Death in Focus Read online

  “When is St. George’s Day?” she asked innocently.

  He drew in breath to tell her, then realized she was teasing him.

  “What did you get for her? I ought not to look surprised when she opens it,” he said instead.

  “A long rope of pink pearls that I know she has been wanting,” she replied. “Actually, I rather like them myself, although I should prefer white ones. I think pink is a little…I don’t know…anyway, it is what she asked for.”

  “Naked-looking,” he supplied. But he made an instant mental note to write down “white pearls, long necklace” and went upstairs to change. He was always pleased to get some guidance in what to give people as gifts. He really had no idea, especially women. Mike had been easy: anything mechanical. He remembered vividly the first Meccano set, and the time they had spent together building things.

  Suddenly, he missed Mike with a terrible sense of loss. It was all so long ago. The Meccano had been Mike’s present twenty-five years ago, a quarter of a century. He walked along the landing to the bedroom. He must behave as if he were pleased to spend the evening with Charles. How difficult that would be was completely irrelevant.

  * * *

  —

  They arrived exactly on time, and were greeted warmly. Katherine was an excellent cook, and not only that, but she always managed to make it appear as if it had been no trouble. She had help in the house, but, like Josephine, the art of cooking was hers, the dashes of color that added beauty.

  She was delighted with the pearls, and thanked them both with enthusiasm. She knew perfectly well that Josephine had chosen the necklace, but nothing in her warmth fell short for Lucas either.

  They were seated at the table and well into the first course of cold lettuce soup, which was, to Lucas’s surprise, delicious, when Charles looked across at him, frowning.

  “I thought Elena would have been home by now. Have you heard from her?” he asked.

  “No, actually I haven’t,” Lucas replied. “But she might have stayed a little longer in Amalfi. It’s an extraordinarily beautiful place.”

  “She didn’t,” Charles said quickly. “I heard from Margot, and she said Elena had left before she did. Went off to Rome with a new young man.”

  Katherine smiled. “Then perhaps Elena has found someone she likes and is staying on in Rome.” She looked at Charles. “Don’t worry, my dear, she’ll be perfectly all right. And if she has a little fun, for a change, it’s a good thing. He might even care for her. I would far rather she settled down with a decent man and forgot about trying to make a career.” She did not add, and especially after the disaster at the Foreign Office, but it was implicit. “And so would you!” She touched his arm lightly, and he quickly put his hand over hers.

  “Yes, of course,” he agreed. “It’s just…not like her.”

  “People change,” she answered him. “You always say Margot is too easy to please, and Elena is not easy enough. According to Margot, she really liked this young man, and he seemed both charming and sound.”

  “Was he Italian?” Charles asked a little nervously.

  “No, he was English, and a Cambridge graduate, so Margot said. In fact, she rather liked him herself.”

  “Well, she could let Elena have this one,” he said a little tartly. “And Elena could have had the courtesy to let us know she was staying in Rome for a few extra days.” He looked across at Lucas, and there was a slight edge to his voice. “I don’t suppose she told you?”

  “No,” Lucas said with surprise. Although it should not actually have surprised him. He knew Elena was closer to him than she was to her father.

  They spoke about Rome for a little while, and about Paris. They had all spent time in both cities, during the war and afterward. Charles and Katherine had lived in the embassy in Paris for two and a half years. It was a city that enchanted, whether you wanted it to or not.

  Katherine declined help in clearing away the soup plates and allowed Charles only to carry in the baked ham with peaches, though he was not permitted to carve it.

  Lucas did not care for the idea of peaches with ham, but he was well-mannered enough not to say so, and was pleasantly surprised to find the mixture totally excellent. He said so, to Katherine’s distinct pleasure.

  With some skill, Josephine managed to keep the conversation away from politics until dessert, the best chocolate mousse Lucas could ever remember, and again he said so. Charles gave him a swift, rather critical glance, but both women knew Lucas well enough to be certain that he meant it.

  Somehow or other the conversation slid to luxury, and then communism. Perhaps it was the chocolate. It did seem to be the ultimate indulgence, at least when served this way.

  “I think communism is the greatest danger,” Charles said with some feeling. “In fact, there is no doubt of it.”

  “Here?” Katherine said with surprise.

  “Perhaps not. I think Herr Hitler and his people will stop it before it gets this far. And that is something to be thankful for. They’re pretty much barbarians.”

  “Hitler’s men?” Josephine asked politely.

  “No, Mother,” Charles said patiently. “The Communists! Hitler’s only doing what he has to. If you remember Germany after the war, instead of refusing to see it—really see it—you’d realize that he’s finally pulling the country together, getting people working again, and up off their knees and back to some self-respect. Everybody deserves that, German or anyone else. I said at the time that the treaty in 1918 was far too harsh, and would only create trouble for everyone later on. I have no satisfaction in being proved right. But no one would listen, at least no one with the power to change it.”

  For once Lucas did not disagree, at least with the part about the harshness of the treaty. The subject of Hitler and the Communists was another matter, and better left alone.

