The Second Midnight. Andrew Taylor

no more lucrative little jobs. Worst of all, England would suffer because of his failure.

      ‘Is there nothing we can do to convince them that we’re all above board?’ He spoke more loudly than he had intended; Madame Hase looked at him sharply.

      ‘Perhaps,’ she said after a pause. ‘We have one strong card in our hand: they need help from somewhere. Any resistance network needs money and it needs access to the outside world. We thought Moscow would provide both, but they are being dilatory and time is running out. You are here and you can offer what they want.’

      ‘Would it help if I met them?’

      ‘It might. But that would take time to arrange – and there might have to be several meetings.’ A fit of coughing interrupted her. ‘It would help if you were more important. They may consider that a mere messenger boy can have nothing useful to say to them.’

      Kendall’s face became mottled. Madame Hase appeared not to notice.

      ‘But of course they do not know what your rank is,’ she continued. ‘Nor do I. I simply draw inferences.’

      ‘I fail to see—’

      There was a tap on the door.

      Madame Hase snapped open her handbag, dropped in the diamonds and pulled out something else. A sense of unreality caught Kendall by the throat, making him literally gasp for breath. She was holding an automatic pistol.

      This time it wasn’t a tap: it was an impatient double knock. Madame Hase concealed the pistol in the folds of her fur coat and signalled to him to open the door.

      It was almost with a sense of anticlimax that he found one of the pageboys waiting in the corridor.

      ‘Pan Kendall?’ The youth held out a dented silverplated salver. On it was a flimsy grey envelope addressed to Kendall at the Hotel Palacky.

      Kendall took the letter, dropped a tip on the tray and closed the door. He ripped open the envelope and extracted the single sheet of paper it contained. Madame Hase returned the automatic to her handbag.

      ‘Oh, my God.’ Kendall suddenly sat down on the edge of the bed. ‘What the hell are we going to do?’

      When Hugh had looked at the statue, he went on to the end of Vaclavske Namesti. The broad avenue ended in a T-junction. He turned right, hoping eventually to reach the river.

      Before he came to the Vltava, he emerged into a rectangular open space. He consulted the guidebook and decided he might be in Charles Square. The centre was laid out as a public park. The snow was still thick on the grass, contrasting bleakly with the bare branches of the trees.

      A covered fiacre clopped past him; the nearside wheels of the carriage sprayed his legs with slush. Hugh wiped it off as best he could with his handkerchief. He was beginning to feel cold. He sidled nearer to a brazier on the corner of the park, hoping to steal a little heat. Chestnuts cracked and sizzled above the glowing charcoal. Hugh’s mouth watered. It was a long time since lunch. He wished his father had given him a little pocket money. Aunt Vida’s half-crown wouldn’t be much use here.

      A small van pulled over to the kerb and parked. Two men got out, both wearing faded blue overalls. One of them opened the back of the van and appeared to be rummaging around inside. The other came over to the brazier and held his hands over the fire. He was tall and thin, with very large blue eyes. Hugh backed away: this looked like a real customer.

      ‘Dobry den,’ the newcomer said to the owner of the brazier.

      That meant ‘Good day’ in Czech, according to the list of useful phrases in the back of the guidebook. Hugh felt pleased: already he was learning to swim in strange waters.

      The man said something else and was given a cone of newspaper filled with chestnuts that steamed in the cold air.

      He paid for them and sauntered over to Hugh.

      ‘English?’ He held out the cone. ‘For you. Take.’

      Hugh made a half-hearted attempt to explain in sign language that his parents had told him never to accept presents from strangers. But the man was insistent and it seemed easier to take the cone, just to keep him happy. Besides, Hugh told himself, this was Prague, not London: the old rules were no longer so important.

      The first chestnut burned his fingers and scorched his mouth; but it tasted wonderful. Hugh politely offered the bag to his benefactor.

      The man shook his head. He laid a hand on Hugh’s arm. ‘Come. My friend speak English good.’ With his other arm he gestured to his friend at the back of the van.

      Hugh hesitated: his parents had also told him never to go anywhere with strangers, either. But a few paces across a crowded pavement was surely a different matter. It seemed churlish to refuse.

      The other man turned as they came up. He was built like a bull, with thick shoulders and a massive head. The van doors were open, but the interior was still sheltered by a pair of canvas curtains.

      ‘Hello, my friend.’ He smiled and pantomimed with finger and thumb that he would like a chestnut.

      Hugh moved a step closer, holding out the cone. The first man was close behind him; on either side were the doors; in front was the van itself.

      The smile vanished. Two hands grabbed him around the waist and threw him bodily through the curtains. Before he had time to think, he was sprawling on the ridged metal floor of the van. Chestnuts rattled around him like hailstones.

      The doors slammed behind him. A few seconds later, the engine coughed into life and the van began to move. The floor vibrated uncomfortably beneath Hugh: they were going over cobbles and the rudimentary suspension of the van couldn’t cope.

      Hugh bit his lip in an effort to keep back the tears. For once his parents had been proved right. He pulled himself up, using the side of the van as a support. The van, now travelling at some speed, took a sharp turn to the left. Hugh lost his balance and careered over to the right. His fall was partially broken by a large, unyielding object that hung along the far side of the van. It was cold, firm and sticky.

      Both his hands and one cheek felt clammy from its touch. Hugh lifted one hand to his nose and sniffed cautiously.

      It smelled of blood.

      Madame Hase hailed one of the taxi-cabs which lurked in wait outside the Palacky’s door. She pushed Kendall before her into the back and scrambled in after him. Her skirt – far too short for Kendall’s taste – rode up, exposing sturdy legs; wiry black hairs poked through the flesh-coloured silk stockings.

      She told the driver to take them to Nadrasi Dejvice, a suburban station on the other side of the river just north of the great hill of Hradcany.

      ‘We can walk from there,’ she whispered to Kendall. ‘It would be foolish to drive straight to the shop.’

      ‘Whose shop?’ Kendall was too angry to keep his voice down.

      Madame Hase patted his knee reprovingly. ‘Jan’s, of course,’ she said in an undertone. ‘Your letter was in Bela’s handwriting so it’s the obvious place. Jan and Bela are on the Provisional Committee for Prague.’ She giggled incongruously. ‘They do everything together, you see.’

      ‘It’s damnable,’ Kendall burst out. ‘Do you Bolsheviks make a habit of kidnapping the sons of British subjects?’

      ‘No, no, my friend.’ She patted his knee again and Kendall edged away. ‘You don’t understand: the fact they took your son is good. It means they think you are worth taking seriously. We have a proverb: in English it would be something like “You don’t mark the pack if you don’t want to play cards”.’

      Kendall looked blankly at her. ‘I don’t see why you’re so cheerful. If they’re just going to give Hugh back, why bother to take him in the first place? It’s perfectly obvious they’re going to use him as a lever to blackmail me.’

      She shook her head and