Princess Elizabeth's Spy (24 page)

For a moment, he considered removing the blackout hoods from over the headlights. But only for a moment. A move like that would allow them more speed but would ultimately attract attention. And by this time, Poulter had no doubts that Scotland Yard had been alerted.

The winds had picked up. Between the motion of the van as it sped over the darkened roads and the gusting of the wind, the insides shuddered and shook. The passengers were silent as Poulter turned off the main road onto a narrower one, less likely to be blocked by the police. It was rough going, and he had to reduce speed, but he was convinced it was better to be safe than sorry.

“Shit,” he said, seeing lights and roadblock ahead. He could see at least four men in police uniforms, gesturing for him to slow down and stop.

Audrey’s eyes were wide as she reached into the glove compartment. There she found two guns. She passed the first to Poulter, then picked up the second, wrapped her hands around the Sten, hiding it in the folds of her skirt.
“Merde,”
she whispered.

Then she turned back to Lilibet. “Lie down and keep silent!”

Poulter slowed the van, braking to a stop in front of the barricade. He rolled down his window. “Good evening, officers,” he said, smiling.

“Please step out of the van, sir,” the fresh-faced officer said.

“Look, it’s late,” Poulter said, “and my wife and I are tired. Would you mind just letting us pass?”

“Where are you and your ‘wife’ going, sir?” the bobby asked.

Poulter could see the other officers conferring in the background, probably matching their faces to an issued description.

“Grimsby—visiting family there,” Poulter answered, even as one of the officers came up to Audrey’s door and the two others around to the back of the van.

The young officer pulled out his gun and then opened Poulter’s door. “All right, sir, we’ll need you to get out of the vehicle. Slowly, please. Mind the step.”

In the back of the van, Lilibet lay with her hands and feet bound. She’d seen the lights from the front window and felt the van slow and then stop. She’d seen Audrey pass Poulter his gun. She heard Poulter’s side of the conversation with the officer, for they had to be police officers. She’d also heard the door open and saw them both getting out of the van. She’d been afraid, to afraid to think, but now that was passing. She was still afraid, of course, but she was starting to get angry, too. How dare they! And Audrey! Cook’s husband’s cousin! They thought they were helping a poor French girl get out of occupied France, when the whole time she was plotting against them. Lilibet felt not only angry but terribly betrayed.

After seeing them shoot the Marine, Lilibet had no doubts about what they were capable of. She had to warn the officers. But how?

“Help!” she wanted to call, but no one would hear her.

In the dim light, she rolled over on her back and started kicking the metal side of the van with both feet, with all of her might.

Before the officers could react to the banging from the back of the van, they were dead.

While Poulter grabbed the men and dragged them, one by one, to the side of the road, Audrey went to the back of the van and opened up the rear doors.

“You little bitch,” she hissed at Lilibet, then slapped her hard across the face. “Thanks to you, they’re dead.”

Lilibet recoiled at the pain but wouldn’t allow herself to cry. She’d bitten her lip and tasted blood. They were dead? She was responsible for the deaths? Poulter had pulled the trigger, but if she’d only kept still.… 

“Don’t even think of pulling a stunt like that again! Unless you’d like to change this little scenario from kidnapping to murder. I, for one, would be more than happy to oblige.” Then she slammed the doors shut.

In the darkness, the Princess realized she had to be good, that she couldn’t risk any more deaths of innocent civilians. She would have to see this through, on her own. She blinked away tears and set her mouth. She would wait for an opportunity and then use it. Yes, that was what she would do. They wouldn’t get away with this.

As Audrey climbed back into the front passenger seat of the van, shaking out her hand still burning from the slap, Poulter consulted the map. “We’re not far now.”

Finally, finally, Audrey, Poulter, and Lilibet reached Mossley by Sea. The tiny white cottage appeared in light from the dim headlamps. And Audrey was relieved to see a man standing in the drive with a kerosene lantern, directing them in.

The man was Gregory Strathcliffe.

She allowed herself a brief warm moment of hope that she would actually make it back to France.

