Stella sat on a bench in Kensington Gardens, not far from the Peter Pan statue, and wished she too could disappear into Neverland. She’d spent some time in the ornamental Italian Gardens that she’d read somewhere had been a grand gift from Prince Albert to his beloved Queen Victoria. It was all a little florid for Stella, with its marble fountain and massive stone urns and statues, and she’d drifted down, following the path of the Long Water that would lead into the Serpentine to find a spot where she could be still and unnoticed for a while. Sitting near Peter with a copse to her back, flowers around her and the waterway in front was ideal. It was only nearing nine-fifteen so the day was young and few people, save those taking the fresh air with infants or workers using the gardens to cut through from Bayswater to Knightsbridge, interrupted her vision with their movement.
The morning was warm, the day promising to be hot, and the emergence of drifts of daisies reminded her that the warmest season spoke of happy moods and laughter – but she would forever associate the feeling of the sun on her skin with a sense of misery.
She’d arrived early for her appointment and had time to contemplate and observe those few Londoners going about their day. She felt every ounce the outsider, amongst the nannies and mothers who emerged through the park gates with their new-fangled large-wheeled stroller prams. Her father had insisted that the cumbersome large perambulator that had been purchased when Stella was born would do just fine for her siblings who came so much later. Inevitably it was she who had struggled to control a baby inside the monstrous vehicle with an eager, often restless toddler at her side when her mother asked her to take the children out for some air. What wouldn’t she have done for one of these modern contraptions, where the infant faced out and could see the world rather than staring at the sky or up into their mother’s nostrils.
She had sat here now for more than an hour considering the exquisite bronze sculpturing of tiny fairies and squirrels and other furry creatures playing around Peter. Her thoughts had ranged from how life’s odd journey had brought her to this place.
It had been a week since she’d arrived home from North Africa. She could not bear to remember returning to that hotel room of love feeling so bereft. She’d paced for several minutes, glad to be rid of hotel staff and even the waiter who seemed to know a lot more about what had occurred than she did. He’d even given her instructions, apparently briefed by Rafe during their hurried discussion in Arabic. It’s why she recalled now how Zarif had glanced her way during that conversation. Rafe must have all but accepted that the meeting with Joseph would turn sour. Zarif had escorted her, reminded her to write down every single memory of the twenty minutes or so with Joseph before Klipfels arrived. To find Fruity, to give him everything.
‘What do you mean by that?’ she had asked.
The waiter had looked back uncomprehendingly. ‘You are supposed to understand, Madam,’ he had said as politely as he could in French.
But she hadn’t understood, not until the journey home on the aeroplane. She’d ripped open the envelope she found waiting for her on the hotel dressing table and knew in her gut, before the contents spilled, that there would be paperwork for only one person. Her instincts served her well. There were no return travel documents for Rafe Ainsworth.
In that hotel room she had crumpled in on herself, coming to rest on the floor in deep, silent sobs of heartbreak, fully appreciating that he’d feared since before they left England that he would never return.
And in the course of the next few hours she’d drifted in and out of her grief, finally emerging into the latter half of the afternoon to realise his note was still crushed in her hand. Of course he could write nothing down that was incriminating – he could tell Zarif nothing that could be repeated to their enemies either – and so she had needed to read between the lines of his affection and regret.
My darling Stella,
If you are reading this, the worst has occurred and we are separated. Poor old Joseph. I had to presume he would be watched because of his position so close to the power brokers. And I had to presume he would be followed on his sudden departure from Berlin even if they were not sure about what he may know. I mustn’t dwell and write of my love and admiration for you, for I know as you do read this that time is frighteningly short and you must use the travel documents enclosed and get yourself back to London.
Please do not look for me, do not linger in Morocco for me, do not talk about me to anyone. Be safe and get on that flight back to England. I trust you and that clever, agile mind of yours to work out everything.
