I Can't Begin to Tell You (16 page)

This was funny, and not funny. ‘Could you provide the agents with a print-out which has worked-out keys already on it? The agents would use this once and then destroy it. For the following sked they use a second set …’

Peter seemed genuinely pleased. ‘That’s been thought of, too.’

She sent him a look. ‘I’m curious about why you need me? If it’s all been thought of.’

‘I wanted more than one mind on the problem. So, write me a report.’

‘Will it happen?’

‘I bloody hope so. There are problems. The top brass and their mind-sets … Another question: could you use paper? Or should it be some other material which would be easier to hide? Paper is bulky and detectable. But the far more serious consideration is –’

Ruby was ahead of him. ‘If the enemy discovers we are using this one-use method, they will copy it and
we
won’t be able to read their traffic.’

‘That’s it,’ said Peter. ‘That’s the problem.’

‘So giving the agents extra security means we shoot ourselves in the foot.’

‘Isn’t that like life?’

Huddled into her space at the end of the corridor, Ruby began work on a security dossier. By this time she had wised up to the
system, had snaffled a typewriter from Stationery and hunted down spare typewriter ribbon.

She read extracts from a secret manual written by instructors who trained recruits at Beaulieu in the arts of covert warfare.

Do not deceive yourselves about enemy objectives. The orders are that enemies of the Reich should die, but not before everything possible has been squeezed out of them. They want your codes. They want information. Who trained you? And where? Coding practices. In some instances, they might try to talk you into becoming double agents or stool pigeons for a time, but it depends on who is holding you. We gather from debriefs that the German military intelligence, the Abwehr, have a softer approach. They begin friendly, then progress to greater threats and then torture. The Gestapo, however, will start with torture but they will keep you alive until they get what they want. In those circumstances we ask you to try to hold out for forty-eight hours, which should give your networks time to disperse.

No one is expected to withstand prolonged torture. Therefore a better strategy is to try to avoid third-degree interrogation during which you would almost certainly tell them most things. Feed them information in a controlled manner. If necessary, surrender your codes reluctantly; offering some cooperation in playing back the sets would give you temporary credit. This means you have a chance of keeping your security checks secret which, when they do play back the sets, will alert Home Station because the security checks won’t have been included in the message.

‘Where is the morality in what we are doing?’ Peter’s voice echoed in her head. Then it occurred to her: in this game morality is not enough. You had to be practical, inventive and bold.

Perhaps Peter was wrong in his emphasis?

She thought hard and long over the problem of coding security, forcing her mind down strange pathways. How do
humans behave? What are their priorities in certain circumstances? Are the Germans so different? If so, in what ways?

Her typewriter clacked in tandem with Gussie’s.

1. Agents are under huge pressure. Ergo, it is to be expected that at least one of their messages over a period of time would be classed ‘indecipherable’.
   
2. Therefore, their messages must be regularly tallied and inspected.
   
3. Home Station must always insist on the Security Checks.
   
4. Training records should be kept and always available.
   

How high in German priorities would enemy agents be? Had the Germans been putting their top cryptographers on captured material? The questions were endless, the answers fewer, but she was always led to the same conclusion: The Firm’s coding needed to be more secure.

The phone went on Gussie’s desk. The typewriter cacophony diminished as Gussie answered it. When the call finished, she turned to Ruby. ‘You’re wanted on the fourth floor.’

‘Sod it,’ said Ruby.

‘Yup, sod it,’ said Gussie. ‘On the other hand, I’m pleased because, for a few minutes at least, you won’t be cluttering up my precious office space.’

‘I love you, too, Gussie,’ said Ruby.

In the stuffy office up on the fourth floor, two men hunched at the desk over a large flow chart annotated in green ink. A third, Peter, was seated opposite them. At Ruby’s entrance, three pairs of eyes looked up. Two of them were unwelcoming. Cigarettes burned in the ashtray. Peter introduced his colleagues.

‘This is Lieutenant-Colonel Nettlesham from Intelligence …’

The younger of the two men ran a professional eye over Ruby and nodded. He was smart, she decided, probably thoughtful.

‘And this is Major Charleston from the Signals Directorate.
Gentlemen, this is Ingram, whose work on the ciphers has been so useful.’

