by Mara Timon
‘Afternoon, miss.’ Jones sketched a mocking bow. ‘Welcome to my humble abode.’
‘Good afternoon, Mr Aldridge.’
Without waiting for the offer, I sat in the chair opposite him. The dressing around his head had been removed, baring the scars. They were red and angry-looking, but had stopped seeping. The cut over his brow added another scar to his collection.
‘You’re looking well. Or at least, better.’
‘Coulda been worse – at least I have me looks.’
‘Indeed.’ I reached into my handbag for my cigarette case and lighter. His eyes followed each movement with the hunger of a long-starved wolf. After several months of being banned from smoking in France, I understood that hunger. ‘Would you like one?’
‘Very kind of you.’
His eyes never left the cigarette in my hand, as if he thought it was some sort of ploy. I lit the cigarette and reached across to put it in his mouth.
‘Don’t ignite the bandages.’
He inhaled through clenched teeth and expelled the smoke from the side of his mouth.
‘What’s one more scar?’ His voice was harsh, but his face had lost a shade of wariness.
‘If you’re going to do that, at least stay by the open window,’ the woman snapped from the doorway. Her attention was directed at me and the second cigarette in my hand, rather than the thug on the seat before me.
‘I don’t suppose you could bring me another pot of tea, Mrs Willoughby?’
He put on a woebegone look and, for a moment, I thought she would castigate him. Instead her expression softened and she hastened away. The little thug had the dragon wrapped around his linen-swathed finger.
Mrs Willoughby left the door open to facilitate earwigging, and as much affection as she might have for Jones, she wouldn’t think twice about reporting me to whomever would listen. When she reappeared it was with a tea tray and three settings. Rude as it was, Mrs Willoughby was taking no chances that something was about to happen to her charge without her involvement. It was as unsubtle as it was easily averted.
‘Ah, Mrs Willoughby, would you mind popping over to the chemist?’ Jones said. ‘I’m runnin’ low on me meds.’
His eyes were wide, but there was a certain flatness to them that belied the pleasant words.
Willoughby’s jaw jutted forward and she turned on her heel. Made it halfway to the door before reaching over and snatching the cigarette from Bert’s mouth. She stubbed it out and threw the butt out of the window. Her gaze locked on the second one in my hand.
‘Try it,’ I suggested.
She didn’t – her anger echoing on the dark tiles before the front door slammed.
‘Charming.’
‘Oh, she ’as her moments.’
Hubert Jones’s harsh face was ugly and criss-crossed with scars, but he had a puckish charm that made his company entertaining. And he certainly knew how to play Mrs Willoughby. There was potential in the man, and despite myself, I began to warm to him.
I rose to wind the gramophone, peering out of the window to see Mrs Willoughby storm down the street, a blue hat clinging to her wiry hair. Vera Lynn’s voice filled the room as she turned the corner.
‘Been a while since I been able to listen to English music.’ Bertie peered into my handbag, rustling through it until he extricated a silver flask. He opened the cap with his teeth and poured a splash of single malt into the teacups. ‘Wasn’t allowed in France. Caught bits and pieces from the BBC when I could. Can’t get enough of it now.’ He held the flask out to me. ‘Much obliged, miss.’
‘Keep it,’ I said. His eyes widened, calculating. ‘Call it a get well gift.’
‘Ta. So why the visit, princess?’ he asked. ‘And bearin’ presents?’
‘How do you find Portugal?’
‘Weather’s better than Blighty.’ He slurped at the teacup. ‘Not as that’s sayin’ much, mind.’
‘And?’
‘An’ I’m not bombed every night. A plus in my books. Mrs Willoughby’s accommodating, but I reckon that’s not what you want to know.’
What a revolting idea.
‘I commend you on the speed of your conquest.’ If not the quality. ‘But no. It isn’t.’
He nodded his head. This meeting was the first test, and unless he disappointed me, there would be many. He’d make me work for whatever loyalty he chose to bestow, but for now, all I needed was for him to want to work with me. I sat back in the chair and waited.
