a development that her father had readily encouraged. She thought about her little brother Tom, his keen, inquisitive mind and how he’d follow her around the house asking her all manner of questions so he could be in her presence. She pondered how it had been hard to not write to her older sister Caroline, newly married, to tell her about what she was doing, as her superiors had demanded of her. They had always been close. Lastly she saw John, his ruddy face smiling up at her, demanding that Vivi read him yet another story.
Vivi hadn’t thought about it before she left, but now, she realised, with the presence of the German army all around her, that her life was in jeopardy every moment of every day and there may be a chance that she wouldn’t see any of her family again. She felt the tears creep into her eyes and quickly wiped them away. She had to be brave. Everyone did. Or they would never win the war.
7
Present Day
From then on Sophie couldn’t seem to let go of the story of her mysterious great-aunt. The picture of Vivienne haunted her dreams and occupied her days. She wasn’t sure if it was her innate curiosity or the fact she missed her mother so much, and here was another connection with a woman who could have been her mother’s twin, and that alone made her want to know more. The lawyer in her also found it hard to rest without knowing Vivienne’s definitive motives for leaving the country with a Nazi. Yes, it looked bad, but one thing she had learned in her former line of work was that you always need to keep an open mind, as things could often look bad on the surface.
A few days after visiting her gran, Sophie decided to visit the National Archives, which housed extensive military records as well as historical documents, in order to conduct a little research to see if she could find out if Vivienne had an early war record – the one that Gran had hinted at. Arriving there she moved swiftly inside, recognising a number of the staff, as she had been spending at least two days a week in there doing research ahead of the exhibition.
Peter, an amiable young archivist who happened to be a World War Two buff and had been very helpful to her, smiled when she approached his counter. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said, sitting back in his chair and locking his hands behind his head. ‘You’re searching for more information about the London bombings?’
‘Not any more, we opened the exhibition already. Though I do still need information from that time period. But this time I’m actually interested in the history of buildings on Baker Street. I was reading that apparently SOE was located there and I am especially interested in any records of agents visiting there in forty-four. It is kind of a needle in a haystack, but I am trying to track down what someone might be doing visiting there during that time.’
‘Intriguing,’ responded Peter. ‘This is easier now we have a lot more files from the war in the public record. Okay then, let me take you to that section.’
As they walked Peter filled her in on what he knew about SOE. ‘The Special Operations Executive, which was established during the war by Winston Churchill, was a British spy network that sent agents into all of Europe to disrupt German activities during the war. Its purpose had been to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied Europe.’ As they reached the correct section, Peter finished his history lesson. ‘They had over thirteen thousand people working for them between 1940 to 1946, with at least five thousand working undercover as spies. They were mostly wireless operators, couriers, Resistance organisers and saboteurs.’
Once again Sophie wondered whether her aunt could have been one of them.
As Peter left her, Sophie started working her way through the files kept by SOE, looking for information about agents who had visited Baker Street in early March 1944 when the photograph had been taken. Eventually, she found a copy of a file that recorded all the agents who had visited the offices during that time but it only stated their code names and their initials to help protect their identity.
A letter inside the file informed the reader this log had been kept in a secret vault until after the war, locked to protect the spies and their whereabouts. Sophie