Princess Elizabeth's Spy(69)

My father, she thought, killed Neil Wright.

Then, realizing, she felt like vomiting. He also killed my mother.

Maggie felt a wave of anger, primal and hot, wash over her. He’s not going to get away with this.





Chapter Twenty


Maggie met with Hugh in London, at Highgate Cemetery, under a threatening sky with low-hanging clouds. They met in front of Maggie’s mother’s gray marble headstone: Clara Beatrice Hope 1892–1917. She leaned over and traced the letters with her gloved fingers, then set down her bouquet of bittersweet.

“When I was a little girl,” she said, “I thought my Aunt Edith was my mother. But when I was about eight or so, she told me my parents had died in a car accident in London. In the version she told me, my father and mother were at a stoplight. A man in another car must have fallen asleep. His car drifted over the white line. His car crashed into theirs and they both died.” Maggie took a ragged breath as the wind whispered through the nearly bare tree branches.

“But then, last summer, I found another version of the story. In this one, there was an accident and my mother died—but my father didn’t. But he went insane—which is why my Aunt Edith adopted me and lied to me—told me he was dead.

“Then when I returned to England, I found out my father was not only still alive, but he was also as sane as you or I—he was merely posing as deranged, to try to catch a spy at Bletchley.

“Neil Wright was an MI-Six agent, hunting down a Sektion agent in London—my father. What happened that night was no accident. Wright must have been chasing my father. One of the drivers lost control and the cars crashed. Whatever happened, it circles around to the same conclusion. If my father hadn’t been a Sektion agent, on the run from MI-Six, my mother would still be alive today. His treachery ended up getting her killed. And Agent Wright too.”

Maggie brushed tears away. “I’m sorry to tell you all this, but I just—well, who am I supposed to talk to?” She laughed, a short, bitter laugh. “My former almost-fiancé who’s been shot down over Berlin and is ‘missing and presumed dead’? My Aunt Edith, who thinks I’m throwing my life away to be a governess? My friends Chuck and Sarah, who’re civilians? I can’t even tell David, my best friend, because he’s not cleared. This spy business is lonely—no one tells you that. And everyone lies.”

“I don’t,” Hugh said.

Maggie turned to him. “I want to reopen the case.”

“What? Why?”

“What if he’s a double agent?”

“MI-Five’s cleared him.”

“What about the file? There were pages missing. Maybe it didn’t end twenty-five years ago. Maybe he’s still working for Germany! That’s what Nevins thinks. That’s why there’s gossip about him—why he’s been at Bletchley for so long, and never caught a spy. He could have given Victoria Keeley those decrypts! And no one would know—because he’s the one supposedly guarding the henhouse.”

Hugh put both hands on Maggie’s arms. “Maggie, stop. All right? Just stop. What matters, what’s important, is our mission—finding out what Lily Howell was doing and who killed her and why. How she got those decrypts and what she was going to do with them. Your father’s helping us do that. He’s on our side.”

“My father’s working at Bletchley. That’s all we know for certain. It’s impossible to know what side he’s on.”

“He works with us, Maggie.”

“Nothing’s what it appears to be!” Maggie exclaimed, pulling away and biting through each word. “War took our world and what we once thought was normal. And now we’re all like, like Alice through the looking glass, in some sort of crazy upside-down world where truth is a lie and lies are truth.”

Hugh shifted. “Look, I understand we’re talking about your father here, and that if he sold secrets to Germany—or, even worse, is selling secrets—that would be hard. Incomprehensible. Untenable.”

“I want—no, I need—to know the truth.”

“Before you do anything, let me find out if he’s still under any kind of suspicion. I’ll check some more files, ask some of my father’s old friends.…” He looked at her. “You’re shivering. Here,” he said, putting his arm around her. Maggie was aware of how close they were, and felt a peculiar jolt when she realized how much she liked it.

“No, I’m sorry,” she said to Hugh, shrugging off his arm. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t.…”