The Truth in Our Lies Read online

  OTHER TITLES BY ELIZA GRAHAM

  Playing with the Moon

  Restitution

  Jubilee

  The History Room

  Blitz Kid

  The One I Was

  Another Day Gone

  The Lines We Leave Behind

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Eliza Graham

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Lake Union Publishing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Lake Union Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542044479

  ISBN-10: 1542044472

  Cover design by Debbie Clement

  Cover photography by Richard Jenkins Photography

  For Matthew

  CONTENTS

  April 1943

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND NOTES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  April 1943

  We ran along the track into the shadow of the trees. Ahead of us another footpath cut in from the right, forming a crossing over which the boughs bent low. The crows cawed, their straggly black feathers flapping like mourning clothes. Some of the birds dropped to the ground, others landed in the lowest branches of the trees, showing no fear of us. Through my mind ran the word for a group of crows – a murder.

  The gloom wrapped itself around us, the trees blocking the morning sun. Even the sheets of bluebells seemed oppressed, their vivid blue dulled to grey.

  We turned down the track to the right. My legs pulled me onwards over the dead leaves, towards the pond. I knew what we would find there before we saw it.

  1

  December 1942

  His hair was too oiled, his suit too sharp. I noted the man easing into the refreshment room at Liverpool Street Station as one to cold-shoulder. Too late. He was already coming over to stand on my left, proffering his cigarette case as I examined the dried-out scones on the counter. Without a word I turned to look at him, raising my veil so he had a clear view of the right side of my face too. He snapped the case shut and gave me a mouthful of Anglo-Saxon. As he walked out, the soles of his shoes beat out a brisk indignation at having been tricked by a female who’d seemed, from one side, worthy of his attentions.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind about the scone.’ I paid the cashier for the tea, the familiar mixture of malice and shame curdling inside me as I swayed my way through the crowd to a table with my tray. I was returning to my RAF station from leave over Christmas. It seemed half of London was on the move, too.

  An attempt had been made to decorate the refreshment room for Christmas, but the paper chains were ungluing themselves in the soggy atmosphere. Several had already unravelled and dangled limply from pins stuck into the paintwork. A wag had pinned a small dried-out sausage underneath Father Christmas’s nose in the poster on the wall. He looked like a bearded, jollier Hitler.

  The middle-aged woman sharing my table peeped at my exposed right cheek when she thought I wasn’t looking. The skin had lost some of its redness now and was stiffer than it had been in the weeks after the fire. If I touched the cheek, the scar tissue didn’t feel like part of me but like something stuck on to my face. I stared into the cup of murky liquid.

  ‘Anna Hall,’ a deep male voice said. Alexander Beattie materialised like Mephistopheles out of the fug of cigarette smoke and steam from the café’s tea urn. Except I’d always imagined Faust’s demon as a finely drawn, nimble figure, whereas Beattie had heft – the station buffet seemed to shrink now he was standing in it. Not only did he look larger than most people here, his face lacked the winter-grey weariness most of us exhibited.

  ‘Belated Merry Christmas. What are you up to these days?’ His pupils dilated; he’d seen the scar on my face.

  ‘WAAF.’ I hated myself for sounding surly, but I didn’t want him to ask me any questions about my face. I watched him for a further reaction but saw nothing in his smooth features.

  ‘Bombers, I imagine, if you’re heading to East Anglia?’ he said in a low voice. He smiled at the middle-aged woman at my table and she beamed at him, drained her cup of tea, and stood up. Beattie sat down in the vacated chair. ‘Last I heard, you were still sorting out the fighter boys at Bentley Priory, Anna. Filter Room, wasn’t it? Where the sharper minds congregate? Good trigonometry skills and fast reactions and everyone keeping terribly calm under pressure. Why the move to the provinces?’

  My job in the RAF’s most important Fighter Filter Room had indeed been demanding, thrilling and terrifying.

  ‘Circumstances changed.’ I spoke the words shortly. I wasn’t supposed to talk much about what I did in my WAAF roles, past or present. Beattie must know this.

  ‘And your father and Grace?’

  ‘Just my father now.’ I could say it almost mechanically these days.

  He raised an enquiring eyebrow.

  ‘Grace died.’ This made it all sound far too straightforward, but it would do for Beattie. He bowed his head briefly.

  ‘I’m sorry. She was a wonderful girl.’

  ‘I didn’t know you’d met my sister?’

  ‘You had a garden party, remember? The very last summer before the war.’

  Beattie had been at my birthday party? I’d forgotten this. Too much champagne and a warm summer afternoon, everyone a bit raucous in the vicarage garden. Dad anxious about disapproving parishioners, probably wishing he’d insisted on limiting the drink to lemonade and tea. Grace wearing a tea dress in a soft rose poplin, the sunshine bringing a warm glow to her pale skin. She looked fresh and almost flirtatious as she chatted to my male friends. Mum was still alive, too, sitting in a bath chair under the old chestnut tree, smiling at everyone, too weak to eat much but enjoying the company.

