by Pamela Pope
He knew she was right, and he accepted it. But he also knew that he would feel exactly the same tomorrow and in twenty or more years’ time. From the moment of meeting there had been something special between them, a bond which bridged the years since childhood. He remembered the saying that hatred is akin to love. She had made a great impact on him as a small boy and he had never forgotten her, though he had allowed the memory of their juvenile antipathy to linger on as intense dislike, when all the time it had been love waiting to be awakened.
‘I’ll write to you whenever I have the opportunity,’ he said. ‘Every night if I can.’
‘I’ll do the same,’ she promised.
‘And I’ll be thinking of you every minute.’ He held her hands again and pressed them between his own. ‘I’ll leave instructions for you to be told if anything happens to me, though I know we’ll both come through.’
‘I know it, too. But I’ll do the same … just in case.’
‘I love you, my darling,’ he told her again, and she responded by kissing him full on the mouth with lips which quivered deliciously.
When they got back to the Hotel de France the concierge at the desk was shaking her head at a young French soldier and his girl obviously wanting a room for the night. Galina took her key and offered it to the soldier.
‘You can have my room,’ she said, in perfect French. ‘We shall only be needing the one.’
*
Max had been expecting Ellie to arrive in the morning. He had planned to take her out for a special lunch, but when it was way past noon and she hadn’t turned up he had no appetite for eating alone. His disappointment at the delay made him restless.
He was longing to see her — no good denying it. Since their unsatisfactory meeting in Richmond he had been waiting for an opportunity to see her again in surroundings more conducive to a reconciliation, but he knew arrangements had to be handled carefully. Ellie was more prickly than a porcupine and her willpower as strong as iron. It would have been no good writing with yet more abject apologies and demands for her to reconsider. Appealing to her had no effect whatever.
The only way to get results, Max decided, was to approach the matter underhandedly. So he had written to the American Red Cross on the completion of their ambulance train with a request for a senior administrator to approve the equipment before it was shipped out, though it had already been checked according to British regulations. It had been a risk. They could have sent a man, but knowing the character of Ellie’s job had made him fairly certain she would be the one detailed to undertake the task, and he had been right.
Had there been a chance to take her in his arms that afternoon at the hospital he was fairly sure she would have succumbed. She was ready for love. It had been evident in her posture, in the way she had leaned towards him without being aware of it, and in the way she had moistened her lips. Today his plan had been to woo her with the best food and wine available, and to charm her out of the remnants of opposition he knew she clung to through obstinacy. But three o’clock came and she still hadn’t arrived. And after that a most unexpected telephone call changed everything.
The call came from Millicent Cromer. ‘Mr Berman, I must see you urgently. Now, today.’
Over the years he’d had very little to do with Julian’s wife. Her snobbery aggravated him, and when she had found he was not interested in being helped up the social ladder she had abandoned all pretence of friendship. They were just not compatible, and she had certainly never made a personal call to him before.
‘Can’t you tell me the problem now?’ Max asked.
‘No,’ she said. Her economy with words should have alerted him. She usually indulged in flowery language.
‘Well, I can’t leave the Works today on any account. If Julian’s ill, call the doctor.’
‘If you value your life and the safety of the company, you’ll come straight away.’
With that the telephone went dead, and Max was left holding the receiver in stunned silence. He had no idea what was behind the call, but the reason must be extremely urgent for Millicent to have made it. It couldn’t be ignored.
He had to give priority to Millicent’s problem, no matter what Ellie might think when she came. It was most unlikely the melodramatic announcement had been a hoax or a ploy to get him away from the Works for some reason. Millicent was not the type to practise such deception, so the extraordinary warning had to be taken seriously. He would go straight away, find out what the trouble was, and with any luck, be able to leave again almost immediately with little time wasted.
He drove recklessly to Fortune Cottage, and had hardly switched off the engine of his motor car before Millicent was at the front door. Her short figure had filled out from the onset of middle-age and she was now very plump. But her pink and white complexion was still good and her face almost unlined. The new style of dress with less restriction suited her.
