by Alan Hardy
She looked up at him.
“I take it you’ve finished?” he asked.
She stepped back a pace or two, and dropped into the armchair. She raised her hands to her face, and covered it, without touching.
“I do apologize,” she murmured. “I shouldn’t have done that. Not to you.”
He paced a little rectangle where he was standing, round and round, and sometimes reversing, and pacing it out again, round and round.
Fiona, breathing deeply, and feeling wretched, stared at him, fascinated.
“Do you hate me now?” she asked.
He stopped in his silly perambulations, and stared back.
“When I was at Oxford University, I was recruited into MI5. British Intelligence. They were always on the look-out for suitable material. A few of my acquaintances were grabbed as well, I think. But it was all a bit hush-hush, of course.”
He started wandering around in his circles and oblongs again, speaking every now and then.
He was telling her his story. He was coming clean. She was elated. She would have loved to jump up and embrace him. Cover him with kisses. Only, she wanted to hear the whole story. So, she stayed sitting.
She had a feeling that, however badly she behaved at times, she could rely on him. Well, that was her hope. Time would tell…
“I didn’t have to do much. It was part-time stuff. I mainly got on with my studies, and reserved a bit of time for my cloak and dagger routines. They gave me one or two people to look into…to get to know…or who I already knew… I would write reports on them. You know, people they had suspicions over…Communist sympathies, and so on…Fascist sympathies… It was something for me to do, I suppose…”
He paused, still wending his way round his circles into his past.
“I left university just over a couple of years ago. I’m still quite young, you know…”
He smiled at her, and she nodded her head, smiling back.
“I’d only just started to work at an advertising agency in London when the war broke out. One other thing I had learnt at university was how to fly. I was immediately called up into the Royal Air Force. Given my training, and all that. I learnt how to fly Spits. But I still had my part-time job. I was required to write occasional reports, you know, state of morale in the squadron, anything else which caught my notice, or aroused my suspicions…”
He took out his packet of cigarettes, offered her a cigarette, and took one himself. Their knuckles knocked against each other. She saw one hand had a graze on it—from her fusillade of blows. A red blob trickled from it, like a drop of water trapped on a window pane, sliding slowly. She touched the blob, and pricked it. It imploded into near-nothingness, and she leant forward and kissed the spot.
He lit their cigarettes, ruffled her hair, and resumed his circular walk.
“I enjoyed it, I suppose. I was quite good at it. Keeping an eye on things. I was even pointed in the direction of a couple of chaps who it was considered needed checking… I had plenty of time for that. The phoney war and all that, especially up here, where things were so quiet, apart from the occasional incident or two, and not forgetting the HMS Tamworth incident, of course… When all hell broke out in 1940, and the real war began, and we were needed down south, well, I had to face the real thing then. The war wasn’t phoney anymore. A bit different, I can tell you.”
He laughed, and ran a hand through his wavy, brown hair.
“Well, Fiona, the HMS Tamworth incident… As you know, the battlecruiser was hit just as it came out of Scapa Flow after its refit. Nearly a hundred casualties. Tight security had been kept on its presence at Scapa Flow. Nobody knew except the bigwigs, and those members of 287 Squadron who’d escorted it in, and were briefed to escort it out. For the Germans to launch an attack which caught it just as it was entering the high seas, well, it was either the greatest luck…or…”
“Or, Matthew?”
“Or the powers-that-be decided there must be a spy in our midst. Or spies. The information had been relayed out to Germany. Suspicion obviously fell on the officers in the Navy and RAF who knew of the refit, and the pilots of 287 Squadron, and anyone they had told, even though they had been sworn to secrecy. Such a high-profile ship as HMS Tamworth…pride of the Navy and all that…and Scapa Flow, Britain’s major naval base… It obviously caused a stir…”
“So, that’s your present mission, is it? Find the spy?”
“Or spies. Intelligence is claiming—from sources not divulged to someone on a pay grade as low as mine—that there could be up to three spy units, even if each is only composed of one individual.”
“And John Wentworth was one of them?” she blurted out, looking intently at him.
He didn’t reply.
“And you did kill him, didn’t you?”
“Did I?”
“With the help of Paula, his wife. That’s what happened, didn’t it? She was prepared to help kill her own husband?”
Her eyes glazed over for a moment, and she smiled.
“Now I come to think of it,” she continued, “I can’t really say that the desire to kill your husband—and actually have the courage to carry it out—is really something so wicked.”
They both smiled.
“Some people do what they’re required to do for reasons other than duty, or belief, however mistaken.”
His eyes bore into hers as he spoke, but she didn’t flinch.
“She was bought, was she? She did it for money?”
Matthew shrugged his shoulders.
“And George Turnbill? Did he know?”
He shrugged again.
“The way things turned out, as you guessed earlier, fitted their personal life quite nicely.”
He stopped walking in circles, and sat on the sofa.
Fiona was spellbound. Where was this leading?
“And what about our personal lives, Matthew? How does all this fit in with us?”
