“It is arguable,” I said carefully, “that, with Germany crushed, we could have taken a firmer line in the Near East. We could have stopped the emergence of the Jewish Free State as a German satellite, and kept Turkey from renewing its alliance with Germany. We’d certainly not have signed the Petroleum Accord that stopped the development of oil as a replacement for coal. The alternatives we had to develop were less convenient than cheap, unlimited oil would have been.”
“And you suppose, Sir, that we could have crushed Germany?” O’Brien asked. “Did you have any family members in the Great War?” I shook my head. My father and his brother had been too old to serve. One of my mother’s people had volunteered as an Arabic and Persian translator under Allenby—but I’d not be mentioning any of those people. “Well,” he went on, I lost my father and all my uncles on the first day of the Somme. I wouldn’t have wished a repeat of that on my own generation. Besides, it would be interesting to see how, without Germany, we’d have kept the Russians from pressing south towards India.” He shrugged and gave me a questioning look. I might have continued the defence. But, if I’d been willing to breathe fire for Beaverbrook’s readers, I’d long since realised what luck it had been that Churchill wasn’t in charge back in ’38. I’d not try any more silly arguments on O’Brien.
“Are you suggesting,” I asked, returning to his original point, “that German agents were sent to punish me for slighting Hitler’s memory?” O’Brien raised his eyebrows.
“No,” he said with calm assurance. “I don’t think that at all. We may have had the occasional difficulty when Mr Bormann was Chancellor. Since Count Stauffenberg took over, what you suggest has become unthinkable. Besides”—he paused and now he was speaking carefully—“Do you suppose the German Government would send out someone dressed as your man was, to murder you and then drape his country’s flag over your body?” he paused again and waited for what he’d said to sink in. “Is it not more likely, Sir, that some of the fifty thousand German refugees who remained here after the amnesty have hatched a plot to make trouble between the British and German Governments? You would make an obvious target.
“On the other hand, Sir,” he continued, “you assure me your attackers were searching for something—though you don’t seem able to say what they wanted. Indeed, there may be some doubt that they knew what they wanted. This doesn’t fit in at all well with our hypothesis. It might suggest that your attackers were simple robbers, sheltering behind an elaborate mask for their actions. On the other hand, armed robbery of a private dwelling is so rare in London that I really don’t wish to entertain that as a theory either.”
O’Brien might be enjoying himself in a quiet way. But I simply felt sick. I needed a walk in the fresh air. I stood uncertainly up.
“If I’m not under arrest,” I said, “can I go home?” O’Brien smiled, now reassuring.
“You’re free to go whenever and wherever you please,” he said. “I’d only ask you to tell us of any travel plans. If you see a plainclothes officer outside your block, please be assured he is there only for your protection.”
“You think they’ll come back?” I gasped. O’Brien smiled again. If he was about to try for reassurance, he was cut off by a knock on the door. A uniformed officer came in with a grim look on his face. He handed a note to O’Brien, whose own face now turned very dark.
“If you will sit down again, Dr Markham,” he said coldly, “I have some possibly interesting news. Behind some dustbins, about a hundred yards from your flat, two more bodies have been discovered. Each had been shot through the back of the head. They were dressed as police officers. Since four in one day doubles the number of shootings we’ve had all year in London, I find it difficult to believe they are not somehow connected.
“Can I ask you to look at the bodies with me?”
CHAPTER EIGHT
I pushed my current bun aside and lit another Capstan Super Strength. I was in the fifth floor tea shop of the Bayswater Army & Navy. It was an improvement on staring at the saggy but stiffening faces of the dead, and an improvement on O’Brien’s renewed questioning. It was certainly an improvement on shuffling up and down Westbourne Grove in the rain, wondering if everyone walking in my direction might be about to pull out a gun. But didn’t make thinking any easier. I needed desperately to think through all that had happened. What had those Germans wanted? What connection had their raid with the other killings? Why had one of them first approached me outside Foyles? Instead, I found myself nervously eyeing everyone in the tea shop who was or might be a foreigner.
It was no help that the man at the next table had now turned out to be an American. When I arrived, he’d already been slumped there, morosely nursing a giant cup of coffee. I’d given him an understandably nervous inspection. But I’d been pulled at once into other thoughts by the uniformed waitress and her menu. Now, he was being joined by another man, dressed in American clothes, and I could hear from their accents that both were from one of the western States.
Not bothering to take his hat off, the other man grabbed at the offered packet of cigarettes and lit one.
“God, it takes you back,” he said with an appreciative expulsion of smoke—“just to sit here in public and light up without having to look about.”
“So why don’t you stay on?” the first man said. “So long as you’re white, the Irish don’t look too closely at the documents you present. With a green passport, you can go where you like in the Empire.”
“Because I’m an American!” the second man said firmly. “Besides, as long as you can pay off the right people, you can still make a lot of money in New York. Kowalski was a fool when he built that house in Brooklyn. Showing off is a red flag to the Guard.” As if the management had also noticed there were Americans on the premises, the recorded music that played softly through the shop was now Cole Porter’s Begin the Beguine. The two men fell silent and listened without moving. As it finished and something English took its place, the first man lit a cigarette.
“It was all a dream,” he said in a voice of bottomless sadness. “It was already unravelling when we got into the Great War. We thought we were through that. But then there was the Depression, and then Roosevelt. By the time he was shot, the dream was over. Do what all the other smart people are doing, and stay on here. I know a man who can get….”
“So what is the news over here?” the second man broke in. “The New York papers say Lord Halifax is dying of syphilis. Any truth in that?” The first man laughed.
“Nah,” he said. “He’s on the way out, but not because of that. He was expected to call an election for May. There’s still time under British law. But no one thinks he’ll go and see the Queen. But there’s gotta be an election by December at the latest. The smart money says that he’ll resign after the Budget, and give his successor time to settle in before the people get to vote.”
“Well, that’s an old-fashioned way of doing things!” the second man said with a bitter laugh. “The Limeys have had Halifax forever. Now, he’ll just step down and go off to sit in his garden. No bombs or bullets in sight!” He laughed again. “So, who’s the next Prime Minister?”
I picked up a knife and cut my bun into quarters. I then cut each into tiny slices and thought of spreading on some butter. Whatever these Americans were doing in the Army & Navy, it was plain that neither had a machine pistol under the table cloth. Even so, trying to make sense of things with them next to me was about as unthinkable as playing chess on the Underground. I’d got as far as ruling out Pakeshi as the man who’d killed my intruders, and was back to speculations on Stanhope. There I was stuck.