by Jack Treby
The baked potato looked dubious. ‘How do I know Mr Latimer sent you?’
‘You don’t,’ I snapped. ‘But I don’t see anybody else waiting around here for you.’ Actually, there were quite a lot of people milling about, but we were the only ones underneath the clock. ‘Harry said you might be difficult. He told me to tell you: “Mr Monroe owes you a favour”.’
The little man considered this for a moment. ‘All right,’ he agreed, lifting up the holdall and handing it across. ‘Here you go.’ I could tell he was reluctant, however. He'd held onto the handle for a fraction too long.
‘You’re too kind,’ I said, pulling the bag firmly away from him. The nerve of the fellow. What was Harry thinking of, associating with an ill-bred brute like that?
Hargreaves was waiting outside the station. He looked rather dapper, standing next to my gleaming blue Morris Oxford in his immaculately laundered chauffeur’s uniform. He always scrubbed up well, did Hargreaves, though he was not a handsome man. He opened the passenger door for me and returned to the driver’s seat.
Thomas Hargreaves had been my valet since before the war and, though it pains me to admit it, he was rather good at his job. The badly organised parade of half-wits who have followed him in recent years have reinforced in my mind what a useful fellow he was, though I would never have admitted it at the time. No, Hargreaves was a loyal and dependable servant whose devotion to my well-being would have been insufferable had it not been so damned useful. He knew his place and more importantly, he knew how to keep a secret. Which was just as well. He had known the truth about me from the day my father had employed him – how could he not, when it was he who dressed me every morning and ran my bath every Monday and Thursday night – but he had protected that secret over many years with the single-minded devotion of an overgrown wolf cub. I suppose I should have been grateful, but he was paid well enough for the job.
Harry’s brown holdall was now resting firmly in my lap. It was a rather tatty looking thing, but the lock was well secured. I had no idea what was inside it, but it didn’t take a mathematician to work out that the contents could not be – as the Jews would say – strictly kosher. Not that this bothered me unduly. Whatever Harry was up to – smuggling, blackmail, forgery – it was his business, not mine. So long as he paid me the fifty pounds, I would happily deliver the goods, whatever they might be. What are friends for, after all?
I clicked my fingers and Hargreaves produced a penknife from his trouser pocket. He handed it across and I set to work on the lock.
Friendship is one thing, curiosity quite another.
Hargreaves watched patiently as I forced the mechanism. The man was a better pick lock than I was – he could probably have sprung it in half the time – but I was not about to give him the satisfaction. Servants are there for the donkey work, not the fun. And breaking into somebody’s holdall is dashed good fun, especially when you know the contents are unlikely to be anything legal. I unclipped the fastener and peered inside.
There was a large stash of money. About £20,000 in French Francs, though whether they were genuine or counterfeit notes I could not immediately tell. A small revolver nestled in a side pocket together with a round of ammunition. Knowing Harry, that was probably just for insurance. At the bottom of the bag, there was a thin cardboard folder containing some rather risqué photographs. These were almost certainly obscene, according to the letter of the law. Harry did have a penchant for the fairer sex but these photos were strictly business. Even so, I shielded the naked images from my valet.
I have never been attracted to women – too many wobbly bits for my taste – but having lived the life of a man for so many years I had developed a fairly robust understanding of the male mind. I knew what would happen if Hargreaves caught even a glimpse of such explicit images. I clipped the holdall shut before he got the chance. The last thing I needed was my valet getting hot under the collar.
I secured the lock and threw the bag onto the back seat.
‘Blackmail, I think. Or perhaps a pay off.’ Nothing out of the ordinary. I glanced across at Hargreaves, who was waiting patiently for my instructions. ‘Well, get on with it!’ I snapped. ‘We have an appointment to keep!’
The Copper Kettle tearooms were situated at the far end of Buckingham Street, slap bang in the middle of Aylesbury. Harry Latimer was standing in the doorway and he waved a cheery greeting as we chugged to a halt outside. His large, wide brimmed hat obscured most of his face, but the brilliant white of his perfectly chiselled teeth shone out even in the dull October afternoon. I waved my hand in return as Hargreaves came around to open the car door.
