Читать книгу The Second Midnight - Andrew Taylor, Andrew Taylor - Страница 9

After church on Sundays, the Kendalls called on Aunt Vida. Stephen said it was just like their father to pay his respects to God and Mammon on the same morning.

Aunt Vida lived in Richmond. The Kendalls went there by train from Twickenham. Mr and Mrs Kendall walked together from the station, together but never arm in arm. The children trailed behind. Hugh always walked the short distance to Richmond Green with his head held unnaturally high. This was because his mother considered that a clean Eton collar was pleasing in the sight of the Lord and Aunt Vida; it chafed his neck mercilessly until it wilted.

Wilmot House was in a small street near Maid of Honour Row. Prim black railings and a narrow strip of flowerbed separated the pavement from the redbrick Georgian façade. A brass knocker shaped like a mermaid twinkled incongruously on the chaste, olive-green front door.

Hugh always enjoyed the change of atmosphere when he stepped into the house. Outside, everything was bright and regular; but the interior was dark and full of secrets. The hall was nearly a foot below ground level outside. It was stone-flagged and panelled in dark oak. The glass in the fanlight was green with age, which gave the hall the appearance of being under water.

Mrs Bunnings, the housekeeper, answered Alfred Kendall’s knock. She gave a nod and held the door open as the family trooped into the hall.

Mrs Kendall said, with an apologetic twitter, ‘And how is Mrs Lane today?’

‘As well as can be expected, madam,’ Mrs Bunnings said grimly. ‘The mistress is in the drawing room.’

She disposed of the Kendalls’ hats and coats and announced them ceremoniously. In the unimaginably far-off days of her youth, Mrs Bunnings had been a parlour maid in the household of a baronet; an Edwardian stateliness still distinguished her public manner.

Aunt Vida awoke with a start as they filed into the drawing room. As usual, she was wearing a shapeless grey dress beneath a thick grey cardigan. Around her neck were three gold lockets, each with its own chain. Each contained a photograph and a lock of hair: one was a shrine to the late Mr Lane, the others to their sons, George and Harry, both of whom had been killed at Passchendaele.

Alfred Kendall shook her hand and mumbled a vague enquiry about her health into his moustache. She didn’t bother to reply. The rest of the family kissed her cheek; it smelled of lavender water and felt like tissue paper.

‘Run along to the kitchen,’ Aunt Vida said to Hugh and Meg. ‘Give them a glass of milk, Bunnings, and then you can bring in the sherry.’

Meg and Hugh followed Mrs Bunnings out of the room. Until last year, Stephen would have gone with them. But when he left school, Mrs Bunnings started to call him Mr Stephen rather than Master Stephen; she made it quite plain that he was now too grown-up to have the freedom of her kitchen.

In her own domain, Mrs Bunnings became a different person. She told jokes; she gossiped; she pried indefatigably into their lives. She also gave the children scones, which was contrary to Mr Kendall’s strict instructions that their appetites should not be spoiled.

She left them for a moment to take the sherry and biscuits into the parlour. When she got back, she tapped Hugh on the shoulder.

‘What’s all this, young man? I heard your dad saying you’d been expelled from that school of yours.’

Hugh flushed. ‘I have. Someone stole some money and they thought it was me. But it wasn’t – I promise.’

Meg dabbed at the rim of milk around her lips with a handkerchief. ‘Father gave him eight of the best,’ she said ghoulishly. ‘He had nothing to eat on Friday night and he was only allowed bread and water yesterday.’

Mrs Bunnings snorted. ‘I know who I’d beat if I had half a chance. Have another scone, you poor lamb.’

When alone with the children, the housekeeper never made any secret of her dislike of their father. Miss Muriel, Mrs Lane’s niece, had been as happy as the day was long before she married him: and look at her now. Their father only bothered with these weekly visits because he wanted to get his hands on Mrs Lane’s money. Mrs Bunnings didn’t know why he troubled to come since, when he got here, he just sat there and grunted.

‘What will he do with you now? Has he found you another school?’

‘I don’t know.’ Hugh avoided Mrs Bunnings’s eyes. His fingers traced the reassuring shape of Hiawatha in his trouser pocket.

‘Father says that if Hugh was a few years older he’d pack him off to Australia and have done with him.’ Under the table, Meg put her hand on Hugh’s knee; it made him shiver. ‘He really means it.’

Hugh shifted uneasily. Sitting down was still uncomfortable and he wished Meg would remove her hand. Mrs Bunnings might see. The long, low kitchen was like a hothouse; Mrs Bunnings had insisted on keeping the old-fashioned range. The heat, the food and even the sympathy combined to make him feel drowsy.

