Death in Focus Read online

  He looked at the paper in his hand. What was he going to do with a list of Elena’s friends? If he called them and asked if they had seen Elena, that would warn her, and she would be gone almost immediately. Running from one place to another. She had been nearly hysterical when she turned up at his office two days ago—what must she be like now?

  She would believe he had not warned the authorities, but he had. Though perhaps not the right ones. Perhaps he could have done more to prevent the assassination of Scharnhorst. The man was an abomination!

  But that was Cordell’s risk to take, not Charles Standish’s daughter’s. He owed Charles more than that. Charles was at least ten years older than Cordell, but they had been good friends. Comfortable in conversation or silence. They cared about the same values of honesty and stoicism, liked oblique humor and walking the quieter, older parts of the city. He remembered vividly searching antiques shops and seeing old meerschaum pipes and wondering together about who had carved them, the lives of those who had smoked them. Going to the theater and seeing small productions of classic plays, young actors perhaps on the way to greatness.

  He understood Charles’s deep pain at the loss of his only son, and why he couldn’t speak about it. There are some wounds you don’t touch. To say the pain would pass in time was offensive. One spoke of other things, the bone-deep resolve that such a war would never happen again. It was the only decent legacy they would leave behind from all the years of work, living in marvelous cities that were not home, and never would be.

  He straightened up and put the list in his pocket. He would make a copy of it and give it to the police. She might actually be safer if she were caught and put in a prison. The embassy would provide first-rate legal counsel for her. Possibly there was some deal that could be made to return her to England, although the German government would ask a high price, and very possibly make a humiliating show of it.

  But then maybe she would not be at any of her friends’ houses.

  And what the devil had happened to Ian Newton? Had he gone completely rogue? Cordell had thought him the standard, idealistic, young, upper-class Englishman with little imagination for the lives of anyone different from himself. Cambridge scholar in classics and modern political history. Had he taken a swift turn to the left…communism, or something of the sort? God knows, there were those who had. They would wake up one day, when it was too late.

  Had Elena fallen in love with him, too, and even been turned herself? A young woman—she must be, what, twenty-eight?—not married, leading a fairly boring life without much hope of anything else? A handsome young man, the Amalfi coast, a lot of idealistic nonsense talked about the future. Change! The dreams of those who had not yet tasted life, except the froth on the surface.

  Poor Charles. He did not deserve that; neither did Margot. She cared for her sister, as she naturally would. Perhaps he should send one of his men to look discreetly for Elena’s friends. If he found her, there might be a way of getting her back to England with no one seeing her.

  He pressed the bell on his desk for his assistant to return.

  CHAPTER

  18

  “What?” Lucas demanded, sitting in his study and staring at Peter Howard, who stood in front of the bookcase, too tense to stop shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

  Howard repeated what he had said. “Elena was at the British Embassy the day before yesterday. She saw Cordell.”

  “In Berlin?” Lucas said. “Why, for God’s sake? She was on her way from Amalfi to Paris, then home with some young man she’d made friends with.” He stopped. Saying a thing over and over did not make it true. Nor did it ease the coldness inside him, the sudden sense of real fear. “What did she see Cordell about?” he asked. “For heaven’s sake, Peter, give me this in some sort of order. How do you know Elena was there? Who recognized her? Are they sure? What did they say, exactly?”

  Howard’s face was bleak. “That Elena Standish came to the British Embassy in Berlin, the day before the shooting. She asked to see Roger Cordell. Identified herself, unmistakably. She said it was both urgent and extremely important. It was late in the afternoon, but she insisted, and was allowed in. Lucas, the young man Elena was traveling with was Ian Newton.” Howard went on quickly. “She is unhurt, except emotionally. She finished Newton’s intended journey, to see Cordell…”

  Lucas could feel the ache of fear inside him tighten into a hard knot. “Ian Newton? The man murdered on a train? How do you know she’s unhurt?” he demanded. “If she was there she can’t be all right.” He felt the fear twisting inside him. “And what do we know about Cordell now?”

  “Wherever Cordell’s deepest loyalties lie,” Howard responded, “he isn’t a fool. She made her way from the Paris train all the way to Berlin, eluding detection at the border, and got to the embassy in time to give the warning, in spite of the way she must have felt.”

  Lucas ought to apologize. Of course she would be all right. Cordell would betray himself if he did not look after her. And clearly he was not ready to do that yet, if at all. “What do we know about Cordell, for certain?” he asked more levelly.

  “Nothing indisputable,” Howard replied, his face grave, the usual light of humor gone. “It’s a bad situation. Three men are dead, all murdered, and apparently connected. Cossotto, our man in Amalfi, was found with a broken neck in the hotel linen cupboard where Newton was staying. Then Newton was knifed to death in the train from Milan to Paris. Finally, Scharnhorst was shot by a sniper at the rally in Berlin.”

  “Indisputably connected?” Lucas asked.

  “It seems so. As I told you, Newton was given a message, purportedly from MI6, to go to Berlin and prevent the assassination. But he couldn’t check with Cossotto, because he was dead. Newton got on the train with Elena and was killed on the way to carry out his instructions. As he was dying he passed on the instructions to Elena—”

  “Is that true? All of it?” Lucas interrupted. He could feel his whole body tighten with horror at the thought of how she must have felt.

