The English Agent Read online

  ‘So, how long are you with the big man for,’ said Josef, interrupting his thoughts.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Gerhardt said. He was thinking now of her. Would she transmit as normal this morning, or would she refuse because of what she now knew about Kieffer’s duplicity concerning her dead colleagues? Even if she did comply, continue with the Funkspiel, it was almost over. Kieffer already had a celebratory party planned. Would he be back by then? Would he have a chance to see her again?

  He turned his head to see the buttercream mansions of avenue Foch slide past. The Arc de Triomphe was a breached dam, the military parade a river of grey chasing them down a gulley.

  ‘Kieffer didn’t say when I’d be back,’ he said.

  Edie

  Dr Goetz waved her inside and motioned for her to sit down. ‘Vogt has gone,’ he said in clipped, heavily accented English. ‘Today we work together.’

  Edie nodded and sat down. The chair next to her, where Gerhardt usually sat, was empty. The air tasted stale and musty on her tongue. Dr Goetz rifled through a stack of paperwork and made a snuffling sound as he pushed his spectacles up his nose. A car started up in the driveway outside.

  Why had Gerhardt gone? Where had he been taken? She couldn’t ask Dr Goetz: her very curiosity could be incriminating. Edie’s breath was dry in her mouth. She brought a hand up to touch her lips, chapped and sore from last night’s kissing. She could hear boots outside, tramping down the avenue Foch, increasing in volume as the morning parade approached.

  What if London responded to her secret message, like they’d done when her security check had been left off? What if word came back that she should stop sending riddles in the middle of the night and keep to her scheduled time? Then they’d know what she’d done. Would Kieffer have her sent to a prison camp, or would he just have her shot?

  The sound of boots outside got louder as the soldiers marched directly underneath the window.

  Gerhardt was gone, and she was alone.

  Vera

  The message had come through on Yvette’s frequency, in the middle of the night. Vera stared at the slip of paper in her hand, willing an answer to emerge. She stood up and walked over to the window, pausing to look down at the roofs of red buses and black cabs, beetling down Baker Street in the rush hour. Through the glass the traffic noise was just an echoing growl.

  They’d had a postcard from Yvette. Buckmaster said that was proof that she was fine, despite the strange message from ‘Claude’ that they’d received. And the girl had been transmitting regularly, with her fist, keeping to her scheds – until now, until this broken message, sent hours ahead of time. Vera turned away from the window and began to pace back towards her desk, fanning her face with the slip of paper. What could it mean?

  The office door banged open and Buckmaster was there, shaking off his umbrella. ‘Vee, you’re in early. Are you well?’ he teased. But she’d made certain she’d been in early every day since he’d agreed to sponsor her naturalisation, even on the mornings after airport send-offs, and she failed to see the funny side.

  ‘Quite well, thank you,’ she lied. She still hadn’t managed to kick off that dreadful cold. It felt as if pebbles were wedged under her jaw and her ears were stuffed with tin foil.

  Buckmaster had started to undo his coat buttons and was glancing down at his diary, which lay open on his desk. ‘Buckie, I’ve had a rather worrying message in from Cat—’ she began.

  ‘Good Lord, not this again,’ he said. ‘What does it say?’

  ‘It’s not what it says, exactly, but what it doesn’t say.’ Vera held out the slip of paper, but Buckmaster didn’t see it, his eyes scanning his daily schedule as he began to slip off his trench coat.

  ‘Let’s get Dericourt on to it, then. He has excellent contacts in Paris. I’m sure it’s nothing, but if it will put your mind at rest, then we can get our man to clear this up, once and for all.’

  ‘But, I’m not sure that Dericourt—’ she began, but couldn’t finish because Buckmaster’s phone rang and he picked it up. Vera strained to listen, watching the expression on his face change from polite concern through consternation and finally to panic. ‘Yes, of course. I’m on my way, sir,’ was all he said, before hanging up. He began to do up his coat again. ‘I need to be somewhere else rather urgently. Whatever it is, it’ll have to wait, Vee.’ He grabbed his umbrella and was gone.

