Operation Tulip, page 23
An old drop-leaf table, much scuffed and covered in cup rings, with its two leaves ripped off was shoved to the edge and teetered on the remaining uneven boards. Beside it was a rickety chair with no back, and in the corner an iron bedstead with a plain white chamber pot beneath it.
‘Is this it?’ What a come down from Fritz and his plush sofas and pristine napkins.
‘The neighbours are pleasant people. He’s an engineer at the dockyard; the Germans requisitioned their old place and put them here. She takes in sewing and looks after the two children. Sorry. It’s only one child now. The eldest one died not long back. You’re lucky. Their place is not much bigger than this.’
She didn’t want to seem ungrateful, but its greyness, the dilapidated state of it, with its damp patches around the window and on the ceiling, made her shoulders slump.
‘With Josef gone,’ Albie said, ‘there’s no hope of coordinating. It’s every man for himself now. If I were you, I’d get out of The Hague somehow. Get your English friends to get you out.’ He said ‘English friends’ with some scorn.
‘Is that what you think? That I’ll just up and go when things get tough?’
He didn’t answer, but his thin face showed his discomfort.
‘I’m not quitting. Not until this war’s won.’ A pause. ‘When will we meet again?’
‘How the hell should I know? Everything’s in disarray.’
‘You’re supposed to be coordinating us, aren’t you?’ Nancy said. ‘That’s what everyone expects because you’ve been doing this the longest. Well, do something.’
‘With what? We’ve no ammo. We’ve no more men. Only Thierry and he’s close to the edge. Look what he did to Dolf. Things are bad when you shoot your own friends.’
‘Albie, we can’t give up.’
‘Speak for yourself. We can’t even feed ourselves. And the SS’ll be looking for us all over The Hague. You especially. Being in touch with you is a risk none of us can afford.’
‘With Josef gone we need a plan.’
‘There is no plan,’ Albie said. Then he passed her a ration card in the name of Catharina Stuyvel and left her.
His boots rang out on the treads as he went downstairs. He couldn’t mean it, could he? That he was giving up the fight?
The light from the window drew her there and she tiptoed across the joists to look through the misted glass. Distant cranes of the shipyards, skeletal fingers reaching for the sky now still and silent, and Nazi guns pointing off the rooftops to target British planes. To her left, a ruined building stuck out of the ground like the stump of a bad tooth.
There was nothing to see out there that she didn’t already know.
She sat on the bed to think and wished she could have had any of Danique’s comforts, but to keep anything was to take too big a risk. Now she was only a worn-out body in the clothes she stood up in, a threadbare skirt and patched jersey. A look around didn’t help. The bed was furnished with one grey blanket and no pillow. The fireplace was a bare grate, and she supposed that was all she’d have to cook on, and there was no fuel unless she could burn the furniture.
But years of being an agent had taught her one thing. Waiting for things to improve was never the answer. You’d die if you didn’t take your life in your own hands. Carpe Diem. You had to seize the day.
She grabbed her handbag and tiptoed over to the other door across the corridor and knocked.
A tired female voice answered warily, ‘Who is it?’
‘Catharina. I’m your new neighbour. I just wanted to introduce myself.’
The clunk of a lock and a thin, peaky face poked out from the door. ‘I’m Ellie,’ she said, and this is Rosa.’ She joggled the baby on her hip. ‘Have you anything to eat?’
‘No. nothing.’ The woman’s face fell. ‘I got bombed out,’ Nancy improvised. ‘I need to barter for a few things. I wondered if you’d let me mind the baby in return for anything you can spare.’
Ellie shook her head. ‘We’ve nothing left. We had to sell most things to buy food on the black market. I’m not sure there’s anything I can give you. But come in, I’m just making a hot drink. It’s only hot water with a bit of dried catmint and grass. Something green for the vitamins.’
Nancy turned to lock her door and followed the woman inside. The baby began to cry, a croupy high-pitched wail. Ellie gave her a chunk of old, wizened sugar beet to chew on. She shook her head, ‘She’s hungry and I can’t make milk. What can I do?’
