The Consequences of Fear Jacqueline Winspear (i can read book club .txt) 📖

injured agents making life-and-death decisions, so they’re given a supplyof Benzedrine to perk them up when they’re exhausted. It wasn’t necessary for you to know this.” He turned to the young woman.“Who’s operating the radio at the other end?”

“Jeanette, my partner,” replied the young woman. “The agent located her, but she’s signed off—we were on too long anyway,so they’re on the move, then they’ll split up and the agent will proceed alone.” She removed her headset and set it down,before taking a handkerchief from her pocket and wiping her brow. Putting on her cap, she stood up. “Will there be anythingelse?”

“No—good work, Fredericks. Very good work,” said the woman. “You can go now.”

The man unlocked the door, allowing the woman to leave.

“Hold the door, we’re leaving,” said MacFarlane, then turned to the woman. “Do we have absolute confirmation that Jones isdead?”

The woman nodded. “Yes.”

“Then we’ll inform next of kin.”

“Right you are. If we could meet when you’re finished, Robbie?” said the woman.

MacFarlane nodded, and then led Maisie back to the small, cramped, airless office.

“What do you think she’ll do?” he asked, reaching into a drawer. He drew out two glasses and a bottle of single-malt whisky.“Sometimes the moment calls for an eighteen-year-old single malt.” He poured the amber liquid into the glasses, slid one towardMaisie and lifted his own glass to his lips. Emptying the glass in one swallow, he slammed it onto the table. “Bastards! Nazibastards!” He poured again.

Maisie reached for her glass and took a mouthful, the burn at the back of her throat almost painful, but soothing all thesame.

“What will she do, Maisie? When she gets there?”

Maisie took another sip, which seemed to counter the burn. “Benzedrine, Robbie?”

“Yes, Maisie—that’s what we prescribe to keep them alive when they’re half dead. The other one is to deliver them from thehell of Nazi torture. Now again, what will she do when she reaches Grannie’s house?”

“I was at the chateau a long time ago, Robbie, but I know there are several secret routes to get into the house—they wereused during the Revolution as a means of escape—and there are rooms that no one would ever find because they have disguisedentrances. When she reaches the house, she’ll lay low in the stables or a barn until the officers have left for the day, andthen she’ll use one of the tunnels—there’s one that leads from the stables.”

“And then? Will she use the escape line?”

Maisie considered the question for a moment. “There’s also a very strong chance she’ll remain with her grandmother—she worriesabout her, and she may be tempted to join the local resistance, right under the noses of the Gestapo.”

“Until the Abwehr find out about her, and it will be fast. Any story she cooks up will not pass muster with the German intelligenceservice. We’ve got to get her back.”

‘She may be willful, Robbie—but she’s usually measured with it, and she’s nobody’s fool.”

“And neither am I. The ‘usually’ worries me. I’ll give her a couple of days, and then she’s on her own. And though I don’tknow the inner workings of the escape line, I don’t want her putting our boys at risk. She should look at what happened toher mother in the last war—shot by the Germans. And her father gave his life for our country.” He was silent.

Maisie finished her malt whisky. She knew what was coming next.

“Elinor Jones’ next of kin.” It was not a question posed by MacFarlane, but a statement, lobbed across the desk.

“Her next of kin amounts to Priscilla. Her parents are dead, and she listed Priscilla in her last will and testament. ThePartridge home is her home, even though the boys are grown now.”

“You’ll deal with it?”

“Yes.”

“And what will you say?”

“A tragic accident in a lorry at an army barracks in the west country. The burial has already taken place, with only her commanding officer and the chaplain present as well as the pallbearers. It was conducted at a military cemetery in accordance with the deceased’s wishes, because she did not want her family to go through the burden of seeing the actual lowering of her coffin into the ground. However, a memorial service will be left in the hands of Priscilla and the family, again per the deceased’s wishes.”

“I knew I could leave it up to you.”

“And I hate every bloody minute of it, Robbie.” Maisie met MacFarlane’s gaze and did not turn away, then she stood up to leave.

“Before you go—”

“Yes?”

“How’s the boy runner?”

“Safe and well, as you know.”

“Good—” It seemed for a second as if MacFarlane was going to add something about Freddie Hackett and her inquiry, but thenhe left the comment hanging in the air. “There’s a driver waiting to take you back to the flat, Maisie—probably just as wellBright’s off duty now, she can be a bit of a chatterbox, that one, and you’ll want to go home in peace. I’ll see you out.”He pushed back his chair and stood up. “Sorry about supper. Couldn’t lay my hands on anything here.”

 

Maisie held her emotions in check all the way home to her flat, until she watched the young woman driver pull away from the curb and drive off into the dark night. It was not too cool outside, and earlier intermittent showers had abated, though it was late by the time she entered the house, claimed her glass of wine and walked into the walled garden of her ground-floor flat, making sure the blackout curtain fell back into place as she closed the French door behind her. Still with her coat on, Maisie slumped down into one of the wicker chairs. Setting her glass on the table, she leaned forward, rested her head in her hands, and wept. She wept for Elinor and for Pascale. She wept for Priscilla and her scars; she shed tears for Priscilla’s sons and for her own daughter, Anna. And as she grieved, she realized that she had never trusted the world to keep herself or those she loved safe. From the moment of her