‘Her father was on our wanted list at the end of the war. He should, by rights, have come to us.’ John heard him sniff. ‘We found out too late that Lieselotte was his daughter. We had no idea who she was at the time. Didn’t care who any of them were. If they had a pussy, we fucked them. Sweet revenge. What is it you say? Revenge is a dish best served cold.’ He laughed. ‘Cold revenge.’
You bastard.
‘Did you rape her?’ John said, fury rising so fast, so hard he had to hold his chair in case he threw himself at Anatoly, hands on his throat, squeezing out his breath. ‘Did you kill her?’
Anatoly smirked, puffed through his lips. ‘Does it matter now? Does it make a difference?’
‘Yes.’ John grabbed his glass, smashed it on the floor where it snapped in two, sharp shards for the grabbing.
‘Then no,’ Anatoly said. ‘But I know who did.’ He leaned forward, picked up the broken glass, placed it on the arm of his chair, out of John’s reach.
‘Piece by piece, a puzzle fell into place,’ Anatoly went on. ‘We kicked ourselves about losing Lieselotte, but once we knew who she was, I knew she had a sister, dressed as a boy, called Bert.’
He sniffed again, and John saw the glint of his cufflinks as he wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
‘Bette. Bert. Betty. I knew Bert, did you know that? I knew she wasn’t a boy, too. But Bert disappeared.’ He tapped his leg. ‘Not before she did me serious harm.’ He shrugged. ‘I don’t blame her, really. But she must pay for her behaviour. Everyone must face up to the wrongs they have done in the past, don’t you agree? Take the punishment like a man.’ He laughed. ‘Bette. You.’
John heard the quiet pull of the stopper on the bottle, the glug as Anatoly poured himself another drink.
‘If we’d have known,’ Anatoly went on, ‘we’d have kidnapped his daughters and he’d have come running. We’d have saved you all this bother. It’s strange, isn’t it, how history turns on blunders?’ His lips glistened from the vodka, were thin, could twist like a wire. ‘It’s always the little things that trip you up. Of course, we knew you’d be a double agent. We weren’t naïve. You’d report to your Major Buchanan like a schoolboy sneak, and they’d use you to give us disinformation.’
Anatoly was becoming talkative, as if the drink had relaxed his mouth. Don’t be fooled, John told himself. His wits are sharp.
‘We didn’t expect you to be withdrawn so soon, that was our miscalculation. But we kept tabs on you, just in case. Once an agent, always an agent. I expect your side does the same. Have you thought of that?’ Anatoly hiccupped, lifted his glass once more, drained it. ‘So now you know. We told you everything about your new lover. Her patrimony as a German, her lineage as the daughter of a physicist.’
He stood up, his tall frame looming in the dark.
‘You have four weeks before we let it be known that you double-crossed your own side, that you were a double, double agent.’
He turned at the door.
‘Don’t get too upset about Lieselotte. It was a long time ago, and all’s fair in love and war.’
He sniggered and walked out of the door, his limping steps echoing down the stairwell, heavy, light, heavy, light. John reached over and switched on the standard lamp.
Anatoly had left the remains of the bottle.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
London: September – October 1958
Her name was Miss Joan Scott. She stressed the Miss. One rumour had it that she’d been a WRN and lost her fiancé in the war. The other said she was a lesbian. She had her own office, a small cubbyhole next to one of the senior partners, looking out over the fire escapes and roofs at the back of the building. She supervised the typing pool, enforced discipline with a sharp tongue and a strict adherence to the rules.
‘Only this is very short notice,’ Miss Scott said. ‘And we’re very busy.’
‘You can take it off my holiday entitlement.’ Betty wished now she’d just called in sick on Monday. ‘It’s important,’ she added. ‘Urgent.’
Miss Scott crossed her hands on her desk. ‘Are you in trouble?’ she said.
‘Oh no,’ Betty said. ‘Nothing like that. It’s a family matter. Crisis, really.’
‘Crisis?’ Miss Scott gave a lopsided smile, pushed herself up from her chair and walked over to the window, her back to Betty. She folded her arms, her fingers tapping her back. She wore no rings. ‘What about?’
