Serpent in the Heather Read online

  He walked from the square but instead of turning toward his hotel, he wandered down the Miodowa to the old Hotel Kazimierz. There he took the lift to the third floor, counting on any tail to wait for him in the lobby. He took the back stairs down. Good tradecraft suggested that he not attempt contact with Tilda, but he found that he didn’t want to go home without her. In the Podbrzezie he found a taxi and, in tourist Polish, told the driver to go slowly around the sights. That way, it would be clear if anyone was following by car.

  “What sights?” the driver asked in a guttural English.

  An explanation confounded Julian’s Polish, so he said in English, “There is always something to see.”

  After a tour of Old Town, he left the taxi at the baroque Izaak Synagogue and walked to Tilda Mazur’s apartment on Warszauera.

  He knew a great deal about twenty-three-year-old Tilda: her family (widowed mother, no siblings), education (twelve years), occupation (clerk typist), how much English she spoke (none except yes and thank you), reason for asylum request (Germany wanted her, one way or the other).

  Well, if she was afraid to come to him, he would have to go to her. He kept watch for German agents, the SS or their intelligence service, the SD. Nor would he want to draw the attention of Polish intelligence. Exposed as an undercover operative, Julian would face unpleasant interrogations. No one liked being spied upon, but at least one’s enemies expected it. The Poles would feel justified in a show of outrage.

  So, on his own in Cracow, he decided he would not abandon her. Tilda had told a story to British embassy staff. Possibly needlessly alarmist, but disturbing if true: someone was killing Poles with Talents.

  At Tilda’s door, a man answered Julian’s knock. Burly, dark, in the uniform of the Cracow police.

  “Yes?” His gaze took Julian in, eyes narrow.

  “I’m looking for Tilda Mazur.”

  “She is not here.” He spoke English through a thick Polish accent.

  Julian’s gaze swept over the man’s uniform. “Not in trouble, is she?”

  “What is your business, please?”

  “Just a friend. We were going to meet in the square.”

  The man gazed at him a few beats, and opened the door for Julian to enter. Inside the simple flat, a few mismatched chairs, a table with a doily, a coal fireplace.

  “So, you are the English. The one who is to help her.”

  “Just the cinema. I’m in town for business, we met at a cafe.” He shrugged. You know how it is.

  “I am her uncle,” the policeman said. He held up a hand. “Do not tell me your name. It is a lie, in any case.” He looked out the window into the street. “She was afraid, you understand. Followed. She asked me to come here, but now”—he spread his hands to encompass the empty flat.

  “Where did she go?”

  “Yes, where? Where does a girl go who is thinking her own government, or one bad person in government, betrays her to the Germans?”

  “An embassy,” Julian said.

  The policeman nodded. “Perhaps your embassy.”

  The British embassy in Warsaw. Where she had gone six days before to ask for extraction. Why hadn’t she waited for her contact?

  Julian looked at the few items of decoration. A framed picture of a saint taken from a calendar, the month of November. A sprig of dried flowers on the small kitchen table. On the mantel, an antique doll in a lace dressing gown.

  Tilda’s uncle saw his glance. “Her grandmother gave to her.” He turned back to the window, parting the curtains an inch or two. “She loves this. A keepsake. But now we have trouble.”

  Julian waited.

  “She went to Saturday market. There was a man who talked to her of dolls. An expert of dolls. He began following her, and she was afraid. Now she goes somewhere, maybe to Warsaw, to escape him.” The uncle cocked his head. “But why not go to Polish authorities?”

  It was time to be plainspoken, at least to lift the curtain a few inches. “A matter of trust.”

  “Yes. A matter of trust. No one should know her name. But names, they have a way of being known. My Tilda . . .” He sat at the kitchen table, his face suddenly weary.

  “When was this, that she left?”

  “I do not know. I watch for her, but she does not come. Maybe, in the end, she did not trust even me.”

  “This man at the market. Did she describe him?”

  “A foreigner. Having spectacles. Thirty-two, thirty-three years old, not handsome.”

  “German?”

