The House of Rumour A Novel

8 / DEBRIEFING

M made a show of casually filling his pipe when she entered but he was looking up at her all the time. She knew that he would be carefully gauging her expression, noting her reactions to any comment or gesture. He had often said that he could read her mind. It had been something of an endearing joke between them. He certainly believed in the faculty of extrasensory perception. It had now become the instinct of a bitter intimacy. And yet the most shocking thing about the whole affair was that she still felt a lingering affection for him. His very duplicity gifted him with an indestructible charm. Perhaps it was this quality that had attracted her to him in the first place. It had certainly made him a formidable spymaster. He intrigued and exasperated her and yet she felt a protective anxiety about him. She knew that deep down he was more scared than she could ever be.

‘I’ve had a good look through the Special Branch report,’ M declared, tapping the cardboard dossier on his desk. ‘Anything you’d like to add?’

She had prepared herself thoroughly for this strangest of debriefings. She knew that it would be a coded match, that to say anything explicit would be dangerous. She tried to judge what signals to give.

‘Well, I did voice my concerns about my suitability for field work in this area, M.’

‘And you were absolutely right, Joan. I mean, you could find yourself in danger again, couldn’t you?’

She tried to react as calmly as possible to this tacit threat. She knew now that he had set the whole thing up as a message to her. A warning shot. Despite the implied brutality, she felt sure that he did not mean her any real harm. It was merely a petulant reminder of his power over her. Now they were caught up in a self-generating algebra of distrust. A farcical algorithm: that she knew that he knew that she knew that he knew and so on. She had to find a way out of that, to let him know that she could keep a secret.

‘There’s been a security risk,’ she offered. ‘And we’ll have to proceed with extreme caution.’

‘My thoughts exactly,’ M rejoined.

‘The important thing is that proper cover is maintained, for everyone in the department. For this operation and any other.’

‘Yes,’ M agreed with a thoughtful nod. ‘Proper cover must be maintained.’

Of course she had been his cover for that long double game of his life. She loathed the deception that he had practised on her but could not help but respect the way that he had carried it out. This capacity for deceit and utter ruthlessness had become necessary for the times they lived in.

‘It’s been a wretched business, Joan,’ M said with a thin smile. ‘But you’ve acted with initiative and, might I say, with extreme discretion. I’d like to put you out of harm’s way for a while. You’re due a bit of leave. Take a couple of days off.’

‘That’s hardly necessary, M.’

‘Please,’ he insisted. ‘It’ll be for the best.’

‘Very well then. Thank you.’

It would give her time to think, she reasoned. She could not go on being his cover for much longer but to ask for a transfer now would never do. She would have to find someone to replace her first. She took a good look at Maxwell Knight. The epitome of the English gentleman of a certain class, the finest dissembler on the face of the earth. He could lie from the depths of his soul. His flair for espionage was at one with his odd occult beliefs and clandestine sexuality. But it suddenly struck her that this perfidious world could one day be tricked by its own guile. That this theatre of treachery, of disinformation and counter-intelligence would inevitably deceive itself. M put his pipe to his mouth, clenched his teeth around it and lit a match.

‘Now,’ he puffed, drawing in the flame, his gaunt visage wreathed in smoke, ‘17F should be here by now. Can you show him in?’

Joan stood up and walked to the door. She was light-headed from lack of sleep. Her nerves were shot but she knew that she had to keep calm and carry on. Like everybody else. A minor character in the drama, playing out the simple surface rituals. Going out into the ante-room to engage in a silly flirtation with the handsome commander from Naval Intelligence.