The Best of Our Spies

by Alex Gerlis

  ooo000ooo

  At ten minutes to eleven on the first Sunday that May, a woman in her mid-twenties emerged from Ealing Common tube station in west London. She had taken care to dress in a manner designed to attract minimum attention. Her slim figure and long legs were concealed by a slightly larger than necessary raincoat that was closer to shabby than smart, but only just. Her long dark hair was covered by a plain woollen scarf. She came out of the station and turned right, taking care to walk neither too fast nor too slowly. Everything about her was calculated to ensure that she blended in. She was grateful for the opportunity for fresh air that the short walk would afford her. A journey that she could have comfortably done in three quarters of an hour had actually begun more than three hours ago in central London. Since then, she had taken a circuitous route. Walking, buses, different tube lines, waiting at stations and then crossing to other lines. Only when she was absolutely sure that there was no chance she could have been followed, did she begin the final phase of the journey that had brought her to her intended destination.

  A few hundred yards from the station, on the other side of the main road, was a narrow strip of parkland. Park was perhaps too grand a word. Gardens it was called, but it seemed more like a wide strip of grass to her, buffeted between a narrow road behind and the main road. The gardens were actually split in two, bisected by a broad avenue.

  To anyone watching her, her pace had not changed, but she had slowed down very slightly, enough to be able to look carefully into the larger of the two small strips of park. He was there, as he had been a fortnight ago when she first met him and as he had been on every other alternate Sunday for the few weeks before that. On those previous occasions she had not actually gone into the park but had walked past it to satisfy herself that he would be there when she needed him.

  She noticed that the little man was sitting on the bench furthest away from the station. Next to him, he had placed his newspaper and on top of the newspaper sat his hat. He had signalled that it was safe to meet. If he was wearing his hat, but with the newspaper on the bench next to him, that would mean come back in half an hour as he was not certain all was clear. If he was wearing his hat and reading his newspaper, it was not safe to meet and she would calmly continue her walk.

  The woman entered the small park and casually approached the bench. No one else was in the park, there never seemed to be. It was not the kind of place where anyone would want to sit down for too long, not even the English.

  ‘Is this seat free?’ She spoke in English.

  ‘Yes, of course, please let me remove my newspaper.’ The final check. ‘I am reserving this for a friend’ would have been a warning, but by then it would have probably been too late. Vermeulen had done all that they had asked of him and Magpie had flown safely into his nest. He knew that at least half a dozen men were watching him, but since Friday he had been quite clear in his mind. He would do whatever they asked.

  Satisfied that it was safe, the woman spoke in French.

  ‘You have the transmitter now?’ She was looking ahead of her as she talked. She was relaxed, but her dark eyes were darting left and right as she spoke, taking in everything around her. Vermeulen had felt a surge of desire when he first saw her. He knew that a woman like this would not even think about him, but even to be sitting next to her made his heart race.

  She had to repeat the question.

  ‘Yes, I collected it soon after we met two weeks ago.’

  ‘No problems?’

  ‘None. It had been well hidden. It is in good working order.’

  ‘Good. You can send your first transmission then.’

  ‘And what shall I tell them?’

  ‘That I am well and I am working on the main plan. I hope to have news soon. That’s all. They are to be patient.’

  ooo000ooo

  Three days later, Captain Edgar returned to the large house on Ham Common. This time, Professor Newby was on his own, in a study on the top floor, behind an enormous desk gazing out of the window and all but shielded from view by a wall of files piled up in front of him. He stood up when Edgar entered the room and pointed him towards the two armchairs on either side of an unlit fireplace.

  ‘More success, I gather from your message?’

  ‘Indeed, sir.’ Edgar noticed that the professor was pouring two very large measures from an ornate decanter. From bitter experience he knew that this would be a very dry sherry, dry to the extent of being barely palatable. The first time he had met Newby, the professor had been subjected him to an unnecessarily long story about he how had bought a dozen bottles of this sherry over from Spain before the war. At the time, Edgar had thought better of affecting anything other pleasure at drinking it. Now Newby treated him as a fellow connoisseur.

