by Alan Hardy
He was breathing hard, looking at her with a mixture of curiosity, surprise, and worry. Even fear.
“But what is this, Fiona? What are you doing?”
He made a slight movement towards her. A tentative half-embrace. A wary lover, suddenly hit by doubt.
She waved her revolver at him, warning him away.
Already hanging back, he now froze.
“Are you going to shoot me, darling? Do you want me to get out, kneel down in the dirt, so you—”
“Don’t be silly, Matthew,” she cut in, her voice controlled and determined.
Inside she was in turmoil. Her stomach felt cavernously hollow, her heart was thumping wildly, and she fought back tears, even embarrassing sobs, at the sight of her Matthew’s incredulous stare. The whole situation was unreal.
“I just want to explain,” she said robotically. “Do you know where The Red Lion is?”
“Of course.”
“I want you to drive there now,” she said, as emotionlessly as she could.
“Why?”
“Just do it!” she screamed.
Matthew held up his hands in acquiescence, and then placed them on the steering-wheel. He moved the car off, sliding it into its gears.
They drove without speaking, snaking through the Scottish landscape, Matthew staring ahead at the road, and Fiona looking sideways at him, the revolver always pointed at him.
A few minutes later, the Bentley pulled up outside The Red Lion.
“Park further down the road, on the other side,” said Fiona, motioning with the revolver. “That way we can see people arriving.”
“When are you going to spill your secretive beans, Fiona?” asked Matthew.
“I’ve arranged to meet Paula here in a few minutes.”
“And when was that arranged?”
“When she came to see me at The Mansion two days ago,” replied Fiona, without a flicker of emotion registering on her pale face.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked wearily.
Fiona swallowed, took a deep breath, and remained quite still, gathering herself.
“Can I kiss you, Fiona?” asked Matthew. “You look so beautiful.”
Her lips quivered for a moment, her facial muscles tensed up, and her left hand moved up to press her collar and lapels even tighter around her neck and chest.
“Don’t play your tricks on me now, Matthew,” she said calmly. “You’re trying to unbalance me. I’m not stupid. You’re trying to throw me.”
He stared at her with fascinated eyes.
“Go on, Fiona,” he said.
Fiona got ready to speak, like a pupil who had learnt her speech off by heart for the school debate.
“Paula is going to divulge who told her that I am suspected of being a German spy. As we’ve said before, there are only two people who could have done that. The third spy—whoever that is—or you. I couldn’t tell you about the meeting with Paula because, if it is you, you could have taken steps to stop that meeting… I don’t know how… Maybe, by getting to Paula first, somehow, or hiding her away…”
“Why would I do that?”
“Or maybe you yourself are the third spy…”
“What would it matter if I was the third spy?”
“Are you?” asked Fiona sharply, giving him a suspicious stare.
“No, I’m not,” he answered, with a long sigh. “But, I repeat, even if I was, what would it matter? You’re a German spy, anyway, so we would be two birds in the same cage. Or, maybe, two fanatics in the same torch-lit procession.”
“Don’t get clever, Matthew,” snapped Fiona, in a reprimanding, albeit trembling tone. “You’ve never admitted being a German spy to me, so there must be—”
“Because I’m not a bloody Nazi spy!” he almost yelled.
“But, if you were a spy, and you hadn’t ever admitted it to me, that would make you very untrustworthy,” answered Fiona, unsure, a little frail, but as steadfast as she could be. “Your motives would be suspect.”
“How?”
“Don’t patronize me, Matthew!” she exclaimed, getting angry. “You know what I mean. You’ve always been going on about the third spy being willing to sacrifice anybody—even fellow-Nazi spies—to ensure his or her own safety. You’ve said the third spy just wants to get British Intelligence to sign off on three people either unmasked or framed as spies, leaving him or her free to get on with their job unmolested. You’ve even discussed with me who might be willing to bump off who in order to raise suspicions against whoever the corpse is. Well, what could be one reason for you talking like that?
