The House of Flowers

by Charlotte Bingham

  Every evening, back home at the great farmhouse in Nantelle, under the pretext of trying to teach him some sense, Maurice would take Billy off into a room far away from the occupied ones where he would bolt them both in and allow Billy to sit at a vast desk strewn with clean sheets of paper and an abundant supply of freshly sharpened pencils. Here Billy would draw and detail everything he had seen that day, down to the size and make of the guns, their calibres, and their positions, as well as any new defences he had noticed: dugouts, pillboxes, machine-gun nests, anything and everything that might be of use. When he had finished, each drawing would be carefully rolled up inside another and they would all be inserted into a long cardboard tube that was then shut and firmly sealed at both ends. In turn the tube would be shut away in a drawer, the drawer locked and the key hung back around Maurice Goncourt’s massive neck.

  Finally, the two of them would smoke one cigarette each, a habit Billy had started on his sixteenth birthday along with most of his contemporaries. When they had finished Monsieur Goncourt would take what was left of the candle to light them both back to the main part of the house, and Billy would then retire to his bed.

  During the length of the evening, not a word would be exchanged, never once. All Monsieur Goncourt would do would be to nod while Billy was transferring his vital information on to paper, or fall asleep if the session was a long one, which it normally was. When Billy was finished he would wake the old man up, hand him a cigarette and they would smoke. In all the time he was at the farmhouse Maurice Goncourt barely said one comprehensible word to him, yet Billy felt as safe with him as he did with the Colonel and Major Folkestone.

  As for Maurice Goncourt, he admired the young Englishman more than he could say. His feelings were such that he only had two wishes – first that Billy would manage to get home safely – and second that one of his own sons might learn from Billy’s example and perhaps turn into something like this young Englishman who was so willing to risk everything.

  ‘What on earth is Hackett doing out here?’ Jack wondered as he and Harvey Constable rounded the corner of the west wing of the great house to find themselves almost face to face with Eugene who was standing in the middle of the main lawn shaking his fists at the heavens.

  ‘Fulminating, as usual,’ Harvey said, coming to a halt and staring. ‘It seems he hasn’t taken at all to wearing a brace on his neck.’

  ‘Hasn’t taken to being sidelined, you mean. Does he do this often?’

  ‘In some form or another, yes. We get some sort of visual protest regularly, but more often than not it takes the form of railing against the gods for being so unfair. Luckily he and we have the redoubtable Kate, who seems somehow to be able to keep the lid on him most of the time – although I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes.’

  ‘I imagine that fall probably saved Hackett’s neck, if you’ll excuse the pun,’ Jack murmured, watching the antics of the man he still considered to be one of his top agents. ‘He was defying the law of averages already, so although I miss him, I’m more than happy to see him still alive. I’m actually astonished.’

  ‘Alive and kicking,’ Harvey added with a smile. He pointed to the opposite wing of the house. ‘He kicked a very large cabbage at the orangery over there the other day – broke a window.’

  ‘So I see.’

  Jack nodded, and changed direction, not wishing at this particular moment to find himself involved in one of Eugene’s long and convoluted exchanges. He hadn’t the time for that. Jack Ward was concentrating only on catching Eugene’s caochán.

  ‘As you know, I put a stop on the Meynell girl,’ he said. ‘My sixth sense if you like, but whatever, something was telling me it wasn’t right. I know young Billy made it into France safely, but maybe that was luck – or maybe it wasn’t. You can’t tell until someone’s down. But we wasted a lot of time after we found that rogue file.’

  ‘So godchild is off the hook, is she?’

  ‘Off the hook and on her way to the Bahamas,’ Jack replied. ‘Someone definitely used her as their fall guy.’

  ‘Are we any closer to naming a name, boss?’ Harvey enquired, clasping his hands neatly behind his back. ‘I can’t say that I am.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ Jack said, stopping to relight his pipe. ‘Sometimes I think we’re getting very close, and other times it goes way out of focus. So what I do then is an Agatha.’

  ‘An Agatha,’ Harvey sighed. ‘As in an aunt of yours, perhaps? Or as in la Christie?’

  ‘Right second time, old boy. I do an Agatha Christie summary – you know the sort of thing. A run through the list of suspects with the whys and why nots.’

