Code 17.4: Code 17, #4

By Francis Booth

Praise for Code 17

 

'A wild and witty thriller'

Set in London in the swinging sixties with a brief whizz over to New York and back, this is a thrilling, action-packed page-turner. Lady Laura (not her long name) is a glamorous international art dealer who can handle a gun, a sword and, in fact, any kind of weapon. She cons and is conned, shoots and is shot at as she fearlessly seeks the one who is targeting her. Ruthlessly, she pursues her enemy, wiping out anyone who gets in her way with a nod to Twiggy, Warhol and all the other icons of the time who hover in the background of her life among the rich and famous. There are many twists and turns as the reader gasps breathless unable to put the book down. At times you laugh out loud shouting yes, yes, yes as, once more Lady Laura extricates herself from a seemingly impossible situation. She's unputdownable - like the book.

 

'Compelling, assured and darkly satisfying'

Now here's a novel that churns with contradictions. Compelling, assured and darkly satisfying, Code 17 thrills and chills. Its deeply dislikeable characters have exquisitely addictive redeeming factors that keep us coming back for more. The plot shocks and amazes on every page. Its unexpected format and terrifying subject matter force the reader to ask questions of himself: wouldn't we behave similarly, in such situations, if only we could get away with it? Code 17 is set primarily in Swinging-Sixties London, plunders the intriguing worlds of fine art and forgery, aristocracy and auction houses, and drops names. Twiggy, John and Yoko, Warhol and the Velvet Underground are all here. The sex is zipless, the crime ruthless, and it's every man, woman and murderer for himself. Kill or be killed. Read this novel, but notez bien: it will turn your stomach even as it curdles your heart. It's the size of it.

 

'Smashing!!!'

I'm a child of the 60s and fondly remember all the great TV series of the time: The Man from Uncle, The Girl from Uncle (perhaps a little more fondly. . . swoon), Department S, The Persuaders and of course The Avengers. Beautiful girls running around in catsuits shooting people and karate chopping people is all okay by me. This book has it all . . . Go-Go boots, Twiggy, Venus in Furs, Jensen FFs . . . smashing!!!

• Language: English
• Publisher: francisbooth
• Release date: Jul 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224142781

Francis Booth

As well as Comrades in Art: Revolutionary Art in America 1926-1938 Francis Booth is the author of several books on twentieth century culture: Amongst Those Left: The British Experimental Novel 1940-1960 (published by Dalkey Archive) No Direction Home: The Uncanny In Literature Text Acts: Twentieth Century Literary Eroticism Everybody I Can Think of Ever: Meetings That Made the Avant Garde A Girl Named Vera Can Never Tell A Lie: The Fiction of Vera Caspary Girls in Bloom: Coming of Age in the Mid-20th Century Woman's Novel Francis is also the author of two novel series: The Code 17 series, set in the Swinging London of the 1960s and featuring aristocratic spy Lady Laura Summers Young adult fantasy series The Watchers

Book preview

Praise for Code 17

‘A wild and witty thriller’

Set in London in the swinging sixties with a brief whizz over to New York and back, this is a thrilling, action-packed page-turner. Lady Laura (not her long name) is a glamorous international art dealer who can handle a gun, a sword and, in fact, any kind of weapon. She cons and is conned, shoots and is shot at as she fearlessly seeks the one who is targeting her. Ruthlessly, she pursues her enemy, wiping out anyone who gets in her way with a nod to Twiggy, Warhol and all the other icons of the time who hover in the background of her life among the rich and famous. There are many twists and turns as the reader gasps breathless unable to put the book down. At times you laugh out loud shouting yes, yes, yes as, once more Lady Laura extricates herself from a seemingly impossible situation. She’s unputdownable - like the book.

––––––––

‘Compelling, assured and darkly satisfying’

Now here’s a novel that churns with contradictions. Compelling, assured and darkly satisfying, Code 17 thrills and chills. Its deeply dislikeable characters have exquisitely addictive redeeming factors that keep us coming back for more. The plot shocks and amazes on every page. Its unexpected format and terrifying subject matter force the reader to ask questions of himself: wouldn’t we behave similarly, in such situations, if only we could get away with it? Code 17 is set primarily in Swinging-Sixties London, plunders the intriguing worlds of fine art and forgery, aristocracy and auction houses, and drops names. Twiggy, John and Yoko, Warhol and the Velvet Underground are all here. The sex is zipless, the crime ruthless, and it’s every man, woman and murderer for himself. Kill or be killed. Read this novel, but notez bien: it will turn your stomach even as it curdles your heart. It’s the size of it.

––––––––

‘Smashing!!!’

