The Officer and the Spy, page 8
The corner of Hector’s lips moved. A smile?
‘You feel sure of that?’
‘I do. Given you could tell me how I spent my birthday this year, it would be rather ridiculous if you’d missed that detail. In fact—’ she didn’t lift her eyes from his ‘—I think it’s the reason you’ve approached me.’ There were certainly any number of staff at the War Rooms who might have suggested he should; all those conversations in Greek over her typewriter. ‘It simply feels too coincidental that, just as it’s becoming possible Greece may be occupied, you’ve vetted me so… forensically. We have troops on their way to Crete, RAF squadrons at the Albanian front, and here you suddenly are, with my loose change in your pocket.’
For a few moments, he didn’t speak.
He ran one finger around the rim of his glass. His signet ring caught the glow of the fire.
‘And what is it you believe we’re interested in you doing?’ he asked.
‘Going to Greece,’ she said, and, despite her growing conviction, the words, spoken out loud, felt preposterous. Perhaps because she wanted them to be true, too much.
But Hector didn’t laugh, or shake his head, or act in any way like she was talking in fantasies.
So she carried on.
‘I believe you’re considering whether I could be part of a resistance there, if it comes to it.’
The muscles around his eyes tightened. She could see him thinking, evaluating.
She wasn’t sure she breathed.
‘Would you do that?’ he asked. ‘Go?’
‘In a heartbeat,’ she said, her own racing all the more.
‘You wouldn’t be afraid?’
OhGodOhGod. ‘Not as much as I would be sitting here, wondering what was happening, knowing I should be there helping.’ Was this real? It was all too much. Her sinuses re-exploded. She reached for her bag, a fresh kerchief, catching yet another sneeze. ‘You said that you were old-fashioned in the park.’
‘You remember?’
‘Yes. I think you meant because I’m a woman. But you shouldn’t underestimate us. You mustn’t underestimate me.’
‘Don’t worry.’ He removed his hat, placed it beside their steaming glasses. ‘I won’t be making that mistake. But, Eleni, you’re sprinting ahead. First… ’ he broke off, shifted to Greek. ‘Echo kapies erotisis na sou kano.’
I have questions.
‘Then please,’ she replied, also in Greek, ‘ask them.’
So he did.
For the rest of the afternoon, they didn’t speak English again. He grilled her, relentlessly, about everything from her earliest memories of the island, to the food she ate there, the names and ages of everyone she knew, their religion (Greek Orthodox), church habits (infrequent), politics (democratic), and personalities (‘How long have you got?’ she said. ‘All the time we need,’ he replied). No detail seemed insignificant to him: not Yorgos’s quick temper, nor his warm heart, nor even the variety of Sofia and the Vassilis’ wines. He combed over every detail she gave him, making her repeat herself again and again, with such scrutiny, such suspicion, that she very nearly started to wonder whether she was in fact making everything up.
But no matter how drained she became, how dizzy with her cold, the rum, she maintained her focus, considering every word she said before she said it, allowing herself not a single slip. It felt like one of the games of chess she’d used to play with her grandpa in Sutton, only exponentially more important, because the stakes were so much higher than they ever had been then. Yorgos was turning seventy that year. She hadn’t seen him, or anyone in Crete, since 1936, because of her own shortsightedness, and now they were all in danger, and she might not have another opportunity to get to them for years to come.
She really needed to pass this test.
‘How did your family react when Metaxas took power?’ Hector asked, the light through the room’s one, grimy window beginning to fade. ‘You were there, yes, that August of thirty-six?’
‘I was,’ said Eleni, and didn’t add how little attention she’d paid to the power struggles in Athens at the time, or why she’d been so distracted. She wasn’t a fool. She’d realized by now that Hector might already know about Otto (a Nazi army officer, the last she’d heard, and, oh, she hated picturing it); he’d mentioned Esther earlier, after all. But whilst there remained a chance he’d somehow missed the connection – that Otto, like her twenty-second birthday, had escaped his net – she wasn’t about to bring any of it up.
