Jake Arnott - The House of Rumour

They had met in the Russian Tea Rooms in Kensington. Joan Miller had got there first and was glad to find the place crowded. With its polished wooden furniture, panelled walls and open fireplace, it was the sort of café a woman could visit unescorted without drawing attention, or raising questions about her reputation. But Joan had felt awkward and uncomfortable as she waited for her contact from Political. Shifting in her seat, she pondered what seemed a foolish plan: to revisit the haunts of the fascist network she had helped to expose last summer.

It had been easy to spot Marius Trevelyan when he arrived. A bookish type in a tweed jacket, with a mop of straw-coloured hair and heavy horn-rimmed spectacles. In his early twenties, Joan had estimated, though he could almost pass as a schoolboy. There was something not quite fully formed about him.

He had ordered vodka and potato piroshki in flawless Russian. He had studied modern languages at Cambridge, he explained.

When the bill arrived he turned it over and discreetly showed her the address that had been scribbled on the back. The Tea Rooms were run by White Russian émigrés, known to have connections with fascist sympathisers.

‘That’s where the party’s being held,’ he said with an awkward wink.

He paid up and they left together, making their way along Harrington Gardens.

‘Look, Trevelyan.’ Joan came to the point now that they could talk openly. ‘I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to be doing here.’

‘Didn’t M brief you?’

‘He just said that Political wanted me along.’

‘Oh no. It was his idea that you become part of this operation.’

‘Really?’

‘Oh yes. He was quite insistent.’

‘But—’

She thought better of what she had been about to say.

‘Did he tell you why?’ she asked instead.

‘Not really. You know M. Likes to play things his own way. Said you made a plausible fascist.’ Trevelyan laughed. ‘Think he meant that as a compliment.’

‘But you know I was at the trial last year. Someone might recognise me.’

‘Don’t worry. We’ve got them under control.’

‘Control?’

‘Oh yes. Political’s been running a little group. Saving them up for a rainy day. Look, we’re nearly there. We should get into character.’

He told her that they would be pretending to be a Mr and Mrs Fairburn from Tufnell Park, with Blackshirt connections, who had been members of the Anglo-German Fellowship in 1938.

‘I expect you can remember the patter you learnt last June,’ he added. ‘Oh, and you’d better take one of these.’

He took two silver buttons from his jacket pocket and handed her one.

‘Got them from Special Branch evidence store.’

It was a badge depicting an eagle swooping on a viper, with the letters PJ embossed below.

‘Under the lapel, I suppose,’ said Trevelyan. ‘By the way, what does the PJ stand for?’

‘It means “Perish Judah”,’ she replied.

‘Oh, I say.’

The meeting was in the basement of a terraced house in Earl’s Court. Twelve people, Joan counted, crowded into a candlelit room. A short man in a three-piece suit and watch-chain stood before them. He raised his hand and began to speak.

‘I want to talk to you tonight about peace,’ he announced.

The flickering light gave a mesmeric ambience to the assembly. The speaker’s voice began in a soft drone like an incantation. Peace was coming, he assured them solemnly. He had heard it from the highest authorities. So many well-placed people in the Establishment were now determined that this futile and unnecessary war must end. If it continues we will lose the Empire, we will lose everything. We will become a pauper nation forever in debt to the Americans. The people do not want this war. They know in their hearts that as Anglo-Saxons we share so much with our German brothers. Soon it will come, he went on. The white races will unite against the true barbarism that inhabits this earth. We will rise up against the traitors in our midst. Soon it will come, he promised. Peace.

For a moment the word sounded soothing and plausible. Joan suddenly realised how tired she felt. How exhausted everybody was by the endless bombings and privations. Then the man’s voice began to rise to a higher pitch.

Churchill will be deposed. Yes, he insisted, this is certain. People that I know of in government are ready and waiting. People like us who share our feelings are waiting in the wings. Germany is willing to make terms, we know that. An honourable peace that will leave us our Empire while they bring order to the Continent. Only one group of people want this war, and we know who they are, don’t we?

There were murmurs of agreement and a shiver of agitation in the room. She felt someone prod her in the back and she shuffled forward. The speaker started an extended harangue against the Jews. They will be made to pay for all of this, he promised. The audience gleefully hissed its agreement. A woman called out: hang them from the lamp-posts! Joan felt a quickening within her as the anger began to rise in the basement. The suburban voices that found such relish in hatred and horror were familiar and English.

Later, as she and Trevelyan walked back from the meeting, she still felt shocked that these ordinary-seeming people could be so virulent. She remembered that this was what had disturbed her so much when she had spied on the Right Club for M the previous summer.

‘Recognise anyone?’ Trevelyan asked her.

‘No,’ she replied.

‘And what did you think of our speaker tonight?’

‘A thoroughly ghastly little man.’

‘Convincing, wasn’t he?’

‘You mean—’

‘Yes. One of ours.’

‘Good God.’

‘Yes. It’s been quite a project for Political. I trust you’ll give a glowing report to M. Come to think of it, I’m having a drink with Commander Fleming at the Dorchester later. Maybe you should come along. I sure he’d be interested in your impressions of our little nest of vipers. Would it be terribly churlish to leave you here? If I’m lucky I can get a bus back to my digs from around the corner.’

‘Don’t worry about me. I can walk to my flat.’

They shook hands clumsily and Trevelyan wandered off. Joan started to walk home through the blackout. The streets looked empty but she had the uneasy feeling that she was being watched. Everything seemed confused in her mind. All the double games that were being played. The evil little rabble-rouser was an agent provocateur, on their side. Yet he had talked so persuasively of peace. The word now appeared as a taunt to her. Soon the sirens would come, and a sleepless night lay ahead. M had given her some pills but they didn’t do much good.

All at once, the only certainty she felt was that someone was indeed following her. Even from her cursory training in fieldcraft she knew that it wasn’t a very professional tail-job. Perhaps it was someone trying to pick her up. If nothing else the blackout had increased the sense of sexual opportunism, as M had pointed out with those two men the other day. She had once been pursued by a man who, it turned out, she vaguely knew from the War Office, who had told her: ‘When I saw you in the street I told myself that if you were a tart I’d take you to bed, and if you were a lady I’d take you to dinner. Will you come?’ he had added with a playful chuckle. ‘I mean to dinner, of course.’ It was a remark that would have been almost unthinkable from someone of her class before the war. The constant danger of the Blitz had made people more relaxed: as death became casual, so did life. Tonight, though, Joan was in no mood for fun and games. She stopped and turned, waiting for her follower to catch up so that she could confront him.