He ignored her question.
“Fiona, the game we’re playing now is to uncover the two other spies, if there are two. There’s going to be a very important event taking place at Scapa Flow soon, and by then we need to have everything settled.”
“What’s the event?”
“A very important meeting, which could well decide the course, if not outcome of the war. It concerns how and when the United States will enter the war. I can’t say more. I don’t know that much more. If the Germans hear of the exact details of that meeting, and who is present, and they manage to launch an attack… Well, it would be of enormous material and propaganda value to them. So, we—”
“You have to prevent the spies discovering the date and details of the meeting, and getting that information back to their handlers?”
“Exactly.”
No words were spoken for what seemed ages.
“Who do you suspect?” she asked, fearlessly seeking out his eyes.
He shrugged.
“Obviously, my area of investigation is restricted to the pilots and those around them.”
“Wives and girlfriends?”
“Yes.”
“Do you suspect Freddie?”
“Why do you say that?” he countered, looking surprised, but also impressed.
“You’re keeping him hidden away. Presumably you’re interrogating him? You have your suspicions?”
“The powers-that-be have their suspicions.”
“But you don’t?” she asked, smiling.
“I didn’t say that. You see, they think it’s feasible that he faked his crash in Northern France. Maybe his plane wasn’t shot down in combat, but was landed quite safely at a pre-arranged spot in France.”
“For what purpose?”
“A face-to-face meeting with his handlers? Passing on of information on his part, and instructions on their part? After all, he got through it all, and made his escape, without a scratch.”
“Seems unlikely. What could a face-to-face meeting achieve which couldn’t be handled by a wire
less transmitter?”
“Well, for one, their conversations couldn’t be tapped, and listened into.”
Fiona blushed, and bit her lip. Matthew smiled.
“Or, as I said, Fiona, it could be a pilot’s wife. A few indiscreet words, and she would know everything.”
She swallowed, but didn’t blink. She matched his stare, however much her insides were churning up.
“How long will the investigation last? I mean, of Freddie?”
“As long as necessary. There’s no rush to finish the debriefing. In answer to your earlier question about you and me, we have plenty of time.”
“Not if he’s a spy, you don’t. If he doesn’t contact them at an arranged time, they’ll know he’s being held, and—”
“But if he’s not a spy, the Germans won’t even know he exists, and he can be held at his safe house for as long as we want.”
“We? You mean, you and your superiors?”
“Do I?” he countered, with a cheeky twinkle in his eyes. “I don’t see any of my superiors in this room.”
She could hardly breathe. What was he saying?
“Of course, investigations will have to be carried out. For instance, if he has a wireless transmitter, I’m sure he keeps it in a safe place probably only he knows of—or, at least, a place very much associated with him—and he puts it back there every time he uses it, after having carefully wiped away any incriminating fingerprints, of course.”
“Of course,” concurred Fiona, her face feeling hot, and her body shaking with excitement.
“I mean,” continued Matthew, “a wireless transmitter, he would hardly keep it in the attic, would he?”
“No, of course not.”
She could barely believe her ears.
“So, Fiona, I’m sure our lives, yours and mine, and the sharing of our lives will carry on much as normal for the moment. I’ll make sure of that.”
“That’s wonderful,” said a beaming Fiona. “The idea of that ghastly man coming back here and—”
“That’s not going to happen.”
The finality of tone with which he uttered those words astonished her, and, however overjoyed she was, made her flinch.
Her exultation, her feeling of immense elation, was suddenly tempered by a change in his expression. He looked firm and determined, and also quite brutal.
“There is one thing.”
“Yes?”
“It might not be too wise for us to be seen too much in public outside this mansion. What I mean is that I can come to visit you here, either privately and discreetly, or as an invited guest to dinners or parties, but those romantic trysts we had recently, those picnics and such, might not be advisable.”
“Why not?”
“It might not do to give the impression that we are too close. You know, arm in arm stuff, love in the fields and under the trees… I’m sure you understand…”
Fiona wasn’t so sure that she did.
“And to enable us to create the right picture, and keep my cover, it might be necessary for me to be seen with other women.”
“Really?” she said coldly. “You mean young Mary Wilkinson?”
Matthew shrugged.
She was furious.
Matthew looked somewhat wary, as if fearing another physical outburst, but Fiona was just too exhausted.
“So, Fiona, I’ve come clean, as I promised, and—”
“To a certain extent, Matthew.”
He nodded.
“Anyway, I’ve come clean to a certain extent… At some stage, you’ll have to come clean too.”
“I know.”
“I have to go now,” he said, standing up. “Duty calls.”
“Will you come back later? Tonight?”
He didn’t answer.
“You can stay overnight, Matthew. We’ve never slept together all night before. Side by side.”
14
When she was alone, she thought things through.
She was completely flummoxed.
It was obvious he was assisting her.
He intended to help keep Freddie nicely wrapped up out of things in his London safe house. But why?
