Dawn Undercover

by Anna Dale

  By the look of him, Peebles was starting to panic, too. He was casting about him, no doubt looking for somewhere to spring to; but there were no other gravestones within leaping distance. Dawn suspected that Peebles was beginning to regret that he had teased the dogs by parading up and down outside Bluebell Villa. There was no pane of glass to shield him from them now.

  The cat crouched and seemed to stiffen. Dawn guessed what he was going to do. ‘He’s decided to make a break for it,’ she breathed, barely able to bring herself to look. ‘Oh, Clop,’ she said woefully. From such a distance she could not see the expression on her donkey’s face, but she expected that it was as serious and resolute as ever.

  ‘What’s she doing? Make her get down from there!’

  The woman responded to Larry’s sharp command by seizing Dawn’s wrist and pulling her from the bench.

  ‘Nooo!’ screamed Dawn, frantically trying to free her hand. She heard a furore of yapping and growling, and concluded that Peebles had made his move. ‘I must see … I have to find out …’

  ‘What’s she wittering on about?’ snapped Larry. ‘Do you think the little tyke’s been signalling to someone?’

  ‘No,’ said the woman, peering through the slit whilst keeping a tight hold on Dawn. ‘There’s nothing going on down there – apart from two dogs having a fight.’

  ‘A cat … can you see a cat?’ muttered Dawn. She couldn’t summon the energy to struggle any more. Leaning weakly against the woman, she remembered, just in time, that spies weren’t supposed to cry, and bit her lip instead.

  ‘There, there,’ said the woman kindly. She seemed to understand that Dawn was upset. ‘Don’t distress yourself. You’ll soon be out of this draughty old tower.’

  ‘She will not,’ said Larry, tramping towards them. ‘When are you going to get it through your thick skull –’

  ‘You owe me a favour, Meek,’ said the woman tartly.

  ‘We’re quits,’ he replied, ‘and you know it.’

  ‘If I hadn’t rummaged about in those files at P.S.S.T., you’d never have been able to get rid of those spies so quickly. Evergreen and Chalk would have tracked you down if I hadn’t stepped in to help you.’

  Dawn gasped and stared up at the woman. How could she have slipped past Edith and gained access to the upper floor of the Dampside Hotel? She must be an even better spy than Murdo Meek, reckoned Dawn. Thank goodness that Trudy was wrong about there being a traitor at P.S.S.T.! She looked a little harder at the woman. At least, I think she was …

  Trudy had been convinced that Emma had been responsible for raiding her files. Could it be possible that the woman whose fingers were still clasped around Dawn’s wrist was wearing a disguise? Was her bouncy, shoulder-length hair really a wig? Had she altered her voice?

  ‘I don’t owe you anything,’ said Larry, his face hardening. ‘Don’t pretend that you’ve done any of this for my sake. You’ve only ever been interested in looking after your precious career. You’re a hypocrite, that’s what you are.’ He laughed at the woman’s troubled expression. ‘You may spend all your time bossing other people about but I’m not going to stand for it! Perhaps a few hours in these delightful surroundings will convince you that I’m the best person to watch over Dawn.’ He rushed towards the middle of the room, disappeared through the trapdoor and slammed it shut. ‘So long, Philippa!’ came his muffled cry.

  ‘Philippa!’ said Dawn in astonishment. With wide eyes, she looked into the woman’s face. ‘You’re … you’re Philippa Killingback … aren’t you?’

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Secrets and Lies

  The Chief of S.H.H. did not bat an eyelid when Larry locked her in the tower room; and when Dawn asked her to confirm who she was, Philippa nodded mildly and sat down on the bench.

  ‘Are you terribly shocked?’ she said.

  ‘Am I shocked that you’re in cahoots with Murdo Meek?’ said Dawn. ‘Yes, of course I am!’ She stared disappointedly at Philippa, her mouth opening and shutting. There were too many questions that she wanted to ask and she couldn’t think where she should start.

  ‘Angela Bradshaw almost keeled over when she found out that I was involved,’ said the Chief. She gave Dawn a weak smile. ‘I suppose you’d like to know why.’

  ‘I would. Yes,’ said Dawn, wondering how on earth Meek had persuaded the highest-ranking member of S.H.H. to betray her country.