Pale and overweight, Major Charleston sighed audibly.

Ruby braced herself. Unorthodox minds …
Unorthodox minds?
Looking at the major, she thought not.

‘I want Ingram to outline to you both the ideas I asked her to work on.’

Major Martin had not warned her he was going to do this.

Ruby muttered ‘Hell’ under her breath, opened her mouth and began. ‘First, we should consider the context,’ she said. ‘We have to ask whether our traffic is considered important enough for the top German cryptographers to be unleashed on it.’

Major Charleston’s mouth folded into a peevish line.

Ruby continued. ‘Presumably, all the top code crackers are employed on military intelligence, so the odds are our traffic doesn’t as yet receive priority attention from the enemy. But as soon as expert cryptographers are put on the case they will easily decode much of it. Perhaps they already have?’ She shot a look at the men – tight-lipped and uneasy. ‘I know I can’t ask these questions or get any answers. But even with less expert enemy cryptographers working on intercepts, the system we currently use is dangerously insecure, and it is only a matter of time before they crack them.’ There was a pause. ‘Not only that, but once agents are captured it is a near certainty that they will be able to get the coding information out of them.’

Major Martin asked: ‘Are you all right, Charleston?’

The major, who looked as though he was in the throes of a minor heart attack, threw him a look designed to slaughter at three paces.

‘Sirs,’ Ruby’s mouth was drying up. ‘The poem code should be abandoned.’ Peter was looking at her approvingly. ‘As soon as possible.’

Major Charleston recovered his powers of speech. ‘The poem code is used by many other organizations. Our
sister
organizations. They manage perfectly well.’

‘May
I remind you, this isn’t about protocol …’ Peter intervened. ‘This is a matter of the highest urgency and also our duty.’

‘And may I remind you, Martin, that we are fighting a war with no time or resources to fiddle about with half-proven theories.’

Colonel Nettlesham cleared his throat. ‘We’re not taking any decisions until we have debated the pros and cons.’

‘The pros are that obviously our agents can use this system reasonably easily.’ Peter said it coolly enough but she had an instinct that he was angry. ‘The cons are that, almost certainly, any intercepted messages are being read. I hardly need remind you that the Germans read poetry, and write it. Rather well, as it happens.’

The colonel was rolling a bulldog clip over in his fingers. ‘The possibilities exist. Of course they do. Logic tells us that, but what I have to do is to assess the balance of probabilities.’

‘Sir,’ said Ruby, ‘doesn’t logic also suggest that if an agent is caught his or her poem code can be tortured out of them?’

Major Charleston stood up and turned to the colonel. ‘I don’t think we require Ingram’s thoughts any longer.’

She appealed to the colonel. ‘Sir, would you like a report?’

‘Yes,’ he said curtly. ‘You will write it within the next two days. It will be top secret and sent to me, and only me. That is an order.’

All of which meant the report would land on his desk and stay there. Stuck.

‘I’m going to resign from this place,’ she informed Gussie on returning to their office space. ‘They need maths teachers out there. Schools are crying out for them.’

Gussie was highly amused. ‘Ingram, you’ve no idea. No one ever resigns from The Firm. It can’t be done. Either they dismiss you, which means they cut out your tongue. Or they lock you in chains for the duration.’

‘Ah,’ said Ruby. ‘That clears things up.’

Chains
of command. Stupidities. Ingrained bureaucracy and turf wars, even in an organization such as this one where the clever were given full rein. Closed minds. Towers built of paperwork. Dead ends.

In the academic world there were infinite numbers and letter combinations fighting to be freed up. The numbers created patterns, glorious patterns, which linked into an as-yet-imperfect understanding of the universe. She could be there, unlocking doors and windows.

She pulled herself up short. This was a war, not a hothouse for theories. Somehow she had to extract the humanity that was secreted in the selfish bits of her and use it.

‘It’s a man’s world.’ Gussie patted the unfortunate perm which had reduced her normally glossy hair to a frizz.

‘Not for ever,’ said Ruby. Pointing to the stack of paperwork Gussie had already dealt with that morning, she added, ‘Furthermore, you run the place.’

‘We’ll keep that a secret, shall we?’ Again, the pat on the damaged hair. ‘Sit down and get on with it.’

