As she continued to look through the attic she uncovered a box marked only with the letter ‘V’ and her heart jumped. Could this be V for Vivienne? Sophie dragged it in front of the dusty circular window at the far end of the attic and started to unpack it. There were some old clothes mostly, jumpers and skirts. She scrutinised them, trying to age them, but she wasn’t sure. There were some childhood mementos and at the bottom a stack of books. Looking through them she noted they were mainly children’s books and they were musty, with a lot of the pages stuck together, but one stood out from the rest. It wasn’t well-worn like the others, in fact it looked as if it had only ever been opened to the one page. Sophie glanced at the front – it was a poetry book by famous English poets. Handwritten inside the cover was a verse of a poem called ‘Remember’ by Christina Rossetti. Sophie read it.
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann’d:
Only remember me; you understand
Did Vivienne write it? she wondered. Sophie opened the book to the page with the corner turned down. It was a poem by Lord Byron, ‘She Walks in Beauty’. Sophie smiled – it had been one of her favourites at school. She started to read it then she noticed something. Standing up and getting closer to the window she stared at the words. It was faint, but under some of the words was a pencil mark. Sophie’s heart started to race. Could this be the poem Vivienne had memorised? She opened the front of the book. It had been published in 1943, so it had been brand new during the war and it was the only poetry book in the box. Vivienne must have bought it just to learn her code. Sophie quickly rushed to her bedroom to find the copy of the coded message she had photographed at the records building. Then sitting down at the desk in her bedroom with a pen and paper Sophie attempted to decode the message using different words in the poem, but no matter what she did nothing made any sense. She felt deflated. It was so difficult without knowing which words to use.
Sophie got up and stretched, and as she did so she knocked the book of poetry from the desk and it fell to the floor, its pages splayed out. Bending down to pick it up, something caught her attention under the book’s dust jacket, which had been knocked askew in the fall. Just under the flap she could see something else was written. Removing the cover she scrutinised the faint pencil marks. It was a list of more code words in their groups of five, written out over and over again. Then two lines in English then more lines of code. It looked as if Vivienne had been practising her coding right there under the flap of the book. The long list of letters still didn’t make any sense but Sophie moved closer to the window to read the lines in English. The first said Café Liaison, and the second mentioned a dog, it just said Terrier. Sophie quickly went onto her phone and looked up Café Liaison and it didn’t take her long to discover there was a café by that name situated in Le Diben in Brittany close to the place the Helford Flotilla went occasionally to drop off SOE operatives. She felt a thrill, almost as if she was a spy herself; this café may have been her great-aunt’s place of contact. It also confirmed her hunch that the Byron poem was the code Vivienne had used. Or at least the first layer.
Sophie made a decision – she definitely needed to go to France, to where Vivienne had been an agent. Maybe there would be more clues there.
She placed the book in her pile of research and she also added Vonstein’s name to her information from the admissions book she had found. Then she did a Google search, but it turned up too many people with the same surname. Getting another idea, she typed the name into Ancestry.com – she had an account for her work. Sometimes it was useful to know more about the people who may have lived in whichever building the trust was working for.
She searched. There were still many Vonsteins. Sophie pared it down by his date of birth by the information in the admission books – he would have been thirty-four in 1944. She looked for Vonsteins of that age, and came up with four, and added a copy of their names into her Google doc. Two families appeared to live in Germany, according to the local census, one family had moved to the Netherlands, and the other was living in Paris. It occurred to her that asking them about their past might be difficult. Sophie couldn’t imagine that a family of Nazis felt any better than her own family when it came to their experiences during the war, but hopefully, she would get emails back, maybe some more information.
Two Marcus Vonsteins had died during the war. Sophie sent messages to relatives of both men, informing them who she was and what she was doing and hoped that they could help.
After closing her laptop, she went down to have dinner with her family, and enjoyed the warmth of being with them. It made her miss her mother so badly. Her auntie Jean had made a wonderful beef stew, and she felt as if she were putting on weight just being here.
It had been the right decision to come to Cornwall. If she’d been in London alone, she’d have felt unbearable sadness about the split with Matt, but instead, being around people who were welcoming and kind reminded her of what family life was about, and that there were other parts of her life she could embrace to help her feel safe and secure. Since Emily’s and her mother’s death, there was only her gran who lived in London, and she had forgotten how much she loved Cornwall. It was so reminiscent of every childhood summer holiday.
‘How is your research going?’ Jamie asked as he heaped a serving of Jean’s treacle sponge onto his spoon. ‘Did you find out more about our war skeletons?’
Sophie paused, not sure she wanted to tell them about the conversation with Barney. It only confirmed what everybody believed. Jean added a pot of tea to the table and joined them both, interested to hear what Sophie had to say.
Playing for time, Sophie scooped up a spoonful of the pudding that had been practically forced onto her, and at once wondered why she had held back. It was warm, sweet and moist, with custard of the perfect consistency. The ideal comfort food.
‘I found some records in the attic that might help me find out more,’ she stated circumspectly.
‘Such as?’ Jean asked, pouring them all a cup of tea.
‘Well, I found the name of the German officer Vivienne may have left with.’
Her auntie blew out air. ‘Why would you want to know about him?’ she asked defiantly. ‘If it wasn’t for him, she never would have gone. I mean, finding out about a relative is one thing but are you sure you want to go down the path of looking into the past of a Nazi?’
‘If there is a chance to clear Vivienne of what potentially comes down to treason, I think I need to find out more about the reason why she left, and he is the key to that.’
Jamie sipped his tea. ‘Do you think it’s possible that she had a good motive for breaking a Nazi out of the hospital?’
‘I think there might just be more to the story than first meets the eye. At one time, Vivienne must have been a good person. She went through the rigorous training of becoming an SOE operative to help with the war effort. Surely they would have known if something wasn’t right? They would have tested her on every level.’