“Something happened to them both. You said Arnim was sent to Russia, and we know Dalton sent the note to Caro’s parents on the twentieth. Did they close the books on her?”
“How could they? We read that Nelson valued, even feared, her strategic importance.”
We stared at each other.
Mat finally spoke. “Maybe they didn’t close the books on her. Maybe they lost her.”
“You don’t lose a spy . . . Keep reading.” I returned to my file and sensed, in my periphery, it took Mat a few minutes to pull his gaze from me and do the same.
Hours later, I opened my final folder and discovered it wasn’t an SOE binder at all, but the RAF personnel file for Randolph George Payne. “You requested my grandfather’s records?”
“I hadn’t before because I didn’t know of any relationship with your aunt. It might be worth a look.”
Inside I found flight notes, memos, and meeting summaries. My grandfather was respected, decorated, and consulted. I’d had no idea how much he had done. I’d had no idea of the sacrifice, the daring, and the losses his unit endured.
From the extra notes and memos, it was hard to reconcile his youth and action with the impassive, cold man I remembered. At first, the memos cited that his squadron handled air and sea rescue operations in France. Then I discovered, in 1944, they flew sweeps over Normandy landing zones.
“Hey . . . he was part of D-Day.”
Suddenly my grandfather was a new man to me. After the disappointment of the last few hours, believing I’d lost my aunt, I was happy to find him. There were no questions here. His entire service was outlined from commission to discharge. There were notations that he signed up for extra missions when a friend was sick or needed out of the rotation. There were memos extolling his competency and ingenuity. There were even a few personal notes relating funny stories. I wondered if my dad knew and almost reached for my phone to call him.
In that second, I understood. It was eighty years ago, yet reading of my grandfather’s demeanor and heroism elated me—today. The antithesis of that—the shame of a treacherous story—also had implications for today. Rather than elation, the loss would still feel unendurable.
Dad and Shakespeare were right. “The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones.” No one in my family was ever going to forgive or forget what Caro had done—what they thought she had done. So to mitigate the damage, they absorbed it. Great-Grandmother sold Parkley and moved into London’s anonymity. Margo never fully lived, trusted, or loved again—nor did Randolph. And when Dad grew old enough to ask questions, rather than remember the good, they fashioned a lie to hide the bad. They erased Caro from the family tree and left my father with no understanding, only a dark shadow of shame.
I turned the page and, lips parted in shock, I poked Mat again.
MOST SECRET CIPHER TELEGRAM
MARRIAGE
To: War Office
From: 91 Military Section RAF
Recd. 12 May 1940
P 5006 cipher
Officer R. G. PAYNE serving with my squadron proposes shortly to commit matrimony with British citizen in Saint-Nazaire. Under Foreign Marriages Order in Council 1938 British Consul is expressly forbidden to solemnize marriage on grounds that sufficient facilities already exist under Foreign Marriage Act 1892.
Our reading of section 22 of act of 1892 is that I am empowered to appoint an officer to perform civil ceremony. Since I have a priest in Holy Orders serving as Officer, if our reading is correct, he could be appointed by me to perform ceremony and thus ensure legality for all purposes. Request confirmation.
If our reading is correct please advise what exactly is entailed by “observance of all forms required by law.”
TCO Palmore
“He went to marry her.” I sat back and smiled. “She misjudged him . . . She thought he didn’t have the courage and was too damaged to step up and ask, but he went to France to marry her. How life would have been different if she’d gotten there on time.”
Mat furrowed his brow, not following me.
“It was in the steamy May letter. Caro wrote Margaret that George had gone to Saint-Nazaire to meet her, but she didn’t show and he had to return to duty. He never told her why—at least it wasn’t in the letters. Look . . . he went to marry her.” I spread my hand over my heart. “It makes me so sad for all the years of pain ahead and all that came between them. The whole expanding triangle—Margo, Caro, George . . . all of us.”
“Come on.” Mat reached for my hand. “Let’s take a break.”
We walked outside and circled a path along the Thames. Mat was right. We needed fresh air and sunshine. We needed a breather from 1941, WWII, and a stuffy research room with uncomfortable chairs and bad lighting.
We stopped at the river’s edge and watched people navigate small paddleboats in circles across the Thames. A few rowers crewed shells down the center.
“If they’d married, she’d never have joined the SOE and that factory might have pumped out weapons for years,” Mat offered.
“There’d have been no secret to hide. No shame,” I countered. “We’d have never wondered about her defection.”
He gave me the side-eye. “You wouldn’t wonder. Because you wouldn’t be here.”
“Excellent point.” I rolled my eyes but couldn’t help returning his smile. “No pondering the what-might-have-beens.”
Mat squeezed my hand and gently tugged me away from the railing back along the path to the Archives. “I, for one, am very glad you are here.”
“Thank you.” I glanced down at our hands, certain he’d forgotten he still held mine. I willed every finger to stay still so as not to bring it to mind.
But he caught me. He followed my line of sight and lifted our linked fingers before dropping them again, still entwined. “Your hand is actually warm today.”
I smiled.
He hadn’t forgotten.
Twenty-Five
We worked until the Reading Room proctor kicked us out at closing. Despite an almost desperate need for answers still clawing at us, we were beat. My eyes could barely focus at short distances.
“What now?”
Mat led us back up Ruskin Avenue to the Underground. “We order files from Paris? That’s where Operation Clementine happened, so we know that even if the Arnim part of the note was a lie, Paris wasn’t. Something happened there. Then, if Arnim was involved, was he sent east as punishment? Did he disobey orders? Take her with him? Honestly, I thought once we found Rose this morning, we’d find the end. I didn’t expect them to lose her as well.”
I push out a tired, worn, and pathetically thin laugh. “You just answered my question with more questions.”
Mat replied again . . . with more questions. “Maybe they didn’t lose her, and I was right all along? If she was a traitor and if that was known, it could have hurt the program. What better way to cover it up than to conveniently misplace her and never record the truth?”