Eye Of The Needle

Chapter 13

  "Is he my uncle?"

  "Just a stranger, Jo. Eat up. "

  Jo looked disappointed. He had met an uncle once. In his mind uncles were people who gave out candy, which he liked, and money, which he had no use for.

  David Finished his breakfast and put on his macintosh, a tent-shaped garment with sleeves, with a hole for his head, and that covered most of his wheelchair as well as him. He put a sou'wester on his head and tied it under his chin, kissed Jo, said good-bye to Lucy.

  A minute or two later she heard the jeep start up and went to the window to watch David drive off into the rain. The rear wheels of the vehicle slithered about in the mud. He would have to take care.

  She turned to Jo. He said, "This is a dog. " He was making a picture on the tablecloth with porridge and milk.

  Lucy slapped his hand. "What a horrid mess!" The boy's face took on a grim, sulky look, and Lucy thought how much he resembled his father. They had the same dark skin and nearly-black hair, and they both had a way of withdrawing when they were cross. But Jo laughed a lot; he had inherited something from Lucy's side of the family, thank God.

  Jo mistook her contemplative stare for anger, and said, "I'm sorry. "

  She washed him at the kitchen sink, then cleared away the breakfast things, thinking about the stranger upstairs. Now that the immediate crisis was past, and it seemed the man was not going to die, she was eaten with curiosity about him. Who was he? Where was he from? What had he been doing in the storm? Did he have a family? Why did he have workman's clothes, a clerk's hands, and a Home Counties accent? It was rather exciting. It occurred to her that, if she had lived anywhere else, she would not have accepted his sudden appearance so readily. He might, she supposed, be a deserter, or a criminal, or even an escaped prisoner of war. But one forgot, living on the island, that other human beings could be threatening instead of companionable. It was so nice to see a new face that to harbour suspicions seemed ungrateful. Maybe-unpleasant thought-she more than most people was ready to welcome an attractive man. . . She pushed the thought out of her mind.

  Silly, silly. He was so tired and ill that he could not possibly threaten anyone. Even on the mainland, who could have refused to take him in, bedraggled and unconscious? When he felt better they could question him, and if his story of how he got here was less than plausible, they could radio the mainland from Tom's cottage.

  When she had washed up she crept upstairs to look at him. He slept facing the door, and when she looked in, his eyes opened instantly. Again there was that initial, split-second flash of fear.

  "It's all right," Lucy whispered. "Just making sure you're okay. " He closed his eyes without speaking.

  She went downstairs again. She dressed herself and Jo in oilskins and WellingtQn boots and they went out. The rain was still coming down in torrents, and the wind was terrific. She glanced up at the roof: they had lost some slates. Leaning into the wind, she headed for the cliff top.

  She held Jo's hand tightly; he might quite easily be blown away. Two minutes later she was wishing she had stayed indoors. Rain came in under her raincoat collar and over the tops of her boots. Jo must be soaked too but now that they were wet they might as well stay wet for a few minutes more. Lucy wanted to go to the beach.

  However, when they reached the top of the ramp she realised it was impossible. The narrow wooden walkway was slippery with rain, and in this wind she might lose her balance and fall off, to plunge sixty feet to the beach below. She had to content herself with looking. It was quite a sight.

  Vast waves, each the size of a small house, were rolling in rapidly, close on each other's heels. Crossing the beach the wave would rise even higher, its crest curling in a question mark, then throw itself against the foot of the cliff in a rage. Spray rose over the cliff top in sheets, causing Lucy to step back hurriedly and Jo to squeal with delight. Lucy could hear her son's laughter only because he had climbed into her arms, and his mouth was now close to her ear; the noise of the wind and the sea drowned more distant sounds.

  There was something terribly thrilling in watching the elements spit and sway and roar in fury; in standing fractionally too close to the cliff edge, feeling threatened and safe at the same time, shivering with cold and perspiring in fear. It was thrilling, and there were few thrills in her life.

  She was about to go back, mindful of Jo's health, when she saw the boat.

  It was not a boat any more, of course; that was what was so shocking about it. All that was left were the large timbers of the deck and the keel. They were scattered on the rocks below the cliffs like a dropped handful of matches. It had been a big boat, Lucy realised. One man might have piloted it alone, but not easily. And the damage the sea had wrought on it was awesome. It was hard to detect two bits of wood still joined together.

