The War in the Dark

by Nick Setchfield

  ‘Hatherly, I…’

  The man almost had the face of Hatherly.

  Almost.

  Winter peered through the shadows of the branches that played across the silent figure. Momentarily familiar, the man’s features had shifted like water, resolving into the face of a stranger.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Winter. ‘I assumed you were somebody else.’

  The man walked away, barely registering the encounter. Winter watched him cross into Westbourne Grove.

  For a moment he had seemed to have no face at all.

  2

  A white light, sharp and urgent.

  It was there at the edge of his perception, inescapable. His eyelids flinched, quivered, resisting its brilliance. He sensed himself moving out of a deep, consuming darkness. The light was summoning him.

  Winter opened his eyes. His pupils shrank, instinctively contracting. The electric glare was blinding.

  He began to see the room.

  There was a tall lamp to his left, its spindly aluminium frame bent into a crouch. The bulb was close and bullyingly hot. He could feel his pores tingling with sweat as the wattage burned.

  He looked down at his arms. They lay on the padded rests of a chair. One had a bandage over the knife wound, a rust-coloured smear of blood soiling the gauze. The other was bare, the shirtsleeve rolled to the elbow. There was a fresh bruise below the wrist and a puncture mark where a sizeable needle had clearly entered his bloodstream. Both arms throbbed.

  ‘So just how do you account for what happened?’ demanded a voice, insistent but weary.

  Still muzzy, Winter focused beyond the light. A figure solidified: a stocky, bearded man in a three-piece worsted suit, his hair a silver thatch. Sir Crispin Faulkner, head of SIS. Next to him was a man he didn’t know. He had a dispassionate gaze and wore a doctor’s coat. There was a fat hypodermic in his hand. It held a viscous amber liquid.

  So they had drugged him. Sodium thiopental or some kind of hypnotic benzodiazapene, he imagined. Truth serum. Potent. Effective. Standard practice. Not normally applied to one’s own side. It would certainly explain the lurch of nausea he was now experiencing. His body and his memory were reconnecting.

  This was no debrief, he realised. It was an interrogation.

  Winter reached for words. ‘I… I cannot account for it, sir.’

  There was a third man in the hot, boxy room. A friendlier presence, for all that his face was grim with concern. Winter saw the paisley bow-tie, the familiar watery eyes. Malcolm.

  ‘It could always be some kind of psychotropic agent,’ said Malcolm Hands, stepping from the shadows. He rested an arm on a filing cabinet. ‘Hallucinogen of some sort. Airborne dispersal or contact activation. Skin on skin, that kind of thing. I’ve heard that the CIA are making remarkable progress in the field.’

  ‘I doubt it’s the Americans,’ said Faulkner, curtly.

  ‘Well, I’ve no idea where the Soviets are with the technology.’

  ‘You bloody should. We should be on top of all of this.’

  There was a scratch of a match. Malcolm lit a Capstan and offered the packet to Winter. ‘Cigarette?’

  ‘God, yes.’

  Winter borrowed the matches and lit a cigarette. He took a quick, hungry drag and let the smoke disperse through his nostrils. The bitter vapour troubled his throat and he coughed. There was still a furtive taste of chemicals on his tongue.

  ‘I don’t care what the Americans or the Reds have,’ he said. ‘There’s no hallucinogen in the world halfway powerful enough to do that. I know what I saw in that church.’

  ‘Do you?’ asked Faulkner.

  Winter buried a mutinous comeback. He took a moment to steady his thoughts. ‘Sir, it was real. Whatever I saw, it was real. I am not lying to you. And I am not losing my mind.’

  ‘The psychiatric officer will assess that,’ said Faulkner, briskly. ‘Now consider yourself relieved of active duty, pending his findings. When we finally find your blasted echo man we’ll be sure to let you know.’

  Faulkner gathered a wad of paper, jammed it inside a manila folder and took his leave of the room, trailing an irritable pall. The quiet man in the doctor’s coat locked his syringe in a silver case and followed him.

  ‘I’ll be outside,’ said Malcolm, softly.

  Winter nodded, extinguishing the Capstan. He rolled his cuffs down, taking care not to snag the shirt on the bloodied bandage. He raised himself up and, unsteady for a second, grasped the chair for support. The room tilted around him. Then he regained his bearings and collected his jacket. It had been neatly folded and placed on the desk. They were nothing if not considerate.

