The Nazi Spy

by Alan Hardy

  But Matthew wasn’t scared. He didn’t hide in the clouds. He stayed there, careful, observant, patient, covering his back, and, when the careering, diving, swirling mêlée of planes had disappeared, he would look around, and, if there was a solitary plane there in the sky, unsuspecting and vulnerable, he would sneak up on it, let rip with his 20 mm cannon, and send it crashing down in flames.

  Because that had been his plan all along.

  Oh, Flight Lieutenant Matthew Manfred was a cool customer all right.

  He was the sort of man you wanted on your side.

  And he seemed to be on her side. She had a hold over him. He was so young, you see. Where before that had been a regret for her—fearing he would tire of her—she felt now it was to her advantage. If he’d had a few more years of experience with women, he might not have found her so fascinating, or been willing to overlook her bad points. He had a young man’s foolish, stubborn resolve to be faithful and true. He put up with her tantrums—and, let’s face it, her betrayal of her country—because there were things more important to him than that. Like the colour of her eyes, the wind tugging at her hair, the feel of her bosom on his chest, her prim knees and pleated skirts, even her silly, frenetic rubbing of her wrist and awkward pawing at her left cheek. He adored every idiosyncratic tic of hers, every twist and turn of her body, every tremor of facial muscle.

  All that had meaning for him. For now.

  He believed in her. It was his youth perhaps which gave him that loyalty and faith. He hadn’t had the wider experience which might question the uniqueness of her physical attributes, and wonder whether the headaches she might cause him were worth a face and a body, however alluring, which was on the verge of losing youth’s firmness and glow.

  Her aim was clear. Whether Germany or Britain won the war, even whether Matthew stayed with her or not, in the end what mattered to her was the maintenance of her position. What her mother and father had bequeathed to her, and her sisters. Wealth, standing, and also, in her case, her mansion.

  The war, and her fateful choice in 1934, had put all that in jeopardy.

  She had to be strong, cling on to Matthew, follow his lead, as long as it was to her advantage, and try not to be too hysterical, or weak-minded.

  If she could go back…

  There was even more reason now to frantically guard and maintain her position.

  She had been feeling unwell recently. Nauseous. Her body was out-of-sorts. She had thrown up one or two mornings.

  She had made an appointment to see the family doctor.

  She had had no experience of such a state, but she had eventually realized she must be pregnant.

  She was overjoyed.

  It had finally happened.

  Even more reason to steadfastly keep her head, and do all she could to protect herself, and maintain her position. What had passed from her parents to her as the eldest daughter would now be passed on to her child. Nobody would take from her what was due to her, and her child. She would kill for it.

  So, it had always been that useless lump Freddie’s fault. During their loveless, childless sham of a marriage, she had blamed herself for her barrenness, but it had been Freddie all along. His Spitfire’s 20 mm cannon shells were as blank as his stupid head.

  Her beautiful, young man had needed no time at all to give her what she had always craved. During all those long years of marriage, she had been forced to play and laugh with her nephews and nieces, biting her tongue, keeping her despair and bitterness hidden deep inside. No longer.

  Now she had her young man. Now she would have her child. All her dreams were coming true.

  Nobody, and nothing must stand in the way.

  The danger of being unmasked as a spy must be dealt with.

  And Freddie, who had chosen this of all moments to rise from the dead, had to be dealt with too.

  He would have to be got rid of.

  15

  It was an uncomfortable dinner-party.

  To make matters worse, Fiona was the only woman there without an escort.

  Flight Lieutenant Turnbill was there, with Sergeant Paula Wentworth, down the far end of the table. They weren’t ostensibly a couple, in the sense that they had arrived holding hands and trading kisses, but it was understood.

  Flight Lieutenant Matthew Manfred was there, seated opposite Warrant Officer Mary Wilkinson, with whom he had arrived. Nobody considered them a serious item, as yet, and relations between them seemed more polite than romantic.

  Group Captain Jenkins, louring and corpulent, was the only man there without an escort, which was particularly galling for Fiona. The Group Captain, by his manner and remarks to her, made it plain they should team up, at least for the evening’s duration.

