20.

LONDON.

It had been Alfred Vicary's inability to repair a motorbike that led to his shattered knee. It happened on a glorious autumn day in the north of France, and without a doubt it was the worst day of his life.

Vicary had just finished a meeting with a spy who had gone behind enemy lines in a sector where the British planned to attack at dawn the next morning. The spy had discovered a large bivouac of German soldiers. The attack, if it went forward as planned, would be met with heavy resistance. The spy gave Vicary a handwritten note on the strength of the German troops and the number of artillery pieces he had spotted. He also gave Vicary a map showing exactly where they were camped. Vicary placed them in his leather saddlebag and set out back to headquarters.

Vicary knew he was carrying intelligence of vital importance; lives were at stake. He opened the throttle full and drove perilously fast along the narrow track. Large trees lined both sides of the path, a canopy of limbs overhead, the sunlight on the autumn leaves creating a flickering tunnel of fire. The path rose and fell rhythmically beneath him. Several times he felt the exhilarating thrill of his Rudge motorbike soaring airborne for a second or two.

The engine rattle began ten miles from headquarters. Vicary eased off the throttle. Over the next mile the rattle progressed to a loud clatter. A mile later he heard the sound of snapping metal, followed by a loud bang. The engine suddenly lost power and died.

With the roar of the bike gone, the silence was oppressive. He bent down and looked at the motor. The hot greasy metal and twisting cables meant nothing to him. He remembered actually kicking the thing and debating whether he should leave it by the roadside or drag it back to headquarters. He took hold of it by the handlebars and began pushing at a brisk pace.

The afternoon light diminished to a frail pink dusk. He was still miles from headquarters. If he were lucky, Vicary might run into someone from his own side who could give him a lift. If he were unlucky he might find himself face-to-face with a patrol of German scouts.

When the last of the twilight had died away, the shelling began. The first shells fell short, landing harmlessly in a field. The next shells soared overhead and thudded against a hillside. The third volley landed on the track directly in front of him.

Vicary never heard the shell that wounded him.

He regained consciousness sometime in the early evening as he lay freezing in a ditch. He looked down and nearly fainted at the sight of his knee, a mess of splintered bone and blood. He forced himself to crawl out of the ditch back up to the path. He found his bike and blacked out beside it.

Vicary came to in a field hospital the next morning. He knew the attack had gone forward because the hospital was overflowing. He lay in his bed all day, head swimming in a drowsy morphine haze, listening to the moaning of the wounded. At twilight the boy in the next bed died. Vicary closed his eyes, trying to shut out the sound of the death rattle, but it was no good.

Brendan Evans--his friend from Cambridge who had helped Vicary deceive his way into the Intelligence Corps--came to see him the next morning. The war had changed him. His boyish good looks were gone. He looked like a hardened, somewhat cruel man. Brendan pulled up a chair and sat down next to the bed.

"It's all my fault," Vicary told him. "I knew the Germans were waiting. But my motorbike broke down and I couldn't fix the damned thing. Then the shelling started."

"I know. They found the papers in your saddlebag. No one's blaming you. It was just bloody awful luck, that's all. You probably couldn't have done anything to repair the bike in any case."

Sometimes, Vicary still heard the screams of the dying in his sleep--even now, almost thirty years later. In recent days his dream had taken a new twist--he dreamed it was Basil Boothby who had sabotaged his motorbike.

Ever read Vogel's file?

No.

Liar. Perfect liar.

Vicary had tried to refrain from the inevitable comparisons between then and now, but it was unavoidable. He did not believe in fate, but someone or something had given him another chance--a chance to redeem himself for his failure on that autumn day in 1916.

Vicary thought the party in the pub across the street from MI5 headquarters would help him take his mind off the case. It had not. He had lingered at the fringes, thinking about France, gazing into his beer, watching while other officers flirted with the pretty typists. Nicholas Jago was giving a rather good account of himself at the piano.

He was jolted out of his trance when one of the Registry Queens began singing "I'll Be Seeing You." She was an attractive crimson-lipped blonde named Grace Clarendon. Vicary knew she and Harry had carried on a rather public affair early in the war. Vicary understood the attraction. Grace was bright, witty, and cleverer than the rest of the girls in Registry. But she was also married, and Vicary did not approve. He didn't tell Harry how he felt; it was none of his business. He thought, Besides, who am I to lecture on matters of the heart? He suspected it was Grace who had told Harry about Boothby and the Vogel file.

Harry walked in, bundled in his overcoat. He winked at Grace, then walked over to Vicary and said, "Let's head back to the office. We need to talk."

"Her name was Beatrice Pymm. She lived alone in a cottage outside Ipswich," Harry began, as they walked upstairs to Vicary's office. He had spent several hours in Ipswich that morning, delving into Beatrice Pymm's past. "No friends, no family. Her mother died in 1936. Left her the cottage and a fair amount of money. She didn't have a job. She had no boyfriends, no lovers, not even a cat. The only thing she did was paint."

