Edward Trencom's Nose: A Novel of History, Dark Intrigue and Cheese

by Giles Milton

  Demetrios orders Peregrine to stay in the lee of the peak, where an old Krupps machine gun has a magnificent sweep across the western slope of the mountain. ‘Only fire if they’re close,’ warns Iannis. ‘Otherwise, you risk hitting us.’

  The men embrace, as they do whenever they go to fight. ‘Kyrie eleison!’ they call to each other. ‘Lord have mercy and may God protect us.’ They cross themselves three times and pick up their guns. ‘Until tonight.’

  Within seconds, all six men have disappeared. Two head towards the southern spur. Two others make their way to the hideout on the eastern promontory, known as ‘the lair’. Kostas and Iannis head straight down the western flank of the mountain, hoping to block the path of anyone coming up. Peregrine is left alone and he shifts himself closer to the machine gun.

  An hour passes. And then another. At some point during the afternoon, Peregrine munches on some touloumotyri and realizes that the sun is now on the far side of the mountain. ‘Gracious,’ he says. ‘How did that happen? Did I fall asleep?’

  A noise from below suddenly causes him to start. He hears a rock dislodge itself from the mountainside, then detects the clatter of metal striking on the ground. He freezes, rooted to the spot. It is not Demetrios or his men. They can’t be back yet. Nor can it be a monk climbing up from one of the monasteries below. He would have given a warning. As Peregrine sits there, staring downwards, he feels a wave of goose pimples work their way up his arms and legs. For the first time he feels fear. Yes, he is truly afraid. Where are his comrades? Why did he agreed to stay here alone?

  In absolute silence – and still shaking with fear – Peregrine shifts himself over to the machine gun. Then, still in silence, he swings the barrel of the gun in the direction of the sound he has just heard. He is sure there is someone there.

  He notices a bank of clouds on the horizon. Strange, he thinks. The sky was brilliant blue just a few moments earlier. How can he have failed to notice such dark clouds? The wind stiffens. It suddenly feels chill. Peregrine curses the fact that he is not wearing more layers.

  When the attack comes, it is sudden and furious. Peregrine notices a flash of movement on the grassy ledge below. One, two, three soldiers are creeping up – their guns trained on Peregrine. Automatically and quite without thinking, he squeezes the trigger on the machine gun. Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tumtum. It spits out an endless volley of shot, sending convulsions up Peregrine’s arm and into the blades of his shoulders. Tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tum-tumtum-tum-tum-tum-tum.

  He is just about to swing the gun around to a noise on his right when he feels a thud deep in his head. It is as if someone has struck his head with a hard rock. His eyes go blank. There is a blackness in his brain. In the space of what is less than two seconds, Peregrine Trencom passes from life to death.

  He reels backwards, pushed off balance by the force of the shot. His back hits the edge of a rock; his head lands with a squelch on the cheese-filled goatskin. Consciousness leaves him with extraordinary speed. He has no time to think of his wife and son. The last vague stirrings of his mind register the pungent smell of goat’s cheese and two German soldiers standing over his body. They look at his nose and smile. ‘Das ist unser Mann!’ Peregrine Trencom is someone they have been hoping to kill for more than eighteen months. And now he lies dead.

  28 JANUARY 1969

  On the fifth day after his lunchtime visit to Richard Barcley’s office, Edward returned home from work rather earlier than was his custom. Although he had been shaken by the sight of the man staring at him from the building opposite, he had been reassured by the fact that three whole days had gone by without him so much as catching a glimpse of him. Yet still he felt uneasy. On two occasions he had dreamed that someone was chasing him through a maze of interconnecting streets and only the previous night he had woken in a cold sweat. He had been trapped in a nightmare in which a faceless spectre had its hands gripped tightly around his throat.

  Each day at work, Edward hoped against hope that the man from the tour group would reappear. Again and again, he reflected on what the man had said, yet he could still make no sense of it whatsoever. ‘We need you. All our hopes are pinned on you.’ Why, why, why? And why on earth should he, Edward Trencom, who had never done anyone any harm (so far as he could recall) suddenly find himself in grave danger?

