The Deadly Embrace (4 page)

“Do J.P and Joss work in here?” he asked in a low, guttural voice, trying to make the words sound casual.

“Yes, they do,” said Liza, looking up at him again, “but both of them have left for the evening.”

His shaved head gleamed in the harsh light of Charlie’s desk lamp. The darkly tanned face looked like it had been chiseled out of polished granite, but his menacing demeanor was undercut by his wide, matronly hips.

“Can I give them a message for you, General?” asked Liza.

Without a word, he turned on his heel and walked out of the room. She tried to resume reading her letter, but began yawning uncontrollably. Glancing at her watch, she saw that it was nearly eleven o’clock.

For the first time since her arrival in London, she found herself looking forward to sleep. Before leaving the office, she locked all the letters in her desk, then gathered her coat and handbag and headed toward the front entrance. Outside, it was a raw, blustery night, and rain spattered the sidewalk. After trying without success to hail a cab, she walked back to her hotel through the damp.

The next morning, Charlie looked up from his Times, took a sip of his tea, and said, “We’ve got that bullet-headed American general here again. The two-star. Kilgore. He’s just back from Ike’s old headquarters in North Africa.”

Liza was watching J.P. as he spoke. The other woman’s ears pricked up like a fawn’s. The sound of Joss’s clattering typewriter abruptly stopped at the same time.

“Who is Kilgore?” asked Liza.

“Another West Pointer,” said Charlie. “One of Patton’s old room-mates, I’m told … but different than his sort. In spite of the blood-thirsty name, I gather Kilgore’s not a warrior. He’s supposed to be the kind of indispensable fellow who can lay his hands on ten cases of good whiskey when he needs to—and that’s a man who will go places in this war.”

Charlie buried his face back in the
Times.
As Liza watched, J.P. got up from her desk, adjusted her uniform blouse, and left the room. Joss resumed her typing. A minute later, Charlie gave out with a low whistle.

“Another young woman was found murdered last night in Belgravia,” he said. “Just like the last two, apparently.”

“The last two?” asked Liza.

“The last victims—young and attractive … They suspect one of your oversexed American chaps, I gather.”

Liza went back to work on the slowly dwindling mountain of correspondence. By the end of her second day on the job, she had a much better idea of what her officemates actually did in the war effort.

Joss Dunbar worked on the staff of British Admiral Sir Thomas Jellico, who was responsible for assembling the fleet of ships necessary to deliver the Allied invasion force safely to France.

She was reserved to the point of deep shyness, but carried herself with elegant grace. Very efficient in her job, she was almost paranoid about the security of the papers she was entrusted with transcribing at her desk, and never left the office without locking her work in the desk drawer. Several of her unpainted fingernails were bitten to the quick.

J.P had already served on one of the military staffs in North Africa. Now she was involved with the routing of enlisted WAC support staff to England, everyone from stenographers to the doughnut girls at the London canteens. Noticing at one point that Liza was staring at her wedding ring, she said, “My husband … Lloyd … is an army officer in the Pacific. He...”

Her voice stopped in mid-sentence as copious tears flowed silently down her cheeks. “Lloyd … was captured by the Japanese at Corregidor, and is now a prisoner of war. The last word I received about him was almost two years ago.”

“It must be very hard,” said Liza. J.P. nodded, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a Chanel-scented handkerchief before resuming her work.

She still wasn’t sure exactly what Charlie did. He would spend half the morning sitting around reading the Times or playing chess against an imaginary opponent on the board that occupied a corner of his desk. Then he would receive a written message and bolt out the door, disappearing for hours at a time before returning to resume the same indolent schedule.

Charlie waited until they were alone one afternoon and made a halfhearted play for her. She told him firmly but in a kindly way that she wasn’t interested. He retreated with the look of a chastened puppy.

The first few days passed in the same predictable but reassuring routine. Each morning, she would awake in the darkness, walk to SHAEF in the darkness, leave to go home in the darkness, and go to sleep in the darkness as soon as she had undressed and taken her nightly bath in unheated water. There was an air raid almost every night, but the bombers were again focusing their attacks on the docks of East London.

