Necessary Evil (Milkweed Triptych) (7 page)

“Ring finger. Just above the second knuckle.” She kissed the spot.

“Ah. That one.” He stroked the knuckle across her navel. Liv inhaled, flinching from the tickle. Her rump pressed against him. He kissed the nape of her neck.

“Well?” Liv feigned immunity to his attentions. But the flush rising on her skin put the lie to that. “It must be quite a tale for you to remember it so vividly. How old were you?”

Marsh’s fingers tapped her stomach as he counted off the years. “Seventeen, maybe.”

“Aha!” she exclaimed in a stage whisper. “Now I know I’m in for a truly fine story.” Liv delighted in the tales of his misspent youth—unlike so many women, who might have simply pretended their husbands didn’t have a past. But he was glad she never asked how he’d managed a job with the Foreign Office given such a colorful record. So he’d never needed to account for how Stephenson had had his record wiped clean. Though of course his job had nothing to do with the Foreign Office.

“And where,” she asked, “does the curtain rise?”

“Lympne.”

“What on earth were you doing there?”

“Seeing the sights. Rode down with some mates.”

“Right. Sightseeing. Of course you were.” She rolled over, hooked an ankle over his calf, and peered into his eyes. “What was her name?”

“I’m wounded by the implication.”

“Mmm-hmmm.” She tapped his ring finger just above the pale crease of scar tissue. “So. Sharp, are they? These famous sights in Lympne?”

“Not particularly. But window glass can be.”

“I’ve heard. How did you break a window?”

“Boosting a car.”

“Tell me you weren’t.”

“I was in a bit of a hurry, Liv.”

“Were you, now?”

“Not by choice. The sights, after all. But there was this rather angry bloke.”

Now she feigned concern. “Angry? With you? Whatever for?”

“It seems he’d come home to his flat to find somebody dangling from the bedroom windowsill.”

“Somebody.” Liv rested her forehead on his chest. Her warm naked body rubbed against him, shaking with suppressed laughter. It felt wonderful. He held her tighter. God, he loved this woman.

“Yes. But when he raced ’round back, and found me innocently collecting my shirt in the alleyway, he immediately leaped to conclusions. Unfounded conclusions.”

“The fiend.”

“Poor fellow. I would have boosted a different car if I’d known it was his.” He waited for her laughter to taper off. Then he added, “His sister never forgave me.”

Liv dissolved into giggles. That was rare. The giggling became tickling. Then kissing.

Downstairs, the telephone rang.

“Bugger,” he said.

“Not just now. And the telephone will wake your daughter if you’re not quick about it.” Her elbow nudged him gently in the stomach. “Move, sailor.”

“Maybe they’ll call again later.”

But Agnes began to wail on the third ring. Liv groaned. She yanked Marsh’s pillow from under his head and hugged it over her ears. “Go. And tell whomever it is to kindly sod off.”

Marsh levered himself into a sitting position. His foot tapped at the floorboards until he found his slippers. He staggered into the nursery, fumbling with the sash of his robe. He bounced Agnes in the crook of his arm as he descended the stairs.

The telephone rested on a table in the vestibule, next to the blanket and bowl of water Liv kept on hand for sealing the door in the event of a gas attack. Above the table hung the framed watercolor they had received as a wedding gift. The phone was still ringing when Marsh finally reached it. He croaked a serviceable hello into the handset.

“Why aren’t you interrogating the prisoner right now?”

Marsh sighed. Rubbed his eyes. “Good morning, sir.”

Stephenson said, “We need to know why she’s here.”

“Yes, sir.”

The stairs creaked under Liv’s feet. She waved at the handset in Marsh’s hand.
Hi, John,
she mouthed, while taking Agnes from him.

“Incidentally, sir, my wife wanted me to tell you she’d like you to so—”

She swatted at him. “Don’t you dare.”

“—to know she’s cross with you for making me miss the birth of my daughter.” Liv knew he worked for Stephenson, and that they’d known each other for many years.

“Tell her to take it up with Hitler,” said the old man.

Marsh waited until Liv had passed into the kitchen, out of earshot. “I’ve done my best with the girl,” he said. “Perhaps somebody else should give it a go.”

“Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but we’re a bit short of hands.”

“There’s Lorimer. Or Will.” The line fell silent for a long beat. Marsh conceded, “Fair enough. Scratch that.”