  It was all most peculiar. He had even telephoned Mrs Williamson to ask if she could remember anything more about the man. ‘Not a great deal, Mr Trencom,’ said Mrs Williamson, who was most delighted that Edward had called her at home. ‘But I’d be more than happy to meet up for a cuppa if you like. I might be able to remember a few details if I put my mind to it.’

  ‘Oh, no, Mrs Williamson. I don’t want to inconvenience you unduly.’

  ‘Oh, it’s no trouble,’ interjected Mrs Williamson. ‘Really. No trouble at all.’

  ‘But do call me,’ continued Edward, ‘at Trencoms if you remember anything more.’

  He bid her good day and replaced the phone on the receiver. Within less than a minute, it rang.

  ‘I do recall one thing,’ said Mrs Williamson. ‘He came from Salonika, yes, and he said he was here on business. I even remember asking him what sort of business, which seemed to annoy him.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Edward. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He told me it was personal,’ said Mrs Williamson. ‘And I had the distinct impression, Mr Trencom, that he thought I was being nosey. I wasn’t, of course. I just like to know.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ replied Edward. ‘You’re just too friendly and kind, Mrs Williamson.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ said a rather flustered voice at the other end of the phone. ‘It’s Edith, by the way. Or Edie. Whichever you like best. I didn’t realize that you were so, well, that you felt so …’

  Edward was suddenly so alarmed by the implications of having phoned Mrs Williamson at home that he decided to terminate the conversation before she could take it any further.

  ‘Well, good day,’ he said in a firm but friendly voice. ‘No doubt I’ll see you on the next tour.’

  ‘Yes,’ said an emotional voice at the other end of the phone. ‘And I’ll be looking forward to the cheeses that you select for me to try.’

  Edward’s disquiet at the manner in which Mrs Williamson had spoken to him was matched by the uneasiness he felt when serving in Trencoms. He no longer felt any sense of pleasure or satisfaction when the shop bell jangled. Now, the sound of the bell spawned two conflicting emotions. There was the fear that it might herald the appearance of the mysterious man from Queen Street. And there was the hope, albeit faint, that the individual from the tour group might reappear in order to explain exactly what he had meant by his cryptic warning.

  In such trying times, the presence of Mr George was a cheering one. Edward comforted himself with the thought that whatever else might happen in the world, there would always be Mr George. He had not revealed his anxieties to him – indeed, he had tried to press on as normal, unpacking cheeses and serving customers in the same cheery manner that had won him such a loyal clientele. Yet the intuitive Mr George had already noticed that something was not quite right. Each evening, he would arrive home and greet his cat with the words: ‘That Mr Trencom – he’s got something on his mind.’

  The cat, Dubonnet, appeared to agree wholeheartedly. It nodded, miaowed twice and pawed at Mr George’s left leg.

  ‘Unless I’m very much mistaken, Dubonnet, history may well be about to repeat itself. Mark my words – he’s going to fall headlong into the same trap as his father.’

  Mr George had never been entirely sure as to what this ‘trap’ might be – and nor had he ever been able to fathom why Mr Trencom senior had left London in the middle of the war.

  ‘But it cost him his life,’ he said with a sigh, ‘and I’m told that the “trap” cost him his father’s life as well.’

  Dubonnet once again agreed with everything Mr
George said and pawed his leg with even greater vigour when his master reached for a tin of cat food.

  ‘And I’ve brought you a special treat tonight,’ he said, stroking Dubonnet under the chin. ‘A lovely slice of vinney – just for the two of us. We’ll share it for our tea. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Yes, you would! I know you would!’

  He cut the vinney in two equal parts and popped one into Dubonnet’s metal food bowl. The other he left on the kitchen worktop. He’d have it later in the evening, he thought. After his toad-in-the-hole.

  Richard Barcley had not taken Edward’s fears seriously at first. It all seemed so far-fetched and preposterous. But no sooner had he glimpsed the man opposite staring into his office than he realized that Edward had good cause to be concerned. There was indeed something strange about the man’s appearance at the window and Barcley promised to keep a careful watch on the building. With uncharacteristic bravado, he even promised to tackle the man if and when he should appear in the street.

