Ha'penny (22 page)

“Heil Hitler!” he snapped, then he clicked his heels together and bowed over my hand. “Lady Viola, I know your sister Lady Celia of course. She tells me she has not seen you for a long time, and she longs to see you act.”

The Lady Viola bit was a mistake all Continentals tended to make, and I have to say Pip, Celia that is, hadn’t done a thing to discourage it. Dodo told me that when they went over there for the wedding Mamma nearly had apoplexy because they were calling Pip Lady Carnforth, which is Mamma’s own title, and when Mamma straightened them out on that, they started calling Pip Lady Celia, though of course she’s only an honourable, like all of us. I wondered if Pip was sick of it now, after ten years in Germany. “How kind of her,” I said. “What a pity she won’t be here to see me play Hamlet in front of the Fuhrer.”

Captain Keiler’s blue eyes registered a little confusion. “But she will,” he said. “She accompanies Reichsmarshall Himmler, naturally. Had you not been told?”

“I’m always the last to know anything,” I said, with a foolish little laugh, thinking that I must tell Siddy and Uncle Phil at once, and feeling a tremendous sense of relief because now it would all have to be canceled. Devlin and Loy might want to go ahead with the assassination, but Siddy and Uncle Phil were in charge and wouldn’t risk hurting Pip. “I’m delighted to hear this news now.” I smiled a genuine smile at Captain Keiler, whose expression softened a little before he looked back to Antony.

Mr. Um of the Foreign Office chose this moment to assert himself. “We’ve come to look over the security arrangements,” he said.

Herr Schnell nodded. “We’ve come to ensure the security arrangements are adequate.”

“We have come to take over the security arrangements,” Captain Keiler said, clarifying.

Antony frowned. “There have never been any problems with security in the Siddons.”

“There have never been the Fuhrer, the Reichsmarshall, and the Prime Minister of England together in the Siddons before,” Captain Keiler said. He was smiling now as if someone had issued him a smile and told him to wear it along with the eagles and the creased pants. “The usual arrangements are doubtless adequate for the usual situation, but this is to be an unusual situation. I would like you to show me what is proposed, and if I have any changes to make, I will make arrangements. To begin with, where will the Fuhrer be sitting?”

“Do we have to do this now?” Antony asked. “We were in the middle of rehearsal.”

“Carry on with your rehearsal,” Captain Keiler said, generously. “I need someone to show me, only, and I will not disturb.”

Antony looked at Jackie. “I’ll show you,” she said. “To answer your question, the Fuhrer will sit up there.” She indicated the Royal Box.

“Ah yes,” Mr. Um put in. “And we have arranged for flags to be hung in front of it, there, over the shield, and flowers along the top.”

“The British flag and the German to be exactly the same size,” Herr Schnell put in anxiously. “That has been agreed.”

“Yes, that’s entirely agreed, old chap, exactly the same size,” Mr. Um said, reassuringly, just as Siddy and Loy had already told me.

Keiler didn’t seem interested in flags; he was looking up assessingly, trying to see if there was anywhere underneath to put a bomb, probably. It was then I remembered Devlin, and looked around for him. He had done the sensible thing and stayed where he was. He smiled at me quite calmly when our eyes met. If that had been me, I’d probably have done something stupid like made a dash for it when the Germans came in, but Devlin sat tight, unruffled.

“I’ll take you up, shall I?” Jackie asked.

“Afterwards I will need to see where he will come in, and where he will leave, and where all the exits are,” Captain Keiler said. He turned to Antony. “From Wednesday I will be posting guards of our own at the doors, you understand, all doors, so tell your actors to have their cards with them for coming and going. Also”—he turned back to me—“Herr Schnell, with your permission, allow me to invite Lady Viola to the reception at the Embassy on Tuesday evening. It will be a simple reception for welcoming the Fuhrer and Herr Reichsmarshall Himmler, and of course Lady Celia will be there, and I believe some others of your beautiful sisters.”

“I think an invitation has been sent to—sent already,” Herr Schnell said. He obviously knew the proper form of my name, but equally obviously didn’t want to use it and risk embarrassing Keiler. “If not, then that oversight will be corrected immediately.”

“Thank you, I’m honored,” I said, which was about the only possible thing to say in the circumstances, unless I decided to cackle like Richard III and shout that they wouldn’t be inviting me if they knew what I knew.

