The Amber Shadows

by Lucy Ribchester

  ‘When was the last time you had contact with Dickie?’

  ‘I told you, I wrote to him with—’ She broke off, swallowing back down the story of the painted egg. It seemed absurd now, a childhood game turned sinister and sour. So many games of late had turned sour, not just for her but for so many little boys, playing soldiers with colanders on their heads. She didn’t know why that image came to her now, but thinking about other people felt steadying. Her upper body swayed. ‘I wrote him a letter. He didn’t reply.’

  The detective pulled his hand over his face and rubbed his lips. ‘Damned post. All right, miss. Where’s your billet? We’ll take you home.’

  He helped her up by the elbow and she felt resentful and repelled by his hand. The cold corridor air swam on her neck and ears, and she felt her senses of textures and temperatures had heightened, the way they did after a faint. She heard Beatrix’s voice inside: ‘Keep your head.’ It jigged round and up and down like a carousel. ‘Keep your head. Keep your head.’

  It was half past eight by the time she closed the cottage door behind her and spied Dickie’s handwriting on an envelope on the hall table. She leaned on the wall. Blood rushed to her gut. She imagined his cornflower blue dead shoulders rising from the steel table; his bloodied eyes snapping open, winking once, taking the pen and saying, ‘Don’t worry, gel, I’ve got it,’ and then penning that affected curvature of her name straight from the grave.

  She snatched it. She sniffed the paper, feeling reckless, masochistic, wanting to be repulsed. But it smelled only of ink. Not the sweet vanilla of the cipher book nor the surgical rot of the mortuary. She tore up the stairs, slammed the door behind her, ripped open the envelope. And it was only then she began to cry hard, howling childlike sobs.

  The amber was spread out in front of her on the floor. She stared at it, as if she could melt the pieces. If it had been him, if he had some reason to taunt her, then this would all stop now.

  His letter was still in her hand. Tears had smudged some of the ink but the message was plain, in characteristic pompous Dickie style:

  ‘I receive your communique dear sister with interest. Stravinsky is a very exciting composer, I’ll own, but I can’t fathom his appeal in such a context. In truth, it is all a most peculiar choice for this type of concert. But you can tell me more when we meet. I’ll be on the eight o’clock train from Euston. If you don’t meet me at the station, I’ll be staying in the Eight Bells.’

  He signed with the flourish she recognised now from the book. Light strokes breaking free on the up and downward tails of the letters. But more assured, practised: a hand accustomed to signing silk souvenir programmes and stage postcards.

  She dug out her notes on Moira’s sketchings.

  She thought about what Moira had told her about traffic analysis and building up a picture of how a cipher was used. How it would be impossible to crack an individual message so short, but that enemy ciphers were designed not to be broken by interceptors. In the case of these messages, by the nature of them being sent directly to her, she was expected to know the key.

  Her mind moved now with a desperate intensity. Someone was trying to relate to her. Someone had killed Dickie, and if it was not a robber there were only two options.

  Someone at the Park was testing her, and the test was so great that Dickie had to be killed before he could get in the way, before he could expose to her what they were doing. And the second, more potent option: Dickie knew the truth, and someone didn’t like it.

  She put a record on to disguise the noise of her scribbling and discourage Mrs Steadman from entering, and set to work. She worked solidly for the rest of the morning, trying to pick over the patterns, lining up various alphabets set at intervals along the letters, so A became D, B became E and so on. It didn’t work. Then she remembered that Moira had said something, a name she’d used, for a type of hand cipher. But she hadn’t written it down.

  It was useless. She was useless. She was not a cryptanalyst, she was not a codebreaker. She was a typist, nothing more. A hollowness crept through her as she threw down her pen and pushed the papers aside. The record came to an end and all she could hear was the hissing gaslamp, a horrid whispering, like half a dozen people hushing and gossiping in a room close by, too quiet to overhear. She listened to it for a few seconds until she felt it would turn her mad, then wrenched the switch and the room fell into grey gloom.

