A Question of Betrayal

by Anne Perry

  “That’s not nonsense,” Peter answered. “I’m afraid it’s true. It’s a matter of exactly how and when. It looks like they’re not quite ready yet, maybe sometime early next year, but I’ve got other information that it could be sooner than that. There seems to be a splinter group within their own body, like a cancer eating the heart out of them. Likely to preempt them in late October this year.” He was still debating telling Lucas the whole truth. Perhaps that would jeopardize a job, or worse, break a trust he needed to keep. Trust was the breath of life to a man who was alone and surrounded by enemies. That was one reason he had sent Elena to get Aiden Strother back alive. It was not just to show his whole support for Aiden, but for every other agent in the field. If you deliberately let one go, morally you have to let them all go. Trust was built up…or it went nowhere.

  Lucas was waiting.

  Peter made the decision. “That’s why we have Aiden Strother in Trieste. He’s sent a lot of good information back, but now we’ve got to get him out.”

  Lucas’s face was tight. Neither of them mentioned Elena, but the fact of her mission was there between them, as if she were beside them in the field.

  “You trust him?” Lucas asked quietly.

  Peter could either answer honestly or commit a betrayal that could never be mended. “He’s been planted deep, for years. All his information—and there’s been a lot of it—has been good.”

  “So far…” Lucas said. “Do you still trust him?” He waited.

  A flock of starlings whirled up in the sky, curved, and came down again.

  “I don’t know,” Peter said honestly. “I have no grounds not to. I just…”

  “Did you send him to Germany?”

  “I picked him out,” Peter admitted. “But Bradley actually sent him. He denies it, which is interesting. But he has to have authorized continuing it, not to mention getting the reports.”

  Lucas’s face was as tight and hard as Peter had ever seen it, and yet he understood perfectly. “Was it Bradley who used Elena in the original, pretended, betrayal?”

  “Yes…” There was nothing he could add. It was six years ago.

  “I see.” Lucas did not make excuses. There was a world of knowledge unspoken between them. “When did you last hear from her?”

  “Not since she found him. Pretty quickly. She’s good.”

  “Don’t make—” Lucas snapped, then broke off as quickly. “Good,” he repeated. He looked away. “What now?”

  “Strother has a list of the donors of money collected in Austria, Italy, and America, all for the Fatherland Front. A complete list. Ours is good, but only partial. That’s why we have to get him out, apart from the morality of not leaving him there, now that his contact has disappeared. Elena’s instructions are to bring him out with his information, if she possibly can.”

  Lucas looked back at him at last. “That might make sense, of course. Stoney’s list, that’s the other half of it: the sums involved.” He sounded as if it hurt even to speak, but clearly it was making sense to him.

  A different thought was forming hard and deep in Peter’s mind. Aiden Strother was Bradley’s man, not Peter’s. Bradley had contacted him only because he was interested in what Peter knew and Bradley did not. At least he said he did not, but someone here in London might be responsible for Stoney Canning’s death, if Lucas was right. “Who do you think killed Stoney?” he asked abruptly.

  “I don’t know,” Lucas replied, “but I mean to find out. That’s really what I wanted to ask you.”

  Peter held up his hand. “If you were running an inquiry into European money given to Hitler to bring down the Austrian government, would you trust the murder of Canning to someone else? Leave it incomplete? Or give them that much power over you?”

  Lucas did not have to hesitate. “One golden rule for anything: never involve anyone you don’t have to.” He drew in his breath, then let it out again in a sigh. “I have a feeling Stoney knew the man who killed him.” A shadow crossed his face. “Perhaps even knew that he had come for that reason.”

  Peter winced. It was a sickening thought. “You’re sure?”

  “I believe so, but I need proof.”

  “Are you thinking of taking it to the police?” Peter began.

  “No, of course not!” Lucas said sharply. His face twisted with bitter humor. “Apart from the fact that I’m not sure whom I trust, there are some very odd political opinions around now. God knows I don’t want another war, but I think perhaps there are even worse things. Like slowly being eviscerated by lies and fear. Always being afraid and eventually losing your balance so that you don’t know what you believe anymore. Thinking it will be all right if you do as you’re told, until you believe any lie. Because you don’t know what the truth is anymore, you wake up afraid and go to sleep afraid. You don’t know who your enemies are when truth dies, and you are afraid of anything different. That’s worse, the ultimate defeat, when you become indistinguishable from your enemy. You look in the mirror and you don’t know who you see.”

  Peter was too horrified to argue. And, in truth, he had no argument to give. “If your enemy has turned you into a copy of himself, he has won everything,” he said, as if perhaps he were repeating Lucas’s words back to him. “Find out who killed Stoney Canning,” he added quietly. “And you had better not trust anyone, even in MI6. It has to have started there.”

  “What are you going to do?” Lucas asked. His face was pinched with worry, and in the deepening gold of the light and the darkening of the shadows, he looked desperately vulnerable.

  “I’m going to Trieste,” Peter answered.

  “Is Elena in danger?” Lucas’s voice almost choked on the words.

