The House of Rumour

by Jake Arnott

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Fleming, knowing then that he was right to tell Crowley all of it. ‘But you will be able to make contact with certain elements within enemy territory? Your, um, Order, it began as a German mystical society, didn’t it?’

  ‘The Ordo Templi Orientis, yes, a banned organisation in the Reich, I’m afraid. As you might know, the Nazis have been clumsily imposing their own monopoly on the dark arts. But I still have something of a network out there. Heh heh, my own Secret Service if you like.’

  ‘And might you be able to get a man close to our subject?’

  ‘A man, yes.’ Crowley pondered. ‘Or maybe a woman.’

  ‘A woman?’

  ‘Yes.’ Crowley looked up wistfully. ‘Astrid. It’s been a long time but she might be just the person for this job.’

  ‘One of your many protégées?’ asked Fleming.

  ‘Oh no,’ Crowley replied with a smile. ‘She initiated me.’

  6 / THE BOMBPROOF HOTEL

  The downstairs Grill Room at the Dorchester was already crowded when Joan Miller arrived. Cabinet ministers escorting nervously respectable wives or casually disreputable mistresses, steel-grey brigadiers with hatchet-jawed adjutants, off-duty airmen and on-duty tarts, cinema producers and motor-car salesmen, American war correspondents, playboys, actresses, writers: all the high and the low who could afford it seemed to have found sanctuary from the Blitz in the supposed safety of the hotel’s modernist steel and reinforced-concrete womb.

  Miller struggled to assume a calm air, to attune herself to the forced gaiety that surrounded her. She had come straight from her flat to this fashionable ‘bombproof’ hotel with a sickening sense of anxiety and fear. Someone must have recognised her at the meeting and had marked her out as a target. An intangible danger waited for her in the blackout beyond and she was no longer quite sure whom she could trust. She spotted Fleming in conversation with Cyril Connolly and an elderly colonel, and staggered over to join them.

  ‘Now look,’ Fleming was declaiming loudly at the old soldier while gesticulating dismissively towards the short and tubby Connolly. ‘This is Connolly, who publishes a perfectly ghastly magazine full of subversive nonsense by a lot of long-haired drivelling conchies who will all be put away for their own good for seven years under Section 18b. So perhaps you’d better subscribe to the thing, now you’ve got the chance, just to see what sort of outrageous stuff they can get away with in a country like this during wartime.’

  ‘I see.’ The colonel nodded with a vacant sagacity. ‘Very interesting.’

  ‘Got you another subscription there, Connolly,’ Fleming whispered, patting the stout man on the back.

  ‘Don’t take any notice of Fleming, Colonel,’ Connolly countered. ‘He’s become all high and mighty since he’s been at the Admiralty but you know what they call him there? The Chocolate Sailor.’

  Miller noticed Fleming wince slightly at this sting, then steel himself with a very deliberate grin.

  ‘Touché, Cyril,’ he muttered, then looked up and saw Joan. ‘Must go. Oh, by the way, you don’t happen to know a writer by the name of Murray Constantine, do you?’

  ‘Constantine? Hmm, doesn’t ring a bell. What’s he written?’

  ‘A queer novel called Swastika Night. Published by the Left Book Club.’

  ‘Hardly your sort of thing, Ian.’

  ‘I know, but I want to meet the author.’

  ‘Well, I could have a word with Victor Gollancz if you like.’

  ‘Could you?’

  Connolly nodded and began to scuttle away. Fleming turned to face Joan.

  ‘Ah, Miller,’ he said. ‘Glad you could make it.’

  ‘Fleming, I need to talk to you,’ she blurted out.

  ‘Of course.’ He frowned at her. ‘But we’d better find Trevelyan.’

  ‘Yes, of course,’ she rejoined breathlessly.

  ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she replied. ‘Where’s Trevelyan?’

  Fleming turned and craned his neck, his jagged profile scanning the room like some massive wading bird.

  ‘There.’ He cocked his head, his broken nose pointing obliquely. ‘He’s with Teddy Thursby. Tory Member for Hartwell-juxta-Mare. Was a junior minister in the Department of Health until he had to resign. A Select Committee is investigating some matter of undisclosed Czech assets. He’s not a very happy man. Trevelyan thinks he might have his uses.’

