The English Agent Read online

  Outside the clouds parted to reveal the moon: a thick wedge of yellow, low in the sky – it was right at the tail end of a moon period. At last it was curfew-quiet and she was ready.

  Gerhardt

  He’d never had French champagne before, Gerhardt realised, as they stood clinking glasses to the success of the Funkspiel. Last time he’d been here the Count had ordered red wine. He remembered the rainy afternoon of the interview. It had been the depths of winter and he’d stupidly left his coat behind. It was the day he met her – before he even knew who she was, or what she’d come to mean to him.

  ‘Shouldn’t we be toasting the man who’s made all this possible?’ said Josef from the end of the table.

  ‘You mean Vogt?’ said Dr Goetz, watery eyes blinking behind his glasses. And Josef said no, not the interpreter, Herr Hitler, of course, without whom none of them would be in Paris at all, and everyone laughed, lifting their glasses again – to the Führer.

  There was a scraping of chairs. As they sat down, Boemelburg apologised to Kieffer for their being unable to attend the staff party: he had kept Gerhardt busy listening in on bugged telephone conversations between Coco Chanel and von Dincklage – but he didn’t mention that to Kieffer.

  ‘Seriously, though—’ Dr Goetz turned to Gerhardt as they settled back down at the table. ‘I couldn’t have played this radio game without you. Your input has been invaluable – right from the moment the girl arrived. You managed her so well.’ Kieffer was sitting opposite them, smiling into his champagne glass as if remembering a secret, and Dr Goetz caught his eye. ‘I was saying, Major, how useful Vogt has been.’

  ‘Indeed,’ Kieffer said, lifting the glass in Gerhardt’s direction.

  ‘What’s that?’ said Boemelburg, leaning into the table from his place at the window, away from the black sliver of night that pierced the drawn curtains behind him.

  ‘Dr Goetz was just saying how vital young Vogt has been to the operation. A commendable recruit,’ Kieffer said.

  ‘Ah yes, Vogt.’ The security chief’s face was pinkly porcine in the candlelight. ‘I do apologise for stealing him from you these last few days, but you seem to have managed very well without him. A successful completion of this little Funkspiel?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Kieffer replied. ‘Even as we speak, the British think that their people are laying explosives in the prototype depot, ready to blow in the early hours of the morning. Instead, thanks to Dr Goetz and Vogt’s excellent handling of the English agent, we have captured all their explosives and ammunition, and the prototypes will be moved to a new location for large-scale manufacturing tomorrow. By the time the silly British realise they’ve been duped, the new weapon prototype will be long gone, even if they do decide to send in the bombers.’ Kieffer waved his champagne glass as he spoke.

  Boemelburg nodded. ‘I’m glad it’s working out so well for you here in Paris, Kieffer. It sounds like you’ve hit the ground running.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Kieffer, smiling. ‘But of course you left me with an excellent team to work with.’

  ‘I wouldn’t normally recruit new staff just as my replacement was due in post, but I can see it has worked out rather well,’ Boemelburg said, turning to Gerhardt. ‘When I met you here with your uncle I must admit I had some doubts about your suitability for the role. You seemed like a bit of a daydreamer to me. But when you recited that poem, just like an English gentleman – what a voice you have – I knew you wouldn’t be a wasted resource. And I see now, from your success at avenue Foch with the English girl, how right your uncle was to persuade me.’ Boemelburg was tucking a napkin between the soft fleshy folds of his neck and his starched white collar as he spoke.

  ‘What poem?’ Kieffer said, looking over at Gerhardt. ‘I know some English poetry myself, as it happens.’

  ‘K-Kipling,’ Gerhardt muttered. It felt as if they were all looking at him.

  ‘Let’s hear it then,’ said Kieffer.

  ‘I really don’t feel—’ Gerhardt began.

  ‘Ah, yes, why not? I’d like to hear it again,’ said Boemelburg.

  ‘C’mon, mate. It’ll be a laugh,’ Josef chipped in from the far end.

  ‘I’d really rather not,’ said Gerhardt.

