The Glass Ocean

by Beatriz Williams

  Srry ur leavin so soon. I can come down to u. Need ur help on a littl project. Lunch tmrrw? JH

  “John?” Rupert asked.

  I sighed. “No. Just this old grad school friend of mine, wanting to meet up. He’s visiting London right now.”

  “He, is it?”

  “Oh, you know. He’s probably just writing a book and wants me to help him find an agent or something.”

  “Ah, yes. Small Potatoes. Nifty title, that. John told me something about it last night. I’m terribly impressed. An authoress in our midst.”

  “Thanks. But nobody says ‘authoress’ anymore, just so you know. It’s the kind of word that can get you banned from Twitter.”

  “Ha! I rather fancy I’d find that an honor, being banned from twittering, or whatever they call it. Unless you’re actually offended, in which case I beg your pardon. An old has-been like me finds it hard to keep up with the niceties.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m a New Yorker. If you want to offend me, you’ll have to bring your A game.”

  “Oh,” he said, a little blank. “Yes, of course. In any case, well done. I look forward to reading your work.”

  I laughed. “Are you sure about that? I’m trying to prove that your grandfather’s a traitor, after all.”

  “‘Trying’ being the operative word. Well, time will tell. Time and old Sir Peregrine’s papers, I hope. Poor chap. Bad enough he should kill himself because he thought his only remaining son had drowned. If he killed himself because he thought his only remaining son had betrayed his country—”

  “Wait, is that what you think?” I exclaimed.

  “I think it makes a great deal more sense than the former explanation. The one we’ve always been told. You must understand, Sir Peregrine was a Victorian. Family honor far more important than mere personal feeling. Nor was he particularly enamored of Robert to begin with. You’ve heard about the older brother, I’m sure.”

  “The one who drowned. And Peregrine blamed Robert.”

  “Yes. So I always thought it strange he’d go mad with grief like that, without even waiting to find out whether Robert had actually survived.”

  “Maybe he got a false report?”

  “Maybe. Or perhaps he received a report of another kind entirely.” Rupert turned briefly to me and winked, just as my phone buzzed again. “What? Aren’t you going to look?”

  “Eh.”

  “My dear girl, can’t you see he’s besotted? He spent four hours driving through a proper rainstorm last night, just in order to get back to Devonshire.”

  “For your sake.”

  “My sake?” Rupert laughed out loud, a beautifully hearty British laugh. “Believe me, Sarah, the heartsick uncle was merely a convenient excuse. A fact I realized by the time we crossed the M25, when he nearly missed the junction because he was going on about your cleverness in discovering the existence of some poor chap’s Irish bastard in 1871.”

  “That was not clever. It was just that no one had ever looked before.”

  But I glanced down anyway. The screen had gone black again, but when I pressed the home button the message alert lit before me.

  The penalty for auto theft is damned severe. Don’t expect mercy.

  I tapped a reply.

  Just remember what happened to Jabba.

  “Everything all right?” asked Rupert.

  I leaned my head back against the seat and closed my eyes. “Oh, you know,” I said. “The usual.”

  * * *

  I’d first visited the National Archives several years ago, while I was researching Small Potatoes, and I felt the same sense of crushing disappointment now as I did then. For some reason, I still harbored an irrational expectation that the home of the Domesday Book would present a more dignified face to the world than the cheap architectural squalor of a postwar office block.

  Rupert must have felt my sigh. Felt it, and understood its reason. He glanced up from under the dripping edge of the umbrella and said, “Rather uninspired, isn’t it?”

  “If by ‘uninspired’ you mean ‘ugly,’ then yes.”

  “It’s not the outside of the building that matters, remember.”

  “Yeah, well, as I remember, the inside’s pretty ugly, too. And that watercooler in the cafeteria is possessed by demons.”

  “Then I suppose it’s fortunate we’ll be working inside the comparative luxury of Priscilla’s private office.” Rupert jumped nimbly over a puddle.

  “Priscilla,” I said. “Tell me about this Priscilla.”

