I know how to tap in the night, in tiny rooms – to send out messages on (hopefully) unassailable waves. I will ride a bicycle in France. I will go out to a railway line at night. My job will be less about spying and more about sabotage. To hinder Germans in any way possible. To send back any and all information. I met three other SOE women on Training 1 and each of them was clever, funny and brave. Two were such good actresses they could hide the pain of leaving a child behind. I admire them with everything I have. The recruiter has not pretended. We will have a survival rate of roughly 50 per cent, except wireless operators for whom the percentage is much lower. The pipes in the walls clank hard again. The little girl in the walls is warning me. I ignore her. Always have done. I open my bag, and check it again. I can do this. I place my travel case back under the bed. Ignore a feeling that the little girl in this building is watching me begin my mission. That it is her, clanking those pipes in the walls, warning me not to go.

Morag walks back into the room, putting earrings in and I am trying not to get emotional but I am so sad that this is our last time together, and she doesn’t even know why.

– You really do look totally stunning.

– Thank you, Ivy Proudfoot.

– I love you, you know that? You know I always will?

– I do.

Take my girlfriend’s hand so we can go out for one last time together and open the door – ready to meet the night.

1956

Flat 5F5

Agnes Campbell (63) the sisters

BLACK CLOUDS race like warhorses pounding the sky. Pink electric lightning splits the darkness. Luminous clouds roll under darker ones above and there is a low roar of thunder several miles away.

Lights go out.

Archie clicks the lamp on at the plug. Nothing.

Mr Udnam laces his fingers together to pray. Dora gives herself completely to the seance. She and Agnes have gone through so many of these now. The parrot steps back as far as he can into his cage. The room sheds its floral wallpaper. It is bare and empty. There is a chunky wooden joist exposed as the ceilings are being replaced. The workmen have placed it on top of two big metal barrels ready to put up later. The girls are fading in and out from vision before they settle more solidly in the room. The first girl is standing on the left of the beam and she kicks her bare foot to and fro at least five inches above the table below.

Agnes and Dora look like they are praying before dinner.

The child is tiny. She doesn’t look six years old yet but she is.

Her name is Mary.

She holds out her hand and another appears from the ether to take hers.