Midnight Flit

by Elin Gregory

  "Shades of cream, brown and green to match my tweeds then," Briers said. "Are they good?"

  "Yes," Miles said. "Very good, which is a relief because it would be unkind not to wear them - and also she loathes knitting."

  Briers stared at him. "So why does she do it?"

  "Because it's an acceptable pastime for a lady that produces gifts she can give to the men in her life. She much prefers lace-making, but neither Pa nor George - nor you, I suppose - would like a couple of yards of guipure to stitch around the legs of your smalls."

  Briers imagined it and dissolved into laughter again.

  They were still chuckling when Naylor opened the door and gave them both a stare. "Gentlemen!"

  They had time to make it to their feet before Sir James entered, with Emily on his arm.

  "Mr Siward," he said, "at your mother's request I am giving you a few days to recover from your ordeal. Soldiering on is all very well, but with damaged ribs and a head injury I would prefer you take the time to be thoroughly examined by your doctor. Allerdale, now you're here, you may as well make yourself useful. Find yourself a place to stay and I'd like you in the office on Monday morning. MacGregor has some surveillance photographs for you to look through."

  "Very well sir. Er - can we go now?"

  Sir James and Naylor exchanged a long considering glance. "I see no reason why not. But I will expect those reports forthwith."

  "Forthwith, sir." Miles nodded. "Thank you, Sir James, sir." He nodded to Naylor and offered his mother his arm again.

  Briers followed them out, and wasn't surprised when Naylor caught them up at the top of the stairs.

  "Hold it," he said. "Reports are a priority, no forthwith about it. I want everything that happened in Bucharest, everything from Budapest and, dear God, everything to do with Croydon. Croydon, for goodness sake! See the doctor first, Siward - you're walking like you have a coat stand up the back of your jacket - then straight to it. I expect both reports on my desk on Wednesday morning. Allerdale, can I assume you'll be lodging with Siward again? Good. Expect a stay of a month or so."

  "Any chance of spinning it out until Christmas, sir?"

  "Don't push your luck. I'll set it up with Pennington. Lady Siward, thank you for all you have done. I don't think we managed to express how very useful and vital your information may be."

  "It was my pleasure, Mr Naylor." Emily smiled. "And a great weight off my mind now I have passed the word on to your office. Can I assume that now I won't be viewed as a threat?"

  "Dear lady you should never have been attacked in the first place," Naylor said. He pointed at Miles, then Briers, and said, "Wednesday," then hurried back to his office.

  "Damn and blast it," Briers groaned as they made their way down the stairs. "I was looking forward to an easy couple of days, not writing blinking essays."

  "We don't have to go into much detail," Miles said. "We can use words of one syllable, just capital letters for towns."

  "But," Emily stared at him, "how will that work when you're talking about Bucharest, Belgrade and Budapest?"

  "I'm not convinced Sir James knows the difference," Miles murmured as they emerged on the pavement outside.

  "Doesn't know his Arras from his Elba?" Briers added.

  "Oh! That was very naughty," Emily said. "The pair of you belong in infants' school. And I am sure Sir James knows everything Mr Naylor allows him to know. Miles, dear, you really are walking very stiffly. Shall we take you to Harley Street now?"

  "I'm fine, Ma," Miles protested. "You know very well all they'll do is recommend a course of steam baths and strapping. I'll take a boiling kettle into my bathroom, and Briers is a dab hand at bandaging."

  "I am." Briers grinned at them both. "Emily, we're at your disposal. Where shall we go next?"

  "Oh, grand," Emily beamed at them both. "I'm ferociously hungry and I've heard really good things about that new hotel, the Dorchester. I've been dying to try it."

  Briers, too, had heard of the Dorchester. Apparently it was already high on the list of places to dine on expenses when meeting contacts for the lucky sods who were stationed at home. He had no problem at all with gently coercing Miles to buy him lunch there, expecting to make it up to him in other ways as and when convenient.

  "Besides," he muttered as they waited for Emily to get comfortable in the cab, "I thought you were dead for two whole hours and you haven't nearly made up for it yet."

  "I'll buy you a really nice lunch," Miles promised. "Though Ma and I might have to pool resources since we haven't had a chance to go to the bank and my cheque book is somewhere between here and Budapest."

  They broke the news to Emily who rolled her eyes. "I have my cheque book," she said. "And if I'm paying I get to choose where we eat."

  The Dorchester was everything rumour had promised it to be. Briers had no complaints at all as they took their seats on a pleasantly airy terrace and perused the lavish menu.

  "What do you think, Miles," Emily asked. "A light lunch now and a proper meal later?"

  "Well, since I've given Pritchard the night off," Miles said, "I think I'll tank up now and tonight have cheese on toast and an early night."

  Briers had no complaints about that plan either. He ordered soup, fish and lamb then sat back to enjoy the sights and the company while Miles and Emily, seated shoulder to shoulder, chatted about the facilities and speculated on the quality of the wine cellar. He felt warm and happy and almost relaxed - but for one important thing which was niggling away in the back of his mind.

