The London Restoration

by Rachel McMillan

  Simon nodded and followed him into the flat. They ascended to the second floor, and Brent knocked softly before creaking the door open.

  Something was clearly burning on the hob and Diana came from the kitchen looking delightfully flustered, cheeks flushed with the effort of her latest cooking disaster, hair in a kerchief.

  “Brent! Simon!” Her bright smile smoothed when she gazed at Brent. “What happened!” She dashed to him. “Are you hurt?” She peeled back his collar. “Oh my heavens!”

  “I was attacked in Rick Mariner’s office. Someone tried to kill me.” Brent pinched his nose. He studied her suddenly pale face and rallied a little. “But, my love, it’s nothing a cup of tea wouldn’t fix.”

  Several moments later, Simon sat languidly in the armchair and lit a cigarette. Brent sipped tea, and Diana presented a plate of charcoal bricks trying to be biscuits.

  Brent spread his hands over his knees. “I broke into Mariner’s office.” He looked at Diana while addressing Simon. “We had discussed it. I never should have given the vial to him in the first place. We’ve never really had a rapport . . . even professionally. But I do respect his dedication to the artifact.”

  “Rick didn’t . . .” Diana put her hand over her mouth, muffling her voice. “He wouldn’t . . .”

  “Rick didn’t attack me. It was another man. Someone clearly there to see Mariner. The same man we saw the other night at Garlickhythe.”

  “And you didn’t stop him?”

  “I was a little worse for wear and I guess I was more interested in having Mariner explain himself.”

  “But Fisher can’t be Eternity,” Simon said. “Because he is here and I don’t recall his being in Vienna.”

  “But he’s linked to him,” Diana said. “So we just need to figure out how. He’s in the city. He’s clearly making himself known. It won’t take long. I can draw him out. He’d want to see me, Simon. He’s not doing a very good job of hiding himself.” Diana huffed. “Why don’t you get your men on it now?”

  “There’s still not enough. I’m still hypothesizing.”

  Brent held up a hand and gestured at his neck. “I have a wounded neck that proves otherwise.”

  Simon nodded. “I want to do this my way.”

  “Because it’s gotten us so far.” Brent rolled his eyes.

  Diana opened her mouth to say something, then snapped it shut. Then she looked at Brent.

  “You clearly have something to say, Di,” Brent said.

  “It might sound . . .”

  Simon blew out a long rope of smoke. “Remember, Diana, whatever you see is valid. And valued.”

  “You sound like a propaganda poster.” Diana picked at a piece of lint on her skirt. “What if Eternity isn’t just one person? You saw that infinity sign as far back as Coventry, and it was easy to think this was one man. But what if it is several men? It could be a conclave of men. A circle.”

  “A ring.”

  Diana nodded. “And they all have equal share of the information. But each man is assigned to the place they would know best to help. I don’t know! But perhaps Fisher is to accomplish certain things, not for a boss but for the group. And as more and more men join the circle—”

  “They spread out,” Brent concluded.

  “But I have been to Vienna. Where are these men getting their orders? Who is calling the shots on where they pass this file? There has to be someone in the middle.”

  “I don’t know. But Fisher always went on about the equality he wanted after the war. No one barking orders. About no longer needing to worry about who had more. Wouldn’t that ideology of his warrant some sort of equal divide?”

  “It would mean that men could easily spread out across the city, all of the same . . .” Brent puzzled a moment before he settled on a military term. “Rank.”

  Simon rammed the butt of his cigarette into the teacup he had long since relegated to being his ashtray. He sparked another. “But there is no pattern.”

  “We’ll find it, Simon. Maybe even Rick Mariner is part of the pattern,” Diana said, then looked to Brent.

  “Rick said something to the effect of using the man for relics. You know that is his wheelhouse. I truly don’t believe he cares a whiff about any ideology. He’s only ever had one obsession.” He looked up from his teacup and recalled what Rick had said about Diana. “Make that two,” he added with a pointed look. “The assailant was familiar with our relic.”

