Moneypenny Diaries: Guardian Angel

by Samantha Kate

  ‘Have you considered the danger that this action might backfire?’ M asked. ‘Force Castro into seeking outside support?’ Everyone turned to Scott to gauge his reaction, but he just shrugged.

  I think M rather enjoys these meetings. They provide a chance, at least, to escape from whatever this big secret is that appears to have settled over his head like a thunderous cloud. He still meets Dorothy virtually every day and has been spending long afternoons locked up with Head of X.14 I think he’s told Bill, too, but if it is truly top secret, it’s a waste of my time to try to get anything out of him.

  The Powder Vine meanwhile talks of little else. The section chiefs are still tense, with CNE apparently taking it all particularly badly. ‘He cancelled his trip to Helsinki last week,’ reported Raine. ‘He’s got terribly jumpy – I’m worried that he’s heading for a breakdown.’

  ‘The only thing I can think of is another mole,’ said Janet. We all looked at her. It made absolute sense of the erratic behaviour. ‘Look at the timing – there’s that German defector singing away in Stockholm as we speak.15 X came back from there midway through last month, which was when they all started acting as though a wraith was tapping on their shoulders. It was the same when Maclean was unmasked.’

  I nodded. It explained why we were all being kept in the dark: the fewer people who know the inner workings of an internal investigation the better. If it was indeed the case, the months to come are going to be challenging, to put it mildly.

  Thursday, 15th March

  This is getting very awkward indeed. M asked me today whether 007 was back and had read the Cuba Group minutes. I said I didn’t know, but would find out. I’ve spoken in confidence to Head of Madrid Station,16 warning him to keep his eyes and ears open for 007 – he normally makes some kind of noise not long after hitting a city. Otherwise, what am I going to do? I can’t go and fetch him myself. It’s at times like this when I wish I had someone to confide in, when I feel very alone, in my sealed capsule of secrecy.

  Friday, 16th March

  I must be mad. I’m due to fly to Madrid tomorrow morning. Summers cabled this morning to say there had been an incident in a city-centre hotel. Apparently a man had broken into a suite on the penthouse level and, shortly afterwards, there had been an exchange of gunfire. There was one fatality, a tall man who spoke with a pronounced Eastern-European accent, according to room service. Of the guest – who registered himself as Sverker Arneskans from Oslo and who was described by the desk manager as tall and pale, with long, thin hands and feet – there was no sign. Nor of the intruder. The police have initiated a citywide manhunt. Summers reckons that if it is 007 – and it certainly has his hallmark stamped all over it – he will contact the station at some point soon. ‘We won’t be able to shield him for long,’ he told me when I telephoned this afternoon. ‘We signed a non-violence pact with the Spanish security service, which we’ve already violated twice. If they find out it’s us again, the station will be closed down. You’ve got to tell M.’

  Of course that’s what I should have done. But the consequences would have been all too certain; 007 was already on his last life. I spoke instinctively, almost before considering the consequences to my own career. ‘I can’t,’ I said. ‘Please help me to sort this out quietly.’ I told him that I would come over myself.

  What made me say that? I’ve never so flagrantly broken the chain of command before. Is 007 really worth risking my future for? I can’t back out now. I only hope I can do something.

  Sunday, 18th March

  Home, thank goodness. By the time I got to the Embassy yesterday, James was already there and pacing up and down like a caged tiger. He looked more than a little surprised to see me. ‘Penny, what on earth are you doing here?’ he said.

  I told him I’d come to take him home.

  ‘On the Old Man’s orders? He’s going to have me strung up for this, but I was so close, I literally had him in my sights, but then his gorilla of a bodyguard jumped me and Blofeld slipped out on to the balcony. I went after him once I’d got the gorilla off my back.’ I frowned at him and shook my head. ‘Yes, I suppose I’ll be needing one of your forms for him, Penny dear. But when I got on to the roof, he’d vanished. I came down the fire-escape, but I’d lost him. It’s bloody frustrating.’

  He looked momentarily surprised when I told him that – apart from Summers and myself – no one knew where he was. ‘You came by yourself to rescue me? Penny, you are a wonder.’

