A Study in Murder (29 page)

‘Afford it? You mean you charge people to escape?’ Watson couldn’t keep the scorn and disapproval from his voice.

Hardie lit another cigarette from the first. Watson refused his offer of a second. ‘You’ve seen how this camp operates, Major Watson. It is entirely lubricated by money. From the
very top to the very bottom. It is not cheap to arrange the papers, money, train tickets, travelling documents that an escapee needs. Oh, we can do it all right. But it costs a packet.’

‘How much?’ he asked, unable to keep the disgust from his voice.

‘Somewhere in the region of one thousand pounds to guarantee Switzerland or Holland and freedom. Sometimes more.’

Watson whistled. It was an incredible sum. ‘But who has that much money to pay in camp? Asking for that money to be transferred from a bank back home would arouse suspicion,
surely?’

‘Well, we’ll take a cheque or banker’s draft,’ Hardie laughed. ‘No, seriously. Hulpett was a solicitor before the war. He draws up legal documents so that the
escapee promises to pay any sum owing upon their return to England.’

‘An IOU.’

‘Just a formality, y’see. A gentleman’s word is his bond. Most think it is worth the price.’

Watson shook his head. ‘It’s unbelievable is what it is. So this coffin . . . ?’

‘Is buried just above the workings. There is a handle inside for the poor dead man to release himself and fall through to the tunnels. We thought you might discover it for y’self.
There, he finds his escape kit, map, instructions, money to smooth the path. New identity, so even if he is caught, they won’t identify him as coming from this camp. That’s very
important. But we haven’t lost one yet.’

‘Are you saying you can guarantee they’ll get through?’

‘With enough money, you can guarantee anything, Major. Anything at all. The German civilians out there –’ he pointed with the glowing end of his cigarette – ‘need
cash as much as anyone. Some of them rely on us to feed their families.’

‘Why was Hulpett keen to see me?’

‘Ach, Hulpett is a fool of a man. I told him to stay away from the séance, but he thought I was just being a God-fearing priest. Archer told him he’d made contact with Captain
Brevette. On the other side. Yet Brevette escaped a few months ago. Hulpett got it into his head that he’d been caught, shot and we weren’t telling.’

‘Well, it might put a few customers off if that were so, don’t you think?’

Hardie looked affronted. ‘Major, please don’t think we are only in this for the money. The operating expenses are enormous. Sourcing the wood and the tools for the coffins costs a
fortune. I tell you, after the war, this will be one of the great tales – how dead men managed to get home to Blighty. You should write a story about it.’

‘I’m not saying Archer really made contact with a dead man – but how do you know Brevette or any of the others actually make it?’

Hardie gave a little smile of victory. He handed over the card that Colonel Critchley had given him. It was from the Coburg Hotel in Mayfair, postmarked three weeks previously.

‘Tea and Scones at Coburg. Marvellous. Keep your chins up. You’ll be home soon – B.’

‘It’s an agreed code,’ said Hardie. ‘It’s a home run, as it were, if ye make it to the Coburg and send us a card. We’ve a fair collection now. The problem is
we can’t overdo it.’

‘Yet you took three men out at once. Archer and his fellow séancers. Wasn’t that risky? And did they pay?’

‘Aye, although one of them stood surety for all of them.’

‘I’ll be blowed. Three thousand pounds?’

‘It’s hard to take in, that much, isn’t it? But it worked. They are probably halfway home by now.’

‘And Peacock, he’s out next?’

The eyes narrowed. ‘How do ye know that?’

‘He said as much. I didn’t know what he was talking about at the time, of course.’

‘Ach, he’s another bloody fool,’ Hardie said. ‘I was always against Cocky going. He’s the only man who has put weight on in this place, all the food his family and
friends send over. I just hope yonder coffin is strong enough.’

‘But he has the money, I assume.’

‘Aye, he has that. Now, do you want to see with your own eyes?’ He glanced at the floor.

‘The tunnels?’

‘Well, the one to the rec room in the main compound. Unless you want to stay here till morning. There’s a little rope contraption enables us to pull the bed back in place once we are
doon there. And we can get back to our huts easily enough with a bit of dodging of lights. I’m sorry about all the subterfuge.’

