Authors: Suzette A. Hill
He laughed. ‘Nothing so jolly. Besides, I told you, their necks are at stake. Even the prudes draw a line at executions for sexual dalliance. She held a more dangerous secret.’
‘So what was it?’
‘A bomb plot – against Churchill. But like several it was pathetically flawed and never got off the ground. Nevertheless, although clumsy the intention was serious. Those involved were Nazi sympathisers yet British to the core – pathetic hangovers from some of the drawing
rooms of the 1930s, and harbouring a collective egotism masquerading as political ideology. As far as we are aware they and their like are now comfortably cushioned within the middle ranks of the British Establishment, fondly assuming that had Germany won the war its unbounded gratitude would have secured them even greater elevation. The very fabric which they were once so ready to destroy is now their cosy eiderdown. Your aunt was unfortunate enough to have learnt their identities and to hold tangible proof of their connection.’
Rosy was silent, not sure what to say – not sure what to believe. But, she reasoned, it had to be true, surely – pointless to invent such a tale; and despite the absurd soubriquet the man was clearly no fool.
‘So where did Marcia get this information?’ she asked. ‘And in any case how do you know about it? What
is
your concern exactly?’
‘My concern, Rosy, is to get their names and enough evidence to make them swing. Members of my family were in the French Resistance. These same reptiles, or at least a couple of them, were responsible for their capture, torture and death – along with several others. I may have overlooked your aunt’s blunder of 1944 but I have no intention of letting this particular brand of treachery go by. They have survived so far but I’ll find them in the end, whatever the obstacle … or,’ he added softly, ‘the cost.’ His fingers lightly stroked the cane at his side while the grey eyes fixed her with a hard impersonal stare; and once again she felt a chill of fear.
But she was also perplexed. ‘You mentioned “we”. Who are the others? MI5 or something? Or are you still linked with the SOE? Though I thought they were disbanded ages ago.’
He shook his head. ‘Oh no, my days of office are over. I am now what you might call freelance – a much more convenient and flexible position, and one allowing infinite latitude! Suffice it to say that there are still one or two of us – ex-Intelligence – who are rather keen on flushing out our country’s hidden predators, exposing those who have gone to ground and who now thrive under a cloak of national virtue. However, unlike Marcia our aim is not covert blackmail but something much more satisfying: public shame and retribution … or, if necessary, private dispatch. The means are immaterial but one way or other we will destroy them.’ He paused, and then said musingly, ‘You could perhaps liken us to a pack of relentless bloodhounds sniffing the air for putrid spore and driven by a moral imperative.’
‘Crikey!’ thought Rosy; and felt like adding, ‘and led by a limping Jack Russell with beetle brows and a snout for vengeance.’ However, she kept the observation to herself and instead asked again how her aunt had obtained the information.
‘From Flaxman – or Fleichmann, to give him his proper name. He was the spy she fell in love with and blabbed to about the coal-scuttle operation. He slipped back to Germany shortly afterwards and, as you might expect, she never heard from him again … that is, until about four months ago when out of the blue she got a letter from Munich. Apparently he was on his deathbed – literally. Legacy of an old war wound. And according to Marcia he felt creased up with remorse for the hurt and “embarrassment” he had caused her in the past! A case of death focusing the mind, I suppose. Anyway, by way of recompense and as a token of expiation, or whatever you like to call it, he had sent her the German dossier on the Churchill plot conspirators, plus an original coded message which they
had sent to their Nazi masters confirming plans for a coup on the Maquis in Caen – the one that caught my cousins.’
‘So what was she supposed to do with the stuff? Take it to the police?’
He gave a wry laugh. ‘Oh, nothing so worthy! Dying lover boy suggested that she kept it as a hedge against the exigencies of old age.’
Rosy gasped. ‘You mean she was supposed to …?’
‘Exactly. He intimated that should she ever feel a pecuniary drought he was sure that those named would be only too ready to accommodate her requests for a little financial bolstering. According to Marcia, his exact words had been, “My dear, screw them for all they’re worth. It’s the least you deserve.” And that, Rosy, is precisely what she did.’
‘So how do
you
know this?’