  How, in heaven's name, had their stranger come out of it alive? She shuddered when she thought of what those waves and those rocks might have done to a human body. Jo caught her sudden change of mood and said into her ear, "Go home, now. " She turned quickly away from the sea and hurried along the muddy path to the cottage.

  Back inside, they took off their wet coats, hats, and boots, and hung them in the kitchen to dry.

  Lucy went upstairs and looked in on the stranger again. This time he did not open his eyes. He seemed to be sleeping very peacefully, yet she had a feeling that he had awakened and recognised her tread on the stairs, and closed his eyes again before she opened the door.

  She ran a hot bath. She and the boy were soaked to the skin. She undressed Jo and put him in the tub, then on impulse took off her own clothes and got in with him. The heat was blissful. She closed her eyes and relaxed. This was good, too; to be in a house, feeling warm, while the storm beat impotently at the strong stone walls.

  Life had turned interesting, all of a sudden. In one night there had been a storm, a shipwreck, and a mystery man; this after three years of. . . She hoped the stranger would wake up soon so that she could find out about him.

  Meanwhile it was time she started cooking lunch for the men. She had some breast of lamb to make a stew. She got out of the bath and towered herself gently. Jo was playing with his bath toy, a much-chewed rubber cat. Lucy looked at herself in the mirror, examining the stretch-marks on her belly left by pregnancy. They were fading, slowly, but they would never completely disappear. An all-over suntan would help, though. She smiled to herself. Fat chance of that! Besides, who was interested in her tummy? Nobody but herself.

  Jo said, "Can I stay in a minute more?" It was a phrase he used, "a minute more," and it could mean anything up to a half a day.

  "Just while I get dressed," she told him and hung the towel on a rail and moved toward the door. The stranger stood in the doorway, looking at her.

  They stared at each other. It was odd, Lucy thought later, that she felt not a bit afraid. It was the way he looked at her; there was no threat in his expression, no lewdness, no smirk. He was not looking at her pubis, or even her breasts, but at her face, into her eyes. She looked back, a bit shocked but not embarrassed, with just a tiny part of her mind wondering why she did not squeal, cover herself with her hands, and slam the door on him.

  Something did come into his eyes, at last. Perhaps she was imagining it, but she saw admiration, and a faint twinkle of honest humour, and a trace of sadness, and then the hold was broken and he turned away and went back into his bedroom, closing the door. A moment later Lucy heard the springs creak as his weight settled onto the bed. And for no good reason at all she felt dreadfully guilty.

  Percival Godliman had by now pulled out all the stops.

  Every policeman in the United Kingdom had a copy of the photograph of Faber, and about half of them were engaged full time in the search. In the cities they were checking hotels and guest houses, railway stations and bus terminals, cafes and shopping cantres; and the bridges, arches and bombed lots where derelicts hung out. In the country they were look
ing in barns and silos, empty cottages and ruined castles, thickets and clearings and cornfields. They were showing the photograph to ticket clerks, petrol station staff, ferry hands and toll collectors. All the passenger ports and airfields were covered, with the picture pinned behind a board at every passport control desk.

  The police, of course, still thought they were looking for a straightforward murderer. The cop on the street knew that the man in the picture had killed two people with a knife in London. Senior officers knew a bit more; that one of the murders had been a sexual assault, another apparently motiveless, and a third-which their men were not to know of-was an unexplained but bloody attack on a soldier on the Euston-to-Liverpool train. Only chief constables, and a few officers at Scotland Yard, knew that the soldier had been on temporary attachment to MI5 and that all the murders were somehow connected with Security.

  The newspapers, too, thought it was an ordinary murder hunt. The day after Godliman had released details, most of them had carried the story in their later editions. The first editions, bound for Scotland, Ulster and North Wales, had missed it, so they carried a shortened version a day later. The Stockwell victim had been identified as a labourer, and given a false name and a vague London background. Godliman's press release had connected that murder with the death of Mrs Una Garden in 1940, but had been vague about the nature of the link. The murder weapon was said to be a stiletto.

  The two Liverpool newspapers heard very quickly of the body on the train, and both wondered whether the London knife murderer was responsible. Both made enquiries with the Liverpool police. The editors of both papers received phone calls from the chief constable. Neither paper carried the story.

