A Gathering of Saints

by A Gathering of Saints (retail) (epub)

  Tennant smiled. ‘What about you? Do you think it’s a joke?’

  ‘I think it’s a job. My bit for the war. Daddy’s a lord and does something in the War Office and Mummy breeds hydrangeas and rolls bandages. If it wasn’t for working, I’d be married off to some third-rate baronet from Shropshire by now, breeding like mad.’

  ‘Hydrangeas?’ Tennant smiled. Left on her own the woman was probably capable of talking endlessly to a blank wall. The flower of British womanhood.

  ‘And children. Tiny little baronets and baronesses getting filthy and stealing my cosmetics. Not to mention mining my figure.’ She sighed at the empty vision. Tennant wondered if working as a secretary for Liddell and attending decadent soirées at Bentinck Street was very much better. Much more likely that this was her way of giving herself a past, knowing that there was very little for her in the future. Hydrangeas and filthy children.

  ‘Would you like another drink?’

  She shook her head. ‘If I drink any more, I shan’t be able to feel anything when you make love to me.’

  Tennant would gladly have paid for a cab but the young woman insisted on taking the underground. Since Morrison had taken over the job of managing the shelter programme the subterranean platforms had taken on a look of squalid propriety. Rows of bunks tiered up to the ceiling had replaced benches for passengers and places on the platform itself were neatly outlined in white-painted rectangles. The shelters still smelled frightfully, though, the torpid air thick with the stench of body odour and excrement; Tennant was relieved when they reached Notting Hill Station and climbed up into the darkness once again.

  Poppet lived in Chepstow Villas, a broad street in the middle of Bayswater, bracketed on the west and east by the working-class slums of Notting Hill and the mean streets and rookeries around Paddington Station. To the north there were more slums around the railyards at Royal Oak and to the south there was Bayswater itself and Kensington Gardens.

  Poppet’s flat was on the third floor of the Chepstow Villas house, two rooms with incredibly high ceilings tucked in beside the lavatory. A tiny bedsitter with a view of a shabby back garden. A neatly made-up folding bed was open in the front room, along with a single, and obviously expensive, leather club chair. A freestanding wardrobe loomed over the bed, and there was also a large desk with a matching chair. The second room contained a sliver of kitchen with a small dining table tweaked in between the refrigerator and the sink.

  Within seconds of entering the flat and without turning on the light, Poppet gently pushed Tennant onto the bed, then dropped down on her knees in front of him. She opened his flies expertly and took him into her mouth, sucking noisily and working his organ with her hand like a baker kneading dough until he was fully erect. It was obviously something she was familiar with. After a few moments she removed her mouth with a loud plopping noise and looked up at him.

  ‘Is that nice?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘Guy says that learning the art of fellatio is the only real benefit of a classical education.’

  ‘Liddell?’

  ‘Good God no, Burgess.’ Poppet laughed.

  She stood up and began quickly removing her clothes, dropping them to the floor. She was slim, with narrow hips and small, boyish buttocks. Her skin was almost translucent in the faint light from the window.

  ‘You don’t have to do anything to me if you don’t want to,’ she said, pulling back the quilt and climbing into bed. ‘I’m always ready.’

  Tennant removed his own clothes and joined her on the narrow mattress. He turned on his side and tried to kiss her but she pulled him urgently on top of her, one hand moving down between their bodies, gripping him and guiding him inside her. He entered her fully in a single stroke and she sighed with contentment. She hadn’t lied; she was slick with fluid and very smooth. He felt himself swelling even larger within her.

  ‘I like this the best of all,’ she said sleepily. ‘Do you like to do it slowly or would you prefer it to be quick?’

  ‘That depends,’ Tennant answered, bemused by the whole thing.

  ‘Yes, I suppose it does.’ Poppet brought her hands up, laying them flat on Tennant’s chest. He began to move slowly, bringing himself almost fully out then sliding in again. As he moved, the young woman began to talk.

