One of Mycroft’s contacts from The Hague was waiting for them in Venlo. His name was Victor Farleigh and he had an avuncular chumminess that Mrs Gregson suspected, as was so often the case with the intelligence community, hid a core of steel. Farleigh watched with some bemusement as they shackled Miss Pillbody to the bed in one of the rooms of the house he had rented for them to the north of the city.
‘Is that entirely necessary?’ he asked.
Miss Pillbody gave him a wry smile in return.
‘It is,’ said Mrs Gregson once she was certain the locks and links were secure. It was arranged that she had some power of movement, the chain to her right hand being a decent length, but unless she took the bed with her, she was going nowhere. ‘England is littered with the corpses of those who took Miss Pillbody, Ilse Brandt, at face value.’
‘Do you think we could have a moment, Mrs Gregson?’ Miss Pillbody asked. ‘I need to talk about . . . women’s matters.’
‘What sort of women’s matters?’
‘The sort that men don’t want to hear about.’
She looked at the other three. ‘Buller, can you wait outside? With your gun at the ready? Robert, perhaps you’ll put some coffee on downstairs for Mr Farleigh. I’m sure I won’t be long.’
When the three had left, Mrs Gregson turned to Miss Pillbody. ‘Yes?’
‘Does it not offend you to see me like this?’ She rattled her chains. ‘Pinned like an animal?’
‘You forget, I saw your handiwork in Suffolk. I saw what you did to poor Mr Coyle.’ Coyle had been an MI5 man who had unearthed Miss Pillbody’s secret – that she was not an innocent schoolma’am but a German spy – and had paid for his life with it.
‘I don’t forget any such thing. It’s a war, Mrs Gregson. I fought it in my own way. Do you not think there is a British equivalent of me deep in Germany at this very moment? Plotting to kill my countrymen and women? It’s the way wars will be fought in future. It is no different to the trenches that you know so well. I wish to be treated with respect, particularly as I am . . . due.’
‘Due?’
‘Due. Do I have to paint you a picture? In red?’
‘Ah. I see.’
‘I wondered if you could get me some Hartmann’s or something similar. I am sure Dutch women have the same, um, issues.’
‘I will see what I can do,’ Mrs Gregson said.
‘Thank you.’ Miss Pillbody hesitated for a moment. ‘It was nothing personal, you know, those men. In Suffolk.’
‘Are you saying you didn’t enjoy it?’
‘I am. I felt nothing.’
‘That could be even worse.’
‘In the same way I won’t feel anything if I have to kill you.’ This came with a smile bordering on the angelic.
Mrs Gregson returned her gaze. There was no connection she could feel, no sympathy for another human being. Just an emptiness inside that disturbed her. ‘And I don’t think I would feel anything if I had to do the same to you,’ she said.
Miss Pillbody gave a firm nod. ‘Then we know where we both stand.’
‘I’ll see about the pads,’ Mrs Gregson said. ‘Wouldn’t want you ruining a perfectly decent VAD uniform.’
She left, half-expecting to feel the steel of sharp daggers in her back, and sent Buller into the room with instructions to keep his distance and his weapon at the ready.
Downstairs, the kitchen smelled of coffee and Farleigh’s pungent Dutch cigarillos.
‘All all right?’ Nathan asked.
‘Yes. I might have to find a chemist is all.’
‘We were just saying, Mycroft is obviously concerned for his brother,’ Farleigh began.
‘Is he here?’ she asked. ‘In Holland.’
‘No.’
‘Not that concerned then.’
Farleigh sounded offended. ‘Fieldwork is hardly Mycroft’s forte. He has mustered considerable resources to track down Sherlock.’
‘I assume all hotels, guesthouses and so on have been checked?’ asked Nathan.
‘Twice over. Especially in the vicinity of the bridge. I fear we can do nothing but keep an eye on that and try to intercept Holmes before he crosses. Without alarming the Dutch who, of course, want no part of this.’
‘We think we might have been followed. From the port. A Ford. Any ideas?’ asked Nathan.
Farleigh shook his head. ‘I’ll have a scout around.’
Mrs Gregson poured and handed out the treacly coffee. ‘Has there been much activity around the bridge?’
‘On the German side, yes. There appears to be some sort of moving picture outfit involved.’
Nathan and Mrs Gregson exchanged glances.
‘What is it?’ Farleigh asked.
‘Just that Mrs Gregson here used moving pictures to facilitate Miss Pillbody’s escape from Holloway.’
