The next morning, Caitrin called the number from the police station. It was answered on the first ring by a woman’s soothing voice. “Good morning, this is Bethany Goodman.”
“Why have you been watching me?”
“Thank you for calling so promptly, Caitrin.”
“How did you know it was me calling?”
“Shall we have tea?”
“Tea?”
“Why not? It’s a civilized way to get to know each other.”
“You can be civilized by leaving me alone, and if I see your amateur detective skulking around again doing his bad American gumshoe act, I will arrest him. Then I will come and arrest you. No tea.”
She slammed down the receiver, left the room, and was almost through the front door when the phone rang again. The duty sergeant answered and called after her, “It’s for you, Caitrin.”
She returned and put the receiver to her ear to hear Bethany say, “Coffee, then?”
“You are persistent.”
“I have to be to keep things running smoothly, but I am also quite harmless, I can assure you. Shall we say ten tomorrow morning at the ABC Tea Shop on Rathbone Place? It was a favorite tea shop for Bernard Shaw and his Fabian lectures—which were often enlightening, sometimes pretentious—and we won’t be noticed because it’s always busy.”
“Why should I meet you?”
“Because we desperately need you, Caitrin.”
“Who’s we?”
“England.”
* * *
The ABC Tea Shop was crowded, as Bethany said it would be, but Caitrin arrived early and found a table in a far corner. From there, with her back to the wall, she could survey the whole room and watch who entered. She had no idea what Bethany Goodman looked like but sensed she would know her. And she would see Goodman first.
Sitting alone at a table away to her left was a young vicar—ascetically slender, curved, already balding, and wearing a new dog collar a few sizes too large for him—who blushed whenever he caught Caitrin’s eye. She imagined that by controlling the length of eye contact it would be possible to make him blush in Morse Code: short short short, long long long, short short short. SOS. I wonder how long it would take to make him blush out “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam”?
“George Orwell has become rather grumpy since he was shot in Spain,” a woman said, sitting directly across the table from Caitrin. One moment the chair was empty, the next she was sitting there, and Caitrin had not seen her enter. She was a neat, middle-aged woman, dressed in a dark tweed suit; someone who could easily be overlooked at first glance. She continued, “It was not unexpected. After all, George is six feet two, and standing in a trench dug for shorter Spanish soldiers he must have stuck up a bit. I’m surprised he wasn’t shot to smithereens much sooner. I am Bethany Goodman. Good morning, Caitrin, I am so pleased to meet you.”
A little confused and struggling to catch up, Caitrin took her offered hand. “Good morning.”
“George loathed this place.” Bethany leaned forward, her voice adopting a masculine tone as she puffed out her cheeks and growled, “The Aerated Bread Company Tea Shops are a sinister strand in English catering, the relentless industrialization in which everything comes out of a carton or a tin or is squirted from a tap or squeezed out of a tube.”
She sat back and grinned, her head making a little rocking motion. “Poor George. Born into a well-off family and forever yearning in vain for the pious virtue of poverty.”
“Some have poverty thrust upon them. But we’re not here to drink tea and talk about poor George Orwell, are we? That’s not why we’re here,” Caitrin said. She had caught up.
“No, we surely are not. Would you like tea or coffee?”
“Tea, please.”
Bethany waved to a waitress, ordered, and inspected Caitrin as she stirred her tea. First there was the hair; a mass of glowing red, shining wild curls, completely at odds with the current fashion of obedient waves. Beneath the hair was a pair of fiercely blue eyes, a generous, relaxed mouth, and a precise nose graced with a spattering of freckles. And hidden under that appealing exterior lay a keen intellect and a steely determination.
“All right, here goes the background information,” Bethany said. “The Germans will invade Poland, we are bound by treaty with France to defend them, and a war spreads across Europe. That means we women have to fight.”
“The armed services don’t want us, unless it’s to be jolly good sports and whip off our knickers on request.”
“That’s not for us. We have to fight a different enemy, one that lives among us. Germany has for years infiltrated England with agents and saboteurs who will do great harm if they are not checked.”
“And how do you intend we stop them?”
“We women have had the vote for over ten years but are still considered the weaker sex. Outside our traditional roles we are invisible to most men. We can use that disdain and invisibility to our advantage. Join us, Caitrin, and you will be taught the skills needed to combat Nazi infiltrators.”
“What kind of skills?”
“Everything we know about the enemy and everything necessary for your survival, under all conditions. I guarantee it will not be safe or easy. Will you join us?”
“Who exactly is us?”
“We are 512, an all and only female counterespionage unit.”
“Why 512?”
“We had to be called something, and I didn’t want a glorious or masculine name,” Bethany said and looked a little embarrassed. “And 512 happens to be the birthday of my Dandie Dinmont.”
“Do you have a cute Dandie Dinmont?”
“I do.”