  ‘But Boemelburg would really rather you did,’ said Kieffer. His finger and thumb were pressed so hard into the stem of his champagne glass that they were white with pressure. ‘Stand up, Vogt, and let’s have it.’ To cheers and table thumping, Gerhardt stood.

  He looked out beyond Boemelburg’s stodgy outline, through the chink in the curtains and beyond. ‘If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs . . .’ he began. The last time he’d stood up to recite this he’d seen two figures passing outside. But this time outside was just a black mirror, reflecting back. ‘If you can walk with crowds and keep your virtue . . .’ he continued, looking out into the sliver of darkness, remembering that day, before it all began. He’d thought she was just a scared French girl with a heavy suitcase, as he battled through the rain and traffic to carry her luggage up the steps to the room. And when she’d shut the door, not thanking him for his trouble, he hadn’t been upset. He’d been more worried about the impression he’d make on Boemelburg, and his chance for a career with the SD. ‘If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds’ worth of distance run . . .’ He remembered saying ‘Adieu’, as the door slammed shut in his face. He hadn’t expected to even see her again. He hadn’t known she’d become the most important person in his life: Edie. His Edie.

  ‘And – which is more – you’ll be a man, my son!’

  There was applause and table thumping as Gerhardt turned his hazy focus back into the room. He could see waiters flocking forward with the first course. Boemelburg was motioning for him to sit. But if he sat down? If he sat down there would be four more courses and more champagne and speeches. The applause died away, and the waiters were there with the tomato soup, red circles on white china: surprised mouths in powdered faces, just like the expensive-looking Frenchwomen he’d noticed on his first visit. ‘Sit down, Vogt,’ Kieffer muttered, a smile frozen on his drawn lips, nostrils flaring.

  What would Kieffer do with her? Gerhardt wondered. What would happen now that the radio game was over, and now that she knew her colleagues were dead? If only he could see her, just one last time.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Gerhardt said. ‘I feel unwell. If you don’t mind I’ll just go outside and get some fresh air.’ He didn’t wait for their remonstrations, but strode quickly out of the restaurant, plucking his overcoat from the stand on the way. He felt like a catapult, stretched back, shivering with tension, ready to release.

  The keys to Boemelburg’s car jingled in his pocket as he stepped out onto the street.

  Vera

  ‘Just pause a moment, would you? There’s something I have to attend to,’ Vera said to her driver. As it was a Saturday evening she’d been picked up from home for the airport run. There wouldn’t be anyone about at this hour, Vera thought, slipping out of the car. Baker Street was almost deserted. Her heels tapped the pavement. The moon kept dipping behind clouds, so she walked between blindness and clarity until she reached the entrance to Norgeby House.

  ‘Good evening, Miss Atkins.’ A voice in the gloom. She almost jumped in surprise. ‘Burning the midnight oil?’ But it was only old Godfrey, the night guard.

  ‘I’m afraid so, dear boy. Time and tide, as they say,’ she replied, closing the door behind her.

  ‘Time and tide.’ He nodded at the out-of-hours register.

  ‘Oh, I’ll only be a moment,’ she said. ‘Something I forgot.’

  Godfrey grunted and turned his attention back to the racing pages of the Mirror.

  Vera began to climb the stairs, the metal banister chill beneath her hot palms. Six mornings a week she climbed this staircase, barely noticing it, but tonight she felt weary, had to stop and catch her breath halfway. She looked down at Godfrey, who was licking the tip of a penci
l and then carefully circling racing tips highlighted in the pool of yellow light from the lamp on the front desk. She carried on upwards. F-Section entrance was locked, but of course she had the key, kept safe on the key ring with the silver sickle moon that Antelme had given her before he left. They were very sweet with their gifts, the agents. She sighed, turning the key in the lock, and pushed the door open.

  She didn’t turn the lights on immediately, but instead walked blindly into the space, sensing the edges of things, until she’d reached the windows and checked that all the blackout blinds were shut. Then she walked back and switched on the lights, and everything turned opaque and yellow: mustard floors and amber desks and the dark brown telephones like crouching insects.

