A Beautiful Spy Read online

  This was such an unexpected turn of affairs that Minnie gave a little laugh.

  ‘I’m not being funny, Minnie. No promises, but I could pass on your name, if you liked.’ She flicked ash from her cigarette with a stylish movement.

  Minnie froze. And now everything fell into place. The Secret Service. That’s who Dolly must work for and why she couldn’t speak about it. How thrilling! She thought of her own job, typing endless letters asking members to renew their subscriptions, the boredom of filing, stacking leaflets, answering the telephone to complaints. She had spoken the truth about liking to work, but the Automobile Association wouldn’t do for ever.

  Now it was as though a window opened in her mind and light and fresh air rushed in. The Secret Service. What would it be like? Shadowing and spying. Noticing things that others didn’t. Like the pictures, perhaps. Excitement rushed through her. Minnie sat straighter and looked Dolly in the eye. ‘I’m not sure what to say. Yes, I think.’ Immediately the old self-doubt set in. ‘Do you really mean it?’

  ‘Of course.’ Dolly looked back at her steadily then reached and touched her hand. ‘You’d be marvellous, I can tell. I’ve been watching you for a while. There’s something about you they’d like, Minnie Gray.’

  Minnie stared at her in astonishment. Dolly Pyle had been watching her! Why? And who in heaven’s name were ‘they’?

  Two

  1931

  For a long time nothing at all happened.

  After a few weeks living in a state of high anticipation, then several more feeling let down, Minnie concluded that the opportunity had gone away. If indeed it had ever existed in the first place. All Dolly told her that sunny morning at the tea room was that she’d pass on Minnie’s details to her employers. Minnie was fairly certain that Dolly had kept her word – she trusted Dolly – but she also imagined that the older woman had no control over the outcome. Maybe whoever did had not liked the cut of Minnie’s jib. Since Minnie approached life half expecting this reaction, she didn’t question the idea.

  The women remained on friendly terms, but neither spoke about the matter again. A year passed, then two, and Dolly visited the Club less frequently. Minnie almost – but not quite – forgot about that moment when life had suddenly promised freedom and adventure.

  * * *

  On a gloomy Monday evening in November 1931, a letter was waiting for Minnie when she returned from work. She settled at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and slit open the official-looking envelope with a sense of disquiet, rustling open the sheet of paper inside. A government crest was printed at the top, but she squinted in vain at the scrawled signature under the typed message. The letter itself was brief, inviting her to ring Kensington 8128 to arrange an appointment. It was to do with a ‘vacancy’ in which she had apparently expressed an interest. ‘You are requested to keep this matter private,’ was the final sentence. Minnie glanced again at the printed crest and the memory of that summer afternoon flooded back. Would you be interested in working for the government? A gasp and her hand flew to her mouth.

  ‘What’s that you’ve got, dear?’ Her mother was standing at the stove in her apron, stirring a pan redolent with the savoury smell of yesterday’s roast lamb.

  ‘It’s to do with Dolly Pyle from the Club.’ Minnie hastily folded the letter away into her handbag. ‘I told you about Dolly. She works in London. From time to time her firm needs another typist and I gave her my address once, ages ago. Perhaps I’ll ring them up.’

  ‘Minnie, you don’t want to move to London, do you?’ Her mother looked anxious and Minnie felt the usual mixture of tenderness, guilt and exasperation that marked their relationship. Boots, their fractious tabby cat, chose this moment to leap up onto her lap.

  ‘I might do,’ she said cautiously, waiting for the cat to turn round and settle. ‘Not much for me in Edgbaston, is there, Boots?’ The cat crouched into a tea cosy shape and began to purr.

  ‘Of course there is.’ Her mother clanged a lid onto the bubbling stew and sighed. ‘If you’d only try a little harder.’

  ‘If this is about Raymond again, Mother, then please don’t.’

  ‘I still don’t understand why you were so discouraging of him. I thought he was very patient with you.’

