Dominion (47 page)

There were a few cars parked at the roadside but none close to the house and none seemed occupied, though it was hard to be sure in the dim yellow streetlight. No lights were on in the house,
none of the curtains drawn. She unlocked the door and went in. All was silent and still. The London telephone directory lay on the hall table where she had left it that morning. She went into the
kitchen and switched on the light. Then she screamed.

Two men were sitting at the kitchen table; they had been waiting for her in the dark. She saw that the back door had been broken open. One of the men was in his thirties, tall and thin, with a
mean, hard face. The other was older, plump, with sad, pouchy features and untidy fair hair. He looked at her with cold, light-blue eyes: a horribly penetrating stare. Then he spoke, in what Sarah
recognized at once was a German accent; not angrily but somehow sadly. ‘Good evening, Mrs Fitzgerald.’

A
T
K
ENTON
S
TATION
D
AVID
found himself reluctant to go in; he knew the Resistance
people would have a far better chance of rescuing Sarah, but he felt that leaving now would be his final betrayal of her, as well as a final departure from his old life.

He had never been to Soho during the day before. It seemed greyer, more ordinary – narrow streets, now filled with markets selling fruit and vegetables. The coffee bar beside the alley was
closed; the alley itself looked even dingier in daylight. The door with the two bells beside it had, he saw, once been green but most of the paint had flaked away long ago, revealing strong old
planks. He pressed Natalia’s bell.

There was no answer. He waited and rang again but still no footsteps sounded on the stairs. He tried the door but it was locked. An old man in a threadbare overcoat, bent with age, shuffled down
the alley and gave David a look of dislike as he passed; he must have thought him a client for the prostitute. David felt panic rising again, wondering whether something had happened here, too. He
wished he didn’t look so conspicuous in his overcoat, pinstripe trousers and bowler hat.

Eventually footsteps clattered down the stairs inside. The door half opened and the prostitute peered round the frame at him. She wore an expensive-looking silk dressing gown, her red hair
curling around her face. ‘You’ve woken me, ringing the bell like that.’ She spoke crossly, then she recognized him and her face became suddenly alert.

‘Dilys, I need to speak to Natalia—’

‘She’s just gone to the shops. Is something the matter?’

‘I need to see her urgently.’

The girl thought a moment, then said, ‘Come up.’

David followed her up the creaking stairs, into a poky little bedroom dominated by a large, unmade double bed and a dressing table covered with pots and powders. The room was separated from the
rest of the flat by a flimsy-looking door. It stank of cheap scent and cigarette smoke and was stiflingly hot, a gas fire hissing away in the corner. The girl sat on a hard chair at the dressing
table and waved David to the bed. ‘Sit down.’ She turned to the partition, and to David’s surprise, shouted ‘Helen!’ A middle-aged woman in an apron came through the
inner door. Dilys said, ‘We’re out of tea, love. Go and get some, will you? Get some groceries as well, take your time.’

The woman gave David a stony look. ‘Be all right, will you?’

‘’Course I will. This one’s a shy boy, aren’t you?’

With a doubtful look at David, the old woman left. Dilys smiled archly. ‘First time you’ve been in a place like this?’

‘Yes – yes, it is.’

She nodded at the door. ‘Helen, she’s my maid. We girls always have an older woman working with us, to help us, keep us safe. Helen doesn’t know about next door.’ Dilys
took a deep breath. ‘Something’s up, isn’t it? I can see by your face.’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Am I going to have to go?’

‘I don’t know. I’m afraid they’re on to me.’

Dilys looked sad. ‘Luck always runs out in the end, doesn’t it?’ She spoke quietly. ‘Just give me fair warning when I have to go, will you ask them that? I’m okay
for money, but I’ll have to look after Helen till we find somewhere else. I don’t want her in the clutches of the bloody Blackshirts.’

‘I’ll tell them.’

‘Thanks. Don’t say any more,’ Dilys added quickly. ‘It’s best I know as little as possible.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed. It was just what Carol had said to him over the telephone.

‘You can only tell what you know. Would you like a cup of tea?’ Her tone was suddenly cheerful again. Poor girl, David thought, she must have to put on a cheery face all the
time.

‘No – no, thank you.’

