by M. L. Huie
NIGHTSHADE
A Livy Nash Mystery
M. L. HUIE
For James Dodding
“Sometimes in life you feel there is something you must do, and in which you must trust your own judgment and not that of any other person. Some call it conscience and some plain obstinacy.”
John Masterman
“If I wasn’t an actor I’d be a secret agent.”
Thornton Wilder
Acknowledgements
Thanks always to my smart, tireless agent Carrie Pestritto and everyone at Laura Dail Literary. My editor Chelsey Emmelhainz performed her magic on this one again. Special thanks to Ashley Di Do, Melissa Rechter and the folks at Crooked Lane Books.
Also I’m grateful to Reed Johnson and Dr. Sally Barbour for patiently answering my questions about all things Russian and French, respectively. Thanks also to Anthony Coppin in Lancashire.
Finally Brook, Ian and Lucy–you make everything better, including this book.
Prologue
1943
Livy Nash sat on a hill above a runway somewhere outside of Manchester and wished she was going to Paris. The summer night air chilled, even though the sky was clear and the moon bright enough to light her plane’s way across the Channel. She had to wait for that flight, though. Still two nights before her scheduled departure. She’d spent the last months training for this moment and for what lay beyond, when she would finally find herself on the ground in occupied France. She felt ready. Anxious. Give her a plane, she’d fly the damn thing herself.
But this wasn’t her night. It was Margot’s.
They’d arranged to meet on this hillside just after the final briefing. Margot was late, as usual. She had a unique relationship with time: they were more casual acquaintances than actual friends. For a moment, Livy wondered if she would come at all. Margot had gone pale at dinner and wouldn’t touch the evening rations. Livy’d made jokes about the taste and compared it to her Aunt Rosie’s bangers and mash.
“Feed that to the Jerries, and the war is over tomorrow. Can’t fight if you’re running to the loo every five minutes,” she’d said. The joke seemed to improve Margot’s pallor. She liked them like that—the raunchier, the better.
What if she didn’t come? Livy wondered. It wouldn’t be out of character for her friend to miss their final send-off entirely. Always averse to sentiment, Margot hadn’t shown up at the goodbye party for Yvette the past weekend. Claimed she had a cold. However, Livy knew her better than that. Knew Margot had made an excuse so she wouldn’t have to be there when all the others sobbed and the like. Livy wasn’t that type either, but the thought of not seeing Margot one last time chilled her far more than the windy night in the northwest of England.
When she’d first met Margot they’d sat on opposite sides of the table during a training briefing. Both women kept themselves at a distance from the others. But when the instructor began speaking in his thick Glaswegian accent, Livy and Margot both had to suppress laughter. When their eyes met, they couldn’t hold it in. The instructor had not been pleased, but Margot and Livy had become fast friends.
God, Margot you can’t leave me and not at least say goodbye.
Livy pushed her thick brown hair out of her face and felt the emotion about to erupt. Just as she rubbed her eyes to keep the tears back, Livy felt a hand on her shoulder.
“Look, just because you were the worst at parachute training doesn’t mean you should cry about it.”
Livy started. “Bloody hell, Margot. You’re late. Again.”
Margot sat down beside her. The summer wind fanned through her dirty-blonde hair. “Sorry. You know, last-minute briefing before they send me off to save France.” Both Livy and Margot had French mothers, but whereas Livy’s accent was strictly Lancashire, Margot sounded like an English girl who’d grown up in Lyon.
“Dunno what England will do without you.”
Margot smiled and put an arm around Livy’s shoulders. “I don’t know what you’ll do without me.”
Livy felt the tears again and willed them away. Neither of them spoke. They didn’t need words.
“The car comes for me in an hour,” Margot said. “I’m going somewhere on the coast tonight. They didn’t even tell me where.”
“Not exactly a holiday, is it?”