  He managed to keep his curiosity banked down to a mere glow until the waiters had served their pudding and he was sampling a very nice plum crumble. Miles mentioned Naylor's fondness for crumble, and it flared up again.

  "You know, Emily," he began, "I don't really like to ask - not if you've been sworn to secrecy or anything - but are you really not going to tell us what you told Naylor and Sir James?"

  Emily gave a little giggle and poked Miles in the chest. "I told you so."

  Miles felt in his pocket and handed over a sixpence. "I thought you'd hold out and ask her over coffee," he said. "And yes, before you ask - I'm dying to know, too. Go on, Ma, what did you tell them."

  "Well," Emily affected coyness for a moment, then leaned forward on the table and beckoned. Once they had leaned in close enough to hear her whisper she said, "Von Stroebel was an engineer as well as a numbers man, and he told me some really interesting things about a cipher machine he had been working on. Oh Miles, I was dying to ask really pertinent questions but I could see he was only talking to me because he thought I didn't understand. So I played a bit dumb and he actually drew it for me, on a napkin of all things, which was terribly rude of him but 'waste not, want not' so I took it with me when we left and handed it over to Naylor with my compliments."

  "He drew plans?" Miles asked.

  "Of a top secret encryption machine?" Briers added.

  “On a napkin which you stole from the Cotroceni Palace?”

  "Yes, astonishing, isn't it? To simplify things for you, Briers - "

  "Thank you, Emily."

  "You're welcome. It has electronically powered numbered dials, advancing at a re-settable rate with a five dial operation that gives millions of variables unless you know to which number the dials were set to start with and what advance had been programmed. Clever, eh?"

  Miles's and Briers's eyes met.

  "Very clever and - er - potentially worrying," Miles said. "What a good job you managed to keep the napkin."

  "So that was the secret," Briers said. "Good grief, Emily."

  Emily bit her lips together and dissolved into giggles. "Oh stop it, you two. As if we don't all know that the French have had a copy of those plans for at least six months."

  "And offered to share it with us," Miles murmured with an apologetic glance at Briers, "and were turned down because some oaf further up the hierarchy said 'we can do our own intelligence gathering, thank you very much'. Those French agent
s must have been livid."

  "I would have been," Briers agreed. He grinned at Emily. "So there was no real secret and half the intelligence operatives in the Balkans have been on high alert for the past week for nothing."

  "I wouldn't say that," Emily leaned in a little further. "That's only what I actually told them. Von Stroebel passed on another message, one that I didn't tell your bosses."

  "What?" Miles and Briers both said the same word, Miles in tones of horror while Briers's curiosity was flaming again.

  "What was it?" Briers asked.

  "I didn't want to pass it on until I'd had a chance to see for myself who he was referring to. Miles, the message was for you. He said to watch out because he'd got wind of someone that isn't to be trusted - the iron man, sharp as a tack, he said. He'd drunk quite a lot by then and was rambling a bit and kept going back and forth between English and German, but that was very clear."

  Miles face lost all colour. "Oh dear God, surely not Naylor?"

  "Sharp as a tack. A tack is a nail, isn't it?" Briers said.

  "Yes," Emily said.

  "I can't believe it." Miles looked more distressed than at any point so far in their adventure and Briers honestly couldn't blame him. "Naylor - he - he could bring down the Government with what he knows."

  "But don't you remember those encyclopedias we had when you were small, Miles? With the name definitions. What does Lorimer mean?"

  The worst thing about it - and Briers found no difficulty in setting aside the fear that there was a traitor so high in the SIS - was the hurt expression on Miles's face. "Wasn't that an iron worker too?" Briers asked. "Something to do with horses - spurs? Was that it? Spurs are sharp too. We'll have to look it up. Dear Lord that's a turn up for the books."

  "I can't... " Miles looked from Emily to Briers. "I don't want to believe it. It must be a lie. Suspicion of two men at that level in our hierarchy would be bound to de-stabilise operations. I can only think we're being misled, maybe to kick off an internal investigation."

  "Or to discredit you?" Briers suggested. "Accusing your superiors of treason would be bound to put a dent in your career prospects."

  "I don't care about that!"

  "And I imagine they know that. Emily, did Von Stroebel say something else? Anything else?" Briers asked.

  "He said he was homesick," Emily said, "and something about looking forward to getting something from home. Papers, that was it."

  That phrase, indicating that Von Stroebel was one of Naylor's many contacts, was one that Briers hadn't wanted to hear - and neither had Miles, from the horrified look on his face.

  "The poor man must have been distraught," Miles murmured. "Imagine being in that position, then discovering the man you report to isn't to be trusted."

  "We don't know that yet," Briers pointed out.

