Moment of Truth

by Michael Pryor

  ‘Cuddly? What? Elspeth?’

  ‘Three questions in a row, Aubrey. You’re on the verge of blustering.’

  ‘I was going to point out how professional Miss Mattingly has been,’ Aubrey said, so stiffly that he was sure he would turn into wood at any second.

  ‘I’m sure she has.’

  Aubrey had to bite his tongue quite severely to prevent himself from commenting on Caroline’s tone. He had a premonition that such an observation would be a very bad thing indeed. ‘I’ve been keeping a good eye on her.’

  ‘So I’ve noticed.’

  Aubrey hoped that his tongue wasn’t actually bleeding by now. ‘She’s well trained, has useful skills, seems like a fine addition to the security of the nation. I’m sure she has a good reason for talking to that attaché.’

  ‘No doubt. And I’d like to hear it.’ Caroline straightened. ‘But first I’d like to hear your account of what happened.’

  A reasonable, professional request, Aubrey thought, and he launched into what he hoped was a reasonable, professional report about the incident and then about the bomb disposal episode.

  ‘I see,’ Caroline said when he finished. She pursed her lips, gazed at the ceiling, and tapped a foot. An enchanting display, Aubrey decided. But entirely professional, he hastened to add. To himself.

  ‘You do?’ Aubrey adjusted a collar that felt a little tight.

  ‘Your assassin missed. From a distance of a few yards.’

  ‘You know those cultural attachés. Notoriously poor shots, most of them.’

  ‘Even the ones who are crack marksmen? I checked his military record. He won the Armand Cup last year.’

  ‘For shooting, I imagine, rather than fashion.’ Aubrey rubbed his forehead as he remembered. ‘He did seem a little startled. And unhappy with his pistol.’ A spell on it, to make sure he missed?

  ‘Then Mattingly shot him.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So she ended up looking decisive and competent.’

  ‘Indisputably.’

  ‘And you were extraordinarily grateful to her for saving your life.’

  ‘I appreciated her actions, yes.’

  ‘I think her actions were intended to inspire more than appreciation. We need to talk to this Miss Mattingly.’ Caroline nodded decisively, then held open the door. ‘Nice haircut, Aubrey.’

  Aubrey was excruciatingly aware that the disarming incident he’d undergone in the courtyard was as nothing compared to what he had on his hands here. In a moment of godlike apprehension, he suddenly saw all of the thousand ways he could make this situation worse. Outcomes danced in front of his eyes, where he saw Caroline hurt and bewildered, and, alternatively, him hurt and bleeding. He saw lengthy and inadequate explanations. He saw entreaties. He saw imperious retorts and many, many variations where Caroline stormed off, never to be seen again. Of course, most of these outcomes came from his not doing anything, so he was in the most cleft of cleft sticks that he’d ever been in.

  So it was with something more than relief that he greeted the door when it burst open and George when he entered excitedly.

  ‘Aubrey! Hello, Caroline! Didn’t know you were here. Charming skirt, that. Have you heard the news? The blackguard who took a shot at you, he’s escaped.’

  Caroline raised an eyebrow at Aubrey. ‘An interesting development, wouldn’t you say, Aubrey?’

  They were eventually able to push through the crowd near the infirmary at the rear of the ground floor, near the conservatory. Gallian excitement had meant that all the important business of preparing for war was suspended while rumour and gossip were passed around with all the authority of the evening newspapers. Everyone wanted to see what was going on.

  Gallian guards recognised Aubrey and George, but some earnest discussion was needed before Caroline was admitted. Captain Bourdin was alone in the small, sunny room, which smelled of disinfectant and soap. He stood dolefully by a bloodstained hospital trolley. ‘The infirmary opens to the courtyard,’ he said without any preliminaries. ‘He produced a pistol and threatened his way out.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought he’d be in any condition to run anywhere,’ George said, pointing at the bloodstains.

  ‘That is true,’ Captain Bourdin said. He was despondent, and Aubrey wondered if he’d be looking for a new job. A shooting in the embassy, and the miscreant escaping soon after? It wouldn’t look good on a curriculum vitae. ‘He had a confederate waiting in a van outside. It drove, at high speed, past our guards.’

