A Time of Secrets (17 page)

He glanced at Ross, who sat up in his chair, took a breath and was all business. ‘Go through reports of field missions. I’ve been able to get documents from most of the AIB operations, not just APLO. It was a devil of a job to get hold of all this, so we need to make the most of the opportunity.’ He leaned over the desk and stared at me, his jaw tight. ‘This is all top secret – about as top secret as you can get – so keep it under your hat.’

‘I understand that.’ I held his gaze and my voice was clipped. He didn’t want mouse Stella, I thought, well then he’d jolly well get angry Stella. ‘Anything else? Sir?’

He leaned back in his chair. ‘I want you to go through transcripts of interrogations. What I’m looking for is a common denominator when something went wrong in any of the operations. Use your brain and your imagination. Think about the little clues that might be in there and see where they lead.’

‘Yes, sir. What does Captain Molloy think I’m doing?’

‘Exactly what I told you, but he thinks we’re looking at how to improve our operations. He doesn’t know we’ve got another agenda.’

He glanced at me quickly, checked that I seemed to understand, and looked down at the desk again. ‘I’m not ruling out deliberate sabotage from our own side. There’s a lot of jealousy between the various groups, reputations to be made. It might even be the Americans, wanting us to fail. There’s also stupidity. Too many operatives are antisocial individualists; they can be less than discreet sometimes, let information slip without thinking about it. And there are always some people willing to betray their country for money.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Captain Deacon got up from his chair. I sprang up also, to salute him.

‘I appreciate your help on this,’ he said to me. There was a brief smile. ‘Don’t let Nick bully you, Sergeant. And you should remember that he’s a psychologist whose hobby is psychoanalysis. Try not to let him into your head.’

‘Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir.’

His smile widened. ‘Good luck.’

He turned and left the room.

I looked at Ross, who was apparently perusing the papers on his desk. He sighed, ran his hand over his face and looked up at me.

‘Stella, we’ll be working closely on this. I know that we got off to a bad start last night. I was drunk, but that’s no excuse. I told you that I blame myself for the failure of the mission. That’s what Eric thinks. He thinks it was my fault.’

Without thinking, I said, ‘So you’re hoping to prove to yourself – but mainly to him – that it was a traitor and not your mistakes that cost those lives.’

I was shocked to realise I’d said it out loud and I mumbled an apology.

He looked away, at something above my head, and his smile was wry. ‘No sugar coating from Stella Aldridge. You know, you rather remind me of him.’

‘Who?’

‘Eric bloody Lund.’ Ross almost spat out the name. He closed his own eyes for a beat, and when he opened them again I could see the weariness in his face. ‘He saved my life up there. Saved all of us. I find it hard to forgive him for that. Stupid, eh?’

I shook my head and murmured something about how difficult it must be. His expression didn’t alter. My voice fell away and we just looked at each other. His ridiculously lush eyelashes shadowed his eyes and made it impossible to read his expression clearly. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. It seemed that he did that whenever he wanted to get his emotions back in order. I had the impression that Ross needed to appear to be always in control.

‘I want to find a traitor,’ he said. ‘Or a fool. If the failure of the mission I commanded wasn’t my fault – and the court martial didn’t think it was my fault – then I want to find out how it happened and stop it happening again.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘This is too important to risk anyone finding out about what we’re doing. A small office will be set up for you down the hall.’

‘Yes, sir.’

His voice became brisker. ‘We’ll see what you find.’

‘Yes, sir.’

I kept repeating that – but I had no idea how to respond to him. I needed time to sit down and think about it all.

He swung his chair around so that he was looking out the window, just as he’d done on the Sunday I came to see him.

‘I’ve got you some watercolour paints, brushes, charcoal.’ He hadn’t turned around. ‘Also an easel and some paper.’

‘What? Thank you.’ I was at a loss for words. ‘I’m . . . Thank you.’

‘When you run out, or if you need anything else, let me know. I can get whatever you need.’