Gregory, holding the lantern as well as his nearly empty flask, led them inside the cottage. The interior was cold, with just a few plain furnishings. He took off his hat and unbuttoned his mackintosh. David was lying, passed out again, on the stained sofa. Audrey was behind the Princess Elizabeth, whose feet had been untied to walk, although her wrists were tied. Every few moments, she prodded the Princess in the small of her back.

“Christopher Boothby, you already know Mademoiselle Audrey Moreau and Mr. George Poulter.” Gregory gestured grandly, as though they were at sherry hour. “And, of course, Her Royal Highness, the Princess Elizabeth.” He gave a sardonic bow. He pointed to David’s still form. “David Greene.” He walked to the window and peeked out. “The BBC’s been airing reports about a shoot-out at Windsor Castle. I don’t suppose that has anything to do with you two?”

“What’re the reports saying?” Poulter asked.

“Nothing about the attempt on the King. Just that you killed one guard and wounded another. Oh, yes, gave your names, your descriptions—everything. Mounted a nationwide search. By dawn, the entire country will be out in force to look for you.”

“Well, then it’s a good thing we’ll be in France,” Audrey said.

Gregory, swaying slightly under the influence of all the alcohol, took down a radio from the cupboard. He placed it on the wooden kitchen table and switched it on. Static hissed from it. He took out his pocket watch and checked it again.

“It’s almost two,” he said. “The U-boat should be waiting just off the coast. We’ll let them know we’re here and then set out. They’re going to be ten miles due east of Mossley and wait for us until six a.m. If we don’t make it, they’ll head back out to sea and try again in three days.”

“We’ll make it,” Poulter said, as Gregory sat down and began keying Morse code into the radio, alerting the U-boat that they were on their way.

“How are we going to meet the sub?” Audrey asked. “All the ships and boats have been confiscated since Dunkirk.”

“We have a small fishing skiff hidden in the barn,” Boothby answered. “We’ll use that to meet the submarine.”

“In this weather?” Poulter said. “Don’t you think that’s a bit dangerous?”

Gregory narrowed his eyes. His escape from the RAF, from Britain, from all of his problems, was in his reach—he wasn’t about to let the chance slip away. “Do we have another option?”

Beeston Regis was a village just in Norfolk, near the coast of the North Sea. Roman in origin, it was mentioned in the
Domesday Book of 1086
as Besetune. Now, it was just a small village like so many others. The ruins of St. Mary’s Priory drew a few tourists before the war, but other than that, it was quiet, with one main street, boasting one bank, one grocery, one pharmacy, one barber shop, and one beauty parlor.

Mary Manley, a young slim girl of just eighteen, was making her way from the house she shared with her mother, father and five sisters just outside of town, up the hill to Beeston Bump. She was going to work, as a radio operator at the Y-station. Beeston Bump was one of the many Y-stations in a network of Signals Intelligence collection sites. These stations collected material to be passed to the War Office’s Government Code and Cipher School at Bletchley.

It was a damp, dark evening and the higher she climbed, the stronger the icy wind blew. It smelled of salt water and seaweed. Cold and wet, Mary was grateful to reach the concrete bunker and go inside. Once past the entrance, she took off her coat, hat and heavy wool mittens and put them in her cubby. She flashed her badge to the guard on duty, Lenny Doyle, even though they had known each other since they had been toddlers and in the first grade he’d stuck chewing gum in her long, honey-colored hair and she’d had to get it cut out. She hated him from then on and got in the habit of avoiding him. But now they worked together. He scrutinized her photograph on her card.

“Come on, Lenny,” she said, “it’s the same as yesterday and the same as the day before that. And it’ll be the same tomorrow.”

“Just doing my job, Mary. Just doing my job.” He handed it back to her.

“Yes, I feel
so
much safer with you here.”

She marched into the radio room, her the rubber soles of her shoes squeaking on the concrete, and slid into her seat between two other women before Mr. Leaper could notice she was late.

It was dim in the room, and damp, the smell of wet concrete pronounced. In front of her, the dials of her RCA AR-77 communications receiver glowed. She slipped on her heavy black headphones and listened.

Her job was to eavesdrop on Morse code that German senders were tapping out throughout Europe. She turned her receiver to “her” band of frequencies and listened in.

