If the older man had been Boris, could he have killed her? It seemed unlikely. In his way, he had been fond of her sister.
‘And Lieselotte? What happened then?’
He fidgeted on the seat, crossing, uncrossing his leg.
‘The older man rolled her into the Landwehr canal.’
Betty cried, hand over mouth, trying to take it in. Her beloved sister, tossed into the water, carrion for the pike and eels.
‘No,’ she said. ‘No.’ She’d seen them dredging the corpses from the canals and lakes. Was Lieselotte buried in some mass grave, or was she still in the water, her bones stripped and her skull gaping?
Had Vasily murdered her? Ripped the chain from her neck and strangled the life from her? A pointless, needless murder. Had he wanted her for himself? He want good girl. Clean girl. And then he had come for her. Or could it have been Boris, after all? Questions moiled in her head, churned into waves, smashing against the walls of her mind. Perhaps Boris had wanted to marry Lieselotte, like he said? Had she spurned him? People murdered for less. Or had she told him she was expecting his child? That she was on her way to see a doctor? Had he flown at her in a rage, choked her life away? She had no doubt that Boris was capable of murder.
But it was Vasily who had made contact with John. Was he looking for her, Betty, after all these years? Was her father just a ruse to hoodwink John? Nothing made sense.
‘How could you?’ she said, her voice icy. She stood up, walked away fast, down the path, across the gardens. She heard him run after her, grab her elbow.
‘Betty, please, listen.’
‘Get away from me.’ She was half shouting, half sobbing, shaking him off. ‘You let that happen to Lieselotte. Will you roll me in the canal too?’ He was a weak man, she saw that now. Weak and cowardly.
‘Betty, please, please. This is serious.’
‘You’re lying. A liar. That wouldn’t have happened, you and your Russian. I was there, remember, in Berlin? I know it. I just know it.’ She faced him, her thoughts careering round her head. ‘Nothing makes sense.’ He was taking her for a fool. A rage began to forage, to feast on her pain and she had a sudden, unstoppable urge to hurt him.
‘I was pregnant too,’ she said. She hadn’t meant to tell him. ‘Your baby. I got rid of it.’
He let go of her arm, his mouth open, his eyes skimming her face. ‘Tell me that’s not true.’
‘Why?’ she said. ‘It’s as true as I’m standing here.’
‘But why did you do it?’ She saw him clench and unclench his fist. ‘I don’t understand.’ He reached out, fingers poised.
‘Don’t touch me.’
His arm fell to his side, a dead weight.
‘Are you all right?’ He slapped his hand to his forehead. ‘Tell me it wasn’t some backstreet abortionist. You could have died. Was it safe? Who did it? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Why do you think? You made it clear you wanted nothing more to do with me.’ Her breath was coming in sharp, angry bursts, barbs into her lungs. ‘I never want to see you again. Ever.’
She ran towards Great Turnstile, away, out of reach, glad that she had tried to hurt him as lethally as he had hurt her.
She’d always felt that Lieselotte was dead, and in some ways it was a relief to know. But the murder haunted her, needled at the memory of her sister, what had happened that evening. Had Vasily followed her to the bridge? Or had she planned to meet him there too? Before John? For what purpose? Had he promised her food, like Boris in the old days? John had said there were two Russians. Could the other one have been Boris? Now she’d seen Vasily in the flesh, she felt as if a boa constrictor had lashed itself around her body, was crushing the life out of her.
She’d have to see John again, though now she doubted he’d want anything more to do with her.
§
They were due to take the homeosaurus on its maiden journey the first Saturday in October, and Betty had promised the boys they could help.
‘You can’t let them down,’ Dee said. ‘It might do you good and all. Bit of fun. Take you out of yourself. And Ally Pally. They’ll like that.’
Nick had insisted they went to Alexandra Palace. ‘Iconic,’ he’d said. ‘The People’s Palace and all that.’
