I had to think about it. Les answered, ‘Good guy, we think. It’s difficult to be sure. Why?’
‘Arrived at the ’Hoek a few hours after you left. He was asking. I think he’s good: he’ll catch up with you eventually if he wants to.’
‘What was he saying?’
‘He asked me to tell you he had arranged a plane to get you out. All he needed was for you to tell him where from. He said to forget everything else; it’s time to go home and save your skin. I think I believed him. Maybe.’
‘What did you say?’
‘That I never heard of you. But that I would be sure to pass the message on if I ever met you. Then he starts buying drinks for the black fellow they call the Cutter. I think that they also call him Keck, which is something like his name.’
‘What did he say?’
‘They got drunk together, and Keck offered to circumcise your Lieutenant for free. I heard that bit. I missed what Clifford said back to him.’
‘Why?’
‘Because he was running too fast. He knocked down Alice’s Restaurant, the snake bit the pianist, an’ you know the rest.’
Les asked, ‘Where did she bite the pianist?’
Tommo replied for himself this time, ‘Behind the piano, where he was hiding.’
‘No; I mean, where on his body?’
‘Oh Christ; on his bum. You know that snake’s got a thing about arses?’
‘Sounds like some fellows I went to school with,’ James told us. It seemed to kill that line of conversation, if you’ll forgive the pun, and anyway he’d made that joke before.
Tommo pushed a couple of old oiled-cloth envelopes at me. He said, ‘These are the deeds to your place, an’ Les’s too. Don’t lose them.’
Les asked, ‘These are legal?’ again.
‘They are deeds of sale and possession, made out by the best surviving Jerry lawyer in Frankfurt. Transfer entries in your names have been made in the property and land registers. Now: do I have to say it again, or would you like it set to music? You’re landowners now. Legally. God loves you after all.’
‘God, and Tommo Thomsett. Thank you,’ I told him, and asked, ‘Where’s Grace?’
‘Up beyond Löningen somewhere, I heard. They were slowed down because of a fight over the other bird they got with them. One of the Eyetie medics ended up in hospital . . . and then we shanghaied him to work on the wounded. Apparently he says he’s only going to sew Krauts back together again, so they beat him up a bit and slung him in the can. Lucky he wasn’t whacked. Some politician had to intervene to get him out again . . . you believe that?’
‘Why not? Anything else I should know?’
‘Lee Miller’s up here somewhere. She took pictures of one of those concentration camps, and the Army’s trying to get them back off her to prevent them being published.’
‘Why?’
‘You seen one of those camps?’
‘No. Why?’
‘You will, an’ then you’ll know why. I ain’t being coy; it’s jest best you see for yourself.’
‘What’s Lee doing about it?’
‘She’s on the run; heading for Munich – the Army ain’t got a chance.’
‘What else?’
‘Cliff’s in zone, an’ worried about you.’
‘I know: Pete just told me.’
‘He’s using the call sign Ratking, an’ listening in to the Major’s daily callover. He won’t butt in until you call him to get you out. If I had to trust him on a scale one to ten, I’d rate him at six or seven, I think.’
‘Pete didn’t tell me all that. Thanks. Who put a price on my head?’
‘Us Yanks,’ Tommo told me. ‘ ’s funny: I always thought you was on our side, Charlie.’
‘So did I.’
‘So someone must have told us to do it.’
‘We figured that out for ourselves. Who?’
‘Someone who don’t want you finding Grace, nor her kid maybe.’
There it was at last. I had needed someone to say it out loud before I could believe it myself.
‘It would have to be someone close,’ I told him.
‘So why don’t you give up and go home?’
‘I have another appointment to keep in Bremen now; and Grace is the excuse I need to keep going.’
‘I could arrange an escort for you. People I trust, with a lot of firepower.’
The Major butted in. They call his sort of butting in an interjection.
‘Very kind, but no. Anyway, I ask myself, why should you help our Charlie here? In my country we use this proverb about not trusting Greeks bearing gifts.’
‘Point taken, Major. I don’t like Greeks either. I like the Eyeties though: good sound criminal stock. I look after Charlie because he’s part a my family. Like the other guys I mentioned. He does me favours, an’ I do him favours. Favour for favour.’
‘And they’re all strictly legal.’
‘Naturally. So is this where I have to start to get humpy, and ask you what the fuck your problem is . . . sir?’
‘I don’t have one, Master Sergeant. Take no offence.’
‘And you still want a cottage in . . . Bavaria, you said?’ He pronounced it Barr varr ey . . . ah. It sounded very exotic.
‘If that’s not too much trouble, old boy.’
‘Nothing’s ever too much trouble for me to do; for people in my family, that is . . .’ At least he spelled it out clearer to James than ever he’d bother to do for me.
Les asked Tommo and Pete, ‘Is there anything else we need to know before we push on?’
‘I heard that every Snowdrop who had contact with Charlie in Paris has done a runner: AWOL. Probably an exaggeration. I think that that is making us Allies a bit unhappy about you.’ When I didn’t respond he added, ‘That’s a black Sergeant you call the Cutter, a PFC named Bassett – the same as Charlie – and some Lieutenant. I think his name was Kilduff, or something like that. I know all about the Cutter, of course – in fact I rather like the guy – but I don’t suppose you know anything about the other two, do
