The only other customer was three tables away and staring into his cup – reading his tea leaves maybe. I leaned forward to Vic and told him everything that happened, more or less. In fact, rather less than more.
I didn’t tell him the Jewish resistance stuff, and I was at pains to make him believe that Eve hadn’t pulled the trigger on Mulder. But a British court might not see the difference between doing the murder and helping at it. Come to that, I might have some serious explaining to do in the dock as well.
Vic interrupted me at the start but as I got to the last twenty-four hours he listened to me in silence with his arms folded. When I stopped, he lit another fag and shook his head.
“I have to hand it to you, Danny. You’ve been in this town less than a week and you’ve managed to cause an international incident. That takes talent. I saw old Toby this morning. Scraped him off the bleeding ceiling I did. He was mental.
Would have wrung your neck with his bare hands if you’d walked in the door.”
“That’s comforting.”
“But he’s calmed down. A bit. Now his current mission in life is to get you off his patch as fast as your little legs can pedal.”
“What about Eve?”
“Her too, I imagine. They want her back in Blighty, so I guess they’ll take the pair of you back. Then you can sort it out from there. And we can get on with turning Berlin back into the cabaret capital of Europe. If that’s all right by you…”
I didn’t tell him where we were hiding. I agreed to meet him, same place, same time tomorrow to hear how Toby wanted to handle it. The bar could be approached from a number of angles and though it had more board than glass in its windows, I would be able to check if there was a platoon of Redcaps waiting to pounce. On my way back I did some hard bartering in one of the open markets and carried my treasure to the flat. It didn’t look so tasty set out on the table.
“You should have sent me,” she said prodding the blackening spuds and cabbage and the dark red sliver of fatty meat.
“If you’re going to complain about it…”
“Joking, joking. You did well, Danny. I can make a meal out of this. But we won’t bark too loudly in case the meat twitches, eh?”
She’d evidently got over the shock of yesterday. Her face had some colour in it again, and she’d managed to wash her hair in the sink. It was damp and combed flat against her head like a Twenties flapper. While she rinsed and cut up the food I told her about my run-in with Vic.
“Are you sure you weren’t followed?” she asked.
“I’m trained in this stuff.”
“Can you trust him?” She put a pan on to boil. She threw the meat into the little frying pan and it sizzled and filled the room with saliva-inducing smells. I chose not to sniff too deeply in case I could identify its provenance.
Meat was meat.
“I don’t know. He might set me up tomorrow. Haul me off in a paddy wagon. But it’s a risk we need to take.”
“Is it? We could lie low. Stay here till it went quiet. Try to make contact with some of my other friends?”
“Irgun? Haven’t they got you in enough bother?”
She turned to me, her face red – maybe it was the heat of the stove.
“It was my decision, Danny. Nobody forced me. This time.”
I held my hands up. “Sorry. I still find it hard to see you as a double-agent.”
“Me too, Danny. Me too.”
“What about this big scoop? This propaganda event Gideon was talking about? You know what it is, don’t you? When is it?”
She was suddenly back at the cooker, meddling with the food. I let the silence grow. Finally she turned to look at me. There were beads of sweat on her brow.
“I don’t know exactly. It’s in Jerusalem.”
“A raid? A bomb? A street riot? What?”
“I can’t tell you! No one will get hurt.”
“When? “Soon. Very soon.”
“Where are we? This is July…” I realised I had lost track of the days.
Eve clearly had her finger on the pulse. She took a deep breath. “Today’s the twentieth. It could happen any time, he said.”
“Today? Tomorrow? Next month?”
She shrugged.
I pressed her. She was finally coming clean. “What were you to do?”
“I drafted a few words.”
“Like a press release?”
She nodded. “I suppose.”
“Then what?”
“Gideon was to send it out on the wires. Telegraph a man in Reuters in New York.
He was going to spread the text. I was to phone in my report to my news desk. A scoop, as you call it. Then I was to get exclusive interviews with the heads of the Jewish Defence Agency.”
“Would the Trumpet print it? It’s not your normal headline.”
“This is big enough to be different. We would have the edge on everybody else.
Old Hutcheson would make it happen. This would be news.”
I looked at her, wondering again if I knew anything about her. I whispered, “Christ, Eve. What is it? What’s so big that it would make such news?”
She shook her head. “Enough. I’ve said enough. Just leave it.”
“One last question. How will you know about it, now? How will you hear? You’ve lost your contacts.”
She turned and walked over to the sideboard. She reached out to the wireless and switched it on. The screen glowed faint then a steady yellow. The set began to hum. She turned the knob and began to switch through the stations. Ghost accents and languages whistled past until we heard the distinctive voice of the BBC Overseas broadcast. I’d heard those clear, comforting tones many times sitting in a tent in the desert in North Africa or at dead of night in France crouched over an illicit radio, listening for coded messages.
“Good old Auntie,” I said. “Leave it on a bit, there’s a girl.”
And for a while, we listened to the everyday rhythms of Music While you Work, then Educating Archie, wondering at the barminess of a ventriloquist act on the wireless. We ate our food and felt like we were living on an island of domestic bliss. Bing Crosby crooned at us and I nearly asked her to dance. But I was scared she’d think me daft, and the moment would sour. So we had another fag.
The fried cat wasn’t bad either.
TWENTY ONE
I met Vic as arranged at nine o’clock the next morning. It was drizzling but warm. Before going inside I checked out the cafй as best I could through the steamed-up windows, and saw no one I didn’t want to meet. I entered and added my own cigarette smoke to the cosy fug. I took a seat with my back to the wall and easy access to the kitchen and the back exit, and waited. The radio warbled away in the background. Four other customers sipped at their coffees and pulled at their fags.
Vic arrived and shook off the rain from his mac. He looked a wee bit happier this morning.
“OK, the deal’s on,” he started.
“You mean we’re forgiven?” I asked.
He sat back and lit up. “Even the Pope wouldn’t forgive you for what you did to my car. But seems the Army’s prepared to draw a line under this. Toby wants you out of his hair ASAP.”
