The Pearl Thief

by Fiona McIntosh

  She emerged from the Underground into the busiest tube exit in London. Soon massive works would begin in the summer for the new Victoria line that people were talking about. The notion of connecting Brixton in the south with Walthamstow in the north-east via the West End was exciting; it would run for its entirety below the surface of London. But for now the congestion would continue on the Piccadilly line and around Charing Cross in particular. A few weeks ago the chatter around the museum, the newspaper articles, even the posters in the Underground warning travellers of the city works had been academic to her, but as of this morning it mattered. Since her visit to York she’d made another decision: to make Britain her home again and for keeps. The realisation hit her mind as though she’d just taken a big sip of an icy drink, causing a momentary brain freeze.

  She noticed the crush of women in the main street as they went about their shopping, pouring out of offices to navigate the crazily busy intersection of Oxford Circus. Katerina turned towards the nearby tobacconist, which curiously had only one person at its counter; she stepped up and as she waited for the customer in front to pay, she noted a few men in overcoats dodging their way through the clamour of hats and headscarves to join the queue behind her for their cigarettes. She’d chosen the Argyll Street exit beneath Western House and J Leon & Co was the tiny kiosk that wrapped itself around the corner.

  ‘Polo mints, please,’ she said, pointing towards the peppermints she figured might help if the nausea of fear returned. She’d suck mints all the way to Bloomsbury.

  ‘Tuppence, please,’ the man said.

  She handed over a couple of pennies and took the foil roll of mint sweets with the green and blue wrapper that she favoured; she’d learned during her time in London that there was something about the hole in the middle that made them easier to melt silently in the museum. Katerina regularly took the unspoken British challenge of being able to suck the Polo without breaking it. It was an unimportant yet prideful pleasure to feel it disappear on the tongue. Katerina pulled at the foil and eased out one of the small round mints. She slipped it into her mouth and tossed the packet into her handbag. She’d decided her aim for the next hour was to buy some clothes. She felt she needed to arrive at her flat as if it were from a day at work at the museum.

  As people pushed past she wondered if she could be bothered to walk halfway to Marble Arch for Selfridges when John Lewis was so much closer. Make the effort!

  Katerina moved across Oxford Street with the stream of pedestrians and dodged her way down the broad street to the massive edifice that was the American-designed grand department store of Selfridges. Every inch of it she recognised as the Beaux-Arts style and, she noted, not without a strong influence from the British Museum’s renovations of a few years earlier. The store had opened in 1909 with soaring Ionic columns creating a similar classical frontispiece but with a vast walk of huge display windows that she enjoyed peering into. Only Harrods was a larger store in Britain. She mused that she’d heard somewhere that the US Army had used the basement of Selfridges for its secure signal corps during the war – safe from bombing and close to the American embassy.

  On the ground floor she purchased a few items, wishing that the Mary Quant range of cosmetics were already available. Without doubt her favourite London designer was Quant and the style that had won this year’s ‘Dress of the Year’ was already on Katerina’s wish list; it struck her that it might even be in the store by now. She went in search of the slim, mannish pinafore design of grey wool softened by a cream chiffon blouse with a pussy bow. To her astonishment the staff in ladies’ wear were delighted to tell her that the outfit had arrived only that morning on the mannequin. They cooed that she was the first customer to try it and Katerina knew immediately that it would not only fit but she was in love with it. Changing into the outfit helped to keep her distracted, as did hunting for the black boots she wanted to team it with: calf-high with heels, as Quant had intended.

