A Study in Murder (8 page)

‘Ah, there you are. I’ll need clean napkins and tablecloths in lieu of bandages for the moment. And any first aid kits from the kitchen.’ She addressed the room. ‘Does
anyone have any medical training? Anyone? No?’ She lowered her voice. ‘Right. Just me then.’

She had reached the first of the prone figures, an elderly lady who appeared unconscious, with a nasty gash on her forehead. Her dress had ridden up, revealing her undergarments and Mrs Gregson
quickly made her decent. The woman still favoured antiquated tight corsets and panic had made her breathing dangerously constricted. Mrs Gregson set about loosening the woman’s stays, using a
discarded steak knife to rip through the material and laces. The woman groaned.

As she worked, Mrs Gregson signalled to a waiter. ‘That man over there needs a tourniquet at the top of his arm. Can you do that? I’ll be over in a second.’ The bindings free,
she turned the woman on her side. Using a napkin extracted from a holder on a nearby table, she dabbed at the blood along the hairline. There was a triangle of glass embedded in there and she
carefully extracted it, mopping up the welling blood that oozed from the wound.

The lady’s eyes fluttered open. ‘George.’

‘I am sure George is fine. And so are you. Just hold this in place, can you? Thank you. I’m sorry about your clothing. But you’ve been lucky. But I’d wear looser corsets
from now on, though.’

Mrs Gregson looked up at the waiter trying to treat the man with blood running down his fingers and a large fragment of glass in his forearm. ‘No, cut his jacket sleeve before you tie the
tourniquet . . . Oh, let me do it. No, madam, do NOT touch your face. You will cause scarring. Don’t let her touch her face. Where is that blasted house doctor? Look, this is how you tie a
tourniquet . . .’

An hour later the Savoy staff were sweeping up the debris in the River Room and glaziers were boarding up the glassless frames. Nathan took Mrs Gregson to the American Bar for
a stiff drink. Nobody seemed to mind that her dress was spattered in blood or that Nathan’s evening dress was askew. In fact, the Sangarees were on the house.

‘At least if I spill some, it won’t show,’ she said, holding up the red-wine cocktail.

‘You were magnificent in there,’ said Nathan with undisguised admiration. ‘I can think of no man who could have coped better and a great number who would have done a damned
sight less.’

She couldn’t quite untangle the compliment and she let it pass. ‘It was just like old times,’ she said, with a shudder, thinking of the months when every day was a stream of
constant horrors at the Casualty Clearing Stations.

‘Is your eye all right?’ he asked, leaning forward. ‘It’s frightfully bloodshot.’

‘I think there is something behind the lid. I can feel it when I blink. I’ll irrigate it when I get home.’

The manager of the hotel approached them, gave a little bow, and said: ‘I thought you might be interested to know, the damage was caused by an explosion at the Silvertown munitions
factory. The blast ignited a gasometer in the Greenwich Peninsula.’

‘But that’s miles down river,’ said Mrs Gregson.

‘We were unfortunate. The explosion seems to have funnelled straight down to us. Nearby buildings are unscathed. Somerset House has a few cracked panes, that’s all,
apparently.’

‘There will be a serious number of casualties,’ said Nathan glumly. ‘Explosion of that magnitude.’

‘I assume so. But there is no news of that yet. I won’t detain you. I just wanted to thank you again for your efforts. If there is anything we can do . . . I’d like to have
madam’s dress taken care of . . .’

She waved the suggestion away, not wanting a fuss. ‘No, it’s fine. It’s not the first blood I’ve seen.’

‘Mrs Gregson nursed on the Western Front,’ Nathan explained. She didn’t bother to correct him that she’d been a VAD, an auxiliary, rather than a nurse.

‘In which case, at least some luck was on our side in that you were dining with us. I insist you return for dinner at your convenience as my guest. It’s the least we can
do.’

‘We will, thank you,’ said Mrs Gregson.

When he had left them, Nathan said: ‘Well, I’d like to come again if you would.’

‘At some point, perhaps. But there was a favour I was about to ask you, Robert. Before Silvertown exploded.’

‘Personal or professional?’

‘Professional.’

A shadow of disappointment crossed Nathan’s features. ‘Really? I thought you’d given up all the life of skulduggery now Holmes has retired once more.’