  The hosts, Squadron Leader Jackson and his wife, Belinda, completed the small ensemble at the table.

  The Jacksons had a tiny, quaint enough cottage in the countryside, not too far from the airfield. There was a charming wood a mile or two down the road which led to the airfield.

  Freddie’s miraculous salvation had never been formally announced, but it was known. Jenkins, Jackson, Turnbill and Manfred would have heard about it through official channels, of course, and, equally, everybody, except perhaps Mary Wilkinson, must have heard whispers about Matthew and Fiona.

  The delicacy of the situation must have been apparent to the assembled guests. So, Freddie did not form any part of the general conversation, he merely figured in a few asides addressed to Fiona.

  Belinda was the cheekiest.

  “Heard about Freddie, Fiona darling,” she murmured as she and Fiona were waiting outside the toilet downstairs. “Have you seen him?”

  “No.”

  “When will you be seeing him?”

  She shrugged.

  “Must have been quite a shock for you when you heard he was back, mustn’t it?” Belinda enquired, pushing her plumpish face towards her.

  “No more than the shocks you must have often had when your husband returned home unexpectedly, Belinda!”

  “Fiona!” Belinda gasped.

  Who was this suddenly acerbic Fiona, Belinda wondered.

  She shot her a bitchy glance.

  “How did Matthew take the news?” she asked, eager to get her own back.

  Fiona ignored that one.

  Paula hadn’t missed a chance, either.

  “Congratulations on the news of your husband, Mrs MacIntosh,” she told her in the kitchen, as they each picked up two dessert-dishes full of strawberries.

  “Thank you.”

  “Though your good news is my bad news…” Paula said, raising her hand to a falsely blinking eye, given the lie to by her shameless half-grin. “My husband’s death is now confirmed.”

  “Of course, I’m so sorry,” said Fiona coldly.

  Yes, and you helped kill him, you bitch, thought Fiona.

  “Flight Lieutenant Turnbill has been such a rock, y’know,” Paula continued, her eyes ablaze with cattiness. “He’s given me strength to face, y’know, things… As has Flight Lieutenant Manfred…”

  She gave Fiona a lingering look as she turned towards the kitchen-door, holding gleeful nastiness in her head, as well as two dessert-dishes in her hands.

  What did she mean by that?

  Fiona felt like flinging her dessert-dishes against the wall, and then grabbing a sharp shard or two of glass to slit open Paula’s well-sucked, rancid neck.

  The after-dinner conversation at the table in the smallish, but charming dining-room opened up more and more as the cognac was passed around.

  “Fiona, is this year’s fete at the mansion still pencilled in for the 18th?” asked Squadron Leader Jackson.

  “Of course,” she replied.

  “It’s in support of 287 Squadron, isn’t it?” chimed in Mary Wilkinson.

  “Yes,” said Fiona. “I’m honoured to carry on the tradition started by my father shortly after the end of the last war.”

  “Much appreciated by us all, Mrs
MacIntosh,” murmured Group Captain Jenkins, eagerly reaching out for the cognac decanter.

  Fiona kept glancing at young Mary Wilkinson, and at her own young man.

  Mary wasn’t a beauty, that could be confirmed. But she was pleasant. That was confirmed, too. She had an easiness of manner, which grated on Fiona. A polite self-confidence, surprising in the daughter of a small market-town chemist.

  But then Fiona herself was no classic beauty either, she had to admit.

  Mary often smiled at Matthew, without any obvious hint of self-conscious nervousness, or need for reassurance. There were no signs of any special rapport between them. Matthew merely acknowledged her smile with a nod or a returned, weak smile.

  Fiona sensed his awkwardness. He was only too aware of her presence, and prying eyes. He was disconcerted, ill-at-ease. He didn’t say much, merely looked vulnerable, and yet, at the same time, as always, he observed. That was his trademark.

