Frankie's Letter - By Dolores Gordon-Smith Page 0,3

he forced himself to radiate calm. ‘Remember how happy we were when we knew Lottie was going to get better?’

‘Yes, yes. I remember. You saved her, my precious Lottie.’ She covered her face with her hands. ‘What shall I do? Tell me, what shall I do?’

‘Listen to me,’ said Anthony, his voice deliberately gentle. ‘I have to leave, mein liebe Frau.’ He could hear the tread of feet on the stairs. ‘I need to escape, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘And I need you to help me, yes?’ Perhaps the best way was to take her cooperation for granted. ‘I’m grateful to you. Just as you were grateful for Lottie’s sake.’

‘For Lottie’s sake. Yes.’

He put his finger to his lips. ‘Stay there.’

He swiftly went into the bedroom and opened the window as quietly as he could. With any luck the soldiers would think he’d escaped that way. Then, taking a wad of money from the desk and breathing a silent farewell to Cavanaugh, he returned to Frau Kappelhoff. She was still rigid, her back pressed against the door. The steps on the stairs were, as far as he could judge, at the far end of the corridor. The soldiers knocked at Herr Lehmann’s door. Anthony waited, ears straining, for the noises that would tell him they’d gone into Herr Lehmann’s room. There!

‘Frau Kappelhoff, my friend is in my bedroom. He’s dead.’

Anthony immediately realized that was too harsh. She looked as if she might cry out and with every moment precious, forced himself to speak softly. He took five hundred marks and put them on the table. ‘This is to give my friend a decent burial. Please, as the good Christian woman you are, do this for me.’

The word ‘Christian’ reassured her as he’d hoped, countering the idea that the English were all godless monsters. He gently moved her to one side and opened the door a crack. The corridor was clear. He could hear an argument in Herr Lehmann’s room. Lehmann was elderly and deaf. It wouldn’t take them long to work out he had nothing to hide. This was his only chance.

‘You haven’t seen me. Remember you haven’t seen me and no harm will come to you or Lottie. I wasn’t in my room.’ She nodded, her eyes fixed on his face. ‘Give me a few minutes, then scream as loudly as you can. They won’t harm you if you haven’t seen me.’

She swallowed. ‘But . . .’

‘For Lottie’s sake you mustn’t come to harm. You haven’t seen me.’

Leaving Frau Kappelhoff in his room, Anthony slipped out into the corridor and along to the attic. Of all the ways he’d worked out to escape from the house – and that was one of the first things he’d done – this was far and away his least favourite, but it couldn’t be helped. He made the safety of the attic staircase and closed the door behind him as the noise of the soldiers’ voices increased. They’d finished with Herr Lehmann.

Up the attic stairs, avoiding the creaking boards in the middle, over the dusty floorboards to the window, fumble with the catch . . .

An ear-splitting scream rang out. Frau Kappelhoff had found Cavanaugh’s body. There wasn’t any suggestion she was acting. A tirade of sobs followed the scream. No, he thought, the poor woman certainly wasn’t putting that on.

He took off his socks and shoes, stuffed his socks into his pocket and, hanging the shoes round his neck by their laces, scrambled through the tiny window onto the tiles. He could hear Frau Kappelhoff’s sobs and the men’s exclamations as they discovered Cavanaugh. He was past all harm, poor devil and, with luck, they should be occupied for the next few minutes.

The rain smacked down in a dreary drizzle. Putting his fears under stiff, if brittle, control, Anthony held onto the window frame, closed the window behind him, and set out to climb the roof.

The window stuck out onto the roof in the shape of a little house. He edged himself round by holding onto the gutter, his bare feet finding a tenuous grip on the wet tiles.

Frau Kappelhoff’s house was the last in a row of terraces. The roofs faced the street in a line of inverted V’s, like a series of miniature forty-five degree hills. He needed to get over the crest of Frau Kappelhoff’s roof to the other side. He sat astride the top of the window, judging the distance. It wasn’t very far, but the street yawned below and Anthony hated