by M. L. Huie
She’d wake up then.
Always the same dream with perhaps a slight variation. It shook her at first, especially in the middle of the night, and then made her feel ridiculous in the warm light of morning. She didn’t know what to make of the last moment in the dream—Valentine suddenly becoming Peter—but somehow she knew it meant unfinished business.
She reached the old brick P&J building. Its anachronistic modern electric sign spun slowly over the front door, the name of the paper written in an Old English–looking type. The juxtaposition of styles jarred.
Livy considered just popping in and taking a quick tour of the old office, with lots of backslapping and “Oh, remember when …?” and “Well, don’t be a stranger.” Part of her worried she might break down and ask for her old job back. Correction— strike a line through ask and substitute the word plead. Much stronger choice of words and, in this case, far more accurate.
But the closer she got to the front door, the more she could smell the lingering odor of the butcher’s shop that had occupied the ground floor. That gave her pause. So she found a bench on the sidewalk near the front glass doors and waited.
Lunch arrived and Myrtle Dickinson bounded out the front door in hot pursuit of a quick meal that would have her back at the desk in plenty of time. Dear sweet Myrtle from Burnley. Livy had to say hello.
“Oh my oh my oh my, it’s Livy,” Myrtle said, grabbing her old coworker and hugging tight. “I’ve missed you so much. I’m lost up there without you. You know I am.”
“Are you keeping them all honest, luv?”
“I don’t know about that.” Myrtle blushed a ripe shade of pink under her cat-eye glasses. “But I am working on ‘The Ladies’ Front’ now. Mrs. O’Toole gives me a bit more responsibility each week, and oh, I just hope I can do it justice the way you did.”
Livy could have said any number of things to that, but she just smiled—her first in days—and said, “Mrs. O’Toole is lucky to have you. She may not know it yet, but she is.”
“You’re so good to me, Livy. Oh, and what about you now? Working for the big pants, we hear.”
“Well, I’m not so sure about that.”
“You’re a foreign correspondent, isn’t that right? For—um, for—is it The Times?”
“Just sort of a fact finder, really. Who knows, they may not even keep me on, you know.”
“They’re lucky to have you. They may not know it yet, but they are.”
After being ensconced in a world of lies and trickery, the simple, unassuming pleasure of a chat with Myrtle felt like a spring day in the park. Livy grabbed the little woman and gave her a long hug and kiss on the cheek. “You’re a peach, Myrtle.”
“Come on, it’s my lunchtime and we can catch up. I don’t have all that long. Mr. O’Toole likes me back in the office a few minutes early in case he needs me to proof something.”
“However long you have. It’s my treat. But there is something I’d like you to find for me in the news files. I need an address.”
* * *
It took Myrtle less than an hour to find the address Livy wanted. For some reason Livy had expected it to be farther away from London, but the street Myrtle gave her was in Chiswick. Livy thanked her friend and promised to ring her for dinner and drinks later that week, though for Myrtle “drinks” meant ginger beer. Part of her Lancashire charm.
Livy made it to the nearest Underground stop a few minutes after three and took a deep breath. She couldn’t move forward without putting the past behind her. Livy also knew that if she waited until tomorrow, she’d spend another sleepless night dreading it.
Chiswick, an area of London frequently visited by the Luftwaffe during the war, was famous primarily as the birthplace of the artist William Hogarth. A chipped sign, possibly hit by a stray piece of German shrapnel during the Blitz, reminded travelers of the direction of the great man’s birthplace once they exited the Chiswick Park tube station. Livy went the opposite direction.
She walked past the usual shops and cafés. It didn’t take long to figure out that this had to be the right place. The sidewalks teemed with mums and prams, going to the park, going home from the park, et cetera, et cetera.
After about a fifteen-minute stroll, she arrived at the address on Wilton Avenue, a few blocks off the Chiswick High Road. The house needed a bit of work. It looked to be a fairly standard two-story walk-up sandwiched between two other duplicate homes. Each had a small iron fence, a small garden, the same basic two steps up to the front door, and two front windows, one on top of the other. However, the window and doorframes all needed a good coat of paint and the fence had started to rust a bit.
