Claudine nodded, and I followed her lead, but one thought kept scratching at the back of my mind: Laura wasn’t working alone. The inquest would find the poison, and whoever was running her would be alerted. L-pills were given out to prevent spies from surrendering their secrets; that she had one might raise eyebrows, might draw her handler into the open.
Unless of course, what drew him into the open was me. And the prospect of retribution.
Part 4
October 1943
Chapter Thirty-seven
Retribution, if it was coming, was taking its time, and as I hunted my hunter, the Portuguese Attorney General, prodded by the British mission in Lisbon, put together the espionage case against Bendixen and his operation based on the information they’d found in the PVDE’s raid on Bendixen’s villas.
The case was tried in the military courthouse near the Baixa. It was a nondescript building in an innocuous square, but on this day it was far from average, and the courtyard pulsed with people from just about every nationality. They weren’t here to watch a trial; most wouldn’t be allowed inside. They were here to watch a spectacle: history being made, the first time since Salazar changed the law that a case was brought to trial of a foreign power committing espionage on Portuguese land, where the nation they were spying against wasn’t Portugal. No one knew what would happen. Would Salazar order the court to take the easy way out, claim insufficient evidence of espionage and dismiss the case. Or would the men be convicted; expelled or incarcerated? Either way, Bendixen and his men were now out in the open.
The prosecutors went after the big names, including Bendixen and Schüller. People like Bertie, and even Pires, were considered too small fry to worry about, and while Pires was no doubt wondering where his next bribe would come from, Bertie had discreetly passed on information detailing how the dockside part of the network operated.
The October sun blazed down on the Rua do Arsenal. Gabrielle stretched out, trying to catch the best of the sun, while I hid under my floppy hat and dark sunglasses.
‘I heard the most extraordinary thing the other day,’ she said.
Julian and Claudine exchanged an eye-roll, but Gabrielle waited until I responded.
‘Dare I ask?’
‘Well, I overheard it from a pair of diplomats. English, you know, so I can’t vouch for it.’
Even Knut, panting at my feet, looked bored.
‘And?’
I reached under the table to ruffle his fur, wondering how Eduard was faring inside the courthouse.
‘It would seem that Mr Churchill went to Parliament, and revealed that Salazar gave him approval to construct an airbase.’ She raised her sunglasses and watched us closely to gauge our responses. ‘On the Azores!’
I straightened up slowly. This was big, and potentially spelled the end of the war. I hadn’t heard anyone speak of it before, although wouldn’t be surprised if both sides hadn’t made a case for access to the islands. A base on the Azores would allow us to fight Hitler’s U-boats from the air, without having to rely on the carriers, without having to worry about refuelling. It meant we could better protect our convoys. And with fewer subs threating our shipping, and a better supply chain, it would be a strategic coup.
Between that, and the possibility of Bendixen’s intelligence network being blown apart in the courthouse a few streets away, this was shaping up to be a jolly good day for the Allies.
‘If it’s true –’ I kept my voice slow, measured – ‘it’ll give the Allies quite an advantage, won’t it?’
‘Hitler’s been pressuring Salazar for years over those islands,’ Julian noted, dryly adding: ‘Who’d have thought a bunch of rocks in the middle of the Atlantic would be so important.’
‘Who indeed?’ Gabrielle asked, leaning back with a look that almost seemed self-satisfied. More than was warranted for a bit of gossip, salacious as it was.
Before I could think about what it meant, a shout came in the direction of the courthouse.
‘It’s about to start. Let’s go.’
Julian paid the bill, and we weaved through the crowds.
‘What do you think will happen? I mean, with Gabrielle’s news?’ Claudine asked, falling into step beside me.
‘I don’t know. As you once said, Claudine, if this had happened before Mussolini fell, it wouldn’t even be in question. But when even Franco is cutting his losses, and now the Azores?’ I shrugged. ‘Heaven only knows what Salazar will do.’
It was down to Rios Vilar’s delicate line of neutrality, assuming that it still applied. I couldn’t see how Salazar could really maintain neutrality if he let the Allies build that base.
‘Has Eduard mentioned anything about it?’
‘No.’
If my voice sounded grim, it was all too genuine. If he knew about it, he hadn’t shared that news with me. Neither had Matthew, although to be fair, both were focused on the court case, tasked with relaying updates back to their respective embassies.
‘What Salazar wants, the judges will deliver. Everyone knows that,’ she sighed.
And with Bendixen gone, would the smuggling ring be broken? With less naval intelligence, less tungsten steel, and with the added threat of an airbase in the Azores, how much longer could the war last?
And what then?
Gabrielle and Julian weaved through the crowd like dancers, while our path was cleared by an 80 pound Alsatian, but that thought jostled me worse than the crowd. What will happen when the war ends? These people had become friends. And Eduard . . .
As I took a steadying breath, forcing my sudden panic into a box labelled ‘cross that bridge when I come to it’, a man emerged from a side door, back straight, body vibrating with anger. Sunlight glinted off the medals on his chest as he shoved a PVDE officer out of his way and slipped into a dark Peugeot.
‘Oh, heavens, Solange. It’s Haydn. What’s happening?’ Claudine pushed forward but the Peugeot was already out of sight. She turned to me, eyes more bereft