  “Not that I know of,” Peter replied. “Although Strother is quick and highly intelligent, and very brave, he’s not my man.”

  “He’s Bradley’s?”

  “That’s what I’m going to find out.”

  Lucas nodded, stood still, then turned and walked toward the shadows of the trees, too choked by emotion to speak. Toby bounded after him.

  * * *

  —

  When Peter reached his home, he found Pamela standing in the middle of the drawing room, facing him. She looked lovely, her fair skin flushed, her hair shining. She was wearing a plain white dress that was not especially fashionable, but so beautifully cut it would never date.

  “I called your office. They said you’d left.” Her voice was measured, quite soft. He knew she was holding in her temper with great difficulty. “I thought maybe you would remember that we had plans for tonight.” She looked at his shoes, which were dirty, a piece of straw caught in one of the laces. “But I see you have been God knows where.”

  As always, he could not tell her. He should have been able to say something about secret work now, but he did not truly know her opinions. She had friends who believed cooperation with Hitler was the way to eventual peace. “I’m sorry,” he said, knowing it was not enough. He always said it, and it meant less each time.

  “You’re always sorry,” she snapped. “But not sorry enough to change. And don’t tell me you had a late meeting! You’ve got straw in your shoes and dog hair on your clothes. I’ll call a taxi. I’m going to the Rutledges’ alone. I’ll see you when I get back, assuming you’re still here.”

  He had to make an effort now. She had a right to be angry, years of right. “Stoney Canning is dead,” he said quietly. “I’ve known him since before the war. It looks as if he’s been murdered, but it’s not clear yet who did it.”

  “Oh.” She looked bewildered. “I’m sorry.” That was genuine. It was in her eyes, the tone of her voice, the way she stood.

  “I don’t think you knew him. He was a bit eccentric, very lonely, I think.” He didn’t know why he was talking like this. It didn’t make any difference now, except that it was part of th
e reason he had to find out who had done this. Perhaps he wanted someone to pay part of the debt that he himself owed for the years of quiet duty of an old man, a man who apparently had no one in his life outside MI6. “He had no one,” he said aloud.

  “Is there anything I can do?” she asked, her voice softer.

  “I don’t think so, but you might…”

  “What?”

  “You might…” Should he ask her? “Perhaps you would help Josephine Standish with organizing the funeral. Stoney had nobody. We should do it properly, with flowers and—”

  “I will,” she said immediately. “You can tell me something about him, what he liked.”

  “Thank you, Pamela.”

  “You can’t know yet when it will be…”

  “No. Lucas says he was murdered, but the police are treating the death as from natural causes.” Already he had said too much. He could see it in her face. “I say that because it might delay things.” He must say enough to explain. “I expect they just have to do a postmortem to be sure. Apparently, he wasn’t ill.”

  “Poor man” was all she said. “I’ll wait until you tell me.”

  “No,” he said quietly. “I have to go to Trieste tonight. I’m sorry. Someone else is in trouble.” He stopped. There was really nothing more he could add. He was increasingly afraid of what he might find, and as always, he could not explain it.

  “Be careful,” she answered.

  She meant more than that. How much did she know, or guess? How could he have been so blind as to think his own wife couldn’t see what he was about? How could he have underestimated her so badly? If only he could tell her more.

  CHAPTER

  18

  Elena woke very late. She looked at the small alarm clock on the table beside her bed and saw that it was after ten. The first thing she was aware of was that her body ached. She remembered the previous night, the bitter, perishing chill of black water. Now there was daylight coming through the wooden slats of the blinds and she recognized where she was. It was her apartment in Trieste, but it was far from the comfort of her home in London.

  Then she remembered yesterday, finding Max’s body, or what was left of it. For a moment, she was ice cold and nausea gripped her, then it passed, or at least she gained control over it. She recalled escaping with Aiden through the streets and eventually into the dark water of the canal. She could not remember ever having felt so cold. But they were alive and, for the moment, no one knew where they were…or who they were.

  Aiden had seen her to the door but he, too, was soaking wet and the night had lost the balmy summer warmth of only a few days before. She had kissed him good night quickly and gone inside, locking the door behind her. She had stripped off her soaking clothes and stepped into the shower, as hot as she could bear it, and had run it until it was no longer any more than warm. Then she toweled herself down, rubbing hard to get her circulation going.

  She had thought she would lie awake remembering the horror, the fear, even the feeling of Aiden supporting her physically for a moment, kissing her briefly but fiercely, like having the past back again—the exhilaration and the understanding—only wiser this time, more as equals than before. But surprisingly, she had slept. Even the dreams had been few. Few…and blurred.

  Now she forced herself to get up, wash, dress, and begin the morning, although it was already half over. Would there be police looking for her? That brought back memories of Berlin, which was ridiculous. She had discovered the body of a man who had been dead since before she landed in Trieste, and whom she had never known. It was a dreadful sight, but she had had no part in his death. They could do nothing for him; she could never have helped. But would the police know that, or believe it if they recognized her from the brief encounter in the street last night? What sane, innocent woman goes looking for dead bodies in water vats in the slums?

