My Name is Eva An absolutely gripping and emotional historical novel - Suzanne Goldring Page 0,38

you here again soon. Maybe we could have lunch first next time?’

‘It would be a pleasure,’ he said, patting his coat pocket and then fumbling inside his jacket to produce a card. ‘You can get me on this number. I’m planning to come back for the Bach on the seventeenth.’

‘I’ll make a point of being here,’ Evelyn said.

And he turned on his heel with a military air and almost saluted as he left.

She waited for a couple of minutes, slipping into her raincoat to change her appearance, then followed. Another hour of music would have been lovely, but this was more important. He walked briskly, but she kept up, halting at corners, hovering at pedestrian crossings, watching his reflection in windows, taking refuge in crowds. She’d always been good at tailing her mark. Top of the class during her training.

He clearly didn’t suspect he was being followed. Not once did he dodge into a shop, slip into the Underground and out again, browse in a bookshop, look back over his shoulder or do anything to suggest he knew she was following him. Finally he came to a mansion block overlooking a garden square and disappeared into the main entrance. Evelyn checked the card he had given her. It tallied. This was indeed his home address. Reassured, she allowed herself the luxury of hailing a taxi to Waterloo, knowing that if she was never able to tempt him away from London, she at least now knew where he lived.

29

Evelyn, 21 March 1985

Slowly, Slowly, Catchee

After her meeting with Stephen Robinson, Evelyn checked the forthcoming programme of concerts at St John’s. She wanted to be sure she could attend the Bach performance if he was going to be there. It was a month away; plenty of time to prepare.

Ever since she had finally inherited the Kingsley Manor estate, Evelyn had enjoyed assuming control of the house and gardens. And since her retirement from what she always told everyone was a dull section of the Civil Service five years previously, she had enjoyed it even more. Mama’s choice of stiff and garish bedding plants, reminiscent of public parks, had gone, usurped by spires of lush delphiniums and full-blown scented peonies; the drab brocade hangings in the library and dining room replaced by the sheen of bright velvets and glowing florals. And when local friends from the Garden Club, the Conservative Association or the Women’s Institute asked if she missed going to work, she always replied, ‘Oh, not a bit! I never did anything very interesting or useful there. I mostly did the filing.’ She never mentioned the agent reports or the steaming kettle that deciphered incoming messages in the diplomatic bags.

But now she was going to do something really useful; something beneficial, if she could think about the details carefully. Colonel Stephen Robinson had been responsible not only for the deaths of Hugh and his brothers in arms, but also for selecting the location for the interrogation centre and for its mode of operation. He was not the only one who was guilty of misconduct at Bad Nenndorf, but he and he alone had been instrumental in directing and encouraging the inhuman methods employed there. And he was the one who took pride and pleasure in the administration of abuse. Not for nothing was it known as the Forbidden Village.

I won’t phone him, she thought, looking at the card he had given her. I must be sure my next move buys his trust. The card was slightly scuffed and dog-eared; he obviously didn’t have much need for calling cards any more. It bore the London address of the mansion block near the river to where she’d followed him; probably a place he’d had all the time he was posted abroad. Not a safe house exactly, but somewhere he could scuttle back to hide and gloat after whatever distasteful mission he had been deployed on. She knew what those places were like. The carpeted stairs and creaking lifts with iron grilles, the smell of Pledge polish and Brasso. An on-site caretaker to add to the security of the entry system and the locked mailboxes. The furnishings were always plain and no more personal than a third-rate seaside hotel. It almost made her pity him, as she glanced at the glowing patina of her Georgian sideboard and polished dining table.

And she could guess how miserably reduced his life was now that he was retired, how insignificant he now felt, as her investigations showed no sign of