‘What?’
‘I said – I could stay.’
Poppy moved herself slightly away from him and looked up into his eyes. He was looking down at her intently.
‘Scott,’ she said. ‘Supposing something happened to you.’
‘Yes. I’m supposing.’
‘I don’t think I’d be very good at getting over it.’
‘I’d be hopeless. If something happened to you.’
‘So we shouldn’t. We’re just storing up trouble, Scott.’
‘And if we don’t – and if something happens to one of us?’
‘Scott. If you stay – if you do, we could betray each other by a look, a tone of voice – anything. You know what they say – things like that get written all over people’s faces. We can’t take that risk. You’re sure to be there at this wretched weekend.’
‘Look, it can’t be that much of a risk. I mean – I might be terrible. I might be the most awful lover in the world. You might hate me. In fact it might be the best thing we could possibly do – for King and for Country—’
‘Scott – you have to be serious! Just for once.’
‘I have to make love to you, Poppy. If I die without making love to you, I shall – I shall shoot myself!’
‘Will you be serious!’
‘I meant to be.’ Scott stroked the side of her hair, then, frowning, gently kissed her cheek. ‘I really love you, Poppy. And if I’m going to die, I would face it so much better if you let me make love to you. If we became lovers.’
‘But what about what I feel about you? Or don’t? Don’t you think that should come into consideration?’
‘So what do you think about me, Poppy? No – no, better – what do you feel for me?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve never been in love before, you see, so I don’t know how it should feel.’
‘Roughly.’
Poppy looked up at him and smiled so sweetly Scott’s head spun.
‘Roughly? Well, roughly, roughly I think I might just have fallen in love.’
‘That makes two of us. And as they say, it only takes two. Come on, we could be dead tomorrow.’
Seconds later he had hold of her hand and was headed for the bedroom, where they quietly closed the door for a few hours on the rest of the world.
Chapter Seventeen
Scott, once more a house detective, left Poppy at dawn. Later, Poppy, immaculate in a silk dress and coat, descended to the hotel foyer, making her way as usual to the tobacco kiosk where she bought a box of Du Maurier Red and a box of matches, at the same time discreetly leaving her own box of matches on the counter. By the time she picked up her change, as always her box had disappeared. She was about to turn when she sensed someone behind her.
‘Good morning to you.’
‘Greeting people in the morning is not a habit I find endearing, Henry. Particularly early in the morning.’
‘It is eleven o’clock, Diona, although I dare say you may be feeling a little tired after sitting up with your nocturnal visitor, are you not?’ Henry enquired. ‘Do join me. I’m having a little pick-me-up.’
He nodded towards the bar and started to guide her towards it.
‘Visitor?’ Poppy said in a bored voice. ‘And it’s just a little early for me to have a pick-me-up, as you call it, Henry.’
‘I understand you had a late night caller,’ Henry stated, pulling a bar stool out for Poppy to sit down. ‘Barman? Two Bloody Marys.’
‘I had no such thing,’ Poppy protested. ‘Oh – unless you are referring to the little house detective not very extraordinaire.’
‘I caught sight of the fellow as I was lighting up my late night cigarette.’ Henry sighed. ‘I had taken to mooching about the place, having been rejected by madame.’
‘As it happens, the silly little man thought he saw someone trying to get into my room.’ Poppy gazed purposefully past Henry, her expression one of supreme indifference. ‘Perhaps it was you, Henry?’ She turned her large eyes on Lypton. ‘I hate people who spy, do you know that?’
‘Moi aussi. I just happened to take a stroll up and down your corridor – wondering whether I dare perhaps invite myself into madame’s boudoir – then, having decided against it, took myself off – which was when I noticed the arrival of madame’s night visitor.’
‘Absolutely, I did, Henry,’ Poppy said coldly, looking at the long sallow-skinned face staring at her without expression. ‘We spent the night together. He was an absolute gem.’
Henry Lypton allowed himself to give a small, quasi-amused smile.
‘Jolly good,’ he said. ‘ Glad you had some fun.’