Their living area was a single room with a bed curtained off. There was a fire in the grate but it gave off little heat. By it rested a pile of sawn up floorboards.
Ellie saw her looking at them and shrugged. ‘We didn’t know if anyone would use the room again, and my son was ill. Pneumonia. He died three weeks ago.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘There was nothing we could do. No food, no medicine. The least we could do was keep him warm and hold him while he coughed.’
‘How old was he?’
‘Four.’ She choked back a sob. ‘He was four.’ She turned away and reached for the blackened kettle steaming on the grate and poured hot water onto a few dried leaves in two cups.
When she handed Nancy the cup, her face showed the numb resignation Nancy saw everywhere. To cover her awkwardness Nancy took a sip from the cup. Surprising what a bit of warmth could do. She cupped her hands around the chipped teacup.
‘I’m glad it’s a woman in there now,’ Ellie said. The last one was a diver, and it was terrible when they came for him. They took his mother too, arrested her for hiding him.’
Fierce knocking from below, followed by gruff protests, and then a man’s voice shouting, and a woman crying.
‘Oh no, not again,’ Ellie said.
The noises went on for about ten minutes, growing louder and more insistent. When they looked out of the window, they saw a young man being marched away at gunpoint.
As soon as they had gone, the tightness in her throat eased, but Rosa was still griping, despite the fact that Ellie had picked her up and was dandling her.
‘They were searching for divers, not for you.’ Ellie said. ‘I know you’re one of them. The resistance people. Since the last diver went, the room’s often empty. When it is used, it’s by fly-by-nights, men who work for the resistance. You’re one of them. I can always tell. People think we don’t know, but the signs are always there. The sudden arrival from nowhere. The lack of possessions. That hunted look deep in the eyes.’
‘I hadn’t realised it was that obvious.’
‘Why d’you think we have so little? Every person who comes in that room comes to us for help, and at first we were generous. But it gets wearing. Look at it!’ She gestured around. ‘We’ve nothing left to give you. But you’re the first woman. I don’t suppose you’ll stay long. They never do.’
‘We mustn’t waste the tea,’ Nancy said.
‘True. And it’s a bit warmer in my place than yours, thanks to your floorboards. And if you want to trade something, I’ll need to know what you’ve got.’
They sat in the two old chairs near the grate. Nancy got out her St Christopher from around her neck. Tom had given her it, as a talisman for safe travels, and she wore it always under her clothes. But now she must sell it, for Fritz had seen it around her neck and noted it. He’d be looking for a woman wearing one like this.
Oh, Tom. I’m sorry. But better to be alive without it than dead.
She unclipped the catch and held it out in her palm. ‘It has sentimental value, but I can’t keep it. It ties me to an identity I need to be free of.’
Ellie took it and weighed it in her palm. ‘Heavy. I haven’t seen gold like this in years. It might even feed us. But there are no Jews now to give us a good price. Dani might know of someone. Might buy a few potatoes if there are any to be had, keep Rosa alive a few more days.’
‘Help will come, somehow.’
‘That’s what everyone says.’ Ellie thrust the St Christopher back to her. ‘Keep it. There’s nothing to buy with it, and if it means something special, hold it to your heart. Meaning’s important. So much of this war has no meaning. Love is important, we need to keep things to remind us it exists.’
‘But how will you feed Rosa?’
‘I don’t know. I worry she’ll go the way of her brother. And then who would I be? I wouldn’t be a mother then, would I?’
Nancy reached out to touch her hand. ‘You’ll always be a mother, no matter what.’
‘Put your necklace back on. We all have so little, don’t let the Nazis take it all, even our memories.’
Nancy fastened it on and tucked it down under her jumper. Maybe Ellie was right; it did feel good to keep it.
‘You know, we keep praying for food,’ Ellie said, ‘but the rest of the world seems to have forgotten us. It doesn’t seem fair that God will feed babies in France but not here in the Netherlands.’
