Jung sat in the passenger seat of his newly acquired car. He had ditched the Bentley in the station car park and hot-wired an anonymous black Austin 10. Now, as he gazed at the blacked-out windows of the house, he weighed up his choices. He had to know who was in there and whether they were armed. He looked at his wristwatch. Almost 10 p.m. It would be better to wait until the early hours. If there was an armed guard in there, they might not be so alert at 3 a.m.
‘OK, drive on,’ he said.
The woman at the wheel depressed the clutch, engaged first and pulled away from the kerb. She was not a good driver, but she had other, more important, uses.
Her name was Felicity Vickery. He had met her a few hours earlier in her pretty cottage on the outskirts of the small market town of Spixton, south-east of Cambridge. She was at least sixty-five, perhaps seventy, with a sweet, kindly face and blue-rinsed hair.
The encoded message to the E-boat from Bormann had contained few details, save her name and address, that she was to be trusted and that she had access to a wireless transmitter.
She lived down a short private lane, so the house was not overlooked. He had approached her with caution, one hand in his pocket resting on the butt of his jewel-handled pistol. There was such a thing as a double agent. And when he saw a smiling little old lady at the door of her picture postcard English cottage, he hesitated. Had he got the wrong address? Surely, this couldn’t be Bormann’s English contact? But she was looking at him as though she were expecting him.
‘Mr Young?’
‘Mrs Vickery?’
‘The very same, dear. But everyone calls me Mrs V. Do come in. And wipe your feet on the mat, if you would.’
‘Is there a Mr V?’
‘No, dear. My husband fell from a cruise liner in the Mediterranean. Very sad. So now I’m a widow.’
Indoors, her house was spotless. She offered him tea, explaining that Herr Bormann had been in touch and was worried about him and his progress.
As the kettle boiled, he told her about the people he was seeking. He also handed her the address book from Wilde’s house.
‘Look through there, if you would. See if any names or addresses jump out at you. Something out of place . . . not quite right.’
‘I’d be happy to, dear, but if they’re in the hands of MI5 and they’re in this area, the most likely place they’ll be is a village not too far from here called Harkham. In fact the secret service seems to bring people there from all over the country. It’s what they call a safe house. But safe or not, I’m sure a man of your courage and resourcefulness will find a way in.’
She spooned tea into the pot, arranged milk and sugar and two cups on a tray, then carried it through to the parlour.
‘And shall I fetch some biscuits, too, Mr Young? I have rich tea or digestives.’
‘Ah, digestives, yes please! Haven’t had them in years, Mrs V. Tell me more about this safe house.’
‘Oh, everyone in Harkham knows about the place, Mr Young. I have a very old friend in the village, and she couldn’t resist telling me about it when we met up for the carol service last year. It’s by the church and it’s called the Old Rectory – you can’t possibly miss it. The secret service boys are in and out all the time and they’re convinced no one knows, but of course they do. Everyone in the village does. And people do tend to tell me things, you see. They say I have a kindly, trustworthy face.’
‘Indeed you do, Mrs V.’
‘Appearances can be deceptive, can’t they. Do I surprise you, dear?’
She was pouring the tea, but looked up at him with a quizzical smile.
That was when he saw through her. That sly smile. It told him everything he needed to know about Felicity Vickery. This little old lady was the same as him. Exactly the same. She would kill her dearest pet or her best friend with that kindly smile fixed to her face.
‘Yes, I was a little surprised.’
‘Good. And that’s just the way it should be if I am to go about my important work on behalf of the Führer. I am English through and through, but I have been a disciple for more than ten years now and have spent many happy holidays in Germany. Those Nuremberg rallies! That’s where I met Herr Bormann. Such a lovely man – even back then I knew he was going places. The Führer is very lucky to have him. Just a shame we had such second-raters in our own Blackshirts. As for Mosley, what an absolute disaster.’
Jung nodded. ‘I’ve heard of him – vaguely.’
‘Silly, posturing ass – a pale imitation of a strong leader. Anyway, Mr Young, we’ll have the real thing soon. Look.’ She went to the sideboard and opened a drawer. ‘Herr Bormann gave me this – a Party badge. I’ve never shown it to anyone in this country until now. But I felt so proud, so honoured when I received it.’
‘It is a fine thing.’
Jung had never bothered with such baubles. He had joined the Party as a necessity, to ensure the continuation of his trade and make life in general easier. And because Bormann told him it was a good idea.
‘I believe you have a radio transmitter.’
She nodded. ‘I use it as infrequently as possible, and I try to keep moving it around the area, or I’ll be discovered rather quickly. I think a little message to Herr Bormann might be in order. Just to say you’re here.’
‘Of course.’
‘But first I want to help you. I have heard this name Wilde before. Cambridge professor of history, yes? There was a story in the Cambridge News two years ago, just after the start of the war. He was named in it, I remember that much, as was one of his undergraduates, a young man who had gone off to the Spanish War. There were some strange elements to the story and I got a feeling it wasn’t fully reported, that something was being covered up by the intelligence services.’
‘What happened?’
‘All I can tell you is that there were two – no, three – murders, which is a very unusual thing in this part of the world. A house burned down and there was a court case. What I’ll do is look through the address book with great care – it’s quite possible that a name will ring a bell.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I want to help you in any way I can. I may have a little arthritis nowadays, but I’m quite robust, you know.’
‘I’m sure you are.’
‘But just wait until you see what I have for you. Have you heard of a Sten gun? It’s a British weapon. I’m told it’s very reliable. It’s in the garden shed.’
When they had finished their tea, they strolled down to the end of the garden. In a box on the floor of her preternaturally tidy shed was the gun, wrapped in oily rags, along with several boxes of ammunition.
‘How did you acquire this, Mrs V?’