‘Please come in,’ she said, hastily ushering Max inside as if afraid there might be someone watching. ‘I’m sorry to have sounded so mysterious on the telephone, but I couldn’t say more in case there was anyone listening in, and I wanted you here at once while Julian is out of the house.’
‘Where is he?’
‘I don’t know.’ She showed him into the drawing room.
‘I’m very worried, Mr Berman. You see, I’ll come straight to the point. My husband has had visits recently from a man I don’t trust.’
‘Who?’
‘He says his name is Walter Goddard.’
It appeared the man had arrived one day while Millicent was out visiting, so she hadn’t seen him initially, but Julian had been in an excited state on her return. He’d told her a long, involved story about Mr Goddard having heard news of their daughter Charlotte through friends of friends which he had hastened to bring, and Millicent had been so overjoyed to hear that her daughter was safe, she hadn’t thought to question the source of the information too deeply. It hadn’t even occurred to her that there might be something suspicious about news coming from inside Germany. The man had returned two days later with a brief letter from Charlotte, in her unmistakable handwriting, in which she hadn’t said anything much except that she was safe and well. Lack of detail wasn’t surprising, though, in view of censorship. When she’d asked Julian later why Mr Goddard hadn’t brought it on his first visit he had been very vague, but that wasn’t surprising either since he was vague about a lot of things lately.
‘What does the man look like?’ Max asked.
‘He’s young and appears to be very fit, fit enough to be serving his country.’
‘So is Francis, I believe.’ He had no patience with conscientious objectors, and made it known.
Millicent’s lips tightened, but she let the remark pass. ‘Last night Mr Goddard came again, wearing a Royal Flying Corps uniform. Oh, he’s very charming. He brought me a box of chocolates such as I haven’t seen since before the war, and Julian a case of brandy. A whole case! Of course Julian insisted he sat down to dinner with us.’ She paused. Then: ‘I don’t know why, but I asked him if he had trained at Farnborough, and he said he had. So I said he must have met Squadron-Commander Willard Preston there, and he replied that they’d spent many jolly evenings together in the mess. Now, it didn’t occur to me until we had finished eating that Willard Preston, who was a frequent visitor here in the,days when I did a lot of entertaining, is in the Royal Naval Air Service. He wouldn’t have been at Farnborough.’
Max’s opinion of Millicent went up by leaps and bounds.
‘Have you discussed this with your husband?’
‘No — for a very important reason. The man was lingering, I could tell. I had the feeling he was waiting for me to leave so that he could talk to Julian privately, so I yawned a few times and asked if he would excuse me if I retired to bed, something I would never say to a guest normally, you understand.’
‘Of course.’
‘I then committed the s
in of eavesdropping.’ Millicent was very serious. ‘There is a service lift for food trays from the dining room to the kitchen below stairs, no longer used as we haven’t got the servants. I made sure the upper hatch doors were very slightly ajar, then went down to the kitchen and opened the lower ones. I heard Mr Goddard open the case of brandy and I feared they were embarking on a heavy drinking session, but Julian was asking questions about a job to be done tomorrow … that’s today.’
‘A job? Did he say what?’
‘No — only that the money wouldn’t be paid until afterwards. For now Julian would have to make do with what had been given him.’
Max was becoming very intrigued. ‘Secret work for the Flying Corps? Brandy being the reward.’
‘No,’ she said again. ‘I’ve given it much thought, but the possible truth didn’t occur to me until a little while ago.’
‘Go on,’ he urged.
‘Well, it sounded as if Mr Goddard had given Julian a clock as a present. He was telling him how to set it. But I couldn’t think why —’
She didn’t have to say any more. Max got up, his face draining of colour. ‘Court Carriages! Oh, my God!’