‘War’s never fair. Not on the men who must fight, though it’s not their fight. Not on the women who must endure bombs and bullets. And not on the children who don’t understand why it’s happening at all.’
Ellie didn’t reply. Her blue eyes were candid, and her expression one of acceptance, even though her cardigan was more darn than wool, and the legs poking from her thin print dress and into her wood-soled shoes were chapped with cold. She must have been attractive once, but now there was no water for washing and like Nancy, her blonde hair was tucked under a scarf.
It was good to talk to another woman. Nancy told Ellie about Tom, without giving too much away about her life in Holland. Ellie confessed that she and Dani were like souls waiting for their lives to happen. They were too concerned with feeding Rosa, and keeping warm to have time or energy for anything else.
Ellie was right, in the face of such deprivation, Tom felt like a mirage now, something she’d imagined.
When Ellie’s husband Dani came home they were still there talking. Dani was gruff and obviously unhappy to have Nancy, another mouth to feed, in his house, so she took her leave politely and left. There were a few hours before curfew. If Albie would do nothing, then perhaps she could. She could try to get food to Ellie and Rosa. There was food in the Hotel des Indes, and though it was madness to try to go there now, she was determined to try. She was far too restless to stay there.
Chapter 29
Tom looked at the scratched face of his watch. Exactly eleven o’clock. He tried to quiet his apprehension, put his shoulders back and walked into the De Beurs Hotel. The lobby had a few Wehrmacht soldiers hanging around there, but Tom smiled politely at them and acted as though he owned the place. Erik had given him an NSB armband, and besides, no onderduiker would dare go in there at all. It seemed to do the trick, for they paid him no attention. He’d smartened himself up as much as he could by rubbing his shoes with water and making a neat knot in his tie, though he was aware he still looked shabby.
Nancy won’t care, he thought.
He went to the bar where a young pudding-faced girl was serving coffee and he ordered a cup. At least his Dutch was up to that. The girl stared but made him one and pushed it over the counter. At the edge of the lounge there were a few easy chairs around small teak tables, and Tom sat himself down, stomach twisting in knots as he waited for Nancy to come down.
At the far corner of the lounge, Erik was smoking a cigarette behind the morning copy of the Nazi rag the DNZ – the Deutsche Zeitung in den Niederlanden. Erik clocked Tom, and their eyes met, but Erik returned his gaze to the paper.
Tom almost leapt out of his chair at every noise. He was on tenterhooks waiting to see Nancy’s reaction when she saw him. She’d recognise his handwriting he knew – she’d seen it so many times during their work together for the SOE in Baker Street. He couldn’t wait to see her. His hands wouldn’t stay still in his lap, nerves kicking in. What would she make of him being in Holland? The idea he was rescuing her seemed totally ridiculous, yet when he set off that was exactly what he thought he was doing. How little he’d understood.
The door to the lounge opened and closed and a woman stood there. Not Nancy. Tom turned his attention back to his drink.
A moment later she’d come to stand directly in front of him. An overpowering waft of some sort of floral perfume. ‘You’re Tom?’ She spoke in Dutch.
He stood up, confused. ‘Yes?’ He replied in the same language.
‘I’m Danique. You sent me a note?’
Tom reeled. He couldn’t take it in. He stared at this woman who was taller and broader than Nancy, with darker hair and a heavier jawline. Her expression was not one of warmth but rather irritation that she’d been interrupted.
‘There’s been a mistake,’ he said, struggling with the Dutch. ‘You’re not the lady … not the lady I expected.’
‘The note was addressed to me,’ she said, frowning. She held it out in front of him. ‘What do you want? Is it money?’
‘No, no, I don’t want anything. I expected a friend, that’s all.’
‘You know another woman called Danique Koopman?’
‘No … I must have got the name wrong.’ Tom was floundering, and he knew it.
‘I’m not happy with this.’ She turned to the girl behind the counter. ‘This man’s not Dutch, and he’s harassing me. Would you fetch the manager for me, please.’
The girl stared over at him before turning to tug a bell pull on the wall behind her.
