A Collection of Quests

The first time I saw Flora, she stood in front of a Dutch winter landscape. Yellow-grey skies, an expanse of blue-grey ice, very small stick-figure skaters. She wasn't looking at the painting. It was just a backdrop for her startling red hair and plain black dress. Somehow the demure string of pearls at her neck didn't succeed in toning down her angular beauty. She was too thin, of course, as most of us were after wartime deprivation and subsequent food rationing. But still, anyone would have been pleased to have the chance to paint her.

I wasn't an artist, only a policeman.  I was sure there were quite a few artists present. We were in a gallery, after all, for the preview of an exhibition of Dutch paintings.  I knew most of the other people there were art dealers, collectors, painters or members of the committee which had organised the show. I wondered which category she fell into.

As if she had noticed me staring, she turned her head and smiled at me. It was a disconcerting smile because the open friendliness of her mouth didn't match the watchfulness of her eyes. She was hiding something - but what could it be?

I was there because the chairwoman of the organising committee had badgered Scotland Yard into sending me along. She had already spent months badgering everyone involved, so I suppose it was now second nature to her. The exhibition was being held in aid of refugees, and it was due to be opened formally by someone from the Dutch embassy. I had been sent along to try and avert any embarrassing incidents. I don't know why the chairwoman imagined something was more likely to go wrong with a preview where everyone was there by invitation than when the exhibition opened to the public and anyone could walk in off the streets and buy a ticket, but there it was. My superiors knew I had an interest in art; I had just started an art history degree  when the war intervened and changed my plans.

Was this woman with the Dutch delegation? She did have an indefinably foreign air about her and she didn't look as if she belonged on any committee.

She began to walk towards me. Did she sense fear, as a wild animal might?

She stood in front of me.

'Do we know each other?'

The Scottish accent came as a bit of a surprise, but it was overlaid with something else, as if she hadn't lived in her native country for some time.

'I don't think so,' I said, and held out my hand. 'Quest. Oliver Quest.'

'F-Fiona M - McFlannery.' I did wonder why she stumbled over her own name, but she had a very firm, decisive handshake, equal to my own. We gazed at each other. Her eyes, with their wary expression, were greenish-hazel. Her skin didn't need the layers of make-up some women went in for these days. She just wore lipstick - and perhaps a little rouge, but I couldn't really tell.

Her smile seemed more genuinely amused now.

'You'd know me again, wouldn't you, Mr Quest? Now tell me, what are you doing here at this private view? You haven't been taking much notice of the pictures.'

'I've seen all I want to see,' I replied.

'No, I don't think so! Here, come with me.'

She took my arm, almost as if we had known each other for ages, and propelled me away from the cold grey skating scene and past a painting of an interior with a chequered floor, which she said was by Pieter de Hooch. Just round the corner we stopped and there, in an alcove near the lift, was a small square painting in a deep frame. Like much of Dutch art it was a very brown picture, except that a shaft of bright sunlight fell across the top left-hand corner.

'Rembrandt,' she said reverently. 'A man at a writing desk.'

I peered at the picture. The man sat, not in the ray of sunlight, but in the penumbra, and you could only just see the darker outline of his head and shoulders, bent over whatever he was writing.

'It's a bit on the small side,' I commented.

'Small and exquisite,' she said. I noticed the intensity of her stare, and I had the feeling that she had left this London gallery and gone somewhere far away.

At that moment the lift arrived and a couple emerged from it, arguing with each other. She turned away from the painting at last, seeming almost bereft.

She gave a small sigh. But when her eyes met mine again they were calm and cool. For a moment I had longed to comfort her, but now it was clear that this woman didn't need comfort from anyone but herself.

'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I've monopolised you, Mr Quest, and it isn't fair. Maybe you wanted to have a look at the Van de Velde seascapes? You'll find them in the side room across the hallway. Past the skaters.'

She was trying to dismiss me. Perhaps she regretted getting into conversation with me in the first place. I still wasn't sure who she was. She certainly knew her way around the place. Was she an art dealer? A collector? She didn't have a ring on her finger, so she probably hadn't come along just as someone's wife, and despite the dramatic red hair and the stylish black dress, I doubted if she had the money to be a collector herself. I wasn't exactly a fashion expert, but I thought the dress had been altered from a previous season's style by an amateur seamstress, and her hands, far from being smooth and pristine as they might have been if she were rich and well-cared-for, had a broken nail and scratches across the back, as if she had been doing rough work.  Or perhaps she had a pampered, playful cat which she doted on… I had an unwelcome and disturbing vision of her swathed in something black and filmy, reclining on a chaise longue with a white fluffy cat.

It was definitely time to go and look at the Van de Velde seascapes.

***

There was something about him that started all my mental alarm bells ringing. Not that I was frightened of him, although he was large and solid and looked as if he could hold his own in a fight. It was more that he appeared implacable and uncompromising, his eyes as grey as the ice in the skating picture, and his mouth set in a firm line.

On the principle of attack being the best form of defence, I went up and spoke to him. He was amenable enough to being led around the gallery, and there was something in his eyes – regret, maybe, or a small spark of desire? – that almost made me relent in the middle of sending him away, but it was too dangerous to keep him beside me. I had already taken a risk in speaking to him. He would know me again.

Taking risks had been like a drug to me at one time, and I still couldn’t resist the lure of it, even if the worst I faced this time if things went wrong was a spell in a British prison, and not the threat of torture and death as it had been in occupied France.

Even now, five years on, tears prickled the backs of my eyes when I thought of David…

I breathed in deeply, straightened my back and willed the tears away. I was doing this for him, and for his family. I couldn’t afford to be weakened by sentimentality.

