Page 62 of The Gods of Chaos and Chance

Ben reared back and glanced around the room. Suddenly, he shouted, ‘Tim! Did you not make Nikolas any bloody lunch!’ and stormed off to hopefully remedy the situation. Most satisfactory.

Aleksey still had his reading glasses on, which meant that anything further than arm’s length away was blurry, so he was about to remove them, when something on one of the photographs Radulf had spilled onto the floor caught his eye.

At first he told himself he wasn’t seeing what he thought he was seeing.

He bent with some difficulty having got stiff sitting for so long on the hard wood and picked it up. Once more, the duchess was sitting on the steps in front of the house next to a man. Again, she was elegant, her thin legs tightly clasped together and tipped to one side. In this shot, however, it wasn’t David sitting with her.

Aleksey recognised this man.

He reckoned there might be someone somewhere in the world who would not instantly know that face, but it was doubtful. After all, who would not recognise Adolf Hitler?

Apparently, Winston Churchill wasn’t the only politician in the run up to the war who had been invited to this island, this house. Once more, his gaze went to the steps outside. Was this a return invitation for the one the Windsors had taken to the Fürhrer’s home,The Berghof? He seemed to recall they had all been quite chummy.

He turned the picture over.Arrived at last. Terrible crossing. Very tired. David still in Paris will join us soon. May, 1945

‘What you got there?’ Ben handed him a glass of wine and had found some cheese and crackers, which he’d heaped onto a plate.

Aleksey dropped the tiny rectangle into the empty box and took the offered drink, distracting Ben with a kiss.

* * *

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Aleksey was aware that the others were eyeing him suspiciously, but this was important. He wantedthisphoto to be just right. Ben had to sit just…there…and he needed to be right where he was. He nodded to Tim, then changed his mind and ordered, ‘A couple of feet to your left. That’s better. And don’t forget to do it in black and white.’

Ben went to put his arm over Aleksey’s shoulder, but he shook his head. ‘No, just sitting side by side. Like old friends.’

‘Old friends?’

‘I believe I said that, yes.’

They were on the steps at the front of the house. The lighting wasn’t exactly the same, but it was also May, so in many ways the photos would be similar.

He was about to tell his co-opted photographer to take the shot, when something…nagged at him. Something he’d forgotten? Something about Ben? He glanced over, but Ben was looking bored and pulling bits of lichen off the old stone steps. ‘Squeezy and I are going over to the lighthouse again this afternoon.’

‘No climbing.’ He only said this in a desultory fashion, his mind elsewhere. ‘Stop fidgeting. Okay. Take it.’

There was a click. Tim inspected the result.

It had amused Aleksey to think of showing the photo from the box to the professor once he’d been part of this moment. Aleksey felt sure that Tim would get the significance of photographing them sitting in the exact same positions all these years later.

All these years later.

He suddenly looked back at the house, the crack from his neck audible. Ben even started a little. ‘What? Shit. You made me jump. Where are you going?’

Aleksey strode along the front of the house and banged in through the door, pushed open the double doors to the big room, and went to the window. He picked up the photo. Where were his fucking glasses?

Arrived at last. Terrible crossing. Very tired. David still in Paris will join us soon. May, 1945

He’d been right. ItwasMay. May then and May now.

But it had also been1945, and Adolf Hitler had died in a bunker in Berlin inAprilof 1945.

He knelt, grunted in pain at the position, but ignored the ache and shuffled through the spilled pile. It could have been a mistake on her part, a slip of the pen. Perhaps she’d just gotten the dates mixed up. He didn’t know what day it was. Time had a way of losing meaning on Light Island.

He found another.

Adolf Hitler and another man in what appeared to be German Naval uniform were standing on the dock. This picture had apparently been taken from the boathouse, looking out to sea. Tied up to the jetty was a small dinghy with a young man at the oars who was also in uniform. Aleksey turned it over very slowly.

---