twenty-six men killed.” He paused, alarmed by his own intensity. He'd thought that by now any passions had long since drowned. “Yes, you're very clever, but there are still some problems too great even for you to fix.” He sat again. “Don't think you have it all sussed out, Pip. You don't.”
Marsh's puckered, knobby knuckles turned pale as he squeezed the armrests of his chair. But again, to his credit, the man held his temper.
“I've said you were right about the raid,” Marsh said in a quiet monotone. “I'm well aware of the men we lost.”
Equally quiet, Will said, “I notified the next of kin. All of them.” It was a statement of fact, a commiseration more than an accusation.
“You're a better man than I am, Will.” Marsh peered out the window, his gaze momentarily distant. He changed the subject again. “Have you heard anything about some work going on downstairs? At the Admiralty.”
“I'm sure I'd be the last person to know anything.”
“Ah.” Marsh slapped his knees with the palms of his hands, and stood. “Well. Need any help?” he asked, gesturing around the flat.
Will said, “Thank you, but no. I'll send somebody for my things once I've returned to Bestwood.”
He showed Marsh to the door. As his friend descended the stairs to the street, Will called after him.
“Pip? I've—” He paused.
It was all true, but none of it was right. He didn't know what he was looking for, what he was struggling to say.
“What, Will?”
“Never mind,” he faltered. “See you soon, I'm sure.”
Will abandoned the Kensington flat. He called a taxi to Fairclough Street in Whitechapel. He took two suitcases; the one he'd packed, and another, smaller, empty case.
He had learned about Fairclough Street by following one of Stephenson's men. Stephenson couldn't come down here himself, of course, but the man did adore his American tobacco. And the only place to get it was on the black market. Almost anything could be found on the black market, if one had the money: Food. Extra ration books. Petrol. Cigarettes. Clothing. Even medicine.
Will traded almost the entirety of his month's allowance from his brother Aubrey, to fill the smaller case with syrettes of medical morphine. With the leftover cash he purchased a rail ticket to Swansea, and from there hired another taxi. The driver followed Will's directions through the Welsh countryside, and frowned with silent disapproval when they pulled up to a boarding hotel surrounded by landscaped acreage.
The working class took a dim view of funk holes. As well they should have.
Will, being not of the working class, knew of several such places. Places where those with enough money— more money than conscience, certainly—could wait out the war in comfort. The residents typically pooled their rationing books together, enabling the proprietor or proprietress to prepare more suitable meals. And in return for a not-inconsiderable fee, the residents spent their war time years painting, punting, playing bridge, or listening to the wireless with a glass of sherry on hand while complaining about how Mr. Churchill had done everything so very wrong.
The driver sped off—grumbling about the well-to-do, his son in the Royal Navy, and his daughter in the Women's Land Army—as soon as Will had his suitcases out. From Will's vantage point there before the main house, he could see a tennis court, a fishpond, a whitewashed pergola, and a horse stable. A breeze carried the perfume of bluebells and hollyhocks blooming down in the garden.
It was, Will decided, a perfectly fine place to die.
The weather turned on them yet again. But it was different this time: a relentless, eyeball-cracking cold, equal parts ice and malice. And although this seemed impossible, or perhaps too disturbing to contemplate, Klaus felt as if the deepest freeze, the very worst of it, was following them. Dogging them. It seemed drawn to their uniforms, their regalia.
Klaus had never before in his life seen Reinhardt shiver. Now they all did it, constantly.
At night, when the temperature plunged and every snowflake became a crystalline flechette, patterns emerged within the interplay of moonlight and shadow. Wind sculpted the snowdrifts into unknowable shapes. Phantom scents lingered like half-remembered dreams on a wind that murmured in a language too alien to discern.
But most disturbing of all were the rumors. Klaus had heard in each of the last two towns they'd visited that the local children had begun to act strangely. They babbled endlessly, and they babbled in unison, as though chanting to some unseen presence that lived inside the weather.
Klaus had heard reports from Channel weather spotters the previous year, during the run-up to the invasion of Britain. Those men had reported strange shapes, sounds, even scents in the fog. More than a few of those men had gone mad. Gretel had told him so. He believed her; her voice had carried an undertone of wry amusement, as though it were an inside joke to which he wasn't privy.
She'd also told him about the British warlocks, and the beings they commanded. This was their work.
Turnout for the Gotterelektrongruppe's demonstrations had declined steadily as they performed their pointless road show in Heidelberg, in Frankfurt, and in the shadow of Cologne Cathedral. It was too cold for people to venture outside their homes, no matter the promised entertainments.
Their tour was forced to linger in Bielefeld—the birthplace of poor, martyred Horst Wessel—for an extra day when thigh-deep snowdrifts closed the road to Hannover. The mighty Gotterelektrongruppe could have pushed through, had its members been so inclined. But after more than a month on the road, they couldn't stand each other's company long enough to discuss the issue. And besides which, they had only so many batteries.
Klaus took his dinner, alone, at an inn down the road from where he and the others stayed. A late-spring sunset washed incongruously against frost-etched windowpanes, bleaching the room in diffuse white light. The decor was a thoroughly unconvincing re-creation of a beer hall. The stag heads, enameled tankards, and filigreed woodwork around the doorways would have been more natural farther south, in Bavaria. A true hall (Klaus had seen several; populous Munich had yielded many volunteers) required dark walnut paneling, stout ceiling beams, and casks of beer stacked behind the bar for fueling the
It was the kind of place that didn't know itself, didn't know what it was meant to be. Klaus liked it. Though it was chilly, he felt more at ease here than anywhere else they'd visited.
The fireplace was empty and dark. Klaus inquired about a fire. He was told the flue had frozen shut soon after being closed to keep out vicious downdrafts.
He ate in a bubble of silence. All the other patrons stepped widely around Klaus's table. The wires unnerved people, but he was too weary of the issue to hide them any longer. People were polite when forced to interact with him, but jittery, too.
His meal was as slapdash as the decor. Gristle marbled the corned beef so thickly that Klaus was hard-put to carve out each mouthful. Brine squeezed out of the too-pink meat each time he sawed his knife through it. The water sloshed over the lip of his plate and made a ring around his glass of lukewarm cider.
But the beets weren't so terrible, and the venison sausage was edible if slightly gamey. Best of all was the black bread, which was warm enough to melt butter. It must have been made in-house; carrying it just across the street would have leeched away the heat, rendering the bread as cold and hard as a hearthstone in an abandoned house.
“Where are your companions?”
Klaus looked up. A short ruddy man stood across the table. He stood with elbows resting on the back of an empty chair, forearms extended over the table and fingers interlaced. He fixed a wide grin on Klaus.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Your companions,” said the stranger in a reedy voice. “Especially the thin fellow.” He wiggled his fingers, raising his arms as he did so to mimic a blazing fire. “Whoooosh! I'd be inclined to stick close to him, on a chilly evening like this.”
