supper dishes washed and tidied away. There would be something for Mary in the range. She did not feel hungry. She wanted to slip quietly upstairs to bed but she knew she would have to speak to someone first. Her father was standing in the large stone-flagged entrance hall with a copy of
‘Are you all right? You’ve been crying,’ and he folded his newspaper and took half a step towards her as if to put a protective arm around her shoulders.
‘No, honestly, I’m fine. Tired, that’s all. I’m going to have a bath.’
‘Not yet you’re not,’ he said with a dry smile. ‘You’ve got to deal with him first,’ and he waved the paper in the general direction of the door. ‘I’ve had the devil’s own job restraining your brother. Your man’s sitting in his car.’
How foolish of her to have missed the Humber. It was still parked in front of the stable block. She could see Lindsay behind the wheel and the pinprick of light from his cigarette. She was sorry she had slapped him and she would say so but nothing more. Short, businesslike, no mention of Lange or the Division. A brief goodbye. She turned the handle of the passenger door and slipped on to the red leather seat.
‘I’m very sorry I struck you. It was unforgivable,’ she said quickly.
There was his small, slightly supercilious smile, the one she had marked at their first meeting and so often since.
‘So many things seem to be unforgivable. Actually I deserved it. You can do it again if you like,’ and he turned his head to offer the other cheek.
And she could not help but smile: ‘Please. Christ-like isn’t you at all.’
‘No?’
He looked exhausted and the car’s ashtray was overflowing with cigarette butts.
‘Here,’ and she leant across to brush a little mud from his jacket. ‘I thought you’d gone.’
‘I can’t go.’
They sat there in silence for a moment. He was trying to catch her eye but she looked away.
‘Do you want me to go?’
‘Yes.’
‘Here,’ and he picked a sheet of blue writing paper from the dash-board and offered it to her. It was a handwritten note in German from Helmut Lange. Just four short lines.
‘Read it to me,’ and she handed it back to him.
‘It says: “
His voice choked with emotion and he paused for a few seconds to regain some composure.
‘And he says: “
He folded it slowly and slipped it into his jacket pocket.
‘And will you visit him?’
‘Yes.’
She gave a slight nod of the head, then looked away. There was nothing more to say. She should leave. And she leant towards the handle of the door.
‘You’ve cut your face.’
‘I must be quite a sight.’
‘Yes. You are,’ and he reached for her hand, opening her fingers, kissing her palm, small tender kisses. And then he pressed her hand against his cheek. Her bottom lip began to tremble. It was impossible. And without thought she pulled her hand away and opened the car door.
‘Mary, please.’
The driver’s door opened too.
‘Mary.’
He was standing on the other side of the car. ‘I’m so sorry, really I am.’
‘No, Douglas,’ and she began to walk away. ‘Please go home. It’s over. It’s over.’
PART THREE
50
The little boy at the gate was blowing into his hands, trying to capture the warm vapour in a tight ball of fingers and thumbs. Even in his best coat and hat and scarf he was beginning to shiver. Grandfather’s friend was late. The street was white with a hard frost and the old man opposite was scraping the ice from the windscreen of his Mercedes. The boy glanced over his shoulder to the house. His grandfather was at the study window, his head turning up and down the street. And a few seconds later, with a broad smile, he began gesturing frantically to the boy’s right. An elderly but tall and upright man in a long black coat was walking carefully along the icy pavement towards him. Tears of frustration and disappointment welled inside the little boy and he ran towards the house. The door was already open and Herr Hans-Gunther Gretschel was standing on the steps, leaning heavily on an ebony stick.
‘Come here, Karl. Wait with me.’
But the little boy slipped past his grandfather’s outstretched arm and disappeared inside the house. It was an imposing villa with a yellow and cream facade and sweeping red-tile roof, set back a little from the road in a mature garden. The little boy’s great-great-grandfather had built it when Dahlem was just a village.
‘Herr Lindsay. So very good to see you,’ and Gretschel dropped a step to offer his hand in greeting. ‘And looking so well.’
In the years since the war Gretschel had perfected the English he had begun to learn as a prisoner.
‘My grandson Karl was watching for you. I’m afraid he’s a little upset you surprised him.’
‘Are you well, Herr Gretschel?’
‘Old and tired and fat.’
And it was true he had put on a great deal of weight since Lindsay had last seen him a few years before. His black flannel trousers looked as if they were under enormous strain. Arthritis had left him much less mobile: ‘My wife says I am turning into a large grey ball.’
He led Lindsay through the hall into the drawing room where Frau Gretschel had left a tray of coffee and cakes. Karl was sitting on the couch in his coat, his cheeks stained with tears. It was a light and modern room quite out of keeping with the imperial character of the facade. The house had been reduced to a shell in the battle for Berlin. Lindsay had visited it for the first time just a fortnight after the city had fallen, drunken Soviet troops roaming the streets, and he had found Gretschel’s elderly parents and sister living in the cellar.
‘Have you seen this?’ Gretschel held out a framed photo to Lindsay. ‘It’s me with your Prime Minister. What a wonderful lady. I admire her so much.’
‘And did you tell her you were the first officer of a U-boat that sank twenty British ships?’
‘Of course not,’ said Gretschel impatiently. ‘It was a happy occasion. The Berlin Chamber of Commerce. Poor Lange was there too.’ He put the photograph back on the shelf alongside a large collection of family pictures.
‘Lange’s daughters have made all the arrangements for today.’
They had moved in different social circles but they had always kept in touch. Lange had worked in the city’s information bureau until a newspaper article forced him to retire. A young hack anxious to make his name wrote a story with the headline, ‘Nazi PK Man Briefing the Press’. Gretschel had used his business contacts to find him