Watson now perceived just how tired he was. Even the thought of his thin, prickly mattress was tempting. Being convinced you are going to die after being buried alive was apparently exhausting.
He stood slowly so as not to damage his weakened left knee further.

‘One thing you might lend a hand with, though,’ said Hardie as he ground out his cigarette. ‘While you are still with us.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Can you help us think of a convincing way to kill Cocky?’

It was the queasiest sea crossing Miss Pillbody had ever experienced. The cabins they had chosen for the dash across the North Sea were in the bowels of the ship and the thump
of engines and smell of fuel made her nauseous. The sudden changes of direction didn’t help. Even though she was a neutral ferry, painted bright orange, the captain still saw fit to zigzag
his way to the Hook of Holland, in case they ran into any colour-blind U-boat commanders.

Miss Pillbody lay on the bottom bunk and allowed herself a groan. One of her hands was manacled to the steel upright of the berths and she’d tried to free either flesh or metal and failed
at both. Her only gain was a series of angry welts around her wrist. Besides, even if she could wriggle free, the extravagantly toothed Buller was out in the corridor, a cut-down version of his
shotgun hidden under a greatcoat. Nathan had instructed him to blast away should Miss Pillbody appear at the door, preferably before she had a chance to open her mouth. They were taking no chances
with her after the murder of Wardress Gray.

From snatches of conversation and sidelong glances she had built up a more or less complete picture of what was being undertaken. In Holloway, Mrs Gregson had told her the truth, but had
withheld certain facts. Like this hideous crossing, dressed in the scratchy, over-starched uniform of a VAD. Or that Mrs Gregson was using a man besotted with her to get what she wanted.

Nathan was in love, all right, even if he didn’t acknowledge the full extent of it. Good Lord, Miss Pillbody had done her fair share of manipulating men. There were a few who had tangled
with her and even managed to survive relatively intact. But all had compromised themselves one way or another in the hope that she would give herself to them. So she had knowledge of this game and
she could tell that Mrs Gregson was not only playing it but winning.

Now and then she could see a flash of something like concern on Nathan’s face. Miss Pillbody suspected he was bending if not breaking the rules to accommodate the woman’s scheme. His
other glances contained something else, that flash of lust for Mrs Gregson that effectively wiped away any doubts about his intentions towards her. What she couldn’t quite grasp was to what
extent Mrs Gregson was orchestrating this. Oh, she knew to some degree that she was doling out bait, like a fisherman chumming the waters, but Miss Pillbody reckoned some of it was unconscious, or
possibly she was denying to herself just how risky the little dance she was involved in was.

Miss Pillbody had also gathered that she would be offered as a sacrificial lamb somewhere on the border between Holland and Germany. In exchange, Watson would be released. That was the endgame.
At least, that was the finale Mrs Gregson had planned for her. But for a variety of reasons – not least the fact that she didn’t like being a pawn in anyone’s game – that
wasn’t going to be how it played out. She didn’t yet know where or how, but Miss Pillbody knew that the opportunity would arise for her to take matters into her own hands. That
favourable occasion might only last a minute or two, possibly even less, but she knew she would grasp it with both hands. And then, once again, someone would pay for her humiliation. Pay with their
life.

Three decks above Miss Pillbody, close to a porthole that showed the churning North Sea, Mrs Gregson and Robert Nathan sat, pushing food neither could really face around their
plates. Nathan was drinking an indifferent claret, Mrs Gregson was on lemonade. The ship itself was less than half full – the confirmation in the newspapers of German submarines having all
restrictions removed meant only those who really needed to make the crossing did so. The dining room didn’t even reflect the fifty per cent capacity – the truculent sea kept most of
their fellow passengers confined to cabins or their daychairs and so the pair had it almost to themselves.

‘I think the time has come for me to lay my cards on the table,’ said Nathan after a large gulp of his wine.

‘Robert—’

‘No, Georgina.’ Nathan reached over and cupped her hand with his, all but pinning it to the table. Only a struggle would remove it from beneath the paw. What hairy hands he has, she
thought. It really
was
like a paw.

‘You know how grateful I am to you, Robert. I know the risks you have taken.’

‘I don’t think you do, Georgina,’ he said. ‘If Kell became aware of the extent to which I have abused the authority of the service, if he even suspected I know about
breaking Miss Pillbody from prison—’

‘But he doesn’t.’

