SS-GB (29 page)

It wasn’t until Mayhew was in the car with Douglas that the great head of steam that had built up inside him was released. ‘You’re a mad bastard, Archer. All these years I’ve known you, and I never suspected that you could take leave of your senses as you did up there tonight.’ There was nothing in Mayhew’s voice to suggest even a grudging admiration.

‘Really.’ He didn’t care about Mayhew’s opinion. Douglas Archer was a changed man, and he was enjoying this new persona.

‘General von Ruff is the senior Abwehr officer in Great Britain. Do you realize what that means?’

‘I don’t care what it means. I’ve had enough of being kicked around by these Germans.’

‘Very impressive,’ said Mayhew in a tone that suggested more reproach than respect. ‘And how am I supposed to clear up the mess?’

‘Mess?’

‘You’ve convinced these Huns that you really have the atomic physics paperwork. But it will grant us no more than a breathing space. Soon they’ll want a few pages, as a sample. What the devil do I do then?’

‘You still live in Upper Brook Street?’ said Douglas, turning the corner.

‘Yes,’ said Mayhew.

‘An aeroplane,’ said Douglas. ‘Flying out of a disused airfield. Was that just for the Huns, or do you really consider that’s the best way to get the King out of the country?’

‘Do you have a better way?’

‘If what you tell me about Franklin Roosevelt is true, you have only to get him as far as the US Embassy. They could crate him out as diplomatic mail. I’ve seen even railway containers with diplomatic seals on them.’

‘Top marks for ingenuity,’ said Mayhew in a patronizing tone. ‘But Mr Joseph Kennedy is the US Ambassador to the Court of St James. Do I have to remind you what he told that convention of German manufacturers last week? No friend of Britain there, and certainly no monarchist either.’

Douglas grunted.

‘You’re a political innocent, Archer. Can you imagine what would happen to Roosevelt politically, if it became known that he’d helped the King escape from Britain?’

‘Forged documents then. Ones that would convince the Germans that it was a diplomatic consignment,’ suggested Douglas.

‘Worse,’ said Mayhew. ‘The Escape of the Royal Family is going to be in every history book ever written. Do you want it recorded that we could only get our King out of the country by forging the signature of a foreigner?’ He shook his head to dismiss the idea. ‘And for the same reason we can’t have His Majesty doing anything ridiculous, such as dressing up as a chambermaid, or pretending to be a German lavatory attendant.’

‘Better that the history books just say he died bravely?’

‘Don’t be offensive, Archer,’ said Mayhew in a quiet voice that was all the more menacing because of the sincerity of it. ‘Just tell me how I’m expected to deal with this fairy story of yours…what am I to tell them about the calculations?’

Douglas pressed the accelerator and let the Railton show its paces as they roared up Park Lane northwards, passing the remains of the bombed Dorchester Hotel. They were outside Colonel Mayhew’s fashionable London house before Douglas answered. ‘There’ll be no mess to clear up, Colonel,’ he said as Mayhew opened the door of the car. ‘I have the calculations; it’s just a matter of deciding whether to let your German pals have them.’

Mayhew was on the pavement by this time. Now he craned into the car to see Douglas. ‘Where?’ he said, unable to conceal the sort of surprise and curiosity that in any other circumstances he would have thought vulgar. ‘Where are the calculations?’

Douglas leaned across to lock the car door. Then he jiggled the accelerator to make the engine roar a couple of times. ‘In my waistcoat pocket,’ he said, smiled, and drove away. In his rearview mirror he saw Mayhew staring after him in astonishment, and this gave Douglas a childish pleasure, so that he laughed aloud.

The next morning, the two boys noticed some kind of change in Douglas Archer’s mood, although they didn’t realize how profound and permanent that change was. Douglas had shed the depression that had weighed so heavily upon him ever since the Germans had come. He had worried himself sick trying to reconcile his job as a policeman with the repressive, death-dealing machinery of the Nazi administration. Now he knew what he would have to do. And he felt happy in a way he’d not been since the death of his wife.

At breakfast the two boys responded happily to Douglas’s jokes and teasing, and Mrs Sheenan remembered a silly rhyme about bagpipes. For the pancakes – the usual way to extend the last of the egg ration – she produced a small jar of home-made honey, from her cousin in the country. Already it was a memorable day.