  "He did say something else," Emily said. "Just before he left, he said, 'Remember, you must tell him to look out for Schmitt'. Which I assume is a name."

  "Schmitt - Smith," Miles muttered. "Another iron man. Oh! Favre. Jan Favre?"

  "That translates as Smith all right," Briers said and reached across the table to give Miles a gentle punch in the shoulder. "You know he might have just been trying to warn us that Jan Favre, aka Falk, was planning to defect?"

  "And not to trust him - but we knew that already." Miles let out a long breath and beamed. "That's something that's much easier to live with on a day-to-day basis."

  "And the other possibility is a nice little puzzle for you to look into over the winter," Emily said, "if you get bored."

  Miles and Emily smiled at each other and Briers sat back with a huff of amusement. "Look at the pair of you," he said. "Like peas in a pod."

  Miles snorted and Briers felt a gentle kick to his shin. He supposed that the last thing a man would want to hear is just how much like his mother he was, but Miles had the same blue eyes and small slightly tip-tilted nose, and very much the same manner. But, when one got down to brass tacks - hah, tacks - there was one most important difference. Miles held Briers's heart securely in those small precise hands, and Briers wouldn't want it any other way.

  However, one couldn't let the little rat, lovely though he was, get away with anything so Briers extended his foot, feeling for Miles's shoe, then ran his toe up the ankle in a sign he knew Miles would recognise that meant 'we will discuss this later, alone'.

  Miles didn't so much as twitch. Emily, on the other hand, raised her eyebrows.

  Oops.

  "I say, did I kick you? I'm so sorry, Emily." Briers gestured towards Miles. "Someone who shall be nameless assaulted my shin and I was trying to retaliate."

  "Infants school?" Emily shook her head. "The pair of you belong in nursery."

  END

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Elin Gregory lives in South Wales and has been making stuff up since 1958. Writing has always had to take second place to work and family but now the kids are grown up it’s possible she might finish one of the many novels on her hard drive and actually DO something useful with it.

  Historical subjects predominate. She has written about ancient Greek sculptors, 18th century seafarers but also about modern men who change shape at will and how echoes of the past can be heard in the present. Heroes tend to be hard as nails but capable of tenderness when circumstances allow.

  There are always new works on the go and she is currently writing about the Great War, editing a contemporary romance and doing background reading for a story set in Roman Britain.

  ALSO FROM MANIFOLD PRESS

  THE BONES OF OUR FATHERS

  Elin Gregory

  Malcolm Bright, new museum curator in a Welsh Border town, is a little lonely until – acting as emergency archaeological consultant on a new housing development – he crosses the path of Rob Escley, who makes Mal’s earth move in more ways than one. Then Rob discovers something wonderful, and together they must combat greedy developers and a treasure hunter determined to get his hands on the find...

  "The characters in this story are delightful, as are the gentle mysteries surrounding the tomb’s origins and its eventual destination." Review by Stevie at The Good, The Bad and the Unread.

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  GHOST STATION

  Adam Fitzroy

  The Cold War, 1976: Retired agent John Dashwood is persuaded to supervise one last mission. However everyone at Ghost Station seems to have something to hide – including his colleagues, Rick Wentworth and Harry Tilney, and his enigmatic boss. When Dashwood sends Rick and Harry into a dangerous situation, the boundaries between friend and enemy blur and he’s left isolated, wondering who to trust.

  "[T]he plot is rich and suspenseful, and I felt compelled to read it in one go." Review by Edina Rose on Goodreads

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  THE SEVENTH OF DECEMBER

  Garrick Jones

  As bombs rain down over London during the Blitz, Major Tommy Haupner negotiates the rubble-filled streets of Bloomsbury on his way to perform at a socialite party. The explosive event of the evening is not his virtuosic violin playing, but the 'almost-blond' American who not only insults him, but then steals his heart.

  The Seventh of December follows a few months in the lives of two Intelligence agents in the early part of World War Two. Set against the backdrop of war-torn occupied Europe, Tommy and his American lover, Henry Reiter, forge a committed relationship that is intertwined with intrigues that threaten the integrity of the British Royal Family and the stability of a Nation at war.

  Neither bombs nor bullets manage to break the bond that these men form in their struggle against Nazism and the powers of evil.

  "[I]f you like spies and wartime intrigue, then The Seventh of December is the book for you. This is very much the driving force of the novel and it results in a complex web of political lies and private interests." Review by Sue on Joyfully Jay.

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  UNDERCOVER BLUES

  Chris Quinton

&nbs
p; London, 1935: With the cooperation of a top-ranking scientist, Tom Langton and Robert Darnley are sent in as bait for a gang that uses blackmail to steal industrial secrets. The two men are friends, but they each have secrets – and they're well aware that homosexuality is illegal. Living in close quarters, having to portray a gay relationship, adds tensions to an already dangerous situation.

  "I finished it with a smile on my face, and a warm appreciation." Review by Kaje Harper on Goodreads

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