The Imitator by Rebecca Starford

Author:Rebecca Starford [Rebecca Starford]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
Published: 2020-12-09T00:00:00+00:00

At the end of the following week, after three tests, much berating and some play-acting in front of Vincent and Ted, Evelyn was called into White’s study and told she was ready to be introduced to Nina Ivanov. The meeting had been arranged for Thursday morning at the Arbat Tea House; Mrs Armstrong would collect her from the front of South Kensington station at ten o’clock.

White had been standing by the window as he explained all this, hands linked behind his back, his gaze shifting southwards. Perhaps he had seen something on the Thames, and after a fortnight confined indoors, Evelyn suddenly longed to be out there in the cold, breathing in great lungfuls of fresh air far away from Chemley Court. But then he did something strange. Setting his pipe on the window ledge, he bent down to his shrew’s cage, opened the latch and reached inside. Evelyn watched as the tiny thing, no bigger than a powder compact, scurried into his palm. White brought a fingertip to the creature’s back for a gentle stroke, all the while making gravelly soothing sounds. Evelyn took a quick breath. The truth was that she didn’t much like any animal, let alone those with a long pointed snout, and fancying she could hear the swish of his scaly tail made her queasy. White walked back to his desk, the shrew cupped in his hand.

‘This morning I read about the farmers in Norfolk,’ he said. ‘They’ve started shooting birds on the migration to Europe. Thousands have been slaughtered.’

Evelyn glanced at the newspaper spread across the desk, making out the headline: SKYLARKS THAT SING TO NAZIS WILL GET NO MERCY HERE. She looked at the shrew. He sat placid and unassuming in White’s hand, but Evelyn could see how those small eyes were wide and shining. There was a readiness in the span of his minute pink feet, as if at any moment he would launch himself across the desk.

‘Surely they don’t believe the birds have somehow betrayed them?’

‘That’s exactly what they think,’ said White. ‘You and me, we’re students of history, and students of history always make good spies. We’re interested in the small eruptions of change, always with an eye to avoiding the next catastrophe. But these farmers, they only understand the land, the sky, what’s right there in front of them. It’s not so eccentric—I’ve known men who went to war because they wanted to defend the mallards and teal nesting in the reeds along the Devon coast.’

The shrew snuffled, his eyes trained on Evelyn. How strange it was to see White like this, so caring and so delicate; she wondered if Posey had had the same induction.

‘Huxley said something on the wireless the other day that has stuck with me,’ White continued. ‘That the yellowhammer song is the best possible expression of a hot English country road in July. Isn’t that marvellous?’

‘Yes,’ said Evelyn. ‘I’ve never quite thought of it that way.’

‘But it is not a question of thinking, my dear.

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