Orders from Berlin (17 page)

And then nothing for over two hours. Trave was sleepy and several times caught himself starting to nod off with his newspaper slipping from his grasp. The Luftwaffe seemed to have selected the streets around the rooming house where he lived in Fulham for special treatment the previous night, and he’d been up through the small hours helping to fight incendiary fires in neighbouring buildings with sand and stirrup pumps. He’d managed to snatch a couple of hours’ sleep after the all clear, and his body was crying out for more.

He was almost on the point of giving up and returning to Scotland Yard when the door of Number 59 opened and Seaforth emerged. He stood on the pavement, putting on his hat and gloves, and then walked away to his left. His lips were pursed and it looked as though he were whistling a tune. Trave waited until he had gone past and then followed him into the Underground station at the end of the street.

Four miles away on the other side of the river, in the offices of Parker, Johnson and Hughes, Solicitors, in Battersea High Street, Ava fidgeted in the uncomfortable hard-backed chair that she’d been sitting in for more than an hour. She’d been finding it increasingly hard to control her irritation ever since she’d found out from the senior partner, Mr Parker, that her father had been a much wealthier man than she had ever suspected. At the start of the interview, he had produced a bulging file containing a portfolio of blue-chip investments, a well-endowed savings account, and the title deeds not only for the flat in Gloucester Mansions, but for two houses in south London that were rented out on long leases. Albert had been a miser. That was exactly the right word for it, thought Ava. He could easily have paid someone to look after him, just as he could have set her up independently long before she’d felt forced to marry an unsuitable man in order to escape his clutches. But he had chosen to hoard his money instead.
For a moment Ava was glad he was dead, thinking he’d got exactly what he deserved, but then she was seized with shame. She remembered his body hurtling through the air and smashing down on the floor at her feet. No one deserved to die that wa
y.

She glanced over at her husband, transferring her irritation in his direction. He’d dressed for the appointment in the same black suit he’d worn to the funeral, but Ava had been married to him long enough to know that behind his lugubrious expression he was rubbing his hands with glee. It was obvious that he couldn’t wait to get his hands on the money.

She looked at her watch. It was already half past eleven and she was going to be late for her meeting with Seaforth. She’d signed all the documents they needed her signature for. Getting to her feet, she excused herself and then practically ran from the room. She stumbled at the door, almost falling over in her rush to get outside, but Bertram hardly seemed to notice – too busy pawing over his inheritance, she thought once she’d got outside; calculating his ill-gotten gains.

The journey took forever – the bus diverted by an unexploded bomb; the Tube train halted for an age in the tunnel outside Leicester Square station while Ava tried to distract herself by reading the front pages of the newspapers and magazines that the other passengers were absorbed in all around her. Grim headlines on the
Daily Mail
and the
Daily Express:
invasion warnings, build-up of German shipping in Channel ports, Home Guard on high alert; a photograph of a Wellington bomber over Berlin on the cover of the
Picture Post,
caught in a cone of arcing searchlights; advertisements on the cover of the
Illustrated London News
– Vapex for colds … Nufix for hair health and grooming … Bermaline bread is a perfect food.

What would happen if the Germans really did come? Ava wondered. Would there still be Vapex, Nufix, and Bermaline bread? Would Bertram still be counting her father’s money? Would Alec and Seaforth be put up against a wall and shot? Of course they would. The Germans were Nazis. Everyone knew the stories of what they’d done in Poland and France – raping women, hanging people from gallows in public squares. Ava shut her eyes hard, blacking out her evil thoughts, praying for the train to move.

Finally it meandered into the station. Everyone was getting out – she had no idea why. She pushed her way through the crowd that was moving in a grey, pent-up stream towards the steps and ran across Leicester Square and into Coventry Street, dodging between bicycles and pedestrians and flocks of pigeons. There’d been bombing here too. A department store on the opposite side of the street had been half burnt out and looked like a charred skeleton with blackened walls and gaping windows and rust-orange soot spattering its white front like blood, while inside, wax models lay like abandoned corpses on the sagging floor. But all around, life was continuing more or less as usual, and she hurried on past restaurants and cinemas and neon lights to the end of the street, arriving outside the Corner House panting for breath.

