Dominion (30 page)

Sarah followed the young couple into another alley. Then the boy ran into the open door of some flats, leading them into a dark, smelly hallway. They stopped, taking long whooping breaths. Other
people ran past, feet pounding on the paving stones. In the distance Sarah heard more shots, then the sound of a police whistle being blown, over and over again.

‘Joe,’ the girl said breathlessly. ‘We’ve got to run!’ She had a middle-class accent like Sarah’s.

The boy shook his head impatiently. ‘No. There’ll be dozens of them here in a minute. Hide under here.’ He pushed his way into a dank alcove under the stairs. The girl
followed. ‘Come on, lady,’ he said impatiently to Sarah. She squeezed in beside them, feeling the warmth of their bodies. There was a big metal dustbin there, stinking of rotten
vegetables. Sarah felt cold and clammy, though strangely calm.

‘Bloody hell,’ Joe said. ‘I thought we were stuffed.’

The long wail of a police siren sounded in the distance. The girl began to cry. ‘They shot people, they’ve killed people.’ Her voice was rising hysterically. Sarah grasped her
shoulders. ‘Please, please,’ she said. ‘We have to keep quiet.’

The girl took a couple of heaving sobs, then looked past Sarah at the boy. ‘What are we going to do, Joe? Where can we go?’

‘Wait till dark, then we’ll head out to Mark’s friend in Watford.’ He raised a hand to the yellow badge on the front of his coat. ‘I’m getting rid of this
fookin’ thing. The identity cards can go too.’ He pulled at the badge but his fingers were shaking and he couldn’t get it off. The girl, calmer now, laid a hand on his. ‘No
Joe, unpin it. If they see you with a tear on your coat they’ll realize you’ve pulled something off.’

‘Okay. Can you do it, Ruth? I – I can’t seem to manage.’

They worked together to remove their badges, then pulled out their identity cards, yellow stars prominent on the front, tore them up and dropped the pieces into the fetid bin. Sarah listened,
frightened someone might come out of one of the flats and find them. But the people who lived there had probably heard the shots and were cowering indoors. She turned to the young man. ‘Thank
you,’ she said breathlessly. ‘Thank you for rescuing me.’

Joe smiled, a flash of white teeth in the dark space. ‘That’s all right.’ Though it was hard to tell in the dimness Sarah sensed he blushed. They’re just children, she
thought with a desperate ache.

Ruth said, ‘You helped us. You and your friend.’

Sarah felt a catch at her throat. ‘My friend’s dead.’

‘I know. I saw.’ The girl began to cry again.

Joe peered cautiously out of the alcove. ‘There’s a good few dead out there now.’ His voice was trembling.

‘What happened to you?’ Sarah asked Ruth. ‘Where were they taking you?’

‘They’re taking every registered Jew in London out of the city. We don’t know where. I live at the university halls of residence, they came for us at seven this morning.’
She put her head in her hands.

‘I thought Jews weren’t allowed in the universities any more.’

Joe said, ‘We started just before the law came into force. There’s still a few of us third years left.’ He looked at his girlfriend. ‘You were right, you said
they’d come for us one day.’ He turned back to Sarah, his face working with emotion. ‘I thought we were safe, I thought our government wouldn’t let us be shipped off.
Offence to national pride, against British fair play,’ he added bitterly. ‘Though they might kick us out of our jobs and businesses, I thought they’d stop short of handing us over
to the Germans. But that’s what they’re doing now, it has to be.’

Ruth spoke quietly. ‘Beaverbrook must have agreed this with the Nazis in Berlin.’

Joe shook his head. ‘This must have been planned for some time.’

‘Maybe there was a contingency plan,’ Sarah said. ‘And now the Germans have forced them to implement it. The Civil Service are always making contingency plans, my
husband’s a civil servant—’

Joe’s look became instantly hostile. ‘Is he?’

‘He’s in the Dominions Office, they’re not involved in anything like this—’

‘They’re all involved, everyone who works for Beaverbrook and Mosley.’

‘Keep your voice down,’ Ruth urged him.

Joe went on, quietly now, but his voice was still savage. ‘Well, now we know what British fair play’s worth when the chips are down. From the moment we were picked up people just
stood watching, drove past in their cars. Kept their heads down.’

‘Except that old man,’ Ruth said. She looked at Sarah. ‘And your friend.’

