SS-GB (17 page)

‘Douglas,’ he said. ‘People are calling me Douglas now. It’s all part of the new mood of informality that the newspapers say the war brought.’ He opened the new can of coffee, and their fingers touched as he handed it to her. She shivered. ‘Douglas, eh? Well, I think I like that better than Superintendent.’ She tipped the coffee into the percolator top, closed the lid and set it on the heat. She didn’t look round, but she felt his eyes upon her. She spoke again hurriedly. ‘Now you’re not going to give me the third degree about what kind of black-market deal did I have to do to get coffee, are you?’

‘I heard that the US Embassy has arranged a ration for Americans living here.’

‘I’m just kidding,’ she said. ‘Yes, I got it from the Embassy.’ She busied herself in the kitchen. She set up a tray with her best cups and saucers, and the silver spoons and sugar bowl. Then she opened a tin of milk, and put it into the cream jug. ‘Bring that bottle of brandy and glasses,’ she said as she picked up the tray. ‘Winter in this town is going to kill me if I don’t find some way of keeping warm.’

‘There I might be able to help.’

She walked into the lounge with the tray. This room was once a stable for the grand house that backed on to it. Wood blocks had been laid upon the original stonework but even with the white carpets in place, it was not enough insulation against the cold. She put the tray down as near the fireplace as possible. Then she pulled some cushions from the sofa, and dropped them beside it. They both sat close to the fire. Douglas poured some brandy for them. He sipped his but Barbara Barga gulped her measure.

‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she explained, ‘but I’m freezing.’ She held a cold hand against his face to prove it. Douglas reached behind him and switched
out the table lamp. ‘Now, that’s really cosy,’ she said, but with what degree of sarcasm it was difficult to know. Perhaps she didn’t know herself. Now the room was lit only by the red light of the gas fire, and the only sound was its hiss, and the popping noises made by air in the gas pipes. Douglas put his arm round her. ‘The coffee will boil over,’ said Douglas.

‘And I was giving you the last of my coffee ration,’ she said, but the words were lost in the kiss and urgent embrace that followed. For a long time they remained still and silent. ‘Was I so obvious?’ she said finally. Somewhere, deep inside her mind, a little man was still waving a danger flag.

‘Say nothing,’ said Douglas.

‘A cop’s good advice,’ she said. ‘I throw myself on the mercy of the court.’ As they kissed again, they sank back on to the cushions. The hard red light of the fire made her skin look like molten metal. Her hair was ruffled and her eyes closed. Douglas began undoing the tiny buttons of her bodice. ‘Don’t tear anything,’ she said. ‘I may never get another Paris gown as long as I live.’

From the kitchen there came the sound of coffee boiling over, but if they heard it they gave no sign.

The low, growling siren of a German armoured car patrol, going down Knightsbridge at high speed, awakened Douglas. He looked at his watch; it was a quarter to four in the morning. Barbara was asleep beside him, their clothes were nowhere in sight. A gas fire filled the bedroom with a red glare. His movements wakened her. ‘You’re not leaving?’ she said drowsily.

‘I must.’

‘To go home?’

‘I’m not going to the office, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Don’t be irritable,’ she said running her fingernail down his bare skin. ‘I’m just trying to discover if there is someone else.’ She wanted to hug him and keep him there but she didn’t try it.

‘Another woman? Absolutely not!’

‘That kind of certainty only comes when a love affair has just ended.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Kiss me.’

Douglas kissed her tenderly. Then he gently broke from her embrace, stood up and went into the next room. He fetched his clothes, and dressed by the light of the fire. She watched him and said, ‘I wish you’d stay a little longer, so that I could fix breakfast for you. Shall I make you some coffee now? It’s probably freezing cold in the streets at this time of night.’

‘Stay where you are; go to sleep.’

‘Do you need a razor and stuff?’

‘A proper razor?’

‘Don’t look at me that way. It belongs to the people who live here. It’s in the bathroom cupboard – top shelf.’

Douglas leaned over and kissed her again. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Will we see each other again?’

She had dreaded the thought that he might not ask. ‘Can I meet your little boy? Does he like the zoo? – I’m crazy about the zoo.’

‘He likes it,’ said Douglas. ‘Give me a day or two to work things out. It’s a long time since anything like this happened to me.’

