laughter. Stefan and Hannah smashed their way through branches and bushes, over a stream, through a clearing, back into thick forest.
Somehow they kept together. There was more cloud and less moonlight suddenly, but their eyes had adjusted to the darkness. The torchlight was too far away to catch their backs now. They halted, gasping for breath. The trees were thicker and more regimented here. They were on the edge of a forestry plantation. A narrow path seemed to open up to the right. The stormtroopers were calling out to each other behind them. Then the voices were still. They were listening, listening for movement from their quarry.
Stefan and Hannah plunged into the narrow gully between the walls of trees. It was darker than ever, but the path meant they were making less noise. They ran faster. Suddenly the ground below their feet was no longer there. They were falling. It wasn’t far, but in the split second before they hit the forest floor below, it was all they could do not to cry out. Somehow they didn’t. The ground knocked the breath out of their bodies. For a minute they lay still. Stefan reached out and found Hannah, lying next to him. She sat up. They filled their lungs with air as quietly as they could. The stormtroopers were near again, still crashing noisily through the undergrowth, still cursing and laughing. Two voices were very close. ‘Listen you arsehole!’ ‘I am fucking listening!’ ‘Hans, where are you?’ ‘Here!’ There was another voice, further away. ‘Where’s here?’ ‘I can’t hear the fuckers, can you?’ ‘They’re somewhere. Flush the bastards out!’ There was more crashing about, more cursing. But it was quieter now. The SA men were going the wrong way.
They didn’t move. They waited in silence for what felt like a long time, till they could hear nothing, till they were sure their pursuers had gone.
‘You all right, Hannah?’
‘I think so.’
As they stood up the cloud broke. The moon shone through. They had fallen down a low bank on to a broader track. There were piles of felled timber. The road wound away in both directions. They heard a voice again. It seemed much further off, behind them. They had to go the other way.
They began to walk, saying nothing. They kept to one side of the track, close to the line of trees, ready at the slightest sound to disappear into them again. The moon was still coming and going, but the track was wide enough for them to see without light now. They had been walking for half an hour when the road divided. There was nothing to tell them which way to go; they had no idea where they were in the first place. There was nowhere they were trying to get, except away. Hannah shrugged. Stefan’s guess was as good as hers. They took the left fork, for no good reason, and walked on for another mile. Then they heard something. They stopped. It was nothing that made them freeze with fear. There were no voices, at least not straight away. It was a deeper, richer sound, not identifiable but already strange. They moved on cautiously towards the noise. It was as they turned a sharp bend in the track, and it sloped rapidly and steeply downhill, that the sound took on real form. It was music. It was the sound of an orchestra in the night. The thick ranks of evergreens stopped. There was a fence and a gate. Beyond it the track wound through pale silver birches. The music was growing louder and clearer. There was a dim haze of light in the distance.
‘What is it?
Stefan listened for a moment, and then he laughed.
‘I’d say Wagner. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.’
‘Whyever not?’ Hannah was laughing too. It was the release of fear.
He took her hand again. Now they could hear voices, singing. The lights were brighter, just a few at first, where the track emerged on to a small, metalled road. The air was full of music, and as the road turned again and the trees thinned, they could see the raked seats of the Forest Theatre. Nothing felt safer than being where there were people, lots of people. They walked towards the theatre and stood watching, where the trees came right up to the auditorium. They could even see part of the stage, where Hans Sachs was singing to the citizens of Nuremberg about the glory of Germany.
