The Linden Tree

by Hester Rowan

  It was only as I watched him go that I realized that there was something a little odd about his appearance. His lightweight tweed suit must have been at the least five years old. It was well-worn, clean but a little shabby, and the cut was distinctly out of fashion. With it he wore a nondescript shirt and an unremarkable tie. I had realized that Nicolas had none of Simon’s dash and glamour, but I hardly expected that he would dress in such an undistinguished, inconspicuous way. I felt obscurely disappointed.

  I swallowed some tea, grimaced over it and followed him out to the car. It was broad daylight, a beautiful green and golden summer morning. I settled in the passenger seat and asked: ‘Where are we going?’

  Nicolas looked at his watch. ‘I’ll be able to tell you that in about six hours’ time.’

  I felt fragile and grumpy. ‘Oh honestly … why not now?’

  ‘You’ll know why not as soon as I tell you,’ he growled in return. Then as we rolled out of the gate, he added in a more conciliatory tone, ‘It’s not Cornwall, though.’

  It’s not easy to sound crushing at five-thirty in the morning, but I had a good try. ‘I never thought it would be,’ I said.

  We went south in silence. When I tried to speak, making some ingenuous remark about the build-up of traffic going with us in the direction of London, he merely switched on the car radio. It was almost eight o’clock, when we were within reach of London’s tentacles and I was growing restive with hunger and irritation, when he pulled into the car park of a motel, switched off the engine and gave me a civilized smile.

  ‘Breakfast,’ he said, with a simplicity that I could almost find endearing. ‘And from now on, of course, you’re on expenses, so you’ve no need to feel indebted.’

  I was grateful that he’d made the point; I’d brought with me all the cash I had and it was pathetically little. Enough though, now that we were near London, to make a telephone call. After I’d freshened up I went to the foyer, where Nicolas was waiting for me near the telephone booths.

  ‘You go ahead to the restaurant,’ I said. ‘I just want to make a telephone call.’

  He shook his head. ‘Sorry.’

  I thought he must have misheard me. ‘A telephone call,’ I explained. ‘Now that we’re so near, I want to ring a friend in London – I should just be able to catch him before he goes to work.’

  Nicolas raised an enquiring eyebrow. ‘Beefy fellow with a moustache like a Corsican bandit?’

  ‘How do you come to know Andrew Brownlow?’ I asked in astonishment.

  ‘I don’t. But I’ve been keeping a friendly eye on you, remember.’ He looked at me with maddeningly amused disbelief. ‘You’re surely not serious about him, are you?’

  As it happened, I wasn’t. But that didn’t lessen my annoyance with Nicolas. ‘It’s absolutely no concern of yours, either way,’ I said with brittle dignity. ‘But he was going to ring me last night, and I thought I’d let him know that I shall be away for a few days.’ I sidestepped to get to one of the telephones, but he moved to block my path.

  ‘Sorry,’ he repeated, ‘but I’d prefer you not to get in touch with anyone at all until after we get back.’

  I stared at him in angry amazement. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that I don’t want you to mention anything about what you’re doing to anyone. As I told you, it’s confidential.’

  ‘I’ve no intention of telling him what I’m doing – besides, you’re being so cagey that there’s nothing for me to tell. This is purely a personal call, and you can’t stop me from making it if I want to!’

  For a moment, as we faced each other angrily, I thought that he was going to seize my arm and drag me away by force. But then he relaxed, shrugged and turned aside.

  ‘All right. Go ahead, Alison. Make the call if you insist. But the minute you do, the whole deal is off. Go on, ring your hairy friend. And then I’ll take you straight to Liverpool Street and put you on a train for Norfolk – and you can pay your own fare.’

  I was livid: with Nicolas for his authoritarian behaviour, with myself for the penury that made it impossible for me to rebel. I liked Andrew as a friend, but it didn’t matter in the least whether I rang him or not; it was the principle that I minded about. I stalked into the restaurant and in a juvenile gesture of revenge ordered a large and expensive breakfast that I was too choked to eat, feeling angrier than ever when Nicolas calmly and appreciatively disposed of my bacon and eggs as well as his own.