The German Morse code senders were fast, especially the professionals at BdU, the Kriegsmarine headquarters. However, they each had their own fist. Mary and the other operators had nicknamed some of the more distinctive: Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. They could recognize them as easily as seeing a familiar face across a room.

This evening, however, Mary heard an unfamiliar fist.

Instead of the typical burst of fast-paced typing, this transmission was slow, with awkward pauses, indicating uncertainty and unfamiliarity with the transmitter.

Amateur,
she thought dismissively. Still, she recorded the transmission on an ocillograph, creating a radio “fingerprint,” called a Tina, and then transcribed the Morse code that had been sent.

After the tentative sender had finished, there was a rapid-fire burst of code as response from whomever received it. Mary recognized the fist. They’d nicknamed him Hegel. He was a radio operator on one of the Nazi U-boats, one that was very close to the coast.

They went back and forth a few times, the amateur and Hegel, and then the channel went ominously silent.

Mary felt the hairs on the back of her neck raise. She went to the ossillograph and collected the printout. Usually she just put it in a metal basket to be collected at the end of her shift, bundled up with the rest of the communiqués, and sent on by motorcycle courier to Bletchley Park.

Still … 

She got down a Morse code book from a shelf and began to decode.

“Miss Manley!” called Martin Leaper from across the room. He was a narrow middle-aged man, with a narrow pencil mustache, and the station’s overseer. The memo Frain had dispatched to all the Y-stations by motorcycle courier was laying on his desk, unread.

Mary didn’t look up from her translating. “Sir,” she said, “you’re going to want to look at this.”

“Yes, Miss Manley?” he said, pursing his lips and walking over.

“Sir, someone here, in England, just signaled to a U-boat.”

“What?”

“It could be a spy!” she ventured. “A spy signaling a U-boat for a pick up!”

“Control yourself, Miss Manley,” Mr. Leaper admonished, shaking his head as he took the papers away from her. “I’m afraid you’ve seen far too many movies.”

In the cottage, Audrey finished tying Princess Elizabeth to a wooden ladder-back chair. She took some moldy hard bread from the cupboard and stuffed it in the Princess’s mouth, securing it tightly with a tea towel around her head. If it were up to her, she would have killed the Princess—for keeping her alive was a bigger risk. Still, she was following the orders of Commandant Hess. And from what Commandant Graf had told her, one didn’t question Hess’s orders.

Lilibet kept very still, but her blue eyes glittered with defiance as Audrey went about her work. “I want you to be a good little girl,” Audrey said as she gave the knot at the back of Elizabeth’s head a final tightening. “Or I’ll kill you myself.” She smiled and came over to face Lilibet, her breath smelling sweet, like violet chewing gum. “And I know how to make it look like an accident.”

You just wait,
Lilibet thought.
This isn’t over yet, you know.

In the control room of U-246, First Officer Horst Riesch approached Captain Vogt. “Sir, our friends in Britain have given us word. They’re ready,” Horst said.

“Good, good,” said Vogt. “What’s the weather?”

“Clear now, sir, but the wind’s picking up, up to seventy kilometers per hour.”

“Christ,” Vogt said, rubbing his stubble-covered chin—water was too precious in a submarine to waste on shaving. “They’re probably coming in a dinghy, for all we know. Still, can’t be helped. I’ll set a course for the rendezvous point and have the men prepare to surface. You organize a reception party. Also, Horst told me they’ll have two prisoners with them.”

“Yes, Herr Vogt,” Riesch said, saluting. Then he issued a long string of commands to the crew. Moments later, U-246, like the mythical kraken, was making its way through the black waters of the North Sea, up to the rendezvous point, ten miles off the coast of Mossley.

A fierce wind was blowing as Gregory, Poulter, and Boothby went to the barn to uncover the small boat they’d hidden away, a twenty-foot gasoline–engine–powered fish tug, with a V bottom. The three men strained and grunted as they pushed it over the rocks and grasses until they reached the stone-strewn beach.

Gregory looked out over the rough sea. “Not the best night for a sail, eh, lads?”

“It’s that or hide out for another three more days, for another pickup,” Boothby said. “I’d rather take my chances on the water.”