A bell jangled over the door. It was precisely twenty minutes after they had entered the house. Mr Kendall always timed their visits with meticulous care. At the end of the twenty minutes, he would stand up and announce they had to be going, usually when his wife was in mid-sentence.

Mrs Bunnings escorted the children back to the drawing room to say goodbye. Mr Kendall was waiting impatiently by the door. Hugh had often wondered why his father seemed always to be in a hurry to be somewhere else; when he reached the somewhere else, he was always in a hurry to leave there as well.

For once, Aunt Vida seemed reluctant to let them go. She made Mr Kendall make up the fire for her. She suddenly remembered that she wanted her niece to get her some wool; the commission involved a great deal of explanation, during which Mr Kendall jabbed angrily at the fire with the poker. He consulted his watch.

‘We shall miss the train if we don’t hurry.’

‘Off you go then.’ Aunt Vida paused. ‘Hugh, come over here. I want a word with you.’

Alfred Kendall turned in the doorway.

‘Hugh can run after you,’ Aunt Vida said firmly, before he could protest. ‘Please close the door behind you.’

Kendall gnawed his lower lip but said nothing. He shut the door behind him; with a little more force, it would have been a slam.

Aunt Vida beckoned Hugh towards her. ‘I hear you’ve been in hot water again.’

Hugh nodded. There was nothing he could say.

‘Bring me my handbag. It’s on the bureau.’

Like his father, Aunt Vida was always giving orders; Hugh found it odd that he wasn’t afraid of her. His parents and Meg were afraid of her – even Stephen was wary of what he said and did in her company. He fetched her the battered black bag and stood patiently while she rummaged in it. He watched her face with fascination: her skin was a maze of wrinkles; there were more cracks than surface.

Suddenly she glanced up at him. ‘Don’t you know it’s rude to stare at a lady? Hey?’

Hugh grinned. He heard the front door closing with a bang; Mrs Bunnings was glad to see the back of her visitors.

Aunt Vida nodded in the direction of the sound. ‘Don’t let it get on top of you,’ she said gruffly. ‘These things pass. Worse things happen at sea, not that that’s much consolation. When your father asks why I kept you, say I was telling you to be a better boy in future. Here, hold out your hand.’

Hugh looked down. On his palm was a half-crown.

‘Kendall?’ Colonel Dansey stared with distaste at his plate; it was difficult to tell whether it was the omelette or the name of Kendall that was responsible for the irritation in his voice. ‘Who the devil’s he?’

‘He’s a glass importer, sir.’ Michael Stanhope-Smith sipped his burgundy appreciatively. Early in their acquaintance, he had learned that it was a mistake to deluge Uncle Claude with information; Dansey himself never made that mistake and he expected those who worked for him to be equally sparing.

Michael glanced over his shoulder to make sure that no one was in earshot of their table. The dining room at the Savoy was still moderately crowded, but it had definitely passed the Sunday lunchtime peak.

Dansey arranged his knife and fork neatly on his empty plate. He adjusted the dark-rimmed pebble glasses on his large, curved nose. ‘You know that I don’t encourage people to indulge in recruiting off their own bat. Recruit in haste and repent at leisure.’

Michael flushed. He was twenty-five; he was two stone heavier and six inches taller; but Uncle Claude could still make him feel like a schoolboy who hadn’t washed behind the ears.

‘I haven’t actually interviewed him yet. I telephoned him yesterday; we’ve arranged to meet tomorrow.’

‘I see. And why this unseemly haste, may I ask?’

‘You haven’t heard? Farrar’s dead. Apparently he killed himself – sealed the draughts and turned on the gas in his hotel room. The signal came in from Vienna on Friday night.’

Dansey said nothing. He appeared to be concentrating on adjusting the red carnation in the buttonhole of his dark blue suit.

Michael swallowed. ‘William McQueen talked to a waiter at the hotel. He said that Farrar might have had a couple of visitors in his room the evening before he died. Probably Gestapo, though we’ve had no confirmation of that. You know how difficult it is to get hard information out of Austria these days.’

Dansey gave a scarcely perceptible shrug. ‘It’s immaterial. Farrar couldn’t have told them anything. He hadn’t been briefed.’

In the pause which followed, Michael sipped his wine to cover his confusion. It was brutally obvious to him that Dansey didn’t care that Farrar had in all likelihood been killed. It was at most an inconvenience. A newly-recruited courier was of little weight in Uncle Claude’s professional scale of values. If this was professionalism, Michael thought bitterly, he wished he was an amateur.

