          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

          Ken Follett

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           EYE OF
         THE NEEDLE
         Ken FoDett
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   Copyright ~ 1978 by Ken PolleK
   Cover art and still photographs
A) 1981 by United Artists. All Rights Reserved.
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  Acknowledgment
My thanks to Malcolm Hulks
for invaluable help,
 generously given
         
               Preface

Early in 1944 German Intelligence was piecing
together evidence of a huge army in southeastern
England. Reconnaissance planes brought back
photographs of barracks and airflelds and fleets of
ships in the Wash; General George S. Patton was
seen in his unmistakable pink jodhpurs walking his
white bulldog; there were bursts of wireless activity,
signals between regiments in the area, confirming
signs were reported by German spin in Britain.

  There was no army, of course. The ships were
rubber-andtimber fakes, the barracks no more real
than a movie set; Patton did not have a single man
under his command; the radio signals were
meaningless; the spies were double agents.

  The object was to fool the enemy into preparing
for an invasion via the Pas de Calais, so that on
D-Day the Normandy assault would have the
advantage of surprise.

  It was a huge, near-impossible deception.
Literally thousands of people were involved in
perpetrating the trick. It would have been a
miracle if none of Hitler's spies ever got to know
about it.

  Were there any spies? At the time people
thought they were Surrounded by what were then
called Fifth Columnists. After the war a myth grew
up that MIS had rounded up the lot by Christmas
1939. The truth seems to be that there were very
few; MIS did- capture nearly all of them.

ix

But it only needs one . . .

 It is known that the Germans saw the signs
they were meant to see in Bast Anglia. It is also
known that they suspected a trick, and that they
tried very hard to discover the truth.

That much is history. What follows is fiction.

 Still and all, one suspects something like this
must have happened.

Camberley, Surrey
June 1977

"The Germans were almost completely
deceived  only Hitler guessed right, and he
hesitated to back his hunch . . ."

A. J. P. Taylor,
English History 1914-1945

PART ONE
   _
   
It was the coldest winter for forty-five years.
Villages in the English countryside were cut off by
the snow and the Thames froze over. One day in
January the Glasgow-London train arrived at
Euston twenty-four hours late. The snow and the
blackout combined to make motoring perilous;
road accidents doubled, and people told jokes
about how it was more risky to drive an Austin
Seven along Piccadilly at night than to take a tank
across the Siegfried Line.

  Then, when the spring came, it was glorious.
Barrage balloons floated majestically in bright blue
skies, and soldiers on leave flirted with girls in
sleeveless dresses on the streets of London.

  The city did not look much like the capital of a
nation at war. There were signs, of course; and
Henry Faber, cycling from Waterloo Station toward
Highgate, noted them: piles of sandbags outside
important public buildings, Anderson shelters in
suburban gardens, propaganda posters about evacu-
ation and Air Raid Precautions. Faber watched
such things he was considerably more observant
than the average railway clerk. He saw crowds of
children in the parks, and concluded that
evacuation had been a failure. He marked the
number of motor cars on the road, despite petrol
rationing; and he read about the new models
announced by the motor 3

- Ken Poller

manufacturers. He knew the significance of
night-shift workers pouring into factories where,
only months previously, fLere had been hardly
enough work for the day shift. Most d all, he
monitored the movement of troops around Britain's
railway network; all the paperwork passed through
his offlce. One could learn a lot from that
paperwork. Today, for example, he had
rubber-stamped a batch of forms that led him to
believe that a new Expeditionary Porce was being
gathered. He was fairly sure that it would have a
complement of about 100,000 men, and that it was
for Pinland.

  There were signs, yes; but there was something
jokey about it all. Radio shows satirised the red
tape of wartime regulations, there was community
singing in the air raid shelters, and fashionable
women carried their gas masks in couturierdesigned
containers. They talked about the Bore War. It was
at once larger-than-life and trivial, like a moving
picture show. All the air raid warnings, without
exception, had been false alarms.

  Faber had a different point of view but then, he
was a different kind of person.

  He steered his cycle into Archway Road and
leaned for ward a little to take the uphill slope, his
long legs pumping as tirelessly as the pistons of a
railway engine. He was very fit for his age, which
was thirty-nine, although he lied about it; he lied
about most things, as a safety precaution.

  He began to perspire as he climbed the hill into
Highgate. The building in which he lived was one of
the highest in Lon. don, which was why he chose to
live there. It was a Victorian brick house at one end
of a terrace of six. The houses were high, narrow
and dark, like the minds of the men for whom they
had been built. Bach had three stories plus a
basement with a servants' entrance the English
middle class of the nineteenth century insisted on a
servants' entrance, even if they had no servants.
Faber was a cynic about the Eloglish.

  Number Six had been owned by Mr. Harold
Garden, d Garden's Tea and Coffee, a small
company that went broke in the Depression. Having
lived by the principle that in. solvency is a mortal
sin, the bankrupt Mr. Garden had no option but to
die. The house was all he bequeathed to his widow,
who was then obliged to take in boarders. She
enjoyed being a landlady, although the etiquette of
her social circle de4

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

mended that she to be a lime ashamed of it. Paber
had a room on the top floor with a dormer window.
He lived there from Monday to Priday, and told
Mrs. Oarden that ho opens weekends with his
mother in With. In fact, he had another landlady in
Blackheath who called him Mr. Baker and believed
ho was a bravoing salesman for a stationery manu-
facturer and spent Al week on tho road.

  Ho wheeled his cycle up the garden path under
the disap proving frown of the tan front-room
windows. He put * in the shed and pa`Uockod it to
the lawn mower it was against the law to leave a
vehicle unlocked. The seed potatoes in boxes Al
around the shed were sprouting. Mrs. Garden had
turned her flower beds over to vegetables for the
war effort.

  Paber entered the house, hung his hat on the
haIl~tand, washed his hands and went in to Ma

  Three of the other lodgers were already eating: a
pimply boy from Yorkshire who was trying to get
into the Army; a confectionery salesman with
receding sandy hair; and a ro tired naval officer
who, Paber was convinced, was a degenerato. Paber
nodded to them and sat down.

  The salesman was telling a joke. "So the Squadron
Leador osys, 'You're back earlyl' and the pilot turns
round and says, 'Yes, I dropped my leaflets in
bundles, wasn't that -rightT So the Squadron
Leader says, 'Good God! You might'vo hurt
somebody!' "

  The naval officer cackled and Paber smiled. Mrs.
(}arden came in with a teapot. "Good evening, Mr.
Faber. We started without you I hope you don't
mind."

  Paber spread margarine thinly on a slice of
wholemeal bread, and momentarily yearned for a
fat sausage. "Your seed potatoes are ready to plant,"
he told her.

  Paber hurried through his tea. The others were
arguing over whether Chamberlain should be sacked
and replaced by Churchill. Mrs. Garden kept
voicing opinions, then looking at Paber for a
reaction. She was a blowey woman, a little over-
weight. About Paber's age, she wore the clothes of
a woman of thirty, and he guessed she wanted
another husband. Ho Icept out of the discussion.

  Mrs. Garden turned on the radio. It hummed for
a while, then an announcer said: "This is the BBC
Home Service. It's That Man ARain!"

9

               Kenlett

  Faber had heard the show. It regularly featured a
Oerman spy called Funf. He excused himself-and
went up to his room.

  Mrs. Garden was left alone after "It's That Man
Again"; the naval officer went to the pub with the
salesman, and the boy from Yorkshire, who was
religious, went to a prayer meeting. She sat in the
parlor with a small glass of gin, looking at the
blackout curtain" and thinking about Mr. Faber. She
wished he wouldn't spend so much time in his
room. She needed company, and he was the kind of
company she needed.

  Such thoughts made her feel guilty. To assuage
the guilt, she thought of Mr. Garden. Her memories
were familiar but blurred, like an old print of a
movie with worn sprocket holes and an indistinct
soundtrack; so that, although she could easily
remember what it was like to have him here in the
room with her, it was difficult to imagine his face or
the clothes he might be wearing or the comment he
would make on the day's war news. He had been a
small, dapper man, successful in business when he
was lucky and unsuccessful when he was not,
undemonstrative in public and insatiably
affectionate in bed. She had loved him a lot. There
would be many women in her position if this war
ever got going properly. She poured another drink.

  Mr. Faber was a quiet one that was the trouble.
He didn't seem to have any vices. He didn't smoke,
she had never smelled drink on his breath, and he
spent every evening in his room, listening to
classical music on his radio. He read a lot of
newspapers and went for long walks. She suspected
he was quite clever, despite his humble job: his
contributions to the conversation in the dining room
were always a shade more thoughtful than anyone
else's. He surely could get a better job if he tried.
He seemed not to give himself the chance he
deserved.

  It was the same with his appearance. He was a
fine figure of a man: tall, quite heavy around the
neck and shoulders, not a bit fat, with long legs.
And he had a strong face, with a high forehead and
a long jaw and bright blue eyes; not pretty like a
film star, but the kind of face that appealed to a
woman. Except for the mouth that was small and
thin, and 6

- ErE OF TEIE NEEDLE

she could imagine him being cruel. Mr. Garden
had been capable of cruelty.

  And yet at first sight he was not the kind of a
man a woman would look at twice. The trousers of
his old worn suit were never pressed she would
have done that for him, and gladly, but he never
asked and he always wore a shabby raincoat and a
flat docker's cap. He had no moustache, and his
hair was trimmed short every fortnight. It was as if
ho wanted to look like a nonentity.

  He needed a woman, there was no doubt of that
She won" dered for a moment whether he might be
what people called effeminate, but she dismissed the
idea quickly. He needed a wife to smarten him up
and give him ambition. She needed a man to keep
her company and for well love.

  Yet he never made a move. Sometimes she could
scream with frustration. She was sure she was
attractive. She looked in a mirror as she poured
another gin. She had a nice face and fair curly hair,
and there was something for a man to get hold of....
She giggled at that thought. She must be Betting
tiddly.

  She sipped her drink and considered whether she
ought to make the first movo. Mr. Paber was
obviously shy chronic cally shy. He wasn't
sexless she could tell by the look in his eyes on the
two occasions he had seen her in her nightdress.
Perhaps she could overcome his shyness by being
brazen What did she have to lose? She tried
imagining the worst, just to see what it felt like.
Suppose he rejected her. WelL it would be
embarrassing even humiliating. It would be a blow
to her pride. But nobody else need know it had hap.
pened. He would just have to leave.

  The thought of rejection had put her off the
whole idea. She got to her feet slowly, thinking: I'm
just not the brazen type. It was bedtime. If she had
one more gin in bed she would be able to sleep. She
took the bottle upstairs.

  Her bedroom was below Mr. Faber's, and she
could hear violin music from his radio as she
undressed. She put on a new nightdress pink, with
an embroidered neckline, and no one to see
it! and made her last drink. She wondered what
Mr. Faber looked like undressed. He would have a
flat stomach and hairs on his nipples, and you would
be able to see 7

             Ken Follett

his ribs because he was slim. He probably had a
small bottom. She giggled again: thinking, I'm a
disgrace.

  She took her drink to bed and picked up her
book, but it was too much effort to focus on the
print. Besides, she was bored with vicarious
romance. Stories about dangerous love affairs were
fine when you yourself had a perfectly safe love
affair with your husband, but a woman needed
more than Barbara Cartland. She sipped her gin
and wished Mr. Paber would turn the radio off. It
was like trying to sleep at a tea dance!

  She could, of course, ask him to turn it off. She
looked at her bedside clock; it was past ten. She
could put on her dressing gown, which matched the
nightdress, and just comb her hair a little, then step
into her slippers~quite dainty, with a pattern of
roses and just pop up the stairs to the next
landing, and just, well, tap on his door. He would
open it, perhaps wearing his trousers and
undershirt, and then he would look at her the way
he had looked when he saw her in her nightdress on
the way to the bathroom....

  "Silly old fool," she said to herself aloud. "You're
just making excuses to go up there."

  And then she wondered why she needed excuses.
She was a grownup, and it was her house, and in
ten years she had not met another man who was
just right for her, and what the hell, she needed to
feel someone strong and hard and hairy on top of
her, squeezing her breasts and panting in her ear
and parting her thighs with his broad flat hands, for
tomorrow the gas bombs might come over from
Germany and they would all die choking and
gasping and poisoned and she would have lost her
last chance.

  So she drained her glass and got out of bed and
put on her dressing gown, and just combed her hair
a little and stepped into her slippers, and picked up
her bunch of keys in case he had locked the door
and couldn't hear her knock above the sound of the
radio.

  There was nobody on the landing. She found the
stairs in the darkness. She intended to step over the
stair that creaked, but she stumbled on the loose
carpet and trod on it heavily but it seemed that
nobody heard, so she went on up and tapped OD
the door at the top. She tried it gently. It was
locked.

8

          ErE OF TlIENEEDLE

 The radio was turned down and Mr. Faber called
out, ''Yes?'7

 He was well-spoken; not cockney or foreign not
anything, really. inst a Dleacantly neutral voice.

She caid. "(fan I have a word with you?"

He -teemed to hesitate. then he said: "I'm
undressed."

  "So am I." she giggled, and she opened the door
with her duplicate key.

  He was standing in front of the radio with some
kind of screwdriver in his hand. He wore his
trousers and no undershirt. His face was white and
he Inoked scared to death.

  She steeped inside and closed the door behind
her, not knowing what to say. ~Suddenlv she
remembered a line from an American film, and she
said, "Would you buy a lonely girl a drink?" It was
silly, really, because she knew he had no drink in
his room and she certainly wasn't dressed to go out;
but it sounded vampish

  It seemed to have the desired effect. Without
speaking, he came slowly toward her. He did have
hair on his "insoles. &e took a sten forward, and
then his arms went around her and she closed her
eves and turned up her face, and he kissed her,
and she moved qliehtlv in his arms, and then there
was a terrible, awful, unbearable sharp pain in her
back and she opened her mouth to scream

  He had heard her stumble on the stairs. If she'd
waited ark other mimlte he would have had the
radio transmitter hack in its case and the code
books in the drawer and there would have been no
need for her to die. But before he could conceal
the evidence he bad heard her key in the lock, and
when she opened the door the stiletto had been in
his hand,

  Because she moved eliebtlv in his arms, Faber
missed her heart with the first lab of the weapon,
and he had to thrust his finders down her throat to
stop her crying out. He jabbed again, but she
moved again and the blade struck a rib and merely
slashed her superficially Then the blood was
spurting and he knew it would not be a clean kill;
it never was when you missed with the first stroke

  &e was wriggling too much to be killed with a jab
now. Keeping his finders in her mouth, he gripped
her jaw with trio thumb and pushed her back
against the door. Her head hit 9

             Ken Pollett

the woodwork with a loud bump, and he wished he
bad not turned the radio down, but how could he
have expected this?

 He hesitated before killing her because it would
be much better if she died on the bed better for-the
cover-up that was already taking shape in trio
mind but he could not be sure of getting her that
far in silence. He tightened his hold on her jaw,
kept her head still by jamming it against the door,
and brought the stiletto around in a wide, slashing
arc that ripped away most of her throat, for the
stiletto was not a slashing knife and the throat was
not Faber's favored target.

 He jumped back to avoid the first horrible gush
of blood, then stepped forward again to catch her
before she hit the noon He dragged her to the bed,
trying not to look at her neck, and laid her down.

 He had killed before, so he expected the
reaction it always came as soon as ho felt safe. He
went over to the sink in the corner of the room and
waited for it. He could see his face in the little
shaving mirror. He was white and his eyes were
staring. He looked at himself and thought, killer.
Then he threw up.

 When that was over he felt better. He could go to
work now. He knew what he had to do, the details
had come to him even while he was killing her.

 He washed his face, brushed his teeth and
cleaned the washbasin. Then he sat down at the
table beside his radio. He looked at his notebook,
found his place and began tapping the key. It was
a long message, about the mustering of an army for
Fnland, and he had been halfway through when he
was interrupted. It was written down in cipher on
the pad. When he had completed it he signed off
with "Regards to Wit."

 The transmitter packed away neatly into a
specially designed suitcase. Paber put the rest of his
possessions into a second case. He took off his
trousers and sponged the bloodotains,~then
washed himself all over.

At last he looked at the corpse.

  He was able to be cold about her now. It was
wartime they were enemies; if he had not killed her
she would have caused his death. She had been a
threat, and all he felt now was relief that the threat
had been nullified. She should not have frightened
him.

10

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

 Nevertheless, his last task was distasteful. He
opened her robe and lifted her nightdress, puking
it up around her waist. She was wearing knickers.
He tore them, so that the hair of her pubis was
visible. Poor woman, she had wanted only to seduce
him. But he could not have got her out of the room
without her seeing the transmitter, and the British
propaganda had made these people alert for
spies ridiculously so. If the Abwehr had as many
agents as the newspapers made out, the British
would have lost the war already.

 He stepped back and looked at her with his hoed
on one side. There was something wrong. He tried
to think like a sex maniac. If I were crazed with lust
for a woman like Una Garden, and I killed just so
that I could have my way with her. what would I
then do?

 Of course. that kind of lunatic would want to
look at her breasts. Paher leaned over the body,
gripped the neckline of the nightdress, and ripped
it to the waist. Her large breasts sagged sideways.

 The police doctor would soon discover that she
had not been raped. but Faber did not think that
mattered. He had taken a criminology course at
Heidelberg, and he knew that many sexual assaults
were not consummated. Besides, he could not have
carried the deception that far, not even for the
Patherland. He was not in the SS. Some of them
would queue up to rape the corpse.... He put the
thought out of his mind.

 He washed his hands again and got dressed. It
was almost midnight. He would wait an hour before
leaving it would be safer later.

He sat down to think about how he had gone
wrong.

 There was no question that he had made a
mistake. If his cover were perfect, he would be
totally secure. If he were to. tally secure no one
could discover his secret. Mrs. Garden had
discovered his secret or rather, she would have if
she had lived a few seconds longer therefore he
had not been totaDy secure, therefore his cover was
not perfect, therefore he had made a mistake.

 He should have put a bolt on the door. Better to
be thought chronically shy than to have landladies
with duplicate keys sneaking in in their
nightclothes.

That was the surface error. The deep flaw was that he
was 11

             Ken Polldt

too eligible to he a bachelor. He thought this with
irritation, not conceit Ho knew that he was a
pleasant attractive man and that there was no
apparent reason whj he should be Bugle He turned
0a mind to thinking up a cover that would explain
this without inviting advances from the Mrs.
Gardens of this world.

 He ought to be able to find inspiration in his real
personality. Why wa. he singles He stirred
uneasily he did not like mirrors The answer was
ample. Ho was single because of his profession. If
there were deeper reasons, he did not want to
know them.

 He would have to spend tonight in the open.
Highgate Wood would do. In the morning he would
take his suitcases to a railway station checkroom.
then tomorrow evening he would go to 0a room in
Blackheath.

 He would shift to trig accond identity. He had
little fear of being caught by the police Tho
commercial travder who occupied the room at
Blac}hoath on weekends looked rather different
from the railway clor} who had killed his landlady.
The Blac}heath persona was expansive, vulgar and
flashy. Ho wore loud tin, bought rounds of drinlts,
and combed his hair differently Tho police would
circulate a description of a shabby little pervert
who would not say boo to a goose until he was
indiamed with lust, and no one would look twice at
the handsome salesman in the striped suit who was
obviously the type that was more or less
permanently inflamed with lust and did not have to
kill women to get them to show him their breasts

 He would have to set up another identity ho
always kept at least two. He needed a new job,
fresh papers passport, identity card, ration book,
birth certificate. It was all so risky. Damn Ho.
Oarden. Why couldn't she have drunk herself
asleep as usual?

 It was one o'clock. Pabor tool; a last fool; around
the room. He was not concerned about leaving
clues his 9ngerprints were obviously all over the
house, and there would be no doubt in anyone's
mind about who was the murderer. Nor did he feel
any sentiment about leaving the place that had
been his home for two years; he had never thought
of it as home. He had never thought of anywhere
as home.

12

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

  He would always think of this as the place
where he had learned to put a bolt on a door.

  He turned out the light, picked up his cases,
and went down the stairs and out of the door
into the night.

                 13
                  
Henry II was a remarkable king. In an age when the
term 'flying visit" had not yet been coined, he flitted
between England and France with such rapidity that
he was credited with magical powers; a rumor that,
understandably, he did nothing to suppress. ID
1173 either the June or the September, depending
upon which secondary source one favors he
arrived in England and left for France again so
quickly that no contemporary writer ever found out
about it. Later him rians discovered the record of
his expenditure in the Pipe Rolls. At the time his
kingdom was under attack by his sons at its
northern and southern extremes the Scottish
border and the Soutb of France. But what. precisely,
was the purpose of his visit? Whom did he see?
Why was it secret, when the myth of his magical
speed was worth an army? What did he accomplish?

 This was the problem that taxed Percival
Godliman in the summer of 1940. when Hitler's
armies swept across the Prench cornfields like a
scythe and the British poured out of the Dunkirk
bottleneck in bloody disarray.

 Professor Godliman knew more about the Middle
Ages than any man alive. His book on the Black
Death had upended every convention of
medievalism; it had also been a bestseller and
published as a Penguin Book. With that behind 14

           EYE OF THE NEEDLE

him he had tmned to a slightly earlier and even
more intract-able- period.

  At 12:30 on a splendid June day in London, a
secretary found Godliman hunched over an
illuminated manuscript, laboAously translating its
medieval Latin, making notes in his own even less
legible handwriting. The secretary, who was planning
to eat her lunching the garden of Gordon Square,
did not like the manuscript room because it smelled
dead. You needed so many keys to get in there, it
might as well have been a tomb.

  Godliman stood at a lectern, perched on one leg
like a bird, his face lit bleakly by a spotlight
above he might have been the ghost of the monk
who wrote the book, standing a cold vigil over his
precious chronicle. The girl cleared her throat and
waited for him to notice her. She saw a short man in
his fifties, with round shoulders and weak eyesight,
wearing a tweed suit. She knew he could be perfectly
sensible once you dragged him out of the Middle
Ages. She coughed again and said, "Professor
GodlimanT'

  He looked up, and when he saw her he nailed,
and then he did not look like a ghost, more like
someone's dotty father. "Hello1" he said, in an
astonished tone, as if he had just met his next-door
neighbor in the middle of the Sahara Desert.

  "You asked me to remind you that you have lunch
at the Savoy with Colonel Terry."

  "Oh, yes." He took his watch out of his waistcoat
pocked and peered at it. "If I'm going to walk it, I'd
better leave now."

She nodded. 'Y brought your gas mask."

  "You are thoughtful]" He smiled again, and she
decided he looked quite nics. He took the mask
from her and said, "Do I need my coatT'

  "You didn't wear one this morning. It's quits
warm. Shall I lock up after you?"

  "Thank you, thank you." He jammed his notebook
into his jacked pocket and went out.

The secretary looked around, shivered, and followed
him.

Colonel Andrew Terry was a red-faced Scot,
pauper-thin from a lifetime of heavy smoking, with
sparse dark-Word hair thickly brilliantined.
Godliman found him at a corner

 - 1'

             Ken Pollcff

table in the Savoy Grill, wearing civilian clotha.
There were three cigarette stubs in the ashtray. He
stood up to shake hands.

  Godliman said, "Morning, Unde Andrew." Terry
was his mother's baby brother.

"How are you, Percy?"

  "I'm writing a book about the Plantagenets."
Godliman sat down.

"Are your manuscripts still in London? I'm
surprised."

"Why?"

  Terry lit another cigarette. "Move them to the
country in case of bombing."

"Should I?"

  "Half the National Gallery has been shoved into
a bloody big hole in the ground somewhere up in
Wales. Young Kenneth Clark is quicker off the
mark than you. Might be sensible to take yourself
off out of it too, while you're about it. I don't
suppose you've many students left."

  "That's true." Godliman took a menu from a
waiter and said, "I don't want a drink."

  Terry did not look at his menu. "Seriously, Percy,
why are you still in town?"

  Godliman's eyes seemed to clear, like the image
on a screen when the projector is focused, as if he
had to think for the first time since he walked in.
"It's all right for children to leave, and national
institutions like Bertrand Russell. But for me well,
it's a bit like running away and letting other people
fight for you. I realize that's not a strictly logical
argument. It's a matter of sentiment, not logic."

  Terry smiled the smile of one whose expectations
have been fulfilled. But he dropped the subject and
looked at the menu. After a moment he said, "Good
God. Le Lord Wooiton Pfe."

  Godliman gunned. "I'm sure it's still just potatoes
and veB. etabla."

  When they had ordered, Terry said, "What do you
thinly of our new Prime Minister?"

  "The man's an ass. But then, Hitler's a fool, and
look how well he's doing. You?"

"We can live with Winston. At least he's bellicose."

  Godliman raised his eyebrows. " 'We?' Are you
back in the game?"

16

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

"l never really left it, you know."

"But you said "

  "Percy. Can't you think of a department whose
staff all say they don't work for the Army?"

"Well, I'm dammed All this time . . ."

  Their first course came, and they started a bottle
of white Bordeaux. Godliman ate potted salmon
and looked pensive.

Eventually Terry said, 'Thinking about the last lot?"

  Godliman nodded. "Young days, you know.
Terrible time." But his tone was almost wistful.

  'whit war isn't the same at all. My chaps don't go
behind enemy lines and count bivouacs like you did.
Well, they do, but that side of thing" is much less
important this time. Nowadays we just listen to the
wireless."

"Don't they broadcast in code?"

  Terry shrugged. "Codes can be broken. Candidly,
we get to know just about everything we need these
days."

  Godliman glanced around, but there was no one
within earshot, and it was hardly for him to tell
Terry that careless talk costs lives.

  Terry went on, "In fact my job is to make sure
they don't have the information they need about
us."

  They both had chicken pie to follow. There was
no beef on the menu. Godliman fell silent, but
Terry talked on.

  "Canards is a funny chap, you know. Admiral
Wilhelm Canar~s, head of the Abwehr. I met him
before this lot started. Likes England. My guess is
he's none too fond of Hitler. Anyway, we know he's
been told to mount a major intelligence operation
against us, in preparation for the invasion  but
he's not doing much. We arrested their best man in
England the day after war broke out. He's in
Wandsworth prison now. Useless people, Canaris's
spies. Old ladies in boarding-houses, mad Fascists,
petty criminals_ n

  Oodliman said, "Look here, old boy, this is too
much." He trembled slightly with a mixture of anger
and incomprehension. "All this stuff is secret. I
don't want to knowI"

  Terry was unperturbed. "Would you like
something else?" he offered. "I'm having chocolate
ice cream."

  Godliman stood up. "I don't think so. I'm going to
go back to my work, if you don't mind."

Terry looked up at him coolly. "The world can wait for
~7

              Kenollcit

your reappraisal of the Plantagenets, Percy. There's
a war on, dear boy. I want you to work for me."

- Godliman stared down at him for a long moment.
"What on earth would I do?"

Terry smiled wolfishly. "Catch spies."

 Walking back to the college, Godliman felt
depressed despite the weather. He would accept
Colonel Terry's offer, no doubt about that. His
country was at war; it was a just war; and if he was
too old to fight, he was still young enough to help.

 But the thought of leaving his work and for how
many years? depressed him. He loved history and
he had been totally absorbed in medieval England
since the death of his wife ten years ago. He liked
the unraveling of mysteries, the discovery of faint
clues, the resolution of contradictions, the
unmasking of lies and propaganda and myth. His
new book would be the best on its subject written
in the last hundred years, and there would not be
one to equal it for another century. It had ruled his
life for so lone that the thought of abandoning it
was almost unreal, as difficult to digest as the
discovery that one is an orphan and no relation at
all to the people one has always called Mother and
Father.

 An air raid warning stridently interrupted his
thoughb. lIe contemplated ignoring it so many
people did now, and he was only On minutes' walk
from the college. But he had no real reason to
return to his study he knew he would do no more
work today. So he hurried into a tube station and
joined the solid mass of Londoners crowding down
the staircases and on to the grimy platform.. He
stood close to the wall, staring at a Bovril poster,
and thought, But it's not just the things I'm leaving
behind.

 Going back into the game depressed him, too.
There were some things he liked about it: the
importance of little things, the value of simply being
clever, the meticulousness, the guesswork. But he
hated the blackmail, the deceit, the desperation,
and the way one always stabbed the enemy in the
back.

 The platform was becoming more crowded.
Godliman sat down while there was still room, and
found himself leaning against a man in bus driver's
uniform. The man smiled and 18

          EYE OF THE NEEDlR

said, "Oh to be in England, DOW that summer's
here. Know who said that?"

  "Now that April's there," GodlimaD corrected
him. "It was Browning."

  "I heard it was Adolf Hitler," the driver said. A
woman next to him squealed with laughter and he
turned his attention to her. "Did you hear what the
evacuee said to the farmer's wife?"

  Godliman tuned out and remembered an April
when he had longed for England, crouching on a
high branch of a plane tree, peering through a cold
mist across a French valley behind the German
lines. He could see nothing but vague dark shapes,
even through his telescope, and he was about to
slide down and walk a mile or so farther when
three German soldiers came from nowhere to sit
around the base of the tree and smoke. After a
while they took out cards and began to play, and
young Percival Godliman realized they had found
a way of stealing off and were here for the day. He
stayed ID the tree, hardly moving until he began to
shiver and his muscles knotted with cramp and his
bladder felt as if it would burst. Then he took out
his revolver and shot the three of them, one after
another, through the tops of their closecropped
heads. And three people, laughing and cursing and
gambling their pay, had simply ceased to exist. It
was the first time he killed, and all he could think
was, Just because I had to pee.

  Godliman shifted on the cold concrete of the
station platform and let the memory fade away.
There was a warm wind from the tunnel and a train
came in. The people who got off found spaces and
settled to wait. Godliman listened to the voices.

  "Did you hear Churchill on the wireless? We was
listening-in at the Duke of Wellington. Old Jack
Thornton cried. Silly old bugger . . ."

  "haven't had fillet steak on the menu for so long
I've forgotten the belly taste . . . wine committee
saw the war coming and bought in twenty thousand
dozen, thank God . . ."

  "Yes, a quiet wedding, but what's the point in
waiting when you don't know what the next day's
going to bring?"

"No, Peter never came back from Dunkirk . . ." 19

             Ren Pollers

 The bus driver offered him a cigarette. Godliman
refused, and took out his pipe. Someone started to
sing.

A blackout warden passing yelled,
"Ma, pull down that blind
Just look at what you're showing," and we
Shouted, "Never mind." Ohl
Knees up Mother Brown . . .

 The song spread through the crowd until
everyone was singing. Godliman joined in, knowing
that this was a nation losing a war and singing to
hide its fear, as a man will whistle past the
graveyard at night; knowing that the sudden
affection he felt for London and Londoners was an
ephemeral sentiment, akin to mob hysteria;
mistrusting the voice inside hnn that said "This, this
is what the war is about, this is what makes it worth
fighting"; knowing but not caring, be" cause for the
first time in so many years he was feeling the sheer
physical thrill of comradeship and he liked it.

 When the all~lear sounded they went up the
staircase and into the street, and Godliman found
a phone box and called Colonel Terry to ask how
soon he could start.

                 20
                  
Paber . . . Godliman . . . two-thirds of a triangle that
one day would be crucially completed by the
principals, David and Lucy, of a ceremony proceeding
at this moment in a small country church. It was old
and very beautiful. A drystone wall enclosed a
graveyard where wildflowers grew. The church itself
had been there well, bits of it had the last time
Britain was invaded, almost a millennium ago. The
north wall of the nave, several feet thick and pierced
with only two tiny windows, could remember that last
invasion; it had been built when churches were place"
of physical as well as spiritual sanctuary, and the little
round-headed windows

I were better for shooting arrows out of than for
letting the

~ Lord's sunshine in. Indeed, the Local Defense
Volunteers had

1 detailed plans for using the church if and when the
current bunch of European thugs crossed the
Channel.

  But no jackboots sounded in the tiled choir in this
August of 1940; not yet. The sun glowed through
stained glass win dowg that had survived Cromwell's
iconoclasts and Henr' VIII's greed, and the roof
resounded to the notes of an organ that had yet to
yield to woodworm and dry rot.

  It was a lovely wedding. Lucy wore white, of course,
ant her five sisters were bridesmaids in apricot
dresses. David wore the Mess Uniform of a Flying
Officer in the Royal At 21

             Ken FOllcn

Force, all crisp and new for it was the first time he
had put it on. They sang Psalm 23, The Lord Is My
Shepherd, to the tune Crimond.

 Lucy's father looked proud, as a man will on the
day his eldest and most beautiful daughter marries
a fine boy in a uniform. He was a farmer, but it
was a long time since he had sat on a tractor; he
rented out his arable land and used the rest to raise
racehorses, although this winter of course his
pasture would go under the plough and potatoes
would be planted. Although he was really more
gentleman than farmer, he nevertheless had the
open-air skin, the deep chest, and the big stubby
hands of agricultural people. Most of the men on
that side of the church bore him a resemblance:
barrel-cheated men, with weathered red faces, those
not in tail coats favoring tweed suits and stout
shoes.

 The bridesmaids had something of that look, too;
they were country girls. But the bride was like her
mother. Her hair was a dark, dark red, long and
thick and shining and glorious, and she had
wide-apart amber eyes and an oval face; and when
she looked at the vicar with that clear, direct gaze
and said, "I will" in that firm, clear voice, the vicar
was startled and thought "By God she means it!"
which was an odd thought for a vicar to have in the
middle of a wedding.

 The family on the other side of the nave had a
certain look about them, too. David's father was a
lawyer his permanent frown was a professional
affectation and concealed a sunny nature. (He had
been a Major in the Arrny in the last war, and
thought all this business about the RAP and war in
the air was a fad that would soon pass.) But nobody
looked like him, not even his son who stood now at
the altar promising to love.his wife until death,
which might not be far away, God forbid. No, they
all looked like David's mother, who sat beside her
husband now, with almost-black hair and dark skin
and long, slender limbs.

 David was the tallest of the lot. He had broken
highjump records last year at Cambridge University.
He was rather too good-looking for a man his
face would have been feminine were it not for the
dark, ineradicable shadow of a heavy beard. He
shaved twice a day. He had long eyelashes, and he
looked intelligent, which he was, and sensitive.

The whole thing was idyllic: two happy, handsome
people, 22

             Kay Follett

'children, of solid, comfortably off,
backbone-of-~ngland-type families getting married
in a country church in the finest slimmer weather
Britain can offer.

 When they were pronounced man and wine both
the moth. ers were dry-eyed, and both the fathers
cried.

 Kissing the bride was a barbarous custom, Lucy
thought, as yet another middl~aged pair of
champagne-wet lips smeared her cheek. It was
probably descended from even more barbarous
customs in the Dark Ages, when every man in the
tribe was allowed to well, anyway, it was time we
got properly civilised and dropped the whole
business

 She had known she would not like this part of
the wedding. She liked champagne, but she was not
crazy about chicken drumsticks or dollops of caviar
on squares of cold toast, and as for the speeches
and the photographs and the honeymoon jokes,
well.... But it could have been worse. If it had been
peacetime Pather would have hired the Albert
HaN.

 So far nine people had said, "May aN your
troubles be little ones," and one person, with
scarcely more originality, had said, "I want to see
more than a fence running around your garden."
Lucy had shaken countless hands and pretend ed
not to hear remarks like '] wouldn't mind being in
David's pajamas tonight." David had made a speech
in which he thanked Lucy'o parents for giving him
their daughter, and Lucy's father actuary said that
he was not losing a daughter but gaining a son. It
was an hopelessly gage, but one did it for one's
parents

 A distant uncle loomed up from the direction of
the bar, swaying slightly, and Lucg repressed a
shudder. She intro. duced him to her husband.
'~avid, this is Uncle Norman "

 Uncle Norman pumped David's bony hand. 'well,
m'boy, when do you take up your commission?"

'Yomorrow, sir."

"What, no honeymoon?"

"Just twenty-four hours."

"BUt you've only jUBt fished your training, so I
gather."

 "Yes, but I could fly before, you know. I learned
at Cam bridge. Besides, with an this going on they
can't spare pilots T expect I shad be in the air
tomorrow."

23

              Kenollc1t

 Lucy said quietly, "David, don't," but Uncle
Norman persevered.

 "What'll you fly?" Uncle Norman asked with
schoolboy enthusiasm.

 "Spitfire. I saw her yesterday. She's a lovely kite."
David had already fallen into the RAF slang kites
and crates and the drink and bandits at two o'clock.
"She's got eight guns, she does three hundred and
fifty knots, and she'll turn around in a shoebox."

 "Marvelous, marvelous. You boys are certainly
knocking the stuffing out of the Luftwaffe, what?"

 "We got sixty yesterday for eleven of our own,"
David said, as proudly as if he had shot them all
down himself. "The day before, when they had a go
at Yorkshire, we sent the lot back to Norway with
their tails between their legs  and we didn't lost a
single kiter"

 Uncle Norman gripped David's shoulder with
tipsy fervor. "Never," he quoted pompously, "was so
much owed by so many to so few. Churchill said
that the other day."

 David tried a modest grin. "He must have been
talking about the mess bills."

 Lucy hated the way they trivialised bloodshed and
destruct lion. She said: "David, we should go and
change now."

 They went in separate cars to Lucy's home. Her
mother helped her out of the wedding dress and
said: "Now, my dear, I don't quite know what
you're expecting tonight, but you ought to know "

"Oh, mother, this is 1940, you knowl"

 Her mother colored slightly. "Very well, dear,"
she said mildly. "But if there is anything you want
to talk about, later on . . ."

 It occurred to Lucy that to say things like this
cost her mother considerable effort, and she
regretted her sharp reply. '`Than} you," she said.
She touched her mother's hand. 'A will."

 "I'll leave you to it, then. Call me if you want
anything." She kissed Lucy's cheek and went out.

 Lucy sat at the dressing table in her slip and
began to brush her hair. She knew exactly what to
expect tonight. She felt a faint glow of pleasure as
she remembered.

It happened in June, a year after they had met at the
Glad 24

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

Rag Ball. They were seeing each other every week
by this time, and David had spent part of the
Easter vacation with Lucy's people. Mother and
Father approved of him he was handsome, clever
and gentlemanly, and he came from pre. cisely the
same stratum of society as they did. Father thought
he was a shade too opinionated, but Mother said
the landed gentry had been saying that about
undergraduates for six hundred years, and she
thought David would be kind to his wife, which was
the most important thing in the long run. So in
June Lucy went to David's family home for a
weekend.

 The place was a Victorian copy of an
eighteenth-century grange, a square-shaped house
with nine bedrooms and a terrace with a vista.
What impressed Lucy about it was the realization
that the people who planted the garden must have
known they would be long dead before it reached
maturity. The atmosphere was very easy, and the
two of them drank beer on the terrace in the
afternoon sunshine. That was when David told her
that he had been accepted for officer training in
the RAP, along with four pals from the university
flying club. He wanted to be a fighter pilot.

 "I can fly all right," he said, "and they'll need
people once this war gets going~they say it'll be
won and lost in the air, this time."

"Aren't you afraid?" she said quietly.

 "Not a bit," he said. Then he looked at her and
said, "Yes, I ain."

She thought he was very brave, and held his hand.

 A little later they put on swimming suits and
went down to the lake. The water was clear and
cool, but the sun was still strong and the air was
warm as they splashed about gleefully.

"Are you a good swimmers' he asked her.

"Better than your"

"All right. Race you to the island."

 She shaded her eyes to look into the sun. She
held the pose for a minute, pretending she did not
know how desirable she was in her wet swimsuit
with her arms raised and her shoulders back. The
island was a small patch of bushes and trees about
three hundred yards away, in the center of the lake.

 She dropped her hands, shouted, "Got" and
struck out in a fast crawl.

David won, of course, with his enormously long arms
and 2,

             Ken Follett

legs. Lucy found herself in difficulty when she was
stir fifty yards from the island. She switched to
breaststroke, but she was too exhausted even for
that, and she had to roll over on to her back and
float. David, who was already sitting on the bank
blowing like a walrus, slipped back into the water
and swam to meet her. He got behind her, held her
beneath the arms in the correct lifesaving position,
and pulled her slowly to shore. His hands were just
below her breasts.

 'Em enjoying this," he said, and she giggled
despite her breathlessness.

 A few moments later he said, "I suppose I might
as wed ted you.l'

"What?,' she panted.

"The lake is only four feet deep."

  "You . . . 1" She wriggled out of his arms,
spluttering and laughing, and found her footing.

  He took her hand and led her out of the water
and through the trees. He pointed to an old
wooden rowboat rotting upside-down beneath a
hawthorn. "When I was a boy I used to row out
here in that, with one of Papa's pipes, a box of
matches and a pinch of St. Bruno in a twist of
paper. This is where I used to smoke it."

  They were in a clearing, completely surrounded
by bushes. The turf underfoot was clean and
springy. Lucy flopped on the ground.

"We'd swim back slowly," David said.

"Let's not even talk about it just yet," she replied.

  He sat beside her and kissed her, then pushed
her gently backwards until she was Iying down. He
stroked her hip and kissed her throat, and soon she
stopped shivering When he laid his hand gently,
nervously, on the soft mound between her legs, she
arched upwards, willing him to press harder. She
pulled his face to hers and kissed him
open-mouthed and wetly. His hands went to the
straps of her swimsuit, and he pulled them down
over her shoulders. She said, "No."

He buried his face between her breasts. "Lucy,
please."

"No."

He looked at her. "It might be my last chance."

  She rolled away from him and stood up. Then,
because of the war, and because of the pleading
look on his flushed young face, and because of the
glow inside her which would 26

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

not go away, she took off her costume with one
swift movement and removed her bathing cap so
that her dark-red hair shook out over her
shoulders. She knelt in front of him, takinB his face
in her hands and guiding his lips to her breast.

 She lost her virginity painlessly, enthusiastically,
and only a little too quickly.

 The spice of guilt made the memory more
pleasant, not less. Even if it had been a
well-planned seduction then she had been a willing,
not to say eager, victim, especially at the end.

 She began to dress in her going-away outfit. She
had startled him a couple of times that afternoon
on the island

once when she wanted him to kiss her breasts, and
again when she had guided him inside her with her
hands. Apparently such things did not happen in
the books he read. Like most of her friends, Lucy
read D. H. Lawrence for information about sex.
She believed in his choreography and mistrusted
the sound effects the things his people did to one
another sounded nice, but not that nice; she was
not expecting trumpets and thunderstorms and the
clash of cymbals at her sexual awakenin&

 David was a little more ignorant than she, but he
was gentle, and he took pleasure in her pleasure,
and she was sure that was the important thing.

 They had done it only once since the first time.
Exactly a week before their wedding they had made
love again, and it caused their first row.

 This time it was at her parents' house, in the
morning after everyone else had left. He came to
her room in his robe and got into bed with her. She
almost changed her mind about Lawrence's
trumpets and cymbals. David got out of bed im-
mediately afterward.

"Don't go," she said.

"Somebody might come in."

 "I'll chance it. Come back to bed." She was warm
and drowsy and comfortable. and she wanted him
beside her.

He put on his robe. "It makes me nervous."

 "You weren't nervous five minutes ago." She
reached for him. "Lie with me. I want to get to
know your body."

27

             Ken Pollett

 Her directness obviously embarrassed him, and he
turned away.

 She flounced out of bed, her lovely breasts
heavin& "You're making me feel cheap!" She sat on
the edge of the bed and burst into tears.

 David put his arms around her and said: 'Em
sorry, sorry, sorry. You're the first for me, too, and
I don't know what to expect, and I feel confused .
. . I mean, nobody tells you

anything about this, do they?"

  She snuffled and shook her head in agreement,
and it occurred to her that what was really
unnerving hin' was the knowledge that in eight days
time he had to take off in a flimsy aircraft and fight
for his life above the clouds; so she forgave him,
and he dried her tears, and they got back into bed.
He was very sweet after that....

  She was just about ready. She examined herself in
a fulllength mirror. Her suit was faintly military.
with square shoulders and epaulettes, but the
blouse beneath it was feminine, for balance. Her
hair fell in sausage curls beneath a natty pill-box
hat. It would not have been right to go away
gorgeously dressed, not-this year; but she felt she
had achieved the kind of briskly practical, yet
attractive, look that was rapidly becoming
fashionable.

  David was waiting for her in the hall. He kissed
her and said, "You look wonderful, Mrs. Rose."

  They were driven back to the reception to say
good-bye to everyone. They were going to spend
the night in I ondon, at Claridge's, then David
would drive on to Biggin Hin and Lucy would come
home again. She was going to live with her
parents she had the use of a cottage for when
David was on leave.

  There was another half-hour of handshakes and
kisses, then they went out to the car. Some of
David's cousins had got at his open-top MG. There
were tin cans and an old boot tied to the bumpers
with string. the running-boards were awash with
confetti, and "Just Married" was scrawled all over
the paintwork in bright red lipstick.

  They drove away, smiling and waving, the guests
fining the street behind them. A mile down the
road they stopped and cleaned up the car.

It was dusk when they got going again. David's
headlights 28

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

were fitted with blackout mask", but he drove very
fast just the same Lucv felt very happy.

  David said, '4There'sabottle of bubbly in the
glove compartment "

  Lucy opened the compartment and found the
champagne and two passer carefully wrapped in
tissue paper. It was still quite cold Th' cork came
out with a loud pop and shot off into the night.
David lit a cigarette while Lucy poured the wine.

'~We're going to be late for supper." he said.

"Whr, cared" She handed him a glass.

  She was too tired to drink realm She became
sleepy. The car seemed tr' be poinp terribly fast She
let David have most of the ehampaPne }{f. began
to whistle. St. Lout.' Blues.

  Driving thrr~u~ Upland in the blackout was a
weird experience One missed lights that one hadn't
realized were there hectare ah, war lights in cottage
porches and farmhouse windows. Iiphts on
cathedral spires and inn signs and most of am the
luminous glow, low in the distant sky. of the thou-
sand lights of a nearby town Even if one had been
able to see, there were no signposts to look at: they
had been removed to confuse the C~'ennan
parachutists whr' were expected any day (Just a few
days ago in the Midlands, farmers had found
parachutes. radios and maps, but since there were
no footprints leading away from the objects, it had
been concluded that no men had landed and the
whole thing was a feeble Nazi attempt to panic the
population.) Anyway, David knew the way to
London.

  They climbed n long hip. The little sports car
took it nimbly. Lucy gazed through half-closed eyes
at the blackness ahead The downside of the hill was
steep and winding. Lucy heard the distant roar of
an approaching truck.

  The MC,T,S tires squealed as David raced around
the bends. "I think you're going too fast," Lucy said
mildly.

  The back of the car skidded on a left curve.
David changed down, afraid to brake in case he-
skidded again. On either side the hedgerows were
dimly picked out by the shaded headlights There
was a sharp right-hand curve, and David lost the
back again. The curve seemed to go on and on
forever. The little car slid sideways and turned
through 180 29

              Ken Foldout

degrees, so that it was going backwards, then
continued to turn in the same direction.

"David!" Lucy screamed.

 The moon came out suddenly, and they saw the
truck. It was struggling up the hill at a snail's pace,
with thick smoke, made silvery by the moonlight
pouring from its snout-shaped top. Lucy glimpsed
the driver's face, even his cloth cap and his
moustache; his mouth was open as he stood ,~ his
brakes.

 The car was traveling forward again now. Illere
was justroom to pass the truck if David could
regain control of the car. He heaved the steering
wheel over and touched the accelerator. It was a
mistake.

The car and the truck collided head-on.

                  30
                   
                  4

Foreigners have spies; Britain has Military
Intelligence. As if that were not euphemism enough,
it is abbreviated to MI. In 1940, MI was part of the
War Offlce. It was spreading like crab grass at the
time not surprisingly and its different sections
were known by numbers: MI9 ran the escape routes
from prisoner-of-war camps through Occupied
Europe to neutral countries; MID monitored enemy
wireless traffic, and was of more value than six
regiments; MI6 sent agents into France.

  It was MIS that Professor Percival Godliman
joined in the autumn of 1940. He turned up at the
War Offlce in Whitehall on a cold September
morning after a night spent putting out fires all over
the East And; the blitz was at its height and he was
an auxiliary Sreman.

  Military Intelligence was run by soldiers in
peacetime, when in Godliman's
opinion espionage made no difference to anything
anyhow; but now, he found, it was populated by
amateurs, and he was delighted to discover that he
knew half the people in MI5. On his first day he
met a barrister who was a member of his club, an
art historian with whom he had been to college, an
archivist from his own university, and his favorite
writer of detective stories.

He was shown into Colonel Terry's office at 10 A.M.
Terry 31

             Ken Pollett

had been there for several hours; there were two
empty cigarette packets in the wastepaper basket.

Godliman said, "Should I call you 'Sir' now?"

  'Yhere's not much bull around here, Percy. 'Uncle
Andrew' will do Sne. Sit down."

  All the same, there was a briskness about Terry
that had not been present when they had lunch at
the Savoy. Godliman noticed that he did not smile,
and his attention kept wandering to a pile of unread
messages on the desk.

  Terry looked at his watch and said, "I'm acing to
put you in the picture, briefly finish the lecture I
started over lunch."

  Gndliman smiled. "This time I won't get up on my
high horse."

Terry lit another cigarette.

  Canaris's spies in Britain were useless people
(Terry resumed, as if their conversation had been
interrupted five minutes rather than three months
ago). Dorothy O'Grady was typical we caught her
cutting military telephone win on the Isle of Wight.
She was writing letters to Portugal in the kind of
secret ink you buy in joke shops.

  A new wave of spies began in September. Their
task was to reconnoiter Britain in preparation for
the invasion to map beaches suitable for landings
fields and roads that could be used by troop-carrying
gliders; tank traps and road blocks and barbed-wire
obstacles.

  They seem to have been badly selected, hastily
mustered, inadequately trained and poorly equipped.
Typical were the four who came over on the night of
2~3 September: Meier, Kieboom, Pons and
Waldberg. Kieboom and Pons landed at dawn near
Hythe, and were arrested by Private Tollervey of the
Somerset Light Tnfantry. who came upon them in
the sand dunes hacking away at a dirty great worst.

  Waldberg actually managed to send a signal to
Hamburg: ARRIVP,D SAPPLY. DOCUMENT
DESTROYED. 13NGLISH PATROL 200 METLRS
PROM COAST. BEACH WlrlM BROWN NETS
AND RAILWAY SL1lEPF7.RS AT A DISTANCE
OP 50 METERS. NO MINES. FEW SOLDIERS.
UNPINISH1ID BLOCKHOUSE. NEW ROAD.
WALDBEIRG.

Clearly he did not know where he was, nor did he even
J2

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

have a code name. The quality of his briefing is
indicated by the fact that he knew nothing of
English licensing laws he went into a pub at nine
o'clock in the morning and asked for a quart of
cider.

  (Godliman laughed at this, and Terry said:
"Wait it gets funnier.")

  The landlord told Waldberg to come back at ten.
He could spend the hour looking at the village
church, he suggested. Amazingly, Waldberg was
back at ten sharp, whereupon two policemen on
bicycles arrested him.

  ("It's like a script for 'It's That Man Again,' " said
Godliman.)

  Meter was found a few hours later. Eleven more
agents were picked up over the next few weeks,
most of them within hours of landing on British soil.
Almost all of them were destined for the scaffold.

  ("Almost ally" said Godliman. Terry said: "Yes. A
couple have been handed over to our section B-l(a).
I'll come back to that in a minute.")

  Others landed in Loire. One was Ernst
Weber-Drohl, a well-known acrobat who had two
illegitimate children in Ireland he had toured
music haUs there as '`The World's Strongest Man."
He was arrested by the Garde Siochana, fined three
pounds, and turned over to B-1 (a).

  Another was Hermann Goetz, who parachuted
into Ulster instead of Eire by mistake, was robbed
by the IRA, swam the Boyne in his fur underwear
and eventually swallowed his suicide pill. He had a
flashlight marked "Made in Dresden."

  ("If it's so easy to pick these bunglers up," Terry
said, "why are we taking on brainy types like
yourself to catch them? Two reasons. One: we've
got no way of knowing how many we haven't picked
up. Two: it's what we do with the ones we don't
hang that matters. This is where B-l(a) comes in.
But to explain that I have to go back to 1936.")

  Alfred George Owens was an electrical engineer
with a company that had a few government
contracts. He visited Germany several times during
the '30s, and voluntarily gave to the Admiralty odd
bits of technical information he picked up there.
Eventually Naval Intelligence passed him on to MI6
who began to develop him as an agent. The Abwehr
recruited him at about the same time, as MI6
discovered when they in33

             Ken Follett

tercepted a letter from him to a known German
cover address. Clearly he was a man totally without
loyalty; he just wanted to be a spy. We caned him
"Snow"; the Germans called him "Johnny."

 In January 1939 Snow got a letter containing (1)
inistrno. lions for the use of a wireless transmitter
and (2) a ticket from the checkroom at Victoria
Station.

 He was arrested the day after war broke out, and
ho and his transmitter (which he had picked up, in
a suitcase, when be presented the checkroom ticket)
were locked up in Wanda worth Prison. He
continued to communicate with Hamburg, but now
all the messages were written by section B-l(a) of
MIs.

 The Abwehr put him in touch with two more
German agents in England, whom we immediately
nabbed. They also gave him a code and detailed
wireless procedure, an of which was invaluable.

 Snow was followed by Charlie, Rainbow. Summer,
Biscuit, and eventually a small army of enemy spies,
an in regular contact with Canaris, an apparently
trusted by him, and all totally controlled by the
British counterintelligence apparatus.

 At that point MI5 began dimly to glimpse an
awesome and tantalising prospect: with a bit of
luck, they could control and manipulate the entire
German espionage networlr in Britain.

 "Turning agents into double agents instead of
hanging them has two crucial advantages," Terry
wound up. "Since the enemy thinks his spies are
still active, he doesn't try to roplace them with
others who may not get caught. And, since we are
supplying the information the spies tell their
controllers, we can deceive the enemy and mislead
his strategists."

"It can't be that easy," said Godliman.

 "Certainly not." Terry opened a window to let out
the f B of cigarette and pipe smoke. "To work, the
system has to be very near total. If there is any
substantial number of genuine agents here, their
information will contradict that of the double
agents and the Abwehr will smell a rat."

 "It sounds exciting," Godliman said. His pipe had
gone out.

Terry smiled for the first time that morning. "The
people 34

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

here will tell you it's hard work long hours, high
tension, frustration but yes, of course it's exciting."
He looked at his watch. "Now I want you to meet a
very bright young member of my staff. Let me walk
you to his offlce."

  They went out of the room, up some stairs, and
along several corridors. "His name is Frederick
Bloggs, and he gets annoyed if you make jokes
about it," Terry continued. "We pinched him from
Scotland Yard he was an inspector with Special
Branch. If you need arms and legs, use him. You'll
rank above him, of course, but I shouldn't make too
much of that we don't, here. I suppose I hardly
need to say that to you."

  They entered a small, bare room that looked out
on to a blank wall. There was no carpet. A
photograph of a pretty girl hung on the wall, and
there was a pair of handcuffs on the hat-stand.

  Terry said, "Frederick Bloggs, Percival Godliman.
I'll leave you to it."

  The man behind the desk was blond, stocky and
short he must have been only just tall enough to
get into the police force, Godliman thought. His tie
was an eyesore, but he had a pleasant, open face
and an attractive grin. His handshake was firm.

  "Tell you what, Percy I was just going to nip
home for lunch," he said. "Why don't you come
along? The wife makes a lovely sausage and chips."
He had a broad cockney accent.

  Sausage and chips was not Godliman's favorite
meal, but he went along. They walked to Trafalgar
Square and caught a bus to Hoxton. Bloggs said, "I
married a wonderful girl, but she can't cook for
nuts. I have sausage and chips every day."

  East London was still smoking from the previous
night's air raid. They passed groups of firemen and
volunteers digging through rubble, playing hoses
over dying fires and clearing debris from the streets.
They saw an old man carry a precious radio out of
a half-ruined house.

  Godliman made conversation. "So we're to catch
spies together."

"We'll have a go, Perce."

  Bloggs's home was a three-bedroom semidetached
house in a street of exactly similar houses. The tiny
front gardens were 35

             Ken Polled

all being used to grow vegetables. Mrs. Bloggs was
the pretty girl in the photograph on the office wall.
She looked tired. "She drives an ambulance during
the raids, don't you, love?" Bloggs said. He was
proud of her. Her name was Christine.

  She said. "Every morning when I come home I
wonder if the house will still he here."

  "Notice it's the house she's worried about, not
me," Bloggs said.

  Godliman picked up a medal in a presentation
case from the mantelpiece. "How did you get this?"

  Christine answered. "He took a shotgun off a
villain who was robbing a post offlce."

"You're quite a pair." Godliman said.

"You married. Percy?" Bloggs asked.

"I'm a widower."

"Sorry."

  "My wife died of tuberculosis in 1930. We never
had any children."

  "We're not having any yet," Bloggs said. "Not
while the world's in this state."

  Christine said: "Oh, Pred, he's not interested in
thatl" Shs went out to the kitchen.

  They sat around a square table in the canter of
the room to eat. Godliman was touched by this
couple and the domestic scene, and found himself
thinking of his Pleanor. That was unusual; he had
been immune to sentiment for some years. Perhaps
the nerves were coming alive again, at last War did
funny things.

  Christine's cooking was truly awful. The sausages
were burned. Bloggs drowned his meal in tomato
ketchup and Godliman cheerfully followed suit.

  When they Rot back to Whitehall Bloggs showed
Godliman the file on unidentified enemy agents
thought still to be operating in Britain.

  There were three sources of information about
such people. The first was the immigration records
of the Home Office. Passport control had long been
an arm of Military Intelligence, and there was a
list going back to the last war  of aliens who had
entered the country but had not left or been
accounted for in other ways, such as death or
naturali36

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

cation. the outbreak of war they had all gone before
tribunals that classified them in three groups. At
first only "A" class aliens were interned; but by July
of 1940, after some scaremongering by Fleet Street,
the "B" and "C" classes were taken out of
circulation. There was a small number of
immigrants who could not be located, and it was a
fair am

gumption that some of them were spies.

Their papers were in Bloggs's file.

 The second source was wireless transmissions.
Section C of MI8 patrolled the airwaves nightly.
recorded everything they did not know for certain
to be theirs, and passed it to the Government Code
and Cipher School. This outfit, which had recently
been moved from London's Berkeley Street to a
country house at Bletchley Park, was not a school
at all but a collection of chess champions,
musicians, mathematicians and crossword puzzle
enthusiasts dedicated to the belief that if a man
could invent a code a man could crack it. Signals
oriBinating in the British Isles that could not be
accounted for by any of the Services were assumed
to be messages from spies.

The decoded messages were in Bloggs's file.

  Finally there were the double agents, but their
value was largely hoped-for rather than actual.
Messages to them from the Abwehr had warned of
several incoming agents, and had given away one
resident spy--Mrs. Matilda Krafft of Bournemouth.
who had sent money to Snow by post and was wbse-
quently incarcerated in Holloway prison. But the
doubles had not been able to reveal the identity or
locations of the kind of quietly effective
professional spies most valuable to a secret
intelligence service. No one doubted that there
were such people. There were clues someone, for
example, had brought Snow's transmitter over from
Germany and deposited it in the cloakroom at
Victoria Station for him to collect. But either the
Abwehr or the spies themselves were too cautious
to be caught by the doubles.

However the clues were in Bloggs's file.

  Other sources were being developed: the experb
were working to improve methods of triangulation
(the directional pin-pointing of radio transmitters);
and MI6 were trying to rebuild the networks of
agents in Europe that had sunk beneath the tidal
wave of Hitler's armies.

What little information there was was in Bloggs's
file.
               37
               
             Ken Pollett

  "It can be infuriating at times," he told Godliman.
"Look at this."

  He took from the file a long radio intercept about
British plans for an expeditionary force for Finland.
"This was picked up early in the year. The
information is impeccable. They were trying to get
a fix on him when he broke off in the middle, for
no apparent reason perhaps he was interrupted.
He resumed a few minutes later, but he was off the
air again before our people had a chance to plug
in."

Godliman said, "What's this 'Regards to Willi'?"

  "Now, that's important," said Bloggs. He was
getting enthusiastic. "Here's a scrap of another
message, quite recent. Look 'Regards to Willi.'
This time there was a reply. He's addressed as 'Die
Nadel."'

'The Needle."

  'This one's a pro. Look at his message: terse,
economical, but detailed and completely
unambiguous."

  Godliman studied the fragment of the second
message. "It appears to be about the effects of the
bombing."

"He's obviously toured the East End. A pro, a pro."

"What else do we know about Die Nadel?"

  Bloggs's expression of youthful eagerness
collapsed. "That's it, I'm afraid."

  "His code name is Die Nadel, he signs off
'Regards to Willi,' and he has good
information and that's it?"

"'Fraid so."

  Godliman sat on the edge of the desk and stared
out of the window. On the wall of the opposite
building, underneath an ornate window sill, he
could see the nest of a house-marten. "On that
basis, what chance have we of catching him?"

Bloggs shrugged. "On that basis, none at an."

                 38
                  
It is for places like this that the word "bleak" has
been vented.

  The island is a J-shaped lump of rock rising
sullenly out of the North Sea. It lies on the map
like the top half of a broken cane, parallel with the
Equator but a long, long way north; its curved
handle toward Aberdeen, its broken, jagged stump
pointing threateningly at distant Denmark. It is ten
miles long.

  Around most of its coast the cliffs rise out of the
cold sea without the courtesy of a beach. Angered
by this rudeness the waves pound on the rock in
impotent rage; a ten-thousandyear fit of bad
temper that the island ignores with impunity.

  In the cup of the I the sea is calmer; there it has
provided itself with a more pleasant reception. Its
tides have thrown into that cup so much sand and
seaweed, driftwood and pebbles and seashells that
there is now, between the foot of the cliff and the
waters edge, a crescent of something closely
resembling dry land, a more-or-less beach.

  Each summer the vegetation at the top of the
cliff drops a handful of seeds on to the beach, the
way a rich man throws loose change to beggars. If
the winter is mild and the spring comes early, a few
of the seeds take feeble root; but they are 39

             Ken Follett

never healthy enough to flower themselves and
spread their own seeds, so the beach exists from
year to year on handouts.

 On the land itself, the proper land, held out of
the sea's reach by the cliffs, green things do grow
and multiply. The vegetation is mostly coarse grass,
only just good enough to nourish the few bony
sheep, but tough enough to bind the topsoil to the
island's bedrock. There are some bushes, an thorny,
that provide homes for rabbits; and a brave stand
of conifers on the leeward slope of the hip at the
eastern end.

 The higher land is ruled by heather. Every few
years the man yes, there is a man here sets fire to
the heather, and then the grass win grow and the
sheep can graze here too; but after a couple of
years the heather comes back, God knows from
where, and drives the sheep away until the man
burns it again.

 The rabbits are here because they were born
here; the sheep are here because they were brought
here; and the man is here to look after the sheep;
but the birds are here became they like it. There
are hundreds of thousands of them: longlegged rock
pipits whistling peep peep peep as they soar and
pe-pe-pe-pe as they dive like a Spitfire coming at a
Messerschmidt out of the sun; coracrakes, which
the man rarely sees, but he knows they are there
because their bark keeps him awake at night;
ravens and carrion crows and kittiwakes and
countless gulls; and a pair of golden eagles that the
man shoots at when he sees them, for he
knows~regardless of what naturalists and experts
from Edinburgh may tell him  that they do prey
on live lambs and not jwt the carcasses of those
already dead.

 The island's most constant visitor is the wind. It
comes mostly from the northeast, from really cold
places where there are fjords and glaciers and
icebergs; often bringing with it unwelcome gifts of
snow and driving rain and cold, cold mist;
sometimes arriving empty-handed, just to howl and
whoop and raise hell, tearing up bushes and
bending trees and whipping the intemperate ocean
into fresh paroxysms of foam-flecked rage. It is
tireless, this wind, and that is its mistake. If it came
occasionally it could take the island by surprise and
do some real damage; but because it is almost
always here, the island has learned to live with it.
The plants put down deep roots, and the rabbits
hide far inside the 40

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

thickets, and the trees grow up with their backs
ready~bent for the flogging, and the birds nest on
sheltered ledges, and the man's house is sturdy and
squat, built with a craftsmanship that knows this old
wind.