‘She told me. Rang me in Paris, gloating about her lucky windfall, the “stick of dynamite” that had fallen into her hands, as she called it. I couldn’t quite follow what she was talking about at first. Sounded excited and befuddled at the same time. On the gin, probably. But after a bit of patient probing I suddenly realised what she was saying. I could hardly believe my luck. We had been after this little clique for years but couldn’t get hold of their real names, let alone tangible evidence, and here was your dear aunt blithely crowing about it down the telephone!’
‘How convenient,’ Rosy observed dryly. ‘But why did she bother to confide in you? Why not just get on with her own agenda, i.e. “screwing them for all they were worth”, as apparently this Fleichmann advised?’
‘It was probably her way of trying to make amends for her part in the coal-scuttle fiasco. Despite all that outward
insouciance the thing troubled her badly. So once this data fell into her hands she evidently thought she would make double use of it – boost her bank balance and salve her conscience at the same time. The file and names were to be a kind of peace offering, a propitiatory gesture to old comrades, and I think she was simply eager to let me know what she had in store for us … Ironic, really – same pattern of apology as her lover’s, and not notably useful to either.’
‘No, I suppose not,’ muttered Rosy stonily, eying her glass and wondering how she could give it a discreet refill without replenishing the visitor’s. ‘Anyway, what did you do?’
‘I met her, of course. Came over to London and took her out to lunch – naively assuming she would produce the goods there and then. Not a bit of it!’ He gave a grim laugh. ‘Might have guessed she’d be difficult. Always was. “But darling,” she said, “of
course
you can have the stuff, but all in good time. A girl’s got to look after number one you know, and I am building up a nice little nest egg – in fact a socking great goose’s egg. There’s just one rather
substantial
transaction to organise and that’ll be the last, it really will. And then you can have the whole bang shoot. Frankly, good riddance to it; but for the moment I’m not saying a word. You will just have to be patient.” Well naturally I tried to persuade her otherwise but she clammed up entirely. I even tried plying her with some vintage Krug as a kindly inducement, but she waved it aside saying she was off to a matinee and didn’t want to sleep through the first half. So I walked her to the theatre and we parted on the understanding that she would deliver the goods the minute she had completed the “transaction”.’
‘And then she was killed.’
He nodded. ‘And then she was killed.’
There was a brief pause, during which Rosy struggled to arrange her thoughts – or rather, grappled to absorb what she had just heard. The whole thing was outlandish, surreal … and yet, of course, so was Marcia’s death, and that was real enough. Clearly the woman must have done something pretty wild to have provoked such an end, to have elicited such hate. Or fear. Yes, on the face of it blackmail seemed as likely a cause as any.
But even as these thoughts flashed through Rosy’s mind they were overlaid by a much more pressing concern: why was the man disclosing this at all? He still hadn’t said what he wanted of
her
! She looked up to see him regarding her intently. ‘And so you see, Rosy,’ he said softly, ‘one rather needs your cooperation in the matter.’
She returned his gaze impassively and heard herself saying in a tone far more poised than she felt, ‘Well, Mr Whittington, assuming that what you say is true, I am hardly in a position to cooperate with your plans – whatever they might be. You see, I knew next to nothing about my aunt – not latterly at any rate. We rarely met, and hadn’t much to say to each other when we did. I don’t mean that there was an active antagonism but we had so little in common. Our lives were quite separate.’
‘Yes, I know,’ he said casually.
Rosy was startled. ‘What do you mean you
know
?’
He shrugged. ‘What I say. She mentioned you when we last met.’
‘Mentioned me! Whatever for?’
‘She thought you might be useful. That is to say, as a convenient recipient for the bomb plot evidence. “My niece is a frightful prig,” she said, “but like her mother, she’s
stubbornly discreet. And after all, there’s nothing like belt and braces. I may keep a copy and send her the original as additional security until I’ve completed my negotiations. You can be assured it would reside in a rather stuffy safe house.”’
Prig, stuffy?
Rosy was enraged. But before she had a chance to protest or produce a cogent retort, the man continued: ‘As it happens, I rather assume she did no such thing; she was always a procrastinator. But if by chance you
do
have the thing somewhere I should be obliged if you would hand it over.’
Despite the quiet conversational tone, Rosy knew she was being given an order. But lack of possession made her both bold and angry. ‘Like hell,’ she snapped. ‘You’re right, I don’t have it. And even if I did it’s not the sort of thing I would give to a total stranger. I mean, you could be
anybody
!’
