Waiting for Sunrise (44 page)

Question: who was that man in the shadows watching me?

Only now do I sense the after-shock, feel my nerves set on edge. The Zeppelin, the bombs, the dead bodies, the screams. Seeing Blanche again, being with her, made me push everything else to the back of my mind, including that strange meeting in Exeter Street – part of the madness and horror of the night. Was somebody trying to frighten me? A warning? Vandenbrook was in Folkestone, in theory – but I can’t believe that he’d ever try anything so self-destructive, so against his best interests. I’m his only hope.

I sit here and re-run the seconds’ glimpse I had of him sprinting away. Why do I think of Jack Fyfe-Miller? What makes me think that? No – surely mistaken identity. But, this much is clear, someone was waiting outside the Annexe, saw me dash out and followed me as I ran towards the bombs . . .

Last night as we lay in each other’s arms we spoke.

ME: I still have the ring – our ring . . .

BLANCHE: What are you trying to say, my darling?

ME: That, you know, maybe we should never have broken off our engagement. I suppose.

BLANCHE: Am I meant to read that as a re-proposal of sorts?

ME: Yes. Please say yes. I’m a complete fool. I’ve missed you, my love – I’ve been living in a daze, a coma.

Then we kissed. Then I went and took the ring from the card pocket inside my jacket.

ME: I’ve been carrying it with me. Good luck charm.

BLANCHE: Have you needed a lot of luck, since we split up?

ME: You’ve no idea. I’ll tell you all about it one day. Oh. Perhaps I should ask. What about Ashburnham?

BLANCHE: Ashburnham is a nonentity. I’ve banished him from my presence.

ME: I’m delighted to hear it. I just had to ask.

BLANCHE [putting ring on]: Look, it still fits. Good omen.

ME: You won’t mind being Mrs Lysander Rief? No more Miss Blanche Blondel?

BLANCHE: It’s better than my real name. I was born [Yorkshire accent] Agnes Bleathby.

ME [Yorkshire accent]: Thee learn summat new every day, Agnes, flower. Happen.

BLANCHE: We’re all acting, aren’t we? Almost all the time – each and every one of us.

ME: But not now. I’m not.

BLANCHE: Me neither. [Kissing renewed fiancé] Still, it’s just as well that some of us can make a living from it. Come here, you.

I’ve drafted out a telegram – I’ll call in at a telegraph office on the way to the Annexe. Everything’s changed now.

DEAR VANORA SAD NEWS STOP YOUR AUNT INDISPOSED SUGGEST POSTPONE LONDON TRIP STOP ANDROMEDA.

At a halfpenny a word that’s probably the wisest seven pennies I’ve ever spent.

15. A Dozen Oysters and a Pint of Hock

Lysander timed his walk to the Annexe from Trevelyan House and discovered that, at a brisk pace, it took him slightly more than five minutes. He felt briefly pleased at the economies of time and money such proximity to his place of work would supply, but then abruptly reminded himself that his days in the Annexe must, surely, be nearly over. Matters were coming to a head, and fast – still, he had one more trick left to play.

As he sauntered up the Embankment, past Cleopatra’s Needle, about to cross the roadway to the Annexe, he saw Munro coming towards him. Too many impromptu meetings, he thought – first Fyfe-Miller, now Munro. Anxiety must be building in Whitehall Court.

‘Well, what a coincidence.’

‘Cynicism doesn’t suit your open, friendly nature, Rief. Shall we have a coffee before your daily grind begins?’

There was a coffee stall under Charing Cross Railway Bridge. Munro ordered two mugs and Lysander lit a cigarette.

‘Quite a raid last night,’ Munro said.

‘Why can’t we shoot down something that big? That’s what I don’t understand. It’s vast. Sitting up there in the sky, lit up.’

‘There’s only one anti-aircraft gun in London with a range of ten thousand feet. And it’s French.’

‘Couldn’t we borrow a few more from them? The Zeppelins will be back, don’t you think?’

‘Let others worry about that, Rief. We’ve got enough on our plate. Actually, I will try one of your “gaspers”, thank you.’

Lysander gave him one and he lit it, then spent a minute picking shreds of tobacco off his tongue. He wasn’t really a practised smoker, Munro, it was more of an affectation than a pleasure.

‘How are you getting on?’ he asked eventually.

‘Slow but steady –’

‘– Wins the race, eh? Don’t go too slow. Any suspects?’

‘A few. Better not single anyone out, just yet – in case I’m wrong.’

He saw Munro’s jaw muscles tighten.

‘Don’t expect us to tolerate your due caution for ever, Lysander. You’re there to do a job, not sit on your arse sharpening pencils. So do it.’

He was suddenly very angry for some reason, Lysander saw, noting the patronizing use of his Christian name.

‘I’m not asking for your tolerance,’ he said, trying to seem calm. ‘I’ve got to make this enquiry look as boring and routine as possible. You wouldn’t thank me if I scared someone off or presented you with the wrong person all for the sake of gaining a day or two.’

Munro seemed visibly to regain his usual mood of thinly disguised condescension as he thought about this.

‘Yes . . . Well . . . I understand you sent for Osborne-Way’s claims from the War Office.’

