The Cilla Rose Affair (33 page)

Nora stood on her own on the platform, aware of her pursuers advancing from above, aware of Ian, whom she was daring with her eyes to come and get her—challenging him with a multitude of defiance and fury.

He could hear voices behind him now—his father and the D.I.’s from Special Branch, following the uniformed P.C.’s down from the surface.

Abruptly, Nora spun around and walked across to the westbound platform. There was a train coming from Hounslow West: Ian could feel the rush of its wind, could see the indicator, flashing gold. He trailed Nora to the far end of the platform. What was she doing?

“Do you suppose I’ll jump onto the tracks?” she said, taunting him.

“You won’t,” he answered, confidently. He could see the lights of the train in the tunnel.

“What a fitting end. The same fate as my lately departed husband. And nobody left to betray poor Victor.”

“Victor’s already betrayed himself. We eavesdropped on your conversation at Romilly Square. It was us, in fact, who arranged the evening’s entertainment, entirely for your benefit.”

Nora didn’t look as if she was inclined to believe him. She was momentarily distracted by the sound of the train behind her, in the tunnel. Stepping forward, Ian grasped her by the wrist, turning his back to the tracks.

“Didn’t think you’d do it,” he said, under his breath.

Nora said nothing. She seemed to go limp. But as the front of the train roared towards the open mouth of the tunnel, she sprang to life again, twisting around, freeing herself. Shoving against Ian’s injured shoulder, she kicked his left leg out from under him, throwing him backwards.

He could feel himself falling. He could see the train, hear it, sense it, taste it. Wildly, he grabbed the empty air in front of him, knowing there was nothing, nothing—

And then he was hit. The blow surprised him, because it came not from his right, but his left, and it was a soft sort of thud, not hard and not metallic and train-like, and he was surprised even more because he landed on the platform quite intact and quite alive, even though there were carriages hurtling past the top of his head at a distance of no more than three or four inches.

He was surprised, too, because there was somebody on top of him which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be his father.

The train squealed to a stop and its doors opened and people got on and off. There seemed to be a certain amount of activity going on in the general vicinity of Ian’s feet, and the activity appeared to involve Nora Darrow and several PC’s, one of which was a woman.

With some difficulty, Ian pushed himself up onto one elbow. His shoulder was blazing with pain. “Thanks,” he gasped.

“Don’t mention it, old son.”

His father accepted the offer of Detective Inspector Crowther’s hand to bring him back to his feet.

“I’m getting altogether too old for this sort of thing,” he complained, reaching down to help his son. “All right?”

“First Mobambo’s goon show, then Pinkerton’s firing squad, now this.” Ian grasped his father’s arm, pulling himself up. “Is there anything else I’m likely to be subjected to before we’re done, or is that about it?”

Tuesday, 10 September 1991

Always a victim of long-standing neglect, the wartime emergency tunnel that connected the basement of Canada House to a passageway beneath Trafalgar Square had an uneven floor covered with a rubber mat that smelled of old galoshes, and yellow walls lined with pipes and conduits and hissing valves, and illumination provided by a series of 40 watt bulbs. Half a year earlier, that segment of the tunnel that burrowed beneath the eastern foundation wall of Canada House had succumbed to the ravages of time, and had collapsed, taking with it most of the fixtures of a woman’s lavatory directly above, and necessitating a security alert of the highest order.

Walking with Nicky Armstrong, Evan passed beneath the newly-patched portion of the passageway’s roof. It was particularly noisy at this point: two Underground lines ran nearby, four tunnels in all, burrowing beneath the traffic in the vicinity of Cockspur Street.

“I’m rather fond of this little footpath,” Nicholas mused. “It’s completely insecure—hasn’t been swept for years—but that’s the beauty of it. It’s so insignificant nobody remembers it’s here. Better than the best of our lead-walled security centres.” He patted his pockets, found his tube of sweets, and peeled the wrapping paper and foil away from the roll. Offering his fruit gums across the passageway, he paused to accommodate the thunderous pounding from a nearby tunnel. “Blasted trains,” he said. “If it’s not the Jubilee it’s the bloody Bakerloo. Electrical interference. Read errors jumping all over our computer screens during the morning and evening rush.”

