Think of England (6 page)

Da Silva would be the villain if this were an Oppenheim story. Curtis wished he was the villain now. He did not want to find out that Sir Hubert was a blackmailer, still less a traitor, that his host had cost Curtis his hand and George Fisher his life…

He stopped that thought in its tracks before the anger came back, and made himself look at the library shelf. As he examined the books, a name on a narrow spine snagged his attention.

He pulled out a slim volume, plainly bound in grey, and there it was.
The Fish-pond
.
Poems by Daniel da Silva.

This, he had to see.

Curtis took a comfortable leather chair and opened the book at random. After a few minutes, bewildered, he went back to the beginning and started there.

He was not a man for poetry. He could tolerate Tennyson, the shorter pieces, and he liked some of the stirring stuff that everyone knew, like “Invictus”, or the one that went “Play up! Play up! and play the game”, even if talk of sands sodden red with blood seemed rather less poetic once one had seen the reality of it. A few of the men in South Africa had recited some of Mr. Kipling’s things in camp during the long evenings, and they were jolly entertaining, with proper rhymes, as if there was anything wrong with that, and a good beat, and a story that a chap could follow.

Da Silva’s poems were not like that.

They were broken fragments, not even sentences. They went…somewhere, that was clear, but the words twined round each other and broke off and led to conclusions Curtis didn’t reach but which he could feel pressing down on him, unwholesome and disturbing. There were vivid images, but they were extraordinary ones, not poetic at all in the way Curtis vaguely felt poetry should be, with trumpets or mountains or daffodils. These poems were full of broken glass and water—which was not clean water—and scaly things that moved in the dark. There was a recurring image that seemed to sum it all up somehow, of a thing in the depths. Curtis couldn’t quite tell what it was. It came in a bright flash of scales, a dark gleam, or a slither against an unwary hand, and vanished again, but it was always lurking, just out of reach, waiting.

He turned back to the opening pages and read the epigraph, a quote attributed to “Webster”.

When I look into the fish-ponds in my garden

Methinks I see a thing armed with a rake

That seems to strike at me.

When he looked up from the book again, da Silva was leaning against the bookshelves, watching him.

“I, er,” said Curtis, with the natural awkwardness of an Englishman caught reading poetry. “I just, er, picked this up.” He wondered how long the other man had been there, and how he moved so silently.

“That’s what it’s for,” da Silva agreed. “I shan’t embarrass you by asking for an opinion.”

Under normal circumstances Curtis would have liked nothing less than to be solicited for his opinion on poetry, but that stung. He might not be a literary type but he wasn’t a bloody fool, and his mind was full of unsettling things that swam in dark water.

“I didn’t understand it. I dare say I’m not meant to.” He saw the droop of da Silva’s eyelids and added, before the man could get in another dig at his philistinism, “Reminded me of Seurat, actually.”

Da Silva’s face went blank. “Of—?”

He’d wrong-footed the blighter, Curtis realised with immense satisfaction. “Seurat. The Impressionist,” he explained. “Chap who paints pictures with dots.”

Da Silva’s eyes narrowed to black slits. “I know who Seurat is. Why should my poetry remind you of him?”

He looked, for a second, just a touch defensive, not quite as self-possessed as usual, and on the instant Curtis thought that if he wrote poetry he wouldn’t much want people making cutting remarks about it. Especially not stuff like this, which seemed to be dredged up in pieces from the bottom of the writer’s mind. He had no idea what
The Fish-pond
told him about Daniel da Silva but he felt, instinctively, that it contained something from under the hard exterior shell, something raw, that flinched when touched.

“Seurat’s paintings,” he said, feeling his way to his own meaning. “If you look at them they’re just dots of colour, a lot of jumbled bits that don’t make any sense. If you stand back far enough, it comes together and becomes a whole picture. That’s what I thought about this.” He glanced at the book in his hand and added, “I think I’d need to be a bit further away to grasp it, mind you. Manchester, perhaps.”