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said confidently, picturing Beattie leaning up against the chestnut tree, cigarette in one hand, glass in the other, listening and nodding. ‘Wasn’t I lucky with the weather?’

  He gave me a smile that put me in mind of a magician pulling off a sleight of hand. ‘I wasn’t there, Anna. You didn’t actually invite me.’

  I felt my one unburnt cheek turn pink.

  ‘You lied. I lied. I was probably out of the country, visiting family.’

  In Germany, he meant. But even if he’d been around, would I have invited him?

  ‘I didn’t mean to lie, I—’

  ‘Oh, don’t apologise for lying. You were convincing, Anna Hall. And that’s good.’

  ‘It is?’

  ‘Certainly. For a second there you had me doubting my memory and believing I’d been at your party. Must be your well-lauded acting ability.’

  ‘Those undergraduate plays, you mean?’ I didn’t want to take praise from Beattie. These days I found it hard to take it from anyone, eve
n when, contradictorily, compliments were what I needed more than anything.

  ‘My sources say you might have gone somewhere with your acting.’ The woman behind the counter brought him over his cup of tea. She hadn’t offered to do that for me. Beattie smiled a thanks at her.

  ‘Squalid digs and a different provincial town every week?’

  ‘You’re probably right.’ He looked me up and down. I pulled my veil over my face. ‘Do you feel you’re revenging yourself?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Helping to send planes to Germany to drop explosives and incendiaries on their houses and burn them?’ he asked, eyes wide and innocent. ‘To pay them back for Grace?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’m guessing she was killed in an air raid, wasn’t she?’

  I gathered my things together. ‘My train might actually leave on time.’

  ‘Don’t duck the question, Anna.’

  ‘What business is it of yours, the way I feel about my work?’ What he’d said stung because I couldn’t completely deny the charge.

  He put a hand on my arm, detaining me. ‘You were a beautiful woman. Is that why you’re burying yourself out there? The work’s much quieter than it was at Bentley Priory, isn’t it? So’s the social life. I know the station you’re based at. Nothing but fields of turnips for miles around this time of year.’

  I hoped the look I gave him conveyed the disdain I felt. But he was only telling the truth.

  ‘You should still be living on your wits. They’re sharp, Anna – all you need. But your job is boring.’

  ‘Boring?’ If my commission came through, I might be working on codes and ciphers, which would be far more interesting. But I couldn’t tell Beattie this.

  ‘It’s not nearly as challenging as the job you had at Fighter Command. And you can’t really influence outcomes.’ His grip still prevented me from moving. ‘You can chart positions and of course that helps. But if a Messerschmitt has one of your bombers in its sights or flak catches one of your crews over Germany, what can you personally do in retaliation?’

  My fingers tightened on my suitcase handle.

  ‘What are you running away from?’

  I looked at my half-empty teacup. For a second, I wanted to throw the liquid over his smooth face.

  Beattie glanced sideways and lowered his voice. ‘I might be able to offer you work where you can deal a more effective blow to the Germans.’

  ‘What’s your line?’ I asked, knowing he wouldn’t be able to tell me in a public refreshment room. He smiled at me.

  ‘We’ll be in touch.’

  The station announcer called my train’s platform number, saving me from the need to reply. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  I shook off his hand and fled for the platform, heart pumping. A bitter taste filled my mouth. I didn’t think it was the aftertaste of whatever it was I’d just drunk. I crossed the concourse, dodging passengers laden with suitcases and pulling small children along with them. Normally enduring a wartime train journey would compound the low, exhausted mood that had afflicted me over the last eighteen months. Not today, though. Beattie had left me furious, but not tired.

  Only when I’d pushed my way through the train to find a seat did I realise Beattie hadn’t told me which train he himself was catching. In fact he hadn’t really told me anything about himself at all. At university he’d always been like that: skirting questions, distracting you while extracting information.

  Had he purposefully come to find me at Liverpool Street Station? How had he known when I was due back at work? When I’d told him about Grace’s death he’d reacted as though it was news to him. But when he’d talked about me taking revenge for my sister through my work, it seemed, on reflection, like a provocation he’d thought up before we’d met.

  My veil had ridden up. A Canadian officer in the seat opposite was staring at me. I tugged the veil down and opened my book, wanting to say something rude to him before he made one of the regular unsolicited responses to my appearance offered by complete strangers of both sexes.

  I can tell you were a looker before . . . You should be grateful it wasn’t worse . . . There are lots of disabled or disfigured men these days who wouldn’t be too fussy.

  ‘Everything all right, miss?’ the Canadian asked. ‘You cold?’

  I must have been shaking. It wasn’t because of the unheated carriage. Nor was it just because of my indignation. Perhaps I trembled because I felt change coming, an opportunity to take a more effective revenge, as Beattie put it. But I wasn’t interested in Beattie or whatever job it was he claimed he could offer me, so why was I feeling rattled?