Harry stepped forward, eyeing the holdall as I pulled myself up. ‘Good to see you old man,’ he grinned, shaking my hand. He was an amiable fellow, a veritable grizzly bear of a man. He was handsome too, in a boyish way; perhaps not quite Rudolph Valentino but a passable Ivor Novello. He had an easygoing charm and a roguish demeanour that made him irresistible to a certain type of woman. The girls all swooned and their irate husbands waited in line to smack him in the face. Thankfully, I had been inoculated against his charms early on, when he had tried – unsuccessfully – to seduce my wife. Elizabeth adored young men but she had an abiding hatred of all things American, and this certainly included Harry Latimer. Our friendship had blossomed from then on.
We left Hargreaves to park the car and made our way inside the Copper Kettle. Harry had to duck his head to get through the door. It was one of those irritatingly quaint outfits that make a virtue of being old-fashioned. All oak beams and tiny windows.
‘Sorry to put all this on you,’ Harry said. ‘I hope it wasn’t too much trouble.’
‘It was an awful lot of trouble,’ I grumbled good-naturedly. ‘But I was happy to be of service.’
He grinned, gesturing to a table. ‘For the right fee, of course.’
We settled ourselves near a window overlooking the street. A waiter came across to take our order and the tea and scones duly arrived. It was not quite a pub lunch – the licensing laws precluded that at three o’clock in the afternoon – but Harry had come prepared, producing a small metal canister from his jacket and using it top up my teapot, before adding a dash of brandy to his own coffee.
I shuffled the holdall towards him under the table and he lifted up the case. ‘I’m obliged to you, old man,’ he said, examining the lock. ‘Shame I couldn’t get down there myself. That damn storm last night. I nearly drowned.’ He looked down at the case. ‘I’m guessing you picked the lock and had a quick rummage inside?’
‘Of course not, Harry. I wouldn’t dream of prying.’
‘Yeah. That’s what I figured.’ He smiled indulgently. ‘Just so long as you didn’t take anything that didn’t belong to you, old man.’ A flash of steel flickered briefly behind those sparkling eyes. There were limits even to friendship.
I raised up my hands. ‘We’re friends, Harry. No double dealing.’
That seemed to satisfy him. ‘Fair enough.’ He pulled out his wallet. ‘We said thirty, didn’t we?’
‘Fifty, I think.’
‘Are you sure it wasn’t forty?’
‘You can pick up your own bloody briefcase next time.’
‘Just checking old man, just checking. Can I write you a cheque?’ He grinned, catching my sour expression. ‘Cash it is then.’ He opened the wallet and quickly counted out ten crisp five-pound notes. I held each one up to the light, just to be sure. ‘They’re genuine, old man. I wouldn’t try to palm anything off on you.’
‘What about the French Francs? Are they genuine?’
Harry gave a non-committal shrug.
‘So what are you up to this time, “Mr Monroe”? A bit of blackmail? Or just another elaborate scam?’
‘Oh, you know...something like that.’
‘Just so long as you’re not intending to shoot anybody.’ A .32 calibre revolver was not exactly friendly, no matter who was carrying it.
Harry looked hurt. ‘Just a bi
t of insurance, old man. You can’t be too careful these days.’
I pocketed the cash and took a sip of tea. The brandy Harry had added gave a pleasant aftertaste. ‘So are you looking forward to our little reunion?’
Harry placed the holdall on the floor and leaned back in his chair. ‘Oh, sure, sure. I haven’t seen the Colonel in years.’
‘No, neither have I. Though why he would choose to invite an old reprobate like you is beyond me. You’re not exactly his favourite person in the world.’
Harry had worked in the New York office of MI5 during the Great War – trying to persuade the Yanks to join in the mindless slaughter – but since then he had been a free agent and about as disreputable as they came. He was not exactly a gangster – though he’d done a bit of bootlegging in his time – but most of his business was on the wrong side of the law. Confidence tricks and racketeering mostly. Not something I was ever terribly interested in, but I admired his nerve. He got away with it too, most of the time, though there were warrants out for his arrest in several states back home.
