‘Have you gone completely out of your mind?’ said Douglas. ‘The Scotland Yard building houses the SD and the Gestapo and all the rest of it. You might not think much of it, but the Germans think that pass is just about the most valuable piece of paper any foreigner can be given. You’ve stayed away without reporting illness, and you’ve kept your pass. If you read the German regulations that you signed, you’d find that that’s the same as theft, Sylvia. By now, your name and pass number will be on the Gestapo wanted list. Every patrol from Land’s End to John o’Groats will be looking for it.’
‘What shall I do?’ Even now there was no real anxiety in her voice.
‘Stay calm. They have plain-clothes men watching for anyone acting suspiciously.’
They were stopping everything and everyone; staff cars, double-decker buses, even an ambulance was held up while the Patrol Commander examined the papers of the driver and the sick man. The soldiers ignored the rain which made their helmets shiny and darkened their battle-smocks, but the civilians huddled under the protection of the Whitehall Theatre entrance. There was a revue showing there, ‘Vienna Comes to London’, with undressed girls hiding between white violins.
Douglas grabbed Sylvia’s arm and before she could object he brought out a pair of handcuffs and slammed them on her wrist with enough violence to hurt. ‘What are you bloody well doing!’ shouted Sylvia but by that time he was dragging her forward past the waiting people. There were a few muttered complaints as Douglas elbowed them even more roughly. ‘Patrol Commander!’ he shouted imperiously. ‘Patrol Commander!’
‘What do you want?’ said a pimply young Feldwebel wearing the metal breastplate that was the mark of military police on duty. He was not wearing a battle-smock and Douglas guessed he was a section leader. He waved his SIPO pass in the air, and spoke in rapid German. ‘Wachtmeister! I’m taking this girl for questioning. Here’s my pass.’
‘Her papers?’ said the youth impassively.
‘Says she’s lost them.’
He didn’t react except to take the pass from Douglas and examine it carefully before looking at his face and his photo to compare them.
‘Come along, come along,’ said Douglas on the principle that no military policeman is able to distinguish between politeness and guilt. ‘I’ve not got all day.’
‘You’ve hurt my bloody wrist,’ said Sylvia. ‘Look at that, you bastard.’ The Feldwebel glared at him and then at the girl. ‘Next!’ he bellowed.
‘Come on,’ said Douglas and hurried through the barrier dragging Sylvia after him. They picked their way through the traffic that was waiting for the checkpoint. They were both very wet and neither spoke as a luxury bus came through Admiralty Arch and into Trafalgar Square. Its windows were crowded with the faces of young soldiers. Softly from inside there came the amplified voice of the tour guide speaking schoolboy German. The young men grinned at his pronunciation. One boy waved at Sylvia.
A few wet pigeons shuffled out of the way as they walked across the empty rainswept square. ‘Do you realize what you said, just now?’ said Sylvia. She was still rubbing her wrist where the skin had been grazed.
It was just like a woman, thought Douglas, to start some oblique conversation about something already forgotten.
‘One of the most important pieces of paper that the Germans issue to foreigners; that’s what you said just now.’
‘Give over, Sylvia,’ said Douglas. He looked back to be sure they were out of sight of the patrol, then he unlocked the handcuff and released her arm.
‘That’s what we are as far as you’re concerned –foreigners! The Germans are the ones with a right to be here; we’re the intruders who have to bow and bloody scrape.’
‘Give over, Sylvia,’ said Douglas. He hated to hear women swearing like that, although, working in a police force, he should by now have got used to it.
‘Get your hands off me, you bloody Gestapo bastard.’ She pushed him away with the flat of her hand. ‘I’ve got friends who don’t go in fear and trembling of the Huns. You wouldn’t understand anything about that, would you. No! You’re too busy doing their dirty work for them.’
‘You must have been talking to Harry Woods,’ said Douglas in a vain attempt to turn the argument into a joke.
‘You’re pathetic,’ said Sylvia. ‘Do you know that? You’re pathetic!’
She was pretty, but with the rain making rats’ tails of her hair, her lipstick smudged, and the ill-fitting raincoat that had always been too short for her, Douglas suddenly saw her as he’d never seen her before. And he saw her, too, as she’d be in ten years hence; a tight-lipped virago with a loud voice and quick temper. He realized that he’d never make a go of it with Sylvia. But when her parents were killed by bombs, just a few days before Douglas lost his wife, it was natural that they sought in each other some desperate solace that came disguised as love.
What Douglas had once seen as the attractive over-confidence of youth, now looked more like unyielding selfishness. He wondered if there was another man, a much younger one perhaps, but decided against asking her, knowing that she would say yes just to annoy him. ‘We’re both pathetic, Sylvia,’ he said, ‘and that’s the truth of it.’
They were standing near one of the Landseer lions, shining as black as polished ebony in the driving rain. They were virtually alone there, for now even the most stalwart of German servicemen had put away their tax-free cameras and taken shelter. Sylvia stood with one hand in her pocket, and the other pushing her wet hair off her forehead. She smiled but there was no merriment there, not even a touch of kindness or compassion. ‘Don’t be sarcastic about Harry Woods,’ she said bitterly. ‘He’s the only friend you’ve got left. Do you realize that?’
‘Leave Harry out of it,’ said Douglas.
‘You realize he’s one of us, don’t you?’
‘What?’
‘The Resistance, you fool.’ The expression on Douglas’s face was enough to make her laugh. A woman, pushing a pram laden with a sack of coal, half turned to look at them before hurrying on.
‘Harry?’
‘Harry Woods, assistant to Archer of the Yard, protégé of the Gestapo, scourge of any who dare blow raspberries at the conqueror, and yet, yea, verily, I say unto you, this man dare fight the bloody Hun.’ She walked to the fountain and looked at her reflection in the shallow waters.
‘You have been drinking.’
‘Only the heady potion of freedom.’
‘Don’t take an overdose,’ said Douglas. It was almost comical to see her in this sort of mood. Perhaps it was a reaction to the fear she’d felt at the spot-check.
‘Just look after our friend Harry,’ she called shrilly, ‘and give him this, with all my love.’
The hand emerged from her pocket holding the SIPO pass. Before Douglas could stop her, she lifted her arm and threw it as far as she could into the water of the fountain. The rain pounded the stone paving so heavily that the water rebounded to make a grey cornfield of water-spray. She walked quickly through it, towards the steps that led to the National Gallery.
Under the rain-spotted water it was only just possible to see the red-bordered pass as it sank to the bottom amongst the tourists’ coins, Agfa boxes and ice-cream wrappers. Left there, it might well be spotted by some high-ranking official, who would make life hell for the whole department. Douglas stood looking at it for a moment or two but he was already so wet that it would make little difference to go into the water up to his knees.