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

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СКАЧАТЬ again and again. And then suddenly he reached up and hit the side of his head with the flat of his hand. Hard – and not once but twice.

      ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t I see it before? It was staring me in the face.’

      ‘See what?’ asked Trave, mystified.

      ‘Who C is. Look, Albert wrote it down,’ he said, jabbing his finger at the word Hayrick.

      Something to do with farming, Trave had thought. Not like a name at all. But he’d clearly been wrong about that.

      ‘The name’s spelt wrong,’ Thorn explained. ‘That’s all. Maybe Albert scribbled it or you didn’t read it right. It should be Heydrich. That’s who C is. I can’t believe I didn’t work it out myself.’

      ‘Who’s Heydrich?’ asked Trave, beginning to feel out of his depth.

      ‘Reinhard Heydrich is head of the SD, the intelligence division of the SS, and he’s also in charge of the Gestapo,’ he said. ‘After Himmler, he’s perhaps the most feared man in the Third Reich, and unlike the other Nazi leaders he’s clever, fiendishly clever. Wait a minute – I can show you what he looks like.’

      Thorn was a man transformed. There was an excitement in his voice, an urgency that had been entirely absent before he deciphered the name on the note. He went over to a tall bookcase that ran almost the entire length of one wall of the room and began running his finger along the titles, up and down the overflowing shelves, until he abruptly pulled out a tall book and took it over to the desk, pushing a pile of papers onto the floor to make room.

      He turned the pages rapidly, forward and back, until he found what he was looking for and then beckoned Trave over to join him. ‘Look, there he is,’ he said, jabbing his finger down at two large photographs on facing pages of the book. They were of the same man. In the first he was dressed in a black SS uniform, standing ramrod straight on an elevated rostrum with his arm rigidly raised in the Hitler salute as a line of goose-stepping soldiers marched past on the street below. Above his head, enormous red-and-black swastika banners hung down from flagpoles extending horizontally from the roofs of a row of tall, imposing nineteenth-century buildings – government buildings, Trave assumed – probably Berlin. And then on the opposite page, the man was shown seated, again in uniform but this time without the peaked cap. This was a studio portrait, an opportunity to get closer to the subject and more personal. Blond-haired, thin-lipped, classically handsome, he was a living embodiment of the Nazis’ Aryan ideal – a cruel Viking face with penetrating, ice-cold eyes, eyes that would miss nothing, Trave thought. He began to understand the intensity of Thorn’s reaction to the note.

      ‘Why does he call himself C?’ he asked, curious.

      ‘C’s what we call the head of the British Secret Service – C for chief, I suppose. And Heydrich knows that. He’s always loved spy novels, particularly British ones, and so he fancies himself as the German C.’

      ‘How do you know this?’

      ‘Because Albert told me. Not about Heydrich calling himself C, but everything else about him. Albert used to be C before he retired, and he was a walking encyclopedia when it came to the Nazi leaders. And apart from Hitler, Heydrich was the one he talked about the most. I should have made the connection. I think I nearly did on that first day, and that’s why I knew I had to bring the decoded message over here for him to look at. I realized unconsciously that the solution to the C riddle was in something he’d told me. And then Seaforth must have realized that Albert knew it was Heydrich when he ran into him outside HQ. Seaforth’s no fool, and he would have put two and two together – me grabbing the decoded message in the morning and Albert hotfooting it over there in the afternoon. And so he had to silence Albert before he talked to anyone else—’

      Thorn broke off. He’d become more and more agitated as he spoke, and now he closed his eyes and breathed deeply, trying to regain his self-control. ‘God, I wish I knew what they were planning,’ he resumed, shaking his head with frustration. It was now almost as if he had forgotten about Trave and were talking to himself. ‘All this time gone by and I still have no idea, except that it’s got to be something important if Heydrich’s behind it. I keep thinking it’s got something to do with the invasion because that’s what all Seaforth’s intelligence briefings have been about. If I had my way, I’d hold the bastard over that banister out there until he talked, just like he did to Albert—’

      Thorn stopped again, this time seized by a fit of coughing while Trave watched him from across the room. ‘How do you know it was Seaforth who intercepted Albert?’ he asked. ‘Surely it could have been someone else from where you work?’

      ‘I know it was him because of what he’s done since. He’s used Ava to frame her husband for the murder, and that’s got to be because he needs someone to take the blame for what he did.’

      ‘What evidence have you got for that?’ Trave asked sceptically.

      ‘I was in Ava’s flat three days ago when he admitted picking the locks on Bertram Brive’s desk—’

      ‘Where Ava found the cuff link?’ interrupted Trave, looking aghast.

      ‘That’s right. You look surprised. Didn’t you know about this? Your inspector was there too. He heard what had happened.’

      Trave looked thunderstruck – he couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. ‘God, it’s monstrous,’ he said.

      ‘What is?’

      ‘Quaid kept quiet about it deliberately. When Bertram said he’d been framed in the interview, Quaid said nothing about Seaforth opening the desk. He must have realized that Bertram would have been far less likely to confess if he’d known the full picture of what happened.’

      ‘Well, he seemed mighty friendly with Seaforth when they were in Ava’s flat, I can tell you that. It wasn’t the first time they’d talked.’

      ‘I know,’ said Trave. ‘I’m pretty sure it was Seaforth who told Quaid to keep your office out of the investigation, and then when I followed him to Coventry Street, he rang up Quaid and complained about me. I got a serious dressing-down. Quaid threatened me with a transfer to the military police.’

      ‘When was this?’

      ‘The day before Bertram was arrested. Seaforth was with Ava at the Corner House.’

      ‘Softening her up for the next day,’ said Thorn, looking furious. Trave sensed that there was a strong element of jealousy involved in Thorn’s reaction to Seaforth’s involvement with Ava, but that didn’t change the significance of what Thorn had told him about what had happened at Ava’s flat.

      ‘That’s got to be how Seaforth knew to bring the cuff link to plant in the desk,’ Thorn went on. ‘Your inspector must have told him about it, maybe when he rang up to complain about you.’

      ‘I tried to follow him again the next morning,’ said Trave.

      ‘That was brave.’

      ‘But he saw me. I never had a chance. He must have been on his way over to Battersea. And the funny thing was that he never complained about me that time. I thought my number was up, but nothing happened.’

      ‘Because he didn’t need to. Can’t you see that?’ asked Thorn impatiently. ‘He’d got what he wanted. Bertram had been arrested and СКАЧАТЬ