‘Th-thank you.’ I sounded like a stuttering idiot.

‘I’ll send Tuck around with some of it and bring the rest when I come to Dolly’s bridge party, if it doesn’t arrive before then.’

‘Bridge party?’

‘Didn’t Dolly tell you? She’s arranged a bridge party for the tenth.’

‘She didn’t tell me.’ I was so shaken that I again spoke without thinking. ‘You don’t seem to take the regulations about non-fraternisation very seriously.’ I remembered just in time, and added, ‘Sir.’

When he swung around to face me, he was smiling. ‘No one does. They seem to be more honoured in the breach.’ He paused. ‘Dolly’s boyfriend is an American major, after all. And he paid for that birthday party. How did she meet him?’

‘I have no idea. She’s always meeting people. She’s so pretty.’

He looked at me for a long, unblinking minute and I felt heat in my cheeks.

‘You’re much more attractive than Dolly, you know.’

My jaw tightened. I said nothing, but looked down. As I stared at my thick woollen stockings and sensible army-issue shoes, I remembered a pair of strappy red sandals that Frank had loved me to wear because they showed off my ankles. They’d hurt my feet badly, but he’d insist on me wearing them. ‘Makes the other chaps jealous of me,’ he’d say. ‘For having such a gorgeous wife.’

I could feel that Ross was still staring at me. I hated being looked at, examined. Frank would stare at me for minute after long minute while I waited, head bowed, just like I was doing now. Waited for the sarcasm or the shouting or the blows.

When he spoke, Ross’s voice was light and uninterested.

‘Anyway, last night Dolly invited Tuck and me to your flat for bridge next Saturday evening. Also that very pretty WAAAF neighbour of yours and Lieutenant Cole. There must be another couple, but I don’t know who they are.’

I looked up at him and he seemed to be considering something. ‘Should I take that WAAAF away from the oafish Lieutenant Cole, do you think?’

He seemed very sure of himself, but he was undoubtedly very good-looking and could be charming when he wanted. I yet again spoke without thinking. ‘You’d be an improvement on Lieutenant Cole,’ I said.

Ross gave a shout of laughter and I thought that it was probably the first unguarded thing he’d done in front of me.

‘Then maybe I will.’

He raised a hand in an obvious dismissal. I turned and left the room.

Thirteen

T
he following morning I walked along the corridor to the small room that had been set up for me to use as an office. Ross had told me to always keep the room locked, and he’d also told me that he had the spare key. Every evening I was to return the files to him, to be locked in the safe in his room.

Once I’d unlocked the door and entered the room I could see that Ross had placed a pile of buff-coloured files on the desk.
Top Secret
was stamped on the front of each. I sat behind the desk and stared at those red letters.
Top Secret
. I thought how odd it was that Stella Aldridge should be involved in such important matters.

Frank had thought I was pretty, but stupid. He’d often tell me I was stupid when we were alone. The first time he did so in public was at a party, not long after we’d been married. I was not quite twenty years old and, if truth be told, I was a little overwhelmed by the sophisticated crowd around me, who were chic and brittle and knowing, and treated me like a child. ‘Frank’s child bride’ someone had dubbed me, and the name had stuck.

‘But really, it’s such a shame.’ The woman had been around sixty, as thin as Coco Chanel, with a long face framed by a sleek silver bob. She looked like a greyhound, overbred, disdainful and arrogant. ‘Almeria was such a pretty town and the Germans flattened it. They say up to a thousand civilians died.’

‘It’s absolutely terrible,’ I’d interrupted, with the strident fervency of youth. ‘And that horrid Von Robbintrop was trying to justify it to the British. I read it in the
Herald
.’

‘
What
did you call him?’ The greyhound woman’s voice was high and amused.

When I realised my mistake I became flustered. Von Ribbentrop was the Nazi ambassador to Britain. I’d pushed on, regardless. ‘Ribbentrop, Robbintrop, he’s a nasty brute, whatever he’s called.’

