Evelyn frowned. ‘That would make sense if Florence was the only recipient of a letter, but I can’t see a reason for Ruby Minton wanting to target me, it’s not as if we’ve ever crossed swords.’
‘I agree.’
Evelyn smiled ruefully. ‘We need Roderick Alleyn, or better still, your Sister Grace to help us find the culprit.’
Romily smiled too. ‘Life is seldom as straightforward or as tidy as it is in a crime novel.’
Yes, thought Evelyn, thinking back to the mess she had made of her time at Bletchley Park.
ChapterFifty-One
Wayside Cottage, Buckinghamshire
September 1942
Evelyn
It was the discovery that Tally my housemate was a spy that led to my moral disgrace.
After anight-time shift at the Park, I cycled home in the early morning sunlight to our cottage and found that it had been burgled. There was no sign of Tally, but every room had been ransacked; the cupboards in the kitchen had been emptied and the paucity of furniture in the sitting room had been thoroughly upended.
Upstairs, my small collection of books had been swept from the shelf, the mattress had been removed from the bed, and the contents of the wardrobe, dressing table and chest of drawers lay strewn about the place. It was when I saw my framed photograph of Kit on the floor, the glass smashed and the back of the frame prised off, that I suspected that this was not a straightforward burglary: somebody had been searching for something specific.
I stared at the mess in bewilderment and dismay. Who could have done this? And why? Worried that whoever had been here might not have found what they were looking for and return, I cycled to the nearest telephone box, some two miles away. I rang Max’s number at the house in Bletchley where he lodged. It was an age before anybody answered. His landlady informed me that MrBlythe-Jones was asleep, but after I insisted it was imperative I spoke to him, that it was an emergency, she reluctantly went to knock on his door.
‘Who the devil wants me?’ he demanded when he picked up the receiver.
‘It’s me,’ I said, and hurriedly explained the situation.
‘Why haven’t you called the police?’ he asked when he arrived within thirty minutes on his Norton motorbike.
‘Because I don’t think it’s an ordinary burglary. See for yourself,’ I added.
‘You’re right,’ he said when he’d looked around. ‘What do you know about your housemate?’
He had clearly leapt to the conclusion I had. ‘If I’m honest,’ I said, ‘I don’t really know that much about her.’
It seemed so implausible, given that we shared a house, but it was true. I knew her name and her age and that in her free time she loved to be in the garden, but that was about it.
‘What does she do at the Park?’ Max asked.
‘I don’t know. We never talk about work, we’re not supposed to. You know that as well as I do.’
‘But you must have some idea, surely?’
‘I honestly couldn’t tell you.’
‘Has she ever asked you about your work? Or behaved in a manner you thought odd?’
I shook my head. But then I recalled her recently joking about her duties at the Park, how none of her friends would ever guess that she had access to such important information regarding the war effort. Another time I had found her looking through my books. ‘I hope you don’t mind, but I’m desperate for something to read,’ she’d said, a copy ofMurder at Midnightin her hands. At the time I hadn’t thought anything of it, but now I couldn’t help but think she had been snooping. But what had she thought she would find in my bedroom?
I had just shared this with Max when there was a loud hammering at the front door.
‘I suspect you’re about to be interrogated,’ he said.
He was right. When I opened the front door, twosombre-faced men dressed in suits stared back at me. Without introducing themselves, they barged their way into the narrow hallway, then into the sitting room. ‘Are you Miss Evelyn Flowerday?’ one of them asked.
‘Yes,’ I said nervously, glad that Max was standing next to me.