  This house is made of big grey stones and grey
slate", the color of the sea. It has small windows and
close-fitting doors and a chimney in its pipe end. It
stands at the top of the hill at the eastern end of the
island, close to the splintered stub of the broken
walking-stick. It crowns the hill, defying the wind
and the rain, not out of bravado but so that the man
can see the sheep.

  There is another house, very similar, ten miles
away at the opposite end of the island near the
more-or-less beach; but nobody lives there. There
was once another man. He thought he knew better
than the island; he thought he could grow oats and
potatoes and keep a few cows. He battled for three
years with the wind and the cold and the soil before
he admitted he was wrong. When he had gone,
nobody wanted his home.

  This is a hard place. Only hard things survive
here: hard rock, coarse grass, tough sheep, savage
birds, sturdy houses and strong men.

  It is for places like this that the word "bleak" has
been vented.

  "It's called Storm Island," said Alfred Rose. ''I
think you're going to like it."

  David and Lucy Rose get in the prow of the
fishing boat and looked across the choppy water. It
was a fine November day, cold and breezy yet clear
and dry. A weak sun sparkled off the waveless.

  "I bought it in 1926," Papa Rose continued,
'~when we thought there was going to be a
revolution and we'd need somewhere to hide from
the working class. It's just the place for a
convalescence."

  Lucy thought he was being suspiciously hearty, but
she had to admit it looked lovely: all windblown and
natural and fresh. And it made sense, this move.
They had to get away from their parents and make
a new start at being married; and there was no point
in moving to a city to be bombed, not when neither
of them was really well enough to help; and 41

             Ken Polldt

then David's father had revealed that he owned an
island off the coast of Scotland, and it seemed too
good to be true.

 "I own the sheep, too," Papa Rose said. "Shearers
come over from the mainland each spring, and the
wool brings in just about enough money to pay Tom
McAvity's wages. Old Tom's the shepherd."

"How old is he?" Lucy asked.

"Good Lord, he must be oh, seventy?"

 "I suppose he's eccentric." The boat turned into
the bay, and Lucy could see two small figures on
the jetty: a man and a dog.

 "Eccentric? No more than you'd be if you'd lived
alone for twenty years. He talks to his dog."

 Lucy turned to the skipper of the small boat.
"How often do you call?"

 "Once a fortnight, missus. I bring Tom's shopping,
which isna much, and his mail, which is even less.
You just give me your list, every other Monday, and
if it can be bought in Aberdeen I'll bring it."

 He cut the motor and threw a rope to Tom. The
dog barked and ran around in circles, beside
himself with excitement. Lucy put one foot on the
gunwale and sprang out on to the jetty.

 Tom shook her hand. He had a face of leather
and a huge pipe with a lid. He was shorter than
she, but wide, and he looked ridiculously healthy.
He wore the hairiest tweed jacket she had ever
seen, with a knitted sweater that must have been
made by an elderly sister somewhere, plus a
checked cap and army boots. His nose was huge.
red and veined "Pleased to meet you," he said
politely, as if she was his ninth visitor to" day
instead of the first human face he had seen in
fourteen days.

 "Here y'are, Tom," said the skipper. He handed
two cardboard boxes out of the boat. "No eggs this
time, but there's a letter from Devon."

"It'll be from ma niece."

Lucy thought, That explains the sweater.

 David was still in the boat. The skipper stood
behind him and said, "Are you ready?" ~

 Tom and Papa Rose leaned into the boat to
assist, and the three of them lifted David in his
wheelchair on to the jetty.

42

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

  "If I don't go now I'll have to wait a fortnight for
the next bus," Papa Rose said with a smile. "The
house has been done up quite nicely, you'll see. All
your stuff is in there. Tom will show you where
everything is." He kissed Lucy, squeezed David's
shoulder, and shook Tom's hand. "Have a few
months of rest and togetherness, get completely fit
then come back; there are important war jobs for
both of you. '

  They would not be going back, Lucy knew, not
before the end of the war. But she had not told
anyone about that yet.

  Papa got back into the boat. It wheeled away in
a tight circle. Lucy waved until it disappeared
around the headland.

  Tom pushed the wheelchair, so Lucy took his
groceries. Between the landward end of the jetty
and the Tiff top was a long, steep, narrow ramp
rising high Ibove the beach like a bridge. Lucy
would have had trouble getting the wheelchair to
the top, but Tom managed without apparent
exertion.

The cottage was perfect.

  It was small and grey, and sheltered from the
wind by a little rise in the ground. All the
woodwork was freshly painted, and a wild rose bush
grew beside the doorstep. Curls of smoke rose from
the chimney to be whipped away by the breeze. The
tiny windows looked over the bay.

Lucy said, "I love ill"

  The interior had been cleaned and aired and
painted, and there were thick rugs on the stone
floors. It had four rooms: downstairs, a modernised
kitchen and a living room with a stone fireplace
upstairs, two bedrooms. One end of the house had
been carefully remodeled to take modern plumbing,
with a bathroom above and a kitchen extension
below.

  Their clothes were in the wardrobes. There were
towels in the bathroom and food in the kitchen.

  Tom said, 'there's something in the barn I've~to
show you."

  It was a shed, not a barn. It lay hidden behind the
cottage, and inside it was a gleaming new jeep.

  "Mr. Rose says it's been specially adapted for
young Mr. Rose to drive," Tom said. "It's got
automatic gears, and the throttle and brake are
operated by hand. That's what he said." He seemed
to be repeating the words parrot-fashion, as if he
had very little idea of what gears, brakes and
throttles might be.

43

             Ken Follett

Lucy said "Isn't that super, David?"

"Top-tofu But where shall I go in it?"

 Tom said- "You're always welcome to visit me and
share a pipe and a drop of whisky. I've been looking
forward to having neighborsagain."

"Thank you." said Lucy.

 "This here's the generator," Tom said, turning
around and pointing "I've got one just the same.
You put the fuel in here. It delivers alternating
current."

 "That's unusual small generators are usually
direct current," David said.

 "Aye I don't really know the difference, but they
tell me this is safer."

 "True. A shock from this would throw you across
the room, but direct current would kill you."

 They went back to the cottage. Tom said, "Well,
you'll want to settle in, and I've sheep to tend, so
I'll say good-day. Ohl I ought to tell you in an
emergency, I can contact the mainland by wireless
radio."

David was surprised "You've got a radio
transmitter?"

 "Aye," Tom said proudly. "I'm an enemy aircraft
spotter in the Royal Observer Corps."

"Ever spotted any?" David asked.

 Lucy flashed her disapproval of the sarcasm in
David's voice, but Tom seemed not to notice. "Not
yet," he replied.

"Jolly good show."

 When Tom had gone Lucy said, "He only wants to
do his bit.''

"There are lots of us who want to do our bit," David
said.

  And that, Lucy reflected, was the trouble. She
dropped the subject, and wheeled her crippled
husband into their new home.

  When Lucy had been asked to visit the hospital
psychologist, she had immediately assumed that
David had brain damage. It was not so. "All that's
wrong with his head is a nasty bruise on the left
temple," the psychologist said. She went on:
"However, the loss of both his legs is a trauma. and
there's no telling how it will affect his state of mind.
Did he want very much to be a pilot?"

44

         EYE OF Tile NEEDLE

  Lucy pondered. "He was afraid, but I think he
wanted it very badly, all the same."

  "Well, he'll need all the reassurance and support
that you can give him. And patience, too. One thing
we can predict is that he will be resentful and
ill-tempered for a while. He needs love and rest."

  However, during their first few months on the
island he seemed to want neither. He did not make
love to her, perhaps because he was waiting until
his injuries were fully healed. But he did not rest,
either. He threw himself into the business of sheep
farming, tearing about the island in his jeep with
the wheelchair in the back. He built fences along
the more treacherous cliffs, shot at the eagles,
helped Tom train a new dog when Betsy began to
go blind. and burned off the heather; and in the
spring he was out every night delivering lambs. One
day he felled a great old pine tree near Tom's
cottage, and spent a fortnight stripping it. hewing it
into manageable logs and carting them back to the
house for firewood. He relished really hard manual
labor. He learned to strap himself tightly to the
chair to keep his body anchored while he wielded
an axe or a mallet. He carved a pair of Indian clubs
and exercised with them for hours when Tom could
End nothing more for him to do. The muscles of
his arms and back became near-grotesque, like
those of men who win body-building contests.

  Lucy was not unhappy. She had been afraid he
might sit by the fire all day and brood over his bad
luck. The way he worked was faintly worrying
because it was so obsessive, but at least he was not
vegetating.

She told him about the baby at Christmas.

  In the morning she gave him a gasoline-driven
saw, and he gave her a bolt of silk. Tom came over
for dinner, and they ate a wild goose he had shot.
David drove the shepherd home after tea, and when
he came back Lucy opened a bottle of brandy.

  Then she said, "I have another present for you,
but you can't open it until May."

  He laughed. "What on earth are you talking
about? How much of that brandy did you drink
while I was out?"

"I'm having a baby."

4'

             Ken Follett

 He stared at her, and all the laughter went out of
his face. "Good God, that's all we bloody well
need."

"David!"

"Well, for God's sake.... When the hell did it
happen?"

  "That's not too difficult to figure out, is it1" she
said. "It must have been a week before the wedding.
It's a miracle it survived the crash."

"Have you seen a doctor?"

"Huh when?"

"So how do you know for sure?"

  "Oh, David, don't be so boring. I know for sure
because my periods have stopped and my nipples
hurt and I throw up in the mornings and my waist
is four inches bigger than it used to be. If you ever
looked at me you would know for sure."

"All right."

  "What's the matter with you? You're supposed to
be thrilled!"

  "Oh, sure. Perhaps we'll have a son, and then I
can take him for walks and play football with him,
and he'll grow up wanting to be like his father the
war hero, a legless tucking joker"

  "Oh, David, David," she whispered. She knelt in
front of his wheelchair. "David, don't think like that.
He will respect you. He'll look up to you because
you put your life together again, and because you
can do the work of two men from your wheelchair,
and because you carried your disability with courage
and cheerfulness and "

  "Don't be so damned condescending," he snapped.
"You sound like a sanctimonious priest."

  She stood up. "Well, don't act as if it's my fault.
Men can take precautions too, you know."

"Not against invisible trucks in the blackout!"

  It was a silly exchange and they both knew it, so
Lucy said nothing. The whole idea of Christmas
seemed utterly trite now: the bits of colored paper
on the wads, and the tree in the corner, and the
remains of a goose in the kitchen waiting to be
thrown away none of it had anything to do with
her life. She began to wonder what she was doing
on this bleak island with a man who seemed not to
love her, having a baby he didn't want. Why
shouldn't she why not well, she ~6

             EYE OF THE

could.... Then she realized she had nowhere else to
go, nothing else to do with her life, nobody else to
be other than Mrs. David Rose.

 Eventually David said, 'Novell, I'm going to bed."
He wheeled himself to the hall and dragged himself
out of the chair and up the stairs backwards. She
heard him scrape across the floor, heard the bed
creak as he hauled himself on to it, heard his
clothes hit the corner of the room as he undressed,
then heard the final groaning of the springs as he
lay down and pulled the blankets up over hunt

And still she would not cry.

 She looked at the brandy bottle and thought, If T
drink all of this now, and have a bath, perhaps I
won't be pregnant in the morning.

 She thought about it for a long time, until she
came to the conclusion that life without David and
the island and the baby would be even worse
because it would be empty.

 So she did not cry and she did not drink the
brandy, and she did not leave the island; but
instead she went upstairs and got into bed, and lay
awake beside her sleeping husband, listening to the
wind and trying not to think, until the gulls began
to call, and a grey rainy dawn crept over the North
Sea and Bled the riffle bedroom with a cold pale
light, and at last she went to sleep.

 A kind of peace settled over her in the spring, as
if all threats were postponed until after the baby
was born. When the February snow had thawed she
planted flowers and vegetables in the patch of
ground between the kitchen door and the barn, not
really believing they would grow. She cleaned the
house thoroughly and told David that if he wanted
it done again before August he would have to do it
himself. She wrote to her mother and did a lot of
knitting and ordered diapers by mail. They
suggested she go home to have the baby, but she
knew, was afraid, that if she went she would never
come back. She went for long walks over the moors,
with a bird book under her arm, until her weight
became too much for her to carry very far. She kept
the bottle of brandy in a cupboard David never
used, and whenever she felt depressed she went to
look at it and remind herself of what she had
almost lost.

Three weeks before the baby was due, she got the boat
into 47

             Ken Pollett

Aberdeen. David and Tom waved from the jetty.
The sea was so rough that both she and the skipper
were terrified she might give birth before they
reached the mainland. She went into the hospital in
Aberdeen, and four weeks later brought the baby
home on the same boat.

 David knew none of it. He probably thought that
women gave birth as easily as ewes, she decided. He
was oblivious to the pain of contractions, and that
awful, impossible stretching, and the soreness
afterward, and the bossy, know. it-all nurses who
didn't want you to touch your baby because you
weren't brisk and efficient and trained and sterile
like they were; he just saw you go away pregnant
and come back with a beautiful, white-wrapped,
healthy baby boy and said, "We'll call him
Jonathan."

 They added Alfred for David's father, and
Malcolm for Lucy's, and Thomas for old Tom, but
they called the boy Jo, because he was too tiny for
Jonathan, let alone Jonathan Alfred Malcolm
Thomas Rose. David learned to give him his bottle
and burp him and change his diaper, and he even
dangled him in his lap occasionally, but his interest
seemed distant, uninvolved; he had a
problem-solving approach, like the nurses; it was
not for him as it was for Lucy. Tom was closer to
the baby than David. Lucy would not let him smoke
in the room where the baby was, and the old boy
would put his great briar pipe with the lid in his
pocket for hours and gurgle at little Jo, or watch
him kick his feet, or help Lucy bathe him. Lucy
suggested mildly that he might be neglecting the
sheep. Tom said they did not need him to watch
them feed he would rather watch Jo feed. He
carved a rattle out of driftwood and filled it with
small round pebbles, and was overjoyed when Jo
grabbed it and shook it, first time, without having to
be shown how.

David and Lucy still did not make love.

  First there had been his injuries, and then she had
been pregnant, and then she had been recovering
from childbirth; but now the reasons had run out.

One night she said, "I'm back to normal now."

"How do you mean?"

"After the baby. My body is normal. I've healed."

"Oh, I see. That's good."

48

         EYE OF TILE NEEDLE

 She made sure to B  to bed with him so that he
could watch her undress, but he always turned his
back.

 As they lay there, dozing off, she would move so
that her hand, or her thigh, or her breast, brushed
against him, a casual but unmistakable invitation.
There was no response.

 She believed firmly that there was nothing wrong
with her. She wasn't a nymphomaniac she didn't
simply want sex, she wanted sex with David. She
was sure that, even if there had been another man
under seventy on the island, she would not have
been tempted. She wasn't a sex-starved tart, she was
a love-starved wife.

 The crunch came on one of those nighb when
they lay on their backs, side by side, both wide
awake, listening to the wind outside and the small
sounds of Jo from the next room. It seemed to
Lucy that it was time he either did it or came right
out and said why not; and that he was going to
avoid the issue until she forced it; and that she
might as well force it now.

 So she brushed her arm across his ›bighs and
opened her mouth to speak and almost cried out
with shock to discover that he had an erection. So
he could do ill And he wanted to, or why else and
her hand closed triumphantly around the evidence
of his desire, and she shifted closer to him, and
sighed, "David "

 He said, "Oh, for God's sakel" and gripped her
wrist and pushed her hand away from him and
turned onto his side.

 But this time she was not going to accept his
rebuff in modest silence. "David, why not7"

 "Jesus Christl" He threw the blankets off, swung
himself to the floor, grabbed the eiderdown with
one hand, and dragged himself to the door.

Lucy sat up in bed and screamed at him, "Why
not7"

Jo began to cry.

 David pulled up the empty legs of his cut-off
pajama trousers, pointed to the pursed white skin
of his stumps, and said, "That's why notl That's why
notl"

 He slithered downstairs to sleep on the sofa, and
Lucy went into the next bedroom to comfort Jo.

 It took a long time to lull him back to sleep,
probably because she herself was so much in need
of comfort. The baby tasted the tears on her
cheeks, and she wondered if he had 49

            15:en Pollcu

any inkling of their meaning wouldn't tears be one
of the first things a baby came to understand? She
could not bring herself to sing to him, or murmur
that everything was all right; so she held him tight
and rocked him, and when he had soothed her with
his warmth and his clinging, he went to sleep in her
arms.

 She put him back in the cot and stood looking at
him for a while. There was no point in going back to
bed. She could hear David's deep-sleep snoring from
the living room ho had to take powerful pills,
otherwise the old pain kept him awake. Lucy needed
to get away from him. where she could neither see
nor hear him, where he couldn't find for a few hours
even if he wanted to. She put on trousers and

sweater, a heavy coat and boots, and crept
downstairs and out.

 There was a swirling mist, damp and bitterly cold,
the kind i the island specialised in. She PUt up the
collar of her coat, thought about going back inside
for a scarf, and decided not to. She squelched along
the muddy Path, welcoming the bite of the fog in
her throat, the small discomfort of the weather,
taking her mind off the larger hurt inside her.

 She reached the cliff top and walked gingerly
down the steep, narrow ramp, placing her feet
carefully on the slingers boards. At the bottom she
jumped off on to the sand anal i walked to the edge
of the sea.

 The wind and the water were carrying on their
oerpehld quarrel, the wind swooping down to tease
the waves and the sea hissing and spitting as it
crashed against the land. the two of them doomed to
bicker forever.

 Lucy walked along the hard sand, letting the noise
and the weather Sll her head, until the beach ended
in a shorn point where the water met the cliff, when
she turned and walked back.~She paced the shore
all night. Toward dawn a thought came to her,
unbidden: It is his way of being strong.

 As it was, the thought was not much help, holding
its meaning in a tightly clenched fist. But she worked
on it for a while, and the Sst opened to reveal what
looked like a small pearl of wisdom nestling in its
palm perhaps David's coldness to her was of one
piece with his chopping down trees, and undressing
himself, and driving the jeep, and 50

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

throwing the Indian clubs, and coming to live on a
cold cruel island in the North Sea . . .

 What was it he had said? ". . . his father the war
hero, a legless joke. . ." He had something to
prove, something that would sound trite if it were
put into words; something he could have done as a
fighter pilot, but now had to do with trees and
fences and Indian dubs and a wheelchair. They
wouldn't let him take the test, and he wanted to be
able to say: "I could have passed it anyway, just
look how I can suffer."

 It was cruelly, screamingly unjust: he had had the
courage, and he had suffered the wounds, but he
could take no pride in it. If a Messerschmidt had
taken his legs the wheelchair would have been like
a medal, a badge of courage. But now, all his life,
he would have to say: "It was during the war  but
no, I never saw any action, this was a car crash, I
did my training and I was going to fight, the very
next day, I had seen my kite, she was a beauty, and
. . ."

 Yes, it was his way of being strong. And perhaps
she could be strong, too. She might find ways of
patching up the wreck of her life. David had once
been good and kind and loving, and she might now
learn to wait patiently while he battled to become
the complete man he used to be. She could find
new hopes, new things to live for. Other women
had found the strength to cope with bereavement,
and bombed-out houses, and husbands in
prisoner-of-war camps.

 She picked up a pebble, drew back her arm, and
threw it out to sea with all her might. She did not
see or hear it land; it might have gone on forever,
circling the earth like a satellite in a space story.

 She shouted, "I can be strong, too, damn it." And
then she turned around and started up the ramp to
the cottage. It was almost time for Jo's first feed.

                 Al
                  
                  6

It looked like a mansion, and, up to a point, that
was what it was a large house, in its own grounds,
in the leafy town of Wohldorf just outside North
Hamburg. It might have been the home of a mine
owner, or a successful importer, or an industrialist.
However, it was in fact owned by the Abwehr.

  It owed its fate to the weather not here, but two
hundred miles southeast in Berlin, where
atmospheric conditions were unsuitable for wireless
communication with England.

  It was a mansion only down to ground level.
Below that were two huge concrete shelters and
several million reichsmarks worth of radio
equipment. The electronics system had been put
together by a Major Werner Trautmann, and he
did a good job. Bach hall had twenty neat little
soundproof listening posts, occupied by radio
operators who could recog. nize a shy by the way
he tapped out his message, as easily as you can
recognize your mother's handwriting on an
envelope.

  The receiving equipment was built with quality in
mind, for the transmitters sending the messages
had been designed for compactness rather than
power. Most of them were the small suitcase-sets
called Klamotten, which had been developed by
Telefunken for Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, the head
of the Abwehr.

On this night the airways were relatively quiet, so
everyone J2

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

knew when Die Nadel came through. The message
was taken by one of the older operators. He tapped
an acknowledgment, transcribed the signal, quickly
tore the sheet off his note pad and went to the
phone. He read the message over the direct line to
Abwshr headquarters at Sophien Terrace in
Hamburg, then came back to his booth for a smoke.

  He ridered a cigarette to the youngster in the next
booth, and the two of them stood together for a few
minutes, leaning against the wall and smoking.

The VounQSter said. "Anything?"

  The older man shmgged. "There's always
something when he calls. But not much this time.
The Luftwaffe missed St. Paul's Cathedral again."

"No reply for him?"

  "We don't think he waits for replies. He's an
independent bastard' always was. I trained him in
wireless. you know, and once I'd finished he thought
he knew it better than me."

"You've met Die Nadel? What's he like?"

  "About as much fun as a dead fish. All the same
he's the best agent we've got. Some say the best
ever. There's a story that he spent five years
working his way up in the NKVD in Russia, and
ended up one of Stalin's most trusted aides.... I
don't know whether it's true, but it's the kind of
thing he'd do. A real pro. And the Puehrer knows
it."

"Hitler knows him?"

  The older man nodded. "At one time he wanted
to see all Die Nadel's signals. I don't know if he still
does. Not that it would make any difference to Die
Nadel. Nothing impresses that man. You know
something? He looks at everybody the same
way as if he's figuring out how hell kill you if you
make a wrong move."

"I'm glad I didn't have to train him."

  "He learned quickly, I'll give him that. Worked at
it twenty-four hours a day, then when he'd mastered
it, he wouldn't give me a good-morning. It takes
him all his time to remember to salute Canaris. He
always signs off 'Regards to Willi ' That's how much
he cares about rank."

  They finished their cigarettes. dropped them on
the floor, and trod them out. Then the older man
picked up the stubs and pocketed them, because
smoking was not really permitted in the dugout. The
radios were still quiet.

so

             Ken Follett

  "Yes, he won't use his code name," the older man
went on. "don Braun gave it to him, and he's never
liked it. He's never liked Von Braun either. Do you
remember the time  no, it was before you joined
us Braun told Nadel to go to the airfield in
Farnborough, Kent. The message came back:
'There is no airfield in Farnborough, Kent. There
is one at Farnborough, Hampshire. Fortunately the
Luftwaffe's geography is better than yours, you
cant,' Just like that."

  "I suppose it's understandable. When we make
mistakes we put their lives on the line."

  The older man frowned. He was the one who
delivered such judgments, and he did not like his
audience to weigh in with opinions of its own.
"Perhaps," he said grudgingly.

"But why doesn't he like his code name?"

  "He says it has a meaning, and a code word with
a meaning can give a man away. Van Braun
wouldn't listen."

"A meaning? The Needle? What does it mean?"

  But at that moment the old-timer's radio chirped,
and he returned quickly to his station, so the
explanation never came.

                 54
                  
PART TWO

The message annoyed Faber because it forced him
to face issues that he had been avoiding.

 Hamburg had made damn sure the message
reached him. He had given his call-sign, and
instead of the usual "Acknowledge proceed" they
had sent back "Make rendezvous one."

 He acknowledged the order, transmitted his
report and packed the wireless set back into its
suitcase. Then he wheeled his bicycle out of Brith
Marshes his cover was a bird-watcher and got
on the road to Blackheath. As he cycled back to
his cramped two-room flat, he wondered whether
to obey the order.

 He had two reasons for disobedience: one
professional, one personal.

 The professional reason was that "rendezvous
one" was an old code, set up by Canaris back in
1937. It meant he was to go to the doorway of a
certain shop between Leicester Square and
Piccadilly Circus to meet another agent. The
agents would recognize each other by the fact that
they both carried a Bible. Then there was a patter:

"What is today's chapter?"

"One Kings thirteen."

Then, if they were certain they were not being
followed, J7

             Ken Follett

they would agree that the chapter was "most
inspiring." Otherwise one would say, "I'm afraid I
haven't read it yet."

 The shop doorway might not be there any more,
but it was not that that troubled Paber. He thought
Canaris had probably given the code to most of the
bumbling amateurs who had crossed the Channel
in 1940 and landed in the arms of MI5. Paber
knew they had been caught because the hangings
had been publicised, no doubt to reassure the
public that something was being done about Fifth
Columnists. They would certainly have given away
secrets before they died, so the British now
probably knew the old rendezvous code. If they
had picked up the message from Hamburg that
shop doorway must by now be swarming with
well-spoken young Englishmen carrying Bibles and
practicing saying "Most inspiring" in a German
accent.

 The Abwehr had thrown professionalism to the
wind back in those heady days when the invasion
seemed so close. Faber had not trusted Hamburg
since. He would not tell them where he lived, he
refused to communicate with their other agents in
Britain, he varied the frequency he used for trans-
mission without caring whether he stepped all over
someone else's signal.

 If he had always obeyed his masters, he would
not have survived so long.

 At Woolwich, Faber was joined by a mass of
other cyclists, many of them women, as the workers
came streaming out of the munitions factory at the
end of the day shift. Their cheerful weariness
reminded Faber of his personal reason for diso-
bedience: he thought his side was losing the war.

 They certainly were not winning. The Russians
and the Americans had joined in, Africa was lost,
the Italians had collapsed; the Allies would surely
invade Prance this year, 1944.

Paber did not want to risk his life to no purpose.

 He arrived home and put his bicycle away. While
he was washing his face it dawned on him that,
against all logic, he wanted to make the
rendezvous.

 It was a foolish risk, taken in a lost cause, but he
was itching to get to it. And the simple reason was
that he was unspeakably bored. The routine
transmissions, the birdwatching, the bicycle, the
boardinghouse teas it was four 58

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

years since he had experienced anything remotely
like action. He seemed to be in no danger
whatsoever, and that made him jumpy because he
imagined invisible threats. He was happiest when
every so often he could identify a threat and take
steps to neutralise.

 Yes, he would make the rendezvous. But not in
the way they expected

 There were still crowds in the West find of
London, despite the war; Faber wondered whether
it was the same in Berlin. He bought a Bible at
Hatchard's bookshop in Piccadilly, and stuffed it
into his inside coat pocket, out of sight. It was a
mild, damp day, with intermittent drizzle, and
Faber was carrying an umbrella.

 This rendezvous was timed for either between
nine and ten o'clock in the morning or between
five and six in the afternoon, and the arrangement
was that one went there every day until the other
party turned up. If no contact was made for five
successive days one went there on alternate days
for two weeks. After that one gave up.

 Faber got to Leicester Square at ten past nine.
The contact was there, in the tobacconist's
doorway, with a black-bound Bible under his arm,
pretending to shelter from the rain. Faber spotted
him out of the corner of his eye and hurried past,
head down. The man was youngish, with a blond
moustache and a well-fed look. He wore a black
double-breasted raincoat, and he was reading the
Daily Express and chewing gum. He was not
familiar.

 When Faber walked by the second time on the
opposite side of the street, he spotted the tail. A
short, stocky man wearing the trenchcoat and trilby
hat beloved of English plainclothes policemen was
standing just inside the foyer of an office building,
looking through the glass doors across the street to
the man in the doorway.

 There were two possibilities. If the agent did not
know he had been followed, Faber had only to get
him away from the rendezvous and lose the tail.
However, the alternative was that the agent had
been captured and the man in the doorway was a
substitute)) in which case neither he nor the tail
must be allowed to see Faber's face.

so

             Ben Polleft

 Paber assumed the worst, then thought of a way
to deal with it.

 There was a telephone booth in the Square.
Faber went inside and memorized the number.
Then he found I Kings 13 in the Bible tore out the
page and scribbled in the margin, "Go to the phone
booth in the Square."

 He walked around the back streets behind the
National Gallery until he found a small boy, aged
about ten or eleven, sitting on a doorstep throwing
stones at puddles.

Faber said, "Do you know the tobacconist in the
Square?"

"Yerst."

"Do you like chewing gum?"

"Yerst."

 Paber gave him a page torn from the Bible.
"There's a man in the doorway of the tobacconist's.
If you give him this he'll give you some gum."

 "All right," the boy said. He stood up. "Is this
geezer a ltank?-

"Yerst," Paber said.

 The boy ran off. Paber followed him. As the boy
approached the agent. Faber ducked into the
doorway of the building opposite. The tail was still
there. peering through the glass. Paber stood just
outside the door, blocking the tail's view of the
scene across the street, and opened ho umbrella He
pretended to be struggling with it He save the
agent give something to the boy and walk off He
ended his charade with the umbrella and walked in
the direction opposite to the way the agent had
gone He looked back over his shoulder to see the
tail run into the street, looking for the vanished
agent.

 Paber stopped at the nearest telephone and
dieted the number of the booth in the Square It
took a few minutes to get through At last a deep
voice said. "Hello?"

"What is today's chapter?" Paber said.

"One Kingq thirteen."

"Most inspiring."

'~Yes. isn't it."

 The fool has no idea of the trouble he's in, Paber
thought. Aloud he said, "Weld'

"I must see you."

"That is impossible."

"But I mustl" There was a note in the voice that Paber
60

         EYE 0F TlIE NEEDLE

thought edged on despair. 'The message comes
from the very to-do vou understand?"

 Faber pretended to waver. "All right, then. I will
meet you in one week's time under the arch at
Euston Station at 9 A.M.'

"Can't you make it sooner?"

 Faber hung up and stepped outside. Walking
quickly, he rounded two corners and came withir
sight of the phone booth ir the Sanare He saw the
agent walking in the direction of Piccadilly. There
was no sign of the tail. Faber followed the agent.

 The man went into Piccadilly Circus
underground station, and bought ~ ticket to
Stockwell. Faber immediately realized he could pet
there bv a more direct route He came out of the
station walked Quickly to Leicester Square and got
on a Northern I.ine train The agent would have to
change trains at Waterloo whereas Faber's train
was direct; so Faber would reach Stockwell first, or
at the worst they would arrive on the same train.

 In fact Paber had to wait outside the station at
Stockwell for twenty-five minutes before the agent
emerged. Faber followed hirr' again He went into
a cafe.

 There was ahsoll telv nowhere nearby where a
man could plausibly stand still for anv length of
time: no shop windows to gaze into. no benches to
sit on or parks to walk around, no bus stops or taxi
ranks or public buildings Faber had to walk up and
down the street, always looking as if he were going
somewhere, carrying on until he was just out of
sight of the cafe then returning on the opposite
side, while the agent sat in the warm. steamy cafe
drinking tea and eating hot toast.

 He came out after half an hour Paber tailed him
through a succession of residential streets The
agent knew where he was going but wee in no
hurry. He walked like a man who is going home
with nothing to do for the rest of the day. He did
not fool' back and Paher thought, Another
amateur.

 At last he went into a house one of the poor,
anonymous, inconspicum~s lodging houses used
by spies and errant husbands everywhere. It had a
dormer window in the roof, that would be the
agent's room, high up for better wireless reception.

Faber walked past, scanning the opposite side of the
street. 61

In Of ~

Ye~thero. A movement behind an upstairs window,
a glimpse of a jacket and tie, a watching face
withdrawn the opposition was here too. The agent
must have gone to the rendezvous yesterday and
allowed himself to be followed home by
MI5 unless, of course, he was MIS.

  Faber turned the corner and walked down the next
parallel street, counting the houses. Almost directly
behind the place the agent had entered there was the
bomb~damaged shell of what had been a pair of
semidetached houses. Good.

  As he walked back to the station his step was
springier, his heart beat a shade faster and he looked
around him with bright-eyed interest. It was good.
The game was on.

  He dressed in black that night a woolen hat, a
turtleneck sweater under a short leather flying jacket,
trousers tucked into socks, rubber-soled shoes all
black. He would be almost invisible, for London, too,
was blacked out.

  He cycled through the quiet streets with dimmed
lights, keeping off main roads. It was after midnight,
and he saw no one. He left the bike a quarter of a
mile away from his destination, padlocking it to the
fence in a pub yard.

  He went, not to the agent's house, but to the
bombed~out shell in the next street. He picked his
way carefully across the rubble in the front garden,
entered the gaping doorway, and went through the
house to the back. It was very dark. A thick screen
of low cloud hid the moon and stars. Faber had to
walk slowly with his hands in front of him.,

  He reached the end of the garden, jumped over
the fence, and crossed the next two gardens. In one
of the houses a dog barked for a moment.

  The garden of the lodging house was unkempt.
Faber walked into a blackberry bush and stumbled.
The thorns scratched his face. He ducked under a
line of washing there was enough light for him to
see that.

  He found the kitchen window and took from his
pocket a small tool with a scoop-shaped blade. The
putty around the glass was old and brittle, and
already Baking away in places. After twenty minutes'
silent work he took the pane out of the frame and
laid it gently on the grass. He shone a flashlight
through the empty hole to make sure there were no
noisy ob62

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

stacles in his way, opened the catch, raised the
window and then climbed in.

 The darkened house smelled of boiled fish and
disinfectant. Paber unlocked the bac} door a
precaution for fast exit  before entering the hall.
He flashed his pencil light on and off quickly, once
In that instant of light ho too} in a tiled hallway, a
kidney table ho must circumvent, a row of coats on
hooks and a staircase, to the right, carpeted.

He climbed To stairs silently.

 He was halfway across the landing to the second
flight when ho saw the light under the door. A
split-second later there was an asthmatic cough and
the sound of a toilet flushing. Paber reached the
door in two strides and froze against the wan.

 fight flooded the landing as the door opened.
Faber slipped his stiletto out of his sleeve. The old
man came out of the toilet and crossed the landing,
leaving the light on. At his bedroom door he
grunted, turned and came back.

 He must see me, Paber thought. He tightened his
grip on the handle of his knife. The old man's
half-open eyes were directed to He floor. He
looked up as he reached for the light cord, and
Paber almost killed him then but the man
fumbled for the switch and Paber realized he was
so sleepy he was practically somnambulating.

 The light died, the old man shuffled bac} to bed,
and Paber breathed again

 There was only one door at the top of the second
flight of stairs. Faber tried it gently. It was locked.

 He took another tool from the pocket of his
Jacket. The noise of the toilet tank filling covered
the sound of Paber picking the lock. He opened the
door and listened.

 He could hear deep, regular breathing. He
stepped inside. The sound canto from the opposite
corner of the room. He could see nothing He
crossed the pitch-dark room very slowly, fooling the
air in front of him at each step, until he was beside
the bed.

 He had the flashlight in his left hand, the stiletto
loose in his sleeve and his right hand free. He
switched on the flashlight and grabbed the sleeping
man's throat in a strangling gape

The agent's eyes snapped open, but he could make no
do

             Ken Follett

sound. Faber straddled the bed and sat on him.
Then he whispered, "One Kings thirteen," and
relaxed his grip.

 The agent peered into the flashlight, trying to
see Paber's face. He rubbed his neck where
Paber's hand had squeezed.

 "Be still!" Faber shone the light into the agent's
eyes, and with his right hand drew the stiletto.

"Aren't you going to let me get up?"

"I prefer you in bed where you can do no more
damage."

"Damage? More damage?"

 "You were watched in Leicester Square, and you
let me follow you here, and they are observing this
house. Should I trust you to do anything?"

"My God, I'm sorry."

"Why did they send you?"

 "The message had to be delivered personally.
The orders come from the top. The very top "
The agent stopped.

"Well? What orders?"

"I . . . have to be sure it's you."

"How can you be sure?"

"I must see your face."

 Paber hesitated, then shone the flashlight at
himself briefly. "Satisfied?"

"Die Nadel."

"And who are you?"

"Major Priedrich Kaldor, sir."

"I should call you Sir."

 . "Oh, no, sir. You've been promoted twice in
your absence. You are now a lieutenant-colonel."

"Have they really nothing better to do in
Hamburg?"

"Aren't you pleased?"

 "I should be pleased to go back and put Major
van Braun on latrine duty."

"May I get up, sir?"

 "Certainly not. What if Major Kaldor is held in
Wandsworth Jail and you are a substitute, waiting
to give a signal to your watching friends in the
house opposite? . . . Now, what are these orders
from the very top?"

 "Well, sir, we believe there will be an invasion of
France this year."

"Brilliant, brilliant. Go on."

"They believe that General Patton is massing the Pirst
64

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

United States Army Group in the part of England
known as least Anglia. If that army is the invasion
force, then it follows that they will attack via the
Pas de Calais."

 "That makes sense. But I have seen no sign of
this army of Patton's."

 "There is some doubt in the highest circles in
Berlin. The Fuehrer's astrologer "

"What?"

 "Yes, sir, he has an astrologer, who tells him to
defend Normandy."

"My God. Are things that bad there?"

 "He gets plenty of earthbound advice, too. I
personally believe he uses the astrologer as an
excuse when he thinks the generals are wrong but
he can't fault their arguments."

 Faber sighed. He had been afraid of news like
this. "Go on."

 "Your assignment is to assess the strength of
FUSAG: numbers of troops, artillery, air
support "

"I know how to measure armies."

 "Of course." He paused. "I am instructed to
emphasize the importance of the mission, sir."

 "And you have done so. Tell me, are things that
bad in Berlin?"

 The agent hesitated. "No, sir. Morale is high,
output of munitions increases every month, the
people spit at the RAP bombers "

"Never mind, I can get the propaganda from my
radio."

The younger man was silent.

 Faber said, "Do you have anything else to tell
me? OF cially, I mean."

 "Yes. Por the duration of the assignment you
have a special bolt-hole."

"They do think it's important," Faber said.

 "You rendezvous with a U-boat in the North Sea,
ten miles due east of a town called Aberdeen. Just
call them in on your normal radio frequency and
they will surface. As soon as you or I have told
Hamburg that the orders have been passed from
me to you, the route will be open. The boat will be
there every Priday and Monday at 6 P.M. and will
wait until

6 A.M."

6J

             Ken Pollett

 "Aberdeen is a big town. Do you have an exact
map reference?"

 "Yes." The agent recited the numbers, and Paber
memorized them.

"Is that everything, Major?"

"Yes, sir."

 "What do you plan to do about the gentlemen
from MI5 in the house across the road?"

The agent shrugged. "I'll have to give them the
slip."

 Faber thought, It's no good. "What are your
orders after you have seen me? Do you have a
bolt-hole?"

 "No. I am to go to a town called Weymouth and
steal a boat to return to France."

 That was no plan at all. So, Faber thought,
Canaris knew how it would be. Very well.

 "And if you are caught by the British and
tortured?" he said.

"I have a suicide pill."

"And you will use it?"

"Most certainly."

 Faber looked at him. "I think you might," he said.
He placed his left hand on the agent's chest and
put his weight on it, as if he were about to get off
the bed. That way he was able to feel exactly where
the rib cage ended and the soft belly began. He
thrust the point of the stiletto in just under the ribs
and stabbed upward to the heart.

 The agent's eyes widened for an instant. A noise
came to his throat but did not get out. His body
convulsed. Faber pushed the stiletto an inch farther
in. The eyes closed and the body went limp.

"You saw my face," Faber said.

                 66
                  
                  8

"I think we've lost control of it," said Percival
Godliman. Frederick Bloggs nodded agreement,
and added, "It's my fault."

 The man looked weary, Godliman thought. He
had had that look for almost a year, ever since the
night they had dragged the crushed remains of his
wife from underneath the rubble of a bombed
house in Hoxton.

 "I'm not interested in apportioning blame,"
Godliman said. "The fact is that something
happened in Leicester Square during the few
seconds you lost sight of Blondie."

"Do you think the contact was made?"

"Possibly."

  "When we picked him up again in Stockwell, I
thought he had simply given up for the day."

  "If that were the case he would have made the
rendezvous again yesterday and today." Godliman
was making patterns with matchsticks on his desk,
a thinking habit he had developed. "Still no
movement at the housed"

  "Nothing. He's been in there for forty-eight
hours." Bloggs repeated, "It's my fault."

  "Don't be a bore, old chap," Godliman said. "It
was my decision to let him run so that he would
lead us to someone else, and I still think it was the
right move."

67

             Ken Polled

 Bloggs sat motionless, his expression blank, his
hands in the pockets of his raincoat. "If the contact
has been made, we shouldn't delay picking Blondie
up and ending out what his mission was."

 "That way we lose whatever chance we have of
following Blondie to somebody more important."

"Your decision."

 Godliman had made a church with his matches.
He stared at it for a moment, then took a
halfpenny from his pocket and tossed it. "Tails," he
observed. "Give him another twenty-four hours."

 The landlord was a middle-aged Irish Republican
from Lisdoonvarna, County Clare, who harbored a
secret hope that the Germans would win the war
and thus free the Emerald Isle from English
oppression forever. He limped arthritically around
the old house, collecting his weekly rents, thinking
how much he would be worth if those rents were
allowed to rise to their true market value. He was
not a rich man he owned only two houses, this
and the smaller one in which he lived. He was
permanently bad-tempered.

 On the first floor he tapped on the door of the
old man. This tenant was always pleased to see
him. He was probably pleased to see anybody. He
said, "Hello, Mr. Riley, would you like a cup of
tea?"

"No time today."

 "Oh, well." The old man handed over the money.
"I expect you've seen the kitchen window."

"No. I didn't go in there."

 "Oh! Well. there's a pane of glass out. I patched
it over with blackout curtain, but of course there is
a draft."

"Who smashed it?" the landlord asked.

 "Funny thing, it ain't broke. Just lying there on
the grass. I expect the old putty just gave way. I'll
mend it myself, if you can get hold of a bit of
putty."

 You old fool, the landlord thought. Aloud he
said, "I don't suppose it occurred to you that you
might have been burgled?"

The old man looked astonished. "I never thought of
that."

"Noh~dv's missing any valuables?"

"Nobody's said so to me."

68

          EYE OF TtIENEEDLE

  The landlord went to the door. "All right, I'll have
a look when I go down."

  The old man followed him out. "I don't think the
new bloke is in upstairs," he said. "I haven't heard
a sound for a couple of days."

  The landlord was sniffing "Has he been cooking
in his rooms'

"I wouldn't know, Mr. Riley."

  The two of them went up the stairs. The old man
said, "He's very quiet, if he is in there."

  "Whatever he's cooking, he'll have to stop. It
smells bloody awful."

  The landlord knocked on the door. There was no
answer. He opened it and went in, and the old man
followed him.

  "Well, well, well," the old sergeant said heartily. "I
thinlc you've got a dead one." He stood in the
doorway, surveying the room. "You touched
anything, Paddy?"

"No," the landlord replied. "And the name's Mr.
Riley."

  The policeman ignored this. "Not long dead,
though. IN smelled worse." His survey took in the
old chest of drawers, the suitcase on the low table,
the faded square of carpet, the dirty curtains on the
dormer window and the rumpled bed in the corner.
There were no signs of a struggle.

  He went over to the bed. The young man's face
was peaco" ful, his hands clasped over his chest. "I'd
say heart attack, if he wasn't so young." There was
no empty sleeping-pill bottle to indicate suicide. He
picked up the leather wallet on top of the chest and
looked through its contents. There was an identity
card and a ration book, and a fairly thick wad of
notes. "Papers in order and he ain't been robbed."

  "He's only been here a week or so," the landlord
said. Y don't know much about him at all. He came
from Norm Wales to work in a factory."

  "Well," the sergeant observed, "if he was as
healthy as ho looked he'd be in the Army." He
opened the suitcase on the table. "Bloody hell,
what's this lot?"

  The landlord and the old man had edged their
way into the room now. The landlord said, "It's a
radio" at the same time as the old man said, "He's
bleeding."

"Don't touch that bodyl" the sergeant said. 69

             Ken Pollett
"He's had a knife in the guts," the old man
persisted.

~ The sergeant gingerly lifted one of the dead
hands from the chest to reveal a small trickle of
dried blood. "He was bleeding," he said. "Where's
the nearest phone?"

"Five doors down," the landlord told him.

"Lock this room and stay out until I get back."

  The sergeant left the house and knocked at the
door of the neighbor with the phone. A woman
opened it. "Good morning, madam. May I use your
telephone?"

  "Come in." She showed him the phone, on a
stand in the hall. "What's happened anything
exciting?"

  "A tenant died in a lodging house just up the
road," he told her as he dialed.

"Murdered?" she asked, wide-eyed.

  "I leave that to the experts. Hello?
Superintendent Jones, please. This is Canter." He
looked at the woman. "Might I ask you just to pop
in the kitchen while I talk to my governor?"

She went, disappointed.

  "Hello, Super. This body's got a knife wound and
a suitcase radio."

"What's the address again, Sarge?"

Sergeant Canter told him.

  "Yes, that's the one they've been watching. This
is an MI5 job, Sarge. Go to number 42 and tell the
surveillance team there what you've found. I'll get
on to their chief. Off you go."

  Canter thanked the woman and crossed the road.
He was quite thrilled; this was only his second
murder in thirty-one years as a Metropolitan
Policeman, and it turned out to involve espionage!
He might make Inspector yet.

  He knocked on the door of number 42. It opened
and two men stood there.

  Sergeant Canter said: "Are you the secret agents
from MIS?"

  Bloggs arrived at the same time as a Special
Branch man, Detective-Inspector Harris, whom he
had known in his Scot" land Yard days. Canter
showed them the body.

  They stood still for a moment, looking at the
peaceful young face with its blond moustache.

70

          ErE OE THE NEEDLE

Harris said, "Who is he?"

 "Codename Blondie," Bloggs told him. "We think
he came in by parachute a couple of weeks ago. We
picked up a radio message to another agent
arranging a rendezvous. We }new the code, so we
were able to watch the rendezvous. We hoped
Blondie would lead us to the resident agent, who
would be a much more dangerous specimen."

"So what happened here?"

"Damned if I know."

Harris looked at the wound in the agent's chest.
"Stiletto?"

 "Something like that. A very neat job. Under the
ribs and straight up into the heart. Quick. Would
you like to see the method of entry?"

 He led them downstairs to the kitchen. They
looked at the windowframe and the unbroken pane
of glass Iying on the lawn.

 Canter said, "Also, the lock on the bedroom door
had been picked."

 They sat down at the kitchen table, and Canter
made He Bloggs said, "It happened the night after
I lost him in Leicester Square. I fouled it all up."

Harris said, "Don't be so hard on yourself."

 They drank their tea in silence for a while. Harris
said, "How are things with you, anyway? You don't
drop in at the Yard."

['Busy."

"How's Christine7"

"Killed in the bombing."

Harris's eyes widened. "You poor bastard."

"You all right?"

 "Lost my brother in North Africa Did you ever
meet Johnny?"

"No."

 "He was a lad. Drink? You've never seen
anything like it. Spent so much on booze, he could
never afford to get married which is just as well,
the way things turned out.~'

"Most have lost somebody, I guess."

 "If you're on your own, come round our place for
dinner on Sunday."

"Thanks, I work Sundays now."

Harris nodded. "Well, whenever you feel like it." 7'

Ken Pallet!

 A detective-constable poked his bead around the
door and addressed Harris. "Can we start
bagging-up the evidence, g av?"

Harris looked at Bloggs.

"I've finished," Bloggs said.

"All right, son, carry on," Harris told him.

 Bloggs said, "Suppose he made contact after I lost
him, and arranged for the resident agent to come
here. The resident may have suspected a trap that
would explain why he came in through the window
and picked the lock."

 "It makes him a devilish suspicious bastard,"
Harris observed

 "That might be why we've never caught him.
Anyway, he gets into Blondie's room and wakes him
up. Now he knows it isn't a trap, right?"

"Right."

"So why does he kill Blondie?"

"Maybe they quarreled."

'Where were no signs of a struggle."

 Harris frowned into his empty cup. "Perhaps he
realized that Blondie was being watched and he was
afraid we'd pick the boy up and make him spill the
beans."

Bloggs said, "That makes him a ruthless bastard."

'What, too, might be why we've never caught him."

  "Come in. Sit down. I've just had a call from MI6.
Canari9 has been fired."

  Bloggs went in, sat down, and said, "Is that good
news or bad?"

  "Very bad," said Godliman. "It's happened at the
worst possible moment."

"Do I get told why?"

  Godliman looked at him intently, then said, "I
think you need to know. At this moment we have
forty double agents broadcasting to Hamburg false
information about Allied plans for the invasion of
Prance."

  Bloggs whistled. "I didn't know it was quite that
big. I suppose the doubles say we're going in at
Cherbourg, but really it will be Calais, or vice
versa."

  "Something like that. Apparently I don't need to
know the details. Anyway they haven't told me.
However, the whole 72

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

thing is in danger. We knew Canaris; we knew we
had him fooled; we felt we could have gone on
fooling him. A new broom may mistrust his
predecessor's agents. There's more  we've had
some defections from the other side, people who
could have betrayed the Abwehr's people over here
if they hadn't been betrayed already. It's another
reason for the Germans to begin to suspect our
doubles.

 '`Then there's the possibility of a leak. Literally
thousands of people now know about the
double-cross system. There are doubles in Iceland,
Canada, and Ceylon. We ran a double" cross in the
Middle East.

 "And we made a bad mistake last year by
repatriating a German called Erich Carl. We later
learned he was an Abwehr agent a real one and
that while he was in internment on the Isle of Man
he may have learned about two doub'es, Mutt and
Jeff, and possibly a third called Tate.

 "So we're on thin ice. If one decent Abwehr agent
in Brit ain gets to know about Fortitude that's the
code name for the deception plan the whole
strategy will be endangered. Not to mince words, we
could lose the tucking war."

 Bloggs suppressed a smile he could remember
a time when Professor Godliman did not know the
meaning of such words.

 The professor went on, 'Y'he Twenty Committee
has made it quite clear that they expect me to make
sure there aren't any decent Abwehr agents in
Britain."

 "Last week we would have been quite confident
that there weren't," Bloggs said.

"Now we kr ow there's at least one."

"And we let him slip through our fingers."

"So now we have to find him again."

  "I don't know," Bloggs said gloomily. "We don't
know what part of the country he's operating from,
we haven't the faintest idea what he looks like. He's
too crafty to be pinpointed by triangulation while
he's transmitting otherwise we would have nabbed
him long ago. We don't even know his code name.
So where do we start?"

  "Unsolved crimes," said Godliman. "Look a spy is
bound to break the law. He forges papers, he steals
petrol and ammunition, he evades checkpoints, he
enters restricted areas, he takes photographs, and
when people rumble him he kills 73

               Redett

them. The police are bound to get to know of some
of these crimes if the spy has been operating for
any length of time. If we go through the unsolved
crimes files since the war, we'll find traces."

 "Don't vou replize that most crimes are
unsolved?" Bloggs said incredulously. "The files
would fill the Albert Hall!"

 Godliman shrugged. "So, we narrow it down to
London, and we start with murders."

 They found what they were looking for on the
very first day of their search. It happened to be
Godliman who came across it, and at first he did
not realize its significance.

 It was the file on the murder of a Mrs Una
Garden in Highgate in 1940 Her throat had been
cut and she had been 8exuallv molested, although
not raped She had been found in the bedroom of
her lodger, with considerable alcohol in her
bloodstream. The picture was fairly clear: she had
had a tryst with the lodger, he had wanted to go
farther than she was prepared to let him, they had
quarreled, he had Lined her, and the murder had
neutralised his libido. But the police had never
found the lodger.

 Godliman had been about to pass over the
file spies did not get involved in sexual assaults.
But he was a meticulous man with records, so he
read every word, and consequently discovered that
the unfortunate Mrs. Garden had received stiletto
wounds in her back as well as the fatal wound to
her throat.

 Godliman and Bloggs were on opposite sides of
a wooden table in the records room at Old
Scotland Yard. Godliman tossed the file across the
table and said, "I think this is it."

Bloggs glanced through it and said, "The stiletto."

 They signed for the file and walked the short
distance to the War Offlce. When they returned to
Godliman's room, there was a decoded signal on
his desk. He read it casually, then thumped the
table in excitement. "It's him!"

Bloggs read: "Orders received. Regards to Willi."

"Remember him?" Godliman said. "Die Nadel?"

 "Yes," Bloggs said hesitantly. 'The NeedHe. But
there's not much information here."

"Think, think! A stiletto is like a needle. It's the same
74

          EVE OF rnE NEEDS

man: the murder of Mrs. Garden, all those signals
in 1940 that we couldn't trace, the rendezvous with
Blondie . . ."

"Possibly." Bloggs looked thoughtful.

 "I can prove it," Godliman said. "Remember the
transmission about Finland that you showed me
the first day I came here? The one that was
interrupted?"

"Yes." Bloggs went to the file to find it.

 "If my memory serves me well, the date of that
transmission is the same as the date of this murder
. . . and I'll bet the time of death coincides with
the interruption."

Bloggs looked at the signal in the file. "Right both
times."

"There!"

  "He's been operating in London for at least five
years, and it's taken us until now to get on to him,"
Bloggs reflected. "He won't be easy to catch."

  Godliman suddenly looked wolfish. "He may be
clever, but he's not as clever as me," he said tightly.
"I am going to nail him to the tucking wall."

  Bloggs laughed out loud. "My God, you've
changed, Professor.''

  Godliman said, "Do you realize that's the first
time you've laughed for a year?"

                 7'
                  
The supply boat rounded the headland and
chugged into the bay at Storm Island under a blue
sky. There were two women in it: one was the
skipper's wife he had been called up and now she
ran the business--and the other was Lucy's mother.

  Mother got out of the boat wearing a utility suit,
a mannish jacket and an above-the-knee skirt. Lucy
hugged her mightily.

"Mother! What a surprisel"

"But I wrote to you."

  The letter was with the mail on the boat; Mother
had for gotten that the post only come once a
fortnight on Stoi Island.

"Is this my grandson? Isn't he a big boy7"

  Little Jo. almost three years old, turned bashful
and hid behind Lucy's skirt. He was dark-haired,
pretty, and tan for bus age.

Mother said: "Isn't he like his father!"

  "Yes," Lucy said "You must be freezing come
up to the house. Mere did you get that skirt?"

  They picked up the groceries and began to walk
up the ramp to the cliff top. Mother chattered as
they went. "It's the fashion, dear. It saves on
material. But it isn't as cold as this on the
mainland. Such a windl I suppose it's all right to
leave 76

         EYE OF T!IE NEEDED

my case on the jetty nobody to steal it! Jane is
engaged to an AmericaT soldier a white one,
thank God He comes from a place called
Milwaukee, and he doesn't chew gum. Isn't that
nicer I'VG OnlY got four more daughters to marry
off now You father is a Captain in th' HOm,
Ouard did I tell you" He's up half the night
patrolling the common waiting for Oerman
parachutists Unde Stephen's warehouse was
bombed- I don't know what he'll do, it's an Act of
War or something "

 "Don't rush. Mother, you've got fourteen days to
tell me the news " Lucv laughed

 They reached the cottage Mother said, 'Isn't this
lovely?" They went in 'A thinly this is just lovely."

 Lucy parked Mother at the kitchen table and
made tea "Tom will get your case up. He'll be here
for his lunch shordy."

"The shepherd?"

"Yes."

"Does he Snd things for David to do, then7"

 Lucy laughed "It's the other way around. I'm sure
hell ten you all about it himself. You haven't told
me why you're here."

 "My dear, it's about time I saw you. I know
you're not supposed to make unnecessary journeys,
but once in four years isn't extravagant, is it?"

 They heard the jeep outside, and a moment later
David wheeled himself it Ho kissed his
mother-in-law and introduced Tom

 Lucy said "Tom, you can earn your lunch today
by bringing Mother's case up, as she carried your
groceries."

 David was warming his hands at the stove. 'It's
raw today.''

 "You're really taking sheep-fanning seriously,
then?" Mother said.

 Yhe flock is double what * was three years ago,"
David told her "Mv father never farmed this island
seriously. I've fenced SL'C miles of the cliTT top
impr<`vod the grazing, and introduced modern
breeding methods Not only do we have more
sheep. but each animal gives us more meat and
wool."

 Mother said tentatively, "I suppose Tom does the
physical work and you give the orders."

77

              Kenollett

David laughed. "Bqual partners, Mother."

  They had hearts for lunch, and both men ate
mountains of potatoes. Mother commented
favorably on Jo's table manners. Afterwards David
lit a cigarette and Tom stuffed his pipe.

  Mother said, "What I really want to know is when
you're going to give us more grandchildren." She
smiled brightly.

There was a long silence.

  "Well, I think it'd wonderful, the way David
copes," said Mother.

Lucy said, "Yes."

  They were walking along the cliff top. The wind
had dropped on the third day of Mother's visit and
it was mild enough to go out. They took Jo, dressed
in a fisherman's sweater and a fur coat. They had
stopped at the top of a rise to watch David, Tom
and the dog herding sheep. Lucy could see in
Mo~er's face an internal struggle between concern
and discretion. She decided to save her mother the
effort of asking.

"He doesn't love me," she said.

  Mother looked quickly to make sure Jo was out of
earshot. "lam sure it's not that bad, dear. Different
men show their love in diff "

  "Mother, we haven't been man and
wife properly since we were married.''

"But? . . ." She indicated Jo with a nod.

"That was a week before the wedding."

"Oh! Oh, dear. Is it, you know, the accident?"

  "Yes, but not in the way you mean. It's nothing
physical. He just . . . won't." Lucy was crying quietly,
the tears trickling down her wind-browned cheeks.

"Have you talked about it?"

"I've tried."

"Perhaps with time "

"It's been almost four years!"

  There was a pause. They began to walk on across
the heather, into the weak afternoon sun. Jo chased
gulls. Mother said, "I almost left your father, once."

It was Lucy's turn to be shocked. "When?"

  "It was soon after Jane was born. We weren't so
well-off in those days, you know Father was still
working for his fa78

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

ther, and there was a slump. I was expecting for the
third time in three years, and it seemed that a life
of having babies and making end meet stretched
out in front of me with nothing to relieve the
monotony. Then I discovered he was seeing an old
flame of his Brenda Simmonds. you never knew
her, she went to Basingstoke. Suddenly I asked
myself what I was doing it for, and I couldn't think
of a sensible answer."

 Lucy had dim, patchy memories of those days: her
grandfather with a white moustache, her father in
a more slender edition; extended family meals in
the Breat farmhouse kitchen; a lot of laughter and
sunshine and animals. Even then her parents'
marriage had seemed to represent solid con-
tentment, happy permanence. She said, "Why didn't
you? Leave, I mean."

 "Oh, people just didn't, in those days. There
wasn't all this divorce, and a woman couldn't get a
job."

"Women work at all sorts of things now."

 "They did in the last war, but everything changed
after. ward with a bit of unemployment. I expect it
will be the same this time. Men get their way, you
know, generally speaking."

"And you're glad you stayed." It was not a question.

 "People my age shouldn't make pronouncements
about lifo. But my life has been a matter of
making-do, and the same goes for most of the
women I know. Steadfastness always looks like a
sacrifice, but usually it isn't. Anyway, I'm not go.
ing to give you advice You wouldn't take it, and if
you did you'd blame your problems on me, I
expect."

"Oh, Mother," Lucy smiled.

  Mother said, "Shall we turn around? I think we've
gone far enough for one day."

  In the kitchen one evening Lucy said to David,
"I'd like Mother to stay another two weeks, if she
will." Mother was upstairs putting Jo to bed, telling
him a story.

  "Isn't a fortnight long enough for you to dissect
my per. venality?" David said.

"Don't be silly. David."

  He wheeled himself over to her chair. "Are you
telling me you don't talk about me?"

7,

             Ken Pollett

"Of course we talk about you you're my husband."

"What do you say to her?"

 "Why are you so worried?" Lucy said, not without
malice. "What are you so ashamed of?"

 "Damn you, I've nothing to be ashamed of. No
one wants his personal life talked about by a pair of
gossiping women_ n

"We don't gossip about you."

"What do you say?"

"Aren't you touchyI"

"Answer my question."

 "I say I want to leave you, and she tries to talk
 me out of
it's

 He spun around and wheeled away. 'Yell her not
to bother for my sake."

She called, "Do you mean that?"

 He stopped. "I don't need anybody, do you
understand? I can manage alone."

 "And what about me?" she said quietly. "Perhaps
I need somebody."

"What for?"

"To love me."

 Mother came in, and sensed the atmosphere.
"He's fast asleep," she said. "Dropped off before
Cinderella got to the ball. I think I'll pack a few
things, not to leave it all until to. morrow." She went
out again.

"Do you think it will ever change, David?" Lucy
asked.

"I don't know what you mean."

 "Will we ever be ... the way we were, before the
wedding?"

"My legs won't grow back, if that's what you mean."

 "Oh, God, don't you know that doesn't bother
me? I just want to be loved."

 David shrugged. 'Yhat's your problem." He went
out before she started to cry.

 Mother did not stay the second fortnight. Lucy
walked with her down to the jetty the next day. It
was raining hard, and they both wore mackintoshes.
They stood in silence waiting for the boat, watching
the rain pit the sea with tiny craters. Mother held Jo
in her arms.

80

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

  '~Things will change, in time, you know," she
said. "Four years is nothing in a marriage."

  Lucy said, "I don't know, but there's not much I
can do. There's Jo, and the war, and David's
condition how can I leave?"

  The boat arrived, and Lucy exchanged her
mother for three boxes of groceries and five letters.
The water was choppy. Mother sat in the boat's
tiny cabin. They waved her around the headland.
Lucy felt very lonely.

Jo began to cry. "I don't want Gran to go awayl"

"Nor do I," said Lucy.

                 ~1
                  
- ~

                 10

Godliman and Bloggs walked side by side along the
pavement of a bomb-damaged London shopping
street. They were a mismatched pair: the stooped,
birdlike professor, with pebble-lensed spectacles and
a pipe, not looking where he was going, taking
short, scurrying steps, and the flat-footed youngster,
blond and purposeful, in his detective's raincoat and
melodramatic hat; a cartoon looking for a caption. -

  Godliman was saying, "I think Die Nadel is
well-connected."

Vichy?"

  "The only way he could be so insubordinate with
impunity. It's this 'Regards to Willi' line. It must
refer to Canaris."

"You think he was pals with Canaris."

  "He's pals with somebody perhaps someone
more powerful than Canaris was."

"I have the feeling this is leading somewhere."

  "People who are well-connected generally make
those connections at school, or university or staff
college. Look at that.''

  They were outside a shop that had a huge empty
space where once there had been a plate-glass
window. A rough sign, hand-painted and nailed to
the window-frame, said, "Even more open than
usual."

82

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

  Bloggs laughed, "I saw one outside a bombed
police station: 'Be good, we are still open."'

"It's become a minor art form."

  They walked on. Bloggs said, "So, what if Die
Nadel did go to school with someone high in the
Wehrmacht?"

  "People always have their pictures taken at school.
Middleton down in the basement at
Kensington that house where MI6 used to be
before the war he's got a collection of thousands
of photographs of German officers: school photos,
binges in the Mess, passing-out parades, shaking
hands with Adolf, newspaper pictures everything."

  "I see," Bloggs said. "So if you're right, and Die
Nadel has been through Germany's equivalent of
Eton and Sandhurst, we've probably got a picture of
him."

  "Almost certainly. Spies are notoriously
camera-shy, but they don't become spies in school.
It will be a youthful Die Nadel that we find in
Middleton's files."

  They skirted a huge crater outside a barber's. The
shop was intact, but the traditional
red-and-white-striped pole lay in shards on the
pavement. The sign in the window said, "We've had
a close shave come and get one yourself."

