Avenging Steel: The First Collection

by Hall, Ian

  “Look, I don’t know what I can do.” I tried to look as innocent as I could. “And I don’t know what you think I am either. Whatever it is, I’m not it. I’m just a flipping Philosophy student trying to get on with my life.” Then I made a big play of suddenly making up my mind. “Come with me.”

  I pulled him onto the Chambers Street exit, and we walked down to the Bridges. I made no effort to hide myself or him. If the Germans were indeed watching me, trying to be covert would certainly give the game away. For the first time in a while, I walked the streets as if I didn’t have a care in the world.

  Immediately down Infirmary Street there’s a hole-in-the-wall tavern called the Royal Oak. I knew it had a snug bar downstairs, and Craig followed my every step. “Sit here, don’t move.” I said with as much harshness as I could allow. I fished in my pocket, grabbed a florin and handed it to him. “Drink beer, but drink it slowly. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  To his credit, he sat down, holding onto the coin. He looked genuinely scared, but then so would a good actor.

  I left as quickly as I’d arrived. Dashing down the steep slope of Infirmary Street, I cut back, running along Robinson’s Close, taking care on the rough cobblestone slope; that last thing I wanted was to trip or fall at this pace. I heard no screeching of tyres behind me, no following footsteps. Once onto the road below, I doubled back again, ensuring that if anyone was following me, they’d have to show themselves. My excuse if caught? I had been confronted by a madman, and was scared out of my wits.

  I ducked into a dark sooty doorway, holding the aching stitches in my sides. I chanced a look outside back along the dingy street. Nothing.

  Centuries ago, they had constructed two rows of bridges, joining high land to the south with the Royal Mile. These bridges soon had houses on either side, blotting out the whole ‘bridge’ idea. Only when down here on the lower level could you still see the original plan; it made for a dark place, even in the middle of the day.

  “So Ian Craig could be genuine.” I panted softly. Yeah he could, my conscience replied. ‘And he could still be a Nazi plant, playing some kind of long game.’

  Once again, within the space of just a few days, the lack of immediate available contact with anyone in the group annoyed me. I was again on my own, out of my depth, and a man’s life may lie in my hands. However, if I made the wrong move, I was putting my own life in danger, and that of my family.

  That last thought made up my mind for me.

  I calmly walked from my hiding place and away from the scene, getting back up on the Bridges as quickly as possible. Leaving Ian Craig to stew in the Royal Oak, I got on with my original plan; I had to collect Walter Kellermann and get him to safety.

  Using my evasion training to the full, I made it to Kellermann’s B&B by five thirty. I had a second-hand haversack on my back, hoping it would look more normal, less scholarly. “I’ve come to get you out, old boy.” I said when his landlady had gone downstairs. “But we’ve got to get rid of some of your papers; we’re going to look out of place walking with briefcases.”

  We spent half an hour paring his work down to the bare essentials, just enough to fit in the haversack with his new clothes. “We have to burn the rest, I’m afraid.” He said firmly. “They are still quite important.”

  Luckily the house had a coal fire, and Mrs. Denholm seemed nonplussed at a writer burning his work.

  By six I had him outside.

  We took a tram to the terminus, and walked the rest. Thankfully the road was busy, cars coming out of town after work, and we didn’t stick out like the sore-thumbs I’d expected.

  “Professor Kellermann, do you know a man called Ian Craig?”

  He nodded, shifting the load of the haversack on his back. “He’s a good mathematician.”

  Crap. That was all I needed; a load of guilt on my conscience. “So you trust him?”

  “Absolutely. He’s one of Peierls’ pupils, up from Birmingham.”

  “So you’ve known him how long?”

  “A few weeks.”

  I walked for a while in silence, letting Kellermann’s information percolate.

  The Kellermann stopped. “You know, maybe I’m wrong, but I think Craig arrived a week or so after Peierls. Come to think of it, it was always Craig that was asking after Peierls, not the other way around.”

  “Asking after Peierls?” I asked.

