“N-no. No! Of course not!” Maggie took down a few sweaters, then turned and looked Edmund in the eye. “There’s one thing I’ve been wondering about, though.”
“Yes?”
“When I went to what I thought were your graves at Highgate Cemetery—which turned out to be only her grave—there were fresh white roses by the headstone. I remember the gardener said a man came regularly, to leave them. Is that you? Were you—are you—leaving flowers on her grave?”
Edmund lowered his eyes. “Yes,” he said finally.
“But why? She betrayed you—betrayed us. She’s not even there, not even dead! Why?”
“I loved her,” Edmund answered. “Or at least the person I thought she was.”
“I see,” Maggie said, not seeing at all. She placed the sweaters in the trunk.
After a few moments passed, Edmund rubbed at his eyes with his fist, then said, “And what, exactly, is your mission?”
“I’m afraid, Dad,” she said, closing the trunk and tightening the leather buckle, “that it’s classified.”
They both heard voices in the flat. “Maggie? Maggie?”
“Coming!” she called. Then, to her father, “They’re giving me a little party before I leave.” There was an awkward pause. “Would you like to stay?”
Edmund tugged at his collar. “I have to get back to the office, actually. I’m off the Bletchley case now. Getting a new assignment.”
“I’ll walk you out, then,” Maggie told him.
People had already begun to arrive. David put a Fred Astaire record on the phonograph and she could hear him in the kitchen, using a pick to make ice chips for shaking cocktails. As “Let’s Face the Music and Dance” began to play, he came in with a tray of glasses full of amber liquid.
“Sure you won’t stay?” she asked.
“Afraid not,” Edmund said. “Good luck, Maggie.”
“Thank you. To you too.” She let him kiss her cheek before he left.
After the door closed, the party began in earnest. David was there, as was Hugh, talking to Sarah, perched on the windowsill. And there were a few dancers from the ballet and people from No. 10, including Richard Snodgrass.
“Don’t suppose you can tell us what you’re up to next, Miss Hope?” Richard asked as Hugh handed her a martini.
“It’s terribly boring,” Maggie said as she accepted the glass. “Off to the country, to do goodness knows what sort of paperwork.”
“That’s your official story, then?” Richard asked.
“I’m afraid so.” She smiled. “And I’m standing by it.”
Hugh raised his glass. “To Maggie,” he said. “Wherever her travels may lead. Although, I must say, I hope they ultimately lead her back to me.”
“Thank you, Hugh,” she said, blushing.
“To Maggie,” the rest chorused.
She was momentarily speechless, then pulled herself together. “Thank you,” she said. “But I must toast to you, all of you—it’s a horrible war we’re in, but it’s had a strange way of bringing people together—and helping us all achieve much more than what we think we’re capable of. To us, then.”
“To us! Cheers!”
And they drank and danced long into the night.
The pilot had survived, but barely.
He’d survived first by burying his parachute. He’d survived by limping, then finally crawling, though fields and woods until he found a barn. He’d survived by drinking rainwater from a pig trough and eating the scraps. He’d survived by hiding his identity disks and ripping out any British labels in his clothes. And he’d survived by staying in the barn’s hayloft during the day, afraid to move a muscle or make a sound.
Still, with the internal organ damage he sustained, he wouldn’t be able to survive much longer, at least without proper medical care. Which was why, finally, he gave himself up to the farmer and his wife, Herr and Frau Schäfer.
They did not turn him in to the local police.
Instead, they put him to bed in a room with fresh white sheets and fed him brown bread soaked in milk. When he had slept for hours and hours, he awoke to see Frau Schäfer sitting at his bedside, knitting a heavy wool sweater with hand-spun yarn.
“It’s all right,” she said in German, her gnarled fingers moving like lightning. “We know who you are, and you’re safe here.”
“Thank you,” he replied in German. He wished he had studied more in school. Still, he tried his best. “I appreciate everything you and your husband are doing.”
“You’re very lucky,” she said, pointing a knitting needle at him.