The laughter around me was indulgent, but I’d caught Frank’s expression just before he joined in. I’d seen the slight twitch in his cheek. I knew what that meant, and my face had started to tingle painfully, as if it had been slapped.

‘She’s pretty, my wife, don’t you agree?’ His smile was for the people around us, not for me. ‘But pretty stupid about world affairs.’ That had brought more laughter. He’d turned to me then, and his voice was suavely amused. ‘Darling, do keep quiet if you haven’t anything sensible to say.’

He grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the group. The next day there were bruises, five little spots to indicate the pressure of his fingers, the extent of his anger. ‘Stop trying to show off, you little fool,’ he hissed. ‘You’re just making an idiot of yourself. An idiot of me.’

I soon realised that speaking out wasn’t worth the belittling remarks and the sly digs he threw at me when we were with other people, and the icy fury and hurtful remarks when we were alone. I learned not to try to join in conversations when we were out together. Instead I’d smile and watch Frank with an adoring look that I’d gradually perfected.

I shook my head to bring myself back to the present day. Frank was dead. Poor Frank, always so worried about how those he thought were important had viewed him.

And he’d been wrong about me being stupid. The files on my desk now were concrete evidence that Captain Molloy, Captain Deacon and Lieutenant Ross thought my views were worth considering, that I had a role to play in this war. That I was not ‘pretty stupid’.

I sat down to open the first folder. It contained about twenty closely typewritten pages that were the record of an interrogation of a man referred to as Prisoner 456. I put it aside and flicked through the other folders. Each had one or more records of interrogation of prisoners, one folder to each prisoner, but some contained the transcriptions of several interrogation sessions. Four were in Malay with English translations. Ten were in Japanese with English translations. One was in Dutch with an English translation. One was in English.

‘I’m looking for connections.’ Ross’s voice caused me to look up suddenly. He was lounging in the doorway, watching me. When he closed the door he seemed to fill the small room; it was somehow intimidating and not in the least charming. I was annoyed that he could intimidate me, so my chin came up and I looked him straight in the eye. He seemed amused by this, although he didn’t smile. Instead he sat in the chair facing my desk and nodded at the folders I’d opened.

‘Connections. And patterns.’

‘Who are these people? Spies?’

‘Some are soldiers captured in engagements. Some are spies. You’ll get records of interview from our own side, from the men who returned from the missions, including Eric’s record of interview.’

‘Did you interrogate them – the enemy soldiers and the spies, I mean? You’re good at interrogation, aren’t you?’

He almost smiled at that. ‘Word gets around, as the Americans say.’ His gaze fell for an instant as he took a deep breath and released it slowly. ‘Yes. I’m good at interrogation.’ He looked up, met my gaze. ‘They give me carte blanche. Don’t care what I do, so long as I get results.’

‘And you get results?’ I asked, slightly revolted.

‘I always get results.’ His gaze was steady.

I gestured towards the folders. ‘So, what you want is for me to review the information in these and see if there’s something you’ve missed?’

He nodded. ‘Or confirm something I’ve noticed.’

‘Then I’ll get to work, shall I?’

I looked pointedly at the door behind him. He smiled at that, an unaffected smile, a charming smile. There were now no bruises on his face, no evidence that anyone had ever hurt him.

Fourteen

‘B
ut Dolly, we’re not supposed to fraternise with the officers. You know that.’

‘Nobody follows the regulations.’ She put a plate of stew in front of me. ‘Here. I cut the meat into small pieces so you won’t need to use your left hand at all.’

I smiled my thanks and forked a piece of meat into my mouth. ‘Delicious.’ I chewed thoughtfully. ‘Captain Molloy won’t like it.’

Her reply was a delicate shrug. ‘How will he know? It’s just a bridge evening. We’ll play for small change. Don’t be such a stick in the mud, Stella.’