I circulated through the rooms, careful not to catch anybody else’s eye. After a while there were speeches. I had counted on that. A collector whose paintings were on display thanked the gallery owners for deigning to exhibit them, unworthy though they were of such an honour. One of the owners replied in similar vein. The large woman from the refugee committee spoke at some length. Everybody was in the largest room, either listening or pretending to listen. The time had come.

I moved swiftly and silently, the way I had learned in S.O.E.  I pulled the lift door open again; as I had noted on a previous visit to the building, the mechanism worked smoothly and almost noiselessly. I stood before the little Rembrandt picture. I had already investigated the fittings and found it was suspended on wires from a picture rail. I removed the wire-cutters from my clutch bag, together with some brown paper that I had folded up small. I snipped through the wires, grabbed the painting and wrapped it in one movement. Then I went to the lift. The timing was perfect. I slid into the lift and began to pull the heavy door across to close it.

It was all going according to plan. I knew the lift would take me to the gallery owner’s apartment, from where I could leave discreetly via the fire escape. I had complete confidence in my ability to open the door at the top of the steps. It had glass panels that could be broken in an emergency, but I thought I could pick the lock. I had been practising with a set of lock-picking tools I had obtained from a war-time friend. One of the tools had slipped and scratched me across the back of the hand.

I had almost succeeded in closing the lift door, which was hard work, when a dark shape came quickly round the corner and barged in beside me. I was too shocked to say or do anything. He finished closing the door behind us and pushed the button to start the ascent, then he looked at me, his grey eyes even colder than before and his firm mouth now turned down slightly at the corners. He indicated the brown paper parcel I was carrying.

'May I enquire what you've got there, Miss McFlannery?'

'I think you know the answer to that, Mr Quest,' I said, icily calm. Maybe I could bluff it out, if I kept my head.

Quite unexpectedly he produced a set of handcuffs from his pocket.

'I'm very sorry about this, Miss McFlannery,' he said, 'but I'm going to have to arrest you.'

'Are you a policeman?' I squeaked. 'May I see your warrant card?'

He sighed. 'Of course.'

I could tell by his resigned expression that he had done this kind of thing before. Now that he had revealed himself to be a policeman, it seemed obvious he couldn't be anything else, so that seeing his warrant card was almost unnecessary, but I read it carefully.

'You won't need the handcuffs,' I said, trying to appear fragile and feminine. 'I'll come quietly.'

'I doubt that very much indeed,' he said. But he hesitated, handcuffs dangling from one hand as he replaced the card in the inside pocket of his jacket.

'Let me tell you my story,' I offered. 'You see, I'm not an art thief - not professionally, anyway.'

'So you just steal Rembrandt paintings for fun?' he said, looming over me in the small enclosed space. I shrank back against the side of the lift, still clutching the parcel to me. We  arrived at the next floor with a bump. He opened the door and held it for me until I got out. We were in a small lobby with one door facing us. Why hadn't he arrested me downstairs and escorted me out through the gallery? Maybe he didn't want to cause a stir. A tiny ember of hope glowed in my mind.

He produced a key and unlocked the door to the apartment; we went inside. I knew my escape route: would I get the chance to use it?

'So,' he said, pushing open another interior door which, I knew from my reconnaissance, led to the kitchen. 'What's your story? Sick mother needing an operation? Sick child? Sick cat? Ransom demand?'

'It's nothing like that,' I said indignantly. 'I'm not doing this for the money at all.'

'Sit down,' he said. 'Tell me.'

We sat at the kitchen table, a utility piece from the war years. I put down the parcel in front of me, keeping hold of it, and stared morosely at the ancient gas cooker which shouldn't have survived the Blitz.

Something in his manner made me tell the story straight out, without frills.

'It belongs to an elderly couple,' I said. 'They live in Eastbourne.'

'And?'

'They once lived in France. I knew them there. In the war.'

'Ah, the war. I see.'

I didn't know what he meant by bringing the war into it. I continued, as baldly as before,

'The painting was stolen from them.'

I paused - we had already reached the difficult part.

'Their son traded it for their lives. To get them out of France. Away from the Nazis. He was captured and killed. I want to give the picture back to them. So I started to look for it.'

'How did you do that?'

'It wasn't easy - the painting changed hands twice. Once by private sale and once at auction. That was when I picked up the trail,'

He looked out of the window, with its view of walls and other windows and a tiny patch of sky. I supposed the view from a prison cell might be like this. But I would do my best not to end up there.

'And what about you?' he asked after a while.

'Me?'

'How do you come into it? What were you doing in France?'

'I was in Special Operations. I was there to help the Resistance.' I shivered in spite of myself. I didn't enjoy thinking about it even after all this time: it had been like a game of Hide and Seek where the stakes were hideously real. 'I fell in love with David,' I added without any prompting. 'That's how I know his family.'

'You must have been very young,' he said.

'I was twenty-one.'

'I was twenty-two when I joined the RAF,' he said. For a moment our eyes met and I felt we had something in common. Then I remembered we were on opposite sides now, even if we had once been on the same side. He was an upholder of the law and I was a thief. There was a huge gulf between us that could never be bridged.

He reached across the table and touched my hand.

'I can see this is very hard for you to understand,' he said, staring at the scratches. 'But stealing the painting isn't the right thing to do. It belongs to someone else now - someone who bought it in good faith... I do have to arrest you. I have no choice.'

'There's always a choice, Mr Quest,' I said stubbornly, moving my hand out from under his.

He sighed. 'That isn't how the law works, Miss McFlannery.'

