Emerald Decision

No code-names, no call-signs, no references to position, just a voice on the ether, a radio commentary of an occurrence at sea. There was silence for a long time, in which only the universe spoke, then: 'There's been an explosion, no, two explosions — we're going for a look-see.' Another long silence in which each person in the room became less and less aware of the drama and significance of events and more sensible of minor irritations, hunger, a dry mouth, itching eyebrows. The outcome of the war, the fate of Smaragdenhalskette diminished, faded until they could cope with it as a voice commentating on distant events, a race or a Test Match. 'Two U-boats have been damaged, and another two are sinking!' Spithead Review commentary, a fireworks display. 'The remainder have altered course — there goes another one! There are hundreds of men in the water we can see — one of the damaged U-boats is rolling — she's going!'

'Acknowledge, and switch off!' Churchill barked from his chair, and the colonel turned the volume down almost to inaudibility. He was puzzled by the old man's behavior — he seemed to care more for the fate of the Germans than the convoy crews.

The room returned to insulated silence, and then a telephone rang. It was the receiver still at Churchill's feet. He picked it up warily as he might have done a snake.

'It's the Irish Ambassador, sir.'

'What does he want? I'm very busy. Let me call him later, unless it's urgent.'

'He wishes to speak to you under code-name Essex.' Churchill paused — the Earl of Essex and his invasion of Ireland in the last years of Elizabeth's reign. The first convoyed British soldiers had landed in Cork. 'No, that isn't urgent. I'll call him later, my dear. Give him my thanks.'

He put down the telephone, heavily and clumsily. Then he lay back in the armchair, fat and helpless as an overfed baby. Walsingham felt himself to be impossibly removed from Churchill, and desperate to renounce everything to do with Emerald. Unlike the colonel, he could not completely and successfully transfer guilt to the corpulent figure of Churchill. He was still the author of the file.

Churchill was looking intently at him. Then he said, softly, 'Bury it, Commander. Bury it deep. You can begin tomorrow.'

October 198-

McBride placed his coins on the flat top of the call-box. The telephone was still clammy from use by the woman in front of him, and he wiped it on the sleeve of his jacket. Andoversford was quiet in the early morning. He dialed the Cheltenham number he had used from Cavendish House the previous day.

'Come on, come on—' murmured some impatient part of him, though he felt calm, assured, even bright, despite his almost sleepless night in the small residential restaurant on Cleeve Hill above the orange, serried lights of Cheltenham and the sky-glow of Gloucester in the distance. He'd eaten well, drunk most of a bottle of claret, then retired to his room to type two letters, one to his agent in New York and the other, longer one, to his bank in Portland. He had carbon copies of both letters in the car now.

'Yes, Professor McBride? I trust you slept well?' Walsingham sounded confident, gracious in victory — and as if he was acting a part.

'I want to talk to you.'

'Of course. Will you come here?'

'Said the spider to the fly, uh? No thanks.'

Walsingham chuckled, but there was a newly cautious note in his voice when he replied. 'Of course. Where do you suggest?'

'Somewhere lonely might be nice — for you. However, if you want to shoot me dead you'll do it in the middle of London and get away with it.'

I'm glad you understand that.'

'Let's say Foxcote Hill, in an hour. See you.' McBride put down the receiver. He stepped out of the call-box, and climbed into his car.

He drove out of Andoversford, taking minor roads until he was able, using the OS map, to approach Foxcote Hill from the south. He parked the car at the end of a track which petered out in the copse on Shill Hill, and then climbed until he was above the surrounding countryside. It was misty and autumnal in the fields, and the copses were webbed with mist. In the distance to the north, he could see the village he had left twenty minutes or so earlier, and its main roads. Trees covered the northern slopes of the hill, but he was on short, springy turf, exposed and alone. He descended into the trees again and waited. The morning was still, heavy, but the cloud was thin and transitory.

During the night he had come to the conclusion that Walsingham would let him live — just so long as he knew that the evidence for what had happened in 1940 was in hands other than McBride's alone. Whether he would ask questions first, and so elicit his powerlessness, was another matter. McBride had never possessed a gun, and he could not regret the absence of one now. Nevertheless, during the fifteen or twenty slow minutes before he heard the car approaching from the tiny hamlet of Foxcote to the north, he began to wish for the feel of one in his hand, futile though its possession would have been.

He ground out his third cigarette as he heard the undergrowth move and brush against a body, and slipped back into the shadow of the tree bole against which he had been leaning. A minute later, Walsingham appeared, struggling up the slope, his trilby hat in his hand, his topcoat unbuttoned. He appeared to be alone. He stopped for breath, dabbed his forehead with his handkerchief, felt his pounding heart, and called out.

'McBride — McBride, are you here?'

McBride said nothing. Walsingham looked back behind him, then moved on up the last of the slope to the hilltop, passing the tree that concealed McBride. McBride watched the hill below him, straining to see into the shadows beneath the trees, and listened intently. He could see and hear nothing.

Without moving from the shelter of the tree, he called out after Walsingham, 'Don't turn around for the moment, Walsingham. Are you alone?'

Walsingham stopped. 'Of course.'

'I believe you. I didn't think you'd want our little talk to be overheard. I guess national security covers it, uh?' He heard Walsingham chuckle. 'OK, turn around.' McBride stepped out from behind the tree. Walsingham was dabbing his brow again. He looked old and vulnerable. 'Where's the hit man?'

Walsingham raised his hands, palms outwards in innocence. 'My dear fellow—'

'Bullshit.' McBride stood higher on the slope than Walsingham. 'Let's make it so he has to be a very good shot.'

'I'd like to sit down.' Walsingham did not appear more ruffled than simply breathless with the short climb. 'Over there? You can watch the trees, surely. And I'm not wired for sound, nor am I armed.' He held his coat open, and McBride frisked him quickly. Walsingham was aware of the slight tremor through his old body as the American's hands smoothed over his sides and chest, down his legs, between his thighs, around his ankles. Then McBride looked up at him, and the gleam of confidence in his eyes demonstrated that he had sensed the older man's fear.

'OK — a rotten log seems about right.'

They sat on the green-coated log in the spaces between the more exotic fungoid growths. Walsingham picked at one, lung-like, then at another the texture and colour of rolled pastry. His fingers were vaguely, senilely destructive. 'Entirely appropriate,' he answered softly.

'They're all dead. Just like you wanted it, really.'

'Oh, no,' Walsingham replied quickly. 'You were the one who stirred the ant-heap with a stick. On behalf of Goessler.' Walsingham's breathing refused to return to normal. Quick, short breaths, as superficial as the relationship of a mayfly to the pond water beneath it. He felt reluctant, and — yes — afraid in the company of this man. He was totally unlike Michael McBride, his father. A superficial physical resemblance, naturally, but nothing marked on the almost bland face except recent tiredness, recent extremity. Even now, he seemed somehow — irresponsible? His innocence as Goessler's pawn forced a comparison of guilt upon Walsingham which made him uncomfortable with himself. Self-esteem, self-confidence both seemed to evaporate.

'You should have buried it all a lot deeper — the hole wasn't big enough to hide what you had to hide. It was all your operation, from first to last, I guess?'

Walsingham's face made the admission with involuntary muscles.