It wasn’t. It wasn’t even a code. He’d simply printed his message in the puzzle’s squares, beginning with 14 Across: NO LUCK YET CHECKING BILLETS DO
U NO SITE OLD REMOTE DROP ST JOHNS WOOD OR DROPS HISTS USED B4 CLD B HOLDING OPEN EMERG XIT.
The lab had had a remote drop in St. John’s Wood, which they’d used for a number of years. Apparently Mike thought they might have opened it so they could employ it as an emergency exit, though why it would open if the problem was an increase in slippage, Polly didn’t know. But she wasn’t in a position to leave any stone unturned, so instead of going to meet the retrieval team at Trafalgar Square after work, she took the tube to St. John’s Wood. She didn’t know where the old remote drop was, but she hoped it was in some immediately obvious spot.
It wasn’t, and she didn’t know of any other London drops earlier historians had used. Except for hers in Hampstead Heath, which she’d last used just before midnight of VE-Day eve. At this point, it didn’t exist yet, but the lab might have reset its coordinates for 1940, so the next morning she put an ad in the Times, telling
“R.T.” to meet her at St. Paul’s on Sunday.
Eileen was unexpectedly argumentative about it. “But we already placed one meeting the retrieval team at the National Gallery concert,” she said.
“You can do that one, and I’ll do St. Paul’s,” Polly said.
“But I’ve always wanted to see St. Paul’s,” Eileen argued. “Mr. Dunworthy was always talking about it. Why don’t I do it, and you do the concert?”
Because it’s more difficult faking having been to a concert, Polly thought. And besides, I’m not certain how long this will take.
“No,” she said. “I know one of the vergers at St. Paul’s—Mr. Humphreys—and he’ll know if any strangers have been in.”
“I could go with you. The concert isn’t till one.”
I should have said I was going to Westminster Abbey or something, Polly thought. “But I don’t know when the retrieval team will be there. I forgot to give a time,”
she said. “I’ll meet you after the concert and we’ll go to Lyons Corner House for tea, and then I’ll take you on a guided tour of St. Paul’s.” And make certain she was gone before Eileen woke up.
Sunday morning she took the tube to Hampstead Heath and climbed the hill. It was raining, a fine mist, which was good—there wouldn’t be that many people about
—but she wished she’d brought her umbrella. She hadn’t been able to find it in the dark this morning, and she’d been afraid to switch on the light for fear of waking Eileen and having her insist on coming with her.
She hurried across the heath and into the trees, hoping she’d recognize the spot. The last time she’d been here, it had been May. Now the trees were russet and brown and heavy with rain.
No, there was the weeping beech, its golden-leaved branches sweeping the ground. The rain was coming down harder. Good, she thought, pushing the curtain of leaves aside. If anyone catches me, I can say I was taking shelter from the rain.
She stepped quickly under it, let the concealing leaves fall together behind her, and looked around at the dim, tentlike space. The ground was covered with curling yellow leaves and twigs. A lemonade bottle and a torn paper ice cream horn lay half buried in the leaves, but both were weather-faded.
The retrieval team hasn’t been here, Polly thought, looking at the undisturbed leaves.
But the drop might only have been set up for them to return through. She sat down against the beech’s mottled white trunk, checked her watch for the time, and settled in to see if the drop would open.
It was cold. She pulled her knees up under her skirt and hugged her arms to her chest. The rain wasn’t coming through the leaves, but the leaf- and bark-covered ground was icily damp, its wetness soaking through her coat and skirt.
And as she sat there, all the things she was worried about began to soak through her, too—her deadline, and Mike, and whether the incident which had destroyed St. George’s and the shops hiding her drop was a discrepancy. She’d assumed the church hadn’t been on Mr. Dunworthy’s forbidden list because she’d intended to stay in the tube shelters, but it hadn’t been in the implant Colin had made for her either.
Which meant he could have been near her drop when the parachute mine exploded.
No, he couldn’t, she thought, fighting down sudden nausea. He didn’t put it in the implant because he thought I’d be safely in a tube shelter when it went off.
And Colin had talked to her about parachute mines. He’d lectured her on the dangers of shrapnel and the blackout, and he was endlessly resourceful. And she knew from experience that he wouldn’t take no for an answer. If anyone could find a way to get them out of here, he could.
Unless Oxford’s been destroyed, and he’s dead, she thought. Or there was an increase in locational slippage as well, and the net sent him through to Bletchley Park. Or Singapore.
She sat there as long as she could stand it, and then wrote her name and Mrs. Rickett’s address and phone number on the paper ice cream horn, took an Underground ticket stamped Notting Hill Gate out of her pocket, wrote “Polly Churchill” on it, stuck it under the lemonade bottle, and went to St. Paul’s, even though the retrieval team wouldn’t be there either.
The journey back into London took forever. There were three separate delays due to air raids, and she was glad she’d refused to trade with Eileen and go to the concert. She didn’t reach St. Paul’s Station till after noon, and it was pouring outside. By the time she made it to the cathedral, she was drenched.
On the porch lay an order of worship someone had dropped. She picked it up. She could show it to Eileen as proof that she’d spent the entire morning here. The sermon this morning had apparently been on the subject “Seek and Ye Shall Find.”
If only that were true.
