To All Eternity Page 6

  *

  She was now about eighteen, he supposed. She was taller than her mother, but had, as far as he could see under the loose dress, an even fuller figure. And her hair was indeed auburn, worn loose beyond her shoulders, while her face, if it were possible, had even grown in beauty.

  At the moment her expression was a mixture of caution and curiosity. “You are Mr Smith,” she said in German. “My mother has told me of you. She says she owes you her life.”

  “I was actually taking care of both of us,” he said. “She never told me she had a daughter.”

  “I do not think she ever expected to see you again.” She closed the door behind her. “I am Caterina Slovitza.”

  He took her hand, softly warm. Pray to God, he thought, that she is not an anarchist and a murderess like her mother. “Now it is I asking for her help,” he explained.

  “And I know she will give it to you,” Caterina Slovitza said. “But she is not here at the moment.”

  “Then, if you will tell me where she is, I will go and find her.”

  Caterina smiled, and like her mother, redoubled her looks. “That will not be necessary. She will return tomorrow. You may spend the night here and wait for her.”

  “That is very kind of you, Miss Slovitza. I have a man . . .”

  “Here?”

  “Your people locked him out in the street.”

  “Then I will have him admitted.”

  “There is also an interpreter.”

  “Very well.”

  “Him I will send back to Athens,” Berkeley said. “He was just to see me as far as here.”

  “You are very well organised,” she remarked, and went to the door. There she hesitated. “I wish to apologise for the way you were treated by our people. But as you know my mother, and what she does, you will understand that we need to be suspicious of strangers.”

  “I do understand that,” he said. “Are you coming back?”

  There was so much he needed to find out about this girl.

  “I will see you at lunch, Mr Smith.”

  *

  Lockwood and Pathenikos had remained on the street, watching the house. Now they were brought inside, together with the bags.

  “Bit of a turn up, sir,” Lockwood remarked.

  Pathenikos rolled his eyes.

  “It’s all turning out all right, actually,” Berkeley said. “I think you can go back to Athens, now, Pathenikos.” He peeled off several notes from his roll and gave them to the dragoman. “Many thanks for all your help.”

  “You wish me go to Colonel Savos, in Belgrade?”

  “No, I don’t think that will be necessary. Just get back to Greece and avoid talking with strangers.”

  Pathenikos touched his hat, and departed.

  “You don’t reckon it might be a good idea to let the police know where we are, sir?” Lockwood asked.

  “I have no doubt at all the police know just where we are, Harry. And we certainly don’t want them muscling in.”

  A white-gowned maid led them upstairs to a very comfortable apartment on the next floor. Here the windows looked out over the town and the river, and the countryside beyond.

  “Is there any change in our plan, sir?” Lockwood asked.

  “At the moment, none,” Berkeley told him.

  But only at the moment, he thought.

  *

  He and Caterina lunched alone, in a dining room every bit as elegant as the reception room; he gathered that Lockwood was being entertained by the servants in the pantry. They ate with old silver and drank from crystal goblets, and she had changed her dress to a becoming morning gown, although she had left her hair loose.

  The surroundings at least gave him an opening for a probe. “As you know, your mother and I were thrown together, briefly, by circumstances,” he remarked. “I really know very little about her. But, if you’ll forgive me, I find it remarkable that with so much to live for and enjoy . . .” he gestured at the room “. . . she finds it necessary continually to risk her life, for, well I am not sure just what the cause is. To keep the Austrians out of Bosnia-Herzegovina?”

  “To fight the Austrians, for as long as she has a breath left in her body,” Caterina said.

  “Ah . . . I know that I’m English, and less involved in these things than I might be, but is that not a dreadful waste of a life?”

  “It is an act of honour, to avenge her murdered husband.”

  “Your father.”

  “Yes, Mr Smith. My father.”

  “May I ask how old you were when he died?”

  “I was thirteen when my father was hanged, Mr Smith.”

