Chapter 76

It was past ten by the time they motored through Buckinghamshire, the Bentley creeping along pitch-black country roads. They had all fallen silent some thirty miles back—at about the time, Beth knew, when they drew closest to Bletchley Park.

“I haven’t seen it since I left for the Admiralty in autumn of ’Forty-Four, ” Mab said abruptly. “It was still buzzing along like clockwork. . . we had thousands of workers by that point. Remember the early days, when everything felt so ramshackle and you knew every face at shift change? ”

“I was let go September ’Forty-Five, ” Osla said. “That cool little form: ‘Owing to the cessation of hostilities, etc. etc., please bugger off and never talk about what you did here or you’ll be hanged, drawn, and quartered. ’” A sigh. “The clear-out was starting even before I left. They sent a party of us back to the old Hut 4, made us crawl over every board. People used to jam bits of decrypts into the cracks in the walls when drafts were blowing; we had to find every scrap and burn them. ”

Part of Beth yearned to stop by Bletchley Park’s gates, and part of her was glad it was too dangerous to risk being seen so near her hometown. She didn’t know if she could bear to see BP empty and abandoned. We did such things there, and no one will ever know.

They made the turnoff in silence and parked, unfolding stiffly from the car. Beth didn’t know when she had ever been so tired: this morning she’d wakened in her cell; by noon she was out; they had driven all afternoon and through the evening across most of England. Had all of that really happened in one day?

Mab rang at the door of the darkened house for a long time; at last there was the creak of hinges. “What’s this about? ” came the alarmed voice of Dilly Knox’s widow. “Has there been an accident? ”

“No accident. ” Beth came forward, seeing the older woman’s eyes widen. “I’m very sorry to disturb you, Mrs. Knox, but it’s an emergency. Three and a half years ago, I locked something in your husband’s safe. I’ve come to retrieve it. ”

BETH COULD FEEL Dilly so strongly as she came into the library, she nearly broke down in tears. I didn’t fail you, she thought, moving past his battered wing chair. I didn’t give in. Osla and Mab stood back, watching as Beth went to the wall and opened the panel.

A deep breath, looking at the safe door and inserting the key. Beth felt the quiet click at the base of her heart as well as in her ears. She heard the intake of breath from the others as she reached inside and took out the Rose file.

“That’s it? ” Osla whispered.

Beth took the file to Dilly’s big oak desk and spread out the pages. The sight of the familiar five-letter blocks of Enigma brought a wave of memory that nearly knocked her off her feet. It made some feline, sleeping part of her brain uncoil, stretching and hungry. She laid out the pages, starting with the single message she’d broken and run through the Typex on her very last day at the Park, and realized her hands weren’t fumbling anymore but moving with swift precision. “Come look, ” she ordered, and the others obeyed, reading over her shoulder the words she’d had memorized for years.

Osla was the first to see the problem. “We, ” she said succinctly, “are utterly graveled. ”

“It doesn’t name him. ” Mab looked ready to spit nails. “Did he realize that? ”

“He didn’t know what I had. ” Beth tapped the words: your source inside ISK. “Without a name, it’s not proof enough to take him down. ”

“But he moved against you as soon as you found this out. He got you locked up so you couldn’t bring this to Travis. ” Mab picked up the decrypt. “That proves it’s him. ”

“He can say the source inside ISK was me. That I was the one about to move against him. If he flips it round, it doesn’t sound any less plausible than our version. And he’s the one with a respected career, not a twitching woman escaped from a madhouse. ”

“But the accusation would taint him. ” Osla nibbled a varnished fingernail. “That’s the kind of thing that destroys careers. Especially after I cram his emerald down his throat and start ballyhooing his guilt to every influential connection I’ve got, and I have got heaps. ”

“He might lose his post. He might live under a cloud. But I’d still go back to Clockwell and face having my brain scrambled. ” Beth looked up, certainty hardening. “We need more before we go to MI-5—I need more. I want something with his name on it, something he can’t lie his way out of. One of these”—she fanned the undecrypted messages out on the desk—“might have that. ” I hope. “I need to crack them, and I need to do it now. ”

Mab’s fingers drummed. “How long before he realizes you’ve escaped? ”

“The asylum will notify MI-5 that I’m gone. But Giles wasn’t their contact on file; someone else is handling my case. So even though MI-5 will be casting their nets for me, Giles won’t be told I—”

“He’ll find out, ” Mab stated. “You know he’ll have your name flagged—any changes, any unexpected developments. Your handler will tell him you’re gone, and then what? He sits around waiting, gives you all the time you need to break this cipher? ”

“Maybe he won’t find out. ” Osla looked thoughtful. “Just after Giles and I became engaged, I asked him if he could make inquiries at work, find out what had become of Beth—”

“You did? ” Beth asked, surprised.

“You think I’ve gone three and a half years without once thinking of you? Of course I wanted to know. Giles did some digging, but they wouldn’t tell him anything. Something about ‘conflicting interests, ’ given that he’d been your friend, ” Osla quoted. “So, if he told you he could get reassigned to your case anytime he wanted, I think he was talking slush. He might have charmed the Clockwell doctors into giving him information about you, but it didn’t work on his superiors at MI-5. They didn’t tell him anything then, and I don’t think they’ll tell him you’ve escaped now—no matter what alerts he’s tried to put in place. ”

“Giles was lying to one of us. ” Beth gnawed her lip. “What if it was you? ”

“I don’t think so. When he lies, it’s to make himself look better—and he didn’t like telling me he’d been dismissed like a schoolboy. He wants everyone to see him as a man who can pull strings, get anything. ”

“It’s still a risk, ” Mab said. “Taking time to crack the rest of these messages—”

“We have no choice. If we go to MI-5 now, without better evidence, he will squirm out of it. ” Beth took a deep breath. “My surgery is scheduled for the day after the royal wedding. Giles said he’d telephone Clockwell that morning. If we count on MI-5 keeping him out of the loop until then—”

“One week. ” Osla looked at the other two. “The morning after the wedding, we go to MI-5 with whatever we’ve got. ”

Seven days to crack Rose and pin Giles Talbot to the wall. Beth had only broken the one message, and that had taken her months. The sheer cliff of the task loomed in front of her.

They all jumped at the knock on the library door. Mrs. Knox came in, balancing a tray against her dressing-gowned hip. “Tea, ” she said, yawning. “And I’ve opened up some bedrooms upstairs. Have at it, my dears, whatever it is. I’m going back to bed. Don’t tell me a thing. ”

Six Days Until the Royal Wedding

November 14, 1947

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