The Prime Minister's Secret Agent

by Susan Elia MacNeal

  At St. Leonard’s she opened the main door and heard raised voices coming from the front desk. “And I don’t care if you’re the Pope of Rome,” a deep, booming voice shouted, “MI-Five is taking over this case!”

  Maggie could only see the man from the back. He was wearing a black coat and hat, his shoulders wide and sturdy.

  “It’s a murder, it happened in Edinburgh, and so it’s our jurisdiction!” she heard Officer Craig snap back.

  “It may have started out as a local crime, but now it’s a matter of national security,” the man in the black hat retorted. “And I’ve instructed the Director General of MI-Five, Peter Frain, to take over the case of the murder of Estelle Crawford.”

  Maggie was sure she recognized the man’s voice. And he’d mentioned Peter Frain and MI-5 … She took a few steps closer. “Agent Standish? Agent Mark Standish?”

  The man spun around to face her. His eyes widened in recognition and shock. “Miss Hope?” Then, “What on God’s green earth are you doing here?”

  “I’d ask you the same thing, except I just overheard most of your conversation with Officer Craig.”

  “You two—know each other?” Officer Craig had a bewildered look on his face.

  “We’ve met,” Mark Standish said tersely.

  “We were colleagues,” Maggie corrected.

  Craig’s eyebrows rose with surprise and respect.

  Mark glared. “And, Miss Hope, I’ll ask you again—what are you doing here?”

  “I came to Edinburgh to see Sarah Sanderson perform in the Vic-Wells’s La Sylphide.”

  “Sarah Sanderson?”

  Maggie felt a hot wave of impatience wash over her. He should remember Sarah. After all, she’d nearly died helping them catch the IRA thugs trying to assassinate Winston Churchill in the summer of 1940.

  “Sarah,” Maggie repeated. “Sarah Sanderson.” She enunciated clearly, as though to a small child. “Remember? Ballet dancer?” She tried not to pull a face. “The ballet dancer who’s being held here on suspicion of murder?”

  Mark looked confused. “How on earth do you know her?”

  “May we have a moment in private?” Maggie asked Officer Craig.

  “Of course,” he replied, turning on his heel to walk down one of the corridors.

  When he was out of earshot, Maggie turned back to Mark. “Sarah Sanderson,” she hissed. “Nearly killed by Paige Claire Kelly? Helped save St. Paul’s Cathedral from being bombed? Helped save the Prime Minister from being murdered? That Sarah Sanderson?” Maggie gave him a hard look. “When I was working as Mr. Churchill’s secretary?” She tried very hard not to roll her eyes. “Really, Mark, it’s only been—what—a year and a half.”

  “That Sarah Sanderson?” he said, unwinding his scarf and scratching his neck. “She’s the same Sarah Sanderson who’s being held here?”

  What wizard powers of deduction you have. No wonder you’re still an entry-level flunky. “Yes, she’s being held as a suspect in Estelle Crawford’s alleged murder. Although, as of last night, she hasn’t been charged.” Maggie cocked her head and narrowed her eyes. “But why is MI-Five involved? Since when does the death of a ballerina become a matter of British national security?” And how is one of my best friends involved?

  “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that, Miss Hope.” His smile was patronizing. “For obvious reasons.”

  Maggie inhaled sharply. This case was personal. And she didn’t like to be condescended to by anyone, let alone a former MI-5 colleague.

  Peter Frain from MI-5 owes me one—and I think it’s time to collect. “I’m going to make a telephone call, Mr. Standish,” she said with the same Aunt Edith look and tone she used on her Arisaig trainees, “and then we’ll have a little chat.”

  For the moment, the Black Dog was held at bay.

  “I’m not happy about this.” Mark shook his head as they made their way down slippery snow-covered streets to the morgue. “Not happy at all.”

  Maggie, however, was flush from her victory, and not about to let him spoil her rare good mood. “You’re British, Mark. It’s always difficult to tell when you’re experiencing any emotion at all—let alone which one it may be.”

