The Consequences of Fear by Jacqueline Winspear (the best electronic book reader TXT) 📗

it’s as simple as that. He’s a sergeant over at a police station near the Elephant and Castle,so when he told me she’d finished her driver training with the ATS, I made some inquiries, pulled a few strings and snappedher up. She’s my best driver—and for you, Maisie, only the best will do.” He pointed to her meal, encouraging her to start.“Anyway, the fact that you knew her is, indeed, no more than a simple coincidence, so there’s your honest answer. Now then,eat up, because I don’t want to miss the pudding course, and if I leave it too late, it’ll sit on my chest all night.”

Maisie picked up her knife and fork and began to cut into the pie. “Maurice always had something to say about coincidence, you know—he said coincidence is a messenger sent by truth.”

“You’ve mentioned that before, Maisie, and not just once. You know as well as the next person—as well as the next detective—thatin our business there are always coincidences. They settle like flies on dead meat in any investigation. Personally, if Ilook back on some of the useless alleys I’ve been led along while following a trail left by coincidences, I’d say they weredispatched by an evil little gnome bent on sending us off down the wrong line of inquiry.” He scooped up a forkful of mashedpotato, holding it above the plate as he continued. “Some of these so-called coincidences mean something, and some don’t.”He put down his knife to take a hefty gulp of wine. “Right, now that’s out of the way, can we get stuck in to our dinner beforeit gets cold? And I want to talk to you about our plans for the next couple of days—we’ve got our work cut out for us. Oh,and one more thing—I’ve arranged for you to fly home. You’ll be getting a lift on an RAF flight from Prestwick down to BigginHill. All being well, Corporal Bright will pick you up and take you straight to your country seat, Your Ladyship.”

“That’s enough of the title, Robbie. Mind you, I’d have been shocked if you hadn’t pulled that out of your hat at least onceover supper. But thank you for arranging the flight back—I appreciate it, much as I hate flying.”

 

MacFarlane and Maisie were met at Waverley Station by a black motor car, though this time the driver was a soldier in the uniform of a Scottish regiment. The one-and-a-half-hour journey took them across a landscape she knew well from the months she had spent in Scotland during the years of her apprenticeship, when Maurice had arranged for her to train in the fundamentals of legal medicine so that she might deepen her knowledge of the fast-developing field of forensic science. While the vistas were different from those of the soft, undulating Kentish countryside, she had grown to love the beauty of Scotland, so the drive calmed growing feelings of conflict regarding her role with the Special Operations Executive. There was little conversation between MacFarlane and Maisie, and all too soon they arrived at a property that on her first visit she thought could pass as a fairy-tale castle if the country were not at war. The gray granite manor house with mullioned windows, small turrets near the roof and a round tower at each end would have seemed magical at any other time—and under any other circumstances.

The grounds were extensive, surrounded by rugged terrain that stretched for miles, with only one ancient bothy to be seenin the distance. The estate was the place where men and women recently recruited to join the Special Operations Executivecame to be tested in every way imaginable and on every level—physical, emotional, moral, and spiritual. Only if they passedwould they be sent for additional training and subsequently deployed to join a resistance group in Europe or—for just a few—Scandinavia.Most would be bound for France.

Maisie knew that both Pascale and Elinor had already endured the tests inflicted upon them, and they had passed every stage of scrutiny, even the terrible repeated rounds of sleep deprivation followed by interrogation. Had they not come through their trial by fire, she would not have been interviewing them prior to deployment. She knew very well that they could already be waiting in a different kind of manor house, a very English property in Hampshire where they would enjoy good food, fine wine and some laughs with others who had been readied for the same work, and they would sleep in comfortable beds—until one morning when they came down for breakfast and saw their names chalked on the board in the dining room, and knew that they were the next agents scheduled for departure. Maisie understood only too well that when the moment came, even if they had not experienced true fear before, then they would feel her tentacles reaching into the very center of their being. For a good agent, fear seemed to linger on a balance beam. If it was kept plumb in the center of the beam, fear would protect them; it would enhance their senses and alert them to danger. Fear could be an agent’s greatest asset. But if fear increased and tipped the balance too far in one direction, then it could paralyze an agent, lead to ill-considered decisions, panic, and errors that might risk the lives of others and result in their own death. And if fear were diminished to a point of overconfidence, then they and an entire resistance line were as good as finished. Fear had to be handled with care, managed so it became a tool, not a weight.

Once the names were on the board, the clock was ticking. At nightfall the agents would be taken to an airfield nearby, where a senior member of the SOE would check their coat pockets and the labels in their clothing, just to make sure they hadn’t left anything about their person that would identify them as British. A French lipstick might be slipped into a woman’s handbag, or a