Read The Unquiet Heart for Free Online Page B

you. I liked Mary.”
    “She’s a tough little cookie, but honest. As honest as a madam can be, I suppose.”
    “She seems to like you.”
    “I told you, we helped each other.”
    “But I’m not sure if I got anything that will make my readers sit up and buy more papers.” She took out her notebook – a black leather-bound pad that fitted into her
raincoat pocket. She flicked through it, frowning. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be ungrateful. It’s just I need more…”
    “… excitement? Look, if you’re up to it, we could grab a bite and then try one of the clubs or illegal bars. I think I can get us in.”
    She shook her head, and I felt curiously let down at the prospect of saying goodnight.
    “I can make something of it.” She raised her hand and drew a headline in the air. “ Illicit gambling den! All-night bars of Soho! But it’s been done. And
everybody knows it goes on. I need action. Bring me the head of a gangster,” she challenged. “ Crime boss captured in shoot-out . That’s what makes the news.”
    “If only we had Prohibition.” I sat back and examined her, trying to see the situation dispassionately, as if what I was about to suggest was simply business. I digested her quirky
features – nose too long, eyes too big and mouth too full. Some women – not always the prettiest – set your blood racing. You want to do foolish things in front of them to keep
their interest: cartwheels, picking fights with strangers, robbing a jewellery store. Eve had that quality. I wanted to impress her, to keep her near me.
    Yet I knew nothing about this woman. I looked down at my beer and tried to picture her climbing a wall, running for cover, perhaps swimming for her life. I thought of the agents I’d worked
with – women so brave and selfless it made you feel namby-pamby. Was she up to their mark? No one ever knows until they’re tested. And by then it’s too late.
    But Eve Copeland seemed to have fire in her belly. Look what she had achieved. And the way she’d sought me out. It said a lot about her determination. I lifted my gaze again into her
questioning eyes. Unless I had failed to get the measure of her, I’d seen this sort of steel in only a few people in my life.
    “Are you scared of water?” I asked.
    “I’m a fish. You should see me at the Lido.”
    “I’d like to.’ I smiled at the thought. “OK in boats?”
    “Big ones or little ones?”
    “Little to start with. Can you take a risk?”
    “Life’s a risk. What is it?!”
    “What I’m about to propose is dangerous. You could get hurt… badly. Depends what we run into. Who we run into.”
    “Are you going to tell me before I start screaming?”
    “There’s going to be a raid. On a warehouse.”
    She was sitting forward now, her dark eyes gleaming. “That’s more like it.” She looked round the empty bar and lowered her voice theatrically. “Tell me more.”
    “Bales of silk. Mary described the end result. We’ll have a ringside seat at the start. The warehouse owner’s being robbed blind. Tomorrow there’s a fresh shipment in
from Holland on the goods ship Clever Girl . I’m going to try to stop them.”
    “Count me in!”
    “There’s one thing. Mary mentioned a name. It shook you. Pauli Gambatti. I think he’s behind this. If he is, he won’t be happy. In fact he’ll go berserk. And
he’ll know you were on the inside if you write the story. Still want in?”
    She handled it well, barely blinked. But I could see her pupils dilate. She forced a smile.
    “I’m in! Look, I’m starving. One more of these and I’ll fall over. How about an early dinner? My treat. It’s on the paper. You can tell me all about it.”
    She knew an Italian restaurant just off High Holborn. It was one more Italian than I’d ever been in, if you don’t count Glasgow chippies. She told me it had been shut for much of the
war after Churchill had ordered the internment of “enemy aliens”. The aliens seemed pleased to see