He started to strip his wet clothes and she toweled his body briskly. “I’ve been in touch with Sir George Harvey,” he said. “He’s going to pick us up at the Berndorf signpost on the main road.”
“What do we do when we reach Hamburg?” she asked as he dressed quickly.
“We’ll drop you at your apartment,” he said. “I’ll go on to the Atlantic with Sir George. I’ve been in touch with London. They’re arranging for a German intelligence man called von Kraul to meet me there – do you know him?”
She shook her head, “So far, we’ve tried to stay out of their way.” She cleaned his battered face with a wet washcloth as she talked, and covered the slash across his right cheek with sticking plaster.
“That’s partly why I want to leave you at the apartment,” he said. “The less von Kraul knows about Israeli underground groups working in Germany, the better. Another thing. If Mark manages to elude the chase, that’s where he’ll try to contact you.”
“Do you think he stands a chance?” she said.
Chavasse shrugged. “There’s always hope. In this heavy rain, it will be difficult for the dogs to follow his scent, and the mist should help him a lot.”
“I hope and pray he comes out of it safely,” she said, and there was a poignancy and depth in her voice that he found curiously disturbing.
“You think a lot of him, don’t you?” he said gently.
She nodded. “I should – he’s my stepbrother. We’ve always been very close.”
For once, he could think of nothing to say, and they went downstairs in silence. From several coats hanging in the hall, he selected a thigh-length, waterproof hunting jacket for himself and a green Tyrolean hat. He helped Anna into an old and shabby trench coat that was far too large for her, and they left.
They followed the road out of the village, walking in silence, and he felt curiously depressed. It was a feeling difficult to analyze, but probably caused by too little sleep for too long. Every muscle in his body seemed to be aching and his face pained him intensely.
After they had gone a couple of miles, he paused. “I think we’d better go through the trees for the rest of the way. Just in case they happen to be patrolling the main road.”
She nodded without speaking, and they left the road and walked through the trees, brushing aside the rain- soaked branches of the firs. Chavasse saw the hunting lodge first, and beyond it the white gleam of the road. As they approached, he realized that the place was derelict; the door hung on one hinge and the windows gaped sightlessly.
He checked the time. It was just after four-thirty. It was unlikely that Sir George would arrive before five. “We’ve got about half an hour to spare,” he told Anna. “We might as well stay here. The main road is only fifty or so yards away.”
“Just as you like, Paul,” she said listlessly, and preceded him through the door.
It had that peculiar musty smell usual to such places, composed of dampness and leaf mold. Anna sat down on the windowsill and Chavasse gave her a cigarette.
For a little while, they smoked in silence and she gazed out of the window, an expression of great sadness on her face. After a while, Chavasse said, “Anything the matter?”
She shook her head. “Not really, nothing I could put my finger on.” She turned and smiled at him, looking suddenly absurdly young in the old trench coat.
He grinned. “That coat’s far too large for you.”
She nodded. “It was made in England. I noticed the label when I put it on. I wonder how it came to be hanging on that peg at the inn.”
He shrugged. “Probably left by some tourist a long time ago.”
“I think that’s one of the saddest phrases in the English language,” she said. “A long time ago. On me it has the same effect as a bugle sounding taps. Lights out, you’re through, it’s all over.”
There was a terrible pathos in her voice, and he dropped his cigarette and caught hold of her arms. “Anna, what is it? You’ve never talked like this before.”
“I’ve never felt like this before,” she said. “I’ve been watching you, Paul. The way you react to danger, the way you always have an answer for every emergency, that utterly ruthless streak so essential to success.” She shook her head. “You’ll never change, Paul. You couldn’t even if you wanted to. All those things we discussed – the things we said we’d do after this is all over – they were just a pipe dream.”
He gripped her arm fiercely, bitter anger rising inside him. “But I
She touched his face gently with her fingers and shook her head. “No, you won’t, Paul. You and I, this hunting lodge, everything we’ve gone through in the last few days – none of it has any reality. One day, you’ll look back on it all and it will simply be something that happened a long time ago.” She laughed lightly. “What was that line in one of Marlowe’s plays?
He pulled her into his arms, holding her against him, and then he heard the unmistakable sound of a car slowing down in the road.
She tried to pull away from him and said gently, “I think we’d better go now, Paul. That sounds like Sir George.”
He tried to bring her back into his arms, but she braced herself to resist him, hard and unyielding. After a moment, he shrugged and released her. She turned without a word, and he followed her out of the hunting lodge and through the trees toward the road.
CHAPTER 12
They drove very fast on the way back to Hamburg. Anna huddled in a corner of the rear seat, eyes closed, while Chavasse and Sir George talked.
“You’ll never know how much I appreciate this,” Chavasse said.
Sir George snorted. “Rubbish, my dear fellow. As I told you before, I’m glad to help. I must say you look rather the worse for wear.”
Chavasse grinned. “I’m afraid I haven’t been mixing in very friendly company.”
“Any new developments in the Bormann affair?”
Chavasse nodded. “I’ve managed to find out that Bormann himself died several months ago. As for the manuscript, apparently Muller’s sister has it.”
“Have you got a line on her?” Sir George said.
“I’m afraid not,” Chavasse told him. “In any case, there are more important things to worry about at the moment. I’d like you to drop Miss Hartmann at her apartment first, then we’ll carry on to the Atlantic. I’ve taken the liberty of arranging to meet a German intelligence man in your suite. I hope you don’t mind?”
“Not in the least,” Sir George said. “Things must be getting warm if you’ve decided to call in the Germans.”
Chavasse nodded. “This is something else I’ve uncovered and some extremely big people are involved. Under the circumstances, I’m afraid I can’t discuss it with you until I’ve seen this man from German intelligence. It’s really something which directly concerns them.”
“I quite understand,” Sir George said cheerfully. “After all, the formalities must be observed and Continentals are always so damned touchy. Just remember, I’m always willing to do everything I can.” He sighed. “I shall be sorry when it’s time to go home, Chavasse. I’ve rather enjoyed this little trip.”
Chavasse eased his aching body into a more comfortable position. He closed his eyes and thought about Anna and what she had said. Was it really true? Was he in fact a sort of twentieth-century mercenary who enjoyed the game for its own sake? There was no answer. He wasn’t even sure that to be that kind of man was such a bad thing.
He was still thinking about it when they entered the outskirts of Hamburg. Sir George drove straight into the center, crossed the Alster by the Lombardsbrucke, and Chavasse directed him from there. It was almost a quarter to six when they turned into the quiet side street and halted outside Anna’s apartment.
She was still dozing when Chavasse got out of the car and opened the rear door. When he touched her arm,
