Sleep evaded her. She rose earlier than needed, walked across to the window, and looked out onto the street, where smog rising from the river swirled around the lampposts. A single policeman was pacing up and down—not a common sight in a small mews, but he was there to keep an eye on the flat, making sure the coast was clear when a plain black motor car arrived to take Maisie to the station.
She looked both ways along the street. One more hour, and she would be locking the front door and handing the keys to the driver to return to whoever was responsible for Secret Service properties in London. She turned away from the window and reached for her bag. Taking out MacFarlane’s revolver, she lifted the weapon and aimed the barrel at a portrait hanging on the wall over the fireplace. She narrowed her gaze and then lowered her arm, looking at the gun in her hands. The barrel seemed shorter, and MacFarlane was right—it was lighter than the one she’d used in training. It bore the scars of use, scratches and a tiny dent, but there was not a speck of dust anywhere on the revolver.
She remembered something Strupper had said. Look after your weapon. I’m sure your father taught you that you get to know a horse first by grooming it, by laying your hands on the creature, not just using the brush—that’s how you form a bond. Same with your gun. Clean it, oil it, get used to it in your palm; finger every part of it. That familiarity might save your life. And she’d wondered, then, how much he knew about her. Had he known she was the daughter of a man who had worked with horses?
Looking at the clock now, she hurried to get ready. She’d deliberately left little time, so there would be no lingering and waiting, no butterflies, no time for regret. She bathed, dressed in clothing that Leon Donat’s daughter might have chosen, and, following the instructions she’d been given, pulled the wig over her own dark cropped hair. “Good job you’ve not got a lot of hair there,” the wig mistress had said. “The difficult ones have long hair and don’t want to chop it. We have to pack it in and hope for the best.” MacFarlane had looked at the woman. She didn’t say another word except to bid Maisie good-bye as she left the flat.
Hearing a motor car rumble at a slow pace across the cobblestones, drawing to a halt outside the front door, Maisie picked up a small leather case, along with a new leather shoulder bag, and left the flat. She handed the keys to the driver as the policeman held open the door for her.
“Good luck, miss,” the policeman said as he closed the door, and she could have sworn he winked at her. He tapped the roof, and the driver maneuvered the motor car out of the mews and on toward the station. There he stepped from the vehicle and opened the passenger door for Maisie, nodding acknowledgment of her thanks. As she set off toward the platform, she looked back once. The driver touched his peaked cap in her direction and pulled away from the curb.
Soon Maisie—now Edwina Donat, she reminded herself—was making her way along the platform, carrying the small leather case she’d been given years earlier by Andrew Dene, the man with whom she’d had a love affair, before breaking off the courtship. She had been issued with a new, nondescript case to take with her to Munich, but had left it at the flat with her own clothing inside, and on top a note asking that it be delivered to the Dower House at Chelstone Manor in Kent. There was a comfort in bringing her new belongings to Munich in a case that was part of her real life. Dene was now happily married with two children and doing well in his profession as a leading orthopedic surgeon, teaching at two medical schools. A perfect life, thought Maisie. Each year she received Christmas cards from Dene, always with a note bringing her up to date with events in his growing family. As she came alongside the first-class compartments she felt a not unfamiliar sense of isolation, of loneliness. If she were a wife and mother, a woman with a home, husband, and children, she would not be traveling from one dangerous situation to another. Her family would be all she wanted and needed. Instead, she was a widow—fair game, as far as those who needed her to work for them were concerned. Still, she could only look to herself. She had agreed to take on the assignment.
Having been shown to her private compartment, Maisie placed her case and coat in the stowage above her head, unbuttoned her jacket, removed her hat, and settled into her seat with a newspaper she’d bought from a vendor at the station. The wig had begun to itch, but she could not tamper with it in case she altered her physical appearance. In truth, she was rather afraid of the wig, perhaps more so than the revolver in her handbag. Both changed who she was; both challenged how she might conduct herself in the world. With both in her possession, she was another person—a woman on her way to claim her father from a prison known for brutality in the name of a regime that, according to Huntley and MacFarlane, threatened peace in the world. But she would have to become accustomed to the sweaty discomfort of the wig, and the gun she would only fire if her life or that of Leon Donat was in danger.
The wild card, of course, was Elaine Otterburn. Maisie hoped the young woman—if she located her—proved less wild than her reputation suggested.