Nemesis Read online

  Praise for

  ‘Dramatic . . . pacy and assured . . . Well crafted, it has all the pleasures of an intriguing lead character, intricate plot and fascinating historical context’

  DAILY MAIL

  ‘Enjoyable, bloody and brutish’

  GUARDIAN

  ‘Rory Clements’s timely spy thriller set in the 1930s evokes a period of political polarisation, mistrust and simmering violence. Corpus is fast-paced and there are plenty of red herrings to keep you guessing’

  THE TIMES

  ‘This clever novel, rich in deceptions and intrigue . . . Corpus is a standout historical novel and spy thriller by an author who can turn his hand to any historical period he chooses’

  DAILY EXPRESS

  ‘Clements has the edge when it comes to creating a lively, fast-moving plot’

  SUNDAY TIMES

  ‘Beautifully done . . . alive and tremendously engrossing’

  DAILY TELEGRAPH

  ‘Clements juggles his story’s disparate ingredients very skilfully’

  LITERARY REVIEW

  ‘A dynamic, fast-moving murder mystery brimming with menace, violence and intrigue . . . This fascinating pre-war era comes breathtakingly and insidiously to life . . . Clements is undoubtedly on to another winner . . .’

  LANCASHIRE EVENING POST

  ‘Corpus is a compelling novel, the writing is subtle . . . the research makes the plot utterly convincing. Clements kept this reader guessing right up to the last page – and beyond’

  HISTORIA MAGAZINE

  ‘Clements spins his wheels within wheels to enjoyable, if mind-boggling, effect’

  SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST

  ‘Faster moving than CJ Sansom’

  BBC RADIO 4

  ‘Raises Clements to the top rank of historical thriller writers . . . an intricate web of plots and subplots vividly evoking the tenor of the times’

  PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY

  ‘John Shakespeare is one of the great historical sleuths . . .’

  BARRY FORSHAW

  ‘Great new character, upbeat pace, low cunning plot’

  JON WISE

  ‘An omniscient viewpoint and multiple characters give this novel the gravitas of Le Carré and it is highly accomplished. It is impressively executed and Clements delivers a multi-layered historical spy thriller that few can emulate’

  CRIME FICTION LOVER

  ‘Clements’ clever, atmospheric, fast-paced and immaculately researched novel is both pacy and assured . . . a real rollercoaster . . .’

  CRIME REVIEW

  Contents

  June 1931

  Chapter 1

  August 1939

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  November 1939

  Chapter 43

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Letter from Author

  Copyright

  For Emma,

  with love

  JUNE 1931

  CHAPTER 1

  This was the best day of his life, watching his beloved boy, here in this ancient chamber of light.

  Above him, his gaze drifted to the high, soaring fan vaults and armor-ial badges that made the great chapel celebrated throughout the world. On every side, he sensed the enclosing history of the mellow limestone walls, held tall and perpendicular by massive buttresses. And within these frames, he was dazzled by the coloured glass that filtered and split the heavenly rays, and told the story of his faith.

  Candles flickered in glass sconces along the choir stalls. The choristers and choral scholars were ranged on both sides of the aisle in white surplices and red cassocks. In a few moments, their voices would well up and soar into the vast echoing space and dance off the tracery and the carvings.

  Colonel Ronald Marfield knew now that even in the dark nights of war, God had never deserted him. This was His promise made good.

  At his side sat his elder son, Ptolemy, slumped awkwardly in the pew, and his wife, Margaret, erect and dignified.

  But it was the thirteen-year-old boy at the front of the choir who held his eye and his heart. The head chorister, his beautiful younger son, Marcus. Marcus with the perfect voice, the pale golden skin, the blue eyes and the tousled sandy halo of hair. Every father’s ideal son; truly a gift from heaven.

  King’s College chapel was packed, but the congregation made not a sound. And then the organ broke the hush and the first haunting notes of Charles Stanford’s Magnificat in G crept forth, sempre staccato.

  Marcus opened his lips and his voice emerged. ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord . . .’

  Every boy, every man in this fine choir sang wonderfully. But only one stood out. Marcus’s treble notes were not just flawless, it seemed as if they rose on angel wings. Those watching and listening barely breathed.

  Colonel Marfield’s eyes were wet. How could he not weep at such perfection? At the divine sound of his own son?

  He reached for his wife’s hand, but they were clasped in front of her. Through eyes blurred with tears he looked at her, beseeching. She stared straight ahead, refusing to meet his gaze. Her eyes were dry.

  AUGUST 1939

  CHAPTER 2

  For a man of fifty, the American was in reasonable shape: good teeth, breath sweet in a whisky way, a decent head of hair, though it was receding from his brow. And his round tortoiseshell spectacles lent him an intellectual air. Elina had made love to men half his age who had less going for them.

  ‘Take care of me, Elina,’ he said. ‘Take care of me and I’ll take care of you.’

  ‘It will be my pleasure, sir.’ She was undoing the buttons of his shirt, slowly, from the collar down.

