Nightshade

by M. L. Huie

  Her breath uneven, Livy walked the last few yards to the Peugeot. Flat Cap held the door for her. He smiled. Was he embarrassed?

  His hand rose toward her. A threat? Livy didn’t wait to find out. She flattened the edge of her right hand and slammed it into the man’s windpipe. Flat Cap went down hard. Eyes wide as he fell. Stunned.

  Livy leapt into the back seat, pulled the door tight.

  “Allez, allez!” Livy shouted.

  “Mademoiselle,” the driver protested.

  “Allez, allez, vite!”

  The taxi lurched forward. Livy turned to see Flat Cap struggling to his feet, holding a hand to his throat.

  As the car picked up speed, Livy saw Straw Hat in the distance. He waited at the edge of the gardens. A small boy in shorts, wearing an American baseball cap, ran into the man’s arms. He lifted the child, and twirled him around, laughing.

  “Who was that man, mademoiselle?” the driver asked. Livy hesitated, watching the men she thought would take her to an MGB safe house. One played with his son while the other, Flat Cap, struggled to get off the pavement.

  “Mademoiselle, where are we going?”

  Livy had no idea what to say.

  Chapter Three

  Two days later Livy sat in Fleming’s London office, fretting over her misadventure at the Louvre. She felt a mess, inside and out, perched in one of the armchairs beside the desk of Fleming’s secretary, Penelope Baker. The rainy weather this month caused Livy’s normally untamable rat’s nest of hair to frizz. She tried to appear at ease as she nervously pushed it out of her face.

  Today’s meeting was fairly standard. She came back to London about once a month for these briefings with Fleming. It had been her routine for the past year. The trips back gave her time to check on the Camden Town flat and keep her life in some semblance of order before heading back to Paris. But Livy knew this time would be different.

  Pen, the über-efficient keeper of Fleming’s business time, looked like a cross between Greta Garbo and Lana Turner. She had the healthy good looks of the latter and the former’s air of sensual mystery. No wonder that, on her best day, Livy felt a little less put together by comparison.

  Livy’s usual summer attire of white blouse and navy skirt looked as if she’d bought it with rationing coupons, compared to Pen’s Vogue-inspired ensemble. Every blonde hair in place. A wrinkle wouldn’t dare be seen in her wardrobe. Livy had her share of admirers no doubt, but a second division team compared to Liverpool is still second division.

  Swiping the hair out of her eyes again she sat, legs crossed, trying not to fidget. Livy gripped an envelope in her right hand. She’d spent the better part of last night writing the letter it contained. When Fleming summoned her into the inner sanctum she planned to hand it to him and be done with it.

  Livy wondered how many times she’d walked into this office. She remembered the first time she’d staggered down the hallway, half-soused on gin, hours late for a meeting with Fleming and through the doorway marked “Kemsley News Service.” That day she’d wondered if this might be just another news organization. How wrong she had been. Later she learned that Fleming ran foreign correspondents for papers like The Sunday Times all over the world. Some of those correspondents were actual journalists, and others, like Livy, were essentially freelance agents whose work ended up on desks at MI6.

  Now, the embarrassment of that first meeting with Fleming washed over Livy. God, that felt like ages ago. But only a year really. She felt a different woman now. She’d said goodbye to so many things since then. Her nightly bouts with Polish vodka, her dead-end job as a copyeditor at a third-rate newspaper across town and—of course—Peter Scobee. She still thought about him. Her commander during the war. Her friend, her lover. But then last year had changed so many things. She felt a different woman now, and lately Livy wondered if that applied to her work as well.

  She took a breath and released the envelope she’d been holding for dear life. Her palms were sweaty.

  Livy scanned the outer office, wondering if this might be the last time she’d see it. Thick wood-paneled walls surrounded Pen’s clutter-free desk, which was the only substantial piece of furniture in the room. A gleaming Royal Arrow typewriter and a black telephone anchored her workspace. Behind the desk hung a large framed print of Turner’s The Battle of Trafalgar. Nelson’s flagship, HMS Victory, dominated the canvas, with the final letters of the signal “England expects that every man will do his duty” flying from the mast.

