Jack 1939 (27 page)

FORTY-EIGHT.
THE PRICE IN BLOOD

YES, MR. KENNEDY
was indeed a fool, Jack thought in anguish. He should have taken the Bird Man seriously and been halfway to Budapest by now.

* * *

SHE WAS SPRAWLED
on his ravaged bed in a light summer frock, her black hair spread over his pillow. The dress was torn down the front and her legs were parted and one high heel was dangling from her right foot. The left was bare. It was clear the Spider had enjoyed his time with Diana. But perhaps enjoyed, even more, leaving her for Jack to find.

He had cut her open from neck to navel with side journeys along her arms and across her inner thigh, and around the delicate curve of each breast. The face he’d left intact so that Jack would be forced to look at her, forced to know how completely he’d failed her. Diana did not look back. Her black eyes stared at the ceiling instead. Her mouth was open in a scream.

Taking it all in, Jack swayed in the bedroom doorway, the carpetbag dropping to the floor. The smell of blood was rank with July and the humidity rising off the river. There was blood all over the bed and arced across the wall; blood in deep black gouts on the thick carpeting. Blood impossible to hide or wash away.

He stumbled toward Diana, mouthing obscenities. Tears salty on his lips. He knew that he
must not touch her
but he gathered her up anyway, held her close, desperate to knit together the brutal slice in her skin, the ravaging of bone. He had not known she was in Warsaw. He should have known, from the mere fact of the Spider standing in Queen Anna’s corridor. He smoothed her hair with his fingers and cradled her. Groaned her name. She would never hear him say
Jesus, I loved
you
.

He should have stayed in Prague. Or taken her with him. He should have shot the Spider dead on the Charles Bridge and pulled her along, racing for home, Heydrich and his blackmail be damned. What sort of man left the girl he loved with sadists and knives? His trembling fingers traced her cheekbone while a knot inside him unraveled—guilt, refusal.
Hatred.
For Heydrich and his butchers. For himself, who’d delivered Diana into their keeping.

He laid her on the pillow and her head rolled sideways toward the wall.

She had died screaming, Jack thought. Why had nobody come?

The Spider must have stuffed a gag in her mouth.

He brought her here as if to see Jack—and then took out his knife. She had known exactly what he would do to her. And then had watched him do it. Screaming.

Jack’s pulse began to throb.

Heydrich had known. He’d ordered this—
Jack’s punishment
, for escaping them in the market this morning. Diana left like a sick present in his room.

His room.

He lurched upright and forced himself to look at her. There was no crouching spider cut into Diana’s breast, no killer’s calling card. What Obst
had
left was a razor.

Jack’s flat steel razor with the ebony handle, presented by his father six years ago. When he’d finally had enough beard to shave.

It lay on the sheet beside her delicate fingers, her blood smeared over its blade.

Nothing in the room would point to anybody else. He was alone with a corpse he’d have to explain. Blood all over his shirt and jacket, now, trailing down his pants. His razor was lying next to her body. It would make a perfect story.

He stared around him wildly. The Enigma still sat in its bag by the door, where he’d left it.
And the door was wide open.
He lunged to close it before anyone saw.

As he crossed the room, his foot struck something lying on the floor. Diana’s evening purse. The one he’d bought her in Danzig.

He reached for it, his hand shaking. It was a small beaded thing in platinum and steel; he held it quickly to his nose, searching for her scent. Pain clawed at his chest. She’d carried it with her even during the day.

The open doorway leered. He set down the purse, dragged the carpetbag inside his bedroom, and kicked the door closed. He leaned against it a moment, trying to breathe. He did not have much time. Heydrich would send somebody, soon, to make sure his props had done their job. And to catch Jack—with blood on his hands.

Jack tore off his clothes and bundled them into the hotel’s laundry bag. The butcher’s smell was suddenly overwhelming and he gagged at the rusty smears all over himself; he dashed into the bath and scrubbed his fingers in the basin, standing like a sick child in his underwear, retching. Then he stared at himself in the mirror. The hollow sockets around his eyes, the prominent bones of the leprechaun; a face for comedy, not tragedy. It looked like a killer’s face to him now. Frantically, he soaped his chest and arms, then hid his face in a clean towel.

