‘Even more reason for you to try the ways of the world before the marital bed takes it all away!’
‘Do not tease the poor boy. He can always have mistresses anyway. Here’s to youth and innocence, I say!’ Symonds said, lifting his glass.
‘Hear, hear!’
Rachel squirmed inside the armour. This was a waste of time. She felt a terrible urge to yank off her helmet, but she had to keep Sir Stewart out of this.
‘Since you gentlemen are such renowned experts in both marital and extramarital affairs—’
‘And martial!’ interrupted Symonds.
Rachel had to wait for Sir Stewart’s mirth to subside before continuing.
‘I could, in fact, use some advice on the operational side of marriage.’
‘Ask away, dear boy!’ Sir Stewart said.
‘It is a very delicate matter,’ Rachel said. ‘Perhaps Mr Symonds here could advise me privately, our circumstances being similar.’
Sir Stewart slapped his knee. ‘Duty calls, Symonds!’
‘And so does Nature,’ Symonds said. ‘Please follow me to the gentlemen’s, sir, and we will have your problem sorted out in a jiffy.’
* * *
The gents was at the bottom of a long, spiral staircase, and Rachel was puffing like a steam engine when they reached it. She looked away as the Summer Court’s Head of Counter-intelligence emptied his medium’s bladder in one of the seashell-shaped porcelain urinals, expelling fluid at a rate that reminded her of a fountain in Regent’s Park.
‘So, what is it, then?’ Symonds asked, washing his hands. ‘The affair usually goes just fine if you get her good and ready first—What in hell?’
He saw Rachel’s face in the mirror and jumped, splattering water over his crotch. She had taken off her mask. She looked like a fright: her hair was plastered all over her forehead and there were red blotches on her cheeks where the edges of the mask had pressed against her skin. But she was still recognisably female.
‘What the shit is going on here?’ Symonds roared. ‘You are a bloody woman!’
He held on to the sink’s edge to steady himself and adjusted his spirit crown’s controls. Apparently the shock had been enough to interfere with his connection to his medium.
‘Yes, sir,’ Rachel said. ‘Rachel White. I used to work for Jasper Harker, in Counter-subversion.’
‘My God. You are the one who was right about Bloom. What on Earth are you doing here?’
‘I really need to talk to you, sir. This was the only way to get to you in time.’
Symonds took a deep breath and massaged his temples.
‘I suppose it is the kind of thing Bloom and I would have done, back in the day,’ he muttered. ‘I still can’t believe it. I knew him for almost a decade, and to think that all that time—’ He shook his head. ‘Yes, I suspected something. I pressed him, so he would tell me what was wrong, like he used to. But I never actually believed it.
‘You let him get away, Mrs White. I’m afraid that means my head as well as yours. I came here to try to get Sir Stewart to admit that the Winter Court knew about Bloom and did nothing, but he is too drunk for it to go anywhere. Or too preoccupied protecting himself from the Dzhugashvili fallout. I suspect I’ll be working in my father’s soup business again in the next day or two.’
‘Not if we get the second mole,’ Rachel said.
‘What do you mean?’ Symonds looked shaken, and had to adjust his spirit crown again. Rachel waited for him to recover his composure before continuing.
‘Bloom was warned. I suspect someone. There is a way to prove it, but I need your help.’
‘I can’t possibly be directly involved with another rogue operation, Mrs White. I am doing all I can to distance myself from the last one.’
‘You won’t have to. All you need to do is send a memo to a list of people I will provide you with. It will mention a sighting of Iosif Dzhugashvili in Spain, in a different location for each individual.’
‘You are proposing a canary trap.’
‘Exactly.’ If the Communists in Spain took action in any of those locations, the mole would be exposed. Rachel was fairly certain who it would be.
Symonds paused. ‘Bloom tried to recruit you—is that right? You set yourself up as bait.’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you … did you get a sense of why? Why he turned?’
‘I don’t know for sure,’ Rachel said, ‘but I suspect it was something that happened at Cambridge. He talked about a boy he knew who fell while night-climbing.’