  Tonight she would return to the Park where she could be of some use to someone. She would work harder than she had ever worked. She would race through the decrypts, she would type until her fingers numbed. If everyone who lost a relative in the war, everyone who grieved, took a day away from work, the casualties would rise. And work was a constant.

  She took the amber pieces and threw them in the waste paper basket where they hit the bottom with a crack. She left the Steadmans’ and walked along the lane to the end of the road until she found a telephone box. With her heart hanging heavy she dialled seven for trunks and asked the operator for her mother’s hotel in Hastings.

  The line carried an irritating buzz, and her mother’s voice was distant, brittle. ‘I know, dear. But what do you want me to say? At least he didn’t lose his legs in a bomb attack, can you even think what would have happened . . . that would have been worse.’

  She was relieved when eventually the pips sounded to tell her she was out of coins, and she threw down the telephone. She flung the red-panelled door of the box back so hard it hit the wall next to it. An old man in a peaked cap with a crate of milk bottles in his arms stopped and turned to look, and his scrutiny, his judgement was too much. She covered her cold wet cheeks with her hands and ran, as far as she could, towards the edge of the village.

  For most of the afternoon Honey walked in the crisp winter light. Dead things were all around her and she couldn’t help but notice them, as if their death was more potent and intrusive now, demanding she see how ugly and horrifying they were; spindles on blackthorn bushes, rotten slush grass at the sides of roads. The brickworks nearby was in full motion. A baked clay scent was drifting in clouds, and sometimes she came across a bush that had caught a mist of red dust on the twigs. A cold wind bit her face. She passed a pair of birds squabbling in a tree and remembered an argument she’d had with Dickie as a child, about The Firebird. There were two versions of the story that she knew, one she’d read in a fairytale book and the one by Stravinsky. But Dickie had grown angry. He had grown violently cross and danced in a rage around the room, screaming her down that there was only ever one story, to everything; there was only ever one version of events.

  She arrived two hours early at the Park. The MPs waved her through and she picked her way with her torch beam low, shining over the spokes of bicycle wheels and scuffed brogues. She headed for the cafeteria and stood still for a moment, looking around at the room where she had been told the news, to see if it had changed at all. But it was the same. There were still half-played chess games and tea and the smells of burnt toast and cheese pie in the air.

  Earlier Mrs Steadman had had a hard-hearted stab at sympathy. ‘It’s a damned shame these young men dropping, it is. I remember when my brother didn’t come home after the first war. My mother didn’t change his sheets for weeks. I was still finding bits of his underwear when we had the clean-out before my wedding.’ She’d had the grace to leave the tea tray on the floor outside Honey’s room and disappear just after knocking.

  Honey couldn’t face anything to eat but took a cup of tea. She was staring at the black bubbles breaking on its surface when the other side of the table jolted. Beatrix sat down opposite.

  ‘What are you doing here? The news is all over the Park. Go home.’ She got up again and dashed the length of the table to take the chair next to Honey. She smelled of lavender and something sweet and resinous as she clutched Honey’s shoulder. Honey wanted to say something but her throat clogged. She held the tears in there, mute, because if they broke she would never be able to stop them. ‘Bea
trix,’ she managed. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Tea break. They’ve got me on back shift. Honestly, they’ll find the brute. Word is already going about that they’ve got a man from the brickworks. You know what thugs the townies are. The Eight Bells lot.’

  Beatrix’s eyes were fixed on Honey’s. She had a pucker in her brow. ‘A hot bath is what you need.’

  ‘I can’t very well sit in a hot bath all day and all night.’ She thought of the oily water in the Steadmans’ bathroom; the amber slipping from her hands, its wax coat dissolving and the letters appearing . . . well, that would never happen again now. The amber was where it would stay, in with the refuse, toenail clippings and yesterday’s newspaper. She was finished with it.