Livy saw the boy first. He sat on the bottom step drawing something on a sheet of paper on top of a schoolbook. He had thick dark hair and the clear blue eyes that only young children seemed to have. Five years old now, Livy guessed. As she opened the gate, the boy looked up, called “Mum!” and ran inside, leaving the drawing on the steps. She looked down at the budding Hogarth’s work. He’d drawn a police constable with a tall hat and big badge.
“Can I help you?”
Clara Scobee stood just inside the door. Livy had seen her only in photographs, but they hadn’t half done her justice. She was about Livy’s height, five and a half feet, with a very small build. She had golden hair and bright brown eyes. A few lines had developed at her temples and next to her mouth. The result of many sleepless nights, Livy reckoned.
“I’m—I’m sorry to just stop by … um … my name is Olivia Nash, Mrs. Scobee.” Livy wanted to apologize and run away, but she had to be here and see his wife and son, face-to-face.
Clara blinked at the name and looked as if she might speak, but then her son reappeared, clinging to her knee.
“I served in the war. With your husband,” Livy said, trying not to sound pathetic.
“Oh—in France, with Peter?” Clara asked, clearly confused. “But I don’t—”
“You see, we were together near the end of the war.”
“Ah, yes,” she said, beginning to understand but not really looking as if the thought pleased her. “Miss—miss, is it? Yes, um—Miss Nash, I’m not really sure this is—”
“I was there with him—at the end of it, you see. I wasn’t able to make the presentation at the palace, and I just wanted to—meet you, I suppose.”
“Please, Miss Nash, I’m sorry. Won’t you come in?”
Clara put the kettle on, and the normality of two Englishwomen sitting down for afternoon tea began to play out. The tension of the doorstep remained, however. John, who didn’t seem to say very much, sat at a makeshift desk in the kitchen, drawing away. Clara sat in a small upholstered chair with lace coverings to hide the threadbare armrests. Livy sat opposite her on a love seat across from a bookshelf where Peter’s George medal sat, still in its bright-red box.
“Won’t be a moment on the tea,” Clara said, her smile forced, clearly hoping the kettle would boil and this visit could move forward.
“You’re very kind to invite me in, Mrs. Scobee,” Livy said. “I just—I don’t really know why I wanted to come see you, but you see, Peter and I became—well, he became someone I looked up to—in France. He taught me—”
The kettle’s whistling interruption of Livy’s rambling monologue was like the bell saving a punch-drunk fighter.
Clara excused herself to the kitchen, stopping to satisfy John’s request for his own drink. This gave Livy a chance to think through—again—what she wanted to say to this woman, and what she hoped would come from this visit. Was she there to size Clara up, see what sort of woman Peter had wanted at home? She told herself that was rubbish, but she had to admit to herself that could be part of it. There was more, though. Guilt, maybe? She’d slept with this woman’s husband. That’s what she’d be to Clara. The other woman. She felt her face redden as shame consumed her. Livy resisted the urge to bolt out the front door.
“Do you work, Miss Nash?” Clara returned with the pot.
“Ah, I see. An independent woman.”
Livy tipped the milk into her cup and stirred. “I want you to understand, Mrs. Scobee, that Peter meant a great deal to me.”
“Did he?” Clara said, her jaw clenched as she went through all the motions of the genteel hostess.
Why did I ever come here? Livy wondered.
“And he meant a great deal to others in our unit,” she added. “Mrs. Scobee, I’m sorry—this is hard for me because … oh God. Your husband and I—and others—what we did during the war was very … isolated work. Dangerous, necessary work, but—but lonely. God, I’m making a mess of this—”
Clara’s back seem to stiffen. Her voice hushed. “Miss Nash, I’d be careful what you say to me with my son in the other room.”
Livy stopped. She saw herself through Clara’s eyes now, and she felt stupid and selfish. Livy put down her cup.