  She went over to the locked metal filing cabinet behind Buckmaster’s desk. The padlock was cool to the touch. She had a key for that, too. She lifted the lid. Inside were the records of all the decoded messages from agents in the field: all the requests for supplies, ammunition, and all the grid references. All the little personal messages home: Tell my darling wife I love her and can’t wait to meet the new arrival – that kind of thing. She sighed again.

  Vera’s long fingernails flicked quickly through the alphabet. ‘C’: here she was – agent Cat, codename Yvette Colbert: Edith Lightwater. She took out the folder and went over to her desk, flicking on the lamp to create a slab of cream light. She sat down and opened the file. The first few messages had been fine. She just needed to find the one that Jenkins had alerted her to, the one with the missing security check. Vera licked her fingers and rifled through the pages, like a bank teller counting notes. Here it was.

  She remembered the day the message came through. She’d been sure the girl was compromised, even then. But she’d let Buckmaster bully her into ignoring her instinct; because of the naturalisation certificate she so desperately needed, because of Dick.

  Vera took out all the slips of paper from there onwards. Messages of treachery, betrayal: treasonous, perhaps. If anyone found out that the SOE had continued transmitting to a compromised agent . . . and if Cat ever made it home, and the authorities found out what she’d done . . . No, it wouldn’t do. Tonight there’d be an end to it.

  Vera put the papers to one side of her desk and the others back in the filing cabinet and locked it shut. She knew they were the only copy. The SOE was all about action, nobody cared a hoot about record keeping – that was what happened when you put superannuated Boy Scouts in charge, Vera thought, going back to her desk.

  Monsieur Dericourt – he wasn’t a Boy Scout though, was he? She lifted her right forefinger to her earlobe, felt the fleshy dimple where one of the diamond earrings used to be. Could she trust Henri Dericourt to do her bidding? She sighed, told herself she’d done the best she could, under the circumstances. Friedrich had given her those earrings, that night, long ago. Dear, dear Friedrich. He’d done the best he could, too.

  Vera’s ashtray was empty. She made a point of emptying it every night, along with the contents of her waste-paper basket. She took a cigarette out – the last of the Sobranies from home – and saw Dick’s face looking up at her. She flicked on her lighter. But instead of lighting her cigarette, she picked up the top sheet of paper from the pile and let the flames lick the edge until they caught. Then she clicked the lighter shut and held the lit piece of paper above the ashtray, so that the ash and smuts were neatly caught in the obsidian dish. When it was almost burnt, she lit another sheet with the dying flames, repeating the process again and again, until all the coded records were gone. With the final lick of orange-blue flame she lit her cigarette, swilling the smoke around her mouth and exhaling with a rush of blue-grey. The black dish was almost full of ash now, a dark circle in the centre of the silvery lamplight. She sat, staring at it, finishing her smoke. Then she reached into her pocket and pulled out the crumpled aerogramme that still lay there – Wing Commander Montague telling her with heart-breaking kindness that her lover was dead.

  She stabbed the burning tip of her cigarette into the centre of the crumpled ball of paper and dropped that, too, into the ashtray, watching it burn from the inside out, glowing like a lunar eclipse. The scrambled words caught the orange-blue flames, blackened, and were gone. She took one last puff and stubbed the fag out, too. Then she spat, a gobbet of saliva into the centre of it all. It wouldn’t do to go starting fires. She picked up the ashtray and threw the contents into the bin next to Buckmaster’s desk. It could be his mess to clear up on Monday morning.

  Chapter 20

  Edie

  She’d waited as long as she could. It was time. She got off the bed and smoothed down the bedcovers – no point in making extra work for Rosa, even now.

  Edie knelt down on the bare floorboards and clasped her hands together, closing her eyes. She asked God for forgiveness, with no expectation of receiving it. Who could forgive her for what she’d done – or what she was about to do? She asked him to bless and protect her parents, at the same time wishing they’d never find out the truth of it all. She dwelt, briefly, on the life she’d had. She was aware of how privileged her upbringing had been, and she’d always had the notion of honouring that privilege with a duty to do her bit for the greater good: first the ATS, now the SOE. But doing the right thing had always ended up so very wrong. She thought of Bea, dead on the railway tracks, and of Felix and Justine, shot by the Gestapo. Nobody could ever forgive her for that, could they? By ending it all now, at least she wouldn’t ruin anyone else’s life. At least it would all be over.

