Necessary Evil (Milkweed Triptych) (15 page)

Four men, counting Marsh. But where was he?

“I blame you, Beauclerk, for this monumental cock-up.”

“What?”

“One minute you’re telling us the Jerries must be using sorcery of their own, no question about it, and then after a brief interlude for some perfectly grisly self-mutilation—the reason for which I still can’t begin to comprehend—you announce that no, in fact, the Jerries are doing nothing of the sort.” Stephenson took a long drag on his cigarette, snuffed it in a marble ashtray, lit another. “You wasted months we couldn’t afford chasing a will-o’-the-wisp.”

Stephenson said this last bit with such contempt that it struck the same chords in Will as did his grandfather’s sadistic derision. It made him want to hide again. They might have been back in the glade at Bestwood.

The old man said, “Now. How in the Lord’s name did that Jerry bastard find her so easily?”

Realization struck Will like a jolt of electricity. The urge to hide became almost irresistible. Stronger even than the pain in his hand and jaw. He had a sickening feeling he knew exactly how that ghostly fellow had known Milkweed operated from the Old Admiralty building.

I truly am a witless toff.

“Not through the Eidolons,” Will mumbled. “It was through human means.”

“Do you honestly think,” Stephenson said quietly, “that bastard was human?”

Even Lorimer couldn’t argue with that.

Will’s mouth had gone dry. He coughed. “I, ah … What I mean to say is that there may be a rather straightforward explanation.”

Both men picked up on Will’s hesitation. “By all means, please enlighten us,” said Stephenson.

“It’s something of a long story,” Will said. “Perhaps I should wait until Pip arrives.”

Stephenson shook his head. “Out with it, Beauclerk.”

They watched while Will fidgeted with the brim of his bowler hat. He took a steadying breath, then forged ahead before he could lose his nerve.

“I was contacted by the Met yesterday, you see.”

And so Will related the story of his visit to Cannon Row. Lorimer and Stephenson listened in silence, awestruck by the extent of Will’s obliviousness, until he described the absurd copy of his own billfold.

Lorimer said, “You bloody stupid tosser. You fucking idiotic toff.” He muttered obscenities and insults through the rest of Will’s tale.

But Stephenson didn’t say a word. Only the whitening of his knuckles as he gripped the ashtray betrayed any emotional reaction at all. Will expected him to hurl it across the room, or use it to bash in his skull once the rage overwhelmed him. It’s what Marsh would have done. Instead, the old man waited until Will’s rambling and awkward confession wound down to its conclusion. When he spoke, it was as if he’d plunged so deep into rage that he’d come out the other side again, emerging into serene detachment.

He might have been commenting on the weather when he asked, “And at no point did you consider having a look at this fellow they’d caught with your billfold?”

“It obviously wasn’t my billfold and it obviously wasn’t John Stephenson in their custody, so I thought the matter was settled.” Silence fell upon the office. Will rushed to fill it. “I mean, surely the Jerries wouldn’t be so careless. As forgeries go, the documents weren’t even remotely credible. It had to be an elaborate hoax. A practical joke.”

But Stephenson was already dialing the telephone on his desk. It was particularly agonizing to listen along while, through a sequence of calls, the old man discovered that the fellow caught in St. James’ Park had been cut loose. And that the police had done so on orders from “higher up.” Will didn’t understand the significance of that, but Lorimer and Stephenson did. The security service had put a tail on the mystery man. They were also watching Stephenson, whom the stranger had claimed to be.

MI5 didn’t know about Milkweed. Nevertheless, the Security Service had stumbled upon evidence of German interference in Milkweed’s affairs.

They’d been scooped. That was the pièce de résistance, the crowning jewel of Will’s recent mistakes. So acute was the shame he wanted to bury himself. The fear of what he might have caused left his shirt damp under the arms.

Pip put his faith in me. How on earth can I possibly redeem myself?
Will could think of one possibility. Two days ago, he’d have rejected it out of hand as being too extreme. Too fanciful. But now …

Stephenson said to Lorimer, “We’re left with no indication of who this mysterious prisoner might have been.”

“We know it wasn’t the minger who sprang the lass.” Lorimer shook his head. “At this rate, the four of us will be outnumbered by German agents by the end of the week. Bloody fuck.”

