by Alan Hardy
You see, she had a real, king-sized problem. And here it was.
Either Granville was a German spy, or he was a British agent pretending to be a German spy.
And if he was pretending to be one, it was just for her benefit. He was laying a trap for her. So long as she told Matthew—and, through him, MI5—that Granville had named Mary Wilkinson as his fellow-member of the third spy cell, there was no problem. She, Fiona, would have acted as a bona fide double agent, whose loyalties were transparently directed towards Britain. But, if she said Belinda Jackson was the spy, as Granville had directed her, then MI5 would take it her ultimate loyalty was extended towards Germany. And it would be curtains for her.
She didn’t think Granville was a British agent, but, even if he weren’t, his instructions had still left her with a massive problem.
If she told Matthew, and British Intelligence, that Belinda Jackson was the spy, that was fine, in one way. Mary Wilkinson, as a British agent herself, would presumably be told about it. But Mary was a double agent. So, as a German agent, she would consider Fiona to have conducted herself as a perfectly reliable German agent. Mary would trust her, and become her willing confidante. That would be excellent for any future operations.
If, on the other hand, she told Matthew, and British Intelligence, that Mary Wilkinson had been named as the spy, Fiona’s cover would be blown. Mary and Granville would either be immediately arrested, or placed under such strict surveillance that they would soon realize that the game was up. And that Fiona had shopped them. Fiona would be finished as a double agent. She would have betrayed the Germans, and thrown in her lot one hundred per cent with the British. Did Matthew, and MI5, want that? Did Fiona really want that? Didn’t Matthew and his handlers want to use her as a long-term double agent? Weren’t they playing a longer game?
The only solution was to allow Granville and Mary to continue on their merry way, convinced they were in no danger of exposure, since this would enable Fiona to maintain her cover, and herself continue as a double agent. They would trust her, and inform Berlin that she was reliable. The only person whose life might be disturbed was Belinda, who would wonder why so many people seemed to be following her as she went about her shopping, or what she had done to deserve being hauled out of her bed and deposited in a MI5 interrogation room.
Now, there was a further problem. Should she tell Matthew the full story, and discuss with him what to do? Or just tell him Granville had fingered Belinda, and leave it at that? Or tell him the latter, but then allow herself to be persuaded to tell him the full truth?
Wasn’t it in her own interests to play a long game too? If she maintained her contacts with the Germans, and kept them on-side, that would also please the British, as she would be fulfilling her role as a double agent. She would have opportunities to please both sides in the future, as well as look after herself.
The only problem in not telling Matthew everything was that he might end up being compromised, and she didn’t want that, did she?
He was waiting at the same spot as before. By the lake, and near the tiny copse.
She rushed up to him, as he turned around, and fell into his arms.
“So, not poisoned, then?” he said, laughing, and lifted her slightly off the ground, squeezing her tightly, and swinging her in his arms from side to side.
“Doesn’t look like it,” she said.
He put her down, and they exchanged some kisses, to the annoyed tut-tutting of an old couple passing by at that moment.
“Well, what happened?” he asked.
“Nothing much, until right at the end…”
“And..?”
“He is such an unpleasant chap, Matthew,” she said, shuddering somewhat. “I’d say he was slimy, greasy, oily… if it wasn’t for his skin being as dry as a lizard, his face as pale and desiccated as a dried prune… Do you get the picture?”
“What did he say?” asked Matthew, with a long-suffering sigh.
“He said that, if I ever found myself in an emergency, or really needed immediate help, I should contact Belinda.”
“Belinda?”
“Yes. Belinda Jackson.”
Matthew didn’t say anything more, but stared at her.
“You’re lying,” he said eventually. “I can always tell when you’re lying.”
“I’m not!” she insisted. “He even whispered Sieg Heil as he was leaving. He—”
“Tell me the truth, Fiona!” he said harshly, grabbing her arms roughly.
