by Karl Fish
Noone managed to push his way through the crowds. Anyone daring enough to catch the full horror of his scarring soon retreated, allowing him a pathway to the memorial fountain. Nathaniel leapt upon the temporary wooden scaffold of the fountain to peer over the scattering pedestrians.
From the statue, he spotted the booths and rushed through the crowds hurriedly. As he met the roadside kerb from the pavement, a large black saloon thundered past him almost dragging him under within its slipstream. The shimmering chrome bird on the radiator blinded him as it caught the suns beams that were desperately breaking through the thunderclouds. Puddles of water were sent crashing towards him as the tyres spun away. Soaking wet now and enraged from his near-miss, he ran as fast as his lame leg would allow him towards the red boxes. Draper was nowhere to be found. Noone scoured the immediate area. Nothing suggested a struggle. Could Draper have hidden for his own safety’s sake? He kept on looking, examining the floor for clues, thumbing through the catalogue of phonebook numbers hanging from the phone via a chain attached to its metal spine. Nothing. He went from one booth to the other, repeating his observations, still nothing.
‘Damn it!’ He shouted looking skywards into the torrential rain that relentlessly bore down on him. ‘Think, Nathaniel, think,’ he muttered to himself as he paced around the booths. He had failed to see a young newspaper vendor talking to members of the local constabulary just fifty yards or so and pointing in his direction.
Subtly walking towards him, the two policemen stalked up behind Nathaniel. One drew his truncheon while the other drew his cuffs. Without so much as a warning, the first officer struck him beneath the knee of his already lame leg, which made him buckle to the floor. As his face was planted into the miserable, damp paving, the second officer straddled his back and pulled his right arm behind him and up between his shoulder blades into a standard policeman’s hold. Noone’s left-hand side, the scarred side, was pushed downwards into the grit and the dirt.
‘We have reason to believe you are carrying a firearm, sir?’ the first officer explained.
‘What?’ Noone shouted aggressively, writhing on the floor.
The officer on top of him placed his full weight down to pacify him while the other quickly frisked him. From the left-hand pocket, he removed the photograph and torch. From the right-hand pocket, he pulled out Nathaniel’s gun.
‘Well, well, well,’ the second officer said, and then blew his whistle out loud for immediate support.
Nathaniel Noone stopped fighting, exhaled, and lay there as the continuing torrent of rain soaked him through to the bone.
Having heard the whistle for help, several beat ‘Bobbies’ came to the aid of their police colleagues. Taking Noone from beneath his elbow joints, they raised him onto his feet. A crowd of onlookers had now gathered despite the terrible weather.
‘Good God!’ one of them shouted and backed away.
Several people from the crowd gasped in shock. Nathaniel’s scarring was exceptionally grotesque, as people’s reactions often liked to remind him. Such horrors suggested to the onlooker he was indeed a monster. The policeman took a step backwards, and they all drew their truncheons as if Nathaniel posed a significant threat to them, despite the fact his arms were shackled around his back.
Just as Nathaniel’s fate seemed inevitable, and he prepared himself for a beating, a large black saloon came speeding around the corner. It was almost identical to the one that had nearly run him down. The subtle difference was the winged lady that adorned the radiator, unlike the winged bird of the other vehicle. As it drew to a halt, two men in long dark coats and fedoras alighted from the rear. One of them made his way to the police officer standing behind Nathaniel manning the shackles. Noone could not see what was happening behind him as the man whispered quietly in the policeman’s ear and showed him an identity card drawn from an inside pocket. The policeman did not seem pleased. The other man was talking to the other police constable, the one who had struck Noone with his truncheon. Again, Nathaniel could not make out the conversation but the constable did point to the street vendor who had accused Noone in the first place. As he was led away and ushered into the car Nathaniel Noone watched on as the second man made his way to the vendor, showed his ID and then took him into a nearby alleyway.
‘Mind your head, sir,’ the first fedora-wearing man said as he placed Nathaniel into the large black saloon.
Inside, the driver sat next to yet another man, who also wore a large black hat. The windows were tinted. You could see the outside world but they couldn’t see you, and between front and rear passengers was a glass partition.