  ‘I was so naive,’ said Philippa wryly. ‘I thought that it would be easy. If I did Meek one little favour he would disappear from my life and he’d never be a bother to S.H.H. again. I should have known that things are never that simple.’

  ‘I … I don’t understand,’ said Dawn, seating herself next to Phillipa.

  ‘It was so irresponsible to send you here,’ said Philippa. ‘I gave Red the tongue-lashing of his life when I discovered that he’d sent a child into the field. I suppose Socrates trained you?’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Dawn, ‘and I learned a lot from a book called Keeping to the Shadows.’

  ‘Still using that old tome, is he? There are more up-to-date spying textbooks nowadays, but Socrates is something of a traditionalist. Keeping to the Shadows, eh? I haven’t flicked through that in years. My old copy must be collecting dust up in the attic. Wanda used to swear by it.’

  ‘Who?’ said Dawn.

  ‘Wanda Longshanks. She was the spy who trained me. Wanda retired to the Costa Brava thirteen years ago.’ Philippa sighed heavily. ‘P.S.S.T. just isn’t the same without her.’

  ‘P.S.S.T?’ said Dawn. ‘You used to work for P.S.S.T.?’

  ‘Graduated from Clandestine College in the July … and P.S.S.T. offered me a position one month later. I was over the moon. I’d longed to work for a spying organisation ever since I was a little girl. Started work on my twenty-first birthday.’ Philippa smiled wistfully. ‘That was the most wonderful day of my life.’

  ‘How long did you work for P.S.S.T.?’ Dawn asked.

  ‘Nine years in all – and I enjoyed almost every minutes.’

  Dawn did some swift calculations in her head. ‘Then you must have been at P.S.S.T. when Murdo Meek jumped into the Thames and got away.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Philippa. Her face clouded over. ‘I was there.’

  ‘But you weren’t involved in the attempt to capture him.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  Dawn was puzzled. She remembered reading about the events on the night of December the ninth in the file labelled ‘Murdo Meek’ and there had been no eyewitness account signed by a Philippa Killingback.

  ‘I was the second one to arrive at the old warehouse by the river,’ said Philippa, closing her eyes as she tried to recall what had transpired on that notable winter’s night a decade before. ‘Red turned up a few minutes later and we waited a bit longer for Socrates, but then he phoned to tell us that his bike had got a puncture and he was going to be delayed. Red, Angela and I had a quick conference. Then I crept round to the rear entrance, Angela stayed at the front – and Red ventured inside …’

  ‘ Pip Johnson kept watch at the back of the warehouse,’ said Dawn. She was very confused. ‘All the accounts in Meek’s file say so.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Philippa. ‘I’m Pip Johnson – at least, I was ten years ago. I was known as “Pip” in those days and Johnson was my maiden name. I became a Killingback when I got married a few years later.’

  ‘That was the night that Meek disappeared,’ said Dawn. ‘Everybody thought he’d drowned. You helped him to escape, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Philippa. Dawn noticed that she had the decency to look shame-faced about it.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why?’ repeated Philippa as if she were in a daze. She laughed rather bitterly. ‘Because I had no choice.’

  Dawn was shocked. ‘Was he blackmailing you?’ she asked.

  ‘In a manner of speaking. Yes, he was.’

  The church clock gave the briefest of whirring sounds before laun
ching into its first sonorous boom. This was followed by a further eight strikes. As she waited patiently for silence to be restored, Dawn gazed at the stoical woman sitting beside her. Outwardly, Philippa seemed calm and composed, but there was a sorrowful look in her eyes which suggested to Dawn that the Chief of S.H.H. was concealing a painful secret.

  ‘There were five of us,’ said Philippa reflectively, when the last clang had died away. ‘Three of us little ones, my mother and my father. Not that we saw a great deal of him.’

  Dawn was curious as to why the Chief of S.H.H. had begun to reminisce about her childhood, but she decided not to interrupt.

  ‘My father was never very interested in us children. He was always staying late at work or walking on the moors with our spaniels, Mixer and Menace. We only ever saw him at suppertime, and then, one night, he left the table between courses – and never came back.’

  ‘How awful,’ said Dawn.