  ‘Sounds as if your gatehouse might need some strengthening,’ Aubrey said.

  Captain Bourdin shot him a sour look. ‘The gatehouse is to prevent people getting in. We did not think we would have to prevent people leaving.’

  ‘This escape,’ Caroline said. ‘How long after Mattingly spoke to the prisoner did it occur?’

  ‘This is Miss Hepworth,’ Aubrey explained to the puzzled Captain Bourdin. ‘She belongs to the Directorate.’

  ‘Mattingly,’ Caroline repeated. ‘She did speak to the prisoner in the infirmary, correct?’

  ‘That is so,’ Captain Bourdin said slowly.

  ‘And she also spoke to him before the shooting incident. This would tend to indicate a suspicious level of familiarity. If the prisoner had assistance in his escape from inside the embassy, I know in which direction I’d be looking.’

  ‘Elspeth?’ George said. ‘She was the one who told me which direction you’d gone, old man.’

  Caroline’s observations had Aubrey thinking. He’d often wondered at the frame of mind needed to work in the security services, where suspicion was a natural state of affairs – but he could see how it was necessary. In a world where deceit and falsity were prized skills, who could be trusted? Was anyone what he or she seemed?

  If Elspeth had been talking to the cultural attaché before the shooting, and if she had been responsible for his pistol being unreliable, then her talking to the same cultural attaché – after she’d shot him – might be curious.

  She could have been doing some extra interrogation, he thought, but it rang false, even to him.

  He remembered her brown bag. Clearly, it was large enough to hold more than one firearm.

  By the look in Caroline’s eyes, she had followed the chain and arrived at the same conclusion Aubrey had. ‘Miss Mattingly supplied the pistol the attaché used in his attempt to shoot me. And, most probably, the one he used to escape,’ he said. ‘She is an enemy agent.’

  Captain Bourdin scowled. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Sure enough that I’d advise you to prevent anyone from leaving.’

  ‘Ah.’ George held up a hand. ‘We may have a problem with that. She’s left already.’

  ‘Left?’ Aubrey said. ‘Why? Where?’

  George grimaced. ‘On reflection, I may have had something to do with that. I couldn’t find a cup of tea anywhere, so I went looking for her. She wasn’t in the coding area and I remembered her mentioning her friend in the library. I found my way there, but with no sign of her, I thought I’d see if I could borrow one of those Gallian romance novels she was talking about.’

  Everyone stared at him. ‘Romance novels,’ Captain Bourdin repeated. ‘You wanted to read a romance novel?’

  George shrugged. ‘I have a Gallian friend who enjoys them. I thought I’d see what all the fuss was about.’ He shrugged. ‘Her letters talk about dark brooding looks and whatnot. Piqued my curiosity.’

  ‘But you don’t speak Gallian,’ Aubrey pointed out. ‘Or read it.’

  ‘Thought I’d give it a go, old man. Might impress Sophie, just having a crack at it like that.’

  ‘But you couldn’t,’ Captain Bourdin said. ‘Not here, not in our library. We do not have these romances you speak of.’

  ‘I found that out quite promptly,’ George said. ‘Your library is a technical library. Lots of stuff on Gallian history and law and the like. Not much light reading.’

  Aubrey’s heart sank. Elspeth’s d
uplicity was becoming clear.

  ‘No stories, no fiction at all,’ Captain Bourdin said.

  ‘And that’s what I told Elspeth when I ran into her,’ George said. ‘Come to think of it, she look a little flustered, and she didn’t unfluster, if you take my meaning, when I asked her about the romance novels.’

  ‘And that’s when she remembered that she’d been called back to headquarters?’ Caroline asked, one eyebrow raised.

  George grinned. ‘She said she’d just received a message, if that’s what you mean. She told me that we’d all catch up back there.’

  ‘She knew she’d made a false step,’ Aubrey said. The detail about the romance novel had probably appealed at the time, but it had brought her undone. For an instant he pondered why she’d wanted to show a romantic side to her nature, but he veered away from that as far too dangerous.

  He was still having trouble imagining Elspeth as an enemy agent. He recalled her infectious good spirits, her provocative challenges ... She was attractive, he couldn’t deny that, but now he was starting to question how calculated her persona had been. The little touches on the arm, the outlandish dash she displayed, had him warming to her before he knew it. She was unlike any young women he knew, which was no doubt part of her appeal. With a chill, he wondered who else knew that.