‘Perhaps he wants to introduce me to his niece,’ Harry suggested, hopefully. The rogue had always had an eye for the ladies.
‘He never forgave you for the last one.’ The Colonel had only just managed to keep that affair out of the newspapers. If the scandal had broken, poor Annabel Cartwright would have been ruined. ‘Come to that,’ I added, ‘I can’t think why he invited me either. I’m all for a bit of a knees-up, but I only worked for him for five minutes.’
Harry smiled. ‘I guess he likes you, old man.’ He added a bit more brandy to his coffee and pocketed the canteen. ‘Can’t imagine why,’ he said.
Chapter Two
The mansion house at Bletchley Park was a crude and rather odd building, a vulgar mishmash of late-Victorian architecture, all archways, porticoes and shocking red brick, situated on the edge of an otherwise pleasant estate, itself sandwiched between a railway siding and the small Buckinghamshire town of Bletchley. It was an architect’s nightmare, but I rather liked it.
The estate, though modest, was heavily wooded, with a small lake surrounded by trees, colourful flowerbeds, neatly trimmed lawns and a short driveway leading on to the traditional carriage turnaround at the front of the house. Three or four cars were already parked there as our little Morris Oxford chugged up past the lake and onto the roundabout.
Two large stone griffins guarded the main door of the mansion. At the sound of the car, a tall well-dressed gentleman emerged from the faux-Jacobean arch. He had aged quite a bit since I had last seen him, but I recognised at once the familiar form of Sir Vincent Kelly, my former boss at MI5. This was Britain’s most trusted civil servant, the Colonel himself; probably the last man in England who could get away with wearing a monocle and not look like a complete idiot.
He came forward to greet us.
‘Afternoon, Butler. Delighted you could make it. I wasn’t sure whether you’d got our little note.’
We shook hands warmly.
‘Oh, I got it all right. Though it took me a while to decode it. Honestly! Invisible ink. This isn’t the nineteenth century, you know.’
‘Just a bit of fun. Sets the tone, what?’
I nodded amiably. ‘So, did you provide your own?’ The idea of the Colonel disappearing into the little boys’ room to manufacture his own ink was strangely appealing.
His thin lips formed a brief approximation of a smile. ‘Not my department. Ha ha!’ I had forgotten the Colonel’s extraordinary laugh. It was more of a bark than a chortle; the kind of verbal affront that would have done a Labrador proud. The man slapped me on the back good-naturedly. ‘You haven’t changed, Butler. Ha ha! It’s good to see you.’
The smile vanished as Harry Latimer stepped out of the car behind me. The Colonel gave him a curt nod. ‘Latimer.’
Handshakes were exchanged but with considerably less warmth.
‘It’s been too long, old man,’ Harry schmoozed. ‘How’s that little niece of yours?’
The Colonel ignored the barb. ‘Had a devil of a job tracking you down. What exactly are you up to these days?’
‘Oh, this and that. A bit of import, export. A bit of trading.’
Sir Vincent raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s what most of my chaps say.’ The Colonel was a rather severe looking man in his early fifties. At first glance, you would think him a cold-hearted military type, the kind of officer who would happily send thousands of young men over the top to face heavy machine gun fire. He had a long, thin face, a clipped moustache and the sort of neatly groomed black hair that invites suspicion in a man of his age. The reality was somewhat different. The Colonel was, by general consensus, a thoroughly good egg. He was shrewd and well-mannered, ruthless when necessary, but strangely uncorroded by decades of cloak and dagger work. He also had a rather mischievous sense of humour. That was the only reason I could think of for inviting Harry and me this weekend. ‘Nothing in the old line, I take it?’ he asked the American.
‘Not these days, sir,’ Harry said. ‘I’m more of an independent now. And purely commercial work. Nothing that would interest you.’
‘Well, that’s something to be thankful for.’ The Colonel pulled himself up and gestured towards the hallway. ‘Well, come inside, both of you. Make yourselves at home. The lady of the house will be down shortly. Townsend will show you to your rooms.’ A servant leapt forward to help Hargreaves with the luggage, though Harry kept a firm grip on his holdall. ‘Drinks at six. Dinner at eight-thirty. Remember though, no shop talk. Strictly mess rules this weekend. We’ve got some games organised for tomorrow and a dance band for Saturday evening.’
