Nucleus

by Rory Clements

  Bobby spotted a lad he knew who worked on the punts. He stopped for a chat while keeping one eye on the woman.

  She was there fifteen minutes, during which time she got through two cigarettes, gazing ahead of her along the river with its avenue of ancient buildings, its high elms and weeping willows. A stream of walkers and cyclists crossed the bridge. The whole area was crammed with students enjoying their last days before the long vac. Some were swimming. Many more were punting or rowing, perhaps practising for the May Bumps. On both banks of the river, picnic blankets were being unrolled, and corks popped.

  Just then, another woman appeared. The German woman glanced at her quickly, then looked away. It was clear they knew each other. Bobby clapped his mate on the arm, told him to stay honest, then walked on to the bridge, stopping briefly close to the two women.

  The newcomer was blonde. Not blonde like Jean Harlow, but upper-class blonde, in a blue and green, short-sleeved summer frock. She was on the tall side, probably half a foot higher than the German woman, and she was as thin as a punting pole.

  ‘Come with me. We have to go back there. You know what we need.’

  ‘I can’t. They know.’

  ‘No. They think they know, but they don’t know. Come along, Haas, make it easy. And then soon, you’ll see him.’

  ‘How soon?’

  ‘As soon as everything is verified. I promise. I’m a mother, too, you know.’

  The German woman reached out and, for a moment, Bobby thought she was going to grasp at the taller woman’s dress, like a beggar. But the other woman had already turned away, going back the way she came.

  Bobby tried to keep the conversation straight in his head. He thought he had it, but he wasn’t sure. One thing he was sure of, however, was that the tall thin woman wasn’t German. And from her accent, she wasn’t British either. American, he guessed.

  He waited, watching the German woman. The American didn’t even look back, but walked slowly onward, going west, over the river. At last the German woman, dropping her head like a recalcitrant schoolgirl, set off after her. By the time she had caught up with her companion, the crowds had thinned. Bobby kept a hundred yards back from them. At the side of the road, two hundred yards on, a black car was waiting. He couldn’t quite make out the number plate or the make of the vehicle and started moving faster. He was only thirty yards from them now. Twenty, ten – and then the American woman turned around and met his eyes. She smiled.

  The club hit him full force on the back of his head and he fell to his knees. He was still conscious, could hear a voice, but he could do nothing to prevent the second blow.

  *

  Wilde and Lydia woke at five in the afternoon and made love. It was sweet and gentle. She told him she loved him and said sorry and he said the same.

  Afterwards, they lay on the rumpled bed, all the blankets kicked to the floor, their breathing subsiding with each passing minute. He didn’t want to be anywhere but here in this room with Lydia’s scent, and warmth and breath, but his mind was elsewhere, miles away, at Old Hall. In the outhouses, on the lawns, in the woods, inside Clarissa’s bedroom.

  ‘Do you want to tell me something, Tom?’ Lydia said, her voice soft.

  He hesitated, and knew that in doing so he had already probably revealed too much.

  ‘Tom? Is something worrying you?’

  He knew that she had to hear it from him, not from anyone else. ‘I hope you’ll think it’s nothing.’ He paused, looking for the right words. ‘I guess Eaton has told you about the set-up at Old Hall?’

  ‘Geoff’s sister is there, isn’t she?’ Straight to the heart of the matter, either by chance or a lover’s intuition.

  ‘She . . . she came on to me.’ No. He couldn’t phrase it like that. He couldn’t make himself the innocent player in all this. ‘It was complicated. But nothing happened,’ he said.

  ‘You’re talking in riddles, Tom. If you’ve got something to say, tell me in simple English.’

  ‘Nothing happened – but the thing is, it might have done. I might not have resisted – and I feel terrible guilt.’

  She clutched his hand.

  ‘I’m sorry, Lydia. We were so distant. I began to wonder about us.’

  As had she. ‘But nothing did happen?’ It was a question, not a statement.

  ‘I didn’t make love to her, but it was there on offer to me and if I’m honest, I wanted it. Or, at least, my body did.’ He paused. ‘I wasn’t going to tell you.’