‘You can un-cuff him now,’ came a cut-glass accent, via a speaker, from the man in the front.
Duly, the first man removed Noone’s shackles before closing the door behind him and disappearing into the crowd that had formed during Noone’s assault. The second man returned and started a conversation via the front passenger window with the man who had just ordered Noone to be un-cuffed. Nathaniel couldn’t hear a thing but a small flash of white stood out as he passed something through the window. Then came a photograph, a torch, and a pistol. The front passenger then looked into the rear-view mirror catching Nathaniel’s single-eyed stare before ordering his driver on. Noone recognised his eyes. They had met briefly not long before.
They sped away as quickly as they had arrived but the journey was over in mere minutes. They were at the rear of Fortnum’s once again. Several heavy-goods lorries were already there and men in brown overalls were removing items from the store. Everything was wrapped in brown post-office paper and everything was labelled with a coded luggage tag.
Nathaniel’s door swung open and standing there was the young spy he had met the previous night. Only this time, his clothes were not rain-sodden or riddled with the stench of booze but crisp, fragrant and well-tailored.
‘Hello again, sir,’ he announced.
Noone finally realised that it was him, the vagrant from the night before.
‘I’m Thompson, sir; Draper’s deputy.’
The man offered his hand and Noone shook it tentatively. Directing an open arm towards the cellar door beneath the bin, where he had entered just hours previously, Thompson led the way. As they walked forward, Noone noticed two burly removal men standing on top of the door smoking cigarettes. Thompson nodded at them. They bent down and opened the large oak doors that revealed the subterranean entrance to The Department. Thompson descended quickly followed by Noone. The two men then locked the doors down again and carried on as if they really were two removal men on a fag break.
Through the long passageway, Noone followed Thompson until the dazzling fluorescent tubes that lit the labyrinth hit them. Where previously the rows of wood-panelled and neatly glazed rooms had seen a hive of activity they were on temporary lockdown. Armed guards stood at every doorway.
Thompson had not uttered a single word since they had descended into the secret depths. He remained silent until they reached the foot of a lift shaft where several nurses and a doctor were tending an elderly man in full concierge dress, sprawled out and unconscious in front of them. A saline drip ran from his arm. The doctor was raising each eyelid in succession and shining a penlight into each pupil.
‘He’s alive?’ Thompson asked, quite shocked.
‘Catatonic, but still breathing,’ the doctor responded.
‘We all thought he was dead. Thank heavens for that,’ Thompson explained to Noone, then sighed with a sense of relief.
‘What happened?’ Noone rasped.
‘Still putting the pieces together,’ Thompson replied. ‘Needless to say, we have been infiltrated somehow.’
‘And Draper?’ Noone asked.
‘I thought you would answer that for me. Evidently not,’ Thompson concluded.
‘Sir,’ came a voice from behind them. It was one of the men who had helped un-cuff Noone.
‘What is it, Smith ?’ Thompson replied abruptly.
‘You need to come
and see, sir,’ Smith replied.
Thompson and Noone followed Smith back down a corridor and into one of the rooms where the cypher-interpreting team worked. Where this had recently been a hive of desks ringing with typewriter bells, it was now empty of people and all but one of the desks had been neatly packed away with boxes on top of them.
The single desk that remained had its headset hanging off of the chair by the elasticated phone cord, indicating someone had left in a hurry.
‘Whose desk is this?’ Thompson asked politely.
‘Jennifer James, sir,’ Smith replied nervously.
‘Where is she?’ Thompson continued.
‘We’re not sure, sir. But that’s not all.’
Smith picked up the headset and passed it to his superior. The headset crackled with an inaudible static.
‘One moment please, sir,’ Smith said and left the room.
Several moments passed until the static Thompson could hear turned into sound. A brief crackle and Smith’s voice could be heard loud and clearly
‘Hello, London. Are you receiving me? Over,’ came Smith’s soft voice.
‘Smith?’ Thompson asked. ‘Smith, is that you? Where are you?’
‘I’m in the office, sir.’
‘Which office, Smith?’ Thompson enquired.
