Letters for a Spy (8 page)

“Well, in the main—and I suppose there simply isn’t any way of my disguising this—for a succession of lady friends.”

Oddly, it gave me no satisfaction to learn that my theory of the day before hadn’t been so very far removed from the truth.

“And also,” said the solicitor, “Mr Martin suffers from frequent bouts of depression.” For a moment I imagined there might be some connection here with Mr Martin’s pretence of a hideaway in Mold. Then I realized it referred back only to that statement about his complexity.

“Bouts of depression?” I repeated. “Dear Lord! And now he has to deal with the death of his son!”

Again we were silent.

“And what makes matters even worse,” said Mr Gwatkin presently, “William had recently become engaged. The last time I saw him—would you believe it?—I had just drawn up a marriage settlement.”

I nodded in sympathy but said nothing.

“And if we’re talking about irony,” he added, “it doesn’t even stop
there
.” He leant towards me, confidentially. “William had finally got around to making out his will! How’s that for a nice, neat, tidying-up sort of touch? Special timing or what?”

“Well, it just seems so … so monstrously unfair,” I answered. Lamely.

And I shook my head in expected disbelief—although in fact I already knew about the will. Presumably William had seen to it because he
had
so recently become engaged. I didn’t argue the point but I actually thought the timing of the will was less ironic than that of the engagement.

Because I remembered the letter:

“Dear Sir,

“
Re your affairs

“We thank you for your letter of yesterday’s date returning the draft of your will approved. We will insert the legacy of £50 to your batman and our Mr Gwatkin will bring the fair copy with him when he meets you at lunch on the 21
^st
inst. so that you can sign it there.

“The inspector of taxes has asked us for particulars of your service pay and allowances during 1941/2 before he will finally agree to the amount of reliefs due to you for that year. We cannot find that we have ever had these particulars and shall, therefore, be grateful if you will let us have them.

“Yours faithfully,

McKENNA & Co.”

“Yes, you’re right,” said Mr Gwatkins. “Monstrously unfair! And shall I tell you something still
more
unfair? The Inland Revenue! Quibbling to the last over what’s deductible! It hardly matters whether people have just become engaged or made out wills or are off to sacrifice their lives for King and country … just so long as,
first
, they’ve shown their hearts to be truly in the right place—by way of filing their income tax returns! Now, doesn’t
that
make you meditate for a while on some of life’s priorities?”

Gracious! Was this the man I had started out by thinking timid? From reticence to rhetoric, from shyness to superfluity! He was like someone called upon to give an after-dinner speech, suffering initially from nerves but growing garrulous as he became emboldened. I might like and respect him all the more for this abrupt outpouring of humanity; yet even so … quite suddenly I’d had enough.

It was time for me to go.

And he must have sensed my discomfiture. Greek tragedy reverted to something a little more sedate—possibly something set in a drawing room, a drawing room with French windows.
The Importance of Being Earnest
? Mr Gwatkin took a single sheet of notepaper from one of his desk drawers and offered me a fountain pen. I preferred to use my own. He then provided a file for me to rest my paper on; and whilst I considered what to write he made out a receipt. (I had wanted to include the cost of postage but he was adamant in not allowing this.)

I finally wrote:

“Dear Mr Martin, we’ve never met but I wanted to say how sorry I was to hear about William. If there’s to be a memorial service may I ask you to buy some flowers with the enclosed or—if not—to forward the money to a favourite charity? Both you and William are greatly in my thoughts.”

There seemed no point in saying more. I simply signed it, folded the sheet over—having visibly inserted the three ten-shilling notes—and watched Mr Gwatkin place the paper in an envelope. He licked the flap; then sealed it with the red wax.

Obviously he would already have sent his own condolences. Therefore, with any luck, it could be some time before he again needed to get in touch with Mr Martin. If such
were
the case, would it be possible—even probable—that whenever the two of them next got into contact they might have forgotten about myself? Dear God. Oh,
yes
!

I stood up. Mr Gwatkin came around the desk.

“Are you in town on leave, Mr Andrews?”