  I tried to suppress a smile and hurry him along to the airport for the late plane back to London. ‘We’ve got to get you out, before someone remembers seeing you in the hotel and the police issue your description.’

  ‘Well,’ he shrugged. ‘I imagine Blofeld has long gone now. I went out to the airport yesterday in the hope of running into him, but I had no luck. The only hint of a clue was from a ticketing agent, who thought she might have sold a ticket to Singapore to someone answering his description. The plane had just left, otherwise I would have got on it myself. You don’t think M would let me go out there to take a look?’He caught sight of my face and shook his head. ‘No, I suppose you’re right. Not a hope in hell.’

  ‘You’d be better off keeping your head well down,’ I told him. ‘I’ll see what I can do about Singapore.’

  I’m more than relieved that we made it home without incident. Looking back, however, it’s the first time I’ve seen 007 so animated since Tracy’s death. Perhaps it was worth the risk?

  There was an envelope waiting for me. I recognised R’s handwriting but, right then, I hadn’t the will to open it.

  Saturday, 24th March

  I’m not proud of what I have just done. I feel like a lowly sneak. 006 arrived back yesterday, with 625 in tow and a rubber chicken, which he presented to 007, with much hilarity. I love the festive atmosphere that greets an agent’s successful return from a mission. They can be excused a modicum of bragging. I happened to be passing his office as he was recounting the events to Mary. ‘Piece of cake,’ he told her. ‘A little sniper fire, but nothing I couldn’t handle. I hope you weren’t worried about me. Were you, even a little?’ I don’t think we’re going to find anyone to bet against 006 being the first to bed her now.17 She told me later that he’d invited her to dinner at the Ritz that night.18 I resisted warning her to be careful.

  I’d planned to spend today writing letters and sorting out the flat. But when I woke up, the sun was shining and I couldn’t face the image of R sitting at my desk that assails me every time I open the study door. Instead, I went for a walk, somehow ending up in St James’s Park, and when I saw the Office, just a hundred yards away through the trees, I succumbed to an urge that had been niggling me for the past few days. I went in and straight up to see Alfred in Records. He was talking to one of the research officers, so I just mimed going to get a file myself and he nodded me through. For the sake of my conscience, I went first to the Ds and pulled out the file on Commander Patrick Derring-Jones, RNVR,19 which I had been meaning to do for weeks. There was a brief service record, describing his wartime career in what has now become a familiar lack of detail. Pinned to the back, I found a handwritten assessment of him written at the time by someone with an undecipherable signature. ‘Derring-Jones has shown exceptional bravery in combat. He is unafraid to make decisions and, on occasion, to override those made by others. This has made him unpopular in some departments, especially when his judgement has been proven to be right. He may be just the man we need.’He had retired from the Navy in 1960, but there was an old address for him in Kincardineshire, Scotland, which I jotted down.

  I replaced the file and then, with heart thumping, not really believing I was doing this, I went to the Hs.20 Troop’s evasiveness had been playing in the back of my head and I wanted to set it to rest. I looked quickly, not wanting to find his file – and I was more than relieved when it wasn’t there. It goes to show that one should never give in to an over-active imagination, I told myself, as I almost ran from the
building.

  Monday, 26th March

  The anniversary of the Lari massacre.21 Helena came up to London and we met for lunch and talked about Ma. She says she would come with me if I wanted to go back to Kenya, unless I had someone else I wanted to go with. No, I told her, I don’t.

  I haven’t seen R since the night I found him in my drawers. Last night, I found a note from him slipped under my door, apologising and asking whether I had read his last letter. I wrote back briefly, to say that I’d destroyed it before reading it. But nothing else. I didn’t know what to say. I feel rather dreadful about it – my suspicions must have been unfounded. And I miss him, I miss what we had, and what, for a brief time, I had dared to dream we might have. So many times I have picked up the telephone to ring him to try to patch things up, but then put it down again. Is there any turning back?