‘Escape? Really? You mean she wasn’t released through the usual channels?’
‘There are no usual channels for what we are doing, Mr Farleigh,’ said Mrs Gregson. ‘And besides, time was of the essence. Official channels are not renowned for their speed of action. So we used a little sleight of hand.’
‘Well, I am not sure the German cameras are up to any tricks. They moved the equipment around quite openly when I was observing. Perhaps you should take a look for yourself.’
‘Perhaps we should,’ said Nathan. ‘You’ll come with us?’
Farleigh shook his head. ‘Best if you take the car and drive past slowly, a married couple out for some air. I’ll stay here and finish my coffee. When you get back we can discuss the fine details.’
‘Did you see any lights?’ asked Mrs Gregson.
‘Lights?’
‘For cameras. There’d be rather a lot of them.’ Farleigh shook his head. ‘Why?’
She drained her coffee. ‘Let’s go and take a look, Robert.’
‘Of course. I’ll just go and check Miss Pillbody is on a very short leash.’
‘Good idea.’
After days of imagining the crossing, Mrs Gregson was disappointed by the sight of the bridge and the river beneath it. In her mind it had been something equivalent to the Forth Railway crossing, a span of fearsome grandeur. In truth it was more a pedestrian bridge, wide enough for a large motor or a small lorry to cross, but only one at a time: a single lane into and out of Germany. The river, too, was wide and brown and sluggish and had been dredged and widened, so it looked more like a giant man-made canal than one of Europe’s major waterways. There were strings of barges being towed by tugboats but also quite large coastal steamers that, thanks to the vagaries of the border, were crossing from Dutch waters into German and back into Dutch sovereignty again. It was clearly too complex to try to institute border controls in mid-stream.
‘Can you stop the car?’ she asked Nathan as they approached the still-folded bridge. ‘I can’t really see what is happening over there.’
Nathan pulled over and she got out. She stretched a little, like a cat confined in a cramped space too long, and strolled towards the crossing. The horizon was huge, like East Anglia, she thought, or the view out from the Essex marshes. The sky was mostly lumpy and grey, with dark bruises here and there that threatened rain.
She gazed over the sludge-coloured river, which looked toxic to her. On the far side there were small clumps of people – soldiers guarding a striped pole, a truck with the words UVF painted on the panelled sides, and a cluster of civilians near it. She stepped out onto the wooden boards, careful to keep her skirt down with one hand as the wind tugged at her clothing, the other planted firmly on her hat.
Where are you, John Watson? she wondered. Are you here yet, perhaps a few miles away, waiting for the crossing? Do you know what they have in store for you? If not, how much of a shock will it be to see Holmes striding towards you? And how heartbreaking for that reunion to be so fleeting, as each man continues on his way.
No, she couldn’t let that happen. They had to find Holmes before that moment and stop him. She and Nathan had discussed how and they had agreed that, if need be, they would incapacitate Holmes with a shot to the leg. Risky, but she had tended many bullet wounds in her time. It was only to be used in extremis, but there was no alternative she could think of.
She looked down at a small rowing boat making its way upstream with two young men putting their backs into it. Of course, Holmes might get across some way other than the bridge and circumvent the whole business. But something told her he would stick to the procedure. That he might even enjoy a touch of showmanship. The Holmes in Watson’s stories certainly did, although, as she had discovered very slowly, the man on the page and the man in the flesh didn’t always entirely match up.
‘Wat doe je daar?’ asked a harsh, guttural voice from behind. She turned to see an elderly worker in blue serge jacket and cap. He waved at her with his pipe stem. ‘Het is privé-eigendom.’
Her Dutch wasn’t up to much, but she assumed he was telling her it was private property. The man pointed to a sign high on one of the girders. Privé. Close enough to English to be pretty clear, she thought. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t see that.’
The man grunted and stepped aside, indicating she should get off. She was aware of eyes on her from the far bank and when she turned a German – or so she assumed – in a long woollen coat was inspecting her. He raised field glasses to his eyes and she turned her back to him, the hairs on her neck prickling under this distant examination.
She hurried back to the car and told Nathan to drive off. ‘Who was that?’ he asked as he turned the vehicle around.
‘The bridge man, I think. But I could see no sign of German lights, at least not big ones.’
‘Meaning?’
Mrs Gregson took off her hat and ran fingers through her tangled hair. ‘Why would they want to film this event?’
Nathan considered. ‘To gloat.’
