“Nice of you to be prompt on a Monday,” said MacFarlane, squinting at his watch. “What time do you call this, eh?”
“It’s now half past two, and I’m still in time for my interviews, Robbie.” Maisie smiled. “And there’s no need to get snippy, just because you’ve lost your spectacles.”
“Still can’t get used to the bloody things.” He shook his head and slid two folders across the desk. “Can never find them where I saw them last. And don’t you laugh—you’re not so far off yourself, Maisie. Another few years and you’ll be wearing a glass bike on your nose too.”
Maisie had known Robert MacFarlane for some years, since their paths crossed when she was in search of a madman intent upon causing chaos and indiscriminate death across London. At the time MacFarlane was a senior detective with Scotland Yard’s Special Branch, but was later promoted into a shady area of intelligence when he became the linchpin between Scotland Yard and the Secret Service. Now he was an important cog in the wheel of the Special Operations Executive, the SOE, with a special brief to once again smooth relations with the Secret Intelligence Service, who were none too pleased when the SOE was formed in July 1940, following a clandestine meeting at St. Ermin’s Hotel, where the prime minister, Winston Churchill, had given the order to “set Europe ablaze” with acts of irregular warfare.
Maisie checked her own watch, then opened the first folder, trying not to squint as she read notes in a tiny hand, therefore avoiding another ribbing from Robbie MacFarlane.
This was the job that Brenda had referred to earlier. She had no idea what Maisie was doing for the government, just that she had a role and that it was part of her national service—and hadn’t everyone been encouraged to do their bit? To answer the call if they had a skill that would benefit the war effort? Brenda herself was a member of the local Women’s Voluntary Services, donning the green uniform several days each week before going out into the community to help anyone burdened by the loss of a home, a husband or a son. Sometimes German bombers returning to their bases in France would release a final bomb in a rural area, so while country folk did not suffer the same losses as towns and cities, they knew how it felt to be on constant alert, especially if they were close to an airfield or factory. Kent had been hard hit—the Battle of Britain had been fought in the skies above the county, so the people were used to the presence of army, of dogfights over their fields and farms, followed by the odd Luftwaffe pilot jumping from a burning aircraft and landing in a tree or in someone’s back garden with his parachute trailing behind him.
Maisie was well aware that Brenda believed her war work might be somewhat similar to her own since the night Priscilla—Maisie’s dear friend and London ambulance co-driver—had almost died saving children from a burning building. Maisie had rushed to Priscilla’s aid, sustaining burns to the backs of her hands as she dragged her wounded friend from the inferno. Though not as serious as Priscilla’s facial scarring, the lesions were still visible. She never returned to driving the ambulance, nor would she have been allowed to; it was understood that a trauma once experienced would adversely affect an ability to do the job without trepidation in future.
Maisie had told Brenda the truth to a point—that she was now helping in a government office and that Billy had taken up more work in her private investigation business. Better to tell a half-truth rather than a lie—lies could become hard to maintain.
It was MacFarlane who had summoned Maisie to a Baker Street address earlier in the year, to inform her that her expertise was now required for the war effort. Her particular role was top secret, however, and had to remain so, even after the conflict had ended. The job was for the SOE, interviewing prospective resistance agents at various points in their training to assess their continued fitness for the role and to predict how they might respond under increasing pressure—the very high-stakes pressure of assuming a false identity while living in a German-occupied country. And those agents would not simply be a part of a community, they had to work—as waiters, as children’s nurses, or as secretaries and farm hands—while at the same time coordinating support for local and regional resistance operations, where they would conduct acts of espionage and sabotage against the enemy, or send vital information to London.
Agents had to be prepared to enter France at night, leaping from a Lysander aircraft as it rolled along a field lit by torches. The aircraft would often take on board a returning agent after the drop-off and had to be in the air again within three minutes of landing, so speed was of the essence. Or the agent would land in France via a parachute drop, bury the chute and then be ready to travel by train to meet a contact, all the while remembering to speak nothing but French and confident in their role and new identity to show their forged documents to any German guards without taking flight if stopped. The agents had to be prepared to die—to withstand torture, and to take their own lives with their issued cyanide pill if capture was imminent. They called it their “L-pill”—for it was indeed lethal.
In short, a resistance agent was required to be a certain type of person, and the task of recruiting them fell to the scouts who brought them into the SOE, followed by experts who interviewed them and pronounced them suitable candidates. They were then handed over to the seasoned agents and military personnel tasked with preparing them for their remit. If they passed every test, they would be sent overseas—and France was not the only destination—where they would risk their lives for a country that would never admit to knowing who they were, and would disown them if they were captured.
Maisie felt the weight on her shoulders, a sensation that was not just metaphorical, but manifested in a painful sensation of pressure that ran from her neck down to the base of her spine. She sat up in her chair, assuming strength in her backbone.
