“Bayswater 27 3532,” I said. There was a muffled voice on the other end of the line. “Can you speak up?” I called. “I can’t hear you.”
“Professor Markham?” someone said in a foreign accent. There was a loud crackle and an electrical hiss.
“You could call me that,” I said. I waited for more. Suddenly, with a click, the line went dead. I swore and reached for the dial to see who’d been calling. It was out of reach. Well, I wasn’t getting out of the bath. I would eventually get out—but that would be to inspect my bottom in the shaving mirror. I could feel a boil the size of a child’s marble coming up. If the call was important, the telephone could ring again. I pulled a face and shifted position in the bath. I took up my Daily Telegraph again and peered at the now smudged ink of the Situations Vacant column. It was a bit below me. But there was an advert for a History master at a school in Balham. There was the hint of a need for Latin as well. It was, indeed, a bit below me. But I could do it. That would bring in about £75 a term. The duties might not be onerous, and would leave time for turning out a few thousand words every evening on the second Churchill volume. I lay back again and thought of the Underground connections. It would be Bayswater to Earl’s Court, then to Charing Cross, then the Northern Line straight down. Or I could change at Notting Hill and Tottenham Court Road. Then again, Tottenham Court Road was always a bugger for changing….
There was a loud knock at the door. I groaned. It was too peremptory to be Pakeshi wanting his flat emptied of boxes. It sounded more like Hattersley with a special delivery. I wondered what that might be. Welcome back flowers, perhaps, from Vicky or her father? I laughed bleakly.
“Hold on,” I shouted. “I’m just getting out of the bath.” I heaved myself out and rubbed at myself with the towel. I hurried into the sitting room and over to the front door. I lifted the flap covering the inspection hole. I suddenly realised I was naked—and there was a puddle forming on the carpet where I stood. I left the flap open and stood back to dab at myself again with the towel. I could at least wind the thing round me before opening the door.
There was a loud crack that made the whole door shake, and a smashing of glass behind me. I turned and saw that the picture of the Queen in my bedroom was on the floor. There was a hole in the wall where it had hung. Puzzled, I looked back at the door. Where the inspection hole had been was now a much larger hole. It was smoking, and there was a smell of cordite. I rubbed at my face with the towel and looked again. I was about to call out, when I saw what looked like a metal spatula poke through where the door joined the frame. It moved quickly in and out around the lock. I looked at the catch on the door lock. It was down, and both bolts were drawn back. Through the still smoking hole in the door, I heard someone swear in what sounded like German. It was a high-pitched squeal, and, not expecting to hear any foreigner at my door, I couldn’t catch the words. Nor could I understand any of the much lower, defensive reply. The door rattled as it opened against the chain, then shook as a man’s weight crashed softly against it. With a loud snap, the chain gave and the door flew open.
I finished wrapping the towel about my waist and stepped back. In Chicago, I’d been warned repeatedly by the hotel people about this sort of raid. I’d never imagined it could happen here, in London—not in my own home. I held up both hands and stepped further back. I looked at the two men who stood looking back and me from just beyond the open door.
“So, Herr Professor Markham, you are still alive—Ja!” someone sneered in a thick accent. He stepped jauntily across the threshold and glanced round. A smallish man, in perhaps his late twenties, he had the entire look about him of a comic Nazi from the stage—the thin, scarred face, the wire-framed spectacles, the black leather overcoat, the slightly oversized hat. He looked back at me and smiled nastily. “You are alive, which is exactly according to my instructions. And, since you have, most fortunately for yourself, survived our entry, you may save us the trouble of a search.” He dug an elbow into the much larger man beside him—he was the one carrying the pistol—and rapped out an order in German to check that I was alone in the flat.
“What do you want?” I gasped, still holding my hands up. “There’s money in the teapot behind me.” I’d been told you should always try to establish eye contact with robbers. That’s easier said than done. The smaller man had got over what may have been his initial concern that I’d been killed, and was now looking rather pleased with himself. I still didn’t feel up to staring him in the eye.
“Schwein! schwein!” the larger man shouted, coming out of my kitchen and jabbing the gun at me. He was much larger than the other man. He was larger and an altogether more desperate-looking sort. Farting softly, I stepped back again. I found myself almost at once against the far wall.
“Nein, nein, Dumkopf!” the small man said impatiently. He stood forward and took the gun. He balanced it in his hand and smiled again. He repeated the order to check the flat. Standing a few feet away from me, he levelled the gun straight at my stomach, and then downward at my crotch. “You will obey if you wish to stay alive,” he said with a Teutonic cheerfulness. His smiled broadened till it stretched from one side of his face to the other. He looked briefly at his gun, as if to check that the safety catch was off, and waved it about the flat. “You will tell me where it is—now!”
“Please,” I croaked through chattering teeth, “I don’t know what you mean. Tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you.” The response was a look of annoyance, and also of confusion. He covered this with another wave of his gun and a snarled insistence that I should produce whatever he’d come to take. I was getting enough German together to explain that I’d give him whatever he wanted, if only he could tell me what it was, when the larger man came out of the bedroom, carrying the portrait of the Queen. The smaller man barked at him in German to put it down. Suddenly, he laughed. He walked over to the picture, and, gun still levelled in my direction, stamped on the broken glass.
“I spit on your filthy Elizabeth,” he said bitterly. “I spit on your contemptible Empire and what you are pleased to call your place in the sun. You will not live to see it, but you shall be the means by which we become the masters that it is our destiny to be.
“Heil Hitler!” he shouted, transferring the gun to his other hand so he could click his heels together and give the required salute. He might have continued the lecture. But the larger man called out with what sounded like alarm. The smaller man looked away for a moment. I felt my legs buckle, and, back still pressed against the wall, I slid gently down onto the carpet. I drew my knees up under my chin and hugged my knees with both hands.
“Please, tell me what you want, and I’ll give it to you,” I moaned in German. “Just don’t shoot me—please….”
But no one was paying attention to me now. There was another shout from the larger man. Then there was a crash that almost deafened me. I squeezed my eyes shut and pressed my face harder into my kneecaps. I heard the small man squeal what may have been a plea for mercy. Then there was another crash. Next thing I knew, something large and hard had landed on me and then bounced off.