Thinking about how softly his hand had moved over mine, and seeing the corners of his mouth curve upwards very slightly, I had an idea about how to change his mind. I stood up, deliberately left the wrapped painting where it was, walked round the table until I was standing beside him, and said quietly, 'Are you sure there isn't room for some - flexibility - even in the law, Oliver Quest?'

I leaned down and kissed him. Even in the circumstances I enjoyed the touch of his mouth against mine and the way his hands came up instinctively to hold me. Then he let me go suddenly and I swayed and almost fell.

'My friends call me Olly,' he said, and then frowned. 'But I'm going to have to arrest you anyway.'

'I'll come quietly, even if it isn't fair,' I said, keeping the fingers of one hand crossed behind my back.

My chance came as we went down the fire escape. He had been watching me closely until about three-quarters of the way down, when he remembered about the handcuffs and reached into his pocket for them again. His loss of concentration cost him dearly, for when he brought out the handcuffs, opened them and reached for me, probably hoping to take me off guard and capture my wrist, I grabbed them first and clipped them closed round the metal handrail of the fire escape and then round his own wrist. He almost tripped me up on the last few steps as he flung out one foot in my path, but I jumped over it lithely and ran down to ground level, laughing.

'My friends call me Flora,' I called back to him. Fortunately I got out of earshot quickly enough not to hear very many of the names he was yelling after me.

I didn't wish him any harm. He had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. And there was something about him, too. In other circumstances we might have become friends. But the gulf between us had opened up even further. Our paths would never cross again.

I told myself not to feel any regret about that, but there was a sort of lingering sadness for what could have happened but was destined not to happen.

***

After doing a bit of research into the couple from France who had arrived as refugees during the war and whose names and place of residence were therefore on record, I headed for Eastbourne. It would have been madness for her to go there once she had told me about it. But I already knew she was the kind of person who wouldn't be deterred by danger, and who would take risks many people would find unacceptable.

It hadn't been hard to track down the elderly couple, the Bernards. They lived in a flat near the beach, and that was where I went as soon as I got off the train, struggling through the hordes of day-trippers - it was a Bank Holiday weekend - and thankful I was no longer compelled to wear a dark suit and regulation shoes.

They were wary and didn't want to speak to me at all at first, but when I told them I wasn't a policeman any more they were more inclined to be helpful.

'Of course we couldn't accept the painting, Mr Quest,' said Mr Bernard as we sat in the small sitting-room. 'It would have been quite wrong - Flora should have known that.'

His wife poured coffee and offered cake. 'She was angry with us, but in the end she did as we asked.'

'And what did you ask her to do?' I said, although I had already heard the story through my police contacts.

'She sent it back to them, of course,' said Mr Bernard. 'Special delivery. We couldn't keep stolen goods in our house.'

'I think she saw it as rightfully yours,' I said gently.

'It was ours once,' said Mrs Bernard. 'But David -'

Her voice faltered.

'David, our son, used it to bargain for our lives,' said Mr Bernard. 'He bought our freedom with it.'

'He wouldn't rest until we left France,' added his wife. 'We didn't want to go without him. But he said he couldn't continue his work for the Resistance until he knew we were safe.'

'So we left,' said Mr Bernard with a trace of bitterness in his voice. 'Flora helped us to get out. A lovely girl, but in this case - wrong-headed. I suppose she thought that by restoring the painting to us she could turn back the clock. To a time when David was still alive. Of course he will always be with us - in our hearts. But she needs to get on with her life now. Can you help her?'

'I can try,' I told him.

'That's all anyone can do,' said Mrs Bernard.

'Do you know where she is?' I enquired. I hoped she hadn't gone overseas. It would be the devil's own job to trace her through Europe with things the way they were: displaced people everywhere and none of the trains or border crossings operating as they should.

They both smiled, as if they shared a secret.

'She's walking along the promenade,' said Mrs Bernard. 'She walks there every day. Backwards and forwards. Rain or shine.'

I was already on my feet, ready to go.

There were crowds, of course: children darting under your feet, old people hobbling along on sticks, middle aged couples with nothing left to say to each other and young lovers who didn't need any words.

She had walked on past all the others and was leaning on the railing, staring at the sea. She was dressed all in black again but her red hair wasn't quite so regimented into curls as it had been the last time I had seen her: a few strands had escaped and framed her face, lifted by the breeze from the sea. She was incredibly beautiful.

'Flora,' I said, capturing her hand as it lay on the railing. The scratches had faded a little, merging with her sun-tan. Being by the sea suited her. I wanted to tell her that one day we would buy a flat on the promenade, with a sea view, and she could walk here as often as she liked for as long as we both lived. I wanted to assure her we had a happy life ahead of us, but that didn't mean we would lose touch with the past either.

'So you've caught up with me, Olly,' she said, half-turning towards me.

'Your name isn't Fiona McFlannery, is it?' I said.

'I think you know it isn't. I'm Flora Murray. Can we start again? Pleased to meet you, Mr Quest. Or may I call you Oliver?'

'Yes, if you like.'

We shook hands.

'Are you going to arrest me again?' she asked, watching my face.

'I've left the police force,' I told her.

'Not because of me?'

'Not exactly. Some people laughed a bit about what happened.' I thought back to the open derision shown by my immediate superior when I told him I had been outwitted by a woman. And his anger when it turned out that the name she had given me didn't even exist. 'But it wasn't really that. It was partly what you said about being flexible. And I was offered the chance to do something different.'

'What's that?' she asked.

I had the sense that everything - my whole future and perhaps hers too - depended on my reply. I hoped it was the right one.

'Someone wants me to look for lost art works. It will mean travelling, of course. And possibly an element of danger. What do you think?'

'It isn't up to me.'

