Prologue
1
There was a time before the Great War claimed the lives of millions when Frenchie wanted to be a carpenter like Jesus. There was a time when he was proud to serve his country. Then its politicians broke their pledge to create a land fit for heroes, and Frenchie began to believe those who had done most to rouse the people to service and sacrifice had only been serv- ing themselves. So now Frenchie was simply happy to have a job when so many were without one. Sometimes it was work for Special Branch, sometimes for Mr Maxwell Knight, and tonight it was a shitty little outing to Brecon for both. Mr Knight tried to characterise it as work of ‘national importance’. He must have thought those fine words would appeal to an old soldier and spy who had been decorated in the trenches for his ‘devotion to duty’. Not Frenchie; he kept his Military Medal in a kitchen drawer with the spoons, a scratched and tarnished reminder of wasted years, before the slaughter at the Front gave way to the scrape-a-living peace. Frenchie was a bread-and-butter spy now, no more honourable than the crooks, pimps and hucksters Mr Knight and his fascist pals paid for half-baked gossip and rumour. Principles were for the well-to-do, and duty for those foolish enough to believe they owed their country some – not for old soldiers, not for Frenchie.