‘Do go on,’ Dansey suggested. ‘You were about to explain why you found it necessary to circumvent the standard recruitment procedure.’

‘Farrar was due to return to London and then go on to Prague at the end of the week. You said the Prague trip was vital, sir. I would have contacted you, but you were on a train somewhere between Zurich and London. I thought I’d better act on my own initiative.’

‘And how did your initiative lead you to this man Kendall?’

‘We need someone with a bona fide reason to go to Prague – preferably a commercial one. I thought Prague – Bohemia – glass; and then I remembered Sir Basil Cohen.’

‘You know Basil?’ Dansey said sharply. ‘How did that come about?’

‘I was at Cambridge with his younger son. I stayed with his people down in Gloucestershire once or twice.’

‘I see.’ For once Dansey sounded almost amiable.

Michael’s mind immediately made a connection. Cohen had been very helpful, right from the start. Dansey had been cultivating the friendship of the wealthy and the powerful for nearly half a century. Many of them were now unobtrusively helping Dansey’s Z Organization in a variety of ways. It was not inconceivable that Cohen was among them. In that case, Sir Basil must have derived a great deal of private amusement from Michael’s claim that he was working for the Foreign Office trade section.

A muscle twitched in Dansey’s cheek. In a lesser man, it might have been a grin.

‘I telephoned him – luckily he was in town. He was dining at White’s, but he said he could spare me a few minutes there after dinner.’ Michael glanced quickly at Dansey and hurriedly continued: ‘I – well – implied I had some sort of FO connection. I said we needed an unofficial trade representative in Prague – someone who made regular trips there and could combine his own work with a little confidential work for us. Sir Basil asked a few questions, of course, but I was as discreet as possible.’

A waiter moved tentatively towards the table. Dansey waved him away. ‘What do you know about Kendall?’

‘He works from an office in the City. He buys mainly from Czechoslovakia. His main customers in this country are provincial department stores. It’s an old-fashioned firm, run on pre-war lines. Apparently Kendall’s in a bad way financially – Sir Basil reckons he must be on his last legs.’

‘Does Basil know him personally?’

‘They’ve met, sir, but that’s about all. I rather gathered that Kendall isn’t quite …’ Michael’s voice trailed away. He believed that all men were equal but had long since discovered that most of his friends and colleagues paid only lip-service to the notion. He despised snobbery; but he was intelligent enough to realize that it couldn’t be ignored.

Dansey nodded understandingly. ‘Any war record?’

‘Yes, sir; I checked with the War Office. Enlisted in the Pay Corps in 1915 as a private. Commissioned in 1918. He ended the war as an acting captain, after four years behind a desk in Whitehall.’ Michael made his voice as neutral as possible. ‘It seems that he likes to be called Captain Kendall.’

Dansey’s eyebrows rose. ‘Despite the fact he never held a regular commission?’

‘Yes, sir.’

The eyebrows fell back into place. Dansey poured out the last of the burgundy and signalled to the waiter to bring their coffee. He was not in the mood for pudding or cheese and he assumed, correctly, that Michael would be content to follow his lead. By now they were almost alone in the big dining room, except for tail-coated waiters who swooped like swallows among the empty tables, clearing them with deft, darting movements. Michael could feel the hard edges of his sketchbook in the pocket of his jacket. He had a sudden urge to draw what he could see, to record an instant in the life of the Savoy in black and white. He would use lots of heavy shading and soften the outlines as much as possible.

He grinned into his burgundy at the thought of what Dansey would say if he started to draw. It was well known that Dansey considered that the chief purpose of art was to be a tool of espionage: it was a convenient means of creating a visual record of enemy installations. The old man knew that Michael had once wanted to be an artist. What he didn’t know was that Michael still did.

The waiter brought their coffee and withdrew. Dansey produced a cigarette case and offered it to Michael. As Michael lit their cigarettes, he noticed that Dansey’s hand was speckled with brown liver spots and trembled slightly. The hand reminded him that Dansey had already reached the age when most men were thinking of retirement.

‘I’m dining with your godfather tonight,’ Dansey said abruptly.

It was not a social observation. Michael’s godfather, Admiral Sinclair, was head of SIS, the sponsor of Z Organization. If it hadn’t been for Sinclair, it was unlikely that Michael would now be at the Savoy with a decent suit on his back. In all probability he would have been teaching history, art and games at some godforsaken little prep school. Sometimes Michael wished he was.

‘Do give him my regards,’ Michael said.

