by M. L. Huie
Beautiful? More like a film star, Livy thought. Garbo meets Vivien Leigh.
Fleming put his cigarette holder in a marble ashtray and walked around to the front of his desk. “I’m taking a risk on you, Olivia. Please, don’t make me regret it.”
“I won’t.”
“Fine, then. We’ll have to move quickly on this. You’ll be going to Paris as a correspondent for The Times doing a story on the Grand Guignol theater. Mrs. Sherbourne will contact you later with press credentials. She’ll also arrange your plane to Paris. You’re going to meet this Nathalie Billerant and see what she’s got to say. We can offer her money, if that’s what she wants, or asylum in England. But we want the entire list. Clearly, we’re not the only ones who see its value.”
Fleming moved to the credenza behind his desk, setting aside two cut-glass tumblers. He looked at Livy, who shook her head.
“I do have one more question,” Livy said. “Why do we want people who worked for the Nazis? Shouldn’t we be arresting them instead of recruiting them?”
Fleming poured his drink, flashing a rare sincere smile.
“I do like your spirit,” he said. “No doubt there are plenty of anti-Bolsheviks in the Mephisto network who’d love to join the fight against communism. But there are probably just as many, if not more, who will work for whoever has the most money. The intelligence agency that controls that network controls Europe. It’s as simple as that.”
“And what about the magician?” Livy asked. “Luc, or Valentine, or whatever he’s calling himself.”
“As odious as Valentine is to you, we want him on our side. The network is one thing, but having its master working for us would be quite the coup. But I have to rely on your best judgment, girl. If you recruit Valentine, I need to know he’ll cooperate.”
“You want me to offer this bastard a job?”
“You’re the only person we have who has actually met him. You have history with him, albeit an unfortunate one.”
More like the War of the bloody Roses.
“If you believe personal feelings will interfere with you carrying out this assignment, then I shall simply have to let these people know Olivia Nash is not available,” Fleming said.
Being asked to go to Paris and negotiate with Edward Valentine made Livy want to retch. But the look on Fleming’s face told her he had no qualms about doing precisely what he’d just threatened. An image of Valentine being feted in London after another agent brought him back flashed through her mind. No, she’d not have that. She’d do what Fleming asked. But at some point she’d be alone with Luc the traitor, and by God, she’d have her say.
Besides, she needed a job. This job. She’d felt something last night. Even when the gun had been held to her head, she’d felt alive. In those moments the dark weight of Fresnes and the slaughter in the courtyard, all the pain that pushed her to fall asleep almost every night with a glass of vodka in her hand, faded. She had something to prove to Fleming as well as herself.
“I’ll get the job done, sir,” she said.
“Excellent,” Fleming said, lighting another cigarette. “The perpetual cycle: smoking and drinking. It shall likely kill me one day.”
Livy stood to go.
“Olivia—do you have a gun?”
She stopped. “From the war, yes.”
“Good. If we can’t recruit Valentine and acquire the list, then you must make certain no one else can either.”
Chapter Ten
Livy left Fleming’s office, shaking as she walked down the Gray’s Inn Road toward the Underground. Every tall man she passed reminded her of Luc. His bawdy jokes played like a newsreel in her mind, followed by the sound of that braying laugh of his. Was he already in her head? She stopped. Looked around for her tube stop. She stood on a corner in front of a Chinese takeaway she’d never seen before.
By the time Livy had backtracked and found the entrance to the Underground, she’d managed to calm down a bit. She forced herself to pay attention to her surroundings and refocus. Her nerves still tingled, though, and when her stomach began to cramp, she realized she’d not eaten last night. Trying to scrimp on the little money she’d put aside working at the P&J, she’d neglected the shopping for a week. The cupboards at home were bare.
She was starving. A pub occupied the next corner, as they almost always did in London. The Lamb needed a fresh coat of paint on its red awning above the brick facade, and the windows looked like they hadn’t been given a wash since the pictures started talking, but still, food was to be had inside. The exterior looked dodgy, but what the hell. Livy’s stomach might grumble about the Lamb’s cuisine later, but right now her appetite didn’t care.
