Necessary Evil (Milkweed Triptych) (11 page)

I watched her eyes, those dark windows upon her malignant soul. She understood: I wouldn’t sever humanity’s link with the Eidolons if it meant leaving Britain defenseless against the REGP. Which brought me back to my question.

“Do you understand your part in this?”

That earned another sigh. “Yes,” she said with exaggerated care. “I’ll help him.”

“I’m going to warn him about you.”

Gretel said, “By all means. But don’t spend too long at it. We do have a boat to catch.”

A car turned the corner. Glare from its slitted headlights briefly washed low against us. We hunkered down into the seats of our stolen car until it passed.

“Thing is, I can’t help but wonder what happens later.” I nodded at her battery. “After this is over. Assuming we’re successful.” She smirked at that. “What do
you
get out of this?”

“Oh, Raybould. You already know that. You were there. You saved me from the Eidolons.”

“No. That was the ‘other’ you, wasn’t it? To use your own words. But what did her sacrifice buy you?”

“Freedom. A new time line. The only time line that doesn’t end with the Eidolons.”

She was careful in front of Klaus, but I filled in the rest:
The only time line where Gretel doesn’t end with the Eidolons. And to hell with everybody else.

“Oh, I’ve no doubt that’s part of it. I know how badly they terrify you.” I held up my arm, tugged down the sleeve of my uniform. The moon shone on a faint trio of crescent-shaped scars in my forearm. “But that alone is too simple. It’s never enough for you simply to break even. Your schemes always put you ahead. So I have to wonder. What do you want now?”

The corner of Gretel’s mouth curled into the half smile that I had come to loathe. “I have the same wants and needs as any woman. You don’t believe that yet, but you will.”

She was right. I didn’t.

I waited in the silent darkness for my doppelgänger to arrive.

five

13–14 May 1940

Walworth, London, England

Marsh leaned against the front door, too tired to do anything but throw his weight against it. It flew open. He leapt to catch it before the slam woke Agnes. He bumped the telephone table, sloshing the contents of the water bowl across the floor.

“Damn it.”

He tossed his fedora on the banister finial, took the blanket beside the bowl, and tried to mop up the mess. The blanket wasn’t very absorbent. It only succeeded in pushing the water about. But the thought of going into the kitchen for a proper towel left him feeling weary. The chase and its aftermath had taken all his reserves, mental and physical.

Liv shuffled in from the kitchen. She was in her dressing gown, the lavender one, and carrying a cup. She sipped at her tea, watching his ineffectual attempts to corral the water.

“You realize I placed that there knowing it would provide a bit of comedy,” she said. “Gas attacks were just my excuse.”

He mumbled, “Sorry, Liv. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I wasn’t sleeping, you mad fool. Here, leave that. It’s just water.” She took his hand, pulled him up. “You look knackered.”

“Long day,” said Marsh, shaking his head. He kept scouring his memories for everything the girl had ever said to him, trying to piece together those frantic minutes during the chase and her escape. He couldn’t stop watching it in his head, the way the Jerry agent jumped through solid walls like they weren’t there at all. Marsh could see they had weaknesses. The batteries, for one. And the ghost bloke couldn’t breathe when he was in that state. But that seemed a thin thread upon which to hang the faintest hope.

Gretel—they knew her name now, for all the good that did—had known that bloke with the wraith ability was coming for her. The extraction had worked too cleanly for the operation to have been improvised. Von Westarp’s people had planned this from the beginning. Why?

And worse, how did they know where she’d be? That was the question prickling Marsh’s spine with needles of dread. The question that sapped his strength, for it was too heavy to budge. The Admiralty building was off the beaten path for SIS. The old man had chosen to put Milkweed HQ there for that reason. Gretel’s rescuer hadn’t made a lucky guess. He’d known.

And what was she? What could she do?

Whatever the answer, she and her rescuer were far away by now. Probably halfway to the coast at this hour. Together with Lorimer and Stephenson, Marsh had worked the phones, putting feelers out, quietly alerting every constabulary in southern England. But Marsh knew they wouldn’t turn up anything.

“‘Long day,’ he says. Hmmm.” Liv studied his face. Her expression softened in the way that meant she was finished teasing him for a bit. A frown creased the bridge of her nose, rippled her freckles, tugged at her eyebrows. “It’s more than that.”