  “Cordell says that’s what she told him, and it’s the only thing that makes sense,” Howard said. “She was shocked, and grieving, but she carried out the mission to warn him.”

  “But he failed?” Lucas shifted his position slightly. “Is he telling the truth?”

  “I don’t know. But it’s possible.”

  Lucas frowned, worried by a new thought. He looked at Howard and saw the rigidity of his body, for all the calm on the surface. Did the man never relax his guard? He did not used to be so tightly strung. Had Lucas himself been like that when he was in the service? When a mistake could cost so much. He remembered it now. Yes, perhaps he had. He had escaped it, for a while. He did not want it back again. And yet what was he worth if he could watch it all unravel again, and do nothing? A man who watched was as guilty as those who took part. If he could have stopped it, even a small amount of it. Perhaps that was what he had implicitly taught Elena. He would have told Howard that, if their roles had been reversed. “Peter! Is Cordell lying to himself, or to us? Or daren’t he even think about it?” he said.

  A wisp of a smile crossed Howard’s face, and perhaps of pity also. “I don’t think he’s faced it yet,” he answered. “Maybe he really did try. But the other thought is that Cordell may know more about Scharnhorst than he’s told us, and it could be the Germans are only too pleased to see the bastard shot, whoever did it. What could be better?”

  “The Germans shot Scharnhorst? Really?”

  “If you were back with us, you’d know enough not to be surprised,” Howard said bleakly. “Hitler’s quite capable of having done it himself. Scharnhorst was a liability.”

  “I thought Hitler was for the pure Aryan race, by whatever means necessary. That’s the subtext I keep hearing.”

  “He’s not clumsy, Lucas. Raving mad under the surface, but clever. He won
’t take the people faster than they’re willing to go. Scharnhorst was moving too quickly, and I think Hitler might well have seen that. And there were rumors he had his sights on Hitler’s job. You do know that Hitler got about ninety-four percent of the vote in the election at the turn of the year? If he knows anything, he knows his power…and his people. That’s what scares the hell out of me. He could have been informed by Cordell, or whoever else, and let the assassination go ahead. A good, clean way of getting rid of this rival. And blaming us at the same time.”

  “And you really think Cordell would have been complicit in this?” Lucas asked.

  “Like most of us, if not all, he passionately wants to believe there will never be another war like the last one,” Howard answered.

  “From the outside?” Lucas said quietly, forcing the words, like walking into darkness.

  Howard blinked, puzzled.

  “Or the inside?” Lucas elaborated. “Do you want your enemy wearing a German uniform, or a British one? A brown shirt or a black one?” He was exaggerating, and he knew it, but not by very far. The possibility was closer than they thought…far too close.

  “We’re not…” Howard began, and then stopped. “Cordell’s not stupid, and I believe he’ll see them for what they are, but whether it will be soon enough to save himself…I’m sorry.”

  “I can’t leave Elena there,” Lucas said immediately. “I wanted to know about Cordell because I would like to have been able to trust him.”

  Howard’s body stiffened. Before he could interrupt, Lucas went on.

  “I want to go there and find her.” Had it been anyone but Elena, he would have accepted the facts and futility of his own actions immediately. Was he getting old, losing his touch? Or was it just that this was family, a child he had known since the day of her birth, a tiny scrap of life wrapped in a dress like something a doll would wear, staring at him with wide, blue eyes that had just opened on the world? She had not changed so much. “Where was she last seen?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” Howard replied. “And neither do any of my sources. She was staying in a hotel we often use. It seems that, too, is now compromised, because the Stormtroopers went there for her almost immediately, but she escaped. Apparently, she went up the stairs to the top floor, then down the ancient fire escape into an alley, and there they lost her.”

  “In an alley?” Lucas was filled with alarm. Surely that must mean they had captured her, but were now denying it. Why? Proof of British guilt was doubtless the purpose of it all, at least on the face of it. So they could ignore what darker political purpose Hitler might have. “Peter—”

  “No,” Howard said quickly. “They don’t have her. She must have gone forward into the crowd instead of running for cover. Clever. They lost her among the people in the street, and now there is a full-scale manhunt for her.”

  Lucas could not remember anything that had shaken him so badly, except the news of Mike’s death. In a way this was worse. There was no finality to it. He had not known Elena was in any danger. He was seared by the terror she must be feeling, alone and hunted in a city that toppled on the edge of depravity, teeming with Brownshirts, everyone afraid of them, and they becoming more and more drunk with power. He could not imagine what they would do to a woman they believed guilty of killing a man they adored, hysterically, fanatically, as they had Scharnhorst.

  Howard leaned forward and grasped Lucas’s hand. For seconds he held it as hard as he could, then let go and resumed his position in his chair. This was real. It must be faced.

  “I’ll go and look for her,” he said firmly. “I have a better chance of disappearing in a crowd than you do. And I am a damn sight more up to date. But first I need to go and tell Newton’s family. I owe him that. He was…” He did not finish the sentence. It was only words, and they both knew them too well to need to say them aloud.

