Be Not Afraid Read online

  “I am so looking forward to meeting your wife,” Martina said to Berkeley.

  She was a past mistress at the art of lying.

  “And your children,” she added.

  “Well, my older children are away at school,” he explained. “But there’s Baby.”

  “Oooh, I adore babies.”

  “He makes a lot of noise,” Anna commented.

  “Even when they cry,” Martina asserted.

  Berkeley put her in the back of the little car with Anna and had Savos sit beside him in the front; he reckoned that was safer for all concerned.

  “Now tell us what the trouble is,” Savos said as they drove out of town. “I know you did not bring us up here just for a visit.”

  “Karlovy,” Berkeley said.

  “But . . . are they not all dead?”

  “Not the young ones, now grown up, who have both their father and their sister to avenge.”

  “But surely they are in Serbia,” Martina said.

  “They are right here in Northampton, when last I saw them.” He told them about the attack.

  “Cannot the police handle it?” Savos asked.

  “We don’t go in for preventive detention in this country; even supposing we knew where to find them.”

  “And that is what you wish us to do?” Martina asked. “Find them?”

  “I think we should leave that to the police,” Berkeley said.

  “But you say they will not act until a crime has been committed.”

  “That’s right. But I am also pretty sure that the Karlovys cannot afford to hang about. They’ll have another go.”

  “Ah,” said Savos. “We are to be your bodyguards.”

  “In a manner of speaking. My problem is that with poor Lockwood gone I don’t have any back-up. And while those two kids are at large, I don’t like leaving the house.”

  “Of course. We will be there, always.”

  “Well, until this business is sorted out. I should be very grateful. And I shall, of course, make it worth your while.”

  “We should not dream of taking payment,” Martina declared. “We owe you too much already. It is enough that we can help you.”

  She squeezed Anna’s hand.

  “Well, then . . .” They were out in the country now; he topped the rise and slowed the car. “There it is.”

  “It is beautiful,” Martina said. “And you keep chickens. I do like chickens.”

  “But I see what you mean. It is very isolated,” Savos observed.

  “Yes,” Berkeley agreed, frowning as he drove slowly down the hill to the yard.

  “What is the matter?” Savos asked, noting the change of expression.

  “The front door is open,” Berkeley said.

  “Is that unusual? Of course, it is drizzling.”

  “And cold,” Martina observed.

  Anna made no comment.

  “My wife promised to keep it closed and locked,” Berkeley said.

  “What do you wish to do?” Savos asked.

  Berkeley was now driving very slowly indeed while he tried to think. But every thought was unthinkable. On the other hand, he had only survived as long as he had by looking facts squarely in the face.

  “We must assume that the house is in the hands of the Karlovys,” he said. “Lucy must have allowed herself to be taken in.”

  “But if that is the case . . .” Savos said.

  “Yes,” Berkeley agreed through gritted teeth. “We can only hope for the best. It is me they want. If they are inside the house, waiting for me to return, they may not know you are with me. We might be able to surprise them. However, remember that inside that house, hopefully alive, are my wife and my mother, my son and a maidservant. So there can be no indiscriminate shooting. In fact there should be no shooting at all, unless they begin it. As far as we know, they do not have firearms.”

  “I have always believed in shooting first,” Savos remarked.

  “This time restrain yourself. Where are your weapons?”

  “Here.” Martina took her small .38 from her handbag.

  “And here.” Savos took a similar weapon from his pocket. “And yours?”

  “In the house. It is not customary to carry guns in England.”

  Savos blew through his teeth.

  “Now here’s what we do,” Berkeley said. The car was just entering the yard. “I will stop at the foot of the steps and we will go in at the double. As I said, they will only be expecting me and perhaps Anna. Hopefully the sight of you two, armed, will make them stop to think. I will go up the stairs; Alexandros, you will go to the right, into the drawing room. Beyond that is the conservatory. You will hold anyone in there at gunpoint until I join you.”

  “And if someone shoots at me?”