And she was right. As she often was. Because on top of the demoralizing and humiliating defeat they’d suffered at the hands of the Schutzstaffel tonight, there was also the issue of Will’s encounter in the park. Marsh didn’t quite know what to make of that. But the poor fellow did have a bruise where he said the stranger clocked him with a briefcase. Will was having a bad week.

As were they all. Because if the bloke who rolled him in the park was a naval officer … The ease of Gretel’s escape suggested a mole. Will’s story, if true to the details, only corroborated that. Though it would take a rather bold kind of mole to show himself to Will like that. Very odd.

Ever since Marsh had returned from Spain, odd things had only meant trouble.

Liv was right. A long day, but so much more.

“Come,” she said. She pulled him inside, to where Agnes dozed in her bassinet. Marsh followed, half tripping while he kicked off his shoes. He collapsed into an armchair. Liv snuggled in beside him. She pulled his head to her shoulder. They swayed in time with her breathing. He listened to her heartbeat. She understood him so well. He could be vulnerable with her, and she knew when he needed it. And in spite of all the shit, she loved him. Sometimes Marsh felt as though Liv was his only human credential.

“Tell me,” she said.

Would that I could, Liv.
Marsh cracked his knuckles. But what could he tell her? The truth, of sorts.
I failed you, Liv. I failed Agnes. I can’t protect you.

“Hitler kicked us in the bollocks today.”

“Don’t let him do that too often,” said Liv. “Agnes will need a little brother or sister soon.”

His daughter’s face wasn’t as red as it had been when he’d first met her. But still her eyes and lips were scrunched under little creases of baby fat, as though her dreams were matters of deep concentration.

“Have you thought more about sending her to your aunt?”

Liv’s chest swelled with a long, steadying breath. “Something terrible has happened. Something you can’t say.”

“Yes.” What could he tell her? Again, he settled for simple truth. “I’m afraid things may get worse, much worse, before they get better. We’d do well by Agnes to keep Williton in mind.”

Liv sighed. “If we must.”

They held each other. Marsh closed his eyes. Drifted with the sound of Liv’s heart, the smell of her skin. His stomach gurgled.

She asked, “Have you eaten?”

“I … No. Not since breakfast.” He hadn’t realized it until she asked. But now suddenly he was famished. And the house was full of the smell of Liv’s cooking. How had he not noticed? That damn Gretel had him tied in knots.

“Well, there you have it. No wonder the Führer gave you such a drubbing today. You can’t save Britain on an empty stomach.” She shifted out of his embrace, climbed to her feet. “I’ll get you a bowl.”

Marsh sniffed the air again. “Fish stew?”

“Be thankful it isn’t eel stew. It would have been, had I got to the fishmongers any later.”

Marsh ate while Agnes had her midnight feeding. He dozed off in the chair. Liv woke him some time later when she lifted the spoon and cold bowl from his slack fingers. It felt like only a few seconds had passed. “You’ll feel better if you sleep in a proper bed,” she whispered.

Climbing the stairs and undressing took just enough effort to jostle the gears of his mind back into motion. He fell into the sheets. And lay awake.

Had von Westarp or the Schutzstaffel placed somebody in SIS? Watching Milkweed? Was that how the gypsy girl had known about Liv’s pregnancy? Marsh couldn’t let it go. Like a dog with a soup bone, he gnawed on it from every angle. But it held no marrow. Only splinters.

He didn’t know how long he had lain there before Liv’s breathing eased into the long, slow breaths of peaceful slumber. She hadn’t fallen asleep immediately; she was listening to him, too, wanting to know if he could rest. But he was too tired for sleep, his mind too agitated for true relaxation. He needed room to pace properly.

Marsh eased out of bed, taking care not to jostle the mattress. He dressed in the darkness and tiptoed from the bedroom. Agnes’s face crinkled into a new pattern of wrinkles; her arms jerked in little spasms. Her blanket had slipped. He tucked it over her shoulders, caressed her chin with a fleecy elephant. She smelled of Liv’s shampoo.

He crept down the stairs, stepping on the outer edges so the boards wouldn’t creak, and into the kitchen.

*

“He’s coming,” said Gretel.