  “I am truly sorry. It must have been, well, an awful experience.”

  “Yes, Mr Smith.”

  “Were you here when you heard the news?”

  “I was standing on the gallows beside my father,” she said, “when they sprang the trap.”

  Berkeley stared at her in total consternation.

  “We were taken together, you see,” she said. “We were told my grandmother was very ill. She lived in a place called Banja Luka, in Northern Bosnia. We felt we had to go and see her, perhaps for the last time. But it was a trap; the house was filled with Austrian agents. Mother shot her way out, Papa was taken, together with me. We were smuggled across the border into Hungary and tried as terrorists.”

  “You, a thirteen-year-old girl, was tried as a terrorist?”

  “No. But they wished me to give evidence against my father. I refused to do this, so when he was condemned anyway, I was made to watch him die.”

  Berkeley licked his lips. “Forgive me,” he said, “but when they were trying to make you give evidence against your father, did they . . .”

  She gazed at him, her eyes enormous. “Yes, Mr Smith,” she said. “They did things to me. Things that made me ashamed.” She gave a little shrug. “Then they beat me, and let me go. I suppose they felt that I was too young, and too frightened, ever to be a threat to them again. They did not know my mother very well, then, you see.”

  Berkeley couldn’t think of anything to say; even less could he think of anything to do, now. Anna Slovitza, and perhaps her daughter as well, were cold-blooded killers. But didn’t they have a reason?

  “May I ask, have you helped your mother in any of her ventures?”

  “She will not let me. She says I am too young.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  She raised her eyebrows.

  “I would hate to think of you falling into the hands of the Austrian police, again.”

  She nodded. “I would kill myself first.” Then she smiled. “But perhaps I would kill some of them, first.”

  “But you haven’t yet killed anybody?” He couldn’t keep the anxiety out of his voice.

  “No, Mr Smith. I have never killed anybody. Would it bother you if I had?”

  “Very much. Killing is no occupation for beautiful young women.”

  She regarded him for several seconds. “That was a very nice thing to say,” she said at last. “But I am tarnished goods, Mr Smith.”

  “I do not think you could ever be tarnished, Caterina. You do not mind if I call you Caterina?”

  “I should like you to.” She drank the last of her wine. “Now, I must go out this afternoon. You are welcome to stay here. I will be back this evening.”

  “Are you going to meet your boyfriend?”

  “I do not have a boyfriend, Mr Smith.”

  “Ah. Then may I come with you? Wherever it is you are going?”

  Another slow consideration. Then she shook her head. “It would be best for you to remain here, Mr Smith.”

  *

  Berkeley lay on the bed with his hands beneath his head and stared at the ceiling; presumably, Lockwood was disporting himself downstairs with the serving maids. Had Lockwood yet seen Caterina? He wasn’t sure, but he didn’t suppose it would make too much difference to him. As a general rule, Lockwood left the making of plans and decisions to his
master. This also, conveniently, left matters of ethics or conscience to his master as well.

  So, what am I doing? Berkeley asked himself. And more important, what am I going to do?

  On what might be called level one, he was embarked on a mission, the failure of which would undoubtedly mean the end of his career; if it did not involve his being extradited by the Austrians as a kind of sacrificial lamb.

  To carry out the mission successfully, he would not only have to dupe and betray a woman who regarded him as a friend, but virtually condemn her to death. Before which, like her daughter, she would have “things done to her”. That was a quite unacceptable thought.

  What made it even more unacceptable was that to carry out his mission might involve Caterina. It would certainly involve her lifelong hatred, and he suspected that she could, and did, hate just as deeply as her mother.

  But there was a level two that was even more disturbing. He had never supposed he was worse than any other man in his susceptibility to sex, the excitement of the pursuit of a beautiful woman. Nor, he knew, did he have the morally correct attitude towards faithfulness that might be approved by the Church. He accepted that he might, one day, if he survived this jaunt, marry Julia Gracey, become a father, and hopefully, when that happened, a faithful husband as well. That had been his attitude before he had gone to Seinheit. But it had not stopped him falling for the flamboyant beauty of Anna Slovitza. Not that, had she been a genuine honeymooner, he would have dreamed of having an affair with her. But the circumstances had been exceptional.