‘What really turned it was those Jive Boys.’ Joe smiled sadly. ‘Not that they’d care what happened to us, I’ve heard plenty of stories of them beating Jews up. They
just saw a fight and joined in.’

Sarah found thoughts rushing through her head. It was because of her that Mrs Templeman came that way. She’d thought her just a bossy old woman. Then she did that incredible act of
bravery. Sarah shivered as she realized she could have been killed too. She had feared David might abandon her but it was she who would have abandoned him had she been shot.

The boy took her arm, jolting her back to reality. He said, ‘It’s quiet out there now. It won’t stay that way for long. I’d get out of here while you can. You’ve
got your ID card?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where do you live?’

‘Kenton. Out towards Pinner.’

Ruth said, ‘You shouldn’t wear that coat, it stands out. You sat down in the street, they’ll be looking for a fair-haired woman your age in a grey coat.’

Sarah said, ‘Swap coats with me. Lots of people wear duffel coats.’

They stepped out of the alcove, and while Joe watched the entrance the two women switched coats. Ruth’s duffel coat was tight on Sarah. She picked up her handbag and took out her purse.
‘Here, take my money.’ She held out two ten-shilling notes, a handful of silver. ‘Please. I’ve got a return ticket, I don’t need money for anything else.’

Joe looked reluctant but Ruth took the money. ‘Thank you.’

Sarah asked, ‘Where do your families live?’

Ruth said, ‘Mine live in Highgate, they’ll have been picked up too.’ She blushed. ‘I was spending the night with Joe.’

‘Mine are in Bradford. They’re probably rounding up Jews there too.’ Joe’s voice cracked, and Sarah could see he was at the end of his tether. ‘Go now, lady,’
he said roughly. ‘Go on.’

Ruth took her arm. Sarah’s grey coat looked big on her. She said, ‘We’ll never forget what you and your friend did.’

Sarah smiled. ‘Good luck,’ she said, then took a deep breath and stepped outside. Everything was quiet now, nobody in sight. She adjusted her bag on her arm and walked away, in the
opposite direction to Tottenham Court Road. More sirens sounded in the distance. Her legs shook like jelly but she made herself walk on, towards the tube station and home.

I
T TOOK LONGER THAN
D
AVID
had expected to find the hospital. Although they were so near Birmingham, they were on narrow country
roads shaded by trees, with few signposts, and after a brief period of wet snow it had begun to get foggy. They discussed, again, how he should tackle Frank Muncaster: with sympathy, caution.
Afterwards they drove on in silence and David thought about what Natalia had told him about the Slovak Jews. He knew she could have done nothing to help those people and it frightened him. He
wondered how Sarah would react if she found out he was half Jewish. She hated what had been done to the Jews in England but that was different from being married to one. He knew prejudices ran very
deep, had done even before anti-Jewish propaganda began in the 1940s.

His thoughts were interrupted by Geoff. ‘We’re here,’ he said quietly. They had come to a fork in the road, and a wooden signpost pointed to Bartley Green Asylum. They passed
through a little copse and then saw an immense redbrick Victorian building a little way ahead, on top of a low hill, with a big water tower and well-tended grounds surrounded by a high wooden
fence, lights shining through the mist. David hadn’t expected it to be so big and imposing.

The road followed the side of the fence to high, iron-barred gates. Beside them was a porter’s lodge with a window overlooking the road. They drove up to it, passing a woman in a dark
nurse’s cloak walking towards the gates, and an elderly couple, heads down. David looked through the bars of the gates, down a long straight drive to the big building. Natalia stopped the
car. ‘You two go and talk to the porter,’ she said.

Geoff and David got out. It was slightly warmer, but a clammy mist clung to them. They walked up to the window, where the nurse was talking to a porter through a panel. Ahead of them, the old
couple stood, silent. The porter was small, elderly, his black uniform reminding David of old Sykes on the Dominions Office front desk. There was even a similar large rack of keys on the wall
behind him. Another younger porter was working at a desk beside the plugs and sockets of a switchboard.

‘Been a bit busy with visiting time, but the rush is over now.’ The porter gave the nurse a key and turned to the old couple ahead of David and Geoff. The old man said in a Black
Country accent, ‘We’re here to visit our daughter. Amy Lascelles, on Domville Ward.’

The porter shook his head reprovingly. ‘Visiting time’s nearly over.’

‘It takes a long time to get over from Walsall.’