‘They say Portugal’s neutral. But there’s a lot happening. Under the surface, like. Even up here. I can’t go out much, but I sit by the window. I watch an’ I listen. That café downstairs is a gold mine.’
‘What do you hear?’
‘The tides are turning, miss. And about to wash up on Eyetie shores. The Krauts reckon we’ll invade through Sardinia. Could be. That or Sicily. Who knows?’ One burly shoulder rose in a careful shrug. ‘The local bobbies are – how would you say it? – disenchanted with Salazar.’ He enunciated the word in a reasonable facsimile of my accent. ‘Been brewing for a while, that. Let’s see if they have the ball – bottle to do somefin’ about it. You haven’t answered my question, princess.’ He leant forward, his face serious. ‘Why are you here?’
Like Matthew, I felt there was little point in prolonging the game.
‘I was wondering, Ulysse, if you’d be interested in delaying your journey home. Just a bit longer.’
His expression didn’t change, which in itself spoke of his interest. Or that he’d expected something like this.
‘What do you have in mind?’
‘You’ve noted that the war’s beginning to go our way. I was wondering if you’d be interested in keeping that trend going.’
‘What sorta help?’ His chin jutted forward in the opening moves of our negotiation.
‘Let’s keep it simple for now. I need help assessing a current situation, and would rather not go through the official channels. Can you handle that?’
With one mittened hand he batted away the question.
‘Assessing? Christ almighty, girl. At least try to challenge me!’
‘Oh, I will, Mr Jones, once I’m certain you can do what’s required. Play your cards right, and you might just have the opportunity to show off those tricks you learnt at Beaulieu.’
Chapter Twenty-three
I
nstead of returning to the beach at Carcavelos the next morning, I drove Claudine to the police station. Filing a missing person report for Christophe wasn’t something she should do alone, and as Matthew gracefully put it, I was trying to be a friend. Or as much of a friend as Solange could be. After twenty minutes of silence, I parked the car in front of the station and pulled the handbrake.
‘Are you ready for this?’
‘No.’ She slammed the car door, took two steps and halted, staring at the building. ‘This is real, isn’t it, Solange? This is really happening?’
‘I’m sorry, Claudine.’
She suppressed a sob and squared her shoulders. A cadaverous officer led her through a set of double doors to take her statement while I remained in the reception area. It was grim: grey walls, grey linoleum floors. Even the air felt grey – grey and grim, heavy with expectancy and despair.
A day-old newspaper was folded on a seat and I thumbed through it. My command of Portuguese was still poor, but I could understand enough. In the last few days, I’d missed quite a bit including news of the food shortages and anti-government riots in the Guimarães district. How had that happened?
Because I lived in an expat community. Because my housekeeper was given enough money to buy whatever was needed on the black market. Because even as a spy, here I was shielded, if not from the Germans, at least from the Portuguese. Barring, of course, Adriano de Rios Pilar’s men.
My mood quickly became as grey and grim as the room.
The door burst open, startling me. A man, his hands cuffed behind his back, was pushed through, followed by two more m
en, a woman, and a pair of PVDE officers. One of them called to the man behind the desk and I understood that these prisoners were overflow from another station.
They looked rough, clad in sturdy burlap clothes, and bruised. One man held his arm gingerly to his chest; the second had a swollen nose and a black eye, and blood trickled from a split lip on the third. The woman looked worse. Petite to the point of being frail, her dark hair straggled around her face, emphasising a haunted, dead look in her eyes. Her ripped blouse barely covered her breasts, and she moved deliberately – every movement designed to mimic normalcy, and yet failing miserably.
Once, in France, I’d seen a woman move like that. The daughter of one of our couriers had been captured by the Gestapo. Not for questioning, but for an afternoon’s ‘dalliance’, and I understood what had been done to this woman. Hated the PVDE officers as much as I hated the Gestapo goons.
