Dolphin Square was just minutes from Jago’s house in Pimlico, but it had more of Albany to it than his shabby home. This was not apparent at first sighting; its outline and texture were brutal, far too many bricks Jago thought, but once through its fortress-like exterior, there were gardens. Like Albany, it had a roguish reputation; apartments in one of its blocks being the town homes of many of London’s louche elements, or where they parked up their mistresses.
Mrs Cambridge let him in and forestalled his opening compliment on her decor. ‘It’s stuff I can live with; eighteenth-century wallpaper, nineteenth-century furniture, twentieth-century portraiture. Victorian wallpaper is too incessant, Georgian chairs too fragile and twentieth-century painting is affordable. I’m not short of a bob or two, but unlike many of the other single ladies of Dolphin Square, I’m not kept. I like to have my feet on the ground. I’m in trade and I don’t wish for anyone to look at the art on my walls and think I’m trying to pretend I’m something else. No Reynolds-like aristocrats in powder-blue silks, thank you.’
She went to get the office post that Jago had come to collect. ‘I make a point,’ she called back, ‘of never owning anything that might one day own me. If I received a warning not to come home, I could walk away from this place forever without a backwards glance.’
She returned with a folder of military correspondence and handed it to Jago. None of it, he knew, would matter, but all of it had to be read.
‘Take my advice, Major; be like me. I think you’re another of life’s secret agents. You’re another shadow, not what you seem.’
In his agitation, Jago transferred the file from one hand to the other for no good reason. ‘I hardly think so,’ he said. ‘I have a college fellowship to return to, and a wife.’
‘You’re not a scholar. And, well – the people in the portraits on my walls are not my relatives; visitors think they are, yet in reality they’re strangers. But their stolid looks help my guests to place me. The real me remains elusive. If I may be so bold, Major, put a picture of your wife on your desk; properly married men always do. Now was it just the mail or was there something else?’
Jago fought down his panic at her words. He couldn’t run away, as there was another matter he needed to discuss. Jago wished she’d offer a coffee or invite him to sit but it was obvious she didn’t want this Saturday morning arrangement of handing over the post to spread into a social occasion.
‘I wonder if you’ve destroyed the Foxley file yet?’
She pursed her lips; not the question she wanted, thought Jago. ‘I have a problem with your request.’
‘Request?’
‘If you make it a direct order then of course I will comply.’
‘May I ask what your difficulty is?’
She sighed and spoke. ‘I know you’ll think I’m a fussy old maid but I don’t like destroying records.’
Jago could think of no woman who resembled an old maid less. ‘But in this instance…’ he said.
‘Yes, yes I know. But what if something happens to us? We’re a team of three – Nightingale doesn’t count. There have been various attempts on your life, so I don’t believe I’m being melodramatic to suggest, say, a bomb under your car that might not just end your life, but mine, and Lavender’s. That’s a risk I’m prepared to take. But if we’re wiped out, what of Foxley? Our replacements will need the file to understand the situation and carry on. Of course Communications will have the radio contact, but can you imagine the situation; Hello. I’m your new Control. Could you just tell me who you are? How manyof you are there? How are you situated?I know you’re serving your country in the most perilous fashion possible and risking an horrendous death – but we seem to have misplaced your file. It’s not on.’
It wasn’t. ‘If we hide the file?’
‘The same problem. To keep it safe from the Link and the Intelligence Service means again, if we’re rubbed out, the file is effectively lost.’
Jago, uninvited, paced Mrs Cambridge’s apartment. ‘Supposing…’ he said. ‘Supposing we treat the file as if it was… well… this flat? A disguise?’
‘Isn’t that the same as hiding it?’
‘It depends. Supposing we keep the file in an envelope next to the out tray. It could be addressed to a friend. When front desk announces the enemy is at the door and on the way up, we drop the envelope into the tray with other outgoing mail.’
‘And the friend whose letterbox will receive it?’
Jago had thought of someone. ‘My friend Veronica Rawlings. If we’re still alive, I can warn her what to expect, and in the event of our demise, she has the intelligence to see the file is returned to SOE.’
Mrs Cambridge nodded, and considered Jago’s proposal as if it were her decision. ‘Give me her details and I’ll see to it.’
Jago did, and as she wrote them down, he looked out of her window. ‘Good lord,’ he said, ‘what on earth is all that ironmongery?’
The roof of the block opposite was festooned with aerials.
Mrs Cambridge didn’t even need to look. ‘That’ll be Hood House. Major Knight has an apartment in that house. He’s with the Box.’
‘MI5? Bit of a giveaway isn’t it?’
‘Giveaway to whom? He’s not a spy, but a spycatcher. Besides, everyone here knows what he does and why not? This is Dolphin Square, not occupied Europe. Apparently, he doesn’t like conditions in St James’s Street, so he works from home.’
Jago was still puzzled. ‘But if he’s MI5, therefore defending the realm, this realm, security at home – why does he need all that radio equipment to presumably talk to agents abroad?’
Mrs Cambridge tutted. ‘Major Jago, if you don’t mind me saying, you’re talking like an amateur. Where exactly would you say is home?’
Jago shrugged. ‘This country?’
‘Really.’
The wrong answer.
‘What then?’
‘Haven’t you overlooked a third of the world? Remember the British Empire, Major? The Empire is home to an Englishman, whatever far-flung outpost he finds himself in. It’s not foreign in the way that France across the Channel is. As such, MI5 is responsible for both security and intelligence-gathering wherever the map is pink.’
Jago felt chastised. ‘Of course.’
‘And he also works from home to be on hand to feed his animals.’
‘Animals?’
‘His other passion, besides nabbing Nazi spies, is the animal kingdom. His flat is a regular fug of beasty aromas. I made a point of using the other air raid shelter back in the bombing.’
‘Other?’
‘There are two. One for owners and pets, the other for civilised people. Frankly, if I wanted a lapdog, I’d get a husband.’
‘Ah, he has dogs.’
Mrs Cambridge swivelled him a furious glare. ‘No, he doesn’t. He has a brown bear and an orangutan. He used to take both of them to the shelter till people complained. He was flagrantly violating the one-pet-only-in-the-shelter rule. So now he just takes the orangutan. The brown bear is female and therefore, of course, better able to cope with the bombing.’
‘Extraordinary.’
‘Disgusting, I think you mean. It’s my intention after the war to get pets banned from Dolphin Square. If people want livestock, they should go and live in the country, or somewhere faux pastorale, such as Hampstead.’