Page 75 of The Berlin Agent (John Cook #2)

The water ran clear from my hands, swirling in the sink. Fine cracks in the old porcelain stained red from the blood. I could let the water run all night and those cracks would still be stained.

The bathroom door opened behind me. I was expecting Margaret. She and Miriam had been kept in the dark. Howe may have been a murderer, but he had a fine sense of -decorum.

It was Miriam. She closed the door behind her. It was a cramped space, a small bathroom, carved out of a bedroom when they’d installed indoor plumbing. The wall cut a window in half, a bad design, favouring function over form.

I turned off the tap but kept my back to her. She was as much a part of this as Howe was, as much a part as Vaughn was. As I was, if I was being honest with myself.

‘The first jump was the hardest,’ she said. ‘That was in daylight. They made me do three practice jumps. Apparently, the rate of injuries drops off significantly after the first three. They’ve done a study. The most common -injuries are twisted ankles, second most common broken ankles. Then injuries to the shoulders, when the parachute pulls you back.’

‘Must be tricky in the dark when you can’t see the ground rushing up at you,’ I said. ‘Hard to come down smoothly, I’d imagine.’

‘Vaughn had a light,’ she said, ‘but that was for the pilot. Once I was in the air it was pitch black. If you hit open ground you’re lucky. If you hit a tree, you’re not. Like -roulette. I got lucky.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘They’ve got reconnaissance pictures of those transmission towers going up. All those lorries in and out of the place. Slap bang in the middle of the invasion zone. Would you want to be in charge of the invasion and have to tell Hitler it failed because of some secret thing in the middle of your drop zone that you hadn’t managed to check out?’

‘So you’re the key to the invasion?’

‘I wouldn’t put it like that.’

I looked at my watch. It was half nine.

‘When do we go?’ she asked.

‘Two,’ I said. ‘Get some rest in the meantime.’

I pushed past her and opened the door. Vaughn was -outside, in the corridor, listening.

‘Howe’s gone,’ he said.

I ignored him and strode along the corridor. I had things to do. Vaughn followed me like a puppy.

‘Where are you going?’ he asked.

‘I’m going to sleep,’ I said.

‘How can you sleep after that?’ he asked.

‘I’ve done worse than that before breakfast,’ I said. ‘And so have you. You do it enough, you stop noticing.’

I left him, standing there in the corridor. He shouted after me.

‘I don’t believe that, Cook, and neither do you.’