‘Would you give us a minute,’ Reggie said to the waiter. To Cal, he said, ‘There’s something wrong?’
‘There’s everything wrong. There’s a fucking war on.’
Reggie looked quickly around. ‘If we’re going to have a swearing contest, could you keep your voice down?’
‘Reggie, if you don’t stop talking about the weather, and ordering vintage champagne and goose liver and pretending there isn’t a fucking war on, I’ll run the entire gamut of obscenity. Tell me what the fuck is going on. So far, all you’ve done since I got to England is string me out with more tall tales and half-truths than Fibber McGee.’
Reggie did not look Crestfallen or apologetic. He looked cornered. The waiter chose this moment to return.
‘We’ve changed our minds,’ Cal said to him. ‘Brown Windsor for two, and we’ll save the champagne for another time.’ And to Reggie, ‘Do I have your attention now?’
‘It was meant as a treat for you. An apology, if you like.’
‘An apology for dumping me?’
Reggie nodded.
‘Jesus Christ, Reggie, you can’t apologise enough for that. While you were gone four men died. Reggie, you can’t buy me off by spending a week’s wages for the average Londoner on an off-the-ration meal that makes me feel I’m cheating the English-that makes me feel any Englishman with money cheats his fellow English. For fuck’s sake, Reggie, looking around this room, would you even know there’s a war on? Do you think these people know what’s in a Woolton pie? Have you ever had to eat Woolton pie?’
‘Like humble pie, is it?’
‘Yes-that’s exactly what it’s like. The self-imposed humility of the English as they tighten their belts and pull together. Now-why don’t you tighten your conscience and tell me the truth? And the truth is that you dumped me on Walter Stilton when you got a crack at Hess. It was Hess, wasn’t it? Don’t answer. I know. Hess was a bigger fish than Stahl. Hess knows almost as much as Hitler. So you grilled Hess and got what you wanted and now you don’t need Stahl. So here I am, four dead men later, being kissed off in a classy restaurant with a bottle of Krug ‘20. Reggie-fuck you.’
‘No,’ said Reggie.
‘No? No what?’
‘No, I didn’t get what I wanted out of Hess. In fact, as you might put it, I got fuck all. That’s why I’m back. We need Stahl. We really do need Stahl.’
The waiter brought two bowls of Brown Windsor. Cal was not partial to it, but he was damn certain Reggie hated it, and if the only way to ensure Reggie ate it was to eat it himself-and if they were going to work together again, destroying his taste buds was about the least penance Reggie could do-then so be it. He picked up his napkin and said, ‘Tuck in, you sonovabitch.’
Reggie pulled a face as though he were sucking on a ripe lemon. When they’d both finished the course in silence, Cal summoned the waiter and told him his friend would have seconds. Cal let him get halfway through it and said, ‘Stahl.’
‘Quite,’ said Reggie. ‘Stahl.’
‘Where’ve you got him?’
‘Got him’ isn’t quite the phrase. He’s not a POW. He’s in a private room at the Queen Alexandra Military Hospital on Millbank. In fact, he’s got rather a nice view of the river.’
‘A fine bullshit, Reggie. You mean you don’t have half a dozen of your guys guarding the door?’
‘Well, of course he’s guarded-a couple of London bobbies, as a matter of fact.’
‘And how is Stahl?’
‘Came round late last night. He was in the London Hospital in the East End then. I had him moved this morning, just before I came to see you. I haven’t seen him, but I gather he’s going to be fine. Nothing more than mild concussion. A couple of stitches to the scalp and an aspirin.’
‘Asking for me?’
Reggie sucked on the lemon.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Will you come, or do I have to suffer three helpings of this Cherry Blossom boot polish gruel?’
§ 86
Stahl rubbed the side of his head. He could feel the ridge of torn, stitched flesh beneath the dressing. It was his own fault. Whoever the man behind the door was, he should have kept firing bullets into him till he heard the body fall. He must have been tall-Stahl had been aiming for his heart, and his last memory was of seeing a blurred figure clutching his belly with one hand and a gun with the other. Then the night went green, and green became black. The black became light and light was day and nurses with incomprehensible London accents were chattering at him. And a young British bobby, so cleanly shaven his skin shone pink as a washed baby, called him sir and asked if he felt ‘OK’. An hour or so later a doctor had examined him-speaking to him all the time in fluent if accented German-and had pronounced him fit to travel. Then they’d bundled him into an ambulance, driven him, he thought, three or four miles across London and put him here-in his own room, in a hospital that must be the preserve of some sort of ruling class. It reminded him of those he had had access to in Berlin, where party members could be pampered back to good health.
A new doctor examined his wound, then said, ‘I never thought I’d see the day I’d be treating a German here.’
‘Austrian,’ said Stahl, the first word he had spoken.
‘Difference is there?’
‘What do you think the Anschluss was? A day trip?’
This had shut the man up-and Stahl had not privileged him with the truth, that he had been in the Fuhrer’s entourage as they swept into Austria and that his people-Stahl’s as well as Hitler’s-had lined the streets and cheered and cheered at their own conquest. Days later, in Vienna, when the new regime had begun to make its mark, he found Storm Troopers standing over a group of Jews in the street. They were scrubbing the paving stones with brushes. Other
Austrians stood around and watched. Stahl had looked for faces he knew among the crowd and found none. Then one of the Jews had looked up from the gutter and he and Stahl had recognised one another.
Now, Stahl looked up and recognised Captain Cormack.
‘I must be slipping. I didn’t hear you come in.’
‘You’re among friends, for the first time in years. Maybe you can afford to relax,’ Cormack said.
Stahl eased himself up on the pillows to be more level with Cormack, who had propped himself against the mattress at the foot of the bed.
‘Who was he?’ he asked.
‘One of ours, I’m afraid. You were right about that. Frank Reininger, a colonel in US Intelligence at our embassy here. I’m as surprised as you are. He was pretty close to being the last person I suspected. Known the man since I was a teenager.’
‘We’re both speaking of him in the past tense. Is he dead?’
‘Yes. I know it might have been useful to get him alive. But I can see why you didn’t take chances. That last shot to the head killed him outright. If it hadn’t, who knows-it could be both of us stretched out in the morgue.’
Stahl said nothing. He hadn’t fired to the head. He hadn’t had the chance. Cormack said, ‘The British are waiting. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Of course. Let me wash and eat something and then I’m theirs. After all, I’m their prisoner.’
‘They’re calling you their guest.’
‘And Hitler called the Anschluss a “reunification”. We’re in a war of words. Meaning was the first casualty.’
‘A couple of hours?’ said Cormack.
‘Yes. I’ll be ready.’
§ 87
Stahl acknowledged Reggie’s introduction of ‘Brigadefuhrer, I’m Reggie,’ with a terse ‘Colonel’.
‘Oh… so you know me?’
‘Born Edinburgh, February 1900. Expelled from your private school over an incident with marijuana. Sandhurst 1919. Commissioned in the Royal Welch Fusiliers 1921. Recruited to Military Intelligence 1926. Married twice, a daughter by each marriage. Despite a playboy image, your grasp of German language and history is said to be excellent. Christened Alistair, always known as Reggie.’