“If you’ll come this way,” Jackie said, and shepherded them along. Devlin drew his feet back as they passed him, but not an eye hesitated over him. He wouldn’t be able to scout out the theater. But it wasn’t necessary any longer. They’d have to bomb them in Covent Garden, and that wouldn’t be my affair. Devlin would let me go home. I wondered if he would want to keep seeing me.

“All these terrible interruptions, Piccadilly Circus is nothing to it,” Pat murmured in my ear, unkindly imitating Antony. I would normally have laughed, but I didn’t have it in me at that moment.

“Come on, let’s get back to it,” was all Antony said. The rehearsal dragged on, with me at my least inspired, until Antony let us go for lunch. Devlin came out with me. There was a German soldier standing next to the doorman at the stage door. He was very young, and he had a rifle. He looked at our papers conscientiously and let us pass.

“I have to speak to Siddy, soon,” I said to Devlin as we walked out onto the Strand. It was a beautiful day, the kind of day when you want to get out of London and walk out in the hills somewhere.

“You’ll be seeing her, and all of them, tomorrow,” Devlin said. “Coltham again, for the weekend.”

“Rehearsals!” I said. “What are you thinking?”

Devlin just blinked at me.

“You think I’m the kind of person who has country house weekends and doesn’t need to work, but you’re totally wrong. I gave that up years ago. Why don’t you see that, when you see me working like a dog?”

“Where’s your schedule?” he asked, without answering.

I took it out of my bag. The next day, Saturday, was impossible, I was needed at the theater all day and on into the evening. “You’ve Sunday afternoon free,” he observed. Antony was rehearsing the Players. “I’ll take you down to Coltham in time for tea. You’ll see Siddy. But I heard what you want to tell her, and I can assure you she knows already.”

I rolled my eyes because I didn’t believe him.

20

I
t almost isn’t worth driving back to the Yard from here, sir,” Royston said.

“If we leave the car we’ll only have to come back for it,” Carmichael said, opening his door. “Penn-Barkis told me off for letting you use it on Sunday, you know.”

Royston’s already red face blushed to beetroot. “It wasn’t me, I didn’t say a word,” he said.

“Then somebody saw you,” Carmichael said, lightly. He hadn’t meant to remind Royston of his betrayal. “But now. Worth it or not, drive me to the Yard.”

“Yes, sir,” Royston said.

They drove the half mile along the Strand, around the Aldwych and up the Kingsway in stately silence. Carmichael opened the door to get out, leaving Royston sitting in silent misery. Carmichael took pity on him. “As I said before, if I hadn’t done anything wrong, you’d have had nothing to tell. Don’t worry about it, sergeant. This is a new case, and if I’m not wrong, we’ve almost cleared it up.”

“Apart from Nash and the Greens,” Royston said.

Nash, and the Greens, yes. They were loose ends that couldn’t be left. Carmichael thought about Nash as he walked up the steps. The Greens were Jewish, and could have just run for no better reason than being afraid, like David Kahn. But there was no explanation for Nash. Nash must know whatever Marshall knew. How long could he stay in hiding? And where was he? Carmichael pushed open the doors and saw, in the glass booth that passed for a desk, the jowly face of Sergeant Humphries. He nodded a greeting. Was it Stebbings’s day off? Or perhaps he was ill? “Morning, sergeant, where’s Sergeant Stebbings this fine morning?”

Humphries rolled his eyes. “Gone to his daughter’s wedding, in Brighton. He’ll be back at work Monday morning. Sergeant Pomfret will be here Sunday, like always. I ought to issue a bulletin, or put up a sign, because everyone coming in has been asking. He’s not the only one capable of sitting in this glass case, you know.”

Carmichael laughed. “I should think he’s worn that chair pretty smooth by now.”

Humphries, who must have weighed several stone more than Stebbings, obligingly shifted his weight about and made the chair creak. “Very comfortable,” he said.

“I want to see the Chief if he’s time for me. He’s probably half-expecting me.”

Humphries looked ponderously down his list. “Nothing here, but I’ll ask if you can see him and call through.”

As Carmichael was turning to go, a young woman came tentatively through the doors and up the steps towards the desk. She was tall and dark-haired, and wore a green dress sprigged with spring flowers, like a meadow. Carmichael watched her hesitate and advance towards the desk. He wondered why she was here. The general public didn’t like coming to the Yard. They didn’t even like falling under its shadow, and crossed the road to avoid it. She certainly didn’t seem like a criminal. Someone’s witness, Carmichael thought, and went off to his room.