As always, Dansey’s words had at least two layers of meaning. He was hinting that he would take the opportunity to protect himself in the event of something going wrong with Kendall: Michael was the precooked scapegoat, ready for eating if the need should arise. But there was another implication: Dansey was tacitly accepting what Michael had done; it was the first time that Michael had been allowed to make an independent decision; and that, he supposed, might be construed as progress.

‘You’re meeting Kendall tomorrow?’

‘Yes, sir – for lunch.’

‘If you do decide to take him on, you are to act as his sole control. I want him to have no contact with anyone else in London. He’s not to be given the emergency addresses in Vienna or Budapest or Zurich – is that clear? You can offer him his expenses plus fifty pounds; he can have fifteen pounds now and the rest when he returns. And get receipts.’

‘How much should I tell him?’

‘As little as possible, of course.’ Dansey’s eyebrows rose once more. ‘My dear Stanhope-Smith, surely your artistic temperament hasn’t prevented you from grasping that simple principle? All the man has to do is take something to Prague and bring something back. Unless you’re even more foolish than you look, you won’t mention Hase to him. Just teach Kendall one of the standard recognition drills and tell him to go to his usual hotel. You can then inform Hase of the arrangements independently by telegram. I’m sure you will be able to resist the temptation to wire direct; it really would be much wiser to route it through Zurich and Budapest.’

Michael almost flinched at the quiet savagery which had suddenly invaded Dansey’s voice. At first he was inclined to attribute it to the bitterness which Dansey felt because Michael had been forced on him by Sinclair; then he noticed the lines of pain in Dansey’s forehead and the tiny beads of sweat on his temples. He felt an unexpected stab of pity for the man opposite him: combining a job like his with an ulcer must be an impossible task.

Dansey stubbed out his cigarette, precisely in the centre of the ashtray. Only when the last shred of tobacco was extinguished did he speak again. ‘This is important, you know. There’s very little time. The Czech Deuxième Bureau is really very good. They estimate that Hitler will move within a month – six weeks at the outside. Then there will be no Czechoslovakia – just another province of the Reich. We have to be in place by then.’

‘May I ask a question, sir? If Czech military intelligence is so good, they must be making their own contingency plans. Why aren’t we co-ordinating with them?’

Dansey shrugged wearily. ‘We are. Colonel Moravec and Gibson – he’s the SIS Head-of-Station in Prague, you know – are practically blood-brothers. But Moravec’s an intelligence-gatherer, not a guerrilla chieftain. His idea of a resistance movement is based on the boy scouts – and his political masters think the same. The other problem is geographical: a resistance movement needs a foreign base. Moravec naturally thinks of us and France, though God knows why after what we did to them at Munich. But it’s over two hundred miles between the French and Czechoslovak borders at their nearest points. And that’s as the crow flies across the Reich.’

Michael suddenly understood what Dansey was driving at. ‘But there’s another potential anti-Nazi ally whose border is far closer? And that’s why Hase is so important?’

‘Not just Hase. God help us, even Kendall could be important.’ Dansey’s thin lips twisted. ‘In the circumstances it’s probably just as well you used your initiative.’ He gave Michael no time to savour the unexpected compliment. ‘Where are you intending to have lunch with him?’

‘I thought perhaps the Berkeley Grill. Get him in a good humour.’

‘I think not, Stanhope-Smith. Catering to the sybaritic whims of its junior employees is not one of the purposes of this organization. I’m told that one can find a very decent lunch at a Lyons corner house.’

Dansey pushed back his chair and stood up. The movement triggered a flurry of activity among the waiters near the door. Michael stepped to one side to allow Uncle Claude to precede him.

He glanced at Michael as he passed. ‘I wish you wouldn’t carry a sketchbook in your jacket pocket,’ he observed waspishly. ‘It ruins the cut.’

After dinner on Sunday evening, Mr and Mrs Kendall listened to the news. When it had finished, Kendall prowled through the air waves of Europe.

‘It’s all damned rubbish,’ he said. He turned off the wireless and began to ream a pipe with unnecessary violence.

‘Yes, dear,’ said Mrs Kendall automatically. She decided that now was not the moment to mention the possibility of a rise in her housekeeping allowance.

Kendall rapped the pipe against the side of the ashtray; a small shower of carbon fluttered on to the arm of his chair.

‘I suppose I’ll have to come to some decision about Hugh soon. I’ve always said you spoiled him, Muriel: I hope you’re satisfied. What that boy needs—’

The front door slammed. Mrs Kendall looked up; there was a smile on her face.

‘It’ll be Stephen,’ she said. ‘He’s earlier than usual.’