  ‘Have you telephoned your family? They’ll have to know to expect you?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You have to go to them, Honey. It’s London, isn’t it? I can lend you the Rolls, I can have someone drive you in fact. I’ll have our chauffeur come down on the train and he can take you back. Don’t worry about the petrol rationing, he knows a man. Can you wait until tomorrow morning, or would you rather I called him tonight? In fact I’m going off duty in a couple of hours, I can drive you myself.’ Her words came quickly but they hit Honey and slid off, like her flesh was made of duck feathers. She couldn’t hold them in her head for long enough to understand their sense. She had become very aware of the muscles on her face. They felt brittle, like they might be on their way to collapse if she moved them. She managed a smile but the only thing she could think to say was, ‘I hope Moira’s all right.’

  ‘Dash it, Honey, you’re in shock. You should be in bed. I can’t believe those policemen didn’t take you to a doctor.’

  ‘I’m all right. For goodness’ sake, how many other girls here have lost someone since we arrived? Ten, fifty? Fathers, brothers, a sweetheart?’ She stopped herself, seeing Beatrix’s silk map scarf tucked almost out of view between her collarbone and mustard pullover. Beatrix stopped her too, by taking her raised flailing hand. Very carefully she pressed it down onto the tabletop. Grains of saccharine had spilled out onto the Formica and Honey felt them cut an itchy rash into her palm as it was flattened under the pressure of Beatrix’s.

  ‘Honey, listen to me. War is not a competition. You are entitled to your grief.’ Her mouth stayed straight and very level. Honey felt afraid to contradict her, scared in that moment to do anything against what she said. ‘I’m taking you straight to the Captain. Leave is what you need.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No ifs or buts. Let me deal with Mooden and that nasty little Roache. And if they won’t let you go then I’ll drive you myself and they’ll have two renegades to deal with.’

  She gripped Honey’s hand as she spoke, beating it down towards the table on each word. She reminded Honey of all the teachers, all the governesses she had known. People who were able to control themselves, take control of a situation. What good would she, Honey, be in any situation? She couldn’t even solve the mess of her amber and now she had led Dickie down into a fatal trap. Blame suddenly swamped her. It was all her doing. If she hadn’t summoned him, if she had thrown the trinkets away without thinking . . .

  She let Beatrix lead her towards the Captain’s office.

  ‘He’s just left,’ she heard his night secretary say. Then, ‘Hold on. Rogers.’ She called to a man in plain tweeds with a newspaper under his arm. ‘Did the Captain leave?’

  ‘The engine’s running in his car.’ The man pointed with his pipe.

  ‘Can it wait?’ The woman looked expectantly at Honey and then at the clock. It was half past ten.

  Honey hesitated. The letters of the cipher travelled through her mind. If there was one way to put a stop to this – perhaps this was what had been expected of her all along. She found her tongue. ‘No, it can’t,’ she said and raced down the stairs, ripping her hand from Beatrix’s, sliding on the herringbone parquet and tripping the single stone step. The gravel sprayed into her shoes as she ran to Tiver’s car. The driver’s side door was open. The headlights had been painted black on the top halves and made shining oblong slicks on the dirt.

  ‘Captain, wait.’ She waved her arms. The Captain was half-bent towards the open car door but he rose again, turned his face to the noise and widened his eyes.

  ‘If your aim is to wake the whole of Bletchley town then I’m sure you’ve succeeded. This had better be an air raid or nothing.’

  The cold made her short of breath. Her lungs pricked as she tried to gather her words. ‘Please can I talk to you, in your office?’

  His face took on a scandalised expression and he looked ready to open his mouth and rebuke her when suddenly a memory caught hold of him. It was only afterwards that Honey thought he must have forgotten about her brother until that moment. ‘Do you need leave to go home, Deschamps? I can grant it. I’m sorry for your loss.’

  ‘No, no, it’s not that at all. It’s just, I think I know why Dickie was killed.’

  ‘Then you’d better tell the police but I’m afraid it’s not something I can do anything about. I’m very sorry to hear it and we’ll look after you well like we look after—’

  She cut him off. ‘But it might concern you. Would it concern you if someone somewhere was sending me things?’