  If she were a Holmland agent, she was a deeply embedded one, one whose actions indicated that Aubrey was a person of some interest to Holmland Intelligence. She was ruthless, too, underneath the carefree surface. He doubted that the cultural attaché had agreed to be shot. His surprise at the malfunctioning pistol tended to indicate that he was only aware of part of the plan. He’d been told to assassinate Aubrey, not knowing that he was a dupe whose real role was to make Elspeth Mattingly a hero – and to make Aubrey hugely grateful to her.

  With a demeanour designed to please on top of heartfelt gratitude, Elspeth Mattingly would be a bosom companion to Aubrey Fitzwilliam, close enough to be privy to whatever Aubrey knew and then to feed it back to her Holmland masters.

  He grimaced at that prospect, but he was sure there had to be more. He imagined Elspeth accompanying George and him on missions, where she’d be relaying plans to the enemy in secret. He saw her teasing him, keeping him delightfully wrong footed, making sure she spent time with him, enough time to be introduced to his family.

  Oh my. Aubrey closed his eyes for an instant as the possibilities hit him.

  If she played her part well enough, Elspeth Mattingly could meet the Albion Prime Minister, and have access to him in private, unguarded circumstances.

  The plan showed all the hallmarks of deep deviousness and complex planning. It fairly smelled of Dr Mordecai Tremaine. A plan that was undone by George Doyle’s looking for Gallian romance novels. As soon as that happened, she was quick enough to see that she was undone – and that others would put two and two together quickly enough to make her position untenable.

  Thank goodness for George, he thought, not for the first time.

  ‘So she did not plan to leave,’ Captain Bourdin said, interrupting Aubrey’s thoughts. ‘It was spontaneous.’

  ‘I think she wanted to stay.’ Caroline glanced pointedly at Aubrey. ‘Having embedded herself in the Directorate, I’m sure she was going to do her best to gain the trust of those around her. It would mean she could be privy to sensitive information useful to our enemies.’

  Aubrey found himself going back over his conversations with Elspeth and wondering what he’d said. Nothing vital, he hoped.

  He made promises to Captain Bourdin to make sure a copy of the report Aubrey compiled for the Department would be forwarded to the Embassy. The unfortunate Bourdin handed Aubrey the ensorcelled pistol, which Aubrey took with some reluctance, even though he understood the Department’s Forensic team could investigate it much better than any personnel in the Embassy. He probed it enough to confirm that it was indeed embedded with a spell to send rounds astray. The cultural attaché couldn’t have hit what he was aiming at, not in a million years.

  After slipping the pistol into a satchel, Aubrey shook hands with Captain Bourdin. ‘I want to assure you that the Department will take care of things,’ he said, doing his best to sound like a decisive leader.

  ‘Things?’

  ‘The would-be assassin. Mattingly. Things like that. The Department prides itself on not leaving loose ends lying about the place.’

  ‘That’s it,’ George said brightly. ‘Think of the Department as a big pair of scissors, determined to take care of those annoying loose ends.’

  Before George could strangle the metaphor any more, Aubrey took him by the shoulders and steered him toward the door. ‘We must get back to headquarters, captain. Important matters to discuss. Good luck.’

  Once outside the Embassy, much to Aubrey’s delight, Caroline suggested that they go back together, since Walter and Gregory were busy with cooking and plumbing, and since her pose as a typist had been compromised.

  They left Captain Bourdin standing, hands behind his back, dejectedly staring at the empty hospital trolley that could be the remains of his career.

  At the gatehouse, a panting young man in a Gallian uniform caught up with them. ‘Monsieur Fitzwilliam, a moment.’ He stopped, put a hand to his chest and caught his breath. ‘Captain Bourdin. He would like a last word with you.’

  Aubrey made a face. It had been a long morning. He shrugged at Caroline and George. ‘You two go on. I’ll catch up.’

  The messenger handed Aubrey over to another messenger, who took him to an older woman in one of the back offices, who glanced at the slip of paper (turquoise) the messenger gave her and then she took him right to the end of a narrow corridor on the third floor. ‘Wait here,’ she said and left Aubrey without even a slip of paper to call his own.