  After breakfast we drove in silence across London. I watched the signs as we travelled down into Surrey and felt a small surge of satisfaction as I realized that we must be heading for Gatwick.

  ‘I can’t possibly go abroad,’ I announced, coolly triumphant. ‘I haven’t brought my passport.’

  ‘Nicolas got his own back by driving at least a mile before saying: ‘Try the glove compartment.’

  I opened it with misgiving. Inside was a brand-new passport, complete with photograph, in the name of Alison Maxwell, height five feet five, hair dark brown, eyes blue.

  ‘Very helpful chap, your theatrical agent,’ Nicolas commented. ‘Only too anxious to let me have a photograph and a few details. Just sign it, would you, when we stop at the lights?’

  Against my will, I felt an undercurrent of excitement. I was born in England but my father had been in the Army and I spent most of the first eight years of my life abroad. I love travel, though during the past four years I’d rarely been able to afford it.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me we were going abroad?’ I said, forgetting to be annoyed at his high-handedness. ‘There was no need to go to the length of getting a new passport – my own’s still valid.’

  ‘I wasn’t sure how you’d feel about it.’

  ‘Pleased, of course! I’m not likely to get many chances of free travel.’ And then, as I began to realize that being abroad would probably make the exchange with Elisabeth more complicated, caution replaced my eagerness. ‘That is, depending on where exactly we’d be going.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he echoed drily, and refused to say any more.

  His timing was effective. Once we reached Gatwick we had to hustle, and there was no opportunity for me to discover our destination. Apparently our flight had been called, and Nicolas hurried me out to the waiting aircraft. Almost as soon as we were aboard, the doors were closed.

  It was a medium-sized elderly aircraft, carrying chiefly women and children, and I knew without being told that we were not on a scheduled flight.

  ‘Does this bring back memories for you?’ Nicolas asked. ‘I expect that you and your mother used to use these Services charter flights when your father was stationed in Germany.’

  I could clearly remember several holiday trips back to England from the country that I had grown up to think of as home. ‘Is that where we’re going, then?’ I asked eagerly. ‘Germany?’

  The cabin warning lights went on and we fastened our seat belts. ‘Yes,’ he said. The engines began to turn, making the aircraft vibrate. A stewardess finished checking the belts and moved back to her own seat, and the aircraft began its taxi-ing trundle.

  ‘Well, whereabouts in Germany?’ I asked, impatient to hear.

  ‘Oh, we’ll be landing at one of the RAF bases. Relax, it’ll take a few hours to get there.’

  I couldn’t possibly relax. His unwillingness to tell me more had aroused my suspicion. I realized that Nicolas would not be prepared to discuss Elisabeth’s confidential problems in public, but there was something that I urgently needed to know.

  Until now, when the aircraft had begun to taxi and it was too late to get off, I had taken it for granted that Elisabeth was English. Nicolas had pronounced the name in the English way. But I knew that, spelled with an ‘s’, it was a German name too. It was true that I had once been able to speak fluent German – but surely he didn’t intend … he couldn’t possibly expect me to impersonate a German girl?

  I found it difficult to ask the question. My mouth had suddenly gone dry. ‘Is
Elisabeth German?’

  He didn’t answer, making the noise of the engines an excuse for temporary deafness. The aircraft turned on to the runway, paused, and began its take-off run.

  As always, the speed and vibration filled me with tension. I hate take-offs and landings, and I refuse to believe anyone who pretends not to. I clutched at the arms of my seat, my innate fear of flying compounded with alarm over the task ahead of me. If Elisabeth was German, it would be trebly difficult for me to impersonate her; not just plain difficult – impossible.

  ‘Look, Nicolas,’ I said in his ear, trying not to sound as panicky as I felt, ‘I didn’t realize what I was letting myself in for. I’m sorry, but if she’s not English I can’t possibly go through with this scheme of yours.’