  Miller followed Fleming’s gaze to the bar where she saw Marius Trevelyan listening intently to a middle-aged man in a bow tie and double-breasted suit, with a drink-maddened face. As they shuffled their way through the throng, Fleming touched her gently on the arm and stooped slightly to whisper in her ear.

  ‘You said you needed to talk.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘To me? Or to me and Trevelyan?’

  ‘Well, if we could have a word in private later.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  As they came close to Trevelyan and Thursby, it seemed clear to Miller that the younger man was drawing out his drinking companion in some way. There was an unctuous passivity in the way that he indulged Thursby’s hurt indignation, quietly urging him on in his anger. They caught the end of the politician’s tirade.

  ‘Winston’s been a complete shit over the whole wretched business!’

  ‘Steady on, Teddy!’ Fleming announced his presence.

  ‘Ah, Fleming.’ Thursby looked up with a slightly chided expression. ‘Well, I was just explaining to this young man here, you know, loyalty, it goes both ways. I stuck by the old bastard for all those years, and now?’

  ‘I know,’ Fleming replied in a consoling tone. ‘Terrible show, I’m sure.’

  ‘It’s not as if I’ve had my hand caught in the till or anything. Just a speech here or there, a couple of questions in the House. Not declaring an interest, they call it. It’s a bloody disgrace!’

  ‘Quite,’ Trevelyan interjected softly.

  ‘You know what the worst thing there is to be these days? One of Winston’s old friends. He’s stabbing us all in the back now he’s in power. All in the name of National Government.’

  ‘Stabbing you in the front, it seems,’ Fleming retorted.

  ‘Exactly. Yes.’ He puffed through his lips as if he had run out of steam. There was something comical in his deflated anger. Miller suddenly thought how apt his first name was. Thursby looked like a furious teddy bear. ‘Well,’ he went on with a sigh, ‘I need another bloody drink.’

  ‘Fleming, Miller.’ Trevelyan hailed them as Thursby wandered off to the bar. ‘Shall we find somewhere quiet to debrief?’

  ‘Not yet. That.’ Fleming pointed at Thursby’s back and waited for the MP to get out of earshot. ‘You need to keep working on that. Persuade him to say something — no, even better, write something just a little bit indiscreet. Maybe place an article somewhere, you know, subtly critical and full of hints about an alternative. We need to keep this anti-Churchill thing alive. Especially now.’

  ‘Yes, good, but what shall I tell him?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s supposed to be your speciality at Political. Keep him drunk, that’s the main thing. Meanwhile Miller can tell me all about this evening’s lecture. I’m keen to hear an objective assessment.’

  Trevelyan glanced at them both with a slight frown. He nodded and went to join Thursby at the bar. Fleming and Miller found a quiet table in the corner.

  ‘Looks like you could do with a drink,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’ She sighed.

  ‘I know just the thing. A martini.’ He beckoned to a passing waiter.

  As he ordered for them, it seemed to Miller that he was going through some sort of rehearsed performance, a precise litany of pleasure.

  ‘Two martinis, very dry, with vodka if you have it.’ He turned to her briefly. ‘Gin has the taste of melancholy, I always find,’ then back to the waiter: ‘Three measures of spirit to one of vermouth, shake them well so that they’re ice-cold. And a
long thin slice of lemon peel in each. Got it?’

  He watched the man nod and then tapped out a cigarette. He offered her one. She shook her head. He sparked up an elegant Ronson lighter and drew in a lungful of smoke with a satisfied hiss.

  ‘Now then, tell me all about this witches’ Sabbath,’ he entreated.

  ‘Tell me what you know first,’ she countered.

  He grinned but his grey-blue eyes remained impassive.

  ‘Not my part of the operation, I’m afraid. Some barmy group of Fifth Columnists that Political is running, that’s all I know. M told me you had some experience in this area. Said you’re an excellent field officer too. But it’s all under control, isn’t it? I mean, otherwise…’ Fleming frowned.

  ‘Otherwise, what?’

  ‘Otherwise M wouldn’t have sent you in, would he?’

