Steadman had prayed for her death, had begged the doctors to end the torture for her; but their job was to preserve life no matter how shattered or painful, and they paid no mind to his entreaties, finally sedating him against his own pain and anguish.
When he had finally recovered and she was long dead, there had been a blackness in him that had taken many other deaths to purge.
Now, in circumstances so similar to that time before, the telephone was ringing, calling to him, reminding him, telling him the past was always present.
‘Harry?’ Her hand shook his shoulder. ‘What is it? You look so pale.’
His eyes snapped back into focus and he looked down into the anxious face of Holly.
‘Aren’t you going to answer it? It keeps ringing,’ she said.
He eased himself from the bed without a word, and picked up a bathrobe lying over the back of a chair. He moved as though automated, but the concern in Holly’s voice finally sank through.
‘Stay there,’ he ordered, and she saw the somnambulistic quality of his movements change to one of alertness. He shrugged on the robe and disappeared through the doorway. She heard his footsteps padding lightly down the stairs.
Steadman reached the lounge and quickly glanced around, ignoring the shrilling phone for the moment. Nothing seemed out of place, but he quickly checked on the few places where a bomb could have been concealed, carefully lifting the settee and armchair to check beneath, peering behind the books on their shelves, examining the back of the television to see if it had been tampered with. Reasonably satisfied that everything was in order, he turned his attention to the telephone itself, the caller’s persistence arousing his suspicions even more. There was nothing underneath the small coffee table it rested on, but he knew the telephone itself could contain a bomb. He picked it up to feel its weight: it seemed normal enough. He took the gamble and lifted the receiver to his ear.
‘Steadman, is that you?’
With a sigh of relief, he recognized Pope’s voice.
‘For Christ’s sake, Steadman, answer!’
‘It’s me,’ he said quietly.
There was a pause at the other end, then Pope said gruffly, ‘It took you long enough to answer.’
‘How did you know I was here?’ Steadman countered.
‘It’s my business to know,’ came the curt reply. The tone changed as the fat man relaxed. ‘I heard what happened to you down at Long Valley. Tell me your end of it.’
Steadman told him flatly, without emotion, as though making a report to a client. He mentioned the invitation from Gant to arrange a further meeting.
‘Good,’ said Pope. ‘Do so. Who’s this girl, this, er, Holly Miles?’
‘She’s a writer – freelance. She’s doing an article on the arms trade for one of the Sundays.’
‘And Gant’s obliging her?’
‘It seems so.’
‘Hm. Peculiar. Not like him to want publicity.’
‘Maybe he wants to come out of the shadows.’ Steadman whirled as he felt a presence in the room. Holly stood in the doorway, his shirt covering her small body seductively. She smiled at him and he relaxed. Pope’s voice drew his attention back to their conversation.
‘You say this tank was definitely chasing you,’ he was saying.
‘Yes, it was trying to ram us.’
‘You’re sure it wasn’t just a runaway?’
‘Look, we’ve been through all this with the military. The bloody thing wrecked the car, then tried to squash us flat when we ran for it! It chased us for at least five minutes.’
‘Yes, yes. Very strange.’
Steadman’s impatience grew. ‘Is that all you can say? We know it was strange, but you and I . . .’ He cut off his words, remembering Holly was still in the doorway. ‘Look, who was in the tank? Were they working for him?’ He was careful not to mention Gant’s name.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line.
‘Pope? Did you hear me?’
‘Er, yes, dear boy,’ came the reply eventually. ‘The tank was a complete wreck, of course, by the time it reached the bottom of the quarry. Its fuel tank exploded, you know, then its ammo.’
‘I know that. Were the bodies badly burnt?’
‘That’s just it, Harry.’ Again, Pope paused, as though considering his words. ‘There were no bodies. The tank was empty.’
‘But that’s impossible! They must have escaped or been destroyed completely.’ There was alarm in Steadman’s voice and a chilling sensation in the pit of his stomach.
‘No chance of escape. And there would have been some trace of human bodies, no matter how bad the damage. No, Harry. The tank was empty. There was no one driving it.’
Steadman stared at the receiver, unable to believe the words. Then he turned towards Holly and she saw the confusion in his eyes.
8
‘The eternal life granted by the grail is only for the truly pure and noble.’
Adolf Hitler
‘And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.’
Daniel 12:2 (RSV)
Smith shivered and tightened his scarf, silently cursing the coldness of the night. It was morbid too, sitting in the churchyard in the dark, ancient gravestones scattered around, black and weathered, some tilting at odd angles suggesting their occupants had become restless. He wondered briefly if he should risk lighting a cigarette, but decided against it. Although the bench on which he sat was well-hidden in the darkness, there was just a chance that the cigarette’s glow would be seen from the small road opposite. It wouldn’t do to have any passer-by getting curious about someone sitting in a graveyard in the dead of night smoking a fag. Not that there were any passers-by at this time of bloody night!