“Well, I’m sure you’re going to tell me, darling,” responded Matthew laconically.
“Well,” said Fiona, biting her lip, and looking quite severe, “the reason could be because that’s what you’ve been doing, and are doing.”
“What—”
“You’ve unmasked me, and you shot down and killed poor Wentworth, so that makes two, and now you’re looking for the third.”
“But you are a spy!” shouted an exasperated Matthew. “And Wentworth—”
“Who says Wentworth was a German spy? You could have framed him, and, as you said about George Turnbill, dead men can’t prove their innocence.”
“So, I’m the third spy whose aim is to identify three people as spies, whether they are or not, whether they’re alive or dead, whether—”
“Don’t make fun of me!” said Fiona, not loudly or hysterically, but with cold fury. “Or, even if you’re not the third spy, but still told Paula I was a spy, then I can trust you even less. You’re playing me for a fool. You’re working against me. You’re maybe sleeping with me just to trick me, and betray me. You’re just doing it for your own purposes, and not because you love me. You’re talking about me to other women. Horrible women like Paula. You’re laughing about me…”
“Fiona…” murmured Matthew, holding out his arms to her.
“Keep away!” she insisted, her left hand moving to wipe away moisture from her left eye. “I know how important it is for you to please the powers-that-be in London. You want a promotion, maybe a nice, cushy job somewhere… I understand that, but it might make you untrustworthy, for me anyway. I’m just a number for you. Number Two. The second spy. A woman you’re coldly using to help you along the road which leads to the third spy being exposed. And then you’ll leave me. Discard me. Maybe throw me to the MI5 wolves in London.”
“Fiona, this is all wrong, you’re getting confused. You have a suspicious nature. You must fight against it. I love you. You must know that.”
“But… But how can I be sure you’re not just using me? How can I be sure you love me?”
He stared at her, and she sensed herself softening.
“You see, Fiona,” he said, “your long marriage to Freddie was a series of betrayals perpetrated by him on you. That’s made you insecure. All your childhood dreams of what love might and should be went up in flames. You’ve been made suspicious. You fear betrayal everywhere, and from everybody. You felt so betrayed by Freddie and his behaviour that you instinctively betrayed him in turn by becoming a German agent. And you fear I’m the same. You fear I will betray you, but—”
“You’re trying to manipulate me, and my emotions!” shouted Fiona, becoming very agitated, her body shaking, and her face twitching uncontrollably.
Images crowded into her mind, one after the other without pause, until she felt her head would burst.
Matthew leant forward, his right hand moving towards her arm.
“You’re manipulating me!” she screamed, and lashed out at him with the revolver, catching him on the mouth as he hurriedly backed off.
“For God’s sake, Fiona!” he exclaimed, putting his hand to his bloodied lips. “I’m manipulating you? It doesn’t feel like that to me. You’re always manipulating me! And thumping me continually across the face!”
The garish splash of red on Matthew’s lips brought her to her senses. She looked horrified.
“Oh, my darling, are you all right?” she called out, laying the revolver on her lap, and reaching for his face. “You’re bleeding…”
She took out her handkerchief from her handbag, her head clearing more and more, and started to staunch the blood, crying miserably.
“Are your teeth all right, Matthew?”
“I’m all right,” he murmured, catching hold of her hand. “It’s just a graze, I think.”
They stared at each other for a split-second, and then embraced.
“But, darling, you do trust me, don’t you?” he asked.
She backed off him, and looked at him.
“I… I don’t know…” she replied.
He was speechless for a while, and then chuckled.
“You know, Fiona, it is possible that I’m not the third spy, and that I am who I say I am, and that I love you, and—”
“Of course, it’s possible,” interrupted Fiona shyly. “You see, that was another thing she was going to tell me.”
“What?”
