Brynn opened her handbag and pulled out a Woodbine cigarette and enamel lighter. She stuck the cigarette between her lips, lit it, and inhaled. “What should I do, sleep on a bench in Regent’s Park?” She puffed out a series of blue smoke rings.
“Well, that option might prove a bit nippy. Alas, SOE doesn’t provide temporary lodging—but here’s a place to try.” Maggie rummaged through the left-hand desk drawer, through an old bottle of clear nail polish for stocking runs, two rationed sugar cubes saved in an envelope, and a battered box of paper clips, until she found a business card: THE CASTLE HOTEL FOR WOMEN: Temporary Lodging for Ladies and the address in heavy black ink.
She handed it to Brynn. “You can call from here to see if there are any vacancies for tonight. Miss Lynd tells me a number of SOE interviewees have stayed there. Here, use this phone,” she said, pushing a green one toward the Welsh girl.
As Brynn came around the desk, they both heard a bellow. “Meggie!” a gruff male voice boomed from behind a thick wooden office door. “Meggie!”
Maggie sighed, then picked up Calvert’s file and rose. She walked the strip of threadbare carpet through the dim passageway, then pushed at the half-closed office door.
“It’s Maggie, sir,” she reminded him gently. Although the men in the office were referred to by their rank and wore uniforms, the women were called by their first names and expected to dress in civilian clothes.
Colonel Harry Gaskell was in his late forties, a short, rotund man with yellow hair and a fleshy, shining face. The beginnings of rosacea pinked his nose and cheeks. Although he’d served in the British Army’s Intelligence Corps as a doctor at the outbreak of the war, he’d been evacuated from Dunkirk and stayed in Britain. What concerned Maggie most was he had no firsthand knowledge of, or training in, guerrilla warfare, despite the fact he was in charge of F-Section.
Gaskell blinked pale eyes. “Meeting’s at five-thirty. We’ll jolly well need tea, and some of those oatmeal biscuits Miss Cooper made—hard as rocks, but if you dunk them, they’re not so bad.”
“Colonel—” Maggie began, handing him Erica Calvert’s file. Gaskell accepted it with a brisk movement, then flicked his eyes over the document and Maggie’s notes. He handed it back to her. “Jolly good job, young lady.”
“No,” Maggie persisted, “I believe something’s wrong, sir.”
“There’s only one explanation for Miss Calvert’s mistakes—carelessness,” the Colonel admonished. “The next time the girl’s schedule comes up, tell her she’s forgotten her security check. And remind her to be more vigilant!” He chortled. “Give that girl a rap on the knuckles!”
Maggie braced her shoulders. “Colonel Gaskell, Erica Calvert didn’t only forget the security check. Her fist was also out of character—unusually hesitant, not her style at all. I don’t like to be negative, but I believe it’s possible she’s been captured and her radio’s now in the hands of the Germans.”
Outside the window, she could see cars passing on Baker Street dusted by a light snow shower. The side of one red-brick building was painted with the advertisement TAKE BOVRIL TO RESIST FLU. There was the screech of brakes, a loud crash, and then a torrent of swearing as one car hit another on the slippery pavement.
“Fiddlesticks, Meggie! Er, Maggie. When you hear hooves, think horses, not unicorns! You’re doing jolly good work here and I know you’re concerned about the agents in the field, my dear, but let’s not let drama override duty, yes?”
As she turned and stalked away, Gaskell called after her: “And don’t let the tea steep too long this time!” Maggie could easily make out his grumbled complaint, “Damn Yanks…”
Gritting her teeth, Maggie put the file back in her desk drawer, then braved the frigid corridor to the dingy kitchenette to put the kettle on.
Officially, she was part of the Auxiliary Territorial Service, a major in the women’s branch of the Army, known as ATS—but for her, that rank was actually a cover for work with SOE. When she’d arrived in London from Boston, four years ago, all she’d wanted to do was settle her grandmother’s estate, then return to the United States to pursue doctoral studies in mathematics at MIT, one of the few top universities to allow women as graduate students.
But then war had been declared, the Blitz began, and she’d convinced herself to stay in London and help—which had led to working for Prime Minister Winston Churchill. When given the opportunity to work for SOE as an agent, she grabbed it. She loved Britain and wanted to do “her bit.”
As the kettle boiled, Colonel Frank Brody, second in command of F-Section, entered on wooden crutches, the left leg of his uniform trousers pinned around the stump. Brody hopped up on the rickety wooden table, his one leg swinging, whistling “Green Eyes.”
“My aunt used to say ‘whistling calls the Devil,’?” Maggie teased. “Perhaps Satan’s a fan of Jimmy Dorsey?”
Unlike Colonel Gaskell, Brody had trained to be an SOE agent, and been sent to France as part of F-Section. However, a leg injury on a mission led to an amputation that made short work of his career abroad. He’d returned to the London offices to be promoted.
As he slipped a bit on the table, then used his hands to right himself, he gave her a rueful smile. It lit up his plain, broad features, compensating for his upturned nose and overly large ears. “You should see my Giselle,” he joked, finally settling his lanky frame. “I can pirouette better than Margot Fonteyn.”
Maggie liked Brody. He never complained, and was always good for a witty rejoinder and a smile. She turned off the gas. “Any news on the leg?” she asked, using a pot holder to lift the kettle.
“The peg? No, still in the works, I’m afraid. With the amount of time they’re taking, I’m hoping it comes with any number of additional features—a corkscrew, a dagger, even a flask. A whole Swiss Army knife of tricks.” Brody had been fitted for a prosthetic leg, but because of high demand, its creation and delivery were delayed. “But, really, just the flask would be lovely.”
He picked up a newspaper lying on the table. “Have you seen this yet?” he asked, glancing down the front page of The Times. “A murder last night, not too far from us. A girl—they say she was an ATS.”
Maggie stopped fiddling with the tea things and looked up. “Do they say who it was?”
“Joanna Metcalf.”
Maggie knew the name; she’d met the young woman in the SOE office three days ago. Joanna had been another of her trainees at Arisaig. “Joanna Metcalf?” she managed. “Joanna’s not just any ATS—she’s one of ours—tapped by SOE and supposed to be sent to France. She was here for an interview just a few days ago.”
“Bloody hell.” Profanity, even in front of ladies, was as common in the office as French. “Poor thing.”
Maggie turned away and bit her lip: She didn’t want Brody to see the shocked expression on her face. When the tea was prepared, she put the Denby stoneware pot, mugs, and chipped plate piled high with biscuits on a tray, and carried it into a windowless conference room. Present were Gaskell and two other high-ranking SOE men in uniform, Colonel Bernard Higgs—with a neatly trimmed iron-gray mustache, and Colonel Rupert Shaw—with brilliantined, bushy hair that stuck straight up, like porcupine quills.
The walls were thin and Maggie’s and Brody’s voices had been overheard. “One of our girls murdered, you say?” Gaskell asked as Maggie walked in carrying the tea things, Brody on his crutches behind her. The Colonel shook his head in dismay. “I may be old-fashioned, but in my opinion, these girls should stay at home and listen to their mothers—war or no war, what ho? Certainly not gallivanting around London at all hours of the night, going to bars and dance clubs, listening to jazz…”
Maggie set the tray down on the trestle table covered in green baize as Brody took a seat, leaning his crutches against the wall. “That’s a good girl,” Gaskell muttered absently as he watched her pour. “Jolly good. Not too much tannin in the tea this way.”