A Bitter Field (20 page)

‘Yep.’

Noel McKevitt was perusing the list his men had got from the Prague hotels in the days before his arrival, marking those he thought most likely. Instinct, even if he acknowledged that he could be wrong, told him the man he was looking for would not be in any of the luxury hotels; if he were operating as he thought his target would, he would find somewhere more discreet.

He had sent for an interpreter called Miklos, who his station chief thought would fit the bill for what he wanted, being tall, well built and with a lived-in face. He was still staring at his ticks when the man arrived.

‘Sit down, Miklos.’

That was responded to nervously; whatever the Czech had been told, and it should have been little, he had no doubt been informed that this was the big chief from London he had been brought to see.

‘I need you to do a bit of play-acting, Miklos. Do you think you could pass for a policeman?’ Sensing the hesitation, Noel McKevitt was quick to add the ultimate bribe and it was not money. ‘I have made it plain in London that we cannot leave behind anyone who has worked for us if the Germans come. If they found out, that person would not live long, I suspect.’

‘No,’ Miklos replied, his seat shifting in the chair as he struggled with what he was being offered.

‘Naturally we control the passport office here and, sure, I can tell you, SIS look after their own.’

‘What is it you want me to do?’

The supposed warrant card, a forgery, would have been unlikely to fool anyone who spoke Czech and demanded to examine it closely, but the way it was flashed under anyone’s nose meant even the locals could be counted on to accept it as genuine, because the question they were asked was so innocuous.

Two men, one of whom did not speak, merely wanted to know the room number of the various British guests in various hotels and when that was supplied, once it was certain the person was in his room, the two men would call on them to check their passports, a natural thing to do at a time of national emergency.

That the fellow asking had talked to some of them before, in the pretence of being an interpreter, the desk clerks who recognised him took as a fitting subterfuge, particularly as the fellow was excessively polite - as befitted a policeman in a democracy and wanted nothing more from them than information the authorities were entitled to.

Miklos was relishing the task, not least because of what it was going to gain him if he could satisfy this big London chief. There was not a person in the country who did not harbour fears for what might be coming – not one, Miklos suspected, who had not at some time thought how good it would be to get out of Czechoslovakia to somewhere safe.

Mr Barrowman and his fellow guest Mr Nolan were not first on the list that McKevitt had ticked, so by the time Miklos and his companion got to Vince Castellano the act was well honed. The knock at the room door was gentle and when it opened there was
Miklos smiling, with another bland-faced individual standing a couple of paces away with a clipboard and a pen.

‘Forgive me, Mr Nolan,’ he said, speaking slowly so as to be unthreatening, flashing his forged warrant card so quickly it was a blur. ‘I am from the Czech police. Please do not be alarmed, as we are doing a routine check.’

Vince knew how to soften the Old Bill: be nice to them. ‘Do you want to come in?’

‘That will not be necessary, but I wonder if I could have a look at your passport?’ Seeing Vince’s eyebrows go up a fraction – everyone else had the same reaction – he was quick to add, ‘I am sure you are aware of the number of refugees trying to flee the country, many of them employing false papers.’

‘Are they?’

‘Yes, and to ensure that they do not use those of guests visiting our country we wish to have a list of the numbers, which we can hold to compare against forgeries.’

Vince, again as had others, stood for a moment in consideration of whether to comply, but the man before him was smiling and his eyes looked pleading rather than threatening, so he turned and went to fetch the required document from his coat pocket.

This was taken, examined, then passed to the silent oppo who dutifully wrote down the number against the name, and then it was passed back. ‘I believe your companion, Mr Barrowman, is not in the hotel and left with a bag.’

There was no option but to reply honestly, otherwise they might attract unwelcome attention. ‘He’s gone out of town on business.’

‘Do you have any idea when he will return?’

‘A couple of days, I think. It depends on how successful he is.’

‘Really, it is good to find you and your countrymen still doing trade with us. Might I ask what business you are in?’

‘Chemicals,’ Vince replied, noticing the other fellow with the clipboard was looking impatient.

‘You too are in chemicals?’

