by John Gardner
‘Came with the milk train.’ It was the standard answer of ‘heroes,’ and as Buzz said it, Naldo’s eyes flicked to a point behind the officer’s right shoulder. A slim young woman with a cap of dark hair neatly shaped over her ears was approaching them. ‘So what’s new in the world of cloak and dagger, Nald? Bagged any good spies lately? I hear your honored uncle’s going through the mill. Inquisition and all that, about baddies in France…’
How the hell did he know that? Naldo thought as the young woman reached a point six inches or so behind Burville and coughed. She wore a smart and expensive grey suit which must have taken all her clothing coupons for the next six months.
‘Yours, I think.’ Naldo nodded over Buzz’s shoulder.
‘Oh, lord. Yes. Don’t think you’ve met my sister, Barb. Barbara, this is an old school chum – Wellington and John’s, Cambridge – Naldo Railton, my young sis, Barb.’
Naldo rose and stretched out a hand. How could a crashing bore like Burville have such an elegant, beautiful sister? ‘How d’you do?’ he said lamely.
‘I do very nicely.’ She smiled, eyes shining black as her hair.
‘Careful of Nald, Barb. Cloak and dagger merchant,’ in a stage whisper. ‘Codes, secrets, spies, you know.’
‘No, Bertie, I don’t know.’ She went on smiling at Naldo. Bertie, he thought. Lord love him, but after all the years at Wellington and Cambridge he had never known Buzz’s Christian name. ‘Bertie’ – my God, suits to a t.
Burville looked nervous. ‘Just going, actually.’ He moved his lips into a smile, an action he always seemed to find difficult. ‘Been getting a bit of stick from Barb. I was late. She’s only had a main course and I have to dash.’
‘You care to have some pudding and coffee with me?’ Naldo, still standing, did not take his eyes from Barbara.
‘I’d love to. Thank you, Mr Railton.’
‘Well…’ Burville began to stammer out apologies to his sister for being late and messing up the lunch.
‘Oh, off you go, Bertie, and don’t hurt yourself jumping out of aeroplanes. It’s dangerous.’
Burville shrugged. ‘Decent of you, Naldo. Thank you. Must dash. Love to the aged parents, Barb, when you see them.’ For a terrible second Naldo wondered if he had been wise to invite her. Her looks could camouflage an empty head, with thoughts that stretched no further than the next cocktail party or whether she would get her photograph in The Tatler. He looked at her in silence for a full thirty seconds, which felt like an hour.
‘Where does the name come from?’ she asked.
‘Name?’
‘Naldo. It is Italian or something?’
He explained. ‘My close friends call me Nald.’
‘Can I be a close friend, Nald?’
It took only minutes for Barbara Burville to allay his fears. They knew immediately that they spoke the same language. She was on demobilisation leave from the WAAFs, and, within an hour, Naldo discovered that her elegance and beauty were not just skin deep. She had a sharp sense of humour, and an even sharper brain. She also liked music, theatre, and poetry. These were the easy things to discover about Barbara Burville, the kind of surface qualities most men find out quickly, latching on to them as they idle toward an acquaintanceship which might just possibly lead to something else.
They went to see a film that afternoon and had dinner at the Hungaria in the Haymarket. She had a flat above the shops in Cecil Court and after he had dropped her off that night, Naldo went back to Kensington and telephoned her.
As they left the Hungaria, he had watched her back, straight as a soldier’s, and saw her body move inside her clothes. Naldo desired her more than he had wanted any woman. He was not one for casual affairs, though healthy lust had always played a part in his life. On the telephone, they talked for half an hour, and she flirted with him, though it was not the usual emptyheaded banter. Barbara’s quick wit went deeper. As they arranged the next day’s events – for it became clear they would be meeting on a regular basis – she suddenly quoted Auden at him. ‘Woken by water/Running away in the dark, he often had/Reproached night for a companion/Dreamed of already.’ Barbara spoke the lines in a soft whisper, as though playing at being a seductress. ‘Do you reproach night for a companion, Nald?’ she teased.
‘Constantly,’ he said, then, when he put down the telephone he looked up the poem. It was called ‘The Secret Agent,’ and he smiled at the complexity of her jest, and knew that if it was to happen between them, it would be very fast indeed. In so short a time, Barbara had climbed into his mind and taken possession.