He thought she might laugh but she didn’t; she nodded.

‘Douglas,’ she said. ‘Those people you spoke with tonight – Sir Robert Benson and Colonel Mayhew and Staines…’

‘Yes…what?’

‘Don’t tell them no. Tell them yes, tell them next week, or tell them maybe, but don’t tell them no.’

‘Why?’ He moved back a pace into the bedroom so that he could see her. She had turned her head away and was very still. ‘Why?’ The sheet rumpled at her neck like an Elizabethan ruff, and long strands of her hair made lines across her skin, like the graining of rose-coloured marble. ‘Who are they? Are you involved with them?’

‘They told me to go along to the Peter Thomas antique shop that day. They told me to ask you if you’d found a roll of film.’

‘And you did what they wanted?’

‘No. They also wanted me to identify the body as Peter Thomas.’

‘That would have been a serious offence,’ said Douglas.

‘And I could see that you were going to be a tough proposition, so I backed off. I owed them nothing.’

‘What else?’

‘Nothing else, except that a friend of mine – reporter who covers the White House for the
Daily News
– says that Bernard Staines met the President three times last month. One of the meetings was on the Presidential yacht, and it lasted nearly two hours!’

‘President Roosevelt?’

‘I don’t mean the President of Macy’s department store. These guys are into something big, Douglas. I’m telling you, don’t go back there and say “no deal”.’

Douglas grunted.

‘They’ll kill you.’

Douglas found it difficult to believe. But these were mad times, and it was unwise to rule out even the wildest ideas. ‘You don’t mean that?’

She turned over in bed, so that she could see him. ‘I’m a war reporter, Douglas. I’ve seen a thousand guys like this all over the world. If it came to choosing between your life, and a chance to get US government recognition of the Conolly set-up, do you think they’d hesitate for one moment?’

‘Is the Queen in the Tower too?’ Douglas asked this woman who seemed to know everything.

‘The Queen and the two Princesses are in New Zealand, living there in their private capacity. They have no political importance.’

Not as long as the King remains alive, thought Douglas, but he didn’t say this.

‘Can I use your phone to get a car?’ he said.

‘Help yourself, darling.’ She snuggled into the pillow.

‘Barbara…’

She looked up again. He wanted to say, I love you, but memories of saying it to Sylvia intervened. It would keep for another day. ‘Little Douggie and I – we both like the zoo,’ he said.

Douglas dialled Whitehall 1212 and asked for the CID duty officer. After he’d given his name there was a multiplicity of clicks and a long wait. Eventually came the voice of Huth. ‘You’re phoning for transport – where are you?’

Damn! Now he must bring the girl into it, or risk a deliberate lie. ‘I’m at the far end of Belgrave Square,’ said Douglas giving an address just round the corner.

‘You fool!’ said Huth without anger. ‘Why do you think we authorize a car service for these big parties?’

Of course, the drivers would be reporting which guests went home, which flouted curfew and perhaps even the remarks of tongues loosened by alcohol. ‘You’re with the girl, are you?’ said Huth.

‘Yes, sir.’ He expected Huth to make some remark about that but he didn’t comment. ‘Stay there. I’m sending someone to collect you and bring you to me.’

‘To the Yard?’

Huth replaced the phone without replying.

Douglas had a hasty shave without wakening Barbara. Even when it was time for him to go downstairs she was still asleep, the sign of an easy conscience.

It was a big BMW motorcycle, with an airship-shaped sidecar, and an axle that connected the two rear wheels. With a machine like that, he could climb a mountain. It had SS registration plates and a London SS HQ recognition device. Douglas climbed into the sidecar and gave the rider a nod. Then he had to hang on tight to the machine-gun mounting, as they roared down Grosvenor Place with noise enough to wake half London.

In the air there was the green, sooty fog typical of those that London suffered, but the rider did not slacken speed. A Gendarmerie foot patrol was marching through the Victoria railway station forecourt but they ignored the SS motorcycle. The fog
was worse as they neared the river, and Douglas caught the ugly smell of it. After Vauxhall Bridge, the motorcyclist turned right, into a street of squat little houses and high brick walls, and advertisement hoardings, upon which appeals for volunteers to work in German factories, announcements about rationing and a freshly pasted German–Soviet Friendship Week poster shone rain-wet through the fog.

