Ryan gave a cry and started forward and Carver had him by the collar, the barrel of the Browning at his ear. ‘Go and check on her,’ he called to Eric.
Ryan stopped struggling and waited in silence. After a while, Eric appeared, his face pale. ‘She’s croaked, Jack, fell on a jetty down there. Must have broken her neck or something.’
Ryan kicked back against Carver’s shin, shoving him away. He picked up the poker from the hearth, turned with it raised above his head and Carver shot him in the heart.
There was a silence. Eric wiped blood from his face. ‘What now, Jack?’
‘We get out of here, that’s what.’
He led the way and Eric followed, closing the kitchen door. They turned along the wharf and got in the Humber. Carver lit a cigarette. ‘Where’s that RAC map book?’ Eric found it in the glove compartment and Carver flipped through it. -‘Here we are, Romney Marsh and there’s Charbury. Don’t you remember? Before the war I used to take you and Mum down there to Rye for a day out by the sea.’
Eric nodded. ‘Mum liked Rye.’
‘Let’s get going then.’
‘To Charbury?’ Eric said.
‘Why not? We don’t have anything better to do and there’s one aspect to all this that doesn’t seem to have occurred to you, my old son. We catch up with Devlin and this German and take care of them, we’ll be bleeding heroes.’ He tossed his cigarette out and replaced it with a cigar. ‘Move it, Eric, move it,’ he said and leaned back in his seat.
At Chernay, visibility was no more than a hundred yards. Schellenberg and Asa stood in the radio room and waited while Leber checked the weather. The American wore a leather helmet, fur-lined flying jacket and boots. He smoked a cigarette nervously.
‘Well?’ he demanded.
‘They’ve listened to RAF weather reports for the south of England. It’s one of those situations, Captain; thick fog, but every so often the wind blows a hole in it.’
‘Okay,’ Asa said. ‘Let’s stop monkeying around.’
He went out, Schellenberg following, and walked to the plane. Schellenberg said, ‘Asa, what can I say?’
Asa laughed and pulled on his gloves. ‘General, I’ve been on borrowed time ever since I crash-landed in that blizzard in Finland. Take care of yourself.’
He clambered into the cockpit and pulled down the cupola. Schellenberg stepped back out of the way. The Lysander started to move. It turned at the end of the field and came back into the wind. Asa boosted power and gave it everything, rushing headlong into that wall of fog, darkness and rain. He pulled back the column and started to climb, turning out to sea.
Schellenberg watched him go in awe. ‘Dear God,’ he murmured. ‘Where do we find such men?’
He turned and walked back to the radio room.
In the study at Shaw Place, Lavinia turned from the radio and removed her headphones. She hurried out and found Shaw in the kitchen cooking bacon and eggs.
‘Felt a big peckish, old girl.’ There was the usual tumbler of whisky close to hand and for once she felt impatient.
‘Good God, Max, the plane’s on its way and all you can think of is your wretched stomach. I’m going down to South Meadow.’
She got her shooting jacket, one of her brother’s old tweed hats, found the bag of cycle lamps and set off, Nell following her. There was electricity in the barn so she switched on the lights when she got there. It was obvious that, considering the weather, breaking the blackout regulations wouldn’t matter and there wasn’t another house for two miles. She put the cycle lamps by the door and stood outside, checking the wind direction. The fog was as thick as ever, showed no sign of lifting at all. Suddenly it was like a curtain parting and she could see a chink of light from the house three hundred yards away.
‘How marvellous, Nell.’ She leaned down to fondle the dog’s ears and the fog dropped back into place as the wind died.
Getting out of London itself was the worst part, as Devlin discovered, crawling along in a line of traffic at fifteen to twenty miles an hour.