On Monday night they became lovers, and it was sweet as apples and soft as down for them both. She wept after the act, and Naldo Railton held her close as the sobs ran through her like knife thrusts.
‘I’m sorry, you’re the first since…’ she began, then stopped herself.
‘It’s okay,’ he whispered. ‘I’m not jealous of your past and never will be.’
She looked up at him, the big dark eyes damp with great thunderstorm tears. ‘And now?’
‘Now, I’ll be jealous if you even look on another.’
‘I’m glad, for I can be the most jealous woman known to man. I’ll be jealous of every moment you’re not with me.’ He had a feeling she had never said that to anyone else. She spoke again. ‘For the first time in my life, Naldo, I’m truly sorry that you weren’t the one to chop down my little cherry tree.’
He took her again and she cried out at her climax – loudly as though trying to exorcise the traces of any other man who had ever touched her. She was twenty-six years old and had been engaged to a bomber pilot. Like many, he had not returned one night and part of her still grieved for him.
By the next morning Naldo knew this was not merely a passing thing. Naldo was not the type to be suddenly moonstruck, he had never ‘fallen in love with love.’ He had too much inbred caution for that, instilled into him not only by family background, but also by his chosen profession.
On Wednesday night they dined early, at Gennaro’s in Dean Street, then went back to Kensington and sat by the fire for a time, Barbara with her legs tucked under her, on the floor, her head on Naldo’s knees. They talked of marriage and their respective families.
‘My life’s far from normal,’ he said. ‘I could be away a lot – with no explanations. It can be difficult; I know from my own parents. My father was – is – in the same line of business. They close ranks around the wives when the men are away, though. Bloody good about that.’
‘I’m used to it. It’s been most people’s life for the last few years. But it runs in my family. Army, like yours, I imagine.’
Presently she uncurled herself and began to undress. They had switched no lights on and the fire threw red flares around her body, giving new textures to her skin. He took her in his arms, and was about to place her on the rug before the fireplace when the front doorbell started to ring – quick bursts of single dots.
‘Who the hel…?’ He began.
‘Your bell’s having a little orgasm,’ Barbara laughed, gathering up her clothes and running barefoot to the hall and up the stairs. He caught sight of her, nimble with no extra flesh moving on buttocks or breasts, as he turned on the hall light.
‘I go, I go…’ she quoted Puck at the first turning of the stairs, then, plaintively, lower lip pouting, ‘Look how I go…’ disappearing from sight with a chuckle. The memory of her smooth black hair remained in the retina of his mind, and from somewhere in his past a name sprang into his head – Ranuccio Farnese. Though he spoke good French, German, Spanish, and Italian, he had no idea where the name came from. It was certainly not any Italian contact he had ever known.
Naldo took the chain off the door and opened it, heart suddenly pounding as he did so, realising he had not taken the simplest precaution his Service demanded.
In an uncoordinated windmilling of arms and legs, Kruger burst into the hall. ‘Naldo. Good. I find you. It is good. But please close door.’
They had
done him up a bit – given him new clothes, but with Herbie the clothes found their own level, fitting where they touched, the trousers bagged and the jacket hung like a sack. His tie, loud as a twelve-bore shotgun, was almost at right angles to his collar. The man was animated. You could read excitement in his eyes, yet apart from his lumbering entrance, his body was still and calm, like the air before a tropical storm. He had not broken from the basic technique learned, Naldo suspected, from Arnie Farthing. He stood still now as he said, ‘Good. I do well. I find you. It is my objection.’
‘Your what?’
‘Object… something. They start English lessons, Naldo. Object – ’
‘ – ive?’
‘So. Ja, objective.’
‘I’m part of a training exercise?’ Naldo sensed anger rising.
‘Ja, und nein. Yes, but no. Is very important, Nald. Very important. Tonight is exercise, but this afternoon I am havink meeting, how you say it? Interview? Ja, interview with the Chief. He gives me envelope. For you. Very important. He says that tonight I do this, what do you call it? Invasion exercise where I must not be caught. Must not be followed.’
‘Evasion,’ Naldo supplied.