  Minnie pressed her cheek into the cat’s throbbing warmth. Her relationship with Raymond was the other result of the garden party. It had been her mother’s fault, asking him to tea like that and then he’d invited Minnie to make up a four for tennis. For a couple of years they’d met most weeks, sometimes as part of a group to go dancing or to watch motor racing, an enthusiasm of his, sometimes just the pair of them for the pictures. She’d come to love him but in a gentle way. For a long while they were simply friends before things developed. Then she readily succumbed to his kisses, and he kissed delightfully, but all the time the idea went through Minnie’s mind that life had something more in store for her and that somewhere there must be someone who’d make her blood race, who’d scoop her up and carry her away, like Errol Flynn in a movie, and she’d be too overcome with desire to resist. Raymond was old-fashioned on that front and she, too, held back, not feeling ready to commit herself to the kind of life marriage with him offered; settling down, leaving her job, having children, endless housework.

  In the end she’d had to be honest. She was very fond of him, she told him with a lump in her throat one Sunday when he arrived to see her with a bunch of expensive flowers and a diamond ring in a velvet-covered box. ‘I’m sorry, Raymond, I don’t feel ready to get engaged.’

  ‘I can wait, Minnie, if time is what you need.’

  ‘It’s not fair on you,’ she wailed. ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready.’

  ‘I see,’ he said brokenly, putting away the little box.

  It was with a mixture of relief and regret that she closed the door on his departing figure. She’d always believed that she would be married by twenty-five and Raymond had been her last hope of that.

  Although this had happened months ago, Mrs Gray was still upset.

  ‘You’re such a lovely girl when you try.’

  ‘You’re my darling mother. You would say that.’

  ‘There are some pretty dresses in my catalogue this month.’

  ‘Try them on my sisters, then. You know pretty doesn’t suit me.’

  Minnie was not happy with the looks God had given her. In her opinion her nose looked like a lump of putty, which no amount of powder could disguise, and she felt dreadfully self-conscious about her hourglass figure. Workmen called after her in the street sometimes, beastly words that made her feel ashamed, but which, perversely, encouraged her to emphasise the curves they clearly admired. Good corsetry helped. As for her peroxided hair, it was a boost to her confidence to see Hell’s Angels at the cinema. ‘I love Jean Harlow,’ she told her mother. The feature that pleased her most was her mouth. Raymond had once said she had It Girl lips, so she took special care shaping them when she applied lipstick. She always wore plenty of make-up.

  That evening, in the privacy of her bedroom, Minnie read the letter once more and tried to remember what Dolly Pyle had said when she’d quizzed her during that long-ago meeting in the Palace tea room. Something about believing that she’d be good at the kind of work she’d be asked to do. She’d said that Minnie appeared honest, steady and loyal, but also very individual. Minnie privately agreed about the first three, but puzzled over individual. She hoped that it was a compliment rather than a euphemism for odd or maverick. She pondered this again. Sometimes, admittedly, she felt she didn’t fit in. She hadn’t any close friends. If her mother was cross she would say that Minnie was being difficult, but Minnie didn’t mean to be, it was simply the way she’d been made. She sighed. Well, if the Secret Service didn’t mind individual then it wouldn’t hurt to find out more.

  She made the call from a public phone box the following lunchtime and was put through to a snooty-sounding girl who gave her a time and a place for an interview. A café on Euston station to meet a Captain King and she wasn’t to tell anyone, not even her mother. It all sounded very hole-in-corner, she thought, as she returned to the Automobile Association to eat her lunch. Had she done the right thing?

  Three

  Minnie had visited London on a number of occasions in her life, but never on her own before and she let her mother assume that it was a proper interview in a London office. Worried about being late, she caught a train that arrived at Euston in good time then paced the sooty, windswept concourse for ten minutes before nervously approaching the restaurant.

  When she entered, a warm, smoky fug enveloped her. The place felt cosy, with its cheerful murmur of voices and homely clink of crockery. She glanced about. There were several smartly dressed men sitting alone at white-clothed tables. Which, if any, was Captain King? Then a genial-looking, clean-shaven man at a table in a corner looked up from his paper and met her eye. She walked hesitantly towards him and he rose to greet her.