  “Then you may return fire. Martina, you will go through the door on the left, into the dining room and beyond, the pantry and kitchen. You will do the same.”

  “I am ready,” Martina said.

  “What can I do, Papa?” Anna asked.

  “You stay in the car, on the floor in the back, until I call you. Until then, you don’t move.”

  “Oh, Papa, let me come with you!”

  “Definitely not. Please obey me, Anna. Let’s go!”

  The car was at the steps. Berkeley ran up them, throwing the half-open front door wide to rush into the hall, and tripped over the body that lay on the parquet. For a moment he was absolutely paralysed, afraid to look. But it was definitely Lucy. His heart surged with horror and anger. Two wives, both violently killed. But she was breathing, for all the blood that had spread around her like a shroud.

  There was a shout, and he looked up to see Stefan Karlovy coming down the stairs, a long-bladed bloodstained knife in his hand. Berkeley reared back on his heels. But Savos was immediately behind him and brought the young man down with a single shot. Stefan tumbled down the last two steps, rolling over as he struck the floor.

  “You said there would be two,” Savos panted.

  “The other’s around.” Berkeley cradled Lucy in his arms.

  “You said there’d be a man,” she whispered. “But there was a girl, such a pretty girl. I did not see the man, until . . .” Her head drooped.

  “We must stop the bleeding,” Martina said, kneeling beside him.

  “Too late,” he muttered. He had seen enough dead bodies in his time.

  “Is this your wife?”

  “Was.” Berkeley laid Lucy’s head on the floor and slowly stood up. The sense of loss, of outrage, had been overtaken, at least temporarily, by the white hot anger that had driven him through so many crises.

  “She will be upstairs,” Savos said, standing at the foot of the staircase and looking up.

  “Check the kitchen anyway, Martina,” Berkeley said. “And be careful.”

  Martina got up and stepped over Lucy’s body. She paused at the dining room door, drew a deep breath and then threw it open, leaping through in a flutter of skirt.

  Savos still waited at the foot of the stairs.

  “There is a dead woman here,” Martina called.

  Berkeley ran to join her. She was in the kitchen, looking at Maria sprawled on the floor on her back. She too had been knifed in the chest.

  “They are swine,” Martina said.

  “Yes,” Berkeley agreed. He was convulsed with fear for his mother and son. He ran back into the hall.

  “Up?” Savos asked.

  Berkeley nodded and Savos climbed the stairs, slowly, revolver thrust forward. Berkeley followed, aware that Martina was immediately behind him.

  At the top Savos hesitated, looking over his shoulder. Berkeley pointed to the nursery and Savos nodded, but as he turned in the indicated direction Howard began to wail.

  Berkeley gave a sigh of relief and pointed instead to his mother’s bedroom. Savos threw this door open, while Berkeley dashed into the nursery. Howard was very wet and moving restlessly, and the nursery window was open. And as he reached the cot there came a shout
from Anna.

  “Damnation!” Berkeley leaned out of the window. There was a sloping roof over the hall which shut out any view of the car by the steps. “Keep down!” he bellowed.

  For reply there came a shriek.

  “Oh, shit!” He ran for the door.

  “Take this.” Martina threw him her gun. “I’ll look after Baby.”

  Berkeley dashed into the corridor and encountered Savos who looked absolutely devastated. “Berkeley . . .”

  Berkeley stepped past him and ran down the stairs. No father should have favourites but Anna was more precious to him than any living creature. He reached the hall, jumped over Stefan Karlovy, checked again at the sight of Lucy’s body, then leapt over it and ran on to the porch. And gazed at Anna and Helen Karlovy, wrestling on the tarmac beside the car.

  He ran up to them. Helen Karlovy was on top at the moment, one hand on Anna’s throat; but she had lost the knife long ago. Berkeley put the muzzle of the revolver on the back of her neck. “Get up,” he said. “Before I blow your head off.” He spoke Serbo-Croat.