Will’s concept of discretion left something to be desired. He was still new to the world of tradecraft. Plus, in his weakened state, he was in no position to deal with her. The imperturbable gypsy girl would run circles about him. Only the Eidolon—Marsh shuddered—had evoked a genuine emotional reaction from her.

Fragmentary images from last night’s dream, of shears and fingernails and butterflies with newsprint wings, fluttered across his mind’s eye.

Stephenson said, “Lorimer is busy.”

In the kitchen, Liv filled a kettle, simultaneously cooing to their daughter and dodging the fine spray of water that spat from the leaky faucet.

“Me, too,” said Marsh. He failed to keep a hint of pleading out of his voice.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

Liv lit the gas hob on the stove.
Click-click-whoosh.

Marsh sighed again. “May I eat breakfast first?”

“Only if you’re quick about it. The PM wants answers.” Stephenson’s voice faded and then came back, as if he’d paused in the act of hanging up to add: “As do I.”
Click.

Their refrigerator held no eggs, on account of the rationing, but their pantry was well-stocked with dried egg powder. Liv opted to try a recipe given in one of the Ministry of Food’s War Cookery leaflets (“English Monkey,” from
Leaflet Number Eleven.
) Marsh would have preferred a different experiment, the so-called “Spanish Omelet,” but it was too early in the season for herbs from the garden. And he’d been too busy capturing foreign operatives to get anything planted.

Marsh opened the cupboard while Liv crumbled the last of their stale bread into a bowl. The sleeves of his robe fell back as he reached up to fish out a pair of plates.

“Those are new,” she said, pointing at his forearm, the one she hadn’t been studying in bed. Three thin scabs traced the contour of his arm, like a fragment of Morse code etched into his flesh. They were fingernail marks; the gypsy girl had clenched his arm in terror when Will’s Eidolon arrived.

“That happened on the Tube yesterday,” he lied. “Got a door slammed on my arm.”

“Poor thing. Those doors are evil, aren’t they? I once had the hem of my skirt caught. On an express. I had to stand all the way to Paddington. Quite embarrassing.”

Marsh took the time to enjoy a proper breakfast with his family, and the old man be damned. Later, he would remember this morning, and weep with gratitude for the memory.

13 May 1940

Westminster, London, England

Precious moments slipped away while I rotted in that cell. I could feel every tick, every tock. Desperation had me on the brink of feigning illness serious enough for a doctor. I was assessing my chances of taking a hostage when something strange happened: the coppers let me go.

It was Francis’s partner who came to give me the good news. Since Will hadn’t pressed any charges, he said, there was nothing for them to do but let me free.

I asked, “That’s all, then?”

“That’s all. Sorry for the misunderstanding, sir.” He smiled uneasily, and paused awkwardly as if debating whether to clap me on the back. “But do stay out of St. James’ from now on, won’t you?”

Ha bloody ha.

“Straight home with you, sir. And don’t leave the house without an ID next time. You’ll be in a spot of trouble if you get nicked again.”

If anything, it seemed they were eager to see me go. Quite a change from the previous evening. And the mention of St. James’ brought home another oddity. They’d dropped the public indecency charge. Not that I was keen to preserve that particular humiliation, but it was strange.

Stranger still: they returned Will’s billfold complete with contents. And they glossed over my missing ID card. The coppers cut me loose knowing bloody well I still had no proper identification.

I emerged from the police station into a damp, gray afternoon. Looked like it had rained stair-rods while I was in the clink, though I hadn’t heard a hint of it through the thick stone walls. Now the clouds had conjured a cold, thin drizzle that snaked beneath my collar. I missed my fedora.

I paused on the pavement, stretching and generally playing the part of a man sipping at freedom and relief in equal measure. It gave me my first real glimpse of the London I’d left behind long ago, in fact if not in spirit.

And dear God: I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed this city. London had been such a proud city before Luftwaffe bombs erased centuries of our history and culture. The postwar rebuilding had been extensive, but soulless and perfunctory. London’s postwar caretakers hadn’t so much as nodded at the city’s architectural heritage. But now I stood in the midst of London as it was meant to be.

I wiped my eyes while studying my surroundings. Little things had changed, as well. In 1940 it was still possible to find gas lamps. I stood beneath one.