She happened to be in the ladies’ bathroom at work one morning when Joss Dunbar came in and went straight to one of the sinks. After removing a handkerchief from her blouse, she ran cold water over it and held the cool compress to her forehead.

“Are you all right?” asked Liza.

“Just a touch of influenza, I think,” she said, her eyes tightly shut. Liza was standing alongside her when the girl uttered a sigh and her knees buckled. Liza caught Joss as she fell, eased her to the floor, and then felt for her pulse. It was slow and steady. The girl regained consciousness a few seconds later.

“What happened?” she asked, looking up at Liza, her blue eyes muddled with confusion.

“You fainted, Joss.”

“I’ve never done that before,” she said, moving to sit up.

Perspiration dotted her forehead at the hairline.

“Have you been eating?” asked Liza.

“Yes. I’m always hungry these days,” said Joss.

She swayed unsteadily in Liza’s arms after regaining her feet.

“I still feel quite nauseous,” she moaned.

With a tremulous shudder, she turned and vomited into the sink. Liza held her shoulders until she had finished and rinsed out her mouth.

“Have you considered the possibility that you’re pregnant?” Liza asked gently.

As she watched, the confusion in the young woman’s eyes turned into a look of wonderment, followed by a smile of unbridled happiness.

“Could it be possible?” Joss’s face turned giddy. “Please don’t tell anyone. Oh, that it could be true. I only … Swear you won’t tell anyone, Liza—swear to me.”

“Of course I won’t tell anyone,” she said, noting that Joss wore no rings on her delicate fingers, and no jewelry of any kind except for a small gold locket on a thin chain. Joss’s fingers now flew to it and clasped the locket tightly.

“Do you have a doctor?” asked Liza.

“Of course … except … Don’t worry, I’ll have a test.”

Back in the office, Liza buried herself in the remaining pile of letters for the rest of that day and the next. By Thursday evening, she had finished the last letter. Dozens of them were separated from the others, all flagged with neatly organized adhesive stickers. Calling for a courier, she sent the separate padlocked bags back upstairs.

On Friday morning, she received a brief note from one of the junior officers who served under Major Taggart in the security command. It expressed his appreciation for her “gung ho” spirit in helping with the mail, and praised the thoroughness with which she had reviewed the correspondence. Accompanying the note was another mailbag, fully as large as the first one.

She plunged right into the next batch, privately hoping that something would happen to relieve her temporarily of the monotonous drudgery, but still glad to have work to fill her waking hours. She had already come to embrace fully the English notion of teatime, and was enjoying that respite on Friday afternoon when Charlie turned to Joss and said, “I’m heading down to Rawcliff for the weekend. Sure you wouldn’t like to join me? Country air might do you some good.”

Joss looked up at him from across her typewriter, gave him a polite smile, shook her head, and returned to her work. Charlie’s eyes slid past her to Liza, obviously hoping for a positive reaction from her.

“What is Rawcliff?” she asked, neutrally.

“One of the finest estates in England,” said Charlie with renewed enthusiasm, and clearly desperate to find a weekend date. “It’s the country place of a friend of mine from Oxford. One of the greatest rowers in Oxford history, actually—heart of oak and all that.”

“Perhaps J.P. might be interested,” Liza said.

“She has other plans,” said Charlie forlornly. “She always does.”

An hour later, what was apparently a regular weekend stampede began with the early exit of the SHAEF support staff from the below-ground corridors. Liza watched them jauntily milling along the hallway clearly excited to have a day or two free from the drudgery of staff work.

Joss had already left the office and J.P was gathering her things to go when a young RAF officer poked his head through the door. She saw that he was walking with a slight limp. Almost as tall as Charlie, he was more slender, with corn-colored hair that fell past his right eye, and a broad insouciant smile. Scooping back the lock of hair, he called out, “So how is the old misogynist? Ready to go, Charlie?”

Charlie looked up at him and grinned.

“Of course, my lord,” he said with exaggerated courtesy.

Liza’s attention was momentarily drawn to another man, who was standing out in the corridor. Wearing civilian clothes, he was short and well built with dark-brown hair. As she watched, he removed a cigarette from a silver case and lit it with a silver Ronson.

