I Can't Begin to Tell You (14 page)

‘London holds the purse strings,’ said Jacob. ‘And Denmark has to obey.’

Jacob’s resentments and prejudices were openly worn and Kay wondered if London knew how much it was resented?

Anton did not contribute much, which struck Kay as odd. Was it policy? Or was Anton sitting on the fence for some reason?

‘We are agreed. London is the only way to get our hands dirty.’ Felix touched Kay lightly on the shoulder and Anton frowned. ‘Any thoughts?’

‘I agree that we should work with London as much as possible.’

Felix glanced at Anton for confirmation. ‘Any objections?’

‘Only the old one,’ replied Anton. ‘My contacts don’t want any trouble. They want everything quiet so they can pass on intelligence unobtrusively. Wrecking railway lines and factories stirs up the enemy who, of course, react badly. That makes it difficult for them.’

‘Why are we here, then?’ demanded Jacob.

It was a rhetorical question.

‘At the moment, we only have British-made wireless sets in the country,’ said Felix. ‘We hope this will change. But one is mine and there is a second one in Jutland. They’re pigs to carry around, plus they operate on alternate currents. He gave a wry smile. In Denmark we operate mostly on a direct one, so it is sometimes difficult to use them.’

‘Trust
the British not to check.’ Anton snapped open his cigarette case.

‘Our engineers are secretly working on a new prototype radio transmitter. It will be able to switch currents, and also transmit at high speed which means the message is virtually undetectable. But they need time and places to set up secret labs. And they will need the crystals from London.’

‘Any idea when they will be ready?’ asked Anton.

‘Who knows?’ said Felix. ‘It’s highly dangerous for them.’

Guns. Ammunition. Radio communication. Recruitment.

Kay had wandered into a mad, fractured universe.

Felix and Jacob left, and Anton and Kay remained seated at the table.

Kay picked up her bag. ‘Do you agree with what has been decided?’

He shrugged. ‘It’s the best we can do.’

Kay took her lipstick and powder compact out of her bag. ‘Are you serving several masters, Anton?’

‘Don’t you trust me?’

She applied lipstick to her bottom lip, angling the compact so that the mirror reflected Anton’s face, but she couldn’t read his expression. ‘Should I?’

His hand snapped round her wrist. Startled, she almost dropped the lipstick. ‘Never doubt me.’

She removed his hand and, slotting the lipstick and compact back into her bag, snapped shut the clasp. ‘Why should I?’ she said. ‘Unless you give me reason.’

Anton took hold of one of Kay’s hands, this time gently. ‘How pretty and elegant.’ Turning it over, he raised it to his lips and kissed it. His mouth was warm on her cool skin. ‘The British secret services have their own jealousies and factions. Our information is that the British senior intelligence services consider the outfit which trained Felix to be filled with upstarts and amateurs, and they go out of their way to obstruct them.’ He
gave her back her hand. ‘Enjoy the ironies, darling. The Brits are at war with Germany but fight each other.’

‘Isn’t that what people do in organizations? The Nazis fight each other like rats in a sack and Jacob and his communists have no love for us. Nothing’s new.’

‘I had no idea how wise you were, Kay.’ He picked up his hat. ‘We’ll leave separately. Where are you going?’

‘To see my son.’

Ruby wrestled the word ‘København’ from the encrypted message, but that was more from an inspired guess than the result of her persuading the text to yield up its secrets logically.

It was a bugger, this one. A double-dyed, double-decker bugger.

It had been well over a month since her meeting with Major Martin and the dismal Christmas of 1942 had come and gone and nobody much rejoiced either at the arrival of the new year. It was bloody cold, too, her digs increasingly horrible and, even though she enjoyed heading up the teams, the work on the indecipherables was grinding and headache-inducing.

Sometimes she thought about Major Martin. Actually, if she was truthful, it was more than sometimes. What was it about him that so intrigued her? It didn’t take long before she cottoned onto the fact that she liked him because he had asked her opinion.