  The policeman gave an elaborate shrug. “Dutch, so she thought.” He snorted in dismissal tinged with incredulity, as though at least a German, he could understand. “Dutch!”

  6

  WRENFELL, EAST YORKSHIRE

  TUESDAY, JULY 28. Kim cocked the hammer of the snub-nosed Colt and took aim. She pulled the trigger. The shot went wide of the tin can on the fence and sent bark flying off a tree behind it. Shadow lay at her side, muzzle cradled in paws, having given up on her assignment to retrieve the can.

  Kim lowered the gun. “Damn it to hell.”

  Walter Babbage leaned against the fence by the paddock, watching. “Tha’s a squirrel that’ll live another day.”

  She glanced at her father’s estate caretaker. Walter didn’t ask why she had taken up target practice, but his attitude was clear. He sauntered back to the barn, shaking his head.

  He would be astonished to learn that she had been recruited into Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. She was, after all, Julian’s American daughter, come to live in the country of her birth, but hardly meriting serious attention from the estate caretaker, much less Whitehall. She and Walter got along better now that Kim and his daughter had developed a friendship. Even at nineteen, Rose needed looking after, and Kim had proven herself a worthy protector. The Babbages were her family now, with her father more like a distant uncle, even when he was home.

  Julian didn’t understand the Nazi threat in Europe. They would never agree about that, especially as he knew nothing of how the shadow of Hitler’s ambitions had fallen over England just two months earlier. The island nation had barely escaped. Kim had managed to hide from her father her involvement in that operation. He’d never know what had really happened in the Prestwich Affair—as it had come to be called—on the moors.

  Meanwhile the world slumbered, happy to believe Hitler’s lies about rearmament, content, even, to send athletes to the summer Olympics in Berlin.

  Kim reloaded, bringing her left hand up to support the gun handle. The Olympics. A convivial meeting of international brotherhood, minus Jews and negroes, at least on the German team. To Kim’s disgust, German race laws assured that Lilli Henoch, four-time world record holder in discus throwing, would not compete, nor other Jewish athletes. She peeled off two shots, wide again.

  This disturbing racial purity idea wasn’t confined to Germany. At the last minute, the Americans had pulled two Jews off the long jump team, afraid to offend their Nazi hosts. And this spring, the authorities right here in Uxley had tried to institutionalize Rose, claiming she was feeble-minded and a threat to the community.

  Kim narrowed her eyes, held her breath and shot two rounds in quick succession. On the second, the can went flying. Instantly, Shadow bolted from sleep into a border-collie dash.

  “Good shot!” someone said. Turning, Kim saw it was Alice.

  Taking the can from Shadow, Kim walked forward to replace it on the fence. Returning, she asked, “Have a go at the can?”

  “I think I’ll stick to knitting needles.” Alice’s flyaway red hair was pulled into a thick updo that looked like it could hide several needles. After her Estate training, Alice was a pretty good shot, a skill she’d keep hidden.

  She leaned against the fence, gazing out. “James took me to dinner at the Three Swans this weekend. I think my being gone for two weeks had him worried. He was solicitous, actually, as though he thought he’d lost me.”

  “So, when you put out that you were
going on holiday at Brighton . . .”

  Alice smirked. “He wondered who I’d gone with.”

  “All to the good?” A little competition might be just what the vicar needed to spark his ardor.

  “The thing is, I’m not sure it matters as much as it used to.”

  Kim put the gun away in its case and looked closely at her friend: Alice leaning comfortably against the split log fence, relaxed, confident and—perhaps her imagination, but—distinctly happy.

  Alice met her gaze. “It’s not just about the yarn shop and helping out at church bazaars anymore. It’s bigger. The world is.”

  Her attention wandered to the barn on the edge of the paddock, where someone was standing with Walter Babbage.

  “There’s a young man I’d like you to meet.” Alice brushed off her trousers and gestured toward the barn. “Martin Lister. He’s been at school in Coomsby, and was helping out with summer repairs to the cricket field, but got in a bit of trouble. He’s looking for a summer job.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “James tells me Martin was the ringleader at a club for boys with Talents.”