He glanced at his watch, the luminous dial telling him he still had two hours to go before he came off shift. Two more hours in this stinking burial ground, he grumbled to himself. Two more hours of watching the stinking house opposite! And for what? They wouldn’t be stupid enough to try anything like the other night. God, what kind of bastards would nail a woman to a door? He wondered if there were any other eyes watching the house. The police, maybe? It was strange they hadn’t made more of the business, it wasn’t the normal everyday kind of murder. And they’d managed to keep it out of the news, too. That must have taken some doing. Probably didn’t want to encourage any similar types of crime. Unusual murders were always followed by other unusual murders. All the nuts around read about the first, got a kick out of it, and tried it out themselves. Same with bomb freaks.
What kind of man was this Steadman? He’d heard the detective was reluctant to help them at first, but the killing of his partner had persuaded him. Goldblatt had been furious at the investigator’s previous refusal, even though he, Smith, had told the Mossad chief it would probably be so. He had kept an eye on Steadman over the years, it was part of his job as a ‘sleeper’ in this country, and he had seen how the agency had begun to flourish, how Steadman had settled down to live a relatively peaceful existence in England. The man had left wars and violence behind. Why should he become involved again? The brutal murder of Mrs Wyeth was the answer to that!
How he would like to be free of the organization. Joseph Solomon Smith, aged fifty-eight, jeweller in Walthamstow. Known as Solly to his friends. Schmuck to his wife, Sadie. Solly had fled to England along with thousands of other Jewish refugees just before the outbreak of the last World War, when Hitler’s purge of Germany’s and Austria’s Jewish population was in full swing. It had been either flee or be interned in those days, not many realizing it was actually flee or die. The mass name-changing that had taken place, as the refugees had arrived in England and gone through the far from friendly formalities of entering the country, had been almost comical. The group in front of him had told the official their family name was Harris, for they had heard the people in front of them use the name. It sounded English. If t
he officials receiving the immigrants had been surprised at the amount of Harrises, Kanes and Golds among the arrivals, they’d given no indication of it. Perhaps they understood the stigma attached to names ending with ‘berg’ or ‘stein’, or ‘baum’, the danger such names threatened in the world at that terrible time. Perhaps they couldn’t have cared less; there were too many to check.
He had chosen Smith because he knew it was indisputably British and he’d heard one of the customs officers call his companion by that name. It was a safe name. In fact, he’d nearly wet himself at the official’s suspicious look and feared he’d been too blatant with his choice. However, the moment had passed and with a resigned smile, the man had cleared him.
Many of his compatriots had reclaimed their original names when the threat had died years later, but he had found no need to go to that trouble. Smith suited him fine.
He had escaped from Germany alone, his parents, two brothers and one sister having been rounded up by Hitler’s thugs on the very eve of their departure from the country. He would have been taken with them, but he was young, and young men, when about to leave a place for ever, often have bittersweet goodbyes to say, undying love to pledge. His farewell had taken most of the night and the girl had used his body as though there would never be any others for her.
He watched in horror from the shadows as the SS dragged his screaming family from their house, and he shrank back deeper into those shadows. He’d wept at his own cowardice then, and had wept with that same shame for many years after. Even the sight of his father falling into the gutter, his white beard now black in the moonlight – black because it was matted with blood – and the old man’s screams as the rifle butts battered his frail body into unconsciousness, had not overcome his own terror. The brutality had only increased it. He had sunk to a squatting position, pressing himself hard against the rough wall, afraid to run lest the Gestapo hear his footsteps, stifling sobs with both hands against his mouth, unable to look away from the dreadful scene and unable to help his family. Even when his younger brother had been kicked senseless when he tried to go to the aid of his aged father. Even when his mother had been dragged by her hair into the waiting van. Even when his sister’s young body had been bared and pawed by the uniformed thugs. Even when his older brother had been shot through the throat as he’d tried to escape. The terror had only been compounded.
The nightmares had finally ceased twenty years later, the horror gradually diminishing through repetition. The shame, too, had become numbed, for his spirit had grown weary of it and now kept it contained in a remote part of him. But the memory remained. And two faces burned within that memory: the faces of those who had caused the holocaust, the evil countenances of the two men responsible for the genocide, the decimation of his race, the murder of his family. Adolf Hitler and his henchman, Heinrich Himmler!
Their faces haunted him still because they were the cause of his terror, the source of his shame. And because he was aware their evil could so easily rise again.
After the war, when he learned the rest of his family had died in Auschwitz, he had tried to join the remnants of his race in Palestine, desperate to atone for his cowardice, yearning to take part in the rebirth of his nation. But the new Israelis now had a different way of thinking. For them, the centuries of oppression were over. They had returned to their home country and there they would either be free or perish fighting for that freedom. No longer would they accept persecution.
Defiance had to be tempered with cunning if they were to survive. They were a small nation in a small country; the world stood outside their boundaries, a giant wolf outside the door. The Israelis would never trust another nation again: they would work with them, they would trade with them, they would even encourage social intercourse. But they would never trust another race, another country.
Because they were surrounded by enemies on all sides, their strength would have to reach beyond their own boundaries so they would always be forewarned of enemy action against them, enabling them to strike from behind when necessary.