Make it all count for something, my darling. Make me even prouder . . . I love you with all of myself; even my shadow that now whispers goodbye to you, Stella, because I will not feel your soft skin again or hear your bright laughter. But wherever I am I cannot miss you because you are here with me, remember? You covered my heart with your hand and promised me you will always be there. And so it is . . . we are bound in spirit and, perhaps, other ways, to keep you in happy company.
She didn’t understand that sentence but couldn’t dwell to work it out, knowing he was probably feeling uncharacteristically emotional when he wrote the letter.
Go home, Stella, my love. Don’t forget to give dear old Fruity all that stuff on the research expedition we assembled for Kew. Anything else of mine, for whatever it’s worth, please keep as you see fit and take back.
She could tell how careful he was being in this letter, wanting to say so much more than he was, but urging her to understand. They’d assembled nothing for Kew, so that was a ruse for anyone who happened upon this letter other than herself. So that left his few clothes and the photo album. She would take it all back with her. She needed to think but Stella felt her heart racing with the tension of needing to leave at once, to get away as he was urging her to.
I can never regret asking you to dance but forgive me now for the sorrows I have caused you since. I’m guessing, though, there may be at least one or two happy memories that will remain when the sadness fades.
When you wear green, think of me, mint juleps, minted tea and our hours in Brighton, our day in Marrakech, a waltz in Piccadilly and twenty unforgettable minutes in a London taxi that changed my life. To you alone have I given all my love and that will never change.
R.
Too broken in her mind to do anything but obey and flee to the loving security of family, she had washed her face, gathered up her few belongings, including his shirt that smelled of him, which she wrapped his notebook in. The photo album she tucked into her handbag. The flight to Britain, which should have been a thrilling experience of awe and wonder, felt as though it was happening to everyone else in the narrow metal tube that was roaring them through the skies. Stella was lost to her thoughts, wracking her mind for what he’d tried to communicate to her. The man seated next to her had given up on the small talk when Stella had donned sunglasses and leaned her head against the window. Couldn’t he see how red her eyes were? Why did he want to talk about the woman he loved, their new baby, their whole happy life stretching ahead?
With the drone of the aeroplane’s engines sounding like drills into her mind, even her miserable thoughts were drowned. It wasn’t until she’d noticed her neighbour showing the air hostess a photo of his wife and child that a glimmer opened in her mind like a door from a lit corridor into a dark room. When her neighbour had released his seatbelt to use the bathroom, Stella had hopped up to rummage in the overhead compartment for Joseph’s photo album.
With reluctance she opened it to confront smiling pictures of Rafe and his non-blood brother in childhood in happier times. She didn’t think Rafe had changed much; he had been a good-looking boy who fulfilled all his handsome promise. She came to her favourite image. There he was grinning from the opening of a tent flap, looking relaxed and as merry as she could imagine him being, surrounded by desert, even a camel obligingly heaving into view in the distance.
Remember this, he had said – no, hissed – as he had pointed meaningfully.
Why? What was in the image she had to focus on? Rafe. Sand. Tent. Camel. She shook her head. She’d flicked through all the rest of the photos, pondering each for clues. She’d checked the actual album itself, picking at the corners of the lining, wondering if anything could be beneath. No luck and no point because if something were hidden in such a way, surely Rafe would have clued her. Except he had clued her, hadn’t he? Remember this. Stella returned to the photograph she could sketch out now if asked because she knew its grainy image so well. Maybe it was the place . . . maybe its location was what Rafe needed her to communicate. But she failed to see how saying out loud ‘Moroccan desertscape’ was going to help anyone with anything. Perhaps it wasn’t Morocco, though – was that the point?
She blinked in consternation, recalling again how deliberately he’d gestured. Rafe had wanted her to do something with this photograph – only this one – and his words about getting the stuff back to old Fruity were not hollow either. Rafe rarely wasted words and certainly not in that urgent situation.
