“And you,” Saul said, returning the salute.
Kitty followed Mr. Pryce and Verity to a little office with a table and some chairs. Mr. Pryce motioned for Kitty to sit, and then unlocked a filing cabinet and took out a folder. He placed it on the table in front of Kitty and set a pencil down next to it.
Kitty picked up the pencil, very confused. She hadn’t expected the “exams” to be quite so literal. She had sort of assumed spy training would involve a lot of running and jumping and understanding table settings.
“I understand you like crossword puzzles, Miss Granger,” Mr. Pryce said.
“Yes, sir. Very much so.”
Mr. Pryce opened the folder and turned over the top piece of paper inside. It was a crossword puzzle. A somewhat tricky one at that. Kitty suddenly felt more comfortable. She hadn’t expected this, but it was a very welcome reprieve from all the new people.
“I want you to complete as much of this puzzle as you can, as quickly as you can,” Mr. Pryce explained. He took out a small notebook and sat in a chair on the other side of the table, while Verity leaned against the wall. “You have ten minutes to complete that one, and ten minutes for the one under it, and ten for the one after that. And after that, we’ll do some mathematics.”
“What if I don’t get it all finished?” Kitty asked.
“Then you move on to the next one. Sometimes we can’t complete every objective we want to, and we need to be able to move on to the next task with a clear head. Do you think you can do that, Miss Granger?”
Kitty took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
She picked up the pencil and turned her eyes toward the puzzle, already determining which questions she could answer most easily, and which ones would make it easier to decipher the others. Maybe Mr. Pryce didn’t expect her to finish them all in time, but Kitty Granger had never met a crossword puzzle she couldn’t complete, and she bloody well wasn’t going to be stumped by one now.
She turned to the first question:
What goes up a chimney down, but can’t go down a chimney up? Eight letters.
Kitty smirked to herself and scribbled umbrella in the boxes. With an easy first victory achieved, she narrowed her eyes and got to work.
Chapter 10
“Kitty, can you hear me?”
Faith’s voice echoed in Kitty’s ear. The sound was fuzzy, broken up with little pops and crackles that drowned out the edges of the words. Kitty reached up and tapped the little metal earpiece a couple of times to settle it in place better. Then she lifted her wrist and whispered into the microphone concealed in her bracelet.
“Loud an’ spotty,” she replied.
“Do you have eyes on Liam?” Faith asked.
“Yes.”
Kitty looked across the main concourse of Paddington Station and saw Liam seated on a bench, watching the crowd from behind a copy of The Times. It was midafternoon. The place was busy, but not as packed as it would become during the evening rush. Still, Kitty felt her heartbeat quicken at the sight of all the people rushing around. She took a moment to calm herself with a few deep breaths.
“Who we lookin’ for again?” she asked. “Man in a gray suit?”
“Middle-aged, gray suit, carrying a black briefcase,” Faith said.
“It’s London,” Kitty replied. “’Alf the men at this railway station ’ave suits an’ briefcases.”
“Don’t sound so glum, Kitty! You’ll ferret him out, like you always do.”
“Kitty,” Liam interjected. “I’ve got eyes on our man.”
All three of them were sharing the same radio frequency, which made things go faster, but it meant Kitty had to hear the crinkling of Liam’s newspaper from time to time. It wasn’t loud, but it was very annoying.
Kitty scanned the crowd again. “Where?”
“Just entered the concourse. To your left.”
Kitty glanced to her left and saw the target: an average-looking man with graying hair, and a gray suit to match. He carried a black briefcase, which had a scuff mark on one corner.
Kitty waited until the man had moved several paces ahead of her, and then she followed, weaving through the crowd to keep up. She did her best to slide past people the way Mrs. Singh had taught her, but it wasn’t exactly a perfected art. At one point, she bumped into someone in passing. Kitty blushed awkwardly and stammered an apology as she kept going.
“Kitty, are you running into people again?” Liam asked.
“You know me—graceful as a swan,” Kitty grumbled back.
