The House of Rumour A Novel

6 / THE BOMBPROOF HOTEL

The downstairs Grill Room at the Dorchester was already crowded when Joan Miller arrived. Cabinet ministers escorting nervously respectable wives or casually disreputable mistresses, steel-grey brigadiers with hatchet-jawed adjutants, off-duty airmen and on-duty tarts, cinema producers and motor-car salesmen, American war correspondents, playboys, actresses, writers: all the high and the low who could afford it seemed to have found sanctuary from the Blitz in the supposed safety of the hotel’s modernist steel and reinforced-concrete womb.

Miller struggled to assume a calm air, to attune herself to the forced gaiety that surrounded her. She had come straight from her flat to this fashionable ‘bombproof’ hotel with a sickening sense of anxiety and fear. Someone must have recognised her at the meeting and had marked her out as a target. An intangible danger waited for her in the blackout beyond and she was no longer quite sure whom she could trust. She spotted Fleming in conversation with Cyril Connolly and an elderly colonel, and staggered over to join them.

‘Now look,’ Fleming was declaiming loudly at the old soldier while gesticulating dismissively towards the short and tubby Connolly. ‘This is Connolly, who publishes a perfectly ghastly magazine full of subversive nonsense by a lot of long-haired drivelling conchies who will all be put away for their own good for seven years under Section 18b. So perhaps you’d better subscribe to the thing, now you’ve got the chance, just to see what sort of outrageous stuff they can get away with in a country like this during wartime.’

‘I see.’ The colonel nodded with a vacant sagacity. ‘Very interesting.’

‘Got you another subscription there, Connolly,’ Fleming whispered, patting the stout man on the back.

‘Don’t take any notice of Fleming, Colonel,’ Connolly countered. ‘He’s become all high and mighty since he’s been at the Admiralty but you know what they call him there? The Chocolate Sailor.’

Miller noticed Fleming wince slightly at this sting, then steel himself with a very deliberate grin.

‘Touché, Cyril,’ he muttered, then looked up and saw Joan. ‘Must go. Oh, by the way, you don’t happen to know a writer by the name of Murray Constantine, do you?’

‘Constantine? Hmm, doesn’t ring a bell. What’s he written?’

‘A queer novel called Swastika Night. Published by the Left Book Club.’

‘Hardly your sort of thing, Ian.’

‘I know, but I want to meet the author.’

‘Well, I could have a word with Victor Gollancz if you like.’

‘Could you?’

Connolly nodded and began to scuttle away. Fleming turned to face Joan.

‘Ah, Miller,’ he said. ‘Glad you could make it.’

‘Fleming, I need to talk to you,’ she blurted out.

‘Of course.’ He frowned at her. ‘But we’d better find Trevelyan.’

‘Yes, of course,’ she rejoined breathlessly.

‘Is everything all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ she replied. ‘Where’s Trevelyan?’

Fleming turned and craned his neck, his jagged profile scanning the room like some massive wading bird.

‘There.’ He cocked his head, his broken nose pointing obliquely. ‘He’s with Teddy Thursby. Tory Member for Hartwell-juxta-Mare. Was a junior minister in the Department of Health until he had to resign. A Select Committee is investigating some matter of undisclosed Czech assets. He’s not a very happy man. Trevelyan thinks he might have his uses.’

Miller followed Fleming’s gaze to the bar where she saw Marius Trevelyan listening intently to a middle-aged man in a bow tie and double-breasted suit, with a drink-maddened face. As they shuffled their way through the throng, Fleming touched her gently on the arm and stooped slightly to whisper in her ear.

‘You said you needed to talk.’

‘Yes.’

‘To me? Or to me and Trevelyan?’

‘Well, if we could have a word in private later.’

‘Certainly.’

As they came close to Trevelyan and Thursby, it seemed clear to Miller that the younger man was drawing out his drinking companion in some way. There was an unctuous passivity in the way that he indulged Thursby’s hurt indignation, quietly urging him on in his anger. They caught the end of the politician’s tirade.