I smiled. 'It is, you know. I need a partner, and you've got some experience in the field.'

Her eyes, very green in the bright light from the sea, widened. 'Me?'

She put a lot into that one word: surprise, joy, excitement.

She held out her hand. I took it, drew her towards me and kissed her.

'Will you turn me in to the authorities if I don't agree to be your partner?' she asked in a moment.

I shook my head.

'All right, then, I'll do it!' she said decisively.

We stood there for a while, breathing in happiness with the sea air. Today was just for us: tomorrow we would go hand in hand into the future.

Book 1 The Lion and Unicorn Quest

Contents

Book 1 Chapter 1

Book 1 Chapter 2

Book 1 Chapter 3

Book 1 Chapter 4

Book 1 Chapter 5

Book 1 Chapter 6

Book 1 Chapter 7

Book 1 Chapter 8

Book 1 Chapter 9

Book 1 Chapter 10

Book 1 Chapter 11

Book 1 Chapter 12

Book 1 Chapter 13

Book 1 Chapter 14

Book 1 Chapter 15

Book 1 Chapter 16

Book 1 Chapter 17

Book 1 Chapter 18

Book 1 Chapter 19

Book 1 Chapter 20

Book 1 Chapter 21

Book 1 Chapter 22

Book 1 Chapter 23

Book 1 Chapter 24

Book 1 Chapter 25

Book 1 Chapter 26

Book 1 Chapter 27

Book 1 Chapter 28

Book 1 Chapter 29

Book 1 Chapter 30

Book 1 Chapter 31

Book 1 Chapter 32

Book 1 Chapter 33

Book 1 Chapter 34

Chapter 1 Quarrel at Victoria - Oliver

Damn and blast!

Flora was nowhere to be seen. I strained my eyes to see if I could spot her red hair glowing among the greyness that seemed to dominate every scene these days, but she had managed to lose herself among the mass of people milling around outside. I walked up the road a little way to try and escape the station crowds. I knew there was a bus stop further along the street; perhaps she had decided to go straight home.

There! I saw a flash of red hair. Unfortunately it belonged to a middle-aged matron wearing a maroon winter coat. That wasn’t a good colour combination, but aesthetics were the least of my worries. If Flora vanished for good – if I never saw her again…

I told myself not to be so dramatic. I might as well go and catch a bus home myself. She would get in touch with me again the next day, or the next week, or whenever she got over this silly tantrum she’d flown into over nothing very much. I turned my steps back towards the station, and as I did so, I caught another glimpse of red hair. This time it definitely belonged to Flora. She was boarding a bus about two hundred yards away. I sprinted for it, and it pulled away just before I reached it, with the conductor mocking me from the platform at the back.

‘Better get in shape, mate!’ he advised me.

‘Damn and blast!’

I didn’t realise I had spoken aloud until I heard an old woman tutting.

‘Mind your language, son,’ she said. ‘There’s ladies present.’

I stifled the urge to say something rude, and raised my hat to her in a show of politeness. Then, because I was a mature, adult man, once she was out of sight I went and kicked the edge of the kerb. It hurt my foot but I didn’t care.

How did Flora manage to reduce me to this state so frequently? It had been the same ever since I first set eyes on her in that gallery off Regent Street. She could always wind me round her little finger.

I leaned on the wall of the little florist’s shop near the bus stop, lit a cigarette and wondered how we had arrived at this impasse. The day had started so well. I had been in an excellent frame of mind as I set off to meet her at Victoria. She had spent Christmas with the Bernards in Eastbourne, and I had missed her terribly. Being in Norfolk with my family for a few days hadn’t made up for that at all.

If only we hadn’t decided to pop into the news cinema in the station before going to have dinner – that was where it all went wrong. If only they hadn’t shown that silly story about the Stone of Scone – being Scottish, of course Flora felt strongly about it. If only I hadn’t made such a flippant remark.

‘Why can’t you ever take anything seriously, Oliver?’ she demanded on the steps down to the station concourse. ‘This is important! It could mean everything to us!’

‘I suppose by us you mean the Scots!’ I said.

‘Of course I mean the Scots. It’s nobody else’s business!’

‘But it’s the coronation stone. It belongs to the whole nation. So I think I’m entitled to take it lightly or seriously, whichever I choose.’

I was still trying to play it all down, to shift things back on to the affectionate footing we had started on that afternoon.

She was silent for a moment. We had stopped halfway down the steps and people were starting to complain they couldn’t get past. I took her arm and hurried her on down. She pulled away when we reached ground level. Her green eyes were blazing hatred at me. I couldn’t believe how angry she was.

‘Please tell me you’re not involved in this stupid theft somehow,’ I said in a sudden panic.

‘Of course not! But I’m starting to wish I was,’ she said. ‘It would be good to do something significant. To feel as if something really mattered.’

‘Really mattered? What about our work together? Doesn’t that matter?’

‘I might have known you’d take it personally. It’s nothing to do with you, Oliver… It’s about national pride. And people taking risks to do what they believe in.’

I didn’t say to her that I thought she had already taken enough risks for one lifetime. I remembered the little she had told me about her war service, and I thought she had probably used up all her luck then.

‘I believe in what we do,’ I said instead, trying to stay calm.

‘Oh, you’ll never understand!’ she exclaimed, taking a few steps away from me. ‘Well, I hope the stone is never found again!’

‘I hope it is, and I hope the people responsible get arrested.’ I didn’t really have an opinion about this one way or another, but I wasn’t going to let her have her own way and think I was spineless. ‘It’s treason, after all, isn’t it? I hope they’re executed on Tower Hill.’

It was a very silly thing to say. I deserved what happened next.