  A total of one hundred and fifty-seven tall dark men were arrested on suspicion of being Faber. All but twenty-nine of them were able to prove that they could not possibly have committed the murders. Interviewers from MI5 talked to the twenty-nine. Twenty-seven called in parents, relatives and neighbours, who affirmed that they had been born in Britain and had been living there during the '20s, when Faber had been in Germany.

  The last two were brought to London and interviewed again, this time by Godliman. Both were bachelors, living alone, with no surviving relatives, leading a transient existence. The first was a well-dressed, confident man who claimed implausibly that his way of life was to travel the country taking odd jobs as a manual labourer. Godliman explained that unlike the police he had the power to incarcerate anyone for the duration of the war, and no questions asked. Furthermore, he was not in the least interested in ordinary peccadilloes, and any information given him here at the War Office was strictly confidential and would go no further.

  The prisoner promptly confessed to being a confidence trickster and gave the address of nineteen elderly ladies whom he had cheated out of their old jewellery during the past three weeks. Godliman turned him over to the police. He felt no obligation to be honest with a professional liar.

  The last suspect also cracked under Godliman's treatment. His secret was that he was not a bachelor at all, not by a long way. He had a wife in Brighton. And in Solihull, Birmingham. And in Colchester, Newbury, and Exeter. All five were able to produce marriage certificates later that day. The bigamist went to jail to await trial. Godliman slept in his office while the hunt went on.

  Bristol, Temple Meads, railway station: "Good morning, Miss. Would you look at this please?"

  "Hey, girls the bobby's going to show us his snaps!"

  "Now, don't muck about, just tell me if you've seen him. "

  "Ooh, ain't he handsome! I wish I had!"

  "You wouldn't if you knew what he'd done. Would you all take a look, please?"

  "Never seen him. "

  "Me neither. "

  "Not me. "

  "When you catch him, ask him if he wants to meet a nice young Bristol girl. "

  "You girls-I don't know. . . just because they give you a pair of trousers and a porter's job, you think you're supposed to act like men. . . "

  The Woolwich Ferry: "Filthy day, Constable. "

  "Morning, Captain. I expect it's worse on the high seas. "

  "Can I help you? Or are you just crossing the river?"

  "I want you to look at a face, captain. "

  "Let me put my specs on. Oh, don't worry, I can see to guide the ship. It's close things I need the glasses for. Now then. . . "

  "Ring any bells?"

  "Sorry, constable. Means nothing to me. "

  "Well, let me know if you see him. "

  "Certainly. "

  "Bon voyage. "

  "Not bloody likely. "

  Number 35 Leak Street, London E1: "Sergeant Riley-what a nice surprise!"

  "Never mind the lip, Mabel. Who've you got here?"

  "All respectable guests, sergeant; you know me. "

  "I know you, all right. That's why I'm here. Would any of your nice respectable guests happen to be on the trot?"

  "Since when have you been recruiting for the army?"

  "I'm not, Mabel, I'm looking for someone, and if he's here, he's probably told you he's on the trot. "

  "Look, Jack, if I tell you there's nobody here I don't know, will you go away and stop pestering me?"

  "Why should I trust you?"

  "Because of 1936. "

  "You were better looking then, Mabel. "

  "So were you, Jack. "

  "You win. . . take a butcher's at this. If chummy comes in here, send word, okay?"

  "Promise. "

  "Don't waste any time about it, either. "

  "All right!"

  "Mabel. . . he knifed a woman your age. I'm just marking your cards. "

  Bill's cafe, on the A30 near Bagshot: "Tea, please, Bill. Two sugars. "

  "Good morning, Constable Pearson. Filthy day. "

  "What's on that plate, Bill-pebbles from Portsmouth?"

  "Buttered buns, as well you know. "

  "Oh! I'll have two, then. Thanks. . . Now then, lads! Anyone who wants his lorry checked from top to bottom can leave right away. . . That's better. Take a look at this picture, please. "

  "What are you after him for, constable? Bicycling without lights?"

  "Never mind the jokes, Harry, pass the picture around. Anybody given a lift to that bloke?"

  "Not me. "

  "No. "

  "Sorry, constable. "

  "Never clapped eyes on him. "

  "Thank you, lads. If you see him, report it. Cheerio. "

  "Constable?"

