that if she was exposed, it could put a spotlight on their department at a very crucial time in their work. Eventually, as she sobbed into his shoulder later, she understood with a grieving heart that Marcus was right. She cursed herself for the fact that Terrier had seen her. What she could have done to prevent it, she did not know, but the thought that someone else’s blood would be on her hands was just too hard for her to deal with.
She cried herself to sleep that night, loathing everything about this war; her fears overwhelming her. What if at the right moment she couldn’t be as strong as Marcus needed her to be? She wasn’t afraid of interrogation, but she wasn’t looking forward to it either. Vivi was much more fearful of letting someone else down. She couldn’t go through the pain of that again; it was just too hard for her.
The next day, when Marcus arrived at the place they were holding Terrier, he had already been killed by another officer. Marcus told Vivi that evening as they sat side by side.
Vivi found herself, for the first time in a long time, livid with Marcus. As he tried to calm her down, she asked him over and over, why hadn’t he stopped it the day before? Why had he waited? And how could he have even contemplated killing her friend? They argued until finally she pulled herself onto the sofa and cried herself to sleep again. Even though he had tried to comfort her or reason with her, Vivi hadn’t been open to hearing any of it. She was so overwhelmed with the grief and the loss of her friend.
As she went to sleep, her mind was filled with free-flowing pictures of her brief but intense time with Terrier, the way he had saved her on the train, and rescued her from the brothel. The night he had danced with her in Anne-Marie’s kitchen until they were breathless in a last moment of frivolous fun and joy, there with those two friends she would never get to go on a picnic with.
She woke with a start in the middle of the night, the weight of her sadness forcing her from sleep. With the apartment dark and quiet, and with the lights off, from the sofa she could see out through the patio doors onto the balcony, where in the distance she could just make out the Eiffel Tower, a solid, dark shadow against the moonlit night.
When she’d trained with SOE, they had told her about the loss of life and how they would have to deal with it, but nothing had prepared her for the pain every time she lost someone close to her. Even though she’d only known Terrier for a short time, the fact he’d taken such good care of her, saved her from being caught on several occasions… She’d felt a fierce loyalty towards him, and now Vivi felt like she’d let him down.
Was this guilt ever going to go away? Would she ever not feel guilty for these lives and people around her? For the first time since she had arrived, she contemplated going back to Cornwall and reclaiming a simpler life. It was respectable to be a nurse; there was no shame being in Britain, staying there to patch up the boys. Why did she feel she had to be so heroic?
Then Vivi thought about Marcus. She could never imagine leaving him, and she knew he was stronger with her by his side. As angry as she was with him right now, somewhere deep inside her, Vivi knew what he’d said was right. But she hated it. She hated him for it. Right then, at that moment, she knew she couldn’t go back to England, but she didn’t want to face going forward, even though she knew she had to.
33
Present day
Sophie had to face going forward to whatever might be waiting for her in her great-aunt’s files in Berlin, and she was glad to have Alex by her side to support her. It had been so much harder than she had expected. Sophie could barely vocalise why Vivienne being innocent had become so important to her, but it was, and she needed this to work out okay when so much in her life had not. Something about being in Germany made it all seem so much more real, with the war history so close by and the clipped brusque language being spoken