She’d nearly reached the front stoop when a familiar figure pushed open the pub’s green door and bounced into the street. He held the door for her without making eye contact, but she recognized the jawline, the fedora, and the jaunty American posture.
Livy tried to pass quickly into the dark, smoky confines of the Lamb, but his voice stopped her. “Wait a minute.”
She hesitated.
“Where do I know you? Don’t tell me.” The American studied her face for a moment and then snapped his fingers. “Oh yeah, you were up in the Kemsley office. Waiting for Fleming. How could I forget? The bandage.”
Livy blanched and touched her cheek. Few things annoyed her more than her own self-consciousness—and those who gave her reason to feel it.
The American shook his head and sighed. “That was rude. I’m sorry. Truly. My head is somewhere else. I’m Tom, Tom Vance. My apologies, Miss—?”
“No problem,” she said, hoping to sound final. A big man in tweed smelling of smoke and lager bulldozed between Livy and the Yank and out onto the sidewalk.
Tom Vance placed two fingers on Livy’s elbow as she pivoted away. “If I may, you’re not planning on eating in there, are you?” Those vowels. A southern American, she thought.
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
The American stepped away from the door and nodded for Livy to follow. She gave him a look. Probably about thirty-five years old; looked to be from money by the cut of his jib. Nice shoes too. Dark, wavy hair. Her stomach gurgled, so she took one step back onto the sidewalk.
“Maybe the shepherd’s pie in there is having a bad day, but I think you might be taking your life into your own hands,” he said.
She didn’t so much as smile, but Livy had to admit the Yank was funny. Buoyant and funny.
“So, what do you suggest?”
“Well, I was just thinking to myself that I haven’t even tried the food in my own hotel, and I leave tomorrow. I can’t vouch for it, but I have a pretty good feeling the main course won’t still be alive.”
“Your hotel. I see.” She knew where this might be going. Still she asked, “And where’s that?”
“The Dorchester.”
Livy let the door of the pub close behind her. The sodding Dorchester. Well, well. The idea of having a meal at the best hotel in London with an undeniably handsome American had its appeal. He wasn’t trying to get her to his room. Yet. And, after all, she was starving. Couldn’t say yes immediately, though.
“So, you’re in the newspaper business, Mr. Vance?”
“I’m with the UP.” Livy didn’t respond, so he added, “United Press.”
She pursed her lips. “I believe I may have heard of them.”
Smiling at her sarcasm, he said, “Now, that doesn’t seem fair. You didn’t tell me your name, or who you’re with. You have the advantage.”
“Yes, it appears I do. So the UP put their correspondents up at the Dorchester? Or are you just special, Mr. Vance?”
That smile again. Would have put Cary Grant’s to shame. Almost. “Only one way to find out, ma’am.”
All banter aside, Livy needed food. She stepped to the curb and put her hand up for a taxi. Then she pivoted back to Tom. “I prefer Livy to ma’am, if you don’t mind.”
* * *
The wor
ld outside might be suffering under rationing, but the Dorchester was having none of it. The décor in The Grill, as it was elegantly called, might make anyone forget that the British people—and most of Europe—were collectively tightening their belts. The room was long and seemed roomier due to the mirrored walls and coffered ceilings. The bar, which occupied the wall across from the main dining room, was all copper and wood. Every table was filled, but the lights and the glimmer from the surrounding glass gave the restaurant an intimate elegance.
Livy had insisted on finding the ladies’ room in the lobby after the ride over. She’d be damned if she was going to have a late lunch at the Dorchester with a great bandage on her face. Never one who could be bothered to take the time and lather herself with makeup, she nevertheless felt relieved to find a stick of cream rouge in her purse, which she applied to her normal cheek as well as the one with the splash of purple. The effect was colorful.
