From Fitzroy's Private Diary (Extract 142)
My attention was drawn to a corpse discovered in a bombed-out building last night. I won’t go into detail, except to say that identifying the body had to be done circumstantially. There are no useful features left intact on the poor man although, rather inexplicably, his wristwatch, a rather fine Patek Philippe, and his spectacles in his inner pocket, remained intact.
At the beginning of this debacle, I would’ve been wary of such useful objects of identification, but having been blown up twice - once mildly, and once with the loss of my companion - I’ve come to understand that bomb blasts in civilian areas are complex. Clearly, there’s physics behind it all, and rational explanations, but to the untrained eye, it often looks illogical and bizarre.
If you walk among bomb sites, you’ll see homes cut in half by a blast. One half would be a blackened mess of rubble covering shattered possessions, and worst of all, the remains of the people who lived there. Bizarrely, the other half would be intact. I’m not simply talking about pictures still hanging upon walls. I’ve witnessed a scene, three floors up, where half a dining room remained. The chairs, on one side of the table, had been blown away, but an intact vase of flowers, and a partially eaten meal, still sat on the table, as if waiting for the occupants to return.
If the watch and glasses indicate this is indeed the man that I think he might have been, then he was one of my foremost counter-intelligence officers. His loss to my section is extreme.
The officer in question has only been unaccountable for a single day so far, and with the chaos that reigns in the city, this is not unheard of. Yet, I must determine if he died in last night’s blitz, or worse yet, was murdered during the blackout and left for dead.
Although it’s kept out of the news, for fear of the effect it would have on morale, robberies, assaults, and murders have become increasingly common. The apprehension that any moment may be our last appears to have tipped those living on the criminal fringes of society over the edge, resulting in more opportunism and desperate, self-serving behaviour.
Almost anything can be covered up in the chaotic aftermath of a bombing raid. My own people have become adept in hiding things that need to be hidden in this way. I’m not unaware of the irony of what may have happened to my agent.
Unfortunately, he had a wife, and I will have to decide when, or even if, I tell her that he’s missing. I certainly have no intention of announcing his demise anything time soon. No, I must gather my people and task others with continuing his mission. I cannot take the chance of waiting for him to surface; the matter is time critical. Though, in light of what has happened - or may have happened - I’ll advise my agents to use more than the usual level of caution, and not to shy away from lethal response.
War on the battlefield is a dirty enough game, but war on civilians is, to my mind, unconscionable. Using a war as cover for treasonous acts against Crown and Country is punishable with execution, and so I instruct my agents, what is sauce for the goose, is also sauce for the gander.
Still, all these thoughts of mortality and the future have reminded me, I simply must find the time to take Alice out to dinner. I’ve been looking forward to a good meal at the Ritz, followed by a dance. I am, after all, an exceptionally good dancer, and in these dark times, it’s good to engage in things that remind us we are alive.