“Oh, let’s. After you, Gerry.”
We trooped upstairs and straight into Eve’s room. It looked tiny and shabby in daylight without her in it. Not helped by having the contents of her drawers and wardrobe tipped on to the floor. The bed itself was pushed against the wall and the covers were in a heap. The floorboards under it had been ripped back – or rather laid back; they’d clearly been made to lift up. Between the joists sat a metal box. I recognised it. It wasn’t identical to the one I’d used in France, but radio transmitters have certain features in common, whether British or German.
I walked over to Eve’s only chair, the one she flung her clothes over before she dived under the sheets with me in hot pursuit. I sat down, took my fags out and lit one. My hand was surprisingly steady.
“Shall we take it from the top, Gerry? Assume I know nothing. Like what you’re doing here? And why you’re with Wilson? And what you think happened to Eve Copeland?”
Cassells and Wilson exchanged looks, as though having brought me here, they were suddenly unsure about what to tell me. He took a seat on the edge of the bed.
Wilson leaned his elbow on the mantelpiece and stared at me. I blew my smoke at him.
“It’s like this, Daniel. I’m with the Security Services now. A natural progression, I suppose. Bert, here, is our link man in the Yard.”
I couldn’t resist smiling at Wilson. Bert, was it?
I thought back to my hospital bed, after Wilson gave me a serious going over in Charing Cross nick. I could hardly speak, and moving hurt – a lot. Major Gerald Cassells, who’d summoned the coppers after finding me rifling his files in SOE HQ, was bent over me, being very solicitous. Referring to Wilson’s treatment of me as animallike. His face then was full of contempt for someone so prepared to abuse his power.
He seemed to have got over that.
“So you and Bert are like that, Gerry?” I crossed my fingers to show how close they’d become. “Glad to see there’s no hard feelings between you.”
Wilson growled. “That’s enough of the cracks, McRae.” He turned to his new best friend. “I told you he’d play the smart arse.”
Cassells tugged at his moustache. “Look, I know there’s no love lost between you two, but we have business to attend to. Shall I continue?”
I shrugged. Gerry took it as a yes.
“Very well. The girl you call Eve Copeland has been known to us for some time.
She first came to the attention of the Security Services back in ’42. We had a tip-off from one of our agents in Germany. We did some checking. Her real name is Ava Kaplan. She’s German. She spent some time here before the war – college, that sort of stuff, so she speaks excellent English.”
With a posh accent, I thought. I was going to make a stupid comment about that not proving she was a spy, but the transmitter sat among us like an unexploded bomb.
“If you knew she was working for the Germans, why didn’t you pick her up?”
“It was before my time, of course, but apparently we found her useful. In her position as a reporter she got close to a number of senior chaps – civil servants and military – got them talking. We made sure that what she heard was duff gen.”
“You fed her false info?”
Cassells nodded. “SOE did it all the time, if you recall. Worked a treat.
’Specially with D-Day. Jerry didn’t know where the landings were going to take place till after we got there.”
I needed to get away from that smug bastard watching me from beside the mantelpiece. I stood up and looked out of the window, pulling back the net curtains. It was any view in London; rows of straggling fences enclosing little allotments, some still with Andersen shelters, some with washing hanging out.
How could Eve – Ava? – look out on this scruffy evidence of humanity and plot to bring it all down? I didn’t believe it, couldn’t believe it. I turned back to them.
“Is she alive?”
Cassells hesitated. “We think so.”
“Do you know where she is?”
He shook his head.
“Were you the ones following her?”
“No. We didn’t need to.”
I raised my eyebrows. “We knew where she was, knew what she was up to,” he explained.
“Why didn’t you pick her up after the war?”
He shrugged. “It was a mess. Europe was in chaos. Still is. We had agents all over the place that we needed to bring back. Frankly, old boy, we had more important things to do than pick up a minor agent of a defeated enemy.”
It all sounded rehearsed.
“Any idea who was following her?”
Wilson shifted his stance. “We thought you might have a better idea, old boy.
You and your gangland pals.”
I wished I had a golf club handy; a mashie niblick would do, with plenty of follow-through. He was still taller than me, but he’d lost a hundredweight or two. I reckon I could take him now. I spoke to Cassells.
“She upset people. Bad people. It goes with the job. The reporter job, that is.
But I guess her disappearance had nothing to do with East End villains.” I pointed at the transmitter. “What have you found?”
“That she was still using it up till a month ago. We picked up her signal. Part of our routine sweep.”
I was stunned. “She was still operating? Who with?”
“We don’t know. But there was an answering signal. All in code. But look here, Daniel…” He looked down at the toecaps of his brown brogues; they gleamed like polished brass. Old soldiers might fade away, but not their shoes. “Miss Kaplan… was sighted two weeks ago. She caught the ferry from Dover to Ostend. A woman matching her description – but not her passport – got on a train going east. To Antwerp.”
I found I wasn’t breathing. I inhaled and waited.
He went on. “Any idea where she was going, Daniel?”
I knew. I knew exactly where she was going. Her notebook left me in no doubt.
There’s a connecting train at Antwerp. One a day. Started running again in January. It was all in her notebook. I’d read the entries as journalist’s notes for some article. Not as travel plans.
“I think she’s gone to Berlin.” I sat down again and took out a fag. I played with it while I waited for my brain to catch up. Cassells exchanged glances with Wilson.
“That’s our guess too, Daniel. How did you know?”
“Just some things she said. And now this.” I pointed at the transmitter.
“Any idea why?” Cassells probed.
“She was being followed. Maybe she panicked,” I suggested.
“Maybe she went home, McRae. Back to her master.” Wilson held my gaze for an age, watching me digest this.
I counted to ten. Then twenty. “So, what now?”
They looked at each other. “Are you still… interested in her?” Cassells asked.
Was a bird interested in flying? I kept my face smooth. “Depends.”
Cassells took a deep breath. “We’re curious about who she was in contact with.
And why. Things are pretty fluid over there. What with the Russians and all that.”
All that was a considerable understatement. Why couldn’t the bloody English ever say what they really felt? From what I could gather, Berlin was a wild west town with four competing sheriffs – Russians, Americans, British and French – lording it over a starving populace of ex-Nazis and current criminals. What the hell was Eve doing there? If it had been her on that ferry, and if she had been heading to Berlin.
“Why don’t you ask your agents there?” My collar was beginning to feel tight.
“You know her. And she’s more likely to be persuaded to return with you.”
I looked at him.
“You’re an old SOE hand. We’d like you to go to Berlin and bring back Ava Kaplan.”
