Page 15 of The Secret Librarian

Chapter Seven

Avery

Avery walked down the street with her pulse racing and a spring in her step.

She’d done it, she’d actually acquired her first two foreign newspapers!

But something about the man who’d entered the bookshop had made her nervous.

And the way the bookshop lady had bundled the book and newspapers up so quickly made her wonder who he was; perhaps the PVDE she’d spoken of?

Or, Avery gulped, a Nazi. The very thought sent a shiver down her spine.

In hindsight, he had looked Aryan, which meant she may have just rubbed shoulders with the enemy.

It was so hard to tell when his English had been so heavily accented.

She hurried back to the apartment, her mind full of everything the bookshop owner had told her, stopping only on the street corner to see what the vendor was selling, but quickly realising it was the same local paper that Camille had already given her.

Everything else had either sold out or not arrived yet, and she needed to return rather than search for more publications.

Tom’s departure had been delayed by a day, as had the drinks he’d invited her to at the hotel, but he’d still promised to walk Avery through everything she needed to know that afternoon, so she didn’t want to be late.

He’d been sleeping when she left, but it was almost noon now and she doubted he’d still be snoring.

If he was anything like her cousin Jack, it would be his stomach that eventually woke him.

When she finally reached the apartment, she found Tom nursing his head at the table, a piece of bread spread thickly with jam in front of him.

‘Late night?’ she asked, going to pour him a glass of water and setting it in front of him.

‘Thank you.’ He groaned but sat back and mustered a smile. ‘Far too late.’ He glanced at her brown paper package. ‘What do you have there?’

‘Well, I’m not entirely certain as the bookshop lady wrapped it up so quickly, but—’

‘The French lady?’ he asked. ‘What’s her name? Camille, is it?’

Avery nodded slowly, as if she wasn’t sure whether to confirm or deny the fact. ‘Should I not have? Her bookshop was on the list I was given and—’

Tom waved his hand. ‘No, it’s fine. She seems to stock all types of interesting books and newspapers there, but ...’ He made a noise in his throat. ‘Someone said she’s linked to a Nazi, although it could be nothing more than a rumour. They seem to spread faster than the truth here.’

‘ Romantically linked?’ Avery asked, aware that her voice had become very high-pitched.

‘Look, I’m sure it’s not because she’s a Nazi sympathiser. Women have to do certain things to survive in wartime, if you know what I mean, and I’ve heard she was widowed.’

‘Well,’ Avery said, digesting what she’d just been told and hoping she hadn’t sounded too prudish in her initial reaction.

‘That’s interesting, but would she help me find the foreign newspapers I wanted if she were a Nazi sympathiser?

She was rather scathing, and that’s putting it lightly, about people she perceives as being naive about the war when it comes to the Jews in particular. ’

Tom shrugged and massaged his temples. ‘Take whatever anyone tells you here with a grain of salt, if you know what I mean, and just be careful to show as much interest in Allied publications as enemy ones, just like you were taught. Our budget allows us to do that, so that if we were ever questioned, we can honestly say that we were simply preserving all works. No one needs to know that we have intelligence agents back home scouring the newspapers for clues or hidden messages, although I’m sure they covered all this in your training. ’

They sat for a moment, and Avery watched as he gingerly ate his toast. She hoped he wasn’t going to throw up right there at the table, and she inched her chair back a little just in case, at the same time telling herself not to get carried away and drink alcohol at the hotel tonight.

She did not want to be nursing a sore head come the morning.

‘So, tell me about how to get the microfilm back to Washington,’ Avery said.

‘How often do I send the film back? And what do I do with all the papers and books once I’m finished with them?

’ She was starting to realise that buying a cross-section of all papers, including unwanted Allied ones, was going to result in a lot of material that needed to be stored.

‘Actually, no one has even told me if acquiring all these texts is even legal here. Could I get in trouble if I was found to be in possession of too many foreign papers?’

