Chapter 39

Inside the Clock

Back in the straitjacket again. One of the matrons, it seemed, had reported Beth’s throwing up her morning pills.

“Just until you’re calm, ” the doctor said as she was buckled in.

“If I take those blasted tablets I am halfway to a coma, ” Beth snarled, thrashing. “How calm do you want me, you pill-peddling hack? ”

“An extra dose, doctor? ” The matron spoke up, cream smooth—the same matron whose arm Beth had burned with a cigarette. “Liddell has been misbehaving lately. An orderly said she made indecent overtures to him, in a linen closet. These nymphomaniac types. . . ”

Her eyes danced, spiteful. Beth reared back and spat on the front of her apron.

A needle pricked. “Just wait, you nasty little thing, ” the matron said as soon as the doctor left. “When they get you under the scalpel—”

“When? ” Beth hissed, but the matron was gone, the world sliding away into smoke and mirrors. Beth’s veins felt unclean, as if her blood had been greased. She found herself weeping at some point and forced the tears away. Tears would wear her mind down like water on stone, and her mind was all she had.

I break codes. I eat secrets. Enigma was no match for me—neither is this place.

Breathe in, breathe out. Ignore the numbness of her trapped hands. Think of something else, not scalpels and spiteful matrons and oblivious doctors with their unfair punishments.

Unfairly punished. . . Beth’s drugged memory turned up something long forgotten: Osla hauled up by Commander Travis at BP, raked over the coals about Prince Philip’s Nazi relatives, interrogated about what Osla had guessed were some missing decrypted messages from Hut 3. When had that been, June ’42? If someone had snatched files, they could easily have reported beautiful, highly visible Osla, who had sauntered over from Hut 4 on routine business and diverted attention from the presence of a traitor.

Who? Beth thought. Back to that again, endlessly turning over old memories, hoping for some fresh insight—but none of her ISK colleagues had ever worked in Hut 3.

So don’t focus on the where, Beth thought. Focus on the when. June of ’42. . .

Peggy Rock had returned to Bletchley Park from her breakdown that same month. Peggy, the cleverest woman Beth knew. Had there really been a breakdown? Or had she been. . . somewhere else? Meeting someone, passing information?

Beth had weighed Peggy’s name before on her list of suspects and always cringed from the thought. Peggy a traitor? Fair-haired, brilliant Peggy who had shown her how to rod?

But Peggy worked in ISK. She had disappeared and been gone for months. She had returned to work, Dilly’s best codebreaker aside from Beth. A woman as clever as Peggy could have found a way to walk into Hut 3 and out again with a file, surely. And with Dilly no longer keeping an eye on his section’s day-to-day routine. . .

Peggy. Yes, she might be the one.

Or any of Dilly’s team. Dear friends all, because Beth had made friends almost exclusively inside Knox’s section. Except for Osla and Mab, who now hated her.

What a cruel twist of fate that her friends were all suspects, and her enemies were the only ones she was sure of.

Come on, you two, Beth thought throughout the endless afternoon, canvas-bound and helpless. Come through.

York

Mab dropped her teaspoon. “You want us to go where? ”

“To Clockwell, to see Beth. ” Osla saw they were getting glances from the other patrons of Bettys tea shop, and no wonder—two well-groomed women in New Look billows of skirt, dagger eyed, going at each other over the teacups for the past half hour. “Try not to look so hacked off, will you? We’re attracting attention. ”

Mab bared all her teeth in a smile, violently stirring her tea. “I am not going to a madhouse. ”

“You’re willing to leave her there, because you’re afraid? ” Reverting to whispering, making sure no one was walking past. “When she may be perfectly sane, and there may be a traitor who betrayed Bletchley Park—who betrayed all of us who worked there—walking free? Now, that really takes the biscuit, darling. ” Osla gave Mab a withering look. “I knew you were a ruthless cow, but I didn’t think you’d become a coward. ”

“I’m not afraid, you featherweight gossip-page hack. ” Mab reverted to whispers, too. “I’m pointing out that we could be breaking the law by contacting her at all. ”

“We would also be breaking the law if we allowed the secrecy of our work to be compromised. ” Osla leaned forward. “I may be a featherweight gossip-page hack now, but I take my oath seriously. ”

“But you can’t possibly entertain the notion that someone at BP—”

“Yes, I can. Remember the time I was hauled into Travis’s office and accused of lifting files from Hut 3? I ranted to you and Beth about it. ” The rifled Hut 4 box files, too. . .

Mab fiddled with her strand of black pearls. “So we report this to someone higher up. Someone unconnected with Beth’s section. ”

“No one is going to take it seriously, because they think Beth’s gone potty. But we lived with her for years, and we know her better than anyone. If we see her in the flesh, put the question to her ourselves”—However we can make that happen, Osla thought—“we’ll know if she’s crazy. We’ll know if she’s lying. ”

Mab spoke very low. “And what if we don’t think she’s lying? ”

A long silence.

“We’ll think of something. ” Osla pushed her teacup away. “Perhaps there’s something my godfather could do. Pull strings—”

“Or you could ring Philip, ” Mab suggested. “It must be nice having the future royal consort in your address book. He’s got to be worth a ring on the telephone, even if he came up short as far as rings on the finger. ”

“Mention Philip again, ” Osla snapped, “and I’ll cram those pearls up your nose until you are sneezing nacre, Queen Mab. ”

“You aren’t exactly endearing yourself to me, considering you want my help. ”

“I don’t want your help, you blithering bitch. I need it. I need another pair of eyes on Beth to figure out if she’s talking straw or gold. ” Osla began tugging on her gloves. “The eleven oh five leaves tomorrow morning, and it stops two miles from Clockwell. I plan to be on it. ”

“Don’t count on me joining you. ” Mab finally broke down and took a scone, reaching for the butter dish.

“No one could ever count on you for anything, Mab. Break form for once, why don’t you. ” Osla rose, smiling sweetly. “Not too much butter, darling. Watch that waist! Right now, it’s all you’ve got going for you. ”

Five Years Ago

June 1942

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