by Ken Follett
saw the man's silhouette in the reflected light. It looked vaguely
familiar.
He settled back in his seat to wait. He remembered the nightmare:
"This is an Abwehr ticket' and smiled in the dark.
Then he frowned. The train stops unaccountably; shortly afterwards a
ticket inspection begins; the inspector's face is vaguely familiar ...
It might be nothing, but Faber stayed alive by worrying about things
that might be nothing. He looked in the corridor again, but the man
had entered a compartment.
The train stopped briefly the station was Crewe, according to informed
opinion in Faber's compartment and moved off again.
Faber got another look at the inspector's face, and now he remembered.
The boarding house in Highgate! The boy from Yorkshire who wanted to
get into the Army!
Faber watched him carefully. His torch flashed across the face of
every passenger. He was not just looking at the tickets.
No, Faber told himself, don't jump to conclusions. How could they
possibly have got on to him? They could not have found out which train
he was on, got hold of one of the few people in the world who knew what
he looked like, and got the man on the train dressed as a ticket
inspector in so short a time. It was unbelievable.
Parkin, that was his name. Billy Parkin, Somehow he looked a lot older
now. He was coming closer.
It must be a look-alike perhaps an elder brother. This had to be a
coincidence.
Parkin entered the compartment next to Faber's. There was no time
left.
Faber assumed the worst, and prepared to deal with it.
He got up, left the compartment, and went along the corridor, picking
his way over suitcases and kit bags and bodies, to the lavatory. It
was vacant. He went in and locked the door.
He was only buying time ticket inspectors did not fail to check the
toilets. He sat on the seat and wondered how to get out of this. The
train had speeded up, and was travelling too fast for him to jump off.
Besides, someone would see him go, and if they were really searching
for him they would stop the train.
"All tickets, please."
Parkin was getting close again.
Faber had an idea. The coupling between the carriages was a tiny space
like an air-lock, enclosed by a bellows-like cover between the cars of
the train, shut off at both ends by doors because of the noise and
draughts. He left the lavatory, fought his way to the end of the
carriage, opened the door, and stepped into the connecting passage. He
closed the door behind him.
It was freezing cold, and the noise was terrific. Faber sat on the
floor and curled up, pretending to sleep. Only a dead man could sleep
herej but people did strange things on trains these days. He tried not
to shiver.
The door opened behind him.
"Tickets, please."
He ignored it. He heard the door close.
"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty." The voice was unmistakable.
Faber pretended to stir, then got to his feet, keeping his back to
Parkin. When he turned die stiletto was in his hand. He pushed Parkin
up against the door, held the point of the knife at his throat, and
said: "Be still or I'll kill you."
With his left hand he took Parkin's torch, and shone it into the young
man's face. Parkin did not look as frightened as he ought to be.
Faber said: "Well, well. Billy Parkin, who wanted to join the Army,
and ended up on the railways. Still, it's a uniform."
Parkin said: "You."
"You know damn well it's me, little Billy Parkin. You were looking for
me. Why?" He was doing his best to sound vicious.
"I don't know why I should be looking for you I'm not a policeman."
Faber jerked the knife melodramatically.
"Stop lying to me."
"Honest, Mr. Faber. Let me go I promise I won't tell anyone I've seen
you."
Faber began to have doubts. Either Parkin was telling the truth, or he
was overacting as much as Faber himself.
Parkin's body shifted, his right arm moving in the darkness. Faber
grabbed the wrist in an iron grip. Parkin struggled for an instant,
but Faber let the needle point of the stiletto sink a fraction of an
inch into Parkin's throat, and the man was still. Faber found the
pocket Parkin had been reaching for, and pulled out a gun.
"Ticket inspectors do not go armed," he said.
"Who are you with, Parkin?"
"We all carry guns now there's a lot of crime on trains because of the
dark."
Parkin was lying courageously and persistently. Faber decided that
threats were not enough to loosen his tongue.
His movement was sudden, swift and accurate. The blade of the
stiletto leaped in his fist. Its point entered a measured half-inch
into Parkin's left eye and came out again.
Faber's hand covered Parkin's mouth. The muffled scream of agony was
drowned by the noise of the train. Parkin's hands went to his ruined
eye.
Faber pressed his advantage.
