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CHAPTER
14
People were standing around in huddles, dazed and shocked. Some were weeping with fright, others with grief. Many were trying to get away from the scene, back to their homes, or anywhere but here, but the streets were blocked off all around the square.
Elena walked up to two Brownshirts and found her mouth suddenly so dry she could hardly speak.
One of the men blocked her path, holding his gun across his body, but ready to swing around and aim point-blank at her. “Name?” he demanded.
“Elena Standish,” she replied, stammering over her surname as if she were unfamiliar with it.
He looked at her more closely. “Where are you going?”
“To my hotel.” She decided to be honest. She must not look as if she had something to hide. “I was in the square. It was…terrible.”
“Hotel? Why are you staying in a hotel? Where do you live?” His eyes narrowed and he peered at her more closely. He looked almost as frightened as she was. Perhaps he was going to be blamed because Scharnhorst was dead.
She must give him an answer that, if he bothered to check, could never be disproved. “I came…” She swallowed. She must stop shaking. It would make him suspect her of being afraid, which in his mind might equate with guilt. She started again. “I am here to visit the city. It’s still beautiful. I know how hard things have been, I wanted to listen to Herr Scharnhorst speak. He talked of hope, and purpose…” Would the words choke her? They ought to! But they would give the Brownshirt a reason for her being so shaken.
“What did you see?” he asked, still standing in her way.
“I was watching him.” She took a deep breath. “Listening to what he said. Everyone was. Then suddenly there was a sharp sound…a crack…and he fell forward, as if he’d been…struck.” She looked at him, straight into his eyes, and tried to convince him she was grief-stricken. She told herself it had been Churchill who’d been killed, whom Lucas admired so much. “I can…hardly believe it. Just…seconds…and everything changed…” She did it well, the distress choking in her throat with the effort not to weep.
“Yes,” the Brownshirt agreed. “Changed. Go back to your hotel and stay there. Right?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you.” She was overwhelmed with relief, but she waited, holding her breath while he stepped back and allowed her to pass. Why did she feel afraid? She had done nothing wrong. In fact, she had done everything she could to prevent Scharnhorst’s death.
Would she have done so if she had actually heard him speak first? It would have been harder. He was everything she not only loathed but feared. She could easily imagine hundreds of people who would secretly rejoice at his death. No, tens of thousands. Germany had had a bitterly hard time, but she believed that most people were basically decent, wanting only to live safely and with enough to eat and a roof over their heads, work to do and hope for the future. Like anybody else.
As she walked quickly along the street, looking forward all the time, she remembered what it had been like in Berlin when her father was with the embassy. She had had German friends, lots of them.
Many of them must still be in Berlin. But how had they fared in the years between then and now? A decade could make all the difference imaginable. When you were hungry, in pain, afraid of every new day, it was an eternity. What jobs could men and returned soldiers find to do in a ruined economy? And the women. Some of them would marry, many would not, because they couldn’t. As in England, the men they had loved were dead, or were shells of what they had been, and needed care more than the women. How do you live with a man who is crippled with shame because he cannot keep a roof over his family’s head, or enough fuel to take the edge off the coldness? How do you answer your children when they plead for food, and you have nothing to give them?
She was still a couple of blocks from the hotel. She kept her head down, watching where she was going.
She almost walked past the hotel, and only stopped when she saw the doorman helping someone with luggage.
She nodded to him and went inside, glad to be there at last. She had kept her key, and had no need to stop at the desk to ask for it. She went to the elevator and had only a moment to wait.
Entering her room, she saw that the bed had been made and everything was tidy. She put her bag and camera down and washed her hands and face, brushed her hair, then thought she would change into the other dress she had bought. It was a little lighter, and the day was very warm.
She went to the wardrobe and opened the door. The other dress was hanging where she had put it, but there was something else, propped up in the corner at the back, like a broom handle. She had not noticed it before. She leaned forward and took hold of it. It was metal. She closed her grip around it and found it was heavy at the lower end. She pulled, and suddenly, with a tide of horror inside her, she knew what it was: a rifle!
She looked at it more closely. It was unusual. Not an ordinary army rifle. No bayonet, or place to fix one, but sights so the shooter could be absolutely accurate, even at a distance. A sniper’s rifle. And the smell of it meant it had been recently fired.
She stood transfixed with horror. Ian had been right! They were going to blame British Intelligence for it. Him! They had been going to blame Ian himself! This was the hotel he had been going to stay in, the room whose number he had given her. They had intended that he should come back and be caught with the weapon practically in his hands, still smelling of the shot fired.
Which must mean that whoever was going to find and arrest him, or perhaps shoot him right here, would be coming now for her. Why not? A woman could fire a rifle as well as a man. It was a distant kind of kill, not needing any strength, nor really much courage. After all, believing you could escape made it easy.
She put the rifle down as if it had burned her. Her fingerprints would be on it now, even if on the barrel, not the trigger. Still, it would prove she had touched it, and therefore knew it was there.
She must wipe them off, now! And then leave. They would be coming any minute. What could she use? What removed fingerprints from metal? There was a soft towel in the bathroom. They might know that it had been wiped, but they could have no way of knowing by whom. Except, of course, that it was she who had occupied the room.
She ran into the bathroom and seized the hand towel. It was old and well worn. Ideal. She took it straight back to the bedroom and wiped the barrel of the rifle where she had picked it up. She rubbed it hard, then when she was satisfied, covered her hand with the towel to put the rifle back in the wardrobe, hanging the dress she had worn in front of it, then washing out the towel.
She heard footsteps in the passageway outside the door. Could they be here already? Stupid question! Of course they could! She had walked back from the square. They could certainly walk as quickly, at least.
She glanced at the window. She was three stories up. She crossed the room and stared out, her heart beating so wildly her breath caught in her throat. She could hardly hope to climb down the drainpipe, even if it hadn’t been yards away. She had never been quite that athletic, nor had any need whatsoever to be. She was a rebel in many ways, but that all had to do with the mind. If she tried anything rash, she would not only run a serious risk of breaking her neck, but she would confirm her guilt. What sane and innocent woman climbs out of a third-floor hotel room because someone knocks on her door?