‘Quite,’ said Millicent. ‘You know Julian has been very bitter about the company since you took over complete control. He had just gone out when I telephoned you, and he had some sort of box with him.’ She hurried after Max when he dashed towards the door. ‘Mr Berman, I might just be imagining things. Perhaps I’m just a stupid, interfering woman.’
Impulsively he learned forward and kissed her forehead, a liberty he would never have taken half an hour ago. ‘Mrs Cromer, you are very brave, and very intelligent.’
He didn’t wait for Millicent to show him out. He was already climbing into his car when she came puffing up to it.
‘The main purpose in telling you is to save my husband from trouble. You must find Julian if lie’s at the Works and stop him from doing anything terrible!’
‘Don’t worry, I will.’
His speed on the return journey tested the engine’s capability to the limit. He had never driven so fast.
Even allowing for the urgency of her telephone call he hadn’t expected to hear anything like this from Millicent Cromer. It smelt of sabotage. There was strict security throughout Court Carriages, particularly since the War Office had extended the Works to include a munitions department. Shell-cases had been made there since 1915. Now there was the machine shop assembling fuses. Security guards would challenge any stranger seen on the premises. But Julian Cromer was not a stranger.
Max entered the yard with a screeching of brakes and steam coming from the bonnet of the engine. It was five o’clock and workers leaving after an early shift stopped at the gate to stare at him with curiosity. He was out of the car and in the main reception office within seconds, desperate to know whether Julian Cromer had come visiting.
‘Mr Cromer? No, he hasn’t been here, sir,’ the clerk said. ‘But —’
The young woman had no chance to finish. Max began issuing dramatic orders which required such urgent attention everything else was forced from her mind.
‘I want the whole of the Works evacuated. Everyone must leave immediately.’
‘What? Beg your pardon, sir — you mean evacuated!’
‘NOW! Find Mr Wilkinson at once and see that the managers of every shop and office are told and comply without question.’ He went through to his own office, talking as he went. ‘Get me the police and the Security Services on the telephone, Miss Cobham. And I want to speak to Army Headquarters in the town.’
‘But Mr Berman, I can’t do everything at once.’ Miss Cobham followed him, plainly bewildered and flustered by his frenetic instructions. ‘What shall I do first? Are we in danger?’
‘Heaven preserve me from women! Get Mr Wilkinson and tell him to start the evacuation. Some of the secretaries’ll help you with the telephones. I want everyone out of these buildings as quickly as possible … everyone! Do you understand?’
‘Yes, sir.’
A few minutes later, bells began sounding. It took half an hour to get the vast number of people employed at Court Carriages assembled outside in the street, and then moved to a safe distance. There was confusion and a certain amount of panic, no one knowing the reason for the emergency as police arrived, and Army personnel on motor-cycles drove into the front yard.
‘Mr Berman! Mr Berman!’ Miss Cobham called to Max, hurrying back into the yard after him when the list of employees was complete and everyone had been accounted for. ‘There wasn’t time to tell you your wife got here soon after you went out this afternoon.’
He swung round. ‘Where is she now, then?’
‘I don’t know, sir.’ The girl was very upset. ‘I sent Mr Thorne over with her when she insisted on seeing the ambulance train without waiting, but Mr Thorne came back for the key, and when he went to find her again she wasn’t there.’
‘Do you mean she left?’
‘No, sir. I didn’t see her leave, sir, and I was in the office all the time. She would have had to come out that way. No one’s seen her at all.’
Max’s head was throbbing. Ellie couldn’t still be inside any of the buildings. Someone would have seen her and told her to leave with the staff. So where had she gone?
A few minutes later the first terrible explosion shook the machine shop, blowing out windows and shattering glass in every building round a wide area.
Twenty-Two
The day came for Julian to carry out the instructions of his blackmailer before he had time to think properly of the consequences. In order to save Charlotte, and to improve his almost non-existent bank balance, he had agreed to do an appalling thing which would damage the war effort, probably destroy the company begun by Millicent’s father, and put countless people out of work. He would be obliterating all his own life’s work, though in recent years he had been systematically robbed of credit for what he had done. He hadn’t dared to think in depth of any of these things.
