The rapid speech and the eye contact, the fixed expression . . . They were all signs Joan had seen before, during her work with the captured German officers. When somebody didn’t want you to know something, they often overcompensated. The more a prisoner smiled at her and held her eye, the more he fidgeted, the more she probed with her questions.
This time, Jeremy was clearly anxious for her not to look at his desk. He’d resisted looking at it himself, even when it would have been natural to.
At last – the door-opening ploy had finally worked. Joan just needed to know what she wasn’t supposed to see.
‘Oh my God! Was that a rat?’ she shrieked, staring at the wall behind him and pointing at the skirting under the window with a trembling finger.
Jeremy swivelled to look ‘Where?’
‘Gone behind the bookcase. It was enormous!’
‘I’m sure it’s a mouse, Joan. You must be used to them by now. Surely they had them in Bow?’
‘They did, but that was a monster!’
‘I didn’t see anything,’ he muttered, turning back to his desk. ‘And I haven’t heard scrabbling recently. You have a vivid imagination. Now, shall we go and say happy birthday? Only a small slice, I think. I need to watch my waistline.’
He accompanied her out of his room, pushing her gently into the corridor by the small of her back, locking the door behind him as he usually did, and pocketing the key.
In the few seconds while his back was turned, Joan had made a mental inventory of everything on his desktop. Only one thing stood out: a recently opened letter, beside the antique Moghul dagger he liked to use as a paper knife. The wording of the letter was suggestive. The image on its letterhead looked vaguely royal, but she hadn’t seen it before. Several people in the palace would probably be able to tell her what it was, but she didn’t dare risk sharing her question with any of them. There was only one person she could think of to ask.
Hector Ross had been away from the flat in Dolphin Square for a couple of days. Joan was relieved to see him back at the stove the evening of the sixteenth, doing something with eggs and butter.
‘I’m making an omelette. Would you like one?’ he asked.
‘Will there be enough?’ she asked.
‘Plenty. I brought half a dozen eggs back from the country. And I picked some herbs in the garden over the weekend. It’s an Italian recipe, to go with this wine.’
Joan looked at the bottle he indicated on the counter, which had Italian writing and a picture of a black cockerel on it. The wine itself was dark red in the glass Hector had poured for himself beside it. It looked inviting. She wondered if he had spent some of his war fighting up through Italy.
‘Thank you.’
She let him pour a glass for her and watched him at work. The timing of what she was about to say was good. It was always easier when you didn’t have to stare someone in the face.
‘By the way.’ She was as casual as could be. ‘I saw one of the secretaries in a flap about a letter recently. I only saw it from a distance, but I wondered who it might be from. She was terribly flustered by it.’
‘Oh?’ Hector paused to check the omelette he was finishing. It looked rich and golden. The sizzle and the smell were surprisingly good from such simple ingredients. ‘What did you see?’
‘There was a crest. Might you know it? I’m still learning.’
‘I might.’
‘It was quite small. A blue hexagon with a crown on top and writing round the edge. And some sort of symbol in the middle.’
‘Hmm. Was that all?’
‘Yes.’
‘Might the symbol have been a letter? An E, perhaps?’ he asked.
Joan thought about it. ‘Yes, possibly. If it was angled to fit the hexagon.’
He nodded, lifting the frying pan and sliding the cooked omelette onto a waiting plate. He placed another plate over it to keep it warm, while he melted a fresh pat of butter in the pan. ‘That would be the Duke of Windsor. Edward – though he was only officially Edward for months, I suppose.’
‘Yes,’ Joan mused. ‘He’s David, really, isn’t he?’
‘Hard to know
‘Mmm.’
Hector whisked two more eggs in a mug with a sprinkle of salt and pepper. He poured the mixture into the sizzling pan.
‘Of course, Wallis had a similar cypher made to match. It didn’t have the writing round the edge, I believe. The central letter couldn’t have been a W, could it?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Joan said airily. ‘Shall I lay the table?’
‘Go ahead.’
She retrieved knives and forks from one of the drawers, and water glasses from a cupboard.
She did know which letter it was: definitely the ‘E’, not the ‘W’.
It worried her a little that Hector hadn’t even glanced round to face her as he spoke to her, despite being so helpful. It was as if he could tell she was trying to avoid making too much of the question, and therefore was mirroring her.