She whirled round and took off like a bat out of hell, right through the station and out into the cold afternoon drizzle without even putting on her coat. It flew up behind her as she carried it along. People scattered before her, making a clear path that closed up again afterwards. I didn’t stand a chance of catching up.

Someone nudged me.

‘Are you going to get on the bus or not? Some of us want to get home tonight, you know.’

The cigarette had burned down almost to my fingertips, and a bus stood in front of me. I glanced round at the queue, lifted my hat to them in apology as I threw the cigarette end into the gutter, and got on. The conductor was shaking his head and tutting. People never used to tut at me when I was a policeman. Not for the first time, I wondered if I had done the right thing when I abandoned that life and struck out on my own.

It was getting dark when I reached my flat, in a small serviced apartment building between Baker Street and Gloucester Place. I was already missing Flora, but instead of wallowing in emotion I just charged inside, banging the front door behind me. I had picked up an evening paper from the kiosk by the Tube station. I hoped it wouldn’t mention the blasted Stone of Scone. The newsreel had reported that road blocks had been set up at various points, and border checks on the way north to Scotland, where it was presumed the thieves would try and take it. In some ways I couldn’t help admiring their cheek, although I would never have admitted that to Flora of course. She was impossible enough without imagining I agreed with her silly ideas.

Aha. The paper said Scottish students were being blamed for the audacious theft. Wasn’t her brother a student in Glasgow? She hadn’t told me much about her family in the months we had known each other, but I thought she had said something about being worried over his political activities.

I sat down on the hard chair in the hall and read on. It was all purely idle speculation, of course. The writer of the piece didn’t know what had happened to the coronation stone any more than I did.

My hand brushed against something on the little table next to me. I glanced at it, surprised. A small package wrapped in tissue paper and tied with a green ribbon. It was a present for Flora, but after what had just happened it was anyone’s guess when I would get close enough to give it to her.

I turned the page and found a huge headline about the Festival of Britain. Apparently it was in financial trouble again. Well, there was a surprise. As far as I could tell, the whole thing was just a diversionary tactic by the government to try and get us to forget about all the doom and gloom and greyness around us and do something frivolous for a while.

Perhaps this new job of mine was frivolous too, I mused, wandering into the drawing-room and staring towards the window. I hadn’t yet drawn the curtains and I could see all the lights coming on in the darkness outside. I didn’t have much of a view from here but there were street lights all along Montague Mansions and house lights now too. I liked to leave the curtains open when it got dark. My grandfather, from whom I had inherited this flat, would have worried about people looking in, even although the place was on the second floor. He was obsessively secretive and wouldn’t even let my grandmother set foot in here because he thought of it as a bolt-hole in town, where he could be on his own and do what he wanted. The layout and decoration were still very masculine, with stark black leather chairs and grey carpets. Any vague suspicion that he might have kept a mistress here had been swiftly allayed when I saw it for the first time: no woman could have lived in such an ascetic way. My mother would sometimes tease me by saying it was no place to bring up a family and that I would have to exchange it for a suburban terraced house when I got married, but the time for that decision was still some way off.

Damn! I had forgotten to cancel our dinner reservation. I didn’t feel at all like eating, anyway. And it was always the last resort of a miserable man to go out to eat on his own. But I knew I didn’t have anything in my cupboard worth eating so I had to go out again or starve. I decided to take a stroll down to my club in Regent Street and see if there was anyone I knew there. I hadn’t seen my old services friends for a while and there was a chance that I might bump into one of them.

As I opened my front door to go out, I noticed a letter on the mat. I didn’t know if it had only just arrived, or if I hadn’t seen it earlier in my haste to get to the sanctuary of the flat. I stupidly hoped it might be from Flora, although she had hardly had time to compose a letter and put it in the post since I last saw her. But when I turned the envelope over I saw that it was from my mother. I frowned. It was only two days since I had left Norfolk, and I couldn’t imagine she had much more to say to me. But I shoved the letter into my coat pocket to read later.

As luck would have it, I was just taking my coat off at the club when someone called ‘Ollie!’ and the man I probably thought of as my best friend came up and clapped me on the back.

‘Hello, Stan,’ I said. The coat-check man suppressed a smile.

‘No relation to Laurel and Hardy,’ I told him. It had only been funny the first few times and now it was just one of life’s minor irritations.

‘Are you on your own?’ said Stan. He was as large and over-blown as ever, getting redder in the face as he got older, and if you looked at him you might think of a child’s red balloon that had been over-inflated and was in danger of bursting at any moment.

‘Yes, I’m afraid so,’ I said. ‘Pathetic, isn’t it?’

‘Not at all – so am I. Want to join me for a spot of dinner?’

‘Might as well.’

We settled ourselves in the big leather chairs in the lounge and looked at each other through the haze of cigar smoke.

‘You look thinner,’ he said accusingly. ‘Is that girl of yours not feeding you up?’

‘She isn’t exactly my girl. Especially after today.’ I sighed. ‘What about you – wife gone back to her mother’s?’

‘Don’t even joke about it,’ he said. ‘Will you have a drink before we go in?’

A waiter took our drinks orders and threatened to return with menus. I didn’t care if he never came back. I still didn’t feel hungry, and hinting at the situation to Stan hadn’t helped.

Over dinner, which wasn’t great but was more edible than anything I could have cooked up for myself, Stan told me what was bothering him.

‘It’s the South Bank. Not to mention Battersea.’

‘The Festival of Britain? What’s that got to do with you?’

‘Security,’ he said gloomily, waving a forkful of beef and carrots around as if to illustrate the all-encompassing nature of his task.

‘Ah. So what particular aspect of it has attracted the interest of the Metropolitan Police?’