Da Silva looked startled for a second, then his face lit with a smile. It was perhaps the first genuine, unstudied expression Curtis had seen from him, a combination of surprise, amusement and pleasure that made him look suddenly alive, and younger, too, without the world-weary pose. The thought came to Curtis, unbidden, that Miss Carruth had been right. Daniel da Silva was rather handsome.

“That’s the most cogent analysis I’ve heard in a while,” da Silva said. “You should review for
The New Age
.”

That was one of those modern, socialist, intellectual periodicals. Curtis had never picked it up in his life, as da Silva would doubtless have guessed. “Oh, above my touch,” he retorted. “Perhaps the
Boy’s Own Paper
needs a poetry critic.”

Da Silva laughed out loud. “An excellent idea. ‘In this issue: How to tie reef knots; thrilling tales of war; and Writing the Sonnet with General Gordon.’”

Curtis was laughing too. “‘Broken Down: A boy’s adventure among the Fragmentalists.’”

Da Silva snorted inelegantly, shoulders shaking. Curtis felt rather pleased to be holding his own against the other man’s quicksilver wit. He hadn’t noticed anyone else at this party making da Silva laugh.

He grinned, and da Silva smiled back, and then the smile faded, and tilted, and now it wasn’t boyish any more. It was…intimate. Inviting. And this was not Curtis’s line at all, but even he could see that the dark eyes on his were taking him in, the gaze sliding over him with clear appreciation.

He was alone in a room with a chap who preferred men, and the fellow was
looking
at him.

Curtis couldn’t think of a damned thing to say.

Da Silva’s mouth curled in that secret smile of his, enjoying a joke that nobody else could hear. He began, “You know,” pushing himself forward from his lounging stance, then looked round quickly as the door opened.

“There you are, Curtis.” Holt and Armstrong clattered in. “What say that game of billiards?”

Neither man included da Silva in the invitation, but he was already drifting over to another set of bookshelves, light on his feet as ever, features blank, oblivious to everyone present.

“What the devil’s that?” demanded Armstrong, prodding at the book on the arm of Curtis’s chair. “Poetry? Good God, you aren’t reading that tripe, are you?
The Fish-pond?
” he read out with heavy contempt. “What rubbish. Oh, I say.” He’d clearly registered the author’s name. “Let’s have a look.”

If Curtis wanted to see bullying, he’d go back to school. He pushed himself upright, swiped the book from Armstrong’s fingers before he could open it, and limped over to return it to the shelf, feeling the stiffness in his knee that came after sitting for too long. He flexed his leg with annoyance. “If you’re after a game, let’s play.”

He didn’t know if he was anticipating one o’clock or dreading it. Both, perhaps. He went up to his room early with a plea of tiredness, needing to get away from the boisterous young men who proposed game after game of billiards, bridge or whist, and lay on his bed fully clothed. He was uncomfortably aware of the mirror that occupied so much of the wall opposite, its blankness gazing down on him.

Was there someone watching him now? No, that would be absurd. But he couldn’t help thinking of the pretty maid who he had surprised in his room earlier that evening. Was that chance, or had she been waiting for him? Or if Mrs. Grayling’s smiling flirtatiousness had caught his interest? Would someone be watching then?

The party broke up downstairs around half past eleven. By a quarter to one, the house was silent. Curtis waited a few minutes more, then had to go before his nerves got the better of him. Clad in black trousers and a dark pullover under his navy dressing gown, dark lantern in hand and wires in his pocket, he slipped down the stairs as silently as he could.

He examined the storeroom door to satisfy himself his planned rig-up would work, then waited in the library for a couple of minutes, tense and impatient, not sure if he should start without da Silva, or if he should be here at all. What if this was some sort of scheme? What if da Silva couldn’t be trusted? What if his host came down and saw him, here— He shuddered at the thought.

In the hall and over the house, clocks let out a single chime, and the door slid open with a whisper of air. Try as he might, Curtis could barely hear da Silva’s footfall as he slipped in.

