by Bill Walker
“Not a moment too soon, eh Watson?” he said, absently.
As if noticing them for the first time, Sir William scanned his surroundings. A few yards away a group of young nannies clucked over their diminutive charges, while further on a pack of scruffy youths clad in black leather, their waxed Mohawks dyed the colors of the rainbow, listened to loud Heavy Metal blasting from a giant portable radio. There were other elderly people scattered about. Some appeared oblivious to their surroundings, lost in some private hell, while others actively engaged in conversations with those they’d only just met.
Sir William smiled wistfully, envying them their gregariousness. That was something he’d never been very good at. It was Evie who’d made all their friends.
Hearing Watson’s bark, Sir William looked up and saw the little dog staring past him. He turned to find an elderly man standing next to him.
Where the blazes had he come from?
One moment he’d been alone, and the next...there the blighter stood, clutching his frayed umbrella in rough, gnarled hands. Thick and heavyset like a pillar box, the man wore a baggy suit that was at least fifteen years out of date. The hat was a rumpled moth-eaten fedora pulled low over his beetled brow, nearly hiding his intense brown eyes. It was the man’s thick ratty beard, however, that finally put him off. He could never abide a man who let his whiskers run rampant like some creeper vine on a trellis.
“Lovely day, isn’t it?” the old man said.
Sir William squirmed, letting a wan smile flicker across his lips. “Quite.”
The old man pointed toward the seat. “Do you mind if an old soldier rests his weary bones?”
The man’s accent was strange. It sounded like South London, yet something else, the way he rolled his “R’s” sounded foreign. Oh, well, there were plenty of them running about these days. Why, oh, why did the blighter have to pick him to be friendly with?
Sir William forced himself to look at the old man once again. “It’s a free country.”
The old man eased himself onto the bench with a heavy sigh, leaning forward onto his umbrella. “Is it? I often wonder.”
“What do you mean?”
The old man shrugged. “Just that times have changed. Not like the old days, eh?” He nodded toward the group of punks cavorting several yards away. “In our day those boys would be in uniform, fighting for King and country.... Not bloody tit-suckers on the dole, eh what?”
Watson stood off to the side, eyeing both men with a wary expression. Sir William snapped his fingers. “Come on, Watson, heel to.”
But the little dog remained where it was, staring at them. Sir William began to feel strangely anxious. There was something odd about the other man—something about his face.... “You were in the war?” he asked, not really wanting to know.
The old man smiled, his eyes devoid of warmth. “Yes.... You might say I was....”
“Really, where?” he said, growing impatient with the man’s queer manner.
“I was with the Royal South Wessex.”
Sir William felt the earth tilt on its axis. Blood pounded in his ears, and he suddenly found it very hard to breath. “W—who the bloody hell are you,” he whispered, hating himself for the note of fear in his voice.
But he was scared—deathly afraid to the very marrow of his bones, which now felt as if they might crumble to dust.
The old man stared back at him, those mirthless brown eyes now burning with a mad glimmer. “Just someone come to put things right...Sir William.”
Sir William gasped. “How do you know my name?”
But the time for talking was past. The old man leaped to his feet with surprising agility, raised the umbrella and aimed the tip square in Sir William’s face.
Sir William saw it all in the microsecond it took for the old man to push the hidden button on the umbrella’s hand-carved handle.
Oh God, not now, not no—
Atomized to a fine mist by the spray mechanism hidden inside the umbrella, the poison rushed up Sir William’s nose and entered his system through the mucous membranes. In a fraction of a moment, his brain lost the ability to breath and his vital organs began shutting down. Sir William tried reaching out to the man who’d killed him, but his arms would not respond. They spasmed like someone with palsy, and he could no longer feel his feet. With a sigh that sounded like a pig whose throat had been cut, Sir William Atwater, late of Her Majesty’s Secret Service, pitched over dead.