  He reached out a big warm hand and covered one of mine. Stupidly, humiliatingly, my fingers clung to his as the jets screamed to full power and the aircraft threatened to shake itself to pieces about us. And then, with a sudden miraculous smoothness, we were airborne.

  ‘Yes you can, Alison,’ he said gently. ‘You’re an actress, and you’ll rise to the occasion – it’ll be the performance of your life, I shouldn’t wonder. But now you see why I didn’t want to tell you where we were going any sooner. If you’d realized Elisabeth was German, you wouldn’t have come, would you?’

  Not unless I’d been out of my mind, I thought angrily, trying to pull away. He refused to let go, soothing the back of my hand with his thumb. ‘Try to relax,’ he said. ‘There’s no need for you to worry, truly. You won’t have to start playing your part until tomorrow, and by then you’ll be rested and properly briefed, and you’ll have had a chance to practise your German. But remember, Elisabeth isn’t known in the place we’re going to, so you won’t be involved in any long conversations. It’ll be easy, I promise you.’

  His voice and his touch calmed my fears. Ridiculously – considering that it was solely his doing that I was involved at all – I began to feel grateful to him. I looked at the square sunburned hand holding mine and my spirits lightened at the thought that I might not be required to go through the ordeal of impersonating Elisabeth entirely alone.

  ‘Will you be with me all the time?’ I said, trying to make it sound as though I asked merely for information.

  ‘Until the moment when you actually start playing your part, yes. After that I’ve a job of my own to do somewhere else, but a friend of Elisabeth’s will be there to help you.’ He gave me a friendly, appreciative smile. ‘I’m only sorry that I shan’t be there to see you in action, but I imagine that you’ll be glad to see the back of me after I’ve treated you so badly.’

  It was a statement, not a question. He released me without waiting for an answer and my hand felt suddenly cold, small and strangely bereft.

  The day had clouded, but the aircraft climbed through the grey mist and then levelled in sunlight, travelling east on a carpet of cotton wool. I undid my seat belt and relaxed as far as I was able.

  ‘How do we come to be on this charter flight?’ I asked. ‘Are you in the Army – or the RAF?’

  ‘Neither. We’re on the charter flight simply because it happens to be more convenient. You’re here on the strength of being an actress visiting a British base, and I’m here because I’m a Civil Servant.’

  I must have looked incredulous. He laughed. ‘It’s true – we’re not all chairborne, you know.’

  For the first time it occurred to me that this might not be simply a private matter. ‘This … escapade is part of your job, then?’

  ‘Anything to drink, sir?’ A tall blonde stewardess was at his elbow with the trolley, and he evaded my question. I took the bitter lemon he bought for me and tried another tactic as soon as she moved on.

  ‘Those men who were with you – the ones who chased you along the cliffs. They called you “sir”,’ I remembered.

  ‘Oh, we’re all in the same department. Very feudal, the Civil Service.’

  ‘Which department?’

  ‘Overseas Trade.’

  The answer was too pat. I didn’t believe it. Come to that, it was ridiculous that he should expect me to believe it. No one in her senses would seriously imagine that three respectable Civil Servants from the Department of Overseas Trade would take time off to chase each other along a Norfolk cliff-top, however good a keep-fit exercise it might be.

  I sipped my drink, watching him covertly as he smoked one of his occasional cigarettes and drank cold lager. He had a relaxed, almost innocent air about him, but I knew that those unfairly long eyelashes camouflaged a cool determination and a habit of authority.

  Remembering my brief, breathless conversation with the men Carter and Briggs, I knew that escape and evasion exercises, such as they thought they were taking part in that day, were not unusual.

  And if Nicolas Allen had the status to bring two of his men all the way to Norfolk on such an exercise, for the sole purpose of discovering whether I was sufficiently unflappable to impersonate a German girl, it would be naive of me to imagine that his work was in any way connected with Overseas Trade.

  The obvious alternative, though, was something that I was too scared even to think about.

  Chapter Six

  Nicolas began to ask me about the theatre. It was a transparent conversational device to take my mind off the reason for our journey, but I was grateful for it.

