Sam Bourne - Pantheon

‘Yes, you do. The Dean is your uncle and you’ve been telling him — and the police — what I’m up to.’

For a moment he wondered if she was going to brazen it out, but then she looked down at her feet, which was all the confession James needed.

‘What kind of woman does that? Getting a man to trust you, to spill his guts out, telling you everything that matters to him, then betraying him — for what? Did your uncle pay you for this information? Did he tell you to kiss me, Miss Lake? Was that his idea? Was that part of the job, too, eh? Because I know what kind of woman behaves like that and they’re not called reporters.’

She slapped him hard, across the face. It stung.

‘OK, fine,’ he said. ‘But we’re not even yet. I need to know where your uncle is. Where has he gone?’

‘My uncle?’

He found himself looking at her, his gaze taking her all in. She was tall, her body curved and shapely, her hair styled just so. She had the patina of a charming, sophisticated woman polished to a shine. And yet he was sure he had glimpsed something else, someone else, a moment ago, beneath that hard veneer, just as he had for a fleeting moment when they had had dinner together, the moment he had talked about his son, Harry. His voice softened.

‘Dorothy, you do this so well. Playing the sharp, beautiful cynic. The woman of the world. I bet they love it here.’ He gestured at the wall of yellowing front pages. ‘But you weren’t always like this. And you won’t always be like this.’

She gave him a curious look, almost a smirk, as if he were being a sap.

He carried on, undeterred. ‘One day you’ll be a mother. And you’ll be a good one too.’ He watched her eyes narrow, puzzled, assessing. ‘You’ll love your child so much and that child will love you. And the only thing you won’t be strong enough to bear will be being apart from that little boy or little girl.’ The smirk began to fade. ‘If someone took your child from you, you’d fight like a tiger to get them back, I know you would. And you know it too. So I’m asking you, Dorothy, as a father addressing the good mother you will one day be, and as a husband speaking to the loyal, loving wife I know you will one day be — please, help me. Tell me where Preston McAndrew has gone.’

For a moment she looked bewildered, a lost child herself. Then she took two or three faltering steps, gripping the shoulder of a chair piled high with old notebooks to keep herself steady. She kept her eyes down as she spoke, her voice so small he could barely hear her. ‘I don’t understand how Florence and Harry are caught up in this.’

‘Leave that to me. Just tell me where the Dean has gone.’

She touched her eye with just the side of her index finger, using the knuckle rather than the tip so as not to smudge her make-up, a minute, feminine gesture that made him instantly long for Florence. For long seconds she said nothing and James fought the urge to shake the information out of her.

At last it seemed she had reached a decision. She looked up, her blue eyes suddenly candid. ‘He left in a hurry. Very excited. More excited than I’ve ever seen him.’

It required enormous willpower for James not to reply immediately, not to demand more information, not to speak too loudly and break the moment. But he forced himself to remain silent and to wait.

He was rewarded when she spoke again. ‘He said he was off to have an important meeting. “The most important meeting of my entire life” is what he actually said. He said that he had to go right away, that what he was about to do would be the greatest act of service he could ever perform for his fellow man.’

James reeled. It was confirmation of what he feared most, that the deadly idea McAndrew had articulated in that Cleansing Fire lecture was not some abstract hypothesis for rarefied academic discussion. It was a plan, one he aimed to implement in the real world — and soon. Of course he would describe it that way, not as an abominable act of wickedness but as the greatest act of service he could ever perform for his fellow man. He surely could not have been referring to anything else.

James could wait no more, repeating his question for the fourth time. ‘Where has he gone?’

Was he imagining it, or were those blue eyes wet with tears? Dorothy stepped closer, so that they were standing just inches apart. She gripped the lapels of his jacket and pulled him towards her. ‘I hope that one day I meet a man as good as you, James Zennor. And that he loves me the way you love your wife.’ She hugged him tight, then moved her mouth next to his ear and whispered, ‘Washington. He’s gone to Washington, DC.’

London

He straightened the cloth across the small dining table one more time, cocking his head to check that it was right. Of course it was and of course it did not matter if it wasn’t. Yet Taylor Hastings could not help himself. He was as nervous about this meeting as any in his entire life.

And yet the nervousness was three parts excitement to one part anxiety. He believed this would be, to quote that bombastic blusterer who was now Britain’s prime minister, his ‘finest hour’. He had done what all great men do: seized his opportunity and bent history to his will. His act of heroism would be secret now, but one day it would be recorded in the annals of human events. There, etched in brightest gold, would be his own name: Taylor Hastings, saviour of the European race.

He went back into the bedroom. The suitcase in the closet was still sealed firmly shut, as he had known it would be. But even so, he was filled with doubt once more: what if the envelope was not inside? He had checked it before, twice if not three times, but what if he had moved it absent-mindedly and failed to replace it? He knew consciously that no such thing had happened, but once the question had been raised he could not ignore it. So he unlocked the closet once more, turned the key in the suitcase, opened it and reached under the two carefully-placed blankets until he felt the reassuring roughness of the manila envelope. Then he put the blankets back as they were, closed and locked the case, closed and locked the closet, and reassured himself it was safe — until the doubts returned and the whole cycle started again.

He moved towards the window. Not too close: he didn’t want to be seen. Or rather he didn’t want to be seen looking. What faster way to attract surveillance than to look as if he feared surveillance? From this spot in the middle of the room he could see the other side of the street. The trees were bare. There were few cars; Sunday afternoon traffic was barely a trickle around here. As for passers-by, he could see governesses out with children, those Norland nannies in their oatmeal coats, felt hats and white gloves; the odd courting couple — but no men on their own, no one looking upward to this second floor apartment, no one he suspected of spying on him. He wondered, yet again, if they should have met in the park or in a cafe. But the idea of carrying that envelope, those papers, out into broad daylight…

He wished, for the tenth time that day, they had made this appointment for nine o’clock this morning rather than for afternoon tea. But Reginald Rawls Murray had insisted that he and Anna were ‘in the country’ this weekend and could not get to London before four. ‘Any earlier and it will look distinctly fishy, old boy. Let’s not give Churchill’s squealers anything to go on, no break in the routine and all that.’

Taylor had deferred to the older man’s wisdom, unaware then of how slowly the Sunday hours would pass.

He was about to have another peek out of the window when at long last there was the knock on the door: three quick taps followed by a pause and then a single tap, as agreed. Taylor Hastings breathed in deeply and, with pride as well as apprehension, ushered into his modest digs the man who was simultaneously a Conservative MP, animating spirit of the Right Club and one of England’s leading advocates of a peaceful settlement with Nazi Germany.