“Well, about you and her,” she answered, red-faced and hesitant. “What you’ve got up to…”
“But she could have told you anything she wanted, any lies which came into her head, any sexual fantasies she might concoct, let alone lies about me being the person who told her you were a—”
“That’s why we have to be together when we see her, darling. Don’t you see? She’ll have to answer our questions, if she wants the money. We’ll know if she’s lying. I’ll be there to hear what she says. You’ll be there too. I’ll see how you react. I’ll see what she has to say about you, I’ll know if it’s true or not. If she’s any trouble, we can beat the truth out of her, I—”
Matthew said nothing, remaining tight-lipped and pensive.
“And we’ll find out who the third spy is. That’s what you want, isn’t it, Matthew?”
He still made no attempt to respond.
“Don’t you see?” she pleaded. “It might be I’m too suspicious, it might be my fault, or maybe yours, but this way we can be sure, I—”
“Paula won’t come,” he stated baldly.
“Why not?”
“She just won’t.”
“How do you know?” she asked suspiciously.
“Because not more than four hours ago, I was looking down on her dead body, watching the blood ooze out of the gaping hole made in her chest by an automatic pistol.”
“I’m assuming, Matthew,” she said, quite dispassionately, “that you were the person who fired that pistol? Were you not?”
24
Fiona had a few days on her own. Matthew had been called to London for a top-level, hush-hush meeting. Presumably centred on the problem of the third spy, and the Anglo-American summit earmarked to take place at Scapa Flow. He said he would be away at least three days.
A few interesting things had happened since The Red Lion episode.
For one, Matthew had been informed that Freddie had resurfaced. Back from the dens, night-clubs and brothels of Soho. He’d been put on a charge, and, once again, deposited in his safe house. Matthew had assured Fiona he wouldn’t be allowed out for a long time, especially following his absence without leave, and resulting misdemeanours.
Secondly, Matthew told her London were perfectly happy with his report. This meant they accepted his assurances concerning Fiona: namely, that she had been ‘turned’ by him, and would now become a double agent working for British Intelligence. Matthew was designated as her handler. They stressed the paramount importance of tracking down the third spy.
The inescapable inference from this could only be that Matthew, and Fiona as his ally, were up against a formidable opponent in the person of that third spy. The latter had not fallen into Matthew’s trap. He or she, when quizzed by London, had concurred with the conclusions in Matthew’s report: namely, that Wentworth, and Fiona, were two of the trio of Nazi spies working in the Scapa Flow area, and the third spy was, as yet, unknown.
In a way, Fiona’s position was relatively secure. This comforted her to some extent. She had been welcomed with open arms by the British—so to speak--without having had to burn her boats with the Germans. Well, that was what it was to be a double agent. The best of both worlds. Or the worst of both. Time would tell.
Matthew had denied killing Paula. Well, he would, wouldn’t he?
She was inclined to believe him. Most days. On a bad day, she didn’t. On such occasions she was left ill-tempered the whole day and night.
His story went like this. He’d gone in the morning to the WAAF barracks to speak to her mates. Most of them claimed to know nothing about her disappearance, and her present whereabouts. With a little persuasion here, a smile or two there, Matthew had got two or three of her closest friends—partners in crime, so to speak—to open up. They mentioned a cheap little pad, in a less salubrious area of town, which Paula rented for a pittance, and where, to be blunt, she entertained a fair number of male guests. Matthew suspected her little group of friends shared in the renting and use of the dingy apartment, which comprised little more than a room.
Matthew went there, got the caretaker to open up, and there she was: lying on the well-rumpled bedsheets with a bullet through her chest, dead as a dodo.
Fiona suspected, perhaps unfairly, that Matthew didn’t need to hear of the tiny apartment from Paula’s mates, but already knew of its existence because of visits he had paid there. But she bit her tongue, and didn’t say anything. Neither did she hit him. Nor did she spit at him. Not for now, anyway.
Matthew troubled her.
She loved him deeply, there was no denying it. He was the love of her life. The young man she had always dreamt of, but only found when she herself was no longer a young woman.
