They had thrown a blanket over this one, too, but it was hardly large enough to cover the body beneath, from which now came a shrill whimper — the same voice they had heard cry out from the woods.
The two bearers again stopped when they reached Colonel Kardich. He turned to Hawn and Anna. ‘So this is your good friend — your comrade-in-arms, your protector and benefactor. The man who has just tried to have you killed.’
Pol’s face was the colour of dirty water and his kiss curl straggled over the dome of his forehead like the ends of a frayed rope. He peered up at Hawn with eyes miserable with pain. ‘Ah, quelle jolie fin de partie!’
‘Why did you do it?’
‘It was necessary. An act of policy. I would like to explain, but I haven’t the strength.’
Hawn gave him a tired grin and spoke without looking at Colonel Kardich; ‘Die Voglein schweigen im Walde — the woods by the lake, Charles. And soon you will be silent too.’
‘All, not quite yet, I hope!’ Pol giggled feebly. ‘Mon chèr, there are good days and there are bad days. Voilà — this is a bad day. As you say, it seems that Doktor Mönch may have had the last laugh.’
Kardich said something in German and the two Vopos began to move away. ‘Give me some cognac!’ Pol cried, and closed his eyes.
‘We have more waiting for you than cognac,’ Kardich said, and turned to Hawn and Anna. ‘You will both get into the first jeep, please.’
Hanak was already walking back towards the Skoda; then paused, and gave them both a sad smile. He was holding his wounded thumb, wrapped in a handkerchief.
As Hawn and Anna reached the first jeep, from inside they heard another squeal of pain. The last they saw of Pol were his tiny feet peeping out from between the canvas flaps at the back. Anna turned to Colonel Kardich. ‘Is he badly hurt?’
‘He will live.’
CHAPTER 29
The car was a big black Russian saloon with a military driver and a plain-clothes man in the front, Hawn and Anna in the back. They drove fast, with the headlamps on high-beam. By noon they were past Oranienburg and on the autobahn heading west to Berlin. Except for a few whispered exchanges between Anna and Hawn, no one spoke. Anna was in a state of shock, her body shaken with spasms of shivering.
At the checkpoint into the East Sector they slowed down but did not stop. The plain-clothes man flashed a card and they drove through, down the dismal dirty-white reaches of Karl-Marx-Allee, looking now, in daylight, like two rows of vast pock-marked tombstones: across Alexanderplatz, and west into drab suburbs littered with workers’ flats backed by great mounds of rubble half overgrown with scrub and weed.
They did not cross at Checkpoint Charlie, but at the more remote Glienicke Bridge. There they stopped, but only for a moment. Two Vopos surrounded the car and whipped the rear doors open. An officer appeared and pointed across the bridge. ‘Go.’
It seemed a long lonely walk, across the murky, half-frozen waters of the Spee Canal. At the far side was a broad white line on the road; two American MPs sat in a jeep and glanced at them both, curiously. A taut-faced man in a black leather raincoat approached them. ‘Mr Hawn. Miss Admiral.’ He gestured towards a BMW parked a few yards on, with its engine running. A second man in a raincoat sat behind the wheel. They were again shown into the back, and again they drove off at speed.
Hawn tried to ask the first man what was happening, where they were going. The German replied, ‘Please, I am not permitted to discuss matters.’
Twenty minutes later they drew up outside the international terminal of Tempelhof Airport, and were conducted to the British Airways counter. Here a youngish man with a clipped moustache and weak eyes stepped forward and said, ‘Mr Hawn, Miss Admiral, my name’s Wynn-Catlin — I’m with the British Consulate here.’ He handed Hawn a plastic folder. ‘These are your travel documents for entering the United Kingdom, and your tickets. Your plane leaves in just under half-an-hour.’
When Hawn looked round, the German had gone. He turned to Wynn-Catlin: ‘Would it be too much to ask what’s going on?’
The man looked at him, full of officious disdain. ‘I’m afraid it would. You see, I haven’t the faintest idea myself. I just know that you’ve lost your passports, and that it’s our job to see you get back home.’
They landed at Heathrow at 2.15 local time. It was raining.
Customs and Immigration must have been tipped off; the formalities were swift and perfunctory. Hawn was half expecting, with a mixture of vanity and habit, to be greeted by reporters and cameras. Instead, there was just one man, in a chauffeur’s uniform, carrying a card with ‘Mr Hawn’ printed on it. He told them he had a car waiting for them outside.
It was a dark blue Jaguar with a telephone between the front seats. Hawn tried again: ‘Where are we going?’
‘To Mr Shanklin’s place in Wiltshire, sir.’ His accent was that of the perfect gentleman’s gentleman.
‘I’d prefer to go home. Number eighty-two, Pembridge Villas, please.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. I have my instructions.’
‘You’ll do as I say, or I’ll call the police.’ But the car was already moving, gathering speed.
‘Mr Shanklin gave me a message,’ the chauffeur said, with no inflection in his voice. ‘He told me to tell you that you are now in safe hands and that you have nothing more to worry about.’
‘That’s very nice of Mr Shanklin. Can I reach him on this telephone?’
‘He won’t be at home for another hour,