  Vera was left alone in the office, still holding the slip of paper. She paused for a moment, then folded the message up and put it in her pocket. Perhaps it was best not to rock the boat, not to give Buckmaster any cause for irritation. Not with all that other hullabaloo going on with the internal investigation. Not now she was so close to being home and dry.

  Gerhardt

  ‘I thought you needed me for some translation work as well as driving,’ Gerhardt said, looking down at the Paris streets unravelling below them. The icy railings were sticky-cold beneath his bare hands. Why did height make you want to launch yourself out into it and fall, he wondered, as a seagull arced below them. And he thought of her that night, at the window when they’d first brought her in. Had he really saved her?

  ‘All in good time, my boy,’ Boemelburg said, his voice half strangled by the wind that whipped through the metal girders that criss-crossed above and below. ‘Your uncle told me he’d wanted to take you here when you were down for the interview, but there hadn’t been the chance. I said I’d be happy to compensate.’

  ‘How kind,’ Gerhardt said flatly. He didn’t remember his father mentioning anything about visiting the Eiffel Tower. All he’d talked about was the need to communicate. ‘Write, every day, no matter what. Tell me everything. Even the things you won’t tell your mother – especially the things you won’t tell your mother!’ Gerhardt had written, dutifully, sending pages and pages in the diplomatic bag that went up on the night train from Paris. Even yesterday, before he went out with Josef and Norbert – before he’d come back again to her.

  He looked down at the blue-grey swirl of streets and the velvet twist of the Seine, tugging the city seawards. Would he write to his father today? Would he tell him about leaving the whorehouse and finding himself in bed with an English agent – and finding himself in love with an English agent, that too? He leant out into the chilling wind and Paris shifted and spun below him. No, he wouldn’t write today, and he wasn’t sure when he would write again. He felt a sense of release as the air eddied and whipped. Uncle, father, mentor: whatever Count von der Schulenburg was, Gerhardt wanted nothing more to do with him.

  ‘Now, smile!’ Boemelburg said, and Gerhardt saw that he’d taken out a small Kodak camera. ‘Some snaps for your uncle,’ Boemelburg said. Gerhardt looked into the camera lens, imagining his father’s stern face behind it, instead of Boemelburg’s. He couldn’t bring himself to smile. ‘You look very serious, for a boy on a sightseeing trip,’ Boemelburg remarked. ‘But no matter. I’ll take some shots of the view. Look, you can see Notre-Dame over there.’ The camera shutter clicked. ‘Isn’t that Sacré-Cœur? It looks so small from up here!’ Boemelburg pointed the brown box in different directions and continued pressing the shutter. ‘Now, where is that prototype depot that this Funkspiel has been all about? Can we see it from up here?’

  Gerhardt shrugged, wondering why on earth his father would want a photograph of the depot centre roof. But at Boemelburg’s insistence he remembered the grid references from the transmissions, and was able to point out a nondescript red-roofed building, towards the east of the city. Boemelburg clicked the shutter a few more times. ‘You do get a remarkably good view from up here,’ he said. ‘It’s almost like being in an aeroplane. Now, let’s get back down to the bottom and take some pictures of the pretty French girls on their bicycles – your uncle would like that.’

  Gerhardt could taste moisture in the wind. Clouds covered the morning sun now, and the air was empty grey. He followed Boemelburg towards the lift. ‘Oh, and your uncle gave me something to give to you,’ Boemelburg sa
id, turning back. ‘Don’t let me forget.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Gerhardt said, not caring about the Count and his pointless missive, whatever it was. The sky was darkening, the weather coming in. ‘How long am I to be assigned to you, sir?’ he asked as they entered the lift.

  ‘As long as it takes,’ Boemelburg replied. The lift doors closed, partially shutting out the daylight. Machinery clunked and whirred.

  Gerhardt thought of her face in the darkness, as he’d caught a final kiss before racing back to his room. Edie, that was her real name. Nobody else knew – another secret they shared, along with their stolen night together: invisible cords, binding them.

  But would he ever see her again, he wondered, as the lift dropped, and they plummeted earthwards.

  Vera

  ‘A word, Vee.’

  Vera sighed, not bothering to check her watch. She was already late.

  ‘Buckie?’

  ‘Um – perhaps in the meeting room.’