But since the whole homeosaurus had been Nick’s idea, she let him take it there, even if it had been a struggle to fit it into the van. Ally Pally was a trek from Willesden, but the boys sat on the Tube with their Beano and Hotspur. Dee had packed them some fish paste sandwiches and a bottle of Tizer which they consumed on the grass in the park before being strapped up inside the husk of the great model. Ban the Bomb had been written on the sides, a letter on each scale, and it was topped with a papier mâché head of Harold Macmillan. Betty had been sceptical, but she had to admit it was eye-catching. Thirty feet long, each segment hooked into the one adjacent. It took some practice to put on and link up, and then to manoeuvre, walking in syncopation. She could hear Martin and Graham laughing behind her, along with the other children in the tail.
Nick had booked a jazz band which played alongside them, saxophones and trombones, banjos and guitars, and the human homeosaurus stomped in time, swaying in rhythm. She could hear clapping, laughter. They had attention, were making a point. This was sure to make the papers. Perhaps the front page, or the main item in the evening news on the Home Service. Nick planned to take it on the next Aldermaston march, though, given the rains that had descended last time, she wasn’t sure how waterproof the paint would be even if the tarpaulin held out.
But it was hot, airless beneath the canopy, with the autumn sun bearing down. The smell reminded her of the inside of tents, damp canvas and wet grass. She’d never taken to camping, not even as a child in the Jungmädelbund, with the smelly latrines and tin mugs. It brought it back, those fearful days, made her cringe with guilt. She wanted to slip out, take off her jacket, find a water fountain and drink. The boys could probably do with a drink too. Nick was in the lead, handing out leaflets as he went. She’d promised the boys an ice cream and a ride on the roller coaster and there was no shortage of volunteers to work the beast. She passed a message up the front and the monster stopped.
‘Sorry, Nick,’ she said. ‘I need to take the boys now. I promised them an ice cream and a bit of fun in the playground.’
‘No problem,’ he said. ‘It works, doesn’t it?’
‘If I’m honest,’ she said, ‘it looks more like a giant centipede than a homeosaurus, but it does pull the crowds.’
‘Thanks for your help,’ he said. He shuffled his feet, flicked through the leaflets he was holding. ‘I don’t suppose you fancy a drink sometime?’
She smiled. ‘That’s kind, Nick. Sometime.’
She grabbed the boys by the hand. If she wasn’t mistaken, John was applauding the homeosaurus.
§
He was there, three days later, at the meeting of the Direct Action Committee in the Partisan. The vigil in Downing Street had garnered attention, along with the homeosaurus, and they were doing the final planning of the week-long campaign, and the march to Heathrow airport at the end of the month. John was there, taking notes. He sat a few rows in front of her, didn’t see her behind him. His shoulders shifted beneath his jumper as he wrote, his neck creasing when he looked up. He had looked hurt, bewildered when she’d told him about the abortion. Perhaps he did care about her, perhaps there was some truth in what he was trying to tell her, fantastical as it sounded.
She waited for him after the meeting.
‘John—’
He looked at his watch. ‘I can’t really stop now.’
‘I’ll walk with you,’ she said. ‘I rushed away too soon.’
‘I’m on my bike,’ he said, walking towards his cycle propped up against the kerb. She had to trot to keep up with him. ‘You need to know about Vasily.’ She reached out for his arm, tugged at his sleeve. ‘Please slow down.’
‘Tell me,’ he said. ‘Quickly.’ He had grabbed the
handlebars, lifted the bike to free the pedal.
‘I knew him. His superior…’ She swallowed. ‘His superior, a man called Boris’ – she paused again, she’d never used the word before – ‘raped Lieselotte. Again and again. Vasily stood guard while he did it.’
John was studying her face. She had to speak fast, make sure she kept his attention.
‘He’d leer at Lieselotte,’ she went on. ‘He wanted a girl, he wanted her. We thought they’d left, been posted elsewhere, back to Russia. But now…’ She looked at John. He was frowning, as if he was layering this information onto what he knew. ‘Now I know he didn’t, because Lieselotte kept the key to the apartment on a chain round her neck and the morning after she went missing, Vasily used it to come into our flat.’ She stopped, catching her breath. ‘I shot him. That’s why he limps. It gave me time to run away. I haven’t seen him since. He’s not looking for my father, is he? That’s just nonsense. He’s looking for me. For revenge. Is that what he’s doing here?’