Then it came to her, in a flash. Was there something on the back of the photo? She eased it out of its corners and as it came away from the page of black card, so did a page of the flimsiest tissue paper covered in tiny handwriting. Time stilled as Stella carefully unfolded the sheet. It was not his handwriting. It belonged to Joseph, who declared in the briefest preamble that this was a faithful copy that he’d translated into English of the notes made in March 1933 by Adolf Hitler, Chancellor, of his plans for the German Reich. Unless this was the deepest of conspiracies, then Joseph had not lied and Poland was indeed in the German leader’s sights, as was a ‘cleansing’ in his adopted nation. Her neighbour had paused in his return to his seat to remain standing and to talk to the air hostess so Stella kept reading, despite the fear tingling through her that no one but Basil Peach must read these notes after her. Hitler’s thoughts were sometimes garbled, often ranging, but it was clear – even to Stella – that the thinking was more than simply inflammatory. The man was looking towards domination in Europe.
So now that whole scene in the café made sense to Stella. Between Rafe and Joseph they’d purposefully handed Klipfels the original, intentionally ensuring if Joseph were followed that his observers would see him handing over those papers. Klipfels had looked at the album but dismissed it in favour of the sheets of paper shiftily withdrawn and given to Rafe. How quickly Rafe had caught onto the unspoken plan that the information was hidden in the album and that the original could be given back – must be given back, in fact – to protect the copy. So simple and yet so cunning. The years had clearly not dulled their ability to think as one, to understand invisible messages, to read signs between each other. They had deliberately given Klipfels a sense of security that he’d got the information before it left German hands, when both Rafe and Joseph had known all along that the duplicated information was to be carried back to England in the photo album, whether that information was delivered by Rafe or by Stella. Masterful!
And so now here she sat with blackbirds busy about their gathering while other birds happily warbled in the sunshine. She watched a youngster rush up to the statue and hug it. Stella smiled, believing that’s how she felt about Peter Pan too . . . and about Rafe, who was also something of a boy who had not truly grown up but lived in his own Neverland world. She looked at her watch. Eight minutes. More than sufficient time to get to where she needed to be.
Stella stood, feeling the cold unstretch from her stiff body. Once she fulfilled this task for Rafe maybe she might feel another leash snap that connected them so that the bonds of attachment could loosen just enough for her to escape the tight hold he held on her. She didn’t want to leave Rafe behind but knew that to survive this terrible year of her life, she had to lock him away and change her life, go somewhere else. To where she had no proper idea yet . . . only that it was time to leave, time to take care of herself and her children, as she’d come to think of her sister and brother.
She turned and headed towards the great pond that sat before Kensington Palace. They were to meet on the side adjacent to the bandstand. She carried nothing but her handbag, which in turn held her purse, a handkerchief, a powder compact she would not need and a double-sided sheet of handwriting that belonged to a German Jew.
Stella arrived at the enormous pond and scanned the landscape. She wasn’t alone but the majority of her companions were ducks and geese making an enjoyable racket. A mother and child were feeding the waterfowl, the child squawking with both fear and delight at the larger, more eager birds.
She checked her watch again. Two minutes. Stella wandered the circumference of the pond, finally coming back to her starting point in line with the bandstand from where she saw a figure hail her.
She recognised Basil Peach immediately by his monocle and rather than wait for him to approach, she covered the distance quickly on flat shoes.
‘Hello, again, Miss Myles,’ he said and she heard once more the friendly warmth she recalled in this man but also knew it now to be his public tone. She had heard him speak in an entirely different tone to Rafe when he’d forced him to meet Joseph against all of Rafe’s instincts.
‘Mr Peach,’ she said, evenly.
‘Thank you for coming.’
‘I don’t believe I had much choice. We both have something for each other.’
‘Indeed.’ He smiled. ‘Shall we sit?’ he offered, gesturing to the chairs that had been stacked beneath the canopy of the bandstand to keep out of the rain. He pulled a couple free. ‘I thought it was quieter here than next to the pond. All those ducks make quite a racket, don’t they?’