‘It isn’t so much that it’s attracted our interest,’ he said. ‘It’s that we can’t ignore it. It isn’t going to go away. And it’s a huge operation. It’s bound to bring in all sorts of rogues and scoundrels. From all over London – if not beyond.’

‘Is it? I thought it was a great national celebration comprised of edifying exhibits and innocent fun for the children… And isn’t there some sort of financial problem with it anyway? Maybe it won’t go ahead.’

‘Of course it’ll go ahead,’ he said darkly. ‘Just imagine the fuss if it had to be cancelled. The government will pour more money into it even if they have to borrow it from the Americans again.’

‘But why should it bring in rogues and scoundrels? What’s in it for them?’

‘Maybe I’m not expressing myself clearly here. It isn’t just petty thieves and pickpockets. I’m talking about traitors and troublemakers. Look at this Stone of Destiny thing, for a start. Then there are the Irish. The King’s opening it, you know. Anything could happen.’

‘But that’s Special Branch, isn’t it?’

‘They do all the exciting stuff,’ he said, laying down his fork and knife and lifting his wine glass again. ‘And we do the hard work. That’s how it is. They’ll only be called in if it gets really serious. We’re the first in line.’

I stared at him. He was unusually jittery. Just as well he hadn’t been like this when we were in a fighter plane together somewhere over the north coast of France. Or when we were in the East End rounding up gangsters.

He leaned towards me. ‘Just between ourselves, there’s more.’

I waited. He lowered his voice even further. ‘I’m only telling you because you know about this kind of thing.’

He paused again, took a breath. ‘Paintings.’

‘Paintings?’

‘Sssh – keep your voice down. Nobody’s supposed to know. Some bigwig’s lending a very special painting to one of the displays. In the pavilions. It’s worth an arm and a leg.’

‘Hmm,’ I said, lowering my voice to match his. ‘What about the security?’

‘He’s bringing his own man in. But nobody knows anything. Forget I told you,’ he hissed.

‘Fine. I don’t know anything about anything.’

‘So, how’s tricks with you, then?’ he asked, straightening up and speaking normally. ‘Still glad you set up on your own?... Of course, you’re not really on your own, are you?’

I wasn’t at all sure of that, after what had happened earlier. But I smiled and told him about the last case Flora and I had worked on together and how it had expanded from recovering someone’s lost painting to locating and reuniting his whole family too. On reflection, I still thought it had been a very worthwhile thing to do, and far removed from the frivolity of tracking down painted canvases that happened, sometimes for no reason that anybody could see, to be worth a lot of money.

Remembering how well Flora and I had worked together brought a lump to my throat, but I tried to ignore that. The long lazy summer evenings at hotels in varying states of repair across continental Europe were best forgotten for the moment too. I already knew one of her main characteristics was stubbornness, so I didn’t think she would come crawling back to me with an apology for flying off the handle.

No, there was a long haul ahead, and if listening to my old friend Stan boring on about the Festival of Britain helped me to get through it, I thought it might be time well spent.

Chapter 2 Encounter in Paddington - Flora

I got off the bus at the next stop and went back to look for Oliver, but he was gone. How typical of him to rush off like that! He should have known I’d stop being angry before long and come back.

Well, if he felt like that, it wasn’t up to me to make the first move. In any case, I thought there were serious grounds for disagreement between us; not to mention the fact that I was terribly worried about Sandy. I suddenly wished I had gone home for Christmas and stayed on for a while. Then I would never have known how lightly Oliver took my opinions about Scottish events, and I would have been able to keep an eye on Sandy for myself instead of relying on the infrequent letters of my mother and grandmother.

I was glad, on the other hand, that I had spent a few days with the Bernards. They didn’t really celebrate Christmas, of course, but they had tried their best to make it a bit special for me. No Christmas tree in the window, but a candlelit dinner and some excellent home baking.

I got on the next bus and went straight home. There was no point in staying around Victoria just because I had last seen Oliver there. He had probably gone home too. Although I had never invited him into the shabby house in Paddington he knew where I lived, after all. If he wanted to get in touch with me and apologise, I would listen to him graciously enough then. I let myself into the house. It wasn’t very warm indoors, but at least I was now sheltered from the icy wind that had made me shiver in the street outside, fumbling for the keys in my bag. My fingers encountered the hard shape of a box hidden in the depths of the bag. I knew it was a packet containing a few cigars. I had meant to give them to Oliver as a present. I didn’t know what I would do with them if I never saw him again. I banished that thought to the darkest recesses of my mind.

Mrs Brampton slid into the front hall from the direction of the kitchen. Her movements as she undulated around the house often suggested those of a large serpent and were so quiet that I sometimes didn’t notice she was there until she spoke. At least she didn’t hiss: I would have found that rather frightening.

‘Two gentlemen to see you, Miss Murray,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want to show them into your room, so they’re waiting in the parlour.’

Two gentlemen? I was at a loss to know who they could be. I hoped they weren’t – an icicle slithered down my spine as my imagination ran riot. Had anything happened to Oliver – Sandy – my parents?

‘They don’t look like policemen,’ said Mrs Brampton.

I exhaled abruptly. I drew my shoulders back. Hardly anyone knew my address here. Or at least, I hadn’t given it to many people.

‘Are you sure they’ve come to the right place?’ I asked.

‘They seem to think so. You’d better ask them. I’ll be waiting out here if you need me.’

She brought out a rolling-pin from behind her back and brandished it. I laughed. It was such a cliché. She didn’t seem as if she would have the strength to wield it in anger, in any case.

