The Secret of Spandau Read Online Free Page B

back towards the gate and stared up. He was like an advert in
Horse and Hound
: peaked cap, tweed suit with leather sections on the shoulders, dark green cravat and pale lemon shirt. She had no idea who he was. If he hadn’t said, ‘Miss Calvert-Mead?’, she would have shut the window and gone back to bed.
    â€˜Yes.’
    â€˜Richard Garrick.’
    â€˜And?’
    â€˜I’m here to pick you up.’
    â€˜Is this a joke? Some sort of singing telegram?’
    â€˜Didn’t you get the message? Cedric Fleming assured me he would tell you.’
    â€˜Cedric? God! You’re …’
    â€˜Dick Garrick. Your lift to Henley.’
    â€˜What time is it, for God’s sake?’
    â€˜Eleven-thirty. Well, nearer eleven-forty now.’
    â€˜But we’re not expected for lunch, are we?’
    â€˜Exactly. I thought we’d eat on the way.’
    â€˜Hold on. I’d better come down and let you in.’
    She came away from the window, pulled the bathrobe properly on, snatched up a hairbrush and tried to coax her short, blonde hair into something approaching the style that Serge had fashioned the previous Thursday. It was a lost cause without lacquer. She tossed down the brush, opened the curtains in the living room, carried a couple of unwashed plates into the kitchen, and went down the two flights of stairs to open the door.
    He had the pale colouring that usually goes with red hair and is liable to break out into crimson blotches in moments of stress. He touched his cap and held out his hand. She extended hers, feeling ridiculous.
    â€˜I know you by sight, of course,’ he said as they started up the stairs. ‘Never had a chance to speak. It’s all incredibly breathless on the sportsdesk.’
    â€˜So I gather.’
    â€˜I was told about this around midnight. I recorded a message on your answerphone this morning, but obviously …’
    â€˜Mm,’ said Jane. ‘I had this down as a morning off.’
    â€˜You
were
told to expect a lift?’
    â€˜Yes, Cedric promised someone would call. I assumed after lunch.’ She pushed open the door of her flat. ‘Give me twenty minutes. The kitchen’s through there if you’d like to make some instant coffee.’
    â€˜Thanks. I don’t drink coffee in any form.’
    â€˜Well,
I
wouldn’t say no.’
    He turned gratifyingly red. ‘Of course.’
    Her cup was waiting when, showered, dressed in a white lace blouse and black trouser suit, and as alert as she was capable of being within a half-hour of waking, she rejoined him. ‘Any idea what this is about?’
    â€˜Only that it has nothing to do with sport.’
    â€˜Thank God for that,’ said Jane. ‘I spend half my working life knee-deep in mud and horse-droppings.’
    She followed his rapid glance around the room, at the stuffed toys on their shelf, the fencing mask, the family snaps of her father, her two sisters and the dogs, the wooden plaque with the arms of Selwyn College, the skis, the print of Charles I on horseback, the Ecology Party poster, the bookshelves and the family tree, and she sensed that if she didn’t think of something fast, Dick Garrick would start on his Sherlock Holmes routine.
    She gulped a mouthful of the tepid coffee he’d presented her with, and said, ‘I think we should do something about getting to Henley.’

7
    A worried man arrived at the Berghof, Adolf Hitler’s mountain villa at Obersalzberg, on the morning of Sunday 11 May 1941. He was Hauptmann Karlheinz Pintsch, the most trusted adjutant of Rudolf Hess, and he had travelled overnight from Augsburg in Hess’s private railway carriage. On arrival at Berchtesgaden station at 7.00 a.m., he had phoned the Führer’s adjutant, Albert Bormann, the brother of Martin Bormann, and requested an immediate appointment. Bormann was unimpressed. Everyone who came to the Berghof wanted priority