SS-GB

‘And how do you know that they didn’t report it?’

The doctor raised his hands and smiled. ‘I just guessed,’ he said.

‘You guessed.’ Douglas nodded. ‘Is that because all your neighbours ignore the curfew?’ said Douglas. ‘What other regulations do they regularly flout?’

‘Jesus!’ said the doctor. ‘You people are worse than the bloody Germans. I’d rather talk to the Gestapo than talk to bastards like you – at least they won’t twist everything I say.’

‘It’s not in my power to deny you a chance to talk to the Gestapo,’ said Douglas, ‘but just to satisfy my own vulgar curiosity, doctor, is your opinion about benign interrogation techniques practised by that department based upon first-hand experience or hearsay?’

‘All right, all right,’ said the doctor. ‘Let’s say three A.M.’

‘That’s much better,’ said Douglas. ‘Now you examine the body properly so that I don’t have to wait here for the pathologist before getting started and I’ll forget all about that other nonsense…but leave anything out, doc, and I’ll run you along to Scotland Yard and put you through the mangle. Right?’

‘All right,’ said the doctor.

‘There’s a lady downstairs,’ said the uniformed police Sergeant. ‘She’s come to collect something from the antique shop. I’ve told the Constable to ask her to wait for you.’

‘Good man,’ said Douglas. He left the doctor looking at the body while Harry Woods was going through the drawers of the escritoire.

The antique shop was one of the hundreds that had sprung up since the bombing and the flight of refugees from Kent and Surrey during the weeks of bitter fighting there. With the German Mark pegged artificially high, the German occupiers were sending antiques home by the train-load. The dealers were doing well out of it, but one didn’t need lessons in economics to see the way that wealth was draining out of the country.

There were some fine pieces of furniture in the shop. Douglas wondered how many had been lawfully purchased and how many looted from empty homes. Obviously the owner of the antique shop stored his antiques by putting them in the tiny apartments upstairs, and justified high rents by having them there.

The visitor was sitting on an elegant Windsor chair. She was very beautiful: large forehead, high cheekbones and a wide face with a perfect mouth that smiled easily. She was tall, with long legs and slim arms.

‘Now maybe someone will give me a straight answer.’ She had a soft American voice, and she reached into a large leather handbag and found a US passport, which she brandished at him.

Douglas nodded. For a moment he was spellbound. She was the most desirable woman he’d ever seen. ‘What can I do for you, Madam?’

‘Miss,’ she said. ‘In my country a lady doesn’t like being mistaken for a Madam.’ She seemed amused at his discomfiture. She smiled in that relaxed way that marks the very rich and the very beautiful.

‘What can I do for you, Miss?’

She was dressed in a tailored two-piece of pink wool. Its severe and practical cut made it unmistakably American. It would have been striking anywhere, but in this war-begrimed city, among so many dressed in ill-fitting uniforms or clothes adapted from uniforms, it singled her out as a prosperous visitor. Over her shoulder she carried a new Rolleiflex camera. The Germans sold them tax-free to servicemen and to anyone who paid in US dollars.

‘My name is Barbara Barga. I write a column that is syndicated into forty-two US newspapers and magazines. The press attaché of the German Embassy in Washington offered me a ticket on the Lufthansa inaugural New York to London flight last month. I said yes, and here I am.’

‘Welcome to London,’ said Douglas dryly. It was shrewd of her to mention the inaugural flight on the Focke-Wulf airliner. Göring and Goebbels were both on that flight; it was one of the most publicized events of the year. A journalist would have to be very important indeed to have got a seat.

‘Now tell me what’s going on here?’ she said with a smile. Douglas Archer had not met many Americans, and he’d certainly never met one to compare with this girl. When she smiled, her face wrinkled in a way that Douglas found very beguiling. In spite of himself, he smiled back. ‘Don’t get me wrong,’ she said. ‘I get on well with cops, but I didn’t expect to find so many of them here in Peter’s shop today.’

‘Peter?’

‘Peter Thomas,’ she said. ‘Come on now, mister detective, it says Peter Thomas on the door – Peter Thomas – Antiques – right?’

‘You know Mr Thomas?’ said Douglas.

‘Is he in trouble?’

‘This will go faster if you just answer my questions, Miss.’

She smiled. ‘Who said I wanted to go faster…OK. I know him –’

‘Could you give me a brief description?’

