Vonstein had further advised her that the Rook’s real name was Captain Meade and she should only use his code name as a last resort if she needed to convince them to let her in there.
As she arrived in London, she was shocked at the devastation the ongoing bombing campaigns had inflicted on the city. Everywhere, buildings were blackened, others hollowed out from where they had burned almost to the ground, while beautiful landmarks had been damaged beyond recognition or destroyed altogether. It drove her to be more determined to do what she could to bring this war to an end.
Walking from Paddington station, she made her way swiftly to Baker Street. Over the last few years, it appeared it had also endured a massive bombing offensive, and she found herself astonished at the way the bombs must have fallen, that one house could be hit and around it the whole area, even the street, could be left intact. One site on her route still bore the marks of what looked like a massive bomb landing close to SOE on the crossroads of York Street and Baker Street, clearly causing wide structural damage. As she strode into the Baker Street offices of SOE, which were unscathed, the place right next door was nothing but rubble.
She made her way down the corridor and opened a door into the office that Vonstein had directed her to. She was greeted by a rather severe-looking secretary, who eyed her suspiciously over the top of her glasses.
Vivi stepped forward, her voice trembling. She remembered how she had felt at the last SOE meeting the year before she had been to, right before they’d stamped her unfit for duty. How devastated she’d been. She couldn’t let this mission fail.
‘I would like to speak to Captain Meade, please.’
A curious expression crossed the secretary’s face. ‘Captain Meade?’ she echoed.
‘Yes. I need to speak to him, right away.’
‘Please take a seat and wait here,’ the secretary responded, and striding out from behind her desk, she tapped on the door of an office a few feet away. The woman went in, and Vivi could hear muffled voices as the secretary talked to someone inside.
Vivi sat down on the chair the woman had offered. The door opened again, surprisingly quickly, and a man looked out warily towards her. Then he murmured something to the secretary, and she nodded and went back to her desk.
‘I’m afraid it will be impossible to see Captain Meade today. You should make another appointment with someone else.’
‘You don’t understand,’ she replied. ‘My name is Vivienne Hamilton. I work for SOE,’ she lied, ‘and it is imperative that I see Captain Meade today.’
The woman looked with concern at her.
‘I have some urgent information he needs to hear.’ She leaned forward and whispered under her breath, ‘I need to speak to the Rook.’
The woman’s eyes grew large and she returned to the same office and knocked on the door. After another hushed conversation inside, the man strode out into the hallway and came to greet Vivi. He shook her hand.
‘Please come with me, Miss Hamilton,’ he encouraged and ushered her into his office.
‘I have some critical intelligence I need to communicate to you,’ she whispered as she closed the door.
‘Please sit down.’ He offered her a chair and, sitting back behind his desk, eyed her intently. ‘What do you know about Captain Meade?’
She quickly looked at the name on the desk and realised this wasn’t the right person. ‘I must not have been explicit. I’m not sharing the information with anyone but the Rook himself. I have classified information that I can only share with him.’
‘You can share it with me,’ he stated with a doleful smile.
All at once the secretary returned and dropped a file on his desk, which he looked at briefly before nodding at her. The secretary left the room.
Vivi watched him. He looked trustworthy, but after the last few weeks, she had learned to be extremely wary about her conversations. Vonstein had been explicit Whatever his mission, it was of the utmost secrecy.
‘I don’t mean to be disrespectful, sir, but I’ve been given precise instructions to only speak to one person.’
Confusion crossed the man’s face, which softened to irritation. ‘I’m afraid that is impossible.’
‘I can’t tell anybody else,’ she stated, pressing the point.
‘I’m not trying to be difficult,’ he responded, ‘but, you see, the Rook is no longer with us.’
Vivi was confused. ‘He is somewhere else in London?’
The man blew out air and strolled over to the window and then shook his head. ‘When I say “he is no longer with us”, I mean in this world. I’m afraid Captain Meade was killed a couple of weeks ago.’
Vivi sat back in shock. ‘How did he die?’
‘Unfortunately, a wall collapsed on him during a recent bombing.’ He walked back to his desk and pushed the file his secretary had brought in towards her. ‘You were SOE, the Sparrow, that’s true, before you were asked to leave. So you can see, I am a little concerned about trusting you with any further details.’
Vivi was astounded.
Reading her expression, he smiled. ‘Don’t look so surprised that I know of you,’ he added, shaking his head. ‘You are very striking and not easy to forget. Your file came across my desk a few weeks ago. I just happened to remember your face.’
The information I have is vital.’
‘And you can share it with me,’ he repeated, moving back to his seat.
Vivi’s throat became dry. She desperately didn’t want to make another mistake, and she’d learned that it was better to remain silent than to say something that she could never take back. It had been a risk trusting Vonstein, but she had made him a promise, and she intended to keep it.
Vivi shook her head. ‘I thank you for your time, but I need to go.’
His eyes narrowed at her for a moment and then he clasped his hands. ‘If you change your mind, please come back. You can trust us here.’
She stood up and shook his hand, but Vivi no longer trusted anyone. Her frustration bubbled up. The frustration of not knowing who to trust. How to help the situation. She felt powerless.
Vivi made her way out of the office and out the main door. For a second she paused in the doorway and looked out across London. From the top of the steps she had a perfect view of Baker Street, and looking down to the road, she felt a new boldness. Vivi wasn’t certain what would happen next, but she knew somehow she would do the right thing and felt good about trusting her gut. Vivi was going to use all of her wits from now on, even with Vonstein. Though she also couldn’t avoid the fact that something in her trusted him, something intangible she couldn’t put into words, but she was going to let that guide her. She knew one thing, that he cared for her, and she was choosing to trust that love.
When Vivi arrived back in Cornwall that evening, she informed Vonstein of what she had found out, and saw just how devastating it was for him.
‘I have such important work to do. I have to leave somehow,’ he said, with utter discouragement in his tone. When he looked at her, she could see the desperation in his eyes. ‘Vivi, I know how hard it must be for you to trust me, but I need your help for one more thing. You need to somehow get me on a boat back to France. I know I am asking a lot of you, and I can only imagine how conflicted you must be feeling, but people’s lives and the success of the upcoming Allied invasions depend on me being back in place in Paris.’