World War II Thriller Collection (29 page)

“His appearance?”

“Clean hands, a silk shirt, a mustache that doesn't suit him. What are you fishing for?”

He shook his head irritably. “Nothing. Everything.” He lit another cigarette.

She could not reach him in this mood. She wanted him to come and sit beside her, and tell her she was beautiful and brave and she had done well; but she knew it was no use asking. All the same she said: “How did I do?”

“I don't know,” he said.
“What
did you do?”

“You know what I did.”

“Yes. I'm most grateful.”

He smiled, and she knew the smile was insincere. What was the matter with him? There was something familiar in his anger, something she would understand as soon as she put her finger on it. It was not just that he felt he had failed. It was his attitude to her, the way he spoke to her, the way he sat across from her and especially the way he looked at her. His expression was one of . . . it was almost one of disgust.

“He said he would see you again?” Vandam asked.

“Yes.”

“I hope he does.” He put his chin in his hands. His face was strained with tension. Wisps of smoke rose from his cigarette. “Christ, I hope he does.”

“He also said: ‘We must do this again,' or something like that,” Elene told him.

“I see. ‘We must do this again,' eh?”

“Something like that.”

“What do you think he had in mind, exactly?”

She shrugged. “Another picnic, another date—damn it, William, what has got into you?”

“I'm just curious,” he said. His face wore a twisted grin, one she had never seen on him before. “I'd like to know what the two of you did, other than eat and drink, in the back of that big taxi, and on the riverbank: you know, all that time together, in the dark, a man and a woman—”

“Shut up.” She closed her eyes. Now she understood; now she knew. Without opening her eyes she said: “I'm going to bed. You can see yourself out.”

A few seconds later the front door slammed.

She went to the window and looked down to the street. She saw him leave the building, and get on his motorcycle. He kicked the engine into life and roared off down the road at a breakneck speed and took the corner at the end as if he were in a race. Elene was very tired, and a little sad that she would be spending the night alone after all, but she was not unhappy, for she had understood his anger, she knew the cause of it, and that gave her hope. As he disappeared from sight she smiled faintly and said softly: “William Vandam, I do believe you're jealous.”

BY THE TIME MAJOR SMITH MADE HIS THIRD LUNCHTIME VISIT TO THE HOUSEBOAT, Wolff and Sonja had gotten into a slick routine. Wolff hid in the cupboard when the major approached. Sonja met him in the living room with a drink in her hand ready for him. She made him sit down there, ensuring that his briefcase was put down before they went into the bedroom. After a minute or two she began kissing him. By this time she could do what she liked with him, for he was paralyzed by lust. She contrived to get his shorts off, then soon afterward took him into the bedroom.

It was clear to Wolff that nothing like this had ever happened to the major before: he was Sonja's slave as long as she allowed him to make love to her. Wolff was grateful: things would not have been quite so easy with a more strong-minded man.

As soon as Wolff heard the bed creak he came out of the cupboard. He took the key out of the shorts pocket and opened the case. His notebook and pencil were beside him, ready.

Smith's second visit had been disappointing, leading Wolff to wonder whether perhaps it was only occasionally that Smith saw battle plans. However, this time he struck gold again.

General Sir Claude Auchinleck, the C in C Middle East, had taken over direct control of the Eighth Army from General Neil Ritchie. As a sign of Allied panic, that alone would be welcome news to Rommel. It might also help Wolff, for it meant that battles were now being planned in Cairo rather than in the desert, in which case Smith was more likely to get copies.

The Allies had retreated to a new defense line at Mersa Matruh, and the most important paper in Smith's briefcase was a summary of the new dispositions.

The new line began at the coastal village of Matruh and stretched south into the desert as far as an escarpment called Sidi Hamza. Tenth Corps was at Matruh; then there was a heavy minefield fifteen miles long; then a lighter minefield for ten miles; then the escarpment; then, south of the escarpment, the 13th Corps.