‘Thirty-eight, maybe younger, pale, thin on top, big build, six feet tall, small Ronald Colman moustache, deep voice, good suits.’

Douglas nodded. It was enough to identify the dead man. ‘Could you tell me your relationship with Mr Thomas?’

‘Just business – now what about letting me in on who you are, buddy?’

‘Yes, I’m sorry,’ said Douglas. He felt he was handling this rather badly. The girl smiled at his discomfort. ‘I’m the Detective Superintendent in charge of the investigation. Mr Thomas was found here this morning: dead.’

‘Not suicide? Peter wasn’t the type.’

‘He was shot.’

‘Foul play,’ said the girl. ‘Isn’t that what you British call it?’

‘What was your business with him?’

‘He was helping me with a piece I’m writing about Americans who stayed here right through the fighting. I met him when I came in to ask the price of some furniture. He knew everybody – including a lot of London-based foreigners.’

‘Really.’

‘Peter was a clever man. He’d root out anything anybody wanted, as long as there was a margin in it for him.’ She looked at the collection of silver and ivory objects on a shelf above the cash register. ‘I called this morning to collect some film. I ran out of it yesterday, and Peter said he’d be able to get me a roll. It might have been in his pocket.’

‘There was no film found on the body.’

‘Well, it doesn’t matter. I’ll get some somewhere.’

She was standing near him now and he smelled her perfume. He fantasized about embracing her and – as if guessing this – she looked at him and smiled. ‘Where can I reach you, Miss Barga?’

‘The Dorchester until the end of this week. Then I move into a friend’s apartment.’

‘So the Dorchester is open again?’

‘Just a few rooms at the back. It’s going to be a long time rebuilding the park side.’

‘Make sure you leave a forwarding address,’ said Douglas although he knew that she’d be registered as an alien, and registered with the Kommandantur Press Bureau.

She seemed in no hurry to depart. ‘Peter could get you anything: from a chunk of the Elgin marbles, complete with a letter from the man who dug it out of the Museum wreckage, to an army discharge, category IA – Aryan, skilled worker, no curfew or travel restrictions – Peter was a hustler, Superintendent. Guys like that get into trouble. Don’t expect anyone to weep for him.’

‘You’ve been most helpful, Miss Barga.’ She was going out through the door when Douglas spoke again. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘do you know if he had been to some hot climate recently?’

She turned. ‘Why?’

‘Sunburned arms,’ said Douglas. ‘As if he’d gone to sleep in the hot sunshine.’

‘I only met him a couple of weeks back,’ said Barbara Barga. ‘But he might have been using a sun-lamp.’

‘That would account for it,’ said Douglas doubtfully.

Upstairs Harry Woods had been talking to Thomas’s only neighbour. He had identified the body and offered the information that Thomas had been a far from ideal neighbour. ‘There was a Luftwaffe Feldwebel…big man with spectacles – I’m not sure what the ranks are – but he was from that Quartermaster’s depot in Marylebone Road. He used to bring all kinds of stuff: tinned food, tobacco and medical stuff too. I think they were selling drugs – always having parties, and you should have seen some of the girls who came here; painted faces and smelling of drink. Sometimes they knocked at my door in mistake – horrible people. I don’t like speaking ill of the dead, mind you, but they were a horrible crowd he was in with.’

‘Do you know if Mr Thomas had a sun-lamp?’ Douglas asked.

‘I don’t know what he didn’t have, Superintendent! A regular Aladdin’s cave you’ll find when you dig into those cupboards. And don’t forget the attic.’

‘No, I won’t, thank you.’

When the man had gone, Douglas took from his pocket the metal object he’d found under the chair. It was made from curved pieces of lightweight alloy, and yet it was clumsy and heavy for its size. It was unpainted and its edge covered with a strip of light-brown leather. It was pierced by a quarter-inch hole, in line with which a screw-threaded nut had been welded. The whole thing was strengthened by a section of tube. From the shape, size and hasty workmanship Douglas guessed it was a part of one of the hundreds of false limbs provided to casualties of the recent fighting. If it was part of a false right arm the doctor might have made a remarkably accurate guess and Douglas could start looking for a left-handed ex-service sharpshooter.

Douglas put the metal construction back into his pocket as Harry came in. ‘You let the doctor go?’ said Douglas.

‘You rode him a bit hard, Doug.’

‘What else did he say?’

