Quietly, he went up the stairs and knocked. Once. Nothing. He gave it a minute and knocked again. Still nothing. A third time, before he slid the jemmy in. The door gave a sharp crack, like a rifle. He pushed gently, and the door stuck.
Then he saw her legs.
‘The Fisherman’ left quickly, quietly, knowing it was time to get out. Send a report and go up North again. Glasgow or Aberdeen perhaps.
*
Mildred looked strange around the eyes, but appeared to be better than he had seen her for some time.
They sat in the drawing room in Cheyne Walk, going through the scant information passed on via Vernon Kell and Giles.
‘I’m just relieved.’ It was the first sign that Mildred’s attitude had altered. ‘Will they allow her to stay in France?’
Charles said Mary Anne had asked for the posting to be ratified. ‘I gather she wrote a letter to the German, Buelow, at Christmas, telling him that she hoped to be posted back to Rouen and she’d let him know.’
Mildred gazed into the fire for a long time, and then changed the subject. ‘I’ll really have to see Dr Harcourt again. Tomorrow. I must see him tomorrow.’
Mildred appeared to be trembling. Then seemed to pull herself together. ‘Yes. Yes, I hope he can see me tomorrow.’
In the furthest corner of her mind, Mildred was experiencing strange, vivid and disturbing pictures. They seemed very real to her, as though these were things that had happened only a few days ago. There were trees, and a very young boy. She lay on her back and could feel the boy’s breath on her lips. It was all she could do to stop herself crying out at the sudden pain between her thighs. Then she was back in the room hearing the knocking on the front door.
A maid came in to say that Major Kell and Mr Thomson wished to see Mr Railton.
‘I was just coming over to the office, Vernon,’ Charles began; then he saw the look on their faces.
They were surprisingly gentle about it. ‘We know, Charles,’ Basil Thomson told him. ‘Vernon didn’t know until an hour ago. But the Branch have been on to you from the moment you kept your first assignation with her. Technically I have to arrest you, under the Official Secrets Act, though I should imagine we’ll keep it in the family, eh, Vernon?’
Kell put a hand on his shoulder. ‘An enquiry, that’s all. We know you meant well but why didn’t you come to me, Charles?’
In some ways it was a relief. Charles expelled a deep breath. ‘Hasn’t she told you?’
He saw the flicker of mingled pain and embarrassment in Kell’s eyes; but Basil Thomson answered, ‘She can’t tell us, old man. I’m sorry, but she’s dead. Strangled with a white silk scarf.’
*
On the first Wednesday of February, Monique, Giles’ special agent, now working closely with the Sacré Coeur Ring, was stopped, arrested, and questioned while passing through a patrol area from one part of Belgium to another.
The German officer insisted on a humiliating body search. They found nothing. Her papers were in order. There was no reason to hold her.
Monique had dreaded this possibility, and had therefore taken elementary precautions. She carried the information sewn carefully into the delicate embroidery of her silk open-legged French drawers.
Eventually, the embroidery was transferred onto paper, revealing a map which detailed the German defence system along the Somme area of their line. The map made it plain that already this was becoming an almost impregnable stretch within the five hundred miles of German fortifications. That fact made little difference to the planning and strategy of the generals.
*
They fed James three times a day. In the morning he would get two slices of bread with some kind of grease which passed for butter, and a cup of foul coffee. The middle meal never varied, except in texture – a soup, sometimes watery, sometimes dotted with vegetables, one piece of bread, with a cup of water. In the evening it was usually a couple of potatoes still in their jackets. Occasionally there was a cabbage.
Once a week, they let him walk around a small courtyard. He saw nobody but the guards, and heard no other prisoners. The interrogation had stopped abruptly, and nobody appeared to be bothered with him. The cell was damp, smelling of mould, and the two blankets were no protection against the raw cold. James wondered if they were just going to shoot him out of hand. It was all too placid.