Poppy raised the drink the barman had placed before her and took a sip, putting it down immediately.
‘I thought I told you,’ she scolded the barman. ‘Very little Worcester sauce, but a generous squeeze of lemon. Make me another.’
The barman nodded his apology and hurried off to remake the cocktail.
‘If you must know, Henry, although it’s absolutely none of your business, Mr Whatever, house detective un-extraordinaire, thought it best to check the neighbouring suite as well – in case someone had got into my room and taken refuge next door. I imagine he then did as he said he would, and left through the service door in the side passage.’
‘What a shame,’ Henry sighed. ‘I was rather enjoying my flight of fantasy – with you and the house detective un-extraordinaire.’
Drinking half her cocktail and smoking half a cigarette, Poppy engaged Henry in desultory chatter about their weekend plans before excusing herself to leave for her midday appointment.
‘May I escort you there?’ Henry enquired, also getting up to leave. ‘If it is nearby, I should be so delighted.’
‘Thank you but I am being collected,’ Poppy told him, hoping that Jack Ward had managed to supply her with a chauffeur-driven motor to whisk her away to what anyone following her would assume to be an important lunch appointment in a heavily sandbagged private house in Knightsbridge.
In fact had anyone been able to follow Poppy up the steps into the house and into the dining room at the back of the building where lunch for two had been laid, they would have found the person sitting smoking a cigarette through a long white ivory holder as she awaited the arrival of her lunch companion to be Cissie Lavington. Jack Ward had arranged the meeting in order that Poppy could be properly briefed.
Two days later Marjorie placed a file in front of Major Folkestone, who was sitting at his desk reading the day’s reports. Attached to the buff cover of the file was a paper-clipped label announcing the contents to be Top Secret. As soon as the major opened it he saw another note clipped to the first page, urging that the file be read at once and acted upon immediately. It was signed JW.
Removing all the contents from the folder Major Folkestone extracted a large brown envelope containing a series of photographic enlargements, finding them to be blow-ups of the microscopic film found within the binding of Tetherington’s so-called journal. Accompanying them were pages of typescript, either describing the relevance of certain of the photographs or decoding pages of hieroglyphics that had been photographed along with the rest of this vital information. He was about to close the file over when the telephone on his scrambled line rang.
‘Folkestone.’
‘The Colonel here,’ Jack Ward said quietly. ‘Interesting post, I’d say.’
‘I would agree.’
‘A little bit more news. They’ve named the star player. Flower Girl has been detailed to cover the event.’
The line went dead. Major Folkestone took one last look at the information in front of him, as if to make sure he hadn’t been seeing things, then, having despatched Marjorie to summon all the various Heads of Section for a briefing, began the first stages of a strategy that had been in place since May 1940.
Although Poppy was not to know it, the name of the girl who worked in the tobacco kiosk in the foyer of the hotel was Angela Plum. She was a sensible, reliable so
rt of the kind that Jack Ward liked to choose to push out into the field. Not easily disquieted she had nevertheless been puzzled by the instruction she had received the previous day, namely that she was not to collect her merchandise from the supplier as usual, but wait until first thing the following morning. She was to go for an early morning coffee instead of a late afternoon tea. Her training forbade her to ask the reason, but being a diligent soul she left herself more than enough time to make her journey from Swiss Cottage to Mayfair with plenty of time to spare. At the café she had a cup of tea and a slice of toast and margarine with a thin spread of jam, before beginning the pantomime of searching for some matches to light her cigarette. Seeing this the waitress wandered over, wiped the table half heartedly with the tea cloth she was carrying, fished in the pocket of her apron to light Angela’s cigarette while idly gossiping to her, then leaning over to reach for the full ashtray on the table allowed the day’s delivery to drop neatly into Angela’s open handbag. Only the keenest-eyed observer could have spotted the transfer.