  ‘Let us drink to it while you tell me.’

  Edgar allowed the merest hint of the sherry to touch his lips before he spoke.

  ‘As agreed, we gave Vermeulen a bit of a scare on Friday. Made it bloody clear to him what would happen if he didn’t play ball. Then we made a fuss of him, gave him a hot bath and a decent meal and even some wine and a clean set of clothes, though he does seem to have a strange attachment to this filthy cardigan he insists on wearing. Took him down to Oxford first thing the next morning and found the transmitter straight away. Wrapped in an oilskin inside a suitcase, which was also wrapped in an oilskin. That had been carefully stashed in the rafters of a disused boatyard. Probably been there best part of a year, hard to tell. Clever though. All Vermeulen would have had to do was climb the remains of a metal ladder attached to the wall, pull the package out with a boathook that was left there, remove the outer oilskin and then you have a man with a case. Nothing too unusual about it at all. Would be nice to get our hands on the chap who put the transmitter there, but I suppose we shouldn’t be greedy.’

  ‘Does the radio work?’

  ‘Oh yes. Have to hand it to the Germans, sir. Superb bit of machinery. Our chaps have had a look at it, given it a bit of a clean-up, but works like clockwork, if that’s the correct phrase. Say what you like about them, sir, but they’re bloody impressive engineers.’

  ‘And has the obliging Mr Vermeulen had occasion to use the transmitter yet?’

  ‘He made his first transmission on Sunday evening. That is his protocol, he tells us. To go to the park every other Sunday at a quarter to eleven and if Magpie has anything for him, she turns up at eleven. Appears the poor chap has been religiously turning up at the park every Sunday since he arrived here, terrified at getting it wrong. That was his downfall, of course; he had become such a stickler for routine that the moment he changed it, when he went to Oxford, we realised something was up. So, Magpie first turns up two weeks ago, tells him she is ready for her first message to be sent back to their bosses and he’s to retrieve the transmitter, which he tries to do the following Sunday – the day we caught him. Luckily, we had matters neatly tied up in time for our new friend to be dutifully sat on his park bench in time for her arrival the next Sunday. As I say, he made his transmission that night. Tuned in at the appointed time, used the bible code and told his bosses that Magpie was now active and to expect to hear from her soon. Germans replied back that they were surprised it had taken so long, but to wish her luck.’

  ‘Did Vermeulen behave during the transmission?’

  ‘Yes. We had a couple of our most experienced radio chaps watching over him. They know what to look for. Selection of frequency, speed of his keying, any deliberate mistakes – anything that would suggest he was trying to surreptitiously let the Germans know that he has compromised. As far as they can tell, he was as good as gold.’

  ‘And how did the meeting itself go?’

  ‘Just as Vermeulen said it would. Bang on eleven o’clock woman turns up the main road opposite the park. Vermeulen has been sat there for fifteen minutes, all his signals on green. We’ve got the place well covered, of course, but keep well back. Over she comes. They have a little chat. She leaves ten minutes
later.’

  ‘And you were able to follow her?’

  ‘Only just. Very smart lady she is, very smart. She was a textbook example of how to do it. If we hadn’t put a tail of seven people on her we wouldn’t have made it. She went to Ealing Common Station and then spent the next two hours on a tour of London. Thought we’d lost her at one stage in the Strand heading towards Fleet Street but then one of our chaps spotted her on a bus going in the opposite direction. It stopped at a red light and he managed to get on. She got off in Northumberland Avenue and then walked down the Embankment, across Westminster Bridge and into St Thomas’s Hospital. Magpie, Professor, turns out to be a nurse.’

  ‘And does this nurse have a name?’

  ‘Indeed she does. Nathalie Mercier. Aged twenty-six. From Paris. Arrived in England second of June last year. Story was that she had been treating French soldiers and was scared of what the Germans would do to her. As far as we can tell, she was certainly working in a field hospital in Dunkirk at the time of the evacuation, so nothing suspicious about her. Cleared at Balham at the end of June.’