  With the last button popped, she drew open the shirt front and eased it off his shoulders so that he stood before her, naked from the waist up. A sportsman, no doubt about it; rode a lot, very little spread around the girth and muscle tone in the arms. A few curls of hair snuck up above his trouser line. Below, he was stirring. But she wasn’t going to touch him there. Not yet.

  ‘Now you,’ he said. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got.’

  Elina Kossoff, known in this place as Elina Ulyanova, was no more than five feet four, with fair wavy hair. She stood on her toes and placed her full lips on his, then stood back, smiling. Teasing, tantalising, she removed her blouse slowly, and at last turned around so he could unhook her ivory-coloured bra. As it fell to the floor, she turned back to face him, still smiling. She let him feast his eyes on her breasts, full, with small pink nipples. ‘Well, sir?’

  ‘God damn it.’ He reached out and took them in the palms of his hands. ‘God damn it, and the Lord forgive my blasphemy.’

  They ma
de love on the single bed, in a small room tucked beneath the eaves – a servant’s room, assigned to Elina when she arrived at this great Palladian mansion two days earlier with the invented title of ‘general assistant’ in the estate office. It was common knowledge that whenever this particular guest was entertained at weekend house parties he would take one of the servants into his bed. And if they pleased him, he would be generous, might even arrange to see them again. Elina would make sure he did just that.

  When the sex was over, she was surprised that it had been good. The old man knew what he was doing.

  ‘So, Elina, where are you from?’ He lay back on the pillows, the fingers of his right hand idly playing between her legs.

  ‘My parents brought me over here from Moscow as a child. They escaped the Bolsheviks.’

  ‘Like so many others. Those Reds have made a mess of a fine country . . .’ He turned to face her. ‘Elina – I want you on my staff. Full time, starting today. I’ll pay your notice. I take it you’ve got Pitman’s?’

  She laughed out loud. ‘No, I don’t do shorthand. A little two-fingered typing, that’s all.’

  ‘Two fingers is plenty good enough for most everything in life. Anyway, who cares? You’re coming with me wherever I go. I’ll buy you a car. What car do you want?’

  She kissed Joe Kennedy’s cheek and pressed her sex into his delving hand, demanding more. So far, so good.

  CHAPTER 3

  It was Lydia who noticed the man in the street outside the villa. He was bedraggled and foot-weary, but that didn’t mean much these days when half of France seemed to be on the move. Refugees travelling in all directions, seeking safety without being at all sure where that might be; soldiers on the roads eastwards to the frontiers of Italy and Germany. The paniquards and the reluctant squaddies. None of them wanted a war, not when there was a harvest to be brought in.

  ‘He’s probably a beggar,’ said Wilde. ‘I imagine he saw our car outside, reckoned we must have money.’

  ‘He’s been hanging around all day. I’ve seen him several times from the bedroom window. He was still there when I went upstairs just now. Won’t you go and see what he wants?’

  Wilde, who was enjoying the wine and the warmth of the evening, reluctantly put down his glass. He turned out his pockets. ‘I don’t suppose you have some change to send him on his way?’

  ‘There are a few francs in my purse – in the kitchen, on the table.’

  They were on the courtyard terrace, soaking up the last of the sun. The air was hot and dry, but it was beginning to lose its intensity after the fierce heat of the day, and there was still time to sit outdoors with a bottle or two of chilled wine.

  Wilde turned to their host. ‘See the way she orders me about, Jacques?’

  ‘This is only the start, Tom. It’s all downhill from here.’ Professor Talbot, tall and languid, fished in his pocket and brought out a handful of coins. ‘Do you wish me to deal with the fellow?’’

  ‘No thanks, Jacques. I’m under orders.’

  ‘Here then, give him these. That should be enough for bread and wine.’

  Wilde nodded, took the money and sauntered out to the front of the house. It was on the outskirts of the small village of Aignay, to the east of Toulouse in the south-western corner of France. A weathered old manor with small windows, it was cool in summer, warm enough in winter. It gave nothing away from the exterior, but was large and airy inside, leading on to a lush courtyard at the back, with a central fountain and fruit trees: lemons, olives, oranges, just waiting to be picked. And behind them, a vineyard stretching across endless acres of France.

  The road at the front, by contrast, was dusty and dry. Across the way, two women in black peasant dresses, their faces lined like old parchment, trudged along, slowly and silently. There wasn’t much here in Aignay – a boulangerie, a bar for the paysans and another for those with a little money and education – doctor, lawyer, landlord, owners of the vineyards – and that was it.

  A man was sitting on the ground at the base of a fig tree. As Wilde approached, he stood up. He had no cap and his greying hair was razored almost down to the scalp. His beard was grey stubble, yet his heavily tanned, dirt-streaked face suggested he was no more than thirty. Of average height, in working man’s blue shirt and threadbare trousers, his boots were wrapped with rags in place of soles. The dead butt of a hand-rolled cigarette clung to his lips. One of those nomadic types who travelled the land at this time of year to earn a crust harvesting grapes.

