about the English?’
‘You’re in the resistance, right?’
She looked away without answering.
‘They get you to listen to the rocket officers when they’re drinking? Pillow talk? Pass on what you hear?’
The faint thumping of the bedhead through the wall increased in tempo. This time the woman shrieked. The thumping stopped abruptly. Dear God, he thought, what has become of us?
He started stuffing the rocket fragments into his pockets. ‘I’m taking these away. If you get caught with them, you’ll be shot, no question.’
‘Why should you care?’
He closed the drawer. His hands were blackened with soot, his pockets bulging. ‘What is it you want to know?’ he asked abruptly. ‘I can tell you something that’s actually useful, if you like. The missile is unreliable – at the moment we have a failure rate of about one in ten. But the real problem is the shortage of liquid oxygen. Our main production plant in France has been overrun. There are seven plants in Germany, producing two hundred tons a day, which is only enough for twenty-five operational launches. Tell your friends to warn the British that if they want to stop the rockets, not to bother trying to bomb the launch sites, but to concentrate on the liquid oxygen factories and the railways.’
She frowned at him. ‘Are you crazy, or what?’ He made a move towards the door, but she blocked him. ‘If you go down too soon, they’ll be suspicious.’
‘All right.’
He lay back on the bed. She sat in the armchair. For a couple of minutes neither spoke. To his surprise, it was she who broke the silence.
‘We all thought Germany had lost the war. The rockets left, and then they came back. What does it mean? Are you winning again?’
‘No, we’re losing.’
‘When?’
‘Soon. Next year, maybe. How long have you been in Wassenaar?’
‘Three months.’
‘Where were you before?’
‘In a camp – for stealing.’
‘Where’s home?’
‘Groningen.’
‘That’s in the north?’
She nodded.
‘Is there any way you could make a run for it? I could borrow a car. You could hide in the back.’ He knew it was ridiculous even as he said it.
She shook her head. ‘It’s too far.’ There was a sound of movement from the neighbouring room. A door opened, slammed shut. They listened to a man’s footsteps receding down the passage. ‘I should go to her and see if she’s all right. You can leave now.’
At the door, he pulled out his wallet and counted out two hundred marks.
She shook her head. ‘Pay Ilse.’
‘No, this is for you.’
‘I haven’t done anything.’ She opened the door.
He stood, uncertain. ‘Well, then. Good luck.’
He put the money back in his wallet and went downstairs.
12
THE THING TO BE SAID for Kay’s alarm clock, which she had been given by her mother on the day she was called up to the WAAF, was that it had never failed to wake her, however deeply she was asleep. It had a piercing percussive ring, as if a drill had been inserted into her ear. She flung her hand across the unfamiliar surfaces, fumbling to turn it off. In the blessed silence that followed, she brought the luminous dial up close to her face. Six thirty.
She flopped back on her thin pillows. The room was utterly dark. It took her a moment to remember she wasn’t in England about to start her shift, but in Belgium – and at war! She eased her way out from under the blanket and felt around the wall for the light switch. The sudden brightness made her wince. She slipped her greatcoat over her nightdress and picked up her sponge bag. Cautiously she opened the door and listened. The house was silent. She scampered on tiptoe across the icy corridor to the bathroom.
She was too anxious to avoid being late to linger over her usual morning rituals. Besides, it was too chilly. She splashed her face in the freezing water, and cleaned her teeth, and dragged her brush so savagely through her tangled hair it felt as though her scalp was bleeding. Back in her room, her clothes were stiff, as if they had been starched by the cold, her fingers were numb and clumsy as she tried to fasten her buttons and knot her tie. Finally, when she was fully dressed, she remade the bed and studied the map beneath the lampshade. A route that had looked complicated when the Vermeulens had sketched it out the previous night appeared now quite indecipherable. How would she find her way through the blacked-out streets when she didn’t even