‘Don’t overthink things, you’re not a real spy, Avery. If anyone does find what you’ve acquired, they’ll just think you’re some weird bookish lady,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Now, the time-sensitive or most important film goes in the diplomatic pouch, and the rest—’

Tom opened his mouth as if he were about to continue speaking, then leapt up and ran for the bathroom door.

Avery sighed and reached over for his toast, not about to let all that jam go to waste.

It was going to be a very long day by the looks of it, although it wasn’t as if she didn’t have a lot to think about.

Her conversation with Camille had certainly opened her eyes, and she found herself determined to find out more so that no one could accuse her of being so woefully naive ever again.

The next night, Avery had never felt so out of her depth.

Not being plucked from obscurity by the IDC, not flying to the other side of the world – nothing had made her feel so unsure of herself as walking into the Hotel Avenida that night.

The building itself was impressive, with a concrete facade and glass doors, and as she’d walked up the low steps to enter, a doorman had welcomed her and told her how stunning she looked.

That had set her cheeks on fire and had her all a-fluster before she’d even walked into the hotel bar, which appeared to be full of people. Or not so much people , as men.

She might have been engaged to be married once, but she certainly didn’t have experience in being around so many members of the opposite sex. You’re alright, Avery. Just look for Tom and everything will be fine. She sighed. Her internal pep talk wasn’t working.

The trouble was that she couldn’t see Tom anywhere through the haze of smoke, which lingered in the air as if men had been in the bar smoking all day and the place had never been aired out.

She shifted on the spot, keeping her chin high in an effort to at least appear confident as she glanced around the tables and then at the few men seated at the bar.

He was nowhere, and if he was keeping an eye out for her like he’d promised to, he was doing a very bad job.

Either that or he was already drunk and had forgotten all about her.

Avery decided that her best option was to order herself a drink, to at least give her something to do while she surveyed the room.

The bartender made his way down to her almost immediately when she lifted her hand, and she ordered a soda, not sure what else she was supposed to drink in a place like this, having decided to wait for Tom until she tried anything alcoholic.

But the damp line of sweat across her top lip didn’t abate when she sipped her drink and turned to look around again, torn between wishing she’d never agreed to meet him here, and feeling thrilled at the prospect of being somewhere so thoroughly exciting.

Someone moved in beside her at the bar, to her right, and Avery glanced to see who it was.

She quickly looked away though, immediately recognising the handsome man from her first day in Lisbon, the one she’d bumped into on the street, and she was still embarrassed that he’d seen her twirling around like a girl.

Avery took a quick sip of her drink, even more flustered than before, and then immediately felt as if he were watching her.

She angled her body slightly so that she could see him from the corner of her eye, and she realised he was most definitely looking at her, seemingly without a care for being discreet.

‘Gin and tonic,’ he said, leaning casually against the bar as he held up his hand with two fingers raised. She wondered who else he was ordering for.

‘Relax,’ he murmured, sliding one of the drinks down the bar to her when his order arrived. ‘You’re being too obvious, you need to loosen up a little.’

‘I’m sorry?’ Avery wished her cheeks wouldn’t set to fire so easily.

‘Look around,’ he said, gesturing with his hand. ‘How many locals do you see?’

Avery tried to feign innocence, wishing she’d received training in Washington about what to do in situations such as these instead of being told that she wasn’t a spy so she was simply to be herself.

She racked her brain, but came up with nothing, other than hearing Kilgour in her mind saying: ‘Always tell the truth as much as possible.’ If this man asked her questions about why she was there, she had little to hide.

That was what she was supposed to remember.

Avery stood a little taller, although it wasn’t much good given her height difference with the British man beside her. He was tall and lean, dressed in a dark suit like the rest of the men at the hotel, but somehow standing out all the same.

‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said, keeping her voice as level as possible as she attempted to slide the glass he’d ordered for her back down the bar. ‘And I’m quite capable of buying my own drinks, thank you.’

‘No one comes to the Hotel Avenida and drinks soda,’ he said, nudging it back in her direction. ‘But I promise not to buy you another, if that helps. It would be a shame for this one to go to waste.’