  “A club?” How intriguing, Kim thought. How wonderful. She knew at once how fine it would be to have a group to share with, if you were a young person with a Talent. And why some schools wouldn’t like it.

  “They call themselves the Adders,” Alice went on. “James says that he’s looked into it a bit, and there appear to be clubs like that in a bunch of schools.”

  “Some parents don’t approve, of course?”

  “Of course. So, Martin’s school got wind of it and treated the whole thing like a conspiracy and told him he wasn’t welcome back for the new term unless he apologized. His parents can’t get him to, and since the lad’s father is friends with James, he asked him to counsel the boy. To see the error of his ways.”

  Kim sighed. The prejudice against Talents, and sometimes outright denial, was still strong, especially in small towns. “So, they’re trying to get him to recant. What’s he got?”

  “Claims it’s site view. Seeing past events in a place.”

  Kim watched as Walter and Martin went into the barn. The kid looked to be about thirteen or fourteen. “So, they think he’s faking it.”

  “And egging the other kids on to believe in special abilities. It might as well be witchcraft, for all they think. He’s fifteen, and more than a bit confused, I don’t doubt. Want to meet him?”

  Of course she did. She was already on his side. Surely, there was something Walter could set the boy to do on the place.

  “He’d need somewhere to stay. His dad kicked him out.”

  Kim hesitated. That might be more responsibility than she could take on, particularly if she got an assignment. But then she saw Alice’s wry expression and realized that her friend wanted Martin at Wrenfell, under Kim’s care. James might have some good counsel for the boy, but not on the subject of Talents.

  “Just meet him, then?”

  Kim put an arm around Alice’s shoulders and they headed for the barn.

  Inside, Martin was feeding Briar fistfuls of hay.

  Alice introduced him to Kim, and he thrust out a dirty hand, thought better of it, and wiped it on his trousers.

  “It’s okay,” Kim said. “Hay in a handshake is good luck around here.”

  Martin’s smile was only a small stab in his cheeks, and then he was back to Briar. The boy was gawky and slender, with pale skin. Her first impression was, This boy is underfed. As she looked into his eyes, he shied away, looking at his feet. Well, then. We’ll have to win him over. Briar already has, so it can’t be too difficult. Perhaps he got along better with animals than people.

  She noticed a mark on his inside left wrist. A scar, she thought, but with an odd, graceful curve.

  He cut a glance at the tack hanging on the barn wall. “Mr. Babbage said I might comb Briar.”

  “It’s called currying, and yes, you may. When you’re done, come into the kitchen and we’ll see if there’s any apple pie.”

  Walter walked out of the barn with Kim and Alice. “Lad don’t know the front end of a ’orse from the rear.”

  Alice nodded. “He’s always worked at his father’s chemist shop down to Coomsby.”

  Walter shrugged and walked back into the barn, muttering, “Old Briar’ll teach ’im ’ow.”

  Alice and Kim went through Wrenfell’s back door, finding Mrs. Babbage in the kitchen. The cook greeted Alice, always a favorite, and set out tea.

  “Martin seems like a good lad,” Alice said. “But his father has taken a hard stance with him. Says he’s lazy, can’t get out of bed in the morning and hates working in the shop.”

  “Sounds like every other fifteen-year-old we know,” Kim said. Mrs. Babbage nodded at this, carrying a tray of apple pie out from the buttery.

  “A few scrapes at school,” Alice said. “The kind of fisticuffs boys get into, nothing more. But now he’s in trouble for starting a club for Talents, which might as well be witchcraft, for all some people think.”

  “Witchcraft, is it?” Mrs. Babbage shook her head. “They’re just scared of what they don’ know, God ’elp ’em.” Mrs. Babbage had developed an open mind about these things, now that the family had discovered that their own daughter, Rose, had a major Talent of lowering the surrounding temperature. A previously unknown Talent: cold cell.

  Kim accepted a wedge of pie. “What would you think of having a hired hand living in for a few weeks, Mrs. Babbage?”