I nodded.

“Which branch, may one enquire…?”

“R.A.F.”

“It seems to have been a long leave.”

“Convalescence. Unfortunately, they had to whip out my appendix.”

“And then—how unfortunately again—you had to have your pocket picked! Were you in uniform when that happened?”

“Yes.”

“You wouldn’t think any Englishman could ever be so vile.”

I smiled. “Couldn’t it as easily have been a Welshman or a Scot? A Canadian or American or Pole?”

“No. I wouldn’t believe that. Not in wartime. The only kind you could really believe capable of such despicable behaviour would be a Kraut—one of your filthy, low-down, nauseating Krauts.”

I felt a hot surge of anger but managed to keep my answer cool.

“Oh, I don’t suppose there’d be too many of that kind over here right now.”

“Well, you mustn’t sound so sure! The bastards could be anywhere. I know what you mean, though. You’d think you’d be able to smell them, wouldn’t you, like rotten eggs or sewage?”

There was a pause. I knew I had to get away.

“I wonder what you’d have done if you hadn’t met Mr Martin?” he went on.

“Gone to the police,” I said, abruptly.

“Didn’t you do that, anyway?”

“What? For the sake of just thirty bob?”

“You know … I’m really surprised Mr Martin didn’t mention it when he arrived at the Carlton Grill.”

“Sometimes a person doesn’t like to advertise his good deeds.”

It was inane: for a split second I considered this as yet another point in favour of Bill Martin’s father.

“By the way,” asked Mr Gwatkin, “why were you wanting a solicitor?”

For a moment I was caught off guard.

“Oh … for something which eventually blew over, thank heaven.”

“Good. Well, let me show you out, then.” Mr Gwatkin opened the door and preceded me through it.

“No—please. I know the way and I’ve already taken up enough of your time.” I held out my hand. “Or is there a rear exit? That could suit me even better.”

But Mr Gwatkin—now resolutely heading down my original route, back to the reception area—punctiliously ignored this. As we walked along the corridor, the firebreak door we’d just come through was pushed open again, somewhat jerkily. We continued our journey to the rattling accompaniment of teacups on a large tin tray.

10

Obviously I didn’t need to go back to the Carlton Grill. I tried to ring the Theatre Royal but the number was persistently engaged. I gave up. Yet when I pressed Button B for the final time, returned the pennies to my pocket and left the current kiosk—it was the fourth I had been into—I happened to see a scrawny individual whose hat looked grease-stained and whose dirty raincoat couldn’t hide the fact that his trousers were too short, revealing holey grey socks above brown, unpolished brogues.

In fact, it wasn’t the first time I had noticed him. He had caught my eye some forty minutes earlier, when I was re-emerging into sunlight, after leaving the solicitor.

Then the man had been chatting to a newspaper vendor. Now he was looking into a shop window.

But all right, I told myself—all right! Don’t start imagining things. From Waterloo Place I had descended the steps to the Mall, turned left towards Trafalgar Square and then gone right, past Charing Cross and along the Strand. Owing to those abortive phone calls I hadn’t come any great distance—hadn’t realized, until much later, that I had been almost within
hailing
distance of the wretched Theatre Royal—so why was it remarkable that someone else should have been heading gently in the same direction: someone who might have started out either a short time or a long time after I had? Of course, if I had been weaving my way through a labyrinthine network of side streets and alleys … well then, yes, okay. But this was clearly a main route.

Besides, why the hell should anyone be following me?

However, I surreptitiously kept him under surveillance; and before long I saw him turn to the right and head towards Waterloo Bridge. (Waterloo Place to Waterloo Bridge? There seemed a symmetry about his journey.) Afterwards, I was endlessly scanning the crowds in search of a replacement.

Until at last I told myself—told myself again—to
stop
being so imaginative. I carried on to Fleet Street, attempting not to look back. (I looked back only three times; it could have been much worse.) Halfway down Fleet Street, on the left-hand side, I came to the shiny black wall of the
Express
building. All glass and chrome and black reflection.

