She liked Duncan, despite his banal appearance and predictable nature. And who was she to be critiquing courters? After all, she was sometimes referred to as the “peculiar pigeon lady” by some of her students, when they learned she’d trained pigeons for the war. After a year of rather one-sided courtship, Duncan proposed. She accepted. Perhaps she didn’t want to live her life as a hermit. Or maybe the passing of time had enabled her to give in to the rules of social expectations—get married, have children, and make one’s mark in the world. But deep down, she’d simply come to accept that there was only one true love in a person’s life. And her Ollie was gone.

She’d had a good life, she supposed. Also, she had Clover and her grandchildren, Evie and Hugh, reassuring her that she’d made the right decision. Over the years, Susan had grown quite fond of Duncan. He was kind, gentle, fatherly, and always bringing her fresh fruit. “Helps with your potassium,” he’d routinely say, as he’d give her a bunch of bananas. By all accounts, Duncan was a good and decent man. But she never again experienced those beautiful butterflies in her tummy, the ones that had migrated away in the autumn of 1940. And never returned.

By September, Susan had succumbed to the fact that she’d never read Ollie’s message. Without the codebook, it was impossible to decipher. Besides, Bletchley Park and GCHQ had likely already interpreted the message weeks ago but were too embarrassed to report the findings. But she was proven wrong when another article appeared in the newspaper. The article was similar to the previous ones, simply requoting Googins’s finding in his chimney; however, this one revealed that both Bletchley and GCHQ were baffled. And pasted below the article, a copy of Ollie’s coded message:

“Good Lord!” Susan exclaimed over her buttered toast.

She read the article twice, unable to fathom that her message was posted for the world to see. Not only were Bletchley and GCHQ still working on deciphering the code, amateur code breakers and history buffs would likely be racing to be the first to claim that they had solved the mystery.

Susan folded the newspaper, went to the phone, and called Clover. “Could you come to Epping this evening?” She paused, struggling to find her words. “There’s something rather important I need to tell you.”

Clover left work early, stopping only to pick up her children from day care. As Evie and Hugh played in the pigeon loft, Susan retrieved her tin and the newspaper clippings, then joined Clover, sitting at the kitchen table.

“Are you all right?” Clover said, fumbling with her earring.

She always rubs her lobes when she’s worried. “I’m fine,” Susan said, trying to reassure her daughter. “I’m not dying, nor have I contracted a debilitating geriatric disease.”