Seated at their benches Attila Team shifted, sighed, muttered and scraped their chairs along the floor. Apart from the professional saints, most were jumpy and short-tempered. No doubt it was that time of the month – it was for her, and bugger that, too, because it hurt.

Curiously, Attila Team seemed to suffer it at the same time. Was this biological quirk worth examining? When a group of women gathered together on a regular basis, why did this synchronization happen? Was this another plank in the argument that, far from being an expression of divine will, humans were merely a collection of cells which obeyed only the laws governing physics and biology?

However, unless she was prepared to ask everyone, which
she wasn’t, or conduct a scientific sampling, her theory would, of course, remain just that.

But the notion of being suspended in primal space, without moral purpose, was intriguing, liberating.

It was important to concentrate on the text. To seek. To think.

After a bit, Ruby cheered up. She could feel her mind strengthening and improving. In this war, the scientists and mathematicians were proving to be the magicians, and she was one of them.

It had taken some weeks to get this unit up and running. With the patterns imposed by the work, the girls hadn’t gelled instantly. There was some grumbling, some bad temper and one or two incipient rebellions which Ruby had nipped in the bud.

‘A right bloody tyrant,’ said Janet.

Then, without explanation, gears shifted. The unit fell into shape and had been operating beautifully ever since.

She was proud of herself.

She reapplied herself to the message. What could she tease from it?

She ticked off the list. Pair C and T was number 1 in the code groups. Pair N and B was number 2.

It was painstaking, exhausting work. Dull … dull … beyond dullness, but oh so important. The letter pairs were refusing to acknowledge one other. Each one of them had declared divorce and no amount of her counselling was bringing them together.

Ah, maybe that was it? She spotted and pounced on a hole below the water. During the numbering phase of constructing the code, the agent had made a mistake which meant the lettered phase, which depended on the accuracy of the numbered phase, was sailing merrily out to sea without the lifebelt of its indicators.

Letters netted in, corralled and tamed.

She
pencilled ‘Bluff check present’ in the top left-hand corner and ‘True check present’ in the right-hand one, and placed the text in the relevant out-tray for Intelligence to weave their spells over.

The door opened. A rustle went through the room. Ruby looked up.

Major Martin.

‘Surprise,’ murmured Janet.

First off, his uniform could have done with a press and his belt a polish. Not that she cared. Second, the dark eyes were troubled.

The last, she did care about marginally. Only marginally.

‘Can’t keep him away, can we?’ Frances directed a look at Ruby. ‘Can we?’

Major Martin took up a position by the window for which the indecipherable teams gave daily thanks. Having a window reminded them that the world still existed.

Ruby speculated as to what was going through his head. What would she be thinking if she was in charge? Was this new set-up going to work? Was he wasting precious, precious resources? Had he got it right?

She was increasingly certain that it wasn’t all straightforward for the chiefs – all men, naturally – in this war. It was a conclusion that would have pleased her mightily if the situation hadn’t been so serious. Still, from time to time it was fun to indulge in a touch of
Schadenfreude
before calling herself to order.

‘The chairs don’t look too comfortable,’ Major Martin said eventually.

This was astonishing. It was unheard of for anyone senior, or male, to consider their comfort.

‘They aren’t comfortable, sir,’ said Frances in the confident plummy tones of her class. ‘Could you get us some decent ones?’

Ruby hid a smile. Major Martin would live to regret his overture. They all knew there was nothing he could do about the
bum-numbing chairs. Requisitions for equipment were nigh-on impossible. Like petrol, butter, pretty clothes and, oh, most things.

Still, he had a captive audience. Maybe that pleased him? ‘I wanted to thank you all.’ Was there a tinge of melancholy in his tone? ‘The system seems to be up and running …’

Was it? Had she thought of every last detail? Had she thought through the systems?

‘How many indecipherables?’ Peter Martin was asking.

