Betrayal (13 page)

Helmut Wolfganger gave her a grin. An Oberleutnant zur See from Idar-Oberstein, he had the look of a farm boy, though thirty-five, was blond and blue-eyed, but painfully thin.

‘You're all alone,' he said. ‘The arm's fine.'

Mary saw that he was taking out one of the other Thackerays. She hesitated, looked up at him even as he noticed the book on her left and reached for it. ‘Don't, please. Just leave it. That's for Erich.'

Wolfganger gave her another of those grins of his before taking his book back and saying, ‘He's a lucky man, Mrs. Fraser. I hope the doctor doesn't mind.'

When Erich finally did come into the library, the level of conversation fell to a hush and she knew then that something really was going on among the prisoners and that more than a few of them were now aware that she was a part of it.

‘Mary, what do you want? I was in a meeting. Policies … the way we do things here. It … it couldn't be helped.'

Policies? Escape perhaps? Erich was wearing his peaked white cap, his
Schirmmutze
, the dark grey woollen turtleneck pullover too.

‘
Liebling
, what's the matter?' he asked, concern in his deep blue eyes.

‘Nothing. I've found a copy of that Thackeray you wanted. Don't … Please don't open it here. Just take some others with you.'

Kramer felt the weight of the book and the bulge. ‘I didn't ask for any Thackeray.'

‘Erich, please just do as I've asked. It's … it's already been stamped.' He wouldn't go over to the shelves to get some others. He just stood there looking down at her.

Kramer slid a forefinger into the book and felt the gun but knew there was more to this, much more. ‘They've contacted you,' he said. He'd let his face break out into a generous grin but would that ease her mind?

‘Yes, they've contacted me. I've done what I had to.'

There was no smile from her, no sign of the relief there ought to have been, she turning from him now and still all wound up about it, but what else? he wondered. Did the British suspect her of aiding the enemy?

‘We have to talk,' he said, turning away to say, ‘Franz, the lady needs to visit the toilet. Oblige us.'

‘No! Erich, listen to me. I can't. Major Trant will only be watching for something like that.'

So it had been Trant after all and now she was noticing that the room had fallen to absolute silence as it should have.

Erich motioned for the men to leave, and they did in trickles so as not to make their leaving too obvious. Even though some were of higher rank, they obeyed as if he was in command of them, but he wasn't in command of herself, was he? she had to silently ask.

Kramer reached across the table that separated them, she ignoring the outstretched hand, he beckoning with it now.

‘It's finished between us, Erich. It has to be.'

Grabbing her by the wrist, he pulled her after him, took her in between the rows of shelves and forced her to face him. ‘Who gave you this?' he demanded.

‘The IRA. Who the hell did you think that “cousin” of yours would contact other than Berlin?'

‘Then you
have
made contact and Dublin has been in touch with C-and-C U-boats.'

He was relieved—she could see this at a glance but … ‘You don't love me. You never did.'

Some women were easy, some more difficult, but all needed that little something. He'd close the book, he decided. He'd take two others from the shelf she'd her back to, would sandwich the Thackeray between them. ‘I do but I know you must be finding it hard to believe. I have to get away.'

‘Why?'

She was watching him too closely—was angry and afraid, and struggling with her conscience, even feeling a fool.

When he didn't answer, she turned to leave, only to feel the touch of him on her hand and ask, ‘Were you responsible for the hanging of that man? Is that why you have to get away?'

‘I had no part in that.'

‘Then who did?'

‘You know I can't tell you. How could I?'

Had he been one of them? Had he given the command? ‘It's what they want me to find out. The names of all who were responsible.'

‘It's impossible.'

‘Is it? If I don't get the answer, Bannerman and Trant will accuse me of helping you and of betraying my husband and my country, and if they don't, Jimmy Allanby will.'

They had put it to her then, or at least had got her to believe they had.

Something went out of him then and an apologetic tone crept into his voice.

‘You're caught between us, aren't you,
mein Schatz
? The British, the Reich and the IRA. Can you ever forgive me?'

Mein Schatz
… my treasure. He was so close to her now. The cap was set at a rakish angle, and she realized then that he'd have worn it that way at sea. ‘I must go. Look, as far as you and I are concerned, it is finished. It has to be.'