  Priscilla, it turned out, was waiting for us in the lobby: a large, handsome woman with sharp eyes and a mane of glossy supermodel hair the color of hazelnuts, wearing a leopard-print ponte dress I recognized from a recent Boden catalog. “Rupert!” she exclaimed, throwing her arms around his shoulders and kissing both cheeks. “You bloody bounder! You haven’t been to see me in ages.”

  “And you’ve only gotten younger, my dear. How’s that delicious crumpet of yours? The young, strapping fellow, what’s his name?”

  “Married, it turns out. How’s Nigel?”

  “He’s well.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You haven’t rowed again, have you?”

  “Oh, darling. It’s a frightfully long story. We’ll have a nice boozy dinner soon, I promise, just like old times, but in the meantime poor Sarah here—”

  “Oh! I’m so sorry. Sarah . . . Blake, isn’t it? The potato book? Adored it, by the way.” She held out a long-fingered hand. “Priscilla Smythe-Bowman. I’ll sign you in.”

  She turned away and clattered to the visitors’ log atop a pair of nude patent leather heels at least four inches high. I leaned in to Rupert. “You’re the gay best friend, aren’t you? A walking cliché.”

  “Can I help it if the young ladies seek me out in droves? I happen to be a good listener, Sarah, and an excellent judge of shoes. If more men were like me, the divorce lawyers would go straight out of business.”

  Priscilla turned and waved us to the security gates. Up we went in the anodyne elevator, painted that particular color of industrial white that makes you feel empty inside. The air smelled of old carpet and cheap supermarket coffee. Rupert and Priscilla were chattering again about people I didn’t know and love affairs gone wrong, and as I stared at the floor numbers above me, ascending with painful turpitude, something clicked softly in the back of my head, like a thumb trying to ignite a butane lighter. Something about fathers and sons and spies. Secret papers.

  I turned to Rupert and interrupted. “Which book was it? The one where the spy discovers his father’s also a secret agent?”

  “What, what? A book?”

  “Robert’s book. I can’t remember the title. One of his later ones.”

  The bell dinged, the doors jolted open.

  “Haven’t the foggiest,” said Rupert, as we stepped into a rat maze of gray cubicles. “I’m afraid I never read them.”

  From Rupert’s hasty description outside the National Archives building, I hadn’t quite understood what position Priscilla actually held there. I still didn’t, but whatever it was, she had somehow managed to acquire a private office with a partial view of the Thames from its dirty window, and a cluttered, maximalist décor that suggested she’d occupied it for some time. “I pulled the Langford papers for the years 1913 to 1915,” she said, directing us to the lacquered coffee table before the sofa. “It’s all been declassified, so take your time. Want me to send Tanya for coffee? I’ve got my own Keurig. Status has its privileges.”

  “Yes, please!” I shouted, while Rupert shuddered and refused.

  Priscilla disappeared out the door, and I settled myself on the sofa and reached for the file box.

  “What about it, though?” Rupert sank into the cushion next to me. “Robert’s book?”

  “Oh, it’s probably nothing. Overanalyzing. You know how it is with books. We spend semesters pondering the meaning of the blue paint on the character’s bedroom wall, and sometimes it’s just blue paint, y
ou know?”

  “But sometimes not.”

  “Anyway, I’d have to go back and look it up. I pretty much chain-read them when I started the project, so it’s kind of blurry. I can’t even remember which book I’m thinking of.”

  “John will know. He’s read them all. You should type him.”

  “You mean text him?”

  “Don’t be cheeky.”

  I pulled out my phone and sent a quick message.

  Just arrived TNA. Which book of Robert’s had the father and son spy plot?

  Next to me, Rupert lifted a stack of old brown portfolios from the file box marked 1914. “Why don’t you start with 1915?” he said. “We’ll finish sooner.”

  “There’s no hurry.”

  “My dear Sarah,” he said, opening the first portfolio, “I have the distinct impression that if I fail to return both John’s car and his resident historian before nightfall, I shall never more be welcome on his doorstep. Which gives us”—he checked his watch—“approximately four hours to work.”

