‘Never mind that. It was a difficult day at work. What have you been doing?’
‘I am well, Rachel, if a little bored. Your father is sending pictures from Cyprus. We were there once, you know, when you were young. I put his photographs in my thought-garden, to grow together with the memories.’
Sometimes, it was difficult to understand how things worked in Summerland. Unlike many other dead, Henrietta was retired, supported by Rachel’s father and a small portion of her own income. It was a nightmare scenario that anti-Dimensionist economists often brought up in newspapers—that each subsequent living generation would have to carry a vast, growing pyramid of the dead on their backs. It was clearly nonsense: there were so many applications for aetheric technology that in many fields the dead were becoming more important than the living. The Service itself was a good example. Her mother was happy, that was the important thing, and she had an eternity to start working again. Now it was her time to rest.
‘But you don’t really care about me, Rachel, you just want to hear my voice, since something is bothering you. I told you, I can see it.’
‘I … I was demoted. I am now working in the Finance section.’
‘What? It must be a mistake.’
‘I am not allowed to talk about it. But it is not a mistake, at least not one they will admit.’
‘Rachel, Rachel, I am so sorry. Surely it wasn’t your fault?’
‘I don’t know, Mother. Perhaps it was.’
‘Rachel, I always told you it was not a good idea to work for the government, no matter how much you liked your father’s silly stories. You can never trust them.’
Rachel sighed. Endless arguments had ensued when she announced her intention to join the Service. Her mother was intensely distrustful of anything to do with politics or intelligence work.
‘Never mind, Rachel, I know it is important to you. Can your father help?’
‘No, Mother. This was at a different level.’ As a young man, Rachel’s father had served as a junior signals intelligence officer in Russia, attached to the Navy, before he moved to India. He was now retired and travelling the Continent. She knew he would get angry, write letters and make noise, but he simply could not reach people like Sir Stewart or C.
‘Well, then.’
‘Well what?’
‘Then the question is, what are you going to do next?’
For a moment, Rachel wanted to be a child again and hear her mother tell her that everything was going to be all right. But Henrietta continued in a matter-of-fact voice.
‘When you have a child, you try to make them feel safe, like nothing bad will ever happen. But you are not a child anymore, little Rachel. You must accept that nothing is forever. In the meantime, flowers grow. And you will find some flowers, too, I know. Your Joe is a good man.’
Rachel’s eyes burned. There was static on the line, sharp pops rather than the usual background noise.
‘Mother,’ she asked quickly. ‘Tell me—are there other spirits with you?’
‘It is always so crowded here, in the city.’
‘Just look. Did you see any of them before, when you followed me?’
‘There are some that move quickly, like manta rays of light. One passed by just now. What is it? Why are you scared?’
‘I have to go. I am sorry. I love you. I will call again next week, I promise.’
Rachel switched the ectophone off. Its low hum took a while to die down.
With a cold certainty, she knew that the figure her mother had seen was a Watcher from the Summer Court. What was more, she was almost certain who had sent it.
She hoped that her mother was already on her way back to the Summer Homes and would not see what Rachel’s anger truly looked like.
* * *
Roger Hollis lived in a small first-floor bachelor flat in Redcliffe Mews in Chelsea. Breath steaming in the cold, Rachel stared up at a dark window and wondered whether Roger was visiting one of his mistresses or vice versa. Then she thought she heard a faint coughing sound and grinned.
She rang the doorbell a few times, and when nothing happened she resorted to banging the door with her fist. Lights went on in the neighbouring flats, and finally Roger opened the door, blinking. He looked dishevelled and was dressed only in a heavy nightgown.
‘Rachel? What the hell are you doing here at this time?’
‘Why, I am here to have a nice cup of tea with you, Roger. Are you not going to invite me in?’
She brushed past him, took the short flight of steps up to his flat in a few strides and switched on the lights. The furniture was old and grandiose against a background of green-striped Regency wallpaper, and a rather pompous bust of Nelson faced the main window. In the pale electric light, the place looked overcrowded and more than a little pathetic.