“No, it’s now or never,” Gregory said, staggering slightly in the wind. “I’ll stay here with the boat. You two go back and help Audrey with the prisoners.”

Maggie and Hugh pulled up to Mossley by Sea’s two piers, with only a few fishing boats rocking wildly in the black water. The local police were there. Maggie got out of the car, heading into the stiff wind. Hugh grabbed the flashlight and gun from the glove compartment, slipping the gun in the back of his waistband under his coat, then followed her.

“These look like locals,” Hugh shouted into the wind. “So, where’s the cavalry?”

“I’m sure they’re coming,” Maggie shouted back. But she was worried. She thought that by now the Army would have soldiers assembled, Navy ships offshore, RAF planes overhead. Where were they?

As a police officer in a sou’wester waved them over, Hugh took out his MI-5 identification card. “Agents Thompson and Hope here,” he shouted, his words nearly blown away by the wind. “What have you got?”

“We’re on it, sir. If they’re here, we’ll find ’em.” He looked at them, still in their light clothing. “Why don’t you go back to the station, have a nice cup o’ tea? Me and my boys’ll take care of things here.” He walked off to confer with his men.

Hugh and Maggie looked at each other in the darkness. They were not reassured. “There are police all over—they won’t get these boats,” Hugh said, scanning the dock.

Maggie was thinking. Gregory and his crew were too smart to try to use a boat from the dock. “But what if they’re not using a boat from here? It’s possible they have their own, hidden away. They could carry it down to the shore and then launch from there.”

“In this weather?” Hugh asked. “Couldn’t be a very large boat, then.”

“They might not have any other option. And they just might be desperate enough to try it. I wouldn’t put it past them.”

“So we have two choices. Wait at the station, or—”

Maggie was already off, leaning into the wind as she made her way to the beach.

“—or we look for them ourselves,” Hugh finished. “Right, then. Off we go.”

They picked their way over stones and pebbles on the shore in the semidarkness. The white-tipped waves were crashing in, creating a low roar. The light from Hugh’s flashlight was ineffective against the crushing darkness. Only a waning moon overhead provided any useful light.

“There!” Maggie shouted, over the din of the waves. She pointed to a small shack on the beach.

The small shack on the beach was made of planks and covered in tar paper. The edges of the door were illuminated. Maggie and Hugh approached cautiously. He held the gun as Maggie rapped at the door. There was no answer. She pushed at the door. It swung open easily.

The stench hit them first—the overwhelming odor of stale smoke, sweat, and alcohol. The room was bare, except for a bulb and an old, stained mattress in the corner. On the mattress, a man was lying on his back, snoring loudly, a ratty wool blanket pulled over his legs and a half-empty bottle of gin clutched to his chest.

Trying not to inhale through her nose, Maggie went over to him. “Excuse me, sir,” she said, kneeling down and giving him a firm shake. “Sir?”

“Wha—?” he said, opening his eyes. He was unshaven and unkempt, with thinning gray hair and a weather-beaten face. His plaid flannel shirt had yellow stains under his arms.

“We’re looking for some people, sir,” Hugh began. “Not from around here. They might be in a cottage or shack close to the beach? Have you seen anyone?”

“Go ’way. Wanna sleep.”

“Sir!” Maggie said. Which was not at all the word she wanted to use.

No response.

No, no, no—we’ve come too far to be stymied by a drunk.
She wanted to slap him, but instead grabbed the gin bottle from his lax hands. “I will take this gin and pour it all over the floor if you don’t answer our questions.”

“Bitch!” he slurred, trying to reach for the bottle with dirty hands with filthy broken fingernails.

Maggie tipped the bottle and let a few drops of liquid trickle out. She had to admit that while it was technically illegal to dispose of his property, it was probably the fastest way to get him to talk. It was also grimly satisfying.

“Al’ righ’,” he said, propping himself up on his elbows. “Give i’ back!”

“Not until you tell us what you know.” Maggie held on to the bottle and kept it out of reach.

“There’s a girl. Pretty,” he slurred. “Pretty. French. Pretty French girl.”

Maggie started. “Audrey,” she said to Hugh, who nodded.

“Where?” Hugh said. “Where have you seen her?”

“Pretty girl,” he repeated. He tried to sit up and then dropped back down. “Comes to the cottage sometimes.”