Ruby translated this to mean:
We understand each other very well
.

Kay picked up Felix’s latest message: ‘Could you bring my hat home on Tuesday? I left it in København.’

A sked was due and Felix was probably operating in the Køge area and couldn’t make København in time. Checking the trains, Kay realized it meant an overnight stay.

As predicted, Bror didn’t like it. Irritated and more than a little rattled, he asked: ‘Why do you have to see Nils so much suddenly?’

‘I like to see him.
You
should see him more often.’

Bror frowned. ‘Is that the truth?’

She felt rotten. Bror was suspicious that she had an assignation with Anton and she was causing him pain.

Yet if Bror was disturbed, so was Kay. Deception was far more demanding than she had imagined and she found it hard to handle. Guilt weighed her down. It was omnipresent. She felt it in everything she did and she couldn’t shake it off. As a result she was avoiding Bror, which did nothing to help matters between them.

Eventually, she said: ‘I’ll send Nils your love.’

Whenever she was in København on her own, Kay stayed at the Damehotellet, which was clean, convenient and for women only. The walls were painted in soft, pale colours, there were flowers everywhere, and it had good linen. Unlike Rosenlund, no country mice or rat dared to poke its nose in there.

Planning for this particular stay involved thought. She had packed her overnight things into a shopping bag and taken good care that Bror didn’t see her leave otherwise he might have questioned the lack of a suitcase.

She arrived at Damehotellet with the wireless set, which she
had picked up without trouble, plus a bundle of
Frit Danmark
for distribution in Køge. With the set and leaflets hidden in the wardrobe of her room, she prepared for her dinner with Nils. This involved dressing up the carefully chosen black suit she had been wearing all day with the Eberstern pearls and earrings.

Observing her image in the mirror, Kay was reassured. She looked what she hoped. A smart wife and mother. Better still, under control.

She returned to the hotel soon after ten-thirty. The maid had plumped up the quilt on the bed, laid out her satin nightgown and drawn the brocade curtains. The room was warm and comfortable and, for once, the war retreated into the background.

The phone rang.

‘Kay,’ said Bror.

‘Darling …’ Kay sat down on the edge of the bed and pleated the hem of the nightgown between her fingers. ‘It’s very late. Are you all right?’

At times like this she envied Felix his solitariness in his undercover life. His lack of family. The advantage he possessed in not having to account to anyone.

‘Good dinner?’

She caught the undercurrent:
Do I trust my wife?
That hurt. It really hurt that her decisions were eroding a marriage which had been built up over so many years. But this was what happened. What did she expect?

‘Nils took me to his favourite restaurant. He’s working hard and I came back here. I was practically asleep when you rang.’

At his end, Bror cleared his throat. ‘Nils told me you were having an early supper.’

‘As it turned out we couldn’t get a table until later.’

Be careful when lying
, Felix had cautioned.
It’s the small ones that catch you out
.

‘Are you checking up on me, darling?’

He cleared his throat. ‘I think I am.’

He
sounded odd, troubled.

‘Bror, this is not like you …’ The words were clammy with her deceit. ‘Something’s happened. What?’

‘Ove Poulsen has given in notice. He’s going to work in Germany.’

‘Ove!’ Ove’s family had been at Rosenlund for generations.

‘A slap in the face for me,’ said Bror.

Ah. Again, guilt raised its dark head. ‘You mustn’t take it personally.’

But Bror would take it personally. Of course he would. Rosenlund was his Arcadia, a tangible expression of a life philosophy, and he took pains to ensure the men were comfortably housed and their work arrangements were fair.

‘I told him never to come back.’ She heard him take a sharp breath. ‘Kay, it’s going to leave us very short-handed.’

‘We’ll manage,’ said Kay.

He asked what train she intended to catch in the morning. Kay told him. ‘I’ll make sure Arne meets you,’ he said, adding, ‘Curious thing, Kay, when I took the dogs out – we found a pigeon in the old pigeon loft. Arne tells me that he found it and put it in there. He never mentioned it.’

Arne?

A finger ran down Kay’s spine. ‘Poor thing. It must be lost. I hope Arne took pity and tucked it up with some food.’

‘We’re not a care home for pigeons.’

