Death in Focus Read online

  “You’ll have to send someone you trust,” Lucas said, “to keep separate from Cordell at all times, and he’ll have to know why, without doing anything to give it away. About the best he can do is see if he can get Scharnhorst’s assassination—should it go ahead—blamed on the Germans themselves. Scharnhorst will have many enemies. Look among those whose jobs he has cost, one way or another. Or better still, someone whose family he has ruined. There are enough to go around. Although I hate blaming someone innocent…It may be that you don’t have to.”

  Howard rose to his feet. “Yes, one innocent man in place of another is hardly an improvement, but there are plenty of violent people who’d be happy to see the end of Scharnhorst. I’ll let you know what happens regarding Cordell. Thank you for the advice.”

  Lucas did not say anything; it had all been said, and understood. He walked to the front door and saw Howard on his way.

  He was going back to his study when he met Josephine in the hall. He felt oddly wrong-footed after Howard’s observation of her. He looked at her now as sunlight shone from the garden door behind her. She was still slim, and the bones of her face, which Elena had inherited, only slightly blurred by age. Had she really known the nature of his work all this time?

  “Are you ready for lunch?” she asked. “It’s cold bacon and egg pie, with tomato relish on the side.”

  It was one of his favorites. There was nothing better than fresh, flaky pastry around the sharpness of bacon and perfectly cooked eggs. A pot of fresh tea, fragrant and slightly aromatic, would be marvelous. Earl Grey, perhaps? He must eat. He had learned long ago that no one is at their best if they do not eat and sleep. Punishing yourself just makes you a damn nuisance to everyone else.

  “Yes, please,” he replied. Then he looked more closely at her face. There was anxiety in her eyes. She might try to hide it but, once seen, it was too easy to recognize. “What is it?” he asked, but lightly, so she could deny it, or brush it away if she chose. “Josephine?”

  “It must be serious for him to have come here openly,” she replied. “Is it something to do with Elena? And if you dare lie to me, in what you imagine is protecting me, I will not forgive you.”

  He could see that she meant it, even though he had never known her not to forgive anyone, in time. But then perhaps there was a lot he had not known.

  “No, it’s nothing to do with Elena,” he said honestly. Well…almost honestly. Ian Newton was dead, on a train to Paris. All he knew of Elena was that she had left Amalfi for Rome with a young man she had met. The route home from Rome was via Paris. Surely not…Better to keep quiet about that until he had learned more. “It was about something that he fears will happen in Berlin,” he added.

  She looked at him long and steadily, then nodded and turned away. “Lunch will be in five minutes,” she said over her shoulder. “When the kettle has boiled.”

  CHAPTER

  13

  Elena woke up on Tuesday morning, and it took several moments for her to recognize where she was…in a hotel room in Berlin…and to remember how she had got there. It was the room Ian had booked for himself, when he headed here to stop the assassination of Scharnhorst.

  She sat bolt upright, cold, still aching with tiredness and, above all, the deep, disabling pain of loss. She had made a promise to Ian to act. But she had managed to tell Cordell, so it would be all right.

  She lay back again, still clutching the bedcovers around herself. She must get new clothes, clean ones, not crumpled and stained with blood. It seemed awful to just throw these away, but she could hardly keep them.

  She would get up and dress, have breakfast and go buy decent clothes, dispose of the old ones in some street rubbish bin. A caterpillar turning into a butterfly! A flying beetle, more likely. She could go to the square where the rally was to be held and see if anyone had been arrested. There might be something worthy of a decent photograph. Maybe one she could sell to a newspaper back in London? The British press would not be likely to have a good photographer here. They did not know there was going to be an attempted assassination. That is, if there was? Cordell might have prevented it completely. But there was a good chance the authorities would want to arrest whoever was behind the plot. Hitler never wasted the chance to celebrate his victory over an enemy. A show trial! Blame the Communists. Or the Jews.

