Emerald Decision

by Craig Thomas

  Three apartments — flats, he corrected himself. Probably no larger than what the British called bed-sits. He studied the names inserted on weathered card no longer white — Hoskins, the Mister placed assertively before it. Initials, I.T. The other cards bore only surnames, one of them written in by the present tenant over the deleted name of a former occupier — Paid. He could smell the curry through the door. He rang Hoskins" bell.

  McBride felt that sadness that assails the well-off or the successful when confronted with the complete and utter ordinariness of other people's lives. Tears pricked behind his eyes at the seediness of Sansom Street, the darkness behind the cracked, dirty ornamental glass in the front door, the quarry tiles of the porch, the dulled brass doorstep. He almost felt cold assailing him from the house's interior. He dismissed the emotion, knowing it was entirely patronizing, secretly self-congratulatory, and rang the bell again.

  He was getting cold. He rang more impatiently, keeping his thumb on the bell, all his impatience now emerging as irritation with Hoskins.

  Come on, come on—

  A light on in the hallway, a shadow behind the glass. The door opened, and McBride was confronted by a short, thin Indian in shirt-sleeves and a patterned pullover. And a turban.

  "Yes? Mr Hoskins" bell, yes?" McBride nodded. "Sita — my wife — she heard Mr Hoskins come in, with a visitor. The visitor has now left, I am certain. I cannot understand where Mr Hoskins can be—" The Indian seemed to be addressing a point just to the left of McBride's waist, and holding one hand in the other in front of his chest. McBride's impatience suddenly became fear.

  "May I go up?" he said, pushing through the door. The Indian seemed flustered, yet attempted to stand on his dignity.

  "I am the landlord here, sir. I will decide—"

  "Look, it's important. I have an appointment with Mr Hoskins—" He showed the card, and the Indian examined it carefully, carrying it to the unshaded bulb in the hall.

  McBride followed him in, closing the door behind him.

  "Just a moment, please — I am landlord here—"

  "First floor, right?" McBride said, taking the stairs two at a time, his immediate breathlessness a result of fear not effort. "Hoskins!" he yelled.

  "Just a moment, my good fellow — I am landlord here!" The Indian's voice had become a cry almost of despair.

  "Hoskins!" McBride banged on the door. It swung open, and he knew what he would find inside the room. "Hoskins?" he whispered, pleading for a reply.

  Hoskins was in the bedroom, a pillow over his face, hands buried deep in it, claw-like, as if he had suffocated himself rather than been murdered.

  "Oh, terrible, terrible—" the Indian wailed behind McBride when he saw the body. McBride felt weak, could not move the pillow from Hoskins" face. Murder.

  PART THREE

  Acts of Aggression

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Open Ground

  November 1940

  Patrick Terence Fitzgerald lay on his narrow bunk, staring at the ceiling of his cabin aboard the British cruiser. The long Atlantic swell reached him as a swaying, restful motion in contrast to the dreams that had visited and eventually woken him. A cold blue light above the door of the cabin dimly illuminated the cramped space. Its chilly, submarine light gave him an increased, sharper sense of the sweat on his face and brow, as if he looked down on his own face and saw its fears, its clear registration of what had become his burden.

  You're my second thoughts, Pat—

  Roosevelt's words, accompanied by that famous easy smile, the big hands slapping the arms of his wheelchair. My second thoughts. He'd repeated the phrase, the eyes behind the spectacles suddenly sombre, seeking assent and understanding in Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald had nodded, swallowing drily.

  Forget Donovan and OSS, forget Lease-Lend—

  He was to concentrate solely on estimating Britain's ability to fight through the rest of the winter into 1941, then to carry the fight to Hitler. If there was no way that was possible, then he had to tell his President so. Write Britain off.

  In the wardroom that evening, as he dined with the ship's officers, he found himself studying their faces, as if he had asked them a serious, crucial question and was silently prompting them to give him the correct answer. Children — he wanted to prompt, give them clues, hint at the answer. But their faces answered without their knowing the question. Defeat. He knew already the answer he would give Roosevelt in three months" time. No. They can't make it, Mr President. Europe's finished.