A young woman, a slim redhead of twenty or so, peeked out from Roger’s bedroom with a sheet wrapped around her. She did not look like Roger’s steady mistress, Kathleen.
‘Darling? What is going on?’
Roger followed Rachel up the stairs, tightening the sash of his gown.
‘Listen, Rachel, this is not on, you can’t just barge in here—’
‘Your Watchers violated my privacy by listening to a call with my mother, so I am violating yours. You there,’ she said, giving the girl a sharp nod. ‘Get out. Government business.’
‘Viola, don’t listen to her, she is crazy. I am going to get rid of her!’
Rachel folded her arms. ‘Are you, Roger? I am only flesh and blood, after all. But I can tell you from experience that it is much harder to get ghost spies out of your house. They are worse than rats.’
She turned back to the redhead. ‘Viola, is it? If you are not on your way in two minutes, dear, you will find yourself under investigation by Special Branch for seducing a key government official—although it pains me to include Roger here in that category.’ She flashed her SIS identity card at the girl.
Viola’s eyes widened and she scrambled to gather up her clothes.
* * *
Roger whispered a hasty goodbye to Viola in the hallway, but the girl was in tears.
‘There was no need to do that,’ Roger said when she was gone.
Rachel studied the Nelson bust. It appeared to be a genuine antique.
‘Oh, I think there was.’
‘What do you want?’
‘I want to know why you are having me Watched. I want to know which Court you really work for.’ She sat down on the couch. ‘And while you are at it, I would not mind some tea.’
‘I have questions for you, too, Rachel.’ Roger stifled a cough and folded his arms. ‘What were you doing in St Albans yesterday evening? And what about all those meetings with Peter Bloom? The phone calls to Max Chevalier?’
A headache thundered in Rachel’s skull. She should have been more careful.
‘Would you believe that Max and I discuss the care and breeding of Gouldian finches?’ she said.
‘No, I’m afraid not.’
‘He does know an awful lot about them. Tell me, Roger, who do you work for in the Summer Court? Who gave you access to the Watchers?’
Roger studied her and narrowed his eyes. ‘Symonds,’ he said. ‘I know you are running an off-the-books operation, Rachel. I want in.’
‘Why should I let you?’
‘Because otherwise I will go to Sir Stewart with what I have, and that will be the end of what remains of your career in the Service.’
‘Symonds,’ Rachel said. ‘Well, that is just dandy.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Bloom is the mole. Symonds is his best friend, and is probably trying to protect him. Or Symonds could be compromised as well. How do you know you are not actually working for the Soviets?’
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘How has getting evidence on Bloom been working out so far?’
‘God, I need a drink,’ Roger said. He opened a cupboard in his small kitchen and took out a bott
le of single malt.
‘Two fingers, please.’
Roger poured and handed her a glass. She swirled the amber liquid back and forth and took a sip. Flavours of honey and pecan blossomed in her mouth and made her head buzz. She would almost certainly have a hangover in the morning, drinking this on top of all that gin in St Albans. Maybe there was a correlation between her hangovers and Bloom, she thought.
‘What do you have on Bloom?’ Roger asked.
‘So far, nothing. Everything he’s done with me could be just like what Symonds has been doing with you—grooming an unofficial source inside the Winter Court. But earlier this week he asked me for some confidential files. Those could serve as a barium meal. I got the files from St Albans and went over them. I think we can safely use them: most of them are in cipher. If we are quick enough, he won’t be able to crack them before we have him.’
‘This is very dangerous, Rachel.’
‘Of course it is. But if we catch Bloom in a meeting with his handlers, he’s ours.’
Roger paced back and forth. ‘I don’t think I can bring the Summer Court Watchers into this. Do you have any assets on the Other Side?’
‘That is what Mr Chevalier is for.’