  He felt Josephine kick him fairly sharply under the table.

  “Do you get any news from the embassy in Berlin?” Lucas asked, trying to keep both his voice and his face free from anything except mild interest.

  “I am still in touch with Cordell,” Charles replied. “He’s a good man. Sees both sides of the picture, which can’t be said of all of them.”

  “All of whom?” Lucas asked. “Diplomats in general, or in Berlin specifically?”

  Charles’s smile was a little tight. “Of diplomats I know.” He was used to Lucas’s exactness and was getting caught by it fewer times of late.

  Lucas smiled at him, hoping to ease the sudden tension. But this opinion of Cordell could not be ignored. It reaffirmed what Peter Howard had said.

  “So, Cordell is pretty fair, looking at both sides?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Charles replied. “He’s one of the few who can see where the real, long-lasting enemy is, if we don’t do something about it now. And the Communists are very good at misdirection. Look, Father, just keep out of things you know nothing about. I know you lean far more to the left than to the right, and you like Churchill, but you don’t know what’s at stake! If you listened to Cordell, you’d see what’s going on in Europe…”

  Lucas drew in his breath, and let it out again. Charles had been a good ambassador, even at times an excellent one. He knew how to mediate in the most awkward situations, and often ones that mattered very much. Lucas had had occasion, professionally, to know more about him than Charles was aware.

  And Charles had no idea of Lucas’s job then, or still, even if it was now unofficial.

  No wonder Peter Howard was lonely. That was the pain Lucas had seen in his face. What did Pamela Howard know, or guess? Perhaps no more than that her husband’s mind was full of things he did not share with her.

  Josephine had never asked. Was that because in some way she knew? He looked at her across the table. She smiled back, and he had no idea what she was thinking, only that she would
not ask him. And he was grateful for that.

  CHAPTER

  10

  Elena sat on the train, still shaking with cold and staring out of the window into the night. She could see nothing beyond the dark glass. She could have been anywhere. She strained her eyes to make out the name of the station as the train slid in and stopped, but there were no signs in her line of sight.

  Rain streaked the windows and blurred everything. It was a small place, with few lights. She thought she heard the doors open and close, but no one came into her compartment. Walter was sitting opposite her, but he seemed to be asleep. Why did anyone run trains for so few people? Probably so the passengers could pick up commuters in the morning. She envied them the sheer ordinariness of it, just for a moment. But perhaps they were tired and worried as well? France had suffered appallingly in the war. They would be no more recovered than England. Soon she would be going north again, toward Flanders and the battlefields whose names lay heavy on her heart: Verdun, Ypres, the Somme, the Marne, Passchendaele.

  Did poppies grow there again, come July and August? Was that a reminder of life, and the infinite value of it? Or of death?

  She watched the platform go by as the train started to move again, knowing that she must stay awake. At the next station they had to get off and find a train going north, into Germany, preferably to Berlin itself. They still had to buy tickets, and she had to reach the British Embassy by the end of the day. In fact, by the end of the afternoon, because she could give the message only to Cordell. Ian had specified it had to be Cordell. There was no time to stop at a hotel, have a hot bath, and change into something better than the crumpled dress she had on, indelibly stained with Ian’s blood.

  He had died trying to prevent the assassination of this man Scharnhorst. The least she could do was stop sniveling in self-pity and get on with the job! Being tired, shaking with cold and stunned with grief, was unimportant. She could hear Mike’s voice in her head. Come on, kiddo! There’s a job to be done. You can’t let the side down. Soldiers probably had been cold, wet, and exhausted most of the time, and certainly overwhelmed with grief if they would allow themselves to be. Every day they had seen friends killed. Toward the end, the average life expectancy was about ten to fourteen days! What kind of a gutless woman was she to complain? She was alive and well, and she had a job to do.

  Thank God Walter had stepped in to help her. Without him, would she have been any use at all?

  He stirred uncomfortably, then opened his eyes. He seemed to take a moment or two to remember where he was, then smiled at her, concern in his face. “Are you all right?” he asked, only just loudly enough to be heard over the rattle of the wheels, although there was no one else with them in the carriage.

  “Yes. Thank you. Why are you doing all this? Where were you going…without…?” She shrugged very slightly.

  “To a job in Hamburg. But there’s no hurry,” he answered.

  “Where do you live?”

  “London. But I move around quite a lot.”

  “I’m sorry…”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!” He smiled again. It lit his face, making him look far younger. “What did you expect me to do? Leave you there, alone and in trouble? It could as easily have been me! We’ll get out of this. Just don’t draw attention to yourself.”

  She nodded and tried to smile back.

  The next station came quickly. Elena got up, collected her remaining small case with the precious camera inside.

  They climbed off the train and stood on the almost-deserted platform together. The sky was lightening in the east already.

  There were very few people around, and they all seemed to be hurrying somewhere. Elena and Walter approached a man in working clothes. He looked weary and half asleep. Walter asked him, in French, if he could direct them to the right platform for the next train north.