  Knowing just what she was, he had been prepared to betray her to get himself off the hook on which she had hung him. A bad choice of word. But now he was absolutely smitten by her daughter. That was unethical and immoral, as he had had sex with the mother. It was also highly dangerous, in that Caterina had left him in no doubt that she supported her mother in everything and could hardly wait to get hold of a gun or a bomb and start on a career of anarchism herself.

  The only good that could possibly come out of this whole sorry affair would be if she could be saved from that. But she certainly would not be saved by having her mother carted off for execution. She would merely have an added incentive to kill and maim and destroy, until she was herself sucked into the vortex of political and racial hatred which could only end in death.

  What a mess!

  *

  Lockwood appeared to help him dress for dinner.

  “Tête-à-tête with the young lady, sir?”

  “As far as I know, Harry. Who are you dining with?”

  “Ah, well, sir, there are some lively spirits in the pantry. Goes against the grain to have to turn them in. But I don’t suppose the serving girls will be involved. Will they, sir?”

  “I see no reason why they should be, Harry.”

  Lucky for some, he thought, and then changed his mind when he went down to the reception room, where Caterina waited. Now she wore an evening gown, off the shoulder, which appeared to be supported only by her magnificent breasts. Her shoulders were very white, and glowed. Her hair was swept up in a pompadour to expose them and her neck, again glowing white.

  “Why, Mr Smith,” she said, “a dinner suit does become you.”

  “Hardly as much as that gown becomes you, Caterina.”

  “And you are a master of the compliment,” she remarked, and poured wine. It was white and bubbly, not champagne, but very pleasant if a trifle sweet. “Let us drink to our friendship.”

  “Oh, indeed.” They sipped, and she gave him one of those every intent stares which seemed to strip his mind of the ability to think. Except of one thing. “Ah . . . when do you expect your mother back; tomorrow?”

  “The train gets in from Belgrade just after ten. You were on it, this morning.”

  “So I was. Good Lord! You mean your mother has been in Belgrade all of this time?”

  “But you did not know that,” she pointed out. “Now you will regard your journey as entirely wasted.”

  “No journey could be wasted that involved meeting you, Caterina.”

  Another long stare. Then she asked, “Are you my mother’s lover?”

  As usual, he was left speechless.

  “I think you must have been,” she said. “Briefly. But she speaks very kindly of you, and not just because you helped her escape from the Austrians. Is that why you have come back? To be with her?”

  “Not exactly.”

  She raised her eyebrows, and he decided he might as well begin his campaign now; he could do so without finally committing himself either way. “I came back because I am out of a job.”

  “Explain, please.”

  “Well, you see, as I am sure your mother gathered, I am, was actually, a British soldier, engaged in discovering what fortifications the Austrians had in the Carpathians, opposite Russian Poland.”

  Now her eyes were enormous. “You, the English, are going to war with Austria?”

  “Sadly, I think that is extremely unlikely. No, it was just part of our desire to know just what the other fellow, all the other fellows, have up their sleeves. All governments, all armies, do it all the time. Being engaged in that duty, of course, it was not intended that I became known to the Austrian government, but because I decided to help your mother, I killed several of their people.”

  “Mother has told me this.”

  “So, this upset the Austrians, who applied for my extradition. So I was dismissed the service, and told to make myself scarce.”

  “How terrible!” She looked genuinely concerned. “All because you helped my mother.”

  “All because I disobeyed orders. So, having no family and very little money, I thought I’d look your mother up and see if she had any employment for me.”

  “With your faithful servant. I find that very romantic. I am sure my mother will employ you, Mr Smith. She may even . . .” She refilled their glasses. “. . . wish to renew her liaison with you.” She held his out. “Would you like that?”