A PVDE man, barrel-like and with a greasy moustache, shoved her along. With her hands tied behind her back, she fell and although I wanted to help her, I knew anything I tried would land me on the floor beside her.
For once, I held my tongue. One of the bound men muttered something and crouched next to her. He was either very brave or very foolish. Like Alex.
And like that day, I remained mute. And ashamed. Unable to watch, I fled outside. The air felt dirty, and so did I. What sort of person was I to run away from that?
My hand shook as I lit a cigarette. And another. And another. Until Claudine emerged an hour later, looking as despairing as the Portuguese woman. She dropped on the bench next to me.
‘They say they don’t know where he is. Told me to check with the embassy or . . . Or his mistress.’
I stared at my fingers laced together in my lap. ‘Claudine . . .’
‘I know what you’re going to say. You’re going to ask me if it is possible, but I told you – it is not. Christophe didn’t have a mistress – he had no time for one.’ She rested her head on the back of the bench and closed her eyes. Under her tan, her skin was grey; the situation had taken its toll. ‘I’ll go to the embassy to see if they know anything. I should have gone there first. Yesterday. Then I am going to telephone Christophe’s friends, the ones I know. Again. Perhaps they can tell me something new.’
‘Can I help?’
‘Would you know who to call?’
‘No.’
‘Then you can’t help, can you?’
She didn’t mean to be cruel, but my shoulders hunched nonetheless.
‘No, I suppose not.’
‘And after I am done asking questions they cannot or will not answer, I’m going to get myself – how do the British say it? – stinking drunk. You are not obliged to join me. I won’t be good company.’ She held up a hand to stop my protest. ‘It’s true. Don’t take this the wrong way, my dear, but please, can you make your own way home?’
‘Of course. Will you be all right?’
I understood her need for solitude and had no words to salve her pain.
‘Always.’
She held herself upright as she passed an American couple, arguing over whether a camera had been lost or stolen.
I didn’t believe her.
*
With no taxis in sight, I took the train. Fighting the undertow of exhaustion, I leant my head against the seat, closed my eyes, and missed my stop. I disembarked at Cascais; it was only a twenty-minute walk and I couldn’t bear the press of sweating bodies.
There had been no ransom note, a likely sign that Christophe was already dead or had chosen to go missing. My projects didn’t have a much better prognosis: how could one person – two if I included Bertie – crack an espionage ring and halt a smuggling operation where Britain’s best had already failed?
A youth brushed against me and my handbag began to pull away. Realising that the little sod was robbing me ignited righteous anger. It had been a ghastly morning – a ghastly week – and I’d be damned if I allowed the urchin to steal my bag, my papers, my keys, and my bloody PPK.
Leaning back, I counterbalanced him and, anchored by his grip on my bag, he propelled himself around and into my right fist. Blood poured down his face into a mouth open with shock and pain. He let go but I wasn’t finished.
In that moment, he had become everyone I hated: the neighbour that betrayed me in Paris; the Nazis; the PVDE goons. It would have been easy enough to kill him. The targets were visible: the bridge of the nose, the base of his throat. Or either side of the throat up to his temples. Maybe another two or three other places. But, angry as I was, I knew that would only brand me as a spy. I stifled the killing rage and made do with a knee to his groin. He doubled over, wheezing and cursing as he shuffled back, disappearing into the crowd.
Applause blossomed around me – tourists and businessmen, mothers and their children. Blushing, I tried to slink away.
‘Nice hook you have there, Angel.’
Eduard Graf leant against a rock wall with his arms crossed over his chest, looking as amused as he was handsome.
‘He picked the wrong tourist,’ I mumbled, feeling my blush notch up another level. Feeling the need to explain, I gave him the only acceptable answer I could. ‘I have three brothers. They taught me how to defend myself.’
He stood up and closed the gap between us.
‘They taught you well. You saw him off before I could.’