I’m a child of the 60s and fondly remember all the great TV series of the time: The Man from Uncle, The Girl from Uncle (perhaps a little more fondly. . . swoon), Department S, The Persuaders and of course The Avengers. Beautiful girls running around in catsuits shooting people and karate chopping people is all okay by me. This book has it all . . . Go-Go boots, Twiggy, Venus in Furs, Jensen FFs . . . smashing!!!

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‘Had me gripped’

This book had me gripped. The characters transported me back to the swinging sixties. It had me reading ‘just one more chapter’ before I could put it down and I didn't want it to end! Can't wait for the sequel.

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‘Vitesse .... Inspired choice .... Soundtrack please!’

Fast moving 60s thrill ... our heroine drives a Triumph Vitesse (oh so cool, well-chosen Mr Booth) ... I believe there's a soundtrack that goes with this. Great fun, brilliant touch points throughout, one almost wants to be transported back for a few days.

Author’s Note

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Code 17 was originally a musical idea. Ten years ago I made an album that paid homage to the theme music of 1960s British TV spy series like The Man from UNCLE, The Baron and Department S, and to films like Modesty Blaise and The Ipcress File. The music on the album was from an imaginary TV series called Code 17, featuring the glamorous art dealer/spy Lady Laura Summers. She was imagined as a cross between Sharron Macready of The Champions, Emma Peel of The Avengers and Lady Penelope Creighton-Ward of Thunderbirds, though none of these women was the lead character.

Ten years later I thought I could make a novel out of Code 17 and Lady Laura, set in the Swinging London of 1967. I kept to the format of a twelve-episode TV series and tried to imagine each chapter as a fast-moving thirty minute episode, split into short scenes. For Series Two, Three and Four of Code 17 the episodes have been expanded to an hour but I hope they are just as fast-paced and thrilling.

The music is at mixcloud.com/planckmusic/code-17

Francis Booth

previously – December 1968

one

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The back door bell rings.

I go out of the office and open it.

It’s my mother.

She’s holding a gun, it’s pointed at my forehead.

‘Bye, Laura.’

BAANNGG!!

BAANNGG!! BAANNGG!!

two

BAANNGG!!

The first bang was my mother Claudia’s gun – aimed directly at my head. Her first mistake; also her last mistake as it turns out. A trained assassin will get you in the chest first, then, without moving the gun, get you in the head on the way down. If you aim at the head, the target only has to drop a couple of inches and you will miss completely – if, say, your target is a champion swordswoman with super-fast reactions.

BAANNGG!! BAANNGG!!

In the dark I don’t recognise the shooter who has just taken down my mother, but whoever it is did it the chest first, head second way; the professional way.

‘Looks like it’s save-a-shikse week again. Second time I’ve saved your life, lady.’

A Brooklyn-Jewish drawl. Esther. She saved me from my mother’s neo-Nazi ‘friends’ in New York a while ago.

‘I thought you were in Israel, Esther.’

I still can’t see her. She’s hanging back, staying in the dark, waiting to see if there’s another shooter. Having hit the ground myself and rolled out of the light coming from the back door, I’m also laying low.

‘I was. But then God spoke to me. Go, Esther, he said. The rich blond, Aryan chick needs your help again. Go, Esther, be the saviour of the Gentiles, he said.’

‘It’s nice to know that the Jewish God is still looking after rich Aryan chicks.’

‘So, what have you been up to while I’ve been away, Laura?’

‘Not much, Esther. Everything has been pretty quiet. I appeared in Playboy though.’

‘Sure you did.’

‘You want a drink, Esther?’

‘Thought you’d never ask, you ungrateful bitch.’

three

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This is what counts as affectionate banter for Esther. Her harder than hard-boiled facade never cracks, though it is still a facade. The first time I met her she was operating as a New York private eye – a kind of young, Brooklyn Jewish Miss Marple meets a cynical, wisecracking Sam Spade, as written by a hungover and dyspeptic Raymond Chandler. Esther is overweight, dumpy and frumpy with long, thick, unkempt black hair and heavy, tortoiseshell-rimmed glasses. She wears long, shapeless skirts in thick brown wool that her mother probably made for her years ago, teamed with saggy, baggy jumpers no doubt knitted by her Russian grandmother back in Odessa during the war. On her feet, Esther wears clumpy lace-up brogues over thick black woolly tights. No one ever worked harder than Esther at hiding her light under a bushel.

Esther’s cynicism is bottomless, her weltschmertz ineffable. She’s a couple of years younger than me but is also a hundred years and a couple of millennia older. She seems to feel the whole weight of the of the whole history of the whole Jewish race pressing down on her shoulders, which is probably why she stoops and stumbles along like an old lady. If she would let me take her on as a project I could transform her totally – clothes, hair, make-up, posture. She could be quite something. Men would be attracted by her raven hair, flashing dark eyes and striking Semitic features, though they would still be scared off by her sharper than a knife intelligence and total fearlessness. She would not be an easy first date. You can imagine the conversation:

‘So, Esther, tell me what you do.’