She smiled thinly and sat down. She’d never felt lonelier than in this moment to be surrounded by empty chairs, as if the seats surrounding her were occupied only by ghosts.
‘So, Miss Myles, are you well?’
‘As well as I can be under the circumstances.’
He had the grace to look down. ‘I’m deeply sorry that you became involved. That was not my call, of course. Monty obviously insisted.’
‘Had he not, you would not now have what Joseph Altmann brought with him.’
‘We had no idea what he was bringing out.’ He looked in pain, his brow creasing with worry.
‘But you did know it was dangerous for Mr Ainsworth.’
‘They were family. He wouldn’t have hesitated in any circumstance. My dear, these are not easy times. I have a job to do for our government and I do my best not to get emotionally involved.’
She hated Peach in that moment. If not for Rafe’s plea, she would have walked away from this man without wasting another breath on him. He had no idea she’d heard their exchange during that phone call and how he had manipulated Rafe. ‘Nevertheless, it was brave.’
He nodded carelessly. ‘You have the stuff Altmann brought from Berlin?’
She tapped her bag, only now realising he had no idea of what the pages contained. ‘Yes,’ she reassured. ‘And you have something for me.’
‘I do.’ He touched the breast pocket of his light raincoat. Stella blinked, not understanding, but he was already talking again. ‘It’s courageous of you, Miss —’
‘Mr Peach,’ she interrupted, now hating his jolly, sweet face for sending Rafe away, for causing her a grief that she knew would never leave her. He stopped abruptly, staring at her, slightly alarmed. ‘I will not be giving you the papers Rafe has acquired until you give me what I want and it is not kept in your coat pocket!’
He shifted position, looking around. ‘Please calm yourself, Miss Myles.’
‘Calm? You’re asking me to calm down when the man I love is lost to me.’
‘Love?’ He looked astonished and then almost in the same moment she saw that he understood.
‘Dear old Monty.’ She glared at him, hearing his patronising tone. ‘Forgive me, I can see that it was real for you, Miss Myles.’
‘It was real for him too.’ She had to believe it.
‘Monty only had to look at a woman and she —’
‘Don’t, Mr Peach. I know you believe you know him, that he is your friend, but you are mistaken.’
He shrugged with repressed smugness.
‘Do you know his full name?’ she demanded.
‘Montgomery Douglas R. Ainsworth. Captain, if I’m not mistaken, and something of a war hero . . . predictably.’
‘And you knew him as Monty?’
‘It’s what he asked me to call him by.’
She nodded. ‘That’s right, Mr Peach. He was known as Monty by everyone he kept as distant as he could.’ As he baulked she pressed on. ‘No, you need to understand, you only think you know him. You are a colleague. That’s it, Basil . . . or should I call you Fruity?’
‘No one calls me Fruity,’ he corrected, his cheerfulness gone.
‘Oh? I thought that was your name at school.’
‘It was. I only share that with a few people.’
‘Precisely. You think he’s your friend but he shared it with me, chuckled about it – not unkindly, because that wasn’t his way.’
‘We used to go out often, drinking . . . dancing.’
‘Because he felt sorry for you, Mr Peach. I understand you care for your elderly mother, which is a fine thing to do, but he knew you were lonely for company of your own age, particularly female company.’
‘Listen here, many’s the time old Monty and I got quite filthy together and shared many a secret.’
‘Really? Did you know that he never actually drank the gin you thought he was consuming? Did you know that night you met Madge and myself that he was as sober as I am now? He threw most of it on his suit so he smelled drunk.’
He blinked with annoyance. ‘No, I didn’t know.’
‘And the secrets you think he shared . . . Let’s go with an obvious one, shall we? Do you know what the R stands for in his name?’
Basil Peach turned red. ‘A family name, no doubt.’
She shook her head. ‘It belongs to a name that only his sister, his mother, his closest friend, Joseph – a brother to him – and I were privy to.’
‘His wife must have known it.’