  "How will we recognize him? No one has ever
seen hire," Bloggs said.

  "Yes, they have. At Mrs. Garden's boarding house
in Highgate they know him quite well."

  The Vietorian house stood on a hill overlooking
London. It was built of red brick, and Bloggs
thought it looked angry at the damage Hitler was
doing to its city. It was high up, a good place from
which to broadcast. Die Nadel would have lived on
the top floor. Bloggs wondered what secrets he had
transmitted to Hamburg from this place in the dark
days of 1940: map references for aircraft factories
and steelworks, details of coastal defences, political
gossip, gas masks and Anderson shelters and
sandbags, Blitish morale, bomb damage reports,
"Well done, boys, you got Christine Bloggs at last "
Shut up.

  The door was opened by an elderly man in a
black jacket and striped trousers.

  "Good morning. I'm Inspector Bloggs, from
Scotland Yard. I'd like a word with the
householder, please."

83

             Hen Folleft

 Bloggs saw fear come to the man's eyes, then a
young woman appeared in the doorway behind him
and said, "Come in, please."

 The tiled hall smelled of wax polish. Bloggs hung
his hat and coat on a stand. The old man
disappeared into the depths of the house, and the
woman led Bloggs into a lounge. It was expensively
furnished in a rich. old-fashioned way. There were
bottles of whisky. gin and sherry on a trolley, all
the bottles were unopened. The woman sat on a
floral armchair and crossed her legs.

"Why is the old man frightened of the
policeT'B10ees said.

 "My father-in-law is a German Jew He came here
in 1935 to escape Hitler, and in 1940 you put him
in a concentration camp. His wife killed herself at
the prospect. He has just been released from the
Isle of Man. He had a letter from the King,
apologising for the inconvenience to which he had
been put."

Bloggs said, "We don't have concentration camps."

 "We invented them. In South Africa. Didn't you
know? We go on about our history, but we forget
bits. We're so good at blinding ourselves to
unpleasant facts."

"Perhaps it's just as wed."

"Whatr'

 "In 1939 we blinded ourselves to the unpleasant
fact that we alone couldn't win a war with
Germany and look what happened."

 "That's what my father-in-law says. He's not as
cynical as I. What can we do to assist Scotland
Yard?"

 Blows had been enjoying the debate, and now it
was with rehlctance that he turned his attention to
work. "Irs about a murder that took place here four
years ago."

"So long!"

"Some new evidence may have come to light."

 "I know about it, of course. The Dreviolls owner
was killed by a tenant. My husband bought the
house from her executor- -she had no heirs."

 "I want to trace the other people who were
tenants at that time."

 "Yes." The woman's hostility had cone now' and
her intelligent face showed the effort of
recn11ection. "When we arrived there were three
who had been here before the murder: 84

          FYE OF TlIENEEDLE

a retired naval officer, a salesman and a young boy
from Yorkshire. The boy joined the Army he still
writes to us. The salesman was called up and he
died at sea. I know bocause two of his five wives
got in touch with usl And the Commander is still
here."

 "Still herel" That was a piece of luck. "I'd like to
see hire, please."

 "Surely." She stood up. "He's aged a lot. Ill take
you to his room."

 :1 hey went up the carpeted stairs to the first
floor. She said, "While you're talking to him, I'll
look up the last letter from the hov in the Army."
She knocked on the dnor. It was more than
Blo'ps's landlady would have done, he thought
wryly.

A Bruise called. "It's open," and Ulnas went in.

 The Commander sat in a chair by the window
with a blanket over his knees. He wore a blazer, a
collar and a tie, and spectacles. His hair was thin,
his moustache grey, his skin loose and wrinkled
over a face that might once have been strong. The
room was the home of a man living on
memories there were paintings of sailing ships, a
sextant and a telescope, and a photograph of
himself as a boy aboard HMY Winr.hester. ..

 "Loo} at this," he said without turning around.
"Tell me why that chap isn't in the Navy."

 Blows crossed to the window. A horse-drawn
baker's van was at the curb outside the house. the
elderly horse dipping into its nosebag while the
deliveries were made. That "chap" was a woman
with short blonde hair, in trousers. She had a
magnificent bust. Bloggs laughed. "It'" a woman in
bowers," he said.

 "Bless my soul, BO it is!" The Commander
turned around. "Can't tell thee days, you know.
Women in Rousers!"

 Bloggs introduced himself. "We've reopened the
cave of a murder committed here in 1940. I believe
you lived here at the same bme as the main
suspect, one Henry Faber."

"Indeed! What can I do to help?"

"How well do you remember Faber?"

 "Perfectly. Tall chap, dark hair, well-spoken,
quiet. Rather shabby clothes if you were the kind
who judges by appearances, you might well mistake
him. I didn't dislike him  8,

             Ren Follett

wouldn't have minded getting to know him better,
but he didn't want that. I suppose he was about
your age."

  Bloggs suppressed a smile he was used to
people assuming he must be older simply because
he was a detective.

  The Commander added, "I'm sure he didn't do it,
you know. I know a bit about character you can't
command a ship without learning and if that man
was a sex maniac, I'm Hermann Goering."

  Bloggs suddenly comnected the blonde in
trousers with the mistake about his age, and the
conclusion depressed him. He said, "You know, you
should always ask to see a policeman's warrant
card."

  The Commander was slightly taken aback. "AU
right, then, let's have it."

  Bloggs opened his wallet and folded it to display
the picture of Christine. "Here."

  The Commander studied it for a moment, then
said, "A very good likeness."

Bloggs sighed. The old man was very nearly blind.

He stood up. "That's all, for now," he said. "Thank
you."

  "Any time. Whatever I can do to help. I'm not
much value to England these days you've got to be
pretty useless to get invalided out of the Home
Guard, you know."

"Good-bye." Bloggs went out.

  The woman was in the hall downstairs. She
handed Bloggs a letter. "The boy's address is a
Forces box number," she said. "Parkin's his name .
. . no doubt you'll be able to find out where he is."

"You knew the Commander would be no use,"
Bloggs said.

  "I guess not. But a visitor makes his day." She
opened the door.

On impulse, Bloggs said, 'Will you have dinner with
me?"

  A shadow crossed her face. "My husband is still
on the Isle of Man."

"I'm sorry I thought_ n

"It's all right. I'm flattered."

"I wanted to convince you we're not the Gestapo."

"I know you're not. A woman alone just gets
bitter."

Bloggs said, "I lost my wife in the bombing."

"Then you know how it makes you hate." 86

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

  "Yes," said Bloggs. "It makes you hate." He went
down the steps. The door closed behind him. It had
started to rain....

  It had been raining then too. Bloggs was late
home. Ho had been going over some new material
with Oodliman. Now he was hurrying, so that he
would have half an hour with Christine before she
went out to drive her ambulance. It was dark, and
the raid had already started. The things Christine
saw at night were so awful she had stopped talking
about them.

  Bloggs was proud of her, proud. The people she
worked with said she was better than two men she
hurtled through blacked-out London, driving like a
veteran, taking corners on two wheels, whistling
and cracking jokes as the city turned to flame
around her. Fearless, they called her. Bloggs knew
better, she was terrified, but she would not let it
show. He knew because he saw her eyes in the
morning when he got up and she went to bed;
when her guard was down and it was over for a few
hours; he knew it was not fearlessness but courage,
and he was proud.

  It was raining harder when he got off the bus. He
pulled down his hat and put up his collar. M a
tobacconist's he bought cigarettes for Christino she
had started smoking recently like a lot of women.
The shopkeeper would let him have only five,
because of the shortage. He put them in a
Woolworth's bakelite cigarette case.

  A policeman stopped him and asked for his
identity card; another two minutes wasted. An
ambulance passed him, similar to the one Christine
drove; a requisitioned fruit truck, painted grey.

  He began to get nervous as he approached home.
The explosions were sounding closer, and he could
hear the aircraft clearly. The Past End was in for
another bruising tonight; he would sleep in the
Morrison shelter. There was a big one, terribly
close, and he quickened his step. He would eat his
supper in the shelter, too.

  He turned into his own street, saw the
ambulances and the fire engines, and broke into a
run.

The bomb had landed on his side of the street, around
the 87

             Ken Follett

middle. It must be close to his own home. Jesus in
heaven, not us, no

 There had been a direct hit on the roof, and the
house was literally flattened. He raced up to the
crowd of people, neighbors and firemen and
volunteers. "Is my wife all right? Is she out? Is she
in there?"

 A fireman looked at him. "Nobody's come out of
there, mate."

 Rescuers were picking over the rubble. Suddenly
one of them shouted, "Over herel" Then he said,
"Jesus, it's Fearless Bloggsl"

 Frederick dashed to where the man stood.
Christine was underneath a huge chunk of
brickwork. Her face was visible; the eyes were
closed.

The rescuer called, "Lifting gear, boys, sharp's the
word."

Christine moaned and stirred.

  "She's alivel" Bloggs said. He knelt down beside
her and got his hand under the edge of the lump of
rubble.

The rescuer said, "You won't shift that, son."

The brickwork lifted.

  "God, youll kill yourself," the rescuer said, and
bent down to help.

  When it was two feet off the ground they got
their shoulders under it. The weight was off
Christine now. A third man joined in, and a fourth.
They all straightened up together.

Bloggs said, "I'll lift her out."

  He crawled under the sloping roof of brick and
cradled his wife in his arms.

"Puck me it's slipping!" someone shouted.

  Bloggs scurried out from under with Christine
held tightly to his chest. As soon as he was clear
the rescuers let go of the rubble and jumped away.
It fell back to earth with a sickening thud, and
when Bloggs realized that that had landed on
Christine, he knew she was going to die.

  He carried her to the ambulance, and it took off
immediately. She opened her eyes again once,
before she died, and said, "You'll have to win the
war without me kiddo."

  More than a year later, as he walked downhill
from Highgate into the bowl of London, with the
rain on his face mingling with the tears again, he
thought the woman in the spy's house had said a
mighty truth: It makes you hate.

88

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

 In war boys become men, and men become
soldiers and soldiers get promoted; and this is why
Bill Parkin, aged eighteen, late of a boarding house
in Highgate, who should have been an apprentice in
hi' father's tannery at Scarborough, was believed by
the Army to be twenty-one, promoted to sergeant,
and given the job of leading his advance squad
through a hot, dry forest toward a dusty,
whitewashed Italian village.

 The Italians had surrendered but the Germans
had not, and it was the Germans who were
defending Italy against the combined
British-American invasion. The Allies were going to
Rome, and for Sergeant Parkin's squad it was a
long walk.

 They came out of the forest at the top of a hill,
and lay flat on their bellies to look down on the
village. Parkin got out his binoculars and said, 'what
wouldn't I fookin' give for a fookin' cup of fookin'
tea." He had taken to drinking and cigarettes and
women, and his language was like that of soldiers
everywhere. He no longer went to prayer meetings.

 Some of these villages were defended and some
were not. Parkin recognised that as sound
tactics you didn't know which were undefended, so
you approached them an cautiously, and caution
cost time.

 The downside of the hip held little coverjust a
few bushes and the village began at its foot. There
were a few white houses, a river with a wooden
bridge, then more houses around a little piazza with
a town hall and a clock tower There was a clear
line of sight from the tower to the bridge. if the
enemy were here at all, they would be in the town
halL A few figures worked in the surrounding
fields; God knew who they were. They might be
genuine peasants, or any one of a host of factions:
fascist), mafia, corsos, partigianos, communisti . . .
or even Germans. You didn't know whose side they
would be on until the shooting started.

Parkin said, "All right, Corporal."

 Corporal Watkins disappeared back into the
forest and emerged, five minutes later, on the dirt
road into the village, wearing a civilian hat and a
filthy old blanket over his uniform. He shambled,
rather than walked, and over his shoulder was a
bundle that could have been anything from a bag of
onions to a dead rabbit. He reached the near edge
of the village and vanished into the darkness of a
low cottage.

89

             Ken FoIIdt

 After a moment he came out. Standing close to
the wall, where he could not be seen from the
village, he looked toward the soldiers on the hilltop
and waved: one, two, three.

The squad scrambled down the hillside into the
village.

"All the houses empty Sarge," Watkins said.

Parkin nodded It meant nothing.

 They moved through the houses to the edge of
the river Parkin said. "Yow turn, Smiler. Swim the
Mississippi here."

 Private '~Smiler" Hudson put his equipment in
a neat pile, took off his helmet, boots and tunic.
and slid into the narrow stream He emerged on the
far side climbed the bank, and disappeared among
the houses This time there was a longer wait: more
area to check Finally Hudson walked back across
the wooden bridge. "If they're 'ere, they're 'icing."
he said.

 He retrieved his gear and the squad crossed the
bridge into the village. They kept to the sides of
the street as they walked toward the piazza. A bird
flew off a roof and startled Parkin. Some of the
men kicked open a few doors as they passed. There
was nobody.

 They stood at the edge of the piazza. Parkin
nodded at the town hall. "Did you go inside that
place, Smiler?"

"Yes, sir."

"Looks like the village is ours, then."

"Yes, sir."

 Parkin stepped forward to cross the piazza, and
then it broke There was a crash of rifles, and
bullets hailed all around them. Someone screamed.
Parkin was running, dodging, ducking Watkins, in
front of him, shouted with pain and clutched his
leg. Parkin picked him up bodily. A bullet clanged
off his tin hat. He raced for the nearest house,
charged the door, and fell inside.

 The shooting stopped. Parkin risked a look
outside. One man lay wounded in the piazza:
Hudson. Hudson moved, and a solitary shot rang
out. Then he was still. Parkin said, "Fookin'
bastards."

 Watkins was doing something to his leg, cursing.
"Bullet still in there?" Parkin said.

 Watkins yelled, "OuchI" then grinned and held
something up. "Not any more."

Parkin looked outside again. "They're in the clock
tower. 90

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

You wouldn't think there was room. Can't be
many of them."

"They can shoot, though"

 "Yes. They've got us pinned." Parkin frowned.
"Got any fireworks?"

"Aye."

 "Let's have a look." Parkin opened Watkins's
pack and took out the dynamite. "Here. Fix me a
ten-second fuse."

 The others were in the house across the street.
Parkin called out "Heyl"

A face appeared at the door. "Serge?"

 'Em going to throw a tomato. When I shout, give
me covering few"

Right n

 Parkin lit a cigarette. Watkins handed him a
bundle of dynamite. Parkin shouted, "Fire!" He lit
the fuse with the cigarette, stepped into the street,
drew back his arm, and threw the bomb at the
clock tower. He ducked back into the house, the
fire of his own men ringing in his ears. A bullet
shaved the woodwork, and he caught a splinter
under his chin. He heard the dynamite explode.

 Before he could look, someone across the street
shouted, "Bullseye!"

 Parkin stepped outside. The ancient clock tower
had crumbled. A chime sounded incongruously as
dust settled over the ruins.

 Watkins said, "You ever play cricket? That was
a bloody good shot."

 Parkin walked to the center of the piazza. There
seemed to be enough human spare parts to make
about three Germans. "The tower was pretty
unsteady anyway," he said. "It would probably have
fallen down if we'd an sneezed at it together." He
turned away. "Another day, another doUar." It was
a phrase he'd heard the Yanks use.

"Serge? Radio." It was the R/T operator.

 Parlcin walked back and took the handset from
him. "Sergeant Parkin."

 "Major Roberts. You're discharged from active
duty as of now, Sergeant."

 "Why?" Parkin's first thought was that they had
discovered his true age.

91

             Ken Pollers

 "The brass want you in London. Don't ask me
why because ~ don't know Leave your corporal in
charge . nd make your way back to base. A car will
meet you on the road."

"Yes, sir."

 "The orders also say that on no account are you
to risk your life Got that?"

 Parkin grinned, thinking of the clock tower and
the dynamite. "Got it."

"All right. On your way. You lucky sod."

 Everyone had called him a boy. but they had
known him before he joined the Armv BloggF
thought Ther, was no doubt he was a man non He
walked with confidence and grace looked about
him sharply and was reerecting without being ill at
ease in the company of sUperin' officers Bln,rgs
knee' that he was lying ahr~ut his age not becaus,
of his looks or manner. blat becomes' of the small
sips that appeared whenever apt was n.entioned.
sign that Bloggs, an experienced interrogator
picked up out of habit.

 He had been amused when thee told him they
wanted him to look at picture Nov.-. in his third
dav in Mr Middlf ton's dusty Kensington vault the
amusement had gone and tedium had set in What
irritated him most was the no-smoking rule.

 It was even more boring for Bloggs, who had to
sit and watch him.

 At one point Parkin said, "You wouldn't call me
back from Italy to help in a four-year-old murder
case that could wait until after the war. Also, these
pictures are mostly of German officers. If this case
is something I should keep quiet about, you'd
better tell me."

"It's something vou should keep quiet about," said
Bloggs.

Parkin went back to his pictures.

 They were all old, mostl\ browned and fading.
Many were out of books magazines and
newspapers Sometimes Pi rkin picked up a
magnifying glass Mr. Middleton had thoughtfully
provided, to peer more Basely at a tiny face in a
group: and each time this happened Bloggs's heart
raced, only to slow down when Parkin put the glass
to one side and picked up the next photograph.

They went to a nearby pub for lunch. The ale was
weak, 92

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

like most wartime beer, but Bloggs still thought it
wise to restrict young Parkin to two pints on his
own he would have sunk a gallon.

  "Mr. Paber was the quiet sort," Parkin said. "You
wouldn't think he had it in him Mind you, the
landlady wasn't bad looking And she wanted it.
Looking back, I thin} I could have had her myself
U I'd known how to go about it. There, I was
only eighteen."

  Thev ate bread and cheese, and Parkin swallowed
a dozen pickled onions When they went back they
stopped outside the house while Parkin smoked
another cigarette.

  "Mind you." he said: "he was a biggest chap,
good-looking, well-spoken We all thought he was
nothing much because his clothes were poor. and he
rode a bike and he'd no money. I suppose it could
have been a subtle kind of disguise." His eyebrows
were raised in a question.

"It could have been " BloggF said.

  That afternoon Parkin found not one but three
pictures of Faber One of them was only nine years
old.

And Mr. Middleton had the negative.

  Heinrich Rudolph Hans van Muller-Guder (also
known as Faber) was born on May 26, 1900. at a
village called Oln in West Prussia. His father's
family had been substantial landowners in the area
for generations. His father was the second son; so
was Heinrich. All the second sons were Anny
officers His mother, the daughter of a senior official
of the Second Reich. was born and raised to be an
aristocrat's wife, and that was what she was.

  At the age of thirteen Heinrich went to the
Karlsrnhe cadet school in Baden; two years later he
was transferred to the more prestigious
Gross-Lichterfelde, near Berlin. Both places were
hard disciplinarian institutions where the minds of
the pupils were improved with canes and cold baths
and bad food However, Heinrich learned to speak
English and French and studied history, and passed
the final examinations with the highest mark
recorded since the turn of the century. There were
only three other points of note in his school career:
one bitter winter he rebated against authority to the
extent of sneaking out of the school at night and
walking 150 93

               Kenett

miles to his aunt's house; he broke the arm of his
wrestling instructor during a practice bout; and he
was flogged for insubordination.

  He served briefly as an ensign-cadet in the
neutral zone of Friedrichsfeld. near Wesel. in 1920:
did token officer training at the War School at
Metz in 1921, and was commissioned Second
Lieutenant in 1922.

  ('~What was the phrase you used?" Godliman
asked Blows. ' - e German equivalent of Eton and
Sandhurst.")

  Over the next few years he did short tours of
duty in half a dozen places, in the manner of one
who is being groomed for the general staff. He
continued to distinguish himself as an t hlete.
snecializing in lone-distance running. He made no
close friendships, never married. and ret used to
join the National Socialist party. His promotion to
lieutenant was somewhat delayed by a vague
incident involving the pregnancy of the daughter of
a lieutenant colonel in the Oefense Ministry, but
eventually came about in 1928. His habit of talking
to superior officers as if they were equals came to
be accepted as pardonable in one who was both a
rising young officer and a Prussian aristocrat.

  In the late '20s Admiral Wilhelm Canaris became
friendly with Heinrich's Uncle Otto, his father's
elder brother. and spent several holidays at the
family estate at Oln. In t931 Adolf Hitler, not yet
Chancellor of Germany, was a guest there.

  In 1933 Heinrich was promoted to captain, and
went to Berlin for unspecified duties. This is the
date of the last photograph.

  About then, according to published information,
he seems to have ceased to exist....

  "We can conjecture the rest." said Percival
Godliman. "The Abwehr trains him in wireless
transmission, codes, map-making, burglary,
blackmail. sabotage and silent killing. He comes to
London in about 1937 with plenty of time to set
himself up with a solid cover perhaps two. His
loner instincts are honed sharp by the spying game.
When war breaks out, he considers himself licensed
to kill." He looked at the photograph on his desk.
"He's a handsome fellow."

94

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

  It was a picture of the 5,00~meters running
team of the 10th Hanoverian Jaeger Battalion.
Faber was in the middle, holding a cup. He had a
high forehead, with cropped hair, a long chin, and
a small mouth decorated with a narrow moustache.

  Godliman passed the picture to Billy Parkin.
"Has he changed much?"

  "He looked a lot older, but that might have been
his . . . bearing." He studied the photograph
thoughtfully "His hair was longer, and the
moustache was gone " He passed dhe picture back
across the desk. "But it's him all right."

  'There are two more items in the file both of
them conjectural." Godliman said. "First. they sav
he mav have gone into Intelligence in 1933 that's
the routine assumption when an officer's record
just stops for no apparent reason The second item
is a rumor. unconfirmed by any reliable source,
that he spent some Years as a confidential advisor
to Stalin, using the name Vasilv Zankov."

"That's incredible," Bloggs said. "I don't believe
that."

  Godliman shrugged. "Somebody persuaded Stalin
to execute the cream of his officer corps during the
years Hitler rose to power."

  Bloggs shook his head, and changed the subject.
'adhere do we go from here?"

  Godliman considered. "Let's have Sergeant
Parkin transferred to us. He's the only man we
know who has actually seen Die Nadel Besides, he
knows too much for us to risk him in the front line;
he could get captured and interrogated. Next. make
a first-class print of this photo, and have the hair
thickened and the moustache obliterated by a
retouch artist. Then we can distribute copies."

  "Do we want to start a hue and cry?" Bloggs said
doubtfully.

  "No. For now, let's tread sofay. If we put the
thing in the newspapers he'll get to hear of it and
vanish Just send Uhe photo to police forces for the
time being."

"Is that all?"

"I think so. Unless you've got other ideas."

Parkin cleared his throat. "Sir?"

"Yes."

9'

             Ken Follett

 "I really would prefer to go back to my unit.
I'm not really the administrative type, if you see
what I mean."

 "You're not being offered a choice, Sergeant.
At this stage, one Italian village more or less
makes relatively little difference but this man
Faber could lose us the war. Truly."

                 96
                  
Faber had gone fishing.

 He was stretched out on the deck of a thirty-foot
boat, enjoying the spring sunshine, moving along
the canal at about three knots. One lazy hand held
the tiller, the other rested on a rod that trailed its
line in the water behind the boat.

He hadn't caught a thing all day.

 As well as fishing, he was bird-watching both
out of interest (he was actually getting to know
quite a lot about the damn birds) and as an excuse
for carrying binoculars. Earlier today he had seen
a kingfisher's nest.

 The people at the boatyard in Norwich had been
delighted to rent him the vessel for a fortnight.
Business was bad they had only two boats
nowadays, and one of them had not been used
since Dunkirk. Faber had haggled over the price,
just for the sake of form. In the end they had
thrown in a locker full of tinned food.

 He had bought bait in a shop nearby; the fishing
tackle he had brought from London. They had
observed that he had nice weather for it, and
wished him good fishing. Nobody asked to see his
identity card.

So far, so good.

 The difficult bit was to come. Por assessing the
strength of an army was difficult. First, for
example, you had to find it.

g7

             Ken Pollett

 In peacetime the Army would put up its own road
signs to help you. Now they had been taken down,
not only the Army's but everyone else's road signs.

 The simple solution would be to get in a car and
follow the first military vehicle you saw until it
stopped. However, Paber had no car; it was close to
impossible for a civilian to hire one, and even if you
got one you couldn't get petrol for it. Besides, a
civilian driving around the countryside following
Army vehicles and looking at Army camps was
likely to be arrested.

Hence the boat.

 Some years ago, before it had become illegal to
sell maps, Faber had discovered that Britain had
thousands of miles of inland waterways. The
original network of rivers had been augmented
during the nineteenth century by a spider web of
canals. In some areas there was almost as much
waterway as there was road. Norfolk was one of
these areas.

 The boat had many advantages. On a road, a man
was going somewhere; on a river he was just sailing.
Sleeping in a parked car was conspicuous; sleeping
in a moored boat was natural. The waterway was
lonely. And who ever heard of a canal-block?

 There were disadvantages. Airfields and barracks
had to be near roads, but they were located without
reference to access by water. Faber had to explore
the countryside at night, leaving his moored boat
and tramping the hillsides by moonlight, exhausting
forty-mile round trips during which he could ease
fly miss what he was looking for because of the
darkness or because he simply did not have enough
time to check every square mile of land.

 When he returned, a couple of hours after dawn,
he would sleep until midday, then move on,
stopping occasionally to climb a nearby hill and
check the outlook. At locks, isolated farmhouses
and riverside pubs he would talk to people, hoping
for hints of a military presence. So far there had
been none.

 He was beginning to wonder whether he was in
the right area. He had tried to put himself in
General Patton's place, thinking: If I were planning
to invade France east of the Seine from a base in
eastern England, where would I locate that base?
Norfolk was obvious: a vast expanse of lonely 98

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

countryside, plenty of flat ground for aircraft, close
to the sea for rapid departure. And the Wash was
a natural place to gather a fleet of ships. However,
his guesswork might be wrong for reasons unknown
to him. Soon he would have to consider a rapid
move across country to a new area perhaps the
Fens.

 A lock appeared ahead of him, and he trimmed
his sails to slow his pace. He glided gently into the
lock and bumped softly against the gates. The
lock-keeper's house was on the bank. Faber cupped
hands around his mouth and helloed. Then he
settled down to wait. He had learned that lock-
keepers were a breed that could not be hurried.
Moreover, it was tea time, and at tea time they
could hardly be moved at all.

 A woman came to the door of the house and
beckoned. Faber waved back, then jumped onto the
bank, tied up the boat and went into the house.
The lock-keeper was in his shirtsleeves at the
kitchen table. He said, "Not in a hurry, are you?"

Faber smiled. "Not at all."

"Pour him a cup of tea, Mavis."

6'NO, really," Faber said politely.

"It's all right, we've just made a pot."

 "Thank you." Faber sat down. The little kitchen
was airy and clean, and his tea came in a pretty
china cup.

"Fishing holiday?" the lock-keeper asked.

 "Fishing and bird-watching." Faber answered. "I'm
thinking of tying up quite soon and spending a
couple of days on land."

 "Oh, aye. Well, best keep to the far side of the
canal, then. Restricted area this side."

"Really? I didn't know there was Army land
hereabouts."

 "Aye, it starts about half a mile from here. As to
whether it's Army, I wouldn't know. They don't tell
me."

"Well, I suppose we don't need to know," Faber
said.

 "Aye. Drink up, then, and I'll see you through the
lock. Thanks for letting me finish my tea."

 They left the house, and Faber got into the boat
and untied it. The gates behind him closed slowly,
and then the keeper opened the sluices. The boat
gradually sank with the 99

             Ken Follett

level of the water in the lock, then the keeper
opened the front gates.

Faber made sail and moved out. The lock-keeper
waved.

  He stopped again about four miles away and
moored the boat to a stout tree on the bank. While
he waited for night to fall he made a meal of
tinned sausage meat, dry biscuits, and bottled
water. He dressed in his black clothes, put into a
shoulder bag his binoculars, camera, and copy of
Rare Birds of East Anglia, pocketed his compass
and picked up his flashlight. He was ready.

  He doused the hurricane lamp, locked the cabin
door and jumped onto the bank. Consulting his
compass by flashlight, he entered the belt of
woodland along the canal.

  He walked due south from his boat for about
half a mile until he came to the fence. It was six
feet high, chicken wire, with coiled barbed wire on
top. He backtracked into the wood and climbed a
tall tree.

  There was scattered cloud above. The moon
showed through fitfully. Beyond the fence was open
land, a gentle rise. Faber had done this sort of
thing before, at Biggin Hill, Aldershot, and a host
of military areas all over southern England. There
were two levels of security: a mobile patrol around
the perimeter fence, and stationary sentries at the
installations.

Both. he felt, could be evaded by patience and
caution.

  Faber came down the tree and returned to the
fence. He concealed himself behind a bush and
settled down to wait.

  He had to know when the mobile patrol passed
this point. If they did not come until dawn he
would simply return the following night. If he was
lucky they would pass shortly. From the apparent
size of the area under guard he guessed they would
only make one complete tour of the fence each
night.

  He was lucky. Soon after ten o'clock he heard
the tramp of feet, and three men marched by on
the inside of the fence.

Five minutes later Faber crossed the fence.

  He walked due south; when all directions are
equal, a straight line is best. He did not use his
flashlight. He kept close to hedges and trees when
he could, and avoided high ground where he might
be silhouetted against a sudden flash of moonlight.
The sparse countryside was an abstract in 100

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

black, grey and silver. The ground underfoot was a
little soggy, as if there might be marshes nearby. A
fox ran across a field in front of him, as fast as a
greyhound, as graceful as a cat.

 It was 11:30 P.M. when he came across the first
indications of military activity and very odd
indications they were.

 The moon came out and he saw, perhaps a
quarter of a mile ahead, several rows of one-story
buildings laid out with the unmistakable precision
of an Army barracks. He dropped to the ground
immediately, but he was already doubting the
reality of what he apparently saw; for there were no
lights and no noise.

 He lay still for ten minutes, to give explanations
a chance to emerge, but nothing happened except
that a badger lumbered into view, saw him, and
made off.

Faber crawled forward.

  As he got closer he realised that the barracks
were not just unoccupied, but unfinished. Most of
them were little more than a roof supported by
cornerposts. Some had one wan.

  A sudden sound stopped him: a man's laugh. He
lay still and watched. A match flared briefly and
died, leaving two glowing red spots in one of the
unfinished huts guards.

  Faber touched the stiletto in his sleeve, then
began to crawl again, making for the side of the
camp away from the sent tries.

  The half-built huts had no floors and no
foundations. There were no construction vehicles
around, no wheel-barrows, concrete mixers, shovels
or piles of bricks. A mud track led away from the
camp across the fields, but spring grass was growing
in the ruts; it had not been used much lately.

  It was as if someone had decided to billet 10,000
men here, then changed his mind a few weeks after
building started.

  Yet there was something about the place that did
not quite fit that explanation.

  Faber walked around softly, alert lest the sentries
should take it into their heads to make a patrol
There was a group of military vehicles in the center
of the camp. They were old and rusting, and had
been degutted none had an engine or 101

             Ken Follett

any interior components. But if one was going to
cannibalise obsolete vehicles, why not take the
shells for scrap?

 Those huts which did have a wall were on the
outermost rows, and their walls faced out. It was
like a movie set, not a building site.

 Faber decided he had learned all he could from
this place. He walked to the east edge of the camp,
then dropped to his hands and knees and crawled
away until he was out of sight behind a hedge. Half
a mile farther on, near the top of a rise, he looked
back. Now it looked exactly like a barracks again.

 The glimmer of an idea formed in his mind. He
gave it time.

 The land was still relatively flat, relieved only by
gentle folds. There were patches of woodland and
marshy scrub that Paber took advantage of. Once
he had to detour around a lake, its surface a silver
mirror under the moon. He heard the hoot of an
owl, and looked in that direction to see a tum-
bledown barn in the distance.

Five miles on he saw the airfield.

 There were more planes here than he thought
were possessed by the entire Royal Air Force.
There were Pathfinders to drop flares, Lancasters
and American B-17s for softening-up bombing,
Hurricanes and Spitfires and Mosquitoes for
reconnaissance and strafing; enough planes for an
invasion.

 Without exception their undercarriages had sunk
into the soft earth and they were up to their bellies
in mud.

Once again there were no lights and no noise.

 Faber followed the same procedure, crawling flat
toward the planes until he located the guards. In
the middle of the airfield was a small tent. The
faint glow of a lamp shone through the canvas. Two
men, perhaps three.

 As Faber approached the planes they seemed to
become flatter, as if they had all been squashed.

 He reached the nearest and touched it in
amazement. It was a piece of half-inch plywood, cut
out in the outline of a Spitfire, painted with
camouflage, and roped to the ground.

Every other plane was the same.

There were more than a thousand of them.

 Faber got to his feet, watching the tent from the
corner of his eye, ready to drop to the ground at
the slightest sign of 102

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

movement. He walked all around the phony
airfield, looking at the phony fighters and bombers,
connecting them with the movie-set barracks,
reeling at the implications of what he had found.

 He knew that if he continued to explore he would
find more airfields like this, more half-built
barracks. If he went to the Wash he would find a
fleet of plywood destroyers and troop ships.

It was a vast, meticulous, costly, outrageous trick.

 Of course it could not possibly fool an onlooker
for very long. But it was not designed to deceive
observers on the ground.

It was meant to be seen from the air.

 Even a low-flying reconnaissance plane equipped
with the latest cameras and fast film would come
back with pictures that indisputably showed an
enormous concentration of men and machines.

 No wonder the general staff was anticipating an
invasion east of the Seine.

 There would be other elements to the deception,
he guessed. The British would refer to FUSAG in
signals, using codes they knew to be broken. There
would be phony espionage reports channeled
through the Spanish diplomatic bag to Hamburg.
The possibilities were endless.

 The British had had four years to arm themselves
for this invasion. Most of the German army was
fighting Russia. Once the Allies got a toehold on
French soil they would be unstoppable. The
Germans' only chance was to catch them on the
beaches and annihilate them as they came off the
troop ships.

 If they were waiting in the wrong place, they
would lose that one chance.

 The whole strategy was immediately dear. It was
simple, and it was devastating.

Faber had to tell Hamburg.

He wondered whether they would believe him.

 War strategy was rarely altered on the word of
one man. His own standing was high, but was it that
high?

 That idiot Von Braun would never believe him.
He'd hated Faber for years and would grab at the
opportunity to discredit him. Canaris, Von Roenne
. . . he had no faith in them.

103

             Ken Follett

 And there was another thing: the radio. He didn't
want to trust this to the radio . . . he'd had the
feeling for weeks now that the radio code wasn't
safe anymore. If the British found out that their
secret was blown. . .

 There was only one thing to do: he had to get
proof, and he had to take it himself to Berlin.

He needed photographs.

 He would take photographs of this gigantic
dummy army, then he would go to Scotland and
meet the U-boat, and he would deliver the pictures
personally to the Fuehrer. He could do no more.
No less.

 Por photography he needed light. He would have
to wait until dawn. There had been a ruined barn
a little way back he could spend the rest of the
night there.

 He checked his compass and set off. The barn
was farther than he thought, and the walk took him
an hour. It was an old wooden building with holes
in the roof. The rats had long ago deserted it for
lack of food, but there were bats in the hayloft.

 Paber lay down on some planks but he could not
sleep. Not with the knowledge that he was now
personally capable of altering the course of the war.

Dawn was due at 05:21. At 04:20 Paber left the
barn.

 Although he had not slept, the two hours had
rested his body and calmed his mind, and he was
now in fine spirits. The cloud was clearing with a
west wind, so although the moon had set there was
starlight.

 His timing was good. The sky was growing
perceptibly brighter as he came in sight of the
"airfield."

 The sentries were still in their tent. With luck,
they would be sleeping. Paber knew from his own
experience of such duties that it was hardest to stay
awake during the last few hours.

But if they did come out, he would have to kill
them.

 He selected his position and loaded the Leica
with a 36frame roll of 35mm fast Agfa film. He
hoped the film's light-sensitive chemicals had not
spoiled, it had been stored in his suitcase since
before the war, and you couldn't buy film in Britain
nowadays. It should be all right; he had kept it in
a lightproof bag away from any heat.

When the red rim of the sun edged over the horizon
he be104

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

gan shooting. He took a series of shots from
different vantage points and various distances,
finishing with a close-up of one dummy plane; the
pictures would show both the illusion and the
reality.

 As he took the last, he saw movement from the
corner of his eye. He dropped eat and crawled
under a plywood Mosquito. A soldier emerged from
the tent, walked a few paces, and urinated on the
ground. The man stretched and yawned, then lit a
cigarette. He looked around the airfield, shivered,
and returned to the tent.

Faber got up and ran.

 A quarter of a mile away he looked back. The
airfield was out of sight. He headed west, toward
the barracks.

 This would be more than an ordinary espionage
coup. Hitler had had a life of being the only one in
step. The man who brought the proof that, yet
again, the F'uehrer was right and all the experts
were wrong, could look for more than a pat on the
back. Faber knew that already Hitler rated him the
Abwehr's best agent this triumph might well get
him Canaris's job.

If he made it.

 He increased his pace, jogging twenty yards,
walking the next twenty. and jagging again, so that
he reached the barracks by 06:30. It was bright
daylight now, and he could not approach close
because these sentries were not in a tent but in one
of the wall-less huts with a clear view all around
them. He lay down by the hedge and took his
pictures from a distance. Ordinary prints would just
show a barracks, but big enlargements ought to
reveal the details of the deception.

 When he headed back toward the boat he had
exposed thirty frames. Again he hurried, because he
was now terribly conspicuous, a black-clad man
carrying a canvas bag of equipment, jagging across
the open fields of a restricted area

 He reached the fence an hour later, having seen
nothing but wild geese. As he climbed over the wire,
he felt a great release of tension. Inside the fence
the balance of suspicion had been against him;
outside it was in his favor. He could revert to his
bird-watching, fishing, sailing role. The period of
greatest risk was over.

 He strolled through the belt of woodland, catching
his breath and letting the strain of the night's work
seep away. 105

             Ken Holist

He would sail a few miles on, he decided, before
mooring again to catch a few hours'sleep.

  He reached the canal. It was over. The boat
looked pretty in the morning sunshine. As soon as
he was under way he would make some tea, then

  A man in uniform stepped out of the cabin of
the boat and said: "Well, well. And who might you
be?"

  Faber stood still. letting the icy calm and the old
instincts come into play. The intruder wore the
uniform of a captain in the Home (guard. He had
some kind of handgun in a holster with a buttoned
flap. He was tall and rangy, but he looked to be in
his late fifties. White hair showed under his cap.
He made no move to draw his gun. Faber took all
this in as he said, "You are on my boat, so I think
it is I who should ask who you are."

"Captain Stephen Langham, Home Guard."

  "James Baker." Faber stayed on the bank. A
captain did not patrol alone.

"And what are you doing?"

"I'm on holiday."

"Where have you been?"

"Bird-watching."

"Since before dawn? Cover him, Watson."

  A youngish man in denim uniform appeared on
Faber's left, carrying a shotgun Faber looked
around. There was another man to his right and a
fourth behind him.

  The captain called, "Which direction did he come
from, corporal?"

  The reply came from the top of an oak tree.
"From the restricted area, sir."

  Faber was calculating odds. Four to one until
the corporal came down from the tree. They had
only two guns' the shotgun and the captain's pistol.
And they were basically amateurs. The boat would
help too.

  He said, "Restricted area? All I saw was a bit of
fence. Look, do you mind pointing that
blunderbuss away? It might go off."

"Nobody goes bird-watching in the dark," the
captain said.

  "If you set up your bide under cover of darkness,
you're concealed by the time the birds wake up.
It's the accepted way to do it. Now look, the Home
Guard is jolly patriotic 106

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

and keen and all that, but let's not take it too far.
Don't you just have to check my papers and file a
report?"

 The captain was looking a shade doubtful.
"What's in that canvas bag?"

 "Binoculars, a camera, and a reference book."
Faber's hand went to the bag.

 "No, you don't," the captain said. "Look inside it,
Watson."

There it was the amateurs.

Watson said, "Raise your hands."

  Faber raised his hands above his head, his right
hand close to the left sleeve of his jacket. Faber
choreographed the next few seconds there must
be no gunfire.

  Watson came up on Faber's left side, pointing the
shotgun at him, and opened the flap of Fabeis
canvas bag. Faber drew the stiletto from his sleeve,
moved inside Watson's guard. and plunged the
knife into Watson's neck up to the hilt. Fabeis
other hand twisted the shotgun out of the young
man's grasp.

  The other two soldiers on the bank moved toward
him, and the corporal began to crash down through
the branches of the oak.

  Faber tugged the stiletto out of Watson's neck as
the man collapsed to the ground. The captain was
fumbling at the flap of his holster. Paber leaped
into the well of the boat. It rocked, sending the
captain staggering. Faber struck at him with the
knife, but the man was too far away for an accurate
thrust. The point caught in the lapel of his uniform
jacket, then jerked up, slashing his chin. His hand
came away from the holster to clutch the wound.

  Faber whipped around to face the bank. One of
the soldiers jumped. Faber stepped forward and
held his right arm out rigidly. The leaping soldier
impaled himself on the eightinch stiletto.

  The impact knocked Faber off his feet, and he
lost his grip on the stiletto. The soldier fell on top
of the weapon. Faber got to his knees; there was no
time to retrieve the stiletto, the captain was
opening his holster. Faber jumped at him, his hands
going (or the offlcer's face. The gun came out.
Pabeis thumbs gouged at the eyes of the captain,
who screamed in pain and tried to push Paber's
arms aside.

107

             Ken Follett

 There was a thud as the fourth guardsman landed
in the well of the boat. Faber turned from the
captain, who would now be unable to see to fire his
pistol even if he could get the safety off The fourth
man held a policeman's truncheon; he brought it
down hard Paber shifted to the right so that the
blow missed his head and caught his left shoulder.
His left arm momentarily went nerveless He
chopped the man's neck with the side of his hand
a powerful accurate blow. Amazingly the man
survived it and brought his truncheon up for a
second swipe Faber closed in The feeling returned
to his left arm, and it began to hurt mightily He
took the soldier's face in both hi' hands pushed
twisted. and pushed again There was a sharp crack
aq the man's neck broke. At the same instant the
truncheon landed again, this time on Faber's head.
He reeled away. dazed.

 The captaio bumped into him, still staggering.
Paber pushed him His cap went flying as he
stumbled backward over the gunwale and fell into
the canal with a huge splash.

 The corporal jumped the last six feet from the
oak tree onto the ground Faber retrieved his
stiletto from the impaled guard and leaped to the
bank Watson was still alive, but it would not be for
long blood was pumping out of the wound in his
neck.

 Paber and the corporal faced each other. The
corporal had a gun.

 He was understandably terrified. In the seconds
it had taken him to climb down the oak tree this
 nan had killed three of his mates and thrown the
fourth into the canal.

 Paber looked at the gun. It was old almost like
a museum piece. If the corporal had any
confidence in it, he would already have fired it.

 The corporal took a step forward, and Paber
noticed that he favored his right leg perhaps he
had hurt it coming out of the tree. Faber stepped
sideways, forcing the corporal to put his weight on
the weak leg as he swung to keep his gun on the
target. Paber got the toe of his shoe under a stone
and kicked upward. The corporal's attention flicked
to the stone, and Paber moved.

 The corporal pulled the trigger; nothing
happened. The old gun had jammed. Even if it had
fired, he would have missed 108

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

Faber; his eyes were on the stone, he stumbled on
the weak leg. and Faber had moved.

Faber killed bin with the neck stab.

Only the captain was left.

 Faber looked and saw the man clambering out of
the water on the far bent He found a stone and
threw it It hit the captain's head, but the man
heaved himself onto dry land and began to run.

 Faber ran to the bank. dived in, swam a few
strokes. and came up on the far side The captain
was a hundred yards away and running but he was
old Faher gained steadily until he could hear the
man's agonised. ragged breathing. The captain
slowed. then collapsed into a bush. Faber came up
to him and horned hint over.

The captain said "You're a . . . devil."

"You saw my face," Faber said, and killed him.

                 109
                  
                 12

The Ju-S2 trimotor transport plane with swastikas
on the wings bumped to a halt on the rain-wet
runway at Rastenburg in the East Prussian forest. A
small man with big features a large nose, a wide
mouth, big ears disembarked and walked quickly
across the tarmac to a waiting Mercedes car.

 As the car drove through the gloomy, damp
forest, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel took off his
cap and rubbed a nervous hand along his receding
hairline. In a few weeks time, he knew, another man
would travel this route with a bomb in his
briefcase a bomb destined for the Fuehrer himself.
Meanwhile the fight must go on, so that the new
leader of Germany who might even be
himself could negotiate with the Allies from a
reasonably strong position.

 At the end of a ten-mile drive the car arrived at
the Wolfsschanze, the Wolves' Lair, headquarters
now for Hitler and the increasingly tight, neurotic
circle of generals who surrounded him.

 There was a steady drizzle, and raindrops dripped
from the tall conifers in the compound. At the gate
to Hitler's personal quarters, Rommel put on his
cap and got out of the car. Oberfuehrer
Rattenhuber, the chief of the SS bodyguard,
wordlessly held out his hand to receive Rommel's
pistol.

110

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

 The conference was to be held in the
underground bunker, a cold. damp. airless shelter
lined with concrete. Rommel went down the steps
and entered. There were a dozen or so there
already) waiting for the noon meeting: Himmler,
Goering, von Ribbentrop. Keitel. Rommel nodded
greetings and sat on a hard chair to wait.

 They all stood when Hitler entered. He wore a
grey tunic and black trousers, and. Rommel
observed, he was becoming increasingly stooped. He
walked straight to the far end of the bunker' where
a large wall map of northwestern Europe was
tacked to the concrete. He looked tired and
irritable. He spoke without preamble.

 "There will be an Allied invasion of Europe. It
will come this year. It will be launched from
Britain, with English and American troops. They
will land in France. We will destroy them at the
high-water mark. On this there is no room for
discussion."

 He looked around, as if daring his staff to
contradict him. There was silence. Rommel
shivered; the bunker was as cold as death.

 "The question is, where will they land? Von
Roenne your report."

 Colonel Alexis von Roenne, who had taken over,
effectively, from Canaris. got to his feet. A mere
captain at the outbreak of war, he had distinguished
himself with a superb report on the weaknesses of
the Prench army a report that had been called a
decisive factor in the German victory. He had
become chief of the army intelligence bureau in
1942, and that bureau had absorbed the Abwehr on
the fall of Canaris. Rommel had heard that he was
proud and outspoken, but able.

 Von Roenne said, "Our information is extensive,
but by no means complete. The Allies' code name
for the invasion is Overlord. Troop concentrations
in Britain are as follows " He picked up a pointer
and crossed the room to the wall map. "First: along
the south coast. Second: here in the district known
as East Anglia Third: in Scotland. The East Anglian
concentration is by far the greatest. We conclude
that the invasion will be three-pronged. First: a
diversionary attack on Normandy. Second: the main
thrust, across the Strait of Dover to the Calais
coast. Third: a Hanking invasion from Scot111

             Ken Follett

land across the North Sea to Norway. All
intelligence sources support this prognosis." He sat
down.

Hitler said, "Comments?"

  Rommel, who was Commander of Army Group B
which controlled the north coast of France, said, "I
can report one confirming sign: the Pas de Calais
has received by far the greatest tonnage of bombs."

  Goering said, "What intelligence sources support
your prognosis, Von Roenne?"

  Von Roenne stood up again. "There are three: air
reconnaissance, monitoring of enemy wireless
signals and the reports of agents." He sat dowo.

  Hitler crossed his hands protectively in front of
his genitals, a nervous habit that was a sign that he
was about to make a speech. "I shall now tell you,"
he began, "how I would be thinking if I were
Winston Churchill. Two choices confront me: east
of the Seine, or west of the Seine. Hast has one
advantage: it is nearer. But in modern warfare there
are only two distances within fighter range and
outside fighter range. Both of these choices are
within fighter range. Therefore distance is not a
consideration.

  "West has a great port Cherbourg but east has
none. And most important east is more heavily
fortified than west. The enemy too has air
reconnaissance.

  "So, I would choose west. And what would I do
then? I would try to make the Germans think the
opposite! I would send two bombers to the Pas de
Calais for every one to Normandy. I would try to
knock out every bridge over the Seine. I would put
out misleading wireless signals, send false intelli-
gence reports, dispose my troops in a misleading
fashion. I would deceive fools like Rommel and van
Roenoe. I would hope to deceive the Fuehrer
himself)"

  Goering spoke first after a lengthy silence. "My
Fuehrer, I believe you flatter Churchill by crediting
him with ingenuity equal to your own."

  There was a noticeable easing of tension in the
uncomfortable bunker. Goering had said exactly the
right thing, managing to voice his disagreement in
the form of a compliment. The others followed him,
each stating the case a little more strongly the
Allies would choose the shorter sea crossing for
speed; the closer coast would allow the covering
fighter air112

         EYE OF TTIE NEEDLE

craft to refuel and return in shorter time; the
southeast was a better launch pad, with more
estuaries and harbors; it was unlikely that all the
intelligence reports would be wrong.

 Hitler listened for half an hour, then held up his
hands for silence. He picked up a yellowing sheaf
of papers from the table and waved them. "In
1941," he said, "I issued my directive Construction
of Coastal Defenses, in which I forecast that the
decisive landing of the Allies would come at the
protruding parts of Normandy and Brittany, where
the excellent harbors would make ideal beachheads.
That was what my intuition told me then, and that
is what it tells me now!" A fleck of foam appeared
on the Puehrer's lower lip.

 Von Roenne spoke up. (He has more courage
than I, Rommd thought.) "My Puehrer, our
investigations continue, quite naturally, and there is
one particular line of inquiry that you should know
about. I have in recent weeks sent an emissary to
Pngland to contact the agent known as Die Nadel."

Hitler's eyes gleamed. "Ah! I know the man. Go
on."

  "Die Nadel's orders are to assess the strength of
the Pirst United States Army Group under General
Patton in East Anglia. If he finds that this has been
exaggerated, we must surely reconsider our
prognosis. If, however, he reports that the army is
as strong as we presently believe, there can be little
doubt that Calais is the target."

Goering looked at van Roenne. "Who is this
NadelT'

  Hitler answered the question. "The only decent
agent Canaris ever recruited because he recruited
him at my direction. I know his family strong,
loyal, upright Germans. And Die Nadel a brilliant
man, brilliant! I see all his reports. He has been in
London since "

Von Roenne interrupted: "My Puehrer "

Hitler glared at him. "Well?"

  Von Roenne said tentatively, 'Yhen you will
accept Die Nadel's report?"

Hitler nodded. "That man will discover the truth."

                 113
                  
              PART THREE

                                  ~.

                 13

Faber leaned against a tree, shivering, and threw
up. Then he considered whether he should bury
the five dead men.

 It would take between thirty and sixty minutes,
he estimated, depending on how well he concealed
the bodies. During that time he might be caught.

 He had to weigh that risk against the precious
hours he might gain by delaying the discovery of
the deaths. The five men would be missed very
soon there would be a search under way by
around nine o'clock. Assuming they were on a
regular patrol, their route would be known. The
searchers' first move would be to send a runner to
cover. the route. If the bodies were left as they
were, he would see them and raise the alarm.
Otherwise, he would report back and a fullscale
search would be mounted, with bloodhounds and
policemen beating the bushes. It might take them
all day to discover the corpses. By that time Faber
could be in London. It was important for him to
be out of the area before they knew they were
looking for a murderer. He decided to risk the
additional hour.

 He swam back across the canal with the elderly
captain across his shoulder, dumped him
unceremoniously behind a bush, then retrieved the
two bodies from the well of the boat 117

             Ken Pollett

and piled them on top of the captain. Next he
added Watson and the corporal to the heap.

 He had no spade and he needed a big grave. He
found a patch of loose earth a few yards into the
wood. The ground there was slightly hollowed, to
give him an advantage. He got a saucepan from the
boat's tiny galley and began to dig.

 For a couple of feet there was just leaf meld, and
the going was easy. Then he got down to clay and
digging became extremely difficult. In half an hour
he had added only another eighteen inches of
depth to the hole. It would have to do.

 He carried the bodies to the hole one by one and
threw them in. Then he took off his muddy,
bloodstained clothes and dropped them on top. He
covered the grave with loose earth and a layer of
foliage ripped from nearby bushes and trees. It
should be good enough to pass that first superficial
inspection.

 He kicked earth over the patch of ground near
the bank where the life-blood of Watson had
poured out. There was blood in the boat, too,
where the impaled soldier had lain. Faber found a
rag and swabbed down the deck.

Then he put on clean clothes, made sail, and
moved off.

 He did not fish or watch birds; this was no time
for pleasant embellishments to his cover. Instead he
piled on the sail, putting as much distance as
possible between himself and the grave. He had to
get off the water and into some faster transport as
soon as possible. He reflected, as he sailed, on the
relative merits of catching a train and stealing a
car. A car was faster, if one could be found to
steal; but the search for it might start quite soon,
regardless of whether the theft was connected with
the missing Home Guard patrol. Finding a railway
station might take a long time, but it seemed safer;
if he were careful he could escape suspicion for
most of the day.

 He wondered what to do about the boat. Ideally
he would scuttle it, but he might be seen doing so.
If he left it in a harbor somewhere, or simply
moored at the canalside, the police would connect
it with the murders that much sooner, and that
would tell them in which direction he was moving.
He postponed the decision.

Unfortunately, he was not sure where he was. His map
of 118

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

England's waterways gave every bridge, harbor and
lock; but it did not show railway lines. He
calculated he was within an hour or two's walk of
half a dozen villages, but a village did not
necessarily mean a station.

  The two problems were solved at once; the canal
went under a railway bridge.

  He took his compass, the film from the camera,
his wallet and his stiletto. All his other possessions
would go down with the boat.

  The towpath on both sides was shaded with trees,
and there were no roads nearby. He furled the
sails, dismantled the base of the mast, and laid the
pole on the deck. Then he removed the bung-hole
stopper from the keel and stepped on to the bank,
holding the rope.

  Gradually filling with water, the boat drifted
under the bridge. Paber hauled on the rope to hold
the vessel in position directly under the brick arch
as it sank. The afterdeck went under first, the prow
followed, and finally the water of the canal closed
over the roof of the cabin. There were a few
bubbles, then nothing. The outline of the boat was
hidden from a casual glance by the shadow of the
bridge. Paber threw the rope in.

  The railway line ran northeast to southwest.
Faber climbed the embankment and walked
southwest, which was the direction in which
London lay. It was a two-line track, probably a
rural branch line. There would be a few trains, but
they would stop at all stations.

  The sun grew stronger as he walked, and the
exertion made him hot. When he had buried his
bloodstained black clothes he had put on a
double-breasted blazer and heavy flannel trousers.
Now he took off the blazer and slung it over his
shoulder.

  After forty minutes he heard a distant
chuff-chuff-chuff and hid in a bush beside the line.
An old steam engine went slowly by, heading
northeast, puffing great clouds of smoke and
hauling a train of coal trucks. If one came by in the
opposite direction, he could jump it. Should he? It
would save him a long walk. On the other hand, he
would get conspicuously dirty and he might have
trouble disembarking without being seen. No, it was
safer to walk.

The line ran straight as an arrow across the flat
country119

             Ken FoRctt

Ode. Faber passed a farmer, ploughing a field with
a tractor. There was no way to avoid being seen.
The farmer waved to bim without stopping in his
work. He was too far away to get a good sight of
Paber's face.

 He had walked about ten miles when he saw a
station ahead. It was half a mile away, and all he
could see was the rise of the platforms and a
cluster of signals. He left the line and cut across
the fields, keeping close to borders of trees, until
he met a road.

 Within a few minutes he entered the village.
There was nothing to tell him its name. Now that
the threat of invasion was a memory, sign-posts and
place-names were being reerected, but this village
had not got around to it.

 There was a Post Office, a Corn Store, and a pub
called The Bull. A woman with a pram gave him a
friendly "Good morningI" as he passed the War
Memorial. The little station basked sleepily in the
spring sunshine. Faber went in.

 A timetable was pasted to a notice-board. Faber
stood in front of it. From behind the little ticket
window a voice said: "I shouldn't take any notice of
that, if I were you. It's the biggest work of fiction
since The Forsyte Saga."

 Faber had known the timetable would be out of
date, but he had needed to establish whether the
trains went to London. They did. He said, "Any
idea what time the next train leaves for Liverpool
Street?"

 The clerk laughed sarcastically. "Sometime today,
if you're lucky."

"I'll buy a ticket anyway. Single, please."

 "Five-and-fourpence. They say the Italian trains
run on time," the clerk said.

 "Not anymore," Faber remarked. "Anyway, I'd
rather have bad trains and our politics."

 The man shot him a nervous look. "You're right,
of course. Do you want to wait in The Bull? You'll
hear the train or, if not, I'll send for you."

 Faber did not want more people to see his face.
"No, thanks, I'd only spend money." He took his
ticket and went on to the platform.

 The clerk followed him a few minutes later, and
sat on the bench beside him in the sunshine. He
said, "You in a hurry?"

Faber shook his head. "I've written today off. I got up
late, 120

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

I quarreledwith the boss, and the truck that gave
me a lift broke down."

  "One of those days. Ah, well." The clerk looked
at his watch. "She went up on time this morning,
and what goes up must come down, they say. You
might be lucky." He went back into his offlce.

  Faber was lucky. The train came twenty minutes
later. It was crowded with farmers, families,
businessmen and soldiers. Faber found a space on
the floor close to a window. As the train lumbered
away, he picked up a discarded two-dayold
newspaper, borrowed a pencil, and started to do
the crossword. He was proud of his ability to do
crosswords in English it was the acid test of
fluency in a foreign language. After a while the
motion of the train lulled him into a shale low
sleep, and he dreamed.

  It was a familiar dream, the dream of his arrival
in Lon" don.

  He had crossed from France, carrying a Belgian
passport that said he was Jan van Gelder, a
representative for Phillips (which would explain his
suitcase radio if Customs opened it). His English
then was fluent but not colloquial. The Customs
had not bothered him; he was an ally. He had
caught the train to London. In those days there had
been plenty of empty seats in the carriages, and you
could get a meal. Faber had dined on roast beef
and Yorkshire pudding. It amused him. He had
talked with a history student from Cardiff about the
European political situation. The dream was like
the reality until the train stopped at Waterloo.
Then it turned into a nightmare.

  The trouble started at the ticket barrier. Like all
dreams it had its own weird illogicality. The
document they queried was not his forged passport
but his perfectly legitimate railway ticket. The
collector said, "This is an Abwehr ticket."

  "No, it is not," said Faber, speaking with a
ludicrously thick German accent. What had
happened to his dainty English consonants? They
would not come. "I have it in Dover gekauft."
Damn, that did it.

  But the ticket collector, who had turned into a
London po" liceman complete with helmet, seemed
to ignore the sudden 121

             Ken Pollett

lapse into German. He smiled politely and said, "I'd
better just check your Klamotte, sir."

 The station was crowded with people. Faber
thought that if be could get into the crowd he might
escape. He dropped the suitcase radio and fled,
pushing his way through the crowd. Suddenly he
realised he had left his trousers on the train, and
there were swastikas on his socks. He would have to
buy trousers at the very first shop, before people
noticed the trouserless running man with Nazi hose.
Then someone in the crowd said, "I've seen your
face before," and tripped him, and he fell with a
bump and landed on the floor of the railway
carriage where he had gone to sleep.

 He blinked, yawned and looked around him. He
had a headache. For a moment he was filled with
relief that it was all a dream, then he was amused
by the ridiculousness of the symbolism swastika
socks, for God's sakel

 A man in overalls beside him said, "You had a
good sleep."

 Paber looked up sharply. He was always afraid of
talking in his sleep and giving himself away. "I had
an unpleasant dream," he said. The man made no
comment.

 It was getting dark. He had slept for a long time.
The carriage light came on suddenly, a single blue
bulb, and someone drew the blinds. People's faces
turned into pale, featureless ovals. The workman
became talkative again. "You missed the
excitement," he told Faber.

 Faber frowned. "What happened?" It was
impossible he should have slept through some kind
of police check.

 "One of them Yank trains passed us. It was going
about ten miles an hour, digger driving it, ringing its
bell, with a bloody great cowcatcher on the frontl
Talk about the Wild West-~'

 Faber smiled and thought back to the dream. In
fact his arrival in London had been without
incident. He had checked into a hotel at first, still
using his Belgian cover. Within a week he had
visited several country churchyards, taken the names
of men his age from the gravestones, and applied
for three duplicate birth certificates. Then he took
lodgings and found humble work, using forged
references from a nonexistent Manchester firm. He
had even got on to the electoral ~22

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

register in Highgate before the war. He voted
Conservative. When rationing came in, the ration
books were issued via householders to every person
who had slept in the house on a particular night.
Faber contrived to spend part of that night in each
of three different houses, and so obtained papers
for each of his personae. He burned the Belgian
passport in the unlikely event he should need a
passport, he could get three British ones.

 The train stopped, and from the noise outside the
passengers guessed they had arrived. When Faber
got out he realized how hungry and thirsty he was.
His last meal had been sausage-meat, dry biscuits
and bottled water, twenty-four hours ago. He went
through the ticket barrier and found the station
buffet. It was full of people, mostly soldiers,
sleeping or trying to sleep at the tables. Faber
asked for a cheese sandwich and a cup of tea.

 'The food is reserved for servicemen," said the
woman behind the counter.

"Just the tea, then."

"Got a cup7"

Faber was surprised. "No, I haven't."

"Neither have we, chum."

 Faber contemplated going into the Great Eastern
Hotel for dinner, but that would We time. He
found a pub and drank two pints of wean beer,
then bought a bag of chips at a fishand-chips shop
and ate them from the newspaper wrapping,
standing on the pavement. They made him feel
surprisingly fun.

Now he had to find a chemist's shop and break in.

 He wanted to develop his film, to make sure the
pictures came out. He was not going to risk
returning to Germany with a roll of spoiled, useless
film. If the pictures were no good he would have to
steal more film and go back. The thought was
unbearable.

 It would have to be a small independent shop,
not a branch of a chain that would process film
centrally. It must be in an area where the local
people could afford cameras (or could have
afforded them before the war). The part of East
London in which Liverpool Street station stood was
no good. He decided to head toward Bloomsbury.

The moonlit streeb were quiet. There had been no
sirens 123

             Ken FoUett

so far tonight. Two Military Policemen stopped him
in Chancery Lane and asked for his identity card.
Faber pretended to be slightly drunk, and the MPs
did not ask what he was doing out of doors.

 He found the shop he was looking for at the
north end of Southampton Row. There was a
Kodak sign in the window. Surprisingly, the shop
was open. He went in.

 A stooped, irritable man with thinning hair and
glasses stood behind the counter, wearing a white
coat. He said, "We're only open for doctor's
prescriptions."

 "That's all right. I just want to ask whether you
develop photographs."

"Yes, if you come back tomorrow "

 "Do you do them on the premises?" Faber asked.
"I need them quickly, you see."

"Yes, if you come back tomorrow "

 "Could I have the prints the same day? My
brother's on leave, and he wants to take some
back "

 "Twenty-four hours is the best we can do. Come
back tomorrow."

 "Thank you, I will." On his way out he noticed
that the shop was due to close in ten minutes. He
crossed the road and stood in the shadows, waiting.

 Promptly at nine o'clock the pharmacist came
out, locking the shop behind him, and walked off
down the road. Faber went in the opposite
direction and turned two corners.

 There seemed to be no direct access to the back
of the shop, and Faber did not want to break in the
front way in case the unlocked door was noticed by
a patrolling policeman while he was in there. He
walked along the parallel street, looking for a way
through. Apparently there was none. Still, there
had to be a well of some kind at the back, the two
streets were too far apart for the buildings to be
joined backto-back.

 Finally he came across a large old house with a
nameplate marking it as a residence hall for a
nearby college. The front door was unlocked. Faber
went in and walked quickly through to a communal
kitchen. A lone girl sat at a table, drinking coffee
and reading a book. Faber muttered, "College
blackout check." She nodded and returned to her
text. Faber went out of the back door.