I had chosen the
Express
for reasons that weren’t perhaps the most scientific but seemed at least as good as any other: it was the newspaper my grandparents had always read and therefore the only one in this country for which I felt affection—Rupert Bear had played a major part in my development.

Now I walked into the paper’s spacious lobby and learnt that I shouldn’t, after all, be in need of its back-numbers department. Not for any date as recent as last month. I was shown a couple of enormous binders that sat side-by-side on a display stand.

My search began with the issue dated Sunday April 25
^th
. There was no report in it of any Allied aircraft being lost in the Atlantic but I should have felt surprised if there had been. Supposing the crash had happened on the 24
^th
it would surely have been too new for even the stop press. Particularly if it had happened
late
on the 24
^th
.

But after skimming the actual news I started to read an article purporting to be about my boss at the Abwehr. Yet it was all so ridiculous I could barely make myself continue. The piece had been headed: ‘MAN WHO WAS AFRAID TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED. Hitler’s Number 1 Spy.’

“Only half a dozen men outside Germany have ever met Admiral Canaris, the mysterious chief of the German Secret Service, who is reported from Stockholm to have been dismissed at the demand of Himmler, head of the Gestapo…”

Well, now, who’d have thought it? The admiral dismissed, indeed … and at Himmler’s instigation! How strange that no word of this had yet filtered through to Berlin—or, anyway, hadn’t done so by the time that I’d departed. And all the more remarkable, of course, when London’s
Sunday Express
had known about it for practically a fortnight. My, my! How remiss of Stockholm! Such laxity in keeping us abreast!

“In the years leading up to the war Canaris began to work on undermining the countries scheduled as the future victims of Hitler’s and Germany’s world-conquering ambitions.

“To Canaris was entrusted the work of infiltration, corruption and demoralization. He marked down the future quislings of Europe. He sent hundreds of his handsomest agents, men and women, to corrupt some of the most influential figures—social, political and financial—in the lands to be invaded…”

No, why was I even troubling to read it? Further down the page there was something of far greater import. The latest film reviews.

(
Mademoiselle France
. Joan Crawford playing a selfish Parisian dress designer asked to help a stranded American flyer get out of Paris during the Occupation. This pilot was John Wayne so she obviously fell in love with him and became a very much nicer person. Bully for Joan.)

And while I was on the entertainments page I looked to see what show Major Martin had taken his fiancée to (had presumably taken his fiancée to). It was advertised as George Black’s
Strike A New Note
. Starring somebody named Sid Field. I recalled that they had gone to the second house. Second house at five-thirty.

Then I glanced back at the article on Canaris and acknowledged my debt to the writer: “At least you signposted the way to Joan and John and Sid. You mustn’t feel your efforts were entirely wasted.”

I moved on to the Express of the following day, Easter Monday. But it carried no report of any air accident affecting the Allies.

Nor did the issue of the 27
^th
.

On the 28
^th
, however … if not an accident, at least an incident:

“Three U.S. planes, flying from England to North Africa, force-landed at Lisbon airfield yesterday through lack of petrol. The crews were interned—Oslo radio.”

Yet that was absolutely it. The closest thing you got. I even checked the 29
^th
and 30
^th
and then went back to the 24
^th
… all of which was patently absurd. But I now felt obsessed, driven … quite incapable of giving up the search. And there was nothing. Not on any of those dates. Nothing—nothing—
nothing
!

Amongst other things, though, I read that at the moment (if you were lucky) you could find a little liver in the shops; that the nation’s milk ration had lately been cut to half a pint per day per head; and that Clark Gable, without the slightest show of side, had been found drinking beer in a pub in Lincolnshire—“Just think of it, Clark Gable came to Scunthorpe!” was the proud comment of the publican. Said his wife: “I’d never seen a film star! Now I’ve seen the best!”

But nowhere, nowhere, was there anything to do with any aeroplane—British, American, Lilliputian—which, between April 24
^th
and April 30
^th
1943, had come down off the coast of south-west Spain. And at last I really had to face it—there was simply no alternative.

That plane crash hadn’t happened.

11