Jackdaws (18 page)

"How is she unsuitable?"

"She's about forty. SOE rarely
uses anyone so old, especially on a parachute mission." He struck a match.

Age was not going to be an obstacle
at this stage, Flick thought. Excited, she said, "Will she
volunteer?"

"I should think there's a good
chance, especially if I ask her."

"You're friends."

He nodded.

"How did she become an
explosives expert?"

Percy looked embarrassed. Still
holding the burning match, he said, "She's a safebreaker. I met her years
ago, when I was doing political work in the East End." The match burned down,
and he struck another.

"Percy, I had no idea your past
was so raffish. Where is she now?"

Percy looked at his watch.
"It's six o'clock. At this time of the evening, she'll be in the private
bar of the Mucky Duck."

"A pub."

"Yes."

"Then get that damn pipe alight
and let's go there now."

In the car, Flick said, "How do
you know she's a safebreaker?"

Percy shrugged. "Everyone
knows."

"Everyone? Even the
police?"

"Yes. In the East End, police
and villains grow up together, go to the same schools, live in the same
streets. They all know one another."

"But if they know who the
criminals are, why don't they put them in jail? I suppose they can't prove
anything."

"This is the way it
works," Percy said. "When they need a conviction, they arrest someone
who is in that line of business. If it's a burglary, they arrest a burglar. It
doesn't matter whether he was responsible for that particular crime, because
they can always manufacture a case: suborn witnesses, counterfeit confessions,
manufacture forensic evidence. Of course, they sometimes make mistakes, and
jail innocent people, and they often use the system to pay off personal
grudges, and so on; but nothing in life is perfect, is it?"

"So you're saying the whole rigmarole
of courts and juries is a farce?"

"A highly successful,
long-running farce that provides lucrative employment for otherwise useless
citizens who act the parts of detectives, solicitors, banisters, and
judges."

"Has your friend the safebreaker
been to jail?"

"No. You can escape prosecution
if you're willing to pay hefty bribes, and you're careful to cultivate warm
friendships with detectives. Let's say you live in the same street as
Detective-Inspector Callahan's dear old mum. You drop in once a week, ask her
if she needs any shopping done, look at photos of her grandchildren makes it
hard for D.I. Callahan to put you in jail."

Flick thought of the story Ruby had
told a few hours ago. For some people, life in London was almost as bad as
being under the Gestapo. Could things really be so different from what she had
imagined? "I can't tell if you're serious," she said to Percy.
"I don't know what to believe."

"Oh, I'm serious," he said
with a smile. "But I don't expect you to believe me."

They were in Stepney, not far from
the docks. The bomb damage here was the worst Flick had seen. Whole streets
were flattened. Percy turned into a narrow cul-de-sac and parked outside a pub.

"Mucky Duck" was a
humorous sobriquet: the pub was called The White Swan. The private bar was not
private, but was so called to distinguish it from the public bar, where there
was sawdust on the floor and the beer was a penny a pint cheaper. Flick found
herself thinking about explaining these idiosyncrasies to Paul. He would be
amused.

Geraldine Knight sat on a stool at
the end of the bar, looking as if she might own the place. She had vivid blonde
hair and heavy makeup, expertly applied. Her plump figure had the apparent
firmness that could only have come from a corset. The cigarette burning in the
ashtray bore a ring of bright lipstick around the end. It was hard to imagine
anyone who looked less like a secret agent, Flick thought despondently.

"Percy Thwaite, as I live and
breathe!" the woman said. She sounded like a Cockney who had been to
elocution lessons. "What are you doing slumming around here, you bloody
old communist?" She was obviously delighted to see him.

"Hello, Jelly, meet my friend
Flick," Percy said.

"Pleased to know you, I'm sure,"
she said, shaking Flick's hand.

"Jelly?" Flick inquired.

"No one knows where I got that
nickname."

"Oh," said Flick.
"Jelly Knight, gelignite."

Jelly ignored that. "I'll have
a gin-and-It, Percy, while you're buying."

Flick spoke to her in French.
"Do you live in this part of London?"