124

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

  He crossed a yard, bumping into a cluster of
garbage cans on the way, and found a door to a
lane. In seconds he was at the rear of the chemist's
shop. This entrance was obviously never used. He
clambered over some tires and a discarded mattress,
and threw his shoulder at the door. The rotten wood
gave easily, and Faber was inside.

  He found the darkroom and shut himself in. The
light switch operated a dim red lamp in the ceiling.
The place wasquite well equipped, with neatly
labeled bottles of developing

fluid, an enlarger, and even a dryer for prints.

  Faber worked quickly but carefully, getting the
temperature of the tanks exactly right, agitating the
fluids to develop the film evenly, timing the
processes by the hands of a large electric clock on
the wall.

The negatives were perfect.

  He let them dry, then fed them through the
enlarger and made one complete set of ten-by-eight
prints. He felt a sense of elation as he saw the
images gradually appear in the bath of
developer damn, he had done a good job!

There was now a major decision to be made.

  The problem had been in his mind all day, and
now that the pictures had come out he was forced to
confront it.

What if he did not make it home?

  The journey ahead of him was, to say the least,
hazardous. He was more than confident of his own
ability to make the rendezvous in spite of travel
restrictions and coastal security; but he could not
guarantee that the U-boat would be there; or that it
would get back across the North Sea. And, of
course, he might walk out of here and get run over
by a bus.

  The possibility that, having discovered the most
important secret of the war, he might die and his
secret die with him, was too awful to think about.

  He had to have a fall-back stratagem; a second
method of trying to ensure that the evidence of the
Allied deception reached the Abwehr.

  There was, of course, no postal service between
England and Germany. Mail had to go via a neutral
country. And all such mail was sure to be censored.
He could write in code, but there was no point; he
had to send the pictures they were the evidence
that counted.

There was a route, and a good one, he'd been told. At
the 125

             Ker'Polleff

Portuguese Embassy in London there was an
official, sympathetic to Germany partly for
political reasons and partly, Faber worried, because
he was well bribed who would pass messages via
the diplomatic bag to the German Embassy in
neutral Lisbon. From there, it was safe. The route
had been opened early in 1939, but Faber had used
it only once before, when Canaris had asked for a
routine test communication.

It would do. It would have to do.

 Faber felt angry. He hated to place his faith in
others. They were all such bumbling still, he
couldn't take the chance. He had to have a backup
for this information. It was a lesser risk than using
the radio and certainly less than the risk if
Germany never learned at all.

 Faber's mind was clear. The balance of argument
indisputably favored the Portuguese Embassy
contact.

He sat down to write a letter.

                 126
                  
                 14

Frederick Bloggs had spent an unpleasant
afternoon in the countryside.

 When five worried wives had contacted their local
police station to say their husbands had not come
home, a rural police-constable had exercised his
limited powers of deduction and concluded that a
whole patrol of the Home Guard had not gone
AWOL. He was fairly sure they had simply got
lost they were all a bit daft, otherwise they would
have been in the Army but all the same he
notified his constabulary headquarters just to cover
himself. The operations-room sergeant who took
the message realised at once that the missing men
had been patrolling a particularly sensitive military
area, and he notified his inspector, who notified
Scotland Yard, who sent a Special Branch man
down there and notified MI5, which sent Bloggs.

 The Special Branch man was Harris, who had
been on the Stockwell murder. He and Bloggs met
on the train, which was one of the Wild West
locomotives lent to Britain by the Americans
because of the shortage of trains. Harris repeated
his invitation to Sunday dinner, and Bloggs told
him again that he worked most Sundays.

 When they got off the train they borrowed
bicycles to ride along the canal towpath until they
met up with the search 127

             Ken Pollett

party. Harris, ten years older than Bloggs and
fifty-five pounds heavier, found the ride a strain.

 They met a section of the search party under a
railway bridge. Harris welcomed the opportunity to
act off the bicycle. "What have you found?" he said.
"Bodies?"

"No, a boat," said a policeman. "Who are you?"

 They introduced themselves. A constable stripped
to his underwear was diving down to examine the
vessel. He came up with a bung in his hand.

Bloggs looked at Harris. "Deliberately scuttled?"

 "Looks like it." Harris turned to the diver. "Notice
anything else?"

 "She hasn't been down there for long, she's in
good condition, and the mast has been taken down,
not broken."

 Harris said, "That's a lot of information from a
minute under water."

"I'm a weekend sailor," the diver said.

Harris and Bloggs mounted their cycles and moved
on.

  When they met up with the main party, the bodies
had been found.

  "Murdered, all five," said the uniformed inspector
in charge. "Captain Langham, Corporal Lee, and
Privates Watson, Dayton and Forbes. Dayton's neck
was broken, the rest were killed with some kind of
a knife. Langham's body had been in the canal. All
found together in a shallow grave. Bloody murder."
He was quite shaken.

  Harris looked closely at the five bodies, laid out
in a line. "I've seen wounds like this before, Fred,"
he said.

Bloggs looked closely. "Jesus Christ, it looks like "

Harris nodded. "Stiletto."

  The inspector said in astonishment, "You know
who did it?"

  "We can guess," Harris said. "We think he's killed
twice before. If it's the same man, we know who he
is but not where he is."

  "What with the restricted area so close," the
inspector said, "and Special Branch and M15
arriving on the scene so quick, is there anything else
I need to know about this case?"

  Harris answered, "Just that you keep very quiet
until your chief constable has talked to our people."

"Found anything else, inspector?" Bloggs asked. 128

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

 "We're still going over the area, and in
ever-widening circles; but nothing so far. There
were some clothes in the grave." He pointed.

 Bloggs touched them gingerly; black trousers, a
black sweater, a short black leather jacket,
RAF-style.

"Clothes for night work," Harris said.

"To fit a big man," Bloggs added.

"How tall is your man?"

"Over six foot."

 The inspector said, "Did you pass the men who
found the sunken boat?"

"Yes," Bloggs frowned. "Wbere's the nearest lock?"

"Four miles upstream."

 "If our man was in a boat, the lock-keeper must
have seen him, mustn't he?"

"Must have," the inspector agreed.

 Bloggs said, "We'd better talk to him." He
returned to his bicycle.

"Not another four miles," Harris complained.

"Work off some of those Sunday dinners," Bloggs
told him.

 The four-mile ride took them most of an
hour the towpath was made for horses, not
wheels, and it was uneven, muddy and mined with
loose boulders and tree roots. Harris was sweating
and cursing by the time they reached the lock.

 The lock-keeper was sitting outside his little
house, smoking a pipe and enjoying the mild air of
afternoon. He was a middle-aged man of slow
speech and slower movements. He regarded the
two cyclists with some amusement.

 Bloggs spoke, because Harris was out of breath.
"We're police officers," he said.

 "Is that so?" said the lock-keeper. "What's the
excitement?" He looked as excited as a cat in front
of a fire.

 Bloggs took the photograph of Die Nadel out of
his wallet and gave it to the man. "Have you ever
seen him?"

 The lock-keeper put the picture on his lap while
he held a fresh match to his pipe. Then he studied
the photograph for a while, and handed it back.

"Well?" Harris said.

 "Aye. He was here about this time yesterday.
Came in for a cup of tea. Nice enough chap.
What's he done, shown a light after blackout?"

129

             Ken Follett

Bloggs sat down heavily. "That clinches it," he said.

 Harris thought aloud. "He moors the boat
downstream from here and goes into the restricted
area after dark." He spoke quietly, so that the
lock-keeper would not hear. "When he comes back,
the Home Guard has his boat staked out. He deals
with them, sails a bit farther to the railway, scuttles
his boat and . . . hops a train?"

 Bloggs said to the lock-keeper: "The railway line
that crosses the canal a few miles
downstream where does it go?"

"London."

Bloggs said, "Oh, shit."

  Bloggs got back to the War Office in Whitehall
at midnight. Godliman and Billy Parkin were there
waiting for him. Bloggs said, "It's him, all right,"
and told them the story.

  Parkin was excited, Godliman just looked tense.
When Bloggs had finished, Godliman said: "So now
he's back in London, and we're looking for, in
more ways than one, a needle in a haystack again."
He was playing with matches, forming a picture
with them on his desk. "Do you know, every time I
look at that photograph I get the feeling I've actu-
ally met the damn fellow."

"Well, think, for God's sake," Bloggs said. "Where?"

  Godliman shook his head in frustration. "It must
have been only once, and somewhere strange. It's
like a face I've seen in a lecture audience, or in the
background at a cocktail party. A fleeting glimpse,
a casual encounter when I remember it probably
won't do us any good."

Parkin said, "What's in that area?"

  "I don't know, which means it's probably highly
important," Godliman said.

  There was a silence. Parkin lit a cigarette with
one of Godliman's matches. Bloggs looked up. "We
could print a million copies of his picture give one
to every policeman, ARP warden, member of the
Home Guard, serviceman, railway porter; paste
them up on boardings and publish them in the
papers . . ."

  Godliman shook his head. "Too risky. What if
he's already talked to Hamburg about whatever
he's seen? If we make a 130

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

public fuss about the man they'll know that his
information is good. We'd only be lending credence
to him."

"We've got to do something."

 "We'll circulate his picture to police officers. We'll
give his description to the press and say he's just a
conventional murderer. We can give the details of
the Highgate and Stockwell murders, without saying
that security is involved."

 Parkin said, "what you're saying is, we have to
fight with one hand tied behind our back."

"For now anyway."

  "I'll start the ball rolling with the Yard," Bloggs
said. He picked up the phone.

  Godliman looked at his watch. "There's not much
more we can do tonight, but I don't feel like going
home. I shan't sleep."

  Parkin stood up. "In that case, I'm going to find
a kettle and make some tea." He went out.

  The matches on Godliman's desk made a picture
of a horse and carriage. He took away one of the
horse's legs and lit his pipe with it. "Have you got a
girl, Fred?" he asked conversationally.

"No."

"Not since ?"

"No."

  Godliman puffed at his pipe. '4There has to be an
end to bereavement, you know."

Bloggs made no reply.

  Godliman said, "Look, perhaps I shouldn't talk to
you like a Dutch uncle. But I know how you
feel I've been through it myself. The only
difference was that I didn't have anyone to blame."

  "You didn't remarry," Bloggs said, not looking at
Godliman.

  "No, and I don't want you to make the same
mistake. When you reach middle age, living alone
can be very de. pressing."

"Did I ever tell you, they called her Fearless
Bloggs."

"Yes, you did."

  Bloggs finally looked at Godliman. "Tell me,
where in the world will I find another girl like that?"

"Does she have to be a hero?"

131

             Ken Follett
"After Christine . . ."

"England is full of heroes, Fred "

 At that moment Colonel Terry walked in. "Don't
get up, gentlemen. This is important, listen
carefully. Whoever killed those five Home Guards
has learned a~vital secret. There's an invasion
coming. You know that. You don't know when or
where. Needless to say, our objective is to keep the
Germans in that same state of ignorance. Most of
all, about where the invasion will come. We have
gone to some extreme lengths to ensure that the
enemy be misled in this matter. Now, it seems
certain, he will not be if their man gets through. He
has, it is definitely established, found out our
deception. Unless we stop him from delivering his
news, the entire invasion and therefore, one can
safely say, the war is compromised. I've already
told you more than I wanted to, but it's imperative
that you understand the urgency and precise
consequences of failure to stop the intelligence
from getting through." He did not tell them that
Normandy was the invasion site, nor that the Pas
de Calais via least Anglia the diversionary one
though he realized Godliman would surely conclude
the latter once he had debriefed Bloggs on his
efforts to trail the murderer of the Home
Guardsmen.

 Bloggs said: "Excuse me, but why are you so sure
their man found out?"

Terry went to the door. "Come in, Rodriguez."

 A tall, handsome man with jet-black hair and a
long nose entered the room and nodded politely to
Godliman and Bloggs. Terry said: "Senhor
Rodriguez is our man at the Portuguese Embassy.
Tell them what happened, Rodriguez."

 The man stood by the door. "As you know, we
have been watching Senhor Francisco of the
embassy staff for some time. Today he went to
meet a man in a taxi, and received an envelope. We
relieved him of the envelope shortly after the man
in the taxi drove off. We were able to get the
license number of the taxi."

 "I'm having the cabbie traced," Terry said. "All
right, Rodriguez, you'd better get back. And thank
you."

 The tall Portuguese left the room. Terry handed
to Godliman a large yellow envelope, addressed to
Manuel Francisco. Godliman opened it it had
already been unsealed and 132

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

withdrew a second envelope marked with a
meaningless series of letters: presumably a code.

 Within the inner envelope were several sheets of
paper covered with handwriting and a set of
ten-by-eight photographs. Godliman examined the
letter. "It looks like a very basic code," he said.

 "You don't need to read it," Terry said
impatiently. "Look at the photographs."

 Godliman did so. There were about thirty of
them, and he looked at each one before speaking.
He handed them to Bloggs. "This is a catastrophe."

Bloggs glanced through the pictures, then put them
down.

  Godliman said, "This is only his backup. He's still
got the negatives, and he's going somewhere with
them."

  The three men sat still in the little office, like a
tableau. The only illumination came from a
spotlight on Godliman's desk. With the cream
walls, the blacked-out window, the spare furniture
and the worn Civil Service carpet, it was a prosaic
backdrop for dramatics.

Terry said, "I'm going to have to tell Churchill."

  The phone rang, and the colonel picked it up.
"Yes. Good. Bring him here right away, please but
before you do, ask him where he dropped the
passenger. What? Thank you, get here fast." He
hung up. "The taxi dropped our man at UDi' versity
College Hospital."

  Bloggs said, "Perhaps he was injured in the fight
with the Home Guard."

Terry said, "Where is the hospital?"

  "About five minuses' walk from Euston Station,"
Godliman said. "Trains from Euston go to
Holyhead, Liverpool, Glasgow . . . all places from
which you can catch a ferry to Ireland."

  "Liverpool to Belfast," Bloggs said. "Then a car to
the border across into Eire, and a U-boat on the
Atlantic coast. Somewhere. He wouldn't risk
Holybead-to-Dublin because of the passport
control, and there would be no point in going
beyond Liverpool to Glasgow."

  Godliman said, "Fred, you'd better go to the
station and show the picture of Faber around, see
if anyone noticed him getting on a train. I'll phone
the station and warn them 133

             Ken Pollcit

you're coming, and at the same time find out which
trains have left since about ten thirty."

Bloggs picked up his hat and coat. "I'm on my way."

Godliman lifted the phone. "Yes, we're on our
way."

  There were still plenty of people at Euston
Station. Although in normal times the station
closed around midnight, wartime delays were such
that the last train often had not left before the
earliest milk train of the morning arrived. The sta-
tion concourse was a mass of kitbags and sleeping
bodies.

  Bloggs showed the picture to three railway
policemen. None of them recognized the face. He
tried ten women porters: nothing. He went to every
ticket barrier. One of the guards said, "We look at
tickets, not faces." He tried half a dozen passengers
without result. Finally he went into the ticket office
and showed the picture to each of the clerks.

  A very fat, bald cderk with ill-fitting false teeth
recognized the face. 'Y play a game," he told
Bloggs. "I try to spot something about a passenger
that tells me why he's catching a train. Like, he
might have a black tie for a funeral, or muddy
boots means he's a farmer going home, or there
might be a college scarf, or a white mark on a
woman's finger where she's took off her wedding
ring . . . know what I mean? Everybody~ got
somethin& This is a dull jo~not that I'm
complaining "

  "What did you notice about this fellow?" Bloggs
interrupted him.

  "Nothing. That was it, see - I couldn't make him
out at all. Almost like he was trying to be
inconspicuous, know what I mean?"

  "I know what you mean." Bloggs paused. "Now, I
want you to think very carefully. Where was he
going can you remember?"

"Yes," said the fat clerk. "Inverness."

  "That doesn't mean he's going there," said
Godliman. "He's a professional he knows we can
ask questions at railway stations. I expect he
automatically buys a ticket for the wrong
destination." He looked at his watch. "He must have
caught the 11:45. That train is now pulling into
Stafford. I checked with the railway, they checked
with the signalmen. 134

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

They're going to stop the train this side of Crewe.
I've got a plane standing by to fly you two to
Stoke-on-Trent.

  "Parkin, you'll board the train where it's stopped,
outside Crewe. You'll be dressed as a ticket
inspector, and you'll look at every ticket and every
face on that train. When you've spotted Faber,
just stay close to hirn.

  "Bloggs, you'll be waiting at the ticket barrier at
Crewe, just in case Faber decides to hop off there.
But he won't. You'll get on the train, and be first
off at Liverpool, and waiting at the ticket barrier
for Parkin and Faber to come oft Half the local
constabulary will be there to back you up."

  'Yhat's all very well if he doesn't recognize me,"
Parkin said. "What if he remembers my face from
Highgate?"

  Godliman opened a desk drawer, took out a
pistol, and gave it to Parkin. "If he recognizes you,
shoot him."

Parkin pocketed the weapon without comment.

  Godliman said: "You heard Colonel Terry, but I
want to emphasize the importance of all this. If we
don't catch this man, the invasion of Europe will
have to be postponed possibly for a year. In that
year the balance of war could tum against us. The
time may never be this right again."

Bloggs said: "Do we get told how long it is to
D-Day?"

  Godliman decided they were at least as entitled
as he . . . they were going into the field, after all.
"All I know is that it's probably a matter of weeks."

Parkin was thinking. "It'll be June, then."

  The phone rang and Godliman picked it up.
After a moment he looked up. "Your car's here."

Bloggs and Parkin stood up.

Godliman said, "Wait a minute."

  They stood by the door, looking at the professor.
He was saying, "Yes, sir. Certainly. I will.
Good-bye, sir."

  Bloggs could not think of anyone Godliman
called Sir. He said: "Who was that?"

Godliman said, "Churchill."

"what did he have to say?" Parlcin asked,
awestruck.

  Godliman said, "He wishes you both good luck
and Godspeed"

                 13'
                  
                 15

The carriage was pitch dark. Faber thought of the
jokes people made, "Take your hand off my knee.
No, not you, you." The British would make jokes
out of anything. Their railways were now worse
than ever, but nobody complained any more
because it was in a good cause. Faber preferred the
dark; it was anonymous.

  There had been singing, earlier on. Three
soldiers in the corridor had started it, and the
whole carriage had joined in. They had been
through "Be Like the Kettle and Sing," "There'll
Always Be an England" (followed by "Glasgow Be-
longs to Me" and "Land of My Fathers" for ethnic
balance), and, appropriately, "Don't Get Around
Much Any More."

  There had been an air raid. warning, and the
train slowed to thirty miles an hour. They were all
supposed to lie on the floor, but of course there
was no room. An anonymous female voice had
said, "Oh, God, I'm frightened," and a male voice,
equally anonymous except that it was cockney, had
said: "You're in the safest place, girl they can't 'it
a movie' target." Then everyone laughed and
nobody was scared any more. Someone opened a
suitcase and passed around a packet of dried-egg
sandwiches.

One of the sailors wanted to play cards.

"How can we play cards in the dark?" 136

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

"Peel the edges. All Harry's cards are marked."

 The train stopped unaccountably at about 4 A.M.
A cultured voice the dried-egg-sandwich supplier,
Faber thought said, "My guess is we're outside
Crewe."

 "Knowing the railways, we could be anywhere
from Bolton to Bournemouth," said the cockney.

 The train jerked and moved off, and everyone
cheered. Where, Paber wondered, was the
caricature Englishman with his icy reserve and his
stiff upper lip? Not here.

 A few minutes later a voice in the corridor said:
"Tickets, please." Paber noted the Yorkshire accent;
they were in the north now. He fumbled in his
pockets for his ticket.

 He had the corner seat, near the door, so he
could see into the corridor. The inspector was
shining a flashlight onto the tickets. Paber saw the
man's silhouette in the reflected light. It looked
vaguely familiar.

 He settled back in his seat to wait. He
remembered the nightmare: "This is an Abwehr
ticket" and smiled in the dark.

 Then he frowned. The train stopped
unaccountably; shortly afterward a ticket inspector
began; the inspector's face was vaguely familiar . .
. It might be nothing, but Paber stayed alive by
worrying about things that might be nothing. He
looked into the corridor again, but the man had
entered a compartment.

 The train stopped briefly the station was Crewe,
according to informed opinion in Faber's
compartment and moved off again.

 Paber got another look at the inspector's face,
and now he remembered. The boarding house in
Highgate! The boy from Yorkshire who wanted to
get into the Army!

 Paber watched him carefully. His flashlight moved
across the face of every passenger. He was not just
looking at the tickets.

 No, Paber told himself, don't jump to conclusions.
How could they possibly have got on to him? They
could not have found out which train he was on,
got hold of one of the few people in the world who
knew what he looked like, and got the man on the
train dressed as a ticket inspector in so short a time
. . .

137

               Ken Follett

 Parkin, that was his name. Billy Parkin. Somehow he
looked much older now. He was coming closer.

 It must be a look-alike perhaps an elder brother.
This had to be a coincidence.

 Parkin entered the compartment next to Faber's.
There was no time left.

Faber assumed the worst, and prepared to deal with it.

  He got up, left the compartment, and went along the
corridor, picking his way over suitcases and kitbags and
bodies to the lavatory. It was vacant. He went in and
locked the door.

  He was only buying time even ticket inspectors did
not fail to check the toilets. He sat on the seat and
wondered how to get out of this. The train had speeded
up and was traveling too fast for him to jump off.
Besides, someone

   would see him go, and if they were really
searching for him

they would stop the train.

"All tickets, please."

Parkin was getting close again.

  Faber had an idea. The coupling between the
carriages was a tiny space like an air-lock, enclosed by
a bellowslike cover between the cars of the train, shut
off at both ends by doors because of the noise and
drafts. He left the lavatory, fought his way to the end
of the carriage, opened the door, and stepped into the
connecting passage. He closed the door Ben hind him.

  It was freezing cold, and the noise was terrific. Faber
sat on the floor and curled up, pretending to sleep.
Only a dead man could sleep here, but people did
strange things on trains these days. He tried not to
shiver.

The door opened behind him. "Tickets, please."

He ignored it. He heard the door close.

"Wake up, Sleeping Beauty." The voice was
unmistakable.

  Faber pretended to stir, then got to his feet, keeping
his back to Parkin. When he turned the stiletto was in
his hand. He pushed Parkin up against the door, held
the point of the knife at his throat, and said, "Be still or
I'll kill you."

  With his left hand he took Parkin's flashlight, and
shone it into the young man's face. Parkin did not look
as frightened as he ought to be.

Faber said, "Well, well, Billy Parkin, who wanted to join
138

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

the Army, and ended up on the railways. Still, it's
a uniform."

Parkin said, "You."

  "You know damn well it's me, little Billy Parkin.
You were looking for me. Why?" He was doing his
best to sound vicious.

  "I don't know why I should be looking for
you I'm not a policeman."

  Faber jerked the knife melodramatically. "Stop
Iying to me."

  "Honest, Mr. Faber. Let me go I promise I
won't tell anyone I've seen you."

  Faber began to have doubts. Either Parkin was
telling the truth, or he was overacting as much as
Faber himself.

  Parkin's body shifted, his right arm moving in the
darkness. Paber grabbed the wrist in an iron grip.
Parkin struggled for an instant, but Faber let the
needle point of the stiletto sink a fraction of an
inch into Parkin's throat, and the man was still.
Paber found the pocket Parkin had bees reaching
for, and pulled out a gun.

  "Ticket inspectors do not go armed," he said.
"Who are you with Parkin7"

  "We ail carry guns now there's a lot of crime on
trains because of the dark."

  Parkin was at least Iying courageously and
creatively. Paber decided that threats were not
going to be enough to loosen his tongue.

  His movement was sudden, swift and accurate.
The blade of the stiletto leaped in his fist. Its point
entered a measured half inch into Parkin's left eye
and came out again.

  Paber's hand covered Parkin's mouth. The
muffled scream of agony was drowned by the noise
of the train. Parkin's hands went to his ruined eye.

"Save yourself the other eye, Parkin. Who are you
with?"

"Military Intelligence, oh God, please don't do it
again."

"Who? Menzies? Masterman?"

"Oh, Gods . . Godliman, Godliman "

  "Godlimant" Faber knew the name, but this was
no time to search his memory for details. "What
have they got?"

"A picture I picked you out from the files."

"What picture? What picture?" 139

             Ken Follett
"A racing team running with a cup the
Army "

  Faber remembered. Christ, where had they got
hold of that? It was his nightmare: they had a
picture. People would know his face. His face.

  He moved the knife closer to Parkin's right eye.
"How did you know where I was?"

  "I:ion't do it, please . . . the embassy . . . took
your letter ... the cab ... Euston please, not the
other eye...." He covered both his eyes with his
hands.

  Goddam. That idiot Francisco.... Now he
"What's the plan? Where is the trap?"

  "Glasgow. They're waiting for you at Glasgow.
The train will be emptied there."

  Faber lowered the knife to the level of Parkin's
belly. To distract him, he said, "How many men?"
Then he pushed hard, inward and upward to the
heart.

  Parkin's one eye stared in horror, and he did not
die. It was the drawback to Faber's favored method
of killing. Normally the shock of the knife was
enough to stop the heart. But if the heart was
strong it did not always work after all, surgeons
sometimes stuck a hypodermic needle directly into
the heart to inject adrenalin. If the heart continued
to pump, the motion would work a hole around the
blade, from which the blood would leak. It was just
as fatal, but longer.

  At last Parkin's body went limp. Faber held him
against the wall for a moment, thinking. There had
been something a flicker of courage, the ghost of
a smile before the man died. It meant something.
Such things always did.

  He let the body fall to the floor, then arranged it
in a sleeping position, with the wounds hidden from
view. He kicked the railway cap into a corner. He
cleaned his stiletto on Parkin's trousers, and wiped
the ocular liquid from his hands. It had been a
messy business.

  He put the knife away in his sleeve and opened
the door to the car. He made his way back to his
compartment in the dark.

  As he sat down the cockney said, "You took your
time is there a queue?"

Faber said, "It must have been something I ate."

"Probably a dried-egg sandwich." The cockney
laughed.

Faber was thinking about Godliman. He knew the
name  140

            EYE OF THE NEEDLE

he could even put a vague face to it: a middle-aged,
bespectacled face, with a pipe and an absent,
professional air . . . that was it he was a professor.

 It was coming back. In his first couple of years in
London Faber had had little to do. The war had not yet
started, and most people believed it would not come.
(Paber was not among the optimists.) He had been able
to do a little useful work mostly checking and revising
the Abwehr's out-of-date maps, plus general reports
based on his own observations and his reading of the
newspapers but not much. To fill in time, to improve
his English, and to flesh out his cover, he had gone
sightseeing.

 His purpose in visiting Canterbury Cathedral had
been innocent, although he did buy an aerial view of
the town and the cathedral that he sent back for the
Luftwaffe not that it did much good; they spent most
of 1942 missing it. Paber had taken a whole day to see
the building: -reading the ancient initials carved in
walls, distinguishing the different architectural styles,
reading the guidebook line by line as he walked slowly
around.

 He had been in the south ambulatory of the choir,
looking at the blind arcading, when he became
conscious of another absorbed figure by his side an
older man. "Fascinating, isn't it?" the man said, and
Faber asked him what he meant.

 "The one pointed arch in an arcade of round ones.
No rea. son for it that section obviously hasn't been
rebuilt. For some reason, somebody just altered that
one. I wonder why."

 Paber saw what he meant. The choir was
Romanesque, the nave Gothic; yet here in the choir
was a solitary Gothic arch. "Perhaps," he said, "the
monks demanded to see what the pointed arches would
look like, and the architect did this to show them."

 -  The older man stared at him. "What a splendid
conjectural

Of course that's the reason. Are you an historian?"

 Paber laughed. "No, just a clerk and an occasional
reader of history books."

"People get doctorates for inspired guesses like thatl"

"Are you? An historian, I mean?"

 "Yes, for my sins." He stuck out his hand. "Percy
Godliman."

Was it possible, Faber thought as the train rattled on 141

             Ken Follett

through Lancashire, that that unimpressive figure in
a tweed suit could be the man who had discovered
his identity? Spies generally claimed they were civil
servants or something equally vague; not
historians that lie could be too easily found out.
Yet it was rumored that Military Intelligence had
been bolstered by a number of academics. Faber
had imagined them to be young, fit, aggressive and
bellicose as well as clever. Godliman was clever, but
none of the rest. Unless he had changed.

  Faber had seen him once again, although he had
not spoken to him on the second occasion. After
the brief encounter in the cathedral Faber had seen
a notice advertising a public lecture on Henry II to
be given by Professor Godliman at his college. He
had gone along, out of curiosity. The talk had been
erudite, lively and convincing. Godliman was still a
faintly comic figure, prancing about behind the
lectern, getting enthusiastic about his subject; but it
was clear his mind was as sharp as a knife.

  So that was the man who had discovered what
Die Nadel looked like.

An amateur.

  Well, he would make amateur mistakes. Sending
Billy Parkin had been one: Faber had recognized
the boy. Godliman should have sent someone
Faber did not know. Parkin had a better" chance of
recognising Faber, but no chance at all of surviving
the encounter. A professional would have known
that.

  The train shuddered to a halt, and a muffled
voice outside announced that this was Liverpool.
Faber cursed under his breath; he should have
been spending the time working out his next move,
not remembering Percival Godliman.

  They were waiting at Glasgow, Parkin had said
before he died. Why Glasgow? Their inquiries at
Euston would have told them he was going to
Inverness. And if they suspected Inverness to be a
red herring, they would have speculated that he was
coming here, to Liverpool this was the nearest
link point for an Irish ferry.

Faber hated snap decisions.

Whichever, he had to get off the train.

  He stood up, opened the door, stepped out, and
headed for the ticket barrier.

142

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

 He thought of something else. What was it that
had flashed in Billy Parkin's eyes before he died?
Not hatred, not fear, no pain although all those
had been present. It was more like . . . triumph?

Paberlooked up, past the ticket collector, and
understood.

 Waiting on the other side, dressed in a hat and
raincoat, was the blond young tail from Leicester
Square.

 Parkin, dying in agony and humiliation, had
deceived Faber at the last. The trap was here.

 The man in the raincoat had not yet noticed
Faber in the crowd. Faber turned and stepped back
on to the train. Once inside, he pulled aside the
blind and looked out. The tail was searching the
faces in the crowd. He had not noticed the man
who got back on the train.

 Faber watched while the passengers filtered
through the gate until the platform was empty. The
blond man spoke urgently to the ticket collector,
who shook his head. The man seemed to insist.
After a moment he waved to someone out of sight.
A police officer emerged from the shadows and
spoke to the collector. The platform guard joined
the group, followed by a man in a civilian suit who
was presumably a more senior railway official.

 The engine driver and his fireman left the
locomotive and went over to the barrier. There was
more waving of arms and shaking of heads.

 Finally the railwaymen shrugged, turned away, or
rolled their eyes upward, all telegraphing surrender.
The blond and the police officer summoned other
policemen, and they moved on to the platform.

They were obviously going to search the train.

 All the railway officials, including the engine
crew, had disappeared in the opposite direction, no
doubt to seek out tea and sandwiches while the
lunatic tried to search a jam-packed train. Which
gave Faber an idea.

 He opened the door and jumped out of the wrong
side of the train, the side opposite the platform.
Concealed from the police by the cars, he ran along
the tracks, stumbling on the lies and slipping on the
gravel, toward the engine.

 It had to be bad news, of course. Prom the
moment he realized Billy Parkin was not going to
saunter off that train, 143

             Ken Pollers

Frederick Bloggs knew that Die Nadel had slipped
through their fingers again. As the uniformed
police moved onto the train in pairs, two men to
search each car, Bloggs thought of several possible
explanations of Parkin's nonappearance; and all the
explanations were depressing.

 He turned up his coat collar and paced the crafty
platform. He wanted very badly to catch Die Nadel;
and not only for the sake of the invasion although
that was reason enough, of course but for Percy
Godliman, and for the five Home Guards, and for
Christine, and for himself....

 He looked at his watch: four o'clock. Soon it
would be day. Bloggs had been up all night, and he
had not eaten since breakfast yesterday, but until
now he had kept going on adrenalin. The failure of
the trap he was quite sure it had failed drained
him of energy. Hunger and fatigue caught up with
him. He had to make a conscious effort not to
daydream about hot food and a warm bed.

 "Sir!" A policeman was leaning out of a car and
waving at him. "Sir!"

 Bloggs walked toward him, then broke into a run.
"What is it?"

"It might be your man Parkin."

  Bloggs climbed into the car. "What the hell do
you mean, might be?"

  "You'd better have a look." The policeman
opened the communicating door between the cars
and shone his flashlight inside.

  It was Parkin; Bloggs could tell by the ticket
inspector's uniform. He was curled up on the floor.
Bloggs took the policeman's light, knelt down
beside Parkin, and turned him over.

  He saw Parkin's face, looked quickly away. "Oh,
dear God."

"I take it this is Parkin?" the policeman said.

  Bloggs nodded. He got up, very slowly, without
looking again at the body. "We'll interview
everybody in this car and the next," he said.
"Anyone who saw or heard anything unusual will be
detained for further questioning. Not that it will do
us any good; the murderer must have jumped off
the train before it got here."

Bloggs went back out on the platform. All the
searchers 144

         EYE OF THF; NEEDLE

had completed their tasks and were gathered in a
group. He detailed six of them to help with the
interviewing.

The police-inspector said, "Your man's hopped it,
then."

 "Almost certainly. You've looked in every toilet,
and the guard's van?"

 "Yes, and on top of the train and under it, and in
the engine and the coal tender."

 A passenger got off the train and approached
Bloggs and the inspector. He was a small man who
wheezed badly. "Excuse me," he said.

"Yes, sir," the inspector said.

"I was wondering, are you looking for somebody?"

"Why do you ask?"

 "Well, if you are, I was wondering, would he be
a tall chap?"

"Why do you ask?"

 Bloggs interrupted impatiently. "~Yes, a tall
man. Come on, spit it out."

 "Well, it's just that a tall chap got out the wrong
side of the train."

"When?"

  "A minute or two after the train pulled into the
station. He got on, like, then he got off, on the
wrong side. Jumped down onto the track. Only he
had no luggage, you see, which was another odd
thing, and I just thought "

The inspector said, "Balls."

  "He must have spotted the trap," Bloggs said.
"But how? He doesn't know my face, and your men
were out of sight."

"Something made him suspicious."

  "So he crossed the line to the next platform and
went out that way. Wouldn't he have been seen?"

  lathe inspector shrugged. "Not too many people
about this late. And if he was seen he could just
say he was too impatient to queue at the ticket
barrier."

"Didn't you have the other ticket barriers covered?"

  "Afraid I didn't think of it . . . well, we can search
the surrounding area, and later on we can check
various places in the city, and of course we'll watch
the ferry "

"Yes, please do," Bloggs said.

But somehow he knew Faber would not be found.

                 14f
                  
             Ken Pollett

  It was more than an hour before the train started
to move. Faber had a cramp in his left calf and dust
in his nose. He heard the engineer and fireman
climb back into their cab, and caught snatches of
conversation about a body being found on the train.
There was a metallic rattle as fireman shoveled
coal, then the tries of steam, a clanking of pistons,
a jerk and a sigh of smoke as the train moved off.
Gratefully, Faber shifted his position and indulged
in a smothered sneeze. He felt better.

  He was at the back of the coal tender, buried
deep in the coal, where it would take a man with a
shovel ten minutes' hard work to expose him. As he
had hoped, the police search of the tender had
consisted of one good long look and no more.

  He wondered whether he could risk emerging
now. It must be getting light; would he be visible
from a bridge over the line? Ho thought not. His
skin was now quite black, and in a moving train in
the pale light of dawn he would just be a dark blur
on a dar} background. Yes, he would chance it.
Slowly and carefully, he dug his way out of his grave
of coal.

  He breathed deeply of the cool air. The coal was
shoveled out of the tender via a small hole in the
front end. Later, perhaps, the Reman would have to
enter the tender when the pile of foci got lower.
But he was safe for now.

  As the light strengthened he looked himself over.
He was covered from head to toe in coal dust, like
a miner coming up from the pit Somehow he had to
wash and change his clothes.

  He chanced a look over the side of the tender.
The train was still in the suburbs, passing factories
and warehouses and rows of gamy little houses. He
had to think about his next move.

  His original plan had been to get off the train at
Glasgow and there catch another train to Dundee
and up the east coast to Aberdeen. It was still
possible for him to disembark at Glasgow. He could
not get off at the station, of course, but he might
jump off either just before or just after. However,
there were Asks in that. The train was sure to stop
at intermediate stations between Liverpool and
Glasgow, and at those stops he might be spotted.
No, he had to get off the train soon and find
another means of transport.

146

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

  The ideal place would be a lonely stretch of track
just outside a city or village. It had to be lonely he
must not be seen leaping from the coal tender but
it had to be fairly near houses so that he could
steal clothes and a car. And it needed to be an
uphill grade of track so that the train would be
travding slowly enough for him to jump.

  Right now its speed was about forty miles an
hour. Faber lay back on the coal to wait. He could
not keep a permanent watch on the country
through which he was passing, for fear of being
seen. He decided he would look out whenever the
train slowed down. Otherwise he would lie still.

  After a few minutes he caught himself dropping
off to sleep, despite the discomfort of his position.
He shifted and reclined on his elbows so that if he
did sleep he would fall and be wakened by the
impact.

  The train was gathering speed. Between London
and Liverpool it had seemed to be stationary more
than moving; now it steamed through the country at
a fine pace. To complete his discomfort, it started
to rain: a cold, steady drizzle that soaked right
through his clothes and seemed to turn to ice on
his skin. Another reason for getting off the train; he
could die of exposure before they reached Glasgow.

  After half an hour at high speed he was
contemplating killing the engine crew and stopping
the train himself. A signal box saved their lives. The
train slowed suddenly as brakes were applied. It
decelerated in stages; Faber guessed the track was
marked with descending speed limits. He looked
out. They were in the countryside again. He could
see the reason for the slowdown they were
approaching a track junction, and the signals were
against them.

  Faber stayed in the tender while the train stood
still. After five minutes it started up again. Faber
scrambled up the side of the tender, perched on the
edge for a moment, and jumped.

  He landed on the embankment and lay, face
down, in the overgrown weeds. When the train was
out of earshot he got to his feet. The only sign of
civilisation nearby was the signal box, a two-story
wooden structure with large windows in the control
room at the top, an outside staircase and a door at
ground-floor level. On the far side was a cinder
track leading away.

147

            then Pollett

 Faber walked in a wide circle to approach the
place from the back, where there were no windows.
He entered a ground-floor door and found what he
had been expecting: a toilet, a washbasin, and, as a
bonus, a coat hanging on a peg.

 He took off his soaking wet clothes, washed his
hands and face and rubbed himself vigorously all
over with a grubby towel. The little cylindrical film
can containing the negatives was still taped securely
to his chest. He put his clothes back on, but
substituted the signalman's overcoat for his own
sopping wet jacket.

 Now all he needed was transport. The signalman
must have got here somehow. Faber went outside
and found a bieyele padlocked to a rail on the
other side of the small building. He snapped the
little lock with the blade of his stiletto. Moving in
a straight line away from the blank rear wall of the
signal box, he wheeled the cycle until he was out of
sight of the building. Then he cut across until he
reached the cinder track, climbed on the cycle and
pedaled away.

                 148
                  
                 16

Percival Godliman had brought a small camp bed
from his home. He lay on it in his office, dressed in
trousers and shirt, trying without success to sleep.
He had not suffered insomnia for almost forty
years, not since he took his final exams at the
university. He would gladly swap the anxieties of
those days for the worries that kept him awake
now.

 He had been a different man then, he knew; not
just younger, but also considerably less . . .
abstracted. He had been outgoing, aggressive,
ambitious; he planned to go into politics. He was
not studious then he had reason to be anxious
about the exams.

 His two mismatched enthusiasms in those days
had been debating and ballroom dancing. He had
spoken with distinction at the Oxford Union and
had been pictured in The T=ler waltzing with
debutantes. He was no great womanizer; he wanted
sex with a woman he loved, not because he believed
in any high-minded principles to that effect, but
because that was the way he felt about it.

 And so he had been a virgin until he met
Eleanor, who was not one of the debutantes but a
brilliant graduate mathematician with grace and
warmth and a father dying of lung disease after
forty years as a coal mine worker. He had taken her
to meet his people. His father was Lord Lieutenant
of the 149

             Ken Pollett

county, and the house had seemed a mansion to
Eleanor, but she had been natural and charming
and not in the least awestruck; and when Percy's
mother had been disgracefully condescending to
her at one point she had reacted with merciless wit,
for which he loved her all the more.

 He had taken his master's degree, then after the
Great War he taught in a public school and stood
in three by-elections. They were both disappointed
when they discovered they could not have children;
but they loved each other totally and they were
happy, and her death was the most appalling
tragedy Godliman ever knew. It had ended his
interest in the real world, and he had retreated into
the Middle Ages.

 It had drawn him and Bloggs together, this
common bereavement. And the war had brought
him back to life; revived in him those
characteristics of dash and aggression and fervor
that had made him a fine speaker and teacher and
the hope of the Liberal Party. He wished very much
for something in Bloggs's life to rescue him from
an existence of bitterness and introspection.

 At the moment he was in Godliman's thoughts,
Bloggs phoned from Liverpool to say that Die
Nadel had slipped through the net, and Parkin had
been killed.

 Godliman, sitting on the edge of the camp bed to
speak on the phone, closed his eyes. "I should have
put you on the train . . ."

"Thanks!" Bloggs said.

"Only because he doesn't know your face."

  "I think he may," Bloggs said. "We suspect he
spotted the trap, and mine was the only face visible
to him as he got off the train."

  "But where could he have seen you oh,
Leicester Square."

  "I don't see how, but then . . . we seem to
underestimate him."

  Godliman asked impatiently, "Have you got the
ferry covered?"

"Yes."

  "He won't use it, of course too obvious. He's
more likely to steal a boat. On the other hand, he
may still be heading for Inverness."

"I've alerted the police up there." 150

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

 "Good. But look, I don't think we can make any
assump tions about his destination. Let's keep an
open mind."

"Yes."

 Godliman stood, picked up the phone, and began
to pace the carpet. "Also, don't assume it was he
who got off the train on the wrong side. Work on
the premise that he got off before, at, or after
Liverpool." Godliman's brain was in gear again,
sorting permutations and possibilities. "Let me talk
to the Chief Superintendent."

"He's here."

 There was a pause, then a new voice said, "Chief
Superintendent Anthony speaking."

 Godliman said, "Do you agree with me that our
man got off this train somewhere in your area?"

"That seems likely, yes."

 "All right. Now the first thing he needs is
transport so I want you to get details of every car,
boat, bicycle, or donkey stolen within a hundred
miles of Liverpool during the next twenty-four
hours. Keep me informed, but give the information
to Bloggs and work closely with him following up
the leads."

"Yes, sir."

 "Keep an eye on other crimes that might be
committed by a fugitive theft of food or clothing,
unexplained assaults, identity card irregularities,
and so on."

"Right."

  "Now, Mr. Anthony, you realize this man is more
than just a conventional murderer?"

  "I assume so, sir, from the fact of your
involvement. However, I don't know the details."

  "It's a matter of national security, important
enough to keep the Prime Minister in hourly
contact with this offlce."

"Yes . . . uh, Mr. Bloggs would like a word, sir."

  Bloggs came back on. "Have you remembered
how you know his face? You said you thought you
did "

  "Oh, yes and it's of no value, as I predicted. I
met him by chance at Canterbury Cathedral and we
had a conversation about the architecture. All it
tells us is that he's clever  he made some
perceptive remarks, as I recall."

"We knew he was clever."

"As I said, it does us no good." 151

Ken Follei?

  Chief Superintendent Anthony, a determined
member of the middle class with a carefully
softened Liverpool accent, did not know whether to
be peeved at the way MIS ordered him about or
thrilled at the chance to save England on his own
manor.

  Bloggs recognised the man's conflict he'd met
with it before when working with local police
forces and he knew how to tip the balance in his
own favor. He said, "I'm grateful for your
helpfulness, Chief Superintendent. These things
don't go unnoticed in Whitehall, you know."

  "Only doing our duty . . ." Anthony was not sure
whether he was supposed to call Bloggs "Sir."

  "Still, there's a big difference between reluctant
assistance and willing help."

  "Yes. Well, it'll likely be a few hours before we
pick up this man's scent again. Do you want to
catch forty winks?"

  "Yes," Bloggs said gratefully. "If you've got a chair
in a corner somewhere . . ."

  "Stay here," Anthony said, indicating his office.
"I'll be down in the operations room. I'll wake you
as soon as we've! got something Make yourself
comfortable."

  Anthony went out, and Bloggs moved to an easy
chair and sat back with his eyes closed.
Immediately, he saw Godliman's face, as if
projected onto the backs of his eyelids like a film,
saying, "There has to be an end to bereavement . .
. J don't want you to make the same mistake . . ."
Bloggs rea1ized suddenly that he did not want the
war to end, that would make him face issues, like
the one Godliman had raised. The war made life
simple he knew why he hated the enemy and he
knew what he was supposed to do about it. Af
-terward . . . but the thought of another woman
seemed disloyal.

  He yawned and slumped farther into his seat, his
thinking becoming woolly as sleep crept up on him.
If Christine had died before the war he would have
felt very differently about remarrying. He had
always been fond of her and respected her, of
course; but after she took that ambulance job
respect had turned to near-awestruck admiration,
and fondness turned to love. Then they had
something special, something they knew other
lovers did not share. Now, more than a year later,
it would be easy for Bloggs to find another woman
he 152

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

could respect and be fond of, but he knew that
would no longer be enough for him. An ordinary
marriage, an ordinary woman, would always remind
him that once he, a rather ordinary man, had had
the most extraordinary of women....

 He stirred in his chair, trying to shake off his
thoughts so that he could sleep. England was full of
heroes, Godliman had said. Well, if Die Nadel got
away . . .

First things first....

 Someone shook him. He was in a very deep sleep,
dreaming that he was in a room with Die Nadel but
could not pick him out because Die Nadel had
blinded him with a stiletto. When he awoke he still
thought he was blind because he could not see who
was shaking him, until he realized he simply had his
eyes closed. He opened them to see the large uni-
formed figure of Superintendent Anthony above
him.

 Bloggs raised himself to a more upright position
and rubbed his eyes. "Got something?" he asked.

 "Lots of things," Anthony said. "Question is, which
of 'em counts? Here's your breakfast." He put a cup
of tea and a biscuit on the desk and went to sit on
the other side of it.

 belongs left his easy chair and pulled a hard chair
up to the desk. He sipped the tea. It was weak and
very sweet. "Let's get to it," he said.

Anthony handed him a sheaf of five or six slips of
paper.

 Bloggs said, "Don't tell me these are the only
Primes in your area "

 "Of course not," Anthony said. "We're not
interested in drunkenness, domestic disputes,
blackout violations, traffic offenses, or crimes for
which arrests have already been made."

 "Sorry," Bloggs said. "I'm still waking up. Let me
read Resew

 There were three house burglaries. In two of
them valuables had been taken jewelry in one
case, furs in another. Bloggs said, "He might steal
valuables just to throw us off the scent. Mark these
on the map, will you? They may show some
pattern." He handed the two slips back to Anthony.
The third burglary had only just been reported, and
no details were available. Anthony marked the
location on the map.

 A Food Office in Manchester had been robbed of
hundreds of ration books. Bloggs said, "He doesn't
need ration 153

             Ken Follcit

books he needs food." He set that one aside.
There was a bicycle theft just outside Preston and a
rape in Birkenhead. "I don't think he's a rapist, but
mark it anyway," Bloggs told Anthony.

 The bicycle theft and the third of the house
burglaries were close together. Bloggs said, "The
signal box that the bike was stolen from is that on
the main line?"

"Yes, I think so," Anthony said.

 "Suppose Faber was hiding on that train and
somehow we missed him. Would the signal box be
the first place the train stopped at after it left
Liverpool?"

"It might be."

 Bloggs looked at the sheet of paper. "An overcoat
was stolen and a wet jacket left in its place."

Anthony shrugged. "Could mean anything."

"No cars stolen?"

  "Nor boats, nor donkeys," Anthony replied. "We
don't get many car thefts these days. Cars are easy
to come by it's petrol people steal."

  "I felt sure he'd steal a car in Liverpool," Bloggs
said. He thumped his knee in frustration. "A bicycle
isn't much use to him, surely."

  "I think we should follow it up, anyway," Anthony
pressed. "It's our best lead."

  "All right. But meanwhile, double-check the
burglaries to see whether food or clothing was
pinched the victims might not have noticed at first.
Show Faber's picture to the rape victim, too. And
keep checking all crimes. Can you fix me transport
to Preston?"

"I'll get you a car," Anthony said.

  "How long will it take to get details of this third
burglary?"

  "They're probably interviewing at this minute,"
Anthony said. "By the time you reach the signal
box I should have the complete picture."

  "Don't let them drag their feet." Bloggs reached
for his coat. "I'll check with you the minute I get
there."

"Anthony? This is Bloggs. I'm at the signal box."

  "Don't waste any time there. The third burglary
was your man."

154

           EYE OF THE NEEDLE

"Sure?'9

  "Unless there are two buggers running around
threatening people with stiletto knives."

"Who?"

"Two old ladies living alone in a little cottage."

"Oh, God. Dead?"

"Not unless they died of excitement."

"Eh?"

"Get over there. You'll see what I mean."

"I'm on my way."

  It was the kind of cottage that is always inhabited
by two elderly ladies living alone. It was small and
square and old, and around the door grew a wild
rose bush fertilised by thousands of pots of used tea
leaves. Rows of vegetables sprouted tidily in a little
front garden with a trimmed hedge. There were
pink-and-white curtains at the leaded windows, and
the gate creaked. The front door had been painted
painstakingly by an amateur, and its knocker was
made from a horseshoe.

  Bloggs's knock was answered by an octogenarian
with a shotgun.

He said, "Good morning. I'm from the police."

  "No, you're not," she said. "They've been already.
Now get going before I blow your head off."

  Bloggs regarded her. She was less than five feet
tall, with thick white hair in a bun and a pale,
wrinkled face. Her hands were matchstick-thin, but
her grasp on the shotgun was firm. The pocket of
her apron was full of clothes-pegs. Bloggs looked
down at her feet, and saw that she was wearing a
man's working boots. He said: 'The police you saw
this morning were local. I'm from Scotland Yard."

"How do I know that?" she said.

  Bloggs turned and called to his police driver. The
constable got out of the car and came to the gate.
Bloggs said to the old lady, "Is the uniform enough
to convince you?"

"All right," she said, and stood aside for him to
enter.

  He stepped down into a low-ceilinged room with
a tiled floor. The room was crammed with heavy, old
furniture, and every surface was decorated with
ornaments of china and glass. A small coal fire
burned in the grate. The place smelled of lavender
and cats.

lS5

             Ken Fillet

  A second old lady got out of a chair. She was like
the first, but about twice as wide. Two cats spilled
from her lap as she rose. She said, "Hello, I'm
Emma Parton, my sister is Jessie. Don't take any
notice of that shotgu~it's not loaded, thank God.
Jessie loves drama. Will you sit down? You look so
young to be a policeman. I'm surprised Scotland
Yard is interested in our little robbery. Have you
come from London this morning? Make the boy a
cup of tea, Jessie."

  Bloggs sat down. "If we're right about the identity
of the burglar, he's a fugitive from justice," he said.

  "I told your" Jessie said. "We might have been
done in  slaughtered in cold blood!"

  "Don't be silly," Emma said. She turned to Bloggs.
"He was such a nice man."

"Tell me what happened," Bloggs said.

  "Well, I'd gone out the back," Emma began. "I
was in the hen coop, hoping for some eggs. Jessie
was in the kitchen "

  "He surprised me," Jessie interrupted. "I didn't
have time to go for me gun."

"You see too many cowboy films," Emma
admonished her.

  'they're better than your love films all tears and
kisses "

  Bloggs took the picture of Faber from his wallet;
"Is this the man?"

Jessie scrutinised it. '`That's him."

"Aren't you clever?" Emma marveled.

  "If we were so clever we'd have caught him by
now:' Bloggs said. "What did he do?"

  Jessie said, "He held a knife to my throat and
said, 'One false move and I'll slit your gizzard.' I
believe he meant it."

  "Oh, Jessie, you told me he said, 'I won't harm
you if you do as I say.' "

"Words to that effect, Emma!"

Bloggs said, "What did he want?"

  "Food, a bath, dry clothes and a car. Well, we
gave him the eggs, of course. We found some
clothes that belonged to Jessie's late husband,
Norman "

"Would you describe them?"

  "Yes. A blue donkey jacket, blue overalls, a check
shirt. And he took poor Norman's car. I don't know
how we'll be 156

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

able to go to the pictures without it. That's our only
vice, you know the pictures."

"What sort of car?"

 "A Morris. Norman bought it in 1924. It's served
us Novell, that little car."

Jessie said, "He didn't get his hot bath, though!"

 "Well," Emma said, "I had to explain to him that
two ladies living alone can hardly have a man
taking a bath in their kitchen . . ."

 Jessie said: "You'd rather have your throat slit
than see a man in his combinations, wouldn't you,
you silly fool."

Bloggs said, "What did he say when you refused?"

  "He laughed," Emma said. "But I think he
understood our position."

  Bloggs could not help but smile. "I think you're
very brave," he said.

"I don't know about that, I'm sure."

  "So he left here in a 1924 Morris, wearing
overalls and a blue jacket. What time was that?"

"About half-past nine."

  Bloggs absently stroked a red tabby cat. It blinked
and purred. "Was there much petrol in the car?"

"A couple of gallons but he took our coupons."

"How do you ladies qualify for a petrol ratios?"

  "Agricultural purposes," Emma said defensively.
She blushed.

  Jessie snorted. "And we're isolated, and we're
elderly. Of course we qualify."

  "We always go to the corn stores at the same time
as the pictures," Emma added. "We don't waste
petrol."

  Bloggs smiled and held up a hand. "All right,
don't worry rationing isn't exactly my department.
How fast does the car go?"

Emma said' "We never exceed thirty miles per
hour."

  Bloggs looked at his watch. "Even at that speed
he could be seventy-five miles away by now." He
stood up. "I must phone the details to Liverpool.
You don't have a telephone, do you?"

"No."

"What kind of Morris is it?"

"A Cowley. Norman used to call it a Bullnose." 157

             Ken Folktt

"Color?"

"Grey."

"Registration number?" -

"MLN 29."

Bloggs wrote it all down.

 Emma said, "Will we ever get our car back, do
you think?"

 "I expect so but it may not be in very good
condition. When someone is driving a stolen car he
generally doesn't take good care of it." He walked
to the door.

"I hope you catch him," Emma called.

 Jessie saw him out. She was still clutching the
shotgun. At the door she caught Bloggs's sleeve
and said in a stage whisper, 'Yell me what is he?
Escaped convict? Murderer? Rap" ist?"

 Bloggs looked down at her. Her small green eyes
were bright with excitement. He bent his head to
speak quietly in her ear. "Don't tell a soul," he
murmured, "but he's a German spy."

 She giggled with delight. Obviously, she thought,
he saw the same movies she did.

                ISIS
                  
                 17

Faber crossed the Sark Bridge and entered
Scotland shortly after midday. He passed the Sark
Toll Bar House, a low building with a siguboard
announcing that it was the first house in Scotland
and a tablet above the door bearing some legend
about marriages which he could not read. A quarter
of a mile farther on he understood, when he
entered the village of Gretna; he knew this was a
place runaways came to get married.

 The roads were still damp from the early rain,
but the sun was drying them rapidly. Signposts and
nameboards had been re-erected since the
relaxation of invasion precautions, and Faber sped
through a series of small lowland villages:
Kirkpatrick, Kirtlebridge, Ecclefechan. The open
countryside was pleasant, the green moor sparkling
in the sunshine.

 He had stopped for petrol in Carlisle. The pump
attendant, a middle-aged woman in an oily apron,
had not asked any awkward questions. Faber had
filled the tank and the spare can fixed to the offside
running board.

 He was very pleased with the little two-seater. It
would still do fifty miles an hour, despite its age.
The four-cylinder, 1548 cc side-valve engine
worked smoothly and tirelessly as he climbed and
descended the Scottish hills. The leather159

             Ken Pollett

upholstered bench seat was comfortable. He
squeezed the bulb horn to warn a straying sheep of
his approach.

  He went through the little market town of
Lockerbie, crossed the River Annan by the
picturesque Johnstone Bridge, and began the
ascent to Beattock Summit. He found himself using
the three-speed gearbox more and more.

  He had decided not to take the most direct route
to Aberdeen, via Edinburgh and the coast road.
Much of Scotland's east coast, either side of the
Firth of Forth, was a restricted area. Visitors were
prohibited from a ten-mile-wide strip of land. Of
course, the authorities could not seriously police
such a long border. Nevertheless, Faber was less
likely to be stopped and questioned while he stayed
outside the security zone

  He would have to enter it eventually later
rather than sooner and he turned his mind to the
story he would tell if he were interrogated. Private
motoring for pleasure had virtually ceased in the
last couple of years because of the ever-stricter
petrol rationing, and people who had cars for
essential journeys were liable to be prosecuted for
going a few yards off their necessary route for
personal reasons. Paber had read of a famous
impresario jailed for using petrol supplied for
agricultural purposes to take several actors from a
theater to the Savoy hotel. Endless propaganda
told people that a Lancaster bomber needed 2,000
gallons to get to the Ruhr. Nothing would please
Faber more than to waste petrol that might
otherwise be used to bomb his homeland in normal
circumstances; but to be stopped now, with the
information he had taped to his chest, and arrested
for a rationing violation would be an unbearable
irony.

  It was difficult.. Most traffic was military, but he
had no military papers. He could not claim to be
delivering essential supplies because he had nothing
in the car to deliver. He frowned. Who traveled,
these days? Sailors on leave, officials rare
vacationers, skilled workmen . . . That was it. He
would be an engineer, a specialist in some esoteric
field like hightemperature gearbox oils, going to
solve a manufacturing problem in a factory at
Inverness. If he were asked which factory, he would
say it was classified. (His fictitious destination had
to be a long way from the real one so that he
would never be questioned by someone who knew
for certain there 160

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

was no such factory.) He doubted whether
consulting engineers ever wore overalls like the
ones he had stolen from the elderly sisters but
anything was possible in wartime.

 Having figured this out, he felt he was reasonably
safe from any random spot checks. The danger of
being stopped by someone who was looking
specifically for Henry Faber, fugitive spy, was
another problem. They had that picture

They knew his face. HE facel

   and before long they would have a description
of the car in which he was traveling. He did not
think they would set up roadblocks, as they had no
way of guessing where he was ~headed; but he was
sure that every policeman in the land would be on
the lookout for the grey Morris Cowley Bulloose,
registration number MLN 29.

  If he were spotted in the open country, he would
not be captured immediately; country policemen
had bicycles, not cars. But a policeman would
telephone his headquarters, and cars would be after
Paber within minutes. If he saw a policeman, he
decided, he would have to ditch this car, steal an-
other, and divert from his planned route. However,
in the sparsely populated Scottish lowlands there
was a good chance he could get all the way to
Aberdeen without passing a country policeman. The
towns would be different. There the danger of being
chased by a police car was very great. He would be
unlikely to escape; his car was old and relatively
slow, and the police were generally good drivers.
His best chance would be to get out of the vehicle
and hope to lose himself in crowds or back streets.
He contemplated ditching the car and stealing
another each time he was forced to enter a major
town. The problem there was that he would be
leaving a trail a mile wide for MI5 to follow.
Perhaps the best solution was a compromise: he
would drive into the towns but try to use only the
back streets. He looked at his watch. He would
reach Glasgow around dusk, and thereafter he
would benefit from the darkness.

  Well, it wasn't very satisfactory, but the only way
to be to. tally safe was not to be a spy.

  As he topped the thousand-foot-high Beattock
Summit, it began to rain. Faber stopped the car and
got out to raise the canvas roof. The air was
oppressively warm. Faber looked 161

             Ken FOllca

up. The sky had clouded over very quickly.
Thunder and lightning were promised.

  As he drove on he discovered some of the little
car's shortcomings. Wind and rain leaked in
through several tears in the canvas roof, and the
small wiper sweeping the top half of the
horizontally divided windshield provided only a
tunnellike view of the road ahead. As the terrain
became progressively more hilly the engine note
began to sound faintly ragged. It was hardly
surprising: the twenty-year-old car was being
pushed hard.

  The shower ended. The threatened storm had not
arrived, but the sky remained dark and the
atmosphere foreboding.

  Paber passed through Crawford, nestling in green
hills; Abington, a church and a post office on the
west bank of the River Clyde; and Lesmahagow, on
the edge of a heathery moor.

  Half an hour later he reached the outskirts of
Glasgow. As soon as he entered the built-up area
he turned north off the main road, hoping to
circumvent the city. He followed a succession of
minor roads, crossing the major arteries into the
city's east side, until he reached Cumbernauld
Road where he turned east again and sped out of
the city.

  It had been quicker than he expected. His luck
was holding.

  He was on the A80 road, passing factories, mines
and farms. More Scots place-names drifted in and
out of his consciousness: Millerston, Stepps,
Muirhead, Mollinburn, Condorrat.

His luck ran out between Cumbernauld and
Stirling.

  He was accelerating along a straight stretch of
road, slightly downhill, with open fields on either
side. As the speedometer needle touched forty-five
there was a sudden very loud noise from the
engine; a heavy rattle, like the sound of a large
chain pulling over a cog. He slowed to thirty, but
the noise did not get perceptibly quieter. Clearly
some large and important piece of the mechanism
had failed Faber listened carefully. It was either a
cracked ballbearing in the transmission or a hole in
a big end. Certainly it was nothing so simple as a
blocked carburetor or a dirty spark plug; nothing
that could be repaired outside a workshop.

He pulled up and looked under the hood. There
seemed to /62

         EYE OF TFIE NEEDLE

be a good deal of oil everywhere, but otherwise he
could see no clues. He got back behind the wheel
and drove off. There was a definite loss of power,
but at least the car would still go.

  Three miles farther on steam began to billow out
of the radiator. Faber realized that the car would
soon stop altogether. He looked for a place to
dump it and found a mud track leading off the
main road, presumably to a farm. One hundred
yards from the road the track curved behind a
blackberry bush. Faber parked the car close to the
bush and killed the engine. The hiss of escaping
steam gradually subsided. He got out and locked
the door. He felt a twinge of regret for Emma and
Jessie, who would find it very difficult to get their
car repaired before the end of the war.

  He walked back to the main road. From there,
the car could not be seen. It might be a day or even
two before the abandoned vehicle aroused
suspicion. By then, Faber thought, I may be in
Berlin.

  He began to walk. Sooner or later he would hit a
town where he could steal another vehicle. He was
doing well enough: it was less than twenty-four
hours since he had left London, and he still had a
whole day before the U-boat arAved at the
rendezvous at six P.M. tomorrow.

  The sun had set long ago, and now darkness fell
suddenly. Faber could hardly see. Fortunately there
was a painted white line down the middle of the
road a safety innovation made necessary by the
blackout and he was just able to follow it. Because
of the night silence he would hear an oncoming car
in ample time.

  In fact only one car passed him. He heard its
deepthroated engine in the distance, and went off
the road a few yards to lie out of sight until it had
gone. It was a large car, a Vauxhall Ten, Faber
guessed, and it was traveling at speed. He let it go
by, then got up and resumed walking. Twenty
minutes later he saw it again, parked by the
roadside. He would have taken a detour across the
field if he had noticed the car in time, but its lights
were off and its engine silent and he almost
bumped into it in the darkness.

  Before he could consider what to do, a flashlight
shone up toward him from under the car's hood,
and a voice said: "I say, is anybody there?"

163

             Ken Pollett

Paber moved into the beam and asked, "Having
trouble?"

"I'll say."