‘Three A.M. I think we should try to find this Luftwaffe Feldwebel.’

‘Did the doctor say anything about those sunburns on the arms?’

‘Sun-ray lamp,’ said Harry.

‘Did the doctor say that?’

‘No, I’m saying it. The doctor hummed and hawed, you know what they are like.’

Douglas said, ‘So the neighbour says he was a black-marketeer and the American girl tells us the same thing.’

‘It all fits together, doesn’t it?’

‘It fits together so well that it stinks.’

Harry said nothing.

‘Did you find a sun-ray lamp?’

‘No, but there’s still the attic.’

‘Very well, Harry, have a look in the attic. Then go over to the Feldgendarmerie and get permission to talk to the Feldwebel.’

‘How do you mean it stinks?’ said Harry.

‘The downstairs neighbour tells me everything about this damned Feldwebel short of giving me his name and number. Then this American girl turns up and asks me if I found a roll of film on the body. She tells me that this man Peter Thomas was going to get a roll of film for her last night…ugh! A girl like that would bring a gross of films with her. When she wanted more, she’d get films from a news agency, or from the American Embassy. Failing that, the German Press Bureau would give her as much as she asked for; you know what the propaganda officials will do for American newspaper people. She doesn’t have to get involved with the black market.’

‘Perhaps she wanted to get involved with the black market. Perhaps she is trying to make contact with the Resistance, in order to write a newspaper story.’

‘That’s just what I was thinking, Harry.’

‘What else is wrong?’

‘I took his keys downstairs. None of them fits any of the locks; not the street door or this door. The small keys look like the ones they use on filing cabinets and the bronze one is probably for a safe. There are no filing cabinets here, and if there is a safe, it’s uncommonly well hidden.’

‘Anything else?’ said Harry.

‘If he lives here, why buy a return ticket when he left Bringle Sands yesterday morning? And if he lives here, where are his shirts, his underclothes and his suits?’

‘He left them at Bringle Sands.’

‘And he intended to go to bed here, and then get up and use the same shirt and underclothes, you mean? Look at the body, Harry. This was a man very fussy about his clean linen.’

‘You don’t think he lived here?’

‘I don’t think anyone lived here. This place was just used as somewhere to meet.’

‘Business you mean – or lovers?’

‘You’re forgetting what Resistance people call “safe houses,” Harry. It might have been a place where they met, hid or stored things. And we can’t overlook the way he was wearing his overcoat.’

‘You told the doctor it was cold.’

‘The doctor was trying to irritate me and he succeeded. That doesn’t mean he was wrong about someone sitting here waiting for Thomas to arrive. And it doesn’t explain him keeping his hat on.’

‘I never know what you’re really thinking,’ said Harry.

‘Watch your tongue when you are over at the Feldgendarmerie, Harry.’

‘What do you think I am – stupid?’

‘Romantic,’ said Douglas. ‘Not stupid – romantic.’

‘You think he got those burns from a sun-lamp?’ said Harry.

‘I never heard of anyone going to sleep under a sun-lamp,’ said Douglas, ‘but there has to be a first time for everything. And try to think why someone has taken the light bulb out of that adjustable desk light. There was nothing wrong with the bulb.’

Chapter Four

The beer seemed to get weaker every day and anyone who believed those stories about the fighting having destroyed the hop fields had never tasted the export brands that were selling in German soldiers’ canteens. In spite of its limitations Douglas bought a second pint and smothered the tasteless cheese sandwich with mustard before eating it. There were several other Murder Squad officers in the ‘Red Lion’ in Derby Gate. It was Scotland Yard’s own pub, more crimes had been solved in this bar than in all the offices, path labs and record offices put together, or so some of the regulars claimed, after a few drinks.

A newspaper boy came in selling the Evening Standard. Douglas bought a copy and turned to the Stop Press on the back page.

MAN FOUND DEAD IN WEST END LUXURY FLAT

Shepherd Market in Mayfair was visited by Scotland Yard officers today when the body of a man was discovered by a neighbour bringing the morning pint of milk. The dead man’s name has not yet been released by the police. It is believed that he was an antique dealer and a well-known expert in pearls. Scotland Yard are treating the death as murder, and the investigation is headed by ‘Archer of the Yard’ who solved the grisly ‘Sex-fiend murders’ last summer.