The two men wore nondescript grey suits. They had put their hats on top of Mrs Brampton’s china cabinet, next to the Art Deco style teapot that always seemed out of place above the shelves of small seaside mementoes and Mrs Brampton’s china dog collection. One of the men sprang up from a Victorian spoon-backed chair as I entered the parlour, while the other turned away from the window and stared at me.

‘Miss Flora Murray.’

It was a statement, not a question. We knew each other. I gazed up at him, waiting for the surge of anger to flow through me and inspire me to say something devastating. But I didn’t feel anything. Of course it was nearly six years since it all happened. A lot of water had flowed under the bridge in that time. I had grown up, I supposed. I had met Oliver Quest and together we had helped to reunite people with their possessions and, in one case, with long-lost family members. I was a different person now.

‘You look very well, ‘he said. He looked about the same as he had done the last time I saw him in his office, the time I threw my final pay packet at him and shrieked like a madwoman, loosing all the pent-up feelings I had nurtured for the last months of the war.

‘What do you want?’ I said at last. He appeared puzzled, as if it should have been obvious why he was there, invading my life again, opening the book long after it had been closed and replaced on the shelf in a locked library where no-one ever went.

‘We need you,’ he said.

‘We?’

‘Your country – and its allies.’

I turned away from him and stared at the Art Deco teapot, tracing its shape with my eyes. I wanted to concentrate on normal things. Teapots, and toast, and going to the news cinema – never mind how that had turned out – and meeting friends. I didn’t want to remember the time when I had been living in a hideous game of hide and seek from which there was no respite even when I closed the door of my own room at the end of the day.

‘You were good, Flora. A good agent. One of the best.’

‘And?’ I said.

‘And someone you know has entered Britain illegally using a false passport. We need to catch him and put him on trial.’

‘But what does that have to do with me? After all this time? I’m not an agent any more.’

‘We still have you on our files,’ he said. There was a menacing undertone in his voice I didn’t like at all.

‘Have you been watching me? Is that how you knew where to find me?’

‘We like to keep up with old friends,’ he said, not answering the question. He was good at that.

‘You might as well go now,’ I said, folding my arms in a defensive gesture.

‘I don’t think so,’ he said.

The other man, the one I hadn’t met before, was watching me, his dark eyes unreadable.

‘Mrs Brampton’s waiting outside with a rolling-pin,’ I said. ‘So don’t try anything on.’

The first man, the one I knew, roared with laughter. ‘Do you really think that would stop us doing anything we want to do?... We won’t hurt you, Flora. There’s nothing for you to worry about. And nothing for anyone you know to worry about, providing you co-operate.’

There it was again, the underlying threat in his voice.

‘What do you mean, anyone I know?’

‘Well, let me see… Your circle of friends and acquaintances is really quite small, isn’t it? There’s your landlady, of course. The Bernards. Your friend Mr Quest. Your family. Do you have anyone else in your life? I really can’t remember.’

I sighed. ‘Just tell me what you’re talking about, and then go.’

He frowned. ‘Your brother. Sandy, I believe his name is. We have reason to believe he may be involved in some illegal activities. Possibly even treasonous. I don’t want to have him brought in for questioning, something which might harm his chances of getting his degree, and therefore of making progress in a career in the future, but….’

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake! Just tell me what you want from me!’

He sat down on one of the spoon-backed chairs. I sat too, on the chaise longue, perching right on the edge of it facing him. I still had my arms folded in an attempt to shut him out.

‘We have reason to believe this former acquaintance of yours will try to find you. He thinks you can lead him to something he wants. But once he finds it and has no further use for you, he will kill you without a single qualm.’

I shivered.

‘What is it? What does he want?’

‘I think you can work that out if you give it some thought.’

‘No.’

There was silence except for our breathing, soft and low in the over-stuffed room.

‘The Rembrandt?’

He smiled. ‘I knew you could work it out.’

‘But – who is he?’

I felt that icicle of remembered fear just touch me between the shoulder-blades again. I twitched, glancing accusingly round at the other man, the silent one, as if it was his fault.

‘Think about it,’ said the first man.

I closed my mouth firmly. Why should I do all the work in this interview? He was toying with me, teasing me to get my interest.

He shrugged his shoulders suddenly. ‘We can get in touch with the Glasgow police in five minutes. Your brother will be under lock and key by the end of the day. It’s your choice.’

It wasn’t a choice at all.

‘Wassermann?’ I said in a hushed whisper.

A curt nod from the silent man and an exclamation of triumph from the other.

‘He’s still alive?’

‘Very much so,’ said the man I knew. ‘Karl Wassermann entered the country under the name of Charles Waterman, with a forged passport, early in December. We lost him after that. But we believe he may be trying to find you because of the Rembrandt. When he does, we want you to contact us. That’s all.’

‘That’s all? The man who -?’

It was beyond belief. They knew what it would do to me. I wouldn’t put it past them to stake me out like a tethered goat and just wait for him to strike, either. It would be quicker than hoping he tracked me down under his own steam. I knew how they operated.

‘You’re not going to lead him to me, are you? I wouldn’t want anyone I know to be put in danger.’

‘We can keep an occasional eye on this place,’ he said dismissively. ‘The rest is up to you. We know you’ve been seeing Quest. I can’t tell you not to see him, but if you do continue the relationship you’ll be putting his life at risk. That’s all.’

Yes, that was all. I was too numbed by shock to feel upset at that moment, but I knew it would come later. I said, quite calmly,

‘So if I agree to co-operate, you won’t make any moves against Sandy. Mrs Brampton will be safe, but only if your men happen to be passing at the right time. Oliver Quest will be safe if I keep away from him. Is that what you’re saying?’

That was what they were saying. They left soon after that.

