are some great books you can download about how that was done. The important thing is to know the agent’s cipher.’
Sophie nodded, feeling despondent. ‘How would I find that out?’
‘If I knew that, I would be a very popular archivist,’ said Peter. ‘What do you know about your great-aunt? Did she have a favourite poem? That might be a starting place. Otherwise, I’m afraid you may never know what this says.’
Sophie shook her head. ‘I have only just found out about her recently. Also, do you know what this means?’ she enquired further, pointing to the scrawled note.
Peter read it. ‘Yes, this implies this was not sent by a real agent, but someone trying to lure real agents out of hiding in order to reveal themselves. They probably used her name signature.’
He pointed to the first few letters on the document. ‘This is the code for this SOE operative’s name, or her signature, this informed the receiver this was coming from your aunt, or, it appears by this note, someone pretending to be your aunt.’
Sophie stared at the first five letters, the name of her aunt, in code.
‘And what does “unable to confirm the fist” mean? Is it a typo?’
Peter started to come alive, he obviously loved this part of history. ‘Not at all. “Fist” is correct. All the messages were communicated by Morse code. The fist they talk about here relates to the way an agent typed their messages. Each agent had a particular style of tapping that could be read like a fingerprint. Heavy on a particular letter or longer on another. The receivers back here knew each agent in the field’s tapping fingerprint, or as they called it their “fist”. This helped them to be sure it was the actual agent and not someone pretending to be them.’
Sophie was amazed. She’d had no idea it had been quite so complicated.
‘What section of SOE did your aunt work for?’ Peter asked.
‘From what I can tell, something called the Physician Network.’
Peter’s eyebrows disappeared under his fringe. ‘That is why there is this note then. This was sent in forty-four and that network was compromised in forty-three. So everything coming in from those agents was really scrutinised. Did your aunt survive?’
‘From that period, yes. But she disappeared in 1944, very probably back to France. How were the agents compromised?’
‘Well, one story is that in 1943 the Nazis managed to get hold of a wireless and seemingly knew one of the agents’ codes. A lot of agents were uncovered. The fake radio operator sent Resistance fighters to locations for a drop or a pick-up only to find the Gestapo waiting for them. It took a while for England to figure out how the agents were being uncovered and in that time, sadly, many died – over eighty in all. The other very controversial story is that the British spy network back here knew the radio and agent were compromised and continued to send fake messages to sway the Germans from the intended route of the D-Day landings. That they were willing to sacrifice their agents to keep that up and running. But that has never been proven.’
Sophie was astonished and sensing her hopelessness, Peter added, ‘Look, it may not be impossible to crack the code. You just need to find out everything about your aunt. Is there any opportunity to go through her things? Or talk to family members who knew her? You may get lucky.’
Sophie nodded and closed the records. She recognised that what she was missing was the human element. What had her great-aunt been like as a person? Did she truly seem the sort that would run off to Germany with a Nazi and work for the enemy?
Sophie went to the copy machine and had just finished copying all of Vivienne’s records when her gaze drifted out of the window and something she saw made her heart stop.
The man strolling past the window was the same height as Matt, had the same wavy hair, and appeared to be wearing the jumper she’d bought him for Christmas. But it couldn’t conceivably be Matt, because under his arm was a beautiful blonde woman who was beaming up at him and chatting to him with great enthusiasm, as he grinned down at her.
Sophie was frozen. At first she just stood there staring, watching them, an inky darkness hovering on the edges of her vision, threatening to consume her as her heart thundered in her ears. Her mind had to be playing