Roger sat down across from Rachel. There was a glass table between them and their reflections ghosted on its surface. He looked tired and worn out. There were lines around his mouth, dark bags under his eyes. She was an indistinct, blurry shape on the shiny surface, her face a pale oval in the darkness of her coat.
‘All right,’ he said at last. ‘We do it together. I run interference on the Summer Court side and help with the collar. The story is that we’ve been doing this together from the start and fully share the credit.’
‘Deal,’ Rachel said and emptied her glass. ‘I hope you enjoy the Summer Court, Roger. Although from what I hear, pretty secretaries are harder to come by there. And certainly less substantial. If that is possible.’
Neither of them spoke for a while.
‘Why are you so angry with me, Rachel?’ Roger finally said.
This is not for England, Rachel thought. It is for Joe.
She got up and walked over to him. Delicately, she touched his face, ran her fingers down his unshaven jawline, past the dour corners of his mouth.
‘Because you make me feel guilty,’ she said and set her glass down on the table. ‘And, believe it or not, right now that is exactly what I need.’
19
A MIND AT THE END OF ITS TETHER, 5TH DECEMBER 1938
Peter Bloom spent the day following his meeting with Rachel in nervous anticipation.
He rode out the long hours at work on autopilot, working on the post-mortem of the Dzhugashvili operation and attending briefings given by Hill. The Summer Court was preparing for wartime footing, and Royal Aetheric Force officers in their geometric armour were a frequent sight in the corridors.
He ran into Noel and told him about his Blenheim visit, and how he had discreetly mentioned the Old Library route to a few eager undergraduates visiting from Cambridge. They shared a nice laugh over that.
He found it difficult to rest, and whenever he tried to settle into the meditative state that replaced sleep in Summerland, the aether in the room began to boil and twist, a miniature nightmare storm that only subsided when he went out and thought-travelled to the borders of the city and back, exhausting his vim and willpower until deep, dreamless oblivion claimed him.
* * *
The next morning, a messenger spirit left an ectomail from Rachel White on his desk, with an ectophone beacon code and a contact time. Two hours later, Peter visualised the four-dimensional combination of polygons and colours in his mind and thought-travelled to it right from his desk, sparing no vim. The aether blurred into thick liquid and carried him to the glowing shape of the ectophone circuit.
Rachel was alone. Her thought-forms were calm and smooth and blue, although the edges of her self were strangely blurred. He touched the ringtone wire in the circuit, like plucking the taut cord of a harp, and after a moment, Rachel’s voice was there in the vibrations of the aether.
‘Peter? My apologies if the line is bad. This is our old ectophone at home. The only advantage is that the tubes get so hot you can actually warm up next to it in the winter.’
There was an echo on the line. Her tone was light. Peter was surprised by how much he had been looking forward to hearing her voice, and he told her so.
‘Why, Mr Bloom, that is very nice of you to say. I am going to be strictly professional, however, and tell you that both the physical and an aetherised version of your item of interest are in a Cresswell dual-deposit locker, the number of which I will read to you now.’
She recited a long Hinton code. Peter aether-shaped it into being as she spoke and pocketed the shimmering construct.
‘Thank you, Rachel. I really appreciate this.’
‘You can show your appreciation by giving me more to do. The last two days were the first in weeks when I was not bored to death.’
The cheer in her voice and the bright yellow thought-forms hid something, he could see that. Was he making a terrible mistake, trusting her? He remembered how she had touched his hand at the Blue Dog, how her voice had broken. When wearing a medium, it was easy to be fooled: everything was distant, as if every perception was filtered through thick cloth, compared to the raw sensorium of the aether.
‘Rachel? Is everything all right?’ he asked.
‘Oh, everything is fine. I may be a little drunk.’
‘Isn’t it a bit early for that?’
‘I took the day off sick. I had a very late night and I may have made a terrible mistake. So starting early felt like a good idea.’
Her thought-forms flared into ragged petals of deep purple and violet, into guilt and jealousy.
‘I’m sorry, I should not have said anything. It is nothing you need to worry about.’