“Let go, you’re hurting me!” said Fiona, raising her voice, and looking around.
Matthew became embarrassed, relaxing his grip on her, and also glancing self-consciously around.
“The truth, Fiona,” he murmured, his eyes dulled and lifeless.
“All right, Matthew…”
She told him the full story. He listened quietly and attentively.
“So, Matthew,” she said, when she had finished, “we have a problem, don’t we?”
“Yes, a big problem.”
He put a hand to his chin, rubbing it and his lips. He turned around to face the lake. She joined him by his side. She reached for his hand, and clasped it tightly and tenderly. He caressed her finger-tips with his finger-tips. She always loved that.
“Do you think it’s possible Granville is a British agent putting me to a test?” asked Fiona.
“Possible, but unlikely…” he murmured, looking distracted as he gazed out over the shimmering lake. “You just need to look at his cold, animalistic face to know he’s a Nazi.”
“And what do you see when you look at my face?” queried Fiona, frowning, and moving slightly away from him, though not letting go of his hand.
“Oh, it was different with you, Fiona,” he replied, turning to face her. “So many of your class were attracted by the cheap, false glamour of the Nazis in the thirties. That’s what it was. A bit of excitement and easy thrills. All those rallies and processions. In your case, an escape from your bitterly disappointing and lacklustre marriage… But now that you’ve met me…”
He leant over, and started to lick and bite her lips, and she responded.
“How do you know I wasn’t attracted by Hitler’s values and beliefs?” she asked, rubbing her face upon his.
“Did Genghis Khan, or Vlad The Impaler, or Caligula, any more than Hitler, have values and beliefs?”
“But you’ve cured me of all that, haven’t you, darling, in your patronizing way?” she asked sardonically, though not angrily.
He didn’t answer, but they stayed like that, face resting on face, hand held in hand, for a minute or two.
“Let’s get back to our problem, Fiona,” he said. “We spill the beans to HQ, and tell them Granville admitted Mary is the spy, and you’re properly scuppered as a double agent. Somehow or other, the news will get to Mary, or Granville, or both, and on to Berlin. They’ll know you’ve been turned, and that you’re not just playing along, but your loyalties are now totally with Britain.”
“Can’t you speak to London and fully explain the situation? Tell them it’s fairly certain Granville and Mary constitute the third spy cell, but, in order for my cover not to be blown, they mustn’t act on it, they must, if anything, make some move, indirect or not, against Belinda. Just to keep me in the clear.”
Matthew shook his head.
“It’s a risk,” he said.
“What, that they won’t believe you? Why do you keep saying that? Why should they believe Mary over you?”
“She’s held in high regard in certain quarters. Very high-up quarters. Don’t forget she was given the job of keeping me under observation, and I’m the one keeping the others under observation, so…”
“She’s the one who’s judging the judge…” murmured Fiona.
“Exactly,” concurred Matthew. “I’m not sure how it would go if it was a fully-fledged contest between Mary and me…”
“They’d arrest Granville and get him to talk,” stated Fiona.
; “Would he talk? He’s a fanatical bugger, that one. He’d die rather than betray his adopted Fatherland. Anyway, I imagine he carries a cyanide pill around with him for just such occasions.”
“There would be ways to make him talk, Matthew,” she responded.
“Like what?”
“Pulling out his nails, for example?”
“We’re not Nazi Germany, darling.”
“So,” said Fiona, giving a long-drawn-out sigh, “what’s the answer?”
“It looks like I’ll have to lie to British Intelligence,” he said. “I’ll have to tell them that Granville outed Belinda as the third spy. When Granville and Mary get to hear of it—and they will—they’ll recommend you for the Iron Cross, and they’ll assume you’ve completely deceived me.”
“That you’re putty in my hands?” suggested Fiona, snuggling up close to him, with a lascivious wriggle of her body on his, and sending her breath curling about his face and neck. “That I’m playing you for a sucker, I think they say in the Hollywood films?”
