''48

  Smoke wafted across the room, with it the smell of cordite and candlewax. And something more. The familiar stink of the intruders themselves, a kind of cankerous odour that they carried with them like some unclean aura.

  Cissie was huddled over the dining table, Potter on his knees beside her, while Muriel had backed up against the wall, shocked rigid. Stern held his hands high in surrender, his pistol lying on the tabletop. Blackshirts crowded the doorway, their ragged midnight garb and the array of weapons aimed around the room a dispiriting sight The only person still moving was the goon who’d done the most damage – he was clumsily trying to fit a new magazine into a Sterling submachine gun. Again I acted fast, realizing there was no point in trying to take them all on with one small sidearm; there was one chance for us and a slim one at that I was over the table, scattering glasses and coffee cups, before they could make their next move, their disease-induced slowness my only advantage. I came up behind Stern and locked an arm around his neck, my .45 pressed hard against his temple.

  ‘Hold it right there!’ I yelled at them, trying to keep the shakes from my voice as well as my gun hand. I pulled the German against me, using him as a human shield.

  Five or six Blackshirts had managed to squeeze through that doorway and now every one of their guns was focused on me. The goon with the Sterling finished reloading and lifted the weapon chest-high, his hands as unsteady as mine.

  ‘The German’s dead if any one of you so much as scratches an itch,’ I warned.

  Stern could hardly breathe, let alone speak, but damned if he wasn’t gonna make the effort.

  ‘Shut up, Kraut!’ I hissed into his ear. ‘I guess it didn’t take much searching to find your Fascist pals today when you left the hotel.’

  He tried to squirm free, but I held him firm, digging the gun barrel even harder against his head just to cause him more discomfort The temptation to shoot him right there and then was almost overwhelming, but I needed him – we needed him – as a hostage.

  ‘Back off!’ I shouted as more Blackshirts pushed their way further forward. I was the one who backed away, bringing my protection with me. I didn’t like the craziness in their dark-smudged eyes, but then maybe they didn’t like the craziness they saw in mine, because they became still sure enough. We had a stand-off – or so I thought – and that was a slight improvement in the situation.

  ‘One bad move,’ I warned them, ‘and your Kraut friend’s brains’ll be dripping from the ceiling.’

  I’d made up my mind to drop the one with the submachine gun first, then the two mugs on either side of him, each of them packing two pistols. When the rest scattered for cover I’d deal with Stern. All else was in the lap of the gods, but I was damn sure I’d never let them take me alive. I got ready to change my aim and the German stiffened even more, as though aware of my intentions.

  ‘By all means, Mr Hoke, shoot our alleged Kraut friend if it makes you happy.’

  The voice drifted through the hallway outside the Pinafore Room and I knew whose it was, although I’d never heard the man speak before ‘cept once on a BBC radio broadcast early on in the war. I hadn’t realized he knew my name either and then it dawned on me that he’d obviously learned it just that day, and the informant was right here in my arms.

  The Blackshirts at the door stirred again, stepping aside to let their leader through. Sir Max Hubble appeared, propped up by McGruder on one side and his thick walking stick on the other. What was left of the candlelight did nothing to soften his appearance and I heard one of the girls – Cissie, I think – utter a small, fearful cry. Hubble came to a shambling halt a few feet inside the room.

  ‘Well, Mr Hoke, aren’t you going to shoot this man?’ His sharp, wheezy voice was mocking as if he were taking pleasure from the situation. Maybe he enjoyed bluffing.

  Well I had nothing to lose, so was prepared to call it. ‘Unless you all move out so we can leave, I’ll do that.’

  Stern tried to tear my arm away, squawking something into my shirtsleeve that I couldn’t catch. I held him fast, half-choking him with my grip.

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ Hubble said, his bluish lips beneath the thin moustache managing to form a smile. ‘We’ll do it for you.’ He nodded at one of his men, who raised his pistol and pointed it at Stern’s head.

  Yeah, sure, go ahead, I thought, and then I saw the man’s finger tightening on the trigger. ‘Jesus,’ I breathed.