"Paint?" Vicary asked.

"Yeah, paint. The people I spoke to said she painted almost every day. She left the cottage early in the morning, went into the surrounding countryside, and spent all day painting. A detective from the Ipswich police showed me a couple of her paintings: landscapes. Very nice, actually."

Vicary frowned. "I didn't know you had an eye for art, Harry."

"You think boys from Battersea can't appreciate the finer things? I'll have you know my sainted mother regularly dragged me to the National Gallery."

"I'm sorry, Harry. Please continue."

"Beatrice didn't own a car. She either rode her bicycle or walked or took the bus. She used to paint too long, especially in the summer when the light was good, and miss the last bus back. Her neighbors would spot her arriving home late at night on foot carrying her painting things. They say she spent the night in some god-awful places, just to catch the sunrise."

"What do they think happened to her?"

"The official version of the story--accidental drowning. Her belongings were found on the banks of the Orwell, including an empty bottle of wine. The police think she may have had a little too much to drink, lost her footing, slipped into the water, and drowned. No body was found. They investigated for some time but couldn't find any evidence to support any other theory. They declared her death an accidental drowning and closed the case."

"Sounds like a very plausible story."

"Sure, it could have happened that way. But I doubt it. Beatrice Pymm was very familiar with the area. Why on that particular day did she have a little too much to drink and fall into the river?"

"Theory number two?"

"Theory number two goes as follows: she was picked up by our spy after dark, stabbed in the heart, and her body loaded into a van. Her things were left on the river-bank in order to make it appear like an accidental drowning. In reality, the corpse was driven across the country, mutilated, and buried outside Whitchurch."

They arrived in Vicary's office and sat down, Vicary behind the desk, Harry opposite. Harry leaned back in his chair and propped up his feet.

"Is this all supposition, or do you have facts to support your theory?"

"Half and half, but it all fits your guess that Beatrice Pymm was murdered in order to conceal the spy's entry into the country."

"Let's hear it."

"I'll start with the corpse. The body was discovered in August 1939. I spoke to the Home Office pathologist who examined it. Judging from the decomposition, he estimated it had been in the ground six to nine months. That's consistent with Beatrice Pymm's disappearance, by the way. The bones of the face had been almost completely shattered. There were no teeth to compare dental records. There were no fingerprints to be taken because the hands had badly decomposed. He was unable to fix a cause of death. He did find one interesting clue, though, a nick on the bottom rib of the left side. That nick is consistent with being stabbed in the chest."

"You say the killer may have used a van? What's your evidence?"

"I asked the local police forces for reports on any crimes or disturbances around Whitchurch the night of Beatrice Pymm's murder. Coincidentally, a van was deserted and set deliberately ablaze outside a village called Alderton. They ran a check on the van's identification number."

"And?"

"Stolen in London two days earlier."

Vicary rose and began pacing. "So our spy is in the middle of nowhere with a van blazing on the side of the road. Where does she go now? What does she do?"

"Let's assume she comes back to London. She flags down a passing car or lorry and asks for a lift. Or maybe she walks to the nearest station and takes the first train into London."

"Too risky," Vicary said. "A woman alone in the middle of the countryside late at night would be very unusual. It's November, so it's cold too. She might be spotted by the police. The murder of Beatrice Pymm was perfectly planned and executed. Her killer wouldn't leave her escape to chance."

"How about a motorbike in the back of the van?"

"Good idea. Run a check. See if any motorbikes were stolen about that time."

"She rides back to London and ditches the bike."

"That's right," Vicary said. "And when war breaks out we don't look for a Dutch woman named Christa Kunst because we assume incorrectly that she's dead."

"Clever as hell."

"More ruthless than clever. Imagine, killing an innocent British civilian to better conceal a spy. This is no ordinary agent, and Kurt Vogel is no ordinary control officer. I'm convinced of that." Vicary paused to light a cigarette. "Has the photograph yielded any leads?"

"Nothing."

"I think that leaves our investigation dead in the water."

"I'm afraid you're right. I'll make a few more calls tonight."

Vicary shook his head. "Take the rest of the night off. Go down to the party." Then he added, "Spend some time with Grace."

Harry looked up. "How did you know?"

"This place is filled with intelligence officers, if you haven't noticed. Things get around, people talk. Besides, you two weren't exactly circumspect. You used to leave the number of Grace's flat with the night operators in case I was looking for you."

Harry's face reddened.

"Go to her, Harry. She misses you--any fool can see that."

"I miss her too. But she's married. I broke it off because I felt like a complete cad."

"You make her happy and she makes you happy. When her husband comes home, if if her husband comes home, things will go back to normal." her husband comes home, things will go back to normal."

"And where does that leave me?"

"That's up to you."

"It leaves me with a broken heart, that's where it leaves me. I'm crazy about Grace."