‘THE Office, sir.’
Thompson’s complexion changed from a confident blushed pink into a pallid sickly white. He dropped the headset and looked around at Noone.
‘You need to come with me. I need to know everything that you discussed with Draper.’
Thompson and Noone left the cypher room and proceeded to Drapers’ office where Smith was sitting at Drapers’ desk. On Thompson entering the room, Smith shot up from the desk and stood attentively behind the chair.
‘Where were you, Smith, when you just spoke to us?’ Thompson asked.
‘Just sitting here, sir,’ he replied, tapping his fingers on the backrest of Draper’s chair.
‘Show me again and be careful to speak in exactly the same tone and volume. We have an intruder to find.’
Smith regained his seated position and repeated what he’d said. The vocal level Smith spoke in was not loud, so the device, the bug, could not have been set far from Draper’s desk. Thompson moved silently around Smith. First, he felt under the desk edge and along its overhang. Then, he opened the drawers and repeated his silent search. Nothing could be found. The chair was examined too as was the underside of the desk and drawers. Still nothing. Draper kept a tidy and minimal working space. On top of the desk sat only four objects. The first was a silver letter opener, solidly cast. Thompson retrieved it, eyeballed it through a 360-degree rotation and then dismissed it. The second was a gold-plated fountain pen; an heirloom form Draper’s father. Thompson carefully dismantled the casing, removed the cartridges and unscrewed the nib but nothing extraordinary existed within it. He then painstakingly put it back together. The two final items were the chrome Newton’s cradle and the pot plant. Thompson pulled one of the suspended metal balls back and started the cradle’s motion going. As its rhythmic clacking continued he stalked around it scouring around its frame as it reflected distorted images back. He could not see that this was the source of the intrusive device either, which left the plant. Thompson was interrupted by a knock on the door.
‘Come in, Jones.’ Thompson beckoned to the second man who had been on the scene to save Nathaniel.
Jones entered the room with a very nervous-looking member of staff.
‘This is Ms Hilary Nevis,’ Jones advised, introducing the timid-looking woman. ‘She’s a friend of Ms Jennifer James.’
Thompson ushered the short lady in. Ms Nevis was trembling.
‘D-d-do you think something a-a-awful has happened to her, sir ?’ she nervously stuttered.
‘We’re not quite sure what to think, Ms Nevis. We’re doing all we can to unravel this. Perhaps you can help us?’ Thompson asked kindly.
‘I’ll try,’ she replied, sobbing into her handkerchief.
‘We need to know everything about Ms Jones. Everything and anything about her. OK?’
Ms Hilary Nevis sat anxiously as Thompson, Noone, Smith, and Jones looked down at her. Her sobbing had reached an uncontrollable level. Not only had her best friend just disappeared but she was now set to be interrogated by four imposing men, one monstrously scarred and at whom she couldn’t help but keep staring back.
‘Smith, Jones, I’d like you to revisit the scene where Mr Noone was retrieved, and canvas more information from the policeman and any other witnesses,’ Thompson directed. The two officers left immediately.
Sensing Ms Nevis’s disposition – Nervous Nevis as she was already known within The Department – and the effect Noone was having on it, Thompson ordered a pot of tea be made and brought to The Office.
‘Ms Nevis, I can assure you that you are in no trouble whatsoever. I hear you are a remarkable translator and have been instrumental in breaking cypher and code.’ Thompson’s tone was sympathetic and complimentary, and with just himself and Noone, the doe-eyed Ms Nevis steadied her heart rate and began to breathe more easily. Noone’s scarring was distracting her, making it uncomfortable for all three of them.
‘Shall we talk privately, Ms Nevis?’ Thompson asked
‘You can call me Hilary, sir,’ she replied, nodding in reply to his initial question.
‘OK, Hilary, no need for tears now. Let’s discuss this just between ourselves. Let’s go through this one final time, and then you are free to spend some time with your family.’ Thompson said, reassuring the timid cypher clerk. Gesturing Nathaniel Noone to take his leave.
