The Paris Agent(95)

Two other female prisoners joined us then, their hair also wet and freshly combed. Hertha and another guard led us through the front door where a transport was waiting in the soft predawn light.

I caught Hertha’s eye just as she pulled the zipper down to close the canvas at the back of the truck. The other guard was back further, out of sight, so I mouthed thank you. As Hertha looked away, I saw the unmistakable sheen of tears in her eyes.

Eloise began chatting with the other women in the back of the truck right away. Wendy Jones and Mary Williams were also SOE agents. They had trained together but had been arrested separately and only reunited when they arrived at Karlsruhe, just like me and Eloise. Wendy’s reception party was ambushed by the Germans so she’d been taken straight in the minute she landed. Mary was a wireless operator, and she was arrested a few weeks after arrival when a D/F van tracked her down. Both had been imprisoned for just a few weeks.

“We’re going to a work farm,” Eloise told them.

“Oh, good,” Wendy said, exhaling with relief. “It was all a bit strange there, wasn’t it? I had the sense the jail didn’t know what to do with us. Maybe it will be better at this new place.”

As we boarded the train for Strasbourg that day, I could not stop thinking about the distress in Hertha’s face as that truck pulled away, but I let Mary and Wendy and Eloise enjoy their optimism. There would be no harm in a moment of peace and positivity, even if it turned out to be unmerited.

C H A P T E R 27

CHARLOTTE

Liverpool

July, 1970

I’ve been sitting on the park bench under the tree outside of Professor Read’s office for three hours when he finally walks along the path past me. When I call his name, he startles, as if he hadn’t noticed me there.

“Oh, hello there,” he says, brows knitting. It’s clear from the puzzled look on his face that he recognizes me but can’t quite place me, so I leap to my feet and rush to fall into step beside him as he walks toward his building.

“Charlotte Ainsworth,” I remind him. “Noah Ainsworth’s daughter?”

“Of course,” he says, momentarily relieved before wariness crosses his features. “Did I have a meeting booked with you and your father today?”

“No, sir,” I say politely.

“Ah, well, Mrs. White is on vacation at the moment but she’s back next Monday.” That explains why no one answered the phone during my dozens of attempts to get through yesterday. He looks at me hopefully. “Perhaps you could call then and make an appointment…？”

“This won’t take long, Professor,” I say firmly. It’s a hopeful lie—the truth is I have no idea how long it’ll take. Read sighs and rests his briefcase on the ground as he pulls a large ring of keys from his pocket and unlocks the door to his building, then motions for me to step inside first. We walk in silence up the stairs toward his offices, and I hold his briefcase while he unlocks the next door. The smell of Mrs. White’s cigarettes lingers heavily.

“Come right through,” he sighs again, and I follow him down the long corridor to the next locked door. Inside his office, I take the seat opposite his desk and wait while he stows his briefcase beneath the desk. He looks at me expectantly.

“I’m not sure if you’re familiar with the SOE agent Jocelyn Miller,” I say, and he frowns, but not before a split-second expression of surprise crosses his face.

“It should be abundantly clear to you by now that I’m constrained by the law when it comes to discussing the details in classified records,” he says, pursing his lips.

“I know,” I say hastily. “It’s just that… I came across her mother, and—”

“Her mother?”

“That’s right, and—”

“How on earth did you come across Josie Miller’s mother?” he demands, folding his arms over his chest.

“My father…” I can’t tell him about Theo’s role in all of this. I clear my throat and say, “Dad and Josie were posted together on a mission in France and he knew her real name. I…ah…came across her birth certificate, and it had her mother’s name on it.”

“Miss Ainsworth, I can’t tell if you’re being disingenuous or if you really do fail to appreciate how unlikely this is.”

“Unlikely?”

“There was a concerted effort to locate Josie Miller’s mother in the late ’40s,” he says stiffly. “I believe another attempt was made in the ’50s. No one has ever been able to track her down.”

“Her name is Dr. Drusilla Sallow,” I say. “She lives here in Manchester.”

“Here in Manchester!” he repeats incredulously. He reaches for a notepad and pen, scribbles something down, then looks up at me. “Sallow, you say? Not Miller?”

“Her maiden name,” I croak uncertainly. “He—I mean, I couldn’t find Drusilla Miller and Dad told me Jocelyn’s parents had a particularly acrimonious divorce, so…er…so I wondered if Drusilla would have gone back to her maiden name. It was right there on her birth certificate.”

“You found her, did you?” Read’s gaze is piercing. “Alone?”

“Theo helped,” I mutter. I don’t want to get him in any more trouble, but the professor has clearly seen right through me anyway. I try to wrestle the conversation back on track. “None of that matters anyway, Professor Read. I’m only here because Dr. Sallow says that her daughter was executed in Paris in 1944 after making a mistake of some kind in the field. It’s just my dad thinks so highly of her, you know? And maybe Josie did make an innocent mistake—but her poor mother to this day thinks she was incompetent or something and… I just wondered…if there’s been a mix-up, perhaps you could help Dr. Sallow find out the truth.” I trail off helplessly. Professor Read has leaned back in his chair now and is staring at me in slack-jawed disbelief. After a moment, he reaches for the phone and dials a number from heart.