Symonds massaged his forehead. ‘I should have seen it,’ he said. ‘He was never the same after that. What an idiot I was.’
‘It is hard to really know someone,’ Rachel said. ‘I … learned that recently. For what it’s worth, I don’t think everything about Bloom was a lie.’
Symonds tapped his foot. ‘Sending out the memos is literally all I can do for you. No operational support. You will have to take care of the rest.’
‘That’s all I ask.’
‘All right.’ Symonds took out a notebook and a fountain pen and scribbled down the list of names Rachel gave him. ‘When do you want these memos of yours sent out?’ he asked.
‘Tonight, if possible.’ Rache gave him her ectophone’s Hinton code. ‘Send me an ectomail when it is done.’
‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he said.
‘Thank you.’ Rachel breathed out a sigh of relief. ‘One more thing, sir.’
‘What is it?’
‘Could you go and find Captain White and tell him there is someone to see him in the men’s room?’
* * *
When Joe entered, he just stared at Rachel for a moment. She was leaning against the wall. The weight of the armour and the fatigue of the long day pulled her down. She tried to stand up straight but her legs buckled. The metal armour scraped against the marble tiles.
Joe leaped forward and caught her.
‘Is that my old armour?’ he said, eyes wide. ‘By Jove.’
‘That was the only way to get in here. Are you angry?’
‘Oh, hell, Rachel,’ he breathed. ‘Do you have any idea how ridiculous you look?’
‘I am betting it is not as ridiculous as I feel.’
‘I told you, Rachel. It is better if you just stay away from me.’
She sighed. ‘I didn’t come here only to see you. I think there is another mole and Mr Symonds can help me catch him. Although I am glad you are here.’
‘What do you mean? What is going on?’
‘Joe, I … I made so many mistakes. I should have told you everything from the start. I did transfer to the Finance Section, but I was really chasing a mole, off the books. It was somebody in the Iberian Section—that was one reason why I got so angry when you said you had to go to Spain. I knew it wouldn’t be safe. It all went bad, and … I think I am leaving the Service. Or they might make me go first.’
‘That’s awful, Rachel.’
She laughed. ‘You know, I don’t think it is.’
Joe squeezed her gloved hand.
‘Now, could you take me home, please?’ Rachel asked. ‘We still have things to talk about. I will tell you everything. And I desperately need to pee.’
* * *
Back in St John’s Wood, Rachel called Joan and Helen and told them about the plan. When they heard it was a chance to get back at the Soviets, they swore they would do everything they could to help. She asked Gertrude to make coffee—it was going to be a long night.
After that, there was nothing to do but to wait for Symonds to call. Joe and Rachel sat by the gas fire. She wore a dressing gown, luxuriating in the feel of silk on her bare skin after what felt like hours of imprisonment in the armour.
‘I wasn’t fair to you in the restaurant,’ she said, looking at the flames. ‘I asked you to tell me about what happened, and you did. I’m sorry I got angry.’
‘I understand. You didn’t know what I was.’
‘I know what you
are, Joe. You don’t have to be anything else.’
‘I watched your expression change, when you understood, when—’
‘Look at me,’ Rachel said. ‘I slept with Roger Hollis.’
Joe’s face screwed up in a rugby-scrum grimace. ‘Rachel,’ he whispered.
‘I had to do something that would make me feel guilty, to hide my thoughts from Bloom.’ She realised how crazy it sounded. ‘And so I did it, without thinking, without hesitation. A few weeks ago, I kissed a Soviet defector to keep his face from the press. I nearly got shot, too. I stole documents from the Registry to win Bloom’s trust. The Soviets have them now. You did not have a choice in the war, Joe, but I did, with all those things. Does that not make me the bigger monster?
‘I thought about what you said the other night, how you can’t live without the war. Well, the Service has been like that for me, even before the baby. It wasn’t about fighting the Russians or finding out about Grabber plots. I wanted to show that I was just as good as everybody else.
‘But you know what? In the end, the reason I am still trying is not because I failed, not because of the Service, but to keep you safe. After that, I am done.’
‘Rachel—’
‘Don’t say anything. I just want you to stay here for one night, before you leave. And come back alive.’