Not doing that, she talked on, of the general unhappiness in Crete when Metaxas had staged his August 1936 coup with the support of the Greek king. She said that the island in general wasn’t in favour of the monarchy, and her family no different. ‘Except Uncle Vassili. He loves Metaxas. And the king. I’m sure he’s feeling quite proud that Metaxas has refused to let Mussolini bully him. Actually—’ she considered it ‘—I suspect a lot of Cretans are, whatever the past. They’ll be pleased he’s standing against fascists.’
‘And were any of your family involved in the uprising against Metaxas in thirty-eight?’
‘No, no.’ She drained the dregs of her drink. ‘Papou wrote to me about it though.’ He’d been furious at the chaotic insurrection, planned by Crete’s politicians, and kicked off with a broadcast from Chania’s radio station, calling Greece’s rebels to arms. It was all over in a few hours, Yorgos had written, and now we have martial law, arrests everywhere, and all our weapons confiscated. Your cousin took my father’s gun. ‘Little Vassili is in the army,’ Eleni said. ‘He helped quash it all.’
‘But you weren’t in Crete yourself.’
‘No, I was here.’
‘You haven’t been back since thirty-six, have you?’
‘No.’
‘Yet, before that, you visited every summer since before you were a year old.’
‘Yes.’
He cocked his head to one side, a dent forming between his sharp eyes.
Determinedly, she didn’t let her own gaze waver.
‘Did something happen,’ he asked, ‘the last time you were there? Something that kept you from going back?’
‘No,’ she said, smiling, shaking her head, her mouth running dry on the lie, the suddenly very stark possibility that he absolutely did know about it all. ‘What could have happened?’ She left no pause for him to answer. ‘I couldn’t go. I was working, you know that. I had a contract with the agency.’ She shrugged, nonchalantly (she hoped). ‘How could I have asked for so much time away?’
His head remained on one side. He didn’t blink.
She didn’t either.
Then, he nodded, apparently satisfied, and, silently, she exhaled.
‘It’s getting dark, isn’t it?’ he said, and got up, pulling the blackout down before switching on the room’s lamps, bathing them, the peeling floral wallpaper and stained rug, in light. Whilst his back was turned, she drew several breaths, gathering herself before he returned to his seat, and the interrogation resumed.
The questions kept flowing. He had so many things still to ask her. What parts of the island she’d visited; when, and how often. Where she was known. By whom. How she’d come to work for Dimitri. Whether she’d enjoyed waitressing. If she enjoyed typing as much. Whether she’d be able to do it on a Greek typewriter. Yes, she thought so? He made a note. They might have to look into that.
It felt like there was nothing he didn’t want to look into.
Except, Otto, and Esther.
Eleni waited, and waited, never anything less than on the edge of her seat, after that close call, for him to bring either of them up. Her throat grew raw from talking, her nose sore from rubbing, and there wasn’t a single, draining moment that she didn’t remain braced to hear their names.
But she never did.
The pub’s clock chimed seven, ringing through their closed wooden door, and, to her sagging relief, Hector declared that they should call it a day.
‘Have I passed your test?’ she couldn’t resist enquiring, once they were out in the night, breathing ice once more, and walking over Vauxhall Bridge to hail her a taxi home. A frost was setting in, glittering the bridge’s steel railings; the full bomber’s moon reflected off the murky river. Smoke spiralled from Vauxhall’s chimneys, snaking up to the starry sky. ‘In case you doubt it, I really want to have passed.’
He laughed.
He hadn’t done that since the park.
She hoped she could take it as a positive sign.
A taxicab approached from the other side of the bank. He stopped walking, and raised his hand to flag it, then whistled for good measure. It was a surprisingly uncouth gesture. Taken aback, she looked at him sideways, noticing that his own eyes, beneath his trilby, were glassy with tiredness. For the first time since they’d met, she felt herself almost warm to him. He suddenly seemed halfway human.
‘So?’ she said, prompting him.