‘I’d rather not say, if you don’t mind,’ Betty said. She’d have to make up a lie if Miss Scott pressed her. She should never have asked for time off. Just taken it. She was entitled to sick pay, not a holiday at short notice.
‘I’d like you to be straight with me. This family crisis, is it of a personal nature?’
Betty swallowed. ‘Sort of,’ she said. ‘Yes.’
‘Mmm.’ She lifted up the sash window, leaned out and shooed away a pigeon. Betty watched it fly off. It’ll be back, she thought.
‘I knew a young woman once, before the war,’ Miss Scott was saying, peering out of the window. ‘Madly in love with her boss, a married man. He promised he was going to leave his wife.’ She paused and Betty saw her shoulders rise and fall with her breathing. ‘The young woman got pregnant and when she told him, he didn’t want to know. He fired her, instead. She was destitute. No job. No money. No family to speak of. It’s the loneliest place in the world, to have no means and be expecting a child, don’t you agree, Miss Fisher?’
Betty stared at her lap, not daring to look up. ‘Yes. It must be.’
‘It was the loneliest decision that young woman ever made,’ Miss Scott went on. ‘To go on a short holiday like that. Will you be alone, Miss Fisher, on your little trip?’
Betty hoped Miss Scott would not notice her eyes welling up. ‘Yes,’ she said.
‘And which hotel did you say you were staying in?’
‘I didn’t,’ Betty said, sniffing hard. How did Miss Scott know? The nurse had said she shouldn’t be on her own, not that first night. They’d be blood, she’d been warned. She couldn’t be at Dee’s. It wasn’t fair on her, or right for the children. Kevin would suspect something. There was only one lavatory. There’d be people in a hotel, so she could get help if needs be. There were some cheap B & Bs near Paddington. She could stay in one, just for the night. She could just about afford it.
Miss Scott had returned to her desk, had put on her reading glasses, was staring into a drawer, tilting her head so she could see at the back. She stopped, peered over the tops of her spectacles.
‘I know you girls think I’m an ogre,’ she said, and smiled with those strange, twisted lips. Betty hadn’t expected her to react like this. It was possible that Miss Scott would turn her over to the police, but then, Betty thought, she hadn’t actually admitted anything, or incriminated herself.
‘You mustn’t be alone,’ Miss Scott went on. ‘If something went wrong, it could prove fatal without medical help.’ She pulled a key from the drawer. ‘There. I knew I had it somewhere.’ She smiled and this time there was a warmth there, sympathy. ‘Where are you having it done?’
‘Herne Hill.’ Betty swallowed.
‘That’s convenient. As it happens, I live in Streatham High Street, in one of those mansion flats above the shops, opposite the ice rink.’ She pulled a compliment slip from a stash on her desk, wrote on it and pushed it over to Betty, along with the key. ‘This is my address, this is my key. You can stay with me.’
Relief flooded through Betty, a rush of safety and warmth.
‘Get a cab.’
‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ Betty said. ‘I truly don’t. You’ve been so kind, so considerate. How did you know?’
‘I have a nose for these things,’ she said.
‘Do you help everyone like this?’
Miss Scott waved her hand. ‘There’s something about you, Miss Fisher,’ she said. ‘I can see you’re no flibbertigibbet. I don’t suppose you’ll stay in the typing pool for long. You�
��ll go far. Now, get back to your work.’
Betty stood up, extending her hand. ‘I can’t thank you enough, Miss Scott.’
‘Not a word to the others. Or,’ Miss Scott added, ‘to anyone.’
Betty could hear the clacking of the typewriters on the floor below. She didn’t have many strokes of luck, she thought, but this was one for sure.
§
The typing pool looked out over Lincoln’s Inn Fields. She used to see him waiting there, would rush to meet him, holding his arm with two hands and leaning close as they sauntered in the gardens, or up to King’s Cross before she caught her train back to Hatfield. Now as she glanced out of the window she felt the bite of panic. It was three weeks since she’d last seen him, two weeks since the abortion. She’d been pushing the whole encounter with him – there was no other word for it – to the back of her mind, shuffling it into place with other unpleasant encounters. Encounter, she thought, was a good word. Something difficult, and unexpected. Like the pregnancy, the abortion.
