All Clear (29 page)

“He’s
not
in love with me,” Mary insisted, “and
I’m
not in love with
him.
”

“You needn’t try to spare my feelings. I’ve seen the way you look at him.”

“No one’s in love with anyone, and I have no desire to go out with him. He’s your—”

“No, he’ll never think of me as anything but his little sister. I thought when he saw me in uniform, he’d realize I’d grown up, but he’ll always see me as little Bits and Pieces, six years old and in pigtails. Which isn’t your fault, Mary, and I don’t want this to ruin our friendship. It’s dreadfully important to me, and I couldn’t bear it if—”

“Shh,” Mary said, putting her hand up to stop her, even though Fairchild couldn’t see it in the dark.

“No, I need to say this—”

“Shh,” Mary ordered. “Listen. I thought I heard a V-1 …”

MIKE HAD PHONED FROM BLETCHLEY ON THE WEDNESDAY
after Polly’d gone to Hampstead Heath to say he’d run into Tensing, and Polly had told him to leave Bletchley immediately. Which meant he should have been back by Friday morning at the latest, but he wasn’t. He didn’t come Friday afternoon either, or telephone, or write, and Polly was nearly frantic. Where
was
he?

Tensing found him before he could get out of Bletchley
, she thought,
and talked him into working for him. He’ll never survive the background check
.

“You didn’t tell Mike about the troupe deciding to do
A Christmas Carol
, did you?” Eileen asked. “Perhaps he’s been ringing up while we were at rehearsal. I’ll stay home tonight in case he telephones again.”

But he didn’t phone Friday night either, or over the weekend, and Polly could tell Eileen was just as worried as she was. She was irritable and jumpy, and she didn’t offer any optimistic theories or say anything more about being rescued just when she thought all was lost.

She scarcely said anything, and she was getting no sleep at all. Because of the rehearsals for
A Christmas Carol
, they’d abandoned the emergency staircase for the District Line platform, and whenever Mr. Dorming’s snoring woke Polly, she found Eileen sitting against the platform wall, arms huddled around her knees, staring bleakly into space.

Polly did her share of that, too, over the next few nights, and spent hours trying to think of a plausible reason he hadn’t phoned or sent a
message.
He found Gerald
, she thought.
He said he had a lead
. What if Mike had run into him as he left Bletchley, and they’d gone back to Oxford?

They couldn’t have. If they had, the retrieval team would be here already. Unless there was slippage.
Or it was Tensing Mike ran into, not Gerald, and Mike’s under arrest
.

He knew how much danger he was in
, she told herself.
He wouldn’t have been stupid enough to stay. He’s simply having difficulty getting back to London. He’ll be here tomorrow morning
.

But he wasn’t.
If he hasn’t contacted us by next Monday, we’ll have to go to Bletchley and find out what happened to him
, Polly thought.

But what if he was fine and by going, by inquiring after him, they jeopardized his safety or the safety of Ultra’s secret? Or what if Mike had already jeopardized it? Polly hadn’t found any large discrepancies—Southampton and Birmingham and the air-raid shelter at Hammersmith had all been bombed on schedule—but the raids on Tuesday had begun ten minutes earlier than they were supposed to, and on Friday Townsend Brothers was evacuated for two hours because of a UXB on Audley Street which wasn’t in her implant.

Because it didn’t go off
, she told herself, and while they were waiting in the shelter for the bomb to be removed, forced herself to concentrate on composing messages for contacting the retrieval team: “Lost, near Notting Hill Gate Station, cocker spaniel, answers to Polly. Contact O. Riley, 14 Cardle Street,” and “Dearest T., Sorry couldn’t come to Oxford as planned. Meet me Peter Pan statue 10
A.M
. Sunday.”

“But if Mike comes on Sunday,” Eileen protested, “how will he find us if we’re in Kensington Gardens?”

“Not we, I. I’m supposed to be meeting my dearest Terence or Tim or Theodore. This is supposed to be a romantic tryst. If Mike arrives, the two of you can come fetch me.”

Eileen looked like she was going to argue, then turned away and began reading her Agatha Christie again, and when Sunday came made no attempt to go with Polly.