Then why tremble at the nearness of him, why search for signs that it wasn't? Kramer set the books aside. He'd have to let her see how it really was for a man like himself. Giving her an understanding nod, he said, ‘It's not right of us to leave things this way. Take the gun back and tell them it's all off no matter what C-and-C U-boats and Berlin have sent over the wireless to Dublin. I'm staying here until the British ship me off to Canada. It'll be easier then. A few months, nothing more.'

Apart from their having won the war, he couldn't mean it. He really couldn't.

Kramer turned his back on her. He would leave the books on the shelf she faced, would leave the gun, would let her make a grab for them and say:

‘Erich, wait! Darling, I … I had to know.'

Franz was signalling that they'd best hurry it up, so
gut, ja, gut
, but had she really fallen for it?

He waited, his back still to her, and when she handed the books to him, he heard her saying, ‘They've a meeting place they'll use. I don't know where it is, but will try to find out. Somewhere on the north coast, I think. In Donegal, most likely. Somewhere your people can bring a submarine in close enough to take you off.'

‘And you, Mary. You. I'm not leaving you behind. I couldn't.'

Was he lying or simply trying to make things easier for her? she wondered. He hadn't asked what the IRA would demand in exchange, would have to leave all that up to others, to C-and-C U-boats and Berlin, and to wireless contact with Dublin, but she would have to let him kiss her. She mustn't pull away, mustn't let her doubts show, must give herself to him and give herself time.

Trant was waiting for her in the corridor when she had closed up the library and crossed the great hall. Falling in beside her, they continued on towards the main staircase. ‘You never wear lipstick when you come to see us. I find that curious.'

‘You can find it any way you wish, Major. I simply choose not to during the day. There's a war on and good lipstick is rather hard to come by. The kind that is available bothers my lips.'

Long after he had left her near the foot of the stairs, Trant continued to watch her, then went back to open the doors to that other corridor and find his way from there through to the library.

Thackeray, he mused.
The Virginians
. Dulsey had memorized the titles of the lot she'd brought in today. It had been sharp of the colonel to have done that, but then Bannerman was an old hand at such things.

Kramer … had she given him the book? All the others had been accounted for, so that must have been it.

A note … had she passed him a note?

‘Now, Doctor, you're not to worry yourself. Sure and that wee slip of a girl is feeling terribly out of sorts and hiding herself away upstairs, but Bridget and I will keep a close eye on her.'

Hamish was sitting in the kitchen at the big deal table Mrs. Haney used to roll out her pastry and do everything else. One of those huge cups the Irish sometimes use was in front of him, but was it carrot, rose hip, dandelion or blackberry tea? Hamish always went along with the ‘expeerimints,' even though slices of ham, freshly baked brown bread, butter—not margarine yet—and a plate of scones were there too.

‘You're a wonderful woman, Mrs. Haney. As God is my witness, I don't know what I'd do without you. Mary still not back?'

‘Likely walking in the fields and woods, and it's yourself be worryin' about her too. She be doin' a powerful lot of walking about these days, she does, Doctor. Now she does.'

Oh how they avoided things, the two of them, sparring with each other like that. Wisely, though, Hamish never questioned the alchemy of the kitchen. He laid a slice of ham on one of liberally buttered bread, could just as well have been out fishing were it not for the stoop to his shoulders.

Mary waited out in the corridor, seeing the two of them through a gap in the door. It was well after dark and yet he hadn't questioned this nor had Mrs. Haney thought to raise the issue of her not having even come in for supper.

‘Is she meeting someone?' asked Hamish at last, not wanting to let things show. ‘A bunch of tinkers perhaps? Mary's always been fascinated by them.'

‘Tinkers is it?' snorted the woman. ‘God would wish it so, Doctor. Indeed He would.'

Fastidiously he took time with the open-faced sandwich he'd made and carefully cut it into quarters. ‘Then you've heard something?' he hazarded.

