The English Agent Read online

  They threw him out into the alleyway. Norbert came too, silently helping him down the Métro steps, manoeuvring him round sleeping tramps. By the time they got back to avenue Foch the ground had stopped moving, his stomach was caved out, and Gerhardt was just left with a thumping head and a raging thirst. Norbert shoved Gerhardt into his room and closed the door behind him, without a word.

  Gerhardt fell into his bed; confused thoughts leapt and twirled. He knew there was something he had to do, but he couldn’t think what. His beer-addled brain did him no favours. He could hear the English girl pacing the floor above him. They’d moved her up to the top floor now, to one of the little servants’ rooms that had bars on the window, and no balcony (just in case, Kieffer said, especially now we’ve taken her handcuffs off). Every night he could hear her walking across the room and back, like a caged lioness, bare feet padding the boards until the early hours.

  He was listening to her footfalls – there was something he needed to tell the English prisoner, but what was it? He would go up and tell her, if only he could recall what it was. Before he could remember, he slipped into a fitful sleep, already dreaming, the familiar dream-memory that had haunted him since he arrived in Paris.

  The girl was waving from the kerb. The sunshine was so bright and her dress was white . . .

  ‘I’m terribly sorry. I shouldn’t have bothered you,’ said the girl, beginning to turn away.

  It was very hot now the car had stopped moving, even with all the windows open. The air was as thick as sugar syrup inside. ‘Not at all,’ said Gerhardt’s mother. ‘Does the Count usually pick you up?’

  ‘If the car happens to be passing he occasionally gives me a lift into town. It’s my lunch hour—’ The young woman cleared her throat. ‘He’s a family friend,’ she added . . .

  Chapter 11

  Vera

  What silly impulse had brought her here, Vera thought, struggling against the wind. Last night she’d had two agents to see off: a man and a woman, who’d be working together in Metz. They were eminently suitable, both for the work and for each other. Vera sighed. Vicarious romance was all she had these days. But things will change, she thought, feet sliding on the muddy track, hair breaking free from her hairnet and flapping wildly at her shoulders.

  The wind sliced like a rapier, cutting through her clothes and reminding her of the skiing holiday with Dick back in 1939: the blinding sunshine and the gasping beauty of it all and the two of them together, flashing through the blue-whiteness like a fleeting smile. He said he’d been impressed with her prowess. She wasn’t like other women, he said. How she’d loved that, being admired. Her father had never admired her; he’d only ever been interested in her brothers Ralph and Guy. Girls were for fucking and fun – that’s what her uncle always used to say, although he’d married Karen, their housekeeper, in the end. Vera wondered where they were now, if they’d managed to get away in time – nobody had heard from them since 1940.

  She pushed a straggling strand of hair away from her eyes and strode on into the rushing stream of winter air. She must be nearly there now, surely? It’s only a mile, the woman had said. Up the road. You can’t miss it. A country mile, Vera thought, eyes watering. She checked her watch. She’d been walking for more than half an hour already. Hedgerows waved frantically, like crowds of commoners at passing royalty, and clouds swirled and fled overhead.

  She’d asked her driver to drop her off in Cambridge after the airport send-off at Tempsford last night. It wasn’t planned; it was just that seeing those two agents together had made her think of Dick, and how they’d be together, after the war. She’d taken the milk train to Norwich. She’d slept a little on the way, slumped like luggage between churns and sacks of mail; she woke in time to get off at North Walsham. From there she’d had to wait an age for the bus to Cromer. It being Sunday there was nowhere open for refreshments, and she’d survived the whole morning on just the flask of coffee she’d taken from Tempsford and her cigs.

  The bus was crammed with soldiers and ATS girls, laughing and flirting their way to some ack-ack emplacement on the coast. Looking at them she thought of Yvette. She’d been in the ATS hadn’t she? Vera remembered seeing her in that frightful khaki uniform and thinking that she’d make sure the French tailor found something that suited her skin tone far better for her drop into Occupied France.