Four. That number again. But where was Marsh?

“Well, that’s one place—the only place—where something good might come out of yesterday’s debacle.” Stephenson opened a desk drawer. He produced a bundle of papers wrapped with a black ribbon. Each page was embossed with the full Royal Arms, making it equivalent to a decree from His Majesty. There had been dozens of witnesses to the chase, dozens of witnesses to a man who ran through walls as though they were a mirage. Those witnesses, Stephenson explained, were Milkweed’s new recruits.

“Be ready to show the Tarragona film in a few days,” Stephenson told Lorimer.

“Aye.”

The talk of swelling Milkweed’s ranks, of finally giving the organization the resources it needed for dealing effectively with von Westarp and his “children,” convinced Will to voice his proposal.

He said, “I fear that spies and soldiers won’t ever be enough. No matter what von Westarp has accomplished, or how he accomplished it, the Eidolons are our best chance of countering it.” He held up his bandaged hand. “And in that regard, my contribution has been less than exemplary thus far.” At that, Lorimer snorted. Will continued, “We need true experts, not a dilettante like myself.”

What Milkweed needed more than anything else, Will explained, was warlocks. Men descended from the bloodlines that had, for many centuries, secretly curated knowledge of Enochian. Will’s grandfather, the twelfth Duke of Aelred, had been one of these men, as had Will’s father. Aubrey, Will’s brother, had been groomed for the peerage as was traditional for the older son. But Will had been raised in a different family tradition.

Though these men guarded their hard-won knowledge jealously, they were known on rare occasions to engage in trade with their colleagues. The old duke had done so. Which meant that his journals might hold records of other warlock lineages, or their whereabouts.

Stephenson listened with considerable interest while Will laid out his proposal. It didn’t take long. Marsh still hadn’t arrived by the time the meeting concluded. Will departed immediately on his new recruitment mission.

14 May 1940

Bermondsey, London, England

I dreamt of sea wrack and ravens, for how long I couldn’t say, until the thrum of rain on a metal roof nudged me to consciousness. It was loud as an artillery barrage, or the Devil’s own tattoo. Rainwater sluiced through a rust hole far overhead, drizzling me with cold water and ocher grit. I rolled over, groggily trying to escape the worst of it. But moving kicked up sawdust from the warehouse floor; the sneezing fit banished any hope of further sleep.

I yawned. Stretched. My joints ached. They popped and cracked from neck to ankles. Sleeping on the floor hadn’t done my bad knee any favors. I blinked up at a row of windows streaked with sooty marks of the warehouse’s past. A leaden gray morning loomed just beyond the glass and grime. It was raining stair-rods again.

I shivered in my underclothes. The rain had arrived from the sea, riding a line of squalls. Cool drafts swirled through the warehouse, mixing scents of the Thames and diesel fuel. The hoists and cranes above the warehouse jetty rattled their chains like Marley’s ghost. I’d taken my younger counterpart’s clothes from the Anderson; I went to the pile folded on a relatively clean spot of floor and dressed in civilian clothes. No uniform today.

I had slept like a dead thing. After sending my doppelgänger off with his Nazi escort, I’d headed for the river. It had been a long walk to Bermondsey on top of a very long and exhausting day. But I needed a place to work.

Back in ’63, after the battle with the Soviet agent who’d given me my wounds, Milkweed had taken his body to a warehouse down on the docks. It was one of many properties secretly belonging to SIS throughout London and the UK. That particular warehouse had been damaged by bombing during the war. And, like so many pieces of London, it had never been fully rebuilt. Its derelict state had made it perfect for MI6. For now, the place was undamaged, but quiet, and slowly falling into disrepair. It wasn’t yet an MI6 property, but attacks on shipping convoys had evidently reduced the flow of cargo to the point that the owners had been forced to consolidate. I’d have to move out before history repeated itself and it took a direct hit from a Luftwaffe bomb …
if
history repeated itself. But for the moment, and as long as I was willing to share it with rats, bats, and pigeons, I had a space from which to run the second prong of my mission.

Which was the order of business for today. I’d taken my best shot at the REGP, but now it was out of my hands, and I wouldn’t know for a long time whether my arrow had flown true. But Milkweed I could do something about.