Tom didn’t wait. The disappointment was like a needle. He had to get out of there. ‘Sorry,’ he said again, and he hurried out, leaping over the threshold, not even looking back at Erik who was listening in the corner.
He headed straight back to the bank, going in the back entrance with the passcode Erik had given them. Burt was surprised to see him back so soon.
‘I think I’ve cocked up,’ he said.
‘Why? What’s up?’
‘It’s not her. You must have got the name wrong. There was a woman there, but it wasn’t Nancy.’
‘Hey, don’t blame me! That’s the right name. I saw it written down, Koopman.’ He spelled it out. ‘Danique.’
‘Then I don’t get it. Why would they give her a cover name of someone else?’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘But what I do know is that this Danique Koopman is a Nazi, and worse, she’s now deeply suspicious. She got a good look at me, and will probably report me either to the hotel manager or the porter, or both.’
‘What about Erik, the man who was following her? He got his instructions from somewhere, didn’t he? Didn’t he say his boss was called Albie? Well, whoever he is, he must have a vested interest in Danique Koopman. We just need more information. Can you go back and try to have a word with Erik?’
‘I daren’t go back there. They’ll arrest me, she was making a right fuss and palaver.’
‘Then it’ll have to be me,’ Burt said. ‘I’ll go back, see what else I can find out. You sit tight. And don’t answer the door except to the “V” knock, okay?’
*
In the Oranjehotel the day after the raid, Fritz put his head on his elbows where they lay on the desk. He was taking deep breaths and pressing his eyes into his sleeves to push away the images that wouldn’t leave him be. Why was all anyone could ask him, ‘Where is Frau Koopman today?’
And he had to answer through narrow lips, ‘She’s not well. A cold. She’s taking a few days off.’
He should have guessed. As soon as Keller had telephoned him yesterday in a panic to say that Danique Koopman had gone out, but that he’d somehow lost her in the city, the back of his neck began to prickle. But foolishly, he’d ignored it.
He groaned. What would he do if Danique was mixed up in the prison raid? He’d be a laughing stock among his men. The guards said a woman had been there, but a laundry woman? No. Unthinkable. Danique could never stoop so low.
When the alarm siren had wailed its warning, it had made him leap from his chair. Then the unmistakeable crack of gunfire. He’d dashed over to the loading bay expecting to find a prisoner dead, but the dead men on the blood-spattered floor were all uniformed men, except one dead traitor who would be no use to him at all. The sight of them lying there turned his innards to stone. He knew then, something serious had gone wrong. And unthinkably – on his watch.
Why was everyone standing around doing nothing? Incensed, he shouted at the gawping officers, told them to fetch women to mop up the mess. Then he had to send for body bags, and hustle away the gleeful Gottfried and the other ghouls who wanted to come and stare. And they all looked at him, as if to say: ‘How can this have happened?’
The only glimmer of satisfaction was the fact the raid had failed. One of the bastard resistance was dead – and they’d flush out the rest. Had to.
Josef de Jong would soon be spattered across the dunes, another corpse for the crows. They’d come for him at dusk and they’d do it without ceremony.
The ache in his chest made him physically sick. Danique had disappeared. When he got home, he had almost guessed it. The housekeeper Margarete was full of excuses and he had her taken away immediately and put on a train East. He could no longer stand the sight of her and her whingeing apologies.
He remembered staring at his favourite picture, the silent misty trees, on the wall of Danique’s apartment and then throwing the bottle of cough medicine at it, watching it drip down the wall, brown and sticky.
He’d find her, he vowed. Already he had men stopping every woman of her description.
He was still there, reliving it all, elbows on his desk, head in his arms, when there was a rap at his door.
Keller poked a wary head around the door.
‘What?’ Fritz snapped.
‘They pulled a body out of the river.’
‘So?’
‘Her papers were in a leather pouch in her pocket and they’re still legible. According to those she’s Danique Koopman, but we need to do more checks to be sure.’
The name brought an earthquake of emotion to his chest. He stood and turned his back on Keller, breathing hard.