  ‘Let’s start with – I don’t know, boss – who shall we start with?’

  ‘Let’s start with you,’ Jack replied, walking on now that his pipe was well alight. ‘You’re the nearest. You have an impeccable track record as far as the firm goes – undoubted heroism, practically a hundred per cent result rate in the field . . . in fact eveything about you is above suspicion – except your sexuality. As you know without me reminding you, one false step could land you in gaol. Worse than that, your sexual predilection leaves you open to blackmail, and anyone who is open to blackmail has to be suspect.’

  ‘Couldn’t agree more,’ Harvey replied. ‘I’d put me high up any list, if I wasn’t me. But it isn’t I.’

  ‘I know that,’ Jack said. ‘Don’t ask me why – I just do. And I’d better be right.’

  ‘You’re telling me you had better,’ Harvey retorted. ‘I’ll say. My turn to do you in.’ He glanced at Jack, then fell to a long silence.

  ‘Come on,’ Jack said. ‘We haven’t got all day.’

  ‘Zero,’ Harvey sighed finally. ‘Can’t think of one good reason for you to turn your coat.’

  ‘I could be schizophrenic.’

  ‘You could. But you’re not. And neither are you.’

  ‘Very good.’ Jack allowed himself a grim smile, even though their subject matter was highly serious. ‘I don’t think I have a good enough reason either. I could be bitter over what happened to my wife – but I’m not really. Not any longer. And anyway, what happened to her has little bearing on matters of national security. It hardly affected my patriotism.’

  ‘I can’t imagine anything that would, boss.’

  It was Jack’s turn to glance at Harvey, privately grateful for the compliment. ‘Marjorie Hendry,’ he said, sticking his pipe back in his mouth. ‘The quiet one. Her aunt – whom she adored – used to work for us. Damn’ good she was too – the most unlikely people usually are. She got killed in a so-called road accident, which we all think was engineered by Poppy Tetherington’s traitorous first husband. Poppy Meynell as she is now. Young Marjorie didn’t take that too well and always swore she’d avenge her aunt.’

  ‘So that lets her off the hook, surely?’

  ‘I think so – but one can never be certain. Suppose she thinks we didn’t try hard enough? That we finally let her down. Would that be enough to turn her?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Neither do I. Billy – her half-brother – is certainly above suspicion.’

  ‘I’ll say,’ Harvey interrupted.

  ‘So is Scott Meynell, so too is Poppy – although I imagine my picture’s been taken down at the moment, first of all for sidelining her, then for postponing her dodge.’

  ‘Eugene? Mmm?,’ Harvey said. ‘Our very own lunatic Celt.’

  ‘Hackett? One man I never suspected,’ Jack replied calmly. ‘Even when I had jolly good reason to do so. He’d almost be too obvious a choice – Irishman working for British Intelligence, born in the south, grandmother a well-known Nationalist – but no, not Eugene Hackett. Of all the men working for us at the moment I would bet my life on Hackett above anyone else. He has a record even better than yours in the field.’

  ‘He drinks stronger drinks,’ Harvey said, mock huffily.

  ‘I doubt that.’ Jack nodded. ‘Having spent a few nights on the toot with you, H
arvey. What about Tony’s assistant? The Miss Budge person? You interrogated her, I seem to remember.’

  ‘Mmm. Wanted to bury her, ended up admiring her,’ Harvey replied. ‘I have to say she’s the sort of woman I just don’t understand, but that’s neither here nor there. I think the bewilderment is mutual. But if you’re talking track records, hers is impeccable.’

  ‘True,’ Jack cut in. ‘I agree with everything you say. But what we have to do – somehow – is narrow all this down.’

  ‘Kate Maddox has to be ruled out, she’s just not the type. But.’ He paused. ‘What about her mother?’

  Jack glanced round at Harvey, breathed in deeply, then shook his head, walking on steadily towards the lake.

  ‘When we were last reviewing this, Colonel, if you remember—’ Harvey called after him, before hurrying to catch up. ‘When last discussed, you painted a picture of a woman betrayed, scorned, deserted by her husband – cast down by the death of her son, a woman alone, in other words—’

  ‘She still has Kate,’ Jack interrupted gruffly.