  ‘No!’

  It was Muriel who cried out and ran forward to stand between us and the Blackshirts. ‘You said nobody would be harmed. You promised me.’

  She was staring straight at Hubble.

  I couldn’t believe my ears or my eyes. The gun wavered in my hand as I gaped at her back. I caught movement in the corner of my eye and saw that Cissie was pushing herself from the table, watching her friend open-mouthed.

  ‘It’s up to the American,’ I heard Hubble say. ‘He has the choice of either laying down his weapon and surrendering to us, or forcing us to shoot the person he’s holding, and after that, him. We have other blood now.’

  Cissie’s fist crashed down on the tabletop, nearly causing more than one gun to go off. ‘You brought them here!’ she shouted at Muriel. ‘You betrayed us. My God, how could you?’

  Even in the flickering light I could see Muriel’s face whiten as she faced her accuser.

  ‘Miss Drake’s father and I were great friends,’ said Hubble as, like Muriel, he turned towards Cissie, using his whole upper body to do so, as if his neck had lost that small function. ‘Our principles, our ideals, were the same, so is it surprising that Lord Drake’s daughter should share those same values?’

  I have to admit I’d never gone much on small-talk and after three years of none at all, save for the last couple of days, I wasn’t surprised to learn I still didn’t And anyway, why gab? I knew all I needed to know.

  Shoving Stern aside, I shot a hole through pistolman’s throat – he’d had to be first because his trigger finger was already halfway to squeezing. I would’ve taken Hubble next, but Muriel was in the way and, as much as I despised her, good old-fashioned propriety wouldn’t allow me to shoot her in the back; so I settled for the goon with the Sterling, who was about to open fire again. I only winged him, but it was still enough to make him screech like a barn owl and collapse into three Blackshirts behind him, spoiling their aim and creating enough disorder for me to slide back across the table towards Cissie. I nudged her aside so I could get off a few clear shots at the enemy.

  She screamed a warning as more Blackshirts came pouring through the double doors of the Princess Ida Room, and that was when I realized we didn’t have a hope in hell. The only thing in my favour was the gun in my hand and my speed, but I couldn’t shoot them all and I had nowhere to run.

  Something – Lord knows what – struck me hard on the forehead and I went down, poleaxed. The next thing I knew, boots were stomping me and rifle butts were jabbing at arms and ribs. The Colt was wrenched from my grasp, bright flares were bursting inside my head, and somewheres a long way off someone was screaming.

  All I could do – and there was no choice to it – was retreat into my own private sanctum, those lights fading fast, giving way to total darkness. I liked that darkness, I liked it a lot.

  15

  A DULL BUT SUDDEN PAIN semi-roused me; the sting of the second – it might really have been the third or fourth – had my eyes opening. I wasn’t happy at what was before me, so I closed them again and another slap, this one on the other side of my face, convinced me to keep them open. I had to blink them several times though, partly because the light hurt and partly because they couldn’t believe what they saw.

  The light was everywhere, shining from the massive chandeliers in the ceiling and the low lamps set around the great lounge area. Yet more brightness flooded through the glass doors and windows of the riverside restaurant at the end of the lounge, as well as from the direction of the foyer and main entrance. For a moment I thought I mus
t be dreaming, that the grand old hotel had returned to its former glory only in my unconscious mind; and then I took in the rotted corpses, many of them still seated or slumped in elegant but dusty chairs, while others lay on the carpeted floor, pushed aside with the furniture so that there was a clear space near the vast room’s centre. Blackshirts were still busy creating more space, pushing back low tables and easy chairs, upsetting chinaware and cake-stands, throwing more corpses into heaps near the mirrored walls, shifting those already on the floor with their boots, not caring if skulls crumbled and skeletal hands broke loose.

  I looked up at the person who’d struck me and groaned when I saw his death’s eyes, the dried blood around their darkened lids, caked like biscuit crumbs in the lashes, the ulcerations and cyanotic discoloration of the man’s cheeks and jaw. He grinned down at me, exposing bleeding gums, and when I tried to strike out at him I found my wrists were tied to the cushioned arms of a high-backed seat, the kind of formally comfortable armchair in which patrons of the Savoy had once taken afternoon tea or pre-dinner drinks.