She hadn’t thought it would hurt so much, or bleed so heavily. She’d felt as if she were on the rack, her bones torn from their tendons, tendons from muscles, hour after hour. Miss Scott came back after work, took her temperature. Betty screwed her eyes tight, screamed as the catheter tube the woman had inserted slipped out and with it the little slug covered in blood, which she flushed down the lavatory. She hadn’t thought it would leave such a hole of longing, of what might have been.
She’d had no choice. But she hated John with a bloodied, visceral contempt, as powerful as a fist.
She looked out again. She’d have to get past him. There was a fire escape, but that led nowhere. If she left with the others, she could hide behind them, safety in numbers. Or ask one of the partners if she could leave with him. John wouldn’t dare approach her if she was with another man.
‘Hurry up, Miss Fisher,’ Miss Scott said. ‘I need to lock the room.’
Betty pulled her bag from the desk drawer, and the cardigan off the back of her chair. She’d used her lunch hour to type out two articles, one for the U & LR, one for Peace News, and the folder sat on her desk. She picked it up as Miss Scott raised an eyebrow.
‘When I gave you permission to use the company typewriter on personal business, Miss Fisher,’ she said, ‘I rather imagined it to be a short letter or something similar.’
Betty smiled. ‘I used my own paper,’ she said. She walked past her, into the Ladies, locking the door behind her. She’d wait here. John would see the other women leave and think he’d missed her, and with luck he’d go on his way.
‘Miss Fisher.’ There was a knock on the door and Miss Scott called out, ‘I just need a brief word with you, when you’re ready.’
Apart from using the company typewriter, in her own time, with her own paper, Betty knew her work was exemplary. Still, she felt nervous. Miss Scott had made it clear when Betty was staying with her that friendship was off limits, and she’d maintained a professional distance ever since. Betty pulled the lavatory chain, waited a moment, unlocked the door.
‘Sorry to rush you,’ Miss Scott said. ‘Or intrude. I forgot to tell you that a gentleman rang.’
‘Oh?’
‘You know we don’t permit personal calls. Fortunately, he didn’t want to talk to you. Just to confirm that you still worked here.’ She pointed with her hand, walk along.
‘Did he give a name?’
‘I didn’t catch it,’ she said. ‘Some foreign name.’
They reached the staircase. Betty grabbed the bannister. ‘What did you tell him?’
‘I referred him to one of the partners. I said I wasn’t authorised to give that kind of information.’
‘Thank you,’ Betty said. Miss Scott opened the street door. John was leaning against the railings.
‘Would you like me to accompany you to the Tube?’ She looked at Betty through the side of her eye, a glance that said, I’ve been there too.
‘Yes please,’ Betty said. Hesitated. She had to have it out with him sometime, understand why he was seeing Vasily, find out the connection with Lieselotte. Whether it was he who had rung inquiring, or someone else. Now was as good a moment as any. ‘Actually, no thank you. I’ll be all right.’
Miss Scott smiled, that lopsided twist which made her look tart and cynical but which, Betty now knew, was neither of the kind. ‘He looks respectable enough,’ she said. ‘But then looks can be deceiving. By the way, you left a carbon copy on the typewriter.’ Added. ‘It read very well.’
She waited until Miss Scott had turned the corner before she faced John. He hadn’t moved, stood at the entrance to the forecourt, one fist on the handlebars of his bike.
‘Betty,’ he said, ‘please. I must talk to you.’
She shook her head. ‘You expect me to talk to you? Did you ring me today? Or was it Vasily?’
‘Vasily?’
‘Don’t play the innocent.’ She narrowed her eyes, temper rising like magma in a volcano. ‘Don’t lie. The Russian.’
He stopped, pulled breath.
‘Who is he?’ she said.
She saw him hesitate, as if weighing up whether to tell her or not.
‘The Russian I met is called Anatoly.’
‘No,’ Betty said. ‘His name is Vasily. I saw him go into your building.’
‘It’s possible he goes by several names,’ John said, pulling off his cycle clips. ‘Given his line of business.’
‘And what is his line of business?’
‘He’s a spy,’ John said. ‘His official role is cultural attaché, but that’s a cover.’
‘And how would you know that?’