  Vera wondered whether she’d done the right thing with Yvette’s messages. Was Buckmaster correct? Had the girl really just forgotten her security check? Vera’s face was pushed up against the cool glass of the bus window, and she drifted off to sleep again, thinking of that agent with the red hair. Her dreams were peppered with the stifled screams and laughter of the recruits on the bus. Except in her dreams it wasn’t the hullabaloo of a coachload of soldiers and ATS, it became a party on the lawn at Crasna, and the laughter was her own, being teased and tickled by Friedrich until she’d begged for mercy, gasping out in German and English, ‘Halt, bitte, Friedrich! Please stop, Ambassador!’

  Vera woke up before her stop, with dribble down her chin and a pain in her temple. She got off the bus by the village green and knocked on the door of a nearby house to ask the way. The woman who answered the door was surrounded by clumps of suspicious-looking children, a smear of coal dust next to her unsmiling mouth. ‘They’ll be in church by the time you get there,’ the woman said accusingly after giving her directions. Vera said sorry for the bother and thank you so much for your help and didn’t mention that she wouldn’t be joining the Ketton-Cremers in church, didn’t say the Ketton-Cremers might very well not even know she existed. Not yet, at any rate.

  Vera pushed against the north-easterly, tired and hungry and wondering how the hell she would make it back to London today. How foolish she was to undertake this silly little quest. Then, suddenly, the track opened up, and there it was: Felbrigg Hall, family seat of the Ketton-Cremers and Dick’s home.

  It was even larger than she’d imagined, bigger by far than her own childhood home in Romania. In front of her was a huge two-storey Tudor edifice of brick and glass, with a sweeping gravel drive. A burgundy Ford Deluxe was parked outside the front door. She recognised it as Dick’s, and she had to stem the impulse to run towards it. A thin line of blue smoke emerged from just one of the nine chimneys, whisked away into the wan sky. From behind the house she could hear the tolling of a chapel bell, calling the family to prayer. Vera wasn’t sure if anyone else lived here with Dick’s widowed mother. But in any case, they’d all be in church. It would be safe to go a little closer, just to look, without needing to bother anyone.

  Her shoes crunched on the gravel. She looked in at the mullioned window to the right of the stone arch that framed the front door. She saw wooden panelling, oil paintings in heavy frames, a sweeping staircase with wrought-iron balustrades: everything as it should be. There was a particular portrait of a woman in blue at the bottom of the stairwell that caught Vera’s eye: modern and severe. It would have to be replaced by something more in keeping, Vera thought – hadn’t Dick mentioned a Gainsborough kicking about somewhere?

  Vera imagined ascending the staircase after a charming evening entertaining. They’d have just waved goodbye to their guests at the front door, Dick’s arm resting casually at her waist. ‘I thought they’d never leave,’ he’d whisper in her ear and his lips would graze her earlobe. After they’d shut out the night, he’d stay at the door a moment, letting her go on up first, watching appreciatively as her fingers trailed the smooth banister. She’d catch his eye, and they’d both know what the other was thinking, and he’d begin to follow her up the stairs to – where was the master bedroom? Vera looked up at the rows of windows. It must surely be at the front of the house. She thought about drifting up from a four-poster and pushing thick tapestry drapes to one side to let in the morning sunshine and glorious parkland views.

  Then a dog began to bark somewhere inside the house, and the spell was broken. If she tarried any longer someone would notice her, come to the
door, ask what on earth she was doing here. And what could she say? I’m going to marry Dick, just as soon as I’m British, and he makes it home. I’m going to marry Dick, and all this will be ours.

  Vera turned her back on the big house. But before she left, she paused to caress the smooth wine-coloured bonnet of his car and to remember that last summer before the war. He’d taken her driving in that car for her birthday, given her a collection of MacNeice poems, taken her to a hotel. ‘June Thunder’, that had been her favourite poem from the collection – the one she’d given to Yvette to use as her code.

  The Junes were free and full, driving through tiny

  Roads, the mudguards brushing the cow parsley,

  Through fields of mustard and under boldly embattled

  Mays and chestnuts . . .

  She smiled at the memory. ‘One day, my darling,’ she said aloud. ‘One day we’ll have June thunder again.’ And she forced her feet to begin the long journey back to London.