Tom Vance proved grand company. Literate and funny with a self-deprecating charm, he came across as a southern William Powell. She couldn’t complain about the food either. Livy ordered roasted chicken with carrots and Westcombe cheddar. Someone in the kitchen had lovingly prepared the main course so that the fowl was moist and flavorful. Honestly, she’d been hungry enough to have the questionable shepherd’s pie at the Lamb, so her only challenge at the Dorchester was not to gobble the whole plate down in one bite.
She passed on wine. Didn’t really see the point in it. If you’re going to drink, she felt, then why not drink? Her body craved alcohol, though. She needed something to take the edge off the residual stress from last night’s soiree at the embassy and her impending flight to Paris and a possible reunion with Luc. But she knew one drink would lead to another, and she had to have a clear head if she wanted to keep this job.
So she felt grateful for the food, but especially the repartee with the handsome Yank across from her. As they chatted over dinner, Livy’s mind wandered back to the last time she’d been with a man. Only one since Peter. A Russian military officer she’d met in a pub. How long ago now? God, months. That had been a different time. Fueled by the very worst of her drinking bouts, the affair lasted only a couple of months. Would she sleep with Tom? Honestly, she had trouble focusing on the conversation. Her mind kept going back to what lay ahead. But still, she’d heard Wellington bomber pilots say having a go the night before helped their aim. ’Course that was rubbish.
But still—
“Someone was a bit hungry,” Vance said, looking across the crisply ironed tablecloth at Livy’s clean plate.
She put down her knife and fork. Mrs. Sherbourne would have been so proud. She even lifted her teacup like a royal. As she brought the Earl Grey to her lips, she leaned across the table and said, “Am I supposed to believe you and I just happened to meet outside that pub, Mr. Vance?”
He touched his linen napkin to the corners of his mouth. “If it had been my intention to follow you, Livy, I believe I might’ve taken a far less circuitous route.”
“Bit of a coincidence though, don’t you think?”
“Happens all the time. We were in the same neighborhood, after all.”
Livy mentally added less-than-convincing liar to her internal list of Tom’s attributes. But why would he want to meet her again after seeing her in Fleming’s office? She took it as a fait accompli that any gentleman given the choice would be far more taken by Pen Baker’s icy blonde sex appeal than by some northern girl with a rat’s nest of a hairdo and bandage on her right cheek.
Still, she found herself sitting across from said gentleman at the Dorchester. As her Grandma Nash used to say, “The Lord works in mysterious ways, but everyone else is just takin’ the piss.” If Tom Vance was having one over on her, then it was a damned expensive joke.
“Besides,” he added, “my mama used to tell me that things always happen for a reason.”
“Did she now? And what’s the reason for our meeting, then?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I should ask my mama.”
“Oh, is she staying at the hotel as well?”
Vance raised his glass to acknowledge the quip. “Actually, I’m all alone in the big city. Trying to stay out of trouble and to remember always look right before crossing the street.”
Livy still didn’t buy that their meeting was accidental, but Tom’s charm seemed more authentic than calculated. She found him good company, and like people back home, conversation came naturally to him. Here they were, two people alone in London whose accents immediately identified them as outsiders. For the first time in days, Livy felt somewhat relaxed. Something about the way he listened to her and how easily he smiled drew her in. They laughed and flirted while avoiding talking shop altogether. She’d been mortified he’d suss her out as nothing but a copy editor with him being a successful correspondent for the United Press. Or so he said.
Livy declined dessert. The check came. Outside, Tom insisted on hailing a cab for her and paying for the short ride across London to Camden Town. The sun had come out and London in late June looked and felt as good as any place ever had. A flawless blue sky hovered over the capital, with a trace of a breeze keeping the denizens of Mayfair at a respectably cool temperature. Livy felt downright buoyant as she stood next to Tom outside the hotel waiting for the doorman, a tall Yorkshireman who wanted to sound like the Duke of Kent, to flag down a cab.
She’d been mildly insulted Tom hadn’t invented some excuse to get her to his room. Would she have gone? Inviting him back to her messy flat in Camden Town was completely out of the question. Still, he smelled, looked, and sounded to her as scrumptious as the roast chicken she’d just devoured.
