‘And if my answer is Yes, then Les kills her?’
‘If you don’t want to do it yourself, yes. Although I am firmly of the opinion that one should take responsibility for one’s own decisions.’
‘I won’t kill her, or let Les do it,’ I told them.
‘Decided by default then.’ That was the Major. He sneezed, and after a production with a grubby khaki handkerchief muttered, ‘Let her out, Les. She can rustle up a bit of breakfast, and count her stars lucky.’
Mrs Maggs looked a bit dishevelled, but not scared. Les said, ‘Charlie says you can live.’
‘If that’s what all the fuss was about, Mr Raffles, you coulda asked me. He ain’t no lad to go killing old ladies.’
England said, ‘No. He’s the type that turns his back on them: far more dangerous.’ They actually smiled at each other.
She’d made up enough stovies for all of us the night before, and hadn’t used them. Now she fried what was left as thin meat and potato pancakes. They were delicious.
*
I was the last to get into Kate. Maggs had the nerve to give me a peck on the cheek, and whisper, ‘Good luck, Charlie.’
Driving back to the ARC I had the chance to sort a few things out with the Major. One was, ‘The man she refers to as her Jerry was one of yours, wasn’t he? You and he are both in the food business. That’s how you knew where to come to fetch him.’ I turned in the passenger seat to look at him. He looked up from his notebook, and smiled. That was all.
The next was, ‘And he was the German at that cafe table in Beauvais; with the woman and child.’
This time he looked out of the window. He was still smiling. Raffles said, ‘Well done, Mr Charlie.’
And the last was, ‘What was the favour Mrs Maggs wanted from you?’
‘She thought that they’d hung about in Beauvais long enough. She wanted them safe in England: today. Said it would probably be safer for you, too.’
‘What did that mean?’
‘What do you think?’
‘What are you going to do about it?’
‘Already made the call. They’re on their way. I was going to save them for a trade later. You’re an expensive friend, Charlie Bassett.’
I asked him again, ‘He was your spy, wasn’t he?’
This time he answered me. He was still smiling, but there was something else in there somewhere.
‘He’s my cousin, Charlie. On my mother’s side.’
What do they call it? Endgame. I guess that there was something he hadn’t needed reminding of: the look on his face said that it would stick around all day. The two policemen weren’t at the cafe, so we drove on. As Les drew the big car up to the kerb outside the ARC he told me, ‘Things to do myself. Meet you at the cafe along the road about 1900 hours; OK?’
‘Yes. If I get bored I’ll go sightseeing, or shopping.’
‘Buy yourself a gun,’ Les murmured as I opened the car door. They were moving before I had turned away.
Nine
McKechnie and his number one man were on the steps outside the ARC club, lounging like lizards. Bassett Major, as I had started to think of him, showed me his teeth. They weren’t very good teeth. McKechnie smiled and said, ‘Hi,’ holding out his soft pink and brown hand for a shake. ‘I thought that maybe you weren’t coming back.’ There was a worry line behind the smile.
Bassett Major didn’t smile. There were bruises on his face: smiling probably hurt him.
‘Is it late?’ I asked him.
‘Chow’s long gone. But we didn’t set a time, did we?’
‘I didn’t think so. Does your man have anything for me?’
‘Search me, bud. The Lieutenant don’t tell the hired help nothing. Just to show you in when you gets here.’
My instinct was to make some excuse and walk away: I still wasn’t set up for verbal arm wrestling with an American intelligence officer. I needed a cup of char and a wad to set me up. Instead I followed the black policeman into the ARC, wondering when Emily Rea, the woman I knew, was due back.
The lobby was polished brown marble; as old as Napoleon and as big as the Albert Hall. A huge, wide staircase on my left spiralled flatly upwards to the next floors. Joe Loss walked down it, and past me. I think that my mouth must have dropped open. I asked, ‘Was that who I think it was?’
‘Yeah. His band is at the hop around the corner tomorrow. The tickets all went a month ago.’
‘I’m not surprised. We go up there?’
‘No: us nasties live beneath.’
He nodded to the right. The wide stair swung away, and down into the gloom of a false dusk. He led off, and I followed him after Bruised Bassett gave my elbow a little steer. He trundled behind us: presumably it took the pair of them to make sure I didn’t get lost. I’d noticed the music as I had stood in the hall; now it followed us down the stairs into a wide, badly lit corridor. Hutch was singing ‘Deep Purple’ on some old record from some radio station. I said, ‘That’s neat. How do you do that?’
‘Speakers every twenny feet. It’s a club, after all. Folks are supposed to enjoy themselves.’
‘That’s Emily’s speciality. She makes people forget the war for a couple of hours.’
‘Maybe she’s too good at that. The whole fucking American Army forgot the war on New Year’s Day, an’ the Kraut flung his whole fucking Army right back at us, didn’t he?’
‘Did he? I missed it. I was in a hospital bed counting my burns.’
‘The Battle of the Bulge.