  ‘Miss Gray,’ he said with a friendly, confident air. His handshake was firm and warm and she took to him right away. He was tall with a rangy, athletic frame and though with his irregular features he couldn’t be called handsome, there was an ease about him that she found very beguiling.

  ‘What a relief,’ Minnie said, smiling uncertainly. ‘I was concerned about how to find you.’

  ‘You gave my secretary an excellent description of yourself.’ His brown eyes gleamed with good-humour. He whisked her coat onto a hook on the wall while she sat down opposite him at the table.

  ‘I trust you had a comfortable journey?’ he asked and she nodded. ‘Good, now what can I get you to drink?’

  The waitress hurried over at his summons and Minnie observed the charm with which he ordered steak and kidney pie
and a pot of tea for them both and made the girl laugh. It should feel odd sitting here with a complete stranger, but the warmth with which he thanked Minnie for coming and the sincerity of his apology for not being in touch earlier reassured her. He was a good few years her senior, she thought, but still in his thirties probably, though the unlit pipe he held and his affable demeanour put her in mind of her mother’s older brother, her favourite uncle. He wore his dark hair combed back in the same way as Uncle Simon, too. She wondered if he was married.

  The tea arrived and she poured it, then sipped hers as he took a small notebook from his pocket and smoothed it open. Gently, he began to question her.

  ‘Now, Miss Gray, do you still work at the Automobile Association?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve been there five years.’ Minnie explained that though she wasn’t unhappy there exactly, the job had its frustrations and she was looking for a change. Something more demanding.

  ‘That’s admirable. Tell me about your duties there.’

  ‘The usual secretarial tasks, really.’ She described her responsibilities, trying to convey how typing, administration and dealing with telephone enquiries required her to be fast, accurate and efficient. All the while he listened closely, his eyes on her face.

  ‘Excellent,’ he said when she’d finished, and he made a note in his book. ‘And what do you like to do when you’re not working?’

  She told him about playing hockey and tennis. ‘I read a lot, nothing heavy, novels from the library mostly. Mother’s involved with the Edgbaston Conservatives and sometimes I help her by typing newsletters or delivering leaflets.’

  The Captain looked up from his notes. ‘Edgbaston. That’s Mr Chamberlain’s constituency now, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, he moved to us as it’s a safer seat, so everything’s much busier these days. We have more members. There’s a great deal of paperwork.’

  ‘And what do you think of your Honourable Member?’ He was looking at her shrewdly and Minnie sensed that her answer to this question was important, though she couldn’t think why.

  ‘I’ve only met him once or twice. I’m sure he doesn’t even remember my name. Everybody speaks highly of him, don’t they? He’s not at all grand, even though Mother says he’s becoming important in the Party.’

  ‘Your mother sounds very astute.’

  ‘She’s friendly with his wife, so she hears the latest news.’

  ‘Ah.’ Captain King wrote another note and underscored it. ‘It’s delightful that you help your mother in her political endeavours. You share her views, do you?’

  ‘I vote Conservative and Unionist, if that’s what you mean.’ Minnie shrugged. ‘It seems a natural thing for me to do.’

  Just then the waitress brought their food and there was a brief pause before he continued.

  ‘Tell me about your family, Miss Gray,’ he said between mouthfuls. ’Would you say that you’re close?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose we’ve had to be.’ His sympathetic eyes encouraged her. ‘You see, my father was killed in action in Flanders. Mother was left with four of us and my youngest brother on the way and there wasn’t ever much money.’

  His brow furrowed. ‘That must indeed have been very difficult. Where do you come in the family, Miss Gray?’

  ‘I’m the eldest. Though I wasn’t always…’ She found she couldn’t continue.

  A brief moment while she recovered, then the Captain moved on smoothly. ‘And the others, do they all still live at home?’

  ‘No, only the youngest, Doug, he’s still at school. One of my sisters, Marjorie, got married recently and the other has taken lodgings in the city to be near work. That’s Joan. My other brother Richard’s a policeman, or rather he’s training to be one.’