  ‘Is she a genuine nurse?’

  ‘Indeed. Met her matron. They think she is wonderful. Very competent and quite beautiful, I must tell, you sir. Slim figure, long legs and long dark hair. Her eyes are jet black, quite the most beautiful ones I have ever seen. Patients adore her, especially the chaps.’

  ‘Naturally. And what did matron say?’

  ‘This is where it is most fortuitous, sir. Contacted matron and said we need to see you on a matter of national security, please say nothing to anyone, usual routine. When I arrive, I say it is connection with Nathalie Mercier – we knew her name from when we followed her into the nurses’ quarters. ‘Ah,’ says Matron. ‘It must be about her transfer request.’ Appears that the beautiful Nathalie has applied to be transferred to a military hospital. Not fussy which one, anyone would do it seems though she would prefer to be in the London area. She said she felt she wanted to give something back after France’s defeat, do her bit for the Allied cause. Matron believes it, of course, which is convenient for us because we have a ready made cover story about why we’re interested in her.’

  ‘Which presumably is the reason why she was now ready to make contact with the Germans. So you said ...?’

  ‘Yes, of course! I am indeed here to check her out as to whether she can get security clearance to work in a military hospital. No need after all to resort to the rather complicated tale I had prepared for Matron about needing to check over some paperwork. Matron would be sorry to lose her, but quite understands.’

  Professor Newby sat still, holding his sherry glass in front of him with both hands, gently turning the glass and watching the slow movement of the drink. Edgar’s sherry remained untouched.

  ‘This has the makings of something most interesting, Captain Edgar. In the fullness of time we will grant Nurse Mercier her request. Until then, we have her exactly where we want her.’

  ooo000ooo

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Surrey, August 1933

  Owen Quinn had spent the summer of 1933 watching and playing as much cricket as he could manage and watching his grandfather die at a hospital in Guildford.

  He was still a few months short of his sixteenth birthday, unaware that these few weeks would mark his transition from childhood to adulthood.

  The summer had started very promisingly. His grandfather’s illness that no one discussed meant that he was able to use his ticket for the Test Match against the West Indies at the Oval. The ticket allowed entry every day although the match ended early on the third day thanks to the English bowler, Marriott, taking eleven West Indies wickets. He spent the rest of the day exploring the heart of London. He walked down Whitehall to the Houses of Parliament. Quinn had stood outside 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace and even gone into some of the shops in Oxford Street. He had sat by a small lake in St James’s Park eating his cheese and pickle sandwiches, before walking back to Waterloo Station to catch a train home in a carriage full of businessmen and civil servants. He could not imagine being happier.

  Cricket was still his passion. In the past year he had become taller and his slender figure had filled out enough for him to become a useful quick bowler and a careful batsman in the summer and a quick defender in the winter. His grandfather had taken to coaching him and came to watch him when he could. After one game, when Owen had taken four wickets and scored a match-winning 43 his grandfather had briefly placed an arm round his shoulder as they walked to the car. ‘You played like a proper Yorkshire man then.’ Owen knew it was meant as the ultimate compliment.

  But other passions were creeping in, though Quinn was too naive at the time to recognise them for what they were. He was in the top French class at his grammar school and towards the end of term their teacher, grateful for such a responsive group of students, took the enthusiastic class to London to see a French film that he told them all of France was talking about. Feeling at the height of sophistication and allowed to wear their own clothes, the small group of boys travelled up from Surrey in the company of Mr. Bennett, who despite his impeccable English accent which even extended to when he spoke French, still insisted on being addressed as Monsieur Bennett.