He read with some surprise the report on Mercedes Carlos. It had taken some time to come through, because it had required inquiries in Spain, but he had expected it would be completely routine. On the contrary, it seemed her parents were Anarchists who had fought against Franco in the Civil War, her brother was missing, and she had been smuggled back to Britain by Gilmore in the guise of a maid after her Spanish tour. He stared at the paper, astonished. Anything less like an anarchist than Mercedes Carl with her piled-up hair and confiding way of speaking he couldn’t imagine. He counted on his fingers and worked out that she would have been twelve or thirteen at the end of the Spanish Civil War. Whatever her parents were, she had been just a child. She had looked afraid, he remembered, when he had asked her if she’d go back to Spain now that Gilmore was dead. He would have sworn she was genuine. She had stayed put, when the Greens had run. He would have to speak to her again.

The telephone rang. “Humphries,” Humphries said at the end of the line. “Got a young lady here wants to see you; well, wants to see someone in connection with the Gilmore bomb.”

“Not a nut, you’re sure, sergeant?” Carmichael asked. There were always a few loons turning up in a murder case. Mediums with messages from the dead, people who had seen suspects where suspects couldn’t have been, people coming in to confess who regularly confessed to everything. He would have trusted Stebbings to weed out a nut.

“I’m pretty sure not, sir,” Humphries said.

“Oh all right. Put her in the little interview room, I’ll see her. And send Royston in, if you can find him,” Carmichael said.

As he made his way through the gray corridors to the interview room, his hopes rose. Perhaps she was Nash’s girlfriend and had been hiding him. He ran into Royston just outside the door and they went in together.

It was the tall girl in the green dress. She was sitting in one of the uncomfortable chairs when Carmichael came in, and she jumped to her feet. Close up it was clear that despite her height she was younger than he’d thought, perhaps no more than eighteen or nineteen. She’d be a bit young for Nash, but men often did like young girlfriends. “Inspector Carmichael, Sergeant Royston,” he said, offering his hand.

“Rachel Grunwald,” she said, and shook hands with both of them.

Not Nash’s girlfriend then. Carmichael found himself reassessing her. She didn’t look Jewish, and her voice was an educated London one. “Sit down, please, and show me your papers, and tell me why you’ve come.”

She pulled her papers out of the little leather bag she carried. He glanced at them. Yes, Jewish. Rachel Ann Grunwald, born 1930, Amsterdam, British resident, not citizen. He passed them to Royston, who diligently wrote it all down.

“It’s about my uncle and aunt,” she said, sitting down.

“And your uncle and aunt are?”

“Well, their real name is Grunwald too, but they call themselves Green.” She hesitated, and Carmichael did his best to look noncommittal and encouraging. “My uncle changed it when he got married. Aunt Louise thought it was more English. It was Grunwald in 1940 when we all came over here. They both worked for Lauria Gilmore.”

“They’re missing,” Carmichael said.

“I know.” She swallowed hard. Royston passed her back her papers and she stuffed them into her bag without looking, keeping her eyes on Carmichael. “They’ve been moving from family to family since last Saturday night, trying to get to my father. My uncle was the youngest of the family. My father was the oldest. He feels—my father feels—protective towards him. Father brought him out of Holland with us. Uncle Hem was twenty-four, a university student at the time. I was ten. My brothers and sisters were even younger. And my uncle believes my father can work miracles. He thinks he can get him away again. But he can’t. He’s mad to risk it. We’re not the sort of people who know about those things, and we can’t afford it. It might be all right for rich people who can live anywhere, or people who have nothing to lose, but not for people like us. We already lost it all once, when we left Holland. I said to my father that he’s endangering us all, if he helps Uncle Hem, and he’s bound to be caught. But he says I’m just a girl and what do I know about it?”

Carmichael untangled this. “So your uncle Mr. Green is seeking aid from your father, Mr. Grunwald, and you feel your father is inclined to give it, despite the risk to the rest of his family?”

“I don’t know what my uncle’s done. I don’t know if he was involved in the bomb. But if I tell you where they are, will you arrest them now, and stop my father getting himself involved? He’s trying to see dangerous people, and he doesn’t know any of them or the first thing about how to go about it and he’s going to get himself arrested. Then they’ll pack us all straight back to Holland, and you know what that means! But you mustn’t tell my father it was me who told you.”