‘Oh? A good intelligence officer needs to be a naturalist. I myself am currently raising a cuckoo—with the help of my lovely Susi, of course, my living pair of hands—and it is most instructive.’
‘Tell me about Peter Bloom.’
‘Ah. Now there is a rare and interesting bird.’
‘You had your own Section, practically your own miniature Service. Then you vetted Peter Bloom. Suddenly there were rumours about you being a deranged witch-hunter. You passed away very suddenly. There was talk of suicide. The Summer Court did not want you. What happened?’
Max Chevalier’s spirit puffed on the pipe. Tendrils of smoke swirled around the medium’s face like ectoplasm.
‘You have already answered your question, Mrs White. You see, I raised a fox once. It was a sweet creature as a cub, like a cross between a cat and a dog. As it grew older, it became troublesome: very good at sneaking into henhouses while still allowing itself to be cuddled. One day, it tore up my favourite pair of slippers. I took it to the backyard and shot it in the head. It looked surprised when I pulled the trigger.’
Rachel frowned. ‘So you grew too bold and Bloom was merely an excuse to put you down?’
‘Yes. In this case by planting documents on one of my agents to make it look like we had framed an innocent man, a public outcry, et cetera et cetera.’
‘What did you find about Bloom that was so dangerous?’
‘Sir Stewart asked me to vet Bloom, and I did some digging, not realising it was a trap. It turned out that Bloom’s father, Charles, was an MP for an anti-Dimensionist Labour group before he died without a Ticket. His mother, Ann Veronica née Reeve, had radical leanings in her youth and took up the struggle. And then Peter engaged in some adolescent indiscretions at Cambridge. Burned his own Ticket, if you can believe that. But that could be disregarded—rebellion is a prerogative of the young, after all. Still, I advised against hiring him. I was overruled.’
‘By whom?’
‘I believe the final decision was made during dinner at White’s, with Sir Stewart in attendance and a certain author of some renown—a Mr Herbert Blanco West.’
Rachel stared at him. ‘The prime minister?’
Max nodded. ‘I made a very bad error, then. Fortunes can turn quickly in the Service, as you know.’
‘But why was the PM involved?’
‘If you had the patience to dig up old gossip pages like I did, Mrs White, you would have discovered that Mr West engaged in an affair with a young Miss Reeve—whose subsequent marriage to Charles Bloom was very sudden indeed.’
Rachel drew a sharp breath. ‘You mean to say that—’
‘Peter Bloom is untouchable, Mrs White. Whatever your grievance with him may be, your superiors will do anything to keep him safe in order to secure favours from the highest level. The windmill you are tilting at is very high and ancient and English: privilege.’
Rachel looked at the cartoon horrors of the Great War around them and felt sick. She thought about what it felt like to share a cigarette in the trenches and then see a comrade blown apart into red mist, see green fields transformed into landscapes of death and nightmare. She remembered her first night as a volunteer nurse, the first burn victim of a Zeppelin bombing, his peeling flesh and pustules and charred skin.
And then the memory of lying sprawled on the bathroom floor, touching the spongy, seedlike thing that came out of her.
There are wounds in the world, she thought.
‘No,’ Rachel said quietly.
Max said nothing. For a moment, there was just the noise of the crowd a corridor’s length away and the eyes of the dead man looking at her, unblinking.
‘No one is untouchable. Not if we can find evidence.’
‘You are far too idealistic, Mrs White.’
‘You thought you were untouchable, once.’
‘Ah, but I was just a peasant reaching above my station. Bloom belongs in all the right clubs.’
‘There has to be a way to find proof. Locate his handler.’
‘That would present considerable difficulties. For one thing, you are still alive, Mrs White.’
‘But you are not.’
‘Mrs White, I am content with my afterlife. I have my loyal listeners, my books. The next one is going to be called How to Tame an Elephant. Fascinating creatures. Did you know that they may have souls? Edison has been testing a kind of spirit armour for pachyderms. And I have my cuckoo Goo and other creatures in Sloane Square. Why should I help you?’
It was difficult to read someone wearing another person’s body, but there was something familiar in the way Max cocked his head.
‘Revenge would be enough for most people: your enemies used Bloom to destroy you, why not use him to destroy them? Only I do not think you care about that. You are a naturalist. You like to understand creatures like Bloom. He had everything, so why did he turn, like a well-treated dog that bites its master? I think, deep down, you want to know.’
The medium’s thin lips curled in a devilish parody of a kindly uncle’s grin.
‘Ah, Mrs White, you do not disappoint.’
* * *
At five in the afternoon, two hours later, Rachel returned home to St John’s Wood, carrying a covered birdcage.
Gertrude took the cage and rolled her eyes when it chirped, but said nothing. Joe came down the stairs to meet her. He was still unshaven and dishevelled, but his eyes were brighter.
‘What do you have there, dear?’
‘Finches.’ Rachel felt playful and strangely free. Her mind tingled with ideas. She and Max had scheduled a planning session on Tuesday in a flat that he maintained on Sloane Square. In the meantime, she was going to investigate opening a credit line for their illicit operation. A part of her—the part that had been Head Girl at Princess Helena College—recoiled from the very idea of misuse of government funds. Another part found it inexplicably thrilling.
‘I thought my old bird could use some company,’ she said.
‘You know very well that I could never even keep a house plant alive.’
‘You always liked a challenge. Don’t worry, I can help. Now that I have more time on my hands.’
Joe took her hand. That was the closest she had come to acknowledging that she had trouble at work.
‘Gertrude, would you do the honours, please?’ Rachel asked.
Gertrude drew the heavy cloth aside. There was a storm of feathers inside. Two frantic, brightly coloured birds bounced from one perch to another.
‘Scheisse,’ she swore. ‘Begging your pardon, madam.’
Eventually the birds settled down. One was bright yellow-green with a red head, the other blue and grey with a hood of pale silver. Their beadlike eyes were alert. The yellow-green one cocked its head to one side and stared at them.
‘Aren’t they really difficult to keep?’ Joe asked.
‘I met an old colleague who keeps birds. Max Chevalier.’
The bird she knew to be the male started bouncing up and down at a furious pace and sang a continuous, trilling, complex song. The other bird—a female—raised her head slightly, listening.
‘What on Earth is it doing?’ Joe asked.
The male was like a wound-up toy. It continued the joyous bouncing until Rachel was sure its tiny brain would be addled. She giggled a little, then laughed. Once she started it was hard to stop, and then Joe joined her.
Finally, they both had to wipe tears from her eyes.
‘Very well,’ Joe said. ‘I suppose I can look after these silly creatures for a while. And here I was thinking that I could go to the club later tonight.’
Rachel looked at him. ‘I think I would like it if you stayed at home, dear,’ she said quietly.
Joe blinked.
‘Oh.’
‘Don’t look so surprised. It is not like you have to jump up and down to impress me anymore.’