  Aiden had said they were in immediate danger. Perhaps he even more than she! Max had been Aiden’s one contact with Peter Howard and, as far as she knew, with England. It was her job to get him out with his information. Was that more than the list of names of those who were collaborating financially with the Fatherland Front? It sounded innocuous enough, until you realized that its purpose was to extend Nazi power and possession over most of Northern Italy.

  In a rush of panic, she retrieved the folded paper. Had the canal’s water washed away the critical information? She unfolded it carefully and was relieved to find the writing legible. The paper was still quite damp, so she spread it across the bed, hoping the warmth of the sun would dry it.

  She had no bread in the house, no fresh tea or coffee. There was jam, but no butter. She hated the way jam seeped into any kind of bread without butter to keep them separate, making the bread soggy. She needed several supplies, at least two days’ more, in case it was that long until she could organize some form of transport. And it might be difficult to persuade Aiden that it was too dangerous to stay.

  She thought of his face in the streetlight last night, his excitement. He was more alive than anyone she had ever known. He made others seem pallid, even bloodless. This rescue, the fight against the Fatherland Front, the whole visit to Trieste in its limpid light, all of it was like a new birth into another more vivid world—it all brought the past back again, but this time she was so much more aware of it, in control, almost as if she had at last found her real self.

  But this was no time for considering the status of her life. She must make plans to save them both. And she must say goodbye to Gabrielle, even if Gabrielle did not know that it was indeed goodbye. And at least pay for the dress. She had taken it and lost it; there must be reparation.

  She would have breakfast at one of the local cafés and then think of making plans.

  It was half past one when she stopped by Gabrielle’s apartment, much further inland than her own. Elena was pleased to find her at home. She had brought some fresh fruit as a gift. The room was small, but so cleverly designed that it did not seem so, and it was full of light at this time of the day. It took Elena a moment to realize that the light was thanks to a clever use of mirrors. She smiled at the skill of it. “It’s beautiful.”

  “Illusion,” Gabrielle said, smiling a little ruefully. “It’s amazing what you can achieve if you know how. It’s my old home in France, re-created with tricks of memory and imagination.”

  Elena looked at the porcelain and the glass and realized it was all French, as were the clock and the calendar on the wall, with pictures of the French countryside. She recognized the architecture, the deep fields and huge white Charolais cows. “Normandy?” she asked.

  “Yes, do you know it?” Gabrielle’s face lit with pleasure.

  “A little,” Elena answered, smiling at the memory. “My father was British ambassador in Paris for a short while.” She unpacked the fruit and placed it carefully in one of the empty dishes. “I’ll go back one day, but for now I will have to return to England. And I have lost your gray dress. I can’t replace it, but I must make some recompense.”

  “You don’t need to,” Gabrielle said quickly. “It didn’t really suit me anyway.” She dismissed it with a wave of her hand.

  Suddenly, there was shouting in the street outside, high-pitched. Then a shot rang out, followed by more shouting.

  Franz appeared at the door, eyes wide and frightened. His face was twisted, his fair hair tousled. “Mama, what’s happening?” He looked at Elena, then went round the table to Gabrielle and she kneeled to take him in her arms.

  “It’s all right, little one,” she said to him in French. “They’re angry with each other, not with us. Stay in here, don’t go to the window, and you’ll be all right.” She looked at Elena over the child’s head. “They arrested several people last night. I don’t know what it was about, but I can guess.”

  Elena said nothing but felt a sense of relief sweep through her. “If
you were to guess,” she asked, “would it be the Front, striking already? I thought they weren’t going to act for weeks!”

  “I don’t think it is, but everyone is very tense,” Gabrielle replied. She hugged Franz quickly, then let him go. “Would you like some of the grapes that Elena has brought?” she asked him.

  He looked at Elena and then at the grapes on the table.

  “Yes.”

  “Yes…what?”

  “Yes…I would.” Then he smiled shyly, sharing the joke with her.

  “Yes…please,” Gabrielle corrected him, but she touched his cheek so gently that he could hardly have felt it.

  There was more shouting in the street, and several more shots, but Franz took the grapes and did not seem to be worried anymore.

  “You had better stay here for a while,” Gabrielle observed, standing up slowly. “Go home when it settles a bit.”

  “Do you know what’s happening?” Elena asked, as there were more angry voices in the street and then another volley of shots, sounding some distance away.

  Gabrielle moved out of the line of the windows, taking Franz with her. Not that she had to grasp him, the boy was so close he was now practically standing on her feet.

  Elena heard the front door open and then close. Not loudly, but as if someone had come in with a key. They all froze, Franz twisting the fabric of Gabrielle’s skirt with tight fists.

  There were footsteps in the passage, then Aiden stood in the doorway. He was shaved, his hair tidy, and dressed with casual grace, but his skin was pale and his eyes shadowed. He took in Elena’s presence with a single glance. Had he expected her to be here? “You’ve got to get out!” he said to Gabrielle. “All hell’s broken loose. The streets are still safe, more or less, but they won’t stay that way.”