“If we tell them what Granville really said,” continued Matthew, ignoring Fiona’s sexy taunts, “you’ll be finished and of no use to MI5 again, whether they believe us or not about Mary. You’ll be a busted flush.”
“Darling,” whispered Fiona, still wrapping herself around him, and interspersing every few words with a languorous kiss, “why is it so important to you that my cover isn’t blown, and Mary isn’t compromised either? Why do you want nothing to disturb the present equilibrium? Why do you want to keep both Mary and me in the places we occupy now?”
“I’ve told you,” he insisted. “She has influence, and—”
“I know when you’re lying, Matthew,” she announced flatly, and without rancour. “Just like you think you know when I’m lying.”
He smiled wanly.
“When will you be ready to tell me the truth?” she asked.
She knew he wouldn’t answer. They both turned to look out over the lake, still dotted here and there, in the fading light, with a few hired paddling-boats.
“There is another possibility, my darling,” said Fiona, “and one of immense danger for you.”
“I know,” said Matthew, calmly but gravely. “Am I being played for a fool? Am I being set up?”
“Exactly,” intoned Fiona, her voice soft and slightly wavering. “Perhaps that has always been the intention of Mary and Granville, and their handlers. To put you in a situation where you follow Granville’s bidding, and end up giving MI5 false information.”
“And if that lie gets exposed,” added Matthew, “it would look like—”
“—you and Granville are the two members of the third German spy cell.”
“Exactly.”
“Then Mary will really have triumphed over you. Well and truly.”
“I’ll have to take that chance,” he said soberly.
“But why?”
He didn’t answer.
“There are a number of other possibilities,” continued Fiona, with a cheeky, but not quite frivolous stare. “One is, that you are indeed the third German spy, and Mary is—”
“Don’t be silly,” he snapped.
“Or that—”
“—you, Fiona, are in it with them, and are complicit in setting me up,” he cut in, putting his arms around her. “Are you?”
“Don’t be silly,” she murmured, opening her lips and pressing them around his.
They held each other tighter and tighter, pressing their bodies into each other, and sucking at each other as if there were no tomorrow, to the even more outraged shocked gasps and shaking of heads of the old couple who happened to pass by them again as they returned from their daily walk in Regent’s Park.
30
It was May, the Scottish countryside was starting to look its best, and Fiona knew that a certain matter was reaching its climax.
That matter was the Anglo-American summit at Scapa Flow. Matthew had been quite on edge the last few days, and it wasn’t just because his leave was drawing to a close.
As arranged with Fiona, he had reported back to MI5 that Granville had named Belinda as the third German spy. They both assumed Mary had been so informed, and, consequently, Fiona was in everybody’s good books. The British considered her a valuable double agent, and the Germans considered her one of their more reliable spies.
Nothing had happened following Matthew’s report. Not yet, anyway. At least, nothing that they had observed.
Matthew and she carried on their relationship quite openly, not that—to be honest—they had ever managed to keep it particularly hidden. They got more and more used to each other. Although Fiona’s tantrums didn’t subside to any great extent, they were tolerated. She, on her side, became less doubting and anxious about him. Her natural mistrust of others, exacerbated by her experiences with Freddie, became less pronounced. Had she started to mellow, she wondered?
She told him she was pregnant, and that she expected them to get married while her appearance was still respectable. He was a bit taken aback at the news. That was only to be expected. Young men of his age had probably never thought of having children. Well, bad luck, thought Fiona. He might be young, but she wasn’t. She also told him she wanted a second child by the time she was forty. She wanted to have—and be able to give him—the model family. Husband and wife, and two children. He just nodded as she spoke. Not shocked necessarily, but chastened. As if his face had been given a good slap or two. Anyway, it was the job of women to make men grow up.
She was starting to feel confident. Assured. Fulfilled, even.
