The House of Rumour (4 page)

‘
Banque ouverte
,’ Bloch announced.

‘
Les messieurs debout peuvent jouer
,’ called the croupier.

Popov reached into his jacket pocket and as he did so turned his head so that Fleming could see his sharp profile. It was as if he was acknowledging his shadow. The Yugoslav then swiftly pulled out his thick sheaf of banknotes.

‘Fifty thousand dollars,’ he said calmly and began to count out a pile of notes on the table.

The baccarat table at once became the focus of the whole casino, a hush sucking in sound from all corners of the room. Soon there was silence but for the clatter of the roulette ball and the whispered oaths of countless languages. Everyone watched as Popov slowly laid out his stake in one-thousand- and five-hundred-dollar notes. Fleming felt a slight swoon in his stomach, a brief euphoria at this dramatic moment, this
coup de théâtre
. Then nausea at the prospect of reporting how Agent Tricycle had lost a small fortune of government money at a gaming table. Bloch squirmed in his seat, clearly outbid and humiliated. Popov turned to the croupier.

‘I suppose that the Casino will back this man’s bet, since you didn’t object to his “
banque ouverte
”.’

‘The Casino never backs any player’s stake, sir.’

Popov huffed audibly and with a show of irritation swept his money off the table and stuffed it back into his inside jacket pocket. Fleming sighed. It was a joke. A game. Popov scraped back his chair and stood up.

‘I trust you’ll call this to the attention of the management,’ he said, addressing the croupier while all the time glaring down at Bloch. ‘And that in future such irresponsible play will be prohibited. It’s an insult to serious players.’

As he turned to leave he looked at Fleming briefly and smiled. Then he was gone. Bloch scraped together his stake money and scurried away in disgrace. Fleming found himself slipping into the vacant chair left by Popov, bemused that the Yugoslav’s outrageous performance had been partly for his benefit. He reached into his own pocket. He had fifty pounds sterling. It was all he had brought with him on this brief mission to Portugal. But the stakes on the table had now reverted to a reasonable rate, and were within his scope, at least for a while. Only a couple of players remained seated. The crowd of onlookers was drifting away, eager for some new spectacle now that the climax of the baccarat seemed over. The croupier looked bored as he snapped out the cards from the shoe, but Fleming’s mind buzzed with details and atmosphere, with ideas. All at once a germ of a story came to him. He became his other self, the empty hero who sleepwalked through his daydreams. A British agent pitted against the paymaster of a foreign power in a game of cards. Imagine if one could bankrupt the entire Abwehr in Portugal in one night? He gazed across at his opponents – mediocre men in creased dinner jackets – and imagined them as the enemy in a greater game. He felt an absurd thrill as he fingered his meagre winnings.

He ordered a whisky and lit a cigarette. He found that smoking incessantly seemed to enhance his prowess. He held the bank for a while and built up a sizeable stake. Then he lost it all when he should have passed. Bridge was more his game, where there was at least some sort of narrative. Baccarat was simply harsh numerology: Fleming tended to read the cards when he should be counting them. And it disturbed him that the court cards, the only discernible characters in the deck, had no face value in this game. He attempted a resigned grin at his fellow players when he once more lost a round. It was not acknowledged. He realised that the dull men who concentrated on an essentially banal strategy with such sombre diligence would consider him an amateur. It took him some time to lose all his money, but the point soon came where the tension lay merely in how long he might delay his annihilation. It was almost three in the morning when he was finally cleaned out. Yes, he thought, as he rose from the table, this was part of it too. Part of the story. The anxiety and nervous exhaustion, the tension of fear and greed, the very smell of failure.

2 / A MEETING WITH M

M was standing by his office window when his private secretary entered, and seemed to be sternly surveying the grey Thames below. To the west a dismal mist crept around the bend in the river at Chelsea Reach. She could tell by his imperious frown that he had spotted something human. He gave her a brief nod of acknowledgement as she approached, then pointed the stem of his pipe at his quarry below.