  I returned home today to a more pleasant missive, to a telegram from Patrick Derring-Jones.22 It was short. He had known my father, he wrote, and would be delighted to talk about it. His wife was ill at present, but if I was willing to come up to Scotland I would be more than welcome to stay.

  My hand was almost shaking as I wrote instantly accepting his invitation and proposing several dates next month. I’ll have to catch the sleeper train up to Aberdeen on a Friday night, and return first thing on Sunday. But no journey is too far if, at the end, it unearths the vital key to the truth about my father.

  April

  The telegram from the War Office shattered the fragile security of the Moneypenny women’s wartime existence:

  REGRET TO INFORM YOU THAT COMMANDER HUGH DAVID MONEYPENNY RNVR HAS BEEN REPORTED MISSING IN ACTION IN ENEMY TERRITORY STOP EVERY EFFORT IS BEING MADE TO CLARIFY HIS STATUS AND WHEREABOUTS STOP WE WILL KEEP YOU INFORMED OF ANY FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS STOP

  I have seen the telegram. My mother kept it in her small wooden chest of treasures, along with the collected sentimental ephemera of her childhood. I imagine her and my aunt now, following their mother’s death twelve years later, packing up the family farm, trying to decide what was to be shipped to London and what given or thrown away. It must have been an extraordinarily emotional time – orphaned and about to take a giant step into the unknown.

  My mother always told me that she didn’t know what she would have done without her sister. She said she had large blanks in her memory following the two tragic defining events of her childhood, and that she knew only that Jane had led – probably at times tugged – her through them. That my aunt was able to hold everything together, to be practical and rational not only for herself, but on her sister’s behalf, is a testament to her extraordinary fortitude.

  On 25 October 1940, the day the telegram arrived, the family’s first reaction was of determined disbelief. ‘He said he will be back and he will,’ Irene insisted fiercely. That afternoon, Jane climbed the old acacia and wrote in her diary, ‘The sun burns hot today in a blue sky, spoiled only by a single cloud the shape of a hippo. I can hear the hoopoe’s cry and the distant bark of a Tommy [Thomson’s gazelle]. Winnie is rolling in the dust and Mama says I may have a pet for my birthday. I think I want a meerkat to keep a watch out for Helena. I wish Pa was here. Please bring him back safely to us.’

  From that day on, she wrote most days – always in the same spot, on the low-hanging branch of her father’s favourite tree. She recorded everything, from the progress on the farm, to her family’s increasingly dispirited search for clues to her father’s disappearance. Some months after the initial telegram, one of Hugh Moneypenny’s former colleagues from the colonial government drove out to the farm to see them. He said that Hugh had been classified ‘presumed dead’, and that they should not hold out hope for his return.

  But they did. They still talked about ‘when Pa gets back’; only Jane dared to think about the possibility that he might not return. She persuaded Irene to let them take the rest of the year off from school, enabling her to spend more time on the farm. One year became two as the faithful Mrs Bisby returned to her outdoor schoolroom on the veranda, looking out over the plains of Kenya.

  Irene continued her quest for answers. She laid siege to Government House in Nairobi. She peppered the ministry in London with letters, and when the war was over she went to England herself to bang on doors. But she returned empty-handed, with no answers, no clues even, to what her husband was doing when he went missing. She was told, again and again, that he had gone missing in action in enemy territory and that ‘all evidence’ pointed towards him having died.

  Sunday, 8th April

  A surprisingly lovely day. David Zach telephoned to ask me to accompany him to an exhibition of West African wood carvings at the Africa Centre. We met outside Covent Garden tube station. I hadn’t appreciated before quite how good-looking he is. Tall and slim, with dark blond hair cut neatly, just over the collar line, and fine features. Almost too perfect for me – I prefer R’s pale and rumpled air – but lovely to look at. From what Zach has said, he’s probably about the same age as me, maybe a year or two older. He appeared to be pleased to see me and took my hand in both of his when he shook it.