  She nodded, and they walked along the corridor together. Buckmaster held the meeting-room door open for her, and she stepped inside. The air was cold and stale, the windows blacked out already, even though it was still early. Like a tomb, Vera thought, clicking the light switch. Buckmaster closed the door behind him.

  ‘You’re aware of the internal investigation?’ Buckmaster said.

  Vera perched on the edge of a table, one leg hanging with studied casualness. She had known about it long before he had, thanks to the gossip in the ladies’ loos. ‘Naturally. They spoke to me yesterday, dear boy.’ They had all been sent for an ‘informal chat’ up in N-Section. Luckily, Vera had been well prepared, thanks to the silly secretaries and their washroom indiscretions.

  ‘This is rather awkward,’ Buckmaster said, teeth working his unlit pipe stem. ‘The thing is, Vee—’

  Oh God, no. They couldn’t have anything on her. She had been so careful. They’d grilled Margaret for longer than her, for heaven’s sake. Margaret . . . surely not Margaret? Vera thought of the secretary blushing and whispering with Dericourt that time. What had Dericourt said to her? What had Margaret told them in her interview?

  Vera looked up at Buckmaster. Beneath his unkempt brows his eyes showed – what? Consternation? Anger? Disappointment? Usually she could read him like a book, but today that book was closed.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said.

  She couldn’t bring herself to respond. It was all she could do to keep breathing.

  ‘It seems you were right . . .’

  What? What was he saying? Vera clasped her hands in her lap.

  ‘. . . about Henri Dericourt,’ Buckmaster continued.

  Vera exhaled, let her clasped hands part.

  Buckmaster was frowning, pulling his pipe from his lips. ‘I can hardly believe it myself, but apparently he’s been seen visiting avenue Foch. It looks like the SD is running him.’

  Vera tried to keep her face a blank page as she formulated a response.

  ‘And the evidence?’ she said.

  ‘There have been sightings on more than one occasion.’

  ‘Just circumstantial, then?’

  Buckmaster nodded.

  Vera slowly closed her eyelids and opened them again, mind working furiously in the moment of blindness, thinking of that broken message from Yvette, calculating repercussions.

  ‘I had absolute faith in Dericourt, but it appears you were right to mistrust him,’ said Buckmaster.

  ‘How do we know it’s not just black market?’ Vera said and watched as Buckmaster’s brows shuffled upwards. ‘I’ve never been a fan of Monsieur Dericourt, as you know, but shouldn’t a charge of treason be based on a bit more than someone being seen to visit an enemy building? A man like that has fingers in all sorts of pies. He brought oranges into the office,’ she continued, remembering the fragrant acidic rush and the sticky sweetness on her fingertips. ‘He could very well be a supplier of Nazi kitchens, but that doesn’t necessarily make him a double agent, does it?’

  ‘I hope you’re right, Vee. But in any case, they’re going to take him in for questioning,’ Buckmaster said.

  ‘Surely not today? I’ve got agents to send over. It’s the first clear night we’ve had in ages,’ Vera said. Buckmaster looked uncomfortable. ‘Oh Buckie, why are you telling me this now? It’s all set up. Cinema and Fox have both been told they’re flying tonight, and the weather’s set to change again tomorrow, the Met boys say.’ Vera pushed herself up off the edge of the table. Buckmaster was a head taller than her. His eyes – now she looked closer – weren’t hiding anything except exhaustion and worry. ‘Can’t you stall them?’ she said.

  Buckmaster cleared his throat. ‘Well, as you say, the evidence is only circumstantial and there could be some perfectly valid reason. I’ll ask for an extra couple of days. But not a word, Vera. This can’t get out.’

  ‘Absolutely, dear boy,’ Vera said. ‘But thank you for keeping me up to scratch on this.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Buckmaster said, reaching out and resting a hand on her arm. ‘Thank you, Vee, for being so gracious about all this.’

  Vera let herself lean in towards Buckmaster: pipe smoke, old tweed, and Imperial Leather soap. She lifted her face towards his. ‘Don’t be too hard on yourself, Buckie. We don’t know anything for certain. There may be a reasonable explanation for it all.’ She stood on tiptoe so that her cheek just grazed his; she felt the roughness of his stubble beginning to come through. ‘Whatever the outcome, Buckie, I’m totally onside; you’ll always have my absolute loyalty.’