She glanced at him wistfully. ‘Nice-looking chap like you, bet you can get it whenever you want, eh? Don’t need the likes of me.’ David felt himself blush. ‘I see
you’ve a wedding ring. Bet you’re the faithful sort.’ Her manner was bantering now, trying to keep her spirits up. ‘You got any Maltese blood in you?’ she asked
suddenly.

‘Not that I know of.’

‘You remind me a bit of my Guido. The bastards deported him two years ago. England for the English, as they say. And for the Germans and Italians, of course,’ she added bitterly.
‘That’s when I joined up with you people. They put me here, to keep an eye out for you.’

‘Thank you,’ David said.

Dilys opened a drawer of the dressing table and pulled out a bottle of gin and two smeared glasses. ‘Want one?’

‘I’d better keep a clear head.’ David realized he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. ‘You haven’t any food, have you?’

‘I’ll see what there is.’

She went through the inner door, returning with some cold ham and bread and butter. David took it eagerly. Dilys sat at the dressing table, watching him eat while she swigged back her gin, the
hand holding the glass trembling slightly. When he had finished she said, ‘Should I get ready to open up today?’ He looked at her blankly and she laughed. ‘For business. I usually
open up at five, and it’s nearly four now.’

‘I think – maybe better not. There may be more of us coming.’

She took a deep breath. ‘I’ll put a note on the door, say I’m ill. I’ve a couple of Friday regulars, they’ll be disappointed but it can’t be helped. Oh well,
it’ll save me the trouble of getting ready, won’t it?’

David looked at her curiously. ‘How did you get into – into this?’

She frowned. ‘Shock you, does it?’

‘No. It’s just – I never—’

She smiled again. ‘You’re quite an innocent thing, aren’t you? My dad died at Dunkirk, he wasn’t one of the ones that got away. My mum went to pieces, turned to drink. We
hadn’t any money. A friend got me into this game.’

He looked around the room. ‘Isn’t it – well – dangerous?’

She laughed suddenly. ‘You’re asking, is what
I
do dangerous? That’s the pot calling the kettle black if ever I heard it.’

It was fifteen minutes before footsteps sounded again on the stairs. Dilys sat up, looking relieved. ‘That’s Natalia.’ She went out and David heard the two
women talking quietly. They came back into the flat together. Natalia wore an old grey coat and hat and carried a shopping bag; she looked dowdy and ordinary beside Dilys’ colourful
femininity. David thought it was probably a look she cultivated deliberately, so as not to be noticed. It was sad she had to. His heart had leapt at the sight of her but then sank again as he
thought of Sarah, out there somewhere, in grave danger.

Natalia looked at him, then said quietly, ‘Come through. Dilys, I’ll tell you what’s happening as soon as I know.’

They went back to Natalia’s flat. It smelt of paint as usual, but she had taken most of the pictures down, stacking them against the walls. Only the striking battle scene remained, the
dead soldiers lying in the snow with the high white mountains in the distance. The room was cold. Natalia followed David’s gaze. ‘Yes,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I’m
packing up, I’ll have to leave too. This is very serious.’

He turned to her. ‘I’m sorry.’

She smiled wanly. ‘It happens. We always have a fallback place ready.’

They stood looking at each other for a long moment. Then Natalia said, ‘Sit down.’ David took a seat and watched as she switched on the gas fire, bending to slot pennies into the
meter. She said, over her shoulder, ‘I am sorry I was out. One of our people came to tell me you’d had to run, and I had to make some telephone calls. Mr Jackson will be coming soon,
Geoff Drax too.’

‘Geoff? Oh no.’

She stood up and spoke sadly, almost apologetically. ‘If they’re making enquiries about you they will soon find out you and he are friends. I had to phone Mr Jackson at work. We
don’t usually do that, we don’t know which Civil Service phones are tapped, but it was an emergency.’

‘What about the other man in the cell? Boardman, from the India Office.’

‘He’ll be warned. But there’s nothing to lead them to him that we know of.’ She sat down opposite him, a fixed expression in those clear, almond-shaped eyes.
‘Please, tell me everything that happened today.’

She sat still and quiet as David explained, nodding occasionally. When he had finished she asked, ‘The woman Carol, you’re sure she knows nothing of what you have been
doing?’

‘Yes. But – they’ll question her again. She was the one who warned me. They’ll make her talk.’

