Strands of curly white hair were stuck to his forehead. The corners of his lips were cracked and crusted with dried blood.
I made Owain ask: “Was he poisoned?”
“Unlikely,” said the doctor. It was Tyler, the man who’d attended him after Regent Street. “Though if you ask me the chef wants shooting.”
“Mussels,” Giselle said. “He had a big dish. I warned him they didn’t smell right.”
Tyler turned to a nurse. “Where’s the damned monitor?”
“It’s on its way,” she told him. “They’re having to bring it up from the gyms.”
“Is he going to be OK?” Owain asked.
“He’ll be on his back for a day or two,” Tyler said. “Should sleep now till morning at least. We’ll keep an eye on things. Make sure he doesn’t do anything for twenty-four hours. Complete bed rest, eh?”
He was addressing Giselle. “I’ll lock him in if I have to,” she assured him.
“Get rid of the TV. No news reports, bulletins, paperwork. Nothing that’s likely to raise his blood pressure.”
The television was showing brief campaign scenes, intercut with the smouldering ruins of an aeroplane in a field of snow and broken pines. It was the BBC’s restricted access channel. The sound had been turned off, but the caption read: CinC & CofS DIE IN POMERANIAN CRASH.
“What’s that about?” Owain asked Giselle.
“He insisted on watching,” she said wearily. “A Dornier carrying some senior commanders came down near Kolberg this morning. Engine failure.”
The picture switched, showing the Chancellor delivering a tribute. He was in his office, backdropped by the flags of state, looking suitably grave but in command of the situation. His image had been refined over the years to maximise his appeal to a diverse audience.
Owain’s uncle made a growling sound and subsided. The picture had now cut from the Chancellor to that of the two principal victims of the crash. I recognised one of the faces instantly.
Generaloberst Blaskowitz.
I swirled the white wine in my glass. Two young men were talking to me, one about war-gaming, another about his collection of replica model tanks.
The room was hot and crowded, subterranean, with bare brick walls and arches. A crypt, possibly. People stood in clusters, holding their complimentary drinks, chatting earnestly. A few spilled bowls of dry-roast peanuts remained on side tables. At a bustling bar two attractive young women in black dresses were doling out wine and bottles of Becks. A poster hung on one pillar showed a shield with runes severed vertically by a lightning bolt.
A publisher’s party to mark the launch of a new book. I’d been invited months before, had been persuaded by Tanya to attend. Where was she? I scanned the heads, failed to spot her. Now one of the young men was talking about the SAS and how they would be a brilliant subject for a series. Both of them had ardent faces. Both of them were obviously thrilled to be talking to me. I kept making affirmative noises that encouraged they hecontinue.
Nobody in the place looked older than fifty. The book was something about the Waffen-SS, I remembered. They were always among the most popular of wartime subjects for military enthusiasts. The Leibstandarte, Das Reich, Totenkopf, Wiking. A mantra of storm troopers, the elite of the Wehrmacht, always shown with their hulking Tigers, invariably smashing enemy formations, racing to plug gaps in the German lines, conducting desperate heroic counterattacks. And all the while butchering and burning and raping and maiming. For the good of the cause. The Triumph of the Will.
At that moment I felt complicit. I felt my father at my shoulder, asking me what I was doing here, demanding to know when was I going to treat history with the respect it deserved.
Unfair, I thought. As ever, his judgements were too severe.
The two young men were waiting for me to say something. I excused myself, slipping away through the crowd towards a darker corner where few people were lingering, nodding to anyone who spoke my name or said hello but not risking eye contact, keeping my head down.
I retreated as far as I could into the shadows, still wondering where Tanya was. There were few women in the place, but plenty of leather jackets, short haircuts and thick-soled boots. The two publicity girls who were serving at the bar stood out. Both were blonde, like perfect examples of young Aryan womanhood. Both thoroughly enjoying the attentions of those they were serving.
“So there you are,” said a voice. “I thought you’d gone AWOL.”
Adrian. He looked a little drunk.
“I’m in hiding,” I said. “Watching the detectives.”
“They’re so cute,” he countered. “Especially that pair.”
Inevitably he was indicating the two publicity girls.
“Not much competition,” I said. “How’s Rachel?”
“Sorry we ever started, if you want my opinion.”
“On the baby?”
“On everything. I couldn’t persuade her to come.”
“I’m not surprised. Hot and smoky.”
He wasn’t really listening, was peering through the crowd, looking for someone.
“Have you seen the book?” he asked.
“I’ve seen the poster.”
“I’s tat. Honestly, Owen. Like someone’s ransacked a private collection of photographs and stuck some text around them. I bet it’ll sell like hot cakes.”
It was Adrian’s theory that the renewed interest in the second world war arose from the collapse of ideologies in the modern world, the absence of the very polarities so manifest during Hitler’s time—left against right, democracy against totalitarianism, a clear sense that evil regimes had to be destroyed. I doubted it was that simple, given the fascination with some of the least savoury aspects of the war. There was something more ceremonial and expressive of darker yearnings about it.
Weariness was descending on me. How much had I drunk? I couldn’t remember. I wasn’t even sure exactly when I had re-emerged from my counterpart’s world; while the transitions to it were often abrupt, the return to my real life was sometimes more disjointed, a spluttering into full consciousness. Owain’s situation was becoming more intriguing, harder to resist. This time I hadn’t even tried to break free. Had his uncle been poisoned? Had Blaskowitz been murdered? What would Owain have made of this gathering of celebrants to a war that in his own world had never ended?
Adrian was now talking to a dark-haired woman who I knew was an editor from a publishing house; she also looked as if she was seeking sanctuary. I slunk away again, trying to remember how long I’d been here, how much longer I would need to stay.
A little cluster of people was standing around a man who was presumably the author. He wore jeans and a sports jacket, looked like an academic. I didn’t know him. Among the group was a silver-haired man who was possibly the only person in the room to have actually been alive when the war was taking place. What did this signify? Everything, or nothing at all?
“Gordon Bennett,” said an exasperated voice.
It was Tanya, emerging out of the morass.
“I’m not sure I’m cut out for this,” she said to me. “There’s this chap who wants to take me home and show me his collection of insignia.”
“You should be so lucky. Do you want to leave?”
She nodded eagerly, swallowing the last of her orange juice. “You need to say any goodbyes?”
Adrian was in huddled conversation with the editor. For Rachel’s sake, I hoped that they were discussing work rather than pleasure.
“Nope,” I said. “Swift tactical withdrawal.”
PART THREE
LOOPING THE LOOP