With half an ear on the noises from the bedroom, Wolff considered the position. The picture was fairly clear: the Allied line was strong at either end and weak in the middle.

Rommel's likeliest move, according to Allied thinking, was a dash around the southern end of the line, a classic Rommel outflanking maneuver, made more feasible by his capture of an estimated 500 tons of fuel at Tobruk. Such an advance would be repelled by the 13th Corps, which consisted of the strong 1st Armored Division and the 2nd New Zealand Division, the latter—the summary noted helpfully—freshly arrived from Syria.

However, armed with Wolff's information, Rommel could instead hit the soft center of the line and pour his forces through the gap like a stream bursting a dam at its weakest point.

Wolff smiled to himself. He felt he was playing a major role in the struggle for German domination of North Africa: he found it enormously satisfying.

In the bedroom, a cork popped.

Smith always surprised Wolff by the rapidity of his lovemaking. The cork popping was the sign that it was all over, and Wolff had a few minutes in which to tidy up before Smith came in search of his shorts.

He put the papers back in the case, locked it and put the key back in the shorts pocket. He no longer got back into the cupboard afterward—once had been enough. He put his shoes in his trousers pockets and tiptoed, soundlessly in his socks, up the ladder, across the deck, and down the gangplank to the towpath. Then he put his shoes on and went to lunch.

 

Kernel shook hands politely and said: “I hope your injury is healing rapidly, Major.”

“Sit down,” Vandam said. “The bandage is more damn nuisance than the wound. What have you got?”

Kemel sat down and crossed his legs, adjusting the crease of his black cotton trousers. “I thought I would bring the surveillance report myself, although I'm afraid there's nothing of interest in it.”

Vandam took the proffered envelope and opened it. It contained a single typewritten sheet. He began to read.

Sonja had come home—presumably from the Cha-Cha Club—at eleven o'clock the previous night. She had been alone. She had surfaced at around ten the following morning, and had been seen on deck in a robe. The postman had come at one. Sonja had gone out at four and returned at six carrying a bag bearing the name of one of the more expensive dress shops in Cairo. At that hour the watcher had been relieved by the night man.

Yesterday Vandam had received by messenger a similar report from Kemel covering the first twelve hours of the surveillance. For two days, therefore, Sonja's behavior had been routine and wholly innocent, and neither Wolff nor anyone else had visited her on the houseboat.

Vandam was bitterly disappointed.

Kernel said: “The men I am using are completely reliable, and they are reporting directly to me.”

Vandam grunted, then roused himself to be courteous. “Yes, I'm sure,” he said. “Thank you for coming in.”

Kernel stood up. “No trouble,” he said. “Good-bye.” He went out.

Vandam sat brooding. He read Kernel's report again, as if there might have been clues between the lines. If Sonja was connected with Wolff—and Vandam still believed she was, somehow—clearly the association was not a close one. If she was meeting anyone, the meetings must be taking place away from the houseboat.

Vandam went to the door and called: “Jakes!”

“Sir!”

Vandam sat down again and Jakes came in. Vandam said: “From now on I want you to spend your evenings at the Cha-Cha Club. Watch Sonja, and observe whom she sits with after the show. Also, bribe a waiter to tell you whether anyone goes to her dressing room.”

“Very good, sir.”

Vandam nodded dismissal, and added with a smile: “Permission to enjoy yourself is granted.”

The smile was a mistake: it hurt. At least he was no longer trying to live on glucose dissolved in warm water: Gaafar was giving him mashed potatoes and gravy, which he could eat from a spoon and swallow without chewing. He was existing on that and gin. Dr. Abuthnot had also told him he drank too much and smoked too much, and he had promised to cut down—after the war. Privately he thought: After I've caught Wolff.

If Sonja was not going to lead him to Wolff, only Elene could. Vandam was ashamed of his outburst at Elene's apartment. He had been angry at his own failure, and the thought of her with Wolff had maddened him. His behavior could be described only as a fit of bad temper. Elene was a lovely girl who was risking her neck to help him, and courtesy was the least he owed her.

