As he approached the Ministry, Kruze patted the document in the inside pocket of his greatcoat. Once he’d delivered it he’d have more than enough time to take in a show or a film in one of the myriad theatre halls that crowded the West End. Perhaps he would see the Errol Flynn if the cinema had not been burned down by the mob he had just left.
The lobby of the Air Ministry was cold and gloomy and a large puddle lay under the coat-stand beside the main reception desk. Kruze took off his cap, exposing blond hair that was slightly longer than the regulation length. The middle-aged woman behind the desk smiled warmly at the Rhodesian.
“What can I do for you sir?” The voice was from the East End of London.
“I’m carrying a dispatch for Air Vice Marshal Staverton. Special delivery.” Kruze saw the heavily made-up face crease for a second as she tried to place his accent.
“Right, sir, I’ll have a pass made up for you right away.”
“No, that won’t be necessary,” Kruze said quickly. The woman left the drawer with the entry forms half-open and looked up at him in surprise.
Kruze lowered his voice. “Look, I’m on leave at the moment and I’ve got a nasty feeling that if I see the old boy, I’ll never get away. You know how it is.” He leant forward a little until he could smell the powder on her face. She blushed under the gaze of his bright blue eyes.
“Of course, sir. I’ll see that this gets to the Air Vice Marshal all right. You’ll have to sign for it, though.”
Kruze printed his name on the form.
“Thank you, Squadron Leader,” the woman said, “enjoy your leave.”
Kruze couldn’t wait to get out. The thought of working at a desk in the Ministry brought him out in a cold sweat.
He rushed headlong into the cold air outside and never even saw the person who collided hard with his shoulder. Before he knew it, she was sitting in a puddle on the Ministry steps, rainwater splashed across the uniform of a sergeant in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force.
“Aren’t you even going to help me up, you ill-mannered oaf? No, on second thoughts, don’t bother.” There was something about that voice. The shapely legs swivelled round until her feet were positioned on a lower step. As she reached for her cap, fair hair cascaded down over her shoulders.
Kruze knew it was Penny Fleming even before she had turned round. She gasped when she recognized him, the mask of anger turning immediately to surprise.
“Oh, Piet, I’m so sorry. I’d no idea—”
He helped her up. “Don’t apologize, it was my fault.”
“No, really, I wasn’t looking where I was going,” she stammered. “Are you all right? I didn’t mean to be so rude.”
He smiled. “I hate to think what would have happened if you had.”
She flushed and turned away from him. He bent down to pick up her cap, taking his time. When he handed it to her she seemed to have regained her composure.
“Look,” he started, “if you need me to get you through security, I could go with you as far as the Bunker. You’ll never reach Robert otherwise — you know what Staverton’s like about guarding that miserable place.”
“No, thank you.” Her voice was firm, but her eyes seemed to shift nervously away from him. “I’m only leaving a message… a letter. They can take it down to him from the lobby.”
He sensed she wanted to leave.
“I hope to see you both soon,” he said. “I owe you a dinner…”
“That would be nice,” she said, making her way up the steps towards the great door of the Ministry.
He thought about Staverton’s questioning the day before. Perhaps he should have told him about Fleming’s panic attack during the air-test, the look on his face when he had drawn up alongside the Spitfire’s cockpit. The irony was, he knew Staverton didn’t really expect him to say anything, despite all the talk about the conspiracy of silence between pilots. Staverton was direct enough to probe the truth from Fleming himself, a fact which made the old boy’s interrogation all the more puzzling. The strain of the last few months had been getting to all of them.
Kruze decided to put it out of his mind. At the Cenotaph he turned right towards Trafalagar Square and back down the Strand, searching out the cinema where Objective Burma was showing. Kruze wanted as much to get out of the rain as to see the picture. He spotted the Rialto a hundred yards down the street. The crowd had disappeared, leaving only a few ticket-seekers gathered by the foyer.
It exploded without warning. No one saw it and no one heard it coming. Kruze was lifted off his feet as the cinema and several buildings on either side disintegrated in a ball of flame. The rush of hot, choking air that swept over him a second later was accompanied by an eerie high-velocity whistle.
Kruze tried to suck in the air that had been compressed from his lungs, then picked himself up and ran through the fog until he could see orange flames flickering through the clouds of dust and acrid smoke that burnt the back of his throat. As he stood before the epicentre of the blast, a cold breeze blew up from the banks of the Thames, driving the smoke away towards Piccadilly and fanning the flames to an intensity that forced back the few who had rushed to the building in the hope of finding survivors.
When the choking mist lifted, Kruze knew that few, if any, people would have survived in those buildings. A large store had taken the worst of the explosion, but the cinema was not much better off. Pieces of plush red seating poked through the shattered masonry. Broken pipes sprayed water over the entire scene, creating tiny flame-free oases around them. A woman’s body lay horribly mutilated a few feet from him, her limbs twisted and limp, as if every bone within them had crumbled into powder. Elsewhere, people attended passers-by who had been caught by the blast in the street.
The crackle of the flames from the building mixed with the crescendo of pain from the survivors, until it was the human sound which dominated. A distant clatter of bells signalled the approach of the fire engines and seconds later three arrived, weaving their way through groups of people in whose midst lay the wounded or dying.
When the fire engines fell silent, Kruze heard a cry from the far reaches of the cinema. At first he thought he’d imagined it, but then he heard it again. There was no one around him. The firemen were some distance away, bringing hoses to bear on the flames. Just then, two young soldiers appeared through the smoke and began pulling at the rubble twenty yards from him. Kruze called over to them, but they took no notice. Each had his own casualty to help. Realizing he was on his own, he darted towards the alley that used to separate the store from the cinema.
A moment later, the sound was distinctly recognizable as a plea for help, but Kruze could not see through the smoke. Then he saw the bright red sweater through the grey pall. For a second, Kruze was transfixed as the arms seemed to beckon to him. Then he realized that they were thrashing and clawing to be free of the wreckage. Kruze leapt over the smouldering velvet stage curtain between him and the obscure figure and seconds later was tearing at the bricks which had half-buried the young boy.
He could not have been much more than ten. When he stopped struggling, Kruze thought that he was too late, that the shock had killed him. He wiped the grime away from the small, bruised face and saw the tears squeezing out between tight-clenched eyelids.
“What’s your name, feller?” Kruze tried hard not to transmit the slightest trace of panic in his voice.