Jackdaws

No, she needed something more sure. She thought again about Greta. She could not pass for French. The Gestapo might not notice her accent, since they spoke French the same way, but the French police would. Did she have to pretend to be French? There were plenty of German women in France: officers’ wives, young women in the armed services, drivers and typists and wireless operators. Flick began to feel excited again. Why not? Greta could pose as an army secretary. No, that could cause problems-an officer might start giving her orders. It would be safer for her to pose as a civilian. She could be the young wife of an officer, living with her husband in Paris-no, Vichy, it was farther away. There would have to be a story about why Greta was traveling with a group of French women. Perhaps one of the team could pose as her French maid.

What about when they entered the château? Flick was pretty sure there were no German women working as cleaners in France. How could Greta evade suspicion? Once again, Germans probably would not notice her accent, but French people would. Could she avoid speaking to any French people? Pretend she had laryngitis?

She might be able to get away with it for a few minutes, Flick thought.

It was not exactly watertight, but it was better than any other option.

Greta finished her act with a hilariously suggestive blues song called “Kitchen Man,” full of double-entendres. The audience loved the line: “When I eat his doughnuts, all I leave is the hole.” She left the stage to gales of applause. Mark got up, saying, “We can talk to her in her dressing room.”

Flick followed him through a door beside the stage, down a smelly concrete corridor, into a dingy area crammed with cardboard boxes of beer and gin. It was like the cellar of a run-down pub. They came to a door that had a pink paper cutout star fixed to it with thumb-tacks. Mark knocked and opened it without waiting for a reply.

The tiny room had a dressing table, a mirror surrounded by bright makeup lights, a stool, and a movie poster showing Greta Garbo in Two-Faced Woman. An elaborate blonde wig rested on a stand shaped like a head. The red dress Greta had worn on stage hung from a hook on the wall. Sitting on the stool in front of the mirror, Flick saw, to her utter astonishment, was a young man with a hairy chest.

She gasped.

It was Greta, no question. The face was heavily made up, with vivid lipstick and false eyelashes, plucked eyebrows, and a layer of makeup hiding the shadow of a dark beard. The hair was cut brutally short, no doubt to accommodate the wig. The false bosom was presumably fixed inside the dress, but Greta still wore a half-slip, stockings, and red high-heeled shoes.

Flick rounded on Mark. “You didn’t tell me!” she accused.

He laughed delightedly. “Flick, meet Gerhard,” he said. “He loves it when people don’t realize.”

Flick saw that Gerhard was looking pleased. Of course he would be happy that she had taken him for a real woman. It was a tribute to his art. She did not need to worry that she had insulted him.

But he was a man. And she needed a woman telephone engineer.

Flick was painfully disappointed. Greta would have been the last piece in the jigsaw, the woman who made the team complete. Now the mission was in doubt again.

She was angry with Mark. “This was so mean of you!” she said. “I thought you’d solved my problem, but you were just playing a joke.”

“It’s not a joke,” Mark said indignantly. “If you need a woman, take Greta.”

“I couldn’t,” Flick said. It was a ridiculous idea.

Or was it? Greta had convinced her. She could probably do the same to the Gestapo. If they arrested her and stripped her they would learn the truth, but if they got to that stage it was generally all over anyway.

She thought of the hierarchy at SOE, and Simon Fortescue at MI6. “The top brass would never agree to it.”

“Don’t tell them,” Mark suggested.

“Not tell them!” Flick was at first shocked, then intrigued by that idea. If Greta was to fool the Gestapo, she ought also to be able to deceive everyone at SOE.

“Why not?” said Mark.

“Why not?” Flick repeated.

Gerhard said, “Mark, sweetie, what is all this about?” His German accent was stronger in speech than in song.

“I don’t really know,” Mark told him. “My sister is involved in something hush-hush.”

“I’ll explain,” Flick said. “But first, tell me about yourself How did you come to London?”

“Well, sweetheart, where shall I begin?” Gerhard lit a cigarette. “I’m from Hamburg. Twelve years ago, when I was a boy of sixteen, and an apprentice telephone engineer, it was a wonderful town, bars and nightclubs full of sailors making the most of their shore leave. I had the best time. And when I was eighteen I met the love of my life. His name was Manfred.”