 The light was pointed down, and as Paber moved
closer he could see by the reflected light the
moustached face of a middle-aged man in a
double-breasted coat. In his other hand the man
held, rather uncertainly, a large wrench, seeming
unsure of what to do with it.

Paber looked at the engine. "What's wrong?"

 "Loss of power," the man said, pronouncing it
"Lorse of par." "One moment she was going like a
top, the next she started to hobble. I!m afraid I'm
not much of a mechanic." He shone the light at
Paber again. "Are you?" he finished hopefully.

 "Not exactly," Paber said, "but I know a
disconnected bad when I see one." He took the
flashlight from the man, reached down into the
engine and plugged the stray lead back onto the
cylinder head. "Try her now."

 The man got into the car and started the engine.
"Perfect!" he shouted over the noise. "You're a
genius! Hop in."

 It crossed Paber's mind that this might be an
elaborate MI5 trap, but he dismissed the thought;
in the unlikely event they knew where he was, why
should they tread softly? They could as easily send
twenty policemen and a couple of armored cars to
pick him up.

He got in.

  The driver pulled away and moved rapidly up
through the gears until the car was traveling at a
good speed. Faber made himself comfortable. The
driver said, "By the way, I'm Richard Porter."

  Paber thought quickly of the identity card in his
wallet. "James Baker."

  "How do you do. I must have passed you on the
road back there didn't see you."

  Paber realized the man was apologising for not
picking him up everyone picked up hitchhikers
since the petrol shortage. "It's okay," Paber said. "I
was probably off the road, behind a bush, answering
a call of nature. I did hear a car."

"Have you come far?" Porter offered a cigar.

  "It's good of you, but I don't smoke," Paber said.
"Yes, live come from London."

164

Scenes on the following pages are from EYE OF THE
NEEDLE, which is a United Artists movie. Still photos (it)
1981 by United Artists. All Rights Reserved.

                 ... 'em ''

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"The Needle," a ruthless WW II German spy (Donald
Sutherland), discovers a vital secret the Allies need
desperately to hide from Hitler.

                     - ~

Percival Godliman (fan Bannen), a medieval specialist, is
called out of academia to bark the Needle and capture
him before he can pass on the secret, which could
determine the outcome of the war.

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 l _       Beautiful Lucy

(Kate Nelhgan)
in the treacherous

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The Needle uses the s~ilelk' that gave him his code
name to dispose of his fatally nosy landlady.

Heading north to rendervous with a German U-boat, the
Needle races ahead of his British pursuers.

                    ~'~ -
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Germany's top agent travels by river in a stolen boat to avoid
checkpoints.

An unexpected patrol, having seen the Needle's face, will
soon share the landlady's bloody fate.

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The trail of victims leads Godliman to Scotland.

Together on a small island, Lucy and the desperate spy
share a forbidden, passionate affair.

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The Needle with Lucy's son on the island where he's hiding
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Discovering the Needle s secret, Lucy attempts to alert the
authorities.

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Lucy's husband David (Christopher Gazenove) tries
to kill the lethal agent.

                 NIL ~
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Lucy, alone in the final confrontation with the man who
could destroy the free world.

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

"Hitchhiked an way?"

 "No. My car broke down in Fdinburgh.
Apparently it requires a spare part which isn't in
stock, so I had to leave it at the garage."

 "Hard luck. Well, I'm going to Aberdeen, so I can
drop you anywhere along the way."

 This was indeed a piece of good fortune. He
closed his eyes and pictured the map of Scotland.
'Yhat's marvelous," he said. "I'm going to Banff, so
Aberdeen would be a great help. Except I was
planning to take the high road . . . I didn't get
myself a pass. Is Aberdeen a restricted area?"

 "Only the harbor," Porter said. "Anyway, you
needn't worry about that sort of thing while you're
in my car I'm a J.P. and a member of the Watch
Committee. How's that?"

 Faber smiled in the darkness. "Thank you. Is that
a fulltime job? Being a magistrate, I mean?"

 Porter put a match to his cigar and puffed smoke.
"Not really. I'm semiretired, y'know. Used to be a
solicitor, until they discovered my weak heart."

"Ah." Faber tried to put some sympathy into his
voice.

 "Hope you don't mind the smoke?" Porter waved
the fat cigar.

"Not a bit."

"What takes you to Banff?"

  "I'm an engineer. There's a problem in a factory
. . . actually, the job is sort of classified."

  Porter held up his hand. "Don't say another word.
I understand."

  There was a silence for a while. The car flashed
through several towns. Porter obviously knew the
road very well to drive so fast in the blackout. The
big car gobbled up the miles. Its smooth progress
was soporific. Faber smothered a yawn.

  "Damn, you must be tired," Porter said. "Silly of
me. Don't be too polite to have a nap."

"Thank you," said Faber. "I will." He closed his
eyes.

  The motion of the car was like the rocking of a
train, and Faber had his arrival nightmare again,
only this time it was slightly different. Instead of
dining on the train and talking politics with the
fellow-passenger, he was obliged for some unknown
reason to travel in the coal tender, sitting on his 16,

            Ker' Follett

suitcase radio with his back against the hard iron
side of the truck. When the train arrived at
Waterloo, everyone including the disembarking
passengers was carrying a little duplicated
photograph of Faber in the running team, and they
were all looking at each other and comparing the
faces they saw with the face in the picture. At the
ticket barrier the collector took his shoulder and
said: "You're the man in the photo, aren't you?"
Faber found himself speechless. All he

Could do was stare at the photograph and
remember the way he had run to win that cup. God,
how he had run; he had peaked a shade too early,
started his final burst a quarter of a mile sooner
than he had planned, and for the last 500.meters
he'd wanted to die and now perhaps he would die,
because of that photograph in the ticket collector's
hand.... The collector was saying, "Wake up! Wake
up!" and suddenly Faber was back in Richard
Porter's Vauxhall Ten, and it was Porter who was
telling him to wake up.

 His right hand was half way to his left sleeve,
where the stiletto was sheathed, in the split-second
before he remembered that as far as Porter was
concerned James Baker was an innocent hitchhiker.
His hand dropped, and he relaxed.

 "You wake up like a soldier," Porter said with
amusement 'this is Aberdeen."

 Paber noted that "soldier" had been pronounced
"sol-juh," and recalled that Porter was a magistrate
and a member of the police authority. Paber looked
at the man in the dull light of early day, Porter had
a red face and a waxed moustache; his
camel-colored overcoat looked expensive. He was
wealthy and powerful in this town, Faber guessed.
If he were to disappear he would be missed almost
immediately. Faber decided not to kill him.

Paber said, "Good morning."

 He looked out of the window at the granite city.
They were moving slowly along a main street with
shops on either side. There were several early
workers about, all moving purposefully in the same
direction fishermen, Faber reckoned. It seemed a
cold, windy place.

 Porter said, "Would you like to have a shave and
a bit of breakfast before you continue your journey?
You're welcome to come to my place."

"You're very kind "

166

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

 "Not at all. If it weren't for you I should still be
on the A80at Stirling, waiting for a garage to open."

 " but I won't, thank you. I want to get on with
the journey."

 Porter did not insist, and Faber suspected that he
was relieved not to have his offer taken up. The
man said, "In that case, I'll drop you at George
Street that's the start of the A96, and it's a
straight road to Banff." A moment later he stopped
the car at a corner. "Here you are."

Faber opened the door. "Thanks for the lift."

"A pleasure." Porter offered a handshake. "Good
luck!"

 Faber got out, closed the door and the car pulled
away. He had nothing to fear from Porter, he
thought; the man would go home and sleep all day,
and by the.time he realised he had helped a fugitive
it would be too late to do anything about it.

 He watched the Vauxhall out of sight, then
crossed the road and entered the promisingly
named Market Street. Shortly thereafter he found
himself at the docks and, following his nose, arrived
at the fish market. He felt safely anonymous in the
bustling, noisy, smelly market, where everyone was
dressed in working clothes as he was. Wet fish and
cheerful profanities flew through the air, and Faber
found it hard to understand the clipped, guttural
accents. At a stall he bought hot, strong tea in a
chipped half-pint mug and a large bread roll with
a slab of white cheese.

 He sat on a barrel to eat and think. This evening
would be the time to steal a boat. It was galling, to
have to wait all day, and it left him with the
problem of concealing himself for the next twelve
hours; but he was too close now to take risks, and
stealing a boat in broad daylight was much more
risky than at the twilight end of the day.

 He finished his breakfast and stood up. It would
be a couple of hours before the rest of the city
came to life. He would use the time to pick out a
good hiding place.

 He made a circuit of the docks and the tidal
harbor. The security was perfunctory, and he noted
several places where he could slip past the
checkpoints. He worked his way around to the
sandy beach and set off along the two-mile
esplanade, at the far end of which a couple of
pleasure yachts were moored at the mouth of the
River Don. They would have 167

             Ken Follcff

suited Paber's purpose very well, but they would
have no fuel.

 A thick ceiling of cloud hid the sunrise. The air
became very warm and thundery again. A few
determined vacationers emerged from seafront
hotels and sat stubbornly on the beach, waiting for
sunshine. Faber doubted they would get it today.

 The beach might be the best place to hide. The
police would check the railway station and the bus
depot, but they would not mount a full-scale search
of the city. They might check a few hotels and guest
houses. It was unlikely they would approach
everyone on the beach. He decided to spend the
day in a deck chair.

 He bought a newspaper from a stall and hired a
chair. He removed his shirt and put it back on over
his overalls. He left his jacket off.

 He would see a policeman, if one came, well
before he reached the spot where Faber sat. There
would be plenty of time to leave the beach and
vanish into the streets.

 He began to read the paper. There was a new
Allied offensive in Italy, the newspaper headlined.
Faber was skeptical. Anzio had been a shambles.
The paper was badly printed and there were no
photographs. He read that the police were searching
for one Henry Faber, who had murdered two
people in London with a stiletto....

 A woman in a bathing suit walked by, looking
hard at Faber. His heart missed a beat. Then he
realized she was being flirtatious. For an instant he
was tempted to speak to her. It had been so long....
He shook himself mentally. Patience, patience.
Tomorrow he would be home.

 She was a small fishing boat, fifty or sixty feet
long and broad in the beam, with an inboard motor.
The aerial told of a powerful radio. Most of the
deck was taken up with hatches to the small hold
below. The cabin was aft, and only large enough to
hold two men, standing, plus the dashboard and
controls. The hull was clinker-built and newly
caulked, and the paintwork looked fresh.

 Two other boats in the barber would have done as
well, but Faber had stood on the quay and watched
the crew of this one tie her up and refuel before
they left for their homes.

He gave them a few minutes to get well away, then
walked i68

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

around the edge of the harbor and jumped onto the
boat. She was called Marie 11.

  He found the wheel chained up. He sat on the
floor of the little cabin, out of sight, and spent ten
minutes picking the lock. Darkness was coming
early because of the cloud layer that still blanketed
the sky.

  When he had freed the wheel he raised the small
anchor, then jumped back onto the quay and untied
the ropes. He returned to the cabin, primed the
diesel engine, and pulled the starter. The motor
coughed and died. He tried again. This time it
roared to life. He began to maneuver out of the
moorMg.

  He got clear of the other craft at the quayside
and found the main channel out of the harbor,
marked by buoys. He guessed that only boats of
much deeper draft really needed to stick to the
channel, but he saw no harm in being overcautious.

  Once outside the harbor, he felt a stiff breeze,
and hoped it was not a sign that the weather was
about to break. The sea was surprisingly rough, and
the stout little boat lifted high on the waves. Faber
opened the throttle wide, consulted the dashboard
compass, and set a course. He found some charts M
a locker below the wheel. They looked old and little
used; no doubt the boat's skipper knew the local
waters too well to need charts. Faber checked the
map reference he had memorized that night in
Stockwell, set a more exact course, and engaged the
wheel-clamp.

  The cabin windows were obscured by water.
Faber could not tell whether it was rain or spray.
The wind was slicing off the tops of the waves now.
He poked his head out of the cabin door for a
moment, and got his face thoroughly wet.

  He switched on the radio. It hummed for a
moment, then crackled. He moved the frequency
control, wandering the airwaves, and picked up a
few garbled messages. The set was working
perfectly. He tuned to the U-boat's frequency, then
switched off it was too soon to make contact.

  The waves increased in size as he progressed into
deeper waters. Now the boat reared up like a
bucking horse with each wave, then teetered
momentarily at the top before plunging sickeningly
down into the next trough. Faber stared 169

             Ken Pollett

blindly out of the cabin windows. Night had fallen,
and he could see nothing at all. He felt faintly
seasick.

 Each time he convinced himself that the waves
could not possibly 'yet bigger, a new monster taller
than the rest lifted the vessel toward the sky. They
started to come closer together, so that the boat
was always Iying with its stern pointed either up at
the sky or down at the sea bed. In a particularly
deep trough the little boat was suddenly
illuminated, as clearly as if it were day, by a flash
of lightning. Paber saw a grey-green mountain of
water descend on the prow and wash over the deck
and the cabin where he stood. He could not tell
whether the terrible crack that sounded a second
afterward was the thunderclap or the noise of the
timbers of the boat breaking up. Prantically he
searched the cabin for a life jacket. There was
none.

 The lightning came repeatedly then. Faber held
the locked wheel and braced his back against the
cabin wall to stay upright. There was no point in
operating the controls now the boat would go
where the sea threw it.

 He kept telling himself that the boat must be
built to withstand such sudden summer gales. He
could not convince himself. Experienced fishermen
probably would have seen the signs of such a storm
and refrained from leaving shore, knowing their
vessel could not survive such weather.

 He had no idea where he was now. He might be
almost back in Aberdeen, or he might be at his
rendezvous. He sat on the cabin floor and switched
on the radio. The wild rocking and shuddering
made it difficult to operate the set. When it
warmed up he experimented with the dials but
could pick up nothing. He turned the volume to
maximum; still no sound.

 The aerial must have been broken off its fixing
on the cabin roof.

 He switched to Transmit and repeated the simple
message, "Come in, please," several times; then left
the set on Receive. He had little hope of his signal
getting through.

 He killed the engine to conserve fuel. He was
going to have to ride out the storm if he
could then find a way to repair or replace the
aerial. He might need his fuel.

 The boat slid terrifyingly sideways down the next
big wave, and Faber realized he needed the engine
power to ensure that ~70

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

the vessel met the waves head-on. He pulled the
starter. Nothing happened. He tried several times,
then gave up, cursing himself for switching it off.

 The boat now rolled so far onto its side that
Faber fell and cracked his head on the wheel. He
lay dazed on the cabin floor, expecting the vessel to
turn turtle at any minute. Another wave crashed on
the cabin, shattering the glass in the windows. And
suddenly Faber was under water. Certain the boat
was sinking, he struggled to his feet and broke
surface. All the windows were out, but the vessel
was still floating. He kicked open the cabin door
and the water gushed out. He clutched the wheel to
prevent himself being washed into the sea.

 Incredibly, the storm continued to get worse. One
of Faber's last coherent thoughts was that these
waters probably did not see such a storm more than
once in a century. Then all his concentration and
will were focused on the problem of keeping hold of
the wheel. He should have tied himself to it, but
now he did not dare to let go long enough to find
a piece of rope. He lost all sense of up and down as
the boat pitched and rolled on waves like cliffs.
Gale-force winds and thousands of gallons of water
strained to pull him from his place. His feet slipped
continually on the wet floor and walls, and the
muscles of his arms burned with pain. He sucked air
when he found his head above water, but otherwise
held his breath. Several times he came close to
blacking out, and only vaguely realized that the flat
roof of the cabin had disappeared.

 He got brief, nightmarish glimpses of the sea
whenever the lightning flashed. He was always
surprised to see where the wave was: ahead, below,
rearing up beside him or completely out of sight.
He also discovered with a shock that he could not
feel his hands, and looked down to see that they
were still locked to the wheel, frozen in a grip like
rigor mortis. There was a continuous roar in his
ears, the wind indistinguishable from the thunder
and the sea.

 The power of intelligent thought slipped slowly
away from him. In something that was less than a
hallucination but more than a daydream, he saw the
girl who had stared at him earlier on-the beach. She
walked endlessly toward him over the bucking deck
of the fishing boat, her swimsuit clinging to her 171

             Ken Pollett

body, always getting closer but never reaching him.
He knew that, when she came within touching
distance, he would take his dead hands from the
wheel and reach for her, but he kept saying "Not
yet, not yet," as she walked and smiled and swayed
her hips. He was tempted to leave the wheel and
close the gap himself but something in the back of
his mind told him that if he moved he would never
reach her, so he waited and watched and smiled
back at her from time to time, and even when he
closed his eyes he could see her still.

 He was slipping in and out of consciousness now.
His mind would drift away, the sea and the boat
disappearing first, then the girl fading, until he
would jerk awake to find that incredibly, he was still
standing, still holding the wheel, still alive; then for
a while he would will himself to stay conscious, but
eventually exhaustion would take over again.

 In one of his last clear moments he noticed that
the waves were moving in one direction, carrying
the boat with them. Lightning flashed again, and he
saw to one side a huge dark mass, an impossibly
high wave no, it was not a wave, it was a cliff....
The realisation that he was close to land was
swamped by the fear of being hurled against the
cliff and smashed. Stupidly, he pulled the starter,
then hastily returned his hand to the wheel; but it
would no longer grip.

 A new wave lifted the boat and threw it down like
a discarded toy. As he fell through the air, still
clutching the wheel with one hand, Faber saw a
pointed rock like a stiletto sticking up out of the
trough of the wave. It seemed certain to impale the
boat . . . but the hull of the craft scraped the edge
of the rock and was carried past.

 The mountainous waves were breaking now. The
next one was too much for the vessel's timbers. The
boat hit the trough with a solid impact, and the
sound of the hull splitting cracked in his ears like an
explosion. Faber knew the boat was finished....

 The water had retreated, and Faber realized that
the hull had broken because it had hit . . . Iand. He
stared in dumb astonishment as a new flash of
lightning revealed a beach. The sea lifted the ruined
boat off the sand as water crashed over the deck
again, knocking Faber to the floor. But he had seen
everything with daylight clarity in that moment. The
beach was narrow, and the waves were breaking
right up to 172

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

the cliff. But there was a jetty, over to his right, and
a bridge of some kind leading from the jetty to the
cliff top. He knew that if he left the boat for the
beach, the next wave would kill him with tons of
water or break his head like an egg against the cliff.
But if he could reach the jetty in between waves, he
might scramble far enough up the bridge to be out
of reach of the water.

 The next wave split the deck open as if the
seasoned wood were no stronger than a banana
skin. The boat collapsed under Faber, and he found
himself sucked backward by the receding surf. He
scrambled upright, his legs like jelly beneath him,
and broke into a run, splashing through the
shallows toward the jetty. Running those few yards
was the hardest physical thing he had ever done.
He wanted to stumble, so that he could rest in the
water and die, but he stayed upright, just as he had
when he won the S,000-meter race, until he crashed
into one of the pillars of the jetty. He reached up
and grabbed the boards with his hands, willing them
to come back to life for a few seconds, and lifted
himself until his chin was over the edge; then swung
his legs up and rolled over.

 The wave came as he got to his knees. He threw
himself forward. The wave carried him a few yards
then flung him against the wooden planking. He
swallowed water and saw stars. When the weight
lifted from his back he summoned the will to naove
again. It would not come. He felt himself being
dragged inexorably back, and a sudden rage took
hold of him. He would not allow it . . . not now,
goddamn it. He screamed at the tucking storm and
the sea and the British and Percival Godliman, and
suddenly he was on his feet and running, running,
away from the sea and up the ramp, running with
his eyes shut and his mouth open, a crazy man,
daring his lungs to burst and his bones to break;
running with no sense of a destination, but knowing
he would not stop until he lost his mind.

 The ramp was long and steep. A strong man
might have run all the way to the top if he were in
training and rested. An Olympic athlete, if he were
tired, might have got half way. The average
forty-year old man would have managed a yard or
two.

Faber made it to the top.

773

             Ken Follett

 A yard from the end of the ramp he felt a sharp
pain, like a slight heart attack, and lost
consciousness, but his legs pumped twice more
before he hit the sodden turf.

 He never knew how long he lay there. When he
opened his eyes the storm still raged, but day had
broken, and he could see, a few yards away from
him, a small cottage that looked inhabited.

 He got to his knees and began the long,
interminable crawl to the front door.

                 174
                  
                 18

The U-505 wheeled in a tedious circle, her
powerful diesels chugging slowly as she nosed
through the depths like a gray, toothless shark.
Lieutenant Commander Werner Heer, her master,
was drinking ersatz coffee and trying not to smoke
any more cigarettes. It had been a long day and a
long night. He disliked his assignment; he was a
combat man and there was no combat to be had
here; and he thoroughly disliked the quiet Abwehr
officer with storybook-sly blue eyes who was an
unwelcome guest aboard his submarine.

 The intelligence man, Major Wohl, sat opposite
the captain. The man never looked tired, damn
him. Those blue eyes looked around, taking things
in, but the expression in them never changed. His
uniform never got rumpled, despite the rigors of
underwater life, and he lit a new cigarette every
twenty minutes, on the dot, and smoked it to a
quarter-inch stub. Heer would have stopped
smoking, just so that he could enforce regulations
and prevent Wohl from enjoying tobacco, but he
himself was too much of an addict.

 Heer had never liked intelligence people, he'd
always had the feeling they were gathering
intelligence on him. Nor did he like working with
the Abwehr. His vessel was made for battle, not for
skulking around the British coast waiting to pick up
secret agents. It seemed to him plain madness to
risk 175

             Ken Follett

a costly piece of fighting machinery, not to mention
its skilled crew, for the sake of one man who might
well fail to show up.

 He emptied his cup and made a face. "Damn
coffee," he said. "Tastes vile."

 Wohl's expressionless gaze rested on him for a
moment, then moved away. He said nothing.

 Forever cryptic. To hell with him. Heer shifted
restlessly in his seat. On the bridge of a ship he
would have paced up and down, but men on
submarines learn to avoid unnecessary movement.
He finally said, "Your man won't come in this
weather, you know."

 Wohl looked at his watch. "We will wait until 6
A.M.," he said easily.

 It was not an order Wohl could not give orders
to Heer but the bald statement of fact was still an
insult to a superior officer. Heer told him so.

 "We will both follow our orders," Wohl said. "As
you know, they originate from a very high authority
indeed."

 Heer controlled his anger. The young man was
right, of course. Heer would follow his orders. but
when they returned to port he would report Wohl
for insubordination. Not that it would do much
good; fifteen years in the Navy had taught Heer
that headquarters people were a law unto them-
selves.... "Well, even if your man is fool enough to
venture out tonight, he is certainly not seaman
enough to survive."

Wohl's only reply was the same blank gaze.

Heer called to the radio operator. "Weissman?"

"Nothing, sir."

  Wohl said, "I have a feeling that the murmurs we
heard a few hours ago were from him."

  "If they were, he was a long way from the
rendezvous, sir," the radio operator said. "To me it
sounded more like lightning."

  Heer added, "If it was not him, it was not him. If
it was him, he is now drowned."

  "You don't know this man," Wohl said, and this
time there was actually a trace of emotion in his
voice.

  Heer didn't answer. The engine note altered
slightly, and he thought he could distinguish a faint
rattle. If it increased 176

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

on the journey home he would have it looked at in
port. He might do that anyway, just to avoid
another voyage with the unspeakable Major Wohl.

A seaman looked in. "Coffee, sir?"

 Heer shook his head. "If I drink any more I'll be
pissing coffee."

Wohl said, "I will please." He took out a cigarette.

 Which made Heer look at his watch. It was ten
past six. The subtle Major Wohl had delayed his six
o'clock cigarette to keep the U-boat there a few
extra minutes. Heer said, "Set a course for home."

 "One moment," Wohl said. "I think we should
take a look on the surface before we leave."

 "Don't be a fool," Heer said. He knew that he was
on safe ground now. "Do you realise what kind of
storm is raging up there? We wouldn't he able to
open the hatch, and the periscope will show up
nothing that is more than a few yards away."

"How can you tell what the storm is like from this
depth?"

"Experience."

  "Then at least send a signal to base telling them
that our man has not made contact. They may
order us to stay here."

  Heer gave an exasperated sigh. "It's not possible
to make radio contact from this depth, not with
base."

  Wohl's calm finally broke. "Commander Heer, I
strongly recommend you surface and radio home
before leaving this rendezvous. lithe man we are to
pick up has vital information. The Fuehrer is
waiting for his report."

  Heer looked at him. "Thank you for letting me
have your opinion, Major," he said. He turned away.
"Full ahead both," he ordered.

  The sound of the twin diesels rose to a roar, and
the Uboat began to pick up speed.

                 177
                  
PART FOUR

                 19

When Lucy woke up, the storm that had broken
the evening before was still raging. She leaned over
the edge of the bed, moving cautiously so that she
would not disturb David, and picked up her
wristwatch from the floor. It was just after six. The
wind was howling around the roof. David could
sleep on; little work would be done today.

 She wondered whether they had lost any slates
off the roof during the night. She would need to
check the loft. The job would have to wait until
David was out, otherwise he would be angry that
she had not asked him to do it.

 She slipped out of bed. It was very cold. The
warm weather of the last few days had been a
phony summer, the build-up to the storm. Now it
was as cold as November. She pulled the flannel
nightdress off over her head and quickly got into
her underwear, trousers and sweater. David stirred.
She looked at him; he turned over, but did not
wake.

 She crossed the tiny landing and looked into Jo's
room. The three-year-old had graduated from a cot
to a bed, and he often fell out during the night
without waking. This morning he was on his bed,
lying asleep on his back with his mouth wide open.
Lucy smiled. He looked truly adorable when he
was asleep.

She went quietly downstairs, wondering briefly why
she had 181

             Ken Folleit

awakened so early. Perhaps Jo had made a noise, or
maybe it was the storm.

  She knelt in front of the fireplace, pushing back
the sleeves of her sweater, and began to make the
fire. As she swept out the grate she whistled a tune
she had heard on the radio, "Is You Is Or Is You
Ain't My Baby?" She raked the cold ashes, using the
biggest lumps to form the base for today's fire.
Dried bracken provided the tinder, and wood and
then coal went on top. Sometimes she just used
wood, but coal was better in this weather. She held
a page of newspaper across the fireplace for a few
minutes to create an updraft in the chimney. When
she removed it the wood was burning and the coal
glowing red. She folded the paper and placed it
under the coal scuttle for use tomorrow.

  The blaze would soon warm the Iittle house, but
a hot cup of tea would help meanwhile. Lucy went
into the kitchen and put the kettle on the electric
cooker. She put two cups on a tray, then found
David's cigarettes and an ashtray. She made the tea,
filled the cups, and carried the tray through the hall
to the stairs.

  She had one foot on the lowest stair when she
heard the tapping sound. She stopped, frowned,
decided it was the wind rattling something and tools
another step. The sound came again. It was like
someone knocking on the front door.

  That was ridiculous, of course. There was no one
to knock on the front door only Tom, and he
always came to the kitchen door and never knocked.

The tapping again.

  She came down the stairs and, balancing the tea
tray on one hand, opened the front door.

  She dropped the tray in shock. The man fell into
the hall, knocking her over. Lucy screamed.

  She was frightened only for a moment. The
stranger lay prone beside her on the hall floor,
plainly incapable of attacking anyone. His clothes
were soaking wet, and his hands and face were
stone-white with cold.

  Lucy got to her feet. David slid down the stairs on
his bottom, saying, "What is it? What is it?"

"Him," Lucy said, and pointed.

David arrived at the foot of the stairs, clad in
pajamaS
               182
               
          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

and hauled himself into his wheelchair. "I don't see
what there is to scream about," he said. He wheeled
himself closer and peered at the man on the floor.

 "I'm sorry. He startled me." She bent over and,
taking the man by his upper arms, dragged him into
the living room. David followed. Lucy laid the man
in front of the fire.

 David stared at the unconscious body. "Where the
devil did he come from?"

"He must have been shipwrecked . . . the storm . .
."

 But he was wearing the clothes of a workman, not
a sailor, Lucy noticed. She studied him. He was
quite a big man, longer than the six-foot hearth
rug and heavy round the neck and shoulders. His
face was strong and fine-boned, with a high
forehead and a long jaw. He might be handsome,
she thought, if he were not such a ghastly colon

 He stirred and opened his eyes. At first he looked
terribly frightened, like a small boy waking in
strange surroundings; but, very quickly, his
expression became relaxed, and he looked about
him sharply, his gaze resting briefly on Lucy, David,
the window, the door, and the fire.

 Lucy said, "We must get him out of these clothes.
Fetch a pair of pajamas and a robe, David."

 David wheeled himself out, and Lucy knelt beside
the stranger. She took off his boots and socks first.
There almost seemed to be a hint of amusement in
his eyes as he watched her. But when she reached
for his jacket he crossed his arms protectively over
his chest.

 "You'll die of pneumonia if you keep these clothes
on," she said in her best bedside manner. "Let me
take them off."

 The man said, "I really don't think we know each
other well enough after all, we haven't been
introduced."

 It was the first time he had spoken. His voice was
so confident, his words so formal, that the contrast
with his terrible appearance made Lucy laugh out
loud. "You're shy?" she said.

 "I just think a man should preserve an air of
mystery." He was grinning broadly, but his smile
collapsed suddenly and his eyes closed in pain.

 David came back with clean nightclothes over his
arm. "You two seem to be getting on remarkably
well already," he said.

183

             Ken Follett

 "You'll have to undress him," Lucy said. "He won't
let me."

David's look was unreadable.

  The stranger said, "I'll manage on my own,
thanks if it's not too awfully ungracious of me."

  "Suit yourself," David said. He dumped the
clothes on a chair and wheeled out.

  "I'll make some more tea," Lucy said as she
followed. She dosed the living room door behind
her.

  In the kitchen, David was already filling the
kettle, a lighted cigarette dangling from his lips.
quickly cleared up the broken china in the hall, then
joined him.

  'Five minutes ago I wasn't at all sure the chap
was alive and now he's dressing himself," David
said.

  Lucy busied herself with a teapot. "Perhaps he
was shamming."

  "The prospect of being undressed by you certainly
brought about a rapid recovery."

"I can't believe anyone could be that shy."

  "Your own lack in that area may lead you to
underestimate its power in others."

  Lucy rattled cups. "Let's not quarrel today,
David we've got something more interesting to do.
For a change." She picked up the tray and walked
into the living room.

  The stranger was buttoning his pajama jacket. He
turned his back to her as she walked in. She put tire
tray down and poured tea. When she turned back
he was wearing David's robe.

"You're very kind," he said. His gaze was direct.

  He really didn't seem the shy type, Lucy thought.
However, he was some years older than she about
forty, she guessed. That might account for it. He
was looking less of a castaway every minute.

  "Sit close to the fire," she told him. She handed
him a cup of tea.

  "I'm not sure I can manage the saucer," he said.
"My fingers aren't functioning." He took the cup
from her stiffhanded, holding it between both
palms, and carried it carefully to his lips.

David came in and offered him a cigarette. He
declined.

The stranger emptied the cup. "Where am I?" he
asked.
               184
               
          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

"This place is called Storm Island," David told him.

 The man showed a trace of relief. "I thought I
might have been blown back to the mainland."

 David pointed the man's toes at the fire to warm
his bare feet. "You were probably swept into the
bay," David said. "Things usually are. That's how the
beach was formed."

 Jo came in, bleary-eyed, trailing a one-armed
panda as big as himself. When he saw the stranger
he ran to Lucy and hid his face.

"I've frightened your little girl." The man smiled.

 "He's a boy. I must cut his hair." Lucy lifted Jo
onto her lap.

 "I'm sorry." The stranger's eyes closed again, and
he swayed in his seat.

 Lucy stood up, dumping Jo on the sofa. "We must
put the poor man to bed, David."

 "Just a minute," David said. He wheeled himself
closer to the man. "Might there be any other
survivors?" he asked.

 The man's face looked up. "I was alone," he
muttered. He was very nearly all in.

"David " Lucy began.

 "One more question: did you notify the coastguard
of your route?"

"What does it matters" Lucy said.

 "It matters because, if he did, there may be men
out there risking their lives looking for him, and we
can let them know he's safe."

The man said slowly, "I . . . did not . . ."

 "That's enough," Lucy told David. She knelt in
front of the man. "Can you make it upstairs?"

He nodded and got slowly to his feet.

  Lucy looped his arm over her shoulders and
began to wall: him out. "I'll put him in Jo's bed," she
said.

  They took the stairs one at a time, pausing on
each. When they reached the top, the little color
that the fire had restored to the man's face had
drained away again. Lucy led him into the smaller
bedroom. He collapsed onto the bed.

  Lucy arranged the blankets over him, tucked him
in and left the room, closing the door quietly.

Relief washed over Faber in a tidal wave. For the
last few
                 185
                  
             Ken Follet'

minutes, the effort of self-control had been
superhuman. He felt limp, defeated and ill.

 After the front door had opened, he had allowed
himself to collapse for a while. The danger had
come when the beautiful girl had started to undress
him, and he had remembered the can of film taped
to his chest. Dealing with that had restored his
alertness for a while. He had also been afraid they
might call for an ambulance, but that had not been
mentioned; perhaps the island was too small to have
a hospital. At least he was not on the
mainland there it would have been impossible to
prevent the reporting of the shipwreck. However,
the trend of the husband's questions had indicated
that no report would be made immediately.

 Faber had no energy to speculate about problems
farther ahead. He seemed to be safe for the time
being, and that was as far as he could go. In the
meantime he was warm and dry and alive, and the
bed was soft.

 He turned over, reconnoitering the room: door,
window, chimney. The habit of caution survived
everything but death itself. The walls were pink, as
if the couple had hoped for a baby girl. There was
a train set and a great many picture books on the
floor. It was a safe, domestic place; a home. He was
a wolf in a sheepfold. A lame wolf.

 He closed his eyes. Despite his exhaustion, he had
to force himself to relax, muscle by muscle.
Gradually his head emptied of thought and he slept.

 Lucy tasted the porridge, and added another pinch
of salt. They had got to like it the way Tom made it,
the Scots way, without sugar. She would never go
back to making sweet porridge, even when sugar
became plentiful and unrationed again. It was funny
how you got used to things when you had to: brown
bread and margarine and salt porridge.

 She ladled it out and the family sat down to
breakfast. Jo had lots of milk to cool his. David ate
vast quantities these days, without getting fat: it was
the outdoor life. She looked at his hands on the
table. They were rough and permanently brown, the
hands of a manual worker. She had noticed the
stranger's hands his fingers were long, the skin
white under the blood and the bruising. He was
unaccustomed to the abrasive work of crowing a
boat.

186

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

  "You won't get much done today," Lucy said.
"The storm looks like it's staying."

  "Makes no difference. Sheep still have to be cared
for, whatever the weather."

"Where will you be?"

"Tom's end. I'll go up there in the jeep."

Jo said, "Can I come?"

"Not today," Lucy told him. "It's too wet and cold."

"But I don't like the man."

  Lucy smiled. "Don't be silly. He won't do us any
harm. He's almost too ill to move."

"Who is he?"

  "We don't know his name. He's been
shipwrecked, and we have to look after him until
he's well enough to go back to the mainland. He's
a very nice man."

"Is he my uncle?"

"Just a stranger, Jo. Lat up."

  Jo looked disappointed. He had met an uncle
once. In hm mind uncles were people who gave out
candy, which he liked, and money, which he had no
use for.

  David Snished his breakfast and put on his
mackintosh, a tent-shaped garment with sleeves with
a hole for his head, and that covered most of his
wheelchair as well as him. He put a sou'wester on
his head and tied it under his chin, kissed Jo, said
good-bye to Lucy.

  A minute or two later she heard the jeep start up
and went to the window to watch David drive off
into the rain. The rear wheels of the vehicle
slithered about in the mud. He would have to take
care.

  She turned to Jo. He said, "This is a dog." He was
making a picture on the tablecloth with porridge
and milk.

  Lucy slapped his hand. "What a horrid mess!" The
boy'8 face took on a grim, sulky look, and Lucy
thought how much he resembled his father. They
had the same dark skin and nearly-black hair, and
they both had a way of withdrawing when they were
cross. But Jo laughed a lot he had inherited
something from Lucy's side of the family, thank
God.

  Jo mistook her contemplative stare for anger, and
said, "I'm sorry."

  She washed him at the kitchen sink, then cleared
away the breakfast things, thinking about the
stranger upstairs. Now

 -       187

              Ken Follett

that the immediate crisis was past, and it seemed the
man was not going to die, she was eaten with
curiosity about him. Who was he? Where was he
from? What had he been doing in the storm? Did he
have a family? Why did he have workman's clothes,
a clerk's hands, and a Home Counties accent? It was
rather exciting.

 It occupied to her that, if she had lived anywhere
else, she would not have accepted his sudden
appearance so readily. He might, she supposed, be
a deserter, or a criminal, or even an escaped
prisoner of war. But one forgot, living on the island,
that other human beings could be threatening
instead of companionable. It was so nice to see a
new face that to harbor suspicions seemed
ungrateful. Maybe unpleasant t bought she more
than most people was ready to welcome an attractive
man.... She pushed the thought out of her mind.

 Silly, silly. He was so tired and ill that he could
not possibly threaten anyone. ELven on the
mainland, who could have refused to take him in,
bedraggled and unconscious? When he felt better
they could question him, and if his story of how he
got here was less than plausible, they could radio the
mainland from Tom's cottage.

 When she had washed up she crept upstairs to
look at hirn. He slept facing the door, and when she
looked in, his eyes opened instantly. Again there was
that initial, split-second flash of fear.

  "It's all right," Lucy whispered. "Just making sure
you're okay."

He closed his eyes without speaking.

 She went downstairs again. She dressed herself
and Jo in oilskins and WeUingtQn boots and they
went out. The rain was still coming down in torrents,
and the wind was terrific. She glanced up at the
roof: they had lost some slates. Leaning into the
wind, she headed for the cliff top.

 She held Jo's hand tightly ho might quite easily
be blown away. Two minutes later she was wishing
she had stayed indoors. Rain came in under her
raincoat collar and over the tops of her boots. Jo
must be soaked too but now that they were wet they
might as wed stay wet for a few minutes more. Lucy
wanted to go to the beach.

188

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

 However, when they reached the top of the ramp
she realized it was impossible. The narrow wooden
walkway was slippery with rain, and in this wind she
might lose her balance and fall off, to plunge sixty
feet to the beach below. She had to content herself
with looking.

It was quite a sight.

 Vast waves, each the size of a small house, were
rolling in rapidly, close on each other's heels.
Crossing the beach the wave would rise even higher,
its crest curling in a question mark, then throw itself
against the foot of the cliff in a rage. Spray rose
over the cliff top in sheets, causing Lucy to step
back hurriedly and Jo to squeal with delight. Lucy
could hear her son's laughter only because he had
climbed into her arms, and his mouth was now close
to her ear; the noise of the wind and the sea
drowned more distant sounds.

 There was something terribly thrilling in watching
the elements spit and sway and roar in fury, in
standing fractionally too close to the cliff edge,
feeling threatened and safe at the same time,
shivering with cold and perspiring in fear. It was
thrilling, and there were few thrills in her life.

 She was about to go back, mindful of Jo's health,
when she saw the boat.

 It was not a boat any more, of course; that was
what wag so shocking about it. All that was left
were the large timbers of the deck and the keel.
They were scattered on the rocks below the cliffs
like a dropped handful of matches. It had been a
big boat, Lucy realized. One man might have
piloted it alone, but not easily. And the damage the
sea had wrought on it was awesome. It was hard to
detect two bits of wood still joined together.

 How, in heaven's name, had their stranger come
out of it alivel

 She shuddered when she thought of what those
waves and those rocks might have done to a human
body. Jo caught her sudden change of mood and
said into her ear, "Go home, now." She turned
quickly away from the sea and hurried along the
muddy path to the cottage.

 Back inside, they took off their wet coats, hats
and boots, and hung them in the kitchen to dry.
Lucy went upstairs and looked in on the stranger
again. This time he did not open his 189

             Ken Po11ctt

eyes. He seemed to be sleeping very peacefully, yet
she had a feeling that he had awakened and
recognized her tread on the stairs, and closed his
eyes again before she opened the door.

  She ran a hot bath. She and the boy were soaked
to the skin. She undressed Jo and put him in the
tub, then on impulse took off her own clothes
and got in with him. The heat was blissful. She
closed her eyes and relaxed. This was good, too; to
be in a house, feeling warm, while the storm beat
impotently at the strong stone walls.

  Life had turned interesting, all of a sudden. In
one night there had been a storm, a shipwreck, and
a mystery man; this after three years of . . . She
hoped the stranger would wake up soon so that she
could find out about him.

  Meanwhile it was time she started cooking lunch
for the men. She had some breast of lamb to make
a stew. She got out of the bath and towered herself
gently. Jo was playing with his bath toy, a
much-chewed rubber cat. Lucy looked at herself in
the mirror, examining the stretch-marks on her
belly left by pregnancy. They were fading, slowly,
but they would never completely disappear. An
all-over suntan would help, though. She smiled to
herself. Fat chance of that! Besides, who was
interested in her tummy? Nobody but herself.

  Jo said, "Can I stay in a minute more?" It was a
phrase he used, "a minute more," and it could mean
anything up to a half a day.

  "Just while I get dressed," she told him and hung
the towel on a rail and moved toward the door.

The stranger stood in the doorway, looking at her.

  They stared at each other. It was odd Lucy
thought later that she felt not a bit afraid. It was
the way he looked at her; there was no threat in his
expression, no lewdness, no smirk. He was not
looking at her pubis, or even her breasts, but at her
face into her eyes. She looked back, a bit shocked
but not embarrassed, with just a tiny part of her
mind wondering why she did not squeal, cover
herself with her hands and slam the door on him.

  Something did come into his eyes, at
last perhaps she was imagining it, but she saw
admiration, and a faint twinkle of honest humor,
and a trace of sadness and then the hold we,

                 190
                  
          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

broken and he turned away and went back into
his bedroom, closing the door. A moment later
Lucy heard the springs creak as his weight settled
onto the bed.

And for no good reason at all she felt dreadfully
guilty.

                 191
                  
                 20

Percival Godliman had by now pulled out all the
stops.

 Every policeman in the United Kingdom had a
copy of the photograph of Faber, and about half of
them were engaged full time in the search. In the
cities they were checking hotels and guest houses,
railway stations and bus terminals, cafes and
shopping canters; and the bridges, arches and
bombed lots where derelicts hung out. In the
country they were looking in barns and silos, empty
cottages and ruined castles, thickets and clearings
and cornfields. They were showing the photograph
to ticket clerks, petrol station staff, ferry hands and
toll collectors. All the passenger ports and airfields
were covered, with the picture pinned behind a
board at every passport control desk.

 The police, of course, still thought they were
looking for a straightforward murderer. The cop on
the street knew that the man in the picture had
killed two people with a knife in London. Senior
officers knew a bit more; that one of the murders
had been a sexual assault, another apparently mo-
tiveless and a third which their men were not to
know of  was an unexplained but bloody attack on
a soldier on the Euston-to-Liverpool train. Only
chief constables, and a few officers at Scotland
Yard, knew that the soldier had been on 192

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

temporary attachment to MI5 and that all the
murders were somehow connected with Security.

 The newspapers, too, thought it was an ordinary
murder hunt. The day after Godliman had released
details, most of them had carried the story in their
later editions the first editions, bound for
Scotland, Ulster and North Wales, had missed it, so
they carried a shortened version a day later. The
Stockwell victim had been identified as a laborer,
and given a false name and a vague London
background. Godliman's press release had
connected that murder with the death of Mrs. Una
Garden in 1940, but had been vague about the
nature of the link. The murder weapon was said to
be a stiletto.

 The two Liverpool newspapers heard very quickly
of the body on the train, and both wondered
whether the London knife murderer was
responsible. Both made enquiries with the
Liverpool police. The editors of both papers
received phone calls from the chief constable.
Neither paper carried the story.

 A total of one hundred and fifty-seven tall dark
men were arrested on suspicion of being Paber. All
but twenty-nine of them were able to prove that
they could not possibly have committed the
murders. Interviewers from MI5 talked to the
twenty-nine. Twenty-seven called in parents,
relatives and neighbors, who affirmed that they had
been born in Britain and had been living there
during the '20s, when Paber had been in Germany.

 The last two were brought to London and
interviewed again, this time by Godliman. Both
were bachelors, living alone, with no surviving
relatives, leading a transient existence. The first was
a well-dressed, conSdent man who claimed
implausibly that his way of life was to travel the
country taking odd jobs as a manual laborer.
Godliman explained that unlike the police he
had the power to incarcerate anyone for the
duration of the war, and no questions asked.
Furthermore, he was not in the least interested in
ordinary peccadilloes, and any information given
him here at the War Office was strictly confidential
and would go no further.

 The prisoner promptly confessed to being a
confidence trickster and gave the address of
nineteen elderly ladies ~93

             Ken Follett

whom he had cheated out of their old jewelry
during the past three weeks. Godliman turned him
over to the police.

He felt no obligation to be honest with a
professional liar.

 The last suspect also cracked under Godliman's
treatment. His secret was that he was not a
bachelor at an, not by a long way. He had a wife in
Brighton. And in Solihull, Birmingham. And in
Colchester, Newbury and Exeter. AU five were able
to produce marriage certificates later that day. The
bigamist went to jail to await trial.

Godliman slept in his office while the hunt went on.

Bristol, Temple Meads, railway station:

"Good morning, Miss. Would you look at this
please?"

"Hey, girls the bobby's going to show us his
snaps!"

"Now, don't muck about, just tell me if you've seen
him."

"Ooh, ain't he handsome! I wish I had!"

  "You wouldn't if you knew what he'd done.
Would you all take a look, please?"

"Never seen him."

"Me neither."

"Not me."

  "When you catch him, ask him if he wants to
meet a nice young Bristol girl "

  "You girls I don't know . . . just because they
give you a pair of trousers and a porter's job, you
think you're supposed to act like men...."

The Woolwich Ferry:

"Filthy day, Constable."

"Morning, Captain. I expect it's worse on the high
seas."

'Can I help you? Or are you just crossing the
river?"

'I want you to look at a face, captain."

  "Let me put my specs on. Oh, don't worry, I can
see to guide the ship. It's close things I need the
glasses for. Now then . . ."

"Ring any bells?"

"Sorry, constable. Means nothing to me."

"Well, let me know if you see him."

"Certainly."

"Bon voyage."

"Not bloody likely."

194

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

Number 35 Leak Street, London E1:

"Sergeant Riley what a nice surprise!"

'.'Never mind the lip, Mabel. Who've you got
here?"

"All respectable guests, sergeant; you know me."

 "I know you, all right. That's why I'm here. Would
any of your nice respectable guests happen to be on
the trot?"

"Since when have you been recruiting for the
army?"

  "I'm not, Mabel, I'm looking for someone, arid if
he's here, he's probably told you he's on the trot."

  "Look, Jack if I tell you there's nobody here I
don't know, will you go away and stop pestering
me?"

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because of 1936."

"You were better looking then, Mabel."

"So were you, Jack."

  "You win . . . take a butcher's at this. If chummy
comes in here, send word, okay?"

"Promise."

"Don't waste any time about it, either."

"All rightl"

  "Mabel . . . he knifed a woman your age. I'm just
marking your cards."

Bill's Cafe, on the A30 near Bagshot:

"Tea, please, Bill. Two sugars."

"Good morning, Constable Pearson. Filthy day."

"What's on that plate, Bill pebbles from
Portsmouth?"

"Buttered buns, as well you know."

  "Oh! I'll have two, then. Thanks.... Now then,
ladsl Anyone who wants his lorry checked from top
to bottom can leave right away.... That's better.
Take a look at this pie" sure, please."

  "What are you after him for, constablffycling
without lights?"

  "Never mind the jokes, Harry pass the picture
around. Anybody given a lift to that bloke?"

"Not me."

"No."

`'Sorry, constable."

"Never clapped eyes on him."

"Thank you, lads. If you see him, report it.
Cheerio."
               19J
               
             Ken Polktt

"Constable?"

"Yes, Bill?"

"You haven't paid for the buns."

Smethwick's Garage, Carlisle:

"Morning, Missus. When you've got a minute...."

  "Be right with you, officer. Just let me attend to
this gentleman . . . twelve and sixpence, please, sir.
Thank you. Goodbye...."

"How's business?"

"Terrible as usual. What can I do for you?"

"Can we go in the office for a minute?"

"Aye, come on . . . now, then."

  "Take a look at this picture and tell me whether
you've served that man with petrol recently."

  "Well, it shouldn't be too difficult. It's not as if we
get hordes of customers passing through . . . ohh!
D'you know, I think I have served him!"

"When?"

"Day before yesterday, in the morning."

"How sure are you?"

  "Well . . . he was older than the picture, but I'm
pretty sure."

"What was he driving?"

  "A grey car. I'm no good on makes, this is my
husband's business really, but he's in the Navy
now."

"Well, what did it look like?"

  "It was the old sort, with a canvas roof that comes
up. A two-seater. Sporty. It had a spare petrol tank
bolted to the running board, and I filled that too."

"Do you remember what he was wearing?"

"Not really . . . working clothes, I think."

"A tall man?"

"Yes, taller than you."

"Have you got a telephoned . . ."

  William Duncan was twenty-five years old,
five-feet-ten, weighed a trim 150 pounds and was in
first-class health. His open-air life and total lack of
interest in tobacco, drink, late nights and loose
living kept him that way. Yet he was not in the
armed services.

196

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

 He had seemed to be a normal child, if a little
backward, until the age of eight, when his mind had
lost the ability to develop any further. There had
been no trauma that anyone knew about, no
physical damage to account for sudden breakdown.
Indeed it was some years before anyone noticed that
there was anything wrong, for at the age of ten he
was no more than a little backward, and at twelve
he was just dim-witted; but by fifteen he was
obviously simple, and by eighteen he was known as
Daft Willie.

 His parents were both members of an obscure
fundamentalist religious group whose members were
not aDowed to marry outside the church (which
may or may not have had anything to do with
Willie's daftness). They prayed for him, of course,
but they also took him to a specialist in Stirling. The
doctor, an elderly man, did several tests and then
told them, over the tops of his gold-rIrnmed
half-glasses, that the boy had a mental age of eight
and his mind would grow no older, ever. They
continued to pray for him, but they suspected that
the Lord had sent this to try them, so they made
sure Willie was Saved and looked forward to the
day when they would meet him in the Glory and he
would be healed. Meanwhile, he needed a job.

 An eight-year-old can herd cows, but herding cows
is nevertheless a job, so Daft Willie became a
cowherd. And it was while herding cows that he saw
the car for the first time.

He assumed there were lovers in it.

 Willie knew about lovers. That is to say, he knew
that lovers existed, and that they did unmentionable
things to one another in dark places like copses and
cinemas and cars; and that one did not speak of
them. So he hurried the cows quickly past the bush
beside which was parked the 1924 Morris Cowley
Bullnose two-seater (he knew about cars, too, lee
any eight-year-old) and tried very hard not to look
inside it in case he should behold sin.

 He took his little herd into the cowshed for
milking, went by a roundabout route to his home,
ate supper, read a chap ter from Leviticus to his
father aloud, painstakingly then went to bed to
dream about lovers.

The car was still there on the evening of the next
day.

 For all his innocence Willie knew that lovers did
not do whatever it was that they did to one another
for twenty-four 197

             Ken Polktt

hours at a stretch, so this time he went right up to
the car and looked inside. It was empty. The ground
beneath the engine was black and sticky with oil.
Willie devised explanation: the car had broken down
and had been abandoned by its driver. It did not
occur to him to wonder why it had been
semiconcealed in a bush.

 When he arrived at the cowshed he told the
farmer what he had seen. "There's a broken-down
car on the path up by the main road."

 The farmer was a big man with heavy sand-colored
eyebrows, which drew together when he was
thinking. "Was there nobody about?"

"No and it was there yesterday."

"Why did you not tell me yesterday, then?"

 Willie blushed. "I thought it was maybe . . . you
know ... Iovers."

 The farmer realized that Willie was not being coy,
but was genuinely embarrassed. He patted the boy's
shoulder. "Well, away home and leave it to me to
deal with."

 After the milking the farmer went to look for
himself. It did occur to him to wonder why the car
was semiconcealed. He had heard about the London
stiletto murderer, and while he did not jump to the
conclusion that the car had been abandoned by the
killer, all the same he thought there might be a
connection between the car and some crime or
other; so after supper he sent his eldest son into the
village on horseback to telephone the police in
Stirling.

 The police arrived before his son got back from
the phone. There were at least a dozen of them,
every one apparently a nonstop tea drinker. The
farmer and his wife were up half the night looking
after them.

 Daft Willie was summoned to tell his story again,
repeating that he had first seen the car the previous
evening, blushing again when he explained that he
had assumed it contained lovers.

All in all, it was their most exciting night of the war.

 That evening, Percival Godliman, facing his fourth
consecutive night in the office, went home to bathe,
change and pack a suitcase.

He had a service flat in a block in Chelsea. It was
small, 198

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

though big enough for a single man, and it was
clean and tidy except for the study, which the
cleaning lady was not allowed to enter and as a
consequence was littered with books and papers.
The furniture was all prewar, of course, but it was
rather well chosen, and the flat had a comfortable
air. There were leather club chairs and a
gramophone in the iiving room, and the kitchen
was full of hardly used labor-saving devices.

  While his bath was filling he smoked a
cigarette he had taken to them lately, a pipe was
too much fuss and looked at his most valuable
possession, a grimly fantastic medieva1 scene that
was probably by Hieronymous Bosch. It was a
family heirloom and Godliman had never sold it,
even when he needed the money.

  In the bath he thought about Barbara Dickens
and her son Peter. He had not told anyone about
her, not even Bloggs, although he had been about
to mention her during their conversation about
remarrying, but Colonel Terry had interrupted. She
was a widow, her husband had been killed in action
at the very beginning of the war. Godliman did not
know how old she was. but she looked about forty,
which was young for the mother of a
twenty-two-year-old boy. She worked on decoding
intercepted enemy signals, and she was bright,
amusing and very attractive. She was also rich.
Godliman had taken her to dinner three times
before the present crisis blew up. He thought she
was in love with him.

  She had contrived a meeting between Godliman
and her son Peter, who was a captain. Godliman
liked the boy. But he knew something that neither
Barbara nor her son- was aware of Peter was going
to France on D-Day.

  And whether or not the Germans were there
waiting for him depended on whether they caught
Die Nadel.

  He got out of the bath and took a long, careful
shave and asked himself, Am I in love with her?
He was not sure what love ought to feel like in
middle age. Not, surely, the burning passion of
youth. Affection, admiration, tenderness, and a
trace of uncertain lust? If they amounted to love,
he loved her.

  And he needed to share his life, now. For years
he had wanted only solitude and his research. Now
the camaraderie of Military Intelligence was
sucking him in: the parties, the 199

             Ken Follett

all-night sessions when something big broke. the
spirit of dedicated amateurism, the frantic
pleasure-seeking of people to whom death is always
close and never predictable all these bad infected
him. It would vanish after the war, he knew; but
other things would remain: the need to talk to
someone close about his disappointment and his
triumphs, the need to touch someone else at night,
the need to say, "There! Look at thatl Isn't it fine?"

 War was gruelling and oppressive and frustrating
and uncomfortable. but one had friends. If peace
brought back loneliness, Godliman thought he
would not be able to live with it.

 Right now the feel of clean underwear and a
crisply ironed shirt was the ultimate luxury. He put
more fresh clothes in a case, then sat down to
enjoy a glass of whisky before returning to the
office. The military chauffeur in the commandeered
Daimler outside could wait a little longer.

 He was filling a pipe when the phone rang. He
put down the pipe and lit a cigarette instead.

 His phone was connected to the War Office
switchboard. The operator told him that a Chief
Superintendent Dalkeith was calling from Stirling.

 He waited for the click of the connection.
"Godliman speaking."

 "We've found your Morris Cowley," Dalkeith said
without preamble.

"Where?"

"On the A80 just south of Stirling."

"Empty?"

  "Aye, broken down. It's been there at least
twenty-four hours. It was driven a few yards off the
main road and hidden in a bush. A half-witted
farm boy found it."

  "Is there a bus stop or railway station within
walking distance of the spot?"

"No."

  "So it's likely our man had to walk or hitchhike
after leaving the car."

"Aye."

"In that case, will you ask around "

  "We're already trying to find out whether anyone
local saw him or gave him a lift."

200

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

 "Good. Let me know . . . Meanwhile, I'll pass the
news to the Yard. Thank you, Dalkeith."

"We'll keep In touch. Good-bye, sir."

 Godliman put the phone on the hook and went
into his study. He sat down with an atlas open to
the road map of northern Britain. London,
Liverpool, Carlisle, Stirling . . . Faber was heading
for northeast Scotland.

 Godliman wondered whether he should
reconsider the theory that Faber was trying to get
out. The best way out was west, via neutral Eire.
Scotland's east coast, however, was the site of all
sorts of military activity. Was it possible that Faber
had the nerve to continue his reconnaissance,
knowing that M15 was on his tail? It was possible,
Godliman decided he knew Faber had a lot of
guts but nevertheless unlikely. Nothing the man
might discover in Scotland could be as important as
the information he already had.

 Therefore Faber was getting out via the east
coast. Godliman ran over the methods of escape
which were open to the spy: a light plane, landing
on a lonely moor; a one-man voyage across the
North Sea in a stolen vessel; a rendezvous with a
U-boat, as Bloggs had speculated, off the coast; a
passage in a merchant ship via a neutral country to
the Baltic, disembarking in Sweden and crossing
the border to occupied Norway . . . there were too
many ways.

 In any case the Yard must be told of the latest
development. They would ask all Scots police forces
to try to find someone who had picked up a
hitchhiker outside Stirling. Godliman returned to
the living room to phone, but the instrument rang
before he got there. He picked it up.

"Godliman speaking."

"A Mr. Richard Porter is calling from Aberdeen."

 "Oh!" Godliman had been expecting Bloggs to
check in from Carlisle. "Put him on, please. Hello?
Godliman speaking."

 "Ah, Richard Porter here. I'm on the local Watch
Committee up here."

"Yes, what can I do for you?"

"Well, actually, old boy, it's terribly embarrassing."

Godlimari controlled his impatience. "Go on."

"This chappie you're looking for knife murders and
so 201

             Ken Follett

on. Well, I'm pretty sure I gave the belly fellow a
lift in my own car."

Godliman gripped the receiver more tightly.
"When?"

 "Night before last. My car broke down on the
A80just outside Stirling. Middle of the belly night.
Along comes this chappie, on foot, and mends it,
just like that. So naturally "

"Where did you drop him?"

  "Right here in Aberdeen. Said he was going on to
Banff. Thing is, I slept most of yesterday, so it
wasn't until this afternoon "

  "Don't reproach yourself, Mr. Porter. Thank you
for calling."

"Well, good-bye."

  Godliman jiggled the receiver and the War
OfFice operator came back on the line.

  Godliman said: "Get Mr. Bloggs for me, would
you? He's in Carlisle."

"He's holding on for you right now, sir."

"Good!"

"Hello, Percy. What news?"

  "We're on his trail again, Fred. He was identified
in a garage in Carlisle, and he abandoned the
Morris just outside Stirling and hitched a lift to
Aberdeen."

"Aberdeen!"

"He must be trying to get out through the east
door."

"When did he reach Aberdeen?"

"Probably early yesterday morning."

  "In that case he won't have had time to get out,
unless he was very quick indeed. They're having the
worst storm in living memory up here. It started
last night and it's still going on. No ships are going
out and it's certainly too rough to land a plane."

  "Good. Get up there as fast as you can. I'll start
the local police moving in the meantime. Call me
when you reach Aberdeen."

"I'm on my way."

                 203
                  
                 21

When Faber woke up it was almost dark. Through
the bedroom window he could see the last streaks
of grey being inked out of the sky by the
encroaching night. The storm had not eased; rain
drummed on the roof and overflowed from a
gutter, and the wind howled and gusted tirelessly.

  He switched on the little lamp beside the bed.
The effort tired him, and he slumped back onto the
pillow. It frightened him to be this weak. Those
who believe that might is right must always be
mighty, and Faber was sufficiently self-aware to
know the implications of his own ethics. Fear was
never far from the surface of his emotions; perhaps
that was why he had survived so long. He was
chronically incapable of feeling safe. He
understood, in that vague way in which one
sometimes understands the most fundamental
things about oneself, that his very insecurity was
the reason he chose the profession of spy; it was
the only way of life which could permit him
instantly to kill anyone who posed him the slightest
threat. The fear of being weak was part of the syn-
drome that included his obsessive independence,
his insecurity, and his contempt for his military
superiors.

  He lay on the child's bed in the pink-walled
bedroom and inventoried his body. He seemed to
be bruised just about everywhere, but apparently
nothing was broken. He did not feel 203

             Ken Folle(t

feverish; his constitution had withstood bronchial
infection despite the night on the boat. There was
just the weakness. He suspected it was more than
exhaustion. He remembered a moment, as he had
reached the top of the ramp, when he had thought
he was going to die; and he wondered whether he
had inflicted on himself some permanent damage
with the last mind-bending uphill dash.

 He checked his possessions too. The can of
photographic negatives was still taped to his chest,
the stiletto was strapped to his left arm, and his
papers and money were in the jacket pocket of his
borrowed pajamas.

 He pushed the blankets aside and swung himself
into a sitting position with his feet on the floor. A
moment of dizziness came and went He stood up.
It was important not to permit himself the
psychological attitudes of an invalid. He put on the
dressing gown and went into the bathroom.

 When he returned his own clothes were at the
foot of the bed, clean and pressed: underwear,
overalls and shirt. Suddenly he remembered getting
up sometime during the morning and seeing the
woman naked in the bathroom; it had been an odd
scene and he was not sure what it meant. She was
very beautiful, he recalled. He was sure of that.

 He dressed slowly. He would have liked a shave,
but he decided to ask his host's permission before
borrowing the blade on the bathroom shelf; some
men were as possessive of their razors as they were
of their wives. However, he did take the liberty of
using the child's bakelite comb he found in the top
-drawer of the chest.

 He looked into the mirror without pride. He had
no conceit. He knew that some women found him
attractive, and others did not; and he assumed this
was so for most men. Of course, he had had more
women than most men, but he attributed this to his
appetite, not to his looks. His reflection told him he
was presentable, which was an he needed to know.

 He left the bedroom and went slowly down the
stairs. Again he felt a wave of weakness; and again
he willed himself to overcome it, gripping the
banister rail and placing one foot deliberately
before the other until he reached the ground floor.

Ele paused outside the living room door and, hearing
no 204

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

noise, went on to the kitchen. He knocked and
went in. The young couple were at the table,
finishing supper.

 The woman stood up when he entered. "You got
up!" she said. "Are you sure you should?"

 Faber permitted himself to be led to a chair.
"Thank you," he said. "You really mustn't
encourage me to pretend to be in."

 "I don't think you realize what a terrible
experience you've been through," she said. "Do you
feel like food?"

"I'm imposing on you "

"Not at all. Don't be silly. I kept some soup hot for
you."

 Faber said, "You're so kind, and I don't even
know your names."

 "David and Lucy Rose." She ladled soup into a
bowl and placed it on the table in front of him.
"Cut some bread, David, would you?"

 "I'm Henry Baker." Faber did not know why he
had said that, he had no papers in that name.
Henry Faber was the man the police were hunting,
so he was right to have used his James Baker
identity; but somehow he wanted this woman to call
him Henry, the nearest English equivalent of his
real name, Heinrich.

 He took a sip of the soup, and suddenly he was
ravenously hungry. He ate it all quickly, then the
bread. When he'd finished Lucy laughed. She
looked lovely when she laughed; her mouth opened
wide, showing lots of even white teeth, and her eyes
crinkled merrily at the corners.

"More?" she offered.

'thank you very much."

 "I can see it doing you good. The color is coming
back to your cheeks."

 Faber realized he felt physically better. He forced
himself to eat his second helping more slowly, out
of courtesy, but he still relished it.