  Edie

  Even through the glass she could hear the tramp of boots on the road. The soldiers were marching along avenue Foch, just as they did every day, up the Champs-Élysées, round the Arc de Triomphe and all the way along the broad boulevard, almost underneath her window. She looked out between the metal bars – since her escape attempt she’d been moved to an attic room with a tiny barred window. It was sunny outside. The cream-coloured buildings rose up on either side of the road, and the ranks of soldiers passed with dark accuracy down the middle. Edie thought of mathematics classes with her governess, how she’d been taught to draw thickly ruled pencil lines underneath the answer. That’s what they were like, the Nazi ranks, a triple underscore scratching into the paper-pale avenue.

  She watched them, far below. Goose-stepping, that’s what they called it, that funny way with the legs. Edie remembered how much trouble she’d had learning to march: all that shouting, the hours on the drill square in the biting wind. How much she’d hated it – and what she’d give to be back there, now. How had it come to this? Transmitting messages for the enemy, messages that London thought were from their own agents. Edie held on to the thought that she’d at least saved Felix and Justine. At least there was that. She sighed, as the sound of the parade died away.

  There was a knock at the door, and she turned, but didn’t answer. They could all just go to hell. The knocking came again, tentative, but insistent. She threw herself on the bed and covered her head with her pillow. But the knocking wouldn’t stop.

  ‘Go away,’ she yelled, but she heard the door being unlocked and pushed open. She sat up to look. It was the interpreter, bringing a cup of coffee. ‘Go away,’ she repeated. ‘Just leave me alone.’

  He shut the door behind him, and walked across the room towards her bed, boots making the floorboards creak. ‘I need to tell you something,’ he said. As he reached the bed she jumped up, knocking the cup so it fell out of his hands: coffee all over his face, china smashed on the floor.

  ‘I don’t want it!’ she screeched into his face, not caring that her spit hit his cheek, not caring about anything, and suddenly she was upon him, scrabbling and biting, tearing at him and his hateful SD uniform, not thinking, just hitting out wildly.

  At first, stunned, he didn’t respond, merely tried to block her, a look of surprise on his face. But then she caught him with a swift blow to his jaw, knocking him off balance, shouting that she hated him, him and his murdering friends. And then he responded, with a hard punch to her solar plexus, winding her and causing her to fall, landing on the shards of broken crockery. She tried to get up, gulping for breath, but he was on top of her, pushing her down. There was a sharp pain in her right cheek as something pierced the skin. She pushed back, struggling, but he was stronger, pinning her in place. She couldn’t move.

  His face was close to hers now: his lips half parted, he was panting. He kept her there, his body rigid above hers. A strand of his drenched hair had fallen forward, and twitched in time with his breathing. She’d never seen his face this close before. Coffee dribbled like dirty tears down one cheek. As she looked, she saw his pupils dilate, round and black as an eclipse. His face moved even closer to hers, his breath warm. Then he suddenly shoved her away and kneeled up. ‘Do you want to get yourself shot?’ he said at last, pushing the hair from his eyes and getting to his feet.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, sitting up.

  He was straightening his uniform. He stopped, shook his head, looked down at her. He held out a hand to help her up, but she ignored him. Instead she began to pick up the pieces of broken cup that lay strewn across the floor. ‘Don’t do that; I’ll go down to the kitchen and get a dustpan,’ he said. But she carried on, plucking the pale slivers from the spaces between the floorboards until there was a sharp pile of them in her right palm, like bones. She got up without his help. The broken crockery rattled as she threw it into the metal bin. The puddle of coffee was seeping slowly into the wood, like a bloodstain.

  Then, looking at her, he said, ‘Your face – come here.’ She turned away, putting her fingers up to where he was looking. A splinter of china was wedged in the soft flesh of her cheek: it hurt when she touched it. ‘Let me look at it in the light. Come.’ He drew her towards the bed and sat down next to her, cupping her chin in his hand. She winced as he touched her cheek gently with a fingertip. ‘You can’t leave it like that,’ he said, and before she could pull away he’d squeezed it, pinching it hard so that the shard of porcelain popped out into his fingers. He showed it to her. It lay like a baby tooth on the ball of his thumb. She put up a hand, rubbing the blood from her face. ‘Hurts, doesn’t it?’ he said, and she noticed the purple-red bruise beginning to form on his jaw, where she’d punched him. He opened the catch on the window and flicked the broken china out between the bars.