They had persuaded Smith to remain in England, to build an identity there, to become British. And to be ready.
He had worked in a small jewellers in the Hatton Garden area of London at first, for that had been the family business, a trade he had been taught by his father. His claim against the German Government for the restoration of his family’s wealth had taken years to materialize, for there were many others like him claiming compensation for losses they had suffered under the Nazi regime, and each claim had to be carefully checked. Very few received compensation from the then impoverished country, but Smith was lucky enough to receive a small settlement. This, plus the marriage to Sadie which brought in some extra capital, enabled him to set up his own shop in Walthamstow.
Another source of income which Sadie never knew about were the regular amounts of money he received from the Shin Beth. The payments were small, but the work he carried out for his country was minimal and irregular. When he was younger, he had become impatient with the menial tasks they asked of him, but they had begged him to wait, to stay calm and serve his nation in the way they asked. His day would come.
It hadn’t though, and gradually the fires in him dimmed and almost burnt out. He carried out the minor tasks asked of him with a sense of resigned duty and no passion. One of his ‘duties’ had been to keep an eye on the man Harry Steadman when he had returned to England from Israel and joined an enquiry agency. Smith had done this by employing the agency to check on the background of his one and only employee, an innocent little countryman of his, whom he knew to be completely trustworthy, but who provided a good excuse for making contact with the investigator. The ex-policeman, Blake, had carried out the investigation, providing Smith with a clean bill of health for his shop assistant, but complimenting the jeweller on his wisdom in checking out his staff. One could never be too careful where goods of such value were involved. Smith had cultivated a friendship with the ex-policeman and engaged him privately in other concocted matters to do with his business. In that way, he was able to hear of the agency’s progress and catch odd bits of information relating to Harry Steadman without becoming directly involved himself. He had skilfully avoided his curiosity about the investigator from becoming overt in any way, and most of the information had been volunteered by Blake without direct questioning. After all, they were good friends, they and their wives sometimes dined out together or visited the theatre. Hadn’t he, Smith, introduced his friend into his own golf club at Chingford? If the very British ex-policeman ever wondered about the beginnings of his friendship with the very Jewish dealer in precious stones, then he would put it down to an obvious desire for the jeweller to have some connections with the law.
Smith blew on his hands to try and warm them, then pushed them deep into the pockets of his overcoat. I’m becoming too old for this sort of thing, he told himself. Surveillance in this kind of weather was no good for a man of his health. His heart wasn’t as strong as it used to be, his constitution no longer robust. It seemed a waste of time anyway. Surely Steadman wouldn’t be touched in his own home? Why was he so important to Israeli Intelligence? Smith cursed the secrecy his employers maintained. Why couldn’t their own people be informed of what was going on? And what do I tell Sadie who knows nothing of Mossad and my little jobs for them, when she asks what kind of business deals keep me out till the early hours of the morning? The woman is becoming tiresome. Becoming? She always was. You got a loose woman, she’ll tell me. Chance would be a fine thing, I’ll tell her. You got . . . His body stiffened as something caught his eye.
Did I see something? he asked himself. Or was it my imagination? The street lighting is bad there over the road. Was it something moving?
Smith peered into the darkness, his eyes narrowed and his breath held. There it was again, a movement among the shadows!
He rose to his feet, his limbs stiff with cold, and bent his body forward as though it would help him see more clearly.
He thought he saw movement again, but it somehow seemed unreal, his imagination playing tricks on him. The air around him was still, no wind to cause the stirring of tree branches which might create mysteriously moving shadows.
He moved forward, careful to make no sound, his breathing now thin and uneven. He had a number to call if anything suspicious occurred, but the nearest phone-box was two streets away. How stupid of them! If anything were to happen it would all be over by the time he reached the phone-box and they got here. But then, he had been told nothing had been expected to happen; he was only being used as an extra precaution.
He silently cursed the men who employed him, the silly little Jewish boys playing at cloak-and-dagger. Then he forced himself to relax. It’s probably nothing at all. I’ve been in the dark too long – and in creepy surroundings at that. My eyes are tired and small wonder! My God, what time is it now? The luminous dial told him it was 1.35 a.m.
The jeweller stood and stared at the terraced house for a few seconds more and was about to return to his bench when he noticed something odd. His mind couldn’t register just what that oddness was for a few moments, and then he focused his vision on the door of the house. There was a long, dark shadow at one side. It may just have been a shadow cast by the half-moon against the door’s frame, but then he realized the moon was on the other side; the shadow – if there had been one caused by the frame on that side – should have been cast on the left and not the right. He moved forward for a closer look, keeping to the hard earth and grass of the churchyard so his footsteps would not be heard. He pushed his way through the sparse shrubbery at the perimeter and peered over the iron fence. Only then did he see that the front door to Steadman’s house was partially open.
What to do now? Phone his contact or investigate further? If Steadman were sleeping – and he undoubtedly was – he could be in serious danger. But what could he, an old man, do to help the detective? Warn him, at least.