37
THE SOUND OF BREAKING GLASS, THEN AN EXPLOSION like an incendiary bomb:
Whoomph…
Lucy dropped the microphone. Something was happening downstairs. She picked up a shotgun and ran down.
The living room was ablaze. The fire centered on a broken jar on the floor. Henry had made some kind of bomb with the petrol from the jeep. The flames were spreading across Tom’s threadbare carpet and licking up over the loose covers of his ancient three-piece suite. A feather-filled cushion caught and the fire reached up toward the ceiling.
Lucy picked up the cushion and threw it through the broken window, singeing her hand. She tore her coat off and threw it on the carpet, stamping on it. She picked it up again and draped it over the floral settee.
There was another crash of glass.
It came from upstairs.
Lucy screamed. “Jo!”
She dropped the coat and rushed up the stairs and into the front bedroom.
Faber was sitting on the bed with Jo on his lap. The child was awake, sucking his thumb, wearing his wide-eyed morning look. Faber was stroking his tousled hair.
“Throw the gun on the bed, Lucy.”
Her shoulders sagged and she did as he said. “You climbed the wall and got through the window,” she said dully.
Faber dumped Jo off his lap. “Go to Mummy.”
Jo ran to her and she lifted him up.
He picked up both guns and went to the radio. He was holding his right hand under his left armpit, and there was a great red bloodstain on his jacket. He sat down. “You hurt me,” he said. Then he turned his attention to the transmitter.
Suddenly it spoke. “Come in, Storm Island.”
He picked up the microphone. “Hello?”
“Just a minute.”
There was a pause, then another voice came on. Lucy recognized it as the man in London who had told her to destroy the radio. He would be disappointed in her. It said, “Hello, this is Godliman again. Can you hear me? Over.”
Faber said, “Yes, I can hear you, professor. Seen any good cathedrals lately?”
“What?…is that—”
“Yes.” Faber smiled. “How do you do.” Then the smile abruptly left his face, as if playtime was over, and he manipulated the frequency dial of the radio.
Lucy turned and left the room. It was over. She walked listlessly down the stairs and into the kitchen. There was nothing for her to do but wait for him to kill her. She could not run away—she did not have the energy, and he obviously knew it.
She looked out of the window. The storm had ended. The howling gale had dropped to a stiff breeze, there was no rain, and the eastern sky was bright with the promise of sunshine. The sea—
She frowned, and looked again.
Yes, my God, it was a submarine.
Destroy the radio, the man had said.
Last night Henry had cursed in a foreign language…“I did it for my country,” he had said.
And, in his delirium, something about waiting at Calais for a phantom army….
Destroy the radio.
Why would a man take a can of photographic negatives on a fishing trip?
She had known all along he was not insane.
The submarine was a German U-boat, Henry was some kind of German agent…spy?…this very moment he must be trying to contact that U-boat by radio…
Destroy the radio.
She had no right to give up, she couldn’t now that she understood. She knew what she had to do. She would have liked to put Jo somewhere else, where he could not see it—that bothered her more than the pain she knew she would feel—but there was no time for that. Henry would surely find his frequency at any second and then it might be too late—
She had to destroy the radio, but the radio was upstairs with Henry, and he had both the guns and he would kill her.
She knew only one way to do it.
She placed one of Tom’s kitchen chairs in the center of the room, stood on it, reached up and unscrewed the light bulb.
She got down off the chair, went to the door and threw the switch.
“Are you changing the bulb?” Jo asked.
Lucy climbed on the chair, hesitated for a moment, then thrust three fingers into the live socket.
There was a bang, an instant of agony, and then unconsciousness.
FABER HEARD the bang. He had found the right frequency on the transmitter, had thrown the switch to “Transmit” and had picked up the microphone. He was about to speak when the noise came. Immediately afterward the lights on the dials of the wireless set went out.
His face suffused with anger. She had short-circuited the electricity supply to the whole house. He had not credited her with that much ingenuity.
He should have killed her before. What was wrong with him? He had never hesitated, not ever, until he met this woman.
He picked up one of the guns and went downstairs.