Just over two weeks passed before anything happened, and, even then, he did not realize how well they had lulled him. It began late one night after he had taken a more than usually thick bowl of soup. When he began to vomit James realized they had removed the bucket from his cell.
He shouted, and hammered on the door, but nobody came, and the vomiting grew worse. He did not, then, feel particularly unwell, just the unpleasant nausea, and finally the retching when his stomach was empty.
He hardly slept: the nausea swept over him in waves, while the tiny cell filled with the stench of vomit. At dawn he began to shout again, but the warders took no notice.
Breakfast was pushed through the flap in his door at the usual time. He cried out; but the sound of footsteps receded.
Weak, tired and hungry, now the vomiting had passed, James took a few sips of coffee, and began to eat the heel of bread. It tasted vaguely bitter. Half an hour later his bowel exploded in a scalding stream of diarrhoea. He was doubled up with the pain and wretched, for he had fouled himself.
The stench in the cell had become unbelievably vile, but there was still no sign of the guards. Food was pushed through regularly – and left untouched.
Exhausted, still suffering from the liquidity of his bowels, James lay, helpless, on the bed.
By the next morning, he was convinced that he had been seriously ill, and, by some freak, his warders had not heard his cries.
‘My God!’ The door had crashed open, the oath spluttering in German from a new face – a man who looked, and sounded, like a bullying drill sergeant. His hand was held over his mouth and nose. Behind him, two soldiers clutched handkerchiefs to their own noses.
‘You foul, filthy pig!’ the drill sergeant screamed. ‘Your cell! I’ve never seen such disgusting behaviour. The Commandant will hear of this.’ And he was gone, the door clanging shut.
Half an hour later they were back, placing two buckets, a scrubbing brush, and a piece of rag just inside the door. ‘You will clean up this mess, and your clothes, prisoner. That is the Commandant’s order. Everything must be clean by six o’clock tonight.’
One bucket contained lukewarm water, the other a solution. Lysol, James thought. For his own protection against further disease he did the best with the inadequate materials, managing to get most of the excreta and vomit off the floor, but incapable of cleansing himself, his clothes caked with ordure.
The Commandant arrived, with the barking drill sergeant who screamed at James to get off the bed. He hardly had enough strength to move.
‘It is not good enough,’ the Commandant declared. ‘See this prisoner is issued with clean clothes and given more materials to cleanse the cell. This is disgusting behaviour, even in a prisoner of such low morals as this man.’
They dragged James away. He was stripped and thrown into a scalding bath. Then two soldiers scrubbed him almost raw, using thick-bristled brushes and some kind of carbolic soap. When they returned him to the cell it had been well cleaned.
This time there was a bucket, and more food.
James was ravenous, and knew he must eat and drink to regain his strength. The night was uneventful, but the Commandant arrived the next morning. ‘It is better,’ he snapped. ‘But not yet quite right’ Turning to the drill sergeant he ordered that the prisoner should whitewash the cell.
His body was still raw from the scrubbing, and seemed touched by fire at every movement. They brought a bucket of whitewash and a brush. Slowly he set to work.
They fed him normally, and it took two days to complete the job. Then, life went on as before – for about a week.
Again, it began at
night. Too late, he realized that the bucket had gone, and that the soup was thicker. Of course – they were feeding him emetics and violent laxatives in the food.
The small hours were the worst, when he was violently sick again and again, his abdomen feeling as though steel nails were clawing within him.
This time the guards did not play games. He was too weak even to stand up when they came in and dragged him along the flagged passageway, throwing him into another bare, larger cell, where they systematically beat him.
Dazed, and almost unconscious, he was propped in a chair and the interrogators began.
What was his name?
Franke.
Wrong, a clout around the head which sent him reeling to the floor.
What was he doing with the Dimpling woman?
Nothing.
Wrong. A fist in his face.
They went on for hours, and finally he was dragged back to the cell. No food came for twenty-four hours.
