Catherine Mary Cullanan nursed the boy all morning. His temperature peaked and then began to come down a little. Sometimes it seemed to her that she had spent half her life nursing her own seven children through their illnesses. You had to be self-sufficient on a small island.
At times he cried out for his mother. But when his temperature dropped and his shivering ceased, he slept peacefully. At last, in the early afternoon, his eyes opened and he looked up at her as if trying to take in who she might be and where he was.
‘Ssh,’ she said with a warm, reassuring smile and a voice as soothing as honey and milk. ‘You’re safe now, little man. You’re in a safe place and you’ll be fine. I’m Mrs Cullanan, but you can call me Cathy.’
His face crumpled. ‘I want Ma.’
‘Of course you do. What’s your name?’
‘Willie. Willie Vanderberg.’
She stroked his face with the lightest of touches. ‘Well, it’s a fine thing to meet you, Willie. Now tell me, did you come from the ship? The one that sank?’
He nodded. ‘But where’s Ma? Where’s Mrs Harman?’
‘How many of you were in the boat? Were there just the three of you?’
He nodded again.
‘And was Mrs Harman an older lady?’
‘Yes.’ He turned his head away. ‘Please, I want to see Ma now?’
‘She’s with the doctor. You’ll see her very soon.’ Catherine Cullanan tried to smile again, but she wasn’t sure her story was very convincing. She had too fine a conscience to be a good liar, but how could she tell the boy the truth? As she moved away from him to rinse the flannel, she crossed herself.
*
Marcus Marfield found what he wanted within ten minutes. Twenty yards from the road, a tousle-headed boy of nine or ten in short trousers and an open-neck shirt was standing on the riverbank, skimming stones. Marfield pulled in on the grassy shoulder at the side of the road and got out of the car. He had brought Guy Rowlands’s BMW again – it was irresistible.
He sauntered over to the boy. ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’m looking for the Post Office.’
The boy stopped what he was doing, then pointed westwards. ‘Next village but one, mister.’
‘I went through there but I didn’t see it.’
The boy looked up at the road. ‘Is that your car? Never seen a silver car before.’
‘It’s a sports car, goes like a bullet.’
‘Can I have a proper look at it?’
‘Why not? Even better, why don’t I take you for a spin – you can show me the Post Office.’
He was a healthy, skinny lad, fair-haired with burnished skin from a summer spent out of doors. ‘Then will you bring me back here?’
‘Easy, I’m coming back this way anyway. What’s your name?’
‘Peter.’ He grinned. ‘But my mum calls me pest.’
‘No school then, eh?’
‘Last day of the holidays, mister. Back tomorrow.’
*
‘What if I didn’t receive it,’ Wilde said, choosing his words with care. ‘What if it was delivered to the porters’ lodge but wasn’t passed on to me? They’re not perfect.’
‘Lie after lie after lie. Give it a rest, Wilde.’
‘But I haven’t seen it, Rowlands. If I knew where it was I wouldn’t have had to lie. It could be there, at college, waiting for me in the porters’ lodge. You could drive me there, gun at my back while I inquire after it. Rowlands, for pity’s sake, I don’t want anyone else to die at the hands of your murderous psychopathic friend – and I suspect you don’t either.’
They were on their own in the kitchen of the remote farmhouse. Wilde’s hands were still bound. Before leaving, Marfield had made sure his feet were also bound, to the chair legs, and had fastened cord tight around his chest to the chairback. It seemed he did not trust Rowlands to keep the captive secure.
Every time Rowlands glanced at the two corpses, he shuddered. Finally, gritting his teeth, he dragged them into a pantry, shutting the door on them. All that was left was smeared pools of blood on the stone floor.
‘You couldn’t bear looking at them, Rowlands.’ Wilde wondered about Rowlands’s war service. The tie he’d seen him wearing suggested a gunnery regiment. If his experience of war had been confined to several miles behind the front trenches, hurling shells at an unseen enemy, perhaps he hadn’t had to face the sheer bloody brutality and mangled limbs of close combat. Perhaps the reality was too much for him.
‘If you don’t shut your mouth, Wilde, I’ll do for you here and now.’
‘No, you won’t. You think I might have a point about the porters’ lodge.’
‘Is it true you never received the parcel?’
‘Yes it’s true. Why else would I have bothered to watch the copy in Claire’s house? But is it true about the lodge? Only one way to find out. Come on, Rowlands, you don’t want to see Marfield murdering any more poor unfortunates who just happen to be standing at the roadside. I may disagree with your politics, but I suspect you are halfway human. Marfield is insane and he’s beyond your control.’
