The Girl in Berlin (9 page)

‘I’ll be reading Greats at Oxford. Obviously Latin and Greek aren’t the same as a living language, but the principle’s similar.’

‘He’s very young, you know, Miles. He’s so in advance of his age. He did Higher Certificate in one year. So precocious. He was even allowed to join the Russian course early.’

By the way Aunt Elfie smiled, Charles became suddenly and astonishingly aware that she was proud of him. It had never occurred to him that she cared one way or the other.

‘Just luck, really.’

The conversation was probably longer than any he’d had since he’d arrived the previous day, silently resentful of the unwanted guests in what he thought of as his mother’s house.

Poor Aunt Elfie; even her appearance annoyed him. She wasn’t in mourning of course – it was years since Uncle Tony had been killed – but her pleated, dull tartan skirt and hand-knitted grey cardigan subliminally expressed her bereaved status, as did the diamond and sapphire regimental badge brooch she wore at the collar of her blouse. Her wavy, dark hair (shared with both her brother and Charles – the beautiful family hair) was going grey and was rolled up round the back
of her neck. Strands escaped at the sides, but not in the graceful way Charles’s had, until shorn for National Service, of course.

‘We’re having a sherry. Would you like one?’ Aunt Elfie gestured him towards the sofa. It was as if she owned the place, Charles thought, but he hid his resentment as he sat down, making sure to smile in a friendly way at his cousin.

Judy smiled back at him nervously. Charles was sexually indifferent to women, but not to beauty. Had the girl been lovely, he’d have admired her as he might admire a painting or an animal. But Judy hadn’t inherited the family looks. She was a pudding and her ugly school uniform of pleated serge gym tunic and checked blouse didn’t help. Navy blue did nothing for her translucent skin and her hair and eyes were the colour of snails, he thought.

He took the sherry his aunt handed him, but he’d have preferred whisky; sherry was a girl’s drink. Aunt Elfie treated him like a child, but he couldn’t be bothered to make a fuss. It would have been beneath him to show his feelings.

‘You really are awfully late, Charles. I was beginning to get quite worried.’

How she fussed!

‘I
am
sorry.’

‘Where were you walking? It must have been interesting to keep you away so long.’ How knowing was Kingdom’s smile! Had he thought Charles had been looking for men? Had he somehow guessed … was
he
… but Charles didn’t think so. Unfortunately.

The body – he’d forgotten for a moment, impaled by the man’s stare. Now he remembered it sickeningly turning. He swallowed.

‘Not specially.’ He smiled faintly, his lids lowered in the manner he’d perfected until it ceased to be conscious and came automatically.

‘Supper’s ready. We waited for you. My brother is at some
dinner,’ she explained to Kingdom. ‘He won’t be back until late.’

Over fish pie and stewed rhubarb Aunt Elfie and Kingdom discussed the activities of various friends. It was gossip, and didn’t interest Charles. All these people they talked about were so old and unknown to Charles. Yet he knew the stranger was watching him, was clearly interested in him. Accustomed to men’s interest, Charles knew, however, that it wasn’t
that
sort of interest. And, although his thoughts were still queasily in the cemetery, he managed to respond gracefully when they’d exhausted the gossip and Kingdom started to ask him questions, about his interests, his future, even his thoughts on the various crises rocking the world.

‘Things in Korea are very sticky. Thank God at least they’ve sacked General MacArthur.’

Aunt Elfie looked at her late husband’s friend with an anxious frown. ‘I read in the
Telegraph
they’re talking about another war. Surely that isn’t going to happen, is it, Miles?’

‘The Red Army’s right there in East Germany, Elfie. Stalin hasn’t given up his plans. Communism’s spreading westwards.’

Aunt Elfie said abruptly: ‘Shouldn’t you be getting on with your homework, Judy? Just help me clear away and then you can work in here.’

Obediently the girl stood up and started to help her mother clear away. To avoid having to be alone in the drawing room with the guest and make conversation, Charles assisted them.

‘I’ll help you with your homework if you like,’ he said.

‘Oh – would you?’ Judy looked so delighted that he felt sorry for her – so easily pleased.

He began to feel better once he was again seated in the gloomy dining room, which the shadowless glare of the single overhead light did nothing to dispel. Judy placed her books on
the table. Charles looked at the Latin. She was only twelve; it was all pretty easy.

