An Unlikely Spy

by Rebecca Starford

  “Come to me,” she gasped. “Stephen, please.”

  When he hesitated, Evelyn felt the pressure building inside her. She knew if this burst, something huge and gaping would open up, a wound that might never heal. But when he took a step toward her, now dragging a chair up beside her armchair, she grasped his hands in hers, turned them over, and then raised them to her lips, and for the first time she dared to imagine that she might survive the act of telling the truth.

  “You must promise to listen to the whole story.” Her voice was raspy. “And when I’m finished, you may want to forget me.”

  “I could never—”

  “You might even hate me.”

  She sniffed, wiping her nose with her sleeve. She could see confusion in Stephen’s eyes, but before he could say anything she spoke again.

  “My parents . . .” she said.

  “What about them?”

  “They’re not dead.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Evelyn swallowed. “They’re still alive, as far as I know. In Lewes. It was easier to tell you they had died than explain why we’re no longer in touch.”

  “I see.” He watched her. “And why is that?”

  “Because I’m so ashamed of what happened . . . Of what I did during the war . . . And now that shame has taken over and I don’t know how to get rid of it. You see, I’ve pretended to be something I’m not for so long that I have trouble understanding what is real.” She squeezed his hand. “Except for you. I know you’re real, Stephen. You have been real to me from the moment we met.”

  His brow creased, and he looked back across the room. I’ve pushed him too far and he’s going to leave, Evelyn thought, panic and despair building once more. He’s going to walk away and never return. But then Stephen turned back to her and crossed his long legs. He hadn’t walked out. He was still there, still listening, still waiting. He gave her a small nod, permission to continue.

  Vincent had suggested starting at the beginning, but which one? And how could she make Stephen believe she had become a different person? Because she wasn’t sure she was—a different person, that was—and she let out a long, shuddering breath.

  “Evelyn?”

  She had once made the choice to confront the past and that had required a certain kind of bravery. Evelyn looked inside herself now, searching for the resilience she’d summoned all those years ago. Only this time she would be using it for truth and not all the nebulous gray found between the lies. She began to talk, and they sat like that, one chair beside the other, Stephen’s soft hands in hers, until the sun rose on the new day, washing the dark sky clean.

  March 1940

  Twenty

  EVELYN AND VINCENT caught a taxi to the pub opposite the square on Westbridge Road in Battersea. It stank of stale smoke and beer, and above the front door was the eponymous raven, its shiny black eyes trained on Evelyn as she wandered over to a table near the fireplace while Vincent fetched the drinks.

  Setting down the satchel containing a small camera, Evelyn scanned the pub’s patrons. It was only one o’clock, but already a row of regulars were perched at the front bar, their heads bent to the wireless, the broadcast of the trots ringing through the place. Elsewhere, in the main lounge, a young man sat flicking through a newspaper while another threw darts despondently at a board.

  “Right,” said Vincent when he returned with two brandies. “The keg room is out the back. I couldn’t see anything just now, but I’ll have a better peek when I use the gents’. Then we can plan how to take those photographs for White.”

  “What’s the publican like?” Evelyn asked.

  “Seems all right. Infiltration is more your sport, remember? I just solve the crosswords.”

  Evelyn smiled and looked past him to a man who had appeared at the bar. He was older than Evelyn, nudging forty, with thinning hair and chafed crimson lips. He reached across the counter to shake the publican’s hand with the obsequiousness of a pastor. His gaze settled for a moment on Evelyn before he took his stout and sat near the billiards table.

  “A crumb?” Vincent asked.

  “Hard to tell.” Evelyn sighed, rubbing at her eyes. “I wanted to work on something new after the Lion Society case, but now I’d prefer to sleep for a hundred years.”

  Vincent sat back, loosening his tie. “How are you feeling after all that business?”

  Evelyn shrugged. “What about you?” she asked. “How were things at Chemley Court while I was in the field?”

  “So-so.” Vincent smiled grimly. “Bennett has been like a bear with a sore head. I don’t know what he wants or what I can do to make him happy.”

  Evelyn studied the dark stubble on her friend’s chin, then his slate-colored eyes. She drank some brandy and wondered what would become of them both when all this was over.

  * * *

  Evelyn and Vincent went back to the Raven Inn the following week. They chatted with the publican, a jolly fellow from Conwy, and began feeding him pieces of their fabricated backstory. On their third visit, Evelyn managed to distract the Welshman with a query about an old photograph hanging on the wall, giving Vincent the opportunity to sneak into the keg room with the camera. He found the bundle of pro-German leaflets beneath an old metal fan and took several photographs.

  Evelyn had begun building profiles of the regulars, but had not found any leads: they were mainly elderly men who could barely stand up straight to toddle off for a piss, let alone distribute propaganda. The man playing darts hadn’t appeared again, nor had the chap reading the newspaper, while another fellow in a dark suit with a shifty expression turned out to be only selling bottles of black market French perfume in the lane at the back of the pub.

  This left the man with thinning hair and sore lips. He’d been back twice, speaking in the same quiet tone to the publican, but Evelyn had never seen any material pass between them. She had managed to smile at him once when he took a seat close to their table, and there was something boyish about his unblemished face. Colin, his name was. She’d heard the publican say it.