"Since I was ten," she
replied, speaking French with a North American accent. "I was born in
Quebec."

That was not so good, Flick thought.
Germans might not notice the accent, but the French certainly would. Jelly
would have to pose as a Canadian-born French citizen. It was a perfectly
plausible history, but just unusual enough to attract curiosity. Damn.
"But you consider yourself British."

"English, not British,"
said Jelly with arch indignation. She switched back to the English language.
"I'm Church of England, I vote Conservative, and I dislike foreigners,
heathens, and republicans." With a glance at Percy, she added,
"Present company excepted, of course."

Percy said, "You ought to live
in Yorkshire, on a hill farm, someplace where they haven't seen a foreigner
since the Vikings came. I don't know how you can bear to live in London,
surrounded by Russian Bolsheviks, German Jews, Irish Catholics, and
nonconformist Welshmen building little chapels all over the place like moles
disfiguring the lawn."

"London's not what it was,
Perce."

"Not what it was when you were
a foreigner?"

This was obviously a familiar old
argument. Flick interrupted it impatiently. "I'm very glad to hear that
you're so patriotic, Jelly."

"And why would you be
interested in such a thing, may I ask?"

"Because there's something you
could do for your country."

Percy put in, "I told Flick
about your… expertise, Jelly."

She looked at her vermilion
fingernails. "Discretion, Percy, please. Discretion is the
better part of valor, it says in the Bible."

Flick said, "I expect you know
that there have been some fascinating recent developments in the field. Plastic
explosives, I mean."

"I try to keep up to
date," Jelly said with airy modesty. Her expression changed, and she
looked shrewdly at Flick. "This is something to do with the war, isn't
it?"

"Yes."

"Count me in. I'll do anything
for England."

"You'll be away for a few days."

"No problem."

"You might not come back."

"What the hell does that
mean?"

"It will be very
dangerous," Flick said quietly. Jelly looked dismayed. "Oh." She
swallowed. "Well, that makes no difference," she said unconvincingly.

"Are you sure?"

Jelly looked thoughtful, as if she
were calculating. "You want me to blow something up."

Flick nodded silently.

"It's not overseas, is
it?"

"Could be."

Jelly paled beneath her makeup.
"Oh, my gordon. You want me to go to France, don't you?"

Flick said nothing.

"Behind enemy lines! God's
truth, I'm too bloody old for that sort of thing. I'm…" She hesitated.
"I'm thirty-seven."

She was about five years older than
that, Flick thought, but she said, "Well, we're almost the same age, I'm
nearly thirty. We're not too old for a bit of adventure, are we?"

"Speak for yourself—dear."

Flick's heart sank. Jelly was not
going to agree. The whole scheme had been misconceived, she decided. It was
never going to be possible to find women who could do these jobs and speak
perfect French. The plan had been doomed from the start. She turned away from
Jelly. She felt like crying.

Percy said, "Jelly, we're
asking you to do a job that's really crucial for the war effort."

"Pull the other leg, Perce,
it's got bells on," she said, but her mockery was halfhearted, and she
looked solemn.

He shook his head. "No
exaggeration. It could make a difference to whether we win or lose."

She stared at him, saying nothing.
Conflict twisted her face into a grimace of indecision.

Percy said, "And you're the
only person in the country who can do it."

"Get off," she said
skeptically.

"You're a female safebreaker
who speaks French—how many others do you think there are? I'll tell you:
none."

"You mean this, don't
you."

"I was never more serious in my
life."

"Bloody hell, Perce."
Jelly fell silent. She did not speak for a long moment. Flick held her breath.
At last Jelly said, "All right, you bastard, I'll do it."

Flick was so pleased she kissed her.

Percy said, "God bless you,
Jelly."

Jelly said, "When do we
start?"

"Now," said Percy.
"If you'll finish up that gin, I'll take you home to pack a case; then
I'll drive you to the training center."

"What, tonight?"

"I told you it was
important."

She swallowed the remains of her
drink. "All right, I'm ready."

