Simon Tolkien - Orders from Berlin

‘What kind of diary?’

‘From the last war. I don’t know who wrote it, but it was pretty grim reading, to be honest with you. I only had time to look at a small section before he came in. And there was a photograph of a young soldier on the chest of drawers. Not Charles, but someone who looked like him, or what he might have looked like twenty-five years ago, if you know what I mean. A brother, maybe.’

Trave nodded and for a moment seemed lost in thought, but then he glanced at his watch and got up abruptly from the table. ‘We need to go back,’ he said. ‘They’ll be calling Bertram’s case on soon.’

The courtroom was even more crowded than the lobby outside. Two heavy-built, shirtsleeved gaolers, each with a chain of keys jangling from his belt, stood on either side of the dock, barring public access to the well of the court, where there were benches for lawyers and reporters and, high above, a dais with a tall-backed armchair on which an ancient-looking magistrate with a sallow, oval face was presiding over the day’s business. Behind him on the wood-panelled walls above his head were hung portraits of two of his even more fearsome-looking nineteenth-century predecessors.

Behind the gaolers, a densely packed mass of people watched the proceedings from the back of the courtroom. Sometimes a name was called out by the clerk of the court, an old man with a reedy voice sitting at a table below the magistrate, and a man or woman would push through the throng to take his or her place in the dock. These were the lucky ones who had already secured bail; those in custody were brought in by other gaolers through a side door connecting the courtroom to the cells at the back.

There were no windows, and the inadequate lighting was provided by four dusty electric spheres hanging down from the ceiling on brass chains. The magistrate, however, had the use of a shaded reading lamp, which bathed his long, bony fingers in a sickly, greenish light as he turned the pages of the charge sheets piled in front of him on his desk.

It was like a scene from a Charles Dickens novel, thought Ava. Trave had managed to manoeuvre them near the front of the crowd, but she had begun to feel faint again and leant heavily on him for support.

Several Soho prostitutes wearing the gaudy night finery in which they had been arrested were called on and quickly disposed of, and then Bertram was brought in. Ava almost didn’t recognize him at first. He shuffled his way across the court and then stumbled on the top step of the dock, reaching out to take hold of the iron railing to keep himself from falling. He looked beaten and dejected, like a hot-air balloon that had been punctured in some vital place and was slowly losing air. All his outraged dignity and self-importance seemed to have disappeared in the four days since his arrest.

The clerk read out the manslaughter charge, and the courtroom went suddenly quiet. The reporters’ pens hovered expectantly over their notepads, and Ava was conscious of people turning to look at her. She wondered how they knew who she was.

‘How do you plead?’ asked the clerk, and then had to repeat the question in a louder voice when Bertram didn’t answer.

‘Not guilty,’ said Bertram finally, in a thin voice. ‘I didn’t kill him.’

The prosecutor, a big man in a loud pinstripe suit, got to his feet. ‘The Crown may seek leave to amend the charge to murder now that the case is going to trial,’ he said ominously.

‘Very well,’ said the magistrate. ‘We can consider that at committal. Any bail application, Mr Maier?’

‘No, sir. Not today,’ said another man whom Ava couldn’t properly see, her view blocked by the bulk of the prosecutor.

‘Very sensible,’ said the magistrate. ‘No point wasting your breath to no purpose. Bail denied. We’ll see you again in four weeks, Dr Brive.’

And that was that. Except that as Bertram was led away, he looked around wildly, scanning the crowd, and Ava realized he was looking for her. Standing on her tiptoes, she put up her hand, raising it above her head, hoping he would see. And she knew he had because he caught her eye and smiled just as he left the courtroom.

Seeing him even from a distance, she didn’t feel he was guilty. Not any more. But feelings counted for nothing in a court of law. As Trave had said, they needed new evidence, and she had no idea how they were going to find it.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked Trave when they’d got back outside and had the chance to talk.

‘I’m going to go north.’

‘North! Why?’

‘To see if I can find out who the real Charles Seaforth is,’ he said, quoting her phrase back at her with a smile. ‘It’s where he’s from, and what you told me about the diary and the photograph has got me intrigued. I know it’s a long shot, but Thorn suggested it and I don’t feel I can leave any stone unturned.’

‘Can I come too?’ she asked.

‘No, it’s better I go on my own. I’ll be back tomorrow and maybe I’ll need your help then.’

‘My help?’ Ava repeated, surprised by the idea that someone as apparently resourceful as Trave could need her assistance.

‘Yes. It may not have occurred to you, but now that Thorn’s out of the picture at least for a while, you’re the only person in this town that I can trust.’

‘How can you say that?’ asked Ava. ‘You were accusing me of helping Charles Seaforth an hour ago. What’s changed?’

‘I have,’ Trave said simply. ‘I was wrong, plain wrong. I can see now that you’ve been doing the same as me, trying to find out the truth. And, frankly, you’ve been a lot more resourceful about it than I have, going into Seaforth’s flat and looking through his things. Now it’s my turn to take a few risks.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, the last time my inspector caught me going after Seaforth, he threatened me with a transfer to the military police in the north of Scotland if I did it again, and I’m sure he’ll make good on his promise if he finds out where I’m heading now. Although I suppose the one good thing is that I’ll already have done half the journey,’ Trave added, smiling at the gallows humour of the situation. ‘The investigation’s closed as far as he’s concerned, and I think that’s the way Seaforth wants it too. Thorn says he has a plan of some kind that he’s pursuing. He thinks that Seaforth killed your father because Albert stumbled on it …’

‘What plan?’ asked Ava, looking bewildered.

‘Something dreamed up by the Nazis. Thorn says that Seaforth’s working for them. Yes, I know it’s far-fetched,’ said Trave, observing Ava’s look of incredulity. ‘But I feel I’ve got to look into it, particularly now that Thorn’s out of action.’

Ava knitted her brows in concentration, as if trying to make sense of what she’d just been told. But then she shook her head, giving up on the attempt. ‘You can count on me,’ she said.

‘Thank you,’ said Trave. ‘Who knows, maybe the fate of the country depends on a green detective constable and a housewife from Battersea. Wouldn’t that make a story for those newspaper hounds?’ he added with a laugh, pointing with his finger back towards the courthouse.

Seaforth woke up early and, wearing only his robe, went and sat cross-kneed on a Persian prayer carpet that he had bought from a travelling merchant in Germany three years earlier. The towers of London rose up all around him outside the windows of his penthouse apartment, but he had eyes only for the sinuous arabesque design of the scrolling lines intertwining on the rich midnight-blue background of the rug. They soothed his mind, and he concentrated on slowing his breathing until he had it perfectly under control. Only then did he begin his mental autopsy of the previous night’s events.