Time stopped, but he reckoned it was about a week later when they came and took him along curved stone corridors, up steps and into what appeared to be the guards’ and executive quarters. Four private soldiers, armed with rifles, escorted him out to a covered van. Inside, it was dark and smelled of sweat. The soldiers got up beside him, someone closed the doors, and the van began to move.
In all, the journey took two days. They stopped to eat, relieve themselves, and sleep.
During the journey he tried to recite the whole of Hamlet, getting to the end then beginning at Act One, Scene One again. He managed it five or six times, before they arrived.
They were in a courtyard, and it was snowing hard; boots crunched and slipped, for the snow appeared to lie on cobbles. Above them, walls rose; and the windows were mainly Norman. James tried to think of the areas of Prussia or Austria most likey to contain Norman castles in good condition.
The cell was larger, and high up in the building. Again, the walls were of solid stone blocks, but there was a natural dividing line formed by a high arch. This division separated living quarters from a sleeping area, and now he had a more comfortable bed, complete with clean pillows and blankets.
In the living quarters, a table and two chairs were bolted to the floor. For the first time in weeks he sat at the table to eat a reasonable meal – some kind of tasty stew made of rabbit, onions, cloves and potatoes. He also had wine, and half a loaf of bread.
The interrogation began at dawn on the next day.
The first inquisitor was a short man, almost a caricature of a German: square-headed, with cropped hair, a scar down the right cheek. He wore a grey civilian suit, though everything else about him was military. James thought of him as Bullet Head. They were over old ground – what was his name? Why had he been in Berlin? Why Hetty Dimpling? Why Pastor Bittrich?
James replied to the questions, giving the same answers as before. When it came to awkward things like Major Stoerkel he denied anything incriminating. It was the Herr Major’s idea that they should communicate in a clandestine way. He was simply looking for an English lady called Miss Brown who had married a German officer when she had lived in Paris. She also had been a good friend of his father’s. No, he could not think why the Herr Major wanted to make a secret out of it.
Why, then, had Frau Dimpling collected a letter from the Alexander-Platz Post Office: a letter meant for him? He could only think it was some kind of mistake.
‘Frau Dimpling has been shot as a spy.’
James showed no emotion, but shrugged and repeated he did not know a Frau Dimpling.
‘Perhaps you will be shot as a spy.’
James shrugged again, looking unconcerned. ‘That would be unjust,’ he said. He was essentially a good German, even though his family had lived in Switzerland.
At dawn the next morning, they marched him into the courtyard, stood him against the wall, gave him a cigarette, let a Roman Catholic priest ask if he wanted to make his confession, then brought out a firing squad, who loaded their rifles and waited for the final order.
James felt very composed.
*
In London, Margaret Mary was feeding baby Sara Elizabeth when she heard the Chopin Sonata. Later, she was to say that it was as though someone was playing it in the next room; so much so that she went to see. The piano stood silent; nobody else was in the house – except, she thought, James, who was very close to her.
She continued to feed the baby – she liked to do these things herself whenever possible. At Redhill, or with other members of the family, she was forced to let nanny do everything, but she preferred to spend as much time as she could with both Donald and Young Sara – as the family called the infant, to distinguish her from Sara Farthing.
The piano stopped, but James was close to her all day, even when she went over to see Charlotte – something Margaret Mary did once a week, in an attempt to help her sister-in-law.
Charlotte was improving, responding to her visits to Redhill, which Sara had insisted were maintained on a strict rota, winter and summer. She also enjoyed the long talks when other members of the family called on her at home. She was happy when, towards the end of January, for instance, Caspar announced that Phoebe was going to make her a grandmother.
‘I don’t really look old enough to be a grandmother, I know,’ she giggled to Margaret Mary. ‘But good old Caspar. One arm and one leg, but everything else intact.’