‘Description?’ He could barely speak. Perhaps he was wrong, perhaps Danique had had an accident.
‘Is this it?’ What a come down from Fritz and his plush sofas and pristine napkins.
‘The neighbours are pleasant people. He’s an engineer at the dockyard; the Germans requisitioned their old place and put them here. She takes in sewing and looks after the two children. Sorry. It’s only one child now. The eldest one died not long back. You’re lucky. Their place is not much bigger than this.’
She didn’t want to seem ungrateful, but its greyness, the dilapidated state of it, with its damp patches around the window and on the ceiling, made her shoulders slump.
‘With Josef gone,’ Albie said, ‘there’s no hope of coordinating. It’s every man for himself now. If I were you, I’d get out of The Hague somehow. Get your English friends to get you out.’ He said ‘English friends’ with some scorn.
‘Is that what you think? That I’ll just up and go when things get tough?’
He didn’t answer, but his thin face showed his discomfort.
‘I’m not quitting. Not until this war’s won.’ A pause. ‘When will we meet again?’
‘How the hell should I know? Everything’s in disarray.’
‘You’re supposed to be coordinating us, aren’t you?’ Nancy said. ‘That’s what everyone expects because you’ve been doing this the longest. Well, do something.’
‘With what? We’ve no ammo. We’ve no more men. Only Thierry and he’s close to the edge. Look what he did to Dolf. Things are bad when you shoot your own friends.’
‘Albie, we can’t give up.’
‘Speak for yourself. We can’t even feed ourselves. And the SS’ll be looking for us all over The Hague. You especially. Being in touch with you is a risk none of us can afford.’
‘With Josef gone we need a plan.’
‘There is no plan,’ Albie said. Then he passed her a ration card in the name of Catharina Stuyvel and left her.
His boots rang out on the treads as he went downstairs. He couldn’t mean it, could he? That he was giving up the fight?
The light from the window drew her there and she tiptoed across the joists to look through the misted glass. Distant cranes of the shipyards, skeletal fingers reaching for the sky now still and silent, and Nazi guns pointing off the rooftops to target British planes. To her left, a ruined building stuck out of the ground like the stump of a bad tooth.
There was nothing to see out there that she didn’t already know.
She sat on the bed to think and wished she could have had any of Danique’s comforts, but to keep anything was to take too big a risk. Now she was only a worn-out body in the clothes she stood up in, a threadbare skirt and patched jersey. A look around didn’t help. The bed was furnished with one grey blanket and no pillow. The fireplace was a bare grate, and she supposed that was all she’d have to cook on, and there was no fuel unless she could burn the furniture.
But years of being an agent had taught her one thing. Waiting for things to improve was never the answer. You’d die if you didn’t take your life in your own hands. Carpe Diem. You had to seize the day.
She grabbed her handbag and tiptoed over to the other door across the corridor and knocked.
A tired female voice answered warily, ‘Who is it?’
‘Catharina. I’m your new neighbour. I just wanted to introduce myself.’
The clunk of a lock and a thin, peaky face poked out from the door. ‘I’m Ellie,’ she said, and this is Rosa.’ She joggled the baby on her hip. ‘Have you anything to eat?’
‘No. nothing.’ The woman’s face fell. ‘I got bombed out,’ Nancy improvised. ‘I need to barter for a few things. I wondered if you’d let me mind the baby in return for anything you can spare.’
Ellie shook her head. ‘We’ve nothing left. We had to sell most things to buy food on the black market. I’m not sure there’s anything I can give you. But come in, I’m just making a hot drink. It’s only hot water with a bit of dried catmint and grass. Something green for the vitamins.’
Nancy turned to lock her door and followed the woman inside. The baby began to cry, a croupy high-pitched wail. Ellie gave her a chunk of old, wizened sugar beet to chew on. She shook her head, ‘She’s hungry and I can’t make milk. What can I do?’
Their living area was a single room with a bed curtained off. There was a fire in the grate but it gave off little heat. By it rested a pile of sawn up floorboards.