  The man considered it for several moments, then asked where they wanted to end up.

  “Berlin,” Walter said without hesitation. The man might hate Germans, he might have lost family in the war…who in France had not? He might mistake them for Germans, but it was a chance they had to take.

  The man grunted and looked at Walter with disfavor.

  “Please?” Elena said quietly. “We need to get to the British Embassy there. We have a friend who’s in trouble.” Something of a distortion of the truth, but it hardly mattered now, and it could do the man no harm.

  “You English?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “In a hurry?”

  “Yes…please.”

  “If you are quick, you’ll get the first train off platform four. It’ll get you to Hamburg. It’s a long journey, but there should be lots of trains from Hamburg to Berlin.”

  “Thank you very much,” Elena said, looking where his finger pointed to the bridge over the track.

  “You’d best hurry!” he called after her.

  “Thank you,” she said over her shoulder, as Walter led the way. Her legs were stiff and she felt as if there was no strength left in them. She was exhausted. Twice she nearly missed her step, stumbling, and only Walter’s grip on her arm prevented her from falling. Her bag was not really heavy, but it weighed like lead right now.

  She hung on to him on the way down the far side. If she fell, that would be the end of her whole purpose. She could imagine slipping and breaking an ankle, crippling not only her leg, but the whole mission of stopping the assassination.

  From the little she had read of Scharnhorst, the world would be a great deal better off without him. Whoever made that choice, she sympathized with them. Normally she would have cheered them on, but if Britain was going to be blamed and an international incident ensued, that was different.

  She reached the bottom of the steps and could see the light of the oncoming train far along the track.

  “Come on!” Walter urged, and ran, half dragging her over the platform and through the arch of platform four. She looked one way for the sign to tell her what train was next. There was nothing in either direction, except the single light of the oncoming train growing rapidly larger until it came to a grinding halt.

  Was there someone they could ask? There were no porters, no stationmaster. Panic welled up inside her. They had to catch it! But what if it was going somewhere else entirely? What if she ended up in Switzerland? Or Austria?

  Walter opened the nearest carriage door just as an elderly man filled the opening carrying a small case in his hand. “Pardon!” he said with surprise.

  “Sorry, monsieur,” Walter said. “Is this train going north? I can’t see anything that says so.”

  “To Hamburg, monsieur. And will you please stand aside and allow me off? I have no wish to be in Hamburg.”

  “Of course. Pardon!” Walter stood aside for him. As soon as the man was on the platform, Walter climbed up the steep steps, holding tightly onto his case with one hand, and Elena with the other. At the top they turned and walked into the corridor, looking for an empty compartment. They found one near the end, and were inside, putting their cases on the rack above them, when the whistle blew. Elena nearly lost her balance as the train jerked sharply into movement again.

  Walter caught her and eased her into the seat, his face filled with concern.

  “I’m all right,” she said quickly, annoyed with herself. Have some guts, woman, she told herself.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Really. Thank you.” She would make it true.

  He stared at her for a moment and then sat down beside her.

  She was obliged to keep her coat on and fastened, to hide the blood still on her dress. At least it was only damp now, not really sodden. Her head ached and her eyes felt as if they were full of grit. Perhaps they were? Railway stations could make anyone dirty in a matter of minutes. She had been on one train or another for so long that Am
alfi, its warmth and sunshine, the wonderful time she’d had there, seemed like a distant world she had seen in her dreams.

  If only this were a dream, and she would wake and find herself warm and dry, Ian opposite her, kindly laughing at her awkwardness, perhaps with a cup of tea in his hand. She had fallen asleep while he was fetching it, and they were still in the rich, sunlit Italian countryside.

  But it was now very early morning, France, and she was heading north in the pallid, pre-sunrise light. It was Walter Mann, not Ian, sitting beside her in an otherwise empty carriage.

  “Are you sure about this, Elena?” he asked gently.

  She gave him her attention. “About what?”

  “Going to Berlin? Everything’s changed since you made that decision.”

  She drew in breath to tell him that actually the opposite was true. It was because of Ian’s death that she was going to Germany, instead of home. But Ian had said he was MI6, Military Intelligence. Secret. He had trusted her to fulfill the mission that he could not. Someone had killed him so that he could not.

  “Thank you. That is considerate of you. But I shall be perfectly all right. And I definitely intend to go to Berlin.” She forced herself to smile very slightly.

  He looked worried. “Are you sure? You could very easily send a message to whoever is expecting you…”

  “Yes, I know. But no thank you. Perhaps I can sleep a bit on the next part of the journey. We’ve got a…a lot of time yet…”

  “You need a hot bath and a bed, not falling asleep sideways on a railway seat.” His smile was rueful now. “And we left so many of your personal things on the other train. You haven’t even got a change of clothes…”

  “I know. But I have enough money to buy such things. Please don’t try to argue me out of it. I must. That’s all there is to it.”

  He must have heard the determination in her voice. He was silent for several minutes, but she felt him still looking at her.

  “It’s a promise to Newton, isn’t it?” he said at last.