Memling crossed Victoria Embankment to stand watching the river for a moment. A policeman hesitated, taking in his worn, baggy clothes, then passed on.
The sky was turning from grey to blue as the sun edged up and the cloud eased away; but the wind had also stiffened, and Memling was thoroughly chilled by the time he had walked up Northumberland Avenue to the grey unassuming building that had been MI6 headquarters for so many years.
Inside, the same elderly porter nodded politely to Memling, as if he had seen him only yesterday. There was no recognition in the nod, and no surprise either at his ill-kempt appearance. It was said the porter condescended to recognise the director but only now and again.
Memling gave his name and asked to see Englesby, and the porter consulted a child’s exercise book in which he kept a list of appointments for the day.
‘I am afraid, sir, that your name is not here. Do you perhaps have the wrong building?’
‘Perhaps Mr Englesby has forgotten, or has not been notified. Please telephone his office.’
A marine sergeant stepped from a tiny cubicle and looked Memling up and down. ‘Here now. What’s this? Lost your way, have you? Off with you now. There’s no…’
Memling shook his hand off. ‘My name is Jan Memling, and I have business here. Who the bloody hell are…’
He shut up abruptly as a revolver was pressed against his head and he was surrounded by three other marines, all heavily armed. His wrists were cuffed, and he was shoved into the cubicle and slammed against the wall.
‘All right, now,’ the sergeant snapped. ‘Just you stand right there, mate. Try any more funny moves and I’ll break your neck.’
Memling heard a clatter of high-heeled shoes on the stairs, and a moment later a woman’s voice was demanding to know what was going on. The officer tried to send her on her way, but she pushed past him.
‘Are you Jan Memling?’ she demanded, and he nodded, bemused.
‘Turn around,’ she snapped, and when he did so she compared his face with the photograph in her hand. ‘Take those handcuffs off that man,’ she told the red-faced soldier, ‘and next time, know what you are about.’
Memling rubbed his wrists where the steel rings had bitten deeply. The sergeant glared at him.
For a long moment he said nothing, then, ‘There are a lot of people like you, Sergeant, across the Channel. They wear black uniforms and they like to abuse people too.’
The man’s face went even redder, and Memling turned to the woman. ‘Thank you, miss. I wish to see Mr Englesby.’
‘I know,’ she smiled. ‘I’m his secretary, Janet Thompson. I’ll take you up.’
She turned without waiting for an answer and started up the stairs. Memling followed, thinking that her accent was definitely not London. Closer to south-west with the burr and the zz’s removed. At the top of the steps she gave him a quick smile and led him along to the well-remembered office. He noticed, as she opened the door and half-turned to see if he was following, that her figure was slim but full and that she walked with a slight sway, all of which reminded him very much of Margot. My God, he thought, I’ll see her in a few hours. What a surprise… she’ll come home from the shop and I’ll be there. It was only the strictest self-discipline that had kept him from going straight home as it was.
‘Mr Memling?’
He snapped awake as if from a trance, and she smiled at his awkwardness. ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled. ‘Don’t quite know where I am yet.’
Englesby was waiting for him in the inner office. He looked up as Janet ushered Memling in, then motioned to a chair set before the desk. ‘Be with you in a moment, Memling.’ He could have been gone only a few hours rather than eight months from the warmth of Englesby’s reception, but he was too tired to care.
To cover the lapse, Janet asked him if he would have a cup of tea; and when Memling shook his head, she glared at Englesby and went out. Englesby read on for a moment more, then closed the file and looked up.
‘Sorry about that. Too damned much to do. Home safe and sound, I see. Bit of a bad time over there?’
Memling realised the questions were rhetorical, and contented himself with a nod.
Englesby shifted in his chair. ‘Had some nonsense come through on the blower that you were asking to be pulled out. Something about vital information. Can’t be true, I told the director.’
Memling took a deep breath. ‘I did not ask to be pulled out,’ he said through clenched teeth as his anger welled up again. ‘The head of the local resistance unit made the request – without my knowledge.’ Thirty seconds had not passed and already Memling knew exactly what Englesby was doing – if this blew up, he wanted to make certain that the blame fell anywhere but on him. ‘As my controller, you had the option of accepting or refusing that request.’
‘True enough.’ Englesby’s stare was empty. ‘Now that we have that settled, suppose you tell me what this is all about.’
‘It’s to do with rockets again,’ Memling said quietly. He could not for the life of him have explained why he was deliberately antagonising Englesby, except, he realised, it made no difference either way.
Without raising his eyes from the sheet of paper on his desk, Englesby growled, ‘This had better be good, Memling. As I am certain you know by now, you have cost us an entire resistance network.’
Memling stared at his hands, watched them clench until the blood was squeezed away and the roaring grew and grew in his ears. How had the Germans known they would be there in that clearing…? Had the girl, Maria, not been able to commit suicide after all…? But then, Paul was so certain…
‘Damn it, Memling, answer me. What about these rockets of yours?’
Jan looked up, and the blackness that had threatened to engulf him began to recede. But his face was stark and white, and even Englesby was a bit shaken. ‘Are you all right, man? Shall I call for a doctor…?’
Memling shook his head and wiped at his damp forehead. He took a deep, shaky breath and heard Englesby telling the girl over the telephone to bring in some tea after all.
He forced himself to concentrate then, to ignore the implications of his reception. In a strained voice he described the past eight months in Belgium, the position he had held at the Royal Gun Factory, his glimpse of Wernher von Braun, his look at the rocket engines, and his calculations. ‘Paul was an artillery engineer, as you are no doubt aware. He repeated my calculations, and when he was convinced, he made the decision to take me out. The first I knew of it was last night’ – my God, he thought, was it only last night – ‘when they killed the Gestapo people following me.’
Of a sudden, Memling knew how the Germans had found the landing site. Walsch had cared nothing for Maria or for him. They were merely pawns, expendable, as were his own people, the two men in the Volkswagen. By applying enough pressure, Walsch had forced the Belgian resistance to move, to attempt to spirit Memling away, and he had then followed them to the landing site. Memling felt physically sick as he came to the realisation that he and not Maria was the Judas goat. He had been used to set up the Belgians. The presence of von Braun, the shrouded rocket engines, the closed section of the factory, were all part of an elaborate plot – Walsch, knowing of his friendship with Wernher von Braun, would certainly have guessed that he would be intrigued enough by rocket motors to contact the resistance and send word to London. And it had worked. Ah, Christ. He closed his eyes, wondering how he could have been so stupid.
‘I see,’ Englesby murmured. ‘You say this Paul considered this information you have about these German rockets to be quite important? Then I suppose you had better talk with the ordnance people. I’ll try to set something up immediately. And you’d better work up a report right away while everything is clear in your mind.’