‘Propaganda, yes. Which means they’ll want good, clear shots. Those cameras need very, very bright lights or daylight. So if they haven’t got artificial ones, they’ll wait for sunrise.’
‘Meaning?’
‘The handover will be after eight o’clock, which is when it gets light at this time of year.’
‘I see.’
‘I could be wrong, but I wouldn’t expect them to appear with John much before eight fifteen.’
‘All right,’ said Nathan. ‘But we’ll ask Farleigh to post a night-watchman just in case.’
‘Good idea. And we should be in place with Miss Pillbody by seven tomorrow. And every day until it happens.’
‘Agreed.’
Feeling more settled now there was some sort of timetable in place, Mrs Gregson kept silent until they had retraced their steps to the house.
‘Robert . . .’ she said as they got out of the car.
‘Yes?’
‘I know I have said it before. But I do think you are a sweetheart for . . . well, not every man would do this for me.’
‘Oh, you’d be surprised,’ said Nathan wryly. ‘But you are very welcome. And I hope you will reconsider that dinner when we are all safely back home.’
Where would be the harm? she thought as she pushed open the door that led to the kitchen. She could let him down gently then. ‘Of course. Oh, damn.’
‘What is it?’
‘I forgot to go to the chemist. Oh well, I’ll just boil up some rags for her. Shall I put some more coffee on? It might be a long night. Mr Farleigh? Mr Farleigh?’
Nathan put a hand on her shoulder to quieten her. He had his Webley self-loader in the other. The kitchen was empty, although Farleigh’s chair had been knocked over onto the tiled floor. Some of the coffee had been carelessly slopped on the table.
Perhaps it was Holmes, she thought. He must be lurking around here somewhere. It was entirely possible he would try to thwart them so he could continue with his own agenda. He might have outwitted them once more. She uttered a small curse under her breath, or so she thought.
‘Shush. Wait here,’ hissed Nathan.
As he moved softly over to the hallway and stairs, Mrs Gregson crossed to the dresser, opened the knife drawer and selected a long boning blade. And then it hit her; the memory of another cottage in Suffolk, when Miss Pillbody had been unmasked as a Sie Wölfe, and the little surprise she had left for them, secreted under the body of poor Coyle. A booby trap. She could easily have done something similar here.
‘Nathan!’ she shouted. ‘Be careful. There might be—’
But he was standing in the doorway, the colour gone from his face.
‘Nathan?’
‘Don’t go up there,’ he said, an uncharacteristic tremor in his voice.
As if a mental transference had taken place she could see the scene – the empty shackles, the slumped bodies. The smears of menstrual blood on sheets that Miss Pillbody would have used to alarm her captors and lure them in. ‘They’re dead, aren’t they?’
‘Buller and Farleigh, yes. But worse than that—’
‘I know,’ said Mrs Gregson, replacing the knife in its compartment. ‘She took the keys to the locks from Buller. Miss Pillbody’s gone.’
The tower stood bleak and forlorn, its grey concrete walls seeming black in the low winter light. It was a few hundred yards inside German territory, beyond two sets of wire fences and a good half a kilometre or more from any other building. Once it had looked east, watching for invaders seeking to take land from the Dutch. And that had come to pass, albeit by opportunistic political not military means, so that now the watchtower lay stranded in enemy – or at least, potentially hostile – territory.
Captain Carlisle, Sergeant Balsom and Ernst Bloch stood staring at the monolith from the Dutch side, beside the Ford that had come over with them on the ferry from England. Each smoked a cigarette, lost in his own thoughts for a few moments. To their left, a kilometre away, was the bridge over the Meuse where the exchange would take place. To the south, the town of Venlo and ahead, beyond the muddy river, lay the country and the woman that Bloch longed to rejoin.
In time they were joined by a fourth man who introduced himself as Jasper. He was in his twenties, dressed in coarse clothes and with workers’ hands and fingernails. His English, though, was surprisingly good and unaccented.
‘That’s where you want to go?’ the Dutchman asked as he lit his own cigarette and inclined his head towards the watchtower. ‘The uitkijktoren?’
‘It is,’ said Carlisle. ‘Is it inhabited?’
‘By crows and bats,’ said Jasper. ‘We spoken use it as a landmark when crossing. Head down in some of the drainage ditches around here, you can become very disoriented.’
‘Spoken?’ asked Bloch, unfamiliar with the word.
‘Geister. Ghosts. The men who cross the border. The men who stop Germany from starving.’
‘For a price,’ said Bloch.