‘Is what I say, evasion exercise. They have teached me – taught me – how not to be followed by the surveying team…’
‘Surveillance, Herb.’ He sounded like Arnie Farthing at that first meeting in Berlin.
‘Only if I am certain that I’ve outrun the hounds am I to come here. Come to you. Give you letter.’
Naldo said nothing but moved to switch off the hall light. The flames from the fire in his sitting room allowed him to lead Herbie inside, then take a peep outside, drawing back the far edge of one of the heavy curtains. Nobody lurked. Not even a parked car. ‘You’re certain you weren’t followed?’
‘I gave them slip. Four of them.’ He held up four fingers. ‘They think I go on Bakerloo Line, but I switch trains, then walk. Off at South Kensington and walk – Mein Gott, I walk. Do what they say is the back doubles. Make certain nobody follow.’
‘Well done, Herb…’
‘Ja, they are good fellows. They teach me song about Piccadilly.’ And before Naldo could stop him, Herbie launched into a tuneless dirge –
‘Oh my little sister Lillie is a whore in Piccadilly,
And my mother is another in the Strand,
Ja, mein Father hawks his – ’
‘Shut up, Herb!’ he shouted above the crudity, hoping that Barbara could not hear upstairs, though he knew the bawdiness would never bother her. She could swear like a trooper, he already knew. Herbie stopped, looking crestfallen. And Naldo gave him a friendly nod. ‘Now, just let me read this.’ He tore open the envelope, eyes racing down the page. It was in C’s own hand and in green ink, an affectation which had caught on from the first C. Naldo’s father said it had become superstition.
Your good man will have got to you safely with this. Please instruct him that he is not, repeat not, to divulge his visit to you, nor that this note has reached you. Burn after reading. I wish to see you under most secure conditions. In plain language, nobody else should know of our meeting. Tonight, and, if necessary, for the next three nights, I shall be alone – from 11pm to 1am – at the address in Northolt at the foot of this note. It is near The Target public house. I would be grateful if you would please observe field rules and abort if you are followed.
Naldo tore the paper into four pieces and dropped them on the fire, waiting until it was completely consumed. Then he turned to Herbie.
‘You’ve done well, Herb. Now, did C tell you that you mustn’t talk of this to anyone?’
‘I tell nobody. Not now. Not never, Nald. I promise. They can beat me to pulp. I tell nobody.’
It was enough. They talked for a few minutes, then Naldo let the big German boy out of the back entrance, where he was quickly lost in the shadows.
Upstairs, Barbara lay in bed, the sheets pulled up to her chin.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I have to go out. Business. Will you wait? Stay here all night? Don’t know when I’ll be back. Maybe not till the morning.’
She did not open her eyes, whispering, ‘I’ll wait. If you’re very late I’ll go home and you can ring me there. I love you, Nald.’
‘Yes.’ He felt suddenly idiotic. ‘You too… Very much.’
At the door, he paused.
‘Naldo?’ she called.
‘Yes?’
In almost a quiet whisper she quietly sang –
‘Oh my little sister Lillie is a whore in Piccadilly,
And my mother is another in the Strand.’
‘I love you very much, Barb,’ he said, grinning back at her giggling face. ‘Will you marry me?’
‘Yes, please, even if your father does hawk his – ’
‘“Enough, no more: ’Tis not so sweet now as it was before.”’ The Railtons had a habit of quoting Shakespeare. Some said they even thought in the Bard’s words, and treated the text as some religious people did with the Bible.
Chapter Eight
The place was situated in a long, climbing row of semi-detached houses – white stucco walls, the doors and windows of each painted in different shades, as though to express some form of individuality among the rising river of uniform buildings. Only one in four of the streetlights had been reactivated after five years of enforced blackout, so Naldo saw the changing colors, and the various front hedges and fences, only in spasmodic bursts.
The house C had designated stood in shadow, as did its partner. After negotiating his way through a small gate and up an erratically paved walk, Naldo could just make out the number, screwed to the door and painted over, as though the wartime occupants had felt it wrong to polish brass which might cause reflection and so twinkle to a passing Nazi bomber. He smiled, remembering the tale that went around Haversage after the bomb had killed the cow. It had been the cowman’s fault, everyone claimed, because he had left the light on in his cottage. Opening the door had drawn the Heinkel’s attention. The uninitiated held great store by chinks of light. It was the sense of vulnerability that did it.
