Simon Tolkien - Orders from Berlin

And in the same instant that Trave thought of Seaforth’s apartment, he realized that he was wrong about being on his own. He’d forgotten about Ava. In a flash he remembered her parting words to him at Bow Street the day before: ‘You can count on me.’ Ava knew where Seaforth lived — she could tell him where to go.

Trave remembered Seaforth’s mocking smile from a few minutes before, the way he’d looked as though he had the game already won. Perhaps he was too arrogant to imagine a policeman turning to crime and breaking into his apartment without a warrant. Perhaps his confidence was his Achilles’ heel.

There was a sandbagged police box at the end of Victoria Street, and it didn’t take long for Trave to get Ava’s phone number. He rang it again and again, but there was no reply, and, as with Thorn, there was no available listing for Seaforth’s apartment. Trave wasn’t surprised. Privacy was apparently one of the perquisites of spying.

The mood of black despair that Trave had felt after seeing Seaforth seized him again and he fought to keep control of his emotions. Up and down like a yo-yo, his mood swings were getting more extreme as he crisscrossed London, getting nowhere fast. But he knew he couldn’t give up. Perhaps Ava was home but not picking up the telephone, or perhaps she was out shopping or walking around aimlessly just like him. Whatever the case, sooner or later she would have to go home, and Trave intended to make sure she found him waiting for her. Ava was his last lead, and he could not let it go. Wearily, he made his way through the backstreets to Victoria station and caught an overland train to Battersea.

Thorn missed Trave by less than ten minutes. Jarvis reported the deputy chief’s arrival to Seaforth as soon as Thorn had gone upstairs and shut the door of his office.

‘’E looks like ’e’s been in the wars, I can tell you that,’ said the caretaker, looking pleased.

‘I’m sorry to hear that. Oh, and by the way, I don’t think there’s any need to tell Mr Thorn about that policeman’s visit. It sounds like he’s got quite enough on his plate already,’ said Seaforth, looking hard at Jarvis.

‘Mum’s the word,’ said Jarvis with a knowing nod. Something told him that his Boer War Veterans Fund collection box would be receiving a significant contribution before the end of the day, and he had no objections to that.

Trave’s visit had alarmed Seaforth, even though he didn’t like to admit it. The connection between his arch-enemy and the dogged young detective spelt trouble. Seaforth guessed that Trave must have found out something or he wouldn’t be looking for Thorn. He cursed the terrier-like persistence of the detective and wished that he’d renewed his complaints to Quaid about Trave’s attentions instead of staying quiet after Bertram’s arrest in the hope that Trave would just go away. Now he felt he needed to act before Trave and Thorn dug any deeper, but he consoled himself with the thought that if all went according to plan, he would have nothing more to worry about by the end of the day.

Seaforth thought it was a good sign that Trave and Thorn had missed each other. He recalled how he’d had the same slice of luck when Albert Morrison had arrived at HQ after Thorn had gone home. His priority now must be to keep Thorn quiet and on the premises while he sent the intelligence briefing to Churchill and awaited the Prime Minister’s summons. As Seaforth was well aware, the possibility that Thorn would leave HQ for some reason before the summons arrived had always been an essential weakness in his assassination plan, and in the last few days he had given considerable thought to how he could keep Thorn in position without arousing his suspicions. Telling Thorn the truth — that he’d sent an intelligence briefing to the Prime Minister and that they had to wait around in case Churchill wanted to see them — was not an option. Thorn would smell a rat. He’d made no secret for a while of his belief that Seaforth was supplying Whitehall with false intelligence. No, Seaforth knew that his best chance of success was for Thorn to know nothing about the reason for the summons until he actually got to Downing Street. And it was with this in mind that Seaforth had come up with the stratagem he was about to put into effect.

He paused for a moment in front of Thorn’s door, composing his features into a friendly smile, and then knocked.

‘Come,’ said a familiar irritable voice, and Seaforth went in.

Jarvis had been right — Thorn did look a mess. The right side of his head was swollen and he had heavy bandaging around his eye.

‘Sorry to hear about what happened,’ said Seaforth, feigning sympathy.

‘No, you’re not,’ said Thorn, looking up angrily as he rapidly put away the file he had been reading, although not quickly enough to stop Seaforth from seeing that it was his own personnel file. ‘What do you want?’ he asked suspiciously. He could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times Seaforth had sought him out in his office, and he suspected an ulterior motive for this visit.

‘Just to let you know that C called,’ said Seaforth. ‘He’s on his way back to London and he wants to see us when he comes in.’

‘What about?’ Thorn asked, fixing his eyes on Seaforth as if trying to see behind the younger man’s smooth, opaque exterior.

‘I don’t know, but he was very insistent, so I thought I ought to tell you,’ said Seaforth mildly, refusing to rise to Thorn’s challenge.

Thorn continued to stare at his subordinate for several moments and then looked away with a grimace. ‘Is there anything else?’ he asked, making no effort to conceal his hostility.

‘No,’ Seaforth said genially. ‘That’s it.’ He went out with a smile, closing the door behind him. It was a lie about C, who was actually away overnight, but there was no one in the building except perhaps the twins who could gainsay Seaforth’s account of C having telephoned, and there was no reason for Thorn to cross-examine the twins when he had Seaforth’s file to keep him busy through the afternoon.

Now it was time to put the plan into action. Seaforth went quickly back upstairs to his office and called the Prime Minister’s office using the number Churchill’s secretary had given him when he visited the bunker. It was the same secretary who answered the phone. He knew who Seaforth was straight away and agreed to make sure that the briefing documents would go straight in front of the Prime Minister as soon as they arrived at 10 Downing Street. After that, of course, it would be up to the PM, but the secretary did say that Mr Churchill wasn’t expected anywhere until the evening so there would be time for a meeting if the PM wanted one, which would be at Number 10 unless a daylight bombing raid forced him into the bunker. Seaforth thought that unlikely. Recently, the Luftwaffe seemed to have largely given up on day raids, preferring to come in under the cloak of darkness.

Everything was fitting into place. Seaforth replaced the telephone receiver and picked it up again immediately to order a motorcycle courier, then went down with his package of documents to the front door, waiting to put it into the hands of the messenger himself.

‘Quick as you can,’ he said. ‘There’s a lot riding on it.’

The man nodded and roared away towards the park. Seaforth looked at his watch — it was just coming on to two o’clock. There was plenty of time left for everything to play out. It helped enormously that Churchill had given instructions for Seaforth’s intelligence reports to be sent to him direct, bypassing the Joint Intelligence Committee. This way, there was every chance that the summons to Downing Street would come before the end of the afternoon, and Seaforth was reasonably confident that Thorn would stay put until then.