“Like you’ve gotten away with lying to me all these weeks?” he said angrily. “You’ve known all along that Denys Atherton came through after your deadline. That even if we found him, it wouldn’t be in time to do any good.”

“I know, I’m sorry. I wanted—”

“Wanted to what?” He shook her. “To spare me?”

Yes. I didn’t want to put you through what I’ve been going through since the night we found each other and I realized your drops wouldn’t open either. I didn’t want you to look the way you’re looking now, the way I felt when I found out, like someone who’s just heard a death sentence pronounced.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated helplessly.

“What else are you sparing me from?” he said furiously. “How many other assignments were you here on that you haven’t told me about? Were you here in 1942, too? Or the summer of ’41? Or next week maybe?” He gripped her arms so hard she cried out with the pain. “Was I there in Trafalgar Square with Eileen?”

“No. I told you—”

“Was I? Missing an arm or a leg, and you decided you wanted to spare me that, too?”

“No,” Polly said tearfully. “I only saw Eileen.”

“You swear?”

“I swear.”

“Hullo!” Eileen called up from below. “Mike? Polly?”

Polly clutched at Mike’s arm. “Don’t tell her,” she whispered. “Please. She’ll … please, don’t tell her.”

“What happened to you two?” Eileen said, running up the stairs to them. She was carrying a sandwich and a bottle of orange squash. “I thought you said you were coming.”

Mike looked at Polly, then said, “We were talking.”

“About the raids,” Polly said quickly. “We’re trying to fill in the gaps in the list we made. You said Trafalgar Square was hit sometime during the winter. Do you know which month?”

“No,” Eileen said, sitting down on the steps and unwrapping her sandwich. “Do either of you want a bite?”

Mike didn’t answer, but Eileen didn’t seem to notice anything was wrong. She was preoccupied with the subject of Alf and Binnie. “I do hope they got home all right the other day.”

“I thought you said they could take care of themselves,” Polly said, trying to make her tone light.

“They can. But I couldn’t shake them all night, and then, when I said I was going to take them home, they vanished, and I’ve been wondering why.”

“Because they were afraid you’d discover the thermometers and stethoscopes they’d stolen from St. Bart’s,” Mike suggested.

Eileen didn’t even hear him. “They were both so grubby,” she said thoughtfully.

Polly wondered what that had to do with Alf and Binnie’s running wild in Blackfriars, but whatever the connection was, she was grateful Eileen’s mind was on that and not on them, or she’d have surely noticed how shaken Mike looked.

I shouldn’t have told him, she thought, even if he had already guessed the truth. I should have lied and said I went through in May or April.