“Speak for yourself. I plan to enjoy myself over there.” Margot grinned and looked up into the night sky. Livy saw wetness on her cheek, which Margot quickly wiped away. One thing Livy admired most about her friend was her ability to shut off her feelings and get down to work. She saw the transformation happen now.
Margot stood, brushed off her trousers, and helped Livy up. They held on to each other’s hands.
“I do have to put my things in a bag. They don’t give a girl much time to prepare around here.”
“Rude little bastards, aren’t they?” Livy kept her voice level, but her insides felt like they might come gushing out at any moment.
Margot let go first. She gave Livy a wink and a smile, then abruptly turned away. Livy couldn’t move. Her boots felt frozen to the ground. She watched Margot turn, and felt more alone than she had since the death of her mum. Just as she was about to call out, Margot stopped and looked back at her.
“A bientôt, Livy.”
Typical Margot. Never goodbye—always “see you soon.”
Then she was gone. Livy only saw her back as Margot Dupont trudged down the incline toward the lighted buildings below.
“See you soon, luv,” Livy said, almost to herself.
Chapter One
June 1947
London
Geoffrey Collins found nothing at all extraordinary about his workplace except perhaps for its exclusivity. The small cluster of white buildings surrounded by the high wire fence was off limits to most residents of Eastcote, the unassuming village in the west of London. Even the majority of those who showed proper identification to the guard at the front gate couldn’t enter the plain, white, boxlike building at the very rear of the compound. Collins, though, was allowed admittance to what on the outside looked to be a perfectly normal storage facility. Each morning he walked down the long hallway lit by harsh overhead bulbs, with a row of eight doors, four on either side, all closed. Eventually he came to the last door, marked 118. Collins often thought that a visitor might mistake it—with its faded numbers and chipped paint around the frame—for the haunt of the resident custodian.
But like many rooms in this building, looks deceived. The plain white structure was the heart of the London Signals Intelligence Centre. Wireless messages from across the globe were received here, pondered over, and picked apart for the decision-makers in Britain’s intelligence services. The building where Collins worked was better known to most at RAF Eastcote as “Station X.”
On this morning in late June, at the end of a particularly long shift, Collins sat at his station in 118 and stifled a yawn. Though there were no windows in room 118, he guessed that the first rays of dawn would be peering over the river.
From his chair, Collins could pick up signals from almost a thousand miles away. He could hear broadcasts from Poland and All-Union Radio from Moscow. Some nights he listened to a Spanish-language version of his favorite drama, The Shadow: “Quién sabe qué maldad acecha los corazónes de los hombres.”
This night had been quiet until he heard a strangely familiar sound.
First came the preliminary signal from RAF Gatow near Berlin:
Unknown wireless call sign received 0350. Message to follow.
Then a light tapping, sounding as if it came from inside a tunnel. The tapping repeated. Louder. More present. Immediately Collins recognized it.
N-I-G-H-T-S-H-A-D-E
He’d spent part of the war in much larger rooms at Bletchley Par
k, with receivers that picked up wireless signals from British agents stationed behind enemy lines. He hadn’t heard this particular type of call sign since 1945.
Suddenly it ended. Time for the message now. Collins’s pencil hovered over the logbook, waiting. The call sign came again.
N-I-G-H-T-S-H-A-D-E
This operator had a distinctive “fist.” A hard touch on the consonant, a pause, and then much lighter for the vowels. Wireless operators during the war perfected individual signatures, so, if captured, the Germans could not replicate their distinctive signals.
But no message arrived. Just the call sign again. The same “fist.” Almost as if the operator was repeating a name over and over. Collins held his breath as the signal ended. The silence in his headset felt heavy.
His shoulders slumped. The message had slipped back into the past. Nevertheless, he kept the receiver on that channel until the end of his shift. But it didn’t repeat. Then, he scribbled a note beside the record he’d made of the call sign, with his own interpretation. He filed the report and placed it in one of the distinctive blue jackets that would give it priority. Collins wished he could deliver it personally.