The porter sighed. ‘Identity cards?’

The old couple produced them and the porter made an entry in a ledger. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Just wait to the side a minute.’ He turned to David and Geoff. ‘Yes,
sirs?’

‘We’ve come to visit a patient too, Frank Muncaster,’ David answered. ‘I’m sorry we’re a bit late, we’ve driven up from London.’

The porter’s manner became deferential on hearing David’s accent. ‘Does the ward know you’re coming, sir?’

He took a deep breath. ‘No. This gentleman and I are old school friends of his. We heard from a friend of Dr Muncaster’s at the university that he was here – it was a bit of a
shock. We decided to come up and see him.’

The porter looked over at Natalia, sitting in the car. ‘And the lady?’

Geoff said, ‘She’s a friend of mine. She drove us up.’

‘Well, I dare say it’ll be all right. Can I just see your identity cards?’

David handed over the fakes. The porter wrote down the false names, then turned to the young man at the switchboard. ‘Give Ironbridge Ward a ring, Dan, tell them Muncaster’s got
visitors. Send some one out to the front steps to meet them. Muncaster’s popular today,’ he added.

David looked at Geoff. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked non-committally.

‘A couple of policemen came earlier, more questions about the incident I imagine.’ The porter leaned comfortably on the ledge. ‘You know he attacked his brother, threw him out
of a window? I saw him when he came, he didn’t look violent but you can’t ever tell. I remember a man who were as quiet as a mouse for years, then one day he laid out two attendants and
a doctor before you could say Jack Robinson.’ The porter shook his head with gloomy relish.

The younger man turned round from the telephone. ‘Mr Hall will wait for the visitors at the entrance.’

‘Open the gates for them, would you?’

The young porter went out, jangling a large bundle of keys. The nurse had already let herself in. David and Geoff got back into the car. The porter opened the gates and they drove through, the
old couple walking in behind them. As Natalia started the engine David told her about the police visit. They heard the gates clang shut behind them.

‘What was it about?’

‘He didn’t know. He guessed it was about the attack on Frank’s brother.’

‘We’ll have to ask this Ben Hall. It can’t be anything too worrying or he’d have warned us off. We know there’s a police file open.’

Just beyond the gate a concrete bridge passed over a wide ditch with steep sides, muddy water at the bottom. Beyond it thick, tall privet hedges had been planted. David looked up the drive at
the big house. As they approached the main doors a stocky young man in a brown, short-jacketed uniform came out and stood at the top of the steps. He was in his thirties, with a pleasantly ugly,
prematurely lined face and a broken nose. He had a whistle on a chain at his belt, and a bunch of keys. Natalia parked the car to one side of the door. ‘All right,’ she said quietly.
‘That’s our man, I’ve seen a photograph. I’ll stay here. Good luck.’ David and Geoff got out again. The young man smiled and extended a hand, looking at them with
sharp eyes.

‘Mr Ladyman and Mr Hedges?’ He had a strong Glasgow accent.

‘Yes,’ David replied. ‘I’m Hedges. Good afternoon.’

‘Hi. Thanks for coming. Frank’ll be pleased to see youse.’

David glanced back. The old couple were approaching the steps, their heads cast down in shame as they neared the asylum.

Inside the walls were painted an institutional green, the floors scuffed wooden blocks. Ben unlocked a heavy inner door leading into a long corridor. Two men in grey woollen
uniforms stood watching them listlessly. They had comically bad pudding-basin haircuts, their ears sticking out below.

‘The porter said some police came to visit Frank earlier,’ David said quietly.

‘Aye.’ The attendant lowered his voice too. ‘We can talk about that when we get to the office.’

‘Security seems pretty tight here,’ Geoff said.

‘It is. Ye cannae get in without a key from the lodge and all the inner doors are locked.’ Ben turned to David, his tone still conversational. ‘So, you an’ Frank used to
be good pals?’

‘Yes, at university. But I haven’t seen him for years.’

‘He seems to think a lot of you,’ Ben said. ‘He remembers your friend, but it was you he was attached to. I’ve got him in a separate wee room.’

‘Are there other visitors around?’

‘A few. Most have gone already, they don’t stay long. Most o’ the poor sods here don’t get visitors. Relatives come for a year or two, then stop. Out of shame, or seeing
what their folk have come to.’

David said uneasily. ‘You said Frank was attached to me? You make him sound like a dog.’