  Miller couldn’t be sure of Fleming but she decided that she would trust him enough to tell him what had happened. His was a cold charm but it carried some sense of integrity. Their drinks arrived. She took a sip of the chilled spirit and felt her senses relax and sharpen at the same time. She quickly recounted the events of the early evening in the manner of a succinct report, giving all the details swiftly and precisely, so as not to dwell upon the embarrassing fear she had felt at the time. He had drained his martini by the time she was finished.

  ‘Good Lord,’ he murmured, casually gesturing to the waiter once more. ‘So it’s not safe.’

  ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘No, it isn’t.’

  ‘Right then. We’ll have another drink and I’ll tell you what we’re going to do.’

  7 / VITRIOL

  It was still dark at the all-clear and they were lucky to find a taxi in the gloom of Park Lane. Fleming ordered the driver to take them to his house in Ebury Street first. There was something that he had to pick up, he told her.

  She waited in the cab as he went inside. In his bedroom he took off his jacket, opened a drawer of his dresser and removed a light chamois-leather holster. He pulled its straps over his left shoulder so that it rested a hand’s width below his armpit. He then reached into the drawer once more and carefully took hold of the small, flat Baby Browning .25 automatic that had been given to him when he had joined Naval Intelligence. This weapon had not been issued so much for his own use but rather for the protection of his boss, Admiral Godfrey, on such occasions that might be deemed necessary.

  He slid out the clip, removed the single round in the chamber and then worked the action a couple of times. He squeezed the trigger and it made an empty click. As he began to reload the deadly little machine, he caught sight of his reflection in the looking-glass. A saturnine smile curled on the lips of his other psyche, the hollow man of his imagination. This was the persona of a dream, not one of slumber but of half-sleep, the other self that he would dwell upon at night as he waited for oblivion. He slipped the pistol into the slim purse of the shoulder-holster, giving it a gentle, reassuring pat. He put his jacket back on and went downstairs to the waiting taxi.

  As he got in the car he wondered for a moment if Miller would detect any change in his demeanour. With a glance he noticed that she too wore the dull mask of those who anticipate danger or action. They made the taxi stop a street away from her flat. Fleming let Miller lead the way and show him exactly how she had gone home that evening. He followed closely, noting every detail of the route. There was a red glow in the sky from fires far to the east of the city. They stalked along the street to where she lived but there was no one about, nor could they find a clear vantage point from which her premises could be kept under surveillance.

  ‘We’d better go in,’ he said.

  Her flat was on the first floor of a Georgian terrace. Fleming took the key from her and turned it slowly in the lock. He let the door swing open and took out his gun. They crept through into the living room. Miller switched on the light to reveal the figure of a man slumped in an armchair who rose swiftly to his feet, grabbing at something in his jacket pocket. Fleming raised the pistol and clicked off its safety catch.

  ‘Now look here,’ Fleming snapped in a patrician tone. ‘Don’t… Just don’t do anything clever. I’m licensed to use this thing, you know.’

  He winced inwardly. Not only was his statement incorrect, it was an appallingly crass line. The man faced him in a simian squat, one hand still holding something hidden in his jacket. Fleming had to stop himself from laughing at this absurd tableau. He should shoot, he mused, and the other self would have done so. The other self would have killed by now. But he hesitated, realising that the prospect of actual violence repelled him. It was not so much that he lacked courage, but that he just had far too much imagination. He made a clumsy show of pointing the gun once more.

  ‘Come on,’ he went on, struggling to find something to say that didn’t sound like an awful cliché. ‘Put your hands… um, let me see what you’ve got there.’

  His opponent’s face was contorted in a peculiar smile. A rictus of hate or fear, maybe both. The man remained still but for the hand he slowly drew from his jacket pocket. It was holding a little bottle.

  ‘Drop it on the floor,’ Fleming ordered.

  As the man did so, Miller went to pick it up. It was ridged on one side and on the other was a white label. OIL OF VITRIOL, it read. She gasped and nearly dropped the thing.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Fleming.

  ‘Acid,’ she replied.

  ‘You bastard,’ Fleming spat.

  ‘I was only going to scare her, mister. That was the plan. Just scare her.’