"Save yourself the other eye. Parkin. Who are you with?"
"Military Intelligence, oh God, please don't do it again."
"Who? Menzies? Masterman?"
"Oh, God, it's Godliman, Percy Godliman."
"Godliman!" Faber knew the name, but this was no time to search his
memory for details.
"What have they got?"
"A picture. I picked you out from the files."
"What picture? What picture?"
"A. racing team running with a cup the Army ' Faber remembered.
Christ, where had they got hold of that? It was his nightmare: they
had a picture. People would know his face. His face.
He moved the knife closer to Parkin's right eye.
"How did you know where I was?"
"Don't do it, please agent in the Portuguese Embassy intercepted your
letter took the cab's number inquiries at Euston please, not the other
eye He covered both his eyes with his hands.
"What's the plan? Where is the trap?"
"Glasgow. They're waiting for you at Glasgow. The train will be
emptied there."
Faber lowered the knife to the level of Parkin's belly. To distract
him, he said: "How many men?" Then he pushed hard, inward and upward
to the heart.
Parkin's one eye stared in horror, and he did not die. It was the
drawback to Faber's favoured method of killing. Normally the shock of
the knife was enough 10 stop the heart. But if the heart was strong it
did not always work after all, surgeons sometimes stuck a hypodermic
needle directly into the heart to inject adrenalin. If the heart
continued to pump, the motion would work a hole around the blade, from
which the blood would leak. It was just as fatal, but longer.
At last Parkin's body went limp. Faber held him against the wall for
a moment, thinking. There had been something -a flicker of courage,
the ghost of a smile before the man died. It meant something. Such
things always did.
He let the body fall to the floor, then arranged it in a sleeping
position, with the wounds hidden from view. He kicked the railway cap
<
br /> into a corner. He cleaned his stiletto on Parkin's trousers, and wiped
the ocular liquid from his hands. It had been a messy business.
He put the knife away in his sleeve and opened the door to the
carriage. He made his way back to his compartment in the dark.
As he sat down the Cockney said: "You took your time -is there a
queue?"
Faber said: "It must have been something I ate."
"Probably a dried-egg sandwich." The Cockney laughed.
Faber was thinking about Godliman. He knew the name -he could even put
a vague face to it: a middle-aged, bespectacled face, with a pipe and
an absent, professorial air. That was it he was a professor.
It was coming back. In his first couple of years in London Faber had
had little to do. The war had not yet started, and most people
believed it would not come. (Faber was not among the optimists.) He
had been able to do a little useful work mostly checking and revising
the Abwehr's out-of-date maps, plus general reports based on his own
observations and his reading of the newspapers but not much. To fill
in time, to improve his English, and to flesh out his cover, he had
gone sightseeing.
His purpose in visiting Canterbury Cathedral had been innocent,
although he did buy an aerial view of the town and the cathedral which
he sent back for the Luftwaffe not that it did much good: they spent
most of 1942 missing it. Faber had taken a whole day to see the
building: reading the ancient initials carved in walls, distinguishing
the different architectural styles, reading the guidebook line by line
as he walked slowly around.
He had been in the south ambulatory of the choir, looking at the blind
arcading, when he became conscious of another absorbed figure by his
side; an older man.
"Fascinating, isn' tit the man said; and Faber asked him what he
meant.
"The one pointed arch in an arcade of round ones. No reason for it
that section obviously hasn't been rebuilt. For some reason, somebody
just altered that one. I wonder why."
Faber saw what he meant. The choir was Romanesque, the nave Gothic;
yet here in the choir was a solitary Gothic arch.
"Perhaps," he said, 'the monks demanded to see what the pointed arches
would look like, and the architect did this to show them."
The older man stared at him. What a splendid conjecture! Of course
that's the reason. Are you an historian?"
Faber laughed.
"No, just a clerk and an occasional reader of history books."
"People get doctorates for inspired guesses like that!"
"Are you? An historian, I mean."
"Yes, for my sins." He stuck out his hand.
"Percy Godliman."
Was it possible, Faber thought as the train rattled on through
Lancashire, that that unimpressive figure in a tweed suit could be the
man who had discovered his identity? Spies generally claimed they were
civil servants, or something equally vague; not historians that lie
could be too easily found out. Yet it was rumoured that Military
Intelligence had been bolstered by a number of academics. Faber had
imagined them to be young, fit, aggressive and bellicose as well as
clever. Godliman was clever, but none of the rest. Unless he had
changed.