  He took things in. He saw into your soul. He knew what you were thinking before you did. Well, at least, he knew all the secrets Fiona had hoarded up in her mind. She knew he knew that. But then he had had a series of letters to help him. And passion.

  Did he have that for Mary? Passion? Love? Would he ever write letters to her? Would he ever read her like a book? Or would she just remain someone to be observed, and then discarded? Not even worth writing a report on for his superiors?

  Fiona had had a quick word with him over the phone before the dinner. She’d arranged to be the last to leave—Belinda was an old friend, all said and done—so that Matthew would have the time to drop Mary off at her barracks, and then double back and be waiting for her by the side of the road at the beginning of the pretty wood.

  They’d be able to snatch a few minutes together. Alone. They hadn’t seen each other for a couple of days.

  There was a segment of the dinner-table conversation which Fiona noticed provoked a great deal of positive interest from Matthew.

  “I hear Lord and Lady Montacue are pledging £200 for one of the stalls at the fete, aren’t they?” remarked Belinda. “Isn’t that wonderful?”

  “Which stall is that?” asked Group Captain Jenkins. “Coconut-shy? Shoot-the-elephant?”

  “They probably feel they have to,” remarked Paula drily, fiddling absent-mindedly with strands of hair unravelling from the inadequately-pinned bun at the back of her head.

  “How do you mean, Paula?” asked Matthew, perking up.

  Fiona smiled. She could imagine him sharpening his mental pencil, ready to take notes, and make a report.

  “Well, y’know,” Paula murmured, a bit defensively as she noticed faces turned towards her, and an expectant silence, “they were known to be…well, before the war…”

  “Nazi sympathizers?” suggested Matthew.

  “Well, it would be fairer to say they supported the policy of appeasement,” interposed Squadron Leader Jackson. “Many people did.”

  “Including Neville Chamberlain, our Prime Minister at the time,” added Fiona, looking pointedly at Matthew.

  “Yes, yes…” mumbled Group Captain Jenkins, looking befuddled, red of face, and probably not too sure of the exact nature of the conversation.

  “Lord Mendelson was part of their set too, wasn’t he?” contributed George Turnbill, glancing round.

  “I wonder how much he’s pledging for the guess-the-weight stall,” snapped Belinda, giggling, boozily and clumsily leaning into Matthew, who she was seated next to.

  “Now, now, Belinda…” chided her husband, looking with some annoyance at his wife’s nudging proximity to Matthew, and then, for some reason, turning the same look of distaste towards George Turnbill. “Don’t forget, those were different times. Nobody knew, you know, how things would turn out… After all, Belinda, you were quite friendly yourself with that set, so…”

  “Well, yes, you’re right, I was,” admitted Belinda freely. “Many of us were. I introduced you to some of them, didn’t I, Fiona? They even put you in touch with a few of their friends in Germany, didn’t they?”

  “Did they?” Fiona responded coolly. “I can’t say I really remember.”

  “I won’t hear anything said against Lord Mendelson,” said a slightly trembling, yet determined voice.

  Everyone turned to stare at Mary Wilkinson.

  She was sitting straight-backed, red-faced, staring resolutely ahead.

  Nobody spoke.

  “You see,” she explained, pluckily breaking the silence, “my mother worked for him. He was a very helpful and considerate employer. He helped my parents a lot when they got married. Put them on their feet, so to speak.”

  “And what was her job with his Lordship?” enquired Fiona, intrigued.

  “She was just a domestic servant in his household.”

  “I see.”

  Mary’s resolve seemed to waver a moment. Just a moment. She bit her lip, and looked bravely around.

  “I’m not ashamed of my family’s origins, nor to speak of them. Surely that’s what we’re fighting for, isn’t it? Not for questions of class, and who’s better than who, but for all of us being together, and sharing everything fair and square? Well, that’s what I think…”

  “Well, said!”

  “Good girl!”

  There was a general murmur of approval, even an odd cheer or two.

  “Well-spoken, Mary!”

  Fiona noticed Matthew smiling.

  Artful little minx, thought Fiona to herself. You’re not just the sweet, good-natured so-and-so I thought you were, are you?