‘No, sports equipment, boxing rings.’

‘Then I hope you have success. Enjoy your stay in Prague, Mr Nolan, and please, I see you carry your passport with you – look after it well for it would not be helpful to anyone if it was stolen.’

J
immy Garvin got to Cheb long before the car carrying Callum Jardine and Corrie Littleton, though he was unaware of the fact. All he knew was that by jumping off the train as soon as it entered the station and running for the ticket barrier he had a chance to get into a position to see if she followed, unsure what to do when he saw there was no sign of her.

He knew, having looked at his watch as the train drew in, that it was bang on time, which led him to reflect on that often-quoted saw mouthed by those idiots who admired Benito Mussolini, that ‘he had made the trains run on time’. Why was such an accolade never applied to an efficient democracy like Czechoslovakia?

Bartlett had told him about the car she had got into, so he assumed she must be coming by road, so his first task was to find himself somewhere to stay that was not the Victoria Hotel. Being a bit of a spa town, a sort of minor Carlsbad, there were quite a number of
places dedicated to those taking the waters and he elected to walk to find one.

The difference outside the station – managed and run by Czechs – was palpable, the buildings flying flags showing more of the black-red-black ensign of the Sudetenland than the far fewer Czech tricolours. Added to that there was a grimness about those people he passed, their looks not aided by the wet weather, albeit, given the puddles in the road, the worst of the downpour had passed and was now just a light drizzle.

The choice of one flying the national flag was deliberate; Jimmy knew the object of Corrie Littleton’s visit and he guessed she would park herself as close to Konrad Henlein as she could.

In a place with few visitors now – no one was coming for the waters in a potential war zone – he soon realised that in the hotel he chose he was the only guest; no wonder he had been greeted and fussed over like a saviour.

In the Maybach the hood was now firmly closed, the heavy rain beating a tattoo on the windscreen with which the small wipers were struggling to cope, creating a cocoon which closed them in and seemed to make more intimate their conversation, with Corrie now talking about her upbringing.

Cal knew she came from Boston but was now treated to the fact that she had gone to Bryn Mawr, which was apparently a prestigious and famous woman-only college in Pennsylvania, right up there with Harvard and Yale.

‘But no boys?’

Corrie laughed. ‘We were told we did not need them.’

‘End of the human race.’

‘To prosper, not procreate, but we could do that too if we went looking.’

‘Did you?’

‘Once or twice.’

The tone of that response was not a joyful one, which made Cal wonder if she had been let down in her past. He couldn’t ask; he was not well enough acquainted for that and it did not fall in the need-
to-know
category regarding what they might face in Cheb.

‘Is that a petrol pump by the roadside?’ Cal said, peering through the rain, which was as good a way as any of avoiding that subject.

‘What, again?’

They had stopped and filled the car in each sizeable town through which they passed – an eight-litre V12 engine used a lot of fuel – but that was not the reason; Cal liked as full a tank as possible on the very good grounds that you never knew when you were going to need it.

Corrie had broken him down earlier by refusing to be diverted, and in truth he could see that she needed the background she claimed, and he had to admit being married and the circumstances of his attachment. Oddly, like his last days in London, he found his wife a subject he could now discuss without the onset of gloom.

‘I was young and going off to war, Lizzie was beautiful and …’ Cal paused. ‘You have to be facing that kind of thing to know what drives men and women to rush into matrimony.’

‘You mean apart from stupidity.’

‘Was it Doctor Johnson who said “the prospect of hanging concentrates the mind wonderfully”? The Western Front was a bit like that. No one told you but the average survival time of a subaltern when there was a big battle on was about two weeks. I was lucky – I survived.’

‘But you were in love, right?’

‘Very much so, but the time we had was too tight to allow for much investigation of what made us tick. My wife craves excitement.’

‘And you don’t?’ Corrie said with disbelief.

‘Maybe that was the mutual attraction, but my adventures tend to be outdoors.’

That confused her until the message struck home, which produced, ‘Sorry I asked.’

‘Don’t be.’

‘It’s a bitch she won’t give you a divorce. I suppose you’ve been a good boy yourself?’

