The House of Flowers

by Charlotte Bingham

  They hurried out, locking the intercommunicating door as they went, before locking up the whole station and strolling out on to the main street.

  On their way back to the safe house, they threw the ring of keys into the canal.

  Poppy had been told nothing about the drop’s being a false one. She had simply been given her instructions just as if the whole mission was utterly bona fide, a set of orders given to her as usual after briefings by Cissie Lavington and Anthony Folkestone in his office. Poppy was code-named Armistice and the mission she was to embark upon was called Field Day. After her briefing, Poppy returned to her house to prepare herself for the departure she believed was scheduled for the following night.

  The only difference in the routine was that Jack Ward had been present during the whole of her briefing with Cissie, and then with Anthony. Other than acknowledging her arrival and departure, he had not addressed anything directly to his agent.

  Early the following evening, still in spring sunlight, Poppy was driven to the airfield from which Billy had departed on his first mission behind enemy lines. As they approached the row of small anonymous buildings and she saw the aircraft ready and waiting out on the tarmac, Poppy felt a deep thrill of excitement. While they waited for cover of darkness, Cissie and she checked and double-checked her papers and all the rest of her equipment. Then they sat smoking and chatting together as if waiting to be asked for a dance at some smart ball while the maintenance and flight crew prepared to leave.

  At ten to midnight all was ready. At eight minutes to midnight, as Poppy was buckling on her parachute, the telephone on the desk in the corner of the office rang. Cissie answered it at once, listened, said nothing, nodded and replaced the receiver. Then she walked across the room and closed the door.

  ‘Something the matter?’ Poppy wondered. ‘No last minutes hitches, surely?’

  ‘You’re not going, dear,’ Cissie said. ‘Nothing personal, but you’re grounded.’

  Poppy looked at her in open astonishment, about to protest. Cissie pre-empted her. ‘There’s absolutely no point, dear. Save your breath, because these are orders from the top. You’re not going and that’s it. So sit down, have another fag and cool your heels.’

  Poppy turned away, wanting to do anything and everything other than sit down, smoke a cigarette and cool her heels. She couldn’t believe Fate should conspire so cruelly against her that both her missions should be aborted, but she had and they had, so far from sitting down and cooling off Poppy felt like going round and smashing every single piece of furniture in the drab little office, breaking every pane of glass in the windows and then setting fire to the entire place.

  Instead, she stood by the window and watched with ever increasing bewilderment as the aircrew hurried out to the waiting aircraft.

  ‘I thought you said the mission had been aborted?’ she said angrily to Cissie.

  ‘It has, ducks, it has. This is something else altogether, believe you me. And something tells me it’s not just for your good, but for the general good.’

  Still baffled and angry, Poppy stood and watched the plane accelerate down the runway and disappear into the night.

  ‘You’re to disappear for a while too, I understand,’ Cissie said to her, as she escorted Poppy out of the back of the building to a small anonymous car that was ready and waiting for them in the alleyway. ‘The driver here will take you to a safe house where you are to remain until you are recalled. That’s an order. Cheerio.’

  Cissie slammed the passenger door on Poppy and banged on the roof of the car for the driver to leave. As the car bumped away down the uneven surface, Poppy sat back in her seat and swore long and roundly under her breath.

  ‘Beg pardon, miss?’ the driver said, half turning round to her. ‘Did you say something?’

  ‘Yes I did, as a matter of fact,’ Poppy replied. ‘Want to know what?’

  In response to his agreement, Poppy told him exactly what she had said. The driver said nothing for the rest of the journey.

  Exactly fifty minutes later the aircraft was over the dropping zone. They had flown through one light flak bombardment as they were crossing the French coast, then a surprisingly heavy one just when they thought they were well in the clear, but fortunately the enemy scored no hits.