When Angela left the café the sirens started to sound. Everyone began moving quickly, almost routinely, to their nearest shelter. So intense had been the city’s bombardment that the reflexes of the inhabitants as soon as they heard the siren wail its quick up and down strident warning were becoming automatic. Angela on the other hand ran in the opposite direction, having decided that she had sufficient time to make it to the hotel and then straight downstairs to the reinforced safety of the underground swimming pool complex.
She had done this run several times before. Dashing at full pelt up Curzon Street, at the last minute she suddenly decided to cut the corner from north to south side to save precious seconds, and as she did so a car being driven far too fast careered into the street from Park Lane. Its left front wheel hit the kerb, spun the steering wheel out of the driver’s grasp and slewed the car across the road before Angela – who in one terrible split second saw it coming for her – could get out of its way. She was still moving when it hit her, tossing her six or eight feet up into the air before throwing her back against the body of the car, knocking her unconscious and her handbag out of her hand and into the nearby gutter where it lay undisturbed, its vital message still lying carefully folded in the relevant matchbox.
In the foyer of the Stanley the Flower Girl sat staring at the still closed tobacco kiosk from behind her copy of the Tatler and Bystander. It was now well after ten o’clock, by which time the kiosk should have been open for over an hour and a half, yet the place was still firmly shuttered and locked. A small bunch of hotel employees had gathered round it by now and were standing in conference, while Poppy feigned disinterest. She had heard sirens sounding, and then stopping as suddenly, while she tried to concentrate on her magazine in the hope that it was a false alarm.
‘You didn’t bother to go to the shelter?’
Henry stood in front of her.
‘No, none of us do much any more. The siren going off – it’s so often nothing to do with where one is. They don’t even sound the clackers in here,’ she added, referring to the wooden clappers that were used everywhere to alert people to a coming bombing raid.
‘We have to leave,’ he reminded her, but she ignored him, disappearing up to her suite, accusing the maid of having forgotten to pack an extra pair of her evening gloves.
On her way down she chose to descend by the stairs as she knew this would bring her out to one side of the kiosk, allowing her a chance of a quick word with the hotel staff out of sight of the ever-watchful Henry.
‘Miss Plum is always the soul of punctuality.’ The man she had addressed shook his head. ‘Merchant, the hall porter, thought he heard an ambulance, and someone was taken off from outside the hotel, but we couldn’t be sure who it was.’
‘I suppose she might have slept in, perhaps? Whoever she is.’
The man looked shocked.
‘Not our Miss Plum. You could always set a clock by her.’
Poppy could well believe that to be true, so utterly reliable a contact had the young woman proved to be; yet she had to keep up the pretence of disapproval and dissatisfaction. One of the staff offered to open the kiosk up, and seeing Henry strolling across the foyer with a look of growing impatience on his shiny, smooth countenance Poppy quickly agreed.
‘I have plenty of cigarettes,’ he complained when at last he managed to lead her out of the hotel to his waiting car, already packed up with their luggage.
‘I only smoke Black and White.’
‘I thought Du Maurier was your brand.’
‘Only when I can’t get Black and White.’
Nothing in Poppy’s training was able to provide her with the necessary sequence of actions when an agent did not receive her drop. She must have fallen silent a little too often, because Henry suddenly sighed.
‘I hope to God you’re going to prove to be a little bit more amusing over the next few days. It’s like taking a journey with a Cistercian monk.’
‘I hope to God I don’t have to prove to be any such thing,’ Poppy replied, turning to look at him. ‘I understood the entertainment was going to be first class this weekend. The little Fat Man coming down to entertain us, and all sorts of other fascinations.’
‘Well, no, on that front, I don’t think you’re going to be disappointed. In fact I don’t think any of us are.’
Henry smiled meaningfully at her. Poppy shrugged idly, half closed her eyes and settled down for what she intended to look like a good snooze. Taking his cue from her, Henry did the same, pulling his travel rug well up to his waist and settling down under it. In a matter of minutes he was fast asleep.
Poppy eyed him, then used the valuable time she had to herself to work out what she might have to do if things turned against her and she was faced with the choice of flying – or dying.