  ‘I see. That makes the five of you. You started to say something just now… when I asked about your place in the family.’

  ‘Did I?’ she said. How thorough he was. She put down her knife and fork, knitted her hands in her lap and took a breath. ‘I had an older brother once but he died when I was little.’ Eddie, bare legs dashing ahead of her through the grass, the breeze ruffling his chestnut-brown hair. She tried sometimes to remember his voice, his laugh, but it always eluded her.

  She looked up to see the Captain studying her and collected herself.

  ‘It still hurts, doesn’t it?’ he said quietly and she saw with a sudden sense of connection that he knew about that pain. ‘And your father. Do you remember him well?’

  ‘Yes, I was eleven when he died.’ Minnie couldn’t help bitterness invading her voice. The Captain waited for her to go on. ‘He was difficult to forget, a strong character.’ She described how he had worked for the Daily Mail in Manchester, where they’d lived, as their Northern night editor, how the family only saw him at odd times of day and then not at all for long periods after he went away to war.

  ‘Tell me more about him, Miss Gray. What exactly do you recall?’ His eyes were searching, though still kind, and his voice had a soothing quality so that she found herself saying more than she intended.

  ‘He was often tired, irritable, to be honest. His work was hard, that was Mother’s excuse. We were expected to be silent if he was sleeping during the day and it’s not easy for young children to be quiet, is it?’ Minnie hesitated, feeling guilty at betraying so much. Mother would be horrified if she knew.

  The waitress came and took away their plates and the conversation continued. It was the strangest of interviews, Minnie thought. She’d never known someone as interested in her life and opinions as Captain King. She even found herself telling him about Raymond, how the pair of them had shared interests in films and sport, though she managed to keep to herself how shy they’d been with one another physically. Instead she talked brightly about keeping an eye out for the right man, and that she’d know him when she saw him, but in the meantime she wasn’t concerned. She had plenty of other interests. And friends. She laughed as she described the jolly types she played hockey with. She was fond of them, of course, but, no, she couldn’t think of any to whom she was really close.

  ‘Do you still have pals from school?’

  ‘Not really.’ Minnie described how she had been sent away to boarding school, where she found life difficult and hadn’t got on well with some of the girls. Oh, she could make them laugh with her practical jokes, but then the school accused her of being disruptive and in the end Mother had taken her away. ‘Or rather,’ Minnie added, feeling compelled to be truthful, ‘they asked her to.’

  She glanced anxiously at Captain King, expecting him to be appalled by her confession, but instead a smile played round his lips. ‘That sounds like my school career,’ he said.

  ‘Did you play jokes, too?’ she asked eagerly.

  ‘Plenty. In addition, the staff didn’t appreciate me keeping pet mice in the dormitory. An injured crow once.’

  ‘Mice? Ugh, I’m not surprised. What about the bird? Did it recover?’

  ‘Yes, though I was made to give it to the gardener’s boy. I used to sneak off to make sure he was looking after it properly.’

  Minnie smiled. She suddenly liked this man immensely, wanted to please him.

  There was another pause while he wrote in his book. The waitress brought them fruit cocktail in glass dishes. Minnie spooned up the sharp sweetness. She was beginning to feel puzzled about the point of this meeting. Why was Captain King asking all these personal questions and what was the job?

  ‘Could you tell me…’ she asked. ‘Your letter mentioned an opportunity…’

  ‘Of course. You must be wondering what all this is about.’

  ‘I am rather.’

  He reached inside his jacket for his wallet and she was puzzled to see a sudden wriggling movement under the material at his breast, as though he kept something alive in his pocket. He smiled as her eyes widened, but did not explain.

  Was he preparing to pay? No, instead of coins from his wallet he extracted a folded newspaper cutting. She forgot about the odd wriggling and watched as he moved his empty plate aside and spread the cutting out between them. Minnie leaned in to read the headline. ‘Royal Navy mutiny at Invergordon’. She frowned. What relevance did that have to the interview?