She relaxed her hand where it was still clenched at her side. In hindsight, she supposed that it had probably only been a matter of time. At the beginning, she hadn’t deliberately set out to hide that information but then it had simply become far easier to avoid questions that would inevitably become probing. And painful.

“You used to work at the Foreign Office,” he continued. “As a very talented linguist.”

“My past employment has no bearing on what I do now at Bletchley.”

“See, now I might disagree. You concealed important information.”

“I took all the required tests and filled out all the required forms related to this job. I was hired as a translator, and no one has had cause to complain about my work. So you can save your accusations. Or put them in my file and let me get back to work.”

The man exhaled in what might have been amusement. “Ah, yes, your file. I’ve read it, even if no one else has. And then I went and tracked down the file the Foreign Office has for you—when you were still Sophie Seymour. And there were curious things that were not in that file. The Foreign Office had no travel records for you. No marriage records. No records at all after August of ’thirty-nine. In fact, Sophie Seymour was written up as deserting her post and then, later, presumed dead.”

Sophie had died. Just not how this man meant. “Paper records have never fared well under German bombs.”

“Neither did your family, as I understand.”

The words were gentle but it was like he had punched her. The air whooshed out of her lungs, and she nearly doubled over.

“Your parents are recorded as having perished in the raids last year. Your twin brother, a pilot with the RAF, shot down on a bombing run before that.”

“My brother is missing, not dead,” she managed roughly.

The leaf fell from his fingers, spiralling to the ground. “I admire your optimism.”

“I will mourn my brother when there is a body.”

“How pragmatic of you.”

Sophie didn’t reply.

“Aside from the London address in your Foreign Office file—the address that, regrettably, no longer exists—there was a Norfolk address. My lieutenant, when tasked with investigating, discovered that the staff in your family’s employ at that address currently believes you to be dead.”

Sophie looked down.

“I’m not judging,” the man said. “Merely curious as to your motivations.”

“Motivations?” she asked dully.

“To remain here, anonymous.”

“I will return when my brother returns,” Sophie mumbled. “And then I won’t have to explain why I was the only one of my family who deserved to live.” Or face the crushing guilt that came with that acknowledgement.

“Mmm.” The man considered her for an uncomfortably long minute. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry,” he finally said. “For the loss of your family.”

“Everyone here has lost someone.”