‘Perhaps she does but I doubt very much she was familiar with the short form of it. I only know him by one name, which he told me less than an hour after I met him, Mr Peach. You’ve been acquainted for years and don’t know it, his wife has been married to him for at least seventeen years and calls him Doug.’
‘What do you want from me, Miss Myles?’
‘Apart from your apology, I want to know where he is.’
‘I am genuinely sorry for calling into question how Monty felt about you.’
‘Felt?’
He took his monocle out. ‘He’s dead, Stella.’
She looked back at him with a dull expression. This was not a shock; it was not even a scenario she hadn’t anticipated since she’d crumpled to the floor in the Marrakech hotel room. Her heart had known it since he looked back once with such regret between the shoulders of the Germans. Now her mind simply had to catch up and resign herself to the confirmation of what her heart knew.
‘I wished to spare you this.’
‘Don’t spare me. Tell me, and then we can go our separate ways.’ Her voice was granite-hard.
He sat straighter and sighed. ‘Two bodies were found in a deserted area of the foothills of the Atlas Mountains. Our people have confirmed them to be Ainsworth and Altmann. It had been made to look like a car accident but you and I know better.’
She swallowed. ‘Their bodies?’
‘Both are buried in Marrakech.’
‘Mrs Ainsworth?’
‘She was contacted immediately. Knows only of the accident. Certainly doesn’t need or indeed, I suspect, want to know any more.’
‘How are his daughters?’
‘I cannot answer that, Miss Myles. I did visit Beatrice Ainsworth; she was under the impression that I represented the Foreign Office. It was easier that way. I didn’t meet the daughters.’
‘I see,’ she said. Stella unclipped her bag and retrieved an envelope. ‘I hope this was worth two men’s lives, Mr Peach. Two men whom you sent to their death for this.’
‘Rafe insisted on working alone. He took risks, refused any assistance. Miss Myles, I —’
‘Don’t, Mr Peach. I do not require your placation, especially when you head home each evening to the cosy little bedroom you’ve probably slept in since childhood!’
He cleared his throat, but the fresh bloom of red at his neck told her she’d hit the mark. Good! He needed to feel humiliated if he wouldn’t show remorse.
‘Have you read it?’ He looked at the envelope greedily.
‘Yes, of course I have. It is the ramblings of a mad but dangerous man. I trust Britain will act.’
He opened his palm, clearly reluctant to snatch the envelope from her despite his eagerness. She duly placed it in his hand and stood. ‘Forewarned is forearmed, they say, Mr Peach. I hope our nation will share this knowledge with her allies and not allow Herr Hitler to follow through with his dream of domination.’
Once again he looked around, fearful of being overheard. ‘No one else has seen this?’
‘No one. But Mr Peach, it’s a copy.’
He looked up in alarm at where she stood.
‘A faithful copy made by Herr Altmann. I saw the original, saw the handwriting of the German Chancellor, and will attest to that should I ever be asked.’
‘Is that a threat, Miss Myles?’
‘Not at all. It’s a promise. And as security, I have written down everything I know, including your name, the date and time of this meeting, everything I overheard of the conversation you had with Mr Ainsworth when you forced his hand into going on the cruise to his death, which I suspect you knew might occur.’
His denial died in his throat as she sneered at him.
‘It’s all locked up in a safe deposit box to be opened upon my death, Mr Peach, so it’s in your interests to leave me well alone.’
‘Good gracious! What do you think I am?’
‘I think you’re a snake, Mr Peach,’ she accused, smiling at how it suited him. ‘Or if that’s too metaphorical for you, how’s this? I think you hide in the grass like a snake – a cowardly, unimportant little government man who has gallant, brave others do his bidding. You sent the man I love to his death and you knew he’d go and get exactly what you wanted because you’d involved Joseph whom he loved and simply couldn’t permit to walk into danger alone. You knew Joseph was under threat and you did not hesitate to put Mr Ainsworth into the same orbit. In fact, recalling that conversation you bullied him from your safe, warm, hidden bed in the grass of your London office of the Secret Intelligence Service.’
