The Consequences of Fear, Jacqueline Winspear [most important books to read TXT] 📗

service—and hadn’t everyone been encouraged to do their bit? To answer the call if they had a skill that would benefit the war effort? Brenda herself was a member of the local Women’s Voluntary Services, donning the green uniform several days each week before going out into the community to help anyone burdened by the loss of a home, a husband or a son. Sometimes German bombers returning to their bases in France would release a final bomb in a rural area, so while country folk did not suffer the same losses as towns and cities, they knew how it felt to be on constant alert, especially if they were close to an airfield or factory. Kent had been hard hit—the Battle of Britain had been fought in the skies above the county, so the people were used to the presence of army, of dogfights over their fields and farms, followed by the odd Luftwaffe pilot jumping from a burning aircraft and landing in a tree or in someone’s back garden with his parachute trailing behind him.

Maisie was well aware that Brenda believed her war work might be somewhat similar to her own since the night Priscilla—Maisie’sdear friend and London ambulance co-driver—had almost died saving children from a burning building. Maisie had rushed to Priscilla’said, sustaining burns to the backs of her hands as she dragged her wounded friend from the inferno. Though not as seriousas Priscilla’s facial scarring, the lesions were still visible. She never returned to driving the ambulance, nor would shehave been allowed to; it was understood that a trauma once experienced would adversely affect an ability to do the job withouttrepidation in future.

Maisie had told Brenda the truth to a point—that she was now helping in a government office and that Billy had taken up morework in her private investigation business. Better to tell a half-truth rather than a lie—lies could become hard to maintain.

It was MacFarlane who had summoned Maisie to a Baker Street address earlier in the year, to inform her that her expertisewas now required for the war effort. Her particular role was top secret, however, and had to remain so, even after the conflicthad ended. The job was for the SOE, interviewing prospective resistance agents at various points in their training to assesstheir continued fitness for the role and to predict how they might respond under increasing pressure—the very high-stakespressure of assuming a false identity while living in a German-occupied country. And those agents would not simply be a partof a community, they had to work—as waiters, as children’s nurses, or as secretaries and farm hands—while at the same timecoordinating support for local and regional resistance operations, where they would conduct acts of espionage and sabotageagainst the enemy, or send vital information to London.

Agents had to be prepared to enter France at night, leaping from a Lysander aircraft as it rolled along a field lit by torches. The aircraft would often take on board a returning agent after the drop-off and had to be in the air again within three minutes of landing, so speed was of the essence. Or the agent would land in France via a parachute drop, bury the chute and then be ready to travel by train to meet a contact, all the while remembering to speak nothing but French and confident in their role and new identity to show their forged documents to any German guards without taking flight if stopped. The agents had to be prepared to die—to withstand torture, and to take their own lives with their issued cyanide pill if capture was imminent. They called it their “L-pill”—for it was indeed lethal.

In short, a resistance agent was required to be a certain type of person, and the task of recruiting them fell to the scoutswho brought them into the SOE, followed by experts who interviewed them and pronounced them suitable candidates. They werethen handed over to the seasoned agents and military personnel tasked with preparing them for their remit. If they passedevery test, they would be sent overseas—and France was not the only destination—where they would risk their lives for a countrythat would never admit to knowing who they were, and would disown them if they were captured.

Maisie felt the weight on her shoulders, a sensation that was not just metaphorical, but manifested in a painful sensationof pressure that ran from her neck down to the base of her spine. She sat up in her chair, assuming strength in her backbone.

“Shall we get on before the first of these two interviewees comes in?” MacFarlane nodded toward the folders. “They’ve bothadvanced through every component of their training, so this is the final once-over before they leave. If you have any doubts,well, at least we know what we might expect and plan accordingly.”

Maisie nodded, and opened the first folder. Upon seeing the name at the top of the sheet of paper inside, she felt as if someone had touched her neck with an ice pick along the very place where she had been wounded by shrapnel in the last war. It was a chapter of her life she had relegated to the distant past, yet since war was declared in 1939, she sometimes felt as if it were only yesterday. It was a time before she became a psychologist and investigator, before she knew what it was to solve a crime, but more than anything, before she knew who she really was.

She closed the folder and opened the second. She exhaled deeply before looking up at MacFarlane, who was pushing back hischair as if to stand.

“What do you think you’re doing, Robbie?” Her tone was sharp. “I cannot interview either of these candidates, and you knowit. It’s a . . . a . . . a conflict of interest. I know both of them, and the fact that it’s fallen to me to interview themis a setup—isn’t it?” She tried to quell her feelings. It was hard enough doing this job—hard enough being dispassionate abouther role, which she accepted because she knew