Jack Ward was driven back to his office under police escort. Major Folkestone, with Marjorie accompanying him as his personal assistant, was waiting for him when he finally arrived back, having travelled post haste to London by car in response to a summons by Jack.
‘It’s not just for me – Mr Ward needs a secretary to be present at all times during this crisis,’ Major Folkestone had explained. ‘He needs someone whom he can trust.’
Marjorie couldn’t tell Billy exactly where she was going or precisely why, but Billy was now wise enough in the ways of Eden Park to understand that when someone wouldn’t tell him anything, then that person was off on a Top Mission. So when Marjorie said goodbye that morning, he gave her a quick but unusually strong bear-hug, even managing to pluck up the gum – as he and Marjorie always called an attack of the braves – to give her a peck on one cheek.
‘’Ere!’ he called after her as she hurried to the staff car that was waiting to take them to London. ‘Good luck, Marge. Keep your ’ead down – and bring us back somethin’!’
‘Like a whole new batch of aitches for you – Billy Hendry?’ Marjorie called back.
‘He didn’t actually turn a hair when I told him,’ Jack explained to Major Folkestone as Marjorie sat taking everything down in longhand in his office that evening. ‘Typical of the man, I suppose. He just lit another cigar, poured himself – and me – quite a large whisky, and immediately launched into his idea of how we should play it.’
‘Which was?’ Folkestone wondered, accepting a cigarette from Jack.
‘His first idea was to brazen it out.’
‘Also typical of the man you could say, sir.’
‘It was difficult to dissuade him from driving down to his friends as arranged.’ Jack held up his hands hopelessly and shook his head, cigarette in one corner of his mouth, a glass of whisky in the other. “‘I have a bullet-proof car,” he said. “I have my Tommy gun. More than that I have prior knowledge,” he said.’ Jack leaned over Marjorie’s notebook. He gave her a boyish smile. ‘One of my hobbies, reading longhand upside down. So. To continue. All we know is that explosive has been mentioned, but not whether they intend
to use it.
‘The route is only known to the driver, and then only at the last minute, and he does sometimes change cars, so the likelihood of where they will try to strike is as near to the final location as possible. Either in the final stretch of road leading to the house, perhaps the drive, or maybe even the house itself.’
‘The Prime Minister is never more in danger than when he travels.’
‘Correct. However. This whole thing could be a red herring for all we know – to distract us from the real objective. We have to consider that too.’
‘So what’s the plan, sir?’ Folkestone asked. ‘It is now 2100 hours on Friday the eighth of November, rumour has it the strike is for tomorrow – so how far advanced are we?’
Jack looked at them both slowly over the top of his spectacles. Then he took his all but smoked cigarette from the corner of his mouth and drew on it one last time before crushing it to death slowly and methodically with two or three pushes from one strong solid hand.
‘The PM wants them all. As he said he takes it very badly when persons from his own class want to kill him, very badly indeed. Remember the suffragette who tried to push him under the train? He was never the same about women’s rights after that.’
‘I don’t suppose you would be,’ Marjorie, who had always secretly admired the suffragettes, murmured.
‘Very well. We have all the facts now.’
‘And we seem to know where they all are, sir,’ Folkestone said. ‘So, would it not be possible just to nab ’em?’
‘It would be nice, but not possible,’ Jack said. ‘The point being, at the moment any attempt on the PM’s life is still only hearsay. And secondly, they could well get wind of what we are up to and simply vanish into the night. I’m referring to the ringleaders here, the big boys – not the pansy boudoir Fascists who sit in the clubs boasting about how they’re all going to have positions of power in Hitler’s Britain. Thirdly, we have two operatives working from inside. If their cover is still intact – which we all hope it is – they may get out intact. If on the other hand our enemies see the game is up, they will also see they have been betrayed – and they will begin to look closely for the traitor or traitors in their midst, which is grim stuff,’ he added, lighting a fresh cigarette. ‘Believe you me, as far as our agents are concerned, the chances are they’re already on to them. So I’m told.’
Daughters Of Eden: The Eden Series Book 1 Page 37