Once on the south side of the river the motorcyclist parked in a hastily constructed official compound – no more than a section of the street surrounded by coils of barbed wire and sentries – outside an ugly little building marked ‘Brunswick House, Southern Railway’. The fog was much thicker on this open land that extended down to the warehouses and granary on the riverfront. From the Pool, they could hear the noises of ships preparing for the high tide that would come in half an hour.

Outside the house, rigid as statues and oblivious of the swirling fog, were two SS sentries, complete with the white gloves and white belts of a ceremonial guard. The rider went with Douglas as far as the door of the house. To the corporal of the guard he said, ‘This is Superintendent Archer, for Standartenführer Huth.’

An elderly SS officer examined Douglas’s pass and then spoke in excellent English. ‘You have to go to the far end of the marshalling yards. Better if you keep your transport. One of my people will go with you to make sure you get through.’

Not many vehicles could have done the short journey: the wheels thumped against the train lines, and were hammered by half-buried wooden sleepers. Douglas had never been here before – Nine Elms, one of the largest freight yards in Europe. It was a desolate place, the
ground strewn with debris that leapt out of the headlight beam; rusty train wheels, smashed crates, and, worst of all, the switch gear that lunged at them like spearmen as the rider twisted between the long lines of goods wagons that clanked and groaned all round them in the dark green fog.

Ahead they saw floodlights and SS infantry wrapped in the huge ankle-length sheepskin coats that were usually reserved for more northerly climates. A railway checker’s hut had been converted into a guard post. At the barrier Douglas’s pass was again scrutinized before they phoned to announce his arrival. He was permitted to traverse the final 200 metres with armed escort. They went across the rails and ducked under the couplings of a goods train. Only then did Douglas see his destination. A line of rectangular yellow lights stretched away until swallowed by the fog. It was a train.

They passed another passenger coach drawn up alongside, and heard the hum of air-conditioning and Franz Lehar. The music came from a wind-up gramophone in the compartments assigned to the sentries. From there came also the smell of fried onions.

Now Douglas could see the train to which he was going. It was very long, with flat-cars where helmeted men at full readiness manned heavy machine-guns. ‘What train is this?’ Douglas asked the SS man.

‘Nearly there now. No smoking,’ said the man.

They climbed up the steps into a coach, but this was no ordinary train. The fittings were exquisitely designed and finished in chrome steel and leather. Chairs and writing tables were made to fold away so that when the train was moving this coach could be changed into an observation car. Douglas sat down in one of the soft leather armchairs.

He had waited two or three minutes when a door
opened at the far end of the coach. Huth looked in. He saw Douglas and nodded before disappearing. But before the door was completely closed Douglas saw behind him a man in shirtsleeves. His head was turned away and the hair cut so short that the white of his scalp showed through it. Just as the door was closing the man turned to say something to Huth. Douglas found himself looking straight at the round face, stubble moustache and pincenez of the Reichsführer-SS, Heinrich Himmler.

It was another five minutes until Huth emerged from the conference. Douglas was astounded by his appearance. The tall Italianate prince with his fine uniform was now bowed by fatigue, his eyes dark-ringed and red with exhaustion. His uniform was rumpled and stained, and the leather overcoat, slung across his arm, was ripped and muddy like his boots.

Huth was not alone. With him there was a man Douglas recognized as Professor Springer, in SS-Gruppenführer’s uniform, complete with the silver-faced overcoat lapels, that was reserved for the very top ranks of the SS. In Himmler’s entourage – a collection of street-fighters, ambitious bureaucrats, unscrupulous lawyers and ex-cops – Professor Maximilian Springer was the only true academic. And yet, like so many Germans, Springer effortlessly assumed the demeanour of a Prussian General. He was tall and thin, with a leathery face and ramrod back. Once out of the Reichsführer’s conference, Springer snatched the spectacles off his face and tucked them away in his pocket. It was not soldierlike to wear spectacles.

‘Who is this?’ said Springer.

‘My assistant,’ said Huth. ‘You can talk in front of him.’

Springer unrolled the papers he was carrying. It
was the same chart that Douglas had found in Huth’s briefcase. Here were the magical symbols of water and fire, and the magical sword that symbolized ‘the omnipotence of the adept’.