  She hesitated, drawing deep breaths, then turned on him, teeth bared. But he had anticipated her lunge and kicked her in the belly. She dropped to her hands and knees, forehead on the ground, and retched, both hands pressed to her stomach.

  “Are you all right?” Berkeley asked Anna, reverting to English and keeping Helen covered.

  “Yes,” she panted. “Just a bump on the head.”

  Her dress was torn, and he reckoned she had more bruises than that.

  “I thought I told you to stay in the car.”

  “I couldn’t let her get away, Papa.”

  “You could have been killed. Everyone else has.”

  Anna gulped.

  He went back to Serbo-Croat. “You,” Berkeley said. “Get up.”

  Helen Karlovy slowly got to her feet. She was a slight young woman, with pertly attractive features and straggly brown hair; Berkeley remembered her from their brief encounter six years before. She was wearing trousers, but her clothes were thoroughly disordered, and she attempted to straighten them.

  “You are a swine,” she said in the same language. “I hate you.”

  “The feeling is entirely mutual,” he said. “Get inside.”

  She hesitated, glanced at Anna, and then went into the house, checking at the sight of her dead brother. “Stefan!” she screamed, ignoring Lucy as she stepped over her and knelt beside the boy.

  Anna, beside her father, stared at Lucy. “Oh, my God!” There was only six years between them and they had become like sisters over the past year. “Is she . . .”

  “Yes,” Berkeley said.

  “And . . .”

  “Maria certainly.” He looked up as Savos came down the stairs.

  “Your mother . . .” Savos said.

  “Her too?”

  “She was not stabbed,” Savos said. “I think it must have been a heart attack.”

  “That’s still murder, in my book,” Berkeley said.

  “What are we going to do? You will have to call the police.”

  “In due course. Keep an eye on her.”

  “What about Baby?” Anna asked.

  “I think he’s all right,” Berkeley said, and at that moment Martina appeared at the head of the stairs, cradling Howard in her arms.

  At least he was too young to understand what was going on, Berkeley reflected.

  He went up the stairs and into his mother’s room. She sat in her rocking chair, where she had spent so much of her time in the last year, her head slumped to one side. As Savos had indicated, there was no blood, no sign of any wound. But she was definitely dead. There was no pulse and she was quite cold.

  Anna stood in the doorway.

  “Did I cause this, Papa?” she asked, her voice trembling.

  “No,” he said. “I caused it.”

  “Oh, Papa!” She ran to him, threw both arms round him. “That woman . . .”

  “Will hang for murder,” he said. “But not until she’s answered one or two questions.”

  He returned down the stairs to where Savos and Martina waited, Martina still carrying Howard.

  “Let’s get organised,” he said. “Anna, take Howard and go into the drawing room. Stay there until the police arrive.”

  Anna took the baby into the drawing room and Berkeley closed the door.

  “Martina,” he said, “keep an eye on Miss Karlovy. Alexandros, step into the dining room.”

  Savos raised his eyebrows but obeyed. Berkeley followed him and closed the door.

  “Give me your gun.”

  Savos was still holding it. “Do you not have one of your own?”

  “Yes, but it hasn’t been fired. This has.”

  “Well, of course. I shot that crazy man.”

  “That’s it. When that comes out, you’ll be deported.”

  “But it was in defence of you.”

  “You’ll still be putting your head on the block. Have you a licence for it?”

  “Well, no. Your people would not allow me to have a gun, legally.”

  “So you’ll have broken the terms of your residence here. We can’t risk that. Our story will be that I shot him. In self-defence.”

  “But why should you do this?”

  “Simply because there is no risk of anyone deporting me. It will have been justifiable manslaughter.”

  “But what about the girl? She will say differently.”

  “She can’t, because she wasn’t there when her brother was shot. She didn’t even know he had been shot until I brought her back into the house.”

  Savos handed over the weapon. Berkeley used his handkerchief to wipe the gun clean of fingerprints, then held it in his right hand, making sure his prints were on the trigger and the guard as well as on the butt. Then he put it in his pocket.

