Sophie followed her into her front room. Pudding jumped down and padded behind them then stretched out in front of the electric fire, flicking his tail. Bessy reached into a cabinet that was piled full of bills, pamphlets, old family records and, finally, a box of photographs. Pulling it out, she placed it on the table and combed through it until she found what she was looking for. Holding it, Sophie looked at her great-auntie for the first time, a relative she never knew she had.
As the eyes of the woman stared back at her from the black-and-white photograph, it was like looking into a mirror. The same eyes, maybe even the same shade of green as her own, elfish smile and light-coloured hair. She didn’t look like a traitor, she looked like Sophie or her mother, Alice. It was hard to see anything evil in a woman who looked so like one of their own. In that moment, as she locked eyes with Vivienne for the first time, Sophie knew she wouldn’t be able to let this go.
3
As she travelled home that evening, Sophie downloaded a couple of books about the war during the time her great-aunt had been alive. The last words her grandmother had said as she’d hugged her on the way out the door had been, ‘Please let sleeping dogs lie, Sophie. Don’t be digging up the past. It could upset your great-uncle Tom. That was a dreadful time for them all.’
And even though she wanted to heed her grandmother’s warning, something about this fascinated her. One thing she knew from her time as a lawyer was that there was always more than one way to view a story.
First, she couldn’t believe that no one in her family had ever spoken about Vivienne. It was as though she’d never existed, as if the minute she’d left British soil, she’d vanished. Also, if they didn’t know what had happened to her, with no information about where she had gone or even how she had died, how could they be so sure she was a traitor?
Arriving home, Sophie poured a glass of wine and periodically checked her phone for any messages. With a sinking feeling she noted Matt still hadn’t texted her and she missed him. Once she had got pregnant they had tried to live together. But it was never easy. It turned out they were compatible on expensive dates and weekend breaks, but living together showed both of them how different they were. After Emily’s death, Matt had wasted no time moving out. He’d said he had found it difficult to be around Emily’s things, in the house where they had become a family and where her young presence had coloured their world. They had dealt with the grief so differently: he wanted to avoid it, whereas Sophie needed to be immersed in it.
Every night after Emily’s death, Matt would walk into the house and head straight out into the garden gasping for air, suffocated by his sadness and the memories of the joyous baby laughter that no longer filled their rooms. They had talked about moving, but Sophie wasn’t ready because for her being in the house had the opposite effect it had on Matt; sitting in the Winnie-the-Pooh-themed nursery had been her only comfort and a way of moving through her sadness, and the thought of leaving her home overwhelmed her. With their ongoing anguish it had seemed a natural progression for him to stay over at his old flat that had recently become unoccupied. He was away more and more days a week, though he had assured her it was just till he felt better and when one of them could move forward. Once he had left with his last case of clothes, Sophie had known in her heart that he would never sleep in their bed again.
But even with their ongoing pain, until the last few months he had messaged her at least three times a day, with a goodnight text before he went to bed. But the last text she had received had been from the day before. Surely he had charged his phone by now?
Sophie sighed and settled down in her tiny cosy living room with a cocoa and a stack of books. In a pinch she would read on her phone, but she’d found since she had started this new job she enjoyed the experience of physical books more, searching through pictures and descriptions of buildings, and their histories that stretched back through the years. It gave her great satisfaction to meander through the streets of London of the past through the books’ pages, and Sophie loved being able to recognise a particular building and know its story. They were becoming familiar to her now, feeling like old friends, regal and dignified, guarding over the city for centuries.
Sophie gathered the books about World War Two she had recently purchased to prepare for the exhibition and opened a chapter about the buildings along Baker Street. Where the picture had been taken had no firm address, so figuring out exactly where Vivienne was standing took some time but with some delving and investigation on her computer, and with the knowledge of the buildings around it, she pulled together the pieces of the puzzle.
The young boy perched on the rubble was at the top of Baker Street, and the building next to the bomb site, with its white stone steps and Grecian pillars, was very recognisable. An online article stated the building with the pillars housed a lot of civil servants and the government had used it during the war, with one of the offices even being SOE – Special Operations Executive – an independent spy network set up by Churchill during the war to work alongside MI5 and MI6. Sophie sat back and thought about that. It was interesting. If Vivienne had been such a wild child, what business did she have in a bureaucratic building in London so far from her home in Cornwall? Especially one involved in war work. Is that what Vivienne had been doing on her visit to France? The passage didn’t go into any further detail about the organisation, but it confirmed Sophie’s suspicions. The woman stepping out of that building in the photograph, who could’ve been a reflection of herself or her mother, was a mystery to be solved.
Sophie decided to email her cousin Jean, who lived with her great-uncle Tom, with a crop of the photograph, asking if she could shed any light on the person who was in it, and also if it was possible for Sophie to come down to the manor sometime for a visit. It had been so long since she had been there and the thought of getting out of London for a break sounded good.
Jean, who was invariably up late, messaged her straight back, saying she remembered talk of a mystery sister years before, but that until Sophie’s email she had completely forgotten about it, as no one mentioned her. But Jean had no idea if the woman in the photograph was the mystery sister. Though she had some hazy recollection from when she was a child, of her dad talking about a Vivienne in hushed tones with her mother, she had never been told anything about the woman in question. Her email went on to say that her dad’s memory was extremely fragile now, and that Sophie might not get much help from him. Though I am sure he would welcome a visit from his favourite grand-niece, she had added with a smiley emoji.
Sophie closed her laptop. Her gran was being too pessimistic. And though Jean had sounded a little concerned about how Sophie’s great-uncle would react, she seemed to share Sophie’s interest in finding out more about Vivienne.
Making herself a cup of tea, Sophie settled down to review her work calendar. She had been pretty busy over the last few weeks, but the exhibition was now open, and there was a bank holiday coming up soon. She couldn’t see why she couldn’t travel down for a week or so to see her great-uncle and cousin Jean – who she really viewed more as an aunt. She would ask Jonathan in the morning. Then, against her better judgement, she flipped open her phone and typed a text to Matt.