He felt a certain exhilaration as he set out for Court Carriages with the case containing the means to kill people. Killing wasn’t his intention. He was to plant the device and prime it to go off at midnight, but as he no longer had his own keys, and had not been given any, he needed to be there while it was still daylight.
This was an opportunity to take his revenge. It was going to make certain Court Carriages no longer existed, and Oliver Devlin’s pushy daughter would be deprived forever of her ill-gotten inheritance. He saw it as a means of putting to an end Max Berman’s powerful and successful bid for full ownership of another man’s company. There would be nothing left.
He avoided the main office. The yard entrances were guarded by men invalided out of the services but still able to perform useful civil duties, which presented a problem as Julian was not known to any of them, but he was undeterred. He knew the premises so well it was relatively simple to slip through a small side-gate at the back of the timberyard. From then on he was free to wander where he liked as most men recognised him and presumed he was there by invitation or arrangement.
‘Nice to see you, Mr Cromer,’ one man said, doffing his cap.
‘Welcome back, Mr Cromer, sir,’ said another.
The acknowledgements warmed his heart, but didn’t weaken his resolution. The one person he didn’t want to meet was Max, but he doubted if he would be around the part of the Works for which he was heading.
Following instructions, he made for the body shop, no longer trying to be inconspicuous. He’d asked Walter how he knew so much about Court Carriages but had been silenced by the reply that the less he knew the better. He had the first slight misgiving when he saw the new ambulance train and realised he was probably about to deprive wounded troops of transport back home, but as it was for the American forces the feelings of guilt was less. He had no cause to love the Americans.
The passage between the body shop and the new munitions section was help
fully dark and he didn’t need to go as far as the double doors at the end. His mission was to plant the small bomb in a components storeroom to the rear of the machine shop, where a single explosion would be guaranteed to set off a succession of others.
As luck would have it there was no one around to see him unlock the storeroom with a key that Walter had provided, and go inside. The job would only take a few minutes so he left the door slightly ajar to get away quickly. He knew exactly what to do. Walter had gone over it with him several times until it was absolutely clear and there could be no mistake. He looked and saw the exact shelf against the wall separating the store from the machine shop where boxes were marked with a red star to indicate they contained combustible material, and opened the case to set the device inside the way he had been shown. His fingers were clumsy and trembling, and he had to blink away a film from his eyes as he felt in his top pocket and realised with consternation that he had forgotten to bring his magnifying spectacles. Luckily he could see enough without them.
There, the thing was set. No going back now on the agreement. He was about to close the lid of the case when he began to feel dizzy and strangely light-headed, as if he were someone else entirely seeing the scene from another sphere. It was frightening. A flask of brandy was in his hip pocket. He took a gulp from it and felt a little better, his nerves steadying again. But the feeling of unreality persisted, and he decided it was the claustrophobic atmosphere. The sooner he was back home the better.
Wait! Someone was watching him. The hair at the back of his neck seemed to lift like a dog’s before a fight, and his blood turned to ice even though he suddenly sweated profusely. He mustn’t be found with the case on him. He closed the lid without a sound and stowed it between the boxes on a lower shelf, covering it with the piece of cloth he’d been told would be there for the purpose.
He looked round fearfully, trying to locate where the vague sound had come from to disturb him. It must have been his imagination overworking: there was no one there. Nevertheless he stepped almost silently and with extreme caution towards the door, and glanced quickly up and down the passage. Then for some reason he felt compelled to take a last look back in the storeroom before leaving, and it was then he knew his mind was playing dangerous tricks. In the shadows he saw a figure, completely motionless and unreal. It could only be in his mind because the figure looked like Ellie, and he knew for certain she was thousands of miles away. The spectre made no sound, but eyes like the ones he had carried in his memory for more than twenty years seemed to stare back at him, condemning him for the terrible thing he had just done.
