40
EMMA WOKE EARLY the following morning and chatted happily to Phyllis over breakfast about how much she was looking forward to being reunited with Sebastian and her family. Phyllis nodded, but said very little.
Parker collected Emma’s bags from her room, took them down in the lift and left them in the hall. She’d acquired another two since arriving in New York. Does anyone ever go home with less than they started out with? she wondered.
‘I’ll not come downstairs,’ said Phyllis after several attempts to say goodbye. ‘I’ll only make a fool of myself. It’s better that you simply remember an old battleaxe who didn’t like to be disturbed during her bridge parties. When you visit us next time, my dear, bring Harry and Sebastian with you. I want to meet the man who captured your heart.’
A taxi blasted its horn in the street below.
‘Time to go,’ said Phyllis. ‘Go quickly.’
Emma gave her one last hug and then she didn’t look back.
When she stepped out of the lift Parker was standing by the front door waiting for her, the bags already stowed away in the boot of the taxi. The moment he saw her, he walked out on to the pavement and opened the back door of the cab.
‘Goodbye, Parker,’ said Emma, ‘and thank you for everything.’
‘My pleasure, ma’am,’ he replied. Just as she was about to step into the taxi, he added, ‘If it’s not inappropriate, ma’am, I wondered if I might be allowed to make an observation?’
Emma stepped back, trying to mask her surprise. ‘Of course, please do.’
‘I so enjoyed Mr Clifton’s diary,’ he said, ‘that I hope it will not be too long before you return to New York accompanied by your husband.’
It wasn’t long before the train was speeding through the countryside and New York was no more, as they headed towards the capital. Emma found she couldn’t read or sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. Great-aunt Phyllis, Mr Guinzburg, Cousin Alistair, Mr Jelks, Detective Kolowski and Parker all made their exits and entrances.
She thought about what needed to be done once she arrived in Washington. First, she had to go to the British Embassy and sign some forms so she could join the ambassador on his flight to London, as arranged by Rupert Harvey, a second cousin twice removed. ‘Don’t mock, child,’ she could hear her great-aunt remonstrating, and then she fell asleep. Harry entered her dreams, this time in uniform, smiling, laughing, and then she woke with a jolt, quite expecting him to be in the carriage with her.
When the train pulled into Union Station five hours later, Emma had trouble lugging her suitcases on to the platform, until a porter, an ex-serviceman with one arm, came to her rescue. He found a taxi for her, thanked her for the tip and gave her a salute with the wrong arm. Someone else whose destiny had been decided by a war he didn’t declare.
‘The British Embassy,’ Emma said as she climbed into the cab.
She was dropped on Massachusetts Avenue, outside a pair of ornate iron gates displaying the Royal Standard. Two young soldiers ran across to help Emma with her bags.
‘Who are you visiting, ma’am?’ An English accent, an American word.
‘Mr Rupert Harvey,’ she said.
‘Commander Harvey. Certainly,’ said the corporal, who picked up her bags and guided Emma to an office at the rear of the building.
Emma entered a large room in which the staff, most dressed in uniform, scurried about in every direction. No one walked. A figure appeared out of the melee and greeted her with a huge smile.
‘I’m Rupert Harvey,’ he said. ‘Sorry about the organized chaos, but it’s always like this when the ambassador is returning to England. It’s even worse this time, because we’ve had a visiting cabinet minister with us for the past week. All your paperwork has been prepared,’ he added, returning to his desk. ‘I just need to see your passport.’
Once he’d flicked through the pages, he asked her to sign here, here and here. ‘A bus will be leaving from the front of the embassy for the airport at six this evening. Please make sure you’re on time as everyone’s expected to be on board the plane before the ambassador arrives.’
‘I’ll be on time,’ said Emma. ‘Would it be possible to leave my bags here while I go sightseeing?’
‘That won’t be a problem,’ said Rupert. ‘I’ll have someone put them on the bus for you.’
‘Thank you,’ said Emma.
She was about to leave when he added, ‘By the way, I loved the book. And just to warn you, the minister is hoping to have a private word with you when we’re on the plane. I think he was a publisher before he went into politics.’
‘What’s his name?’ Emma asked.
‘Harold Macmillan.’
Emma recalled some of Mr Guinzburg’s sage advice. ‘Everyone is going to want this book,’ he’d told her. ‘There isn’t a publisher who won’t open their doors for you, so don’t be easily flattered. Try and see Billy Collins and Allen Lane of Penguin.’ He’d made no mention of a Harold Macmillan.
‘Then I’ll see you on the bus around six,’ said her second cousin twice removed, before he disappeared back into the melee.
Emma left the embassy, walked out on to Massachusetts Avenue and checked her watch. Just over two hours to spare before her appointment with Colonel Cleverdon. She hailed a cab.
‘Where to, miss?’
‘I want to see everything the city has to offer,’ she said.