‘The bad end to a bad day, I’m afraid, Herr Graf.’ The wall of braid across his chest made me realise he was in uniform. It didn’t take long to decrypt the insignia, or to realise with a sinking feeling that he was part of the Abwehr, the military intelligence agency known for shagging their secretaries. Or in his case, Spanish countesses. ‘Or should I say, Herr Major?’
‘You may call me Eduard. Why has it been a bad day? You saved your purse, and maybe taught the boy a lesson.’
‘I took Claudine Deschamps to the police station to file a report on her missing husband.’
‘Ah.’
My hands were still trembling. I clasped them behind my back and hoped Graf didn’t notice. Despite the Abwehr’s reputation, at least in Portugal, for being inept, instinct told me not to underestimate this man.
‘I’m told this is not uncommon. Disappearances.’
‘Too many.’ Graf fell into step beside me. ‘I am sorry for your friend, sorry for her husband’s situation.’
‘Why? You had nothing with it.’ I slanted a look up at him, surprised at how tall he was. I was five foot ten, but he had several inches on me. ‘Or did you?’ I asked, trying to sound normal. Why was he here?
‘Me? No. So there would be no point in trying to beat a confession out of me.’
The corners of his eyes crinkled. And as if I wasn’t humiliated enough, a deep rumble emanated from my belly.
Please, God, let a tidal wave come and sweep me away!
But the sea remained calm, confirming the fact that God and the universe hated me.
Graf looked away, but I could still see his smile. He spoke after a few steps.
‘Please allow me to take you to lunch. Perhaps it will go a small way to improving your day.’ My heart picked up its pace, almost to halt at his next words: ‘And I missed seeing you on my run this morning.’
‘So much so, that you came looking for me?’ The words escaped before I could stop them, but what if he had?
‘Not at all. Should I be?’
His eyes crinkled at the corners again; he was amused, damn him, although it confirmed that I wasn’t – yet – enough of a target to pique his professional interest. His personal interest, however, he was making clear.
A Spanish countess clung to him, and while he wore a wristwatch, there were no rings on his fingers. He was probably sought after by half the women in Lisbon, for one reason or another. While I wasn’t keen to add to their ranks, I’d be a fool to turn him away completely. He’d provide Solange Verin with a better, and far more interesting, reason for circulating with the German contingent than Sch�
�ller, and if I learnt something from him, maybe about the bombed convoys, so much the better.
‘Come, Angel. I offer no more than lunch and if I misbehave, you may punch my nose.’
Angel? If that was how he saw me, I wasn’t about to correct him.
‘I’m not sure I could reach it.’
My blush returning, I followed him to a little silver BMW. He opened the door and stood back, expectantly. I couldn’t help staring at him.
‘If your friend needs to file a report on you tomorrow, there are witnesses who see you getting in to my car. If you disappear today, I shall end up in new accommodation, courtesy of Dr Salazar.’
I dropped into the seat. ‘From what I understand, your friends are close with Salazar. You might get a medal.’
‘Why? Who else have you punched?’
Punched? I wanted to laugh. Shot and stabbed, as well, not to mention being a member of Special Operations. If he captured me, he would indeed get a medal. How depressing.
Graf drove through Cascais to a small fishing village on the far side. Large houses clustered together, crouching behind high walls and hedges. Over Graf’s shoulder, the Atlantic threw her waves against the black rocks with such force that the sea spray splashed the road. He stopped the car in front of a small restaurant.
‘Welcome to the Boca do Inferno,’ he said.
The mouth of Hell. It seemed rather appropriate for the day I was having. And yet, despite the name, it was an oddly idyllic location. The lunch crowd had already departed, leaving the restaurant empty save for the staff cleaning the front room. The maître d’ greeted Graf, bowing reverently.
‘Senhor. Your usual table?’
‘Yes, thank you.’
A boy hastily cleared a table in the corner, next to a wall of open windows, letting in the afternoon sun, the smell of jasmine, and the roar of the Atlantic, a pleasant bass to the folk music playing on the gramophone. A ceiling fan stirred the air around us.