She followed the man in gray to the ticket window and hung back in the crowd, close enough to watch but not so close as to be noticed. The man set his case down and fished some coins out of his pocket to pay for a ticket. There was another man at the window next to his, examining a train schedule. This fellow wore a black suit and a bowler hat.
Kitty looked down and saw what she knew to expect: the man in gray had set his briefcase down next to an identical briefcase belonging to the man in black. As she watched, the man in black picked up the man in gray’s case and headed for the far side of the concourse.
“Got ’im,” Kitty whispered into her bracelet.
“I see him,” Liam confirmed.
He got up, tucked his newspaper under his arm, and began walking parallel to the man in black, getting between him and the entrance. Kitty hung back for a few seconds, and then followed their target.
“Remember,” Faith said, “we need the case. Doesn’t matter if he gets away, but we need those files.”
Kitty followed the man in black across the concourse, struggling to keep up. He had quickened his pace, and Kitty didn’t want to look like she was chasing him.
The man glanced back in her direction, and Kitty felt a shudder in her chest. Had she been seen? Did he know she was following her? Would he look for Liam next?
Calm, she reminded herself. Don’t look suspicious. You’re just an ordinary person walking to your train.
The man didn’t seem to notice her, and he kept walking, but even so Kitty adjusted her path slightly so she wasn’t following quite so directly. When the man looked over his shoulder the same way again, there was no Kitty behind him to be seen. The man in black gripped the briefcase more tightly and headed for Platform Number One, where a train was waiting to depart. Kitty followed. Glancing back at Liam, she saw that he had moved in closer.
“What’s happening?” Faith asked.
“Fella’s headed to Platform One,” Liam reported. “I think he’s making for the train.”
“Kitty, follow him on the train,” Faith said. “He gets off again, Liam, you go after him.”
“Roger,” Liam said.
“Aye,” Kitty agreed.
Kitty kept her eyes locked on the man in black. He had slowed down and was looking at his train schedule again. Kitty slowed her pace too, to keep from passing him. As she watched, she saw another man, this one in a blue suit, walk past the man in black. For a moment Kitty’s view was blocked by the jostling crowd. Then the man in black was on his way again.
Kitty saw that Liam was already past her, closing in on their target. He looked back at her. “Kitty, what are you doing?” he whispered. “Follow him!”
Kitty hesitated. The man in black still had his black case in hand. Everything was going according to plan: see who made the handoff, follow him on the train until he got off, see where he took the stolen files. Easy.
Except that there was no scuff mark on the case anymore.
The apprehension of a broken pattern nagged at Kitty, and she looked in the opposite direction, toward the man in blue. He had a black case too, with polished brass corners. Kitty’s eyes flicked to one particular corner—and snagged on a familiar scuff mark that wasn’t supposed to be important, but that she had remembered anyway.
Without a word, she turned and began to follow the man in blue.
It took Liam a minute to realize that she had broken away from their pursuit. “Kitty? What are you doin
g?” he demanded again. “He’s getting on the train. He’s getting away!”
“What’s going on?” Faith asked.
“It’s not ’im,” Kitty hissed into her microphone. “It’s not bloody ’im!”
“What?” Faith exclaimed. “You mean . . . ?”
“There were a second ’andoff!”
Kitty felt excited and nervous and angry all at once. There wasn’t supposed to be a second handoff. No one had said anything about a second bloody handoff! But Kitty knew her mission: follow the case. So she did.
The man in blue returned to the concourse, went outside into the street, and walked down the block with an air of confident ease. He thought he’d shaken them.
Kitty followed at a distance, even more cautious now that she didn’t have as large a crowd to hide in. Once, the man in blue looked back, but Kitty was ready for him. By the time he turned, she was busy admiring the contents of a shop window.
The man in blue resumed his walk, and a moment later, he ducked down an alleyway. Kitty scampered the remaining distance and hesitated at the mouth of the alley. She was going in alone now. No backup. That probably wasn’t a good idea. She had left Liam behind in the train station, and Faith was hiding with the radio equipment in a van down the block.
Well, here goes nothing.