It was a huge building, far bigger than she remembered it, rearing up through rounded classical columns to what seemed like an imitation Greek temple on the roof. She rushed through the food hall and up the stairs to the first floor, where she stopped in her tracks at the entrance to the main restaurant, blinking in the dazzle of the lights, disoriented by the cacophony of sound. The noise was tremendous. Hundreds of people were talking and eating, competing for volume with an eight-piece orchestra playing dance music on a dais over by the far window. It had been nothing like this when she came here with Bertram before the war and accepted his proposal over two cups of lukewarm tea. Unless they had been in one of the other restaurants higher up
in the
building. Ava couldn’t tell – she felt as if she had crossed the border into a foreign country where she didn’t speak the language and didn’t understand how anything worked.

On all sides, chandeliers suspended from the elaborately corniced ceilings lit up reflections in the vast art deco mirrors on the walls and in the row of shining silver tea urns lined up behind the long stainless-steel bar, and turned the clouds of cigarette smoke hanging in the stale air from grey to white. And suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a man in a raincoat she was sure was Trave. It was only a glimpse – he was on the other side of the room, with his face just visible above his newspaper – and almost immediately some diners stood up from their table, blocking her view. When they moved out of the way, he was gone. Perhaps he’d seen her too and had made a quick escape, or perhaps it hadn’t been him at all. She wasn’t sure any more. It had all happened so fast, and the place had had her agitated and confused from the moment she first arrived.

One of the waitresses – nippies, they were called, in their black-and-white starched uniforms with pearl buttons – came up and offered to seat her, but Ava held back. How would Seaforth find her amid all these people? Assuming he was still here, of course, which was hardly likely, given that she was almost half an hour late. She wished she’d picked another meeting place closer to home, far away from the West End, just as she wished she’d refused to go with Bertram to the solicitor’s. She could have signed the documents some other day; she didn’t need to act as a silent witness to her husband’s gloating. Her shoulders sagged. Waking up that morning, she’d been uncertain whether to come, but now she felt disappointment settling like a stone in the pit of her stomach. She turned to go and came face-to-face with Seaforth, almost colliding with him as he walked towards her across the red carpet.

‘Steady,’ he said, putting out his hand to stop her from falling. ‘I’m glad you made it. I thought you weren’t coming.’

‘I know. I’m sorry – I got delayed.’

‘It doesn’t matter. You’re here now, and that’s what’s important, so let’s sit down,’ he said. Taking her arm, he escorted her through the crowd to a table by an open window set for two with cutlery and glasses and a gleaming white tablecloth. He took her coat and pulled out a chair for her to sit down, did all the things that a gentleman would do but her husband never did, and then sat opposite her with a look of anxious concern on his face.

‘Are you all right, Ava?’ he asked. ‘You don’t mind me calling you that, do you?’

She shook her head. She liked the way he pronounced her name, accentuating the long
a
of the first syllable like a caress, but it worried her too. Why was she sitting opposite this handsome stranger, deceiving her husband about her whereabouts? Was it to find out information about her father’s murder, or was it because she wanted to be here, living dangerously in the wild West End? And more important, why was Seaforth here? It had to be because he wanted something from her. But what? She had no idea. She needed to be patient and keep her wits about her, and then maybe she’d learn something.

‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’ he said.

‘Not a ghost,’ she said. ‘I thought I saw Detective Trave when I came in – he’s one of the policemen investigating my father’s case – but then he disappeared.’

‘Where was he sitting?’ Seaforth asked.

‘On his own over there,’ said Ava, pointing across the room towards the bar.

‘Wearing a tan raincoat and hiding behind a well-thumbed copy of
The Times
?’

‘Yes, how do you know?’ asked Ava, surprised.

‘He arrived just before you, looking like he was up to no good. I’m trained to keep my eyes open for suspicious-looking characters. Remember?’ said Seaforth with a grin.

She smiled back, relaxing a little. ‘I wonder what he was doing here, if it was him. Perhaps I was mistaken,’ she said.