Wolff had said he would see Elene again. Vandam hoped he would contact her soon. He still felt irrationally angry at the thought of the two of them together; but now that the houseboat angle had turned out to be a dead end, Elene was his only hope. He sat at his desk, waiting for the phone to ring, dreading the very thing he wanted most.

 

Elene went shopping in the late afternoon. Her apartment had come to seem claustrophobic after she had spent most of the day pacing around, unable to concentrate on anything, alternately miserable and happy; so she put on a cheerful striped dress and went out into the sunshine.

She liked the fruit-and-vegetable market. It was a lively place, especially at this end of the day when the tradesmen were trying to get rid of the last of their produce. She stopped to buy tomatoes. The man who served her picked up one with a slight bruise, and threw it away dramatically before filling a paper bag with undamaged specimens. Elene laughed, for she knew that the bruised tomato would be retrieved, as soon as she was out of sight, and put back on the display so that the whole pantomime could be performed again for the next customer. She haggled briefly over the price, but the vendor could tell that her heart was not in it, and she ended up paying almost what he had asked originally.

She bought eggs, too, having decided to make an omelet for supper. It was good to be carrying a basket of food, more food than she could eat at one meal: it made her feel safe. She could remember days when there had been no supper.

She left the market and went window-shopping for dresses. She bought most of her clothes on impulse: she had firm ideas about what she liked, and if she planned a trip to buy something special, she could never find it. She wanted one day to have her own dressmaker.

She thought: I wonder if William Vandam could afford that for his wife?

When she thought of Vandam she was happy, until she thought of Wolff.

She knew she could escape, if she wished, simply by refusing to see Wolff, refusing to make a date with him, refusing to answer his message. She was under no obligation to act as the bait in a trap for a knife murderer. She kept returning to this idea, worrying at it like a loose tooth: I don't have to.

She suddenly lost interest in dresses, and headed for home. She wished she could make omelet for two, but omelet for one was something to be thankful for. There was a certain unforgettable pain in the stomach which came when, having gone to bed with no supper, you woke up in the morning to no breakfast. The ten-year-old Elene had wondered, secretly, how long people took to starve to death. She was sure Vandam's childhood had not suffered such worries.

When she turned into the entrance to her apartment block, a voice said: “Abigail.”

She froze with shock. It was the voice of a ghost. She did not dare to look. The voice came again.

“Abigail.”

She made herself turn around. A figure came out of the shadows: an old Jew, shabbily dressed, with a matted beard, veined feet in rubber-tire sandals . . .

Elene said: “Father.”

He stood in front of her, as if afraid to touch her, just looking. He said: “So beautiful still, and not poor . . .”

Impulsively, she stepped forward, kissed his cheek, then stepped back again. She did not know what to say.

He said: “Your grandfather, my father, has died.”

She took his arm and led him up the stairs. It was all unreal, irrational, like a dream.

Inside the apartment she said: “You should eat,” and took him into the kitchen. She put a pan on to heat and began to beat the eggs. With her back to her father she said: “How did you find me?”

“I've always known where you were,” he said. “Your friend Esme writes to her father, who sometimes I see.”

Esme was an acquaintance, rather than a friend, but Elene ran into her every two or three months. She had never let on that she was writing home. Elene said: “I didn't want you to ask me to come back.”

“And what would I have said to you? ‘Come home, it is your duty to starve with your family.' No. But I knew where you were.”

She sliced tomatoes into the omelet. “You would have said it was better to starve than to live immorally.”

“Yes, I would have said that. And would I have been wrong?”

She turned to look at him. The glaucoma which had taken the sight of his left eye years ago was now spreading to the right. He was fifty-five, she calculated: he looked seventy. “Yes, you would have been wrong,” she said. “It is always better to live.”

“Perhaps it is.”