“What cottage?” Maggie asked. “Where is it?”

“Downna beach,” he said, pointing then turning back over. “Givver a kiss for me.…” he managed before beginning to snore again.

Maggie set the bottle down as she and Hugh looked at each other. It could be any French girl. Or it could be Audrey. “Come on,” she said at the door, bracing to run through cold wind again. “Let’s go ‘downna beach’!”

A new shift had just started at the Submarine Tracking Room. “Sir,” a young officer said to Donald Kirk, sitting behind his desk in his office. Kirk was looking over various memos. One was an alert, issued from the War Office, saying a man and a woman, plus a kidnapped girl, were on the run and might be trying to leave the country by boat. The next was a memo from Beeston Regis Y-station, saying that they had intercepted a radio communiqué between a location somewhere near shore and a Nazi U-boat. Martin Leaper, head of the Y-station, said that the transmission on the British side came from somewhere near Grimsby. The man had no idea what he’d stumbled on.

The two memos in hand, he rose, and with the help of his silver-tipped cane, made his way to the main room and the North Atlantic map table. The junior officers were repositioning various pushpins to reflect recent movement.

Kirk stared down at U-246. It hadn’t seemed to have moved much. He jabbed the point of his cane at it. “U-two-forty-six!” he called to the heavy-set middle-aged man moving the pins.

The man snapped to attention. “Yes, sir.”

“Is that her current position?”

The man, beginning to sweat, checked his list of coordinates. “No, sir.”

“Where is she now, then?”

The man looked to his clipboard and noted the position, then moved the red pin symbolizing U-246, toward land.

“Looks like she’s moving in closer to shore, sir.”

Two people on the run with a kidnapped girl, a radio transmission from the coast, a U-boat moving into position. It could mean only one thing—a pickup and rescue of two spies. And whoever the girl was. But there was only one girl, in all of England, who would be that important.… 

“Get me Peter Frain at MI-Five on the line,” Kirk barked. “And hurry!”

Maggie and Hugh, breathing heavily, knocked at the door of the cottage. Maggie’s lungs were burning, but she couldn’t even think about her body, she was so focused on Lilibet’s safety.

There was no answer.

Inside, Audrey froze. Lilibet tried to scream through her gag.

Maggie and Hugh tried the door. It was locked.

Hugh pulled out his gun and handed it to Maggie. As she covered him, he kicked open the door. Even in the throes of the chase, Maggie was surprised and not a little impressed—she’d never seen Hugh in action before. But there was no time for that.

As the rickety door flung open, Hugh and Maggie entered the cottage, taking in the gagged and bound Princess, with Audrey standing beside her. An unconscious David, hands tied, was lying on the sofa.

“David?” Maggie gasped before she pointed the gun at Audrey.
What’s he doing here?
“Hands up,” she managed to get out. “On your knees.”
Oh, what I wouldn’t give to pull the trigger,
Maggie thought, surveying the petite Frenchwoman.
What I wouldn’t give … 

As Audrey obeyed, Hugh went to the Princess. “We’ll get you out of here in no time, Your Highness,” he said, working at the knots.

“Ahem.” Maggie and the others turned to see Gregory and Poulter standing in the doorway, dripping water.

Gregory was just as shocked to see Maggie, holding a gun no less, as she was to see him. It was with a mix of admiration and shame that he ordered, “Put your gun down on the floor. No one’s going anywhere. At least, not until I say so.”

“Gregory?”
It has to be some sort of hallucination,
Maggie thought.
It can’t be Gregory. He can’t be wrapped up in this mess too—can he?

At the Y-station in Beeston Regis, Leaper went to his office and sat down at his desk, still shaking his head. “Spies!” he muttered, going through his inbox. “Indeed! That’s what comes of having these young girls about, with their movie-star daydreams and their—”

He suddenly remembered the courier delivery and picked up the MI-5 memo about the alert. He read it, feeling the blood drain from his head. As he put his head between his legs in order not to faint, he called out his door, “Miss Manley!” Then, louder, “Mary Manley! Get in here with that U-boat transmission right away!”

