‘He’s fine.’ Frank was still asleep; he hadn’t even changed position.
‘I’m sorry—’
‘You had a hard day yesterday. It’s all right, Ben and I have been up all night manning the radio, and watching to make sure nobody came near the house. We looked in on you from time to time. We sent the old people to bed.’
‘The radio – is there any news—’
‘Of your wife? No, I’m sorry, not yet.’
David rubbed a hand over his stubbly face. Natalia stared at him hard with those green, slightly slanted eyes. ‘Your wife is safe, I’m sure. We’ll get her out, you will all get to America.’
David laughed hollowly. ‘It sounds like a dream, a fantasy.’
He looked at her. He wanted her, he knew she wanted him, but she had been right to say he must put Sarah first. And she was staying behind, in England. David sighed, and turned to Frank again. ‘I suppose we need to wake him.’
‘Yes. I’ll get Ben. It will be good if he sees you both when he wakes up.’
David said, ‘The colonel says Ben’s a Communist. Like your brother was.’
She smiled. ‘You remember me telling you that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Peter was not a Communist after he went to Russia.’ She looked down at him. ‘Maybe I will tell you all about it one day.’
‘On the way to the submarine, eh?’
She smiled and left the room. David wondered where Natalia stood on politics. Where did he stand himself, for that matter? He wanted democracy, an end to authoritarianism and fear, and to the persecution of the Jews. Beyond that he didn’t know. He leaned over and shook Frank’s hand gently, feeling the thinness of his wrist under his sleeve. He didn’t move at his touch, just lay there breathing heavily.
The door opened and Ben came in. He too looked tired, unshaven, but his eyes were sharp and keen as usual. David said, ‘I’ve tried to wake Frank, I shook his arm, but he didn’t move . . .’
Ben walked over to the bed. ‘He’s just in a deep sleep, poor wee man. It’s all right, I’ll wake him.’ He pinched Frank’s arm. He stirred and groaned. His hands shifted, revealing the right one with its withered fingers and scarred palm.
‘Come on, Frankie boy,’ Ben said encouragingly. He gave him another, harder pinch. Frank’s eyes opened and he blinked. He stared at them in terror, then sat up and screamed.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
SARAH HAD SAT ON HER OWN in the cell for an hour after the German left her. She was still in shock at being there, at what David had done. Where was he? After a while, through sheer tiredness, the cogs of her brain stopped turning and she just sat staring round the bleak room. But fear soon grew again; she thought of the weight of the great building above her, all the power of the Third Reich it represented, the terrible rumours about what they did to people here. She felt faint and had to grip the edge of the table.
Shortly before midnight, there was a rattle of keys in the door. Heart beating fast she looked up, expecting to see the big fair man again. She feared him; for all his civility earlier, there was something implacable about him. But it was a young man who entered, in the black uniform of the SS, with a pudgy face and heavily oiled brown hair. He carried a leather bag, which for a horrible moment Sarah thought might contain instruments of torture. But when he emptied it on the table her own possessions tumbled out, handbag and identity card, purse and keys.
‘You can go, Mrs Fitzgerald,’ the SS man said in a strong German accent. His tone was formal, polite. ‘I will escort you out. You are to go straight home and to remain there until further notice. The British police may wish to speak further with you.’
‘My husband—’
‘You must tell the police if he tries to contact you. And now . . .’ He looked at the items on the table, then waved an arm towards the door.
Sarah gathered up her things and followed him out of the room and down the corridor. Two more SS men approached, half-carrying an elderly man in a rumpled suit with a yellow badge. He was unshaven, his face bruised, grey hair standing up in tufts, eyes wide with fear. They walked past Sarah and her escort; behind her she heard a door slam. She looked at her guard. He took her back up the same flight of steps Gunther had escorted her down, along empty corridors then through a side door and out into the cold night air. He led her round to the front of Senate House, the building and its immense swastika flags floodlit. The guard walked Sarah to a gate in the side of the high wall, bars of thick iron with barbed wire on top, and unlocked it for her. He actually bowed slightly as she passed him and stepped out into Gower Street. A British policeman standing on duty outside the embassy with a sub-machine gun turned and glanced at her without interest. The gate closed behind her with a little clang, and she stood staring blankly down the dark street. Then she began walking away, fast.
She caught the last tube back home. There were not many people on it at that time of night. There was a man, though, a small man in a heavy overcoat, who got into the carriage with her at Euston Square who also got off at Kenton. But he turned in the opposite direction as she left the station. By the time she arrived home she was so frightened and exhausted that when she tried to put her key into the lock her hands shook and it took several tries to open the door. She entered the cold, empty house and went into the kitchen. She stood looking at the table where the men had sat waiting for her. The door to the garden hung open. She closed it – the lock was smashed – and went upstairs, kicked off her shoes and lay on the bed. She fell asleep in an instant, still in her coat. Alone.
She was woken by the sound of the doorbell ringing loudly and insistently. Her body shuddered. She had been having a terrible dream; she was back in the cell with the German but this time David was there, too, a prisoner. His face was turned away and when she called out his name he wouldn’t look round and she knew it was because they had done something terrible to his face. She sat up with a groan. It was daylight, she had slept through the night. She heaved herself up and walked shakily downstairs, in coat and stockinged feet, terrified they had come to take her away again.
But it was Irene standing on the doorstep, smart in her coat and her little circular hat with the red feather. Her eyes widened. ‘Darling, what’s happened to you?’
Sarah swallowed, her throat dry. Irene reached out and took her arm. ‘I rang and rang last night! How’s David, is he better, how ill is he . . . ?’
Sarah stared blankly at her sister. ‘Ill?’
‘He telephoned me yesterday. He said he was ill, he’d been sent home from the office, he was trying to get hold of you—’
‘David was here? Yesterday?’
‘Yes. In the morning – Sarah, what’s happening—’
‘Come in.’
‘Why are you in your coat? Have you been out—’
‘Come into the lounge, let me get the heating on. My feet are bloody frozen.’
Irene took charge, lighting the fire and going to make a cup of tea. Sarah stretched her numb feet to the warmth. The clock on the mantelpiece showed ten o’clock. Irene came back with a tray and set it on the coffee table. Sarah saw that her sister was forcing herself to be calm. She thought, I have to tell her what happened, they might question her and Steve. She took a cigarette, passed one to Irene, and had a sip of the hot, sweet tea. It tasted wonderful. She took a deep breath, then said, ‘David wasn’t having an affair, Irene. He was spying for the Resistance, passing them files from his work. His friend Geoff Drax was, too. They’re both on the run. I spent last night being questioned at the German embassy.’