V2 A Novel of World War II - Robert Harris Page 0,106

that?’

‘Thirty metres. It had to be high. We stored the rockets upright.’

‘In the centre of the test stand there’s a channel of some sort …’

‘The duct for the exhaust gases. Seven metres wide.’

After ten minutes, she slid another pair of images across the desk towards him. ‘Perhaps we could move on to these.’

They worked for more than an hour, picture after picture. At first he was curious, then nostalgic, and finally haunted. His life was laid out before him as it had been at the point when he could last call himself truly happy. Everything was in perfect perspective. There was the propulsion laboratory, where he worked with Thiel. There was the wind tunnel. There was his apartment block. There was the launch site. There was the old hotel where Karin lived, and the beach where he swam that last evening.

He sat back and rubbed his eyes.

‘Are you getting tired?’ asked the young Englishwoman. ‘Do you want to take a break?’

‘When exactly were these taken?’

She picked up one of the photographs and turned it over. ‘The twenty-first of June 1943. Two o’clock in the afternoon.’

She passed it across to him. He held it to the light. ‘I remember seeing a plane that June – its contrail, anyway – flying very high. Maybe it was the one that took this picture.’

‘It could have been. There were actually three reconnaissance sorties over Peenemünde that week.’

‘This was so that you could bomb us?’

‘It was. Were you there?’

He nodded. ‘If you could magnify this photograph sufficiently, you would be able to find me just here.’ He tapped it. ‘On the road out of the Experimental Works compound, on the edge of the woods, looking up at the sky.’ He returned the photograph, sat back and studied her. She was pretty, with her auburn hair and blue uniform. His recording angel. ‘This was your job, was it? Watching us?’

‘One of my jobs, yes. First in photographic analysis, then in radar.’

‘Radar?’ That caught his attention. ‘Were you one of the women in Mechelen?’

She was not sure how to answer him, or even if she should answer him.

She said briskly, ‘I think we’ve finished now, thank you. You’ve been a great help.’

She began gathering up the photographs. She was conscious of him watching her.

He said casually, ‘I once fired a rocket at Mechelen.’

‘Did you really? You missed me, I’m afraid.’

‘And you missed me, when you bombed Peenemünde.’

‘Well, that’s good for both of us.’ She laughed and shook her head. ‘This is an absurd conversation.’

He helped her collect up the photographs. ‘It was a very clever idea, to try to calculate the curve. We never thought of it. But of course it was quite pointless.’

‘I think you’ll find it wasn’t. I was in Mechelen until the end of March. We destroyed a number of launch sites.’

‘No. I’m sorry to have to tell you, but you never destroyed one.’

He gave her the photographs. She stared at him, searching his eyes to see if he was lying, but it was obvious he was telling the truth. The Germans had gone on firing V2s at London from the Dutch coast until six weeks before the end of the war. The last one had killed 140 people in Whitechapel. So of course she had known they had not hit all the launchers. But not one?

There was a knock and the flight lieutenant put his head around the door. ‘The others are leaving now.’

‘Thank you. I’m afraid we’ve run out of time, Dr Graf.’ She was surprised by how sorry she felt suddenly to see him go. There was so much more she would have liked to ask him. She put out her hand. ‘Well, then. Goodbye.’

He took it, smiled, looked at her, into her, through her. ‘Auf Wiedersehen.’

At the door, he turned. ‘We were both misled,’ he said.

He walked thoughtfully along the corridor and down the stairs. Von Braun was in front, talking with the air commodore, making a joke. His broad shoulders heaved with laughter at his own good humour. Steinhoff and Schilling trailed behind him.

In the lobby, the air commodore shook their hands.

‘It’s been a fascinating day,’ he said. ‘We have been curious to meet you for a long while. Have a safe flight back to Germany. And please remember our offer.’

Von Braun said, ‘We shall be in contact next week. I hope very much we can work together.’

The air commodore walked away. A military policeman opened the door. Graf hung back. Von Braun stood in the doorway, his tall