* * *
Two nights later Ian Fleming sat at his usual window seat at one of the smaller tables of Boodle’s gentleman’s club on St. James’s Street. This location gave him a bit more privacy away from the typical sounds one heard every night here. The clink of cut-glass tumblers, the tock-tock-tock of backgammon die in plush cups, the muffled leather of bespoke John Lobb shoes clicking across the marble floor gave Boodle’s a unique ambience that comforted the delicate ears of many an aging member.
But Fleming needed time to think. He put down his knife and fork and sat back in the comfortable Georgian armchair. He looked down at the dinner he couldn’t finish. The better part of a perfectly cooked piece of smoked salmon lay on his plate alongside asparagus in an exquisite Béarnaise sauce. His mind had been elsewhere all night.
“Sir?”
Fleming started. Hopkins, the chief steward, hovered over his left shoulder.
“Yes?”
“I do beg your pardon, Commander, but there’s a gentlemen asking to speak to you, and since he isn’t a member, I felt I ought to consult you first, sir.”
Fleming smiled. Hopkins’s old-world formality as well as his insistence on addressing him by his naval rank pleased him.
“Thank you, Hopkins. I’ve been expecting Colonel Dunbar.”
The silver-haired steward bowed, his shirt still crisp after an evening on the floor, and retreated toward the entranceway.
Fleming’s chest clinched. A familiar ache of late. He put a hand to his heart and reached for the two fingers of ice-cold vodka he’d only just poured.
The liquor burned his throat all the way down. For the moment, he forgot the pain his doctor blamed on the stress of work. Fleming glanced at his Rolex. An hour until he was scheduled to meet Anne. Dear God, was he actually counting the minutes? His mind went to the taste of her lips, her scent, and that damned wedding ring on her finger. Again, his chest tightened.
Fleming fitted one of his specially blended cigarettes into his holder and lit it. He drew the smoke deep into his lungs and let it waft out in front of his thoughts. Sleeping with a married woman was one thing, but this level of emotion frankly troubled him. Anne was exactly the sort of woman he craved. But love? God! Love inevitably led to an altar, and that gave Fleming pause.
And now Henry Dunbar.
It had been almost a year since the deputy chief of MI6 had paid a personal call on Fleming. They’d first met during the war, when Fleming worked in Naval Intelligence. Postwar their paths had diverged. Dunbar ascended the intelligence ladder with speed while Fleming had gone back to journalism.
Despite their commonalities, Fleming considered the man an arrogant prig who’d stab a friend in the back if it meant promotion or an operational win. Dunbar’s presence at Boodle’s, however, could only mean one thing. He needed something.
“Knew I’d find you here, old man.”
Fleming turned in the direction of the voice.
Dunbar forced a smile, surveying the club. “Always did like your comforts.”
“Without them, Henry, what’s the point of living?”
Fleming often joked that Dunbar was born with his ever-present thick bristly mustache. With steely gray eyes and a mouth perpetually frozen in a determined frown, Henry Dunbar had the dusty, weather-beaten look of a tank commander who’d chased Rommel across Africa.
“But where are my manners,” Fleming said. “Despite my misplaced appetite, the smoked salmon here is first rate.”
“No need. Didn’t come here to dine.” The colonel glanced around, dragging a finger across his mustache. Fleming recognized the nervous tic and dismissed Hopkins.
“We can say what we like here, Henry. This is one of the safest places in England for a man to speak his mind,” Fleming assured him.
Dunbar settled back in his chair. “Very well, then. Last week a listening station in Germany picked up an old SOE wireless call sign. Two nights later they heard it again. No message. Just the call sign. The boys at Eastcote gave it the once-over, and it appears to be the genuine article.”
Fleming lit another cigarette. Henry Dunbar was a born curmudgeon. He exuded cynicism. Tonight, he looked shaken.
“Do you have any idea who might have sent it?”