“They are threatening to tow my car out in the square,” said the RAF officer, with suppressed mirth. “We’ve got to get cracking.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Charlie, with mock deference, as he threw together his gear. Glancing over at Liza, he motioned to his friend and said, “Meet the new Yank.”

The RAF officer looked over and his eyes connected with hers. A moment later, he was limping toward her, the startling blue of his eyes matching the uniform he was wearing.

“Hullo,” he said. “I’m Nick Ainsley.”

It was only when he reached out to shake her hand that she saw the red-patched skin grafts on his cheeks and neck. She was fairly sure that his nose had been rebuilt by plastic surgeons. The terrible injuries hadn’t erased his cleft chin.

“Hello,” she replied, somewhat amazed to find herself so gripped by a man’s physical presence. He seemed reluctant to remove his eyes from hers.

“I’m ready, my lord,” said Charlie, smiling from across the room.

“Well, we must be on our way, then,” said the young officer.

He followed Charlie through the door. A moment later, she could hear them laughing as they headed down the corridor. J.P was still standing by her desk, her eyes shining with aroused luster.

“What’s all that ‘my lord’ stuff?” asked Liza.

“Lawd Nicholas Ainsley,” said J.P., pronouncing the words as if she had just become an English duchess. “What I wouldn’t do for that man, even with all those hideous scars.” She let out a coquettish sigh and said, “He has one of the oldest titles in England … huge mansions all over the place.”

“His left leg was amputated below the knee,” said Liza.

J.P. nodded and said, “He was a Spitfire pilot in the Battle of Britain. One of Churchill’s cherished few. His plane crashed and burned.”

As she was going out the door, J.P. looked back at Liza with an appraising eye.

“If you’re not doing anything tomorrow night, I could find you a date for dinner,” she said as if lonely for female company. “Have you ever eaten at Claridge’s?”

Liza shook her head and said, “Thanks, but I have other plans already.”

She didn’t elaborate on the fact that the plans consisted of doing her laundry and reading another chapter of Jane Austen.

“Maybe some other time then,” said J.P.

Liza walked back to her hotel through another rainy downpour. Even to a new arrival from the States, it was obvious that Londoners were almost worn out. The city newspapers kept referring to the new Luftwaffe bombing campaign as the “baby blitz,” but exhausted city dwellers did not find it amusing. The victories at El Alamein and Stalingrad had receded into distant memory, and the inescapable monotony of dull rationed food supplies had finally begun to erode their spirit. They moved listlessly through the streets, their barely suppressed anger spilling out if their bus was late or there was no meat at the market.

It was different for the Americans, Liza concluded. There was nothing listless about them. Having taken over the best hotels and restaurants, they strutted along the avenues with the arrogance of conquering heroes, even though she knew that very few of them had ever seen battle. To most of them the war was still a great adventure.

As she stared up at the barrage balloons floating lazily in the sky above London like immense children’s toys, Liza thought about everything that had happened during her first week in the new job. Although one of the tiniest cogs in the machine being constructed to destroy Hitler’s Third Reich, she was grateful to be finally playing a part in that vital undertaking.

She was troubled by only one thing, the knowledge that, after reading less than a week’s worth of private correspondence, she already knew the two most important secrets of Overlord, including the planned invasion date at the end of May and the fact that the assault was to be made against a series of landing beaches in Normandy.

If she could find out that information so easily, how hard would it be for the Germans to learn the secrets? she wondered. She decided to talk about the situation with Major Taggart on Monday morning. Of far less importance was the knowledge that at least twelve of the top Overlord commanders apparently had mistresses, and three of them were sharing the favors of J.P.

CHAPTER 4

T
hat Sunday night, the Luftwaffe launched the biggest attack of their new bombing campaign. Hundreds of aircraft rained down tons of block-buster bombs indiscriminately across the city, forcing Londoners to seek out the corrugated tin shelters that had sat unused in backyards since the nightly bombing raids ended back in 1941. The number of civilian casualties was enormous. On Monday morning, Londoners were again digging themselves out of a landscape strewn with rubble and oily smoke.