‘See?’ he demanded.

She followed the trajectory of his gaze. A young man in a cheap raincoat was walking slowly along the Embankment with little attempt to conceal the apparent aimlessness of his movements. M sighed and shook his head.

‘It’s the utter lack of discretion that galls one,’ the spymaster commented bitterly to his assistant.

She said nothing, knowing that it was best not to provoke him when he was in this kind of mood.

‘Well, what is it?’ he asked her finally.

‘It’s 17F here to see you, sir.’

M broke from his gloomy reverie and turned to her with a smile.

‘Excellent. Send him in.’

When she went through into the adjoining reception room she found 17F sitting on the edge of her desk. The handsome commander attached to Naval Intelligence stood up and smiled as he saw her. They had met twice before and had developed a sort of competitive flirtatiousness. He was pleasingly tall and slim, if a little too narcissistic for her taste. A broken nose softened his aquiline features. He flicked at the stray comma of hair above his right eyebrow.

‘Miss Miller,’ he murmured playfully.

‘Commander Fleming,’ she replied, with an edge to her voice.

She felt determined to see him as her equal, her sense of self-regard reflecting his. She was proud of her good looks, charisma and ambition. Besides, they held similar positions. They were both personal assistants: Fleming to the head of Naval Intelligence and herself to Maxwell Knight, known to everyone in the Service as M, the boss of B5(b), a clandestine subsection of Counter-Espionage. But his being a man meant that he held a military rank while she remained a drab civilian.

‘You can come through now, Commander,’ she told him.

‘I was just asking Bill,’ Fleming nodded towards M’s Chief of Staff, whose desk was opposite hers, ‘if this is really a good moment to catch the old man.’

Only the merest of smiles played upon her lips as her bright eyes held him in cold appraisal.

‘Oh, he’ll be pleased enough to see you,’ she said, perhaps a little too knowingly.

M was sitting at his desk, refilling his pipe, when Fleming entered.

‘May I, sir?’ Fleming asked, taking out his cigarette case.

‘Certainly. How was Lisbon?’

‘Very busy, sir.’

‘Quite. I’m led to believe by your report that we may have hooked ourselves a bigger fish.’

Fleming tapped a cigarette out on the flat silver lid. A letter had been intercepted from an academic working for German Foreign Intelligence addressed to a British aristocrat, suggesting some sort of clandestine peace meeting. A reply had been forged in the manner of a lure. Now it seemed a member of the Nazi inner circle was ready to put his head in the noose.

‘Perhaps.’ Fleming lit his cigarette. ‘A couple of factors need to be in place before Operation Mistletoe can proceed.’

‘A couple of factors?’

‘Well, yes. The first involves persuading the other side to believe that the Link is still active.’

‘Surely it’s not hard to give the enemy the impression that there remains a strong pro-peace element in the country? Good Lord, the way the war’s been going half the Cabinet seem ready to make terms.’

‘Yes, sir, but to convince them there is still this Link organisation, that’s pro-German, even pro-Nazi – there needs to be some evidence.’

‘Well, the idea was that we put it out that it had gone to ground since the round-ups last year. Can’t someone from the Double-Cross Committee file a bogus report or something?’

‘I’m afraid it has to be something stronger than that, sir.’

‘What then?’ M demanded impatiently.

‘Something, well, demonstrative, sir.’

‘Demonstrative?’

‘Yes, sir. Some significant act that would make it seem that there is an effective Fifth Column in operation in the country.’

‘Hmm, well, I could put my assistant on to it.’

‘Miss Miller?’

‘Oh yes. A very effective field officer. She uncovered a whole nest of them last year.’

‘Of course. I read the Special Branch report. But won’t she be vulnerable if there are any real quislings left?’

‘Hmm, well, let me deal with that. What was the other thing?’

‘I’m sorry, sir?’

‘The other factor you mentioned.’

