‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Am I going to have to go?’
‘I don’t know. I’m afraid they’re on to me.’
Dilys looked sad. ‘Luck always runs out in the end, doesn’t it?’ She spoke quietly. ‘Just give me fair warning when I have to go, will you ask them that? I’m okay for money, but I’ll have to look after Helen till we find somewhere else. I don’t want her in the clutches of the bloody Blackshirts.’
‘I’ll tell them.’
‘Thanks. Don’t say any more,’ Dilys added quickly. ‘It’s best I know as little as possible.’
‘Yes,’ he agreed. It was just what Carol had said to him over the telephone.
‘You can only tell what you know. Would you like a cup of tea?’ Her tone was suddenly cheerful again. Poor girl, David thought, she must have to put on a cheery face all the time.
‘No – no, thank you.’
She glanced at him wistfully. ‘Nice-looking chap like you, bet you can get it whenever you want, eh? Don’t need the likes of me.’ David felt himself blush. ‘I see you’ve a wedding ring. Bet you’re the faithful sort.’ Her manner was bantering now, trying to keep her spirits up. ‘You got any Maltese blood in you?’ she asked suddenly.
‘Not that I know of.’
‘You remind me a bit of my Guido. The bastards deported him two years ago. England for the English, as they say. And for the Germans and Italians, of course,’ she added bitterly. ‘That’s when I joined up with you people. They put me here, to keep an eye out for you.’
‘Thank you,’ David said.
Dilys opened a drawer of the dressing table and pulled out a bottle of gin and two smeared glasses. ‘Want one?’
‘I’d better keep a clear head.’ David realized he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. ‘You haven’t any food, have you?’
‘I’ll see what there is.’
She went through the inner door, returning with some cold ham and bread and butter. David took it eagerly. Dilys sat at the dressing table, watching him eat while she swigged back her gin, the hand holding the glass trembling slightly. When he had finished she said, ‘Should I get ready to open up today?’ He looked at her blankly and she laughed. ‘For business. I usually open up at five, and it’s nearly four now.’
‘I think – maybe better not. There may be more of us coming.’
She took a deep breath. ‘I’ll put a note on the door, say I’m ill. I’ve a couple of Friday regulars, they’ll be disappointed but it can’t be helped. Oh well, it’ll save me the trouble of getting ready, won’t it?’
David looked at her curiously. ‘How did you get into – into this?’
She frowned. ‘Shock you, does it?’
‘No. It’s just – I never—’
She smiled again. ‘You’re quite an innocent thing, aren’t you? My dad died at Dunkirk, he wasn’t one of the ones that got away. My mum went to pieces, turned to drink. We hadn’t any money. A friend got me into this game.’
He looked around the room. ‘Isn’t it – well – dangerous?’
She laughed suddenly. ‘You’re asking, is what I do dangerous? That’s the pot calling the kettle black if ever I heard it.’
It was fifteen minutes before footsteps sounded again on the stairs. Dilys sat up, looking relieved. ‘That’s Natalia.’ She went out and David heard the two women talking quietly. They came back into the flat together. Natalia wore an old grey coat and hat and carried a shopping bag; she looked dowdy and ordinary beside Dilys’ colourful femininity. David thought it was probably a look she cultivated deliberately, so as not to be noticed. It was sad she had to. His heart had leapt at the sight of her but then sank again as he thought of Sarah, out there somewhere, in grave danger.
Natalia looked at him, then said quietly, ‘Come through. Dilys, I’ll tell you what’s happening as soon as I know.’
They went back to Natalia’s flat. It smelt of paint as usual, but she had taken most of the pictures down, stacking them against the walls. Only the striking battle scene remained, the dead soldiers lying in the snow with the high white mountains in the distance. The room was cold. Natalia followed David’s gaze. ‘Yes,’ she said in a low voice. ‘I’m packing up, I’ll have to leave too. This is very serious.’
He turned to her. ‘I’m sorry.’
She smiled wanly. ‘It happens. We always have a fallback place ready.’
They stood looking at each other for a long moment. Then Natalia said, ‘Sit down.’ David took a seat and watched as she switched on the gas fire, bending to slot pennies into the meter. She said, over her shoulder, ‘I am sorry I was out. One of our people came to tell me you’d had to run, and I had to make some telephone calls. Mr Jackson will be coming soon, Geoff Drax too.’
‘Geoff? Oh no.’
She stood up and spoke sadly, almost apologetically. ‘If they’re making enquiries about you they will soon find out you and he are friends. I had to phone Mr Jackson at work. We don’t usually do that, we don’t know which Civil Service phones are tapped, but it was an emergency.’
‘What about the other man in the cell? Boardman, from the India Office.’
‘He’ll be warned. But there’s nothing to lead them to him that we know of.’ She sat down opposite him, a fixed expression in those clear, almond-shaped eyes. ‘Please, tell me everything that happened today.’
She sat still and quiet as David explained, nodding occasionally. When he had finished she asked, ‘The woman Carol, you’re sure she knows nothing of what you have been doing?’
‘Yes. But – they’ll question her again. She was the one who warned me. They’ll make her talk.’
‘With luck she will only lose her job. If she knows nothing.’
David took a deep breath. ‘The man I spoke to on the telephone said they’d send someone to fetch Sarah. That was always part of the deaclass="underline" if anything happened you’d help her.’
‘We will.’
‘If only she’d been at home—’
‘You shouldn’t have gone back there, you know,’ Natalia said, her tone quietly reproving.
‘I didn’t know what else to do. If that man had answered the phone the first time—’
‘Yes. If he had to go out he should have got someone to cover him. That was a mistake.’
‘I didn’t know what to think when I didn’t get an answer.’ He smiled at her ruefully. ‘Somehow I’d thought you were all infallible.’
‘Nobody is infallible. Not us, and not them, either. They should have realized this woman Carol might go and warn you. Just occasionally, you see, they overestimate the power of fear.’ She gave him one of her long, steady looks. ‘This woman must be very fond of you.’
‘And now I’ve landed her in it. I’ve landed everyone in it, haven’t I? All because I misfiled that bloody document.’
‘As I said, nobody is infallible. But the question is, what led them to you in the first place?’
‘It all points to Frank Muncaster, doesn’t it? They’ve got him to talk.’
‘That seems possible, I’m afraid.’
‘Then it’s all been for nothing.’ David put his head in his hands. ‘Poor bloody Frank.’
Natalia didn’t get up, but said, gently, ‘I’m sorry. It’s hard when you have personal loyalties.’
He glanced up at her. ‘Don’t you have any?’
She lit a cigarette from the pack on the table. ‘Not any more.’ She looked him in the eye. ‘Everyone I cared about is gone. That’s another thing the enemy don’t consider, that they might leave people with nothing else in their lives but to fight them. That’s what they’re doing in Russia.’
David pointed at the painting of the battle scene. ‘You’ve left that one on the wall.’