In time she meditated, envisaging herself collecting the papers with ease. She imagined a trouble-free journey to the prison, and a Kommandant who gave her documents only a cursory glance before nodding to an assistant, who would call for Leon Donat to be brought to the guardroom. She would run to Donat, clasp him as if he were her father, and say, “I have come to take you home, Papa. I have missed you so much.” Hands would be outstretched and shaken with the Germans in a passing moment of goodwill. They would depart for the station in Munich, for an agonizing wait before boarding the train that would depart for Paris at five minutes to four. They would take their seats in a first-class compartment—there would be no sleeping accommodation available on this train; not until the much later Orient Express came through Munich from Budapest with its wagons-lits would private quarters be available—and count down the hours until they reached the border. Her tension would not ease until they reached Paris—at eight minutes past eleven the following morning—and she saw Brian Huntley and Robert MacFarlane waiting for them on the platform. Then she would go home. And never, she vowed, would she give Brian Huntley and Robbie MacFarlane the time of day again. She was done with them.
Information from Mark Scott—if it could be trusted—suggested that a vital piece of intelligence had been played down during Maisie’s briefings in London and the Cotswolds. No one had emphasized the complicity of wealthy industrialists in Germany, men who had seen an opportunity to get Leon Donat out of the way because they believed his businesses would collapse without him at the helm. Had a word here or there led to the police raid at a certain time when Donat could be captured? But why was she not told? For surely both Brian Huntley and Robert MacFarlane knew. Perhaps it was because, in truth, there was nothing she could do about such men and their activities against another businessman. What they had done could not be undone. But what of John Otterburn?
Scott might have been trying to cause trouble with his insinuations, but the suggestion that John Otterburn might have played a part—along with his business contacts in Munich—in the arrest of Leon Donat seemed like a plausible scenario. Maisie would bet that none of them expected that Donat would end up in Dachau.
She considered the circumstances of Otterburn’s request to help bring his daughter home. She was still uneasy about the apparent break in the wall of secrecy that should have surrounded her assignment, but knowing how deep the tentacles of Otterburn’s power ran, it was more than possible that a contact in Whitehall privy to Huntley’s plans had informed the industrialist of the development. Maisie vowed never, ever to entertain an approach from John Otterburn again, even if he was holding an olive branch. She had sworn such a thing before, yet been drawn back in. No. This was enough. No matter how important he had become, how untouchable he might be—and, indeed, no matter how much her experiences in Spain had changed her mind, made her believe him right in predicting a devastating air war in Europe—she wanted to be as far from the Otterburns as possible.
As she lay waiting for sleep to come, as she tried to exert a semblance of control over her thoughts, it occurred to Maisie that the reason she had not been informed that there were important German businessmen who wanted one of their main competitors out of the way was that she might not have accepted the assignment. Already she had looked hard at the truth behind their decision to earmark her for the role of Edwina Donat. She was a known entity, true, and had worked with both men on highly sensitive cases—but beyond that, they thought she had few connections of true worth to her now.
But now Maisie knew she would prove them wrong. As her father and Brenda, Priscilla, and the Comptons had shown since her return from Spain, she had everything to live for. And as soon as they were alone, on their way to Paris, she would persuade Leon Donat that he had everything to live for too. With his beloved daughter ailing, she knew that might well be her greatest challenge.
CHAPTER 11
Another bright, cold morning greeted Maisie when the alarm woke her at half past eight. For all her early wakefulness, when it seemed rest would be hard to claim, she had at last slept soundly, no dreams to disturb her. Now she had time to consider the morning ahead, envisioning the day as a jockey might imagine every hurdle in the steeplechase before taking to the saddle.
Maisie thought about Elaine Otterburn too. She should be back in England by now, safe, when the body of the SS officer was found. Elaine Otterburn. How great had been the weight of her guilt after she didn’t report for the flight that killed James? Maisie suspected she was living with the remorse only those who have survived when others have lost their lives can know. Elaine might spend her life trying to prove herself, whether by filtering information to people like Mark Scott, or joining do-gooder committees, following in her mother’s footsteps.
Maisie shivered as she rose from the bed, realizing that she could not imagine Elaine Otterburn as an older woman.