But he troubled her.
She couldn’t quite bring herself to trust him. It was such a pity that Paula had chosen that day to get shot dead. If Fiona had managed to quiz her at The Red Lion, with Malcolm in tow, everything would have been cleared up.
She couldn’t be sure Matthew wasn’t the third German spy. If he was, and was keeping it hidden from her, then he was just playing her along. She was his patsy, as they said in the Hollywood movies. By seducing her, and turning her into a double agent, he’d exposed her as a German spy. She, and Wentworth, made two. He just needed to point a credible finger of suspicion at someone else, and he, Matthew, the actual third spy, would be in the clear. Then he might dump her. He wouldn’t need her.
She worried about the relationship he might have had with Paula. They must have been intimate in the past. A woman like Paula would automatically go with a man such as Matthew, like ham goes with eggs, and butter goes with jam, and a chamber-pot goes under a bed.
Even if he wasn’t a German spy, he might well have spoken loosely about Fiona to Paula, but, with Paula two feet under, Fiona would never know. That would have been humiliating. To find out Matthew had shared her personal secrets with that whore. Then, once more, it would have shown he was just using her. She was no more to him than a dirty joke shared with a scabby-faced tart.
It would make him no better than a male Mata Hari.
Matthew troubled her.
She also feared for his life. Both George Turnbill and Paula had been murdered. Fiona couldn’t deny they had formed something of a unit with Matthew. They were his ‘creatures’, his underlings. She didn’t think they were fully-fledged, signed-up members of MI5, but they were certainly involved in some of Matthew’s activities. Paula was directly implicated in the death of her husband—relaying information to Matthew from the ops-room on the day he blew Wentworth out of the sky—and George Turnbill was possibly involved, even if peripherally. George had told Fiona once that Matthew was somebody to be wary of. It was clear George feared Matthew. He was under his thumb. It was the same with Paula. Paula was paid for her services by British Intelligence, rather than being an agent, and Fiona imagined it was Matthew who had recruited her, and indeed paid her. Fiona wondered how wide a
meaning her ‘services’ had in terms of Matthew paying for them. It would bring a whole new meaning to the term ‘dirty money’.
Matthew troubled her.
Both Turnbill and Paula dead. Two members of Matthew’s unit gone. That only left Matthew himself. Did the killer have Matthew in his or her sights as the next victim? And now that it was generally known that Fiona and Matthew were an item, both personally and professionally, would she, Fiona, become a potential target too? Someone had already taken pot-shots at them, anyway.
Matthew troubled her.
She loved him. She hungered for him. She feared him. She doubted him. She mistrusted him. She feared for his life.
When she was under him, or on top of him, or up against a wall, with him inside her, and she achieved that sweet, uncontrolled explosion of her body, as if she were dying, as if she were vomiting out her last breath, and didn’t mind, then she didn’t doubt him, or mistrust him, or fear him. She only loved him. Adored him.
But he did trouble her the rest of the time.
25
She decided, during Matthew’s absence, to do a bit of sleuthing.
She hit on a plan.
By this time the tragic deaths of Flight Lieutenant George Turnbill and WAAF Sergeant Paula Wentworth had been made public, minus a few details.
As someone whose family had close ties with 287 Squadron and its base, she let it be known to the authorities that she would like to write an article for the local newspaper to acknowledge their recent, shocking murders, and thereby commemorate their contribution to the squadron. It would be an act of solidarity with the squadron, and defiance in the face of such tragedies. You know, the show must go on…
Anyway, she was the proprietor of the newspaper. Her plan was quickly agreed to.
So, she had a ready-made excuse to speak to a number of people.
Her interest was focussed mainly on Group Captain Jenkins, WAAF Warrant Officer Mary Wilkinson, and Squadron Leader Jackson, and his wife, Belinda.
Fiona’s first visit was to the airfield. She went to see the Station Commander, Group Captain Jenkins himself.