  “Then perhaps Rick was the man we saw at All Hallows that first night. Or the man you thought you saw.”

  “I maintain Rick was genuinely surprised that we had it.”

  The conversation fell silent a moment.

  “Well, if there’s one thing Fisher loved, it was showing off to me,” Diana said. “Look at him now using all of these churches. He’s not exactly being subtle about it.” She looked to Brent. “And now he’s skulking around King’s meeting Rick Mariner. He may not have known we were married, but he did know you taught there.”

  “Everyone knew you taught there.” Simon nodded. “She never shut up about you.”

  Brent placed his empty cup on his saucer. “Flattered.”

  Simon eventually saw himself out, and Diana turned to Brent, who was arranging a blanket for the sofa.

  “Oh, absolutely not. You’re hurt.” She stroked his hairline. “You get the bed.”

  Chapter 22

  Diana woke early to painstakingly keep the eggs from burning. She gave Brent the entirety of their butter ration and ensured the rashers of bacon were just as crisp as he liked them. Not only was he hurt, but the attack the night before had stirred one of the worst nightmares since his return. He kept saying Ross’s name amidst several mutters.

  She had pulled her knees to her chest to listen, feeling guilty she was hearing snatches of a conversation that had little to do with her. Half a dozen times, she rose in the direction of the open door, only to stop by how much worse she would make it if he accidentally hurt her. She didn’t fancy any more setbacks, but listening to him wrecked her just the same.

  She didn’t mention the dream, rather ensured his hat and coat were ready. “No more covert break-ins.” She leaned up to kiss his cheek before she studied the line at his neck. “I don’t fancy the outcome.”

  Once he was gone, she moved Ditchfield’s book that had taken almost permanent residence on the dining room table to study the Köchel Catalogue Brent brought home from the library at King’s a few days before. She closed her eyes to recall Fisher’s workstation. The infinity symbol at his workstation was just a mathematical figure to her.

  Was the Köchel Catalogue the key to crack what was hidden in Simon’s file? She had now heard the Mass in C Minor twice performed since the war. Number 427. Could the four denote the fourth letter of the alphabet, the two the second, the seven the seventh?

  She knew she was close. In her early time at Bletchley, she loved the anticipatory moments when she was confused and unseeing only to subsequently translate something. Then, with Fisher, when the static would crackle and she would clearly hear a line of command or directive.

  She wasn’t sure how long she had been sitting there when a knock sounded on the door, and she hopped up to open it.

  “Mrs. Somerville.”

  She took the small wrapped package to the table. For a moment, the previous sleepless night and Brent’s injury prickled at her, and she gingerly untied the string around it. She was only halfway through the wrapping when the telephone rang. Brent was meeting with Sam Hunt and would miss dinner.

  Diana rang off and returned to the table, taking a deep breath and ripping the rest of the wrapping. A small box that might once have held a ring now sat in her palm. She opened it slowly to reveal a shiny, brand-new farthing. Under it was a small piece of paper that merely read 1800 hours. The same time that the classical music program was often most clearly heard when she and Fisher had listened together. He could have just sent a telegram. But there was nothing dramatic about t
hat.

  Diana traced the profile of King George on one side of the coin and then the small bird sharing a name with her architect.

  “You see, Diana, building a symphony is not unlike building a church. Ah! I got your attention. All of the movements are part of the structure. They build on one another, reusing the same themes and motifs. Not unlike some of your Wren churches. Take St. Paul’s, for instance.” She had never thought of music like that before Fisher mentioned it. She hadn’t been able to hear a piece of music without recalling him since.

  She looked at the Ditchfield book a moment. She could nearly recite the passages most familiar to her because of all of the time she and her father had spent perusing it. It implied St. Paul’s was always an emblem of perseverance. Ditchfield’s book called it “the great national Cathedral.” It was at the crux of the city’s annals, history, and culture just as it was at the center of Fisher and Diana’s conversations.