Ellie saw her looking at them and shrugged. ‘We didn’t know if anyone would use the room again, and my son was ill. Pneumonia. He died three weeks ago.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘There was nothing we could do. No food, no medicine. The least we could do was keep him warm and hold him while he coughed.’
‘How old was he?’
‘Four.’ She choked back a sob. ‘He was four.’ She turned away and reached for the blackened kettle steaming on the grate and poured hot water onto a few dried leaves in two cups.
When she handed Nancy the cup, her face showed the numb resignation Nancy saw everywhere. To cover her awkwardness Nancy took a sip from the cup. Surprising what a bit of warmth could do. She cupped her hands around the chipped teacup.
‘I’m glad it’s a woman in there now,’ Ellie said. The last one was a diver, and it was terrible when they came for him. They took his mother too, arrested her for hiding him.’
Fierce knocking from below, followed by gruff protests, and then a man’s voice shouting, and a woman crying.
‘Oh no, not again,’ Ellie said.
The noises went on for about ten minutes, growing louder and more insistent. When they looked out of the window, they saw a young man being marched away at gunpoint.
As soon as they had gone, the tightness in her throat eased, but Rosa was still griping, despite the fact that Ellie had picked her up and was dandling her.
‘They were searching for divers, not for you.’ Ellie said. ‘I know you’re one of them. The resistance people. Since the last diver went, the room’s often empty. When it is used, it’s by fly-by-nights, men who work for the resistance. You’re one of them. I can always tell. People think we don’t know, but the signs are always there. The sudden arrival from nowhere. The lack of possessions. That hunted look deep in the eyes.’
‘I hadn’t realised it was that obvious.’
‘Why d’you think we have so little? Every person who comes in that room comes to us for help, and at first we were generous. But it gets wearing. Look at it!’ She gestured around. ‘We’ve nothing left to give you. But you’re the first woman. I don’t suppose you’ll stay long. They never do.’
‘We mustn’t waste the tea,’ Nancy said.
‘True. And it’s a bit warmer in my place than yours, thanks to your floorboards. And if you want to trade something, I’ll need to know what you’ve got.’
They sat in the two old chairs near the grate. Nancy got out her St Christopher from around her neck. Tom had given her it, as a talisman for safe travels, and she wore it always under her clothes. But now she must sell it, for Fritz had seen it around her neck and noted it. He’d be looking for a woman wearing one like this.
Oh, Tom. I’m sorry. But better to be alive without it than dead.
She unclipped the catch and held it out in her palm. ‘It has sentimental value, but I can’t keep it. It ties me to an identity I need to be free of.’
Ellie took it and weighed it in her palm. ‘Heavy. I haven’t seen gold like this in years. It might even feed us. But there are no Jews now to give us a good price. Dani might know of someone. Might buy a few potatoes if there are any to be had, keep Rosa alive a few more days.’
‘Help will come, somehow.’
‘That’s what everyone says.’ Ellie thrust the St Christopher back to her. ‘Keep it. There’s nothing to buy with it, and if it means something special, hold it to your heart. Meaning’s important. So much of this war has no meaning. Love is important, we need to keep things to remind us it exists.’
‘But how will you feed Rosa?’
‘I don’t know. I worry she’ll go the way of her brother. And then who would I be? I wouldn’t be a mother then, would I?’
Nancy reached out to touch her hand. ‘You’ll always be a mother, no matter what.’
‘Put your necklace back on. We all have so little, don’t let the Nazis take it all, even our memories.’
Nancy fastened it on and tucked it down under her jumper. Maybe Ellie was right; it did feel good to keep it.
‘You know, we keep praying for food,’ Ellie said, ‘but the rest of the world seems to have forgotten us. It doesn’t seem fair that God will feed babies in France but not here in the Netherlands.’
‘War’s never fair. Not on the men who must fight, though it’s not their fight. Not on the women who must endure bombs and bullets. And not on the children who don’t understand why it’s happening at all.’