“Shall we get on before the first of these two interviewees comes in?” MacFarlane nodded toward the folders. “They’ve both advanced through every component of their training, so this is the final once-over before they leave. If you have any doubts, well, at least we know what we might expect and plan accordingly.”
Maisie nodded, and opened the first folder. Upon seeing the name at the top of the sheet of paper inside, she felt as if someone had touched her neck with an ice pick along the very place where she had been wounded by shrapnel in the last war. It was a chapter of her life she had relegated to the distant past, yet since war was declared in 1939, she sometimes felt as if it were only yesterday. It was a time before she became a psychologist and investigator, before she knew what it was to solve a crime, but more than anything, before she knew who she really was.
She closed the folder and opened the second. She exhaled deeply before looking up at MacFarlane, who was pushing back his chair as if to stand.
“What do you think you’re doing, Robbie?” Her tone was sharp. “I cannot interview either of these candidates, and you know it. It’s a . . . a . . . a conflict of interest. I know both of them, and the fact that it’s fallen to me to interview them is a setup—isn’t it?” She tried to quell her feelings. It was hard enough doing this job—hard enough being dispassionate about her role, which she accepted because she knew she could do it well; if she stopped one unsuitable young man or woman from certain death, then it was a job well done. The whole remit was difficult without having prior knowledge of the prospective agents. Hard enough without having affection for both of them. “Is this some sort of trial? A test of my honesty? Of my suitability for this job? Because if that’s what it is, I would just as soon step aside for someone else to do it so I can go back to my daughter and to doing my part to solve the odd crime a couple of days a week, because heaven only knows your friends at Scotland Yard are up to their eyes in a backlog they can’t clear, aren’t they?”
“Calm down, Maisie. Unruffle your feathers.”
“Unruffle my feathers? Robbie, don’t start—”
“Not like you to become so heated, is it?” MacFarlane sighed, leaned toward Maisie and tapped the folders. “I—we�
�thought you would be able to set aside your prior knowledge of our candidates and give us your best assessment of their continued potential. Even at this late stage and after all they’ve gone through in training, I want to know they are completely ready to get out there and do their bit for our French brethren and the rest of bloody Europe, especially us, because we’re far from being out of the woods with old Hitler. With his luck, he could come walking on water across the Channel tomorrow.” He paused. “Will you see them?”
Maisie pushed back her chair and walked to the window. She looked down at the street and folded her arms in front of her as if to protect her heart. Secrets, secrets, secrets. She sometimes felt as if she would drown under the weight of other people’s secrets. Even this part of her own life had to be hidden—from her child, her father and stepmother, her best friend and her lover. She was always on her guard, and those she cared for most could only know so much—they could only know part of her, not the whole. And she feared she might lose herself in all the secrecy—it had happened before. She sighed and turned to MacFarlane.
“I’m angry, Robbie MacFarlane, but I’ll do it. Just get someone to bring me a strong cup of tea first, would you? And for god’s sake have them make it hot and put it in a big mug and not a soppy piece of china.”
“Who do you want first?”
Maisie nodded. “Miss Pascale Evernden.”
Pascale was Priscilla’s niece, the daughter of one of three brothers lost in the years from 1914 to 1918. Peter Evernden had been an intelligence agent in the Great War, and while operating undercover in France had fallen in love with a young woman who worked alongside her mother to commit acts of espionage against the occupying army. Pascale’s mother was assassinated by the Germans when her daughter was just a baby; Peter, who had been moved into Germany to gain valuable information for the British, was killed the same year during a food riot—at the end of the war the German people were starving, as were their soldiers at the front.
Peter Evernden had never known he had a daughter. Maisie had uncovered the truth while investigating the supposed death of an aviator in France during the last war—the flying ace had delivered Priscilla’s brother to the location where he would go about his work. Pascale had been raised by her grandmother, Chantal, but not only had she inherited her father’s aptitude for languages—she spoke French, English, German, Spanish and Italian in several different dialects—she was also the image of her aunt. Since learning the truth of her parentage, Pascale had spent summers with Priscilla, becoming close to the family, and she also took her father’s name. Chantal remained at her chateau, which had been requisitioned by German officers in 1940, and as far as anyone knew, not only was she still alive but even at her age she was an active member of the Resistance. Before the war, Chantal had insisted Pascale attend finishing school in Switzerland—she thought the girl too much of a tomboy and a little too wild—and it was from Switzerland that the young woman had made her way to England when Chantal ordered her not to return to France when it came under German occupation.
The second agent Maisie was scheduled to interview was a woman she had known for over twenty years. The candidate, Elinor Jones, was beloved by Priscilla, her husband and their three sons and was considered no less than a cherished member of their family.
Now, along with Pascale Evernden’s, her life was in Maisie’s hands.