  Diana spent the rest of the day darning, baking, and attempting to take care of Brent’s ironing. To her credit, while the collars were still creased, she hadn’t burnt a hole in anything. She left a plate of cold cuts, cheese, and pickles for Brent and a quick note saying she was meeting an old friend.

  The brilliant dome of St. Paul’s was still the highest point in the skyline and the surrounding area: Paternoster Row where once a wall had six gates, two of which were once marked by St. Paul’s Alley and Paul’s Chain.

  The links fastened to this chain were now severed by blasted buildings.

  St. Paul’s was gray-blue amidst the dark, very much as it had been since a white-haired Wren ascended to the top of its dome to give his final assessment, down to the pecking pigeons that cooed at her feet.

  “Farthing for your thoughts, Diana?”

  “Fisher.”

  “We’re so intelligent our thoughts must be worth far more.” He seemed happy to see her. At least, interested. His brown eyes sparkled in the dim light afforded them. “But I couldn’t pass up the chance to give you a Wren.”

  “The most important messages we have are in music. In art. In literature. In history, architecture. Relics.” She emphasized the last word.

  “We always had the most interesting conversations, didn’t we?”

  It was surreal: reconciling this man from her recent past in a hidden corner of her life with the city she knew and loved. The clouds sank low over her wrecked city and yet the moon acted as a kind of spotlight, framing St. Paul’s in eerie light.

  Diana took a long moment to steady her breath. “Fisher Carne, a man who merely steals another’s ideas—”

  “Steals?” Fisher shook his head. “No. I am repurposing what we did. You and I, we listened to those radio interceptions day in and day out. Tediously straining for something that might mean something until the music happened.” He let out a low chuckle. “And you and I, we found a way to make the war beautiful. I wasn’t sinking in a trench somewhere and you weren’t knitting something or ladling soup.”

  “You were my friend.”

  “I am your friend. I want no harm to come to you, Diana. Which is why I was so absolutely set off guard when I saw that Simon Barre of MI6 had lured you to Vienna.”

  “You knew he was an agent?”

  “Of course I did. Do you want to live like Simon does? Always jumping at the slightest whistle? Always under orders he has trouble obeying because he sees the world outside of the lines? Never finding the courage to finally get the girl because he’s so married to his job?”

  Diana thought of the night Simon ruefully stared into his beer glass and told her about Sophie refusing his marriage proposal.

  She shook her head. “No. I don’t. But you are using everything I told you about the Wren churches.”

  “I’m an atheist, Diana. Why would I use churches?”

  “Because they transcend faith! Because they are at the core just beautiful architecture and . . .” Diana stopped. Suddenly Fisher was a step—a breath—away. “You’re laughing at me.”

  “That autumn afternoon at Great St. Bart’s, you told me. A picture on your desk with a uniformed man. In a bombed All Hallows-by-the-Tower. You’re a sentimental sort. I gave it a matter of time . . .”

  Diana shifted slightly so they were facing each other, and unlike with Brent who had a head on her, she was even with Fisher’s chin. “You realize, Fisher, that I understand you.”

  “Do you?”

  “Because my mind works the same way, doesn’t it? We were trained for that. My father said it was a blessing and a curse—my memory.” She took a breath. “And I remember what I told you. Perhaps not precisely, but generally. And whoever is listening to you isn’t adhering to the orders of an expert. No. You are merely a recitation.”

  “Maybe it’s in what you didn’t say.”

  She watched his expression. At first his eyes were unreadable. Then they sparked with something he probably hoped would be unreadable. But she was ahead. “Whatever I am involved in for Simon involves you. You’re right that I was in Vienna and that I was working for him. But don’t underestimate me.” Diana stopped. “You were baiting me. Since you determined I was working for Simon.”

  She recalled chess rounds at the pub and Mozart over the wireless, Fisher explaining his favorite mode of decoding cipher that mirrored the scratch books of his childhood while Diana imaginatively scraped steeples in the sky. Fisher’s profile was interesting angled under a slice of streetlight.

  He had almost taken her certainty from her. What she believed in even beyond the structures that bound her to the memory of her father and her genuine passion. She raised her arm and slapped him hard against the face, her wedding ring drawing blood from the corner of his lip. Her eyes stung with tears.