  Maggie had convinced Frain that Sarah deserved to be released on bail. And so Maggie knew Sarah was back at the Caledonian, having a bath and scrubbing off the stink of the jail cell. Maggie was also pleased because she’d persuaded Frain that she should partner with Mark Standish on the investigation into the murder of Estelle Crawford.

  And working on the investigation was keeping the Black Dog at bay.

  “Regardless of anything personal,” she’d said into the green Bakelite receiver, “whether this is a straightforward murder or a national threat, whoever’s responsible must be stopped.”

  Then, “You owe me, Peter. First, you owe Sarah, for her selfless act of patriotism that nearly killed her. But you also owe me. Since Berlin, I’m a ghost of a human being. But seeing Sarah through this and clearing her name gives me a purpose. And when I’m thinking about clearing her name and finding the real killer, I’m not thinking about filling my pockets with rocks and walking into a Scottish loch. You owe Sarah this. You owe me this.”

  He’d been convinced.

  Maggie looked over at Mark. “I realize you’re not pleased,” she said, trying not to look as delighted as she felt. “But we’re professionals. I’m sure we can work together on this case well and solve it quickly.”

  “Not everyone thinks you’re professional, you know.” Mark stopped suddenly and grabbed her arm, causing her to stop, too. Overhead, seagulls shrieked. “Not everyone likes you, Maggie Hope.”

  If you set out to be liked, you’ll achieve nothing. “I do understand that, Mr. Standish,” she replied, shaking off his grip. “Winning Miss Congeniality is not, and has never been, my goal.”

  “I,” he added with emphasis, kicking at an empty packet of cigarettes that littered the pavement, “do not like you.”

  Maggie had never worked closely with Mark Standish; in fact, she’d rarely interacted with him. But they’d crossed paths on two MI-5 cases and Maggie had, for a time, stepped out with his partner, Hugh Thompson, the “tall, fair, and damaged” man of Maggie’s past.

  “Because of Hugh?”

  Red splotches dotted his pale face. “No, not because of Hugh, although that would be enough in itself. I never understood what he saw in you, quite frankly. No, I don’t like you because you didn’t pay your dues. You didn’t come up through the ranks. And because of that, you’re willful. You refuse to follow the rules. And you’re stubborn to the point of endangering yourself and others.” He walked forward, leaving her behind.

  Maggie was shocked. She’d never seen herself in this light. “What?” she asked, racing to keep up.

  “Take the bombing at St. Paul’s—you should have come to MI-Five directly when you suspected a threat—”

  Maggie had caught up with him, sidestepping being splashed by a bus. She raised one gloved finger. “First of all, when I saw the code in the newspaper advertisement, no one at the Prime Minister’s office took me seriously. Do you really think I could have just marched into MI-Five?” She shook her head. “You never would have given any of my theories credence.”

  Mark was not deterred. “Then there’s the Windsor matter. You were distracted by your personal biases—spent valuable time going after the wrong suspect, leaving the actual kidnappers time to nearly carry out their plans.”

  “Nearly,” Maggie retorted. “That’s the key word. Because the King was not killed and the Princess was not kidnapped.”

  “But Hugh was shot.” Mark affected a girlish American voice. “ ‘Oh, come on, Hugh, as we say in the good ol’ U. S. of A.—let’s wing it!’ ” His voice deepened again. “You almost had him killed, you silly git.”

  Maggie’s breath began to come faster. Who is he to judge me? He wasn’t there, he wasn’t at St. Paul’s, he wasn’t in Berlin … All he does is sit at a desk all
day and look at photographs of suspects through a loupe … How easy it is to criticize the soldiers when you’re not actually in the trenches! What was it Teddy Roosevelt said? “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena …”

  Maggie chose her words carefully. “The objective was never to put Hugh in harm’s way, but to rescue the Princess. If the tables had been turned, I would have understood—”

  “And then you had him sacked.”

  This, Maggie was not expecting. “I, responsible for Hugh’s being fired?” She shook her head. “No, I was out of the country at the time—and working for SOE, not MI-Five, if you recall. I had nothing to do with Hugh’s mission or with his being sacked.”