"Then be with her and enjoy her company."

"There's something else." Harry told him about the other aspect of his guilt over his affair with Grace--the fact that he was in London chasing spies while Grace's husband and other men were risking their lives in the military. "I just don't know what I would do under fire, how I would react. Whether I would be brave or whether I would be a coward. I also don't know whether I'm doing any damned good here. I could name a hundred other detectives who can do what I do. Sometimes I think about giving Boothby my resignation and joining up."

"Don't be ridiculous, Harry. When you do your job right you save lives on the battlefield. The invasion of France is going to be won or lost before the first soldier ever sets foot on a French beach. Thousands of lives may depend on what you do. If you don't think you're doing your bit, think of it in those terms. Besides, I need you. You're the only one I can trust around here."

They sat in an awkward, embarrassed silence for a moment, the way Englishmen are apt to do after sharing private thoughts. Harry stood up, started for the door, then stopped and turned around. "What about you, Alfred? Why is there no one in your life? Why don't you come downstairs to the party and find a nice woman to spend some time with?"

Vicary beat his breast pockets for his half-moon reading glasses and thrust them onto his face. "Good night, Harry," he said, a little too firmly, as he leafed through a stack of papers on the desk in front of him. "Have fun at the party. I'll see you in the morning."

When Harry was gone Vicary picked up the telephone and dialed Boothby's number. He was surprised when Boothby answered his own telephone. When Vicary asked if he was free, Sir Basil wondered aloud whether it could wait until Monday morning. Vicary said it was important. Sir Basil granted him an audience of five minutes and told Vicary to come upstairs straightaway.

"I've drafted this memorandum to General Eisenhower, General Betts, and the prime minister," Vicary said, when he finished briefing Boothby on Harry's discoveries that day. He handed it to Boothby, who remained standing, feet slightly apart as if for balance. He was in a hurry to leave for the country. His secretary had packed a secure briefcase of weekend reading material and a small leather grip of personal items. An overcoat hung over his shoulders, sleeves dangling at his sides. "To keep quiet about this any longer would be a dereliction of duty in my opinion, Sir Basil."

Boothby was still reading; Vicary knew this because his lips were moving. He was squinting so hard his eyes had vanished into his lush brows. Sir Basil liked to pretend he still had perfect vision and refused to wear his reading glasses in front of the staff.

"I thought we'd discussed this once already, Alfred," Boothby said, waving the sheet of paper through the air. A problem, once dealt with, should never resurface--it was one of Sir Basil's many personal and professional maxims. He was apt to grow agitated when subordinates raised matters already dispensed with. Careful deliberation and second-guessing were the province of weaker minds. Sir Basil valued quick decision making over all else. Vicary glanced at Sir Basil's desk. It was clean, polished, and absolutely void of paper or files, a monument to Boothby's management style.

"We have have discussed this once already, Sir Basil," Vicary said patiently, "but the situation has changed. It appears they've managed to insert an agent into the country and that agent has met with an agent in place. It appears that their operation--whatever it may be--is now under way. To sit on this information instead of passing it on is to court disaster." discussed this once already, Sir Basil," Vicary said patiently, "but the situation has changed. It appears they've managed to insert an agent into the country and that agent has met with an agent in place. It appears that their operation--whatever it may be--is now under way. To sit on this information instead of passing it on is to court disaster."

"Nonsense," Boothby snapped.

"Why is it nonsense?"

"Because this department is not going to officially inform the Americans and the prime minister that it is incapable of performing its job. That it is incapable of controlling the threat posed to the invasion preparations by German spies."

"That's not a valid reason for concealing this information."

"It is a valid reason, Alfred, if I say it is a valid reason."

Conversations with Boothby often assumed the characteristics of a cat chasing its own tail: shallow contradiction, bluff and diversion, point-scoring contests. Vicary bunched his hands judicially beneath his chin and pretended to study the pattern of Boothby's costly rug. The room was silent except for the sound of the floorboards creaking beneath Sir Basil's muscular bulk.

"Are you prepared to forward my memorandum to the director-general?" Vicary asked. His tone of voice was as unthreatening as possible.

"Absolutely not."

"Then I'm prepared to go directly to the DG myself."

Boothby bent his body and put his face close to Vicary's. Vicary, seated in Boothby's deep couch, could smell gin and cigarettes on his breath.

"And I'm prepared to squash you, Alfred."

"Sir Basil--"

"Let me remind you how the system works. You report to me, and I report to the director-general. You have reported to me, and I have determined it would be inappropriate to forward this matter to the DG at this time."

"There is one other option."

Boothby's head snapped back as if he had been punched. He quickly regained his composure, setting his jaw in an angry scowl. "I don't report to the prime minister, nor do I serve at his pleasure. But if you go around the department and speak directly to Churchill, I'll have you brought up before an internal review committee. By the time the committee is finished with you, they'll need dental records to identify the body."

"That's completely unfair."