  She accomplished all her shopping successfully, and returned to the hotel with her purchases, looking quite different. Her hair was washed and shining. She was dressed in plain navy, neatly tailored. She had kept her own shoes, because this was no time to try getting used to new ones.

  She left again with plenty of time to spare, but already she saw people moving toward the square along the dusty, still shabby streets. They looked little different from when she had been here before, when her father was stationed at the embassy ten years ago, in 1923. Broken windows were replaced. There were new storefronts, here and there new paint, but pavements were not mended. Everything looked old, patched up rather than replaced. But this was what they did in England, too.

  She moved with the thickening crowd and overheard snatches of conversation. It had a brittle sound to it. People were careful of what they said, knowing they could be overheard.

  “Yes, wonderful! A real new start,” she heard over and over again. It was all statements; nobody seemed to be asking any questions.

  On a street corner, two old men stood talking. Both had long beards and wore dark clothes. A couple of young men in Brownshirt uniform came swaggering along, glanced at each other, then changed direction and approached the old men, who did not move.

  The young men stopped in front of them. “You are blocking the street!” one of them said loudly. “Get out of the way!”

  “There’s plenty of room,” the old man with the longer beard replied. “I am not blocking your way.”

  “You’re blocking my way if I say you are.” The young man raised his voice. “Move!”

  “There’s plenty of room,” the old man insisted. Indeed, there was. If he were to move in the only direction left open to him, it would be into the gutter.

  The Brownshirt lifted his arm to strike the old man. He was smiling. It was plain in his face that he intended to knock him over.

  Movement in the crowd stopped. There was a sudden silence.

  Now the old man was trapped. Which was worse? That the crowd watched his humiliation? Or that they all stood around as if it did not matter, as if it were in some way all right?

  One woman of perhaps fifty stepped forward. “You can go around him,” she said to the Brownshirt. “You’re stronger and younger.”

  The young man turned and glared at her.

  She froze.

  A woman of about twenty came forward and took the older woman by the arm, with all her strength, forcing her to step back.

  “I’m sorry, sir,” she said to the young man. “She doesn’t understand. Please excuse her.” She pulled at the woman again, almost dragging her off balance, and the older woman yielded, perhaps to protect them all.

  The Brownshirt looked at the old man, who stood without moving for another long three seconds, then stepped into the gutter and lowered his gaze.

  Elena was so outraged that she was shaking, but she understood. You accepted your own humiliation rather than allow someone else to be beaten while you looked on, helpless to prevent it.

  The two young men in uniform walked off, smiling.

  Swine, she thought. But there was nothing she could do except stand there like everyone else, and then take a moment to steady herself and follow the increasing crowd toward the square, still trying to swallow her rage.

  But as she reached the end of the street, busier now, people almost shoulder to shoulder, she knew it was not enough. She was ashamed of herself for watching someone else be needlessly and pointlessly shamed and, like everyone else, doing noth
ing. She had partly avoided confrontation because she wanted to protect her camera, but why else? Fear. If not the excuse of the Leica, there would have been something else, and she knew it.

  The square was already tightly packed with people. There was not much noise, at least not yet. She looked around. There was a podium built for the occasion so Scharnhorst could be seen by everyone. In all directions there were brown-shirted guards. They all seemed to carry weapons: rifles and pistols, some holding cudgels as well. For show? To make them feel like men in control? Or would they use them against the crowd if they felt threatened? She knew the answer to that. Everyone did.

  And who would report it afterward? Would the Brownshirts say that the crowd had attacked first?

  She was being ridiculous; these were civilized people. This was the country of Beethoven, Schiller, Goethe, philosophers, scientists…She thought with a smile that she always considered the greatest poetry and drama to come from England. The greatest scientists from England, too. Newton! No one, not even Einstein, had surpassed Sir Isaac Newton.

  Newton. Ian. Looking at the crowd, she realized that she was still horribly shaken by Ian Newton’s death.