  * * *

  Three and a half hours later, I leaned my elbows on the edge of the coffee table and frowned at the white cardboard face of the file box. “Rupert,” I said. “Rupert!”

  There was a startled snort from the body lying next to me on the sofa, followed by a comfortable snore. Rupert’s head lay on the sofa arm, cradled by a tweedy elbow, and his hair fell in neat, shiny pieces over his forehead.

  “Something wrong?” asked Priscilla, who was just crossing the threshold. She bore a fresh cup of coffee, an iPhone, and an expression of deep concentration, like she’d just come out of a meeting.

  “Are you sure these are all the files?” I tapped the edge of the file box. “All the Langford files from 1915?”

  She looked up from her phone and set the coffee cup on the corner of her desk. “All we’ve got. Untouched, too. Nobody’s signed them out since they were first moved here from the Admiralty offices.”

  “And when was that?”

  “I can’t remember. A long time ago. Why? Is something missing?”

  I picked up the last brown portfolio. It crackled under my fingers, releasing the familiar smell of old paper. “You might say that. The archive basically stops short in the middle of April.”

  “You mean April of 1915? No papers at all?”

  “Yes. There’s nothing at all here that accounts for the month before the Lusitania went down. Which is, as far as we’re concerned, the most important part.”

  “Let me see that.” Priscilla reached for the portfolio and slid the papers out. She thumbed through them carefully, scanned each typewritten page with the sharp, experienced gaze of someone who scanned pages for a living. Next to me, Rupert stirred and lifted his head.

  “Something wrong?” he asked.

  Priscilla reached the last page and looked up. Met my gaze and raised one eyebrow. “Uh oh,” she said.

  “Uh oh, what?” asked Rupert.

  My phone buzzed. I picked it up and read the message, John’s reply.

  That would be Night Train to Berlin, 1948.

  “Uh oh, someone’s been up to no good,” I said. Three dots appeared on the message screen, pulsing softly.

  “What do you mean?” Rupert said.

  Priscilla handed him the papers. “Seems we have a gap in the documents for the weeks preceding Langford’s death.”

  “Good God.”

  He shuffled through the stack while I stared at my screen, counting the beats of those dots. Night Train to Berlin. Of course. Father and son. Both of them working for British intelligence during the thirties, except different departments, neither one knowing what the other was doing, until—until what?

  A train crash. Sabotage. The son—the son was on the train, seducing a married woman whose husband had vital information—

  “You’re right,” said Rupert, in an astonished voice. “My God. It’s all missing. Just ends right here with this damned memorandum on April seventeenth. Are you quite sure they haven’t been misfiled elsewhere?”

  “I looked through every portfolio,” I said. “Three times.”

  “Then who the devil’s removed them? The Admiralty?”

  “No way of knowing, I’m afraid,” said Priscilla. “As I said, according to our records, you’re the first researcher to have a crack at these. Of course, that doesn’t mean nobody has had a crack at them. Just that nobody’s done it officially.”

  “Which could be anyone,” I said. “Anyone wanting to blot this out, for whatever reason.”

  Priscilla folded her arms. “What about his personal papers?”

  “At the Bodleian,” said Robert.

  “Well, I suppose you might want to have a look there, if you can. They might have been mixed up, if he brought his work home with him. Which he wasn’t supposed to do, of course, but in practice . . .” She shrugged her shoulders.

  “Except he did the deed in his office,” said Rupert. “He’d spent the night there. Shot himself sometime in the late afternoon of May the seventh. His secretary discovered him at his desk at ten past five, still bleeding.”

  The phone buzzed again.

  Brilliant cipher translation, Bond. Still trying to make sense of it. Chemical reaction obvs but haven’t been able to discover what. Carbon, iron. Metal of some kind?

  I bent down, reached into my laptop bag, and pulled out my notebook. “I don’t suppose you happen to have a chemistry background, do you, Priscilla?”

  “Not much, I’m afraid,” she said. “But I happen to know a chap who does.”

