Vengeance 10

Memling fumbled his key into the lock and entered. Although the walk from the bus was less than two blocks, he was chilled through. The parlour was cold, but coal was piled on the grate, and the house was spotless. The newspaper and magazines he had left beside the chair were now in the rack, and his sweater, he saw when he opened the cupboard to hang up his overcoat, had been washed. So, Margot had looked in while he was gone. Smiling, he slipped it on and stooped to touch a match to the shredded newspaper under the kindling. The fire caught immediately, and he adjusted the draught. While he waited for the fire to warm the room, he lit the kitchen gas ring and put a kettle on.

The clock showed five-thirty. He had spent most of the day in the writing-room completing his report, and he was too tired to be hungry. The small piece of ham and the cheese, which he found in the pantry, dry as they were, were sufficient. The kettle began to whistle, and he fixed a cup of tea and took the ham and cheese back to the parlour.

As he stood before the fire he glanced at the gleaming walnut and shining blue metal of the over-and-under-twelve-bore shotgun which his father had made. The old man had been well known for his fine shotguns, much good that it had done him. The old, dingy house was his only legacy, that and the gun and his own skills at making firearms.

The room was warming quickly, and Memling pulled the chair up to the fire and sank down, weary beyond belief. A black mood that he could not shake had settled over him. ‘What the hell have I done?’ he muttered aloud. His main assignment had been carried out satisfactorily. In addition, he had brought back information about a possible new military weapon, and he had escaped from the Gestapo, using all the skills that he had been taught. Another agent would have been welcomed home with the certainty of a CBE in the not too distant future. Instead, he had been accused of damaging relations with Germany. Nonsense, he snorted. But even so, his actions were to be submitted to the scrutiny of an enquiry board, which would surely support Englesby.

And Memling knew why it had turned out the way it had. He was not a gentleman, moneyed or well connected, all of which were prime requisites for a successful Foreign Office career. What’s more, he had a foreign sounding name and lacked the educational essentials provided by a good school and university. In fact, he lacked a degree of any kind. A month after his father’s business had failed, the old man had shot himself with one of his own shotguns. Memling had often wondered since then if he and his mother could have managed on the small pension. Had he again given in too easily, frightened by future unknowns?

Along with his hopes for a degree, he gave up his activities in the British Interplanetary Society. No more than a few amateur scientists were scattered among the usual collection of astrology buffs, fantasists, and spiritualists attracted by the grandiose name, but those few were dedicated to a dream, an overpowering vision of man’s future in the vast reaches of the universe. Memling was gathered in during his first year at college. His scientific training stood him and the society in good stead but did not inhibit his dreams of space, the frozen, sun-blasted lunar plains, the wonders of multistar planetary systems, or the heights to which man might aspire once freed from the green but confining hills of Earth. Until his father died, every moment and penny Memling could spare were dedicated to one or another of the BIS projects. Then the demands of his mother’s failing health and a succession of part-time jobs cut short these activities, and he was left with only the pages of science-fiction magazines to sustain his dreams.

One of his father’s oldest customers was Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair. After the old man’s death, the admiral visited the house to express his sympathies and, on leaving, pressed a card into Jan’s hand and urged him to call at his club. It was a month or better before he screwed up sufficient courage to do so. His reception was exactly as expected; ignored by the members and treated with disdain by the servants, he was on the verge of leaving when Sir Hugh appeared. He led Jan into a private parlour and opened to him a new vista that he had never imagined to exist outside the novels of Somerset Maugham and Joseph Conrad.

‘I have asked you to come and talk with me so that you can consider whether or not you would be willing to serve your country.’

‘I beg your pardon, sir?’ Jan was completely confused.

The admiral smiled. ‘I have just begun the direction of a certain department in the government that has to do with intelligence matters. The old-fashioned word is spying. I would like you to join that department.’

‘Become a… a… spy?’ He brushed a hand across his forehead, an old gesture signifying his confusion. ‘I don’t know anything about being a spy.’