  “When the Peierls disappeared, he was asking if we knew where he was. I wasn’t going to tell him that Peierls was just following his penis.”

  So maybe not a bad decision after all to leave him.

  At six fifty, we turned off the sea-side road, down towards Musselburgh’s small harbor. The promenade was easy to find; the road was actually called The Promenade, and we shared the joke as we strolled along the sea front. The tide was out, and the small boats were sitting high on the sandy bottom. I didn’t even see one German guard which I considered strange, being a harbor and all; more information for my reports.

  An obligatory woman with a pram approached, headscarf tied sharply round her face. “Stop and look at the baby.” She said as we neared. She smiled warmly at us, standing back, showing off her sleeping child, its knitted blue hat with a frilly pom-pom on top. “Papers on the pram. Pretend you’re giving me a quid for the baby.”

  Well, you know. It isn’t easy to get your papers out of your wallet, but she had given me the perfect excuse to do so. I placed mine and a pound note, face up. Kellerman just placed his papers, then reached into the pram, touching the baby’s face. “I hope we can give him a safe world to live in.” Kellermann said, his face serine and thoughtful.

  “Okay.” She replied. “Papers back. Walk along the outer path. When you get near the far wall, Mountjoy Terrace, get onto the sand and walk out as far as you can.”

  She smiled and walked away, a pound better off.

  As I continued our walk, I gave a moment to marvel at the complexity of the organization, the extent of the lives it touched, albeit in a minor way.

  We reached the end of the grassy area in five minutes, and climbed down the dunes to the beach. Hard wet sand oozed water as we strolled to the small wavelets of the estuary.

  At last we could go no further. We stood there for ten minutes, and as we inched back towards the shore, we knew the tide was turning.

  I heard the soft putt-putt of an outboard motor, and a small boat came into view from a river inlet to our right. Two men sat low in the bows, huddled together. In a matter of a minute, it became obvious they were making for our position.

  I looked back to the shore; as usual, Biggles was expecting Nazi’s rushing to cut off Kellermann’s escape, but the walk was practically deserted behind us.

  I looked up and down the estuary, but to my surprise I saw no German ships at all. I thought it strange, knowing Rosyth Royal naval base lay just ten miles or so inland.

  From our position on the beach, I could see the rows of Portobello houses in the distance, where we’d walked just a day before, the day Kellermann laid the weight of the world on my shoulder.

  The boat stuttered into neutral, and one of the men got out, splashing through two feet of water to reach us. “Come on, make it snappy!” he barked. “We can’t hang around all day.”

  His neighbor in the boat had a Sten machine gun levelled at us; I recognized the short black barrel.

  To my surprise, Kellermann embraced me, kissing me on both cheeks. “Fight the good fight, sir.” He said, then stalked off, splashing into the water, followed by the barky man. As he pushed the boat off the sand, Kellermann was told to lie down on the floor.

  I watched as, just as surreptitiously as they’d arrived, they spirited Kellermann out of my life. As they turned the boat out to sea, I retraced my steps to the Promenade, then back to the tram terminal, only to find the last tram had already left.

  Wonderful. Man did I have a long walk home.

  The worst thing was? Kellermann had just thanked me, and he didn’t
even know my name. But then I guessed that the war was full of people helping people for no gain whatsoever except a thank-you and a smile. I wondered if dad was doing the same in Palestine, or wherever he was at that moment.

  As I walked the streets of Edinburgh under slowly darkening skies from the obscure and unknown, back into the well-trod, I wondered how long it would be before I was called to help again.

  Unknown to me, I had exactly three hours to wait.

  The Mathematics of Conscience

  “Baird!”

  I spun round, reeling on the pavement, looking out into the darkness. The streetlights were never good around the apartment door; there were way too many trees around for the poor light bulbs to compete against. A figure stood up in the small triangle of waste ground outside. The sparse hedge cut him at mid-thigh.

  “You gotta help me.” He wailed far too loud for the quiet, dark streets. “If you don’t they’re going to get me for sure.”