 David said, "How did you happen to be out in
this storm?" It was the first time he had spoken.

"Don't badger him, David . . ."

 "It's all right," Faber said quickly. "I was foolish,
that's an. This is the first fishing holiday I've been
able to have since before the war, and I just
refused to let the weather spoil it Are you a
fisherman?"

205

             Ken PollcU

David shook his head. "Sheep farmer."

"Do you have many employees?"

"Just one, old Tom."

"I suppose there are other sheep farms on the
island."

 "No. We live at this end, Tom lives at the other
end, and in between there's nothing but sheep."

 Paber nodded. Good very good. A woman, a
cripple, a child and an old man . . . and he was
already feeling much stronger.

"How do you contact the mainland?" Faber said.

 'Y'here's a boat once a fortnight. It's due this
Monday but it won't come if the storm keeps up.
There's a radio transmitter in Tom's cottage, but we
can only use that in emergencies. If I thought
people might be searching for you, or if you needed
urgent medical help, I should use it. But as things
are I don't feel it's necessary. There's little point;
nobody can come to fetch you off the island until
the stormclears and when that happens the boat will
come anyway."

 "Of course." Paber's tone concealed his delight.
The problem of how to contact the U-boat on
Monday had been nagging at the back of his mind.
He had seen an ordinary wireless set in the Roses'
living room, and he would, if necessary, have been
able to rig up a transmitter from that. But the fact
that this Tom had a proper radio made everything
so much simpler.... "What does Tom need a
transmitter for?"

 "He's a member of the Royal Observer Corps.
Aberdeen was bombed July of 1940. There was no
air raid warning. There were fifty casualties. That
was when they recruited Tom. It's a good thing his
hearing is better than his eyesight."

"I suppose the bombers come from Norway."

"I suppose so."

Lucy stood up. "Let's go into the other room."

 The two men followed her. Faber felt no
weakness, no dizziness. He held the living room
door for David, who wheeled himself close to the
fire. Lucy offered Faber brandy. He declined. She
poured one for her husband and herself.

 Faber sat back and allowed himself to study them.
Lucy was really quite striking: she had an oval face,
wide-set eyes of an unusual, cat-like amber color
and an abundance of rich, dark-red hair. Under the
mannish fisherman's sweater 20C

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

and baggy trousers there was the suggestion of her
very good, fullish figure. Dressed up in silk
stockings and, say, a cocktail sort of dress, she
might be very glamorous. David was also
handsome almost pretty, except for the shadow of
a very dark beard. His hair was nearly black and his
skin looked Mediterranean. He would have been
tall if he had had legs in proportion to his arms.
Faber suspected that those arms might be powerful,
muscled from years of pushing the wheels of the
chair.

 An attractive couple but there was something
badly wrong between them. Faber was no expert on
marriage, but his training in interrogation
techniques had taught him to read the silent
language of the body to know, from small
gestures, when someone was frightened, confident,
hiding something, or Iying. Lucy and David rarely
looked at one another, and never touched. They
spoke to him more than to each other. They circled
one another, like turkeys trying to keep in front of
them a few square feet of vacant territory. The
tension between them was enormous. They were
like Churchill and Stalin, obliged temporarily to
fight side by side, fiercely suppressing a deeper
enmity. Faber wondered what the trauma was that
lay at the back of their distance. This cozy little
house must be an emotional pressure cooker,
despite its rugs and its bright paintwork, its floral
armchairs and blazing fires and framed watercolors.
To live alone, with only an old man and a child for
company, with this thing between them . . . it
reminded him of a play he had seen in London, by
an American called Tennessee something

 Abruptly, David swallowed his drink and said, "I
must turn in. My back's playing up."

 Faber got to his feet. "I'm sorry I've been
keeping you up."

 David waved him down. "Not at all. You've been
asleep all day you won't want to go back to bed
right away. Besides, Lucy would like to chat, I'm
sure. It's just that I my treat my back backs were
designed to share the load with the legs, you know."

 Lucy said, "You'd better take two pills tonight
then." She took a bottle from the top shelf of the
bookcase, shook out two tablets and gave them to
her husband.

207

             Ken Pollett

 He swallowed them dry. "I'll say good night." He
wheeled himself out.

"Good night, David."

"Good night, Mr. Rose."

 After a moment Faber heard David dragging
himself up the stairs, and wondered just how he did
it.

 Lucy spoke, as if to cover the sound of David.
"Where do you live, Mr. Baker?"

"Please call me Henry. I live in London."

 "I haven't been to London for years. There's
probably not much of it left."

 "It's changed, but not as much as you might think.
When were you last there?"

 "Nineteen-forty." She poured herself another
brandy. "Since we came here, I've only been off the
island once, and that was to have the baby. One
can't travel much these days, can one?"

"What made you come here?"

 "Um." She sat down, sipped her drink, and looked
into the fire.

"Perhaps I shouldn't_ n

 "It's all right. We had an accident the day we got
married. That's how David lost his legs. He'd been
training as a fighter pilot . . . we both wanted to
run away, I think. I believe it was a mistake, but, as
they say, it seemed like a good idea at the time."

"It's a reason for a healthy man to feel resentment."

She gave him a sharp look. "You're a perceptive
man."

 "It's obvious." He spoke very quietly. "So is your
unhappiness."

She blinked nervously. "You see too much."

 "It's not difficult. Why do you continue, if it's not
working?"

 "I don't know quite what to tell you" or herself,
for talking so openly to him. "Do you want cliches?
The way he was before . . . the vows of marriage .
. . the child . . . the war.... If there's another answer,
I can't find good words for it."

 "Maybe guilt," Faber said. "But you're thinking of
leaving lum, aren't you?"

208

         I:YE OF THE NEEDLE

 She stared at him, slowly shaking her head. "How
do you know so much?"

 "You've lost the art of dissembling in four years
on this ~ land. Besides, these things are so much
simpler from the outside."

"Have you ever been married?"

"No. That's what I mean."

"Why not? . . . I think you ought to be."

 It was Faber's turn to look away, into the fire.
Why not, indeed? His stock answer to
himself was his profession. But of course he could
not tell her that, and anyway it was too glib. "I don't
trust myself to love anyone that much." The words
had come out without forethought he was
astonished to note and he wondered whether they
were true. A mo merit later he wondered how Lucy
had got past his guard, when he had thought he was
disarming her.

 Neither of them spoke for a while. The fire was
dying. A few stray raindrops found their way down
the chimney and hissed in the cooling coals. The
storm showed no sign of letting up. Faber found
himself thinking of the last woman he had had.
What was her name? Gertrud. It was seven years
ago, but he could picture her now in the flickering
fire: a round German face, fair hair, green eyes,
beautiful breasts, much-too-wide hips, fat legs, bad
feet; the conversational style of an express train, a
wild, inexhaustible enthusiasm for sex.... She had
flattered him, admiring his mind (she said) and
adoring his body (she had no need to tell him). She
wrote Iyrics for popular songs, and read them to
him in a poor basement flat in Berlin; it was not a
lucrative profession. He visualized her now in that
untidy bedroom, Iying naked, urging him to do
more bizarre and erotic things with her; to hurt her,
to touch himself, to lie completely still while she
made love to him.... He shook his head slightly to
brush away the memories. He had not thought like
that in all the years he had been celibate. Such
visions were disturbing. He looked at Lucy.

"You were far away," she said with a smile.

"Memories," he said. "This talk of love . . ."

"I shouldn't burden you."

`'You're not."

"Good memories?"

209

             Ren Follett

"Very good. And yours? You were thinking too."

She smiled again. "I was in the future, not the past."

"What do you see there?"

 She seemed about to answer, then changed her
mind. It happened twice. There were signs of
tension about her eyes.

 "I see you finding another man," Faber said. As he
spoke he was thinking, Why am I doing this? "He is
a weaker man than David, and less handsome, but
it's at least partly for his weakness that you love
him. He's clever, but not rich; compassionate
without being sentimental; tender, loving "

 The brandy glass in her hand shattered under the
pressure of her grip. The fragments fell into her lap
and onto the carpet, and she ignored them. Faber
crossed to her chair and knelt in front of her. Her
thumb was bleeding. He took her hand.

"You've hurt yourself."

She looked at him. She was crying.

"I'm sorry," he said.

 The cut was superficial. She took a handkerchief
from her trousers pocket and staunched the blood.
Faber released her hand and began to pick up the
pieces of broken glass, wish ing he had kissed her
when he'd had the chance. He put the shards on the
mantel.

"I didn't mean to upset you," he said. (Didn't he?)

 She took away the handkerchief and looked at her
thumb. It was still bleeding. (Yes, you did. And,
God knows, you have.)

"A bandage," he suggested.

"In the kitchen."

 He found a roll of bandage, a pair of scissors, and
a safety pin. He filled a small bowl with hot water
and returned to the living room.

 In his absence she had somehow obliterated the
evidence of tears on her face. She sat passively,
limp, while he bathed her thumb in the hot water,
dried it, and put a small strip of bandage over the
cut. She looked all the time at his face, not. at his
hands; but her expression was unreadable.

 He finished the job and stood back abruptly. This
was silly: he had taken the thing too far. Time to
disengage. "I think I'd better go to bed," he said.

She nodded.

210

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE
"I'm sorry "

"Stop apologising," she told him. "It doesn't suit
you."

 Her tone was harsh. He guessed that she, too,
felt the thing had got out of hand.

"Are you staying up?" he asked.

She shook her head.

  "Well . . ." He followed her through the hall
and up the stairs, and he watched her climb, her
hips moving gently.

  At the top of the stairs, on the tiny landing,
she turned and said in a low voice, "Good night."

"Good night, Lucy."

  She looked at him for a moment. He reached
for her hand, but she turned quickly away,
entering her bedroom and closing the door
without a backward look, leaving him standing
there, wondering what was in her mind
and more to the point what was really in his.

                 211
                  
                 22

Bloggs drove dangerously fast through the night in
a commandeered Sunbeam Talbot with a souped-up
engine. The hilly, winding Scottish roads were slick
with rain and, in a few Iow places, two or three
inches deep in water. The rain drove across the
windshield in sheets. On the more exposed hilltops
the gale-force winds threatened to blow the car off
the road and into the soggy turf alongside. For mile
after mile, Bloggs sat forward in the seat, peering
through the small area of glass that was cleared by
the wiper, straining his eyes to make out the shape
of the road in front as the headlights battled with
the obscuring rain. Just north of Edinburgh he ran
over three rabbits, feeling the sickening bump as
the tires squashed their small bodies. He did not
slow the car, but for a while afterward he wondered
whether rabbits normally came out at night.

 The strain gave him a headache, and his sitting
position made his back hurt. He also felt hungry.
He opened the window for a cold breeze to keep
him awake, but so much water came in that he was
immediately forced to close it again. He thought
about Die Nadel, or Faber or whatever he was call-
ing himself now: a smiling young man in running
shorts, holding a trophy. Well, so far Faber was
winning this race. 212

          EYE OF T}IENEEDLE

He was forty-eight hours ahead and he had the
advantage that only he knew the route that had to
be followed. Bloggs would have enjoyed a contest
with that man, if the stakes had not been so high,
so bloody high.

 He wondered what he would do if he ever came
face to face with the man. I'd shoot him out of
hand, he thought, before he killed me. Paber was
a pro, and you didn't mess with that type. Most
spies were amateurs: frustrated revolutionaries of
the left or right, people who wanted the imaginary
glamour of espionage, greedy men or lovesick
women or blackmail victims. The few professionals
were very dangerous indeed; they were not
merciful men.

 Dawn was still an hour or two away when Bloggs
drove into Aberdeen. Never in his life had he been
so grateful for street lights, dimmed and masked
though they were. He had no idea where the police
station was, and there was no one on the streets to
give him direction so he drove around the town
until he saw the familiar blue lamp (also dimmed).

 He parked the car and ran through the rain into
the building. He was expected. Godliman had been
on the phone, and Godliman was now very senior
indeed. Bloggs was shown into the office of Alan
Kincaid, a detective-chief-inspector in his
mid-fifties. There were three other officers in the
room; Bloggs shook their hands and instantly
forgot their names.

Kincaid said: "You made bloody good time from
Carlisle."

  "Nearly killed myself doing it," Bloggs replied,
and sat down. "If you can rustle up a sandwich...."

  "Of course." Kincaid leaned his head out of the
door and shouted something. "It'll be here in two
shakes," he told Bloggs.

  The office had off-white walls, a plank floor, and
plain hard furniture: a desk, a few chairs and a
filing cabinet. It was totally unrelieved: no pictures,
no ornaments, no personal touches of any kind.
There was a tray of dirty cups on the 900r, and the
air was thick with smoke. It smelled like a place
where men had been working all night.

  Kincaid had a small moustache, thin grey hair
and spectacles. A big intelligent-looking man in
shirtsleeves and braces, he spoke with a local
accent, a sign that, like Bloggs, he had come up
through the ranks though from his age it was
clear that his rise had been slower than Bloggs's.

213

                 Ken

Bloggs said: "How much do you know about all
this?"

 "Not much," Kincaid said. "But your governor
Godliman, did say that the London murders are
the least of this man's crimes. We also know which
department you're with, so we can put two and two
together about this Faber . . ."

"What have you done so far?" Bloggs asked.

 Kincaid put his feet on his desk. "He arrived here
two days ago, right? That was when we started
looking for him. We had the pictures I assume
every force in the country got them."

"Yes.''

 "We checked the hotels and lodging houses, the
station and the bus depot. We did it quite
thoroughly, although at the time we didn't know he
had come here. Needless to say, we had no results.
We're checking again, of course: but my opinion is
that he probably left Aberdeen immediately."

 A woman police constable came in with a cup of
tea and a very thick cheese sandwich. Bloggs
thanked her and greedily set about the sandwich.

 Kincaid went on: "We had a man at the railway
station before the first train left in the morning.
Same for the bus depot. So, if he left the town,
either he stole a car or he hitched a ride. We've
had no stolen cars reported, so I figure he
hitched "

 "He might have gone by sea," Bloggs said through
a mouthful of wholemeal bread.

 "Of the boats that left the harbor that day, none
was big enough to stow away on. Since then, of
course, nothing's gone out because of the storm."

"Stolen boats?"

"None reported."

 Bloggs shrugged. "If there's no prospect of going
out, the owners might not come to the harbor in
which case the theft of a boat might go unnoticed
until the storm ends."

 One of the officers in the room said, "We missed
that one, chief."

"We did," Kincaid said.

  "Perhaps the harbormaster could look around all
the regular moorings," Bloggs suggested.

  "I'm with you," Kincaid said. He was already
dialing. After a moment he spoke into the phone.
"Captain Douglas? 214

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

Kincaid. Aye, I know civilized people sleep at this
hour. You haven't heard the worst I want you to
take a walk in the rain. Aye, you heard me right...."
Kincaid put his hand over the mouthpiece. "You
know what they say about seamen's language? It's
true." He spoke into the phone again. "Go round all
the regular moorings and make a note of any vessels
not in their usual spot. Ignoring those you know to
be legitimately out of port, give me the names and
addresses  and phone numbers if you have
them of the owners. Aye. Aye, I know . . . I'll
make it a double. All right, a bottle. And a good
morning to you too, old friend." He hung up.

Bloggs smiled. "Salty?"

 "If I did what he suggested I do with my
truncheon, I'd never be able to sit down again,"
Kincaid became serious. "It'll take him about half an
hour, then we'll need a couple of hours to check all
the addresses. It's worth doing, although I still think
he hitched a ride."

"So do I," Bloggs said.

 The door opened and a middle-aged man in
civilian clothes walked in. Kincaid and his officers
stood up, and Bloggs followed.

 Kincaid said, "(flood morning, sir. This is Mr.
Bloggs. Mr. Bloggs, Richard Porter."

 They shook hands. Porter had a red face and a
carefully cultivated moustache. He wore a
double-breasted, camelcolored overcoat. "How do
you do. I'm the brighter that gave your chappie a
lift to Aberdeen. Most embarrassing." He had no
local accent.

 Bloggs said, "How do you do." On first
acquaintance Porter seemed to be exactly the kind
of silly ass who would give a spy a lift half across
the country. However, Bloggs realized the air of
empty-headed heartiness might also mask a shrewd
mind. He tried to be tolerant he, too, had made
embarrassing mistakes in the last few hours.

 "I heard about the abandoned Morris. I picked
him up at that very spot."

"You've seen the picture?"

 "Ya. Of course, I didn't get a good look at the
chappie, because it was dark for most of the
journey. But I saw enough of him, in the light of the
flashlight when we were under the hood, and
afterward when we entered Aberdeen  21'

             Ken Pollen'

it was dawn by then. If I'd only seen the picture, I'd
say it could have been him. Given the spot at which
I picked him Up, 80 near to where the Morris was
found, I say it was him."

 "I agree," Bloggs said. He thought for a moment,
wondering what useful information he could get out
of this man. "How did Paber impress you?"

 Porter said promptly: "He struck me as exhausted,
nervous and determined, in that order. Also, he was
no Scotsman."

"How would you describe his accent?"

  "Neutral. The accent minor public school, Home
Counties. Jarred with his clothes, if you know what
I mean. He was wearing overalls. Another thing I
didn't remark until afterwards."

  Kincaid interrupted to offer tea. Everyone
accepted. The policeman went to the door.

"What did you talk about?"

"Oh, nothing much."

"But you were together for hours "

  "He slept most of the way. He mended the car it
was only a disconnected lead, but I'm afraid I'm
helpless with machines then he told me his own
car had broken down in Edinburgh and he was
going to Banff. Said he didn't really want to go
through Aberdeen, as he didn't have a Restricted
Area Pass. I'm afraid I . . . I told him not to worry
about that. Said I'd vouch for him if we were
stopped. Makes one feel such a bloody fool, you
know but I felt I owed him a favor. He had got me
out of a bit of a hole, y'know."

"Nobody's blaming you, sir," Kincaid said.

  Bloggs was, but he didn't say so. Instead, "There
are very few people who have met Paber and can
tell us what he's like. Can you think hard and tell
me what kind of a man you took him to be?"

  "He woke up like a soldier," Porter said. "He was
courteous, and seemed intelligent. Firm handshake.
I take notice of handshakes"

"Anything else?"

  "Something else about when he woke up . . ."
Porter's florid face creased up in a frown. "His right
hand went to his left forearm, like this." He
demonstrated.

  "That's something," Bloggs said. "That be where
he keeps the knife. A sleeve-sheath."

2/6

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

"Nothing else, I'm afraid."

 "And he said he was going to Banff. That means
he's not. I wager you told him where you were
going before he told you where he was going."

"I believe I did," Porter nodded. "Well, well."

  "Either Aberdeen was his destination, or he went
south after you dropped him. Since he said he was
going north, he probably didn't."

  "That kind of second-guessing could get out of
hand," Kincaid said.

  "Sometimes it does" Kincaid was definitely no
fool "did you tell him that you're a magistrate?"

"Yes.l'

'That's why he didn't kill you."

"What? Good Lordt"

"He knew you'd be missed."

  The door opened again. The man who walked in
said, "I've got your information, and I hope it was
fuckin' worth it."

  Bloggs grinned. This was, undoubtedly, the
harbormaster a short man with cropped white
hair, smoking a large pipe and wearing a blazer
with brass buttons.

  Kincaid said, "Come in, captain. How did you get
so wet? You shouldn't go out in the rain."

  "Fuck off." the Captain said, bringing delighted
expressions to the other faces in the room.

Porter said, "Morning, captain."

"Good morning, Your Worship."

Kincaid said, "What have you got?"

  The captain took off his cap and shook drops of
rain from its crown. "The Marie 11 has gone
missing," he said. "I saw her come in on the
afternoon the storm began. I didn't see her go out,
but I know she shouldn't have sailed again that
day. However, it seems she did."

"Who owns her?"

  "Tam Halfpenny. I telephoned him. He left her
in her mooring that day and hasn't seen her since."

"What kind of vessel is she?" Bloggs asked.

  "A small fishing boat, sixty feet and broad in the
beam. Stout little craft. Inboard motor. No
particular style the fishermen round here don't
follow the pattern book when they build boats."

217

                 Ken

 "Let me ask you," Bloggs said. "Could that boat
have survived the storm?"

 The captain paused in the act of putting a match
to his pipe. "With a very skillful sailor at the
helm maybe. Maybe not."

"How far might he have got before the storm
broke?"

 "Not far a few miles. The Marie 11 was not tied
up until evening."

 Bloggs stood up, walked around his chair and sat
down again. "So where is he now?"

 "At the bottom of the sea, in all probability, the
bloody fool." The captain's statement was not
without relish.

 Bloggs could take no satisfaction in the likelihood
that Faber was dead. It was too inconclusive. The
discontent spread to his body, and he felt restless,
itchy. Frustrated. He scratched his chin he needed
a shave. "I'll believe it when I see it," he said.

"You won't."

 "Please save your guesswork," Bloggs said. "We
want your information, not pessimism." The other
men in the room suddenly remembered that,
despite his youth, he was the senior officer there.
"Let's, if you don't mind, review the possibilities.
One: he left Aberdeen by land and someone else
stole the Marre 11. In that case he has probably
reached his destination by now, but he won't have
left the country because of the storm. We already
have all the other police forces looking for him, and
that's all we can do about number one.

 "Two: he's still in Aberdeen. Again, we have this
possibility covered; we're still looking for him.

 "Three: he left Aberdeen by sea. I think we're
agreed this is the strongest option. Let's break it
down. Three A: he found shelter somewhere, or
cracked up somewhere mainland or island. Three
B: he died." He did not, of course mention three C:
he transferred to another vessel probably a
U-boat before the storm broke . . . he probably
didn't have time, but he might've. And if he caught
a U-boat, we've had it, so might as well forget that
one.

 "If he found shelter," Bloggs went on, "or was
shipwrecked, we'll find evidence sooner or
later either the Marie 11, or pieces of it. We can
search the coastline right away and survey the sea
as soon as the weather dears sufficiently for us 218

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

to get a plane up. If he's gone to the bottom of the
ocean we may still find bits of the boat floating.

  "So we have three courses of action to take. We
continue the searches already going on; we mount
a new search of the coastline, working north and
south from Aberdeen, and we prepare for an
air-sea search the minute the weather improves."

  Bloggs had begun to pace up and down as he
spoke. He stopped now and looked around.
"Comments?"

  The late hour had got to all of them. Bloggs's
sudden access of energy jerked them out of a
creeping lethargy. One leaned forward, rubbing his
hands, another tied his shoelaces; a third put his
jacket on. They wanted to go to work. There were
no comments, no questions.

                 219
                  
                 23

Faber was awake. His body probably needed sleep
despite the fact that he had spent the day in bed;
but his mind was hyperactive, turning over
possibilities, sketching scenarios . . . thinking about
women, and about home.

  Now that he was so close to getting out, his
memories of home became near painfully sweet.
He Bought of things like sausages fat enough to eat
in slices, and motor cars on the right-hand side of
the road, and really tall trees, and most of all his
own language words with guts and precision, hard
consonants and pure vowels and the verb at the
end of the sentence where it ought to be, finality
and meaning in the same climactic terminal.

  Thoughts of climaxes brought Gertrud to mind
again: her face underneath his, makeup washed
away by his kisses, eyes closing tight in pleasure
then opening again to look with delight into his,
mouth stretched wide in a permanent gasp, say-
ing"la, liebling, ja . . ."

  It was silly. He had led me life of a monk for
seven years, but she had no reason to do the same.
She would have bad a dozen men since Faber. She
might even be dead, bombed by the RAF or
murdered by the maniacs because her nose was
half an inch too long or run over by a motor car in
the blackout. Anyway, she would hardly remember
him. He 220

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

would probably never see her again. But she was
important. She stood for something . . . for him to
think about.

  He did not normally permit himself the
indulgence of sentiment. There was in his nature, in
any case, a very cold streak, and he cultivated it It
protected him. Now, though, he was so dose to
success, and he felt free. Not to relax his vigilance,
but at least to fantasize a little.

  The storm was his safeguard so long as it
continued. He would simply contact the U-boat
with Tom's radio on Monday, and its captain would
send a dinghy into the bay as soon as the weather
cleared. If the storm ended before Monday, there
was a slight complication: the supply boat David
and Lucy would naturally expect him to take the
boat back to the mainland.

  Lucy came into his thoughts in vivid, full-color
images he could not quite control. He saw her
striking amber eyes watching him as he made a
bandage for her thumb; her outline walking up the
stairs in front of him, even clad as she was in
shapeless man's clothing; her heavy rounded breasts
as she stood naked in the bathroom; and, as the
images de. veloped into fantasy, she leaned over the
bandage and kissed his mouth, turned back on the
stairs and took him in her arms, stepped out of the
bathroom and placed his hands on her breasts.

  He turned restlessly in the small bed, cursing the
irnagination that sent him dreams the like of which
he hadn't suffered since his schooldays. At that
time, before he'd experienced the reality of sex, he
had constructed elaborate sexual scenarios featuring
the older women with whom he came into daily
contact: the starchy Matron; Professor Nagel's dark,
thin, intellectual wife; the shopkeeper in the village
who wore red lipstick and talked to her husband
with contempt. Sometimes he put all three of them
into one orgiastic fantasy. When, at age fifteen,
he'd seduced, classically, a housemaid's daughter in
the twilight of a West Prussian forest, he let go of
the imaginary orgies because they were so much
better than the disappointing real thing. As young
Heinrich he had been greatly puzzled by this; where
was the blinding ecstasy, the sensation of soaring
through the air like a bird, the mystical fusion of
two bodies into one? The fantasies became painful,
reminding him of his failure to make them real.
Later, of 221

             Ken Follett

course, the reality improved, and he formed the
view that ecstasy came not from a man's pleasure in
a woman, but from each one's pleasure in each
other. He had voiced that opinion to his elder
brother, who seemed to think it banal, a truism
rather than a discovery; and before long he saw it
that way too.

 He became a good lover, eventually. He found sex
interesting, as well as physically pleasant. He was
never a great seducer . . . the thrill of conquest was
not what he wanted. But he was expert at giving and
receiving sexual gratification, without the expert's
illusion that technique was all. For some women he
was a highly desirable man, and the fact that he
didn't know this only served to make him even more
attraotive.

 He tried to remember how many women he had
had: Anna, Gretchen, Ingrid, the American girl,
those two whores in Stuttgart . . . he could not
recall them all, but there could not have been more
than about twenty. And Gertrud, of course.

 None of them, he thought, had been quite as
beautiful as Lucy. He gave an exasperated sigh; he
had let this woman affect him just because he was
close to home and had been so careful for 80 long.
He was annoyed with himself. It was undisciplined;
he must not relax until the assignment was over, and
this was not over, not quite. Not yet.

 There was the problem of avoiding going back on
the supply boat. Several solutions came to mind:
perhaps the most promising was to incapacitate the
island's inhabitants, meet the boat himself and send
the boatman away with a cockand-bull story. He
could say he was visiting the Roses, had come out
on another boat; that he was a relative, or a bird-
watcher . . . anything. It was too small a problem to
engage his full attention at the moment. Later, when
and if the weather improved, he would select
something.

 He really had no serious problems. A lonely
island, miles off the coast, with four inhabitants it
was an ideal hideout. Prom now on, leaving Britain
was going to be as easy as breaking out of a baby's
playpen. When he thought of the situations he had
already come through, the people he had
[tilled the five Home Guard men, the Yorkshire
lad on the 222

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

train, the Abwehr messenger he considered
himself now to be sitting pretty.

  An old man, a cripple, a woman, and a child . . .
Killing them would be so simple.

  Lucy, too, lay awake. She was listening. There
was a good deal to hear. The weather was an
orchestra, rain drumming on the roof, wind fluting
in the eaves of the cottage, sea performing glissandi
with the beach. The old house talked too, creaking
in its joints as it suffered the buffeting of the storm.
Within the room there were more sounds: David's
slow, regular breathing, threatening but never quite
achieving a snore as he slept deeply under the
influence of a double dose of soporific, and the
quicker, shallow breaths of Jo, sprawled
comfortably across a camp bed beside the far wall.

  The noise is keeping me awake, Lucy thought,
then immediately Who am I trying to fool? Her
wakefulness was caused by Henry, who had looked
at her naked body, and had touched her hands
gently as he bandaged her thumb, and who now lay
in bed in the next room, fast asleep. Probably.

  He had not told her much about himself, she
realized; only that he was unmarried. She did not
know where he had been born his accent gave no
clue. He had not even hinted at what he did for a
living, though she imagined he must be a
professional man, perhaps a dentist or a soldier. He
was not dull enough to be a solicitor, too intelligent
to be a journalist, and doctors could never keep
their profession secret for longer than five minutes.
He was not rich enough to be a barrister, too
self-effacing to be an actor. She would bet on the
Army.

  Did he live alone, she wondered? Or with his
mother? Or a woman? What did he wear when he
wasn't fishing? Did he have a motor car? Yes, he
would; something rather unusual. He probably
drove very fast.

  That thought brought back memories of David's
twoseater, and she closed her eyes tightly to shut
out the nightmare images. Think of something else,
think of something else.

  She thought of Henry again, and
realized accepted the truth: she wanted to make
love to him.

It was the kind of wish that, in her scheme of things,
223

             Ken Pollett

afflicted men but not women. A woman might meet
a man briefly and find him attractive, want to get to
know him better, even begin to fail in love with him,
but she did not feel an immediate physical desire,
not unless she was . . . abnormal.

 She told herself that this was ridiculous; that what
she needed was to make love with her husband, not
to copulate with the first eligible man who came
along. She told herself she was not that kind.

 All the same, it was pleasant to speculate. David
and Jo were fast asleep; there was nothing to stop
her from getting out of bed, crossing the landing,
entering his room, sliding nto bed next to hirn....

 Nothing to stop her except character, good
breeding and a respectable upbringing.

 If she were going to do it with anybody, she would
do it with someone like Henry. He would be kind,
and gentle and considerate; he would not despise
her for offering herself like a Soho streetwalker.

 She turned over in the bed, smiling at her own
foolishness; how could she possibly know whether
he would despise her? She had only known him for
a day, and he had spent most of that day asleep.

 Stilt, it would be nice to have him look at her
again, his expression of admiration tinged with some
kind of amusement. It would be nice to feel his
hands, to touch his body, to squeeze against the
warmth of his skin.

 She realized that her body was responding to the
images in her mind. She fat the urge to touch
herself, and resisted it as she had done for four
years. At least I haven't dried up, like an old crone,
she thought.

 She moved her legs, and sighed as a warm
sensation spread through her. This was getting
unreasonable. It was time to go to sleep. There was
just no way she would make love to Henry, or to
anyone else, tonight.

With that thought she got out of bed and went to
the door.

 Faber heard a footfall on the landing, and he
reacted automaticalty.

 His mind cleared instantly of the idle, lascivious
thoughts it had been occupied with. He swung his
legs to the floor and 224

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

slid out from under the bedclothes in a single fluid
movement; then silently crossed the room to star d
beside the window in the darkest corner, the stiletto
knife in his right hand.

  He heard the door open, heard the intruder step
inside, heard the door close again. At that point he
started to think rather than react. An assassin would
have left the door open for a quick escape, and it
occurred to him that there were a hundred reasons
why it was impossible that an assassin should have
found him here.

  He ignored the thought he had survived this
long by catering to the one-in-a-thousand chance.
The wind dropped momentarily, and he heard an
indrawn breath, a faint gasp from beside his bed,
enabling him to locate the intruder's exact position.
He moved.

  He had her on the bed, face down, with his knife
at her throat and his knee in the small of her back
before he accepted that the intruder was a woman,
and a split-second later acknowledged her identity.
He eased his grip, reached out to the bedside table
and switched on the light.

Her face was pale in the dim glow of the lamp.

  Faber sheathed the knife before she could see it.
He tools his weight off her body. "lam very sorry,"
he said. "I "

  She turned onto her back and looked up at him in
astoaishment as he straddled her. It was outrageous,
but somehow the man's sudden reaction had excited
her snore than ever. She began to giggle.

  "I thought you were a burglar," Faber said,
knowing he must sound ridiculous.

  "And where would a burglar come from, may I
ask?" The color rushed back to her cheeks in a
blush.

  She was wearing a very loose, old-fashioned
flannel nightgown that covered her from her throat
to her ankles. Her dark-red hair spread across
Faber's pillow in disarray. Her eyes seemed very
large, and her lips were wet.

"You are remarkably beautiful," Faber said quietly.

She dosed her eyes.

  Faber bent over her and kissed her mouth. Her
lips parted immediately, and she returned his kiss.
With his fingertips he stroked her shoulders, her
neck and her ears. She moved unto derneath him.

He wanted to kiss her for a long time, to explore her
mouth 225

             Ken Fullest

and saver the intimacy, but he realized that she had
no time for tenderness. She reached inside his
pajama bottoms and squeezed. She moaned softly
and began to breathe hard.

  Still kissing her, Faber reached for the light and
killed it. He pulled away from her and took off his
pajama jacket. Quickly, so that she would not
wonder what he was doing, he tugged at the can
stuck to his chest, ignoring the sting as the sticky
tape was jerked away from his skin. He slid the
photographs under the bed. He also unbuttoned the
sheath on his left forearm and dropped that.

He pushed the skirt of her nightgown up to her
waist.

"Quickly," she said. "Quickly."

Paber lowered his body to hers.

  She did not feel the least bit guilty afterward. Just
content, satisfied, replete. She had had what she so
badly wanted She lay still, eyes closed, stroking the
bristly hair at the back of his neck, enjoying the
rough tickling sensation on her hands.

After a while she said: "I was in such a rush . . ."

"It's not over yet," he told her.

  She frowned in the dark. "Didn't you? . . ." She
had been wondering.

"No, I didn't. You hardly did."

She smiled. "I beg to differ."

He turned on the light and looked at her. "We'll
see."

  He slipped down the bed, between her thighs. and
kissed her belly. His tongue flicked in and out of her
navel. It felt quite nice, she thought. His head went
lower. Surely he doesn't want to kiss me there. He
did. And he did more than kiss. His lips pulled at
the soft folds of her skin. She was paralyzed by
shock as his tongue began to probe in the crevices
and then, as he parted her lips with his fingers, to
thrust deep inside her.... Pinally his relentless tongue
found a tiny, sensitive place, so small she had not
known it existed. so sensitive that his touch was
almost painful at first. She forgot her shock as she
was overwhelmed by the most piercing sensation she
had ever experienced. Unable to restrain herself. she
moved her hips up and down, faster and faster,
rubbing her slippery flesh over his mouth, his chin,
his nose, his forehead, totally absorbed in her own
pleasure. It built and built, feeding on itself, until
she felt utterly possessed by joy and 226

           EYE OF THE NEEDLE

opened her mouth to scream, at which point he
clapped his hand over her face. But she screamed in
her throat as the climax went on and on, ending in
something that felt like an explosion and left her so
drained that she thought she would never, never be
able to get up.

 Her mind seemed to go blank for a while. She knew
vaguely that he still lay between her legs, his bristly
cheek against the soft inside of her thigh, his lips
moving gently, affectionately. ›.

Eventually she said, "Now I knew what Lawrence
means."

He lifted his head. "I don't understand."

 She sighed. "I didn't realize it could be like that. It
was lovely."

"Was?"

 - "Oh, God, I've no more energy . . ."

  He changed position, kneeling astride her chest, and
she realized what he wanted her to do, and for the
second time she was frozen by shock; it was just too
big . . . but suddenly she wanted to do it, she needed
to take him into her mouth; she lifted her head, and
her lips closed around him, and he gave a soft groan.

  He held her head in his hands, moving it to and fro,
moaning quietly. She looked at his face. He was
staring at her, drinking in the sight of what she was
doing. She wondered what she would do when he . .
. came . . . and she decided she didn't care, because
everything else had been so good with him that she
knew she would enjoy even that.

  But it didn't happen. When she thought he was to
the point of losing control he stopped, moved away,
lay on top of her, and entered her again. This time it
was very slow, and relaxed, like the rhythm of the sea
on the beach; until he put his hands under her hips
and grasped the mounts of her bottom, and she
looked at his face and knew that now, now he was
ready to shed his self-control and lose himself in her.
And that excited her more than anything, so that
when he finally arched his back, his face screwed up
into a mask of pain, and groaned deep in his chest,
she wrapped her legs around his waist and abandoned
herself to the ecstasy of it, and then, after so long, she
heard the trumpets and cymbals that Lawrence had
promised.

They were quiet for a long time. Lucy felt warm, as if
she 227

              Ken Pollett

were glowing, she had never felt so warm in all her
life. When their breathing subsided she could hear
the storm outside. Henry was heavy on top of her
but she did not want him to move . . . she liked his
weight, and the faint tang of perspiration from his
white skin. From time to time he moved his head to
brush his lips against her cheek.

 He was the perfect man to have this with. He knew
more about her body than she did. His own body was
very beautiful . . . broad and muscular at the
shoulders, narrow at the waist and hips with long,
strong, hairy legs. She thought he had some scars,
she was not sure. Strong, gentle and handsome.
Perfect. She also knew she would never fall in love
with him, never want to run off with him, marry him.
Deep inside him, she sensed, there was also
something quite cold and hard his reaction, and
explanation, when she came into his room was
extraordinary . . . she wouldn't think about it  some
part of him that was committed elsewhere.... She
would have to hold him at arm's length and use him
cautiously, like an addictive drug.

 Not that she would have much time to become
addicted; he would, after all, be gone in little more
than a day.

 She stirred, and he immediately rolled off her and
onto his back. She lifted herself on one elbow and
looked at his naked body. Yes, he did have scars: a
long one on his chest, and a small mark like a
star it might have been a burn on his hip. She
rubbed his chest with the palm of her hand.

 "It's not very ladylike," she said, "but I want to say
thank you."

 He reached out to touch her cheek, and smiled.
"You're very ladylike."

"You don't know what you've done. You've "

He put a finger over her lips. "I know what I've
done."

 She bit his finger, then put his hand on her breast.
He felt for her nipple. She said, "Please do it again."

"I don't think I can," he said.

But he did.

~ She left him a couple of hours after dawn. There
was a
small noise from the other bedroom, and she seemed
sud
denly to remember that she had a husband and a son
in the
house. Faber wanted to tell her that it didn't matter,
that nei
                  228
                   
          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

Her he nor she had the least reason to care what
the husband knew or thought; but he held his
tongue and let her go. She kissed him once more,
very wetly, then she stood up smoothed her
rumpled nightgown over her body and went out.

  He watched her fondly. She's quite something. he
thought. He lay on his back and looked at the
ceiling. She was quite naive, and very
inexperienced. but all the same she had been very
good. I could perhaps fall in love with her, he
thought.

  He got up and retrieved the film can and the
knife in its sheath from under the bed. He
wondered whether to keep them on his person. He
might want to make love to her in the day.... He
decided to wear the knife he would feel
undressed without it and leave the can elsewhere.
He put it on top of the chest of drawers and
covered it with his pacers and his wallet. He knew
very well that ho was breaking the rule, but this
was certain to be his last assignment. and he felt
entitled to enjoy a woman. Besides, it would hardly
matter if she or her husband saw the
pictures assuming they understood their meaning,
which was unlikely, what could they do?

  He lay down on the bed. then got up again.
Years of training simply would not allow him to
take such risks. He put the can with his papers into
the pocket of his jacket. Now he could relax better.

  He heard the child's voice, then LUCY'S tread
as she went down the stairs, and then David
dragging himself to the bathroom. He would have
to get up and have breakfast with the household. It
was all right. He did not want to sleep now anyway.

  He stood at the rain-streaked window watching
the weather rage until he heard the bathroom door
open. Then he plot on his pajama top and went in
to shave. He used David's razor, without
permission.

It did not seem to matter now.

                 229
                  
                 ~4

Erwin Rommel knew from the start that he was
going to quarrel with Heinz Guderian.

  General Guderian was exactly the kind of
aristocratic Prussian officer Rommel hated. He had
known him for some time. They had both, in their
early days, commanded the Goslar Jaeger
Baffalion, and they had met again during the
Polish campaign. 'hen left Africa he had recom-
mended Guderian to succeed him, knowing the
battle was lost; the maneuver was a failure because
at that time Guderian had been out of favor with
Hitler and the recommendation was rejected out of
hand.

  The General was, Rommel felt, the kind of man
who put a silk handkerchief on his knee to protect
the crease in his trousers while he sat drinking in
the Herrenklub. He was an officer because his
father had been an officer and his grandfather had
been rich. Rornmel, the schoolteacher's son who
had risen from lieutenant colonel to field marshal
in only four years, despised the military caste of
which he had never been a member.

  Now he stared across the table at the general,
who was sips ping brandy appropriated from the
French Rothschilds. Guderian and his sidekick,
General van Geyr, had come to Rommel's
headquarters at La Roche Guyon in northern 230

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

France to tell him how to deploy his troops.
Romme1's reactions to such visits ranged from
impatience to fury. In his view the General Staff
were there to provide reliable intelligence and
regular supplies, and he knew from his experience
in Africa that they were incompetent at both tasks.

 Guderian had a cropped. Iight-colored
moustache, and the corners of his eyes were heavily
wrinkled so that he always appeared to be grinning
at you. He was tall and handsome which did
nothing to endear him to a short, ugly, balding
man as Rommel thought of himself. He seemed
relaxed, and any German general who would relax
at this stage of the war was surely a fool. The meal
they had just finished local veal and wine from
farther south was no excuse.

 Rommel looked out of the window and watched
the rain dripping from the lime trees into the
courtyard while he waited for Guderian to begin
the discussion. When he finally spoke it was clear
the general had been thinking about the best way to
make his point, and had decided to approach it
sideways.

 "In Turkey," he began, "the British Ninth and
Tenth armies, with the Turkish army, are grouping
at the border with Greece. In Yugoslavia the
partisans are also concentrating. The French in
Algeria are preparing to invade the Riviera. The
Russians appear to be mounting an amphibious
invasion of Sweden. In Italy the Allies are ready to
march on Rome There are smaller signals a
general kidnapped in Crete, an intelligence officer
murdered at Lyon, a radar post attacked at Rhodes,
an aircraft sabotaged with abrasive grease and
destroyed at Athens, a commando raid on Sagvaag,
an explosion in the oxygen factory at
Boulogne-sur-Seine, a train derailed in the
Ardennes, a petrol dump fired at Boussens . . . I
could go on. The picture is clear. In occupied
territories there is ever-increasing sabotage and
treachery; on our borders, we see preparations for
invasion everywhere. None of us doubts that there
will be a major allied offensive this summer, and we
can be equally sure that all this skirmishing is
intended to confuse us about where the attack will
come."

 The general paused. The lecture, delivered in
schoolmaster style, was irritating Rommel, and he
took the opportunity to interrupt. "This is why we
have a General Staff: to digest 231

            Ken Pollett

such information, evaluate enemy activity, and
forecast his future moves."

Guderian smiled indulgently. "We must also be
aware of the limitations of such crystal-gazing. You
have your ideas about where the attack will come,
I'm sure. We all do. Our strategy must take into
account the possibility that our guesses are wrong."

Rommelnow saw where the general's roundabout
argument was leading, and he suppressed the urge
to shout his disagreement before the conclusion
was stated.

"You have four armored divisions under your
command," Guderian continued. "The 2nd Panzers
at Amiens, the 116th at Rouen, the 21st at Caen,
and the 2nd SS at Toulouse. General von Geyr has
already proposed to you that these should be
grouped well back from the coast, all together,
ready for fast retaliation at any point. Indeed, this
stratagem is a principle of OKW policy.
Nevertheless, you have not only resisted van Geyr's
suggestion, but have in fact moved the 21st right up
to the Atlantic coast "

"And the other three must be moved to the coast
as soon as possible," Rommel burst out. "When will
you people learn? The Allies control the air. Once
the invasion is launched there will be no further
major movements of armor. Mobile operations are
no longer possible. If your precious panzers are in
Paris when the Allies land on the coast, they will
stay in Paris pinned down by the RAF until the
Allies march along the Boulevard St-Michel. I
know they've done it to me. Twice." He paused to
draw breath. "To group our armor as a mobile
reserve is to make it useless. There will be no
counterattack. The invasion must be met on the
beaches, when it is most vulnerable, and pushed
back into the sea."

The flush receded from his face as he began to
expound his own defensive strategy. "I have created
underwater obstacles, strengthened the Atlantic
Wall, laid rninefields and driven stakes into every
meadow that might be used to land aircraft behind
our lines. All my troops are engaged in digging
defences whenever they're not actually training.

"My armored divisions must be moved to the
coast. The OKW reserve should be redeployed in
France. The Ninth and Tenth SS divisions have to
be brought back from the Eastern Front. Our
whole strategy must be to prevent the Allies from
232

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

securing a beachhead, because once they achieve
that, the battle is lost . . . perhaps even the war."

Guderian leaned forward, his eyes narrowing in
that infuriating half-grin. "You want us to defend
the European coastline from Tromso in Norway an
around the Iberian peninsula to Rome. Where shall
we get the armies from?"

'What question should have been asked in 1938,"
Rommel muttered.

There was an embarrassed silence after this
remark, which was all the more shocking coming
from the notoriously apolitical Rommel.

Von Geyr broke the tension. "Where do you
believe the attack will come from, Field Marshal?"

Rommel had been waiting for this. "Until recently
I was convinced of the Pas de Calais theory.
However, last time I was with the Fuehrer I was
impressed by his arguments in favor of Normandy.
I am also impressed by his instinct, and even more
by its record of accuracy. Therefore I believe our
panzers should be deployed primarily along the
Normandy coast, with perhaps one division at the
mouth of the Somme this last supported by forces
outside my group."

Guderian shook his head. "No, no, law. It's far too
risky."

"I'm prepared to take this argument to Hitler,"
Rommel threatened.

"Then that's what you will have to do," Guderian
said, "because I won't go along with your plan
unless "

"WeU?" Rommel was surprised that the general's
position might be qualified.

Guderian shifted in his seat, reluctant to give a
concession to so stubborn an antagonist as
Rommel. "You may know that the Fuehrer is
waiting for a report from an unusually effective
agent in England."

"I remember." Rommel nodded. "Die Nadel."

"Yes. He has been assigned to assess the strength
of the First United States Army Group under
Patton's command in the eastern part of England.
If he finds as I am certain he win that that army
is large, strong, and ready to move, then I shad
continue to oppose you. However, if he finds that
FUSAG is somehow a bluff a small army
masquerading as an invasion force then I shall
concede that you are right, 233

            Ken Follett

and you shall have your panzers. Will you accept
that compromise?"

Rommel nodded his large head in assent. "It
depends on Die Nadel, then."

                234
                 
-       PART FIVE
        
                25

The cottage was terribly small, Lucy realized quite
suddenly. As she went about her morning
chores lighting the stove, making porridge,
tidying up, dressing Jo the walls seemed to press
in on her. After all, it was only four rooms linked
by a little passage with a staircase; you couldn't
move without bumping into someone else. If you
stood still and listened you could hear what
everyone was doing: Henry was running water into
the washbasin, David sliding down the stairs, Jo
chastising his teddy bear in the living room. Lucy
would have liked some time on her own before
meeting people; time to le. the events of the night
settle into her memory, recede from the forefront
of her thoughts so that she could act normally
without a conscious effort.

She guessed she was not going to be good at
deception. It did not come naturally to her. She
had no experience at it. She tried to think of
another occasion in her life when she had deceived
someone close to her, and she could not. It was
not that she lived by such lofty principles the
thought of lying did not trouble her so much. It
was mostly that she had just never had reason for
dishonesty.

David and Jo sat down at the kitchen table and
began to eat David was silent, Jo talked nonstop
just for the pleasure of making words. Lucy did not
want food.

237

            Ken Pollett

"Aren't you eating?" David asked casually.

"I've had some." There her first lie. It wasn't so
bad.

The storm made the claustrophobia worse. The
rain was so heavy that Lucy could hardly see the
barn from the kitchen window. One felt even more
shut in when to open a door or window was a major
operation. The low, steel-grey sky and the wisps of
mist created a permanent twilight. In the garden the
rain ran in rivers between the rows of potato plants,
and the herb patch was a shallow pond. The
sparrow's nest under the disused outhouse roof had
been washed away and the birds flitted in and out
of the eaves, panicking.

Lucy heard Henry coming down the stairs, and
she felt better. For some reason, she was quite sure
that he was very good at deception.

"Good morning!" Faber said heartily. David,
sitting at the table in his wheelchair, looked up and
nodded pleasantly. Lucy busied herself at the stove.
There was guilt written all over her face, Faber
noted, and he groaned inwardly. But David did not
seem to notice his wife's expression. Faber began to
think that David was rather obtuse . . . at least
about his wife....

Lucy said, "Sit down and have some breakfast."

"Thank you very much."

David said, "Can't offer to take you to church, I'm
afraid. Hymn-singing on the wireless is the best we
can do."

Faber realized it was Sunday. "Are you
church-going people?"

"No," David said. "You?"

"No."

"Sunday is much the same as any other day for
farmers," David continued. "I'll be driving over to
the other end of the island to see my shepherd.
You could come, if you feel up to it."

"I'd like to," Faber told him. It would give him a
chance to reconnoiter. He would need to know the
way to the cottage where the transmitter was.
"Would you like me to drive you?"

David looked at him sharply. "I can manage quite
well." There was a strained moment of silence. "In
this weather, the road is just a memory. We'll be a
lot safer with me at the wheel."

238

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

"Of course." Faber began to eat.

 "It makes no difference to me," David persisted.
"I don't want you to come if you think it would be
too much "

"Really, I'd be glad to."

 "Did you sleep all right? It didn't occur to me
you might still be tired. I hope Lucy didn't keep
you up too late."

 Farber willed himself not to look at Lucy, but out
of the corner of his eye he could see that she was
suddenly flushed. "I slept all day yesterday," he
said, trying to fix David's eyes with his own.

 It was no use. David was looking at his wife. He
knew. She turned her back.

 David would be hostile now, and antagonism was
part way to suspicion. It was not, as he'd decided
before, dangerous, but it might be annoying.

 David seemed to recover his composure quickly.
He pushed his chair away from the table and
wheeled himself to the back door. "I'll get the jeep
out of the barn," he said, mostly to himself. He
took an oilskin off a hook and put it over his head,
then opened the door and rolled out.

 In the few moments the door was open, the
storm blew into the little kitchen, leaving the floor
wet. When it shut, Lucy shivered and began to mop
the water from the tiles.

Faber reached out and touched her arm.

"Don't," she said, nodding her head toward Jo.

"You're being silly," Faber told her.

"I think he knows," she said.

 "But, if you reflect for a minute, you don't really
care whether he knows or not, do you?"

"I'm supposed to."

 Faber shrugged. The jeep's horn sounded
impatiently outside. Lucy handed him an oilskin
and a pair of Wellington boots.

"Don't talk about me," she said.

 Faber put on the waterproof clothes and went to
the front door. Lucy followed him, closing the
kitchen door on Jo.

 With his hand on the latch, Faber turned and
kissed her, and she did what she wanted, she kissed
him back, hard, then turned and went into the
kitchen.

Faber ran through the rain, across a sea of mud, and
239

            Ken Pollet'

jumped into the jeep beside David, who pulled
away immediately.

The vehicle had been specially adapted for the
legless man to drive. It had a hand throttle,
automatic gearshift and a handle on the rim of the
wheel to enable the driver to steer one-handed.
The folded-up wheelchair slid into a special
compartment behind the driver's seat. There was a
shotgun in a rack above the windscreen.

David drove competently. He had been right
about the road; it was no more than a strip of
heath worn bare by the jeep's tires. The rain
pooled in the deep ruts. The car slithered about in
the mud. David seemed to enjoy it. There was a
cigarette between his lips, and he wore an
incongruous air of bravado. Perhaps, Faber
thought, this was his substitute for flying.

"What do you do when you're not fishing?" he
said around the cigarette.

"Civil servant," Faber told him.

"What sort of work?"

"Finance. I'm just a cog in the machine."

"Treasury?"

"Mainly."

"Interesting work?" he persisted.

"Fairly." Faber summoned up the energy to
invent a story. "I know a bit about how much a
given piece of engineering ought to cost, and I
spend most of my time making sure the taxpayer
isn't being overcharged."

"Any particular sort of engineering?"

"Everything from paper clips to aircraft engines."

"Ah, well. We all contribute to the war effort in
our own way."

It was, of course, an intentionally snide remark,
and David would naturally have no idea why Faber
did not resent it. "I'm too old to fight," Faber said
mildly.

"Were you in the first lot?"

"Too young."

"A lucky escape."

"Doubtless."

The track ran quite close to the cliff edge, but
David did not slow down. It crossed Faber's mind
that he might want to kill them both. He reached
for a grab handle.

240

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

"Am I going too fast for you?" David asked.

"You seem to know the road."

"You look frightened."

Faber ignored that, and David slowed down a
little, ape parently satisfied that he had made some
kind of point.

The island was fairly flat and bare, Faber
observed. The ground rose and fell slightly, but as
yet he had seen no hills. The vegetation was mostly
grass, with some ferns and bushes but few trees:
there was little protection from the weather. David
Rose's sheep must be hardy, Faber thought.

"Are you married?" David asked suddenly.

"No."

"Wise man."

"Oh, I don't know."

"I'll wager you do well for yourself in London.
Not to mention "

Faber had never liked the nudging, contemptuous
way some men talked about women. He interrupted
sharply, "I should think you're extremely fortunate
to have your wife "

"Oh?"

"Yes."

"Nothing like variety, though, eh?"

 "I haven't had the opportunity to discover the
merits of monogamy." Faber decided to say no
more, anything he said was fuel to the fire. No
question, David was becoming annoying.

 "I must say, you don't look like a government
accountant. Where's the rolled umbrella and the
bowler hat?"

Faber attempted a thin smile.

"And you seem quite fit for a pen-pusher."

"I ride a bicycle."

"You must be quite tough, to have survived that
wreck."

"Thank you."

"You don't look too old to be in the army either."

 Faber turned to look at David. "What are you
driving at?" he asked calmly.

"We're there," David said.

 Faber looked out of the windshield and saw a
cottage very similar to Lucy's, with stone walls, a
slate roof and small windows. It stood at the top of
a hill, the only hill Faber had seen on the island,
and not much of a hill at that. The house 241

           ICen Follett

had a squat, resilient look about it. Climbing up to
it, the jeep skirted a small stand of pine and fir
trees. Faber wondered why the cottage had not
been built in the shelter of the trees.

 Beside the house was a hawthorn tree in
bedraggled blossom. David stopped the car. Paber
watched him unfold the wheelchair and ease
himself out of the driving seat into the chair; he
would have resented an offer of help.

 They entered the house by a plank door with no
lock. They were greeted in the hall by a
black-and-white collie a small broad-headed dog
who wagged his tail but did not bark. The layout of
the cottage was identical with that of Lucy's, but
the atmosphere was different: this place was bare,
cheerless and none too dean.

 David led the way into the kitchen, where old
Tom, the shepherd, sat by an old-fashioned
wood-burnu~g kitchen range, warming his hands.
He stood up.

"This is Tom McAvity." David said.

"Pleased to meet you," Tom said formally.

 Faber shook his hand. Tom was a short man, and
broad, with a face like an old tan suitcase. He was
wearing a cloth cap and smoking a very large briar
pipe with a lid. His grip was firm and the skin of
his hand felt like sandpaper. He had a very big
nose. Paber had to concentrate hard to understand
what he was saying; his Scob accent was very broad.

 "I hope I'm not going to be in the way," Paber
said. "I only came along for the ride."

 David wheeled himself up to the table. "I don't
suppose we'll do much this morning, Tom just
take a look around."

"Aye. We'll have some tay before we go, though."

 Tom poured strong tea into three mugs and
added a shot of whisky to each. The three men sat
and sipped it in silence, David smoking a cigarette
and Tom drawing gently at his huge pipe, and
Paber felt certain that the other two spent a great
deal of time together in this way, smoking and
warming their hands and saying nothing.

 When they had finished their tea Tom put the
mugs in the shallow stone sink and they went out to
the jeep. Faber sat in the back. David drove slowly
this time, and the dog, which was called Bob, loped
alongside, keeping pace without apparent effort. It
was obvious that David knew the terrain very 242

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

well as he steered confidently across the open
grassland without once getting bogged down in
swampy ground. The sheep looked very sorry for
themselves. With their fleece sopping wet, they
huddled in hollows, or close to bramble bushes, or
on the leeward slopes, too dispirited to graze. Even
the lambs were subdued, hiding beneath their
mothers.

Faber was watching the dog when it stopped,
listened for a moment, and then raced off at a
tangent.

Tom had been watching too. "Bob's found
something," he said.

The jeep followed the dog for a quarter of a mile.
When they stopped Faber could hear the sea; they
were close to the island's northern edge. The dog
was standing at the brink of a small gully. When
the men got out of the car they could hear what
the dog had heard, the bleating of a sheep in
distress, and they went to the edge of the gully and
looked down.

The animal lay on its side about twenty feet
down, balanced precariously on the steeply sloping
bank, one foreleg at an awkward angle. Tom went
down to it, treading cautiously, and examined the
leg.

"Mutton tonight," he called.

David got the gun from the jeep and slid it down
to him. Tom put the sheep out of its misery.

"Do you want to rope it up?" David called.

"Aye unless our visitor here wants to come and
give me a hand."

"Surely," Faber said. He picked his way down to
where Tom stood. They took a leg each and
dragged the dead animal back up the slope. Faber's
oilskin caught on a thorny bush and he almost fell
before he tugged the material free with a loud
ripping sound.

They threw the sheep into the jeep and drove on.
Faber's shoulder felt very wet, and he realized he
had torn away most of the back of the oilskin. "I'm
afraid I've ruined this slicker," he said.

"All in a good cause," Tom told him.

Soon they returned to Tom's cottage. Faber took
off the oilskin and his wet donkey jacket, and Tom
put the jacket over the stove to dry. Faber sat close
to it.

243

Ken Pollet!

 Tom put the kettle on, then went upstairs for a
new bottle of whisky. Faber and David warmed their
wet hands.

 The gunshot made both men jump. Paber ran into
the hall and up the stairs. David followed, stopping
his wheelchair at the foot of the staircase.

 Paber found Tom in a small, bare room, leaning
out of the window and shaking his fist at the sky.

"Missed," Tom said.

"Missed what?"

"Bagle."

Downstairs, David laughed.

 Tom put the shotgun down beside a cardboard
box. He took a new bottle of whisky from the box
and led the way downstairs.

 David we. already back in the kitchen, close to the
heat. "She was the first animal we've lost this year,"
he said, his thoughts returning to the dead sheep.

"Aye," Tom said.

"We'll fence the gully this summer."

"Aye."

 Paber sensed a change in the atmosphere: it was
not the same as it had been earlier. They sat,
drinking and smoking as before, but David seemed
restless. Twice Paber caught the man staring at him.

 Eventually David said, "We'll leave you to butcher
the ewe, Tom."

"Aye."

 David and Paber left. Tom did not get up, but the
dog saw them to the door.

 Before starting the jeep David tools the shotgun
from its rack above the windshield, reloaded it, and
put it back. On the way home he underwent another
change of mood a surprising operand became
chatty. 'if used to fly Spitfires, lovely kites. Pour
guns in each wing American Brownings, fired one
thousand two hundred and sixty rounds a minute.
The Jerries prefer cannon, of course their Mel09s
only have two machine guns. A cannon does more
damage but our Brownings are faster, and more
accurate."

"Really?" Paber said it politely.

 'They put cannon in the Hurricanes later, but it
was the Spitfire that won the Bathe of Britain."

244

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

 Paber found his boastfulness irritating. "How
many enemy aircraft did you shoot down?"

"I lost my legs while I was training."

 Faber glanced at his face: expressionless, but it
seemed stretched as though the skin would break.

"No, I haven't killed a single German, yet," David
said.

 Faber became very alert. He had no idea what
David might have deduced or discovered, but there
now seemed little doubt that the man believed
something was up, and not just Paber's night with
his wife. Faber turned slightly sideways to face
David. braced himself with his foot against the
transmission tunnel on the floor, rested his right
hand lightly on his left forearm. He waited.

"Are you interested in aircraft?" David asked.

"No."

 "It's become a national pastime, I gather aircraft
spotting. Like bird-watching. People buy books on
aircraft identification. Spend whole afternoons on
their backs, looking at the sky through telescopes.
I thought you might be an enthusiast."

"Why?"

"Pardon?"

"What made you think I might be an enthusiast?"

 "Oh, I don't know." David stopped the jeep to
light a cigarette. They were at the island's midpoint,
five miles from Tom's cottage with another five
miles to go to Lucy's David dropped the match on
the floor. "Perhaps it was the film I found in your
jacket pocket "

 As he spoke. he tossed the lighted cigarette at
Faber's face, and reached for the gun above the
windshield.

                245
                 
                26

Sid Cripps looked out of the window and cursed
under his breath. The meadow was full of
American tanks at least eighty of them. He
realized there was a war on, and all that, but if
only they'd asked him he would have offered them
another field, where the grass was not so lush. By
now the caterpillar tracks would have chewed up
his best grazing.

He pulled on his boots and went out. There were
some Yank soldiers in the field, and he wondered
whether they had noticed the bull. When he got to
the stile he stopped and scratched his head. There
was something funny going on.

The tanks had not chewed up his grass. They had
left no tracks. But the American soldiers were
making tank tracks with a tool something like a
harrow.

While Sid was trying to figure it all out, the bull
noticed the tanks. It stared at them for a while,
then pawed the ground and lumbered into a run. It
was going to charge a tank.

"Daft bugger, you'll break your head," Sid
muttered.

The soldiers were watching the bull too. They
seemed to think it was very funny.

The bull ran full-tilt into the tank, its horns piercing
the ar246

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

mor-plated side of the vehicle. Sid hoped fervently
that British tanks were stronger than the American
ones.

There was a loud hissing noise as the bull worked
its horns free. The tank collapsed like a deflated
balloon. The American soldiers fell all over each
other, laughing.

It was all quite strange.

Percival Godliman walked quickly across
Parliament Square, carrying an umbrella. He wore a
dark striped suit under his raincoat, and his black
shoes were highly polished at least they had been
until he stepped out into the rain. It was not every
day, come to that it was not every year, that he had
a private audience with Mr. Churchill.

A career soldier would have been nervous at going
with such bad news to see the supreme commander
of the nation's armed forces. Godliman was not
nervous a distinguished historian had nothing to
fear, he told himself, from soldiers and politicians,
not unless his view of history was a good deal more
radical than Godliman's was. Not nervous, then, but
worried. Distinctly worried.

He was thinking about the effort, the forethought,
the care, the money and the manpower that had
gone into the creation of the totally ersatz First
United States Army Group stationed in least Anglia:
the four hundred landing ships, made of canvas and
scaffolding floated on oil drums, that thronged the
barbers and estuaries; the carefully manufactured
inflatable dummies of tanks, artillery, trucks,
half-tracks and even ammunition dumps; the
complaints planted in the correspondence columns
of the local newspapers about the decline in moral
standards since the arrival of thousands of American
troops in the area; the phony oil dock at Dover,
designed by Britain's most distinguished architect
and built out of cardboard and old sewage
pipes by craftsmen borrowed from film studios; the
carefully faked reports transmitted to Hamburg by
German agents who had been "turned" by the XX
Committee; and the incessant radio chatter,
broadcast for the benefit of the German listening
posts, consisting of messages compiled by
professional writers of fiction, and including such as
"Ysth Queen's Royal Regiment report a number of
civilian women, presumably unauthorized, in the
baggage 247

            Ken Follett

train) What are we going to do with them take
them to

 No question, a good deal had been achieved. The
signs indicated that the Germans had bought it.
And now the whole elaborate deception had been
put in jeopardy because of one damned spy a spy
Godliman had failed to catch. Which, of course,
was the reason for his command performance
today.

 His short birdlike paces measured the
Westminster pavement to the small doorway at No.
2, Great George Street. The armed guard standing
beside the wall of sandbags examined his pass and
waved him in. He crossed the lobby and went down
the stairs to Churchill's underground headquarters.