‘I study art at the New School for Social Research in New York. I also run an agency finding missing people.’

‘That sounds interesting.’

‘And in my spare time I assassinate fascists.’

‘Aah . . .’

The first time Esther saved my life, I had asked her to track down my mother and then keep an eye on me. She did; she and her neo-Nazi-hunting Jewish friends intervened after my mother had given me to two fascists who were about to kill me. After a brief spell in London, Esther was going off to spend six months on a kibbutz in Israel – I suppose that was about six months ago. Now she’s back. And apparently following my mother again. My mother is, or rather was, a leading member of the American neo-fascist network who has – had – tried several times to kill me or have me killed.

‘Esther, were you following my mother?’

‘My friends have been watching her since I saved your skinny, goyische ass from her last time.’

‘MI6 were following her too.’

‘And picked her up at your rich bitch house in Holland Park.’

‘Esther, you have called me a bitch twice in the last five minutes. Enough.’

‘There’s gratitude for you. Save a bitch’s life and all she can do is kvetch.’

Esther is, by her standards, joking. This is all part of the friendly banter. She’s actually very fond of me. I think.

‘You didn’t save my life this time, Esther. You were too late. Too slow. I’d already evaded the bullet.’

‘Day late, dollar short. Story of my life.’

‘Esther, seriously, why were you here tonight?’

‘We’ve been watching Claudia. And watching MI6 watching Claudia.’

‘She was in MI6 custody, Esther.’

‘Not for long. Her people shot the head of MI6 and got her out. They have a very broad reach.’

Now, you and I know that this is not true. I was the one who shot the head of MI6 – because he was trying to kill my baby half-brother Cosmo. Sir Charles knew that he and Cosmo were the last two members of Code 17, a tontine formed in 1694. In a tontine the last surviving member takes all the money that has built up in the fund; in this case, membership was passed down through many generations. Sir Charles was the penultimate member, Cosmo the last. Many people, including Sir Charles, died assuming that this legendary fund would have been swollen to gigantic proportions by centuries of compound interest, assuming that the final inheritor of Code 17 would be fabulously, unimaginably wealthy.

They were all wrong.

The original investment – £100 each, invested in 1694, the year of the founding of the Bank of England, by seventeen British and Dutch merchants – never grew. The banking family administering Code 17 took all the interest to pay their expenses. So, as Cosmo’s guardian I had a cheque for £1,700 – about double a working man’s annual wages but hardly the stuff of dreams, hardly worth all the deaths and dramas. I don’t feel the need to tell Esther the truth about Charles’ death. Not just now anyway. I pour Esther another glass of wine.

‘You have friends in MI6, Esther?’

‘Enemies too.’

‘You keep your friends close and your enemies closer?’

‘We keep our friends close and our enemies at the end of a gun.’

‘So it seems, Esther. Do you have a plan as to what to do with my late mother’s body?’

‘It will have gone by now. Won’t be seen again. Nothing for you to worry your pretty blond head about.’

‘Esther, you just killed my mother. A little more empathy would not go amiss.’

Esther nearly misses a beat. I nearly out-deadpanned her. But not quite.

‘My sincere condolences on your loss, your Ladyship.’

‘Esther, what are you doing for Christmas?’

‘Christmas! Wash your mouth out.’

‘Well, Chanukah, then.’

‘Staying in London. I have friends in Muswell Hill.’

‘Of course you have, Esther.’

‘Why do you ask?’

Esther is as wary as always.

‘How would you like to come to Jamaica with me and a few friends?’

‘Oh, sure.’

‘Seriously.’

‘Well, the Caribbean is obviously famous for its Jewish culture.’

‘Esther, you could take a couple of weeks off from being Jewish.’

‘May God strike you down.’

‘And then what are you doing in the New Year?’

‘Back to my lucrative PI business in New York I suppose.’

‘Lucrative?’

‘Pays the bills. Well, it would pay the bills if I lived in Cleveland. New York is a bit pricier.’

‘Esther, would you like to work here – at Summers Fine Art?’

Esther’s suspicion is never far away.

‘Why?’

‘Why not, Esther?’

Esther is flummoxed – at last.

‘Well . . .’

‘I had an assistant ready-groomed. But she was seduced by a man and whisked off to the Caribbean.’

‘Which you assume I won’t be.’

‘Which I assume you won’t be, Esther.’

‘And you appreciate my deep knowledge and understanding of the art world?’

