55

Margaret was in my armchair, in the snug, her feet up on a wooden stool. She was asleep. The fireplace smelt of hundreds of years of smoke, even in the midst of summer. Stacks of books and seed catalogues covered the table under the window. She had a paperback on her lap, and an oil lamp glowed on the side table.

I kissed her, and she opened one eye.

‘Change of plan,’ I said. ‘Infiltrate Vaughn’s Nazi club.’

‘Why?’ she asked.

‘Bunny,’ I said.

I sat in the opposite armchair and took my boots off.

‘Do I get the full story?’ she asked.

‘Top secret,’ I said.

‘I thought we told each other our things.’

‘Do we?’ I asked.

She opened her other eye.

‘Miriam likes you,’ she said. ‘We could use that to our advantage.’

‘I’m not that charming.’

‘I’ve seen the way she looks at you. If she thought there was a chance to steal you away from me she’d jump on it.’

‘Speaking figuratively,’ I said.

‘Or literally.’

‘Are we talking about me and Miriam? Or you and Vaughn?’

‘I’ve got no interest in Vaughn. Quite the opposite.’

‘I couldn’t do it,’ I said.

‘Why not? I’m not the first woman you’ve been intimate with,’ she said, ‘and I won’t be the last.’

‘You might be.’

‘The Germans might not invade, you know,’ she said. ‘You might still have a few years left in you.’

‘Even so,’ I said.

She leant forwards and took my hand.

‘John, there’s a lot you don’t know about me.’

We sat quietly.

‘You’d seduce Vaughn if it gave us a tactical advantage?’ I asked.

It made my skin crawl to imagine Margaret with Vaughn, no matter how useful it might be.

‘Is what Bunny asked you to do important?’

‘Vital,’ I said.

‘Make or break? Do or die?’

I nodded. Margaret’s logic was always impeccable, even if I didn’t like the direction it took us.

‘So. Whatever it takes,’ she said.

The same words as Bunny. The same cold logic. The two of them cut from the same cloth.

Whatever it takes.