As Poulter tied up Maggie and Hugh, she wondered,
How did I get so much so wrong? Why did I waste so much time worrying about the wrong people? When it was Gregory,
she realized, feeling sick. As much as she thought, she found no easy answers—except that she’d let her own prejudices blind her and lead her astray. Then she started to add up what she’d observed: Gregory’s increased drinking, his erratic behavior, a few of his more cryptic sayings, that he didn’t wear his RAF uniform to dinner.… 

She looked over at Lilibet, who was pale, with shadows under eyes and the beginning of a mottled bruise on her cheek where she’d been slapped. “It’s all right,” she said to the girl. “Everything’s going to be all right.” Her heart nearly broke when she was able to get a better look at David, his hands and feet tied with heavy rope, a gag in his mouth. Trickles of blood from a head wound had run down his face and were now scabbing over. Never had she felt more powerless.
Think, Maggie. Keep your head and you’ll get them out of this.

“What time is it?” Audrey asked.

Poulter checked his watch. “Almost three-thirty. We need to hurry.” He jerked his chin at Maggie and Hugh. “What are we going to do about them?”

“Actually,” Gregory said, “the question is, what are we going to do about you?” He and Boothby exchanged a look. Without preamble, Boothby shot Poulter through the heart, and then, before Audrey could scream, he shot her through the forehead. They each slumped to the floor. Then he took aim at Hugh.

“Nooooo!” Maggie screamed.

“Give me the gun,” Gregory said.

“What are you doing?” Boothby snapped.

“Give me the goddamned gun!”

Boothby handed it over and Gregory shot Hugh in the thigh, wounding, but not killing, him.

Hugh doubled over, moaning. “Sweet Jesus!”

“Hugh!” Maggie fought against the ropes binding her. “Are you all right?” she cried.

“I’ll live,” Hugh managed to gasp, trying to keep pressure on the wound. Nonetheless, crimson was staining his pant leg.

“Don’t want you following us,” Gregory said. “Sorry, mate. And I also need someone to tell the muckety-mucks that their precious Princess is still alive. And on her way to Germany.”

“Us?” Maggie said. She and Hugh locked eyes.
It’s going to be fine,
she tried to tell him mentally.
I’ll take care of Lilibet. And I’ll be all right, too. I promise.

Gregory nodded. “You’re coming with us. Take care of him,” he said to Boothby, indicating the body. “I’ll bring the ladies.”

As Boothby lifted David’s inert body while still keeping a gun on the girls, Gregory untied the princess from the chair, leaving her hands bound and gag in place. “I suppose you’ve figured out what I’ve done,” he said, grabbing Maggie and the princess by an arm and hustling them to the door. Maggie gave Hugh one last look and then they were outside, in the cold and dark. He sounded just the slightest bit guilty.

“A lot of it,” Maggie said, trying not to trip on the stones. “But I still don’t understand Lily’s part.”

“Lily and I grew up together, remember?” he said, his voice rising against the wind. “We spent every summer together? We were soul mates.”

“So you and Lily had planned this operation?” Maggie tried to appeal to his vanity. “That’s quite the coup. How did you manage to pull it off?”

Gregory smiled, a grim smile. “Lily and I grew up with any number of other privileged young people. Another was Victoria Keeley.”

Realization dawned. “The woman from Bletchley who was murdered at Claridge’s,” Maggie said. “So, how does Benjamin Batey fit in?”

“Benjamin Batey was walking out with Victoria, and she exploited it. She stole the decrypt from him.”

“But why?”

Gregory snorted. “Why do you need to know?” The little party was trying to keep their balance on the slippery rocks strewn with seaweed, nearing the boat.

Maggie thought desperately. “Well, it’s been quite the victory for you, after all. I was sent by MI-Five to figure everything out and I didn’t—not in time, at least. So you might do me the professional courtesy of telling me how you did it.”

Lilibet’s eyes widened as she heard Maggie reveal that she wasn’t really a maths tutor but an agent.

And then she realized—the decrypt hidden in Lily’s copy of
Le Fantôme de l’Opéra
was meant for Gregory.
It was right in front of you the whole time!
Still, there was no time for self-flagellation. “Tell me your part—and I’ll tell you what happened to the decrypt.”