  It was an extraordinary experience; for the next quarter of an hour Caroline Pope-Hennessy kept up an uninterrupted monologue, her subject matter ranging freely from her past fife (St Mary’s Convent in Folkestone; an uncle who’d rummaged about under her nightdress and offered her sweets if she didn’t tell), her lovers (an impotent cousin named Charles, now fighting in India; assorted writers and artists; several people she knew from Bentinck Street, including Donald Maclean; an attempt to seduce Cecil Beaton, the society photographer), the war (her mother was sure it was the Jews and the dagos, but since Victor Rothschild was a Jew and he was off defusing bombs for king and country or something else equally heroic, that didn’t make any sense, she wasn’t sure about the dagos except for the uncle who was partly Spanish), and her job (the difficulty of getting fresh typewriter ribbons; her training as a cipher clerk; her fondness for Liddell and his present difficulties justifying the special unit investigating a number of suspicious deaths, including the murders at the zoo).

  At the mention of the zoo killings Tennant almost lost his erection but he managed to continue, astounded by the woman’s constant flow of conversation in the midst of the sex act. He’d never experienced or even read about anything quite like it in the clinical literature.

  It seemed as though her body and her mind were completely divorced from each other, separate entities capable of utterly independent action, her panting breath and bucking hips, the arching spine and pulsing, clutching vagina, at odds with the flat banality of her voice.

  Eventually, of course, there had to be a resolution. She moved her hands from his chest, reached back and dug her fingers into his buttocks, pulling him deeper down between her uplifted thighs. She grimaced as his pace increased and her words came in short, shuddering bursts, panting as she neared the finish line of her strange, sexual foot race.

  ‘I think I’d like to… I think I’d like to finish please.’ She paused, taking in a long whispered breath. ‘Very hard please. I like it that way.’

  He did as she instructed, thrusting in rapid, arrhythmic bursts, feeling his pubic bone grinding hard against her own, the steel springs of the folding bed voicing squeaky, rusty objections, their perspiration-drenched flesh slapping together wetly.

  She moved her arms, holding her hand up against the pillow at her head, her ankles crossing over the small of his back. ‘Hold my hands please. Please.’

  He shifted, gripping her hands tightly, forcing her arms back, letting his movements become much harsher. She began to grunt in unison with each downstroke, her heels pummeling his buttocks as she struggled beneath him.

  ‘Come off now please, Charles… hard as you can. Now!’

  He exploded within her, gasping, and she let out a small, mewling groan, her face completely collapsing in on itself as though she were drawing his passion and her own down to a strange, invisible vanishing point deep inside some unshared sector of her mind. He dropped down onto her small chest, breathing hard, then rolled off, gasping for breath. They stayed that way silently for a moment then she spoke again.

  ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ She paused. ‘Then perhaps we could do it again if you’d like.’

  ‘That would be nice. You can tell me more about your work and Captain Liddell.’

  She sat up in bed, running one finger through the sheen of perspiration above her breasts and looked down at him.

  ‘You’re not a Nazi spy, are you?’

  He smiled and shook his head. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘I didn’t really think so but loose lips sink ships and all that, you know.’ She frowned. ‘You don’t mind me asking, do you?’

  ‘Don’t be silly.’

  ‘I’m
glad.’ Poppet reached over, patted his now shrivelled organ with a possessive smile and then got up to make the tea. Within an hour or so Tennant had convinced the impressionable young woman that his work vetting personnel for MI5 would be considerably easier if he had more information about the internal workings of the organisation. He was continually being faced with the problem of a multilayered bureaucracy that spent much of its time going around in circles and having someone on the inside would be a great help. Poppet had agreed almost immediately; they were, after all, on the same side and it wasn’t as though she would be divulging any earthshaking secrets. Their pact was sealed with another conversational bout on the narrow little bed and Tennant’s promise that he would give her as much psychotherapy as he thought she needed, free of charge.

  * * *

  Morris Black reached Katherine Copeland’s flat shortly before midnight. The front room overlooking the street was heavy with cigarette smoke and an empty glass and a half-filled bottle of Scotch were on her desk. Katherine offered him a chair and he sat down, still wearing his tan, belted raincoat.