“I’ve nothing to say that might upset him … or you, for that matter. I’m sorry I’m stumbling, but Peter and I—and everyone in our small unit—had to trust one another. I’ve never been married, but I imagine it’s like the trust a husband and wife have to have. Absolute. We all had that for one another, but Peter, you see, he was our leader. He was a born leader, Mrs. Scobee. Even in the worst of times—the very worst—we took strength from him. Look, I don’t know what I’m saying or why I want you to hear this, but he—your husband—” Livy’s voice began to crumble. “Peter was loved by everyone who knew him, Mrs. Scobee. He was a good man. You’d have been very proud of him.”
Clara Scobee fought to hold back the tears that pooled in her eyes.
“Mum, I can’t find the green pencil,” John said, tugging at Clara’s shoulder, his eyes fixed on Livy.
“Just give us one more minute, John. One more. Miss Nash was just leaving.”
After a bit of oohing over John’s latest drawing—a giant, rampaging Frankenstein’s monster—Livy made her goodbyes. Clara saw her to the door, her tears now dried.
“Look, I’m sorry again for the bother, Mrs.—” Livy began.
“Miss Nash, you didn’t come all the way out here to tell me that my husband was a brave man. I’m quite aware of that. The king gave me a medal saying as much,” she said, her lips tight. “I don’t know why you came here, honestly, and I don’t need to know.” Clara leaned back in her chair. Her eyes hardened. “I don’t need to know what happened, or didn’t happen, between you and my husband in France. That is the past.” She shook her head and sipped her tea. The moment of anger seemed to have passed. “My son and I have to move forward. We weren’t given a choice in that matter, but we are making do and moving forward. The war is the past, Miss Nash, and whatever happened then is just that. Just—memories.” She put her cup on a table and leaned forward. “But some memories will drown you, Miss Nash. If you don’t mind my saying so. You might do well to remember that.”
After leaving the Scobee’s scruffy house, Livy meandered back in the direction of the Chiswick tube stop. She’d hoped the visit to see Peter’s widow would offer some form of clarity. She couldn’t have expected understanding from the woman. Instead she felt chastened. Foolish, even. Clara was right, though, Livy thought. The past is drowning me. And no rescue in sight.
She took a circuitous route, unconcerned about time, nowhere really to be, and tried to see the future that lay head of her.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“He’s got enough going right now, darling. We do have actual foreign correspondents who work for us, you know.”
Penelope Baker sat next to Livy on a bench outside the Chancery Lane tube station. Livy had called and asked for a meeting with Fleming but been told the boss was too busy. That didn’t deter her. After two more calls on the same day, Pen agreed to an “informal lunch chat.” So there they sat, given cover by the lunchtime bustle around the tube stop, sharing chips. Despite her cool, professional exterior, Pen devoured the warm chips as if she’d given all her rationing coupons away.
“Of course,” Livy said. “I just wanted to know if they’d gotten anything out of Nathalie. So many questions still, you know?”
After her visit to the Scobee house, it had taken Livy the better part of a very long sleepless night for her to realize she couldn’t move forward just yet. Not until a few things made more sense to her.
“Listen, Livy—do you want the last chip? No? Thanks so much.” Pen cleared it in two concise bites. “Now, I’m in no position to give advice. I mean, I had my little fling with Ian—Mr. Fleming. I knew his type going in, of course, but like a stupid git I thought I’d change him. Stupid, stupid! So I learned. And what I learned was there comes a time when you have to let the past be the past.”
“I’ve been hearing that a lot lately.”
“You did your job. Now let the other chaps do theirs. Whatever that might be,” she said, glancing down at her expensive wristwatch. Cartier, Livy guessed. “Got to be back, darling. I’ll give you a shout if I hear anything.”
Pen Baker merged with the others crossing the street to catch buses, make a train, or do whatever normal people did. Livy didn’t move, her mind fixated on two disparate days in France when people had died. She kept seeing Peter’s death. Then Mirov and Valentine dead outside the Gare du Nord. Nathalie running in the direction of the gunshots. Something connected those two days, but she couldn’t see it yet.
* * *
The next morning, Tom Vance showed up on Livy Nash’s doorstep in Camden Town. Hat, literally and figuratively, in hand.