  "Yes, Bill?"

  "You haven't paid for the buns. "

  Smethwick's Garage, Carlisle: "Morning, Missus. When you've got a minute. . . "

  "Be right with you, officer. Just let me attend to this gentleman. . . twelve and sixpence, please, sir. Thank you. Goodbye. . . "

  "How's business?"

  "Terrible as usual. What can I do for you?"

  "Can we go in the office for a minute?"

  "Aye, come on. . . now, then. "

  "Take a look at this picture and tell me whether you've served that man with petrol recently. "

  "Well, it shouldn't be too difficult. It's not as if we get hordes of customers passing through. . . Ohh! D'you know, I think I have served him!"

  "When?"

  "Day before yesterday, in the morning. "

  "How sure are you?"

  "Well. . . he was older than the picture, but I'm pretty sure. "

  "What was he driving?"

  "A grey car. I'm no good on makes, this is my husband's business really, but he's in the Navy now. "

  "Well, what did it look like?"

  "It was the old sort, with a canvas roof that comes up. A two-seater. Sporty. It had a spare petrol tank bolted to the running board, and I filled that too. "

  "Do you remember what he was wearing?"

  "Not really. . . working clothes, I think. "

  "A tall man?"

  "Yes, taller t
han you. "

  "Have you got a telephone?. . . "

  William Duncan was twenty-five years old, five-feet-ten, weighed a trim 150 pounds and was in first-class health. His open-air life and total lack of interest in tobacco, drink, late nights, and loose living kept him that way. Yet he was not in the armed services.

  He had seemed to be a normal child, if a little backward, until the age of eight, when his mind had lost the ability to develop any further. There had been no trauma that anyone knew about, no physical damage to account for sudden breakdown. Indeed it was some years before anyone noticed that there was anything wrong, for at the age of ten he was no more than a little backward, and at twelve he was just dim-witted; but by fifteen he was obviously simple, and by eighteen he was known as Daft Willie.

  His parents were both members of an obscure fundamentalist religious group whose members were not allowed to marry outside the church (which may or may not have had anything to do with Willie's daftness). They prayed for him, of course, but they also took him to a specialist in Stirling. The doctor, an elderly man, did several tests and then told them, over the tops of his gold-rimmed half-glasses, that the boy had a mental age of eight and his mind would grow no older, ever. They continued to pray for him, but they suspected that the Lord had sent this to try them, so they made sure Willie was Saved and looked forward to the day when they would meet him in the Glory and he would be healed. Meanwhile, he needed a job.

  An eight-year-old can herd cows, but herding cows is nevertheless a job, so Daft Willie became a cowherd. And it was while herding cows that he saw the car for the first time. He assumed there were lovers in it.

  Willie knew about lovers. That is to say, he knew that lovers existed, and that they did unmentionable things to one another in dark places like copses and cinemas and cars; and that one did not speak of them. So he hurried the cows quickly past the bush beside which was parked the 1924 Morris Cowley Bullnose two-seater (he knew about cars, too, like any eight-year-old) and tried very hard not to look inside it in case he should behold sin.

  He took his little herd into the cowshed for milking, went by a roundabout route to his home, ate supper, read a chapter from Leviticus to his father aloud, painstakingly, then went to bed to dream about lovers. The car was still there on the evening of the next day.

  For all his innocence Willie knew that lovers did not do whatever it was that they did to one another for twenty-four hours at a stretch, so this time he went right up to the car and looked inside. It was empty. The ground beneath the engine was black and sticky with oil. Willie devised a new explanation: the car had broken down and had been abandoned by its driver. It did not occur to him to wonder why it had been semi-concealed in a bush.

  When he arrived at the cowshed he told the farmer what he had seen. "There's a broken-down car on the path up by the main road. "

  The farmer was a big man with heavy sand-coloured eyebrows, which drew together when he was thinking. "Was there nobody about?"

  "No and it was there yesterday. "

  "Why did you not tell me yesterday, then?"

