Sophie nodded, grateful he didn’t try to pacify her with trite suggestions for how to deal with her grief. There was no patting of the hand with the classic, ‘it will get better in time’ statement. Or worse still, ‘You weren’t to know, you can’t feel bad about that.’
‘So, until I find the key to the end of this pain,’ she added, blowing her nose again, ‘I will keep putting one foot in front of the other and breathing in and out and hope that somehow my life will make sense again one day.’
‘This is why finding out about your aunt is so important to you,’ Alex stated.
‘She looked a lot like my mum does… did. And even though the truck driver was prosecuted, I can’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t really justice, because it didn’t help bring back what I lost. And I think there’s a part of me that feels that if I can get to the truth for my aunt, whose name no one has even tried to clear, I can maybe bring back one person to my family. I do know the truth will probably just be what everyone already believes, but I just can’t let this rest until I know for sure, till I have real evidence. It’s the least I can do for her memory, she can’t fight for herself any more.’
Alex nodded and offered her an understanding smile.
Sophie was glad she had told him, it had been a long time since somebody had heard the story for the first time, and she had needed to say it. And though she wasn’t totally sure why she’d told him, practically a stranger, it felt good, cathartic, somehow.
As they started their dessert, poached pears in a crème de cassis sauce, she moved on and broached the subject of their shared history, filling him in with everything she knew. Sophie told him of the story that she’d followed and reluctantly told him about some of the other things she’d uncovered, including what the fishermen had told her in Cornwall, realising that if they were going to work together on anything, it was only fair that she was honest.
He listened intently and echoed the thoughts that she had, the fact Vivienne had been a spy early on in the war was encouraging and the fact she was at SOE’s building signing in with her undercover name right before her elopement was also interesting. Until they could prove she had been in Baker Street that day for any other reason, there was still hope.
When she told him about the poem and the message that had been sent under the Sparrow code name right before the D-Day landings he stopped eating and said, ‘Assuming by then she and my great-uncle were working together, maybe there is something in the message that would help us understand what was going on.’
‘That is partly why I have come. I have the first layer of the code, and I’m reading a book about code breaking, but I still haven’t figured it all out yet. I just keep thinking about how far I have come and it’s like she’s helping me from the other side.’
She smiled ruefully, to hint she was just being playful. But he seemed to take it seriously.
‘There is so much we don’t know, and it is a miracle the way you came across that picture. If you hadn’t have done that you may never have known about your aunt. Let’s hope someone is helping us,’ Alex said, raising a toast of thanks towards the ceiling with a grin.
As they finished eating, Alex offered to walk her back to her apartment. They strolled along the Seine and the night was clear and the sky was filled with stars. In the background the Eiffel Tower was ablaze with a cream glow and the river was illuminated with shimmering pools of white light cast forth from elegant black lamp-posts dotted along the way. On the river, boats were moored for the night and only rocked when river restaurants steamed past them with their own pools of pink and red lights that brightened circular tables of dinner guests. In the tourist areas every kind of street performer was out working, from young men playing enthusiastic renditions of Beatles’ songs on battered guitars, to fire eaters and jugglers. They walked away from the Seine and towards the Moulin Rouge, its façade aglow with its festoon of lights and magnificent windmill.