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I cross over to the bed. A memory threads its way into my consciousness. I perch on the edge of the bed and open the bag. It’s wedged tight with papers. Papers? It takes another moment for everything to become clear. I stole about thirty sheets of paper from those piles before they were destroyed. I might have proof. I stand. I sit. What do I do?

My first instinct is to run to Charlie. My second instinct is to sit back down and think that one through again. Because I can’t do that. What if these papers reveal nothing? What if this isn’t proof? Then I will have opened a Pandora’s box of chaos and gossip for him that Chief Wilmot will not appreciate. Sergeant Boyle will love it, but that proves my point too. Just as Charlie wanted to protect me, I must protect him.

What do I do?

I sit worrying a ragged thumbnail and paging through the papers until another memory comes to me. That blasted radio Grant Ridley hid in my room back in London. He took me with him when he went to sell it. He didn’t care that he’d lied to me, thought it was all a great joke. But as we were delivering it to some back alley in Clapham, he stopped and pointed to a garage down the block.

“They don’t think anyone knows, but that’s a Security Service auto shop. I know a couple of gits who got busted trying to sell parts there once.”

That’s where I’ll go. A Security Service auto shop means Security Service officers.

While I work out my plan and convince myself it’s a good one, I sort my room, wash all my dishes, and push the carpet sweeper over every inch. Then I wash myself, dress, and pick up the papers again to go over them more carefully. I then notice the time—I’ve wasted too much already. If I don’t hurry, I won’t make it to Clapham during business hours. I shove the papers back into my handbag.

The next part is a bit trickier, as I don’t know where in the store Mr. and Mrs. Hastings might be at this moment. Mrs. Hastings came in for the week to help her husband, and both insisted I am not to return to my duties until next Monday. Neither will be pleased to see me up and about and sneaking down the stairs behind the store’s storage room.

I tread carefully to the left down the stairs, skipping over the third step from the bottom. It squeals terribly and will surely be heard if either is working in the back. I open the door to the alley, shut it more quietly yet, and make my way out with no one the wiser. Part of me feels silly. I’m a grown woman and the Hastingses aren’t my parents. But the better part of me knows they care for me and I care for them. I respect them, too, and if either sent me back upstairs I’d go.

Pulling my scarf over my head, I dash down the alley rather than up to High Street. My plan is to take a path between the houses and shops until Hill Rise, then turn back onto High Street to catch a bus. That way I won’t pass any of the shops, nor will I pass by the constabulary.

My duplicity weighs upon me, but I push it away. This is for them. All of them. All of us. The Red Scare is real. Klaus Fuchs is a real problem. The Soviet atomic bomb tests are a true concern. And somehow, someway, Ursula Beurton is involved in it.

I race down Hill Rise just as the bus is pulling to the corner. My timing could not be better. I hop on without pausing and grab a seat in the back. I survey everything around me to make sure no one has noticed me or is following me. I almost laugh at myself, but then I remember both incidences, the man who followed me in Woodstock and the man who gave me this tender spot on the top of my head, and I scan about again.

I watch all the passengers in the bus, the cars driving by, and anything and everything that passes my vision, but nothing feels incongruous as we approach Oxford. But for good measure, I still take a circuitous route to the train station.

There I hop a train to London, and after fully assessing my surroundings again, I spend the hour’s ride trying to recreate my walk with Grant that day. It was months ago, however, and I fear I’ve lost a few details.

Yet upon leaving the station, I soon find the chippy we passed. I walk another block down St. John’s Road and spy the pub we stopped in for a pint. But as I recognize another pub we stepped into right before we caught the train back into city center, I realize I’ve missed a corner. Only I can’t remember where.

My head aches so badly I sit down on a bench outside a bakery and close my eyes. The world feels quieter, smaller, and the headache recedes. With my eyes still closed I direct my imagination back to that afternoon, back to that horrid acrid cologne Grant used to pour over himself, and I force myself to walk beside him. I take two steps to each of his. I race to catch up. I strive to not breathe heavy so he won’t call me an idle cow again. And I see it. I finally see it.

Barnard Road.

I open my eyes and set off. Two blocks farther, I turn the corner and there it is. A discreet garage with a blue pull-door and a black door next to it. The paint is old, chipping, and there’s no signage at all. It stands exactly like something that’s been there so long everyone assumes they know what it is or they never notice it anymore, walking by without a second glance.

I knock at the door, and when no one answers, I knock again. A man in blue coveralls finally pulls it open, but only slightly. He shoves himself into the small opening against the doorjamb and says, “We’re full up for work, miss.”

“I want . . .” I look down the street this way and that. No one is about. “I want to talk to someone in the Secret Service about a spy or maybe just a criminal that lives near me, or maybe neither, but I do believe she’s a spy and had something to do with Klaus Fuchs, the scientist who’s been arrested. I have papers.” I press my lips shut, fully aware that I should have worked out this part in my imagination too. That was a horrible delivery!

And yet he doesn’t react—which sort of tells me something.

“What are you blathering on about, miss? This is a garage.”

His tone is rude and dismissive, cuttingly cruel. I step back and almost turn away before I realize that’s exactly as he should sound. He reminds me of Grant Ridley, the man who could never be wrong. And that’s why I hope I’m right. Grant would never have told me of this garage if he wasn’t darn sure it was true. The worst thing in the world to Grant would be to get caught out as a liar or, worse yet, a man not in the know.

I force myself to stand straight and stare the man in the eye. “You’re an MI5 repair shop. You only work on Service cars, and that means you know intelligence officers. I need to speak to one.”

He says nothing, but I do get a reaction. One nostril flares. I work not to quake where I’m standing.

“Wait here, miss.”

I stand so long, again searching the street one way and then the other—still no one is nearby or paying attention to me—that I almost give up, when a man, this time dressed in a suit, steps through the doorway. “May I help you?”

“Please. I want to speak with someone about something going on in my village. I don’t know how to reach the right someone, but you do.”

“I cannot help you. You need to move along.”

“I will. But I have these.” I open my handbag and pull out the papers. I’m about to shove them towards him when a tiny thread of doubt creeps in. I looked at them, but I didn’t make copies! Or at least copy some of the information. And if I give these up and Grant was wrong, then my last and only proof will be gone too.