  Now Tiver stood to face her. He snapped closed the car door. The engine was still running, pumping out chemical smoke. ‘That parcel you got the other day?’

  Honey looked around. The night was pitch black but footsteps crackled far away in distant knots and patches, in different parts of the Park. From somewhere across the lake came a shriek of glee and a thump. Someone had fallen over on the ice.

  ‘There are more of them. They’re coming from Russia and I know who’s sending them.’

  The Captain paused, looked very calmly and discreetly down, first at his shoes, then at Honey’s. Then he opened the car door, switched off the engine, and strode up the single step back into the building.

  ‘I know you’re grieving, but this had better be worth my while,’ he said, and while his words were soft, they carried hard as hail on the night breeze.

  Chapter 15

  ‘The first one came last Monday.’

  She was settled in the chair opposite Tiver’s desk. The wood and the upholstery felt more comfortable this time. Or perhaps it was the weight of relief lifting from her, the lightness of the confession she was about to make. Honey had always wondered about Catholic confession and where its comfort came from. Now, with the dark wood and the velvet curtains drawn inside the office windows, with the gas fire giving off its eerie blue-gold light in the corner of the room, thawing the air chunk by chunk, and with Tiver’s pipe smoke curling like incense from his hands, she thought perhaps she understood a little.

  To carry one less secret. It was solace.

  ‘I’d been at the cinema when one of the boys from Hut 3 dropped it off.’

  Tiver frowned. ‘Which one?’

  She hesitated. There was nothing for it. It would have to come out. She braced herself to hear something she didn’t want to know. ‘Felix Plaidstow.’

  The Captain frowned and foraged in his pipe with the end of a biro. After a couple of seconds recognition released the springs on his brow. ‘Ah, Felix. The chess boy. Magdalene, Cambridge. Went up in ’37.’

  ‘That’s the one.’ Honey felt a peculiar uncoiling of relief to hear his name in another person’s mouth. ‘He said it had been delivered to their hut by mistake.’

  ‘Every chance,’ Tiver muttered. ‘That boy brings the canteen post in here sometimes.’

  ‘I took it upstairs and I opened it. It had stamps on it, just like the one I opened in here,’ Her voice caught suddenly as she opened her mouth. The words stuck. Her throat jammed a valve. It was hard, so hard sometimes to tell the truth. The truth could shock you with its strangeness once the words became real. Once they had sounded there was no putting them back.

  ‘All the packages,’ sh
e said. ‘They all had the same stamps on them. Russian censors—’

  Tiver interrupted. ‘All the packages? How many were there?’

  She counted backwards. The two panels, the backdrop, the base with the mechanism. The firebird.

  ‘Five.’

  Tiver leaned forward in his chair. She felt the benediction of his pipe smoke filling the space between them. But his eyes were keen and small and in the dim light the shot marks across his nose burned in tiny black shadows.

  Honey didn’t dare move. She wanted to look away but thought that somehow that might give the impression she was lying. All the things she had learned about liars – that their palms sweated, that their eyes flickered, that the saliva dried in their mouths as they lied — all those things now happened to her.

  She took a breath and retreated a step in her mind. ‘They all had the same stamps. Russian censors’ stamps and British censors, the crown—’

  ‘I know what the British censor’s stamp looks like, but I’m afraid you are mistaken about the Russian. Leningrad is invaded. It’s impossible—’

  ‘But what if someone got away before the invasion was complete? What if they took something to Murmansk or Stalingrad, or Vladivostok? What if they posted it before the Nazi stranglehold?’

  Tiver was shaking his head. Honey couldn’t tell but she thought she saw pity in his eyes.

  She went on. ‘What if there was a man who was in charge, or knew someone in charge, of the Pushkin Palace museum, of the Amber Room, and he took some pieces with him when he escaped? Isn’t it possible that he would be able to post them overseas, to keep them safe?’

  ‘You said you think you know who is sending them.’

  ‘I do. I can fetch them. I can show you. Three panels, a mechanism, like a clock. And one carved like a bird.’