The child was crying. Lucy lay in the kitchen doorway, out cold. Faber took in the empty light socket with the chair beneath it. He frowned in amazement.
She had done it with her hand.
Faber said: “Jesus Christ Almighty.”
Lucy’s eyes opened.
She hurt all over.
Henry was standing over her with the gun in his hands. He was saying, “Why did you use your hand? Why not a screwdriver?”
“I didn’t know you could do it with a screwdriver.”
He shook his head. “You are truly an astonishing woman,” he said as he lifted the gun, aimed it at her, and lowered it again. “Damn you.”
His gaze went to the window, and he started.
“You saw it,” he said.
She nodded.
He stood tense for a moment, then went to the door. Finding it nailed shut, he smashed the window with the butt of his gun and climbed out.
Lucy got to her feet. Jo threw his arms around her legs. She did not feel strong enough to pick him up. She staggered to the window and looked out.
He was running toward the cliff. The U-boat was still there, perhaps half a mile offshore. He reached the cliff edge and crawled over. He was going to try to swim to the submarine.
She had to stop him.
Dear God, no more…
She climbed through the window, blotting out the cries of her son, and ran after him.
When she reached the cliff edge she lay down and looked over. He was about halfway between her and the sea. He looked up and saw her, froze for a moment, and then began to move faster, dangerously fast.
Her first thought was to climb down after him. But what would she do then? Even if she caught him, she couldn’t possibly stop him.
The ground beneath her shifted slightly. She scrambled back, afraid it would give way and throw her down the cliff.
Which gave her the idea.
She thumped on the rocky ground with both fists. It seemed to shake a little more and a crack appeared. She got one hand over the edge and thrust the other into the crack. A piece of earthy chalk the size of a watermelon came away in her hands.
She looked over the edge and sighted him.
She took careful aim and dropped the stone.
It seemed to fall very slowly. He saw it coming, and covered his head with his arm. It looked to her as if it would miss him.
The rock passed within a few inches of his head and hit his left shoulder. He was holding on with his left hand. He seemed to lose his grip and he balanced precariously for a moment. The right hand, the injured one, scrabbled for a hold. Then he appeared to lean out, away from the face of the rock, arms windmilling, until his feet slipped from their narrow ledge and he was in midair, suspended; and finally he dropped like a stone to the rocks below.
He made no sound.
He landed on a flat rock that jutted above the surface of the water. The noise his body made hitting the rock sickened her. He lay there on his back, arms outflung, head at an impossible angle.
Something seeped out from inside him on to the stone, and Lucy turned away.
EVERYTHING seemed to happen at once then.
There was a roaring sound from the sky and three aircraft with RAF circles on their wings flew out of the clouds and dipped low over the U-boat, their guns firing.
Four sailors came up the hill toward the house at a jog trot, one of them shouting, “Left-right-left-right-left-right.”
Another plane landed on the sea, a dinghy emerged from inside it and a man in a life jacket began to row toward the cliff.
A small ship came around the headland and steamed toward the U-boat.
The U-boat submerged.
The dinghy bumped into the rocks at the foot of the cliff, and the man got out and examined Faber’s body.
A boat she recognized as the Coastguard cutter appeared.
One of the sailors came up to her. “Are you all right, love? There’s a little girl in the cottage crying for her mummy—”
“It’s a boy,” Lucy said, “I must cut his hair.”
BLOGGS STEERED the dinghy toward the body at the foot of the cliff. The boat bumped against the rock and he scrambled out and onto the flat surface.
Die Nadel’s skull had smashed like a glass goblet when he hit the rock. Looking more closely, Bloggs could see that the man had been somewhat battered even before the fall: his right hand was mutilated and there was something wrong with his ankle.
Bloggs searched the body. The stiletto was where he had guessed it might be: in a sheath strapped to the left forearm. In the inside pocket of the expensive-looking bloodstained jacket, Bloggs found a wallet, papers, money, and a small film can containing twenty-four 35mm photographic negatives. He held them up to the strengthening light: they were the negatives of the prints found in the envelopes Faber had sent to the Portuguese Embassy.
