bubbled up, and sat down next to her. Quickly, he told her what
Gillis had found, and the explanation. Then he back-tracked, beginning with Menschler — she'd heard some of it before, but he pedantically ignored the state of her knowledge, as if a confessional necessity had overcome all reluctance — going on to her father, to Hackney and Hoskins.
When he had finished, he appeared drained. She poured him a drink, aware again of the fine net of nerves lying just below her skin and which threatened to betray her excitement, her weakness in the grip of personal and ideological passions. McBride had been pointed ahead by Goessler's withdrawal, prompted into quicker, more intense enquiry by an increased sense of being alone. Venal motive, but appealing to the ego, too. Goessler was a clever man. She handed McBride the drink, and he took it with a smile as he might have done from a wife. She had succeeded. She was now the ally, the amanuensis.
'Trinity House,' she said firmly.
'What?'
'Merchant Navy records in Trinity House. You could check there on this convoy, and whether Hoskins served on one of the ships. If
'You're right!' He was animated again, and proud of her, she saw. Clever girl. She swallowed an irritation she had felt often with Moynihan when he was patronizing her intelligence. 'By God, girl, you're right. Witnesses are what we need. If that convoy went down in the minefield, then they'd know it. My God—' He was galvanized now, and she enjoyed the control she had just exercised over him.
'You'd better look up their number,' she said as he embraced her. Allies.
She'd call Moynihan later, and set up a meeting. He'd have to hear it in person, what she chose to tell him. She'd make him bring Treacey. She nibbled at McBride's ear as she felt with a crawling sensation his breath on her neck.
Walsingham's duty surveillance team watched McBride enter Trinity House on Tower Hill, then parked their Vauxhall near Tower Hill Station, from which point they could observe the main portico and steps of Trinity House. To be certain they did not miss McBride when he came out again, one of them, Ryan, took a newspaper and sat on a bench in Trinity Square gardens. When McBride left, he would signal the car, then go in and discover what McBride was doing there. To elicit the information would require no more than his CID card, one of the many organizations of security to which he was accredited.
McBride came out again near lunchtime. The woman that the man on the park bench had been observing waved to McBride, then joined him on the pavement opposite the gardens. They embraced. The watcher stood up, could almost hear the starting of the Vauxhall's engine though he knew that was impossible in the lunch hour traffic. He watched McBride and the woman — Drummond's daughter from his briefing — talking animatedly as they walked away towards Tower Hill, saw the Vauxhall tailing them down Savage Gardens, then he crossed the road to the main steps of Trinity House. In the imposing Front Hall with its numerous models of ships, he showed his CID card to the security guard, who put through a call to the Assistant Keeper of Records. In five minutes, Ryan was closeted with the Assistant Keeper, being shown the material that McBride had requested.
No, the Assistant Keeper had no way of knowing which names McBride had been concerned to check. Were there specific names? Professor McBride from the University of Oregon was interested in the kind of records, their history and comprehensiveness. Something for a paper he was to deliver to the American History of the Sea and Seafarers Society in Boston on his return to the United States. Ryan almost laughed, inwardly applauding the smokescreen McBride was capable of creating, his pulse quickening at the implications of such an elaborate subterfuge.
Records — just lists of names, sailors and the ships on which they had served. Period 1940 to '45. Trinity House, as Ryan well knew, was and is responsible for the relief of distressed and aged master mariners, but it also keeps records of all merchant seamen in distress or requiring any kind of help — all the old men with a life at sea behind them and nothing in front — together with its work in erecting and maintaining all lightships and lighthouses and being the chief pilotage authority in Britain.
Ryan clenched down on his drifting thoughts as the Assistant Keeper rambled on, repeating the information he had passed to McBride before leaving him alone with the records. Names of old sailors? Would it mean anything to Walsingham, who'd get his report direct from Exton?
As soon as politeness allowed, Ryan left Trinity House and called in his findings. The duty officer assured him that Exton would make sense of a visit to Trinity House. Meanwhile, a requisition for the Trinity House records would be issued. Would Ryan like to hang about and help carry them to the van when it arrived?
Ryan put down the phone before his expletive could be topped, and stepped out of the telephone box into the warm lunchtime sunshine, feeling hungry.
The motor launch came close inshore, off Garrettstown Strand in Courtmacsharry Bay, but against the tide and they had to lower a raft to put McBride and Gilliatt ashore. There was a high wind that streamed water over the sides of the raft like a heavy, driving rain, and the sea was choppy and cantankerous. Two ratings rowed inshore, but McBride and Gilliatt still had to wade to the beach out of waist-deep water because the raft almost overturned and its crew could hardly hold it against the retreating tide. McBride felt his legs go from under him the moment his feet touched the bottom and then, as he spluttered and splashed about with his arms, Gilliatt's hand grip his collar and drag him upright. Gilliatt was laughing. The raft bobbed away from them, sudden moonlight from behind ragged cloud silhouetting it and the slim, graceful shape of the ML beyond it.
'
'Tressed man, sir,' McBride answered in an adopted brogue, coughing out seawater in the wake of the remark. They hurried through the shallows onto the smooth wet sand. Turning, they could see the raft being hoisted aboard the ML, then the engines moved up from idle and the launch seemed to do no more than ease away from them in silent apology as it turned out to sea, heading back to England.
McBride jogged Gilliatt's arm. 'Wistful?'
'What? Oh, sorry.'
'Just rather be there than here, eh?'
'Working for Walsingham is what I can't take,' Gilliatt replied with unexpected vehemence.
They walked on up the beach towards the dry sand above the tide-line, McBride systematically wringing his sleeves and trouser-legs and jacket as they went.
'My socks are drenched. I'm surprised you feel that strongly about him. Charlie's all right.'
Gilliatt halted, and waited until McBride was looking at him. McBride stopped wringing the last moisture from a sleeve, and stilled his chattering teeth with an effort. 'Just watch out for him, Michael. Don't let him put your head in too many lions' mouths, that's all.'
'God, I'm cold.' McBride attempted to avert the too-direct remark.
'Listen to me, Michael. I've met a lot of people like Charles Walsingham—'
'Are you going to lecture me, Uncle?' McBride sat down like a disgruntled child and pulled off his boots, then his socks. He twisted them in his hands and the water streamed onto the sand, darkening it like blood. McBride wondered why the image had invaded his mind. He looked up at Gilliatt standing over him.
'I'm just trying to warn you—'
'You'll give me a lecture on Drummond when you've met him, I suppose?' McBride's temper was completely under control, though he did resent Gilliatt's interference in his affairs.
'I might well do that.' Gilliatt obviously thought what he had to impart was important. There was an evident attempt to remain calm and not to antagonize McBride or be antagonized by him. 'My old school was full of people like him, wearing their charm like the grass they use to cover lion-traps—'
'I like that,' McBride said mischievously.
'He does. Walsingham resents being in the navy at all, and is prepared only to use this war to advance his career in intelligence. You remember that I've worked in intelligence before. I met people like him, every week!'
'All right. I'll watch out for myself.' McBride was abstractedly rubbing his feet warm again before putting on his socks. When he finished talking, his teeth went on chattering. 'God, I'm cold. What's the time?'
'Ten minutes to two.'
'Bloody early! No wonder Drummond isn't here with his little car and his rum ration.' He held out his hand
