The Key to Rebecca - Ken Follett [58]
A cork popped loudly as he was writing. He licked his lips, thinking: I could use some of that. He wondered how quickly Smith could drink a glass of champagne. He decided to take no chances.
He put the papers back in the folder and the folder back in the case. He closed the lid and keyed the locks. He put the bunch of keys in a pocket of the shorts. He stood up and peeped through the curtain.
Smith was sitting up in bed in his army-issue underwear with a glass in one hand and a cigarette in the other, looking pleased with himself. The cigarettes must have been in his shirt pocket: it would have been awkward if they had been in his shorts.
At the moment Wolff was within Smith’s field of view. He took his face away from the tiny gap between the curtains, and waited. He heard Sonja say: “Pour me some more, please.” He looked through again. Smith took her glass and turned away to the bottle. His back was now to Wolff. Wolff pushed the shorts through the curtains and put them on the floor. Sonja saw him and raised her eyebrows in alarm. Wolff withdrew his arm. Smith handed Sonja the glass.
Wolff got into the cupboard, closed the door and eased himself to the floor. He wondered how long he would have to wait before Smith left. He did not care: he was jubilant. He had struck gold.
It was half an hour before he saw, through the peephole, Smith come into the living room, wearing his clothes again. By this time Wolff was feeling very cramped. Sonja followed Smith, saying: “Must you go so soon?”
“I’m afraid so,” he said. “It’s a very awkward time for me, you see.” He hesitated. “To be perfectly frank, I’m not actually supposed to carry this briefcase around with me. I had the very devil of a job to come here at noon. You see, I have to go from GHQ straight to my office. Well, I didn’t do that today—I was desperately afraid I might miss you if I came late. I told my office I was lunching at GHQ, and told the chaps at GHQ I was lunching at my office. However, next time I’ll go to my office, dump the briefcase, and come on here—if that’s all right with you, my little poppet.”
Wolff thought: For God’s sake, Sonja, say something!
She said: “Oh, but, Sandy, my housekeeper comes every afternoon to clean—we wouldn’t be alone.”
Smith frowned. “Damn. Well, we’ll just have to meet in the evenings.”
“But I have to work—and after my act, I have to stay in the club and talk to the customers. And I couldn’t sit at your table every night: people would gossip.”
The cupboard was very hot and stuffy. Wolff was perspiring heavily.
Smith said: “Can’t you tell your cleaner not to come?”
“But darling, I couldn’t clean the place myself—I wouldn’t know how.”
Wolff saw her smile, then she took Smith’s hand and placed it between her legs. “Oh, Sandy, say you’ll come at noon.”
It was much more than Smith could withstand. “Of course I will, my darling,” he said.
They kissed, and at last Smith left. Wolff listened to the footsteps crossing the deck and descending the gangplank, then he got out of the cupboard.
Sonja watched with malicious glee as he stretched his aching limbs. “Sore?” she said with mock sympathy.
“It was worth it,” Wolff said. “You were wonderful.”
“Did you get what you wanted?”
“Better than I could have dreamed.”
Wolff cut up bread and sausage for lunch while Sonja took a bath. After lunch he found the English novel and the key to the code, and drafted his signal to Rommel. Sonja went to the racetrack with a crowd of Egyptian friends: Wolff gave her fifty pounds to bet with.
In the evening she went to the Cha-Cha Club and Wolff sat at home drinking whiskey and reading Arab poetry. As midnight approached, he set up the radio.
At exactly 2400 hours, he tapped out his call sign, Sphinx. A few seconds later Rommel’s desert listening post, or Horch Company, answered. Wolff sent a series of V’s to enable them to tune in exactly, then asked them what his signal strength was. In the middle of the sentence he made a mistake, and sent a series of