  The exhibition wasn’t notable, and afterwards we strolled to a small café on Long Acre. It was warm enough to sit outside. He began to apologise for subjecting me to the exhibition and we fell naturally into a conversation about African art. He told me that he has several pieces that he had picked up over there. ‘I find there is something almost elemental about it,’ he said. ‘It is so unforced, completely independent of fashion or current taste. It is funny how Africa brings out something in everyone it touches. Look at us, even. We have not lived there for many years, yet here we are, drawn together by a continent, and in many ways, a violent, pest-ridden place.’

  We swapped horror stories, our shaves with danger and death, probably exaggerated, as most camp-fire tales tend to be, and then he asked again about how my father had died. He seemed genuinely interested and when I told him that his body had never been found, he was horrified. ‘That is not good enough,’ he exclaimed. ‘People cannot just vanish, even in war it is unlikely. Do you ever think about the possibility that he might be alive, somewhere, perhaps with amnesia?’ I laughed, before admitting that sometimes, in my secret moments, I indulged myself with the fantasy of finding him, but more than anything I wanted to discover what had happened, to lay the whole episode to rest.

  We caught a bus to Richmond Park, admired the spring flowers and ate our first ice-creams of the year. Then we walked back into London, stopping on the way for an early supper. By the time we arrived back in Knightsbridge, my feet were aching. He accompanied me to the door, where he said a polite good-night. He’s a charming man and I hope we will become friends. But Africa notwithstanding, I couldn’t help but wish he had been R.

  Friday, 13th April

  The Friday reports1 came in as usual. I’d like to have my own wall map, into which I could stick coloured pins, marking where each agent is operating, and the status of their mission. Most are static, working for overseas stations attached to embassies or trade commissions. It’s only really the oo agents who move about. Right now, 006 is in Central America on the trail of a suspected drugs baron, 0092 is chasing the Blofeld lead in Singapore3 and 007 is sitting at his desk on the seventh floor, probably making paper aeroplanes, for all the good he is doing. I should be thankful, I suppose, that he’s not getting into further trouble.

  Instead of lunch today, Mary dragged me out to the stores. She’s already getting worked up over what to wear for Lil’s wedding, in two months’ time. She’s very keen on the Jackie Kennedy look and endlessly brings in magazine photographs of her, but somehow that tailored chic doesn’t quite work with Mary’s athletic build and English-rose complexion. We went into the big department stores where she tried on numerous dresses, but none met her exacting standards. She hasn’t told me so, but I strongly suspect that she’s seeing 006 out of the office. If so, she’s remaining admirably calm while he’s away.

  Friday, 20th
April

  The Cuba experts are beginning to take the situation more seriously. A report came through from Washington yesterday, to the effect that the US marines had successfully staged a mock invasion of a Caribbean island,4 overthrowing a fictitious dictator. After reading it, Head of Section C sent round a memo to the Cuba Group. ‘Looks as if it is a dry-run for another attempt at Cuba. Either that, or Washington flexing its muscles as a warning to Castro. After the Bay of Pigs, they cannot believe that Castro is going to turn tail and run. He is not the sort of man to be scared into submission, and this will only make him shore up his defences – or turn elsewhere for help. We must keep a close eye on the situation.’

  Sunday, 22nd April

  Lunch with R. A stilted affair. How can we have gone from intimacy to awkwardness in a matter of weeks? I had finally heard from Troop on Friday, a curious, ambiguous little note, typewritten, to the effect that ‘We have been unable to find verifiable evidence that Mr Richard Hamilton constitutes a security risk. However, you are reminded that it is contrary to regulations for you to reveal details of your occupation to him. Please notify the security department if there is any change to the current status of your relationship.’

  It was hardly a whole-hearted endorsement – damn that man, it’s patently not in his power to make people happy. If R is clear, then say it; don’t leave room for doubt – there are no half measures here. It should have been something to celebrate; I wanted to tell R and laugh about it. I couldn’t of course. I telephoned him and breezily suggested lunch. He came, but he was withdrawn, distant even. On several occasions I got that feeling again that he wanted to tell me something, but then he would shrink back, as though he had thought better of it. I wish we could wipe the slate clean and start again. But I fear it’s too late, another candle snuffed out.