  “Stayin’ here?” Mrs. Babbage raised her eyebrows. “Well, i’ would depend.”

  “On what?”

  “Well, if ’e’s a good sort, tha knows.”

  Martin came in and ducked a bow at Mrs. Babbage. She directed him to the loo to wash up, after which he sat at the lead tabletop with the women and wolfed down two large slabs of pie. He was soon cleaning up the plates in the sink.

  Kim had already decided, but she cast a glance at Mrs. Babbage, fixing her with an inquiring look.

  Mrs. Babbage nodded with a satisfied smile.

  As Kim and Alice were leaving, Mrs. Babbage said, “Did you say you’d be wantin’ to bring that gentleman to dinner sometime soon? I could make a nice roast. One o’ the nights when Mr. Tavistock is ’ome, too?”

  Alice gave Kim a commiserating look and continued on to the back door.

  “Stephen, you mean,” Kim said, forcing a brightness into her voice. “No, we won’t be having him for dinner, I’m afraid.”

  A little frown of disappointment from Mrs. Babbage. “Oh, I see. Well, tha’s all right, then.”

  Smart, flashy Stephen. An art dealer from York. She could almost laugh, how it had been the standard three-dates-and-you’re-out: a chance meeting in the square followed by tea; then a lunch; soon a fancy dinner. Plans for an outing. Then his telephone call. Smooth apologies.

  She had quite liked him, perhaps too easily liked him. It had been very like a situation where you were meeting a person who had been highly recommended and you felt duty-bound to find the best in them. Enjoying little quirks, forcing meaningful eye contact. Imagining unbuttoning his shirt. Him unbuttoning hers. After all—tea, lunch, dinner, outing: the next step was his apartment in York.

  But then his phone call: So busy, my travels, hard to find time.

  She wished he had just said, I felt I shared too much. It struck her that they either said too much (a spill) or too little (the social lie). That damnable English reserve.

  How delicious it had been to be courted—if that was the word—by Erich von Ritter; a man who plied charm with considerable mastery. She supposed it was all right to be a bit enchanted by her former enemy, since he was dead.

  And because she had, after all, said no.

  7

  THE TRAIN TO WARSAW, POLAND

  TUESDAY, JULY 28. At the Dworzec station, Julian hung back as the train came in. At the last moment, he sprang from the waiting bench and raced for the door of the nearest carriage.
He hoped that this maneuver, as well as three taxi exchanges, had shaken the tail. Still, he watched for him, a slim man with a ferret look.

  How could they have found him so quickly? Perhaps they had been keeping watch on Tilda’s flat. He didn’t think her uncle would have reported him.

  After he had taken his seat in second class, a man with a ruddy complexion and muttonchop sideburns sat opposite him, opening a Polish newspaper.

  Just as the train was getting underway, from behind him Julian heard someone say in heavily accented English, “Excuse me, sir, but will you come with me?”

  Julian turned to see ferret man standing in the aisle. The man tilted his head to the back of the car. He palmed open a warrant card. Polish intelligence. “It is advisable to come.”

  Christ. He was in for it now. “There is some mistake. I am a tourist.”

  “Perhaps a mistake, you are right. You will come?”

  There was no help for it. Julian stood up and followed the man down the aisle toward the rear carriage door. He had made a stupid mistake in going to Tilda’s flat. There was no reason Polish intelligence would be keeping her in view; if they thought she was going to leave the country, they would have just picked her up. A good chance this fellow was associated with the mole who was leaking names of Polish Talents. At her flat they could have been waiting for her to come home. To eliminate her.

  Bad luck for him now, here on the train. A traitor in their organization would not be bound by rules of civility.

  In the inter-carriage way, the clatter was deafening as hot air rushed up through the metal slats of the floor.

  “What’s this about?” Julian said.

  “We will go into the next car, my compartment. A short journey, and then my superior will be speaking to you. But first, your passport?”

  Julian handed it over. Ferret man gave it a cursory glance. “Thank you, Mr. Howard. A weapon on your person?”

  “For security. A foreign country . . .” He shrugged.