‘With luck she will only lose her job. If she knows nothing.’

David took a deep breath. ‘The man I spoke to on the telephone said they’d send someone to fetch Sarah. That was always part of the deal: if anything happened you’d help
her.’

‘We will.’

‘If only she’d been at home—’

‘You shouldn’t have gone back there, you know,’ Natalia said, her tone quietly reproving.

‘I didn’t know what else to do. If that man had answered the phone the first time—’

‘Yes. If he had to go out he should have got someone to cover him. That was a mistake.’

‘I didn’t know what to think when I didn’t get an answer.’ He smiled at her ruefully. ‘Somehow I’d thought you were all infallible.’

‘Nobody is infallible. Not us, and not them, either. They should have realized this woman Carol might go and warn you. Just occasionally, you see, they overestimate the power of
fear.’ She gave him one of her long, steady looks. ‘This woman must be very fond of you.’

‘And now I’ve landed her in it. I’ve landed everyone in it, haven’t I? All because I misfiled that bloody document.’

‘As I said, nobody is infallible. But the question is, what led them to you in the first place?’

‘It all points to Frank Muncaster, doesn’t it? They’ve got him to talk.’

‘That seems possible, I’m afraid.’

‘Then it’s all been for nothing.’ David put his head in his hands. ‘Poor bloody Frank.’

Natalia didn’t get up, but said, gently, ‘I’m sorry. It’s hard when you have personal loyalties.’

He glanced up at her. ‘Don’t you have any?’

She lit a cigarette from the pack on the table. ‘Not any more.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘Everyone I cared about is gone. That’s another thing the enemy don’t
consider, that they might leave people with nothing else in their lives but to fight them. That’s what they’re doing in Russia.’

David pointed at the painting of the battle scene. ‘You’ve left that one on the wall.’

She said, ‘When my brother came back from Russia he told me about the last battle he was in. His leg was badly injured, that’s why he was sent home. He didn’t talk about it
much, he couldn’t bear to, but one night he was in a bad state and he did.’ Her voice had become monotonous, holding in God knew what feelings. ‘It was in 1942, the Caucasus
offensive, the Russians were defending a strong position and Peter saw a lot of his friends killed. Those are the Caucasus mountains in the distance. All in German hands now.’

‘I didn’t know that your brother came back. I thought he’d been killed.’

‘No. His leg was shattered, he didn’t get good treatment at the field hospital and he was never able to walk properly again. But it was his mind that really suffered. Some people can
survive a war with their minds intact but not Peter.’

David shook his head. ‘Yes, it always stays with you. It was because of what I saw in Norway that I felt the peace with Germany was right. Like all the other fools, I needed
peace.’

‘Although you are half-Jewish.’

‘I told you,’ he replied bitterly, ‘we kept that well hidden. I pretty much hid it from myself for long enough.’ He paused. ‘Since we spoke I’ve wondered
whether I might have family – second and third cousins, perhaps – who were on trains like the one you described. It makes me ashamed.’

‘Why? Because you have been able to escape the trains and these new British camps? You shouldn’t be.’ She spoke emphatically. ‘It’s not your fault you happen to be
different in a way that gets you singled out. And you
are
fighting them, fighting the Fascists.’

David smiled bleakly. ‘Making restitution, eh? When the anti-Semitic laws got really serious, that’s when I first began to feel ashamed. I suppose that was why I decided to join the
Resistance. Everyone probably thinks I’m just another old-fashioned Englishman outraged by what’s being done. But I’m not, for me it’s personal.’

‘It is personal for all of us, one way or another,’ Natalia said quietly.

‘You mean your brother?’ They were talking intimately now, leaning forward slightly. The gas fire hissed gently in the background.

‘Partly. When he came back I nursed him at home. My father helped but he died later that year. Then it was just me and Peter. He wouldn’t go out, the only place he felt safe was in
the house and even then he feared someone would come – Russians or Germans – and kill him. Not for any particular reason, but just because killing had become what people did. The
strange thing was, Peter was so afraid of dying but in the end he killed himself, he jumped out of the window of our flat. We were on the third floor. He did what your friend Frank tried to
do.’

‘I’m sorry.’ They were silent for a moment, then David asked, ‘What’s happened to Frank?’