‘Maybe,’ said Seaforth. ‘But whoever it was, he’s gone now, so why don’t we have a drink and forget about him?’

‘Yes, you’re right,’ she said. ‘I’m just a bit on edge, that’s all. I had to go to the solicitor’s with my husband, and then the train was delayed. And maybe this wasn’t the best place to meet,’ she said, glancing around the restaurant. ‘You could get lost in here – there are so many people.’

‘It was your suggestion,’ said Seaforth, smiling.

‘I couldn’t think of anywhere else. I’ve only been here once before, and it wasn’t like this. I don’t know the West End very well.’

‘So, do you like it?’

‘It’s not like Battersea.’

‘It certainly isn’t,’ said Seaforth, laughing. ‘But that wasn’t my question. I asked you if you like this place.’

Ava forced herself to think. ‘Yes,’ she said, nodding. ‘I think I do.’ It was an understatement. She felt excited by the Corner House; by the vast throng of people; by the music and the lights. The band was playing a Vera Lynn song: ‘We’ll meet again, Don’t know where, don’t know when …’ The words seemed significant somehow, like a promise of some kind.

‘I like it too,’ said Seaforth. ‘People need to feel alive. They have a right to it, I think, particularly in wartime. If a bomb has your number on it tomorrow, then you want to make sure you live a bit today. All the West End is li
ke this
, you know – the picture palaces and the dance hal
ls – the
y’re bursting at the seams since the Blitz started.’

She thought of going with Seaforth to a dance hall – feeling his arms around her waist, swinging to the rhythm of the music so fast that she could forget all about Battersea and Bertram and her father and the war. But then she shook her head, banishing the vision conjured up by her unconscious mind as she remembered her earlier resolve to stay on her guard and keep her wits about her.

Seaforth ordered for both of them. He obviously knew the place well: he didn’t even have to look at the menu. He could have his pick of pretty girls, thought Ava. He was so confident and handsome. The waitress hung on his every word, and Ava could see women turning to look at him surreptitiously from other tables. Yet he seemed interested solely in her. Why? She needed to know why.

‘You said you had something you wanted to talk to me about,’ she said.

‘Yes, I’m worried about you,’ he said, leaning towards her as if to emphasize his concern.

‘About me? I thought you wanted to talk to me about my father.’

‘Well, that’s true. It’s because of what happened to him that I’m concerned about you.’

‘What? You think I’m going to be next?’ she asked with a false laugh, trying unsuccessfully to hide her anxiety.

‘I hope not,’ he said seriously. ‘I hope I’m wrong and that you’re not in any danger.’

‘Wrong about what?’ she asked, unable to keep the alarm out of her voice.

‘About your husband.’

‘What about him?’ asked Ava, taken aback. It was the last answer she’d expected Seaforth to give. ‘I don’t understand. You don’t even know Bertram. How can you know something about him that I don’t?’

‘I talked to the police—’

‘How? Why would they talk to you?’ asked Ava, interrupting. Each answer that Seaforth gave seemed more preposterous than the last. And presumptuous too. What business did he have interfering in her family’s affairs?

‘The inspector in charge of the case – Quaid, I think his
name is – called me because I used to work with your father. He wanted to check up on Albert’s background, and while he was on the phone I was able to find out a little about the investigation. I’m afraid I think that your husband is the main suspect.’

‘Why?’ asked Ava, although she thought she already knew the answer to her question.

‘Because of your father’s money. Apparently he was quite a wealthy man, and your husband is named alongside you as the main beneficiary in your father’s will. Of course you’re aware of this, but I wonder if you know that he’s heavily in debt and that he desperately needs your father’s money if he’s going to stay solvent.’

‘Yes.’ Ava nodded. ‘It doesn’t surprise me. But … well, I keep on going over it in my mind, and I just don’t think Bertram’s capable of murder.’ She swallowed hard, trying to resist the upsurge of fear that had come with the utterance of the awful word. ‘I’m not stupid,’ she went on with an effort. ‘I can see he’s the one who had the motive, but that’s not the same as saying he did it.’