‘And how does Andrew like the idea of being a Grandpapa?’ Margaret Mary asked. She was concerned about Andrew. To her, he was the classic fallen idol, the clay of his feet coming to light under pressure.
Charlotte made an uncertain motion with both hands. ‘He blubbed,’ she said, as though Andrew had done something disgusting. ‘Like a baby. It’s not the first time. A month or so back he came in, sat in his chair, and sobbed for a good hour. I tried to comfort him; asked him what was the matter…’
‘Was he drunk?’
‘Not more than usual. He kept saying that Rupert need not have been as he is, that it was all terrible. He kept repeating “Too late, Charlotte!”’
Though he was often either elated or moody with drink, Andrew was still able to do his job, and the past year had seen many changes. With the advent of ‘Blinker’ Hall, things had become frantic in Room 40. He expanded operations, and Room 40 soon became several rooms, while numerous new faces – many of them academics – were seen in the Admiralty Old Building.
Following the Lusitania disaster, a new drive and determination was apparent among those who listened, read, analysed, tracked, and deciphered at the Admiralty. Naval Intelligence had a reputation, under its new chief, which was second to none.
*
‘The job,’ Giles complained to Smith-Cumming, ‘is to give the military and the politicos something to work with.’
‘We are providing as much intelligence as we can; “Blinker” appears to have the edge on us because the work is more immediate. Our problem is getting people to act – we’ve discussed it a thousand times.’
Caspar listened as they droned on, and, not for the first time, wondered if he – minus one arm and one leg – was the only stable male left in the great Railton clan. He had no worries, lived a full and happy life with Phoebe, and had begun to enjoy his work with C. But, if the rumours were true, his uncle Charles was in trouble; his grandfather had become obsessive about the world of secrets, and, by the sound of it, new and dangerous ideologies as well. His own father veered sharply between downright maudlin pessimism and a false elation; Marie was off with a German lover in Berlin; James was missing on some escapade; and Aunt Mildred seemed to have gone dotty.
He came out of the reverie to hear his grandfather say that he had another useful recruit, and did White Lady – their very successful Belgian network – or Sacré Coeur, need another courier? C said the more the merrier. ‘Then I’ve just the girl for you.’ Caspar was stunned to hear Giles Railton put forward his own granddaughter, Denise Grenot, Caspar’s cousin, as a serious candida
te.
*
‘Tell me, Mrs Railton, these daydreams – flashes, you call them – are they to do with your childhood?’
Mildred looked across the desk and could not meet Dr Harcourt’s eyes. ‘I remember them best after I’ve had the medicine. If they’re important you should allow me to take some of the medicine home, so I would have it to hand.’
Harcourt felt a small stab of concern, for he knew what Mildred Railton’s plea really meant. He was a conscientious medical practitioner, who now found himself coping, almost daily, with mental problems brought on by worry, grief and the stress of war. Mildred Railton’s case had become increasingly interesting after her husband had revealed the story concerning her childhood.
He talked to many other doctors, and had studied the standard works, so knew that if he could relax Mildred to a point where she would respond to careful questions, there was a chance that she might reveal to herself the hidden secret of her childhood. Once the mind unlocked that traumatic knowledge she might be successfully brought back to normality.
The main problem was getting the woman to relax sufficiently, and finally Harcourt had taken the step of using mild doses of laudanum – just a couple of drops, taken in water – before he saw her. The results had, so far, been good.
The subconscious was obviously working hard, revealing some of her childhood trauma – she spoke of leaves, moss under her, the face of a young boy, and occasional pains in the genital area. He was loath to give up treatment now, yet Mildred’s suggestion that she be given laudanum to take at home was a clear indication of dependence.
They talked for a further half-hour. She was certainly a happier woman than the one who had first come to his consulting rooms, and as a doctor he knew he would be able to wean her off the drug once her mind was clear again.
At the end of the session, Dr Harcourt gave her a prescription for one dose. It would take her through the following day, Thursday, and he would be seeing her again on Friday.