‘So,’ he said. ‘There’s something I keep worrying over.’
Oh God, she thought, cursing herself for having pushed, here we go after all.
But she had no need to panic.
He still didn’t mention Otto.
He asked her to estimate how many people in Crete, besides her family, knew that she was half-English.
‘No one, really, outside of Chania,’ she said.
‘And there?’
‘I’m not sure. There’s Dimitri obviously, a few of his friends, some of the customers at the café. I don’t think there are that many who’d remember me though. Most of the trade’s passing. And Chania’s a big town… ’
The taxicab pulled to a halt, interrupting her. The driver got out, rubbed his hands, asking them where they were headed.
‘Clapham Common,’ Hector told him, pulling the change Eleni had given him earlier from his pocket, handing it back to her. ‘It will just be this young lady here. Could you give us another minute though, please? Feel free to start the meter.’
Eleni didn’t watch the driver return to his cab. And she didn’t bat an eyelid that Hector knew where she lived. She’d have been an idiot by that point to have been surprised by that. She thought only of making this final minute they had together count.
‘You don’t need to worry about people knowing me,’ she began, once the cabby had slammed his door shut.
‘Eleni,’ Hector said, turning to face her, his back to the motor, ‘we’d have to seriously consider whether it would be safe for you to remain in Crete, were it to be occupied. You’d almost certainly have to move. No, no—’ he held up his gloved hand, stopping her from talking ‘—there’s no point arguing now. I’m still very much of the hope that we can prevent an occupation from happening, in any case. Certainly, your immediate interest to us, to me, is how you can help us prepare to stop one. An attack is coming. Italy are undoubtedly eyeing the island as a potential naval base, and it’s too strategic, too close to our forces in Africa, the Nazis’ oil fields in Romania, for them to ignore for much longer either. No one wants to see it fall, and we have several operatives in place already, recruiting across the island for men we can rely on to arm, train to fight. Establishing trust is crucial.’ He gave her a level look. ‘I do believe you could be useful in that.’
‘I could. I’m sure I could.’ She clenched her hands into fists, holding down her excitement. ‘Does this mean I’m going?’
‘No.’
‘Oh.’
‘There are several hoops you’ll need to jump through first. More interviews, with native speakers, some others I’d want you to meet… But before any of that, like I said, I’m worried. Things can and do go wrong, all the time, and if Crete does fall, I don’t want to know that I’ve sent you there only for you to somehow get trapped, out of our reach, surrounded by Nazis, on an island chock-full of people who might betray you.’
‘That would never happen.’
‘You can’t be sure of that?’
‘I can. I am. Everyone I know there, I trust.’
He sighed a gust of white. Tipping his head back, he examined the icy, starlit sky.
It was the most uncertain she’d seen him.
She didn’t like it.
‘How deeply do you trust them?’ he asked.
‘Deeply.’
‘All of them?’
‘Yes.’ She didn’t even think about it. ‘Every single one.’
‘How deeply?’
‘Extremely.’
‘Would you trust them with your life?’
‘Yes,’ she said, again, without hesitation. ‘I would trust them with my life.’
Chapter Six
It was almost eight by the time she finally slipped through the front door of the Victorian terrace she called home. The hallway was silent, and quite dark. Blindly, she drew the door’s thick curtains, reached for the switch on the tasselled floor lamp, and, able to see once more, closed her gritty eyes, sinking back against the wall. Hollow with exhaustion, she felt the muscles in her face loosen, and realized just how tensely she’d been controlling them under Hector’s watch, then in the taxi. The cabby had kept looking at her in the rear mirror. The more he had, the more she’d started to wonder if he was from the SOE as well; another part of her test. Or perhaps it was just tiredness making her paranoid.
She filled her lungs through her blocked nose, drawing a deep, deep sniff. A real sniff, snotty and antisocial. The kind she’d been longing to indulge in ever since she’d thrown those crusts to the ducks.
Could she smell something? Actually smell?
Stewing apples?
Her stomach rumbled. She’d put nothing in it but that hot toddy, all afternoon.