  “Right. Let’s talk to Helen.”

  They returned to the hall, where Helen still knelt beside her brother’s body. Martina continued to watch her, gun in hand. Lucy lay as still as Stefan. There was enormous grief in Berkeley but for the moment it was overlaid by a combination of guilt and anger. He had caused this to happen, by the simple fact of shooting Karlovy, in self-defence, fourteen years before. Now . . .

  “We need to know who sent you,” he said, in Serbo-Croat. “Or who financed you.”

  “You are a murdering swine,” Helen said. “I will tell you nothing.”

  “You will,” Berkeley said. “Or I will allow Colonel Savos to question you. You have heard of Colonel Savos?”

  She gazed at the colonel and licked her lips.

  Savos smiled at her.

  “I am sure you have,” Berkeley said. “Irene will have told you of him. He once questioned her.”

  “He tortured her,” Helen said.

  “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “I did not torture Irene Karlovy,” Savos said. “I merely whipped her, and then let my men have her.”

  “Bastard!” Helen snarled.

  “Well, I am sure you can think of something interesting to do to this young woman,” Berkeley said.

  “You cannot permit this,” Helen protested.

  Berkeley pointed. “That is my wife lying dead, and you presume to tell me what I can and cannot do?”

  “I did not kill her.”

  “Your brother did, with you at his side.”

  “I did not want to do it,” she shouted. “I swear it. I did not wish to kill anybody, except you. That was our mission. To kill you. Nobody else. Stefan . . .” She sighed, and her shoulders slumped.

  Berkeley knelt beside her. “Listen to me, Helen. You have admitted, before witnesses, that you came here to kill me. That it was your brother who killed two other people and caused the death of a third does not absolve you of guilt. You are going to be tried for murder and hanged by the neck until you are dead.”

  Her eyes were enormous and filled with tears.

  “Your only hope,” Berkeley told her, “is for us
to tell the police you did not know what your brother was planning to do. We will do that, if you cooperate. If you do not, we will let justice take its course. But I will find out who is behind this. Even if it means letting Colonel Savos have you for half an hour before calling the police.”

  Helen looked at Savos.

  “We are wasting time,” Savos said. “I will not take long.”

  Berkeley stood up. “So be it.”

  “In there.” Savos pointed to the dining room. “I will need some cord to tie her to a chair.”

  “Get up,” Berkeley said.

  “No. Wait,” Helen said. “He said if we ever revealed his identity we would be killed.”

  “Well, as your brother is already dead, and at the very best you are going to spend a long time in prison, he’s going to have a problem carrying out his threat. In any event, this is your only chance of avoiding the gallows.”

  She licked her lips, glanced from face to face, and drew a deep breath. Whoever her motivator was, he had clearly terrified her. “It was a man called Himmler. Heinrich Himmler.”

  “Himmler?” Berkeley frowned.

  “Heinrich?” Martina asked. “That is a German name.”

  “What about this man?” Berkeley asked.

  “He came to Nish. Came to our house. He knew all about you, and us. He asked us if we still intended to do our duty by our dead father and our dead sister. Well, we said yes. But we did not know how it could be done unless you returned to Serbia. Then he said he knew how it could be done. He gave us money and arranged for us to obtain passports and passages to England.”

  “And your instructions?”

  “Were to kill you.”

  “And then?”

  “To leave the country and return home.”

  “Did you seriously believe you could do that?”

  “Herr Himmler said it would be quite easy. He said no one would know who we were. With you dead, no one would know we even had a motive.”

  “So you tried the other night. And when that failed, you came out here. Did you suppose I would be that easy to kill? You have seen me at work, when I kidnapped you and took on those IMRO people.”

  “Well,” she said sulkily, “we did not know you had these people with you.”

  “Quite. You were careless. Did this man Himmler tell you why he wanted me dead?”

  “He said he was helping us to avenge our father and sister.”