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He states this as if it’s a question, but I sense he’s speaking rhetorically so I keep my mouth shut.

“We still cannot find Peggy. She has vanished well, and to do it as thoroughly as she did requires planning. And money.”

The car suddenly feels very cold. I pull my coat tighter. “What are you saying?”

“Nothing good.” He blows out a long breath. “What do you know about St. Eths during the war?”

“Peggy said the village was a relay station. Almost everyone worked radios scouring for transmissions in the Atlantic to be sent on to London.”

“This is not to be repeated, yes?”

“Yes.”

“It was more than that. It was a secret decoding station. All German communications through the Atlantic went through St. Eths.”

“She didn’t tell me that.”

“That’s some consolation, but it does put your friend in a precarious position, especially as she was named in those documents. She, technically, worked intelligence during the war, even if she wasn’t fully aware of it. And though we don’t know how or when a relationship began, we have a witness who saw her talking to Kuczynski in a dry goods shop in Kidlington on Wednesday, 15 February—”

I cut him off. “She bought navy gloves there.” The final puzzle piece drops into place, but I don’t like the resulting picture. Peggy talked to Ursula and lied about it. But I’d already accepted that. How else could I explain her sudden change of heart on that very night? This is merely the final point of confirmation—and it hurts.

“Yes, she bought a pair of gloves that day. She also talked in a corner of that store with Kuczynski for a full fifteen minutes.”

“She was shocked about the antenna. Truly outraged. I understand what you are saying. I even believe it. But I can’t accept she’d help Ursula or that Ursula would help her.”

Something doesn’t add up. Or perhaps I simply don’t want it to.

Mr. Wainright gives me a small smile. “That does you credit, but as I’ve found in my twenty years with the Service, people are rarely what they purport to be.” He straightens in his seat again. “And I expect it makes more sense to you than you’d like to admit.”

I do not reply.

He continues. “If we discover anything more of your friend, I’ll reach out. I promise.”

“Thank you. Why do you call her that? Kuczynski?”

“That’s her name. Ursula Kuczynski,” he states baldly. “These spies go through so many names it’s hard to keep track. I could use her code name, Agent Sonya, but I always figure it’s best to go to the beginning. She was a Kuczynski first, the daughter of a wealthy German family, before she married and became a Hamburg, had an affair with Richard Sorin, turned to spying, left her husband, Rudi, for Johaan Paatra, and before she recruited and then married Len Beurton. She was and always will be a Kuczynski. Calling her such seems to cut to the core for me.”

We sit silently for almost another full hour. I have no idea if he’s thinking of Ursula, Peggy, my case, a good toasted-cheese sandwich for lunch, or a pint of ale later this afternoon. My thoughts swirl with Ursula and Peggy, and as those finally wind down in an endless morass of questions, they land upon Charlie.

The last moments as the car winds its way into London are filled with a peculiar form of torture. What will Charlie do when he discovers I’m gone? Will he hear about it today? Tomorrow? Sometime this week over a pint at the pub? What cases will he work on next week, and will he miss chatting about them with me? What girl will he meet next month? And what will their wedding be like in a year?

And just as I’m able to leave London in a few years, having “fully established my life”—my lonely life—I wonder where I might run into him. On a seaside holiday with his young family? Of course, he’ll be a chief constable by then. His blond hair will have darkened, but his blue eyes will be just as sharp. The scar on the left side of his chin will still be visible, but only if you stand close. He’ll have filled out, just a touch, I expect. Will he recognize me? Smile at me? So broadly that his dimple will come out in his left cheek? Or will that look of pure delight be reserved only for his wife? Regardless, he’ll carry the gravitas of success, the joy of a family, and the satisfaction of a life well lived.

And I won’t be any part of it.

“Here we are.” Mr. Wainright’s words draw me from my imaginary hell. The car has stopped. I spy Liberty London out the car’s left window. I spin around. I know this street. I know this place. “This is Regent Street.”

“It is.” Mr. Wainright opens the door, and I follow him out of the car. “Your new home is just down here.”

My head swirls around like a child at the traveling carnival as he leads me past Liberty’s front door and into a small side street beyond. It’s busy and bustling. There are blanks, of course, gaps in the rows of shops where buildings were bombed years ago, but here—in this part of London—work to rebuild is well on its way. Scaffolding is set up at almost every third building, and I catch the wet scent of mortar and the more acrid one of wet paint. It feels so different, almost fresh and lively, from the London only a few blocks east and only a few months ago.

Mr. Wainright stops in front of a florist’s shop, still closed as it’s only coming upon nine o’clock, and opens a freshly painted black door to the right of the shop’s huge plate glass window. I follow him up the stairs, and he unlocks another freshly painted door and steps inside.

My jaw drops. It’s a flat. A proper flat. Not a bedsit. There isn’t one room; there are three at least. I step into the front parlor, then to the right into a bedroom. To the left I find another door opening into a loo. I turn around again and discover a small kitchen—a proper kitchen with an icebox and an oven.

“This can’t be mine.”

“It’s all yours.”