  ‘Dirty little Nazi. I ought to shoot you.’

  ‘I ain’t a Nazi,’ the man protested.

  Fleming told him to sit down and watched him as Joan went to the bedroom to phone Special Branch. Luckily the duty officer was someone she knew and he agreed to send a couple of officers straight away. As she put the phone down she noticed a tremor in her right hand. Fleming was attempting to interrogate the intruder as she came back into the living room.

  ‘Our little friend here actually denies he’s a fascist,’ Fleming told her. ‘But then he would, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ replied Joan. ‘They’re usually terribly proud of it, you know, triumphant. Calling out that the invasion’s coming and we’ll all be on the list the Gestapo’s drawn up.’

  ‘So,’ Fleming turned to the seated man. ‘If you’re not a quisling, what were you doing at the meeting yesterday?’

  ‘Meeting?’ The man scowled. ‘What meeting?’

  ‘Oh well,’ Fleming sighed. ‘Better let Special Branch give him the third degree.’

  Miller frowned, trying to remember if she had actually seen the man in the basement the day before.

  It was dawn by the time two plainclothes policemen came to take him away. With just the two of them in Joan’s flat, all at once the mood became strangely formal. While they had kept vigil over the intruder or dealt with the official rituals of Special Branch, the atmosphere of external tension had somehow allowed for a covert intimacy. A shared smile or a reassuring glance, a fleeting moment of intense eye contact that needed no explanation. But now they were alone together, they were possessed by a peculiar awkwardness, a kind of static charge.

  ‘I really should stay for a bit, you know,’ Fleming offered hesitantly. ‘You’ve had quite a shock.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll be all right.’

  ‘I’d like to,’ he said softly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Stay.’

  An attempt at a nonchalant grin smarted on his face. As she held his gaze he noted that her eyes were deep blue. Cool, direct, quizzical.

  ‘Stay then,’ she said with a shrug.

  He frowned. Women are such difficult characters, he reasoned. His inner text demanded that they should be an illusion, nothing more than a thorough but simple physical description. Miller’s appearance certainly fitted his ideal. She was undeniably attractive. Wide-set eyes and high cheekbones; an elegant curve to the jaw framed by a
mane of raven hair cut square to the nape of her neck; a bow-lipped mouth, full and sensual. Fleming found it easy to draw up an account with the banal symmetries of detail. But now there was too much depth to his impression of her, and he felt that he already knew her far too well. And it annoyed him that she seemed more at ease than he was.

  Miller laughed.

  ‘What is it?’ he demanded.

  ‘You look like a lost little boy.’

  He suddenly felt horribly inert. He tried to empty his mind, to assume a seductive charm, but it eluded him. He was full of desire but knew that if he was unable to focus on the possibility of simple animal pleasure this urge would quickly vanish.

  ‘Come here,’ she said.

  He went to her but the moment was already lost. Now she had the initiative, and this would never do. She kissed him lightly on the mouth. His lips were cold and he couldn’t help but flinch slightly as she gently stroked his face with her fingers. They pulled away from each other.

  ‘Look,’ he began, not knowing what to say.

  ‘I suppose we’re both a bit on edge,’ she offered. ‘Aren’t we?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose.’

  He offered her a cigarette and for a while they stood smoking in her living room. All at once they reverted to the casual tone of procedure, going over their report of the night’s events and their implications.

  ‘Marius Trevelyan’s cover is now blown too, of course,’ Fleming remarked. ‘Though maybe this incident could be used to provide what Political wants. You know, a demonstration that the Link is still active.’

  ‘Yes, but—’ Miller stubbed out her cigarette, grinding it into the ashtray as an odd thought throbbed. ‘What if—’ She shook her head, at once unsure where her thoughts were leading, and broke into a yawn.

  ‘I’d better let you get some sleep,’ said Fleming.

  ‘There’s hardly much time for that,’ Miller murmured.

  For a moment there was something strikingly vague in her expression, a marvellous vacancy in her eyes. But no, Fleming realised bitterly, she was thinking about something. He suddenly felt the strong urge to be on his own.

  ‘I’d better be off,’ he told her.