‘You got it almost all right,’ he said carelessly. ‘I expect you’re good at Latin. Dad says you’re very clever.’

His father had not actually said that, but flattery was for Charles a standard weapon. Flattery could get men who thought they were straight as hell into bed with you. It could get you off being disciplined. It helped you get away with things, and getting away with things was Charles’s speciality. Lard it on, and everyone was eating out of your hand. Except Christopher, his fellow conscript, with whom Charles was hopelessly in love.

It certainly worked with Judy, who grinned with foolish pleasure. The homework done, she became animated and chatty, but Charles was unprepared for her question about his mother.

‘Mr Kingdom said he saw her dance
Giselle
once. It was wonderful, he said. Will she be better soon?’

She couldn’t have known it was the wrong thing to say.

Charles stood up and walked towards the window. ‘She suffers from depression. It’s a – a recurring thing. They treat it with electric shocks.’

‘Electric shocks!’ Judy sounded horrified.

‘It works for a while, but then the effect wears off again.’

An awkward silence filled the room. The overhead light cast an oppressive, shadowless glare.

‘I don’t remember an awful lot about my father,’ said Judy, ‘I was only three when he was killed. Mummy thinks I’m heartless, because I don’t seem to miss him more, but I was so little.’ She was desperate to talk, Charles could see that, and he felt trapped. That was the pitfall of flattery. When followed through, it could ensnare you in other people’s feelings.

‘I wish Mummy would get married again, but she was quite angry when I said that.’

‘Perhaps she’ll marry Mr Kingdom.’

‘Oh, Charles, d’you think so?’

The eagerness in her voice surprised him. He turned to stare at her. ‘Would you like that?’

‘He’s awfully nice,’ the girl said. ‘And then, you know, she’d be – she’d be happier, I suppose. She says nobody cares about widows, they don’t have a proper place in life.’

Charles wasn’t going to discuss the sad lot of war widows. But Kingdom interested him. ‘What does he do?’

‘Mummy says he’s a journalist.’

A journalist. Charles wondered. Kingdom had an air of … importance, of weightiness.

Judy looked shyly at Charles. ‘Mummy says you seem rather bored.’

‘Does she? Well, National Service is boring, it’s just marking time, really. I’m not at school any more, but I’m not at Oxford either. In between. But I have a project,’ he continued, hoping to shock her. ‘I’m visiting at least one cemetery every time I come home on leave.’

It had started with Brompton cemetery, where a man who’d once been important to him was buried. No-one knew he’d visited that grave, and his father would have been surprised and shocked if he’d found out.

‘Cemeteries!’ She was round-eyed.

He smiled. ‘D’you think that’s rather morbid?’

Now he was thinking about the slowly turning body again.

nine

D
INAH HEARD THE BUZZ
of voices even before she saw the gathering on the pavement outside the entrance to the Courtauld in Portman Square. She must have forgotten, she thought, or hadn’t been told – being in only on Mondays – that some famous visitor was expected. There’d been talk of the king paying a visit, until he had bronchitis (the Hon. Cecily had hinted it was something much worse, but then she was continually showing off about knowing royalty and aristocrats) and the visit had been postponed. But someone
must
be expected. There were photographers in front of the building, banked up near the door. As she pushed her way self-consciously past them she could feel the tension,
smell
the seething expectancy. The jostling and calls of the crowd were quite violent, even threatening. Not for nothing were they called news hounds. They’d smelled blood.

Someone detached himself, stepped out and touched her arm just as she thought she’d reached the safety of the threshold. ‘Dinah! What are you doing here? Gerry Blackstone. Remember me? Back in the old days – the Wheatsheaf, the Fitzroy?’

Her wits had deserted her. She stared blankly at him.

‘I’m with the
Chronicle
now.’

‘Of course I remember.’ They’d all been friendly back then,
it was around the time of Colin’s trial. But – a
crime
reporter here, outside the Courtauld …

‘What brings you to this neck of the woods?’

‘I’m a student here. What’s happened? What are all these people doing?’

‘Be an angel, go inside, see if you can find Blunt.’

‘
Dr Blunt
?’

‘Don’t tell me you haven’t seen the papers. You must know – the Missing Diplomats – he knew them, didn’t he? There are rumours going round he helped them get away. They’ve done a bunk – it’s all over the
Express
.’

