‘I’m sure Miss Littleton would be very grateful for that.’
‘I will call for you at eighteen-thirty hours tomorrow. The Fuhrer’s speech begins at seven.’
Wessely/Veseli gave him another stiff salute and was gone, leaving Cal to wonder at what the plan was, because there had to be one and whatever was going to take place had to happen tomorrow night and he was not sure he was happy with that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
In a strange city, especially one where the language was difficult to understand and few spoke English, Vince Castellano was glad of the Automat cafes; there he could eat and drink by merely looking at what was on offer in the various compartments and putting coins in the slot so that the glass-fronted door opened.
He also thought it a good idea, since he had time on his hands, to locate the Jewish Emigration Centre well before there was any need to go there in a panic, but when he got there, having got lost a couple of times, he wished he had not.
The sight depressed him too much; he had seen this sort of thing in the cinema on the Paramount and Pathe newsreels but in the flesh it was much worse, the displaced flotsam of those dislodged by war or the threat of it.
There was no queue outside the building, more a mob of people desperate to get out of the country by any means possible, all ages from ancient beings in black round hats with long ringlets to wailing babes in arms, tired-looking men and women, all Jewish, surrounded by suitcases or wrapped bundles of possessions.
The whole seemed to move in a swaying motion, much like a tide, as rumours were spread from one to another, this while volunteers moved through the crowd with buckets of water and ladles to quench the thirst of those hoping for those magic papers that would allow them to cross a border.
If it was like this before the Germans invaded, what would it be like afterwards? And then Vince realised it would be quieter — there would be a lot less Jewish emigration if they were in charge instead of the Czechs. The temptation to go inside was killed off by the people besieging the entrance so he turned round to retrace his steps, map in hand, constantly required to stop and peer at the street names which were incomprehensible.
It would have been nice to travel by bus or tram but he feared getting even more lost by taking the wrong one and occasionally, in frustration, he cursed Cal Jardine for leaving him alone in such a strange city.
Yet many of the locals, seeing his confusion, took pity on him as he sought to compare street and map names, eager to help, and everyone, even without English, knew the name and whereabouts of Wenceslas Square, so if it took time to get back to the Meran, he got there in the end.
Having been surrounded, when he overheard any conversations, by an unintelligible babble, the sound of a loud English voice, even a slightly irate and Irish one, as well as people dressed in the kind of clothes he knew from home, was welcome, and he made to approach the two men who were in heavy discussion by a double-parked car, one of whom had a very military moustache and bearing.
‘For the love of Christ, Gibby, tell Miklos to send the bugger on his way.’
He did not in the end get close, but wiping the half smile of greeting off his face, Vince spun on his heel and went to look at a poster stuck on the nearest lamp post advertising something, he knew not what.
There was a third person at the front of the car explaining something to an unsmiling policeman and he was the big benevolent-looking fellow who had come to his door and asked to see his passport the day before.
‘Copper’s only doing his job.’
‘And I am trying to get on with mine, or hadn’t you noticed?’
‘There’s no rush, Noel, he’s bound to come back here.’
‘You can’t be sure of that.’
‘Where else is he going to go? The clerk says his luggage is in his room.’
‘We should get Miklos to work him over.’
‘Miklos is not a real policeman, and anyway they don’t do that sort of thing in Czecho.’
‘Then they’re too soft and deserve to be invaded by the Hun.’
‘Has it occurred to you that your man, Nolan, might be genuine?’
‘On a lost passport?’
Vince had pulled his hat down while he listened to the argument and then that was added to by an accented voice. ‘The policeman says he doesn’t care if we have diplomatic plates, we can’t park here and must move.’
If there was a reply Vince did not hear it; he was already walking away, forcing himself not to rush, wondering what time he had, only registering after several paces the way that foreign bloke had said ‘we’. Diplomatic plates? He ducked down the first alley then doubled back to the rear of the Meran and through the door.
The lift was opposite the reception desk so it was a run up the stairs, and when he got to his room door a full kick splintered what was not a very strong lock. Inside, Vince shut the door and waited, counting to sixty; the noise of splintering wood might bring out someone from the shared hallway to see what had caused it but they would have to be standing right outside the door to see the damage.
In that minute the whole gamut of possibilities ran through his mind but the one thing that was certain was that he could not stay here and he could no longer use that false passport, which had to be the reason that bloke was calling again. Diplomatic plates meant an embassy as well, but then he had heard the military-looking one say that the bloke was not a real policeman.
Was it the law after him or someone else? Assume the worst, it’s safest. What would they do when they discovered he had flown the Meran? He had a choice, the Jewish Emigration Centre or another hotel and he did not fancy the former, yet if he went to another hotel and it was the law they would come round looking for an Englishman who had checked in that day.
That was when Vince nearly laughed; first off he set a chair against the inside door handle to keep it closed and went to the canvas bag Cal had provided, then he packed his things quickly and untidily, including the book of short stories, pocketed the key to the Tatra and was out of that door in three minutes, bounding back down the stairs.
Outside in Wenceslas Square, thanks to an insistent policeman, it had been necessary to let Gibby Gibson move the car and so Noel McKevitt had taken station in the lobby, this after he had sent Miklos to the receptionist to flash that false warrant card again and order him to alert the man with the wispy fair hair sitting over there if Mr Nolan came back and asked for his key.
But a quick recce had revealed the back entrance and Miklos, duty done, was sent to cover that, arriving seconds before Vince reached the ground floor and made for the back door. Well oiled, it opened noiselessly and there before Vince was the back of a big bloke looking up and down the street, his hands in his pockets.
Stick or twist? There was really no option and no time to consider if this man blocking his way was a proper copper. If he was here, and whatever he was, the front had to be covered too. Dropping his bag, Vince stepped forward. Miklos heard the soft plop of it hitting the ground and turned to see coming toward him, smiling, the man he had spoken to previously.
Small and wiry, Miklos reckoned the little fellow to be no match for him, a thought he was still holding when he woke up about ten minutes later, having not seen the jab that hit him in the midriff, nor the fist that clouted the side of his head. All he could do was groggily stagger through to the lobby and tell McKevitt, now joined by Gibby Gibson, that their bird had flown.
An hour later Signor Vincenzo Castellano, who knew that to stay on the streets was too dangerous, was just down the road at another big hotel called the Paris demanding a room in fluent Italian. ‘ Posso avere una camera? ’ That was the language with which he had grown up, as the child of immigrant parents, and his name on the passport he had fetched from the Tatra was the Italian spelling.