She slid her ample bottom off the
bar stool, and Flick thought: I wonder how she'll manage with a parachute.

They left the pub. Percy said to
Flick, "You'll be all right going back on the Tube?"

"Of course."

"Then we'll see you tomorrow at
the Finishing School."

"I'll be there," said
Flick, and they parted company.

She headed for the nearest station,
feeling jubilant. It was a mild summer evening, and the East End was alive: a
group of dirty-faced boys played cricket with a stick and a bald tennis ball; a
tired man in soiled work clothes headed home for a late tea; a uniformed
soldier, on leave with a packet of cigarettes and a few shillings in his
pocket, strode along the pavement with a jaunty air, as if all the world's
pleasures were his for the taking; three pretty girls in sleeveless dresses and
straw hats giggled at the soldier. The fate of all these people would be
decided in the next few days, Flick thought somberly.

On the train to Bayswater, her
spirits fell again. She still did not have the most crucial member of the team.
Without a telephone engineer, Jelly might place the explosives in the wrong
location. They would still do damage but, if the damage could be repaired in a
day or two, the enormous effort and risk of life would have been wasted.

When she returned to her bedsitting
room, she found her brother Mark waiting there. She hugged and kissed him.
"What a nice surprise!" she said.

"I've got a night off, so I
thought I'd take you for a drink," he said.

"Where's Steve?"

"Giving his lago to the troops
in Lyme Régis. We both work for ENSA most of the time, now." ENSA was the
Entertainments National Service Association, which organized shows for the
armed forces. "Where shall we go?"

Flick was tired, and her first
inclination was to turn him down. Then she remembered that she was going to
France on Friday, and this could be the last time she ever saw her brother.
"How about the West End," she said.

"We'll go to a nightclub."

"Perfect!"

They left the house and walked
arm-in-arm along the street. Flick said, "I saw Ma this morning."

"How is she?"

"All right, but she hasn't
softened her attitude to you and Steve, I'm sorry to say."

"I didn't expect it. How did
you happen to see her?"

"I went down to Somersholme. It
would take too long to explain why."

"Something hush-hush, I
suppose."

She smiled acknowledgment, then
sighed as she remembered her problem."I don't suppose you happen to know a
female telephone engineer who speaks French, do you?"

He stopped. "Well," he
said, "sort of."

CHAPTER

FIFTEEN

MADEMOISELLE LEMAS WAS in agony. She
sat rigid on the hard upright chair behind the little table, her face frozen
into a mask of self-control. She did not dare to move. She still wore her
cloche hat and clutched her sturdy leather handbag on her lap. Her fat little
hands squeezed the handle of the bag rhythmically. Her fingers bore no rings;
in fact she wore only one piece of jewelry, a small silver cross on a chain.

Around her, late-working clerks and
secretaries in their well-pressed uniforms carried on typing and filing.
Following Dieter's instructions, they smiled politely when they caught her eye,
and every now and again one of the girls would speak a word to her, offering
her water or coffee.

Dieter sat watching her, with
Lieutenant Hesse on one side of him and Stéphanie on the other. Hans Hesse was
the best type of sturdy, unflappable working-class German. He looked on
stoically: he had seen many tortures. Stéphanie was more excitable, but she was
exercising self-control. She looked unhappy, but said nothing: her aim in life
was to please Dieter.

Mademoiselle Lemas's pain was not
just physical, Dieter knew. Even worse than her bursting bladder was the tenor
of soiling herself in a room full of polite, well-dressed people going about
their normal business. For a respectable elderly lady, that was the worst of
nightmares. He admired her fortitude and wondered if she would break, and tell
him everything, or hold out.

A young corporal clicked his heels
beside Dieter and said, "Pardon me, Major, I have been sent to ask you to
step into Major Weber's office."

Dieter considered sending a reply
saying
If you want to talk to me
, come and see me, but he decided there was
nothing to be gained by being combative before it was strictly necessary. Weber
might even become a little more cooperative if he was allowed to score a few
points. "Very well." He turned to Hesse. "Hans, you know what to
ask her if she breaks."