A Pious Killing Read online

  “When can we stop going around the houses Andrew?” asked Sean. “We need details if we are ever going to make a decision.”

  “Yes, you’re right Sean, but we must take things in order. There are some important facts you must know before I disclose the nature of the mission; facts which might lead you to turn the job down anyway.”

  “Well,” said Lily. “Let’s hear them.”

  Andrew gave her a satisfied look, pleased to recognise the cool rational approach which he had come to expect from her.

  “Number one,” he said, “you will be behind enemy lines for up to three months.”

  He waited for them to take that in.

  “The time could be shorter, but we have to prepare you for the possible limit.”

  He stared at each of them in turn. When he got no reaction he went on.

  “You will be living in Munich. Think about that,” he emphasised. “Bomber Command will not be ceasing operations for the duration of your stay. You will have to take your chances with the rest of civilian Munich.”

  Sean dragged one side of his mouth into a stoical half smile. He looked at Lily. Her face was immobile.

  “You will have to live together as man and wife. And I mean convincingly.”

  Lily said calmly, “I take it you will leave how convincingly up to us!”

  “Of course,” replied Andrew, “As long as convincingly is very convincing!”

  Sean felt himself beginning to blush and he brushed his scalp in an awkward effort to distract his own attention. Lily turned and smiled for the first time. She looked at Sean and said, “I am sure I will find Mr Colquhoun a very considerate husband.”

  Sean could find nothing to say, so Andrew rescued him by saying, “By the way Lily, it is not Mr Colquhoun but Dr Colquhoun. You will be Dr and Mrs Hermann. And that fact is crucial to your mission.”

  Andrew then allowed a silence to fill the space. Eventually he said, “Lily you need to know that Sean has completed missions for us before. It has involved him using his skills as a doctor in what we refer to as a combative function. Do you understand what I am saying?”

  “I think so,” replied Lily. “You mean that Sean has made some compromises with his Hippocratic oath in the light of current hostilities.”

  Sean turned to look at her. There was a look in his eyes that might have been hurt, or it might have been curiosity. She met his gaze and her eyes held his.

  “I’m sure he is not the only one in this barbaric age we live in who has been forced to step down from the pedestal of high principle in the struggle for survival.”

  Her delivery left them to decide whether she was being earnest or disparaging. Sean’s mouth twisted again into a half smile. He had squared his actions with his conscience and had no need for her approval.

  “Okay, enough for today,” said Andrew. “You need time together and time alone together. You need time away from here. You must consider your positions. If either of you wants out – that’s enough for me. You must want to do this mission if I am going to let it proceed. There will be no pressure from me and I hope neither of you will pressurise the other.”

  “Andrew,” said Sean. “You haven’t told us what the mission is.”

  “I don’t need to until I know you can make a convincing couple.”

  Lily and Sean looked at each other again; both trying to imagine what it would be like living as man and wife.

  “I expect you’re both thinking that you need to get to know each other. Well we’ve made some arrangements that we hope you will find acceptable.”

  He opened a drawer in his desk and reached into it. He retrieved something from it and closed the drawer.

  “Here,” he said, dropping a key on the desk in front of them “is the key to your home for the next two weeks.” Ignoring their surprised expressions he continued, “Living the role begins now. We need to find out if you two will find marital bliss.”

  “But surely you can give us some idea about the mission?” demanded Lily.

  “It will be an assassination! I will tell you that much. But until we know that you two can work as a married couple we have no need to inform you further. We may find that you are incompatible as a team and this project can be aborted. I probably shouldn’t say this, but part of me hopes you two prove incompatible.”

  The existence shared by Sean and Lily over the next two weeks was a strange mixture of independence and confinement. Andrew had arranged for them to live in a semi-detached house in Highgate. It was close to the tube station. They spent their days wandering around the city visiting interesting sites, and most of their time was their own. But each morning the postman would deliver a list of suggested visits or activities from Andrew that he expected them to carry out that day. Thus they had tea at the Ritz and took in a matinee at the Windmill. They watched the Woolwich Arsenal play against Tottenham Hotspur, which was a very competitive game, despite the fact that the League competition was suspended for the duration of hostilities; they toured St Paul’s Cathedral and even sailed on the Serpentine. Wherever they went, they were followed.