‘Yes, I did.’ Lysander concealed his surprise. How did Munro know this? An answer came to him at once – Tremlett, of course. Munro’s eyes and ears in the Directorate of Movements.
Eye
and ears, rather. He would keep Tremlett’s divided loyalties very much in mind from now on. ‘Osborne-Way potentially knows everything that was in the Glockner letters, he’s –’

‘You had no right.’

‘I had every right.’

‘Andromeda’s not Osborne-Way.’

‘We can’t be complacent; we can’t risk easy assumptions.’

He could see Munro’s anger returning – why was he so on edge and quick-tempered? He decided to change the subject.

‘I saw Florence Duchesne the other day.’

‘I know.’

‘Is she still in London?’

‘She’s left I’m afraid.’

‘Oh. Right. I was rather hoping to see her again.’ Lysander felt a brief but acute sadness at this news – maybe something had been lost there. For some reason he thought of her as his only true ally – they seemed to understand each other; they were both functionaries following orders from a source neither of them knew or could identify. Their strings were being pulled – that’s what linked them . . . He looked at Munro, puffing at his cigarette like a girl. He decided that attack was the best means of defence, now.

‘Are you telling me everything, Munro? Sometimes I find myself wondering – what’s really going on here?’

‘Just find Andromeda – and fast.’ He threw some coins on the counter, gave him a hard smile and walked away.

Lysander went back to the Annexe with a plan forming in his head, slowly taking shape. If Munro wanted action, then he would give him action.

Tremlett was waiting for him outside Room 205 and seemed unusually chirpy – ‘Nice cuppa tea, sir? Warm the old cockles?’ – but Lysander looked at him suspiciously now, wondering what Tremlett might have gleaned from their trip to the south-coast hotels. On reflection it seemed unlikely that he’d make the connection with Vandenbrook; Lysander had never told him what he was doing, making Tremlett wait outside each time. But he was no fool. Would he have passed on the details of their journey to Munro, in any event? Probably – even if he couldn’t explain it. Was that what was making Munro and Fyfe-Miller so jumpy? Did they have a sense that he was ahead of them, was unearthing facts that they had no inkling of? . . . The unanswered questions piled up and yet again Lysander felt himself sinking in a quagmire of uncertainties. He opened a drawer in his desk and took out a booklet of pre-paid telegraph forms. He’d give them something that would make them think again.

He picked up the telephone and dialled Tremlett’s extension.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Is Captain Vandenbrook back from Folkestone?’

‘I believe so, sir.’

‘Would you ask him to step into my office.’

Lysander treated himself to a lunch at Max’s oyster bar in Dean Street in Soho. He ordered a dozen oysters and a pint of hock and allowed his thoughts to return pleasingly to Blanche and the night they had spent together. She was tall, almost ungainly under the sheets – sheets that they had spread and tucked in themselves in a kind of frenzy, snatching them from his trunks, delivered by porter that morning – she was all knees and elbows, lean and bony. Her flat wide breasts with tawny nipples. It was obvious she’d had many lovers before him. That way she held his head, his hair gathered in her fists holding him still . . . Where or from whom did that trick come? He had no regrets about spontaneously asking her to take back his ring – though he wondered now, as he emptied oysters down his throat, if he had been too precipitate, over-happy, over-relieved that his old ‘problem’ hadn’t recurred with her. No – it had been as good as with Hettie. Hettie, so different. There was no sense of danger with Blanche, however, it was more a kind of rigour. Refreshing, no-nonsense Agnes Bleathby. It was the end of Hettie, of course. But that was only right as Hettie had let him down shockingly, had betrayed him instantly and without a qualm to save herself despite the fact that she was the mother of their son. Lothar meant little or nothing to Hettie Bull, he realized. Furthermore, he – Lothar’s natural father – clearly played no part in her life unless he could be useful to her in some selfish way – the marriage to Jago Lasry was the perfect example. No, Blanche had always been the girl for him. She had asked him back to her mews house in Knightsbridge for supper – her show was cancelled until the damage to the theatre was repaired. He smiled at the idea of Blanche cooking supper for him on his return from the office – a little forerunner of their domestic bliss? For the first time in many months he felt the warmth of security wash through him. Contentment – how rare that feeling was and it was only right that it should be cherished. He ordered another round of oysters and another pint of hock.

He returned to the Annexe in good spirits. He had a course of action to follow and Munro would have his answer soon, however unwelcome it might be. Vandenbrook was poised and ready. Yet again Tremlett was waiting by his door, agitated this time.

‘Ah, there you are, sir. I was beginning to think you’d gone for the day.’

‘No, Tremlett. What is it?’

‘There’s a man downstairs insisting on seeing you. Claims to be your uncle, sir – a Major Rief.’

‘That’s because he
is
my uncle. Send him up at once. And bring us a pot of coffee.’

Lysander sat down with a thump, realizing his head was a little blurry from all the hock, but pleased at the prospect of seeing Hamo. He didn’t come up to town often – ‘London terrifies me,’ he always said – so this was an unfamiliar treat.

Tremlett showed Hamo in and Lysander knew at once something was very wrong.

‘What is it, Hamo? Nothing to do with Femi, is it?’ The fighting in West Africa was over, as far as he knew – everything had moved to the East.

Hamo’s face was set.

‘Prepare yourself for the worst possible news, my boy . . .’

‘What’s happened?’

‘Your mother is dead.’

16. Autobiographical Investigations