  Inside the change rooms she pulled out the few items of makeup she’d purchased earlier and worked quickly to dab on some light foundation and a bare dust of powder and then smeared the lipstick with care as rouge before a careful, single sweep to her mouth. She rolled her lips together, making a soft smacking sound as she pulled them apart for a matte finish. Perfect. Now the eyes: fractionally bloodshot from stress, maybe. Oh, well, it all added to her tale; she would tell Mayek that she’d been staying over at a friend’s place – a male friend. She wanted him to think her life was full, flourishing, romantic. That was assuming, of course, that Mayek turned up today, she thought. It could be days of pretence in the flat, she realised. Katerina frowned, concerned that Daniel would be back in the frame if that occurred, but she would have to adjust her options – change them on the run and demand time alone with Mayek. For now, she’d set events in play; she had no more control and so should press on with her plan. She finished applying eyeliner and mascara before stepping out feeling like a new woman. After paying for her purchases, glad that she’d taken the precaution of grabbing the emergency cash that she’d hidden in the York house out of habit, she adopted her vacant expression of distraction. With her chin high, the boot heels clicked her progress.

  Despite her confident air, the packet of Polo mints was already four down. And by the time she turned into Bury Street the myth that peppermint could stave off nausea was, as far as Katerina was concerned, proven to be a lie. The adrenaline high of being in motion to her own plan had dissipated with each street she had drawn closer to her own, not helped by a blister from the new boots. The reality of facing Ruda Mayek clawed at her belly like a vulture at carrion. She chose to cross her street so she could approach her flat from the opposite side, giving her the widest range of view to spot a stranger without looking like she was trying to.

  Walk purposefully, she told herself, but not too fast. Rein in the nerves! They mustn’t show if he’s watching. No! Don’t look. Act normal. Find your key, let yourself in, do all the usual stuff.

  She was almost in line with her threshold when she heard a whistle and turned, stopping by the doorway opposite hers. With dread she turned but was pleased to see Billy from the pub.

  ‘Looking very fancy, miss.’ He winked.

  ‘Always, Billy,’ she quipped, digging up a smile. She knew how to do this. You haven’t forgotten how, she pleaded with herself. If he’s watching, he has to believe you don’t know he’s here.

  She went deep inside to find her mettle and grinned again over her shoulder at the youngster waving goodbye; it took every ounce of courage not to scan the street for someone who might resemble Mayek. Katerina held her poise steady and anyone watching would have seen only a confident woman step off the pavement to cross the street to Museum Chambers.

  Katerina fiddled in her bag for keys, suffering a momentary panic that she had lost track of them since she’d met Edward, but the giveaway jangle in a zippered section reassured her. The sharp tug of panic in her throat now made her want to look around for Mayek and she let a curse fly beneath her breath. She could have had Daniel and his men here! What sort of lunacy was this?

  Once again, fighting with all the emotional strength she could muster, she squashed the inclination to flee by deliberately pressing the key much too hard into the lock and twisting it. The door opened and she stepped in. After closing it, she leaned back against its solidity and took some long, slow breaths. She had begun to per-spire – so unlike her. Annoyed that she was making her new blouse damp, she talked herself away from the cliff edge of panic. Katerina knew she needed to rid herself of this overwhelming anxiety or he’d already won.

  Get upstairs and get ready for him, her inner voice of strength urged. She obeyed, pushing away from the door, finding some calm in the memory of Daniel’s voice: You have nothing but my admiration for your courage.

  She would not permit Ruda Mayek to hurt anyone again. But she was going to hurt him.

  Katerina began to ascend the interminable stairs that led to the top
floor. It reminded her that if Mayek was as weakened as Daniel assured her, he’d be fatigued from climbing these stairs. She made a mental promise that if she could, she would leave the door ajar after answering it. Nevertheless, something snagged in her mind as she took the stairs slowly to the top floor. She couldn’t quite get a purchase on what it was that was poking at her thoughts and the relief at being inside her flat washed away the vague prick of alarm that the niggle was creating. She let out a sigh now everything was in place. Despite her ruse, Daniel, or one of his men, was probably somewhere watching. And that being the case, they’d not let Mayek be alone with her for long.

  She took off her coat and put it on a hanger in the short entranceway. Pulling off the new boots, Katerina gave a soft groan of pleasure as her feet were released from the pinch of new leather and could now be flattened against the smooth floorboards. She immediately opened the windows in her bedroom and the main room as a precaution; she wasn’t sure why, but it felt safer to know the world outside was blowing in.