  Slowly, Howard stood up, looking more than his forty-eight years. It was all the more noticeable because usually he looked less. Now he seemed beaten, just not yet completely aware of it. “I’ll tell you anything I learn about Elena, and I’ll get my best people to do whatever they can to find her and get her out of Berlin.”

  Reluctantly, Lucas conceded. He was too old to be the best man for this. For all his passion and willingness to sacrifice himself if necessary, he no longer had the physical stamina, nor perhaps the mental agility, to succeed. He rose to his feet. “I know.”

  Howard went out of the French door and across the garden to the back entrance.

  Lucas found Josephine waiting in the hallway. She looked angry, but there was fear in her eyes.

  “What is it?” she said without preamble.

  “Howard? Oh, he’s—”

  “Lucas, don’t lie to me!” she said sharply, real anger in her voice. “I know it’s bad. I can see it.”

  “It’s…” he began, then stopped again. Up until a day or two ago, he had believed she knew only that his job during the war, and for a while after, had been secret, as her wartime job had been. She had never spoken of her work as a decoder and in turn had allowed him to think that he had his secrets still, when all the time it was her knowledge of him that was the real secret.

  He was flooded with an overwhelming gratitude for her generosity of silence. The emotion robbed him of words.

  But she was frightened now, and her fear was increasing with his refusal to tell her what was the matter. Perhaps just as deep a pain was her perception that he might not trust her.

  “Elena,” he said. “One of the vilest of Adolf Hitler’s admirers has been assassinated. The man they nicknamed the Hyena because of his habit of mauling the already wounded, the vulnerable.” He spoke with a venom that surprised even him.

  She was waiting, knowing that this was not the point.

  “They are blaming British Intelligence for it, specifically Elena.”

  “What? Lucas, is she in Berlin? She’s supposed to be in Paris!” She was not arguing with him. He saw that she believed him, that she was looking for an explanation and trying to understand.

  “Yes, she went to Berlin. I know that because she went to the embassy and tried to warn them about the assassination.”

  “Warn them? How did she know? What are you not telling me?”

  In as few words as possible, he told her about Ian Newton and his death.

  “Then why are they blaming her?” Josephine’s face was white now, her eyes glittering with rage and fear. “Who knew of Ian Newton’s instructions to go to Berlin, and who killed him on the train? It cannot possibly have been Elena. She’s obviously just got caught up in all this.”

  “I know,” he agreed. “I fear we have a traitor and I think we know who it is. We have every intention of using him to feed his handlers false information. Right now all I care about is getting Elena back home.”

  “Where is she? Do you know?” Even against her iron will, Josephine could not keep the slight tremor from her voice.

  “No, except that she must be well hidden, because the German militia can’t find her either. So perhaps we have a little time.”

  “Until what?” she asked.

  He knew the answer, as she did, but he did not want to put it into words.

  “Until it’s too late,” she answered herself. She seemed about to add something, then changed her mind.

  “I have no idea where she is, but I still have contacts in Berlin,” he assured her, showing that he was no longer concealing anything. “People I trust, and who owe me. I’ll go and look for her.” He did not mention Howard. He, Lucas, would go, too, in spite of what he had said.

  She took a deep breath, blinking her eyes to dispel tears. “No, you won’t, my dear. You are far too old for such things, and you have a twisted ligament in your ankle. Don’t argue with me, Lucas! You’ll get exposed if you’re caught, and worse.”

  “B
ut Elena, Josephine! Do you have any idea what they could do to her?”

  “Yes.” She did not elaborate. Perhaps she had her own nightmares. “Has it not occurred to you that as well as old friends in Berlin, you might also have old enemies? And their memories can be even longer.”

  “I know that,” he said, although it had not been at the front of his mind. “But I can’t leave her there.”

  “Send Peter Howard,” she said without hesitation. “He’s a man in his prime.”

  “He’s already said he’ll go, but…” He hesitated. This was not about himself.

  “I know,” she said firmly. “He’s high up in MI6 and shouldn’t really do rescues of young women who get into tight situations. But don’t argue with me. Let Peter Howard go alone or I’ll go and make sure he does myself!”

  “You won’t. You don’t even know where to find him.”

  “Don’t be absurd! Of course I do!” There was a blazing certainty in her eyes, as well as a fear that was very deep indeed. She had one son, Charles, to whom she was not particularly close, no matter how much she loved him. Their natures were utterly different. But she had two granddaughters, and Elena was as dear to her as anyone in her life, perhaps even as dear as Lucas himself.

  “All right. I’ll go and tell him I definitely won’t be going. I know where he’ll be this evening.”

  “Thank you,” she said simply. “And make sure you give him some photographs of Elena. He’ll need to know what she looks like.”

  The moment the front door closed behind Lucas, she picked up the phone and called Charles.

  * * *

  —

  Lucas took Toby with him. A man with a dog drew far less attention than a man alone. Toby was delighted, he loved riding in the car. In his experience, it went to the most wonderful places: woods, fields, sometimes even beaches, and the homes of people who fed him treats.