Klaus’s infiltration of the Admiralty had spurred a flurry of changes. I knew that in the original time line, today had been the day when Will took it upon himself to track down and recruit the warlocks. So today’s job was simple: pay him a visit.

I wouldn’t say that I felt relaxed—that was impossible, after a scant few hours of sleep on a wooden floor—but I did feel a temporary reprieve from the grinding weight on my shoulders. Dealing with Will was easy. It felt good to have a task well in hand.

My stomach rumbled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten a thing since what the coppers had given me yesterday. And that I hadn’t had a proper meal since 1963. There was still a fair amount of cash left out of what I’d nicked from the Anderson shelter. Enough for breakfast, if I could find it. But I didn’t know the neighborhood, so it seemed more likely I’d be stuck with pub food, if I could find one open this early.

I glanced at my wristwatch. And cursed. Loudly.

It was mid-afternoon. I had slept most of the day.

*

Rain soaked past my bones and into my marrow while I pounded on the door of Will’s Kensington flat.

No answer. But I kept at it because I didn’t know what else to do.

Think. Think. Where was Will? With a bit of concentration, I could piece together his movements in the original time line.

I remembered how the old man had torn us new arseholes after the fiasco of Gretel’s escape. Will had left straight from that meeting on his trek to find the warlocks. But he would have had to pack a bag before leaving. And then he’d needed his grandfather’s papers. So he’d said good-bye to me at the Admiralty, made a quick stop here in Kensington, and then set off for his family estate at Bestwood, up in Nottinghamshire.

But events were unfolding differently now. I had changed things: Raybould Marsh wasn’t at that meeting. How did Stephenson react to my absence? I reckoned it had made him even angrier. Further, that he took his anger out on poor Will and Lorimer. If anything, Will was probably more committed to finding the warlocks now than he had been in the original time line.

Was he still at the Admiralty? Had he already been to the flat? Or was he waiting on a train? I checked my watch again. My best chance for intercepting Will was at the train station. Assuming he was still in the city.

I dashed back through the downpour to the taxi. My clothes were uncomfortably tight. They belonged to a younger man, one who didn’t carry the paunch of late middle age. Now they were sodden, and clung to my skin. But not so tightly as the renewed sense of failure.

The driver hadn’t complained when I’d asked him to wait. My dithering was worth a princely sum. He folded up his newspaper and set it on the seat beside him.

“Your mate’s not home, sir?”

“No.”

“Terrible day to be out and about, if you ask me. Where next?”

“St. Pancras station.” That’s where Will would have caught a train to Nottinghamshire.

And so I wandered the platforms like a revenant spirit, haunting each train bound for the Midlands until the last departure of the evening. But I was too late. There was no sign of Will.

“God damn it!”

My voice echoed through the mostly empty station. A solid kick sent a rubbish bin rolling off the platform, trailing newspapers and chip wrappers. I worked my way down the platform, booting every bin I could find.

“Son!” Kick. “Of!” Kick. “A!” Kick. “Bitch!”

I remembered something the old man had said to me once, a very long time ago:
I’m quite impressed. When you cock something up, you do it good and proper.
How right he’d been.

I had missed my opportunity. Which left me powerless to do anything. Now there was nothing I could do about Milkweed until Will returned. I didn’t dare set foot back in the Admiralty; by now everybody had heard of the stranger who had attacked Will in St. James’ Park. Even now, Stephenson and Lorimer were busy rounding up all the witnesses to the escape. Slipping the King’s shilling into their ale, so to speak. Very soon the old man would discover the vault had been cleaned out.

No, the Admiralty wasn’t safe for me.

I limped out of the station before somebody could call the coppers to report the old codger who’d gone off his nut.

For dinner, I stopped in a pub and bought a piece of cod wrapped in newspaper. After a few bites, I waved down the barman and ordered a pint of bitters to wash away the taste of ink. In spite of this I finished the fish quickly, wolfing it down like the starving man I was. I ate as though with each bite I could snare Will, reel him back to London, delay his errand, keep my mission on track. The bitters went down equally fast.

This public house had a hearth on one wall, empty now but for a smattering of last winter’s ashes. I’d met my wife in a pub not unlike this one. The clientele was a bit rougher here, but it reminded me of the Hart and Hearth. I had fond memories of that place. Will had introduced me to the Hart, and to Liv, on the same evening.