‘It’s about time he got to bed at a respectable hour.’ Kendall chewed his pipestem. ‘And it’s a bit much, him going out on a Sunday, don’t you think?’

Stephen pushed open the door with a little more force than was necessary. He swayed slightly as he stood in the doorway; Mrs Kendall hoped his father wouldn’t realize he had been drinking.

‘Hello. Any tea left?’ Stephen pulled up a chair to the fire. Mrs Kendall refilled her husband’s cup and poured another for her son.

‘Have you had a nice evening, dear?’

‘I met Paul Bennet up in town.’ Stephen draped an arm along the back of his chair; there was a scowl on his thin, dark face. ‘He’s finally decided to go up to Cambridge this autumn. His father’s promised to give him a car – one of those little MGs.’

Muriel Kendall prayed silently that Stephen would say no more; it would only infuriate his father. Downing College had offered Stephen an exhibition to read modern languages, but he had been unable to take it up because his father refused to find the rest of the fees. The decision had provoked one of the rare open quarrels between Stephen and his father. Her elder son had always been adept at concealing his feelings. Only ambition and, more recently, alcohol allowed one a glimpse of what was going on in his mind.

‘Ridiculous to give a car to a boy that age. When I was nineteen, we thought ourselves lucky to have a bicycle.’

To his mother’s surprise, Stephen said nothing to this. He finished his tea and stared into the fire. His next words were spoken in such a casual tone that Mrs Kendall was immediately suspicious.

‘A lot of chaps at the bank are saying there’s sure to be a war by the end of the year.’

Kendall grunted. ‘They’re probably right.’

‘One or two of them have already joined the Territorials. I was wondering if I should, too. With my background they’d probably give me a commission, wouldn’t they? And if there’s a war, we’ll all be called up in any case.’

Alfred Kendall nodded slowly. There was a flicker of interest in his eyes at the thought of his son becoming an officer and a gentleman.

‘I asked Mr Horner and he thought it was quite a good idea. He said it’s always best to get to the head of the queue.’

Muriel Kendall suppressed a smile. Stephen knew exactly what he was doing. First he had played on Alfred’s gentlemanly aspirations; then he invoked the powerful name of Horner, the sub-manager at his branch – and also, incidentally, the man who had approved the overdraft for Kendall and Son. She would be surprised if Stephen’s briefcase didn’t contain an application form, all filled in except for the space where his father’s signature was needed.

‘I’ll think about it.’ Kendall often deferred family judgments, chiefly on the principle that his decisions seemed weightier when they were finally delivered.

Stephen nodded gravely; his expression implied that he would be happy to accept whatever his father decided; he knew as well as his mother that he had already won his point.

Shortly afterwards, Kendall announced that it was time for bed. Stephen went up first, while his father made up the fire and his mother washed up and laid the table for breakfast. Kendall unlocked the sideboard and poured himself a nightcap. He sat beside the dying fire, sipping his whisky and smoking a last cigarette.

There was a pile of ironing on the kitchen table. Mrs Kendall took it upstairs with her, balancing her hot-water bottle on top. She wrapped her husband’s pyjamas around the bottle and began to put away the ironing. Her movements were slow, as they generally were when she was alone; in the last twelve months, it was as if her limbs were turning gradually from flesh to lead. She put the children’s clothes to one side. There was no point in disturbing them.

Halfway down the pile she came to one of Hugh’s shirts. It prodded her memory: she had forgotten to lay out Hugh’s weekday suit and give him clean clothes for the morning. It would be just like him to come down to breakfast in a dirty collar and his Sunday suit; and it would be just like his father to seize the opportunity to go berserk.

She made a pile of Hugh’s clothes and padded down the landing. She opened his door as quietly as possible. The room was in darkness, as she had expected, but there was enough light from the landing for her to see the chair on the far side of the fireplace. She tiptoed across the floor and laid the clothes on it.

The sensation that something was amiss crept over her. She glanced around the room, her eyes straining to make out the darker shadow which was the bed. Then the realization hit her.

There was no sound of breathing.

She knew at once that he was gone, though she flipped on the light by the door to confirm it. His bed was empty but the covers were rumpled. His Sunday suit was hanging behind the door; the rest of his clothes were on the chair. His dressing gown was gone.

Panic invaded her mind. She had a vivid mental picture of Hugh running away from the house in a blind attempt to escape from his father’s persecution.

The cistern flushed in the bathroom, breaking into her nightmare. Hugh must have gone to the lavatory. Just as she reached the landing, the bolt shot back and Stephen emerged.