Ellie didn’t reply. Her blue eyes were candid, and her expression one of acceptance, even though her cardigan was more darn than wool, and the legs poking from her thin print dress and into her wood-soled shoes were chapped with cold. She must have been attractive once, but now there was no water for washing and like Nancy, her blonde hair was tucked under a scarf.
It was good to talk to another woman. Nancy told Ellie about Tom, without giving too much away about her life in Holland. Ellie confessed that she and Dani were like souls waiting for their lives to happen. They were too concerned with feeding Rosa, and keeping warm to have time or energy for anything else.
Ellie was right, in the face of such deprivation, Tom felt like a mirage now, something she’d imagined.
When Ellie’s husband Dani came home they were still there talking. Dani was gruff and obviously unhappy to have Nancy, another mouth to feed, in his house, so she took her leave politely and left. There were a few hours before curfew. If Albie would do nothing, then perhaps she could. She could try to get food to Ellie and Rosa. There was food in the Hotel des Indes, and though it was madness to try to go there now, she was determined to try. She was far too restless to stay there.
Chapter 29
Tom looked at the scratched face of his watch. Exactly eleven o’clock. He tried to quiet his apprehension, put his shoulders back and walked into the De Beurs Hotel. The lobby had a few Wehrmacht soldiers hanging around there, but Tom smiled politely at them and acted as though he owned the place. Erik had given him an NSB armband, and besides, no onderduiker would dare go in there at all. It seemed to do the trick, for they paid him no attention. He’d smartened himself up as much as he could by rubbing his shoes with water and making a neat knot in his tie, though he was aware he still looked shabby.
Nancy won’t care, he thought.
He went to the bar where a young pudding-faced girl was serving coffee and he ordered a cup. At least his Dutch was up to that. The girl stared but made him one and pushed it over the counter. At the edge of the lounge there were a few easy chairs around small teak tables, and Tom sat himself down, stomach twisting in knots as he waited for Nancy to come down.
At the far corner of the lounge, Erik was smoking a cigarette behind the morning copy of the Nazi rag the DNZ – the Deutsche Zeitung in den Niederlanden. Erik clocked Tom, and their eyes met, but Erik returned his gaze to the paper.
Tom almost leapt out of his chair at every noise. He was on tenterhooks waiting to see Nancy’s reaction when she saw him. She’d recognise his handwriting he knew – she’d seen it so many times during their work together for the SOE in Baker Street. He couldn’t wait to see her. His hands wouldn’t stay still in his lap, nerves kicking in. What would she make of him being in Holland? The idea he was rescuing her seemed totally ridiculous, yet when he set off that was exactly what he thought he was doing. How little he’d understood.
The door to the lounge opened and closed and a woman stood there. Not Nancy. Tom turned his attention back to his drink.
A moment later she’d come to stand directly in front of him. An overpowering waft of some sort of floral perfume. ‘You’re Tom?’ She spoke in Dutch.
He stood up, confused. ‘Yes?’ He replied in the same language.
‘I’m Danique. You sent me a note?’
Tom reeled. He couldn’t take it in. He stared at this woman who was taller and broader than Nancy, with darker hair and a heavier jawline. Her expression was not one of warmth but rather irritation that she’d been interrupted.
‘There’s been a mistake,’ he said, struggling with the Dutch. ‘You’re not the lady … not the lady I expected.’
‘The note was addressed to me,’ she said, frowning. She held it out in front of him. ‘What do you want? Is it money?’
‘No, no, I don’t want anything. I expected a friend, that’s all.’
‘You know another woman called Danique Koopman?’
‘No … I must have got the name wrong.’ Tom was floundering, and he knew it.
‘I’m not happy with this.’ She turned to the girl behind the counter. ‘This man’s not Dutch, and he’s harassing me. Would you fetch the manager for me, please.’
The girl stared over at him before turning to tug a bell pull on the wall behind her.
Tom didn’t wait. The disappointment was like a needle. He had to get out of there. ‘Sorry,’ he said again, and he hurried out, leaping over the threshold, not even looking back at Erik who was listening in the corner.