Fleming shrugged as if slightly embarrassed.

‘The, er, paranormal aspect of the operation, sir.’

M laughed out loud.

‘Goodness me, Fleming, there’s no need to be sheepish about it. It might all seem a bit far-fetched but isn’t that the whole point of counter-intelligence?’

‘The whole point, sir?’

‘A story should sound improbable. If it is too logical it’s liable to appear contrived. And, of course, there are powers that we do not completely understand. Greater forms of disinformation, if you like.’

‘You mean, you give credence to some of this stuff, sir?’

It was known that M held some obscure beliefs and Fleming himself had begun to notice strange coincidences ever since he had been involved in Operation Mistletoe.

‘That’s neither here nor there,’ M replied. ‘We have to understand what the enemy is using. Goebbels had some of the prophecies of Nostradamus printed in a leaflet and dropped during the invasion of France. There are all sorts of rumours that Hitler takes astrological advice. The important thing now is that the subject of Operation Mistletoe actually believes in it. I like to keep an open mind. Haven’t you ever experienced an event that has been foretold?’

Yes, he had, Fleming thought. He just didn’t know how he might explain it to M.

‘Well, something has been bothering me about the whole plan, sir. Something I read in a book.’

‘Not that silly comedy your brother wrote.’

A Flying Visit
by Peter Fleming had been published the previous spring, before the fall of France. It was an imagined story of Hitler flying to England, a playful satire with cartoons by Low, that now in the heat of the Blitz seemed woefully outdated, even in poor taste.

‘No, not that,’ Fleming replied. ‘Something else, sir.’

‘What?’

Fleming was about to speak then stopped. He would have to think it through first.

‘Oh, it’s nothing, sir.’

‘Look, Fleming, you’re right about the paranormal stuff. What we need is a real expert. You know, the man I told you about. The Magician. He’s ideal for our purposes. Have a look at his file when you get back to Naval Intelligence. He worked for your bunch in the last show. Did a lot of what the Political Warfare Executive are calling “black propaganda”. Go and see him and I’ll sort out that other business with the Link.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And remember, this is a cross-departmental operation, but it goes without saying that the fewer people who know about it the better. I’m briefing someone from Political to run liaison. It’s far-fetched, yes, but it could be our biggest coup of the war. Read up on the Magician and make contact with him.’

‘Yes, sir.’

As Fleming got up to leave, Joan Miller was called back into the office. M stood up and went to the window, once more turning his back to her.

‘He’s still there,’ M muttered. ‘Dirty little creep.’

He beckoned her over. She hesitated. It was as if he was trying to provoke her in some way.

‘Did you want something else, sir?’

‘The Political Warfare Executive are going to reactivate the Link. They need you to go back out into the field for a spell.’

‘But, sir, I can hardly do that.’

‘Come here! Look. He’s got one.’

She joined M at his vantage point and saw another figure approach the man in the shabby raincoat.

‘I mean,’ Miller went on, ‘I’ve been compromised with the Link and the Right Club, sir. I gave evidence in court for goodness’ sake.’

‘Wait.’

M held up his hand for her to be quiet and they both watched the little vignette below. As the two men drew close, the one in the raincoat produced a cigarette and placed it in his mouth with a flourish, allowing his other hand to rest on one hip with a slight twist of his torso. The other produced a match and cupped the sulphur flame. With the briefest exchange of words, the smoker passed on, then his companion, flicking away the match and glancing furtively around for a moment, followed.

‘Yes,’ M hissed. ‘The dirty buggers.’

M had pointed out this little dance between men to Joan Miller before. She had been his assistant for nearly a year now and had spent weekends with him at the safe-house he had set up Camberley. He had declared his love for her and she had supposed that he had wanted her as his mistress. Except nothing had happened beyond the diligent choreography of romance. They would always sleep in separate rooms. At first she had thought that this was somehow her fault. But the war had brought an end to all innocence. He turned to her.