  ‘She lost her son,’ Harvey stated firmly. ‘Then just as she was coming to terms with her loss, her husband walks out on her, leaving her quite alone.’

  ‘She’s fine. Really. Believe me. She’s coping.’

  ‘Because you gave her a job? Sir?’

  ‘I gave her back her job.’

  ‘Was it your idea? Or hers?’

  ‘Six of one and half a dozen of the other.’

  ‘She has to be on the list,’ Harvey insisted. ‘Sir.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ Jack glared at him and sat down heavily on a bench by the side of the lake. ‘Everyone has to be. She is no exception.’

  ‘How high up on the list?’ Harvey wondered, sitting down next to him. ‘Sir?’

  ‘High enough, dammit. Plenty high enough.’

  ‘At the moment she’d be quite near the top of mine, Jack,’ Harvey stated quietly. ‘Really quite near.’

  ‘Then perhaps I’d better prove you wrong.’

  ‘Perhaps you had better – sir,’ Harvey replied, his mouth tightening. ‘Perhaps that is exactly what you had better do.’

  Knowing that Harvey had only talked sense, and that he had to sort out the situation with Helen Maddox one way or the other, the following day Jack returned to London. Since their last meeting, Helen had been instructed to work out a week’s notice behind the tea bar at Charing Cross Station before returning to her desk in the Baker Street HQ of the SOE. Jack contrived to meet her outside her office one Friday evening, just as she was preparing to leave.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said, smiling in greeting. ‘The very person I was hoping to see.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ Helen replied. ‘No one told me you wished to see me, Colonel.’

  ‘Perhaps not on business,’ Jack said, falling into step alongside her as she walked down the corridor to the stairs. ‘I thought we might go and have a quiet drink.’

  Helen frowned at him as Jack held the door he had opened for her at the top of the stairs to allow her through. They descended to the street where Jack immediately hailed a cab.

  ‘Not somewhere local, I take it,’ Helen observed as they settled into the back of the taxi.

  ‘I’m fed up with those dreary places we have to frequent. Since you’re not doing anything this evening—’

  ‘Forgive me, Colonel.’

  ‘Jack this evening, Helen. We’re off duty now.’

  ‘How do you know I’m not doing anything this evening?’

  ‘I had my secretary check.’ Jack glanced at her to see whether or not Helen was objecting.

  ‘I don’t put everything down in my diary, you know.’

  ‘I should hope not. But at least you’re free for a drink, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. And if you’re still free after a drink, I have two tickets for Sweeter and Lower. With Hermione Gingold.’

  ‘I love Hermione Gingold.’

  ‘I’m told it’s very funny,’ Jack remarked. ‘I gather there’s a skit with her as the queen of all stirrup-pumpers that’s said to be hilarious.’

  Helen smiled back at him and readily accepted such an attractive invitation, but only on condition that they could first stop off at the flat she had started to rent since working in London so that she could change out of her work clothes. While she washed and dressed Jack drank a pink gin and gazed down on the life outside in the street below, not seeing it at all, his mind being fully concentrated on the vital problem that he was more determined than ever to solve. His singlemindedness did not stop him appreciating Helen’s change from office worker in plain blouse and dark skirt into a highly attractive woman in a deep red silk dress with a matching short jacket, nor did it lessen his enjoyment of first their drink together and then the hilariously funny revue which continued to play without interruption when a siren sounded its air raid warning halfway through the first act. No one left their seat.

  ‘I can’t remember when I last enjoyed a show so much,’ Helen confided as Jack walked her to the door of her block of flats. ‘Thank you very much. It was a lovely evening.’

  ‘Thank you, Helen. It wouldn’t have been in any way as – as good,’ Jack replied, ‘if you’d decided not to come.’

  They looked at each other for a moment, before Helen began the search for her door key in her bag.

  ‘I have a bit of gin left,’ she said. ‘If you’d like a drink?’

  ‘Who can say no to such an offer in times like these?’ Jack smiled. ‘If that’s all right, I’d love a drink.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have asked you if it hadn’t been all right,’ Helen replied, opening the door and letting them both in. ‘After you, Claude.’

  ‘No, after you, Cecil.’