  “Look, whoever you are.” I brandished my castle key in front of me. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I am not that person. Go away! Bugger off! Leave me alone.”

  “They’re going to kill me…”

  I turned, flipped the latch with the key, and slipped inside the door. I closed it firmly behind me, leaning back on the heavy wood, panting. No one without a castle key could get in. well, I could, but I had ten years of practice with a piece of wire and a pair of pliers. I ran upstairs, let myself into the dark apartment and walked right into my bedroom. Without turning on the light, I crossed to the window and looked out through a gap in the thick curtains.

  In the yellow streetlights it was difficult to see much of anything, but I watched him leave, climbing over the small hedge and walking slowly up Whitehouse Loan. With the line of trees between us, it was difficult to see him all the way, but in the fleeting glimpses I got, his slow pace showed sheer dejection. I grabbed the binoculars, which we always kept handy, and put them quickly in my eyes. Instantly focused, the wide lenses showed his labored gait much clearer. To my surprise, just as he was about to pass out of sight at the first building, he stopped at a car; a German car. An officer emerged, even at that distance I could make out a black leather coat, and the man calling himself Ian Craig stood talking for maybe a minute. They both nodded, then Craig slipped past the Jerry into the back seat. A moment later, the car started up, lights on, drove down Whitehouse Loan, and up the hill towards Morningside.

  Sweating profusely, I slid to the ground, my head against the cool stone wall. I set the binoculars back in their usual position. I’d used them all through my childhood; a perverse habit of people-watching.

  Yet, in my confusion and indecision I knew I had dodged a bullet.

  But it did mean the Germans were suspicious of me; I should have heeded Möller’s warning.

  Möller’s warning.

  I gasped at my realization. I may have misjudged Möller’s relationship with me. If he had indeed tried to warn me, I’d behaved oblivious to it; a good thing. Yet it showed a personalization of our connection, something I’d not seen, me focusing constantly on his jagged abrasive persona. If he had tried to warn me, then he must have been contacted by the Gestapo, or some other agency; he’d risked his position to caution my possible involvement.

  A tap at the door brought me back to the present. Alice leaned in. “Why are you sitting in the dark?” she asked softly.

  I got ungainly to my feet. “Just thinking. Where have you been?”

  “Out and about. You know.” Yes, I did know. If Alice had been involved in another of Ivanhoe/Lilith’s sweeps, then she too had her own story to tell. Not that I’d ever hear it. “How about you?”

  I crossed the room, swept her unprotestingly into my arms. “Out. Doing the same as you probably.”

  For a moment in time our physical bond became the only one we shared, and it became important to wallow in it for a while. Our initial kiss lasted for many minutes, leaving us both breathless. When she began to pull my shirt from my trousers, I made no objection.

  For the first time in our relationship, we made love in the apartment. On the floor, next to my far-too-creaky bed.

  The next morning on our way to work, just one stop down the hill from ours, Lilith got onto our tram. “We have to find Peierls. Huge priority.” She said as she passed us, then sat up the back. She got off at Tollcross, hardly worth the journey.

  “Talk about a day off.” I sneered, resisting the temptation to watch her as she walked away.

  “No rest for the wicked,” Alice pulled my arm closer to her, leaned over my shoulder until her lips were at my ear. “I do feel sort of wicked after last night.” She giggled.

  “Where do we start?” I asked once we had gained the security of our office.

  We pieced the meagre facts together.

  And we soon found we didn’t have much to go on; Rudolf Peierls was thirty something, and in Edinburgh on some kind of loan program from Birmingham University. He was involved with a bar waitress somewhere near the King’s Buildings, and had gone to ground so well; no one knew where he was.

  “Hardly a sausage.” I leaned back precariously on my chair.

  “Maybe he’s a Jew.” Alice said. “It seems that many fled Hitler’s Germany. Now they’re fleeing again. Maybe we could catch him at the synagogue?”

  “If he’s fully gone to ground, he’d be stupid to raise his head.”