  Roosevelt's ambitions, Fitzgerald was sure, included making America the pre-eminent world power when this war was through. To do that, Japan would have to be defeated. Roosevelt wanted the survival of Europe, sure—

  But, America first. Europe had to be savable before the President would make the attempt. Otherwise, he'd cut the umbilical with the Old World.

  Fitzgerald, turning the dreams and images over in his conscious mind and feeling his heart still and the sweat on his body dry, became gradually unsurprised that his dreams were bad ones. The dreams lost their edge, their painful, black sharpness. He rolled out of the bunk, drank some water, then lay down again. He didn't want to do it, but he would. From him, Roosevelt would learn the unpleasant truth. Europe was lost. It was only a matter of time. These men on this British ship, they knew it as completely as if they could smell it in the air or taste it in their food.

  Just a matter of time—

  After a while, he was able to sleep, and his dreams did not come back that night.

  * * *

  Walsingham and Admiral March, out of uniform, were enjoying Dover sole at Prunier's in St James's Street. They were dining early so that their meal would not be interrupted, even terminated, by that night's air raid. Walsingham had no desire to seek the shelter of the nearest tube station — Green Park — and perhaps spend the night huddled against strangers, inhaling the mingled body odours that ripened in the darkness, overpowering the dry, charged air that wrinkled the nose with dust when the trains were running. He did not examine the fastidiousness of his wartime life, preferring to ignore what it hinted of his personality. At times, London pressed against him with a raucous, unwashed, grinning weight and he detested it.

  Madame Prunier had given them a table near the rear of the restaurant where they could converse without interruption or the fear of being overheard. March ate his sole as if he resisted any intrusion by Walsingham, but the younger man understood that his superior merely wished to postpone discussion of the debriefing of McBride and Gilliatt — and Emerald. Suddenly, he was irritated by March.

  "We have to face facts, sooner or later," he observed waspishly. Then placed a morsel of fish in his mouth, swallowed and picked up his glass. A good Chablis. March, disturbed, watched his actions studiously.

  "We have an appointment with the First Sea Lord first thing in the morning, Charles," he reminded Walsingham heavily, as if suggesting the discussion should not proceed.

  "Yes." Walsingham felt light-headed. It wasn't the wine, or the gin beforehand, merely some deep and surprising elation that had emerged during the debriefing and which had remained with him. He did not ask its cause, nor did he observe it in any moral light. He was, simply, right and had been all along. McBride had brought back the proof he required — no, not he but the others, people like March and the whole Admiralty crew. They'd needed categorical proof of what was staring them in the face. The egotism of his being right predominated among his feelings, fuelled his well-being and his attitude to March. "But what are we going to tell the First Sea Lord?"

  March looked up suddenly, stung and humiliated by the insolent edge of Walsingham's tone. "You want to know whether we're going to take in with us that abomination I have locked in my safe?" He studied Walsingham, then shook his head. "You're a strange person, Charles. I wonder if you're a new breed, or just an evolutionary freak—" March broke off as someone emerged from the kitchens behind them. Walsingham smiled easily at the tall, bespectacled young indus
trial chemist who manufactured much of Madame Prunier's wartime vinegar for her. The chemist nodded at him. He wore his helmet and gas-mask over his shoulder, and presumably he was off fire-watching after his dinner in the kitchens. When Walsingham looked back at March, the old man seemed angry at Walsingham's distraction. "A freak?" he added sourly, twisting his mouth to give the words emphasis.

  Walsingham was angry. "Emerald is the only feasible plan, Admiral. You don't want to think about it, fair enough. But before long someone is going to have to. It becomes more and more inevitable with every passing day. Are we going to submit the operation to the First Sea Lord's scrutiny?" Perhaps it was the wine, he thought. He felt reckless, yet in control. March, he sensed, was frightened of him, felt some vague moral repulsion that rendered him impotent. "Are we?" He sipped again at the wine.