  Edie

  The moment Kieffer took the gun out, Edie knew it was all over. London must have responded to the message. She had thought Miss Atkins would understand the cryptic words, but she’d been wrong. The game was up. I’m so sorry, she thought, not expecting forgiveness, but acknowledging for one final time all the wrong she’d done. She closed her eyes.

  But there was no blinding flash, no sudden oblivion. Instead there was a click, and when she opened her eyes she saw that Kieffer had merely opened the barrel.

  They were standing in the middle of the little garden. Anxiety contracted her vision; all she could see were Kieffer’s hands turning the pistol over. The metal caught the weak sun and gleamed dully. He was saying something in German and Edie automatically turned, looking for Gerhardt, for translation. But Gerhardt wasn’t there. It was just her and Kieffer, and the sly-eyed driver, leaning up against the black Citroën, smoking, watching from a distance.

  Edie watched Kieffer insert bullets. He rammed the barrel shut. Edie thought: Maybe now, maybe this is it, but this time she didn’t close her eyes, instead looked skywards, through the skeleton trees, up into the grey winter sky. Something rustled in the bushes near by and she saw two pigeons rise, spiralling giddily through the naked branches. Kieffer grunted. There was a loud crack. Edie jolted, but felt nothing. She saw one pigeon fall: spinning, flailing. She was reminded of the time they’d shot down an enemy plane, back on the ack-ack guns, how the wreckage had twisted, curled in orange flames, screaming as it fell.

  There was the softest thud as the pigeon landed, and the frantic flap of wings as its partner escaped over the Paris rooftops. And Kieffer laughed, pleased with himself.

  Edie looked. The shot pigeon had landed between them. Edie heard distant hand-clapping: the driver applauding his boss’s hit. But Kieffer hadn’t killed the bird outright. It jerked and twitched like a dying fish, making strange choking sounds. Blood began to seep from its beak, ribboning crimson onto the yellow-green grass.

  She heard Kieffer say something in German, looked up at him smiling his white-teeth smile, pointing at his gun, gesturing upwards. It was incomprehensible, but she knew what he meant: Such a nice day, and I’ve got a new gun, just thought I’d try it out – makes a change from piano recitals, eh? He’s showing off, she realised. I’m just a girl to show off to, to admire him for being such a fine shot.

  She looked back at the bird, silent now, but still twisting sl
owly, being wrung out by death, still trapped in its suffering. She noticed the stone near her feet. It was quite large – large enough. Kieffer was calling to the driver, who shouted back. Neither of them noticed her pick up the rough pyramid of rock, and walk forwards, lifting it high, ready to strike.

  Chapter 17

  Vera

  Vera’s heart was high in her chest as she walked down Park Lane. She felt truly alive. Above her the sky was ice blue, clear as glass. Such a beautiful day – glorious, one would say. Exactly the kind of day you’d want for a wedding, Vera thought. Winter was almost over. She could feel it: there were crocuses round the tree stumps in Hyde Park. Was that what she’d say to Dick’s mother over lunch? She imagined their conversation: How lovely to meet you. Dick’s told me so much about you. Isn’t the weather splendid today – would you and Dick like a winter wedding?

  Vera gasped in the cold air. She was beyond joyful: Dick’s mother had asked her for lunch at the Dorchester, and that could mean only one thing, couldn’t it?

  She paused momentarily to take in the hotel’s façade, ranks of windows studding the curved concrete like buttons on a uniform. Eisenhower’s suite was on the first floor, wasn’t it? She wondered which was his balcony. Her feet tapped on the paved pathway up to the hotel entrance. A man in a top hat and a frock coat held the door open for her as she approached. The British: such class, even in wartime, Vera thought. And she’d be British soon. She’d written Dick as much, and he, in turn, must have contacted his mother. The entrance hall was tiled with grey and cream marble slabs, slippery as an ice rink. White statues wreathed with gilt edged the curved floor. Vera took a deep breath and checked her watch. She was a little early, but no matter. She was hardly likely to be late, couldn’t concentrate on anything at work once she’d had that phone call this morning.

  Hello, is that Miss Atkins?