  Her mind was rambling. She was tired and she hurt deeply inside, where “pulling oneself together” could not be achieved.

  The square was packed now. People were jostling one another to try to make room for more. They must be jamming the streets as well. Who was Friedrich Scharnhorst that so many were turning out to listen to him?

  She stared around the square. It was surrounded by large buildings, some pretty high, seven or eight stories. Their windows would offer amazing views of the whole event. It was a lovely day, and many of the windows were open; reflections in the neighboring glass around them made them stand out.

  What had Cordell done to prevent the assassination? Had he warned the police? The Brownshirts seemed to be everywhere, and they were heavily armed. Without more than a few hours’ notice, who do you trust? It would be a nice irony if the assassin was one of the Brownshirts. She almost smiled at the idea. It could be anyone—the man standing next to her, even. Did Cordell know? Who do you warn? Do you cancel the event? Warn Scharnhorst himself? What if he simply did not turn up? Or someone else was sent in his place? Someone who was expendable, who could be killed with no loss to the government.

  People were getting restless waiting. She could feel the tension in the air. Then suddenly there was silence. Someone was getting up onto the platform, a man in a dark suit with an armband, white, with a black hooked cross on it: the swastika.

  He called for attention, and instantly he received it. Over a thousand faces gazed up at him. He made a few remarks, very ordinary, all about what a great man Adolf Hitler was. He was greeted by an increasing roar of applause.

  Then he announced Friedrich Scharnhorst, hero of the people, and stepped back with a wide gesture of deference, arm swinging as if he should have had a cape over it. Scharnhorst stepped forward.

  He spoke and instantly the crowd fell not only silent but motionless. His voice was not pleasing at all. It was almost rasping, and of a higher pitch than Elena had expected, almost nasal in quality. Yet it was also mesmerizing.

  She stood listening to him, just as everyone around her was doing. It was several moments before she even thought to look at anyone else. She saw the admiration in their faces, eyes fixed on the figure on the podium. No one shuffled their feet or pushed for a better position. Their attention was frightening in its intensity, a perfect photograph. They looked fixated, as if they were asleep with their eyes open.

  She pulled the camera out of her bag and took off the lens cap. It needed only seconds to focus. She did not want to draw attention to herself. People might not wish to be photographed, even anonymously, so she must look as if her intent was to photograph Scharnhorst, and she was merely turning the camera sideways while she adjusted it.

  She was careful. She wanted to catch the look of almost rapture on the faces of the crowd as they stared at him, mouths half open, eyes wide and bright.

  At one point, Scharnhorst threw up his arm and shouted, “Heil Hitler!” and the crowd roared back at him, “Heil Hitler!,” arms raised in perfect copy of his.

  She should not have been surprised. He had been saying the same things she had read in Hitler’s speeches. But somehow it was different to hear it in a voice imbued with passion, as if it made the most perfect sense, and from all around you, like a thunderous sea, the response echoed back.

  She was glad she was holding the camera; it gave her a good excuse for not raising her arm in the Nazi salute. The noise of the crowd shouting the salute in unison was as powerful as a great tidal surge, carrying everything with it, destroying that which resisted it. No one could swim against it; it was enough not to be battered, to stay afloat, upright. What Scharnhorst was saying was nonsense; these people were listening to the emotion, not reason.

  She took more pictures, some of Scharnhorst, some of the crowd. She was facing Scharnhorst and the buildings behind him when a single sharp crack rang out. For an instant there was silence. Even Scharnhorst stopped shouting. Then, very slowly, he crumpled and fell onto the floor of the podium…and lay still.

  The scene was frozen.

  Then it jerked into life again, men rushing forward to the body sprawled on the platform floor, bending over, trying desperately to stop the flow of blood. People were shouting. Brownshirts appeared all over the place. Then, as they realized what had happened, people sobbed, women started to scream. The crowd suddenly moved amid cries of rage.