  ‘I won’t say anything,’ he said, closing the window. ‘But if you made unprovoked attacks on other staff members, there would be serious consequences. At the very least they’d put the handcuffs back on you.’ She saw him looking at her wrists, which were still encircled by pink-rawness where the cuffs had been, and had open cuts from where she’d been strapped into the chair in the cellar. He stayed sitting next to her. ‘I’ll get you another coffee,’ he said, moving to get up.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Don’t bother. But what was it you wanted to tell me?’ She looked down at his square-tipped fingers with their bitten nails resting on his trousers. She noticed the fabric dip as his hands tightened against his thighs.

  ‘N-nothing,’ he said. ‘I should go.’ The mattress shifted as he got up. He paused in the doorway. ‘Adieu,’ he said, half turning, the slice of brown hair still wet from the spilled coffee. It was the way he held himself. It was his clumsy use of French.

  At last she realised who he was: the soldier from place de la Madeleine that day.

  The door slammed shut behind him, and she heard the key turn in the lock. Her fingers reached up to the tender place where he’d pulled the shard of china from her cheek and she closed her eyes.

  Gerhardt

  ‘Ach, she’s a fighter, is she?’ Josef said, winking at Gerhardt as they met at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Sorry?’ said Gerhardt.

  ‘Your jaw,’ said Josef, leering, eyes flicking up to the stairwell, and Gerhardt realised what he was alluding to.

  ‘No, I just fell, that’s all,’ Gerhardt said, thinking about the struggle with the girl, and how he’d felt, holding her down, her face so close to his. He used to feel like that about Lisel. He wondered what Lisel was doing now. He wondered if she’d joined the civil service, as she’d said she would. She could be anywhere: France, Poland, the Netherlands. She could be anywhere, with anyone.

  Josef shrugged, and Gerhardt could tell the driver didn’t believe him. They began walking down the corridor together. He was on his way back to the clerks’ office. He’d promised Frau Bertelsmann he’d help out with a backlog of filing. Josef had begun talking about some bandits who’d sabotaged a t
rain near Metz. Gerhardt was only half listening, his mind still in the upstairs room, with the girl. He’d been about to tell her about her colleagues, that they’d been killed by the Gestapo. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. The girl was only continuing to comply because she thought she was keeping her colleagues safe. It seemed wrong not to tell her the truth. But then again, if he told her, would she stop helping Kieffer and Dr Goetz with the radio game? What would they do to her if she ceased to comply? He’d even written to the Count about it, in a roundabout way, questioning the values and standards he should aspire to, as an officer in the Reich.

  ‘Three hundred killed,’ Josef said.

  Gerhardt stopped outside the clerks’ door. The scent of cigarette smoke mingled with coffee. There was the rattle of typewriters. ‘What?’

  ‘Three hundred of our boys,’ Josef repeated. ‘Those Maquis bastards. They could just have blown up the railway bridge, but no, they deliberately timed it so that a trainload of soldiers was halfway over when it went up.’

  Gerhardt thought of the lads in compartments, joking, shooting the breeze. He’d come by train from Leipzig with a group of soldiers, fresh from training, full of bravado and banter.

  ‘Some were killed outright in the explosion, but most drowned or were crushed when the train went into the river below,’ Josef continued. ‘They were on their way home on leave, for fuck’s sake.’

  ‘That’s terrible,’ Gerhardt said.

  ‘It’s more than fucking terrible, mate, it’s evil,’ Josef spat. ‘And that’s her lot.’ He poked a finger up towards the stairs Gerhardt had just descended. ‘Her lot will have supplied the arms and ammunition, organised it all – murderers!’

  Gerhardt thought about the British bombers over Leipzig, and his little brother Franz, deep in the cold earth, because of them. He thought of the saboteurs who provided arms and ammunition to assassinate his comrades. No, he wouldn’t tell the English prisoner about her dead colleagues. He didn’t owe her anything. ‘The only good Tommy is a dead Tommy,’ he said to Josef. Let the Funkspiel continue for as long as necessary, put an end to the British and their killing ways.