thinking about Sir George Harvey. He was quite a man, there was no doubt about that. As the car disappeared from sight round a bend in the road, he turned and went quickly into Wandsbek station.
IT was nearly four-thirty when he mounted the stairs to Anna Hartman’s apartment and knocked on the door. It was opened almost at once, and she pulled him inside, her face white and strained. “Where have you been?” she demanded. “I was almost out of my mind with worry.”
“Any particular reason?” he said as he took off his coat.
She shook her head. “There hasn’t been a mention of the train affair on the radio. I’ve listened to every bulletin. I can’t understand it.”
“You worry too much,” Chevasse said. “Steiner’s probably persuaded his superiors to allow him to handle the case in his own way. After all, he can’t let someone else get their hands on me – I might talk too much. He’s got to reach me first, if only to save his own skin.”
He pulled her down beside him on the couch. “Did you manage to find out anything about Katie Holdt?”
She shook her head. “Not a thing. Her landlady didn’t even see her go. Apparently she left the rent she owed in an envelope, with a brief note saying she’d been called away urgently. There was definitely no forwarding address.”
“That’s a pity,” Chavasse said. “She might have proved useful. At least we now know how Muller came to be connected with Bormann in the first place.” She looked surprised and he quickly explained about his trip to Farmsen.
“How on earth can you take such risks?” she said when he had finished. “Couldn’t Sir George have given you the message over the phone?”
Chavasse jumped to his feet and walked across to the window. “I suppose he could, but I get restless. I have to be in at the heart of things.” He turned with a smile. “Never mind about me – has Hardt been in touch yet?”
She nodded. “We’re to meet him at Blankenese tonight in a cafe by the Elbe. I know the place. Apparently, he’s found out everything we need to know about Kruger and his clinic.”
“That sounds fair enough,” Chavasse said. “What time are we meeting him?”
“Nine o’clock,” she said. “It will be dark by then.”
He moved across to the couch and pulled her to her feet. “That gives us almost five hours to kill.” He held her hand securely. “What on earth can we find to do?”
She drew away from him. “There’s a newspaper there,” she told him. “You can read that while I prepare a meal for you.”
She went into the kitchen and he followed her and stood leaning in the doorway, a slight smile on his face. “I much prefer to watch you.”
She turned to look at him, and suddenly she moved forward and into his arms. “Oh, Paul, I was so frightened for you,” she said. “You’ll never know how frightened I was.”
He held her tightly in his arms and stroked her hair and whispered comfortingly, and all the time he was staring out of the opposite window as he admitted the one, hard fact that he had not wanted to acknowledge. That from the moment he had first seen her at the Taj Mahal, standing just inside the door in her ridiculous harlot’s dress, he had been caught in a tide of emotion so strong it could not possibly be denied.
As he lifted her face, he wondered ironically what the Chief would say, and then he kissed her and forgot about everything. About Muller, Steiner, the Bormann manuscript – everything except this girl.
CHAPTER 7
They arrived at Blankenese at half past eight and parked the car in the Hauptstrasse. Anna led the way and Chavasse followed her along a narrow, steeply sloping alley that finally brought them out onto the shore of the Elbe.
There were plenty of people about, and the gaily painted, brightly lit cafes that lined the shore seemed to be doing good business. Anna led the way into one of them, and they sat down at a corner table on a terrace that jutted out over the water. Chavasse ordered two beers and gave her a cigarette while they waited.
The terrace was lit by a string of Chinese lanterns and they had it completely to themselves. As they sat there in silence, he felt curiously at peace with himself; a small wind lifted across the water, carrying with it the dank, moist smell of autumn.
“I like this place,” he said. “Have you been here often?”
She nodded. “Blankenese is one of my favorite spots. It’s very popular with young couples, you know.”
He leaned across and placed a hand on one of hers. “Do you think we could qualify for the club?”
A sudden, delightful smile appeared on her face and she took hold of his hand and gripped it firmly. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could, Paul? If only we were like all the other couples strolling along the Strandweg – just two people in love and enjoying each other’s company with nothing else to worry about.”
For a moment, he wanted to tell her that there was always something to worry about – money, disease, poverty, old age – but he didn’t have the heart. He smiled and said lightly, “Mark isn’t due until nine. That gives us at least half an hour to pretend.”
She smiled again and said softly, “Then let’s pretend.”
The waiter brought their beer and Chavasse drank his slowly, reveling in the cold dryness of it, and watched a passenger ship steam slowly past on its way out to sea, a blaze of lights from stem to stern. Faintly across the water, he could hear voices and careless laughter above the throb of the engines.
“I wonder where it’s going,” he said.
“Would it matter?”
She smiled sadly, and he took her hands and said gently, “You’ve stopped pretending already.”
She looked down into her glass for a moment, a slight frown on her face, and then she disengaged her hands and lit another cigarette. After a while, she looked across at him, a slight, wry smile on her face. “It’s rather ironic, really. Until yesterday, I was perfectly sure of myself, happy in the knowledge that I was doing something important, something worthwhile. Nothing else seemed to matter.”
“And now?”
She sighed. “Now I am in love.” She laughed briefly. “For me it’s a new experience. I haven’t had time before. But you jumped into my life feet-first. You appeared in my line of vision and I couldn’t possibly avoid you.”
“Are you sorry I did?”
For a moment, she hesitated, and then she flicked her cigarette down into the water and shook her head. “No, if I regretted having known you, I’d be regretting life itself.” For a moment longer, she stared out over the water at the ship disappearing into the night, and then she turned and said in a low, intense voice, “Is there anything for us, Paul? Can we ever get away from this sort of life?”
He stared out into the darkness and thought about it. How many times during the last five years had he been at this stage in a job? One jump ahead of trouble with the prospect of more to come, treading the razor edge of danger. Half his life seemed to be spent under cover of darkness, meeting strange people in even stranger places. And when all was said and done, when everything was finally under wraps, to what ultimate purpose?
Was any of it worth what he held now in the hollow of his hand? He looked across at her, at the despondent droop of her shoulders, and as he watched, she took a deep breath and straightened.
She smiled bravely. “I wonder if Mark will be on time.”
He reached across. “To hell with Mark. To hell with the whole bloody show. For two pins, I’d walk out now. We could take the Volkswagen and drive to Holland, cross the border on foot before daylight. I’ve got friends in Rotterdam – good friends.”
She shook her head slowly. “But you won’t, will you, Paul? The job comes before everything – remember telling me that? And it’s a fine principle and an honest one.”
If anything, he loved her even more for saying it. He leaned across until their faces were almost touching, and said urgently, “But afterwards, Anna? With any luck, we’ll have this whole thing wrapped up within two or three days. I could pack the game in then.”
She seemed to be infected by his own enthusiasm, and a faint flush of excitement tinged her cheeks. “Do you