  The pilot circled the zone once, as arranged, then dropped his dummy followed by some cases of what should have been vital equipment but was in fact nothing but fresh pig manure, thoughtfully collected and packed by someone with a ready sense of humour. As the plane departed, one of the crew looked back to see if all the parachutes had opened on their automatic rig, and saw the first flashes of gunfire as the ambush was sprung.

  ‘Good show!’ he called to his pilot. ‘Jerry’s there and taken the bait!’

  ‘Pity we didn’t booby trap those cases!’ the pilot returned. ‘Then he really would have got a nice little surprise!’

  On the home run not one anti-aircraft gun picked them up, so that two hours and ten minutes after departure the pilot landed his plane safe and unmarked back at the little airfield.

  Jack and Harvey examined the pilot’s report and a transcript of the French agent’s eyewitness account of the predicted ambush. They then reassessed the reports in the files before them on the desk in Jack’s private office high up in the attics of Eden Park before coming to their conclusion.

  ‘Good,’ Jack said finally, opening a brand new tin of tobacco he had purchased the day before in London. ‘Time to pull the net in, I’d say.’

  ‘Good work, boss,’ Harvey said, lighting up his own smoke having closed his files. ‘Want to tell me what finally persuaded you?’

  ‘The hat,’ Jack said, carefully lighting his pipe. ‘The peacock blue hat. We joke about women and their hats, probably because they take them so seriously.’

  ‘I take hats very seriously,’ Harvey replied. ‘But I’m not quite sure about peacock blue. That depends. It would certainly never be my first choice, except perhaps worn with black.’

  ‘I don’t want anything going wrong,’ Jack said, getting up from his chair to go and stare out of the attic window. ‘I don’t want to have this one jump out of the landing net.’

  ‘Everything should be in place by tomorrow, as you want, sir,’ Harvey assured him, neatly tapping his cigarette ash into his tin ashtray.

  ‘The longer I’m in this game the more I wonder,’ Jack mused, staring down at the parkland far below him. ‘Why, Harvey, why. It’s always the whys I find so difficult. It’s usually the last thing you suspect, too, when you’re trying to find a reason. If they don’t tell you, and you’re left guessing, now that really can mess a chap up.’

  ‘What do you think the why is in this one then?’

  ‘Search me, chum,’ Jack sighed. ‘Search me. Let’s just hope we find out.’

  Lily was beached, and she knew it. With the help of the Resistance she had been making steady if slow progress towards her northern destination, but then almost inexplicably all forward routes became impassable or unusable. Several sorties by bands of helpers she encountered during her travels had quickly to be aborted as they kept encountering German road blocks, new defences and worst of all a constant stream of incoming troops and armaments, all headed it seemed for the northern coastline and the defences immediately behind.

  She soon gathered it had to be because of the impending invasion by the Allied armies. Of course Lily had known this was on the drawing board, but the plan had been to keep ahead of the Germans as they moved their forces up into new positions, dodging the emplacements with which they were already familiar and utilising several new routes opened up by the French Underground fighters. It had all gone according to plan, until May when wherever they went or in whatever direction they turned either Lily and a small band of guerrillas came to a standstill, or Lily by herself found herself alone and stranded, just as she did now.

  Nor could she get back to her last position, having been cut off overnight by the arrival of battalions
of infantry and artillery who were now busy beginning to dig in what must be a secondary line of defences. Unable to move forwards or backwards, Lily used her initiative and began to scout laterally, spying out the new points of occupation and noting the rough size of the forces and the deployment of their heavy guns. Her head already contained information of paramount importance that needed to be relayed back to base so that it could be passed on to the designated receivers in both the British and the American forces as they prepared to invade Europe. Much of the information she had been sent to collect had already been transmitted back to base, but since she had begun her peregrinations through France, Lily had made it her job to learn as much as she could about the movements and positioning of the German forces.

