Peter Dickinson - Shadow of a Hero

Then the waitress came and they ordered their chocolate and to calm herself down Letta asked about Greece, and then they talked about Angel until it was time to go present-hunting. As they came out into the High Street Letta glanced up at the low, drab cloud-base and felt a vague sense of release, then realized that at the shadow-edge of her mind she had still been seeing that intense blue southern sky across which the war-planes had swept.

When she got home she found a motor bike blocking the driveway, a huge, brand-new beast of a thing, glistening purple and white and black. There were black leathers draped on the banisters and a crash helmet striped with the Varinian colours on the hall table. Hell, she thought, I’d much rather have Grandad to myself, but at least it might mean there’s news from Potok. She made the tea, put an extra mug on the tray and carried it up.

A man was talking as she climbed the last flight. She knew the voice. Steff. Steff on a bike like that? Grandad answered, called to her to come in when she knocked, and went on as she backed her way through the door.

‘. . . never been natural traders. We have relied on outsiders living among us to create wealth, and then of course have envied them. How many of the crowd in the Square last month were aware of standing in a place where there was a major massacre of Jews in 1852? They had come to the Prince-Bishop’s palace for protection but he had shut his doors against them.’

‘Was that horrible old Pango?’ said Letta, still with her back to the room as she nudged the tray onto the cluttered table. (It couldn’t be Steff – he’d have been on his feet, helping her.)

‘His successor,’ said Grandad. ‘Pango had encouraged the Jews to settle in Potok.’

‘Hi, Sis,’ said the other man.

‘Van!’

‘Didn’t want you to jump like that with the tray in your hands. How’s life treating you?’

‘That’s not your bike!’

‘It is, too.’

‘Bike?’ said Grandad.

‘A great glistening monster painted our colours,’ said Letta. ‘Where did you get it? How fast does it go?’

‘A hundred-and-forty, supposed to,’ said Van. ‘I haven’t been over the ton. It’s a BMW.’

‘A gift?’ said Grandad in his quietest voice.

‘Not half!’ said Van. ‘Otto made quite a splash of handing it over. He sprang a farewell party on me in Vienna, and handed the bike over when the champagne was flowing. There’s a few things he wants me to do for him over here, and I’ve got to have transport, but mainly it’s to make up for being booted out of Varina.’

‘Booted out!’ said Letta. ‘Like Grandad?’

‘That’s right.’

‘In your pyjamas?’

She’d asked that seriously, without thinking, just trying to imagine the scene, but laughed at herself when Van laughed. Even Grandad smiled.

‘We had a tip-off,’ said Van. ‘We’ve been getting pretty good intelligence, so we had a couple of hours to set something up. I talked it over with Otto. I wanted to go into hiding, but he said it was too soon for that sort of thing, so we made them come and get me. We let them think I was just drinking with a few pals in this torno , the one with the pink umbrellas in Jirin Road, and they came swooping up in three of those black stretch limos to grab me, but our people poured out from every house in the street and blocked them in, so they radioed the army for help and I got up on a table and did my young-hero bit and said I was going quietly to save bloodshed. Then I let them take me and put me on a plane to Vienna. It was supposed to be only a stop-over for me there, but Otto had fixed things up for us both to get off so that he could spring the party and the bike on me.’

‘You mean they threw him out too?’ said Letta, with a leap of the heart.

‘He’d got some business to see to. They can’t sling him out that easily – he’s a Romanian citizen.’

‘I thought he was an exile, like Grandad,’ said Letta.

‘The difference is that he chose to live in Austria,’ said Grandad, still in that quiet voice which Van appeared not to notice. ‘I, for my part, was forced to live in England.’

Letta decided to change the subject.

‘Are you going back to Glasgow?’ she said.

‘No point,’ said Van. ‘I haven’t got a house, I haven’t got a girl-friend and I haven’t got a job.’

‘What!’

‘When I decided to stay on in Potok, I called them up and resigned. They’d have fired me anyway for overstaying my leave. Don’t worry, Sis. I shan’t be out begging in the High Street. Sue’s selling the house, so there’ll be a bit of money after the mortgage is paid off, and I’ve got a few things to do for Otto, so he’s paying me a retainer.’

‘Where are you going to live?’

‘Here, if Momma will let me. You’re in my old room, but Steff’s looks empty. Don’t look so baffled, Sis – it’s only a couple of months.’

‘I’m sorry. I was just surprised.’

‘Let us establish an island of calm in the hurricane of events,’ said Grandad. ‘Let’s have our tea and crumpets.’

‘God, you’re not going to light the fire,’ said Van. ‘It’s roasting in here already.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Letta. ‘You can’t have crumpets without. If you don’t like it you can go and move your bike. You’ll have to, anyway, before Momma gets home. She comes swooping in there. You don’t want it scrunched, I imagine.’

‘Oh, all right,’ said Van. ‘Do a couple for me. Plenty of butter, please. Drooling with it, OK?’

He lounged out and clumped down the stairs.

Letta heard Grandad sigh.

‘Is this all right?’ she whispered. ‘I don’t like it.’

‘It’s not entirely Van’s fault,’ said Grandad. ‘Popular enthusiasm is hard to resist. I had a visit from my policeman this morning.’

‘The tall thin one who met us at the airport?’

‘Yes. He is a good friend, in so far as he can afford to be. He has been putting together a file on Vasa. Some of this I knew already, but some I did not. After the war there was a penniless, parentless urchin who ran away from a camp for war orphans and fetched up in Vienna . . .’

‘Was he really a Varinian?’

‘He seems to have spoken Field as his first language.’

‘Bother. I suppose that pretty well proves it.’

‘I’m afraid so. Anyway, he ran errands for black-marketeers, and then worked for himself in the black market. There was a shortage of building materials. He found ways to supply them. He got to know the government officials who awarded the state building contracts, and became wealthy. All this I knew. But now my friend tells me that there is evidence that at some stage Vasa contacted the Ceauşescu regime and undertook various financial dealings for them when they were salting away their fortunes outside their country. Some of that money will have found its way into his pockets. So now he is genuinely enormously rich. He has several houses, a vast castle in Carpathia, a wife who is an Archduchess in her own right or some such nonsense. But he has no country. He is trying to buy himself one.’

‘He can’t do that!’

‘If we succeed in making Varina free, we will be citizens of the poorest country in Europe. And to the truly poor the rich are rich by magic. They have a secret. If you make a very rich man your president, he will use his magic to make your country as rich as he is.’

‘That’s nonsense.’

‘It is powerful nonsense. However, we think Vasa is not relying solely on his wealth. There are well-placed people in Bucharest who were once members of the Ceauşescu regime, with which Vasa had many contacts. Van himself has told us that Vasa is getting good intelligence. And does it not strike you that this motor cycle was bought and painted in our colours in a remarkably short time? Perhaps Vasa knew some time earlier that Van was about to be expelled.’