After an instant, he steadied himself. Threw on a clean shirt and his second pair of flannel trousers. His breath was coming rapidly and he could no longer look at the bed. He shrugged himself into a spare jacket. He should pack his things. But he could not think straight and he was wasting time. He reached for his loafers and realized the soles had blood on them.
He’d left footprints in the carpet, for chrissake.
Back to the basin, and the swirl of pink down the drain. He shook the shoes frantically, rinsed them twice, and shoved them damply on his feet.

He tucked Diana’s evening purse in his left pocket, with his passport and wallet. The Luger went into his right. He took the carpetbag in one hand and the laundry sack of bloodied clothes in the other. Tried to stop the juddering of his mind.

He was nuts to think he could pay his bill and drive fast, right out of Poland.

He opened the bedroom door.

Oh, Diana, I would have died for you,
he thought, looking at her for the last time
. I’m dying anyway.

Forgive me.

He shut the door behind him.

He wouldn’t get far. They would close the borders. He’d be hauled back to Warsaw on a murder charge. The whole world would hear about it.
Kennedy Son Stabs Married
Lover.

His dad was going to kill him.

Fuck his dad.

“Ah, Mr. Kennedy.”

He glanced vaguely at the man strolling toward him down the hallway. His fingers felt for the Luger in his right pocket.

“I popped round for Harris’s things—he’s being sent out on a diplomatic flight this evening—but the bellman says he knows nothing about them. Do you still have the key?”

It was the Englishman he’d met that morning. Foreskin? For
syte
. It seemed a thousand years ago.

Jack blinked at him stupidly. “I’m sorry. I . . . I forgot.” He slapped his pockets. “
Jesus.
I think I left the key in
there
. On the dresser.”

Forsyte peered at him and frowned. “I say, old chap—are you unwell?”

“I’m a mess.”

He reached back and opened the door.

Forsyte hesitated an instant, then stepped inside.

Jack slumped against the wall, cradling his head in his hands. There was a burning in the back of his throat.

From his room, the sudden in-drawing of breath and then silence. As if seeing Diana’s body had turned Forsyte to stone.

Jack felt a hand on his shoulder.

“That’s Diana Playfair,” Forsyte said softly.

“It
was
.”

“Lock the door and come along with me.”

Jack did as he was told. He followed Forsyte down the hall to a service stairway and then up two flights to the sixth floor, the carpetbag banging against one leg and the laundry against the other. Forsyte must have found Gubbins’s key on Jack’s dresser because he pulled it from his pocket as they neared room 617. He bundled Jack inside.

“Sit down.”

The room smelled and felt like Gubbins. It made Jack want to cry. He sank into a chair.

“Did you know her?” Forsyte asked. He perched on the edge of the bed like a consulting physician.

“I loved her.”

“But you didn’t
kill
her, I take it.”

He shook his head dumbly.

“Know who did?”

“A man called the White Spider. He works for Reinhard Heydrich.”

Forsyte whistled softly. “And Heydrich framed
you
. Joe Kennedy’s son. Nice publicity stunt, that.”

Jack glanced up. “You know my father?”

“Of course. I’m from Foreign Office.” Forsyte rubbed at his nose with one finger. “Do you mind me asking, Mr. Kennedy—exactly how
old
are you?”

“Twenty-two. And it’s Jack.”

“Have you contacted your ambassador here? Mr. Biddle?”

Jack shook his head. He knew and liked Tony Biddle, but he’d deliberately avoided him on this trip. It was secret, and anyway Biddle would want nothing to do with smuggling a stolen German code machine out of Poland.

“Where were you today?” Forstye asked.

“All over Warsaw.”

“
With
anybody?”

“A few taxi drivers.”

“Any you could name?”

Jack hesitated, thinking of the Bird Man, then shook his head.

“Blast,” Forsyte said succinctly. “Not a terribly good alibi, I’m afraid.”

“Maybe somebody downstairs saw Diana come in with Obst.”

“Obst?”

“The Spider.”

“Nobody will have seen him take her to
your
room, I can tell you that. He’ll have been damn careful. Picked the lock, I suppose?”

“He’s good at that.”