  Winter straightened his tie, closed the door and stepped into the corridor. It was as dismal as all the other passages in the building, part of the decaying connective tissue of 54 Broadway. It could have been a drab, dusty corner of some neglected public school. And sometimes that was exactly what the service felt like. A crumbling fiefdom, breeding the charcoal-suited officers of empire while the world raced on outside.

  Winter had no idea what time it was. His watch had been removed. It was probably in his jacket pocket. As he hunted for it he peered through the window. Sunlight made a greasy haze of the glass. Was it morning? He saw neat rows of dark cars, their bonnets gleaming like ranks of beetles in the autumn light.

  He found his watch and buckled the cracked leather strap. Almost midday. He had the feeling that time had been taken from him. How long had he been in that room? He could barely remember entering it.

  Malcolm stood at the end of the corridor, admiring a painting. It was a gloomy portrait of an Elizabethan, mounted in an ornate gilded frame. The man in the picture had a hard, unreadable gaze and a trim satyr’s beard. A white ruff circled his throat.

  ‘Interesting man, Sir Francis Walsingham,’ said Malcolm, indicating the portrait with a languid jab of his cigarette. ‘Elizabeth’s favourite. The first spymaster. Set up a network that reached as far to the east as Turkey. He understood the value of intelligence, that chap. We’re all his children, you know.’

  ‘I remember,’ said Winter, joining him beside the painting. ‘You showed me this picture on my first day here. You told me we were the New Elizabethans. I tried not to laugh.’

  ‘Did I really? It sounds like me.’ Malcolm smiled and the skin wrinkled around his wan grey eyes. ‘Precious little sense of history these days. But the wars we fight are still his wars, for all the new names we give them. Do we really imagine this is the first Cold War? We’ve been fighting them for centuries.’

  Winter regarded the brushwork. There were tiny cracks where the paint was flaking. ‘You told me something else he said. “Knowledge is never too dear.”’

  ‘I’m touched, Christopher. You have an excellent memory.’

  ‘You’re a bloody good teacher, Malcolm. When you’re sober.’

  Malcolm’s eyes narrowed and his voice fell by a register. ‘Here’s another one of the old boy’s little sayings. “See and keep silent.” Not the worst words to live by.’

  He leaned closer, though they were quite alone in the passageway.

  ‘Tea dance at nine,’ he said, with a quick, tight smile. ‘Don’t be late, dear heart.’

  And then he turned in the direction of the fire doors, his heels ringing on the hardwood floor.

  Winter stared after him, intrigued. Typical Malcolm.

  * * *

  The Fairbridge Hotel had taken a bomb in the war. A V-2 had torn out of a starless sky in 1944 and punched through the roof, piercing five elegant storeys and killing over three hundred people. The building’s jagged, scaffolded remains still stood derelict in Knightsbridge, waiting for someone to give its ghosts a future.

  Winter entered the penthouse ballroom. Rainwater ran between the broken tiles, pooling in dark corners of the dance floor. An elegant bronze of a female dancer lay toppled, her severed head flung amid the rubble. There was a charred Art Deco bas relief, decorated with pelicans, and a larg
e mirrored door, blackened and blistered by the heat of the blast.

  The roof was gone, of course. Shards of masonry framed the night sky like a jawful of smashed teeth. Winter looked down. The bomb had left a hell of a hole. The innards of the hotel lay exposed: a spine of lift cages and great steel struts that still held its shattered grandeur together.

  There was the sound of a piano. Someone was artlessly picking out a tune with a single finger, like a child. The strings were clearly damaged. It made the melody even sadder. Winter took a moment to place it. ‘A Nightingale Sang In Berkeley Square’. One of his mother’s favourites.

  ‘How do the words go?’ asked Malcolm Hands, ending the tune in a discordant ripple of chords. ‘Something about angels dining at the Ritz… Your mother liked it, didn’t she?’

  ‘She did. I told you that?’

  Malcolm nodded. ‘Funny the things that lodge in the memory.’