Mrs. Haney sprinkled on a last dusting of flour before muscling the rolling pin over the pastry dough so quickly and robustly, Mary found jealousy intruding her thoughts. The woman was so capable, so solid. Like one of those round tower houses that had been built a thousand years ago and stood out all over the landscape, some having been more lately refurbished in payment of a ten-pound note to London.

‘I have, Doctor. That I have. Parker O'Shane, that disreputable half-brother of mine, God save him, saw her on the old tote road to Newtonhamilton the day we had them sausages from Mr. Brian Kelly's butcher shop. She'd been picking the Michaelmas daisies.'

‘There's nothing wrong in that, is there?'

‘Not with bunches of them growing along every roadside from here to Killarney and Ballyshannon. It's the broken bridge on that old bit of road what worries me, Doctor. You'll be recalling the one we had to cross the other night.'

‘How could I ever forget it,' said Hamish sadly, but remembering, too, to take a generous bite and reach for his tea.

Mrs. Haney set the rolling pin down, after first having given it the wringing scrape of an encircling thumb and forefinger. She went over to the stove to get the big teapot she'd brought from her own hearth, the doctor's not being good enough. Refilling his cup with its ink, she slung one over for herself, took but a grain of the sugar, and sat down across the table from him. Rationing or no rationing, the Lord always helped those who helped themselves, and of course there was the black market too, and connections, always those, but worry had entered the woman's gaze, fear and an honest concern that puzzled, Mrs. Haney not liking her.

‘Doctor, did she meet someone at that broken-down
ould
bridge, I'm asking? Parker, he said she had burs and weed seeds all over her like enough to fit an English setter with fleas.'

‘Liam Nolan?' asked Hamish, the name barely whispered.

‘The same, Doctor. Is it not what you yourself have been thinking?'

‘Mary would have told me. She'd not have kept a thing like that from …'

‘Doctor, what is it?'

‘Caithleen … I was thinking of Caithleen.'

‘I've sent Bridget up to keep her company. Now you're not to worry yourself. Caithleen?' asked the woman, she prodding, probing, wanting answers herself.

Hamish stared at the bread and ham on the plate before him, then glanced at the wall clock beneath which Mrs. Haney had hung one of those hideous aquatints of the Christ in hand-painted luminescent tones.

Mary started into the room. ‘I've been out walking and thinking, Hamish. I'm sorry if I worried you, darling. I know it's well after dark. Belfast bad? They turned you back, didn't they? The colonel said that they would.'

‘Lass, where have you really been?'

‘Out walking. If Mrs. Haney had thought to ask William, she'd have been told my bicycle was in the shed, so I couldn't have been far, could I?'

‘But it's not safe for a woman to walk about at night alone. Not after what's happened. Not with …'

‘With the hills being combed by British tommies? No, I guess it isn't. Mrs. Haney, I'd like a cup of that tea, please. It's freezing out there. Shouldn't you be home yourself by now?'

Ria gave her a look that would have whipped a dead donkey to life. Bolting up from the table, she stormed over to the door to yell at the top of her lungs, ‘Bridget! Bridget Leahy, girl, her ladyship is home and we can be away now. Away it is, and me with a husband who's not yet had his supper these past three hours. Three it is, Mrs. Fraser. Three!'

‘Mary … Mary, what's wrong?'

‘Nothing. I just had to have a think. I wasn't far, Hamish. I was in the garden.'

Waiting for Bridget and Mrs. Haney to leave the house, she poured herself a cup of tea—dandelion it was and horrible. Roasted to death and pulverized. Grimacing, she said, ‘The colonel will arrange for Caithleen to be taken to his sister's in the Midlands.'

‘In return for what?'

Did Hamish now know everything? ‘For my cooperation.'

On Thursday morning she was at the bridge again but they didn't come. Perhaps they were hiding out in the hills and too afraid, perhaps they were back in the South and hadn't been able to get a message to her.

Dismayed at not finding them, for they had to meet—there'd been no word from Mrs. Tulford in Dublin either—she rode into Ballylurgen. Irish villages weren't like those in England. They were more like some she'd seen from the train west on the prairies of Canada, if one took away the grain elevators and the endless horizons. A straggle, then, of houses along an empty road with gaps between and the damned loneliness of it all stretching away for miles around.