V2 A Novel of World War II - Robert Harris Page 0,80

around.’ Wearily Arnaud turned to face the wall.

Kay said, ‘Is this really necessary?’

‘He knows the rules.’

The soldier finished his search. ‘All right, we’ll let you off this time, seeing as you’re with a British officer. But don’t let us catch you again.’

Their papers were returned. The soldiers resumed their patrol.

Kay said, ‘I’m sorry about that.’

‘Why? The Germans were rougher.’ He tucked his identity card back into his inside pocket. She could sense his resentment and humiliation.

They continued across yet another of the town’s seemingly endless succession of squares. The night was freezing. Already frost was beginning to rime the cobbles, glittering in the glow of the street lamps. Above the pointed roofs a couple of stars had appeared. Suddenly Arnaud stopped, gripped her arm and pointed. A shooting star, travelling very fast, was descending directly in front of them. They watched it for a second or two, and then it vanished.

He said, ‘You know what that was?’ He was still holding her arm. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest.

‘A meteor?’

He shook his head. ‘A German rocket, hitting Antwerp. I have seen them twice before. They have the ingenuity of the devil.’ He looked at her.

She said carefully, ‘That is terrible. Those poor people.’

He seemed to expect her to say something else. When she didn’t, he turned away. ‘Well,’ he muttered, ‘the bastards will lose the war soon enough, rockets or no rockets. We should get on. We’re nearly there.’

It took them another five minutes. When they reached the gate in the garden wall, he pretended to fiddle with the latch for a few seconds, then turned and kissed her. She had guessed it was coming. She had even rehearsed her response in her head while they were walking: a gentle push away, a polite ‘No, I can’t, I’m sorry’, perhaps to be followed by a prim ‘I’m not that sort of girl’. But now it came to it, it turned out she was that sort of girl. The unfamiliar intimacy of having a different man’s mouth on hers felt unexpectedly natural. He tasted sweetly of beer. His skin was smooth, not bristly like Mike’s. Damn Mike, she thought suddenly. She cupped Arnaud’s head gently between her hands and kissed him back. For the second time that day she seemed to observe herself from a distance. She started to laugh.

‘What’s funny?’ He broke away from her, half smiling, uncertain.

‘Nothing. Come here.’ She kissed him again. He undid the middle buttons of her coat and put his hands around her waist. She shivered. ‘Can we go inside?’

They walked up the path to the front door. It was locked. He reached up and felt around the lintel and took down a key.

Inside, the hall was in semi-darkness. The usual light shone from the kitchen. She could smell bacon frying. As the day had begun, so it ended. The door to the study was closed.

Arnaud put his finger to his lips. She took his hand and led him upstairs to her room.

15

A LITTLE AFTER NINE THAT evening, Dr Rudi Graf stood stripped to the waist in front of his bathroom mirror in Scheveningen, his fingers held in the tepid rusty trickle beneath the hot tap, listening to the clanking of the hotel’s pipes as the water made its tortuous progress around the building. It wouldn’t get any warmer. His razor blade was six months old and it was hard to whip up much of a lather out of his thin bar of soap. Still he jutted out his chin and scraped away methodically at his day’s growth of beard. One had to maintain standards.

Colonel Huber had announced over dinner that in view of the increased RAF activity, the regiment would, from tomorrow, aim to launch seventy per cent of its rockets at night. His officers had looked at their plates. Launching was a much slower and more frustrating procedure when undertaken by torchlight with numb fingers in the freezing woods, the liquid oxygen coating the pipes with a sheath of frost. For once Graf had turned down Seidel’s offer of a game of chess. He wanted an early night.

He rinsed his razor under the tap and was just drying his face when he heard the sound of fists hammering on doors and voices shouting.

He went out onto the landing and peered over the banister. From below came a thump of boots on the stairs. A couple of helmets appeared. Light glinted on the barrels of a pair of rifles. The