A Perfect Spy

“And out,” said Membury cheerfully. “Kaufmann came along. He was the driver. Charming chap. Well he knew the meeting place like the back of his hand. I didn’t get the wrong night, darling. I got the right one, I know I did. Sat in an empty barn all night. No word from him, nothing. We’d no means of getting hold of him, it was all one way. Ate a bit of his stupid food. Drank some of his booze, I enjoyed that. Went home. Same again the next night and the next. I waited for a message of some sort, phone call like the first time. Absolute blank. Chap was never heard of again. We should have had a formal handover with Pym present, of course, but Greensleeves wouldn’t allow it. Prima donna, you see, like all agents. ‘One chap at a time.’ Iron rule.” Membury absently helped himself from Brotherhood’s glass. “Vienna was furious. Blamed it all on me. Then I told them he was no good anyway and that didn’t help.” He gave another rich laugh. “I should think it got me sacked if truth were known. They didn’t say so, but I’ll bet it jolly well helped!”

Mrs. Membury had made a tuna-fish risotto because it was Friday, and a trifle with cherries on it which she refused to let Membury eat. When lunch was over she and Brotherhood stood on the river bank watching Membury hacking cheerfully at the reeds. Nets and fine wires were stretched all ways across the water. Among the breeding boxes, an old punt was sinking at its mooring. The sun, freed of the mist, beat brightly.

“So tell us about the wicked Sabina,” Brotherhood suggested artfully, out of Membury’s earshot.

Mrs. Membury couldn’t wait. An absolute minx, she repeated: “One look at Magnus and she saw herself with a British passport, a jolly good British husband and nothing to worry about for the rest of her life. But Magnus was a bit too sly for her, I’m pleased to say. He must have stood her up. He never said so, but that was the way we read it. In Graz one day. Gone the next.”

“Where did she go then?” Brotherhood said.

“Home to Czechoslovakia, that was the story. With her tail between her legs was our theory. Left a note for Harrison saying she was homesick and she was going back to her old boyfriend, despite the beastly régime. Well that didn’t please London, as you can imagine. It didn’t raise Harrison’s stock one bit. They said he should have seen it coming and done something about it.”

“I wonder what became of her,” Brotherhood mused with an historian’s dreaminess. “You don’t remember her other name, do you?”

“Harrison. What was Sabina’s other name?”

With surprising swiftness the answer rang back across the water. “Kordt. K-O-R-D-T. Sabina Kordt. Very beautiful girl. Charming.”

“Marlow says what became of her?”

“God knows. Last we heard she’d changed her name and landed herself a job in one of the Czech Ministries. One of the defectors said she’d been working for ’em all along.”

Mrs. Membury was not so much astonished as proved right. “Now there you are! Married getting on for fifty years, thirtysomething years since Austria, and he doesn’t even tell me she turned up in Czechoslovakia working for one of the Ministries! I expect Harrison had an affair with her himself if truth were known. Practically everybody did. Well my dear she must have been a spy, mustn’t she? It sticks out a mile. They’d never have taken her back if they hadn’t their hooks on her all along, they’re far too vindictive. So Magnus was well rid of her then, wasn’t he? Are you sure you won’t stay for tea?”

“If I could take a few of those old photographs,” Brotherhood said. “We’ll give you a credit in the book, naturally.”

* * *

Mary knew the technique exactly. In Berlin she had watched Jack Brotherhood use it a dozen times, and helped him often. At training camp they had called it paperchasing: how to make an encounter with someone you don’t trust. The only difference was, today it was Mary who was the subject of the operation, and the anonymous writer of the note who didn’t trust her:

“I have information that could lead us both to Magnus. You will please do the following. Any morning between ten and twelve, you will sit in the lobby of the Hotel Ambassador. Any afternoon between two and six you will take a coffee at the Café Mozart. Any evening between nine and midnight, the lounge of the Hotel Sacher. Mr. König will collect you.”