‘No, Esther, I appreciate that you have rich Jewish friends who will buy lots of paintings for huge amounts of money.’

Esther is briefly flummoxed into silence again.

‘Okay, look, Esther, I’m desperate. There’s no one else I can ask. You’d be better than nothing.’

‘Well, since you put it like that . . .’

episode one – January 1969

one

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When we got back to Heathrow from Christmas and the New Year at Mickey and Lucille’s villa in Jamaica, I gave Neville a lift back to Tottenham in the Fiat before driving back to Chelsea. Neville is the security guard at my North London storage unit and that his daughter Lucille was briefly my assistant. We had both been toying with the idea of staying longer in Jamaica – perhaps much longer, possibly even permanently. But in Neville’s case he said he felt like a gooseberry, being around his seventeen-year-old daughter and her new boyfriend Mickey, my once and – who knows? – future partner in crime.

Mickey was, and may again be, one of London’s leading con artists. I’m pretty sure he’s not conning Lucille though. He’s obviously head over heels about her – I’ve seen Mickey working a con and this isn’t one. I’m also sure Neville is embarrassed by all this romantic passion – even I had to blush every time Mickey and Lucille said a shy good night and headed off to the master bedroom in Mickey’s splendid rented villa overlooking the Caribbean in Ocho Rios.

And of course, during the day Lucille was mostly dressed in just a bikini – she’s quite outstandingly beautiful, a perfect blend of her Trinidadian father Neville and white English mother Lucille. The bikinis showed off a figure which would disturb any man, and many women too. It must be hard for any father to see his daughter grow into a woman and give herself to another man; Lucille lost her mother when she was young and Neville was always highly protective of her.

Lucille is clearly in her element in the Caribbean, in a way she never was in England, where she was often racially abused and never really fit in. She gets on perfectly with the mother/daughter, cook/maid team who came with the house – she doesn’t treat them like the servants and they don’t treat her like the mistress. The maid is a bit younger than Lucille; they already behave like little sister and big sister, leaning in to each other, giggling at private jokes. Lucille is even slipping into the Jamaican patois – I had trouble understanding people sometimes, but Lucille is like the return of the native.

So, all in all an idyllic interlude for both of them – or is it? Can Mickey resist the thrill of the con? In his mid-twenties, is he really ready to retire from all the excitement, the danger, the challenge, even if he doesn’t need the money? Can he give everything up for this life of indolent indulgence? Leopards don’t change their spots. Mickey is a Londoner and a conman – always was, always will be. I don’t know what the future holds for Mickey and Lucille, but I do know that the villa is rented for six months, which is about how long I give it before Mickey gets bored of all these perfect days in paradise. Obviously, I wouldn’t dream of saying that to either of the happy couple.

As for myself, I was thinking that Jamaica might provide me with an escape from all the death and disaster of my recent past. And it’s true, I did have a lovely time. But after ten days of tropical sun, drinks by the pool, drives around the island and eating the freshest seafood in local restaurants, cooked and served by the friendliest and most cheerful people in the world, I was climbing the walls – I couldn’t wait to come home to cold, grey, gloomy England with its cold, grey, gloomy inhabitants. It was a super holiday, but it always felt like a holiday, not real life; an escape, a diversion.

two

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Back in London, I also am what I am, or what I have become – the Wrath of God avenger, the hunter and killer who lurks behind my public persona of society art dealer Lady Laurencia Artemisia Claudia Summers – though you can call me Laura. So, what is my future? All the men who shot at my father on the grouse moor just over a year ago are either dead or in prison – mostly by my doing. Code 17, the cause of so much of the recent death and destruction around me, has been wound up after two hundred and seventy five years – again, by my doing. I assassinated the penultimate member of Code 17 while he was trying to assassinate my baby half-brother Cosmo; Cosmo thereby became the last member himself. And as Cosmo’s trustee I am the inheritor of the legendary Code 17 treasure – which turned out to be the staggering sum of £1,700; staggering because everyone, including me, assumed Code 17’s coffers contained untold millions.

My father and mother are both dead, and good riddance to the pair of them. Daddy was a ruthless conman who lied to everyone, and most egregiously to me. Mummy was – not to mince words – a whore, who abandoned me at birth – as she did her other daughter, of whose existence I was unaware until last year, and who died the day I first met her. My mother was a fascist who tried multiple times to have me killed and in the end tried to kill me herself – she might have succeeded if Esther hadn’t appeared.

My feud with another leading fascist – Edda Göring, daughter of Hitler’s right-hand man Hermann Göring – may have ended with my mother’s death. I shouldn’t think Edda will have any fight left in her after all the carnage I have caused and after I voluntarily returned to her the painting which was the cause of so much of that carnage.

So, as I drive from Neville’s house in Tottenham