‘This is what I’ve been trying to tell you,’ John said. ‘Please, let’s go and sit somewhere quiet.’ He pointed to the gardens.
She waited while he chained his bicycle to the lamp post. They walked through the square until they found an empty bench. It was chilly in the shade, a first cut of autumn, but the bench basked in the last of the September sun.
‘How do you know this man?’ John said. ‘This Vasily man. Anatoly, as I know him. One and the same. He’ll use several names.’
‘No.’ Betty shook her head. ‘Oh no. You tell me how you know him.’
It must have been Vasily who’d told John she was German.
‘Betty, I can’t tell you everything. Not because I don’t want to.’ He turned to her. ‘I want to more than anything, to be able to make up again. I can’t bear that we are apart, that I’ve lost you.’
‘So what’s stopping you?’
‘I can’t even tell you that. Perhaps, one day, you’ll find out. Let me go on.’
She shrugged.
‘I told you already that there were two Russians when I went to meet Lieselotte.’
Russian and British soldiers never met, not to converse, not at ordinary level, soldier to soldier, not then. He was making it up.
‘She hadn’t turned up but they knew I had arranged to meet her, because they said they’d take me to her.’ He breathed in deeply and she saw his leg begin to shake, the tremors return.
‘How did they know that?’
He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. They knew a lot about me.’
She looked at his face in profile, the bridge of his nose, the creases in his cheeks, his five o’clock shadow. Features once familiar and now strange. She’d been in love with this man, and even now there was desire that cut sharp as a scythe. It surprised her, shocked her even, nestling there as powerful and urgent as the need to injure him.
‘I didn’t know she was dead.’ His voice was soft as he went on. ‘I followed them, underneath the Lichtensteinbrücke. She was in the mud.’
He lurched forward, his head in his hands, shuddering. He paused a while before he spoke, his voice soft and cracked.
‘I cradled her. There were bruises on her neck where she’d been strangled.’
‘Was there a chain around her neck?’
‘A chain? No. Just bruises, ugly
blue bruises. Whatever she’d been strangled with had broken the skin at one point.’ He paused. ‘Perhaps it was from a chain. Why?’
He stared into the distance. Betty followed his gaze, at the leaves in their autumn retreat, at the last of the summer’s dahlias. Perhaps John had told the truth.
‘She was wearing a chain,’ she said. She’d mention the key later. ‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing,’ John said. His eyes clouded over, and he wiped them on the back of his hand. His lips began to quiver. ‘I’m so sorry, Betty.’ He shook his head ‘I didn’t even shut her eyes.’ He held his head again, sobbing as if his body would break. ‘I couldn’t.’
‘You left her there?’
‘These two Russians,’ he said, ‘one was Anatoly and the other was an older man.’
She watched as his face twisted and contorted, as if he was squeezing out the memory, or squeezing it away. But the memory was already hers, had landed like an eagle on its prey, plucking at her heart, her guts, clawing at her flesh. She could see Vasily as clearly now as she had then. Boris too. Had he been the older man? Did it matter now, did it make a difference? Someone had grabbed Lieselotte, choked her to death. She must have struggled, tried to fight him off, eyes popping and lungs straining. She was small, weak. They were all weak. She hadn’t stood a chance. Lieselotte had been murdered.
‘The younger of the two, Anatoly, took me aside,’ John was saying, his voice so soft Betty didn’t hear him speak at first. ‘They wanted information that I had access to. They were going to blackmail me with Lieselotte’s murder.’ He ran his hand over his face, through his hair. His eyes were heavy with tears and his knee was shaking in a violent spasm. She understood the cost of his pain.
He sat up straight then, shoulders back, and she saw him as a soldier looking brave. Or an actor squaring up to his audience.
‘And?’
‘I’ve already told you more than I should. I’m sorry. I can’t tell you more.’
‘You spied for them?’
He shook his head. ‘No, it’s not as simple as that. Please, Betty, trust me.’ He looked at her and she found herself shaking her head. ‘I can’t answer that.’ He was telling her a barefaced lie, she was sure. He had been an eighteen-year-old conscript. What could he possibly know that was of interest to the Russians? He was an English Walter Mitty, living on fantasy and lies.
The Forgotten Page 24
