The Sins of the Father (The Clifton Chronicles, #2)(86)
‘Then I’ll see you on the bus around six,’ said her second cousin twice removed, before he disappeared back into the melee.
Emma left the embassy, walked out on to Massachusetts Avenue and checked her watch. Just over two hours to spare before her appointment with Colonel Cleverdon. She hailed a cab.
‘Where to, miss?’
‘I want to see everything the city has to offer,’ she said.
‘How long have you got, a couple of years?’
‘No,’ Emma replied, ‘a couple of hours. So let’s get moving.’
The taxi sped away from the kerb. First stop: the White House – 15 minutes. On to the Capitol – 20 minutes. Circling the Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials – 25 minutes. Dashing into the National Gallery – another 25 minutes. Ending up at the Smithsonian – but there was only 30 minutes left until her appointment, so she didn’t make it past the first floor.
When she jumped back into the cab, the driver asked, ‘Where to now, miss?’
Emma checked the address on Colonel Cleverdon’s letter. ‘3022 Adams Street,’ she replied, ‘and I’m cutting it fine.’
When the cab drew up outside a large white marble building that occupied the entire block, Emma handed the cabbie her last five-dollar note. She would have to walk back to the embassy after her meeting. ‘Worth every cent,’ she told him.
He touched the rim of his cap. ‘I thought it was only us Americans who did that sort of thing,’ he said with a grin.
Emma walked up the steps, past two guards who stared right through her, and on into the building. She noticed that almost everyone was dressed in different shades of khaki, although few of them wore battle ribbons. A young woman behind the reception desk directed her to room 9197. Emma joined a mass of khaki uniforms as they headed towards the lifts, and when she stepped out on the ninth floor, she found Colonel Cleverdon’s secretary waiting to greet her.
‘I’m afraid the colonel has got caught up in a meeting, but he should be with you in a few minutes,’ she said as they walked along the corridor.
Emma was shown into the colonel’s office. Once she had sat down, she stared at a thick file on the centre of the desk. As with the letter on Maisie’s mantelpiece and the notebooks on Jelks’s desk, she wondered how long she would have to wait before its contents were revealed.
The answer was twenty minutes. When the door eventually swung open, a tall, athletic man, around the same age as her father, burst into the room, a cigar bobbing up and down in his mouth.
‘So sorry to have kept you,’ he said, shaking hands, ‘but there just aren’t enough hours in the day.’ He sat down behind his desk and smiled at her. ‘John Cleverdon, and I would have recognized you anywhere.’ Emma looked surprised, until he explained. ‘You’re exactly as Harry described you in his book. Would you like coffee?’
‘No, thank you,’ said Emma, trying not to sound impatient as she glanced at the file on the colonel’s desk.
‘I don’t even have to open this,’ he said, tapping the file. ‘I wrote most of it myself, so I can tell you everything Harry’s been up to since he left Lavenham. And now, thanks to his diaries, we all know he should never have been there in the first place. I can’t wait to read the next instalment and find out what happened to him before he was sent to Lavenham.’
‘And I can’t wait to find out what happened to him after he left Lavenham,’ Emma said, hoping she didn’t sound impatient.
‘Then let’s get on with it,’ said the colonel. ‘Harry volunteered to join a special services unit, which I have the privilege of commanding, in exchange for his prison sentence being commuted. Having begun his life in the United States Army as a GI, he was recently commissioned in the field, and is currently serving as a lieutenant. He’s been behind enemy lines now for several months,’ he continued. ‘He’s been working with resistance groups in occupied countries and helping to prepare for our eventual landing in Europe.’
Emma didn’t like the sound of that. ‘What does behind enemy lines actually mean?’
‘I can’t tell you exactly, because it’s not always easy to track him down when he’s on a mission. He often cuts off communication with the outside world for days on end. But what I can tell you is that he and his driver, Corporal Pat Quinn, another Lavenham graduate, have turned out to be two of the most effective operatives to come out of my group. They’re like two schoolboys who’ve been given a giant chemistry set and told they can go and experiment on the enemy’s communications network. They spend most of their time blowing up bridges, dismantling railway lines and bringing down electricity pylons. Harry’s specialty is disrupting German troop movements, and on one or two occasions the Krauts have nearly caught up with him. But so far he’s managed to stay a step ahead of them. In fact, he’s proved such a thorn in their flesh that they’ve put a price on his head, which seems to go up every month. Thirty thousand francs when I last checked.’
The colonel noticed that Emma’s face had gone as white as a sheet.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to alarm you but I sometimes forget, when I’m sitting behind a desk, just how much danger my boys face every day.’
‘When will Harry be released?’ asked Emma quietly.