  My senses started to come together more rapidly and when I saw that my shirt had been ripped away to expose my left arm and shoulder, I began to suspect what I was in for. Panic hit me and I struggled to break free, the goon just leering over me, tickled by my efforts. I stopped when I noticed Stern, Cissie and Potter on their knees not far away, a bunch of Blackshirts covering them with an array of dissuaders – clubs and knives, as well as guns. And there came Hubble, just arriving, being helped down the carpeted stairway from the foyer by McGruder and another man, his decrepit body about ready to fail him. His smile when he saw me was no more than a tight grimace.

  ‘Aren’t the lights wonderful?’ he remarked as he approached, his red-flecked eyes gazing up at the ceiling. ‘It’s been so long since we’ve witnessed such splendour, so very long.’ He paused briefly to regard the kneeling prisoners, and he nodded as if counting their heads one by one before continuing his shambling journey towards me. Behind him, descending the stairs, was Muriel and there was a phoney kind of proudness to her, as though it took some effort to hold her head high and avoid the accusing eyes of her friend, Cissie. She passed by the kneeling prisoners without giving them a glance, even though Cissie called out to her.

  Hubble came to a stop before me, both hands resting on his cane, fingers like blackened claws wrapped around its grip, the two aides standing close by in case he should falter. He had an old man’s tremble – and an old cadaver’s stench.

  Still he peered around him, his bent torso twisting with each turn of his head, admiring the chandeliers before gazing across the huge lounge itself, his eyes half-closed as if to shut out the more gruesome elements.

  ‘If one didn’t look too closely it would seem the grand old days had returned to the Savoy,’ he mused. His speech had a high-pitched sibilance to it that was as thin and frail as his bones, and standing there in his loose black uniform, bent over his stick, flesh hanging from his scrawny neck like an empty sack, and with ‘carrion’ strewn all around him, he reminded me of an ancient buzzard. He went on, delighting himself rather than me: ‘The hotel’s own oil-fuelled generator was so easy to get running again – it took my men, the ones who know about these things, less than twenty minutes, even after all these years of disuse. I’m surprised you didn’t attempt to start it yourself, Mr Hoke; but then, I suppose the last thing you wanted to do was draw attention to yourself.’

  Some of his words were hard to catch; it was almost as if he were speaking from another room. He deserved a reply and I gave him one.

  ‘You crazy bastard –’

  He raised a shaky hand to shush me and, I have to admit, it did. What the hell could I tell him that deep down he didn’t already know?

  Now he turned to me, his head leaning close, the odour making me want to gag. ‘It’s odd, isn’t it?’ he said between laboured breaths. ‘All this time chasing you and never once a moment for conversation between us.’

  ‘I didn’t think we had much to talk about,’ I replied, trying to avoid the foul air he was exhaling.

  Muriel had joined us by now.

  ‘You happy, Muriel?’ I enquired, looking past Hubble. ‘Betraying your friends to these third-rate Nazis give you some kind of thrill? Like father, like daughter, I guess.’

  ‘My father would have gladly sacrificed his life for his country,’ she snapped back, her remoteness giving over to anger. ‘But he recognized the poison that was slowly crippling our land.’

  ‘Ah yeah, the Jewish poison, right?’ My head was beginning to clear, but that only made me more conscious of the throbbing pain in various parts of my body, results of the beating I’d received. Shit, I’d hardly got over the lumps and bruises from my last run-in with these people.

  Hubble hadn’t liked my sneering tone. ‘Even England’s abdicated king was aware of the Jewish threat, as were many others of influence. If our own government had not been in the pocket of Jew creditors and extortionists, and so fearful of the proletariat itself, which was forever whining, forever demanding, malcontents who despised the natural social order, then perhaps the world would have had a very different and glorious future.’

  ‘Oh Christ…’ I began to say.

  ‘The Jews murdered Christ, Mr Hoke.’