‘Is Hugh in there?’ she demanded.

‘Not that I noticed.’ Stephen was wearing a purple dressing gown which he had acquired at a Christmas sale in Richmond; when he wore it, he tended to model himself on the characters of Noël Coward.

Muriel pushed past him to make sure. Stephen shrugged elaborately and walked slowly along the landing towards his bedroom. He was curious about what was happening but the dressing gown prevented him from showing it too obviously.

His mother rushed downstairs and into the dining room. Alfred was slumped in his chair, a cigarette smouldering between his fingers. The nightcap had turned into two, as it so often did these days.

‘Alfred! Help me – Hugh’s gone.’

Hugh was asleep.

This evening, Meg had suggested that he come to her room rather than the other way round, as on the two previous nights. It was difficult to refuse. With the possible exception of Aunt Vida, Meg seemed to be the only person who cared that the bottom had fallen out of his world. She was certainly the only person who dared to talk to him; his father had decreed that, as part of Hugh’s punishment, he should be sent to Coventry until further notice. Another reason was that being with Meg made him warm. A third reason was that it was hard to refuse Meg if she asked you to do something when she was in a certain mood: her dark eyes had a sparkle to them which communicated her excitement to you; her charm was something you could almost touch.

When she had finished in the bathroom, she tapped lightly on his door before going on to her bedroom in the attic. Hugh counted to sixty before he scrambled out of bed and put on his dressing gown.

‘If I’m not back within two hours,’ he whispered to Hiawatha on the bedside table, ‘you’ll find a file marked Top Secret in my dugout. Take it to the General at once. Make sure you hand it to him directly – not to one of the ADCs.’

‘Right, sir.’ Hiawatha would add gruffly, ‘You will take a revolver, sir, won’t you?’

‘Not tonight. Shooting would give the whole show away.’ Major Hugh Kendall glanced down at his muscular hands. ‘There are other ways of keeping the enemy quiet.’

Hugh walked quietly along the landing. He paused by the stairs. The wireless was booming away in the dining room. He climbed up to the attic. The third stair creaked loudly, so he avoided it; the other treads were all right, as long as you kept to the sides of them.

Meg’s room was in darkness. As he opened the door, its characteristic smell swept out to meet him: it reminded him of Aunt Vida’s garden in autumn.

‘Come into bed,’ she whispered.

She moved over to make room for him. He could feel her warmth through her nightdress.

‘Does it still hurt down there?’ Her hand burrowed under his dressing gown and stroked his buttocks.

‘A bit.’

‘Come on top of me, then. If you’re face downward it won’t be as bad.’

They wriggled into the new position. Hugh found it surprisingly comfortable and Meg didn’t complain about the weight. She ran both hands down his back, from the shoulder blades to the top of the thighs and stirred gently beneath him. Hugh’s face was buried in the crook of her shoulder. It seemed to be hard to breathe. He raised his head and Meg gave a little giggle.

‘You know Gerald? The one who looks like Robert Donat? Mary said he didn’t just kiss her – he put his hand on her breasts.’

Hugh yawned. Why Gerald should have wanted to do a thing like that was beyond him. He knew, of course, that ladies’ breasts were somehow taboo: you weren’t supposed to look at them or touch them.

‘You try,’ Meg whispered. A trace of irritation came into her voice when he hesitated. ‘Go on, silly – you’re too young for it to matter.’

Stung by the reference to his age, Hugh laid his hand on Meg’s left breast. To his surprise, it felt quite firm – he had expected it to be fragile. Meg squirmed beneath him, forcing the pressure to increase.

‘Put your hand inside my nightie,’ she said. ‘That’s the proper way to do it.’ She fumbled with the buttons, seized Hugh’s hand and thrust it inside.

‘I’ll make you cold,’ Hugh objected.

‘It doesn’t matter. Rub it.’

He obeyed. Beneath his hand, the nipple grew hard. When he pointed this out to Meg – he was worried that he was damaging it in some way – she said it didn’t matter: nipples often went like that when it was cold. His hand warmed up, but the nipple remained hard.

Two late nights had left them both with a backlog of tiredness. Their breathing became slower and heavier; Hugh’s mind slid sideways into a waking dream. Suddenly he jerked awake.

‘I’d better go.’

Meg’s arms tightened around him. ‘Stay for a bit longer, Hugh. You’re lovely and warm.’

‘Just another minute.’

This time sleep enveloped them both completely. Hugh dreamed that he and Hiawatha were at Buckingham Palace, receiving medals from the King. Neither of them heard the slam of the front door when Stephen came in, or the movements downstairs as he and their parents prepared for bed.

