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Page 73.

The windows were smeared with gore, and there was a smell of gunpowder in the air. The older man’s face peered out, fish-like, as if he’d been caught in a net and dredged from the lightless void at the bottom of the ocean, where his skin was white and his eyes were pale blue dots swimming in egg white. His face was tilted up, his mouth open in a gaping motion. His pale hand, and the heavy black service revolver it loosely held, were plainly visible. Tim kept pulled on the door handle, but it was locked. “Stan, what the hell is going on?”

“Oh good Jesus,” Stan said holding his hands over his ears. He appeared to be fully sober now. He fumbled with a cigarette, but dropped it in the wet gravel at his feet. Then he dropped the whole pack. Small white cylinders, cigarettes, dropped everywhere and got wet.

“Gentlemen,” a voice said, like a sudden thunderclap amid silence.

Tim and Stan whirled and looked at several men in hats and raincoats who had appeared on the church steps. With them were several constables, including two British military policemen in red caps. Tim noticed infantry-like figures hovering in the mist holding rifles.

Billy Seward stepped down and walked across toward Tim and Stan, who stood frozen. Tim’s heart was pounding in his neck, causing him to have trouble breathing. Anna’s handler.

Seward lit a cigarette and stuck it in Stan’s mouth, slapping him lightly on the cheek, audibly so, humiliatingly so.

Tim said: “Are we going before a firing squad? Got a blindfold?”

“Funny guy, eh?” Seward stepped close to Tim. “You too?”

“I really have no idea what is going on,” Tim said.

Another, older man stepped down. He was gray-haired and chubby, with thick glasses. “Dammit, Seward, this has really become a mess.”

Seward seemed rigid, but tried to regain his usual comedic composure. “Sorry, Inspector. The last thing I ever expected was this fool to come rolling along, much less our friend Nordhall. Quite a combination.”

“Never mind the comedy,” the Inspector said. “You know these fellows?”

“I’ll take full responsibility for them, Sir.”

“Then run them over to the station and keep them there until I can deal with this. Hurry.”

A powerful dark-green sedan pulled in with only its parking lights on. It was an American made Ford, olive-drab, with British plates. Its motor thrummed in the night. “Get in if you know what’s good for you,” Seward said. “Hurry.”

Tim and Stan sat in the back seat. Seward sat in the passenger seat beside a young red-haired man with a steely face, who wore a plain black suit and coat. As they pulled out, another man followed closely, driving Tim’s car. They left the tiny country church and its grisly scene behind.

“You boys may have blown a major operation for us,” Seward said, lazily popping a stick of American spearmint gum in his mouth. He didn’t offer to share from his pack. He sat with one elbow over the neck rest, looking toward the backseat while the driver focused on the road ahead.

“Sorry,” Tim said. “We were out for a drive. I had no idea.”

Seward shook his head, grinning sardonically at Stan, then addressing Tim again. “Sorry, won’t wash. Too much of a coincidence, your working in the same area in London, and then showing up less than twenty minutes after Admiral Todd kills himself.”

Stan whispered: “Was that Claire in the car with him?”

Seward stared at him as if Stan were an insect. “No, that was Mrs. Todd. I imagine he had just explained to her why he must blow their brains out. She was totally innocent and never saw any of it coming.”

Stan was pale and silent. Tim explained as briefly as possible, from his friend’s infatuation to their joy ride out here. Seward chewed his gum pensively, looking from one to the other. “This is your roommate?”

“Yes,” Tim said.

“You have some explaining to do, both of you.”

Tim could imagine the consternation, the need for explanations, the possible reprimands, Article 15s, who knew what, when he did not show up for work in the morning. It would be at least as devastating for Stan. “Tell them the whole story, Stan.”

Stan nodded. “I was hoping to help Lieutenant Denby. I had no idea the situation was so grave.”

“Really?” Seward chewed. The car smelled of spearmint overlaid upon damp wool and dusty upholstery. “How grave did you think it was?”

“I don’t know,” Stan said, getting more rattled. “I just thought...I overheard them talking. Her and Admiral Todd. I thought she was a spy.”

“Uh-huh. Keep talking.”

“You knew.” Stan’s eyes widened. “You knew all along. You were watching her. Waiting to catch her.” Stan’s mind seemed to be churning out ideas that spilled over the wheel of his tongue as fast as they came into being. “You had a stakeout going. You were waiting to catch her accomplices, and then we blundered along.”

“Very close,” Seward said. He looked at Stan with much contemplation. “You have it a little backwards. He was the spy. She was working for the Crown.”

Stan looked as if he’d been struck by lightning. The effect was amplified by the fact that the car pulled into the back parking lot of a brick building. The East Lyme Police Depot, according to a sign looming out of some bushes in the fog.

“Let’s get out,” Seward said. They all stepped out onto crunching gravel. Seward sent the driver away into the building. “You men stay here a moment and we’ll talk.” He stood staring at them. Stan gave Tim a look of apology and Tim stared back in annoyance. Fog rolled by thickly, and the air smelled damp and woodsy.

Tim’s car drove in and was parked. The driver got out, exchanged a few words with Seward, threw him the keys, and went into the station.

Seward threw the keys to Tim, who was relieved to get them back. “The question before us is, what to do with you two.” Seward took out his gum, slowly rolled it into a ball, and tossed it far away into the woods. “Things are back to where they were before you rolled in, and we may still catch our Germans if you two didn’t warn them off.”

“I’m so sorry,” Stan said. “I got him into this.”

“You guys want this to be over with, forever?”

“Yes!” Tim and Stan said in one voice.

“You both have high clearances, which is one reason you do not now disappear to some destroyer escort guarding ice floes south of Australia. I know where to come find you if either of you opens your mouth.”

Tim cleared his throat. “Billy, okay, we get the message. So what’s the poop here? How do we get on with our lives?” He had not let on about his relationship with Jaguar and O.S.S., and was a bit nervous about that secret.

“Very carefully, my friend. You guys are young, so it’s not surprising you’d be chasing this bitch. “ Billy grabbed his trousers between the legs and hopped comically up and down. “Get the hell out of here, both of you. Hope I never lay eyes on you again, unless it’s over tea at Colonel Haw-haw’s office.”

Stan Kehoe was transferred to California not long after. A late night bash over beers with a few fellow officers sealed the deal, and Tim drove him to his standby hop on an elderly B-17 heading for retirement from RAF Lakenheath. An attractive young female ferrying pilot looked out from the cockpit.

There was, however, an upshot to the recent affair, about which he would not tell Stan until long after—the following year, in San Francisco.