  That relief aside, she was still feeling on edge about something and couldn’t shake the thought. A coffee was needed. Then her thoughts would clear, she promised herself. She was pleased the beans were still fresh enough to use. She took her time, going through her deliberate ritual. Of a normal morning she’d dress as her coffee came to its gurgling boil but with no reason to be doing anything else she leaned against the stove listening to it percolate. For reasons she couldn’t immediately fathom, the bubbling pot that normally heartened her didn’t soothe. Today the bubbles sounded like a death rattle, the last wet breaths. The aroma that normally woke up her taste buds now made her feel distantly ill.

  What was it? What was wrong with this picture?

  She switched off the flame of the gas stove abruptly and as it went out, a different death groan sounded as the coffee’s previous excitement died. It was ruined but that was the last thought filling her mind right now. Her internal alarms were shrill; the most piercing of them insisted, not from the rim of her mind any more but right at the fore, that there was something she’d seen and had registered as odd, yet she’d overlooked. There was a fierce klaxon in her head now.

  The flavour of mint tasted like old toothpaste and what was rising through the nausea and her increasingly rapid breathing was the memory of a colour: dirty orange. Where had she seen it? Katerina bit down on her fist, forcing her reliable mind to recall it.

  The memory came and she gasped.

  The cigarette packet!

  As she had turned to greet Billy in Bury Street, her gaze had lighted briefly on the distinctive orange packet in the doorway opposite her own, where she stood. It was crushed, discarded, but she had noticed it as young Billy had whistled, distracting her with conversation. But that cigarette packet was the clue she’d missed. The cigarettes were German, identical to the packet from which a cigarette had been smoked in her presence when she’d still had teenage dreams and plans.

  Her life was in dark danger now because she’d not paid attention to the instinct that had protected her for all these years.

  Surely not! He couldn’t be!

  Katerina was facing the stove, still leaning against it, but now she whipped her head around as dawning hit and she saw him.

  ‘Hello, Katka.’ He smiled.

  Miss Bailey arrived with a pot of tea. ‘I just popped in to finish that document for the Ryan case, Mr Summerbee.’

  ‘Mmm?’ He looked up. ‘Oh, thank you. Er, that’s right, you are taking the day off. You really shouldn’t have come in.’

  She smiled. ‘All right if I leave now? I’m going to a matinee.’

  ‘Oh, marvellous. Of course, hurry off. Which show?’

  ‘Half a Sixpence at the Cambridge Theatre.’

  ‘I hear that Tommy Steele is quite the star.’

  She smiled. ‘Can’t wait. He’s very handsome.’

  Edward grinned. He hadn’t heard Miss Bailey accuse anyone of that … ever. ‘Enjoy yourselves. Oh, wait.’ He stood and removed some notes from his wallet. ‘Take this and please get a taxi to and fro, and buy your sister and yourself a flute of champagne from me.’

  ‘Oh, Mr Summerbee, I couldn’t.’ She looked delightedly shocked.

  ‘Yes, you can. You’ve been very understanding of my mood of late, Miss Bailey. There’s a difficult situation I’m dealing with and it’s leaving me quite distracted, I’ll admit.’ He came around the desk. ‘Please. It’s my pleasure to do this and I hope you have a splendid time.’

  The phone rang at his desk.

  ‘Oh, I’ve flicked it through. Shall I get that, sir?’

  ‘No, no. I’ll get this one,’ he said, waving her away and moving back around his desk. ‘Put on your hat and coat and leave or you never will, Miss Bailey. Enjoy!’ He picked up the receiver as he glanced at the clock. It was past two already. ‘Summerbee and Associates.’

  ‘Er, good afternoon. I’m looking to speak with a Mr Edward Summerbee, please.’

  ‘You’ve found him.’ He grinned farewell as Miss Bailey tiptoed out the door, closing it behind her.

  ‘Oh.’

  It was odd that he was answering calls. He pressed on without explanation. ‘How might I help?’

  ‘You don’t know me.’

