Eye of the Needle(46)

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 his 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 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 lying 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. Faber 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. Faber found the pocket Parkin had been reaching for, and pulled out a gun.

“Ticket inspectors do not go armed,” he said. “Who are you with, Parkin?”

“We all carry guns now—there’s a lot of crime on trains because of the dark.”

Parkin was at least lying courageously and creatively. Faber 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.

Faber’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, God…Godliman, Godliman—”

“Godliman!” 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?”

“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?”

“Don’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—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. (Faber 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.