Rowlands looked at his watch. Was he calculating how long Marfield had been gone and when he would return? He must know Marfield would never agree to this course of action.
‘You realise that Philip Eaton’s either on to you or very close? He has been talking to the Deuxième Bureau. They know about the attempt on the American ambassador’s life at Chantilly – and the connection via your man Honoré to Marfield is clear.’
Wilde caught a fleeting expression of alarm cross Rowlands’s face. He pressed on.
‘What have you got to lose? If I’m wrong – if there’s no parcel for me in the porters’ lodge, then shoot me and make your getaway. You’ll be safe enough – the porters aren’t armed. Not that you’ll have to resort to gunplay: you can talk your way out of anything – just say you were working undercover.’
The moments passed into seconds and then stretched to a full minute. Wilde could do nothing more than wait. This was up to Rowlands now.
‘If I take you there, and if you’re wrong, Wilde, I will shoot you.’
‘I understand that. But it’s a risk worth taking for me. It has to be better than the alternative. And if it’s not there, well, I’m at a loss anyway. Who knows, the parcel could be just lost in the post. These things happen.’
Rowlands moved towards Wilde and began to untie his feet and remove the cords binding him to the chair, leaving his hands bound. Wilde was able to stand up at last. He groaned as he bent backwards to ease his aching spine. At least his clothes had begun to dry out, but he was exhausted.
There was a noise outside. Rowlands froze.
‘That’s not him,’ Wilde said quickly. ‘There was no car.’
‘He could have parked it on the drive, away from the courtyard.’
‘Then shoot him, Rowlands! Do this one decent thing with your life. Kill him when he walks in the door and put the world out of its misery.’
Rowlands shook his head. There was something about him that spoke of defeat, as though the reality of his actions was suddenly all too much.
There was a knock at the door. Wilde and Rowlands looked at each other.
A harder knock, followed by voices outside.
‘You’d better answer it,’ Wilde said, deliberately raising his voice. ‘Whoever is there will see your car outside. They must have heard us; they’ll know someone’s here.’
His eyes went to the blood streaking the floor. ‘I can’t.’
‘Just open the door a fraction, and send them on their way. If necessary, you’ve got your gun.’
Rowlands edged towards the kitchen window. ‘Damn,’ he said, pulling back as though he’d been bitten. ‘They’ve seen me.’
‘They?’
‘Soldiers!’
Wilde breathed in sharply. Soldiers had to mean hope, but this time he didn’t allow the relief to wash over him. He’d fallen for that once already today when Rowlands’s car pulled up at the phone kiosk.
‘What do I do?’ Rowlands sounded panicked.
Wilde took charge. ‘Answer the door with your hands visible. Come clean about Marfield and your plans and I swear I’ll put in a word for you. Your testimony will be invaluable to MI5 – they’ll spare you from the noose. Come on, Rowlands, you haven’t pulled the trigger yourself yet – and you’ve got no other way out.’
‘Haven’t I?’ Rowlands held his hands up in despair. In the space of two hours he had gone from the confident man who had found Wilde at the side of the road to a shaking hulk.
There was another knock, a little louder.
‘Go on,’ insisted Wilde. ‘Open the door!’
Rowlands shrugged, and then turned the muzzle of the pistol to his chest, carefully positioned in the centre of the heart, and pulled the trigger. The blast was shattering in this small, enclosed space. As he fell, the door opened and two khaki-clad soldiers stood there, blocking out the sun.
‘Bloody hell,’ Lance Coporal Elphick said, looking at the body quivering just two yards in front of his dusty boots. ‘What the fuck just happened?’ And then to Wilde, ‘And who the fuck are you?’
Wilde held up his bound wrists. ‘I’m someone who is very glad to see you, soldier.’
‘Jesus, we only wanted directions and a pint of milk!’
*
Marfield had stopped halfway down the drive. He had seen the squad of soldiers crossing the open field towards the farmhouse. He had encountered enemy soldiers many times in Spain; you had to be fast on your feet if you wanted to survive in war.
‘Look, mister, soldiers!’ Like all boys, the lad in the passenger seat was intrigued. ‘And they got rifles!’
‘Let’s just wait a few moments.’ Marfield put a finger to his lips. ‘Better not disturb them, Peter. I think we’ve come the wrong way.’
‘Well, I told you we had, didn’t I? This is a farm track, nowhere near the village.’
‘Ssh.’
The soldiers had disappeared behind a thicket, but they were clearly going towards the house. How the hell had they found it? Rowlands had been so certain no one knew about this place. It belonged to him and there was no record of the property on his MI6 file.
Marfield calculated his options. He might be able to take out one or two – even three – of the soldiers, but not six or seven. And there could be more, not yet seen. He heard a pistol shot from the house. It was time to disappear.