She snapped to attention and answered, ‘Six last week. They were dealt with within twenty-four hours. Two yesterday.’

‘Have you cracked these last two?’

‘A minute ago. It was …’ She pointed in the direction of the out-tray and rolled her eyes.

‘She means it was a bugger, sir.’ Janet wore her best smirk.

Ruby gave her the have-you-gone-off-your-tiny-head glare. ‘It was.’

‘How long did it take?’

‘We launched a blanket attack on it for a day, sir,’ she said, realizing she was sucking in more and more of the jargon every day. ‘Then I spent two shifts on it.’

He frowned. Again, Ruby picked up a deep anxiety and knew what caused it. It would be the acidic, creeping worry that, cryptographically speaking, they were not solving the problems quickly enough for the men and women out there who were relying on them.

‘Carry on,’ he said and left the room. A second after the door shut behind him, Janet sniggered.

‘Shut up,’ said Ruby.

Yet when the sergeant poked his head round the door half an hour later with a summons, she wasn’t surprised.

Peter was waiting for her in an airless cubby hole by the main entrance to the building. It had a tiny table and one chair.

He held up a warning finger. ‘Top secret, Ingram, never to be talked about now, or in the foreseeable future.’

‘I
understand perfectly.’

Peter tucked a file into his briefcase. ‘Goodness!’ His lips cradled a smile. ‘I’m not sure “meek” suits you.’ Ruby frowned and then thought better of it. ‘We had a conversation about your considerable underused abilities. I also suggested that I want you transferred to London.’

‘The London bit hadn’t escaped my notice.’

‘Patience is a virtue.’

‘Not in a war.’

‘No.’ He leaned back against the table and pointed at the chair. She shook her head. She wasn’t going to sit while he lounged above her.

He gazed thoughtfully at her. Assessing? ‘Until recently all agents’ messages were received and distributed back to us by the so-called senior intelligence services, who do not like The Firm one little bit. But that’s another story. Our top brass don’t like SIS either and they went to work lobbying the powers in Whitehall. The result is …’ At this point, Major Martin sat down, leaving Ruby hovering. ‘Well, The Firm has been allowed to form a new HQ Signals Office in Norgeby House in London. It has to be staffed twenty-four hours a day and will form a clearing house for agent traffic. The country sections will be told to maintain contact. Attached to it will be a newly formed Security and Planning Office whose function is to monitor the security of the agents’ traffic, to identify any problems and to think strategically. That’s where you would fit in. But I also need you to keep working on the indecipherables. I can’t waste your talents.’ He paused for emphasis. ‘You will be busy. Fiendishly so. ’

She said softly: ‘Halleluiah.’

‘Halleluiah, indeed,’ he said, wry, dry and amused.

Nothing happened for a couple weeks until one morning when Ruby clocked onto her shift and was presented with her transfer orders.

She
rushed to pack and to organize transport to the station.

Slow train. Filthy train. But a train going to London.

‘Unheard of,’ Frances had said when Ruby broke the news to her and Janet. ‘You’re sleeping with him.’

‘Lucky sod,’ said Janet. ‘Is he good?’

‘He’s good,’ replied Ruby. ‘I trust him.’

‘I meant in the sack, you fool.’

She was surprised that she minded about leaving the girls.

She glanced up at the netting luggage rack. What little clothing she possessed was packed into brown paper parcels and tied with string.

‘For God’s sake,’ she heard Frances say in her ear. ‘Don’t you possess a suitcase?’

Her reply had been brief. ‘No, my parents’ house was bombed, and we lost everything.’

Barely any light managed to struggle through the gloom of the winter afternoon, a frost was closing in and, by the time the train steamed into the station, dark had fallen. The platform was dirty, the air was smutty and it was no warmer here than in Henfold. Welcome to London, she thought, feeling her spirits dip.

To her immense surprise she was met by a car and driven off to the Ritz, where she was told that a gentleman was waiting for her in the dining room. Without being told, Ruby knew who it would be.