  Fisher recoiled a moment, held his hand to his throbbing cheek. “You’re a fool, Diana.”

  She shuddered, breath moving in and out, her whole body on fire with anger and fear. “You almost strangled my husband. And you betrayed what I told you in confidence.”

  “I knew he looked familiar. From the picture on your desk. And maybe I just always knew from all of the times you talked about him. But I didn’t know it was your husband when I hurt him.” Fisher looked over her now-shaking form. “Go away, Diana.”

  “No.”

  “Wasn’t the Americans’ Liberty Bell fashioned at the same bell foundry as Great Tom and Great Paul up above us?” He tilted his head up to the grandeur of St. Paul’s. “Go and find some American churches. Go anywhere. Don’t throw your lot in with Simon Barre.”

  “No.”

  “I like you, Diana, but I will destroy Simon Barre, and I don’t need you following him around like a lost puppy.”

  “I don’t follow him around like a lost puppy.”

  “Much like you did Villiers,” Fisher said.

  This stalled Diana. Straight in her tracks. Maybe Fisher was right. She could leave. Villiers had left. She was going to North America. In Diana’s mind Villiers was happily in New York doing whatever she did as the sun prismed the stories of the Empire State Building.

  “When was the last time you heard from Villiers?” he asked.

  “I haven’t. Not since that last night. You weren’t there.”

  Fisher gave a smug smile. “Of course I wasn’t there. I was starting to put everything in motion. Just as I had started doing before the blasted war. I wasn’t about to get called up and left for dead in some forsaken trench. Go away, Diana. Go far away.”

  “You think you’re so clever. That because you used all of the things I told you, you’re indestructible.” Diana shook her head resolutely. “You forget, Fisher, that I spent as much time with you as you did with me.”

  “You’re smarter than you’re acting. I don’t know if I would have the heart to kill you. No matter how important my cause.” The honesty in his voice was cold. “But I do know where your husband works.”

  “You clearly didn’t take all of this time meeting me just to recall old times. What do yo
u want, Fisher?”

  “To remind you that you have no obligation to Simon Barre. To warn you that you can still get out of this. I do like you, Diana. But I won’t be as lenient the next time you and Somerville cross my path. Go back to your life. Your war is over.” He tipped his hat and turned. “Don’t follow me. Don’t be a hero. I give you my word that I am only going to my lodgings.”

  She stayed frozen in her spot until his shadow disappeared down the steps and into the street. She pressed her cheek against a classical column, soothed by the chilled cement that had withstood the zeppelins of the Great War and the bombs of the most recent war. She slid onto the steps, upsetting several pigeons that scurried to peck on another step. The most familiar part of her city stretched before her until Fisher’s silhouette was reduced to a blip of shadow against the settling light.

  She felt close to Wren here. “See the columns and lines?” Diana of yesteryear had told Brent when she dragged him from his lecture one autumn afternoon. “Did you know that the funding of the cathedral was procured by a coal tax?” A tear snaked down her cheek. And another.

  She shrugged the last of Fisher Carne from her shoulders and straightened her spine to align with the rigid lines surrounding her. She couldn’t be sure how much time had passed before she rose to hop down the steps. She took a last, longing look at Wren’s masterpiece. She was overtired. She was scared. But she felt the enormity of the structure towering behind her. Brent would be worried about her.

  “To build a church was to atone for a sin.” It was what she had told Gabriel Langer at Peterskirche in Vienna. To build a cathedral was the ultimate embodiment of grace. She never wanted to be the woman who looked back and wondered if she could have appreciated something more, if she could have spent an extra few moments conditioning her heart and mind to recognize something so it might translate into fulfillment.

  * * *

  Brent’s appointment with Sam Hunt lasted far longer than he’d anticipated when he encountered the empty flat without any singed smell wafting from underneath the door. At first he assumed Diana had just popped out for shopping, but the note she left said otherwise. She was meeting a friend.