Troubled Midnight (30 page)
Authors: John Gardner
She stopped, recognising the handwriting, ripping it open and looking at the sheet of heavy crested notepaper. Tommy had written to her from the estate, from his father’s, the Earl of Kingscote’s estate. He had written over Christmas. They used to have a joke about it, she always talked about him going down to flog the peasants at Christmas. Last year she had gone with him, the Honourable Tommy Livermore.
She began to read –
Suzie, My Darling Heart,
This is to apologise, though I know that a mere apology is not enough. What I did to you about the possible GM, and all the other ways I treated you – all of them – are unforgivable so I have no right to ask for your forgiveness. But my dear heart, I love you more than I can ever express, and miss you with all my heart and mind. I miss you with such pain, a pain that causes me anguish with each breath I take.
I miss you and long for you. I see you and hear you everywhere. O God I miss you so much and in every way. I miss you now. I miss your touch and the feel of you. I miss seeing and hearing you. In the night, I miss your dark triangle and the Elysian Fields that lie beyond.
Please. Please. My love ever,
Tommy
Dandy Tom, she thought reaching for the telephone.
Historical Note
There is absolutely no evidence to suggest there was a particular spy sent to search out the plans for
Overlord.
However, all the agents sent into Britain by the German Intelligence services were put in the bag, and all but two of them were turned, sending back a large amount of intelligence to back up Operation
Fortitude.
Also, Colonel Baron Alexis von Roenne was the head of German Intelligence in the West – as opposed to the brilliant Reinhard Gehlen in the East. At the end of World War II, Gehlen set up his own Intelligence Service on behalf of the Allies.
Alexis von Roenne took the bait of
Fortitude
and, while he rejected the possibility of an invasion through Norway, was completely hooked on the Pas de Calais deception and was one of the many reasons for the German indecision in the first week of the Normandy landings.
1
American senior officers had little faith in Fortitude, mainly because they remained ignorant of the amount of disinformation being played back by the XX Committee from captured German secret agents.
2
In present day money this translates into just under £95.
3
The Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir Alan Brooke wrote, as late as June 1944, ‘It may well be the most ghastly disaster of the whole war.’
4
L C Partridge should have known better: Anthony Eden, the Foreign Secretary, was in Cairo with the Prime Minister.
Also by this author
James Bond Novels
Licence Renewed
For Special Services
Icebreaker
Role of Honor
Nobody Lives For Ever
No Deals, Mr. Bond
Scorpius
Win, Lose or Die
Brokenclaw
The Man from Barbarossa
Death is For Ever
Never Send Flowers
SeaFire
Cold
License to Kill
(From the Screenplay)
Goldeneye
(From the Screenplay)
The Boysie Oakes Books
The Liquidator
Understrike
Amber Nine
Madrigal
Founder Member
Traitor’s Exit
Air Apparent
A Killer for a Song
Derek Torry Novels
A Complete State of Death
The Cornermen
The Moriarty Journals
The Return of Moriarty
The Revenge of Moriarty
The Kruger Novels
The Nostradamus Traitor
The Garden of Weapons
The Quiet Dogs
Maestro
Confessor
Novels
Golgotha
Flamingo
The Dancing Dodo
The Werewolf Trace
To Run a Little Faster
Every Night’s a Bullfight
The Censor
Day of Absolution
Blood of the Fathers
(Published under name of Edmund McCoy and republished 2004 as Unknown Fears)
The Generations Trilogy
The Secret Generations
The Secret Houses
The Secret Families
Suzie Mountford Books
Bottled Spider
The Streets of Town
Angels Dining at The Ritz
Autobiography
Spin The Bottle
Collections of Short Stories
The Assassination File
Hideaway
THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin’s Press.
TROUBLED MIDNIGHT.
Copyright © 2005 by John Gardner. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Gardner, John E.
Troubled midnight / John Gardner.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-312-33721-3
EAN 978-0-312-33721-6
1. World War, 1939–1945—England—Fiction. 2. Detectives—England—Berkshire (England)—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6057.A63T76 2006
823'.914—dc22
2005054757
First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby Limited
eISBN 9781466849389
First eBook edition: June 2013