The Yellow Glass
Authors: Claire Ingrams
Tags: #Cozy, #Crime, #Espionage, #Fiction, #Humour, #Mystery, #Politics, #Spies, #Suspense, #Thriller
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The Yellow Glass |
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Claire Ingrams |
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Contents
9.
The
Establishment & The Black Box
.
51
13.
Cullet,
Crizzling & Murder
77
24.
The
Power-House & the Caravan
.
157
25.
The New
Elizabethan Age
.
165
The Yellow Glass
These are the facts.
My name is Rosa.
Rosa Stone.
I was nineteen in August and that’s the honest to God truth.
What else?
Let me give you some family background.
My mother, Millicent Stone, makes fashionable hats.
My father, Jerzy Stone, baked the bread for
the new Queen’s coronation breakfast.
My
brother, Samuel Stone, is eight (so he hasn’t done much at all).
I grew up in London
and then Kent and now I’m
back in London and living in digs over the
bridge from Chelsea, which is actually Battersea
and I don’t know why I was such a snob as to mention Chelsea at all because the two are obviously
worlds’ apart.
So far so good, but now
it gets more tricky.
I work as a
personal secretary for a firm in the import/export line.
Truth or lie?
Well, take a look at me in my crisp, white blouse and plain, woollen
skirt with my cardigan draped over my shoulders in case of chilly
draughts.
I’ve got a little string of
imitation pearls round my throat and I’ve pinned my dark brown hair up in a bun
(even though it took thirteen bobby-pins to do it).
I’m wearing glasses, although I have the eyes
of a hawk.
Or do I?
I’m afraid I’m rather a pill.
Or am I?
That’s for you to decide.
Only
one thing is certain (write it in CAPS):
I AM A SPY IN HER MAJESTY’S SECRET SERVICE.
In ten seconds this paper will self-destruct: one, two,
three . . .
It didn’t, of
course.
Which means that the above bit
of doodling on the office foolscap is actually a rather severe transgression
against the Official Secrets Act of 1939, which I signed many months back . . although
the Official Secrets Act of 1939 is, in fact, a law, so I’d be transgressing
against it whether I’d signed it or not.
Such a lot of transgression in such a small space.
“Four teas, Miss Dodd,” Mr Orchard has stuck his head
around the office door and into my tiny anteroom, which is so crammed full of
boxes that I am practically condemned to my desk.
“Quick as you can.”
“Coming right up, Mr Orchard,” I reply, because Miss
Dodd is me.
With some effort, I manage to push my chair back and
squeeze my way to the door and then I walk down the corridor (in my sensible
heels) to the kitchenette with the enamelled tile ceiling, leaving the
incriminating paper lying face up on my desk for any old person to see.
Don’t worry; it honestly doesn’t matter,
because it’s encrypted.
What my
shorthand teacher at the Marian
Claybell Secretarial
College for Young Ladies
called ‘an absolute atrocity, Miss Stone.
Utterly incomprehensible in every way’ and I like to think of in more
historical terms.
I call it ‘the Rosetta
Stone’ because it’s a cipher that can be used to crack an unknown language (for
Ancient Egyptian read Rosa Stone’s story).
And because it sounds like me.
The kitchenette smells of tinned meat and fish paste
mixed together and fried in rancid dripping.
The two girls from Mr Unsworth’s office are there.
“I do think it’s the limit . .” says the bottle
blonde, breaking off abruptly when she sees me.
“Good afternoon, Miss Saunders,” I say, reaching for
the whistling kettle.
“Any milk left?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure,” she replies.
“Come on, Flo.
Some people have work to do.”
They sway back to their office, ever so tight with one
another; their pointy-brassiere-ed bosoms colliding as they hook arms to
whisper about me.
I know what they
say.
They dislike me because I’m a temp.
and a pill, to boot.
Also, they can’t
quite place me in terms of class.
And -
the worst crime of all - I once used one of their personal teacups by
mistake.
I couldn’t care less.
Yet (here’s a thought), might
they
be working undercover, too?
It seems most unlikely in a business that appears to be mainly engaged
in the import/export of glass and other ceramics from Finland, but you never know; when one
is a spy one sees the world quite differently.
It grows layers like a Savoy
cabbage.
Is this business a cover for
something else, entirely, or is it a legitimate concern blighted by one rogue
element?
These are the type of questions
that I ask myself when I’m not transgressing against the Official Secrets Act
of 1939.
Certainly, there are plenty of crates and boxes
containing pottery and glassware of an unmistakably Scandinavian design about
the place.
I know this because most of
them are stacked up in my office and I’ve had ample opportunity to investigate
them thoroughly in quiet periods (i.e.: most of my working day).
I take care to kick over the traces of my
snooping activities, of course and go to immense trouble to un-knot bits of
string and not reach for the scissors.
I’ve even hidden a screwdriver in my handbag so that I can pry nails
from packing cases and crates.
So far,
I’ve found quantities of mustard-coloured plates, bowls and coffee pots, a
number of glass owls, a lot of chunky, yellow glass and heaps of white platters
decorated with stick ladies wearing big hats and picking flowers.
It’s all tremendously interesting, (you will
discover that I find most things tremendously interesting, except when I find
them tremendously dull), but if there’s a state secret hidden among the
crockery, I’ve yet to uncover it.
All I know is that the boss got me in here to be his
eyes and ears after my first - and only - term at Cambridge proved to be a bit of a
disaster.
(Oh, I found the subject I was
reading phenomenally dull and began to go to other students’ lectures and stay
out all night and, before I knew it, the porter had tattled to the dean and
several departments had ganged up on me and I was sent down.