‘It’s not in anyone’s way, is it? Besides, if food gets short we could always eat it.’ Bror laughed. At a beat, the atmosphere changed. Greedily, she grabbed the few seconds when it could be said that all was well between them. ‘Couldn’t we?’

‘So you are turning into a good Danish wife. It’s taken twenty-five years.’

Her handbag and shopping bag over one arm, carrying the wireless set in the case in the other hand, Kay made for the Left Luggage at the station. Having deposited the case, she bought
a magazine at the newsstand and went to inspect the platform where the Køge train was waiting.

If there were security checks or soldiers, she would leave the case in Left Luggage. But the platform was clear and, in due course, she retrieved it and boarded the train.

The journey was straightforward but not comfortable. Sitting quietly in her seat, her coat draped over her shoulders, Kay hid a thumping heart and sweaty palms and tried to remember anything she had ever read about the art of relaxation. Fear of being frightened was worse than being frightened. Wasn’t it?

Arne was waiting at the station with the car parked alongside a couple of grocery vans. A snow flurry was casting a fresh white layer over the grey-black slush.

Lifting the case into the boot, Arne’s eyes widened as he registered the weight. ‘Shall I cover this with a rug?’

Snapping to attention, she nodded.

Arne. One of them?

The snow was coating them both in ghostly feathers. ‘I gather you found Hector – I’ve named him Hector – in the old pigeon loft. Isn’t he superb? I’ve grown fond of him but I suppose I ought to send him on his way one of these days. Except that it’s so cold.’

‘He’s a nice bird,
Fru
Eberstern. I would say he came from a good home.’

‘Oh dear, they’re probably mourning him.’

Arne tucked in the rug. ‘I hope you know what you are doing.’

‘Looking after a stray bird, Arne. That’s all.’

The lock on the boot always required an effort and Arne gave it a good shove. ‘That’s very kind of you,
Fru
Eberstern.’

The train sounded its whistle and shunted out of the station, leaving the snowy platforms abandoned under a grey sky.

‘Best to get going,’ said Arne.

Even in Køge the roads were slippery. Arne nosed the car
down the street and headed for the turn-off to Rosenlund. Kay leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes.

Suddenly, Arne swung the car off the road to the left and Kay was thrown against the door.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Roadblock ahead,’ said Arne. ‘
Feldgendarmerie
. Lots of them.’ He pressed the accelerator and the speedometer needle swung upwards.

‘There was no need to do that.’

Arne’s mouth set in a grim line.

There was no time to speculate. Either Arne was with her or not, and she took the calculated risk. ‘Did they see us?’

‘Can’t say.’

They found themselves in a side street – where the car was conspicuous by being the only one amongst a scattering of pedestrians who were plodding through the snow. The grey light dulled the yellows, ochres and bull’s-blood red of the buildings. Steam seeped up from a grating. Kay tapped his shoulder. ‘Arne, slow down. We’re drawing attention to ourselves.’

At the end of the street, Arne turned left into the road that led up to the market place. ‘We should go around the back of the town,’ he said.

Kay squinted up ahead. ‘We can’t. There’s a second roadblock.’ She shrank back – and, to her shame, felt a moment of debilitating terror.
What have I done?

She forced herself to think.

‘We’re going to have to bluff it.’ Mercifully, her mind began to work clearly. ‘Arne, get the case out of the boot and put it on the back seat. I’m going to sit with it and pull the rugs over me. And I’m going to be ill.’ She unwrapped the scarf round her neck and tied it over her hair, pulling it well down. ‘Have you got a knife, something sharp?’

Arne didn’t waste time on questions, but hunted in the dashboard compartment and handed her a penknife. Kay ripped off a glove and slashed the plump part of her thumb.

Blood
bloomed like a pretty little pimpernel flower and grew obligingly into a small peony. She blotted it with her handkerchief.

Arne slid the case into the back and Kay climbed in, wedging it behind her legs. He threw two rugs over her. She rammed her glove back on, sat back against the leather upholstery and held her handkerchief up to her mouth.

They drove at a moderate speed towards the roadblock.

A young and blond
feldgendarme
stepped out into the road and indicated they should stop.

Arne obliged and rolled down the window. The
feldgendarme
stuck his head in and said, ‘
Raus
,’ followed by some sentences in German.

