“There is no going back if we report him to London,” Veronique whispered. “Are you sure?”
“I am.”
“And then what do we do?” she choked, and she pressed her fists to her hair. “I just want to go home. God help me, I just want to go home. Three months training? They really thought we could handle this kind of situation with three months training? I’m a child-minder, for God’s sake! I don’t belong here!”
“Listen to me,” I said firmly, leaning toward her. “I have a little cash—just enough for us to catch a train. My old circuit leader will help us, I’m sure of it.” My heart leaped at the thought of reuniting with Noah. I would not feel safe again until his arms were around me. “We signal London tonight to alert them to our concerns and then we will leave right away.”
I would go with her to broadcast the message but we wouldn’t wait for a reply. We each had a spare set of identity papers. We would adopt new names, hide our hair under hats, spend the night hiding behind a warehouse a few blocks from her safe house. Then in the morning, we would buy tickets and board a train to Corrèze.
I wasn’t sure exactly where I’d find Noah there, but I knew that if he heard about the situation I was in, he would trust me to find a way forward. I had to trust myself to do so too.
Veronique fetched some paper and I picked up the pen to write. Together, we crafted a simple message expressing our concerns about Turner’s loyalty—the arrests he had not reported, his proximity to Labelle. I structured the message in five-word phrases, a system designed to ensure the wireless operator was transmitting for the shortest period of time possible. Once I’d finished, Veronique drew up a long table and began the complicated, arduous process of double encoding the message using her encryption key.
“Where will you transmit from?” I asked her.
“I have access to a room in an apartment on La rue de la Faisanderie,” she murmured.
I felt useless watching her work, so I made a cup of hot water for myself and some ersatz coffee for her. I had just placed both mugs on her little table beside her notepad when there came a fierce knock at the door.
“Open up!”
Veronique froze, the pen hovering over the paper. Her face went pale, her eyes were wide.
“Don’t panic,” I said, dropping my voice. I motioned to the paper on the table and indicated that she should hide it. She scooped it all into her arms but before she was even on her feet the door flew open—kicked open by the mountain of a man on the other side.
Veronique screamed in fright and the papers fluttered from her arms. I scrambled frantically—thinking I could tear up that top page, the most incriminating page, and maybe even swallow some of the pieces before the huge man at the door reached me. The Gestapo would realize that we had been about to tell London of our concerns about Turner and that was bad enough, but that top page contained Veronique’s encryption key. If the Germans had that entire page and her wireless set, all they would need to message London was her security check—something Gerard Turner could tell them in seconds. I simply couldn’t let that happen.
“Stop,” a man said, but even though I assumed he was speaking to me, I ignored him, throwing myself at the paper. I scrambled for the top page and reached it, but just then, I realized Veronique was putting something in her mouth.
“Veronique! No!” I cried, but she stared at me with terrified eyes.
I’d refused Elwood’s offer of an L-pill during my preflight checks. I knew some agents preferred the option for a quick death should their mission spiral badly off course, but I had always told myself I’d try to cling to hope instead. Now, looking into Veronique’s tear-filled eyes as she swallowed the cyanide pill, I was not sure which of us were smarter.
The room was suddenly full of men, some in the plain clothes of the Gestapo, a few in SD uniforms. The men swarmed around Veronique aimlessly until one shouted, “Take her outside and make her vomit.”
It was a distraction and that meant an opportunity for me. As they dragged her from the room, sobbing and crying, I ripped the top sheet of our notes in half, intending to stuff it into my mouth.
A brutal hand closed around my wrist. The sudden shock of the pain made my knees give out, then another man rushed at me, snatching the paper from my hands.
C H A P T E R 19
CHARLOTTE
Liverpool, 1970
Later that night, I’m sitting in the living room watching TV. Dad has just come home from work and is at the dining room table behind me, eating the steak and eggs I prepared for him. Dad is too polite to mention it, but I’ve managed to overcook the steak and undercook the eggs.
My stomach is aflutter with butterflies. I have a million questions about the SOE I want to ask Dad, but I know he’s not ready to answer them so I haven’t asked. It’s different when it comes to Theo. He’s helping us out of the goodness of his heart, and I know my dad would want to help him in return if he can.
“Hey, Dad?” I say gently, twisting in my seat to face him.
“Hmm?” Dad stares down at his plate as he saws at the tough steak. He scoops the slice up and drops it to Wrigley, who’s lying beneath the chair. Dad would never have allowed Wrigley to sit so close to the dinner table before Mum died, let alone feed the dog from his own plate.
Dad looks exhausted. There are bags beneath his eyes and his shoulders are slumped. My heart sinks as I realize I can’t ask him. Not tonight.
“Never mind,” I say, and I turn back to the TV, but I’m trying to watch the news and all I can think about is teenage Theo borrowing his father’s car and driving across the country only to discover he didn’t even know his own birth date. I suck in a breath and force myself to turn back to Dad. “When you were training with the SOE, did you ever come across an agent known as Chloe?”
Dad’s cutlery clatters as he drops it against his plate.
“Why on earth did you ask me that?” he asks me sharply. I open my mouth to tell him about Theo but at the very last second, think better of it.
I can’t betray Theo’s confidence. This is his story to tell, if he chooses to tell it at all. It’s hard to explain any of this without explaining that Theo broke the law and snuck into Professor Read’s secure room.
I gnaw my lip and decide to lie.
“Theo mentioned he’d come across that name in his studies with Professor Read.”
“I knew her,” Dad says abruptly. He pushes back his chair and stands, then, giving up any pretense of eating my rubbish meal, bends to scrape his entire dinner into Wrigley’s bowl.
“Did you work with her?” I ask hesitantly. Dad is silent for a long moment, staring down at the dog as he licks his bowl clean. My father’s expression is so tense, a shiver of concern runs through me. “Dad?”
“I knew her well,” he says. “We were good friends.” He looks across at me and his gaze is completely hollow. “What did Theo want to know about her?”
“Did you train with her?”
Dad scrubs a hand over his face, then walks slowly across the room to take a seat in Mum’s armchair. He leans forward toward me and his expression eases to something closer to weariness.