  ‘I rarely do know new clients.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’d describe myself that way but my name is Schäfer.’

  Edward blinked. He knew the name and the accent confirmed it. ‘Is this Dr Otto Schäfer?’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Then I do know you, sir. Or at least of you.’

  ‘Good, so I don’t have to waste time explaining. Do you know that I have recently seen Katerina?’

  He wasn’t wasting any time. ‘I do.’

  ‘She’s spoken with you?’

  ‘Er … no. We’re not that close.’

  Another slight pause. ‘That’s not the impression she left me with.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say to that,’ he replied. He sensed the man on the other end was smiling.

  ‘I do have a vested interest in Katerina, as I’m sure she has mentioned.’

  ‘She has. She is incredibly loyal and I’m surprised she contacted you because she mentioned how she deliberately hadn’t seen you since she left Czechoslovakia.’

  ‘That’s correct. But I suspect this is the measure of how frantic she is since those wretched Pearls emerged. Promise me that you will be honourable. She needs no further pain.’

  ‘Did you ring me to play a father figure, Dr Schäfer?’

  ‘No. I’m ringing you because I don’t know who else to turn to.’

  ‘That sounds ominous.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re aware her life is in grave danger.’

  Edward pursed his lips momentarily. ‘You must forgive me. I cannot divulge the name —’

  ‘That’s not what I mean, Mr Summerbee,’ the doctor interjected. ‘This is not about your client. It’s connected with what I suspect Katerina is about to do.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Otto explained. ‘It just struck the wrong chord with me as we parted. I don’t trust that she’s going to do what she said she would … or rather, I don’t trust that I’m hearing all of the truth.’

  ‘Well, let me put your mind at rest. She did call Daniel Horowitz as she promised. And he’s meeting her from the train tomorrow morning, as I understand it.’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘It’s my understanding she was leaving today. In fact, I suspect she’s already in London.’

  ‘That can’t be right.’

  ‘It is right. She was leaving at some unearthly hour to be in London by ten this morning!’

  ‘Well, she told Daniel tomorrow …’ he repeated, feeling stupid for it, but the spark of fear was beginning to fizz in his belly. ‘What does this mean?’

  ‘It means she lied. It confirms my fears. She’s going to confront Mayek alone.’

  ‘She wou
ldn’t risk her life.’

  ‘She’s got more to lose than you probably fully understand, Mr Summerbee, but watching her yesterday I felt like a shroud had descended. It was the same Katerina I remember when she emerged from her shock all those years ago. There’s a will of iron in her. I don’t think she’s considering her life right now. She wants him finished and no longer able to reach her or those she loves.’

  ‘And risk death?’

  ‘She’s faced it before several times.’

  ‘But this is 1963, not wartime! What can we do?’

  ‘I can’t do much from up here in the north of England except panic, and that helps no one. Where is this Horowitz she spoke of?’

  ‘I don’t know. I can try to find him but he usually calls me. We left it that he would telephone me tomorrow when the trap was laid and done.’

  ‘What trap?’

  Edward summarised it succinctly in his well-honed solicitor’s manner. ‘She did say to Daniel that she wanted to confront Mayek – needed to, in order to let this all go.’

  ‘This is so much worse than I even dreaded. She’s deliberately given us all false information so she can confront him alone.’

  From all of his experience working in the world of the law, Edward knew better than to ask why. The why, he knew, no longer mattered. ‘I can’t promise I can easily reach Daniel Horowitz. So, Doctor Schäfer, write this number down. Got a pen?’

  ‘Yes. Go ahead.’

  Edward gave him the number. ‘I got this from Horowitz. It’s Paris but I suspect they can reach him. Make them contact him. Tell him to go to Bloomsbury or send his henchmen immediately. Now, forgive me, please, but I’m going to fling the telephone down and get to Katerina’s flat as fast as humanly possible.’

  ‘Just go. I’ll get hold of Horowitz. Summerbee, just remember Mayek is dangerous.’

  Edward’s features had settled into a grimace. ‘So am I!’

  31