Unhurriedly, he reversed into a wider space a little way back down the driveway, and then executed a skillful three-point turn. He picked up speed, and joined the open road with only the briefest glances left and right. A few minutes later, he halted by the river and indicated to the boy that he should get out.
The boy pushed open the low-slung passenger door and slid off the black leather seat. He stood beside the car, running his fingers along the sleek contours. ‘Wow, mister, that’s the best car ever. It’s like a silver rocket. This is my lucky day.’
You’ll never know, Marfield thought. ‘Don’t tell anyone, though. I’ve only borrowed the car, you see – belongs to my boss.’
‘Mum’s the word. Hey, mister, we never got to the Post Office . . .’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll find it. Village after next.’ He waved farewell as he pulled the passenger door shut, then eased away from the kerb under the boy’s admiring gaze. The boy had indeed been fortunate. In the next few hours others wouldn’t be so lucky.
*
Elina Kossoff was lying on the bed, up on the fourth floor of the ambassador’s residence at 14, Prince’s Gate. She had doubts about Marfield, but nothing that couldn’t be dealt with. She had always been the problem solver. Working for her parents in the Samovar would have been a trial for anyone, but for Elina it had been an education. Her parents were so used to being waited on in their pre-revolution life back in Russia that she had become their de facto servant, organising the books, dealing with the staff, checking deliveries. And she had learnt to come down hard when any problems arose.
Now, in a short time, she had become indispensable to Ambassador Joseph Kennedy, both in bed and out. She knew there were others, but so what? He liked having her around, and she was efficient. If you want something done, ask Elina. That was the way it had always been with her.
Organisational skill was not the only thing that her childhood had imbued in her. She had also learnt a bitter and visceral hatred of the revo-lutionaries who had destroyed Russia. Throughout her childhood, she had listened to her father’s dinner-table rants, his slamming of his knife on the table as he spat out his loathing of Lenin and Stalin, Trotsky and Kamenev.
There had not been a lot to disagree with. Except for the fact that he never did anything about it.
And then she had met Marcus Marfield and they discovered that not only did their bodies fit well, but their political opinions did, too.
In long conversations, fuelled by love-making and vodka, they had shared a mutual hatred of Bolshevism. And although National Socialism as an ideology did not attract her, she understood its potential to free Russia from the iron grip of Stalin.
Nothing might have happened. They would have made love, drunk more vodka, talked politics endlessly until their affair had run its course. But then Marfield said he wanted to go to Spain, and Guy Rowlands turned up with an idea that could turn their talks and dreams into positive action. Suddenly everything became serious. She and Marfield could make a difference.
As she lay back on a bank of pillows, hands behind her head, she wondered what she might have missed. Professor Wilde had been in their house in Cambridge, but she was pretty certain he could have found nothing. All the weapons had been there, but by the time Wilde arrived, everything had been packed up and removed. Diligence had always been her watchword.
If only she could be so certain about Marcus.
Now the end was in sight. Later today she would travel up to Wall Hall in Hertfordshire to put the final touches to the party. In the meantime, Kennedy wanted her here in London.
The party was to be a family affair with only a few other guests, to celebrate Rosemary Kennedy’s twenty-first birthday and to mark the departure of most of the ambassador’s family back to the States. All but Kennedy and Rosemary herself; she was doing so well at the Assumption school in Boxmoor that she would be staying in England with her father.
The others would be going home in batches; the sinking of the Athenia had made a big impression on Joe Kennedy, so he wasn’t willing for them all to make the journey together. His wife would be travelling on Thursday – just three days’ time – aboard the Washington with three of their offspring, Robert, Eunice and Kathleen.
Kennedy’s eldest boy, also called Joe, had recently returned from Berlin, but he would not be staying in England long – he would be leaving on the Mauretania a week from today, followed by Jack, recently returned from Glasgow where his efforts helping the survivors of the Athenia had made such an impression on the world. Jack would not be going by liner, however, but by air, aboard the smart new Pan Am Clipper flying boat service.
The last of the family to be leaving would be young Edward, Patricia and Jean, with nanny Hennessy. They’d be aboard the liner Manhattan on 20 September.
Like everything with this vast, boisterous family, organising their travel arrangements was a major operation. The ships had to be American because Joe was terrified that the U-boats that had sunk the Athenia might still be hunting British vessels. And who could say he was wrong?
The party was a major operation, too. Rosemary’s birthday would be a cause for celebration, but it would also be a slightly sombre affair. Not only were they uncertain they would all get home safely, but they were all acutely aware that it might be months or even years before the whole family was reunited.