John carried on staring at her, his face blank, expressionless.
‘I think he may have murdered Lieselotte,’ she said. ‘How else would he have come by the key?’
‘I’m sorry, Betty,’ he said. ‘I can’t explain now. I have to go. I have an appointment.’
‘With Vasily?’
He shook his head. ‘No.’
Anxiety washed over her, a sudden, unexpected surge of fear, and jealousy. He was meeting a woman.
She watched him push off, pedal away, was tempted for a moment to run after him, find out where he was going, who he was meeting. But he’d turned a corner, was out of sight.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
London: October 1958
He switched on his front and rear lights and set off, hoisting his right leg over the crossbar, settling into the saddle, the steady rhythm of pedalling. He didn’t want to go to this rendezvous. He wanted to stay with Betty. She’d begun to talk for the first time, and like an idiot he’d let the moment slip. The hell with this meeting. Betty was more important. He pulled over, one foot on the kerb, looking past his shoulder, hoping to see if she’d run after him. She wasn’t there. He turned, pedalled back through Soho Square, into Carlisle Street.
She’d gone. He jumped off his bike, throwing it on the kerb, running into the Partisan, searching. He couldn’t see her. Nick was there.
‘Have you seen her?’ John said. ‘Have you seen Betty?’
‘Sorry, comrade,’ Nick said. ‘She left after the meeting. Said she was in a rush.’
John backed out, picked up his bike, his heart hammering against his sternum. It felt bruised, painful, his bones shattered into shards pinching and pricking his flesh. He’d been trapped. He wished he could chew off a limb, free himself, like a fox or a hare. He envied them their bravery, their determination, their will to live. Their freedom.
He had lost her. She and his baby. He would have married her, cherished her. They’d have lived together, raised a family, like Arthur, like so many men and women after the war, putting the past behind them, looking to the future. They had been separated, as if the twisted metal and sordid secrets of war still raged, as if its aftermath had the power to haunt and live on through them all.
John swung his leg over the crossbar, settled on the saddle without thinking, pressing down on the pedals. He had to push her from his mind, understand that he had lost her, know there was no return. His mouth tasted sour, his limbs felt limp. He’d better keep this meeting, but it would be the last. He checked with one hand that his notebook was in the inside pocket of his jacket, and turned out of Soho Square, cycling down Charing Cross Road, passing the theatres, quiet now the plays had started, boisterous when the performances were over, trying to keep his mind off Betty. Trafalgar, the Strand, Waterloo Bridge, left into Stamford Street. It had been bombed in the war, ignored by the Festival of Britain. Large parts of it were still derelict and the street lighting was haphazard and low. It was eerie at night. No houses, nothing homely, just industrial buildings and bomb sites barricaded with corrugated iron fences. A rat ran across the road, skittered through the railings down to an empty area. This route was the quickest way to Borough but it always made him uneasy, as if the shadows themselves were made of evil and the wind through the empty ruins screamed of betrayal.
He propped his bike against the railings and walked to The George. A man was loitering outside, leaning against a lamp post, reading the London Evening Standard under the light. John knew who he was, knew to ignore him. The lookout, making sure John wasn’t being followed, that the GRU weren’t on his tail. The street may have been empty but the pub was crowded, its courtyard full of drinkers, most of them, John guessed, porters from the market, or railway workers from London Bridge. He made his way to the taproom. Norman was sitting in the far corner, gabardine raincoat unbuttoned, trilby on the table next to a half-drunk pint of bitter. If you wanted to look like a copper, John thought, you couldn’t try harder. Special Branch. A cigarette rested on the edge of an ashtray, smoke unfurling into the haze. He was doing the crossword, the paper folded into four, while he chewed on a stub of a pencil. John watched for a moment as he filled in a clue and stuck the pencil behind his ear.
‘Sorry I’m late,’ John said. ‘I got waylaid.’