“Is this an official visit, Mr. Vance?” Livy had nowhere to be and looked it. Untamed hair, rumpled gown, and quilted robe to cover it all up. Allard had been right; she wasn’t exactly Rita Hayworth.
“You might say that.” He, of course, was dressed to the nines in a cream pinstripe suit, brown wing tips, and a straw trilby. “So, if you need time to get dressed—oh, and please, call me Tom.”
“What’s on your mind, Mr. Vance?”
Vance grinned. “Maybe I could just step inside? I have a confidential proposition for you.”
Vance got to the point once Livy shut the door.
“We might have a break on the Mephisto network. We have a walk-in back in Paris who claims he has the whole scoop. The day before, there was a murder in Montmartre. A talent agent was killed in a flat. Next day a gunman comes after our walk-in. He escapes, but is so hysterical he turns himself in. He claims this talent agent was part of the network and that the murder is some sort of message. He’s terrified. Says he’ll give us everything for protection. Anyway, I think you know our walk-in. His name is Jabot, but he’s that magician Diablo, the one we saw at the theater. If I’m not mistaken, you also had bit of a run-in with him at the Ritz.”
“Interesting,” she said. A Mephisto agent is killed and then someone goes after Jabot. The news intrigued Livy—although she had no intention of letting Vance know that. “But I’m out. I’m just an unemployed journalist sitting in her dressing gown in the middle of the day.”
“Tell me about Jabot. What do you know about him?”
Livy nearly laughed in his face. “He needs to work on his act. Thanks for the chat, Mr. Vance. The door is behind you.”
Vance didn’t move. “Valentine’s dead, but the list is still out there, Livy. Now, you know this operation better than anybody. We can still finish this job, but I need to know what you know.”
“We?” she said, scoffing. “Oh, did your Mr. Gray change his mind about me? Last I saw of him, he told me to leave Paris for good.”
“I’m not Gray. This is your operation, too, Livy, as far as I’m concerned. And so I’m asking for your help.”
Livy turned away. Her eyes roamed over the walls of her confining flat. If she told Tom Vance to get the hell out and he did, then what? Paris practically beckoned her. It would give her the chance to answer those nagging questions that kept her up at night. And with Nathalie still uncooperative, she might just be
able to finish her job and persuade Fleming to give her a second chance.
She turned on him, arms folded, head tossed back. “Take me to Paris, then.”
Now it was Vance’s turn to look incredulous. “I don’t want to assume too much, but there was a double murder at the Gare du Nord last week, and I imagine you are someone the French authorities would, at the very least, like to question.”
Livy felt exposed suddenly, as if what had happened at the station had been private. The notion felt personal and ridiculous at the same time. But her bravado never wavered.
“They have to find me first,” she said.
“My God, do you have any idea the kind of risk I’m taking by even being here? Gray warned me that if he found out that I had so much as talked to you, he would disavow all knowledge of me. And if he ever saw your limey ass again—and that’s a direct quote—he’d hand you over to the police himself.”
“All that tweed makes him itchy, I’ll bet.”
Vance ignored the sarcasm. “I think this Jabot is the real deal. If what he says is true, then this may be our last chance to get the Mephisto list. The Soviets can’t start calling the shots on this.”
“You may be right, but I’m through having these little chats so you can find out what I know. You want my help? Then get me a plane to Paris and let’s go back like proper colleagues. I’m not just some girl you snog at the Dorchester. When I’m there, then you have my help.”
“All right, but I’ll put you up somewhere safe while I have a look around the murder site in Montmartre and interrogate Jabot. Then you can take a look at my notes and advise me. Okay?”
“Mr. Vance, I have no intention of being a kept woman during this trip. If you want my help, it’s on my terms.”
“And those terms are what exactly?” Vance said, seeming more than a little hesitant.
“First, I fully intend to let my people know I’m working on this again.” Livy planned a courtesy call to Dennis Allard upon arrival. His pencil-thin mustache might curl, but she felt an allegiance to the man, and also—even though he had unceremoniously sacked her—to Fleming. After all, she hoped to have her job back after this sojourn.