  She had played her audience to perfection. She had manipulated their prejudices and emotions with a skill which belied her years, and created an image of herself which was as powerful—Fiona now decided—as it was false.

  Where the others might be thinking of Mary as a plucky, admirable young woman, Fiona felt not just jealousy towards her, but fear. This was somebody to be careful of. If she had designs on Matthew, she could be a formidable opponent.

  Or had Matthew already read through all her flannel and pretence, and seen the real her?

  Matthew was waiting by his car, in a little siding at the beginning of the wood, as Fiona drew up in her Bentley.

  She got out, and walked up to him.

  “Hello, darling, I’ve missed being alone with you,” she whispered, kissing him.

  He opened up the black coat she had slung over her blue party frock, and she fell against him, savouring with a gasp the warmth of his body.

  “Sorry, Fiona, we just have to be a bit circumspect.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll explain later.”

  “If it carries on like this, we’ll have to start writing letters to each other again to stay in contact.”

  He laughed.

  “You’re not going to deny you were the letter-writer, I hope?” she asked, laughing, and kissing him all over his face.

  “I don’t think there would be any point…” he responded.

  They held each other tightly, both shifting and twisting their bodies as if they were two bodies conjoined in a slow Latin dance.

  “How did you work out it was me, Fiona? How long did it take you?”

  “I always knew it was you, darling.”

  “You liar.”

  “Well, I always hoped it was…” she conceded, tugging at his hair. “Of course, when Freddie was killed, or, rather, was supposed to have been killed, and the letters continued…well, I knew the only people who could have done that were the ones who had been transferred to other squadrons, and who didn’t know immediately that Freddie had gone to the land of Nod. So, I just needed a list of names.”

  “Where did you get it from? Who was it?”

  “Jenkins.”

  “I should have guessed. Our inebriated Group Captain. Always letting slip out what he shouldn’t…”

  “So, I knew it was either John Granville, George Turnbill, or a certain Matthew Manfred,” she continued, squeezing her fingers inside his shir
t between two top buttons, and fondling his soft flesh. “John Granville had been posted overseas, so that left just you and George… And the rest is history.”

  “What a clever girl.”

  “Mind you, though my premise was sound, you knew Freddie wasn’t around. You only pretended you didn’t know Freddie had been killed…”

  “Complicated, this espionage work, isn’t it?”

  They both smiled, Fiona quite self-consciously, blushing awkwardly, unable to meet his eyes.

  “But, Matthew, why did you continue writing to me after Freddie’s death? Or, rather, Wentworth’s death? You knew it was going to be reported that Freddie was dead… The letters couldn’t have carried on for long, as, in fact, they didn’t. I would be told Freddie was dead, and…”

  “But you kept writing, Fiona, so I kept replying…”

  “Yes, because I loved writing to you, even though you were pretending to be what you were not… I understand that you kept on writing when I never stopped… But why hadn’t you stopped as soon as Freddie, supposedly, was killed?”

  “I just couldn’t, Fiona…I just couldn’t…”

  He shifted his gaze directly into her eyes. Those two blue orbs of beauty rammed into her, and brought a shudder to her body.

  “I just couldn’t bring myself to stop…” he murmured.

  “You had no other motive, Matthew?” she asked, twisting and rubbing her face upon his.

  “What other motive could I have had?”

  They instinctively moved away from each other as lights flickered on the road coming from the direction of the Jacksons’ cottage, accompanied by the crunch of tyres on stones.

  A car was parking off the road, five hundred yards from them.

  Fiona nestled back into Matthew, wriggling into him to ease herself into the smoothest fit.

  “Lovers’ Lane they call it here, don’t they, Matthew?”

  He smiled.

  “We shouldn’t hang around too long, Fiona,” he said, glancing in the direction of the other car.

  Its lights vanished. Blackness returned.

  “They’ve got other things on their mind, Matthew,” she whispered into his ear. “Why don’t we go into the Bentley, darling? It’s quite cosy in there… Or come back to the Mansion with me.”