Nathan had met Mrs Gregson in London in the aftermath of the Elveden affair, when she had been Churchill’s spy in the unit that was secretly developing the tank. Nathan had helped in the
hunt for Miss Pillbody, the German agent who had murdered her way across Suffolk and Essex. Although his official title was as a member of the Wartime Constabulary, in fact he was with the secret
service, mostly charged with uncovering Indian seditionists at home and abroad. He had thwarted a plot by anti-Raj agents to kill Kitchener, only for the field marshal to die when his ship struck a
mine en route to Russia some six months later. ‘Or are you in cahoots with Winston again?’

‘No, I haven’t seen either Holmes or Churchill since last year when we collared Miss Pillbody.’

‘Then I can’t imagine what favour MI5 could do for you, Mrs Gregson.’

She took a sip of her Sangaree and gave a tired, lopsided smile. Pitt had proved such a disappointment – he hadn’t even managed to get her assigned to the Red Cross in Belgium
– but she had high hopes for Nathan. ‘Oh, you’d be surprised what MI5 could do for me, Robert.’

Watson’s German escorts bundled up the body of Sayer and placed it in the cab, so at least he wouldn’t have to look at the poor chap. He had shouted himself hoarse
when he had reached the lorry, yelling in the face of the driver and the young guard. They remained impassive. They repeated the same phrase over and over again. ‘
Er versuchte zu
fliehen.
’

Watson knew what it meant. He was trying to escape. To flee the scene. That would be the official report. Shot while trying to escape.

Eventually, tired of his histrionics, they had pushed Watson into the back of the Horch and the truck had set off again, heading north-east on smaller roads now, the sun falling in the sky, the
temperature dropping with each kilometre, or so it seemed to Watson as he shivered in the rear.

Why had he done it? Why had Von Bork ordered the death of an innocent man? Possibly because some of his own agents had been executed in England. Unfortunate to face trial after the declaration
of war with Germany, two of his men, Hollis and Steiner, had been hanged as spies. Watson, Holmes and even Vernon Kell of the Secret Service Bureau had objected, on the grounds that Great Britain
had agents on the Continent and, if caught, they would now face the same fate. But public opinion – in a country brought up on the jingoist espionage fictions of Le Queux and Erskine
Childers, and egged on by the
Mail
and the
Express
– had demanded the rope for the fifth columnists.

Watson, though, doubted the murder of his servant was a simple tit-for-tat. No, Sayer was a last-minute addition to the transfer to Harzgrund. But he suspected it was no part of Von Bork’s
plan for Watson to arrive at camp with a friend – for that was what Sayer had been – and an ally. Von Bork had wanted Watson to suffer. And suffer alone, without solace.

Two can play at that game.

‘Yes, they can,’ Watson muttered to himself in reply. But he knew better than to dwell on what might be, on the glimmer that some revenge might be visited on the German. Such a
concept might nurture some people, provide sustenance, but Watson knew it could equally turn corrosive. He had seen first-hand in the trenches how an ancient grudge could lead to a morbid dementia,
a case that ended with yet more deaths out in no man’s land, at least one of which he was responsible for. And now, poor Sayer . . .

‘Zigarette?’ asked Gunther, the older guard.

Watson scowled and uttered an oath at him. The German shrugged, to show it was his loss, and lit up. The smoke drifted over and Watson almost regretted his hasty reaction. But he couldn’t
just flick away the crime that had been committed. It wasn’t water under the bridge, not with Sayer wrapped like a mummy in the front of the truck. It was murder, not war. He would write a
report at the first opportunity. Surely, when this madness was over, there would be a reckoning for such callous actions away from the battlefield?

One dead man among millions? Do you think they will care? Can anyone afford to care?

It was flat, unsentimental and it was very likely the truth.

‘I will care,’ Watson said out loud, his voice thick with venom. ‘I will damn well care.’

The pair of guards exchanged glances that showed they thought he had taken leave of his senses. The younger guard said something under his breath and laughed and Watson felt a murderous urge
come over him, alien and terrifying in its intensity.

Not now, Watson, not now,
said a soothing voice.
All in good time.

Good time? Would he know a good time ever again? Would anyone? The very concept seemed to have been swept away from Europe in a slurry of mud and blood. Watson pulled his coat around him,
arranged the pillow on the bench, lay down and closed his eyes, letting the swaying of the truck lull him into a fitful, angry sleep.