  * * *

  I called John as soon as we were clear of the M25. The drizzle had diminished into a fine mist, and the motorway was a sea of red brake lights.

  “Hello, Sarah,” he said. “How’s my car?”

  “Your car’s lovely, and so are you for letting us take it.”

  “I didn’t exactly have a choice, did I?”

  “I know, I know. I’m sorry. Filled with remorse. Rupert’s sorry, too. Right, Rupert?”

  “Sorry!” Rupert called out.

  “Just listen, though. That chemical formula, whatever-it-is? It’s the recipe, basically, for a metal, a new kind of alloy made with molybdenum that would have been stronger and more wear-resistant than any other steel alloy at the time.”

  “Fascinating,” John said, in a strange, subdued voice. Sort of a weary voice, not at all like he sounded last night. “I was actually about to ring you up myself.”

  “Is something wrong? You sound upset.”

  “Not upset, exactly.”

  “Are you angry about the car? I really am—okay, now I feel terrible. But you were sleeping so soundly, I just couldn’t bear to wake you, and we really needed to make this trip. I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”

  “It’s not the damned car, Sarah. It’s the telegram.”

  I glanced at Rupert, who hunched back over the wheel in his familiar position, intent on the road. The lines on his forehead were deep and old, and his hair had begun to frizz from its retro prison of pomade.

  “Which telegram?” I said.

  “The one inside the envelope, Sarah. We were so bloody obsessed with the code written on the envelope, we overlooked the obvious. The telegram inside it.” He paused, and his voice dropped almost to a whisper. “The one Robert never opened.”

  Chapter 23

  Caroline

  At Sea

  Thursday, May 6, 1915

  A telegram? Caroline had no recollection of any of the notes she had just played on the piano, her mind completely focused on the scene she’d witnessed—Robert receiving a telegram and then leaving the room with Gilbert. She lifted her hands from the keyboard, the notes quickly evaporating over the gathered audience. Now that it was over all she could think about was finding Robert and Gilbert, but before she could gracefully exit the piano bench, she was distracted by an awful noise. It was as if the heavens above had opened and all the cherubim and seraphim painted on the ceiling above w
ere applauding as loudly as they could, the sound nearly deafening as more and more people shouted, “Encore! Encore!”

  Margery bowed so low for a moment Caroline thought the King of England must have entered the room, and then she decided Margery must pretend to be an opera diva quite a bit in the privacy of her own room. She was really that good at it—the bowing, not the singing.

  When Margery once more leaned over Caroline’s shoulder to find yet another encore piece, Caroline saw her chance to escape and quickly slid from the piano bench, the ivory silk of her gown facilitating the movement.

  “Mrs. Hochstetter, they’re asking for another encore. . . .”

  Although Margery’s insistence on keeping her at the piano did make Caroline question the other woman’s motives. Was she truly that much of a sadist? Caroline ignored the grating voice while making her way as quickly as she could out of the room, her progress halted by the many people who wanted to stop her and compliment her on the performance. She smiled and smiled, her cheeks beginning to hurt, wondering if she’d ever make it to the exit.

  She made it to the place where she’d last seen Robert and Gilbert, the exit to the hallway leading into the saloon smoking room. She looked back into the lounge, intent on finding Patrick in the hopes of sending him into the smoking room to search for her husband. And her lover. What could they be saying to each other? Robert was an English gentleman, which meant he most likely hunted and knew how to shoot. Wouldn’t he? She was quite sure that Gilbert had never held a gun in his life.

  She spotted Margery coming toward her, her thin lips pressed together and her face a mottled red. Caroline considered her possible escape routes, quite certain that Margery would have no compunction at running after her to discuss her disappointment in Caroline’s performance and her willful disobedience regarding another encore.

  Realizing she had no alternative, Caroline made an about-face and entered the gentlemen’s smoking room, rather certain that Margery wouldn’t follow here in there. Thankfully, due to the concert, it was mostly empty. Several men looked at her with surprise, and one elderly gentleman, his white moustache oiled to a frightening point, regarded her as one might regard a rat in one’s soup bowl.