  Shortly before leaving Barcley’s office, Edward had asked his old friend whether or not he should tell Elizabeth about everything that had happened. Barcley thought for a moment before giving his considered opinion.

  ‘Bad idea, old chap,’ he said. ‘You’ll only worry her. And you wouldn’t want to do that. Let’s keep it’ – he tapped his nose knowingly – ‘among ourselves. At least for the time being. Let’s speak every day – keep each other posted on developments. And, by the way, one other thought …’

  Edward looked expectantly towards his friend.

  ‘For heaven’s sake take care when you go home from work. Yes – make sure you’re not being followed. The last thing you want is for them – him – to know where you live. After all, you most certainly wouldn’t want to place Elizabeth in unnecessary danger.’

  Edward had not for one moment considered that the events that had occurred in the shop might spill over into his life at home. And yet Barcley was right. What if the man who was spying on him managed to find out where he lived? Taking heed of his friend’s warning, Edward decided to break his routine whenever he left work.

  ‘I’ll take a different route to the station each day,’ he thought. ‘And I must try to leave home at different times each morning. And leave the shop at different times in the evening. Surely that’ll be enough to throw them off my scent.’

  Thus it was that at 6.10 p.m. on the twenty-eighth day of January – fully twenty minutes earlier than normal – Edward left Mr George in charge of locking up Trencoms (the first time he had ever entrusted the keys to him) and made his way home to Streatham.

  He had not yet revealed to Elizabeth his fears of being watched and followed, but he had told her about his discovery of the family papers.

  Elizabeth’s reaction was curious and quite the opposite of what Edward was expecting.

  ‘I’m not always sure that poking around in the past is a good idea,’ she said bluntly. ‘Some things in life are best left untouched. Unless, of course, you’re properly equipped.’

  Edward was so surprised by what she said that he didn’t even hear her last comment.

  ‘But, Elizabeth, you know how much I want to find out these things. I know almost nothing about my father – and even less about my grandfather.’

  ‘But what you do know is hardly appealing,’ she said, glowering at him. ‘Think about it, Eddie. Your father – he abandoned his wife and young son, you – in the middle of wartime. It’s – it’s …’ She thought for a moment, aware that she needed to choose her words with care. After all, Edward had never really come to terms with his father’s disappearance. But then she thought better of it. No, now was not the moment to choose one’s words with care.

  ‘It was downright selfish of him. Leaving Emily like that. And you, for that matter. He must have been completely bound up in his own little story. I’m afraid I’ve got no sympathy for him. None whatsoever.’

  Edward was momentarily left speechless; he’d never heard Elizabeth talk quite so frankly. He conceded that she had a point – his father’s behaviour had been strange. And his mother had certainly resented it for the rest of her life. But that only made him more curious to discover what had happened and he found it odd that this was something Elizabeth didn’t seem to understand.

  Later that evening, after he had finished the drying up, Edward looked again at one of the letters that he had found among the family papers. He had studied it a dozen or more times already but couldn’t make any sense of it whatsoever. Far from providing any answers, it seemed to raise many more questions. The paper was of wartime quality and was stamped at the top with the smudged motif of a double-headed eagle. It was signed by a man named Demetrios, the leader of an organization that called itself the National Byzantine Liberation Army. Typed in poor English, and with the occasional word in Greek, it informed Edward’s mother that her husband, Peregrine Trencom, had been killed in action.

  On morning of 15 November, a group of Germans were sighted advancing up the west side of Agion Oros. We go to engage them, leaving him [Peregrine] in safety on the top … We fight the enemy for two hours and killed them all. We did not know about a second group advancing up the western side of mountain. We know nothing until it is too late. Peregrine Trencom is shot as a hero while defending his position.

  The letter concluded by informing Mrs Trencom that the National Byzantine Liberation Army was devastated by her husband’s death. ‘If all Greece knew of this tragedy,’ said the letter, ‘then all Greece would mourn. But his death must remain strictly secret, for obvious reasons.’