Then Stefan looked behind him again. He could hear something other than the music. There were different lights now, headlights, coming out of the forest. Hannah felt his grip tighten on her hand. She followed his eyes. They recognised the vehicle as it pulled on to the road. It was the pickup that had brought Johannes and Karl to the hunting lodge. It stopped. Three SA men leapt down. As the truck drove on they recognised the bearded man who was driving it. The three stormtroopers were walking towards the auditorium. Ahead the truck had stopped again and more brown shirts jumped off. Hannah and Stefan could see the rifles they carried. They were trapped. If they stayed where they were they would be found; if they tried to run they would be seen. The only option was the auditorium itself. They looked at each other, taking in their clothes and their dishevelled hair. Hannah shrugged. They both knew that the only chance was the crowd of opera-goers. They brushed off what dirt they could and slipped quietly into the theatre. They sat at the end of the first row they could find with empty seats. The final words of Hans Sachs rang out. ‘Ehrt eure deutschen Meister.’ Pay homage to your German masters. ‘Zerging’ in Dunst das heil’ge röm’sche Reich, uns bliebe gleich die heil’ge deutsche Kunst!’ If the Holy Roman Empire turns to dust, Holy German Art will still be ours!
With the last note of the opera the audience rose as one in an eruption of applause and cheering. Stefan and Hannah rose with them. Their applause was not for the performance; it was for the fact that they were alive. But as the lights went up and they looked around they became all too aware just how many uniforms, Nazi uniforms, there were in the audience.
The applause was dying down. The orchestra started to play again. It wasn’t anything they knew and they moved into the aisle as everyone else began to move, or almost everyone. The crowd was pressing too close for anyone to really notice their appearance. But scattered amongst the audience were a handful of people who didn’t move. As Stefan and Hannah shuffled towards the exit an old man stood at the end of a row of seats, unmoving, blocking people’s way, and singing. ‘Kennst du die Stadt am Bernstein Strand.’ The city on the amber strand. ‘Umgrünt von ew’ger Wälder Band.’ Where green, eternal forests stand. People pushed past him, muttering and swearing. But there were other voices now, and another song. A group of SA men had climbed on to the stage, singing the Horst Wessel Song. There was renewed applause. And now everyone had stopped; everyone was singing with them, drowning out the anthem of the Free City. The orchestra changed tunes. ‘Zum letzten Mal wird Sturmalarm geblasen!’ The final call to arms rings out! ‘Zum Kampfe steh’n wir alle schon bereit!’ We’ll put our enemies to rout! ‘Bald flattern Hitlerfahnned über alle Strassen.’ Hitler’s banners fill every town. ‘Die Knechtschaft dauert nur noch kurze Zeit!’ Our time of slavery is done! People were glaring at Stefan and Hannah, not because of their appearance, but because they were not singing. Hannah seemed grimly unfazed. Stefan looked at the man next to him and produced a smile that was as inane as he could manage. ‘Sorry, we’re Irish!’ The man frowned, not quite hearing, and then laughed. Other people laughed and smiled, as if this explained everything. But as they moved out of the auditorium towards the exit there were Schutzpolizei and more SA men ahead of them. The foyer was still packed with people, chatting and laughing, gathering up coats and hats. It wouldn’t be full for much longer. Soon the opera-goers would all be gone.
‘They can’t know what we look like, Stefan.’
‘No, if we stick close to all the other people who look like they’ve just run through a forest at night to get here, we shouldn’t have any problems.’
‘The crowd’s still all we’ve got.’
He nodded. It was. Then he heard two voices, just behind him. The words were English and the voices were unmistakably Irish.
‘At least it’s stirring stuff.’ It was a man who spoke. He was middle-aged, balding, with sharp features and dark, thick brows. He sounded like someone who was trying to make the best of something he hadn’t much enjoyed.
‘I like my stirring stuff shorter and a bit less Wagner, Seán,’ replied the woman with cheerful indifference. It was obvious she was his wife.
‘And a bit more Mozart?’ he laughed.
‘It wasn’t even a good production,’ she continued. ‘Wagner can be sung in registers other than loud. You really were over the top at the interval, darling. One of the best productions you’ve seen! Danzig’s made you such a convincing liar. I’m never going to be able to believe a word you say again.’
‘I’m unpopular enough here as it is, Elsie. If I can’t enthuse about the bloody Forest Opera –’
‘Why worry? Herr Greiser and Herr Forster both cut you dead.’
‘Well be fair, darling, they did cut each other dead too,’ the man continued. ‘If the Senate President and the Nazi Gauleiter won’t speak to each other except on instructions from Berlin, why should they bother with the poor old League of Nations High Commissioner? Besides, did you really want a conversation with them anyway, Elsie?’
