9

The man strode towards me with his hand outstretched, as if we were old chums meeting at his club. He was dressed for dinner: tailored suit, pressed white shirt with starched collar, regimental tie. Only his rubber boots, scuffed white with sand, incongruous against his black trousers, gave any sign that he wasn’t strolling into the dining room.

This was not a man who’d just jumped out of an -aeroplane.

‘Vaughn Matheson,’ he said, as we shook hands. I didn’t give my own name, and in the excitement he didn’t notice.

He gestured behind him, to the parachute hanging in the tree.

‘Did you see it?’ he asked. He was excited.

‘Where’s the parachutist?’ I asked, stepping past him to the base of the tree. I looked up, on the off-chance there was a Nazi stormtrooper caught up in the tree. Better safe than sorry.

‘I had him in my sight,’ Vaughn said, ‘but I fell. I was looking up at the sky and tripped. Scuffed up my jacket.’ He held up his sleeve as evidence, it was smeared with mud, ghostly white in the moonlight.

He returned to his kicking around in the heather.

‘Hello, what’s this?’

I joined him. Half hidden by the foot-high heather, a smashed wooden crate lay open. I leant down and pulled it apart.

‘Some kind of machine,’ I said, pulling out handfuls of packing straw, presumably meant to cushion the impact. The machine itself was the size of a suitcase, encased in shining black Bakelite. Like a large portable typewriter. An embossed manufacturer’s name – Lorenz.

I pictured the crate being closed up in a Luftwaffe base somewhere across the Channel. It looked like an important delivery. There was no way it would have been sent without a clear plan for its recovery. That meant an agent, operating in my territory, free to move about. It was a big crate, so he presumably had a car or a van. Was the machine light enough to be carried by one person, or would he need help?

There was a carry-handle on the machine. I gripped it and pulled. It was heavy, but not too heavy. Designed to be man-portable. There was a tinkle of broken glass as I lifted, and I put it down as gently as I could. The boys from Military Intelligence would be glad to get their hands on it, and they’d want it to be as operational as possible.

I stood up and looked around. It was quite an exposed spot, with the odd tree here and there. Every ten yards or so there was a gorse bush, head height. Big enough for someone to hide behind if they were waiting for a drop. Perhaps they’d have a light to signal the plane. When the parachute came down, they’d run to it and collect the delivery.

If he’d brought a vehicle, where was it? There hadn’t been any other cars up on the road I’d come from. I listened in the silence for the sound of a car starting up, but I didn’t hear anything. Presumably once Vaughn stumbled on the drop site, the agent abandoned the recovery. Easier to send another machine on another drop than to replace an agent. He would have gone on foot.

Most likely, he wasn’t aiming for a road at all. Dozens of cottages littered the Forest, hidden down farm tracks and quiet lanes, tucked away from the outside world. Places like the Leckies’ house.

Of course, there was another explanation for the case of the mysterious disappearing agent. The simplest explanation – in other words the most likely – was that the agent was standing in front of me.

‘Have you seen anyone out here?’ I asked.

‘Just you.’

‘Someone was waiting for it,’ I said.

He stopped his search and looked around.

‘Do you think they’re still out there?’ he asked.

I didn’t reply.

Vaughn put two and two together. He took a step back.

‘This is a bit awkward,’ he said.