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I suppose Eva was quite successful at extracting information the Jerries would rather not have leaked to the Brits, and perhaps she’s even beco thorns in the F&uuht von Linden would knoho I was talking about (I ht have mentioned her sooner if I had) At any rate I didn’t miss a beat – this is how I operate This is what I aood at Give me a hint, just one hint, and I will fake it It’s the thin end of the wedge for you, me laddie

I scraped my hair back from my face in the severe head it in place with one hand, straightened ether If you don’t stand too close to someone who is taller than you, you can still affect to sneer down your nose at him I said coldly, in German, ‘What possible reason could I have to pretend to be Berlin’s interpretive liaison with London?’

‘What proof? You have no valid papers,’ he said breathlessly ‘You were caught with Margaret Brodatt’s papers on you, but you are not Margaret Brodatt either, so why should you be Eva Seiler?’

I don’t think he knehether he was talking to me or to Eva at this point (He suffers a certain amount of sleep deprivation as well, due to the nature of his work)

‘Eva Seiler’s papers are all forgeries in any case,’ I pointed out ‘They wouldn’t prove anything’

I paused – count to three – and advanced on him Two baby steps only, to h of a distance between us, a ht Then another step, to allow hio of my hair and looked up at him, dishevelled and feminine, all doe eyes and vulnerability I asked in Gerh it had only just occurred to hter’s nauard down, and went red as a beetroot

I had got hi, instantly ain

‘I don’t need papers!’ I cried ‘I don’t need proof! I don’t need electrified needles and ice water and battery acid and the threat of kerosene! All I do is ask a question, and you answer it! What more perfect proof than one lovely word out of you – Isolde? I’m a wireless operator!’

‘Sit down,’ he commanded

‘What does Isolde think of your ork?’ I asked

He took the final step towards , and I aion s, expecting violence (not that he has ever laid a finger on me himself) I pulled the eiderdown up round my neck, an illusion of armour

‘Isolde is innocent ofsoftly:

‘Isolde noch

Iesschimmer

Noch Isolde …

Sie zu Sehen,

We lch Verlangen!’

Isolde still in the realht still, Isolde – How I long to see her!

(It is Wagner, one of the dying Tristan’s arias I can’t quite reht, nasal tenor – so beautiful It hurt worse than being slapped, being shown the irony of his life And of mine, of mine – OF MINE – Isolde alive in the day and the sun while I suffocate in Night and Fog, the unfairness of it, the rando in Switzerland, and Engel not getting any cognac and Ja his toes And Maddie, Oh lovely Maddie,

MADDIE

I pulled the eiderdown overat his feet

Then he stopped very abruptly He bent down and uncoveredht have spared yourself a great deal of suffering if you had confessed this sooner’

‘But I wouldn’t have been able to write it all down if I’d done that,’ I wept ‘So it orth it’

‘For e catch! He thought he’d reeled in yet another brown trout and it turns out he’s got a 30-pound sal to wrench itself off his barbed fishhook Perhaps he is hoping for a prohtened up and bowed his head courteously Alht politely, in French: ‘Je vous souhaite une bonne nuit’

And again I gratified hi

He sla the Vercors – he has read Le Silence de la Mer, The Silence of the Sea – the French Resistance tract, at et in trouble for it He baffles me I suppose it is mutual