Chapter 2
Digby put me in the clerical department.
‘I know you hate typing, but there are some changes happening and you’ll have plenty of translating to do then,’ he said.
‘What changes?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘Nothing’s definite yet. You know how quickly things can fall apart. Plus, haven’t you always said the women in clerical know everything?’
I gave him a hard stare. ‘They do know everything,’ I said. ‘Especially how to type. Which is something missing from my list of talents.’
I wasn’t joking; I was terrible at typing. And even when I’d been doing nothing but typing for a week – despite Digby’s reassurances that it wouldn’t be for long – I hadn’t improved one jot.
Now I pulled the paper from the typewriter and stared at it in despair.
Dear Sir, I’d written.
Thank yuu for your letter dated May 111st …
With a sudden rush of irritation, I screwed the page up in my fist and threw it into the wastepaper basket beside my desk, where it joined the other letters I’d made a mess of.
‘Fed up?’ said Penny, who sat next to me, watching in amusement. I liked Penny – and the other women in the clerical department – enormously, which was the only thing keeping me going.
I rolled my eyes.
‘I’m a disaster.’
‘It’s lucky you can speak Portuguese, or you’d have been out on your ear yonks ago,’ she said, her eyes flashing with mischief. ‘Do you have any other skills? Maybe you should make a list, in case they ask.’
You’d be amazed, I thought wryly, picturing the combat training I’d had.
‘Digby says I won’t be here long,’ I told her. ‘Thank goodness. I probably create more work for you having to correct all my mistakes.’
Penny looked thoughtful for a second, then she leaned over my desk and lowered her voice.
‘Something’s happening,’ she said.
I eyed her carefully. Penny was sharp and more than once I’d considered making use of her on a team, but every time her indiscretion and love of gossip had made me think twice.
‘What do you know?’ I asked.
‘What do you know?’ she replied.
I leaned a little closer.
‘They’re cleaning out an office on the first floor. One of the big ones.’
Penny nodded as though that made perfect sense.
‘There’s a new vice-consul arriving,’ she said. ‘Apparently.’
We did not need a new vice-consul. There had never been a vice-consul at the embassy. There had been no vacancy.
This wasn’t a replacement; it was a new posting. And if it was part of the changes Digby had been talking about then it was almost certainly something to do with Section D. I felt a shiver of excitement.
‘Boring,’ I said to Penny.
She shrugged. ‘That’s what I thought.’ She turned back to her own typewriter. ‘Another stuffed suit making our lives more miserable, eh?’
‘Undoubtedly,’ I said. I picked up another sheet of paper and put it into my typewriter giving an over-exaggerated yawn.
Penny chuckled and turned back to her own work.
‘Dear Sirrrr’, I typed. I was totally distracted now and any hope of improvement in my typing had vanished.
‘Just popping to the ladies’,’ I told Penny, who didn’t seem at all interested. I got up from my desk and walked slowly out into the corridor, even though I wanted to run as fast as I could.
I found Digby in his office. He was standing by the window looking out over the front of the embassy.
‘I’m bored,’ I said bluntly. I sat down on his desk and straightened my skirt. ‘And I honestly think I might get the sack.’
Digby gave a bark of laughter.
‘There is a new vice-consul arriving,’ I said.
He looked impressed. ‘There is.’
‘We’ve never had a vice-consul before.’
‘Things change,’ said Digby. ‘There is a war on.’
‘Oh, come on,’ I said, losing my patience. ‘Who is this man really? Is he part of Section D? What will he be working on?’ There was a pleading tone to my voice that sounded annoying even to my own ears. ‘Can I help?’
‘Cassie, I’m sorry, but it’s too soon,’ Digby said. ‘Just stick it out in clerical for a while longer …’
‘I am a terrible typist,’ I snapped. ‘People are starting to notice. Why you couldn’t have found me a role as a bloody translator doing something I’m good at, I don’t know.’