‘I’ve kept myself busy,’ Norman said, squeezing himself free of his chair. ‘What can I get you? A pint of the best?’
‘Thank you.’ Norman was the price John had to pay. He was a pleasant enough man, lived in Sidcup, so he said, with his wife and two children, the youngest of whom had passed the eleven-plus and had just started at the grammar school.
‘Pity you don’t live our way,’ Norman had said. ‘Could keep an eye on him.’
‘He’ll be fine, Norman.’
‘Well, you know, I’m chuffed, of course I am.’ He’d puffed out his chest to prove it. ‘I only had an elementary education myself.’
‘A good enough education, in its way,’ John said, thinking of Arthur. Norman had done well too. His size gave him one entry point into the police force, a service record the other. Graft and intelligence had had him promoted to detective, then Special Branch. He had the edge on John in years and experience, but John sensed an old class deference lurked close to the surface, an awe of John.
‘You being a university graduate,’ he’d said when he first made contact. ‘From Oxford, no less.’
Norman returned with two pints of bitter, placed them on the table and squeezed himself back into the seat. Too long catching criminals or tracing subversives made Norman furtive and self-effacing. Like the rat in Stamford Street, squeezing his body beneath a door frame or through the grille of a drain. The man outside approached their table, nodded at Norman and John, sat himself down and reached forward for the beer. Fred. His name was Fred. The lookout, giving the all-clear. John knew they weren’t their real names, any more than his was Birdcage.
‘Cheers,’ John said, raising his glass.
‘So what do you have for us?’
‘Not much more to report,’ John said, pulling out his notebook and tearing off the pages of notes. He slipped them over the table to Norman. ‘The activities remain the same. The activists too. You have the names already.’
‘No incitement to break the law?’
‘Minor inconveniences,’ John said. ‘Trespass, blocking the highway. Look, Norman…’ John leaned forward. ‘These people are pacifists. They’re not throwing Molotov cocktails or fermenting a violent overthrow of the state. It’s peaceful protest they do. Civil disobedience.’ He paused.
‘We’ll be the judge of that,’ Norman said. ‘Any new names? What about that young woman?’
John crossed his legs, loosened his tie. ‘It all just got a whole lot more complicated,’ he said, adding, ‘I never wanted to do this, and I want out. Now.’ He stood up, felt someone tug at his sleeve. Fred tilted his head towards the seat. Sit down.
‘I know you have a soft spot for her,’ Norman went on. ‘
And I can see why. She’s a lovely-looking girl. But you need to keep your distance, is my advice. Don’t want lovey-dovey stuff to get in your way.’
Too late for that, John thought. I loved her before you came on the scene.
‘I was tasked by MI6 with befriending her,’ John said, teeth tight, hoping he sounded braver than he felt. ‘They bullied me into it. They still had that hold over me, after Berlin. Once an agent, and all that.’ He winced. Anatoly’s words had been the same. ‘They used me to keep the Russians on side, find out what they were up to.’ He pulled himself up in his chair. ‘I was too weak to say no, to stand up for myself.’
There was a commotion from the corner of the taproom. John turned as a man swayed, tipping the table as he fell. A barman was coming over, talking to him, taking charge, lifting him to his feet. Come on, Sid, now, time to go home. John looked away, back to Norman.
‘That would have been fine. I could cope with that,’ he said. ‘Then MI5 and you lot muscled in, for your own reasons.’ He picked up his glass, gulped the beer. ‘Monitor the movement. Monitor the girl. I can’t straddle these horses, Norman. I really can’t. I won’t spy on the woman I love.’
He put down his glass and stood up.
‘Or on a cause I believe in.’
His knees felt frail, as if he’d cycled from John O’Groats, muscles without juice. The woman I love. The woman I’ve lost.
He’d blown it with Betty. They all knew, of course they did, but they kept the pressure on him all the same.
The October night had turned cold, the first nip of frost. He hadn’t brought his gloves, or a warmer jacket. He pedalled back along Stamford Street, his heart racing, expecting Anatoly to step out from the area where the rat had disappeared, or from behind the corrugated hoardings.
The Forgotten Page 25