 It was like going below decks on a battleship.
Protected from bombs by a four-foot-thick ceiling
of reinforced concrete, the command post featured
steel bulkhead doors and roof props of ancient
timber. As Godliman entered the map room a
cluster of youngish people with solemn faces
emerged from the conference room beyond. An
aide followed them a moment later, and spotted
Godliman.

 "You're very punctual, sir," the aide said. "He's
ready for you."

 Godliman stepped into the small, comfortable
conference room. There were rugs on the floor and
a picture of the king on the wall. An electric fan
stirred the tobacco smoke in the air. Churchill sat
at the head of an old mirror-smooth table in the
center of which was a statuette of a faun the
emblem of Churchill's own deception outfit, the
London Controlling Section.

Godliman decided not to salute.

Churchill said, "Sit down, Professor."

 Godliman suddenly realized that Churchill was
not a big man but he sat like a big man:
shoulders hunched, elbows on the arms of his chair,
chirp lowered, legs apart. He was wearing a
solicitor's black-and-stripes short black jacket and
striped grey trousers with a spotted blue bow tie
and a brilliant white shirt. Despite his stocky frame
and his paunch, the hand holding the fountain pen
was delicate, thin-fingered. His complexion was
baby-pink. The other hand held a cigar, and 248

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

on the table beside the papers stood a glass
containing what looked like whisky.

He was making notes in the margin of a
typewritten report, and as he scribbled he
occasionally muttered. Godliman was not really
awed by the great man. As a peacetime statesman
Churchill had been, in Godliman's view, something
of a disaster. However, the man had the qualities of
a great warrior chieftain, and Godliman very much
respected him for that. (Churchill modestly denied
being the British lion, saying that he merely was
privileged to give the roar; Godliman thought that
assessment was just about right.)

He looked up abruptly now. "I suppose there's no
doubt this damned spy has discovered what we're
up to?"

"None whatsoever, sir," Godliman said.

"You think he's got away?"

 "We chased him to Aberdeen. It's almost certain
that he left there two nights ago in a stolen
boat presumably for a rendezvous in the North
Sea. However, he can't have been far out of port
when the storm blew up. He may have met the
U-boat before the storm hit, but it's unlikely. In all
prom ability he drowned. I'm sorry we can't offer
more definite information "

 "So am I," Churchill said, and suddenly he
seemed angry, though not with Godliman. He got
out of his chair and went over to the clock on the
wall, staring as if mesmerized at the inscription,
Victoria R.l., Ministry of Works, 1889. Then as if he
had forgotten that Godliman was there, he began to
pace up and down alongside the table, muttering to
himself. Godliman was able to make out the words,
and what he heard astonished hirn. The great man
was mumbling: "This stocky figure, with a slight
stoop, striding up and down, suddenly unconscious
of any presence beyond his own thoughts . . ." It
was as if Churchill were acting out a Hollywood
screenplay that he wrote as he went along.

 The performance ended as abruptly as it had
begun, and if the man knew he had been behaving
eccentrically, he gave no sign of it. He sat down,
handed Godliman a sheet of paper and said, 'Yhis
is the German order of battle as of last week."

249

            Ken Fillet

Godliman read:

Russian front:               122
infantry divisions
                             25
panzer divisions
                             17
miscellaneous divisions
Italy & Balkans:             37
infantry divisions
                             9 panzer
divisions
                             4
miscellaneous divisions
Western front:               64
infantry divisions
                             12
panzer divisions
                             12
miscellaneous divisions
Germany:                     3
infantry divisions
                             1 panzer
division
                             4
miscellaneous divisions

 Churchill said: "Of those twelve panzer divisions
in the west, only one is actually on the Normandy
coast. The great SS divisions, Das Reich and Adolf
Hitler, are at Toulouse and Brussels respectively
and show no signs of moving. What does an this
tell you, professor?"

 "Our deception and cover plans seem to have
been success fur," Godliman answered, and realized
the trust Churchill had placed in him. Until this
moment, Normandy had never been mentioned to
him, not by his uncle Colonel Terry or anybody
else, though he had deduced as much, knowing as
he did about the artificial buildup aimed at Calais.
Of course, he stin did not know the date of the
invasion D~Day and was grateful that he did
not.

 "Totally successful," Churchill said. "They are
confused and uncertain, and their best guesses
about our intentions are wildly wrong. And
yet" he paused for effect "and yet, despite an
that . . ." He picked up another piece of paper from
the table and read it aloud. " 'Our chances of
holding the beachhead, particularly after the
Germans get their buildup, are only fifty-fifty.' "

 He put his cigar down, and his voice became
quite soft. "It has taken the total military and
industrial might of the whole English-speaking
world the greatest civilisation since the Roman
Elmpire four years to win this fifty-fifty chance. If
this spy gets out, we lose even that. Which is to say,
we lose everything."

250

        EYE OF TF1E NEEDLE

 He stared at Godliman for a moment, then
picked up his pen with a frail white hand. "Don't
bring me probabilities, professor. Bring me Die
Nadel."

 He looked down and began to write. After a
moment Godliman got up and quietly left the
room.

                251
                 
                27

Cigarette tobacco burns at 800 degrees centigrade.
However, the coal at the end of the cigarette is
normally surrounded by a thin layer of ash. To
cause a burn, the cigarette has to be pressed
against the skin for the better part of a second a
glancing touch will hardly be felt. This applies even
to the eyes; blinking is the fastest involuntary
reaction of the human body. Only amateurs throw
cigarettes, and David Rose was an amateur a
thoroughly frustrated and action-starved amateur.
Professionals ignore them.

 Faber ignored the lighted cigarette that David
Rose threw at him. He was right, because the
cigarette glanced off his forehead and fell to the
metal floor of the jeep. He made a grab for
David's gun, which was an error. He should, he in-
stantly realised, have drawn out his stiletto and
stabbed David: David might have shot him first but
David had never before pointed a gun at a human
being, let alone killed somebody, so he would
almost certainly have hesitated and in that moment
Faber could have killed him. Paber decided he
could blame his recent lapse into humanity for
such intolerable miscalculation. It would be his last.

 David had both hands on the midsection of the
gun left hand on the barrel, right hand around
the breech and had pulled the weapon about six
inches from its rack when Faber 252

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

got a one-handed grip on the muzzle. David tugged
the gun toward himself. but for a moment Faber's
grasp held the gun pointed at the windshield.

Faber was a strong man, but David was
exceptionally strong. His shoulders, arms and wrists
had moved his body and his wheelchair for four
years, and the muscles had become abnormally
developed. Furthermore he had both hands on the
gun in front of him, and Faber was holding on with
one hand at an awkward angle. David tugged again,
more determinedly this time, and the muzzle
slipped from Paber's grasp.

At that instant, with the shotgun pointed at his
belly and David's finger curling around the trigger,
Faber felt very dose to death.

He jerked upward, catapulting himself out of his
seat. His head hit the canvas roof of the jeep as the
gun exploded with a crash that numbed the ears
and produced a physical pain behind the eyes. The
window by the passenger seat shattered into small
pieces and the rain blew in through the empty
frame. Faber twisted his body and fell back, not
onto his own seat but across David. He got both
hands to David's throat and squeezed his thumbs.

David tried to bring the gun around between
their bodies to fire the other barrel, but the
weapon was too big. Faber looked into his eyes,
and saw . . . what? Exhilaration. Of course the
man finally had a chance to fight for his country.
Then his expression changed as his body felt the
lack of oxygen and he began to fight for breath.

David released his grip on the gun and brought
both elbows back as far as he could, then punched
Paber's lower ribs with a powerful double jab.

Faber screwed up his face in pain, but he held
his grip on David's throat, knowing he could
withstand David's punches longer than David could
hold his breath.

David must have had the same thought. He
crossed his forearms between their bodies and
pushed Faber away; then, when the gap was a few
inches wide, he brought his hands up in an
upward-and-outward blow against 17aber's arms,
breaking the stranglehold. He bunched his right fist
and swung downward with a powerful but
unscientific punch that landed on Faber's
cheekbone and brought water to his eyes.

253

            Ken Follett

Faber with a series of body jabs; David continued
to bruise his face. They were too close together to
do real damage to each other in a short time, but
David's greater strength began to tell.

Almost in admiration, Faber realized that David
had shrewdly picked the time and place for the
fight: he had had the advantages of surprise, the
gun, and the confined space in which his muscle
counted for much and Paber's better balance and
greater maneuverability counted for little. He had
only erred, really, in his bravado understandable
perhaps  about finding the film can, giving Faber
a moment of warning.

Paber shifted his weight slightly and his hip came
into contact with the gearshift, throwing the
transmission into forward. The engine was still
running and the car jerked throwing him off
balance. David used the opportunity to release a
long straight left that more by luck than by judg-
ment~caught Faber flush on me chin and threw
him clear across the cab of the jeep. His head
cracked against the Apost, he slumped with his
shoulder on the door handle, the door opened and
he fell out of the car in a backward somersault to
land on his face in the mud.

Por a moment he was too dazed to move. When
he opened his eyes he could see nothing but
flashes of blue lightning against a misty red
background. He heard the engine of the jeep
racing. He shook his head trying to clear the
fireworks from his vision, and struggled onto his
hands and knees. The sound of the jeep receded
and men came closer again. He turned his head
toward the noise, and as the colors in front of his
eyes dissolved and disappeared he saw She vehicle
bearing down on him.

David was going to run him over.

With Uhe front bumper less than a yard from his
face he threw himself sideways. He felt a blast of
wind. A fender struck his outflung foot as He jeep
roared past, its heavygauge tires tearing up the
spongy turf and spitting mud. He rolled over twice
in the wet grass, then got to one knee. His foot
hurt. He watched the jeep turn in a tight circle and
come for him again.

He could see David's face through the
windshield. The young man was leaning forward,
hunched over the steering 254

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

wheel, his lips actually drawn back over his teeth in
a savage almost crazy grin ... apparently the
frustrated warrior imagining himself in the cockpit
of a Spitfire, coming down out of the sun at an
enemy plane with all eight Browning machine guns
blazing 1,260 rounds per minute.

Faber moved toward the cliff edge. The jeep
gathered speed. Faber knew that, for a moment at
least, he was incapable of running. He looked over
the cliff a rocky, almost vertical slope to the angry
sea a hundred feet below. The jeep was coming
straight down the cliff edge toward him. Faber
looked up and down for a ledge, or even a
foothold. There was none.

The jeep was four or five yards away, traveling at
something like forty miles per hour. Its wheels
were less than two feet from the cliff edge. Faber
dropped flat and swung his legs out into space.
supporting his weight on his forearms as he hung
on the brink.

The wheels passed him within inches. A few
yards farther on one tire actually slipped over the
edge. For a moment Faber thought the whole
vehicle would slide over and fall into the sea below,
but the other three wheels dragged the jeep to
safety.

The ground under Paber's arms shifted. The
vibration of the jeep's passing had loosened the
earth. He felt himself slip a fraction. One hundred
feet below, the sea boiled among the rocks. Faber
stretched one arm to its farthest extent and dug his
fingers deep into the soft ground. He felt a nail
tear, and ignored it. file repeated the process with
his other arm. With two hands anchored in the
earth he pulled himself upward. It was agonisingly
slow, but evenhually his head drew level with his
hands, his hips reached firm ground and he was
able to swivel around and roll away from the edge.

The jeep was turning again. Faber ran toward it.
His foot was painful, but not, he decided, broken.
David accelerated for another pass. Faber burned
and ran at right angles to the jeep's direction,
forcing David to turn the wheel and consequently
slow down.

Faber knew he could not keep this up much
longer, he was certain to tire before David did.
This had to be the last pass.

He ran faster. David steered an interception
course, headed for a point in front of Faber. Faber
doubled back, and the 255

            Ken Pollen

jeep zigzagged. It was now quite close. Paber broke
into a sprint, his course forcing David to drive in a
tight circle. The -jeep was getting slower and Paber
was getting closer. There were only a few yards
between Uhem when David realized what Paber was
up to. He steered away but it was too late. Paber
rushed to Uhe jeep's side and threw himself upward,
landing face down on the top of the canvas roof.

He lay there for a few seconds, catching his
breath. His in3ured foot felt as if it was being held
in a fire; his lungs ached.

The jeep was still moving. Paber drew the stiletto
from its sheath under his sleeve and cut a long,
jagged tear in the canvas roof. The material flapped
downward and Paber found himself staring at the
back of David's head.

David looked up and back, a look of astonishment
crossed his face. Paber drew back his arm for a
knife thrust . . .

David jammed the throttle open and heaved the
wheel around. The jeep leaped forward and lifted
on two wheels as it screeched around in a tight
curve. Faber struggled to stay on. The jeep, still
gathering speed, crashed down onto four wheels,
then lifted again. It teetered precariously for a few
yards, Uhe wheels slipped on the sodden ground
and the vehicle toppled onto its side with a grinding
crash.

Paber was thrown several yards and landed
awkwardly, the breath knocked out of him by the
impact. It was several seconds before he could
move.

The jeep'" crazy course had once again taken it
perilously close to the cliff!..

Paber saw his knife in the grass a few yards away.
He picked it up, then turned to the jeep.

Somehow, David had got himself and his
wheelchair out through the ripped roof, and he was
now sitting in the chair and pushing himself away
along the cliff edge. Paber, running after him, had
to acknowledge his courage.

David must have heard the footsteps, because just
before Paber caught up with the chair it stopped
dead and spu around; and Paber glimpsed a heavy
wrench in David's hand.

Paber crashed into the wheelchair, overturning
it. His last thought was that both of them and the
chair might end up in the sea below and then
the wrench hit the back of his head and he
blacked out.

    ~2s6

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

When he came to, the wheelchair lay beside him,
but David was nowhere to be seen. He stood up
and looked around in dazed puzzlement.

"Here."

The voice came from over the cliff. David must
have just been able to hit him with the wrench
before being flung from the chair and over the
edge. Faber crawled to the cliff and looked over.

David had one hand around the stem of a bush
that grew just under the lip of the cliff. The other
hand was jammed into a small crevice in the rock.
He hung suspended, just as Faber had a few
minutes earlier. His bravado had gone now.

"Pull me up, for God's sake," he called hoarsely.

Faber leaned closer. "How did you know about
the film?" he said.

"Help me, please."

"Tell me about the film."

"Oh, God." David made a mighty effort to
concentrate. "When you went to Tom's outhouse
you left your jacket drying in the kitchen, Tom
went upstairs for more whisky and I went through
your pockets and I found the negatives "

"And that was evidence enough for you to try to
kill me?"

"That, and what you did with my wife in my
house . . . no Englishman would behave like that "

Faber could not help laughing. The man Divas a
boy, after all. "Where are the negatives now?"

"In my pocket. . ."

"Give them to me, and I'll pull you up."

"You'll have to take then I can't let go. Hurry . .
."

Faber lay flat on his stomach and reached down,
under David's oilskin, to the breast pocket of his
jacket. He sighed in relief as his fingers reached
the film can and carefully withdrew it. He looked
at the films; they all seemed to be there. He put
the can in the pocket of his jacket, buttoned the
flap, and reached down to David again. No more
mistakes.

He took hold of the bush David was clinging to
and uprooted it with a savage jerk.

David screamed, "No!" and scrabbled desperately
for grip as his other hand slipped inexorably out of
the crack in the rock

257

           lCen Follett

 "It's not fair," he screamed, and then his hand
came away from the crevice. ~

 He seemed to hang in midair for a moment, then
dropped, bouncing twice against the cliff on his way
down, until he hit the water with a splash.

 Paber watched for a while to make sure he did
not come up again. "Not fair? Not fair? Don't you
know there's a war on?>

 He looked down at the sea for some minutes.
Once he thought he saw a flash of yellow oilskin on
the surface but it was gone before he could focus
on it. There was just the sea and the rocks.

 Suddenly he felt terribly tired. His injuries
penetrated his consciousness one by one: the
damaged foot, the bump on his head, the bruises
all over his face. David Rose had been something
of a fool. also a braggart and a poor husband, and
he had died screaming for mercy; but he had been
a brave man, and he had died for his
country which had been his contribution.

Faber wondered whether his own death would be
as good.

 lIe turned away from the cliff edge and walked
back toward the overturned jeep.

                2J8
                 
                28

Percival Godliman felt refreshed, determined,
even rare for him inspired.

When he reflected on it, this made him
uncomfortable. Pep talks were for the rank-and-file,
and intellectuals believed themselves immune from
inspirational speeches. Yet, although he knew that
the great man's performance had been carefully
scripted, the crescendos and diminuendos of the
speech predetermined like a symphony, nevertheless
it had worked on him, as effectively as if he had
been the captain of the school cricket team hearing
last-minute exhortations from the games master.

He got back to his office itching to do something.

 He dropped his umbrella in the umbrella stand,
hung up his wet raincoat and looked at himself in
the mirror on the inside of the cupboard door.
Without doubt something had happened to his face
since he became one of England's spycatchers. The
other day he had come across a photograph of
himself taken in 1937, with a group of students at
a seminar in Oxford. In those days he actually
looked older than he did now: pale skin, wispy hair,
the patchy shave and ill-fitting clothes of a retired
man. The wispy hair had gone; he was now bald
except for a monkish fringe. His clothes were those
of a business executive, not a teacher. It seemed to
him he 259

            Ken Fol)ctt

might, he supposed, have been imagining it that
the set of his jaw was firmer, his eyes were brighter,
and he took more care shaving.

He sat down behind his desk and lit a cigarette.
That innovation was not welcome; he had
developed a cough. tried to give it up, and
discovered that he had become addicted. But
almost everybody smoked in wartime Britain, even
some of the women. Well, they were doing men's
jobs they were entitled to masculine vices. The
smoke caught in Godliman's throat, making him
cough He put the cigarette out in the tin lid he
used for an ashtray (crockery was scarce).

The trouble with being inspired to perform the
impossible, he reflected' was that the inspiration
gave you rip clues to the practical means. He
recalled his college thesis about the travels of an
obscure medieval monk called Thomas of the Tree.
Godliman had set himself the minor but difficult
task of plotting the monk's itinerary over a five-year
period There had been a baffling gap of eight
months when he had been either in Paris or
Canterbury but C',odliman had been unable to de-
termine which, and this had threatened the value of
the whole project. The records he was using simply
did not contain the information. If the monk's stay
had gone unrecorded, then there was no way to
find out where he had been and that was that With
the optimism of youth, young Godliman had
refused to believe that the information was just not
there, and he had worked on the assumption that
Somewhere there had to be a record of how
Thomas had spent those months despite the
well-known fact that almost everything that
happened in the Middle Aga went unrecorded. If
Thomas was not in Paris or Canterbury he must
have been in transit between the two Godliman had
argued; and then he had found shipping records in
an Amsterdam museum that showed that Thomas
had boarded a vessel bound for Dover that got
blown off course and was eventually wrecked on the
Irish coast This model piece of historical research
was what got Godliman his professorship.

He might try applying, that kind of thinking ta the
problem of what had har~pened to Paber.

It was most likely that Paber had drowned. If he
had not, then he was probably in Germany by now.
Neither of those possibilities presented any course
of action Godliman could 260

            EYE OF THE

follow, so they should be discounted. He must
assume that Faber was alive and had reached land
somewhere.

He left his office and went down one flight of
stairs to the map room. His uncle. Colonel Terry.
was there, standiop in front of the map of Enrone
with a cigarette between his l:pS, Godliman
realised that this was a familiar sight in the War
Office these days senior men Fa~in, entranced at
maps, silently making their own computations of
whether the war would he won or lost FJe
Pue.qsed it was because all the replans had been
made, the vast machine had been Set in motion.
and for those who made the hip derisions there
was nothing to do but wait and see if they had
been right.

Terrv saw bin come in and said, "How did you
get on with the great man?"

"}le was drinking whisky." Godliman said.

"He drinks all day. but it never seems to make
any difference to him." Terrv said "What did he
say?"

"He wants Die Nadel's head on a platter."
Godliman crossed the room to the wall map of
(great Britain and pot a finger on Aberdeen. "If
you were sending a U-hoat in to pick up a fugitive
soy. what would vou think was the nearest the sub
could safely come to the coast?"

Terry stood beside him and looked at the map.
"I wouldn't want to come closer than the
three-mile limit. But for preference I'd stop ten
miles out."

"Right." Godliman drew two pencil lines parallel
to the coast, three miles and ten miles out
respectively. "Now, if you were an amateur sailor
setting out from Aberdeen in a smallish fishing
boat, how far would you go before you began to
get nervous?~,

"You mean, what's a reasonable distance to
travel in such a boat?"

"Indeed."

Terry shrugged. "Ask the Nary. I'd say fifteen or
twenty miles."

"I agree." Godliman drew an arc of twenty mites
radius with its center on Aberdeen "Now if Faber
is alive. he's either back on the mainland or
somewhere within this space." He indicated the
area bounded by the parallel lines and the arc.

"There's no land in that area." 261

            Ker?FoIIcft

"Have we got a bigger map?"

Terry pulled open a drawer and got out a
large-scale map of Scotland. He spread it on top of
the chest. Godliman copied the pencil marks from
the smaller map onto the larger.

There was still no land within the area.

"But look," Godliman said. Just to the east of the
ten-mile limit was a long, narrow island.

Terry peered closer. "Storm Island," he read. "How
apt."

Godliman snapped his fingers. "Could be . . ."

"Can you send someone there?"

"When the storm clears. Bloggs is up there. I'll
get a plane laid on for him. He can take off the
minute the weather improves." He went to the
door.

"Good luck," Terry called after him.

Godliman took the stairs two at a time to the
next floor and entered his offlce. He picked up the
phone. "Get Mr. Bloggs in Aberdeen, please."

While he waited he doodled on his blotter,
drawing the island. It was shaped like the top half
of a walking stick, with the crook at the western
end. It must have been about ten miles long and
perhaps a mile wide. He wondered what sort of
place it was: a barren lump of rock, or a thriving
community of farmers? If Faber was there he might
still be able to contact his U-boat; Bloggs would
have to get to the island before the submarine.

"I have Mr. Bloggs," the switchboard girl said.

"Fred?"

"Hello, Percy."

"I think he's on an island called Storm Island."

"No, he's not," Bloggs said. "We've just arrested
him." (He hoped.)

The stiletto was nine inches long, with an
engraved handle and a stubby little crosspiece. Its
needlelike point was extremely sharp. Bloggs
thought it looked like a highly efficient killing
instrument. It had recently been polished.

Bloggs and Detective-Chief-Inspector Kincaid
stood looking at it, neither man wanting to touch it.

"He was trying to catch a bus to Edinburgh,"
Kincaid said. "A P.C. spotted him at the ticket
office and asked for his identification. He dropped
his suitcase and ran. A woman bus 262

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

conductor hit him over the head with her ticket
machine. He took ten minutes to come around."

"Let's have a look at him " Bloggs said.

They went down the corridor to the cells. 'Ellis
one," Kincaid said.

Bloggs looked through the indas. The man sat on
a stool in the far corner of the cell with his back
against the wall His legs were crossed his eves
dosed his hands in his pockets. "He's been in cells
before " Blogoq remarked. The man was tall, with
a long. handsome face and dark hair. It could have
been the man in the photograph, but it was hard to
be certain.

"Want to go in?" Kincaid asked.

"In a minute. What was in his suitcase, apart
from the stiletto?"

"The tools of a buralar's trade Ouite a lot of
money in small notes A pistol ar d some
amm',nitir~n Rlack c lathes and crepe-soled shoes
live hundred Lucky Strike cigarettes."

"No phc~tograr~hc or film negatives?"

Kincaid Hook his head

"Balls," Bloggq said with feeling.

"Papers identify him as Peter Fredericks, of
Wembley, Middlesex. Says he's an unemployed
toolmaker looking for work."

"Toolmaker?" B10~es said skentically. "There
hasn't been an unemployed toolmaker in Britain in
the last four years. You'd think a spv wonlcl know
that Still . . ."

Kincaid asked, "Shall I start the questioning, or will
you?"

"You.'t

Kincaid opened the door and Bloggs followed
him in. The man in the corner opened his eyes
incuriously. He did not alter his position.

Kincaid sat at a small, plain table. Bloggs leaned
against the wall.

Kincaid said '~lhat's your real name?"

"Peter Fredericks."

"What are volt doing so far from home?"

"Looking for work."

"Why aren't vou in the army?"

"Weak heart."

"Where have you been for the last few days?" 263

            Ken Pollen

"Here, in Aberdeen. Before that Dundee, before
that Perth."

"When did you arrive in Aberdeen?"

'The day before yesterday."

Kincaid glanced at Bloggs, who nodded. "Your
story is silly," Kincaid said. "Toolmakers don't need
to look for work. The country hasn't got enough of
them. You'd better start telling the truth."

"I'm telling the truth."

Bloggs took all the loose change out of his
pocket and tied it up in his handkerchief He stood
watching, saying nothing, swinging the little handle
in his right hand.

"Where is the film?" Kincaid said, having been
briefed to this extent by Blogas. though not to the
extent of knowing what the film was about.

The man's expression did not change. "I don't
know what you're talking about."

Kincaid shrugged, and waked at BlogB8

Bloa~s said, "On your feet."

"PardonT'

"On your PEETI"

The man stood up casually.

"Step forward."

He took two steps up to the table.

"Name9"

"Peter Predericks."

Bloggs came off the wall and hit the man with
the weighted handkerchief. The blow caught him
accurately on the bridge of the nose, and he cried
out. His hands went to his face.

"Stand to attention," Bloggs said. "Name."

The man stood upright, let his hands fall to his
sides. "Peter Fredericks."

Bloggs hit him again in exactly the same place.
This time he went down on one knee, and his eyes
watered!.

"Where is the film?"

The man shook his head.

Bloggs pulled him to his feet, Icneed him in the
groin, punched his stomach. "What did you do with
the negatives""

The nean fell to the floor and threw up. Bloggs kicked
his 264

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

face. There was a sharp crack. "What about the
U-boat? Where is the rendezvous? What's the
signal, damn vou ?"

Kincaid grabbed Bloggs from behind. "That's
enough." he said. 'This is my station and I can only
turn a blind eye so long. vou know "

Bloges rounded on him. "We're not dealing with
a case of petty housebreaking I'm MT$ and I'll do
what I flicking well like in your station. If the
prisoner dies, I'll take responsibility." He turned
back to the man on the floor, who was staring at
him and Kincaid face covered with blood, and an
expression of incredulity. "What are you talking
about?" he said weakly "What is this?"

Blog,es hauled him to his feet. "You're Heinrich
RudolDh Hans van Muller-Guder, born at Oln on
May 26, 1900, also known as Henrv Faber, a
lieutenant colonel in German Intelligence Within
three months you'll be hanged for espionage unless
vou turn out to be more useft, to us alive than
dead. Start making yourself useful, Colonel
Muller-Guder."

"No." the man said. "No, no! I'm a thief. not a
spy. Please!" He leaned away from Bloggs's
upraised fist. "I can prove it "

Bloggs hit him again, and Kincaid intervened for
the second time. "Wait . . . all right, Fredericks if
that's your name prove you're a thief."

"I done three houses in Jubilee Crescent last
week," the man gasped "I took about five hundred
quid from one and some jewelrv from the next
one diamond rings and some pearls and I never
got nothing from the other one because of the dog
. . . you must know I'm telling the truth, they must
have reported it, didn't they? Oh, Jesus "

Kincaid looked at Bloggs. "All those burglaries
took place."

"He could have read about them in the
newspapers."

'The third one wasn't reported."

"Perhaps he did them he could still be a spy.
Spies can steal too." He felt rotten.

"But this was last week your man was in
London, wasn't he?"

Bloggs was silent for a moment. Then he said,
"Well, fuck it," and walked out.

265

            Ken FOllcn

Peter Fredericks looked up at Kincaid through a
mask of blood. "Who's he, the bleedin' Gestapo?"
he said.

Kincaid stared at him. "Just be glad you're not
really the man he's looking for."

"Well?" Godliman said into the phone.

"False alarm." Bloggs's voice was scratchy and
distorted over the long-distance line. "A small-time
housebreaker who happened to carry a stiletto and
look like Faber...."

"Back to square one," Oodliman said.

"You said something about an island."

"Yes. Storm Island it's about ten miles off the
coast, due east of Aberdeen. You'll Snd it on a
large-scale map."

"What makes you sure he's there?"

"I'm not sure. We still have to cover every other
possibility other towns, the coast, everything. But
if he did steal that boat, the . . ."

"Marie 11."

"Yes. If he did steal it, his rendezvous was
probably in the area of this island; and if I'm right
about that, then he's either drowned or shipwrecked
on the island_ n

"Okay. that makes sense."

"What's the weather like up there?"

"No change."

"Could you get to the island, do you think, in a big
ship?"

 "I suppose you can ride any storm if your ship's
big enough. But this island won't have much of a
dock, will it?"

 "You'd better Snd out, but I expect you're right.
Now listen . . . there's an RAT: fighter base near
Edinburgh. By the time you get there I'll have an
amphibious plane standing by. You take off the
minute the storm begins to clear. Have the local
Coastguard ready to move at moment's notice
too I'm not sure who'll get there Srst."

 "But if the U-boat is also waiting for the storm to
clear, it will get there first," Bloggs said.

"You're right." Godliman lit a cigarette, fumbling
for

spiration. "Well, we can get a Navy corvette to
circle the island and listen for Faber's radio signal.
When the storm clears it can land a boat on the
island."

"What about some fighters?"

266

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

"Yes. Accept like you, they'll have to wait until
the weather breaks."

"It can't go on much longer."

"What do the Scottish meteorologists say?"

"Another day of it, at least. But remember, all
the time we're grounded he's bottled up too."

"If he's there."

"Yes."

"All right," Godliman said. "We'll have a
corvette, the Coastguard, some fighters and an
amphibian. You'd better get on your way. Call
me from Rosyth. Take care."

"Will do."

Godliman hung up. His cigarette, neglected in
the ashtray, had burned down to a tiny stub.

                267
                 
                29

Lying on its side, the jeep looked powerful but
helpless, like a wounded elephant. The engine had
stalled. Faber gave it a hefty push and it toppled
majestically onto all four wheels. It had survived
the fight relatively undamaged. The canvas roof
was destroyed, of course; the rip paber's knife had
made had become a long tear running from one
side to the other. The offside front fender, which
had ploughed into the earth and stopped the
vehicle, was crumpled. The headlight on that side
had smashed. The window on the same side had
been broken by the shot from the gun. The
windshield was miraculously intact.

Paber climbed into the driver's seat, put the
gearshift into neutral and tried the starter. It
kicked over and died. He tried again, and the
engine fired. He was grateful for that, he could not
have faced a long walk.

He sat in the car for a while, inventorying his
wounds. He gingerly touched his right ankle; it was
swelling massively. Perhaps he had cracked
a~bone. It was as well that the jeep was designed
to be driven by a man with no legs, Paber could
not have pressed a brake pedal. The lump on the
back of his head felt huge, at least the size of a
golf ball; when he touched it his hand came away
sticky with blood. He examined his face in the
rear-view mirror. It was a mass of small 268

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

cuts and big bruises, like the face of the loser at the
end of a boxing match.

 He had abandoned his oilskin back at the cottage,
so his jacket and overalls were soggy with rain and
smeared with mud. He needed to get warm and dry
very soon.

 He gripped the steering wheel a burning pain
shot through his hand; he had forgotten the torn
fingernail. He looked at it. It was the nastiest of his
injuries. He would have to drive with one hand.

 He pulled away slowly and found what he guessed
was the road. There was no danger of getting lost
on this island all he had to do was follow the cliff
edge until he came to Lucy's cottage.

 He needed to invent a lie to explain to Lucy what
had become of her husband. She wouldn't have
heard the shotgun so far away, he knew. He might,
of course, tell her the truth; there was nothing she
could do about it. However, if she became difficult
he might have to kill her, and he had an aversion to
that. Driving slowly along the Miff top through the
pouring rain and howling wind, he marveled at this
new thing inside him, this scruple. It was the first
time he had ever felt reluctance to kill. It was not
that he was amoral to the contrary. He had made
up his mind that the killing he did was on the same
moral level as death on the battlefield, and his
emotions followed his intellect. He always had the
physical reaction, the vomiting, after he killed, but
that was something incomprehensible that he
ignored.

So why did he not want to kill Lucy?

 The feeling was on a par, he decided, with the
affection that drove him to send the Luftwaffe
erroneous directions to St. Paul's Cathedral: a
compulsion to protect a thing of beauty. She was a
remarkable creation, as full of loveliness and
subtlety as any work of art. Faber could live with
himself as a killer, but not as an iconoclast. It was,
he recognized as soon as the thought occurred to
him, a peculiar way to be. But then. spies were
peculiar people.

 He thought of some of the spies who had been
recruited by the Abwehr at the same time he had
been Otto, the Nordic giant who made delicate
paper sculptures in the Japanese fashion and hated
women, Friedrich, the sly little mathematical genius
who jumped at shadows and went into a five269

            Ken Follcit

day depression if he lost a game of chess; Helmut,
who liked to read books about slavery in America
and had soon joined the SS . . . all different, all
peculiar. If they had anything more specific in
common, he did not know what it was.

He seemed to be driving more and more slowly,
and the rain and mist became more impenetrable.
He began to worry about the cliff edge on his
left-hand side. He felt very hot, but suffered
spasms of shivering. He realized he had been
speaking aloud about Otto and Friedrich and
Helmut, and he recognized the signs of delirium.
He made an effort to think of nothing but the
problem of keeping the jeep on a straight course.
The noise of the wind took on some kind of
rhythm, becoming hypnotic. Once he found himself
stationary, staring out over the sea, and had no
idea how long ago he had stopped.

It seemed hours later that Lucy's cottage came
into view. He steered toward it, thinking, I must
remember to put the brake on before I hit the
wall. There was a figure standing in the doorway,
looking out at him through the rain. He had to stay
in control of himself long enough to tell her the
lie. He had to remember, had to remember, .,

It was late afternoon by the time the jeep came
back. Lucy was worried about what had happened
to the men, and at the same time angry with them
for not coming home for the lunch she had
prepared. As the day waned she had spent more
and more time at the windows, looking out for
them.

When the jeep came down the slight slope to the
cottage it was clear something was wrong. It was
moving terribly slowly, on a zigzag course, and
there was only one person in it. It came closer, and
she saw that the front was dented and the
headlight smashed.

"Oh, God."

The vehicle shuddered to a halt in front of the
cottage, and she saw that the figure inside was
Henry. He made no move to get out. Lucy ran out
into the rain and opened the driver's door.

He sat there with his head back and his eyes
half-closed, His hand was on the brake. His face
was bloody and bruised.

"What happened? What happened?"

His hand slipped off the brake, and the jeep moved
for270

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

ward. Lucy leaned across him and slipped the
gearshift into neutral.

"Left David at Tom's cottage . . . had crash on
way back...." The words seemed to cost him a great
effort.

Now that she knew what had happened, Lucy's
panic subsided. "Come inside," she said sharply.
The urgency in her voice got through to him. He
turned toward her, put his foot on the running
board to step down, and promptly fell to the
ground. Lucy saw that his ankle was swollen like a
balloon.

She got her hands under his shoulders and pulled
him upright. "Put your weight on the other foot
and lean on me." She got his right arm around her
neck and half carried him inside.

Jo watched wide-eyed as she helped Henry into
the living room and got him onto the sofa. He lay
back with his eyes shut. His clothes were soaked
and muddy.

Lucy said, "Jo, go upstairs and get your pajamas
on, please."

"But I haven't had my story. Is he dead?"

"He's not dead, he's had a car crash and you
can't have a story tonight. Go on."

The child made a complaining sound, and Lucy
looked threateningly at him. He went.

Lucy got the big scissors out of her sewing basket
and cut Henry's clothes away: first the jacket, then
the overalls, then the shirt. She frowned in
puzzlement when she saw the knife in its sheath
strapped to his left forearm; she guessed it was a
special implement for cleaning fish or something.
When she tried to take it off, he pushed her hand
away. She shrugged and turned her attention to his
boots. The left one came off easily, and its sock;
but he cried out in pain when she touched the
right.

"It must come off," she told him. "You'll have to
be brave."

A funny kind of smile came over his face, then,
and he nodded. She cut the laces, took the shoe
gently but firmly in both hands and pulled it off.
This time he made no sound. She cut the elastic in
the sock and pulled that off too.

Jo came in. "He's in his pantsl"

"His clothes are all wet." She kissed the boy good
night. "Put yourself to bed, darling. I'll tuck you up
later."

271

            Ken Pollett

"Kiss teddy, then."

"Good night, teddy."

Jo went out. Lucy looked back to Henry. His
eyes were open, and he was smiling. He said, "Kiss
Henry, then."

She loaned over him and kissed his battered face.
Then carefully she cut away his underpants.

The heat from the fire would quickly dry his
naked skin. She went into the kitchen and filled a
bowl with warm water and a little antiseptic to
bathe his wounds. She found a roll of absorbent
cotton and returned to the living room.

"This is the second time you've turned up on the
doorstep half dead," she said as she set about her
task.

"The usual signal," Henry said. The words came
abruptly.

"What?"

"Wai tine- at-Calais -for- a-phantom-army . . ."

"Henry, what are you talking about?"

"Lvery-I7riday-and-Monday . . ."

She finally realised he was delirious. "Don't try to
talk," she said. She lifted his head slightly to clean
away the dried blood from around the bump.

Suddenly he sat upright, looked fiercely at her,
and said, "What day is it? What day is it?"

"It's Sunday, relay" Okay."

He was quiet after that, and he let her remove
the knife. She bathed his face, bandaged his finger
where he had lost the nail and put a dressing on
his ankle. When she had finished she stood looking
at him for a while. He seemed to be sleeping. She
touched the long scar on his chest, and the
star-shaped mark on his hip. The star was a
birthmark, she decided.

She went through his pockets before throwing the
lacerated clothes away. There wasn't much: some
money, his papers, a leather wallet and a film can.
She put them all in a little pile on the mantelpiece
beside his fish knife. He would have to have some
of David's clothes.

She left him and went upstairs to see to Jo. The
boy was asleep, Iying on his teddy bear with his
arms outfiung. She kissed his soft cheek and tucked
him in. She went outside and put the jeep in the
barn.

She made herself a drink in the kitchen, then sat
watching 272

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

Henry, wishing he would wake up and make love to
her again.

It was almost midnight when he woke. He
opened his eyes, and his face showed the series of
expressions that were now familiar to her: first the
fear, then the wary survey of the room, then the
relaxation. On impulse, she asked him, "What are
you afraid of, Henry?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"You always look frightened when you wake up."

 "I don't know." He shrugged, and the movement
seemed to hurt. "God, I'm battered."

"Do you want to tell me what happened?"

"Yes, if you'll give me a drink of brandy."

 She got the brandy out of the cupboard. '~You
can have some of David's clothes."

"In a minute . . . unless you're embarrassed."

She handed him the glass, smiling. "I'm afraid I'm
enjoying

"What happened to my clothes?"

"I had to cut them off you. I've thrown them away."

 "Not my papers, I hope." He smiled, but there
was some other emotion just below the surface.

 "On the mantelpiece." She pointed. "Is the knife
for cleaning fish or something?"

 His right hand went to his left forearm, where
the sheath had been. "Something like that," he said.
He seemed uneasy for a moment, then relaxed with
an effort and sipped his drink. "That's good."

After a moment she said, "Well?"

"What?"

"How did you manage to lose my husband and
crash any

 "David decided to stay over at Tom's for the
night. Some of the sheep got into trouble in a place
they call The Gully "

"I know it."

 " and six or seven of them were injured. They're
an in Tom's kitchen being bandaged up and making
a terrible row. Anyway, David suggested I come
back to tell you he would lie staying. I don't really
know how I managed to crash. The 273

            Ken Fillet

car is unfamiliar, there's no real road, I hit
something and went into a skid and the jeep ended
up on its side. The details . . ." He shrugged.

 "You must have been going quite fast you were
in an awful mess when you got here."

 "I suppose I rattled around inside the jeep a bit.
Banged my head, twisted my ankle . . ."

 "Lost a fingernail, bashed your face, and almost
caught pneumonia. You must be accident-prone."

 He swung his legs to the floor, stood up and
went to the mantelpiece.

"Your powers of recuperation are incredible," she
said.

 He was strapping the knife to his arm. "We
fishermen are very healthy. What about those
clothes?"

 She got up and stood close to him. "What do you
need clothes for? It's bedtime."

 He drew her to him, pressing her against his
naked body, and kissed her hard. She stroked his
thighs.

 After a while he broke away from her. He picked
up his things from the mantelpiece, took her hand,
then, hobbling, he led her upstairs to bed.

                274
                 
                30

The wide white autobahn snaked through the
Bavarian valley up into the mountains. In the
leather rear seat of the staff Mercedes, Field
Marshal Gerd van Rundstedt was still and weary.
Aged sixty-nine, he knew he was too fond of cham-
pagne and not fond enough of Hitter. His thin,
lugubrious face reflected a career longer and more
erratic than that of ary of Hitler's other officers: he
had been dismissed in disgrace more times than he
could remember, but the Fuehrer always asked him
to come back.

As the car passed through the sixteenth-century
village of Berchtesgaden he wondered why he
always returned to his command when Hitler
forgave him. Money meant nothing to him; he had
already achieved the highest possible rank; deco-
rations were valueless in the Third Reich; and he
believed that it was not possible to win honor in
this war.

It was Rundstedt who had first called Hitler "the
Bohemian corporal." The little man knew nothing
of the German military tradition, nor despite his
flashes of inspiration of military strategy. If he
had, he would not have started this war, which was
unwinnable. Rundstedt was Germany's finest sol-
dier, and he had proved it in Poland, France and
Russia, but he had no hope of victory.

All the same, he would have nothing to do with the
small 27J

            Ken Pollett

group of generals who he knew were plotting to
overthrow Hitler. He turned a blind eye to them,
but the Fahnen~id. the blood oath of the German
warrior, was too strong in him to permit him to join
the conspiracy. And that, he supposed, was why he
continued to serve the Third Reich. Right or
wrong, his country was in danger. and he had no
option but to protect it. I'm like an old cavalry
horse, he thought; if I stayed at home I would feel
ashamed.

He commanded five armies on the western front
now. A million and a half men were under his
command. They were not as strong as they might
be some divisions were little better than rest
homes for invalids from the Russian front. there
was a shortage of armor and there were many
non-German conscripts among the other
ranks but Rundstedt could still keep the Allies
out of France if he deployed his forces shrewdly.

It was that deployment that he must now discuss
with Hitler.

The car climbed the Kehlsteinstrasse until the
road ended at a vast bronze door in the side of the
Kehlstein Mountain. An SS guard touched a
button, the door hummed open, and the car
entered a long marble tunnel lit by bronze lanterns.
At the far end of the tunnel the driver stopped the
car. and Rundstedt walked to the elevator and sat
in one of its leather seats for the four-hundred-foot
ascent to the Adlerhorst, the Eagle's Nest.

In the anteroom Rattenhuber took his pistol and
left him to wait. He stared unappreciatively at
Hitler's porcelain and went over in his mind the
words he would say.

A few moments later the blond bodyguard
returned to usher him into the conference room.

The place made him think of an
eighteenth-century palace. The walls were covered
with oil paintings and tapestries. and there was a
bust of Wagner and a huge clock with a bronze
eagle on its top. The view from the wide window
was truly remarkable: one could see the hills of
Salzburg and the peak of the Untersberg, the
mountain where the body of the Emperor
Frederick Barbarossa waited, according to legend,
to rise from the grave and save the Fatherland.
Inside the room, seated in the peculiarly rustic
chairs, were Hitler and just three of his staff:
Admiral Theodor Krancke, the naval com276

         EYE OF rnE NEEDLE

mender in the west: General Alfred Jodl, chief of
staff; and Admiral Karl Jesko van Puttkamer,
Hitler's aide-de-camp.

Rundstedt saluted and was motioned to a chair.
A footman brought a plate of caviar sandwiches
and a glass of champagne. Hider stood at the large
window, looking out, with his hands clasped behind
his back. Without turning, he said
abruptly "Rundstedt has changed his mind. He
now agrees with Rommel chat dhe Allies will
invade Normandy. This is what my instinct has all
along told me. Krancke, however, still favors Calaia
Rundstedt, tell Kranclre how you arrived at your
conclusion."

Rundstedt swallowed a mouthful and coughed
into his hand. 'where are two things: one new piece
of information and one new line of reasoning,"
Rundstedt began. First, Uho information. The
latest summaries of Allied bombing in France show
without doubt that Their principal aim is to destroy
every bridge across the river Seine. Now, if they
land at Calais tile Seino is irrelevant to the battle;
but if they land in Normandy all our reserves have
to cross Ghe Seine to reach The zone of cordlict.

"Second, the reasoning. I have given some
thought to how I would invade Prance if I were
commanding the Allied forces. My conclusion is
chat the first goal must be to es tabli~h a
bridgehead through which men and supplies can be
funneled at speed. The initial dlrust must Therefore
come in tile region of a large and capacious harbor.
The natural choice is Cherbourg. Both the bombing
pattern and the strategic requirements point to
Normandy," he finished. He picked up his glass and
emptied it, and the footman came forward to refill
it.

Jodl said, "All our intelligence points ta Calais "

 "And we have just executed the head of the
Abwehr as a traitor," Hitler interrupted. "Krancke,
are you convinced?"

 "I am not," the admiral said. "I too have
considered how I would conduct the invasion if I
were on the other side but I have brought into
the reasoning a number of factors of a nautical
nature that our colleague Rundstedt may not have
comprehended. I believe they will attack under
cover of darkness, by moonlight, at full tide to sail
over Rommel's underwater obstacles, and away
from cliffs, rocky waters, and strong currents.
Normandy? Never."

277

            Ken Follett

Hitler shook his head in disagreement.

Jodl then said, "There is another small piece of
information I find significant. The Guards Armored
Division has been transferred from the north of
England to Hove, on the southeast coast, to join the
First United States Army Group under General
Patton. We learned this from wireless surveil-
lance there was a baggage mix-up en route, one
unit had another's silver cutlery, and the fools have
been quarreling about it over the radio. This is a
crack British division, very blue-blooded,
commanded by General Sir Allen Henry Shafto
Adair. I feel sure they will not be far from the
center of the battle when it comes."

Hitler's hands moved nervously, and his face now
twitched in indecision. "Generals!" he barked at
them, "either I get conflicting advice, or no advice at
all. I have to tell you everything "

With characteristic boldness, Rundstedt plunged
on. "My Fuehrer, you have four superb panzer
divisions doing nothing here in Germany. If I am
right, they will never get to Normandy in time to
repel the invasion. I beg you, order them to France
and put them under Rommel's command. If we are
wrong, and the invasion begins at Calais, they will at
least be dose enough to get into the battle at an
early stage "

"I don't know I don't knowI" Hitler's eyes
widened, and Rundstedt wondered if he had pushed
too hard again.

Puttkamer spoke now for the first time. "My
Fuehrer, today is Sunday "

"Wells"

"Tomorrow night the U-boat may pick up the spy.
Die Nadel."

"Ah, yes, someone I can trust."

"Of course he can report by radio at any time,
though that would be dangerous "

Rundstedt said, "There isn't time to postpone
decisions. Both air attacks and sabotage activities
have increased dramatically. The invasion may come
any day."

"I disagree," Krancke said. "The weather
conditions will not be right until early June "

"Which is not very far away "

 "Enough," Hitler shouted. "I have made up my
mind. My panzers stay in Germany for now. On
Tuesday, by which 278

         EYE OF TIE NEEDLE

time we should have heard from Die Nadel, I will
reconsider the disposition of these forces. If his
information favors Normandy as I believe it
will I will move the panzers."

Rundstedt said quietly, "And if he does not
report?"

"If he does not report, I shall reconsider just the
same."

Rundstedt nodded assent. "With your permission
I will return to my command."

"Granted."

Rundstedt got to his feet, gave the military salute
and went out. In the copper-lined elevator, falling
four hundred feet to the underground garage, he
felt his stomach turn over and wondered whether
the sensation was caused by the speed of descent or
by the thought that the destiny of his country lay in
the hands of a single spy, whereabouts unknown.

                27g
                 
PART SIX

                31

Lucy woke up slowly. She rose gradually, languidly,
from the warm void of deep sleep, up through
layers of unconsciousness, perceiving the world
piece by isolated piece: first the warm, hard male
body beside her; then the strangeness of Henry's
bed; the noise of the storm outside, as angry and
tireless as yesterday and the day before; the faint
smell of the man's skin; her arm across his chest,
her leg thrown across his as if to keep him there,
her breasts pressed against his side; the light of day
beating against her eyelids; the regular, light
breathing that blew softly across her face; and
then, all at once like the solution to a puzzle, the
realization that she was flagrantly and adulterously
Iying with a man she had met only forty-eight
hours before, and that they were naked in bed in
her husband's house. For the second time.

She opened her eyes and saw Jo. My God . . .
she'd overslept.

He was standing beside the bed in his rumpled
pajamas, hair tousled, a battered rag doll under his
arm, sucking his thumb and staring wide-eyed at
his mummy and the strange man cuddling each
other in bed. Lucy could not read his expression,
for at this time of day he stared wide-eyed at most
things, as if all the world was new and marvelous
every 283

            Ken Pollett

morning. She stared back at him in silence, not
knowing what to say.

Then Henry's deep voice said, "Good morning."

Jo took his thumb out of his mouth, said, "Good
morn" in"," turned around and went out of the
bedroom.

"Damn, damn," Lucy said.

 Henry slid down in the bed until his face was
level with hers, and kissed her. His hand went
between her thighs and held her possessively.

She pushed him away. "For God's sake, stop."

"Why?"

"Jo's seen U9.~'

"So what?"

 "He can talk, you know. Sooner or later he'll say
some" thing to David. What am I going to do?"

"Do nothing. Does it matter?"

"Of course it matters."

"I don't see why, the way he is. You shouldn't feel
guilty."

 Lucy suddenly realized that Henry simply had no
conception of the complex tangle of loyalties and
obligations that constituted a marriage. Any
marriage, but especially here "It's not that simple,"
she said.

 She got out of bed and crossed the landing to her
own bedroom. She slipped into panties, trousers and
a sweater, then remembered she had destroyed all
Henry's clothes and had to lend him some of
David's. She found underwear and socks, a knitted
shirt and a V-necked pullover, and finally right at
the bottom of a trunk one pair of trousers that
were not cut off at the knee and sewn up. All the
while Jo watched her in silence.

 She took the clothes into the other bedroom.
Henry had gone into the bathroom to shave. She
called through the door, "Your clothes are on the
bed."

 She went downstairs, lit the stove in the kitchen
and put a saucepan of water on to heat. She
decided to have boiled eggs for breakfast. She
washed Jo's face at the kitchen sink, combed his
hair and dressed him quickly. "You're very quiet
this morning," she said brightly. He made no reply.

 Henry came down and sat at the table, as
naturally as if he had been doing it every morning
for years. Lucy felt very weird, seeing him there in
David's clothes, handing him a 284

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

breakfast egg, putting a rack of toast on the table in
front of him.

Jo said suddenly, "Is my daddy dead?"

Henry gave the boy a look and said nothin&

Lucy said, "Don't be silly. He's at Tom's house."

 Jo ignored her and spoke to Henry. "You've got
my daddy's clothes, and you've got mummy. Are
you going to be my daddy now?"

 Lucy muttered, "Out of the mouths of babes and
sucklings . . ."

"Didn't you see my clothes last night?" Henry said.

Jo nodded.

 "Well, then, you know why I had to borrow some
of your daddy's clothes. I'll give them back to him
when I get some more of my own."

"Win you give my mummy back?"

"Of course."

Lucy said, "Eat your egg, Jo."

 The child went at his breakfast, apparently
satisfied. Lucy was gazing out of the kitchen
window. "The boat won't come today," she said.

"Are you glad?" Henry asked her.

She looked at him. "I don't know."

 Lucy didn't feel hungry. She drank a cup of tea
while Jo and Henry ate. Afterward Jo went upstairs
to play and Henry cleared the table. As he stacked
crockery in the sink he said, "Are you afraid David
win hurt you? Physically?"

She shook her head "no."

 "You should forget him," Henry went on. "You
were planning to leave him anyway. Why should it
concern you whether he knows or not?"

 "He's my husband. That counts for something.
The kind of husband he's been . . . all that . . .
doesn't give me the right to humiliate him."

 "I think it gives you the right not to care whether
he's humiliated or not."

 "It's not a question that can be settled logically.
It's just the way I feel."

 He made a giving-up gesture with his arms. "I'd
better drive over to Tom's and find out whether
your husband wants to come back. Where are my
boots?"

28s

            Ken Follow

"In the living room. ItU get you a jacket." She
went upstairs and got David's old hacking jacket out
of the wardrobe. It was a fine grey-green tweed,
very elegant with a nipped-in waist and slanted
pocket flaps. Lucy had put leather patches on the
elbow" to preserve it; you couldn't buy clothes like
this anymore. She took it down to the living room,
where Henry was putting his boots on. He had laced
the left one and was gingerly inserting his injured
right foot into the other. Lucy knelt to help him.

''The swelling has gone down," she said.

"The damned thing still hurts."

They got the boot on but left it untied and took
the lace out. Henry stood up experimentaUy.

"It's okay," he said.

Lucy helped him into the jacket. It was a bit tight
across the shoulders. "We haven't got another
oilskin," she said.

"Then I'U get wet." He pulled her to him and
kissed her roughly. She put her arms around him
and held tightly for a moment.

"Drive more carefully today," she said.

He smiled and nodded, kissed her again briefly
this time and went out. She watched him limp
across to the barn, and stood at the window while
he started the jeep and drove away up the slight rise
and out of sight. When he had gone she felt
relieved. but also empty.

She began to put the house straight, making beds
and washing dishes. cleaning and tidying; but she
could summon up no enthusiasm for it. She was
restless. She worried at the problem of what to do
with her life, following old arguments around in
familiar circles, unable to put her mind to anything
else. She again found the cottage claustrophobic.
There was a big world out there somewhere, a
world of war and heroism, fun of color and people,
minions of people, she wanted to be out there in
the midst of it, to meet new minds and see cities
and hear music. She turned on the radio a futile
gesture, the news broadcast made her feel more
isolated, not less. There was a battle report from
Italy, the rationing regulations had been eased a
little, the London stiletto murderer was slid at large,
Roosevelt had made a speech. Sandy Macpherson
began to play a theater organ, and Lucy switched
off. None of it touched her, she did not live in that
world.

286

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

She wanted to scream.

She had to get out of the house, in spite of the
weather. It would be only a symbolic escape . . . the
stone walls of the cottage were not, after all, what
imprisoned her; but the symbol was better than
nothing. She collected Jo from upstairs, separating
him with some difficulty from a regiment of toy
soldiers and wrapped him up in waterproof clothing.

"Why are we going out?" he asked.

'To if the boat comes."

"You said it won't come today."

"Just in case."

They put bright yellow soutwesters on their heads,
lacing them under their chins, and stepped outside
the door.

The wind was like a physical blow, unbalancing
Lucy so that she staggered. In seconds her face was
as wet as if she had dipped it in a bowl, and the
ends of hair protruding from under her hat lay limp
and dinging on her cheeks and the shoulders of her
oilskin. Jo screamed with delight and jumped in a
puddle.

They walked along the Tiff top to the head of the
bay, and looked down at the huge North Sea rollers
hurling themselves to destruction against the cliffs
and on the beach. The storm had uprooted
underwater vegetation from God only knew what
depths and flung it in heaps on the sand and rocks.
Mother and son became absorbed in the ceaselessly
shifting patterns of the waves. They had done this
before; the sea had a hypnotic effect on both of
them, and Lucy was never quite sure afterward how
long they had spent watching silently.

Its spell this time was broken by something she
saw. At first there was only a flash of color in the
trough of a wave, 80 fleeting that she was not
certain what color it had been, so small and far
away that she immediately doubted whether she had
seen it at all. She looked for it but did not see it
again, and her gaze drifted back to the bay and the
little jetty on which flotsam gathered in drifts only
to be swept away by the next big wave. After the
storm, on the first fine day, she and Jo would go
beachcombing to see what treasures the sea had
disgorged and come back with oddly colored rocks,
bits of wood of mystifying origin, huge seashells and
twisted fragments of rusted metal.

' She saw the flash of color again, much nearer, and
this 287

            Con Pollctt

time it stayed within sight for a few seconds. It was
bright yellow, the color of all their oilskins. She
peered at it through the sheets of rain but could not
identify in shape before it disappeared again. Now
the current was bringing it closer, as it brought
everything to the bay, depositing its rubbish on the
sand like a man emptying his trouser pocked onto
a table.

 It was an oilskin: she could see that when the sea
lifted it on the crest of a wave and showed it to her
for the third and final time. Henry had come back
without his, yesterday, but how had it got into the
sea? The wave broke over the jetty and flung the
object on the wet wooden boards of the ramp, and
Lucy realized it was not Henry's oilskin, because the
owner was still inside it. Her gasp of horror was
whipped away by the wind so that not even she
could hear it. Who was he? Where had he come
from? Another wrecked ship?

 It occurred to her that he might still be alive. She
must go and see. She bent and shouted in Jo's ear:
"Stay here keep still don't move." Then she ran
down the ramp.

 Halfway down she heard footsteps behind her. Jo
was following her. The ramp was narrow and
slippery, quite dangerow. She stopped, turned and
scooped the child up in her arms. "You naughty
boy, I told you to waitl" She looked from the body
below to the safety of the clifFtop, dithered for a
moment in painful indecision, discerned that the sea
would wash the body away at any moment, and
proceeded downward, carrying Jo.

 A smaller wave covered the body, and when the
water receded Lucy was close enough to see that it
was a man, and that it had been in the sea long
enough for the water to swell and distort the
features. Which meant he was dead. She could do
nothing for him, and she was not going to risk her
life and her son's to preserve a corpse. She was
about to turn back when something about the
bloated face struck her as familiar. She stared at it,
uncomprehending, trying to fit the features to
something in her memory; and then, quite abruptly,
she saw the face for what it was, and sheer, paralyz-
ing terror took hold of her, and it seemed that her
heart stopped, and she whispered, "No, David, no!"

 Oblivious now to the danger she walked forward.
Another lesser wave broke around her knees, filling
her Wellington boots with foamy saltwater but she
didn't notice. Jo twisted 288

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

in her arms to face forward. She screamed, "Don't
lookI" in his ear and pushed his face into her
shoulder. He began to cry.

She knelt beside the body and touched the
horrible face with her hand. David. There was no
doubt. He was dead, and had been for some time.
Moved by some terrible need to make absolutely
certain, she lifted the skirt of the oilskin and looked
at the stumps of his legs.

It was impossible to take in the fact of the death.
She had, in a way, been wishing him dead, but her
feelings about him were confused by guilt and the
fear of being found out in her infidelity. Grief,
horror, relief they fluttered in her mind like birds,
none of them willing to settle.

She would have stayed there, motionless, but the
next wave was a big one. Its force knocked her
flying, and she took a great gulp of sea water.
Somehow she managed to keep Jo in her grasp and
stay on the ramp; and when the surf settled she got
to her feet and ran up out of the greedy reach of
the ocean.

She walked all the way to the clifitop without
looking back. When she came within sight of the
cottage, she saw the jeep standing outside. Henry
was back.

Still carrying Jo, she broke into a stumbling run,
desperate to share her hurt with Henry, to feel his
arms around her and have him comfort her. Her
breath came in ragged sobs and tears mixed
invisibly with the rain on her face. She went to the
back of the cottage, burst into the kitchen and
dumped Jo ungently on the floor.

Henry casually said, "David decided to stay over
at Tom's another day."

She stared at him, her mind a disbelieving blank;
and then, still disbelieving, she understood.

Henry had killed David.

The conclusion came first, like a punch in the
stomach, winding her; the reasons followed a
split-second later. The shipwreck, the odd-shaped
knife he was so attached to, the crashed jeep, the
news bulletin about the London stiletto
murderer suddenly everything fitted together, a
box of jigsaw pieces thrown in the air and landing,
improbably, fully assembled.

"Don't look so surprised," Henry said with a smile.

                2B9
                 
Kenollet!

"They've got a lot of work to do over there,
although I admit I didn't encourage him to come
back."

Tom. She had to go to Tom. He would know
what to do; he would protect her and Jo until the
police came; he had a dog and a gun.

Her fear was interrupted by a dart of sadness, of
sorrow for the Henry she had believed in, had
almost loved; clearly he did not exist--she had
imagined him. Instead of a warm, strong,
affectionate man, she saw in front of her a monster
who sat and smiled and calmly gave her invented
messages from the husband he had murdered.

She forced herself not to shudder. Taking Jo's
hand, she walked out of the kitchen, along the hall
and out of the front door. She got into the jeep, sat
Jo beside her, and started the engine.

But Henry was there, resting his foot casually on
the running board, and holding David's shotgun.
"Whete are you go~ng?

If she drove away now he might shoot what
instinct had warned him to take the gun into the
house this time? and while she herself millet
chance it, she couldn't endanger Jo. She said' "Just
putting the jeep away."

"You need Jo's help for that?"

"He likes the r de. Don't cross-examine mel"

He shrugged and stepped back.

 She looked at him for a moment, wearing David's
hacking jacket and holding David's gun so casually,
and wondered whether he really would shoot her if
she simply drove away. And then she recalled the
vein of ice she had sensed in him right from the
start, and knew that that ultimate commitment, that
ruthlessness, would allow him to do anything.

 With an awful feeling of weariness, she threw the
jeep into reverse and backed into the barn. She
switched off, got out, and walked with Jo back into
the cottage. She had no idea what she would say to
Henry, what she would do in his presence, how she
would hide her knowledge if, indeed she had not
already betrayed it.

She had no plans.

But she had left the barn door open.

                290
                 
                32

"That's the place, Number One," the captain said,
and lowered his telescope.

The first mate peered out through the rain and
the spray. "Not quite the ideal holiday resort, what,
sir? Jolly stark, I should say."

"Indeed." The captain was an old-fashioned naval
officer with a grizzled beard who had been at sea
during the first war with Germany. However, he
had learned to overlook his first mate's foppish
conversational style, for the boy had turned
out against all expectations to be a perfectly
good sailor.

The "boy" who was past thirty and an old salt by
this war's standards, had no idea of the
magnanimity he benefited from. He held on to a
rail and braced himself as the corvette mounted the
steep side of a wave, righted itself at the crest and
dived into the trough. "Now that we're here, sir,
what do we do?"

"Circle the island."

"Very good, sir."

"And keep our eyes open for a U-boat."

"We're not likely to get one anywhere near the
surface in this weather and if we did, we couldn't
see it unless it came within spitting distance."

291

            Ken Follett

"The storm will blow itself out tonight tomorrow
at the latest." The captain began stuffing tobacco
into a pipe.

"Do you think so?"

'Y'm sure."

"Nautical instinct, I suppose?"

"The weather forecast."

The corvette rounded a headland, and they saw a
small bay with a jetty. Above it, on the cliff top, was
a little cottage standing small and square, hunched
against the wind.

The captain pointed. "We'll land a party there as
soon as we can."

The first mate nodded. "All the same . . ."

"Well?"

"Each circuit of the island will take us about an
hour, I should say."

"So?"

 "So, unless we're jolly lucky and happen to be in
exactly the right place at exactly the right time . . ."

 "The U-boat will surface, take on its passenger,
and submerge again without us even seeing the
ripples," the captain finished.

"Yes."

 The captain lit his pipe with an expertise that
spoke of long experience in lighting pipes in heavy
seas. He puffed a few times, then inhaled a lungful
of smoke "Ours not to reason why," he said, and
blew smoke through his nostrils.

"A rather unfortunate quotation, sir."

"Why?"

"It refers to the notorious charge of the Light
Brigade."

 "I never knew that." The captain puffed away.
"One advange of being uneducated, I suppose."

 There was another small cottage at the eastern
end of the island. The captain scrutinised it through
his telescope and observed that it had a large,
professional-looking radio aerial. "Sparks!" he called.
"See if you can raise that cottage. Try the Royal
Observer Corps frequency."

