Katherine Woodfine - Spies in St. Petersburg

‘Well then, while you’re in Hamburg, the rest of us will start investigating from here. There’s got to be something we can do, some way we can find her . . .’ Joe began.

Hamburg! Lil jumped suddenly upright. ‘Joe – that’s it! You’re a genius!’

Joe looked astonished – and a little disappointed that Lil was no longer snuggled against his shoulder. ‘What d’you mean?’ he asked warily.

But Lil was already on her feet, rummaging through books until she unearthed her copy of Cook’s Continental Guide . ‘Look!’ she exclaimed, thrusting it under his nose, her finger jabbing at a map showing Hamburg, in the north of the German Empire. ‘I’m supposed to go to Hamburg. Well, Hamburg is halfway to St Petersburg – don’t you see?’ She stared at him in excitement. ‘What if I agree to the Chief’s mission, then use it as a cover for a secret mission of my own? I can say I’m going to Hamburg, but actually I’ll travel on to St Petersburg – and I’ll find Sophie myself.’

Joe frowned. ‘But if you did that, then you’d be disobeying your orders from the Chief, wouldn’t you? And he’s not just an ordinary client. These are orders from the government.’

Lil shrugged that off at once. ‘I don’t care about the Chief and his silly old orders. If I did what he wanted, I’d be leaving Sophie in the lurch – and I jolly well won’t do that.’

‘You could get yourself into an awful lot of trouble,’ Joe protested. ‘Not only yourself – but Taylor & Rose too.’

Lil paused for a moment, and then grabbed her hat decisively from the table. ‘Without Sophie there is no Taylor & Rose,’ she said crisply. ‘Come on. Let’s go and find the others. If I’m going to do this, I’m going to need everyone’s help.’

Secret Service Bureau HQ, London

Lil didn’t feel quite so confident as she made her way back to the Bureau the following morning. She’d spent all of the previous afternoon at Taylor & Rose talking with the others, but to her surprise and disappointment they’d shared Joe’s uncertainty about her plan.

‘Of course we’re all worried about Sophie,’ said Tilly, Taylor & Rose’s resident technical expert, in pragmatic tones. ‘Terribly worried. But you can’t just rush off. We have to think it through.’

‘We don’t know anything about what she’s doing in St Petersburg, or where you could look for her,’ added Mei, who worked as their receptionist. ‘And it’s a very big city, isn’t it? How would you even begin to find her?’

‘I’m a detective, aren’t I?’ Lil protested. ‘I’d investigate .’

She’d been sure that Billy at least would be on her side: she knew how devoted he was to Sophie. But to her annoyance, he agreed with Tilly and Mei. ‘It’s awful to think of Sophie being missing – and I agree we’ve got to do whatever we can to find her. But Lil, just think: if you abandon the mission the Chief has planned for you, then you’ll be going against the Bureau and putting us at odds with the government. Directly disobeying the Chief’s orders like that – well, it just doesn’t sound like a terribly good idea.’

‘I don’t have to abandon the mission ,’ argued Lil. ‘I can still do what the Chief wants. I could collect the report on my way to St Petersburg – or on my way home, perhaps. I’ll simply be extending the assignment, that’s all. Anyway, does anyone have any better ideas? Because I’m not going to leave Sophie all by herself in Russia and this is the only way of trying to rescue her that I can come up with.’

In the end it had been Joe who had said: ‘Well, I reckon we should at least look into it. Work out how Lil would get to St Petersburg from Hamburg and what’s possible.’

They’d all agreed on that and had spent the rest of the afternoon poring over maps and the Bradshaw’s Railway Guide . Then the telephone had rung, summoning Lil to see the Chief the next morning to receive her new assignment. And now she was here once more – hurrying past Carruthers at his desk, and through into C’s office, her heart thumping in her chest. Inside, everything was exactly the same as usual – the gramophone playing, the rain pattering gently against the window – and yet it didn’t feel the same at all.

‘Ah, Miss Rose,’ said the Chief. ‘Come in and sit down. I have a new assignment for you.’

It took all of Lil’s acting skills to keep her face calm and attentive as he laid out his plans, explaining that she would be travelling to Hamburg to collect a report from one of his agents there. ‘You’ll travel undercover of course, posing as a tourist visiting the city. The papers you’ll need are being prepared. Once you arrive, you’ll see a few sights for appearance’s sake – old churches, a museum, that kind of thing – and then proceed to the agreed rendezvous point where you’ll collect the report. Then you simply need to bring it back here. There will be the usual border checks, but we’ve prepared rather a clever little suitcase with a hidden compartment, which will easily get round those .’

‘And what exactly is this report?’ asked Lil, trying to keep her voice light.

‘No need for you to worry about that,’ said the Chief breezily. ‘Just know that Admiral Stevens will be very grateful to get hold of it – very grateful indeed.’ He paused for a moment, and his tone became more serious. ‘However, there is one other thing that I wanted to speak to you about . . .’

Lil leaned forward eagerly. Was he going to tell her the truth about Sophie at last? Perhaps she had misjudged him – perhaps he did have a plan to help her, after all?

‘The Hamburg assignment is a straightforward one, and I know you’re perfectly capable of handling it alone. However, I’d like to ask someone else to accompany you.’

Blow , thought Lil. Was he planning to send Forsyth with her again? If they were travelling together, it would spoil everything.

‘Carruthers!’ called out the Chief. A moment later, Carruthers appeared through the door, looking as sulky as ever.

‘Now then, old fellow. I have exciting news! I’ve decided that you’re to go on your first field assignment – what do you think of that? Miss Rose, Captain Carruthers is going to accompany you to Hamburg!’ he announced, with the air of a magician pulling a white rabbit from a top hat.

Lil gaped at him ‘ He’s coming with me?’ she said incredulously – even as Carruthers himself burst out, ‘You mean to say that my first field assignment is going to be with her ?’

‘That’s right. Now, Carruthers here hasn’t had much chance to get field experience. That’s through no fault of his own – he’s always needed here. But it’s really too bad to keep him shut up with all these dossiers forever. He must have the chance to see what it’s like out in the field. That’s what you’ve been wanting, isn’t it, old chap? And this assignment should be just the ticket. So, Miss Rose, you’ll be heading up the mission – and Captain, you’ll be there to follow along and learn. See how it works, get a feel for the fieldwork side of things.’

Carruthers’ face was a picture of disgust. Meanwhile, Lil’s heart had sunk to her boots. Having Forsyth with her would have been tricky enough – but with Carruthers shadowing her, no doubt furious at the very idea of learning from her, it would be almost impossible to follow through with her plan. However would she manage to break away to St Petersburg now? ‘Er – wouldn’t it be better for the Captain to learn from Forsyth, or one of the other agents?’ she asked, rather desperately. ‘You know . . . someone a bit more experienced?’