Radio Girls(91)

And then a file marked GIFTS.

She checked her watch. She’d been here seven minutes. “You want to never be longer than five minutes in any one spot, if you can help it,” was one of Hilda’s rules. But GIFTS!

The first gift was the shifting of a small portion of UK profits to the Nazis, with the understanding that Siemens would be given an exclusive government contract should they come to power. The second was a bit more oblique, merely indicating “valuable cause in education and edification.”

The newspaper, most likely, or perhaps something about the BBC. Maisie grimaced and snapped a picture. She returned everything to its place and the drawer locked beautifully.

She was out the door; she was in the corridor; she was leaving. And there was Hoppel, walking straight at her.

Bloody hell.

She ducked her head, relieved her hat was already pulled low.

“You,” he accosted her. “Who are you? What are you doing on this floor?”

“So sorry, sir. I’m a new girl, sir, and I got a bit lost.” This time, she tried to force Phyllida’s accent out of her mouth.

“I’ll have to speak to Miss Hensley. Only executive secretaries are allowed up here. Were you running an errand for my girl?”

“No, sir. I lost track of what floor I was on, sir. Was supposed to pick up drafts, sir, and deliver them to . . . they who do our advertising,” she improvised.

“Well, you won’t find those up here. Go back down to Miss Hensley on two and get her to sort you out, and tell her to be more mindful in her instructions. I am not impressed.”

“Very sorry, sir.”

She skittered away, feeling great sympathy for the maligned Miss Hensley.




Maisie was rounding the second flight of stairs in Savoy Hill when she heard them. Men shouting. No one was allowed to shout in the corridors. They risked getting sacked. She sped up, nursing a foolish hope it was Siepmann.

As she bore down on the crowd that was trying to go about its business but couldn’t tear itself away from the bloodletting, she saw Cyril and her hopes soared. He often trailed in Siepmann’s wake.

“It’s not your business, Reith!”

Oh. Eckersley. In a booming voice reverberating more than his beloved transmitters.

“I’d suggest you control yourself, but clearly that ship has sailed,” Reith shouted back.

“And I’d suggest to you that he who’s without sin cast the first stone, but you’ve never committed a sin in your life, have you? Maybe you should. It might loosen you up a bit.”

“Gentlemen!” Hilda joined the fray, hands out in a gesture intended to be beseeching and instead looked reminiscent of Augustus Caesar. “Let’s not create a ruckus, shall we? Mr. Reith, I understand your concern, of course, but you know Mr. Eckersley’s the top in his field. We couldn’t possibly ask for better. If the Engineering Department hasn’t suffered, then surely—”

“Don’t try to charm me, Miss Matheson!” Reith roared. “You may have bewitched every other snake in the garden, but you may consider me impervious.”

Hilda recoiled, shrinking just enough to be noticeable before she tried again.

“Forgive me. I’m hardly trying to charm. I’m only thinking of what’s best for the BBC. And Eckersley’s part of that best.”

Eckersley put a hand on Hilda’s arm.

“No, Miss Matheson, not anymore. I’m not going to be treated like a naughty schoolboy, and certainly not because of my private life, which, may I add, is no one’s business bar my own!”

“We have standards to maintain,” Reith said, arms folded. “As I said before you lost your temper in such an appallingly schoolboy-like manner, if you are willing to heal your home wounds, I will be happy to forget I ever heard anything of it.”

“No one cares except you,” Eckersley told him. “You may be my superior here, but you’re not a confessor. I tender my resignation, effective immediately. Replace me with an altar boy, or an aspidistra, or Samson—I’m sure one of them will perform to your standards.”

Eckersley thundered off to his lair, and the others dispersed quickly, zigzagging on the theory that a moving target is harder to hit. Hilda remained steadfast, so Maisie hovered near her.

“I do understand that he and his wife were very unhappy,” Hilda ventured, in her most winningly placating tone. “No one likes divorce, naturally, but the actions of the chief engineer in the BBC are hardly the stuff of interest to the general public.”

“I am setting a tone here, Miss Matheson,” Reith said. “I cannot abide anyone being unseemly towards their family. And I’d thank you not to interfere where you don’t belong!”

He strode back to the executive suite, and Hilda, her face apocalyptic, marched back to Talks, not seeing Maisie.

“Well, one might see where he has a point,” a faintly amused, silky voice snaked into her ear. Siepmann. “It is no great leap from ‘unseemly’ to ‘unnatural,’ after all, and that would have a dreadful effect.”

She wished he didn’t linger quite so lovingly on the word “unnatural.” His smile made her appreciate the far more honest sludge of the Thames.

She kept her arms folded tight around her, staring after him as he left. That’s history, isn’t it? How much damage a man can do, with so little?