‘Freddy!’ Laura’s eyes widened. ‘No, you didn’t – you and Marjorie? Really?’ Yet, now she came to think of it, it had a certain rightness to it. Marjorie and her liking for blond airmen – many years ago she’d even danced with a Canadian who had a definite look of Freddy about him, which had shaken Laura to the core. This made sense in a totally impossible kind of way. ‘So she could tell you where I worked …’

‘Yes, and I confess we persuaded someone on the receiving end of some of our messages over here to seek you out and pass you a note,’ he said. ‘I realise it’s a roundabout way of doing things, but we couldn’t put the chain of information in danger. Your friend is a dab hand at signals, she could set up wireless transmissions and they’d be picked up over here. She really was terribly good at her job.’

Laura finally picked up on what he was saying. ‘Wait a minute. Was? Isn’t she any more? Freddy, is she all right?’

Her brother wouldn’t meet her eyes. ‘The truth is, I don’t know,’ he said quietly. ‘The arrangements were all made to get me out at last. We got that message sent to you. I knew where to go to find you – I just had to wait near where you girls park your cars, and Bob’s your uncle. That part of the plan worked like clockwork.’ He seemed to be shaking a little. ‘What happened was, I was moved in the last few days, so I could get away more safely. I was in territory held by the Allies right at the end. But Marjorie was needed behind enemy lines, you see. So she went off on a new mission. And … we didn’t hear anything. We thought we would. That she’d get a message through of some kind. But nobody has heard.’

‘Oh, Freddy.’ Laura didn’t know what to say. It was bad enough to discover that her friend had made it as far as France and was excelling at her job, only to find something had gone wrong; but how much worse would it be for Freddy? Her brother, who had been through four years of unimaginable hell, had found a kindred spirit, only to lose her.

‘She might be all right,’ Laura said staunchly, knowing this was echoing what she had thought about Freddy himself all those long years. ‘She’s fearfully clever, Freddy. You never know.’

‘No,’ he said, looking away, but not before she’d noticed the tear in his eye. ‘That’s the thing, isn’t it? We don’t know.’

CHAPTER NINETEEN