Part 20 (2/2)

'I am sorry, Oberst. I had no idea this raid was going to happen.'

'No, Doktor, I'm sure that you didn't,' Steinmann said softly. The n.a.z.i pointed at Chris, who prepared for the worst, but Steinmann simply asked, 'I take it this man is not really one of my officers?' The remark baffled Chris until he remembered that he was still wearing a n.a.z.i uniform.

The Doctor grinned. 'This is Christopher Cwej, a friend of mine.'

'The policeman,' Steinmann said pleasantly, offering his hand. Chris found himself shaking it.

The SID staff car raced through the fog towards Paddington station.

'So what do we know?' Roz asked. George only had one telephone, in the front room. Just before seven o'clock it had rung, waking them. When George returned to the bedroom, all he said was that they were needed at Paddington and that a staff car was on the way. They'd dressed and left the flat quickly.

'The transport police picked up a man half an hour ago.

Scotland Yard were trailing a known German agent, a woman, on behalf of MI5. They've known about her for six months, but they didn't pick her up because we've always thought that she could lead us to bigger fish.'

'Von Wer?' Roz suggested, hesitantly.

'Well, Five don't know about von Wer,' Reed grinned.

'But they might just have arrested him.'

'So the arrested man made contact with the known spy?'

'Yes. They met and they exchanged a code phrase on one of the platforms of Paddington tube station. Neither of them realized that we had been following the woman. Both were arrested. His ident.i.ty papers were forged.'

Roz nodded. It was straightforward enough. It didn't sound like the Doctor, either.

'Did the admiral mention the Granville raid?' Roz asked.

'He said it was too early to tell. Bomber Command claim one hundred per cent success, but they always do. If it's as foggy as this in Granville, we won't have got any aerial photographs this morning.' Reed was still sullen. When Kendrick had announced the decision to bombard Granville, George had been shocked. Walking back to his flat together afterwards, Roz had found that she was the one defending the decision. Even though there hadn't been an air-raid on London last night, they had been in no mood to go out on the town. They had sat together silently in George's front room.

When she looked into his eyes, she could see raw feelings, the same emotions she felt herself: rage, frustration, a sense of injustice. One of the beliefs they held most dear had been betrayed by a superior officer. Roz had been through all this before. Reed hadn't. They had needed to do something positive together, something pa.s.sionate and life-affirming.

But now it was twelve hours later. Thousands of French civilians had died last night, business in London continued as normal.

The car threw itself round Marble Arch. They were ten, perhaps fifteen, minutes away.

Professor Summerfield was in front of Kitzel, the cutlery knife concealed up her left sleeve.

The young nurse struggled to remain calm. It was still very early in the morning, and there was no one around yet.

She had already judged that escape would be impossible.

'How far is it to the morgue?' Summerfield demanded.

'It is the next door down,' Kitzel said quietly. Summerfield seemed at home in these featureless corridors. There was a spring in the older woman's step again, even though, as far as Kitzel understood, she now thought that one of her friends was dead. Perversely, the archaeologist seemed almost relaxed.

Summerfield glanced up at the sign. ”LEICHENHAUS”.

The morgue?' Kitzel nodded. Summerfield pushed down the handle and stepped inside, holding open the door for Kitzel to follow.

The morgue was cool and brightly lit. Kitzel had never been in here before, but it was almost exactly the same as the morgue in the Cologne sanitorium where she had done her training. An autopsy table in the middle of the room, cold storage drawers on one wall, a basin and a row of lockers on another. The attendant, a little bespectacled man in his forties, stood as they came in.

'You've brought this one in prematurely, nurse. You want me to arrange something?' He leered at her. The young nurse recoiled. She had heard stories about this nasty little man, and she believed them.

'Bolt the door, Kitzel,' Summerfield ordered. Kitzel did as she asked. The attendant was suddenly worried.

'Who are you?'

'I'm the Professor, and this is my friend Kitzel,' Bernice announced.

'What's going on here?' He looked from Summerfield to Kitzel.

'Liberation,' said Summerfield simply.

There was a flash in the morgue attendant's hand, a lightning-swift response from Summerfield: a slas.h.i.+ng motion, a yelp of pain and a clatter as something fell to the floor. The attendant clutched his wrist. Then Summerfield was poised on tiptoes, her knife in hand.

'In case you missed that, Kitzel,' Summerfield was explaining, 'he tried to pull a scalpel on me and I cut open his wrist. Hold this.' She tossed Kitzel the knife. Before the nurse could react, Summerfield had grasped the back of the terrified attendant's head and brought it down hard on the edge of the autopsy table. His legs buckled and he fell against the tiled floor. Kitzel felt the weight of the knife in her hand, and decided to lay it down.

'Is he dead?' Kitzel winced.

'Well, he's come to the right place if he is,' Summerfield said dismissively. Kitzel bent over. The attendant was still breathing. The nurse made him comfortable, examined his cut wrist and then glanced up at Summerfield, who was opening up one of the large army lockers. She dug around in the contents for a moment then pulled out a shapeless dark blue piece of cloth.

'It's my coat,' Summerfield explained, dusting off some of the dried mud. As she was doing that, something else in the locker caught her eye and she glanced back. Summerfield swallowed, and reached inside, pulling out a long black umbrella. Its handle was red bakelite, shaped to resemble a fragezeichen fragezeichen.

Summerfield was examining something sewn to the material. 'It's a little name-tag. It says ”This is the property of Doctor - ” - I can't read the name, it's covered by a patch of oil - ”if lost please return to Portland Street Library, Paddington, London”.'

'This is your friend's umbrella?'

'Yup,' said Summerfield absentmindedly, as she flicked through a set of notes on the clipboard. 'There are only two bodies here. Drawer 3 and Drawer 7. It doesn't say what date they arrived, it only says ”March”. One of them might be the Doctor. You'll have to help me.'

Summerfield moved over to Drawer 3, and tried to pull it open. Kitzel joined her. The drawer still wouldn't budge. They tried again, and Summerfield grunted some curse. Kitzel tapped the keyhole.

'There's a lock,' she said lightly. They caught each other's eye and smiled. Kitzel regained her composure as she realized what she was doing, but this only made Summerfield chuckle again. The older woman had already found the key on the floor by the attendant, and was slotting it into the lock. This time the drawer opened without resistance, sliding out and locking rigidly into place.

The body was that of a boy, about Kitzel's own age.

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