He must have made more noise than he thought. The eyes opened and a hand grabbed the book, trying to pull it from his fingers. The eyes opened wider. A rapid sentence in indecipherable Czech. Cal let go of the book, and the little man clutched it to his chest like a child grasping a torn shred of comfort blanket.
Cal spoke no Czech-it had always seemed to him to be one of the alphabet soup languages-but this could hardly be a problem. Most Czechs spoke German, surely?
‘Herr Hudcjek. Ich bin Captain Cormack. Amerikaner, mit Scotland Yard.’
‘Waaaaaaaaaghhhhh!!!!!!!’
Hudge rolled from the hammock screaming, banging around the room, his ironshod foot clattering down upon the floorboards. Wittgenstein landed in the dust, pages splayed. The umbrella flew off and landed down in a corner.
‘Waaaaaaaaaaaagggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!’
He seemed to be circling-he certainly wasn’t making a dash for the door, and at the speed he travelled a dash was probably beyond him. Cal stepped in and headed him off, arms outstretched in what he hoped was a placatory gesture.
‘Ich komme von Scotland Yard. Ich arbeite mit Walter Stilton. Verstehen Sie? Mit Walter Stilton.’
Hudge collapsed in the corner. His hands fell upon the umbrella, which now became a shield between him and Cal.
‘Nicht schlagen Sie mich!’
What? ‘Don’t hit me!’ What on earth was he on about?
A flick of the wrist and the umbrella was transformed from a dripping parachute into a cudgel, with which Hudge began to beat Cal, yelling all the time, ‘Nicht schiessen, nicht schiessen.’
It was like being hit with a rolled-up newspaper, soft and sodden. The blows fell upon his head with a sound like slapping meat. He backed away, blinded by the spray of water in his eyes, all but deafened by the rising volume of ‘Nicht schiessen.’ He backed into a pair of big hands which grabbed him, turned him and shook him.
‘What the bloody hell’s going on?’
‘Walter?’
Stilton shoved him aside, bent down to Hudge in his corner and spoke softly to him in Czech. Hudge replied in Czech, looking all the time from Stilton to Cal and back again.
‘No,’ Stilton said in English. ‘Not German. American.’
Hudge stared silently at Cal. Then he muttered a long sentence to Stilton, still unwilling to speak English. Stilton looked over his shoulder at him.
‘He thinks you’re Gestapo.’
‘What?’
‘You woke him up and spoke to him in German. You daft bugger. Did you want him to have a heart attack?’
Stilton came back to him, one hand on his arm, pulling him away from Hudge into a conspiratorial huddle, a whispered conversation.
‘He was in one o’ them camps. Oranienburg, the one near Berlin. He taught theology in university-one morning in 1934 they just came for him. Chucked him in the camp, beat the shit out of him for four months, then turned him out. Jobless, homeless, broke. He got the message. He was on a train to Calais before you could say Lili Marlene. And you have to sneak up on him and talk to him in German.’
‘Jeezus, Walter. I didn’t know. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘How was I to know you were going to go wandering off on your own?’
‘Maybe if you didn’t leave me out of things I wouldn’t have the time to?’
‘Well-now isn’t the moment to include you. He’s scared to death. Even says you look like a Nazi.’
‘Must be the glasses.’
‘I’m glad you can see the funny side. Because if his dog hadn’t been killed on Saturday night it’d’ve ripped your throat out at the first umlaut! Now. Either stand still and say nowt or bugger off outside. Which is it to be?’
‘I’ll stay.’
‘Good.’
There was one chair in the room. Stilton set it upright, blew the dust off it and helped Hudge onto it.
‘We need a little help, old son.’
Stilton whipped out the photographs of Stahl and Smulders.
‘Did you see either of these blokes in the Lincoln last Monday?’
Hudge stopped glaring at Cal and looked. Another rapid sentence in alphabet soup.
‘In English, Hudge. For the sake of our friend here.’
‘Friend,’ Hudge said, as though Stilton had just introduced him to a new philosophical concept.
‘Oh yes. Definitely. Our friend. My wife thinks the sun shines out of his arse.’
‘The younk one. He was talk to Fish Wally. He write something down. Then he go. Maybe half hour later the old one come. He chat only few minute. Then he too go.’
‘And Fish Wally?’
‘He stay till chucky out. He buy me drink. He got money.’
‘Did he say anything about these blokes?’
‘No.’
Hudge looked at the photos again.
‘The younk one. Something not right. I think it the scar on eye. Cannot be sure. Maybe scar. Maybe not.’
‘Well Calvin, whatever you have to say, say it in English and smile.’
Cal thought he’d have to drag his voice up from his belly. He couldn’t remember when he’d last felt so self-conscious.
‘It’s just a sketch,’ he bleated.
Hudge looked again.
‘Ja. Just so. Sketch.’
Hudge reverted to Czech. Stilton pointed at the book and motioned to Cal to pick it up. Cal dusted it and brought it to Hudge. He took it, clutched it to his chest once more.
‘Thank you,’ he said to Cal. ‘Not forget?’ he said to Stilton.
‘Oh no,’ Stilton replied. ‘We won’t forget.’
Clumping down the stairs Cal whispered, ‘What won’t we forget?’
‘The dog,’ said Stilton. ‘I told him we’d get him a new dog.’
They crossed the rubble plains to the car, Cal trying all the time to think of the right words to apologise to Stilton.
‘I’m sorry, Walter. I goofed.’
Stilton was silent for a few seconds, then said, ‘We both did. But I’ll do you a deal. You take your cue from me-whatever we’re doing-and I won’t leave you standing at the boundary. We’re a i, Calvin. Time we started to act like one.’
Walter throttled the Riley into life. They’d driven a quarter of a mile before Cal said, ‘Where are we going?’
‘Fish Wally’s house. He passed through Burnham more than a year ago. Real name’s Waldemar Wallficz. He’s a Pole. He was a civil engineer before the war-built bridges. But he was in the reserve. He went to fight the Germans-blew up bridges. And when the Germans won he was one of a band of diehards who wouldn’t surrender. Most of ‘em did die hard. Wally didn’t, he escaped. Went east. Crossed the line. Dodged the Russians as well as the Germans. He says he walked across the ice from the Baltic coast to Finland.’
‘Good God, do you believe him?’
‘Well-he’s got the worst case of frostbite I’ve ever seen. And the Squadron Leader saw fit to turn him loose. He’s lived a mile or so up the road ever since.’
‘Do you still-what’s the word?-observe him?’
‘I don’t-he’s clean. I’ve no doubt about that. He’s supposed to report to the local nick from time to time, but then they all are. Most of ‘em do. Some of ‘em don’t.’
The car took the hump of a narrow bridge, swung left into a maze of tiny streets and two-storey houses, right at an old Victorian school and pulled up.
‘We there?’ said Cal.
‘Yep. Chantry Street, Islington.’
They got out. One side of the street-the odd numbers-was intact, bar a few broken windows: the other side, the evens, wasn’t. It was in pieces. Some houses stood, some didn’t. None of them seemed inhabited. It was almost familiar. Cal was getting used to this. Could you go to any borough in the east and find most of it missing?