He was not going there; one, he had not been and two, if you’re a gentleman you don’t boast about your conquests. Besides there was an affair he wanted to avoid mentioning because that would still be painful.

‘I hope you are not preparing a profile for your magazine.’

‘Make a good one, especially if you have had lots of love affairs. International adventurer with the soft heart of a romantic poet.’

Cal was suddenly very serious. ‘Don’t ever go thinking I have a soft heart, Corrie, because I haven’t. If you run my name through your records I suspect it will come up even in the USA.’

‘Why not save me the time?’

‘It doesn’t make for contentment.’

‘Sounds like you did something real bad.’

‘It was,’ Cal replied, not seeking to keep the bitterness out of his voice. ‘Another checkpoint ahead, so go to work on your smile.’

‘Physician heal thyself.’

‘You’re right,’ Cal replied; memory of the blood-spattered wall of his marital bedroom had made him glare.

‘Right,’ McKevitt snapped, looking at the first replies that had come back from Miklos. ‘Get those numbers off by telegram to the passport office in London. I want the names on them checked for anything that isn’t right and I want a rocket up their arse so they don’t just bury it.’

‘You still have not told us what it is you are after, Noel.’

McKevitt looked up at Major ‘Gibby’ Gibson, the Prague station chief, and gave him the coldest stare he could, which was coming it a bit high with a man of his age and experience, some twenty years in the service and an unblemished record.

‘There are things you don’t need to know, Gibby, but when you do you will be informed.’

Gibson wanted to reply that this was his patch, even if the fellow he was talking to was the man who ran the London Desk and, though junior in years, his superior. Though a hierarchy like any other government body, the SIS ran on slightly different lines and it was simply not done to override a station chief, and even worse to do so in such a public manner as to undermine his local authority. McKevitt in briefing everyone had done just that.

With the extra staff he had been given, plus his own skills and contacts, Gibson had done a good job of keeping London up to speed on everything happening in both the capital city and beyond, yet he had been obliged to drag men off what he saw as valuable work to meet the needs of Noel McKevitt, which might just have been acceptable with an explanation.

If it had displeased him to issue the orders, they had been received just as badly by those tasked to execute them, all professionals who felt they were being sidelined from proper intelligence work to do the kind of thing usually allotted at home to lowly beat coppers, and such a feeling had permeated most of the building.

Down in the basement Cipher Room he handed over McKevitt’s list to the clerk who ran it and gave him orders to route it through Broadway. Coming from just down the road would ensure a faster response than anything from hundreds of miles away.

‘And Tommy,’ Gibson said. ‘I’m in need of a little favour.’

‘Whatever you need, Major,’ the clerk replied, giving, as he always did, Gibby’s old military rank; he was a man who was unfailingly polite to everyone, who knew the names of, and never failed to ask after, wives, children and girlfriends – in short, the major was popular.

Gibson went to a desk to compose, with the codebooks, a despatch of his own to Broadway, pre-dating it to the day the original instruction had come from the Central European Desk to check the British nationals.

In it he did not criticise McKevitt’s demand – that would be counterproductive – but he did feel the need to point out how that would impact on the amount of hard information coming out of the Prague station in the coming days with his men so occupied.

When he handed it over to the clerk, Tommy read it, fingered the date and smiled.

‘I owe you one, Tommy.’

‘You don’t owe me a thing, sir, happy to be of service.’

Tommy was typing before Gibson left the Cipher Room; that would land on Noel McKevitt’s desk and he would only read it on
his return to London, the delay being explained away easily as just one of those standard cock-ups that happen daily.

But it would cover Gibson’s back if what was happening was questioned on the top floor, a standard precaution in any establishment where there was competition for the plum postings, added to a culture of passing the buck if things went amiss.

With the weather clearing a bit, and approaching what the ethnic Germans would call the border, it was just possible to see the troop concentrations by the roadside, tented encampments and lorry parks stretching into the misty distance under canopies of trees to protect against air attack.

