Chapter Fifty-Two #2
‘Why would I know anything about Albert?’
‘So you don’t?’
‘I don’t.’ It was as though she had taken a wrapped present away from a child, she thought, seeing how disappointed he was. ‘I’m sure he will turn up.’
‘Fritzi is insisting we search the river banks. He says it is impossible that Albert should be gone anywhere for so long unless there is mischief involved.’
‘And will you?’
‘I suppose I must. It’s very awkward. I had just made up my mind to go to London.
I have had a phonecall. My new car is ready.
’ He beamed at her. ‘A Rolls, in deepest emerald green. Nero green, I call it.’ His face softened.
‘It is the loveliest and most expensive car in the world, and now that I know it is arrived, I must see it.’
Doris ducked her face so that he wouldn’t see her laughing. ‘You’ll excuse me. I’m going to find Honor.’
‘She is still in her room,’ Chips said. ‘And not at all in good form.’ He sounded cross again. ‘The ambassador is looking for you,’ he said then. ‘I wonder why?’ He looked beadily at her.
‘No idea.’ Perhaps she would go to her own bedroom, Doris thought. At least there, no one would bother her. In the upstairs hallway she bumped into Duff.
‘This house is starting to be like Mrs Tittlemouse,’ Doris said with a laugh. ‘Unexpected appearances at every turn.’
Duff ignored her reference. ‘I believe we’re a man down,’ he said abruptly.
‘Albert?’
‘Yes.’
‘Fritzi is apparently distraught. And uncomprehending. Insisting Chips have the river searched …’
‘Is he indeed? And you, what do you think?’
‘I?’ She opened her eyes every wide. ‘I do not think anything.’
‘Do you not?’ He stared at her and Doris did her best to return his gaze.
‘Well, I’ll tell you what I think. I think Chips shouting about Fritzi’s destiny – how he must watch the Nazis and bide his time; how there will be a wave of useful sentiment when his grandfather dies – I think those were stupid things to say, and dangerous. ’
‘Indeed. You said as much.’
‘I was right.’
‘So, which one proved dangerous, the Nazis or the grandfather?’
‘I don’t know. But something has made the fellow bolt. And the bolting troubles me. I don’t suppose you know anything?’ He watched Doris, who stayed silent. ‘Nothing you can say … Well, I must go and persuade Maureen to get up.’
‘You leave today as well?’
‘God, yes. Nothing to stay for now.’
‘Fritzi?’
‘No longer of importance. Things have changed.’
‘Things change fast.’
‘They do.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s a time of change. Surely you will leave too? Even your plans must be put out.’
‘I don’t have plans,’ she said. ‘Although I do think a little shopping in London …’
He looked at her for a moment and then – a gesture so unexpected she nearly twitched – reached a hand out and squeezed hers. ‘Good for you,’ he said. ‘Now, I must find my wife.’
In her room Doris poured a glass of water and took it to the chair beside the window.
Outside, the garden was empty, shades of grey folding into dull green in a way that was blurred and fuzzy and terribly English.
Even the flowers were subdued, heads languishing as though they couldn’t, on such a day, be bothered.
The sun appeared in fits and starts as a bright dot, layered with mist as though veiled for church.
She would miss this, when she went back to Berlin as she must. Just this – this quiet, soft, damp greyness that was so very much home.
Was Duff right? she wondered. Had Albert run off?
Taken his tales of disloyalty to whoever it was he spied for – the kaiser?
The Nazis? Even her own side? It was certainly possible.
And if so, what did that mean? But she couldn’t work it out, because it meant something different each time, depending on where – to whom – he had gone.
She didn’t know what she needed to know, to decide.
And so she must simply carry on with her own plans although these were half at least in darkness.
Duff didn’t know about the phonecall she’d made yesterday.
Not that he would have been surprised, she realised.
Had that conversation, she wondered, short and discreet though it had been, had anything to do with Albert’s disappearance?
Did it mean that he had not gone, but been taken away?
People were, she knew. It was never talked about, but it happened.
No one ever said anything much – certainly, no one said the word torture.
They said ‘questioned’, or ‘interrogated’.
The impression – wilfully given – was of a crisp verbal exchange.
But Doris had heard stories. Of the Gestapo who came, not at night but by day, loud and large, breaking doors, bundling men and women into the backs of lorries.
But stories about their own side too. These were only ever whispers, hints – never confirmed.
They might have been nothing. But there were enough of them that they might have been something.
Had what she had said – sparse reports of Honor’s suspicions, what Elizabeth had seen – set such a thing in motion?
She couldn’t ask – they wouldn’t tell her: ‘The less you know …’ Only then did it occur to wonder why, exactly, the less she knew …
What exactly was it they feared? That she would talk?
Surely they knew she would not. That she might be made to talk? She put the thought from her.
In any case, there was nothing to suggest that Albert’s going was anything to do with her.
And if it was – what then? She searched her mind like a person methodically looking for a letter or document that might be in a desk, going through each drawer carefully and quickly.
What she looked for was regret at the part she might have played.
She could find nothing. Not even any real sense of Albert.
He was a pair of brown eyes, a voice in the dark, short answers to simple questions, the glowing end of a cigarette in the half-light of early morning.
No, it wasn’t his face she saw when she went looking, but Hannah’s. Always Hannah’s.
‘Can I have a minute?’ It was the ambassador.
‘Of course. Come in.’
He came in, but left the door open behind him. ‘The story you wanted to tell me …’
‘What story?’
‘A girl, her family? I wouldn’t listen. But now …’
‘You’ll listen?’
‘Yes. Be brief, but I’ll listen.’ And she told him. Hannah’s name, everything she could remember about the family. ‘I never heard another word,’ she finished. ‘If I could only know what happened to them …’
‘Let me see. I promise nothing, you understand.’ Then, already half out of the room, ‘Thank you for taking such trouble with my daughter. She’s at an age where she is very impressed by beautiful women. I’d rather she listened to you than Diana Mosley.’