Neither of them heard anything at all until Meg’s door was flung open and her room was flooded with light.

A quite extraordinary thing happened just before breakfast: the telephone rang.

Alfred Kendall was upstairs in Hugh’s room at the time. He broke off in mid-sentence and hurried downstairs. But Muriel got to the dining room first and he was forced to listen to one incomprehensible side of the conversation which ensued. Meanwhile, the smell of burning bacon grew stronger.

‘I’ll come at once,’ Muriel said; her voice was unusually decisive. ‘Meg can pack for me and come over later with the suitcase.’

‘Who was that?’ Kendall demanded before his wife had time to replace the receiver. ‘Where are you going?’

She pushed past him into the smoke-filled kitchen and turned off the gas ring.

‘It was Bunnings, dear. Aunt Vida had one of her turns in the night. A minor stroke, probably.’

The same thing had happened last year. Aunt Vida refused to go into hospital and Muriel had spent two weeks in Richmond looking after her.

Kendall grunted. ‘You’ll have to go, of course.’

It was damned inconvenient but he had no alternative. He knew what women were like: Vida was quite capable of leaving her money to a home for sick parrots, just to spite him; and she would as well, if she felt the Kendalls weren’t giving her the attention she deserved. He also suspected – though he barely admitted the suspicion to himself – that Muriel would go to Richmond whatever he said.

‘I don’t know how long I’ll have to stay. But Meg will look after you – she’s quite a good little cook now. Besides, you’ll get your main meal at lunchtime.’

‘What about Hugh?’

‘He’ll have to look after himself during the day.’ She avoided his eyes and wiped her hands on the apron. ‘After all, you’ll be there in the evenings.’

‘Mr Stanhope-Smith?’ The voice sounded doubtful.

Michael looked up. Kendall hovered over him with an anxious smile on his face. Obviously he had been expecting a man of his own age.

‘Captain Kendall?’ Michael stood up, his hand outstretched. ‘How d’you do?’ He hadn’t described himself over the phone; he had merely said that he would be sitting alone at a table near the band in the Coventry Street Lyons, with a copy of The Times open at the crossword but upside down, in front of him.

They sat down and Michael passed him the menu.

‘I haven’t ordered yet. I don’t know what you’d like to drink. I don’t think much of their wine list but they certainly know how to keep their Bass.’

He steered the conversation into neutral channels until their food arrived. Kendall said little at first, but Michael persevered; he listened in deferential silence as his guest gave his opinions about the state of the weather and the deficiencies of modern youth. By the time the soup arrived, Kendall’s nervousness had evaporated and he was giving Michael the benefit of his views on the servant problem.

He sucked noisily at his soup. ‘I blame the war, you know,’ he confided. ‘It gave the working classes a grossly inflated view of their own value.’

Michael seized the opportunity to introduce another topic. ‘Sir Basil tells me you were in the Pay Corps, sir.’

Kendall nodded. ‘They also serve, eh? Of course I applied to be sent to France, time and time again. They always turned me down on the grounds I was more useful where I was.’

‘Of course.’ Michael tried to look sympathetic. Then he abandoned finesse. ‘You’re probably wondering why I asked Sir Basil to arrange for me to meet you.’

Kendall laid down his soup spoon. ‘He said it was something of national importance.’

‘Perhaps I should explain, sir. But I must stress that what I’m going to say is completely confidential and must remain so. I’m connected with the Foreign Office and I have a proposition for you. If you decline it, which of course you may, I must ask for your word that you will immediately forget this meeting has taken place.’

‘You can rely on my discretion entirely, Mr Stanhope-Smith.’

‘Then may I begin by asking you a few questions?’

Kendall nodded gravely. He sat up straight in his chair and wiped his moustache with his napkin.

Michael cleared his throat to conceal his desire to smile. ‘Do you make regular visits to Czechoslovakia on business?’

‘Until very recently, I’ve been going two or three times a year. Bohemian glass is my bread and butter, you understand – and my father’s before me.’ Kendall chewed his lower lip. ‘But I don’t mind telling you that fellow Hitler’s made my life damned awkward in the last few months. I’m thinking very seriously of taking my business elsewhere.’

‘But even now, if you were to visit Czechoslovakia for a week or two, it would hardly seem strange to the authorities there?’

‘Not at all.’ Kendall looked away. ‘In fact, I wish I could afford to do so. One or two of my contracts have been cancelled recently. I’ve a feeling that, if I could see the people concerned on the spot, I might be able to get them to reconsider their decisions. At least I’d have a sporting chance.’