At the next checkpoint there were tankettes, Tančik vz. 33s, that if they looked impressive to Corrie, Cal knew would be mincemeat to the latest armoured vehicles the Germans could put in the field, but what it told him, without the need to look at road signs or maps, was that they were now in the disputed areas.

The flags came next and increased the further north-west they drove, rising into the high hills, the not-quite-mountainous region of the Bohemian borderlands; to the ethnic Germans this might be the province of Carlsbad, but to the Czechs it was Karlovy Vary.

By the time they got to Cheb the red and black horizontally striped banners were ubiquitous, nowhere more so than on the Victoria Hotel itself, which was festooned with them, and just in case you did not know what it was, there were men outside in the dun-
brown-coloured
uniform of their
Sturmabteilung
counterparts across the frontier and, like them, wearing side arms in big leather holsters.

The incongruity of a uniformed porter rushing to their car as soon as they stopped nearly had Cal laughing, it was so out of keeping
with everything else he could see, and that was replicated in the hotel reception, which if the lobby was dark and rather Teutonic in its decor, conformed to what was needed: a desk at which to register, couches on which to sit, pastoral scenes on the walls and vases full of flowers to give a peaceful ambiance, and two staircases leading off from the lobby.

‘Miss Corrine Littleton, of
Collier’s Weekly.
’ She threw out a hand to indicate Cal, standing back because this was her show now. ‘And my interpreter. I believe you are expecting us.’

The man behind the desk wore a pince-nez and had that superior air of hotel receptionists of not-quite-top-flight establishments everywhere, who always behave as if they are doing you a favour by letting you soil their pristine accommodation. This one had the added non-attraction of having in his lapel a Nazi Party swastika badge.

Out came a heavy ledger, and the receptionist ran a finger down what Cal suspected was an imaginary list – this was not the most desirable destination hostelry in the world right at this moment – then shook his head as if someone might have got something wrong by even thinking of letting a room, finally replying in rapid German to acknowledge the booking of two rooms.

‘Did he say yes or no, Doc?’ Corrie asked.

Cal took over, annoyed that already she was not calling him by the name on the passport, and went through, with some surprise, the usual registration process with their passports, which did not take long, and soon they were being escorted up one of the sets of stairs, followed by both porter and their bags, to rooms on the fourth floor.

‘No elevator?’

‘They’re hardy mountain folk round here – and it’s a lift.’

‘What do we do next?’

‘Wait to be contacted. That snotty sod downstairs will now, no doubt, tell whoever we need to meet that we are here.’

‘I could sure use a drink.’

‘Lobby, ten minutes,’ Cal replied, ‘so could I.’

Corrie was still complaining about her ‘lousy Martini’, Cal reading a local newspaper, when the woman Cal decided on first sight to call the ‘Ice Maiden’ appeared and came towards them, dressed in
dirndl-type
clothing as if the rest of her appearance was not enough to mark her out as German.

Her blonde hair was braided tightly from the front of her head to the back and she was stunning-looking, with clear skin and large bright-blue eyes, if a trifle severe of expression and, tellingly, with no sign on her hands of a matrimonial band. Being a gentleman, Cal stood up, but it was the still sitting Corrie she addressed.

‘Fräulein Littleton?’

‘I prefer Miss.’

That response was ignored. ‘And Herr Barrowman, your interpreter,
Ja
?’

‘You speak good English, Fräulein …’

‘Metzer,’ she replied. ‘I help run our leader’s press office. English is very necessary to counter the fabrications of the foreign journals.’

‘Or,’ Corrie snapped, ‘to understand the complexities.’

She might as well have said ‘lies’. Cal, seeing the eyes narrow, was quick to intervene, his voice genial, at the same time seeking to throw Corrie a warning glance; she needed,
he
needed these people to think they were sympathetic.

‘Which Miss Littleton has come a long way to unearth. I must say I too will find it fascinating to explore the way you have united
the people of Bohemia and Moravia into such a powerful political body. It’s quite an achievement and one we discussed on the way from Prague.’

It was almost comical – indeed it would have been in peaceful times – the way her face changed at the mention of the Czech capital. It was as if someone had just farted and walked away from a bad smell.