  "Very well. Emerald will be submitted."

  "Then you agree with me — McBride's debriefing is sufficient proof?" Walsingham sought something that would do as a substitute for approval or approbation — justification, vindication of his ideas. March nodded.

  "I don't find the satisfaction in it that you do," he observed tiredly. "Yes, the Germans intend invading Ireland and opening up a second front against us."

  Walsingham smiled behind his wine glass. He anticipated the meeting with the First Sea Lord in the morning with a heightened, undiluted excitement.

  October 198-

  McBride was tired, but his head spun and buzzed with the police questions that had taken much of the night and the early morning before they had let him return to the hotel. And when he lay down he suffered a choking, asphyxiating sense of a pillow over his face and strong hands which could not be torn or pushed away pressing it down. He could physically smell the down, the linen, an imagined hair-oil on the pillow filling his nostrils.

  By mid-morning, he was drunk on scotch and an empty stomach and tiredness. Claire Drummond, at first sympathetic and almost strangely approximating to his own fear and disappointment, became irritated with him when he ceased to talk about it and had gone down to the cocktail bar. However, she reappeared after a quarter of an hour, angry and belligerent. She seemed to have decided to quarrel with him.

  "Are you going to sit there all day and feel sorry for yourself?" she stormed, kicking off her elegant shoes then savagely shunting them around the carpet with her feet. "Is that your answer to your problems?" McBride looked at her rather muzzily, unable to understand her reaction except as some tactic to lessen his burdensome reflections. The primary fear had died down with the drink, and he did not shiver with the realization that Hoskins had been killed for the simple fact that he was about to talk to him. McBride had no idea who might have done it, but his mind had forged an insoluble link between Hoskins" death and the removal of the files from Hackney. But that had gone to the back of his mind. Now, all he dwelt on was his next, unguessable step. "What's the matter with you? I thought Americans were all balls and bullshit! You've run out of steam pretty quickly."

  He looked up at her in amazement. "What the hell is the matter with you? What have I done to you?"

  "Nothing. But you're behaving like the world has come to an end. Get up off your backside and do something!"

  "What, for Christ's sake?"

  "What were you going to see Hoskins about? Why was he so special?"

  McBride fumbled for the precise information. Hoskins certainly wasn't very special. "A convoy he says he sailed on, in 1940, which was supposed to pass through the south channel — the minefield," he added when she looked puzzled. When he had finished, her face became concentrated, then inwardly illuminated. He did not understand the succession of emotions and felt he did not understand her at all with the easy dismissiveness of the half-drunk. But, her eyes were intent on some spot on the carpet that was her screen for an inward drama. He could not understand how she could batten so intently on his concerns.

  Claire Drummond snapped out of her abstraction, aware of the next words and how they should sound. She placed her hand at her throat as if to massage away the tightness she felt there. "A British convoy — from the States, you mean?" McBride shrugged and she wanted to hit him.

  "I guess so," he admitted, looking from his empty glass to the bottle on the writing-table. It was almost empty. She wondered whether he ought to be given another drink, or forbidden it. She was aware of every extremity of her body, aware of the fine net of nerves that might produce a tic or a twitch and give her away as she crossed the room, picked up the scotch, and poured him a large measure. He raised his glass with a grouchy kind of gratitude, as if he had expected remonstration.

  "Can't you find this information anywhere else?" she asked, sitting down opposite him, her posture and voice those of a faithful assistant.

  "I don't know." He choked slightly on the neat spirit. Shook his head emphatically. "He's dead."

  "My God, you think it was something to do with you?" He looked at her as if he had never considered coincidence before. "Look, I know someone stole your notes, and they took away the material you were studying — but you can't think — can you?" He seemed reluctant to admit it. "Perhaps there is something to be hidden — but no one could have thought Hoskins dangerous. Don't be so melodramatic, Tom." He softened at the use of his first name. She smiled, then suddenly she wondered what to say next. Then it came to her. "If they won't help you here, why not try your side of the Atlantic? Your Embassy, the Naval Attache or whatever he's called? They'd have records of a convoy sunk off the south coast of Ireland, wouldn't they?"

