Gunther shook his head. ‘I don’t seem to have the energy these days. And I must get up early tomorrow.’
A waiter came and they ordered. The food was good but the band started again and they had to raise their voices to talk. Syme said, ‘Don’t you like the music?’
‘No. It is like all the American influences I see over here. Loud and brash, tuneless.’
Syme looked at him with amusement. ‘What do you prefer, German classical stuff?’
Gunther shrugged. ‘Anything but this.’
‘Our Arts Ministry’s trying to encourage traditional folk music, morris dancers waving silly twigs around village greens, blowing penny whistles.’ He laughed. ‘I prefer something with a bit of a swing.’
‘Negro music. I thought you didn’t like blacks.’
Syme leaned across the table. He said seriously, ‘You know, mate, I like you, but you should take the chance to enjoy life a bit. Let the old juices flow.’
Gunther smiled ironically. ‘I have given my life to duty.’
‘The generation that has sacrificed everything to save Europe?’
‘And you for your Empire, too.’
Syme leaned further forward. ‘Listen, I know the Russkies aren’t completely sorted out yet, but they will be. And everywhere else, we’re top dogs. We’ve got everything. All the Jew money, like you got when you carved up Switzerland with the Frogs and the Wops in 1940.’ He laughed. ‘That was a masterstroke. You got all the Swiss banks, confiscated all the assets the German Jews put there after you came to power. Russian assets too. Germany and us together, we call the shots, so we get the goodies. We should take advantage of it.’
Gunther smiled and inclined his head. ‘If things go well with this,’ he said, ‘grateful people in Germany might open an account in Basel for you.’
Syme’s eyes sparkled. ‘That would be – great.’ He grinned. ‘I’ve already been promised that if things go well there’s a four-bedroomed house in Golders Green earmarked for me, a Jew’s house, full of expensive furniture.’ He took a drink of the fine wine he had ordered. ‘Live a little, mate,’ he said, a half-friendly contempt in his voice. ‘I plan to.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
FRANK STAYED IN THE QUIET ROOM after David and Geoff left with Ben. He turned his chair round to the window again, so he couldn’t be seen from the half-open door to the ward.
David had promised to help, look into the legal position, and Frank told himself he should cling onto that. It had been so strange to see him and Geoff after all this time; David didn’t look much older although his face had been full of uncomfortable anxiety, as had Geoff’s. Geoff had aged all right; his face looked strange with that fair moustache. Frank realized he must have looked terrible to them; he was used to his baggy, ill-fitting clothes and clumsily shaven head, he didn’t think about his appearance any more, but had been aware of how alien he must look to his old friends.
There was something that had worried him, though, about the interview, something in a look David had exchanged with Ben, as though they shared some secret. And Ben hadn’t wanted David to talk to him on his own. Why was that? And they had asked him about his brother, just like those wretched policemen earlier. He told himself he was getting paranoid – a term often used in the asylum – David was bound to ask about the event that had brought him here. But there had been something that didn’t fit about both visits. He hadn’t liked the policemen – the tall one’s friendliness was false, Frank had seen it in his eyes, and the fat, silent sergeant had had something frightening about him. The inspector had glanced at the sergeant once or twice as though he were the more important one in the partnership. They weren’t like the policemen who had interviewed him before.
‘How’re ye daen, wee man?’ Frank jumped violently. Ben had come in and was standing beside him, looking down. ‘I’ve seen yer friends off, back doon tae London.’
‘Good.’
‘I think that went okay, didn’t it? Looks like they’ll dae what they can to help.’
‘Yes. Yes, I think they will.’
Ben looked at him with those hard, sharp eyes. ‘Must’ve been a bit strange, seeing them after all this time. Just after the police came, too.’
‘It’s – it’s been a bit of a day.’
‘Ye seem jumpy, Frank. It’s gettin’ towards time for yer next pill. I’ll get it for you. I’m away off duty soon.’
‘Yes. All right.’
‘I think it might be best not tae tell Dr Wilson or the other staff about your friends helping you to get out of here,’ Ben said, his voice elaborately casual.
‘Why not?’
‘Just for the now. Let your pals find out the legal position first. So that when they talk to Dr Wilson they’ve got all their ammo ready.’
Although he nodded, Frank was suddenly, horribly certain that something secret was going on, something involving Ben and David and Geoff, and maybe the police, too. He thought, surely David wouldn’t betray me; but then why shouldn’t he, what did Frank really mean to him?
‘Good lad,’ Ben said. ‘I’ll get yer pill.’
He went out again. Frank thought, I won’t take it, I’ll pretend to but I won’t. I need to think hard, I must think. He felt a stab of pain in his bad hand. He had been clutching the chair-arm so tightly he had hurt it; the damaged fingers were tingling.
Later the older attendant, Sam, the one who had taken Frank to see the policemen, came to fetch him to dinner. Ben had come back and given him his pill with a glass of water. It was easy to slip it under his tongue and then as soon as the attendant turned to put it in his pocket. He needed to be awake, alert, not let himself be taken by surprise.
‘C’mon, Muncaster,’ Sam said impatiently. ‘Time for dinner. Along to the dining hall.’
‘All right.’
Sam led him down the corridor to the dining room. ‘You’ve had a busy day.’
‘Yes.’
‘What did them coppers want?’
‘Just a new inspector wanting to go over the case.’
‘That older one, fair-haired, was he English?’
Frank looked at Sam, alert. ‘I don’t know. He hardly spoke.’
Sam said, ‘I saw him in the corridor and wondered if he was German. They hold themselves stiffly, even a fat man like that. If they’re soldiers, or officials. I was in a German prisoner-of-war camp in the Great War, y’know. Hard lot. Still, them’s what’s been needed to sort out the mess Europe was in, I suppose.’ He looked at Frank curiously. ‘He didn’t speak, you say?’
‘Hardly at all.’ Frank feigned disinterest.
His mind was in a whirl, though, as Sam led him into the dining room with its smell of overcooked vegetables, crowded with long tables. The patients queued along the wall by the serving hatch, watched by Sam and two other attendants. Frank joined them, still desperately trying to fathom what might be going on. Had Edgar confessed to the American authorities about what he had let slip to Frank? But surely the Americans wouldn’t involve the British, still less the Germans.
‘Wake up, Muncaster,’ Sam said. ‘Join the queue or the food’ll be gone.’
Frank felt trapped, like a rat in a cage. He took a tray to the hatch and received a plate of greyish liver and soggy vegetables, with lumpy mashed potatoes served from an ice-cream scoop. As he turned towards the tables a loud crash made him jump. A middle-aged, grey-haired man had turned and thrown his plate of food to the floor. The other patients looked on with mild interest; such things often happened. A burly attendant ran across, grabbing the man’s arm roughly. ‘Jack, what the fuck d’you think you’re doing!’
‘I won’t eat this food!’ the patient shouted. ‘There’s things in it, chemicals to sterilize us! I won’t!’