  He struck a key, and struck it again, repeatedly. ‘This song makes me think of Phillipa. 1942. April. Early morning. We were on Primrose Hill, still dressed to the nines, still rather sloshed. She looked at the city and she turned to me and said, “I think the war’s over.” I asked her what she meant. She smiled – she was pretty – and she said, “Because I think I just heard a nightingale sing in Berkeley Square.” Two months later she was dead. Aerial bomb. Just like this place.’

  Malcolm struck the key again. This time he let it resonate. ‘Yes, funny the things that stick in the mind.’

  He looked at Winter. ‘Now Von Braun’s working for the Americans on their precious rockets. Sometimes I wonder if there are any true sides anymore. Maybe we just take turns being friends and enemies with everyone. Stops it getting boring, I suppose.’

  It was nine o’clock. The Fairbridge was a shared secret between them, an occasional private meeting place beyond the eyes of the service. Sometimes you needed spaces like that. A refuge. A chance to breathe, to confide. The two men were close – or as close as their choice of career allowed them. They had begun almost as mentor and pupil. Now they enjoyed something that felt close to real friendship. And still, Winter realised, there was much about Malcolm’s life that he didn’t know. He had never mentioned a Phillipa before.

  Winter edged past the crater in the floor, moving around the stiff-backed chairs. Some of the tables still had champagne glasses upon them. Their once immaculate tablecloths were filthy with soot. ‘Any sign of Hatherly?’

  ‘Not a word. I’ve sent Haynes in as a priority. He’ll find him.’

  ‘It should be me.’

  ‘You’re relieved of duty, remember. We wouldn’t want to undermine Sir Crispin, now would we? I doubt he’d take it terribly well.’

  ‘I don’t need psychiatric assessment, Malcolm.’ The words felt hot on his tongue.

  ‘I know you don’t. That’s why we’re meeting here. There’s a lot I need to tell you. Take a look…’

  Malcolm gestured upwards, through the rent in the roof. Winter saw only the London sky, deep blue and full of stars…

  ‘What am I looking at?’

  ‘I believe it’s called the future, though I could be mistaken. Go on, take a really good look. You might see them. Their orbit occasionally takes them over London.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m looking at.’

  ‘Telstar 1,’ smiled Malcolm. ‘Telstar 2. Our communications satellites. The clever twins, up there giving the Sputnik boys a run for their money. Sometimes I imagine I can see them winking, but it’s probably only Venus.’

  Winter knew of the Telstar project, of course. The first satellite had launched the summer before last, its successor earlier this year. They were a bright hope for Britain. A sliver of tomorrow. God knew the war still clung to this country like silt. What was the phrase Harold Wilson had used in that speech the other week? The white heat of technology? You could feel it beginning to burn these days.

  ‘We have placed new stars in the sky,’ said Malcolm, grandly. ‘In 1572 Dr John Dee saw a new star. That winter it lit up the skies of Europe. People feared it, naturally. They’d always believed that the heavens had been fixed at the point of creation. They’d studied them, mapped them, pinned them down in their charts. This was something new. This meant the universe could change. It could alter. All things were not eternal. It must have been a bloody terrifying prospect for the poor bastards.’

  Malcolm paused, his pale eyes more alive than Winter had ever seen them. ‘Now here we are. The New Elizabethans. We’re not afraid of the skies anymore. Perhaps we should be.’

  ‘Malcolm,’ pressed Winter, impatient for a straight answer. ‘Why am I here?’

  Malcolm took a breath. ‘The world is more than we know, Christopher. And less than we hope.’

  Winter let his frustration show. ‘What does that even mean?’ he snapped.

  ‘It means that the true Cold War has been fought for millennia. The oldest war we know. The war we fight at the edges of the light. The war in the dark.’

  Winter heard the words but took a moment to make any sense of them. If not for his experience in Notting Hill he might have imagined Malcolm was suffering some kind of breakdown.

  ‘What did I encounter in that church?’

  ‘A demon,’ said Malcolm, bluntly. ‘We caught one in Kursk, once, back in the forties. They’re an absolute bugger to interrogate. All available intelligence suggests they’re a lower order of unearthly being. Powerful, amoral, frequently feral. They don’t tend to take sides as such. They’re players and chancers. Very much out for themselves. An absolute nuisance, really.’

