“No, but I’ll have some sent over.” Marie made a note in her head to find some pine sap or tar if the glue didn’t arrive. She understood then that Eleanor’s tearing apart the radio at Arisaig House had prepared her exactly for a moment like this.
“You’ll need to hang your wire out the window to transmit,” he said. She looked out the window, where he indicated a poplar tree, its buds just beginning to bloom. Then she noticed something familiar across the street. The bookstore. Her stomach did a queer turn. Her flat was just over the café where she had seen the SS.
“But the SS...” she began. “How can this possibly be safe?”
“Because they would never expect you to be here.”
“And if they find out?”
“They won’t—if you are discreet. Are you hungry?” he asked.
“I am,” she admitted. The bit of breakfast she had enjoyed with Albert and the others was a distant memory. Julian went to the cupboard and pulled out half a loaf of bread and some cheese wrapped in paper. Marie wondered whether he had stocked the larder or someone else had a key.
He brought the food to the table and went back for two glasses of water. His hand trembled as he passed one of them, sloshing the water. “Are you all right?” she asked.
“Just exhaustion,” he said, trying to smile. “Sleeping in a different place every night, being alone for weeks on end... It wears on you.”
But hands didn’t tremble just because one was tired. “How long has it been like that?”
His smile faded. “I’ve had it for years, nerve damage from some shrapnel earlier in the war. It’s only been the past few months that it’s worsened. Please don’t say anything. If the others knew...”
“I swear it.”
“Thank you.”
They ate in silence. The air grew chilly. “Is it all right if I make a fire in the grate?” she asked, fearing that she would be expected to stay in the cold and dark as she had been in the shed.
He nodded. “Yes. It’s no secret that the apartment is occupied.” As she tended to the fire, he sat back and stretched his legs out, crossing his black boots. It was the most relaxed she had seen him since they had met.
“So what happens now?” she asked.
“You’ll stay here and you’ll receive messages to transmit. They’ll be brought by couriers or Will, the pilot who flew you in.” Julian didn’t mention that Will was his cousin, and Marie wondered if the omission was intentional or whether, in his focused world, he considered the information irrelevant. “He’s the air movements officer, but he helps coordinate the transmissions as well as the flights. It likely won’t be me,” he added. “My men—and women,” he added, this time correcting himself, “are spread across two hundred miles of northern France. I’m constantly traveling between them to make sure they are doing what is needed.” She saw then the responsibility he carried on his shoulders.
“One other thing—be careful when you are transmitting. The SD have become more aware of what we’re doing and they’re on the lookout for transmissions.” Eleanor had said the same, Marie recalled, right before her departure. “Don’t transmit for too long and keep an eye out for the direction-finding wagons or other signs that anyone is onto you.” Marie nodded. She had heard of the vans that prowled the streets, containing special equipment to detect the source of radio signals. It was hard to imagine the police had such things in this sleepy little town. “You can’t stop transmitting, though,” Julian continued sternly. “You have to get the messages through. The information we send to London is critical. They need to know that we are making everything as hard as possible for the Germans to respond when the invasion comes.”
“When will that be?” It was the ultimate question, and asking it felt audacious even for her.
“I don’t know,” he admitted, frustration creeping into his voice. “But it’s supposed to be that way. Need to know, remember? Safer for everyone. The invasion is coming. That much is certain. And we are here to make sure it is a success.” His tone was not boastful but clear and unwavering, one of ownership. Marie saw then that his intensity came not from being arrogant or mean, but from having the weight of the entire operation on his shoulders. She saw him in a new light then, admired his strength. She wondered again if it was wise to have so much go through one person. “That’s all you—or anyone else—needs to know.”
They were risking their lives, Marie thought. It seemed they had a right to know more.
He rose from his chair. “I have to go. You’re to stay here, act normally and transmit the messages the couriers bring you on schedule.”
Marie stood. “Wait.” She didn’t particularly like Julian; she found him prickly and ill-mannered and too intense. But he was one of the few people she knew here and she was not eager to be left alone in this strange apartment, surrounded by Germans.
There was nothing to be done about it, though; going was his work and staying hers. “Goodbye, Marie,” he said, and walked out the door, leaving her alone again.
Chapter Twelve
Grace
Washington, 1946
The next morning, Grace found herself on a train headed south for Washington.
After leaving Mark the previous day, she’d gone straight to work, still thinking about her meeting with the consul. At the beginning, she had only been interested in returning the photos to the suitcase. But after learning that the suitcase belonged to Eleanor and that she had worked for the British government, Grace’s questions had multiplied: Who were the girls in the photos and how were they connected to Eleanor? Could the answers possibly be in some files in Washington? The likelihood of finding anything seemed increasingly remote, and her doubts about going there to meet Mark grew stronger as the hours passed.
She hadn’t mentioned needing time off to Frankie until the end of the day. “Is everything all right?” he asked when she finally made the request. The lines on his brow deepened with concern. Grace understood his reaction; she hadn’t missed a single day in all of the time she had been working for him.
“Fine, fine,” she reassured. “Just a family matter,” she added with a firmness that she hoped would ward off any further questions.
“You know working, keeping busy, that’s the best thing,” he offered. Grace’s guilt rose. He thought that she was taking time because of her grief over Tom. Instead, she was jetting out of town to chase a mystery that was none of her business with a man she should never see again. “You’ll be back the day after tomorrow?” Frankie asked. It was both question and plea.