  Five minutes later, the door in front of him opened. ‘Enter,’ a woman’s voice ordered.

  One step inside, and that was all he knew as huge pain took hold of the back of his head.

  As a fuzzy level of awareness returned, Aubrey understood that he was tied to a chair and securely gagged. Or gagged to a chair and securely tied, one or the other. His head was ringing like a bell, so details like that were hard to work out.

  The figure standing between him and the door spoke, and he winced. ‘I’m sorry, but you’re too dangerous to handle any other way.’

  ‘Elspeth,’ he said. Or tried to. It came out more like ‘Rrgwrwflg,’ thanks to the gag, thus proving its efficacy.

  She took a revolver out of a satchel that Aubrey dimly realised as his. He had enough wherewithal to wish that ropes weren’t so good at binding as they were, but Elspeth shook her head. ‘I couldn’t leave this here. I might need it to get out of this awful country.’

  Aubrey squinted. With an effort, he recognised it as the pistol that had nearly shot him. The pistol that he’d been given by Captain Bourdin. The pistol that had been magically treated to be silent – and to make sure it missed.

  She studied him for a moment. ‘I suppose I should just shoot you now, you know. I’d be bound to get a medal for it.’

  What scared Aubrey most was how businesslike she sounded.

  She pointed the pistol at him and he was sure his heart stopped beating. ‘On the other hand...’ She raised the pistol and Aubrey’s heart scurried out from wherever it had gone to hide and started beating again, hard. ‘If I happen to get captured before I can waltz my way out of here, I might be better off if I don’t. Spending the war in one of your internment camps sounds preferable to a hanging. Even with your ghastly weather.’

  She crossed the room, and leaned close until all he could see was her large, insistent eyes. She patted his cheek. ‘It’s a pity that I can’t continue this job,’ she whispered. ‘You really are quite appealing.’

  She slipped out and Aubrey surrendered to utter confusion.

  ‘We had our suspicions that she was a Holmland agent,’ Commander Tallis said. ‘Nothing concrete, but suspicions nonetheless.’
<
br />   Back at Darnleigh House, Aubrey, George and Caroline faced Commander Tallis and Commander Craddock across a long, metal-topped table. The room was on the third floor, but it had no windows. The walls were undecorated, for Aubrey wouldn’t have called the peculiar shade of institutional green paint decoration.

  Aubrey’s head ached, and his pride, even though neither George nor Caroline had said anything when, after his non-appearance for two hours, they returned to the Gallian Embassy and found him bound and gagged with Elspeth Mattingly long gone.

  ‘So you let her try to kill me just to see if those suspicions were well founded?’ Aubrey asked. He was accustomed to the oblique thinking that went on in the realm of security, of plans and plots within plans and plots, so he saw how such a course of events could unfold. It didn’t mean that he liked it.

  ‘That was unfortunate. We thought that putting her in a team with you would force her hand but it appears that we inadvertently gave her just what she wanted,’ Craddock said. He had a silver letter opener on the table in front of him, perfectly parallel with its edge. ‘In any event, we thought she would have done more gradual embedding. Something less dramatic.’

  Perhaps she knows something we don’t, Aubrey thought. Such a risky display might have been forced upon her, if time was growing short – which was an ominous thought.

  ‘This means, of course, that your team is one member short.’ Craddock and Tallis shared a look, and Tallis shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘It seems inevitable that Miss Hepworth replace our enemy agent.’

  ‘It’s the most efficient solution,’ Tallis growled.

  Caroline stiffened. ‘Permission to speak, sirs?’

  ‘I was unaware that you ever made that request.’ Craddock picked up the letter opener and held it in both hands.

  Tallis glanced at him. ‘Permission granted.’

  ‘That would mean my original team would be one person short. I can’t let them down like that.’

  ‘I appreciate your loyalty,’ Tallis said. ‘Rest assured, your team will be taken care of.’ Caroline subsided, mollified, as Tallis held up a folder. Aubrey couldn’t gauge the extent of her feelings. Was she angry with him? Did she think that he hadn’t been suspicious enough of Elspeth because he’d been blinded by her charms? ‘Fitzwilliam, you haven’t spent any time with the magical surveillance section, have you?’