  Mark stopped and cocked his head to one side, taking in her expression. “You really don’t know, do you?”

  Maggie was mystified. “Know what?”

  “He didn’t tell you? A gentleman to the end, poor blighter …”

  “Tell me!”

  “Later.” Mark eyed her. “Now, Miss Hope—let’s trot along.” He turned and strode into what looked like a soot-covered Victorian prison.

  Chapter Nine

  “I’m Mr. Standish and I’m here to speak with the procurator fiscal,” he said, flashing his MI-5 identity card.

  The woman behind the desk was tiny with bright eyes, like a sparrow. “That’s Mr. Findlay,” she said, nodding. “Down that corridor and first office on the right.” She glanced at Maggie. “You’re not going, too, are you, dear?”

  Mark appraised Maggie with something approaching amusement. “Yes, Miss Hope, will you be accompanying me? We’re going to talk to the procurator fiscal about Estelle Crawford’s death—and examine her corpse.” He said it as though it were a dare.

  Maggie had never been to a morgue, and the smell of decay and disinfectant was already starting to turn her stomach. But she refused to give Mark the satisfaction of sitting it out.

  She squared her shoulders. “Of course I’m coming, too,” she said.

  In a small, windowless office, going through a stack of paperwork, Mr. Findlay was at his desk. The only relief on the white-painted cement walls was a loudly ticking clock and the framed flag of Scotland. He looked up with bleary brown eyes, not at all pleased to be disturbed. Maggie realized that while his haggard, sun-spotted face and full head of chestnut curls was average-sized, as were his hands, the rest of his body was disproportionately small. Dwarfism, she thought.

  “I’m Mr. Standish, and this is Miss Hope. We’re here for the autopsy of Estelle Crawford.”

  “Too late!” Findlay barked. “Can a body no get any peace aroun’ here? Only the dead, it seems …”

  “Too late?” Mark echoed. “I’m with MI-Five. There’s been a murder. You were under explicit instructions to keep the body for autopsy.”

  Findlay used a small stool to get down from his desk chair. Standing, he was no more than four feet tall. “I know none such thing,” he said, thumping papers into a file. “The autopsy’s already been done. The body’s been cremated. Nothin’ to see here.”

  Mark was beginning to flush with annoyance. “What do you mean, the body’s been cremated? On whose authority?”

  Mr. Findlay looked up and gave an owlish blink. “Don’t you know? Two men came last night. From the government.”

  “MI-Five?” Mark asked.

  Mr. Findlay gave a disgruntled sigh. “No, no, not MI-Five—although a’ you Londoners look alike to me,” he grumbled, going through another file until he found the paper he was looking for. “Here,” he said, thrusting it at Mark. “Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.”

  “What?” Mark read over the paper. “The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries? They have no jurisdiction here.” He handed it back.

  “They had the right documents,” Findlay insisted.

  A vein in Mark’s forehead began throbbing. “This is unacceptable! The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries? This is a murder! Not a bloody fish fry!” He looked to Maggie. “Sorry.”

  “I’ve heard worse.” Dizzy from the stench, Maggie had an idea. “They came and gave the orders, but has the body really been destroyed?”

  “Yes, o’ course,” Mr. Findlay snapped. Then he looked up at the clock on the wall. “Er … maybe not. Bus crashed today. Lots of bodies. More than usual.”

  “Well,” said Maggie, breathing hard with the effort not to be sick. “Shouldn’t we check?”

  The smell turned Maggie’s stomach, but she was not about to take out her handkerchief in front of the two men. The feeling of nausea only increased, however, as they reached a large waiting area, filled with sheet-draped bodies on gurneys.

  “Let’s get on with it,” she said, with as much bravado as she could muster. She went to the first in a line of gurneys and began pulling back the sheets to see the faces of the dead. Surely the deceased have nothing to fear from me.

  Or I from them.

  “And here she is,” Maggie said, reading a toe tag and pulling back a sheet.