  In between scheduled visits they found a little café called the Carlton Tea Rooms on Drury Lane which they repaired to each afternoon. They were both self-conscious of the fact that they were trying to construct a friendship out of necessity rather than desire, but to their relief and pleasure the friendship came along easily. Sean made Lily laugh effortlessly. But there was no laughter in his soul. His slightly sideways view on life tickled her and she found herself often giggling helplessly like a schoolgirl. Whenever this happened she realised he was watching her humourlessly, as if intrigued by the very mechanism of laughter itself. She was aware that some part of this man had closed down. He was acting a superb part but it was not him. Should she be afraid of this? Was she being tested again? Or was this man concealing his true intentions? Well she would do her best to discover the truth over the next two weeks. If it did not happen, she could tell Andrew she wanted out of the whole mission.

  Their favourite activity and one which they took to repeating on most days was to attend the music concerts that were held around London at lunchtime.

  On their fourth day together they went along to a C of E church in Earls Court where a string quartet and a German pianist, a Jewish refugee, were performing two Mozart piano concertos. Lily and Sean arrived in good time and found seats in the second row of pews right in front of where the musicians would perform on the altar steps. It was their first such concert and they had not known what to expect. The first thing that struck them was the crowd that gathered. It was small and not representative of anything much at all. Although made up of predominantly older people, most escaping from work during a lunch break, there were some young men and women. It was stimulating just to look at them and to wonder what their lives were like and how they had been affected personally by the war. The off-duty fighter pilot, alone, no girlfriend in tow; the three women factory workers all in headscarves and bib and tuck uniforms; the young soldier and his adoring girlfriend, clinging to each other as in the last throws of a final goodbye. The music brought a oneness upon them, forming their mood and demanding their attention.

  Three young women and two elderly men had taken to the altar. The women and one of the men carried their instruments with them; a violin, a viola, a cello and a double bass. The second man was obviously the pianist. The women were striking in appearance and their confidence, obviously drawn from their musical accomplishments, gave them a powerful attraction. All five were dressed in black, the women in long dresses and the men in somewhat faded dinner suits.

  As they played, Sean found his gaze settling upon the lead violinist. She led the group in with strong movements and Sean could not help but be attracted to the physicality of her playing. She wore her jet black hair in a short bob. Despite that stark difference, she reminded him of Martha. Her high cheekbones glowed under the intensity of her smile, which she could not prevent lighting up her face from time
to time as the music triggered her emotions. Her joy revealed a white-toothed smile that could have been Martha’s.

  To his embarrassment, Sean became aware that she had been returning his stare for some time and that her smile was directed towards him. He looked away and saw that Lily was smiling at him too.

  At the end of the first concerto the musicians left the altar to enthusiastic applause. After a moment, the lead violinist returned, followed by an elderly black man wearing a guitar around his neck. He was tall and good looking and was dressed in jeans and an open-necked shirt. The lead violinist introduced him as Moses Abraham, a folk singer from Southern Oklahoma.

  Moses Abraham stepped forward and spoke about his life in America. His father had been born a slave but had been emancipated by Abraham Lincoln. He himself made his living playing and writing folk songs. He had joined a group of folk singers including Woody Guthrie, Cisco Houston and Hudie Leadbetter, who supported America’s entry to the war on the Allies’ side during the heyday of the America First movement, which was headed up by Charles Lindburgh. Lindburgh and his crew had campaigned to keep America neutral. Their support for neutrality was a front for their pro-Nazi sympathies.

  Moses Abraham then sang two songs, accompanying himself on the guitar. The first was called Little Charlie Lindburgh and talked about Lindburgh’s trip to Berlin and the Iron Cross that Hitler had awarded him. The second was a song about dust bowl refugees and the terrible injustices they encountered at the hands of Californians. Moses Abraham sang in a deep, soulful timbre which filled the church with emotion. He enhanced his singing with his simple but effective guitar playing. Sean was enchanted and moved by his performance. He turned to look at Lily, expecting to see her smiling in appreciation but instead caught a stony cast to her expression which surprised him.

  When Moses Abraham left the altar the musicians returned to play the second Mozart concerto. The church was filled with the most unexpected beauty by this tiny group of musicians and as they left, Sean and Lily were at first reluctant to break the spell by speaking.

  When they were seated at their usual booth in the Carlton Tea Rooms drinking hot, strong chicory essence, Lily was the first to speak, “I think the lead violinist took a shine to you back there.”

  Sean almost ducked in embarrassment. Then he smiled self deprecatingly.

  “Oh I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps I let myself get carried away by the music. I have a feeling the poor girl was staring back in self defence.”

  “Don’t be so modest,” laughed Lily. “You are a good looking man. Any woman would be glad to attract you.”

  As soon as the words were out of her mouth there was a joint realisation of the implication of her comment. After a momentary sheepish surprise they both laughed out loud and looked for something to divert the conversation in a different direction. It was the first time Lily had seen Sean laugh.