  Now she was stuck, and well and truly so. Hiding out in a deserted house in a small town fifty miles inland from the Calvados coastline, consulting her map, she concluded that the whole of the northwest seaboard was going to be a no-go area, since that was where the invading armies were rumoured to be going to land. In fact it had to be more than a rumour from the way the Germans were preparing the defences along that coastline, so Lily had to look either to escape east across France and Belgium and into the Low Countries, or else to find a way to get lifted out of the area she was in now, which would mean someone having to fly in over the coastal defences and pick her up in front of the German’s second line of defence, a near impossibility. Or she could keep going laterally until she got to the Somme or Pas de Calais, districts that although still heavily occupied would not be quite so frenetically busy as the newly defended regions further west.

  But in order to get out she would have to make contact with base, and to do that she needed to re-establish contact with the Resistance. Most of those with whom she had been working lay south of where she was now, or north or even west. The further east she ventured the fewer contacts she had, and she might find herself depending on help from parties totally unknown and not recommended to her.

  In the end Lily decided on a much more ambitious plan of action, one that she chose because after a continuing series of non-starts and aborts every time she planned to make some ground, it seemed the only way she was going to survive.

  Lily decided to become a double agent.

  The day after Jack had announced his findings to Harvey in the attic office at Eden Park, Harvey set the agreed procedures in motion. On the stroke of ten thirty a.m. he was informed that the two women had arrived on the second floor as expected, and he at once telephoned through to Marjorie’s desk to give his next set of instructions. Having heard what she was to do Marjorie knocked on Miss Budge’s door to tell her that the two visitors expected by Major Folkestone were waiting with her in her office and would Miss Budge be good enough to inform the major.

  ‘There are two visitors to see you, Major,’ Miss Budge said, after being admitted into the inner sanctum. ‘I don’t have any appointments in your diary for this morning, sir.’

  ‘Who are they, Miss Budge? It might have been something we overlooked in our haste,’ Anthony said, looking up from his work. ‘There has been a bit of a panic on of late, as you know.’

  ‘Miss Hendry said it’s Kate Maddox, sir – and her mother?’

  Anthony glanced at his secretary again, tapping one of his famously sharp pencils in a tattoo on his desk. ‘Do we know what they want, Budgie?’

  ‘Confidential apparently, sir. I can easily stave them off, sir, make another appointment.’

  ‘No,’ Anthony said after a moment. ‘No, I don’t see why. I’m sure it won’t take long. And after all as I understand it Mrs Maddox works for us as well – albeit in Baker Street. No – have Miss Hendry show them in, please, Budgie, and perhaps you can organise us all some tea.’

  Miss Budge closed the door and returned to her intercom to instruct Marjorie to show the Maddoxes through.

  A moment later Kate put her head round the outer door.

  ‘Come through, Miss Maddox,’ Miss Budge said with a smile. ‘The major’s expecting you.’

  Kate entered as bidden, and crossed the small room towards the inner door being held open by Anthony Folkestone. A moment later her mother followed, wearing a smart grey topcoat and a bright peacock blue felt hat.

  Miss Budge watched them go into the inner office and Major Folkestone close the door. For a moment she stood quite still by her desk before finally turning and making for the outer door, which she carefully opened.

  Outside on duty stood two large military policemen.

  As soon as he had closed the doors behind him Anthony put a finger to his lips to indicate to his visitors that they were to say nothing for the moment. Then, talking only the merest small talk, he made his way round behind his desk and handed some papers to Helen and Kate.

  He continued to chat while the two women read what was on the sheets of paper in their hands, talk that contained no important information but none the less was being directly overheard by an invisible third party – invisible to them, that is, but not to anyone who might have been in the outer office where they would have seen Anthony’s trusted assistant listening to every word that was being said by way of a small earpiece attached to the intercom on her desk, a device adapted like the one on Major Anthony Folkestone’s desk by Miss Budge herself to pick up any conversation being held within the inner office, a secret outlet controlled only by the one switch on Miss Budge’s machine.

  So far she had heard nothing that was of any interest, nothing that would tell her what she wanted to hear or indeed needed so desperately to hear, such as how Helen Maddox had come by such a remarkable piece of millinery.