Kensington Gardens didn’t look much like a place for a romantic rendezvous. Two anti-aircraft guns stood on either side of the Round Pond, rows of half-tracks filled the lawns, and the Victorian railings edging the bounds of the park had been taken down, presumably for the scrap-metal drive.

So many slit trenches had been dug in the area near the Peter Pan statue that Polly began to worry it might have been removed for
safekeeping, but the bronze statue was still there in a little wooded glade, its base crawling with fairies and woodland creatures. If Sir Godfrey were here, he’d no doubt have some pithy comment to make about J. M. Barrie.

But he wasn’t here, and neither was the retrieval team. Polly glanced at her watch. It wasn’t ten yet. She sat down on a bench across from the statue from which she could see anyone approaching and prepared to wait.

Ten o’clock came and went, but no one appeared, not even any children or nannies with prams—and by a quarter past she was sorry she hadn’t let Eileen come with her. Sitting here gave her time to think. What if Mike never came back? What if their drops never opened and—

She caught a sudden flash of movement beyond the bushes off to the left. A bird? Or someone standing there watching her? It couldn’t be the retrieval team. They’d have revealed themselves as soon as they recognized her. A purse snatcher? Or worse?

She was suddenly aware of just how isolated the spot was. But it was midmorning, and there were soldiers within screaming distance. But what if British Intelligence had thought there was something suspicious about the ad? What if they were watching to see whom she met?
Had
there been something suspicious in the ad? She didn’t think so.

She needed to act the way she would if her young man was late. She glanced at her watch, frowned, stood up, and walked along the path a short way as if searching for someone, trying to look hopeful and a bit annoyed, and then strolled back to the statue.

There was definitely someone there in the bushes. “Hullo?” Polly called. “Who’s there?”

A hushed silence, as if someone was holding his breath.

“I know you’re in there,” Polly said, and Eileen emerged from the bushes. “
Eileen
? What on earth are you doing here? Has Mike come back?”

“No. I decided to come along and see if anyone had answered your ad. I told Mrs. Rickett where we’d be, and I left a note for Mike with Mrs. Leary.”

Which didn’t explain what she had been doing lurking in the bushes, and Eileen seemed to realize that because she added, “But then I couldn’t find the statue, and I ended up in among the trees,” which was clearly untrue. The signposts pointing the way to the Peter Pan statue were the only ones in England which hadn’t been taken down, and at any rate Eileen was looking guilty of something, though Polly had no idea what.

“What’s going on?” she asked. “Why did you really come?”

“Eileen!” Mike called. “Polly!”

He was limping up the path toward them, waving.

Mike. Oh, thank God. He wasn’t dead.

“Mike!” Eileen cried, and ran to meet him. “You’re back! Thank heavens. We’ve been so worried!”

“Tensing didn’t find you, did he?” Polly asked anxiously.

“No.”

“Then where were you?”

“In Oxford.”

“Oxford?”
Eileen gasped. “Oh, God, you’ve found Gerald! Thank heavens.”

“No, no, Oxford right now. In 1940. I’m sorry,” he said, looking in dismay at her disappointed face. “I didn’t mean to get your hopes up like that. I didn’t find Gerald. I—”

Polly cut him off. “We want to hear all about your journey,” she said loudly, and then in a whisper, “but not here. Somewhere where we can’t be overheard. Come along. I know just the place.”

She tucked her arm in Mike’s and led him down the path, chattering brightly. “We thought you’d never come, didn’t we, Eileen?”

“Yes. If you’d told us which train you’d be on,” Eileen said, playing along, “we’d have come to meet it.”

“I didn’t know myself,” Mike said. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “What’s going on? Was someone spying on us back there?”

Only Eileen
, Polly thought. “I don’t think so,” she said, “but loose lips sink ships. Come along.”

She led them past the trenches to an open lawn with a large monument in its center. From here, they’d be able to see anyone coming from any direction. “All right,” she said, sitting down on the monument steps. “Now we can talk.”

“What did you mean, ‘loose lips sink—’?” Mike stopped, staring at the statuary around the monument. “Jesus, what
is
this thing?”