‘Look,’ Digby said mildly. ‘I would much rather you were working for me, than typing letters, but the rules are the rules.’
‘Can I be assessed?’ I asked. ‘Who decides? I really am fine.’ I felt a small prickle of disloyalty. ‘Well, I’m not fine, obviously; my brother died. But it won’t affect my work. Not one bit. In fact, it makes me keener to end this war, and make the Nazis pay for their actions.’
Digby turned away from the window and pointed at me with his pen. ‘Which might encourage you to take unnecessary risks,’ he said. He sounded like he was reciting something he’d read many times. ‘Bereaved agents could become reckless, putting lives and missions in danger.’
‘Who will decide?’ I asked, pacified a little to realise he’d been checking the rules – clearly more than once.
‘I will,’ said Digby. ‘But London won’t let me file the report until twenty-one days have passed.’
‘I might die.’ I put my hand to my forehead in dramatic fashion. ‘I might actually expire through sheer tedium.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’
‘Lara says it’s a waste of my talents.’
‘It’s none of Lara’s business.’ Digby looked at me with a sudden frown. ‘How do you know about the new vice-consul?’
‘Penny told me.’
‘Well, I never,’ said Digby. ‘Perhaps we should recruit her?’
‘She’s an awful gossip.’
He grinned. ‘Perhaps not then.’
I slid off the desk and went to stand in front of him.
‘You put a lot of effort into training me,’ I said, drawing myself up to my full height, which was still considerably shorter than Digby. ‘So as soon as those twenty-one days are up, I want to be back in Section D.’
‘You sounded quite threatening there for a minute,’ Digby said.
‘Digby …’
‘I’ve got it marked on my calendar.’
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Good. But please find some translation for me to do in the meantime. Maybe the new vice-consul will need some help. Not many people know Portuguese when they first arrive …’
‘I’ll see what I can do.’
‘Good,’ I said again. ‘I suppose I’ll get back to clerical, then.’ I was hoping he’d say no, but he just nodded.
‘Best get on.’ He went over to his desk, sat down and picked up a folder, reading whatever was inside with a frown. I watched him for a few seconds, wondering if he’d say something else. But he didn’t.
A little put out, I slouched out of the office and back to my typewriter.
I spent the afternoon thinking about the new vice-consul and also stewing over Lara. I’d barely seen her since I’d been back. She was busy. All the time. It was almost as annoying as Digby gatekeeping Section D.
I decided I’d go to the bookshop and see if she was working today – she divided her time between the shop and the British Bar. I wanted to have a moan about Digby and this new vice-consul and Lara was always a sympathetic ear.
As the clock finally ticked round to the end of the day, I put the cover on my typewriter, and eager to catch her before the shop shut, got a tram up the hill. I checked my surroundings before I went in, of course, wondering again why Lara had been so worried about that.
There was no one around, other than a youngish man who looked vaguely familiar, studying the newspapers on the stand outside. I walked past the shop first, and when I turned round and walked back, he’d gone. I spotted him further down the hill and thought no more of it.
I found Lara in the shop, as I’d hoped, but she didn’t seem very pleased to see me.
‘I’ve not got long,’ she said. ‘I’m helping Bea with a thing.’
‘I just wanted to grumble about Digby,’ I said. ‘Let me whine at you and I’ll help you close up.’
‘Can you shelve these books?’ she asked, shoving a pile at me. ‘I need to add up the till.’
With Lara huffing and puffing over the numbers, I happily wandered the shelves, putting the books back in the correct places and filling her in on what Digby had said.
‘Maybe he is just a vice-consul,’ she suggested. ‘Sod, that’s supposed to be a four not a seven.’
‘We’ve never had a vice-consul before.’
‘You’ll find out once he’s here,’ she said, not unreasonably. ‘Why worry about it before then?’
I peered at her round the end of a bookshelf. ‘Who are you and what have you done with my friend Lara?’