  Katherine looked nervous. Her cheeks were faintly flushed and her eyes had a strange, almost feverish brightness. ‘Can I get you something?’ she asked.

  Black shook his head. ‘No thank you.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Your message said something about the photograph I gave you. Some new information.’

  Katherine smiled and shook her head. ‘We’re all business, are we?’

  Her words were faintly slurred; Black suddenly realised that she was quite drunk.

  ‘What else would we be?’ he asked.

  She dropped down into the chair across from him. ‘Friends.’

  ‘It’s late. Your message said it was urgent.’

  Katherine gave him a long appraising look. ‘You’re really quite good-looking in a sensible sort of way.’ She frowned. ‘I suppose that’s why Bingham thought it would be so easy.’

  ‘Bingham?’

  ‘Fellow I worked for. At the embassy.’

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t understand.’

  ‘He wanted me to sleep with you. Screw all your secrets out of you. Find out why everyone’s so worried about these killings. The leak.’

  ‘Leak?’

  ‘Bingham says there’s some big secret Churchill’s keeping from us. The Americans, that is. Something to do with your murderer. Very hush-hush.’

  Black stared at her as the truth dawned on him. ‘You’re a spy,’ he said quietly.

  ‘Not a very good one. Not according to Bingham.’

  ‘You weren’t on the train to Cambridge by accident, were you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Or in the restaurant.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Christ,’ he muttered wearily. He looked across at her. ‘Why are you telling me this?’

  ‘Because I’m goddamn well drunk and I’ve been trying to work up the courage to tell you for the last six or seven hours, Morris by God Black from Scotland Yard. Because I don’t like what they tried to do to me. What they wanted me to do to you. I don’t like any of it.’ She was on the verge of tears.

  ‘They?’

  ‘Bingham and his friends.’

  ‘How much do they know?’

  ‘Not as much as they want.’ She shook her head. ‘Jesus, I must be crazy, telling you now.’

  ‘You said you worked for Bingham. Past tense.’

  ‘He took me off the case.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I wasn’t getting anywhere. He said things were coming to a head. It was too late.’

  ‘Just exactly who is this fellow Bingham?’

  ‘First secretary at the embassy. He’s also in charge of intelligence.’

  ‘Who else knows about this?’

  Katherine laughed. ‘According to him, just about everyone. The Germans in Berlin, the Russians. I think he’s worried about some of our own people too. He and Kennedy didn’t get along.’

  Black closed his eyes for a moment. The mire he’d been traversing so carefully had been dangerous enough; now it was a minefield of hidden agendas more complex than he could ever have believed. He glanced at Katherine again, trying to judge the true level of her intoxication. She sounded sincere enough but there was no real way of telling whether or not she was playing a part. Confession as a method of gaining his trust? He squeezed his eyes shut again, feeling the beginnings of a searing headache as he tried to concentrate on the matter at hand.

  ‘You said you wanted to talk to me about the photograph.’

  ‘It’s a village in Germany. A place called Strobeck. There’s a legend that it’s the first place in Europe where chess was played. They even teach it in school there.’

  ‘Chess.’ The chequerboard in Rudelski’s storage chest. The chessboard table in the Soho drinking club where Talbot had last been seen. Gurney from the Stag garage, playing chess with Talbot. The photograph. ‘Dear Lord,’ he whispered aloud as the pieces of the puzzle came together in his mind. Why hadn’t he seen it before?

  ‘They even play chess by mail with people in other countries,’ said Katherine. ‘The games sometimes take months to play.’

  ‘What?’ said Black, staring at her. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘They write letters back and forth, making one move at a time.’

  In that instant he knew he had it. The last piece. Now he knew how Queer Jack was choosing his victims, and why. He cursed softly under his breath. He’d been a complete fool not to see it weeks ago. He stood. He had to call Swift immediately. ‘Do you have a telephone?’