His expression was pinched with affront. ‘Someone has to manage the affairs, Miss Myles.’
‘Lose that indignant tone, Fruity,’ Stella sneered, surprisingly herself at her behaviour, although it felt empowering to strike back at the person she held ultimately responsible for Rafe’s sacrifice. ‘One day someone might manipulate you into a dangerous situation and I wonder how you will cope? I wonder if you’d walk to your death as calmly and determinedly as the man I love did. He couldn’t keep Joseph safe but I now realise he would rather be damned than let Joseph go to his execution alone. And even as he did so he made sure that London received what it needed because he was loyal and he also kept me safe, though I don’t know why. I’m lonely, Mr Peach. I’m grief-stricken, and I don’t know how to claw my way out of this well of self-pity and loathing, although I suspect today is the first rung of that ladder. The next is to walk away from you and that letter and to work my damnedest never to think on either you or it again.’
Basil struggled but didn’t successfully disguise how affronted he was. Spots of colour pinched his cheeks. He withdrew a buff envelope from inside his coat pocket. ‘I was asked to give you this.’
She stared at it, not touching it. ‘By whom?’
‘By the man you loved.’
‘Not past tense. I still do love him, Basil.’
His glare softened at the use of his name and the tenderness in her voice. She felt her hate for him drain from her body. It took too much energy to retain her anger. ‘I’m so sorry, Stella. I miss him too, if that helps to know. I really did think of him as a friend and although friends don’t send each other into danger, we’re already fighting a war that most of the country doesn’t even know about yet.’
She pointed at his chest. ‘Then be one of the brave people who fight for peace. Don’t let it happen. You have information now that can at least get people working towards prevention.’
‘You make it sound simple.’
‘It is, in my mind.’
‘He was brave to the last,’ he finished, handing her the envelope.
‘Have you read what’s inside?’
‘Of course I have,’ he said, and they shared a sad smile at his echo of her words. ‘He insisted I organise some matters for him. He came up to London after our phone call on your behalf.’
Stella frowned. ‘I didn’t know.’
He shrugged. ‘Please take it.’
She did so.
‘To be frank, I don’t know the full extent of what is in there, only that he was making arrangements. It was disgustingly wrong of me to think that Ainsworth was simply providing for you. Given what you’ve told me, no doubt he has done a lot more than I could imagine and we should put my appalling manners down to the green-eyed monster. You’re a beautiful woman, Stella, and Ainsworth was always surrounded by them. I always hoped one might take an interest, you know – one of his cast-offs – but as long as he was in the midst, no one looked my way.’
‘Madge looked your way. Did you ever bother to take her out again?’
He looked stunned. ‘Madge. Your friend? She was fun.’
‘Well, I saw her yesterday and she’s not attached to anyone and would like nothing more, I suspect, than to have a constant companion; someone she could rely on and trust . . . someone to love.’
He blushed furiously. ‘Really? She was so pretty, I didn’t think for a moment she was anything more than a party girl.’
Stella raised her eyes to the sky. ‘Madge is working at the millinery counter at Bourne & Hollingsworth. I suggest you drop by. Her day off is Wednesday.’
‘I don’t deserve your forgiveness,’ he admitted.
‘No, you don’t, which is why I haven’t forgiven you, Mr Peach, but I don’t wish ill on anyone . . . even you. You and Madge would be good for each other – she takes no prisoners. Don’t say I haven’t warned you.’
He grinned, despite her warning.
Stella held out a hand. ‘I hope you won’t take this the wrong way, but I trust we shall never meet again.’
He gave a small cough. ‘I understand.’
‘Make it count, Basil. Make his life matter.’
Stella walked away before he could answer, striding purposefully down the beautifully straight avenue, rounding the duck pond and heading as quickly as she could towards Lancaster Gate. By the time she left the park she was hurrying beyond a walk, finally breaking into a jog, tears streaming, heedless of people noticing and pausing as she desperately tried to outrun her despair.