  Some life had returned to those dead eyes of Hubble’s: they shone with a zealot’s passion.

  ‘The Duke of Windsor and others of nobility would gladly have aligned themselves with Adolf Hitler’s wondrous vision for mankind,’ he went on, warming to the sermon, his voice even notching up half a gear. ‘And they would not have been alone. Many leaders and eminent people – academics, industrialists, militarists, too – would have joined the crusade to purge our civilization of its insidious corruption and degenerative breeding, and indeed, discreet negotiations between ourselves and Hitler’s emissaries that would have benefited both Germany and the United Kingdom were well underway before that fool Chamberlain was tricked into declaring war on a nation that should have been our greatest ally.’

  Something had occurred to me while he was ranting and once more I stared past him at Muriel.

  ‘Didn’t you tell us your own brothers fought against Fascism, one in the navy, the other in the airforce?’ I said to her.

  ‘It was their duty to defend their country.’ Some colour had returned to her pallid skin, brought there by her own anger. ‘It didn’t mean they agreed with our government’s misguided hostility towards Germany.’

  There was probably some kind of screwed-up logic to her argument, but I wasn’t in the mood to figure it out ‘Just tell me why you turned us in to this bunch of madmen? I thought they, at least’ – I nodded towards the kneeling group – ‘were your friends.’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ she replied, her rage controlled again, her coolness back. ‘Sir Max has to be saved. The irony is that I recognized him on the steps of the National Gallery when we helped you three days ago, but there was nothing I could do, everything was happening so fast.’

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw an emaciated-looking man approaching, one of his cronies helping him remove his black shirt. His eyes were huge and kind of haunted-looking, as if the dark-smudged lids had shrunk around them.

  ‘The world, or what’s left of it, has to find a system again,’ Muriel was blabbering, ‘and we can only find the right kind through leaders like him, don’t you see that? Our lives are not as important as his.’

  ‘So offer him your blood,’ I suggested.

  ‘There’s no need when I can take yours,’ Hubble pointed out.

  He shuffled aside to let the thin man through and I winced when I saw the ulcerations and bruises that covered the newcomer’s naked arms and upper body. His companions placed a small black case like a doctor’s bag (maybe it was a doctor’s bag) on the carpet by my feet and opened it As another Blackshirt spread a dingy tablecloth across the floor by the chair I was tied to, the one with the bag drew out a thin length of rubber tubin
g with what appeared to be flanged steel needles at either end, and some metal clips.

  ‘Don’t you understand?’ I appealed to Hubble. ‘It’s crazy. It won’t work. You have to be matched with the same blood type for it to do any good. You’ll just kill us both this way.’

  Hubble turned back to me, that mad shine still there in his dark eyes. ‘But I have nothing to lose, Mr Hoke. If the transfusion fails, it only means a different sort of death.’ He might have chuckled then, or a small expulsion of blood might have gurgled in his throat, I couldn’t tell. ‘Besides,’ he went on, pointing his stick, ‘we will try the procedure on this noble volunteer first.’

  The half-naked man, who was settling onto the tablecloth on the floor, gazed up at him like an acolyte at a god.

  ‘He’ll die,’ I promised.

  ‘He’s prepared to do so. But really, Mr Hoke, aren’t you aware that even centuries ago the South American Incas regularly carried out blood transfusions with far more primitive instruments than we have, and, so history informs us, most occasions proved successful. All we need to do is make two small punctures in the correct veins and allow gravitation to do the rest.’

  Wilhelm Stern was close enough to be easily heard. ‘But it was also outlawed in Europe in the seventeenth century because of the many deaths transfusions caused.’

  I was glad of his intervention, but wondered if it was for my sake, or because he didn’t like the idea of being the next guinea pig.

  ‘Nobody knew about blood types in those days. To them, blood was blood and there were no differences,’ he reasoned. ‘Transfusions were successful only between people who, by chance, belonged to the same grouping. Mein Gott, they even used the blood from pigs and sheep at that time. Muriel – Miss Drake – you must make this man understand, you must explain that what he is about to try is impossible.’