There will come a time when you have to sacrifice innocent people, in order to complete your mission. What will you do?
There was only one acceptable response. The mission takes priority. The ends justify the means.
Margaret sat in a leather armchair, smoothed her dress over her legs. She took the glass and sipped the wine. He raised his glass and drank.
‘So,’ he said.
The pendulum in the ancient clock on the mantelpiece marked the passing minutes, a sombre knocking sound with each swing. More of a tock than a tick.
‘I don’t like you,’ he said. ‘And I’m sure you don’t like me.’
Margaret watched him. He smiled after each statement. He was pleased with himself. He’d written this speech in advance. Polished it. Practised it. Assessed each word for the desired effect.
‘You’ve lied to us. You pretended to be someone else. You made up a story when that was surely to be discovered, andyou abuse our hospitality by transmitting our most secret information back to your people.’
He smiled, pleased with his delivery. Margaret was looking forward to killing him, if only to stop the damned smirk.
‘You trade on your old friendships, as if going to kindergarten with someone means they owe you their life. Your activities here will undoubtedly sentence your friend to death, sooner or later. When I put all of this together I can only conclude that you’re a person with no sense of right and wrong. The most dangerous type.’
‘I’m not sure I have all that much patience for being lectured on ethics by a member of the SS,’ Margaret said, pouring herself more wine. She tried the cheese. It was excellent.
‘I want to help you get back to your beloved England,’ he said. ‘And when you’re there, I want you to do something for me. Something easy for you. Painless. Something with no cost to your position.’
‘Or I could kill you now and get back to England by myself,’ she said.
‘Perhaps,’ he said, ‘although I’d suggest that you underestimate me because you despise me. You trust in your own training but you don’t give mine any weight. I have to tell you, everything your people did to you, mine did to me with more ... enthusiasm.’ This time the smile was more forced. There was a pain there, she saw.
‘So let’s pretend we’re both the people we once were, before we were turned into weapons,’ he said. ‘What do you say?’
Margaret was running through scenarios. Scenario one, at the top of the list, was to kill him, slip into the chateau, kill the guards threatening Frau Wassenberg, then make her escape. Its biggest flaw was what would happen the next day. She’d be gone, her friend would be vulnerable.There’d be recriminations. Revenge. Punishment. Scenario two was to let him talk. Agree to his demands. Accept his help getting back to England. There’d be doubts about her when she did show up back home. The possibility of her being a double agent would be discussed. But still, she’d be home.
‘I’m listening,’ she said.
18
The water was choppy, small waves hitting the front of the boat as they made their way back downriver. Ahead, the sky was orange. A false sunrise, caused by the blazing docks. A flock of pigeons wheeled above them, confused by the light.
Cook thought about the wreckage of the bus. They’d had to detour through the backstreets alongside Piccadilly, the main road closed. As they’d crossed the top of Sackville Street, he’d looked down to the other end of the road. An ARP warden had been laying blankets on the ground, covering bodies.
Cook pictured a busy bus. A young woman running to catch it. Jumping on as it pulled away. A lone bomber, an excitable Luftwaffe pilot, either gone rogue, or following a new kind of order – a deliberate attack against the civilian population.
But why would Ruby be running along Piccadilly if she didn’t work at the tea shop? Enough of a question for Cook to keep quiet. Let Gracie run through her own thoughts, in her own time.
If Rubyhadbeen on the bus, they’d find out sooner or later. How would it be done? A telegram? A policeman, most likely, tasked with delivering the news. They’d have special training. A script developed. Hundreds of thousands on the first night of proper bombing they said. There’d be somekind of pre-printed government notice – a condolence from Churchill.
They passed back under Tower Bridge. It had been two hours since they’d left to find Ruby, and still the bombers were coming. Gracie pointed at the nearest formation. Bombs fell delicately, like seeds from a dried seedhead, glinting as they reflected the setting sun. Cook heard a distant rattling, like a sewing machine. Short bursts. A flare of light in the sky – one of the bombers was hit. The plane, still little more than a dot in the distance, dropped out of formation, towards the skyline, a thread of smoke trailing behind it.
It went out of sight, behind distant warehouses far downriver. A puff of smoke went up, then the sound, following behind. An explosion.
Soon, all Cook could hear was their own outboard motor, and the planes. The drone of the bombers drowned out all other sound from the city.
Still the planes came, and still the bombs fell.
Gracie nudged the tiller, taking them in towards the shore. Cook made out the spire of the church almost invisible against a pall of thick, black smoke. It seemed like the whole island was on fire, and the closer they got, the fiercer the heat.
Cook looked for defensive gunfire. Where was the ack-ack? Had there been a plot to take out the gunners on the ground? A co-ordinated attack? Perhaps parachutists, dropped earlier in the day, or spies lying low, ready for the invasion.
A Spitfire dropped out of a thick cloud, directly above them. It circled furiously, trying to shake off a pursuer. It flew back up the river, underneath Tower Bridge, then lifted back into the sky, almost vertically. Rejoining the fight.