‘Not yet.’

Mrs Gregson shook her head. ‘He may never.’

‘He’s a spy. He has men who are spies. Perhaps here. Yes, there are Kell’s men at ports and on ferries. Women, too.’ He looked around as if expecting to see MI5 agents at
every table. ‘There will be repercussions from this little adventure. Serious repercussions.’

‘I am willing to accept them for the chance of success.’

‘A woman died.’

‘I know that,’ she snapped. ‘And that will doubtless come back to haunt me. For the moment I have to live with that, too.’

‘And the fact that I might go down in disgrace and ignominy.’

‘Oh, Robert—’

‘Yet here I am, risking that for you to free another man. I think I deserve to know what your intentions are.’

He sounded like a father demanding an answer from his daughter’s suitor. She laughed and his face darkened a little. ‘Robert, I am not laughing at you. I am laughing at the notion
that I have any intentions. I certainly didn’t intend this. To be crossing the North Sea with a caged animal downstairs, hoping to use her to exchange for a man I . . . I respect and
admire.’

‘Is that all?’

‘It is no trivial thing, Robert. As you so kindly reminded me, one woman has died already. I hope she is the last casualty.’

Nathan released her hand and she pulled it away, a small, pale thing, like a mouse scuttling away from a predator. ‘Have you any affection left over for me?’

‘Of course. No matter how this develops, you will always have my . . .’

‘Gratitude?’

Mrs Gregson felt anger spurt through her like a geyser and it took all of her self-control not to dash the wine in Nathan’s face. ‘Robert, I don’t have a crystal ball. You ask
about my intentions. I have none beyond these next few days. You ask me about love, but the men I have truly loved have left me, one way or another. Don’t ask me to analyse my feelings,
because it would be like asking for a map of no man’s land – churned and blasted and ever-shifting. No, if you excuse me, I think I will go back to my cabin and rest. The next
forty-eight hours will be most taxing, I fear.’

She stood, gave a small inclination of the head and swayed off as elegantly as she could, given the seesawing of the floor. Robert Nathan marvelled yet again at his ability to snatch defeat from
the jaws of victory and to place his foot firmly in his mouth. Shaking his head at the absurdity of it all, he reached over for the decanter and refilled his glass. Perhaps, he thought as he took
another mouthful, he should just cut his losses and leave her to this old man Watson. Or perhaps he should simply make sure the old man never made it home.

Two decks above the dining room, at the rear of the ship, Ernst Bloch leaned on the rail, relishing the thrum of the engines vibrating through the metal and the wind whipping
spray into his face. He had the deck virtually to himself, apart from the two men sheltering under a snapping awning. Captain Carlisle and Sergeant Balsom, his constant companions. All three were
dressed in civilian clothes, their journey to Holland ostensibly to source meat supplies for England. They watched him now as he smoked a cigarette, looking out over the prancing white horses of
the North Sea.

Of course it occurred to Bloch that he could thwart the British by simply leaping over the rail. He could do it before they took two steps to stop him. The sea would have him in seconds.

On the other hand, it was just possible he might get out of this alive. And the slimmest chance of seeing Hilde again was one he would grasp every time. Plus there was a chance that by killing
himself on a mission like this, the truth might never come out. What he was doing – the whole scheme – was likely to be the sort of event that never made it into the history books, no
matter what the outcome.

‘I think we should go below,’ said Balsom, grabbing the rail next him. ‘Catch our death up here.’

‘When I have finished this,’ said Bloch, holding up his cigarette.

‘Well, get a move on.’

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ Bloch said. ‘The sea.’

‘It can be. I wouldn’t count today as its finest hour, mate.’

‘I could watch it for hours, finest or not.’

‘Don’t get any ideas, Bloch.’ Balsom wiped water from his eyes. ‘You know, we’re going to have to hurt you.’

‘Hurt me?’

‘You’ll have papers saying you were released on compassionate grounds. But for what? Has to be an injury of some description. I could use a spoon and scoop out one of your
eyes.’ He showed yellow teeth in a grin as he mimed the action. ‘Hardly stings if you are quick enough, apparently. But I think you might need both your peepers to make a shot like
that. Although, you’d look dashing with an eye patch, don’t you think? Probably be treated like a hero back at home. Or, we could smash your knee with a hammer.’