She was right, which was brilliant and flattering and all that. Not so brilliant was the fact that she had no time to do her hair or to pull the seams of her stockings straight.

Heigh-ho.

‘This is very good of you,’ Peter Martin said to Ruby. ‘To come, I mean.’

‘Yes, isn’t it?’

That obviously took him aback, and he peered at her to see if she was joking or not.

She allowed herself a smile.

‘Oh,
good.’ He relaxed. ‘I thought for a moment …’

‘That I was a humourless man-eater, or something?’

He did not confirm. He did not deny.

‘Tell me about Cambridge, Miss –’

He was about to say Miss Ingram. She didn’t want that.

‘Just Ingram, don’t you think?’

‘I do think. Or perhaps I don’t. Perhaps Ingram suits you better?’

She surveyed the piece of fish that had been placed in front of her. God forbid it was snoek. Thank goodness the candles in the centre of the table threw a kindly light over her plate. ‘Cambridge was interesting but a disgrace.’

‘I’m sure you’ve let them know how you feel.’

Ruby hoped that she was managing to convey just how deep her anger was. ‘When the war is over, I shall lobby for a woman’s rights and I shall fight for my degree.’

Had she gone too far? Not that she cared. She was used to the anger which she carried around with her. Anger, plus the disinclination to be nice, or rather, to be feminine.

‘I agree,’ he said. Without irony, and seriously.

His response was not one that she was used to.

She pressed on. ‘Women should fight more. We’ve been bred to be passive and accepting. We have to put up with the same as men … bombs, war, the lot, but the difference is we are second class. The war might change attitudes.’ Her lips tightened. ‘But I’m not holding my breath.’

He really was looking at her. ‘Change will come.’ To her surprise – or was it outrage? – he touched her hand as it rested on the table. ‘But don’t count on it happening overnight. Things will change because change is part of our human condition, but it takes time.’

‘That’s the sort of argument men employ when they know they’re on the defensive.’

‘I thought we were having a proper discussion,’ Peter said. ‘In which we consider the propositions and debate them.’

Ruby
pulled herself together.

He continued. ‘All revolutionaries want results now. Be careful. True change takes patience. But instant upheaval often results in things returning to the status quo. Think of the French Revolution.’ He spread out his hands, palms upwards. ‘Maybe you won’t see it until your daughter grows up.’

Exasperated, she exclaimed, ‘How have we ever evolved?’

Peter Martin laughed and poked at the food on his plate. ‘By eating fish. It helps the brain.’

The fish had proved not too bad and, a while later, they left the Ritz to stroll towards Piccadilly Circus. It was dark, but in a few shops there was frantic last-minute blacking-out activity. As they strolled, not saying much, a large moon rose above the city throwing a gorgeous, hopeful light over it and doing its best to mask the dust and rubble, and the stink of coal, gas and rotting rubbish stirred up by a bombing raid two nights previously.

‘The moon is lovely,’ she said, ‘but I can’t help thinking its beauty is such a contrast with the anxiety and fear which most people are experiencing that it’s almost cruel.’

He was silent.

‘Don’t you think?’

‘I think it is better to have beauty at some cost than no beauty.’

Someone jostled against them and their hands brushed each other’s.

‘Ingram, how did they find you?’ Major Martin sounded more relaxed.

‘I won a crossword competition. Best time on record, apparently. The next thing I knew, I received a letter ordering me to an interview in London with a pompous man who told me precisely nothing except I would be bound to secrecy, even in the grave. And would I accept?’

‘Why did you accept?’

By now they had reached Piccadilly Circus.

‘It’s
funny being here with no Eros,’ she said.

‘You haven’t answered the question.’

She turned to him. ‘Everyone has to take a chance in life. It was the pompous man and whatever he was offering, or a terrible secretarial job.’

‘I see.’

‘No, you don’t. You’re male. Anyway, one life isn’t enough. You have to try several.’