  The Canadian passed me his greatcoat. I wore it as a blanket, smiling, in silent penance.

  I heard nothing more from Beattie for a few weeks following the encounter at Liverpool Street. I concentrated on my work, spending any free time I had taking my landlady’s dog for walks in a nearby forest. I received a letter telling me that my recommendation for officer training was finally going through to the next stage. It hadn’t been possible to enter the WAAF directly as an officer when I’d first enlisted. Despite the events of less than two years ago, a small, ambitious part of me still wanted to rise above the rank of sergeant.

  I’d made friends here at the RAF station in Suffolk. From the time I’d first turned up with my ruined face I’d enjoyed the kind, tacit support of other women and of the pilots themselves. Quite a few had lost friends to fire or seen the terrible facial disfigurements of survivors. Their response was to treat me with the usual banter and teasing. No concessions were made.

  Beattie was right, though. Working out here wasn’t as stimulating as my job with Fighters had been. No off-duty trips to West End nightclubs and theatres. Nightlife consisted of visits to the small local pub or an occasional cinema trip. All the same, I could see myself plodding on in the hope of my commission coming through.

  Perhaps it was true that, as Beattie suggested, a tiny part of me rejoiced when our bomber crews returned from a successful raid on a German city and I knew I’d been a very small part of the team assisting them. I didn’t let myself think about the consequences for the civilians on the ground. Sometimes an image of Patrick would flash through my mind and I’d touch wood. But Patrick was in Fighters, not Bombers. And he was no longer my responsibility.

  The formal letter requesting me to attend an interview was sitting above the fireplace when I returned from a shift one evening. It was all very official, asking me to go to an office at the top of the BBC’s Bush House premises in Aldwych in central London. I raised my eyebrows at the reference to my earlier ‘meeting’ with Mr Alexander Beattie. I wanted to pretend I hadn’t received the letter but dared not. I decided to go and give lack-lustre answers to Beattie’s questions. They’d have to let me stay here in Suffolk.

  When I arrived at Bush House, I looked up at the Portland stone pillars above the entrance. The place looked commanding, purposeful. Perhaps this job of Beattie’s was worth taking seriously. To my surprise Beattie himself wasn’t on the three-man panel, none of whom wore uniform. They introduced themselves and gave me the Official Secrets Act to sign, explaining briefly that they worked with Beattie on a political warfare project.

  ‘Political warfare?’ I asked. ‘I thought he – Mr Beattie – was at the Ministry of Information?’ He’d never actually told me this himself, but I thought it had been what mutual friends had mentioned him doing, ages ago.

  ‘Mr Beattie is now employing his talents at what you might know as propaganda, sergeant,’ the second man said.

  ‘Those leaflets we drop over occupied Europe?’ I’d heard about these drops, of course, as some of the RAF flights I’d worked on had sprinkled German cities with papers extolling the strengths of the Allies and detailing the weaknesses of the German forces.

  They smiled at me. ‘We’ve moved on a bit,’ the first said. ‘Though print still has its place. But what we’re really talking about is communication over the wi
reless to occupied Europe.’

  ‘Isn’t that what the BBC does?’

  The first man sighed. ‘You seem to be asking us as many questions as we’re asking you, Sergeant Hall.’

  I started to apologise but the second man raised a hand, silencing me. ‘The team we’re recruiting for is – or will be – one part of an enterprise disseminating information to listeners in Europe.’

  Radio broadcasts by an organisation that wasn’t the BBC? I felt myself frown.

  The third man spoke. ‘You’d be based at a specialist unit outside London broadcasting to Germany and other parts of northern Europe. The work would be hush-hush.’

  ‘Don’t the Germans jam the radio frequencies?’

  ‘We have ways of, erm, getting around that little issue,’ the first man said. I remembered the pilots in Suffolk telling me how German radio stations in cities targeted by the RAF sometimes went off air in case the transmissions were helpful to bomber navigators. Perhaps these propaganda broadcasts of Beattie’s took this opportunity to jump onto the German frequencies. The panel of men was looking at me.

  ‘Why would you think I’d be good at this kind of thing?’

  The second gave a brief smile. ‘We’ve done a bit of research into you, Sergeant Hall. You took a modern languages degree and speak fluent German. You’ve acted. You worked as an advertising copy-writer before the war.’

  Nobody had ever suggested that my acting or brief advertising experience was of any interest or use to the authorities. At least, I assumed these men were from the authorities.

  The third man spoke again. ‘We’re looking for people who can convey messages naturally. Who understand the ways communications can be made credible.’

  I looked at him. ‘Credible?’

  He shuffled in his chair. ‘It wouldn’t be exactly the kind of broadcasting the BBC does.’

  ‘Says it does,’ the first man said defensively. ‘Everyone puts a gloss on things.’

  ‘More than a gloss.’ The second man sounded impatient. ‘You’d be making things up sometimes, Sergeant Hall. And you’d work for what we call a research unit.’