  She wished he hadn’t, but the genie was out of the bottle. You couldn’t unknow something, could you? She felt numb, not angry. She wanted to be rational and modern, but old-fashioned jealousy and need for sole possession were not so easily pushed aside. ‘What stopped you? She’s a beautiful movie star, after all. Any man in the world would have fucked her given half a chance. Why didn’t you, Tom?’

  He knew he was supposed to say ‘because I was thinking of you. You are the only one I have ever loved.’ But he couldn’t say that because they both knew it was a lie. He had loved before, had been married and fathered a child. He had come this far with the truth, so he should continue. ‘Because it would have degraded me. She invited me in and she was naked, and like a dog following a bitch on heat, my first instinct was to accept. But if I had, then I would have been no more than a dog. As it happened, the Hardimans’ brat, Theo appeared – and thank God that he did.’

  ‘Are you suggesting you were saved through divine intervention? Not sure how that one will go down on judgement day.’

  ‘That’s not quite fair. I’ve told you everything now. I’ve been avoiding her. I swear, Lydia, that I am filled with regret and remorse.’

  Silence descended. Her anger and heartbreak washed over the bed in waves.

  ‘You must have given her some cause, I suppose,’ she said in a small voice. ‘A woman doesn’t just take off her clothes on the off-chance that the nearest man might like to have her.’

  ‘Actually, from what I’ve heard, that’s exactly what she does. It seems she doesn’t get all her Hollywood roles by accident.’

  ‘The casting couch. What a bloody cliché. So she’s manipulative and you’re easily led. I never knew that about you, Tom. I thought you were the one who didn’t follow the herd. The one who thought things through before he acted.’

  ‘I made a mistake. Or I nearly did. We all make mistakes, Lydia.’

  ‘You made a mistake, Tom. And don’t you think you should have told me all this before we made love?’

  He had no answer. In the silence that followed, the telephone began ringing from downstairs.

  ‘I’ll go,’ he said, rising from the bed and pulling on trousers and shirt. ‘It’s probably Eaton.’ Or Bobby. He should have called by now – unless Eva hadn’t left the Cavendish.

  ‘Maybe it’s your fancy woman,’ said Lydia sarcastically. ‘I can’t wait to meet her.’

  CHAPTER 34

  Both bells were ringing. The front doorbell and the telephone. Wilde picked up the phone to silence it.

  ‘Tom, it’s Jim Vanderberg.’

  ‘I’ll be with you. I’m just answering the door.’

  ‘I’ve got to warn you . . .’

  Wilde opened the door, the telephone grasped in his hand, the cord stretched to its limit.

  A familiar face stood before him. At first, he couldn’t place it, but he recognised it all right. Narrow cheeks and jawline, a mass of red freckles – and a shock of ginger-red hair. Initially, out of context, he couldn’t work out who the hell it was. His confusion lasted all of two seconds. And then he recalled the mysterious voice in the night.

  ‘Colonel Flood,’ Wilde said. He had last heard him in the Old Hall woods while he was on the run from Hardiman and his men, but he had last seen him in the Oval Office at the White House. He had been in uniform; now he was in a light grey suit and striped tie and his brow had a film of sweat. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Surprised to see me, huh? The new cl
ipper service is going to be a wonderful thing. I have just been guest of honour on the test flight – USA to England. Soon every millionaire in Europe and America will be using it. Yesterday I boarded the plane at New York, stopped off at Canada and Ireland and today we came to a perfect touchdown on the still waters of Southampton Harbour. So here I am. Now, are you going to invite me in?’

  Wilde stood back to let Dexter Flood pass, momentarily forgetting that this wasn’t his house.

  Flood strolled into the kitchen. ‘Nice place,’ he said, waiting for Wilde to follow him.

  Wilde put up a hand to acknowledge the comment, but stayed where he was. He pressed the phone back to his ear. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Tom, is that who I think it is?’

  ‘You tell me, Jim.’

  ‘Is that Dexter Flood?’

  ‘Carry on.’ The visitor was still in earshot.

  ‘He’s gone rogue. Believed to have wangled himself aboard some kind of flight to Britain. Watch your back.’