“The code name corresponds to one of our people. Someone we’d marked captured, presumed dead. The Red Army liberated a few of the German camps at the end of the war and had no scheme whatsoever for repatriation. So, some prisoners were just freed while others were rounded up by the Reds. God knows what happened in that chaos.”
“And you actually think the Soviets might still be holding one of our people after all this time?”
Dunbar glanced away. “Could I at least get a drink here?”
Fleming gestured for Hopkins and ordered another carafe of vodka.
Dunbar waited until the steward was out of sight before speaking again. “I think that has to be the assumption given that wireless message. My guess is at the very least they know her whereabouts.”
Her. The evening suddenly began to make a bit more sense to Fleming.
Hopkins returned with another glass as well as the ice-cold vodka. Fleming poured. Dunbar downed his in one.
“Look, the thing is, I could use someone on your end,” Dunbar said, averting his eyes. “We need one of those creative pieces of misdirection you seemed to pull out of a hat for Godfrey in the war.”
Since they began working together after the war, Dunbar had treated Fleming, and his correspondents, as a necessary evil on more than one occasion. Bunglers he had to tolerate. Fleming drew deep on his cigarette. He noted the derogatory lilt Dunbar used. Despite the slight, Fleming nevertheless adored being courted. He swallowed a retort.
“Perhaps you’d like to tell me how my humble news organization could be of service.”
“Look, this all might very well end up being a wild-goose chase. If I send an operation like this through official channels, it may well die on the vine. So, I need to farm this out, if you take my meaning. This has to be one of your people, Ian.”
“And what sort of misdirection do you require?”
“Yuri Kostin. Do you know him?”
Fleming exhaled smoke and shook his head.
“He’s MGB, attached to the Soviet Embassy in Washington. Kostin was on the Eastern Front during the war, rooting out traitors and German spies. The Jerries had a name for him—Der Rote Teufel.”
“Ha. The Red Devil. How theatrical.”
“Thing is we’ve been looking at having a go at him for some time. He has certain vulnerabilities.”
“You think you could turn him?”
More confident now, Dunbar downed another shot of vodka. “Think he might be susceptible to a double agent. Someone who could ingratiate themselves with Kostin. Then, this signal comes along and the ti
ming seems perfect. If anyone knows what happened to British agents in those camps, it would be Kostin. He was in command then right after the war.” Dunbar smoothed his mustache at both ends. When he spoke again, his voice was hushed. “Look, old man, things are hot right now in Berlin between the Reds and all of us. The stakes are just too high, so for this I need someone—well, deniable on my end.”
There’s the rub, Fleming thought, pushing the half-eaten salmon with his fork. Feel as if you’re going to seed? The steel claws of marriage opening to clamp around you? Well, this is the price of staying relevant in the game—old man. Deniability. If it all goes wrong, then it’s your mess to clean up. His Majesty’s Government knows nothing.
Fleming smiled, a grin that broke out across his broad mouth and lit up his blue-gray eyes. “A gentleman would at least call me a taxi and ring me in a couple of days, Henry.”
The quip bounced off the colonel’s armor. “If you can’t help me, I can always go elsewhere.”
Fleming felt a familiar twinge in his neck and residual tightness from his last chest pain. He picked up his cigarette case from the table and slipped it into his coat. “Charming as your company is, Henry, I have an engagement with one slightly more desirable. As I understand it, you need someone who can charm the information we want right out of this Red Devil.”
“Thing is, one of your people knows Kostin. Or knew him, anyway.”
Fleming put away his cigarette holder and straightened his polka-dot bow tie. “And just who might that be?”
“Well, your girl in Paris.”
Chapter Two
Earlier that same day, the “girl in Paris” stood in front of the painting Les Mystères de la Passion du Christ in the Louvre and tried to remember all seven of the heavenly virtues.
Livy Nash interrupted her reverent contemplation to check the time. Her agent was five minutes late now. Patience was one of the virtues, but it wasn’t one of hers.