Watson began barking frantically, and the old man looked quickly about him. The punks, more interested in playing games of macho one-upsmanship, hadn’t noticed a thing, and neither had the nannies, still cooing over their slobbering brats. And the best thing of all, that decadent music still blasted at ear-shattering volume, neatly covering any undue noise. And that included this insufferable little mutt.
Bending down to the dead body, the old man sat him up and leaned him against the back of the bench, arranging him so it would appear he’d fallen asleep. Then he reached into the pocket of his own suit and brought something out, which he placed into the pocket of Sir William’s jacket.
Satisfied, he stood up, making sure his false beard was still in place, and gazed upon his adversary one last time. In perfect accentless German he said, “The Eagle Flies.”
Then he turned and walked out of the park, whistling “The British Grenadiers,” leaving the corpse alone with its tiny mourner.
Chapter Twelve
The Number 11 Routemaster bus heaved to the curb, its brakes hissing. Michael exited, along with three of his fellow passengers, and the bus moved on, its diesel engine chugging with effort. Sunlight dappled the sidewalk, shining through the lime trees lining the pavement, and the air smelled of curried rice and lemon grass from the Indian and Thai restaurants that abutted each other on the corner. Moving to the newsagent’s kiosk, Michael nodded to an acquaintance, threw down his pound coin, and accepted his change and a copy of the Evening News from the grizzled agent. “Don’t read it all in one place,” the old agent joked with a toothless grin. Michael returned the grin, tucked the paper under his arm, and began the short walk home. He passed a Wimpy’s and debated stopping in for a hamburger, but changed his mind. He’d been having far too much of that, lately, and he knew it would do him no good. He caught himself, as he thought of his mother’s chiding him over his solitary eating.
“At least go out with your friends,” she’d say. “It does a body good. Helps the digestion.”
He hadn’t called the old girl in a while, and he missed her gentle, if incongruous, words of admonishment. Then again, aside from being old enough and having a job, those very words were the reason he’d moved out of the house and came to London. Lillian Thorley could be a formidable woman. It came with having raised a son all by herself at a time when women were expected to cleave to a man, an accomplishment not to be lightly dismissed. That he’d turned out all right was further testament to her skills and raw determination, for life had been hard in war-torn London when he was a baby, and improved only marginally when they moved to Sussex after the destruction of their Brixton terraced house by a German bomb. Now, if he could only keep her from badgering him about getting married.
Michael passed Mrs. Herrick’s house and held his breath, hoping the old dear wouldn’t spot him and insist he come in for tea, as she had on so many previous occasions. Besides, he was afraid she might actually have her niece there one day, the one with the purple hair.
Rounding the corner of the house, he walked the half block to the alley and turned. His mews flat lay twenty paces in front of him. Once the carriage house and stables to Mrs. Herrick’s house, it had been converted to living space in the fifties, when housing in London became a premium. With a kitchen and sitting room on the ground floor, a modest bedroom and bath overhead, and its own entrance, it offered a measure of privacy no regular flat could provide. And to top it off, the rent Mrs. Herrick charged was well below market rates.
Pulling out his keys, Mich
ael unlocked the front door, flipped on the lights and the television, and made his way into the kitchen, where he turned on the gas oven to preheat. The kitchen was separated from the main sitting room by a length of countertop covered in a Flower Power motif; it was the only garish element in an otherwise understated decor.
The sitting room had polished wooden floors covered with a faux Persian throw rug. Furnishings were minimal: a leather-covered couch and two easy chairs arranged around a glass-topped coffee table. A gas fireplace stood at one end of the room and his teakwood “entertainment center” at the other.
Pulling open the door of the tiny refrigerator, he reached into the freezer section, pulled out a TV dinner and popped it into the oven. Something on the television caught his eye, and he went out into the sitting room and turned up the volume. The program was BBC 2’s evening news. The reader, Gordon Honeycombe, was in the middle of his report.