  ‘Yes, of course I’ll do that lecture. Can you tell me a little more about the subject?’

  ‘FDR has had him sacked. Wants him investigated over passing state secrets to a foreign power. Turns out he’s a fully paid-up member of the German-American Bund and a committed Nazi. Didn’t put that on his curriculum vitae. FDR won’t knowingly have Bund men near him.’

  ‘That’s understandable.’

  ‘There’s something else. It has emerged that he’s a pal of Seán Russell. Heard of him?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Russell was the Nazi-loving chief of staff of the IRA and was presently in the USA, drumming up support among Irish Americans.

  ‘You’re going to need help up there, Tom.’

  ‘I know that to be the case, Jim. Well, thanks for letting me know. I’ll be in touch about the lecture.’

  ‘Wait, Tom. Whatever purpose he thought he had for you, it might have passed. I say again – be very wary.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure that’s true. Don’t worry, I’ll bear all that in mind. I know how difficult these things can become when college bursars stick their oar in.’

  He put down the phone. He thought back to the White House. It had been Dexter Flood who urged him to report everything he could discover about the possible development of atom bomb technologies at the Cavendish. If anyone in Europe looks like they’re gonna get their hands on a superbomb, I aim to make damned sure the USA gets there first, he had said. Except that wasn’t the truth, was it? He was going to make damned sure the Germans got there first. That was why he wanted Wilde to keep his eye on the Cavendish. He had evidently got wind of his friendship with Geoff Lancing; perhaps he knew, too, of Philip Eaton’s plans to bring Eva Haas here. The circle was closing. This had always been about just one thing: ensuring that Germany stayed ahead in the superbomb race. Flood and Hardiman were in it together. And Eva Haas was their instrument.

  And Wilde’s role in it? They simply needed to keep him under close observation, because it had been arranged in advance that Eva and Lindberg would be staying with him and Lydia. They had been playing with him like a cat with a mouse, keeping him firmly within the compass of their claws. Or so they thought.

  ‘Perhaps I can fix you a cup of coffee, Colonel Flood. It’ll have to be quick, though – I’m going out.’

  ‘Somewhere nice?’

  Wilde ignored the question. ‘How do you take it?’

  ‘Strong, with cream. Plenty of sugar.’

  ‘You might have to settle for milk instead of cream. By the way, how did you find me?’

  ‘Oh, simple enough, Wilde. I called in next door and the cleaning lady said you were here.’

  ‘And may I ask why you are here in England?’

  Flood tapped the side of his nose, then winked. ‘You know how it is, Wilde. Things are getting critical. A European war is on the horizon and we’ve got to be sure there’s no blowback across the pond. Special assignment. Can’t say more.’

  ‘When we last met you assured me there would be no war.’

  ‘Well, that was then and this is now.’

  Wilde wondered whether Lydia would come down. She must have heard some of this from upstairs. As he prepared the coffee, he tried to make small talk. ‘You know, colonel, I attended one of your lectures a few years back. Friends and enemies, fascism and bolshevism in the old world, it was called, if I remember correctly.

  ‘I gave that talk quite a few times. What did you think of it?’

  ‘I thought you went a little easy on Mussolini.’ Thinking back on it, Wilde realised that Flood had been making the case for fascism as a bulwark against bolshevism. He was an apologist for Il Duce and the Führer, and all their acts and atrocities committed in the name of law and order and bread for the workers. How had FDR been blind to the man’s politics? Wasn’t the FBI supposed to take care of things like that?

  Wilde handed Flood his coffee and passed the sugar bowl across the table. Flood put in three teaspoonfuls.

  ‘So let’s get this straight. There’s one man down, Birbach, probably murdered. What else has been going on in this town? You have been very slow to report back.’

  Wilde poured himself a coffee. ‘As you know, Colonel Flood, I am not employed by you or the US government.’

  ‘But you’re a patriot? We’ve all got to work for America. You’ve been in contact with Milt Hardiman, right?’

  ‘I have. And he has treated me royally – tennis, drinks, the races.’

  ‘To hell with that. I’m not interested in your social life, Wilde. What have you discovered about the Cavendish lab – that’s what America needs to know.’