The lengthening days of May accentuated that hopeful feeling. They were heading towards the summer. The sunny uplands. That type of thing. Not much seemed to be happening, and her sense of security became accepted as the norm. Matthew was often with her at The Mansion—and all through the night—and it was like a foretaste of how their lives would be in so many years to come.
There was the occasional dinner-party or get-together, with the usual crowd. Group Captain Jenkins, and his tiresome handle-bar moustache, and irritatingly corpulent body. Lord Mendelson. Lord and Lady Montacue. Squadron Leader Jackson, still edgy and withdrawn, and Belinda, as cheeky as ever. She didn’t seem any different. No hint of any problems. No discernible consequences from having been fingered as the third spy.
Some of Fiona’s nephews and nieces spent the occasional day with her. As usual, they were unceremoniously dumped on her by one or the other of her sisters, who wanted to be rid of them for a few hours. Fiona didn’t mind—and didn’t experience that pang of non-fulfilment which had always hit her before on such occasions—but such instances wouldn’t happen in the future once she had her own child. Nobody would be able to fob off their children on her anymore. She would be a mother in her own right.
Fiona hadn’t seen Mary Wilkinson at all.
Then, just the other day, there was a curious incident. Matthew up to his old tricks again.
She and Matthew were strolling in the gardens, and, as they descended the steps and passed by the bushes behind which poor George Turnbill’s body had been found, Matthew stopped, put his hand in his jacket side-pocket, and moved around to where Turnbill had been lying.
“What are you up to, darling?” Fiona asked.
“Oh, nothing, really.”
She couldn’t quite make out what he was doing, but, at a guess, she would say he had taken his hand out of his pocket, and, by the tinkling sound she heard, dropped something metallic nearby.
“Matthew!” she exclaimed, chuckling. “Are you planting evidence?”
“Not at all,” he replied, moving back to her. “I was just wondering whether the police were as thorough in their search of the area as they could have been.”
“Do you think they missed something?” she asked, laughing, and grabbing hold of his arm.
“It could well be.”
“Do you think maybe they should come out and check if they missed something?” she asked, with a
cheeky glimmer in her eyes.
“It might be a good idea, darling,” he replied.
She embraced him, giggling, and ran her hand through his wavy, brown hair.
“Darling,” she said, “let’s go to bed.”
She wasn’t so surprised early one morning a couple of days later, when standing at the huge bedroom bay-windows looking out on to the gardens, to notice a number of police officers diligently searching the area.
“Matthew,” she called out, “do you know about this?”
Still snug in their luxurious bed, Matthew didn’t answer.
“Looks like the police are searching for evidence, darling,” she said. “Wonder who could have tipped them off?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised British Intelligence didn’t suggest giving the gardens another once-over,” remarked Matthew, giving a self-indulgent yawn, as he turned on to his back, nestling his head in the plush pillows. “You never know what could have been missed.”
“Definitely worth trying…” murmured Fiona. “Oh, look! I think they’re getting excited! They’ve found something. Looks like it’s just near where poor George’s body was found…”
“Well, what do you know…”
“What is it that they’ve found, darling?” asked a smiling Fiona as she turned around.
“Now, that would be telling…”
A couple of days later, when Fiona was returning from an appointment with her solicitor discussing her tenant farmers and their rental agreements which were up for renewal, she noticed with interest that Belinda’s car was parked outside The Mansion’s main entrance. Parked in a rather askew fashion, as if the niceties of lining it up neatly in the driveway had been totally ignored. It had just been a question of getting the car as close as possible to the entrance, and then getting inside.
“Squadron Leader Jackson and his wife to see you, Mrs MacIntosh,” murmured James, the butler, as he took her gloves and coat. “I put them in the drawing-room.”
Fiona knew there was something wrong as soon as she entered the room, and witnessed the pair of them rising shakily from the sofa. There was a trepidation about their bodily movements—an insecurity in every limb—which made manifest they were under considerable mental stress.