introduce you to the Soho flat.’
‘Why Soho?’
‘Soho’s a good place to meet, full of all sorts.’ He smiled. ‘If we bump into someone from the Service in the streets, he’ll think we’re on the same business
as he is, and he’s hardly going to talk about it, now is he?’
David visited the flat for the first time the following week, one evening after work. It felt strange, getting off the tube at Piccadilly Circus and walking into Soho. The
address he had been given was in a narrow alley, a door with peeling paint beside an Italian coffee shop. Inside, two Jive Boys stood beside a jukebox, which was belting out some of the horrible
new American rock ’n’ roll. The papers said the jukebox craze would kill live music, that they should be banned. David knocked. He heard footsteps descending stairs and the door opened.
A dark-haired woman stood there; even in the dim light from within David saw she was attractive. She wore a shapeless smock covered in splashes of paint. She gave him a direct look from green,
slightly Oriental eyes, and said, ‘Come up,’ brusquely. She had a faint accent that he couldn’t place.
He followed her up a narrow staircase, smelling of damp and old vegetables, into a studio flat, a big single room with pictures stacked against the wall and on easels, a narrow bed and tiny
kitchen at one end. The pictures were oils, well done. Some were urban scenery, narrow streets and baroque churches, others snow-covered landscapes with mountains in the distance. In one, figures
were lying on the snow, covered with red splashes; blood, David realized. At once he was reminded of Norway, German planes strafing the column of British soldiers stumbling terrified through the
snow.
Geoff and Jackson were sitting on either side of an electric fire. Geoff smiled awkwardly. The woman spoke first. ‘Welcome, Mr Fitzgerald. I am Natalia.’ Her smile was pleasant but
somehow closed. In the light she looked a little older than he had thought, in her mid-thirties perhaps, tiny crow’s feet beside those eyes, slightly narrowed and upturned at the corners. She
had long, straight brown hair and a wide mouth above a pointed chin.
‘This is where we will meet, our little Imperial group.’ Jackson looked at Natalia with a respect that surprised David. ‘Natalia is to be trusted absolutely,’ he said.
‘When I’m not here, she is in charge. We meet together, and never with anyone else, apart from our India Office man’
‘I understand.’
‘So.’ Jackson put his hands on his knees. ‘Tea, everyone? Natalia, would you mind doing the honours?’
The first thing they discussed, that night at the end of 1950, was how David could gain access to the room in which the confidential department files were kept. David could think of no way to
get in there, as the only people with keys were the Registrar, Dabb, and the woman in charge of the secret files room, Miss Bennett, and both had to hand their keys in to the porter whenever they
left the building.
‘We don’t need the key,’ Jackson said briskly, ‘just the number on the tag. You know there’s a number stamped on all of them, four digits, so that if a key gets
lost they can match the numbering with their records at the Department of Works.’
‘All Civil Service filing cabinets, and the keys, are made by Works Department locksmiths,’ Geoff explained. ‘When the ’48 rules came in forbidding Jews from working in
the Civil Service all Jewish employees had to leave. For security reasons.’
‘Yes.’ David remembered lying awake at night beside his sleeping wife as Parliament passed yet another anti-Jew law, fists clenched, eyes wide.
Jackson said, ‘One of the locksmiths was an old Jew who was kicked out then. He’s come over to us, and brought the specifications for all the keys with him. All you need is the
number on the key to the secret room and he can make a copy.’ He smiled. ‘These stupid Jew laws actually help
‘Why Soho?’
‘Soho’s a good place to meet, full of all sorts.’ He smiled. ‘If we bump into someone from the Service in the streets, he’ll think we’re on the same business
as he is, and he’s hardly going to talk about it, now is he?’
David visited the flat for the first time the following week, one evening after work. It felt strange, getting off the tube at Piccadilly Circus and walking into Soho. The
address he had been given was in a narrow alley, a door with peeling paint beside an Italian coffee shop. Inside, two Jive Boys stood beside a jukebox, which was belting out some of the horrible
new American rock ’n’ roll. The papers said the jukebox craze would kill live music, that they should be banned. David knocked. He heard footsteps descending stairs and the door opened.
A dark-haired woman stood there; even in the dim light from within David saw she was attractive. She wore a shapeless smock covered in splashes of paint. She gave him a direct look from green,
slightly Oriental eyes, and said, ‘Come up,’ brusquely. She had a faint accent that he couldn’t place.
He followed her up a narrow staircase, smelling of damp and old vegetables, into a studio flat, a big single room with pictures stacked against the wall and on easels, a narrow bed and tiny
kitchen at one end. The pictures were oils, well done. Some were urban scenery, narrow streets and baroque churches, others snow-covered landscapes with mountains in the distance. In one, figures
were lying on the snow, covered with red splashes; blood, David realized. At once he was reminded of Norway, German planes strafing the column of British soldiers stumbling terrified through the
snow.
Geoff and Jackson were sitting on either side of an electric fire. Geoff smiled awkwardly. The woman spoke first. ‘Welcome, Mr Fitzgerald. I am Natalia.’ Her smile was pleasant but
somehow closed. In the light she looked a little older than he had thought, in her mid-thirties perhaps, tiny crow’s feet beside those eyes, slightly narrowed and upturned at the corners. She
had long, straight brown hair and a wide mouth above a pointed chin.
‘This is where we will meet, our little Imperial group.’ Jackson looked at Natalia with a respect that surprised David. ‘Natalia is to be trusted absolutely,’ he said.
‘When I’m not here, she is in charge. We meet together, and never with anyone else, apart from our India Office man’
‘I understand.’
‘So.’ Jackson put his hands on his knees. ‘Tea, everyone? Natalia, would you mind doing the honours?’
The first thing they discussed, that night at the end of 1950, was how David could gain access to the room in which the confidential department files were kept. David could think of no way to
get in there, as the only people with keys were the Registrar, Dabb, and the woman in charge of the secret files room, Miss Bennett, and both had to hand their keys in to the porter whenever they
left the building.
‘We don’t need the key,’ Jackson said briskly, ‘just the number on the tag. You know there’s a number stamped on all of them, four digits, so that if a key gets
lost they can match the numbering with their records at the Department of Works.’
‘All Civil Service filing cabinets, and the keys, are made by Works Department locksmiths,’ Geoff explained. ‘When the ’48 rules came in forbidding Jews from working in
the Civil Service all Jewish employees had to leave. For security reasons.’
‘Yes.’ David remembered lying awake at night beside his sleeping wife as Parliament passed yet another anti-Jew law, fists clenched, eyes wide.
Jackson said, ‘One of the locksmiths was an old Jew who was kicked out then. He’s come over to us, and brought the specifications for all the keys with him. All you need is the
number on the key to the secret room and he can make a copy.’ He smiled. ‘These stupid Jew laws actually help
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