“Probably half a dozen,” Aiden said. His voice was light again, courteous, but uninterested.
Along the street, there was a shout rising in anger. A group of figures seemed to jostle each other, clumsily. One of them stumbled off the pavement into the street.
It was Gabrielle who broke the moment’s tension. “Signorina, are you waiting for a taxi? I think perhaps you should wait inside the restaurant. It isn’t really safe, alone in the street. Even in good areas like this, there’s a certain unease.”
“She might be—” one of the other women said with a slight sneer.
Gabrielle laughed, a rich, happy sound. “Don’t be absurd, Sara. If she were looking for customers, she wouldn’t be dressed like this. She’s waiting for someone who stood her up. She’s trying to act like a lady and still get out of it with some shred of dignity. Don’t pretend that’s never happened to you.”
Elena seized the opportunity. “Is it so obvious?” she asked with a rueful smile. “I don’t know Trieste very well. How easy will it be to find a taxi?”
“A woman alone, smoking a cigarette? You’ll look as if you’re waiting for someone.” Gabrielle shook her head. “You’d better come with us. We’ll drop you off somewhere. Anton and I are going…” She stopped short of giving an address. “We can take you to a better district.”
“Thank you,” Elena accepted. She did not look at Aiden to see if he agreed. Anton? She knew he would not be using his own name: too easy to trace. Especially when he had been here for years. He could pass for German easily, even over a period of time, and the Germans themselves would know who he was, of course. That was his cover: a turncoat, a traitor to the country of his birth. He was supposedly loyal to the new order of Nazism.
Aiden had no gracious way of refusing to help a young woman in an awkward situation. A scuffle had broken out among the men along the street. They were clearly more than a little drunk, and coming closer. She would have had to go inside if Gabrielle had not offered her help.
“Anton Salinger,” he introduced himself.
Aiden Strother? Close enough. “Elena,” she said, her voice catching in her throat. She was committed. “Standish.” In the artificial lighting of the streetlamps, color was distorted. All she could see in his face was a deepening of tone in his cheeks. His composure was perfect.
“How do you do, Miss Standish?” he said, this time in English. It was an acknowledgment that sounded like nothing, and yet in a way it was everything. He was warning her that they were strangers. The past did not exist.
Could he really imagine they had met by chance? No, of course not. She had mentioned Max Klausner’s name. She had not quite suggested that in some way she had replaced Max, but he must at least consider it. “I live on Franz Josef Street,” she said. “Thank you very much.”
He did not reply, but she had done enough.
CHAPTER
5
Lucas drove home, parked the car, and went inside, Toby bumping against his legs. Surprisingly, Josephine was not in the kitchen.
“Jo,” he called. Where was she? It was not alarm he felt, but discomfort, because it was unusual. He went into the hall and called again. “Jo.”
The sitting-room door opened and Josephine came out, closing it gently behind her.
Lucas saw the gravity of her face. “What’s wrong?” he asked immediately.
“Stoney is here to see you,” she began.
“Stoney?”
“Stoney,” she repeated very quietly.
Gladstone Canning was a mathematician Lucas had known at Cambridge. They had worked together quite a lot during the war. Over the years, their friendship had grown. Lucas had spoken of him often to Josephine, because Stoney had been such an essential part of his youth and his war years, although he had never revealed just how important.
But now Stoney was here. Why? He had never once arrived without having been invited, or asking to see Luc
as in his home.
“I haven’t seen Stoney for months, maybe a year. Why is he here? Is he all right?” His concern became deeper as he spoke, and long-ago images came back. Stoney was in his mid-seventies, closer to eighty. When they had first met as young men more than half a century ago, Lucas had liked him instinctively. Stoney was quiet, steeped in his work, but loving it intensely. He still worked in the intelligence service, quietly, diligently, his skills unsurpassed by anyone of a younger generation. His commitment to accuracy showed in everything he did, from complicated mathematical calculations to trying to toss pancakes and catch them in the pan, correct side up—or even at all! He enjoyed a good conversation as much as anything in life, except perhaps a good joke. The shaggier and more absurd, the better. But why was he here? Now? “What’s wrong?” Lucas asked.
“I don’t know,” Josephine admitted. “He seems to have trouble even finding the words for it. And, of course, he is not sure whether to trust me or not.” She smiled ruefully. “I think he is torn between not trusting me, because I am not MI6, and trying not to upset me with ugly facts, because I am a woman.”
Lucas felt his anxiety increase, tension suddenly ratcheted up. Stoney did not often confide in people, but it was not out of a lack of lucidity in his mind, or words to express it; it was an extreme discretion with secrets, something that was both natural and taught in his position. Also, he would not want to distress Josephine, if what he had to say was an ugly fact. He had never married, and so had no daughters. He had not learned that women were as tough as men any day, beginning with nannies and governesses, going right through to army nurses and women in the Resistance, or tougher still, in espionage, embedded in enemy-held territory.
“Lucas!”