  “He’s our mark,” Evelyn told Vincent on the taxi ride back to Pimlico. “I’ll come alone next time and try to strike up a conversation. We’ll see if he leads us anywhere.”

  Vincent made a face. “Better you than me, darling. Colin’s not exactly one of life’s more glorious specimens.”

  Evelyn glanced out the window at the blur of the Thames and felt a twinge of humiliation once again. She clutched the suitcase containing the camera tight to her chest.

  “Lucky it’s for King and country, then,” she muttered.

  * * *

  Evelyn returned to the Raven Inn the next afternoon. She wore her blue tambourine beret and brown felt suit, and made sure she painted her lips, just as White had instructed. She brought along a newspaper and a fresh packet of cigarettes. After a few words with the publican, during which she explained that her brother had found a job moving freight at the docks, she took a seat near the window overlooking the street. At around two o’clock, Colin came in through the front door, this time carrying his own small leather briefcase. He sat at the table next to Evelyn. When the publican brought over her pot of tea, and Colin a fresh pint, she tried to catch his eye.

  “Busy day, is it?” She nodded to the briefcase. “You’re a businessman?”

  Colin shook his head. “Goodness me, no. I’m an engineer. Was, in any case.” He sniffed. “I’m doing maintenance work for now while I look for something new.”

  Evelyn stirred milk into her tea. “My word, an engineer? You must be clever.”

  “I don’t know about that . . .” He spoke in a mumble, grinding grains of salt into the tabletop. His hands were large and callused.

  “I’m sure you’re too modest.” Evelyn smiled at him. “Do you work local, Colin? It is Colin, isn’t it? I overheard the man behind the bar . . . I’m Bea Henry.”

  He nodded, but still he wouldn’t look at her. “Yes, just over at the power plant. I’ve
been there a few months. I was in Acton before that.”

  “What took you there?”

  He raised his eyes and Evelyn finally saw they were a startling green color, like forest pools. He stood up and pushed his chair nearer to her table.

  “I worked for Siemens-Schuckert. There fifteen years, all told.”

  Evelyn brought the cup to her lips to blow on the scalding tea. “It’s a German firm, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I heard it closed recently. Some talk of . . . interference, wasn’t it?”

  “It was a good firm,” said Colin, sticking out his chin. “And a very good place to work. I was sorry the day we all received our notice. Management understood the value of hard work—and of a hardworking Englishman.”

  “Mm,” said Evelyn. “Should be more like that, in my view.”

  “Well, their hands were tied, weren’t they? The government set out to destroy them.”

  Evelyn put down her cup. “They did?”

  “Oh yes.” Colin leaned forward, his breath oddly sweet-smelling. “Almost from the very beginning. And they destroyed good, honest men who worked for them in the process. So what if some of them agreed with some of the things what—” He paused, blushing, his eyes fixed back on the pint glass. “Forgive me, Bea. You must think it very rude of me to be running on like that.”

  “Not at all.”

  But he’d taken fright, and when a shout came from the front bar, followed by the sound of a glass smashing, all his reserve returned, and she knew she’d not get anything else from him that afternoon.

  “I should be heading back to work,” he muttered. “I’ve only an hour for lunch.” She hadn’t even finished her tea and he was already standing up.

  “Of course, Colin. Maybe I’ll see you here again?”

  “Yes, all right. I may drop by again early next week.”

  Again he blushed, and in another life she might have felt sorry for him. Evelyn studied the lint on his shoulders, the light dusting of dandruff in his wispy hair. There is nothing more dangerous, she thought to herself, than a clever man with an ax to grind.

  “Next week it is, then,” she said.

  * * *

  Evelyn found White in his study when she returned from Battersea, Vincent’s photographs of the leaflets in the keg room spread across the desk. Rain fell heavily outside, coating the window in a greasy slick, and the room was growing dark. Ted Young sat in the corner at his typewriter, bashing away at another report. White gestured for Evelyn to take a seat.

  “So,” he said, setting down his cigarette. “Vincent tells me you have a suspect in the crosshairs.”

  “Could do,” said Evelyn. “A fellow by the name of Colin. He’s been coming into the Raven regularly, is on good terms with the publican. Otherwise he seems a loner. A bit unsettled in his own skin. He’s certainly sympathetic toward Hitler . . .”

  White raised his eyebrows. “But you’re not sure?”

  “I suppose it’s a hunch more than anything else.” She chewed at her lip. “It was rather odd, actually. This afternoon, when we got talking, Colin told me that he had been an engineer but lost his job some time ago. It’s difficult to explain, but there was something about this work, what it had meant to him, that gave me pause.” She looked up. “He’s angry, very angry.”

  “Is that so?” White’s eyes widened. “Did he tell you who he worked for?”

  “The German firm Siemens-Schuckert. They had the plants in Acton and Ealing, didn’t they?”

  “Yes. We had been watching them, but when war broke out resources were directed elsewhere . . .”

  Evelyn frowned as White began scribbling on a piece of paper. She’d never seen him take notes.