Thompson continued his light interrogation, repeatedly asking questions about Ms James, Ms Nevis’s now-missing colleague, and any information that may lead them to both the disappearance of Draper and the increasingly mysterious Jennifer James. Thompson sat opposite Ms Nevis in Draper’s office and so not to scare her or distract her in any way, the scarred and melted man, Nathaniel Noone, listened in from the cypher room.
‘So, again, you both started on the same day approximately six months ago,’ Thompson repeated.
‘That’s right, sir,’ replied an exhausted Hilary Nevis.
‘And you say she had gained somewhat of a rapport with Mr Draper.’
‘I wouldn’t like to gossip, sir, but they were friendly.’
‘Friendly, how?’ Thompson pressed
‘Well, they would share the occasional cigarette, sir.’
‘Share?’
‘Well, not share the actual cigarette, sir, but spend the same time together. It’s probably nothing, sir. Most smokers have spent time in each other’s company as it’s confined to a single room.’
‘Quite right, Ms Nevis. I’m sure it was nothing.’
‘She did buy him a birthday present, sir. That was a bit out of the blue, a senior officer being bought a present from his subordinate. The office did have a chatter about it. But Jennifer was like that; very, very kind. She was always kind to me.’ Hilary Nevis sobbed into her handkerchief.
‘Do you happen to know what the present was?’ Thompson asked politely
‘That,’ Ms Wallis responded, nodding at the plant on Draper’s desk.
‘This plant?’ Thompson responded with alarm.
‘Yes, sir. It’s a papyrus plant, sir. Jennifer told me that David, I mean Mr Draper, had spent time in Egypt. She thought it would be a lovely surprise.’
‘Oh, did she now. Well. Thank you, Ms Nevis. you’ve been most helpful.’ Thompson stood from the chair and escorted Hilary away from Draper’s office.
Nathaniel Noone was already making his way aggressively towards them down the corridor. ‘Papyrus grass, Egypt!’ he shouted at Thompson. ‘I bloody well knew it.’
Thompson raised his index finger to his lips. ‘Shhhh,’ he said softly into the hole where Draper’s ear used to be. ‘We can’t talk here. Follow me.’ Thompson then left the room, the plant pot accompanying him un
der one arm.
Noone followed him through a sequence of corridors and tunnels to where a car was already revving up, waiting for them with its exhaust puffing smoke into the new dawn ready to whisk them away.
‘Noone?’ Thompson led with a question. ‘Do you have level three clearance?’
‘No,’ Nathaniel Noone replied.
‘Pity. I need several hours in Whitehall. Can you occupy yourself until I post instructions via The Exchange?’ Thompson asked.
‘I have things I can be getting on with,’ Noone responded.
Thompson ordered his driver to detour via The Embankment and dropped Noone off near a waterside newsvendor.
‘Grab a copy of the Times, in your name. It’s already paid for,’ Thompson advised before speeding off hastily to Whitehall.
Nathaniel Noone approached the vendor and was given his Times. Inside were a small envelope and cypher-decoding table. On the back of the paper, replacing the usual sports headlines was a half-page advert.
‘Fortnum’s apologises for the unforeseen closure of its Haberdashery and Drapery floor due to inclement supply line issues. All other floors are open as usual.’
He managed a half-smile at the subtle message to members of the Department. Now, what of Draper and the mysterious Jennifer James? Time to call in a favour from an old friend.
Chapter 16
Le Chat Noir
‘How’s your French?’ Gideon asked his niece.
‘Florrie makes me have lessons twice weekly,’ Aggie replied.
‘Care to translate for me?’ he said pointing upwards to the large metal sign. ‘And be sure to look closely at the tail.’
The dark feline silhouette creaked softly to and fro from the suspended sign just above the doorway. Above its head, the fluid writing of ‘Le Chat’ stood out in a vivid white. Written beneath the subject’s paws and painted in vibrant blue, ‘Noir’ could be seen in a much bolder type. Aggie squinted her eyes to focus on the tail as her uncle had suggested. Not as obvious as the other words but still visible in a gaudy red, the word Café could be seen as the ‘C’ adopted the final counter-clockwise curl of the creature’s tail and tailed off with it.