‘We don’t understand,’ said Arne in Danish.

Kay coughed. Inside her glove, her thumb smarted. The
feldgendarme
beckoned to a Danish policeman who was also manning the roadblock. Thank God she didn’t recognize him.

The policeman was instructed to translate. Wooden-faced, he explained, ‘You must get out. We wish to search the car.’

‘What’s happening?’

‘There are reports that terrorists are operating in the area.’

Arne heaved himself out of the driver’s seat. ‘Of course.’ He walked around to the boot and clicked it open. ‘Please.’

The
feldgendarme
turned his attention to Kay and she sagged back against the upholstery. The Danish policeman opened the passenger door. ‘Please get out.’

Kay murmured, made an effort to do so, coughed huskily and made a play with the bloodstained handkerchief at her mouth. ‘I’m sorry …’ She drew the words out. ‘I don’t feel well.’

The
feldgendarme
demanded of the policeman: ‘Find out what’s wrong with the woman.’

She spread out the handkerchief and pressed it to her mouth. The blood on the linen was a fresh scarlet.

The policeman looked horrified. ‘TB?’ He didn’t have to translate it for the German.

Arne
shrugged.

Sweat sprang onto her upper lip and spread under her arms. Her legs, clamped round the case, threatened to cramp.

The blond
feldgendarme
stepped backwards. ‘Stay away. The woman should receive immediate medical attention.’

‘Drive on,’ the policeman instructed Arne.

Snow was beginning to fall in earnest. As they drove through the roadblock, great flakes of it settled on the policemen and soldiers. Handkerchief still pressed to her lips, Kay regarded them over it. These were men she had outwitted.

Once out of Køge, Arne was forced to drop his speed in order to negotiate the now treacherous roads. White spears of larger plants poked up through the snow blanket and the smaller branches on the trees were already sagging under the weight.

Did one talk?

‘How did you know, Arne?’ she asked eventually.

He shrugged.

‘You haven’t mentioned it to anyone?’

‘No.’ Arne shook his head. ‘How did you know what to do,
Fru
Eberstern?’

She glanced down at the stained handkerchief. The blood had made the cotton stiffen. Is that what happened when people were shot? ‘The Germans are terrified of TB. Well, everyone is, aren’t they?’ As Arne turned the car into Rosenlund’s drive she added, ‘I don’t want to involve you in anything further. Arne, you can, and must, forget this incident.’

‘I’ll do that,
Fru
Eberstern.’

‘It must not come between you and
Hr
Eberstern.’

She regarded her hands as they rested in her lap. ‘I really am sorry.’

‘I know what I am doing,
Fru
Eberstern.’

They exchanged wintry smiles.

‘Arne, can you take the back entrance and drop me by the outhouses? I want to say hello to Hector.’

As
soon as the car drove away, Kay slipped into the pigeon loft and slid the case into its hiding place.

Back in her bedroom, she was in her underwear and changing her stockings when Bror came in.

‘Good trip?’

‘Interesting.’ Kay sat down and rolled one of her treasured sheer stockings up her leg. Bror watched her. She heard her voice rising a little higher than normal as she reported a mish-mash of gossip and hearsay, some of it diverting. There was the anecdote of the German officers who, having hung up their holsters and belts in a restaurant cloakroom, discovered at the end of the meal that they had vanished. There was the boy in Aalborg who had stolen six grenades but didn’t know what to do with them and returned them.

She inserted her foot into the second stocking. ‘It’s almost funny.’

‘I suppose it is.’ He bent over and, keeping his eyes trained on her face, hooked the suspender into the stocking welt. In that past life together it would have been an erotic, intimate moment, probably resulting in the stocking being removed.

But that wasn’t possible now. Bror jerked at the suspender, catching her flesh in the fastening.

She laid a hand over his. ‘You’re hurting me.’

‘Sorry.’

She removed her hand.

‘Kay, don’t repeat those stories in public, will you?’

‘If that’s what you wish.’

It was anguish to realize that she no longer felt safe with him and he was no longer her refuge. And vice versa. And equally harsh was the understanding that total estrangement would be easier than stringing him along.

She stood upright. ‘What are you angry about?’