Douglas walked into Soho. His first call was in Moor Street. Peter Piper once had a magnificent carpeted office a few blocks to the west, in a Georgian mansion in Mayfair. In those days ‘Pip’ was a brilliant young director in the British film industry.

Perhaps the casual observer, or the tourist, would not have seen much difference between these black-brick terraced houses and their Mayfair counterparts but, once inside, the cost-cutting that had made some long-dead speculator rich, was evident on every side. The only plumbing had been inserted into a corner of the narrow staircase, to provide one grimy little
hand-basin on each landing. The only sewage connection was to one water-closet in the tiny back yard.

Now Pip slept on a folding bed in his darkroom at the very top of this narrow building. Across the landing was a second room which served as office, reception room and studio. On the walls there were dozens of glossy film stills. Some had loosened a pin from the corner, and curled up tight, as if in shame.

A voice called from the next room. ‘I’m working in the dark-room. Who is it?’

‘Doug Archer.’ Douglas heard the sound of running water and guessed that Pip was quickly washing his face, after being awakened by the bell on the outer door. Douglas looked at all the back-lit flattering portraits of the stars while he waited for the photographer to emerge. As he did so he fiddled with the elbow-pivot that he’d found in Shepherd Market. And, as he’d found last night, after stopping the car out of sight of Colonel Mayhew, the strengthening tube inside it was a container. Pushing a finger hard against its base, he slid into sight a metal cassette of 35 mm film. According to the printed label it contained film enough for 36 exposures.

‘Doug! – Sorry to keep you waiting, old boy.’ There were not many shopkeepers in Soho who regularly called Douglas by his first name but these two men had known each other ever since Pip had a silver Rolls-Royce, staged some of the finest dinner parties in London and was able to get for his friends – including Douglas – tickets to lavish film galas.

‘Can you put a film through the developer for me, Pip?’

‘Your dark-room at the Yard gone on strike, old chap?’

‘Something like that,’ said Douglas.

Aware that he’d asked an unwelcome question, Pip hurriedly covered the faux pas. ‘Stay for a cup of tea
and a toasted bun.’ From the rehearsal room next door there was the sudden sound of jazz music. It made the walls vibrate.

‘Perhaps when I pick it up, Pip.’

‘Lovely. I’ll have it ready about four-thirty this afternoon. Any special instructions? Over or under development? Fine grain soup? Cut into strips, five or six frame lengths?’

‘The only special instructions are just keeping your mouth shut about it.’

Pip nodded. He was a neat little man, his suit far too tight for him and a shirt that constricted his neck, so he frequently ran a finger round his collar to loosen it. His hair was unnaturally dark, as so often is that of middle-aged men looking for work, and held in place by generous amounts of scented hair oil which almost obscured the smell of photo-fixer on his clothes and his whisky-laden breath.

‘Mum’s the word, old boy,’ said Pip. ‘Even if your Harry Woods comes in for a portrait, I wouldn’t mention having seen you.’ Pip laughed his deep brief laugh. The idea of Harry Woods having his photo taken seemed an excellent joke.

‘You’ve got the idea,’ said Douglas.

‘I Was a Spy,’ said Pip.

‘What?’ said Douglas in alarm.

‘That photo you’re looking at…that’s Conrad Veidt in the film “I Was a Spy”. Lovely production that was. Filmed at the Gaumont-British Studios at Lime Grove…or wait, was it the Gainsborough Studios at Islington? I tell you, Doug, my memory is going.’

Next door the rehearsing jazz musicians were shaking the whole building with their version of ‘South of the Border’. Douglas said, ‘I wonder how you stay sane with that noise going on all day.’

‘Live and let live,’ said Pip. He straightened his tie
and smoothed his hair. It was the nervous mannerism of a man trying to shed the reputation of being a notorious drunk. ‘Want me to do contact prints?’

‘No, just the film.’

‘Sorry to hear about your wife, Doug.’

‘She was not the only one, Pip. And at least the boy was spared.’

‘That’s the way to look at it,’ said Pip. ‘Sure you won’t have a cup of tea? It won’t take a minute, and I’ve got a bit of extra tea this month.’

Douglas looked at his watch. ‘No, I’d better be on my way. I have to be at Highgate by ten-thirty.’

‘This German–Soviet Friendship ceremony?’

‘I couldn’t get out of it,’ said Douglas apologetically.