  Every woman too, Livy thought.

  “He should have finished five minutes ago. I don’t know what’s keeping him,” Pen said, her voice as smooth and crisp as a summer walk in Hyde Park. She looked at her sleek gold wristwatch, sighed, and turned back to her typewriter.

  Pen ran a tight ship and was more than a bit obsessive about keeping Fleming on schedule. Livy knew that beneath her icy blonde glare lay a good heart and a woman who’d do anything for a sack of chips.

  Livy again pushed her hair back in place. She wanted to look calm and collected for the meeting but knew her appearance probably matched the rumpled bundle of nerves inside. She’d called London home since the end of the war and still hadn’t quite gotten over the bumpkin stereotype many southerners have of working-class people from the North. She’d grown up in Blackpool, Lancashire. Even with an Irish father and French mother, Livy’s vowels and lilting cadence betrayed her Lanky upbringing.

  “You quite all right today, Livy?” Pen’s eyes shifted away from her typewriter. “You have that nervous thing you get sometimes.”

  “Bit of a rough go in Paris the other day.”

  Pen stiffened. As Fleming’s secretary, she handled the journalistic side of things. Livy doubted Pen had ever signed the Official Secrets Act, the document that bound journalists, spies, or whomever from betraying the knowledge gained while working for His Majesty’s Secret Service.

  “Right, well after you’re done in there, we could pop down to that fish and chips stand on the corner at lunch. I’ll tell you all about my latest. Christopher. Mmm. Absolutely spiffing. I’ll even buy.”

  Livy smiled and glanced at the letter in her hand. “Might just take you up on that, luv.”

  The thick oak door behind Pen’s shoulder opened with a great whooshing sound as the rubber seal around the frame dislodged. Fleming stood in the doorway.

  Livy didn’t go for him at all, although she could see why certain women might. His blue-gray eyes betrayed the first hints of aging, but his wide, turned-down mouth, below a nose that had been broken at least once, suggested the sort of cruel, devil-may-care attitude that made some women lose their train of thought. As always, he wore a navy suit with a white shirt and polka-dot bow tie. But today he looked tired.

  “Olivia,” he said. “Right.” He turned back into his office.

  Livy stood and pushed her hair back again. Pen gave her a wink as she headed inside.

  Fleming’s inner office didn’t seem much bigger than the outer, perhaps about twelve feet square. A small picture window dominated the far wall, with a view of neighboring brownstones that stretched as far as Livy could see. In contrast to his secretary’s workspace, Fleming’s chunky oak desk was buried under newspapers, many dog-eared and lying open. Several carefully stacked piles of papers were kept in order by a cannonball paperweight. Alongside rested a pair of reading glasses as well as a pack of Chesterfields and Fleming’s own custom-made cigarettes kept in a small blue box.

  The clutter paled compared to the spectacle of the wall-length map of the world that hung directly behind Fleming’s desk. The chart stretched from Alaska and North America on the left to Siberia and the South China Sea on the far right. Tiny lights, representing the Kemsley correspondents throughout the world, were embedded in the map itself. Livy guessed there were almost a hundred. The map glowed like an elongated Christmas tree, from one corner of the world to the other. Most of the lights seemed to be concentrated in North and South America, Europe, and Africa,
but the occasional single light flickered in Czechoslovakia or Peking. Moscow even had its own small bulb.

  Livy’s eyes went to the light in Paris. For over a year now that had been her.

  “Your man certainly came through for us,” Fleming said, lighting one of his special blended cigarettes and placing it in a long holder. “Allard had a look at the list from Tempest. He wired Six this morning to say it all appears genuine.” He looked up. “Are you going to stand all day?”

  “Sorry, sir.” Her heart sank lower as she descended into the chair across from his desk. Anxiety still made her crave a drink. Her eyes strayed to the drink cabinet Fleming kept beside his desk.

