There'd be others—
He turned away from the window, put down his glass on the writing-table, ignored the open notebooks, the last pages of his trace of Menschler through army pension records and the telephone exchange, and fanned out instead the letters he had collected from the desk.
His eye was caught by the smallest notebook, but only momentarily, in which on three neat pages he had summarized his knowledge of Emerald Necklace. Little more than the faintest trace of an old perfume. He picked up the bulkiest letter, feeling through the envelope another, enclosed letter.
Gaps in Wehrmacht records, in the Führer Directives, in the papers of the General Staff. And a tight-lipped silence—
He shrugged off a returning investigative mood, and ripped open the outer envelope, from his university and presumably forwarding the other letter. He was seized — perhaps in compensation for disappointment — with a childish mood, with the eagerness of discovery of a child from a home where mail seldom came.
Excitement became self-mockery until he had carried the letter to the window. An air mail letter. And he recognized the handwriting? Yes, strong, small, neat. Gilliatt's hand. Peter Gilliatt, who had helped his mother out of Ireland in "41, and got her to America, had written to her in New Jersey, but whose mail had lost the cold trail after his mother had moved them west, to Oregon. Gilliatt must be an old man by now—
McBride savoured not opening the letter, the little childish excitement warm as the drink in his stomach. An old, familiar world was coming back with that handwriting, the red-blue edging of the envelope. The handwriting retained the secret of Gillian's age. He'd found out that McBride was in Portland, and written to the faculty — McBride nodded in self-compliment. Gates of Hell — Gilliatt had read it. Had he written about that? After all, his mother had been dead for nearly four years, and he'd never even met Gilliatt—
He'd entertained the fantasy, when the letters used to come to Jersey and his mother never seemed to tire of talking about Gilliatt, that the Englishman was his real father, despite the disparity of name. At first, the fantasy possessed romance — until his accidental consultation of a dictionary for the meaning of the word bastard in a book he was reading under the bedclothes with a torch. Then the fantasy had become shameful and secret, and he'd gone back to believing in the fact of Michael McBride, dead and buried in Ireland.
A long preamble, compliments on Gates of Hell, references to Michael, an invitation to visit him — and, certain as signposts, the change of tone. The hushed, secretive tone, and the sudden temptation to look over his shoulder communicated to the reader. The wrist adopting a nervous twitch as if to turn the letter's contents away from eyes that might be watching behind the double-glazing.
My visitor told me you were in Europe, but not where, hence my writing to you at your university. He seemed inordinately interested in your current field of study, and to smile as if he possessed prior information. He suggested — in a very oblique manner — that your work might have a bearing on the events of 1940 in which your father and I were together involved. I should welcome an opportunity of talking to you on this subject — your mother knew little, and I have no doubt would have told you nothing. I, too, have felt bound by certain security restrictions. Until now. I have been bluntly warned not to help you, without being told why. I am irritated by the presumption of it all!
Therefore, if this reaches you, and you have the time, come to me and we shall go over some very old times together. I doubt you have ever known what happened to your father, and perhaps it is time you did.
It was as bald and provoking as the trailer to a mystery film. McBride was amused, intrigued and disturbed in a complex moment of emotion. Instinctively, as soon as he had read the signature he moved away from the window and laid the letter carefully on the writing-table. Gilliatt had deliberately constructed his story with a novelist's sense of having to grab his reader. Half a dozen mysteries were hinted at, and strangers moved at the edges of the page, concealed in shadow. McBride felt himself enmeshed, as it was intended he should be.
The room darkened as he revolved the last paragraphs in his mind, and sipped the last of the drink. When the telephone rang, it startled him out of his reverie, but with the shock of cold water, or a threat. He shrugged, smiling away the insidious effect of the letter.
"McBride."
The voice was distant, official, clipped.
"Herr Professor Thomas McBride?"
"Yes, who is that?"
"The Embassy of the Deutsches Democratisches Republik." McBride felt an irrational chill, an aftermath of his day-dreaming, then recollected his hoped-for outcome of the call. Yet now he was impatient not to go to East Berlin, just as over the past weeks he had pestered the DDR authorities for a 'scholar's visa" for the chance to inspect archives on the other side of the Wall. He tried to shake off Gilliatt's unspecified claims on his time.
"Yes?"
"Your permission to visit Berlin to consult certain historical records has been granted, Herr Professor." A pause into which McBride should have dropped his gratitude like a silver collection.
"Thank you, but I'm afraid I'm very busy right now—"
"Herr Professor, the visa and the other papers are valid only for a few days. Besides, the importance of the papers you wish to see—"
"Yes, I see—"
"You wish to refuse this excellent, unique opportunity, Herr McBride?" There was academic demotion in the mode of address. "Herr Professor Goessler of the University, our leading expert on these documents returned to the Democratisches Republik by our Soviet friends — and one of our leading authorities on the Fascist period—" A slight pause, as if the sentence had escaped him in its own complexity, then: "He has agreed to place himself at your disposal—" It was not an inducement; rather, quiet outrage.
"I see—" Gilliatt's letter was indecipherable on the table in the darkness of the room. Smaragdenhakkette. Who could tell?
Why in hell should Menschler get the last laugh? It was as if the writing on the pages of the letter were in secret ink, and the warmth applied to its revelation had now gone, and the symbols were disappearing once more. He shrugged.
"Sure — and thanks. Thanks. I'll drive up to Bonn tomorrow and collect the papers."
"Good. But that is not necessary — they have been put in the post to you today. You may book a flight for tomorrow afternoon. Good hunting, Herr Professor."
The official broke the connection. McBride was left with the return of an older and more powerful scent than the fate of a father he had never known. He did not for one moment consider why the East German embassy should be concerned with his unimportant documents at eight in the evening.
CHAPTER TWO
Arrivals
Don't freeze, don't freeze—
Awareness running through his body, concentrating for split-seconds in the soles of his feet, his hands, the centre of his back where the rifle or machine-pistol would be aimed, the back of his head. The moment of silence after the soldier had given his order, and McBride listened for the first step back, the adjustment the German would make to let him drop at a safe distance. No scuffle of boots—