Mark Mills: The Information Officer

“Tacitus …”

“His German contact. He had to fall for it. He didn’t know we’d broken the codes. The idea was inconceivable to him.”

Max could see it now. He was no longer squinting at the picture, struggling to make sense of it.

“If what you say is true, then the moment you mentioned Tacitus to him, it was all over.”

“Over?”

“For you and your double agent. I can’t see you using a man who knew the codes had been broken.”

“That would have been … imprudent.”

“Which means you threw it all away, right at the end, everything you’d been working for.”

Elliott spread his hands. “Turns out you’re not the only sentimentalist in the world.”

When their food arrived, they talked about Elliott’s line of work. He didn’t reveal much, only that he still drew a government salary and had spent a lot of time in Moscow in the intervening years.

“Twenty million Soviets died fighting for the same cause as us, and now they’re the enemy. Go figure that.”

His bleak prognosis was that things were going to get a whole lot worse between the USSR and the West before they got any better.

Assisted by the excellent food and another bottle of wine, they relaxed and talked of happier things, of places they had traveled to and others they hoped to visit, of their new families and old friends.

Ralph, Max informed Elliott, was now a commercial pilot with BOAC, flying Stratocruisers on the long-haul routes.

“Still moaning about ‘the machine’?”

“Different machine, same moaning.”

Elliott was far more surprised to hear that Hugh had gone on to become the headmaster of a prep school in Sussex.

“I didn’t see that one coming.”

“Nor did Rosamund. She told him she’d divorce him if he took the job.”

“And did she?”

“What do you think?”

“I think I should look them up next time I’m in the country.”

“Do that. I know they’d like it.”

Their plates were being cleared away when Elliott mentioned, “By the way, I saw your house in a magazine.”

“It’s not my house.”

“I’m sure as hell glad it’s not mine. Where’d you get your inspiration from—a fish tank?”

“It’s called modernism.”

“That’s not what the guy who wrote the piece called it.”

Max laughed. “You can’t please everyone.”

The glass and concrete villa had been his first private commission since qualifying as an architect. The best that could be said of it was that it had “divided the critics.”

“Well, at least you’ve got a wife who’s made something of herself.”

She appeared as if on cue, being led by Mario toward their table. She was wearing a strapless silk taffeta evening dress that Max had never seen before. As ever, he gave silent thanks for his good fortune.

Elliott caught his expression and turned. “Oh yeah. I forgot to say, she’s joining us for coffee.”

They both got to their feet, and Elliott stooped to kiss her hand. “You look radiant.”

“You do,” said Max, kissing her on the cheek.

“Friends again?” she inquired.

“You’ll have to ask your husband.”

Max looked long and hard at Elliott. “I don’t see why not.”

Lilian smiled.

“That’s good,” she said. “That’s very good.”

HISTORICAL NOTE

The fly-in of new Spitfires on May 9, 1942, marked the turning point in Malta’s fortunes. The following day, sixty-three enemy aircraft were shot down over the island. A German broadcast declared, “Malta can be reduced by other means.” It never was. In 1964 the island finally gained independence from Great Britain.

While trying to remain as true to the period as possible, I have, inevitably, taken certain liberties for the purposes of the story. My apologies for these, and for any other errors I’m not yet aware of. The majority of the characters in the book are entirely fictitious. Those who aren’t bear no relation to their real-life counterparts, whose impeccable wartime records speak for themselves.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

As ever, I owe a big debt of gratitude to my agent, Stephanie Cabot, for her tireless enthusiasm and support. I would also like to thank my editors, Jennifer Hershey and Julia Wisdom, for their expert insights and guidance. My thanks also go to Bara MacNeill.

Of the many books I read while researching the story, I would like to make special mention of Malta Magnificent by Francis Gerard, as well as Fortress Malta , James Holland’s vivid and entirely compelling account of the island’s wartime trials.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

MARK MILLS graduated from Cambridge University in 1986. He has lived in both Italy and France and has written for the screen. His first novel, Amagansett , was a national bestseller and also won the British Crime Writer’s Association Award for Best Novel by a debut author. His second, The Savage Garden , was a number one bestseller in the UK. He lives in Oxford with his wife and two children.

The Information Officer is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2009 by Mark Mills

Maps copyright © 2010 by Daniel R. Lynch

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House,

an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,

a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks

of Random House, Inc.

Originally published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers,

London, in 2009.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Mills, Mark

The information officer: a novel / Mark Mills.

p. cm.

eISBN: 978-1-58836-910-9

1. World War, 1939–1945—Malta—Fiction. 2. British—Malta—

Fiction. 3. Murder—Investigation—Fiction. 4. Malta—Fiction.

I. Title.

PS3613.I569I64 2009 813′.6—dc22 2009020047

Title-page image copyright © iStockphoto.com/FotografiaBasica

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v3.0

Table of Contents

Cover

Other Books by this Author

Title Page

Dedication

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

Day Four

Day Five

Day Six

Day Seven

Day Eight

Day Nine

Historical Note

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Copyright