‘
Who’s
done a bunk?’

Gerry Blackstone grinned. ‘Be a sweetie, Dinah, get us the lowdown – my paper would love an inside story—’

‘I couldn’t possibly.’ She removed herself smartly from his touch. ‘I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Please, Dinah! Come on. I need a scoop.’

But she fled into the building, ran upstairs and into the library. ‘What on earth’s going on?’

Miss Welsh was by the bookshelves, trying to sneak a look out of the windows. She turned, startled, as if guilty, towards Dinah, who saw that a mottled flush had crept up Miss Welsh’s cheeks. ‘I don’t know why they’re here.’ She moved away from the window. She was doing something Dinah had never seen anyone do before; she was literally wringing her gloved hands. ‘It’s terrible. Terrible.’

Dinah squeezed against the bookshelves so that she too could peer from the window. The pack of hungry journalists had already grown larger, like a flock of ravens. They darkened the pavement and spread across the square, holding up the traffic. ‘Where’s Dr Blunt?’

‘I’ve no idea.’ Tears trembled in Miss Welsh’s voice.

‘There was someone I know out there, a reporter. He says it’s something to do with – I don’t know, I couldn’t make
head or tail of it, someone’s gone missing, two diplomats or something—’

Miss Welsh made a strangled choking sound as she brought out a creased copy of the
Daily Express
.

‘Yard Hunts 2 Britons – On Way to Russia’ screamed across the front page. Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean, two diplomats, were missing. They’d crossed the channel on a holiday cruise ship on Friday, 25 May and had last been seen when they took a taxi from St Malo to Rennes. After that they had just vanished into thin air. The photos of the two men at the centre of the mystery fascinated Dinah as they stared blandly out from the page.

Polly pushed open the library door and Dinah turned round to see who it was. ‘What’s going on? Have you seen Dr Blunt?’

Polly almost danced across the room – insofar as it was possible to dance between the shelves and the table in the centre. She was even more animated than usual. ‘He’s hiding in his flat, I believe. Isn’t it
exciting
!’

‘How can you be so frivolous!’ cried Miss Welsh. ‘Exciting! You silly little girl. Don’t you see what this means?’ She was close to hysteria, her face now a quite disturbing shade of red.

‘Let’s go outside,’ muttered Dinah. She stood with Polly on the stairs.

‘God, she’s in a flap,’ said Polly unnecessarily.

‘I saw a reporter I used to know out there. He said it’s to do with these men who’ve gone off. But how can it possibly have anything to do with Dr Blunt?’

‘Dr Blunt was in M15 in the war, didn’t you know that?’ said Polly importantly.

They lit cigarettes and as Dinah breathed in the smoke she began to inhale Polly’s excitement too, but she said: ‘So were lots of people,’ trying to bring them back down to earth.

‘But he knew this Guy Burgess awfully well. And he was – you know –
queer
as well.’

‘D’you think …?’ Dinah couldn’t even formulate the question.

However, Polly finished it for her: ‘They might have been lovers—’

‘How do people know they’re not coming back?’

‘Why should they just disappear? Jeremy says Guy Burgess didn’t even tell his mother.’

‘Does he know Jeremy’s mother then?’

‘His
own
mother, idiot.’

‘How does Jeremy know that?’

‘Oh, you know Jeremy. He always has all the gossip.’

‘Well anyway, I’m sure Dr Blunt hasn’t done anything wrong.’

‘Of
course
not!’ agreed Polly. ‘But would you say it was wicked to help your friends if … even if you knew
they’d
done … something?’

‘I don’t know.’ Dinah spoke slowly. ‘But why should they have done anything – anything wrong?’ The whole thing was so unimaginable, although, of course, Colin … they didn’t really know what he’d been up to for the past three years.

‘I wouldn’t report a friend to the police.’ Polly was adamant.

‘That day he was away. Dr Blunt. The day he cancelled his lecture. You don’t think—’

But Jeremy, their fellow student, came running up the stairs before she’d had time to formulate the thought. ‘Have you heard the news, darlings! Isn’t it frightful – all those vultures out there, hounding poor Dr Blunt. What are we supposed to do? Dr Simon said lectures are to go ahead as normal, not Dr Blunt’s, of course, but I simply couldn’t do any work. How can anyone settle with that braying gang out there? I’m going to Selfridges to have a cup of tea.’