Chapter 3
The poised young woman who sat before Maisie wore a well-cut costume of black wool barathea, with only the slightest hint of embellishment on the hip pockets, which bore gray silk stitching in the shape of a butterfly. A silk blouse was just visible as a white edge to the jacket’s V neckline. Her black shoes were polished and she wore silk stockings—which were becoming somewhat difficult to find in the shops. Her dark hair was twisted into an elegant chignon.
Maisie cleared her throat, took a deep breath and closed the folder on the desk in front of her.
“Pascale—”
“Tante Mai—”
The two women had spoken at once.
“Go on,” prompted Maisie.
“I didn’t know you worked here, Tante Maisie,” said Pascale, addressing Maisie by the name she had been accustomed to using for her aunt Priscilla’s best friend.
“First of all, let’s adopt a more formal address while we’re in this building, shall we? And there was no reason for you to know I worked here—no one in my immediate circle, including my family, is aware of my work for this department.” Maisie looked at Pascale directly, remembering the girl she had first encountered as a thirteen-year-old in France, galloping toward her on a black horse before fearlessly clearing a five-bar gate and circling her mount to a halt in front of Maisie. “I know that at the outset of your training you were required to sign forms holding you to the Official Secrets Act, so you should know I am part of that swearing to secrecy. You must not reveal to anyone that you have seen me here. Is that clear?”
Pascale nodded. “Yes. Yes, it is—Miss Dobbs.”
“Good.” Maisie avoided Pascale’s gaze. She was finding it even more difficult to maintain a formal tone than she had anticipated. “I take it your aunt has absolutely no knowledge of your candidacy for this position.”
“I never told her. I’ve hardly seen her since I came over—well, as you know I stayed at the house with them for a short time, but they were in Kent at the cottage. After a little while I moved into digs with another girl—but you know that. Then I was busy with my job as a translator. Well, until this job came along. And I don’t have to worry about money.” The young woman brushed a stray hair back behind her ear. “I have funds.”
“Indeed.” Maisie opened the folder. “Hmmm, yes. The flat’s in Notting Hill. Not terribly far from Mrs. Partridge’s London house.”
“And yours.”
“Quite.” Maisie raised an eyebrow. “Now, perhaps you can tell me how you came to the attention of this section.”
Priscilla’s niece looked down at her hands, then back to Maisie. “I thought you might know.”
“A few details are outstanding, so perhaps you can fill in those gaps for me.”
Pascale cleared her throat. “I was staying at Tante Priscilla’s house—she wasn’t there and neither were the boys or Uncle Douglas. He was with her in Kent. Then Elinor came home to her room.”
Elinor had once been the boys’ nanny and had worked for the family in France and again in London. She was Welsh, but had taken French lessons and become proficient in the language while living in Biarritz. Elinor was much loved by Priscilla, Douglas and their sons, so even when the boys were past the age of needing a nanny, Priscilla had insisted that her room in the Holland Park house would always be kept for her, a bolt-hole when she came home on leave from the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, which she had joined at the outset of war. Priscilla had been with the FANY in the Great War, which only increased her affection for the former employee.
“Elinor is a bit older than you—do you get on?”
“We do, actually. When I was there, she wanted to speak in French all the time. She said she needed to practice with a native. I’ve always liked Elinor, and I was more than happy to accommodate her, so of course we became friends. I’ve always thought she was a terrific woman, probably because anyone who could manage my three cousins deserves a medal.”
Maisie once again raised an eyebrow.
“Well, all right,” said Pascale. “She managed me pretty well too—I was a bit difficult when I first began coming to London, and Elinor seemed to know how to calm me down. There was so much to . . . to absorb. This new family and finally knowing who my father was, and seeing Tante Priscilla was like looking in a mirror and seeing an old version of myself.”
“I wouldn’t tell her that,” said Maisie. “But go on.”
“So when she started conversing in French, I wanted to know why, and she said, ‘Oh nothing really. I just don’t want to lose it.’”
“Then?”
“I didn’t
believe her.”
“And?”
“I followed her and watched where she went, and I saw other people coming and going, and I . . . I suppose I put two and two together. She was in uniform but not doing any of the things that Tante Priscilla told me she’d done when she was with the FANY.”
“It’s a different war, Pascale.” Maisie held the young woman’s gaze. “So you watched, you made a guess at who was doing what and where, and you decided it might be an idea to be heard speaking fluent French in front of some of the people you’d seen leaving that building.”
“I saw a man leaving one day and I thought I would follow him. I thought he looked important.”
“He is,” said Maisie.
Pascale smiled and nodded. “Anyway, I knew we were walking toward that shop where they sell books and papers from other parts of the world—not that they have much stock these days—so I greeted the vendor in French. He’s originally from Brittany and I’ve chatted to him before, but this time I did it a bit louder. I made sure the man could hear me, because I had a feeling he would approach me, and I was right.”
The Consequences of Fear Page 4