‘How long have you got, a couple of years?’
‘No,’ Emma replied, ‘a couple of hours. So let’s get moving.’
The taxi sped away from the kerb. First stop: the White House – 15 minutes. On to the Capitol – 20 minutes. Circling the Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials – 25 minutes. Dashing into the National Gallery – another 25 minutes. Ending up at the Smithsonian – but there was only 30 minutes left until her appointment, so she didn’t make it past the first floor.
When she jumped back into the cab, the driver asked, ‘Where to now, miss?’
Emma checked the address on Colonel Cleverdon’s letter. ‘3022 Adams Street,’ she replied, ‘and I’m cutting it fine.’
When the cab drew up outside a large white marble building that occupied the entire block, Emma handed the cabbie her last five-dollar note. She would have to walk back to the embassy after her meeting. ‘Worth every cent,’ she told him.
He touched the rim of his cap. ‘I thought it was only us Americans who did that sort of thing,’ he said with a grin.
Emma walked up the steps, past two guards who stared right through her, and on into the building. She noticed that almost everyone was dressed in different shades of khaki, although few of them wore battle ribbons. A young woman behind the reception desk directed her to room 9197. Emma joined a mass of khaki uniforms as they headed towards the lifts, and when she stepped out on the ninth floor, she found Colonel Cleverdon’s secretary waiting to greet her.
‘I’m afraid the colonel has got caught up in a meeting, but he should be with you in a few minutes,’ she said as they walked along the corridor.
Emma was shown into the colonel’s office. Once she had sat down, she stared at a thick file on the centre of the desk. As with the letter on Maisie’s mantelpiece and the notebooks on Jelks’s desk, she wondered how long she would have to wait before its contents were revealed.
The answer was twenty minutes. When the door eventually swung open, a tall, athletic man, around the same age as her father, burst into the room, a cigar bobbing up and down in his mouth.
‘So sorry to have kept you,’ he said, shaking hands, ‘but there just aren’t enough hours in the day.’ He sat down behind his desk and smiled at her. ‘John Cleverdon, and I would have recognized you anywhere.’ Emma looked surprised, until he explained. ‘You’re exactly as Harry described you in his book. Would you like coffee?’
‘No, thank you,’ said Emma, trying not to sound impatient as she glanced at the file on the colonel’s desk.
‘I don’t even have to open this,’ he said, tapping the file. ‘I wrote most of it myself, so I can tell you everything Harry’s been up to since he left Lavenham. And now, thanks to his diaries, we all know he should never have been there in the first place. I can’t wait to read the next instalment and find out what happened to him before he was sent to Lavenham.’
‘And I can’t wait to find out what happened to him after he left Lavenham,’ Emma said, hoping she didn’t sound impatient.
‘Then let’s get on with it,’ said the colonel. ‘Harry volunteered to join a special services unit, which I have the privilege of commanding, in exchange for his prison sentence being commuted. Having begun his life in the United States Army as a GI, he was recently commissioned in the field, and is currently serving as a lieutenant. He’s been behind enemy lines now for several months,’ he continued. ‘He’s been working with resistance groups in occupied countries and helping to prepare for our eventual landing in Europe.’
Emma didn’t like the sound of that. ‘What does behind enemy lines actually mean?’
‘I can’t tell you exactly, because it’s not always easy to track him down when he’s on a mission. He often cuts off communication with the outside world for days on end. But what I can tell you is that he and his driver, Corporal Pat Quinn, another Lavenham graduate, have turned out to be two of the most effective operatives to come out of my group. They’re like two schoolboys who’ve been given a giant chemistry set and told they can go and experiment on the enemy’s communications network. They spend most of their time blowing up bridges, dismantling railway lines and bringing down electricity pylons. Harry’s specialty is disrupting German troop movements, and on one or two occasions the Krauts have nearly caught up with him. But so far he’s managed to stay a step ahead of them. In fact, he’s proved such a thorn in their flesh that they’ve put a price on his head, which seems to go up every month. Thirty thousand francs when I last checked.’
The colonel noticed that Emma’s face had gone as white as a sheet.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to alarm you but I sometimes forget, when I’m sitting behind a desk, just how much danger my boys face every day.’
‘When will Harry be released?’ asked Emma quietly.
‘I’m afraid he’s expected to serve out his sentence,’ said the colonel.
‘But now that you know he’s innocent, can’t you at least send him back to England?’
‘I don’t think that would make a great deal of difference, Miss Barrington, because if I know Harry, the moment he set foot in his homeland he’d only swap one uniform for another.’
‘Not if I have anything to do with it.’
The colonel smiled. ‘I’ll see what I can do to help,’ he promised as he rose from behind his desk. He opened the door and saluted her. ‘Have a safe journey back to England, Miss Barrington. I hope it won’t be long before the two of you end up in the same place, at the same time.’