Page 79 of The Paris Agent
“I’m not ashamed of that. We had a unique relationship and we were both single at the time,” Dad says. “But you asked me was she capable? The truth is, there was no one better. She was brilliant. Dedicated and creative. Cautious and persistent. Even in the face of unimaginable danger, her resolve never wavered once, and all of the best things I did through the war, I could only do because she was my partner at the time. I brought out the best in her—and I felt she did exactly the same for me. But...” Dad trails off, his voice breaking, and a strange tension crosses his face. “It all gets a bit blurry after our main mission was complete. I do remember saying goodbye to her at a train station and feeling as if my heart had been torn from my chest. And then of course, my accident happened a few months later—and when I started to get my wits about me again I felt a very strong pull to find her in Paris, but for the life of me, I could not remember the details. I was utterly lost until I saw that poster inviting SOE agents to meet at the apartment the officials had set up. That’s when one of our officials told me she was dead.”
“I’m sorry, Dad,” I say. He sighs, looking out the window wistfully.
“Grief has a way of hitting a person like a ton of bricks sometimes, as you now understand all too well. When I finally came home, I went to your mother because I really didn’t have anywhere else to go. I told myself I’d just ask for her help until I was on my feet again, maybe just a few months, but my recovery took so much longer than that. And your mum always was the kind of woman who found it easier to love wholeheartedly than she did to accept love herself. She was there for me at the worst moment of my life. Of course I grew to love her a second time.”
“I found the letters,” I say slowly. “The ones from Professor Read. Mom had hidden them.”
Dad looks briefly surprised, but his expression quickly shifts, until he’s just resigned. He walks around the desk to sit in the visitor’s chair beside me.
“I wanted to track Remy down right after you were born,” he admits.
“You did?” I say, startled.
“I was so happy and the future felt so bright. I wanted to find him...maybe to show him the beautiful baby girl I would never have known if he hadn’t saved my life that day. But when I told your mum, she just about blew a gasket. Reminded me of what a mess I was when she took me in after the war. I felt so guilty for that, I never brought it up again.”
“How did Josie die, Dad?” I whisper. My dad is very still as he thinks about this question.
“I don’t know the specifics,” he admits heavily. “They just told me the Gestapo executed her.”
“Could Doctor Sallow have been given incorrect information about her daughter’s death?”
“I’m really not sure, love. I doubt it.”
“It’s just she was told that Josie made a mistake. Something that led to her capture, and the capture of another agent.”
Dad hesitates, then rubs his eyes.
“Shewasdropped into a war zone with just a few months training. I suppose anything is possible, but the Josie I knew was careful and diligent.”
We sit in silence, until I ask hesitantly, “Is there any chance that Josie might have had a child?”
At this, my father looks at me blankly.
“When on earth could she have had a child?”
“Early 1942?” I suggest. His gaze grows skeptical.
“She was definitely not pregnant when we parted in 1941, and after that, she was so unwell. There’s no chance she managed to have a baby at that point in her life.”
It is exactly as Drusilla says, but I am disappointed for Theo anyway.
“Does Josie’s mother understand that even if her daughter did make a mistake or two, she was still an incredible agent? The only thing I know for sure is that the war ended because women like Josie stepped up,” Dad says.
“I really don’t think Drusilla does understand that, Dad,” I whisper, thinking about the sadness in Drusilla’s eyes as she talked about her daughter.
“Maybe one day I could meet her.”
“Maybe one day, that would be good for both of you,” I agree. I might even facilitate such a meeting myself. There’s just someone else I have to speak to first.
C?H?A?P?T?E?R25
ELOISE
Karlsruhe Prison, Germany
September, 1944
“What do you think will happen?” Josie asked me on that first night together. It was late, and we were lying side by side on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. I was still shaken by the events of the day—by the reunion with my friend, or what was left of her, as tortured and starved as she had been, and by the news that my son was not safe from the risk of the war, as I’d long believed. “I am months behind what is happening with the war, of course. Has there been any good news?”
