Oh, Christ, what if one of the drivers was Eileen? She’d talked about trying to get the National Service to assign her to be one. He glanced in the rear-vision mirror. Two more staff cars were pulling in to the lane behind him. Jesus, it was more dangerous here than out on the streets of Kensington.

He pulled his visored cap down over his forehead and drove as fast as he dared to the end of the lane. Another guard stood there. He came over to the car. “Sir, you can’t stop here.”

“I know. Tell Lieutenant Wilkerson that Lieutenant Abbott’s taken the car round the corner to park it.” Then he drove out onto Kensington and back along the edge of Kensington Gardens, where they’d been when Polly told them she had a deadline.

Polly. She might be one of the drivers, too, only that wouldn’t be her name. It would be Mary Kent, and right now she was at an ambulance post in Oxford, waiting to be transferred to Dulwich, but he knew from the FANYs he’d run into that they were often assigned to driving officers, and it looked like every officer in England was here tonight. What if she was, too?

She can’t be, he told himself, because if she was, you could rap on her window and warn her, and if you warn her, she’ll go back to Oxford and tell Mr. Dunworthy what happened, and he’d never have let them come through. Just like with Bartholomew.

It’s Atherton you need to concentrate on finding, he thought. And there’s a phone booth. And Cess isn’t here. And Lady Bracknell had sent along a purse full of money in case something went wrong while they had the colonel and they had to phone the castle. He pulled over to the curb, took the purse out of the glove compartment, and got out of the car. He went into the phone booth, dialed the operator, and gave her the number the Wren had told him. “Just one moment, please,” the operator said.

Let it go through, let it go through, he repeated silently.

“I have that number for you, sir,” she said.

“Yes, hullo, is Major Atherton there?” he said.

Too quickly. It was still the operator. “I have your number for you, sir,” she repeated. “I’ll connect you.”

He waited, thinking, Any second now I’ll see Cess turning that corner, wondering where the hell I’ve gotten to. “You’re through, sir,” the operator said, and in the next instant, an American woman’s voice said, “Major Atherton’s office.”

Thank God. “Hullo,” he said, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. “I need to speak to Major Atherton.”

“I’m sorry, sir, he’s not here right now.”

Of course not. “When will he be back? It’s urgent.”

“I don’t know, sir. I can have him ring you as soon as he returns. Is there a number where he can reach you?”

“No,” he said. “I’m in transit. Will he be back tonight?”