“...Federal German Police are still investigating the brutal murder of War hero/Industrialist Friedrich Rainer. Current theories held by the Bundespolizei presume that he may have been assassinated by members of the Red Brigades in protest for alleged crimes against the people. Rainer, a manufacturer of controversial pharmaceuticals sold in Third World countries, has long been thought to be on a radical ‘hit list.’ Thus far, no one has claimed responsibility.” Honeycombe paused, shuffling his script. “Authorities have also continually refused to comment on the similarities between Rainer’s death and last month’s murder of writer Hans Kleisner....
“In local news, the body of Sir William Atwater was found today in St. James’s Park, dead of an apparent heart attack. Sir William, wartime head of MI6, was knighted by King George VI in 1946 and was a member of the Order of the Garter. Private services will be held in Westminster Abbey on Friday....
“In a moment, after a brief word, we shall return with the weather for the coming week, and the garden report....”
“Same old bloody crap,” Michael said, switching off the set. He went over to the entertainment center and turned on his hi-fi system’s Audio Research pre-amp. The two MacIntosh monoblock power amps he left constantly powered to save wear and tear on the delicate valves. While the pre-amp warmed up, he selected one of his favorite records, Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s 1973 tour de force: Brain Salad Surgery. A moment later the first strains of William Blake’s incomparable Jerusalem trumpeted out of the dual sets of Altec-Lansing speakers and Michael felt himself transported.
So enraptured was he by the piece’s end, he almost missed the soft, persistent knocking at his front door. He turned down the music and went to the door, his standard abject apology to Mrs. Herrick’s delicate sensibilities on the tip of his tongue. The words died on his lips when the door swung open bringing him face to face with a goddess.
She stood with her weight on one hip, a long-fingered hand poised to knock. Dressed in jeans and a snug-fitting t-shirt, she was slender and tall, even without the high-heels she wore. Blunt cut blond hair swept past her shoulders, framing a sharp, angular face. Prominent cheekbones set off an upturned nose, which in turn magnified the effect of ripe, sensual lips, lips that parted to show even white teeth. But the most unsettling thing about this vision standing before him was her eyes. Almond shaped, with a feline slant, they were of such a startling blue he was unable to find words to describe them. Electric, azure, sapphire, and ultramarine, all fell miserably short.
Michael snapped out of his trance-like state when he realized she had spoken to him. He shook his head, an awkward smile forming on his lips. “I’m sorry, the music was a bit loud.”
“Emerson, Lake and Palmer,” she said, with a warm syrupy voice heavily flavored with a German accent. It sent a chill running up his spine.
“Y—you know them?” he said, feeling butterflies skittering across the inside of his stomach’s lining.
“Ja, they are my biggest favorite.”
There was an awkward silence.
“Uhh, can I help you?”
The young woman nodded, a hopeful look on her perfect face. “Ja, ja, is Michael Thorley living here?”
I couldn’t be this lucky, he mused. He said, “You’ve got him.”
“That is not possible,” she said, frowning. “I am looking for a much older man.”
“I assure you, I’m the only Michael Thorley here.”
The young woman bit her lower lip, and Michael felt a sweat break out on the back of his neck. Reaching into the pocket of her jeans, she pulled out a slip of thin white paper, obviously ripped from a phone directory. “I am sorry. I have just driven over from Germany and I found your name in the phone book. Perhaps your father?”
A wistful look came into Michael’s eyes. “My father died a long time ago.”
Tears flooded those cerulean eyes, her pouty lips quivering with desperation. “I—I was so sure.... Now, I have nowhere to go.”
Michael felt awful. Here he was entertaining lusty, if hopeless, fantasies and this girl, this incomparably lovely girl was crying her eyes out on his doorstep. He reached out to her, at first reluctant to touch her out of some irrational thought that she might disappear, or that he might wake up from some dream induced by a long, tiring day at the office. He only hesitated a moment, then grasped her arm. Her skin felt silky, warm, and inarguably real.
“Please, come in, won’t you?” he said. His throat felt tight and his pulse throbbed in his ear.