“Hotels are never difficult,” Forsyte offered.

Gubbins had said the same thing. Jack remembered, suddenly, standing in the Spider’s room in Danzig in total darkness, waiting for him to come through the door.
I should have killed him when I had the chance.

“I’ll go down and tell the manager,” Jack said wearily. “I’ll tell the truth, even if nobody believes it.”

“You’ll do nothing of the kind.”

He stared at Forsyte. “
That’s my room.
They know it. I can’t pack my bag and run. I’ll never make the border.”

“True,” Forsyte agreed. “We’ll have to handle things a bit more diplomatically. Mrs. Playfair’s a British national. She’s an Irregular, isn’t she? One of Gubbins’s people?”

“I’ve never known for sure,” Jack said. “She was doing something . . . in an unofficial capacity.”

“Rumor has it. Are you one of Gubbins’s people as well?”

Jack looked at him. “I guess maybe I am.”

“Right,”
Forsyte said quickly. “We’ll go straight to Colin’s friends in Polish Intelligence. They’ll pull rank, pop by the hotel with a few of their johnnies, and get the place tidied up. Nobody the wiser. We’ll send Diana home on a train tomorrow—I imagine Playfair will like to have the body.”

Send Diana home on a
train.

He had a sudden image of her adjusting a hat, her gloved hands working with a pin, the sleeves of her frock fluttering.

Playfair will like to have the
body.

He would have to tell Denys how his wife had died.

“Jesus God,” he said, feeling the burn in the back of his throat again. “She’d never have left England if it weren’t for me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” Forsyte said briskly. “She was the sort of girl who did exactly what she wanted, all the time; and she paid the price, I’m afraid. Damn shame, of course. Nobody
likes
to see a nasty end.”

A damn shame. A nasty end. That would be Diana’s epitaph among the Foreign Office—while to Jack, it was something akin to Lear. Ashes and bitterness.
Howl.

* * *

THEY BROUGHT HIS LUGGAGE,
neatly packed, to room 617. Gubbins’s friends were removing all trace of Jack’s presence—his fingerprints from the bath, his footprints from the carpet. His bag full of bloody clothes. Polish Intelligence had suggested to the Polonia management that someone had committed suicide in a room upstairs. The manager was anxious that the mess be handled without the slightest disturbance to the Polonia’s guests.

“Give me your money,” Forsyte commanded.

Jack opened his wallet.

“One of these chappies will settle your account. He’ll have your car pulled round to the
side
entrance, not the
front
, mind—and you’re to take the stairs down, not the elevator.”

“The place is being watched?”

“Of course it’s watched,” Forsyte snapped. “Heydrich’s people did this for a reason, Jack. They’re waiting for all hell to break loose. We’ll have to hope they haven’t recognized our Polish friends entering the lobby, or they’ll know their dirty game has gone awry. This is still a sovereign country, so they can’t
formally
intervene—but I should not expect them to give up. As soon as you walk out of this hotel, they will be hunting you. I don’t want to know why.”

He paused, then said diffidently, “Have you thought of what to do next?”

Jack rubbed at his eyes. The lids felt dry and itchy, something to do with tears. He had failed to get the DOCA into his system this morning and he knew he would regret that later. But for now, he had to think. Forsyte had asked the critical question.

How to get out of Poland—and take the Heydrich-Enigma with him?

He had gone through too much—he had lost too much—to forfeit the prize now.

He was tempted to ask for a seat on the plane that would carry Gubbins out that evening; but he was not a British subject, and Forsyte had already done enough for a relative stranger.

He could hand over the brown carpetbag, and tell Forsyte to put it on the plane with Gubbins. But Forsyte had said he was
Foreign Office
, not “one of Gubbins’s people,” a deliberate distinction Jack could not ignore. Forsyte knew nothing about the Heydrich-Engima. He was part of Neville Chamberlain’s official apparatus, the creaking machinery of the British Empire—not the Baker Street Irregulars. If Forsyte
opened
the brown carpetbag and looked at its contents—what in God’s name would happen?

Nothing good, Jack felt certain.

Your baby now,
Gubbins had said.

Churchill was counting on him to succeed.

So were the Poles, who were industriously covering his bloody tracks.