 When the cottage had passed out of sight, the
radio operator called: "No response, sir."

"All right, Sparks," the captain said. "It wasn't
important."

The crew of the coastguard cutter sat below decks in
Aber
                292
                 
         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

deen Harbor playing blackjack for halfpennies and
musing on the feeblemindedness that seemed
invariably to accompany high rank.

"Twist," said Jack Smith, who was more Scots
than his name.

Albert "Slim" Parish, a fat Londoner far from
home, dealt him a jack.

"Bust." Smith said.

Slim raked in his stake. "A penny-ha'penny," he
said in mock wonder "I only hope I live to spend
it."

Smith rubbed condensation off the inside of a
porthole and peered out at the boats bobbing up
and down in the harbor. "The way the skipper's
panicking. you'd think we were going to bloody
Berlin, not Storm Island."

"Didn't you know? We're the spearhead of the
Allied invasion." Slim turned over a ten, dealt
himself a king and said, "Pay twenty-ones."

Smith said. "What is this guy, anyway a
deserter? If you ask me, it's a fob for the military
police, not us."

Slim shuffled the pack. "I'll tell you what he
is an escaped prisoner of war."

Jeers.

"All right, don't listen to me. But when we pick
him up, just take note of his accent." He put the
cards down. "Listen, what boats go to Storm
Island?"

"Only the grocer," someone said.

 "So the only way he can get back to the mainland
is on the grocer's boat. The military police just have
to wait for Charlie's regular trip to the island, and
pick him up when he steps off the boat at this end.
There's no reason for us to be sitting here, waiting
to weigh anchor and shoot over there at the speed
of light the minute the weather clears, unless...." He
paused melodramatically. "Unless he's got some
other means of getting off the island."

"Like what?"

"A U-boat, that's what."

"Bollocks," Smith said. The others merely laughed.

 Slim dealt another hand. Smith won this time, but
everyone else lost. "I'm a shilling up," Slim said. "I
think I'll retire to that nice little cottage in Devon.
We won't catch him, of course."

293

            Ken FoIIcft

"The deserter?"

"The prisoner of war."

"Why not?"

Slim tapped his head. "Use your coddle. the storm
clears we'll be here and the U-boat will be at the
bottom of the bay at the island. So who'll get there
first? The Jerries."

"So why are we doing it?" Smith said.

"Because the people who are giving the orders are
not as sharp as yours truly, Albert Parish. You may
laughl" He dealt another hand. "Place your bets.
You'll see I'm right. What's that, Smithie, a penny?
Gorblimey, don't go mad. I tell you what, I'll give
odds of five to one we come back from Storm
Island empty-handed. Any takers? Ten to one? Eh?
Ten to one?"

"No takers," said Smith. "Deal the cards."

Slim dealt the cards.

Squadron-Leader Peterkin Blenkinsop (he had
tried to shorten Peterkin to Peter but somehow the
men always found out) stood ramrod-straight in
front of the map and addressed the room. "We fly
in formations of three," he began. "The first three
will take off as soon as weather permits. Our tar-
get" he touched the map with a pointer "is here.
Storm Is" land. On arrival we will circle for twenty
minutes at low altitudes, looking for a U-boat. After
twenty minutes we return to base." He paused.
"Those of you with a logical turn of mind will by
now have deduced that, to achieve continuous
cover, the second formation of three aircraft must
take off precisely twenty minutes after the first, and
so on. Any questions?"

Flying-Oflficer Longman said, "Sir?"

"Longman?"

"What do we do if we see this U-boat?"

"Strafe it, of course. Drop a few grenades. Cause
trouble."

 "But we're flying fighters, sir there's not much
we can do to stop a U-boat. That's a job for
battleships, isn't it?"

 Blenkinsop sighed. "As usual, those of you who
can think of better ways to win the war are invited
to write directly to Mr. Winston Churchill, number
10 Downing Street, London South-West-One. Now,
are there any questions, as opposed to stupid
criticisms?"

294

           EYE OF THE NEEDLE

There were no questions.

 The later years of the war had produced a different
kind of RAF officer Bloggs thought. as he sat on a soft
chair in the scramble room, close to the fire, listening to
the rain drumming on the tin roof and intermittently
dozing. The Battle of Britain pilots had seemed
incorrigibly cheerful, with their undergraduate slang. their
perpetual drinking. their tirelessness and their cavalier
disregard of the flaming death they faced up to every
day. That schoolboy heroism had not been enough to
carry them subsequent years, as the war dragged on in
places far from home, and the emphasis shifted from the
dashing individuality of aerial doFfirnting to the
mechanical drudgery of bombing missions They still
drank and talked in jargon but they appeared older,
harder, more cynical; there was nothing in them now of
Tom Brown's Schooldays. Bloggs recalled what he had
done to that poor common-or-garden housebreaker in
the police cells at Aberdeen, and he realised. It's
happened to us all.

They were very quiet. Thev sat all around him: some
doz
- ing, like himself; others reading books or playing
board

games. A bespectacled navigator in a corner was
learning
Russian.

 As Bloggs surveyed the room with half-closed eyes,
another pilot came in, and he thought immediately that
this one had not been aged by the war. He had an
old-fashioned wide grin and fresh face that looked as if
it hardly needed shaving more than once a week. He
wore his jacket open and carried his helmet He made a
beeline for Bloggs.

"Detective-Inspector Bloggs?"

'Yhat's me."

"Jolly rood show. I'm your pilot, Charles Calder."

"Fine." Bloggs shook hands.

 "The kite's all ready, and the engine's as sweet as a
bird. She's an amphibian, I suppose you know."

"Yes."

 "Jolly good show. We'll land on the sea, taxi in to
about ten yards from the shore, and put you off in a
dinghy."

"Then you wait for me to come back."

"Indeed. Well, all we need now is the weather."

"Yes. Look, Charles, I've been chasing this fellow all over
29J

            Ken Follett

the country for six days and nights, so I'm catching
up on my sleep while I've got the chance. You
won't mind."

"Of course not!" The pilot sat down and produced
a thick book from under his jacket. "Catching up on
my education," he said. "War and Peace."

Bloggs said, "Jolly good show," and closed his eyes.

Percival Godliman and his uncle, Colonel Terry,
sat side by side in the map room, drinking coffee
and tapping the ash of their cigarettes into a fire
bucket on the floor between them. Godliman was
repeating himself.

"l can't think of anything more we can do," he said.

"So you said."

"The corvette is already there, and the fighters
are only a few minutes away, so the sub will come
under fire as soon as she shows herself above the
surface."

"If she's seen."

"The corvette will land a party as soon as
possible. Bloggs will be there soon after that, and
the Coastguard will bring up the rear."

"And none of them can be sure to get there in
time."

 "I know," Godliman said wearily. "We've done all
we can, but is it enough?"

 Terry lit another cigarette. "What about the
inhabitants of the island?"

 "Oh, yes. There are only two houses there.
There's a sheep farmer and his wife in one they
have a young child and an old shepherd lives in
the other. The shepherd's got a radio  Royal
Observer Corps but we can't raise him . . . he
prow ably keeps the set switched to Transmit. He's
old."

 "The farmer sounds promising," Terry said. "If
he's a bright fellow he might even stop your spy."

 Godliman shook his head. "The poor chap's in a
wheelchair."

"Dear God, we don't get much luck, do we?"

 "No," said Godliman. "Die Nadel seems to have
cornered the market."

                296
                 
                33

Lucy was becoming quite calm. The feeding crept
over her gradually, like the icy spread of an
anesthetic, deadening her emotions and sharpening
her wits. The times when she was momentarily
paralyzed by the thought that she was sharing a
house with a murderer became fewer, and she was
possessed by a cool-headed watchfulness that
surprised her.

 As she went about the household chores,
sweeping around Henry as he sat in the living room
reading a novel, she wondered how much he had
noticed of the change in her feelings. He was very
observant: he didn't miss much and there had been
a definite wariness, if not outright suspicion, in that
confrontation over the jeep. He must have known
she was shaken by something. On the other hand,
she had been upset before he left over Jo
discovering them in bed together . . . he might
think that that was all that had been wrong.

 Still, she had the strangest feeling that he knew
exactly what was in her mind but preferred to
pretend that everything was all right.

 She hung her laundry to dry on a clothes-horse in
the kitchen. "I'm sorry about this," she said, "but I
can't wait forever for the rain to stop."

 He looked uninterestedly at the clothes. "That's
all right;" he said, and went back into the living
room.

297

             Ken Follett

 Scattered among the wet garments was a complete
set of clean, dry clothes for Lucy.

 For lunch she made a vegetable pie using an
austerity recipe. She called Jo and Faber to the table
and sewed up.

 David's gun was propped in a corner of the
kitchen. "I don't like having a loaded gun in the
house," she said.

"I'll take it outside after lunch. The pie is good."

"I don't like it," Jo said.

 Lucy picked up the gun and put it on top of the
Welsh dresser. "I suppose it's all right as long as it's
out of Jo's reach."

Jo said, "When I grow up I'm going to shoot
Germans."

 "This afternoon I want you to have a sleep," Lucy
told him. She went into the living room and took one
of David's sleeping pills from the bottle in the
cupboard. Two of the pills were a heavy dose for a
impound man, so one quarter of one pill should be
just enough to make a Impound boy sleep in the
afternoon. She put the pill on her chopping block
and halved it, then halved it again. She put a quarter
on a spoon, crushed it with the back of another
spoon and stirred the powder into a small glass of
milk. She gave the glass to Jo. "I want you to drink
every last drop."

Faber watched the whole thing without comment.

 After lunch she settled Jo on the sofa with a pile
of books. He could not read, of course, but he had
heard the stories read aloud so many times that he
knew them by heart, and he could turn the pages of
the books, looking at the pictures and reciting from
memory the words on the page.

"Would you like some coffee?" she asked Faber.

"Real coffee?" he said, surprised.

"I've got a little hoard."

"Yes, please!"

 He watched her making it. She wondered if he was
afraid she might try to give him sleeping pills too.
She could hear Jo's voice from the next room:

"What I said was, 'Is anybody at homey'" called out Pooh
very loudly.

"Nol,' said a voice....
             298
             
         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

 and he laughed heartily, as he always did at that
joke. Oh, God, Lucy thought, please don't let Jo be
hurt....

She poured the coffee and sat opposite Faber. He
reached across the table and held her hand. For a
while they sat in silence, sipping coffee and listening
to the rain and Jo's voice.

"Dow long does getting thin take?" asked Pooh anxiously.

"About a week, I should think."

"But I can't stay here for a weekl"

He began to sound sleepy, and then he stopped.
Lucy went and covered him with a blanket. She
picked up the book that had slipped from his fingers
to the floor. It had been hers when she was a child,
and she, too, knew the stories by heart. The flyleaf
was inscribed in her mother's copperplate: 'pro
Lucy, aged four, with love from Mother and Father."
She put the book on the sideboard.

She went back into the kitchen. "He's asleep."

"And . . . ?" He held out his hand. She forced
herself to take it. He stood up, and she went ahead
of him upstairs and into the bedroom. She dosed the
door, then pulled her sweater off over her head.

For a moment he stood still, looking at her
breasts. Then he began to undress.

She got into the bed. This was the part she was
not sure she could manage pretending to enjoy his
body when all she could feel was fear, revulsion and
guilt.

He got into bed and embraced her.

In a short while she found she did not have to
pretend aft ter all.

For a few seconds she lay in the crook of his arm,
wonder

ing how it was that a man could do what he had
done and love a woman as he had just done.

But what she said was, "Would you like a cup of
tea?"

"No, thank you."

 "Well, I would." She extricated herself and got up.
When he moved, she put her hand on his flat belly
and said, "No, you stay there. I'll bring the tea up. I
haven't finished with you."

299

            Ken FOllcn

 He grinned. 'you're really making up for your four
wasted years."

 As soon as she was outside the room the smile
dropped from her face like a mask. Her heart
pounded in her chest as she went quickly down the
stairs. In the kitchen she banged the kettle on the
stove and rattled some china, then began to put on
the clothes she had left hidden in the wet laundry.
Her hands were shaking so much she could hardly
button the trousers.

 She heard the bed creak upstairs, and she stood
frozen to the spot, listening, thinking, Stay therel
But he was only shifting his position.

 She was ready. She went into the living room. Jo
was in a deep sleep, grinding his teeth. Dear God,
don't let him wake up. She picked him up. He
muttered in his sleep, something about Christopher
Robin, and Lucy closed her eyes tightly and willed
him to be quiet.

 She wrapped the blanket tight around him, went
back into the kitchen and reached up to the top of
the Welsh dresser for the gun. It slipped from her
grasp and fell to the shelf, smashing a plate and two
cups. The crash was deafening. She stood fixed to
the spot.

"W.hat happened?" Faber called from upstairs.

 "I dropped a cup," she shouted. She couldn't
camouflage the tremor in her voice.

 The bed creaked again and there was a footfall on
the floor above her. But it was too late QOW for
her to turn back. She picked up the gun, opened the
back door and, holding Jo to her, ran across to the
barn.

 On the way she had a moment of panic had she
left the }eye in the jeep? Surely she had, she always
did.

 She slipped in the wet mud and fell to her knees.
She began to cry. For a second she was tempted to
stay there, and let him catch her and kill her the
way he had killed her husband, and then she
remembered the child in her arms and she got up
and ran.

 She went into the barn and opened the passenger
door of the jeep. She put Jo on the seat. He slipped
sideways. Lucy sobbed, "Oh, Godl" She pulled Jo
upright, and this time he stayed that way. She ran
around to the other side of the jeep and got in,
dropping the gun onto the floor between her legs.

300

          EYE OF THE NEEDLE

She turned the starter.

It coughed and died.

"Please, pleaser'

She turned it again.

The engine roared into life.

Paber came out of the back door at a run.

 Lucy raced the engine and threw the gearshift into
forward. The jeep seemed to leap out of the barn.
She rammed the throttle open.

 The wheels spun in the mud for a second, then bit
again. The jeep gathered speed with agonising
languor. She steered away from him but he chased
after the jeep, barefoot in the mud.

She realized ho wag gaining on her.

 She pushed the hand-throttle with all her strength,
almost snapping the thin lever. She wanted to
scream with frustration. He was only a yard or so
away, almost even with her, running like an athlete,
his arms going like pistons, his bare feet pounding
the muddy ground, his cheeks blowing, his naked
chest heaving.

 The engine screamed, and there was a jerk as the
automatic transmission changed up, then a new
surge of power.

 Lucy looked sideways again. He seemed to realize
that he had almost lost her and flung himself
forward in a dive. He got a grip on the door handle
with his left hand, and brought the right hand across.
Pulled by the jeep, he ran alongside for a few paces,
his feet hardly touching the ground. Lucy stared at
his face, so close to hermit was red with effort,
twisted in pain; the cords of his powerful neck
bulged with the strain.

Suddenly she }new what she had to do.

 She took her hand off the wheel, reached through
the open window and poked him in the eye with
a-long-nailed forefin" ger.

He let go and fen away, his hands covering his face.

The distance between him and jeep increased
rapidly.

Lucy realized she was crying like a baby.

Two miles from her cottage she saw the wheelchair.

 It stood on the cliff top like a memorial, its metal
frame and big rubber tires impervious to the
unending rain. Lucy approached it from a slight dip,
and saw its black outline 301

            Ken Follett

framed by the slate-grey sky and the boiling sea, It
had a wounded look, like the hole left by an
uprooted tree or a house with broken windows; as
if its passenger had been wrenched from it.

She recalled the first time she had seen it in the
hospital. It had stood beside David's bed, new and
shiny, and he had swung himself into it expertly and
swished up and down the ward, showing off. "She's
light as a feather made of aircraft alloy," he had
said with brittle enthusiasm, and sped off between
the rows of beds. He had stopped at the far end of
the ward with his back to her, and after a minute
she went up behind him and she saw he was crying.
She had knelt in front of him and held his hands,
saying nothing.

It was the last time she had been able to comfort
him.

There on the cliff top, the rain and the salt wind
would soon blemish the alloy, and eventually it
would rust and crumble, its rubber perished, its
leather seat rotted away.

Lucy drove past without slowing.

 Three miles farther on, when she was halfway
between the two cottages, she ran out of petrol.

 She fought down the panic and tried to think
rationally as the jeep shuddered to a halt.

 People walked at four miles an hour, she
remembered reading somewhere. Henry was
athletic, but he had hurt his ankle, and even though
it seemed to have healed rapidly, the running he
had done after the jeep must have hurt it. She must
be a good hour ahead of him, she figured.

 (She had no doubt he would come after her; he
knew as well as she did that there was a wireless
transmitter in Tom's cottage. )

 She had plenty of time. In the back of the jeep
was a halfgallon can of fuel for just such occasions
as this. She got out of the car, fumbled the can out
of the back and opened the tank cap.

 Then she thought again, and the inspiration that
came to her surprised her by its fiendishness.

 She replaced the cap and went to the front of the
car. She checked that the ignition was off and
opened the hood. She was no mechanic but she
could identify the distributor cap and trace the leads
to the engine. She lodged the fuel can securely
beside the engine block and took off its cap.

302

- EYF OF THE NEEDLE

 There was a spark plug wrench in the tool kit.
She took out a plug, checked again that the ignition
was off, and put the plug in the mouth of the fuel
can, securing it there with tape. Then she closed the
hood.

 When Henry came along he was certain to try to
start the jeep. He would switch on, the starter
motor would turn, the plug would spark and the
half-gallon of gas would explode.

 She was not sure how much damage it would do,
but she felt certain it would be no help.

An hour later she was regretting her cleverness.

- Trudging through the mud, soaked to the skin, the
sleeping child a dead weight over her shoulder, she
wanted nothing more than to lie down and die. The
booby trap seemed, on reflection, dubious and
risky: gasoline would burn, not explode; if there was
not enough air in the mouth of the can it might not
even igrute; worst of all, Henry might suspect a
trap, look under the hood, dismantle the bomb,
pour the gasoline into the tank and drive after her.

 She contemplated stopping for a rest but decided
that if she sat down she might never get up again.

 She should have been in sight of Tom's house by
now. She could not possibly have got lost even if
she had not walked this path a dozen times before,
the whole island just was not big enough to get lost
on.

 She recognized a thicket where she and Jo had
once seen a fox. She must be about a mile from
Tom's home. She would have seen it, except for the
rain.

 She shifted Jo to the other shoulder, switched the
shotgun from one hand to the other, and forced
herself to continue puffing one foot in front of the
other.

 When the cottage finally became visible through
the sheeting rain she could have cried with relief.
She was nearer than she thought perhaps a
quarter of a mile.

 Suddenly Jo seemed lighter, and although the last
stretch was uphill the only hill on the island she
seemed to cover it in no time at all.

 "Toml" she called out as she approached the front
door. "Tom, Toml"

She heard the answering bark of the dog.

She went in by the front door. "Tom, quickly!" Bob 303

            Ken Fo)lc~t

dodged excitedly about her ankles, barking
furiously. Tom couldn't be far away he was
probably in the outhouse. Lucy went upstairs and
laid Jo on Tom's bed.

 The wireless was in the bedroom, a
complex-looking construction of wires and dials and
knobs. There was something that looked like a
Morse key; she touched it experimentally and it
gave a beep. A thought came to her from distant
memory something from a schoolgirl thriller the
Morse code for S.O.S. She touched the key again:
three short, three long, three short.

Where was Tom?

She heard a noise, and ran to the window.

The jeep was making its way up the hill to the
house.

 Henry had found the booby trap and used the
gasoline to fill the tank.

Where was Tom?

 She rushed out of the bedroom, intending to go
and bang on the outhouse door, but at the head of
the stairs she paused. Bob was standing in the open
doorway of the other bedroom. the empty one.

 "Come here, Bob," she said. The dog stood his
ground, barking. She went to him and bent to pick
him up.

Then she saw Tom.

 He lay on his back, on the bare floorboards of the
vacant bedroom, his eyes staring sightlessly at the
ceiling, his cap upside down on the floor behind his
head. His jacket was open, and there was a small
spot of blood on the shirt underneath. Close to his
hand was a crate of whisky, and Lucy found herself
thinking irrelevantly, I didn't know he drank that
much.

She felt his pulse.

He was dead.

Think. think.

 Yesterdav Henry had returned to her cottage
battered, as if he had been in a fight. That must
have been when he killed David. Todav he had
come here, to Tom's cottage, "to fetch David," he
had said. But of course he had known David was
not there. So why had he made the journey?
Obviously, to kill Tom.

Now she was completely alone.

 She took hold of the dog by its collar and dragged
it away from the body of its master. On impulse she
returned and

--             304

        ErL OF rHE NE:I!DLR

buttoned the jacket over the small stiletto wound
that had killed Tom. Then she closed the door
on him, returned to the front bedroom and
looked out of the window.

The jeep drew up in front of the house and
stopped. And Henry got out.

                30
                 
                34

Lucy's distress call was heard by the corvette.

"Captain, sir," said Sparks. "I just picked up an
S.O.S. from the island."

The captain frowned. "Nothing we can do until
we can land a boat," he said. "Did they say anything
else7"

"Not a thing, sir. It wasn't even repeated."

'nothing can do," he said again. "Send a signal to
the mainland reporting it. And keep listening."

"Aye, aye, sir."

 It was also picked up by an MI8 listening post on
top of a Scottish mountain. The R/T operator, a
young man with abdominal wounds who had been
invalided out of the RAI7, was trying to pick up
German Navy signals from Norway, and he ignored
the S.O.S. However, he went off duty P4vo minutes
later, and he mentioned it to his commanding
officer..

 "It was only broadcast once," he said. "Probably
a fishing vessel off the Scottish coast there might
well be the odd small ship in trouble in this
weather."

 "Leave it with me," the C.O. said. "I'll give the
Navy a buzz. And I suppose I'd better inform
Whitehall. Protocol, Know."

Thank you, sir."

306

            EYE OF THE

At the Royal Observer Corps station there was
something of a panic. Of course, S.O.S. was not the
signal an observer was supposed to give when he
sighted enemy aircraft, but they knew that Tom was
old, and who could say what he might send if he
got excited? So the air raid sirens were sounded,
and all other posts were alerted, and antiaircraft
guns were rolled out all over the east coast of
Scotland and the radio operator tried frantically to
raise Tom.

No German bombers came, of course, and the
War Oflice wanted to know why a full alert had
been sounded when there was nothing in the sky
but a few bedraggled geese?

So they were told.

The Coastguard heard it too.

They would have responded to it if it had been
on the correct frequency, and if they had been able
to establish the position of the transmitter, and if
that position had been within reasonable distance
of the coast.

As it was, they guessed from the fact that He
signal came over on the Observer Corps frequency
that it originated from Old Tom, and they were
already doing all they could about that situation,
whatever the he11 that situation was.

When the news reached the below-deck card
game on the cutter in the harbor at Aberdeen, Slim
dealt another hand of blackjack and said, 'Tll tell
you what's happened. Old Tom's caught the
prisoner of war and he's sitting on his head waiting
for the army to arrive and take the bugger away."

'Bullocks," said Smith, with which sentiment there
was general agreement.

And the U-SOS heard it.

She was ~11 more than thirty nautical miles
from Stow Island, but Weissman was roaming the
dial to see what he could pick up and hoping,
improbably, to hear Glenn Miller records from the
American Forces Network in Britain  and his
tuner happened to be on the right wavelength at
the right time. He passed the information to
Lieutenant Commander Heer, adding, Yt was not
on our man's frequency."

Major Wohl, who was still Is irritating as ever,
said, 'when it means nothing."

Heer did not miss the opportunity to correct,him. 'It
307

             Ken Folicit

means something," he said. '`It means that there may
be some activity on the surface when we go up."

"But this is unlikely to trouble us."

"Most unlikely," Heer agreed.

"Then it is meaningless."

"It is probably meaningless."

They argued about it all the way to the island.

 And so it worked out that within the space of five
minutia the Navy, the Royal Observer Corps, MI8
and the Coastguard all phoned Godliman to tell him
about the S.O.S.

 Godliman phoned Bloggs, who had finally fallen
into a deep sleep in front of the fire in the scramble
room. The shrill ring of the telephone startled him,
and he jumped to his feet, thinking that the plana
were about to take off.

 A pilot picked up the receiver, oeid "Yes" into it
twice and handed it to Bloggs. "A Mr. Godliman for
you."

"Hello, Percy."

"Fred, somebody on the island just broadcast an
S.O.S."

 Blogge shook his head to clear the last remains of
sleep. "Who?"

 "We don't know. There was just the one signal, not
ret pealed, and they don't seem to be receiving at
all."

"Still, there's not much doubt now."

"No. Everything ready up there?"

"AU except the weather."

"Good luck."

  "Thanks."

Bloggs hung up and returned to the young pilot
who was till reading War and Peace. "Good news," he
told him. "The bastard's definitely on the island."

"Jolly good show," oeid the pilot.

                 308
                  
                35

Faber closed the door of the jeep and began
walking quite slowly toward the house. He was
wearing David's hacking jacket again. There was
mud all over his trousers where he had fallen and
his hair was plastered wetly against his skull. He
was limping slightly on his right foot.

Lucy backed away from the window and ran out
of the bedroom and down the stairs. The shotgun
was on the floor in the hall where she had dropped
it. She picked it up. Suddenly it felt very heavy. She
had never actually fired a gun, and she had no idea
how to check whether this one was loaded. She
could figure it out, given time, but there was no
time.

She took a deep breath and opened the front
door. "Stopl" she shouted. Her voice was pitched
higher than she had intended, and it sounded shrill
and hysterical.

Faber smiled pleasantly and kept on walking.

 Lucy pointed the gun at him, holding the barrel
with her left hand and the breech with her right.
Her finger was on the trigger. "I'll kill your" she
yelled.

 "Don't be silly, Lucy," he said mildly. "How could
you hurt met After all the things we've done
together? Haven't we loved each other, a little . . .
?"

It was true. She had told herself she could not fall in
love 309

            Ken Fonett

with him, and that was true too; but she had felt
something for him, and if it was not love, it was
something very like it.

 "You knew about me this afternoon," he said, and
now he was thirty yards away, "but it made no
difference to you then, did it?"

 That was partly true. For a moment she saw in
her mind's eye a vivid picture of herself sitting
astride him, holding his sensitive hands to her
breasts, and then she realized what he was doing

"Lucy, we can work it out, we can still have each
other "

 and she pulled the trigger.

 There was an ear-splitting crash, and the weapon
jumped in her hands, its butt bruising her hip with
the recoil. She almost dropped it. She had never
imagined that firing a gun would feel like that. She
was quite deaf for a moment.

 The shot went high over Faber's head but all the
same he ducked, turned, and ran zigzagging back to
the jeep. Lucy was tempted to fire again but she
stopped herself just in time realizing that if he knew
both barrels had been emptied there would be
nothing to stop him turning and coming back.

 He flung open the door of the jeep, jumped in
and shot off down the hill.

Lucy knew he would be back.

 But suddenly she felt happy, almost gay. She had
won the first round she had driven him off....

But he would be back.

 Still, she had the upper hand. She was indoors,
and she had the gun. And she had time to prepare.

 Prepare. She must be ready for him. Next time he
would be more subtle. He would surely try to
surprise her somehow.

 She hoped he would wait until dark, that would
give her time . . .

First she had to reload the gun.

 She went into the kitchen. Tom kept everything in
his kitchen food, coal, tools, stores and he had a
gun like David's. She knew the two firearms were
the same because David had examined Tom's, then
sent away for one exactly like it. The two men had
enjoyed long discussions about weapons.

 She found Tom's gun and a box of ammunition.
She put the two guns and the box on the kitchen
table.

310

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

Machines were simple, she was convinced; it was
apprehension not stupidity that made women
fumble when faced with a piece of engineering.

She fiddled with David's gun, keeping the barrel
pointed away from herself, until it came open at the
breech. Then she figured out what she had done to
open it, and practiceddoing it again a couple of
times.

It was surprisingly simple.

She loaded both guns. Then, to make sure she
had done everything correctly, she pointed Tom's
gun at the kitchen wall and pulled the trigger.

There was a shower of plaster, Bob barked like
he'd gone mad, and she bruised her hip and
deafened herself again. But she was armed.

She must remember to pull the triggers gently so
as not to jerk the gun and spoil her aim. Men
probably got taught that kind of thing in the army.

What to do next? She should make it difficult for
Henry to get into the house.

Neither of the doors had locks, of course; if a
house was burgled on this island. one would know
that the culprit lived in the other house. Lucy
rummaged in Tom's tool box and found a shiny,
sharp-bladed axe. She stood on the stairs and began
to hack away at the banister.

The work made her arms ache, but in five minutes
she had six short lengths of stout, seasoned oak. She
found a hammer and some nails and fixed the oak
bars across the front and back doors, three bars to
each door, four nails to each bar. When it was done
her wrists were in agony and the hammer felt as
heavy as lead, but she was still not finished.

She got another handful of the shiny four-inch
nails and went around to every window in the
house, nailing them shut. She realised, with a sense
of discovery, why men always put nails in their
mouths: it was because you needed both hands for
the work and if you put them in your pocket they
stuck into your skin.

By the time she had finished it was dark. She left
the lights off.

He could still get into the house, of course, but at
least he could not get in quietly.. He would have to
break something 311

Ken Follet!

and thereby alert her and then she would be ready
with the guns.

 She went upstairs, carrying both guns, to check on
Jo. He was still asleep, wrapped in his blanket, on
Tom's bed. Lucy struck a match to look at his face.
The sleeping pill must have really knocked him out,
but he was an average sort of color, his temperature
seemed normal and he was breathing easily. "Just
stay that way, little boy," Lucy whispered. The
sudden access of tenderness left her feeling more
savage toward Henry.

 She restlessly patrolled the house, peering
through the win" cows into the darkness, the dog
following her everywhere. She took to carrying just
one of the guns, leaving the other at the head of the
stairs; but she hooked the axe into the belt of her
trousers.

 She remembered the radio, and tapped out her
S.O.S. several more times. She had no idea whether
anybody was listening, or even whether the radio
was working. She knew no more Morse, so she
could not broadcast anything else.

 It occurred to her that Tom probably did not
know Morse code. Surely he must have a book
somewhere? If only she could tell someone what
was happening here.... She searched the house,
using dozens of matches, feeling terrified every time
she lit one within sight of a downstairs window. She
found nothing.

All right, perhaps he did know Morse.

 On the other hand, why should he need it? He
only had to tell the mainland that there were enemy
aircraft approaching, and there was no reason why
that information shouldn't go over the air . . . what
was the phrase David had used? . . . au flair.

 She went back to the bedroom and looked again
at the wireless set. To one side of the main cabinet,
hidden from her previous cursory glance, was a
microphone.

If she could talk to them, they could talk to her.

 The sound of another human voice a normal,
sane, mainland voice suddenly seemed the most
desirable prospect in the world.

 She picked up the microphone and began to
experiment with the switches.

Bob growled softly.

3/2

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

She put the mike down and reached out her hand
toward the dog in the darkness. "What is it, Bob?"

He growled again. She could feel his ears standing
stiffly upright. She was terribly afraid the
confidence gained by confronting Henry with the
gun, by learning how to reload, by barricading the
door and nailing down the windows . . . all
evaporated at one growl from an alert dog.

"Downstairs," she whispered. "Quietly."

 She held his collar and let him lead her down the
stairs. In the darkness she felt for the banister,
forgetting she had chopped it up for her barricades,
and she almost overbalanced. She regained her
equilibrium and sucked at a splinter in her finger.

 The dog hesitated in the hall, then growled more
loudly and tugged her toward the kitchen. She
picked him up and held his muzzle shut to silence
him. Then she crept through the doorway.

 She looked in the direction of the window, but
there was nothing in front of her eyes other than the
deep blackness.

 She listened. The window creaked at first almost
inaudibly, then louder. He was trying to get in. Bob
rumbled threateningly, deep in his throat, but
seemed to understand the sudden squeeze she gave
his muzzle.

 The night became quieter. Lucy realised the storm
was easing, almost imperceptibly. Henry seemed to
have given up on the kitchen window. She moved to
the living room. -

 She heard the same creak of old wood resisting
pressure. Now Henry seemed more determined:
there were three muffled bumps, as if he were
tapping the window frame with the cushioned heel
of his hand.

 Lucy put the dog down and hefted the shotgun. It
might almost have been imagination, but she could
just make out the window as a square of grey in the
blank darkness. If he got the window open, she
would fire immediately.

 There was a much harder bang. Bob lost control
and gave a loud bark. She heard a scuffling noise
outside.

Then came the voice.

Lucy?"

She bit her lip.

~'Lucy?"

313

            Ken Follett

 He was using the voice he used in bed deep,
soft, intimate.

 "Lucy, can you hear me? Don't be afraid. I don't
want to hurt you. Talk to me, please."

 She had to fight the urge to pull both triggers
there and then, just to silence that awful sound and
destroy the memories it brought to her.

 "Lucy, darling . . ." She thought she heard a
muffled sob. "Lucy, he attacked me I had to kill
him . . . I killed for my country, you shouldn't hate
me for that "

 What in the world did that mean . . . ? It sounded
crazy. Could he be insane and have hidden it for
two intimate days? Actually he had seemed saner
than most people and yet he had already
committed murder . . . though she had no idea of
the circumstances.... Stop it ... she was softening up,
which of course was exactly what he wanted

She had an idea.

"Lucy, just speak to me . . ."

 His voice faded as she tiptoed into the kitchen.
Bob would surely warn her if Henry did anything
more than talk. She fumbled in Tom's tool box and
found a pair of pliers. She went to the kitchen
window and with her fingertips located the heads of
the three nails she had hammered there. Carefully,
as quietly as possible, she drew them out. The job
demanded all her strength.

 When they were out she went back to the living
room to listen.

". . . don't cause me trouble and I'll leave you alone
. . ."

 As silently as she could she lifted the kitchen
window. She crept into the living room, picked up
the dog and returned once again to the kitchen.

". . . hurt you, last thing in the world . . ."

 She stroked the dog once or twice and murmured,
'I wouldn't do this if I didn't have to, boy." Then
she pushed him out of the window.

 She closed it rapidly, found a nail, and hammered
it in at a new spot with three sharp blows.

 She dropped the hammer, picked up the gun, and
ran into the front room to stand close to the
window, pressing herself up against the wall.

". . . give you one last chance l" 314

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

There was a scampering sound, from Bob,
followed by a terrible, terrifying bark Lucy had
never before heard from a sheepdog; then a
scuffling sound and the noise of a man falling. She
could hear Henry's breathing gasping, grunting;
then another flurry of Bob's scampering, a shout of
pain, a curse in the foreign language, another
terrible bark.

The noises now became muffled and more
distant, then suddenly ended. Lucy waited, pressed
against the wall next to the window, straining to
hear. She wanted to go and check Jo, wanted to try
the radio again, wanted to cough; but she did not
dare to move Bloody visions of what Bob might
have done to Henry passed in and out of her mind,
and she badly wanted to hear the dog snuffling at
the door.

She looked at the window . . . then realised she
was looking at the window; she could see, and not
just a square patch of faintly lighter grey, but the
wooden crosspiece of the frame. It was still night,
but only just, and she knew if she looked outside
the sky would be faintly diffused with a just-
perceptible light instead of being impenetrably
black. Dawn would come at any minute, she would
be able to see the furniture in the room, and Henry
would no longer be able to surprise her in the
darkness

There was a crash of breaking glass inches away
from her face. She jumped. She felt a small sharp
pain in her cheek, touched the spot, and knew that
she had been cut by a flying shard. She hefted the
shotgun, waiting for Henry to come through the
window. Nothing happened. It was not until a
minute or two had passed that she wondered what
had broken the window.

She peered at the floor. Among the pieces of
broken glass was a large dark shape. She found she
could see it better if she looked to one side of it
rather than directly at it. When she did, she was
able to make out the familiar shape of the dog.

She closed her eyes, then looked away. She was
unable to feel any emotion at all. Her heart had
been numbed by all the terror and death that had
gone before: first David, then Tom, then the
endless screaming tension of the all-night siege....
All she felt was hunger. All day yesterday she had
been too nervous to eat, which meant it was some
thirty-six 31J

            Ken Pollett

hours since her last meal. Now, incongruously,
ridiculously, she found herself longing for a cheese
sandwich.

Something else was coming through the window.

She saw it out of the corner of her eye, then
turned her head to look directly at it.

It was Henry's hand.

 She stared at it, mesmerised: a long-fingered
hand, without rings, white under the dirt, with
cared-for nails and a bandaid around the tip of the
index finger; a hand that had touched her
intimately, had played her body like an instrument,
had thrust a knife into the heart of an old shepherd.

 The hand broke away a piece of glass, then
another, enlarging the hole in the pane. Then it
reached right through, up to the elbow, and fumbled
along the windowsill searching for a catch to
unfasten.

 Trying to be utterly silent, with painful slowness,
Lucy shifted the gun to her left hand, and with her
right took the axe from her belt, lifted it high above
her head, and brought it down with all her might on
Henry's hand.

 He must have sensed it, or heard the rush of
wind, or seen a blur of ghostly movement behind
the window, because he moved abruptly a
split-second before the blow landed.

 The axe thudded into the wood of the windowsill,
sticking there. For a fraction of an instant Lucy
thought she had missed; then, from outside, came a
scream of pain, and she saw beside the axe blade,
Iying on the varnished wood like caterpillars, two
severed fingers.

She heard the sound of feet running.

She threw up.

 The exhaustion hit her then, closely followed by a
rush of self-pity. She had suffered enough, surely to
God, had she not? There were policemen and
soldiers in the world to deal with situations like
this nobody could expect an ordinary housewife
and mother to hold off a murderer indefinitely.
Who could blame her if she gave up now? Who
could honestly say they would have done better,
lasted longer, stayed more resourceful for another
minute?

 She was finished. They would have to take
over the outside world, the policemen and soldiers,
whoever was at the other end of that radio link. She
could do no more....

She tore her eyes away from the grotesque objects on
the 316

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

windowsill and went wearily up the stairs. She
picked up the second gun and took both weapons
into the bedroom with her.

Jo was still asleep, thank God. He had hardly
moved all night, blessedly unaware of the
apocalypse going on around him. She could tell,
somehow, that he was not sleeping so deeply now,
something about the look on his face and the way
he breathed let her know that he would wake soon
and want his breakfast.

She longed for that old routine now: getting up in
the morning, making breakfast, dressing Jo, doing
simple, tedious, safe household chores like washing
and cleaning and cutting herbs from the garden and
making pots of tea.... It seemed incredible that she
had been so dissatisfied with David's lovelessness,
the long boring evenings, the endless bleak
landscape of turf and heather and rain....

It would never come back, that life.

 She had wanted cities, music, people, ideas. Now
the desire for those things had left her, and she
could not understand how she had ever wanted
them. Peace was all a human being ought to ask
for, it seemed to her.

 She sat in front of the radio and studied its
switches and dials. She would do this one thing,
then she would rest. She made a tremendous effort
and forced herself to think analytically for a little
longer. There were not so many possible
combinations of switch and dial. She found a knob
with two settings, turned it, and tapped the Morse
key. There was no sound. Perhaps that meant the
microphone was now in circuit.

 She pulled it to her and spoke into it. "Hello,
hello, is there anybody there? Hello?"

 There was a switch that had "Transmit" above it
and "Receive" below. It was turned to "Transmit." If
the world was to talk back to her, obviously she had
to throw the switch to "Receive."

 She said: "Hello, is anybody listening?" and threw
the switch to "Receive."

Nothing.

 Then: "Come in, Storm Island, receiving you loud
and clear."

 It was a man's voice. He sounded young and
strong, capable and reassuring, and alive and
normal.

317

            Ken Pallet

"Come in, Storm Island, we've been trying to
raise you all night. . . where the devil have you
been?"

Lucy switched to 'Yransmit," tried to speak,
and burst into tears.

              I. 318
                 
                36

Percival Godliman had a headache from too many
cigarettes and too little sleep. He had taken a little
whisky to help him through the long, worried night
in his office, and that had been a mistake.
Everything oppressed him: the weather, his office,
his job, the war. For the first time since he had
gotten into this business he found himself longing
for dusty libraries, illegible manuscripts and
medieval Latin.

Colonel Terry waUced in with two cups of tea on
a tray. "Nobody around here sleeps," he said
cheerfully. He sat down. "Ship's biscuit?" He
offered Godliman a plate.

Godliman refused the biscuit and drank the tea It
gave him a temporary lift.

"I just had a call from the great man," Terry said.
"He's keeping the night vigil with us."

"I can't imagine why," Godliman said sourly.

"He's worried."

The phone rang.

"Godliman."

"I have the Royal Observer Corps in Aberdeen
for you, sir."

"Yes."

A new voice came on, the voice of a young man.
"Royal Observer Corps, Aberdeen, here, sir."

319

            Ken Foldout
"Yes.n

'is that Mr. Godliman?"

"Yes." Dear God, these military types took their
time.

"We've raised Storm Island at last, sir . . . it's not
our regular observer. In fact it's a woman "

; "What did she say?"

"Nothing, yet, sir."

"What do you mean?" Godliman fought down the
angry impatience.

"She's just . . . well, crying, sir."

Godliman hesitated. "Can you connect me to her?"

"Yes. Hold on." There was a pause punctuated by
several clicks and a hum. Then Godliman heard the
sound of a woman weeping.

He said, "Hello, can you hear me?"

The weeping went on.

 The young man came back on the line to say,
"She won't be able to hear you until she switches to
'Receive,' sir ah, she's done it. Go ahead."

 Godliman said, "Hello, young lady. When I've
finished speaking Ill say 'Over,' then you switch to
'Transmit' to speak to me and you say 'Over' when
you have finished. Do you understand? Over"

 The woman's voice came on. "Oh, thank God for
somebody sane, yes, I understand. Over."

 "Now, then," Godliman said gently, "tell me
what's been happening there. Over."

 "A man was shipwrecked here two no, three
days ago. I think he's that stiletto murderer from
London, he killed my husband and our shepherd
and now he's outside the house, and I've got my
little boy here.... I've nailed the windows shut and
fired at him with a shotgun, and barred the door
and set the dog on him but he killed the dog and I
hit him with an axe when he tried to get in through
the window and I can't do it anymore so please come
for God's sake. Over."

 Godliman put his hand over the phone. His face
was white. "Jesus Christ . . ." But when he spoke to
her, he was brisk. "You must try to hold on a little
longer," he began. "There are sailors and
coastguards and policemen and all sorts of people
on their way to you but they can't land until the
storm lets up.... Now, there's something I want you
to 320

        EYE OF TIIE NEEDLE

do, and I can't tell you why you must do it because
of the people who may be listening to us, but I can
tell you that it is absolutely essential . . . Are you
hearing me clearly? Over."

"Yes, go on. Over."

"You must destroy your radio. Over."

"Oh, no, please . . ."

"Yes," Godliman said, then he realized she was
still transmitting.

"I don't . . . I can't . . ." Then there was a scream.

Godliman said, "Hello, Aberdeen, what's
happening?"

The young man came on. "The set's still
transmitting, sir, but she's not speaking. We can't
hear anything."

"She screamed."

"Yes, we got that."

Godliman hesitated a moment. "What's the
weather like up there?"

"It's raining, sir." The young man sounded puzzled.

"I'm not making conversation," Godliman
snapped. "Is there any sign of the storm letting up?"

"It's eased a little in the last few minutes, sir."

"Good. Get back to me the instant that woman
comes back on the air."

"Very good, sir."

 Godliman said to Terry, "God only knows what
that girl's going through up there " He jiggled the
cradle of the phone.

 The colonel crossed his legs. "If she would only
smash up the radio, then "

"Then we don't care if he kids her?"

"You said it."

Godliman spoke into the phone. "Get me Bloggs at
Rosyth."

 Bloggs woke up with a start, and listened. Outside
it was dawn. Everyone in the scramble hut was
listening too. They could hear nothing. That was
what they were listening to: the silence.

The rain had stopped drumming on the tin roof.

 Bloggs went to the window. The sky was grey,
with a band of white on the eastern horizon. The
wind had dropped suddenly and the rain had
become a light drizzle.

321

            Ken Follett

 The pilots started putting on jackets and helmets,
lacing boots, lighting up last cigarettes.

 A klaxon sounded, and a voice boomed out over
the airfield: "Scramble! Scramblel"

 The phone rang. The pilots ignored it and piled
out through the door. Bloggs picked it up. "Yes?"

 "Percy here, Pred. We just contacted the island.
He's killed the two men. The woman's managing to
hold him off at the moment but she clearly won't
last much longer "

"The rain has stomped. We're taking off now,"
Bloggs said.

"Make it fast, Pred. Good-bye."

 Bloggs hung up and looked around for his pilot.
Charles Calder had fallen asleep over War and
Peace. Bloggs shook him roughly. "Wake up, you
dozy bastard, wake up!"

Calder opened his eyes.

 Bloggs could have hit him. "Wake up, come on,
we're going, the storm's ended!"

The pilot jumped to his feet. "Jolly good show," he
said.

 He ran out of the door and Bloggs followed,
shaking his head.

 The lifeboat dropped into the water with a crack
like a pin tol and a wide V-shaped splash. The sea
was far from calm, but here in the partial shelter of
the bay there was no risk to a stout boat in the
hands of experienced sailors.

The captain said, "Carry on, Number One."

 The first mate was standing at the rail with three
of the ratings. He wore a pistol in a waterproof
holster. "Let's go," he told them.

 The four men scrambled down the ladders and
into the boat. The first mate sat in the stern and
the three sailors broke out the oars and began to
row.

 For a few moments the captain watched their
steady progress toward the jetty Then he went back
to the badge and gave orders for the corvette to
continue circling the island.

 The shAII Anging of a bell broke up the card
game on the cutter.

Slim said, "I thought something was different. We
aren't 322

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

going up and down so much. Almost motionless,
really. Makes me damn seasick."

Nobody was listening: the crew were hurrying to
their stahons, some of them fastening life jackets as
they went.

The engines fired with a roar, and the vessel
began to tremble faintly.

Up on deck Smith stood in the prow, enjoying the
fresh air and the spray on his face after a day and
a night below.

As the cutter left the harbor Slim joined him.

"Here we go again," Slim said.

"I knew the bell was going to ring then," Smith
said. "You know why?"

"Tell me."

"I was holding ace and a king. Banker's
Twenty~ne."

Lieutenant Commander Werner Heer looked at
his watch. "Thirty minutes."

Major Wohl nodded. "What's the weather like?"

 "The storm has ended," Heer said reluctantly. He
would have preferred to keep that information to
himself.

"Then we should surface."

"If your man were there, he would send us a
signal."

 "The war is not won by hypothesis; captain," said
Wohl. "I firmly suggest that we surface."

 There had been a blazing row while the U-boat
was in dock between Heer's superior officer and
Wohl's; and Wohl's had won. Heer was still captain
of the ship, but he had been told in no uncertain
terms that he had better have a damned good
reason next time he ignored one of Major Wohl's
firm suggestions.

"We will surface at six o'clock exactly," he said.

Wohl nodded again and looked away.

                323
                 
                37

The sound of breaking glass, then an explosion like
an incendiary bomb:

Whoomph . . .

Lucy dropped the microphone. Something was
happening downstairs. She picked up a shotgun and
ran down.

The living room was ablaze. The fire centered on
a broken jar on the door. Henry had made some
kind of bomb with the petrol from the jeep. The
flames were spreading across Tom's threadbare
carpet and licking up over the loose covers of his
ancient three-piece suite. A feather-filled cushion
caught and the fire reached up toward the ceiling.

Lucy picked up the cushion and threw it through
the broken window, singeing her hand. She tore her
coat off and threw it on the carpet, stamping on it.
She picked it up again and draped it over the floral
settee.

There was another crash of glass.

It came from upstairs.

Lucy screamed. "Jol"

She dropped the coat and rushed up the stairs
and into the front bedroom.

Faber was sitting on the bed with Jo on his lap.
The child was awake, sucking his thumb, wearing
his wide-eyed morning look. Faber was stroking his
tousled hair.

324

            EYE OF THE NEEDLE

"Throw the gun on the bed, Lucy."

Her shoulders sagged and she did as he said. "You
climbed the wall and got through the window," she said
dully.

Faber dumped Jo off his lap. "Go to Mummy."

Jo ran to her and she lifted him up.

He picked up both guns and went to the radio. He was
holding his right hand under his left armpit, and there was
a great red bloodstain on his jacket. He sat down. "You
hurt me," he said. Then he turned his attention to the
transmitter.

Suddenly it spoke. "Come in, Storm Island."

He picked up the microphone. "Hello?"

"Just a minute."

There was a pause, then another voice came on. Lucy
recognized it as the man in London who had told her to
destroy the radio. He would be disappointed in her. It said,
"Hello, this is Godliman again. Can you hear me? Over."

Faber said, "Yes, I can hear you, professor. Seen any
good cathedrals lately?"

"What? . . . is that "

"Yes." Faber smiled. "How do you do." Then the smile
abruptly left his face, as if playtime was over, and he
manipulated the frequency dial of the radio.

Lucy turned and left the room. It was over. She walked
listlessb down the stairs and into the kitchen. There was
nothing for her to do but wait for him to kill her. She could
not run away she did not have the energy, and he
obviously know it.

-     She looked out of the window. The storm had
ended. The

howling gale had dropped to a stiff breeze, there was no
rain,
and the eastern sky was bright with the promise of
sunshine.
The sea

She frowned, and looked again.

Yes, my God, it was a submarine.

Destroy the radio, the man had said.

 Last night Henry had cursed in a foreign language . . .
did it for my country," he had said.

 And, in his delirium, something about wafting at Salads
for a phantom army....

Destroy the radio.

 Why would a man take a can of photographic negatives
on a fishing Hip?

325

            Ken Follett

She had known all along he was not insane.

The submarine was a German U-boat, Henry was
some kind of German agent . . . spy? . . . this very
moment he must be trying to contact that U-boat
by radio . . .

Destroy the radio.

She had no right to give up, she couldn't, now
that she understood. She knew what she had to do.
She would have liked to put Jo somewhere else,
where he could not see it that bothered her more
than the pain she knew she would feel  but there
was no time for that. Henry would surely find his
frequency at any second and then it might be too
late

She had to destroy the radio, but the radio was
upstairs with Henry, and he had both the guns and
he would kill her.

She knew only one way to do it.

 She placed one of Tom's kitchen chairs in the
center of the room, stood on it, reached up and
unscrewed the light bulb.

 She got down off the chair, went to the door and
threw the switch.

"Are you changing the bulb?" Jo asked.

 Lucy climbed on the chair, hesitated for a
moment, then thrust three fingers into the live
socket.

 There was a bang, an instant of agony, and then
unconsciousness.

 Paber heard the bang. He had found the right
frequency on the transmitter, had thrown the switch
to "Transmit" and had picked up the microphone.
He was about to speak when the noise came.
Immediately afterward the lights on the dials of the
wireless set went out.

 His face suffused with anger. She had
short-circuited the electricity supply to the whole
house. He had not credited her with that much
ingenuity.

 He should have killed her before. What was
wrong with him? He had never hesitated, not ever,
until he met this woman.

He picked up one of the guns and went downstairs.

 The child was crying. Lucy lay in the kitchen
doorway, out cold. Paber took in the empty light
socket with the chair beneath it. He frowned in
amazement.

She had done it with her hand.

Faber said: "Jesus Christ Almighty." 326

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

Lucy's eyes opened.

She hurt all over.

~ Henry was standing over her with the gun in his
hands. He was saying, "Why did you use your hand?
Why not a screwdriver?"

"I didn't know you could do it with a screwdriver."

He shook his head. "You are truly an astonishing
woman," he said as he lifted the gun, aimed it at
her, and lowered it again. "Damn you."

His gaze went to the window, and he started.

"You saw *," he said.

She nodded.

He stood tense for a moment, then went to the
door. Pinding it nailed shut, he smashed the window
with the butt of his gun and climbed out!

Lucy got to her feet. Jo threw his arms around
her legs. She did not feel strong enough to pick him
up. She staggered to the window and looked out.

He was running toward the cliff. The U-boat was
still there, perhaps half a mile offshore. He reached
the cliff edge and crawled over. He was going to try
to swim to the submarine.

She had to stop him.

Dear God, no more . . .

She climbed through the window, blotting out the
cries of her son, and ran after him.

When she reached the cliff edge she lay down and
looked over. He was about halfway between her and
the sea. He looked up and saw her, froze for a
moment, and then began to move faster.
dangerously fast.

Her first thought was to climb down after him.
But what would she do Uhen? Even if she caught
him, she couldn't pow 8ibly stop him.

The ground beneath her shifted slightly. She
scrambled back, afraid it would give way and throw
her down the cliff.

Which gave her the idea.

She thumped on the rocky ground with both fists.
It seemed to shake a little more and a crack
appeared. She got one hand over the edge and
thrust the odher into the crack. A piece of earthy
chalk Ule size of a watermelon came away in her
hands.

327

            Ken Polled

She looked over the edge and sighted him.

She took careful aim and dropped the stone.

 It seemed to fall very slowly. He saw it coming,
and covered his head with his arm. It looked to her
as if it would miss him.

 The rock passed within a few inches of his head
and hit his left shoulder. He was holding on with his
left hand. He seemed to lose his grip and he
balanced precariously for a moment. The right hand,
the injured one, scrabbled for a hold. Then he
appeared to lean out, away from the face of the
rock, arms windmilling, until his feet slipped from
their narrow ledge and he was in midair, suspended;
and finally he dropped like a stone to the rocks
below.

He made no sound.

 He landed on a flat rock that jutted above the
surface of the water. The noise his body made
hitting the rock sickened her. He lay there on his
back, arms outflung, head at an impossible angle.

 Something seeped out from inside him on to the
stone, and Lucy turned away.

Everything seemed to happen at once then.

 There was a roaring sound from the sky and three
aircraft with RAP circles on their wings flew out of
the clouds and dipped low over the U-boat, their
guns firing

 Four sailors came up the hill toward the house at
a jog trot, one of them shouting,
"Left-right-left-right-left-right."

 Another plane landed on the sea, a dinghy
emerged from inside it and a man in a life jacket
began to row toward the cliff.

 A small ship came around the headland and
steamed toward the U-boat.

The U-boat submerged.

 The dinghy bumped into the rocks at the foot of
the cliff, and the man got out and examined Faber's
body.

A boat she recognised as the Coastguard cutter
appeared.

 One of the sailors came up to her. "Are you all
right, love? There's a little girl in the cottage crying
for her mummy "

"It's a boy," Lucy said, "I must cut his hair."

Bloggs steered the dinghy toward the body at the
foot of
                328
                 
        EYE OF TlIE NEEDLE

the cliff. The boat bumped against the rock and he
scrambled out and-onto the flat surface.

 Die Nadel's skull had smashed like a glass goblet
when he hit the rock. Looking more closely. Bloggs
could see that the man had been somewhat battered
even before the fall: his right hand was mutilated
and there was something wrong with his ankle.

 Slogs searched the body. The stiletto was where
he had guessed it might be: in a sheath strapped to
the left forearm. In the inside pocket of the
expensive-looking bloodstained jacket, Bloggs found
a wallet, papers, money, and a small Elm can
containing twenty-four 35mm photographic nega-
tives. He held them up to the strengthening light:
they were the negatives of the prints found in the
envelopes Faber had sent to the Portuguese
Embassy.

 The sailors on the cliff top threw down a rope.
Bloggs put Faber's possessions into his own pocket,
then tied the rope around the body. They hauled it
up, then sent the rope down for Bloggs.

 When he got to the top, the sub-lieutenant
introduced himself and they walked across to the
cottage on top of the hill.

 "We haven't touched anything, didn't want to
destroy evidence," the senior sailor said.

 "Don't worry too much," Bloggs told him. "There
won't be a prosecution."

 They had to enter the house through the broken
kitchen window. The woman was sitting at a table
with the child on her lap. Bloggs smiled at her. He
could not think of anything to say.

 He looked quickly around the cottage. It was a
battlefield. He saw the nailed-up windows, the
barred doors, the remains of the fire, the dog with
its throat cut, the shotguns, the broken banister, and
the axe embedded in the windowsill beside two
severed fingers.

He thought, What kind of woman is she?

 He set the sailors to work one to tidy the house
and unbar the doors and windows, another to
replace the blown fuse, a third to make tea.

 He sat down in front of the woman and looked at
her. She was dressed in ill-fitting, mannish clothes;
her hair was wet; 329

            Ken Pollett

her face was dirty. Despite an that, she was
remarkably beautiful, with lovely amber eyes in an
oval face.

Bloggs smiled at the child and spoke quietly to
the woman. "What you've done is tremendously
important," he said. "One of these days we's explain,
but for now I have to ask you two questions. Is that
okay?"

Her eyes focused on him and after a moment she
nodded.

"Did Faber succeed in contacting the U-boat by
radio?"

The woman just looked blank.

 Bloggs found a toffee in his trousers pocket. "Can
I give the boy a sweet? He looks hungry."

"Thank you," she said.

"Now, did Faber contact the U-boat?"

"His name was Henry Baker," she said.

"Oh. WeD, did he?"

"No. I short-circuited the electricity."

"That was very smart," Bloggs said. "How did you do
it?"

She pointed at the empty light socket above them.

"Screwdriver, oh?"

"No. I wasn't that smart. Fingers."

 He gave her a look of horror, disbelief. The
thought of deliberately . . . he shook himself, trying
to put it out of his mind. And thought again, What
kind of woman is she? . . .

Right, welt do you think anyone on the U-boat
could have seen him coming down the cliff?"

 The effort of concentration showed on her face.
"Nobody came out of the hatch, I'm quite sure," she
said. "Could they have seen him through their
periscope?"

 "No," he said. "This is go,od news, very good
news. It means they don't know he's been . . .
neutralised. Anyway . . . He changed the subject
hastily. "You've been through as much as any man
on the front line. More. We're going to get you and
the boy to a hospital on the mainland."

"Yes," she said.

 Bloggs turned to the senior sailor. "Is there any
form of transport around?"

"Yes a jeep down in that little stand of trees."

 "Good. Will you drive these To over to the jetty
and get them onto your boat?"

"Surely."

Bloggs turned to the woman again. He felt a
tremendous 330

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

surge of affection mixed with admiration for her.
She looked frail and helpless now, but he knew she
was as brave and strong as she was beautiful.
Surprising her and himself he took hold of her
hand. "When you've been in hospital a day or two
you'll begin to feel depressed. But that's a sign
you're getting better. I won't be far away and the
doctors will tell me. I'll want to talk to you some
more, but not before you feel like it. Okay?"

At last she smiled at him, and he felt the warmth.
"You're very kind." she said.

She stood up and carried her child out of the
house.

"Kind?" Bloggs muttered to himself. "God, what
a woman."

He went upstairs to the radio and tuned it to the
Royal Observer Corps frequency.

"Storm Island calling, over."

"Come in, Storm Island."

"Patch me through to London."

"Hold on." There was a long pause, then a
familiar voice, "Godliman."

"Percy. We caught the . . . smuggler. He's dead."

"Marvelous, marvelous." There was undisguised
triumph in Godliman's voice. "Did he manage to
contact his partner?"

"Almost certainly not."

"Well done, well donel"

"Don't congratulate me," Bloggs said. "By the
time I got here it was all over, bar the tidying up."

"Who... ?"

"The woman."

"Well, I'm damned. What's she like?"

Bloggs grinned. "She's a hero, Percy."

And Godliman, smiling on his end now too,
understood.

                331
                 
                38

Hitler stood at the panoramic window, looking out
at the mountains. He wore his dove-grey uniform,
and he looked tired and depressed. He had called
his physician during the night.

Admiral Puttiamer saluted and said good morning.

 Hitler turned and peered closely at his
aide-de-camp. Those beady eyes never failed to
unnerve Puttiamer. "Was Die lVadel picked up?"

 "No. There wag some trouble at the
rendezvous the English police were chasing
smugglers. It appears Die Nadel was not there
anyway. He sent a wireless message a few minutes
ago." He offered a sheet of paper.

 Hitler took it from him, put on his spectacles, and
began to read:

YOUR RENDEZVOUS INSECURE YOU CUNTS
I
 AM WOUNDED AND TRANSMITTING LEFT
  HANDED FIRST UNITED STATES ARMY
GROUP
ASSEMBLED EAST ANGLIA UNDER PATTON
OR
DER OF BATTLE AS POLLOWS TWENTYONE
IN
   PANTRY DIVISIONS PIVE ARMORED
DIVISIONS
    APPROXIMATELY FIVE THOUSAND
AIRCRAFT
PLUS REQUISITE TROOPSHIPS IN THE WASH
                332
                 
         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

PUSAN WILL ATTACK CALAIS JUNI! FIF-
TL13NTH REGARDS TO WILLI

Hitler handed the message back to Puttkamer
and sighed. "So it's Calais, after an."

"Can we be sure of this man?" the aide asked.

"Absolutely." Hitler turned and walked across
the room to a chair. His movements were stiff
and he seemed in palm "He is a loyal German. I
know him. I know his family

"But your instinct "

"Ach . . . I said I would trust this man's report,
and I shall." He made a gesture of dismissal.
"Tell Rommel and Rundstedt they can't have
their panzers. And send in that damned doctor."

Puttkamer saluted again and went out to relay
the orders.

                333
                 
             EPILOGUE

When Germany defeated England in the
quarterfinal of the 1970 World Cup soccer
tournament. g,~randp.? was furious.

 He sat in front of the color television set and
muttered through his beard at the screen.
"Cunning"" he told the assorted experh.' who were
now disgectin,~,~ the game. "iCunning and
stcaltb! That's the way to defeat the damned
Germans."

 He would not be mollified unfit his grandchildren
arrived! Jo's white Jaguar drew up on the drive of
the modest threebedroom house, and then Jo
himself, prosperous-looking in a suede jacket, along
with his wife Ann and their children went in.

Jo said, "Did you watch the football, pop?"

 'Terrible, we were rubbish." Since he'd retired
from the Force and had more leisure time he had
taken an interest in sports.

 "'The Germans were better," Jo said. 'They play
good foot. balt. We can't win it every time "

 "Don't talk to me about bloody Germans.
Cunning and steatth, that's the way to beat them."
He addressed the grandson on his lap. "That's the
way we beat them in the war, Davy we tricked
them proper."

"How did you trick them?" Davy asked.

"Weft, see, we made them think " his voice became
low 334

         EYE OF THE NEEDLE

and conspiratorial, and the little boy giggled in
antic) pation "we made them think we were going
to attack Calais t'

"That's in France, not Germany "

Ann shwhed him. "Let your grandpa tell his stories."

"Anyway," grandpa continued, "we made them
think we were going to attack Calais, so they put all
their tanks and soldiers there." He used a cushion
to represent France, an ashtray for the Germans,
and a penknife for the Alliea "But we attacked
Normandy, and there was nobody much there but
old Rornmel and a few popguns"

"Mdn't they find out about the trick?" David asked.

'`They nearly did. In fact, there was one spy who
did find out.

"What happened to him?"

'iWe }illed him before he could tell."

"Did you frill him, grandpa?"

"No, your grandma did."

Grandma came in then, carrying a teapot. "Fred
Bloggs, are you frightening the children?"

"Why shouldn't they know?" he groused. "She's
got a medal, you know. She won't tell me where she
keeps it becawe she doesn't like me showing it to
visitors"

She was pouring tea. "It's all over now and best
forgotten" She handed a cup and saucer to her
husband.

He took her arm and held her there. 'It's far from
over," he said, and his voice was suddenly gentle.

They looked at each other for a moment. Her
beautiful hair was greying now and she wore it up
in a bun. She was heavier than she used to be. But
her eyes were ~11 the same: large and amber and
remarkably beautiful. Those eyes looked back at
him now, and they both were very still,
remembering.

Until David jumped off his grandpa's lap and
knocked the cup of tea to the floor and the spell
was broken.

                33J
                 
     AsouT TEIs AUTHOR

Ken Pollett, Welsh-born, is a former
journalist for the London Evening
News and editorial director of Everest
Books in England. He lives in
Camberly, England, with his wife and
two children.

            336
             
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