The sailors on the cliff top threw down a rope. Bloggs put Faber’s possessions into his own pocket, then tied the rope around the body. They hauled it up, then sent the rope down for Bloggs.
When he got to the top, the sub-lieutenant introduced himself and they walked across to the cottage on top of the hill.
“We haven’t touched anything, didn’t want to destroy evidence,” the senior sailor said.
“Don’t worry too much,” Bloggs told him. “There won’t be a prosecution.”
They had to enter the house through the broken kitchen window. The woman was sitting at a table with the child on her lap. Bloggs smiled at her. He could not think of anything to say.
He looked quickly around the cottage. It was a battlefield. He saw the nailed-up windows, the barred doors, the remains of the fire, and the dog with its throat cut, the shotguns, the broken banister, and the axe embedded in the windowsill beside two severed fingers.
He thought, What kind of woman is she?
He set the sailors to work—one to tidy the house and unbar the doors and windows, another to replace the blown fuse, a third to make tea.
He sat down in front of the woman and looked at her. She was dressed in ill-fitting, mannish clothes; her hair was wet; her face was dirty. Despite all that, she was remarkably beautiful, with lovely amber eyes in an oval face.
Bloggs smiled at the child and spoke quietly to the woman. “What you’ve done is tremendously important,” he said. “One of these days we’ll explain, but for now I have to ask you two questions. Is that okay?”
Her eyes focused on him and after a moment she nodded.
“Did Faber succeed in contacting the U-boat by radio?”
The woman just looked blank.
Bloggs found a toffee in his trousers pocket. “Can I give the boy a sweet? He looks hungry.”
“Thank you,” she said.
“Now, did Faber contact the U-boat?”
“His name was Henry Baker,” she said.
“Oh. Well, did he?”
“No. I short-circuited the electricity.”
“That was very smart,” Bloggs said. “How did you do it?”
She pointed at the empty light socket above them.
“Screwdriver, eh?”
“No. I wasn’t that smart. Fingers.”
He gave her a look of horror, disbelief. The thought of deliberately…he shook himself, trying to put it out of his mind. And thought again, What kind of woman is she?…“Right, well, do you think anyone on the U-boat could have seen him coming down the cliff?”
The effort of concentration showed on her face. “Nobody came out of the hatch, I’m quite sure,” she said. “Could they have seen him through their periscope?”
“No,” he said. “This is good news, very good news. It means they don’t know he’s been…neutralized. Anyway…” He changed the subject hastily. “You’ve been through as much as any man on the front line. More. We’re going to get you and the boy to a hospital on the mainland.”
“Yes,” she said.
Bloggs turned to the senior sailor. “Is there any form of transport around?”
“Yes—a jeep down in that little stand of trees.”
“Good. Will you drive these two over to the jetty and get them onto your boat?”
“Surely.”
Bloggs turned to the woman again. He felt a tremendous surge of affection mixed with admiration for her. She looked frail and helpless now, but he knew she was as brave and strong as she was beautiful. Surprising her—and himself—he took hold of her hand. “When you’ve been in hospital a day or two you’ll begin to feel depressed. But that’s a sign you’re getting better. I won’t be far away and the doctors will tell me. I’ll want to talk to you some more, but not before you feel like it. Okay?”
At last she smiled at him, and he felt the warmth. “You’re very kind,” she said.
She stood up and carried her child out of the house.
“Kind?” Bloggs muttered to himself. “God, what a woman.”
He went upstairs to the radio and tuned it to the Royal Observer Corps frequency.
“Storm Island calling, over.”
“Come in, Storm Island.”
“Patch me through to London.”
“Hold on.” There as a long pause, then a familiar voice. “Godliman.”
“Percy. We caught the…smuggler. He’s dead.”
“Marvelous, marvelous.” There was an undisguised triumph in Godliman’s voice. “Did he manage to contact his partner?”
“Almost certainly not.”
“Well done, well done!”
“Don’t congratulate me,” Bloggs said. “By the time I got here it was all over, bar the tidying up.”
“Who…?”
“The woman.”
“Well, I’m damned. What’s she like?”
Bloggs grinned. “She’s a hero, Percy.”
And Godliman, smiling on his end now too, understood.