  ‘Excuse me a moment, I just have to take this coffee to the owner of the house.’

  ‘That would be Miss Morris, right?’

  ‘You do seem to know a lot, don’t you, Colonel Flood?’

  He took the coffee upstairs. Her door was closed. Under other circumstances, he might have walked in unannounced. Today he knocked at the door. When she said ‘Enter’ he walked in and put down the coffee on her bedside table.

  Lydia was at her dressing table. She watched him in the mirror.

  ‘I’ve made you coffee.’

  ‘So I see. That will make everything right, won’t it.’

  He didn’t respond to her sarcasm. ‘We have a visitor.’

  ‘Yes, I thought I heard voices.’

  ‘Be careful what you say. I can’t explain everything now, but he’s not on our side.’

  ‘Well – get him out of my house then!’

  Watch your back. That’s what Jim Vanderberg had said and Jim never overstated his case.

  It must mean they were both in danger. Leaving Lydia’s coffee on her bedside table, he went back downstairs.

  *

  ‘Where are you staying, colonel? The Hardimans?’

  ‘No, no. Haven’t called in there yet. I’m at that hotel in the centre of town. What’s its name?’

  ‘The Bull?’

  ‘That sounds like it. Crummy joint.’

  Wilde ostentatiously glanced at his watch. ‘Look, I’m going to have to ask you to go. I have things to do. Perhaps we could meet up later.’

  Flood drained his cup and grimaced. ‘Call this coffee? It tastes like dredged Ohio mud.’ He rose and swaggered to the door. ‘I’ve got your number, Wilde. I’ll call you with a time and place.’

  At the front door, he turned around and shook his head. ‘How about that, then, Wilde? New York to Europe in a matter of hours. If they can do that, how long before warplanes fly the Atlantic and drop superbombs on New York? That’s why America can’t stay aloof anymore. We need to know what’s happening here.’

  *

  Wilde called Jim Vanderberg back.

  ‘Flood was checking on you. You’re his man.’

  ‘Hmm. I don’t get it.’

  ‘Or maybe he wanted to kill you but something changed his mind.’

  The thought had occurred to Wilde. ‘Has a warrant been issued for him?’<
br />
  ‘No, Tom. Neither here nor America. He might be a treacherous sonofabitch, but I think the FBI want to be sure of their ground before hauling him in. In the meantime, should I come up to Cambridge?’

  ‘No. I’ve got Eaton and Special Branch.’

  Wilde put down the phone. He called out a ‘goodbye’ to Lydia, but received no word in reply. He went next door to pick up the pistol, and then stuffed the weapon in the pocket of his jacket. Outside, he wheeled the Rudge to the road, and started her up. He was about to set off when Lydia appeared at her front door.

  ‘Where are you going, Tom?’

  ‘To the Cavendish. I’ve got to relieve Bobby. Poor bastard must have been there all day. I also need to find Eaton.’

  ‘Can you give me a lift to college? I want to see Horace.’

  ‘Of course.’

  She straddled the pillion seat. He turned to look at her and kept his words simple and direct. ‘I know this is going to take a while to mend, but I have to try. You see, I love you.’

  ‘Just ride. I’ll find some way for you to make it up to me. Perhaps I’ll get you to dig me a bomb shelter in the garden. I’ll find something to suit your meagre talents, don’t you worry.’

  He managed a smile. One way or another, they’d get through this. For the moment, though, they had more immediate concerns.

  *

  Wilde left Lydia outside the college gates and told her to use his rooms if she wanted to wait for him there. Then he rode around to the Cavendish. There was no sign of Bobby. Puzzled, he spoke to one of the police officers stationed outside the main door.

  ‘We’ve only been on duty less than an hour, sir,’ he said. ‘Haven’t noticed any man matching your description in that time, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Who was on duty before you? Would I be able to find them, do you think?’

  ‘You could try the station, but it’s been quite a day, sir. All the lads in the vicinity were called on to deal with a very nasty accident in St Andrew’s Street. Shocking, it was. Pedestrian hit by a delivery van. Driver didn’t even stop. He’ll go down for dangerous driving when we catch the bugger.’