  Edward put the letter back in its envelope. ‘Why, Elizabeth?’ he asked. ‘Why all of Greece? What had my father done?’

  Elizabeth looked up from her needlepoint. She was in the middle of sewing a large and rather artful platter of cheeses and was having a most awkward time with the mould of the roquefort. The blue cotton, she thought, was far too blue and the green cotton was definitely the wrong sort of green. Mould was so terribly difficult to get right.

  ‘Was there nothing more about him in the box? Didn’t your mother tell you anything about him before she died?’

  Elizabeth put down her needle for a second and tried to place herself in Edward’s shoes. ‘Surely you remember something? After all, you must have been – what – almost nine years old.’

  ‘I was,’ replied Edward. ‘And that’s the strange thing. I don’t remember anything at all. And you know what mother was like. She refused point blank to speak about him. She never said a word. I don’t even know why my father went to Greece in the first place. He was forty-three years old – he had no need to fight – and yet he volunteered’ – he stressed the word ‘volunteered’ – ‘to abandon my mother and I. Why, Elizabeth, why?’

  ‘Well, it beats me,’ she said, with a finality and apparent lack of interest that irritated Edward. But Elizabeth had not yet finished.

  ‘To go off like that – I don’t know – some men get so obsessed with things that they lose all sense of proportion. They can’t see’ – she trawled her brain for a suitable metaphor – ‘the darkness from the night. As I said before, he must have been a very selfish man. And, frankly, I’m very glad you don’t take after him.’

  Edward fell silent for a moment. He leaned back in his chair and allowed his mind to wander. Just supposing, well, what if he’d had to go to Greece? Could he have been on some sort of special assignment? ‘You know what?’ pondered Edward, who was by now thinking aloud. ‘Perhaps he was working for the secret service. Perhaps that’s why his name could never be mentioned at home.’

  ‘I hardly think so,’ said Elizabeth in an uncharacteristically scornful tone. ‘You’d have found out after the war. Remember what Marjory told us? Her mother received a whole dossier of information when the war was finally over.’ And with those words – and a quick slurp of Earl Grey – Elizabeth turned her attentions back to the needlepoint roquefort.

  But Edward was unable to switch off quite so eas
ily. He put the letter down on the coffee table and stared blankly at the ceiling. ‘Greece, Greece, Greece,’ he said to himself. ‘What is it about Greece? My father died in Greece. The man on the tour group was Greek. And the stranger I followed through the streets was also Greek.’

  The more Edward thought about it, the more he convinced himself that he was not alone in knowing about his discovery of the Trencom family papers.

  29 JANUARY 1969

  On the following morning, Edward awoke rather earlier than usual and got dressed without having a bath.

  ‘My, you’re in a hurry this morning,’ said Elizabeth, who normally got out of bed before her husband. She was even more taken aback when she glanced over to the alarm clock. ‘Edward,’ she said. ‘It’s not even half past six.’

  ‘I know, I know,’ said Edward. ‘But I need to get into town early today. There’s a mountain of cheeses to be sorted and stacked and we’ve also got to do the monthly stocktaking.’

  ‘Well, I am surprised at you, Mr Cheese,’ replied Elizabeth with an early-morning yawn. ‘I hope this up-with-the-birds is going to be the exception and not the rule. I know you. Once you develop your habits, you don’t easily break them. Now, do you want me to come downstairs? I suppose I should get up as well.’

  Edward shook his head and headed down to the kitchen, where he ate a hurried breakfast. Instead of making Welsh rabbit, which required the grill to heat up, he ate a slice of bread and a large hunk of cheese.

  ‘Not nearly so good as when it’s cooked,’ he thought as he glanced at his watch. ‘But it’s gained me ten minutes. Should be able to make the two minutes past seven train if I hurry.’

  After taking three more sips of tea, he rushed back upstairs to say goodbye to Elizabeth. ‘I’ll try to be back earlier this evening,’ he said. ‘Assuming all goes well at the shop.’