Kitty turned the corner and saw two men waiting for her in the alleyway. One was the fellow in blue. The other was Mr. Pryce.
Kitty exhaled and relaxed. If Mr. Pryce was there, it meant the test was over.
Pryce clapped his hands twice and gave her a delighted smile. “Well done, Miss Granger!” he exclaimed. “I thought we had you that time. You’re a clever one and no mistake.”
Kitty bobbed her head. “Thank you, sir. I didn’t expect the second ’andoff.”
“And why would you?” Mr. Pryce asked. “That was the point. You can never be entirely sure what’s going to happen out in the field. One must learn to adapt quickly, to think on one’s feet. But you stuck to your mission and followed the briefcase. Mrs. Singh will be very proud.”
“D’you think so, sir?”
“Without a doubt,” Mr. Pryce said. “It was her idea to try the second handoff. I didn’t think you were ready for that kind of a challenge, but she insisted. She told me, ‘Pryce, you bloody fool, Kitty’s made more progress in one month than most people do in six. She can do it.’ And by Jove, she was right.”
Kitty grinned, delighted by the praise. She had worked so hard these past weeks, but she always felt like she was getting more things wrong than right. It was heartening to hear she was doing a better job than she’d thought. Although . . . what if this was the exception? What if she did badly next time?
Kitty gritted her teeth to silence the nagging voice of self-doubt. She was making progress. She could do this.
Mr. Pryce looked at his watch and a smile crossed his face. “Will you look at that? A successful exercise all wrapped up just in time for tea.”
Chapter 11
Kitty drove back to the Orchestra with Mr. Pryce and Mr. Gregson, the fellow in blue. They arrived a few minutes ahead of the other team. They were met in the office by Mrs. Singh, who was lounging elegantly in a chair, waiting for them. There was mischief in her eyes.
“Welcome back, Pryce,” she called. “How did it go?”
“I’m pleased to report that our Miss Granger passed with flying colors,” Mr. Pryce said.
Mrs. Singh smirked at him and sipped her tea. “Even the second handoff?”
“Yes, my dear. She spotted Gregson and followed him right back to me.”
“I didn’t even notice her following until we were halfway down the block,” Gregson added.
“Splendid.” Mrs. Singh got up and approached them, still smirking in triumph. “That’s a bottle of champagne you owe me, Pryce.”
“And tickets to the theatre to go with it, I’m sure,” Mr. Pryce agreed with a grin.
Mrs. Singh put a hand on Kitty’s shoulder and looked down at her, brimming with pride. “Well done, Kitty,” she said softly. “Very well done.”
“Thank you, missis.”
At that moment, Debby rushed into the room, followed closely by Verity.
“Is Pryce back?” she asked breathlessly. “Oh, good.” She waved a piece of widely spaced typewritten paper, which had a scrawl of pencil writing in between the lines of text. “I’ve cracked it, sir!”
Mr. Pryce turned to her. “Ah! You mean those messages we intercepted?”
Debby held up the paper for Mr. Pryce’s inspection. “Just broke the encryption.”
“I helped!” Verity declared.
Mr. Pryce looked pleased. “What do they say?”
“A lot of it’s very ambiguous, but I think each message was coordinating some kind of meeting,” Debby explained. She ran her finger along one of the pencil-written lines. “See, for each one there’s a time and a day, and then some random-looking words that I think are code for locations. We managed to figure two of them out and they’re both London docks.”
Mr. Pryce nodded. “That’s good. Make a list of the times and locations and I’ll have some people give them a look.”
“There’s one other thing,” Debby added. “The docks are used by Sheffield Imports, Ltd. And we all remember our old friends at Sheffield Imports, don’t we?”
The others nodded.
Kitty raised a hand. “I don’t,” she said.
Debby chuckled. “I was being rhetorical, Kitty.”
“Sheffield’s a front company for a smuggling operation,” Verity explained. “We had a run-in with them in Belfast last year.”
Mr. Pryce and Mrs. Singh were looking at each other with almost identical expressions.