He kneeled in front of her, took her hand in his and kissed it. She bent over and pressed her forehead against Joe’s. She wished she could transfer her thoughts through his skull, as spirits did in the aether.
But maybe she already had.
Finally, Joe spoke. ‘Did you know that not even the Queen has been in the Alba?’
‘Would you have preferred it if I had been the Queen?’
Joe smiled. ‘No. No, I wouldn’t.’
‘I say, Captain White.’ His eyes were green and flecked with gold. ‘That is very unpatriotic of you.’
She took his hand, placed it on her breast and kissed him.
At that moment, her ectophone rattled.
‘Oh, hell,’ Rachel muttered and picked it up.
IT’S DONE, the rotors said.
‘I’m sorry, Joe. I have to go. One last time, I promise.’
‘No,’ Joe said. ‘Whatever it is that you are going to do, I’m coming with you.’
22
CANARY TRAP, 6TH DECEMBER 1938
A gentle rain drummed on the canvas roof of the car where Rachel White sat with her husband, waiting for Roger Hollis to make the dead drop. A leaden lump of nervous anticipation sat heavily in her belly.
The Metropolitan Sepulchre on Primrose Hill was a gigantic, hundred-storey pyramid housing nearly five million dead piled side by side. Roger had just vanished into its maw. Their car was parked on the sloping lane that served the massive vertical cemetery, near the main gate. Helen and Joan were out in the rain, covering the other exits.
Roger’s silhouette appeared at the gate, a tall, long-limbed figure under an umbrella. Rachel could hear his cough even over the car’s electric whirr and the whisper of the rain.
They had followed Roger from his flat. He had returned from Blenheim Palace—he worked the night shift, when it was easiest to communicate with Summerland—changed clothes and headed back out, carrying a briefcase.
Soon after he had vanished around the corner, the car’s front and back doors opened, and Helen and Joan got in. Joan took a seat next to Joe in the back, while Rachel yielded the driver’s seat to the diminutive Scotswoman and moved to the passenger seat on the left.
‘’E did it,’ Helen said. ‘Left it in a lockbox in a vault. Paid me no mind, I was lighting candles on some poor sod’s tombstone.’
‘Thank you, ladies,’ she said. ‘You do understand that we are about to commit a crime, or possibly treason, or whatever lies on the other side of treason.’
‘That sounds like something he would have said,’ Joan replied. ‘Back when he was alive, he would’ve lit up his pipe just now, looked like Devil himself in the glow, and given a wee lecture just on that kind of thing.’
‘It’s be’er than babysittin’,’ Helen said. ‘God bless the tots, but they get on me West Ham Reserves. Give me a good kidnapping-and-intimidation anytime.’
Joe’s eyes were wide. Rachel winked at him.
Joan started the car, keeping the lights off, and drove slowly in the direction Roger had gone.
The zapper was heavy in Rachel’s hand. She tested the trigger and a tiny electric arc sparked between its spikes.
‘Careful with that,’ Helen said. ‘Got it off a Yank in the East End, Tesla design, it is. Wasn’t cheap, neither.’
‘I will, I promise.’
Roger was up ahead, walking, head down. The lane looked empty.
‘Now,’ Rachel said.
Joan flashed on the headlights and accelerated. Rachel’s former assistant turned to stare, pale-faced, blinking in the car’s blinding beams. Then Joan swerved to the right, hit the brakes and came to a stop next to Roger.
Rachel threw the passenger door open, pushed the zapper into Roger’s gut and pulled the trigger. The weapon vibrated, sparked and then died with a pop and a wisp of acrid smoke, short-circuited. She swore, but Roger was already collapsing against the car’s hood. Joe got out and helped her carry him into the back seat.
‘Skinny chap,’ he grunted. ‘Thank goodness for that.’
Helen studied the broken zapper and threw it down a drain.
‘Can’t trust them damn Yanks to make anythin’,’ she said.
Then they sped into London’s dark blue night, sending up great waves from fresh puddles of rain.
* * *
‘You!’
‘Hello, Roger.’