Douglas saw the hand of Harry Woods in that; he knew Douglas hated being called ‘Archer of the Yard’ and Douglas guessed that Harry had spoken over the phone and said the dead man was an ‘expert in girls’ before incredulously denying it on the read-back.

It was raining as Douglas left the ‘Red Lion’. As he looked across the road, at the oncoming traffic, he saw Sylvia, his secretary. She’d obviously been waiting for him. Douglas let a couple of buses pass and then hurried across the road. He waited again for two staff cars flying C-in-C pennants. They hit the ruts left by bomb damage and sprayed water over him. Douglas cursed but that only made it rain harder.

‘Darling,’ said Sylvia. There was not much passion in the word but then with Sylvia there never had been. Douglas put an arm round her and she held her cold face up to be kissed.

‘I’ve been worried all morning. The letter said you were going away.’

‘You must forgive me, darling,’ said Sylvia. ‘I’ve despised myself ever since sending the damned letter. Say you forgive me.’

‘You’re pregnant?’

‘I’m not absolutely sure.’

‘Damn it, Sylvia – you sent the letter and said…’

‘Don’t shout in the street, darling.’ She held a hand up to his mouth. The hand was very cold. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have come here?’

‘After three days I had to report your absence. The tea lady asked where you were. It was impossible to cover for you.’

‘I didn’t want you to take any risks, darling.’

‘I phoned your aunt in Streatham but she said she’d not seen you for months.’

‘Yes, I must go and see her.’

‘Will you listen to what I’m saying, Sylvia.’

‘Let go of my arm, you’re hurting me. I am listening.’

‘You’re not listening properly.’

‘I’m listening the same as I always listen to you.’

‘You’ve still got your SIPO pass.’

‘What pass?’

‘Your Scotland Yard pass – have you been drinking or something?’

‘Of course I haven’t been drinking. Well, what about it? You think I’m going to go down Petticoat Lane and sell the bloody pass to the highest bidder? Who the hell wants to go into that hideous building unless they are paid for it?’

‘Let’s walk,’ said Douglas. ‘Don’t you know that Whitehall has regular Gendarmerie patrols?’

‘What are you talking about?’ She smiled. ‘Give me a proper kiss. Aren’t you glad to see me?’

He kissed her hurriedly. ‘Of course I am. We’ll walk up towards Trafalgar Square, all right?’

‘Suits me.’

They walked up Whitehall, past the armed sentries who stood immobile outside the newly occupied offices. They were almost as far as the Whitehall Theatre when they saw the soldiers doing the spot-check. Parked across the roadway there were three Bedford lorries, newly painted with German Army Group L (London District) HQ markings: a crude Tower Bridge surmounting a Gothic L. The soldiers were in battle-smocks with machine pistols slung on their shoulders. They moved quickly, expanding the spiked barrier – designed to pierce tyres – so that only one lane of traffic could pass through in each direction. The check-point command car was parked against the foot of Charles the First’s statue. The Germans learned quickly thought Douglas, for that was the place the Metropolitan Police always used for central London crowd-control work. More soldiers made a barrier behind them.

Sylvia showed no sign of apprehension but she suggested that it would be quicker if they turned off at Whitehall Place and went towards the Embankment. ‘No,’ said Douglas. ‘They always block the side roads first!’

‘I’ll show my pass,’ said Sylvia.

‘Have you gone completely out of your mind?’ said Douglas. ‘The Scotland Yard building houses the SD and the Gestapo and all the rest of it. You might not think much of it, but the Germans think that pass is just about the most valuable piece of paper any foreigner can be given. You’ve stayed away without reporting illness, and you’ve kept your pass. If you read the German regulations that you signed, you’d find that that’s the same as theft, Sylvia. By now, your name and pass number will be on the Gestapo wanted list. Every patrol from Land’s End to John o’Groats will be looking for it.’

‘What shall I do?’ Even now there was no real anxiety in her voice.

‘Stay calm. They have plain-clothes men watching for anyone acting suspiciously.’

They were stopping everything and everyone; staff cars, double-decker buses, even an ambulance was held up while the Patrol Commander examined the papers of the driver and the sick man. The soldiers ignored the rain which made their helmets shiny and darkened their battle-smocks, but the civilians huddled under the protection of the Whitehall Theatre entrance. There was a revue showing there, ‘Vienna Comes to London’, with undressed girls hiding between white violins.

