Frankie's Letter - By Dolores Gordon-Smith Page 0,82

back to Anthony. ‘This is too big a decision for me to take alone.’

Anthony knocked softly at the door of 17, Nightingale Street, Marriotvale. A nightingale had never sung here. Nightingale Street was a smoke-blackened terrace among a series of smoke-blackened terraces, hunched against the looming factory wall of the Marriotvale Munitions Company.

Nightingale Street probably referred to the Crimea War, he thought, turning his collar up against the chill of the early morning. The date was about right. He felt nothing but sympathy for people who were forced to live in these jerry-built, two-up and two-down filthy slums.

He had been touched by the sight of a little street shrine, at the corner of the road. A jam jar of wilting flowers stood in front of a handwritten notice listing the names of dead soldiers from the surrounding streets. Marriotvale had very little to give, but it had been given.

He glanced at his watch and knocked once more. This time there was a sound of movement in the house, a few muffled swear-words and, after a short interval, the creak of a window being raised. Anthony looked up as an unshaven jowly face peered down at him.

‘What time do you call this?’ the man called in a carrying whisper. By his voice, he was from Belfast.

‘Five o’clock,’ answered Anthony in the precise tones of a German speaker. ‘I have a message from James Smith.’

‘Christ, I thought you were never coming. Wait there.’

The window was pulled down and, a few moments later, came the noise of feet on the stairs.

Anthony braced himself. He had an hour before the evacuation began. That was the scheme worked out with the Home Secretary and the Chief Commissioner of Scotland Yard. The Home Secretary had wanted to evacuate Marriotvale right away, but the Chief Commissioner was keen to give Anthony a chance. It would take, he argued, at least that amount of time to have enough men in the right place and, while they were being assembled, Anthony might as well try to bluff the bombers.

The door opened a crack. ‘Come in.’

Anthony stepped into the front room of the house. It was, predictably, dark, squalid and very dirty. A ragged curtain was pinned across the window and the furniture was a collection of packing cases.

The jowly man, who was barefooted and dressed in a long-sleeved vest tucked into serge trousers, took him into the kitchen, the only other downstairs room, where there was a table and two chairs. Here, with no curtain, there was daylight from the kitchen window which gave onto a tiny yard at the side of the house. The back wall of the yard was the factory wall.

‘My name’s Joseph,’ said the man. ‘My God, you’re an early bird. Sit down, why don’t you?’

Anthony gave a fastidious shudder that wasn’t entirely assumed. ‘Thank you, no. I will stand.’

Joseph laughed. ‘You bloody Germans. You’re all the same. You are German, aren’t you?’

‘Yes, that is so. I arrived on the U-boat last night. My English name is Robert Jones. James Smith had business in Germany.’

There was a clatter of feet on the stairs and another man, dressed in workman’s clothes of heavy cloth, came into the kitchen. He looked, thought Anthony, a cut above Joseph. ‘This is Kevin,’ said Joseph. ‘He’s in charge here. Kevin, this is Mr Robert Jones, as he wants to be called. He came on the boat last night.’

‘So I heard,’ said Kevin. He had an educated voice and a thin, ascetic face. ‘Well, Mr Jones? Has Berlin agreed at long last?’

‘Do we get the money?’ asked Joseph.

‘You will get a credit note for six thousand pounds to be spent on arms in Germany,’ said Anthony. ‘I trust you are aware of the generosity of the government in providing such a sum.’ Kevin and Joseph looked at each other with a quick nod of approval. ‘However, today’s scheme will not be carried out.’

Joseph, who had been rolling a cigarette, looked at him in consternation. ‘Why the hell not? We can get the King! D’you not realize that? Why, Veronica herself came up with the plan.’ With a shock Anthony realized he meant Veronica O’Bryan. ‘She worked out how we could do it. We’ve been planning this for months.’

‘It’s the Kaiser, isn’t it?’ said Kevin bitterly. ‘He doesn’t want to kill his cousin.’

Anthony nodded.

‘But his cousin is the King,’ said Joseph. ‘Doesn’t he see? The King is the heart of England. We kill him and we’ll strike a blow they’ll never recover