He headed straight back to the bank, going in the back entrance with the passcode Erik had given them. Burt was surprised to see him back so soon.
‘I think I’ve cocked up,’ he said.
‘Why? What’s up?’
‘It’s not her. You must have got the name wrong. There was a woman there, but it wasn’t Nancy.’
‘Hey, don’t blame me! That’s the right name. I saw it written down, Koopman.’ He spelled it out. ‘Danique.’
‘Then I don’t get it. Why would they give her a cover name of someone else?’
‘That’s crazy.’
‘But what I do know is that this Danique Koopman is a Nazi, and worse, she’s now deeply suspicious. She got a good look at me, and will probably report me either to the hotel manager or the porter, or both.’
‘What about Erik, the man who was following her? He got his instructions from somewhere, didn’t he? Didn’t he say his boss was called Albie? Well, whoever he is, he must have a vested interest in Danique Koopman. We just need more information. Can you go back and try to have a word with Erik?’
‘I daren’t go back there. They’ll arrest me, she was making a right fuss and palaver.’
‘Then it’ll have to be me,’ Burt said. ‘I’ll go back, see what else I can find out. You sit tight. And don’t answer the door except to the “V” knock, okay?’
*
In the Oranjehotel the day after the raid, Fritz put his head on his elbows where they lay on the desk. He was taking deep breaths and pressing his eyes into his sleeves to push away the images that wouldn’t leave him be. Why was all anyone could ask him, ‘Where is Frau Koopman today?’
And he had to answer through narrow lips, ‘She’s not well. A cold. She’s taking a few days off.’
He should have guessed. As soon as Keller had telephoned him yesterday in a panic to say that Danique Koopman had gone out, but that he’d somehow lost her in the city, the back of his neck began to prickle. But foolishly, he’d ignored it.
He groaned. What would he do if Danique was mixed up in the prison raid? He’d be a laughing stock among his men. The guards said a woman had been there, but a laundry woman? No. Unthinkable. Danique could never stoop so low.
When the alarm siren had wailed its warning, it had made him leap from his chair. Then the unmistakeable crack of gunfire. He’d dashed over to the loading bay expecting to find a prisoner dead, but the dead men on the blood-spattered floor were all uniformed men, except one dead traitor who would be no use to him at all. The sight of them lying there turned his innards to stone. He knew then, something serious had gone wrong. And unthinkably – on his watch.
Why was everyone standing around doing nothing? Incensed, he shouted at the gawping officers, told them to fetch women to mop up the mess. Then he had to send for body bags, and hustle away the gleeful Gottfried and the other ghouls who wanted to come and stare. And they all looked at him, as if to say: ‘How can this have happened?’
The only glimmer of satisfaction was the fact the raid had failed. One of the bastard resistance was dead – and they’d flush out the rest. Had to.
Josef de Jong would soon be spattered across the dunes, another corpse for the crows. They’d come for him at dusk and they’d do it without ceremony.
The ache in his chest made him physically sick. Danique had disappeared. When he got home, he had almost guessed it. The housekeeper Margarete was full of excuses and he had her taken away immediately and put on a train East. He could no longer stand the sight of her and her whingeing apologies.
He remembered staring at his favourite picture, the silent misty trees, on the wall of Danique’s apartment and then throwing the bottle of cough medicine at it, watching it drip down the wall, brown and sticky.
He’d find her, he vowed. Already he had men stopping every woman of her description.
He was still there, reliving it all, elbows on his desk, head in his arms, when there was a rap at his door.
Keller poked a wary head around the door.
‘What?’ Fritz snapped.
‘They pulled a body out of the river.’
‘So?’
‘Her papers were in a leather pouch in her pocket and they’re still legible. According to those she’s Danique Koopman, but we need to do more checks to be sure.’
The name brought an earthquake of emotion to his chest. He stood and turned his back on Keller, breathing hard.
‘Description?’ He could barely speak. Perhaps he was wrong, perhaps Danique had had an accident.
