Slowly, Mr. Randolph stretched out his hand and took the gift.
He would never know how much it had cost her. “Goodbye, Mr. Randolph, and God bless.”
She descended the steps and walked down the street toward Hampstead Station until she heard the door close.
Then Aleida removed her hat. She plucked a hairpin from the coil of hair at the nape of her neck. She plucked out another and another and another until her hair spilled down her back.
Tomorrow, she’d cut it.
36
LONDON
SUNDAY, APRIL20, 1941
With his suitcase between his feet, Hugh stood in the crowded corridor of the overnight train from Aberdeen. All night he’d jostled against the shoulders of his fellow passengers, dozing off and on.
After a delay outside London as they waited for the all clear from yet another air raid, the train pulled into King’s Cross Station.
Hugh stifled a yawn and followed the herd out to the platform.
Glass and steel arched high above, and he made his way through the railway station to the Underground station of King’s Cross St. Pancras.
Soon he’d be home. Would Lennox be there to greet him? Hugh had searched for his cat all Wednesday night, but since returning to Scotland, he hadn’t been able to ring Simmons for news. What if Lennox had been hurt and was hiding somewhere, wounded, dying? What if he’d fled instinctively to his previous home, where the owner wanted him tossed into the Thames?
Hugh’s step quickened.
He passed a newsstand, black with headlines about recent British setbacks in North Africa and the return of the Luftwaffe to London.
Two major raids in the past few days—were the Germans preparing to invade Britain? How could they with so many Nazi troops in the Balkans? Yugoslavia had fallen and Greece couldn’t endure much longer, but transferring forces west again would take time.
Hugh bought his ticket for the Piccadilly Line and found his platform.
“Hugh Collingwood?” a man said in an American accent.
To his right, a dark-haired man in his thirties waved and grinned.
“Tony Da Costa!” Hugh grinned back and shook his friend’s hand. He’d met Tony in Belgium, whilst the American reporter followed the exodus of refugees south and Hugh followed the British forces north. “What have you been doing this past year?”
“I was in Japan for a while.” Tony pointed his thumb to the side and frowned. “Things are brewing over there. Mark my words, we’re going to have trouble.”
Hugh sighed. Didn’t the world have trouble enough already? “How long have you been in London?”
“Two weeks.” Teeth shone white in his broad smile. “Ed Murrow offered me a job.”
“Congratulations. You’re a ‘Murrow Boy’ now.”
“I am. He’s got fellows posted all over the world. He’s deciding where to send me.”
“Sounds smashing.”
Tony clapped Hugh on the shoulder. “Speaking of smashing, I heard one of your reports from Scotland. What brings you to London?”
Hugh gazed into the dark tunnel. “The BBC transferred me back.”
Tony laughed. “You sound disappointed.”
“Not at all. It’s rather exciting. I’ll have full use of a mobile recording unit, and I can tell the stories I’ve been longing to tell.”