  She got to her feet, and began to work the bar at the window backwards and forwards. Crunchy bits of broken plaster mixed with the powder-and-cold-cream camouflage. She was reminded, suddenly, of meringues in Eton mess pudding, and a long-ago summer party at her friend Marjorie’s house. But that part of her life no longer felt real, it was like someone else’s girlhood grafted onto her own.

  The bar came free. She managed to stop it falling: it would have made a noise. She couldn’t afford to be discovered, like last time. She remembered how Gerhardt had talked her in from the ledge of the room below, thinking she was suicidal. How she’d despised him, as merely ‘one of them’. But now she was ‘one of them’ and she despised herself. She wondered how Gerhardt would react when faced with the news of her death, but maybe he’d never find out.

  She put the bar on the bed and began to push herself out through the small gap she’d created. The air outside was chill, but not freezing; she could smell the beginnings of foliage – spring was on the way. She managed to get her head and shoulders through sideways, and looked down at the little patch of grey below. Five storeys: that should be high enough, even though the ground was no longer hard with ice.

  She tried to pull herself through the gap, but her arms were pinned, stuck. There was still a little cold cream left in the jar on the windowsill, so she slathered it on her arms. That should do it. The now-empty powder compact lay next to the cold-cream pot. She picked it up and slid it inside her dress, where it was smooth against the skin of her chest. She didn’t know why she took Miss Atkins’ compact – maybe it was just to have something with her in her final moments, something from home.

  She tried again, head outside, then shoulders, sideways. The splintered window frame caught her right arm, scratching, and the remaining bar squeezed her left, and for a while she thought she wouldn’t make it. But she heaved and struggled, inching through until at last she was almost free. All around the grand houses in avenue Foch had shutters closed like unseeing eyes. She scrabbled with her feet against the bed, one hand clinging to a bar, the other resting against the stucco wall of the house. She wanted to jump, not fall. She realised that if she put one hand up a bit higher, she could reach a drainpipe that ran down the side of the building, and she could then pull herself up, have a moment of steadiness, before plunging into the darkness. She was just pulling her legs out, clinging onto the guttering, when the sirens went off.

  Searchlights suddenly raked the night sky.
Reflexively, she looked up. The gunner girls had been taught to look up to the skies when the raid began and she’d been one of the best spotters in the battery. Beyond the sirens’ yowl a distant hum was already audible. But she couldn’t see the planes, yet. Her gaze was just falling back from the night sky when she noticed a line of palings wedged into the side of the roof edge – they must have been built in for chimney sweeps – a kind of ladder going upwards.

  Her hand still grasped the drainpipe and her hips were almost through the window now. The siren pulsed in her head like a migraine. She looked down and the ground swayed dizzily below. She looked up again at the palings beyond the drainpipe.

  She kicked her legs free from the window and, clinging to the drainpipe, scrambled to get them onto the ledge. It was time to end it all.

  But instead of jumping, she twisted her body, reached out, and began to climb: upwards and away.

  Gerhardt

  Gerhardt clicked the key into the ignition and the engine snarled awake. He noticed that his hands were shaking as he shoved the car into gear.

  You stupid, reckless boy, ruining your life over some silly girl – he could almost hear the Count’s voice in his ear. You’ll get yourself shot, and then what will become of your mother? Two sons lost to the war – you stupid, reckless, boy. Gerhardt set his jaw and released the handbrake.

  He looked in the rear-view mirror, but there was nobody there. How long until Boemelburg and the others began to question his continued absence? The tangled Paris streets unravelled ahead of him in the car headlights as he turned the wheel, heading back to avenue Foch, and to her. He drove on, mind tumbling, spinning like the car wheels on the cobbles.