The Paris Agent(32)
Theo smiles.
“I’m fine. The conversation I just had with Harry, as awful as it was, was several years overdue.”
My father is silent as we drive home. I try to make small talk but he answers me in grunts and shrugs.
“That’s strange about the letters never arriving…” I offer.
“It is,” Dad says grimly.
“Do you know what might have happened there?” He shrugs noncommittally. “No theories at all?”
“I don’t want to speak about this right now, Charlotte,” he says. Dad isn’t the kind to snap—but his tone is sharper than I’m used to, and I recoil in surprise. He looks at me, frustrated, then his expression suddenly softens. “I just need to think, okay? We can talk about it later.”
“Okay, Dad,” I say.
He retires to his room right after dinner, taking Wrigley with him. There is no light coming from under the door when the phone rings just after eight. It’s my brother Archie, just as I suspected it would be. He’s working for the World Bank in London, having been headhunted to some brilliant economics gig right after graduation. He often calls from the office when he’s working late. Miser that he is, Archie doesn’t like to pay for expensive long-distance calls on his own pence.
“How’s Dad doing?” Archie asks me.
“Sometimes lately he’s seemed a bit better but…” I break off, then ask, “Arch, did you know Dad was in the SOE during the war?”
“Huh? No, he was a mechanic.”
“He was a flight engineer for the RAF and eventually joined the SOE.”
Archie bursts out laughing.
“Lottie,” he says, chuckling. “I don’t know where you’re getting this from, but there’s no way that’s true.”
“It is, Arch,” I protest. “Dad told me himself.”
“You’re trying to tell me Dad was a spy. Our dad.”
“I know it seems unlikely. But yes, he says he went on secret missions to France.”
“Bloody hell,” my brother says. “Then why is this the first we’re hearing of it?”
“He said Mum didn’t like him to look back on those days.”
“It’ll be an ex-girlfriend,” Archie says immediately.
“Archie.”
“Seriously, Lottie. Mum was always so jealous. Was this before they were married?”
“Yes but I think they were already dating then.”
We both ponder this in silence for a moment, then Archie says, “He cheated on her.”
“He wouldn’t!”
“Maybe he had an affair while he was off in France doing whatever secret things spies did in those days. No wonder Mum spent the rest of their marriage blowing her top if Dad even glanced at another woman.”
“Don’t say that,” I hiss. “Dad is loyal to a fault. I bet Mum didn’t want him thinking about the war because it was hard on the both of them. Dad said he was stuck in France for a year and she had no idea what had become of him for the whole time. That can’t have been easy.”
“Maybe,” Archie says, but he sounds unconvinced. We were born only eleven months apart, which means we’ve been squabbling and fighting for pretty much our entire lives, so I recognize that burning emotion in my chest as defensiveness. If I don’t change the subject now, we’ll end up shouting at one another.
“How’s Carys and Poppy, anyway?” I abruptly change the subject. Mum was livid when Archie came home during his first year at university with a pregnant girlfriend in tow. He was the golden child of the family until that day, the academic whiz who had scholarship offers to Cambridge and Imperial College. For a while, we all thought he’d have to drop out of his economics degree to support his surprise family, but Archie found a way to have his cake and eat it too. For two years, he worked nights to put a roof over their heads while he finished his degree during the day, and it’s all paid off for him with this fancy new World Bank job.
“The terrible twos are no joke, Lottie,” Archie says, but then he spends a few minutes regaling me with stories of his daughter’s stubbornness and wit, and I feel myself relaxing again, the moment of tension gradually fading away. “I better go,” he says, after a while. “I have to get home before Carys goes to bed or there’ll be hell to pay. Tell Dad I said hi. I’ll try to catch him next weekend.”
“Okay, Archie. I love you.”
We were not a family who said those words all that often, but since Mum died, I throw it in at the end of just about every conversation. Archie barely misses a beat before he replies, “You too, Lottie.”
I hang up the phone, only for it to ring again before my hand is even off the receiver,
“Hello?” I say, startled.
“Charlotte.” Theo’s bright tone immediately tells me that he has some good news. “I don’t suppose you and your father feel like taking a drive tomorrow morning? Remy has agreed to a meeting.”
C H A P T E R 9
JOSIE
Montbeliard, France
December, 1943
Even two weeks after the bombing, we were no closer to understanding how the village had been bombed instead of the factory. Noah was adamant he had the right coordinates, but it was becoming clearer that London wasn’t convinced. Questions just kept coming with each wireless transmission and he was increasingly frustrated.