Faber had seen him once again, although he had not spoken to him on the
second occasion. After the brief encounter in the cathedral Faber had
seen a notice advertising a public lecture on Henry II to be given by
Professor Godliman at his college. He had gone along, out of
curiosity. The talk had been erudite, lively and convincing. Godliman
was still a faintly comic figure, prancing about behind the lectern,
getting enthusiastic about his subject; but it was clear his mind was
as sharp as a knife.
So that was the man who had discovered what Die Nadel looked like.
Jesus Christ, an amateur.
Well, he would make amateur mistakes. Sending Billy Parking had been
one: Faber had recognized the boy. Godli-man should have sent someone
Faber did not know. Parkin had a better chance of recognizing Faber,
but no chance at all of surviving the encounter. A professional would
have known that.
The train shuddered to a halt, and a muffled voice outside announced
that this was Liverpool. Faber cursed under his breath: he should have
been spending the time working out his next move, not remembering
Percival Godliman.
They were waiting at Glasgow, Parkin had said before he died. Why
Glasgow? Their inquiries at Euston would have told them he was going
to Inverness. And if they suspected Inverness to be a red herring,
they would have speculated that he was coming here, to Liverpool, for
this was the nearest link point for an Irish ferry.
Faber hated snap decisions .
He had to get off the train, whatever.
He stood up, opened the door, stepped out, and headed for the ticket
barrier.
He thought of something else. What was it that had flashed in Billy
Parkin's eyes before he died? Not hatred, not fear, not pain although
all those had been present. It was more like ... triumph.
Faber looked up, past the ticket collector, and understood.
Waiting on the other side, dressed in a hat and raincoat, was the blond
young tail from Leicester Square.
Parkin, dying in agony and humiliation and betrayal, had deceived Faber
at the last. The trap was here.
The man in the raincoat had not yet noticed Faber in the crowd. Faber
turned and stepped back on to the train. Once inside, he pulled aside
the blind and looked out. The tail was searching the faces in the
crowd. He had not noticed the man who got back on the train.
Faber watched while the passengers filtered through the gate until the
platform was empty. The blond man spoke urgently to the ticket
collector, who shook his head in negation. The man seemed to insist.
After a moment he waved to someone out of sight. A police officer
emerged from the shadows and spoke to the collector. The platform
guard joined the group followed by a man in a civilian suit who was
presumably a more senior railway official.
The engine driver and his fireman left the locomotive and went over to
the barrier. There was more waving of arms and shaking of heads.
Finally the railway men shrugged, turned away, or rolled their eyes
upward, all telegraphing surrender. The blond and the police officer
summoned other policemen, and they moved determinedly on to the
platform.
They were going to search the train.
All the railway officials, including the engine crew, had disappeared
in the opposite direction, no doubt to seek tea and sandwiches while
the lunatics tried, to search a jam-packed train. That gave Faber an
idea.
He opened the door and jumped out of the wrong side of the train, the
side opposite the platform. Concealed from the police by the
carriages, he ran along the tracks, stumbling on the sleepers and
slipping on the gravel, toward the engine.
It had to be bad news, of course. From the moment h
e realized Billy
Parkin was not going to saunter off that train, Frederick Bloggs knew
that Die Nadel had slipped through their fingers again. As the
uniformed police moved on to the train in pairs, two men to search each
carriage, Bloggs thought of several possible explanations of Parkin's
non-appearance; and all the explanations were depress sing
He turned up his coat collar and paced the draughty platform. He
wanted very badly to catch Die Nadel: not just for the sake of the
invasion although that was reason enough, God knew but for Percy
Godliman, and for the five Home Guard, and for Christine.
He looked at his watch: four o'clock. Soon it would be day. Bloggs
had been up all night, and he had not eaten since breakfast yesterday,
but until now he had kept going on adrenaline. The failure of the trap
he was quite sure it had failed drained him of energy. Hunger and
fatigue caught up with him. He had to make a conscious effort not to
daydream about hot food and a warm bed.
"Sir!" A policeman was leaning out of a carriage and waving at him.