Evan smiled.

“To be perfectly honest with you, I have mixed feelings about the outcome of this one. Victor was a colleague. It always comes as somewhat of a shock when the rumours one’s dealt with for decades turn out to be true.”

He paused.

“Has anybody spoken with the fledgling?”

“Rupert? Yes, Ian’s having a word with him.”

“Ah,” said Nicholas. “Good.”

Evan withdrew from his coat pocket a large brown envelope, which he passed across to his superior.

Nicholas unsealed the flap. Contained within it were a number of handwritten pages, the paper aged and appearing to have suffered considerably from having spent several decades in a damp, enclosed dead letter drop. The date at the top was April 3, 1966.

“Mark Braden’s final report,” he said, a touch of satisfaction in his voice.

“And Trevor Jackson’s diary,” Evan supplied, handing Nicholas the little book.

“Long overdue. Filed as received.” Nicholas slipped both back inside their envelope. “I’ll see MI5 gets these.”

The nondescript wooden door joining the tunnel to Charing Cross tube station, beneath Trafalgar Square, was in sight.

“I suppose you know this will go down in the books as one of our most expensive operations to date. I’m already getting bills from that special effects company you hired.”

Evan, wisely, remained silent.

“I was curious,” Nicholas said, after a moment, “about your King William Street stunt. How did you manage the illusion of a burst tunnel, Evan?”

“Illusion…?” his agent replied, as the old wooden door was unlocked. “Whoever said anything about an illusion, Nicholas?”

Anthony plugged in U2 and hummed along, unabashedly, as he rode the escalator to the surface
. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
. It was almost his anthem.

Victoria in the early afternoon was relatively free of obstructions, the only impediments to Anthony’s successful appearance from the underground world below being visitors just off the Gatwick Express, laden with luggage and totally oblivious to the posted instructions advising them to Keep Left.

He cut through the station, enjoying the ambience, the urgency of the whirring indicator board, the race to the platform before the gate closed, the last minute leap onto the train, flinging the door shut seconds ahead of the guard’s whistle.

He’d spent hours here when he’d first got the part of CB, the red caboose, in
Starlight Express
. He’d spent hours at Waterloo, too, and on a third outing, half a day at King’s Cross—observing engines and rolling stock: diesel, electric, buffets, smoking cars.

He left the station through its northeast exit, skirting the newspaper sellers, crossing Wilton Road. The Apollo Victoria was listed, built in 1930 as a cinema, its auditorium originally decorated in blue and green to give patrons the impression they were entering an underwater fantasy world.

Much had gone on in the mounting of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s roller skating musical, notwithstanding the removal of a good number of seats, the erection of two bridges of tracking in and around the audience, and the banishment of the accompanying musicians to a claustrophobic little room somewhere underneath it all, where they kept tabs on the action above by way of strategically-placed cameras and video monitors.

Anthony entered the theatre and made his way down to the musicians’ warren. Here it was that nightly, twice on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and not at all on Sundays, elbows, hands and knees padded in self-defence, makeup applied and helmet on, for a period of six months a year earlier he had hurled himself around the stagetrack.

He hummed CB’s signature tune aloud on the stairs.

There he was, with his guitar: Jeremy Litchfield, aged 52, and as far as Anthony was concerned, one of the best musicians he’d ever met.

“I bring greetings,” he said, “and many thanks.” He placed the old vinyl record, still in its original cardboard sleeve, on Jeremy’s music stand.

“How very excellent,” Jeremy beamed. “Duane Eddy. I’ve been on the lookout for that for years.”

He perched on his stool, tucking his feet onto the bottom rung, balancing his beloved Stratocaster, scraped and dented from decades of use, on his lap.

“Apparently,” Anthony continued, “you were entirely convincing as the man from Thames Water Authority. My father was curious whether there were any plans afoot to take up acting full time.”

“No fear,” Jeremy Litchfield replied, quickly. “I think I’ll stick to music, if it’s all the same to you. Still—always glad of a unique opportunity to stretch my wings. Such as they are.”

He let out a sustained twang worthy of the best of Duane Eddy’s instrumental offerings.

“Do thank him for me—won’t you?”

Rupert Chadwick was being sullen.