  ‘How long have we known about them?’

  ‘I can show you files dating back to the court of Elizabeth. Accounts of these beasts that would freeze your heart. John Dee was one of us, you know. Not just a scholar and an alchemist but a spy and an agent of Walsingham. We’ve always been engaged in this war, Christopher. Always.’

  Winter paused to process this. He half heard the hum of Knightsbridge traffic through the torn roof. It seemed to belong to a whole other world. ‘So what was Costigan trading?’

  Malcolm’s tongue wet his lips. ‘Runes, as far as we can ascertain. Occult symbols and signifiers. We’ve seen them before. Intercepted some in ’59 in Krasnoyarsk. We’ve had codebreakers on them. Turing’s mob. No luck.’

  Malcolm pulled a metal flask from his jacket pocket. He twisted the cap and took an anxious swig. There was an aroma of whisky. Winter declined the offer of a sip.

  ‘Whatever these symbols are, whatever they mean, they are clearly important. So important that the Russians want them very badly indeed. I know men who believe these secrets may be more powerful than the atom bomb.’

  ‘How is that possible?’

  ‘Oh, I’ve stopped thinking in terms of the possible. It gets you nowhere.’

  Malcolm pocketed the flask. ‘There’s not really that much difference between spycraft and magecraft, you know. It’s all symbols and enchantments. Crack a code, cast a spell. We’re all walking in the shadow realms, Christopher.’

  Winter considered Malcolm’s words. He needed to make some kind of practical sense of all this.

  ‘So Costigan was trading with the Russians?’

  Malcolm shook his head. ‘That’s what we thought at first, when we fished his name from the Soviet chatter. Turns out there’s a third party. A man in Vienna, rather well connected. No politics. That’s who the priest was trading with.’

  ‘That’s not how I was briefed. I was told Costigan had Soviet principles.’

  Malcolm snorted. ‘Do you think these creatures have any kind of principles? Look, it’s messy. You didn’t need the details.’

  ‘Who’s in on all this?’

  Malcolm wiped his mouth, mopping a smear of whisky from his lips. ‘I can’t tell you. I’m not meant to tell you any of this. But you’ve just become involved, haven’t you? And once you’re involved there’s no easy way out.’

  The older man stepped close to him. In a gesture tha
t was almost fatherly he smoothed the collar of Winter’s overcoat.

  ‘Go home to Joyce. Make sure she’s safe.’

  Winter found himself bristling in spite of the kindness in Malcolm’s voice. ‘Joyce? She’s never been a part of this!’

  ‘They won’t care,’ said Malcolm. And then, more gently, ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  And with a small, weak smile he walked away. His body was quickly claimed by the shadows of the ballroom.

  Winter stood there in silence, aware of how cold he felt in this broken place. Other, sharper instincts kicked in: was he alone? His eyes examined the darkness. He tilted an ear and heard a drip of water, pinging on an overturned table in the far corner. The only scent was the lingering trace of Malcolm’s whisky. Yes, he imagined he was quite alone – unless they were very, very good.

  He raised his head, looking through the ragged remains of the roof.

  There were new stars above London.

  3

  The corpse of Carl Hatherly was waiting in the car. It was propped up in the passenger seat, gazing blindly through the windscreen. The dead eyes were almost accusatory.

  Winter sighed. The sight of his colleague’s body rattled him. It also made him feel weary.

  He had parked his Ford Zephyr in a quiet alley at the rear of a hotel, close to a loading bay. As he approached the vehicle he saw that the door had been jimmied, and expertly so. He noted the telltale scratch of wire on the chrome of the lock. The car had only been there half an hour. They had known he was coming.

  He scanned the alley and quietly unlocked the driver’s door. There was a clatter of metal on tarmac and he froze. Just a fox, bothering a bin. The animal pattered into the shadows and the street was silent again. Winter eased himself into the driver’s seat, glaring into the alleyway. His fingers tattooed a rhythm on the wheel. And then he turned to examine the body.

  There was a hole in the exact centre of Hatherly’s forehead. The melted flesh formed a tiny, blood-ringed whorl around the wound. It was a neat, unshowy job. Precise. Efficient. Professional.

  Winter caught himself. Christ. He was actually critiquing this kill.