  They both laughed at the repetition of jokes from ITMA, the nation’s favourite radio show of the moment, as Jack followed Helen up the stairs and into her little apartment.

  ‘I met a man the other day who doesn’t think ITMA’s the slightest bit funny,’ Jack said dolefully. ‘It beggars belief, not finding ITMA funny.’

  ‘Probably just trying to be different,’ Helen replied, pouring them both a drink. ‘Some people can only ever draw any attention to themselves by trying to be different.’

  ‘You don’t seem to have that trouble,’ Jack remarked.

  ‘He probably wouldn’t have found Hermione Gingold funny this evening either,’ Helen continued, glancing at Jack. ‘I can’t get on with anyone who doesn’t laugh. Mind you, Harold – my ex-husband. He had absolutely no sense of humour whatsoever.’

  ‘How come you married him?’

  ‘How come indeed. Oh to be blessed with foresight rather than hindsight.’

  ‘Here’s to this damn’ war being over soon,’ Jack said, switching the subject and raising his glass. ‘I’m looking forward to being able to do things we haven’t been able to enjoy for such a long time now. I never thought I’d miss cricket, you know – but I do. I haven’t seen a decent cricket match since 1939 – because of course there hasn’t been one. No county matches, nothing. Only one-day games between scratch sides on private pitches. I shall look forward to going back to Lords, and the Oval. What will you look forward to doing, Helen?’

  ‘I don’t know, Jack,’ Helen replied, suddenly serious. ‘Probably because before the war I didn’t do very much. When I was married all I did really was that. I was married. I had my children, I brought them up as best I could, made as good a home for them as I could, but I didn’t do anything. Nothing that wasn’t centred round the family. There was Kate’s tennis, of course, but her father was so against that. Her father was so against Kate altogether, really. He was determined she would have no life of her own.’

  ‘You weren’t,’ Jack interposed. ‘Which was why you sent her to me.’

  ‘I don’t know what I would have done without you, Jack,’ Helen replied truthfully. ‘First of all you gave me work, then you took Kate under your wing; then, after – after everything else that happened
, you took me back again. I can’t thank you enough.’

  ‘It means that much to you, Helen, does it?’ Jack wondered quietly. ‘Your work? Or is it just the fact that you’ve got something to do?’

  ‘Fair enough.’ Helen smiled, getting the implication. ‘You’re at perfect liberty to ask that, because when I began to work for you I had no idea how much of a patriot I was, or wasn’t. Now I can say – hand on heart – that it isn’t just working that matters to me, Jack. It’s very much the sort of work I do. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for this country of ours. I just wish I was young enough to be of more use.’

  ‘Why does it matter that much to you, Helen?’ Jack said, offering her a cigarette and then lighting it and his own. ‘You don’t mind me asking, do you? But not everybody feels the way you do. In fact many people who’ve been through—’ he stopped. ‘Who’ve had your sort of experience, shared that kind of thing—’

  ‘Yes?’ Helen suddenly leaned forward in her chair to stare at Jack. ‘Yes? Yes? What? Many people who’ve shared my sort of experience of what exactly?’

  ‘What’s that phrase?’ Jack wondered, looking straight back at her. ‘You know. Something about always hurting the thing you love.’

  Helen continued to stare at him for a moment; then, stubbing out the cigarette she had barely smoked, she got to her feet.

  ‘It’s been a lovely evening,’ she said. ‘But I think you ought to go now.’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t, Helen,’ Jack replied. ‘I have a job to do. It’s not a job I always like doing, but it’s a job that has to be done.’

  ‘If you’re suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?’

  ‘My turn to ask what,’ Jack cut in. ‘So yes, Helen? What?’

  ‘I really think you had better go.’ Helen turned her back on him and walked towards the door.

  ‘I have to examine every contingency.’

  ‘Yes. I realise that, but surely not to suspect me, surely not?’

  ‘I have to suspect everyone.’

  ‘If you think I am capable of treachery then you are not the man I thought you were. Hoped you were.’ She turned to look at him. ‘I’m not capable of treason, Jack,’ she continued steadily. ‘I love this country more than anything. And to betray it would be to betray everything I have always believed in. And other things that I have come to believe in – more than ever.’