‘We all make mistakes.’
‘I never used to. At least, I did not think so.’
‘Is there something I can do? Just let me know if I can help.’
‘Not unless you can reverse Parliament’s decision to send troops to Spain. My husband is shipping out on Wednesday. We had an argument. And I may just have made things much worse. Oh, Peter, I am such a fool…’ Her voice trailed away for a moment. ‘I just needed to feel something. In a way that meant nothing.’
‘If it meant nothing,’ Peter said slowly, ‘then maybe there is no need for your husband to know about it.’
‘We keep enough secrets in our work, Peter. I never wanted to keep secrets from the people I love.’
‘Sometimes carrying secrets makes you stronger. And I know you are very strong.’
‘I think that is just what we tell ourselves. But thank you, Peter. It helps that you care.’
‘We’ll go for a drink, sometime soon.’
‘Perhaps a walk instead,’ Rachel said. ‘My head hurts already, and I don’t want to end up on that side too soon.’
‘All right. I need to go. Take care of yourself, Mrs White.’
‘I will. Have a good day, Mr Bloom.’
The circuit blinked out of existence. He watched Rachel’s thoughts for a while. They were still a turmoil of purple and red, with a glimmer of white within. The soul-readers said white was the colour of hope.
Not unless you can reverse Parliament’s decision. He tried to dismiss the thought; what he needed was distance, objectivity.
He kept watching Rachel’s tiny thought-star as he dived back down into the Second Aether, towards the Summer City, until her soul was just one amongst thousands. Finally, it merged into the vast constellation of living London and disappeared into the aetheric firmament.
Peter sighed, visualised the Ticket for Albert Park and went back to work.
* * *
That evening, Peter picked up the file and took it home to study it. Rachel had given him an aetherised version, a set of aether images stuck to a luz core, produced with a Zöl
lner camera that changed photographs into aetheric orientations of magnetic particles that could be extracted and transported into Summerland. The file was thick; she must have spent hours aetherising the pages.
The deep kata images in the appendix leaped out at him. He could not interpret them, but they made him feel like he was on the right track.
Then he turned his attention to the ciphertext. His first assignment had been at GACCS and he was reasonably familiar with most of the standard codes used by both Courts. He quickly determined that this one was likely to be based on a one-time pad.
It was conceivable that the Presence would be able to decipher the file, given time—but even for a composite of millions of souls, the raw calculations needed could take years. No, it was essential he obtain the key as well as the encrypted documents. He wrestled with the problem for hours, littering his rooms with half-formed ideas shaped from aether. In the end, he threw the file into the air in frustration. As the pages fluttered around, he realised that he had simply been avoiding the inevitable, the obvious.
Surely the individuals who commissioned the project would have the means to read it.
And one of them was Herbert Blanco West.
* * *
Prime Minister West’s desk was covered with toy soldiers. They were impressively detailed: carefully painted tiny men in olive-drab uniforms, spiky helmets, even a spidery ectotank. They were littered across a huge sheet of paper with graph lines and terrain markers. He was bent double, leaning his round head sideways on his hands, level with the surface, carefully studying the angles.
At first, he didn’t appear to notice Peter, but then he looked up.
‘Come in,’ he said. ‘Please, sit down. My apologies, I just want to make a note of something.’
He scribbled a few words and figures on a sheet of paper with a fountain pen, leaned back in his chair and studied Peter, folding his hands in his lap.
Peter sat down. It was early Monday afternoon. With the war looming, it had been surprisingly easy to get the appointment set up. That morning, he had approached C and told him he wanted to make one more attempt to get the PM to favour the Summer Court after the Dzhugashvili blunder. Then he had woken up Pendlebury and spent the better part of a month’s salary in Savile Row on Pendlebury’s clothing in an attempt to buy confidence. Their connection had been deteriorating and the charter-body felt awkward and oversized, as if he was wearing a diving suit or old-fashioned spirit armour.