  Elena kept her camera high, for as long a range of focus as possible. She tried to keep her balance, but the crowd was carrying her along.

  More shots rang out. Everyone was too hysterical to react in self-preservation. If anyone else was hit, Elena did not see it. Nor did she see if anyone was chasing the marksman. She heard people running. Was it because of the killer, or the uniformed Brownshirts shouting orders, trying to herd people who were in blind panic and could neither see nor hear them?

  How had Cordell failed? Had he warned Scharnhorst’s people and they had taken no notice? Or had they tried, and they, too, had failed? Were they betrayed by their own people as well?

  Ahead of her, the crowd was parting, moved by some force to make a pathway. She was close to the divide, and more Brownshirts were walking in line. They were carrying the body of Scharnhorst! They passed within feet of her. She could see clearly for an instant, long enough to take a picture, maybe not focused, of Scharnhorst with blood on his clothes and a cloth over his face. So he was dead. This could only be a corpse they were recovering, not a wounded man they were hurrying to the hospital.

  Along the pathway, the crowds fell silent, except for one woman howling in anguish, as if she had lost her child.

  There was panic. Elena was rammed and knocked, swept along, whether she wished to be or not. It took all her strength not to be pushed over and crushed, or at the very least, trodden on.

  Had it been too late for Cordell to stop this? Or had he at least managed to prevent any British person being blamed? The shot had come from the high buildings on the other side of the square. She had seen the flash! Or was it only the glint of sunlight on something metallic or glass? Lots of the windows were open. People were watching, listening.

  Elena had not thought before how grateful she was to live in relative safety and peace. She had not always thought much of her own government, and certainly did not always agree with them, but compared with this, they were sane, even boring.

  As long as people like Oswald Mosley did not get into control.

  The crowd was thinning around her. She must get out from among them. She turned and started to push her way toward the street and back to the hotel. There was nothing else she could do here. She had seen the man shot, right in front of her. There was death everywhere: the man in the hotel in
Amalfi, Ian on the train, and now Scharnhorst here in Berlin. She felt numb with dismay.

  CHAPTER

  14

  People were standing around in huddles, dazed and shocked. Some were weeping with fright, others with grief. Many were trying to get away from the scene, back to their homes, or anywhere but here, but the streets were blocked off all around the square.

  Elena walked up to two Brownshirts and found her mouth suddenly so dry she could hardly speak.

  One of the men blocked her path, holding his gun across his body, but ready to swing around and aim point-blank at her. “Name?” he demanded.

  “Elena Standish,” she replied, stammering over her surname as if she were unfamiliar with it.

  He looked at her more closely. “Where are you going?”

  “To my hotel.” She decided to be honest. She must not look as if she had something to hide. “I was in the square. It was…terrible.”

  “Hotel? Why are you staying in a hotel? Where do you live?” His eyes narrowed and he peered at her more closely. He looked almost as frightened as she was. Perhaps he was going to be blamed because Scharnhorst was dead.

  She must give him an answer that, if he bothered to check, could never be disproved. “I came…” She swallowed. She must stop shaking. It would make him suspect her of being afraid, which in his mind might equate with guilt. She started again. “I am here to visit the city. It’s still beautiful. I know how hard things have been, I wanted to listen to Herr Scharnhorst speak. He talked of hope, and purpose…” Would the words choke her? They ought to! But they would give the Brownshirt a reason for her being so shaken.

  “What did you see?” he asked, still standing in her way.

  “I was watching him.” She took a deep breath. “Listening to what he said. Everyone was. Then suddenly there was a sharp sound…a crack…and he fell forward, as if he’d been…struck.” She looked at him, straight into his eyes, and tried to convince him she was grief-stricken. She told herself it had been Churchill who’d been killed, whom Lucas admired so much. “I can…hardly believe it. Just…seconds…and everything changed…” She did it well, the distress choking in her throat with the effort not to weep.