Page 69

“They don’t. But they’ll do those things anyway. As I said, it’s in their playbook, as is the belief that spies must be men.” Her lips twitch. “It’s remarkable the lack of imagination in most people, and it won’t matter if you tell them a hundred times you are safe from me. They’ll never believe you.”

“Why? Why am I safe from you?” I release a shaky breath. There’s a catch in her statement, this assurance of my safety. I feel it, and I wonder how, unwittingly, I’ve compromised myself.

Ursula’s slight smile doesn’t fully reach her eyes, but it does encroach just enough for me to know it’s genuine. She feels pleasure, even pride, in what she’s about to share. She isn’t about to lie to me.

“I trust you and I want you to trust me.” She nods to me. “But I don’t trust MI5, Gemma. We have assets all throughout that organization. So I’ll only work with you.”

This time I can’t move. I merely wait, my heart beating in my throat. Did she say “work”? With me?

Ursula continues. “If I reach out to you at some point, some day, I ask that you’ll read my letter. Nothing more. After that, you may do what you will. I simply want to know that if I reach out, someone I trust will be at the other end. And I hope you will be as clever then as you have been these past months.”

“I won’t agree to that. Why should I?”

Ursula swings her head side to side as if disappointed in me. “Why wouldn’t you? What am I really asking here? Nothing more than for you to read a simple letter. I’m trusting you to have the common sense to discern for yourself what to do with it. Where is the risk, Gemma?”

I don’t answer as I’m not sure. As is often the case, her words make sense. I push for an answer from her rather than give my own. “What were the numbers in the tree?”

Her eyes widen, and this time I’ve surprised her. “Well done.” Her lips curve. “I was distracted that day and didn’t notice you. I assume you copied them down?”

I nod.

“And passed them along?”

My lips part and I press them tight, but she’s already read the answer—that I forgot!

“A boon for me then.” Her eyes dart to the window, and I get the impression she’s glancing towards freedom, a freedom that she might have been denied had I remembered to give Mr. Skardon and Mr. Serpell those numbers.

“It was a cry for help. A request for extraction. Coded, of course.” She regards me for a long moment. “Perhaps it was best I didn’t see you that day. Had I known I might’ve panicked. As it is, everything is sorted, and I don’t foresee anything going awry.” She looks at her watch and stands. “I must be going now. I ask again, Gemma, will you read my letter?”

I stand as well and find myself nodding—and that surprises me a bit.

Her gaze darkens as something out my window captures her attention. A black cab has pulled up outside her home. She starts to leave, but I call her back with a whine. It’s embarrassing and weak, but that’s how I feel. “Will I really have to leave here?”

Ursula turns with such compassion in her eyes I almost burst into tears. Her rounding on me with steel and daggers would have been less devastating. “You and I both found a home here.” She surveys my small place. “And we both have to leave. I’m sorrier for that than you’ll ever know.”

“But then how will you find me for this letter?” I push for a way out.

She chuckles softly. There’s compassion and kindness in the notes, and a fair bit of arrogance too. “Finding you will be easy enough, I assure you.” She starts down the stairs, talking over her shoulder. “I must go. The cab Len called has already arrived.”

“Wait!” I rush to the stairs.

She stops on the bottom step. “I can’t. We’ve talked too long as it is. Don’t follow me, Gemma. You don’t want to be anywhere near my house or back garden in . . .” She lifts her wrist and studies her watch again. “Oh, about ten minutes from now. I’m extremely good, but it’s always a touchy business.”

She opens the door to the alley, and I race down behind her, pieces of the puzzle clicking into place—too many coincidences to be coincidental.

“Wait!” I call again. “Peggy? She also left town today. She went home to St. Eths. Did you have something to do with that?”

“Finally, the girl listens.” Ursula rolls her eyes. “Though I doubt she went home. You may not see your friend again, Gemma. I’m sorry for that too.”

“What? Wait!”

But Ursula doesn’t turn back this time. She strides out the alley onto the sidewalk of High Street and turns towards her home. I dart after her and, at the corner, realize I’m standing in only stockings and have already torn the feet. I turn back up my stairs for shoes, and upon coming down again and reaching the corner at High Street, I spy her reaching The Firs.

The black cab sits waiting, and Len leads their two children out of the house and bundles them into the cab. Ursula walks straight into her husband’s arms, and after a long hug, he opens the door again to usher her into the car as well. That’s when she notices me staring a full three blocks away. She lifts one hand—in a salute or a wave, I’m not sure—before dropping into the car, and it drives away.

Rather than return to the house, Len walks away from me, farther south down High Street, hands deep in his pockets and shoulders shrugged forward. He doesn’t walk with crutches or a cane, but he does walk with a significant limp.

I watch the house and ponder her last words about not following her and not going to her home. My gaze drifts to the antenna still sticking up for all to see several feet above the roofline.