She shook her head. “No. I must go. I’m so sorry to have troubled you.”
She pulled from his grasp and started away, making him even bolder than he’d ever thought possible. “Please wait.”
He almost lost his nerve, then forced himself to continue. “I feel terrible that you’ve come all this way. Come inside, I insist.” When she looked doubtful, he added, “Besides, it’s not a good idea to be roaming about when you’re upset. You might accidentally walk in front of a lorry, or something.”
Or not so accidentally, he thought.
The young woman studied him then, as if for the first time, and Michael knew what they meant by the term: under a microscope.
Wiping her tears, she nodded and walked past him into the flat. Michael quickly closed the door and followed her inside. “Would you like some wine, Miss....”
She turned to face him, a guilty look on her face. “Please, forgive me. My name is Erika, Erika Rainer. My father was Friedrich Rainer....”
The name sounded familiar. And then it hit him as he glanced inadvertently at the television. “My God...the news.... I’m so sorry.”
Erika nodded, her eyes again brimming with tears. Remembering the wine, Michael hurried into the kitchen, switched off the oven, and uncorked a bottle of Chardonnay he’d been chilling for dinner, pouring a generous amount into a whiskey tumbler. Back in the sitting room, he handed it to her and watched as she took a healthy gulp. She closed her eyes and placed the cool glass against her forehead, a deep sigh escaping her lips. Her eyes opened, fixing Michael with another penetrating gaze. “Thank you,” she said. “You’re very kind. My father told me that if anything should happen to him, I was to come to London and find Michael Thorley...that he would know what to do....”
“Do what?”
“I don’t know, he wouldn’t tell me!” she said, almost shouting, frustration bringing frown lines to her face where they ought never to be. “All he said was that your father was a true friend, and the only man he ever trusted enough to tell his secret, and to tell him that ‘The Eagle Flies,’ or something like that. Do you know what it means?”
That hopeful look once again.
Michael shrugged. “No, I’m sorry, I don’t. Sounds like something out of a bad spy novel.”
Erika shot him a hurt look, making him want to shrink into a tiny ball and blow away. He started to say something, then changed his mind. He’d put his foot in it enough for one day.
Draining the tumbler of wine, Erika set it down on the glass-topped coffee table and walked over to the fireplace, where sh
e stood staring at one of the framed pictures standing on the mantel. It was the one photograph of his father that remained, a copy of the one his mother kept by her bedside. It showed him standing by the Thames Embankment. He wore his Royal Guards uniform and the expression on his face was one he could never quite interpret. The sun struck him full in the face, which of necessity made him squint. But there was something else in those long dead eyes staring out from silver halide crystals. Was it a call for help?
And though it was the only picture Michael possessed, it always made him ineffably sad to look at it for any length of time. Yet, he could never hide it in a drawer, either.
“Your father?” Erika finally said.
“Yes.”
“You look very much like him. Very handsome.”
In spite of his embarrassment, Michael felt a thrill shoot though his body at those words.
“I never really saw the resemblance, myself,” he said.
“Oh, ja, it is there, in the eyes, I think.”
Michael joined her at the mantel and let his gaze trace the lines of his father’s face.
“He died fighting in Egypt in 1941...about three months before I was born.”
Erika turned to him and the air in the room thickened, became harder to breath. “You never knew him, then,” she said, “Now, it is I who am sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said with a shrug. “My mother told me stories about him all the while I was growing up. In a way, I feel as if I really do know him.”
Erika covered his hand with hers, an excited look in her eyes. “Your mother. Perhaps she would know something?”
All Michael could think about was that slim hand with its long tapering fingers laying lightly on top of his own, shooting sparks through his skin.
“I—I’ve no idea....”
“Surely, she might remember something he told her, something that would give me, how you say, a lead?”
Michael wanted very much to help this beautiful, enigmatic young woman, more than he’d ever wanted anything in the world.