  ‘I was only four at the time,’ continued Philippa. ‘George and Vicky were even younger. When my mother remarried, we took our stepfather’s name and forgot all about our real dad. Then, twenty years later, he turned up again right out of the blue.’ She smiled sadly at Dawn. ‘It’s funny how our brains hold on to certain things, isn’t it? As far as I was concerned, the man standing on my doorstep was a complete stranger. I didn’t have the vaguest recollection of what my father looked like, but as soon as I heard his voice, I knew it was him.’

  ‘His voice …’ said Dawn thoughtfully.

  ‘I made him a cup of tea. I thought that he might want to apologise for deserting us all those years ago. Fat chance of that!’ she said. ‘His reasons for getting in touch again were soon made clear to me.’ She frowned, and squeezed her hands together in her lap. ‘Sat at my kitchen table, as bold as brass, and told me he was Murdo Meek.’

  ‘He did what?’ said Dawn. She was stupefied. ‘You mean … Larry Grahams is your father?’

  ‘Tragically, yes, that’s the truth,’ said Philippa.

  ‘But why did he reveal to you that he was Murdo Meek?’ asked Dawn. ‘Didn’t he know that you worked for P.S.S.T.?’

  ‘Of course he knew!’ Philippa’s face was etched with rancour. ‘Meek makes it his business to know everything about everybody. He’d really done his homework on me. Sat there smugly, sipping his tea, and told me all about myself … how I’d come top of my class at Clandestine College, been snapped up by P.S.S.T., cruised through my training programme to become the best spy they’d ever had …’

  ‘Gosh,’ said Dawn, regarding Philippa with awe.

  ‘He even had the cheek to suggest that I’d inherited all my skills from him!’

  Dawn remembered what Red had said about spying talent sometimes running in the family, but decided not to mention this to Philippa. The Chief of S.H.H. did not seem to want to acknowledge that Larry’s genes could have had any bearing on her choice of career.

  ‘Wasn’t Meek afraid that you would turn him in?’ asked Dawn.

  ‘No,’ said Philippa, shaking her head firmly. ‘The cunning old devil knew that I’d have to keep his secret. I was twenty-four then, and filled with ambition. I had every intention of becoming the first female Chief of S.H.H. If it had come to light that my father was Murdo Meek, I would probably have been kicked out of S.H.H. altogether.’

  ‘I see,’ said Dawn. She didn’t think that it sounded very fair to punish Philippa for her father’s crimes. ‘But I still don’t understand why your father told you that he was really Murdo Meek.’

  ‘He wanted a safeguard.’

  ‘Huh?’ said Dawn.

  ‘Spying is a risky profession. If Meek ever got himself into a tight corner, he wanted to know that he could call on me to help him get out of it.’

  ‘And you agreed,’ said Dawn.

  ‘Yes,’ said Philippa. ‘If Meek was ever caught, I would stand to lose everything.’ Her fingers travelled to her earlobe and she unclipped a large gold earring. Holding it in her palm, she showed it to Dawn. ‘This is the only present I’ve ever had from my father. It’s a phone,’ she said, ‘so that he can contact me whenever he wants.’

  ‘Meek called you that night in December, didn’t he?’ said Dawn.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Philippa. ‘He thought he’d send P.S.S.T. a spiteful Christmas card but the gesture backfired on him when Angela happened to realise who he was. Meek tried to give her the slip but she tracked him tenaciously like a bloodhound.’

  ‘Tell me,’ pleaded Dawn. ‘How did he do it? How did he survive the fall into the Thames and swim to the bank through that icy water without anyone seeing him?’

  ‘He didn’t,’ said Philippa.

  ‘Oh … you mean he swam to the bridge and managed to climb up it somehow. That can’t have been easy …’

  ‘Wrong again,’ she said.

  Dawn shot her a quizzical look, and Philippa finally relented.

  ‘Very well. Pin back your ears,’ she said. ‘This is what happened …’

  ‘I’ve given you ample time to reconsider,’ said Larry, reappearing through the trapdoor. He produced a revolver from his trouser pocket and flaunted it at his daughter. ‘So, tell me, Philippa, are you prepared to return to London alone?’

  ‘No,’ she replied, looking him in the eye, ‘and pointing that thing at me won’t make me change my mind.’

  Larry’s mouth turned down at the corners. ‘What a pity,’ he said.