  Fleming leaned back in his swivel chair and took a long draw of the cigarette. “Olivia, there is something we need to discuss. I’m afraid it’s rather—”

  “Here. This is for you.” Livy held out the envelope. Her hand shook.

  Fleming’s brow wrinkled. He took the envelope but didn’t open it. “And what do we have here?”

  “You just need to read that. Explains everything.”

  “Olivia.”

  “I need you to read it. You gave me a great opportunity here, and I know when I first started, I wasn’t exactly Sunday Times material, but that didn’t matter—”

  “Olivia, please.”

  “You were loyal to me. I won’t forget that.”

  “What the devil are you on about?”

  Livy sat up straighter in the leather armchair. “I cocked it up but good in Paris the other day. I misread the situation and just flat-out lost my nerve.”

  “I read your report.”

  “I attacked an innocent man. I put him on the pavement. He was just some bloke getting a taxi and I—it was crazy of me—but I thought he and this other man were following me, and I hit him. I convinced myself Barnard ratted me and I … panicked. A year ago, in the same situation, I could have thought it through. But now, I don’t know, something’s changed.”

  It hadn’t happened overnight. The feeling began around the time she met Barnard, “Tempest.” The job had been a new one for Livy. Recruiting and then running an agent. Suddenly the pressure of being responsible for a man living under the enormous risk of life as a double agent caught up to her. She became restless. Her temper shortened and became more volatile. Sleepless nights were soon the norm.

  Fleming fidgeted with his cigarette holder, looking more uncomfortable than Livy had ever seen him.

  “The work isn’t always black and white, Olivia.”

  “Maybe that’s what I need then. Bit of the normal. The everyday. I’m twenty-seven now, sir. Practically every woman my age is married, with a great heap of kids running about. Maybe that’s what I need to do, or maybe it’s time I just stepped aside.”

  Fleming’s ruddy complexion looked washed out. The wide, almost piratical grin now a grimace of pain. Deliberately, he put his cigarette down and touched his chest.

  “You all right, sir?”

  He quietly cleared his throat and held up the envelope she’d given him as if it contained poison. “This envelope, I am to assume, is some sort of resignation?”

  She nodded.

  “So, because of this mishap in Paris, you’ve decided to settle down and make someone a good housewife, is that it?

  “I don’t know, but maybe a bit of the quiet life might do me good. I have to stop doing this at some point, don’t I? I can’t keep playing spy until I’m what—forty?”

  Fleming looked as if he’d been smacked across the face. He took a drink and threw the envelope on his desk without so much as opening it.

  “Do you remember the day I found you in that pub last year? Do you remember the shape you were in? I took a risk that day on a girl who was living every day out of a bottle. I took a risk, and you proved to be more than worth it. But one failure of judgment later and you want to throw all that away and … do what, exactly? Make someone a good wife? You?” Fleming practically scoffed. “Well, if you want to leave our business and go off and be one of those women pushing a baby round the park, then I’ll accept this letter of yours and have Pen do the necessary paperwork. You can leave this office and never come back. Simple as that.”

  Livy didn’t know how to respond to Fleming’s direct challenge. Was that what she really wanted? A quiet life? Or was this simply fear talking? Something about her last meeting with Barnard had shaken her. During the war, she’d taken far greater risks, but she could see the pressure of the double life had Barnard at the breaking point, and Livy had feared he just might take her down with him.

  “And what about you?” she said. “You never wanted that? Normal life and all?”

  Fleming sighed, looked at the dial on his Rolex, and straightened his bow tie.

  “The fact is, Olivia, we are the watchers,” he said, his voice soft and clipped. “We keep the wolves at bay, so the people who lead the quiet lives never have to know. Once you’ve been in our line of work, it’s more than a little difficult to be satisfied with what passes for a normal life.”

  “Speak from experience, do you?”

  Fleming leaned back in his chair. The color was coming back into his face. His blue eyes brightened, “Perhaps the best course of action is to get you out of Paris for a spell. A change of scenery might do wonders for you.”

  “And what about Barnard?”

  “Who?”

  “My agent. Tempest.”