Jasper stopped the cigarette halfway to his lips. He looked at Carlisle. ‘This one is German?’
‘He’s the package.’
‘The price will have to increase.’
‘Now look here—’ Balsom began, stepping forward as if to grab the man’s lapels.
‘As you were, Sergeant,’ snapped Carlisle. ‘Jasper comes highly recommended by our people. He’s got many British escapees over that water and back home. Isn’t that right, Jasper?’
The Dutchman didn’t answer, apart from a confirming raise of the eyebrows as he puffed on his cigarette.
‘I am sure there is a valid reason for the price increase,’ Carlisle said, although an edge to his voice suggested a qualifier of: there’d better be.
‘I assume you have good reason for him not just turning up at a crossing post. There’s plenty to choose from.’
‘We have,’ agreed Carlisle. ‘There might be too many questions. He might be detained. We don’t want him detained.’
‘Understandable. If they even suspect he might have been turned around by British Intelligence he will be shipped straight to Dusseldorf for interrogation.’
‘I have not been turned around,’ Bloch protested.
‘Of course not. All German POWs spend time with British officers and NCOs at the border, looking up at the single vantage point that gives an overview of the whole area. Look, I’m not interested in what you are doing. But it is in my interest that you do it and get clean away. It helps my reputation . . .’ He glanced at Carlisle. ‘With potential employers. Furthermore, if you were captured you might mention this name – not my real one, but nevertheless – and give a description. I don’t want some German kill squad coming over to shoot me while I sleep. Or setting up a trap so they can get me on the other side and take me to those cells in Dusseldorf. From what I hear, they are none too pleasant.’
All that made sense to Bloch, so he said nothing.
Jasper returned his attention to Carlisle. ‘He has his identification papers?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good ones?’ asked Jasper.
‘Very good – they are the ones he was captured with. The mud and blood on them tell their own story.’
‘And a documented reason for release from British custody?’
‘Indeed.’
‘Which is?’
Carlisle cleared his throat. He hadn’t shared this with Bloch yet. Balsom had a grin on his face. ‘Mental health problems.’
‘What?’ asked Bloch. ‘I’m mad now, am I?’
‘We can still do the scooping out of the eye if you’d rather,’ said Balsom, with another little pantomime. ‘Not too late.’
But Bloch already knew why they had gone down that route. If anything went wrong and he fell into German hands before the execution of Holmes – or indeed immediately afterwards – the British would claim the man was clearly more insane than they had thought. As if they would release someone they thought was going to shoot their own man.
‘The price goes up,’ said Jasper, more to Balsom than anybody else, ‘because his papers must include a border stamp on the German side, to explain why he is over that side of the river. Preferably from the crossing point at Aachen. That’s so busy, nobody would remember who stamped what. But that will take time and money. You haven’t got much time, so we need to throw more money at it. Understood?’
The three others nodded.
‘Luggage?’
‘Yes,’ said Carlisle. ‘Two bags.’
‘Money?’
‘Not excessive.’
‘So no gold or silver or any valuables?’ ‘No.’
‘That makes it easier. Some people get mighty greedy when they know a package is being carried. Weapons?’
‘Yes.’
Jasper paused and stroked his stubble. ‘There is a crossing at midnight plus twenty. We can add you to that. It is mostly food being taken across, black-market stuff, and we leave some for the German patrols, so they rarely bother us. They’ll be there, but they’ll have their blind eyes on. It takes place three kilometres down there, at a spot called Grubbenvorst, so you’ll have to work your way back without being seen, then climb that tower in darkness. It is on the other side of the border fence, but we can get you through there. Can you do that?’
Bloch said he could.
‘We meet at Grubbenvorst church, the eastern side. In the graveyard. I’ll have crossing papers, you have an extra fifteen per cent to cover that. All clear?’
When they said it was, Jasper, without a goodbye or a handshake, turned and walked off, shoulders hunched, puffing on the last of his cigarette.
‘What now?’ asked Bloch.
‘You rest up.’
‘I must check the weapon.’
‘As you wish. Check the weapon, rest up, have something to eat. At midnight we’ll be at the church. Within eight or nine hours, with any luck, you’ll be a free man.’
‘And Sherlock Holmes will be dead,’ Bloch added, just in case there was a misunderstanding.
Carlisle grimaced a little. He didn’t like mission objectives voiced. It was bad luck. He shaded his eyes and looked back down river to the spindly bridge. ‘Yes. I suppose Sherlock Holmes will be dead.’