‘Certainly not. Gobshites the pair of them.’
‘Now, now, no political opinions please. It’s undiplomatic.’
She laughed as they moved forward towards the exit.
‘Smile and say yes,’ said Stefan, putting his arm through Hannah’s.
‘What?’ She narrowly avoided bumping straight into the woman.
‘Mr Lester? I’m Stefan Gillespie.’ He stretched out his hand. Seán Lester looked slightly puzzled as he registered the dishevelled appearance of the stranger, and the fixed grin on the equally dishevelled woman’s face.
‘We’re over here from Dublin. This is Miss Rosen, Hannah.’
Mrs Lester reached across and shook Stefan’s hand, unfazed.
‘I’m Elsie Lester. Shake the man’s hand, darling.’ She took Hannah’s.
‘Hannah Rosen.’
‘Did you enjoy the opera?’
‘We missed quite a lot of it.’
‘That was very sensible of you.’
Lester had now shaken hands with Stefan; he still hadn’t spoken.
‘I’ll give you a very short version, Mr Lester. Do you have a car?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘We need a lift into Danzig very badly,’ continued Stefan, ‘avoiding the police officers and stormtroopers who may or may not be watching the exits. If they are, they’re looking for us, for reasons I haven’t got time to explain at the moment. We’re both keen not to be arrested, that’s the thing.’
‘I’m not with you, Mr Gillespie. Have you done something wrong?’
‘I don’t think we’ve broken any laws.’
‘Mr Gillespie, my position –’
‘It’s not easy to go into the details here, sir.’ The crowd was thinning out noticeably now. ‘Robert Briscoe said that if I – if we – did get into any tight spots – and I suppose we have done – you might be able to help.’
‘He did, did he?’
‘Oh, and how is Bob?’ exclaimed Mrs Lester. ‘It’s ages since I’ve seen him. And do you know Lilly as well?’ She looked at Hannah.
Stefan was lost, but Hannah was on board at last.
‘I know Mrs Briscoe, of course. She’s a friend of my mother’s.’
‘Wonderful! I did see her last time I was in Dublin –’
‘Mr Gillespie,’ interrupted Lester, ‘if the police need to speak to you, the easiest things really would be just to talk to them and clear things up. I can’t imagine you have anything to be concerned about – as Irish citizens –’
‘Don’t be so stuffy, Seán,’ scolded Mrs Lester. She put her arm through Hannah’s. ‘We’d be delighted to give you a lift, why wouldn’t we be? Perhaps you’ll pop in for a drink, and possibly a bath.’ The two women headed towards the exit. Seán Lester put on his hat.
‘We’d better do as Elsie says then. Bob Briscoe’s got a damned cheek. I haven’t spoken to the man in years. Just smile and talk about Wagner.’
‘I’m not really that well up on Wagner.’
‘You’re in good company here, I can assure you. The Party requires them to worship Wagner, not actually to like his music. I’m rather fond of the old bastard myself, but Elsie’s great love is Mozart, especially the Magic Flute. Her view is that if the Magic Flute is the human spirit at its most profound, masquerading as nonsense, the Ring Cycle is nonsense masquerading as something immensely pro-found. I’m not sure she hasn’t got a point.’
They walked past the policemen and the stormtroopers, who looked at each other uncertainly. The High Commissioner’s car was waiting. It flew the red pennant of the Free State. The chauffeur held open the door. As Stefan and Lester followed Hannah and Mrs Lester to the car, two Gestapo men were close behind. One of them moved forward. The other barked an order and the first one stopped abruptly. Seán Lester turned, waiting for Stefan to get into the car. He smiled amiably and raised his hat. ‘A splendid evening, didn’t you think?’ He spoke in English. Stefan sat in the car. Lester got in next to him. The chauffeur closed the door. Then the car pulled away. There was nothing the Gestapo officers could do. Elsie Lester was laughing now.
‘That was the highlight of the evening. I could murder a whiskey!’