They were alone in a small, bare room in one of Max’s safe houses in the East End—Helen maintained several of them on his behalf. The wallpaper was torn and the noise of a commuter train made the place shake every now and then. Joan was in the car on the street and Helen guarded the hallway. Joe had insisted on staying at first, but Rachel had managed to convince him to patrol the rear of the building and given him an ectophone for summoning help in case of trouble.
Tying Roger into a chair had felt too theatrical, so Rachel had handcuffed him to the bed frame instead. His hair hung in wet, limp curls on his forehead.
‘Rachel, are you completely insane? Get me out of these right now and we will figure something—’
‘Oh, do stop it,’ Rachel interrupted him. ‘I know everything.’
Roger shook wet hair from his eyes. The handcuffs clanged against the bed’s metal frame.
‘Rachel. We can still sort this out. We’ll explain about your baby, they will always believe that a woman is hysterical over losing a child—’
‘You had better tell me how you know about that.’
‘Kathleen in the office noticed the signs, and told me. When … things didn’t proceed, I put two and two together.’
‘You were keeping files on all your co-workers, weren’t you? That was exactly what Bloom made me do. For leverage. Quite useful, really.’
‘Where are you going with this madness? What proof do you have?’
‘Proof will turn up soon enough, when your handlers empty that dead drop.’
Roger grimaced. ‘What if I was just paying my respects to dead relatives?’
‘Who goes to graveyards these days?’
‘It’s very weak, Rachel.’
‘Not when the NKVD sends a death squad to the location in Madrid that was in the file you received earlier tonight.’
‘If this is a canary trap, Rachel, then why not wait for it to go off?’
Rachel took a deep breath. ‘Because I want to make a deal with you. You give me your handlers and the message in your lockbox goes away, and there is nothing to link you to it. You resign, take the fall for the Dzhugashvili mess and go back to the Orient, or to Hell, for all I care.
‘Here’s what I think. You were being groomed to replace Bloom, after Kulagin’s defection
exposed him. Max told me about the sacrifice technique: when one asset is in danger of being exposed, let another asset catch them and be promoted. But something went wrong. I am guessing it was related to what CAMLANN actually contained. Suddenly, Bloom was too valuable to be sacrificed. So you warned him and helped him get away.’
‘Rachel, it is just as easy to make a case that you are the second mole. Even easier, in fact. Bloom recruited you, you were supposed to replace him, you failed to capture him. What will Noel Symonds think about that?’
‘Ah, the familiar song. Admit nothing, deny everything, make counter-allegations. I heard the same thing many times in Ireland, with a different accent, of course.’ Rachel folded her arms.
‘How about this, then, Roger? We leak that you are a double agent—a conduit of disinformation to the NKVD. They won’t find Dzhugashvili in that safe house you just told them about, so they will believe that. We bring you in, set you up somewhere nice for debriefing, maybe even the Langham. Do you know what Kulagin did in that situation? He blew his brains out because he knew they were coming for him to do something worse.’
‘Jesus, Rachel.’ Roger closed his eyes. ‘What do you want?’
‘What did you once tell me? I want to protect you. What happened to Bloom? Where are his handlers? Give them to me and I will make this go away.’
‘On two conditions,’ Roger said, smiling weakly.
‘Name them.’
‘I want all that in writing, signed by Symonds. And you are personally going to make me tea.’
* * *
In half an hour, after a call to Symonds, Roger was sipping dark builders’ tea—the only kind Helen stocked in the safe house—with his free hand.
‘I was given instructions to make sure Bloom got away,’ he said slowly, ‘so I had Kathleen call and warn him.’ He sighed. ‘I don’t know why, but I had my marching orders. The handlers are a couple. I am not sure where they are from, Netherlands, maybe. Otto and Nora. They are odd ducks. Volatile, especially the woman. They recruited me after Kulagin did his walk-in. They work for someone called Shpiegelglass who is higher up, and is apparently doing a bit of a witch hunt himself on their side. I get the impression Kulagin was tarnished, ideologically, and they were taking care of assets he might have polluted. That’s why they decided to sacrifice Bloom. But of course, that all went to shit.
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