And so there would be a lavish religious element to the celebrations, to praise God and entreat his blessing on their voyages. Rose, the ambassador’s devout wife, insisted on it.
Elina looked at her watch. Marfield should be in London by now. He had called with alarming news; things weren’t going as smoothly as they might. And all because the fool had allowed himself to be filmed in Spain. And how had he managed to let Rosa Cortez loose with copies? The film must never see the light of day.
For this to work, the world had to see Marcus Marfield as an idealistic left-winger, the sort of person Middle America already disliked and would most certainly loathe if he were to harm America’s favourite family.
The scorn many Americans felt for Britain and her Empire was never far beneath the surface, and it was a sentiment that had been fed by Ambassador Kennedy himself. He had expressed his doubts about Britain often enough. He had even gone so far as to admit admiration for Hitler and his fascist regime.
Joseph Kennedy, the great appeaser.
When the remarkably wealthy Kennedy arrived in Britain as ambassador, he had been fantastically popular with the people and press. Who couldn’t adore such handsome children, with their sporty lifestyles and gleaming teeth? The British had taken them to their hearts from the word go.
In recent months, however, many had turned against their father. Too often he had seemed to favour Germany and the Nazis. At times he seemed contemptuous of Britain. Those in the know understood all too well that he was more interested in the narrow commercial interest of his businesses and the effect war might have on his wealth. He wanted to avoid war at all costs and if war came – as it now had – then he wanted it ended with some sort of patched-together treaty, however shabby and however many small countries were sacrificed to Hitler’s rapacious ambition.
He had acquired the tenancy of Wall Hall, a house in the country, from his old friend J. P. Morgan, the millionaire financier, so that he didn’t have to face the night raids that were surely coming to London. Wall Hall – that’s where they would be holding the party for Rosemary.
But Kennedy’s timing was off again. Just as the Royal Family were making it clear they wouldn’t budge from Buckingham Palace however many bombers Goering dispatched to the skies over London, Joe Kennedy was scooting to safety.
People called him yellow.
But mostly, he was despised in Britain because he was chief of the ‘keep the US out’ brigade. He was identified with the ‘Cliveden set’, the clique around Nancy Astor, seen as much too close to Hitler, much too keen on appeasement. Even worse, it was said he had suggested the average American had far more sympathy for Germany than for Britain.
Britain, he insisted, would be ‘licked’ by Hitler.
Invitations to parties were drying up. Joe Kennedy was becoming an outcast.
His defeatism was too much, even for those who had hitherto given him the benefit of the doubt. Every upstanding, right-thinking, patriotic Englishman had a right to be appalled by Kennedy and to loathe him.
Rowlands had understood how such feelings could be used, both in Britain and France.
A home-grown assassin who would murder Bill Bullitt in France and Joe Kennedy in England, would kill off any idea of American intervention for good.
Imagine the reaction in America, Rowlands had said, spreading his hands wide: one or more isolationist politicians – and there were plenty of those in Washington DC – wouldn’t need prompting to blame Britain and France for the murders. There would be loud voices elsewhere. You could almost hear the words they would use, he said. ‘Shot by an English guy, goddamn it – simply because he dared speak out against US involvement in their goddamned European wars? Let the British and their disgraceful empire stew.’
Elina’s telephone was ringing. She picked it up.
‘I don’t trust this line,’ she said. ‘Are we on?’
‘One hour.’
Elina slowly replaced the handset, just as the door opened. Joe Kennedy stood there, grinning, his eyes beady behind his round tortoiseshell spectacles. ‘I was hoping I’d find you here.’
‘Oh, Mr Kennedy, sir, I have to go out in a short while. My mother’s been taken sick.’
‘Really? I’m sorry to hear that, Elina.’
‘Do you mind if I go out for a couple of hours? I’ll be back to tend to all your requirements – and I could also drive you up to Wall Hall.’
He smiled at her. ‘Did I tell you we were going to have a singer? Young fellow from Cambridge, voice of an angel. Going to sing Ave Maria at the end of Mass. Rose will be in heaven.’
‘I’m pretty sure you mentioned that, sir.’
He closed the door behind him and loosened his tie. ‘Now then, I’m sure a ten-minute wait won’t hurt your mother. You’re my girl, Elina. Ten minutes, quarter an hour max. Sometimes family isn’t enough and I need my girl.’
She was already climbing from the bed, tapping her watch regretfully.
‘You know, I’ve got my eye on a swell new watch for you, Elina. Swiss movement, jewelled, a real beauty like you.’
‘You’re a sweet talker, Mr Kennedy.’
‘That’s my girl. We both know what we like.’