Ian placed the pint glass of lager in front of him on the table, and sat down.

“I’m not amused,” Rupert said. “Really. It’s not in the least funny. Big joke on the little spy. Ha ha.”

Ian drank from his own glass of pale ale. The pub was within sight of MI5, a comfortable corner establishment with mock beams and red carpets and horse brasses and a well-heeled company of clandestine regulars.

“Try to think of it this way,” he suggested. “You played a part in probably the most creative sting operation ever launched in the combined histories of either the Canadian or the British intelligence services. You’ll be mentioned in all the history books, Rupert. They’ll parade your name around in every training class. Nigel West’ll write another best seller and it’ll have you in it. Rupert Chadwick, the young recruit who, through no fault of his own—and, in fact, probably because of his single-minded enthusiasm—was drawn into the diversionary web of an acoustic plot to destroy the underside of London, while behind the scenes, his direct superior was being lured into an all-out confession of his two and a half decades of traitorous treachery. Cheers.”

“You’re very eloquent,” Rupert said, morosely. “You should be writing the best seller.”

“Thanks. I think I’ll stick to the requisite paperwork that usually attaches itself to our out-of-country assignments.”

He glanced up, and waved at a gentleman who’d just come into the pub. He joined them, momentarily.

“Oh yes,” Rupert said, “and here’s another one who’s going to make me look stupid. Mr. Lewis from London Underground. I suppose you were in on this from the start as well.”

“In a way, yes,” Bob replied.

“Rupert,” Ian said, hating himself, “this is my mother’s brother.”

Rupert was already resigned to the fate that awaited him. “And Bob’s your bloody uncle,” he said, sarcastically. “Ha bloody ha.”

“Close your mouth, Rupert,” Ian advised. “You’ll have everybody thinking you’re a carp.”

In his California days, at the studio commissary, they’d named a sandwich after Evan: the Harris Hero. That menu, like the backlot where most of
Spy Squad’s
early exteriors had been shot, had long since been consigned to the mouldy pages of yellowed fan magazines. Film crews now worked almost exclusively on location; the land that had housed the studio where Jarrod Spencer’s Headquarters were erected had been annexed to a shopping mall; and Jarrod Spencer himself had reverted to digging up potatoes in England.

Evan sat down at a table that was occupied by a large furry thing—a Womble, was it? A mutant Smurf?—addressing a plate of chips and a cup of tea.

He wanted very much to laugh, but instead eyeballed a squadron of World War One aviators who’d limped into the food line, heavily bandaged. Pulling up the rear was Ruby Carter, one of those career actresses who’d made a living playing nondescript neighbours, housewives in corner shops, charladies, passengers on the bus and who, when
Bill and Ben
began production in a few weeks’ time, would be best known as the woman who let her upstairs room to Ben the Gardener.

“Ruby,” Evan said, raising his hand.

Mrs. Carter, acknowledging him, came over and sat down opposite the Womble.

Evan presented the package. “Purdy’s,” he said. “Imported from Vancouver. My youngest son swears by them. Nothing but the best for the lady who imagines earthquakes under her bed at two o’clock in the morning.”

Ruby peeked under the lid. “Ginger in dark chocolate. However did you guess?”

“Spies,” he smiled, “in the right places. I’ve got a box for your aunt in Tooting, too. Assorted soft centres.”

“She’ll be in chocolate box heaven, Evan.” Ruby Carter twittered, a touch self-consciously. “Goodness, it rhymes. Clever old me. I’ll have to pop down later today to explain it all to her—she’s quite deaf, you know. I don’t think she really understood the first time round why I wanted to borrow her little house in South London. Must dash. Many thanks again, Evan.”

“Thank you,” he said, amused, as the Womble grasped his cup of tea rather dubiously in one hairy paw, and attempted to locate a suitable opening in his costume.

“And what is it, exactly,” Sara said, “that qualifies one to be a spy in Canada? You can tell me, you know—I’ve affixed my signature to The Act. I’m sworn to uphold the honour of the British Empire.”

Robin, who had climbed into the lower foliage of a spreading chestnut, and was barely straddling the wide branch with both of his legs, considered the specifics of the application his father had presented to him several years earlier, but which he had, after a great deal of thought, declined to fill out and return.