Da Silva shut the library door before switching on the flashlight. “Hello,” he murmured. “Ready? Very well. Shall I pick the lock first or will you need to do your electrical wizardry?”

“Can you pick the lock without opening the door? Good, then do that. Don’t open it, even a little.”

“Understood. You watch for the hall. Listen out.”

Curtis nodded, and held out the dark lantern to his partner in crime. He stood sentry, in the dark, listening for noise in the hall, watching the deft, precise movements of da Silva’s hands in the pool of light surrounding the lock, since he could see nothing else. In just a couple of moments, he heard a quiet click.

“All yours,” da Silva said softly. “I’ll watch out.”

Curtis made his way over, feeling like some great galumphing beast next to his light-footed companion. It was the work of moments to attach the wire he’d taken from a workroom to the contacts with the putty he had also picked up, ensuring that the circuit would remain connected.

“What’s that?” Da Silva spoke close to Curtis’s ear, breath tickling his cheek, making him jump.

“God’s sake,” he hissed. “Make some damned noise, can’t you?”

“Certainly not. What is it?”

“I’ve rigged a wire. It’ll keep the circuit complete, I hope. It’s long enough to maintain the connection as we open the door. Just don’t dislodge it.”

“I see. You, ah, ‘hope’?”

“I can’t guarantee there’s nothing on the other side.”

“Ah. Oh well, nothing ventured. May I?”

“Carefully.”

Curtis took the flashlight and kept its beam on the putty and wire jury-rig as da Silva pulled the storeroom door open, as far as the wire would allow. No alarms sounded that he could hear. He let out a breath.

“Good work,” murmured da Silva. “Right. Coming in?”

He slipped through the gap. Curtis, much bulkier, edged through, shut the door behind him, and opened the dark lantern slide as far as it would go to illuminate the scene. It was a small room with no windows and no exits. There were a few stacked chairs, a table, and a large wooden cabinet. He pulled at the top drawer, which was locked.

“Excuse me.” Da Silva pierced the lock with a slender piece of metal, and wiggled it. There was, almost at once, a click. He pulled open the top drawer. “You take this, I’ll do the bottom one, and we’ll meet in the middle?”

Curtis nodded. Da Silva produced a second flashlight and closed the lantern slide again, so that the only illumination came from each man’s torch. He dropped casually to a crouch and pulled open the lowest drawer.

Uncomfortably aware of da Silva at his feet, Curtis began to flick through the hanging files. Within a few seconds, he came across photographic prints. He pulled one out, and his mouth went dry.

“Look.”

Da Silva straightened up so he stood next to Curtis and looked at the image in the torchlight.

“Well. If one wanted to blackmail the lady, that would suffice. Put it back where you got it.”

Curtis slid the picture back into place. Da Silva was already flicking through the next folder, and Curtis realised that he hadn’t been first-time lucky. Every folder held something. He winced at the procession of images, some a little blurry, black, grey and white snapshots of pleasure or depravity.

“Christ!” he hissed as da Silva took out a photograph that made his guts turn over. “Put it away.”

Da Silva didn’t. He was peering at the image, and Curtis glared at him. “For God’s sake. I
know
him. He was at Oxford a couple of years after me. Put it away.”

“Which one do you know?”

“The one—underneath.” The one on all fours, face contorted with pain or pleasure, shoulders gripped by the powerful man who knelt behind him.

“Who is he?”

“None of your business.”

“Don’t be bloody stupid. Who is he, or more to the point, what does he do?” There was nothing louche in da Silva’s tone, rather a sharp urgency.

“Foreign Office,” said Curtis reluctantly. “He’s an under-secretary.”

“How ironic.” Da Silva’s words were clipped. “Because he’s under a secretary right there, or at least an attaché. The blond’s in the Prussian embassy.”

Curtis stared at the fair-haired Prussian, captured in the act as he took the other man with obvious roughness. He felt peculiar, intrusive, quivering with illicit sensation. “I don’t think a Foreign Office man should be doing that with a Prussian diplomat.”