Swiping the hair out of her eyes again she sat, legs crossed, trying not to fidget. Livy gripped an envelope in her right hand. She’d spent the better part of last night writing the letter it contained. When Fleming summoned her into the inner sanctum she planned to hand it to him and be done with it.
Livy wondered how many times she’d walked into this office. She remembered the first time she’d staggered down the hallway, half-soused on gin, hours late for a meeting with Fleming and through the doorway marked “Kemsley News Service.” That day she’d wondered if this might be just another news organization. How wrong she had been. Later she learned that Fleming ran foreign correspondents for papers like The Sunday Times all over the world. Some of those correspondents were actual journalists, and others, like Livy, were essentially freelance agents whose work ended up on desks at MI6.
Now, the embarrassment of that first meeting with Fleming washed over Livy. God, that felt like ages ago. But only a year really. She felt a different woman now. She’d said goodbye to so many things since then. Her nightly bouts with Polish vodka, her dead-end job as a copyeditor at a third-rate newspaper across town and—of course—Peter Scobee. She still thought about him. Her commander during the war. Her friend, her lover. But then last year had changed so many things. She felt a different woman now, and lately Livy wondered if that applied to her work as well.
She took a breath and released the envelope she’d been holding for dear life. Her palms were sweaty.
Livy scanned the outer office, wondering if this might be the last time she’d see it. Thick wood-paneled walls surrounded Pen’s clutter-free desk, which was the only substantial piece of furniture in the room. A gleaming Royal Arrow typewriter and a black telephone anchored her workspace. Behind the desk hung a large framed print of Turner’s The Battle of Trafalgar. Nelson’s flagship, HMS Victory, dominated the canvas, with the final letters of the signal “England expects that every man will do his duty” flying from the mast.
Every woman too, Livy thought.
“He should have finished five minutes ago. I don’t know what’s keeping him,” Pen said, her voice as smooth and crisp as a summer walk in Hyde Park. She looked at her sleek gold wristwatch, sighed, and turned back to her typewriter.
Pen ran a tight ship and was more than a bit obsessive about keeping Fleming on schedule. Livy knew that beneath her icy blonde glare lay a good heart and a woman who’d do anything for a sack of chips.
Livy again pushed her hair back in place. She wanted to look calm and collected for the meeting but knew her appearance probably matched the rumpled bundle of nerves inside. She’d called London home since the end of the war and still hadn’t quite gotten over the bumpkin stereotype many southerners have of working-class people from the North. She’d grown up in Blackpool, Lancashire. Even with an Irish father and French mother, Livy’s vowels and lilting cadence betrayed her Lanky upbringing.
“You quite all right today, Livy?” Pen’s eyes shifted away from her typewriter. “You have that nervous thing you get sometimes.”
“Bit of a rough go in Paris the other day.”
Pen stiffened. As Fleming’s secretary, she handled the journalistic side of things. Livy doubted Pen had ever signed the Official Secrets Act, the document that bound journalists, spies, or whomever from betraying the knowledge gained while working for His Majesty’s Secret Service.
“Right, well after you’re done in there, we could pop down to that fish and chips stand on the corner at lunch. I’ll tell you all about my latest. Christopher. Mmm. Absolutely spiffing. I’ll even buy.”
Livy smiled and glanced at the letter in her hand. “Might just take you up on that, luv.”
The thick oak door behind Pen’s shoulder opened with a great whooshing sound as the rubber seal around the frame dislodged. Fleming stood in the doorway.
Livy didn’t go for him at all, although she could see why certain women might. His blue-gray eyes betrayed the first hints of aging, but his wide, turned-down mouth, below a nose that had been broken at least once, suggested the sort of cruel, devil-may-care attitude that made some women lose their train of thought. As always, he wore a navy suit with a white shirt and polka-dot bow tie. But today he looked tired.
“Olivia,” he said. “Right.” He turned back into his office.
Livy stood and pushed her hair back again. Pen gave her a wink as she headed inside.
Fleming’s inner office didn’t seem much bigger than the outer, perhaps about twelve feet square. A small picture window dominated the far wall, with a view of neighboring brownstones that stretched as far as Livy could see. In contrast to his secretary’s workspace, Fleming’s chunky oak desk was buried under newspapers, many dog-eared and lying open. Several carefully stacked piles of papers were kept in order by a cannonball paperweight. Alongside rested a pair of reading glasses as well as a pack of Chesterfields and Fleming’s own custom-made cigarettes kept in a small blue box.
The clutter paled compared to the spectacle of the wall-length map of the world that hung directly behind Fleming’s desk. The chart stretched from Alaska and North America on the left to Siberia and the South China Sea on the far right. Tiny lights, representing the Kemsley correspondents throughout the world, were embedded in the map itself. Livy guessed there were almost a hundred. The map glowed like an elongated Christmas tree, from one corner of the world to the other. Most of the lights seemed to be concentrated in North and South America, Europe, and Africa, but the occasional single light flickered in Czechoslovakia or Peking. Moscow even had its own small bulb.
Livy’s eyes went to the light in Paris. For over a year now that had been her.
“Your man certainly came through for us,” Fleming said, lighting one of his special blended cigarettes and placing it in a long holder. “Allard had a look at the list from Tempest. He wired Six this morning to say it all appears genuine.” He looked up. “Are you going to stand all day?”
“Sorry, sir.” Her heart sank lower as she descended into the chair across from his desk. Anxiety still made her crave a drink. Her eyes strayed to the drink cabinet Fleming kept beside his desk.
Fleming leaned back in his swivel chair and took a long draw of the cigarette. “Olivia, there is something we need to discuss. I’m afraid it’s rather—”
“Here. This is for you.” Livy held out the envelope. Her hand shook.
Fleming’s brow wrinkled. He took the envelope but didn’t open it. “And what do we have here?”
“You just need to read that. Explains everything.”
“Olivia.”
“I need you to read it. You gave me a great opportunity here, and I know when I first started, I wasn’t exactly Sunday Times material, but that didn’t matter—”
“Olivia, please.”
“You were loyal to me. I won’t forget that.”
“What the devil are you on about?”
Livy sat up straighter in the leather armchair. “I cocked it up but good in Paris the other day. I misread the situation and just flat-out lost my nerve.”
“I read your report.”
“I attacked an innocent man. I put him on the pavement. He was just some bloke getting a taxi and I—it was crazy of me—but I thought he and this other man were following me, and I hit him. I convinced myself Barnard ratted me and I … panicked. A year ago, in the same situation, I could have thought it through. But now, I don’t know, something’s changed.”