  We started with a map of the area, and marked the bars. In a half mile radius of the University, there were over twenty. That afternoon, we visited six. It was frustrating; we wanted to just be bold and ask the obvious questions, but of course, we’d be seen as German spies, and shunned before we’d begun.

  At the third, Alice started a new slant. “Are you looking for any bar staff?” She was met with a shake of the head.

  In bar number lucky seven, she was taken on. Seems the regular girl had just given up, and they had an opening. Could she start right away? Damn straight. I sat in a corner watching her flirt with the clientele, and dodge their wandering hands; difficult being a bar-girls boyfriend.

  At the end of the day, she had ten bob in tips, three names and addresses of possible romantic meetings in the future, but no idea of any man named Peierls.

  So next day, we got our stories done smartish, and got back on the barmaid job front.

  The second bar we hit, the Red Crown, decided to give Alice a try. She started work at three, and by six walked out with a huge smile on her face. Not only had she got the job, she had a direct line on our missing scientist.

  25 Orchardhead Road.

  The house was in a quiet neighborhood, but to observe the house, we needed a car or somewhere to hide. The streets were so empty, if we’d just stood outside, we’d be spotted in seconds.

  “The house opposite,” Alice said, immediately swinging the small gate open. “Come on, round the back.”

  Out of sight, we knocked on the back door, and waited. Then we knocked again, louder this time. Still nothing. I looked around; apart from the house behind us on the next street, we were secluded.

  I picked up a half-brick, wrapped it in my jacket and put it through the back door window.

  Wonderful; we were housebreakers.

  Once inside we did a quick search of the rooms, no one was at home. All we had to do now was watch the house opposite.

  Talk about boring. We took half hour shifts, eyes never leaving the house. And in four hours of surveillance we got absolutely nothing.

  Except the policeman suddenly standing in the bedroom doorway. It seems we’d been a little premature calling the house deserted. “What’s going on here then?”

  “It’s not what it looks like, officer…” I began, but I’m afraid my old influences broke me, I just shut up. ‘Never talk back to a policeman’, mum always said.

  A rather frightened woman stood behind him, obviously the householder.

  “Mrs. Partridge reported a burglary, sonny. Get your ID cards out.”<
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  Yup the sonny card. And my mouth went instantly dry, my throat constricted.

  “Officer, I can explain,” Alice stood up from the window. “Take over please, Number One.” She directed me to the spot, and despite the theatrics behind me, I did watch number 25. “Can I have a word in private, officer. ‘Need to know’ etc.”

  “Oh, of course. I’ll take care of this, Mrs. Partridge. If you’d be so good as to wait downstairs, there’s a good girl.”

  Alice waited for the footfalls to diminish. “You’re wearing a swastika on your arm, officer. Are you a patriot? A British patriot?”

  I could hear him gasp. “Long live the King.” He said softly. “I can’t help the armband, love. I have to make a living same as anyone else.”

  “Well, we’re here watching a girl in the house opposite.” Good job I was looking out of the window, the policeman would have seen my gaping mouth. “The Germans want her for questioning, but so do we.”

  “Eh, missy, who exactly is ‘we’?”

  “Need to know.” I could visualize Alice tapping the side of her cute upturned nose.

  “Of course. I don’t suppose I’m going to see those ID cards either, am I?”

  “Not on your nelly.” Alice said.

  I gave a grin; the poor guy didn’t know what shoe to tie first anymore.

  And damn it if the front door opposite didn’t open. For a second I didn’t want to say, then realized saying nothing would be the worst thing to do. “There’s movement.”

  The three of us crowded behind Mrs. Partridge’s lace curtains, watching the young lady kiss her sweetheart goodbye.

  “What’s she done?” The policeman asked.

  “Embezzling funds from her job. She works at the German Headquarters, the new one in George Heriot’s buildings.” Alice wove the story like a novelist. “We’re here to whisk her away, get her out of Edinburgh.”

  The woman walked up the short path, and blowing kisses at the man in the doorway, she walked off down the hill. I didn’t know what to do, so I played dumb. “What now?”