She laughed. ‘I’m just saying, you’re getting yourself all het up about it and it might be for no reason.’
I pushed my final book into the gap on the shelf where it belonged, and sighed. ‘It’s because I’m so very, very bored,’ I said.
‘Forty-two …’ Lara muttered. ‘Forty-three.’
I watched her for a second. ‘What about you?’ I said, going over to the counter where she was hunched over her sums. ‘Why are you so busy?’
She looked up at me. ‘No reason. I’m not busy. No more than usual.’ But she looked a little uncomfortable as I gazed at her, and dropped her eyes back to the scribbled numbers on her notepad. ‘But I do really have to go and meet Bea, if I can just get this to add up …’
Sensing she was keeping something from me, I took the notepad. ‘Let me,’ I said. I studied the numbers, and said, quite casually: ‘What is it you and Bea are doing?’
‘Nothing,’ said Lara.
‘But you have to be there now? To do nothing?’
‘It’s just a thing.’
‘Here.’ I pushed the notepad back to her. ‘Done. Tell me what thing.’
‘Thank you,’ said Lara. ‘I should go, sorry.’
‘Where to?’ I almost wailed. ‘Why is no one telling me anything? And why are you looking like that?’
‘Like what?’
‘Shifty.’
Tossing her hair back, Lara gazed at me, her eyes innocent. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’
‘You bloody well do.’
She sighed. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you.’
I was delighted. ‘Lord, you’d be awful under interrogation.’
‘No one who is likely to interrogate me is as frightening as you are,’ she said.
I prodded her arm. ‘Tell me.’
‘Bea and I have been doing a thing,’ she said quietly, getting up and locking the shop door.
‘A thing …’
‘With refugees.’
Bea had been helping process refugees since before the war, so this wasn’t news to me.
‘Jewish refugees,’ said Lara. She sat down behind the counter again. ‘There is a chap called Santiago Alves. He’s Portuguese, but he’s been living in Bordeaux. And he’s been giving Jewish people false papers to get them through Portugal faster.’
I leaned towards her. ‘Portuguese passports?’
‘Sometimes, but mostly Portuguese visas.’
‘Brave.’
‘Definitely.’ Lara nodded. ‘A while ago the government realised what he was doing. They announced that any Portuguese visas issued in Bordeaux weren’t valid. And they ordered him back to Lisbon. He’s here now.’
I frowned, thinking hard. ‘So, he’s processing visa requests from Lisbon?’ I said. ‘And sending them to Jews in France so they can travel here safely?’
‘France, Belgium, Holland … all over,’ Lara said with a nod.
‘With a Portuguese visa, a person can travel through Spain. But the problem is, Alves wasn’t supposed to be issuing these visas when he was in Bordeaux, and he’s certainly not supposed to be doing it now.
He did thousands of visas when the Nazis were invading France and he wants to keep going but his hands are tied. ’
Lara explained that she and Bea were helping by filling in forms because Alves simply couldn’t write fast enough, and Bea was also helping send the visas to France thanks to some of her contacts.
Bea had friends everywhere and it didn’t surprise me that she could somehow get visas smuggled into France. At the other end – in Bordeaux – were some French civil servants whom Alves had recruited to distribute the visas. It sounded horribly risky, but also impressive.
‘But it’s all going to stop when Alves is sanctioned,’ Lara had said, with bleak resignation. ‘All those people we could have helped.’
‘How will he be sanctioned?’ I asked, my mind racing.
‘He thinks he’s going to be forcibly retired. He could even go to jail.’
‘Surely not?’
Lara shrugged. ‘He broke a lot of rules.’
‘But there are so many refugees who still need help,’ I said.
‘There are.’
‘This is dangerous.’
‘Yes.’ Lara looked serious for a moment. ‘The PVDE are always sniffing round. If the Nazis hear of it, well …’
I took a breath.
‘What can I do to help?’