Simon Tolkien Inspector Trave Trilogy: Orders From Berlin, The Inheritance, The King of Diamonds. Simon Tolkien

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СКАЧАТЬ felt reasonably pleased with the overall effect when she studied herself in the mirror again at six o’clock. As a final touch, she put on a thin necklace made of imitation emeralds. It complemented her green eyes, which she secretly thought to be her best feature.

      All that was missing were the stockings. She’d found to her horror that all her rayon pairs were laddered, but she resisted the temptation to follow the advice in a Picture Post article she’d read a few weeks before that suggested girls should draw a line with a soft lead pencil up the backs of their calves and thighs to make it look as if they were wearing silk. It wasn’t worth the risk of humiliation if Seaforth saw through the deception, and Ava consoled herself with the fact that, true to its era, the dress’s hemline fell well below the knee.

      She put on her coat and picked up her bag, then paused just as she was about to go out of the door, looking back at the flat. Bertram was gone, but his possessions were everywhere – his doctor’s bag on a chair, his hat and mackintosh hanging on the coat rack, his war map on the wall. She rebelled against the silent reproach of these inanimate objects, filled with a sudden anger against their owner. It was her turn to have a chance at life. Abruptly, she took hold of her wedding ring and pulled it from her finger. It didn’t come off easily and she had to tug hard. The knuckle was sore afterwards, but she welcomed the pain. It marked her departure from the married life she wanted desperately to leave behind. She felt like throwing the ring away, but an unexpected caution stayed her hand and she dropped it into her purse instead.

      In the communal hallway downstairs, she almost collided with two of her neighbours as they came in through the front door. They looked at her askance, barely returning her greeting. News travels fast, thought Ava. She hadn’t read the newspapers for the last two days, but she found it hard to believe that there hadn’t been some report on Bertram, and there would be more to come. She’d be lucky if it didn’t make the front pages: battersea staircase murder – woman’s husband charged with father’s murder. A nice salacious story to distract Londoners from the misery of the latest casualty figures, but for Ava it would be the ruin of her reputation. She would be transformed overnight from an anonymous housewife into an object of ridicule. There would be no going back. Ava shuddered, pulling her coat tight around her body as she turned the corner at the end of the street, heading towards the river.

      This time it was Seaforth who was late. They had arranged to meet by the fountain in Sloane Square, and she had just begun to think that he wasn’t going to come when she caught sight of him hurrying across the King’s Road towards her.

      She’d wondered on the bus if he was going to kiss her when they met. She didn’t know whether she wanted him to or not, but then when he did, brushing his lips against her cheek, she found she liked it and that she wanted him to do it again. She had to be careful, she realized; she had to resist the spirit of recklessness that seemed to possess her whenever she was with him.

      He’d booked a table in a small Italian restaurant. It was on a side street just off the square. At the corner, by the Underground station, they passed two newspaper hawkers who were shouting the evening headlines, competing with each other for attention. They seemed to take it in turns, each news item more horrible than the last and bellowed in a louder voice.

      ‘Read all about it: Hospital hit in Shoreditch. Seventeen dead.’

      ‘Land mine explosion in Whitechapel. See all the latest pictures.’

      ‘I hate this war,’ she said, hurrying past. ‘You can’t get away from it.’

      ‘And you can’t stop it, either,’ said Seaforth. ‘It’s like a machine they’ve turned on and now they can’t turn it off. However hard they try, they can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Not that they seem to be trying too hard, judging by Churchill’s fighting talk.’

      ‘That’s because it’s too late. No one in this country wanted war.’

      ‘Maybe not. But that’s not my point,’ said Seaforth, warming to his theme. ‘Think of the last war: the war to end wars. Four years of slaughter, and for what? Twenty years of peace. Doesn’t that tell you anything, Ava? About what’s happening; about the future?’

      ‘You can’t talk like that,’ she said, appalled by Seaforth’s cynicism. She couldn’t understand it – it was almost as if he were happy about the arrival of Armageddon.

      ‘Why not? If it’s the truth? Wars are fought so that the people who make the machines can make money out of them. The only difference now is that the machines are more powerful and the weapons are more deadly. I tell you, behind every tank, behind every bomb, is a man with a roll of banknotes – pounds or Reichsmarks, it doesn’t matter.’

      ‘I don’t know. Maybe you’re right,’ she said. ‘But that doesn’t mean that we don’t have to fight. The Germans are evil. Everyone knows that.’

      ‘What. All of them?’

      ‘Yes, all of them,’ she insisted. ‘There was a woman in the butcher’s shop the other day who told me about one of their fighter pilots flying low over the park last week. He saw her out with her children and he tried to machine-gun them. She got the kids under a bench and lay on top of them, and they survived somehow. But she said he was laughing – laughing while he tried to kill them. Can you believe that? I hate the Germans. And I’m surprised you don’t too,’ she added passionately. ‘They killed your father, didn’t they? Isn’t that what you told me?’

      Seaforth flinched and she stopped, wishing she could take her words back. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have said that.’

      ‘No, you’re right,’ he said harshly. ‘The war must go on. The beast must be fed.’

      At the restaurant, Seaforth kept twisting about in his chair after they had sat down, unable to get comfortable, and he seemed to settle in his seat only after the waiter had brought them wine and he had downed two glasses in rapid succession.

      He looked up, catching her eye. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m not being good company tonight, I know. There’s a lot of pressure at work, but I should learn to leave it behind when I’m not there.’ It was an olive branch and it should have made her feel relieved, but instead she felt for some reason that he was putting on a mask and the real Seaforth was the harsh nihilist she had glimpsed on the walk over.

      ‘I’m glad I’m here,’ he added, reaching out and covering her hand with his. ‘You look beautiful tonight, Ava. Really you do. Forgive me for being such a brute.’

      And she did, trying hard to banish her doubts. How could she not forgive him, looking down at his long, slender fingers touching hers? Like a pianist’s, she remembered she’d thought when he’d put his hand on her arm at the funeral.

      ‘You’re not wearing your ring,’ he said, turning her hand over and looking up into her face as if he were asking a question instead of stating a fact.

      ‘I didn’t want to think about Bertram,’ she said, but realized as she spoke that it was a vain wish. She knew she wouldn’t have any peace until she’d found out who’d killed her father.

      ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘None of this has been easy.’

      ‘No, but it would help if I knew what you want with me,’ she blurted out. If only he’d open up, then maybe she could start believing in him; maybe she could enjoy his interest in her.

      ‘I want nothing,’ he said, looking her in the eye. ‘Now that I know you’re safe, I want СКАЧАТЬ