  ‘It’s … it’s all right,’ said Dawn from a corner of the room, into which she’d retreated when Larry had taken out his gun. ‘I don’t mind staying in Cherry Bentley … honestly.’ She was lying, of course. Given the choice, Dawn would have preferred to be held captive by the treacherous but likeable Chief of S.H.H. than to be left in the care of her gun-toting father and his unusual instrument of torture. (Her finger still hurt quite a lot.)

  ‘Don’t worry, Dawn,’ said Philippa with confidence. ‘I shan’t be leaving you behind – and you won’t be a prisoner for much longer, either. I’m going to return you to your family.’

  ‘Whaaaaat?’ Larry was incensed. ‘Have you gone stark staring mad?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Philippa. ‘In fact, I’ve never felt more clear-headed.’

  ‘But if you let her go you’ll be unmasked as a traitor. There’ll be a huge scandal and you’ll be dismissed from S.H.H.’ said Larry. ‘Think of the humiliation you’ll suffer … not to mention the lengthy jail term …’

  ‘I know,’ said Philippa.

  ‘You stupid fool! Don’t you care?’

  The Chief of S.H.H. took a while to answer.

  ‘No. Not any more,’ she said softly. ‘I made a terrible error of judgement when I helped you to escape ten years ago. I should have guessed that the lying and deceit wouldn’t end right there and then. Ever since that fateful night, I’ve lived in constant fear that someone in P.S.S.T. would figure out exactly what had happened.’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh!’ scoffed Larry. ‘We pulled the wool over their eyes, good and proper. Those dull-witted buffoons at P.S.S.T. wouldn’t be capable of guessing the truth – and nor would anyone else for that matter.’

  ‘My secretary Mavis Hughes nearly did,’ said Philippa, giving him a steely stare. ‘She was far too astute for her own good. She couldn’t understand why I seemed to have it in for P.S.S.T. Accused me of being stingy with their budgets and belittling their efforts. I thought that if I made things tough for them, Red would be forced to say goodbye to some of his staff. It seemed the only way to oust Socrates and Angela. Retirement didn’t interest them – and the longer they remained at P.S.S.T. the more likely it was that they would start to suspect my involvement in your disappearance.’

  ‘They were clueless,’ snapped Larry. ‘You shouldn’t have panicked.’

  ‘My secretary began to act oddly,’ continued Philippa. ‘She kept staring at me, and if she was on the phone, she’d clam up as soon as I walked in the room. Then one day, I caught her looking through my personal
file. Well, that was it! I knew I’d have to get rid of her – and fast. I found out that she was going away for the weekend to Prague, followed her to the airport and slipped some confidential documents in her hand luggage. Then tipped off P.S.S.T. When the papers were discovered, she protested her innocence and tried to put the blame on me – but no one believed her, of course.’

  ‘How deliciously ruthless,’ said Larry, grinning.

  Dawn wasn’t impressed at all. She remembered being told by Red that the Chief of S.H.H.’s secretary had been put in prison for a very long time.

  ‘That was a mean thing to do to Mavis,’ she said.

  ‘I know,’ said Philippa guiltily.

  ‘Couldn’t you just have found fault with her typing and given her the sack?’ said Dawn.

  ‘Too risky,’ said Philippa. ‘I couldn’t be sure how much Mavis had found out or how deeply she was prepared to dig into my past. The best way to silence her was to destroy her reputation – and put her behind bars so she couldn’t do any more snooping.’

  ‘I bet Mavis really hates your guts,’ said Dawn.

  ‘Oh, undoubtedly,’ said Philippa, ‘but when I hand myself over to the authorities, her name will be cleared and she’ll be released from prison.’

  Philippa’s face seemed to crumple and, for a moment, Dawn feared that the Chief might burst into tears; but, displaying a will of iron, she managed to pull herself together.

  ‘It’s been a strain,’ she said. ‘I’ve done some awful things, Dawn – and they haven’t been easy to live with. I’ve incarcerated Mavis, I’ve put two P.S.S.T. agents in hospital, I’ve lied, I’ve passed on secret information …’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ said Dawn. ‘You weren’t responsible for what happened to Miles and Bob! It was Larry who smeared lard on the ladder and almost tickled Bob to death. Not you!’

  ‘I might as well have done it,’ said Philippa grimly. ‘I was the one who warned Meek about them, knowing what he was capable of. When I heard that he’d captured Angela, I bombed down here and persuaded him to let me take charge of her. Then, when I found out about you …’