The Alice Network - Page 8

“Then what are you doing here?” she asked directly.

“I am here to evaluate you.” He crossed his ankles, recovering his aplomb. “I’ve had my eye on you for a number of weeks, ever since I first walked into my friend’s office pretending to speak no French. May I speak plainly?”

“Have we not been speaking plainly already?”

“I don’t believe you ever speak plainly, Miss Gardiner. I’ve heard you murmuring evasions at your fellow file girls, to get out of the work you consider boring. I heard you tell a bold-faced lie when they asked why you were late this morning. Something about a cabdriver who delayed you with his unwanted attentions—you’re never flustered, you go about cool as cream, but you faked fluster beautifully. You weren’t late because of an amorous cabdriver; you were staring at a recruitment poster outside the office door for a good ten minutes. I timed it, looking down from the window.”

It was Eve’s turn to sit back and blush. She had been staring at the poster: it had showed a line of stalwart-looking Tommies, soldierly and identical, with a blank space in the middle. There is still a space in the line for YOU! the headline above it blared. WILL YOU FILL IT? And Eve had stood there bitterly, thinking, No. Because the lettering inside that blank space in the line of soldiers said in smaller script, This space is reserved for a fit man! So, no, Eve could never fill it, even though she was twenty-two and entirely fit.

The tabby in her lap protested, feeling her fingers tighten through his fur.

“So, Miss Gardiner,” Captain Cameron said. “Can I get a straight answer out of you if I ask a question?”

Don’t count on it, Eve thought. She lied and evaded as easily as she breathed; it was what she’d had to do all her life. Lying, lying, lying, with a face like a daisy. Eve couldn’t remember the last time she’d been completely straight with anyone. Lies were easier than the hard and turbulent truth.

“I am thirty-two,” the captain said. He looked older, his face lined and worn. “Too old to fight in this war. I have a different job to do. Our skies are under attack from German zeppelins, Miss Gardiner, our seas by German U-boats. We are under attack every day.”

Eve nodded fiercely. Two weeks ago the Lusitania was sunk—for days, her fellow boarders dabbed at their eyes. Eve had devoured the newspaper accounts dry-eyed, enraged.

“To stave off further such attacks, we need people,” Captain Cameron went on. “It is my job to find people with certain skills—the ability to speak French and German, for example. The ability to lie. Outward innocence. Inward courage. To find them and put them to work, ferreting out what the Boches have planned for us. I think you show potential, Miss Gardiner. So, let me ask: do you wish to stand for England?”

The question hit Eve in a hammer blow. She exhaled shakily, setting the cat aside, and answered without thinking. “Yes.” Whatever he meant by stand for England, the answer was yes.

“Why?”

She began to pull together something pat and expected about the vile Fritzes, about doing her bit for the boys in the trenches. She let the lie go, slowly. “I want to prove myself capable, to everyone who ever thought me simpleminded or weak because I cannot speak straight. I want to f-f-f—I want to f-f-f-f—”

She hung on the word so badly her cheeks heated dully, but he didn’t rush to finish her sentence in that way that most people did, the way that filled her with fury. He just sat quietly until she slammed a fist against her skirted knee and the word broke free. She spit it out through clenched teeth, with enough vehemence to startle the cat out of the room.

“I want to fight.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.” Three straight answers in a row; for Eve it was a record. She sat under his thoughtful gaze, shaking, close to tears.

“So, I ask for the fourth time, and there won’t be a fifth. Do you speak German?”

“Wie ein Einheimischer.” Like a native.

“Excellent.” Captain Cecil Aylmer Cameron rose. “Evelyn Gardiner, would you be interested in entering the Crown’s service as a spy?”

CHAPTER 3

CHARLIE

May 1947

I had vague nightmares of gunshots going off in whiskey glasses, blond girls disappearing behind train cars, a voice whispering, “Le Lethe.” And then there was a man’s voice saying, “Who are you, lass?”

I peeled my gummy eyelids open with a groan. I’d gone to sleep on the broken-down old sofa in the sitting room, not daring to wander about the house looking for a bed when that crazy woman was on the loose with a Luger. I’d unhooked myself from my fluffy traveling suit, curled up under a threadbare knitted throw, and gone to sleep in my slip—and now it was apparently morning. A shaft of sunlight showed through a chink in the heavy curtains, and someone was staring at me from the door: a dark-haired man in a worn old jacket, resting his elbow up against the doorjamb.

“Who are you?” I asked, still half stupefied from sleep.

“I asked first.” His voice was deep, with a hint of a Scots burr to the vowels. “I’ve never known Gardiner to have visitors.”

“She’s not up, is she?” I threw a frantic look behind him. “She threatened to shoot me if I was still here when she got up—”

“Sounds like her,” the Scotsman commented.

I wanted to start rummaging for my clothes, but I wasn’t standing up in my slip in front of a strange man. “I’ve got to get out of here—”

And go where? Rose whispered, and the thought made my head pound. I didn’t know where to go from here; all I’d had was a scrap of paper with Eve’s name. What was left? My eyes burned.

“Don’t bother scrambling,” the Scotsman said. “If Gardiner was right smashed last night, she likely won’t remember a thing.” He turned, shrugging out of his jacket. “I’ll make tea.”

“Who are you?” I started to say, but the door swung shut. After a moment’s hesitation I tossed the blanket aside, my bare arms prickling in the cold. I looked at the mass of my crumpled traveling suit and wrinkled my nose. I had one more dress in my case, but it was just as fluffy and cinched and uncomfortable. So I slipped into an old sweater and a worn pair of dungarees my mother hated, and padded off in bare feet searching for the kitchen. I hadn’t eaten in twenty-four hours, and the roar of my stomach was fast overcoming everything else, even my fear of Eve’s pistol.

The kitchen was surprisingly clean and bright. The teakettle had been put on, and the table laid. The Scotsman had tossed his worn jacket over a chair, and stood in equally worn shirtsleeves. “Who are you?” I asked, unable to help my own curiosity.

“Finn Kilgore.” He took down a pan. “Gardiner’s man of all work. Help yourself to tea.”

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