The Assassins by Alan Bardos (best novels in english txt) 📗

Prize Day gave Simpson the opportunity he'd needed to humiliate the false hero. When Johnny mounted the podium to receive his usual accolades, Simpson unceremoniously announced that people of breeding didn't engage with the daughters of tradesmen. Johnny, never one to be put off by the bitter sting of laughter, began to engage the charms of Simpson's three lovely daughters, Faith, Hope and Chastity. All three lived up to their names, exulting him to the heights of faith and hope, but ultimately practising the virtue of chastity, until finally, the gates of paradise were slammed shut in his face when he was expelled for instigating a school strike.

Johnny didn't have a great deal of opportunity after that, having attached scandal, to an already jaded name. That was, until his 'uncle' decided to take an interest in his prospects. Even then, the choice was a stark one - the army or the Civil Service, both institutions his uncle had served with distinction.

The rigour and discipline of army life wasn't for Johnny, so he made a play for the Diplomatic Service. He quite liked the idea of a career in diplomacy, emulating the heroes of his classical education.

His uncle exerted a certain degree of influence to get Johnny nominated, but as it was, he still had to pass an exam, which he did with flying colours. The interview board however, was slightly trickier, and he had to carefully contrive a future for himself as a career diplomat serving the Empire to his dying breath and deflect any barbed comments about his background with sporting anecdotes and quotes from his Latin primer.

It was enough to secure him a billet in a lower grade and the doors of establishment paradise opened up to him again. His ‘uncle’ took Johnny to a sporting club to celebrate, where he taught him to gamble and where the madam introduced him to some classical phraseology he hadn't learnt at school and was now competently performing with Libby.

His dreams of a glittering diplomatic career were soon rudely awoken. The main purpose of his grade of chancery was to carry out mundane tasks within a highly disciplined and authoritarian hierarchy. Even compared to the repressive regime of his school, which was meant to prepare him for a life of clerical work, it was soul destroying. To top it all, his uncle had insisted that Johnny join the army as a special reserve officer before he'd help him with the nomination system, so he had six months of button polishing and close order drill.

Johnny spent his days meticulously copying out Sir George’s dispatches and the minutes of his meetings. Sometimes he'd daydream about studying at the Sorbonne, but then all of his money would go as he played at the hedonistic lifestyle of a 'demi-monde' in the city of light.

On his first day in Paris, the 28th June 1913, Johnny saw Mata Hari perform as a Spanish dancer at the Folies Bergere and that set the tone for his time in the city. Following the tedium of work, he'd have the time of his life, finding solace with the five o'clock ladies of Paris's mid range maisons de rendezvous. Between five and seven seemed to be the accepted time for patrons to call, on their way home from the office. Afterwards, Johnny dined at Maxim's, before doing the rounds of the fashionable haunts of Montmartre, carousing until it was time to go to work again. It didn't take long for his funds to run out, and he was forced to find some other form of distraction.

Libby stirred in his arms, tightening her grip as his story reached its peak. What they had wasn't so much love, as an escape strategy.

'Libby, are you sure this is a good idea?'

'What? How can it not be a good idea?' she hissed, irritated by the interruption.

Libby had been an untamed and impulsive debutante, so the Embassy tittle-tattle went, married off to a promising diplomat in the hope that the ministrations of an older man would calm her. She had reluctantly agreed to the match; as a married woman she'd be away from the cloying influence of her family, who insisted she was constantly chaperoned. Two years on and it was obvious to Johnny that Libby was bored to death. Her only distractions were the spa treatments her husband believed conducive to her 'nervous condition' and impetuous young men willing to venture with her into the wild.

'Coming with me… I mean, how did you even find me?' Johnny asked.

'I'll always find you.'

It had been a very pleasant surprise to discover her in his sleeping compartment. He wasn't sure if he was more touched that she'd followed him, or shocked that she was prepared to rough it in second class.

'I felt bad about my little fib,' she added.

'So you didn't get the notes extended?' he asked, not that that mattered to him anymore. Johnny's only consolation from this whole fiasco was that Sir George hadn't asked him to pay the money back.

'Well, I didn't get them all extended. I didn't want you to worry.'

Johnny felt an unaccustomed sense of guilt that he'd saved his skin by shopping her. 'Sorry I dropped you in it, Libby. I didn't know how else to save myself.'

Libby giggled dismissively and kissed him. He could taste violets on her lips. 'George was rather annoyed, but you'll pay the money back, won't you. I mean, if you want to return to the Embassy that is.'

Chapter 7

Johnny found it hard to enjoy Vienna's intense attack on his senses after Libby's ultimatum. He'd wasted most of the day searching through the city’s cafe society, trying to ignore the overwhelming aroma of coffee, the clamour of argument and the dazzling array of cakes. The only thing more distracting was the famous carefree, muddled atmosphere of the place.

“Pinkie”, the man Sir George had said