  Estelle Crawford was lying on her back. Her stage makeup hadn’t been removed, and her face looked Kabuki-like under the lights. The corpse was naked, her breasts and hips slight, and the muscularity of her legs imposing. She was white as marble, except for the open, black oozing sores on one hand and up the slender arm to her chest, where the makeup had worn away.

  Oh, poor Estelle, Maggie thought. You poor, poor girl.

  “Well, shall we begin?” Findlay said, rubbing his hands together.

  “Yes, let’s,” Mark Standish said.

  “By all means,” managed Maggie, with far more enthusiasm than she felt.

  Later in the day, after Frain had left, Dr. Carroll tried again to induce a trance state in Clara Hess. This time, he was surprised to hear a different voice—an older, rougher voice—coming from her lips.

  It’s as if yet another woman has slipped into Hess’s body. This is definitely not Agna Frei, the doctor wrote in his notebook. Could it be one of Freud’s dissociation disorders, triggered by some sort of trauma?

  “What are you writing? Are you writing about me?” the voice asked.

  “What do you think?”

  Clara turned and looked through the cage bars and out the window. “I think I want a cigarette. But I know you don’t like it when I smoke in your office.”

  “Whose office is this?”

  “Why, yours, of course,” she replied in impatient tones.

  “Who am I?”

  Clara sneered. “Well, if you don’t know, I don’t know why I should tell you.”

  The doctor scratched his head. He didn’t know what office she thought she was in, or who she was—or who she thought he was. All he knew was that this was someone who was neither Agna Frei nor Clara Hess.

  “I’m testing your memory,” he told her.

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake, Dr. Teufel, let’s get on with it, shall we?”

  “Is this your first time in my office?”

  “Of course not.”

  “And where is the office?”

  Clara barked a laugh. “What a stupid question.”

  “Answer, please.”

  “It’s in Mitte, of course.” Mitte was in central Berlin.

  “What is the date?”

  “Please. There’s a calendar on the wall behind you.” The wall behind Dr. Carroll was blank, but apparently Dr. Teufel’s office had a wall calendar.

  He tapped his pen on the pad of paper. “Well, then this should be a very easy question for you.”

  She answered scornfully, “Fifteen March, 1913.”

  “And why are you here in my office?”

  “To get my vitamin shot, of course.”

  “And what is your name?”

  “For God’s sake—you know my name.”

  “For my research, please—what is your name?”

>   The woman threw back her head and laughed. “Clara,” she said.

  “Clara what?”

  “Clara Schwartz.”

  Dr. Carroll looked down at his file, scanning until he found what he was looking for. Clara Schwartz was Agna Frei’s stage name when she was first starting out as an opera singer. “Do you know Agna Frei?”

  “Of course,” she answered, sounding bored. “Really, I’d kill for a cigarette, you know.”

  “Who is she?”

  Clara stared at Dr. Carroll. “She’s a weak, pathetic little girl—that’s who she is.”

  “And you—are you strong?”

  “Of course I am. I’m a survivor. I’m the one who survived.”

  “Survived what?”

  “Survived who,” Clara corrected. “My mother, of course. And Agna was weak. I had to step in.”

  “And she let you?”

  “I told you—she’s weak. And when bad things happen, I step in.”

  “How do you ‘step in’?”

  “She gets a stomachache—terrible stomach pains.”

  “Do you feel bad about her pain?”

  “No, why should I?”

  “Do you like Agna?”

  “Not particularly. But she serves a purpose.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “I get to come out sometimes.” She curled a strand of hair around a finger. “I’m stuck with her, I suppose.”

  “What do you do when she’s here?”

  “It’s boring,” Clara Schwartz said. “Dark. I don’t like it.”

  “Do you think it’s right for you to take over her body the way you do?”

  An eye roll. “She needs me. When she’s weak, she needs me to step in. She wouldn’t have survived without me.”

  “Is Agna ever strong?”

  “No, that’s what I keep trying to tell you—that’s why I’m here. With me, there’s no tears, no whining, no hiding. No backing down.”

  “Do you ever cry?”