I cover my mouth with my hand. I’m trying to stifle my own emotions, but the pain in the room is palpable. Quinn has her arms around Drusilla, who is drawing in big, shuddering breaths. Dad sits in silent misery, tears running down his face. Theo and I exchange a glance that’s part can you believe this and part what on earth have we uncovered.
“Did she make a mistake?” Drusilla whispers hoarsely. “Is that why she was arrested?”
“I don’t believe so, no,” Helen says. “I interviewed one of the Gestapo officers involved in her arrest. He told me that Turner sent them to arrest a w/t operator, and when they arrived at her rooms, they discovered that she and Josie had drafted a transmission to alert Baker Street that Turner was a conspirator. They managed to get the w/t’s encryption key too, despite Josie’s best efforts to destroy it. The Germans were able to impersonate that w/t successfully for months, right up until just before Paris was liberated, which is why we at Baker Street had no idea how dire things were on the ground in the city.”
“So this Turner fellow sent Josie to prison and then…lied to me about her death for revenge?” Drusilla says, stunned.
“Actually, there’s some evidence that he tried to have her released from the prison,” Helen admits. “I spoke to several German guards and officers who recalled Gerard making desperate attempts to speak with her, even trying to supply new information from our agency in exchange for her release.”
“Well, that just makes no damned sense,” Dad says, pinching the bridge of his nose. “The bastard was a traitor who conspired with the Germans and allowed Josie to be arrested, then he tried to help her?”
“He did always have a soft spot for her,” Helen tells us with a sigh. “I interpreted it as an almost fatherly admiration when we were training her and she showed such promise, but who knows? It’s no consolation at all now, but for whatever reason, he did try to help her. People are complex sometimes.”
“I just can’t believe he’d betray his country like this. Both countries,” Dad says, his voice cracking with emotion. “He seemed like such a good man.”
“It’s no excuse at all, of course, but Gerard was already in dire financial straits when the occupation began, having gambled away his family’s fortune,” Helen explains. “Every decision he made from there was likely influenced by the Germans. He sought Freddie out the minute he arrived in Britain and at the time, we were so relieved to have help from someone who had recent experience in France, no one suspected a thing, but we know now that he was already working with the Germans, even then. There is some evidence he tried to extract himself from their clutches a few times—but it always came back to money. Even here in the UK, what appeared to be a casual gambling habit was a catastrophic weakness the Germans exploited time and time again. Every shred of the man’s integrity was traded for the cash. Perhaps earlier in the war, he’d have been able to buy Josie’s release—but by the time she was arrested, the Germans knew the war was just about over and nothing he could offer was valuable to them.”
“But why lie to us about her death?” Dad asks brokenly.
“The same reason he made such a mess of the SOE files, Noah. He was covering his tracks,” Helen says. She glances across to Drusilla. “Why do you think he told you that dreadful lie about her carelessness in the field, Dr. Sallow? He wanted you to be ashamed. He wanted to keep her story secret, and he really didn’t want you asking questions because they would have led you straight to us. Later, he destroyed her file so that there was no chance we would find you either.”
“So where is he now?” Dad demands, thumping his fist onto the desk. “Tell me the bastard is in prison for what he did.”
“It took us far too long to realize that he was still creating chaos even once the war was over,” Helen admits. “I didn’t make it back to London until 1946. I was shocked to learn then that Booth and Maxwell were growing suspicious of Gerard in the wake of the mess he made in the records department. They had looked back at the chaos of the war and could finally see the connections between Turner and so many incidents that made little sense at the time. MI6 arrested him to conduct an interview, but I’m sorry to say he took a cyanide pill in the car on the way to questioning.”
Dad’s face falls.
“So he never even faced trial?”
“Not in this life, Noah. I’m sorry.”
“My daughter and I…we parted on very difficult terms and for twenty-four years…” Drusilla whispers numbly.
“She regretted that, Doctor Sallow,” Dad says urgently, as his gaze flicks between Drusilla and Quinn.
“She actually tried to write you,” Helen adds, and from her file, she withdraws a sheet of yellow notepaper. “She passed this letter back to me via another agent who was briefly posted in Paris with her. I wasn’t allowed to send it to you at the time. The rules were very strict about agent contact with home during their field missions, but it’s clear she was desperate to make amends.”
She passes the note across the table. There’s a long, strained moment where Drusilla just stares at the note, frozen.
“Read it to me,” she whispers to her friend. Quinn reaches out and takes it gingerly, then in a low, unsteady voice, reads,
“‘Maman, I am so sorry for the way we said goodbye that morning. I love you, so very much, and I only want you to be happy. You have always fought so hard for me. You have always fought so hard in everything you do, and that is the example I follow now as I go to fight. I am stronger than I ever knew and I want only for you to be proud of me. Please don’t worry too much. I am exactly where I am meant to be. With love, always…’” Quinn pauses. “It’s not signed.”
“She couldn’t sign it,” Helen explains. “She wrote it in the field and she knew better than to leave evidence like that. But I assure you, it came from Josie.”
“I recognize her handwriting.” Drusilla weeps, picking up that little letter and cradling it against her chest. “Oh, my baby.”
“I’m a highly organized woman,” Helen tells us. “I’d have filed that letter in Jocelyn’s personnel file and it would have been lost in the fire, except that the D-Day planning began in earnest right about the same time and I was run off my feet. I forgot all about the letter for years—I only found it in my desk when I returned to pack up once I’d finished searching for the missing agents. By then, of course, we had no idea how to find you, Dr. Sallow, but I’ve held onto it for all of these years…just in case…” Drusilla and her friend are holding one another close and sobbing now, and I feel like an intruder in this room. I look away, as Helen murmurs almost to herself, “I kept all kinds of random things I discovered when we cleaned out Baker Street. Gerard’s office was such a mess! The man was a real pack rat. During the investigation, MI6 went into his flat and his office to search for classified materials and as they went, they boxed up everything else for disposal. I convinced them to keep it all in storage. Maxwell told me I was mad to think there’d be anything of worth in Gerard’s old trinkets and clothing and crockery, and maybe he was right. We just had no way of knowing what damage Gerard had done along the way, so I wanted to keep every scrap of evidence from his life, just in case we ever found we needed it.”