After the look and feel of the city itself, I next noticed the cars on the street. I hadn’t appreciated how much they’d changed over the years until the change had been erased. I supposed it had been a gradual evolution. And there were so few of them on the street; I’d forgotten about that, too. Part of that came out of the petrol rationing. But even accounting for the rationing, there were simply more cars on the street in 1963.

A placard pasted in the window of a chemist’s shop exhorted me to
LOOK OUT IN THE BLACKOUT
. Other placards exhorted passersby to buy Victory Bonds and to spot enemy uniforms on sight. An ARP warden nodded to me from beneath the narrow brim of his metal helmet. I nodded back.

I took it all in. The sights. The sounds. The rainy smell of springtime in the city. This was where I belonged. Fighting a chiaroscuro war, black and white. I wasn’t cut out to be a cold warrior. Events subsequent to my return to the service had borne that out.

The survey of my surroundings also enabled me to spot the black Vauxhall parked down the street from the station. Picked it out at once; SIS used modern descendants of that model into the 60s.

I realized what had happened. Will’s departure incited a heated discussion between those who thought he was just another brainless toff, and those (probably the minority) who thought Will’s claims merited closer attention. In the end, discretion won out. Next, a rapid series of telephone calls ricocheted from Cannon Row, to the Met, to the Home Office, to the Security Service, and back down the chain again. I reckoned the message from MI5 said something akin to:
Give us time to get down there. Cut him loose when we say. We’ll send someone to pick up the file. After that, tell your men this never happened.

At which point the coppers couldn’t wait to see the last of me. Catching the occasional butcher who short-changed customers on their ration cards was one thing; cracking Jerry spy rings was a different kettle of fish.

This explained why they had set me free in spite of my dodgy credentials and lack of identification. Even the gentle advice to go straight home: so MI5 could track me. They’d returned Will’s billfold complete with its original contents; I reckoned they might have added something, too. Something damning. The poisoned cheese of their rat trap.

I turned up my collar and started walking, careful to stay visible to the Vauxhall. After a few dozen yards I stopped behind a parked car, and stooped over to tie my shoes. I tried to use the car’s chromed bumper as a mirror, but that had been painted over. Right … the blackout regs. I’d forgotten. So I watched the street behind me from the corner of my eye.

Sure enough. The Vauxhall eased into the sparse traffic the moment I disappeared from sight.

Splendid. I was officially under observation by the domestic intelligence services. They’d be running a standard box if they knew what they were about; I hadn’t picked out all the watchers. Nor did I want to. Not yet. They’d get cross if they knew I’d picked them out so easily.

The residual ache in my knee twinged in warning as I hopped on the rear platform of a passing omnibus. These, at least, had resisted the passage of time, for which I was glad. Not for the comfortable familiarity, but because it meant I still knew a few tricks for dodging a fare.

The conductor frowned at me, clearly discomfited by my scars. “That’s dangerous,” he said. “Wait ’til we’ve come to a proper stop, what?”

“Sorry, mate. Bit of a hurry,” I said. I took an empty seat behind a mother and daughter, and fished out Will’s billfold. I plucked out a five-pound note and folded it into my hand while the clippie dealt with another fare. Then, while nobody was looking, I kicked the girl’s seat. Her mother shot me a look that could have blistered paint, but frowned and turned away when she saw my wounded face. Didn’t like doing it—I thought of Agnes—but it got the girl crying, loudly, which is what I needed.

When it came my turn to pay, I held the folded bill between my fingers so that the clippie could clearly see the “5”. I smiled apologetically, and rasped, “Lost my pocket change at the pub. Help a fellow out, will you?”

He did. And he gave me change for the fiver: the crying kept him too distracted to give the bill a proper look. One of the oldest tricks around, yes, but that’s because it works. You just have to know how to play it.

It wasn’t much money, but it meant finally having some legal tender on my person, and enough to get me to Walworth.

A gas mask canister hung from the clippie’s neck. It bumped against his chest when the bus lurched around a corner. Others—men, women, even the children—carried similar bundles. I didn’t have a gas mask, but I wasn’t worried; they’d been common in the first few months of the war, though by 1940 one could find folks who’d decided not to bother. More and more people opted to leave the masks at home as the war dragged on. They’d been right; Hitler never got around to lobbing mustard gas across the Channel.