‘Yes, Miss Halliday. I’m a bit run down, but it’s nothing a few early nights won’t put right.’
‘And a few good meals,’ Vera said, concerned. ‘Goodnight.’
‘Night,’ Claire waved, and ran up the steps to where Eddie was holding the entrance door to the apartments open.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
As she neared the top of the Strand, Claire wondered if the Prince Albert Theatre, where her sister Margaret was a dancer, had been repaired. The last time she passed by the windows were boarded up. In a letter at the time, Bess said Margaret had been delayed on the Strand, signing her autograph for a fan, and hadn’t arrived at the stage door until after the bomb had exploded. Apparently, Margaret had turned into Maiden Lane as the upper floor of a building opposite collapsed, killing two of her friends. Margaret had suffered a nervous breakdown and spent time in hospital. Claire wished she had been able to visit her, or go up to Foxden when she was recuperating there, but it hadn’t been possible. It wasn’t now. She was pleased to see the glass had been replaced and there were large framed posters advertising future shows. Claire stopped in her tracks. ‘Oh my…’ she gasped. Bursting with pride she saw Margaret, or Margot as she was known in the theatre, in a beautiful gold evening dress, smiling out of a huge poster. Claire put her hand to her mouth to stop herself from shouting, ‘That’s my big sister!’ Next to Margot’s photograph was one of the company, with Margot in the centre at the front, and next to that a poster advertising the forthcoming show: Margot Dudley and the Prince Albert Theatre Company, opening soon in a revue of popular songs and sketches.
Claire opened the theatre’s main door and took a peek inside. On the wall opposite was another photograph of Margot in a gilt frame. To hell with it, Claire thought. She opened the door and stepped into the foyer. Once inside, her eyes met a vista of maroon and gold. The wallpaper was Regency stripes. She walked over to a maroon-coloured seat that ran the length of the wall on the far side of the foyer and sat down. The curtains at the windows and doors were velvet, the same colour as the seat she was sitting on. She wanted so much to see her sister, but she didn’t trust herself not to tell her about Mitch and Aimée.
With a heavy heart, Claire pushed herself off the plush velvet seat. She wandered casually around the semi-circular foyer looking at the photographs on the walls. When she got to the door she looked over at the box office. The round wall clock hanging above the glass window, with its porcelain face and Latin numerals, told her it was time to go. Claire turned, smiled up at the framed photograph of Margot hanging above the seat where she had been sitting, and left.
Once outside she turned into a narrow passageway at the side of the theatre. With her head down, she moved quickly. She didn’t want to bump into Margot; she would be sure to want to know what she’d been doing for the last four years. She turned into Maiden Lane, then Southampton Street, and strode through Covent Garden. At the top of Macklin Street she went into a café, ordered a cup of tea and found a seat near the window. One day perhaps, when the war was over, she might be able to tell her family about her work in France, the brave men and women of the Resistance, and about her second family. Though according to the Official Secrets Act, that day might never come.
Claire arrived at the SOE and was shown into the colonel’s office. After her last debrief she had bumped into Mitch on the way back to the station and they had gone to a café for coffee. She wished that would be the case today, but… She swallowed hard. She was anxious to know if the colonel had heard anything, negative or positive, about the man she loved. She would ask him as soon as her debrief was over.
‘Miss Dudley!’ The colonel stood up as Claire entered and gestured to the usual chair in front of his desk. ‘It’s been a while.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The colonel began by congratulating her on the detailed intelligence she’d sent via wireless operators in Gisoir and Paris, until six months ago. He mentioned finding another safe house in Paris, the successful deliveries she had made to various Resistance groups, and the sabotage work she had done with the Gisoir Resistance cell.
The colonel looked down at a folder on his desk that was date-stamped in red, 1941. ‘The last time you graced us with your presence it was forty-one.’ Here comes the ticking off, Claire thought. ‘The intelligence you gave us confirmed what we had been told by our operatives on the Eastern Front – and the winter did the rest. It was a close call.’ Colonel Smith shook his head. ‘So what’s happening in France?’
‘The sabotaging of German troop trains has been a success. The Germans are still transporting Jewish citizens to concentration camps. Some of the transport trains were sabotaged, but few people tried to escape. I’m afraid those who did were shot.’ Claire looked down and took a second to compose herself. ‘The Germans cracked down on anyone who didn’t visibly toe the party line, but it was more than that. Some Resistance groups were compromised earlier in the year; some disbanded temporarily and their members joined other groups. Some, mostly Maquis groups, went into hiding in the hills. At the same time several wireless operators were arrested; one in Bloir and two in Orleans. The Maquis in Paris Central, who I met when I first went to Paris, got a message through saying they had seen white surveillance vans trawling