“Sheffield,” Mr. Pryce said. “You don’t think . . . ?”
“But it has to be . . .” Mrs. Singh replied.
“Smythe!” they both exclaimed.
“By Jove, we’ve got him!” Mr. Pryce cried gleefully.
Kitty cleared her throat to get everyone’s attention. In a hesitant voice, she asked, “Who’s Smythe?”
“Sir Richard Smythe,” Mr. Pryce answered with a grimace. The disdain rolled off his tongue like he wanted to spit at this Smythe person, only the man wasn’t there to be spat at. “He’s a rotten fellow. Linked to murder, bribery, and who knows what else.” Mr. Pryce turned to Verity and Debby. “Put together a plan for investigation. I need hard evidence before I can go to my superiors.”
“Yes, sir,” Debby said.
Mr. Pryce turned to Kitty. “In the meantime, Miss Granger, would you care to join Mrs. Singh and me for tea?”
In Mr. Pryce’s cozy, wood-paneled office, Kitty settled into her chair next to Mrs. Singh and watched as Mr. Pryce laid out the pieces of a porcelain tea service on the top of his desk. It was all quite neat and fancy, and Mr. Pryce took great care as he measured out the tea from a little blue pot. Kitty appreciated that. It was very calm. Most of the time, meals were chaos: spoons clanging against bowls and cups, forks scratching loudly across the tops of plates. There was none of that here, and that was nice.
“Now then, Kitty,” Mr. Pryce said, as he filled the three cups with boiling water, “Mrs. Singh and I would like to discuss your future here at the Orchestra.”
“Future?” Kitty looked from one to the other in confusion. “’Ave I done somethin’ wrong?”
“On the contrary!” Mr. Pryce exclaimed. “Your progress over the past month has been quite remarkable, and we are considering a change in direction.”
“How would you like to become a field agent?” Mrs. Singh asked.
Kitty blinked. “A field agent? Like you an’ Mr. Pryce?”
“Like us, yes,” Mrs. Singh replied, “or like Verity.”
Kitty didn’t know how to respond. The idea of working in the field had simply seemed outside the realm of possibility for her, so she had never even considered it.
“Most of our agents are older, since it can be dangerous work,” Mr.
Pryce explained. “However, there are certain circumstances in which a young woman such as yourself can go about unnoticed, whereas a chap like me would stand out like a sore thumb.”
“You really think I can do it?” Kitty asked.
Mr. Pryce nodded. “We’ve thrown a lot of new things at you these past few weeks, Miss Granger, and each time you’ve risen to the challenge, no matter how difficult. You just keep at it until you have it figured out. I’ve rarely seen such tenacity before, and never in someone so young. That sort of determination is just what we need.”
“Thank you, sir.”
Kitty suddenly felt very awkward. She wasn’t used to getting compliments, and never for her habit of fixating on things. Most of the time when she repeated things over and over again, she was criticized. But now she was dedicated? How people made these distinctions constantly baffled her.
“It will take hard work and lots of training,” Mrs. Singh said, “but if you’re willing to make the effort, we are confident you will make an excellent field agent.”
“I’ll do me best,” Kitty said solemnly.
“That means we will be mixing some hand-to-hand combat and firearms training into your studies,” Mrs. Singh said. “Do you think you’re up to it?”
Kitty hesitated. Guns were frightening, and she hadn’t been in a fistfight since she was nine.
“I’m ’appy to learn, missis,” she finally replied, trying to look and sound more confident than she felt.
“Good,” Mrs. Singh said. “We’ll do our best to avoid putting you in any real danger, but one can never know. You’ll need to be ready for anything.”
“Then I will be,” Kitty promised. She paused and sipped her tea as she considered this turn of events. “Um . . . ?”
“Yes, Miss Granger?” Mr. Pryce asked.
Kitty took another sip of tea before she worked up the courage to speak again. “With all this new training an’ responsibility . . .”
“Out with it,” Mrs. Singh told her.
“Might there be a pay raise in it?” Kitty asked.
The Secret Life of Kitty Granger Page 7