  Just in time she saw the outer door opening, enough time for her to drop the earpiece back into its nest of cotton wool in the top drawer of her desk that faced that outer door. Jack Ward stepped into her domain, with a nod and a polite smile.

  ‘Good morning, Miss Budge,’ he said. ‘Don’t bother to announce me – the major is expecting me.’

  Jack let himself into the inner office, carefully closing the door behind him. Immediately Miss Budge retrieved her listening device and tuned back in.

  How did I come by it? she heard Helen Maddox saying, with a laugh. You had best ask the Colonel that, I think.

  Bit of burglary, Jack Ward growled. Personally effected as it happens. I’ve always enjoyed that side of it, you know – the burglaring.

  Should imagine you’re very good at it, sir, Anthony replied. Like most things you do.

  I have to say I find it oddly exciting. Although in this case . . .

  Yes, sir?

  A little sad really.

  Miss Budge sat down slowly at her desk, staring across the room, the listening device still held to her ear.

  You always hope against hope, you know, Jack Ward said. At least I do. Times like this I find myself hoping I’m wrong, but the sad thing is I rarely am.

  So who does the hat belong to? Kate was now asking. Are you saying whoever owned this hat—

  Someone hushed her. Miss Budge definitely heard someone make a hushing noise. Now there was silence in the room.

  Now there was whispering. Miss Budge pushed the device more tightly against her ear, trying to hear what was being said.

  Come on, she whispered to herself. Come on, damn you! Come on!

  After all, she had been able to hear everything before – every single detail of every single drop, and dodge; the names of every single agent, new or experienced, as well as all the map references, the reports on the missions, the statistics, the future plans. She had heard everything so clearly that she had soon stopped bothering opening the major’s wall map to make sure of the placings. It had been as easy as that – no need to access files, no need to try to learn the combinations of the safes – just use the bugging skills she had been taught when she was an active agent herself. It was as easy as that—

  She eyed the inner door, just in case it burst open and they confronted her – but to judge from all the whispering that was
still going on they were too busy to bother about her.

  She knew they must know. Jack Ward must know. It was Jack Ward who had burgled her flat. Blast that hat. Damn and blast that stupid hat. But who had seen her in it? She had only ever worn it to the station to meet the informant. Kurt. Kurt – who had said he loved her – sworn he loved her and would love her for ever – that bastard to whom she had entrusted her beloved Tansy.

  The whispering had stopped. Miss Budge glanced backwards towards the door behind her, her free hand clasping the locket round her neck, the locket she now opened, the locket that held her favourite picture of Tansy – Tansy sitting on the lawn in the sunshine, as good as gold, as sweet as any angel. What had happened to her?

  She heard voices.

  What will happen? What will they do?

  What they have to do, I’m afraid.

  My God.

  The poor girl.

  The poor wretched woman.

  No. Oh no they wouldn’t. They wouldn’t do that to her. She had decided long ago that if and when this moment came, she would know just what to do. She reached quickly for the key to her desk drawer and in seconds had unlocked it and pulled it open.

  The door behind her was opening now, and as she turned she could see Jack Ward. She could see his face. And she could see the question in his eyes.

  But it was too late. Too late for Jack to find out why she had done it. As he moved towards her all he could smell was the acrid scent, the never to be forgotten smell of cyanide.

  Later that morning, another of Jack’s people was trying on a hat in a smart little shop in the centre of Rouen, watched by an admiring German captain who was sitting on a chair smoking a black Sobranie cigarette with one hand and tapping the side of his shining black jackboots with a swagger stick held in the other.

  ‘What do you think, Eric?’ Lily wondered, turning her elegantly clad figure round so that the officer could see her head on.

  ‘Captivating, my dear. The very picture of French chic.’

  ‘Do you want me to have it?’

  ‘You may have anything you like, my sweet. Up to a point, of course, yes?’ The officer laughed, as did Lily, as did the shop assistant, even though there was nothing remotely funny.