  “What did you think of the American folk singer?” asked Sean.

  “You mean the Negro?” replied Lily. “I don’t see how a Negro can claim to be American. He is obviously African.”

  A bit taken aback, Sean said, “If you’re going to say that, the only Americans you would give the name to are the Indians.”

  Lily seemed to realise the impossibility of her position and laughed at herself.

  “Did you not like Moses Abraham?” asked Sean, remembering her expression as she had listened to him.

  “Oh, very much so,” she answered, but now altogether convincingly. “I thought he had a beautiful singing voice, although his guitar playing was primitive. But I thought he was hard on Charles Lindburgh. That poor man and his wife lost their son to kidnappers. I didn’t like the way he criticised him.”

  “I thought the accompaniment enhanced the emotion of the songs,” Sean replied slightly non-plussed by her comments, but he decided to let it go.

  On the way back to the tube station Lily slipped her arm into Sean’s as they were now used to doing, and to the world at large they were like any other happy couple. In fact, the world might have concluded they were in love.

  There were moments when their intimacy made Sean feel guilty. He would think that he should be sharing moments like these with Martha, not with Lily. But then he would think that if he was with Martha, there would not be these moments. He knew that the time for moments such as these with Martha had passed forever. His new daughter was a stranger to him and probably would remain so. When Martha had told him to get out of her life for good there had been no equivocation in her command.

  Out in public there were times when individuals would look at them disapprovingly. One old veteran had reported them to the local police station. His accusation was that they were obviously enemy agents. When asked why, he had said that the Irish accent of the man had alerted him, but when the German accent came from the woman he had been convinced. A phone call to Andrew Trubshaw had swiftly sorted the matter but the incident was a constant source of amusement to them and they would often seek out a likely looking codger, put on the thickest accents, resort to speaking in fluent German and make obscure references to security in the hope that they might trigger another similar reaction. They were amazed how often they were completely ignored. “Maybe it is not so difficult to be a spy in England,” Lily had said.

  Since moving into the semi-detached house they had stuck to agreed, though unspoken, routines. Lily always left the living room first to prepare for bed. Whilst she was moving between the bedroom and bathroom Sean always remained downstairs. Sometimes he would read; sometimes he would listen to the wireless. Once he left the house and went to a call box. He dialled Martha’s number but he did not wait to be connected.

  When he could hear that Lily was settled he would go upstairs himself and wash before getting into bed. On their fourth night together he was dismayed to find himself picturing Lily as she lay alone in her bed. He wrestled the thought from his mind and fell into a dream-filled sleep.

  By the end of the first week they both knew that they liked and were comfortable with each other. Sean could not be sure but he had started to believe that when Lily slipped her hand into his as they walked along the street, the touch was more meaningful, more urgent than it had been at the beginning. One thing he was sure of; he liked it more and more each day. But he liked it the way he would enjoy observing something pleasant happening to someone else.

  Twice Lily had asked Sean leading questions about his past in an attempt to get him to open up to her about the climate of sadness that enveloped him. She intuitively believed there was another man inside. There had been fleeting glimpses of him on occasions when some humorous event had surprised them both. But Sean had not been ready to share his tragedy with her.

  “You are a very well house-trained man,” Lily laughed on their second Saturday evening together as Sean got up from the dinner table and began clearing away the dishes.

  “We Irish are a domesticated breed,” he asserted. “We would make excellent housewives if only the women would let us stay at home.”

  Lily stood to help him and Sean found himself looking at her bare neck and arms, and the tiny glimpse of cleavage as she stooped to rise. He went quickly into the kitchen and began to wash the dishes at the sink. In due course Lily followed him through with the rest of the pots and, after placing them on the bench beside him, moved to stand behind him. She leaned over his shoulder and peered at the dishes in the bowl.

  “Let me see how well an Irishman washes dishes,” she teased.

  Sean said nothing, just carried on washing, but his back could feel the firm pressure of Lily’s breasts. He had no notion of what to say or do. All he knew was he did not want to move and bring this sensation to an end. The smell of her perfume faded as she went back into the living room to wait for him.

  Later as they sat playing cards, Sean knew that a decision had been made for him. No matter how hard he tried to bring Martha into his mind he could not do it. She remained faint and distant.

  The
greatest surprise to Sean was how easily he had accepted unfaithfulness. No matter how deeply he searched he could find nothing within him to encourage him to resist. He even wondered if he was being unfaithful to Martha. The strangest twinge troubled him when he thought of Grete, however.