Hardly had he pressed the bell than the door was opened without sound – lock and hinges newly oiled.
‘Come in, young Railton. Good to see you.’ The door closed and the light came on. There, in the tiny hallway stood the somewhat avuncular, though quite unimpressive figure of C – heavily built, with small eyes embedded in a round pale face topped by gingery hair.
C took his coat and hat, hanging them neatly on an old-fashioned hallstand, then, with outstretched arm, shepherded Naldo into the main living room.
It was completely out of keeping with anything Naldo would ever connect with the Chief – a glowing cave of pink. Pink curtains through which he could glimpse old blackout frames still in place, pink walls, pink lampshades and chair covers. Even the bevelled 1930s mirror was pink, huge above the tiny fireplace with its pink tiles and hissing gas fire.
‘Ghastly, isn’t it?’ C chuckled. ‘Sit down, Railton. You came by car?’
‘Yes, sir. Parked well clear.’
‘Good. No tails?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Fellow Kruger got to you without any trouble?’ Naldo nodded.
‘Odd boy, Kruger. But I care for him. He’ll go far. Knows what he’s about. Only a lad, but he already has the touch.’
‘I think he grew up very quickly in Berlin, sir. Most young people had to grow up fast.’
‘Dare say. Yes. Well, business. I own this house, by the way, and the one next door. Picked ’em up for a song and kept them to myself. Really belong to the “shop” of course but they’re not on anyone’s books.’ He gave the suggestion a conspiratorial smile. ‘So, rather you didn’t mention them to anyone. Private safe house. In fact everything we talk about is strictly between us.’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘It starts with Kruger. What we winkled out from the couple of people he identified for us: Buelow and Fenice. Care for a dr
ink?’
He could have done with coffee and said so. There was some – ‘Perking away in the kitchen,’ as C put it. In a few minutes they were again seated, armed with coffee, the percolator and accessories on the pink glass table between them.
C began once more. He had, naturally, seen the full reports that came from the interrogations of Buelow and Fenice, together with statements from the ‘pianist’; the OSS man who had escaped from Romarin; plus others who would be giving evidence at the Tarot investigation. ‘They’ve all seen them now, of course. The Board of Enquiry, and a couple of other people with need-to-know. But there are other bits and pieces on file. Interesting tidbits which almost go to make up a rather gaudy jigsaw. I’ve put in a lot of time digging into history, old cases, dusty files. In a way I’ve been resurrecting the dead.’
Naldo suddenly recalled something his father had remarked, in private, about C. ‘He loves the games,’ James had laughed. It was a kind of aside. ‘Conjures operations from dreams sometimes. Bit of a fantasy man is our Chief.’
C paused, gave another smile, and then wrinkled his brow before asking, ‘What would you say were the prime subjects on the agenda of our Service, Railton? At this very moment, I mean.’
This was all delivered in a matter-of-fact tone. Naldo did not think twice about his answer. It was elementary. Since the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, plus the division of Germany and Berlin, their main concerns had been plain. ‘Defence of atomic secrets, and Russian intentions in the East – particularly Berlin.’
C nodded. ‘Not far off the mark. They’re both high on the list. In fact they’re going to be high on your list. How much do you know about this enquiry into your uncle’s network, Tarot?’
‘Only the minimum. I thought it was an SOE network, though, not my uncle’s.’
C gave a small grunt, his head dropping to one side. ‘Your uncle recruited its leader and did a lot of long-distance handling.’
Naldo shrugged. ‘I suppose so.’
‘Look.’ C’s tone became more avuncular. ‘I don’t think for a moment that Caspar’s done anything to be ashamed of – nothing out of the ordinary, though there are people who’d like to make the enquiry into a kind of secret show-trial. Unhappily for them, there are weightier matters that’ve come to light. Sit back and let me fill in the picture with what we know – from Buelow, Felice, and the sources that’re in no way connected with the damned enquiry. Yet – and here’s the paradox – they are connected with your Uncle Caspar’s Tarot network, and with events in Orléans itself: or at least with Klaubert, the so-called Devil of Orléans.’
