“Now, where were we?” I tried to smile even though the perspiration was beading my spine. I needed this work and here I was looking like a rank amateur down on his luck.
She looked shocked, as if I’d just asked her to take her clothes off. Then amusement filled her eyes. I preferred shock.
“Do you think you can help? I can pay you in advance,” she said in the caring way of the rich for the poor. Her accent was beginning to wear down my very recent infatuation with her grey eyes. Though we Scots consider ourselves amused onlookers to the English class system, it doesn’t mean we can’t spot when we’re being talked down to. But this was no time to stand on my dignity.
“My rates are twenty pounds a week plus expenses. And – as you suggest – I prefer in advance.”
She didn’t flinch, even at twice my normal rates. She wrinkled her fine forehead, reached into her bag and tugged out four large notes from a splendid fold of white fivers. She handed them over. I should have gone higher. But I had a client. A paying client. Maybe my luck was turning, a good omen for the new year. I tried not to grab the money, and coolly slid my drawer open and dropped the notes in it, as though fivers went in there every day. I decided she’d earned some professional attention.
“Let’s start with some details.” My hand went back in the drawer again and dug out a pad of paper and a pen; the good fountain pen the “office” had given me to mark my return, and my hasty departure.
“What’s Phil’s full name?”
She looked coolly at me for a second. “Philip Anthony Caldwell. Major.”
My pen stopped, frozen over my pristine pad. “Did you say Caldwell? Philip Anthony Caldwell?” My scar was throbbing and hot.
“Yes. They said you might know him.” She wanted to see my reaction.
“They?”
“64 Baker Street.”
Head office of the Special Operations Executive. They’d told her more than they seemed ready to tell me. I played for time to get over my shock.
“Maybe. Can you describe Major Caldwell to me?”
She did, and in my mind’s eye the sketchy figure took on three dimensions and emerged clearly as Major Tony Caldwell. I met him two years ago. Clever Tony, Tony with the affected smile, and the knowing eyes, who wouldn’t take no for an answer. The man who might have the key to the locked door of my mind. The man I’d been searching for, ever since they let me out of the loony bin.
“Good morning, Sergeant McRae.” The voice is bright and breezy.
I struggle fully awake and ease myself up on my elbows on the bed. At the foot is an officer, a Major sporting the winged Mercury badge of the Signals Regiment.
“Morning, sir. Sorry, didn’t see you there.”
“It’s perfectly all right Sergeant. I should be apologising to you. I’ve disturbed you and you need your rest, nurse tells me.”
“I’m sleeping too much. Catching up they tell me.” The hospital ship from Alexandria took six days to get back to Portsmouth, and Biscay was bloody. I push myself back and up so that I’m sitting, a bit bleary-eyed, but receptive. I presume this is some sort of visiting rota he’s on. To buck up the troops or something. I preferred the kip.
“Mind if I sit?”
“Of course not, sir.”
“And Sergeant, do you mind awfully if we drop the rank stuff for a bit? I’m Tony, Tony Caldwell. Can I call you Daniel?”
“Yes of course, sir, I mean Tony. I’m Danny.” He’s not wearing padre duds, nor doctor’s insignia. What’s he after? “I ’spect you’re wondering who I am and why I’m bothering you?” My eyebrows give him the answer.
“I’m actually doing a spot of recruiting. Not for my regiment.” He points at his shoulder flash. “I’m on secondment to a unit in Whitehall and looking for more talent.”
His accent is hard to place. To my untutored ears it’s just posh English, the accent of officers, the natural enemy of the working class. I inspect the man more closely. About five foot ten I guess, strong-shoulders, open face. Blue eyes and gingery moustache under a nose with a bump in the middle. His hair is lighter than his moustache, more sand in it, and it falls across his forehead in flat lines from a severe side parting.
“How’s the leg, by the way?” He points at the tent covering my lower body.
“Better, thanks. They think they’ve got all the shrapnel out, but I think they took some of me with it.” I try to joke, but I know the bone got pretty smashed up and can’t see how they managed to put it all back together again. Even with the steel pin I was likely to be lopsided. And I’d never play for Scotland now.
“Look, Danny. Fact is you’ve been shot up enough not to have to worry about the war any more. Find a nice desk for you somewhere, eh? Or go back to your old work in Glasgow. Policeman, weren’t you?”
He knows that. But I play along till he tells me what he’s here for. “A sergeant in civvy street and a sergeant in the army. Seems like I’ve found my level.”
“No, you haven’t. Why weren’t you offered a commission? A degree in languages from Glasgow, police background… seems a natural?” There’s a sudden toughness in his eyes.
“Officers lead from the front. And get shot first.” It’s my standard defence. I just feel more comfortable with the lads.
“You’ve got the wrong war.” He smiles. “When you’re fit, we could use a chap like you. With your sort of background. You’ve got pluck and intelligence. And you’d get paid as an officer. Lieutenant. Wartime commission obviously. Like mine.”
“Why should I take a pay cut?” A top sergeant gets paid more than a first lieutenant.
“We might be able to swing Captain.”
Captain Daniel McRae has a ring to it. But no doubt it comes at a price.
“Doing what, Tony?” I can use his name more freely now if we’re to be brother officers. But I’m already feeling a con coming on. You don’t get officers pay for sitting behind a desk.
He leans closer. The ward is heaving with nurses and soldiers. “Heard of an outfit called Special Operations Executive? The SOE? Yes? Well, keep it simple, old chap, we train you and then send you to France or Greece or somewhere Jerry is. Then you link up with the local resistance and mess things up a bit. Blow up bridges, trains, give Jerry a hard time of it. We’re building up a big operation for when we go back. SOE’s role will be to cause havoc behind the lines until the rest of us get through. Absolutely vital stuff. And great fun.”
Fun! This was his idea of fun? It wasn’t mine, thank you very much. At least that had been my first reaction, and my second and third. But Tony Caldwell was a determined character and liked getting his own way. Insisted on it. And, as I was about to learn, to hell with the consequences for anyone else.
THREE
Kate Graveney walked out with head high and without a backward glance, her uncertainty cast off like an out-of-date ration book. She seemed to have got what she came for. I wondered what it was. I listened to her all the way back down, toes hitting every step. I got up and went round and sat in her chair. It was still warm. I touched the arms where her hands had rested and thought I could feel a faint slick. Her scent hung about me as though her body had left a dent in the air. I sniffed deeply, trying to hang on to her spoor and in trying too hard, lost it, as though she was one of my elusive memories.
Enough. I stood up, pulled my hat and coat off the rack behind the door and made ready to go out into the night. I kicked the new briquette back with my toe so that it would die and I could use it to start the fire in the morning. A last impulse pulled me to the window. I eased the bottom pane up and looked out into the street. I was just in time. Kate Graveney was being handed in to the back seat of a big Riley by a bloke with a flat cap. The car was standing with its engine running, as though petrol rationing only applied to the hoi polloi.
As she bent to enter she turned her head up and looked up at my window, as though expecting to see me. I didn’t withdraw. We should have waved but we didn’t know each other that well. She gave no sign, but got into the car, and I watched it drive off down the street. Its exhaust left a trail of grey smoke on the dank air. I thought I saw her face looking back at me from the rear window, and another head wearing a hat, but I couldn’t be sure.