there was nothing in the passenger compartment that was in anyway untoward. He would just have to wait for an opportunity and to do that the first task was to lose the tail.
‘Have you got used to being on the wrong side of the car yet?’
‘Let’s just say I don’t think I’m going to die.’
‘Good.’
Cal hit the floor with the pedal and the V12 engine responded immediately, Corrie crying ‘Jesus!’ as she was thrust back in her seat. There were no straight roads in these parts and they were not generous in width, which made the sensation of speed all that much greater, exaggerated as the tyres screeched round the bends.
As soon as the tail was out of sight, Cal was looking for a junction or at least where the road split, and that came at a fork, he taking the uphill line because it affected him not at all, but that near-toy car with two big blokes in it would struggle to keep up any speed at all. For all they were moving up a steep hill, the trees still hemmed them in.
At the top of the hill there were two bored-looking sentries in grey-green Czech uniforms standing before an entry into the woods shut off by a wire gate, but the approach of the car brought them to life and their slung weapons came off the shoulder just as the trees thinned to one side to show an extensive panorama.
Inside those trees there had to be some of the Czech defences, and on this kind of elevation and with the open ground below the hilltop, Cal assumed heavy artillery, which would be in a well-defended concrete cupola surrounded by pillboxes.
He slowed right down and went by at a crawl; these conscripts, which is what they looked to be, were likely to be trigger-happy and he had known men killed by not paying enough attention to another soldier’s nerves. The speed also allowed him time to assess the field of fire he imagined the weapons could strike; that panoramic view looked as though it extended right into the Third Reich.
Past that and descending he really gave the car full throttle and soon they were racing through another dense tree belt so narrow occasional branches hissed along the side of the car and one or two hit it with a crack; if it had a serious purpose, driving like this was exhilarating.
Corrie showed no sign of fear; in fact, when a bit of straight road allowed him to look at her it seemed as if her eyes, staring straight ahead, were alight, her mouth was slightly open and her breathing seemed faster than normal — she was excited and enjoying the thrill as much as he was.
Sighting another ungated path into the trees he pulled hard over and shot up the lane, which had her sliding across the front leather seat to his side, coming to a halt with her body jammed against his. He could sense her, and the way her breath was still heaving was too obvious to miss, so spinning sideways he threw an arm over her shoulder and pulled her close.
She made no attempt to avoid being kissed, there was no stiffness or resistance and, as his tongue slipped between her teeth, he also knew that whatever else Corrie Littleton had done in her life, this was not the first time such an embrace had happened to her; she had been kissed before, because her tongue was also pushing forward to meet his own.
‘Is this why we came for a spin?’ she asked when they broke contact.
‘Would you be angry if it was?’ She shook her head. ‘Neither would I.’
‘That’s a helluva thing.’
‘I have work to do.’
‘You betcha,’ she said, her hand grabbing the back of his head, knocking off his hat and pulling him in till their lips were locked together again, and this time there was a trace of a moan, and whatever it is that signals from one human to another that they are willing was in Cal’s nostrils now.
‘You an outdoor girl?’ he asked.
She knew what that meant. ‘Heart and soul, Doc.’
‘There are a couple of rugs on the back seat.’
‘Is that planning?’
‘It’s a luxury car.’
‘Maybe they are in the wrong place.’
‘A walk?’
As she nodded he switched off the engine and Corrie took his hand to be pulled out of the driver’s door, which she held tight till Cal got the rugs out, there for rear seat passengers to cover their knees to keep out the cold.
‘You all right with this?’ he asked, his own voice now slightly hoarse. ‘There might be soldiers about.’
By way of a reply she led him away from the car and into the trees, holding his hand tightly — a pressure Corrie kept up until they came to a small clearing covered in fallen leaves. She looked at him and he nodded, then detached himself to spread out the rugs one on top of the other. Cal lay down and pulled her with him and immediately they were locked in an embrace.
He knew by what followed that Corrie Littleton was no firsttimer; she knew the body parts that mattered on him as well as he knew those that excited her and was uninhibited at seeking them out. The usual awkward gremlins getting out of clothing were met with the kind of intimate laughter that comes with slightly embarrassed struggles.
In these trees there was minimal sunlight and it was not really a warm day, but racing blood made up for any chill, that and activity that started slowly and rose in pace as both parties to this lovemaking extracted maximum pleasure from the act. When it was over, her bird-scattering screams had subsided and the breathing had settled a touch, she spoke into his shoulder in a small voice.
‘I hope you’ll still respect me, Doc.’
‘Don’t see why I should, I didn’t before.’
Her laugh filled the air and seemed to echo off the trees. ‘Callum Jardine, you are a piece of work.’
‘Which reminds me why I came,’ he whispered in her ear.
That set her off again, pealing laughter, which had Cal thinking this was a wholly different person to the one he thought he knew and he preferred it that way.
‘Can we just stay here for a few minutes?’
‘What makes you think I have the guts to say no?’
They lay for some fifteen minutes, not talking a lot but sharing whispered intimacies, until eventually Cal rose up and hauled her willingly to her feet. Hand in hand, once they had sorted out their clothing, they walked back to the car, each with a rug, and once they were seated in the front Cal asked her to get the maps and camera out of the glovebox.
‘It suddenly occurs to me we could have wandered into a minefield.’
‘Bang,’ she replied, as he handed her the camera.
‘What are you like as a photographer?’
‘As good as you are as a lover, Doc.’
Now it was his turn to startle the birds with his laughing.
It took a while and some map reading to get back on to the road to the town the Czechs called As, with many stops on the way: after tight bends, places where the road narrowed or where it was heavily enclosed by trees which, felled by blast, would block it completely — all possible points at which to spring an ambush.
At each one Cal took photographs, with Corrie insisting that he stand back to be snapped as well, and at no time did she enquire what he was up to; it was as though by making love their entire relationship had altered massively. She was happy and made no secret of it.
Asch was a pretty place nestling in rolling hills and surrounded by good rolling pasture. The houses, where they were not just grey stone, were painted in rose-pink and yellow and the style was similar to Cheb, with the tall steep-roofed buildings joining one another in long terraces.
The attempts to talk to what locals they came across were not a success: approaching anyone, even when Cal spoke to them in German, showed that they were an insular bunch not too keen to answer Corrie’s questions, some so nervous it was as though the mere act of talking to strangers would endanger them.
‘He might not have invaded,’ Cal ventured, ‘but it feels like Hitler’s here already.’
They found Henlein’s house by endless asking, as if they were tourists, Corrie’s notebook put away, and the first obvious fact was that, like the Victoria Hotel, it was guarded, in this case by two armed dolts who refused to believe Cal’s explanation and refused to allow him to use his camera. If they wanted photographs of the house they
