“Good point. We’ll need to change your cover story,” he said, nodding. “Look, given I’m now operating under my own name, your new cover story will be that you’re my commercial secretary, assisting me to rebuild my family business. Use one of your spare identity cards and adopt a new name.”
“Is that your cover story too? That you’re rebuilding your business?”
“Yes. Our furniture was once the finest in Paris, you see—that’s why I’m so recognizable. We employed hundreds of people and had several factories and outlets across the city. It broke my heart to shut down operations but once the occupation began, the city was in such flux it became impossible to procure the raw materials we needed to operate.”
“Will people really believe the business could function again? Wouldn’t you have the same problems now?”
“I don’t actually intend to rebuild it, of course,” he said. “But yes, I believe it’s plausible that I might be able to access the necessary materials now that the occupation has been in force for several years. People still need furniture, and supply chains exist if you know where to look.”
“It must have been very difficult to walk away from your family legacy, sir,” I remarked. Turner’s expression dimmed.
“You have no idea. I used the last of my savings to escape to Sweden and from there, to London. As chance would have it, I went to boarding school with Freddie Booth so once he heard I was back in the UK, he begged me to help set up the SOE. They had no one in the agency with recent experience in France so I was happy to be of service.”
As instructed, I walked past Turner’s building morning, noon and just before curfew, but although I’d anticipated meeting directly with Turner only a few times a week, from the outset that vase was in the window at least once a day. It was well against our procedure for me to be coming and going from his apartment so often, but I told myself this was no different to the scenario in Montbeliard when Noah and I pretended to be spouses.
“Good day, Mlle. Fournier,” the doorman greeted me one morning.
“Good morning,” I said, trying to cover my surprise. How did he know my new cover name? I asked Turner, and he shrugged easily.
“I had to tell the staff something. They all seemed to assume you’re my lover.”
“People have already noticed me coming here?” I repeated, alarmed. He’d only been in the city for a few weeks!
Turner straightened and looked away as he murmured, “People always notice a woman like you.”
But before I could even process such a comment, he was on to the next thing, passing me a notepad so I could scrawl down some instructions. It was only later, when I was alone at my new room, that I had the time to pause and reflect on the dynamic between us.
I wasn’t sure how to interpret Mr. Turner’s close attention to me. He’d never once been inappropriate, but he did ever-so-casually breach my personal space at times. He’d touch my lower back just gently as we went to move into a new room, or our fingers would brush as he passed me a notepad or took a cup of tea.
Maybe I’d have missed those moments if I saw him only occasionally, but I was with Mr. Turner every single day, and I was more perplexed with every passing hour. Sometimes, he’d put the vase in the window to call me upstairs, only to have me sit and wait in case courier work arose. I mentioned in passing the difficulties I was having finding fresh produce, and twice in that week I arrived to his apartment to find a basket of black market goods waiting for me. And the drinking! Turner had always enjoyed a hearty libation and during training this had presented no problems at all. Maybe he arrived a little ragged for early morning training now and then, but he’d always done his job brilliantly anyway. But now, not a day passed without him suggesting we share a bottle of wine. I always declined, preferring to keep a clear head, and sometimes he would drink the whole thing himself, right in front of me.
He was busy—rushing out to meetings, lamenting late nights recruiting. Sometimes he’d take on a strange, manic mood that I didn’t know how to interpret. I’d see the vase in the window and rush up expecting orders, and instead, Mr. Turner would be drunk and rambling about his recent successes, seemingly unable to stop chatting or sit still. On one of those afternoons, he was lamenting the loss of the family business, talking about his frustration as his father’s legacy slipped through his fingers in 1940.
“…and then of course, the Germans commandeered the factory,” he told me, shaking his head. “That was the beginning of the end.”
I frowned. “I… I seem to recall you said you were unable to get raw materials. That’s why you had to cease operations.”
“It was a combination of both,” he said dismissively, and then he went back to rambling about the “glory days” when his family’s product was in every high-society home in Paris.
Which version was correct—the story where the business ran out of raw materials, or the story where the Nazis took it over? In the scheme of things, the confusion of facts did not matter much, except what possible reason did Mr. Turner have to lie?
Soon, he had been in Paris for six weeks. The arrests had all but stopped and he was making excellent progress, expanding our network of local contacts quickly and efficiently, preparing the city for what was hopefully an inevitable wave of Allied troops. But he’d also reshuffled the entire circuit, breaking it into two branches which would no longer interact. Given his unusual visibility operating under his real name, he had decided to keep some distance between himself and most of the network.
“Should I stay away from the apartment now, sir?” I asked him, more than a little relieved at the thought.
“I’ve got particular work in mind for you in the future so you’ll maintain distance from the rest of the network just as I will. I’ll still have you liaise directly with Veronique for updates to Baker Street, but any other messaging you’re involved in will be completed by dead drop only.”
I assured Mr. Turner I was at his disposal and prepared to start the new arrangement but felt a pang at the thought of being cut off from the other agents. Life in the field was lonely and it seemed the circle of allies around me was to shrink even further.
I shifted a few small sacks of flour, exposing the wooden shelving below, then stuffed a note into a large crack in the shelf, and put the sacks back in place. This grocer was a supportive local contact, and his flour shelf was my most frequent dead-drop location to reach an agent known as Campion. On my way out, I stopped to purchase some Jerusalem artichokes to mash for my dinner.
As I slipped back into the street to walk away, I saw Campion standing on the balcony across the street. He was leaning on the railing but the minute he caught my eye, he turned to walk back into the apartment, gesturing with his hand as he left, as if to draw me closer.
I wasn’t sure what to do at first. Turner had made it quite clear that I would not liaise in-person with agents like Campion, but Campion was visibly distressed. In the end, I decided I had to investigate.
A few minutes later, I climbed the stairs to the apartment, my heartbeat thudding in my ears. Campion met me at the door and ushered me inside.