  Their fingers touched as he took the goblet, and he drew a deep breath. If he was going to be the absolute cad, then he was going to be the absolute cad. “If you’d asked me that this time yesterday, I would probably have said yes.”

  Another long stare, then she said, “Supper is ready.”

  They ate the first part of the meal in silence. He was in her hands now, even more than when he had first entered the house. It was not until they were into the dessert that she said, quite suddenly, “I have never known a man. With love or tenderness.”

  “Then I am seeking a great responsibility. Can you forgive me, for having known your mother?”

  “Oh . . .” She made a dismissive gesture with her hand. “Mother does not know men. She uses them. She can do this, because of her beauty, her femininity and her ruthlessness. As she used you, regardless of what it might do to you, your career, your life. And she will use you again, if you stay here. You must understand this. If all she has told me of you is true, you could be of great value to her.”

  “And you?”

  Now the adrenalin was flowing.

  “If what she has told me is true, I think you could be of great value to me as well,” Caterina said. “I have dreamed. I have felt, experienced, what men can do. It was brutal, and frightening, and painful. My mother has told me it is not always so, need not be so, with a man who would be gentle, and kind, and loving. She described you as such a man. So perhaps I dreamed of you, without even knowing what you looked like.”

  My God, he thought, what have you got yourself into here, Berkeley Townsend? But he could still try to do some good.

  “And if I turned out to be such a man, would that enable you to stop hating the Austrians? Wishing to kill them?”

  “I don’t think anything could do that, Mr Smith,” she said.

  “Ah.”

  “But it would make my life more acceptable.”

  She stood up and held out her hand. Berkeley realised that whatever other plans he might have, and was now de
veloping, they would have to wait on the here and now. And perhaps, afterwards, his situation would be more acceptable.

  In any event, she was irresistible. She had been, from the moment he had laid eyes on her.

  *

  She led him up the stairs and into her bedroom, a place of soft scents and a huge four-poster bed.

  “You are the first man ever to enter here,” she said.

  She was making sure he understood what she was giving, a responsibility almost beyond belief.

  Now she faced him. “What do you wish me to do, first?”

  “I would like you to undress.” How calm was his voice, at total odds with the raging desires in his brain.

  She removed her dress and her underclothes with no hint of coquetry, each layer uncovering more beauty: long, well-muscled but slender legs, flat belly, rounded buttocks, thickly coated pubes, well-formed feet and toes. She was the epitome of what a man might wish in a woman.

  And he was here to destroy her? That could never be. Then what of King and country? And his oath as a soldier?

  Naked, she faced him.

  “Do you know,” he said, “now I wish to kill Austrians as well. At least, the men who raped you.”

  “And who murdered my father,” she said.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “Them too.”

  He had been sitting to watch her, now he undressed himself. She remained standing, watching him. Once again, she showed no embarrassment or even uncertainty, until he uncovered the scar. Then she gave a little gasp and dropped to her knees before him.

  “Can I touch it?”

  “Of course.”

  Her finger stroked down his thigh, only inches away from his manhood, but ignoring that.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Sometimes, when it rains.”

  “Is it a bayonet wound?”

  “No. It was done by an African spear, when I was there with the British army, ten years ago.”

  She kissed it, then seemed to realise what was beside it, and kissed that too. “Be gentle with me,” she said.

  A man would have to be a monster to be anything else than gentle with such beauty. It was not that she gave the impression, like some women, of being fragile, easy to hurt, even if accidentally. It was the flawlessness of her beauty that was at once irresistible and made him almost afraid to touch her. He laid her on the bed and stroked her, taking possession of her with his fingertips, carefully exploring every hill and every valley. When he rolled her on her face to do the same for her back, she moved without demur, spread her legs for him, would, he knew, have accepted everything and anything he might have desired, as long as he did it with love.