  “Right,” he said, setting down the pen. “Thank you, Evelyn. This is very useful information.”

  “I thought so too.” She sat back, gazing at the ceiling. “I’ve been turning the thing over and over in my head since I got in the taxi, and I can’t help wondering if he’s up to something else? Something perhaps bigger than this leaflet operation?”

  White watched her levelly before he stood up and wandered over to the window, where he pressed his fingertips against the glass.

  “You’re due to go away next weekend, aren’t you?” he said. “Heading down to Shropshire?”

  Evelyn blinked. “Well, yes . . .” She had hardly had time to think about it, but it was finally the weekend of Sally’s wedding. “But I wonder whether it might be better to stay on here and follow up this lead?”

  Pushing his hands deep into his pockets, White shook his head. “It will do you some good to see your friends. Get out of London for a time. Enjoy the fresh country air. Enjoy a break from all . . . this.” He gestured around the study.

  “But, sir.” Evelyn sat forward. “I think there’s something to this Colin fellow. I can keep visiting the Raven while at the same time doing more digging on—”

  “I don’t want you digging,” White said. “You were instructed to investigate the leaflets and you’ve done that. We’ll bring in the publican and get him to talk. The rest doesn’t matter.”

  “Doesn’t matter?” Evelyn was shaking her head. “I can stay on this, sir. I can find out what Colin is part of and—”

  “No.” Something stealthy had crept into White’s voice. “I’ve given you your orders. Don’t go back to the Raven and don’t talk to Colin again. I’ll pass your intelligence on to Special Branch and ask them to follow up with it themselves.” He cleared his throat. “The Lion Society trial is due to start in a couple of weeks. You need to sit tight until then.”

  “After which I go back to the Scrubs just as you had planned.” Evelyn pushed away her chair. “I don’t understand this. I’m still useful in the field. You said it yourself: I’ve done good work. Why do you want me back in John Chadwick’s cell answering telephones all day?”

  “It’s not a question of what I want,” White said. “It’s what is good for all of us. Please, Evelyn. I have my reasons for telling you to step back from this new investigation. You just have to trust me.”

  The study dimmed further, and Evelyn heard Ted flick on a lamp and trudge over to the window to close the curtains—in the heat of the exchange, she had forgotten he was in the room with them. When it became clear that White had dismissed her, she went to the door, but paused. Standing there, Evelyn saw White as a stranger might: as nothing more than an eccentric older gentleman. They might imagine him to be a professor, or a doctor—someone distinguished, with integrity and importance. Someone to be counted on. But the truth was that the moment Bennett White stepped outside the flat he disappeared. He left no mark, no shadow, not even a memory. It would be dangerous to defy him—because she had come to realize this was her only choice now if she were to avoid returning to her old life—but perhaps it wouldn’t matter. It hadn’t occurred to her until that moment that she had placed all her trust in the hands of a ghost.

  * * *

  The following week, Evelyn waited for White to leave the flat for daily briefings with the Home Office before ducking downstairs to catch a taxi over to Battersea. Each time she found Colin waiting in the front bar, a nervous rash spreading up his throat when he recognized her in the doorway. They sat together by the billiards table. Evelyn mostly talked about herself, about her work in accounts at the Deptford plant before she lost her job (“because of all them East End Jews come over from Europe”) and how it was lucky she had a little money set aside from when her mother died, otherwise she and her brother would be out on the street. And slowly, like the boiler in an engine room, Colin began to warm up. He spoke more about the war, about how his dicky heart had stopped him joining up, and then about Hitler, who at least wanted to make Germany a nation his countrymen could be proud of.

  “He puts Germans first, doesn’t he?” Evelyn said. “What exactly is the problem with standing up for the English in our own blinking country? Why has that suddenly become a crime?”

&n
bsp; “It’s a . . . bleeding disgrace,” Colin stuttered, then he raised his glass for a mouthful of stout.

  Evelyn brought out a cigarette, aware that Colin continued to watch her like he had been slapped across the face, though once he’d finished his pint there was something newly resolute in his posture.

  “I can tell you, Evelyn, that there is quite a bit of it going around,” he said.

  “What’s that?”

  “Opposition to the Jew war. I don’t know a single man or woman happy about fighting the Germans again. And for what?” He looked over his shoulder. “I don’t like to brag, but I could give you names right here and now of people—and people high up, I don’t mind adding—who wouldn’t shed a tear if Hitler were to march into London and set us straight.”

  “Really?”

  Evelyn drank slowly from her cup, taking in the strange man nodding vigorously across the table.

  “In fact,” Colin went on, “I’m part of a group of like-minded Englishmen and -women. We’ve been meeting for the past few months.”

  “Like a club?” Beneath the table, Evelyn squeezed her fists together in triumph.

  “Nothing so formal.” Again he looked about. “It’s a risky business, of course. I could find myself in a lot of trouble . . .”

  He glared at his empty glass and once more Evelyn felt him slipping away. She reached out and put her hand over his, and Colin gaped at it, apparently no less surprised than if she’d taken off her dress right there at the table. But she needed him to tell her more if she was to go back to White and convince him to keep her on the investigation.