The living room door opened. Helen, Miss Finch, came out. She was ready for bed in her plush pink velveteen dressing gown, her white hair full of rollers. She still carried a slight limp from the croquet incident that had sent Eleni travelling to Greece alone, back at the start of that fateful summer of 1936. She’d given up chaperoning after that, decided to go into the business of sub-leasing her house instead. Eleni had been her first, and longest-serving, tenant. The fact of Helen being her landlady had helped Timothy make peace with her taking the leap, leaving home. They’d had several arguments about it, but in the end he’d gone so far as to borrow one of the navy’s motors to drive her up to Clapham from Portsmouth, bought her a pot plant for her windowsill. I miss you. Dear. In my way. Eleni had kept it alive, diligently, ever since, carrying it with her to the Anderson each night. She couldn’t leave it in there all the time, Helen’s pet rabbits might eat it. The sun-starved little things never left the shelter. Poor Helen was haunted by a terror of them being bombed, or pilfered for a neighbour’s pie. She was finalising arrangements to take them, along with herself, to her brother’s in Cheshire for the duration. Eleni would be staying on in the house, but Esther was to go with her. It would be so much safer…
‘You’re very late, dear,’ she said to Eleni now. ‘I was worried. How’s the head cold?’
‘The same.’
‘You should put some cream on your nose.’
Eleni nodded. She should. ‘Is Esther…?’
‘Oh, you know her. Fast asleep.’
‘I was hoping to catch her.’
‘You’ll see her when the siren goes.’
‘I suppose I will. Is that apple crumble I can smell?’
‘No, dear. It’s chutney.’
Disappointing.
‘There’s stew left on the stove for you though. And post on the dresser.’
‘Thank you.’
Achingly, Eleni pushed herself upright, and, removing her gloves, coat and hat, hanging them on her designated hook, carried on down to the cosy basement kitchen.
She didn’t go to the stove right away. She stopped to look at the letter Helen had left on the dresser’s wooden shelf, smiling, through her tiredness, seeing the American postmark. Eager as she was to open it, she decided to wait until she was bathed and in bed, and could relax. She wanted to take her time, reading it.
With another sniff, she crossed to the sink to pour herself a glass of water. Whilst the water ran, she stared sightlessly into the deep, worn basin, and saw not chipped enamel, but Hector Herbert’s cold face across from her on the bridge; the penetrating focus of his stare.
‘Please,’ she’d entreated, just before they’d parted, reaching out to take his gloved hands in hers. ‘Please, Hector. You have to let me do this.’
She’d startled him, touching his hands. She’d felt the tell-tale jolt in his muscles and been happy. For the first time, it had felt like the power had shifted, however marginally, in her favour.
Still, it hadn’t taken Hector long to collect himself.
‘I’ll let you keep jumping through our hoops,’ was all he’d promised. Then, perhaps to regain the front foot, or maybe because he’d been saving the best for last all along, he’d startled her. ‘And next time we meet, I suggest you be ready with the truth about why you haven’t returned to Crete for the past four years. You’re a good liar, Eleni. You could be an excellent one. But, please, no more lying to me.’
The glass in her hand overflowed, bringing her back to the kitchen.
She turned off the faucet, raised the glass to her lips and drained it, the frigid liquid rushing to her chest.
Please, no more lying to me.
How much was he going to want to know?
There was so much that she still didn’t know herself.
Like, what had become of Otto. Where he was fighting. Whether he was happy in the life he’d chosen.
If he was still alive.
She thought he must still be alive. She was sure she’d know if the world no longer had him in it.
Or was it that she simply needed to believe she would?
Upset at her own question, she refilled her glass, picked up a bowl from the draining rack, and crossed to the stove, ladling herself a portion of tepid stew. Vainly, she tried to push Otto from her mind. She didn’t want to be thinking about him. She wanted to be thinking only of Crete; Yorgos’s face, when she saw him again, as she was by now absolutely determined that she would; the scent of thyme…