Was it just so the reappearance of her beloved husband wouldn’t spoil their romance? Was he just doing it for her? To keep the degenerate, fat slob well away from her?
But it was also obvious that Matthew suspected she was a German agent. He knew it. It was also clear that he knew Freddie wasn’t. Yet he had quite blatantly and bluntly revealed his intention to ‘frame’ Freddie. For example, he’d advised her what to do with the wireless transmitter in order both to clear herself, and incriminate Freddie.
So, he was acting in a way which hardly seemed compatible with the actions of a British agent. He seemed willing to save her from the unwanted attention both of her reborn husband, and the British authorities.
That he was possibly aiming to snatch her from her husband’s clutches to keep her for himself was maybe not so earth-shattering, but that he was eager to disguise the fact that she was a spy, and fool his superiors, was.
Unless she was missing something. Was there another motive for his actions which she couldn’t imagine for the moment?
She had to be careful. Really careful.
In a few minutes, she would go to the attic, and send a message to Germany that something special—a meeting of some importance—was going to take place at Scapa Flow. Maybe with important people present. She would also inform them that John Wentworth had been eliminated. She wasn’t doing this just because it was sensible to hedge her bets. It would be palpably stupid not to prepare for the possibility of the SS goose-stepping their way down Buckingham Palace Road, but the main reason she would send those messages was that Matthew wanted her to send them. He would never have mentioned the upcoming event at Scapa Flow, or confirmed that Wentworth was a spy, if he hadn’t wanted her to spill the beans to the Germans.
So, she would do it. She was willing to play along with Matthew, even though she didn’t fully understand his motives.
It was the same old question it had been for a while now.
What on earth was Matthew up to?
Nobody could accuse Fiona of leading too humdrum a life.
A German agent. A hated husband back from the dead. A handsome lover fifteen years her junior.
Her lover, working for British Intelligence, knew she was a German agent, and she knew he knew. And he was doing all he could to shield her, both from her husband, and the British authorities.
Or was he?
And what was she up to, in the face of such myriad dangers?
Well, her aim was survival. She had no desire to be dangling at the end of a good old piece of patriotic British rope.
For people of her class, it had never been a question of patriotism. That was for the lower orders. It was a question of position. Rank. And preserving the privileges which went with rank.
Looking back, though, she could see how her awareness that she had more in common with some high-class German acquaintances than with the bulk of the British population had led her down the wrong path. Perhaps.
If there had never been a war, it would have been fine. The war was ruining everything, and could end up destroying the old order. And the position of people like her in that order. Maybe she hadn’t realized the Nazis might be agents of revolutionary upheaval just as much as the Communists.
Without the war, life would have been perfect. Helping to keep the Germans up to speed with developments and opinion in Britain would have been a way of maintaining international peace. Germany and Britain would have been partners in keeping things on an even keel.
Obviously, if she could go back, she wouldn’t have taken that fateful decision to accept the wireless transmitter, and excitedly, naughtily, all alone in the attic, send that first message, back in 1934, to her German handlers.
Of course, she felt compromised now. However indelibly defined she was by her own role as a German agent—it could not be
otherwise—she was disturbed by her own nation being at war with the nation she had been helping. Conflicted loyalties, and all that.
She hoped Matthew would understand when she explained, when it was her turn to throw the dice in their parlour game, and come clean, as he called it. And, if he didn’t, she’d shower him with kisses, and wrap her legs around him, and transport him to heaven with her, and back, as many times as he liked.
That surprised her. How besotted he was with her sexually. It was a novel experience for her. Freddie had found her a complete waste of time and effort in such matters, and the feeling had been reciprocal. She didn’t so much lie back and think of England when with him, as lie back and grit her teeth. But Matthew couldn’t get enough of her. And the feeling was reciprocal there too.
And maybe that love—if it was love—would carry them through.
He seemed to have a plan. He appeared to be working to save her. To keep them together, and her neck well away from any noose.
She would have to try to keep her temper in check. That had always been a problem with her. Ever since she was little. Tantrums. Screaming fits, if she didn’t get her way. She even seemed to remember her father got a severe-looking, grey-haired old man to come and visit her occasionally and speak to her about things. She supposed he was a psychiatrist. But it didn’t change anything.
She flared up now and then when things got on top of her. When events and people seemed to conspire against her, and nothing went right. Everything would press in on her, her head seemed about to burst, and she had to let it all out. Hit out at the world, and them. Whoever was in the room at that time. And sometimes Matthew was in the room.
But he didn’t seem to mind.
Freddie couldn’t stand it when she got like that, and, with him, she had good reason to get like that. The way he treated her, and went with other women, and wanted to do the most disgusting things with her. She would go berserk when she couldn’t take it anymore. He just hated her even more for it. He didn’t hit her back, or anything. He kept out of the way. Left the house. Went off in his Spitfire and hid in the clouds, until the dogfight was over.
She used to scare him when she got like that.
It was the only time she got one up on him.
