‘And you used to be a famous actor.’
‘An actor, certainly . . . You said you wanted to tell me something.’
She looked more serious now.
‘My contact at the consulate told me an interesting detail – I obliged him to tell me an interesting detail – before he was arrested and taken away. They were paying funds to the person who sent the letters to Glockner. A lot of money, transferred through Switzerland.’
‘I imagined money was the reason. Was there a name?’
‘No.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘This is all he said. But the money they sent was a lot. Already over two thousand pounds. It seems a lot for one man. I thought – maybe there is a cell. Maybe there are two, or three . . .’
Lysander wasn’t surprised to have this confirmed but he feigned some perplexity – frowning, tapping his fingers.
‘Have you told this to anyone else?’
‘Not yet. I wanted to tell you first.’
‘Not Massinger?’
‘I think with Glockner dead he feels the matter is closed.’
‘Could you keep this to yourself for a while? It would help me.’
‘Of course.’ She smiled at him again. ‘Very happy to oblige, as they say.’
He sat back and crossed his legs.
‘Are you going to stay in London now?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Massinger wants to put me into Luxembourg – to count troop trains. He wants me to become the special friend of a lonely old station master.’
‘La veuve Duchesne, once more.’
‘It’s very effective – instant respect. People keep their distance. No one wants to trouble you in your terrible grief.’
‘Why do you do it?’
‘Why do you?’ She didn’t bother to let him reply. ‘Massinger pays me very well,’ she said, simply. ‘I appreciate money because at one stage in my life I was without it. Completely. And life was not easy . . .’ She put her glass down and turned it this way and that on its coaster. They were silent for a moment.
‘How do you find Massinger?’ she asked, still looking down.
‘Difficult. He’s a difficult personality.’
Now she looked him in the eye.
‘I find it difficult to trust him entirely. He changes his mind – a lot.’
Was this a subtle warning, Lysander wondered. He decided to remain neutral.
‘Massinger’s worried about his job, his role. They want to shut down Geneva and Switzerland – concentrate on Holland.’
‘I’m going to Luxembourg via Holland. I have to meet a man called Munro.’
‘Munro runs Holland – I think. There’s some rivalry, inevitably.’
‘I could have gone to Luxembourg from Switzerland very easily. Do you think that’s significant?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, honestly. He reflected that they shouldn’t actually be talking to each other like this but he felt her constant doubts and suspicions were exactly like his. You thought you had possession of key facts, of certainties, but they disappeared and were facts and certainties no more.
‘I’m just like you,’ he said. ‘Following instructions. Trying to think ahead. Be aware of potential problems. Trying not to slip up.’ He smiled. ‘Anyway, I wish you luck. I’d better go.’ He rose to his feet and she did the same. She took a card out of her bag and handed it to him.
‘I expect to be in London a few more days,’ she said. ‘It would be nice to see you again. I remember our dinner in Geneva – un moment agréable.’
He looked at her card – a card supplied by the hotel she was staying at, Bailey’s Hotel, Gloucester Road. There was a telephone number.
‘I’ll telephone you,’ he said, not really knowing why – or even if – he should try to see Florence Duchesne one more time. But somehow he didn’t want this to seem like a final parting so he held out this prospect, at least, that they would meet again.
At the front door, outside on the pavement, they made their farewells. She was going to explore, she said, this was her first visit to London. They shook hands and Lysander felt the extra pressure as her squeeze on his fingers tightened and she looked him directly in the eye again. Was that a warning – was he to be careful? Or was it a covert reminder that she expected to be telephoned and would like to see him again? Lysander watched her walk away, the cut of her musquash coat making it sway to and fro, and he speculated about different short-term futures, courses of action, of how he had once imagined Florence Duchesne tipsy on champagne, naked, laughing . . . it didn’t seem such a fantasy any more. He hailed a passing cab and asked to be taken to the Annexe.
He knew he would have to work late that night. Tremlett, with the aid of the magic letter from C.I.G.S., had managed to secure all of Osborne-Way’s claims for travel and expenses that he had submitted to the War Office. The proviso for their release was that they could only be out of the building for one night.
Tremlett dumped the heavy ledger on his desk.
‘Is Captain Vandenbrook in his office?’ Lysander asked.
‘Captain Vandenbrook is in Folkestone, sir. Back tomorrow morning.’
That was good, he thought – Vandenbrook carrying on as normal. ‘Right,’ he said to Tremlett. ‘Bring me the War Diary and the travelling-claims-by-land dockets.’
He spent the next two hours going through Osborne-Way’s claims and collating them with Vandenbrook’s movements but there was no visible overlap. In fact Osborne-Way had been in France on at least two occasions when Lysander was sure that Glockner’s letters had been left at hotels in Sandwich and Deal. One thing was clear, however – Osborne-Way had enjoyed himself in France. Nights in expensive restaurants in Amiens; a weekend in Paris at the Hôtel Meurice – on what business? – everything charged to the War Office and the British taxpayer. Frustrated, Lysander wondered if he could score some petty revenge and have Osborne-Way’s extravagance brought to the attention of someone senior to him, a quiet word that might have the effect of –
He became aware of loud voices and hurrying feet in the corridor outside Room 205.
Tremlett knocked on the door and peered in. His eye patch was slightly askew.
‘We’re going up top, sir. Zeppelin coming over!’
Lysander unhooked his greatcoat from the back of the door and followed him out and up the stairs to the roof of the Annexe. Half a dozen people were gathered on the flat area by the lift housing staring westwards where the long lucent fingers of searchlights stiffly searched through the night sky, looking for the dirigible. There was the distant popping of anti-aircraft fire and every now and then a shrapnel star-shell burst high above them.
Lysander looked out over the night city, some seven storeys up from street level. To his eyes it could have been peacetime – motor cars and omnibuses, headlights gleaming, shop fronts lit beneath their awnings, ribbons of streetlamps casting their pearly glow. Here and there were areas of approximate darkness but it was almost inviting, he imagined, to the captain of this airship somewhere overhead. Where shall I drop my bombs? Here? Or there? And, as if his thoughts had been read, the first searchlight found the Zeppelin and then another two joined it. Lysander’s first thought was, my god, so huge – gigantic – and serenely beautiful. It was very high and moving forward steadily – how fast, he couldn’t tell. The increasing noise from the artillery fire blocked out the sound of its engines as it seemed to float unaided above them, driven on by night winds rather than its motors.
Another gun, nearer, began to fire – Pop! Pop! Pop!
‘That’s the gun in Green Park,’ Tremlett said in his ear, then shouted out into the darkness, ‘Give ’em hell, lads!’
More cheers came up from the others on the roof as Lysander looked up at the Zeppelin, awestruck, he had to admit, at the vast lethal beauty of the giant silvery flying machine caught in the crossbeams of three searchlights, now almost overhead, it seemed.