‘The same way I got the transmitter. Our masters in Berlin make sure we’re properly equipped. You don’t need to know more.’
He weighed the weapon in his arms. It had a nice feel to it.
‘There’s a disused quarry a few hundred yards beyond my garden. Why don’t you go and fire off a few rounds there? Get a feel for it. No one will hear you.’
She reminded him of his great aunt, Mab as she had been known. Mab was the one relative he had had time for out of the crew of reluctant aunts and uncles, cousins, grandparents and casual acquaintances who had taken him in during school holidays. Of the whole unpleasant bunch, Mab was the only one who had seemed at all pleased to see him when he turned up with his trunk and tuck box.
One day he overheard Mab talking to a friend.
‘She never could stand him, you know. Loathed the sight of him from the day he was born. She never even used his name when talking about him. Called him The Creature.’
Even at the age of nine, Charlie knew that Mab was talking about his mother, and that he was The Creature. That was why Mummy and Daddy had been so keen to ship him off to school in England and never set eyes on him again. That was why they had deserved to die. But he didn’t want to think about such things now. There were other people who needed dealing with.
‘Show me the quarry, Mrs V. And then perhaps we’ll go for a little drive.’
*
Lydia did not need a thermometer to know that Klara had a fever. She put a hand to her forehead. The girl was burning up. This was more than just exhaustion. In her mind, she went through the possible childhood illnesses: scarlet fever, measles, chicken pox, German measles, polio, influenza, diphtheria. Now, which one of those started with a fever, and which might have taken a few days to incubate? She should know all this as the daughter of a doctor and a mother herself.
She found a clean facecloth in an airing cupboard and soaked it in cold water, then knelt by the side of Klara’s bed and gently patted her brow. She moaned quietly in her sleep. Lydia felt hopelessly inadequate. This wasn’t something that required hospital treatment, but in normal circumstances your GP would come out to check on the child, something that she couldn’t risk with Klara.
Lydia put her hand to Klara’s neck; she was pretty sure the glands were inflamed. Childhood fever . . . the very words struck terror into her heart.
*
Leaving Mrs Vickery in the car, Jung approached the house. Wrapping his jacket round his arm, he punched out a downstairs casement window at the front, then reached in and eased it open. Without hesitating, he climbed in, pushing the blackout aside. The sound would have woken the occupants, but he had the Sten gun and the element of surprise on his side.
Back against the wall, gun held across his chest, he stood by the door into the next room, which he took to be a hallway, and listened. No sound. Had he really not woken anyone? Perhaps the blackout curtain had muffled the sound of the shattering glass.
He waited a full minute. Still nothing. He turned the handle and pulled the door towards him, then flicked a switch and a low wattage bulb lit the room. It was some sort of study, with shelves full of books and a radiogram. It was difficult to gauge the layout of this house. Where were the bedrooms? Most crucially, where was the girl? Jung opened another door and switched on another light. Now he was in the hallway. To his right the front door and a telephone, to his left a carpeted staircase. Slowly, step by careful step, he ascended the stairs to the landing. The light from the hallway gave a faint glow. He had a choice of doors.
*
In the first weeks of the war, soon after she had joined MI5, Rosamund Kemp had done a stint of weapons training at an army range in Surrey. She had been quite proficient, particularly with a rifle.
But weapons training in the controlled environment of a firing range was very different from the real thing. And since coming to the Old Rectory at Harkham in the summer of 1940, there had been no further instruction or practice.
Now her hands were shaking so much she could hardly hold the revolver. It was a .38 Enfield, very heavy at one and a half pounds, with a difficult trigger requiring a full double-action pull for every shot.
She was well aware that an enemy agent was on the loose looking for the German girl. The fact that Tom Wilde had removed her did not necessarily mean the house was secure.
Rosamund sometimes heard more than her masters thought she did.
In this way, she had got the gist of the disagreement between Tom Wilde and Bodie Cashbone. The latter had a loud voice, and she wasn’t deaf. Rosamund wasn’t at all sure that she disagreed with Wilde’s action in removing the child.
An emergency telephone sat on her bedside table. But she did not want to risk making a sound, not with the intruder already in the house. Not even the soft sound of dialling or the whisper of a plea for help.
The footfalls had ascended the staircase and were now on the landing, not quite deadened by the carpet. She could hear her own breathing and feared that the intruder could, too.
She was not usually here alone. Most of the time there were agents here – highly trained agents who would know how to deal with a deadly situation like this. She tried to think. What would the intruder do when he turned her handle and found the door locked?
She heard the footsteps come closer, and the sound of the door handle turning. The door was locked and bolted, but the proximity of the intruder, just feet away from her on the other side, was terrifying. The door was made of of pine and not especially sturdy. She edged closer, held the pistol out at chest height, jerked the trigger hard and fired. The recoil jolted her backwards, but she kept pulling the trigger, again and again – three shots: left, centre, then right. She heard a groan and a dull thud.
A body falling to the floor.
Mrs Kemp waited, not sure what she was most afraid of: that she had killed him, or that she hadn’t. She had always known that MI5 would send potentially dangerous men here, but no one had told her she would have to use the gun she had been given.
Her arm was shaking. Her whole upper body ached.
She waited one minute, two. Still not switching on the light, she unbolted and unlocked the door, then turned the handle. She opened the door, still holding the pistol out in front of her.
A shapeless figure lay on the floor by the railings. She reached out and flicked the light switch and found herself looking down at a man on his haunches pointing a sub-machine gun up at her. He nodded at the pistol.
‘Put it down,’ he said.
In her shock and confusion, instinct took over. But before her finger could fully depress the trigger, she was being cut down by a vicious burst from the Sten, slumping to the floor like a broken marionette.