Valentine in Paris
James Davis
EBOOK EDITION
A Wild Wolf Publication
Published by Wild Wolf Publishing in 2011
Copyright © 2011 James Davis
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed by a newspaper, magazine or journal.
First print
All Characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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The rain fell in sheets from a leaden sky, so thick and low it felt like a ceiling Nick could reach out and touch. It was only mid-afternoon but the gloom made it seem like twilight. Nick hated weather like this. He’d spent enough days and nights hunkered under oppressive skies in the trenches, to learn to despise the rain and the filthy havoc it wrought on the ground. It was more than that though, the darkness and closing of horizons and sky made you feel small, made you world small.
Nick pulled his damp greatcoat tighter around him and pressed himself further back into the shop front alcove that was providing some shelter. He cast a look at his watch and cursed under his breath. His contact was late. It could be the weather of course, but he doubted it. He’d had an uneasy feeling about this job ever since he’d stepped on the boat that was to take him across the channel and away from London to Paris. He hadn’t been there since the war and his memories weren’t good ones. He had a horrible premonition that this trip was going to pan out the same way.
The water running down the cobbled streets had started to soak into his battered brogues. He could feel the tweed in his trousers starting to adhere to his skin, as if the wool was trying to graft back onto his flesh for warmth. He glanced at his watch again. The man he was meant to meet was over a quarter of an hour late and Nick had an uneasy feeling in his gut. It was a feeling he’d learnt to trust.
Looking up the alley, Nick’s gaze penetrated the rain and he could see a figure making its way towards him. The man’s hat brim was pulled down low and he had his hands deep in his mackintosh pockets as he splashed purposefully through the puddles. Nick eased himself upright and balanced his weight, taking his own hands out of his pockets.
As the other man neared Nick’s shelter, he glanced up and turned his head around, looking at the shop signs. The man had a couple of day’s worth of stubble growth on his face and close set eyes. Nick stepped forward slightly and as the man saw him, he smiled and stepped towards him.
“Mr Valentine?” He asked in a voice that was almost, but not quite English; a hint of a Northern European accent slipped through.
“Yes.”
Without removing his hands from his pockets the man swung his right arm up inside his mackintosh, but Nick was faster and Nick’s own right hand moved in a blur, that culminated with the gently crushing concussion of brass on bone, as Nick’s knuckleduster met the man’s temple.
The man dropped to the ground with a sickening exhalation of breath as his back smashed into the cobbles. Nick was on him in an instant; his knee pinning the man’s right arm; his bloody fist raised, ready to administer another blow, but the man lay quite still.
Easing up onto his knee Nick pulled the man’s hand from the pocket. As Nick had suspected, a pistol rattled out onto the ground. He grabbed the man’s collar and shook him. Nick gave a curse and slapped the man’s ashen face.
“Damn!”
Nick felt for a pulse. His premonition had been right. This trip to Paris looked as if it was going to be as unhappy as the rest. The man was dead.
A few days earlier Nick had been slumped in a wooden booth at the rear of the Fitzroy Tavern on Charlotte Street in London. He hadn’t chosen the Fitzroy for any tactical reasons, but because it was his local, and he’d learned to love it. Here he was another anonymous drinker, well anonymous to everyone but the bar staff, who now knew him by first name. There was always a buzz in the place. It was just north of Soho, on the wrong side of Oxford Street. The place was full of the wrong sort of people, lowlifes, petty criminals, writers and actors. The proximity of the BBC ensured a steady trickle of wireless stars and executives eager to slum it with the post-war underworld. It was the perfect place for a lush; the perfect place for Nick to disappear.
He swirled his Scotch and ice, staring at the amber liquid, wondering what Jessop wanted. He’d heard from him only once since ’26; the year Nick had been forcibly retired from the service after the incident in Vienna. Much like Vienna, that one occasion hadn’t worked out well, and Nick doubted very much that this would be a social call.
Nick didn’t bother standing as he saw Jessop pick his way through the bar. The older man didn’t stop to buy a drink, nor did he offer one as he sat down opposite Nick.
“Still drinking?” Jessop observed.
Nick raised his glass with a smile, “Still drinking. Not care to join me?”
“It’s a little early,” Jessop said curtly. Nick realised he didn’t even know the man’s first name. Not that it mattered.
“So, I’m guessing you haven’t come to enquire about my health?”
Jessop fixed him with cold, pale blue eyes, “I know all about your health Nick, and everything else in your life. You drink too much. You currently don’t have a steady girlfriend.You’re still alone in the same flat a few yards from here, and you get by on your recompense from the state and doing increasingly unsavoury jobs for local hoodlums.”
“I didn’t realise you cared so much.” Nick said dryly.
“I don’t. I just like to know who I’m dealing with.”
“Come on, you knew me well enough from the war up until you cashiered me in 1926.”
“I knew someone Nick. Vienna showed me I didn’t know you well enough. The last outing was a bloodbath, and 1926 was over five years ago.”
“Fair enough, but I haven’t changed.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
Nick shrugged, “Don’t be, I’ve come to terms with it.”
“Looks like it,” Jessop said nodding meaningfully at the glass in Nick’s hand, “you could always talk to someone about it you know.”
“I’m sure his Majesty’s government wouldn’t like me talking about anything, and you'd like it even less. Besides, once I’d talked, who’d want to listen again?” Nick gave a wry smile, “Cheers”. He enjoyed the brief, uncomfortable look his last words had stirred in the man opposite, but the moment was gone as soon as it started.
“I’ve got a job for you.”
“I thought I was retired, unfit for service.”
“Unfit for some service, not for others.”
Nick sighed and twirled the ice in his glass, “You want someone dead?”
Now Jessop laughed, “Christ Nick, no. I know it always seems to end up that way, but I think that’s down to you. No, we need something taking care of.”
“I’m sure you have lots of brilliant chaps on the official payroll to take care of things.”
Jessop shifted in his seat and looked around the pub warily.
Don’t worry, no can hear or cares.”
“It’s a job in France. We can’t send someone with links to us. The French are our friends and allies, so…”
“So why not ask them to help you?”
“Ah Nick, always the simplest questions with the hardest answers. Look, it’s a week at most in Paris. We need you to meet someone, find out some information, come back. That’s it, a simple reconnoitre job. We're paying cash, but it’s off the books.”
“Why me? Why
now after all these years?”
“Because you were good and we need someone unofficial so we can deny all knowledge if it goes belly up,” Jessop smiled and spread his hands, “The usual.”
Nick looked down at his drink, then back at Jessop with narrowed eyes. “Sure. Why not?”
“Good. Pick up a steamer across the Channel and get the train into Paris. Find a hotel around Montmartre, that’s where you’ll meet our contact four days from now. He’s got more information, but the nub of it is this: we’re increasingly concerned about the French. Now the Depression’s biting, they’re piling more pressure onto Germany and Austria for reparations. It’s breeding nationalism on both sides. We prefer the status quo as it is. More concerning is that, a source has tipped us off, that there are those in French high command drawing up plans for an incursion and seizure of more border lands. We can’t allow that, and we need copies of those plans as evidence and the names of those behind them. “What?” Jessop asked, seeing the smile on Nick’s face.
“Funny, you had me killing Germans and helping the French, now we’re helping the Germans. Odd the way life goes around.”
“The world keeps turning Nick and we need to keep one turn ahead. The man you’ll meet is called Cedric Gallais. He’ll make contact at four o’clock in the afternoon on the Rue Madeleine, by a shop called La Rose in Montmartre. I can’t give you more details because we don’t have them yet. Gallais insisted on a meeting and we’re sending you.”
“Protocols?”
Jessop gave a wry smile,