When Mrs Brampton had shown them out, she glided into the parlour and put her arm round me as I sat on her chaise-longue, looking at that same teapot with blank unseeing eyes. That was when I found silent tears were pouring down my face.

I don’t know where the tears came from: I was hollow and empty inside again just as I had been before.

Chapter 3 Home to Norfolk – Oliver

I didn’t open the letter from my mother until the next morning.

As I read, I wished I had looked at it sooner. My father had suffered a stroke and was gravely ill. She asked me, with an outward diffidence that masked great urgency, to return home immediately if I could possibly manage it. I wondered why she hadn’t asked someone to telephone me instead or sent a telegram: I would have received the news sooner. But of course she never liked to interfere with my work. She imagined me engaged in cases with national or even international implications.

Of course I had to go. I hadn’t expected to make the journey again until Easter, but this would perhaps turn out to be my last chance to see my father alive. I breathed deeply, thinking about it. We had come across plenty of mortality in wartime, often much more tragic than this illness of an elderly man, and yet there was nothing quite so close to home as this.

In a way I was torn between going to Norfolk and making my peace with Flora. But I knew there really wasn’t any choice.

I telephoned my mother to let her know I was on my way. In the middle of flinging some things in a bag, I scrawled a note to Flora, tore up the first attempt and tried again, tore up the second attempt, then decided I needed to speak to her face to face before writing anything. On the train to Norwich, only the first leg of my journey, I wished I had given her some sort of explanation. She might imagine I didn’t want to see her again. I just hoped she wouldn’t do anything silly before I returned. I didn’t spell out even to myself what sort of thing I had in mind. But I wasn’t yet sure enough of her affection to take it for granted.

The journey seemed even more tortuous than usual, with a change on to a local branch line in Norwich and then a cab to the house from a station in the wilds.

My mother was cleaning the silver on the kitchen table. I guessed she had needed something to do while she waited for news from the hospital. A girl from the local village looked on anxiously. Her anxiety might either have been because my mother expected her to learn how to do it properly, or because my poor mother was in danger of polishing a little sweet dish away altogether with the force of her hands.

She looked up. ‘Oliver! Oh, darling, thank you for coming!’

I went over and put my arm round her shoulders. ‘Any news?’

‘They said,’ she began, and paused, perhaps fighting back emotion. ‘They said the first twenty-four hours would be crucial.’

‘It must be more than that now, surely?’

‘Thirty hours.’

‘Have you seen him?’

She shook her head. ‘Is that a good thing, do you think?’

‘I don’t know. Probably.’

I thought they would have called her in to see him if he really was on his death-bed. I frowned. He was a stubborn old boy, and I found the whole idea of a death-bed very disconcerting.

‘Your sister’s on her way,’ said my mother.

While not exactly unwelcome, this piece of information didn’t immediately cheer me up. My sister Clemency had a way of demanding her own time in the limelight, and wouldn’t necessarily be of any help if she thought someone else was hogging it. On the other hand, she had always lived up to her position as my father’s favourite child, even choosing to study economics apparently to please him, and if anyone could pull him back from the brink, it was her.

‘You didn’t bring Flora?’ asked my mother, peering round the room to make sure there was no-one else with me. ‘I thought we might meet her at last.’

Apart from the fact that a family death-bed wasn’t the best occasion to introduce an outsider, I didn’t think my mother grasped the nature of my relationship with Flora. She wasn’t the kind of woman who was an appendage to a man; you couldn’t just bring her along like a piece of luggage. I didn’t try and explain this. It would have been impossible under any circumstances, and it was just irrelevant at this moment.

Fortunately my mother was distracted by the telephone. Her voice climbed higher and higher, and I couldn’t help overhearing.

‘Oh, you poor dear. Oliver will come and meet you at the station… No, there’s no news. But I think that’s a good thing… Goodbye, darling.’

The girl from the village stared at me from her big round blue eyes. I winked. ‘That was my sister. I expect she’s run out of cash on the way here.’

I put my coat back on and was on my way out as my mother came in from the hall.

‘I’ll take the Rover. Is there any petrol in it?’

She nodded. ‘Your father’s been keeping it topped up all the time since the end of petrol rationing. I don’t think he trusts them not to bring it back… Be nice to Clemmie, now. She’s very upset.’

I hadn’t had the chance over Christmas to drive the latest Rover. My father was an extremely nervous passenger – hated giving control to anyone else, I suppose. Well, he would have to do that now, if he survived. My hands tightened on the steering wheel. I concentrated hard on staying in the middle of the road. I knew there were ditches at the sides and it was only too easy to stray into one. The going was a bit easier once I pulled out on to the main road and headed for the station.

My sister was already waiting outside. She had been quite restrained by her standards and only brought one suitcase and a big carpet bag she had inherited from one of our grandmothers. She was very stylish in her grey costume and white shirt. Her dark hair fell in a smooth curve almost to shoulder level. When I had first encountered Flora I had thought she was cast almost from the same mould with her effortless elegance, but on closer acquaintance I had grown to appreciate the more ruffled look she tended to lapse into at times when putting on a professional front wasn’t so vital.

As soon as Clemency got into the car she said, ‘Do you have a cigarette, Oliver?’

I glanced over at her. She showed no outward sign of distress, but it was unusual for her to smoke, and she knew full well my father didn’t like it. I didn’t argue with her: sometimes you had to be selective about picking fights with Clemency. I handed her the packet of cigarettes and a box of matches from my coat pocket, and started the engine.

She didn’t speak again until we were on the way back to the house and she had finished one cigarette and was lighting up another.

‘So how is he really?’ she said.

‘What do you mean, really?’

‘Well, Mother’s always so