Harry caught the look of horror on my face and let out an evil chuckle. He knew how much I hated dancing. I had barely mastered the Charleston, after three years of trying. I didn’t have a hope with the Black Bottom or the Five Step. Harry, needless to say, was a master of them all.
‘Anyone we know?’ I asked, referring to the band.
‘We couldn’t afford Paul Whiteman,’ the Colonel joked. ‘But I daresay my chaps have found a decent local substitute.’ Another car was pulling up in the driveway. ‘Ah, you’ll have to excuse me,’ he said. ‘I think it’s the chap from the Daily Mail.’
Drinks were served as promised at six o’clock in the billiard room, to the left of the main staircase. A dozen or so guests were congregating in a room that looked for all the world like a medieval Great Hall in miniature. A solid, multi-arched ceiling and sleek oak panelling created a timeless atmosphere. Only the electric light hanging from the ceiling spoilt the illusion.
Lady Fanny Leon, an elderly but equally solid woman, was busily greeting the guests as they arrived in the hall. The Colonel hovered tactfully to her left, while a couple of servants began serving drinks from a table set up in a recessed arch at the far end of the room. Our hostess, though fearsome in aspect, proved meticulously polite.
The introductions were necessarily elongated. This was not a gathering of old friends. The Colonel had thought it a bad idea to bring together too many old acquaintances from the intelligence community and instead had selected a representative sample of some of the more memorable characters from MI5’s first two decades. Most of them were strangers, to me and to each other, but I did recognise one woman: Dorothy Kilbride, who had been a typist in 1911 and was now apparently in charge of payroll. Everyone knew Dottie, though few paid her much attention. Her conversation was legendarily dull. She had been a handsome woman in her day, though her looks had faded now, and she’d always been rather unlucky in love. Her first husband had caught a packet at Passchendaele in 1917 and her second had died of the Spanish Flu. After that, sensibly in my opinion, she had given up trying.
Harry Latimer was a stranger to everyone, apart from the Colonel, but his naturally gregarious nature had soon endeared him to a couple of bright young things. Typical Harry. I could see him turning on the charm, refilling the glasses of a young blonde and a rather pretty brunette over by the
door.
I was less fortunate with my own companions. Having only just lit a cigarette, I found myself cornered by a couple of crushing bores, one of whom was the Daily Mail journalist the Colonel had mentioned earlier on. I had thought he was joking. The damn swine cadged a cigarette from my case and introduced himself in one fluid move.
‘Anthony Sinclair.’ He extended a hand. I recognised the name if not the face. Sinclair was a journalist, a high-profile reporter, though more of a gossip-monger than a serious newsman. Needless to say, my wife adored him. The fact that he was here this weekend meant that he was also a former MI5 man, which was something of a surprise. Mind you, it was not without precedent. There are an awful lot of spies working in the newspaper business, even today.
‘You’re the fellow who wrote that piece on Mussolini,’ I said. Elizabeth had shown me the article over the breakfast table some months earlier, around the time of the General Election. I’ve always been a staunch Conservative, but even I had wrinkled my nose at that particular piece. Fascism in 1929 wasn’t the laughing stock it later became, but I have always disliked idolatry and Mussolini was a brutal thug by anybody’s standards.
‘I interviewed him last year,’ Anthony Sinclair boasted. ‘Charming man, in his way. Got his head screwed on, that one. Mark my words, gentleman, fascism is the future. We need strong government in this country, not a bunch of bloody socialists.’ It was a common enough view.
‘I always thought Mussolini was a bit full of himself, to be honest,’ I said, taking a puff of my cigarette. ‘Not terribly bright, so I’ve heard.’
‘That’s just communist propaganda. You should visit Rome. You’ve never seen a more peaceful and ordered city. And that’s with the Eye-ties in charge. I tell you, he’s doing that country a power of good. Not like these damned trade unionists we voted in over here.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said, feeling the sudden urge to be contrary. ‘A bit of a shake up every now and then does the country the world of good. And the Tories will be back in charge soon enough.’