“The Albert Memorial. Possibly the ugliest monument in all of England.” Polly smiled happily at the elephant, the water buffalo, the semi-naked young women clustered round them, at Prince Albert sitting on top reading a book. She felt giddy in her relief that Mike wasn’t in the Tower. Or dead.

“It’s hideous. It wasn’t destroyed in the Blitz, was it?” he asked hopefully.

“No, only minor damage, I’m afraid, though supposedly at one point someone put up a large arrow to guide the Luftwaffe to it.”

“It’s too bad it didn’t work,” Mike said, still staring, appalled. “Christ, is that a
buffalo
?”

“Who
cares
what it is?” Eileen said impatiently. “Tell us what happened and why you went to Oxford.”

“Okay. After I called you about Tensing, I went back to Mrs. Jolsom’s to pack my stuff, and she told me the room I’d rented was supposed to have been Phipps’s.”

“It was Gerald’s room?” Polly said.

“Yes. He was supposed to have come two months ago, but he never arrived, so I went to Oxford to see if I could find out whether something had happened to him on the way.”

“And?”

“He never came through. He’d made a reservation at the Mitre in Oxford for the night he arrived, but he never showed up there either.”

“The increased slippage could have sent him through late,” Eileen said, “and he decided to go straight to Bletchley instead of stopping in Oxford.”

Mike shook his head. “He’d mailed a package addressed to himself to the Mitre. He never picked it up.”

“Do you know what was in it?” Polly asked.

“Yeah, that’s why I was gone so long. It took me forever to steal it.” He pulled a sheaf of papers from his pocket and laid them out on the steps of the monument. “It’s all the papers documenting that he was who he said he was—letters of recommendation, school records, security clearances, everything he’d need to pass a background check. Plus train tickets and money. And a letter from his sister in Northumbria informing him his mother was ill. Addressed to Mrs. Jolsom’s address.” He looked up at them. “He obviously never came through.”

The net wouldn’t let him
, Polly thought,
which means its safeguards are still functioning
. Only it didn’t necessarily mean that at all. It might just as easily mean that there was no Oxford from which to send him.

She glanced anxiously at Eileen to see how she was taking the news, but she didn’t look upset.

Because she doesn’t believe it
, Polly thought.
In a moment she’ll say Mr. Dunworthy must have rescheduled Gerald’s assignment and Mike shouldn’t have taken the parcel because Gerald will need it
.

Mike said it instead. “I intended to put the package back, but when I
saw what was in it, I thought I’d better not leave it there for some curious hotel clerk to open.”

“Will the Mitre notice it’s missing?”

“No. I wrapped my wool vest up in the brown paper—and had a hell of a time doing it, I might add; I couldn’t get the string tied around it for the life of me—and sneaked it back on the shelf, and I stuck a Notting Hill Gate ticket stub in the pocket, so if Phipps
does
come through, he’ll know where to look for us.”

“If he can get to London,” Polly said, looking at the money on the steps.

“I stuck enough money for the train fare to London in the pocket, too,” Mike said. “I was going to leave all of it, but I decided we might need it to tide us over till we find some other way out. I assume our retrieval teams still haven’t shown up?”

“No,” Eileen said. “Have you heard from Daphne?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t been to Mrs. Leary’s yet. I came straight to Mrs. Rickett’s to find the two of you. I’ll check when we go back. But if Phipps’s drop didn’t open, then our retrieval teams’ drops probably can’t either, which explains why they’re not here. But if that’s what happened, then Oxford knows something’s wrong, and they’ll start working on figuring out a way to get us out of here. We’ll be home in no time. We just need to make sure they can find us when they get here, so we need to—”

“
Will
we be home in no time?” Eileen asked challengingly. “Or will we still be here when the war ends, Polly?”

“When the
war
ends?” Mike said. “What are you talking about? None of us knows how long we’ll—”

“She does,” Eileen said. “She was already here.” She turned to Polly. “That’s why the night you found me in Padgett’s you asked me if the manor in Backbury was my first assignment. Because you were afraid I had a deadline like you.”

“A deadline?” Mike said. “You were here before, Polly?”

“Yes,” Eileen said, looking steadily at Polly. “That’s why she asked me whether you were supposed to go to Pearl Harbor first. She was afraid that you had one, too. And that the increased slippage means we won’t get out before her deadline.”