  The film was Boudu sauvé des eaux. It was a witty comedy about a businessman who saves a tramp and the effect that the tramp subsequently has on the businessman’s family. Monsieur Bennett told the boys that Jean Renoir was a very important director, but on the journey back to Surrey it was the actresses that he could not get out of his mind. It was not just their beauty. It was the style and sophistication that he had never observed in anyone in England. At night, he began to dream of them. Accepting that they were unlikely to reciprocate his interest, however fluent in French he might become, he began to return the waves and greetings of the girl across the road who was the same age as him and went to the girls’ grammar school. He started to time his leaving the house at the same time as she left hers so that they could walk to the bus-stop together. Sometimes in the evening they would stand and talk outside one of their neat semi-detached houses. They even went for walks in the park. Towards the end of that summer, he allowed his arm to brush against hers and on some nights she would move hers away only slowly. If only, he thought, she was French.

  Owen Quinn was close to his grandfather, who had moved down from Yorkshire in search of work. He did not share the middle-class reserve as the rest of Quinn’s family. He remembered the scandalised silence in the family when his grandfather had announced that he was no longer going to church every Sunday. When his parents had asked him why he was no longer going, his grandfather asked them to give him one good reason why he should. His parents exchanged low glances, but could not come up with a satisfactory reason. Owen decided then that when it was up to him, he would not go to church either.

  He was someone who the young Owen could talk openly to, so when he was moved into hospital that July, Owen had visited him most days. Owen’s grandmother and mother and aunt visited every day, but their visits comprised them sitting still by the bed, handbags tightly clutched on their laps, punctuating the silence with frequent ‘How are you feeling, Arthur?’ or ‘Is there anything that we can get you?’ They would huddle together in the corridor outside his room, whispering and hoping that Owen would not see them dab their eyes.

  He took to visiting his grandfather on his own and they would talk openly, though his grandfather was losing the ability to talk for any length of time. One day he had remarked to his grandfather that it didn’t seem like he was getting better. He immediately regretted saying this, but his grandfather placed his hand on top of Owen’s hand. He told him he was the first person to acknowledge this and how much he appreciated it. They sat there, hand in hand, until his mother and grandmother arrived.

  On a baking Thursday at the end of August, when the grass was beginning to turn brown, he again found himself alone with his grandfather, who was having trouble breathing now and barely a
te. His skin seemed to have changed colour and was pulled tight across his face and arms. It was early afternoon and the sunbeams were darting into the room through the large window, catching a storm of specks of floating dust as they did so.

  His grandfather was drifting in and out of sleep, his uneaten lunch on a tray at the side of the bed, the smell of cabbage, boiled potato and beef stew pervading the room. Owen had moved over to the window, looking down at life going on as normal below and wondering how that could be. His grandfather spoke and Owen moved over to the bed.

  ‘Tell me, Owen. What do you want to do when you are older?’

  ‘Play cricket for England, I suppose.’

  They both smiled.

  ‘I’d probably like to do something with my geography or my French. In fact, I think I would even like to marry a beautiful Frenchwoman!’

  Owen smiled as he had expected his grandfather to do, which he did, but only very briefly. He held Owen’s hand tight. ‘Be careful what you wish for.’

  He fell asleep, so he would have to ask him what he meant by that later. But then his grandmother arrived with his parents and his uncle and his aunt and Owen was ushered out of the room. He went home on his own. His grandfather died that night. He could never get out of his mind his grandfather’s last words to him.

  ‘Be careful what you wish for.’

  ooo000ooo

  Crete, 22 May 1941

  The German attack on Crete had been raging for days and it was evident that the Allied grip on the island was slipping. The night before, the Germans had captured Maleme airfield. They were now able to land troops and all the supplies they needed, as well as having a base for their Stuka dive-bombers. It was these planes that launched wave after wave of attack on the British naval ships that had been helping to defend the island. The fall of Crete was now just a matter of time.

  The eight hundred man crew of HMS Gloucester were exhausted. Alongside HMS Fiji they were trying to rescue survivors from the destroyer HMS Greyhound, but were coming under constant German attack. The RAF had withdrawn their air-cover. Only half a dozen planes remained on the Greek island and rather than sacrifice them, they had been sent to Egypt. The reputation of the cruiser, known as The Fighting G, meant little now. More waves of Stuka dive bombers and HMS Fiji was fatally hit. HMS Gloucester was running out of ammunition and defenceless when another Stuka attack came in.