Although I’d gone before then.)
However, that’s ancient history now and
couldn’t matter less, because the boss knows what I can do: my special
talents.
The boss has known me for
years.
I must say, I didn’t expect the
assignment to be this quiet and uneventful and downright
dull
when I agreed to undertake it, though.
Having got that off my chest, today feels appreciably
different.
Spooning tea into the teapot,
I can feel butterflies beginning to emerge from their cocoons (?!) in the pit
of my stomach.
This is what I’ve been
waiting for during these interminable weeks of being pill-like Miss Dodd.
He’s
here, you see; the boss is actually here, in Mr Orchard’s office.
And I’m making tea for him.
No more being bored to tears.
No more fooling about with the Rosetta Stone
and playing Russian roulette with the Official Secrets Act before I’ve accomplished
anything palpable.
I have the distinct
feeling that this is the day that my mission will become clear.
Teaspoons, sugar bowl, milk jug, four cups
and saucers, cosy on the teapot and it’s time to go.
“Would you mind awfully holding the door for me, Jim?”
The lazy office boy is loitering in the corridor
looking like a tremendous ted with his hair greased up in a quiff.
“Righto, Miss,” he holds it only just open and I have
to squeeze through, under his arm, with my tray, because I’m no sylph.
I make sure to smile gratefully at him.
Then I rest the tea things on top of a filing cabinet
and knock on Mr Orchard’s door.
“Enter.”
There are four men in Mr Orchard’s office and, at
first, it’s difficult to tell one from the other because the curtains are
two-thirds closed and the lights are switched off.
Scraps of a dejected afternoon - or is it a
precocious twilight? – sidle in, revealing dim stacks of dockets and files and
a Paul Nash
[1]
print of a bomb crater and some defoliated trees hanging, slightly crooked, on
one wall.
It takes a minute for my eyes
to adjust to such gloom, while I hover with the tea tray, uncertain where to
place it.
“Capital, Miss Dodd.”
Mr Orchard is in his usual place behind his desk.
I know him to be a jowl-ed middle-aged man
with big teeth and mustardy tweeds and a knitted tie and I don’t need to give
him a second glance.
Of the newcomers,
two have their backs to me.
One stands
by the window, presumably watching the sights of Fulham - in this case, the
chimneys of Lots Road Power Station - get swallowed up by dirty grey fog.
He’s wearing a grey suit and hat, and has one
hand in his trouser pocket, while the other swings a pair of dark glasses
against his leg to a rhythm of his own.
Back and forth they go as I bend to set the tea-tray down on the little
side table that Mr Orchard has indicated.
Forth and back, as I straighten and pick up the teapot to pour.
I pass a cup to the nearest man, who is sitting at the
desk facing Mr Orchard and he reaches for the sugar bowl, turning to smile up
at me with nice white teeth.
He is young
and not bad-looking, but I wish he hadn’t because the third newcomer has
noticed the smile and frowns, fleetingly.
The third man is sitting in a shadowy corner and wearing a pin-striped
suit and black shoes shiny enough to see one’s face in.
“Will that be all, Mr Orchard?”
I ask, hoping for more.
“That’ll do for now, yes,” he replies, in such a
distracted manner that I flick a glance at him.
I note that Mr Orchard now merits this second glance,
his tie having skewed to one side and a single bead of sweat being all set to
launch itself from the tip of his nose.
I feel like a sniffer dog released into the scene of a crime for one
second flat; all a-quiver.
If this
second is all I have then I will make the most of it.
I am immediately struck by the unlikely
presence of a black velvet cloth, which has been spread over Mr O.’s desk and
upon which sits a selection of the chunky Finnish glass, gleaming softly in the
crepuscular gloom.
I would note more,
given more time, but that seems to be that; I can’t help but feel a touch dispirited.
Nevertheless, I begin to trip cheerfully out
of the office, as if fully satisfied with the successful completion of my
onerous secretarial duties.
“We’ll need a record, Orchard,” the third man pipes
up, suddenly.
“To dot the i’s and cross
the t’s.”
“Yup,” the good-looking young man agrees, turning out
to be American (which explains the excellent teeth), “gotta be signed and
sealed.”
Mr Orchard swipes at his nose and then reaches,
belatedly, for the checked hankie in his top right-hand pocket.
“Of course.
Take it down, please, Miss Dodd.”
“Two ticks, Mr Orchard.”
I slip out for my notepad, trying not to look pleased.
When I get back the young American rises and offers me
his chair, but leaves his hand lying casually along the back of it while I sit
down.
This is puzzling, but I shift to
the front of the seat to avoid contact and sit ramrod straight.
“Ready when you are, Mr Orchard.”
“Right, let’s see.
14
th
April 1955, stop.
Contract drawn up between
Heaviside
Import/Exports Ltd
and
Sambaware Enterprises,
Territory of Alaska
, stop. Ref:
Dilko
Arkonnen
(two ‘n’s)
Vas-Glass &
Ceramics
, stop.
Quantities as
follows:”
“That is some freaky shorthand you have there, Miss
Dodd,” the American is still standing behind me and has begun leaning over with
his hand now on my shoulder.
“I’ve never
seen shorthand quite like that before.”
I smile up at him, “I know, it’s dreadful really, but
it gets the job done, I can assure you.
Sorry, Mr Orchard.
I’ve got as
far as ‘Quantities as follows:’?”
“One million pieces, stop.”
I break the lead in my pencil.
“Sorry, Mr Orchard, but I may have misheard.
The quantity was . . ?”