  Willie blushed. "I thought it was maybe. . . you know. . . lovers. "

  The farmer realised that Willie was not being coy, but was genuinely embarrassed. He patted the boy's shoulder. "Well, away home and leave it to me to deal with. "

  After the milking the farmer went to look for himself. It did occur to him to wonder why the car was semi-concealed. He had heard about the London stiletto murderer, and while he did not jump to the conclusion that the car had been abandoned by the killer, all the same he thought there might be a connexion between the car and some crime or other; so after supper he sent his eldest son into the village on horseback to telephone the police in Stirling.

  The police arrived before his son got back from the phone. There were at least a dozen of them, every one apparently a nonstop tea drinker. The farmer and his wife were up half the night looking after them.

  Daft Willie was summoned to tell his story again, repeating that he had first seen the car the previous evening, blushing again when he explained that he had assumed it contained lovers. All in all, it was their most exciting night of the war.

  That evening, Percival Godliman, facing his fourth consecutive night in the office, went home to bathe, change, and pack a suitcase. He had a service flat in a block in Chelsea. It was small, though big enough for a single man, and it was clean and tidy except for the study, which the cleaning lady was not allowed to enter, and as a consequence was littered with books and papers. The furniture was all prewar, of course, but it was rather well chosen, and the flat had a comfortable air. There were leather club chairs and a gramophone in the iiving room, and the kitchen was full of hardly used labour-saving devices.

  While his bath was filling he smoked a cigarette-he had taken to them lately; a pipe was too much fuss-and looked at his most valuable possession, a grimly fantastic medieva1 scene that was probably by Hieronymous Bosch. It was a family heirloom and Godliman had never sold it, even when he needed the money.

  In the bath he thought about Barbara Dickens and her son Peter. He had not told anyone about her, not even Bloggs, although he had been about to mention her during their conversation about remarrying, but Colonel Terry had interrupted. She was a widow, her husband had been killed in action at the very beginning of the war. Godliman did not know how old she was, but she looked about forty, which was young for the mother of a twenty-two-year-old boy. She worked on decoding intercepted enemy signals, and she was bright, amusing, and very attractive. She was also rich. Godliman had taken her to dinner three times before the present crisis blew up. He thought she was in love with him.

  She had contrived a meeting between Godliman and her son Peter, who was a captain. Godliman liked the boy. But he knew something that neither Barbara nor her son was aware of: Peter was going to France on D-Day.

  And whether or not the Germans were there waiting for him depended on whether they caught Die Nadel.

  He got out of the bath and took a long, careful shave and asked himself, Am I in love with her? He was not sure what love ought to feel like in middle age. Not, surely, the burning passion of youth. Affection, admiration, tenderness, and a trace of uncertain lust? If they amounted to love, he loved her.

  And he needed to share his life, now. For years he had wanted only solitude and his research. Now the camaraderie of Military Intelligence was sucking him in: the parties, the all-night sessions when something big broke, the spirit of dedicated amateurism, the frantic pleasure-seeking of people to whom death is always close and never predictable; all these bad infected him. It would vanish after the war, he knew; but other things would remain: the need to talk to someone close about his disappointment and his triumphs, the need to touch someone else at night, the need to say, "There! Look at that! Isn't it fine?" War was gruelling and oppressive and frustrating and uncomfortable, but one had friends. If peace brought back loneliness, Godliman thought he would not be able to live with it.

  Right now the feel of clean underwear and a crisply ironed shirt was the ultimate luxury. He put more fresh clothes in a case, then sat down to enjoy a glass of whisky before returning to the office. The military chauffeur in the commandeered Daimler outside could wait a little longer.

  He was filling a pipe when the phone rang. He put down the pipe and lit a cigarette instead.

  His phone was connected to the War Office switchboard. The operator told him that a Chief Superintendent Dalkeith was calling from Stirling.

  He waited for the click of the connexion. "Godliman speaking. "

  "We've found your Morris Cowley," Dalkeith said without preamble.

  "Where?"

  "On the A80 just south of Stirling. "

  "Empty?"

  "Aye, broken down. It's been there at least twenty-four hours. It was driven a few yards off the main road and hidden in a bush. A half-witted farm boy found it. "

  "Is t
here a bus stop or railway station within walking distance of the spot?"

  "No. "

  "So it's likely our man had to walk or hitchhike after leaving the car. "

  "Aye. "

  "In that case, will you ask around?"

  "We're already trying to find out whether anyone local saw him or gave him a lift. "