I jerked back to wakefulness, my stomach full of butterflies. Soft snoring drifted to my ears from the rear seat. “What?”

“Raybould is here. He’s coming outside.” She paused; whether for theatrical effect or because she was reading potential time lines, I couldn’t say. “Try not to anger him. He’s had an upsetting day. He won’t receive you well.”

As though I needed the warning. Gretel knew everything he might have done, but she still didn’t know him as I did. I knew what he was thinking. What he was feeling.

I checked my pockets, double-checking the forged transfer order I’d created in Stephenson’s office. My fingertips traced the embossed seal of the Royal Arms. It was my talisman, my only shield in the looming confrontation. And a bloody flimsy one at that.

Measured in terms of preparation, my mission tonight was a farce. And not a funny one. Beyond a considerable knowledge of the mark, my entire cover story rested on a single piece of paper. My plan made a mockery of proper intelligence procedures. A
real
SIS operation, even a halfway competent one, would have spent months creating an identity for me before I assumed it. Military service, school records, hospital records, birth certificate … Anything an outsider might have used to corroborate my story we would have constructed and inserted into the historical record long before we put the ball in motion.

But I didn’t have the luxury of time. Neither did my counterpart, and it was there I hung my hopes. He had one chance to infiltrate the farm. He couldn’t do that and verify my credentials. So the lack of preparation wouldn’t matter as long as he accepted my sales pitch.

I eased out of the car, but took care when closing the door lest the noise alert my doppelgänger. I leaned through the open driver’s window and glared at Gretel. The moon had shifted, so now shadows cloaked her eyes.

I whispered through the wreckage of my throat, “Don’t go anywhere.” She stuck her tongue out at me. Klaus murmured in his sleep. Something about hay wagons.

The scraping of my shoes on wet pavement echoed impossibly loud in the night. I moved lightly, on the balls of my feet, trying to minimize the noise. Ours wasn’t the only car parked on the street; another had appeared farther up the road while I dozed.

I’d just passed the hedge flanking the garden gate when the kitchen door creaked open. I spun, pressing myself to the hedge of barberries and holly so that he wouldn’t glimpse my moonlit form lurking behind the gate.

The fluttering in my stomach made me stumble. I was hiding from a younger version of myself, waiting to have a conversation with him, in the garden, in the middle of the night. The entire situation was absurd. Since my arrival in the past, I’d been working to get to this moment. But I was nervous about meeting myself. Frightened, even. We had a temper.

I forced myself to work through the apprehension. I listened for my moment. Susurration: footsteps on dewy grass.
Pop-snap
: cracked knuckles. Then nothing. Knowing that small space so well, the way my garden shed crowded beside the Anderson shelter, I could tell exactly where my counterpart was standing. He had paused on his way between the house and my—his—garden shed.

What are you doing? Go inside.

But he didn’t move. He merely stood there, like a statue in the darkness.

*

Marsh shuffled across the yard toward his garden shed. His best thinking happened there; he could pace and mutter to himself without waking Liv and the baby. He cracked his knuckles again.

A faint glimmer beyond the gate caught his eye. Moonlight on metal. He stopped. Squinted.

A car. Parked behind the house.

Marsh looked away, shunted the vehicle to his peripheral vision. It traded acuity for sensitivity. He’d learned the trick at Fort Monckton before he joined the Firm.

Shapes coalesced from the darkness. Yes, there was a car. And it was occupied.

Somebody was watching the house.

Had they seen him yet? That depended on whether they’d heard the kitchen door. The moon was slightly behind the house, putting him in the deepest of the shadows.

He kept an extra revolver stashed in the shed. Liv didn’t know about it; she hated guns. But he was glad he’d taken the precaution. Marsh sidestepped out of the car’s line of sight, walking on the balls of his feet.

*

I knew he’d made us when he finally started moving again. Faster, more quietly. Were I in his shoes, I’d—

Bugger. He was going for the Enfield.

I tensed, listening. There was no shaft of light to tell me when he’d entered the shed. I had to go by the not-squeak of oiled hinges.

There. I tugged up on the slats again, as I’d done earlier in the evening, and stepped through the gate. I didn’t let it clap shut behind me. No need to startle him. Forcing his hand would only make things worse.