  McBride seemed re-boned by the idea. He sat up more, shrugged off the slouch of weariness and self-pity and his eyes seemed to clear of the myopia of the drink. He even put down the glass, slopping some of the scotch on the carpet, tutting at his clumsiness.

  "They would, sure. At least, they could lay hands on the records. OK, OK—" He stood up, swaying just once before taking a firm control of himself, squaring his shoulders. "Look, I'll call the embassy, get an appointment to see the guy." She nodded, and he crossed to the telephone. She picked up her shoes and went into her own room, careful to leave the door open. She threw the shoes on the bed and held herself, squeezing her arms tightly across her breasts, clutching her upper arms with claw-like hands, almost bruising herself. She felt nauseous with excitement, weak in the legs, as if all her strength were in her hands and arms. She sat down on the bed.

  She had made the intuitive leap, the connection between Hoskins, Goessler and the convoy. Hoskins had been intended to do no more than whet McBride's appetite. He would have pointed himself in the right direction when he sobered up, she knew that. She was very careful not to underestimate McBride. He had considerable intuitive gifts, an energy of mind for patiently following a line of enquiry, and — but she only suspected this — he might prove physically brave, tough to overcome, wear down. Which could be costly, even bloody, later on. From what her father had told her of his father, she considered there was something of Michael McBride in his son, overlaid at the present with academic soft living, sedentary barnacles.

  She dismissed him, his voice on the telephone went away. She congratulated herself. They were a step ahead of Goessler now, knew more than he guessed or thought they did. A British convoy had been sunk off the Cork coast in 1940 when a path should have been swept for it by the Royal Navy. That was the crucial fact. She trembled with the plain verbalized idea. A scandal the British had buried, now about to blow up in their faces. If they could only use McBride and get the proof before Goessler—

  It was, of course — she admitted it to herself — what she had waited for. Bombs, guns, the hardware of terrorism had hardly attracted her. Control of people, strategy, tactics, orders — she craved them, the opportunity to employ her clear, detached, lucid mind on them. A woman in the Provisional IRA, however, was not allowed. Messenger, venus-trap, bomb-planter, secretary, was what they wanted. Sean Moynihan was considered an outstanding strategic mind in Belfast and Dublin, and she considered him a fool. Th
ere was a plain sheen to his thinking, no Byzantine chiaroscuro the like of her own. She appreciated Goessler's operation because it was so involved, so brilliantly complex — and because she had now seen through it. How did Guthrie fit? She dismissed the qualification on her enjoyment.

  Ever since university she had waited for a moment like this, this intensity of self-congratulation. Ever since university and her timorous involvement with, then later recruitment by the IRA, then the transfer to the Provisional; the Marxism almost preceded university, gathered first from the French industrialist's daughter — Claudine — at-finishing school in Switzerland. What was Tom McBride doing then? she wondered. Screwing his first girl student? She wanted to giggle, to outwardly express her pleasure.

  She wanted to outwit Goessler not for the Provisionals but for her own standing inside the organization. Her Marxism — which she supposed Goessler might share — required less obedience and loyalty than her ambition and her intellect. She was brilliant, and her talents had been wasted up to that moment. But, no longer. She remembered the summer and the Alpine meadows where Marx and Trotsky and Marcuse and hatred and impotent, passionate revulsion at class-inequalities and exploitation had not seemed out of place, but as natural and right as reading Wordsworth or Shelley in those surroundings. Vividly she remembered Claudine, and the hot days and the hotter nights of talk and feeling and growing determination.

  Claudine had died in a Paris riot, beaten to death by the flics in some dark sidestreet. She'd heard that from a fellow-student in the Sorbonne on a student exchange to Belfast. And she'd wanted, if not the death, certainly some of the scars, the halo of violent light.

  McBride looked round the door. He appeared completely sober now, and was grinning, intruding crassly on her memories. "I have an appointment this afternoon with the attache," he said.