Princess Elizabeth's Spy

the run from MI-Six, my mother would still be alive today. His treachery ended up getting her killed. And Agent Wright too.”

Maggie brushed tears away. “I’m sorry to tell you all this, but I just—well, who am I supposed to talk to?” She laughed, a short, bitter laugh. “My former almost-fiance who’s been shot down over Berlin and it ‘missing and presumed dead’? My Aunt Edith, who thinks I’m throwing my life away to be a governess? My friends Chuck and Sarah, who’re civilians? I can’t even tell David, my best friend, because he’s not cleared. This spy business is lonely—no one tells you that. And everyone lies.”

“I don’t,” Hugh said.

Maggie turned to him. “I want to reopen the case.”

“What? Why?”

“What if he’s a double agent?”

“MI-Five’s cleared him.”

“What about the file? There were pages missing. Maybe it didn’t end twenty-five years ago. Maybe he’s still working for Germany! That’s what Nevins thinks. That’s why there’s gossip about him —why he’s been at Bletchley for so long, and never caught a spy. He could have given Victoria Keeley those decrypts! And no one would know—because he’s the one supposedly guarding the henhouse.”

Hugh put both hands on Maggie’s arms. “Maggie, stop. All right? Just stop. What matters, what’s important, is our mission—finding out what Lily Howell was doing and who killed her and why. How she got those decrypts and what she was going to do with them. Your father’s helping us do that. He’s on our side.”

“My father’s working at Bletchley. That’s all we know for certain. It’s impossible to know what side he’s on.”

“He works with us, Maggie.”

“Nothing’s what it appears to be!” Maggie exclaimed, pulling away and biting through each word. “War took our world and what we once thought was normal. And now we’re all like, like Alice through the looking glass, in some sort of crazy upside-down world where truth is a lie and lies are truth.”

Hugh shifted. “Look, I understand we’re talking about your father here, and that if he sold secrets to Germany—or, even worse, is selling secrets—that would be hard. Incomprehensible. Untenable.”

“I want—no, I need—to know the truth.”

“Before you do anything, let me find out if he’s still under any kind of suspicion. I’ll check some more files, ask some of my father’s old friends.…” He looked at her. “You’re shivering. Here,” he said putting his arm around her. Maggie was aware of how close they were, and a peculiar jolt when she realized how much she liked it.

“No, I’m sorry,” she said to Hugh, shrugging off his arm. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t.…”

“Maggie—” Hugh reached out and put his hand on her forearm.

She shrugged off his hand. “No. I will find out the truth. My days of waiting patiently are over. No. More. Lies.”

Maggie knew she had another resource, the head of MI-5 himself, Peter Frain. When she found out from Mrs. Pipps that he was at his club, she decided to see him there. “Oh, Miss,” the wizened older man with the thick white hair at the front desk said, gazing up and over his thick eyeglasses. “I’m so sorry, but ladies aren’t allowed—”

Maggie ignored him and stalked up the grand staircase. At the top of the stairs was the club’s library, with floor-to-ceiling bookcases, oil paintings of huntsmen in red on horses, green leather-covered chairs, and thick Persian rugs. Do these upper-crust Brits see no other possible way to decorate? Maggie thought irritably.

Frain looked from a folder of papers he was reading at a polished table. “Why, Maggie, how lovely to see you.”

“What’s the meaning of this, Frain?” snapped an older man in a tweed suit and a hairpiece.

“It’s all right, Your Grace,” Frain said, raising a hand. “She won’t be here long.”

“Women!” the man grumbled as he got shoved back his chair and swept up his newspapers. “They’re everywhere. And this is where we go to try to get away from them!” He left and slammed the door behind him. Maggie and Frain were alone.

“Why don’t you have a seat?” Frain said.

“No, no, thank you. I’d rather stand.”

“Suit yourself. Well, what brings you here, to this eminent institution? I’ll have you know that the food is nothing special. Just nursery food, like potted duck, ham and pear soup, and Eton mess—we old men seem to crave meals from our childhood.”

“I know,” Maggie said in a low voice, “about my father. That he was an agent during the Great War. That he was suspected of being a double agent for Sektion. That he was being investigated by Agent Neil Wright of MI-Six. And I know my mother died because Wright went after him.”

Frain shook his head. “Maggie …”

“Who was this man, Neil Wright? What did he find out?”

Frain sighed. “You can’t know everything all at once, Maggie.”

“Bugger that!” she exclaimed. Her voice echoed up to the clerestory windows.

Frain remained unruffled. “Need I remind you, Maggie, that Enigma is at stake? People’s lives are at stake. Your life, for that matter. What you think you know, you don’t.”

“Then tell me!”

“You don’t have the proper approval.”

Maggie was outraged. “Are you serious?” she managed.

“Yes,” he said, with the patience of a teacher with a very young child. “You don’t have the proper approval. I’m sorry, but there it is.”

“And how would I go about getting the ‘proper approval,’ as you so Britishly put it?”

“You would ask me. And then I would tell you ‘no.’ “

“To be told how my mother died? My father’s role in it?”

“There are rules, Maggie,” he said, not unkindly.

“Then break them, Goddamn it!”

Frain pulled out a cigarette and lit it with his silver lighter. He inhaled, pale blue smoke drifting toward the frescoed high ceiling. “I sometimes forget that you were raised in America. Here in England, we have more respect for rules. And, in wartime, rules are what keep us alive.”

“I don’t care about your damn rules!” Maggie cried. “I need to know what happened.”

“You want to know what happened. But you don’t need to know.” He took a drag on his cigarette, the tip glowing reddish orange. “You’re a smart young woman, Maggie. And you’ve seen a lot. You’re going through quite a bit, I know. But I know you’re smart enough not to draw simple conclusions and then assume that they’re the truth. Remember your maths? The truth is always far more complicated. And I would think if anyone had learned that lesson, it would be you.”

Maggie bit her lip. This isn’t the end. Oh, no, it’s not.

“What I have learned, Peter, that if I want something done, I’d better do it myself. And, with or without your help, I will find out what happened. He’s under suspicious for spying again, you know,” she said. “The other agents suspect him of being a mole.” She turned and headed to the door.

“Although I’m well aware of the office gossip surrounding Edmund, I’m not swayed by it. And I’m quite surprised you’d give it any credence. I prefer you don’t pursue this matter.”

“Well, it’s not up to you, now, is it?” she said, turning to fix one last glare on him. Then she left, running down the immense staircase, causing the older men in tattersall and tweed to look after her askance.

If Maggie had turned back, though, she would have seen the tiniest hint of a smile curling one side of Peter Frain’s mouth.