  “Ah yes. Well, I’ll pass him off to our head of station there. Allard can handle your nervous little Red, I think.”

  Livy wondered how the impeccably dressed and mannered Henry Allard might react to Barnard’s ennui and fragrant body odor. She glanced down at the resignation letter on Fleming’s desk. It seemed embarrassing now. Impulsive and immature. Not to mention arrogant. She’d made plenty of mistakes before and would again. But Livy hated each and every one, deep in the pit of her soul. She fixated on blunders on nights she couldn’t sleep.

  She picked up the envelope and slid it onto the chair beside her like an offensive thing that had to be hidden.

  “So, if not Paris, then where?”

  Fleming’s grin widened. “I do have a job for you. And quite a serious one at that.”

  Livy’s skin tingled. His words alone thrilled her. No more running Barnard. Relief swept over her. She sat up straighter. The perfect attentive student.

  Fleming now held a small card in his hand, which he gave to Livy. It bore a Greenwich address and the name “Anka” at the top. Livy took the card, sensing her boss’s discomfort. It felt as if he wanted to say something to her but couldn’t.

  “Anka is expecting you tonight.” Fleming said in a barely audible whisper. “Listen to what she has to say. If you’re still interested, I’ll be in the office tomorrow morning.”

  “That’s mysterious enough.”

  Fleming slid open a drawer in his desk and removed a small square package wrapped in fine brown paper and stamped with the word “Morlands.”

  “This is a gift for her. A treat. Hopefully, it will make her a bit more … stable.”

  Chapter Four

  Darkness followed Livy as she took the thirty-minute train ride to south London. By the time she reached the small platform where the rail disembarked, night had fallen.

  Fleming had sent her on a number of wild-goose chases over the last year. There was the assignment to locate a gold ring last seen on the finger of a Luftwaffe pilot who’d been dead for four years. Then, the brief excursion to Istanbul. That particular memory made Livy laugh and tremble at the same time.

  Anka in Greenwich? Fleming had said nothing else. Just go, and then decide.

  The train ride gave Livy time to consider the future, but all along the route signs from the recent past confronted her. The summer had brought much-needed warmth to a city still dealing with the remnants of the one of the worst winters in London’s history leading to one of the wettest Marches. Buildings with flood damage stood beside still unrepaired office blocks crush
ed during the Blitz. Union Jacks dotted the urban landscape, as if the real Britain was trying to emerge from the rubble.

  The train pulled into the station just after eight thirty. Livy had always liked the quiet of Greenwich. Far enough away from the torrid pace of central London, with all the trappings of modern urban living. She remembered one or two pubs near Greenwich Park particularly well.

  She followed a gaggle of businessmen away from the train to the stairs at the end of the above-ground platform. She twirled the card marked “Anka” in her right hand.

  What was she doing? Not ten hours ago she’d almost resigned, and now here she was on her way to talk with a stranger. About what exactly? Fleming had been unusually cryptic. Something about all this reminded Livy of another visit she’d paid a stranger last year in Kensington, when she’d encountered Emma Sherbourne, the woman she came to know—not without affection—as The Great Actress. But that had been training. She sensed tonight’s visit was something else entirely.

  Yet, she kept going, surging ahead with the crowd of men getting home late from work, headed to their flats or wives or sweethearts to steal a few hours of normalcy before getting back on the same train the next morning.

  The stairs ended in an alley between two hotels that bordered the Greenwich station. The night felt cool against Livy’s legs as she turned left on the High Road.

  A couple of the men looked back at her, their expressions suggesting they wondered where a single woman could possibly be going this time of night. Livy wondered that herself.

  The card had only the name, an address, and the added direction: Behind St. Alfege’s. Livy had once interrogated an informer on a bench in Greenwich’s massive park, so she was familiar with the location of the church.

  After a few blocks she saw the grand tower and high walls of the parish chapel. A construction rope still blocked the front steps of the building. The charred roof served as another reminder of the beating the city had taken during the Blitz. The structure appeared sturdy enough, but the interior looked burned out, gutted.