‘Winston’s been a complete shit over the whole wretched business!’

‘Steady on, Teddy!’ Fleming announced his presence.

‘Ah, Fleming.’ Thursby looked up with a slightly chided expression. ‘Well, I was just explaining to this young man here, you know, loyalty, it goes both ways. I stuck by the old bastard for all those years, and now?’

‘I know,’ Fleming replied in a consoling tone. ‘Terrible show, I’m sure.’

‘It’s not as if I’ve had my hand caught in the till or anything. Just a speech here or there, a couple of questions in the House. Not declaring an interest, they call it. It’s a bloody disgrace!’

‘Quite,’ Trevelyan interjected softly.

‘You know what the worst thing there is to be these days? One of Winston’s old friends. He’s stabbing us all in the back now he’s in power. All in the name of National Government.’

‘Stabbing you in the front, it seems,’ Fleming retorted.

‘Exactly. Yes.’ He puffed through his lips as if he had run out of steam. There was something comical in his deflated anger. Miller suddenly thought how apt his first name was. Thursby looked like a furious teddy bear. ‘Well,’ he went on with a sigh, ‘I need another bloody drink.’

‘Fleming, Miller.’ Trevelyan hailed them as Thursby wandered off to the bar. ‘Shall we find somewhere quiet to debrief?’

‘Not yet. That.’ Fleming pointed at Thursby’s back and waited for the MP to get out of earshot. ‘You need to keep working on that. Persuade him to say something – no, even better, write something just a little bit indiscreet. Maybe place an article somewhere, you know, subtly critical and full of hints about an alternative. We need to keep this anti-Churchill thing alive. Especially now.’

‘Yes, good, but what shall I tell him?’

‘I don’t know. It’s supposed to be your speciality at Political. Keep him drunk, that’s the main thing. Meanwhile Miller can tell me all about this evening’s lecture. I’m keen to hear an objective assessment.’

Trevelyan glanced at them both with a slight frown. He nodded and went to join Thursby at the bar. Fleming and Miller found a quiet table in the corner.

‘Looks like you could do with a drink,’ he said.

‘Yes.’ She sighed.

‘I know just the thing. A martini.’ He beckoned to a passing waiter.

As he ordered for them, it seemed to Miller that he was going through some sort of rehearsed performance, a precise litany of pleasure.

‘Two martinis, very dry, with vodka if you have it.’ He turned to her briefly. ‘Gin has the taste of melancholy, I always find,’ then back to the waiter: ‘Three measures of spirit to one of vermouth, shake them well so that they’re ice-cold. And a long thin slice of lemon peel in each. Got it?’

He watched the man nod and then tapped out a cigarette. He offered her one. She shook her head. He sparked up an elegant Ronson lighter and drew in a lungful of smoke with a satisfied hiss.

‘Now then, tell me all about this witches’ Sabbath,’ he entreated.

‘Tell me what you know first,’ she countered.

He grinned but his grey-blue eyes remained impassive.

‘Not my part of the operation, I’m afraid. Some barmy group of Fifth Columnists that Political is running, that’s all I know. M told me you had some experience in this area. Said you’re an excellent field officer too. But it’s all under control, isn’t it? I mean, otherwise . . .’ Fleming frowned.

‘Otherwise, what?’

‘Otherwise M wouldn’t have sent you in, would he?’

Miller couldn’t be sure of Fleming but she decided that she would trust him enough to tell him what had happened. His was a cold charm but it carried some sense of integrity. Their drinks arrived. She took a sip of the chilled spirit and felt her senses relax and sharpen at the same time. She quickly recounted the events of the early evening in the manner of a succinct report, giving all the details swiftly and precisely, so as not to dwell upon the embarrassing fear she had felt at the time. He had drained his martini by the time she was finished.

‘Good Lord,’ he murmured, casually gesturing to the waiter once more. ‘So it’s not safe.’

‘No,’ she agreed. ‘No, it isn’t.’

‘Right then. We’ll have another drink and I’ll tell you what we’re going to do.’