And she could tell his interest in her, for whatever reason, was genuine. She put her arm through his, feeling the smooth fabric of his jacket.
“I suppose I should thank you for dinner, even though you clearly ambushed me at that pub,” she said.
He looked down at her. Lips first and then up. “Is this your counteroffensive?”
Livy rolled her eyes and put her right hand on the front of his jacket to turn his body in to hers. He inclined his head toward her mouth. She stopped him.
“Your doorman seems a bit nosy,” she said, whispering.
They both glanced over. The Dorchester doorman stood by a black London cab, hand on the rear door, staring.
Tom smiled. “Not very discreet, is he?”
Livy took off his fedora and slapped it to his chest. “If you’re going to wear a hat like that, you may as well put it to good use,” she said.
Vance’s grin cracked his wide face open, and he held the hat up, shielding their faces from the street side, as he leaned down for the first of several very long and slow kisses while the doorman waited. Patiently.
* * *
The taste of those kisses kept her smiling on the fifteen-minute ride to Camden Town. Had the cab not been waiting, she’d have found herself back in Tom’s hotel room testing out the night-before theory espoused by those bomber pilots.
Opening the door to her flat, she felt no surprise in seeing a thick brown unmarked envelope lying on her bed. She opened it and let the contents spill out across the bedspread. That action alone banished the Dorchester and Tom Vance’s smile to a remote outpost of her mind.
She studied the items one by one with a certain detachment. First a blue passport in her own name, a press card with KEMSLEY NEWS engraved at the top, then two other passports, including a French one for Suzanne Bélanger and a Swiss one for a Collette Deschaume. Finally, she found a BOAC ticket scheduled for departure from the new London airport at Heathrow.
Mrs. Sherbourne had thought of everything.
As night fell and the darkness crept across Livy’s one-room flat, she poured the very last shot of the Polish vodka. Sitting in the chair across from her bed, she sipped the bitter alcohol and allowed herself to cry softly as she thought of the last time she’d seen Luc and Peter. Once she’d finished—the vodka now gone for good and her tear
s wiped away—Livy went to the small closet where her clothes hung and pulled out the biggest traveling bag she owned. She carefully folded her two new suits and packed in as many more clothes as she could fit.
She went once more to the closet, got down on her knees, and reached into the very back to retrieve a metal box. The top rusted and wheezed as she opened it. Inside—among letters, photographs, and other reminders of the war—lay a small pistol and silencer.
The Webley .32 semiautomatic had come as standard issue for many SOE agents in France. Livy’s had scratches along the stubby barrel and grip. She unscrewed the black silencer, cleaned it, and then disassembled the gun and put it back together.
Three French words had been inscribed down the side of the silencer. MORT AUX BOCHES. Death to the Hun.
She pointed the gun at a lamp across the room and imagined Valentine there as helpless as she and Peter had been at Fresnes. The gun in her hand this time. Would she put revenge over the job? Fleming’s orders had been explicit. Get the list and Valentine. Still, she wondered how it would feel to have him at her mercy and then watch him die. She knew she could do it. She’d shot the German woman—her torturer—after the blast at the prison. That, however, had been a matter of survival. This time would be different.
Livy pulled the trigger. The click sounded clean.
Chapter Eleven
The wing flaps of the big DC-3 turned down, and the hum of the propellers dropped to a minor key. Over the intercom the pilot announced, in both English and French, the final approach to Paris.
Livy considered how much different her arrival in the French capital would be this time. Three years ago she’d been dropped into a remote field in the country under cover of night, carrying—among other things—a cyanide capsule. This return trip would be far more civilized.
Glancing around at the other passengers on the flight, Livy saw several single men in suits who wore the haggard look of an official on business as well as a number of holiday travelers. Maybe they just wanted to escape rationing and the nagging specter of London’s bomb-flattened cityscape. But would Paris be any different?