Driving back out of Cliffehaven, she stopped for a moment on top of the hill to open the window and bid a fond farewell to the town she’d loved since childhood.

It sprawled back from the horseshoe bay into the surrounding hills, the terraces and quiet streets looking peaceful in the early sun as the barrage balloons glinted above the factories and the calm sea lapped at the shore – but the smoke and flames were clearly visible on the other side of the Channel, and the combined Allied air forces were continuing their ceaseless flights.

Dolly gave a regretful sigh. How different it was from those far-off summer days when she’d spent hours on the beach and in the rock pools while a band played on the pier and there was the heavenly scent of toffee apples and candy floss in the air. But there was hope those days would return once peace was restored, the barbed wire removed and the holidaymakers coming once more, and that was what she would cling to.

She drank in the scene, relieved that although she and Pauline had parted on bad terms, her visit had not been a complete disaster. She had the names of the double agents; Danuta was on the road to a slow recovery with a loving home to go to when she was discharged from the hospital; and Dolly had high hopes that Ron and Rosie would find their way through this recent upset and be happy together again.

She blew a kiss towards the town, engaged the gears and roared away, the tyres screeching as they fought for purchase on the tarmac. Her mission completed, she could now return to London and the office building in Baker Street where some of the most closely guarded national secrets were kept, and focus entirely on what she had to do to help bring this war to an end.

19

Peggy was dressed and Daisy was eating her breakfast by the time Sarah came downstairs. ‘There are a couple of letters for you,’ she said. ‘It’s been a bumper delivery today.’

Sarah blushed scarlet as she noted the one with the American franking and hastily put them both in her trouser pocket.

‘Aren’t you going to read them?’ Peggy put the scrambled egg, toast and tomato before her. ‘It’s not often the post arrives before you have to go to work.’

‘I’ll read them during my lunch break,’ Sarah replied, not quite meeting Peggy’s steady gaze.

Peggy sat down beside her. ‘Look, dear, I might not approve of you and Delaney, but it’s really not my business. Don’t feel you can’t read his letters because of me. And judging by the postage date, he must have written that just before the invasion began.’