‘Well at least we know where we are now,’ said Pip. ‘Red bastards and Nazi bastards, there’s nothing to choose between them.’

‘There’s no doubt about that,’ said Douglas.

‘Shipping out the corpse of Karl Marx, are they? Well good riddance to bad rubbish, I say.’

Douglas touched his friend’s arm. It was a gesture of friendship, and yet it was also a warning to guard his tongue. At that moment they heard footsteps on the stairs. The door opened and a German soldier entered. In bad English he asked to have his photo taken. ‘Just you sit down there,’ said Pip. He switched on the bright floodlights and Douglas squinted to see through the glare from them. ‘Shoulder a little bit this way,’ said Pip. The soldier twisted on the stool so that the brand new chevrons of the Stabsgefreiter were well in evidence for the camera.

It was the smell of the floodlights that triggered something in Douglas’s mind. Yes, of course, the bulb removed from the adjustable lamp in the Shepherd Market flat. The younger brother must have put a
photo-flood bulb into it when he used the desk top to photograph the mathematical calculations that he later burned in the grate. Now Douglas was certain about it. ‘See you later, Pip,’ said Douglas.

Pip came out from under the focusing cloth with his hair disarrayed. ‘I look forward to it, Doug.’ He turned to his customer. ‘Look at the photograph of Tallulah Bankhead, Corporal, and lift your chin a little.’

Highgate Cemetery is like a film set. Overgrown by sooty trees and bushes, strangled by weeds, its narrow paths are lined with ancient tombstones leaning at all angles and pocked with mould and moss. Not even the efforts of a platoon of engineers had lessened the feeling that here was a location for a remake of ‘Frankenstein’.

And yet they tried. For this was the final gesture of German–Soviet Friendship Week, and today the ceremonies in Moscow and Berlin had to give pride of place to this ritualistic disinterment of the bones of Karl Marx from the wormy sod of dingy north London.

There was just room for the reduced size Army Group L (London District) brass band, if it stood well away behind the trees. Not all of the USSR delegation could be given a view of the grave, another hundred of them had to be content with a place at the saluting base erected on Highgate Hill.

Only the most important men were at the grave. Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop, in magnificent uniform, was talking to Molotov, the Russian Premier, who’d flown from Moscow just for the occasion. Dr Joseph Goebbels, for whom this whole week of internationally publicized events was a personal triumph, spoke briefly to the two men and held a silver trowel for Molotov to inspect. It was to be used when the new marble block, inscribed with intertwined Nazi and Communist symbols, and a lengthy declaration of amity, was lowered down upon the newly empty grave.

In Dartmouth Park Hill, the old hospital’s top floors provided staff and patients with a grandstand view of the ceremonies in the street below. The specially selected black horses teamed to a German army gun carriage moved restlessly and clattered their hooves on the cold road. Their groomed flanks shimmered and the fidgeting wheels made the brakes whimper. Postilions on the horses calmed them, and the escorting cavalry reined in tightly as the clock struck eleven. The commander of the honour guard, a Colonel of the prestigious 5 Kavallerie-Regiment, almost lost control of his fine bay when the motorcyclists wheeled into position, their polished steel helmets gleaming in the wintry sunlight.

The band played solemn music, as the army stewards made way for the last arrivals: Britain’s puppet Prime Minister accompanied by the newly appointed German Commissioner for the Bank of England. Behind them, Douglas recognized SS-Gruppenführer Professor Max Springer of the SD. Huth’s boss was the senior SS officer at the ceremony and was here as Himmler’s personal representative.

Six pallbearers – representing the army, navy, air force, SS, Nazi Party and SA stood ready to take the mortal remains of Karl Marx on the first stage of its journey to Red Square. Room had already been made for him in the Lenin Mausoleum, and by 7 November, the anniversary of the Russian revolution, more ceremonies would accompany the opening of the newly occupied tomb to the Moscow crowds.

Douglas did not have a very good view. He was standing near Kellerman, on the hospital side of the grave and downhill from it. The band was playing solemn martial music. Kellerman passed some banal remark. Douglas turned his head to answer as the shock wave of the explosion punched him in the face
like a padded glove. Facing uphill he saw the earth round the grave shudder as it became first a mound, then a hill and finally a great cloud of smoke and dirt. And the earth showered upon him like a tidal wave, knocking him over and choking him with dirt.