Whittington cleared his throat and with a rueful smile said, ‘Ye-es, that’s me, I suppose. Anybody and nobody … an apt description. Your caution is exemplary. And as said, I don’t believe you have it. But’ – and here the tone darkened – ‘it is quite likely that others
may
, and I strongly advise you to be on the qui vive. Watch your step, change the locks – and get good ones this time, a child could deal with yours! And above all contact me if anything should in fact come into your hands – or if anything unusual occurs that could lead us to them. Any approach, however vague or oblique, and I must hear immediately. It’s imperative. Do you understand?’
Rosy shrugged and nodded. ‘If you say so. But how should I contact you?’
He drew out his wallet and scribbled something on a slip of paper. ‘Any information or suspicions ring this
number in Paris. I or a colleague will be there.’ He got up abruptly, gathered hat and stick and limped briskly to the door, where he turned, and with a polite smile bade her goodnight.
‘Just a moment,’ Rosy called, ‘being such a frightful prig, what’s to stop me telephoning the police to report harassment by an intruder and telling them everything you have just told me?’
‘Because, my dear, in your case intelligence precedes priggishness. You are far too bright not to see the implications of such a move.’ He raised his hat and slipped from the room shutting the door quietly behind him. For some seconds Rosy stared at the vacated space, listening for the sound of uneven footfalls along the passage; but there was silence.
Like an automaton she tidied the strewn records, wound up the gramophone and revived the elegant swooping tones of Buchanan and Lillie; and for a few merciful moments reality was suspended … Yet even before the needle had moved halfway across the surface she pushed its arm back on to the bracket and slammed the lid. ‘Oh Christ almighty!’ she breathed.
Sleep of course was impossible, or so it felt. Possibly there had been an hour of snatched oblivion before dawn, but for most of the night she was awake, her mind caught in a whirligig of incredulity and floundering fear. For a while she had wondered if the whole episode had been a ridiculous delusion brought on by too much pantomime drollery. The idea was hardly comforting: of the two – mental muddle or the man’s reality – she favoured the latter. But it was a reality she would have preferred not to confront.
The question was, what to do? Something practical as
he had suggested, i.e. change the locks? At least that might be a block to further intrusions of whatever sort. If he had slipped in so casually presumably so could
they
, whoever
they
might be … always assuming that they really did exist. After all, despite his seeming intellect and decorous air the man might be a raving lunatic inhabiting a world of lurid fantasy in which she had a principal part!
But when she recalled his words the possibility seemed slight. He had shown a close knowledge of Marcia both past and present, and there was also that allusion to the matinee – a fact surely corroborated by Amy Fawcett when, according to her, she had told Greenleaf of Marcia’s limping escort outside the theatre. Besides, what about her own glimpse of him talking to Vera Collinger at the National Gallery? The latter might be a little eccentric but she had her marbles all right and did not seem the sort to be found consorting with fools or fantasists … No, on the whole it might be prudent to take Mr Whittington seriously. But other than replacing the locks, what on earth to
do
?
He had been right. There was one thing she would not do: put the matter in the hands of the police. To make a public revelation of her aunt’s wartime madness would be humiliation enough, but there was also this recent activity: concealment and squalid usage of the bomb plot evidence. It was a double ignominy. How
could
the woman have behaved like that? What idiocy, what selfishness … what
dishonour
!
Suddenly Rosy found herself in floods of tears. Fear for her personal safety might be coped with or suppressed. But the weight of shame, family shame, was intolerable. She thought of her mother and father during the war:
patriotic to the core, humorously stoical, unflinching in the Blitz – and destroyed by it. She thought of Johnnie scudding through the clouds on those endless lonely missions, dodging the Luftwaffe, defying the scouring searchlights: wrapped in peril, armed with faith, and laughingly casual to the end. And briefly she thought of herself under fire on the south coast, and the guts and camaraderie of her colleagues, their gaiety and griefs. And she thought of the thousands who had sacrificed themselves in defence of their country at that awful time … And again she thought of her aunt’s crass treachery and the later cynical withholding and use of vital facts for personal gain. No, just as Whittington had surmised, she could tell no one. Bloody, bloody Marcia!