‘Do you speak Czech?’

‘I can get by – both in Czech and German.’

Michael nodded. ‘Excellent. Now – you don’t mind me asking what your views are on Hitler, do you?’

Kendall shrugged. ‘Why should I? At first I thought these Fascists had a lot of good ideas. Look at Mussolini, for example – at least he’s made Italian trains run on time. Their methods seem to get results. But after the Anschluss, I began to change my mind. Only a fool would think that Hitler means to stop with Austria and the Sudetenland. Churchill’s right: the only argument the Boche respect is cold steel.’

‘Quite so.’ Michael paused while the waiter brought his lamb cutlets and Kendall’s steak. The interruption gave him time to consider his tactics. It would be better not to mention the money, he thought, not at this stage. He was able to fit Kendall into a category now: the warlike attitude was often found in men of his generation who had done no actual fighting in the Great War; the bitterness of combat was an abstraction to them, as it was to Michael himself.

Kendall waggled his fork in Michael’s direction. ‘Mark my words, we shall be at war before the end of the year, whatever that fool Chamberlain thinks. My eldest boy is joining the Territorials already. I’ve always said—’

‘The more preparations we can make beforehand, the better our chances will be,’ Michael cut in. ‘You agree?’

‘Of course. If only—’

‘And preparations have to take place right across the board. We at the FO, for example, are not concerned with the purely military aspect, naturally. Our fundamental purpose is to gather information from abroad. In wartime, the purpose remains the same but the – ah – methods of collection have to be adapted to meet the circumstances. Particularly in those countries where we can have no formal diplomatic representation.’

Michael chewed a mouthful of lamb, covertly watching Kendall’s face. The man looked as if he nourished his inner self on a diet of John Buchan and Sapper: surely he wouldn’t be able to miss such an obvious appeal to pick up a cloak and dagger for his country?

Kendall stiffened in his seat; his nostrils flared. ‘Does this mean you work for the—’

‘It’s better not to mention names,’ Michael said quickly. ‘Even in private.’ This was one of Dansey’s recruiting principles: that one should leave as much as possible to the recruit’s imagination.

‘What do you want me to do?’

Michael leaned forward. ‘Our concern is to establish channels of communication which will remain open when the usual ones are closed. At present we need someone to act as a courier – to take a small package to someone at the other end and to bring back something else. It may be just the one time – or there may be others. You’ll appreciate that it’s difficult to be definite in these matters. There’s no risk involved, but it’s vital that the courier should be a man whom we can trust absolutely – and who has a cast-iron reason for going there in the first place.’

Kendall gave a little grunt of satisfaction. Michael decided that, if one was going to lay on flattery, there was no point in being niggardly about it.

‘When I consulted Sir Basil, yours was the first name he mentioned.’ As he spoke, Michael wished he could afford the luxury of a job where lying was not part of the stock in trade. Try Kendall, Cohen had said. He’s a wretched little man, but he’ll fit your bill.

‘Could I have a day or two to think things over?’

Michael shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Captain Kendall. Time is the one thing we haven’t got. I need a decision now. If you turn it down, I’ll try someone else. I must get a man in Prague by the weekend.’

Michael’s bluff partly succeeded: Kendall looked faintly aggrieved at the thought that there might be other candidates for the job.

‘Would you be able to leave at such short notice?’

‘My passport and visas are all in order, if that’s what you mean. And it wouldn’t take long to tie up any loose ends at the office. But there is one problem …’

‘If you accept our offer, we would naturally take care of your expenses.’ Michael smiled apologetically. ‘And we usually make some sort of token payment for such services.’

Kendall sawed violently at his steak. ‘I don’t deny the money would be useful. But it’s not that. You see my wife had to go away this morning to nurse an aunt of hers. Going to Prague this weekend would mean leaving my younger son alone. I can’t do that: he’s – ah – he’s not at school at present.’

There was a curious inflection in Kendall’s voice and it puzzled Michael. It was almost as if the man was afraid of what his son might do if left alone, rather than of what might happen to him.

‘I deeply regret,’ Kendall said through a mouthful of pink meat, ‘that I may have to decline your offer.’

The solution to the difficulty suddenly occurred to Michael. It would remove Kendall’s little difficulty at a stroke – and it might even increase his professional cover in Czechoslovakia. Dansey could hardly object.

He took a long swallow of his beer and wiped his mouth with his napkin. He waited until Kendall’s jaws had stopped moving.

‘I suppose there’s no reason why you shouldn’t take the boy with you.’