Douglas grabbed Sylvia’s arm and before she could object he brought out a pair of handcuffs and slammed them on her wrist with enough violence to hurt. ‘What are you bloody well doing!’ shouted Sylvia but by that time he was dragging her forward past the waiting people. There were a few muttered complaints as Douglas elbowed them even more roughly. ‘Patrol Commander!’ he shouted imperiously. ‘Patrol Commander!’

‘What do you want?’ said a pimply young Feldwebel wearing the metal breastplate that was the mark of military police on duty. He was not wearing a battle-smock and Douglas guessed he was a section leader. He waved his SIPO pass in the air, and spoke in rapid German. ‘Wachtmeister! I’m taking this girl for questioning. Here’s my pass.’

‘Her papers?’ said the youth impassively.

‘Says she’s lost them.’

He didn’t react except to take the pass from Douglas and examine it carefully before looking at his face and his photo to compare them.

‘Come along, come along,’ said Douglas on the principle that no military policeman is able to distinguish between politeness and guilt. ‘I’ve not got all day.’

‘You’ve hurt my bloody wrist,’ said Sylvia. ‘Look at that, you bastard.’ The Feldwebel glared at him and then at the girl. ‘Next!’ he bellowed.

‘Come on,’ said Douglas and hurried through the barrier dragging Sylvia after him. They picked their way through the traffic that was waiting for the checkpoint. They were both very wet and neither spoke as a luxury bus came through Admiralty Arch and into Trafalgar Square. Its windows were crowded with the faces of young soldiers. Softly from inside there came the amplified voice of the tour guide speaking schoolboy German. The young men grinned at his pronunciation. One boy waved at Sylvia.

A few wet pigeons shuffled out of the way as they walked across the empty rainswept square. ‘Do you realize what you said, just now?’ said Sylvia. She was still rubbing her wrist where the skin had been grazed.

It was just like a woman, thought Douglas, to start some oblique conversation about something already forgotten.

‘One of the most important pieces of paper that the Germans issue to foreigners; that’s what you said just now.’

‘Give over, Sylvia,’ said Douglas. He looked back to be sure they were out of sight of the patrol, then he unlocked the handcuff and released her arm.

‘That’s what we are as far as you’re concerned –foreigners! The Germans are the ones with a right to be here; we’re the intruders who have to bow and bloody scrape.’

‘Give over, Sylvia,’ said Douglas. He hated to hear women swearing like that, although, working in a police force, he should by now have got used to it.

‘Get your hands off me, you bloody Gestapo bastard.’ She pushed him away with the flat of her hand. ‘I’ve got friends who don’t go in fear and trembling of the Huns. You wouldn’t understand anything about that, would you. No! You’re too busy doing their dirty work for them.’

‘You must have been talking to Harry Woods,’ said Douglas in a vain attempt to turn the argument into a joke.

‘You’re pathetic,’ said Sylvia. ‘Do you know that? You’re pathetic!’

She was pretty, but with the rain making rats’ tails of her hair, her lipstick smudged, and the ill-fitting raincoat that had always been too short for her, Douglas suddenly saw her as he’d never seen her before. And he saw her, too, as she’d be in ten years hence; a tight-lipped virago with a loud voice and quick temper. He realized that he’d never make a go of it with Sylvia. But when her parents were killed by bombs, just a few days before Douglas lost his wife, it was natural that they sought in each other some desperate solace that came disguised as love.

What Douglas had once seen as the attractive over-confidence of youth, now looked more like unyielding selfishness. He wondered if there was another man, a much younger one perhaps, but decided against asking her, knowing that she would say yes just to annoy him. ‘We’re both pathetic, Sylvia,’ he said, ‘and that’s the truth of it.’

They were standing near one of the Landseer lions, shining as black as polished ebony in the driving rain. They were virtually alone there, for now even the most stalwart of German servicemen had put away their tax-free cameras and taken shelter. Sylvia stood with one hand in her pocket, and the other pushing her wet hair off her forehead. She smiled but there was no merriment there, not even a touch of kindness or compassion. ‘Don’t be sarcastic about Harry Woods,’ she said bitterly. ‘He’s the only friend you’ve got left. Do you realize that?’

‘Leave Harry out of it,’ said Douglas.

‘You realize he’s one of us, don’t you?’

‘What?’

‘The Resistance, you fool.’ The expression on Douglas’s face was enough to make her laugh. A woman, pushing a pram laden with a sack of coal, half turned to look at them before hurrying on.