  Wilde held out the coins. ‘Pour vous,’ he said in his excruciating accent. He had hated French at school and hadn’t bothered to put things right in the intervening years; his German had been rather more passable.

  ‘Monsieur Wilde?’ The man did not remove the cigarette from his mouth.

  ‘How do you know who I am?’ Taken aback, Wilde reverted to his native tongue.

  ‘I have been looking for you.’ The man spoke accurate but strongly accented English. This was no peasant. ‘I was led to believe you had come to this village. I guessed this must be the house. The fine car . . .’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘I am Honoré.’

  ‘Just Honoré?’

  ‘It’s enough. This is not about me, but someone you know. He needs your help. Please.’

  ‘Who needs my help?’

  ‘El Cantante. He is sick . . . he may die. He will die if you do not help him before the war comes.’

  ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. Don’t you think you should explain?’

  ‘El Cantante – that is his nom-de-guerre. We were comrades in the Spanish struggle, but now he is beyond my help. He has spoken of you, monsieur. He needs to get back to England or he will waste away and die. The French government – Daladier and Reynaud, Bonnet and Laval and the rest of the fascist swine’ – he spat on the ground – ‘they do not care. We are all dirt to them.’

  Realisation struck. Wilde had little enough Spanish, but even he could work out that El Cantante meant ‘the singer’. ‘Are you by any chance talking about Marcus Marfield?’

  ‘Oui, monsieur, I believe that is right. He told me your name and spoke of Cambridge. You were his teacher – his professeur – yes?’

  Wilde had indeed been Marfield’s supervisor at Cambridge. And Marfield had been a noted choral scholar. But when, like several of his contemporaries, he had disappeared in March 1937 – almost two and a half years ago – to join the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War, Wilde had never expected to see him again. He would not have been the first undergraduate to lose his life in that bitter conflict.

  ‘I still don’t understand how you found me here.’

  The Frenchman shrugged. ‘I have friends in England.’

  That didn’t really explain it, but Wilde let it pass for the moment. ‘Where is he?’

  ‘He is in the internment camp at Le Vernet, south of Toulouse. I would say he is in a bad way. A very bad way.’

  Wilde hadn’t heard of Le Vernet. But he had been desperately sorry when Marfield, one of his best history students, left Cambridge. Marcus Marfield, the beautiful youth with the voice of an angel and the world at his feet. At times he had served as crucifer – cross-bearer in the chapel choir. It was said that in his treble days as a King’s chorister his Stanford in G could make the hairs at the nape of your neck stand on end and bring a tear to the hardest of eyes. His voice since breaking had developed into a most remarkable tenor. His disappearance had seemed a tragic waste. If Marcus was alive . . . well, that would indeed be wonderful news.

  ‘How long to drive there?’

  ‘Two hours, perhaps three.’

  Wilde looked at the sky. The sun was low, he had been drinking and the roads in this part of France were treacherous at the best of times. ‘You say he’s in some sort of camp – I assume he’ll still be there in the morning, yes?’

  ‘He will not get out without your help, Monsieur Wilde.’

  Wilde
moved back towards the door, but the man did not follow him. ‘Please, come in . . .’

  ‘No, I must go.’

  ‘I’m sure we could find you some food and a glass of wine. You can tell us everything you know.’

  ‘I have told you everything you need to know. You will find Le Vernet on the map, on the way to Pamiers. Follow the stench.’

  ‘Why not come with me? Take me there.’

  The Frenchman shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘And be put back inside? No thank you, monsieur. Give El Cantante my fraternal greetings, if you would. He is in Hut 32.’

  As Wilde watched, he turned and shuffled away, without a backward glance.

  CHAPTER 4

  Talleyrand Bois was drenched in sweat but his right hand, clutching the revolver beneath his jacket, was steady. He wiped his left sleeve across his brow, then took the scrap of newspaper once more from his pocket and studied it. The cutting was from a newspaper from the previous year with a photograph of Sigmund Freud on the platform at Paris’s Saint-Lazare station as he made his escape from Vienna to England by way of France. At his side was an aristocratic woman who meant nothing to Bois and, more importantly, a man in a pale hat, wearing a buttonhole and holding a cigarette. That was the man Bois stared at; a man wearing a suit so expensive it would have kept a poor family in food for a year.

  Bois held the picture close, trying to imprint the image of the man in the pale hat on his brain. Then he looked out across the dark green beneath the trees, to the far side of the grand chateau where the early morning sun threw long shadows across the vast lawns. This was unfamiliar territory. Chantilly, with its racecourses and palaces, built on the blood of the working man for the parasites of the ruling class, was everything he despised about his country. Merde, how he hated the bourgeoisie.

  The man he had come to find was over there, walking alone. Bois shaded his eyes and stared at him and then looked back at the picture. The face was right, but he had looked leaner in the photograph. In the black-and-white picture and wearing a hat, it was impossible to discern the colour of the man’s hair; this man, bare-headed, had short fair hair with a sharp parting on the right. But the face was the same, he was sure of that. William Bullitt, America’s ambassador to France. Bois, hardened by a lifetime of physical work, began to move towards him.