‘May I help you?’
An older woman with the face of a bulldog blocked my way.
‘I have a file for Sir Matthew.’ I held it up for inspection.
‘He’s not in his office.’
She folded her arms over her ample bosom, daring me to pass.
‘I think I just saw him, but if he’s not in, may I leave it with you?’ I asked. ‘I haven’t had time to eat yet and I’m absolutely famished.’
‘You really shouldn’t.’ She eyed the folder hungrily.
For all I knew, it was someone’s expenses, but drew it close to my chest.
‘I suppose you’re right.’
The bulldog’s lips rose in a parody of a smile. ‘Nonsense, I was only joshing. It’s fine. We’re on the same side, aren’t we?’
I wasn’t so sure, but I gave her a tentative smile. ‘Of course. But, look, there he is.’
When she turned to look, I navigated around her, and slipped through the door Matthew had just entered. He was sitting at his desk with a set of files open in front of him. A few photographs were pushed aside as he rummaged through the papers.
‘Thank you,’ he said without looking up. ‘Put it over there, will you?’
I raised my eyebrows and complied, but instead of leaving, I leant against the wall. The office was spacious, panelled in walnut, with a matching desk and green leather visitors’ chairs. The third shelf of the bookcase held photographs, and I was drawn to it like a magnet. There had been no photographs in Special Operations’ offices. There was some sense in that, although Matthew wasn’t often one to take unnecessary risks.
‘You may go,’ he said, his voice sing-song.
‘And I thought you’d invited me here,’ I said, tossing my hat on top of the file.
His head snapped up, surprised. He blinked.
‘Cat got your tongue?’ I asked, pulling off my spectacles.
He laughed and stood up; closed the door on his way to me. He kissed my check before holding me back at arm’s length.
‘I was right. Blonde hair and you are a dead ringer for Veronica Lake.’
‘Veronica Lake is just shy of five feet tall,’ I reminded him.
‘A taller version, then.’ Smiling, he reached for the folder. ‘No trouble getting in?’
‘Disappointingly, no. It was harder to lose Adriano Rios Vilar’s bufos than it was to get in.’
Sharp black eyes were suddenly interested. ‘You’ve met him, have you?’
‘Briefly. He gave me a polite warning not to disrupt the “delicate balance” of Portuguese neutrality.’
He paused, taking his time to slide the papers into their files, then stacking them on a corner of his desk. When he looked at me his eyes were serious.
‘Do I need to tell you to do what you must to ensure you don’t get caught?’
He didn’t, and my expression must have been enough of an answer to him. This time, when he looked away it was to leaf through the file I carried in.
‘Now then,’ he said. ‘What have we here?’
‘Something I picked up along the way. Interesting, is it?’
‘Not particularly,’ he replied, leafing through it again.
I wasn’t sure I believed him, and shaking off a faint regret that I hadn’t read it, I wandered over to the photographs. Most were political: Matthew with Churchill; with HRH King George; standing at some formal function between two men I didn’t know.
‘John Vereker and Kim Philby,’ he explained.
John Vereker, Lord Gort, was the commander of the British Expeditionary Force in France back in ’39, and a friend of my father’s. I looked closer, surprised at how he’d aged. I had no idea who Philby was, but had the impression from the way that Matthew said his name that, despite displaying the photograph, despite the man clearly being important, Matthew wasn’t fond of him.
My eyes moved to a neat row of personal snapshots: Matthew’s wife Eleanor, beautiful and remote; Edgar, his firstborn, proud in his captain’s uniform, and rather more attractive than the spotty-faced nuisance I remembered. Matthew posed with my father in the next one, clad in white jumpers and floppy hats. Matthew held a bat like a walking stick whilst Dad held aloft the trophy. They looked ridiculously young.
In the last photograph, taken from a distance, a fair-haired young girl straddled the branch of a willow tree, her toes grazing the river beneath her. I picked it up, bemused. Looked at him for an explanation.
‘You broke your arm jumping from that tree a week later,’ he said. ‘I suppose I should take it down now that you’re here.’
I traced the lines of the image, feeling a certain sadness for the girl’s loss of innocence.
‘Well.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Let’s get on with this, shall we?’
Replacing the photograph on the shelf, I sank into a visitor’s chair.
‘Yes. This man you want me to interview?’
‘Hubert Michael Jones.’
‘And what’s Mr Jones’s story?’
‘Says he’s from Shoreditch,’ Matthew said blandly. ‘The accent’s about right. Picked out for special service thanks to a French mother. He trained with your lot and parachuted into France in July ’42.’
‘You seem to have the full story. Why do you need me?’
Matthew recited Mr Jones’s curriculum vitae as if by rote. ‘Our Bertie fell foul of Jerry and was incarcerated last November.’
‘I landed in France just before Christmas, Matthew,’ I pointed out. ‘I wouldn’t know him.’
‘No matter.’ Those elegant fingers waved away my argument. ‘He spent the last six months at Adolf’s pleasure in Fresnes. Escaped and made contact with the local Resistance. He was smuggled into Free France before catching a ride with the Royal Navy, bound for the White Cliffs of Dover.’
‘So if your Mr Jones wasn’t on the Volturno or the Shetland –’ I named the two ships most recently sunk by the Luftwaffe – ‘where was he?’
‘Sub. They had engine
