Inside was a sheaf of papers. The top one was a diagram. Greg recognized it immediately. It showed the working of an implosion trigger for a plutonium bomb. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said. ‘This is the very latest stuff !’
Yenkov jumped into the car, slammed the door, and locked it from the inside.
The chauffeur got back in and drove away.
It was Saturday night, and Daisy’s apartment in Piccadilly was heaving. There had to be a hundred people there, she thought, feeling pleased.
She had become the leader of a social group based on the American Red Cross in London. Every Saturday she gave a party for American servicemen, and invited nurses from St Bart’s hospital to meet them. RAF pilots came too. They drank her unlimited Scotch and gin, and danced to Glenn Miller records on her gramophone. Conscious that it might be the last party the men ever attended, she did everything she could to make them happy – except kiss them, but the nurses did plenty of that.
Daisy never drank liquor at her own parties. She had too much to think about. Couples were always locking themselves in the toilet, and having to be dragged out because the room was needed for its regular purpose. If a really important general got drunk he had to be seen safely home. She often ran out of ice – she could not make her British staff understand how much ice a party needed.
For a while after she split up with Boy Fitzherbert her only friends had been the Leckwith family. Lloyd’s mother, Ethel, had never judged her. Although Ethel was the height of respectability now, she had made mistakes in her past, and that made her more understanding. Daisy still went to Ethel’s house in Aldgate every Wednesday evening, and drank cocoa around the radio. It was her favourite night of the week.
She had now been socially rejected twice, once in Buffalo and again in London, and the depressing thought occurred to her that it might be her fault. Perhaps she did not really belong in those prissy high-society groups, with their strict rules of conduct. She was a fool to be attracted to them.
The trouble was that she loved parties and picnics and sporting events and any gathering where people dressed up and had fun.
However, she now knew she did not need British aristocrats or old-money Americans to have fun. She had created her own society, and it was a lot more exciting than theirs. Some of the people who had refused to speak to her after she left Boy now hinted heavily that they would like an invitation to one of her famous Saturday nights. And many guests came to her apartment to let their hair down after an excruciatingly grand dinner in a palatial Mayfair residence.
Tonight was the best party so far, for Lloyd was home on leave.
He was openly living with her at the flat. She did not care what people thought: her reputation in respectable circles was already so bad that no further damage could be done. Anyway, the urgency of wartime love had driven many people to break the rules in similar ways. Domestic staff could sometimes be as rigid as duchesses about such things, but all Daisy’s employees adored her, so she and Lloyd did not even pretend to be occupying separate bedrooms.
She loved sleeping with him. He was not as experienced as Boy, but he made up for that in enthusiasm – and he was eager to learn. Every night was a voyage of exploration in a double bed.
As they looked at their guests talking and laughing, drinking and smoking, dancing and smooching, Lloyd smiled at her and said: ‘Happy?’
‘Almost,’ she said.
‘Almost?’
She sighed. ‘I want to have children, Lloyd. I don’t care that we’re not married. Well, I do care, of course, but I still want a baby.’
His face darkened. ‘You know how I feel about illegitimacy.’
‘Yes, you explained it to me. But I want some part of you to cherish if you die.’
‘I’ll do my best to stay alive.’
‘I know.’ But if her suspicion was correct, and he was working undercover in occupied territory, he could be executed, as German spies were executed in Britain. He would be gone, and she would have nothing left. ‘It’s the same for a million women, I realize that, but I can’t face the thought of life without you. I think I’ll die.’
‘If I could make Boy divorce you I would.’
‘Well, this is no kind of talk for a party.’ She looked across the room. ‘What do you know? I believe that’s Woody Dewar!’
Woody was wearing a lieutenant’s uniform. She went over and greeted him. It was strange to see him again after nine years – though he did not look much different, just older.
‘There are thousands of American soldiers here now,’ Daisy said as they foxtrotted to ‘Pennsylvania Six-Five Thousand’. ‘We must be about to invade France. What else?’
‘The top brass certainly don’t share their plans with greenhorn lieutenants,’ Woody said. ‘But like you I can’t think of any other reason why I’m here. We can’t leave the Russians to bear the brunt of the fighting much longer.’
‘When do you think it will happen?’
‘Offensives always begin in the summer. Late May or early June is everyone’s best guess.’
‘That soon!’