  ‘Through there.’ Katherine pointed towards the kitchen. Black nodded, crossed the room and went into the kitchen, closing the door behind him. He reappeared a few minutes later, the tired expression on his face replaced with something else: excitement, even elation.

  ‘I have to go.’

  ‘Is the photograph important?’ Katherine asked, climbing to her feet.

  He nodded. ‘Yes. Very important.’ He turned and headed for the door.

  ‘Glad I could lend a hand,’ said Katherine wryly. She shrugged her shoulders. ‘But what’s a little bit of treason between friends, right?’

  Black stopped in mid-stride and turned. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Sorry for what? I’m just the lying bitch who tried to spy on you, remember?’

  Black took a step towards her then stopped. ‘No. You’re not that.’ He smiled. ‘You’re really quite wonderful, as a matter of fact.’ He flushed hotly and then turned on his heel, moving towards the door. Reaching it, he turned again. ‘We’ll talk again, I promise you. When I get back.’

  ‘Get back from where?’ asked Katherine but he was gone. ‘Jesus,’ she whispered, staring at the blank face of the door. ‘What have I done?’

  She wandered into the kitchen. In his haste Black had left the telephone half out of the cradle and it was now buzzing angrily at her. She replaced it properly, then noticed that the small pad and pencil she kept beside the telephone was out of place. Black had used it then torn off the top page of the pad. She stared blearily down at it. Standard stuff she’d learned at Donovan’s silly little spy school in Washington’s Foggy Bottom. Picking up the pencil, she held it sideways, rubbing the wide edge of the lead point over the pad. The ghostly impression left on the pad under the one Black had used stood out clearly. A single line.

  Coventry. Bomber’s moon.

  Katherine turned and checked the small calendar taped to the front of her refrigerator. The full moon for the month of November was clearly indicated. The 14th.

  Tomorrow night.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Thursday, November 14, 1940

  11:30 a.m., Greenwich Mean Time

  ‘No one’s name really leaps from the page, does it?’ said Anthony Blunt. The long-nosed and aristocratic young man was lounging in a leather-covered armchair in Guy Liddell’s office on St James’s Street, leafing through the Asprey’s list Police Constable Swift had brought over from K
ensington Park Gardens earlier that morning.

  ‘No,’ Liddell answered on the other side of the desk. He scratched at his temple with the dry stem of his pipe, frowning down at a copy of the list in front of him. From the Duke of Windsor to Joan Miller, Maxwell Knight’s not-so-secret paramour. Now there was something to boggle the mind, he thought. Perhaps the Miller woman had given the pen to Knight as a gift and then he’d used it to skewer the brains of the man in the lavatory at the Zoological Gardens. Max Knight as double agent. Liddell smiled bleakly. Given Knight’s odd habits, there was probably a case to be made.

  ‘Rather like going through the latest edition of Burke’s Peerage,’ Blunt commented. ‘All lords and ladies.’ There was a wistful note in his voice. ‘The pens must be frightfully expensive.’ He glanced up at Liddell. ‘What does your man Black have to say about it?’

  ‘Nothing. Swift said he hadn’t come in this morning.’

  ‘Dear me!’ Blunt smiled. ‘Don’t tell me the earnest Scotland Yard inspector is playing truant.’ He wagged a finger. ‘Not a good sign.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’ Liddell’s frown deepened and he found himself wishing that his assistant would shut up for a minute or two. Blunt must have read his mind because he stood up and waved the fluttering pages of the list.

  ‘I suppose I’d better begin following this up,’ he said, standing in front of the desk. The tone was clear; he was asking for permission to hand the job off to a subordinate. Liddell sighed. Tony was a brilliant, fascinating person, especially when it came to art, but as far as the drudgery of day-to-day affairs at B were concerned, the man was a dead loss. Then again, it was early days; perhaps he’d learn. But not by letting other people do the work.

  ‘Yes, follow up on it,’ Liddell said finally. ‘And do it yourself, Tony.’ He looked up at his assistant. ‘Lords and ladies, as you said. Calls for a bit of discretion, don’t you think? Your sort of thing.’