  ‘Was it simply by coincidence that you saw me in the play at the Court?’ I asked after I had told him my pathetically brief history as an actress.

  ‘It wasn’t coincidence at all. It really was friendly interest – you seem determined not to believe that, but it’s true. Your aunt was terribly proud about your being in a London theatre, of course, and told my mother who passed the news on to me. So I had to make a point of going to see you on the stage – I could only remember you as a rather fat little girl in a riding hat and a pair of second-hand jodhpurs, trying to persuade old Benjy, our pony, that he was a show-jumper, and getting dumped on your bottom for your pains. You had guts, though. I always admired the way you climbed back every time he stopped dead at a fence and slid you off.’

  ‘But I still don’t see why you didn’t come backstage to say hallo, or at least get in touch afterwards.’

  ‘That was what I’d intended to do. At the time, though, we were worrying over Elisabeth’s family problem. As it happened, I’d seen her photograph that very day, and the moment you came on stage I saw the resemblance between you. And, of course, I knew that you’d lived in Germany as a child, and spoke German. So I realized at the theatre that you could be the ideal person to help us with our problem, and I knew that it would be best to keep away from you until we’d worked something out.’

  I raised an enquiring eyebrow. ‘We?’

  He gave a bland nod. ‘The Department –’

  It had been foolish of me to think that I might be able to catch him out. ‘– of Overseas Trade,’ I chimed in. We both laughed, though I wasn’t amused.

  ‘I’m glad that you’ve taken it so well,’ he said.

  I glanced meaningly at our fellow passengers. ‘Don’t think I shan’t have some more to say when I get the chance! Oh, I’ll go on co-operating. I haven’t much option since I seem to be financially dependent on you. Just don’t expect me not to make a few objections, that’s all.’

  We ate – Nicolas ate, I nibbled uneasily at – cold chicken, salad and trifle from plastic trays. As we drank our coffee, Nicolas asked whether my German was rusty.

  ‘Sure to be. It’s all of four years since I last had a holiday there.’ I recalled something and grinned to myself, hoping that I might have found a perfect let-out. ‘It isn’t standard German, though, Nicolas. I doubt if I could possibly get away with impersonating Elisabeth – I speak with a regional accent.’

  ‘I know,’ he said equably. ‘I checked your father’s record of Army service. He was a technical man, an electrical engineer, and he did a double tour of duty in Germany on attachment to a small RAF unit based
close to the border with East Germany. There were no married quarters available, so he rented a house in the nearest village. You grew up and went to school there, so naturally you picked up the local accent. That was why you were turned down two years ago when you applied to the Ministry of Defence for a job as a linguist.’

  I blushed at his infuriating omniscience. It was perfectly true that I’d applied for a linguist’s job at the time when I first went to London and realized how short my career as an actress was likely to be. I’d thought that I stood a fair chance of getting the job too, until I heard the examiner’s kind, amused comment. The fact that what I actually spoke was Thuringian German had come as an astonishing piece of news, the equivalent of being suddenly told that I spoke broad Dorset English.

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with local accents,’ I said defensively.

  ‘Nothing at all,’ he agreed. ‘They’re very attractive – heaven forbid that we should all speak a dreary standardized language. And as it happens, your accent is incredibly convenient, because Elisabeth comes from Thuringia and speaks with it too.’

  The warning lights went on and the aircraft began to descend. ‘Not our stop,’ said Nicolas. ‘I think that this must be the RAF airfield near Bielefeld where the big Army bases are. Most of the passengers will get off here, but we go a good deal further.’

  The descent steepened. ‘I always hate take-offs and landings, don’t you?’ he said kindly, offering me his hand. But much as I wanted to, pride prevented me from taking it.

  My foreboding about the exchange with Elisabeth had intensified, overwhelming my fear of flying. My knowledge of the geography of Northern Germany was rusty, but I was fairly sure that if we flew a good deal further east from Bielefeld, the next and only possible stop for a Services charter aircraft would be Berlin.