Night Over Water by Ken Follett

hands of these old duffers. He wished they would hurry up and make up their minds; when they all nodded in unison he wished they would postpone the awful moment.
    The chairman looked up. “I hope a night in the cells has taught you a lesson,” he said.
    Oh, God, I think he’s going to let me go, Harry thought. He swallowed and said: “Absolutely, sir. I never want to go back there again, ever”.
    “Make sure of it.”
    There was another pause; then the chairman looked away from Harry and addressed the court. “I’m not saying we believe everything we’ve heard, but we don’t think this is a case for a custodial remand.”
    A wave of relief washed over Harry, and his legs went weak.
    The chairman said: “Remanded for seven days. Bail in the sum of fifty pounds.”
    Harry was free.
     
    He saw the streets with new eyes, as if he had been in jail for a year instead of a few hours. London was getting ready for war. Dozens of huge silver balloons floated high in the skies to obstruct German planes. Shops and public buildings were surrounded by sandbags, to protect them from bomb damage. There were new air-raid shelters in the parks, and everyone carried a gas mask. People felt they might be wiped out at any minute, and this caused them to drop their reserve and converse amiably with total strangers.
    Harry had no memory of the Great War—he had been two years old when it ended. As a little boy he had thought “The War” was a place, for everyone said to him: “Your father was killed in The War,” like they said: “Go and play in The Park. Don’t fall in The River. Ma’s going up The Pub.” Later, when he was old enough to realize what he had lost, any mention of The War was painful to him. With Marjorie, the solicitor’s wife who had been his lover for two years, he had read the poetry of the Great War, and for a while he had called himself a pacifist. Then he had seen the Black Shirts marching in London and the scared faces of the old Jews as they watched, and he had decided some wars might be worth fighting. In the last few years he had been disgusted at the way the British government turned a blind eye to what was happening in Germany, just because they hoped Hitler would destroy the Soviet Union. But now that war had actually broken out, he thought only of all the small boys who would live, as he had, with a hole in their lives where a father should be.
    But the bombers had not yet come, and it was another sunny day.
    Harry decided not to go to his lodgings. The police would be furious about his getting bail and they would want to rearrest him at the first opportunity. He had better lie low for a while. He did not want to go back to jail. But how long would he have to keep looking back over his shoulder? Could he evade the police forever? And if not, what would he do?
    He got on the bus with his ma. He would go to her place in Battersea for the moment.
    Ma looked sad. She knew how he made his living, although they had never talked about it. Now she said thoughtfully: “I could never give you nothing.”
    “You gave me everything, Ma,” he protested.
    “No, I didn’t. Otherwise why would you need to steal?”
    He did not have an answer to that.
    When they got off the bus he went into the corner newsagent’s, thanked Bemie for calling Ma to the phone earlier and bought the Daily Express. The headline said: POLES BOMB BERLIN. As he came out he saw a bobby cycling along the road, and he felt a moment of foolish panic. He almost turned and ran before he got himself under control and remembered they always sent two people to arrest you.
    I can’t live like this, he thought.
    They went to Ma’s building and climbed the stone staircase to the fifth floor. Ma put the kettle on and said: “I’ve pressed your blue suit—you can change into that.” She still took care of his clothes, sewing on buttons and darning his silk socks. Harry went into the bedroom, dragged his case from under the bed and counted