It was dusk when Watson was jerked awake by a poor gear change. They were climbing and the Horch was struggling with the incline. The driver was working hard with throttle and
gears to take the sweeping bends. From the tail of the truck, Watson could see the lights of villages below. What he couldn’t see was many trees. This mountain appeared to be denuded of
vegetation.

Gunther had unwrapped a length of sausage from a cloth and he sliced off a chunk and held it out to Watson. After a moment’s hesitation he took it. Accepting the earlier cigarette would
have served no purpose other than to show weakness, but a sausage – even one he discovered was mostly sawdust – would help keep his strength up. And, even without knowing what Von Bork
had in store for him, he was sure he would need all his reserves to survive.

The altitude made his ears pop and now his breath showed within the truck. He shivered. A sensible man would ask for Sayer’s coat and gloves and the contents of the kitbag that lay next to
his own, strapped in place with thick webbing against the cab’s bulkhead. But decency prevented him from doing so. Probably he would be refused anyway. In Germany, as in most countries
affected by the war, clothing was strong currency, and the guards would split the garments between them. He patted his coat to make sure those socks Sayer had given him were still there.

‘Not far,’ said the young German with the missing fingers. ‘Soon.’

Watson ignored him. As if he was in any hurry to reach Harzgrund.

The brakes gave a squeal of alarm, and Watson slithered along the bench once more. The Germans clung on to the tailgate, swearing loudly, and the lorry skewed across the road before it came to
an undignified halt. The engine was still chugging when the driver appeared at the rear and began to declaim in rapid German. Apart from the fact he was far from happy, Watson could barely make out
a word from the man’s thick dialect.

The older German managed to calm the driver down and he lowered the tailgate and slid out into the gathering night. Watson could see the first stars appearing in the deep blue sky.

The guard reappeared. ‘
Wir müssen von hier zu Fuß
.’

The young man used two fingers to make the universal sign for walking. ‘We must make foot,’ he said.

‘How far?’ Watson asked, struggling for the translation. ‘
Wie . . . wie weit?
’

A shrug. ‘
Zwei Kilometer
.’

‘
Warum?
’ Weariness meant his German failed him. ‘What’s going on? Is there a blockage on the road?’

Fingerless grabbed Watson’s kitbag from the webbing holder and tossed it down onto the ground. ‘Come.’

Watson climbed out into the sharp night air. Cold rose up from the earth to greet him. Somewhere in the far distance a dog yapped, audible over the grumbling engine. Others offered a howling
rejoinder. He imagined German shepherds, bad-temperedly patrolling the corridor between two walls of wire.

He ran on the spot a little to get his circulation going and walked around the side to see what the trouble was. The road was rutted beneath his feet and he stumbled on one of the ridges. Heavy
traffic had passed this way, corrugating the surface. Watson steadied himself and peered ahead. The road, a sandy ribbon of grit, curved out of sight but the lorry’s feeble headlamps had
picked out a metal sign on a steel pole, with the camp’s name written on the plate in gothic script. But there was another rectangle tied beneath it, this one wooden and makeshift. There was
no mistaking its intent, even if you didn’t understand the single word,
Fleckfieber
, for it was adorned with a crudely daubed red skull and crossbones. In fact, Watson did, for once,
know that term. He knew it in several languages and it made his already shivering body shake that little bit more.
Fleckfieber.

Typhus.

Despite the cold mist rising off the lake as the light faded, Von Bork was sweating as he rowed. A sheen of perspiration covered his shoulders as he dug the blades into the
water, exhilarated by the rhythm he had found – the old, relaxed varsity stroke he had once mastered so easily – and the way the nose of the tiny craft leaped forward with each pull. He
had missed this, the burn of muscle and lung that physical exercise brought. He could see now that the last few years had been blighted by a form of depression, caused by his failure in England.
Now, at least, he had engineered a partial revenge for his humiliation and it had brought a fresh burst of vitality.

It was a pity he had been forced to order the killing of the orderly. But he wasn’t part of the plan. He wanted Watson to feel alone, as he had, bereft of friends and acquaintances.
Ostracized. And it did have the benefit of causing Watson even more anguish, once he realized that he, indirectly, was responsible for the private’s death.