Page 32 of V2

‘That’s true!’ He smiled at her – the first proper smile he had given that evening. It changed his face entirely. He was not as old as he first appeared, she realised.

On the desk were a few family photographs in silver frames, dating back to the last century: prosperous, solid citizens in fine clothes. In one, two boys posed on a beach, holding a football. She picked it up. The older she recognised at once by his thick dark hair as Arnaud. He looked about eighteen. His companion was a couple of years younger. The resemblance between the two was striking; even their expressions, squinting into the sun, were the same.

‘You have another son?’

She regretted her curiosity at once. His smile disappeared. He took the photograph from her. ‘That is Guillaume. He was killed in the war.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Thank you.’ He laid the photograph face down on the desk and gestured to the door. ‘Shall we?’

She followed his stooping back up the stairs to the first-floor landing. A second, smaller staircase led into the upper reaches of the house, but instead of climbing further, he led her along a gloomy passage. At the far end he opened a door and turned on an overhead light. The room was large and bare, with a rug, a brass bedstead, a nightstand, a plain chest of drawers, a simple wooden chair and escritoire, and a wardrobe. A pair of heavy velvet curtains, similar to those in the study, were drawn across the window. A crucifix hung above the bed. The pink tasselled lampshade provided a weak light. It felt as if the room had not been used, or even visited, for years.

‘The bathroom is there.’ Vermeulen set down the case and pointed across the passage. ‘I am sorry: there is no hot water. But Amandine can heat a kettle in the kitchen if you like.’

‘Really, there is no need. I am very sorry to put you to this trouble.’

He hesitated and managed a brief smile. ‘Alors – bonne nuit.’

‘Goodnight. Thank you.’

She listened to his slippers shuffling away, along the passage and down the stairs. She closed the door and surveyed the room. It was dry, at least, unlike the hut at Danesfield House, and it was private, but she would have given a lot at that moment to be back in England with the others, gossiping after their shift. A stupid thought! She shook her head to clear it. She could forgive herself any sin except self-pity. She lifted her case up onto the bed, opened it, and began unpacking, transferring her spare uniform to the chest of drawers and wardrobe. She laid out her white cotton nightdress on the counterpane. The slide rule and logarithm tables she placed on the escritoire. She had brought no civilian clothes, no book or photograph to remind her of home. She wound up her travel clock and set the alarm for six thirty, then parted the curtains and cupped her hands to the window. She could make out nothing in the blackness.

She sat at the desk and opened the book of logarithms. Flight Officer Sitwell had given them a list of equations (‘Homework, ladies’) to practise on when they were off duty, and for half an hour she worked conscientiously with her slide rule until her eyes were too tired to focus on the tiny markings. A church bell sounded in the distance. She counted the chimes. Nine o’clock.

She removed her cap and unpinned her hair, took off her jacket and hung it up. She carried her sponge bag across the hall to the bathroom, searched among her make-up for a bar of soap, then rolled up her sleeves and washed her hands and face, wiping them on the small, thin towel, which at home they would have used to dry dishes. She brushed her teeth.

Back in her room, she took off her tie, shirt and skirt, removed her shoes, and unrolled her thick stockings. Her skin puckered into gooseflesh in the cold. She unclipped her suspender belt. As she reached behind her to unhook her bra, she paused, remembering the way Arnaud had kissed her hand and eyed her up when he thought she wasn’t looking. Should she keep her underclothes on, or even prop the chair against the door? She dismissed her fears at once. He had obviously been badly injured somehow. She could handle him. She took off her bra and the hideous WAAF-issue knickers, elasticated at the waist and legs, nicknamed Passion Killers, the sight of which had always made Mike groan. She wished very much he was with her now, lying in bed, watching her, waiting for her. She shook her head again. No point in thinking about him any more. She pulled the nightdress over her head, turned down the covers and piled the two thin pillows on top of one another. Then she went to the door, switched off the light and darted across the room into bed.

The unaired sheets smelled damp, like an old raincoat. She drew the blanket up to her chin. The ancient house was quiet. She could hear nothing, see nothing. Her head was a merry-go-round of algebraic calculations. She worried they would keep her awake. But within two minutes she was asleep. In her dreams, a rocket, at the tip of a spreading white plume of numbers and symbols, rose far in the distance against a pale blue sky.

11

‘CHECK,’ SAID SEIDEL.

He lifted his fingers from his knight and sat back in his chair with a smile of satisfaction. Graf leaned over the table to inspect the board. His legs were wide apart, his forearms rested just above his knees. His fingertips tapped nervously against one another. ‘So, what do we have here?’ Normally he was the victor in these regular contests, but tonight his mind was not fully engaged and he had allowed his position to deteriorate. His queen was gone. His king, with its little band of weak protectors, was besieged by Seidel’s rooks and knights.

‘Do you concede?’ asked Seidel.

‘Not at all.’ Seidel was offering his knight to be taken by white’s king, but the sacrifice would give him checkmate in three moves. ‘There is always hope.’ Graf moved his king behind the line of pawns.

‘You do know you’re only prolonging the agony?’ But when the lieutenant leaned over the board again, he folded his arms and frowned, worried he might have missed something.

Graf settled back. The officers’ mess was on the first floor of the Hotel Schmitt, in a small lounge that faced towards the promenade. The sea was invisible but noisy in the darkness beyond the drawn curtains. The atmosphere was sombre. Some evenings Colonel Huber would play the piano – ‘The Gendarmes’ Duet’ or a selection from The Merry Widow were his stalwarts – but tonight he was sitting quietly with Lieutenant Klein and a couple of other officers. The gramophone was silent and untouched. The chair by the window where Lieutenant Stock liked to read his westerns had been left empty as a mark of respect. In the corner, Obersturmbannführer Drexler, smoking a cigar, was entertaining a pair of SS men who had driven over from their headquarters in The Hague. Sturmscharführer Biwack was with them. Occasionally he would glance over in Graf’s direction. At the post-mortem into the accident that afternoon, he had demanded to know why Graf wasn’t at the launch site when the missile exploded.

‘Why? Would you have preferred it if I was incinerated?’

‘Of course not. I merely wonder why an SS patrol reported that at the time of the accident you were in the restricted zone beside the sea some distance away.’

‘Obviously, I was signalling to a British submarine.’

When Seidel had tried unsuccessfully to suppress a snort of laughter, Biwack had rounded on him. ‘There’s nothing funny about this, Lieutenant!’

‘I’m aware of that. Stock was a friend of mine. I require no lectures from you.’

‘Leave it, gentlemen,’ ordered Huber. He explained to Biwack: ‘Dr Graf has been sent by Peenemünde as a technical liaison officer, because of the number of modifications to the missile. He is not required to attend every launch – it would be physically impossible.’

‘I’m not suggesting Dr Graf was responsible, merely that if he had been present, he might have noticed a fault in the missile. Plainly there was a fault, was there not? Is it possible there could have been sabotage?’