“Yes, of course, of course. But I was talking to Lottie the other night, when she was working on the posters for Will’s room, and we were discussing how the war is changing us. There’s never been a war like this one, as that speaker was saying, never one that involved civilians so much … it’s changing our psychology and, I think, making us more emotional in public. We’re not buttoning things up as much as we used to.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing!” she almost shouted. “Think how much I have to keep buttoned up.”
Neither of us spoke for a moment. Had Sam said more than she meant?
“I mean, I can’t tell anyone we aren’t married.”
I said nothing as three young children, chasing a dog, nearly ran into us.
“You can’t tell anyone—anyone except Lottie and me—about Wilhelm, that’s what you meant. And, assuming we don’t lose the war, and if Wilhelm has been killed, you won’t be able to unbutton even afterward. Will can never wear his medals.”
Another pause. “No.”
We walked by what had been, before the war, a flower bed. No money for such luxuries now.
I was buttoned up, too, of course, though Sam didn’t know how much. It seemed that at every turn, these days, she was torn by her past, stranded by it, and I had it in my power, if not to remove her torment completely, at least to ease the burden. How simple it would be to tell her what I knew.
In the distance I could see the Albert Memorial. We’d be home in half an hour.
Two things came out of my meeting with Brigadier Malahyde, in regard to the Samuel Hood. First, as he had insisted, I was transferred to the brigadier’s office later the same day, occupying a makeshift desk near Margaret, his formidable secretary. We soon found out that the ship was indeed unloading its cargo of pyrethrum in Agadir, and replacing it with dried olives before going on to Uruguay. Our people in Morocco produced photographs of both the unloading and the loading. But our side in London also uncovered the possibly even more revealing statistic that, despite the submarine attacks that were playing havoc with our merchant fleet, none of the Hood company ships had ever been attacked by German subs, let alone sunk. So the whole thing suddenly looked very suspicious.
The second thing I have to put down to the brigadier himself. He called me in one day, late in the afternoon, and offered me a whisky. He made it clear he was going to have one himself, so I accepted. It was a dismal day outside and the lamps in his office threw warm cones of yellow light, which winked in the golden liquid.
“That was pretty nifty thinking, Hal,” he said after trying the whisky. “Just like your idea about Lenin. You’ve got a good intelligence brain. Well done.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“But we can’t sit on our laurels.” He fixed me with a look he had. It was halfway to a smile but it was a shrewd sizing-up glance as well. That look said, “Can you see where I’m headed in this conversation?”
I couldn’t second-guess him. “Go on, sir.”
“You yourself said that the Hood share price has been doing well.”
“Yes sir, that’s what attracted me to them in the first place.”
“Very well. But think: if the share price is doing well, it means they are making a healthy profit.”
I nodded.
“Which means they need a healthy income.”
I sipped more whisky. Some things were obvious.
“So it’s unlikely Hood would have given its pyrethrum to Frankel.”
I saw what he was getting at. “Money will have changed hands.”
His half smile became a 60 percent smile.
But not in Morocco, I breathed. “Too risky.”
He let a silence elapse, so I could digest what I had just worked out.
“If not Morocco, where?”
“America?”
He shook his head. “Too far away. Risky as well—they are allies, after all. Now.”
“Uruguay?” But I shook my head immediately. “That’s too far away as well.”
“Which leaves … ?”
“Switzerland?”
“That’s my guess,” he said, nodding. He drank more of his whisky, stood up, retrieved the bottle from the cabinet, and gave us both a refill.
He sat down again.
“The photographs from Agadir confirm that what you thought might be happening is actually happening. However, before we go public, or put the directors of Hood in jail or the Tower of London, we need to box clever. If we barge in, we stop Hood from doing what they have been doing for God knows how long …